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Inside the Berkeley Mayoral Election - Part 5

A key factor in Adena Ishii’s victory was her self-presentation as a conciliatory outsider. Her campaign website declared: “Adena Ishii is an experienced community leader who will bring a fresh way of doing things to our city government.” As mayor, she would “turn down the noise,” “us[ing] her experience and her approach to governing to change the culture of local government and unite Berkeleyans around solutions to our most serious challenges.”

In October 2024, she told the Daily Cal:

“I’m running for mayor because I really think we need a reset at city hall….We have had two City Councilmembers resign stating that our city government has become broken and toxic, and if we are too busy fighting each other, then we’re not focused on our problems. My background is in nonpartisan politics: this radical idea of bringing people together around common-sense solutions.”

The pitch was beguiling. It was also deceptive.

LWV’s partisan nonpartisanship

By “background,” Ishii meant her work in the Berkeley, Albany, and Emeryville chapter of the League of Women Voters, “a non-partisan political organization,” where she’d served as president from 2017 to 2019. “She credits these experiences,” wrote Daily Cal reporter Anita Liu, “as having taught her ‘politics the non-partisan way.’”

In fact, the League of Women Voters is highly partisan, a reality that the organization obfuscates. The Home page of the LWV California opens with this statement:

“The League of Women Voters of California is a nonpartisan, grassroots organization working to protect and expand voter rights, build grassroots power in our communities, drive policy change on the biggest challenges facing our state, and ensure everyone is represented in our democracy.”

Click on “Learn More,” and the LWV’s limited definition of non-partisanship becomes clear:

“The League of Women Voters of California is a 501(c)4 grassroots membership nonprofit working to build a more equitable California for all who live here. We are a nonpartisan organization, which means that we do not support or oppose candidates or political parties. “[bolded text in original]

In other words, the League equates non-partisanship with the IRS’s definition, which provides tax-exempt status to “organizations that focus on promoting the community’s welfare” but are “not organized for profit.” Such organizations may take sides on ballot measures and other divisive matters and retain that status, but not on candidates or political parties.

In my book, that’s still acting in a partisan manner.

LWV is Yimby

In the context of Berkeley politics and of the 2024 mayoral election in particular, LWVC’s advocacy in behalf of housing deserves close attention.

The organization is firmly in the Yimby camp, having supported many of the most consequential Yimby legislation: Scott Wiener’s SB 35 (2017), SB 828 (2018), SB 50 (2020), SB 423 (2023), and SB 1037 (2024); Toni Atkins’ SB 9 (2021); Skinner’s SB 8 (2021), which extended her draconian 2019 bill, SB 330; and Buffy Wicks’ AB 1893 (2024).

Besides pushing Yimby legislation in Sacramento, LWVC sponsors online forums with a Yimby slant. In 2023 it held a webinar about SB 9 that presented speakers from California Yimby and the Terner Center. Last year an LWVC webinar entitled “Legalizing Housing Abundance in California” hosted Nolan Gray, Senior Director of Legislation and Research for California Yimby.

Doing its part, in March 2021 the Berkeley, Albany, and Emeryville chapter of the LWV sponsored a two-hour, online “Conversation on Housing.” The keynote speaker was Scott Wiener. The five other panelists were Lori Droste, then vice-mayor of Berkeley, who, the preview of the event noted, had recently introduced a resolution “to end Exclusionary Zoning in Berkeley” (a link to the item was included); Karen Chapple, then professor of city and regional planning at UC Berkeley, and a vocal supporter of Droste’s proposal; Jesse Arreguín, then mayor of Berkeley and president of the Association of Bay Area Governments; Janis Ching, a leader of the Berkeley Neighborhoods Council; and Paola Laverde, then a member of the Berkeley Rent Stabilization Board.

Introducing the webinar, LWVBAE moderator Ruby McDonald said:

“Contrary perhaps to some opinion, the League is not neutral. The League studies issues and takes positions to adopt priorities for certain issues. We hope we are fair, but we are not neutral.”

