Accomplishments
Democrat Kriss Worthington has spent his entire public service career standing up for progressive values, and making sure those values are transformed into real action.
Environment
Spearheaded the Eco-Pass Program, providing free public transit for 1,500 City employees, to significantly cut down on the number of miles driven within the City of Berkeley. This program now serves as a national model for other cities.
Sponsored the Zero Waste Ordinance, which commits the City of Berkeley to go beyond what the State mandates in regards to recycling and reusing discarded materials, and encourages the City to purchase products that can be re-used instead of thrown away. This program now serves as a national model for other cities.
Fought for creek restoration and the expansion of the Clean Water Program, to protect the Bay from unprocessed run-off pollution from our streets and storm drains.
Helped prevent massive and inappropriate development along the Berkeley shoreline. Increased funding for bicycle and pedestrian alternatives.
Enhanced waterfront habitats.
Helped save millions of dollars for Berkeley’s parks, and brokered the compromise that allowed more playing fields to be built without harming wildlife habitats.
Promoted mini-grants to encourage community-city partnerships to improve our open space. Serves as Berkeley’s representative on the Alameda County Congestion Management Agency and Waste Management Authority. Also fills in as an alternate to Supervisor Keith Carson on the Alameda County Transportation Authority. In all these venues, Kriss advocates for environmentally friendly policies and funding priorities. Beyond just being a good vote, he strategizes with environmentalists on how best to channel community organizing and grassroots lobbying into winning campaigns for the environment.
Civil Rights, Peace, and Social Justice
Helped Berkeley become the first city in the world to offer training for its police department on LGBT sensitivity, including four hours on transgender awareness.
Helped establish the Berkeley Police Department’s LGBT community liaison.
Helped Berkeley become the first city in America to endorse marriage equality.
Spearheaded the Equal Benefits Ordinance, which mandates that businesses working with the City provide equal benefits for domestic partners. Lobbied on behalf of LGBT issues at the State and Federal levels.
Sponsored a resolution to create a hate-crimes unit in the police department to help protect threatened Jewish, Latino, Asian, African-American, Muslim and LGBT communities.
Initiated and coordinates the annual City Holocaust Remembrance Day program, in which the program members document the stories of Holocaust survivors.
Appointed more than four times as many Latinos, African-Americans, Native Americans and Asian/Pacific Islanders to City commissions than his predecessor on the City Council had. Also dramatically increased the amount of disabled, LGBT and student commissioners.
Secured $45,000 for disabled access to student housing.
Commissioned a study on workplace discrimination and lobbied the City Council to increase diversity on City Commissions. As a result, for the first time in 100 years, 50% of Berkeley City Commissioners were women.
Received honors from The Commission on the Status of Women (COSOW) for his "outstanding service on behalf of the women of Berkeley," the only man in history ever so honored by COSOW.
Helped secure funding for a Daytime Youth Center for homeless youth at the First Congregational Church in Berkeley.
Led the City Council in its unanimous condemnation of the Bush-Cheney "Patriot Act".
Led the City Council in opposing the Bush-Cheney war in Iraq and urging U.N. diplomacy.
Spoke out against the war while demanding fair treatment for our veterans and men and women currently serving in uniform.
Was the first openly gay person elected to the Berkeley City Council and the first openly gay Vice Mayor of Berkeley.
Labor/Workers’ Rights
Actively supported dozens of union organizing and negotiating efforts.
Sponsored Berkeley’s Living Wage Ordinance, so workers can afford to live in the same area where they work.
Sponsored a Worker Retention Ordinance, ensuring job security and a smooth transition under new ownership.
Sponsored the Right to Know Ordinance, to protect visitors to Berkeley from unknowingly booking a room in a hotel where workers are on strike or have been locked out.
Helped secure $50,000 in the City budget to implement a sweatshop-free ordinance (Sweat-Free Berkeley), which also includes a sweat-free code of conduct to be signed by all city contractors, subcontractors, and vendors.
