The need for less expensive housing in the Bay Area and Silicon Valley has been so plain for so long that many of those on the outside of California looking in wonder why local governments, developers and voters can’t get on the same page and get things done. A January story in the New York Times about the unexpected backlash to San Jose Unified’s attempts to prevent an exodus of teachers by offering subsidized housing reflected this sense of puzzlement.

But a story unfolding at the University of California’s Berkeley campus shows the complexity and difficulty of adding housing in urban areas of the Golden State. Housing development is seen by some communities and interest groups as a zero-sum game – if one side wins, then the other side or sides must have lost.

To address a lack of affordable housing that UC Berkeley says has made it difficult to attract and retain professors, Chancellor Carol Christ last year launched an aggressive push to replace a four-story campus parking building with 350 vehicle spaces with a $126 million complex that included 150 faculty apartments, 170 parking spots and a relatively small academic building.

But the plan to tear down the Upper Hearst parking building has faced steadily increasing criticism from faculty members. Their concern is that building the project would add to the heavy debt load borne by the university because of the $474 million cost of recent stadium renovations and the construction of a new student athletic center.

Yet coverage by the San Francisco Chronicle earlier this month of the Berkeley faculty Senate’s 174-69 vote asking Christ to suspend the project noted that the most pitched criticisms of the proposal came from engineering faculty members who stood to lose their access to convenient parking. Their criticism of the project continued even after Christ presented documents that she said showed the developer and property manager bore the financial risks if the project had cost overruns or other problems – not the university.

City says campus minimized enrollment growth

Meanwhile, a new front in this fight emerged in late April when the Berkeley City Council voted to sue UC Berkeley and the UC system over the apartment complex – even though city leaders praised Christ for seeking to add on-campus housing.

Council members cited planning documents previously filed with the city under which the university forecast it would have a student enrollment of 33,450 by 2020. Instead, as of January, enrollment already stood at about 41,000 – more than 25 percent higher than what UC officials had predicted.

Since under state law, the UC campus doesn’t pay local property taxes, city leaders say Berkeley taxpayers are the ones who are saddled with the cost of this fast growth.

This enrollment spurt has led to “increasing burdens on our streets, police and fire services,” Berkeley Mayor Jesse Arreguin said in a news release.

But Christ has been conciliatory to city officials, suggesting the university sees a path to addressing City Hall’s concerns about campus enrollment growth.

Yet the Berkeley chancellor isn’t deferring to the faculty Senate. She’s moved ahead with plans to tear down the Upper Hearst parking structure. The building could be closed next month, and construction work could begin this September, according to stories in the Daily Californian student newspaper. UC Berkeley officials hope the new complex can be finished by summer 2021.

Berkeley authorities bolstered security for the event, with a barrier being constructed around the perimeter of the area and attendees being required to walk through metal detectors as they entered Zellerbach Hall.

University of California spokesman Dan Mogulof said the university went through “extraordinary lengths” to ensure safety, spending nearly $600,000 on security.

Shapiro, citing the heavy police presence and physical barriers, joked that “Berkeley has actually achieved building a wall before Donald Trump did.”

The 33-year-old editor in chief of The Daily Wire delivered his usual blend of pro-free speech rhetoric and conservative policy, in the speech titled “Say No To Campus Thuggery.”

“America is watching because you guys are so stupid,” Shapiro said about the left-wing group Antifa. “You can all go to hell you pathetic, lying, stupid, jackasses.”

The much-anticipated speech drew national attention, as Berkeley has become a flashpoint in the debate over free speech on college campuses after seeing violent protests earlier this year over speakers like right-wing provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos and best-selling author Ann Coulter.

Those ordeals prompted serious questions about whether the liberal enclave, which historically embraced principles of free speech and expression, was now unwilling to host opposing viewpoints in a new political climate.

And while the night was largely peaceful, hundreds of demonstrators gathered outside the venue to protest Shapiro’s views and there were at least three arrests relating to the possession of banned weapons, local authorities said.