McDonald’s clarification was welcome but incomplete. Left unsaid was that to the extent that people think the LWV is neutral—and, I suspect, many do—it’s because the organization advertises itself as nonpartisan. I presume that stacking a six-person panel with four pro-Yimby presenters and appointing one of the four the keynote speaker is LWV’s idea of fairness.

Granted, the format included time for the participants to question each other, and the two outliers, Berkeley Neighborhoods Council’s Ching and Rent Board Commissioner Laverde, made pointed criticisms of the Yimby agenda. Their objections were differently countered in the League’s follow-up account of the webinar.

First, Ching:

“In contrast to long term consequences, immediate impacts of government measures concern many homeowners, represented by Berkeley Neighborhoods Council leader Janis Ching, who are alarmed at the threat of profit-driven restructuring of neighborhoods by venture capitalist developers and realty companies.”

This take sharpens the stock Yimby allegation that homeowners who oppose upzoning are selfish: now they’re also short-sighted.

The contrast with the LWVBAE’s rendering of LaVerde’s objections is telling:

“Also apprehensive about money-making opportunities by developers and realty companies are tenants of lower income groups, advocated for by Berkeley Rent Stabilization Board Commissioner Paola Laverde, who also represented Latinx Unida de Berkeley. Acknowledged for her efforts in behalf of renters, Laverde raised concerns about the accuracy of RHNA [Regional Housing Needs Allocation], as it might affect lower income renters’ obtaining housing. With UC Berkeley such a large presence in Berkeley, Arreguín gave assurance that ABAG is taking pains to fairly count the University’s RHNA — as well as that of all other sectors — for as fair and equitable an outcome as demanded by a Housing Crisis impacting everyone.”

Homeowner alarm at “profit-driven restructuring of neighborhoods by venture capitalist developers and realty companies” is disregarded as self-interested hype. When a tenant advocate raised the same criticism, the LWV feels compelled to nod to the issues, if only with a facile expression of assurance from Arreguín.

In early January I emailed the local chapter requesting a conversation about LWV procedures in general, with a special interest in how the organization runs its Pro-Con public forums about ballot measures. In reply, Kandea Mosley Gandhi told me that “the current secretary and former head of voter service will be in touch with you shortly to schedule a time to talk. She can help distinguish the [League’s] advocacy arm from the voter services we provide and help explain how we work.” I never heard back again.

Dodging dissent

Like the LWV, Adena Ishii wanted to have it both ways: to proclaim her nonpartisanship while applauding the Yimby agenda. A conscientious journalist would have asked Ishii to reconcile the contradiction. Such a reporter would have also requested evidence of her professed skill as a mediator who’d brought opponents together “around common-sense solutions.” Nobody covering Berkeley’s 2024 mayoral election ever posed either question.

I’ve searched in vain for documented instances of Ishii’s aptitude as a conciliatory leader. What I’ve found instead are examples of her reluctance to engage dissent from her own views.

As part of LWV’s voter education program, in the fall of 2018 the local chapter hosted a Pro-Con forum on state and local ballot measures to be decided in the upcoming election. At these events, LWV moderators read the arguments for and against measures that appear in the official Voters Guide. To my knowledge, this forum wasn’t reported in the press, nor do I see a video of the event on the LWVBAE website.

But the forum—and more to the point, Ishii’s role there—was referenced by six readers who commented on a Berkeleyside article posted on October 23, 2018. The article said nothing about the forum. Its focus was the novelty of Ishii’s election. Flogging the LWV-is-nonpartisan fiction, the sub-headline read: “The first woman of color to be president of the League of Women Voters for Berkeley, Albany, and Emeryville, which offers nonpartisan election resources and organizes candidate debates, is also the youngest.”

Five of the six commenters had recently attended the 2018 forum. A fifth had gone to an LWVBAE forum on the 2016 Berkeley School Board election. I surmise that it was Berkeleyside’s allusion to the League’s offer of “nonpartisan election resources” that sparked their replies, because all but one of them cast aspersions on Ishii’s non-partisanship.

In their telling, at the 2018 event, she’d moderated the discussion of Berkeley Measure O.

