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Berkeley Still As Liberal As Ever

Submitted by davidswanson on Wed, 2006-06-28 17:35.

Update: City OKs Ballot Referendum On Impeachment

By Mike Sugerman

(CBS 5) BERKELEY Berkeley's image around the world: left-leaning, Republican-bashing, anti-war, tree-hugging, non-smoking vegetarian Democrats. That image is 40 years old. Is it still true?

Tuesday night, we get what might be called the Full Berkeley. The City Council plans to declare a Cindy Sheehan Day for the anti-war mom, and, for the first time in an American city, to put on the ballot a referendum to impeach President Bush and Vice President Cheney. Other cities have weighed in on impeaching the president, but Berkeley would be the first to let voters have a say.

Mayor Tom Bates says, "This administration is a dangerous administration. They are shredding the Constitution right before our eyes."

No one is going to say, "you're kidding" in Berkeley. 90 percent of city voters went Democratic in 2004. Berkeley Toyota sold more hybrids than any dealership in North America until it ran out earlier this year.

And while lots of cities are "nuclear-free zones," in Berkeley, the skies 60 km above the city have been designated a "space-based weapons-free zone."

"They say they're progressive, but they're really regressive," says Albert Sukoff, a frequent critic of Berkeley politics. "They want to regress to the 60s. We still live in the 60s."

To many, it's just crazy Berkeley.

"Berkeley still has a lot of people from the 60s, but it's got a lot of people in the hills, and they go to France in the summertime," says John Solomon, who, 11 years ago, started the How Berkeley Can You Be? parade. "My God, I just got back from an Alaskan cruise, but I still like to think of myself as a progressive guy."

But here are some of the things the city has done: It was the first in the nation to ban smoking indoors back in 1970. It was first in the nation to divest from South Africa. It started the first curbside recycling program, was the first city to make curb cuts for wheel chairs, and the first to initiate rent control.

Mayor Bates is proud, "Things happen in Berkeley and then three or four years later, they happen all over."

Crazy Berkeley? Time will tell.

http://cbs5.com/local/local_story_178213625.html

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