The Thursday night speech is just the start of a plethora of conservative voices coming to the Northern California campus, as Yiannopoulos and a student group have organized a “Free Speech Week” later this month. Beginning Sunday, September 24th, there will be a series of events, with speakers including Breitbart chief Steve Bannon, The Gateway Pundit’s Lucian Wintrich, and journalist Mike Cernovich.

“We’ve never seen a situation like this. It’s very unique. It’s a very different political dynamic where free speech … at Berkeley has become the occasion for the right and left to confront each other,” UC Chancellor Carol T. Christ said about the school’s role in a larger national debate.

“Though UC Berkeley promises its students an environment that promotes free debate and the free exchange of ideas, it had breached this promise through the repressive actions of University administrators and campus police, who have systematically and intentionally suppressed constitutionally-protected expression,” the suit reads.

The university rescheduled the event for May 2 following backlash, but that’s a date that Coulter isn’t available for and it’s also “reading day” before exams when classes are not even in session.

“It is a sad day indeed when the birthplace of the Free Speech Movement is morphing before our eyes into the cemetery of free speech on college campuses,” said Harmeet Dhillon, who represents the school’s College Republican chapter.

In response to attempts to silence her, Coulter is vowing to show up as planned on Thursday, arguing she won’t allow her First Amendment rights to be stripped.

“It is anarchy when you are only enforcing the law in order to allow liberals to speak. But, no, we’ll let these masked rioters show up with weapons and start – I mean, they are all little beta males, but with a weapon, even a beta male can do some damage, especially to a 99-pound girl,” the New York Times best-seller told Sean Hannity in a recent interview.

The event was rescheduled due to security concerns, according to administrators, highlighting the willingness of the school to cancel events amid the threat of violence from leftist opposition.

Overall, Berkeley has become something of a flashpoint in the violent resistance to President Trump. Just weeks ago, nearly two dozen people were arrested after anti-Trump protesters clashed with Trump supporters at a rally in the liberal enclave.

Furthermore, there was even rioting when former Breitbart editor and provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos came to speak the school — an event that the public university also shut down.

The canceling of Coulter is just the latest chapter in the debate over the suppression of conservative speech on college campuses, as even left wing figures like Bill Maher and Bernie Sanders are coming to her defense.

“If you can’t ask Ann Coulter in a polite way questions which expose the weakness of her arguments, if all you can do is boo, or shut her down, or prevent her from coming, what does that tell the world?” Sanders told The Huffington Post.

While Berkeley historically has prided itself on its willingness to embrace free speech and expression, the school has appeared to morph into something of a thought bubble, at times seeming almost eager to shut down events involving those on the right.

“Berkeley, you know, used to be the cradle of free speech, and now it’s just the cradle for f—king babies,” Maher said on Friday’s episode of HBO’s “Real Time.”

The conservative firebrand is still planning to speak about immigration, the topic of one of her most recent books.

“I’m showing up this Thursday. It’s up to the police to keep me safe,” Coulter said.

Law enforcement accountability measures stalling in Sacramento

Good morning! Happy Hump Day. 

“Against a national backdrop of discord over police killings of black men and deadly anti-police violence, state lawmakers who back law enforcement conduct and transparency reforms are making little progress in Sacramento.”

One bill that would have increased public access to documents regarding police conduct died in committee without a vote. Another, which would require a conviction before law enforcement could seize private property, is near the finish line but has struggled to find enough support. 

CalWatchdog has more. 