The city officially described the measure as authorizing “the issuance of $135 million of general obligation bonds to finance the acquisition and improvement of real property for the purpose of constructing, rehabilitating, or preserving affordable housing for low-, very low-, median-, and middle-income individuals and working families, including teachers, seniors, veterans, the homeless, students, people with disabilities, and other vulnerable populations.”

What’s not to like?

Well, commenter FlowerPower thought the city had “combine[d] funds for low-income housing with those for households [above] the HUD 60% rule, even up to 120% according to the Mayor.” FlowerPower “wondered if there were others who would share my concern, so I went to the LWV forum.”

“I took a seat at a table to “freely” discuss the Measure O. I met another person at the table who had studied the measure and had developed some significant issues with regard to the accuracy of about the actual costs of the Measure. In turn, I was expressing my opinion that the bill was deceptive because its purpose was for “Affordable Housing” but funds were not reserved for low-income housing. Seeing the civilians at the table were falling under the spell of logic and reason, Adena jumped in. She said she was listening and was confused by what I was saying. I showed her the income categories in the Measure, specified in the HUD/California Department of Housing income level (both $ and %AMI income limits) Low-Income housing is governed by the HUD 60% rule. This measure includes “over-income” but was written in confusing terms.”

“I stated my opposition was based on (among other reasons) that “O” funded subsidized housing for persons earning up to 100% AMI. I had a copy of the Berkeley Housing Element and showed her that 23% of Berkeley homeowners were low income. This measure taxes lower income people and sends the money up to higher earners. To me, that is “Bright Line Test.” ROBIN HOOD in REVERSE is a no-go! Adeshi [sic] did say that she would ask people what the upper income limits were. To her credit, at the Mayoral forum she asked the Mayor and he said “Moderate'” income, up to 120% AMI, but Moderate is not included in the Measure. So apparently, the Mayor had not read the measure.

“However, Adena's reluctance to address the issue of income inequality was solved two days later, when I received the proponent's glossy mailer with Adena's picture prominently featured. She is quoted as saying that Measure O would fund housing subsidies for Fire Fighters. (Berkeley $145,000 up to $420,000).”

FlowerPower attached a screenshot of a passage in the mailer with a quote from Ishii, with a hand-written circle around “firefighters”:

The Bay Area is building less than a quarter of the affordable housing we need to house working families such as teachers, nurses, and firefighters.

We have to do more.

We’ve carefully studied these measures – the League says YES!

Adena Ishii

President, League of Women

Voters of Berkeley, Albany

And Emeryville

A second commenter, Jessica Behrman, incorporated a remark attributed to Ishii in the Berkeleyside article—“‘the loudest voice is always the one who has the privilege to speak’”—in her comment:

“Regarding this core belief of Ms. Ishii's - “the loudest voice is always the one who has the privilege to speak” - she would not allow people to raise objections at the forum, when attendees respectfully tried a number of time to point out that she had either read the question incorrectly or allowed Mayor Arreguin to elide the asked question. Maybe the attendees should have been louder. But she said if attendees didn't stay quiet, she would make them leave. Ms. Ishii didn't act as a moderator for the people in search of answers; she behaved like an acolyte.”

Behrman’s objections elicited a defense of Ishii and the LWV from Emily Raguso, the future editor of The Berkeley Scanner who was then a Berkeleyside reporter, though not the author of the article. After stating that she could “understand [Behrman’s] frustration,” Raguso wrote:

“But the format for all the League events is very specific. It’s not designed to take “live” questions from the audience. I thought she actually listened to the audience regardless and did her best to hear the complaints. She did eventually try to restore order. But, again, that’s because these events have a specific format. Maybe not everyone who was there was familiar with it, but I’ve been going to these since 2010 and they are pretty strictly run.”

Behrman replied:

“That’s a valid point about the format. Had Ms. Ishii been a neutral rep, I doubt that the attendees would have reacted in such frustration. The situation arose bc the forum wasn’t functioning as a truly informative event. The attendees only started to speak out when it became apparent that many questions weren’t being asked or answered accurately or directly. If that is the situation, the event is useless except as mutual validation for people whose minds are made up.”

