The lawyer for a Berkeley landlord facing nine federal charges, including conspiracy to bring aliens to the U.S. illegally and bringing foreigners to the U.S. for “immoral purposes,” has asked Federal District Court Judge Sandra Brown Armstrong to dismiss two of the charges on constitutional grounds.  

In papers filed with the court Friday, Ted Cassman, the lawyer representing Lakireddy Bali Reddy, argues that the 1907 law against importing aliens for “immoral purposes,” is vague and archaic. 

“That phrase is an anachronism dating from a by-gone era,” Cassman wrote in court papers. “But if that era ever existed it has long since passed.”  

In a wide-ranging legal brief touching on other laws relating to the history of prostitution codes, the meaning of the word “debauchery,” and Mormon polygamy, he argues that the century-old law is so unclear and outdated that it violates Reddy’s constitutional right to “due process of law.”  

The legal move is aimed at eliminating charges that Reddy, a wealthy Berkeley landlord, brought teenagers into the United States from a village in Southern India so he could have sex with them. 

Under settled legal principles, a court may find a law invalid if a person of ordinary intelligence would have to guess at its meaning. 

Cassman says the alien importation law’s reference to “immoral purposes” meets this test.  

“The term “immoral purposes” is a boundless and essentially meaningless concept,” Cassman wrote, because it is not clear what conduct it forbids. Many references in the criminal code to “immoral purposes” were long ago replaced with more explicit language forbidding prostitution or sex with minors, Cassman argued.  

He called “inexplicable” Congress’ failure to eliminate that phrase from the alien importation section of the code.  

Reddy and his adult son, Vijay Kumar Lakireddy, were arrested in January as a result of an investigation following the November death of the Indian teen, Chanti Jyotsna Devi Prattipati, who died from carbon monoxide poisoning in one of Reddy’s Berkeley apartments.  

Her sister, whom prosecutors say was 15 years old at the time of Reddy’s arrest, and another young Indian woman, also lived in the apartment. Prattipati’s death was ruled an accident, but an investigation of the teens’ living situation led to charges that Reddy brought the girls into the country for “immoral purposes,” and imported others under false pretenses, to work in various other businesses he owns.  

Reddy is Berkeley’s largest residential landlord and has real estate holdings estimated at $70 million. He is currently free on $10 million bail. 

An autopsy of the deceased teenager revealed that she was two-weeks pregnant. Earlier this year, Judge Armstrong ruled that fetal tissue recovered during the autopsy was to be preserved as evidence.  

Reddy’s son is charged with three counts, including conspiracy to bring illegal aliens to the U.S. A third defendant, accused of posing as the girls’ father, also faces federal charges. 

Cassman says his is the first-ever challenge on vagueness grounds to the 1907 law forbidding importation of aliens for immoral purposes. Quoting from a U.S. Supreme Court opinion, he wrote in his brief that “vague laws may trap the innocent by not providing fair warning.” Besides arguing that the law is void for vagueness, Cassman says he plans to show that the girls were not minors at the time of the incident. Regarding the sex charges, he told the court that “there is no suggestion that any alleged sexual contact was forced or non-consensual.” 

Cassman’s motion to dismiss the sex charges was supposed to be filed Aug. 8, but he and Assistant United States Attorney John W. Kennedy agreed to extend the deadline. The federal government’s reply brief is due on August 25.  

Cassman’s office did not return numerous phone calls from the Daily Planet seeking comment. A spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s office said she would have no comment while the case was pending. 

Wednesday, Aug. 16

Bridge 

1 p.m. 

Live Oak Community Center 

1301 Shattuck Ave. 

The games are open to all players. For partnership and other information please call Vi Kimoto: 223-6539. 

Recipe Demonstration 

11:30 a.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center 

1901 Hearst and MLK Jr. Way 

Chill out in the August heat with Natalie. 

644-6107 

Human Welfare & Community  

Action Commission Meeting 

7-10 p.m. 

South Berkeley Center 

2939 Ellis St. 

Issues on the agenda include the use of child care training stipends. 

665-3475 

Citizens Human Commission  

Meeting 

7 p.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center, 1901 Hearst Ave. 

Agenda items include a euthanasia policy and the commission’s role in plans for a new shelter. 

Thursday, August 17

Conscious Comedy 

6-9 p.m. 

Martin Luther King Youth Services Center 

1730 Oregon St. 

The Young Adult Project presents its annual end-of the-summer program, which will include veteran stand-up comedians Daryl and Dwayne Mooney, whose comedy is designed to make people laugh and think. The free event includes music, educational displays and free food. 

644-6226 

“Best Sea Kayaking Trips in  

Northern California” 

7:00 p.m. 

REI 1338 San Pablo Ave. 

In tonight’s slide presentation nationally certified kayak instructors Roger Schumann and Jan Shriner will share information from their Guide to Sea Kayaking in Central and Northern California.  

527-7377 

Helen Nestor: Personal and  

Political 

4-6 p.m. 

Oakland Museum of California 

10th and Oak Streets, Oakland 

Opening reception honoring Berkeley photographer Helen Nestor. The exhibition shows a representative series of images documenting the Free Speech Movement, the ‘60s civil rights marches, women’s issues, all seen with a direct, probing eye. The exhibition on view through Oct. 15 

1-800-OAK MUSE 

World Literature 

1 p.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center 

1901 Hearst Ave. 

With Ann Timmons. 

644-6107 

University Avenue Association  

6:30 p.m. 

1810 University Ave. 

The University Avenue Merchants holds its monthly meeting. 

548-4110 

Friday, August 18

Big Mountain 

7:30 p.m. 

Ecology Center 

2530 San Pablo Ave. 

Join the Berkeley Ecology Center, Diane Patterson and Green Eye Records Foundation for an evening of music, information and community..  

548-2220, ext. 233 

Opera: Idomeneo, Part 1 

1 p.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center 

1901 Hearst and MLK Jr. Way 

644-6107 

Monthly Birthday Party and  

Fish Fry Fund Raiser 

5-10 p.m. 

West Berkeley Senior Center 

1900 Sixth St.  

“John Turk and Friends” will supply music to dance to at this event sponsored by the WBSC Advisory Council. Admission is free, red snapper or cat fish dinners are $10.  

644-6036 

Introduction to Tibetan  

Astrology 

7-9 p.m. 

Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists 

Cedar and Bonita streets 

Sponsored by the Nyerongsha Institute of Tibetan Medicine and Culture. 

$15, $10 for seniors and students. 

415-386-8413 

Saturday, August 19

“Wild about Books” 

10:30 a.m. 

Berkeley Public Central Library 

2121 Allston Way 

“Soap and Water, Please!” Bath time isn’t always the same old thing when “There’s a Hippo in My Bath!” Take a dip with Frog and Toad. 

Re-opening of the United  

Nations Association Info  

Center 

11 a.m. - 5 p.m. 

1403 “B” Addison St. 

The volunteer-operated UN/UNICEF Center will celebrate its grand re-opening at its new location behind Andronico’s University Ave. Market. 

841-1752

Hoffman’s radiation health risk factors not based on science 

Editor: 

A city wide meeting was held on August 10 on the subject of releasing radioactive water into the air in Berkeley. At the meeting, Lawrence Laboratory’s environmental consultant, Mr. F. Owen Hoffman, belittled concerns for cancer production by radiation from tritiated water.  

In his half hour presentation, one remark was worthy of note: He mentioned in passing that the National Institutes of Health, for lack of experimental data, have not assigned a health risk factor to radioactive water ingestion. So Mr. Hoffman took it upon himself to assign a health risk factor of two to radioactive water ingestion. (As a comparison, having one’s X-ray taken was assigned a risk factor of one.)  

In his study, as it is with all scientific studies, so major an assumption must be demonstratively valid if one is to draw any logical conclusions. Unfortunately for Mr. Hoffman, his assumption cannot be shown to be based on science, thus invalidating his study and conclusions. Mr. Hoffman’s work is simply not up to the standard of our preeminent university. 

A.C. Shen 

Berkeley 

City has a pattern of disruptive scheduling 

Editor: 

Regarding the article about University Avenue being clogged by “improvements.” We all know that there is an operating rule devised by the geniuses in the Berkeley Public Works Department which requires all major street repair projects to be at their height of disruption in late August.  

This assures visitors, students, and business people that the inconveniences to all parties will be maximized just as the University resumes classes.  

Then the rains come and the city has an additional excuse for not finishing on time, on budget.  

This, of course, bewilders returning alumni here for Saturday afternoon football games. 

This is not a one-time event! 

Steve Schneider 

Berkeley 

Intersection of Channing and Telegraph a disaster waiting to happen 

The Daily Planet received this letter addressed to Police Chief Dash Butler: 

I realize that it’s the custom in Berkeley, as in many other places, to wait until something disastrous happens before taking action, but I wonder if just this once we might break with tradition and prevent an accident. 

On the corner of Channing Way and Telegraph Avenue, it is usual for many people to cross against the light. Possibly, they were absent from kindergarten the day “green means go and red means stop” was taught, or they’re making a statement against cars, or they still believe they’re immortal, or they’re just plain stupid. 

Often the traffic is really close, not blocks away. If you’re driving, you have to stop short, risking being rear-ended by the next driver. At the same time, there are some cars speeding down Channing Way. 

So far I’ve seen lots of near collisions, but I wonder how long luck will last. If this sounds familiar, it’s because my letter about this several years ago was printed in one of our local papers, but nothing changed. 

Also, less dangerous, is the matter of the 24-7 whimsically enforced Telegraph Avenue loading zone. How about a 20-minute green zone, 8 a.m. - 6 p.m. daily for delivery trucks, pizza eaters, shoppers, errand runners, on-or off-loaders, etc. At present, no one knows what to do. 

Oh yes: clear, readable one-way signs. We have visitors and new people all the time who turn right on Tele and get embarrassed. 

Ruth Joan Bird 

Berkeley 

Republicans share the blame for the Lewinsky scandal 

Editor: 

Again the Republicans are trying to make a campaign issue of President Clinton’s lapse in regard to Lewinsky and in allowing himself to be entrapped by Counsel Starr. 

Nobody mentions the GOP responsibility in the matter. It is time that it was stressed. The Gingrich Republican “revolution” shut down the government and paid employees had to be laid off. Monica Lewinsky was an unpaid intern and had free run of the area and by her own testimony to seduce the president. 

Orrin Hatch, chair of the Senatorial Judicial Committee, had been sitting on Clinton’s judicial appointments so there were only Reagan and Bush appointees on the bench. One of these took the Paula Jones case, nursed it along until Starr brought in President Clinton, gave a misleading definition of “having sex” and Starr managed his questions to entrap Clinton into what could be claimed as a lie. Long after the Jones case had been dismissed on grounds that lay in the original plea, so it should never have come to trial, still months after that the judge hit Clinton with a fine way out of line for the alleged offense. 

Clifton Amsbury 

Richmond

Ever hear of an urodeles? How about a qoph? 

Most of the population would probably think these words aren’t in the lexicon, or would guess that an urodeles is an ancient Greek musical instrument, and if you said qoph, they’d probably tell you to cover your mouth. 

In fact, these words – a type of amphibian and a Hebrew letter – are the ammunition of the Scrabble elite; a group of wordsmiths that get together once a year to, ahem, squabble for the title of the best Scrabbler and a cool $25,000. 

Berkeley’s own Adam Logan, a 25-year-old postdoctoral fellow in mathematics, yes mathematics, at the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute at UC Berkeley is a former champion and Scrabble maven. 

At this year’s National Scrabble Championship in Providence, R.I., Adam finished fourth out of 79 experts to win $2,500 with a record of 21-10. 

The native of Ottawa, Canada, and owner of a Ph.D. in mathematics from Harvard says that he’s been playing Scrabble since he was just a kid. 

“My mother happened to find a book on Scrabble, which I devoured. Subsequently she heard an ad on the radio for the only official tournament that was ever held in my hometown of Ottawa, and somehow talked the organizer into letting me play,” he said. 

Since then, Adam guesses he’s played in 60 tournaments and says his total winnings would be in the range of $30,000 to $35,000, but said he “doesn’t keep track.” 

He said that the overall rankings aren’t quite worked out since the tournament finished on Aug. 10, but estimated that he’s probably fourth overall in the Scrabble ranks. 

In 1996, he won the title and $25,000 in the Scrabble championship. 

So how exactly does a mathematician become a Scrabble champion? 

“There has been much speculation about the cause of this,” he said. “I believe that the general agreement is that a large vocabulary isn’t all that important as it tends to include a lot of words too long to be of any use in the game.” 

“The relevant skills are the ability to find words on your rack, which is a more combinatorial sort of thing, chess-like calculation near the end of the game, and a sort of strategic sense in the midgame. All of which are more of the province of mathematical types,” he said. 

Besides, that whole left-brained right-brained thing is overhyped, right? 

“I think the dichotomy is somewhat false,” he said. “Many mathematicians, in my experience, are very interested in words and word origins.” 

He’s obviously on to something. He said that four out of the last five Scrabble champs have been in the field of mathematics. 

It could be because the scoring system is so dang confusing. At the tail of a tournament Scrabble player’s score is a point spread, in Adam’s case he was 21-10 with a plus 1,116 this year. This number, used in ranking players, is the total points one beats his opponents by, minus the total points his opponents beat him by. 

“If you prefer, the sum of my scores less the sum of their scores,” he said. 

Yvonne Gillispie, one of the National Scrabble Association’s organizers, said Adam played “fantastically” at this year’s competition, the largest in the history of the competition. 

Over 600 players from 40 states and five countries came out to lay down words like “zaribas,” which means impoverished stockades, or “oxeye,” a flowering plant. 

Just to show what kind of player Berkeley’s finest Scrabbler is, Gillispie said that Adam was late on the first day of competition and showed up with just 23 seconds on his clock, but still managed to score 480 points in three minutes and 23 seconds and drummed his opponent 440-293. He was penalized 40 points for going three minutes over. 

“I overslept on the first day,” he said non-chalantly. “Jet lag, misset alarm clock, etc.”

As many as 30 Berkeley High School students may get to spend two weeks as ambassadors to one of the United States’ most inveterate political foes. They’ll live in the homes and study the agrarian ways of their Cuban hosts. 

School Board Vice President Terry Doran says he hopes to send a diverse group of Berkeley High’s finest to Cuba, with the help of the San Francisco non-profit Global Exchange, one of the few organizations in the country licensed as a Cuban Travel Service Provider by the U.S. Treasury Department. 

The school board will be asked Wednesday night to approve the trip. 

Originally planned for November, the trip will probably be tabled until January because of a lack of funds, Doran said.  

“We were a little optimistic and we thought we would be able to raise the money (by November),” he said. “But it’s definitely going to happen.” 

Doran, who hopes to take the trip as well, said that an earlier trip to the island nation with Global Exchange, combined with the introduction of a brand new environmental curriculum at Berkeley High, provided the impetus for the excursion. 

The new environmental program, called Common Ground, will be introduced this school year. It will feature a constellation of 10 environmental courses that will satisfy college requirements for students who plan to study or work in the field in the future. 

Students from the environmental program, as well as from the Communication and Arts and Sciences programs, and some others, will be selected by faculty for the trip, Doran said. 

“Our goal is to have as diverse a group as possible,” he said. “We want the group to reflect the population of Berkeley High.” 

Doran himself took a trip to Cuba with Global Exchange in the summer of 1993 as part of a Cuba Reality Tour offered by the group. 

Malia Everette, Director of the Reality Tours Program for Global Exchange, said that helping the students break through a political barrier and promote person-to-person ties with Cubans their age is a goal for her organization. 

She said it has never been illegal for anyone to travel to Cuba during the four-decade long trade embargo the U.S. has enforced on the country. It has, however, been illegal to spend any money there. 

“Over the years we have been finding different ways for people to travel to Cuba,” she said. “It is one of our most popular destinations because of its isolation.” 

She added that about a year ago the Office of Foreign Assets in the Treasury Dept. issued Global Exchange a specific license to obtain permits for groups to travel to Cuba. 

“We will submit an educational objective for the tour, and we’ll be able to get a license for the students and the teachers,” she said.  

Cuba presents a fantastic opportunity for students studying environmental protection and alternative farming, Everette said. The long-standing trade embargo has forced Cuba to revert back to organic farming procedures, because it has been unable to purchase pesticides and other equipment. 

As a result, Cuba has developed safer alternatives to sustaining the food supply, she said. 

Global Exchange has taken students to Cuba from other Bay Area high schools, Everette said. The School Board is in touch with faculty from one of them – Redwood City High School – to help with the process. 

Besides the academic and practical motivation, Everette said that the students will get the chance to “meet their Cuban counterparts.” 

“They’ll see what it’s like to live in an (isolated) country of 11 million and see how they’ve been able to survive, and thrive.” 

Doran said that the School Board is working on developing a list of possible individuals interested in sponsoring students. He added that a few musical groups have offered their time to hold benefits for the students. 

He estimated the trip would cost about $1,500 per student. 

“Each student will be committed to raising a portion of the cost, depending on what is realistic, like $500 to $700. We hope to subsidize the rest.” 

He said that he hopes to take between 15 and 30 students, and says that he would love to take more. But “it all depends on raising the funds,” he said. 

Doran said that he hopes the interest of students and other groups in Cuba will help ease the economic and political tension between the U.S. and Cuba. 

“The benefit of direct people-to-people contact, and the exchanging of ideas is very important to working toward that goal,” he said. 

He said that it’s their intention to arrange for the students to stay with Cuban families, and perhaps, “have a few Cuban exchange students attend Berkeley High next year,” he said. 

People interested in supporting the students can contact Doran at 644-6550.

In the final part of a three-part interview with Deputy City Manager Weldon Rucker, who will begin a stint as interim city manager next week, Rucker speaks to the Daily Planet about how he plans to help the council streamline its workload. 

Daily Planet: Does the city manager’s office play a role, or ought it to play a role, in organizing the City Council’s workload? 

RUCKER: Well, that’s a major role the city manager’s office needs to play. I just think there’s been such an abundance of issues that have surfaced. As a result, I think the council agenda has become somewhat overwhelming and on overload. I think we’re going to have to work a little closer with the mayor and the council-majority leadership to focus on dealing with conducting the business of the council agenda and making the meetings more efficient.  

DP: How would you do that? 

RUCKER: One way to do that is we have to get to a realization that we can’t do everything. They just can’t place all the items on the agenda, every week and expect some type of work plan completion out of some of these ideas.  

I think they’re going to have to be a little more diligent and strategic about their recommendations and start holding themselves to a similar standard that they hold the city staff to in preparation of items and the number of items. One thing that I intend to do is to try to get a lot of those items that have just been riding the agenda, off the agenda. 

From that standpoint, I intend to meet – I’ve requested the city clerk to take a look at identifying all of the outstanding items on the agenda, who sponsored the item, and who had a concern with the item. And to try to facilitate a collaboration between those individual council members to see if we can arrive at: what is the problem? is there a simple solution to this? Is it possible to move the item forward? 

If there is a need to have a tremendous debate over an item, well, that’s fine. But is it really worthy of a tremendous debate? needs to be determined.  

I think a lot at it is an attempt to get them to have a dialogue on some of these issues, recognizing that the council has a responsibility to conduct the affairs of the meeting and the business affairs of the city in a way that is conducive and responsive to the public. They are going to have to figure out a way to start talking to one another and compromising on some of this behavior that has been demonstrative of the last several months. 

DP: That’s pretty general. That’s what people say is needed, but...  

RUCKER: But to actually sit down. Well, I intend to talk to them and say, look, would you mind having a meeting with me and Councilmember So and So, so we can discuss this item? I don’t know how more specific I can get. If they say no, I’d say, “Come on, we have to take care of some business here. We have to have some responsibility.”  

DP: So, you’re going to work directly with the council. 

RUCKER: Yes, I don’t think we can do it publicly. That’s when you get into difficulty. I think as I’m meeting with them and I see these issues as impediments to conducting the business, then we’re going to have to figure out a way to communicate and so trying to get them to focus. Really, I think they try to do too much.  

On one level, it’s fine to say, yes, “we’re doing this and that,” but you’re not really doing it. 

Let’s be strategic about helping to shape the agenda. That’s what I think is necessary, getting the leadership of the council – the mayor and the leadership from the other side – for me to sit down with them to help with the agenda. 

Maybe I’m naive, maybe it’s a very simplistic approach. But I think that’s where we’re going to start? But I think that if people communicate and have dialog around any issue, then I think we can begin to arrive at some kind of solution of resolution. If we are behaving “Well, I can’t talk to you and you can’t talk to me,” well, that’s not really providing leadership in my opinion. 

And I’ve witnessed some councilmembers of the past, they would have tremendous debates over issues that they would carry throughout the night over an issue and continue it to the next week. For the most part, there wasn’t the same level of intensity. 

DP: You’re saying, before, there was one issue that they’d debate. Now it’s a lot more issues.  

RUCKER: Yeah, there’s no differentiation between a pothole or a major million dollar expenditure. And there are some philosophical issues that divide the council. And that’s fine. That’s the beauty of democracy, but, you know, in any democratic forum they debate and discuss the issues in a way that people are very passionate about and they say what they have to say, then you vote it up or vote it down. And then you move on. 

But all this other stuff. So again, I may be very naive. They may say, well, “One thing I agree on is I want you out of here.” That’s a possibility, I don’t know. 

You know, I don’t have anything to lose. I feel I can be very honest with the council. I can take those kinds of risks. Going back to your earlier question, about how I feel being an “acting” or “interim” manager, or whatever I’m going to be, it really doesn’t matter to me, because I’m going to be myself. I’m going to be very direct and very honest.  

And I’m also very respectful of them. They have a heck of a job. The problem is that they take on  

I’m respectful of them. They do a lot of work. Most of them work way beyond what they are required to work. When you look at the charter, it’s really a part-time position.  

But, some of them work seven days a week, 10-15-20 hours a day. I respect each and every one of them and the amount of energy they devote to this.  

But the question is, collectively, how do we pull all this together.

Berkeley Police say that two armed robberies a week apart may be connected.  

Sgt. Cary Kent said the description of two suspects who are believed to have robbed a man and a woman in a parked car Aug. 3 on Parkside Drive and The Uplands at gunpoint, fit the description of two suspects believed to have committed another armed robbery Aug. 10 at 1:22 a.m. on the 2500 block of Hillegas Avenue. 

Kent said that the suspects are both “scruffy-looking” white males in their 20s. One commits the robbery with a semi-automatic handgun while the other provides the getaway vehicle, he said. 

Kent said one suspect was described as being between 5 feet 10 inches and 6 feet tall, weighing around 180 pounds. He was reported to be wearing a black leather jacket during the first robbery, and a three-quarter length blue parka during the second. 

The driver’s description is sketchy. He was said to be driving a white, two-door sedan during the first robbery. The car used in the second robbery was described as a boxy, perhaps black, older American-make automobile, Kent said.

University Avenue is a mess, with holes bored into the ground and orange and white sandwich boards dotting the streets and sidewalk. These board’s, often decorated with bright yellow “caution” tape are meant to protect passersby and automobiles from the gaps in the sidewalk and streets, but it’s not unusual to see the signs displaced and lying helter skelter on their sides. 

All this is for beauty. 

