A group of Berkeley residents and students at UC Berkeley took advantage of yesterday’s warm weather and played a series of pick-up basketball games at People’s Park. Although people across the Bay Area broke out shirt-sleeves and shorts this weekend, the National Weather Service promises cooler weather for the next few days, beginning this afternoon. Winds should pick up to 15 mph by 4:00 p.m. and temperatures are predicted to the  

mid-30s tonight. Throughout the week, the weather service predicts cooler and breezier conditions and possible showers by next weekend.

Monday, Feb. 5

Youth Commission  

6 p.m. 

Martin Luther King Jr. Youth Center 

1730 Oregon St.  

Rent Stabalization Board 

7 p.m. 

2134 MLK Jr. Way 

Second Floor Council Chamber 

Personnel Board Meeting  

7 p.m. 

Permit Center 

2118 Milvia St.  

First Floor Conference Room  

Landmarks Preservation Commission  

7:30 p.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center 

1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way) 

Will consider 1301 Oxford St. among other items. 

Peace & Justice Commission  

7 p.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center 

1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way) 

Tuesday, Feb. 6

Berkeley Intelligent  

Conversation  

7 p.m. - 9 p.m.  

Jewish Community Center  

1414 Walnut Ave. (at Rose)  

With no religious affiliation, this twice-monthly group, led informally by former UC Berkeley extension lecturer Robert Berent, seeks to bring people together to have interesting discussions on contemporary topics. This evenings discussion topic is sex, love, dating, and relationships in celebration of Valentine’s Day.  

Call 527-5332  

Berkeley Camera Club  

7:30 p.m. 

Northbrae Community Church  

941 The Alameda  

Share your slides and learn what other photographers are doing. Monthly field trips. 

Call Wade, 531-8664 

Free! Early Music Group  

10 - 11:30 a.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center 

1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way)  

A small group who sing madrigals and other voice harmonies. Their objective: To enjoy making music and building musical skills.  

Call Ann 655-8863 or e-mail: ann@integratedarts.org 

Wednesday, Feb. 7

Stagebridge Free Acting & Storytelling 

Classes for Seniors 

10 a.m. - 3 p.m. 

First Congregational Church  

2501 Harrison St.  

Oakland  

Call 444-4755 or visit www.stagebridge.org 

Legacy to Liberation  

7 p.m. 

Revolution Books  

2425 Channing Way  

A roundtable discussion by contributors to the recently published anthology “Politics and Culture of Revolutionary Asian Pacific America.” Contributors include Richard Aoki, Yuri Kockiyama, Sun Lee and Dolly Veale.  

$2 donation  

848-1196 

Thursday, Feb. 8

Free “Quit Smoking” Class 

5:30 - 7:30 p.m. 

South Berkeley Senior Center 

2939 Ellis (at Ashby)  

Cease your smoking with the help of this free class offered to Berkeley residents and employees. 

Call 644-6422 to enroll or e-mail quitnow@ci.berkeley.ca.us 

Duomo Readings Open Mic.  

6:30 - 9 p.m. 

Cafe Firenze  

2116 Shattuck Ave.  

With featured poet Tom Odegard and host Dale Jensen.  

644-0155 

Great Mt. Diablo Day Hikes 

7 p.m. 

Recreational Equipment, Inc. 

1338 San Pablo Ave.  

Ken Lavin, former president of Mt. Diablo Interpretative Association, for a slide-show of his favorite day hikes in Mt. Diablo State Park.  

Call 527-7377  

Jam Session  

7 p.m. 

Maurice’s Cafe 

6038 Telegraph 

Oakland 

Poetry with jazz featuring Jimmy Sands.  

Call 653-6775 

Exploring Surfaces  

7 - 9 p.m. 

Hillside Community Church  

1422 Navellier St.  

El Cerrito 

A series of Thursday evenings of conversation “engaging people in discovering the pleasures of an excellent discussion.” Transverse the world’s ecological regions, describing what you know and what you’ve heard. 

$10  

Friday, Feb. 9

Strong Women - Writers & 

Heroes of Literature 

1 - 3 p.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center  

1901 Hearst Ave. 

Taught by Dr. Helen Rippier Wheeler, author of “Women and Aging: A Guide to Literature,” this is a free weekly literature course in the Berkeley Adult School’s Older Adults Program.  

Call 549-2970  

Stagebridge Free Acting &  

Storytelling Classes for Seniors 

10 a.m. - 3 p.m. 

First Congregational Church  

2501 Harrison St.  

Oakland  

Call 444-4755 or visit www.stagebridge.org 

Berkeley PC Users Group 

7 p.m. 

Vista College 

2020 Milvia St., Room 303 

E-Mail: meldancing@aol.com 

Introducing: Julia Morgan  

School for Girls 

7:30 - 8:30 a.m. 

Julia Morgan School for Girls 

Holy Names College 

Sky Room, Durocher Hall 

3510 Mountain Blvd.  

Oakland 

A select gathering of business and professional women devoted to fostering leadership in the young girls in our community.  

Saturday, Feb. 10

Spirits in the Time of AIDS Open Mic.  

1 p.m. 

Pro Arts Gallery  

461 Ninth St.  

Oakland  

As part of “Consecrations,” the public is invited to see special performances, spoken word, commentary and more.  

Call 763-9425 

Masters of Persian Classical Music 

8 p.m. 

Zellerbach Hall  

UC Berkeley  

Featuring vocalist Mohammad Reza Sharjarian and his son, Homayoun Sharjarian.  

$20 - $40  

Call 642-9988 or e-mail tickets@calperfs.berkeley.edu

The sickening smell of beer in northwest  

Berkeley does little to improve the neighborhood 

Editor: 

Today's a warmer day, sunny, lovely; except that when I go out to enjoy the yard, or for a walk, or if I open a window I get the sickening, penetrating blast of smell from the breweries in northwest Berkeley. I've been trying to figure out what to do about that for about three years, now, ever since some care LESS paper signing permitted them. Now, no one knows what can be done about it, except to ask them nicely not to do it. So far that hasn't worked. 

While they've lessened some of the smell, it still pervades one's days. As part of our dis-united-ness, and that most people seem not to be around during the time of the smell, or most people don't come out of houses closed up like cocoons for reason of one reasonable fear or other, the few of us who at least feel abused by the smell, have no further recourse. I wonder whether people who buy into this neighborhood at $300,000 to $400,000 a pop will begin to wonder why it wasn't disclosed to them that an irritant exists here. 

Or, I suppose they'll be away at work needing to work huge hours at all-consuming jobs to pay those mortgages. 

Norma J F Harrison 

Berkeley

Jeff Trepagnier’s return to Southern California’s lineup has given the Trojans’ offense a big lift. But it was his defense that made the difference against California. 

Trepagnier recorded his first double-double of the season with 19 points and 11 rebounds, and he also made five steals and keyed a defense that forced the Bears into 21 turnovers as the 21st-ranked Trojans rolled to an 80-66 victory Saturday night. 

“It’s nice to have Jeff back,” said USC coach Mike Bibby. “Each game he’s getting a little better at not forcing turnovers and letting the things come to him.” 

Trepagnier missed the first three games of the season with a hairline fracture in his left foot then served a nine-game suspension for violating athletic department rules. 

Trepagnier, in just his eighth game of the season, shut down California guards Shantay Legans and Donte Smith. 

“I just had to get in where I fit in,” Trepagnier said. “I couldn’t just come in and try to force things.” 

Legans scored 15 points for the Bears but sat out almost 12 minutes of the first half after picking up his second foul against Trepagnier at the 14-minute mark. Legan’s backup, Smith, missed all five of his shots and committed three turnovers. 

Sean Lampley matched his career high with 29 points to lead California, which lost at home for the first time this season. The Bears (15-6, 6-3 Pac-10) had won their first 11 games at Haas Pavilion this year, and 14 consecutive dating to last season. 

Lampley was the only California player who didn’t struggle against USC, which was coming off a 77-71 loss to top-ranked Stanford on Thursday — a game the Trojans led by seven at one stretch. 

Against the Bears, USC (16-5, 6-3) had no such letdown. 

The Trojans, led by Sam Clancy’s 25 points, jumped to an early lead and never looked back, recording 12 steals and forcing the Bears into 21 turnovers. 

The Trojans led 39-27 at halftime then broke the game open with an 18-3 run to start the second half. 

Center Brian Scalabrine scored 15 points for the Trojans and moved into ninth place on USC’s career scoring list. He needs just 62 points to move past Gus Williams into eighth place. 

Lampley said California’s problem was that it hadn’t gotten over beating UCLA 92-63 on Thursday. 

“The whole thing was we were satisfied with the win against UCLA and came out thinking (USC) was going to lay down and die,” said Lampley, who had 16 points in the first half. “To me, this is one of the best teams we’ve played. This team is a good team. They played ball tonight.” 

Bears coach Ben Braun agreed. 

“Any time you have a hint of complacency, just a hint, that’s the result of what happens,” Braun said. “Our players clearly didn’t have that urgency early and when we tried to pick it up it was too late.”

Utility Allowance may jump to between 25 and 40 percent for Section 8 recipients 

The Berkeley Housing Authority will consider raising the utility allowance for Section 8 and public housing families at its meeting Tuesday Feb. 6. 

There are 1,400 units of Housing and Urban Development Section 8 housing and another 75 units of public housing in Berkeley that pay 30 percent of family income for rent and utilities.City Manager Weldon Rucker has recommended the BHA increase the utility allowance for these families because they are the most vulnerable in the current energy crisis that has caused increases in gas and electricity rates. 

The BHA is required by federal law to maintain a utility allowance for its rental housing subsidies, according to the written recommendation. The regulations also require the BHA to review the allowance each year and increase or decrease it according to utility costs. 

The raise in the utility allowance will be between 25 and 40 percent, according to the written recommendation. The allowance will be increased according to whether the house or apartment uses electric of gas appliances. 

The rough estimate for two bedroom apartments is a monthly increase from $80 to $100, according to Director of Housing Stephen Barton. 

Cal women beat UCLA to end SoCal road trip 

The Cal women’s basketball team won in thrilling fashion, 58-57, over UCLA at Pauley Pavilion on Sunday. Cal forward Ami Forney scored on a layup after taking an inbounds pass from Courtney Johnson under the Golden Bear basket with 3.5 seconds on the clock to provide the visitors with the winning margin.  

UCLA’s Kristee Porter misfired on a running shot from just outside the Bruin free throw line as the final buzzer sounded.  

Cal built a 32-21 halftime advantage after holding the Bruins to just two points over the final 4:08 of the period, while breaking a 19-all tie with a 13-2 run.  

In the second half, the Golden Bears upped their margin to 38-23 with16:17 to play on a basket by guard Kenya Corley. UCLA stepped up its defense and held Cal scoreless for almost six minutes, until 10:33 remained on the clock, and narrowed the margin to 38-36 on a layin by center Malika Leatham.  

The Bruin momentum helped them to take their biggest lead of the game at 47-42, with 5:51 on the clock. Corley then hit a three-point shot for Cal to break the ice and narrow the gap to 47-45.  

After the teams tied at 47-all with 4:52 to play, there were seven lead changes down the stretch. Brook Coulter’s three-point shot for Cal put the Bears ahead 56-54 with 59 seconds to play. UCLA’s Michelle Greco answered by hitting a pair of free throws at the 35 second mark to tie the game at 56.  

Natalie Nakase forced a Bear turnover on the next possession and was fouled with 20 seconds on the clock. Nakase made the first attempt but missed the second of the two-shot bonus situation, and Cal grabbed the rebound for a final chance at a win.  

The Bears failed to connect on an outside shot on the following possession, but managed to get the rebound. Their attempt at a follow shot was blocked out of bounds by UCLA’s Whitney Jones with five seconds on the clock, setting the stage for Forney’s game-winner.  

Greco led UCLA, now 3-17, 2-7, with 18 points for the game. Corley paced Cal with a game-high 25 points.

Dr. Davida Coady lives in the home her family bought, in 1965, high in the Berkeley hills. A lemon tree laden with fruit graces the front window, birds cruise a painted bird house and a piano stands ready. It is a place full of light and calm where one could escape the world. Instead the visitor is led straight into the heart of what matters. 

Coady is on the phone arranging delivery of a donated stove to a “shelter plus care” home she’s just opening in Oakland. Her gigantic coffee table is piled high with envelopes stamped “San Carlos Foundation.” A glossy of Martin Sheen, bright eyed and presidential, has been reproduced for a fund-raising mailing. She has just returned from Bangladesh, where she traveled as a medical consultant and now, as always, she has no time to lose. The fund raiser is scheduled for February 10, yet hundreds of details must be pinned down. There is no doubt that they will be, but even Coady is beginning to feel stretched. 

Coady has, in spades, what many of us are searching for — an unflagging sense of purpose. And if one devotion isn’t all consuming, she directs her intense energies to another. She embodies the concept that one person can make a difference. Then she reaches out to others and incorporates them in her plans, to make an even bigger difference.  

Trained as a doctor at Columbia Medical School and Harvard’s School of Public Health, her interest in pediatrics and nutrition has led her to a life long involvement with world wide health issues. When she was not yet 30, Coady traveled to Biafra to offer help for famine relief. Stunned by the “lines and lines of starving people,” she testified before the U.S. Congress underscoring the need for immediate help. Years later, in Thailand, she witnessed a bus of 30 refugees arriving from Cambodia — 28 of whom were already dead. 

Despite desperate conditions, Coady continues to consult  

with dozens and dozens of international agencies and has used her expertise to relieve people’s suffering, especially children’s.  

“I’m most interested in training village health workers,” she said. 

Coady serves as a consultant to countries sunk in war. In fact, she was so deeply involved in Central America during its war that she was accused of smuggling drugs. Ironically, she admits she was — the drugs were burn ointments and antibiotics she housed in her garage and shipped to people in “sanctuary” protection. 

Coady believes health is a right, not a privilege. While teaching at UCLA’s medical school, she urged students to get involved with the poor to become more compassionate doctors. 

Hollywood people came to her for medical information about international travel. Martin Sheen sought her advice when he and his family were going to Nairobi and she was on her way to Uganda. Sheen was profoundly interested in her work and contributed the money from his role in the film “Gandhi” to Coady’s group. 

After Archbishop Romero was killed in El Salvador, Coady set up a health program in the Honduran camps for El Salvadorian refugees. In 1984, she and Sheen set up their own foundation. It was during Reagan’s presidency and they had to be careful as, she said, “things were kind of dicey.”  

They gave it what they considered a fairly establishment name, San Carlos, which was actually the name of the street in El Cerrito where Coady lived. They researched St. Charles to make sure he didn’t do anything contrary to their beliefs. (St. Charles in fact was a wealthy man devoted to the poor. The rich, however, hated him because he made them feel selfish.) Coady said it puzzled her that the Nicaraguans they worked with always liked the name San Carlos until she discovered they thought it was a code name for Karl Marx. 

The non-profit San Carlos Foundation has no paid staff. All money raised goes straight to volunteers in Central America and the Caribbean who provide health and educational assistance to refugees and others living in extreme poverty. Since its inception, The San Carlos Foundation has supported over 96 volunteers including doctors, nurses, engineers, lawyers and teachers.  

Grants of $6,000 a year are awarded to people like Ann Hastings, who created an Alternative Bank for the Organized Poor in Haiti, and Nancy McGirr, a photographer from San Francisco. McGirr teaches photography to children in Guatemala. Together they published a book called “Out of the Dump,” full of stories and photos the children created. Another volunteer, Kurt Miron, a mechanic who can fix anything, loaded his back pack with tools and wandered from village to village in Guatemala teaching people to fix everything from corn grinders to bikes and trucks. 

Coady has an upbeat faith in her ability to affect change and she takes her ideas dead seriously. The full weight of her intelligence, stamina and drive stands behind her ideas. As she turned 56, though, she realized how strongly she wanted to contribute right here in Berkeley. She looked around for a “piece that was missing” and founded Options. 

While “moonlighting” at Children’s Hospital to support her trips consulting, she saw many abused children. During that time, she saw that parent’s addictions were not treated — a significant intervention she felt was missing because those addictions led them to be abusive.  

Over a period of several years, Coady developed a comprehensive program that works with the Berkeley court system to treat alcoholics and drug addicts who are arrested. Options, housed at the Veterans Memorial building across from the Court House in downtown Berkeley, is free and immediately accessible to everybody.  

Options is a daily program that provides a half day recovery program, several Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous meetings weekly as well as Step Stay discussions (12-Step discussions). Options provides nitty-gritty support, too, including driving people to the DMV to get IDs. IDs are required to enter a residential treatment program. Many of the people the courts send to Options have never had IDs of any kind.  

“Less than 10 percent have,” Coady said. “They started drinking at the age of five and six and were never sober enough to get licenses.”  

Options operates on the model of clean and sober, as opposed to the harm reduction model of methadone treatment or “learning to drink in moderation.” It is devoted to hard core “bad” addicts, of whom sixty percent are homeless. The reality Coady experiences in her Options work is that most of the clients make great progress. That motivates her and the Options staff, some of whom are former clients. 

Her deep regard for those who struggle most is obvious when she stops on University Avenue and Milvia Street to talk to a homeless panhandler and invites him to join her at Options. She engages him in conversation, the same man that most pedestrians have walked a wide swath around. She is unable to convince him, but she will try again. Coady is tenacious, a close friend jokes she is like a “fox terrier.” Where others might see impossibilities, she sees endless potential.  

Join Davida Coady and Martin Sheen at St. Joseph the Worker Church, 1640 Addison St., Berkeley on Feb. 10 at 7:30 p.m. for a conversation with Martin Sheen — “The West Wing Meets the East Bay.” Call 843-2244 for more information. 

Shaking off a rough third inning and a clutch home run by their opponent, the Cal baseball team scored two runs in the bottom of the ninth to beat Santa Clara in the Bears’ home opener at Evans Diamond on Saturday. 

Cal left fielder Curtis Johnson got his only hit of the day, a double down the third base line, to drive in Brian Horowitz to tie the game, then scored on pinch-hitter Noah Jackson’s looping drive that landed just inside the right field line to win the game for the Bears in dramatic fashion. 

The Bears had gone behind in the top of the ninth when Santa Clara third baseman Pat Peavey crushed a two-out drive over the left field wall off of Cal reliever David Cash. Peavey’s clout would have been a two-run homer, but Jack Headley took too wide a turn at first base on his leadoff single, and Cal right fielder Rob Meyer gunned him down heading back to the bag. 

Meyer provided some offensive heroics of his own in the seventh inning, hitting a bomb that landed on top of the Recreational Sports Facility that rises three stories above the left field fence to tie the game at 2-2. 

The Bears were kept in the game by starting pitcher Ryan Atkinson’s outstanding outing. The junior righty gave up just two runs in seven innings, both in the top of the third. Matt Miller hit a double off of Cal third baseman Conor Jackson’s glove, and was driven home by a double by DH Joe Diefenderfer. Headley followed with a scorcher that Bear second baseman Carson White couldn’t handle, and Diefenderfer came around to score. 

Atkinson went on to set down the next 13 Gaels before being pulled in the eighth inning. 

“The key for us today was Ryan Atkinson giving us seven strong innings,” said Cal coach David Esquer. “Santa Clara did a good job of holding us down offensively, and when you do that, you are capable of beating anyone. We did have some guys come off the bench and produce. Brian Horwitz and Noah Jackson got big hits for us, as well as Curtis Johnson getting a key hit and a stolen base.” 

Johnson’s clutch hit was a long time coming, as he left a man on third base in the second inning and two men on base in the fourth. He stole third base after his RBI double, and Santa Clara intentionally walked David Weiner, loading the bases and setting up Jackson’s hit.

Researchers from one of the world's most technologically-advanced countries, Finland, and researchers at the International Computer Science Institute (ICSI) and the University of California, Berkeley, will launch a collaboration to spark new discoveries in computer science, e-commerce, intellectual property rights and the sociology of theinformation society.  

The research agreement, announced Thursday, Feb. 1 at noon, will open the doors for Finnish researchers to spend a year or more in the Berkeley research community engaging in studies to propel innovation in the interest of society.  

“This is the beginning of something that will benefit the research community and society as a whole,” said Nelson Morgan, ICSI director and a UC Berkeley professor. 

The collaboration is being sponsored by the National Technology Agency of Finland (TEKES), a top funding agency for applied research and development in Finland. TEKES and industry giants like Nokia Corp. and Sonera Group, a Finnish telecommunications provider, have led the way in bringing technology to Finnish consumers.  

To continue this tradition of innovation, TEKES sought a partnership with the UC Berkeley-affiliated ICSI, an independent, non-profit basic research organization dedicated to fundamental questions in computer science and engineering. For Finnish researchers, part of their attraction to UC Berkeley was the work of sociology professor Manuel Castells, a renowned expert on the impact of information technology on society. Castells is a UC Berkeley professor of sociology and city and regional planning.  

“This initiative kind of got started because of Castells' interest in the Finnish knowledge society,” said Henri Grundsten, of the TEKES office in San Jose.  

For ICSI and UC Berkeley researchers, the collaboration provides numerous opportunities tolearn how Finnish technologists and entrepreneurs function. “There are lessons to be learnedfrom the way the Scandinavian countries do it,” said J. Richard Beer, executive director of the Fisher Center for the Strategic Use of Information Technology at UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business. He hopes to retain a Finnish researcher in his work on entrepreneurial aspects of technology. “In some ways,” said Beer, “they are further along than the U.S.”  

One of the goals of the collaboration is to learn more about how technology affects human beings and their interactions. “We (American society and Finnish society) are working on similar problems in terms of the impact of technology on social and economic life,” said Hal Varian, dean of the UC Berkeley School of Information Management & Systems. “These questions involve economic, business, legal and technological considerations, and UC Berkeley is a leader in all four areas.” 

The research projects include:  

• Creation of a portable digital tape recorder that uses robust speech recognition to create indexed and annotated text for archiving meetings  

• The design of regulations and technologies to protect intellectual property rights for digital movies, books and other electronic information.  

• A project to discover how the human brain acquires language and how these results can be applied to designing more intelligent computer systems.

The Bears cruised to a 51-19 victory over Davis Saturday. The victory part was good. The cruising part was not. 

“Full marks to Davis. We were outplayed in the second half,” said Cal head coach Jack Clark. “Our work rate was not there today.” 

The Cal team got off to a fast start with a try to wing Cameron Bunce in the 3rd minute, as the Bears exploited the shortside from a scrum 40 meters out. They followed up quickly with fullback Dave Guest stepping through Davis’ goalline defense. His try was set up by center Mike Bonetto who had bulled his way through the midfield on the previous phase - a sight that became familiar throughout the afternoon. 

The Bears, however, seemed a little complacent with their lead, and Davis were unlucky to not get on the board in the first half with several attacking forays stymied just short of the line. The Aggies also proved competitive in the scrum, and played stout defense. While Cal were well clear on the scoreboard by halftime, Davis increasingly dominated possession as the game progressed, eventually outscoring Cal in the second period. 

The Cal side will need to shake off their lethargy next week when the University of British Columbia makes their annual pilgrimage to Berkeley. The Canadian team is usually one of Cal’s tougher opponents. 

The Cal second side also won Saturday, 53-0.

Dr. James A. Donahue a scholar, ethicist and administrator at Georgetown University has accepted the leadership role of president of the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley.  

Donahue was a former Dean of Students and Professor of Theology and Ethics at Georgetown and will be inaugurated on Feb. 15. 

During his inauguration, Donahue will unveil his strategic plan for a new interfaith GTU. That plan entails a enriched development of Jewish studies and increased attention to Asian religions, as well as a new focus on Islam.  

The GTU began as an experiment in ecumenical cooperation in 1962. The consortium consists of nine schools of theology representing the Roman Catholic and Protestant traditions, institutes of Jewish, Buddhist and Orthodox studies and seven research centers. The GTU works collaboratively with UC Berkeley and is the home of the Flora Lamson Hewlett Library. 

Donahue has published widely in the field and provided ethics conultations to businesses and nonprofits. His research intrests have focused on the intersection of theoretical and practical ethics, virtues and practices in the moral life and issues of organizational and professional ethics. 

Donahue received a Ph.D. in religious social ethics from the GTU in 1984. From 1977 to 1985, he held teaching posts at the GTU, the Pacific School of Religion and at Santa Clara University. From 1985 to 2000, he was the professor of theology and social ethics at Georgetown University.

Environment-friendly policies don’t always get results; SUVs and huge homes eat up power, contribute to current power shortage 

BERKELEY – You know the image of California as a tree-hugging, conservation-minded state. But how green, really, is our Silicon Valley — and the rest of the Golden State? 

Not very, say some. 

“California’s not green,” says Robert L. Thayer, professor of environmental design at the University of California, Davis. “While there’s quite a bit of technological innovation and quite a countercultural green movement, it doesn’t succeed very far in overcoming the momentum of business inertia.” 

California is a standard-bearer for environment-friendly policies, setting strict energy efficient standards for homes and workplaces. But it’s also the land of SUVs and starter-castles built on the far reaches of exurbia — energy intensive lifestyles that have become more conspicuous as power supplies falter. 

“Every day when I go to the gym, I’m sort of stunned at the population of big SUVs that nice suburban women are driving. We’re not talking about a little Jimmy or a Blazer. We’re talking about the big ’uns,” says V. John White, director of the Center for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Technologies in Sacramento. “People in California have assumed a right to a certain amount of comfort and mobility.” 

White and others note that California does require low-energy buildings and appliances, and low-emission automobiles. 

“We have a lot more renewable energy than any other state. We have much more efficient use of energy in our houses and our offices,” says Timothy Duane, a UC Berkeley professor serving as senior policy adviser to the state. 

Energy use per capita has been going up, but not dramatically. Californians used about 7,000 kilowatt hours per year in 1980, compared to about 7,700 kilowatt hours last year, according to California Energy Commission numbers crunched by scientists at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. 

In 1997, California ranked 47th of the 50 states in energy consumption per capita — only Rhode Island, New York and Hawaii were lower. However, California’s mostly temperate climate has to be taken into account. 

Still, there is the matter of those SUVs, which make up an estimated 30 percent of the California market. 

Last week, the state Air Resources Board scaled back, for the third time, a program to put electric vehicles on California roads. 

There’s also the shaky green power system; the power crunch has underscored the major utilities’ decision six years ago to block a proposal forcing them to contract with independent producers relying heavily on wind, solar and other renewable resources. 

California still has more renewable energy and green initiatives than other states. The problem is that’s not saying a lot, says Daniel Kammen, associate professor of energy and society in UC Berkeley’s Energy and Resources Group. 

Meanwhile, a predilection for large, single-family homes has pushed development ever deeper into erstwhile farmland; two-hour, one-way commutes are not uncommon. 

“Urban sprawl and unplanned growth is, I think, the biggest single area where Californians have really demonstrated a brown thumb,” Kammen says. “No matter how efficient you are with putting a compact fluorescent light in your house or giving $10 a month to the Sierra Club, are you going to be able to offset the adverse effects of your commuting five days a week?” 

Putting energy efficient lights in a 5,000-square-foot home, Kammen notes, is on par with “going into McDonald’s and buying four Big Macs and a Diet Coke.” 

Why is it so hard being green? 

“Self-interest is a powerful force,” says Daniel McFadden, a Berkeley economist who shared a Nobel last year for his research developing theories on how people work and live. 

“People can feel very warmly about the environment and have very good intentions toward the environment, but when they’re confronted with their day-to-day economics they rarely have to face the choice that the SUV that they buy is going to mean a little more air pollution or a few less trees alive,” McFadden says. 

“If people were really as green as they say they are, they would be taking this extra income and putting it into the Nature Conservancy,” he says. “Instead, they go out and build a second home.”

Californians looking to save power and money; products flying off store shelves 

LOS ANGELES – Home improvement and hardware stores across the state are selling energy-efficient products at a record pace this year, signaling that Californians are willing to spend a little more to lower their power use — and their electric bills. 

Cold temperatures and the repeated threat of rolling blackouts this month have prompted consumers to invest in fluorescent lightbulbs, insulation and weather stripping. 

Fluorescent bulbs, which typically last 10 times longer than incandescent lights, have been the hottest seller. Home Depot reports a 66 percent increase in the sale of fluorescent bulbs at its California stores during January compared to the same time period last year. 

Michael Moore, an assistant manager at a Lowe’s store in Fresno, said he recently had to double the order amounts for the bulbs, which sell for $10 to $15. 

“We can’t keep them in stock,” Moore said. “In the past, we could keep about 100 fluorescent bulbs on the shelves for about a month. Now, it’s a matter of days before we sell out.” 

Smaller, independent hardware stores across the state also are having a surge in sales. Garth Smith, who runs Dale Hardware in Fremont, said customers have been asking more questions about energy conservation in recent weeks. 

“It boils down to economics,” Smith said. “A lot of people want to know what they can do conserve energy because they want to cut their electricity bills.” 

In case the increased conservation fails to stave out rolling blackouts, more people also are buying portable generators, which average between $400 and $750 and can provide enough juice to power household appliances during a blackout. 

Costco stores in California saw generator sales rise 300 percent from January 2000 to January 2001, and Home Depot reports a 85 percent increase for the same period. 

“The generators are more of an emergency type of product whereas the energy conservation items are being bought because people are trying to save money,” said Home Depot spokesman Chuck Sifuentes. 

The deluge of questions about energy-efficient products has prompted Home Depot to offer free, one-hour clinics for homeowners every weekend through the end of March. The “how-to” clinics demonstrate cost-saving measures and help customers learn more about their homes. 

Ofelia Lerma was busy jotting notes at a Home Depot clinic in Monrovia on Sunday. The 75-year-old Pasadena resident has a $300 bi-monthly electricity bill that she expects will drop significantly once she spends $300 to $600 to blanket her attic and basement with insulation. 

“If I can reduce my electricity bill, I am certainly going to try,” she said. “I think in the long run we will save more money by making the improvements rather than what we pay now for electricity.” 

Other people say they have changed their ways since the state’s power crisis began last year. Jack Stephanian, who also attended the clinic, said he used to leave the lights on most of the day in his La Canada-Flintridge home. 

Now he’s focusing more on reducing his home’s power use by installing new windows that reduce heat loss and purchasing a more energy-efficient refrigerator. 

“I got a $50 rebate back from my utility company,” he said. “If you own a home, you are going to have to invest money for upkeep. Buying products that will cut your energy bills seem like a smart decision.”

DNA evidence proves that skull found in Santa Cruz Mountains is hers; search for kidnappers still ongoing 

VALLEJO – With a 7-year-old girl confirmed dead after more than a year of hope for her safe return, volunteers and authorities are steeling their resolve and seeking justice for those responsible for the crime. 

The death of Xiana Fairchild, missing since Dec. 9 1999, was confirmed Saturday at a Santa Clara County Sheriff’s department news conference. The DNA test results on a child’s skull found in the Santa Cruz Mountains confirmed the bone fragments belonged to Fairchild. 

The medical examiner’s report indicated Fairchild died of “homicidal violence.” Now authorities will try to determine who killed the girl and why. Volunteers who searched tirelessly for Fairchild over the past year want someone held accountable. 

“I really wanted her home alive,” said Deena May, a volunteer who spent nearly every Saturday searching for Fairchild, a child she never knew. She said she wants answers about the death. “Until I know why, it’s not going to sink in. It still feels like she’s missing” 

Kim Swartz, whose daughter Amber has been missing for 13 years, also wants to know who killed Fairchild. 

“That brings us one step closer. We now have Xiana. We know she was murdered. Now we just have to figure out who it is (the suspect),” Swartz said. 

Vallejo police said the discovery creates no new suspects, but among those under suspicion in Fairchild’s disappearance are her mother, Antoinette Robinson, and Robinson’s boyfriend, Robert Turnbough. 

Turnbough initially told police he had left the girl at a bus stop, but later changed his story to say she walked alone to catch the bus. Vallejo police never labeled Turnbough a suspect, but did say he had been under “a cloud of suspicion” because of his conflicting tales. 

“From the very day that Xiana disappeared we got conflicting stories from her mother and her mother’s boyfriend,” said Vallejo police chief Robert Nichelini. 

Fairchild’s kidnapping case revived interest recently when a man in jail for allegedly abducting one girl began telling reporters he was also responsible for Fairchild’s disappearance. 

Curtis Dean Anderson told Fairchild’s great-aunt that the girl was still alive and he knew of her whereabouts. The latest findings contrast Anderson’s accounts. 

“At this stage of the investigation there is no evidence of links to Anderson to this case,” said Capt. Brian Beck of Santa Clara County investigative services. “We’re all aware of his notoriety and his discussions with the press, but that does constitute evidence.” 

Anderson is charged with kidnapping an 8-year-old Vallejo girl last August. The girl managed to escape when Anderson allegedly left her in his car unattended. 

Anderson’s attorney, Carl Spieckerman, said jail officials have told him his client was going to be transferred from Solano County to Santa Clara County where Fairchild’s skull was found Jan. 19 by a construction worker. 

“They’re going to book him,” Spieckerman said. “And I believe he’s going to be charged with something in connection with this case.”

UNION CITY – Inside the modest home of Cora Lorenzo, where she claims mysterious oils appear on small religious statues and crucifixes, the real miracle may be that she can squeeze in all the visitors. 

Thousands of devout Catholics have heard about the oil said to flow from objects in Lorenzo’s home and they’ve made long journeys to see if indeed a miracle is occurring 

“People just keep coming,” Lorenzo said. “It just keeps growing, and growing, and growing and growing. One person will make an appointment for 20 visitors, and 75 show up.” 

So many visitors in fact that there is hardly any room for Lorenzo’s neighbors anymore. 

“Parking is horrible,” said neighbor Joe Hernandez. “There’s constant litter and noise late at night. The neighbors are fed up with it.” 

The congestion in the area is so bad some of those who live on Lorenzo’s street are considering passing around a petition indicating that the area is not zoned for a church. 

Lorenzo says the oil began appearing in 1995. A small cup she bought in Lourdes, France dried up one evening. But the next morning a sweet-smelling oily liquid had taken the place of the holy water. 

At first Lorenzo thought perhaps her husband or son put the oil in the cup. 

They denied doing so. 

Now strangers from as far away as Australia, Nigeria, Holland and Indonesia drop by the Lorenzo home to witness what many of them call a miracle. 

Patricia Wu of Daly City came by to rub some of the oil on the head of her 4-year-old son, hoping that such an application would do something to alleviate the condition that covered the boy’s body with small red bumps. 

After dabbing the boy with the oil the bumps began to vanish almost immediately, Wu said. 

“I’m religious and I believe in miracles,” Wu told the Mercury News. “But my husband says, ‘No, this just happened.’ Men are hard to believe in these kinds of things.” 

Another woman said her prayers in hopes of a better job were answered within 24 hours, because the praying was done in Lorenzo’s home where the oil flows so freely. 

Skeptics aren’t so impressed by Lorenzo’s purported miracle oils and say other similar claims have proven less than miraculous. 

Joe Nickell, a writer for the Skeptical Inquirer magazine, says olive oil drizzled onto religious objects can stay fresh for weeks and those who own the items seldom allow the objects to be examined. 

A television crew that examined “blood” dripping from a Virgin Mary statue in Quebec 15 years ago found the substance to be pork drippings. Two years ago in Kansas, blood said to weep from a plaque of Mary turned out to be that of the icon’s owner. 

A spokeswoman for the Oakland Diocese, Barbara Flannery, says there’s nothing wrong with Lorenzo’s “miracles” as long as Lorenzo isn’t asking for money or donations. 

“It sounds like nothing that she is doing is outside the teaching of the church,” Flannery said. “She’s probably doing a lot of good.”

Former schools superintendent gave his girlfriend district contract 

EMERYVILLE — The former schools superintendent of Emeryville awarded his girlfriend a lucrative contract as his district fell deeper in debt, a newspaper reported Sunday. 

The San Francisco Chronicle reported that former schools chief J.L. Handy paid his girlfriend Jean Cross $213,000 to write grants and fill out reimbursement forms from 1998 to last May. 

Cross was also awarded 10 percent of every grant she brought in to the schools. 

The grant writing duties are typically performed by school principals without such incentives. 

Handy resigned as Emeryville schools chief in October and is under investigation for using school funds for personal expenses. 

Man arrested for battering  

anti-abortion protestors 

SANTA CRUZ — A man was arrested Saturday for battery against anti-abortion protesters. 

A 37-year-old transient named James Wilson was arrested after he punched and kicked two members of Voice For Life, an anti-abortion group that was protesting in front of Sutter Maternity & Surgery Center. 

The sheriff’s office said Wilson also took out a knife and told one protester he was going to stab him. 

Building owners paying tenants money to leave apartments 

SAN FRANCISCO — A growing number of renters are being paid big bucks to leave their apartments. 

Some building owners want to start charging more money for their rental space, and getting the old tenants out is the only way to do it. 

Rent-control has forced landlord and building owners to offer thousands of dollars to apartment dwellers paying low rents. One woman who lived in the same Pacific Heights apartment for the past eight years was given $26,500 to vacate her apartment. 

Evictions haven’t slowed up either. The city’s Rent Board recorded about 20 evictions in December under the Ellis Act, the law that allows landlords to stop renting the apartment to get rid of their tenants.

Cellphones can connect users to lots of information 

SAN FRANCISCO – Adam Burg used to lug his laptop computer to the mountains on his frequent skiing trips so he could log on to the Internet and check the latest weather reports. 

Now all he needs is his cellphone. 

With a phone call to a toll-free number, Burg, 27, simply asks for the latest weather report wherever he is and is told in a matter of seconds. 

If he wants to locate a nearby Chinese restaurant or find out what’s playing at nearby movie theaters, he can find that out too by just speaking a few words into the phone. 

Burg, a hard-driving technology worker, uses Tellme Networks, one of several free, voice-activated services known as “voice portals” that use voice recognition software to retrieve and translate information from the Internet. 

Taking their cues from spoken words, the services dispense stock quotes, horoscopes, driving directions, sports scores and other widely sought information over any telephone. 

“For a mobile person like me, it’s very useful,” Burg, of San Francisco, said before catching a flight to New York. “I already take my cellphone and Palm Pilot everywhere I go, so it’s nice not to have to haul my laptop, too, just so I can get on the Internet.” 

Tellme and rivals BeVocal and HeyAnita aren’t just designed to appeal to on-the-go, technology-savvy consumers. They also aim to attract the millions of people who aren’t computer literate. 

The services have become a valuable tool for blind people including Brent Bacome of Hanford, Calif., who finds it much easier to call BeVocal than to try to fetch information from the Web using special equipment that “reads” words aloud from a computer. 

“It’s been marvelous for me. It seems to understand me better than a lot of people do,” said Bacome, 47, a teacher’s aide who uses the portal for everything from news reports to locating the closest Starbucks coffee house. 

With an estimated 2 billion phones in use worldwide, building a voice portal seemed like a no-brainer to Tellme CEO Mike McCue, who helped popularize the Web browser as a vice president of technology at Netscape Communication. 

After leaving Netscape in early 1999, McCue, 33, invested more than $1 million of his Netscape nest egg and set out to develop an easily accessible information source that would be appealing to computer-adverse people — including his mother in Indianapolis, who he says now dials TellMe’s access number more frequently than he does. 

“Once you use it a few times, you quickly understand how easy it is,” said his mother, Lucy McCue Allan, 60. 

McCue’s mom isn’t the only one impressed with his company. Venture capitalists so far have invested $238 million in Mountain View-based Tellme. 

Although there remain far more Web surfers than voice portal pioneers, the service providers are quickly expanding their reach. 

Both Tellme and Sunnyvale-based BeVocal are accessible nationwide and provide business directories and driving directions that cover virtually the entire country. Tellme’s billboards are plastered on the sides of New York City buses. And it is developing plans to expand to Europe. 

Talking to a portal isn’t like having a normal conversation. The portals only recognize certain words. The limited vocabulary means users have to know each system’s keywords to navigate quickly. 

The voice portals also have trouble making out words in a noisy environment, or amid the static of a wireless phone. 

When talking on a clear phone line, the portals are fairly simple to use. Navigating around Tellme requires saying just one or two words, such as “driving directions,” or “restaurants,” and the voice prompts guide you the rest of the way. Get lost and the command “Tellme menu” takes you back to the auditory equivalent of a home page. 

Regular callers can also create a “favorites” list that makes it easy to go directly to specific information. 

As work continues on new software and applications, voice portals created for consumers and businesses are expected to become big business. 

The voice portal industry is expected to grow from $2 billion in 2000 to $12 billion in 2005, with a projected 128 million callers, according to the Kelsey Group. 

As privately held companies, the all-purpose portals don’t disclose how many people use their services. 

The Kelsey Group estimates users at slightly more than 1 million. Another 3 million are believed to use more specialized portal services that translate e-mail messages and perform other specific tasks. 

“There is still a lot of evolution that needs to take place,” said Kelsey analyst Mark Plakias. “A lot of what we are seeing now won’t be around in a few years. The portals today are where the Web was back in 1995.” 

The potential market for voice portals is spurring more Webmasters to encode the content on their sites with “Voice XML,” computer code that can be translated into English by voice browsers. 

Meantime, a San Francisco company, VocalPoint Technologies, has developed a technology that can read HTML, the computer code behind the Web, and convert it into voice applications for businesses that want to create their own portals. 

For now, Tellme and BeVocal are just trying to build a mass market of customers that will entice businesses to advertise on their services. 

Both portals are still in their infancy. Tellme’s phone lines opened in April 2000 and BeVocal began accepting calls in June 2000. 

Over the long haul, though, the companies hope to do much more than provide consumers with a new way to extract information from the Internet. Ultimately, they want to morph into the launching pad for the phone calls of the future. 

“We want to become ’Dialtone 2.0,”’ McCue said. 

In this scenario, voice portals essentially would supplant the telephone keypad for placing calls. 

Instead of punching in numbers to place a call, people simply would pick up a phone and announce the name of a person or business. Business calls might be answered by another automated system. 

As McCue sees it, this is the ultimate “killer application” for portals — free directory assistance that finds a business or person for a caller, then connects them. The company plans to make money from referral fees paid by businesses. 

It’s an ambitious game plan that the portal start-ups know they won’t be able to execute by themselves. 

Already, BeVocal has licensed its technology to wireless phone carriers Sprint and Qwest so they can provide voice portals to their subscribers. 

Even more wireless phone alliances are in the works, said C. Mikael Berner, CEO of BeVocal, which is backed by $46 million in venture capital. 

“We strongly believe every wireless carrier in the U.S. will have some kind of voice (portal) by the end of this year,” said Berner, whose company also operates its own publicly accessible portal. 

Tellme’s backers include AT&T, which invested $60 million. Eventually, says McCue, his company may well end up a business partner with Yahoo and America Online, which last fall introduced telephone portals of their own.

Senior citizens can have complex tax issues, but also different rules 

WASHINGTON – America’s tax law is meant to apply equally to people of all ages, but there are some special considerations that older taxpayers should keep in mind when tax filing season rolls around — and some places they can get tailor-made help. 

First off, people age 65 and older have higher income thresholds to determine whether they have to file a tax return. They also get a higher standard deduction. But they can frequently have a perplexing income picture that includes Social Security benefits, health costs, retirement plan distributions and pension payouts. 

Anna Maria Galdieri, a certified public accountant in Oakland, said one of the biggest obstacles for many of her older clients is grasping all of the complexities involved. 

“The problem is that people are so fearful of the IRS, they tend to just close up,” she said. “Particularly as people age, their ability to tolerate these things is limited.” 

For those who might have trouble affording professional help, the AARP offers a free tax service under a $3 million grant from the IRS. The service provides 31,000 volunteers at 10,000 sites around the country, as well as help via the Internet and free electronic tax filing. 

The average customer at AARP Tax Aide, as the service is known, is a woman age 65 or over with $20,000 or less in income per year. “Those are people who can least afford to pay for their tax returns,” said Sabrina Reilly, national communications coordinator for the program. 

People can find an AARP site near them by calling 1 (888) 227-7669 beginning Jan. 15 or by checking on the Web at http://www.aarp.org. 

For taxpayers doing their own returns, the IRS offers Publication 554 with information geared toward older Americans. Some highlights: 

— Social Security or railroad retirement benefits can be taxable. To figure this out, the IRS says to add one-half of total benefits with all other income, excluding such things as interest from U.S. savings bonds or adoption benefits.  

If the total is higher than the income threshold for your filing status, then taxes may be owed. 

“You can get in a situation where you add a little more income and that increases how much Social Security payments are included in income,” Galdieri said. “You can be paying a dollar in taxes for every dollar you add in income.” 

— To deduct medical expenses, taxpayers must itemize and costs must top 7.5 percent of adjusted gross income. Some long-term insurance care premiums may be included, as well as costs of a long-term care provider. 

Still, for many lower-income seniors, the deduction threshold is too high to make much difference. “It doesn’t make sense to think that these are appropriate levels,” Galdieri said. 

— The Credit for the Elderly or Disabled, a maximum of $1,125, is available for many people over age 65 as well as younger people who are “permanently and totally” disabled. The credit is subject to certain income limits. IRS Publication 524 has all the details. 

— Traditional individual retirement account distributions are generally taxable the year they are received. But non-traditional IRAs, such as a Roth IRA or a SIMPLE IRA, have different rules. Also, premature IRA distrubutions before age 59 1/2 can be subject to an additional 10 percent tax. On the other hand, most traditional IRAs require distributions or withdrawals at at 70 1/2. IRS Publication 590 sorts it all out. 

— Pension and annuity distributions are also taxable, except for the share of contributions made by the taxpayer. There are different rules governing annuities and pensions before and after 1987. IRS Publication 575 is available to help determine what’s taxable and what’s not. 

— Military retirement pay that’s based on length of service or age generally must be included in a taxpayer’s gross income. But military pay based on disability from active armed forces service is generally exempt from tax, and Department of Veterans Affairs benefits also are not included as income.

WASHINGTON – The number of taxpayers likely to be entangled in the complex alternative minimum tax is projected to reach 1.5 million this year, twice as many as three years ago. Increasingly, unsuspecting middle-class people are being affected. 

“The AMT is creeping up on those who weren’t intended to be victims,” said Rande Spiegelman, senior personal finance planning manager at the KPMG accounting firm. “It was meant as a way to make sure extremely high-income folks end up paying at least a minimum amount of income tax.” 

But the tax is no longer limited to the wealthy, mainly because it has only been adjusted for inflation once since Congress created it in 1969. As incomes rise, more and more people can become exposed to the tax, particularly if they have large itemized deductions or numerous exemptions for dependents. 

People living in a state with high personal income taxes are particularly vulnerable, Spiegelman said. Big families with lots of children could also pay the price. 

The minimum tax, with a top rate of 28 percent, actually operates in parallel to the regular income tax system. The big difference is that most usual deductions aren’t allowed, meaning that the 28 percent rate applies to income that wasn’t exposed to tax in the regular system. 

“When you’re in AMT, you’ve paid all your tax according to the regular rules and brackets. But it isn’t enough,” Spiegelman said. “They are going to tack on another 28 percent on income you didn’t have to pay tax on otherwise.” 

According to the congressional Joint Committee on Taxation, 1.5 million tax returns will be affected by the minimum tax in 2001. That’s only 1.1 percent of the estimated total of returns, but nearly double the 828,000 returns reporting minimum tax in 1998. 

By 2010, unless Congress enacts some changes, almost 15 million tax returns could be affected.  

Congress has temporarily ensured that certain personal tax credits, such as the $500 per-child tax credit and education credits, cannot trigger the minimum tax — but that law expires at the end of 2001. 

“The more voters are exposed to the AMT, the more likely Congress is going to do something about it,” Spiegelman said. 

The Internal Revenue Service has a worksheet in the instructions for Form 1040 for taxpayers to determine if they owe alternative minimum tax; most tax computer software flags it automatically. Form 6251 is used to figure the minimum tax.

The Planning Commission is asking the City Council to save crafts and manufacturing jobs in west Berkeley by enacting a moratorium on the construction and expansion of office space. 

The moratorium would prohibit for one year any new office space in what is called the Multiple Use Light Industry District in west Berkeley. Supporters say the increase in office development violates the spirit of the 1993 West Berkeley Plan and is gentrifying what has traditionally been the most economically diverse neighborhood in Berkeley. 

The commission approved the recommendation Jan. 24 by a vote of 5-4 with Commissioners Susan Wengraf, Mary Ann McCamant, Betty Hicks and Tim Perry voting in opposition. The City Council is scheduled to consider the moratorium on March 13. 

Commissioner Zelda Bronstein who wrote the recommendation with Commission Chair Rob Wrenn, said the moratorium will give the city a chance to examine the West Berkeley Plan and determine if it is being adequately applied to zoning decisions in the MULI. 

She said high rents usually paid for office space is encouraging commercial property owners to convert industrial and manufacturing space into offices. In addition she said the lion’s share of new construction has been office space.  

According to Bronstein, the trend toward new offices in the MULI has also had a negative impact on traffic in the area because there is a more concentrated work force in offices than in manufacturing. 

The effect she said will be for Berkeley to lose a good part of its traditional blue collar character. “Artists, artisans cabinet makers, textile and metal workers, these people can’t pay office rents,” Bronstein said. 

Commissioner Susan Wengraf said she voted against the moratorium because she doesn’t believe it’s necessary. She said that the MULI may be losing traditional blue collar jobs, but that the new offices are creating jobs. 

“The loss of manufacturing jobs is a regional problem. That’s nothing little Berkeley is going to be able to solve,” she said. “And as far as traffic goes you have to decide, do you want jobs? Well, you’re going to have traffic.” 

Berkeley’s zoning map shows the MULI as an S-shaped area that winds through west Berkeley between San Pablo Avenue and Interstate-80. The roughly 70 block area has traditionally been made up of small manufacturers, retail, light industry and office space, punctuated with pockets of residential areas. 

According to a Jan. 10 report by Commissioners Bronstein and Wrenn, there was an increase of 330,000 square feet of new and converted office space in the MULI between 1997 and 2000. According to a report by city planning staff, offices are pushing out other uses. “Given that west Berkeley office rents are three times the rents paid by west Berkeley industry, further office development in the MULI can only unduly interfere with light manufacturing.” 

Bronstein said an integral part of the West Berkeley Plan was to maintain “good blue collar jobs that would be available to people with little education, which usually have higher pay and better benefits than office jobs,” she said. “The increase in office space clearly threatens those jobs.” 

But according to a Jan. 24 staff report, there has been 418,000 square feet of office space created in the MULI since 1993. That is only 61.5 percent of the amount projected in the West Berkeley Plan for 2005. 

“The West Berkeley Plan took nine years to put together and was truly a consensus document,” Wengraf said. “If the commissioners think there’s a problem they should call together the stakeholders. Don’t call an emergency, crisis moratorium.” 

Dennis Cohen is one of the partners in the Parker Plaza, which consists of offices and light industry. He was involved with the creation of the West Berkeley Plan and said he would support a moratorium if there were evidence that arts and crafts and light industrial businesses are being displaced. “A moratorium is called for in an emergency situation and I don’t think there is any evidence of that.” 

Stephen Swanson, a long-time resident of west Berkeley, said there has always been a delicate balance between work space and housing in the area, with many of the people who work there also living there.  

“West Berkeley is being pushed towards office use because of its location next to the freeway and because offices make more money,” he said. “The result is going to be gentrification and we don’t want west Berkeley to be like every other no-name freeway stop.” 

Saturday, Feb. 3

Spirits in the Time of AIDS Artists Talk 

1 p.m. 

Pro Arts Gallery  

461 Ninth St.  

Oakland  

As part of “Consecrations,” the public is invited to hear artists speak about their work and show slides. Free 

Call 763-9425 

Free Tae-Bo Classes for Adults  

10 - 10:45 a.m.  

Frances Albrier Community Center  

San Pablo Park 

2800 Park St. 644-8515 

Free Martial Arts Classes for Kids  

11:15 a.m. - 2 p.m. 

Frances Albrier Community Center  

San Pablo Park  

2800 Park St.  

Classes taught by Michael Johnson, a fourth degree black belt. Ages 5 - 7, 11:15 a.m. - Noon; Ages 8 - 12, 12:15 p.m. - 1 p.m.; Ages 13 to adults, 1:15 p.m. - 2 p.m. 644-8515 

Free Sailboat Rides  

1 - 4 p.m. 

Cal Sailing Club 

Berkeley Marina 

The Cal Sailing Club, a non-profit sailing and windsurfing cooperative, give free rides on a first come, first served bases on the first full weekend of each month. Wear warm clothes and bring a change of clothes in case you get wet. Children must be at least five years old and must be accompanies by an adult.  

Visit www.cal-sailing.org  

Fruit Tree Pruning 

10 a.m. - Noon  

Ecology Center Library  

2530 San Pablo Ave.  

An introductory class for the home fruit grower. Class taught by Greg Peck, owner of an organic landscape and garden design business in the East Bay.  

$7.50 - $10 548-2220 

Empyrean Ensemble 

4 p.m. 

Julia Morgan Theater 

2640 College Ave. 

Featuring a commissioned piece, “Prosperous Soul, Gregarious Heart,” newly composed by Peter Josheff in honor of his late father.  

Call 845-8542 

Wild About Books? 

10:30 a.m. 

Central Berkeley Library  

2121 Allston Way  

Puppeteer Jo Jo LaPlume entertains with her marionette show. Free series of family storytime events the first Saturday of each month. Call 649-3913 

PURRS Pet Adoption Day  

Noon - 5 p.m. 