In other news:

• Californians continue to approve of the job Gov. Jerry Brown is doing, with 56 percent in support, according to a new poll. The Sacramento Bee has more.
• Today’s palace intrigue comes from the Los Angeles Times: “In a surprising move, the leader of the state Senate endorsed a Democratic assemblywoman Tuesday whose re-election is opposed by some of California’s leading environmental groups. But the announcement also revealed fractures within the top echelons of Senate leadership.” 
• UC Berkeley’s chancellor is under an internal investigation for the “alleged misuse of public funds for travel and the personal use of a campus athletic trainer without payment,” writes the Los Angeles Times.
• San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer plans to lead the opposition to Gov. Jerry Brown’s early-release ballot measure, giving him — one of the most prominent Republicans in the state — the chance to raise his profile throughout the state. The Sacramento Bee has more.  
• “In advance of a political showdown in the state Legislature, Gov. Jerry Brown’s administration made its first formal effort Tuesday to extend the life of the program central to California’s bid to combat climate change. The California Air Resources Board, which is controlled by the governor, released a plan that would continue the state’s cap-and-trade program to cut carbon emissions beyond 2020, the date when the program currently expires,” writes the Los Angeles Times.

Legislature:

• Gone ’til August.

Gov. Brown:

• On vacation.

Tips: matt@calwatchdog.com

Follow us: @calwatchdog @mflemingterp

New followers: @soledadobrien @DP_Shea

• Prop. 30 extension qualifies for ballot
• Kamala Harris under fire
• UC Regents discuss sexual harassment and violence in private
• Lawmakers carve out ex parte communications

Good morning! We’re told it’s California Day of the Teacher, so be sure to celebrate. 

Proponents of the 12-year extension of a “temporary” income tax on the top 2 percent of earners (Prop. 30) will announce today that the measure has collected the required signatures and will be on November’s ballot.

The measure is just rounding out an already crowded ballot. Last week, proponents of a transparency measure announced it had qualified for the ballot.  

The revenue will go primarily to bolster education funding, but will also contribute to Medi-Cal as well. 

The measure comes at a time when the state is wrestling with the fact that its budget is over-reliant on personal income tax. Critics say a Prop. 30 extension only perpetuates that problem. 

The Prop. 30 announcement will be in Sacramento at 12:30 p.m. 

In other news:

• The five top candidates for U.S. Senate met in the final debate of the primary, with four firing at frontrunner Kamala Harris, the Democratic Attorney General. The Los Angeles Times has more. 
• The UC Regents will discuss sexual violence and harassment on campus, particularly in response to an ongoing scandal at UC Berkeley, although critics say Wednesday’s closed-door meeting is just a way for the university system to “shield itself from embarrassment over the growing scandal,” reports The San Jose Mercury News. 
• And speaking of secrecy: “California generally bans private conversations, known as ex parte communication, between state agencies, boards or commissions and representatives of groups with pending cases before them,” writes The Sacramento Bee. “The intent of the law is to promote public transparency, create even playing fields and prevent the unfair influence of decision-makers. But over time, lawmakers have made nearly 15 exceptions to the rule.”

Also on the website: California pollution credits may expand to Brazil

Assembly:

• Packed Appropriations Committee hearing at 9 a.m.

Senate:

• Light committee schedule today, but the Governance and Finance Committee will hear a bill on the “Diaper Tax.” 

Gov. Brown:

• In Los Angeles today, speaking at the inaugural California-China Business Summit at 9:30 a.m.

Tips: matt@calwatchdog.com

Follow us: @calwatchdog @mflemingterp

New followers: @CalRoundtable @SocialNPasadena

There will be plenty of anecdotes in between now and November about the fruit picker or dish washer whose wages would rise 50 percent if the minimum wage were to jump from $10 to $15 per hour. But experts say that’s not the only factor to consider.

Experts agree that increased wages will increase prices, as employers are forced to compensate for increased labor costs. This means minimum-wage workers will lose some of their new-found earnings to inflation.

“Obviously, when minimum wage goes up, businesses try, if they can, to pass the extra costs to consumers,” said Dr. Esmael Adibi, director of the A. Gary Anderson Center for Economic Research at Chapman University. “So, a person who got a higher minimum wage will be paying higher for the products or services that they received, and as a result they may not be as well off.”

