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Berkeley is a metropolis that seeks, typically efficiently, to be a pacesetter addressing social points corresponding to homelessness and policing. However the financing will get brief shrift, leaving the town with difficult occasions forward.
The excellent news is that there have been no homicides within the metropolis final yr. And throughout the pandemic, the town, in contrast to the remainder of Alameda County, stemmed the expansion of its homeless inhabitants. The dangerous information is that the town is dealing with a extreme police staffing scarcity, and it nonetheless has about 1,000 individuals with out housing.
In the meantime, the town faces annual finances deficits within the years forward. By how a lot just isn't clear due to the town’s opaque projections. The forecasting of the metropolis’s common fund steadiness for the present fiscal yr and the following reveals deficits totaling $22 million. After that, the forecast amazingly doesn't include real looking expenditure numbers — particularly, it doesn't account for will increase in salaries and profit prices.
It’s a bury-your-head-in-the-sand type of budgeting. Particularly so as a result of, in a separate report, metropolis officers warn that over the following 10 years, the town’s funds for employees’ retirement advantages are projected to quickly enhance, and complete profit prices are projected to greater than double.
The quickly rising pension prices are due partly to the town’s failure to deal with its mounting retirement debt that, even when adjusted for inflation, has continued to rise over the previous decade. And the town’s unfunded capital and deferred upkeep wants have greater than doubled in simply 4 years, once more after changes for inflation.
The 2 money owed mixed complete a staggering $1.9 billion, or about $41,000 for each metropolis family. Metropolis officers can’t simply tax their method out of this mess. They will’t simply preserve coming again to voters for increasingly more levies.
In addition they want to begin analyzing their spending and guarantee metropolis authorities is getting the largest bang for its buck. Berkeley wants leaders on the nine-member Metropolis Council with the chops to information the town’s progressive insurance policies and the monetary acumen to look at the info, guarantee cash is properly spent and plan forward to keep away from future finances shortfalls.
That’s why voters ought to reelect Rashi Kesarwani in District 1 in northwest Berkeley and elect Mark Humbert in District 8 within the southeast nook of the town. These are the one contested Metropolis Council races on the Nov. 8 poll.
Incumbents Kate Harrison in District 4, bordering the west facet of the Cal campus, and Rigel Robinson in District 7, on the south facet of the campus, are operating unopposed.
Dist. 1: Rashi Kesarwani
It’s exhausting to overstate the significance of Kesarwani’s eager analytical method to public coverage and authorities spending and the distinctive expertise she brings to the council. She has labored as a fiscal forecasting supervisor for the San Francisco Human Providers Company and as a fiscal and coverage analyst for the California Legislative Analyst’s Workplace.
In a metropolis the place knee-jerk politics usually result in new applications and spending with out cautious consideration, Kesarwani in her first time period has turn into identified for her cautious evaluation and considerate decision-making. She shares the progressive values of her council colleagues whereas recognizing the necessity for smart, data-driven use of cash. It’s refreshing and badly wanted.
Her main opponent within the race, architect and Planning Commissioner Elisa Mikiten, grumbles about Kesarwani’s method. “Not the whole lot is about metrics,” Mikiten mentioned. Truly, most good policymaking is pushed by knowledge and metrics; if cash is properly spent it will possibly assist extra individuals. And Kesarwani’s consideration to element is mirrored in her superior data of metropolis insurance policies and points.
The third candidate within the race, Tamar Michai Freeman, was invited to take part however didn't present up.
Dist. 8: Mark Humbert
Lori Droste, one other analytically considerate member of the council, opted to not search a 3rd time period. However there is a wonderful candidate ready to interchange her in District 8: Humbert is a extremely regarded lawyer, arbitrator and mediator who handles difficult circumstances usually involving complicated monetary points and has argued earlier than the U.S. Supreme Court docket.
He has additionally served on Berkeley’s Transportation, Public Works, Honest Political Practices, and Parks, Recreation and Waterfront commissions and was president of the Claremont Elmwood Neighborhood Affiliation.
Most vital, he has finished his homework, is well-versed in metropolis points and is able to serve on the Metropolis Council. He needs to revive the Police Division positions which have been misplaced and likewise helps the council’s push for a brand new method to policing that releases officers from dealing with non-violent psychological well being crises. Key to District 8, he helps UC Berkeley’s growth of Folks’s Park to offer housing for college kids and homeless.
And he shares Droste’s push for progressive insurance policies with monetary accountability. Palms down, Humbert is one of the best, and the one credible, candidate on this district.
Insurance coverage agent Jay Wu struggled to clarify why he was operating, saying that he was requested to run and concluded “possibly I ought to give it a strive.” However he had little background data, has not served on any metropolis boards or commissions and says he has by no means attended a Metropolis Council assembly and that the one time he went to Metropolis Corridor was to cope with a parking ticket.
Mari Mendonca, a member of the town’s Lease Stabilization Board, declined to be interviewed. Mary-Lee Smith withdrew from the race. And Peter Dumont, who calls himself a “artistic world peace theorist,” says the town’s issues could be solved if everybody began meditating.
If solely it had been that straightforward.