Pet Food Express  

1942 Martin Luther King Jr. Way  

Cats, kittens, rabbits, dogs and other pets in need of homes will be available. l 444-3204 

Sunday, Feb. 4

“Under Construction No. 10” 

7:30 p.m. 

St. John’s Presbyterian Church  

2727 College Ave.  

Experience the unusual rehearsal-reading format that lets the audience experience the collaboration between conductor, orchestra and composer in the Berkeley Symphony’s unique series presenting new works or works-in-progress by local Bay Area composers. 841-2800 

From Flatlands to the Stars  

9:30 a.m. - 3 p.m. 

Diamond Park  

Fruitvale Ave. (at Lyman Rd.) 

A hardy hike along Sausal Creek in Oakland’s unexplored Diamond and Joaquin Miller parks. A free hike sponsored by Greenbelt Alliance. Call 415-255-3233 for reservations or visit  

www.greenbelt.org 

Timbrels & Torahs:  

Celebrating Wisdom,  

Celebrating Age  

10:30 a.m. - 12:30 p.m. 

Berkeley Richmond  

Jewish Community Center 

1414 Walnut St.  

Miriam Chaya and Judy Montell discuss their Simchat Hochmah ceremony, which celebrates a woman’s transition from mid-life to her eldering years. 848-0237 x127 

Spiritual & Cultural Context of Mbira  

8 p.m. 

Shambhala Booksellers  

2482 Telegraph Ave.  

Berkeley native Erica Azim has played Shona mbira music for 30 years, and is the foremost mbira performer and recording artist in the U.S. Free 848-8443 

Solving the East Bay EnergyCrisis 

3 p.m. 

Berkeley Fellowship Unitarian Universalists 

Fellowship Hall  

1924 Cedar (at Bonita) 

Barbara George of Women’s Energy Matters and a Utility Reform Network representative, Kris Worthington, Berkeley city council member, Ross Mirkarimi of the Green Party, and others will discuss the past and future of the energy situation in the East Bay, including possibilities of conservation, clean, renewable energy and municipally-owned public utilities.  

Call 233-3175 

Free Sailboat Rides  

1 - 4 p.m. 

Cal Sailing Club 

Berkeley Marina 

The Cal Sailing Club gives free rides on a first come, first served bases on the first full weekend of each month. Wear warm clothes and bring a change of clothes in case you get wet. Children must be at least five years old and must be accompanies by an adult.  

Visit www.cal-sailing.org  

Meditations for Relieving Pain 

6 p.m. 

Tibetan Nyingma Institute  

1815 Highland Pl.  

Sylvia Gretchen presents specific meditations and visualization practices that can help to relieve physical and mental pain. Free 

Call 843-6812 

Tibetan Nyingma Institute Open House 

3 - 5 p.m. 

Tibetan Nyingma Institute 

1815 Highland Pl.  

A free introduction to Tibetan Buddhist culture including a prayer wheel and meditation garden tour and yoga demonstration. Refreshments will be served. Free 

Call 843-6812 

Monday, Feb. 5

Youth Commission  

6 p.m. 

Martin Luther King Jr.  

Youth Center 

1730 Oregon St.  

Rent Stabalization Board 

7 p.m. 

2134 MLK Jr. Way 

Second Floor Council Chamber 

Personnel Board Meeting  

7 p.m. 

Permit Center 

2118 Milvia St.  

First Floor Conference Room  

Landmarks Preservation Commission  

7:30 p.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center 

1901 Hearst Ave.  

Peace & Justice Commission  

7 p.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center 

1901 Hearst Ave.  

Tuesday, Feb. 6

Berkeley Intelligent  

Conversation  

7 - 9 p.m.  

Jewish Community Center  

1414 Walnut Ave. (at Rose)  

With no religious affiliation, this twice-monthly group, led informally by former UC Berkeley extension lecturer Robert Berent, seeks to bring people together to have interesting discussions on contemporary topics. This evenings discussion topic is sex, love, dating, and relationships in celebration of Valentine’s Day.  

Call 527-5332  

Berkeley Camera Club  

7:30 p.m. 

Northbrae Community Church  

941 The Alameda  

Share your slides and learn what other photographers are doing. Monthly field trips. 

Call Wade, 531-8664 

— compiled by  

Chason Wainwright 

Free! Early Music Group  

10 - 11:30 a.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center 

1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way)  

A small group who sing madrigals and other voice harmonies. Their objective: To enjoy making music and building musical skills.  

Call Ann 655-8863 or e-mail: ann@integratedarts.org 

Wednesday, Feb. 7

Stagebridge Free Acting & Storytelling 

Classes for Seniors 

10 a.m. - 3 p.m. 

First Congregational Church  

2501 Harrison St.  

Oakland  

Call 444-4755 or visit www.stagebridge.org 

Legacy to Liberation  

7 p.m. 

Revolution Books  

2425 Channing Way  

A roundtable discussion by contributors to the recently published anthology “Politics and Culture of Revolutionary Asian Pacific America.” Contributors include Richard Aoki, Yuri Kockiyama, Sun Lee and Dolly Veale.  

$2 donation  

848-1196 

Thursday, Feb. 8

Free “Quit Smoking” Class 

5:30 - 7:30 p.m. 

South Berkeley Senior Center 

2939 Ellis (at Ashby)  

Cease your smoking with the help of this free class offered to Berkeley residents and employees. 

Call 644-6422 to enroll or e-mail quitnow@ci.berkeley.ca.us 

Duomo Readings Open Mic.  

6:30 - 9 p.m. 

Cafe Firenze  

2116 Shattuck Ave.  

With featured poet Tom Odegard and host Dale Jensen.  

644-0155 

Great Mt. Diablo Day Hikes 

7 p.m. 

Recreational Equipment, Inc. 

1338 San Pablo Ave.  

Ken Lavin, former president of Mt. Diablo Interpretative Association, for a slide-show of his favorite day hikes in Mt. Diablo State Park.  

Call 527-7377  

Jam Session  

7 p.m. 

Maurice’s Cafe 

6038 Telegraph 

Oakland 

Poetry with jazz featuring Jimmy Sands.  

Call 653-6775 

Exploring Surfaces  

7 - 9 p.m. 

Hillside Community Church  

1422 Navellier St.  

El Cerrito 

A series of Thursday evenings of conversation “engaging people in discovering the pleasures of an excellent discussion.” Transverse the world’s ecological regions, describing what you know and what you’ve heard. 

$10  

Friday, Feb. 9

Strong Women - Writers & 

Heroes of Literature 

1 - 3 p.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center  

1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way) 

Taught by Dr. Helen Rippier Wheeler, author of “Women and Aging: A Guide to Literature,” this is a free weekly literature course in the Berkeley Adult School’s Older Adults Program.  

Call 549-2970  

Stagebridge Free Acting & Storytelling 

Classes for Seniors 

10 a.m. - 3 p.m. 

First Congregational Church  

2501 Harrison St.  

Oakland  

Call 444-4755 or visit www.stagebridge.org 

Berkeley PC Users Group 

7 p.m. 

Vista College 

2020 Milvia St., Room 303 

E-Mail: meldancing@aol.com 

Introducing: Julia Morgan School for Girls 

7:30 - 8:30 a.m. 

Julia Morgan School for Girls 

Holy Names College 

Sky Room, Durocher Hall 

3510 Mountain Blvd.  

Oakland 

A select gathering of business and professional women devoted to fostering leadership in the young girls in our community.  

Saturday, Feb. 10

Spirits in the Time of AIDS Open Mic.  

1 p.m. 

Pro Arts Gallery  

461 Ninth St.  

Oakland  

As part of “Consecrations,” the public is invited to see special performances, spoken word, commentary and more.  

Call 763-9425 

Masters of Persian Classical Music 

8 p.m. 

Zellerbach Hall  

UC Berkeley  

Featuring vocalist Mohammad Reza Sharjarian and his son, Homayoun Sharjarian.  

$20 - $40  

Call 642-9988 or e-mail tickets@calperfs.berkeley.edu  

Dreams & Intuition 

10 a.m. - 4 p.m. 

1502 Tenth St.  

Marcia Emery, Ph.D., will discuss how to attune your intuitive dream antenna, intuitively unravel the symbolic message of a dream symbol and apply an intuitive dream interpretation method to the entire dream.  

$85  

Call 526-5510 

“The West Wing Meets the East Bay” 

7:30 p.m. 

Saint Joseph the Worker Church 

1640 Addison St.  

A conversation with Martin Sheen. Tickets available at Black Oak Books, Cody’s Books, St. Joseph the Worker Church, and at the door.  

$20 donation 

525-3787  

Annuals for the Dry Garden 

10 a.m. 

UC Botanical Garden 

200 Centennial Drive  

Annie Hayes of Annie’s annuals will suggest some annuals to plant in gardens that are water-deprived during the summer months.  

$15  

Call 643-1924 

Community takes a hard look at Berkeley High 

Find outside experts to resolve BHS problems 

Editor:  

With all of the local recent publicity about Berkeley High School, some positive, but mostly negative, it seems difficult to get an idea of what the main problem is.  

However, with so many people in the community obviously upset over the existing situation and so many changes in recent administrative staff, it almost seems time to bring in a team of experts from the outside and have them put a new plan into action. Can the school administrative team not handle the problems, or do they choose not to handle the problems beyond a certain point? “Band-Aids” won’t work here anymore.  

As we take a look at the looseness around the high school campus, the downtown surrounding area (even during school/class hours), the environmental factors and the academic statistics, one can easily see why the current system is not working well.  

The real question is: who does the administration really fear conflict with by not initiating a badly needed, much more strict policy? The very liberal Berkeley community, which suffers due to this problem or the actual student body itself? You decide, but let’s all hope and work for some positive changes soon, before it gets worse.  

R.J. Williams  

Berkeley 

School Board deserves kudos for new program 

(ed note: the following letter was written before the City Council voted to provide $40,000 to the program.) 

Editor: 

The Berkeley School Board deserves a big round of applause for its recent efforts toward providing a quality education for all of the students at Berkeley High School. It is important that the city also join this effort.  

Of course this is but one piece of the puzzle, but it is significant that over the last few years the Berkeley School Board has also emphasized the early years of school as a foremost area to have our students achieve grade level standards in reading.  

Additionally, programs at the high school in the ninth grade have targeted creating smaller class sizes with continuity in the English and math classes.  

The most recent efforts to improve education in Berkeley are another welcome addition to this developing process. Thanks again.  

Mel Martynn 

Berkeley 

Issel deserves praise for opposition to program 

Editor: 

As parents of a recent Berkeley High graduate, we are writing to praise Shirley Issel for her courageous “nay” vote on the plan proposed by Parents of Children of African Descent for failing freshmen at BHS. We know it was not easy for her to stand alone in resisting pressure tactics when she cares so much about student achievement, but she is right that BHS should not be pouring money into an expensive plan that has not been adequately studied. There are already many valuable BHS programs that lack adequate support. Yes, there is a need to act fast on the problem of failing freshmen, and, yes, it is great that minority parents are getting involved with their children’s education, but PCAD’s plan calls for considerable resources that might be more profitably expended elsewhere. 

Rick Marcus 

Andrea Saltzman 

Berkeley 

Keep tool library well-staffed 

(The Daily Planet received a copy of this address to the council.) 

As city Councilmembers you are well aware of what contentious people your constituents are. We can’t agree on the Beth El project, we can’t agree on 2700 San Pablo, we can’t agree on building heights or daylighting creeks. In fact there is little that doesn’t send some faction down here to complain.  

But tonight I wish to speak to you about something we Berkelyans do agree on - The Tool Library. Users of the Tool Library all agree that at least once Berkeley has gotten something quite right. We are happy there is a place we can go to borrow tools, which many of us couldn’t afford, to help us maintain our homes, our gardens, our bikes. We are novices and pro, young and old, rich and poor - a rainbow coalition of home improvers and hobbyists.  

We are happy with the present staff at the Tool Library. Pete, Adam, Mike and Candida are dispensers of information and goodwill. They know their users and greet them by name. They help us solve our do-it-yourself problems. And while we have been accused of thinking the staff “walks on water,” which is not quite true, we want you and the Library Board to know we are not talking “run the book under the scanner” here. We are talking communication skills, teaching skills and personality.  

With the retirement of Pete, the original “Tool Man,” at the end of the month, there is a position to be filled. We, the Steering Committee, of Friends of the Tool Library, want to be sure that the present staff is considered for increased time, particularly Candida who does not have enough hours to receive benefits. And we want Adam and Mike to have increased hours before any new hiring is done. It is also important that any new staff be compatible with the present staff. The space is small and crowded and at times the lines are long and the patrons restless. Knowledge of tools is certainly important, but communication skills, personality and humor in the face of long lines and harried customers, who just saw the last weedwacker walk out the door when that is what they came for, are more to the point.  

The Tool Library presently generates a tremendous amount of goodwill, to say nothing of good publicity, for the city. People from other towns bemoan the fact that they don’t have one and call ours to find out how to start one. We hope that Pete’s retirement will not in any way change the high quality of service we presently receive at the Tool Library.  

Rosemary Vimont 

Friends of the Tool Library 

Berkeley 

As the story goes, Canadian playwright George F. Walker, born and raised in Toronto’s industrialized inner city, was driving a cab in the early 1970s when he saw a poster for a local theater company requesting original scripts.  

Walker went home and wrote his play “Prince of Naples,” which began a long relationship with Toronto’s Factory Theatre Lab, where he eventually became playwright-in-residence, and later artistic director.  

Since then, Walker’s plays have been performed around the world. On Thursday, Berkeley’s Aurora Theater Company opened an energetic production of his 1993 script “Tough!” 

Running 90 minutes without an intermission, “Tough!” eavesdrops on the lives of three lower-class 19 year olds hanging out in a rundown inner city park, arguing about the unhappy romantic relationship between two of them. 

On designer Melpomene Katakalos’ effectively depressing set littered with trash and cigarette butts, angry, foul-mouthed homegirl Tina (Amanda Duarte) insults her ne’er-do-well boyfriend Bobby (Danny Wolohan) over the fact that he has a roving eye, and has been caught at a party fooling around with another woman. 

Before long, it turns out that Tina is pregnant.  

With the support of Tina’s angry, vicious friend Jill (Maria Candelaria), the two women lace into the simpleton Bobby, and spend much of the 90 minutes giving him a serious tongue-lashing. 

At one point, friend Jill beats up Bobby physically. Jill, it turns out, has hated Bobby since they were both five years old. 

The play covers a lot of gender politics, going over the differences between men and women when it comes to sex and romance. 

It also covers a lot of socio-economic ground – about how youths in this deprived environment have little in the way of future prospects. A single mother faces a life of welfare. A young man with no skills has little hope for economic betterment.  

As the story opens up, Bobby and Tina let out some of their dreams. 

Sometimes the play is funny. These streetwise inner city youth are not unlike the foul-mouthed characters who populate such David Mamet plays as “American Buffalo.” 

But for me, “Tough!” doesn’t quite click, at least in this Aurora production under the direction of Søren Oliver. 

For one, the 1993 story of teen parenting already seems slightly out of date in terms of the social mores of today’s youth. Second, the play feels more like an adult writing about youth, than about youth. 

One big question that kept occurring to me was why Bobby would sit there for more than an hour and take the abuse that’s heaped on him by these two women, rather than just leave. 

In terms of the character that director Oliver and actor Wolohan have created for Bobby, it makes more sense that he would just leave. 

Also, the dialogue in “Tough!” takes a form in which the characters tend to describe the type of people they are, and describe the type of people others are, and explain what everyone’s motivations are. This doesn’t make the best stage dialogue. 

The script feels like it is conscious of being an illustration of the sociology of youth behavior in this socio-economic class. 

In fact, there is a didactic, rather than dramatic, quality to the dialogue, as the characters talk about the limits of their world, and the types of people they are. 

“Tough!” is an actors’ play, with lots of latitude for performers to create much of the characters, but the chemistry in this production just doesn’t quite jell. 

As pregnant Tina, Duarte often seems to be in a world of forced melodramatic emotions. Wolohan’s simpleton Bobby doesn’t feel connected to anything. 

Candelaria’s angry, foul-mouthed Jill is potentially the most interesting character of the evening, but except for a moment at the end, she stays at the same angry pitch all the way through. 

The physical fighting doesn’t work well either. When Jill beats up Bobby, who is someone much larger than she, it’s hard to accept. 

So in the final analysis, the Mamet-like sound and fury of "Tough!" that starts out promising, doesn’t offer fresh or interesting characters in what turns out to be a pedantic, sociological script. 

“Tough!,” presented by Aurora Theater at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant Avenue, through March 4. Call (510) 843-4822 or visit www.auroratheatre.org.

St. Mary’s John Sharper missed the game’s opening shot, but he and the rest of the aggressive Panthers team didn’t miss much else as they cruised to a 78-50 win over St. Joseph’s on Friday night. 

Although St. Mary’s controlled the game from the outset, the Panthers missed several layups in the opening quarter that gave the Pilots an opportunity to keep pace with the scrappier Panthers team. 

The Pilots’ window of opportunity quickly slammed shut. 

After trailing by two early, St. Mary’s utilized a full-court press to force turnovers and disrupt St. Joseph’s offense. At the end of the first period, the Panthers led by seven and never looked back. 

With the win, St. Mary’s improves to 20-4 overall and 8-0 in the Bay Shore Athletic League. St. Joseph’s, meantime, drops to 14-10 and 5-4. 

“I liked everything about it,” St. Mary’s head coach Jose Caraballo said following the Panthers’ dominating victory. “The kids played hard tonight. They’ve been playing at a pretty high level and they continue to play hard. We’ve got a lot of good chemistry and we play pretty good defense.” 

Continuing to press in the second quarter, St. Mary’s built a substantial lead heading into the locker room. Chase Moore and Sharper paced St. Mary’s with 10 and 11 first half points, respectively, on their way to scoring a game-high 18 points each. At the break, the Panthers were up 43-21. 

As Cal football coach Tom Holmoe eyed his potential prized recruit Lorenzo Alexander — who starred for the Panthers’ football team last fall and has verbally committed to Cal — toss in four points, St. Mary’s didn’t miss a beat to start the third quarter. Jeremiah Fielder scored the half’s opening hoop and Sharper quickly followed with a steal and an easy two. A bucket by Moore capped a 6-0 Panthers run to start the period. St. Mary’s was up by as many as 33 points midway through the third and finished the quarter doubling up the Pilots, 64-32 on a three-pointer at the buzzer by Terrence Boyd.  

“If we had pressed in the second half like we did in the first, the score would have been worse than it turned out be,” Coraballo said. “We press until we have control of the game and after that we let up.” 

In fact, the Panthers might have let up a little too much in the fourth quarter. St. Joseph’s pushed the ball up the court and outscored a sloppy St. Mary’s squad 18-14 in the final period. 

Both teams made several trips to the free throw line with St. Mary’s converting 10-of-23 and St. Joseph’s hitting 18-of-33.  

“Everybody came out and played with intensity in the first half,” said St. Mary’s DaShawn Freeman, who scored six points for the Panthers. “Sometimes in the first half we start out lackadaisical, but tonight we came out ready to play.”

By Erika Fricke 

Daily Planet Staff 

Pat Ungern has been teaching in Berkeley for 34 years, but has been using computers in the classroom for only the last two.  

And she loves it. “Oh yeah,” she said, pointing to books of pictures made with a digital camera, and series of 100 small icons the children created while learning to group numbers. 

The Berkeley Unified School District has been the happy recipient of technology largess. A new Digital High School grant funds a networked computer in every instructional space at Berkeley High, just as the five-year, 6.5 million Teacher Led Technology Challenge, a grant which funded computers in elementary and middle schools, is coming to a close. But while the funding to provide the initial computers and wiring comes free, this gift is not unencumbered. Once schools receive the technology, it’s their job to keep it in working order. 

William L Rukeyser coordinates the non-profit Woodland-based Learning in the Real World that examines the role of technology in schools. “Regardless of where the money comes from, it’s the subsequent years that can really break the back of the school district’s budget,” he said.  

The ongoing costs of repairs, replacements, upgrades, ongoing training and technology support can cost one-third of the initial investment each year, Rukeyser said. 

“Where does the district get the money for that minimum 33 percent?” he asked. “A lot of school districts didn’t figure out ahead of time that they would need that money. That means that a decision is made by default to let the equipment go obsolete, which means you have piles and piles of high priced junk, or they’re having to round up the money from other programs.” 

Even when schools generally buy the newest, state of the art technology, fast paced technological advancement can outpace purchasing. For example, said Monroe, BUSD purchased computers with two gigabyte hard drives, thinking that they couldn’t possibly need more than that, but they’ve found that with new applications, they want to purchase hard drives ten times that size. And John Muir Elementary finds itself saddled with aging iMac’s in their too-small computer lab. 

Catherine James, associate superintendent of support services, said that even if hardware isn’t outdated, it still won’t last forever. “You buy all these computers, you buy them at the same time,” she said, referring to the Digital High School grant. “What’s the life of a computer? Three to five years before something blows. Where’s the replacement? You’ve got at our high school, literally hundreds of computers, which will eventually all begin to self-destruct.” 

And when computers crash, or freeze, or erase assignments, someone must be on hand to fix the problem.  

James lauded the Teacher Led Technology Challenge grant for providing tech support at each school site, in addition to hardware. The grant runs out Sept. 30, which means the end of funded tech support.  

Paul Monroe, manager of Information Technology for BUSD, currently serves all of the Berkeley schools and administration with three technicians for the entire district. “My department is the same size now as it was three years ago,” he said. “The number of computers has increased about 300 percent district-wide, and our district-wide support hasn’t kept pace.” 

As schools see their support coming to an end, they furiously plan to find a new way to fund their tech support. Both Washington and Thousand Oaks elementary schools are applying for magnet school grants, with the hope that some of that grant money could be funneled to technology support.  

But Monroe cautioned against relying on grant money for any kind of long-term technology maintenance, because, he said, “The grant goes away and the equipment stays.” 

If a constant flow of grant money doesn’t come through to fund technology support and new hardwire, the schools will have to pay for their technology maintenance out of their own discretionary funds. Principal Rita Kimball of Washington hopes to piece together funding from various grants and pots of money around the school.  

Non-profit coordinator Rukeyser said that schools face the hard choice between seeing their technology become obsolete or diverting that money for technology away from other programs. “By and large in education you’re dealing with a zero sum game,” he said. “For everything you add to the mix you have to subtract something of equal size.”  

Principals are extremely conscious of that tension. “It’s really taking a hard look at what our priorities are,” said Kevin Wooldridge, principal at Thousand Oaks. 

As elementary and middle schools face the end of the long-term grant, and have to begin the struggle to find funding, Longfellow Arts & Technology Magnet Middle School is ahead of the game. They recognized the problem of obsolete and breaking down equipment early on, and have incorporated technology maintenance into their long range plans. Nancy Elnor is the technology coordinator at Longfellow. She spends 50 percent of her time troubleshooting computers and the rest fund-raising and managing resources.  

“Once we make the commitment to having the technology on the site, we’re committing to maintaining that tech or updating and replacing it,” she said. “Without a plan, it’s virtually impossible to do it.”  

3-1 defeat gives St. Patrick-St. Vincent first-round bye 

When the St. Mary’s soccer team lost 3-1 to St. Patrick-St. Vincent on Friday at home, they lost more than a game. The Panthers also surrendered second place in the BSAL, which would have meant a first-round bye in the playoffs. 

All St. Mary’s had to do was win or tie their final game of the regular season to clinch second place. When they went ahead 1-0 in the 28th minute on a beautiful goal by forward Ben Feldman, they looked to be in fine shape to take a rest on this coming Wednesday, when the first-round games are to be held. 

But the Panthers gave up the tying goal before halftime, then surrendered two more easy chances in the second half and lost. The visiting Bruins finished in second place and will have the bye. 

Feldman’s goal came as the result of a St. Mary’s free kick just outside the opposition’s box. Sweeper Nolan Horinouchi hit a sweet drive to midfielder Stephon McGrew, who chested the ball toward the goalmouth. Feldman just beat goalkeeper Kevin Kopple to the ball and nudged it over the line for a goal. 

But the Panthers spent much of the first half fending off slashing runs by Bruin forward Laguan Lea, who made easy work of defender Sean Rogan several times. But Rogan got the tying goal not from a mistake by Rogan but an error in judgement by Horinouchi. The senior tried to dribble the ball out of his own end, and Lea stripped him and went in on goal all by himself. St. Mary’s ’keeper Nick Osborne couldn’t stop him, and the game was all even. 

The second half started with both teams looking for the go-ahead goal, and the action swung from one end to the other with startling speed. Senior forward Pat Barry put McGrew on a breakaway with a nice chip pass, but Kopple came out bravely and stonewalled McGrew. 

Kopple was then forced to come nearly 40 yards out to turn away another Panther counter-attack, and it looked as if the Panthers were ready to pull away. 

“We were definitely playing for the win,” said St. Mary’s head coach Teale Matteson, who was well aware that his team only needed a tie to earn a bye. “That might have been a little bit of hubris on my part.” 

But the next Bruin rush ended in tragedy for St. Mary’s. The ball bounced around in the Panther box several times before settling at the feet of forward Evan Kesteloot 15 yards out, and he calmly slammed the ball past Osborne to give his team a 2-1 lead. 

The Panthers came right back and earned a corner kick, but midfielder Zack Huddleston headed just wide of the goal. Then disaster struck yet again. Horinouchi couldn’t handle a tough pass from his wing defender, and Kesteloot took advantage. He took the ball neatly for a breakaway, and slid the ball just past a diving Osborne to seal the game with 20 minutes left. 

“We hurt ourselves with mistakes today,” Matteson said. “Both teams made mistakes, but they capitalized on ours.” 

The Panthers were still a game bunch, and had two more decent scoring chances. But Barry hit his shot from 20 yards out over the bar, and McGrew put too much on a chip after he got behind the Bruin defense.

Principal Patricia Saddler of LeConte School knows how she wants to spend the $22,225 award the state just granted the school because of its improved performance on the Stanford 9 test. 

She’d like new outdoor physical education equipment, upgrades on the school’s computers, tools for farm and garden instruction and landscaping to beautify the campus. 

The decision on how to spend the funds will be made with the help of the parents and teachers on the school’s site committee. 

LeConte was not alone to be awarded $63 per pupil taking the test. All Berkeley schools got similar awards except Washington School, Berkeley High School, Longfellow School and the new Franklin Magnet School. 

Schools are profiled according to the income of parents, the parents’ level of education, size of the school and ethnicity of the students. Improvement on the test is compared to the previous year and the school’s growth is then compared to similar schools and measured accordingly, said Karen Sarlo, school district spokesperson.  

Sarlo said Washington School had performed well on the test, and improved over last year, but not enough to win the award. Longfellow School has been disqualified from the award for two years because one of the teachers used a previous test for practice purposes, Sarlo said.  

As for the inadequate growth at Berkeley High School, Sarlo said the test was given in poor conditions during the chaotic week after the fire, with students taking the test in open rooms, such as on the stage of an auditorium. 

Although the children at Le Conte School performed well on the test, Saddler said the school doesn’t depend only on the Stanford 9 to assess the children. “We use a variety of assessment tools. The (Stanford 9) is only one piece of the assessment.” 

Saddler credited the children’s growth in learning on the school’s focus on “basic literacy” and the use of supplementary math materials. Moreover, the school offers a “wonderful after school program” which any of LeConte’s second-fourth grade students may attend. Forty children in the fourth and fifth grades take advantage of the program, as do another 30 children in the second and third grades. 

The Stanford 9 is in the its third year of use and tests children in the second through eleventh grades. This is the first year monetary awards have been given to schools which have met target growth. Some educators fear such emphasis on standardized tests will cause teachers to teach test skills, rather than meeting the children’s true learning needs, but others argue that it is important to be able to both measure a child’s growth in learning and to compare children with those across the nation. 

INFO BOX 

Following are the monetary awards that each Berkeley School will receive for improvement on the Stanford 9 test. The amount is equal to $63 per pupil taking the test. 

Cragmont Elementary $20,452 

Emerson Elementary $18,806 

Jefferson Elementary $19,376 

LeConte Elementary $22,225 

Malcolm X Elementary $25,898 

Muir (John) Elementary $15,956 

Oxford Elementary $17,729 

Rosa Parks Environmental Science Magnet $21,908 

Thousand Oaks Elementary $23,302 

Whittier/Arts (Elem) $26,974 

King Middle $53,948 

Willard Middle $43,880 

Berkeley now 7-0 in ACCAL 

Following a pattern that has held all season long, the Berkeley boys’ basketball team wore down its opponent and dominated the fourth quarter, beating De Anza 64-49 on Friday night. The Yellowjackets are now 7-0 in ACCAL play, firmly entrenched in the top spot in the league. 

Forward Louis Riordan led Berkeley with a game-high 22 points, outscoring De Anza star Michael McFadden, the league’s top scorer. McFadden scored 19 points in the game, shooting just 8-of-18 from the floor. The senior guard was shadowed by Berkeley defenders all night, and guard Muhammed Nitoto played him especially well, forcing McFadden to throw up three airballs. 

“Muhammed did a great job on him one-on-one, and we also did a good job helping on McFadden to stop his penetration,” Berkeley head coach Mike Gragnani said. “The only time he got penetration was in transition.” 

McFadden got very little help on offense, as guard Angelo Hughes was the only other real threat. Hughes scored 16 points in the game, and was the only other De Anza player to score more than four points. 

Berkeley got dominating inside play from centers Ramone Reed and Jahi Milton. Reed scored 16 points and pulled down nine rebounds, missing just one shot from the floor and getting to the free throw line eight times. Milton dominated the glass in limited action, pulling down five rebounds in the second quarter. 

“It wasn’t as easy as it probably looked,” Reed said. “They made me work for everything I got down there.” 

The two teams traded baskets for the first four minutes, and the score was tied 8-8 when Berkeley point guard Ryan Davis entered the game. He immediately hit a three-pointer, then hit a runner to put his team up 15-8. McFadden struggled early, airballing a three attempt and hitting just 1-of-5 in the first quarter as Berkeley pulled out to a 21-12 lead. 

The Dons got closer as McFadden heated up in the second period, draining a three to bring his team with two points at 23-21 as Berkeley struggled with their shooting. But McFadden was getting increasingly frustrated with his team’s turnovers, and his coaches pulled him with three minutes left in the half. Regardless, De Anza guard Angelo Hughes tied the game with a putback, and De Anza was right back in the game. 

But Davis once again came to his team’s rescue, hitting a short jumper to put them ahead. Defensive whirlwind Byron St. Jules followed with a steal and easy layup, and the ’Jackets had a 27-23 halftime lead. 

McFadden was back on the floor to start the third quarter. After Riordan hit a three-pointer, the De Anza star stripped Davis and broke away for a dunk, pulling his team within one with 4:17 left in the period. But Nitoto answered back by stripping McFadden for his own easy layup, giving Berkeley a five-point lead they would hold for the rest of the quarter. 

The fourth quarter was all Yellowjackets, starting with an Allyn Washington steal that turned into a Riordan three. Reed drew a foul inside and hit both free throws, and Davis drove the lane for a layup that put Berkeley up 53-43 with less than four minutes left in the game. As the Dons grew more desperate, they took risks on defense. Davis took advantage by spreading the floor and penetrating, kicking the ball to a wide-open Riordan for two consecutive three-pointers. 

“Me and Lou have a deal for the end of the game that we call ‘cashing out,’” Davis said. “It was his turn to cash out tonight.” 

Riordan, who hit five three-pointers against El Cerrito on Tuesday, said he felt confident in his shot. 

“My shot was feeling good again, and Ryan set me up real nice,” he said. “We set that up by spreading the floor, and I just knocked down the open shots.” 

McFadden started throwing up desperation shots, few of which fell. 

“They did a real good job of sagging on me and knowing where I was all the time,” McFadden said. “They’re the toughest team in the league on defense.” 

After the game, Gragnani refused to discuss the possibility of running the ACCAL table. 

“It’s way too early to start talking about going undefeated,” he said.

Smoke and fire pour from a home at 782 Contra Costa Road midday on Friday. Firefighters had the blaze under control in about 20 minutes. The single-alarm blaze that was reported at 11:40 a.m. was probably caused by an electrical malfunction, Assistant Chief David Orth said. Nobody was injured in the fire, which destroyed the second floor of the home and killed two parakeets. Orth reported an early estimate of at least $200,000 damage.

FOSTER CITY — Webvan Group could be among the first few dot-coms to push for unionization, but union activists say company rules are hurting their efforts. 

The United Food and Commercial Workers Locals 120 and 870 and Teamsters Local 70 have filed unfair labor practice charges against the Foster City-based online grocer, saying Webvan’s policies restrict organizing at its Oakland warehouse.  

The charges, filed with the National Labor Relations Board, seek to change the company’s policies nationwide, which could affect nearly 1,000 workers. 

Webvan workers want a union contract because they are frequently switched from day shifts to night shifts and their co-payments for health insurance increased, said Rich Hedges, a spokesman for the UFCW locals. 

Union organizers said Webvan prohibits unauthorized gatherings at work during free time; forbids solicitations on company e-mail; and does not allow warehouse workers to wear buttons, including those that support unionization. 

Webvan spokesman Bud Grebey countered the company places no restrictions on employees gathering during their free time. 

Grebey said the company can restrict use of e-mail because it is owned by the company, and that wearing buttons could be a health and safety threat because warehouse employees handle food and work with automated equipment. 

The NLRB will investigate the charges and decide whether to hold a hearing. 

Hedges said the unions are getting close to filing for an election, and that they will ask for a vote if more than half of the 300 workers in the company’s San Francisco Bay area operations support unionization. 

Workers from grocers like Safeway joined Webvan with hopes of cashing in on stock options, said Hedges.  

Webvan was trading at $25 a share after it went public in November 1999, but has plummeted to about 44 cents a share. 

If Webvan goes the way of many dot-coms recently and shuts down, workers would have a better chance in bankruptcy court if they have a union contract, Hedges said. 

Workers at etown.com were the first dot-commers to file for a union vote, which was delayed for six months because the union filed a complaint with the NLRB.  

And at Amazon.com, organizers are trying to establish a union. 

On the Net: 

http://www.webvan.com

WASHINGTON — California power plants shut down during the state’s energy crisis had legitimate repair needs, federal regulators looking into allegations of market manipulation said Friday. 

Auditors found no evidence that suppliers shut down plants to try to drive up wholesale electricity prices, the Federal Regulatory Commission report said. 

Regulators blamed most of the California outages on 30- to 40-year-old power plants that need greater maintenance to generate power because of boiler leaks, turbine leaks and pump-motor failures. 

In a second report, FERC staffers attributed high electricity prices in the Northwest to a combination of cold weather, a lack of rain and snow to fuel hydroelectric plants, and the failure of plant production over the past decade to keep pace with growth. 

FERC staffers began investigating the California market last summer. They reported no misconduct from suppliers in a market they acknowledge has produced “unjust and unreasonable prices.” 

The report covered about 60 percent of the outages in December by interviewing generators by phone and visiting three California power plants owned by Reliant Energy Wholesale Group and Dynegy Inc., both based in Houston. 

Each plant examined produced at least 100 megawatts, enough power for about 100,000 homes. The review excluded hydro projects, municipal utilities and plants shut down due to pollution concerns. 

The three plants visited — Dynegy’s El Segundo plant near Manhattan Beach and Reliant’s Coolwater Plant in Daggett and Ormond Beach plant in Oxnard — are all in the Los Angeles area. They were chosen for their proximity. 

The companies’ older units appear to have experienced similar problems based on age and increased demand, the report said. 

Outages generally dropped during the month, from about 11,000 megawatts the first week to about 7,000 megawatts at the end, the study found. 

The statewide power demand during December was about 33,000 megawatts. One megawatt is enough electricity for about 1,000 homes. 

Against that backdrop, prices were relatively stable the first week of December at about $200 per megawatt hour, but spiked Dec. 13 and Dec. 20 at about $1,500 per megawatt hour. The spikes occurred as California outages generally were declining. 

Consumer advocates took issue with the report, calling it a “whitewash by the deregulation ideologues” at the commission and urging an investigation by prosecutors into whether power generators held back the supply to drive up prices. 

“The obvious question is what is different between this year and last year?” said Harvey Rosenfield, of the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights. 

“In the dead of winter, when the state is using two-thirds of its total capacity, these power plants are falling off line at coincidentally the same time, provoking price increases and power outages,” he said. 

State attorneys general in California, Oregon and Washington are each investigating whether suppliers manipulated the electricity market in their states to boost wholesale prices. 

FERC and state officials have different views on what should be done to ease California’s electricity crisis. 

California Gov. Gray Davis wants the commission to impose a regional price cap on wholesale electricity to help utilities such as Pacific Gas and Electric Co. and Southern California Edison. 

The two utilities, California’s largest, say they’ve lost $12.7 billion since June to soaring wholesale electricity prices that the state’s deregulation law blocks them from recouping from customers. 

FERC officials have so far rejected the request, saying market pricing will encourage construction of new power plants. 

Plant shutdowns for scheduled and unscheduled maintenance has been among key factors in California’s daily power scrounge, along with high wholesale prices, high demand, a shortage of hydroelectricity in the region and a tight electricity supply nationally. 

“We’re very gratified by the FERC staff report because it essentially upholds everything that we have been saying about plant operations for the last six to eight months,” Reliant spokesman Richard Wheatley said. 

Other factors that could drive up prices include bad weather in neighboring states that sell electricity to California and a decline in hydropower due to a lack of rainfall. 

“Of particular note, while prices moved sharply higher between the 9th and the 13th, outages moved generally downward in the same period, including forced outages,” the report said. 

——— 

On the Net: 

www.ferc.fed.us/electric/bulkpower.htm 

WILLITS — California taxpayers are sinking $60 million into reopening a North Coast railroad that has repeatedly fallen victim to a quagmire environment, crippling costs and chronically poor maintenance and management. 

The 286-mile Northwestern Pacific Railroad runs from the Napa Valley to Arcata. For 83 years, it served a region so isolated it’s become known as California’s “Lost Coast” – until federal regulators shut it down three years ago as a threat to public safety. 

Even the railroad’s operators say the region’s unstable geography means the track routinely will be washed out by floods and earthslides, costing millions more in annual repairs. 

Yet Gov. Gray Davis decided to pour more tax money into the troubled railroad, shortly after shippers who would profit most contributed more than $60,000 to his campaign fund. 

“It’s a railroad that benefits the same handful of special interests that generally benefit from public largesse on the North Coast,” complained Kevin Bundy, policy director of the Garberville-based Environmental Protection Information Center. 

Pacific Lumber and Simpson Timber say they could indeed ship their timber more cheaply by rail than by truck over Highway 101. But they and other railroad supporters say better transportation will mean an improved economy in an area hard-hit by declines in the lumber and fishing industries. 

“The jobs that could be created all along the North Coast to me are incalculable,” said Robert Jehn, who chairs the North Coast Railroad Authority, a consortium of local governments that bought sections of the railroad with state help in 1992 and 1995. 

Heavy rainfall annually turns the soil the consistency of toothpaste, known locally as “blue goo.” The track bed turns to quicksand and canyon walls ooze downhill. 

With such unstable soil, a 1998 federal study found it would take $642 million – more than 10 times the state’s current investment – to upgrade the track to handle passengers and freight without restrictions imposed by the Federal Railroad Administration. 

“The railroad has been a black hole. This $60 million the government is going to throw at it, why don’t they just throw it out the window?” asked Patricia Clary of CATS, Californians for Alternatives to Toxins. “This $60 million won’t fix the railroad. They’ll reopen it, but it will close again.” 

Rail supporters say they can get the railroad operating with the state’s $60 million. They say it’s worth the price, though a 1995 California Department of Transportation study concluded the railroad “has y to shore up the railroad, “he was going to see the worst environmental disaster he’s seen in his life up in the Eel River Canyon. It’s all going to fall down into the river.” 

Railroad operators want to reopen in sections, as repair work is completed. 

Last week, the Federal Railroad Administration cleared the railroad to reopen 40 miles of track from Napa Junction to Petaluma, less than 15 percent of its overall length, along the least troublesome southern section. Railroad officials want to open another 20 miles to Windsor this spring and an additional 77 miles to Willits this summer, though they have repeatedly been frustrated by delays. 

Businesses, residents and government officials are counting on the railroad to eventually ease the North Coast’s stubborn isolation between coastal mountains and the Pacific Ocean. 

On the southern end, fast-growing Sonoma County wants to extend commuter service along the line from the Bay Area to Cloverdale. 

To the north, Mendocino and Humboldt counties hope better transportation will help replace jobs lost in the timber and fishing industries. 

The federal and local governments spent more than $17 million to deepen Humboldt Bay Harbor in hopes of turning Eureka into a major shipping port.  

But without the railroad, the only way to move material is over Highway 101, itself so twisted by the region’s geography that there are permanent restrictions on trucking. 

“We raise our families here, and they can’t stay here because they can’t find work, or they can’t find the kind of job that would pay them enough to stay here,” said Kaye Strickland, who heads Citizens for Port Development, a group she formed to back the railroad. 

The railroad’s perennial closures were presaged at that first opening in 1914, when the ceremonial trains couldn’t return to Eureka because of a landslide. 

Keeping the tracks open has been a battle ever since, said John Darling, whose firm signed a contract to operate the railroad two weeks before a series of 1998 winter storms closed it down. 

He’s convinced, however, that the railroad fell victim to an unusual series of floods, poor maintenance and antiquated equipment. In a year of average rainfall, Darling predicts the trains will have to shut down two weeks for track repairs. 

He projects profits from freight shippers and excursion passengers will pay the railroad’s operating costs as early as its second year of operation. But Darling, along with state and federal regulators, acknowledges it will likely take more tax dollars to repair periodic washouts, much as it does to keep Highway 101 open. 

“With the highway, when something goes out they pay millions to put it back, because that’s our lifeline. But the railroad should be our lifeline, too,” argued Eureka resident Strickland. 

“The whole northern part of California is on unstable ground. No matter where you put a highway or bridge or anything, it’s the same thing. The railroad deserves the same subsidy as all the others.” 

LOS ANGELES — Corrupt ex-policeman Rafael Perez will remain in local custody because moving him to state prison would place him in potential danger, a judge ruled Friday. 

Superior Court Judge Robert J. Perry denied a prosecution request for the central figure in the Rampart police corruption case to be moved to prison to serve out his sentence for stealing cocaine from a police evidence room. 

“Mr. Perez is in likely danger from all kinds of interests, and I’m most comfortable leaving him where he is,” Perry said. “I’m not gonna move him.” 

Perez was not at the hearing. He is scheduled to be released in early June. 

Prosecutors have said the convicted ex-cop-turned-informant whose confessions and accusations broke open the Rampart scandal is no longer needed for the investigation. 

A Jan. 26 letter to the court from District Attorney Steve Cooley and Deputy District Attorney Richard Rosenthal said, “It no longer appears necessary or appropriate for Mr. Perez, as a sentenced state prison defendant, to remain in local custody.” 

The move came after Perez’s attorney, Winston McKesson, told prosecutors his client “will not be made available to testify at continuing Board of Rights (hearings) or for further interviews until further notice,” according to the letter. 

Board of Rights hearings are internal disciplinary proceedings of Los Angeles Police Department officers. 

“There seems to be no further reason to keep him in local custody,” Rosenthal told the judge at the hearing. He should be sent to state prison like “any other felon,” the prosecutor said. 

Perry denied the request after getting assurances from McKesson that his client would remain “ready and willing to cooperate” in court if required. 

“We’re very pleased with the decision,” McKesson said. He declined further comment and would not say why Perez was no longer aiding the internal police investigation. 

Perez became the central figure in the biggest Los Angeles Police Department scandal in decades after pleading guilty to stealing eight pounds of cocaine from a police evidence room. In exchange for a lighter sentence he agreed to tell prosecutors what he’d seen as an officer in an anti-gang unit in the department’s gritty Rampart Division near downtown. 

He was sentenced a year ago and his statements about officers lying under oath and abusing innocent people helped lead to the suspension of dozens of officers, the overturning of about 100 tainted cases and the arrest of five officers. 

It is not clear what Friday’s ruling will mean for Perez’s former partner, LAPD Officer Nino Durden, who is scheduled to go on trial later this year on charges of attempted murder. He faces the most serious charges in the ongoing Rampart investigation. 

Joseph Scott, a spokesman for the district attorney’s office, declined to comment on the case against Durden. 

One officer was acquitted and three, Sgts. Edward Ortiz and Brian Liddy and Officer Michael Buchanan, were convicted in November of framing gang members. However, their convictions were overturned by a judge; the district attorney’s office is appealing that decision. 

But Perez has become increasingly problematic for county prosecutors. 

The trial of the four officers was overshadowed by murder accusations against Perez lodged by a former girlfriend. The woman later recanted, saying she was trying to get back at Perez for jilting her. But the prosecution never called Perez to testify. 

While incarcerated, Perez has bragged about “making stuff up” to get back at cops he did not like and about landing a book or movie deal, according to jail informants. 

His role as an informant has grown even more strained recently after federal prosecutors concluded that the immunity deal he reached with the district attorney did not protect him from federal prosecution. 

Federal prosecutors concluded that despite an immunity deal, Perez could be charged with crimes for his admitted participation in unjustified shootings, robberies and the framing of innocent people, the Los Angeles Times reported. 

Both sides in the case have declined to comment on that report. 

Although some of those offenses are not covered under federal statutes, the laws do address such crimes as civil rights violations, including the intentional use of excessive force by police. 

If prosecuted, Perez faces the possibility of many more years behind bars. 

SACRAMENTO— California’s legislative counsel has concluded a new state law bars consignment sales of many used handguns, prompting criticism from firearms dealers and owners. 

Attorney General Bill Lockyer reached the opposite conclusion and says owners and dealers have nothing to fear. 

“Our view is that consignment sales are OK, and that’s the way we’ll enforce the law,” said Lockyer spokesman Nathan Barankin. “We feel we have a pretty good handle on what the statute requires.” 

The legislative counsel concluded the “Saturday Night Special” law that took effect Jan. 1 is clear that dealers can’t sell on consignment handgun models that haven’t been tested and found safe. 

If so, that creates a Catch 22 for both dealers and owners because California law says all gun sales must go through dealers, said state Sen. Ray Haynes, R-Riverside, who sought the legislative counsel’s opinion. 

“It basically means that if you own an untested handgun right now, it’s worthless because you can’t sell it,” Haynes said. 

The state has tested and cleared more than 260 models of handguns that can be sold through dealers. However, Haynes and other critics say that list excludes older model weapons that haven’t been submitted for testing. 

“The majority of the profits dealers made was in used gun sales,” said Chuck Michel, who represents the National Rifle Association and California Pistol & Rifle Association. “It puts dealers in a position where it could put a lot of dealers out of business.” 

Prosecutors are likely to follow the attorney general’s interpretation rather than the legislative counsel’s advice, said Barankin. He noted neither opinion holds the weight of a court decision. 

Which one is right might not matter, at least until the law is tested in court, said Haynes. 

“Anybody that says a dealer might be committing a crime trumps anybody who says they’re not committing a crime,” Haynes said. “Who’s going to sell a handgun if they’re at risk of committing a crime?” 

Haynes is looking for some way to resolve any conflict, short of seeking new legislation he predicted would likely die in an unsympathetic Legislature. 

Meanwhile, Lockyer on Friday ordered Ontario-based Phoenix Arms Co. to stop making and selling its HP 22 three-inch barrel handgun. 

The model malfunctioned more than six times the first 200 times it was fired during testing, Lockyer said in a release. 

The company helped spark the Saturday Night Special law along with other California manufacturers collectively dubbed the “ring of fire,” Lockyer said. 

Phoenix Arms owner Dave Brazeau said he couldn’t comment until his lawyers review Lockyer’s order. 

——— 

On the Net: 

See more information on the handgun law and a list of approved handguns on the Net at http://caag.state.ca.us/firearms 

SACRAMENTO — The California Department of Fish and Game recommended Friday that coho salmon north of San Francisco Bay be considered for the state’s endangered species list as a result of its “dramatic and significant decline.” 

If the Fish and Game Commission agrees at a meeting Saturday, it will trigger a yearlong study of the coho’s population drop. 

“In the 1940s and 1950s, we were seeing 500,000 native coho returning to California. Today we’re seeing 5,000,” said Sierra Club lobbyist Alex Rate, who praised the recommendation. 

The department estimates that by 1993 the number of naturally spawned salmon returning to California waters had dropped to 1 percent of its mid-century population. 

If the commission adds the fish to the endangered list next year, it means the species’ well-being will be considered whenever the state reviews proposals for water diversions, timber harvests, gravel mining or any other land or water use that could potentially affect the salmon, said Larry Week, chief of the department’s Native Anadromous Fish and Watershed Branch. 

The listing also could prompt more scientific studies, as well as habitat protection and restoration projects, Week said. 

Coho salmon south of the bay have been listed by the state as endangered since the end of 1995. The federal government has listed the fish as endangered in the Central Valley since 1996, and in Northern California since 1997. 

Naturalists had hoped to see the population rebound after the federal listing, but that hasn’t happened. The Sierra Club’s Rate blamed a lack of state enforcement, something he hopes might be corrected with a state endangered species designation. 

Listing of the northern coho was sought in July by 10 state and national environmental groups, including the Sierra Club, allied as the Salmon and Steelhead Recovery Coalition. The department took four months to review the coalition’s petition and its own departmental data before making its recommendation to the commission Friday. 

The coalition warned in its petition that the California coho faces extinction because of the overall fragmentation of and environmental damage to its breeding grounds in cold gravel-bottomed streams, the same conclusion reached by the National Marine Fisheries Service. 

In addition to the southern coho, the state since 1989 has listed chinook or king salmon as endangered during its winter run on the Sacramento River. In 1999, the state listed those salmon as threatened during the spring run as well. 

NEW YORK — With corporate earnings season almost over and two interest rate cuts under its belt, the stock market might appear poised for a February rally. 

Unfortunately, the outlook remains murky. Despite the Federal Reserve’s best efforts, Wall Street is having a hard time shaking its fears about the future. 

Blue-chip and technology stocks fluctuated this week, as they did throughout January, on investors’ reactions to poor economic news and disappointing earnings. The Federal Reserve’s two interest rate cuts – one at the beginning of January, the other this past week – soothed some of those worries, but the upturn was untenable as stocks vacillated. 

“There’s the fear that before the Fed’s policy kicks in and shows up on companies’ bottom lines, which will be at least a 6-month lag, we’re going to have to go through some awful earnings,” said Larry Wachtel, market analyst at Prudential Securities. “That’s what’s keeping some investors and the market back.” 

Wachtel said the markets may feel the full effect of those worries in February. He maintains that a lot of January’s gains – which included a 12 percent bump up in the Nasdaq composite – reflected seasonal trends. 

The beginning of the year is traditionally the time when new money flows into retirement accounts and when Americans invest their year-end bonuses. 

Also, the rock-bottom stock prices found at least at the beginning of January are no longer there, particularly in the battered tech sector. Microsoft is up about 40 percent; IBM has gained some 30 percent. Of course, February does have some trends in its favor. One significant factor: a lack of corporate earnings news. First-quarter warnings and outlooks for fiscal 2001 likely won’t begin until early March. 

“We just won’t have this bad news hitting us over the head every day,” said Bill Barker, investment strategy consultant with Dain Rauscher. “There’s a lot of money to be spent out there, and typically from November to April is a generally decent time for the market.” 

There will still be lots of economic data, however, ranging from government unemployment reports to industry outlooks. And Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan gives his annual report and testimony to Congress in the middle of the month. 

But the prospects of a February interest rate cut similar to the two that lifted stocks in January are debatable.  

The Fed isn’t scheduled to meet again until the end of March, and – short of very negative economic news that catches it off guard – most analysts believe another such cut is unlikely. 

So far, two February reports have provided evidence the economy was slowing. On Thursday, the National Association of Purchasing Management said manufacturing activity last quarter was at its lowest point in nearly a decade. And the Labor Department said Friday that unemployment was at its highest level in 16 months. 

Analysts aren’t sure if that will be enough to get another cut, but they point out the month is young and there’s plenty of time for more bad news to come out. 

They caution, though, against hoping for too much negative news. The backbone of a recovery may ultimately rest on consumers’ backs – and no one wants them to become too nervous to buy. 

“There are some people who are on board with buying growth stocks again, but they’re not overweighting. They’re just balancing their portfolios after rushing to value stocks last year,” said Brian Belski, a fundamental market strategist with U.S. Bancorp Piper Jaffray. “The other half are saying it’s too early, and they’re not going to get sucked back in. 

“We want that interest rate cut, but if consumer confidence continues to erode, people aren’t going to buy, no matter how low rates go.” 

The major market indexes ended the week mixed. The Dow rose 204.12 points, a 1.9 percent increase, to 10,864.10 for the week despite a 119.53-point drop on Friday. 

But broader market indexes finished the week lower. For the week, the Nasdaq composite index lost 120.80, or 4.3 percent, to 2,660.50 after falling 122.29 on Friday. 

The Standard & Poor’s 500 index ended the week off 5.48, or 0.4 percent, at 1,349.47 after Friday’s loss of 24.00. 

The Russell 2000 index, which tracks the performance of smaller company stocks, picked up 2.82, or 0.6 percent, for the week after losing 7.44 on Friday. It closed at 501.50. 

The Wilshire Associates Equity Index — which represents the combined market value of all New York Stock Exchange, American Stock Exchange and Nasdaq issues — ended the week at $12.44 trillion, down about $1.16 trillion from the previous week. A year ago the index was $13.60 trillion. 