Some industries are more reliant than others on minimum-wage workers, so price increases won’t be universal, said Adibi, adding that not all of the increase will be passed on as higher costs, as businesses “cannot really proportionately pass all that cost onto consumers.”

Experts at the UC Berkeley Center for Labor Research and Education estimated in a 2015 study for the city of Los Angeles that increasing the minimum wage to $15 per hour incrementally over a five-year period would increase prices overall by less than 1 percent, and just under 8 percent in the restaurant industry, with the cost of the increased wages being absorbed through savings from lower turnover and increased productivity (better paid workers are happier workers).

“The increase in prices reduces overall demand for goods,” said Ken Jacobs, chair of the UC Berkeley Labor Center. “On the other side of the equation, workers have more money to spend, which increases the overall demand for goods. As a result, the net effect on economic activity is very small.”

What Does It Mean For Workers?

The UC Berkeley study on Los Angeles estimates that once all factors are considered, the average earnings for low-wage workers will increase 30 percent.

“That represents a very real economic gain for the workers,” said Jacobs.

UC Berkeley experts point to research highlighting how an increase in the minimum wage reduces dependency on public assistance programs, like food stamps, and how this, plus the increased minimum wage, would have a positive effect on poverty.

The Public Policy Institute of California reported in 2014 that 16.4 percent of Californians were living below the poverty line, which was at $24,000 per year for a family of four. That comes to $11.54 per hour for one income.

“Raising the minimum wage is not a cure-all, especially in the face of larger forces generating inequality that require national attention,” wrote the UC Berkeley experts. “Still, our assessment of the research evidence is that these policies have worked as intended in raising the incomes of low-wage workers and their families.”

But another study, by the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation, estimated that because of increased wages, employers may turn to automation, may reduce hours, may substitute the lowest-skilled workers with those who are more productive and may reduce thier share of the profits.

And as a result, prices will increase, employment for those at the bottom of the skills ladder will be diminished, employment growth will slow, and “there will be little impact, if any, on poverty in Los Angeles,” according to the LACEDC report.

What Does It Mean For Employers?

Many experts point to a ripple effect. As those at the bottom wage scale are paid more, workers slightly ahead of them — the shift supervisor, for example, who makes a few dollars more per hour than the minimum-wage workers — would have their status diminished as they’d be no longer making as much compared to those below them.

Even if the increased minimum wage bumps these workers up, employers may still have to give them another increase to compensate for their higher level of responsibility, tenure or skills.

Also, the minimum wage requirement for exempt employees (exempt from overtime) is based on the minimum wage. State law requires, in most instances, they be paid at least twice the minimum wage, so even employers with no minimum wage employees may see labor costs rise.

“That does affect everybody,” said Peter Tateishi, president and CEO of the Sacramento Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce.

And in some instances, the negative effects of an increased minimum wage are already being felt. An Oakland city councilman told the San Francisco Chronicle last month that when Walmart decided to close some local locations as part of nationwide downsizing, it was partially due to Oakland’s increased minimum wage.

The Chronicle also pointed out that a San Jose location — also subject to a higher minimum wage — would close as well, while two stores in San Leandro — where the minimum wage was no higher than the state’s — would remain open.

Income Inequality

Throughout the presidential debate, voters are reminded of the widening gap in income inequality. The rich are getting richer, the poor are getting poorer and the middle class is shrinking.

While proponents, like the experts at UC Berkeley, argue that increasing the minimum wage is worthwhile, detractors say that raising the minimum wage does nothing to increase upward mobility and fill in the gap.

According to Adibi, worker training, education and opportunity for advancement is the “fundamental issue,” so that the minimum wage is more “transitory.” According to Adibi, the increased minimum wage would certainly help, but isn’t going to make minimum-wage workers substantially more prosperous.

“The public policy should address the core policy here rather than put a band-aid on by increasing the minimum wage,” Adibi said.

