Discriminatory policies play a role and Berkeley should examine its policies to make sure they don’t contribute to this injustice.
Erica Etelson
Posted inOpinion
Opinion: City Council should place charter amendment for a new Berkeley police commission on ballot
Civilian oversight of the police is an emerging best practice. Enlightened police leaders understand that independent oversight is a critical part of fair and impartial policing.
Posted inOpinion
Opinion: Training helps Berkeley liberals communicate with Trump supporters
Can a workshop impart skills that could help defuse the next Berkeley extremist standoff? My answer is a qualified yes.
Posted inOpinion
Opinion: Berkeley must find effective ways to thwart battles in our city
Berkeley leaders, police, the community, anti-fascist activists and UC Berkeley need to engage in urgent deliberations about how to respond to the violence in our city.
Posted inOpinion, Schools
Op-ed: UC should re-invest its fossil-fuel portfolio in renewable energy
As a Cal alumna, I’ve been rooting for my alma mater to be among the first universities to divest from fossil fuels. Alas, Stanford, SF State and Peralta, along with dozens of other universities, religious institutions and cities, including Berkeley, San Francisco, Richmond and Oakland, have already shown us up, divesting billions from the oil, […]
Posted inOpinion
Op-ed: Reforming Prop 13 will benefit our Berkeley schools
The public school spring gala season is upon us, an annual ritual in which Berkeley parents get to shell out for a bunch of stuff we don’t want in order to bail out our kids’ cash-strapped schools. But there’s a better to raise money for public schools: tax reform. California voters will soon have a […]
Posted inOpinion
Op-ed: 5 myths about East Bay #BlackLivesMatter protests
I’m a longtime Berkeley resident who has attended two of the last five nights of protests and have been following reportage and readers’ comments on Berkeleyside. There are five areas of misunderstanding I’d like to try to clarify: 1. The protesters have articulated no demands Numerous demands have been made by the national movement that […]
Posted inOpinion
Op-ed: Recess restriction is discriminatory and counterproductive
This Wednesday, the Berkeley Unified School Board will vote on a policy that would allow teachers to restrict students’ access to recess. As a parent of a child at Willard, I oppose the recess restriction policy as discriminatory and counterproductive. K-5 students have two short recess periods, fifteen minutes in the morning and twenty minutes […]
Posted inOpinion
Op-ed: Soda kills — we need to vote ‘yes’ on Measure D
In two months, Berkeley voters will decide whether ours will be the first U.S. city to enact a tax on sugar-sweetened beverages (or tie with San Francisco which has a similar measure on the ballot). When I heard about the soda tax, “Measure D,” I immediately cast aside most of my to-do list (cleaning the […]