In a solemn ceremony Thursday, Fire Chief Reginald Garcia swore in 12 of 14 fire officials who had earned promotions. 

“You represent the leadership for the 21st century,” the chief told the 10 men and two women about to receive their new badges. 

This was the largest group to be promoted in the memory of the department, Garcia said. The large numbers of promotions are a result of the sizable group of officers who retired, taking advantage of a recent change in state law, which permits fire fighters to retire with good benefits at an earlier age.  

“We lost 271 years of collective knowledge and skills,” Garcia said, underscoring the weight of the new tasks before those promoted. 

Loved ones pinned the new badges on the officers.  

One particularly moving pair was the newly promoted Assistant Chief Robert Petersen, whose badge was anchored by his mother, Joy Petersen. Petersen’s father, the late George Petersen had been in the Berkeley Fire Department for 32 years and retired in 1984 as assistant chief. 

Others promoted were Captains Gilbert Dong, Rodney Foster and Richard Watters; Lieutenants Paul Cavagnero, Dennis Foley, Richard Guzman, Shane Marbury, Karen Parroff and Bryan Ward, and Apparatus Operators Reneta Davis, Tyre Mills III, Eugene Taylor and Jay Walter.

Utilities acted irresponsibly; why should consumers pay? 

Editor: 

On January 29, you reported that 22 business professors and self-styled “economics experts” had issued a “manifesto” on California’s electric-pricing crisis. Their key recommendation was to raise power rates, because “a retail rate freeze meant that consumers were buffered from the situation and did not conserve energy as they would have if rates rose....”  

In other words, these business profs’ solution to high prices is higher prices.  

With due respect for the authors’ expertise and years of service to the industry, their position is absurd. Even if consumers were (quite properly) insulated from manipulated wholesale price spikes last fall, utilities like PG&E knew for months that they were losing money on every kilowatt they purchased and resold.  

One might have expected the economic geniuses who run these billion-dollar corporations to quickly reintroduce the conservation incentives they’d hastened to dismantle under deregulation: free home-energy audits, free compact fluorescent light bulbs (undercutting even Ikea’s $2.75 charge), and rebates for energy-efficient appliances. 

But no.  

As this week’s independent audits revealed, the utilities made no effort to conserve power demand, or even cash. Instead, they irresponsibly drove themselves into debt.  

Much of the debt was paid to power-generating affiliates of the same holding companies, in the form of record profits. The holding companies distributed those profits as stock repurchases and dividends, then took complex financial steps to insulate themselves from responsibility for their own utilities’ debt. Now these holding companies are demanding that Sacramento make consumers bail them out for the same debt. 

In other words, the power blowout is a manipulated scam from top to bottom. The utilities deserve no bailout and no mercy – it is their holding companies, not consumers, who need to be exposed to real wholesale power costs.  

The only equitable way for the state to keep these rascals out of bankruptcy is to acquire their generating facilities and transmission lines. Public power will protect consumers from ever being scammed like this again. 

Michael Katz 

Berkeley 

Bravo Planet 

Editor: 

Bravo to the Planet for being one of the only papers with the guts to cover the Anti-Inauguration demonstration in San Francisco. 

While there will be a great tendency to marginalize the erstwhile small “Stop Corporate Greed” movement and characterize its style as fringe, it may be of greater interest to monitor its growth in the next four years, if the press will just do its job of reporting on it.  

Thanks and keep up the good work! 

Stephanie Manning 

Berkeley 

Units sans parking lets developers encroach on public spaces 

Editor:  

By allowing residential “units without parking” (UWP’s), and omitting a ground floor storage space or even an off-street loading area, the city is permitting developers to grossly encroach upon shared public spaces.  

The several consequences of this will be that: a) trucks, cars, taxis or moving vans delivering or picking up at the site will be able to double park and hold up moving traffic on major streets during business hours; b) neighboring residential streets with an ever dwindling supply of all day parking will be host to drivers circling and searching for spaces; c) curb cuts for driveways will be blocked; d) autos will resort to front lawns, and  

sidewalk parking, as is seen in countries where high-density UWP’s have been allowed. Already in Berkeley, high school tennis courts in the downtown area have been converted to parking. 

At a downtown meeting sponsored by business people before the last election, all of the candidates for City Council were unanimous in stating in public, that the central business district needed more parking. If masses of UWP’s are built, the competition for parking spaces will discourage shoppers and patrons of the arts and entertainment from attempting to visit downtown, especially for late night events. 

There is no possibility of enforcing a pledge by an owner or renter to be without a vehicle. I was surprised to read that the university sells parking permits to students for “on campus lots.” Couldn’t a student drive to a BART station nearest their home and take the train to Berkeley, and then use the “Class Pass” to go anywhere in town? 

Some planners have been overly optimistic when urging high-density “transit corridor” development. Recent reports from bus commuters describe distinctly poor service, including bus runs cancelled without notice. 

Martha Nicoloff 

Berkeley 

High density housing adds to traffic nightmare 

Editor:  

Richard Register’s Feb. 1 opinion piece championing the design, scale, and objectives of the Gaia Building, now under construction in downtown Berkeley certainly champions a host of laudable goals – but exudes a troubling odor of a self-interested, rose-tinted perspective.  

I find it disturbing that he is content to see rules, with which he is in disagreement, bent or broken (e.g., the height limitations for which he asserts he has so little respect) when it serves his particular interests. Height limits are directly related to density of construction, of course, and on the subject of density his fantasy world seems to disconnect from a host of surrounding realities.  

The principal discontinuity is that between his goal of higher and denser housing and the reality of a deepening traffic tsunami. It is nice to pitch car-free housing and sing the praises of taking the bus or BART, but such advocates have a poor record of engineering practical and effective plans to encourage such changes in mass habit. BART already functions (when it does) at capacity; the bus system is a labyrinthine nightmare of waiting and long-distance walks; and what authority would enforce car-free tenancy agreements?  

Underlying these traffic and transit issues is the context that makes them intractable problems thus far: how do people get to where they need to go when their destination is beyond a reasonable walk?  

Dramatically increasing density makes the question more difficult still. Ever denser construction adds to the transportation nightmare the Bay Area is already experiencing. That issue needs direct and effective address before the utopia of denser living will become a happy one. For decades the nuclear power industry built plants on the promise of providing a panacea of safe, cheap electricity and the assurance that a way would be found to dispose of the waste.  

So far, they have proved both the promise and the assurance were a fantasy, and betrayed a responsible obligation to resolve the problem of waste disposal beforehand. Until real-world progress is made toward developing solutions to traffic and transportation issues in Berkeley, height limitations have their place and should be respected, not exceeded by subterfuge. 

Howie Muir 

Berkeley 

Friday, Feb. 2

Stagebridge Free Acting & Storytelling 

Classes for Seniors 

10 a.m. - 3 p.m. 

First Congregational Church  

2501 Harrison St.  

Oakland  

Call 444-4755 or visit  

www.stagebridge.org 

Taize Worship Service  

7:30 - 8:30 p.m. 

Loper Chapel  

(adjacent to) First Congregational Church of Berkeley  

2345 Channing Way 848-3696 

Saturday, Feb. 3 

Spirits in the Time of AIDS Artists Talk 

1 p.m. 

Pro Arts Gallery  

461 Ninth St.  

Oakland  

As part of “Consecrations,” the public is invited to hear artists speak about their work and show slides. Free 

Call 763-9425 

Free Tae-Bo Classes for Adults  

10 - 10:45 a.m.  

Frances Albrier Community Center  

San Pablo Park 

2800 Park St.  

Call 644-8515 

Free Martial Arts Classes  

for Kids  

11:15 a.m. - 2 p.m. 

Frances Albrier Community Center  

San Pablo Park  

2800 Park St.  

Classes taught by Michael Johnson, a fourth degree black belt. Ages 5 - 7, 11:15 a.m. - Noon; Ages 8 - 12, 12:15 p.m. - 1 p.m.; Ages 13 to adults, 1:15 p.m. - 2 p.m. 

644-8515 

Free Sailboat Rides  

1 - 4 p.m. 

Cal Sailing Club 

Berkeley Marina 

The Cal Sailing Club gives free rides on a first come, first served bases on the first full weekend of each month. Wear warm clothes and bring a change of clothes in case you get wet. Children must be at least five years old and must be accompanies by an adult.  

Visit www.cal-sailing.org  

Fruit Tree Pruning 

10 a.m. - Noon  

Ecology Center Library  

2530 San Pablo Ave.  

An introductory class for the home fruit grower. Class taught by Greg Peck, owner of an organic landscape and garden design business in the East Bay.  

$7.50 - $10 548-2220 

Empyrean Ensemble 

4 p.m. 

Julia Morgan Theater 

2640 College Ave. 

Featuring a commissioned piece, “Prosperous Soul, Gregarious Heart,” newly composed by Peter Josheff in honor of his late father.  

Call 845-8542 

Wild About Books? 

10:30 a.m. 

Central Berkeley Library  

2121 Allston Way  

Puppeteer Jo Jo LaPlume entertains with her marionette show. Free series of family storytime events the first Saturday of each month.  

Call 649-3913 

PURRS Pet Adoption Day  

Noon - 5 p.m. 

Pet Food Express  

1942 Martin Luther King Jr. Way  

Cats, kittens, rabbits, dogs and other pets in need of homes will be available. 444-3204 

Sunday, Feb. 4

“Under Construction No. 10” 

7:30 p.m. 

St. John’s Presbyterian Church  

2727 College Ave.  

Experience the unusual rehearsal-reading format that lets the audience experience the collaboration between conductor, orchestra and composer in the Berkeley Symphony’s unique series presenting new works or works-in-progress by local Bay Area composers.  

Call 841-2800 

From Flatlands to the Stars  

9:30 a.m. - 3 p.m. 

Diamond Park  

Fruitvale Ave. (at Lyman Rd.) 

A hardy hike along Sausal Creek in Oakland’s unexplored Diamond and Joaquin Miller parks. A free hike sponsored by Greenbelt Alliance.  

Call 415-255-3233 for reservations or visit www.greenbelt.org 

Timbrels & Torahs: Celebrating Wisdom,  

Celebrating Age  

10:30 a.m. - 12:30 p.m. 

Berkeley Richmond Jewish Community Center 

1414 Walnut St.  

Miriam Chaya and Judy Montell discuss their Simchat Hochmah ceremony, which celebrates a woman’s transition from mid-life to her eldering years.  

Call 848-0237 x127 

Spiritual & Cultural Context of Mbira  

8 p.m. 

Shambhala Booksellers  

2482 Telegraph Ave.  

Berkeley native Erica Azim has played Shona mbira music for 30 years, and is the foremost mbira performer and recording artist in the U.S. Free 

Call 848-8443 

Solving the East Bay Energy Crisis 

3 p.m. 

Berkeley Fellowship Unitarian Universalists 

Fellowship Hall  

1924 Cedar (at Bonita) 

Barbara George of Women’s Energy Matters and a Utility Reform Network representative, Kris Worthington, Berkeley city council member, Ross Mirkarimi of the Green Party, and others will discuss the past and future of the energy situation in the East Bay, including possibilities of conservation, clean, renewable energy and municipally-owned public utilities.  

Call 233-3175 

Free Sailboat Rides  

1 - 4 p.m. 

Cal Sailing Club 

Berkeley Marina 

The Cal Sailing Club, a non-profit sailing and windsurfing cooperative, give free rides on a first come, first served bases on the first full weekend of each month. Wear warm clothes and bring a change of clothes in case you get wet. Children must be at least five years old and must be accompanies by an adult.  

Visit www.cal-sailing.org  

Meditations for Relieving Pain 

6 p.m. 

Tibetan Nyingma Institute  

1815 Highland Pl.  

Sylvia Gretchen presents specific meditations and visualization practices that can help to relieve physical and mental pain. Free 

Call 843-6812 

Tibetan Nyingma Institute Open House 

3 - 5 p.m. 

Tibetan Nyingma Institute 

1815 Highland Pl.  

A free introduction to Tibetan Buddhist culture including a prayer wheel and meditation garden tour and yoga demonstration. Refreshments will be served. Free 

Call 843-6812 

Youth Commission  

6 p.m. 

Martin Luther King Jr. Youth Center 

1730 Oregon St.  

Rent Stabalization Board 

7 p.m. 

2134 MLK Jr. Way 

Second Floor Council Chamber 

Personnel Board Meeting  

7 p.m. 

Permit Center 

2118 Milvia St.  

First Floor Conference Room  

Landmarks Preservation Commission  

7:30 p.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center 

1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way) 

Peace & Justice Commission  

7 p.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center 

1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way) 

Berkeley Intelligent Conversation  

7 p.m. - 9 p.m.  

Jewish Community Center  

1414 Walnut Ave. (at Rose)  

With no religious affiliation, this twice-monthly group, led informally by former UC Berkeley extension lecturer Robert Berent, seeks to bring people together to have interesting discussions on contemporary topics. This evenings discussion topic is sex, love, dating, and relationships in celebration of Valentine’s Day.  

Call 527-5332  

Berkeley Camera Club  

7:30 p.m. 

Northbrae Community Church  

941 The Alameda  

Share your slides and learn what other photographers are doing. Monthly field trips. 

Call Wade, 531-8664 

Free! Early Music Group  

10 - 11:30 a.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center 

1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way)  

A small group who sing madrigals and other voice harmonies. Their objective: To enjoy making music and building musical skills.  

Call Ann 655-8863 or e-mail: ann@integratedarts.org 

Stagebridge Free Acting & Storytelling 

Classes for Seniors 

10 a.m. - 3 p.m. 

First Congregational Church  

2501 Harrison St.  

Oakland  

Call 444-4755 or visit www.stagebridge.org 

Legacy to Liberation  

7 p.m. 

Revolution Books  

2425 Channing Way  

A roundtable discussion by contributors to the recently published anthology “Politics and Culture of Revolutionary Asian Pacific America.” Contributors include Richard Aoki, Yuri Kockiyama, Sun Lee and Dolly Veale.  

$2 donation  

848-1196 

Free “Quit Smoking” Class 

5:30 - 7:30 p.m. 

South Berkeley Senior Center 

2939 Ellis (at Ashby)  

Cease your smoking with the help of this free class offered to Berkeley residents and employees. 

Call 644-6422 to enroll or e-mail quitnow@ci.berkeley.ca.us 

Duomo Readings Open Mic.  

6:30 - 9 p.m. 

Cafe Firenze  

2116 Shattuck Ave.  

With featured poet Tom Odegard and host Dale Jensen.  

644-0155 

Great Mt. Diablo Day Hikes 

7 p.m. 

Recreational Equipment, Inc. 

1338 San Pablo Ave.  

Ken Lavin, former president of Mt. Diablo Interpretative Association, for a slide-show of his favorite day hikes in Mt. Diablo State Park.  

Call 527-7377  

Jam Session  

7 p.m. 

Maurice’s Cafe 

6038 Telegraph 

Oakland 

Poetry with jazz featuring Jimmy Sands.  

Call 653-6775 

Exploring Surfaces  

7 - 9 p.m. 

Hillside Community Church  

1422 Navellier St.  

El Cerrito 

A series of Thursday evenings of conversation “engaging people in discovering the pleasures of an excellent discussion.” Transverse the world’s ecological regions, describing what you know and what you’ve heard. 

$10  

Friday, Feb. 9  

Strong Women - Writers & 

Heroes of Literature 

1 - 3 p.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center  

1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way) 

Taught by Dr. Helen Rippier Wheeler, author of “Women and Aging: A Guide to Literature,” this is a free weekly literature course in the Berkeley Adult School’s Older Adults Program.  

Call 549-2970  

Stagebridge Free Acting & Storytelling 

Classes for Seniors 

10 a.m. - 3 p.m. 

First Congregational Church  

2501 Harrison St.  

Oakland  

Call 444-4755 or visit www.stagebridge.org 

Berkeley PC Users Group 

7 p.m. 

Vista College 

2020 Milvia St., Room 303 

E-Mail: meldancing@aol.com 

Introducing: Julia Morgan School for Girls 

7:30 - 8:30 a.m. 

Julia Morgan School for Girls 

Holy Names College 

Sky Room, Durocher Hall 

3510 Mountain Blvd.  

Oakland 

A select gathering of business and professional women devoted to fostering leadership in the young girls in our community.  

Saturday, Feb. 10  

Spirits in the Time of AIDS Open Mic.  

1 p.m. 

Pro Arts Gallery  

461 Ninth St.  

Oakland  

As part of “Consecrations,” the public is invited to see special performances, spoken word, commentary and more.  

Call 763-9425 

Masters of Persian Classical Music 

8 p.m. 

Zellerbach Hall  

UC Berkeley  

Featuring vocalist Mohammad Reza Sharjarian and his son, Homayoun Sharjarian.  

$20 - $40  

Call 642-9988 or e-mail tickets@calperfs.berkeley.edu  

Dreams & Intuition 

10 a.m. - 4 p.m. 

1502 Tenth St.  

Marcia Emery, Ph.D., will discuss how to attune your intuitive dream antenna, intuitively unravel the symbolic message of a dream symbol and apply an intuitive dream interpretation method to the entire dream.  

$85  

Call 526-5510 

“The West Wing Meets the East Bay” 

7:30 p.m. 

Saint Joseph the Worker Church 

1640 Addison St.  

A conversation with Martin Sheen. Tickets available at Black Oak Books, Cody’s Books, St. Joseph the Worker Church, and at the door.  

$20 donation 

525-3787  

Annuals for the Dry Garden 

10 a.m. 

UC Botanical Garden 

200 Centennial Drive  

Annie Hayes of Annie’s annuals will suggest some annuals to plant in gardens that are water-deprived during the summer months.  

$15  

Call 643-1924 

Sunday, Feb. 11  

Ruth Acty Oral History Reception 

3 - 5 p.m. 

Berkeley Historical Society  

Veterans Memorial Building 

1931 Center St.  

In 1943 Miss Ruth Acty became the first African American teacher to be hired by the Berkeley Unified School District. She taught thousands of students until her retirement in 1985. Oral History Coordinator Therese Pipe interviewed Acty in 1993-94 for the Berkeley Historical Society. Free  

Horacio Gutierrez  

3 p.m. 

Hertz Hall 

UC Berkeley  

The Cuban-American pianist will perform Berg’s Sonata, Op.1, George Perle’s Nine Bagatelles, Schumann’s Fantasie, Op. 17 and Beethoven’s Sonata No. 29.  

$24 - $42  

Call 642-9988 or e-mail tickets@calperfs.berkeley.edu  

Reimagining Pacific Cities  

6 - 8:30 p.m. 

New Pacific Studio  

1523 Hearst Ave.  

“How are Pacific cities reshaping their cultural and environmental institutions to better serve the needs and enhance the present and future quality of life of all segments of their societies?” A series of ten seminars linking the Bay Area, Seattle, Portland, and other pacific cities.  

$10 per meeting  

Call 849-0217 

“From Swastika to Jim Crow” 

2 - 4:30 p.m. 

Berkeley Richmond Jewish Community Center 

1414 Walnut St.  

Due to the depression and anti-Semitism in the ‘30s, many Jewish “refugee scholars” found they had difficulty finding jobs and were embraced by black universities. Both students and teachers, in the pre-Civil Rights era, found they shared a common experience of living under oppression and a passion for education. Guest speaker Jim McWilliams.  

$2 suggested donation  

Call 848-0237 x127 

Why Do a Long Retreat? 

6 p.m. 

Tibetan Nyingma Institute 

1815 Highland Pl.  

Retreatants from Holland, Brazil, Germany, and other places share how they made the time to participate in two and four month retreats.  

Call 843-6812 

African-American “Death of a Salesman” 

Audtions 

1 p.m. 

Live Oak Theatre  

1301 Shattuck (at Berryman)  

There are roles for eight men and five women, aged 30 - 60. Auditioners are asked to present a monologue no longer that three minutes. Roles are non-paying. 

Monday, Feb. 12  

African-American “Death of a Salesman” 

Audtions 

7 p.m. 

Live Oak Theatre  

1301 Shattuck (at Berryman)  

There are roles for eight men and five women, aged 30 - 60. z are asked to present a monologue no longer that three minutes. Roles are non-paying. 

Tuesday, Feb. 13 

“Great Decisions” - U.S. Trade Policy 

10 a.m. - Noon  

Berkeley City Club  

2315 Durant Ave.  

The first in a series of eight weekly lectures with the goal of informing the public of current major policy issues. Many of the lectures are presented by specialists in their field and are often from the University of California. Feedback received at these lectures is held in high regard by those in the government responsible for national policy.  

$5 single session, $35 entire series for single person, $60 entire series for couple  

Call Berton Wilson, 526-2925 

Berkeley Camera Club  

7:30 p.m. 

Northbrae Community Church  

941 The Alameda  

Share your slides and learn what other photographers are doing. Monthly field trips. 

Call Wade, 531-8664 

Free! Early Music Group  

10 - 11:30 a.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center 

1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way)  

A small group who sing madrigals and other voice harmonies. Their objective: To enjoy making music and building musical skills.  

Call Ann 655-8863 or e-mail: ann@integratedarts.org 

Wednesday, Feb. 14 

Stagebridge Free Acting & Storytelling 

Classes for Seniors 

10 a.m. - 3 p.m. 

First Congregational Church  

2501 Harrison St.  

Oakland  

Call 444-4755 or visit www.stagebridge.org 

Faye Carol Sings Lady Day 

7:30 p.m. 

King Middle School  

1781 Rose St.  

A tribute to Billie Holiday including Lady Day’s most popular songs, including “Strange Fruit,” “Good Morning Heartache,” “God Bless the Child” and “You Let Me Down.” Benefit for KPFA Radio and La Pena Cultural Center.  

$15 

Call 848-6767 x609 or visit www.kpfa.org 

Thursday, Feb. 15 

Simplicity Forum 

7 - 8:30 p.m. 

Berkeley Library 

Claremont Branch  

2940 Benveue Ave.  

Facilitated by Cecile Andrews, author of “Circles of Simplicty,” learn about this movement whose philosophy is “the examined life richly lived.” Work less, consume less, rush less, and build community with friends and family.  

Call 549-3509 or visit www.seedsofsimplicity.org  

Basics of PCs 

9 a.m. - 3 p.m. 

Lawrence Hall of Science  

UC Berkeley 

A class for adults that will cover file management, loading software, software management, downloading pages from the Web, and more. 

$30 - $35, registration required  

Call 642-5134  

Free “Quit Smoking” Class 

5:30 - 7:30 p.m. 

South Berkeley Senior Center 

2939 Ellis (at Ashby)  

Cease your smoking with the help of this free class offered to Berkeley residents and employees. 

Call 644-6422 to enroll or e-mail quitnow@ci.berkeley.ca.us 

Natural Conversations 

7 - 9 p.m. 

Hillside Community Church  

1422 Navellier St.  

El Cerrito 

A series of Thursday evenings of conversation “engaging people in discovering the pleasures of an excellent discussion.” Focus on conversations in nature and explore what they are meant to convey.  

$10  

Duomo Readings Open Mic.  

6:30 - 9 p.m. 

Cafe Firenze  

2116 Shattuck Ave.  

With featured poet Kathleen Lynch and host Mark States.  

644-0155 

Climbing Mt. Shasta 

7 p.m. 

Recreational Equipment, Inc. 

1338 San Pablo Ave.  

Tim Keating of Sierra Wilderness Seminars will give a slide presentation on climbing and skiing this North California peak.  

Call 527-7377  

Berkeley Metaphysical Toastmasters Club  

6:15 - 7:30 p.m.  

2515 Hillegass Ave.  

Public speaking skills and metaphysics come together. Ongoing first and third Thursdays each month.  

Call 869-2547 

Friday, Feb. 16 

Strong Women - Writers & 

Heroes of Literature 

1 - 3 p.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center  

1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way) 

Taught by Dr. Helen Rippier Wheeler, author of “Women and Aging: A Guide to Literature,” this is a free weekly literature course in the Berkeley Adult School’s Older Adults Program.  

Call 549-2970  

Stagebridge Free Acting & Storytelling 

Classes for Seniors 

10 a.m. - 3 p.m. 

First Congregational Church  

2501 Harrison St.  

Oakland  

Call 444-4755 or visit www.stagebridge.org 

Saturday, Feb. 17  

“Go-Go-Go Greenbelt!” 

10 a.m. - 2 p.m. 

Rockridge BART  

Oakland  

A bike tour on this ride into the rolling East Bay hills. A free ride sponsored by Greenbelt Alliance.  

Call 415-255-3233 for reservations or visit www.greenbelt.org 

Rockridge Writers 

3:30 - 5:30 p.m. 

Spasso Coffeehouse  

6021 College Ave.  

Poets and writers meet to critique each other’s work. “Members’ work tends to be dark, humorous, surreal, or strange.”  

e-mail: berkeleysappho@yahoo.com 

Valentine’s Dinner Dance Benefit Gala 

4:30 p.m. - 10 p.m. 

Berkeley Fellowship Unitarian Universalists hall  

1924 Cedar (at Bonita)  

Dance to the music of Toru Saitu & his band. Benefits BFUU.  

$10 donation  

Call 849-9508 

Sunday, Feb. 18  

Waterfalls of Berkeley  

10 a.m. - 4 p.m. 

North Berkeley BART  

Sacramento at Delaware  

On this urban waterfall hike, discover three waterfalls along rushing creeks hidden in Berkeley neighborhoods. A free hike sponsored by Greenbelt Alliance.  

Call 415-255-3233 for reservations or visit www.greenbelt.org 

Kaleidoscope Performances  

2 p.m. 

Julia Morgan Center for the Arts  

2640 College Ave. (at Derby)  

Yassir Chadley, traditional Moroccan musician and Sufi storyteller.  

$5 - $10  

Call 925-798-1300 

Tuesday, Feb. 20 

“Great Decisions” - China & Taiwan 

10 a.m. - Noon  

Berkeley City Club  

2315 Durant Ave.  

The first in a series of eight weekly lectures with the goal of informing the public of current major policy issues. Many of the lectures are presented by specialists in their field and are often from the University of California. Feedback received at these lectures is held in high regard by those in the government responsible for national policy.  

$5 single session 

Call Berton Wilson, 526-2925 

Berkeley Intelligent Conversation  

7 p.m. - 9 p.m.  

Jewish Community Center  

1414 Walnut Ave. (at Rose)  

With no religious affiliation, this twice-monthly group, led informally by former UC Berkeley extension lecturer Robert Berent, seeks to bring people together to have interesting discussions on contemporary topics. This evenings discussion topic is different cultural, ethnic and religious values.  

Call 527-9772  

Berkeley Camera Club  

7:30 p.m. 

Northbrae Community Church  

941 The Alameda  

Share your slides and learn what other photographers are doing. Monthly field trips. 

Call Wade, 531-8664 

Free! Early Music Group  

10 - 11:30 a.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center 

1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way)  

A small group who sing madrigals and other voice harmonies. Their objective: To enjoy making music and building musical skills.  

Call Ann 655-8863 or e-mail: ann@integratedarts.org 

John Henry, Steel-Driving Puppet 

3:30 p.m. 

South Branch Berkeley Library  

1901 Russel St.  

Loren and Dean Linnard, using a variety of rod and hand puppets, elaborate sets, and original songs and music, will tell the story of this legendary railroad man.  

Call 649-3943 

John Henry, Steel-Driving Puppet 

7 p.m. 

North Branch Berkeley Library  

1170 The Alameda 

Loren and Dean Linnard, using a variety of rod and hand puppets, elaborate sets, and original songs and music, will tell the story of this legendary railroad man.  

Call 649-3943 

Wednesday, Feb. 21 

Stagebridge Free Acting & Storytelling 

Classes for Seniors 

10 a.m. - 3 p.m. 

First Congregational Church  

2501 Harrison St.  

Oakland  

Call 444-4755 or visit www.stagebridge.org 

Control Hypertension 

6:30 - 8:30 p.m. 

Summit Medical Center - Summit Campus 

Summit South Cafeteria Conference Room  

3100 Summit St.  

Oakland 

Bessanderson McNeil, MPH, and the Ethnic Health Institute, will help attendees take control of their lives. Free 

Call 204-3443 

Sacred Cinema  

7 - 9 p.m. 

Pacific School of Religion 

1798 Scenic Ave., Chapel Six 

Ken Peer has sought to explore sacred themes and to draw attention to the spiritual lives of individuals from the world’s great wisdom traditions. See three of his short films at this free screening.  

Call 649-2523 

John Henry, Steel-Driving Puppet 

3:30 p.m. 

Claremont Library  

2940 Benvenue  

Loren and Dean Linnard, using a variety of rod and hand puppets, elaborate sets, and original songs and music, will tell the story of this legendary railroad man.  

Call 649-3943 

Thursday, Feb. 22 

Free “Quit Smoking” Class 

5:30 - 7:30 p.m. 

South Berkeley Senior Center 

2939 Ellis (at Ashby)  

Cease your smoking with the help of this free class offered to Berkeley residents and employees. 

Call 644-6422 to enroll or e-mail quitnow@ci.berkeley.ca.us 

Duomo Readings Open Mic.  

6:30 - 9 p.m. 

Cafe Firenze  

2116 Shattuck Ave.  

With featured poet Charles Ellick and host Louis Cuneo.  

644-0155 

Rivers of the World  

7 p.m. 

Recreational Equipment, Inc. 

1338 San Pablo Ave.  

Pamela Michael, writer, educator and river conservationist, will highlight her new anthology “The Gift of Rivers: True Stories of Life on the Water,” showing slides of nearly 100 of the world’s great rivers. Free 

Call 527-4140 

Growl & Howl of Man & Woman 

7 - 9 p.m. 

Hillside Community Church  

1422 Navellier St.  

El Cerrito 

A series of Thursday evenings of conversation “engaging people in discovering the pleasures of an excellent discussion.” Bring your favorite gender assumptions and put them to the test.  

$10  

Agaves & Yuccas 

7 p.m. 

UC Botanical Garden 

200 Centennial Drive 

Mary and Gary Irish, experts on these plants will show you where to find these dry garden plants and how to makes them grow happily.  

$15 

Call 643-1924 

John Henry, Steel-Driving Puppet 

3:30 p.m.  

West Branch Berkeley Library  

1125 University Ave.  

Loren and Dean Linnard, using a variety of rod and hand puppets, elaborate sets, and original songs and music, will tell the story of this legendary railroad man.  

Call 649-3943 

Friday, Feb. 23 

Strong Women - Writers & 

Heroes of Literature 

1 - 3 p.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center  

1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way) 

Taught by Dr. Helen Rippier Wheeler, author of “Women and Aging: A Guide to Literature,” this is a free weekly literature course in the Berkeley Adult School’s Older Adults Program.  

Call 549-2970  

Stagebridge Free Acting & Storytelling 

Classes for Seniors 

10 a.m. - 3 p.m. 

First Congregational Church  

2501 Harrison St.  

Oakland  

Call 444-4755 or visit www.stagebridge.org 

Saturday, Feb. 24 

Tibetan New Year’s Celebration 

6 - 9 p.m. 

Britta Hauenschild gives a flute concert followed by a festive dinner and New Year’s celebration. Proceeds support Nyingma Institute sacred art and education programs.  

$30 suggested donation  

Call 843-6812 

Sunday, Feb. 25  

“Imperial San Francisco: 

Urban Power, Earthly Ruin” 

3 - 5 p.m. 

Berkeley History Center 

Veterans Memorial Building 

1931 Center St.  

Gary Brechin speaks on the impact and legacy of the Hearsts and other powerful San Francisco families. Free 

Call 848-0181 

Reimagining Pacific Cities  

6 - 8:30 p.m. 

New Pacific Studio  

1523 Hearst Ave.  

“How are Pacific cities reshaping their cultural and environmental institutions to better serve the needs and enhance the present and future quality of life of all segments of their societies?” A series of ten seminars linking the Bay Area, Seattle, Portland, and other pacific cities.  

$10 per meeting  

Call 849-0217 

Authors in the Library: Lois Silverstein 

11 a.m. - 12:30 p.m. 

Berkeley Richmond Jewish Community Center 

1414 Walnut St.  

Writer and performer, Silverstein, will read selections from “Oh My Darling Daughter,” “Behind the Stove,” and a work-in-progress, “Family Matters.” Discussion and book signing will follow. Free.  

Call 848-0237 x127 

Planetary Temples 

8 p.m. 

Shambhala Booksellers  

2482 Telegraph Ave.  

Employee Don Frew will show slides of teh ruined city of Harran. Free 

Call 848-8443 

Tuesday, Feb. 27 

“Great Decisions” - Missile Defense  

10 a.m. - Noon  

Berkeley City Club  

2315 Durant Ave.  

The first in a series of eight weekly lectures with the goal of informing the public of current major policy issues. Many of the lectures are presented by specialists in their field and are often from the University of California. Feedback received at these lectures is held in high regard by those in the government responsible for national policy.  

$5 single session 

Call Berton Wilson, 526-2925 

Berkeley Camera Club  

7:30 p.m. 

Northbrae Community Church  

941 The Alameda  

Share your slides and learn what other photographers are doing. Monthly field trips. 

Call Wade, 531-8664 

Free! Early Music Group  

10 - 11:30 a.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center 

1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way)  

A small group who sing madrigals and other voice harmonies. Their objective: To enjoy making music and building musical skills.  

Call Ann 655-8863 or e-mail: ann@integratedarts.org 

Wednesday, Feb. 28  

Stagebridge Free Acting & Storytelling 

Classes for Seniors 

10 a.m. - 3 p.m. 

First Congregational Church  

2501 Harrison St.  

Oakland  

Call 444-4755 or visit www.stagebridge.org 

Conversations in Commedia 

7:30 p.m. 

La Pena Cultural Center 

3105 Shattuck Ave. (at Prince) 

Mime Troupe founder Ron Davis and icon clown Wavy Gravy give dialogues on satire.  

$6 - $8  

Call 849-2568 

Women in Interfaith Relationships  

9:30 a.m. - 10:45 a.m. 

Berkeley Richmond Jewish Community Center 

1414 Walnut St.  

Led by Dawn Kepler, this workshop will explore interfaith relationships on many levels, in relation to culture, religion, and gender. People of all backgrounds and orientations are invited to attend.  

$10 

848-0237 x127 

Thursday, March 1  

Duomo Readings Open Mic.  

6:30 - 9 p.m. 

Cafe Firenze  

2116 Shattuck Ave.  

With featured poet Eliza Shefler and host Dale Jensen.  

644-0155 

Berkeley Metaphysical Toastmasters Club  

6:15 - 7:30 p.m.  

2515 Hillegass Ave.  

Public speaking skills and metaphysics come together. Ongoing first and third Thursdays each month.  

Call 869-2547 

Friday, March 2  

Stagebridge Free Acting & Storytelling 

Classes for Seniors 

10 a.m. - 3 p.m. 

First Congregational Church  

2501 Harrison St.  

Oakland  

Call 444-4755 or visit www.stagebridge.org 

Strong Women - Writers & 

Heroes of Literature 

1 - 3 p.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center  

1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way) 

Taught by Dr. Helen Rippier Wheeler, author of “Women and Aging: A Guide to Literature,” this is a free weekly literature course in the Berkeley Adult School’s Older Adults Program.  

Call 549-2970  

Class Dismissed Poetry Posse 

7:30 p.m. 

Little Theater 

Berkeley High School  

2246 Milvia St.  

Afro-Haitian dancers, Dance Production dancers, the BHS poetry slammers, an opening a capella number and a few surprises. A benefit for a Berkeley High school student trip to Cuba.  

$5 - $10  

Saturday, March 3 

Rockridge Writers 

3:30 - 5:30 p.m. 

Spasso Coffeehouse  

6021 College Ave.  

Poets and writers meet to critique each other’s work. “Members’ work tends to be dark, humorous, surreal, or strange.”  

e-mail: berkeleysappho@yahoo.com 

Free Sailboat Rides  

1 - 4 p.m. 

Cal Sailing Club 

Berkeley Marina 

The Cal Sailing Club, a non-profit sailing and windsurfing cooperative, give free rides on a first come, first served bases on the first full weekend of each month. Wear warm clothes and bring a change of clothes in case you get wet. Children must be at least five years old and must be accompanies by an adult.  

Visit www.cal-sailing.org  

Wild About Books? 

10:30 a.m. 

Central Berkeley Library  

2121 Allston Way  

Mary Miche, leader of Song Trek Music, will lead a sing-along that will send everyone home humming.  

Call 649-3913 

Sunday, March 4  

Free Sailboat Rides  

1 - 4 p.m. 

Cal Sailing Club 

Berkeley Marina 

The Cal Sailing Club, a non-profit sailing and windsurfing cooperative, give free rides on a first come, first served bases on the first full weekend of each month. Wear warm clothes and bring a change of clothes in case you get wet. Children must be at least five years old and must be accompanies by an adult.  

Visit www.cal-sailing.org  

Monday, March 5  

Your Legal Rights with HMOs 

6 - 7:30 p.m. 

YWCA Oakland  

1515 Webster St., Second Floor  

Oakland  

Presented by the Women’s Cancer Resource Center, UCSF Cancer Resource Center and the San Francisco Bar Volunteer Legal Services, this free workshop covers what your legal rights are and how to guard them.  

Call 415-885-3693 

Tuesday, March 6  

“Great Decisions” - U.S. & Iraq 

10 a.m. - Noon  

Berkeley City Club  

2315 Durant Ave.  

The first in a series of eight weekly lectures with the goal of informing the public of current major policy issues. Many of the lectures are presented by specialists in their field and are often from the University of California. Feedback received at these lectures is held in high regard by those in the government responsible for national policy.  

$5 single session 

Call Berton Wilson, 526-2925 

Berkeley Intelligent Conversation  

7 p.m. - 9 p.m.  

Jewish Community Center  

1414 Walnut Ave. (at Rose)  

With no religious affiliation, this twice-monthly group, led informally by former UC Berkeley extension lecturer Robert Berent, seeks to bring people together to have interesting discussions on contemporary topics. This evenings discussion topic is health, nutrition and science; bioengineering.  

Call 527-5332  

Berkeley Camera Club  

7:30 p.m. 

Northbrae Community Church  

941 The Alameda  

Share your slides and learn what other photographers are doing. Monthly field trips. 

Call Wade, 531-8664 

Free! Early Music Group  

10 - 11:30 a.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center 

1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way)  

A small group who sing madrigals and other voice harmonies. Their objective: To enjoy making music and building musical skills.  

Call Ann 655-8863 or e-mail: ann@integratedarts.org 

Wednesday, March 7  

Stagebridge Free Acting & Storytelling 

Classes for Seniors 

10 a.m. - 3 p.m. 

First Congregational Church  

2501 Harrison St.  

Oakland  

Call 444-4755 or visit www.stagebridge.org 

Women in Interfaith Relationships  

9:30 a.m. - 10:45 a.m. 

Berkeley Richmond Jewish Community Center 

1414 Walnut St.  

Led by Dawn Kepler, this workshop will explore interfaith relationships on many levels, in relation to culture, religion, and gender. People of all backgrounds and orientations are invited to attend.  

$10 

848-0237 x127 

Thursday, March 8 

Duomo Readings Open Mic.  

6:30 - 9 p.m. 

Cafe Firenze  

2116 Shattuck Ave.  

With featured poet Judy Wells and host Dale Jensen.  

644-0155 

Friday, March 9  

Stagebridge Free Acting & Storytelling 

Classes for Seniors 

10 a.m. - 3 p.m. 

First Congregational Church  

2501 Harrison St.  

Oakland  

Call 444-4755 or visit www.stagebridge.org 

Strong Women - Writers & 

Heroes of Literature 

1 - 3 p.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center  

1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way) 

Taught by Dr. Helen Rippier Wheeler, author of “Women and Aging: A Guide to Literature,” this is a free weekly literature course in the Berkeley Adult School’s Older Adults Program.  

Call 549-2970  

Berkeley PC Users Group 

7 p.m. 

Vista College 

2020 Milvia St., Room 303 

E-Mail: meldancing@aol.com 

Saturday, March 10  

The Secrets of Sacred Cinema 

10 a.m. - 6 p.m. 

Pacific School of Religion  

1798 Scenic Ave., Mudd 103 

Kevin Peer, a documentary film maker for the past 25 years, gives a two-day intensive for people interested in exploring documentary filmmaking. No equipment or prior experience required.  

$200 per person and registration is required 

Call 486-1480 

Sunday, March 11 

Reimagining Pacific Cities  

6 - 8:30 p.m. 

New Pacific Studio  

1523 Hearst Ave.  

“How are Pacific cities reshaping their cultural and environmental institutions to better serve the needs and enhance the present and future quality of life of all segments of their societies?” A series of ten seminars linking the Bay Area, Seattle, Portland, and other pacific cities.  

$10 per meeting  

Call 849-0217 

Myths & Realities of the International House  

3 - 5 p.m. 

Berkeley Historical Society  

1931 Center St.  

Director Joe Lurie will show a video and talk about the history and the struggle to open the International House.  

$10 donation  

Call 848-0181 

Walk on the Moon  

2 & 7 p.m. 

Berkeley Richmond Jewish Community Center 

1414 Walnut St.  

A mother and daughter explore their identities as they summer in the Catskills in 1969 amidst the news of Woodstock and the first lunar landing. Peer led discussion to follow film.  

$2 suggested donation  

Tuesday, March 13  

Berkeley Rep. Proscenium Opening 

8 p.m. 

Berkeley Repertory Theater 

2015 Addison St.  

Featuring the premiere performance of “The Oresteia” by Aeschylus. Opening gala dinner held prior to performance. Performance will be at 8 p.m. 

Call 647-2949 

“Great Decisions” - International Health Crisis 

10 a.m. - Noon  

Berkeley City Club  

2315 Durant Ave.  

The first in a series of eight weekly lectures with the goal of informing the public of current major policy issues. Many of the lectures are presented by specialists

Friday, Feb. 2 

Midnight: Thrush TV: The Prince Show 

8a.m. Berkeley High Bomb Squad  

9 a.m. Intrepid Berkeley Explorer: Kangaroo from Kakadu 

10 a.m. San Francisco Classical Guitar Society #29 

10:30 a.m. Berkeley High Show: Our Turn # 

11 a.m. Berkeley Speaks, Express Studio Replay 

11:30 a.m. Gospel Search, Replay from THURSDAY 

12:30 p.m. Deep Dish TV: Not Who They Think We Are 

1 p.m. Video Feedback: Pass the Popcorn 5 

1:30 p.m. Back To Back 

2 p.m. On the Move Challenge at South Fork 

2:30 p.m. Sound Gallery: Kathrine Chase Band 

3 p.m. The Mr. Stinky Show #2 

3:30 p.m. Duck Duck Goose: Duck Duck Gooska! 

4 p.m. WOT? BCM Intern Show, Replay 

4:30 p.m. Activist Hour: Abolition 2000, Nuclear Disarmament 

6 p.m. Video Culture  

6:30 p.m. It's Healing Time #11 

7 p.m. Endangering the Species 

7:30 p.m. Wee Poets: Positive Thinking 

8 p.m. Project Impact; Working Together to Make Berkeley Safe #1 

9 p.m. Live Oak Concert Series: Horizon Wind Quartet 

10 p.m. The Blue Lew Show 

10:30 p.m. The Dr. Susan Block Show: Sean's Butt X 

11 p.m. Back Stage Pass: Silk-E Video Shoot 

11:30 p.m. Thrush TV: The Prince Show 

Saturday, Feb. 3 

Midnight: Analog Rhythms #22 

8 a.m. Leela Foundation: Self-Realization and the Enneagram 

9 a.m. Duck Duck Goose: Duck Duck Gooska! 

9:30 a.m. Wee Poets: Positive Thinking 

10 a.m. It's Healing Time #11 

10:30 a.m. The Word - Ephesians Church 

11:30 a.m. The Word - Ephesians Church 

Noon: Video Culture  

12:30 p.m. Gospel Search, Replay from THURSDAY  

1:30 p.m. Live Oak Concert Series: Horizon Wind Quartet 

2:30 p.m. Back To Back 

3 p.m. Berkeley Speaks, Replay from THURSDAY 

3:30 p.m. Great Pets  

4 p.m. Broadcast Violation, Replay from WEDNESDAY 

5 p.m. Stoney Speaks, Replay from WEDNESDAY  

5:30 p.m. Bible Reading 

6 p.m. Video Feedback: Pass the Popcorn 5 

6:30 p.m. The Mr. Stinky Show #2 

7 p.m. Boredom Theater: Road Trip USA #10 

7:30 p.m. WOT? BCM Intern Show Replay 

8 p.m. Berkeley High Bomb Squad 

9 p.m. Sword of Fire, Armor of Light: Nuevo Pacto 

10 p.m. A Boy and His Dog: Nonstop Music 

11 p.m. Live with Rick Sylvain  

11:30 p.m. The Blue Lew Show 

Sunday, Feb. 4 

Midnight: The Dr. Susan Block Show: Sean's Butt X 

12:30 a.m. Back Stage Pass: Silk-E Video Shoot 

8 a.m. Bible Reading  

8:30 a.m. Berkeley City Council Special Meeting of 1/30/01 

11 a.m. The Word Ephesians Church 

Noon: The Word Ephesians Church 

12:30 p.m. Robin and Sam's Movies 

1 p.m. Sound Gallery, from TUESDAY  

2 p.m. Longfellow Middle School Girls Basketball 

4 p.m. Longfellow Middle School Girls Basketball 

6 p.m. Berkeley Intrepid Explorer: Kangaroo from Kakadu 

7 p.m. Who Really Won the Election 

8 p.m. First Amendment Center: A Force More Powerful 

9 p.m. Leela Foundation: Self-Realization and the Enneagram 

10 p.m. Sound Gallery: Kathrine Chase Band 

10:30 p.m. Deep Dish TV: Not Who They Think We Are 

11 p.m. Free Speech TV 

Monday, Feb. 5 

8 a.m. Sword of Fire, Armour of Light: Apolstolic Women, the Christ Model 

9 a.m. NASA Television 

11 a.m. It's Healing Time #0101 

11:30 a.m. Back Stage Pass: The Lox 

Noon: WOT? BCM Intern Show Replay  

12:30 p.m. Bay Area Musicians Showcase: Duncan James & Lyrique 

1 p.m. Street Survivors, More Street Survivors  

1:30 p.m. Wee Poets: Franklin Micro Society Magnet School 

2 p.m. Activist Hour: Studs Terkel & Howard Zinn 

3:30 p.m. Education In Our Community #5 

4 p.m. A Boy and His Dog: Billy Bathgate 

5 p.m. Live with Rick Sylvain #123 

5:30 p.m. Back To Back 

6 p.m. Boredom Theater 

6:30 p.m. One on One: Chabot College/China 

7 p.m. Berkeley Rent Stabilization Board Meeting LIVE 

10 p.m. San Francisco Classical Guitar Society #30 

10:30 p.m. Deep Dish TV: How Do We Express Ourselves & Experimental 

11:30 p.m. Free Speech TV  

Tuesday, Feb. 6 

8 a.m. Berkeley Rent Stabilization Board Meeting, from MONDAY 

11 a.m. Primal Urban Spirit Pulsating 

Noon: Education in Our Community 

12:30 p.m. Boredom Theater: Road Trip USA #11 

1 p.m. One on One: Chabot College/China 

1:30 p.m. Back To Back 

2 p.m. A Boy and His Dog: Billy Bathgate 

3 p.m. Live with Rick Sylvain #123 

3:30 p.m. Bible Reading #84 

4 p.m. Project Impact; Working Together to Make Berkeley Safe #2 

5 p.m. San Francisco Classical Guitar Society #30 

5:30 p.m. Street Survivors, More Street Survivors 

6 p.m. Universe of Yahweh #202 

6:30 p.m. Berkeley Housing Authority Workshop followed by Berkeley City Council Meeting, LIVE 

Wednesday, Feb. 7 

8 a.m. Berkeley Housing Authority Workshop and Berkeley City Council Meeting, Replay from TUESDAY 

1:30 p.m. Project Impact; Working Together to Make Berkeley Safe #2 

2:30 p.m. Universe of Yahweh #202 

3 p.m. Education in our Community  

3:30 p.m. Free Speech TV  

5:30 p.m. Great Pets: Express Studio  

6 p.m. Hope is in Our Midst 

6:30 p.m. Berkeley High Show 

7:15 p.m. BUSD Public Information Interview LIVE 

7:30 p.m. BUSD School Board Meeting LIVE  

Thursday, Feb. 8 

Midnight: Analog Rhythms #23 

1 a.m. NASA Television 

8:00 a.m. BUSD School Board Meeting, Replay from WEDNESDAY 

Noon: Free Speech TV  

2 p.m. Great Pets, Express Studio Replay from WEDNESDAY  

2:30 p.m. Hope is in Our Midst 

3 p.m. Street Survivors, More Street Survivors 

3:30 p.m. Live Oak Concert Series: Berkeley Saxophone Quartet 

4:30 p.m. Intrepid Berkeley Explorer: Gringo in the Galapagos 

5:30 p.m. On The Move: Hippotherapy 

6 p.m. Duck Duck Goose: Stop, Duck, & Quack 

6:30 p.m. Stoney Speaks: Express Studio LIVE  

7 p.m. Berkeley High Basketball - Berkeley vs. Alameda 

8 p.m. The Meaning, the Message, the Meeting 

8:30 p.m. Video Feedback: Lifelong Clinic  

9 p.m. The Mr. Stinky Show #3 

9:30 p.m. One on One: Chabot College/China 

10 p.m. Sound Gallery 

10:30 p.m. BEST TV 

11:30 p.m. Hope is in Our Midst

The Cal Bears have been knocking on the door to the upper echelon of the Pac-10 for the past few weeks. Thursday night against UCLA, they kicked the door down and raided the place. 

It was, by all accounts, the best game the Bears (15-5 overall, 6-2 Pac-10) have played this year. In beating the Bruins 92-63, Cal shot 13-of-22 from three-point land, broke the UCLA (12-6, 6-2) press with ease, and shut down a high-octane Bruin offense in front of a raucous sellout crowd at Haas Pavilion. 

The victory was the second-biggest over UCLA in Cal history, behind a 49-16 Bear win in 1923. The 13 threes tied the school record, and a remarkable 29 assists in the game tied a school record for a conference game. 

“They just played a magic-level game,” UCLA head coach Steve Lavin said. “They hit every open three, made the extra pass, rotated defensively. They beat us to the punch in every phase of the game.” 

It was a remarkably balanced win, with six Bears breaking double figures in the scoring column, and every player but the final-minute scrubs scoring at least six points. Forward Sean Lampley, who has led the Bears nearly every game this season, scored just 11 points, but held UCLA’s Matt Barnes scoreless. Barnes, who scored 26 on the Oregon Ducks last week, missed all seven of his shots from the field. 

“If that’s not huge, I don’t know what is,” Cal head coach Ben Braun said of Lampley’s defensive effort. “Barnes has been on fire lately.” 

Almost all of the Bruins looked totally out of sorts on offense against a scrambling, scrappy Cal defense. After missing on several forays into the lane early in the game, they started hoisting up shots from the outside. Unfortunately for them, they couldn’t match the blistering pace of the Cal gunners, who hit seven of 10 from beyond the arc in the first half on their way out to an early 23-8 lead. Guard Ryan Forehan-Kelly hit two of his three long range shots in the first half on the way to scoring a game-high 16 points. 

UCLA’s reliance on the perimeter game was a result of foul trouble for Dan Gadzuric, their only bona fide inside presence. After picking up his second foul with less than four minutes gone by, the Dutchman sat down for five minutes. He made his presence felt upon his return by throwing down a huge dunk, but soon picked up another foul on a Lampley dunk and headed to the bench for the rest of the half. 

The Bears did a superb job on Jason Kapono, who was averaging more than 18 points per game coming in. Kapono got very few touches early in the game, thanks to close shadowing by Cal guards Shantay Legans and Dennis Gates, and was didn’t get his first bucket until 12 minutes had gone by. He scored just seven points in the first half, and ended the game with 15, but it was the quietest 15 points by a star on record. 

Then again, everything the Bruins managed to do right was overshadowed by a Cal play. When center T.J. Cummings fought inside for three chances before putting one in, Lampley came down and stuffed his own miss through the basket, then Legans threw an alley-oop to wingman Brian Wethers. A Kapono three-pointer was answered by a Lampley dunk, then a Joe Shipp three. Although Kapono got going late in the opening period, the Bruins were still down 48-28 at halftime. 

It only got worse for the visitors in the second half. The Bears kept up the frenetic pace on both offense and defense, and a Legans three was followed by a dunk by center Solomon Hughes, who scored 11 points on perfect 5-of-5 shooting, and the Bears were up by 30 points. Kapono hit a three, but Shipp came right back and hit a three of his own. It was obvious by then there would be no repeat of last year’s fiasco at Haas, when the Bruins came back from a 19-point deficit in the first half to win, the last time the Bears lost at home. UCLA would get no closer than 23 points in this game, and only a late free-throw kept the difference under 30 points. 

“We’re rolling now, and we’re very happy with how we’re playing,” Lampley said. “When we play well, we can beat anybody.”

A diverse group of 75 people attended the first public planning meeting Wednesday on the design and use for the last undeveloped site downtown – the Oxford Street parking lot. 

On Dec. 5, the City Council charged the Planning Commission with drawing up criteria that developers could use to write construction proposals. The council asked that the commission focus on creating three things: the maximum amount of affordable housing, a multipurpose cultural use space and replacement of lost parking spaces. 

“I was very encouraged that we had such a good turnout,” said Rob Wrenn, chair of the Planning Commission. “We had residents, merchants, environmentalists and students. There’s obviously a lot of community interest in this project.” 