Raguso’s account of LWV protocol was at odds with the comment of A Serious Man, who compared Ishii unfavorably with other moderators:

“A local measures forum organized by the league revealed that the president, who covered the two Berkeley measures O and P did not know much about them, and kept reading what was in the voter guide without any interest in explaining it or answering questions about it. That was in contrast to some other LWV members who presented the state propositions and were able to answer some key questions from the audience.

“I have asked the president to take another look at some of the elements of those measures, and even though she seemed interested on the spot, there has been no followup. Was there ever any real research done for those measures by the LWV?

“This is supposed to be a democracy-promoting organization.”

Anybody but Jesse chimed in:

“She soft balled the heck out of audience questions at her interview with Arreguín and falsely claimed that there were personal attacks as a reason to not pursue certain lines of inquiry. The fix was in.”

Doug F added:

“I think that was her doing the same at the LWV candidate forum for School Board 2yr ago; I was in the live audience. (The video may still be on Berkeley Community Media's site, if anyone wants to check.) The questioner asked nothing but very softball policy questions, took up all the time with those, & refused to read a single one of the many audience questions she'd collected on cards in advance. No naive listener would have known that there was ever a single problem or incident in Berkeley schools.”

On January 6, I emailed Ishii, now mayor of Berkeley, asking her to respond to the comments. She didn’t reply.

Two months earlier, she’d first parried and finally ignored another perturbing query of mine. On November 13, I’d sent her campaign the following email:

“I’m a journalist who writes about land use planning and politics. In an article published by the Berkeley Daily Planet, Rob Wrenn wrote that at the mayoral forum at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, “[a]sked about giving the public a vote on Missing Middle changes, [Ishii] was against, while both her opponents were for it. She was afraid voters might reject the changes, and they probably would if they were voting on the extreme version the Planning Commission proposed.” Did Wrenn accurately characterize your position? If not, now so? Thank you.”

At her campaign’s request, I subsequently sent a link to Wrenn’s article.

On November 21, Ishii replied:

“Hi Zelda,

My apologies for the delayed response. Even after reading the article, I am unclear about what the author is trying to say about my position on Missing Middle housing. I don’t recall saying anything about giving the public a vote on Missing Middle or being afraid of voters rejecting changes. I’m not even sure which changes he was referring to. I don’t think this note correctly characterizes my position or knowledge of any issue.

If you have a specific question for me, I would be happy to answer it. Thank you!

Sincerely,

Adena”

Reading that note, I had two thoughts:

Stop toying with me. You have a law degree from Santa Clara University. Getting it required you to parse dense legal texts. Surely you can grasp the meaning of Wrenn’s piece and my query.

Second: I’m not going to argue that point.

I emailed back:

“Hi Adena,

Thanks for getting back to me, and congratulations on your win.

Let’s forget what Rob Wrenn wrote and focus on your position. Are you for giving the public a direct vote on the Missing Middle Housing proposal which the Planning Commission recently referred back to the city council?

Sincerely,

Zelda Bronstein”

She never replied.

Berkeley’s hottest issue: (Missing )Middle Housing

Based on Ishii’s evident brushoff of dissidents at the 2018 LWV forum on Measure O and her refusal to answer state her position on a Missing Middle referendum, my impression is that when she doesn’t want to grapple with criticism, she pleads confusion. If the objections persist, she shuts down the exchange.

That impression is deepened by Ishii’s October 25 tweet regarding the disorderly public meeting about the Middle—no longer “Missing”—Housing plan that had taken place the previous night.

The plan is the hottest issue in Berkeley politics. I’ve sprinkled references to it throughout this series. Before considering the October 24 tumult, a closer look at the plan is in order.

The Middle Housing concept was originally proposed in the spring of 2019 (agenda Item 32) by Councilmember Lori Droste. The proposal was co-sponsored by Councilmembers Kesarwani, Robinson, and Bartlett.