University Avenue between Oxford and Milvia streets has been benefiting, since May, from a bond-funded upgrade, but University Avenue merchants are getting sick of the mess and say they’re losing money. 

Mike Tami, owner of the Au Coquelet Cafe at 2000 University Ave. said he was willing to put up with three weeks of construction along his side of the street. That’s the time-frame he was given for the work, he said. 

Now, almost three months later, Tami and other merchants along the stretch say they are losing money and are anxious for the project to be completed.  

Workers are installing new lighting, improving the sidewalk and crosswalks and planting 39 new trees as part of a $4 million downtown improvement project funded by Measure S, passed by voters in 1996. 

Tami estimates that he has lost over 15 percent in business since the construction began. Frank Caramagno of Caramagno’s Barber Shop at 2018 University says he’s lost 35 percent.  

“They said three or four weeks for each side of the street,” Tami said, referring to an estimate given to him by City Project Engineer Sam Lee. 

Lee said that unforeseen circumstances have caused the delay along Tami’s block – University Ave. from Milvia Street to Shattuck Avenue – but he said the city is right on schedule with the timetable set by the Downtown Business Association, which was June 1 to Sept. 1. 

Lee said the work along the south side of University from Milvia Street to Shattuck Avenue has taken longer than expected because of connection problems with underground utilities. 

He said that the city is sensitive to the needs of the merchants, and that is why they had hoped to work on one side of the road at a time. 

Nonetheless, ground was broken on the north side of University just last week with unfinished work on the south side, including unfinished crosswalks and wheelchair ramps. The construction on both sides of the street means parking spaces on both the north and the south sides are used by construction crews.  

The merchants say that the lack of parking is the biggest problem. 

Lee says it will all be finished in a couple of weeks 

“It will be completed, except for the planting of the trees, in two or three weeks,” Lee said. He added that the city asked the contractors, Bauman Landscape, to hurry because of the complaints of the merchants. 

Not everyone is losing money because of the construction. Vera Nokham, a stylist at Gentle Hair Cuts at 2043 University, said that it’s been business as usual since construction began. 

“I guess it depends on the kind of business,” she said. “It hasn’t affected us. But we have a regular customer base. I could see the restaurants losing some business because of the sidewalk (construction).” 

Tami says that when the curbside parking gets scarce on the north side of the street, as it has been for a little more than a week, those businesses will begin to suffer. 

“It’s unfair that our (curbside) parking has been blocked off for so long,” he said.

Tuesday, August 15

LaTeX 500 electronic  

typesetting Course in  

Statistics 

1-5 p.m. 

University of California Department of Statistics 

330 Evans Hall  

This non-credit course consists of a brief overview of word processors and electric typesetting systems, the basics of producing documents in LaTeX, an introduction to mathematical typesetting, case studies of problem solving and macro development techniques in LaTeX.  

Course fee is $95. Class size is limited, for space reservation call 643-6131. For information visit the website ate www.stat.berkeley.edu. 

AC/BART Regional Transit ID  

Photos 

1-3 p.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center 

1901 Hearst and MLK Jr. Way 

Bring photo ID. 

644-6107 

Senior Resource Fair 

9:30 a.m. - 1:30 p.m. 

South Berkeley Senior Center 

2939 Ellis Street 

Participants include the Alameda County Area Agency on Aging, Center for Independent Living, Alameda County Commission on Aging, Community Energy Services Inc., Center for Elders Independence, Crisis Support Services, Social Security Administration, Lifelong Medical Care, Family Care Giver Alliance, Public Health Nursing, Ombudsman Inc., Adult Protective Services, Elder Abuse Prevention, Berkeley Fire and Police Department of Community Services and Senior Programs. Entertainment provide by "SBSC Fantastic Steppers Tap Group." Free gift drawing for senior participants and lunch and socialization. 

644-6109 

Understanding Your Child’s  

Temperament 

7-8:30 p.m. 

Berkeley YMCA 

2001 Allston Way 

Rona Renner, RN, will explain the different temperament factors that parents and caregivers can look at to understand techniques that will work best in working with an individual child. Free. 

Fibromyalgia Support Group 

12-2 p.m. 

Alta Bates Medical Center, Maffly Auditorium-Herrick Campus, 2001 Dwight Way 

“How to Deal with the Physical and Emotional Aspect of Pain” with Dr. Francine S. Frome, Ph.D., Psychologist, 

601-0550 

“101 Great Hikes of the San  

Francisco Bay Area” 

7:30 p.m. 

Easy Going Travel Shop and Bookstore 

1385 Shattuck Ave. 

Discover the natural beauty of the Bay Area from challenging hikes atop Mount Diablo to seashore strolls at Point Reyes. 

843-3533 

“Psychic Phenomenon, ESP,  

etc.: Are they real?” 

7-9 p.m. 

Jewish Community Center 

1414 Walnut Ave. 

Come for a free discussion and social group, open to everyone regardless of age, religion or view point. 

527-5332 

Wednesday, Aug. 16

Bridge 

1 p.m. 

Live Oak Community Center 

1301 Shattuck Ave. 

The games are open to all players. For partnership and other information please call Vi Kimoto at 223-6539. 

Citizens Human Commission  

Meeting 

7 p.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center 

1901 Hearst Ave. 

Agenda items include a euthanasia policy and the commission’s role in plans for a new shelter. 

Human Welfare & Community  

Action Commission Meeting 

7-10 p.m. 

South Berkeley Center  

2939 Ellis St. 

Issues on the agenda include the use of child care training stipends. 

665-3475 

Recipe Demonstration 

11:30 a.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center 

1901 Hearst and MLK Jr. Way 

Chill out in the August heat with Natalie. 

644-6107 

Thursday, August 17

Conscious Comedy 

6-9 p.m. 

Martin Luther King Youth Services Center 

1730 Oregon St. 

The Young Adult Project presents its annual end-of the-summer program, which will include veteran stand-up comedians Daryl and Dwayne Mooney, whose comedy is designed to make people laugh and think. 

644-6226

Editor: 

Now, folks, it’s official -- “Nuclear Sites Called Permanently Unsafe” (NY Times, August 8). The Times further states “contamination is spreading.” The piano players in the nuclear whorehouse, the Department of Energy at UC Berkeley, have had their sheet music pulled. 

Many of us have pointed this out over the years, the most recent being the Planet’s report on Fredrica Drotos’ storming out on another unproductive session by the Rad Lab. 

On this business of nuclear sites being “permanently unsafe,” I had an experience last year that underscores this point. My path crossed a scientist who works in Silicon Valley, and this is what he told me: He had just come back from vacation when he found he was slightly radioactive. Everytime he passed from one station to another, the control beam started flashing. So they called him in to find out what was going on.  

“Where did you go for your vacation?” 

“Northern Canada on an elk-hunting trip.” 

“Did you eat any of the elk meat?” 

“Yes sir.” 

That did it. The elk were radioactive from eating the grass and shrubs in the fallout area of the atmospheric A-Bombs exploded during the cold war 30 years ago. The fallout was still in the grass, and it was still in him. 

George Kauffman 

Berkeley

Deputy City Manger Weldon Rucker is getting ready to take the helm of the city as interim City Manager. In this, the second of a three-part interview, Rucker talks to the Daily Planet about the Neighborhood Services Initiative, a plan to divide the city into quadrants, with a NSI manager in each. 

DP: What’s happening with the Neighborhood Services Initiative? 

RUCKER: That’s still very real and very close to implementation. I think part of the delay has been the transition with the manager leaving. We haven’t finalized some of the decisions, such as who the individuals (who get the jobs) are.  

DP: Have you narrowed it down? 

RUCKER: Yes, it’s pretty much narrowed down. We had it down to about six individuals and we interviewed those six. 

DP: And it will be four that are chose. 

RUCKER: Yes, so I would say sometime before (City Manager) Jim (Keene) leaves or shortly after Jim leaves, we’ll make some announcements. 

DP: So he could play a role in the final selection. 

RUCKER: He’s still, technically, he’s the city manager up until next week, so... 

DP: Isn’t that a little strange for him to make such a major decision right before he leaves? 

RUCKER: Well, I think if we’re in agreement, it shouldn’t be that difficult. He’s been involved throughout the process and I’m sure that he would like to have his input into making the decision. But I would doubt that we would have huge differences, if any. Part of the problem has been the difficulty of just having the final discussion, because of his time schedule and my time schedule.  

DP: Why did the council never discuss this issue? 

RUCKER: Why did they never discuss it? I don’t quite follow you. 

DP: This is a major internal bureaucratic change. Why did the City Council never discuss this? They discuss moving fences, and they discuss signs and they discuss all sorts of things. 

RUCKER: They actually discussed it on June 6, I believe. 

DP: It was presented to them, but unless I’m having a major memory lapse, it was not discussed. It was presented. 

RUCKER: I think, yeah 

DP: They had a whole budget to discuss that night. 

RUCKER: It was presented as a package, under the customer services umbrella and I think that the neighborhood services is a piece of that. It will be coming forward. 

DP: It will be coming forward to the council? 

RUCKER: In terms of different pieces. To purchase the software for the City Center, the telephone system, things of that nature. I think in terms of the staffing, I think we will provide them with our decision on how we were able to fund it within existing resources. So, because it is really like a managerial kind of decision and a managerial kind of proposal. 

They (the council) are pretty much in tune with it, I would think. They know what’s happening. Then when we had discussions about me taking this position – not talking out of closed session – we discussed this being an important component of the whole customer service and community relationship. 

So, we’ll see. And plus it’s like, we’re moving toward the implementation stage, but it’s still a work in progress. It’s not like, this is the done deal and keep out. We still have some work to do and some engaging and so forth.  

One thing we did, with the staff a week or so ago, was have a number of staff – I would say we had over 50 staff outside the police department. The police department has this National Night Out program and they always have their personnel go around to these various venues, but this year we accompanied the police and with that, a number of people were out engaging with the community that never get out there. And so there were over 50 people from across the organization.  

People like myself – well, I’m out there a lot – (Deputy City Manager) Phil Kamlarz, (City Attorney) Manuela Albuquerque, (Information Technology Director) Chris Mead, Barbara Attard from the Police Review Commission, (Fire Chief) Reggie Garcia, from just the leadership team and then there were others like the (Service Employees International Union) 790 clerical chapter president and the 790 maintenance chapter president, then you have staff from finance and health and human services and public works workers.  

It was just, “Hey, how are you doing, I’m so and so, good to meet you.” It was just getting to know people. 

DP: Were people pretty pleased with that? 

RUCKER: They were excited. It has been a one-dimensional police activity. They’ve done a great job, attempting to relate and build community relationships, but here comes these other folks. You move around to different venues. They had these things all over town. So we divided up, sort of like they did with the police and went around.  

Someone like a Manuela out there or a Barbara Attard to see the community to see the police from a different vantage point rather than the adversary. It is like just talking to people. It was great to see people. There were a few situations where people said they had a problem with this or that and there were situations where we were able to determine that we need to do some work on and “We’re missing the boat, here.” 

For example at 63rd and California streets. I couldn’t believe the number of children that reside right on that block in the area near that mini park. OK Fred Madrano, something is wrong with this picture. We have this health disparity, issues around health. We have health personnel. We have youth personnel, recreation personnel. How do we start maximizing our resources to deal more strategically and intelligently and engaging the community more. As a result, there’s a small group that’s going to follow up to see about developing a project about bringing that all together. 

DP: What group is that? 

RUCKER: Fred is going to be involved. Arietta Chekos. As a matter of fact, she went out to get with some of the other health people and recreation people. 

DP: That’s (census tract) 4240, isn’t it? That’s the target census tract. (Targeted by the health personnel as the first census tract to impact, because of its poor health outcomes, low income and other disparities.) 

ROCKER: It’s like right where we’re supposed to be. It was very educational for us as well as for the community. 

The group on Alcatraz, in the 1600, 1500, 1400 block, where they did a lot of work with installing the new street lights, working with the community. They were very delighted to see us out there, very appreciative of the work that’s taken place over the last couple of years. They were really empowered from the standpoint of them growing and feeling of some sense of community. 

When they initially started the process, they were only able to select maybe three or four individuals to participate. Now they had over 40 people, the group leader said, that met at the new Over 60 Community Center, another enhancement to that particular neighborhood. 

Just the sense of the city being interactive and engaging and the neighborhood growing in a way with its own power, so it can start taking care of some things, and there’s an exchange of information. That was a plus. 

In general, the people were just out having a good time, very pleased to see us out. I think the police were very encouraged and pleased. Again, they’ve been carrying this community involved policing which is a way of interacting with the community. 

They’ve been carrying the baggage for a long time. That’s what we really want to accomplish, getting the work force more involved, and out there, participating, getting to know on their turf and their level, really establishing a partnership, solve problems, generating some creativity around issues.  

It was a very inspiring process. And I think it’s going to jump start us. Because there’s some fear about it – “Oh you’ve got to deal with the community.” This is a major organizational shift. For us to be out the, whoa, that was a major step. For some staff to even be in the police squad room. 

DP: I bet it was the first time some of them had been at California and 63rd street. 

RUCKER: Oh, definitely. For that exchange and that action to take place, that part was worth while. We’ll be in a great position to jump start (the Neighborhood Services Initiative). And I’d say that next year at this time, we won’t have to rely on just the National Night Out. We can have regular engagements and encounters and interactions with the community in a very positive way. These are the people that we serve. We don’t have to be fearful of the community. These are the people that we serve.  

Our purpose for being is to serve them. Are how are we going to understand them just from where we sit in the organization? 

It’s like from 1900 Addison, 63rd Street looks pretty good from here. And then when you get down there, you say, “Whoa, we have some work to do.” I think, people pulling together broke down a lot of the barriers, “Well, this is just my area,” “This is my concern.” 

That was great. 

In an election that could tip the scales in favor of the moderate council minority, more than a dozen City Council candidates appear ready to run for office. 

Filing closed Friday at 5 p.m. for all offices except those where incumbents are not running. So races for Council District 5, the School Board and the Rent Stabilization Board are open until Wednesday at 5 p.m. 

The candidacy of one District 2 candidate, substitute teacher and former mayoral candidate Jon Crowder, is in doubt, however. Crowder may have returned too few valid signatures, City Clerk Sherry Kelly said Monday. The county voter registrar is trying to ascertain whether some of the signatories, who appear not to be registered to vote, may be, in fact be registered voters. 

One of the hardest-fought election battles could be waged in District 2, where liberal/progressive Margaret Breland faces retired postmaster Betty Hicks, whom moderate faction leader Mayor Shirley Dean has endorsed. 

Breland has won the endorsement of the traditionally progressive faction, including Rep. Barbara Lee (d-Oakland), Assembly member Dion Aroner, Vice Mayor Maudelle Shirek, Councilmember Linda Maio, School Board President Joaquin Rivera and School Board Member Terry Doran. Former mayor Loni Hancock has also thrown her support to Breland. 

Hicks has picked up Dean’s support and also has the backing of some of those who have long been involved in the San Pablo Neighborhood Council, although the council itself does not make political endorsements. Kermit Bayless, president of the San Pablo Park Neighborhood Council, has endorsed Hicks, as has Thelette Bennett, vice principal at Longfellow School. 

The two other District 2 candidates appear unaligned with either of the two major factions. 

Pastor Carol Hughes-Willoughby, vice chair of the city’s Human Welfare Community Action Committee is also a District 2 candidate. She was the first to sign up to make a run for any office. Another District 2 candidate is Gina Sasso, mailing services manager and computer consultant, who has run for the office previously. 

If Crowder is permitted to run, he will be the fifth candidate in that district. 

Vice Mayor Maudelle Shirek’s list of endorsers are similar to Breland’s. They include Lee, Aroner, Hancock Maio, Breland and Councilmembers Kriss Worthington and Margaret Breland, Rent Board Member Max Anderson, former school board member Barbara Lubin and a number of other commissioners. 

Shirek will face James Peterson, a housing developer and business consultant who, ironically, is Shirek’s appointee on the Zoning Adjustment’s board. She’ll also face Marcella Crump-Williams, an unemployed federal employee and block captain for the 63rd Street Neighborhood Watch.  

Dean has not made an early endorsement in this race. 

In District 6, Dean ally Betty Olds is supported by the mayor and School Board members Pamela Doolan and Shirley Issel and notables, Orville Schell, journalist, Chang Lin Tien, former UC Berkeley chancellor, Dennis Kuby, former president of the Chamber of Commerce and Thom Seaton, former president of Congregation Beth El. 

Olds is challenged by Eleanor Pepples, a strategic development analyst and Norine Smith, co-founder of Citizens for Responsible Planning. 

Following the announcement by Councilmember Diane Woolley that she would not seek re-election, a number of candidates have surfaced in District 5. They are Mark Fowler, a notary public and start-up business consultant, AC Transit Director Miriam Hawley, Benjamin Rodefer, an art dealer and Thomas Kelly, a grants coordinator. These candidates need to return election documents by Wednesday.

Saturday, August 12

“Wild about Books” 

10:30 a.m. 

Berkeley Public Central Library 

2121 Allston Way 

“Something From Nothing.” Soup from a stone? A tailor whose wardrobe grows as it shrinks? Meet some folks who don’t need a lot to have a lot, and see Frog and Toad and their ice cream mix-up. 

Berkeley Farmers’ Market 

10 a.m.-3 p.m. 

Center Street between Martin Luther King Jr. Way and Milvia Street 

548-3333 

The Fellowship of Humanity 

11 a.m. 

411 28th St. at Broadway 

Oakland 

Staring with Mark Hertsgaard’s “Earth Odyssey,” Florence Windfall, Master of Divinity, Graduate Theological Union, contemplates the tragic end of nature. Can it really happen? 

451-5818 

9th Annual Rubber Ducky  

Derby 

6 p.m. 

Waterworld USA 

I-680 and Willow Pass Rd. 

The Rubber Ducky Derby raises funds for Children’s Hospital. Donations are $5 for each duck. Six ducks can be sponsored for $25. For a donation of $100–$499, a duck will be entered in the special Duckling rack. A donation of $500 ensures the donor “Quacker Backer” status. 

869-4912 

www.rubberduckyderby.com 

Movie Night at Underhill 

9 p.m. 

Mad Max and The Road Warrior.  

Underhill parking lot (College Ave. and Channing Way) 

The weekly event is sponsored by people protesting the university’s plans to build a parking structure rather than housing on the Undershill site. 

http://www.bclu.org/underhill/ 

Call: CREW-CUT 

Sunday, August 13

Free Hands-on Bicycle Repair  

Clinics 

11 a.m.-12 noon 

REI  

1388 San Pablo 

Come learn how to fix your own bicycle. Bike technicians will teach a free one-hour clinic covering drive train maintenance and chain repair. All you need to bring is your bike. Tools and expert guidance provided. 

527-7377 

Green Party Consensus  

Building Meeting 

6 p.m. 

2022 Blake St. 

This is part of an ongoing series of discussions for the Green Party of Alameda County, leading up to endorsements on measures and candidates on the November ballot. The meeting is open to all, regardless of party affiliation. 

415-789-8418 

Rhyme and Reason Open  

Mike Series 

2:30 p.m. 

UC Berkeley Art Museum, 2621 Durant Ave. 

The public and students are invited. Signups for the open mike begin at 2 p.m. 

234-0727 or 642-5168 

Tuesday, August 15

Senior Resource Fair 

9:30 a.m. - 1:30 p.m. 

South Berkeley Senior Center 

2939 Ellis Street 

Participants include the Alameda County Area Agency on Aging, Center for Independent Living, Alameda County Commission on Aging, Community Energy Services Inc., Center for Elders Independence, Crisis Support Services, Social Security Administration, Lifelong Medical Care, Family Care Giver Alliance, Public Health Nursing, Ombudsman Inc., Adult Protective Services, Elder Abuse Prevention, Berkeley Fire and Police Department of Community Services and Senior Programs. Entertainment provide by "SBSC Fantastic Steppers Tap Group." Free gift drawing for senior participants and lunch and socialization. 

644-6109 

Understanding Your Child’s  

Temperament 

7-8:30 p.m. 

Berkeley YMCA 

2001 Allston Way 

Rona Renner, RN, will explain the different temperament factors that parents and caregivers can look at to understand techniques that will work best in working with an individual child. Free. 

Fibromyalgia Support Group 

12-2 p.m. 

Alta Bates Medical Center, Maffly Auditorium-Herrick Campus, 2001 Dwight Way 

“How to Deal with the Physical and Emotional Aspect of Pain” with Dr. Francine S. Frome, Ph.D., Psychologist, 

601-0550 

“101 Great Hikes of the San  

Francisco Bay Area” 

7:30 p.m. 

Easy Going Travel Shop and Bookstore 

1385 Shattuck Ave. 

Discover the natural beauty of the Bay Area from challenging hikes atop Mount Diablo to seashore strolls at Point Reyes. 

843-3533 

“Psychic Phenomenon, ESP, etc.: Are they real?” 

7 p.m.-9 p.m. 

Jewish Community Center 

1414 Walnut Ave. 

Come for a free discussion and social group, open to everyone regardless of age, religion or view point. 

527-5332 

Wednesday, Aug. 16

Bridge 

1 p.m. 

Live Oak Community Center 

1301 Shattuck Ave. 

The games are open to all players. For partnership and other information please call Vi Kimoto at (510) 223-6539. 

Human Welfare & Community  

Action Commission Meeting 

7-10 p.m. 

South Berkeley Center, 2939 Ellis St. 

Issues on the agenda include the use of child care training stipends. 

665-3475 

Citizens Human Commission  

Meeting 

7 p.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center, 1901 Hearst Ave. 

Agenda items include a euthenasia policy and the commission’s role in plans for a new shelter. 

Thursday, August 17

“Best Sea Kayaking Trips in  

Northern California” 

7:00 p.m. 

REI 1338 San Pablo Ave. 

In tonight’s slide presentation nationally certified kayak instructors Roger Schumann and Jan Shriner will share information from their Guide to Sea Kayaking in Central and Northern California.  

527-7377 

Helen Nestor: Personal and  

Political 

4-6 p.m. 

Oakland Museum of California 

10th and Oak Streets, Oakland 

Opening reception honoring Berkeley photographer Helen Nestor. The exhibition shows a representative series of images documenting the Free Speech Movement, the ‘60s cicl rights marches, women’s issues-all seen with a direct, probing eye. The exhibition on view through Oct. 15, 2000 

1-800-OAK MUSE 

University Avenue Association  

6:30 p.m. 

1810 University Ave. 

The University Avenue Merchants holds its monthly meeting. 

Call 548-4110 

Friday, August 18

Big Mountain 

7:30 p.m. 

Ecology Center 

2530 San Pablo Ave. 

Join the Berkeley Ecology Center, Diane Patterson and Green Eye Records Foundation for an evening of music, information and community, focusing on the issues facing the Dineh (Navajo).  

548-2220, ext. 233  

Saturday, August 19

“Wild about Books” 

10:30 a.m. 

Berkeley Public Central Library 

2121 Allston Way 

“Soap and Water, Please!” Bath time isn’t always the same old thing when “There’s a Hippo in  

My Bath!” Take a dip with Frog and Toad. 

Re-opening of the United  

Nations Association Info  

Center 

11 a.m. - 5 p.m. 

1403 “B” Addison St. 

