A longtime Berkeley resident, attorney, and neighbor — running to represent Elmwood, Claremont, and southeast Berkeley with experience, fairness, and common sense.
Hear directly from Fred about why he's running, what he's learned from decades of Berkeley civic life, and what he wants for District 8.
Over a fifty-year legal career, Fred Feller has represented thousands of tenants and property owners — a career spent on both sides of the housing questions Berkeley argues about every day. A graduate of Georgetown University Law Center, where he served as an editor of the Georgetown Law Journal, Fred began as a legal-aid lawyer and never stopped doing that work.
From 1977 to 1984, Fred represented tenants exclusively as a staff attorney at the San Francisco Neighborhood Legal Assistance Foundation (now part of Bay Area Legal Aid) — first as a Central City neighborhood attorney, then in its housing impact litigation unit. He defended individual tenants against eviction, brought a class action on behalf of tenants against the San Francisco Housing Authority, and litigated cases under the Federal Relocation Act; two of his cases were featured in Chester Hartman's 1982 book Displacement: How to Fight It. While there, he helped found the staff union — the Association of Legal Assistance Workers (District 65, UAW) — serving as its first president and negotiating its first collective bargaining agreement.
In 1984 he became the first Assistant Director of the San Francisco Bar Association's Volunteer Legal Services Program, where he edited the first edition of the Bar's Landlord Tenant Practice Handbook — a guide that helps volunteer attorneys defend indigent tenants facing eviction.
From 1985 until his retirement, Fred practiced law in Berkeley at the firm now known as Beckman, Feller & Chang (originally York, Buresh and Kaplan). There he mostly represented property owners — including in two landmark cases, Adler v. Elphick (1986) and Bakanauskas v. Urdan (1988), that clarified the legal status of tenancy-in-common ownership — while continuing to represent tenants pro bono through legal services programs and the AIDS Legal Referral Panel. He has served on the board of Bay Area Legal Aid (and its predecessor, San Francisco Neighborhood Legal Services) for decades, and is today the board's Vice President.
Fred has served Berkeley as a Commissioner on the Police Review Commission and the Housing Advisory Commission, and as President of the Berkeley Albany Bar Association. He lives in the Elmwood, in the heart of District 8.
District 8 deserves a councilmember who sweats the details — on safety, on housing, on the basics that make neighborhoods work.
Fix the pavement, calm the traffic, and make walking to College Avenue, Ashby, and our schools safe for kids and seniors alike. Basic city services, delivered well.
The Claremont hills face real fire risk. Fred will push for clear evacuation planning, vegetation management, and honest communication with hill neighborhoods.
Fred has spent his career in housing law — representing real people in real disputes. He'll bring that experience to Berkeley's housing decisions: growth that is fair, legal, and workable for tenants, homeowners, and neighborhoods.
The Elmwood and College Avenue shops are the heart of the district. Fred will work to keep storefronts full, sidewalks clean, and small businesses supported.
From the Police Review Commission to the Housing Advisory Commission, Fred has done the unglamorous work of oversight. He'll bring the same rigor to the city budget and council.
A career mediating disputes teaches you one thing: listen before you decide. Fred will hold regular district office hours and answer his own email.
District 8 stretches across southeast Berkeley — the Elmwood and its beloved shopping district, the Claremont neighborhood rising into the hills, and the blocks around College and Ashby.
It's a district of brown-shingle homes and small storefronts, of longtime residents and new families — and it deserves representation that knows it block by block.
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