By David Scharfenberg 

Daily Planet staff 

The Board of Education decided to table the latest small schools proposal put forth by the Coalition for Excellence and Equity during a raucous meeting Wednesday night. 

Students and activists both for and against the policy to divide Berkeley High School into small, autonomous, themed learning communities filled the board’s meeting room to capacity and spilled out into the hallway, holding signs, chanting slogans and speaking out of turn at various points in the evening.  

Coalition leaders say the small schools model would reduce the “achievement gap” separating white and minority students and solve other lingering problems at the high school. 

Barry Fike, president of the Berkeley Federation of Teachers, and members of the Teacher Advisory Committee, a group of instructors at Berkeley High School in favor of implementing the small schools structure, presented polling data suggesting that BHS teachers support some form of compact learning communities. 

“This is one of the most exciting meetings I’ve been to in a long time,” said Terry Doran, the only member of the school board who supports the coalition’s proposal. 

The public comment portion of the meeting began with an impassioned speech by the coalition’s leader, Katrina Scott George, also a parent of a BHS 10th grader. 

“I’m here to speak to you about faith, hope and love,” said Scott George, declaring that small schools advocates will continue to pursue reform at the high school, even in the face of opposition on the school board. “Our leadership has dismissed us, has ignored us, has tried to rule us without listening to us.”  

“We will not go away, we will not back down,” she concluded, to loud applause from supporters. 

But several parents argued that small schools are not a magic bullet, and that administrators should confront problems at BHS within the existing structure. 

“The school district can address the achievement gap in a positive way, short of an upheaval at the high school,” said Monica Flessel, parent of a sophomore at BHS. 

Elsa Ramos, a single mother with a son at Berkeley High, said the current size of the high school has been instrumental to her child’s success. 

“We feel that Berkeley has a big high school where there is something good for everyone,” she said. “I love the choices my son has.” 

After the parents spoke, members of the audience called on the board to allow some of the dozens of students in the gallery to speak, even though the public comment period was over. 

Arose Umar-bey, a student in Communications Arts and Sciences, one of three schools-within-a-school currently in place at BHS, was the first to comment. 

“As a member of a small school, I can say that Berkeley High should not break into small schools,” she said. “There are so many things that Berkeley High needs to address before small schools.” 

But the rest of the students, many wearing buttons and waving signs, spoke in favor of small schools.  

“As a student of color, when I came to Berkeley High, I was expected to fail,” said Hiroshi Norillo, a junior in the CAS program, who said he had no college ambitions when he entered BHS as a freshman. Now, Norilla argued, he has bigger plans.  

“Why can’t I go to Harvard, why can’t I go to Yale?,” he asked. 

After the public comment period, Fike presented the results of the high school teacher poll, developed by the union in conjunction with the Coalition for Excellence and Equity, and the Teacher Advisory Committee. 

Respondents were directed to choose one out of three statements to describe their opinion of the coalition’s latest policy, which lays out standards, structures, admission procedures and more, in broad language, for the proposed small schools. Eighty of 162 teachers, or 49 percent, said they support the policy.  

Thirty-five percent said they did not support the proposal, and would like to “pursue another vision of small schools,” which “may or may not include the existing small schools at BHS.”  

Sixteen percent said they would like to organize BHS around “a large traditional urban high school model,” and phase out the existing small schools. 

Leslie Plettner, a BHS instructor on the Teachers Advisory Committee, strongly urged the school board to heed the call of teachers for some form of small schools.  

“You have an elected responsibility,” Plettner said. “We depend on you to listen to us.” 

But Joaquin Rivera, vice president of the school board, pointed out that many teachers do not support the coalition’s current policy. 

“It is true that 85 percent of the teachers are asking for change,” he said. “But it’s also true that half the teachers are saying they do not want the board to adopt the current policy.” 

When it became clear that the board would not have a public debate about the details of the coalition’s latest policy, Scott George stood up, recited a speech from 19th century abolitionist Frederick Douglass, and led a dramatic march of small schools supporters out of the hearing room. 

After the room cleared out, Superintendent Michele Lawrence said she could not possibly conduct a thorough analysis of small schools, and make recommendations by May, as school board member John Selawsky asked near the end of the meeting.  

She said pressing concerns around the district budget, staff evaluation systems and disaster planning would make a full analysis impossible. But, she did commit to visiting other institutions using the small schools model, and evaluating the effectiveness of the current schools-within-a-school at BHS, before the end of the year. 

In the end, Lawrence said the value of small schools is clear, but that they must be properly studied and implemented if they are to serve failing students. 

“Without sound implementation, these kids will continue to be hurt,” she said, pointing to the recent failure of a small schools model at Piner High School in Santa Rosa.

Friday, Dec. 21

18th Annual Telegraph Ave.  

Holiday Street Fair  

11 a.m. - 6 p.m. 

Telegraph Ave. 

Between Dwight Way and Bancroft 

Telegraph Avenue presents a mix of free music, good food, festive lights, colorful decorations. More than 300 artists will display handmade crafts. 

Berkeley Women In Black Vigil 

noon - 1 p.m. 

Telegraph Ave. at Haste 

(Outside Cody’s Books) 

Vigil in support of Women in Black in Jerusalem against military solutions to end the occupation of Palestine. 

Living Philosophers 

10 a.m. - 2 p.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center 

1901 Hearst St., Room C 

Presentation and discussion with H. D. Moe. 528-8713.  

Saturday, Dec. 22

Santa's Solstice Bazaar 

11 a.m. - 5 p.m. 

Metaversal Lightcraft 

1708 University Ave. 

Come shop while kids visit with Santa for free. Fine arts, crafts, 

clothing and gift booths in a magical and colorful scene. 644-2032, www.lightcraft.org. 

So Lovely! So Lively! Solano! 

12 - 6 p.m. 

Solano Ave. 

Berkeley and Albany 

More than 50 street performers – jazz bands, carolers, talking trees, & toy soldiers during the holiday season along Solano Ave. www.solanoave.org 

Berkeley Farmers’ Market  

Holiday Crafts Fair 

10 a.m. - 4 p.m. 

Martin Luther King, JR. Civic Center Park 

Fair will include organic produce, handcrafted gifts, live choral music, massages, and hot apple cider. 548-3333, www.ecologycenter.org 

Magic School Bus Video  

Festival 

10:30 a.m. - 1:30 p.m. 

Lawrence Hall of Science 

Centennial Drive, above UC Berkeley Campus 

Ms. Frizzle takes her skeptical class from outer space to inside a dog’s noise in seven different video adventures. Free popcorn and free magic school bus gift. $3 - $7. 642-5132, www.lawrencehallofscience.org 

18th Annual Telegraph Ave.  

Holiday Street Fair  

11 a.m. - 6 p.m. 

Telegraph Ave. 

Between Dwight Way and Bancroft 

Telegraph Avenue presents a mix of free music, good food, festive lights, colorful decorations. More than 300 artists will display handmade crafts. 

Sunday, Dec. 23

A Service of Lessons and  

Carols 

4 p.m. 

St. Augustine Church 

400 Alcatraz 

The St. Augustine Choir fill an afternoon with carols. 653-8631. 

Christmas Photo Opportunity 

11 a.m. 

St. John’s Presbyterian Church 

2727 College Ave. 

Children and adults are invited to be a part of the Christmas story by dressing up and having their pictures taken by the manger. New babies and children’s dolls are invited to take turns as the baby in the manger. Costumes and cameras will be provided. 845-6830. 

So Lovely! So Lively! Solano! 

12 - 6 p.m. 

Solano Ave. 

Berkeley and Albany 

More than 50 street performers – jazz bands, carolers, talking trees, & toy soldiers during the holiday season along Solano Ave. www.solanoave.org 

18th Annual Telegraph Ave.  

Holiday Street Fair  

11 a.m. - 6 p.m. 

Telegraph Ave. between Dwight Way and Bancroft 

Telegraph Avenue presents a mix of free music, good food, festive lights, colorful decorations. More than 300 artists will display handmade crafts.

Planet People: 

The other night I had a dream I went to heaven; I was mobbed. 

“Well, Kauffman” said Saint Peter, “A you can see, we have a crowded agenda; you got three minutes.” 

I told him that was no problem because I’m from Berkeley. 

“You from Berkeley? Then go right in.” 

George Kauffman 

Berkele

It started in 1971 with a group of “young hippie potters” looking for a cheap place to live and practice their craft. Today, the Berkeley Potters Guild, which claims to be the oldest and largest ceramics guild in northern California, is known nationwide for the high quality of its members’ clay work. 

It celebrates its 30th anniversary this year with a show and sale that continues at the Guild’s Jones Street studios in West Berkeley through Dec. 23.  

Punning on the words “guild” and “gild,” the artists have put together an anniversary exhibit, “The Guilded Age: 30 Years in Clay,” that features a number of gold-colored clay items, most prominently a large gilded urn resembling a trophy cup. You can also see a collection of postcards announcing the Guild’s sales every year since 1972; in the first years, bearded, longhaired young artists cluster together and smile out at the camera.  

As a special gift to their customers this year, the potters have made thousands of tiny clay magnets, which they hand out at the door. 

The Guild has achieved considerable renown worldwide: members’ works have been exhibited at SFMOMA, The Asian Art Museum, the Smithsonian and in museums and galleries as far away as London and Belgrade.  

“There are good potters everywhere, but there is a real concentration of superb work here,” says Jessie Cotkin, who has been a full-time professional since 1977 and a Guild member since 1983.  

The Guild is regularly mentioned in travel sections from the New York Times to Sunset magazine.  

“They know the quality is generally very high, and there’s a wide variety of styles,” Cotkin says. 

It’s that variety that usually draws several thousand holiday shoppers and collectors out to the Guild’s annual December sale. It offers a delectable variety – everything from cups and plates to sculpture, ikebana vases, and porcelain earrings. This year’s items range from whimsical Christmas ornaments, which go for as little as $5, to elaborate clay sculptures which run into the hundreds of dollars.  

There are realistic clay fruits and vegetables and classically simple Japanese-style bowls. There are plain earthenware vessels and brightly glazed and painted ones.  

A wide variety of firing and glazing techniques are in evidence, from wheel-thrown vessels to slab construction, from raku to luster glazing. Cotkin’s work features “mishima,” a time-consuming process that involves etching the clay, firing it once, sanding it down and refiring it. 

Among the more eye-catching pieces are those by Russian-born artist Julia Kirillova, whose curious “Russian Tea Ceremony” series features sculptural teapots and cups shaped like people. Each figure has significance derived from Russian folklore, Kirillova, explains: a woman clutching a purse is supposed to bring prosperity into the home, while a musician figure exerts the influence of joy. Each is unique and has its own distinct personality. “Actually, I find it very hard to part with them,” Kirillova admits.  

The stability of the Guild makes it possible for East Bay residents to enjoy this sale year after year. The original Guild members incorporated and bought the building at the corner of Jones and Fourth in order to secure the space for 20 studios, which were then leased individually. A few years ago, when several of the original owners were ready to move on, the Guild found a new buyer who supported the arts and agreed to continue the studio arrangement. 

While each artist is an independent businessperson, members find there are advantages to sharing space. The annual sales – in May, June, and December – are well coordinated and benefit each artist. The potters also draw on one another’s expertise. “We use each other as a resource, because we’re all so different,” says Cotkin. “Somebody might be an expert in certain glazes, another person might know more about a certain firing technique. The technical aspects are so vast and varied.” 

Because their art is mostly a solitary pursuit, the Guild members say they find balance and community in having other potters around. “Pretty much I don’t talk to anybody for hours,” says Cotkin. “It’s kind of nice to be able to come out into the gallery or take a break and talk to other artists.”

924 Gilman Dec. 21: Kepi, Bonfire Madigan, Kevin Seconds; Dec. 22: The Lab Rats, Onetime Angels, A great Divide, Last Great Liar, Gabriel’s Ratchet; Dec. 23: 5 p.m., Over My Dead Body, Panic, Breaker, Some Still Believe; Dec. 28: What Happens Next, Rambo, Lie, Youth Riot, Lugosi; Dec. 29: Defiance, The P.A.W.N.S., Panty Raid, Sexy, Gluk; Jan. 4: Champion, Carry On, Stay Gold, The First Step, The Damage Done; Jan. 5: Iron Lung, B.G., Crucial Attack, Blown To Bits; Jan. 11: Bananas, Numbers, Lowdown, Doozers, Iron Ass; Jan. 12: Plan 9, The Sick, The Hellbillies, Oppressed Logic, Deltaforce; All shows start a 8 p.m. unless noted; Most are $5; 924 Gilman St. 525-9926 

The Albatross Pub Dec. 27: Keni “El Lebrijano”; All shows start at 9 p.m., 1822 San Pablo Ave. 843-2473  

Anna’s Dec. 21: Anna and Percy Scott on piano; 10 p.m., Bluesman Hideo Date; Dec. 22: Jazz Singer Robin Gregory; 10 p.m., The Distones Jazz Sextet; Dec. 23: Jazz Singer Ed Reed; All music starts 8 p.m. unless noted. 1801 University Ave., 849-2662. 

Ashkenaz Dec. 21: 8 p.m., “Celebrating the Life of David Nadel,” Aux Cajunals, Nigerian Bros., Tropical Vibrations, $8; Dec. 22: 9 p.m., SensaSamba, $11; Dec. 23: 8 p.m., Ecology Center /Media Alliance Cuba Trip Benefit, $10 - $12; Dec. 25: 10 p.m., Lickshot, DJ Tony Moses, $5; Dec. 26: 10 p.m., Zulu Spear, Fireproof, $5; Dec. 27: 10 p.m., Grateful Dead DJ Nite, $5; Dec. 28: 9:30 p.m., Mood Swing Orchestra, $11; Dec. 29: 9:30 p.m., Caribbean All Stars, $11; Dec. 30: 8 p.m., Marimba Pacific, $8; Dec. 31: 8 p.m., Balkan New Year’s Eve with Edessa and Anoush, $15; 1317 San Pablo Ave., 525-5054, www.ashkenaz.com.  

Blake’s Dec. 29: 11 p.m., Jack West & Curvature, $5; 2367 Telegraph Ave., 877-488-6533. 

Club JJang-Ga Dec. 22: Heaven & Hell, Blue Period; Dec. 29: Deducted Value, 3rd Rail, Noiz, Un Sed; 400 29th Ave., Oakland, (925) 833-7820, savageproductionssl@ yahoo.com. 

Cal Performances Jan. 20: 3 p.m., Midori and Robert McDonald. $28 -$48. Zellerbach Hall, UC Berkeley, Bancroft Way at Telegraph. 642-9988 

Eli’s Mile High Club Every Friday, 10 p.m. Funky Fridays Conscious Dance Party with KPFA DJs Splif Skankin and Funky Man. $10; 3629 Martin Luther King Jr. Way, Oakland. 655-6661 

Freight & Salvage Coffee House Jan. 5: The Bluegrass Intentions CD Release Party; Jan. 6: Allette Brooks; All shows begin 8 p.m., 1111 Addison St. 548-1761, www.freightandsalvage.org.  

Julia Morgan Theatre Dec. 23: 7:30 p.m., an evening of Irish music and dance with Todd Denman and friends. $10, $5 children; Dec. 31: 8 p.m., New Year’s Eve Gala Concert, Program of classical favorites of the San Francisco Chamber Orchestra; Jan 11: 8 p.m. San Francisco Chamber Orchestra, sizzling program of classical party music; Jan. 12: 8:p.m., “Club Dance,” Teens come together to express their individual personalities and gifts as dancers. $10, Students and Seniors $6, Children ages 5 and under $6. Julia Morgan Theatre, 2640 College Ave., 845-8542, www.juliamorgan.org. 

Jupiter Dec. 21: Crater; Dec. 22: Post Junk Trio; Dec. 27: Joshi Marshal Project; Dec. 28: Ben Krames & Candlelight Dub; Dec. 29: Berkeley Jazz School Presents: Kirk Tamura Trio; All shows are free and begin at 8 p.m. unless noted. 2181 Shattuck Ave., 843-7625, www.jupiterbeer.com. 

La Peña Dec. 23: 3:30 p.m, Café Domingo de Rumba, Free; La Peña, 3105 Shattuck Ave. 849-2568, www.lapena.org 

Rose Street House Dec. 25: 3 p.m., Annual “Dykelah Escape-from-you-know-what-day Musical Extravaganza!”; Jan.17: 7:30 p.m., Allette Brooks. 1839 Rose St. 594-4000 x687, rosestreetmusic@ yahoo.com. 

Yoshi’s Jazz House Dec. 22: 1 p.m. - 4 p.m., 7th Annual Youth Arts Benefit Concert and Dance, $15; Dec.18 - 23: Charlie Hunter; Dec. 26 - 31: New Year’s Fiesta, The Afro-Cuban Jazz Masters; Jan. 2 - 6: Charles Lloyd; Jan. 13: Jacqui Naylor Quartet; All shows at 8 p.m., and 10 p.m., unless noted. 510 Embarcadero West, Jack London Square, Oakland. Check for prices and Sunday Matinees, 238-9200, www.yoshis.com. 

“Dotha’s Juke Joint: Everett and Jones Barbeque” Dec. 21: 8 & 10p.m., Faye Carol and her Off the Hook Blues Band, $15; Jack London Square, 126 Broadway at Second St., reservations, 663-7668.  

The Oakland Interfaith Youth Gospel Choir’s 5th Annual Christmas Concert Dec. 22: 7 p.m., “The Reason Why We Sing”; The Regents Theater, Holy Names College, 3500 Mountain Blvd., Oakland, 839-4361, www.oigc.org. 

“Music on Telegraph” Dec. 22: Kaz Sasaki Duo, Blackberry Ginger, 2520 Durant; Dec. 23: Almadecor, Ann’s Kitchen, 2498 Telegraph Ave.; All shows 2 - 4 p.m., Free. 

First Congregational Church of Berkeley Jan. 6: 3 p.m., Stephen Genz in his West Coast debut; 2345 Channing Way, 527-8175, www.geocities.com/mostlybrahms. 

Berkeley Piano Club Jan.11: 8 p.m., Kate Steinbeck and Renee Witon; Berkeley Piano Club, 2724 Haste St., (510) 531-1487. 

Berkeley High School Dance Production Jan. 11, 12, 18 &19: 7:30 p.m., Diverse mix of classical and modern ballet to hard-core hip-hop. $5. Florence Schwimley Little Theatre, Allston way and MLK., 644-6120 

“Much Ado About Nothing” Through Jan. 8: Check theater for specific dates and times. Shakespeare’s classic romantic comedy chronicles a handful of soldiers returning from a winning battle to be greeted by a gaggle of giddy maidens. Directed by Brian Kulick. $10 - $54. Berkeley Repertory Theatre, 2025 Addison St. 647-2949 www.berkeleyrep.org 

“Every Inch a King” Jan. 11 through Feb. 9: Thur. - Sat. 8 p.m., Sun. 5 p.m.; Three sisters have to make a decision as their father approaches death in this comedy presented by the Central Works Theater Ensemble. $8 - $18. LeValls Subterranean, 1834 Euclid Ave. 558-138, www.centralworks.org.  