The volunteer-operated UN/UNICEF Center will celebrate its grand re-opening at its new location behind Andronico’s University Ave. Market. 

841-1752 

Sunday, August 20

Cuba from the Inside 

Berkeley Fellowship Hall 

Cedar and Bonita 

7 p.m. 

Benefit screening of Fidel: A New Documentary by Estela Bravo. Special guests will include Karen Wald, a Havana-based writer, journalist, teacher and foreign correspondent. 

Among the topics she will discuss are human rights, religion, health care, education, economics, race relations and US-Cuba relations. 

Sliding scale $10-$25 per person. 

Free Hands-on Bicycle Repair  

Clinics  

11:00 a.m.-noon noon 

REI  

1388 San Pablo 

Come learn how to fix your own bicycle. Bike technicians will teach a free one-hour clinic covering brake adjustments. Bring your bike. Tools and guidance provided. 

527-7377

Whales and quails and bears – oh my! 

Would you believe that a century ago all of the above exotic beasties wandered the streets (or waterfronts) of Berkeley? Well, it’s true. And we’ve got the news articles to prove it.  

Turn-of-the-century Berkeley was a city on the move, a “thriving metropolis” of 15,000 souls (up from a mere 12 – not 12,000 but 12 -- in the mid 1850s). Yet despite all the trappings of modern life – automobiles, streetcars, indoor plumbing – the city was still often visited by vestiges of its past.  

“Sometimes I think all this development is like erasing somebody’s face, like smoothing over and erasing all the features from the city’s face,” says Richard Schwartz, whose new book “Berkeley 1900” is a compilation of over 650 turn-of-the-century Berkeley Gazette articles reporting on day-to-day life during the city’s adolescence. “(Turn-of-the-century Berkeleyeans) stood on one of the cusps of history. They stood on a ridge looking back at the past and seeing agrarianism, farms with animals and wild animal life. Looking on the other side of the ridge they saw the town’s future with houses taking over for farms, no more wild animals, industry and technology.” 

Schwartz, a Philadelphia native who moved west to Berkeley in 1973 and hasn’t looked back, never intended to pen “Berkeley 1900.” All the building contractor and local historian intended to do when he walked through the doors of the Berkeley Historical Society in 1997 was watch a grainy old film of a trolley car rolling down city streets. What he found instead, however, was a stack of century-old, mildewed newspapers waiting to be thrown out.  

Schwartz volunteered to take custody of the papers, began perusing his catch and found he couldn’t put them down.  

“I don’t need to know any more about Shattuck, Hillegas, Blake and Durant. Here are stories about people just like me, working people whose lives are illuminated for just one moment,” says Schwartz. “It was my job to save these stories from turning into dust. I started copying at the copy store every night after work. I ended up with 30 piles on my living room floor.” 

Those 30 piles became the 30 chapters of “Berkeley 1900,” separated by subject matter such as “Animals,” “Saloons and the Temperance Movement,” and, a particularly explosive section, “Powder Mills,” The lush foliage thriving atop Albany Hill was originally planted as an explosion break between the city and the mills, which used to be located near the present site of the Albany Race Track.  

Schwartz’s painstaking compilation and its delightful photographs of semi-developed Berkeley reveals volumes about a town with a foot planted firmly in both the past and present.  

A 1905 article informs of the aforementioned bear, “about the size of a full-grown Newfoundland dog” scaring the fertilizer out of local residents, along with four-and-a-half foot long snakes emerging from the barns on Durant and Shattuck avenues, or pods of lively whales lifting trading ships out of the Bay waters.  

When monster snakes weren’t emerging from Berkeley’s notoriously muddy streets, antediluvian motor cars, animal carts, key route trains and overly aggressive pedestrians crowded them to the breaking point. Schwartz’s book is overflowing with articles recounting train accidents, primordial road rage, pedestrian mishaps and, most notably, runaway horses terrorizing the city streets. The powerful animals usually ran rampant until a brave individual chased them down. 

“One lady was holding the reins in one hand just flying down Shattuck trying to pass a bundle off to anyone who could grab it. Someone got it and it turned out it was her baby,” recounts Schwartz. “The shoeshine guy stopped the horses. That was the day his life was in the paper.” 

Turn-of-the-century Berkeleyites undertook a number of heroic deeds. They extinguished burning buildings, saved strangers from train wrecks and pulled oblivious toddlers out of the paths of oncoming trolleys. The well-armed locals also, however, filled themselves and each other full of lead by accident and on purpose. And, most bitterly, the disdain the town’s Anglo population felt for racial minorities is lucidly caught in the overtly racist tone of the century-old articles. 

“A Chinaman would just as soon kill a man as be friendly with him and his religion bears him out in this,” reads a sobering editorial that ran on March 3, 1900. “The Chinaman should be kept under strict and rigid laws and not allowed the freedom he at present enjoys.” 

The way in which the articles Schwartz has compiled are written often tells more about society than what they were actually written about. In addition to Asians, African-Americans, Gypsies, Italians (“dark-skinned foreigners”) and Greeks (“objectionable peanut vendors”) also felt the scorn of the local press.  

“One of the main things these articles presented to me was how fear of losing your livelihood leads to hate,” says Schwartz. “What Asians went through 100 years ago is a much-neglected chapter of Berkeley history. Maybe we would do well to know why.” 

Not every aspect of the city’s past generates pride, much as the book’s many photographs of unspoiled wavy fields and grassy mountains may induce a touch of sorrow as well. We have progressed – but at what cost?  

“When you drive through Sonoma and Vacaville and see all the open land, it forces you to be reminded that Berkeley was once a frontier as well,” says Schwartz. “It’s amazing how different and the same things were at the same time. And that’s not something you can resolve. You hold them both. Both are true.  

“That’s what this book is here to do,” continues the author. “To bring the little people’s story to light as best as I could.”

Patients got care during strike 

Editor: 

During the two-day strike by Local 250 on August 2 and 3, Alta Bates Summit Medical Center employees worked very hard to ensure patients come first. The overwhelming majority of our employees and clinicians chose to come to work – including more than 30 percent of our Local 250 employees – they kept a promise to our patients that we will be here to care for them, whenever they need our help. 

More than 650 inpatients were cared for each day of the strike. Nurses, physicians, volunteers, and employees from departments throughout the hospital worked together to make patients comfortable and secure.  

Our caregivers know that anyone who is hospitalized never forgets that hospital stay. It is a critical time for those who welcome a new baby into the world, sit by the bedside of a loved one or suffer the loss of someone close.  

What would have happened to even one of the patients who needed our hospitals if care were unavailable to them?  

Hospitals and the care provided can never stop. For example, during the two day strike, on August 2 and 3: 

• 51 babies were born during that two day period. We were here for those new families. 

• 7 new babies were admitted to our Newborn Intensive Care Nurseries. We were here for those vulnerable infants. 

• 409 people were cared for in our Emergency Departments. We were here, helping patients get the urgent help they needed. 

• 133 surgeries were performed. We were here, helping patients receive the care they deserve. 

• 52 patients reside in our subacute unit. We were here, watching over them and making them more comfortable. 

What would have happened to even one of these patients had we not been here for them? 

The medical staffs of our hospitals are very grateful that so many of our health care workers came to work to care for those who needed our care. You kept the promise — you put patients first.  

Barry Horn, MD, President, Alta Bates Medical Staff 

Sam Dong, MD, President, Summit Medical Staff

MUSEUMS 

Habitot Children’s Museum 

Kittredge Street and Shattuck Avenue 

“Back to the Farm.”  

Ongoing 

An interactive exhibit gives children the chance to wiggle through tunnels like an earthworm, look into a mirrored fish pond, don farm animal costumes, ride on a John Deere tractor and more.  

Cost: $4 adults; $6 children age 7 and under; $3 for each additional child age 7 and under.  

Monday and Wednesday, 9:30 a.m. to 1 p.m.; Tuesday and Friday, 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Thursday, 9:30 a.m. to 7 p.m.; Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Sunday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.  

647-1111 or www.habitot.org 

Judah L. Magnes Museum 

2911 Russell St.,  

549-6950 

Free. 

Sunday through Thursday, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. 

“Telling Time: To Everything There Is A Season” 

Through May 2002.  

An exhibit structured around the seasons of the year and the seasons of life with objects ranging from the sacred and the secular, to the provocative and the whimsical. Highlights include treasures from Jewish ceremonial and folk art, rare books and manuscripts, contemporary and traditional fine art, video, photography and cultural kitsch. 

“Spring and Summer.”  

Through Nov. 4. 

“Chagall: Master Prints and Posters, Selections from the Magnes Museum Collection.”  

Through Sept. 28. 

UC Berkeley Art Museum 

2626 Bancroft Way, Berkeley 

“Mandala: The Architecture of Enlightenment,” through Sept. 17.  

An exhibit of rare and exquisite works featuring more than forty mandalas and related objects including sculptures and models of sacred spaces. 

“Doug Aitken/MATRIX 185: Into the Sun,” through Sept. 3.  

An exhibit of works primarily in video and film, using the interplay of art and media to evoke deserted landscapes. 

“Autour de Rodin: Auguste Rodin and His Contemporaries,” through August.  

An exhibit of 11 bronze maquettes on loan from the Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Foundation in Los Angeles. The bronzes range in style from the artist’s classically inspired “Torso of a Woman” to the anguish of “The Martyr.” Some of the maquettes were cast during Rodin’s lifetime, others have been cast fairly recently under the aegis of the Musee Rodin which alone is authorized to cast his sculptures posthumously.  

“Hans Hoffmann,” open-ended.  

An exhibit of paintings by Hoffmann which emphasizes two experimental methods the artist employed: the introduction of slabs or rectangles of highly saturated colors and the use of large areas of black paint juxtaposed with intense oranges, greens and yellows to simulate the effect of nature at its most unbridled.  

The Asian Galleries  

“Art of the Sung: Court and Monastery,” open-ended.  

A display of early Chinese works from the permanent collection.  

“Chinese Ceramics and Bronzes: The First 3,000 Years,” open-ended. 

“Works on Extended Loan from Warren King,” open-ended. 

“Three Towers of Han,” open-ended. 

$6 general; $4 seniors and students age 12 to 18; free children age 12 and under; free Thursday, 11 a.m. to noon and 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. Wednesday, Friday through Sunday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Thursday, 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. 

642-0808. 

UC Berkeley Museum of  

Paleontology 

Lobby, Valley Life Sciences Building, UC Berkeley 

“Tyrannosaurus Rex,” ongoing.  

A 20-foot tall, 40-foot long replica of the fearsome dinosaur. The replica is made from casts of bones of the most complete T. Rex skeleton yet excavated. When unearthed in Montana, the bones were all lying in place with only a small piece of the tailbone missing. 

“Pteranodon,” ongoing.  

A suspended skeleton of a flying reptile with a wingspan of 22 to 23 feet. The Pteranodon lived at the same time as the dinosaurs. 

California Fossils Exhibit, ongoing. An exhibit of some of the fossils which have been excavated in California. 

Free. Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Saturday and Sunday, 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. 

642-1821. 

UC Berkeley Phoebe Hearst  

Museum of Anthropology 

Kroeber Hall, Bancroft Way and College  

Avenue, Berkeley 

“Modern Treasures from Ancient Iran,” through Oct. 29.  

This exhibit explores nomadic and town life in ancient and modern Iran as illustrated in bronze and pottery vessels, and textiles.  

“Approaching a Century of Anthropology: The Phoebe Hearst Museum,” open-ended.  

This new permanent installation will introduce visitors to major topics in the museum’s history, including the role of Phoebe Apperson Hearst as the museum’s patron, as well as the relationship of anthropologists Alfred Kroeber and Robert Lowie to the museum. 

“Ishi and the Invention of Yahi Culture,” ongoing. 

This exhibit documents the culture of the Yahi Indians of California as described and demonstrated from 1911 to 1916 by Ishi, the last surviving member of the tribe. 

$2 general; $1 seniors; $0.50 children age 17 and under; free on Thursdays. Wednesday, Friday through Sunday, 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.; Thursday, 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. 

643-7648. 

Mills College Art Museum 

5000 MacArthur Blvd., Oakland 

“The 100 Languages of Children,” through October.  

An exhibit of art by children from Reggio Emilia, Italy. At Carnegie Building Bender Room. 

Free. Tuesday through Saturday, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.; Sunday, noon to 4 p.m. 

430-2164. 

The Oakland Museum of  

California 

1000 Oak St., Oakland 

“Helen Nestor: Personal and Political,” Aug. 17 through Oct. 15.  

An exhibit of images documenting the Free Speech Movement, the 60s civil rights marches, and women’s issues. 

Artist Reception, Aug. 17, 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. 

“California Classic: Realist Paintings by Robert Bechtle,” through Oct. 1.  

An exhibit of 18 paintings and drawings by the Bay Area artist dating from 1965 to 1997. 

SPECIAL EXHIBIT – “Meadowsweet Dairy: Wood Sculpture,” through Sept. 15.  

An exhibit of 12 sculptures made with materials found and salvaged to reveal the beauty of the natural object. At the Sculpture Court, City Center, 1111 Broadway. Monday through Saturday, 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. 

TURES – Free after museum admission unless  

noted.  

“Family Workshop: A Sense of Place,” Aug. 20, 2 p.m.  

Create landscape drawings inspired by your personal view of nature. For reservations 238-3818. 

$6 general; $4 seniors and students; free children age 5 and under; second Sundays are free to all. Wednesday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Sunday, noon to 5 p.m.; first Friday of the month, 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. 

(888) OAK-MUSE or www.museumca.org 

MUSIC 

The Greek Theatre 

Gipsy Kings, Aug. 18, 8 p.m.  

$27.50 to $65. Hearst Avenue and Gayley Road, Berkeley.  

444-TIXS 

Freight and Salvage 

1111 Addison St. 

Music at 8 p.m. unless otherwise noted. 

Eric Bibb, Aug. 14. $14.50 to $15.50. 

Phil Marsh, Aug. 15. $13.50 to $14.50. 

Terre and Maggie Roche, Aug. 16. $15.50 to $16.50. 

David Nachmanoff, Aug. 17. $13.50 to $14.50. 

Jack Hardy with Kate MacLeod. Aug. 18. $14.50 to $15.50. 

Dix Bruce and Jim Nunally, Carol Elizabeth Jones and James Leva, Aug. 19. $14.50 to $15.50. 

Burach, Aug. 20. $13.50 to $14.50. 

548-1761 or 762-BASS. 

Ashkenaz 

1317 San Pablo Ave.  

525-5099 

For all ages 

www.ashkenaz.com 

Naugahide with Billy Wilson, Aug. 15, 9 p.m. $8. 

Henry Turner Jr. and Flavor, Pope Flynn, Aug. 16, 9 p.m. $8. 

Grateful Dead DJ Nite with Digital Dave, Aug. 17, 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. $5. 

Johnny Nocturne Band with Kim Nalley, Aug. 18, 9:30 p.m. $11. 

Tippa Irie, Root Awakening, Warsaw, Aug. 19, 9:30 p.m. $11. 

Near East/Far West with Transition and Edessa, Aug. 20, 8:30 p.m. $11. 

924 Gilman St. 

924 Gilman Street is an all-ages, member-run no alcohol, drugs, and violence club. Most shows are $5. Memberships for the year are $2. Shows start at 8 p.m. unless otherwise noted.  

Call 525-9926.  

August 11: Hellbillys, Riffs, Menstrual Tramps, Fleshies, Shut Up Donny.  

August 12: Excruciating Terror, Plutocracy, Chupalabre, Creation Is Crucifiction, State Of The Union. 

August 13: Converge, Hope Conspiracy, Exhumed, Cephalic Carnage, Orgin. 

August 18: Raw Power, Capitalist Casualties, Lifes Halt, Tongue, What Happens Next. 

August 19: Dead And Gone, Time In Malta, Run For Your Fucking Life, Suicide Party. 

The Jazz School/La Note 

2377 Shattuck Avenue 

845-5373 

Free admission, reservation recommended 

Aug. 13 at 4:30 p.m.: Barbara Colson Trio and Nannick Bonnel Trio 

Aug. 17 at 7 p.m.: “Vocal Sauce” Vocal Ensemble Directed by Greg Murai 

Aug. 20 at 4:30 p.m.: Valerie Bach And “Swang Fandangle” 

Aug. 24 at 7 p.m.: Vocalists Ed Reed; Vocal group Zoli Lundy and “Zoli’s Little Thing” 

Walnut Square 

150 Walnut Street near Vine St. 

11:30 a.m., Aug. 12, 19 and 26. 

Chamber Music for the Inner Courtyard, a classical ensemble, will perform the music of Haydn, Bach, Mozart.  

Call 843-4002. 

THEATER 

“The Caucasian Chalk Circle” by Bertolt Brecht  

Zellerbach Playhouse  

Directed by Lura Dolas  

"Terrible is the temptation to do good." (Bertolt Brecht) Based in part on an ancient Chinese tale, Brecht’s epic parable tackles an insoluble human dilemma: How to behave well, act justly, and remain humane in a world in which chaos reigns, good is punished, and evil often triumphs. Played by a cast of 15 actors in 86 roles, this musical rendition of the play features an original gypsy-jazz/klezmer score by John Schott. “The Caucasian Chalk Circle” runs from October 6-15. Shows are 8 p.m. on October 6, 7, 13, 14, and 2 p.m. on October 8 and 15. For Tickets contact Ticketweb at 601-8932 or at www.ticketweb.com 

“Endgame” 

Theatre in Search  

Live Oak Theatre 

1301 Shattuck Ave 

8 p.m., Aug. 17-19 at 

A one act play by Samuel Beckett about a man who likes things to come to an end but doesn’t want them to end just yet. 

Also, Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays, Aug. 24-Sept.r 2 at La Val’s Subterranean 1834 Euclid Ave. Berkeley. 

Directed by George Charbak. Call: 524-9327. 

“Murder at the Vicarage” 

Live Oak Theatre 

1301 Shattuck Av.  

Agatha Christie’s “Murder At The Vicarage,” presented by Actors Ensemble of Berkeley, the city’s oldest theater company, will be on stage Friday and Saturday evening through August 12, plus a special Thursday evening performance on Aug. 10. Admission is $10, with discounts for groups of 15 or more. 

For reservations call 528-5620. 

EXHIBITS 

The Artistry of Rae Louise Hayward 

The Women’s Cancer Resource Center Gallery 

3023 Shattuck Ave. 

548-9286, ext. 307 

Aug. 12 - Sept. 27 

Rae Louise Hayward, one of the founders of The Art of Living Black, Bay Area Black Artist Annual Exhibition and Open Studios Tour. 

Haywards’ art celebrates the beauty of African culture from its people to its music. The opening reception with the artist will be held Aug. 26 noon-3 p.m.  

Regular gallery hours are Tuesday through Thrusday 1-7 p.m, Saturday 12-4 p.m. and by appoinment.  

READINGS 

Judah L. Magnes Museum 

2911 Russell St. 

Aug. 22 6 -7:30 p.m 

Bat Area poets Dan Bellin, Adam David Miller, Mary Ganz, and others will read from their works in “Poetry through Time.” The program will include a brief open-readings period after the featured poets. Sign-ups will start at 5:45 p.m. SPECIAL EVENTS AND LECTURES – Free after museum admission unless noted.  

“Family Workshop: A Sense of Place,” Aug. 20, 2 p.m.  

Create landscape drawings inspired by your personal view of nature. For reservations 238-3818. 

$6 general; $4 seniors and students; free children age 5 and under; second Sundays are free to all. Wednesday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Sunday, noon to 5 p.m.; first Friday of the month, 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. 

(888) OAK-MUSE or www.museumca.org 

MUSIC 

The Greek Theatre 

Gipsy Kings, Aug. 18, 8 p.m.  

$27.50 to $65. Hearst Avenue and Gayley Road, Berkeley.  

444-TIXS 

Freight and Salvage 

1111 Addison St. 

Music at 8 p.m. unless otherwise noted. 

Eric Bibb, Aug. 14. $14.50 to $15.50. 

Phil Marsh, Aug. 15. $13.50 to $14.50. 

Terre and Maggie Roche, Aug. 16. $15.50 to $16.50. 

David Nachmanoff, Aug. 17. $13.50 to $14.50. 

Jack Hardy with Kate MacLeod. Aug. 18. $14.50 to $15.50. 

Dix Bruce and Jim Nunally, Carol Elizabeth Jones and James Leva, Aug. 19. $14.50 to $15.50. 

Burach, Aug. 20. $13.50 to $14.50. 

548-1761 or 762-BASS. 

Ashkenaz 

1317 San Pablo Ave.  

525-5099 

For all ages 

www.ashkenaz.com 

Naugahide with Billy Wilson, Aug. 15, 9 p.m. $8. 

Henry Turner Jr. and Flavor, Pope Flynn, Aug. 16, 9 p.m. $8. 

Grateful Dead DJ Nite with Digital Dave, Aug. 17, 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. $5. 

Johnny Nocturne Band with Kim Nalley, Aug. 18, 9:30 p.m. $11. 

Tippa Irie, Root Awakening, Warsaw, Aug. 19, 9:30 p.m. $11. 

Near East/Far West with Transition and Edessa, Aug. 20, 8:30 p.m. $11. 

924 Gilman St. 

924 Gilman Street is an all-ages, member-run no alcohol, drugs, and violence club. Most shows are $5. Memberships for the year are $2. Shows start at 8 p.m. unless otherwise noted.  

Call 525-9926.  

August 11: Hellbillys, Riffs, Menstrual Tramps, Fleshies, Shut Up Donny.  

August 12: Excruciating Terror, Plutocracy, Chupalabre, Creation Is Crucifiction, State Of The Union. 

August 13: Converge, Hope Conspiracy, Exhumed, Cephalic Carnage, Orgin. 

August 18: Raw Power, Capitalist Casualties, Lifes Halt, Tongue, What Happens Next. 

August 19: Dead And Gone, Time In Malta, Run For Your Fucking Life, Suicide Party. 

The Jazz School/La Note 

2377 Shattuck Avenue 

845-5373 

Free admission, reservation recommended 

Aug. 13 at 4:30 p.m.: Barbara Colson Trio and Nannick Bonnel Trio 

Aug. 17 at 7 p.m.: “Vocal Sauce” Vocal Ensemble Directed by Greg Murai 

Aug. 20 at 4:30 p.m.: Valerie Bach And “Swang Fandangle” 

Aug. 24 at 7 p.m.: Vocalists Ed Reed; Vocal group Zoli Lundy and “Zoli’s Little Thing” 

Walnut Square 

150 Walnut Street near Vine St. 

11:30 a.m., Aug. 12, 19 and 26. 

Chamber Music for the Inner Courtyard, a classical ensemble, will perform the music of Haydn, Bach, Mozart.  

Call 843-4002. 