Wrenn said the chief goal of the commission is to build as much affordable housing as possible on the site, located on Oxford Street between Allston Way and Kittredge Street directly across from UC Berkeley.  

The development, according to zoning regulations outlined in the Downtown Plan, can be five stories high, with as many as 75 units of housing. The number will not be finalized until a development proposal has been accepted. It is also uncertain how many of the units will be made available to low-income and very low-income renters. 

Councilmember Dona Spring said at the opening of the meeting that there is a serious housing shortage in Berkeley and the poor are the most effected. “There is a negative flow of Section 8 housing because market rates have become so attractive in Berkeley,” she said. 

Section 8 is a Housing and Urban Development voucher program that assists low-income tenants with rent payments. In the past many property owners were eager to rent housing under the program because HUD guaranteed monthly rent payments. Recently property owners have been enticed away from the program by the high rents in the tight housing market. 

Wrenn said there should be a wide range of affordable housing available. “We want to have apartments available for the person who only receives a Social Security check of $750 a month, to the family of four with an income $54,000, all of which fit into a range considered affordable,” he said. 

According to HUD guidelines the area median income for a family of four is $67,600. A family of four earning $54,080 is considered low-income and the same size family earning $33,800 or less is considered very low-income. 

Patrick Dooley of the Shotgun Players theater group said there is a big need for the cultural space proposed in the development. “Any way we can create a space for arts organizations, many of which are nomadic and searching for space, is something we should think about,” he said. “I know of at least three or four theater companies that are fighting over La Val’s Subterranean.” 

Wrenn said the current goal is to make the cultural space available for as many uses as possible so that it will pay for itself by always being in use. “We’d like to see a performance place that could be used as a theater one night and concert hall the next,” he said. “But we need as much input from arts organizations as possible as to how that would work.” 

Several merchant groups and developers attended the meeting to make pleas for more parking. At one point Patrick Kennedy, who is developing the Gaia Building next door to the Oxford lot, said parking should be the main focus of the building. “If there’s not going to be any additional parking then we need to stop this meeting right now and go to the City Council for clarification,” he said. 

Kennedy, who seemed agitated, repeated his desire to go to the City Council several times. Finally Wrenn suggested he do so in order that the meeting might continue. 

There are 130 spaces at the Oxford Street lot and the commission has a mandate to re-create those spaces in addition to 1.5 spaces for 1,000 square feet of commercial space and one space for every three residential units.  

Wrenn said that under the new General Plan currently being developed, there is a possibility that some of the residential units could be deemed car-free and therefore fewer parking spaces would be required. 

UC Berkeley student Christia Mulvey, a City and Regional Planning major, attended the meeting and said she would like to see students help the commission push the envelop in terms of new environmental design techniques. “We should be the ones questioning assumptions such as the need for parking,” she said. 

The Planning Commission subcommittee reviewing the project will hold a variety of meetings on various aspects of the design before submitting a recommendation to the City Council. A feasibility study on underground parking at the lot will be submitted to the council in March. 

With six varsity wrestlers out due to eligibility problems, injuries and a flu bug, things didn’t look good for the Berkeley High team going into Thursday’s match against powerful Albany. And it only got worse once the actual matches started. 

Albany won the first four varsity matches, including two by pin and one by technical fall (wrestling’s version of the slaughter rule) on their way to winning 69-9. The Cougars went through the short BSAL season undefeated at 3-0, and are heavy favorites heading into the league-wide meet on Feb. 17. 

After the junior varsity matches were completed, the varsity matches quickly turned against the Yellowjackets (1-2 BSAL). Berkeley’s Sarah Ravera fought hard but was pinned in the second period by Steven Pressnall, and the rout was on. Albany’s David Yeaman made quick work of Yellowjacket Antal Polony, needing just 1:36 to pin Polony’s shoulders to the mat. 

Eric Aki was the first ’Jacket to last the entire three rounds, but was shut out 8-0 by Joey Seltzer. Kris Austin was next, and he managed to hold out until the second period before bowing out at a 17-1 deficit to Brian Mitchell. 

The Yellowjackets pulled back some pride with Parker Robinson, as he was ahead 10-0 with less than a minute left before his opponent, Eric Blaisdell, withdrew with a shoulder injury. Tsehaya Banfidagne outpointed Albany’s Ramses Alvarez, 7-2, but that was all the victory Berkeley could muster.  

Karl Moore pinned Owen Gould in the final match of the night, followed by a long series of forfeits by Berkeley, seven in all.

With kudos and much fanfare the school board handed over $100,000 and the city kicked in $40,000 more for a new high school program to bolster faltering ninth graders. 

The 50 students registered in the Berkeley High School Achievement Program did their part. They came to class – and these are not youngsters who have regularly come to school – participated in a three-day orientation and were ready to begin their classes today. 

Presumably, the 12-student maximum classes began at 8 a.m. this morning, staffed both by teachers selected by the program and by substitute teachers. 

The debut of the semester was not without last-minute anxiety over whether the much-touted program would actually take off or if, as parent-activist Michael Miller said, “the kids would be sent back to the classes they failed.” 

The problem was the status of the teachers who had been recruited. They are university graduates, but hold no teaching credentials. 

Miller is active with Parents of Children of African Descent, the organization that hammered out and fought for the school program. He said the new program coordinator, Dr. Charles Martin, a Berkeley High science teacher, had worked with Principal Frank Lynch to go over resumes submitted and select from these. The candidates were ready and willing to work with struggling teens in small classes, but lacked state mandated emergency credentials that would allow them to teach. 

To get the emergency credential to teach at the high school level, candidates must be fingerprinted, have a bachelor’s degree, and have taken 9 upper division units in the subject area to be taught or 18 lower division units in that subject, according to Karen Sarlo, Berkeley Unified School District spokesperson.  

Further, they need to agree to go into an education program and to take the California Basic Education Skills Test when it is offered. The emergency teachers must work with a mentor teacher who checks in on them regularly until they have passed the test. In reality, the new teachers all work with mentor teachers, Sarlo said. 

When PCAD parents learned late Tuesday that there was a problem with the teachers’ status, stunned e-mails and phone calls flew around town. Meetings among parents, school administrators and school board members took place Tuesday and continued Wednesday, with the final agreement being that substitute teachers would work alongside program teachers until they had their emergency credentials. 

Part of the confusion may have been that Lynch, who had worked closely with the parents on the project, had been home ill with the flu for several days. It was impossible, late Thursday to get a definitive answer from the school district as to why the new recruits were not already on track to obtain the emergency credentials. 

Another confusing element that seems to have cropped up is the amount of school resources that will be dedicated to the project. When the board voted $100,000 last month, it was voting for funds that would pay the salaries of three teachers for one semester, said School Board President Terry Doran. Sarlo said Doran’s view was correct, but that’s not what Michael Miller said he heard. Miller and others said they believed the board voted to pay for three teachers and to contribute $100,000 to the program. 

Despite the hurdles and confusion, the program is moving ahead. 

Most the 50 or so kids in the school auditorium Thursday afternoon at the end of their three days of orientation for the program, said they were ready for class. School volunteer Iris Starr praised the youngsters for their endurance during the day of negotiations. “You sat here for a long time to let the people know you want to be here,” she told them. “Tomorrow you will meet your new teachers.” 

A lanky teen came in and hesitated by the doorway, finally asking a parent volunteer if he could join the program. He said he had failed his classes and his mother told him to sign up. 

Ninth grader Nicola Davis said she wasn’t sure she wanted to be in a program where kids were segregated by race – the program is open to all failing ninth graders, but most the youngsters there are African American. “My momma thinks it’s just great,” she said.  

Ninth grader Justin Smothers said he was ready. “It’s been OK,” he said of the three-day orientation. “I’m just waiting for class.” 

An unidentified man, who is a regular at a doughnut shop at the intersection of Ashby and College avenues, suffered a serious head injury on Wednesday night. Alta Bates Hospital is asking the public’s help in identifying  

the man so his family can  

be notified.  

The man, who is only known as Tom, is described as Caucasian, about 50 years old, with well- groomed, gray hair. He was frequently accompanied by his dog, a golden retriever. Anyone with information about Tom’s identity should call Alta Bates/Summit Medical Center at 204-4444.

A record number of California high school seniors have applied for admission to UC Berkeley for the fall 2001 freshman class, including an unprecedented number of African American, Chicano, Latino and American Indian students.  

This increase in applications represents an across-the-board rise in applications from all ethnic groups. In all, 27,688 California residents applied for the fall 2001 freshman class. The total number of applications, including those from out of state, was 35,473. 

The single most dramatic increase among California applicants occurred among Chicano students, with 2,642 of these students applying to the University of California, Berkeley, up 18 percent from last year.  

“We are very gratified that so many students from communities all across California have chosen to apply for an education at UC Berkeley,” said Richard Black, assistant vice chancellor for admissions and enrollment. “Our staff has worked very hard to get out the message about the opportunities a Berkeley education can provide." 

UC Berkeley has greatly expanded its recruitment efforts, adding more staff and visiting more communities. Foremost among this enhanced effort has been more visits to high schools across the state. By the end of this school year, recruitment officials will have visited more than 350 California high schools and distributed more than 800,000 recruitment brochures.  

Other enhanced recruitment activities have included:  

• Offering more than 50 workshops in which recruitment officials offered tips on writing a personal essay and completing the application.  

• Working with community-based organizations such as churches and philanthropic organizations to bring college admissions information to diverse populations.  

• Holding informational receptions at UC Berkeley for high school and community college counselors.  

• Adding a fourth outreach officer to the Southern California staff and hiring an additional Northern California outreach officer to visit local schools. 

The largest number of applications continues to come from Asian American students, up 7.9 percent to 9,751 applications, and the category of "white/other," up 6 percent to 9,198 applications.  

Among community college transfer students, 5,436 students applied to UC Berkeley, up from 5,289 at this time last year. The most significant percentage increases in transfer applications involved Hispanic students, up 33.8 percent to 574 applications. 

While admissions officials are pleased that such a broad group of students are interested in attending UC Berkeley as freshmen, they note that only about a quarter of these students will gain admission.  

Approximately 8,900 students will be admitted to the fall 2001 freshman class for a targeted enrollment of about 3,800 new freshmen.  

"While it is just not possible to admit all qualified students, we can guarantee to every single applicant that his or her application will get careful, individual scrutiny," said Black.  

The university's team of 66 professional evaluators began reading applications and essays on January 2. Students will be notified by mail in late March.  

Admissions decisions are based on such factors as the applicant's test scores, grades, extra-curricular activities, leadership skills and important individual attributes that he or she might bring to the university. All accomplishments are evaluated within the full context of the student's life, including such matters as the opportunities or limitations provided by a student's school or home life.  

Students who applied for admissions electronically can log on to the University of California's Pathways system at http://www.ucapplication.net/ucap/ to determine whether their application has been received. In addition to the students admitted to the fall 2001 freshman class, about 2,550 students from the fall applicant pool will be admitted for Spring 2002 for a targeted enrollment of 860 new spring freshmen. Statistics for fall 2001 applications for California residents are posted on the University of California, Office of the President Web site at 

www.ucop.edu/ucophome/commserv/2001/application.html.

SAN FRANCISCO — The University of California, San Francisco said Wednesday it will use a $15 million gift to maintain documents on the tobacco industry in a permanent online archive and to establish a research center to study the material. 

Tobacco companies were required to put the documents online under terms of a 1998 settlement with states, but they would have been able to remove them in 2010. 

The grant came from the American Legacy Foundation, an anti-smoking organization created by the settlement.  

The settlement also required tobacco companies to pay $206 billion over 25 years to settle lawsuits by 46 states over the costs of treating sick smokers. 

About 100,000 pages are available through the current UCSF online library of tobacco documents, and that will be expanded to about 40 million pages, most which have become public knowledge through litigation by state attorneys general. The new archive could be up within a year. 

Part of the endowment will be used to fund the Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education, which will promote studies of tobacco documents and train scholars in the field. 

“This will provide the public health forces with the ammunition necessary to fight the industry,” said Richard Daynard, a law professor at Northeastern and president of the Tobacco Control Resource Center. 

Brown & Williamson Tobacco Co., whose brands include Kool and Lucky Strike, points out that tobacco companies made much of the information available years ago through their own Web sites. 

But the aim of the new archive is to add information and to make it user-friendly, according to UCSF and the foundation. 

“We see the investment and the activities here as really a global resource to tackle what is really a global problem,” said Derek Yach, manager of the tobacco-free initiative for the World Health Organization.  

“To date, we have not been able to understand tobacco companies’ activities well enough to pre-empt them.” 

Only about 4 percent of the world’s smokers live in the United States, Yach said.  

Timing for the project is critical, he said, because the WHO has begun negotiating what would be the first global treaty on tobacco control. 

UCSF became a crucial source of tobacco industry information in 1994 when Prof. Stanton Glantz received 4,000 pages of secret tobacco industry documents from a source known only as Mr. Butts. 

A paralegal working for a law firm representing Brown & Williamson had been taking documents from the firm’s office since 1988, according to UCSF. Brown & Williamson filed suit in 1995 to keep the information private, but the state Supreme Court denied the request.  

The documents were placed online in the UCSF library that year, and the current online collection has attracted about 500,000 hits a month. 

“When the history of the tobacco issue is written, it will be before the documents and after the documents,” Glantz said. “They have completely changed the whole issue by allowing people to understand ... just how the tobacco industry operates.” 

Glantz will be director of the academic center, and Karen Butter, assistant vice chancellor for library services and instruction technology at UCSF, has been named director of the library.

SAN FRANCISCO — One person was killed in a drive-by shooting Thursday afternoon on a busy highway leading out of San Francisco. 

The shooting happened at about 2 p.m. The victim, driving a white Chevy Caprice on Highway 280, was shot and killed when a gray Nissan Maxima with chrome wheels and tinted windows pulled up beside his car and the occupants began shooting. 

After the driver was hit, his car spun out, but did not hit anyone else. His female passenger was not hit, and no one else was injured, said Shawn Chase, a California Highway Patrol spokesman. The victim’s name has not been released. 

There were at least two men in the Maxima, Chase said. All of the people in both cars were in their late teens or early 20s. Authorities are investigating the possibility that the victim knew the suspects. 

Police recovered the abandoned Nissan later in the evening and formed a perimeter around a house where they believe the suspect may live, said San Francisco Police Sgt. Anthony Manfreda. The suspect’s name has not been released. 

After the shooting, three lanes of southbound Highway 280 in the area just south of the San Jose Avenue onramp remained closed for at least three hours, backing up rush-hour traffic. 

Police do not know if the incident was gang-related. Authorities said both men could be armed. 

The state of California has good news for high school seniors who are looking for money to attend college next fall. 

They can apply this month for Cal Grant scholarships that for the first time are guaranteed for all students who meet grade and family income requirements. 

In previous years, the state limited the amount of money provided for Cal Grants and not all eligible students could get money. The Legislature last year passed a law promising that the state will pay for scholarships for all students who qualify. 

“If you get good grades in high school, the state of California will help pay for your education. This is not a loan. This is an investment in our future,” Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante said Thursday. 

March 2 is the deadline for seniors to get their Cal Grant applications in and Bustamante and other state officials held a Capitol news conference to encourage as many students to apply as possible. 

There are two different Cal Grant awards with different requirements.  

One provides full tuition at a public or private college in the state for students with a B average and family income of up to $68,202 for a family of four.  

The other provides $1,551 for one year of community college books and living expenses followed by tuition for a four-year college for students with a C average and family income up to $35,857. 

Tuition is $3,429 a year at schools in the University of California system, $1,428 at schools in the California State University system and $330 at community colleges. Cal Grants will also pay up to $9,703 for tuition at a private California college. 

No one knows exactly how many students are eligible and will apply for classes starting next fall.  

The California Student Aid Commission, which runs the Cal Grant program, is expecting to give out about 100,000 awards costing $650 million for 2001-2002, said spokeswoman Sarah Tyson-Joshua. 

That compares with 77,000 Cal Grant awards costing $500 million handed out this school year, she said. When the revised Cal Grant program is fully running in a few years, the annual cost is estimated to be $1.2 billion for more than 200,000 students. 

Loretta Hultman, a counselor at Roosevelt High School in Los Angeles, says she has been telling her 700 seniors, 99 percent of them Hispanics from poor families, about the expanded Cal Grant program. 

“At first, they’re amazed. They say they did not have the money to go to college. With this Cal Grant program, this wipes out that concern,” she said. “They can pursue the great education their parents want them to have.” 

Bustamante and several lawmakers are also proposing new legislation this year to provide even more college help in future years. 

One bill being carried by Assemblywoman Elaine Alquist, D-Santa Clara, would give a $1,500 state income tax credit for college expenses for families whose incomes are just over the Cal Grant limits, up to $95,000 for a family of four. 

Another by Sen. Dede Alpert, D-Coronado, would give a new tax break to families putting money in the existing Golden State ScholarShare program. Parents can now deposit money in the fund run by the state treasurer, who invests it and pays interest that is tax-deferred until used to pay college expenses. 

A third bill by Sen. Deborah Ortiz, D-Sacramento, would create a statewide outreach program to inform middle-school students and their families about state and federal college opportunity programs. 

On the Net: Bustamante’s new Cal Grant-related site is 

http://www.ltg.ca.gov 

The Student Aid Commission is http://www.csac.ca.gov or 1-888-224-7268. 

SAN FRANCISCO — A majority of Californians believe the state’s economy is strong, but residents’ optimism about their own financial prospects is at its lowest point in five years, a new poll shows. 

Only about one in three Californians, or 35 percent, expect their personal finances to improve in the coming year, while 49 percent believe they will stay about the same, the Field Poll found. 

That’s the lowest level of optimism since a 1996 survey, the poll said. 

In addition, the percentage of Californians positive about where the state’s economy will stand a year from now is at its weakest level since 1992, the middle of the state’s last recession, the Field Poll found. 

While a majority believe the state’s economy is currently strong, 36 percent believe it will be in worse shape a year from now, while 40 percent think it will stay about the same and 20 percent anticipate improvement. 

Forty-four percent of Californians surveyed lost money in the stock market last year, while 25 percent made money. 

Another sign of declining consumer confidence: the percentage of state residents who think it’s a good time to make a major household purchase has dropped to 53 percent, 13 percentage points since last year. 

The California poll comes amid signs of growing concern about the national economy. 

The Federal Reserve, citing eroding consumer and business confidence and rising energy costs, cut interest rates Wednesday by a half percentage point, the second rate reduction in January. 

The move was viewed as a strong signal the central bank plans to move aggressively to fight the growing threat of a recession. 

The Field Poll surveyed 1,001 California adults by telephone at random Jan. 12-16. The margin of error was plus or minus 3.2 percentage points. 

Among its other findings: 

• Fifty-six percent expect the state to experience serious economic downturns over the next five years. Thirty-six percent believe it will be good most or all the time. 

• Forty-eight percent feel they are better off financially than they were a year ago. Twenty-three percent say their financial situation is about the same, and 27 percent say they are worst off. 

• The percentage reporting themselves worse off rose 10 percentage points from last year. The percent of those who are better off dropped 7 percent.

SAN JOSE — The community college student accused of assembling an arsenal of guns and explosives in his room and plotting a mass killing at his school pleaded not guilty Thursday to 122 charges. 

“Mr. DeGuzman has merely an innocent fascination with the items that were seized,” defense attorney Craig Wormley said. 

Al DeGuzman, 19, of San Jose, showed no emotion and said nothing as he was arraigned in Santa Clara County Superior Court on charges of possessing weapons and explosives, and possessing them with the intent to injure a person or personal property. 

If convicted, the De Anza College student, who friends thought would one day be an engineer, could face up to 108 years in prison. 

His father, Leonardo DeGuzman, and two sisters, sat quietly in the audience during the brief proceeding. 

Police found dozens of explosives and weapons in DeGuzman’s room of his parents’ San Jose home on Monday, only hours before police say DeGuzman allegedly planned to start planting bombs at his school. 

Authorities believe DeGuzman began planning the attack two years ago and was intent on carrying it out Tuesday. 

“People fantasize — they don’t go out and collect the material to build 60 bombs. That’s beyond fantasy,” said Santa Clara County Deputy District Attorney Lane Liroff. 

“Our theory is that there was going to be a massacre,” Assistant District Attorney Karyn Sinunu said as a criminal complaint was filed Thursday morning against DeGuzman. “And he has to be responsible for every weapon he made.” 

Police have characterized DeGuzman as an angry individual brimming with hate and a fascination with the deadly 1999 Columbine High School massacre. 

Signs of a troubled teen-ager emerged this week after police arrested DeGuzman for allegedly assembling the guns and weapons and plotting a massacre. 

Wormley called authorities’ depiction of a suspected ’Columbine-style’ planned attack “a huge leap and rush to judgment of a man who has no prior criminal history whatsoever.” 

Former De Anza College history instructor Eloy Zarate remembers nothing unusual about the student, although he is starting to understand why DeGuzman dropped out of his class last fall. 

“I just found out he was ranting about me on his Web site. This was apparently after I wrote a long critique of his paper,” Zarate said. 

That Web site was one of many items police say indicated DeGuzman was full of hate. 

Writings on two Web sites police have attributed to DeGuzman also describe how to make a pipe bomb and other explosives. One page is titled “Killing People (With A Bomb), The Non-Scientific Way,” and detailed a “lo-tech bomb that will kill at least a hundred people!” 

The bomb-making items listed on that Web page are similar to what authorities found this week in DeGuzman’s bedroom, according to police reports. 

Wormley disagreed with authorities about DeGuzman’s level of hatred. 

“That’s an absolute falsehood. There are many people he cared about and loved,” Wormley said. “Both his parents are in an extreme state of shock.” 

On Thursday, a bomb threat at Santa Clara University temporarily forced the evacuation of some buildings on the campus. Police, who called the threat a hoax, said they didn’t know if there was a connection to the De Anza incident. 

The plot to blow up De Anza, just across the San Jose border in Cupertino, unraveled Monday night when a photo lab clerk called police after developing pictures of DeGuzman posing with the alleged arsenal. 

Amid the 35 pipe bombs and 25 Molotov cocktails stashed under clothes and in duffel bags in DeGuzman’s messy bedroom, investigators found magazine articles about the Columbine killers, writings worshipping them and pictures of them on the wall, Sgt. Steve Dixon said. 

They also found detailed plans, including positions and corners at the school where bombs could be placed and ways to distract police. 

“He was going to kill as many people as possible before he died,” Dixon said. “He seemed to think the more people he killed, the better it’d be, the more media attention.” 

While a specific motive remained unclear, police said DeGuzman allegedly planned to kill fellow students in the school’s cafeteria and library, modeling the attack after the one in Littleton, Colo. In that incident, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold killed 13 people and wounded 23 others before committing suicide. 

“Eric Harris is God,” DeGuzman allegedly proclaimed on one Web site. “He’s my savior.” 

DeGuzman’s arrest forced De Anza to shut down Tuesday. The school reopened Wednesday after a daylong search turned up nothing suspicious, and police said they had determined no one else was involved in the plot. 

“There was nothing where you’d think he’d be planning something like that,” Zarate said in recalling DeGuzman’s behavior in class. “But who is that kind of person?” 

While prosecutors investigate whether a dog owner should be held criminally responsible for a 33-year-old woman’s death, family and friends were expected to attend a memorial service at St. Mary’s College in Moraga where Diane Whipple coached the women’s lacrosse team. 

Whipple was fatally attacked on Jan. 26 by a neighbor’s 120-pound Mastiff-Canary Island dog mix, Bane. Two attorneys, Robert Noel and his wife Marjorie Knoller, own Bane and another dog involved in the attack, and they have not been charged with any crimes. 

The dogs are part of a fighting-dog ring in which dogs were bred for such jobs as protecting illicit drug labs. The ring was run by two white supremacist inmates at Pelican Bay State Prison, and in a bizarre twist, Noel and Knoller have adopted one of the inmates, 38-year-old Paul John Schneider. 

Now, prosecutors were trying to determine if Noel’s dogs were trained to fight or attack. The investigation was expected to last at least three weeks, District Attorney’s Office spokesman Fred Gardner said Thursday. 

“We expect that charges will be filed in this case. It’s a complicated case that involves prisoners at Pelican Bay, trainers in other states and kennels in other states,” Gardner said, adding that it was a “sprawling” investigation and could involve as many as 40 witnesses. 

District Attorney Terence Hallinan has said Noel and Knoller could face manslaughter charges in Whipple’s death. 

Pit bull owner Michael Patrick Berry was charged with murder in the 1987 death of a 2-year-old Morgan Hill boy. At that time, it was the first vicious dog case in which a murder charge was filed. 

Telephone calls to Noel seeking comment Thursday were not returned. 

Noel submitted an 18-page letter to Hallinan blaming Whipple for the attack. 

The dog’s owner said his wife repeatedly tried to keep Whipple away from the dog, but Whipple continued to move toward them. He said Bane only lunged for her neck and throat after Whipple hit Knoller in the face. 

Noel went on to say the attack may have been brought on by pheromone-based cosmetics, or that the lacrosse coach “may have been a user of steroids” that could have attracted the dogs. 

Police and prosecutors said Noel’s letter contrasts with Knoller’s earlier account to police that the dogs bolted and Bane attacked the woman as she returned to her apartment Friday after grocery shopping. 

A memorial service for Whipple was planned for Thursday night. 

SAN FRANCISCO — The owner of a dog that mauled and killed a 33-year-old woman says the death could have been prevented if the victim had backed off and stayed inside her apartment. 

But San Francisco police said Diane Whipple was bitten by one of the owner’s two dogs two weeks before, and that Whipple was afraid of them – a fear other witnesses have shared with police since the incident. 

“They are saying she (Whipple) is acting very macho, when in fact she lives in fear of the dog,” said police Lt. Henry Hunter. 

In an 18-page letter to District Attorney Terence Hallinan on Wednesday, dog owner Robert Noel said he’s speaking out because of unfair treatment he’s received from Hallinan’s office, including the disclosure of an inmate adoption linked to the case. 

In the letter, Noel says his wife, Marjorie Knoller, was returning from the roof with Bane, their 120-pound Mastiff-Canary Island dog, last Friday when they encountered neighbor Whipple standing in the hallway with two grocery bags on the floor and her apartment door open. 

The letter says Whipple stared at Knoller and the leashed dog, but did not go inside her apartment. Then, as Knoller started to enter her apartment, the couple’s other dog, Hera, came into the hallway and Bane attempted to follow. 

Knoller tried to restrain Bane and push him back inside the apartment, but Whipple remained in the hallway, the letter says. 

Bane then lunged, dragging Knoller down the hall with him. But Knoller was able to prevent an attack by throwing herself on top of Whipple inside Whipple’s apartment. 

“While Marjorie was backing out of the apartment, Ms. Whipple got to her knees and crawled out into the hallway after Marjorie and Bane and toward them,” Noel wrote. 

Noel’s letter said Knoller continued to keep her body between Whipple and the canine, but then Whipple “forcibly struck” Knoller in the right eye. 

It was then, he wrote, that Bane lunged for Whipple’s throat, fatally wounding her. 

“During the next 5 to 7 minutes no one from the P.D. or fire department worked on Ms. Whipple, they simply let her lie where she was,” Noel wrote. 

Noel went on to say the attack may have been brought on by pheromone-based cosmetics, or that the lacrosse coach from St. Mary’s College “may have been a user of steroids” that could have attracted the dogs. 

“I’m absolutely speechless,” said Derek Brown, who lives one floor below the attorneys. “Every time they (the dogs) have crossed my path, they’ve gone berserk and lunged at me, trying to take a chunk out of me.” 

Police said Noel’s letter contrasts with Marjorie Knoller’s earlier account to police that the dogs bolted and Bane attacked the woman as she returned to her apartment Friday after grocery shopping. 

“She said the female started barking, the male dog dragged Knoller and attacked,” Hunter said. 

Investigators are trying to find out if Noel and Knoller knew of any attack training or vicious tendencies the animals might have had, Hallinan said. 

“We’re just sitting here trying to gather all the facts,” he said. 

His office is working with police as well as animal care and control officials. Hallinan has also sent office personnel to other parts of California to gather information about the people and animals involved in this case. 

Prosecutors have not charged Noel or Knoller with any crime. But Hallinan acknowledged his office is taking a close look at California law regarding dogs trained to fight, attack or kill. 

Noel and Knoller could face manslaughter charges in Whipple’s death, if they are found guilty of negligence under that law, Hallinan said. 

Noel did not return repeated calls placed by The Associated Press seeking comment. 

Noel dismisses claims that his dog previously bit Whipple, saying in the letter that the dogs never had physical contact with Whipple before the attack and many of the other claims are cases of mistaken dog identity. 

The dogs that attacked Whipple were a Mastiff-Canary Island mix. They were part of a group of dogs raised for fighting contests and guarding methamphetamine labs, according to state prison officials. 

Pelican Bay State Prison inmates Paul John Schneider and Dale Bretches were found to have organized the dog ring from behind bars. Bretches contacted WereWolf Kennels, an Ontario, Canada, dog breeder more than a year ago looking to acquire purebred Canary Island dogs, or Presa Canario, known in Spain for their imposing size and fighting prowess. 

Attorneys Noel and Knoller entered into a written agreement to adopt Schneider, currently serving a life sentence for attempted murder, on Jan. 15. The adoption was completed Monday.  

In the letter, Noel says he and his wife became close with Schneider while working with him and decided to adopt him. It’s a decision Noel says should have been kept confidential. 

“The disclosure of that information by representatives of the State of California was a violation of Fourth Amendment privacy rights ...,” he wrote. 

As to the origin of the dogs, Angelika Morwald, owner of WereWolf Kennels, said she received a three-page letter from Bretches in 1999 inquiring about buying some dogs for breeding. She refused to do business with him because he was incarcerated at the time. 

“How is he going to care for an animal I love?” Morwald said. “This is exactly the kind of people we try to avoid selling to.” 

She said she did not respond to Bretches’ letter and never sent him any material about the dogs, which she sells for between $1,250 and $2,000 per puppy. 

Despite the Presa Canario’s intimidating appearance, Morwald says they must be trained to attack in the manner that Noel’s dog attacked Whipple. 

“My belief is that that dog was trained at some point to do that,” she said. 

A memorial service for Whipple was set for Thursday evening. 

The Associated Press 

SACRAMENTO — The governor signed a $10 billion power-buying plan Thursday aimed at keeping California’s lights on while lawmakers try to fix its deregulation-induced energy crisis. 

The law, which took effect immediately, lets the state sign long-term contracts to buy power and sell it to the customers of financially ailing Southern California Edison and Pacific Gas and Electric Co. 

“This bill before me marks the first critical steps on the road to recovery from California’s energy crisis,” Gov. Gray Davis said. “With the signing of this bill today I’m assuring everyone that California can and will pay its bills.” 

Davis, heading to Oregon for a meeting with Western governors on the expanding power problems, said the new law will calm wholesale markets “and give the signal that California is gaining control over this challenge.” 

Davis signed the bill shortly after the Assembly approved it 54-25. 

The approval – achieved after hours of vote-scrounging that even saw a state plane sent to fetch a sick lawmaker from his home – came despite GOP protests that the bill will mean higher costs for consumers. 

California’s two largest utilities, which serve nearly 9 million residential and business ratepayers, say they’ve been pushed more than $12.7 billion into debt by the state’s disastrous 1996 deregulation law. 

The law required them to sell their power plants and buy wholesale electricity, but blocked them from raising rates to cover their costs as wholesale power prices soared over the past several months. 

The legislation lets the state spend up to $500 million more buying electricity on the expensive spot market – where California has been spending $40 million to $50 million a day – while reaching cheaper long-term deals with wholesalers for up to a decade. 

Davis said he wanted contracts signed by Feb. 5. 

Several Assembly Republicans took issue with a provision that would let the state Public Utilities Commission raise electricity rates to repay the state for its power purchases. 

To encourage conservation, residential customers who use 30 percent more energy than a baseline specified by regional climate and energy use would be punished with higher rates. 

“It is an unlimited rate increase and there’s no question about that,” said Assemblyman Rod Pacheco, R-Riverside, who voted no. 

The Assembly rejected the measure earlier Thursday, falling three votes short of the two-thirds needed. The Senate approved it Wednesday. 

The state has spent more than $500 million since mid-January on costly short-term power-buying on behalf of Edison and PG&E, both denied credit by suppliers. 

The Assembly’s action came on California’s 17th straight day in a Stage 3 power alert, with reserves threatening to fall below 1.5 percent.  

The northern two-thirds of California had two days with rolling blackouts last month as electricity fell short. 

California’s energy problems – driven by high wholesale prices, high demand and a tight supply – are expected to persist through the summer. 

The long-term buying bill, funded through $10 billion in revenue bonds, is part of a larger fix being orchestrated by lawmakers. 

Another proposal would let the state issue revenue bonds to help the utilities pay off their debts.  

It would be paid back by Edison and PG&E customers and through utility stock options the state could sell as their value rebounded. 

Lawmakers also want speedier power plant construction and more energy conservation. 

Davis on Thursday issued an executive order that, effective March 15, requires all California retailers, including shopping malls, stores, auto dealerships and restaurants, to substantially cut outdoor lighting during nonbusiness hours. Those who refuse could be hit with $1,000-a-day fines. 

The Democratic governor, accused by many GOP and even some Democratic lawmakers of not doing enough to address the energy crisis, described his $404 million conservation program as “the most aggressive in America.” 

It includes a media campaign, $75 million in incentives for consumers to upgrade to more energy-efficient appliances, $95 million for businesses to install energy-saving equipment and lighting, plus funding to cut consumption during peak periods and increase state government’s energy efficiency. 

While the state moved to boost the energy supply, PG&E took action to address its debts. 

The San Francisco-based utility notified the Securities and Exchange Commission that it cannot pay more than $1 billion owed for power bought on the open market and sold at lower, regulated prices. 

The debts included $611 million owed to the state Power Exchange and to the Independent System Operator, keeper of the state’s power grid, plus $437 million owed to qualifying generators. 

PG&E notified suppliers that it could only make partial payments totaling $161 million. 

The company said it also has defaulted on $437 million in commercial debt. Its creditors have terminated agreements to loan the utility more money. 

The company reported that since summer, it has racked up at least $6.6 billion in high wholesale electricity costs the deregulation law blocks it from recouping from customers. 

SoCal Edison is expected to make a similar SEC filing Friday. 

Meanwhile, a division of Houston-based Enron Corp. said it will stop providing power directly to large California industrial customers, such as Cisco Systems, and switch them to PG&E. Enron said Thursday that it wouldn’t raise their rates. 

Enron has long-term contracts with several dozen customers to provide energy at low rates. To fulfill those contracts, Enron says it was forced to buy energy on the wholesale market at skyrocketing prices. 

On the Net: 

Read the legislation, AB1X by Assemblyman Fred Keeley, D-Boulder Creek, at www.assembly.ca.gov 

California ISO: www.caiso.com 

LOS ANGELES — The legislation enacted Thursday to provide $10 billion for the state to buy energy also prohibits residents and businesses from seeking cheaper rates through direct contracts with power generators. 

The provision at least temporarily reverses yet another of the key elements of energy deregulation – encouraging competition by allowing customers to buy power from companies other than the major utilities. 

Lawmakers were concerned that customers who agree to buy power from the state’s Department of Water Resources, would seek cheaper rates elsewhere if prices fall on the spot market, leaving the state with power it can’t sell. 

“In order for the state to sell the revenue bonds, you have to ensure the bond buyers they will actually be paid,” said state Sen. Debra Bowen, D-Redondo Beach. “We just want to make sure we don’t leave remaining ratepayers holding the bag if spot  

prices drop.” 

Ironically, such a scenario would leave the state with “stranded assets” — the same concern utilities had when deregulation was enacted and they were forced to sell their generating plants. Utilities wanted to guarantee they could recoup the cost for plants they couldn’t sell. 

Bowen is working with direct sellers of energy on a new bill that would loosen the restrictions. 

“We recognize having customers come and go can impose costs on the system,” Rick Counihan, a spokesman for the Alliance for Retail Energy Markets, said. “Customers should have choice. It’s not necessary for the state to lock everybody out.” 

In the early days of deregulation, there was little reason for customers to buy power from anyone other than the established utilities. Rates were low and service reliable. 

As of Dec. 31, only 186,000 customers statewide had chosen an alternative energy provider, according to the California Public Utilities Commission.  

Of that number, 154,000 were residential customers, with the remainder commercial, industrial and agricultural customers. 

Many of the largest customers are in San Diego, where rates skyrocketed last summer after San Diego Gas & Electric emerged from a state-imposed rate cap. 

Marriott-owned hotels, for instance, signed a three-year contract with Pittsburgh, Pa.- based Strategic Energy after it saw rates climb to 23 cents per kilowatt hour. 

“Last year, we consumed 2 percent less energy and it cost us $900,000 more than what we had budgeted,” said Doug Rath, director of engineering for the Marriott Hotel and Marina, a 1,356 room hotel in downtown San Diego. “I had almost $1 million in extra cost even though I used 2 percent less energy.” 

Marriott began seeking alternatives, Rath said, with the encouragement of SDG&E. Its contract with Strategic Energy guarantees rates will not rise above 8 cents per kilowatt hour. 

Rath estimates his hotel alone has saved as much as $400,000 since it switched in October. 

Bowen said legislators will begin work on the new bill Monday. She is not sure just how customers will be allowed to exercise choice while protecting the state. 

“It’s in the state’s interest to encourage competition,” she said. “We can reduce the amount of power we have to buy if customers go to direct access. The goal is to allow that flexibility without disadvantaging those customers who continue to be served by the Department of Water Resources.” 

WASHINGTON — More than half of Americans are concerned that California-like energy problems could hit their communities, yet most oppose exploring for more oil in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, according to a poll by The Associated Press. 

A majority say higher fuel prices already affect them a lot, and six in 10 are concerned they could experience problems like the power shortages, high prices and intermittent blackouts in California, said the poll, conducted for The AP by ICR of Media, Pa. 

About half of those worried about the problem said they are very concerned. Half the poll respondents in Western states said they were very concerned, compared with one in five in the South and Midwest and about a fourth in the Northeast. Blacks were twice as likely as whites to be very concerned. 

People were about evenly split on whether the federal government should help California solve its problems. Young adults between 18 and 34 were twice as likely as senior citizens to say the federal government should help. 

“I think the federal government should step in and do something, just so people can afford their energy,” said Patricia Chandler, a 31-year-old businesswoman from Herrin, Ill. “It’s pretty bad when people have to turn the heat down just to pay their bills.” 

Some have little sympathy for California, which has experienced problems in recent weeks after the state deregulated its power industry, allowing producers to sell at market levels, while limiting utilities from passing along the soaring energy costs. The state has struggled to keep the lights on over many recent days. 

“Californians made their own bed, they need to lie in it,” said Gerald Eisenhour, a 64-year-old retired chemical plant operator from Cold Springs, Texas. “They’re the ones who did not build their power plants. Why should the rest of the country bail them out?” 

Forty-six percent of those in the poll believe President Bush can handle the nation’s energy problems effectively, 38 percent think not.  

More than half of Democrats said he would not be effective and independents were about evenly split in the poll of 1,033 taken Friday through Tuesday. The poll has an error margin of 3 percentage points. 

“I think Bush has got the right people, and he’s going at it the right way,” said Eisenhour, who describes himself as a conservative Republican. 

The president has said California generally will have to resolve its own problems, though the administration has signaled it would be willing to roll back pollution requirements at the state’s power plants and find other ways to help the state. 

More broadly, Bush has asked Vice President Dick Cheney to lead the development of an energy plan to address the nation’s needs. The administration is in favor of opening the Arctic refuge for energy exploration. Some have accused Bush of using California’s woes as a way to promote his plan to explore for oil on protected Alaska lands. 

The poll suggests he has plenty of work to do on that front. Just over half, 53 percent, said they oppose the plan to explore for oil in the protected Arctic wilderness, while 33 percent favor the idea. An additional 13 percent said they didn’t know. 

“I think they should open up the Arctic,” said Bill Metheny, a retired crane operator from Anita, Iowa, and a Democrat. “People are freezing to death and they can’t heat their homes.” 

Just over half of Republicans say they favor the plan. More than six in 10 registered voters said they oppose the Arctic drilling, as well as more than half, 56 percent, of independents and two-thirds of Democrats. 

“I don’t think they should explore for energy there because it’s a wildlife refuge,” said Chandler, the Illinois businesswoman and a Democrat. “If they reserved it for the animals, they should leave it for the animals.” 

“Why don’t they look in Texas and Wyoming”? said Evelyn Stickley, a 52-year-old independent from Ohio, making a pointed reference to the home states of the president and vice president. “Why go up there where the wildlife is protected?” 

Q: Our refrigerator light bulb went out, and we tried replacing it with two new ones, but we’re still in the dark. What should we check out next? 

A: There are two obvious causes for a refrigerator light not turning on when you open the door: The switch is bad, or the bulb is burned out. Your first step should be to check the bulb.  

If the bulb’s filament appears intact or a new bulb doesn’t light when installed in the socket, chances are good that the light switch has failed.Write down the refrigerator’s make and model number and locate an appliance store that has the part. Begin the repair by unplugging the refrigerator and inserting a putty knife between the switch and the refrigerator breaker trim. Prevent marring the trim by wrapping the putty knife with masking tape. 

Gently pry on one side then the other until the locking tabs on the switch release. Disconnect the two wires on the old switch and connect them to the new switch. Press the new switch down until its locking tabs snap into position. Plug the refrigerator in, and test the switch. With the refrigerator door open, the light should come on when the appliance is plugged back in. Press on the switch, and the light should go off. If it operates in reverse of this, you’ve accidentally reversed the switch wires. 

Q: We are fixing up our bathroom, and the biggest problem is our old tub. Is there a way we can refinish the tub ourselves? 

A: You can buy a refinishing kit for about $75, but many people report a high failure rate with these kits. The problem lies in getting a good bond between the new epoxy coating and the old tub finish. To get the best bond, you must get the bathtub as clean as possible.  

Clean the tub with TSP (trisodium phosphate) solution and a stiff-bristle scrub brush or sponge. Sand the surface to break the glaze of the porcelain finish. Use 80-grit wet-dry paper to wet sand the tub.  

The final step is to apply the epoxy. This comes in a resurfacing kit that contains the necessary tools – rollers and brushes – plus the epoxy finish and instructions. 

Because professionals use heat to cure their epoxy finishes, they estimate that the new surface will hold up for as long as seven years. With a careful and complete cleaning and sanding job, you should get at least five years service from a refinished tub before the process has to be repeated. 

To submit a question, write to Popular Mechanics, Reader Service Bureau, 224 W. 57th St., New York, NY 10019. The most interesting questions will be answered in a future column. 

Buying a house is just the beginning. Before long, you’ll be repairing it, too. Fortunately, many building components – foundation, framing, plumbing and wiring – should last 50 years or more. But mechanical systems, appliances and surfaces exposed to the weather will not last nearly that long, even under the best of circumstances. 

“The reality of it is that stuff happens,” says John Ghent, president-elect of the American Society of Home Inspectors and co-owner of a Trumbull, Conn., home inspection company. The older the house, the more maintenance it usually needs. “Experience shows that the average house may need a 50 percent replacement over a period of 30 years,” says a handbook Ghent gives to home buyers. In each of the first 10 years after construction, a $100,000 house will require $750, or 0.75 percent of its value, in maintenance, according to Ghent. That rises to 1.5 percent per year for the next 10 years and reaches 3 percent per year in the third 10-year period. 

Predicted life spans are published for everything from microwaves to garage-door openers. Although these estimates are helpful, they are not intended to be exact, and your own experience will likely reflect that. 

Ghent, for example, recently inspected a house built in 1926 that still had its original boiler. Designed for coal, the boiler had been converted once to burn oil and a second time so it could run on gas. It’s still in great shape even though it has more than doubled industry estimates for longevity. Maintenance history is one important variable, but so is chance.“Some things don’t break,” says Ghent, “and some things do.” Budgeting for repairs involves location as well as luck. Bottom line: Take national repair estimates as averages that you probably will have to adjust for your area.  

Building structure 

Calculating the life expectancy of a roof, siding, exterior paint, flashing and the like is far from an exact science. Geography plays an important role. For example, a wood-shingle roof that wears like iron in a moderate climate might succumb much more quickly when exposed to constant dampness, harsh sunlight or other environmental extremes. Another key factor is the quality of the material. Vertical-grain wood siding cut from the heartwood of trees naturally resistant to decay, such as western red cedar, will last far longer than plain-sawn lumber of lesser quality. The trade-off is a higher initial cost, a factor if you don’t plan on being in the house that long. 

Finally, there is the question of workmanship. Even the most expensive paint in the world won’t last long when applied to an improperly prepped wall. 

Roofing replacement costs are especially complicated to predict. Not only are there many grades of roofing material, but the job might also call for demolition, flashing, gutters and sheathing. Complicated roof shapes drive costs up, too. For a more detailed estimate, try the roofing-cost estimator at www.improvenet.com.  

Major mechanical systems 

Routine maintenance – such as cleaning furnace or air-conditioner filters and scheduling periodic service – might be the only practical way a homeowner can extend the life of major mechanical systems.  

Water quality plays a role in the longevity of boilers, water heaters and water pumps. Water that is highly acidic or full of minerals is tougher on equipment than treated water, and life spans should be lowered accordingly. This is the case in many rural parts of the country, where houses often have their own wells. For heating systems, boilers last longer than hot-air systems because the water helps to moderate heat extremes, making hot and cold cycles less stressful on the equipment.  

Appliances 

Most of us have run across an ancient refrigerator or range in someone’s kitchen that’s still working flawlessly long after it should have been hauled to the dump. With an estimated 600 million appliances at work in American households, there will be plenty of such exceptions. In fact, the Association of Home Appliances Manufacturers says most appliances are not junked at all. A majority are sold, traded in, left behind in a move or given away, and they faithfully serve second or even third owners. As a result, according to the trade group, how long these household workhorses actually last is impossible to say. 

Americans spend more than $15 billion a year on new appliances. Very expensive, restaurant-quality appliances are increasingly popular. 

GE’s Terry Dunn says any appliance that uses water will benefit from a water softener and water-filtration system. “Fewer chemicals and minerals will prolong the life and improve the performance,” he explains. His tips for prolonging life for other appliances: 

—Clean the condenser coils on refrigerators annually. 

—Change air-conditioner filters monthly during the operating season. 

—Replace washer fill hoses every five years; turn off the water supply when away for an extended period. Drain hoses if below-freezing temperatures are expected. 

—Inspect and clean the exhaust duct on the clothes dryer at least once a year, and clean the lint filter before each use. 

—Don’t allow heavy grease buildup in the oven interior. 

Wood floors of the Victorian era, with plain, unfinished planks, have given way to parquet designs. Restoring these floors goes a long way to creating an authentic period look. Unlike unfinished planks that got their charm from natural wear patterns, shiny strip and parquet floors benefited from new finishing products such as oil, varnishes and shellacs, that added a special look to the floorboards. 

If you’re restoring a home of this period, opting for a varnish or shellac is a good way to give your floor an authentic, period look. Like painting, preparation is more important than application when you’re refinishing an old-house floor. 

Many times, if a floor has been properly maintained, it’s possible to coat over the existing surface with the same finish. First prep a small test area by hand sanding it, then add the chosen finish. If it bites and has the right look, it’s probably the same finish that’s on there. 

Dissimilar products won’t work on each other, so don’t be tempted to shellac a varnished floor — it simply won’t hold. (A note of caution if you go with shellac: This historical finish won’t tolerate alcohol or water spills, so be sure to consider the room’s usage beforehand.) 

You can add a coat of wax over either, if you choose, to preserve and protect the finish while adding a bit of luster to the floor.  

Keep the surface free of dust and dirt with regular dust mopping. Expect to rewax periodically as this protective coating wears away. It’s a small price to pay for retaining a piece of history. 

If a previous owner refinished your old house floor with a coat of polyurethane, you might decide to strip it off and bring the floor back in a more authentic manner.  

Although this newer finish is extremely durable and offers a longevity most historical finishes don’t, many restorers find it looks plastic and doesn’t mesh well in restored homes. 

If the floor is badly stained and scratched, the floor’s thickness is the indicator you should use to decide whether sanding is feasible. 

Extreme care should be taken when working on old parquet floors. Since these boards are only generally about three-eighths of an inch thick, there’s probably only about one-eighth inch to work with until the tongue is reached. As a result, many restorers will recommend stripping the floor by hand, either with a hand scraper or chemicals if the finish must be removed. 

Although this obviously can be a very labor-intensive job, it might be the only way to refinish some old parquet without ruining the floor. Since an old strip floor is thicker many of these floors can be sanded. 

There is another factor that should be considered when you’re deciding whether to sand an early floor. Remember that flooring spans structural members. And the construction techniques common to many old homes are different from those we consider standard today. More than likely your floor joints are 1 inch or so thick. The thickness of the board is adequate for this large span. But when the board is worn (or sanded) down to seven-eighths of an inch or three-eighths of an inch, you’re apt to get some spring in the floor. 

It’s noteworthy that every sanding decreases the thickness of a wood floor by about one-sixteenth of an inch to three-sixteenths of an inch. So, there are only so many times you can sand down a wood floor. An easy way to gauge the thickness of the old floor is to remove the molding and baseboard or a floor heating register to reveal the edge of the wood. 

The City Council extended a ban on telecommunications antennae Tuesday for six months in residential areas, but modified the moratorium to allow antenna installation in west Berkeley and downtown. 

The council adopted the extended ban after hearing from a host of telecommunications representatives, mostly lawyers who argued against the ban and residents who said they are worried about health risks posed by radio frequency radiation emitted by the antennae. The council approved the moratorium 8-1 with Councilmember Polly Armstrong voting in opposition. 

“I felt that we had to choose on the side of the neighbors over the companies,” said Councilmember Mim Hawley. 

The council adopted a 45-day, citywide moratorium Dec. 19 after hearing from neighbors who protested the approval of 12 Nextel antennae on the roof of the Oaks Theater on Solano Avenue. 

The new moratorium allows antenna installation in the manufacturing, mixed use and light industrial districts and the downtown area. The majority of the allowable area begins at Interstate 80 and goes east ranging from three to nine blocks.  

Antenna installation is also still allowed in the downtown area bounded by Martin Luther King Jr. Way, University and Durant avenues and Oxford Street. In addition, no antenna can be installed anywhere within 300 feet of a residential use structure. 

Armstrong said she would vote against the moratorium because she thought it was unfair to Nextel. “They went through the process and got the approval. I think they should get the permit,” she said. 

Councilmember Kriss Worthington voted for the moratorium despite his opinion that it would result in a lawsuit. “I don’t believe the city needs a moratorium,” he said. “But since it was a foregone conclusion I thought it should be the fairest moratorium possible.” 

Worthington added the language calling for the 300 foot buffer for residences.  

Nextel, which received approval from the Zoning Adjustments Board last November to install the rooftop antennae, were included in the moratorium despite aggressive lobbying to be exempted. Nextel attorney David Trotter suggested the city was “on thin ice” and may be violating the 1996 Telecommunications Act. 

Mayor Shirley Dean said on Wednesday that she was more concerned about the city’s interests than lawsuits.  

“You have to do what’s right for the city and what was right for the city was to enact a moratorium,” she said. “In the long run it will be better for the telecommunication providers because once there’s an ordinance they’ll know just what they can and can’t do.” 

The City Council held a closed session meeting with staff from the City Attorney’s Office prior to the City Council meeting to discuss the possibility of a lawsuit by Nextel. Nextel had said the city would violate state and federal law if the Oaks Theater permit were included in the moratorium. 

A telecommunications ordinance will eventually take the place of the moratorium. 

Vivian Kahn, deputy director of the Planning and Development Department said she has already begun to receive information from the telecommunications companies and residents who want to have input on the permanent antenna ordinance. “I’ve let both sides know that I am always interested in whatever information they have,” she said. 

President of the Renaissance Rialto, Allen Michaan, who rents the Oaks Theater, said he had nothing to do with the arrangement between Nextel and the building’s owner. He urged the City Council to include the 12-Nextel antennas in the moratorium because the large numbers of theatergoers who have complained about the proposed installation. 

“This has really stirred things up,” he said. “We’re struggling there, it’s not easy to run a two-screen theater when everybody else has 18 screens.” 

Thursday, Feb. 1

Free “Quit Smoking” Class 

5:30 - 7:30 p.m. 

South Berkeley Senior Center 

2939 Ellis (at Ashby)  

Cease your smoking with the help of this free class offered to Berkeley residents and employees. 

Call 644-6422 to enroll or e-mail quitnow@ci.berkeley.ca.us 

Hiking the California Desert  

7 p.m. 

Recreational Equipment, Inc. 

1338 San Pablo Ave.  

Steve Tabor of the conservation group Desert Survivors presents a slide-show of highlights from his reconnaissance trips along more than 400 miles of trail. Free  

Call 527-7377  

Berkeley Metaphysical  

Toastmasters Club  

6:15 - 7:30 p.m.  

2515 Hillegass Ave.  

Public speaking skills and metaphysics come together. Ongoing first and third Thursdays each month.  

Call 869-2547 

Dark Caves & Sunlight 

7 - 9 p.m. 

Hillside Community Church  

1422 Navellier St.  

El Cerrito 

A series of Thursday evenings of conversation “engaging people in discovering the pleasures of an excellent discussion.” $10 

Housing Adivory Commitee 7:30 p.m. 

