Faux Community

Last week Alan Gould's LOCCNA posted flyers around North Berkeley announcing yet another community meeting on September 18 to discuss the North Shattuck Plaza plan. This would be ironic if it weren't so dishonest. Neither Alan, nor the rest of the cabal of Do-Nothing Naysayers who shout down ever other opinion want to discuss any possible changes in the North Berkeley commercial corridor. They're adamantly opposed to any improvement.

At the same meeting they have announced their intention to discuss 'Kitchen Democracy,' a volunteer organization that uses the internet to afford local voters the opportunity to discuss and poll each other on local issues.
To read a good article that examines Kitchen Democracy and its founders see this story which ran in the Berkeley Daily Planet last year. If the link doesn't work paste the following URL into your browser. http://www.berkeleydailyplanet.com/article.cfm?issue=06-13-06&storyID=24378.

Of course, after Kitchen Democracy recently featured the North Shattuck Plaza Plan, and the community input came back neatly divided equally for and against the plan, Steve Martinot, one the the cabal of Do-Nothing Naysayers, wrote a long-winded and typically inarticulate hatchet job on Kitchen Democracy which ran as an opinion piece in the Planet!
To see Mr Martinot's hit piece paste the following URL http://www.berkeleydailyplanet.com/text/article.cfm?archiveDate=08-31-07&storyID=27913 in your browser.

For those who aren't familiar, Mr. Martinot is the significant other to Maryann Brewin, who serves on the LOCCNA steering committee and is one of three elected representatives to the tri-partite committee of merchants, landlords and residents which is ostensibly charged with meeting to discuss possible improvements to the area. Mr. Martinot has loudly and belligerently stated on numerous public occasions that he is totally opposed to any possible changes in the area. So much for democracy, in the kitchen or out of it.

For those who aren't familiar, LOCCNA was founded to oppose the construction of Congregation Beth El's temple on Oxford Street, also in North Berkeley. After years of litigation and hundreds of rancorous public meetings, the religious edifice was built but the LOCCNA promised degradation and destruction of our community failed to materialize.