“Murder Dressed in Satin” by Victor Lawhorn, ongoing. A mystery-comedy dinner show at The Madison about a murder at the home of Satin Moray, a club owner and self-proclaimed socialite with a scarlet past. Dinner is included in the price of the theater ticket. $47.50 Lake Merritt Hotel, 1800 Madison St., Oakland. 239-2252 www.acteva.com/go/havefun 

Pacific Film Archive Jan. 3: 7 p.m., 9 p.m., Unfinished Song; Jan. 4: 7 p.m., 9:15 p.m., Going By; Jan. 5: 7 p.m., 9 p.m., Under the Moonlight; Jan. 6: 1p.m., 3 p.m., Paper Airplanes, 5:30 Shrapnels in Peace; Jan.10: 7 p.m., 9 p.m., ABC Africa; Jan.11: 7:30 p.m., The Girl at the Monceau Bakery and Suzanne’s Career, 9:05 p.m. The Sign of the Lion with Place de l’Etoile; Jan. 12: 7p.m., La Collectionneuse, 8:50 p.m., My Night at Maud’s; Jan.13: 1p.m., 3p.m., Os 

“Veiled and Revealed” Through Dec. 23: Human beings, costumed in native dress are captured by visual artists in a seven-person exhibit. Sat. Dec. 8, 15, and 23, 11 a.m. - 5 p.m. Free. Simultaneously showing at ART-A-FACT, 1109 Addison St., and Metaversal Lightcraft, 1708 University Ave. 848-1985 

“Images of Innocence and Beauty” Dec. 19 through Jan. 8: An exhibit featuring Kathleen Flannigan’s drawing and furniture - boxes, tables, and mirrors, all embellished with images of the beauty and innocence of the natural world. Addison Street Windows, 2018 Addison St. 

“From With These Walls” Jan. 5: Educational studio opening celebration gallery show of student works in steel, bronze, aluminum, cast iron, glass, neon, ceramic, stone and paper; jewelry. The Crucible, 1036 Ashby St. (Entrance is one block south on Murray St.) 843-5511, fran@thecrucible.org. 

“The First Five Years” Through Jan.11: Exhibit represents a selection of drawings, paintings, prints and sculpture created by students during their 7th & 8th grade years. 7a.m.-9:30 p.m. Mon-Fri, 5:30- 9:30 p.m. Sat., Bucci’s Restaurant, 6121 Hollis St., Emeryville, 547-4725, www.bucci.com 

“Carving, Canvas, Color: Art of Julio Garcia and Wilbert Griffith” Through Jan.12: Brightly colored wooden figures and colorfully detailed paintings. Gallery is open by appointment and chance, most weekdays 10:30 a.m. - 4 p.m.; The Ames Gallery, 2661 Cedar St., 845-4949, amesgal@home.com 

“Matrix 195” Through Jan. 13: German artist, Thomas Scheibitz’s, first solo museum exhibition in the United States showcases semi-abstract representations of everyday objects and landscapes. Wed., Fri. - Sun. 11 a.m. - 5 p.m., Thur. 11 a.m. - 9 p.m. $3-$6. Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, 2626 Bancroft Way, 642-0808 www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

“Analogous Biology: Balance and Use,” Mark J. Leavitt, Dec. 20 through Jan. 19; Tue. - Sat., 11 a.m. - 5 p.m., Ardency Gallery, 709 Broadway, Oakland. 836-0831, www.artolio.com. 

GTU Exhibit: “Holocaust Series” by Cleve Gray Through Jan. 25: Comprised of 21 works on paper that constitute “a catharsis... for all of humanity.” Mon. - Thurs. 8:30 a.m. - 9:45 p.m., Fri. 8:30 a.m. - 6 p.m., Sat. 10 a.m. - 6 p.m., Sun. noon - 7 p.m.; Free. Flora Lamson Hewlett Library, Graduate Theological Union, 2400 Ridge Rd. 649-2541 www.gtu.edu 

Pro Arts: “Juried Annual 2001-02” Dec. 19 through Feb. 2: An exhibition of painting, sculpture, mixed media, photography and more by Bay Area and  

regional artists. Pro Arts, 461 Ninth St., www.proartsgallery.org. 

“Water Media” Jan. 10 through Feb. 8: An exhibit by Christine “Caipirinha” Mulder. Capoeira Arts Cafe Gallery, 2026 Center St., 666-1349 for hours. 

Traywick Gallery: “New Work by Dennis Begg and Steve Briscoe” Jan. 5 through Feb. 9: Dennis Begg’s sculpture explores memory as the building block of consciousness, learning and experience. Steve Brisco’s paintings on paper address issues of identity through evocative combinations of text and imagery. Tues. - Sat. 11 a.m. - 6 p.m., 1316 10th St. 527-1214 

“Enduring Wisdom: Artwork and Stories by Homeless and Formerly Homeless Seniors” Through Feb. 15: 18 homeless and formerly homeless elders reveal how they learned and applied wisdom that is timeless. Mon. - Fri. and Sundays 11 a.m. - 2 p.m. Reception and presentation by the elders Thurs. Nov. 15, 4 p.m. - 6 p.m. Free. St. Mary’s Center, 635 22nd St., Oakland, 893-4723 x222 

“The Other 364 Days: A Day in the Life of the Queer Community” Jan. 2 through Feb. 16: An exhibit of black and white photographs by East Bay photographer Limor Inbar-Hansen. Mon. - Fri., 8:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m., Sat., 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., Reception for artist, Jan. 12: 6 - 8 p.m., Photolab Gallery, 2235 Fifth St., 644-1400, limor@indelible-images.com. 

“Ansel Adams in the University of California Collections” Dec. 12 through Mar. 10: A selection of photographs and memorabilia presenting a different perspective on Adam’s career as one of the leading figures in American photography. Wed, Fri. - Sun. 11 a.m. - 5 p.m., Thur. 11 a.m. - 9 p.m. $4- $6. The University of California, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, 2626 Bancroft Way, 642-0808, www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

“Migrations: Photographs by Sebastiao Salgado” Jan. 16 through Mar. 24: Over 300 black-and-white photographs of immigrants and refugees taken by the Brazilian photographer. Wed. - Sun. 11 a.m. - 7 p.m. $4 - $6. The University of California, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, 2626 Bancroft Way. 642-0808, www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

"Earthly Pleasures" assemblage and photographs by Susan Danis, Jan. 11 through March 30: 10 a.m. - 6 p.m., Mon. - Sat.; Sticks, 1579 B, Solano Ave., 526-6603.  

“The Art History Museum of Berkeley” Masterworks by Guy Colwell Faithful copies of several artists from the pasts, including Titian’s “The Venus of Urbino,” Cezanne’s “Still Life,” Picasso’s “Woman at a Mirror,” and Botticelli’s “Primavera” Ongoing. Call ahead for hours. Atelier 9, 2028 Ninth St., 841-4210, www.atelier9.com. 

Readings 

Cody’s on Telegraph Ave. Jan. 8: Theodore Hamm discusses “Rebel and a Cause: Caryl Chessman and the Politics of the Death Penalty”; Jan. 10: Joan Frank reads from her new book, “Boys Keep Being Born”; Jan. 11: Christopher Hitchens, “Letters to a Youn Contrarian”; Jan. 14: Pamela Logan talks about “Tibetan Rescue: A Woman’s Quest to Save the Fabulous Art Treasures of Pewar Monastery”; All events are free and start at 7:30 p.m. unless noted. 2454 Telegraph Ave., 845-7852. 

Coffee With A Beat - Word Beat reading series Dec. 22: Debra Grace Khattab, Jesy Goldhammer; Dec. 29: Steve Arntson, Michelle Erickson, Clare Lewis; All readings are free and begin at 7 p.m., 458 Perkins, Oakland, 526-5985, www.angelfire.com/poetry/wordbeat. 

The Humanist Fellowship Hall Jan. 9: 7 p.m., “Our Wings Are Pregnant Seesaws,” Reading performance of a play by H. D. Moe. 390 27th St., Oakland, 528-8713. 

“World Ground Poetry” Dec.19: 7-9 p.m., Featuring Abdul Kenyatta & Paradise Freejahlove Supreme; World Ground Cafe, 3726 Mac Arthur Blvd., 482-2933, www.worldgrounds.com. 

Tours 

Golden Gate Live Steamers Grizzly Peak Boulevard and Lomas Cantadas Drive at the south end of Tilden Regional Park Small locomotives, scaled to size. Trains run Sun., 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Rides: Sun., noon to 3 p.m., weather permitting. 486-0623  

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Fridays 9:30 - 11:45 a.m. or by appointment. Call ahead to make reservations. Free. University of California, Berkeley. 486-4387 

Museums 

Habitot Children’s Museum “Back to the Farm” An interactive exhibit gives children the chance to wiggle through tunnels, look into a mirrored fish pond, don farm animal costumes, ride on a John Deere tractor and more. “Recycling Center” Lets the kids crank the conveyor belt to sort cans, plastic bottles and newspaper bundles into dumpster bins; $4 adults; $6 children age 7 and under; $3 for each additional child age 7 and under. Mon. and Wed., 9:30 a.m. to 1 p.m.; Tues. and Fri., 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Thur., 9:30 a.m. to 7 p.m.; Sat., 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Sun., 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. 2065 Kittredge St. 647-1111 or www.habitot.org  

Oakland Museum of California “Kwanzaa Community Celebration” Dec. 30: 12-4 p.m.,Nia Kwanzaa is an African American holiday that honors black family history; Through Jan. 13: Grand Lyricist: The Art of Elmer Bischoff, featuring paintings and works on paper that trace the evolution of Bischoff’s career. $6 adults, $4 seniors and students, free for children under 5. Wed. - Sat. 10 a.m. - 5 p.m., Sun. noon - 5 p.m., 10th St., Oakland, 888-625-6873/ www.museumca.org 

UC Berkeley Museum of Paleontology Lobby, Valley Life Sciences Building, UC Berkeley “Tyrannosaurus Rex,” ongoing. A 20 foot by 40 foot replica of the fearsome dinosaur made from casts of bones of the most complete T. Rex skeleton yet excavated. When unearthed in Montana, the bones were all lying in place with only a small piece of the tailbone missing. “Pteranodon” A suspended skeleton of a flying reptile with a wingspan of 22-23 feet. The Pteranodon lived at the same time as the dinosaurs. Free. Mon. through Fri., 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Sat. and Sun., 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. 642-1821 

UC Berkeley Phoebe Hearst Museum of Anthropology will close its exhibition galleries for renovation. It will reopen in early 2002.  

University of California Berkeley Art Museum Pacific Film Archive has reopened after its summerlong seismic retrofit. “Martin Puryear: Sculpture of the 1990s” through Jan. 13; “The Dream of the Audience: Theresa Hak Kyung Cha (1951 - 1982)” through Dec. 16; “Face of Buddha: Sculpture from India, China, Japan, and Southeast Asia” ongoing rotation through 2003; “Matrix 194: Jessica Bronson, Heaps, layers, and curls” Sept. 16 through Nov. 11; “Matrix 192: Ceal Floyer 37’4”” Sept. 16 through Nov. 11; Wed., Fri., Sat., Sun. 11 a.m. - 5 p.m., Thur. 11 a.m. - 9 p.m., PFA Theater, 2575 Bancroft Way; Museum Galleries 2626 Bancroft Way; 642-0808 www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

Lawrence Hall of Science Dec. 26: 1 p.m., Professor Smart’s Fun with Physics Show; Dec. 27: 1 p.m., Slapstick with Derique; Dec. 28: 1 p.m., Rhythmix; Dec. 29: 1 p.m., Magic with Jay Alexander; Dec. 30: 1 p.m., Music and Storytelling with Dennis Hysom; Dec. 31: 1 p.m., New Year’s Eve Party, special daytime holiday party for kids; Dec. 26 through 31: Free Energy Star compact fluorescent light bulb; Through Jan. 26: Scream Machines: The Science of Roller Coasters; “Within the Human Brain,” ongoing. Visitors test their cranial nerves, play skeeball, master mazes, match musical tones and construct stories inside a simulated “rat cage” of learning experiments. “Saturday Night Stargazing,” First and third Saturdays each month. 8 - 10 p.m., LHS plaza; Open daily, 10 a.m. - 5 p.m., $7 for adults; $5 for children 5-18; $3 for children 3-4. Centennial Drive, UC Berkeley, 642-5132, www.lawrencehallofscience.org. 642-5132. 

Holt Planetarium Programs are recommended for age 8 and up; children under age 6 will not be admitted. $2 in addition to regular museum admission. “Constellations Tonight” Ongoing. Using a simple star map, learn to identify the most prominent constellations for the season in the planetarium sky. Daily, 3:30 p.m. $7 general; $5 seniors, students, disabled, and youths age 7 to 18; $3 children age 3 to 5 ; free children age 2 and younger. Daily 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Centennial Drive, UC Berkeley 642-5132 or www.lhs.berkeley.edu  

Send arts events two weeks in advance to Calendar@berkeleydailyplanet.net, 2076 University, Berkeley 94704 or fax to 841-5694.

Cortez makes Cal staff nearly complete 

Daily Planet Wire Services 

Nearing completion of his new coaching staff, Cal head football coach Jeff Tedford announced the hiring of George Cortez as offensive coordinator on Thursday.  

Cortez, 50, has been the offensive coordinator for the reigning Grey Cup champion Calgary Stampeders of the Canadian Football League and is the man credited with developing the talents of Jeff Garcia and other successful CFL quarterbacks. Under Cortez’s tutelage, Garcia led the Stampeders to the 1998 Grey Cup title and later has elevated his game to Pro Bowl status in the NFL with the San Francisco 49ers.  

“George Cortez has enjoyed a career that is synonymous with winning football,” Tedford said. “George is one of the premier offensive minds in football today, and he’s someone who shares my vision for Cal football. We’re thrilled to have him join us in Berkeley.”  

Offering 25 years of pro and college coaching experience, Cortez has been the mastermind behind some of the CFL’s most prolific offenses during the past four years as Calgary’s offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach. In 2001, the Stampeders led the league in eight offensive categories, including scoring (25.4 ppg), and Calgary running back Kelvin Anderson gained 1,383 yards to lead the circuit’s No. 1 rushing offense. A year earlier, Cortez produced the CFL’s 2000 Most Outstanding Player in quarterback Dave Dickenson (now with the NFL’s San Diego Chargers), who guided an offense that ranked first or second in seven league offensive categories.  

Despite playing three different quarterbacks due to injuries, Cortez helped steer Calgary to its first Western Division crown of the decade in 1999, a season in which the Stampeders topped the CFL in seven offensive categories. And in Cortez’s first year as Calgary’s offensive coordinator, the 1998 Stampeders claimed the Grey Cup as the Garcia-led offense paced the CFL in 10 statistical departments.  

“Coach Cortez did an outstanding job with me for the Calagary Stampeders,” said Garcia from the 49ers’ training facility Wednesday. “He was the offensive coordinator for my last two seasons and I worked with him even before that. He had a solid feel for our system and a good understanding of the game. He puts a lot of work into it and he is very thorough in everything that he does. Obviously, Calgary has shown consistency on offense and a lot of that credit should go to him because he does a terrific job. He is somebody that I have kept in contact with since I left there. We had a good rapport. He is somebody that the players will respect and give there all for, without a doubt.”  

Cortez, a 1973 graduate of Texas A&M, also coached Calgary’s defensive line and secondary in 1997 and was the Stampeders’ offensive line coach from 1992-94 – a period during which their line led the CFL in fewest sacks allowed. One of his players, Bruce Coventon, became the first-ever offensive lineman to win the Jackie Parker Trophy as the Western Division’s Rookie of the Year in 1992. In recent years, Cortez has also served as quarterbacks coach at Southern Methodist University from 1995-96 and was defensive line and special teams coach for the CFL’s Ottawa Roughriders from 1990-91. Other coaching stops along the way have included the CFL’s Montreal Alouettes/Concordes (1983-86), plus college stints for a combined nine years at Lamar and Rice universities, as well as five years of coaching at C.E. King High School.  

With the hiring of Cortez, Tedford has filled eight of the nine assistant coaching positions on his staff. The other members of the staff are: Bob Gregory (defensive coordinator), Bob Foster (linebackers), Ron Gould (running backs), Ken Delgado (defensive line), Jim Michalczik (offensive line), Eric Kiesau (wide receivers), Dave Ungerer (special teams/tight ends). Tedford is expected to name a defensive secondary coach later this month.

Sometime in the not-too-distant future, AC Transit buses could shoot down Telegraph Avenue from the UC Berkeley campus into downtown Oakland in their own, dedicated lanes. 

Passengers would wait in computerized bus shelters, which would provide up-to-the minute details on scheduled arrivals. They would pre-pay for the ride in the shelter, so when the bus arrived, there would be no back-up behind the drivers’ fare box. 

Overall, the transit time between Berkeley and Oakland would decrease by as much as one-third. 

“We like to think of it as light-rail with rubber wheels,” said Stuart Cohen, director of the Bay Area Transportation and Land Use Coalition.  

AC Transit officials, transportation activists and regional planning agencies have been kicking around this idea for a few years now, but on Wednesday it came one step closer to reality. 

That’s when funding for the project – as well as two others that will serve Berkeley residents – was approved by the Metropolitan Transportation Commission in its 2001 Regional Transportation Plan.  

Berkeley residents, members of the City Council and transportation advocates applauded the MTC for increasing funding for mass transportation. 

However, many of the same people are steaming over the amount of money awarded to two large projects – a fourth bore for the Caldecott Tunnel and a BART extension to San Jose.  

The MTC was created by the state legislature in 1970 to create long-range transportation plans for the nine Bay Area counties and to administer state and federal transportation funds for the region.  

The Regional Transportation Plan – which is comparable to a city’s general plan – determines transportation funding for the Bay Area over the next 25 years.  

Included in the 2001 plan was $151 million for the “Rapid Bus Transit” down the Telegraph corridor and on into San Leandro, $4 million for a similar – but less extensive – “enhanced bus service” on San Pablo Avenue and $1 million to subsidize bus passes for high-school and middle-school students from low-income families. 

According to Jon Twichell, AC Transit’s planning manager, the RTP money will be used to fund the first phase of the “Rapid Bus Transit” program, which will involve installing the bus shelters and the pre-pay system. 

Twichell said that another $150 million will have to be found in order to install dedicated bus lanes between Oakland and San Leandro. 

The first phase of the project should be completed sometime in the next three years, Twichell said, but despite political support for the plan, the agency could not be certain when the dedicated lanes would be ready. 

“It’s too early to give anything but a dart board answer,” he said. 

AC Transit, with the support of Berkeley and other agencies, is eyeing a different kind of service – called “enhanced bus” – for San Pablo Avenue. 

The enhanced bus service would offer similar shelters, fewer stops and a “signal preemption” system. If a stoplight is about to turn red, “signal preemption” allows the driver of a bus to keep it green for a few moments until the bus gets through. 

“The San Pablo corridor is the third or fourth most highly used in the AC Transit system,” said Councilmember Miriam Hawley, who used to represent parts of Berkeley on the AC Transit Board of Directors. “The buses down there are full most of the time.” 

“This should really speed things up down there.” 

Twichell said there are no immediate plans to put bus-only lanes similar to those planned on Telegraph onto San Pablo Avenue. 

The subsidy for low-income students will give free or reduced-price bus passes to students who qualify for federally subsidized lunch programs. The $1 million in MTC money will be matched by AC Transit, which brings the total budget of the program to $2 million for a two-year pilot program. 

School board member John Selawsky, who, along with Supervisor Keith Carson and Assemblymember Dion Aroner, lobbied the MTC on behalf of the program, said on Thursday that he expected that it would aid between 1,500 and 2,000 students from low-income Berkeley families. 

“Any low-income family with several kids has a hard time paying for bus passes,” said Hawley. “This’ll be a blessing for many Berkeley families.” 

Councilmember Kriss Worthington said that the City Council passed a unanimous resolution in support of the program, but had hoped that it would be funded for three, not two, years.  

“Once you have done a trial for three years, you get on a different track for state grants,” he said. He added that he thought there would be political pressure to extend the program for another year, so that there would be a better chance of making the program permanent. 

Worthington said that although he was pleased to see many mass transit – as opposed to highway – measures in the Regional Transportation Plan, there were several “appalling” projects approved as well. 

