Former Berkeley City Councilwoman, Activist, Betty Olds Dies At 96

BERKELEY, CA — Colorful and outspoken former Berkeley City Councilwoman Betty Olds died on Sunday at the age of 96, according to Susan Wengraf, who was Olds' aide during her 16 years on the council and succeeded her in 2009.

Wengraf said Olds, who lived in Berkeley for 67 years and also served on the city's rent stabilization, zoning adjustments and library boards, should be remembered for her integrity and honesty.

Wengraf said, "Betty was very straight forward and just told it like it was. She could cut through a lot of grandstanding and get right to the issue."

Olds, who represented the Berkeley hills area, was a strong advocate for parks, the environment and animals and was the prime moving force in getting a new animal shelter built in Berkeley, Wengraf said.

Olds, who was elected to the City Council in 1992, also worked long and hard to make sure that a new fire station was built in the Berkeley hills after the devastating East Bay hills fire in 1991, according to Wengraf.

Berkeley voters approved a bond measure in 1992 to fund disaster preparedness, including a new fire station, but the station wasn't approved until 2004 and didn't open until 2006. Wengraf said, "It was a very long process but she (Olds) stuck with it. She was totally committed once she made her mind up on an issue."

Wengraf said Olds received national attention at the age of 86 in 2007 when she joined former Mayor Shirley Dean, then 71, and Sylvia McLaughlin, then 90, who was the co-founder of the environmental group Save
the Bay, in joining activists who sat in a grove of Oak trees to protest plans by the University of California at Berkeley to build a sports training complex next to its football stadium.

Wengraf said that even when Olds was in her 80s "she was agile and strong and would scamper up the hills like a mountain goat" to inspect properties that were the subject of zoning hearings.

Wengraf said Olds "was an environmentalist before it was politically correct to be an environmentalist and hiked and bird-watched across several continents."

Wengraff said she hopes to organize a large memorial service for Olds at a public park, or possibly along the Berkeley waterfront, in September.

— Bay City News

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