“Middle” stands for the size of permitted residential buildings—bigger than single-family homes, smaller than apartment buildings—not the size of household incomes. The focus on size instead of affordability entails an unintended irony. The leading rationale of the Middle Housing plan is to eliminate zoning for single-family homes because it’s “exclusionary”—meaning that it excludes people of color.

Yes, the motive behind Berkeley’s originally single-family home zoning was racist. See: realtor/developer Duncan McDuffie, the original proponent of the 1916 law.

But unlike racial covenants, single-family zoning isn’t racially discriminatory. Rather, it excludes people on the basis of their wealth: single-family homes cost far more than (most) apartments.

Given this reality, you might think that Droste and other Middle Housing supporters would have built economic criteria—specifically affordability—into their anti-exclusion proposal. Instead, they rejected affordability standards.

Item 29 on the February 23, 2021 council agenda was a proposal to “Eliminate Exclusionary Housing,” which is to say single-family zoning, in Berkeley. Councilmembers Hahn and Harrison recommended that the council amend the proposal by “express[ing]” the “intent…that affordable housing requirements be applied in projects of fewer than four units built as result of new zoning policies[,] to prevent displacement, reduce housing costs, and diversify communities.”

In a memo to the council, Droste and Councilmember Taplin, two of the four sponsors of Item 29—the others were Robinson and Bartlett—rejected that recommendation.

In support of their recommendation for the inclusion of affordability requirements, Hahn and Harrison cited UC Berkeley planning professor Karen Chapple’s work at the UC Urban Displacement Project.

Firing back, Droste and Taplin cited a letter that Chapple wrote to the council on the day of the meeting. (Online links to the letter are broken; I have an old hard copy). Chapple argued that

…”mandating affordability for one unit out of four, is not wise—yet….Adding affordability requirements creates issues of financial feasibility and regulatory burden that threaten to limit uptake. A more supportive approach, as we build familiarity with the missing middle concept and the capacity of locals to implement it, would be to carefully monitor the rent levels in units created in duplexes, triplexes, and fourplexes, intervening to preserve affordability as needed later after the concept matures.”

Not cited by Droste and Taplin but prominent in Chapple’s letter is her concern about the slow rollout of her pet program, ADUs, whose affordability, she didn’t note, was dubious (it still is).

Conveniently absent from Chapple’s argument is a timeline for the maturation of the Middle Housing concept. Deferring to an unspecified date the assessment of the effectiveness of a pro-development policy is a standard Yimby diversionary tactic.

The Hahn-Harrison amendment was defeated.

The council went on to approve Item 29 by a vote of 6-2 (Harrison and Wengraf voted No; Kesarwani was absent). The measure’s elimination of single-family zoning was a major step toward codifying the full Middle Housing program.

In July 2024 the council took another major step toward full codification. Tiering off the 2021 action, it unanimously directed city staff to prepare a “Middle Housing ordinance” that, as Kesarwani tweeted, “allows…five to seven units a lot, depending on the zone, for a typical lot of 5,000 square feet,” excluding ADUs, which would allow two more units.

Allowable lot coverage was increased from 40 to 60%; height from to 35 feet or three stories, stepping down to 22 feet within fifteen feet of a rear property line for sunlight. The ordinance would also allow a combined front-and-rear-setback of twenty feet, with a minimum of five feet in front and five feet in rear.

“When these standards are used to create a single-family home,” Kesarwani wrote,“Council placed a limit on the size of the home to no more than half the lot size or 2,500 sq feet, whichever is greater….The goal is to allow up to a 4-bed house, which can be quite affordable when rented to a group of students, young professionals, etc., but discourage McMansions.”

Maximum allowable densities ranged from 40 to 70 units/acre or five to seven units on a 5,000-square-foot lot, depending on the zone.

Despite the council’s unanimous vote, Middle Housing fell short of the finish line. Due to the city’s failure to consult Indigenous tribes—that is, a procedural oversight rather than a substantive error—the plan was not embedded in Berkeley law. After such consultation and another vetting by the Planning Commission, Middle Housing would return to the council for final approval.