South Berkeley Senior Center 

2939 Ellis St. 

Hearing on a proposal to require housing code compliance  

inspection of vacant rental  

housing units 

Community Environmental Advisory Commission 

6 p.m. 2118 Milivia St. 2nd floor 

Agenga includes item on wood smoke 

Friday, Feb. 2

Strong Women - Writers & 

Heroes of Literature 

1 - 3 p.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center  

1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way) 

Taught by Dr. Helen Rippier Wheeler, author of “Women and Aging: A Guide to Literature,” this is a free weekly literature course in the Berkeley Adult School’s Older Adults Program.  

Call 549-2970  

Stagebridge Free Acting  

& Storytelling Classes  

for Seniors 

10 a.m. - 3 p.m. 

First Congregational Church  

2501 Harrison St.  

Oakland  

Call 444-4755 or visit www.stagebridge.org 

Taize Worship Service  

7:30 - 8:30 p.m. 

Loper Chapel  

(adjacent to) First Congregational Church of Berkeley  

2345 Channing Way 848-3696 

Saturday, Feb. 3

Spirits in the Time of AIDS Artists Talk 

1 p.m. 

Pro Arts Gallery  

461 Ninth St.  

Oakland  

As part of “Consecrations,” the public is invited to hear artists speak about their work and show slides. Free 

Call 763-9425 

Free Tae-Bo Classes for Adults  

10 - 10:45 a.m.  

Frances Albrier Community  

Center  

San Pablo Park 

2800 Park St. Call 644-8515 

Free Martial Arts Classes  

for Kids  

11:15 a.m. - 2 p.m. 

Frances Albrier Community  

Center  

2800 Park St.  

Classes taught by Michael Johnson, a fourth degree black belt. Ages 5 - 7, 11:15 a.m. - Noon; Ages 8 - 12, 12:15 p.m. - 1 p.m.; Ages 13 to adults, 1:15 p.m. - 2 p.m. 644-8515 

Free Sailboat Rides  

1 - 4 p.m. 

Berkeley Marina 

The Cal Sailing Club. Wear warm clothes and bring a change of clothes in case you get wet. Children must be at least five years old and must be accompanies by an adult. Visit www.cal-sailing.org  

Fruit Tree Pruning 

10 a.m. - Noon  

Ecology Center Library  

2530 San Pablo Ave.  

An introductory class for the home fruit grower. Class taught by Greg Peck, owner of an organic landscape and garden design business in the East Bay.  

$7.50 - $10 Call 548-2220 

Empyrean Ensemble 

4 p.m. 

Julia Morgan Theater 

2640 College Ave. 

Featuring a commissioned piece, “Prosperous Soul, Gregarious Heart,” newly composed by Peter Josheff in honor of his late father.  

Call 845-8542 

Sunday, Feb. 4

“Under Construction No. 10” 

7:30 p.m. 

St. John’s Presbyterian Church  

2727 College Ave.  

Experience the unusual rehearsal-reading format that lets the audience experience the collaboration between conductor, orchestra and composer in the Berkeley Symphony’s unique series presenting new works or works-in-progress by local Bay Area composers.  

Call 841-2800 

From Flatlands to the Stars  

9:30 a.m. - 3 p.m. 

Diamond Park  

Fruitvale Ave. (at Lyman Rd.) 

A hardy hike along Sausal Creek in Oakland’s unexplored Diamond and Joaquin Miller parks. A free hike sponsored by Greenbelt Alliance.  

Call 415-255-3233 for reservations or visit www.greenbelt.org 

Timbrels & Torahs: Celebrating Wisdom,  

Celebrating Age  

10:30 a.m. - 12:30 p.m. 

Berkeley Richmond Jewish Community Center 

1414 Walnut St.  

Miriam Chaya and Judy Montell discuss their Simchat Hochmah ceremony, which celebrates a woman’s transition from mid-life to her eldering years.  

Call 848-0237 x127 

Spiritual & Cultural Context of Mbira  

8 p.m. 

Shambhala Booksellers  

2482 Telegraph Ave.  

Berkeley native Erica Azim has played Shona mbira music for 30 years, and is the foremost mbira performer and recording artist in the U.S. The mbira has metal keys which are plucked with two thumbs and one forefinger, “creating relaxing yet invigorating polyphony and polyrhythms.” Free 

Call 848-8443 

Solving the East Bay Energy Crisis 

3 p.m. 

Berkeley Fellowship Unitarian Universalists 

Fellowship Hall  

1924 Cedar (at Bonita) 

Barbara George of Women’s Energy Matters and a Utility Reform Network representative, Kris Worthington, City Council member, Ross Mirkarimi of the Green Party, and others will discuss the past and future of the energy situation in the East Bay. 233-3175 

Free Sailboat Rides  

1 - 4 p.m. 

Berkeley Marina 

The Cal Sailing Club gives free rides on a first come, first served bases on the first full weekend of each month. Wear warm clothes and bring a change of clothes in case you get wet. Children must be at least five years old and must be accompanies by an adult.  

— compiled by  

Chason Wainwright 

Visit www.cal-sailing.org  

Meditations for Relieving Pain 

6 p.m. 

Tibetan Nyingma Institute  

1815 Highland Pl.  

Sylvia Gretchen presents specific meditations and visualization practices that can help to relieve physical and mental pain. Free 

Call 843-6812 

Tibetan Nyingma Institute Open House 

3 - 5 p.m. 

Tibetan Nyingma Institute 

1815 Highland Pl.  

A free introduction to Tibetan Buddhist culture including a prayer wheel and meditation garden tour and yoga demonstration. Refreshments will be served. Free 

Call 843-6812 

Monday, Feb. 5

Youth Commission  

6 p.m. 

Martin Luther King Jr. Youth Center 

1730 Oregon St.  

Rent Stabalization Board 

7 p.m. 

2134 MLK Jr. Way 

Second Floor Council Chamber 

Personnel Board Meeting  

7 p.m. 

Permit Center 

2118 Milvia St.  

First Floor Conference Room  

Landmarks Preservation Commission  

7:30 p.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center 

1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way) 

Peace & Justice Commission  

7 p.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center 

1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way) 

Patrick Kennedy’s buildings have been passionately opposed by neighborhood conservatives and often by the Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association. These residential buildings, sometimes condominiums, sometimes apartments, with cafes, offices and shops on the ground floor, have in their opponents’ views been too big, too dense, and non-conforming with the opponents’ idea of Berkeley architectural esthetic traditions. 

A recent article that appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle, quoted three opponents of his work, and quoted Kennedy himself. The story created an impression of well nigh universal opposition, that somehow Kennedy was the only one defending his buildings. 

But strangely enough, because Kennedy provides housing for many people just where they like it - in or on the edge of downtown where lots is cook’n, transit’s convenient - lots of people show up to boost his projects. Who? Minorities, disabled, environ-mentalists, housing advocates, students, seniors, transit passengers, supporters of arts in the downtown, feminists - it is the Gaia Building after all - and more. 

Not just the side represented by the three people the article cited in opposition. 

Now, the building is topping out and what you see is, minus the surface treatment, what you get. The surface treatment, by the way, in the hands of skilled self-proclaimed 19th century architect Kirk Peterson, will only get better. The Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association will probably one day begrudgingly end up liking it. 

The Gaia Buildings, located in the middle of downtown Berkeley at 2116 Allston Way is the largest of all Patrick’s projects. Says Mr. Kennedy’s promotional flyer, the Gaia Building is “designed for downtown: innovative, efficient, stimulating. (Almost) Car-free living.” There are 91 residential units which will accommodate approximately 140 people on something less than a sixth of a city block, and it is all less than one block from the University campus and 

Berkeley BART Station to the west. Among the novel features, the Gaia Building is home to terracing, trellises and rooftop gardens as originally proposed and defended by Ecocity Builders before the Zoning Adjustments Board and Design Review Committee. Kennedy adopted the ideas and we at Ecocity Builders supported his project. He built the minimum parking he could negotiate with the city - 42 spaces - and is using double car stacking on mechanical lifts to minimize automobile consumption of space in the building. The Gaia Building, he says, will be the first in the United States to provide an “in-house/real-time” car sharing program, a variant on a successful model in Portland, Oregon. Height of the building: seven stories. 

So he says, say opponents.  

Kennedy does not count the mezzanine of the first floor as another floor. Opponents do. Kennedy considers lofts inside a high ceiling apartment as lofts, that is, non-floors. Opponents don’t. Finally, on the roof, the codes allowed non-rental uses looking something like towers taking up one-sixth or less of the roof area to not be counted as a floor but rather as auxiliary uses to the main uses of the building. Opponents disagree. In the Gaia Building, the space will be occupied by the rental and management offices of the Gaia Building itself and not rented to tenants. It will also be used by the elevator and mechanical equipment structures. Add up the disagreement and opponents say 10 not seven stories - stop the construction! Send the workers home! Keep the new tenants out of town! 

What’s the real deal here. Hell, let’s admit it, one of the reasons I like the building is that it’s named after the Goddess of the Earth in Greek mythology. But that aside, initiatives to close down the project have hit the papers locally. Yet Kennedy incorporates many design 

features that enliven the neighborhoods in which his buildings are located. He cuts low income special deals for some of his tenants while producing the legally mandated percentage of low income housing units, subsidized by the richer folks in the higher cost units. Why does he cut the low-cost deals for some artists and disabled folks? They look good for his next production. He actually likes the people. You guess. I think both. 

Most of the conflict in Berkeley starts with the downtown five story height limit (down from ten) established in Berkeley zoning in the early 1990s. I personally can’t get too excited about developers pushing those limits when providing housing where it’s needed, in a world of high population and the absolutely disastrous effects of low density sprawl and cars. Density with high diversity really is a large part of the healthy solution if it’s in the right place and designed with sensitivity to sun angles, shade, public streets and open public and natural space and so on. 

But I have to also mention another reason I don’t particularly respect the present height limits in downtown: the process by which the heights were established was despicable. I tried to take part. I was interrupted so constantly - and the “facilitators” of the discussions sustained the interruptions not, my right to speak - that after a couple hours of trying to communicate I walked out and didn’t come back for five years. Extremely bad process. 

Assessing all the complaints, I have to say that I see a healthier world and a much more interesting roofline that could begin to shape up in town, beginning with the Gaia Building. I’d suggested solar orientation to Kennedy, terraces, rooftop gardens, trellises, windscreens to capture the sun and moderate the breezes up there in the great Bay Area views. Patrick brought them into his original design. 

But the Zoning Adjustments Board and Design Review Committee took the Building and turned it around 180 degrees so that it would be a solar energy loss rather than gain - which is something to think about all over again in our new “energy crisis” days - how short the memory! 

Though it no longer displays architectural ways of working with natural energy systems, the Gaia Building will still look different and very interesting. The terraces, trellises and gardens are likely to strike people as nice cheerful things to see floating up there in the sky. I think some lessons will be learned from the Gaia building that will help us in the right direction. The 140 residents there who would have been locked out of town or forced to commute long distances will be happy to have a roof over their heads in a great part of a great small city. The complaints will seem overdone and we will get on with trying to see where we are in time. It’s a small step in thinking through and building a better future. 

Richard Register is president of Ecocity Builders and a Berkeley resident. 

924 Gilman St. All shows begin at 8 p.m. unless noted $5; $2 for a year membership Feb. 2: Nerve Agents, Jemuel, The Blottos; Feb 3.: Time In Malta, The Cost 525-9926  

Albatross Pub All music at 9 p.m. unless noted Feb. 1: Keni “El Lebrijano”; Feb. 3: Mad & Eddie Duran Jazz Quartet; Feb. 6: Pickpocket Ensemble; Feb. 7: Whiskey Brothers; Feb. 8: Keni “El Lebrijano”; Feb. 13: Mad & Eddie Duran Jazz Duo; Feb. 14: Carlos Oliveira Brazilian Jazz Duo 1822 San Pablo 843-2473 

Eli’s Mile High Club Feb. 2: Henry Clement; Feb. 3: Daniel Castro; Feb. 9: Red Archibald; Feb. 10: Kenny Blue Ray; Feb. 16: Little Johnny & the Giants; Feb. 17: Ron Thompson; Feb. 23: Carlos Zialcita; Feb. 24: R.J. Mischo 3629 MLK Jr. Way Oakland  

Freight & Salvage All shows begin at 8 p.m. Feb. 1: International Guitar Night with Andrew York, Laurence Juber, Peppino D’Agostino, and Brian Gore; Feb. 2: Cats & Jammers; Feb. 3: Lou & Peter Berryman; Feb. 4: Dave Van Ronk; Feb. 5: Tony Trischka & Junk Genius; Feb. 6: Chuck Brodsky; Feb. 7: Keola Beamer with Moana Beamer; Feb. 8 & 9: Ralph Stanley & the Clinch Mountain Boys; Feb. 10: Baguette Quartette with Odile Lavault; Feb.11: Bob Franke 1111 Addison St. 548-1761  

Jupiter All music begins at 8 p.m. Jan. 27: Solomon Grundy 2181 Shattuck Ave. Call THE-ROCK  

Jazzschool/La Note All shows at 4:30 p.m.Tickets are $10 - $12 Feb. 4: Jeff Chambers and the J2W Project 2377 Shattuck Ave. 845-5373 

Crowden School Sundays, 4 p.m.: Chamber music series sponsored by the school. 1475 Rose St. (at Sacramento) 559-6910 

Alice Arts Center “A Night In Oakland” 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 4. 1428 Alice St. (at 14th St.) Oakland Savage Jazz Dance Company launches their 2001 spring season along with the Marcus Shelby Jazz Orchestra. $10 - $15 Call 496-6068 or visit www.savagejazz.org 

Cal Performances Feb. 2 & 3, 8 p.m.: Allee der Kosmonauten by Berlin choreographer Sasha Waltz with video installations by New York artist Elliot Caplan, $20 - $42; Feb. 4, 4 p.m.: Russian National Orchestra, $30 - $52 4 p.m; Feb. 10, 8 p.m.: Masters of Persian Classical Music, $20 - $40; Feb. 16 & 17, 8 p.m.: Balinese Orchestra Gamelan Sekar Jaya present “Kawit Legong: Prince Karna’s Dream,” $18 - $30. Zellerbach Hall UC Berkeley. 642-9988 or www.calperfs.berkeley.edu Feb. 11, 3 p.m.: Horacio Gutierrez $24 - $42 Hertz Hall UC Berkeley 

Berkeley Symphony Orchestra April 3, and June 21, 2001. All performances begin at 8 p.m. Single $19 - $35, Series $52 - $96. Zellerbach Hall, UC Berkeley 841-2800  

Eighth Annual Robert Burns Birthday Celebration Feb. 2, 8 p.m. and Feb. 4, 7 p.m. A celebration of Scotland’s beloved 18th century poet: his songs, his letters, his life. St. Alban’s Episcopal Church 1501 Washington Ave (at Curtis) Albany 848-3422 

Empyrean Ensemble Feb. 3, 3 p.m. The ensemble will present “The Soldier’s Tale,” by Igor Stravinsky, “Prosperous Sould, Gregarious Heart,” by Peter Josheff, and “Horizon Unfolds,” by Yu-Hui Chang. $4 - $10 Julia Morgan Center for the Arts 2640 College Ave. (at Derby) 925-798-1300 

Flauti Diversi Ensemble Feb. 4, 7:30 p.m. Performing the music of 17th and early 18th century composers on baroque instruments in a program titled “Bell Fiore, Belle Fleur.” $10 - $15 Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley 1 Lawson Rd. 525-0302 

“Mostly Baroque” Feb. 4, 5 p.m. Instrumental works by Corelli, Schickhardt, Quantz, Mozart, a new work by Glen Shannon and Bach’s Cantana 82. Donations accepted Church of Saint Mary Magdalen 2005 Berryman (at Milvia)  

Toshi Makihara & Colin Stetson Feb. 4, 7:48 p.m. Philadephia percussionist Makihara teams up with local solo saxophonist Voigt and local contrabassist Morgan Guberman for an evening of improvised music. $8 donation Tuva Space 3192 Adeline (at MLK Jr. Way) 649-8744 

“Songs for the Young at Heart” Feb. 10, 4 p.m. Featuring La Bonne Cuisine by Bernstein and The Shepherd on the Rock by Schubert. Donations accepted St. John’s Presbyterian Church 2727 College Ave.  

Community Women’s Orchestra Feb. 11, 4 p.m. Pieces to be played include those written by Berkeley High students Ariel Wolter and Maianna Voge. Donations accepted Malcolm X School 1731 Prince St. 653-1616 

Percussions Du Guinee Feb. 16 & 17, 8 p.m. Feb. 18, 7 p.m. Internationally respected Guinean percussionists craft a performance simultaneously inspired by traditional music, yet modern in presentation. $20 - $25 925-798-1300 

“Fall” by Bridget Carpenter Through Feb. 11. $15.99 - $51. Berkeley Repertory Theatre 2025 Addison St. 647-2949, www. berkeleyrep.org 

“In Search of my Clitoris” Written and performed by Sia Amma Feb. 1 & 2, 8 p.m. La Pena Cultural Center 3105 Shattuck Ave. Feb. 8 & 9, 8 p.m. Julia Morgan Center for the Arts 2640 College Ave. $12 - $14 415-775-6608 

“Waiting for Godot” by Samuel Beckett Through Feb. 3, Thursday - Saturday, 8 p.m. $8 - $12. Subterranean Shakespeare La Val’s Subterranean 1834 Euclid (at Hearst) 234-6046  

“The Road to Mecca” by Athol Fugard Through Feb. 24, Friday - Saturday, 8 p.m. Feb. 22, 8 p.m. $10 Live Oak Theatre 1301 Shattuck 528-5620 

“Nightingale” presented by Central Works Theater Feb. 9 - March 4, Friday & Saturday, 8 p.m.; Sunday, 5 p.m.; Saturday, Feb. 24 & Saturday, March 3, 5 p.m.; Free preview Feb. 8, 8 p.m. $8 - $14 LaVal’s Subterranean 1834 Euclid Ave. 558-1381 

“Someone Who’ll Watch Over Me” by Frank MacGuinness Feb. 15 - March 17, Thursday - Saturday, 8 p.m. Sunday, 8:30 p.m. The story of three men - an Irishman, an Englishman and an American held in a prison in Lebanon. $10 - $15 8th St. Studio Theatre 2525 Eighth St. (at Dwight) 655-0813 

“Magnetic North” Six programs of experimental Canadian video from the past 30 years that range from documentary to conceptual art. In all, 40 tapes from 46 artists will be shown on six Wednesday evenings. Through Feb. 28. $7. Pacific Film Archive 2575 Bancroft (at Bowditch) 642-1412  

“Durruti and the Spanish Revolution” The LaborFest U.S. premiere screening and dicussion of this documentary which tells the story of the Confederation National del Trabajo during the Spanish Civil War. Feb. 11, 7:30 p.m. $7 donation requested. La Pena Cultural Center 3105 Shattuck Ave. 415-642-8066 

“Toto Recall” A 15-film retrospective honoring Italy’s comic genius. Feb. 3 - Feb. 24 Weekend days only, Friday - Sunday. $7 for one film, $8.50 for double bills. Pacific Film Archive 2575 Bancroft Way (at Bowditch) 642-1412 

Pacific Center Women’s Evening at the Movies 7:30 p.m. 2712 Telegraph Ave. “Late Bloomer,” the story of a high school basketball coach who realizes she’s fallen for the school secretary. Women’s Evening at the Movies is the first Saturday of every month.  

Boadecia’s Books All events at 7:30 p.m., unless noted Feb. 10: Karin Kallmaker reads from “Sleight of Hand”; Feb. 23: Becky Thompson reads “Mothering Without a Compass: White Mother’s Love, Black Son’s Courage” 398 Colusa Ave. Kensington 559-9184. www.boadeciasbooks.com 

“Strong Women - Writers & Heroes of Literature” Fridays Through June, 2001, 1 - 3 p.m. Taught by Dr. Helen Rippier Wheeler, author of “Women and Aging: A Guide to Literature,” this is a free weekly literature course in the Berkeley Adult School’s Older Adults Program. North Berkeley Senior Center 1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way) 549-2970  

Duomo Reading Series and Open Mic. Thursdays, 6:30 - 9 p.m. Feb. 1: John Rowe; Feb. 8: Tom Odegard; Feb 15: Kathleen Lynch; Feb. 22: Charles Ellick; March 1: Eliza Shefler; March 8: Judy Wells; March 15: Elanor Watson-Gove; March 22: Anna Mae Stanley; March 29: Georgia Popoff; April 5: Barbara Minton; April 12: Alice Rogoff; Cafe Firenze 2116 Shattuck Ave. 644-0155. 

Lunch Poems First Thursday of each month, 12:10 - 12:50 p.m. Feb. 1: Sherman Alexie; March 1: Aleida Rodrigues; April 5: Galway Kinnell; May 3: Student Reading Morrison Room, Doe Library UC Berkeley 642-0137 

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Free. University of California, Berkeley. 486-4387 

Berkeley City Club Tours 2315 Durant Ave., Berkeley. 848-7800 The fourth Sunday of every month, Noon - 4 p.m. $2  

Golden Gate Live Steamers Grizzly Peak Boulevard and Lomas Cantadas Drive at the south end of Tilden Regional Park, Berkeley. 486-0623  

Small locomotives, meticulously scaled to size. Trains run Sunday, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Rides: Sunday, noon to 3 p.m., weather permitting.  

UC Berkeley Botanical Garden Centennial Drive, behind Memorial Stadium, a mile below the Lawrence Hall of Science, Berkeley. 643-2755 or www.mip.berkeley.edu/garden/  

The gardens have displays of exotic and native plants. Tours, Saturday and Sunday, 1:30 p.m. $3 general; $2 seniors; $1 children; free on Thursday. Daily, 9 a.m. to 4:45 p.m. 

Berkeley Historical Society Slide Lecture & Booksigning Series Sundays, 3 - 5 p.m. $10 donation requested. March 11: Director of Berkeley’s International House, Joe Lurie, will show a video and dicuss the history and struggle to open the I-House 70 years ago. Berkeley Historical Center Veterans Memorial Building 1931 Center St. 848-0181 

“Great Decisions” Foreign Policy Association Lectures Series Tuesdays, 10 a.m. - Noon, Feb. 13 - April 3; An annual program featuring specialists in the field of national foreign policy, many from University of California. Goal is to inform the public on major policy issues and receive feedback from the public. $5 per session, $35 entire series for single person, $60 entire series for couple. Berkeley City Club 2315 Durant Ave. 526-2925 

There’s no denying it: the Bears are on a roll. This week’s games will go a long way to determine just how serious they are about keeping it going. 

The Cal men’s basketball team is tied for fourth in the Pac-10 standings at 5-2 and has won four in a row, but don’t start congratulating them yet. They haven’t beaten a single team ahead of them in the standings. The Bears were beaten soundly by front-runners Stanford and Arizona, and will face off against UCLA and USC on Thursday and Saturday, respectively. 

How the Bears handle this week’s games is the first true test of the conference schedule. No one really expected them to beat Arizona; despite the Wildcats ups and downs this year, they are a supremely talented bunch. And asking the youthful Bears to upset the No. 1 Cardinal is a bit unrealistic. And victories over weak teams like Washington State and Arizona State don’t really prove much. But the teams from down south are much like Ben Braun’s team: going well now, but with serious questions about their continued success. 

UCLA, which will visit Haas Pavilion on Thursday, is a collection of McDonald’s All-Americans that just hasn’t been able to put it together the past few seasons. The trio of wingman Jason Kapono, center Dan Gadzuric and forward Matt Barnes provide enough firepower for the Bruins to blow away just about any opponent. Kapono is a pure shooter and slasher, Gadzuric is immovable in the middle, and Barnes’ skills has been compared to those of NBA superstar Grant Hill. But promise has faded into disappointment for UCLA in the last few years. 

Kapono is an unquestioned star, fourth in the conference in scoring (17.8 ppg) and striking fear into opposing coaches’ hearts. But Gadzuric is wildly inconsistent, capable of putting up 20 points and 10 rebounds but disappearing at the most inopportune times. Barnes is making the transition from playing on the perimeter to heading into the post, and his scoring is down. 

“Out of necessity for our team’s needs, he understands that he’s going to receive an ample amount of minutes on the front line,” says UCLA head coach Steve Lavin. “As a result, he’s found that he’s pretty effective, a tough matchup for most post players. He’s got versatility and an unusual skill set for his size.” 

The Bruins are tied with Arizona at 6-1 in Pac-10 play, and are thriving under a full-court press installed this season. But they also collapsed in the second half against Arizona, and have yet to face powerhouse Stanford. Lavin says the new defense has energized his team. 

“We worked on the press from day one in practice, but only used it in games on occasion early in the year and went 4-4. But at North Carolina we went down 19, stayed with the press and went up four. We have pressed 40 minutes every game since,” Lavin says. “It creates a real aggressive mindset in our players.” 

Cal head coach Ben Braun agrees that the press seems to have woken up the UCLA players. 

“UCLA has been very consistent in pressuring full-court, and been doing a very good job of it,” Braun says. “They’ve been forcing turnovers and creating points.” 

The Bears could have difficulty breaking the UCLA press, especially when point guard Shantay Legans heads to the bench. Backup Donte Smith has been struggling with his confidence this year, reportedly considering a transfer recently only to change his mind. If Smith shows weakness against the Bruins, the Bears will pay for it with some easy UCLA baskets. Barnes has taken a leading role in the Bruins’ new defense. 

“He’s real weapon in the press because he’s so long, has a real sense of anticipation. He’s really the point man on the press, creating turnovers for our guards,” Lavin says. 

USC is another team that has yet to live up to their talent, but for a different reason: injuries and suspensions. Several players went down last year with various ailments, and a quick start turned sour as the Trojans finished at 16-14. But head coach Henry Bibby has all five starters back now, as guard Jeff Trepagnier has finally returned from an NCAA suspension. His presence make the Trojans one of most talented teams in the country. They are tied with the Bears at 5-2 in conference play. 

“I have a better feel now for who I’m going to use with Jeff back on the team. I’m set on a certain rotation that I’m going to stay with,” Bibby says. “Jeff has missed a lot of basketball, and he’s not back to where he was before.” 

The Bears do have a six-game winning streak against the Trojans, but will be hard-pressed to keep up with the Trojans this year. 

“We’ve just played well against them,” Braun says. “They’re a very talented team, and sometimes a talented team can get you to play better and harder.” 

In Trepagnier’s absence, the Trojans have leaned heavily on forwards Sam Clancy and Brian Scalabrine. Clancy, who missed a big chunk of games with a fractured foot last year, has always been a strong presence on the glass and is pulling down 7.2 rebounds per game. But Clancy has come on strong on the offensive end to become the team’s leading scorer at 18.4 points per game. 

“Clancy’s really given their team life this year after being spotty with the injury last year,” Braun says. “He can obviously go get rebounds for them, and he has really improved his offense this year.” 

Scalabrine was USC’s leading scorer last year, but has made a lot of improvement on defense this year. He is second on the team in blocked shots while continuing to be a key part of the offense. 

“Brian does so many things to help us win on the floor,” Bibby says. “He’s just added the shot-blocking this year.” 

If the Bears can sweep the SoCal schools at Haas, it will give them a leg up on claiming an NCAA bid. A split would be acceptable in keeping the Bears in contention, but if they lose both games this week, they may get stuck in the middle of the Pac-10, better than the weak sisters up north but unable to play with the big boys.

It wasn’t your typical ribbon-cutting at the Berkeley Marina Radisson Hotel Wednesday night. The giant scissors union organizer Stephanie Ruby held were inscribed “peace” and “justice.” 

Hotel management, union activists and employees had come together for what they called a “grand re-opening” celebration at the restaurant. The hotel hadn’t been shuttered, but it had been boycotted by the city government, the community and labor unions while employees fought for a union, then for a contract. 

“We’re celebrating the end of the boycott and inviting the community to patronize the hotel,” said Ruby, an organizer with the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Local 2850. 

Management did not stay away from the celebration, which included food prepared by the unionized Radisson chefs and music by the Loco Bloco Drum & Dance Ensemble of San Francisco. 

“Everyone worked really hard at getting the contract,” said Brij Misra, the hotel’s general manager. “We were able to hammer out a contract that was good for all the employees.” Misra said now he is able to pay more attention to running the hotel and the employees are able to concentrate singularly on taking care of the patrons.  

Restaurant worker Sy Dovangphoxay was among those celebrating. He talked about how, before the union was formed, he had wanted to visit his sick mother in Laos. “They said you can quit your job and reapply,” he said. 

Now he said he would be able to take a leave without fear of retribution. 

Dovangphoxay also talked about his own growth, as he became not only a union supporter, but an organizer. “I never thought I could do what I did, like speak at a City Council meeting,” he said. 

Housekeeper Bonnie Dideman was there too. “It’s a big event,” she said, noting that since the contract was signed, she has received health benefits, a pension and a promise of fewer rooms to clean. 

Father Bill O’Donnell was there and so was Councilmember Kriss Worthington. Both had been in early negotiations with hotel management and had sat in at a protest in the hotel lobby singing pro-union Christmas carols in December 1999. 

O’Donnell said he was “still mad at the Radisson management” because of the hardships suffered by the workers. Still, the activist-priest from St. Joseph’s Church quoted Ghandi: “We don’t intend to bring our enemy to their knees, just to their senses.”

Angelita Hutton – Berkeley High 

Coming into this season, the Berkeley Lady ’Jackets knew that senior forward Robin Roberson would be the focal point of their offense. The question was: who would step up and help her? The answer for much of the season has been Angelita Hutton. 

Hutton, a junior from Oakland, has stepped into the shooting guard spot as a starter this year, and has provided a secondary threat for the Lady ’Jackets, making teams pay when they focus all their defensive effort on Roberson. 

Berkeley head coach Gene Nakamura said before the season that he expected the athletic Hutton to average double figures in scoring, and she has done that so far. But Nakamura points out that she has contributed more than points. 

“She’s helping a lot in other areas. She’s rebounding real well, and she’s probably our most consistent defender,” Nakamura says. “She’s very hard to keep a dribble against when she’s balanced.” 

Hutton realizes her game is a work in progress. 

“I didn’t score that much before, so I had to work on that,” she says. “But I also need to work on my defense, and on making better decisions on offense.” 

As a starter, Hutton is often limited to playing half of a game because Nakamura doesn’t believe in running up the score on weaker teams. In Berkeley’s league, the Alameda Contra Costa Athletic League, there are only two teams capable of giving the Lady ’Jackets much of a challenge. 

“Of course I want to play more, but everybody needs to play, because we’re all good players,” Hutton says. 

With Roberson the focus of the offense, Hutton has had to be more aggressive in taking her shots and looking for opportunities. That has been a chore for the quiet player. 

“You have to look for your own shot first, but keep the team game in mind,” she says. “I just try to stay in the game and not go wild.” 

That newfound aggressiveness has a good side and a bad side, according to her coach. Nakamura sometimes questions Hutton’s shot selection, saying she takes a lot of off-balance shots. But he also sees the need for Hutton to step into her natural role as a leader of the team. 

“She’s a junior, but she’s also a third-year varsity player,” he says. “ But if she wants to play on the next level, she’s got to be more vocal, and she’s improving in that area quite a bit. She’s assuming some leadership.” 

Hutton agrees. 

“I’ve been trying to be more vocal, to be a leader for this team,” she says. “But it’s going to take some work.

Last week the City Council boasted strong support for the Berkeley High Achievement Plan and Tuesday they acted on it. 

The council approved $40,000 for the program that is designed to intercede in the academic lives of Berkeley High School freshmen who are in danger of failing math and English classes. The council also committed up to $25,000 in city services, including truancy reduction assistance and case management. The program was developed by a recently-formed group of parents. 

The council adopted the recommendation by an 8-1 vote with Councilmember Betty Olds abstaining. 

The sponsoring organization, Parents of Children of African Descent, first met in November to discuss scholastic problems related to their high-school-aged children. The group soon put together a program to assist Berkeley High’s failing freshman. School and city officials have found the plan so infectious that very little has stood in PCAD’s way since. 

The idea is to identify the students who are having trouble and then enroll them in the program in which they will have access to classes with low teacher-student ratios. If their parents are unable to participate, the students will be assigned mentors who will closely monitor their academic progress. 

In two-months time, PCAD has received about $184,000 in assistance from a variety of private individuals and organizations including $100,000 from the School Board and $40,000 from the city. 

The program has already hired three high school qualified teachers and signed up 48 students who began taking classes Tuesday, according to PCAD members. PCAD says that 242 freshman at Berkeley High are in danger of failing a math or English class and 83 freshman are in danger of failing both.  

Two key elements of the plan are parent involvement and a community-wide partnership. parent Michael Miller, who is on the PCAD steering committee said the program is about much more than the money. 

“Millions have been spent on this problem already and our kids are still failing,” he said. “It’s more than money, it’s the community believing in and working with the students.” 

Councilmember Kriss Worthington had requested $100,000 to match the School Board’s contribution to the program but praised the city manager’s quick response. The council had asked the city manager to find as much money as possible within a week’s time for the spring semester, which began Tuesday. 

As soon as the council approved the recommendation, Councilmember Polly Armstrong made a motion, which the council also approved 8-1 with Olds abstaining, to earmark an additional $60,000 from the mid-year budget. The money could be allocated in two weeks when the budget is discussed. 

“We can’t know if this program is going to work,” Armstrong said. “I know how hard it is to get parents involved. But I’m dying to hear that you succeeded.” 

Arrietta Chakos, chief of staff in the City Manager’s Office, said there is no plan yet in place for truancy reduction or case management components of the recommendation.  

She said that it’s likely truancy reduction will focus on kids who are on campus but not in class and the city might offer assistance with calling parents at home to let them know their kids are not attending class. 

“The case management element could be anything from seeing that the kids have enough to eat to helping them with health care to counseling them for family problems,” Chakos said. 

The University of California, Berkeley, and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have teamed up with AC Transit and the City of Berkeley in a new pilot program to help relieve traffic congestion in the city and promote the use of public transit.  

UC Berkeley faculty, staff and students and laboratory employees will be able to use Berkeley Lab's free shuttle service in the morning between the campus and the Rockridge BART station. They also will be able to ride AC Transit's regular bus service linking the campus and the station for free.  

“This expanded service is another step in our ongoing efforts to help reduce traffic on city streets and ease the demand for parking.  

“Thanks to terrific cooperation, we are able to offer a convenient alternative to campus commuters that also promises to be a real benefit to southside residents,” said Chancellor Robert M. Berdahl.  

Berkeley City Councilmember Polly Armstrong, whose council district includes both the campus and the laboratory, played a key role in getting the shuttle realized. Thanks to her initiative, the parties have signed a memorandum of understanding for a five-month pilot program.  

“We all share a common interest in improving gridlock in south of campus. I'm excited to bring this group together for what I hope will be a helpful solution,” Armstrong said. Berkeley riders to share the lab's popular Rockridge BART shuttle during the morning commute "extends our own commitment to alternative transportation options, which over the years has included a successful shuttle bus system between downtown Berkeley and the laboratory."  

After a five-month trial, the service will be evaluated to determine whether it will be modified or continued, said Nadesan Permaul, UC Berkeley's director of transportation. The campus's Office of Parking and Transportation is coordinating the new services with Berkeley Lab and AC Transit.  

Both Permaul and Armstrong said they are hopeful the Rockridge shuttle will be as successful as the Class Pass program initiated in fall 1999.  

That resulted from similarly cooperative efforts between the campus, Armstrong and AC Transit and allows UC Berkeley students free rides on all AC Transit routes by paying $18 a year in additional registration fees.  

As with the Class Pass, riders will need to show proper identification. For students, it will be their student ID with a Class Pass sticker. Faculty and staff will need to show their UC Berkeley employee photo ID.  

In the morning, faculty, staff and students coming from the Rockridge BART station have the option of using the Berkeley Lab's direct shuttle bus or AC Transit's #64 bus to the campus. In the offer schedules to get passengers to the campus in 15 minutes and pick up commuters directly under the BART station on College Avenue.  

Lab's service runs from 6:35 a.m. to 8:15 a.m. every 30 to 40 minutes. The lab's bus will drop passengers off in front of International House, at the top of Bancroft Way at Piedmont Avenue.  

The AC Transit bus runs weekdays between 6 a.m. and 10 p.m. at 15-minute intervals. It stops at Bancroft Way and Telegraph Avenue near the Martin Luther King Jr. Student Union. 

"Line 64 buses offer sufficient capacity so that faculty and staff, just like UC students, can avoid driving in the south campus area," said Rick Fernandez, AC Transit's general manager.

Congresswoman Barbara Lee today was elected as Vice Chair of the Progressive Caucus. 

The more than 50 members of the Progressive Caucus share a common belief in the principles of social and economic justice, non-discrimination, and tolerance in America and in our relationships with other countries. The caucus seeks to embody and give a voice to national priorities which reflect the interests and needs of all the American people, not just the wealthy and the powerful. 

“I am very honored to be chosen as vice chair of the Progressive Caucus, and look forward to working with Chairman Dennis Kucinich of Ohio toward a progressive legislative agenda that puts people first,” Lee said. “Now more than ever we must be unified in putting forth an agenda that will save Social Security and Medicare, increase access to health care for the more than 44 million Americans who are uninsured, provide affordable housing, strengthen public schools, protect the environment, and combat social and racial inequalities that still exist.” 

“A majority of Americans agree with a progressive agenda that focuses on the needs and well being of all Americans,” said Lee. “We should not be afraid to differentiate our agenda from Republican initiatives which often-times ignore the working poor, low-income communities, as well as communities of color, instead pushing the agendas of the NRA, the Christian Coalition, defense contractors, anti-choice organizations, and the tobacco, pharmaceutical, insurance, and oil industries.” 

Congresswoman Lee was elected vice chair of the caucus because of a demonstrated record supporting peace and justice in the United States and throughout the world. 

“Barbara Lee is perhaps the most principled Member of Congress, with an understanding of the issues and a commitment to progressive change,” said Progressive Caucus Chair Dennis Kucinich,D-Ohio.“Her new position reflects the confidence that her peers have in her, and she will do a tremendous job.” 

“I would like to thank my colleagues for their continued support and confidence, and for entrusting me with the responsibilities of this position in such an important caucus,” Lee said. 

“I look forward to promoting an agenda of fairness and justice in the 107th Congress.” 

SAN JOSE — The young man who allegedly assembled an arsenal of guns and explosives in his room and plotted a massacre at his community college was fascinated with the 1999 rampage at Columbine High School and “hated everyone,” police said Wednesday. 

Amid the 30 pipe bombs and 20 Molotov cocktails stashed under clothes and in duffel bags in Al DeGuzman’s messy bedroom, investigators found magazine articles about the Columbine killers, writings worshipping them and pictures of them on the wall, Sgt. Steve Dixon said. 

DeGuzman, 19, allegedly planned for two years to kill fellow students in De Anza College’s cafeteria and library, modeling the attack on the one in Littleton, Colo., in which Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold killed 13 people and wounded 23 others before committing suicide. 

“Eric Harris is God,” DeGuzman allegedly proclaimed on one Web site. “He’s my savior.” The pages have been taken down by its administrator. 

“According to the friends we talked to, he was getting weird,” said Deputy Police Chief Mike Miceli. “The common thing was that he talked a lot about Columbine. He was fixed on Columbine.” 

While the specific motive remained unclear, investigators found troves of angry writings on DeGuzman’s computer. DeGuzman, who is of Filipino descent, lashed out against politicians, social classes and people of all ethnic groups – including his own, police said. 

“He hated everyone,” Miceli said. 

The new details of the investigation emerged as DeGuzman sat in jail awaiting a court appearance Thursday on more than 50 weapons and explosives counts. His family did not answer requests for comment, and DeGuzman’s lawyer could not be located. 

The plot allegedly unraveled Monday night after a clerk in a drug store photo-developing department alerted police to snapshots of DeGuzman posing with his arsenal, including the Molotov cocktails that seemed to be in dark apple juice bottles. 

“I was looking at it probably for three and five minutes just staring at it trying to make out who this person was, why was he taking pictures of these black gloves, black pants, black belts,” said the clerk, Kelly Bennett, whose father is a San Jose police officer. “I thought, ‘This guy is weird.”’ 

DeGuzman was arrested when he came in to pick up the photos Monday night, forcing De Anza College in nearby Cupertino to shut down Tuesday morning, the day the attack was allegedly planned for. 

De Anza reopened Wednesday, and police said they had determined no one else was involved in the plot. 

Despite his alleged affinity for Harris and Klebold, DeGuzman was no trench coat-wearing loner. DeGuzman had no criminal record, and many people who knew him said he was clever and smart, likely to become an engineer. 

In his senior year at Independence High School in 1998-99, DeGuzman was one of five editors of the yearbook, which won national graphic design awards. 

“I would describe him as intelligent, creative,” said Paul Ender, who was the yearbook adviser. “He was on the shy side, but the kids really respected him and liked him. I certainly did, or he wouldn’t have been an editor of the yearbook — especially at the school, where the yearbook is a pretty major undertaking.” 

Ender recalled how DeGuzman would create fanciful sculptures with the design tools in his classroom. 

“I had to joke with him on Monday mornings, he had to take all this stuff apart so I could work with them,” Ender said. 

While most, if not all, of the other yearbook editors went off to four-year schools, Ender said he believed DeGuzman enrolled at De Anza and lived with his parents for financial reasons. 

DeGuzman’s parents told investigators they respected their son’s privacy and had no idea of what police would find: booby-trapped explosives, sophisticated timing devices and a sawed-off shotgun and rifle, both of which were legally purchased. The explosives were built with common items that could be found at many stores, and some of them were similar to ones used at Columbine, police said. 

Miceli said investigators “hit the gold mine” of evidence when they seized DeGuzman’s computer from his bedroom. They discovered detailed plans — including positions and corners at De Anza that bombs could be placed in and ways to distract police with bombs off campus, police said. 

“He was going to kill as many people as possible before he died,” Dixon said. “He seemed to think the more people he killed, the better it’d be, the more media attention.” 

Among the passages that police said gave them insight into DeGuzman’s thinking was this, from an America Online page: “I don’t seem to care about anything anymore except having a (expletive) of guns, liking people who are politically incorrect, revolution, and seeing people get the (expletive) kicked out of them.” 

Talk of the thwarted plot occupied the first 20 minutes of De Anza instructor Jennifer Myhre’s sociology classes Wednesday. She said many of her students were afraid that accomplices to the plan were still at large, and that many of those evacuated did not take the threat seriously at first. 

“You hear ‘bomb threat,’ and you think someone had a test and didn’t want to show up — like pulling a fire alarm,” Myhre said. “But here was someone who had a real well-thought-out plan. It was really unnerving.” 

SAN FRANCISCO — Police investigators continued to sift through a growing collection of evidence Wednesday as they attempt to determine the background of two dogs that killed a woman at her doorstep Friday. 

Investigators are still trying to find out if the owners of the two Mastiff-Canary Island dogs that attacked Diane Whipple knew of any attack training or vicious tendencies the animals might have had, said District Attorney Terence Hallinan. 

“We’re just sitting here trying to gather all the facts,” he said. His office is working with police as well as animal care and control officials. Hallinan has also sent office personnel to other parts of California to gather information about the people and animals involved in this case. 

Prosecutors have not charged dog owners Robert Noel or his wife Marjorie Knoller with any crimes. But Hallinan acknowledged that his office is taking a close look at California law regarding dogs trained to fight, attack or kill. 

Noel and Knoller could face manslaughter charges in Whipple’s death, if they are found guilty of negligence under that law, Hallinan said. 

Noel did not return repeated calls placed by The Associated Press seeking comment. 

The dogs that attacked Whipple were a Mastiff-Canary Island mix. They were part of a group of dogs raised for fighting contests and guarding methamphetamine labs, according to state prison officials. 

Pelican Bay State Prison inmates Paul John Schneider and Dale Bretches were found to have organized the dog ring from behind bars. Bretches contacted WereWolf Kennels, an Ontario, Canada, dog breeder more than a year ago looking to acquire purebred Canary Island dogs, or Presa Canario, known in Spain for their imposing size and fighting prowess. 

Angelika Morwald, owner of WereWolf Kennels, said she received a three-page letter from Bretches in 1999 inquiring about buying some dogs for breeding. She refused to do business with him because he was incarcerated at the time. 

“How is he going to care for an animal I love?” Morwald said. “This is exactly the kind of people we try to avoid selling to.” 

She said she did not respond to Bretches’ letter and never sent him any material about the dogs, which she sells for between $1,250 and $2,000 per puppy. 

Despite the Presa Canario’s intimidating appearance, Morwald says they must be trained to attack in the manner that Noel’s dog attacked Whipple. 

“My belief is that that dog was trained at some point to do that,” she said. 

A memorial service for Whipple, a popular lacrosse coach at St. Mary’s College in Moraga, was set for Thursday. 

SACRAMENTO — Lawmakers moved Wednesday to make the state a major power buyer under a $10 billion plan to rescue utilities pushed to the brink of bankruptcy by California’s disastrous deregulation law. 

Some of the same lawmakers who deregulated the energy industry in California five years ago voted to put the state in the business of buying power to keep the lights. 

The proposal won Senate approval 27-8. It was sent to the Assembly for a final vote and was expected to go to Gov. Gray Davis by day’s end. 

“This is a measure I undoubtedly hate as much as anyone on this floor, but it is far less odious than to do nothing,” said Sen. Debra Bowen, a Marina del Rey Democrat, who backed the deregulation law as an assemblywoman in 1996. “There’s no possibility of improvement if we don’t take the medicine that we need to get better.” 

The bill lets the state sign long-term contracts to buy power and sell it to the customers of financially strapped Southern California Edison and Pacific Gas and Electric Co., who together serve nearly 9 million residential and business customers. 

The state’s two largest utilities, forced by the deregulation law to sell their power plants, say they’ve been pushed $12.7 billion in debt by soaring wholesale prices that same law blocks them from recovering from their customers. 

The state has already spent more than $400 million on costly short-term power-buying on behalf of Edison and PG&E, which have been denied credit by suppliers. The legislation lets the state spend up to $500 million buying more electricity on the expensive spot market while reaching cheaper long-term deals with wholesalers for up to a decade. 

One controversial element of the legislation was a provision that would allow the state Public Utilities Commission to raise electricity rates to cover wholesale costs. 

To encourage conservation, residential customers who use 30 percent more energy than a baseline specified by regional climate and energy use would be punished with higher rates. 

The governor sent lawmakers a letter urging them to back the bill, and promising to sign it. 

“Our job is not yet done,” Davis wrote. “We need to continue to work together to implement aggressive conservation efforts and to vigorously pursue additional generation in the state.” 

A two-thirds vote from each house was required for the bill to take effect immediately after the governor signs it. Republican lawmakers said they wouldn’t join majority Democrats in voting for the bill unless Davis pledged to take full responsibility for the legislation. 

Davis has deflected criticism of his handling of the energy crisis by reminding lawmakers that he was not one of deregulation’s architects. 

Two demonstrators were arrested Wednesday outside the governor’s office for obstructing police as more than a dozen consumer activists protested what they called a taxpayer-financed bailout. 

“These are multibillion-dollar companies that have the ability to bail themselves out without our help,” said Medea Benjamin, a former Green Party U.S. Senate candidate and one of the protesters arrested. 

The long-term buying bill, funded through $10 billion in revenue bonds, is part of a larger fix being orchestrated by lawmakers to save the state’s two largest utilities and spare the state from blackouts. 

The Legislature’s action came as the state faced its 16th straight day in a Stage 3 power alert with reserves threatening to fall below 1.5 percent. The northern two-thirds of California faced two days with rolling blackouts this month as electricity fell short. 

California’s energy problems are expected to persist through the summer. Even the power-buying bill’s strongest supporters said far more action was needed to resolve the energy crisis, including swift power plant construction and aggressive conservation. California’s electricity crisis continues to put a strain on Western power resources, and the impact is being felt in Washington, D.C. 

Senate Democrats criticized President Bush on Wednesday for refusing to act more aggressively in the crisis and said the problem will spread and worsen this summer unless wholesale energy prices in the state are controlled. 

Meanwhile, Republican lawmakers in California revealed a series of alternative proposals Wednesday to increase the state’s energy supply and encourage conservation. 

“The problem is big and it is going to take a number of large and small steps to solve,” said Senate Republican Leader Jim Brulte, R-Rancho Cucamonga. 

The GOP energy plan includes building more hydroelectric power plants, constructing power plants on military bases, giving local governments the property taxes from power plants it approves, and tax credits for people and businesses who reduce their energy use by 10 percent or more. 

On the Net: 

Read the legislation, AB1X by Assemblyman Fred Keeley, D-Boulder Creek, at www.assembly.ca.gov 

California ISO: www.caiso.com 

FREMONT— Along with their ribs and fries, diners at three Original Hickory Pit restaurants are chewing on a 75-cent surcharge to cover higher energy costs. 

As they take their seats at the restaurants in Fremont, Walnut Creek and Campbell, patrons find fluorescent orange fliers announcing the surcharge right next to their menus. 

“We had to do this to stay in business,” explained owner Tom Kavishi, who started the practice last weekend. 

Energy bills for December and January at the three restaurants increased to $75,000, three times higher than normal.  

Kavishi couldn’t raise menu prices because the restaurants just had spent $5,000 changing menus. 

Kavishi said Wednesday he had qualms about adding the surcharge to bills, but felt he could count on the loyalty of customers who have enjoyed ribs and fresh-baked pies at the restaurants for more than 50 years. 

Kavishi said he will impose the surcharge “as long as the energy crisis is not resolved,” and that it applies only to customers who order full meals – not those who only stop by for a side order of beans. 

One diner told The Oakland Tribune the surcharge was a bad sign of the times. 

“My wife is concerned that other retail establishments will see this and soon everybody will start raising prices,” said Marcus Bruno of Fremont.

CAPE MAY COURT HOUSE, N.J. — When the first verdict was announced, Daniel Cohen clasped his hands together and breathed deeply, overcome by emotion. 

Sitting in his living room watching television, the father of a 20-year-old college student killed in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 sighed with relief. 

“I’m happier than I thought I would be,” he said after a Scottish court convicted Libyan intelligence officer Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi of murder Wednesday. 

Then the second Libyan, Lamen Khalifa Fhimah,  

was acquitted. 

“Both would have been better, but the important thing is that the Libyan government has been indicted in this thing,” said Cohen, 64, who attended the first week of the trial in Camp Zeist, the Netherlands, last May. 

Moments later he fielded a phone call from his wife, Susan, who watched a closed-circuit broadcast of the verdicts in Washington, D.C., along with other victims’ families. 

The Cohens lost their only child, Syracuse University student Theodora Cohen, in the Dec. 21, 1988, bombing over Lockerbie, Scotland. 

Thirty-five other Syracuse students were aboard the plane when a bomb destroyed the plane and rained debris down on the tiny town. Eleven of the 270 victims were killed on the ground. 

Robert and Peggy Hunt of Rochester, N.Y., lost their 20-year-old daughter, Karen. The split verdict left the family determined to pursue civil action that they say will bring to light evidence of deeper involvement by the Libyan government and others. 

“We’re extremely happy that the one defendant was found guilty and disappointed that the other was found not guilty,” Robert Hunt said. “The word ’innocent’ didn’t sit real well.” 

Within hours of the conviction, al-Megrahi was sentenced to a minimum of 20 years in prison. 

“Twenty years – and it’s not exactly hard time – for killing 270 people?” said Cohen. “Of course it’s not fair. But what’s fair for mass murder?” 

George Williams of Joppatowne, Md., who lost his 24-year-old son, Geordie, in the crash, said he was satisfied with the sentence. 

“We’re just looking for justice here. We’re not looking for revenge,” said Williams. “We’re going to hang in there, because we’re going for (Libyan leader Moammar) Gadhafi now.” 

“This is something we’ve waited for a long time,” said Paul Hudson of Washington, whose 16-year-old daughter, Melina, was killed. “To have it come out like this is, of course, very good because it means we’ll probably get close to full justice, and I think we’ll get much more – if not the full – truth.” 

The United Nations imposed sanctions against Libya in 1992 because of its refusal to cooperate in the case, and then-President Clinton ordered sanctions against foreign companies that invest in Libya in 1996. But some of the victims’ relatives say the U.S. government should have acted more aggressively to punish Libya. 

“We are not too hopeful for help from our government. The only reason we had a trial was the persistence of the families,” said Carole Johnson of Greensburg, Pa., whose 21-year-old daughter was killed. Beth Ann Johnson was returning from a semester abroad at Regents College in London where she was a psychology major. 

Victims’ families say the verdict can’t soothe the ache of their losses. 

“We want justice, we want those responsible punished,” said Norma Leckburg, of Cold Spring, N.J., who lost son Robert Leckburg Jr., 30. “But there will never be closure.” 

Leckburg was a product engineer returning to the United States from a business trip to Europe. 

In a federal building in New York City, about 85 family members watched portions of the satellite feed without sound because of technical problems. They later watched a replay with sound. 

“I didn’t have to hear the verdict,” said Bert Ammerman, of Riverdale, N.J., whose brother, Tom Ammerman, died on the flight. “I saw the evidence, and I believed all along that both men were guilty.” 

On the Net: 

Syracuse: http://www.law.syr.edu/academics/academics.asp?whatlockerbie 

NEW YORK — The U.S. Justice Department will not pursue federal civil rights charges against four New York City police officers who killed an unarmed West African immigrant outside his Bronx apartment two years ago, a federal source close to the case said Wednesday. 