THEATER 

“The Caucasian Chalk Circle” by Bertolt Brecht  

Zellerbach Playhouse  

Directed by Lura Dolas  

"Terrible is the temptation to do good." (Bertolt Brecht) Based in part on an ancient Chinese tale, Brecht’s epic parable tackles an insoluble human dilemma: How to behave well, act justly, and remain humane in a world in which chaos reigns, good is punished, and evil often triumphs. Played by a cast of 15 actors in 86 roles, this musical rendition of the play features an original gypsy-jazz/klezmer score by John Schott. “The Caucasian Chalk Circle” runs from October 6-15. Shows are 8 p.m. on October 6, 7, 13, 14, and 2 p.m. on October 8 and 15. For Tickets contact Ticketweb at 601-8932 or at www.ticketweb.com 

“Endgame” 

Theatre in Search  

Live Oak Theatre 

1301 Shattuck Ave 

8 p.m., Aug. 17-19 at 

A one act play by Samuel Beckett about a man who likes things to come to an end but doesn’t want them to end just yet. 

Also, Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays, Aug. 24-Sept.r 2 at La Val’s Subterranean 1834 Euclid Ave. Berkeley. 

Directed by George Charbak. Call: 524-9327. 

“Murder at the Vicarage” 

Live Oak Theatre 

1301 Shattuck Av.  

Agatha Christie’s “Murder At The Vicarage,” presented by Actors Ensemble of Berkeley, the city’s oldest theater company, will be on stage Friday and Saturday evening through August 12, plus a special Thursday evening performance on Aug. 10. Admission is $10, with discounts for groups of 15 or more. 

For reservations call 528-5620. 

EXHIBITS 

The Artistry of Rae Louise Hayward 

The Women’s Cancer Resource Center Gallery 

3023 Shattuck Ave. 

548-9286, ext. 307 

Aug. 12 - Sept. 27 

Rae Louise Hayward, one of the founders of The Art of Living Black, Bay Area Black Artist Annual Exhibition and Open Studios Tour. 

Haywards’ art celebrates the beauty of African culture from its people to its music. The opening reception with the artist will be held Aug. 26 noon-3 p.m.  

Regular gallery hours are Tuesday through Thrusday 1-7 p.m, Saturday 12-4 p.m. and by appoinment.  

READINGS 

Judah L. Magnes Museum 

2911 Russell St. 

Aug. 22 6 -7:30 p.m 

Bat Area poets Dan Bellin, Adam David Miller, Mary Ganz, and others will read from their works in “Poetry through Time.” The program will include a brief open-readings period after the featured poets. Sign-ups will start at 5:45 p.m.  

To publicize an upcoming event, please submit information to the Daily Planet via fax (841-5695), e-mail (calendar@berkeleydailyplanet.com, or berkeleydailyplanet@yahoo.com) or traditional mail (2076 University Avenue, 94704). Calendar items should be submitted at least four days in advance.

In a couple of weeks Deputy City Manager Weldon Rucker, 59, will slip into the role of interim city manager. The 40-year Berkeley resident has worked for the city in various capacities for 28 years and served as interim city manager from 1993-96. In the first part of this two-part interview, he talks about some of the challenges that lie ahead. 

Daily Planet: So, are you excited about this position? 

Weldon Rucker: Am I excited? I think I’m starting to get excited. I think I’ve just remained somewhat low key because we’re still in a state of transition. I’m trying to wait for the moment to actually secure the reins and really feel the difference. I haven’t acquired that feeling yet.  

(City Manager) Jim (Keene)’s been on vacation this week and I believe next week. 

DP: I thought he was officially gone. He isn’t? 

RUCKER: Aug. 5 was when he was, like, leaving, but he was going on vacation, but he’s sort of been on a working vacation. He’s been in and out, finalizing some things. Taking care of some business. Technically he’s still the city manager. I’m sort of one foot here and one foot there. And yet trying to be respectful of the situation. 

DP: So when will you actually take over? 

RUCKER: I’ll start on the 20th. 

So I’m starting to get ready. What I’ve been doing is meeting with all the department directors. I haven’t finalized that process. Just getting some orientation and assessment of where they are with certain issues and where the problems lie, where we need to devote the energy to the work plan, and council items over the next few months so that I can get my barrings and be in a better position to provide some leadership. 

It’s also a way to connect with them in a different way, because, even though I play a role as a deputy and can act in (City Manager)Jim (Keene)’s absence, it’s still a little different. Some of them I’ve worked with before as the manager, so that portion is pretty easy to connect. They already know my style. I know their style.  

But a few people – we have new department directors. So It’s getting acquainted, getting a level of understanding, just building positive working relationships. 

DP: How would you characterize your style? 

RUCKER: My style? I think I’m pretty firm but fair; I’m pretty open to ideas, I allow people to achieve to the best of their abilities and work within the context of a team effort. 

Where I have to get firm is when I think we’re operating outside of the parameters and where we are creating a potential detriment to the city. 

I think I’m fair from the standpoint of speaking my mind. I’m direct and very clear so that there’s no ambiguity relative to a given situation. 

I try to function more as a team leader or a coach. Sort of along those lines, rather than “I’m the boss. You do as I say.” That’s a pretty antiquated style of management. I think we have very intelligent people here. Just sometimes, they don’t have all the experience and wherewithal in a given situation.  

So just coaching and providing guidance is primarily the style I employ. 

DP: Does it put you in a difficult position, being the interim city manager? 

RUCKER: No, not really. You know I’ve served as acting city manger for three years previously. And I think, in reality, when the city manager serves at the pleasure of the City Council, you serve on a in or out basis anyway. 

You’re the acting city manager from a technical standpoint and legal standpoint, and you try to meet the expectations of all those involved. They want the job done. There’s really no difference. 

Then I have my own work ethic where I believe in doing a good job. 

I don’t approach the job, like, “This is just ‘acting,’” so I could just go through the motions or pretend. I intend to give it my best regardless. It really has no bearing. 

The unanimous support of the council, I thought was very critical. Because if there was some doubt or equivocation, or less than unanimity, it would have placed my status in some doubt. So with that support, people understand that I have the backing of the council. People understand they still have to deal with me until there’s another change. 

DP: Suppose you’re city mange for six months, which is the time-frame you may be looking at, with the council starting to do a search after the elections. What do you see as the greatest challenges in the next six months? 

RUCKER: Interestingly, we have some huge challenges. No. 1, is to complete the public safety building work and the ultimate relocation of the safety staff to the new facility. That’s coming up fairly quickly. 

DP: What are the time lines for that? 

RUCKER: Initially, my understanding was that it was supposed to be the first part of September, but, unofficially, I’ve heard there may be some delays. I haven’t seen notification, so there may be some delay. 

DP: It was supposed to be July.  

RUCKER: Right, but you know how these construction projects go, so it seems that we’re into that mode, now.  

DP: Does that mean it’s costing the city more money? 

RUCKER: I don’t think it’s costing more money. I think now they have to make sure that the products that they contracted for meet those standards. I think they’re in a correction mode now. It could take a few more weeks.  

The other big item is the election, insuring that that takes place with efficiency and due diligence. Not from a political standpoint, but from a management standpoint, providing the city clerk with the proper staff and proper support to insure that that process is complete. 

DP: That’s an ongoing problem, isn’t it – staffing the clerk’s office? 

RUCKER: It’s been a problem, but part of my assessment and orientation with (City Clerk Sherry Kelly) the other day, and also, feedback from the council, is that they want to make sure that that department is fully operational. So I’ve more or less given her the green light to secure whatever positions are necessary. And if that means we have to reassign some other staff to help out in the interim, we’ll do that, and to expedite whatever hiring procedures, we’ll do that.  

She needs our support. I’m sure you’ve been down there. A lot of people don’t realize how challenging it is to run and manage an election. And then, she also manages the agenda process, it’s really cumbersome. I’ll also be working with the rest of the department directors and other key staff to look at ways we can contribute to that process, to make it less burdensome for the city clerk. 

Then the other big item is going to be the relocation to the Civic Center Building, which is scheduled for, I would say, probably early January, after the first of the year. And getting everybody prepared for that.  

DP: That’s late too, right? Wasn’t part of the staff going to be in September and part later?  

RUCKER: No, it was going to be part in November-December. In reality, that didn’t make a lot of sense anyway. That was a real projection, it would be something to try to move, then you would have the election, taking place. And then if you have a run-off or something like that, you’re into December. So more than likely, we would still look at doing some moving in December, but then you have the holidays. We’re still looking at that. You still have the buildings scheduled to meet the opening of late December. We still have that projection. Those are the major events that have taken us pretty close to that six month period. Then we still have the day to day work we still have to participate in. 

It isn’t too often that Berkeley can claim one of its own as a vice presidential candidate.  

But it happened Saturday at the Reform Party’s Convention – one of the Reform Parties’ conventions, that is. 

The John Hagelin faction of the party nominated Berkeley resident Nat Goldhaber for the post. 

Before the anti-Pat Buchanan faction of the divided Reform Party can hope to accede to office, however, it will have to prove it and not the Buchanan forces, has legal status. It may need to go to court to do that.  

But in a Sunday afternoon interview, Goldhaber, a founder of various high-tech corporations and a director of UC Berkeley’s College of Letters and Sciences, was upbeat, directing his thoughts more to his party’s goals than the fight with the Buchanan faction. 

A long-time supporter of Hagelin, a physicist and head of the Natural Law Party, Goldhaber says he and others in the Natural Law Party, joined the Reform Party because the two parties share an ideology. The Hagelin faction claims the mantle of the party’s 1995 founder, Ross Perot. 

“I’m a big believer in having practical solutions to long-term problems,” Goldhaber said in a phone interview. “The government does not always look to long-term solutions.” 

Special interest money should not influence political decisions, he said, likening Political Action Committees’ spending to “legitimate bribery by major corporations.” The result is not what’s best for the people, but what’s best for the corporations, he said. 

He pointed to oil companies as a case in point. 

The oil companies are behind the “real resistance to viable renewable energy,” even stalling the development of the electric car industry, he said, noting that “both Republican candidates are oil men.” 

The Reform Party hopes to “break the duapoly” of the dominant Republican and Democratic Parties, Goldhaber said. 

But is it realistic to think that, even if the Hagelin faction of the party triumphs as legitimate, it could win the race for the presidency? 

Pointing to the surprise win of Jesse Ventura as governor of Minnesota, Goldhaber said it’s not impossible for the Reform Party to take the White House. There’s a great dissatisfaction among the electorate, he said. Ross Perot’s win of 20 million votes in 1992 showed that.  

Before bringing its message to the public under the banner of the Reform Party, however, the Hagelin faction is going to have to prove its legitimacy. 

“We’ve already appealed to the Federal Election Commission,” Goldhaber said, contending that the Buchanan faction “stuffed the ballot box and tried to cover up a conspiracy.” 

The Hagelin faction filed two complaints with the Federal Election Commission contending Buchanan fraudulently claimed the party’s presidential nomination. The faction is seeking to prevent Buchanan from receiving $12.5 million in federal money. 

Leonard Goldman, the Hagelin faction’s attorney, said that if the FEC rules in Buchanan’s favor, he will seek a court injunction to freeze the money and file a lawsuit in the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington. That action could come within two weeks, he said. 

Meanwhile, state chapters in Texas and perhaps elsewhere are expected to take their own legal action to fight the Buchanan nomination, he said. 

But Buchanan’s camp says it is confident that any judge will rule in his favor in part because evidence exists that major chunks of the party leadership have stayed on his side. They include Chairman Gerry Moan, who controls the party finances and Treasurer Tom McLaughlin, as well as Perot’s 1996 running mate Pat Choate. 

AP Wire Services contributed to this report.

It’s Friday, a few hours before the close of the stock market. The day trader stares in horror at his computer screen. 

“It’s going down! It’s going down!” he shrieks. “I’m selling! I’m selling!” He swiftly unloads his Ariba stock, but not before taking a big hit. 

Oh, well – it’s only funny money. Quite literally, since the trader in this case is a high school student playing a simulation game at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business. But he and his fellow students are laying the foundation for ventures that may pay off in real wealth some day. To watch Waymondo, Alijah, and their friends confidently tossing around terms like “price-to-earning ratio” and “growth potential,” is impressive. It’s hard to believe that some of these kids didn’t know a money market from a mutual fund just five days ago. 

This summer, some 80 teens from around the East Bay exuberantly tackled the mysteries of the financial world in a program known as Young Entrepreneurs at Haas or YEAH. They got started with a one-week crash course at the business school. Adopting team names like X-Change, The BULL-ies, and 2 Make $, they learned the basics of market investing and money management through games, lectures, and research assignments.  

YEAH was started in 1989 as a way to draw young people into the business world. In recent years it’s grown by leaps and bounds – participation doubled in size this year. The students will continue their training over the next two years. Each is assigned a mentor, an MBA student who will meet with them weekly and help them to develop a plan for their own business. The program culminates with the students presenting their business plans before a community venture board. The board then deals out seed funding, which the YEAH students can apply toward their business ventures or toward college costs. 

For Brian Alexander, a Berkeley High junior who dreams of working in movie animation some day, the best part of the program so far are the hands-on aspect activities. “They had us draw up a budget, to see how you would pay your bills for the year,” he says. “It was kind of putting you in the mindset of your parents. It was real.” 

Jahmila Jones, a junior at Bishop O’Dowd School in Oakland, wants to be an entertainment lawyer. This is her third summer in the YEAH program and she is an unabashed fan. “I don’t want to be corny, but it’s like the real world,” she says. “We compete, we earn prizes, we use the Internet.” 

And that’s the point – to give students some skills they can use in “the real world.” YEAH staff member Ajuah Helton explains that the outreach program is intended to draw underrepresented groups – especially women and minorities – into the world of business and finance. The students in this year’s group are mostly African-American. Many, though not all, come from financially struggling families. They are all bright, motivated, and focused. Each submitted an application and went through a screening process to be admitted to the YEAH program. 

Back in the computer lab, a trio of young men wear headphones plugged into CD players as they scan their portfolios. They like to listen to their favorite rap and hip-hop while working. “It puts you in a certain mood” for trading, one explains.  

Soft-spoken Lonnie Johnson, a Berkeley High School junior, studies her stocks, which have given her only mediocre returns this week. “I invested in the wrong companies,” she says. She mistakenly bought shares of Sysco, the food-service company, instead of Cisco, the Internet-service company whose phenomenal performance has wowed investors. Still, she’s made a $560 profit (in imaginary cash) over the past week, which certainly beats losing the same amount. 

This is only the beginning. As the young traders head back to school in a few weeks, they will have lots of other things on their minds: grades, dating, after-school jobs. But one gets the feeling that these teenagers have the dedication to stick with their dreams. The world of business may never be the same. 

Money buys votes and two UC Berkeley political science doctoral students Matt Jarvis and Justin Buchler say they can prove it.  

The electoral system, however, puts reformers in a Catch-22 bind, they added in a presentation Saturday morning, part of a two-day workshop on the UC Berkeley campus on Money and Influence in Politics.  

“Right now, journalists and reformers are happy because political scientists have found a way to make it look like money is buying votes,” Jarvis explained. “But that’s where the good news for reformers ends. If you increase how competitive the (congressional races) are, more legislators will be in danger of losing their seats, making them more susceptible to be affected by money. If you try to increase competition, you might also increase corruption. You can’t make districts more competitive without making them more corrupt, and you can’t make them less corrupt without increasing competition. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.” 

Jarvis and Buchler’s study was one of several “new research” presentations at the workshop, put on by the Citizens’ Research Foundation and held at the Institute for Governmental Studies on the UC Berkeley campus. Following each presentation, the scholarly audience of around 30 bandied about questions, comments and suggestions to the presenters, some of whom were making a first public showing of research undertaken for their dissertations.  

Jarvis and Buchler felt their work would be of such interest to journalists and reformers because, in contrast to political scientists’ usual frustrating and counter-intuitive claims that money does not buy votes, the pair believes they have found empirical evidence that it does.  

Hearkening back to their earlier statements about increased and decreased competition, Jarvis and Buchler decided that money was worth different amounts to different people. The pair focused on how non-freshman congressional incumbents who won highly contested races voted on a pro-National Rifle Association amendment to a bill.  

“We end up with a coefficient of .083, and what that means is if the gun lobby contributes $1,000 there is a shift of about 8 percent for guns. If the PAC (Political Action Committee) maxes out its contribution, we have about an 80 percent shift,” explains Buchler. “This is one of the strongest results we’ve seen money have on votes. It only occurs in competitive districts where (the legislators) need money, which is exactly what our theory predicted.” 

Jarvis and Buchler estimate that from their small sample of 35 legislators, 15-20 votes were changed because of money.  

“Absolute power might corrupt absolutely, but money only corrupts certain people,” Jarvis quipped. 

Many of the other presentations involved analyses of “soft money,” funds evading campaign contribution laws by landing in designated “non-federal” accounts of the national political parties. 

Cal doctoral student Ray La Raja traced state party soft money spending in the 1992, ’94, ’96 and ’98 elections. La Raja’s hard evidence backs up much anecdotal testimony of how soft money is spent.  

“National parties are using the soft money to target the media in key states, which is what people have been saying all along,” said La Raja. “National parties would seem to be undermining campaign contribution laws if these are being used for target ads. (Soft money) is transferred to contested states and is almost used like hard money. But, soft money is paying for some party-building. For Republicans, it supports party overhead. These are party-building acts.” 

La Raja also found that, not surprisingly, more soft money is transferred to states without strict anti-soft money laws, which could still leave loopholes for soft money even if new federal laws are passed. 

In other presentations, Peter Francia of the University of Maryland contended that AFL-CIO president John Sweeney’s aggressive contribution tactics have won more labor victories from a Republican Congress than previous president Lane Kirkland could elicit from a Democratically controlled one, and Stanford’s Sean Theriault claimed that competitive elections could induce votes for campaign finance reform.  

“Those who just barely survived their last election voted (for the Shays-Meehan campaign finance reform bill) at a 71.2 percent vote,” said Theriault. “Instead, if you won without opposition, the percent dropped to 13.1. We see Democratic constituents gave those who voted for Shays-Meehan a bump of over 11 percent (in their next campaigns). So why is it that when you ask people what are the 10 most important things for government to deal with, campaign finance reform isn’t even recognized?” 

A mural commemorating the 10th anniversary of the American with Disabilities Act will grace the Ed Roberts Campus in a few years. The campus at the Ashby BART station, is proposed for the future home of a number of agencies which support people with special needs. 

Friday, a group of disabled and able-bodied children and teenagers worked together on tiles which will become part of the campus’ Disability Civil Rights Mural. 

The roughly 80 youths are part of the city’s “inclusion” recreation program aimed at bringing together young people with varying abilities. 

“One of the things that I have done for many, many years is art projects, because they create a level playing field,” said Elaine Belkind, coordinator of the Inclusion Program. 

The mural, put together like a quilt, will feature hundreds of square one-foot tiles made by disabled and non-disabled people alike.  

Integrated Arts, a Berkeley-based organization, is coordinating the mural and holding events through several agencies around the Bay Area for people to create squares. The fact that the mural is created by people with disabilities and able bodied people together goes along with the Inclusion program’s structure, where the breakdown of children is about half with disabilities and half without. 

“The kids without disabilities, a lot of times they are very surprised to learn that some of their disabled friends can do things that really amaze them,” Belkind said. “One young man who has some behavioral disabilities is a very skilled artist, and he can draw all the Pokemons. And all his peers are impressed with that.” 

“People learn that it is OK to be different and that diversity is a good thing.” 

The mural will eventually go up in a passage way between the Ed Roberts Campus and the Ashby BART station. However, since the Ed Roberts Campus will not be constructed for several years, the mural will be displayed elsewhere in the meantime. 

One of the sites where the mural will most likely be found is in Berkeley City Hall. A cross-country trip to display the work is also possible. 

“It’s like the AIDS quilt,” said Frances Valesco, the mural coordinator. “It’s a great way to commemorate the ADA. When you think about it, it’s hard to believe that 10 years ago there was no disability act in the United States.” 

Those interested in creating a tile for the mural are welcome to drop by the Integrated Arts studio at 933 Parker Street on Thursdays from 4-7 p.m. Call (510) 841-1466 or e-mail ADA_Mural@integratedarts.org for more information.

Saturday, August 12

“Wild about Books” 

10:30 a.m. 

Berkeley Public Central Library 

2121 Allston Way 

“Something From Nothing.” Soup from a stone? A tailor whose wardrobe grows as it shrinks? Meet some folks who don’t need a lot to have a lot, and see Frog and Toad and their ice cream mix-up. 

Berkeley Farmers’ Market 

10 a.m.-3 p.m. 

Center Street between Martin Luther King Jr. Way and Milvia Street 

548-3333 

The Fellowship of Humanity 

11 a.m. 

411 28th St. at Broadway 

Oakland 

Staring with Mark Hertsgaard’s “Earth Odyssey,” Florence Windfall, Master of Divinity, Graduate Theological Union, contemplates the tragic end of nature. Can it really happen? 

451-5818 

9th Annual Rubber Ducky  

Derby 

6 p.m. 

Waterworld USA 

I-680 and Willow Pass Rd. 

The Rubber Ducky Derby raises funds for Children’s Hospital. Donations are $5 for each duck. Six ducks can be sponsored for $25. For a donation of $100–$499, a duck will be entered in the special Duckling rack. A donation of $500 ensures the donor “Quacker Backer” status. 

869-4912 

www.rubberduckyderby.com 

Movie Night at Underhill 

9 p.m. 

Mad Max and The Road Warrior.  

Underhill parking lot (College Ave. and Channing Way) 

The weekly event is sponsored by people protesting the university’s plans to build a parking structure rather than housing on the Undershill site. 

http://www.bclu.org/underhill/ 

Call: CREW-CUT 

Sunday, August 13

Free Hands-on Bicycle Repair  

Clinics 

11 a.m.-12 noon 

REI  

1388 San Pablo 

Come learn how to fix your own bicycle. Bike technicians will teach a free one-hour clinic covering drive train maintenance and chain repair. All you need to bring is your bike. Tools and expert guidance provided. 

527-7377 

Green Party Consensus  

Building Meeting 

6 p.m. 

2022 Blake St. 

This is part of an ongoing series of discussions for the Green Party of Alameda County, leading up to endorsements on measures and candidates on the November ballot. The meeting is open to all, regardless of party affiliation. 

415-789-8418 

Rhyme and Reason Open  

Mike Series 

2:30 p.m. 

UC Berkeley Art Museum, 2621 Durant Ave. 

The public and students are invited. Signups for the open mike begin at 2 p.m. 

234-0727 or 642-5168 

Tuesday, August 15

Senior Resource Fair 

9:30 a.m. - 1:30 p.m. 

South Berkeley Senior Center 

2939 Ellis Street 

Participants include the Alameda County Area Agency on Aging, Center for Independent Living, Alameda County Commission on Aging, Community Energy Services Inc., Center for Elders Independence, Crisis Support Services, Social Security Administration, Lifelong Medical Care, Family Care Giver Alliance, Public Health Nursing, Ombudsman Inc., Adult Protective Services, Elder Abuse Prevention, Berkeley Fire and Police Department of Community Services and Senior Programs. Entertainment provide by "SBSC Fantastic Steppers Tap Group." Free gift drawing for senior participants and lunch and socialization. 

644-6109 

Understanding Your Child’s  

Temperament 

7-8:30 p.m. 

Berkeley YMCA 

2001 Allston Way 

Rona Renner, RN, will explain the different temperament factors that parents and caregivers can look at to understand techniques that will work best in working with an individual child. Free. 

Fibromyalgia Support Group 

12-2 p.m. 