Helped workers secure the UFCW as their union at Berkeley Bowl
Worked with SEIU 616 to organize Head Start daycare workers into a union.
Actively supported organizing efforts by airport security workers and sponsored a resolution to support security officers’ fundamental right to unionize and bargain collectively
Sponsored a resolution declaring that the Berkeley City Council expresses its support for striking workers at Valley Power in San Leandro, and establishing a policy for the City of Berkeley to boycott Valley Power Systems Inc.
Worked with the Berkeley Fire Fighters Associations to end rotating closures of fire stations.
Actively fought Arnold Schwarzenegger’s anti-union Proposition 75 during the 2005 Special Election.
Health Care
Expanded local coverage for children, single mothers, and families.
Sponsored the Stop Cancer Where It Starts Resolution, to spread awareness in Berkeley about how exposure to toxic chemicals can lead to cancer, particularly breast cancer, and providing businesses, industries, hospitals, clinics, nurseries, hardware stores, houseware stores, grocery stores, building owners and citizens with the guidance and tools necessary for minimizing public exposure to these dangerous toxins.
Sponsored the Precautionary Principle Initiative, which commits the City of Berkeley to take potential environmental health impacts into consideration whenever making any purchases for City facilities and programs. Convened a panel of environmental, health care and community groups to help shepherd the initiative through city bureaucracy. This program now serves as a national model for other cities.
Housing Rights
Secured millions of dollars for the Berkeley Housing Trust Fund, to build more affordable housing along transit corridors. Led the way towards tougher rent control, keeping rent rates stable if tenants stay in the same apartment or house for several years, protecting tenants from being illegally evicted, ensuring that landlords would make needed repairs to their properties, and funding legal aid and community outreach to tenants
Before Kriss came on board the City Council, from 1990-1994, the anti-tenant majority raised rents in Berkeley by 45%. After Kriss joined the Council, he worked with the new pro-tenant majority to make sure rents only went up by 3% over the next two years
Sponsored a resolution to amend Berkeley Municipal Code (B.M.C.) Sections 21.28.040 and 21.28.050, prohibiting the conversion of rental units to condominiums for 5 years for specific terminations of tenancy, and requiring notice to tenants regarding their rights before a request for allocation is filed with the City.
Kriss received a 2004-2005 Local Hero Award from Housing Rights for his successes in fighting against housing discrimination.
Education and Students’ Rights
Fought for better teacher pay, lobbied for universal pre-school and more State funding for K-12, UC, CSU, and community colleges.
Appointed 72 U.C. Berkeley students to City commissions, more than all the City Councilmembers in Berkeley’s 103 year history combined
Helped elect 7 U.C. Berkeley students to the City’s Rent Board
Fought for more U.C. Berkeley student housing closer to campus
Convinced the Mayor to hold elections when U.C. Berkeley students are on campus and not during winter or summer breaks, giving students more say in City policy
Helped U.C. Berkeley students win 1,000 additional beds of student housing.
The Economy/Job Growth
Pushed the City to implement a Buy Berkeley policy for City contracts and purchases, and to unbundle large City contracts, so that small businesses receive the cash flow they need to thrive.
Convinced the City to start issuing quarterly reports on job creation, unemployment, and sales tax revenue by each business district, and tracking office and retail vacancy rates, in order to effectively prioritize economic development plans.
Wrote the proposal to fix the business permit approval process to simplify filling vacant storefronts
Helped Berkeley Bowl expand into the former Safeway
Fights to preserve the City’s excellent credit rating through responsible spending and borrowing.
Transportation and Infrastructure
Secured millions of dollars in funding for the upgrading of storm drains, sewers, sidewalks, and streets in Berkeley
Helped increase funding for transit, bicycle and pedestrian uses
Promoted traffic calming to reduce speed on neighborhood streets
Worked to include more neighbors, students, small merchants and U.C. employees in community planning projects.