Candidate for
Rent Stabilization Board Commissioner; City of Berkeley

I've been a Berkeley tenant since 1989, and was elected to the Rent Board in 2008. I've been very active in local music, arts, and collectives- I volunteered at 924 Gilman Street for more than 20 years and am still a DJ & producer at KALX Berkeley, in addition to running Alternative Tentacles Records as my day job. I've toured the planet in various bands, and am a columnist & book reviewer for music magazines like Maximumrocknroll, Loud Fast Rules, & AMP. Since 2007, I've been on the Board of Directors of the San Francisco non-profit, Independent Arts & Media.

After years of leading Easy Does It Disability Services (a Berkeley non-profit providing urgent attendant, transportation, and case management services to physically disabled adults living independently), former Councilmember Dona Spring appointed me to the Disaster Council in 2003, which evolved into the Disaster & Fire Safety Commission. As Chair & Vice-Chair of that commission, I've worked closely with the Berkeley Fire Department, the Planning Department, & the Office of Emergency Services to improve community disaster caches, CERT training, earthquake retrofit standards, Berkeley Unified School District emergency caches, and much more.

The tragedy of 2005′s Hurricane Katrina inspired me & the Vice Chair of the commission, Trudy Washburn, to form the Alameda County Disaster Planning For Pets group. From 2005-2009, I led this ad hoc group of disaster & pet professionals- including Berkeley Animal Control, the Oakland Zoo, Golden Gate Fields, Berkeley East Bay Humane Society, Oakland SPCA, the Red Cross, and many other local non-profit & governmental organizations (including city animal controls from here down to Fremont). Our goal was to improve post-disaster for our pets & large animals, in part by setting up pet shelters next to human shelters, increasing disaster training for pet professionals, bringing pet pros into the disaster plans of local cities & counties, and by finding funding & donations for pet-specific disaster supplies. I'm proud that Berkeley Animal Control has a cache and has- with the Office of Emergency Services & the School District- identified pet shelter sites next to all likely human Red Cross shelters.

I'm the 1st of the 2008 members to shepherd a bill through the City Council- it directs the City to enforce property owners of seismically unsafe "Soft Story" buildings (a certain type of apartment complex) to notify tenants of the danger. I am currently in the midst of working closely with the City Council and many other stakeholders in writing & eventually, if I am reelected, passing the enforcement part of the unfinished Soft Story Ordinance.

One huge project that we on the Rent Board are just starting to get a grip on is disaster preparation for apartment dwellers & landlords. It's comparatively easy (though still very difficult) to push residents of single-family homes to set up an emergency cache & get some free CERT training. The Rent Board's 2009 survey showed that only 8% of all tenants even knew someone who was involved with disaster preparation- and this in a city bisected by a major earthquake fault!

Another issue I push as Chair of the Rent Board's Safe & Sustainable Committee is figuring out a way to install recycling & composting programs in large apartment buildings. It's not as easy as just passing a law requiring it- someone has to be responsible for putting the recyclables out and making sure that the compostables are stored in a healthy, vermin-free manner. This involves both the Health Department & major non-profits like the Ecology Center.

A third issue is encouraging the installation of solar panels on these same buildings. Now that the City's ground-breaking Berkeley First solar panel funding program has been kicked upstairs to Sacramento (& a bill was just passed enabling cities & counties to do this on a county-wide scale), we're exploring joining with neighboring cities to create a larger program that will make financial sense.

Finally, we've been working closely with the City's Public Health Department on a proposed law regulating smoking in multi-unit buildings. It's been fascinating working with the various stakeholders and coming close (not quite done) to a fair, healthy smoking ordinance for Berkeley.