Alta Bates Medical Center, Maffly Auditorium-Herrick Campus, 2001 Dwight Way 

“How to Deal with the Physical and Emotional Aspect of Pain” with Dr. Francine S. Frome, Ph.D., Psychologist, 

601-0550 

“101 Great Hikes of the San  

Francisco Bay Area” 

7:30 p.m. 

Easy Going Travel Shop and Bookstore 

1385 Shattuck Ave. 

Discover the natural beauty of the Bay Area from challenging hikes atop Mount Diablo to seashore strolls at Point Reyes. 

843-3533 

“Psychic Phenomenon, ESP, etc.: Are they real?” 

7 p.m.-9 p.m. 

Jewish Community Center 

1414 Walnut Ave. 

Come for a free discussion and social group, open to everyone regardless of age, religion or view point. 

527-5332 

Wednesday, Aug. 16

Bridge 

1 p.m. 

Live Oak Community Center 

1301 Shattuck Ave. 

The games are open to all players. For partnership and other information please call Vi Kimoto at (510) 223-6539. 

Human Welfare & Community  

Action Commission Meeting 

7-10 p.m. 

South Berkeley Center, 2939 Ellis St. 

Issues on the agenda include the use of child care training stipends. 

665-3475 

Citizens Human Commission  

Meeting 

7 p.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center, 1901 Hearst Ave. 

Agenda items include a euthenasia policy and the commission’s role in plans for a new shelter. 

Thursday, August 17

“Best Sea Kayaking Trips in  

Northern California” 

7:00 p.m. 

REI 1338 San Pablo Ave. 

In tonight’s slide presentation nationally certified kayak instructors Roger Schumann and Jan Shriner will share information from their Guide to Sea Kayaking in Central and Northern California.  

527-7377 

Helen Nestor: Personal and  

Political 

4-6 p.m. 

Oakland Museum of California 

10th and Oak Streets, Oakland 

Opening reception honoring Berkeley photographer Helen Nestor. The exhibition shows a representative series of images documenting the Free Speech Movement, the ‘60s cicl rights marches, women’s issues-all seen with a direct, probing eye. The exhibition on view through Oct. 15, 2000 

1-800-OAK MUSE 

University Avenue Association  

6:30 p.m. 

1810 University Ave. 

The University Avenue Merchants holds its monthly meeting. 

Call 548-4110 

Friday, August 18

Big Mountain 

7:30 p.m. 

Ecology Center 

2530 San Pablo Ave. 

Join the Berkeley Ecology Center, Diane Patterson and Green Eye Records Foundation for an evening of music, information and community, focusing on the issues facing the Dineh (Navajo).  

548-2220, ext. 233  

Saturday, August 19

“Wild about Books” 

10:30 a.m. 

Berkeley Public Central Library 

2121 Allston Way 

“Soap and Water, Please!” Bath time isn’t always the same old thing when “There’s a Hippo in  

My Bath!” Take a dip with Frog and Toad. 

Re-opening of the United  

Nations Association Info  

Center 

11 a.m. - 5 p.m. 

1403 “B” Addison St. 

The volunteer-operated UN/UNICEF Center will celebrate its grand re-opening at its new location behind Andronico’s University Ave. Market. 

841-1752 

Sunday, August 20

Cuba from the Inside 

Berkeley Fellowship Hall 

Cedar and Bonita 

7 p.m. 

Benefit screening of Fidel: A New Documentary by Estela Bravo. Special guests will include Karen Wald, a Havana-based writer, journalist, teacher and foreign correspondent. 

Among the topics she will discuss are human rights, religion, health care, education, economics, race relations and US-Cuba relations. 

Sliding scale $10-$25 per person. 

Free Hands-on Bicycle Repair  

Clinics  

11:00 a.m.-noon noon 

REI  

1388 San Pablo 

Come learn how to fix your own bicycle. Bike technicians will teach a free one-hour clinic covering brake adjustments. Bring your bike. Tools and guidance provided. 

527-7377

Whales and quails and bears – oh my! 

Would you believe that a century ago all of the above exotic beasties wandered the streets (or waterfronts) of Berkeley? Well, it’s true. And we’ve got the news articles to prove it.  

Turn-of-the-century Berkeley was a city on the move, a “thriving metropolis” of 15,000 souls (up from a mere 12 – not 12,000 but 12 -- in the mid 1850s). Yet despite all the trappings of modern life – automobiles, streetcars, indoor plumbing – the city was still often visited by vestiges of its past.  

“Sometimes I think all this development is like erasing somebody’s face, like smoothing over and erasing all the features from the city’s face,” says Richard Schwartz, whose new book “Berkeley 1900” is a compilation of over 650 turn-of-the-century Berkeley Gazette articles reporting on day-to-day life during the city’s adolescence. “(Turn-of-the-century Berkeleyeans) stood on one of the cusps of history. They stood on a ridge looking back at the past and seeing agrarianism, farms with animals and wild animal life. Looking on the other side of the ridge they saw the town’s future with houses taking over for farms, no more wild animals, industry and technology.” 

Schwartz, a Philadelphia native who moved west to Berkeley in 1973 and hasn’t looked back, never intended to pen “Berkeley 1900.” All the building contractor and local historian intended to do when he walked through the doors of the Berkeley Historical Society in 1997 was watch a grainy old film of a trolley car rolling down city streets. What he found instead, however, was a stack of century-old, mildewed newspapers waiting to be thrown out.  

Schwartz volunteered to take custody of the papers, began perusing his catch and found he couldn’t put them down.  

“I don’t need to know any more about Shattuck, Hillegas, Blake and Durant. Here are stories about people just like me, working people whose lives are illuminated for just one moment,” says Schwartz. “It was my job to save these stories from turning into dust. I started copying at the copy store every night after work. I ended up with 30 piles on my living room floor.” 

Those 30 piles became the 30 chapters of “Berkeley 1900,” separated by subject matter such as “Animals,” “Saloons and the Temperance Movement,” and, a particularly explosive section, “Powder Mills,” The lush foliage thriving atop Albany Hill was originally planted as an explosion break between the city and the mills, which used to be located near the present site of the Albany Race Track.  

Schwartz’s painstaking compilation and its delightful photographs of semi-developed Berkeley reveals volumes about a town with a foot planted firmly in both the past and present.  

A 1905 article informs of the aforementioned bear, “about the size of a full-grown Newfoundland dog” scaring the fertilizer out of local residents, along with four-and-a-half foot long snakes emerging from the barns on Durant and Shattuck avenues, or pods of lively whales lifting trading ships out of the Bay waters.  

When monster snakes weren’t emerging from Berkeley’s notoriously muddy streets, antediluvian motor cars, animal carts, key route trains and overly aggressive pedestrians crowded them to the breaking point. Schwartz’s book is overflowing with articles recounting train accidents, primordial road rage, pedestrian mishaps and, most notably, runaway horses terrorizing the city streets. The powerful animals usually ran rampant until a brave individual chased them down. 

“One lady was holding the reins in one hand just flying down Shattuck trying to pass a bundle off to anyone who could grab it. Someone got it and it turned out it was her baby,” recounts Schwartz. “The shoeshine guy stopped the horses. That was the day his life was in the paper.” 

Turn-of-the-century Berkeleyites undertook a number of heroic deeds. They extinguished burning buildings, saved strangers from train wrecks and pulled oblivious toddlers out of the paths of oncoming trolleys. The well-armed locals also, however, filled themselves and each other full of lead by accident and on purpose. And, most bitterly, the disdain the town’s Anglo population felt for racial minorities is lucidly caught in the overtly racist tone of the century-old articles. 

“A Chinaman would just as soon kill a man as be friendly with him and his religion bears him out in this,” reads a sobering editorial that ran on March 3, 1900. “The Chinaman should be kept under strict and rigid laws and not allowed the freedom he at present enjoys.” 

The way in which the articles Schwartz has compiled are written often tells more about society than what they were actually written about. In addition to Asians, African-Americans, Gypsies, Italians (“dark-skinned foreigners”) and Greeks (“objectionable peanut vendors”) also felt the scorn of the local press.  

“One of the main things these articles presented to me was how fear of losing your livelihood leads to hate,” says Schwartz. “What Asians went through 100 years ago is a much-neglected chapter of Berkeley history. Maybe we would do well to know why.” 

Not every aspect of the city’s past generates pride, much as the book’s many photographs of unspoiled wavy fields and grassy mountains may induce a touch of sorrow as well. We have progressed – but at what cost?  

“When you drive through Sonoma and Vacaville and see all the open land, it forces you to be reminded that Berkeley was once a frontier as well,” says Schwartz. “It’s amazing how different and the same things were at the same time. And that’s not something you can resolve. You hold them both. Both are true.  

“That’s what this book is here to do,” continues the author. “To bring the little people’s story to light as best as I could.”

Patients got care during strike 

Editor: 

During the two-day strike by Local 250 on August 2 and 3, Alta Bates Summit Medical Center employees worked very hard to ensure patients come first. The overwhelming majority of our employees and clinicians chose to come to work – including more than 30 percent of our Local 250 employees – they kept a promise to our patients that we will be here to care for them, whenever they need our help. 

More than 650 inpatients were cared for each day of the strike. Nurses, physicians, volunteers, and employees from departments throughout the hospital worked together to make patients comfortable and secure.  

Our caregivers know that anyone who is hospitalized never forgets that hospital stay. It is a critical time for those who welcome a new baby into the world, sit by the bedside of a loved one or suffer the loss of someone close.  

What would have happened to even one of the patients who needed our hospitals if care were unavailable to them?  

Hospitals and the care provided can never stop. For example, during the two day strike, on August 2 and 3: 

• 51 babies were born during that two day period. We were here for those new families. 

• 7 new babies were admitted to our Newborn Intensive Care Nurseries. We were here for those vulnerable infants. 

• 409 people were cared for in our Emergency Departments. We were here, helping patients get the urgent help they needed. 

• 133 surgeries were performed. We were here, helping patients receive the care they deserve. 

• 52 patients reside in our subacute unit. We were here, watching over them and making them more comfortable. 

What would have happened to even one of these patients had we not been here for them? 

The medical staffs of our hospitals are very grateful that so many of our health care workers came to work to care for those who needed our care. You kept the promise — you put patients first.  

Barry Horn, MD, President, Alta Bates Medical Staff 

Sam Dong, MD, President, Summit Medical Staff

MUSEUMS 

Habitot Children’s Museum 

Kittredge Street and Shattuck Avenue 

“Back to the Farm.”  

Ongoing 

An interactive exhibit gives children the chance to wiggle through tunnels like an earthworm, look into a mirrored fish pond, don farm animal costumes, ride on a John Deere tractor and more.  

Cost: $4 adults; $6 children age 7 and under; $3 for each additional child age 7 and under.  

Monday and Wednesday, 9:30 a.m. to 1 p.m.; Tuesday and Friday, 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Thursday, 9:30 a.m. to 7 p.m.; Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Sunday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.  

647-1111 or www.habitot.org 

Judah L. Magnes Museum 

2911 Russell St.,  

549-6950 

Free. 

Sunday through Thursday, 10 a.m.-4 p.m. 

“Telling Time: To Everything There Is A Season” 

Through May 2002.  

An exhibit structured around the seasons of the year and the seasons of life with objects ranging from the sacred and the secular, to the provocative and the whimsical. Highlights include treasures from Jewish ceremonial and folk art, rare books and manuscripts, contemporary and traditional fine art, video, photography and cultural kitsch. 

“Spring and Summer.”  

Through Nov. 4. 

“Chagall: Master Prints and Posters, Selections from the Magnes Museum Collection.”  

Through Sept. 28. 

UC Berkeley Art Museum 

2626 Bancroft Way, Berkeley 

“Mandala: The Architecture of Enlightenment,” through Sept. 17.  

An exhibit of rare and exquisite works featuring more than forty mandalas and related objects including sculptures and models of sacred spaces. 

“Doug Aitken/MATRIX 185: Into the Sun,” through Sept. 3.  

An exhibit of works primarily in video and film, using the interplay of art and media to evoke deserted landscapes. 

“Autour de Rodin: Auguste Rodin and His Contemporaries,” through August.  

An exhibit of 11 bronze maquettes on loan from the Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Foundation in Los Angeles. The bronzes range in style from the artist’s classically inspired “Torso of a Woman” to the anguish of “The Martyr.” Some of the maquettes were cast during Rodin’s lifetime, others have been cast fairly recently under the aegis of the Musee Rodin which alone is authorized to cast his sculptures posthumously.  

“Hans Hoffmann,” open-ended.  

An exhibit of paintings by Hoffmann which emphasizes two experimental methods the artist employed: the introduction of slabs or rectangles of highly saturated colors and the use of large areas of black paint juxtaposed with intense oranges, greens and yellows to simulate the effect of nature at its most unbridled.  

The Asian Galleries  

“Art of the Sung: Court and Monastery,” open-ended.  

A display of early Chinese works from the permanent collection.  

“Chinese Ceramics and Bronzes: The First 3,000 Years,” open-ended. 

“Works on Extended Loan from Warren King,” open-ended. 

“Three Towers of Han,” open-ended. 

$6 general; $4 seniors and students age 12 to 18; free children age 12 and under; free Thursday, 11 a.m. to noon and 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. Wednesday, Friday through Sunday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Thursday, 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. 

642-0808. 

UC Berkeley Museum of  

Paleontology 

Lobby, Valley Life Sciences Building, UC Berkeley 

“Tyrannosaurus Rex,” ongoing.  

A 20-foot tall, 40-foot long replica of the fearsome dinosaur. The replica is made from casts of bones of the most complete T. Rex skeleton yet excavated. When unearthed in Montana, the bones were all lying in place with only a small piece of the tailbone missing. 

“Pteranodon,” ongoing.  

A suspended skeleton of a flying reptile with a wingspan of 22 to 23 feet. The Pteranodon lived at the same time as the dinosaurs. 

California Fossils Exhibit, ongoing. An exhibit of some of the fossils which have been excavated in California. 

Free. Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Saturday and Sunday, 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. 

642-1821. 

UC Berkeley Phoebe Hearst  

Museum of Anthropology 

Kroeber Hall, Bancroft Way and College  

Avenue, Berkeley 

“Modern Treasures from Ancient Iran,” through Oct. 29.  

This exhibit explores nomadic and town life in ancient and modern Iran as illustrated in bronze and pottery vessels, and textiles.  

“Approaching a Century of Anthropology: The Phoebe Hearst Museum,” open-ended.  

This new permanent installation will introduce visitors to major topics in the museum’s history, including the role of Phoebe Apperson Hearst as the museum’s patron, as well as the relationship of anthropologists Alfred Kroeber and Robert Lowie to the museum. 

“Ishi and the Invention of Yahi Culture,” ongoing. 

This exhibit documents the culture of the Yahi Indians of California as described and demonstrated from 1911 to 1916 by Ishi, the last surviving member of the tribe. 

$2 general; $1 seniors; $0.50 children age 17 and under; free on Thursdays. Wednesday, Friday through Sunday, 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.; Thursday, 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. 

643-7648. 

Mills College Art Museum 

5000 MacArthur Blvd., Oakland 

“The 100 Languages of Children,” through October.  

An exhibit of art by children from Reggio Emilia, Italy. At Carnegie Building Bender Room. 

Free. Tuesday through Saturday, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.; Sunday, noon to 4 p.m. 

430-2164. 

The Oakland Museum of  

California 

1000 Oak St., Oakland 

“Helen Nestor: Personal and Political,” Aug. 17 through Oct. 15.  

An exhibit of images documenting the Free Speech Movement, the 60s civil rights marches, and women’s issues. 

Artist Reception, Aug. 17, 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. 

“California Classic: Realist Paintings by Robert Bechtle,” through Oct. 1.  

An exhibit of 18 paintings and drawings by the Bay Area artist dating from 1965 to 1997. 

SPECIAL EXHIBIT – “Meadowsweet Dairy: Wood Sculpture,” through Sept. 15.  

An exhibit of 12 sculptures made with materials found and salvaged to reveal the beauty of the natural object. At the Sculpture Court, City Center, 1111 Broadway. Monday through Saturday, 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. 

TURES – Free after museum admission unless  

noted.  

“Family Workshop: A Sense of Place,” Aug. 20, 2 p.m.  

Create landscape drawings inspired by your personal view of nature. For reservations 238-3818. 

$6 general; $4 seniors and students; free children age 5 and under; second Sundays are free to all. Wednesday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Sunday, noon to 5 p.m.; first Friday of the month, 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. 

(888) OAK-MUSE or www.museumca.org 

MUSIC 

The Greek Theatre 

Gipsy Kings, Aug. 18, 8 p.m.  

$27.50 to $65. Hearst Avenue and Gayley Road, Berkeley.  

444-TIXS 

Freight and Salvage 

1111 Addison St. 

Music at 8 p.m. unless otherwise noted. 

Eric Bibb, Aug. 14. $14.50 to $15.50. 

Phil Marsh, Aug. 15. $13.50 to $14.50. 

Terre and Maggie Roche, Aug. 16. $15.50 to $16.50. 

David Nachmanoff, Aug. 17. $13.50 to $14.50. 

Jack Hardy with Kate MacLeod. Aug. 18. $14.50 to $15.50. 

Dix Bruce and Jim Nunally, Carol Elizabeth Jones and James Leva, Aug. 19. $14.50 to $15.50. 

Burach, Aug. 20. $13.50 to $14.50. 

548-1761 or 762-BASS. 

Ashkenaz 

1317 San Pablo Ave.  

525-5099 

For all ages 

www.ashkenaz.com 

Naugahide with Billy Wilson, Aug. 15, 9 p.m. $8. 

Henry Turner Jr. and Flavor, Pope Flynn, Aug. 16, 9 p.m. $8. 

Grateful Dead DJ Nite with Digital Dave, Aug. 17, 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. $5. 

Johnny Nocturne Band with Kim Nalley, Aug. 18, 9:30 p.m. $11. 

Tippa Irie, Root Awakening, Warsaw, Aug. 19, 9:30 p.m. $11. 

Near East/Far West with Transition and Edessa, Aug. 20, 8:30 p.m. $11. 

924 Gilman St. 

924 Gilman Street is an all-ages, member-run no alcohol, drugs, and violence club. Most shows are $5. Memberships for the year are $2. Shows start at 8 p.m. unless otherwise noted.  

Call 525-9926.  

August 11: Hellbillys, Riffs, Menstrual Tramps, Fleshies, Shut Up Donny.  

August 12: Excruciating Terror, Plutocracy, Chupalabre, Creation Is Crucifiction, State Of The Union. 

August 13: Converge, Hope Conspiracy, Exhumed, Cephalic Carnage, Orgin. 

August 18: Raw Power, Capitalist Casualties, Lifes Halt, Tongue, What Happens Next. 

August 19: Dead And Gone, Time In Malta, Run For Your Fucking Life, Suicide Party. 

The Jazz School/La Note 

2377 Shattuck Avenue 

845-5373 

Free admission, reservation recommended 

Aug. 13 at 4:30 p.m.: Barbara Colson Trio and Nannick Bonnel Trio 

Aug. 17 at 7 p.m.: “Vocal Sauce” Vocal Ensemble Directed by Greg Murai 

Aug. 20 at 4:30 p.m.: Valerie Bach And “Swang Fandangle” 

Aug. 24 at 7 p.m.: Vocalists Ed Reed; Vocal group Zoli Lundy and “Zoli’s Little Thing” 

Walnut Square 

150 Walnut Street near Vine St. 

11:30 a.m., Aug. 12, 19 and 26. 

Chamber Music for the Inner Courtyard, a classical ensemble, will perform the music of Haydn, Bach, Mozart.  

Call 843-4002. 

THEATER 

“The Caucasian Chalk Circle” by Bertolt Brecht  

Zellerbach Playhouse  

Directed by Lura Dolas  

"Terrible is the temptation to do good." (Bertolt Brecht) Based in part on an ancient Chinese tale, Brecht’s epic parable tackles an insoluble human dilemma: How to behave well, act justly, and remain humane in a world in which chaos reigns, good is punished, and evil often triumphs. Played by a cast of 15 actors in 86 roles, this musical rendition of the play features an original gypsy-jazz/klezmer score by John Schott. “The Caucasian Chalk Circle” runs from October 6-15. Shows are 8 p.m. on October 6, 7, 13, 14, and 2 p.m. on October 8 and 15. For Tickets contact Ticketweb at 601-8932 or at www.ticketweb.com 

“Endgame” 

Theatre in Search  

Live Oak Theatre 

1301 Shattuck Ave 

8 p.m., Aug. 17-19 at 

A one act play by Samuel Beckett about a man who likes things to come to an end but doesn’t want them to end just yet. 

Also, Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays, Aug. 24-Sept.r 2 at La Val’s Subterranean 1834 Euclid Ave. Berkeley. 

Directed by George Charbak. Call: 524-9327. 

“Murder at the Vicarage” 

Live Oak Theatre 

1301 Shattuck Av.  

Agatha Christie’s “Murder At The Vicarage,” presented by Actors Ensemble of Berkeley, the city’s oldest theater company, will be on stage Friday and Saturday evening through August 12, plus a special Thursday evening performance on Aug. 10. Admission is $10, with discounts for groups of 15 or more. 

For reservations call 528-5620. 

EXHIBITS 

The Artistry of Rae Louise Hayward 

The Women’s Cancer Resource Center Gallery 

3023 Shattuck Ave. 

548-9286, ext. 307 

Aug. 12 - Sept. 27 

Rae Louise Hayward, one of the founders of The Art of Living Black, Bay Area Black Artist Annual Exhibition and Open Studios Tour. 

Haywards’ art celebrates the beauty of African culture from its people to its music. The opening reception with the artist will be held Aug. 26 noon-3 p.m.  

Regular gallery hours are Tuesday through Thrusday 1-7 p.m, Saturday 12-4 p.m. and by appoinment.  

READINGS 

Judah L. Magnes Museum 

2911 Russell St. 

Aug. 22 6 -7:30 p.m 

Bat Area poets Dan Bellin, Adam David Miller, Mary Ganz, and others will read from their works in “Poetry through Time.” The program will include a brief open-readings period after the featured poets. Sign-ups will start at 5:45 p.m. SPECIAL EVENTS AND LECTURES – Free after museum admission unless noted.  

“Family Workshop: A Sense of Place,” Aug. 20, 2 p.m.  

Create landscape drawings inspired by your personal view of nature. For reservations 238-3818. 

$6 general; $4 seniors and students; free children age 5 and under; second Sundays are free to all. Wednesday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Sunday, noon to 5 p.m.; first Friday of the month, 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. 

(888) OAK-MUSE or www.museumca.org 

MUSIC 

The Greek Theatre 

Gipsy Kings, Aug. 18, 8 p.m.  

$27.50 to $65. Hearst Avenue and Gayley Road, Berkeley.  

444-TIXS 

Freight and Salvage 

1111 Addison St. 

Music at 8 p.m. unless otherwise noted. 

Eric Bibb, Aug. 14. $14.50 to $15.50. 

Phil Marsh, Aug. 15. $13.50 to $14.50. 

Terre and Maggie Roche, Aug. 16. $15.50 to $16.50. 

David Nachmanoff, Aug. 17. $13.50 to $14.50. 