“It’s not a dramatic massive victory, because big chunks of the money are going to big projects like BART to San Jose, which is not a cost-effective way to spend transportation dollars,” he said. 

The MTC committed $4.3 billion to the BART extension, which will be built in two stages – to Warm Springs, a neighborhood south of Fremont, and then on to San Jose and Santa Clara. 

“BART to San Jose is one of the biggest boondoggles I’ve ever heard of,” said Charles Betcher, president of the AC Transit Bus Riders’ Union. 

“It’s very expensive, and it robs money from real, effective local transportation programs.” 

$185 million of the MTC money was earmarked for expansion of the Caldecott Tunnel – a move which dismayed many Berkeleyans. In fact the City Council unanimously voted to oppose the project. 

“It’s just going to encourage more people in Contra Costa county to drive their cars to Alameda County and San Jose,” said Worthington. “One-tenth of that amount of money spent on mass transit in that corridor could have moved just as many people.”

Editor: 

I’m writing to provide another perspective on the story: “District Removes Washington Teacher” (12/18). I know the teacher, indeed I removed my child from her class last year because the class was out of control. I removed him from the school and the BUSD because of the way the control problem was handled. The article in today’s Daily Planet makes this teacher out to be some kind of monster (she’s not, and everyone who knows her knows that!). It blames the district for a process that made her termination impossible and re-assignment difficult, until now. Don’t stop there – there’s plenty of blame to go around: 

I blame almost everyone involved. In no particular order, I blame:  

• Myself, for standing by and hoping the situation would get better. Many of us did that...so I blame all of us!  

• I blame the parents who played the system to have their kids assigned to “good” teachers, enabling the situation to continue. 

• I also blame the parents who didn’t pay close enough attention to see that their kids were getting “gypped.”  

• I blame class-size reduction (1996) which in its first year made for a lot of quick hiring and less supervision and support than a new teacher should get. This teacher’s first year at Washington there were five Kindergarten classes, three Kindergarten teachers new to Washington – two of those were first time teachers. 

This teacher was moved from kindergarten to fourth grade last year, to first grade this year, so three of her years have been “first times” at different grade levels.  

• I blame the teachers’ union for protecting the rights of our teachers so vigilantly that what could have been a private parting of the ways four years ago, is now an intolerably public one now.  

• The former principal at Washington School could have had this teacher and others re-assigned after their first year – and didn’t. She passed the problem on to the current principal.  

• The current principal could have acted sooner, and more forcefully, keeping this decision out of the venue of angry parents and one or two teachers with a clear agenda. 

Once the adults have decided not to be supportive of a teacher, its very hard to win the support of children. For that matter, the kids – why don’t we hold kids responsible for behaving themselves in a situation as crucial to their success as learning? 

In the midst of all this blaming, the message that did not come across in your article is that this teacher is a good and gentle soul. She is exceedingly bright and interesting. In the right situation she could really shine. Classroom control is a vital skill for BUSD teachers, and one not easily learned on the job. This teacher’s lack of control and organization are a fundamental flaw, but ALL OF US knew that years ago. The teacher was doomed from the day she entered that school – and the tragedy is that it took this long to chase her away. If all of us couldn’t make this teacher succeed, we could have at least have let her leave with dignity. I hope that many of you will join with me in wishing her tremendous success and happiness in her next endeavor. 

Heather Jacobsen 

Berkeley

Berkeley High basketball fans will get a chance to help the community when they come out to see the ’Jackets play on Saturday night, as the Friends of Berkeley Boys’ Basketball will be holding a toy drive. 

Berkeley will take on highly-ranked Riordan (San Francisco), giving fans a chance to see Marquis Kately, one of the best players on the West Coast and a Cal signee. Admission will be free, and fans are encouraged to bring a new, unwrapped toy to be distributed at local shelters under the Toys for Tots program. 

“We’re trying to tie the basketball program to the community,” FBBB member Bruce Riordan said “We want to get the community more involved and coming to the games on a regular basis.” 

There will be three games on Saturday, with the freshman teams tipping off at 4:30 p.m. at Donahue Gymnasium on the Berkeley High campus. The junior varsity game is scheduled for 6 p.m., with the varsity game slated for 7:30 p.m. 

The ’Jackets will also be in action tonight against St. Joseph, with the same game times. The varsity game will be a rematch of a game held two weeks ago at the Spartan Classic Tournament in Concord, won by St. Joseph. 

Friends of Berkeley Boys’ Basketball is a newly-formed organization, consisting mostly of parents of current and former players. Their activities include working with the players on community service (the team will serve food at local shelters throughout the holiday season), academic counseling and nutrition. The toy drive will be the first major event for the FBBB, which will also run a raffle during the game and host halftime entertainment. 

“We thought this would be a good way to start,” Riordan said. “This is a big game for the kids, and the timing is perfect.” 

Head coach Mike Gragnani said the FBBB has made his second year at Berkeley much easier than his first. 

“We’ve got a great parents support group, and they’re building momentum around the school,” Gragnani said. 

The toys will be distributed among 23 Berkeley shelters on the day before Christmas, according to Berkeley firefighter John Tarascio, who coordinates the department’s toy drives. 

“We’re always looking for new places to collect toys,” Tarascio said. “When (FBBB) called us, it was an easy decision to go ahead with it.” 

All three ’Jackets teams are playing well going into this weekend’s games. The freshman team is undefeated, while both the JV and varsity are coming off of tournament wins last week. 

The varsity will face the toughest challenge, with Riordan featuring Kately and 6-foot-8 post man John Tofi, who has committed to play at UTEP. The Crusaders will be the biggest team Berkeley has faced this season, but Gragnani said his team won’t play scared no matter who the opponent. 

“We want to play the best teams we can,” he said. “That’s what the preseason is for.”

CHICAGO — The cinematic journey finally began Wednesday for “Lord of the Rings” fans. 

Lovers of the fantasy epic – including some who waited decades for a big-screen version – packed theaters nationwide to see the first installment of the film trilogy debut. 

“I had high hopes for it, and they came through,” said 35-year-old Amy Shapiro, a business manager at the University of Illinois at Chicago, whose entire office took the day off to see the movie. 

“I’ve been waiting all my life for this,” she added, noting that – like many fans – she read J.R.R. Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings” trilogy as a child. 

Reviews like those are expected to turn “The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring” into an instant box-office blockbuster. Advance ticket sellers have already reported that the movie based on the trilogy’s first book was responsible for roughly 85 percent of their sales this week. 

In San Francisco, fans started lining up outside the Metreon Theater just after 7:30 a.m., reading newspapers and clutching cups of coffee as they waited more than two hours for the first showing of the day. 

“We’re pretty much all a bunch of geeks,” said Marcus Flores, a 31-year-old tobacco shop manager. 

Russ Leatherman, founder of the Moviefone ticket telephone service, said the enthusiastic response was likely to make “Rings” second only to “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” this season. 

On Wednesday, fans from adults to schoolchildren lined up outside movie theaters for a chance to view the start of the journey of Frodo Baggins, a hobbit on a quest to destroy the One Ring. 

Steven Ashley was at the bustling Loews Cinema at Boston Common. He’d already seen the film on Tuesday but returned for another screening with his co-workers from Stainless Steel Studios, a game company in Cambridge, Mass. 

“I’ll probably see it again,” the 27-year-old said. “It didn’t seem like three hours. I actually wanted more.” 

Some hardcore fans had wondered if the filmmakers could ever win them over. 

Mike Field, a 44-year-old administrator at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, had thought it impossible to recreate the treacherous journey of Frodo and his alliance through villain-plagued Middle Earth. 

“As the lights went down I was sort of sitting there cross-armed like, ’Go ahead, try to impress me,”’ he said. “They certainly did.” 

Still others predicted that the film and its two sequels — all filmed at the same time — would take their place among other classic epics. Clifton Robinson, a high school student from Cleveland, said the film was “monumental — kind of like the new ’Star Wars.”’ 

Elizabeth Stone and Samantha Meyer, teen-agers from Chicago, said “Rings” was even better than “Harry Potter.” 

“I liked ’Harry Potter,’ but it got a little slow at the end,” Stone said. “This movie never slows down. It’s great!” 

Like “Potter,” “Lord of the Rings” has the advantage of a fanatically loyal fan base of readers. Hard-core Tolkien fans are known to spend hours discussing the author’s world of pint-size hobbits, ethereal elves, plucky dwarfs, imposing wizards and up-and-coming humans. 

Intertops, the Internet sports betting site, set 7-to-5 odds that “Rings” would break the $90.3 million three-day, opening-weekend box-office record set by “Harry Potter” last month. 

However, with a midweek debut, just like the previous record-holder “Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace,” the largest portion of “Rings” business could come before the weekend. 

The movie stars Elijah Wood as Frodo. Ian McKellen plays the wizard Gandalf, Viggo Mortensen is Aragorn, and Liv Tyler appears as the elf Arwen. 

——— 

On the Net: 

Official movie site: http://www.lordoftherings.net/ 

Housing, land-use and transportation policies for the next 20 years were adopted by the City Council in a 5-4 vote Tuesday. The council will consider the remaining six sections of the Draft General Plan early next year. 

The Planning Commission, which toiled for two years and through 55 public meetings to develop the draft plan, had to be resourceful in developing the housing and land use polices for the simple fact that there is no available space left to build on in Berkeley, according to Senior Planner Andrew Thomas. 

To achieve the plan’s goal of creating 6,400 units of affordable housing within 20 years, Thomas said the commission had to identify areas of the city appropriate for infill development, such as in the downtown area and along transit corridors.  

“What the Planning Commission did was not really change any of the policies in the previous 1977 plan but they did focus and clarify city policy to say that this is the type of housing we want built and this is where we want to build it,” he said.  

The vote to approve the plan was split across traditional party lines with progressives, Vice Mayor Maudelle Shirek, councilmembers Linda Maio, Dona Spring, Margaret Breland, and Kriss Worthington voting in favor of the plan, and the four moderates, Mayor Shirley Dean, and councilmembers Polly Armstrong, Betty Olds, and Miriam Hawley voting in opposition.  

What follows are some of the policies the City Council approved in the housing and land use elements of the General Plan. 

Affordable housing 

The housing section of the General Plan contains 52 policies aimed at maintaining or developing decent, affordable and housing, accessible to people with disabilities, located in pleasant neighborhoods.  

It includes a number of policies directed at addressing a shortage of affordable housing by increasing the current stock from 1,600 units to 8,000 units over 20 years. 

The plan doesn’t propose specifics for achieving this goal, which is ambitious considering financial limitations and the fact that Berkeley is almost completely built out. Rather the plan suggests the city acquire the 6,400 affordable units in two ways: 

One is the development of new housing in the downtown area and along major transit corridors such as University and San Pablo avenues. Those areas have been targeted because of they are zoned for taller buildings – three to seven stories, including bonuses for inclusion of affordable housing. In addition easy access to public transportation could permit the development of more residential units and fewer parking spaces. 

Another housing policy calls for the prioritization of city resources to assist in the purchase of existing housing by nonprofits committed to maintaining high housing standards and affordable rents. 

The housing section supports a host of services to help Berkeley’s estimated 1,000 to 3,000 homeless people by encouraging the development of permanent and transitional housing. 

The plan emphasizes housing and shelter programs for the disabled, victims of domestic violence and individuals with HIV/AIDS. 

It also calls for city support to repeal the Costa Hawkins Rental Housing Act, which blunted the city’s rent control laws by allowing the rent on vacant apartments to rise to what the market will bear. 

Land use 

The General Plan’s land use section provides city planners with guidelines for the physical development of the city. The land-use policies are closely linked to several other sections in the plan, but most closely to housing and transportation. For example, land-use polices encourage higher density housing along transportation corridors.  

As in other elements of the Draft General Plan, there are no specific uses designated for any particular parcel of land. Specific uses are spelled out in the city’s zoning laws.  

The objectives of the land use element is to preserve the character of Berkeley by maintaining the residential, commercial and industrial areas of the city. The land-use policies also seek to “minimize the impacts and maximize the benefits of the University of California on the citizens of Berkeley.” 

Through land-use decisions, the plan attempts to preserve the city’s residential districts, which cover 3,540 acres or 48 percent of the city. 

One policy specifically calls for new developments to be of similar scale and design of the homes and businesses in the surrounding areas. It also suggests that proposed projects be carefully reviewed for negative impacts such as shadows and increased traffic prior to approval.  

In addition, the plan calls for community services such as parks, schools, child care facilities and religious institutions that are accessible to residential districts. 

Downtown 

Since the adoption of The Downtown Plan in 1990, the area is well into the process of being revitalized. A host of new businesses including theaters and restaurants and the Central Library have either opened or are scheduled to open in the coming months.  

The downtown area is officially bounded by Martin Luther King Jr. and Berkeley ways, University and Durant avenues and Oxford Street. It is considered to be the city’s primary civic, office and entertainment center as well as the dominant retail area. 

While the downtown is significantly built up, it has been designated as a preferred location for developing affordable housing by offering developers density bonuses for providing affordable housing. For example, the plan suggests that developers who include certain levels of affordable housing in their projects be allowed to add up to two floors to building heights. So in the core of the downtown, developers would be able build as high as seven stories and as high as five stories in downtown areas that surround the core. 

The plan also suggests that affordable housing developed in the downtown be excluded from current parking requirements because of the easy access to BART and buses. 

Moreover, the plan includes density bonuses for developers to lease commercial space to nonprofit fine arts and performing arts organizations such as theaters, artist studios and musical venues. The exact amount of bonus space developers will be allowed will be determined by zoning laws. 

The Planning Commission removed a policy from the 1977 Master Plan that gave developers a bonus for creating retail space. 

The plan suggests the city continue to explore options for the partial closure of Center and Addison streets and Allston Way to automobiles and promote a pedestrian-friendly promenade that could be beneficial to merchants. 

The plan also encourages opening up Strawberry Creek through the downtown area. 

Industrial areas 

The land use element seeks to maintain the city’s industrial vitality, which exists mostly in west Berkeley and represents the third largest economic sector in the city. The location has traditionally been attractive to industry because of easy access to the freeway and rail lines. 

In the 1970s west Berkeley was primarily industrial but in recent years there has been some transition to light manufacturing and commercial uses. This has had both positive and negative effects on the area. On the positive side, two successful retail areas, one on Seventh Street at Ashby Avenue and another at Fourth Street and Hearst Avenue have emerged as some of the most profitable in Berkeley.  

On the negative side a reduction of industry in the area has resulted in fewer blue collar jobs. 

The plan suggests several policies that seek to maintain existing industrial uses. One asks that all business and organizations that propose non-industrial uses in west Berkeley be informed that they will be expected to adjust to industrial noise levels such as traffic and large machinery. 

Also it is suggested that the expansion of the Fourth Street commercial area be limited and retail business not be allowed in the mixed-use, light industrial district. 

UC Berkeley 

Since its earliest days, UC Berkeley has been a major factor in the physical, social and economic development of the city. It is expected to expand in coming years, enrolling an additional 4,000 students.  

Currently, approximately 18,000 university students live in Berkeley and the university provides beds for only about 1,000 of them. Because of the imbalance, the land-use element strongly discourages the university from increasing student enrollment and suggests that it maximize student housing both in Berkeley and along transit corridors in other nearby cities. 

Thomas said that the best feature about the General Plan is that if any of the policies are discovered to be lacking or too restrictive they can be amended up to four times a year. 

“None of this is written in stone,” he said.

The Daily Planet received a copy of this letter, reproduced in part, addressed to officials at the California Department of Toxic Substances Control: 

Regarding the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory’s Petition to restart highly radioactive tritiated mixed waste treatments under a treatability study exclusion: 

We are writing this letter as a follow up to Ms. Pamela Sihvola’s phone conversation earlier today. As was indicated, it is our understanding that the LBNL has no stack monitoring devices that would monitor Tritium Labeling Facility stack emissions containing hazardous chemical constituents, including dioxin. According to LBNL’s “Tritiated Mixed Waste Treatability Study Report: 3/15/99” : methylene chloride and chloroform are present in LBNL’s mixed waste, and when oxidized contribute to the formation of dioxins as does the presence of benzene. 

Other chemical compounds mentioned in the LBNL 9/20/01 petition, and used at the NTLF tritiation operations, include pharmaceuticals, pesticides, biological compounds etc. We therefore ask you to request LBNL to provide information pertaining to how the NTLF stack emissions are monitored for the presence of these compounds and other hazardous chemicals and dioxins, and to provide you with such data. We also request that your agency is provided with information and data pertaining to monitoring of the hazardous chemical constituents of the large tritium groundwater plume at LBNL, since it now appears that NTLF stack emissions may contain hazardous chemicals as well.  

Pamela Sihvola and Barbara George,  

Women’s Energy Matters 

Berkeley

BEVERLY HILLS — It’s definitely a year for the terrifying, troubled, twisted and tragic at the movies. Solemn films about delusion, blackmail, vengeance and doomed love dominated Golden Globe contenders, including “A Beautiful Mind” and “Moulin Rouge,” which led with six nominations each. 

“A Beautiful Mind” — starring Russell Crowe as schizophrenic math genius John Nash, tormented by hallucinations — was nominated for best dramatic picture Thursday. Its other nominations included Crowe for dramatic actor, Jennifer Connelly for supporting actress and Ron Howard for director. 

Competing in the musical or comedy category, “Moulin Rouge’s” nominations included best picture, actress Nicole Kidman, actor Ewan McGregor and director Baz Luhrmann. The tragicomic musical presents Kidman and McGregor as ill-fated lovers at a Paris nightclub in 1899. 

Kidman also was nominated for dramatic actress in the horror story “The Others.” 

Also cited for two films was Billy Bob Thornton: dramatic actor for his blackmailing barber in the Coen brothers’ “The Man Who Wasn’t There”; and musical or comedy actor for “Bandits,” in which he plays a neurotic bank robber whose quirks include Thornton’s real-life fear of antique furniture. 

“This is just a theory, but maybe the good stuff is sometimes the edgier stuff, because the people making it aren’t as worried about pleasing everybody, so artistic values don’t suffer as much,” said Thornton, who also stars in the sobering death-row drama “Monster’s Ball,” which earned a dramatic-actress nomination for Halle Berry. 

The Golden Globes, awarded by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, often are a launchpad for a film’s Academy Award prospects. But no clear favorites are taking shape from the Globe nominations and earlier movie honors, which have been spread among a wide range of films. 

Sissy Spacek, a five-time Academy Award nominee who won for 1980’s “Coal Miner’s Daughter,” could become the front-runner for another Oscar. Spacek, who plays a vengeful mother in “In the Bedroom,” has been a top pick in early film honors. 

“There’s so many fabulous actresses from my generation, and there really aren’t enough roles to go around,” said Spacek, 51. “Maybe a film like ‘In the Bedroom’ will make people think of us older gals, sharpen their pencils and start writing more great roles for us.” 

The Golden Globe awards will air live Jan. 20 on NBC. 

Besides “A Beautiful Mind,” “In the Bedroom” and “The Man Who Wasn’t There,” the dramatic picture nominees were the fearsome fantasy epic “The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring” and “Mulholland Drive,” an enigmatic nightmare of jealousy and madness. 

“Moulin Rouge” is joined in the musical or comedy picture category by the romances “Bridget Jones’s Diary” and “Legally Blonde,” the animated “Shrek” and the class-war satire and murder mystery “Gosford Park.” 

Ben Kingsley earned nominations for two dark stories. He was cited for best actor in a TV movie or miniseries in “Anne Frank” and supporting actor on film for “Sexy Beast,” in which he plays a vicious hood. 

“I think it’s very brave and a sign of maturity in any culture that it can embrace the dark side fearlessly,” Kingsley said. “It shows people don’t want to eat candy all the time. They are intelligent enough to look at the full spectrum of life.” 

