16 October 2012, Nikon D300, ISO 3200, 60 mm, 1/8000 sec, f2.8
Civil sidewalks. Sounds like a good idea, right? People should be civil to each other when they share the sidewalks, no?
So voting for civility on the sidewalks sounds like a good idea.
Ah, but what does it really mean?
It’s simply that Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates, at the direction of the business community, wants a law that bans folks from sitting or lying on sidewalks.
It’s all about ridding the streets of homeless people, though the Occupy folks would also qualify under the mayor’s measure, which Berkeley voters will decide on during the November election.
For more on the measure, see here.
And here’s a background story we wrote nine years ago on Berkeley’s hostility toward the homeless.