The four officers were cleared of murder and other charges in a state criminal trial last year. Amadou Diallo, 22, died in a hail of 41 bullets in what the officers all testified was a tragic error. 

The federal source, speaking on condition of anonymity, told The Associated Press that the decision was pending formal notification of the Diallo family, which was meeting with U.S. Attorney Mary Jo White. 

The Diallo family, along with many of their supporters, had hoped for a federal civil rights prosecution of the officers.  

Diallo was black, and the four undercover officers were white in the Feb. 4, 1999, shooting that exacerbated racial tensions in the city. 

The Diallo family still has a $61 million civil suit against the city, its last legal recourse in the case.  

Diallo was shot when he reached for his wallet; the officers said they believed he was reaching for a gun. 

White’s office proposed the meeting after Robert Conason, the attorney for the victim’s mother Kadiatou Diallo, sent a letter to Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder blasting Justice Department officials. 

“The seeming lack of courage displayed by the failure to either seek an indictment or formally close the investigation could only be taken ... as an example of politics at its worst,” Conason wrote in an excerpt printed in the New York Post, which initially reported the decision not to prosecute the officers on its Web site. 

All of the officers acquitted last year – Kenneth Boss, Sean Carroll, Edward McMellon and Richard Murphy – remain on the force. They were searching for a rape suspect when they stopped Diallo outside his home. 

Federal civil rights prosecutions following state acquittals are extremely rare.  

In the Diallo case, authorities would have required proof that the officers violated Diallo’s civil rights by intentionally using excessive force. 

In the state trial, the officers argued they fired in self defense, believing that Diallo was about to pull a weapon on them. 

The officers were members of the NYPD’s Street Crime Unit at the time of the shooting. They were driving around the Bronx in an unmarked car and wearing plainclothes when they spotted Diallo. 

Shortly after Diallo’s death, White announced her office had begun the civil rights probe. 

White’s office also has a separate, broader investigation under way into police training and practices, especially by the Street Crime Unit. 

The Diallo family, in its civil lawsuit, claims the officers used unnecessary force to deprive their son “his right to life.” 

It also charges the shooting resulted from racial profiling sanctioned by the police department, including stopping and frisking black males without justification.

WASHINGTON — The Federal Reserve, pledging a “rapid and forceful” response to the economy’s dramatic slowdown, cut interest rates on Wednesday by another half percentage point. 

It was the second rate reduction this month and was viewed as a strong signal the central bank plans to move as aggressively as it can to fight the growing threat of a recession. 

The widely expected rate cut drew a far more muted response on Wall Street than the Fed’s surprise announcement of its first half-point reduction on Jan. 3. That move had triggered the biggest one-day rally in Nasdaq’s history. 

On Wednesday, the Dow Jones industrial average ended the day up just 6.16 at 10,887.36 while the Nasdaq fell by 65.46 to 2,772.89, a reaction analysts attributed to profit taking. 

The Fed said it was lowering its target for the federal funds rate, the interest that banks charge each other, to 5.5 percent. It had been at 6.5 percent at the beginning of this month, reflecting six rate increases from June 1999 to May 2000 as the central bank pushed rates higher to slow growth and combat inflation. 

The two half-point cuts marked the first time in Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan’s 13-year tenure that the central bank has reduced the funds rate by a full percentage point in a single month. 

The Fed’s action meant a further drop in borrowing costs for millions of Americans as commercial banks immediately announced reductions in their prime lending rate, the benchmark for many business and consumer loans, by one-half point to 8.5 percent. 

The Fed statement cited a long litany of economic troubles that had caused it to act. 

“Consumer and business confidence has eroded further, exacerbated by rising energy costs that continue to drain consumer purchasing power and press on business profit margins,” the Fed said in its statement. “Taken together, and with inflation contained, these circumstances have called for a rapid and forceful response of monetary policy.” 

Analysts viewed the back-to-back half point reductions and the Fed’s strong language as a clear signal more rate cuts are coming. 

“The Fed is telling us that they are going to do whatever they possibly can to keep us out of a recession,” said Martin Regalia, chief economist at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. 

The Fed’s action came after the government reported Wednesday that economic growth slowed to just 1.4 percent at an annual rate in the final three months of 2000, the weakest increase in the gross domestic product in more than five years. 

Greenspan had told Congress last week that growth in the current quarter could be “very close to zero.” He said whether the economy averts a full-blown recession would determined by how much worried consumers cut back on spending. 

The Conference Board on Tuesday said that its closely followed consumer confidence index fell for a fourth straight month in January, dropping by the largest amount in four years. 

Allen Sinai, chief economist at Decision Economics in New York, said factors such as how much businesses cut back on production and the impact of the California energy crisis will determine whether the GDP turns negative in the first quarter. He said he was currently forecasting a 0.5 percent growth rate. 

“For sure, we are going to have a recession-like environment. That is already here,” Sinai said. “The hope is that this aggressive easing of monetary policy will limit any downturn and shorten its length.” 

The Bush administration has used the spreading economic weakness to sell Congress on the need to act quickly on its $1.6 trillion tax cut. President Bush told reporters Tuesday that he would refrain from any further direct comments on Fed action in order to respect the central bank’s independence. He had praised the Jan. 3 move. 

In a statement, Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill said the administration shares the Fed’s goals of “maintaining healthy economic growth while preserving low inflation.” 

Many saw the Fed’s aggressive easing as an effort by Greenspan to avoid the mistakes that brought on the 1990-91 recession, the only downturn in his tenure. The administration of Bush’s father blamed that downturn on the Fed’s slowness in responding to signs of weakness. 

“There is no question that the Fed chairman is pulling out all the stops to avoid a major blot on his otherwise shining record,” said David Jones, chief economist at Aubrey G. Lanston & Co. in New York. 

Jones predicted the Fed likely will follow up Wednesday’s move with another half-point cut at the next meeting on March 20 or cut rates in two quarter-point moves, with one before the March meeting. 

——— 

On the Net: 

Federal Reserve: http://www.federalreserve.gov 

NEW YORK — With Wall Street increasingly worried about a recession, investors sold off stocks Wednesday after the Federal Reserve said it would lower interest rates for the second time in a month. 

Investors interpreted the Fed’s announcement as a reason to take profits from the market’s recent gains. Although they know lower rates should eventually lift earnings and the economy, investors couldn’t be sure how long that would take. 

Analysts had expected the post-announcement selling because the market had already factored the half-point rate cut into stock prices. 

“This was the most telegraphed rate cut in history,” said Gary Kaltbaum, a technical analyst at JW Genesis. 

“The market is just hanging in there,” Kaltbaum said. “There are still issues in the marketplace, recession and the quality of earnings going forward...The main question now is: Do we go into a recession or not?” 

Investors have been shaken by recent reports showing the economy has slowed more than analysts expected. But they also are optimistic the economy and corporate earnings will pick up as interest rates fall. 

Wall Street has “confidence in that (lower) interest rates usually, but not instantly, improve the economy. But that is being counterbalanced by a litany of downgrades of earnings and layoffs,” said Robert Stovall, market strategist for Prudential Securities. 

Adding to investors’ worries was a report issued earlier by the Commerce Department that said the gross domestic product grew at an annual rate of just 1.4 percent during the final three months of 2000.  

That performance, the weakest in more than five years, was much slower than many analysts expected and was caused by a plunge in spending on cars and computers. 

Investors showed the most caution in the tech sector, which has suffered the bulk of earnings disappointments. Soft profits and reduced outlooks again hurt long-battered stocks. 

— The Associated Press 

Applied Materials lost $2.13 to finish at $50.31. The maker of semiconductor equipment said after the market closed Tuesday that sales for its fiscal first quarter would fall below estimates as customers cut back purchases. 

Amazon.com, which warned late Tuesday of a future slowdown and said it was cutting 1,300 jobs, fell $1.63 to $17.31. 

The Dow got a big boost from the retailing sector, which tends to rise when interest rates are lowered and consumers spend more. Wal-Mart advanced $3.03 to $56.80. 

Stocks in the drug and consumer staple sectors, which typically fare better during economic slowdowns, also provided some lift. Merck rose $1.18 to $82.18, while Procter & Gamble climbed 74 cents to $71.84. 

But financial stocks slipped after experiencing recent gains. American Express traded down 81 cents at $47.10. 

Advancing issues outnumbered decliners 9 to 7 on the New York Stock Exchange, where consolidated volume was 1.55 billion shares, compared with 1.38 billion on Tuesday. 

The Russell 2000 index, which tracks the performance of smaller company stocks, fell 3.32 to 508.34. The Russell was up nearly 3 points before the Fed announcement. 

Overseas markets were mixed. Japan’s Nikkei stock average rose slightly, up 0.1 percent, Germany’s DAX index gained 0.8 percent, and France’s CAC-40 rose 1.4 percent. But Britain’s FT-SE 100 fell 0.6 percent. 

——— 

On the Net: 

New York Stock Exchange: http://www.nyse.com 

Nasdaq Stock Market: http://www.nasdaq.com 

By Michelle Hopey 

Special to the Daily Planet 

A parking crunch at Berkeley High School that forced the school to turn several tennis courts into a parking lot, has left some of the players crying foul. 

Three of the six courts on the corner of Milvia Street and Bancroft Way have been turned over to the faculty for parking. School construction, scheduled to begin this week, will be on the site of former parking, said Berkeley High Principal Frank Lynch.  

“In order for us to provide parking for the staff, we needed to pave three of the tennis courts,” Lynch said. “We didn’t want to risk the chance of teachers not coming to school because they have no place to park.” 

With tennis season set to begin Monday, members of the team say they are upset with the way the school handled the situation. 

“It would have been nice to have some prior notice,” said team captain 18-year old Gabe Zeldin. “I wish they had found us other arrangements before they went ahead and paved it. Now we’re scrambling to find a place to play with less than a week until the season (starts).” 

“It would have been nice to have a say in this decision - since we are the ones who are affected,” said team member Jonah Schrogin, who found out about the plan when he walked by the courts two weeks ago and saw crews pouring asphalt. 

Lynch said the school was not required to hold a public hearing or post notices since the tennis courts are owned by the Berkeley Unified School District and it’s not mandatory for school districts to hold such hearings. He said the students don’t need to worry because the school has already put calls in to UC Berkeley to ask to use their courts and has looked at other facilities. 

The push to add more parking comes with the construction of several new academic buildings at the school. A new physical education building, new administrative building and student center, removes 150 faculty parking spaces, said Board of Education President Terry Doran.  

“The tennis courts were one of our worst alternatives, but one that we were forced to use,” said Doran on Tuesday.  

The paving is only temporary say officials and will continue only until the construction is completed, which is expected to be in about three years. 

Originally, BHS had planned to provide parking on the school’s blacktop during the construction. However, that plan changed after a fire destroyed the B Building last year, forcing the school to install portable classrooms on the blacktop.  

In December, the board approved an interim parking plan which called for a request to the city for up to 110 residential parking permits for faculty members to allow them to park full days on residential streets where non-residents are restricted to two-hour parking. However, according to Doran, the city has yet to respond to the board’s request. 

Three weeks ago, with the start date for construction looming and unsure if the application for parking permits would be accepted, Lynch said the school parking committee, along with the board, made the decision to go ahead and begin paving the lot.  

“ We didn’t know what the outcome would be and the construction was starting,” said Lynch, noting that the new lot gives the school 50 parking spaces.  

“It’s extremely unlikely that they’ll get the permits,” said City Councilmember Dona Spring. “There is just not enough parking in this city.” 

Spring said she is concerned with the impact of turning open-space into a parking lot. She said an environmental assessment should have been done to determine the impact. She worries about the Bancroft Way residents being inundated with car fumes since most of the block is surrounded with parking garages.  

“ The situation is only temporary” said Spring. “I am empathetic to their crunch. It is a crisis - they’re really between a rock and a hard place.”  

Regardless, the tennis team, which ranked number two in the East Bay Athletic League last year, is in limbo. 

“ We’re just not sure what we’re going to do,” said Dan Seguin, the BHS tennis coach. “It’s going be hard to run matches on three courts. I mean we can run varsity on three courts, but not junior varsity.  

Seguin fears the JV team will suffer the most, since the JV will probably no longer be able to practice with the varsity team. That will affect the program negatively in the next few years, he said. 

He anticipates that next week will be difficult with try-outs on only three courts.  

“ They say it’s temporary, but I don’t believe them,” said Gabe Zeldin. “ I just hope they find us good facilities to use.”

I called Radio Mindanao today at 3 pm PST to make the following appeal:  

Thank you for allowing me to speak on your radio program. My name is Carol Schilling and I am the mother of Jeffrey Schilling.  

I am asking your listeners for their help to secure the safe release of Jeffrey Schilling, a Muslim convert who is being held captive by the Abu Sayyaf on Jolo. I am asking you to please pray for my son. Please add your voice to mine when I appeal for his release.  

Jeffrey is a goodhearted, well-intentioned Muslim who regularly performed zakat (giving money) for the Filipino Muslim community and others in need.  

Holding Jeffrey captive is counterproductive for the goals of the Abu Sayyaf. It makes no sense for Abu Sayyaf to hold anyone against his will, most especially a fellow Muslim.  

Jeffrey is very sick. I am distressed by this news.  

The Abu Sayyaf knows how sick he is and can raise themselves in world opinion by releasing my son so he can get the medical care he needs.  

Jeffrey's Muslim name is Abdur Rahman, servant to the Most Merciful. Please join me in calling upon the Abu Sayyaf to show mercy by releasing Jeffrey Schilling safely and immediately.  

His wife, Ivy Osani, and I are desperate to hear that Jeffrey is free to reunite with us, especially on the occasion of his 25th birthday this coming Sunday.  

To Jeffrey I say “I love you, Jeffrey, and I pray every day for your safe and immediate release. I pray for your well-being. I pray for your heart, that you can feel the love we are sending to you.”  

Carol Schilling  

Oakland 

924 Gilman St. All shows begin at 8 p.m. unless noted $5; $2 for a year membership 

Jan. 26: Tragedy, Yaphet Kotto, Esperanza, Under a Dying Sun; Jan. 28, 5 p.m.: 18 Visions, 12 Tribes, Blood Has Been Shed, Anti Domestix; Feb. 2: Nerve Agents, Jemuel, The Blottos; Feb 3.: Time In Malta, The Cost 525-9926  

Albatross Pub All music at 9 p.m. unless noted Feb. 1: Keni “El Lebrijano”; Feb. 3: Mad & Eddie Duran Jazz Quartet; Feb. 6: Pickpocket Ensemble; Feb. 7: Whiskey Brothers; Feb. 8: Keni “El Lebrijano”; Feb. 13: Mad & Eddie Duran Jazz Duo; Feb. 14: Carlos Oliveira Brazilian Jazz Duo 1822 San Pablo 843-2473 

Ashkenaz Jan. 31, 9 p.m.: Cajun Coyotes, dance lesson at 8 p.m. 1370 San Pablo Ave. (at Gilman) 525-5054 or www.ashkenaz.com  

Eli’s Mile High Club Feb. 2: Henry Clement; Feb. 3: Daniel Castro; Feb. 9: Red Archibald; Feb. 10: Kenny Blue Ray; Feb. 16: Little Johnny & the Giants; Feb. 17: Ron Thompson; Feb. 23: Carlos Zialcita; Feb. 24: R.J. Mischo 3629 MLK Jr. Way Oakland  

Freight & Salvage All shows begin at 8 p.m. Jan. 31: Slack Key Guitar Festival w/George Kahumoku, Jr., Princess Owana Salazar, Daniel Ho; Feb. 1: International Guitar Night with Andrew York, Laurence Juber, Peppino D’Agostino, and Brian Gore; Feb. 2: Cats & Jammers; Feb. 3: Lou & Peter Berryman; Feb. 4: Dave Van Ronk; Feb. 5: Tony Trischka & Junk Genius; Feb. 6: Chuck Brodsky; Feb. 7: Keola Beamer with Moana Beamer; Feb. 8 & 9: Ralph Stanley & the Clinch Mountain Boys; Feb. 10: Baguette Quartette with Odile Lavault; Feb.11: Bob Franke 1111 Addison St. 548-1761  

Jazzschool/La Note All shows at 4:30 p.m.Tickets are $10 - $12  

Jan. 28: Ann Dyer Trio; Feb. 4: Jeff Chambers and the J2W Project 2377 Shattuck Ave. 845-5373 

Cal Performances Feb. 2 & 3, 8 p.m.: Allee der Kosmonauten by Berlin choreographer Sasha Waltz with video installations by New York artist Elliot Caplan, $20 - $42; Feb. 4, 4 p.m.: Russian National Orchestra, $30 - $52; Feb. 10, 8 p.m.: Masters of Persian Classical Music, $20 - $40; Feb. 16 & 17, 8 p.m.: Balinese Orchestra Gamelan Sekar Jaya present “Kawit Legong: Prince Karna’s Dream,” $18 - $30. Zellerbach Hall UC Berkeley. 642-9988 or www.calperfs.berkeley.edu Feb. 11, 3 p.m.: Horacio Gutierrez $24 - $42 Hertz Hall UC Berkeley 

“Clori, Tirsi e Fileno” Jan. 27, 8 p.m.; Jan. 28, 7 p.m. Pre-concert talk 45 minutes before each performance. Teatro Bacchino, the Bay Area’s Baroque Opera company perform Handel’s opera. $15 - $20. Crowden School Theater 1475 Rose St. (at Sacramento) 658-3382 

Berkeley Symphony Orchestra Jan. 31, April 3, and June 21, 2001. All performances begin at 8 p.m. Single $19 - $35, Series $52 - $96. Zellerbach Hall, UC Berkeley 841-2800  

Eighth Annual Robert Burns Birthday Celebration Feb. 2, 8 p.m. and Feb. 4, 7 p.m. A celebration of Scotland’s beloved 18th century poet: his songs, his letters, his life. St. Alban’s Episcopal Church 1501 Washington Ave (at Curtis) Albany 848-3422 

Empyrean Ensemble Feb. 3, 3 p.m. The ensemble will present “The Soldier’s Tale,” by Igor Stravinsky, “Prosperous Sould, Gregarious Heart,” by Peter Josheff, and “Horizon Unfolds,” by Yu-Hui Chang. $4 - $10 Julia Morgan Center for the Arts 2640 College Ave. (at Derby) 925-798-1300 

Flauti Diversi Ensemble Feb. 4, 7:30 p.m. Performing the music of 17th and early 18th century composers on baroque instruments in a program titled “Bell Fiore, Belle Fleur.” $10 - $15 Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley 1 Lawson Rd. 525-0302 

“Mostly Baroque” Feb. 4, 5 p.m. Instrumental works by Corelli, Schickhardt, Quantz, Mozart, a new work by Glen Shannon and Bach’s Cantana 82. Donations accepted Church of Saint Mary Magdalen 2005 Berryman (at Milvia)  

Toshi Makihara & Colin Stetson Feb. 4, 7:48 p.m. Philadephia percussionist Makihara teams up with local solo saxophonist Voigt and local contrabassist Morgan Guberman for an evening of improvised music. $8 donation Tuva Space 3192 Adeline (at MLK Jr. Way) 649-8744 

“Songs for the Young at Heart” Feb. 10, 4 p.m. Featuring La Bonne Cuisine by Bernstein and The Shepherd on the Rock by Schubert. Donations accepted St. John’s Presbyterian Church 2727 College Ave.  

Community Women’s Orchestra Feb. 11, 4 p.m. Pieces to be played include those written by Berkeley High students Ariel Wolter and Maianna Voge. Donations accepted Malcolm X School 1731 Prince St. 653-1616 

Percussions Du Guinee Feb. 16 & 17, 8 p.m. Feb. 18, 7 p.m. Internationally respected Guinean percussionists craft a performance simultaneously inspired by traditional music, yet modern in presentation. $20 - $25 925-798-1300 

“Fall” by Bridget Carpenter Through Feb. 11. $15.99 - $51. Berkeley Repertory Theatre 2025 Addison St. 647-2949, www. berkeleyrep.org 

“In Search of my Clitoris” Written and performed by Sia Amma Feb. 1 & 2, 8 p.m. La Pena Cultural Center 3105 Shattuck Ave. Feb. 8 & 9, 8 p.m. Julia Morgan Center for the Arts 2640 College Ave. $12 - $14 415-775-6608 

“Waiting for Godot” by Samuel Beckett Through Feb. 3, Thursday - Saturday, 8 p.m. $8 - $12. Subterranean Shakespeare La Val’s Subterranean 1834 Euclid (at Hearst) 234-6046  

“The Road to Mecca” by Athol Fugard Through Feb. 24, Friday - Saturday, 8 p.m. Feb. 22, 8 p.m. $10 Live Oak Theatre 1301 Shattuck 528-5620 

“Nightingale” presented by Central Works Theater Feb. 9 - March 4, Friday & Saturday, 8 p.m.; Sunday, 5 p.m.; Saturday, Feb. 24 & Saturday, March 3, 5 p.m.; Free preview Feb. 8, 8 p.m. $8 - $14 LaVal’s Subterranean 1834 Euclid Ave. 558-1381 

“Someone Who’ll Watch Over Me” by Frank MacGuinness Feb. 15 - March 17, Thursday - Saturday, 8 p.m. Sunday, 8:30 p.m. The story of three men - an Irishman, an Englishman and an American held in a prison in Lebanon. $10 - $15 8th St. Studio Theatre 2525 Eighth St. (at Dwight) 655-0813 

“Magnetic North” Six programs of experimental Canadian video from the past 30 years that range from documentary to conceptual art. In all, 40 tapes from 46 artists will be shown on six Wednesday evenings. Through Feb. 28. $7. Pacific Film Archive 2575 Bancroft (at Bowditch) 642-1412  

“Durruti and the Spanish Revolution” The LaborFest U.S. premiere screening and dicussion of this documentary which tells the story of the Confederation National del Trabajo during the Spanish Civil War. Feb. 11, 7:30 p.m. $7 donation requested. La Pena Cultural Center 3105 Shattuck Ave. 415-642-8066 

“Toto Recall” A 15-film retrospective honoring Italy’s comic genius. Feb. 3 - Feb. 24 Weekend days only, Friday - Sunday. $7 for one film, $8.50 for double bills. Pacific Film Archive 2575 Bancroft Way (at Bowditch) 642-1412 

Boadecia’s Books All events at 7:30 p.m., unless noted Feb. 10: Karin Kallmaker reads from “Sleight of Hand”; Feb. 23: Becky Thompson reads “Mothering Without a Compass: White Mother’s Love, Black Son’s Courage” 398 Colusa Ave. Kensington 559-9184. www.boadeciasbooks.com 

Cody’s Books All events at 7:30 p.m., unless noted Jan. 31: Poetry of Steven Ajay & Anita Barrows  

“Strong Women - Writers & Heroes of Literature” Fridays Through June, 2001, 1 - 3 p.m. Taught by Dr. Helen Rippier Wheeler, author of “Women and Aging: A Guide to Literature,” this is a free weekly literature course in the Berkeley Adult School’s Older Adults Program. North Berkeley Senior Center 1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way) 549-2970  

Duomo Reading Series and Open Mic. Thursdays, 6:30 - 9 p.m. Feb. 1: John Rowe; Feb. 8: Tom Odegard; Feb 15: Kathleen Lynch; Feb. 22: Charles Ellick; March 1: Eliza Shefler; March 8: Judy Wells; March 15: Elanor Watson-Gove; March 22: Anna Mae Stanley; March 29: Georgia Popoff. Cafe Firenze 2116 Shattuck Ave. 644-0155. 

Lunch Poems First Thursday of each month, 12:10 - 12:50 p.m. Feb. 1: Sherman Alexie; March 1: Aleida Rodrigues; April 5: Galway Kinnell; May 3: Student Reading Morrison Room, Doe Library UC Berkeley 642-0137 

Robert Hass Former U.S. Poet Laureate will read Jan. 31, Noon - 1 p.m. Lower Sproul Plaza, Pauley Ballroom in case of rain UC Berkeley 

Tours 

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Free. University of California, Berkeley. 486-4387 

Berkeley City Club Tours 2315 Durant Ave., Berkeley. 848-7800  

The fourth Sunday of every month, Noon - 4 p.m. $2  

Golden Gate Live Steamers Grizzly Peak Boulevard and Lomas Cantadas Drive at the south end of Tilden Regional Park, Berkeley. 486-0623  

Small locomotives, meticulously scaled to size. Trains run Sunday, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Rides: Sunday, noon to 3 p.m., weather permitting.  

UC Berkeley Botanical Garden Centennial Drive, behind Memorial Stadium, a mile below the Lawrence Hall of Science, Berkeley. 643-2755 or www.mip.berkeley.edu/garden/  

The gardens have displays of exotic and native plants. Tours, Saturday and Sunday, 1:30 p.m. $3 general; $2 seniors; $1 children; free on Thursday. Daily, 9 a.m. to 4:45 p.m. 

Lectures 

Berkeley Historical Society Slide Lecture & Booksigning Series Sundays, 3 - 5 p.m. $10 donation requested Jan. 28: “The Finns in Berkeley and Co-op Beginnings,” a panel discussion on Finnish and Co-op history; March 11: Director of Berkeley’s International House, Joe Lurie, will show a video and dicuss the history and struggle to open the I-House 70 years ago. Berkeley Historical Center Veterans Memorial Building 1931 Center St. 848-0181 

“Great Decisions” Foreign Policy Association Lectures Series Tuesdays, 10 a.m. - Noon, Feb. 13 - April 3; An annual program featuring specialists in the field of national foreign policy, many from University of California. Goal is to inform the public on major policy issues and receive feedback from the public. $5 per session, $35 entire series for single person, $60 entire series for couple. Berkeley City Club 2315 Durant Ave. 526-2925 

Wednesday, Jan. 31

Planning Commission Hearing on the Oxford lot 

7 p.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center 

Martin Luther King Jr. Way at Hearst Ave. 

Berkeley Symphony Orchestra  

8 p.m. 

Zellerbach Hall  

UC Berkeley  

Featuring “Berkeley Images,” a world premiere by Jean-Pascal Beintus.  

$10 - $35 Call 841-2800 

Conversations in Commedia 

7:30 p.m. 

La Pena Cultural Center 

3105 Shattuck Ave. (at Prince) 

Mime Troupe vet and St. Stupid’s Day creator, Ed Holmes, and 84-year-old Bari Rolfe, a mime for over 30 years, give dialogues on satire.  

$6 - $8  

Call 849-2568 

Stagebridge Free Acting & Storytelling Classes for  

Seniors 

10 a.m. - 3 p.m. 

First Congregational Church  

2501 Harrison St.  

Oakland  

Call 444-4755 or visit www.stagebridge.org 

Berkeley High Poetry Slam  

6:30 p.m.  

Berkeley High School  

2246 Milvia St., Room G-210 

A preliminary round for the regional poetry slams sponsored by youth speaks.  

Human Welfare & Community Action Commission 

7 p.m. 

South Berkeley Senior Center 

2939 Ellis St.  

The Poetry of Robert Hass 

Noon - 1 p.m. 

Lower Sproul Plaza 

UC Berkeley 

Former U.S. Poet Laureate will read.  

Public Exposure: DNA,  

Democracy and the “Wireless Revolution” 

7:15 p.m.  

Community Meeting Room 

Public Safety Building 

2100 Martin Luther King Jr. Way 

A video on the health risks of wireless communication technology. 

Thursday, Feb. 1

Free “Quit Smoking” Class 

5:30 - 7:30 p.m. 

South Berkeley Senior Center 

2939 Ellis (at Ashby)  

Cease your smoking with the help of this free class offered to Berkeley residents and employees. 

Call 644-6422 to enroll or e-mail quitnow@ci.berkeley.ca.us 

Duomo Readings Open Mic.  

6:30 - 9 p.m. 

Cafe Firenze  

2116 Shattuck Ave.  

With featured poet John Rowe and host Randy Fingland.  

644-0155 

Hiking the California Desert  

7 p.m. 

Recreational Equipment, Inc. 

1338 San Pablo Ave.  

Steve Tabor of the conservation group Desert Survivors presents a slide-show of highlights from his reconnaissance trips along more than 400 miles of trail. Free  

Call 527-7377  

Berkeley Metaphysical  

Toastmasters Club  

6:15 - 7:30 p.m.  

2515 Hillegass Ave.  

Public speaking skills and metaphysics come together. Ongoing first and third Thursdays each month.  

Call 869-2547 

Dark Caves & Sunlight 

7 - 9 p.m. 

Hillside Community Church  

1422 Navellier St.  

El Cerrito 

A series of Thursday evenings of conversation “engaging people in discovering the pleasures of an excellent discussion.” Explore the origins of how people speak to each other. $10  

Friday, Feb. 2

Strong Women - Writers & 

Heroes of Literature 

1 - 3 p.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center  

1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way) 

Taught by Dr. Helen Rippier Wheeler, author of “Women and Aging: A Guide to Literature,” this is a free weekly literature course in the Berkeley Adult School’s Older Adults Program.  

Call 549-2970  

Allee der Kosmontauten 

8 p.m. 

Zellerbach Hall  

UC Berkeley  

Performance of Berlin choreographer Sasha Waltz 1996 work in its West Coast premiere. Also features the film work of Elliot Caplan. $20 - $42  

Call 642-9988 or e-mail tickets@calperfs.berkeley.edu  

“A Night In Oakland” 

8 p.m. 

Alice Arts Center 

1428 Alice St. (at 14th St.) 

Oakland  

Savage Jazz Dance Company launches their 2001 spring season along with the Marcus Shelby Jazz Orchestra.  

$10 - $15 

Call 496-6068 or visit  

www.savagejazz.org 

Stagebridge Free Acting  

& Storytelling 

Classes for Seniors 

10 a.m. - 3 p.m. 

First Congregational Church  

2501 Harrison St.  

Oakland  

Call 444-4755 or visit www.stagebridge.org 

Taize Worship Service  

7:30 - 8:30 p.m. 

Loper Chapel  

(adjacent to) First Congregational Church of Berkeley  

2345 Channing Way 848-3696 

Saturday, Feb. 3

Spirits in the Time of AIDS Artists Talk 

1 p.m. 

Pro Arts Gallery  

461 Ninth St.  

As part of “Consecrations,” the public is invited to hear artists speak about their work and show slides. Free 

Call 763-9425 

Free Tae-Bo Classes for Adults  

10 - 10:45 a.m.  

Frances Albrier Community Center  

San Pablo Park 

2800 Park St.  

Call 644-8515 

Free Martial Arts Classes for Kids  

11:15 a.m. - 2 p.m. 

Frances Albrier Community Center  

San Pablo Park  

2800 Park St.  

Classes taught by Michael Johnson, a fourth degree black belt. Ages 5 - 7, 11:15 a.m. - Noon; Ages 8 - 12, 12:15 p.m. - 1 p.m.; Ages 13 to adults, 1:15 p.m. - 2 p.m. 

644-8515 

Free Sailboat Rides  

1 - 4 p.m. 

Cal Sailing Club 

Berkeley Marina 

The Cal Sailing Club, a non-profit sailing and windsurfing cooperative, give free rides on a first come, first served bases on the first full weekend of each month. Wear warm clothes and bring a change of clothes in case you get wet. Children must be at least five years old and must be accompanies by an adult.  

Visit www.cal-sailing.org  

Fruit Tree Pruning 

10 a.m. - Noon  

Ecology Center Library  

2530 San Pablo Ave.  

An introductory class for the home fruit grower. Class taught by Greg Peck, owner of an organic landscape and garden design business in the East Bay.  

$7.50 - $10  

Call 548-2220 

Women’s Evening at the Movies 

7:30 p.m. 

Pacific Center 

2712 Telegraph Ave.  

“Late Bloomer,” the story of a high school basketball coach who realizes she’s fallen for the school secretary. Women’s Evening at the Movies is the first Saturday of every month.  

Visit www.pacificcenter.org 

— compiled by  

Chason Wainwright 

Empyrean Ensemble 

4 p.m. 

Julia Morgan Theater 

2640 College Ave. 

Featuring a commissioned piece, “Prosperous Soul, Gregarious Heart,” newly composed by Peter Josheff in honor of his late father.  

Call 845-8542 

Sunday, Feb. 4 

“Under Construction No. 10” 

7:30 p.m. 

St. John’s Presbyterian Church  

2727 College Ave.  

Experience the unusual rehearsal-reading format that lets the audience experience the collaboration between conductor, orchestra and composer in the Berkeley Symphony’s unique series presenting new works or works-in-progress by local Bay Area composers.  

Call 841-2800 

Russian National Orchestra  

4 p.m. 

Zellerbach Hall  

UC Berkeley  

On their tenth anniversary tour, the RNO will perform Shostakovich’s symphony No. 5 and Tchaikovsky’s piano concerto No. 2.  

$30 - $52  

Call 642-9988 or e-mail tickets@calperfs.berkeley.edu  

From Flatlands to the Stars  

9:30 a.m. - 3 p.m. 

Diamond Park  

Fruitvale Ave. (at Lyman Rd.) 

A hardy hike along Sausal Creek in Oakland’s unexplored Diamond and Joaquin Miller parks. A free hike sponsored by Greenbelt Alliance.  

Call 415-255-3233 for reservations or visit www.greenbelt.org 

Timbrels & Torahs: Celebrating Wisdom,  

Celebrating Age  

10:30 a.m. - 12:30 p.m. 

Berkeley Richmond Jewish Community Center 

1414 Walnut St.  

Miriam Chaya and Judy Montell discuss their Simchat Hochmah ceremony, which celebrates a woman’s transition from mid-life to her eldering years.  

Call 848-0237 x127 

“A Night In Oakland” 

2 & 8 p.m. 

Alice Arts Center 

1428 Alice St. (at 14th St.) 

Oakland  

Savage Jazz Dance Company launches their 2001 spring season along with the Marcus Shelby Jazz Orchestra.  

$10 - $15 

Call 496-6068 or visit www.savagejazz.org 

Spiritual & Cultural Context of Mbira  

8 p.m. 

Shambhala Booksellers  

2482 Telegraph Ave.  

Berkeley native Erica Azim has played Shona mbira music for 30 years, and is the foremost mbira performer and recording artist in the U.S. The mbira has metal keys which are plucked with two thumbs and one forefinger, “creating relaxing yet invigorating polyphony and polyrhythms.” Free 

Call 848-8443 

Solving the East Bay Energy Crisis 

3 p.m. 

Berkeley Fellowship Unitarian Universalists 

Fellowship Hall  

1924 Cedar (at Bonita) 

Barbara George of Women’s Energy Matters and a Utility Reform Network representative, Kris Worthington, Berkeley city council member, Ross Mirkarimi of the Green Party, and others will discuss the past and future of the energy situation in the East Bay, including possibilities of conservation, clean, renewable energy and municipally-owned public utilities.  

Call 233-3175 

Free Sailboat Rides  

1 - 4 p.m. 

Cal Sailing Club 

Berkeley Marina 

The Cal Sailing Club, a non-profit sailing and windsurfing cooperative, give free rides on a first come, first served bases on the first full weekend of each month. Wear warm clothes and bring a change of clothes in case you get wet. Children must be at least five years old and must be accompanies by an adult.  

Visit www.cal-sailing.org  

Meditations for Relieving Pain 

6 p.m. 

Tibetan Nyingma Institute  

1815 Highland Pl.  

Sylvia Gretchen presents specific meditations and visualization practices that can help to relieve physical and mental pain. Free 

Call 843-6812 

Tibetan Nyingma Institute Open House 

3 - 5 p.m. 

Tibetan Nyingma Institute 

1815 Highland Pl.  

A free introduction to Tibetan Buddhist culture including a prayer wheel and meditation garden tour and yoga demonstration. Refreshments will be served. Free 

Call 843-6812 

Monday, Feb. 5  

Youth Commission  

6 p.m. 

Martin Luther King Jr. Youth Center 

1730 Oregon St.  

Rent Stabalization Board 

7 p.m. 

2134 MLK Jr. Way 

Second Floor Council Chamber 

Personnel Board Meeting  

7 p.m. 

Permit Center 

2118 Milvia St.  

First Floor Conference Room  

Landmarks Preservation Commission  

7:30 p.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center 

1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way) 

Peace & Justice Commission  

7 p.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center 

1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way) 

Tuesday, Feb. 6  

Berkeley Intelligent Conversation  

7 p.m. - 9 p.m.  

Jewish Community Center  

1414 Walnut Ave. (at Rose)  

With no religious affiliation, this twice-monthly group, led informally by former UC Berkeley extension lecturer Robert Berent, seeks to bring people together to have interesting discussions on contemporary topics. This evenings discussion topic is sex, love, dating, and relationships in celebration of Valentine’s Day.  

Call 527-5332  

Berkeley Camera Club  

7:30 p.m. 

Northbrae Community Church  

941 The Alameda  

Share your slides and learn what other photographers are doing. Monthly field trips. 

Call Wade, 531-8664 

Free! Early Music Group  

10 - 11:30 a.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center 

1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way)  

A small group who sing madrigals and other voice harmonies. Their objective: To enjoy making music and building musical skills.  

Call Ann 655-8863 or e-mail: ann@integratedarts.org 

Wednesday, Feb. 7  

Stagebridge Free Acting & Storytelling 

Classes for Seniors 

10 a.m. - 3 p.m. 

First Congregational Church  

2501 Harrison St.  

Oakland  

Call 444-4755 or visit www.stagebridge.org 

Legacy to Liberation  

7 p.m. 

Revolution Books  

2425 Channing Way  

A roundtable discussion by contributors to the recently published anthology “Politics and Culture of Revolutionary Asian Pacific America.” Contributors include Richard Aoki, Yuri Kockiyama, Sun Lee and Dolly Veale.  

$2 donation  

848-1196 

Thursday, Feb. 8 

Free “Quit Smoking” Class 

5:30 - 7:30 p.m. 

South Berkeley Senior Center 

2939 Ellis (at Ashby)  

Cease your smoking with the help of this free class offered to Berkeley residents and employees. 

Call 644-6422 to enroll or e-mail quitnow@ci.berkeley.ca.us 

Duomo Readings Open Mic.  

6:30 - 9 p.m. 

Cafe Firenze  

2116 Shattuck Ave.  

With featured poet Tom Odegard and host Dale Jensen.  

644-0155 

Great Mt. Diablo Day Hikes 

7 p.m. 

Recreational Equipment, Inc. 

1338 San Pablo Ave.  

Ken Lavin, former president of Mt. Diablo Interpretative Association, for a slide-show of his favorite day hikes in Mt. Diablo State Park.  

Call 527-7377  

Jam Session  

7 p.m. 

Maurice’s Cafe 

6038 Telegraph 

Oakland 

Poetry with jazz featuring Jimmy Sands.  

Call 653-6775 

Exploring Surfaces  

7 - 9 p.m. 

Hillside Community Church  

1422 Navellier St.  

El Cerrito 

A series of Thursday evenings of conversation “engaging people in discovering the pleasures of an excellent discussion.” Transverse the world’s ecological regions, describing what you know and what you’ve heard. 

$10  

Friday, Feb. 9  

Strong Women - Writers & 

Heroes of Literature 

1 - 3 p.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center  

1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way) 

Taught by Dr. Helen Rippier Wheeler, author of “Women and Aging: A Guide to Literature,” this is a free weekly literature course in the Berkeley Adult School’s Older Adults Program.  

Call 549-2970  

Stagebridge Free Acting & Storytelling 

Classes for Seniors 

10 a.m. - 3 p.m. 

First Congregational Church  

2501 Harrison St.  

Oakland  

Call 444-4755 or visit www.stagebridge.org 

Berkeley PC Users Group 

7 p.m. 

Vista College 

2020 Milvia St., Room 303 

E-Mail: meldancing@aol.com 

Introducing: Julia Morgan School for Girls 

7:30 - 8:30 a.m. 

Julia Morgan School for Girls 

Holy Names College 

Sky Room, Durocher Hall 

3510 Mountain Blvd.  

Oakland 

A select gathering of business and professional women devoted to fostering leadership in the young girls in our community.  

Saturday, Feb. 10  

Spirits in the Time of AIDS Open Mic.  

1 p.m. 

Pro Arts Gallery  

461 Ninth St.  

Oakland  

As part of “Consecrations,” the public is invited to see special performances, spoken word, commentary and more.  

Call 763-9425 

Masters of Persian Classical Music 

8 p.m. 

Zellerbach Hall  

UC Berkeley  

Featuring vocalist Mohammad Reza Sharjarian and his son, Homayoun Sharjarian.  

$20 - $40  

Call 642-9988 or e-mail tickets@calperfs.berkeley.edu  

Dreams & Intuition 

10 a.m. - 4 p.m. 

1502 Tenth St.  

Marcia Emery, Ph.D., will discuss how to attune your intuitive dream antenna, intuitively unravel the symbolic message of a dream symbol and apply an intuitive dream interpretation method to the entire dream.  

$85  

Call 526-5510 

“The West Wing Meets the East Bay” 

7:30 p.m. 

Saint Joseph the Worker Church 

1640 Addison St.  

A conversation with Martin Sheen. Tickets available at Black Oak Books, Cody’s Books, St. Joseph the Worker Church, and at the door.  

$20 donation 

525-3787  

Sunday, Feb. 11  

Ruth Acty Oral History Reception 

3 - 5 p.m. 

Berkeley Historical Society  

Veterans Memorial Building 

1931 Center St.  

In 1943 Miss Ruth Acty became the first African American teacher to be hired by the Berkeley Unified School District. She taught thousands of students until her retirement in 1985. Oral History Coordinator Therese Pipe interviewed Acty in 1993-94 for the Berkeley Historical Society. Free  

Horacio Gutierrez  

3 p.m. 

Hertz Hall 

UC Berkeley  

The Cuban-American pianist will perform Berg’s Sonata, Op.1, George Perle’s Nine Bagatelles, Schumann’s Fantasie, Op. 17 and Beethoven’s Sonata No. 29.  

$24 - $42  

Call 642-9988 or e-mail tickets@calperfs.berkeley.edu  

Reimagining Pacific Cities  

6 - 8:30 p.m. 

New Pacific Studio  

1523 Hearst Ave.  

“How are Pacific cities reshaping their cultural and environmental institutions to better serve the needs and enhance the present and future quality of life of all segments of their societies?” A series of ten seminars linking the Bay Area, Seattle, Portland, and other pacific cities.  

$10 per meeting  

Call 849-0217 

“From Swastika to Jim Crow” 

2 - 4:30 p.m. 

Berkeley Richmond Jewish Community Center 

1414 Walnut St.  

Due to the depression and anti-Semitism in the ‘30s, many Jewish “refugee scholars” found they had difficulty finding jobs and were embraced by black universities. Both students and teachers, in the pre-Civil Rights era, found they shared a common experience of living under oppression and a passion for education. Guest speaker Jim McWilliams.  

$2 suggested donation  

Call 848-0237 x127 

Why Do a Long Retreat? 

6 p.m. 

Tibetan Nyingma Institute 

1815 Highland Pl.  

Retreatants from Holland, Brazil, Germany, and other places share how they made the time to participate in two and four month retreats.  

Call 843-6812 

Tuesday, Feb. 13 

“Great Decisions” - U.S. Trade Policy 

10 a.m. - Noon  

Berkeley City Club  

2315 Durant Ave.  

The first in a series of eight weekly lectures with the goal of informing the public of current major policy issues. Many of the lectures are presented by specialists in their field and are often from the University of California. Feedback received at these lectures is held in high regard by those in the government responsible for national policy.  

$5 single session, $35 entire series for single person, $60 entire series for couple  

Call Berton Wilson, 526-2925 

Berkeley Camera Club  

7:30 p.m. 

Northbrae Community Church  

941 The Alameda  

Share your slides and learn what other photographers are doing. Monthly field trips. 

Call Wade, 531-8664 

Free! Early Music Group  

10 - 11:30 a.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center 

1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way)  

A small group who sing madrigals and other voice harmonies. Their objective: To enjoy making music and building musical skills.  

Call Ann 655-8863 or e-mail: ann@integratedarts.org 

Wednesday, Feb. 14 

Stagebridge Free Acting & Storytelling 

Classes for Seniors 

10 a.m. - 3 p.m. 

First Congregational Church  

2501 Harrison St.  

Oakland  

Call 444-4755 or visit www.stagebridge.org 

Faye Carol Sings Lady Day 

7:30 p.m. 

King Middle School  

1781 Rose St.  

A tribute to Billie Holiday including Lady Day’s most popular songs, including “Strange Fruit,” “Good Morning Heartache,” “God Bless the Child” and “You Let Me Down.” Benefit for KPFA Radio and La Pena Cultural Center.  

$15 

Call 848-6767 x609 or visit www.kpfa.org 

Thursday, Feb. 15 

Simplicity Forum 

7 - 8:30 p.m. 

Berkeley Library 

Claremont Branch  

2940 Benveue Ave.  

Facilitated by Cecile Andrews, author of “Circles of Simplicty,” learn about this movement whose philosophy is “the examined life richly lived.” Work less, consume less, rush less, and build community with friends and family.  

Call 549-3509 or visit www.seedsofsimplicity.org  

Basics of PCs 

9 a.m. - 3 p.m. 

Lawrence Hall of Science  

UC Berkeley 

A class for adults that will cover file management, loading software, software management, downloading pages from the Web, and more. 

$30 - $35, registration required  

Call 642-5134  

Free “Quit Smoking” Class 

5:30 - 7:30 p.m. 

South Berkeley Senior Center 

2939 Ellis (at Ashby)  

Cease your smoking with the help of this free class offered to Berkeley residents and employees. 

Call 644-6422 to enroll or e-mail quitnow@ci.berkeley.ca.us 

Natural Conversations 

7 - 9 p.m. 

Hillside Community Church  

1422 Navellier St.  

El Cerrito 

A series of Thursday evenings of conversation “engaging people in discovering the pleasures of an excellent discussion.” Focus on conversations in nature and explore what they are meant to convey.  

$10  

Duomo Readings Open Mic.  

6:30 - 9 p.m. 

Cafe Firenze  

2116 Shattuck Ave.  

With featured poet Kathleen Lynch and host Mark States.  

644-0155 

Climbing Mt. Shasta 

7 p.m. 

Recreational Equipment, Inc. 

1338 San Pablo Ave.  

Tim Keating of Sierra Wilderness Seminars will give a slide presentation on climbing and skiing this North California peak.  

Call 527-7377  

Berkeley Metaphysical Toastmasters Club  

6:15 - 7:30 p.m.  

2515 Hillegass Ave.  

Public speaking skills and metaphysics come together. Ongoing first and third Thursdays each month.  

Call 869-2547 

Friday, Feb. 16 

Strong Women - Writers & 

Heroes of Literature 

1 - 3 p.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center  

1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way) 

Taught by Dr. Helen Rippier Wheeler, author of “Women and Aging: A Guide to Literature,” this is a free weekly literature course in the Berkeley Adult School’s Older Adults Program.  

Call 549-2970  

Stagebridge Free Acting & Storytelling 

Classes for Seniors 

10 a.m. - 3 p.m. 

First Congregational Church  

2501 Harrison St.  

Oakland  

Call 444-4755 or visit www.stagebridge.org 

Saturday, Feb. 17  

“Go-Go-Go Greenbelt!” 

10 a.m. - 2 p.m. 

Rockridge BART  

Oakland  

A bike tour on this ride into the rolling East Bay hills. A free ride sponsored by Greenbelt Alliance.  

Call 415-255-3233 for reservations or visit www.greenbelt.org 

Rockridge Writers 

3:30 - 5:30 p.m. 

Spasso Coffeehouse  

6021 College Ave.  

Poets and writers meet to critique each other’s work. “Members’ work tends to be dark, humorous, surreal, or strange.”  

e-mail: berkeleysappho@yahoo.com 

Valentine’s Dinner Dance Benefit Gala 

4:30 p.m. - 10 p.m. 

Berkeley Fellowship Unitarian Universalists hall  

1924 Cedar (at Bonita)  

Dance to the music of Toru Saitu & his band. Benefits BFUU.  

$10 donation  

Call 849-9508 

Sunday, Feb. 18  

Waterfalls of Berkeley  

10 a.m. - 4 p.m. 

North Berkeley BART  

Sacramento at Delaware  

On this urban waterfall hike, discover three waterfalls along rushing creeks hidden in Berkeley neighborhoods. A free hike sponsored by Greenbelt Alliance.  

Call 415-255-3233 for reservations or visit www.greenbelt.org 

Kaleidoscope Performances  

2 p.m. 

Julia Morgan Center for the Arts  

2640 College Ave. (at Derby)  

Yassir Chadley, traditional Moroccan musician and Sufi storyteller.  

$5 - $10  

Call 925-798-1300 

Tuesday, Feb. 20 

“Great Decisions” - China & Taiwan 

10 a.m. - Noon  

Berkeley City Club  

2315 Durant Ave.  

The first in a series of eight weekly lectures with the goal of informing the public of current major policy issues. Many of the lectures are presented by specialists in their field and are often from the University of California. Feedback received at these lectures is held in high regard by those in the government responsible for national policy.  

$5 single session 

Call Berton Wilson, 526-2925 

Berkeley Intelligent Conversation  

7 p.m. - 9 p.m.  

Jewish Community Center  

1414 Walnut Ave. (at Rose)  

With no religious affiliation, this twice-monthly group, led informally by former UC Berkeley extension lecturer Robert Berent, seeks to bring people together to have interesting discussions on contemporary topics. This evenings discussion topic is different cultural, ethnic and religious values.  

Call 527-9772  

Berkeley Camera Club  

7:30 p.m. 

Northbrae Community Church  

941 The Alameda  

Share your slides and learn what other photographers are doing. Monthly field trips. 

Call Wade, 531-8664 

Free! Early Music Group  

10 - 11:30 a.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center 

1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way)  

A small group who sing madrigals and other voice harmonies. Their objective: To enjoy making music and building musical skills.  

Call Ann 655-8863 or e-mail: ann@integratedarts.org 

Wednesday, Feb. 21 

Stagebridge Free Acting & Storytelling 

Classes for Seniors 

10 a.m. - 3 p.m. 

First Congregational Church  

2501 Harrison St.  

Oakland  

Call 444-4755 or visit www.stagebridge.org 

Control Hypertension 

6:30 - 8:30 p.m. 

Summit Medical Center - Summit Campus 

Summit South Cafeteria Conference Room  

3100 Summit St.  

Oakland 

Bessanderson McNeil, MPH, and the Ethnic Health Institute, will help attendees take control of their lives. Free 

Call 204-3443 

Sacred Cinema  

7 - 9 p.m. 

Pacific School of Religion 

1798 Scenic Ave., Chapel Six 

Ken Peer has sought to explore sacred themes and to draw attention to the spiritual lives of individuals from the world’s great wisdom traditions. See three of his short films at this free screening.  

Call 649-2523 

Thursday, Feb. 22 

Free “Quit Smoking” Class 

5:30 - 7:30 p.m. 

South Berkeley Senior Center 

2939 Ellis (at Ashby)  

Cease your smoking with the help of this free class offered to Berkeley residents and employees. 

Call 644-6422 to enroll or e-mail quitnow@ci.berkeley.ca.us 

Duomo Readings Open Mic.  

6:30 - 9 p.m. 

Cafe Firenze  

2116 Shattuck Ave.  

With featured poet Charles Ellick and host Louis Cuneo.  

644-0155 

Rivers of the World  

7 p.m. 

Recreational Equipment, Inc. 

1338 San Pablo Ave.  

Pamela Michael, writer, educator and river conservationist, will highlight her new anthology “The Gift of Rivers: True Stories of Life on the Water,” showing slides of nearly 100 of the world’s great rivers. Free 

Call 527-4140 

Growl & Howl of Man & Woman 

7 - 9 p.m. 

Hillside Community Church  

1422 Navellier St.  

El Cerrito 

A series of Thursday evenings of conversation “engaging people in discovering the pleasures of an excellent discussion.” Bring your favorite gender assumptions and put them to the test.  

$10  

Friday, Feb. 23 

Strong Women - Writers & 

Heroes of Literature 

1 - 3 p.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center  

1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way) 

Taught by Dr. Helen Rippier Wheeler, author of “Women and Aging: A Guide to Literature,” this is a free weekly literature course in the Berkeley Adult School’s Older Adults Program.  

Call 549-2970  

Stagebridge Free Acting & Storytelling 

Classes for Seniors 

10 a.m. - 3 p.m. 

First Congregational Church  

2501 Harrison St.  

Oakland  

Call 444-4755 or visit www.stagebridge.org 

Saturday, Feb. 24 

Tibetan New Year’s Celebration 

6 - 9 p.m. 

Britta Hauenschild gives a flute concert followed by a festive dinner and New Year’s celebration. Proceeds support Nyingma Institute sacred art and education programs.  

$30 suggested donation  

Call 843-6812 

Sunday, Feb. 25  

“Imperial San Francisco: 

Urban Power, Earthly Ruin” 

3 - 5 p.m. 

Berkeley History Center 

Veterans Memorial Building 

1931 Center St.  

Gary Brechin speaks on the impact and legacy of the Hearsts and other powerful San Francisco families. Free 

Call 848-0181 

Reimagining Pacific Cities  

6 - 8:30 p.m. 

New Pacific Studio  

1523 Hearst Ave.  

“How are Pacific cities reshaping their cultural and environmental institutions to better serve the needs and enhance the present and future quality of life of all segments of their societies?” A series of ten seminars linking the Bay Area, Seattle, Portland, and other pacific cities.  

$10 per meeting  

Call 849-0217 

Authors in the Library: Lois Silverstein 

11 a.m. - 12:30 p.m. 

