With the holidays fast approaching, the Berkeley City Council met in an emergency closed-door session last week to discuss holiday gifts for the City’s unhoused community.
Unclear as to how much money would be available to allocate for this purpose, the Mayor invited the City Finance Director and City Auditor to attend the meeting.
The Finance Director stated that because of the ongoing pandemic, the City was looking at an approximately $55 million deficit for this year alone; however, the City Auditor said that there was still $10 million in unrestricted funds from the Rainy Day Reserve to use at Council’s discretion, but advised against doing so.
The Mayor called on Councilmember Harrison who was first in the queue. Noting Berkeley’s Values, specifically Equity, Harrison proposed the purchase of 5 homes in the Berkeley hills as holiday gifts for 5 homeless families using the $10 million in the Reserve.
While the rest of Council expressed unbridled enthusiasm over the idea that members of Berkeley’s unhoused community would soon enjoy beautiful homes in the hills as much as any homeowner who has worked for 40 years, the Mayor wisely interjected that the holiday gift could be incomplete — lack compassion — if it was burdened by annual property taxes, and thus he proposed the homes be exempted henceforth.
As the meeting began to wrap up, the always astute Vice-Mayor, Sophie Hahn, brought to her colleagues attention two critically important issues, “Do all 5 homes have unobstructed views of the Golden Gate Bridge and is there ample space for growing organic vegetables in the backyards?”
Turning beet red, Councilmember Harrison said that while she couldn’t answer Hahn’s specific question, she assured her that all 5 properties were recently renovated with Thermador induction range ovens in the kitchens, and are at least 3000 square feet and close to AC transit lines.
With this clearly unsatisfactory response from Councilmember Harrison, the Vice-Mayor grimaced, took a sip of her espresso and an oversized bite of a chocolate croissant, and then demanded that the proposal be tabled until her questions were fully resolved in the affirmative.
Nodding his head in agreement, the Mayor abruptly adjourned the meeting.