Berkeley City Council members took a step this week toward making economic reparations to Black people for the years of slavery they endured and the harm caused by the country’s legacy of segregation, a council member said Wednesday.

Councilmember Ben Bartlett introduced the item identified as Berkeley Reparations and its first phase passed the City Council Tuesday night. The item is co-sponsored by Mayor Jesse Arreguin, Councilmember Sophie Hahn and Councilmember Terry Taplin.

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Keith Burbank is currently a fulltime reporter covering Alameda County and Oakland news for Bay City News. He has also worked on the Data Points project for Local News Matters, finding trends and stories about the region through data. In 2019, he was a California Fellow at the USC Annenberg Center for Health Journalism, producing a series about homeless deaths in Santa Clara County. He worked as a swing shift editor for the newswire for several years as well. Outside of journalism, Keith enjoys computer programming, math, economics and music.