Kesarwani’s explosive Middle Housing meeting

Besides new development standards, the council’s July 2024 resolution included among other things a “[r]equest to provide opportunity to have community workshops throughout the city in the time between now and when staff brings the ordinance back to Council.” Though not specified as such, that meant workshops convened by councilmembers—which brings us back to the tumultuous gathering on October 24.

The event was convened by two Ishii supporters, Councilmembers Kesarwani and Taplin, who between them represent the western districts of the city. Kesarwani presided; Taplin didn’t attend.

In her October newsletter, Kesarwani announced the event as a “Middle Housing Community Meeting,” to be held at the Berkeley Adult School from 6:30 to 8 pm. “Please join us,” she wrote,” to learn more about the proposed Middle Housing Ordinance.” She provided a link to the Berkeleyside article about the council’s July meeting.

Despite the invitation to “learn,” the tone of the announcement suggested that not education but indoctrination would be on the agenda. Most of the notice puffed “Middle Housing” as a vehicle of freedom, one that offers the chance for “everyone in our community…to organize their lives in the way that best suits them.”

“I understand,” Kesarwani averred, “that middle housing is not desirable for everyone.” Then she played the anti-hate and diversity cards:

“However, we are a city that stands united against hate; we embrace our LGBTQ communityand diverse family structures. Sowhy not allow our zoning code to also embrace housing diversity?It is in offering a range of housing options that we can lift up and truly embrace the other forms of diversity that we cherish in our community.”

In other words, to question the Middle Housing plan is to condone white supremacist hate and oppose diversity across the board.

The closest things to evidence that Kesarwani displayed in support of her pro-middle housing blast were a plug for Berkeley architect Daniel Parolek and his wife Karen Parolek, who, she wrote, coined the term “Missing Middle Housing”; and her favorable impression of a north Oakland community known as “Radish.” There,

…”nineteen adults and four young children reside in middle housing, including a duplex fourplex, and three houses that share a communal kitchen and living room, garden and yard and spa area….When I visited Radish and spoke to residents, what stood out to me is that designing our homes for social connection and community can be a more joyful and easier way to live, especially for parents who report experiencing social isolation and burnout.”

Who could object to “a more joyful and easier way to live”?

But is the Radish model replicable in Berkeley? In this video, which is posted on the Radish website, project instigator and co-owner Phil Levin repeatedly emphasizes that the property, which comprises several lots assembled over a few years, is “unique.”

More to the point, how does the Middle Housing plan, with its five-feet setbacks, support a multi-lot project that includes a garden and spa area?

In any case, there was no joy at the October 24 meeting. What happened, according to an October 25 article by Berkeleyside reporter Nico Savidge, is that after the city planning staff made a presentation about the proposed zoning changes,

“Planning Director Jordan Klein told the audience of about 100 people that the meeting would next break up into smaller groups, where attendees could give feedback and ask questions of city staff.

“That outraged many attendees, who wanted the meeting to be an open forum in which people could deliver their comments to city officials and the entire audience, which was predominantly white and older. Several booed and shouted “no!” as Klein and Kesarwani encouraged the audience to move to a collection of poster boards toward the back of the room for group discussions.”

One of the attendees, Michael Grove—by the looks of him, a white and older man—“walked to the front of the room and tried to take the microphone from Kesarwani, saying later that he did so out of frustration with the meeting format.” She said, “No, no you cannot take the mic like that—step down, step away from me!”

But Grove “continued to move toward Kesarwani, who again told him to step back. Housing activist Darrell Owens then stepped between Grove and Kesarwani, and could be heard telling Grove to keep his hands to himself.”

“That,” wrote Savidge,

“…was the end of the physical altercation, but booing continue from opponents in the crowd, several of whom chanted, “We want to talk!” After admonishing the crowd, Kesarawni left the auditorium, telling the jeering audience members, “You guys are embarrassing yourselves.”