Jack Hardy with Kate MacLeod. Aug. 18. $14.50 to $15.50. 

Dix Bruce and Jim Nunally, Carol Elizabeth Jones and James Leva, Aug. 19. $14.50 to $15.50. 

Burach, Aug. 20. $13.50 to $14.50. 

548-1761 or 762-BASS. 

Ashkenaz 

1317 San Pablo Ave.  

525-5099 

For all ages 

www.ashkenaz.com 

Naugahide with Billy Wilson, Aug. 15, 9 p.m. $8. 

Henry Turner Jr. and Flavor, Pope Flynn, Aug. 16, 9 p.m. $8. 

Grateful Dead DJ Nite with Digital Dave, Aug. 17, 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. $5. 

Johnny Nocturne Band with Kim Nalley, Aug. 18, 9:30 p.m. $11. 

Tippa Irie, Root Awakening, Warsaw, Aug. 19, 9:30 p.m. $11. 

Near East/Far West with Transition and Edessa, Aug. 20, 8:30 p.m. $11. 

924 Gilman St. 

924 Gilman Street is an all-ages, member-run no alcohol, drugs, and violence club. Most shows are $5. Memberships for the year are $2. Shows start at 8 p.m. unless otherwise noted.  

Call 525-9926.  

August 11: Hellbillys, Riffs, Menstrual Tramps, Fleshies, Shut Up Donny.  

August 12: Excruciating Terror, Plutocracy, Chupalabre, Creation Is Crucifiction, State Of The Union. 

August 13: Converge, Hope Conspiracy, Exhumed, Cephalic Carnage, Orgin. 

August 18: Raw Power, Capitalist Casualties, Lifes Halt, Tongue, What Happens Next. 

August 19: Dead And Gone, Time In Malta, Run For Your Fucking Life, Suicide Party. 

The Jazz School/La Note 

2377 Shattuck Avenue 

845-5373 

Free admission, reservation recommended 

Aug. 13 at 4:30 p.m.: Barbara Colson Trio and Nannick Bonnel Trio 

Aug. 17 at 7 p.m.: “Vocal Sauce” Vocal Ensemble Directed by Greg Murai 

Aug. 20 at 4:30 p.m.: Valerie Bach And “Swang Fandangle” 

Aug. 24 at 7 p.m.: Vocalists Ed Reed; Vocal group Zoli Lundy and “Zoli’s Little Thing” 

Walnut Square 

150 Walnut Street near Vine St. 

11:30 a.m., Aug. 12, 19 and 26. 

Chamber Music for the Inner Courtyard, a classical ensemble, will perform the music of Haydn, Bach, Mozart.  

Call 843-4002. 

THEATER 

“The Caucasian Chalk Circle” by Bertolt Brecht  

Zellerbach Playhouse  

Directed by Lura Dolas  

"Terrible is the temptation to do good." (Bertolt Brecht) Based in part on an ancient Chinese tale, Brecht’s epic parable tackles an insoluble human dilemma: How to behave well, act justly, and remain humane in a world in which chaos reigns, good is punished, and evil often triumphs. Played by a cast of 15 actors in 86 roles, this musical rendition of the play features an original gypsy-jazz/klezmer score by John Schott. “The Caucasian Chalk Circle” runs from October 6-15. Shows are 8 p.m. on October 6, 7, 13, 14, and 2 p.m. on October 8 and 15. For Tickets contact Ticketweb at 601-8932 or at www.ticketweb.com 

“Endgame” 

Theatre in Search  

Live Oak Theatre 

1301 Shattuck Ave 

8 p.m., Aug. 17-19 at 

A one act play by Samuel Beckett about a man who likes things to come to an end but doesn’t want them to end just yet. 

Also, Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays, Aug. 24-Sept.r 2 at La Val’s Subterranean 1834 Euclid Ave. Berkeley. 

Directed by George Charbak. Call: 524-9327. 

“Murder at the Vicarage” 

Live Oak Theatre 

1301 Shattuck Av.  

Agatha Christie’s “Murder At The Vicarage,” presented by Actors Ensemble of Berkeley, the city’s oldest theater company, will be on stage Friday and Saturday evening through August 12, plus a special Thursday evening performance on Aug. 10. Admission is $10, with discounts for groups of 15 or more. 

For reservations call 528-5620. 

EXHIBITS 

The Artistry of Rae Louise Hayward 

The Women’s Cancer Resource Center Gallery 

3023 Shattuck Ave. 

548-9286, ext. 307 

Aug. 12 - Sept. 27 

Rae Louise Hayward, one of the founders of The Art of Living Black, Bay Area Black Artist Annual Exhibition and Open Studios Tour. 

Haywards’ art celebrates the beauty of African culture from its people to its music. The opening reception with the artist will be held Aug. 26 noon-3 p.m.  

Regular gallery hours are Tuesday through Thrusday 1-7 p.m, Saturday 12-4 p.m. and by appoinment.  

READINGS 

Judah L. Magnes Museum 

2911 Russell St. 

Aug. 22 6 -7:30 p.m 

Bat Area poets Dan Bellin, Adam David Miller, Mary Ganz, and others will read from their works in “Poetry through Time.” The program will include a brief open-readings period after the featured poets. Sign-ups will start at 5:45 p.m.  

To publicize an upcoming event, please submit information to the Daily Planet via fax (841-5695), e-mail (calendar@berkeleydailyplanet.com, or berkeleydailyplanet@yahoo.com) or traditional mail (2076 University Avenue, 94704). Calendar items should be submitted at least four days in advance.

At the second hearing in a week on a project to build a 35,000 square-foot synagogue and school for the Congregation Beth El at the Napoleon Byrne landmark site at 1301 Oxford St., friends and foes of the plan went before the Zoning Adjustments Board Thursday to formally comment on the project’s Draft Environmental Impact Report. 

Project consultants will consider the comments given Thursday, those presented at the Monday evening Landmarks Preservation Commission public hearing and comments written by Sept. 8. They will address the comments in a Final EIR. The Planning Commission will rule on whether the Final EIR is adequate. The decision can be appealed to the City Council.  

ZAB Chairperson Carolyn Weinberger urged speakers to focus on aspects of the draft EIR that they thought were positive, or facets that needed improving. 

The project brings benefits 

Buzz Yudell, the project’s architect, said that the model of site answered four key issues revolving around the project. 

“It provides for good traffic flow, it restores Codornices Creek, there is open space parking and fits into the neighborhood scale,” he said. 

But Boardmember Gene Poschman recalled when the previous owners, the Chinese Christian Missionary Alliance Church, were denied by the ZAB a permit for a small school and 21 parking spaces in 1992. 

“We just want consistency,” said Allan Gould, of the Live Oak Codornices Creek Neighborhood Association. “My main concern is putting a parking lot on Codornices Creek.” 

Historic status raises questions 

Monday, Landmarks Commission members said the draft EIR was inadequate. They said the EIR would have had to show that the Byrne site was not a historic resource under the California Environmental Quality Act. They said the EIR failed to analyze appropriate alternatives. 

Landmarks Commissioner Carrie Olson said that the site is considered a historic resource because it was landmarked in 1975, and re-affirmed to be a historic resource without structure by the Landmarks Commission in 1990. 

The Byrne mansion, built in 1868, was partially destroyed by a fire in 1984. Another fire a year later damaged the mansion further, and the house was razed in 1988. 

In 1990, the site was removed from the National Register at the request of the Chinese Christian Missionary Alliance Church. That same year, Olson said, the Landmarks Commission surveyed the site and found that it was still had historic resource status without structure. It remains on the state and city historic resource list. 

Olson said that the draft EIR didn’t reference the original 1975 document declaring the site a landmark or the subsequent 1990 documentation, nor did it address alternatives for building on the site. 

She added that it didn’t include the full impact the building would have on the historic resources, such as the historic gate leading to the property, a cast-iron fence and a small concrete wall along Oxford Street, certain trees on the property and Codornices creek. 

The draft EIR states that the “original nomination (for landmark status) indicated that the resource listed in the register was the building itself.” And it says that the overall standard for integrity is that a property must retain “the essential physical features that enable it to convey its historic identity.”  

Since the property owner asked for it to be removed from the National Register in 1990, and the eligibility requirements for the national and California register are nearly identical, the removal of the grounds from the National Register strongly implies the site’s ineligibility for the California register, the EIR says.  

Nonetheless, in the city, and in the state, the site is considered a landmark. 

In considering landmark status, Olson said the Landmarks Commission “generally think of more than a building, we think of its setting on the land.” 

Congregation says process moving forward 

The congregation took the Landmarks Commission decision with a grain of salt. Harry Pollack, a past president of Beth El and a volunteer with the congregation said that there are many complexities involved, and he’s happy the application is at this point. 

“There were many productive comments at the (ZAB) meeting. People made suggestions about the good things and the areas that need improvement (in the draft EIR),” he said. “I’m sure the consultants and the staff will deal with these appropriately.” 

Pacific Management Consultants drew up the draft and will work on the Final EIR. The city selected PMC, but Beth El picks up the tab for the work.  

Pollack said that the congregation outgrew its 50-year-old building on Vine Street about a dozen years ago, and that the site at 1301 Oxford is “the perfect fit.” 

“There just isn’t enough room for our many programs,” he said. “We have to double-up and triple-up our classrooms.” 

The proposed building would have space for 650 families. There is room only for 250 families on Vine Street. It would include a sanctuary, a chapel, a social hall, 14 classrooms, a 7,500 square nursery school and administrative offices. 

The creek’s health must be addressed 

Critics of the project say that the site not only is of historical significance, but the resultant traffic, noise and parking problems will be detrimental. And they say that it will compromise the ecologically sensitive Codornices Creek greenbelt corridor. 

The current plan for the site calls for building a driveway over a culverted part of the creek. But speakers before the ZAB called for the creek’s restoration. 

Project opponents say the city has an obligation to protect the creek under Berkeley’s Creek Ordinance of 1995. 

One of the goals of the ordinance is the “restoring of creeks by removing culverts, underground pipes and obstructions to fish and animal migration,” it says. 

According to the UC Berkeley biologist Tom Dudley and members of Friends of Five Creeks, Codornices Creek is a spawning and rearing habitat for the Steelhead trout, and the fish currently exist in population levels high enough for spawning and rearing. The Steelhead trout is federally listed as a threatened species. 

Ann Riley, of the Waterways Restoration Institute said that full restoration and daylighting of the culverted section of the creek at the site would provide “maximum environmental benefits for the creek...(and) this channel configuration would also be suitable for fish passage.” 

The LOCCNA says that they have proposed alternatives to current plan, such as underground parking. They contend that the planned 35 spaces are not nearly enough for 650 families. 

Opponents say that despite repeated requests from the community for changes, the project remains nearly identical to the plan Beth El drafted more than two years ago. 

Pollack contends that though the creek wouldn’t be daylighted, the draft EIR shows that the creek “would be in much better shape with our project.” 

He added that one of the key issues is that the ZAB will have to grapple with is that a project of this size requires balancing a variety of facts. 

“We own the land and we have an obligation to follow the rules of the city and not harm the neighborhood,” he said. “These are difficult complicated matters and we want to work hard to be good neighbors.” 

“It’s painful for everyone that there are any bad feelings, but we’re trying to minimize that,” he said.

It was suspected that arson claimed the oldest and grandest Italianate villa in Berkeley the Byrne House – in January of 1985, says Susan Cerny in the book “Berkeley Landmarks.” 

She said it “had the romantic look of an abandoned and decaying Southern mansion, which was so unusual in Berkeley; it was illustrated in many books about Berkeley and East Bay architecture.” 

The 18-room Byrne House was built in 1868 by Napoleon Bonaparte Byrne, a former plantation owner from Missouri, who came to California in 1858 with his family. According to Cerny, Byrne’s family consisted of his wife and her mother and aunt, four children, two freed slaves – possibly the first black people to live in Berkeley – and a herd of cattle. 

When the 827 acres that surrounded the house turned out to be unsuitable for farming, he bought Venice Island in the Sacramento Delta. Unfortunately for Byrne, the island flooded and he was forced to sell his Berkeley land and his home to Henry Berryman in 1880. 

Cerny wrote that Byrne and his family moved into a house nearby and gave up farming to become postmaster in 1880. Landmarks Commissioner Leslie Emmington-Jones said she believes that he was Berkeley’s first postmaster. 

According to some accounts, Cerny writes, Byrne was the first to plant eucalyptus trees in Berkeley and some of the large old trees in Live Oak Park. 

Byrne died in 1905. 

About 1900, the house was bought by the Mendill Welcher family, who dubbed it “The Cedars.” Cerny says Welcher was a mathematics professor at the University since 1869, and his son went on to become the state superintendent of schools. 

In the 1940s the house and grounds were offered to the city for a park. Cerny wrote that the city declined and the land was donated to the Christian Missionary Church.  

Emmington-Jones said that the Robinson family, whom she thought was entrusted to the land by the Church, made the stipulation that only places of worship could be built upon the land. The Chinese Christian Missionary Alliance Church was the last to inhabit the site. Congregation Beth El bought the property about four years ago said Harry Pollack, a past president of Beth El. 

Cerny wrote that in the late 1970s, efforts were made by several community groups to preserve the house, which had become neglected and dilapidated. She said that work was well underway when the first fire damaged most of the house in December of 1984. Another fire a month later damaged it beyond repair.

Hundreds of activists are coming together this week at UC Berkeley to discuss ways to save communities from dioxins, a chemical which the Enviornmental Protection Agency and others say causes birth defects, cancer and other illnesses. 

The four-day-long People’s Dioxin Action Summit was coordinated by a number of environmental groups from around the country and is hosted by San Francisco’s Greenaction. It began Thursday afternoon and wraps up Sunday morning in various buildings on the university campus. The goal is to educate many about dioxins and have those people get the word out to others. 

“The focus is to come up with strategies that incorporate everybody’s viewpoints,” said Susan Chiang, director of Greenaction. “The goal is to eliminate dioxins.” 

Next week, Dioxin 2000, an annual international conference will be held in nearby Monterey. There, many of the top scientists from around the world will discuss their research and the latest information on dioxins.  

The summit in Berkeley was held this week so that many of those scientists can attend both events. 

Robert Shimek, an indigenous person who lives on the White Earth reservation in Minnesota, said that low income communities suffer the most from dioxin pollutants because of their limited resources and education on the subject. 

“This education is especially important for the indigenous people, because of our cultural practices and ceremonial practices we are at higher risks,” said Shimek, a special project coordinator from the Indigenous Environmental Network. “Getting fish, for example; we were instructed by our elders to catch fish, and they were instructed by their elders, and so on. The fish are contaminated by various pollutants, including dioxins.” 

Many indigenous people also live in poverty, and are not able to stay away from dioxin-filled products or are unable to learn more about dioxins. While this puts them at a higher risk of being affected by dioxins, it is also a reason for those attending the summit to learn about the chemicals and teach the lower income communities. 

Dioxin is a by product of industrial processes that uses chlorine, including bleaching paper, manufacturing petroleum and producing some plastics. 

Most people consume dioxin in their diets, as it is most commonly found in meat and dairy products. It enters plants and animals through the air and water and moves along the food chain. 

“It is really great to see all these activists and health agencies talk about poisons in the air and talk about solutions,” said Charlotte Caldwell, an organizer for the Indigenous Environmental Network, attending the summit from Bemidji, Minn. 

Over 350 people from more than 20 different countries are participating in the workshops and tutorials, many of which cover how to do research on dioxins and to inform others about dioxins. Today there will be several strategy sessions on minimizing the release of dioxins, where everybody is encouraged participate. 

“I took a class on using the Internet to research health issues, and it was very interesting,” Shimek said. “The more we educate ourselves, the better off we will be.”

SAN FRANCISCO – The question weighing on the minds of representatives from civil rights and activist organizations speaking at a press conference at the Federal Building Thursday, was how to maintain the well-being of protesters on the streets of Los Angeles, during next week’s Democratic National Convention. 

Two Berkeley-based groups, the Ruckus Society, which teaches non-violent strategies to activist organizations, and Project Underground, an environmental organization, joined a number of organizations including Rainforest Action Network, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Ella Baker Human Rights Center and the National Lawyers Guild at the media event. 

Mary Ann Manilov of the Ruckus society read a statement from the organization’s director, John Sellers, who had been jailed in Philadelphia, during the Republican Convention. First held on $1 million bail, Sellers walked free earlier this week, when his bail was reduced to $100,000. 

The Ruckus Society leader claims he was not a participant in the protests, but had trained activists before the convention. Police, however, claimed he had orchestrated the protests. 

“Next week thousands of non-violent activists will take to the streets of Los Angeles to reclaim the democracy and justice we have been guaranteed by the Constitution and Bill of Rights,” says Sellers statement. “They will be following in the footsteps of the Abolitionists, the Suffragettes and the Freedom Riders. Will we allow them to be criminalized and locked away from sight? Or will we honor their courage and sacrifice? I guess it depends on what kind of country we plan to leave for our children.” 

The six groups joined 15 others in signing a letter addressed to Vice President Al Gore, the Democratic National Committee, the Los Angeles Police Commissioner and Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordian asking them to work to ensure the groups’ rights to free speech and their right to protest. 

“We’re here to point out how police are using repressive tactics against protesters,” said Medea Benjamin, a Green Party candidate for the U.S. Senate and founder of Global Exchange, a San Francisco-based organization that promotes people-to-people ties around the world. “We’re telling the LAPD to respect the civil rights that we’re trying to wrest back from the corporations that bought them.” 

“It’s strange that protesters have become demonized. That we’re the ones trying to subvert the democratic process,” she said.  

Berkeley’s Project Underground is a human rights group supporting communities resisting mining and oil exploitation. Carwil James, an oil campaigner for the organization said there “is a real danger of the criminalization of protesting in the U.S.” 

“So many communities depend on (American citizens) influencing the institutions that control their lives.” 

James said his organization will participate in a mass demonstration with the U’Wa people of Colombia. The U’wa tribe has been fighting Occidental Petroleum’s environmentally destructive plan to drill in their homeland. 

A website (www.starhawk.com/uwa) that chronicles the people’s struggle says that all 5,000 of their tribal membership would commit suicide if Occidental is allowed to drill. 

Vice President Gore owns stock in the company and his father was a vice president and board member, James said. 

Many people, however, do not view the protesters as innocent. 

Philadelphia Police Commissioner John Timoney recently asked Congress to create a committee to investigate the organizations and involved individuals and urged the FBI and the Justice Department to stop out-of-state activists from even getting to the convention center, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported.  

But Benjamin said that the plan is to keep the protests as peaceful as possible. 

“We can’t account for every protester or infiltrators,” she said. 

The Los Angeles Times reported Tuesday that the California National Guard is prepared to deploy as many as 3,000 soldiers to quell any civil disobedience that may occur. And Benjamin says she’s heard reports that the department is bulking up on tear gas and pepper-spray. 

The LAPD did not return repeated calls. 

“They didn’t use pepper spray and tear-gas in Philadelphia, and we certainly hope it isn’t like Seattle,” she said referring to the World Trade Organization protests in Seattle where police used both pepper spray and tear gas on civilians. 

Benjamin said the protesters will also use the courts. The ACLU of Southern California is seeking a temporary restraining order demanding that the Los Angeles police immediately stop the harassment of protesters at their organizing headquarters, the ACLU announced Thursday. 

A report issued by the organization said protesters have been targets of police surveillance, selective enforcement of traffic laws and police visits without warrants. 

“An alarming pattern of police harassment and intimidation of demonstrators in Seattle and Philadelphia raises serious concern as to whether the planned protests at the Democratic Convention in Los Angeles will be similarly targeted by the LAPD,” said Alan Schlosser, Managing Attorney for the Northern California ACLU. “Even if demonstrations include civil disobedience, that does not mean that the Constitution can be suspended and open season declared on political dissenters.” 

Stella Richardson of the ACLU said that a team of attorneys from the organization will be present during the convention. And, like in Philadelphia, they will go into holding cells of those arrested to make sure that protesters rights aren’t being violated.  

Friday, August 11

Bridge 

1 p.m. 

Live Oak Community Center 

1301 Shattuck Ave. 

The games are open to all players. For partnership and other information please call Vi Kimoto at (510) 223-6539. 

Opera: “A Tribute to  

Tchaikowsky” 

1 p.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center 

1901 Hearst Ave. 

644-6107 

Critical Mass bicycle ride 

5:30 p.m. 

Berkeley BART 

Mass community bicycle ride. All ages, all abilities. Celebration after the ride with food, libations, live music, bicycle videos. The ride gathers every second Friday of the month. 

273-9288 

http://www.bclu.org/couch/ 

Saturday, August 12

“Wild about Books” 

10:30 a.m. 

Berkeley Public Central Library 

2121 Allston Way 

“Something From Nothing.” Soup from a stone? A tailor whose wardrobe grows as it shrinks? Meet some folks who don’t need a lot to have a lot, and see Frog and Toad and their ice cream mix-up. 

The Fellowship of Humanity 

11 a.m. 

411 28th St. at Broadway 

Oakland 

Staring with Mark Hertsgaard’s “Earth Odyssey,” Florence Windfall, Master of Divinity, Graduate Theological Union, contemplates the tragic end of nature. Can it really happen? 

451-5818 

9th Annual Rubber Ducky  

Derby 

6 p.m. 

Waterworld USA 

I-680 and Willow Pass Rd. 

The Rubber Ducky Derby raises funds for Children’s Hospital. Donations are $5 for each duck. Six ducks can be sponsored for $25. For a donation of $100–$499, a duck will be entered in the special Duckling rack. A donation of $500 ensures the donor “Quacker Backer” status. 

869-4912 

www.rubberduckyderby.com 

Movie Night at Underhill 

9 p.m. 

Mad Max and The Road Warrior.  

Underhill parking lot (College Ave. and Channing Way) 

The weekly event is sponsored by people protesting the university’s plans to build a parking structure rather than housing on the Undershill site. 

http://www.bclu.org/underhill/ 

Call: CREW-CUT 

Sunday, August 13

Free Hands-on Bicycle Repair  

Clinics 

11 a.m.-12 noon 

REI  

1388 San Pablo 

Come learn how to fix your own bicycle. Bike technicians will teach a free one-hour clinic covering drive train maintenance and chain repair. All you need to bring is your bike. Tools and expert guidance provided. 

527-7377 

Tuesday, August 15

Senior Resource Fair 

9:30 a.m. - 1:30 p.m. 

South Berkeley Senior Center 

2939 Ellis Street 

Participants include the Alameda County Area Agency on Aging, Center for Independent Living, Alameda County Commission on Aging, Community Energy Services Inc., Center for Elders Independence, Crisis Support Services, Social Security Administration, Lifelong Medical Care, Family Care Giver Alliance, Public Health Nursing, Ombudsman Inc., Adult Protective Services, Elder Abuse Prevention, Berkeley Fire and Police Department of Community Services and Senior Programs. Entertainment provide by "SBSC Fantastic Steppers Tap Group." Free gift drawing for senior participants and lunch and socialization. 

644-6109 

Understanding Your Child’s  

Temperament 

7-8:30 p.m. 

Berkeley YMCA 

2001 Allston Way 

Rona Renner, RN, will explain the different temperament factors that parents and caregivers can look at to understand techniques that will work best in working with an individual child. Free. 

