Are you sure about that? Only federal offices have a baked in requirement that voters be citizens. On the municipal level many west coast cities have opened up local elections to all residents regardless of citizenship. I don't know about Berkeley specifically (its been close to 20 years since I went to school there) but its neighbors Oakland[1] and SF[2] both have opened at least some local elections to non-citizen residents.
Like I said, I don't know the answer and while I made a token effort to check, Berkeley city code actually seems somewhat difficult to find from a first party source. Just want to make sure this wasn't an off the cuff remark.