Even the musical and comedy acting categories had nominees for dark or twisted tales. Thora Birch was cited for her malcontented teen in the off-kilter “Ghost World.” John Cameron Mitchell had a nomination for “Hedwig and the Angry Inch,” in which he plays an East German transsexual on an anguished search for fame and love. 

“I think I always feel optimistic when the odd and twisted are recognized,” Mitchell said. “Maybe it’s because I feel odd and twisted myself and like to be recognized.” 

How such eccentric films will fare at the Oscars is uncertain. The Oscars tend to be more conservative than the Golden Globes. 

“The Hollywood Foreign Press, they’re pretty cool,” Birch said. “I always loved their offbeat choices of people to nominate.” 

Editor: 

I am 12 years old and I am a faithful Oakland Athletics fan. I am disgusted at the fact that money is ruining baseball. It is really wrong that players like Jason Giambi are putting the love of the game and the faithfulness in their team in the back of their mind and thinking of nothing but... no surprise, money! 

The New York fans are very spoiled because the Yankees have so much money they can go on a shopping spree and buy all the best players and barely make a dent in their mound of money! In a sense the Yankees are at fault for essentially ‘ruining’ the league. Plus the Yankees make the World Series so boring (except for this year when they lost!!). I say get rid of them Yanks!!!! 

Will Kruse 

Berkeley

Tanya Mandel, editor, KPFA broadcaster and activist, died Tuesday. She was 84. 

Of herself, she wrote: “I was born in 1917 in New York City.... My first political memory was the execution of Sacco and Vanzetti” in 1927, “which shocked and angered my family and their friends. My second recollection was collecting money on the street to support coal miners on strike.”  

This activity took place in her early teens. 

In 1935, with Hitler in power for two years, the German liner, S.S. Bremen, entered New York flying the Nazi flag. She and the man she would marry that year and who would be her husband for the remaining 66 years of her life, Bill Mandel, were in a massive police-assaulted demonstration at the dock as Irish-American seaman Bill Bailey, later a much-written-about figure in San Francisco, managed to pull down the flag.  

Mrs. Mandel and her husband-to-be had met picketing in support of chiefly African-American and female laundry workers seeking union recognition. 

During a period in Akron, Ohio, Mrs. Mandel, then 20, organized the movement that won the construction of that city’s first public housing project, at a time when such buildings were a major step forward in replacing slum tenements as dwellings for the working poor. 

Mrs. Mandel returned to New York during World War II, and now a mother, she was instrumental in obtaining a government-funded institution of a type until then essentially unknown in this country: a child-care center. 

Later, active in the Parent-Teachers Association, she and her husband furthered their children’s familiarization with other ethnicities by sending them to the overwhelmingly black schools in their neighborhood when other white parents would not. 

During the McCarthy era Mrs. Mandel took part in a spontaneous march through the Lower East Side when Ethel and Julius Rosenberg were executed, a parade without a permit led by three generations of the Mandel family including their then 13-year-old daughter. 

The family moved to Berkeley in 1957, where Mrs. Mandel lived for the next 40 years. In the ‘50s, she participated in the activities that won racial integration of the Berkeley schools. She was a member of the Boatrockers Democratic Club and, in the early 1960s, joined Women for Peace, organized to stop atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons when radioactive Strontium 90 began to be found in mothers’ milk. Just a week before her death, when that outcome was not expected, members wrote her a get-well card with individual comments such as these: 

“We miss you and your wisdom.” 

Another: “I miss you and your important suggestions at our meetings.” 

A third: “We miss your forceful, uncompromising comments.” 

Mrs. Mandel was an opponent of the Vietnam War from the outset. She was in daily attendance during the 11-week trial of one of her sons, a member of the so-called Oakland Seven who had organized disruptive demonstrations in an attempt to prevent the Oakland Army Induction Center from functioning. They were acquitted. Another son, a total pacifist, went to Canada to, in her words, “avoid fighting the Vietnamese people.” 

That same period saw the birth of second-wave feminism, and Mrs. Mandel, daughter Phyllis, and husband Bill were invited to join one of the very earliest women’s liberation groups.  

In 1966, Mrs. Mandel visited the Soviet Union and did so several times thereafter with a particular eye to the status of women. She was impressed by the advanced level of education for women and the social services provided for mothers and children, but struck by what she called the “male domination of every facet of life.”  

Mandel reported on her observations during a five-year stint, during which she shared her husband’s 37-year-long program on KPFA. Bill Mandel, whose radio program focused on the former Soviet Union, is the author of a number of books on the subject. 

In 1984, now in her late 60s, Mrs. Mandel participated in yet another demonstration with her entire family, this time at dawn on the San Francisco docks. It was part of a successful effort to prevent the unloading of a shipload of South African goods as part of the struggle to end apartheid. 

Jewish, and educated at home to speak Yiddish before learning English, Mandel supported the founding of Israel, “hoping at first for a joint Jewish-Arab state,” she wrote. “In 1967 and 1974 I was very disturbed at the attitude of the majority of U.S. Jews toward Palestinians and the idea of a Palestinian state.... I became involved in campaigns on behalf of the Palestinians and a Palestinian state.” 

Just before entering the operating room for the unavoidable procedure that would terminate tragically, the risks of which she knew, Mandel smiled broadly when told that the death sentence of Mumia Abu-Jamal had been set aside. (Mrs. Mandel made the choice to have the risky hip replacement surgery, rather than live in a zombie-like state, as a result of the medications she would have had to use to stave off severe pain.)  

Her strength of character and devotion to principle to the contrary notwithstanding, the term universally applied to describe Mandel by mere acquaintances as well as by those who knew her well was “sweet.” 

Tanya Mandel was a charter subscriber to the Berkeley Repertory Theatre, earlier to A.C.T., an avid concert-goer and frequent visitor to museums. Her last dinner-table conversation in the senior facility where she and her husband resided was on Girardeau’s play, “The Madwoman of Chaillot.” 

In addition to her husband, Mrs. Mandel leaves behind her three children, Phyllis, Bob and David, two grandchildren and one great grandchild. 

A memorial service will be held at 7 p.m. Jan. 26 at the Claremont House, 4500 Gilbert St., Oakland. 

William Mandel’s most recent book is an autobiography, “Saying No to Power,” (Creative Arts, Berkeley). In it, one can find references to Mrs. Mandel on 50 pages.

Editor: 

“The driving force behind energy consumption” (Berkeley Daily Planet, 12/18), by Alice La Pierre, contains a common error in confusing “good” stratospheric ozone with ground-level “bad” ozone. Ms. La Pierre states that the resultant air pollution from increased vehicle emissions “…will contribute to the destruction of the ozone…” The exact opposite is true, actually: the nitrogen oxides and hydrocarbons emitted by vehicles contribute to the production of ground-level ozone, which is an irritating pollutant and the main component of smog.  

Depletion of ozone in the stratosphere (the layer of the atmosphere that extends from 10-50 km above the surface of the planet) is a separate environmental problem, caused primarily by chlorofluorocarbons (CFC’s). Stratospheric ozone is known as “good” ozone because it shields the planet from harmful ultraviolet light. “Ozone destruction” refers to the overall thinning of the ozone layer and the dramatic formation of the ozone hole over Antarctica every spring. 

Ezra Wood 

Department of Chemistry 

UC Berkeley

Friday 

Boys’ Soccer – St. Mary’s vs. Piedmont, 3:15 p.m.  

at St. Mary’s College High School 

Men’s Basketball – Cal vs. Mount Saint Mary’s, 7 p.m.  

at Haas Pavilion 

Girls’ Basketball – St. Mary’s vs. Jesse Bethel, 7 p.m.  

at St. Mary’s College High School 

Boys’ Basketball – Berkeley vs. St. Joseph, 7:30 p.m.  

at Berkeley High School 

Saturday 

Boys’ Basketball – Berkeley vs. Riordan, 7:30 p.m.  

at Berkeley High School

Editor: 

Regarding the story on sex cruising Dec. 19,  

I would like to thank you for providing a balanced, objective article. As a out Queer activist, Berkeley Citizen and a person who frequents the Aquatic Parks’ cruising scene I support the city’s goal of ensuring the park is “safe and friendly” for all if handled in a sensitive way. 

Sexual isolation and loneliness do play a major role in cruising, however cruising is not limited to “fringe” members of the Queer Community. Many of us are well-connected and active members of the Queer Community who enjoy casual, outdoor sex and recognize its importance to Queer Culture/Identity. 

Cruising will not come to a halt. No amount of police harassment and fines will resolve the issue and would be a waste of city time and funds. We only need to look at the war on drugs to see that criminalizing an issue does not create a resolution. Only education, outreach, and a review of policies can begin to address the cruising issue. 

Name withheld by request 

Berkeley 

AC Transit will operate local and transbay bus service on Sunday Schedules this Tuesday, Dec. 25, as the East Bay joins in the observance of the Christmas Day holiday.  

On this midweek holiday, AC Transit will operate transbay service, connecting the East Bay with downtown San Francisco via the Bay Bridge, on five bus routes:  

• Line C – Piedmont - Emeryville - San Francisco 

• Line F – Berkeley - San Francisco 

• Line N/NL – San Leandro - Oakland - San Francisco 

• Line O – Alameda - Downtown Oakland - San Francisco 

• Line A – San Francisco - Downtown Oakland (post midnight-only service) 

The District’s transit information operators are available to provide personalized trip-planning assistance by telephone: Dial toll-free 817_1717 (then speed-dial 1, 1, 1, 1). AC Transit's information center is open from 7:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. weekdays, 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. weekends and holidays – except Christmas Day. (Persons with impaired hearing, call TDD/TTY-only 1 800 448-9790.)  

Bus route maps and schedule information are also available online 24-hours a day at: www.transitinfo.org/AC.  

On Tuesday, AC Transit's ticket offices at 1600 Franklin St. in Oakland and in San Francisco’s Transbay Transit Terminal (Firstand Mission Streets) will be closed, as will be the bus system’s administrative offices in downtown Oakland.

Editor:  

The Governor's ad campaign to encourage tourism in California may be a sop to some of his political contributors and may not have much affect on tourists.. 

What is really needed is for California to examine what our competitors are doing and try their tactics too. For instance, Canadian Provinces publish free tourist booklets which list the tourist needs as any tourist would find them while driving along each numbered highway route. The progressive data for each city or town along a numbered highway route shows all the places to stay, to eat, to see, and the principal celebrations held each year. Thus a tourist can size up a locality ahead of time at home before starting out or on the road just driving along. 

At least two states, Alaska and Texas have private publishers which have put out books with the same information along highway routes. I suggest the California tourist agency should do it too and update it annually. 

The other thing California should do is to advertise how beautiful the state is after the rains from February to late May, before the weather gets so hot. 

Charles Smith 

Berkeley

The Berkeley police released detailed information Wednesday regarding last Friday’s auto vs. pedestrian accident at the intersection of Russell Street and Claremont Avenue. 

The victim, identified by The Associated Press as Berkeley resident Susan Wood, was crossing Claremont Avenue, walking westbound from the northeast corner of the intersection at about 10:05 a.m. The intersection is among those where flags are available for pedestrian use to enhance their visibility as they cross the street. The flags were placed at the intersection just the day before the accident. 

“She took the flag (from its container) and, waving the flag, began to cross from east to west,” said Lt. Bruce Agnew of the Berkeley Police Department Traffic Division.  

A northbound white Jeep Cherokee came toward the pedestrian, then veered left, hitting the left side of Wood’s body. 

While the driver avoided hitting the pedestrian head on – the impact merely spun Wood around and caused her to fall – the Jeep drove across the center line and struck a teal Jeep Grand Cherokee. Both vehicles were towed from the scene. 

Wood complained of pain and bruises and was transported by ambulance to Kaiser hospital and later released. 

The driver was cited for “failure to yield the right of way to a pedestrian,” Agnew said. 

This citation can be remedied by paying a fine or, if the driver is eligible, she can have the accident removed from her record by going to traffic school, he added. 

Agnew explained that a ticket for hitting someone in the crosswalk is identical to that of a driver entering the crosswalk when a pedestrian is crossing, where there is no contact with the pedestrian. 

In cases where death results, however, police will forward the case to the district attorney who has the option of charging the driver with manslaughter. 

In this case, if the victim opts to do so, she can go to the driver’s insurance company to recover damages or file a civil suit, Agnew said. 

Another accident 

Police reported another accident this week at the Russell Street and Claremont Avenue intersection. The two-vehicle accident occurred at 12:39 p.m. Monday.  

A driver, later found to be at fault, was driving southbound on Claremont Avenue and stopped at Russell Street to allow a pedestrian to cross. The car then turned east on Russell Street and collided with another vehicle. Both vehicles were towed from the scene. Both drivers complained of pain, but neither were transported to a hospital.  

The driver of the vehicle turning east was cited for failure to yield to oncoming traffic. 

What can be done? 

Neighborhood traffic watchers have asked the city for additional officers to beef up the traffic patrol – there are now seven officers with one out on a leave with a job-related injury – and the City Council authorized the new officers months ago. But that does not mean they are in place.  

The problem is, Agnew said, it takes about a year to get new officers on board. There is first a search, then an extensive background check, then candidates go to the Police Academy. Those who successfully complete the academy continue with four months of field training. These new members become patrol officers, and more seasoned officers move into the traffic division. The length of time it is taking to get new officers on board has been exacerbated by a high number of retirements from the department. 

The need for increased enforcement in not disputed. 

A 2000 city report cites Berkeley Department of Health statistics, which note that the city has more than two times the rate of pedestrian and more than four times the rate of bicycle injuries compared to other areas of the state.  

While complete statistics are not available for 2001, so far this year there have been two traffic-related deaths reported, one in which a pedestrian was killed when she was crossing the street at Hearst and Shattuck avenues, and another when a vehicle, pursued by a highway patrol officer, slammed into a second vehicle making a turn at San Pablo and Ashby avenues. (On average, there are one to three traffic-related deaths each year, Agnew said.) 

By contrast, there have been no homicides in Berkeley this year.

RENO, Nev. — Another powerful storm swept through the Sierra on Thursday, stalling traffic and closing schools one day before the start of winter. 

U.S. 50 was closed over Echo Summit west of Meyers, Calif., shortly after daybreak, then was reopened with chains or snow tires required. Chains were mandatory on Interstate-80 over Donner Summit. Kids in the Tahoe-Truckee Unified School District started their Christmas break early. 

A winter storm warning extended along the California-Nevada state line from north of Susanville, Calif., down the Sierra well past Mammoth Lakes, Calif. 

“We’re looking at around a foot, maybe up to 16 inches along the Sierra Crest,” National Weather Service forecaster Tom Cylke said in Reno. 

Half that amount had fallen by daybreak. 

Snow also was falling in western Nevada, slowing the morning commute from Reno south through Gardnerville. Chains or snow tires were required on U.S. 395 from Gardnerville to the California line. 

The pre-Christmas storm was adding to what’s already a memorable year in the Sierra, where Alpine Meadows has a base of more than 9 1/2 feet of snow at mid-mountain and Kirkwood, nearly 13 feet. 

“We have great coverage over the entire mountain. No obstacles. The snow quality is really good — fluffy, light, incredible skiing,” Tania Pilkinton, Kirkwood’s director of media relations said. 

“I’ve been here since 1981 and I can’t remember a year when it was so good over the Christmas holidays.” 

After two dry years, this fall has seen the snowpack grow to more than half its seasonal average. 

The U.S. Forest Service said a considerable avalanche hazard exists along the Sierra from Yuba Pass to Sonora Pass, 100 miles to the south. The greatest danger is above 6,000 feet in back country away from developed recreational areas. 

Cylke said the chance of snow showers would continue into Saturday, followed by a return of fair-weather high pressure on Sunday. Highs in the 40s will pretty much doom the possibility of a white Christmas in the valleys.

STANFORD — Stanford University has stripped three prominent gynecologic surgeons of their honorary faculty status and removed them as directors of an on-campus surgical training center. 

The rebukes came after an outside panel of medical and legal experts unaffiliated with the university conducted a year-long review and determined some research conducted by Drs. Camran, Farr and Ceana Nezhat to be “deficient.” 

While the panel did not substantiate allegations of improper patient care, it found “seriously deficient scholarship” in a journal article published by the Nezhats in 1992, said Dr. Philip Pizzo, medical school dean. 

As a result, Stanford officials no longer will allow the brothers to teach medical students or residents, nor claim any Stanford affiliation in their Palo Alto practice, Pizzo said. However, the brothers still may perform surgery at Stanford’s hospital. 

The suspensions put the future of the Stanford Endoscopy Center for Training and Technology, which the Nezhats directed, under review, Pizzo said. 

For years, the three brothers have been at the center of an unusually contentious debate in national medical circles. Admirers call the Nezhats brilliant surgeons; detractors have accused them of performing unnecessary surgeries and concealing complications from those surgeries — allegations the Nezhats consistently have denied. 

In a statement released by his lawyer, Camran Nezhat said he and his brothers were “pleased” the panel’s findings did not find fault with their surgical practices. However, the brothers strongly disagree with their suspensions, he said. Nezhat said they plan to appeal, though Stanford officials say there is no mechanism for appeals because their previous designations were a “privilege, not a right.”

Following are some local-serving community agencies that can use financial and/or volunteer help. The Daily Planet is listing these nonprofits as a public service and does not have first-hand knowledge of the work of most of the agencies. 

Berkeley-East Bay Humane Society 

2700 Ninth St., Berkeley, CA 94710-2606 

845-7735 x11 

Shelters and places adoptable animals in loving homes. Seeks financial donations and volunteers. 

Nonprofit tax ID: 94-1347069 

Berkeley Neighborhood Computers 

PO Box 2435 Berkeley, 94702 

845-1226 

Refurbishes computers for low-income families, schools. Seeks financial 

donations, volunteers (but not computers now). 

Nonprofit tax ID: 94-3218936 

Berkeley Public Education Foundation & Berkeley School Volunteers 

1835 Allston Way, Berkeley 94703 

644-6244 

Supports Berkeley public schools with grants to teachers. Seeks community volunteers, financial donations. 

Nonprofit tax ID: 94-2918219 

Berkeley Symphony Orchestra 

2322 Shattuck Ave., Berkeley, CA 94704 

841-2800 

Directed by Kent Nagano, brings classical music to residents, elementary schools. Seeks financial support, volunteers. 

Nonprofit tax ID: 23-7219508  

Berkeley Youth Alternatives 

1255 Allston Way, Berkeley, CA 94702 

845-9010; www.byaonline.org 

BYA serves Berkeley and Bay Area children, youth, and families. Seeks financial donations, tutors, mentors. 

Nonprofit tax ID: 94-1711728. 

Housing Rights, Inc. 

2718 Telegraph Ave. #100, Berkeley. (Mailing address: P.O. Box 12895, Berkeley, 94712) 

548-8776 

Provides housing counseling, tenant organizing support to low and very low income individuals. Seeks financial donations, volunteers. 

Nonprofit tax ID: 94-3-6-4129 

Malcolm X Elementary School Garden 

1731 Prince St. 

Berkeley, CA 94703 

524-2916 

Donate funds, volunteer for garden teaching science, math, nutrition, ecology to students kindergarten through fifth grade. 

Nonprofit tax ID: 94-3145183 

Northern California Land Trust 

3126 Shattuck Avenue, Berkeley, 94705 

548-7878 

Creates affordable homeownership through cooperatives and condominiums for low-income households. Seeks financial donations, volunteers. 

Nonprofit tax ID: 23-7380534 

Resources for Community Development 

2131 University Ave., Suite 224, Berkeley, 94704 

841-4410; fax 548-3502 

Renovates, builds affordable housing for individuals with the fewest options. Seeks financial donations.  