Fibromyalgia Support Group 

12-2 p.m. 

Alta Bates Medical Center, Maffly Auditorium-Herrick Campus, 2001 Dwight Way 

“How to Deal with the Physical and Emotional Aspect of Pain” with Dr. Francine S. Frome, Ph.D., Psychologist, 

601-0550 

“101 Great Hikes of the San  

Francisco Bay Area” 

7:30 p.m. 

Easy Going Travel Shop and Bookstore 

1385 Shattuck Ave. 

Discover the natural beauty of the Bay Area from challenging hikes atop Mount Diablo to seashore strolls at Point Reyes. 

843-3533 

Wednesday, Aug. 16

Bridge 

1 p.m. 

Live Oak Community Center 

1301 Shattuck Ave. 

The games are open to all players. For partnership and other information please call Vi Kimoto at (510) 223-6539. 

Thursday, August 17

“Best Sea Kayaking Trips in  

Northern California” 

7:00 p.m. 

REI 1338 San Pablo Ave. 

In tonight’s slide presentation nationally certified kayak instructors Roger Schumann and Jan Shriner will share information from their Guide to Sea Kayaking in Central and Northern California.  

527-7377 

Helen Nestor: Personal and Political 

4-6 p.m. 

Oakland Museum of California 

10th and Oak Streets, Oakland 

Opening reception honoring Berkeley photographer Helen Nestor. The exhibition shows a representative series of images documenting the Free Speech Movement, the ‘60s cicl rights marches, women’s issues-all seen with a direct, probing eye. The exhibition on view through Oct. 15, 2000 

1-800-OAK MUSE 

University Avenue Association  

6:30 p.m. 

1810 University Ave. 

The University Avenue Merchants holds its monthly meeting. 

Call 548-4110

Vice President Al Gore 

Los Angeles Police Commissioner 

The Democratic National Committee 

Mayor Richard Riordan 

Dear Sirs,  

We, the undersigned groups, are preparing to go to Los Angeles to engage in peaceful protests at the Democratic Party National Convention in order to call attention to the corporate corruption of our political system, as manifested the neglect of issues ranging from sweatshop labor to environmental destruction to the failed “war on drugs.” 

As peaceful organizations with a long-term dedication to human rights and democracy, we are deeply disturbed by events in Philadelphia. The City of Philadelphia, the CityAttorney, and the Philadelphia Police Department have created a serious civil liberties crisis by arresting protesters on preposterous charges, fixing astronomical bails and physically abusing jailed activists. We see these actions as a concerted attempt to harass activists, to disrupt our movement, and to stigmatize peaceful protestors. Philadelphia, the birthplace of the government and the Constitution, has now become a center of anti-constitutional repression. 

The violation of basic civil liberties includes the arrest of approximately seventy people who were building puppets and art for street theater in a Philadelphia warehouse. A number of activists were arrested while not engaged in protest-related activities. This act of singling out key organizers and the excessive, $1 million bail set for John Sellers of the Ruckus Society of Berkeley and for Kate Sorenson, a community organizer with ActUP Philadelphia, are age old police control tactics. Both Mr. Sellers and Ms. Sorenson face a variety of trumped up charges and many counts of conspiracy (see attached statement by Mr. Sellers). We find this remarkable since the Philadelphia protests took place with virtually no violent conflicts and almost no property destruction. Thousands of protestors engaged in several days of peaceful protest including mass marches and acts of peaceful civil disobedience. Since there is no basis in fact for the charges brought against them, the only conclusion that can be drawn is that the Philadelphia authorities hope to criminalize protesters and to stigmatize those who engage in the exercise of their rights to speak out, to assemble, and to dissent. 

There is also another dangerous aspect to the Philadelphia developments. Philadelphia authorities such as Police Commissioner John Timoney have called for Congress to create a committee to investigate the organizations and individuals behind these protests. Why a Congressional committee? All of our activities have been conducted in public, our demonstrations and non-violence code attached below have been widely publicized, and our activities have been peaceful. We see the call for congressional investigations as the opening wedge of a new era of McCarthyism. Just as Senator Joseph McCarthy used the cry of “communists in government” to whip up hysteria that ruined the lives of tens of thousands, so today the Philadelphia authorities are attacking contemporary activists in an attempt to repress the right of people in the United States to exercise their constitutional right to protest. 

As we head for Los Angeles, we want to make it clear that we will not accept the attempt of authorities in any city to limit our right to protest peacefully. We have the constitutionally guaranteed right to peacefully assemble, the right to freedom of speech, and the right to petition our government. We intend to exercise these rights. 

We call upon Al Gore, the Democratic National Committee, and other leaders of the Democratic Party to speak out in defense of our right to protest at the party’s convention. Like the discussion inside the convention, the dissent outside forms part of the legitimate debate in our society without which there is no democracy. 

We demand that Mayor Richard Riordan, the City of Los Angeles and the Los Angeles Police Department work to ensure our right to exercise our rights to free speech including the right to protest. We will be in Los Angeles to speak out and will not be intimidated by the new strategy to destroy our movement for social, economic and environmental justice. 

Global Exchange 

JustACT: Youth Action for Global Justice 

Project Underground 

Bay Area D2K 

Critical Resistance 

Ella Baker Center for Human Rights 

Art and Revolution 

National Lawyer’s Guild (LA and Bay Area) 

Alliance for Global Justice 

Nicaragua Network 

Campaign for Labor Rights 

Institute for Food and Development Policy  

AmazonWatch 

Americans for Democratic Action 

Forests Forever 

Bread and Roses Community Fund 

American Lands Alliance 

Alliance for Sustainable Jobs and the Environment

Tom Holmoe is a man under pressure. 

Holmoe, the Cal head football coach, is in the fourth year of a five-year contract, and his teams have yet to achieve a winning record or reach a bowl game. And Holmoe feels this year is his make-or-break season. 

“This season is my last chance to prove myself here,” he said at a press conference Wednesday. “We have to win this year.” 

Those are pretty dire words coming from a coach with a contract that runs through next season. But Holmoe refused to back down from his self-imposed deadline of this season. 

But here’s the kicker: Holmoe has had an contract extension on his desk, needing only his signature to become official, since the end of last season. Cal Athletic Director John Kasser has said the offer is open-ended. Yet Holmoe said he will not sign the extension unless the Bears win this year. 

“We haven’t played as well as we can the last couple of years, especially last year,” he said. “In my mind, I haven’t earned the extension. And I can’t take something I haven’t earned.” 

Holmoe’s expectations for the upcoming season seem to be quite a bit higher than what many predict for the Bears, which is a battle with Washington State University to stay out of the Pac-10 cellar. Not to mention that all three non-league opponents, Utah, Illinois and Fresno State, are coming off of bowl seasons and have raised expectations. 

Holmoe even held out the possibility of a Rose Bowl berth for the Bears. 

“I’d say that there isn’t one team out there that can go wire-to-wire in the Pac-10,” he said. “I mean, (conference favorites) Washington and USC are both good squads, but they’re not the dominant teams they were in an earlier era.” 

He pointed out that many of the Pac-10’s Rose Bowl teams of the past decade have been picked to finish in the bottom half of the league before the season. 

“Look at Stanford last year, or Washington State (in 1998) or Arizona State (in 1997). They weren’t picked to win the conference,” he said. 

The key to a winning season for Cal is the offense, which was the worst in the Pac-10 last season. Kyle Boller started at quarterback as a true freshman, and his inexperience showed, as he threw 15 interceptions and completed just 38.6 percent of his passes. 

But Holmoe came to his prize recruit’s defense, saying the problems can’t all be blamed on the young quarterback. 

“There were times the receiver ran the wrong timing route, and Kyle ended up throwing up a pop-fly for the safety to intercept. You can’t blame Kyle for that. But he never said anything to the media, or even to the coaches. He took it all on himself,” Holmoe said. “The kid is so tough, he a real champion.” 

A full spring practice season to work with his receivers has helped Boller immensely, according to Holmoe. 

“He had to come in last year and just concentrate on preparing for each week’s game, instead of learning the offense at a regular rate. He’s really learned so much more since last season,” Holmoe said. “There’s no question in my mind, he’s going to be a hell of a player.” 

That said, the Bears will lean heavily on the running game early in the season, with four starters returning on the offensive line and good depth in the backfield with Joe Igber, Joseph Echema and Saleem Muhammad. In fact, the Bears are so deep at tailback that Marcus Fields, who led the team in rushing in 1998 and gained 123 yards against Rutgers in last season’s opener, is being moved to receiver to give Boller more options in the passing game. 

With improvement from the offense, Holmoe is confident the Bears can be competitive in the Pac-10. The defense got a huge boost when preseason All-American defensive end Andre Carter turned down a chance to be a first-round draft pick and decided to return for his senior season. 

“I can’t say enough about Andre. He’s really a great example of the term ‘student-athlete.’ He’s a great player and an even better leader,” Holmoe said. 

Holmoe also stressed that the special teams should be a strength this year, with punter Nick Harris joining Carter on many preseason All-America lists. 

“People don’t talk about special teams that much, but it’s a huge part of the game. So there are three parts to successful team: offense, defense and special teams. Last year we had two out of three, which isn’t bad. But this year we need all three to come through.” 

The defense should be good enough to keep the Bears in most games, but the offense will have to come through for the season to be a successful one by any standard.

Leonard Schwartzburd is a psychologist. He knows more about anxiety than radiation. 

So he understands the fear that the antennas planned around the corner from his house atop the Oaks Theater on Solano Avenue are causing for himself and his neighbors. 

On a recent walk past the theater, Schwartzburd observed the yellow notices posted on the building informing passersby that soon Nextel Corporation would affix antennas on the building. 

These are the telecommunications devices which make cell phones and pagers work. 

“There was no information about safety (on the notices),” Schwartzburd said. “These are heavy-duty transmittal devices for radiation.” 

Schwartzburd said he and his neighbors have a right to know if a potentially dangerous source of radiation is coming next door. 

In Berkeley, antennas are approved administratively. Those on top of the theater have that approval. Citizens, however, may appeal the decision to the Zoning Adjustment Board. 

That’s what Schwartzburd and his neighbors plan to do. They have until Aug. 15 to file the appeal. That will set in motion a public hearing before the Zoning Adjustments Board. 

Vivian Kahn, interim deputy director of planning, says a city has only minimal power to regulate the antennas. 

A city cannot prohibit them, but can regulate them for aesthetics, she said. The antennas atop the Oaks Theater, for example, will be hidden from public view. 

Cities can also dictate where the devices are cited. Berkeley’s 1996 “Wireless Telecommunications Antenna Guidelines” does just this. 

“Wireless communication antennas are discouraged from being located on buildings containing residential uses in residential zones and on residential uses in any zoning district, because of the visual impacts and because the use is inconsistent with the purposes of the residential zoning districts, which is to recognize and protect the existing pattern of residential development in the city’s residentially-zoned areas, in accordance with the city’s General Plan.” 

Schwartzburd, who owns a cellular phone, agrees that antennas should not be banned. But he argues that Solano Avenue, adjacent to a school and residences, is not an appropriate location. 

Besides, Schwartzburd is not nearly as worried about what the antennas look like, as what they might be doing to the community’s health. 

“There is research evidence, in a field in which there is still some controversy, indicating that under various conditions such radiation is a health risk for cancer and other harmful biological effects,” says a leaflet Schwartzburd and his neighbors have distributed in the area of the theater. 

The city, however, can play no role in regulating the safely aspects of the antennas. That is the purview of the Federal Communications Commission.  

“This is an area where the federal government has taken a hard line,” Kahn said. “There are a lot of limitations.” 

Cities cannot require more review than the Telecommunications Act of 1996 demands, she said. 

“We can require that an applicant demonstrate (the antennas are) in compliance,” she said. 

Nextel Corporation, the company locating the antennas on the theater, had a consultant send Schwartzburd a report indicating the compliance of the devices. 

“(The) exposure levels are in full compliance with current FCC public safety standards and are, in fact, substantially lower than the prevailing public health and safety standards would allow,” wrote Jerrold T. Bushberg of Health and Medical Physics Consulting. Bushberg is a clinical professor in the department of Radiology, school of Medicine at UC Davis and the director of the Health Physics Programs of UC Davis’ Department of Environmental Health and Safety. 

Schwartzburd says the national standards are probably OK. But, he said he wants to know who checks to make sure that the antennas, in fact, emit the degree of radiation that the telecommunications company says they do. 

And, he argues that nobody is looking into the cumulative effects of multiple antennas. “On Solano Avenue, three blocks west of the Alameda, there’s an office building with big ugly antennas.” Schwartzburd said. 

When asked about calculating the cumulative effects, Rhodes said it would be a difficult task to gather the information about where all the antennas in the city are located. That’s because antenna permits are filed with the building permit. There is no separate list kept of these antennas. 

“This is the first time anyone has raised the issue,” Rhodes said. 

At some point, he added, the city will put that information onto the city’s computerized mapping system. 

He added, however, that the cumulative effects are not relevant. Once a person is more than 10 feet from the antenna, the radiation level is not a danger. “It’s dispersed so broadly in the atmosphere,” Rhodes said, noting, however, that in Europe the standards for emitting radiation are more stringent. 

Meanwhile Schwartzburd and his neighbors are studying the question and banning together in anticipation of the hearing that will follow the appeal. 

“I don’t know if the amount of radiation is enough to bother us,” he conceded. But the time the community gains from delaying the approval and the understanding they could get in the meantime – including how to fight the antennas – could calm the anxieties. 

But for the moment Schwartzburd says, “As a psychologist, I can tell that (the proposed antennas) have created a lot of anxiety in people.”  

A neighborhood meeting to meet with representatives of Nextel is tentatively set for 7 p.m. Aug. 23 at the Northbrae Community Church, 941 The Alameda. Call 524-0121 for information. have until Aug. 15 to file the appeal. That will set in motion a public hearing before the Zoning Adjustments Board. 

Vivian Kahn, interim deputy director of planning, says a city has only minimal power to regulate the antennas. 

A city cannot prohibit them, but can regulate them for aesthetics, she said. The antennas atop the Oaks Theater, for example, will be hidden from public view. 

Cities can also dictate where the devices are cited. Berkeley’s 1996 “Wireless Telecommunications Antenna Guidelines” does just this. 

“Wireless communication antennas are discouraged from being located on buildings containing residential uses in residential zones and on residential uses in any zoning district, because of the visual impacts and because the use is inconsistent with the purposes of the residential zoning districts, which is to recognize and protect the existing pattern of residential development in the city’s residentially-zoned areas, in accordance with the city’s General Plan.” 

Schwartzburd, who owns a cellular phone, agrees that antennas should not be banned. But he argues that Solano Avenue, adjacent to a school and residences, is not an appropriate location. 

Besides, Schwartzburd is not nearly as worried about what the antennas look like, as what they might be doing to the community’s health. 

“There is research evidence, in a field in which there is still some controversy, indicating that under various conditions such radiation is a health risk for cancer and other harmful biological effects,” says a leaflet Schwartzburd and his neighbors have distributed in the area of the theater. 

The city, however, can play no role in regulating the safely aspects of the antennas. That is the purview of the Federal Communications Commission.  

“This is an area where the federal government has taken a hard line,” Kahn said. “There are a lot of limitations.” 

Cities cannot require more review than the Telecommunications Act of 1996 demands, she said. 

“We can require that an applicant demonstrate (the antennas are) in compliance,” she said. 

Nextel Corporation, the company locating the antennas on the theater, had a consultant send Schwartzburd a report indicating the compliance of the devices. 

“(The) exposure levels are in full compliance with current FCC public safety standards and are, in fact, substantially lower than the prevailing public health and safety standards would allow,” wrote Jerrold T. Bushberg of Health and Medical Physics Consulting. Bushberg is a clinical professor in the department of Radiology, school of Medicine at UC Davis and the director of the Health Physics Programs of UC Davis’ Department of Environmental Health and Safety. 

Schwartzburd says the national standards are probably OK. But, he said he wants to know who checks to make sure that the antennas, in fact, emit the degree of radiation that the telecommunications company says they do. 

And, he argues that nobody is looking into the cumulative effects of multiple antennas. “On Solano Avenue, three blocks west of the Alameda, there’s an office building with big ugly antennas.” Schwartzburd said. 

When asked about calculating the cumulative effects, Rhodes said it would be a difficult task to gather the information about where all the antennas in the city are located. That’s because antenna permits are filed with the building permit. There is no separate list kept of these antennas. 

“This is the first time anyone has raised the issue,” Rhodes said. 

At some point, he added, the city will put that information onto the city’s computerized mapping system. 

He added, however, that the cumulative effects are not relevant. Once a person is more than 10 feet from the antenna, the radiation level is not a danger. “It’s dispersed so broadly in the atmosphere,” Rhodes said, noting, however, that in Europe the standards for emitting radiation are more stringent. 

Meanwhile Schwartzburd and his neighbors are studying the question and banning together in anticipation of the hearing that will follow the appeal. 

“I don’t know if the amount of radiation is enough to bother us,” he conceded. But the time the community gains from delaying the approval and the understanding they could get in the meantime – including how to fight the antennas – could calm the anxieties. 

But for the moment Schwartzburd says, “As a psychologist, I can tell that (the proposed antennas) have created a lot of anxiety in people.”  

A neighborhood meeting to meet with representatives of Nextel is tentatively set for 7 p.m. Aug. 23 at the Northbrae Community Church, 941 The Alameda. Call 524-0121 for information.

When the Democratic National Convention rolls into Los Angeles next week, over 10,000 police and security guards will be ready to control the crowds as thousands of delegates, politicians, observers and protesters flock to the area. 

Berkeley activists will be both inside and outside the convention, catching the action first hand. 

Larry Buchalter, activist on disability issues, and UC Berkeley student Noah Schubert are just two of those Berkeleyans who will be in the heat of the action inside the convention center. 

Buchalter is a member of the Credentials Committee, which verifies delegates. 

He had hoped to be selected as a delegate but others, received more votes and will be seated as delegates from the Bay Area. Some of them include David Stein from the Monclair Greater-Oakland Democratic Club and Assemblymember Dion Aroner. 

Still, Buchalter is planning on making an impact. 

“I am hoping to do work on getting progressive ideas heard and onto the platform,” he said. “I don’t know how successful I will be, but I’m going to work very hard to try.” 

Buchalter, who uses a wheelchair to get around, said he will be representing Democrats with Disabilities and discussing their needs, which includes improving wheelchair access, implementing American with Disabilities Act standards around the country and building affordable, accessible housing. 

He stressed that the disabled community should vote for Al Gore, because he “at least talks about disability issues.”  

Buchalter also said that the next president will likely have the opportunity to appoint several justices to the Supreme Court. He said that Gore’s choices would be more liberal than George W. Bush’s, which would likely benefit the disabled community. 

Schubert, heading into his senior year at UC Berkeley recently finished his term as president of the Cal Berkeley Democrats, a university-affiliated club. 

He will be meeting with a dozen or so club members and other Young Democrats of America from across the country. 

“I have been actively involved in party politics for a while,” he said. “I am looking forward to hearing the democratic speakers. I think it should energize democrats to go out and vote for the party in the November election.” 

Schubert will be volunteering at the convention and working with the several hundred Young Democrats, helping communication with the media. 

One factor the people attending the convention will have to deal with is heavy security and protests. 

Secret service agents will control the building and hotels where delegates are staying. 

Thousands are expected to take to the streets outside the Staples Center, the downtown site of the convention, and participate in protests. Police have already advised downtown businesses to expect the worst and consider closing down shop during the week. 

“As long as everybody is peaceful, they have a right to be there and protest,” Buchalter said. “I would like to see our party take some of (the protesters’) ideas into consideration. I don’t know if that will happen, though.” 

Schubert agreed that the protesters have a right to voice their opinions and said that the Democratic Party has traditionally supported free speech. 

“The protesters are welcome, as long as they are non-violent,” Schubert said. “I don’t think it will be too much of a problem, everyone should be getting along fine and the convention should go smoothly.” 

Since security will be so tight and the number of tickets to the event is limited, not everyone who wants to will be able to attend. 

Councilmember Polly Armstrong said she would like to go as an “excited observer,” but has not gotten a ticket yet. 

“I’m a sucker for democracy,” she said. “I love political speeches and seeing how the whole thing works.”

Clerical workers at UC Berkeley say they will not give up until they get what the want. 

They spent their ninth consecutive Wednesday lunch break marching around California Hall, where the office of Chancellor Robert Berdahl is located. They hope to pressure the administration for a wage increase they say would bring them closer to market level salaries. 

While negotiations continue at the UC President’s office in Oakland, the clerical workers, currently working under an old contract, say they may go on strike later this month if new contracts aren’t approved soon. 

“We were kind of hoping that we could march once and get it over with,” said Kathleen Parsons, who works in the molecular and cell biology department. “We have realized that it was going to be a long struggle.” 

Some 75 people showed up at the noontime rally, wearing shirts saying “I work for free on Friday,” carrying signs and clanging noisemakers of all kinds to make as loud of a statement as possible. 

The group circled the building twice, walked to the nearby Faculty Club and returned in time to make it back to their various offices. 

Meanwhile, 15 of the demonstrators hopped a van to Oakland and met up with another 50 people outside UC president Richard Atkinson’s office, where they also demonstrated. 

“The demonstrations in Oakland went great,” said Nick Slater, in a phone interview later Wednesday afternoon. Slater is a UC clerical employee who organized the trip to Oakland. 

“We were asked to leave by security, but we refused because we were on a public sidewalk.” he said. 

The union is asking for a retroactive raise of six percent for last year and five percent for this year. They contend market-level salaries on average are 21 percent higher than what UC workers earn, and many complain that their pay is not high enough to meet the cost of living in the Bay Area. 

Clerical Union Employees President Eleanor Levine contends that the money is there. The university has $1.9 million in surplus from last year that could be used to give clerical workers their raises, she says, adding that money is being used for construction at various campuses. 

The university, which did not return calls, is now offering clericals a 4.5 percent increase effective Oct. 1 and an additional 1 percent effective April 1, 2001. It is offering no merit increases, however, and the union says it ought to. 

The demonstrators argue that while UC will not grant the 18,000 clerical workers represented by CUE the salary increases they are asking for, it gave its top-level administrators 24 percent increases over the last two years. 

“They take care of their own and we are like the worker bees,” said Jane Fehlberg, an administrative assistant who was on a six-week hunger strike earlier this summer but now fasts on Wednesdays. 

“I didn’t think they would let me go that long (on a hunger strike) but they did. They don’t care, that is clear.” 

The clerical employees are beginning to get some support from other university-related unions and other faculty. Lunchtime demonstrations began in June with only a dozen or so people, but have grown each week and included as many as 200 people. 

Fehlberg said the demonstrators may put on political theater in future weeks. 

“There’s something good about (demonstrating),” Parsons said. “We are getting people moving around and actually doing stuff. People who were afraid to speak out or didn’t know what to do, were just frustrated. They thought their only alternative was to quit. Now people are a little more bold.” biology department. “We have realized that it was going to be a long struggle.” 

Some 75 people showed up at the noontime rally, wearing shirts saying “I work for free on Friday,” carrying signs and clanging noisemakers of all kinds to make as loud of a statement as possible. 

