Becky O'Malley Editorials on Homelessness / PCEI

Bluebook Citations:

1. Becky O’Malley, “Another Foggy Night on the Public Commons,” The Berkeley Daily Planet, May 11, 2007 (available at http://www.berkeleydailyplanet.com/issue/2007-05-11/article/27037).

2. Becky O’Malley, “Thanks for Everything, and Why,” The Berkeley Daily Planet, Nov. 20, 2007 (available at http://www.berkeleydailyplanet.com/issue/2007-11-20/article/28522).

Summary:

Becky O’Malley has written several editorial pieces in The Berkeley Daily Planet critiquing Mayor Bates’ proposal of the “Public Commons for Everyone Initiative” and its accompanying ordinance, most particularly in one editorial when the PCEI was initially proposed in May 2007 and again when the PCEI was formally passed by the City Council in November 2007.

O’Malley’s critiques are illuminating in several respects. First, she provides commentary about how the proposals were introduced and considered at the City Council meetings themselves. For example, O’Malley notes that in May 2007, the City Council did not even begin to debate the PCEI until 11:30pm, when many Berkeley citizens had gone home, and that the debate focused largely upon containing concerns about the homeless. O’Malley writes, for example, that “Councilmember Wozniak told a harrowing anecdote about the time his wife and son saw a vagrant deliberately peeing on the radiator grill of an expensive car on Telegraph—the horror! I’m sure that never happened back in Nebraska.”

Second, O’Malley notes that part of the problem with the PCEI is not simply the content of the ordinance but the way in which it will change the priorities of police enforcement of existing criminal laws. O’Malley writes in her May 2007 editorial, for example:

But perhaps Recommendation 4 would take care of that: “Provide for strict enforcement of all existing laws affecting the quality of life in public spaces and parks.” Oh sure, and in the meantime the drug dealers down around Oregon and Sacramento are cheering. This one will keep the police off the streets and out of trouble, busy handing out tickets for public smoking.

The problem, that is, is that police required to enforce the PCEI’s ordinance on public smoking and lying in the street will be drawn away from doing policing of actual drug crimes, particularly in the context of limited police resources. While I agree with O’Malley on this score, I also think it is notable that Mayor Bates indicated when he visited our class that the PCEI essentially would not be enforced at all.

Third, the final point to note is that O’Malley seems to downplay the effect of the homeless upon the environment in downtown Berkeley, referring to public urination and defecation as being the natural effect of failing to provide bathrooms to people without money and options in being able to use private restrooms. In fact, O’Malley’s November 2007 editorial is devoted entirely to the irony that the City Council considered the PCEI precisely at the time when Mayor Bates had the luxury of celebrating Thanksgiving and enforcing laws against those without the money or the homes to celebrate themselves.