Nonprofit tax ID: 94-2952466 

South Berkeley YMCA 

2901 California Street, Berkeley, 94703 

843-4280 

An academic enrichment program providing tutoring in basic skills and mentoring. Seeks books, educational software. 

Nonprofit tax ID: 94-1156635 

Stiles Hall 

2400 Bancroft Way, Berkeley, 94704 

841-6010 

Helps inner-city youth stay in school; promotes lasting interracial understanding among future leaders.  

Nonprofit tax ID: 941156636. 

The Berkeley Chess School 

P.O. Box 136, Berkeley, CA 94701 

843-0150; www.berkeleychessschool.org. 

We are accepting donations which will go towards bringing chess to low-income area schools.  

Nonprofit tax ID: 94-3225242 

Women’s Daytime Drop-In Center 

2218 Alston Way, Berkeley 94702 

548-2884 

Provides meals, support, and referrals for homeless women and children. Seeks volunteers and financial donations.  

Nonprofit tax ID: 94-3123986

SANTA CRUZ — The Santa Cruz Sentinel may soon be for sale, according to its owner, Ottaway Newspapers. 

Ottaway president Joe Richter confirmed that the 145-year-old Sentinel is on a list of properties his company might be willing to sell or trade. 

“What we’re doing is taking a few of our papers and doing what we call a ‘strategic analysis of the markets,’ ” Richter said.  

A change in market conditions could change any plans to unload the newspaper, Richter said. 

Ottaway is a subsidiary of Dow Jones and Co. Peter Kann, Dow Jones’ chairman and chief executive officer, told investors at a Credit Suisse First Boston media conference recently that several papers may soon be sold or swapped with owners of other nearby papers. 

Knight Ridder owns the San Jose Mercury News as well as The Monterey County Herald, the Sentinel’s neighbors.  

Polk Laffoon, vice president/corporate relations for Knight Ridder, declined to comment on whether the company was in negotiations with Ottaway. 

Calls to Ottaway Thursday seeking further comment were not immediately returned. Calls to Santa Cruz Sentinel publisher David B. Regan also went unreturned. 

Regan told the Mercury News that his staff is obviously concerned, but is trying to put out the best possible newspaper every day. “If we get sold, we get sold,” he said. “If we get traded, we get traded.” 

Ottaway purchased the newspaper almost two decades ago from the McPherson family which had operated the Sentinel for four generations.  

The Sentinel has a daily circulation of 26,760 and a Sunday circulation of 29,352, according to the 2001 Editor and Publisher yearbook.

Oakland to pay woman struck by police car

OAKLAND — The city of Oakland will pay $2.75 million to a woman left permanently disabled when a police car struck her vehicle last year. 

Bernice Berry, 49, is confined to a wheelchair and is not expected to walk again, said her attorney, Mark Webb of San Francisco. Berry also suffered permanent brain damage in the September 2000 crash, he said. 

The driver of the police car, Officer Mark Battle, was on his way to help other officers chase a fleeing suspect when his vehicle broadsided a car carrying Berry, said Chief Assistant City Attorney Randolph Hall. 

Battle, 27, entered the intersection against a red light and was not using his siren, Hall said. Whether he had turned on his flashing lights is in dispute. 

The settlement, approved by the City Council on Tuesday night, will finance long-term medical care for Berry, a mother of four. 

Police Chief Richard Word said Battle has not been disciplined, pending the results of an internal investigation. Battle, who joined the force in November 1998, has been transferred from patrol to a sexual assault task force. 

Bridge replacement  

contracts received

OAKLAND — Bids on the first of four major contracts to replace the Bay Bridge’s eastern span came in Wednesday way over the Caltrans estimate. 

Just two bids were submitted for the first phase of the project, a pair of side-by-side viaducts – to carry traffic in opposite directions. The elevated roads will stretch eight-tenths of a mile from the Oakland toll plaza west to a single-span tower near Yerba Buena Island. 

Kiewitt FCI Manson, a joint venture based in Concord, turned in the apparent low bid of $1.04 billion. The other bid, from a Tutor-Saliba consortium, was $1.1 billion. 

Kiewitt’s bid exceeded an estimate Caltrans raised in the last couple of weeks from $746 million to $800 million. In July, Caltrans had estimated the cost at $700 million. 

The bid isn’t enough to break the bank for the $2.6 billion project, according to officials with Caltrans and the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, which shares responsibility for financing the eastern span replacement. 

But if future contracts for the new bridge – including the single-tower suspension span – also come in over budget, Bay Area officials and Caltrans would have to return to the Legislature to plead for more money. 

Last summer, when Caltrans said the cost of the bridge had doubled from $1. 3 billion, state legislators, especially from Southern California, were reluctant to bail out the Bay Area. 

Transportation officials were forced to make the temporary $2 toll permanent as part of the financing deal. While the region was able to avoid a $3 toll, that may not be the case next time. 

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — After 17 years of dispensing advice on everything from positions to prowess, sex columnist Isadora Alman has been dumped by the San Francisco Bay Guardian, an alternative weekly newspaper. 

Bay Guardian editor Bruce B. Brugmann cited tough financial times for axing the “Ask Isadora” column, a fixture in the paper since 1984. 

“We offered her several different options, various ways she could continue on,” Brugmann said. “She wanted to stay our highest-paid writer. There wasn’t any way to come to terms right now under the circumstances.” 

Alman was a volunteer with San Francisco Sex Information, a nonprofit sex advice service, when she began penning her column for the Bay Guardian in 1984. What began as once-monthly sex advice grew into a weekly column syndicated to 12 newspapers across the country. 

Despite Alman’s expertise in relationships, sexual and otherwise, she remains stung by the way her business relationship with Brugmann ended. 

“I had never gotten a note from Bruce. I must say that rankles,” Alman said. “I had been more than kind to the Guardian for 18 years, and I never got a ’sorry’ or a wave from Bruce.”

WASHINGTON — The Senate on Thursday approved a bill to allow the families of the Sept. 11 victims to watch the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui, the first man indicted on charges related to the attacks. 

The trial would be broadcast on closed-circuit television in the cities most affected by the plane crashes. 

The House will consider the bill next year. 

It was introduced on Wednesday by Sen. George Allen, R-Va., who modeled the legislation after a measure that allowed the families of the Oklahoma City bombing trial to watch the Timothy McVeigh trial. 

“We owe it to those victims’ families to allow them to see these open proceedings which are directly related to the horrific events of September 11 that touched their loved ones,” he said. Some families might not want to watch the trial, “but for those who do, it will help them begin to heal,” Allen added. 

Federal courthouses usually ban television cameras, but under Allen’s bill —which passed on a voice vote — the Moussaoui trial would be piped from the federal courthouse in Alexandria, Va., to secure locations in Northern Virginia, Los Angeles, New York City, Boston, San Francisco and Newark, N.J. 

Those are the places where the planes that crashed into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and in Pennsylvania took off or would have landed, Allen said. The judge would have the option of including additional locations for viewing. 

The courthouse in Alexandria is simply too small to accommodate the large number of people affected by the terrorism attacks, Allen said. 

“If it’s an open trial ... and the courtroom facilities are simply insufficient for the victims to be able to view the trial and the proceedings, then you have to do something like this,” he said Wednesday. 

Allen’s bill limits the closed circuit viewing to only the Moussaoui trial, but he said he would support similar legislation for future Sept. 11 trials held in federal courts. 

SAN JOSE — In a surprise move, the defense rested Thursday without calling any witnesses in the elephant abuse trial of a star Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey circus performer. 

Mark Oliver Gebel, 31, is accused of using a hooked stick called an ankus to puncture an elephant’s skin outside a performance in San Jose last summer. Gebel was expected to testify that he did nothing wrong. 

But defense attorney James McManis said the evidence against Gebel is so weak, “there’s no need to rebut a non-case.” 

“I think this case has gone on far too long and I want to get it in the hands of the jury,” McManis said outside court. 

Deliberations are expected to begin Friday after closing arguments from both sides. Gebel, son of the legendary Ringling Bros. trainer Gunther Gebel-Williams, could face six months in jail and a $1,000 fine. 

Before resting his case, McManis asked the judge to dismiss the misdemeanor charge against Gebel, saying the allegations were not severe enough to be covered by the unique California law barring elephant abuse. 

McManis argued that the law, which was passed after an elephant was forcibly brought to the ground at the San Diego Zoo in 1989, was meant to prevent beatings and other severe punishment. Even if Gebel did strike the elephant, the wound was equivalent to a mere pinprick, McManis said. 

Prosecutor Carolyn Powell countered that the law bars any breakage of an elephant’s skin, no matter how big the wound. 

Judge Linda Condron refused to dismiss the case and end the four-day trial, saying she believed there was “substantial evidence” to support a conviction that could withstand appeal. 

The case is being closely watched by animal rights groups that for years have accused Ringling Bros. and other circuses of mistreating their animals. Few criminal charges against circus performers have resulted. 

A San Jose police sergeant and a Humane Society investigator said they heard Gebel yell at an elephant named Asia and lunge toward her, though they did not see him make contact. Those witnesses and another Humane Society investigator later saw a small blood stain just under Asia’s left front leg; one of the investigators said she saw two spots where Asia’s skin appeared to have been punctured. 

A former circus trainer who now runs an elephant sanctuary in Tennessee and the director of the Oakland Zoo both testified Thursday that after studying pictures of the stain, they also believed Asia’s skin was punctured. 

The defense has argued that the mark came off when Asia was bathed, and that a Ringling veterinarian found no evidence the animal was hurt.

MARTINEZ — A judge decided Thursday that prosecutors have enough evidence to go ahead with a trial in the grisly killings of five people last summer. 

Prosecutors say the deaths, including the daughter of blues guitarist Elvin Bishop, were part of a bizarre extortion, drug-dealing and prostitution scheme. 

The case against Glenn Taylor Helzer, 31, his brother, Justin, 29, and friend Dawn Godman, 27, was presented to a judge during the past two weeks in a preliminary hearing. 

The crimes, part of a scheme to fund a self-improvement program and spread a message of peace and love, were intended “to secure money by unlawful means for Taylor Helzer to impact America in his image,” prosecutor Hal Jewett has charged. 

All three are charged with capital murder in the stabbing deaths of Selina Bishop, the daughter of the blues guitarist, and Taylor Helzer’s former financial clients, Ivan Stineman, 85, and his wife, Annette, 78. 

The dismembered remains of the three were separated into nine duffel bags and found in the Mokelumne River in August 2000. 

The trio also faces charges in the shooting deaths of Selina Bishop’s mother, Jennifer Villarin, and the mother’s companion, James Gamble. 

The Helzer brothers and Godman have pleaded innocent to all charges, including five counts of murder, conspiracy, extortion, false imprisonment and drug possession. 

Dozens of witnesses took the stand to talk about Taylor Helzer’s plan to start a self-improvement program called “Impact America,” modeled after a program the trio attended. 

Taylor Helzer told one witness he needed $20 million to meet with politicians and get into schools to spread a message of peace and love. He said his goal was to save the world, even if he had to commit crimes to do it. 

Jewett says the trio held the Stinemans in their Concord home and forced them to liquidate nearly $200,000 in stock. Bishop’s bank account was used to launder the money. 

Taylor Helzer was portrayed by a string of witnesses as the charismatic leader of the threesome. He once told a cousin he wanted to get rich so he could start his own country — a place free of rules and regulations with its morality defined by “Impact America.” 

A police detective read Taylor Helzer’s ”12 Principles of Magic” in court, which included: “There is no such thing as right and wrong” and “I am already perfect, and therefore, can do nothing wrong.” 

He meticulously studied the law, researched mental illness and concocted money-making schemes, witnesses said. 

A friend of the trio said one proposal included finding 16- and 17-year-old runaways in Las Vegas and taking them on a cruise ship where Taylor Helzer would have sex with them. That would prepare them for sex with stockbrokers from the investment firm where Helzer had worked. 

They would then blackmail the brokers and the minors would sue their clients because they were underage. 

The trio also kept meticulous to-do lists. One found in their kitchen included the following: “Call lawyers, study multiple personalities, go to dentist, get guns, get a divorce, declare bankruptcy.” 

The Helzer brothers were raised in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and met Godman at a church social. Friends told investigators that Godman was a devout Mormon and moved up quickly within the church’s ranks. 

Lawyers for Godman and Justin Helzer have tried to distance their clients from Taylor Helzer, whose lawyer has said he’s mentally ill. 

A former girlfriend and Playboy centerfold told police Taylor Helzer believed he was a prophet of God. 

We both are adamant about quality, and that includes cabinetry. Nothing bothers us more than second-rate cabinet displays in home centers. They look good from a distance, and some even look pretty good up close. But, when you know what you’re looking for, most of what you’ll find are poorly constructed products with mediocre finishes, made with inferior raw materials. The unwary consumer is fooled by their cutesy designs and slick looks — all sizzle and no steak. 

Good cabinets can last for generations, and that makes them them a bargain. The best value usually is measured by weighing both cost and lifespan. In as little as a year, junky cabinets often begin to fall apart. Screws come out of hinges whether the cabinet is of poor quality or good, but in high-quality cabinets, repairs usually are far easier to make. In fact, with cheaper cabinets repairs often can be extremely difficult and costly. 

Why all the discussion about quality? We want to share with you how easy it is to repair a cabinet door, and how to diagnose and repair a couple of other common problems. We had to begin with a warning because the cabinets that need these kinds of repairs the most are the ones that are most difficult, and sometimes impossible, to repair. In fact, when trying to make a repair on a bargain-basement cabinet, there is a risk of doing more damage than good. 

Diagnosis usually is not as complex as you might think. In most cases what’s wrong is fairly obvious. How hard can it be to diagnose a loose hinge or a missing screw? But, there can be challenges. For example: It can be difficult to determine exactly where a door is rubbing or sticking. In such situations we turn to our special diagnostic tools and equipment. We head for the pantry or the medicine cabinet for a little flour or talcum powder or a stick of good old-fashioned writing chalk. Here’s why. Talc, flour or chalk on a door edge will be rubbed off in the area where a door is sticking. Here’s what to do: 

• Apply the powder to the damaged area. 

• Open and close the door a few times (the powder will be rubbed off in the exact area where the door is rubbing the frame. 

• Use a sanding machine or a plane to shave the high spot away. 

You can shave either the door or the frame, depending upon which will be least visible. All that’s left once the door fits again is to touch up with stain and varnish or paint. You don’t want to make a repair and not reseal the repair area. Unfinished wood is a major candidate for moisture damage and swelling. 

A loose hinge usually means a loose screw — sometimes a damaged hinge. If the screws are all tight and the hinge is wobbly, chances are you will have to replace the hinge — a rare problem. Usually it’s a loose screw. First, try retightening the hinge screws. Often, especially with good quality cabinetry, that’s all you’ll have to do. If any screws are stripped, the task becomes more difficult, but not impossible. Here’s what to do: 

• First, remove the hinge (at least the side where the screws are loose). 

• Next, dip toothpicks in glue and wedge as many as you can in each stripped hole. 

• When the glue dries, use a razor knife to cut off the excess toothpicks. 

• Flop the hinge back into place and reinstall the screws. It is important to wait until the glue is completely dry. Reinstalling the screws before it dries can make things worse than they were before you started. 

Often doors warp and swell or shrink. This changes how they fit in an opening. A gap at the perimeter of the door can result. Here are a couple of conditions and a couple of ways to make a repair. 

When a gap occurs along the top of the door (opposite the hinge side) you can: 

• Shim the bottom hinge, or countersink the top hinge. 

If a gap occurs at the bottom edge of the door (opposite the hinge side) you can: 

• Shim the top hinge, or countersink the bottom hinge. 

To shim a hinge, loosen the screws that hold it in place and insert a shim (matchbook cover or a thin piece of cardboard or plastic) between the hinge and cabinet frame, and retighten the screws. It doesn’t take much. 

To countersink a hinge, remove the hinge from the frame (normally you don’t have to remove the entire door), and chisel away a slight bit of wood from the area beneath the hinge. Then, refasten the hinge. Use a sharp chisel to remove only a very thin layer of wood. As with shimming, a very small amount goes a long way. 

Trick: Often applying a slight amount of pressure to the opposite side of the door will close a gap sufficiently. This takes a gentle hand and only works with certain types of hinges.  

Using force can unhinge a door, so be gentle. Shaving, shimming and countersinking always work, even when you are less than gentle. 

If you’ve got a bubble in a plastic laminate countertop it’s not a good thing. This material is used on the majority of countertops in the world and usually provides years of service without complaint. In the kitchen, water is the enemy and countertops can be its victim. Generally they are watertight and not at risk, however, occasionally the plastic laminate does separate from the substrate (the plywood or particleboard underneath) and results in a “bubble” on the surface or as a loose corner that lifts when snagged. The laminate and substrate are glued together with strong contact cement and often when it loosens, heat and pressure can reactivate its holding power. Use a hot iron with a towel (to protect the surface) and then add weight (like books) for pressure until things cool down. When removed, it should look as good as new, without your having to add a drop of glue.

There’s nothing like pruning a prickly gooseberry bush or a thorny rose on a cold day to give an appreciation for gardening gloves. Gardeners who like to wallow with their hands in the soil might frown at the idea of a gardening glove between their skin and the muck. But not every gardener enjoys dirty hands, and cold weather or thorny plants make gloves a necessity. 

Pruning can quickly bring home the limitation of a particular kind of garden glove. If the gloves are of leather that becomes stiff when wet, and eventually any gardening glove does get wet, it can become hard to grasp fine twigs you’ve cut away from the base of a bush. Working in wet weather with a glove that is not waterproof will have your fingers swimming in a dirty ooze within the gloves — a cold, wet ooze this time of year. Gloves that are all canvas, in particular, soak up water like a sponge. 

When shopping for gardening gloves, pay attention to the fit if you’re going to use them for doing anything more exacting than grabbing onto the handle of a shovel or pitchfork.  

Gloves will not be particularly comfortable for long-term use, no matter what you’re doing, if they don’t, well — “fit like a glove.” Watch for poorly placed seams. 

Perhaps the best solution to the search for the ideal gardening glove is to own two pairs of gloves, each suited to a particular task. Or even three pairs! Two or more of those pairs might even be exactly alike, but still needed so that you can use one pair while the other one is drying. 

The almost-perfect gardening glove must have a few other qualities, besides a good fit.  

The gloves should be inexpensive, or their cost should at least be in direct proportion to their durability.  

The ideal gardening glove also should not be slippery. Some contenders for the ideal gardening glove include soft leather gloves and canvas gloves whose palms and fingers are coated with rubber. 

And finally, the ideal pair of gardening gloves should be biodegradable. Then, when the gloves outlive their usefulness in protecting your hands, you can toss them into the compost pile. As compost, they could spend their afterlife nourishing the garden.

LAS VEGAS — The percentage of children living in poverty in Nevada hasn’t changed significantly over the past decade but was lower than the national average, according to the most recent estimates released Thursday by the Census Bureau. 

Children 17 and younger living below the federal poverty level in Nevada in 1998 reached 15 percent, the census figures show — lower than the nationwide average of nearly 19 percent. 

Despite Nevada’s booming population over the past decade, the ratio of poor children has remained virtually unchanged. 

The highest percentage of Nevada children living in poverty was registered in 1993 at nearly 17 percent following the Persian Gulf War. The lowest in the survey period was 14.5 percent in 1995. 

Overall, the 1998 estimates ranked Nevada as the 33rd-poorest state — tying with Kansas and Hawaii, with nearly 10.5 percent of its population below the poverty line. 

“We’re in the middle range, kind of in with the rest of the country,” said Jeff Hardcastle, state demographer. “We’re not too high or too low.” 

Although the new numbers are nearly four years old, the Census Bureau says they provide the most comprehensive look at poverty and income on the county level. 