Now an effort is being launched to see whether “Big Data” might be able to reduce California’s often-awful urban gridlock. Fortune magazine has the details:

Los Angeles’ snarled, rage-inducing roads have been infamous for decades. And now, thanks to a tech industry-fueled population explosion, San Francisco is right behind L.A. in the title race for Worst Traffic in America.

 

AT&T, UC Berkeley and California’s state transportation authority are testing a new way to get a grip on the situation — by collecting and analyzing drivers’ cellphone location data. The study leads insist that users’ privacy is protected, and the information could revolutionize how we plan and manage highways and transit.

 

“The idea of using cellular data for mobility is not very new,” admits Alexei Pozdnukhov, assistant professor in UC Berkeley’s Smart Cities program. “What is new … is that our approach is much more detailed modeling. We can simulate very detailed scenarios, and answer questions.”

L.A. and Bay Area the initial focus

Traffic can be horrible in other parts of the state — San Diego and Sacramento freeways are often brutally clogged in the morning and evening rush hours, and the 75-mile section of the Interstate 15 corridor from Lake Elsinore to Hesperia is a common target of Sigalerts during daylight hours because of heavy commercial traffic. But the initial focus will be on the biggest population centers:

The new California projects — Connected Corridors in Los Angeles, and SmartBay in San Francisco — are something like Google Maps on steroids. They compile region-wide cell data into big portraits, not just of where traffic is most congested, but of overall daily patterns.

 

“[It shows] where people … work, where they go for shopping, where they go for leisure, and how they choose to get there,” says Pozdnukhov. Dr. Compin says that’s “the holy grail” of transit planning.

 

The data will help planners develop detailed responses to congestion events — Compin says there are a stunning 5,000 to 6,000 events per year on the I-210 corridor, making up about 50 percent of traffic delays. By working closely with local authorities and public transit providers, Caltrans hopes to make better decisions about how to re-route traffic onto parallel corridors and local roads, and communicate changes to commuters more smoothly. The San Francisco pilot is centered on Interstate 80, and among other things, says Pozdnukhov, hopes to determine the potential impact of increased development on the Treasure Island neighborhood the highway passes through.

Research can be basis of driverless-car grid

The effort depicted by the Fortune article could end up being as tantamount to a crucial first step toward establishing a grid for driverless cars. Such a grid could steer traffic in certain directions based on algorithms anticipating optimal vehicle flow. The theory is this could be done in a way that would dramatically reduce gridlock.

Studies also emphasize how an orderly computer-run traffic grid of autonomous cars could sharply reduce pollution, especially if the cars were hybrids or otherwise didn’t have internal combustion engines.

The lawsuit, filed in Boston federal court, was prompted by a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in 2013 in a case involving the University of Texas’ admissions practices. The court didn’t invalidate the Texas system, but it sent the case back to lower courts with an admonition that race had to truly be only one of several factors in weighing close calls in admission decisions — not the crucial factor.

The Harvard lawsuit, launched by the Project on Fair Representation and the Students for Fair Admissions, targets the same practice that has drawn fire at UCLA and UC Berkeley: a “holistic” evaluation of applicants’ merits that considers how much they have had to overcome and their personal qualities, among other factors.

In his recent book, “Cheating: An Insider’s Report on the Use of Race in Admissions at UCLA,” UCLA political science professor Tim Groseclose found black students were three times as likely as white students and twice as likely as Asian students to gain admission under “holistic” grounds. Proposition 209 sponsor Ward Connerly, a former UC regent, has long charged that UCLA, UC Berkeley and other UC campuses manipulate admissions to get around the race-neutral requirement of his 1996 law.

The numbers in the Harvard case seem to suggest that an Asian student quota exists. Over the past 20 years, Asian-Americans have comprised 20 percent of the freshman class with little variation.  As the Project on Fair Admissions — sponsor of the Harvard suit  — notes, over the past 20 years, the number of high-performing Asian-American high school students has doubled.

