Posted on 10/24/2001 1:14:15 PM PDT by Drango
Peace vote carries price for business
By Tom Lochner and Clare Curley
CONTRA COSTA TIMESS
BERKELEY -- A Berkeley City Council resolution, and an earlier draft resolution it replaced, have brought this city renewed national notoriety and a perception that it coddles terrorists and their hosts while caring little about their U.S. victims.
The gist of the adopted resolution condemns "the mass murder of thousands of people" Sept. 11 and asks Congress to "break the cycle of violence" and "bring the bombing (in Afghanistan) to a conclusion as soon as possible." After the vote Oct. 16, elected officials and businesspeople received hundreds of phone calls letters and e-mails threatening a boycott. "Until you get rid of the traitors who refuse to support the war on Terror, I will NEVER again come (to Berkeley)," a former visitor from Roanoke, Va. wrote in a widely circulated e-mail.
"People have voiced their opinions, from afar and locally," said Rachel Rupert, CEO of the Berkeley Chamber of Commerce. "We've had CEOs of companies tell us that if they have another place that they can buy a product without doing it in Berkeley, they will. "We don't know what the economic fallout will be," Rupert said. "We don't know if they'll really boycott Berkeley or if they're just mad at us."
The Berkeley Marina Radisson hotel, which already had lost business because of the Sept. 11 attacks, has had cancellations in the past week because of the council's vote, said general manager Brij Misra. "(The resolution) just made our job more difficult," said General Manager Brij Misra. He said the hotel will lose $8,000 from one cancellation alone, by an ROTC group that had planned a dinner event there. Rupert cited several other examples of business lost because of the council vote: a customer who canceled a five-figure order at a lumber yard; a canceled hotel banquet; and several order cancellations at businesses producing promotional materials. "A gentleman e-mailed saying he was going to buy a $1.5 million house in Berkeley, but that he canceled and went to Danville instead," Rupert said.
At REI, a large camping and outdoor equipment store, manager Kim Storm said business has slowed since the City Council flap -- "but it's been very minimal." "The dot-com industry slowdown and Sept. 11 have definitely had more of an impact," Storm said.
City Councilwoman Dona Spring, who introduced the original draft resolution, said whatever boycott there is is "a self-fulfilling prophecy" on the part of the chamber and is being fanned by Mayor Shirley Dean in an attempt "to hurt the progressives on the council." Dean was in Washington on Tuesday for a meeting of the National Conference of Mayors and could not be reached for comment. Jennifer Drapeau, Dean's chief of staff, said: "The mayor had nothing to do with this. "What we have seen at our office," Drapeau said, "is hundreds and hundreds of e-mails every day from people in the Bay Area and nationwide saying they are very angry about the action taken by the council and that they will never come to Berkeley and never spend money in Berkeley and advise their friends to follow suit." Drapeau said she hoped some of the damage could be undone by a "Shop Berkeley" campaign that has been planned since summer at the city's Economic Development Office. Economic Development Manager Bill Lambert said the city recently hired a consultant and hopes to have "Shop Berkeley" on track in the spring.
Spring's original draft resolution, which predicts "Fiscal Implications: None," failed to garner enough votes to qualify as an emergency item at the Oct. 9 council meeting. It critiqued the United States bombing campaign and endorsed a letter by Councilwoman Maudelle Shirek to the Congressional Black Caucus this month. In her letter, Shirek condemned the "violent acts" of Sept. 11 as well as 1.5 million Iraqi deaths over the last 10 years due to trade sanctions; the expropriation of lands from Native Americans and Palestinians; and denial of the "global AIDS cataclysm, on par with the Holocaust and Bubonic Plague.".
The much-changed resolution that passed Oct. 16 not only condemns the Sept. 11 attacks, but also calls on the U.S. to work with international organizations to bring the perpetrators of Sept. 11 to justice; and work with other nations' governments to address poverty, malnutrition, disease, oppression, subjugation and other conditions "that tend to drive some people to acts of terrorism. It asks the city to participate in a national campaign to lessen dependence on Middle East oil and commit to conversion to renewable energy sources such as solar and fuel cells within five years. Dean voted for the clause that condemns the Sept. 11 mass murder and the one that urges less reliance on oil and commitment to renewable energy sources. She abstained on the other three. No one voted "no" on any of the clauses.
But I thought it was "only" 500,000? What gives? Disinformation from the Iraqis again?
:) ttt
Take a few minutes to keep up the pressure, folks!
I'd rather see alternatives to this....i.e. "Support Communism...Shop Berkeley", etc...
Isn't that the truth? These people hate capitalism anyway. Next time I have to go to Cal/Berkeley for a mtg, I'm not even gonna put money in the parking meter!
Whoaa! Really going out on a limb with such a courageous vote. Must not be up for re-election for a few years.
I'm sure those "progressives" never, never, never boycott businesses they oppose ideologically.
-ccm
And this news bulletin just in. . .
Herbivore resolution condems mass murder of thousands of innocent animals, asks carnivores to "break the cycle of violence."
No immediate response has been forthcoming from the felines, canines, raptors, and others suspected of terrorizing peaceful, plant-eating species.
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