Berkeley Richmond Jewish Community Center 

1414 Walnut St.  

Writer and performer, Silverstein, will read selections from “Oh My Darling Daughter,” “Behind the Stove,” and a work-in-progress, “Family Matters.” Discussion and book signing will follow. Free.  

Call 848-0237 x127 

Planetary Temples 

8 p.m. 

Shambhala Booksellers  

2482 Telegraph Ave.  

Employee Don Frew will show slides of teh ruined city of Harran. Free 

Call 848-8443 

Tuesday, Feb. 27 

“Great Decisions” - Missile Defense  

10 a.m. - Noon  

Berkeley City Club  

2315 Durant Ave.  

The first in a series of eight weekly lectures with the goal of informing the public of current major policy issues. Many of the lectures are presented by specialists in their field and are often from the University of California. Feedback received at these lectures is held in high regard by those in the government responsible for national policy.  

$5 single session 

Call Berton Wilson, 526-2925 

Berkeley Camera Club  

7:30 p.m. 

Northbrae Community Church  

941 The Alameda  

Share your slides and learn what other photographers are doing. Monthly field trips. 

Call Wade, 531-8664 

Free! Early Music Group  

10 - 11:30 a.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center 

1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way)  

A small group who sing madrigals and other voice harmonies. Their objective: To enjoy making music and building musical skills.  

Call Ann 655-8863 or e-mail: ann@integratedarts.org 

Wednesday, Feb. 28  

Stagebridge Free Acting & Storytelling 

Classes for Seniors 

10 a.m. - 3 p.m. 

First Congregational Church  

2501 Harrison St.  

Oakland  

Call 444-4755 or visit www.stagebridge.org 

Conversations in Commedia 

7:30 p.m. 

La Pena Cultural Center 

3105 Shattuck Ave. (at Prince) 

Mime Troupe founder Ron Davis and icon clown Wavy Gravy give dialogues on satire.  

$6 - $8  

Call 849-2568 

Women in Interfaith Relationships  

9:30 a.m. - 10:45 a.m. 

Berkeley Richmond Jewish Community Center 

1414 Walnut St.  

Led by Dawn Kepler, this workshop will explore interfaith relationships on many levels, in relation to culture, religion, and gender. People of all backgrounds and orientations are invited to attend.  

$10 

848-0237 x127 

Thursday, March 1  

Duomo Readings Open Mic.  

6:30 - 9 p.m. 

Cafe Firenze  

2116 Shattuck Ave.  

With featured poet Eliza Shefler and host Dale Jensen.  

644-0155 

Berkeley Metaphysical Toastmasters Club  

6:15 - 7:30 p.m.  

2515 Hillegass Ave.  

Public speaking skills and metaphysics come together. Ongoing first and third Thursdays each month.  

Call 869-2547 

Friday, March 2  

Stagebridge Free Acting & Storytelling 

Classes for Seniors 

10 a.m. - 3 p.m. 

First Congregational Church  

2501 Harrison St.  

Oakland  

Call 444-4755 or visit www.stagebridge.org 

Strong Women - Writers & 

Heroes of Literature 

1 - 3 p.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center  

1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way) 

Taught by Dr. Helen Rippier Wheeler, author of “Women and Aging: A Guide to Literature,” this is a free weekly literature course in the Berkeley Adult School’s Older Adults Program.  

Call 549-2970  

Saturday, March 3 

Rockridge Writers 

3:30 - 5:30 p.m. 

Spasso Coffeehouse  

6021 College Ave.  

Poets and writers meet to critique each other’s work. “Members’ work tends to be dark, humorous, surreal, or strange.”  

e-mail: berkeleysappho@yahoo.com 

Free Sailboat Rides  

1 - 4 p.m. 

Cal Sailing Club 

Berkeley Marina 

The Cal Sailing Club, a non-profit sailing and windsurfing cooperative, give free rides on a first come, first served bases on the first full weekend of each month. Wear warm clothes and bring a change of clothes in case you get wet. Children must be at least five years old and must be accompanies by an adult.  

Visit www.cal-sailing.org  

Sunday, March 4  

Free Sailboat Rides  

1 - 4 p.m. 

Cal Sailing Club 

Berkeley Marina 

The Cal Sailing Club, a non-profit sailing and windsurfing cooperative, give free rides on a first come, first served bases on the first full weekend of each month. Wear warm clothes and bring a change of clothes in case you get wet. Children must be at least five years old and must be accompanies by an adult.  

Visit www.cal-sailing.org  

Tuesday, March 6  

“Great Decisions” - U.S. & Iraq 

10 a.m. - Noon  

Berkeley City Club  

2315 Durant Ave.  

The first in a series of eight weekly lectures with the goal of informing the public of current major policy issues. Many of the lectures are presented by specialists in their field and are often from the University of California. Feedback received at these lectures is held in high regard by those in the government responsible for national policy.  

$5 single session 

Call Berton Wilson, 526-2925 

Berkeley Intelligent Conversation  

7 p.m. - 9 p.m.  

Jewish Community Center  

1414 Walnut Ave. (at Rose)  

With no religious affiliation, this twice-monthly group, led informally by former UC Berkeley extension lecturer Robert Berent, seeks to bring people together to have interesting discussions on contemporary topics. This evenings discussion topic is health, nutrition and science; bioengineering.  

Call 527-5332  

Berkeley Camera Club  

7:30 p.m. 

Northbrae Community Church  

941 The Alameda  

Share your slides and learn what other photographers are doing. Monthly field trips. 

Call Wade, 531-8664 

Free! Early Music Group  

10 - 11:30 a.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center 

1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way)  

A small group who sing madrigals and other voice harmonies. Their objective: To enjoy making music and building musical skills.  

Call Ann 655-8863 or e-mail: ann@integratedarts.org 

Wednesday, March 7  

Stagebridge Free Acting & Storytelling 

Classes for Seniors 

10 a.m. - 3 p.m. 

First Congregational Church  

2501 Harrison St.  

Oakland  

Call 444-4755 or visit www.stagebridge.org 

Women in Interfaith Relationships  

9:30 a.m. - 10:45 a.m. 

Berkeley Richmond Jewish Community Center 

1414 Walnut St.  

Led by Dawn Kepler, this workshop will explore interfaith relationships on many levels, in relation to culture, religion, and gender. People of all backgrounds and orientations are invited to attend.  

$10 

848-0237 x127 

Thursday, March 8 

Duomo Readings Open Mic.  

6:30 - 9 p.m. 

Cafe Firenze  

2116 Shattuck Ave.  

With featured poet Judy Wells and host Dale Jensen.  

644-0155 

Friday, March 9  

Stagebridge Free Acting & Storytelling 

Classes for Seniors 

10 a.m. - 3 p.m. 

First Congregational Church  

2501 Harrison St.  

Oakland  

Call 444-4755 or visit www.stagebridge.org 

Strong Women - Writers & 

Heroes of Literature 

1 - 3 p.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center  

1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way) 

Taught by Dr. Helen Rippier Wheeler, author of “Women and Aging: A Guide to Literature,” this is a free weekly literature course in the Berkeley Adult School’s Older Adults Program.  

Call 549-2970  

Berkeley PC Users Group 

7 p.m. 

Vista College 

2020 Milvia St., Room 303 

E-Mail: meldancing@aol.com 

Saturday, March 10  

The Secrets of Sacred Cinema 

10 a.m. - 6 p.m. 

Pacific School of Religion  

1798 Scenic Ave., Mudd 103 

Kevin Peer, a documentary film maker for the past 25 years, gives a two-day intensive for people interested in exploring documentary filmmaking. No equipment or prior experience required.  

$200 per person and registration is required 

Call 486-1480 

Sunday, March 11 

Reimagining Pacific Cities  

6 - 8:30 p.m. 

New Pacific Studio  

1523 Hearst Ave.  

“How are Pacific cities reshaping their cultural and environmental institutions to better serve the needs and enhance the present and future quality of life of all segments of their societies?” A series of ten seminars linking the Bay Area, Seattle, Portland, and other pacific cities.  

$10 per meeting  

Call 849-0217 

Myths & Realities of the International House  

3 -

By Erika Fricke 

Daily Planet Staff 

The twin issues of parking and transit appear regularly before the City Council.  

Currently the city manager is meeting with groups to find parking spaces for the school district, the court and Vista College, said Mayor Shirley Dean. 

While the city struggles to find downtown parking spaces, some experts believe that providing parking is counter to the goal of decreasing single-occupancy automobile use. 

Elizabeth Deakin, UC Berkeley associate professor and director of the UC Transportation Center, researches ways to decrease the societal cost of the automobile. Deakin estimated the cost of a parking space within a garage at $15,000 to $20,000 while a surface space in an urban environment can cost $8,000 to $10,000 for the cost of the land.  

“We create a system where it’s really easy for people to drive their cars once they’ve bought them,” she said. “We don’t charge them for parking, we don’t charge them for air pollution, we don’t charge them for environmental damage. Society picks up a big chunk of  

the cost.”  

Deakin said that charging people for the actual cost of driving would make a significant impact in the number of cars on the road. 

City Councilmember Miriam Hawley used to be a member of the AC Transit Board of Directors. She said that Berkeley has recently used the approach of charging people more equitably for the spaces they occupy, by increasing the cost of full day parking in garages downtown.  

But, Hawley also said that Berkeley hasn’t been doing enough to put public and alternative modes of transportation at the top of the agenda. “We do offer free parking for many city employees,” she said. “We need to look at that policy, and begin to think about how not only to discourage people from parking downtown, but also encouraging people to use transit.”  

Deakin said that an important part of getting people out of their cars is finding them a feasible alternative. She mentioned a Santa Clara County subsidizes a public transit program as one good way to “encourage people to use transit.” 

Santa Clara employers can purchase an “Eco Pass” for each of their employees, which they can then use as a pass to board any Santa Clara public transit. Scott Haywood, Eco Pass sales program manager, said the numbers evidence the program’s success. Over 100 employers have purchased passes for 100,000 employees. “They’ve been really willing to put their money where their mouth is,” he said. 

City governments in Santa Clara have been some of those buyers. The city of San Jose instituted the Eco Pass in 1998. Dennis Ng, traffic engineer for the city, said according to a survey done the first year after they instituted its use, that it is changing the way some city employees get to work. 

At that time, 22 percent of their employees used public transportation, and half of those used it to commute to and from work. A much smaller percentage used the pass daily. More significantly, half of the people who indicated they used public transportation said they began to do so after receiving their Eco Passes. 

The city of Sunnyvale also purchases Eco Passes for its employees. Sunnyvale is a smaller community where parking is not yet an issue, according to Mark Dettle, acting public works director for the city of Sunnyvale.  

He said that city employees’ public transportation use did increase once the city started offering the Eco Pass. Sunnyvale incorporated the Eco Pass into its development. “We work with our new businesses that come in and encourage them to provide their new employees with an Eco Pass. We’re starting to see businesses really develop around the light rail.” 

All of the employers that purchased the Eco Pass did so in addition to providing parking. 

The closest Berkeley equivalent to an Eco Pass is the UC Berkeley class pass. All students pay an added $18 dollars each semester when they pay tuition and have the option of getting the pass – a sticker affixed to their student ID. It allows them to board any AC Transit bus. Mayor Shirley Dean is looking to the class pass and the Eco Pass as potential models for the city. “This is going to be an enormous,” she said. Dean said she envisions a plan where everyone in the city, not just city or school district employees, could get access to a pass. Dean hoped that the details would be arranged in the coming months.  

In accordance with Berkeley’s Transit First policy, the city currently offers some employees an incentive for using public transportation in the form of a monthly $20 subsidy they can redeem at Berkeley Transit Ridesharing and Parking, better known as TRIP. But access to the subsidy depends on employee contracts. Those employees who don’t fall within the bargaining units that negotiated for the larger amount receive a subsidy of $6. About 200, or 20 percent of the city’s 1,000 eligible employees redeem their $20 dollar subsidy, only a handful of those receiving the $6 subsidy redeem it. 

Rochelle Wheeler, associate planner, said that because the subsidy can only be redeemed at Berkeley TRIP, the alternative transportation center in Berkeley, many people who already use public transportation may not go to the trouble to claim their subsidies. But, she said, many more people are using transportation than the 23 that cash in their $6 subsidy.  

Employees who don’t drive can also sign on to an Alameda County guarantee ride home program, free for both employer and employee. In case of an emergency illness or unscheduled overtime, an employee can take a taxi home and pay for it with a voucher. 

But Professor Deakin said that cities can provide even more compelling incentives to get people out of their cars. She said employees who don’t drive should receive the cost of their parking space back, which they could use to purchase public transit or to line their own pockets.  

“It makes the city rethink, you know we don’t really need so much parking.”  

Labs should test staff blood 

The Daily Planet received this letter addressed to the Environmental Sampling Project Task Force at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory: 

In order to assess the health risks and damage due to exposure to tritium (radioactive hydrogen), three blood tests should be done on the director of the Tritium Labeling Facility, local workers and nearby residents. The director at the Lawrence Hall of Science and workers there should also be tested since they are downwind.  

These tests are: 

1. Check the white blood cells for the presence of micronuclei. 

2. Check the red blood cells for glycophorin-A molecule change. 

3. Chromosome painting. 

The presence of micronuclei in white blood cells indicates the loss of proper DNA repair processes, leading to increased cancer risk and other health problems.  

Micronuclei is one of the most useful tests for potential and actual cancer and other health risks. 

Genetic modification of the glycophorin-A molecules on the surface of the red blood cells is also an indicator of DNA damage.  

This method was used in a study by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory on Japanese exposed to nuclear bombs.  

The study on DNA damage indicated that after 40 years, the DNA code for making that molecule did not get repaired.  

The damage was worse the closer victims were to ground zero. 

UC-LBNL could preempt epidemiological studies that would search and compile the number of dead, deformed, and diseased bodies that may or may not be correlated with some possible, real, or known hazard such as tritium.  

The importance of these simple tests which you can do might ease the concern of the public. 

Marion Fulk 

Retired Staff Scientist Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory 

Doctors should label service dogs, not their owners 

Editor: 

In her response to a Jan. 15 letter to the editor, Karen Craig claims that “the Americans with Disabilities Act states clearly that it is a violation of the ADA to ask a person, ‘What is your disability?’” 

Outside of passages regarding job interviews, I am unable to find such a passage in the text of the law.  

As I noted in my letter, the Justice Department’s guidelines on service-animal regulations say only that documentation “generally may not be required.” 

In any case, I never meant to suggest that persons with no apparent disability whose service animals perform no apparent service should be required to disclose their disability to anyone other than their doctors.  

It would be sufficient for a doctor to provide a letter identifying the service animal as such, without further details. 

As for Michael Minasian’s letter citing a statute that prohibits passing off a pet as a service animal, if, as he argues, police may not require any proof beyond the owner’s say-so, it is hard to see how the statute could ever be enforced. 

Robert Lauriston 

Berkeley

As the energy crisis continues across the state, the city is trying to find an effective way to apply a utility tax break for gas and electricity users. 

The City Council asked the City Manager’s Office to look into implementing a utility users’ tax break on recent increases in gas and electric rates. The tax break would represent more of a gesture than a significant savings. But the Budget Commission, which recommended the idea to the council, said it’s important the city not benefit from the financial pain of increased utility rates. 

If the city caps the gas and electric utility tax, it would save the average residential user, based on recent rate increases, $4.40 per year according to the city’s energy office. 

Berkeley charges utility users 7.5 percent on a variety of utilities including telephones, cell phones, electricity, gas and cable. Last year the city collected $11.9 million in taxes on all the utilities combined. The tax on gas and electricity alone was about $5.9 million.  

PG&E spokesperson Staci Homrig said only 70 of the 300 municipalities PG&E serves charge a Utility Users’ Tax and of the 70 Berkeley is among the highest. “The cities that do charge the tax range anywhere from 1 percent to a higher end of 8 percent,” Homrig said. She added that one city, Firebaugh, Calif. charges a rate of 10 percent. 

The most effective way to implement the tax cut, according to Homrig, is for the city to adjust the utility tax rate of 7.5 percent so the revenue generated is the same as before utility increases. “We could compute that figure and all the city would have to do is approve it through whatever process they use,” said Homrig. 

But Budget Director Paul Navazio expressed a reluctance to adjust the tax because once it’s lowered it can’t be raised again without the increase going before the voters. Navazio also said because of the volatile energy market, the tax might have to be adjusted every month, which would be an onerous administrative task.  

Mayor Shirley Dean said she would prefer that utility users never be charged taxes on the increase in utility rates, but if it proves too difficult to administer she would support putting the extra revenue into a specific fund that would somehow benefit Berkeley’s utility users.  

Councilmember Kriss Worthington said there are a number of ways to implement the tax cut. “Another possibility is reducing or eliminating the tax for residential properties and maintaining it for commercial properties,” he said. 

Worthington said that commercial property owners already have enough breaks under Proposition 13 which froze property tax rates in 1978 – unless a property is sold at which time it is reassessed. 

Speaking first in English, then Spanish, Principal Kevin Woodbridge welcomed the hundreds of parents and community members who turned out to the formal opening of the newly rebuilt Thousand Oaks School.  

Mayor Shirley Dean, outgoing Superintendent Jack McLaughlin, School Board President Terry Doran, Thousand Oaks Neighborhood President Zelda Bronstein and others thanked Berkeley taxpayers for the “generous” gift of the beautiful new buildings, in which teachers team-teach and use the courtyards as an extension of their classrooms. 

But for tour guide Sofiya McGuire, 11, the best thing about the new school is the science room. 

“They have all kinds of pets,” she said, fearlessly, “a tarantella, and a snake and frogs.”  

The event at Thousand Oaks School was the last in a long day of celebrations for the Berkeley Unified School District.  

Earlier in the day a groundbreaking of a new building on Milvia Street and Allston Way was held, kicking off construction of a new building that will house a student union, a library a media center and more. 

The day also included several events honoring the outgoing superintendent whose last day is today. Feb. 1 McLaughlin takes over as state superintendent of schools in Nevada.

BERKELEY — A record number of underrepresented minorities applied to the University of California in the first year of a new program guaranteeing a spot to top-performing high school students. 

UC officials said Tuesday they don’t have enough information to declare a definite correlation, but they’re happy with the numbers, which come three years after the school dropped affirmative action. 

“This is quite exciting for the university,” said Dennis Galligani, associate vice president for student academic affairs. 

Overall, applications from California students for freshman admission increased from 54,146 to 58,424, an increase of 4,278 students, or 7.9 percent. 

That is more than double last year’s 2.5 percent increase in applications and may be due to a combination of the new program guaranteeing eligibility to students in the top 4 percent of their class as well as expanded state financial aid, Galligani said. Applications from black students went up 11.4 percent, from 2,174 to 2,421, and applications from Hispanic students increased 14.5 percent, from 7,814 to 8,950 students. 

About 80 percent of students eligible under the 4 percent plan applied. “We really touched a chord,” said Galligani, who had hoped for a two-thirds application rate. 

Under the 4 percent plan, which took effect for 2001 freshman, students qualify based on UC-required courses; schools send the names in to UC. This year 84 percent of public high schools complied, 134 didn’t, but UC granted an extension. 

Previous research indicated that two-thirds of the estimated 10,200 students in the 4 percent pool were already eligible for UC. Officials are still analyzing the real-life pool. The 4 percent plan guarantees eligibility, not admission, but it is UC’s policy to find a place somewhere on one of its eight undergraduate campuses for all eligible students. 

The bumper crop of applications was hailed by Regent Ward Connerly, who led the fight against taking race into consideration, as proof that “if UC will simply go out and make these students aware of the opportunities that are available, they will apply. The naysayers just never were willing to give it a chance and they’ve been proven wrong.” 

Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante, an ex-officio regent, noted that more applications may not translate into more admissions. 

Last year, the number of underrepresented minority students – blacks, Hispanics and American Indians – admitted as freshmen on University of California campuses surpassed, for the first time, the number from 1997, the last year of affirmative action admissions. But some minority students decided not to enroll. 

“We’ve been down this road before. This is an old song and an old dance,” Bustamante said in a statement. “Somewhere between applications and actual enrollment, something tragic happens – we aren’t competing with other top schools in the nation.” 

Bustamante and Regent William Bagley have talked about asking the board to repeal its affirmative action vote. That wouldn’t bring back the old system because of Proposition 209, the state anti-affirmative action ballot measure passed in 1996. Proponents argue it would reassure students who might not feel welcome at UC and extricate the university from a political debate. 

The political makeup of the board has changed since the 1995 vote and Bagley said he may bring repeal to the board in May. 

Connerly said the new application numbers undercut that effort. 

“We have a record number of ’underrepresented minorities’ seeking admission to the University of California and you would have to be living on another planet not to recognize that this is an indication of their interest in attending UC,” he said. 

Bagley said he’s glad outreach programs are working, but noted that even with the increase, black applications are low, constituting about 4 percent of applications. UC figures show blacks comprise 7 percent of California high school graduates. 

“This university has a reputation nationwide for having started this divisive movement and all we’re trying to do is repair the reputation of the university. Get us out of the vortex,” he said. 

——— 

On the Net: http://www.ucop.edu 

SAN FRANCISCO — California could do much more to improve health care for women and girls, according to a report issued Tuesday by a women’s group. 

The study released by the Women’s Foundation, a San Francisco fund for women in the western United States, gave the state a “D” grade on the health status of women and girls in the state. 

“Despite a plethora of policies that have been put in place, the health care coverage for women and girls is mostly inadequate in the state of California,” said Patricia Chang, president and CEO of the Women’s Foundation. 

“For the richest state in the country, we’re not living up to our potential.” 

The report commends the state’s policies for family and medical leave and coverage for low-income children, but says women may not know they are covered and what exactly they are covered for, or how to apply. That’s a concern because women often take the responsibility of caring for their families, Chang said. 

But Ken August, a spokesman for the California Department of Health Services, said the report leaves out too much information to be accurate. 

“The report points out some challenges and some areas where work is needed, but it ignores so much else,” he said. 

He pointed out that California is strong in some areas, such as reproductive health, where it has an extensive family planning and reproductive health services program. He also said that any evaluation of health status should consider mortality rates.  

The mortality rate among women in the state decreased by 11 percent from 1990 to 1998. 

Still, one out of five women are not insured in California, which has the highest rate of uninsured people in the nation. 

“It’s common enough to be scary, that there are so many people who are put in a position of not being able to get or stay healthy,” said Ann Conradsen, who along with her 9-year-old son was without health care coverage for about five years. 

She left a job that provided health insurance and moved to Sacramento, where she now works three part-time jobs. 

Without health insurance, “it makes it really hard to be a good parent,” said Conradsen, who has back problems that have left her in crutches and has been paying for medical bills out of her pocket. 

Environmental risks are one of the factors that the report lists as a threat to women’s health, with California named the seventh largest hazardous waste-generating state in the country. 

One of the state’s most prominent industries is also pinpointed as a risk factor:  

Women who become pregnant while working in semiconductor plants are 40 to 100 percent more likely to miscarry than other women, according to a 1999 study. 

Women who work in low-paying jobs traditionally held by females face many environmental hazards in the workplace, and those women are the least likely to have access to health care, according to the report. Nearly half of the women of childbearing age in the state are at risk for hunger. 

The foundation makes recommendations to the governor and legislature, Cal-OSHA, employers and environmental enforcement agencies.  

It calls for a a study of the feasibility of universal coverage, expansion of the Healthy Families program, increased health coverage for unemployed and working adults, and a reduction in environmental and safety hazards in the workplace. 

“We hope this report encourages women and girls to organize, speak out and push for change,” said Diane Littlefield, executive director of Women’s Health Leadership, one of the report’s sponsors.  

Others were the Los Angeles Women’s Foundation, California Black Women’s Health Project, Latino Issues Forum, and Asian and Pacific Islander American Health Forum.

SAN FRANCISCO — The attorneys whose dogs killed a 33-year-old woman at her front door have adopted the prison inmate who ran a scheme in which vicious canines, including those two dogs, were bred and trained to guard methamphetamine labs. 

Attorneys Robert Noel and his wife Marjorie Knoller were issued a decree of adoption in San Francisco Superior Court Monday and are now recognized as the parents of Paul John Schneider, nicknamed “Cornfed,” an inmate at Pelican Bay State Prison. 

“The adoption will be in the best interest of the parties and in the public interest,” the decree read in part. 

Schneider, 38, and another inmate Dale Bretches, 44, are both active members of the Aryan Brotherhood and ran a fighting-dog ring which included two Mastiff-Canary Island dog mixes that the attorneys sued to gain custody of, according to Russ Heimerich of the California Department of Corrections. 

On Friday, one of those two dogs, a 120-pound 3-year-old named Bane, latched on to Diane Whipple’s neck as she attempted to enter her Pacific Heights apartment and killed her. Animal control officers used tranquilizers on the dog to remove him from the hallway. He was taken to a kennel where he was later put down. 

Hera, Noel’s other dog who reportedly bit at Whipple’s clothes while Bane killed her, was in the custody of the city Tuesday. A hearing was set for Feb. 13 to determine whether she too would be put down or could be given back to her owners, who have requested her return. 

“They do want the dog Hera,” said Carl Friedman, director of San Francisco Animal Care and Control. He said the couple brought Hera a bed Monday evening. Four people have inquired about adopting Hera and Freidman said his department has received between 50 and 100 calls a day from the public weighing in on her fate. 

Hera’s demeanor while in custody was described as nervous and the workers have had limited contact with her. 

Whipple was a popular varsity lacrosse coach at St. Mary’s College in Moraga. She was a two-time first team All-American lacrosse player at Penn State and was named NCAA national player of the year in 1990. 

Russ Heimerich, a spokesman for the California Department of Corrections, said inmates Schneider and Bretches were at the center of a business that bred and trained fighting dogs to guard criminal enterprises such as methamphetamine labs. 

“They were indeed running a dog fighting business out of Pelican Bay,” Heimerich said Tuesday. “The two dogs that were involved in that attack (in San Francisco) were involved in that fighting ring.” 

Noel and Knoller have both visited Schneider and Bretches at Pelican Bay, state records showed. 

“The two attorneys representing these guys ended up with these dogs,” Heimerich said. “Our information was that (Schneider and Bretches) were using third parties and attorneys” to run their dog business. 

“It was a breeding scheme,” Heimerich said. 

A California Department of Corrections investigation into the fighting-dog ring concluded that the inmates were behind the scheme, but found no wrongdoing on the part of Noel or Knoller. The investigation was concluded months ago. 

Noel sued to gain custody of Bane and Hera from Janet Coumbs of Hayfork who was raising the dogs for the inmates. He acquired custody of Bane and Hera three months ago. 

Coumbs told the San Francisco Chronicle that the dogs were hard to handle. 

“They ate all my sheep, all my chickens and my house cat,” Coumbs said. “No matter what I did, they killed. I couldn’t deal with it anymore.” 

The two inmates’ violent pasts are also well documented. 

Schneider is in prison for a robbery conviction in Los Angeles County and attempted murder while incarcerated at Folsom State Prison. He has been in Pelican Bay since 1986, Heimerich said. Schneider is currently serving life without the possibility of parole. 

Bretches, 44, is in Pelican Bay for second degree murder and was also found guilty of assault with a deadly weapon while incarcerated, according to state records. He is currently serving life without the possibility of parole

CUPERTINO — Based on a tip from a drug store photo lab clerk, police arrested a 19-year-old San Jose man they said planned to carry out a “Columbine-style attack” on a local community college with 30 pipe bombs, 20 Molotov cocktails and other weapons. 

Police arrested Al DeGuzman, a student at De Anza College, on Monday evening and found the arsenal of bombs and booby traps at the house where he lived with his parents. 

Police also found a tape recording on which they said DeGuzman expressed sympathy with the two boys who killed 13 people and themselves at Colorado’s Columbine High School in April 1999. 

They said they also found a diagram of the De Anza campus and other notes indicating that DeGuzman intended to begin planting bombs at 4:30 a.m. Tuesday and then spring his attack at 12:30 p.m. in the school’s main cafeteria. Police said they thought he had been planning the attack for two years. 

“This was an elaborate plan for a mass murder,” said San Jose Deputy Police Chief Mike Miceli. “He had a game plan and was very intent on doing what he was going to do.” 

Santa Clara County sheriff’s deputies and other officials evacuated the campus at De Anza, a community college with 25,000 students about 10 miles east of San Jose, at 9 a.m. Tuesday. 

Police offered no motive for the alleged plan and said they believe DeGuzman has no prior criminal record. 

He faces charges on 30 counts of possession of an explosive device, 20 counts of possession of a firebomb, and two counts of possession of an illegal weapon, for having a sawed-off shotgun and rifle. He was being held at the Santa Clara County jail. 

DeGuzman will not likely be arraigned until Wednesday afternoon, said Tom Farris, assistant Santa Clara County district attorney. 

Miceli said San Jose police learned of DeGuzman’s arsenal at 6 p.m. Monday when a girl who worked at a local Longs Drug store called police after developing photos of DeGuzman posing with his arsenal. The girl’s father is a San Jose police officer. 

Miceli gave the following account of what happened next: 

As San Jose police responded to the call, DeGuzman came into the store to pick up his photos. The girl – whose name was not released – stalled him, asking for identification. 

DeGuzman turned to leave just as officers were approaching. He tried to run, but was caught inside the store. 

Police searched his parents’ one-story house around 11 p.m. In DeGuzman’s bedroom they found some 60 explosive devices, as well as the diagram and recording. Police said on the tape, DeGuzman also apologized to his parents, friends and the U.S. media. 

DeGuzman’s parents told police they respected his privacy and never entered the bedroom. 

Phone messages left at the DeGuzman house were not returned and a woman who came to the door said the family had no comment. 

Law enforcement officials from several agencies, including bomb squads and a SWAT team, closed and evacuated the college Tuesday morning. 

Some 10,000 students and 1,000 staff were forced off campus, according to De Anza President Martha Kanter, who said the school experienced a false bomb threat and evacuation last year. Kanter said neither she not her staff knew DeGuzman. 

“He didn’t stand out in a crowd, unfortunately,” Kanter said. 

Police ordered the evacuation because they wanted to ensure DeGuzman had not already placed any bombs and that he did not have an accomplice, said Cary Colla, a spokesman for the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Office. 

Colla said San Jose Police did not notify the sheriff’s office of the possible threat at De Anza until 7 a.m. 

By midday, sheriff’s deputies began searching each structure on the 65-building campus. De Anza covers 112 acres — about the size of 85 football fields. 

“You would think you go to college and you would be safe, but safety is such an illusion nowadays,” said Mike Utterback, a 24-year-old De Anza sophomore. 

Meanwhile, DeGuzman’s neighbors said he was an unassuming kid from a clean-cut household. 

“He’s a choir boy, like a straight-up school boy,” said 18-year-old Bobby Playa, a neighbor who attends Independence High School, where DeGuzman was one of five yearbook editors in the 1998-99 school year. 

Other boys crowded outside the house with reporters agreed – they said they thought he was going to grow up to become an engineer. 

Pacific Gas and Electric Co.’s cash flow is nearly exhausted and its credit ruined, and the beleaguered utility should consider staff cuts, a state-ordered audit disclosed Tuesday. 

According to the audit the investor-owned utility failed to heed months of warnings that California’s deregulated electricity market was in severe trouble, and was caught by surprise when its credit was damaged. 

The long-awaited audit ordered by the Public Utilities Commission said the state’s largest utility lost some $5.2 billion during the past year by buying wholesale electricity at prices that it was unable to pass on to its millions of customers. 

The study also noted that PG&E Corp., the parent company of the utility, was due a $500-million to $1-billion federal tax refund, but that it had not decided whether to use that money to help erase the utility’s red ink. 

The audit sought by the PUC to resolve questions about the utility’s fiscal health. It was compiled by the Barrington-Wellesley Group, Inc. of New London, N.H. 

The San Francisco-based utility, and Southern California Edison Co., are seeking state assistance, following a failed attempt at deregulation of California’s electricity market.  

Both utilities have lost billions of dollars from spiraling costs of wholesale energy – costs that a rate freeze prevents them from passing on to their customers. 

The document notes that the utility, despite a months-long cash crunch, was caught by surprise by the magnitude of fiscal upheaval. 

“PG&E did not anticipate it would be constrained in its borrowings and did not develop a cash conservation program until December 2000,” the audit said. 

“Deferment or reduction of employee or management compensation represents one of the most immediate ways to achieve savings,” auditors added. 

A statement issued by the utility, which serves 14 million people, said PG&E would “study and evaluate this report thoroughly.” 

But the company said belt-tightening efforts would not have made a significant difference. 

“That is simply not the case,” the statement said, noting that “laying off every management employee, reducing the rank-and-file workforce by an additional 1,000 employees, breaking contracts and implementing a salary freeze on union employees – the total savings would amount to less than one month’s worth of power at current prices.” 

Also on Tuesday, consumer activists protested the prospect of higher utility bills as lawmakers debated a multibillion-dollar power-buying plan Tuesday aimed at fending off further blackouts.  

As legislators worked to hash out which customers might have to pay for the plan and how much, state regulators scrambled to avoid outages.  

They blamed dwindling imports from the Pacific Northwest for their worry, but later found enough power there to ease blackout concerns. 

The Independent System Operator, keeper of the state grid, said it would extend a Stage 3 power alert into Wednesday, with reserves in danger of dropping to 1.5 percent. 

Edison customer Eva Hartigan was keeping a close eye on the crisis. 

“It’s hard for a lot of us widows. You gotta have lights,” said Hartigan, 77, of Duarte, who has cut her electric and natural gas use by shutting off her furnace early and wearing more sweaters. 

The attorneys general in Oregon and Washington said they will investigate to see whether wholesalers have been illegally limiting supply and hiking prices in their states. California’s top prosecutor is conducting a similar probe. 

Lawmakers, meanwhile, considered proposals to resolve the state’s electricity crisis, blamed on a bungled 1996 utility deregulation law, high demand and tight supplies.  

California could spend $1.3 billion on day-to-day power purchases alone to try to keep the lights on while lawmakers work on a bill that would let the state sign lower-cost long-term contracts to buy electricity. 

The Davis administration spent $400 million hastily approved this month by lawmakers to buy power for Southern California Edison and Pacific Gas & Electric, both denied credit by suppliers. The utilities say they are $12.7 billion in debt due to soaring wholesale power prices the deregulation law bars them from recouping from customers. 

On Monday, Gov. Gray Davis began using his emergency authority to buy power. The governor can spend up to $400 million from the Department of Water Resources budget. 

Legislation under discussion Tuesday by the Senate Appropriations Committee would extend another $500 million to continue short-term purchases while the state negotiated long-term contracts. 

While no lawmaker said that measure would raise rates for consumers, senators discussed how rates would be used to pay back long-term revenue bonds that would fund the state’s wholesale energy purchases. No dollar amount has been put on the bill, but the long-term contracts would last up to 10 years and cost billions. 

One sticking point is a provision that would charge consumers more if they exceed a 130 percent of a minimum baseline designed to encourage conservation. 

There are 20 regions of the state and the baselines are set according to their energy use. About 22 percent of a typical residential bill exceeds that baseline. 

Davis supports the 130 percent baseline, which only applies to residential consumers, said Tim Gage, director of the state Department of Finance. 

Gage, who predicted last week that modest increases would be needed, said Tuesday that the state would do everything it could to avoid price hikes for consumers. 

Observers ranging from Keith McCrea of the California Manufacturers and Technology Association to Lenny Goldberg of The Utility Reform Network, a consumer advocacy group, said they generally support the bill but would prefer to see small business protected. 

Some consumer advocates vehemently oppose the measure. Activists protested outside the Los Angeles-area office of Assembly Speaker Robert Hertzberg, D-Van Nuys, on Tuesday and planned statewide demonstrations Wednesday. 

“There will be massive rate increases for consumers and a taxpayer bailout for utilities,” said Medea Benjamin, a former Green Party U.S. Senate candidate who was among more than a dozen protesters. 

Financial analysts had a far more enthusiastic reaction to the relief plan. The Legislature’s discussions curtailed talk of utility bankruptcy and renewed confidence on Wall Street. 

On Monday, a state-ordered audit was released showing SoCal Edison gave parent Edison International $4.8 billion in dividends in the five years leading up to the electricity crisis. The amount would have covered the bill run up by the utility since May as it paid for costly wholesale electricity during a deregulation-induced freeze on its retail rates. 

SoCal Edison Vice President Thomas Higgins said money that went to Edison International paid back power plant investments by shareholders. 

“It seems to me that there is no escaping that the debt we incurred is legitimate, prudent and reasonable debt,” Higgins said. 

Lawmakers, while awaiting release of a PG&E audit, reacted with frustration to the Edison report. 

Sen. Kevin Murray said the audit shows the utilities must offer concessions, possibly in a second rescue bill that would have the state issue revenue bonds to help the utilities pay off their debts, then pay the bonds back by giving the state a stake in the companies and extending a recently approved rate increase. 

“One of the things we’re not going to do is help them pay off their debt without them paying something,” said Murray, D-Culver City. 

As a further sign of deregulation’s demise, the California Power Exchange announced it will stop trading short-term power contracts as of noon Wednesday, essentially closing the exchange. 

Because of their credit troubles, Edison and PG&E were kicked off the exchange earlier this month, cutting its market 70 percent.

WASHINGTON — Papers that had been stashed in Siberia since America’s Red Scare detail Communist Party efforts to recruit blacks in Harlem, steal State Department secrets and organize sharecroppers. 

Threaded through the nearly half a million pages retrieved by the U.S. government is information on Soviet financing of the Communist Party in America and an ambassador’s letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, sent to Moscow by a mole at State. 

Experts on the history of the Communist Party’s often-hidden activities in the United States say the records, copied in Russia by the Library of Congress, provide an unprecedented view of the radicals at work in the 1920s through 1940s. 

“This is the most complete archive of American Communist Party materials scholars have ever had available,” said Harvey Klehr, history professor at Emory University. 

The collection includes letters by and about John Reed, the radical American journalist and early Soviet hero. 

Best known for his book “Ten Days that Shook the World,” an eyewitness account of the Russian revolution that was the subject of the movie ‘Reds,”’ Reed helped organize the Communist Party in the United States and is the only American known to be buried at the Kremlin. 

In a 1920 letter to a friend, Reed’s wife, Louise Bryant, spoke of her typhoid-stricken husband’s death in Moscow and how she watched Soviets pass his grave. 

“I have been there in the busy afternoon when all Russia hurries by,” she wrote. “Once some of the soldiers came over to the grave. They took off their hats and spoke very reverently: ‘What a good fellow he was!” said one. ‘He came all the way across the world for us. He was one of ours.”’ 

Most of the newly opened records were sent to the former Soviet Union by communist organizers in the United States. 

They were shipped there for safekeeping and to keep Moscow abreast of U.S. activities, said Klehr, author of several books on communists in America. 

He said scholarly works on the U.S. party over the past 50 years have been handicapped by piecemeal records, but the new collection fills in many blanks. 

John Earl Haynes, a historian at the Library of Congress, first peeked at the records in 1993, following negotiations with Russian archivists. 

“I really did have to blow off the dust,” Haynes said. 

“These are records created in America by Americans, mostly about Americans. Now some people may think they were not particularly good Americans, but they’re American records.” 

The records contain further evidence that communists had infiltrated the State Department in the 1930s. 

Included are letters from two U.S. ambassadors in Europe to Roosevelt and a senior State Department official. Thanks to a mole in the department, the confidential correspondence, concerning political and economic matters in Europe, ended up in the hands of Soviets. 

Other materials highlight communist attempts to organize sharecroppers in the South in 1934 and blacks, other minorities and even children in Harlem. 

Communist staff workers at a “farm school” organizing sharecroppers in St. Louis wrote to their superiors: “The students were given names and addresses in St. Louis to cover their identities.” 

From the party’s perspective, blacks were the most oppressed section of the American population and therefore were prospective recruits. 

The party’s Harlem organizer in 1934 reported on efforts to “develop a proletarian backbone in the broad movement for Negro liberation.” 

He said 20 children in Harlem were being brought into the cause and party officials were looking into getting them uniforms. Working with children “has possibilities of development into a mass movement,” he wrote. 

Mark Rosenzweig, chief librarian of the New York-based Reference Center for Marxist Studies, which is affiliated with today’s Communist Party in America, says the party’s work with blacks is a source of pride. 

“Whatever documentation we can recover about this enriches the story of the party, which is often reduced to a kind of Cold War caricature,” he said. 

But he said he’s disturbed that the party was not appraised of the project to open “our records.” 

——— 

On the Net: 

Library of Congress: http://www.loc.gov 

LONDON — Doctors at a prominent hospital removed hearts, brains, eyes and heads from thousands of dead children without the consent of their parents, a government report published Tuesday has found. 

Health Secretary Alan Milburn told lawmakers that Dutch pathologist Dick Van Velzen, who was responsible for post mortem examinations at the Royal Liverpool Children’s Hospital, Alder Hey, between 1988 and 1995, had “systematically ordered the unethical and illegal stripping of every organ from every child who had a post mortem.” 

Milburn said the report found Van Velzen lied to parents, other doctors and hospital managers; that he stole medical records, falsified reports, and encouraged others to do the same.  

The report, which was referred to police for possible criminal prosecution, recommended he have his medical license revoked. 

“The pain caused to the parents by this dreadful sequence of events is unforgivable,” Milburn said. 

Besides more than 2,000 children’s hearts, a large number of brain parts, eyes taken from fetuses, over 1,500 stillbirths or fetuses and a number of children’s heads and bodies were obtained without consent, Milburn told lawmakers. 

In a related report published Tuesday, England’s Chief Medical Officer Dr. Liam Donaldson said more than 100,000 hearts, brains, lungs and other organs were held by hospitals and medical schools across the country, many without the knowledge of next-of-kin. In some cases, organs were removed illegally, his report said. 

Grieving relatives were not told that by signing a consent form for a post mortem examination they were allowing pathologists to strip their loved ones of many of their organs, the related report concluded. 

Donaldson recommended major changes in the law. 

“The unsatisfactory nature of the agreement forms, the lack of information and the lack of counseling support or advice when a signature was being sought at a distressing time suggests that in many cases, agreement to retention fell well short of being fully informed consent,” he said. 

Revelations that Alder Hey was keeping infants’ organs emerged in 1999 during an inquiry into the high number of pediatric cardiac deaths at the Bristol Royal Infirmary. 

Van Velzen left Liverpool in 1995 to go to Canada, where he ran the pathology department at a Halifax children’s hospital for two years until he was fired in 1998. 

In September, Canadian police issued a warrant for his arrest after warehouse workers discovered eight organs thought to belong to two 5-year-old children.  

He was charged with indecent interference with a dead body, which carries a five-year prison sentence. 

Van Velzen is currently on leave from the Westeinde Hospital in The Hague.  

The hospital said Van Velzen would not be available to comment, and that hospital officials would review the report.

SAN FRANCISCO — Charles Schwab Corp. is ordering thousands of its employees to take off three Fridays during the next five weeks as part of the stock brokerage’s continuing efforts to weather a downturn in its once-booming business. 

All employees that don’t interact with Schwab’s customers in the branches or telephone service centers have been told not to report for work this Friday, Feb. 16 and March 2, said spokesman Glen Mathison. To get paid, the employees will have to use their vacation time. 

Schwab is still determining how many employees will be affected by the mandate. More than 10,000 of Schwab’s 26,300 full-time employees probably will be kept away from the office. 

Although its operations will be scaled back during the three Fridays, all of Schwab’s branches will remain open. 

The Friday furloughs will help Schwab pad its profits during what analysts expect to be a poor quarter for the San Francisco-based company. Even if all the affected employees use vacation time to assure they get paid, the move will still reduce Schwab’s accrued liabilities and improve its balance sheet, Mathison said. 

To combat the sluggish market conditions, Schwab has already slashed management salaries by up to 50 percent through March and reduced the company’s first-quarter bonus pool by 5 percent. 

The belt-tightening has required Schwab to balance satisfying shareholders and making sure it has the proper staffing to keep its customers happy. 

Schwab, the nation’s most popular online stock brokerage, has been hard hit by the recent Wall Street volatility that has scared off many investors. The falloff took a toll on the company’s fourth-quarter profit, which represented Schwab’s first decline in quarterly net income in three years. 

Analysts expect Schwab’s first-quarter earnings to fall 32 percent below last year’s profit. 

“They are going to be in for a rough first half of the year,” predicted industry analyst Andrew Collins of ING Barings in New York. “Their stock still looks overvalued.” 

Schwab’s stock fell by $1.29 Tuesday to close at $27.29. 

A steady escalation in stock prices, particularly in the technology industry, had ignited a period of rapid growth at Schwab. In 2000, the company increased its payroll by more than 30 percent, or 6,300 employees, and opened a sprawling new suburban campus about 40 miles east of its San Francisco headquarters to accommodate its growth. 

The company is hoping to avoid layoffs if business continues to slump, Mathison said. 

On The Net: 

http://www.aboutschwab.com

NEW YORK — Growing fears of a recession sent consumer confidence plunging in January to its lowest level in four years. 

The survey by the Conference Board was released Tuesday as the Federal Reserve opened a two-day meeting to decide whether to cut interest rates for the second time this month to revitalize the staggering U.S. economy. An announcement is expected Wednesday. 

Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said last week that he did not believe “the fabric of consumer confidence” had been shaken enough to bring on a recession. 

The Conference Board reported that its Consumer Confidence Index dropped more than 14 points to 114.4 in January, the lowest level since December 1996, when it was 114.2. 

The decline heightens fears about the fragility of the economy, with consumers decidedly more pessimistic about business and employment conditions, said Lynn Franco, director of the Conference Board’s Consumer Research Center. 

“Since apprehension leads to caution and cautious consumers spend less than the confident ones, confidence levels in February will be carefully watched,” Franco said. “Further erosions in consumer confidence will create more serious concerns about the overall health of the economy.” 

But economists noted that consumers still view the current situation in relatively favorable terms, with their doubts focused on the future. The question is whether consumers will act on those fears. 

“Historically, when we see confidence decline, we have to watch and see if it shows up also affecting spending,” said Gary Thayer, chief economist with A.G. Edwards & Sons in St. Louis. The Conference Board index, based on a monthly survey of some 5,000 U.S. households, is considered a key indicator because consumer spending accounts for about two-thirds of the nation’s economic activity. The index compares results with its base year, 1985, when it stood at 100. 

Consumer confidence has fallen four months in a row since the index hit 142.5 in September. 

The Conference Board said consumers’ expectations for the next six months have worsened. Of those surveyed, 15.7 percent expect business conditions to worsen, compared with 10.1 percent last month. 

Only 12.4 percent of consumers expect conditions to improve, down from 16.9 percent last month. The board also said 21.8 percent of consumers expect fewer jobs to become available, up from 15.7 percent in December. 

The markets were mixed following the release of the report, with the Dow Jones industrial average up 9 points at 10,711 and the Nasdaq composite index off 10 points at 2,827. 

On the Net: http://www.conferenceboard.org 

NEW YORK — Investors flocked to the safety of blue chips and shied away from the tech sector Tuesday while awaiting the Federal Reserve’s anticipated interest rate cut. 

Analysts said investors put off major high-tech purchases, wanting to be sure the Fed does in fact lower rates at its two-day meeting ending Wednesday. Traders fell back into a recent pattern – bidding up safer blue chips and buying little else – that they’ve followed while pondering the future health of earnings and the economy. 

While Wall Street expected a 0.5 percentage point reduction in interest rates, which would be the second such rate cut this month, the market also wondered how long it would take for the slumping economy and disappointing corporate earnings, particularly in the tech sector, to benefit. 

Investors were also worried by news that consumer confidence slipped in January to its lowest level since December 1996. Consumers’ fears about recession caused the sharp decline in confidence, according to the report by the Conference Board. 

“The consumer confidence numbers were pretty shocking. The deterioration was greater than people had expected,” said Ronald J. Hill, investment strategist at Brown Brothers Harriman & Co., adding that the decline in confidence reawakened investors fears about a recession. 

“What it does say is that there is a reason the economy is slowing and it has a lot to do with consumers’ poor outlooks for the future,” Hill said. 

Other issues, particularly in the high-tech sector, were mixed. Analysts said this had partly to with investors’ concerns about the weakened economy. 

“If we go into recession, people don’t want to be long on stocks. But if we avoid recession, this could be a great time to buy stocks,” said Hill, the strategist for Brown Brothers Harriman.  

“That’s the fear and greed people are working on right now.” 

— The Associated Press 

Techs, which have been the most beaten down by slumping growth, again suffered from bad earnings news. 

Amazon.com, which stumbled $1.19 to $18.94, fell 44 cents further in extended-hours trading. After the market closed, the Internet retailer, which beat fourth-quarter earnings estimates, warned that difficult business conditions would crimp profits. It also said it was cutting 1,300 jobs. 

Likewise, Nokia fell $1.71 to $35.28 after the cell phone maker warned earlier that first-quarter profits will be less than expected. 

Advancing issues outnumbered decliners 8 to 5 on the New York Stock Exchange where consolidated volume was 1.38 billion shares, compared with 1.27 billion Monday. 

The Russell 2000 index, which tracks the performance of smaller company stocks, rose 3.75 to 511.66. 

Overseas markets were mixed. Japan’s Nikkei stock fell slightly, off 0.1 percent, and Germany’s DAX index finished down 0.2 percent. Britain’s FT-SE 100 gained 0.3 percent, and France’s CAC-40 rose 0.5 percent. 

——— 

On the Net: 

New York Stock Exchange: http://www.nyse.com 

Nasdaq Stock Market: http://www.nasdaq.com 

A proposal to inspect vacant rental units for safety hazards and code compliance, has left at least one property owner grumbling. 

The Housing Advisory Commission will hold a public hearing Thursday to get public input on the program, which requires the inspection of vacant rental housing units in order to assess whether they are in compliance with the housing code.  

The legislation was spawned in part by the Aug. 20, house fire in which a UC Berkeley student and her parents were killed. The program would especially help students whose apartments regularly turn over. The frequent inspections might prevent fires due to code violations. 

“This is a major first step in not being reactive to tenants calling with complaints, but having preventative inspections,” said Interim Housing Director Stephen Barton.  

“This is not a perfect system. We don’t have regular inspections for units, but it’s a step in that direction. We can take this on and then evaluate how this is serving tenants in general, and assess whether we need to go further,” Barton added.  

Peggy Schioler of the Berkeley Property Owner’s Association took strong exception to the proposal. 

“It’s like being found guilty until proven innocent, and you have to pay to be proven innocent,” she said. “I’m guilty until I pay for an inspection and that’s an insult,” she added.  

Schioler’s point of contention lies in the $75 per unit fee landlords will be required to pay for the inspection. There is already a $200 fee for complaint-driven inspections.  

“They come and inspect until they find something wrong, then they fix it, and they come back and inspect it again. The poorest landlords are getting hit with these fees. They already provide the lowest cost housing,” Schioler said. 

Schioler contends she and other landlords are already feeling the financial brunt of being a Berkeley property owner by being subject to rent board, garage, fire, and elevator inspection fees, as well as business license and property taxes. 

Housing Department Senior Planner Teri Piccolo who helped co-author the proposal says the new inspection process will ultimately save landlords money since proof of certification would counter tenant claims in case of litigation, and possibly reduce insurance costs.  

“They’ll like it because on one level we’ll give them a safety certification and they’ll be able to show renters their unit is in compliance,” Piccolo said.  

City Councilmember Kriss Worthington says the new program, in an already tight housing market, would allow the city to see just how many units are vacant and ensure that they meet the city’s safety requirements. “I think it’s very important that we make sure every unit is safe,” Worthington said. “It’s not like there are 10,000 vacant units out there. It’s a pretty targeted segment of the housing stock. It will require a lot of coordination to identify units and get them inspected,” Worthington said. 

If implemented the city would hire one new inspector and a part time clerical assistant. The additional positions and the program at large, would be funded by a $485,000 Community Development Block Grant applied for by the housing department. The program will also be funded by the city’s general funds, with the ultimate goal of being funded solely by inspection fees.  

Worthington expects the nine-member HAC will approve the plan, which would then bring the proposal before the City Council tentatively scheduled for March 13.  

Piccolo remains optimistic that the plan will be passed by both HAC and the council. “So far I haven’t heard from people who are opposed to it, but we’re starting the process now, and we’ll hear what people have to say at the public hearing,” she said. 

The meeting will be held this Thursday at 7:40 p.m. in the South Berkeley Senior Center, located at 2939 Ellis Street.

Tuesday, Jan. 30

Berkeley Camera Club  

7:30 p.m. 

Northbrae Community Church  

941 The Alameda  

Share your slides and learn what other photographers are doing. Monthly field trips.531-8664 

Digital Photography  

1:30 p.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center 

1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way) 

With Allen Stross 644-6107 

Free! Early Music Group  

10 - 11:30 a.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center 

1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way)  

A small group who sing madrigals and other voice harmonies. Their objective: To enjoy making music and building musical skills.  

Call Ann 655-8863 or e-mail: ann@integratedarts.org 

Ribbon Cutting: Thousand Oaks Elementary School 

5 p.m. 

Thousand Oaks Multipurpose Room  

840 Colusa  

The ribbon-cutting will take place at 5 p.m. and tours will follow the ceremony.  

Wednesday, Jan. 31

Berkeley Symphony Orchestra  

8 p.m. 

Zellerbach Hall  

UC Berkeley  

Featuring “Berkeley Images,” a world premiere by Jean-Pascal Beintus.  

$10 - $35  

Call 841-2800 

Conversations in Commedia 

7:30 p.m. 