But Harvard’s freshman admissions suggest quotas for all races. In recent years, blacks have made up around 12 percent of freshmen, Latinos around 13 percent and whites and decline to state students a little more than half.

The numbers for UC’s top schools also suggest a de facto quota system. At UCLA, Asian-Americans consistently make up one-third of freshmen; whites about 27 percent; Latinos about 20 percent; and blacks about 4 percent. At Berkeley, Asian-Americans consistently make up about 40 percent of freshmen; whites about 30 percent; Latinos about 12 percent; and blacks about 3 percent. (The UC numbers don’t add up to 100 percent because they don’t have racial breakdowns for international student admissions.)

Asian-American state lawmakers seem satisfied with this status quo and strongly opposed Latino and African-American lawmakers’ interest in weakening Proposition 209 last year. But Groseclose’s research found an interesting fact that could someday become a hot potato in California politics. “Holistic” admissions policies are supposed to weigh to a big degree on the disadvantages facing potential enrollees. Yet …

… race outweighs socioeconomic status, according to Groseclose. For instance, black applicants whose families had incomes exceeding $100,000 were about twice as likely to be accepted in round two [after holistic reviews] as Asian and white kids whose families make just $30,000 and had similar test scores, grades and essays.

While Harvard is a private institution, it receives tens of millions of dollars in federal funding with strings attached, making it vulnerable to lawsuits over admissions. Thus, virtually all U.S. universities are at risk of being sued over practices that appear discriminatory.

The Project on Fair Representation intends to sue other universities over what it sees as rigid racial quotas.

It’s interesting to note that incoming freshmen at Yale are also 20 percent Asian-American, as are those at Princeton.

In the most recent numbers from Stanford, Asian-Americans made up 23 percent of the undergraduate student body.

The first case in which the U.S. Supreme Court weighed in on affirmative action in college admissions was the 1978 Bakke case, involving the University of California. More information on Bakke is here. The court found affirmative action to be constitutional — but not the use of racial quotas.

But here’s a little context no one has provided so far: Birgenau and his wife could easily have been killed by a mob of anarchists in 2009 — and he and a lot of other authority figures subsequently didn’t seek their tough punishment. Here’s what I wrote on Dec. 23, 2009:

“On the night of Dec. 11, a mob of up to 70 people infuriated by budget cuts and tuition hikes assaulted the on-campus residence of UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert Birgenau. Campus police reported that the thugs attempted to break into the home and to light it on fire, and said that when police responded, the mob tried to light officers’ cars on fire.

“Police arrested eight people on suspicion of rioting, threatening an educational official, attempted burglary, attempted arson, felony vandalism and assault with a deadly weapon on a police officer.

“Birgenau said he and his wife were afraid for their lives. The governor likened the attack to terrorism and said the terrorists should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

“But 10 days after the assault, the Alameda County DA announced that no charges had been filed and that it was unlikely that any charges ever would be filed because of a lack of strong evidence.

“Huh? UC campuses are loaded with surveillance cameras. Given that in 1992, an ‘activist’ was killed trying to break into Berkeley chancellor’s residence, of course it is similarly protected. Beyond that, the thugs almost certainly left behind plenty of physical evidence.”

Karma of a kind

So while of course what happened at Haverford is a pathetic reminder of the Stalinist impulse in hard-left politics, it’s also kind of karma for Birgenau’s slippery, slick actions in 2009, when he turned the other cheek rather than go after people who nearly killed him.

Given that these homicidal lunatics are probably still on the street, Birgenau’s decision shouldn’t just be judged as an attempt to tamp down campus controversy or as naked appeasement. It was dangerous. Birgenau and all those who downplayed the worst recent example of California terrorism should be held accountable.

The rough treatment Birgenau has faced the past week from the hard left doesn’t compare to what he faced from a violent wing of the same bunch on the night of Dec. 11, 2009.