The 1998 estimates ranked two Nevada counties — Mineral and Esmeralda — as the poorest counties, respectively, in the state for percentage of those living below the poverty level. 

Of Nevada’s 17 counties, Storey County was listed as having the smallest percentage of poor, at 6.1 percent of its population. 

Clark County — the state’s most populous county that’s home to Las Vegas — fell in the middle, with 10.8 percent of its population falling below the poverty level in 1998. 

Hardcastle attributes Clark County’s numbers to the wages paid by the casino industry for low-skill jobs such as food servers or housekeepers. 

“The types of jobs we have in southern Nevada tend to have better than average the national wage level a waitress or cook makes,” he said. 

Another factor is the transient nature of Las Vegas. 

Historically the ratio is for every two people moving into the Las Vegas metropolitan area — the nation’s fastest growing between 1990 and 2000 — one moves out, Hardcastle said. 

“That works to the benefit of the numbers, because if people don’t have a network of family and friends, they tend to go back to where they can get support or they look for job opportunities elsewhere,” he said. 

In 1998, Clark County was no longer home to the highest percentage of poor youngsters as it was a decade earlier, dropping from 18.4 to 15.6 percent. 

Instead, Mineral County children were the poorest making up 22.5 percent of the population, followed by Nye County children at 19.1 percent. 

The estimates were compiled by combining a March population survey with food stamp recipients’ records, aggregate data from federal income tax returns and figures from the 1990 census. 

The numbers will be used to determine funding for various federal programs, state experts said, adding the figures represent a general estimate, with large margins of error. 

In 1998, the federal government considered an adult with annual income of about $8,000 or less to be poor. The standard for a family of four was about $12,400. 

The census figures make no estimate of current poverty levels. 

The number of Nevadans seeking food stamps and other public assistance has increased sharply since Sept. 11, state Human Resources Director Mike Willden said. 

“We are seeing an increase in application rates and I don’t think we’ve seen the brunt of it yet,” he said. 

The AP’s analysis focused solely upon middle estimates of poverty and income provided by the Census Bureau. 

Because those estimates are built from survey data and statistical models, large margins of error may affect comparisons between different areas or comparisons of a single area’s numbers over time. 

——— 

On the Net: 

Census Bureau: http://www.census.gov 

LOS ANGELES — The people who put on the Grammys strive to bring the public the “freshest show” possible, but they don’t blacklist performers who appear on the rival American Music Awards, the recording academy’s president said. 

In a lawsuit filed Wednesday, Dick Clark accused the president of the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences of blacklisting performers who appear on his American Music Awards. The action seeks $10 million in damages and a halt to the practice. 

“We have a pact with the public and that pact, as far as I am concerned, is that we are going to give you the best artists,” the academy’s president, Dick Greene, told the syndicated television show Access Hollywood on Thursday. “We spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on these artists, and we are going to give you the freshest show that you can see.” 

But, Greene added, the academy would never blacklist a performer who goes on the rival show. 

“I guess the only thing about Dick’s publicity stunt-lawsuit today that irritates me is characterizing it as some blacklist,” he said. “We don’t have a blacklist.” 

Clark accused Greene of persuading Michael Jackson to break a promise to appear on his Jan. 9 show next year and preventing Britney Spears from appearing previously. Greene also banned Sean “P. Diddy” Combs and Toni Braxton from performing on the Grammys after they appeared on his show, Clark said. 

Greene said he never tampered with Jackson or any other artist, though he indicated it is up to them to decide which show they want to appear on. 

“If you take Michael Jackson or any of the other acts that he references, you have to remember they have to make a decision,” he said. “It’s a very simple decision.” 

He added that the Grammy show only has time to showcase 14 performers out of some 500 nominees, and wants to make sure it gives the public the best show possible. 

“Think about it, 500 nominees and we can only perform 14 of them,” he said. “Why on Earth would we ever even think about taking something that had been on television a few weeks earlier and spending a couple hundred thousand dollars on a production number for them? It’s just not good television.”

Marin County native admits he was part of fighters funded by bin Laden to fight for Taliban 

WASHINGTON — Dizzy from morphine and weary from battle, American Taliban fighter John Walker Lindh said in an interview soon after his capture that he had been a part of Ansar, the Arab fighters funded by Osama bin Laden who fought for the Taliban. 

He also said he had attended an Ansar training camp. 

The interview was done Dec. 2 by a CNN reporter and was aired in its entirety for the first time Wednesday. 

Walker said the Taliban fighters were organized in different branches based on ethnic groups. At first, Walker stayed with Taliban fighters from Pakistan, where he had studied for a couple of years. But then he was put with the group of Arab fighters who were funded by bin Laden because he spoke Arabic. 

“Originally I came with Pakistanis,” Lindh said. “They sent me to the Arabs.” 

What Lindh did while traveling with Taliban fighters in Afghanistan could play a key role in what charges he might face in the United States. 

Lindh, a 20-year-old American from San Anselmo, Calif., also defended the Taliban fighters in Afghanistan, saying the Quran permits Muslims to kill other Muslims in cases of holy war. 

“That is a question that is addressed in the Quran itself,” Lindh told CNN. “In certain cases Muslims by necessity can kill and ... there are situations in which a Muslim can be killed (by other Muslims).” 

Referring to jihad, the Islamic word for holy war, he said, “It’s exactly what I thought it would be.” 

Asked if it was the right cause, he said, “Definitely.” 

Lindh, who sometimes uses his mother’s last name of Walker, was found holed up with captured Taliban fighters last month after northern alliance forces quelled a prison uprising in northern Afghanistan. 

He was taken into custody by American forces and flown to the USS Peleliu, off the coast of Pakistan. 

Lindh told of dodging grenades and helping other Taliban fighters as northern alliance forces closed in on the city of Mazar-e-Sharif. 

His face was blackened from battle and he swooned as he spoke, telling the reporter he was taking morphine to quell the pain from a gunshot wound. 

Lindh said he went to join the Taliban in Afghanistan after studying in Pakistan because his “heart became attached to the movement. I wanted to help them one way or another.” 

He said that after being captured, a few Taliban soldiers hid grenades in their clothes as they were taken to prison. He called the uprising a “mistake of a handful of people” because the Taliban soldiers had agreed not to fight. 

“This is against what we had agreed upon, and this is against Islam,” Lindh said. “It is a major sin to break a contract, especially in military situations.” 

The spirits of the Taliban fighters were broken when rebel forces pumped gas, then water, into the prison, he said. 

“More than half of us were injured on that last day when they poured water into the basement,” he said. “We were standing in water, freezing water for maybe 20 hours.” 

Talk of surrender came quickly. 

The prison “was filled with the stench of bodies and we didn’t have any more weapons available. We said, ’Look we’re gonna die,”’ he said. 

“If we surrender, the worst that can happen is they’ll torture us or kill us. So right here in the basement, they’re torturing us and killing us, so we might as well surrender.” 

White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said Wednesday that President Bush will make a decision about Lindh once Justice Department and Pentagon officials finish reviewing his case. 

“He is being treated as someone who fought against the United States in an armed conflict. And that’s why he’s classified properly as a battlefield detainee, and he is being treated well,” Fleischer said. 

Another videotape of Lindh, taken by ABC News, showed his interrogation by CIA agents before the uprising. He sat despondent, in a dusty clearing with his hands tied behind his back. His clothing was tattered and dirty; his hair hid his face. His interrogators were Johnny “Mike” Spann, who was later killed in the uprising, and an agent known only as Dave. 

Lindh didn’t answer any questions during the interrogation and was led away.

SAN FRANCISCO — Federal prosecutors have decided not to file charges against Alaska Airlines after a three-year grand jury probe into reported irregularities at a maintenance center. 

The investigation was expanded to include the crash of Flight 261 off the California coast on Jan. 31, 2000. All 88 people aboard were killed. 

“We have decided, based on the evidence we collected, that it would not be appropriate to prosecute Alaska Airlines criminally at this time,” said Matt Jacobs, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office. 

Government lawyers will monitor a separate crash probe by the National Transportation Safety Board, which has yet to determine the cause, Jacobs said Wednesday. The airline also faces dozens of wrongful death suits stemming from the crash. 

Alaska Airlines also agreed to pay a reported $500,000 to settle a libel suit and dropped its appeal of a $44,000 penalty imposed by the Federal Aviation Administration. 

The libel suit was filed by a senior mechanic who triggered the investigation when he told FAA officials in October 1998 that maintenance records at a plant in Oakland had been faked. 

The mechanic, John Liotine, was seeking $20 million. 

Liotine’s superiors placed him on paid leave in August 1999, saying he had become disruptive. 

Terms of the settlement were confidential, but The Seattle Times quoted a source as saying Liotine would receive about $500,000. 

The Seattle-based company also dropped its appeal of a $44,000 penalty imposed by the FAA, which determined that two planes were returned to service in 1998 and made more than 840 flights before maintenance paperwork was completed properly.  

Neither was the plane that crashed. 

In settling the suit and dropping the appeal, the company made no admission of wrongdoing. Alaska Airlines spokesman Jack Evans would not comment late Wednesday on the decision against criminal charges. 

Since the probe began, the company’s maintenance operations have been overhauled and airline officials say there is little resemblance to how they were handled in 1998. 

Liotine became a key figure in the crash probe when investigators learned that in 1997 he recommended replacing the ill-fated MD-83’s jackscrew assembly, which controls up-and-down movements of the horizontal stabilizer — a part suspected of causing the crash. 

Liotine accused the company of posting false statements about him on its Web site, including a news release that said he was “incorrect” when he recommended replacement of the part. 

Another post-crash news release suggested Liotine went to the FAA because he was passed over for promotion by two supervisors he accused of falsifying maintenance records. 

In accepting the settlement, Liotine agreed to leave Alaska Airlines by the end of this month after 12 years with the company. 

LANCASTER — As many as 400 inmates rioted Thursday at a state prison and five were critically injured, authorities said. 

No guards or staff were hurt in fighting that began about 10:45 a.m. in a yard at California State Prison, Los Angeles County, said Margot Bach, spokeswoman for the state Department of Corrections. The prison is in the Mojave Desert about 40 miles northeast of Los Angeles. 

The fight involved 300 to 400 maximum-security inmates in a 200-by-200-foot recreation yard that includes a grassy area, basketball courts, a soccer field and monkey bars, prison spokesman Ron Nipper said. 

“The inmates started to fight, and it just gained momentum,” with prisoners using fists and homemade weapons, he said. 

Hundreds of guards responded, using pepper spray, tear gas and wooden bullets on the prisoners, but it was unclear whether any of the inmates were hit. 

Several warning shots were then fired. It took fewer than 15 minutes to quell the riot, Nipper said. 

“There was no way they could get to a building and destroy it. We contained them in one small area and then they ran out of gas,” he added. 

Bach said 26 homemade weapons were recovered. 

Five inmates were taken by helicopter or ambulance to local hospitals, where they were in critical but stable condition with “deep puncture wounds,” Bach said. 

Another 12 inmates were treated for cuts at the prison infirmary. 

None of the wounds were believed to be life-threatening, she said. 

The prison had been under lockdown since Dec. 11, when a guard was beaten by four inmates, department spokeswoman Terry Thornton said. Inmates were just starting to get some of their privileges back Thursday when the riot began, she said. 

The prison remained locked down Thursday afternoon, with many inmates confined to their cells. Televised news reports showed dozens of others sitting outside along a prison yard fence, waiting for guards to search them and the grounds for weapons. 

Nipper said most prisoners would be released from lockdown tomorrow. The section involved in rioting, however, will slowly return to normal over several weeks as authorities try to determine which inmates were involved in the fighting. 

Those inmates involved could face criminal charges, Nipper said. 

The prison currently houses more than 4,000 inmates in its minimum- and maximum-security wings. That is about 85 percent over capacity, but Bach said it was not immediately clear whether that may have contributed to the rioting. 

“There could be any number of factors,” she said, adding that it could take several days of inmate interviews to determine the cause. 

Overcrowded prisons have been the scene of brawls involving racial unrest, but that did not seem to be the case this time, Bach said. 

“It was multiracial. There wasn’t any group attacking any other groups specifically. They all got into it,” she said. 

Last year at the prison, a racial brawl involving more than 120 Hispanic and white inmates left 10 injured. In 1999, an inmate was shot by guards during another brawl between whites and Hispanics. 

The 262-acre prison opened in 1993 and has more than 1,200 employees, including more than 800 custody staff. 

California has the nation’s largest prison system, with more than 249,000 inmates, 33 prisons and 52,000 employees. The inmate population grew by nearly 40 percent in the 1990s, spurred in part by the war on drugs and passage of a “three strikes” law that requires long prison terms for repeat felons. 

Violence is no stranger to the system. In October, a riot at the privately managed Victor Valley Medium Community Correctional Facility in Adelanto left eight inmates and two employees injured. 

In February 2000, guards shot 13 inmates, killing one, to stop a race riot at the Pelican Bay State Prison, which houses some of California’s most dangerous criminals. 

The system suffers from a shortage of guards. California ranks 48th in its guard-to-inmate ratio, according to the Connecticut-based Criminal Justice Institute. 

The corrections department last month projected a continued shortfall of 2,000 or more guards for at least the next two years, forcing tens of millions of dollars in overtime. 

Some guards have faced legal action for alleged abuse of inmates. Last year, eight Corcoran Prison guards were acquitted of violating the rights of inmates who were allegedly pitted against each other in gladiator-style fights. 

A federal civil rights lawsuit accuses three correctional officers and a former guard of setting up the rape of an inmate in 1993 by leaving him in the cell of a known sexual predator at the Corcoran prison. They were acquitted of criminal charges. 

LONG BEACH — Family and friends mourned the death of a high school student who collapsed while preparing for a Presidential Fitness Test. 

Fourteen-year-old Alan Tulia died Tuesday afternoon after practicing a run-walk mile for the state-required physical fitness exam. An autopsy report is pending. 

“Certainly the mood is one of shock, disbelief,” said Long Beach Polytechnic High School Principal Mel Collins. “Parents send their kids to school and they come home in the afternoon and this young fellow didn’t.” 

School officials said the boy complained of feeling tired after the walk-run and sat down to rest. A school nurse administered cardiopulmonary resuscitation after a friend who thought Tulia had fallen asleep couldn’t wake him. 

Tulia, who did not participate in athletics, was described as a bright boy and the top student in his freshman history class. School records show he suffered from asthma, but school officials said they don’t believe that played a part in his death. 

“Asthma was noted on his cumulative record but only a notation of just asthma and his mom told me this morning that he grew out of it,” Collins said. 

LOS ANGELES— The City Council approved a $1 million settlement with the family of a New Jersey man who was killed in an accident on the historic Angels Flight funicular railway. 

The family of Leon Praport, 83, of Old Bridge, N.J., is expected to receive a total of $3 million to settle a lawsuit filed in March. It claimed the city and 16 other entities involved in the remodeling and operation of the hillside funicular knew it was not safe. 

The Angels Flight Railway Foundation has tentatively agreed to pay $1 million, and Pueblo Contracting Services, which restored the funicular, is expected to pay $1 million, although the contract firm has not yet signed off on the deal, said Gary Dordick, an attorney for the Praport family.  

A mediator recommended the settlement, which is expected to be finalized Friday, he said. 

Praport, a Holocaust survivor who was vacationing in Los Angeles, died Feb. 1 after one car rolled downhill and crashed into the other car, in which he and his 81-year-old wife, Lola, were riding. She was badly injured. 

Councilman Eric Garcetti said the $1 million payment was the right thing to do. 

“There is no more sympathetic individual,” he said. “His wife can barely function without help. They probably could have won $10 million if this had gone to trial.” 

The century-old railway remains closed as federal investigators continue to determine what caused a cable to unravel from a drum. 

The 298-foot-long railway opened on New Year’s Eve 1901. It was dismantled in 1969 for a redevelopment project and was finally restored and reassembled in 1996 at a site close to its original location. 

City already has spent $36 million on the August 2000 convention 

LOS ANGELES — The City Council allocated more than $400,000 Wednesday to hire more employees to handle litigation resulting from police tactics at last summer’s Democratic National Convention. 

Deputy City Attorney Terree Bowers urged the council to approve her request, saying recruiting an assistant city attorney and two deputies would be more cost effective than hiring outside counsel to defend 11 pending complaints. The council agreed. 

“These are folks who can move, after those cases are settled, to other cases,” said Councilman Eric Garcetti. “And if we can build that sort of expertise with really front-line lawyers within the city, long-term it makes a lot of fiscal sense.” 

The $400,000 will add to the estimated $36 million the city has already spent on the August 2000 Convention, more than four times as much as the $8.3 million city officials originally believed they would have to pay. 

A report submitted to the council a year ago showed that most of that money — $22 million — was spent on security, including overtime pay for police officers. 

The cost overrun has irritated some council members, among them Councilman Joel Wachs, who called the event’s cost a “fraud on taxpayers of the city.” 

In August, county Supervisor Mike Antonovich said he wanted the city’s “billionaires and millionaires” who helped organize the event to reimburse the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department for the extra $1.5 million it spent on security. The department originally planned to spend only $2.6 million on the convention.

LOS ANGELES — People who stockpiled drugs to protect themselves from the anthrax bacteria were warned Wednesday about a serious health threat if they take the antibiotics inappropriately during the flu season. 

“Antibiotics are not effective against viruses,” said Dr. Jonathan E. Fielding, in a statement issued by the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services. 

The agency said antibiotics can successfully help fight infections caused by bacteria. But in recent years, researchers have found that nearly all bacterial infections in the United States have become resistant to at least one antibiotic by overuse because it allows the bacteria to survive and change after a course of treatment. 

Health officials worry that people who have several months worth of Cipro or another antibiotic will feel a need to use them before they expire. 

“We’re most concerned that folks will take them for the flu because we know the demand for antibiotics is higher when a patient has the flu,” Fielding said. 

LOS ANGELES — A man who allegedly sent a co-worker a phony anthrax letter has been charged with making a criminal threat and could face up to six years in prison if convicted. 

Robert Michael Guerrero, 38, of Glendora was charged Tuesday. 

He allegedly passed a co-worker at Aerosol Service Co. in Industry an envelope containing a white powder with a typewritten message that “you’ve been infected,” according to a statement from the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office. 

An investigation of the Oct. 24 letter determined that the powder was not anthrax and Guerrero was arrested Monday after authorities used a bloodhound to track the person who allegedly sent the letter, authorities said. 

Guerrero was charged with one count each of threatening to use a weapon of mass destruction and making a criminal threat. He could face up to six years in prison if convicted, along with an additional year for an allegation that Guerrero is a convicted felon. He was convicted of grand theft in 1995. 

OAKLAND – Workers at the Claremont Resort and Spa received their holiday turkeys on Wednesday – but not from their employer, as they had every year in the past. 

Instead, with both Santa Claus and The Grinch officiating, the workers were given their turkeys courtesy of the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Local 2850.  

The giveaway was the centerpiece of a rally designed to draw attention to the plight of Claremont spa workers, many of whom are attempting to organize a union. 

HERE represents hotel workers at the Claremont and is involved in the spa workers’ unionization campaign.  

Mayor Shirley Dean, councilmembers Kriss Worthington and Linda Maio and Oakland Vice Mayor Jane Brunner were on hand to show their support for Claremont employees.  

Union representatives were doing brisk business with the turkeys, as both spa and hotel workers came out to get their free birds. 

“Just the other day, my girlfriend said to me, ‘You know what? We’d better buy a turkey this year, because they’re not going to give you one,’” said Zachary Wroten, a table buser who has worked at the hotel for 15 years. 

“The union really stepped up to the plate.” 

Union officials awarded a “Golden Turkey” to Jadd Elkeshen, a Claremont manager who watched the turkey giveaway on behalf of the hotel. 