Unreported by Savidge but documented in a video taken by Berkeleyside staffer Ximena Natera that was posted with his story, after Grove had left the meeting, Kesarwani, mic still in hand, yelled:

“This is not a required meeting! No, no, we’re not doing this [meeting as a whole instead of in small groups]! I’m not afraid of you! I will call the police—we will call the police and have you guys taken out of here, if you can’t handle yourselves.”

People booed and resumed chanting “We want to talk!” Kesarwani grabbed her purse and stormed out of the room.

Kesarwani filed a police report that accused Grove of assault. She said, Savidge wrote, that

“a member of the audience “purposely shoved his body into me” when he tried to grab a microphone out of her hands during the event, where the crowd was mainly made up of people opposed to the rezoning plan, many of whom were upset the meeting wasn’t structured as a town hall.

“There can be zero tolerance for becoming physically aggressive with anyone at a public meeting, especially a public servant simply trying to do their job,” Kesarwani wrote in a statement.”

Meanwhile, Grove,

“[r]eached by a reporter at his Berkeley home Friday,…said he did not recall making physical contact with Kesarwani but regretted his actions. “It was an extremely rash move, and I apologize for creating a negative situation,” Grove said. “I’m a little bit ashamed of it, I have to confess.”

Did Grove really assault Kesarwani?

Grove’s grab was foolish and wrong.

But was it assault? I don’t think so. Grove wasn’t going after Kesarwani; he was reaching for the mic, which is to say, for voice.

Recall Ishii’s adage: “The loudest voice is always the one that has the privilege to speak.” Hoarding the mic, Kesarwani ensured that she monopolized that privilege. She thinks the right to speak is all hers, to be meted out to the public as she sees fit. When she told the attendees, “This isn’t a required meeting,” she meant: I’m doing you a favor by holding it.

She could have defused the tension by saying: Okay, let’s forget the small groups and have an open-ended general discussion. Instead, she heightened the conflict by refusing to share the right to speak and by doubling down on the small group format.

Herding people into small groups is an example of what planning scholar and activist Tom Angotti calls “participation games”—activities designed to give the illusion of community engagement that effectively disempower the community. Zoning is super-wonky. When I go to a meeting about a complex plan such as the Middle Housing proposal, I want to hear what everyone has to say; but I especially want to hear the points raised by members of the community who are well-informed, and how city staff responds to those points. I don’t want to be shunted off to a small group gathered around a poster board whose contents are read by a staffer who’s invested in the plan. I’ve been there before.

Ishii, for her part, seems to have forgotten her dictum about voice and privilege. Rather than criticizing the autocratic Kesarwani, her tweeted comment on the meeting echoed the councilmember’s claim of assault and attacked Grove:

“I know people are upset, but physically assaulting our elected officials is absolutely unacceptable behavior! We can do better, Berkeley. Let’s engage in civil discourse.”

Her choice of words is telling. Civility works fine, until, as at Kesarwani’s Middle Housing meeting, the demand for it is a pretext for quashing dissent. In such a situation, the appropriate response is uncivil pushback.

As for discourse: In his 2021 book, Taking Back Control?, sociologist Wolfgang Streeck marks the term’s “treacherous” nature.

“Sometimes it is only a grander synonym for “discussion.” But, most of the time, it also comprises the notion of boundaries of what can be said within it, or the premises which must be accepted by all who want to take part in a particular “discourse”… (46)”

Unlike debate, which assumes that parties to an exchange have fundamental disagreements, discourse assumes that they share basic assumptions.

In a passage that illuminates Kesarwani’s performance at the October 24 meeting, Streeck writes: “Elites whose legitimacy is under threat may portray conflicts with their opponents as moral and cultural in nature, by drawing on their political and cultural capital and exploiting their control over the institutionalized channels of public discourse.” (46)

Rather than viewing opposition to the small group format as an opportunity to open up the public conversation about Middle Housing, Kesarwani perceived it as a threat to her authority. “I’m not afraid of you!” she yelled. So why did she threaten to call the police and have the protesters removed?

Kesarwani’s threat resonated with Ishii’s reported warning that she would expel dissidents at LWV’s Measure O forum if they didn’t shut up.

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