The group circled the building twice, walked to the nearby Faculty Club and returned in time to make it back to their various offices. 

Meanwhile, 15 of the demonstrators hopped a van to Oakland and met up with another 50 people outside UC president Richard Atkinson’s office, where they also demonstrated. 

“The demonstrations in Oakland went great,” said Nick Slater, in a phone interview later Wednesday afternoon. Slater is a UC clerical employee who organized the trip to Oakland. 

“We were asked to leave by security, but we refused because we were on a public sidewalk.” he said. 

The union is asking for a retroactive raise of six percent for last year and five percent for this year. They contend market-level salaries on average are 21 percent higher than what UC workers earn, and many complain that their pay is not high enough to meet the cost of living in the Bay Area. 

Clerical Union Employees President Eleanor Levine contends that the money is there. The university has $1.9 million in surplus from last year that could be used to give clerical workers their raises, she says, adding that money is being used for construction at various campuses. 

The university, which did not return calls, is now offering clericals a 4.5 percent increase effective Oct. 1 and an additional 1 percent effective April 1, 2001. It is offering no merit increases, however, and the union says it ought to. 

The demonstrators argue that while UC will not grant the 18,000 clerical workers represented by CUE the salary increases they are asking for, it gave its top-level administrators 24 percent increases over the last two years. 

“They take care of their own and we are like the worker bees,” said Jane Fehlberg, an administrative assistant who was on a six-week hunger strike earlier this summer but now fasts on Wednesdays. 

“I didn’t think they would let me go that long (on a hunger strike) but they did. They don’t care, that is clear.” 

The clerical employees are beginning to get some support from other university-related unions and other faculty. Lunchtime demonstrations began in June with only a dozen or so people, but have grown each week and included as many as 200 people. 

Fehlberg said the demonstrators may put on political theater in future weeks. 

“There’s something good about (demonstrating),” Parsons said. “We are getting people moving around and actually doing stuff. People who were afraid to speak out or didn’t know what to do, were just frustrated. They thought their only alternative was to quit. Now people are a little more bold.”

Thursday, August 10

Environmental Sampling Project Task Force-LBNL 

6:30 p.m. 

First Congregational Church, Large Assembly Room 

2345 Channing Way 

The agenda will include a public comment session, consultation of Draft Comment on the Sampling Plan and Review of Comments. 

486-4387 

Community Dance Party 

7:45 p.m. - 9:45 p.m. 

Live Oak Park 

1301 Shattuck Ave. 

Dance instruction included with admission. 

Cost: Teens, $2; adult non-members, $4 

841-1205 

“Climbing California’s Peaks”  

7 p.m. 

REI, 1338 San Pablo Ave. 

Join Harrison Hood of Hood Mountain Adventures will show slides of some of his favorite California climbs, including Mt. Shasta and Mt. Lassen. 

527-7377 

Ballroom Dance with Roman Ostrowski 

1 p.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center 

1701 Hearst Ave. 

644-6107 

Zoning Adjustments Board 

7 p.m. 

City Council Chambers 

2134 Martin Luther King Jr. Way 

The agenda includes a public hearing to accept comments on the adequacy of the Draft Environmental Impact Report for the Congregation Beth El Synagogue and School proposed for 1301 Oxford St. It also includes a request by Smart and Final wholesale grocery store to sell distilled spirits for off-site consumption. 

Friday, August 11

Bridge 

1 p.m. 

Live Oak Community Center 

1301 Shattuck Ave. 

The games are open to all players. For partnership and other information please call Vi Kimoto at (510) 223-6539. 

Opera: “A Tribute to Tchaikowsky” 

1 p.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center 

1901 Hearst Ave. 

644-6107 

Saturday, August 12 

“Wild about Books” 

10:30 a.m. 

Berkeley Public Central Library 

2121 Allston Way 

“Something From Nothing.” Soup from a stone? A tailor whose wardrobe grows as it shrinks? Meet some folks who don’t need a lot to have a lot, and see Frog and Toad and their ice cream mix-up. 

The Fellowship of Humanity 

11 a.m. 

411 28th St. at Broadway 

Oakland 

Staring with Mark Hertsgaard’s “Earth Odyssey,” Florence Windfall, Master of Divinity, Graduate Theological Union, contemplates the tragic end of nature. Can it really happen? 

451-5818 

9th Annual Rubber Ducky  

Derby 

6 p.m. 

Waterworld USA 

I-680 and Willow Pass Rd. 

The Rubber Ducky Derby raises funds for Children’s Hospital. Donations are $5 for each duck. Six ducks can be sponsored for $25. For a donation of $100–$499, a duck will be entered in the special Duckling rack. A donation of $500 ensures the donor “Quacker Backer” status. 

869-4912 

www.rubberduckyderby.com 

Sunday, August 13

Free Hands-on Bicycle Repair  

Clinics 

11 a.m.-12 noon 

REI  

1388 San Pablo 

Come learn how to fix your own bicycle. Bike technicians will teach a free one-hour clinic covering drive train maintenance and chain repair. All you need to bring is your bike.  

527-7377 

Tuesday, August 15

Senior Resource Fair 

9:30 a.m. - 1:30 p.m. 

South Berkeley Senior Center 

2939 Ellis Street 

Participants include the Alameda County Area Agency on Aging, Center for Independent Living, Alameda County Commission on Aging, Community Energy Services Inc., Center for Elders Independence, Crisis Support Services, Social Security Administration, Lifelong Medical Care, Family Care Giver Alliance, Public Health Nursing, Ombudsman Inc., Adult Protective Services, Elder Abuse Prevention, Berkeley Fire and Police Department of Community Services and Senior Programs. Entertainment provide by "SBSC Fantastic Steppers Tap Group." Free gift drawing for senior participants and lunch and socialization. 

644-6109 

Understanding Your Child’s  

Temperament 

7-8:30 p.m. 

Berkeley YMCA 

2001 Allston Way 

Rona Renner, RN, will explain the different temperament factors that parents and caregivers can look at to understand techniques that will work best in working with an individual child. Free. 

Fibromyalgia Support Group 

12-2 p.m. 

Alta Bates Medical Center, Maffly Auditorium-Herrick Campus, 2001 Dwight Way 

“How to Deal with the Physical and Emotional Aspect of Pain” with Dr. Francine S. Frome, Ph.D., Psychologist, 

601-0550 

“101 Great Hikes of the San  

Francisco Bay Area” 

7:30 p.m. 

Easy Going Travel Shop and Bookstore 

1385 Shattuck Ave. 

Discover the natural beauty of the Bay Area from challenging hikes atop Mount Diablo to seashore strolls at Point Reyes. 

843-3533 

Wednesday, Aug. 16

Bridge 

1 p.m. 

Live Oak Community Center 

1301 Shattuck Ave. 

The games are open to all players. For partnership and other information please call Vi Kimoto at (510) 223-6539. 

Thursday, August 17

“Best Sea Kayaking Trips in  

Northern California” 

7:00 p.m. 

REI 1338 San Pablo Ave. 

In tonight’s slide presentation nationally certified kayak instructors Roger Schumann and Jan Shriner will share information from their Guide to Sea Kayaking in Central and Northern California.  

527-7377 

Helen Nestor: Personal and Political 

4-6 p.m. 

Oakland Museum of California 

10th and Oak Streets, Oakland 

Opening reception honoring Berkeley photographer Helen Nestor. The exhibition shows a representative series of images documenting the Free Speech Movement, the ‘60s cicl rights marches, women’s issues-all seen with a direct, probing eye. The exhibition on view through Oct. 15, 2000 

1-800-OAK MUSE 

University Avenue Association  

6:30 p.m. 

1810 University Ave. 

The University Avenue Merchants holds its monthly meeting. 

Call 548-4110 

Friday, August 18

Big Mountain 

7:30 p.m. 

Ecology Center 

2530 San Pablo Ave. 

Join the Berkeley Ecology Center, Diane Patterson and Green Eye Records Foundation for an evening of music, information and community, focusing on the issues facing the Dineh (Navajo).  

548-2220, ext. 233  

Saturday, August 19

“Wild about Books” 

10:30 a.m. 

Berkeley Public Central Library 

2121 Allston Way 

“Soap and Water, Please!” Bath time isn’t always the same old thing when “There’s a Hippo in My Bath!” Take a dip with Frog and Toad. 

Re-opening of the United Nations Association Info Center 

11 a.m. - 5 p.m. 

1403 “B” Addison St. 

The volunteer-operated UN/UNICEF Center will celebrate its grand re-opening at its new location behind Andronico’s University Ave. Market. 

841-1752 

Sunday, August 20

Cuba from the Inside 

Berkeley Fellowship Hall 

Cedar and Bonita 

7 p.m. 

Benefit screening of Fidel: A New Documentary by Estela Bravo. Special guests will include Karen Wald, a Havana-based writer, journalist, teacher and foreign correspondent. 

Among the topics she will discuss are human rights, religion, health care, education, economics, race relations and US-Cuba relations. 

Sliding scale $10-$25 per person 

Free Hands-on Bicycle Repair Clinics  

11:00 a.m.-noon noon 

REI  

1388 San Pablo 

Come learn how to fix your own bicycle. Bike technicians will teach a free one-hour clinic covering brake adjustments. Bring your bike. Tools and guidance provided. 

527-7377

Need help on Claremont 

The Daily Planet received the following letter addressed to Councilmember Polly Armstrong: 

Dear Councilmember Armstrong (Polly): 

As one of our constituents who is more frequently a pedestrian than a driver – I try to walk as often as possible – Claremont Avenue is now more dangerous than before it received all the “attention.” 

Within the last ten or so days it has become even more dangerous to cross Claremont and Ashby on foot than before the left turn lane was established. Walking up Claremont and crossing Ashby to walk donw Russell to get to Chery, there is now almost no time to walk before the red hand goes up and the traffic light is red. 

I will really be in fear when the days once again grow shore and I am walking home from work up Ashby. I should not have to be forced to drive. 

I know you have been working very hard on this issue. Please let me know in writing what steps you are taking to remedy this. Perhaps Caltrans can extend the amount of “walk” time for safety reasons. 

Thank-you very much for your attention to this serious matter. 

Kathy Zatkin 

Correct courtyard dangers 

Editor: 

Thank you for your Aug. 4 story on Hayden Perry, a neighbor of mine. Hayden died as a result of a fall in the Redwood Gardens courtyard, as your article relates. I am not privy to the facts of his death beyond this, but I can speculate of the many trip hazards in the courtyard, one may well have caused Hayden’s fall. 

For example, not 20 paces from where he was found is an area of concrete paving marked off with black and yellow caution tape. It oulines the location of another resident’s fall. Several weeks have passed and this dangerous location has not been repaired yet. 

There are other areas of uneven interior and exterior surfaces, grade changes and threshold transitions throughout Redwood Gardens which resent similar hazards to residents. 

Colleen Campbell of the Alameda County Emergency Medical Services quotes National Center for Injury Prevention and Control research that falls are the second leading cause of accidental death in the U.S. Of 240,000 falls annually, 75 percent occur in the older adult population.  

Unsafe physical conditions, such as those existing at Redwood Gardens, may cause falls, with injury, medical expense, confinement, or death likely consequences. In the face of these grim data, the Redwood Gardens administration might respond scornfully, as the administrator did in a February letter to me, that “(W)e have had very few slip and trip accidents on the property.” 

“Very few” is too many. (The complete correspondence is posted on our Free Speech Board.) 

The building code doesn’t exist that would approve raw threshold transitions and unleveled walking surfaces or countenance their being swathed in caution tape. Perhaps one day, all these taped areas will be repaired. Until then, the black and yellow stripes serve only as legalistic traps. (”If you fall, it’s your fault because we’ve warned you”) or memorials to the fallen.  

Ms. Fore, the ball is in your courtyard. 

Requiescat in pace, Hayden. 

Kinsey Marshall 

The preliminary hearing in a felony drug possession case involving an Oakland medical marijuana club was once again postponed yesterday in Berkeley’s Superior Court when a key prosecution witness was not available to testify. 

The witness, a drug crimes expert with the state Department of Justice, was expected to testify that ten pounds of marijuana found in a van belonging to defendant Michael Fenili in March was intended for sale and distribution, not personal use. 

The defense claims the contraband was to be used by patients in a medical marijuana network run by Oakland-based First Hemp Bank. 

With the state’s chief witness unavailable, assistant District Attorney Colleen McMahon and defense lawyers for Fenili and co-defendant Celina Perez agreed in court yesterday to re-set the preliminary hearing in the case for Sept. 6 at 9 a.m. The preliminary hearing, in which the state must show it has sufficient evidence to proceed, had already been postponed twice. 

Meanwhile, First Hemp Bank co-founder David Clancy, who claims the seized marijuana belongs to him, filed a motion yesterday asking the court to return the contraband so it can be distributed to patients in the organization’s network.“It’s personal property,” Omar Figueroa, Clancy’s lawyer, told the Daily Planet. “It’s medicine and the patients will ingest it,” he said of the marijuana, which now sits in an evidence locker.  

In June, Berkeley Superior Court Judge Jennie Rhine denied a similar motion filed by Figueroa on behalf of First Hemp Bank, ruling that over 20 bags of pot confiscated in the March 26 arrest of Fenili and Perez must be preserved as evidence in the case.  

Jamie Elmer, Fenili’s lawyer, said he had hoped to use yesterday’s preliminary hearing to put on testimony from 22 “patient-caregivers” in the medical marijuana network. Elmer will try to convince Rhine that the criminal case should be dismissed because Fenili was serving as a “primary caregiver” under the Compassionate Use Act, which permits distribution of marijuana to patients who have received a doctor’s prescription. 

Elmer said yesterday that his client was not willing to discuss a plea bargain with the DA’s office. “The [medical marijuana] defense is pretty much all or nothing,” he said yesterday. “Our clients have felt fairly strongly that this was not a crime,” he said. “They are willing to go to the mat, so to speak.”  

District Attorney McMahon said Wednesday she could not comment on the case. But she indicated that calling an expert narcotics witness was routine at a preliminary hearing to establish possession with intent to distribute. “It’s something that an expert must testify about,” she said. “Every time we have a possession for sale case I have to qualify an expert to provide that testimony.” 

Defense lawyers said yesterday that a ruling last month by U.S. District Court Judge Charles Breyer in San Francisco has brightened prospects for the medical marijuana movement. On July 14, Breyer reversed an earlier decision he had made against pot clubs by ruling that Oakland’s Cannabis Buyers’ Cooperative could resume distributing marijuana to patients who would otherwise “suffer imminent harm.”  

“Judge Breyer’s ruling is narrower than Proposition 215 because it only applies to people that have no alternative,” Clancy attorney Omar Figueroa said yesterday. “But it does show that the federal government recognizes medical necessity,” he added.  

But Fenili attorney Elmer said a medical marijuana defense could nevertheless be difficult to establish. “The courts don’t look too kindly on the defense,” he conceded. “It’s a tough case given the laws and the ways the courts are dealing with it.”

Editor:  

This is in response to issues raised in Steve KoneffKlatt's letter to the editor on Saturday, August 5.  

Mr. KoneffKlatt said he called a few department heads, the city manager, a council person and myself to get information on why it took “a long time” for a fire truck to respond to a burning mattress near his residence on Parker Street. Mr. KoneffKlatt’s perception was that there was “no emergency plan to cover potential problems” during the reconstruction of College Avenue. 

As Public Works Project Manager for College Avenue street reconstruction, I am the person most intimate with how the plan was devised and how the plan is proceeding. Both myself and our department's public information officer attempted to telephone Mr. KoneffKlatt to respond to his concerns. Neither of us received a return call.  

The City is very concerned with addressing issues before they become a problem. In preparation for this project, Public Works met with several city departments, including the Police, Fire, Health & Human Services departments, and Solid Waste and Streets Divisions of my department.  

We discussed and created alternative plans to provide basic city services such as early morning refuse pick-up, street sweeping, traffic circulation, on-street parking, and access and egress of emergency vehicles. 

In checking with the captain at Fire Station No. 3, it was determined that the fire was reported being in the 2600 block of College Avenue instead of the actual Parker Street address (east of College Avenue). The captain reported that it took the fire truck no more than 60 seconds longer to get to the Parker Street address (about a city block away) due to this miscommunication. 

Fire House No. 3, located on Russell Street east of College has been informed daily of the work status on College Avenue so that alternate access routes are provided for emergency vehicles. Before College Avenue construction began, some of the concrete bollards at the intersections of Piedmont/Parker and Piedmont/Derby were either relocated or removed to allow fire trucks and other emergency service vehicles through existing traffic diverters going north.  

All the traffic diversion barriers sprinkled throughout the neighborhood certainly impact a quick and direct route to an emergency.  

Neighborhoods with as many diverters also pose an additional difficulty in planning emergency access routes. However, emergency access issues were addressed and planned for, even with the difficulties. Indeed, Public Works spent more time with the Fire Department in coordinating this effort than any other department we worked with. 

We knew from the beginning that this would be a highly visible project.  

And, of course, there are challenges in trying to control every variable that has the possibility of occurring. The city, however, has done its homework in coordinating and facilitating the project's operation, eliminating as much disruption as possible to the neighborhoods. But after all, this is construction, and by its very nature there are going to be impacts. 

Despite Mr. KoneffKlatt's perceptions, public safety vehicles were given top priority on College Avenue during this project as they are given top priority on the streets of Berkeley throughout the year.  

Glenn Carloss 

Project Engineer, College Avenue Project

Berkeley High School students may feel a little like “1984” protagonist Winston Smith this year if the School Board OKs security cameras for the school.  

Superintendent Jack McLaughlin laughed at the Orwellian comparison and said that cameras have been encouraged by the Police and Fire departments since the April 5 fire that caused $2 million in damage. 

“I would never use the word surveillance,” he said. 

The cameras will be on the board’s agenda Aug. 16. It is up to the board to make the ultimate decision on whether to have them installed. 

McLaughlin said that it will be the first time the board has discussed putting cameras in the high school and he hopes that it will be authorized at the meeting. 

McLaughlin said the Fire Department already has the locations for the cameras mapped out in the hallways and stairwells. He guessed the cost of implementing the security cameras to be “around $30,000,” although the number of cameras in question is yet to be determined. 

Sophomore Maggie Grove said the thought of being watched is “kind of unpleasant.” 

“I think it’s kind of an invasion of privacy. People walk around and socialize in the hallways,” she said. “I can see how it’s a good thing because of the millions of fires, though.” 

“(So far) none of the security measures have helped anything,” she said. 

McLaughlin said the cameras would no doubt be a deterrent to vandalism and other crimes. 

He added that the Fire Department has also made other suggestions, such as lettering buildings so they are easily identified. 

“They’re bringing us up to speed to protect the students,” he said. said the thought of being watched is “kind of unpleasant.” 

“I think it’s kind of an invasion of privacy. People walk around and socialize in the hallways,” she said. “I can see how it’s a good thing because of the millions of fires, though.” 

“(So far) none of the security measures have helped anything,” she said. 

McLaughlin said the cameras would no doubt be a deterrent to vandalism and other crimes. 

He added that the Fire Department has also made other suggestions, such as lettering buildings so they are easily identified. 

“They’re bringing us up to speed to protect the students,” he said.  

Nine months of protests ended in July with an agreement to unionize the workforce at the Berkeley Marina Radisson Hotel, but a contract has yet to be signed. 

So organizers say they plan to keep protesting until they have a contract. 

Stephanie Ruby, the lead organizer for the Hotel Employee and Restaurant Employee Local 2850, said Boykin Hospitality, the Cleveland, Ohio-based owners of the Berkeley Radisson and 33 other hotels, hasn’t come to the bargaining table. 

Bob Boykin, president of Boykin Hospitality, said that it’s a scheduling problem and that talks will begin this month, though he’s not sure of the exact date. “We’ve just been scheduling around vacation conflicts with the lawyers and (union) members,” he said.  

“It came down to our representatives and the union’s finding a common time when they can agree to a date. That’s really the facts as we’re aware of them,” he said.  

Ruby said she hasn’t heard from them. 

She said that Boykin Hospitality has taken a sophomoric stance to wait until they received all notification and forms from the National Labor Relations Board before they would negotiate. 

“The decision was made a long time ago and everything has been sent out by the NLRB,” she said. “We don’t think it’s in good faith. They’re stalling.” 

The National Labor Relations Board is an independent Federal agency that enforces the National Labor Relations Act, which governs employer and employee relations and spells out guidelines that employers must follow. In May, the board issued a 30-page complaint citing 130 violations by Radisson management ranging from bribery to threatening workers.  

The board began investigating charges of unfair labor practices at the Radisson and determined that the management was, in fact, at fault in many instances. 

A formal hearing date before an administrative judge had been set, but Boykin settled with the NLRB on July 14, two weeks before the hearing. As part of the agreement, Boykin agreed to recognize the union and work out contracts for the workers, Ruby said. 

The NLRB could petition to hold Boykin Hospitality in contempt of the settlement if they don’t come to the negotiating table.  

Boykin said he is adamant – his company does not want to fight the NLRB and will negotiate. 

“It’s fine if they want to unionize,” he said, explaining that he would have preferred holding off for a formal employee vote, rather than the “card check,” – a count of cards of workers supporting unionization. 

“But it just wasn’t worth the effort to fight it,” he said. 

Further, he argued that the complaints were linked to the move to unionize the hotel. 

“We have never had any significant claim of unfair labor practices during the 24 years we have owned (the Radisson). And during the one year that the employees want to unionize, we have over 100,” he said. “It seems to me that there would have been a lot more activity prior to (this year).” 

Ruby said that the company is still exploiting its employees and is retaliating against the union. She said that a Union Committee leader, a Radisson employee, has been repeatedly kept off of the work schedule. 

“It’s for no good reason,” she said. “This individual had filed a sexual harassment suit against the company. We think its retaliation.” 

Radisson General Manager Brij Misra was out of town and unavailable to respond to the charges. He told the Daily Planet, after the hotel agreed to recognize the union in June, that he was ready to work for the best interest of both the hotel and the associates. 

Ruby said that the long standing boycott of the hotel, recognized by Berkeley city government and other groups, will continue until the workers have a contract. 

Protesters are going to keep the Radisson’s “feet to the fire” by continuing to protest, she said. Last Friday, workers and supporters staged a “human billboard” protest along University Avenue that reminded passers by that the boycott was still in effect. 

They plan to hold another rally on Sunday. 

Daily Planet Staff 

The Berkeley Police have charged John Everett Lewis of Richmond with the murder of Doran Williams, 48, of Berkeley after Lewis allegedly punched Williams and caused him to hit his head on the pavement and slip into a coma from which he never recovered. 

Williams was taken off life support and died around 3:30 p.m. Tuesday. 

Lt. Russell Lopes said that the alleged offense occurred Aug. 2 around 8:30 p.m. when Lewis accosted Williams and an argument ensued in the parking lot of the Stanford Liquor store at 3400 Adeline St. Lewis than retaliated by striking the victim in the face and knocking him down causing him to hit his head, Lopes said. 

Williams was rushed to Highland Hospital where he underwent surgery and was placed on life support. 

Lopes said the Berkeley Police picked Lewis up Friday on charges of felony assault and parole violation. The charges were updated to murder Tuesday.