Stephanie Ruby, a HERE organizer, introduced Elkeshen to The Grinch, who, along with Santa Claus, presented him with the award. 

“The Grinch and the Claremont are of the same heart this season,” she said.  

Ruby said spa employees recently filled out “authorization cards” to show their support for a union. Claremont management, she said, refused to count the cards and establish whether they constitute a majority.  

“What the workers want is the company to count their cards,” she said. “It’s a very peaceful and non-confrontational way to establish a union.” 

“Count the cards!” became a rallying cry among the elected representatives present, who warned Elkeshen about a similar HERE unionization fight at Berkeley’s Radisson Hotel, which they said cost that company a good deal of money. 

“It might be instructive to see how much money the Radisson had to spend on lawyers,” said Worthington. “It’s probably not going to cost any more for you to simply accept the union, but the money would be going to your workers.” 

Maio said that during the unionization drive at the Radisson, organizations that had booked banquets and conferences at the hotel canceled to show their solidarity with the workers. The same thing would happen at the Claremont, she warned, if the spa employees were not allowed to unionize. 

“It’s a black eye I think you’d want to avoid,” she said.  

Elkeshen said that he was not in a position to comment on the situation, but was willing to listen to protesters.  

“Then you should send (management) a message, because this group has proven that they don’t stop until they win the war,” said Dean.  

Denise Chapman, the Claremont’s director of marketing and public relations, said that the company’s turkey giveaway was traditionally a Thanksgiving event, and it was true that this was the first year in some time that it had to be canceled. 

“In terms of the tourist industry, it’s been a tough time for everyone,” she said.  

However, Chapman said, the resort’s traditional Christmas celebrations went on this year as planned. She said the hotel had two separate parties for employees, one of them to which children and family members were invited. 

“We were very pleased we could continue that tradition,” she said. “It was a real priority for us.” 

Earlier in the day, Ruby lambasted the “misplaced priorities” of Claremont management and its parent corporation, KSL Recreation. 

Claremont management had said that the recent downturn in business following the Sept. 11 attacks meant that the hotel would have to tighten its belt.  

Ruby disputed that characterization. She noted that in November KSL Recreation bought the La Costa Resort and Spa in San Diego, for a price her organization estimates as $150 million. 

She pointed out the disparities in compensation between Claremont employees who work in the hotel and those who work in the spa. 

“Union members in the hotel have access to free or affordable health-care by working 20 hours a week,” she said. “People who work in the spa have to work 32 hours a week to get that, and many of them don’t get that many hours.” 

All the elected officials at the rally promised that they would stick with the workers’ fight until they were allowed to organize. 

Worthington said that he was struck by the contrast between the opulence of the hotel’s grounds and the low wages of its employees.  

“So little of the money that flows through this place gets down to the people who work here,” he said. “Considering how expensive it is to stay here, you’d think that they’d be able to pay people really, really well.” 

Brunner, who represents the Oakland part of the Claremont District on the Oakland City Council, said that she was concerned about the changes that have taken place at the Claremont since KSL took over the business. 

She said that her office was monitoring not only the situation of the workers at the Claremont, but also the owners’ reported attempts to alter the hotel’s historic gardens. 

“The community is watching the Claremont very carefully,” she said. 

Ruby said that a union butcher from an Albertson’s store arranged for the turkeys to be delivered.

Super sophomore Kamani Hill continued his amazing scoring run on Tuesday, racking up a hat trick in Berkeley High’s 4-1 win over El Cerrito in boys’ soccer. 

Hill now has 11 goals in Berkeley’s first three ACCAL games. The ’Jackets (4-1-1 overall, 3-0 ACCAL) came on strong after a shaky start to beat the Gauchos (3-6, 2-1), scoring two goals in each half of play while holding El Cerrito to just three shots in the game. 

“We’re starting to click, to get more consistent,” said Berkeley head coach Janu Juarez, who returns just three starters from last year’s league co-champs “We reached all of our objectives today.” 

Juarez has structured this year’s team to build from the back, even though none of the three returners plays regularly at fullback. That meant teaching an entirely new backline to keep possession of the ball until an opening becomes available, a skill most defenders don’t learn at a young age.  

Against El Cerrito on Tuesday, young fullbacks such as Chris Darby, Harris Cohn and Kevin Price swung the ball from side to side, probing for weaknesses in the Gaucho scheme with the kind of confidence Juarez has been looking for all year. 

“I feel very good about my young guys,” he said. “We start from the back, and we were able to keep possession under pressure.” 

The game started haphazardly, with the attack spilling into both ends El Cerrito got the first good scoring chance, but Berkeley goalkeeper David Present-Thomas managed to palm the shot past his post for a corner kick. The ’Jackets looked a little to eager on offense and were called for three offsides infractions in the first 10 minutes, but Hill was a force, working for three shots that were all saved by El Cerrito goalie Michael Gonzalez. 

The first goal of the game came in the 24th minute, as Berkeley’s David Ngov brought the ball inside from the left sideline, beating two defenders to set up a wide-open Hill. Hill crossed up Gonzalez with the shot and the goalie slipped on the damp turf as the ball hit the back of the net for a 1-0 Berkeley lead. 

Hill showed his full arsenal minutes later but just missed scoring, juking past two Gauchos on a long run before rocketing a shot off the crossbar. 

Berkeley scored again just before halftime, as a Willie Vega free kick found midfielder Liam Reilly in a crowd. Reilly put the ball past Gonzalez for the goal, but both Gonzalez and El Cerrito sweeper Ryan DelaRosa took offense at the score, taking cheap shots at Reilly after the ball was away. The Gauchos got a talking-to from the referee, but tensions would remain high for the rest of the game. 

The ’Jackets nearly scored on their first possession of the second half, as Darby headed a corner kick just over the bar.  

Senior Chris Davis, who was held out of the starting lineup with an illness, came into the game and nearly scored immediately, just putting a breakaway shot outside the post. But Davis got an assist on the next goal, putting a flick-header to Hill’s feet for an open shot that Hill finished with clinical coolness. Hill capped his hat trick shortly after when Giovanni Garcia-Perez made a long run down the right side, then cut inside before sliding the ball to Hill. 

The Gauchos were able to pull back one goal late in the game as forward Nate Kauffman was taken down in the Berkeley box. Spencer Selak slammed home the ensuing penalty kick, but it was far too late for El Cerrito to have any hope of catching Hill and the ’Jackets. 

“Kamani did a lot of work over the summer with his dad, and it’s paying off,” said Juarez. “He has a chance to be one of the best players I’ve ever worked with. He’s got focus, skill, good work rate, and he’s a consistent threat.”

Thursday, Dec. 20

Blanket Drive for  

Afghan Refugees 

8:30 - 9:30 a.m. 

2:30 - 3:30 p.m. 

Black Pine Circle School, Lower Campus 

2027 Seventh St. 

4:30 - 5:30 p.m. 

Black Pine Circle School, Upper Campus 

2015 Sixth St.  

A large truck will be parked outside the lower school for collection of clean, serviceable, blankets, quilts, and sleeping bags. These will be delivered to the American Friends Service Committee in San Francisco, then shipped to refugee camps in Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan. 526-4771, nanscape@yahoo.com. 

Islamic Cultural Celebration 

7:30 p.m. 

La Peña Cultural Center  

3105 Shattuck Ave. 

Mark the end of Ramadan with music, poetry, and stories from various partsof the Islamic world. Proceeds will be donated to RAWA. $10. 849-2568, www.lapena.org. 

California Shakespeare Festival 

10:30 a.m. 

Malcolm X Elementary School 

Friday, Dec. 21 

18th Annual Telegraph Ave.  

Holiday Street Fair  

11 a.m. - 6 p.m. 

Telegraph Ave. 

Between Dwight Way and Bancroft 

Telegraph Avenue presents a mix of free music, good food, festive lights, colorful decorations. More than 300 artists will display handmade crafts. 

Berkeley Women In Black  

Vigil 

noon - 1 p.m. 

Telegraph Avenue at Haste 

(Outside Cody’s Books) 

Vigil in support of Women in Black in Jerusalem against military solutions to end the occupation of Palestine. 

Living Philosophers 

10 a.m. - 2 p.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center 

1901 Hearst St., Room C 

Presentation and discussion with H. D. Moe. 528-8713.  

Saturday, Dec. 22

Santa’s Solstice Bazaar 

11 a.m. - 5 p.m. 

Metaversal Lightcraft 

1708 University Ave. 

Come shop while kids visit with Santa for free. Fine arts, crafts, 

clothing and gift booths in a magical and colorful scene. 644-2032, www.lightcraft.org. 

So Lovely! So Lively! Solano! 

12 - 6 p.m. 

Solano Ave. 

Berkeley and Albany 

More than 50 street performers – jazz bands, carolers, talking trees, & toy soldiers during the holiday season along Solano Ave. www.solanoave.org 

Berkeley Farmers’ Market  

Holiday Crafts Fair 

10 a.m. - 4 p.m. 

Martin Luther King, JR. Civic Center Park 

Fair will include organic produce, handcrafted gifts, live choral music, massages, and hot apple cider. 548-3333, www.ecologycenter.org 

Magic School Bus Video  

Festival 

10:30 a.m. - 1:30 p.m. 

Lawrence Hall of Science 

Centennial Drive, above UC Berkeley Campus 

Ms. Frizzle takes her skeptical class from outer space to inside a dog’s noise in seven different video adventures. Free popcorn and free magic school bus gift. $3 - $7. 642-5132, www.lawrencehallofscience.org 

18th Annual Telegraph Ave.  

Holiday Street Fair  

11 a.m. - 6 p.m. 

Telegraph Ave. 

Between Dwight Way and Bancroft 

Telegraph Avenue presents a mix of free music, good food, festive lights, colorful decorations. More than 300 artists will display handmade crafts. 

Sunday, Dec. 23

A Service of Lessons and  

Carols 

4 p.m. 

St. Augustine Church 

400 Alcatraz 

The St. Augustine Choir fill an afternoon with carols. 653-8631. 

Christmas Photo Opportunity 

11 a.m. 

St. John’s Presbyterian Church 

2727 College Ave. 

Children and adults are invited to be a part of the Christmas story by dressing up and having their pictures taken by the manger. New babies and children’s dolls are invited to take turns as the baby in the manger. Costumes and cameras will be provided. 845-6830. 

So Lovely! So Lively! Solano! 

12 - 6 p.m. 

Solano Ave. 

Berkeley and Albany 

More than 50 street performers – jazz bands, carolers, talking trees, & toy soldiers during the holiday season along Solano Ave. www.solanoave.org 

18th Annual Telegraph Ave.  

Holiday Street Fair  

11 a.m. - 6 p.m. 

Telegraph Ave. 

Between Dwight Way and Bancroft 

Telegraph Avenue presents a mix of free music, good food, festive lights, colorful decorations. More than 300 artists will display handmade crafts. 

Julia Morgan Center for the  

Arts Features A Celtic Peace:  

A Bay Area Celtic Christmas  

Celebration 

7:30 p.m. 

Julia Morgan Theatre 

2640 College Ave. 

“A Celtic Peace,” an evening of Irish music and dance for the whole family. This musical program is dedicated to world peace. $10 adults, $5 children. 845-8542, www.juliamorgan.org. 

Editor: 

Bill Kinney of Sausalito writes to the BERKELEY DAILY PLANET to let us know that he will not shop in Berkeley any more because the City Council consistently takes positions hostile to the United States. Berkeley has, of course, provided pundits at a loss for thought with cheap shots ever since the Free Speech Movement. 

In the last several weeks, however, Berkeley has been knocked out of the running as Treason Central by Marin County. Everyone from Debra Saunders on up has reminded us that John Walker is symptomatic of a climate of privileged permissiveness that makes Marin a nursery of Taliban sympathizers. I myself have overheard upstarts discussing their treks in Nepal and personal swamies over lattes at Mill Valley’s Depot Cafe while I nursed a Folger’s drip and quiet indignation. Marinites stew in their hot tubs talking peace while real Americans work – or at least did until our corporations merged and exported their jobs to the United Arab Emirates. 

Yes, I know that it’s dangerous to generalize about a place; Novato is home to San Francisco’s heroic firefighters and policemen who daily must drive past that civic center through permissive towns like Sausalito on their way to work in a city where they no longer can afford to live. I, however, will no longer spend my money in a county that unapologetically harbors terrorists. 

Gray Brechin 

Berkeley 

Editor: 

Bill Kinney of Sausalito writes to the BERKELEY DAILY PLANET to let us know that he will not shop in Berkeley any more because the City Council consistently takes positions hostile to the United States. Berkeley has, of course, provided pundits at a loss for thought with cheap shots ever since the Free Speech Movement. 

In the last several weeks, however, Berkeley has been knocked out of the running as Treason Central by Marin County. Everyone from Debra Saunders on up has reminded us that John Walker is symptomatic of a climate of privileged permissiveness that makes Marin a nursery of Taliban sympathizers. I myself have overheard upstarts discussing their treks in Nepal and personal swamies over lattes at Mill Valley’s Depot Cafe while I nursed a Folger’s drip and quiet indignation. Marinites stew in their hot tubs talking peace while real Americans work – or at least did until our corporations merged and exported their jobs to the United Arab Emirates. 

Yes, I know that it’s dangerous to generalize about a place; Novato is home to San Francisco’s heroic firefighters and policemen who daily must drive past that civic center through permissive towns like Sausalito on their way to work in a city where they no longer can afford to live. I, however, will no longer spend my money in a county that unapologetically harbors terrorists. 

Gray Brechin 

Berkeley 

A glimpse of Berkeley High School’s future may be only a BART ride away. 

For months, local activists and politicians have debated the wisdom of converting BHS into a series of themed small schools. Earlier this week, the Daily Planet traveled to San Francisco’s Balboa High School, which has been divided into a series of compact “learning communities” since the late 1990s, to witness a small schools model in action. 

Parents, teachers, students, and administrators at Balboa, located in the city’s Excelsior neighborhood, said the shift to small schools has helped to engage students, encourage greater collaboration among teachers and reduce the school’s drop-out rate.  

But, they said, the high school has struggled to make improvements in vital areas, such as parent involvement and student achievement on statewide and national tests.  

“We’re far from perfect,” said Ted Barone, Balboa’s vice principal. 

Establishing small schools 

Wracked by poor student performance in the 1990s and the replacement of the entire staff in 1996, Balboa inched toward the small schools model in the early-to-middle part of the last decade. During that period, Barone said, teachers were upset with the direction of the school and worked to establish the Communication Arts Academy and the Law Academy, the first two schools-within-a-school at Balboa. 

The most dramatic shift came during the 1999-2000 academic year when Barone and Principal Patricia Gray took over and moved toward wholesale adoption of the small schools model. 

Today, ninth and 10th graders are each part of a “small learning community,” composed of 60 to 120 students and two to four teachers. The community focuses on core academic classes, community service and explorations of various career possibilities. 

In the 11th and 12th grades, students join one of five “school-to-career pathways” that provide both core classes and an emphasis on one particular career field. In addition to the Communication Arts and Law programs, pupils can choose to follow information technology, environmental science or health and science pathways. 

Students sample each of the pathways at a March fair and designate their first and second choices. The school has expanded the Communication Arts Academy because of its popularity, and Barone said most students get their first choice. 

The ethnic distribution of students among the schools, a concern for Berkeley activists and officials engaged in the small schools debate, is not an issue at Balboa, according to Barone. The school has a small white population, and relatively equal numbers of African-American, Latino and Filipino students and a relatively even racial distribution within the small schools, Barone said. 

With about 900 students, Balboa is much smaller than BHS, whose population is about 3,200. 

All at once? 

One of the most contentious elements of the small schools debate in Berkeley focuses on the speed of adoption. Members of the Coalition for Excellence and Equity, a community group, have called for the institution of wall-to-wall small schools at BHS beginning in the fall of 2003. 

Several members of the Board of Education, by contrast, have been hesitant to abandon the larger high school, and have called for the more gradual adoption of schools-within-a-school. 

Barone said Balboa opted for a rapid adoption of the small schools model in 1999-2000.  

“Some people wanted to wait,” Barone noted. “We said ‘no,’ it’s an all-or-nothing effort. Let’s get into it and iron out the kinks, because what we’re doing doesn’t work.” 

“You need to have a mass movement,” added George Lee, who has taught in the Communication Arts Academy for six years. “You need to make the leap.” 

Lee said the academy was not as effective when it was isolated within the school, without other academies around it. “We felt like a black sheep,” he said. 

Rick Ayers, who teaches at Communications Arts and Sciences, one of only three schools-within-a-school at Berkeley High, has warned that this sort of isolation is in place at BHS, and could lead to the withering of the small learning communities at the high school. 

“They are not institutionalized, they are not supported,” Ayers said of the existing small schools, at a student forum on Tuesday.  

Ayers argued that BHS should move toward full implementation of small schools. Under the current model, he said, CAS and the other existing “learning communities” do not have enough designated planning time, and other vital supports.  

Shirley Issel, president of the school board, who has called for a more gradual approach, agreed that the existing schools-within-a-school need greater backing. But, she said the high school must focus on pressing issues like discipline and attendance before it is ready for wholesale change. 

The logistics 

Students at Berkeley High School, and members of the school board have raised questions about how the small schools would fit together, and whether students in one learning community would be able to take classes in another. 

At Balboa, students take courses both within their pathways, and outside their small schools, all in accordance with a master plan developed by the central administration. 

“The master plan is certainly one of the most essential steps, but it ain’t easy,” Barone said, referring to the logistical difficulties of integrating the various learning communities. “It definitely can be done, and it’s done all over the country, but there are trade-offs.” 

Barone said that, under the small school system, student choice in electives is diminished, because pupils must take certain classes required by their specific learning communities. 

Students in Balboa’s Law Academy, for instance, are required to take pre-law courses in their junior and senior years, one taught by an instructor on loan from City College of San Francisco. 

Autonomy 

Berkeley residents have also debated the appropriate level of autonomy for each potential small school. Members of the Coalition for Excellence and Equity have called for relatively independent academies, while several school board members have suggested retaining a centralized administration. 

Balboa has chosen the latter course, although Barone says there are examples of successful, autonomous small school systems in place all over the country. 

Shaun Bond, an English teacher in the Law Academy, said each learning community still has a good degree of latitude, even under a centralized administration. 

“We’re pretty autonomous,” Bond said. “We get our theme and we’re pretty free to set our own curriculum.” 

Still, Bond suggested that the more freedom an academy has, the better. “Any system that’s overbureaucratized gets in the way of the goals of the institution,” he said. 

The Results 

Thus far, Balboa has not made significant gains in test scores. According to school district data, student performance on the reading and math portions of the Stanford Achievement Test 9 test have remained relatively constant since 1998. Scholastic Aptitude Test scores have improved incrementally in the same period, but are still below the district, state and national averages. 

Teachers and administrators say that parent involvement has not improved much either. “Parent engagement is a challenge at this school,” Bond said, citing typical barriers to involvement in an urban district.  

“The (parent) outreach, at least, is stronger, because you have two people working on it,” Bond added, referring to one of the benefits of heavy teacher collaboration in the small schools at Balboa. 

Collaboration among teachers in the same academies, supported by designated planning time, allows teachers to emphasize similar lessons in class, and collaborate on behavioral issues, said Balboa staff. 

But sometimes, full collaboration is not possible, said teachers and administrators. Teacher turnover, which has declined in recent years at Balboa, from roughly 40 percent per year in the mid-90s to about 20 percent now, prevents some people from teaming up in the summer before classes start, Bond said.  

In addition, said Barone, some teachers are not committed to their academies, or are matched up in unproductive partnerships. 

Balboa staff said that students, operating in small, focused settings, are more engaged in their schoolwork. A decline in drop-out rates in recent years, from 17.1 percent in 1997-1998, to 9.2 percent in 1999-2000, provides some support for the conclusion. 

