Tension was high Tuesday night as the Berkeley City Council debated interim uses for the Premier Cru site and plans to build homeless housing on the Berkeley Way parking lot.
The Berkeley Disaster and Fire Safety Commission is working on a proposal to restrict parking on what it describes as “the excessively narrow streets in the hills fire zone.” The commission has suggested this as a result of FEMA recommendations that followed the 1991 Tunnel Fire.
UPDATE, July 13: Councilwoman Susan Wengraf, who originally brought the undergrounding item to council, will recommend at this week’s meeting that the item be held over until September. “I originally brought this item forward and I feel that it is an extremely important issue. Fearing that it will be discussed at 1:30 a.m., I would prefer to delay it to another time,” she told Berkeleyside. “It deserves a good vetting and discussion.” The commissions involved in the issue are in agreement with her, she added. The item is currenly listed as 57th on a 62-item long agenda. The last council meeting, June 30, ran until 1:30 a.m.
The Berkeley City Council voted last week to enact a one-year moratorium on the use or acquisition of drones by the Berkeley Police Department.
Tuesday evening, the Berkeley City Council delved into the sticky issue of drone regulation, and plans to take an even deeper look at the related ramifications at some point in the future.
More than a year after the Berkeley City Council asked three city panels to take a look at the use of drones around town, two starkly different recommendations are slated to come before officials in a special work session later this month.
Berkeley’s City Council Tuesday night debated how the city’s disaster preparedness program has been disproportionately adopted in the hill districts, and left vulnerable — and generally poorer — districts in the flats far behind in terms of both training and allocation of emergency caches.
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