La Pena Cultural Center 

3105 Shattuck Ave. (at Prince) 

Mime Troupe vet and St. Stupid’s Day creator, Ed Holmes, and 84-year-old Bari Rolfe, a mime for over 30 years, give dialogues on satire.  

$6 - $8  

Call 849-2568 

Stagebridge Free Acting & Storytelling Classes for  

Seniors 

10 a.m. - 3 p.m. 

First Congregational Church  

2501 Harrison St.  

Oakland  

Call 444-4755 or visit www.stagebridge.org 

Berkeley High Poetry Slam  

6:30 p.m.  

Berkeley High School  

2246 Milvia St., Room G-210 

A preliminary round for the regional poetry slams sponsored by youth speaks.  

Human Welfare & Community Action Commission 

7 p.m. 

South Berkeley Senior Center 

2939 Ellis St.  

Thursday, Feb. 1

Free “Quit Smoking” Class 

5:30 - 7:30 p.m. 

South Berkeley Senior Center 

2939 Ellis (at Ashby)  

Cease your smoking with the help of this free class offered to Berkeley residents and employees. 

Call 644-6422 to enroll or e-mail quitnow@ci.berkeley.ca.us 

Duomo Readings Open Mic.  

6:30 - 9 p.m. 

Cafe Firenze  

2116 Shattuck Ave.  

With featured poet John Rowe and host Randy Fingland.  

644-0155 

Hiking the California Desert  

7 p.m. 

Recreational Equipment, Inc. 

1338 San Pablo Ave.  

Steve Tabor of the conservation group Desert Survivors presents a slide-show of highlights from his reconnaissance trips along more than 400 miles of trail. Free  

Call 527-7377  

Berkeley Metaphysical  

Toastmasters Club  

6:15 - 7:30 p.m.  

2515 Hillegass Ave.  

Public speaking skills and metaphysics come together. Ongoing first and third Thursdays each month.  

Call 869-2547 

Dark Caves & Sunlight 

7 - 9 p.m. 

Hillside Community Church  

1422 Navellier St.  

El Cerrito 

A series of Thursday evenings of conversation “engaging people in discovering the pleasures of an excellent discussion.” Explore the origins of how people speak to each other. 

$10  

Friday, Feb. 2

Strong Women - Writers & 

Heroes of Literature 

1 - 3 p.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center  

1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way) 

Taught by Dr. Helen Rippier Wheeler, author of “Women and Aging: A Guide to Literature,” this is a free weekly literature course in the Berkeley Adult School’s Older Adults Program.  

Call 549-2970  

Allee der Kosmontauten 

8 p.m. 

Zellerbach Hall  

UC Berkeley  

Performance of Berlin choreographer Sasha Waltz 1996 work in its West Coast premiere. Also features the film work of Elliot Caplan.  

$20 - $42  

Call 642-9988 or e-mail tickets@calperfs.berkeley.edu  

“A Night In Oakland” 

8 p.m. 

Alice Arts Center 

1428 Alice St. (at 14th St.) 

$10 - $15 

Call 496-6068 or visit www.savagejazz.org 

Stagebridge Free Acting & Storytelling 

Classes for Seniors 

10 a.m. - 3 p.m. 

First Congregational Church  

2501 Harrison St.  

Oakland  

Call 444-4755 or visit www.stagebridge.org 

— compiled by  

Chason Wainwright 

Taize Worship Service  

7:30 - 8:30 p.m. 

Loper Chapel  

(adjacent to) First Congregational Church of Berkeley  

2345 Channing Way  

Call 848-3696 

Saturday, Feb. 3

“Waiting for Godot” 

8 p.m. 

La Val’s Subterranean  

1834 Euclid (at Hearst) 

Presented by Subterranean Shakespeare and directed by Yoni Barkan, director of last summer’s “A Midsummers Night Dream.”  

$8 - $12  

Call 234-6046 

Rockridge Writers 

3:30 - 5:30 p.m. 

Spasso Coffeehouse  

6021 College Ave.  

Poets and writers meet to critique each other’s work. “Members’ work tends to be dark, humorous, surreal, or strange.”  

e-mail: berkeleysappho@yahoo.com 

Spirits in the Time of AIDS Artists Talk 

1 p.m. 

Pro Arts Gallery  

461 Ninth St.  

Oakland  

As part of “Consecrations,” the public is invited to hear artists speak about their work and show slides. Free 

Call 763-9425 

Free Tae-Bo Classes for Adults  

10 - 10:45 a.m.  

Frances Albrier Community Center  

San Pablo Park 

2800 Park St.  

Call 644-8515 

Free Martial Arts Classes for Kids  

11:15 a.m. - 2 p.m. 

Frances Albrier Community Center  

San Pablo Park  

2800 Park St.  

Classes taught by Michael Johnson, a fourth degree black belt. Ages 5 - 7, 11:15 a.m. - Noon; Ages 8 - 12, 12:15 p.m. - 1 p.m.; Ages 13 to adults, 1:15 p.m. - 2 p.m. 

644-8515 

Free Sailboat Rides  

1 - 4 p.m. 

Cal Sailing Club 

Berkeley Marina 

The Cal Sailing Club, a non-profit sailing and windsurfing cooperative, give free rides on a first come, first served bases on the first full weekend of each month. Wear warm clothes and bring a change of clothes in case you get wet. Children must be at least five years old and must be accompanies by an adult.  

Visit www.cal-sailing.org  

Fruit Tree Pruning 

10 a.m. - Noon  

Ecology Center Library  

2530 San Pablo Ave.  

An introductory class for the home fruit grower. Class taught by Greg Peck, owner of an organic landscape and garden design business in the East Bay.  

$7.50 - $10  

Call 548-2220 

Women’s Evening at the Movies 

7:30 p.m. 

Pacific Center 

2712 Telegraph Ave.  

“Late Bloomer,” the story of a high school basketball coach who realizes she’s fallen for the school secretary. Women’s Evening at the Movies is the first Saturday of every month.  

Visit www.pacificcenter.org 

Empyrean Ensemble 

4 p.m. 

Julia Morgan Theater 

2640 College Ave. 

Featuring a commissioned piece, “Prosperous Soul, Gregarious Heart,” newly composed by Peter Josheff in honor of his late father.  

Call 845-8542 

Sunday, Feb. 4

“Under Construction No. 10” 

7:30 p.m. 

St. John’s Presbyterian Church  

2727 College Ave.  

Experience the unusual rehearsal-reading format that lets the audience experience the collaboration between conductor, orchestra and composer in the Berkeley Symphony’s unique series presenting new works or works-in-progress by local Bay Area composers.  

Call 841-2800 

Russian National Orchestra  

4 p.m. 

Zellerbach Hall  

UC Berkeley  

On their tenth anniversary tour, the RNO will perform Shostakovich’s symphony No. 5 and Tchaikovsky’s piano concerto No. 2.  

$30 - $52  

Call 642-9988 or e-mail tickets@calperfs.berkeley.edu  

From Flatlands to the Stars  

9:30 a.m. - 3 p.m. 

Diamond Park  

Fruitvale Ave. (at Lyman Rd.) 

A hardy hike along Sausal Creek in Oakland’s unexplored Diamond and Joaquin Miller parks. A free hike sponsored by Greenbelt Alliance.  

Call 415-255-3233 for reservations or visit www.greenbelt.org 

Timbrels & Torahs: Celebrating Wisdom,  

Celebrating Age  

10:30 a.m. - 12:30 p.m. 

Berkeley Richmond Jewish Community Center 

1414 Walnut St.  

Miriam Chaya and Judy Montell discuss their Simchat Hochmah ceremony, which celebrates a woman’s transition from mid-life to her eldering years.  

Call 848-0237 x127 

“A Night In Oakland” 

2 & 8 p.m. 

Alice Arts Center 

1428 Alice St. (at 14th St.) 

Oakland  

Savage Jazz Dance Company launches their 2001 spring season along with the Marcus Shelby Jazz Orchestra.  

$10 - $15 

Call 496-6068 or visit www.savagejazz.org 

Spiritual & Cultural Context of Mbira  

8 p.m. 

Shambhala Booksellers  

2482 Telegraph Ave.  

Berkeley native Erica Azim has played Shona mbira music for 30 years, and is the foremost mbira performer and recording artist in the U.S. The mbira has metal keys which are plucked with two thumbs and one forefinger, “creating relaxing yet invigorating polyphony and polyrhythms.” Free 

Call 848-8443 

Solving the East Bay Energy Crisis 

3 p.m. 

Berkeley Fellowship Unitarian Universalists 

Fellowship Hall  

1924 Cedar (at Bonita) 

Barbara George of Women’s Energy Matters and a Utility Reform Network representative, Kris Worthington, Berkeley city council member, Ross Mirkarimi of the Green Party, and others will discuss the past and future of the energy situation in the East Bay, including possibilities of conservation, clean, renewable energy and municipally-owned public utilities.  

Call 233-3175 

Free Sailboat Rides  

1 - 4 p.m. 

Cal Sailing Club 

Berkeley Marina 

The Cal Sailing Club, a non-profit sailing and windsurfing cooperative, give free rides on a first come, first served bases on the first full weekend of each month. Wear warm clothes and bring a change of clothes in case you get wet. Children must be at least five years old and must be accompanies by an adult.  

Visit www.cal-sailing.org  

Meditations for Relieving Pain 

6 p.m. 

Tibetan Nyingma Institute  

1815 Highland Pl.  

Sylvia Gretchen presents specific meditations and visualization practices that can help to relieve physical and mental pain. Free 

Call 843-6812 

Tibetan Nyingma Institute Open House 

3 - 5 p.m. 

Tibetan Nyingma Institute 

1815 Highland Pl.  

A free introduction to Tibetan Buddhist culture including a prayer wheel and meditation garden tour and yoga demonstration. Refreshments will be served. Free 

Call 843-6812 

Monday, Feb. 5

Youth Commission  

6 p.m. 

Martin Luther King Jr. Youth Center 

1730 Oregon St.  

Rent Stabalization Board 

7 p.m. 

2134 MLK Jr. Way 

Second Floor Council Chamber 

Personnel Board Meeting  

7 p.m. 

Permit Center 

2118 Milvia St.  

First Floor Conference Room  

Landmarks Preservation Commission  

7:30 p.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center 

1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way) 

Peace & Justice Commission  

7 p.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center 

1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way) 

Attack not by pitbulls, but Bull Mastiffs 

I was very upset to see that your paper had allowed an AP story to be printed with the totally incorrect caption, "Pitbulls attack SF woman." (Weekend, Jan. 27-29, pg. 5).  

I doubt that this was AP's headline title, since they probably got the story from the SF Chronicle, whose article on page one today correctly identifies the breed as Bull Mastiffs, which are NOT Pitbulls, but a breed derived by crossing English Mastiffs with Bulldogs. 

For once, Pitbulls, a much maligned breed, cannot be made the guilty breed!  

Think of that! But you have just contributed to the bad press they always receive. 

Gwen Willows 

924 Gilman St. All shows begin at 8 p.m. unless noted $5; $2 for a year membership 

Feb. 2: Nerve Agents, Jemuel, The Blottos; Feb 3.: Time In Malta, The Cost 525-9926  

Albatross Pub All music at 9 p.m. unless noted Feb. 1: Keni “El Lebrijano”; Feb. 3: Mad & Eddie Duran Jazz Quartet; Feb. 6: Pickpocket Ensemble; Feb. 7: Whiskey Brothers; Feb. 8: Keni “El Lebrijano”; Feb. 13: Mad & Eddie Duran Jazz Duo; Feb. 14: Carlos Oliveira Brazilian Jazz Duo 1822 San Pablo 843-2473 

Ashkenaz Jan. 27, 9:30 p.m.: Amandla Poets & Zulu Spear; Jan. 28, 8 p.m.: Ellis Island Old World Folk Band; Jan. 30, 7 p.m.: Bandworks; Jan. 31, 9 p.m.: Cajun Coyotes, dance lesson at 8 p.m. 1370 San Pablo Ave. (at Gilman) 525-5054 or www.ashkenaz.com  

Eli’s Mile High Club Feb. 2: Henry Clement; Feb. 3: Daniel Castro; Feb. 9: Red Archibald; Feb. 10: Kenny Blue Ray; Feb. 16: Little Johnny & the Giants; Feb. 17: Ron Thompson; Feb. 23: Carlos Zialcita; Feb. 24: R.J. Mischo 3629 MLK Jr. Way Oakland  

Freight & Salvage All shows begin at 8 p.m. Jan. 31: Slack Key Guitar Festival w/George Kahumoku, Jr., Princess Owana Salazar, Daniel Ho; Feb. 1: International Guitar Night with Andrew York, Laurence Juber, Peppino D’Agostino, and Brian Gore; Feb. 2: Cats & Jammers; Feb. 3: Lou & Peter Berryman; Feb. 4: Dave Van Ronk; Feb. 5: Tony Trischka & Junk Genius; Feb. 6: Chuck Brodsky; Feb. 7: Keola Beamer with Moana Beamer; Feb. 8 & 9: Ralph Stanley & the Clinch Mountain Boys; Feb. 10: Baguette Quartette with Odile Lavault; Feb.11: Bob Franke 1111 Addison St. 548-1761  

Jazzschool/La Note All shows at 4:30 p.m.Tickets are $10 - $12  

Feb. 4: Jeff Chambers and the J2W Project 2377 Shattuck Ave. 845-5373 

Cal Performances Feb. 2 & 3, 8 p.m.: Allee der Kosmonauten by Berlin choreographer Sasha Waltz with video installations by New York artist Elliot Caplan, $20 - $42; Feb. 4, 4 p.m.: Russian National Orchestra, $30 - $52; Feb. 10, 8 p.m.: Masters of Persian Classical Music, $20 - $40; Feb. 16 & 17, 8 p.m.: Balinese Orchestra Gamelan Sekar Jaya present “Kawit Legong: Prince Karna’s Dream,” $18 - $30. Zellerbach Hall UC Berkeley. 642-9988 or www.calperfs.berkeley.edu Feb. 11, 3 p.m.: Horacio Gutierrez $24 - $42 Hertz Hall UC Berkeley 

Berkeley Symphony Orchestra Jan. 31, April 3, and June 21, 2001. All performances begin at 8 p.m. Single $19 - $35, Series $52 - $96. Zellerbach Hall, UC Berkeley 841-2800  

Eighth Annual Robert Burns Birthday Celebration Feb. 2, 8 p.m. and Feb. 4, 7 p.m. A celebration of Scotland’s beloved 18th century poet: his songs, his letters, his life. St. Alban’s Episcopal Church 1501 Washington Ave (at Curtis) Albany 848-3422 

Empyrean Ensemble Feb. 3, 3 p.m. The ensemble will present “The Soldier’s Tale,” by Igor Stravinsky, “Prosperous Sould, Gregarious Heart,” by Peter Josheff, and “Horizon Unfolds,” by Yu-Hui Chang. $4 - $10 Julia Morgan Center for the Arts 2640 College Ave. (at Derby) 925-798-1300 

Flauti Diversi Ensemble Feb. 4, 7:30 p.m. Performing the music of 17th and early 18th century composers on baroque instruments in a program titled “Bell Fiore, Belle Fleur.” $10 - $15 Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley 1 Lawson Rd. 525-0302 

“Mostly Baroque” Feb. 4, 5 p.m. Instrumental works by Corelli, Schickhardt, Quantz, Mozart, a new work by Glen Shannon and Bach’s Cantana 82. Donations accepted Church of Saint Mary Magdalen 2005 Berryman (at Milvia)  

Toshi Makihara & Colin Stetson Feb. 4, 7:48 p.m. Philadelphia percussionist Makihara teams up with local solo saxophonist Voigt and local contrabassist Morgan Guberman for an evening of improvised music. $8 donation Tuva Space 3192 Adeline (at MLK Jr. Way) 649-8744 

“Songs for the Young at Heart” Feb. 10, 4 p.m. Featuring La Bonne Cuisine by Bernstein and The Shepherd on the Rock by Schubert. Donations accepted St. John’s Presbyterian Church 2727 College Ave.  

Community Women’s Orchestra Feb. 11, 4 p.m. Pieces to be played include those written by Berkeley High students Ariel Wolter and Maianna Voge. Donations accepted Malcolm X School 1731 Prince St. 653-1616 

Percussions Du Guinee Feb. 16 & 17, 8 p.m. Feb. 18, 7 p.m. Internationally respected Guinean percussionists craft a performance simultaneously inspired by traditional music, yet modern in presentation. $20 - $25 925-798-1300 

“Fall” by Bridget Carpenter Through Feb. 11. $15.99 - $51. Berkeley Repertory Theatre 2025 Addison St. 647-2949, www. berkeleyrep.org 

“In Search of my Clitoris” Written and performed by Sia Amma Feb. 1 & 2, 8 p.m. La Pena Cultural Center 3105 Shattuck Ave. Feb. 8 & 9, 8 p.m. Julia Morgan Center for the Arts 2640 College Ave. $12 - $14 415-775-6608 

“Waiting for Godot” by Samuel Beckett Through Feb. 3, Thursday - Saturday, 8 p.m. $8 - $12. Subterranean Shakespeare La Val’s Subterranean 1834 Euclid (at Hearst) 234-6046  

“The Road to Mecca” by Athol Fugard Through Feb. 24, Friday - Saturday, 8 p.m. Feb. 22, 8 p.m. $10 Live Oak Theatre 1301 Shattuck 528-5620 

“Nightingale” presented by Central Works Theater Feb. 9 - March 4, Friday & Saturday, 8 p.m.; Sunday, 5 p.m.; Saturday, Feb. 24 & Saturday, March 3, 5 p.m.; Free preview Feb. 8, 8 p.m. $8 - $14 LaVal’s Subterranean 1834 Euclid Ave. 558-1381 

“Someone Who’ll Watch Over Me” by Frank MacGuinness Feb. 15 - March 17, Thursday - Saturday, 8 p.m. Sunday, 8:30 p.m. The story of three men - an Irishman, an Englishman and an American held in a prison in Lebanon. $10 - $15 8th St. Studio Theatre 2525 Eighth St. (at Dwight) 655-0813 

“Magnetic North” Six programs of experimental Canadian video from the past 30 years that range from documentary to conceptual art. In all, 40 tapes from 46 artists will be shown on six Wednesday evenings. Through Feb. 28. $7. Pacific Film Archive 2575 Bancroft (at Bowditch) 642-1412  

“Durruti and the Spanish Revolution” The LaborFest U.S. premiere screening and dicussion of this documentary which tells the story of the Confederation National del Trabajo during the Spanish Civil War. Feb. 11, 7:30 p.m. $7 donation requested. La Pena Cultural Center 3105 Shattuck Ave. 415-642-8066 

“Toto Recall” A 15-film retrospective honoring Italy’s comic genius. Feb. 3 - Feb. 24 Weekend days only, Friday - Sunday. $7 for one film, $8.50 for double bills. Pacific Film Archive 2575 Bancroft Way (at Bowditch) 642-1412 

Boadecia’s Books All events at 7:30 p.m., unless noted Jan. 27: Susan Swartz reads from “Juicy Tomatoes: Plain Truths, Dumb Lies, & Sisterly Advice About Life After 50”; Feb. 10: Karin Kallmaker reads from “Sleight of Hand”; Feb. 23: Becky Thompson reads “Mothering Without a Compass: White Mother’s Love, Black Son’s Courage” 398 Colusa Ave. Kensington 559-9184. www.boadeciasbooks.com 

Cody’s Books All events at 7:30 p.m., unless noted Jan. 28: Poetry of Lynne Knight & Kathleen Lynch; Jan. 29: Tim Wohlforth discusses “On the Edge: Political Cults Right and Left”; Jan. 30: James Elkins discusses “how to use Your Eyes”; Jan. 31: Poetry of Steven Ajay & Anita Barrows  

“Strong Women - Writers & Heroes of Literature” Fridays Through June, 2001, 1 - 3 p.m. Taught by Dr. Helen Rippier Wheeler, author of “Women and Aging: A Guide to Literature,” this is a free weekly literature course in the Berkeley Adult School’s Older Adults Program. North Berkeley Senior Center 1901 Hearst Ave. (at MLK Jr. Way) 549-2970  

Duomo Reading Series and Open Mic. Thursdays, 6:30 - 9 p.m. Feb. 1: John Rowe; Feb. 8: Tom Odegard; Feb 15: Kathleen Lynch; Feb. 22: Charles Ellick; March 1: Eliza Shefler; March 8: Judy Wells; March 15: Elanor Watson-Gove; March 22: Anna Mae Stanley; March 29: Georgia Popoff; April 5: Barbara Minton; April 12: Alice Rogoff; April 19: Garrett Murphy; April 26: Ray Skjelbred. Cafe Firenze 2116 Shattuck Ave. 644-0155. 

Lunch Poems First Thursday of each month, 12:10 - 12:50 p.m. Feb. 1: Sherman Alexie; March 1: Aleida Rodrigues; April 5: Galway Kinnell; May 3: Student Reading Morrison Room, Doe Library UC Berkeley 642-0137 

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Free. University of California, Berkeley. 486-4387 

Berkeley City Club Tours 2315 Durant Ave., Berkeley. 848-7800  

The fourth Sunday of every month, Noon - 4 p.m. $2  

Golden Gate Live Steamers Grizzly Peak Boulevard and Lomas Cantadas Drive at the south end of Tilden Regional Park, Berkeley. 486-0623  

Small locomotives, meticulously scaled to size. Trains run Sunday, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Rides: Sunday, noon to 3 p.m., weather permitting.  

UC Berkeley Botanical Garden Centennial Drive, behind Memorial Stadium, a mile below the Lawrence Hall of Science, Berkeley. 643-2755 or www.mip.berkeley.edu/garden/  

The gardens have displays of exotic and native plants. Tours, Saturday and Sunday, 1:30 p.m. $3 general; $2 seniors; $1 children; free on Thursday. Daily, 9 a.m. to 4:45 p.m. 

Berkeley Historical Society Slide Lecture & Booksigning Series Sundays, 3 - 5 p.m. $10 donation requested Jan. 28: “The Finns in Berkeley and Co-op Beginnings,” a panel discussion on Finnish and Co-op history; March 11: Director of Berkeley’s International House, Joe Lurie, will show a video and dicuss the history and struggle to open the I-House 70 years ago. Berkeley Historical Center Veterans Memorial Building 1931 Center St. 848-0181 

“Great Decisions” Foreign Policy Association Lectures Series Tuesdays, 10 a.m. - Noon, Feb. 13 - April 3; An annual program featuring specialists in the field of national foreign policy, many from University of California. Goal is to inform the public on major policy issues and receive feedback from the public. $5 per session, $35 entire series for single person, $60 entire series for couple. Berkeley City Club 2315 Durant Ave. 526-2925

Yvon Bryant of Oakland takes advantage of spectacular winter weather Monday and tests her luck fishing at the Berkeley Marina pier. She says she generally catches crabs and perch. Darryl Perry, fishing nearby, says he sometimes catches bass. Neither Perry nor Bryant eat more than one fish a month caught at the Marina, aware that eating more may be dangerous to their health. The state health department has warned against contaminants in the water.

The city is trying to find funds to assist a popular proposal from a group of parents who are determined to help failing high school freshman get back on track. 

The parents and grandparents got together in November to discuss problems with their high-school-aged children. The group, Parents of Children of African Descent, soon found that nearly 250 freshman were on their way to failing either algebra or English or both.  

Shocked at the large number of children in danger of failing, the parents took immediate action to develop the Berkeley High School Achievement Program that would intervene to get failing students back on track. The backbone of the program is a partnership between parents, teachers, administrators and the city. 

Last week PCAD received a commitment from the School Board for $100,000. Berkeley High School has promised six classrooms and three teachers. Immediately after the school board approval Tuesday, the City Council voted unanimously to direct the City Manager‘s Office to determine what funds the city could pitch in. Tonight the council is expected to approve any funding the city manager was able to find. 

The primary cost of the program is to hire teachers specifically to work with the failing students. The program’s student-teacher ratio is planned to be as low as 10 to one. According to Irma Parker, a member of PCAD and grandmother of a Berkeley High School student, the program has already received dozens of applications and the school has been interviewing potential teachers for the spring semester, which starts today.  

“What we’re proposing is that the city match the $100,000 that the School Board is putting in,” Councilmember Kriss Worthington said. “It’s central to a good city to have well-educated kids and getting them to be successful in school is really fundamental.” 

City Manager Weldon Rucker warned the council last Tuesday that it might be difficult to come up with that kind of money on short notice. “We’ll provide every effort, but it may be unrealistic to expect a quick turnaround,” Rocker said. “We will certainly try to identify where we have resources to assist with this partnership.” 

As of Monday Arietta Chakos, chief of staff to the city manager, said it was still uncertain how much funding would be available. “We have a number of programs that are targeted for at-risk kids and we have to look at what will be the best way to coordinate the investment,” she said. 

The program is now geared to enroll 48 students with the possibility of increasing to 96 students depending on what the city can offer in funding and the number of qualified teachers that can be hired, according to Parker. 

“We’ve already had 75 kids sign up for the program,” Parker said. “But we still have to check their eligibility.” 

The proposal was warmly received by the City Council last Tuesday. Councilmembers who usually don’t agree with each other joined to enthusiastically approve the program. 

Councilmember Polly Armstrong said there was something special about the proposal. “I think the difference we’re seeing is the parental involvement,” she said. “What we all want to do is jump on this pony while it’s moving and try and capture its energy.” 

The City Council will consider extending a 45-day moratorium on new telecommunications antennae to give city staff time to revise zoning regulations to deal with the increasing numbers of applications for them. 

The city manager has suggested two options to the council. The first is to extend the moratorium for six months while zoning regulations are modified. The other is to prohibit the approval of any new permits in all parts of the city except the central commercial district. 

Without City Council action at tonight’s special meeting, the moratorium will expire Feb. 3. To keep the moratorium in effect, the City Council must approve the extension by at least a 7-9 vote. 

The moratorium was initially approved by the City Council on Dec. 19, after hearing from neighbors of the Oaks Theater on Solano Avenue who complained about the Zoning Adjustments Board’s approval of an Nextel application to place 12 wireless telecommunication antennae on the theater’s roof. The antennae are primarily used to  

support cellular phone use. 

Neighbors said they were worried about health risks posed by the radio frequency waves emitted by the antennae and the aesthetic impact the increasing number if antennae will have on residential and mixed use neighborhoods. 

According to a report by the City Manager’s Office, the City of Berkeley has received 35 applications for telecommunications antennae, compared to only five during the previous seven years. The city has issued permits for antenna installation at 20 different locations throughout the city. 

The report said the planning department expects the number of applications to continue to increase and especially in residential neighborhoods where there is a need for telecommunications companies to expand coverage. The majority of early applications were for the industrial areas in west Berkeley. 

The City Council meeting will be held in the City Council Chambers at 2134 Martin Luther King, Jr. Way, Tuesday at 7 p.m.  

SACRAMENTO — California’s state government is scoring higher marks on a national report card, particularly in fiscal policy, but still ranks behind most other states, a new study shows. 

California’s overall grade jumped to C+ this year from C- two years ago. The state still ranked near the bottom overall, with only 11 states having lower ratings, according to the report card. 

The report, “Grading the States: A Management Report Card,” was scheduled for release Tuesday in Washington, D.C. The Maxwell School of Syracuse University and Governing magazine produce the report card. 

The study, funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts, grades state governments on how well they are managing systems that deliver public service. 

The 50 states were given grades on how well they managed five areas: finances, capital, human resources, results and information technology. 

California’s grade for financial management leaped from a C- in 1999 to a B- in the current report. 

“Many of California’s most egregious finance problems of the late 1990s have been cleaned up. Perhaps most important, the state showed a positive balance of $622 million at the start of the 2000 fiscal year,” the magazine wrote. 

“We were impressed that the state had begun to set aside money in a rainy-day fund, which it had not done before, that it had brought itself out of debt, that it has passed its budget on time,” said Katherine Barrett, special projects editor for Governing magazine. 

However, Gov. Gray Davis is dipping into that reserve to buy energy to keep California lights on. The Legislature approved $400 million for emergency power purchases that has already run out and Barrett said the state’s power problems could present problems. 

Lawmakers are considering a long-term plan to put California in the energy-buying business for years, possibly financed by state-issued revenue bonds rather than the state’s general fund. 

Earlier this month, Standard & Poors put California’s general obligation bonds on “credit watch with negative implications” because of the possibility the state could end up buying power long-term and deplete its currently ample reserve. 

Davis spokeswoman Hilary McLean said the improved grades “are recognition that California is moving in the right direction.” 

She said while the $400 million spent to buy power is coming out of this year’s reserve, Davis hopes “the state will get that money back” from utilities or ratepayers once the Legislature and governor approve some long-term solution to the energy crisis. 

California’s other grades were C+ (up from C-) for capital management, C (up from C-) for human resources, C- for managing for results (the same) and B- (up from C+) for information technology. 

Three states, Michigan, Utah and Washington, had the top grades of A-. Twenty-six states had B grades and 21, including California, were in the Cs. The lowest grade was C- for Alabama. 

The California energy mess has created two vastly different reactions, a popular impression that deregulation has failed and a determined opposition that views it as the only solution. 

The latter, in fact, blames the long-term myopia of regulators in general for having produced energy shortages, and the misguided efforts of California officials for having exacerbated it into a crisis. 

Never, they say, was the free market given a proper chance to match supply with demand. California reformers, they say, adopted a system that left only part of the market free while the rest remained regulated. 

Broadly stated, the California formula deregulated power generation but left regulated its distribution via utilities. As demand rose, power generators raised prices but utilities could not, losing on every sale. 

No matter how well-intentioned, “it wasn’t a free market,” says Bill Fogel, power technology analyst at First Albany securities. But the unanticipated shortages and rising prices had a long prior history. 

Since the 1920s, the nation’s electricity system was highly regulated through mandated monopolies, and environmental issues added additional regulations. Competition was insignificant, as were incentives to build infrastructure. Still, prices fell because of technological advances. 

In California, deregulators expected that competition at the wholesale level would keep prices level or even force them down, and that the utility retailers, even under fixed prices, would make a profit. 

However, the years of inattention to the infrastructure, both in generation and transmission of power, coincided with the growth and shifts of the nation’s economy. The effect was especially strong in California. 

Alternative sources of power were plentiful on the drawing board but not yet in the marketplace, where they could have provided new energy sources and competition. Developmental incentives were few. 

Specialists Peter VanDoren and Jerry Taylor describe how earlier deregulation and alternative energy sources, so long discouraged by a monopoly marketplace, might have helped avoid the current emergency. 

“If consumers faced real hourly varying prices – instead of fixed monthly costs – they would have an incentive to buy or contract for small-scale power sources,” they comment in an article for the Cato Institute, a Washington, D.C., free-market think tank. 

These new sources, such as fuel cells that convert hydrogen and oxygen to electricity and heat without combustion, and small turbines, could be activated by computer whenever the cost of other power rose too high. 

“Consumers would also have an incentive to shift their electricity demanding activities away from peak periods,” they say. 

Fogel tends to agree, and adds that we shouldn’t overlook solar and wind power too, although he concedes these are not immediate remedies to shortages and high prices. And then there is nuclear power to consider. 

In the meantime, the power problem conceivably could spread – and, in fact, has begun to spread – to other states. Twenty-two states and the District of Columbia are net importers of electricity. 

Among advocates of free and competitive markets, there is a resigned sense of irony about impressions that deregulation failed and that the solution, as has been proposed in California, is re-regulation. 

John Cunniff is a business analyst for The Associated Press

AUBURN HILLS, Mich. —DaimlerChrysler AG's slashing of 26,000 jobs at its ailing Chrysler division stands as the most dramatic sign yet that the 1998 merger of German and American automakers has not lived up to its promise.  

“Instead of making the billions of dollars in cost savings and synergies at the time of the merger, they’re making desperate cuts to get Chrysler back in the black,'' said analyst David Healy of Burnham Securities.  

Now, he said, “surgery is necessary to save the patient.”  

On Monday, the man tapped in November to stem Chrysler’s financial hemorrhaging said the U.S. unit would slash about one-fifth of its work force over three years, as well as idle six plants over the next two years.  

“No one wants this to happen. I personally wish it didn't have to happen,” Dieter Zetsche, Chrysler's president and chief executive, said Monday. He called the moves painful but necessary in the face of “brutal” competition, advances by imports and slackened U.S. sales.  

“Today is our turning point,” he said.  

Zetsche expects a large part of the job-cutting to be done through retirement programs; others will be phased out through layoffs, attrition and other programs.  

About three-quarters of the job cuts should come this year, he said.  

In addition, production will be curbed at factories in four states and Canada by slowing assembly lines and trimming the number of shifts, ultimately paring production by 15 percent.  

DaimlerChrysler chairman Juergen Schrempp has said Chrysler would lose money this year, and that rehabbing the troubled division that pioneered the minivan could take two to four years.  

Zetsche already has asked for 5 percent price cuts from Chrysler suppliers.  

Chrysler also plans to slash hundreds of millions of dollars in advertising and showroom subsidies to its 4,400 dealers.  

Zetsche said Chrysler will unveil its complete turnaround plan Feb. 26.  

The overhaul comes about 23 years after Lee Iacocca engineered a rescue of Chrysler, including layoffs and a $1.5 billion government bailout, as the company teetered on the edge of bankruptcy.  

Chrysler was restored to health, even becoming the industry leader in per-vehicle 

profits. That impressive record was what 

appealed to the German automaker as it 

sought to further expand in the United 

States.  

The vaunted 1998 trans-Atlantic 

combination of Daimler-Benz and Chrysler 

Corp. was touted as a merger of equals. But 

last year Schrempp said the company never 

intended to be an equal partner with 

Chrysler and that he only said that to gain 

shareholder approval.  

The comments prompted a lawsuit by 

billionaire Kirk Kerkorian, one of 

DaimlerChrysler's largest shareholders, seeking to have the deal 

reversed on grounds that executives misled investors.  

DaimlerChrysler's stock price, now at about $47, has fallen steadily 

since reaching a high of $108 in January 1999.  

Chrysler's performance hasn't met Stuttgart-based 

DaimlerChrysler's expectations, either. Sales incentives have erased 

profits and production of the hot-selling PT Cruiser has fallen short 

of demand. Daimler and Chrysler also have been reluctant to share 

parts to cut costs, which might change with a new emphasis on 

saving money.  

Still, DaimlerChrysler has insisted it has no plans to spin off or sell 

Chrysler.  

The job cuts involve 19,000 hourly workers and 6,800 salaried ones. 

United Auto Workers-backed Chrysler workers who get laid off will 

get 95 percent of their take-home pay under their contract, which 

ends in 2003. Employees backed by the Canadian Auto Workers will 

get 65 percent of their pre-tax salary as part of their contract, which 

expires in 2002.  

In a statement Monday night, United Auto Workers President 

Stephen Yokich said ``we have been down this road before, and we 

are confident that our current contracts with DaimlerChrysler will 

provide our members and their families with economic security 

during this difficult period.''  

Yokich and Nate Gooden, the UAW vice president who heads the 

union's DaimlerChrysler unit, plan to attend DaimlerChrysler 

meetings next month ``to further ensure that the rights and 

interests of UAW-represented workers at Chrysler Group are fully 

understood and protected,'' the statement said.  

About 22 percent of Chrysler's Canadian workers would lose their 

jobs, compared with 18 percent of U.S. Chrysler workers, Canadian 

Auto Workers President Buzz Hargrove said.  

``For stockholders, it is a blip, but for the workers it is a tragedy,'' 

he said.  

Plants slated to be idled include transmission and engine plants in 

Toluca, Mexico and assembly plants in Cordoba, Argentina; Lago 

Alberto, Mexico; and Parana, Brazil. Chrysler also plans to shift 

production from a Detroit engine plant to two other sites.  

Production will be scaled back at plants in four states and Canada, 

including Detroit; Belvidere, Ill.; Toledo, Ohio; Newark, Del.; 

Brampton, Ontario, and two sites in Windsor, Ontario.  

In the long run, what matters most is Chrysler's ability to develop 

and make vehicles people want, said analyst David Garrity of 

Dresdner Kleinwort Benson in New York. He said he was 

encouraged that the company was leaving its product development 

budget relatively untouched.  

Still, Garrity said it was shortsighted for the company to cut 

production most in Mexico and Canada, where costs are lower, 

while shielding higher-paying U.S. jobs. The Chrysler-UAW 

national contract contains safeguards against job cuts.  

``You have a company that in some respects had been hamstrung 

by the UAW agreement, that has limited their ability to reduce 

costs,'' Garrity said.  

Last year, Chrysler posted a third-quarter loss of $512 million and 

warned that its fourth-quarter loss could more than double that 

amid a downturn in the U.S. auto market.  

DaimlerChrysler's stock price has fallen steadily since reaching a 

high of $108 in January 1999. In trading on the New York Stock 

Exchange Monday afternoon, the company's stock was down 95 

cents to close at $47.29.  

———  

On the Net:  

DaimlerChrysler AG: http://www.daimlerchrysler.com  

United Auto Workers: http://www.uaw.org  

Canadian Auto Workers: http://www.caw.ca

Investors sent stocks moderately higher Monday but kept their purchases to a minimum while they awaited the outcome of this week's Federal Reserve meeting.  

Despite a hint of difficult quarters ahead from Cisco Systems, buyers bid technology stocks up on expectations the battered sector would benefit from an interest rate cut. But trading was light as investors generally remained cautious.  

Analysts said Wall Street remained focused on the strong likelihood that the Fed will cut rates for a second time in a month when it holds a two-day meeting starting Tuesday. But many investors are skeptical about whether that will be enough to improve soft corporate earnings.  

“The market will tend not to take any bold or aggressive steps until we find out if or how much the Fed is going to cut rates,” said Gregory Nie, technical analyst at First Union Securities. “This lackluster, somewhat range-bound trading we've been seeing is typically what happens in anticipation of a Fed meeting.” 

In the Dow, losses in its manufacturing and pharmaceutical components offset gains from banker J.P. Morgan, up 93 cents at $55.12, and American Express, up 99 cents at $47.61.  

Technology issues were buoyed by a late-afternoon buying spree, despite comments by Cisco Systems' chief executive that suggested business may be difficult in the coming quarters.  

“This has become a hallmark of the markets recently. We get soft corporate news and we don't dive. We ease our way around it, which I find encouraging,” said Larry Wachtel, market analyst at Prudential Securities, who said stock prices are starting to reflect the economy's slower growth rate. “Last fall, this kind of thing would have sent the whole market down.” 

The narrow trading range and light volume was the latest twist on the pattern that has characterized Wall Street's trading in recent weeks.  

Instead of rotating in or out of technology stocks, investors appeared to be waiting for some type of catalyst before making any major moves.  

— The Associated Press 

The Fed meeting is expected to provide some type of spark.  

“The market is expecting a cut, although I’m not sure we'll get one,” said Nie, the First Union analyst. “If we don't, the market is not prepared and we'll get at least a temporary selloff.” 

Another sign of the slowing economy came from Daimler Chrysler, which said it would cut 

26,000 jobs, or 20 percent of its North American work force. The company's stock fell 95 cents to $47.20.  

Advancing issues outnumbered decliners 3 to 2 on the New York Stock Exchange. Consolidated volume came to 1.26 billion shares, compared with 1.32 billion at the same point Friday.  

It was the first day ever that the NYSE's 3,500-plus issues traded solely in decimals. Officials there reported no problems with the transition. The Nasdaq Stock Market is expected to complete a similar change in early April as part of the same government mandate.  

Usually jammed with cars, Telegraph Avenue was shut down for nearly an hour Sunday afternoon while police questioned a young man allegedly involved in a burglary, according to a police officer at the scene.

SACRAMENTO — With a $10 billion power-buying plan in place after two days of vote-wrangling, lawmakers prepared Friday for more contentious negotiations over what to do, if anything, about $12 billion in debts claimed by the state’s biggest utilities. 

Meanwhile, the state’s grid operators declared the highest power alert for the 18th consecutive day, due in part to the loss of about 8,000 megawatts because of power plants that were down for maintenance. 

The California Independent System Operator, keeper of the state’s power grid, extended a Stage 3 alert through Monday evening, said ISO spokeswoman Stephanie McCorkle. But no rolling blackouts were predicted. 

In another development, a Federal Energy Regulatory Commission report found that several California power plants were knocked out of commission in December because they are old and breaking down, rather than because generators shut them down to drive up prices. 

A second FERC report blamed high electricity prices in the Northwest on a combination of cold weather, short power supply from power plants failing to keep pace with growth during the last decade and a lack of rain and snow to fuel hydroelectric dams. 

Despite accusations from consumer groups that power producers were staging the outages to increase demand, FERC found that plants had legitimate reasons for being offline in December. 

“Staff did not discover any evidence suggesting that the audited companies were scheduling maintenance or incurring outages in an effort to influence prices,” the 55-page report concluded. 

Consumer advocate Harvey Rosenfield of the Foundation for Consumer and Taxpayer Rights contended that the FERC report was a “whitewash.” 

“The obvious question is what is different between this year and last year? In the dead of winter, when the state is using two-thirds of its total capacity, these power plants are falling off line at coincidentally the same time, provoking price increases and power outages,” he said. 

A spokesman for Gov. Gray Davis said the FERC report wasn’t a thorough study, with regulators visiting three California power plants and doing 60 percent of the audits by phone. 

“It seems to be, at first glance, to be a see-no-evil, hear-no-evil method of surveying,” said spokesman Steve Maviglio. 

Also Friday, Davis used his emergency authority to snap up power contracts before they could be seized by one of the debt-ridden utility’s creditors. 

With Davis’ move, the state was poised to make its first major acquisition of long-term contracts following approval Thursday of legislation allowing the state to spend $10 billion to buy power. 

The California Power Exchange, which is owed $215 million by Southern California Edison, had planned to seize all long-term contracts owned by the financially strapped utility. 

The contracts were collateral the PX wanted to sell because Edison defaulted on a payment for short-term power it bought on the exchange, said Jesus Arredondo, spokesman for the PX, which runs the state’s wholesale electricity market. 

But Davis beat the exchange to the punch, commandeering the contracts under the broad authority granted him under the Emergency Services Act. 

In a statement issued from Portland, where he was attending an energy summit with other Western governors, Davis said he was using his authority to “seize options to buy very inexpensive power that would otherwise be lost forever.” 

In other developments Friday, Reliant Energy sued the ISO in U.S. District Court in Washington D.C. after grid officials issued a letter demanding electricity producers sell to California, regardless of whether the utilities could pay. 

“Incredibly, the ISO’s basis for demanding that (Reliant) provide power ... is the fact that the utilities ultimately receiving the power will not be able to pay for it,” the lawsuit said. 

The long-term contract bill passed Thursday with the bare minimum of votes needed. Lawmakers say the next battle will be even more contentious — if and how the state should help So Cal Edison and Pacific Gas & Electric Co. pay off up to $12.7 billion in debts. 

The two utilities contend they have been forced to the brink of bankruptcy by skyrocketing wholesale electricity prices and state limits on how much they can charge their customers. 

Assembly Speaker Robert Hertzberg, D-Van Nuys, has introduced a bill that would aid the companies in exchange for their hydroelectric plants, transmission lines or an interest in the companies. 

But the first draft of the bill wasn’t met with any enthusiasm from lawmakers or consumer groups. 

“As it is, it is completely unacceptable. It really is a bailout, it gives the utilities their complete undercollection without much in return for the state,” said Sen. Debra Bowen, D-Marina del Rey. 

Richard Cortright, a utility analyst with Standard & Poor’s, a credit-rating agency, said the next step will be tricky because of the “political baggage” attached to plans designed to stave off bankruptcy. 

“It’s important for the utilities to avoid the tag ‘bailout.’ Obviously it has negative connotations. So there’s going to be some quid pro quo,” said Cortright. 

Ron Low, spokesman for PG&E, declined to comment on the ongoing discussions. Representatives from SoCal Edison did not return calls from the Associated Press seeking comment. 

Rosenfield said the long-term contract bill “was just the first shoe.” 

“Now the utilities want the ultimate bailout — the transfer of revenue to cover bad debts,” said Rosenfield. “For three years, deregulation was a financial bonanza for these companies, paid for by ratepayers. Now that they’ve lost money for three months, they want ratepayers to help them out.” 

——— 

On the Net: 

California Independent System Operator: www.caiso.com 

Pacific Gas and Electric Co.: www.pge.com 

Southern California Edison Co.: www.sce.com 

The Associated Press 

The University of California has hired fewer female faculty following passage of anti-affirmative action ballot measure Proposition 209, creating a gender gap that needs bridging, women professors from across the 10-campus system said Wednesday. 

In 1994, women made up 37 percent of UC’s new hires, a record high, but the numbers have been falling since then. 

In 1998, women accounted for 27 percent of UC’s new hires, a year when women earned 48 percent of doctorates awarded to U.S. citizens, according to data prepared for the Senate Select Committee on Government Oversight. 

The decrease comes at a time when UC is engaged in a huge hiring surge to keep up with an anticipated enrollment increase. 

The declining number of new women faculty follows the 1996 passage of Proposition 209, the ballot measure dismantling most state affirmative action programs. That measure killed some UC hiring programs but did not override federal regulations on hiring equity. Still, several professors said it seems to have chilled enthusiasm for hiring women. 

“I am here to seek your help in ending preferential hiring of males on the Berkeley campus,” UC Berkeley professor Sally Fairfax said drily. 

Professors testifying offered a number of different factors contributing to the hiring drop-off ranging from bias and an “old boys’ network” to not offering childcare or keeping applicant pools too small. 

The hearing came two days after leaders of nine top universities, including UC Berkeley, acknowledged that barriers exist for women faculty in science and engineering and promised to address the inequity. The university presidents met at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where officials admitted discriminating against women after a group of female professors produced an analysis two years ago showing unfair treatment. 

On Wednesday, UC officials defended their track record, saying they have hired more women than other major universities – for the year 1997-98, UC’s faculty was 23.5 percent female compared to Harvard’s total of 12.9 percent. They also contend that in some fields the number of qualified female candidates is small. 

Still, UC Santa Cruz Chancellor M.R.C. Greenwood acknowledged “there has been a disturbing decrease in the hiring of women post-Proposition 209, which we are carefully examining.” 

Greenwood, one of two women chancellors in the 10-campus UC system, said UC President Richard C. Atkinson has a plan to address the problem, including asking each campus to establish a new goal for the number of women faculty  

and coming up with a plan to achieve  

that goal. 

State Sen. Jackie Speier, D-San Mateo, who opened the hearing by declaring “it is absolutely imperative that we do the right thing and do it now,” said she was glad to hear of UC’s plan and would take steps to see it was implemented. 

Having more women faculty is about more than equity, said Marge Schultz, a Berkeley law professor. Women professors at Berkeley’s Boalt law school have “redefined the way we see rape,” and brought issues such as sexual harassment and the marriage tax penalty to the fore, she said. “What matters here is not simply the equal treatment of individual women candidates.” 

With UC expecting to fill 7,000 positions by 2010, creating hiring equity is the fair and smart thing to do, said UC Davis professor Gyongy Laky. 

“The women are there. They are qualified,” she said. “All of us know that this institution can do better.”

SAN JOSE — Opponents of Cisco Systems’ plan to build a $1.3 billion campus in one of the Silicon Valley’s few remaining rural areas filed suit Wednesday to halt the development or at least put it up for a referendum vote. 

The suit seeks to override the City Council’s Jan. 16 decision that effectively killed a bid to let voters decide whether to proceed with the 688-acre office park. City officials claimed the petition was legally flawed. 

“Today’s legal action is taken to vindicate the constitutional rights of those who signed the petition,” said Brian Grayson, spokesman for the People for Livable and Affordable Neighborhoods, which filed the lawsuit. 

Cisco, the city’s largest private employer and a leading manufacturer of equipment that runs the Internet, says its proposed campus is well planned out and sensitive to preserving open space.  

City officials approved the project in October. 

But opponents argued the complex and its 20,000 workers would worsen the area’s already snarled traffic and make housing prices soar in nearby communities. They launched the petition drive and gathered 40,000 signatures. 

Just after the signatures were collected, lawyers for the city and Cisco said it was fatally flawed because it focused on the density of development allowed on the North Coyote Valley site and the amount of open space required. 

Such factors are administrative decisions, which are not subject to referenda, said San Jose City Attorney Richard Doyle. The City Council agreed and tabled the ballot measure. 

The lawsuit, filed in Santa Clara County Superior Court, names the city of San Jose and the City Council. It specifically requests that the council repeal the planning amendments that allow construction or submit the plan to voters. 

The city attorney did not return a telephone message seeking comment Wednesday afternoon. 

Meanwhile, at least four other lawsuits against the development have been filed related to its environmental impact report. Plaintiffs of those include the Association of Monterey Bay Area Governments, the city of Salinas, Santa Cruz County and the Sierra Club. 

Despite the litigation, project organizers expect to begin work on the massive complex later this winter, said Cisco spokesman Eric Morley.  

He added more than 110,000 San Jose residents have signed petitions in support of the campus. 

On the Net: 

San Jose City Council: http://www.ci.san-jose.ca.us/cty—clk/agenda.htm 

Coyote Valley Research Park: http://www.c-v-r-p.com/overview.html

When Margot Smith went shopping for medicine for a visiting relative, she was startled to find that different pharmacies charge greatly varying prices for drugs. Not content to simply purchase the cheapest drug for the relative, Smith, an active member of the Berkeley Gray Panthers, decided to take her discovery to a new level. 

She engaged her fellow Gray Panthers in a project to compare drug prices: They found Candis Poon, a graduate student in public health, to help. Poon went to various local drug stores and checked prices. 

“In general, the American Association of Retired Persons had the best prices for brand name drugs, and Costco had the best prices for generic drugs. However, AARP orders are taken over the Internet, so the drugs take time to arrive and one must pay shipping costs. Costco purchases are only available for members,” according to the Gray Panther report. “Longs Drug Store charges the most for brand name drugs, but offers a 10 percent senior discount.” 

Smith pointed out that seniors having Medicare don’t regularly take advantage of a law that kicked in one year ago. “The law requires that drug stores charge Medicare seniors the same price for drugs that MedicCal patients pay.”  

The report concludes “the moral of the story is that seniors must first ask the pharmacist for the MedicCal price and make sure it is lower than the asking price. Seniors must shop around for the best prices if they wish to save money on prescription.” 

The Gray Panther survey is available by calling the organization at 548-9696.

SAN FRANCISCO — Two white supremacists serving time at Pelican Bay State Prison are now part of the investigation into the bloody, fatal mauling of a 33-year-old San Francisco woman by dogs, state prison officials and local authorities confirmed Monday. 

Russ Heimerich, a spokesman for the California Department of Corrections, said inmates Paul Schneider and Dale Bretches are being investigated for any role they might have played in organized dog fights. 

The owners of the dogs involved in the fatal mauling, attorneys Robert Noel, and his wife Marjori Knoller, have both visited Schneider and Bretches at Pelican Bay in their professional role, Heimerich confirmed. 

Noel acquired the two huge dogs three months ago. Bane, a 3-year-old, 120-pound Mastiff Canary Island cattle dog, attacked and killed Diane Whipple. The other dog was 113-pound Hera, 2, also a Mastiff-Canary Island mix. 

There is no indication Noel received the dogs from the inmates or that the animals had been used in fights. No charges have been filed against either Noel or Knoller. 

“We did run an investigation into a fighting dog ring with links to those two inmates,” Heimerich said. State officials have turned their information on Schneider and Bretches over to San Francisco police investigators as they look into the attack. 

Whipple died Friday night after the two large dogs broke free from their handler. Bane latched onto Whipple’s neck. Whipple died a few hours later. 

The two inmates have violent pasts and authorities are investigating possible links they might have had to dog fighting rings. 

“Schneider is a validated gang member belonging to the Aryan Brotherhood,” Heimerich said. He described the organization as a violent white supremacist group. 

Bretches is also a member of the Aryan Brotherhood, he said. He said both men are active members of the tight-knit supremacist sect. 

Schneider, 38, is in prison for a robbery conviction in Los Angeles County and attempted murder while incarcerated at Folsom State Prison. He has been in Pelican Bay since 1986, Heimerich said. Schneider is currently serving life without the possibility of parole. 

Bretches, 44, is in Pelican Bay for second degree murder and was also found guilty of assault with a deadly weapon while incarcerated, according to state records. He is currently serving life without the possibility of parole. 

“Noel and Knoller have visited Mr. Schneider in an attorney capacity at Pelican State Prison,” Heimerich said. Both attorneys have also visited Bretches, he said. 

San Francisco investigators would not say if Noel had acquired his dogs from Schneider or Bretches. San Francisco district attorney’s office spokesman Fred Gardner did say his office was trying to determine if Noel’s dogs were “trained to fight, attack or kill causing injury.” 

Information of such trained behavior would allow the district attorney’s office to “go forward with a maximum prosecution,” Gardner said. 

Knoller and Noel did not return calls from The Associated Press seeking comment. 

Noels’ dogs were a dangerous crossbreed, according to Merry Johnson, president of the Gunpowder Bull Mastiff group based in Baltimore and a Mastiff breeder with 25 years experience. 

“It’s unwise because you’re taking a terrier type personality and you’re making it very large,” Johnson said. “The Canary mix is a dangerous dog.” 

Whipple was a two-time first team All-American lacrosse player at Penn State and was named NCAA national player of the year in 1990. She was on the Penn State squads that captured the NCAA championships in 1987 and 1989. 

Whipple was hired in 1999 as St. Mary’s first varsity coach in the inaugural season as a Division I team.