Thadius Vinson, a senior who attended John F. Kennedy High School in Richmond his freshman year, said the small school model does add relevance to the course load. 

“If you don’t have a pathway and you just have different classes,” he said, “sometimes they don’t have any meaning to them.” 

But Lakeisha Rugley, a junior, said that students are still rowdy and unfocused in some classes. “It’s more about the teacher,” she said, arguing that it takes a compelling instructor to catch the attention of the students, no matter what the size of the school. 

The Decision 

Barone said high failure rates at Balboa High School in the 1990s, across the board, made the decision to move to small schools an easier one. Berkeley, he said, does not have the same uniform achievement level, making it more difficult to reach consensus. 

“One of the problems with Berkeley is you have a split population,” he said. “The old model does work for certain parts of the population and doesn’t for others.” 

The continued achievement of a portion of students at Berkeley High School has been a sticking point for many opponents of small schools. 

In the end, Barone said, Berkeley will have to focus on one question in deciding whether or not to move to small schools: “what is right for the kids?”  

The Daily Planet received a copy of this letter sent to the president of the Chamber of Commerce: 

We are in the process of relocating to the Berkeley area and came to your Web site considering joining the Berkeley Chamber of Commerce. I was surprised to find your anti-Berkeley political commentary on your Web page at http://www.berkeleychamber.com/chaminfo.html. If it is inappropriate for the Berkeley City Council to take a stance on the war in Afghanistan isn’t it doubly so for the Chamber of Commerce? 

Berkeley is widely admired for its political position regarding human rights. Whether the City Council passed a good resolution on October 16th I am not prepared to judge, but its action is certainly within keeping of its station and Berkeley’s world reputation. True, many people are disturbed by Berkeley’s non-conformist viewpoint, but I think the world would be a crueler place without that viewpoint. It is this aspect of Berkeley that makes it a world-recognized city. 

Please note that I am not suggesting you change your views or stop expressing them. I merely wish to draw your attention to the irony of them. 

Robin Rowe 

Partner, MovieEditor.com 

Richmond 

In a series of narrow votes reflecting conflicting visions of the city’s future, the City Council approved the housing, land use and transportation elements of the revised Draft General Plan on Tuesday. 

Planning Commissioner Rob Wrenn summed it up as he left the council chambers: “This is a plan that will promote affordable housing and alternate transportation and at the same time attempts to maintain what is unique about Berkeley.” 

After making some last-minute changes to the three proposed elements, the council approved each individually by a 5-4 vote.  

While many of the policies were agreed upon by the entire council, the close votes demonstrated fundamental political differences between the council’s progressive majority and the moderate minority on issues of affordable housing, rent control and public parking. 

The council distinguished itself from the Planning Commission, which unanimously approved all but two of the 600 policies, which are contained in the plan’s nine elements. 

“There were too many broad policies around rent control, parking and the core of the downtown that made the three elements unacceptable to us,” Mayor Shirley Dean said.  

Councilmember Linda Maio said she thought the moderates would have voted with the progressives more because so many of the amendments they had submitted were adopted. “Especially in the transportation element because 95 percent of the amendments were made by the mayor and Councilmember Hawley,” she said. 

According to Senior Planner Andrew Thomas, the council approved what are generally regarded to be the most important elements of the General Plan on Tuesday. 

“The two biggest issues in Berkeley that the Planning Commission, planning staff and the community have wrestled with while developing this plan are housing and transportation,” Thomas said. “Those are the two areas where people feel as though their quality of life is being threatened.” 

The council will consider six remaining elements, which include economic development, environmental management and disaster preparedness, early next year. 

The General Plan, which took the Planning Commission two years and 55 public meetings to develop, is an overarching document that gives city planners a navigation tool to chart the city’s future development. From the General Plan flows zoning ordinances, development codes and city budgets, which serve to make the plan’s nonspecific policies defined and binding. 

According to Thomas, the revised Draft General Plan is very similar, with a few exceptions, to the former plan adopted in 1977. “This plan doesn’t make any great changes but it does put greater emphasis on affordable housing, which is a major concern statewide,” he said. “It also includes updated language such as ‘encourage transit oriented development,’ phrases like that didn’t exist in 1977.” 

Thomas added that the plan has a annual-review feature that was not in the former plan. He said the review will give the Planning Commission and the City Council an opportunity to amend the plan to adapt to changing community needs. 

Housing 

Before approving the three elements on Tuesday night, each council faction had submitted lists of proposed amendments. The idea was that differing amendments would be discussed with the intention of reaching compromise. 

In the end, the progressive council faction got support for the development of low-income housing, rather than mixed income housing, on two developable pieces of land. And it pushed through continued support for the removal of a state law which guts rent control. 

The moderate housing proposals would have changed the language regarding the development of affordable housing on city-owned land such as the Oxford Lot and the Ashby BART air rights to include tenants of a mix of incomes. 

Another proposal would have deleted city support for the repeal of the Costa Hawkins Rent Control Act, which permits landlords, whose apartments are under rent control, to raise rents to market level when apartments become vacant. 

On Wednesday, Worthington said he felt very strongly the moderate proposals were designed to weaken city efforts to provide housing for working and low income families. 

“Their solution is to take money from low income people and that is not a positive step,” Worthington said. “And the Costa Hawkins Act has single-handedly increased rents in Berkeley by 40 to 50 percent destroying rent control as an excellent tool for maintaining a stock of affordable housing.” 

But Dean said it was never her intention to weaken affordable housing. She said that they proposal included mixed income levels because that make up meets less resistance from neighbors. 

“We hear it time and time again at the council and at the Zoning Adjustments Board, people are more comfortable with mixed-income housing,” she said.  

Hawley argued there was no point in wasting resources locally on a fight on the state level to repeal of the Costa Hawkins Act since there was no support for the move on the state level. 

Ultimately a list of housing amendments proposed by Maio and Councilmember Dona Spring were augmented by four moderate amendments and then adopted into the draft plan’s housing element. 

Transportation 

The adopted plan calls for new parking only after measures to support transit are tried. 

During the debate, the council remained sharply divided on the issue of a proposed two-year moratorium on studying available public parking in the downtown. The downtown is on the verge of an increase of businesses and city services and merchants, residents and Berkeley High School employees are concerned that there won’t be enough parking to accommodate employees and visitors to the downtown area. 

But supporters of the recently completed Transportation Demand Study have called for not creating new parking facilities before existing parking can be better utilized. The TDM study calls for measures to encourage people who work in the downtown area to take alternate transportation to work. 

The adopted amendment, proposed by Maio, removed the moratorium form the policy but replaced it with wording that calls for the TDM measures that will encourage people to not “warehouse their cars all day in downtown garages” before any public money is spent to develop new parking facilities. Her amendment also establishes a task force to set a reasonable amount of time to allow the measures to work.  

“We have to get people out of their automobiles and I don’t mean just in Berkeley,” Maio said, “we have to do it nationally and internationally.” 

Hawley argued, however, that, even though the moratorium was removed, the policy is short sighted. “I was hoping we could have adopted a policy that was reasonable,” she said. “We need an access study that includes everybody and not look at the issue in a limited way.” 

The council also approved a transportation policy that precludes the development of a proposal by Dean to build a garage with up to 500 spaces under the Martin Luther King, Jr. Civic Center Park. The approved policy, submitted by Spring, identifies the Center Street Garage for expansion if it is determined additional parking is required. 

After the council approved the third element Planning Commissioner Chair Wrenn, who has put hundreds of hours into developing the plan over the last two years, was elated and, fist in the air, yelled “ALL RIGHT!” as he left the Council Chambers.  

Editor: 

I am writing to clarify the position of the Thousand Oaks Neighborhood Association on developer Avi Nevo’s project at 1820 Solano Avenue.  

As you report (Dec. 17), the proposed office/retail development received favorable reviews from both TONA’s Board and its general membership. 

But it is not true, as your article also implies, that TONA officially supported the project. Because of problems that have occurred in the past, TONA does not officially endorse proposals for development. If we think a project is acceptable, we do not oppose it. 

Thus it is also untrue, as Mr. Nevo reportedly claims, that "the building was so popular with local residents that the Thousand Oaks Neighborhood Association featured a sketch of it on the cover of their newsletter."  

Mr. Nevo’s architect, David Trachtenberg, was scheduled to present the project at our October general meeting. The drawing appeared on a leaflet that was inserted in the TONA newsletter so as to give neighbors a better idea of what was going to be discussed, not to indicate approval of the project. 

Zelda Bronstein 

President, Thousand Oaks Neighborhood Association 

County releases API figures 

The Alameda County Office of Education released Academic Performance Index statistics for the Berkeley Unified School District on Monday. 

The index, calculated school by school, is based on students’ performance on the SAT 9 test. This year, eight of 16 Berkeley schools made improvements over last year’s API, but only two, Cragmont and John Muir, improved enough to qualify for the Governor’s Performance Award. 

This year, the award will provide eligible schools with about $75 per student. Each school will decide how to use the money, subject to the Berkeley Board of Education’s approval.  

In order to qualify for the award, schools must hit overall performance targets, and targets set for racial and socio-economically disadvantaged subgroups. 

Foundation awards $165,000 in teacher grants 

The Berkeley Public Education Foundation awarded nearly $165,000 in grants to local teachers in a ceremony at the Haas clubhouse on the UC Berkeley campus Friday afternoon. 

The grants, awarded to teachers at every school in the district, will fund take-home books for first graders, fourth-grade field trips to Sierra Gold rush sites and family math nights, among other things. 

“These grants reward the many dedicated teachers who are thinking creatively about ways to teach better, and they let teachers and their students know this community supports all their best efforts,” said Carolyn Weinberger, chair of the foundation’s grants committee. 

The foundation has awarded grants to teachers every year since its inception in 1983. This year, the organization funded 226 of the 246 proposals submitted by Berkeley teachers. 

Students collect money for Afghan children 

Students from Berkeley High School’s Communications Arts and Sciences school-within-a-school will be collecting money in BHS classrooms this afternoon to fund youth programs in Afghanistan and provide relief for the families of Sept. 11 victims in New York City. 

The pupils collecting money are part of a “student action group,” one of several such groups formed at CAS in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks, and the ensuing war in Afghanistan. Other action groups are focusing on research, poetry and art. 

Students will go from room to room during sixth period collecting funds. According to Rick Ayers, a CAS teacher, money for Afghan children will go to the United Nations Children’s Fund, and donations for American victims will go to the United Way. 

E-mail David Scharfenberg at scharfenberg@ berkeleydailyplanet.net with school news for “Class Notes,”appearing every Thursday.

Editor: 

I read Robert Cabrera’s (Berkeley Property Owner’s Association) letter to see what kind of logical loop he was going to lead us on to convince us that the current market rents of $1,000 or more a month for a 1 bedroom apartment are actually beneficial for female headed households, the poor, the elderly, and students.  

I can see why he needed half of the opinion page to attempt this.  

At the heart of his appeal, he is concerned that Berkeley is going to continue to ask the state to repeal the rent decontrol law when the next General Plan is approved by the Berkeley City Council. Since the city is already in the tough situation of having the split the baby - affordable housing vs. free market - it would help if Mr. Cabrera actually presented his side more honestly. For example, if we want to attract good property owners to our area, those who will invest their time and capital in creating nice rental property, we may need to allow them the same freedom to participate in capitalism that other markets enjoy. In Berkeley, this has put property owners in the uncomfortable position of having to argue for this against female heads of households, poor people, the elderly, and students. You usually can’t have your cake and eat it too.  

I am pleased to see that we are willing to re-enter into this unpleasant and unpopular debate. But, if we are going to find more common ground between the different sides, it would help if we could keep the double speak to a minimum.  

Theresa Traynor 

Berkeley

VENTURA — A former Las Vegas topless dancer was ordered Wednesday to stand trial for allegedly stalking her ex-lover and creating a Web site with graphic photos of their trysts. 

At the end of a three-day preliminary hearing, a Superior Court judge ruled there was enough evidence to try Robin Kelly on felony and misdemeanor charges that carry up to seven years in prison if she is convicted, prosecutor Tom Temple said. 

Arraignment was set for Jan. 4. 

Kelly, 43, appeared in court but did not testify. 

Known as “Ruby Tuesday” when she worked in Las Vegas, Kelly allegedly had an affair between 1994 and 2000 with Jim Day, a married editorial cartoonist for the Las Vegas Review-Journal. 

She moved to Simi Valley in 1999 and the affair finally ended the next year, authorities said. 

Kelly became furious and allegedly set up an Internet site that featured photographs of the couple having sadomasochistic sex, along with pictures of the man’s car, home, license plate and driver’s license and a map with directions to his Las Vegas home. 

She also allegedly sent postcards advertising the site to the man’s family, neighbors and boss. 

The Web site has been taken down. 

Kelly was arrested Nov. 13 and pleaded innocent on Nov. 15 to two felony counts of stalking, two counts of attempted witness intimidation and one count of attempted extortion. She also is charged with a misdemeanor count of violating a restraining order and two counts of making annoying phone calls, Temple said. 

The judge refused to lower her $200,000 bail on Wednesday and she remained in custody, Temple said.

Editor: 

The Flagged intersections to help pedestrians (12/13) is a great idea. Let’s hope the motorists will respect it. 

The idea however, is not new. Japan was using the crossing flags at least as far back in 1961 when I served there in the Marines. 

Additionally, Japanese elementary grade school children wear bright yellow caps to and from school. In low-crime Japan, elementary grade school children often walk, even ride the subway to school, unaccompanied. 

Dennis A. Cavagnaro 

Oakland 

BEVERLY HILLS — Dick Clark filed a $10 million lawsuit Wednesday against Recording Academy President Michael Greene, accusing him of barring artists who appear first on Clark’s American Music Awards from performing during the Grammy Awards. 

A visibly angry Clark said Greene persuaded Michael Jackson to break a promise to appear in the upcoming American Music Awards show on Jan. 9. The Grammys air on Feb. 27. 

“Mr. Greene has caused me a lot of pain and a lot of stress,” Clark said. “I’ve known Michael Jackson since he was a kid. ... To have another party interfere in that relationship makes me very, very angry.” 

Jackson publicist Dan Forman didn’t immediately return a voicemail message. 

The Recording Academy issued a statement denying any wrongdoing. 

“It clearly is the nature of the entertainment business to offer your audience something exclusive,” the statement read. “We do nothing outside normal industry business practices.” 

Clark said he understands the Grammy desire for exclusivity but objected to Greene pressuring performers to break existing agreements with the AMAs. 

In past years, Clark said Greene was responsible for preventing Britney Spears from appearing on the American Music Awards and banned Sean “P. Diddy” Combs and Toni Braxton from performing on the Grammys because they appeared on the American Music Awards. 

In the lawsuit filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, Clark accused Greene and 10 unnamed defendants of interfering with contracts and prospective business relations, and unfair competition. 

Besides damages, Clark wants the alleged blacklisting tactics rescinded. Clark said he didn’t sue the Recording Academy because he doesn’t believe the general membership approves of Greene’s tactics. 

Clark said he had spoken with Greene about the issue in the past and had received assurances it wouldn’t occur again. 

Clark said he was compiling a list of all performers forced to back out of the American Music Awards or the Grammy Awards in past years because of the alleged tactics. 

The Grammys are considered the more prestigious of the two awards; the Grammy winners are determined by members of the Recording Academy, while winners at the American Music Awards are based on popularity. 

——— 

On the Net: 

http://www.americanmusicawards.com 

http://www.grammy.com 

The Daily Planet received a copy of the following letter addressed to the Mayor and City Council. (The letter refers to the Draft General Plan, approved, in part, Tuesday.) 

Everyone has an opinion about parking. Merchants and entertainers seek to ensure their patrons have access to convenient parking; enviromentalists seek to encourage transit ridership; planners seek to provide a balance - both by encouraging transit ridership and accommodating some parking. 

As an urban designer and planner, I personally support a balanced approach. 

However, I also believe that public perception of the supply of parking must also be taken into consideration when creating parking policy, particularly in a downtown environment. And the perception of many Berkeley citizens is that there is a parking shortage. 

I am therefore writing to request that the draft General Plan be revised to eliminate the two-year timeframe for implementation of measures other than recommended TDM strategies, in order to assuage public concerns about limits being imposed on the parking supply. While I strongly support the TDM strategies for increasing utilization of the existing parking supply, I believe that the city should not completely preclude the construction of additional facilities or conducting a parking study in the near term. A comprehensive strategy for understanding and improving our downtown transportation environment should be our highest priority-including consideration of all of these approaches. 

Jennifer K. Avery 

Berkeley, 

SACRAMENTO — Assemblyman Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, conducted a capital bus tour Wednesday of vacant stores and empty car lots, highlighting a controversial tax-sharing bill meant to curb urban sprawl. 

Steinberg, touting a bill with statewide implications for growth, told his rolling audience of 40 supporters, “I truly believe if we don’t have the courage to change the system we’re all going to be losers in the end.” 

The legislator wants metropolitan Sacramento cities and six area counties share their growth in sales taxes after 2002. 

The tour showed a stretch of Florin Road, one of the city’s first major commercial streets, now struggling. 

“What’s happening here is this,” said Larry Carr, representing the Florin Road Partnership. “In older commercial corridors, businesses are moving out. They’re being attracted by new shops in the suburbs. We’re left with a heck of a job keeping this a viable commercial corridor.” 

Steinberg’s idea, pioneered in Minneapolis-St. Paul during the 1990s, aims to slow such blight and decay that often accompanies fast-growing metro areas. Some cities and commercial streets decline, he said, because other cities lure car lots and stores from them simply for the sales taxes. 

Bill Kennedy, treasurer of Sacramento Valley Residents for Regional Solutions, called it ironic that “while jurisdictions chase the tax they are chasing it in industries with jobs that are traditionally low pay. The jobs pay $8 an hour in cities that cost $12 an hour to live.” 

Steinberg’s bill, AB680, which must pass the Assembly by the end of January to stay alive, is opposed by metropolitan Sacramento’s newer cities and rural outlying towns and counties. Mayors and city council members in cities such as Folsom, Roseville and West Sacramento say it will punish them for success. 

Republican legislators, Dave Cox of Fair Oaks and Tim Leslie of El Dorado and Placer counties, say they’ll fight it in the Assembly. 

The tour also rolled through the university town of Davis, which has less sales tax income than most cities in metro Sacramento. 

Kennedy said the tax system punishes Davis for favoring a strong downtown of small stores over a regional mall and large department stores. Davis would get more money under Steinberg’s formula. 

——————— 

On the Net: Read AB680 at www.assembly.ca.gov. 

SACRAMENTO — Californians seeking records, documents and other information that public agencies keep secret may get new help next year. 

Advocates for open government are considering a constitutional amendment to make cities, counties and other agencies explain why providing documents would create a bigger problem. 

Sen. John Burton, D-San Francisco, said he will carry a bill to place the question on the November 2002 ballot. There it would require a two-thirds majority to pass. 

“I think the burden should be on the agencies to explain why they keep this stuff secret,” Burton said. 

California’s 13-year-old First Amendment Coalition, a group of newspaper publishers, attorneys and citizen advocates, wants to make it harder for government agencies to simply say no. 

“That’s often a knee-jerk response you get from an agency the first time you request something,” said Richard McKee, a Pasadena City College chemistry professor and coalition president. “If you show them you have knowledge of the law, they become a little more careful. But they know the only way you can get at them is to sue.” 

McKee has successfully sued several Southern California agencies to get previously refused documents on legal settlements and public spending issues. 

Florida already has such a constitutional amendment, said Terry Francke, the coalition’s attorney. 

Francke said the constitutional change won’t provide a specific list of what citizens, reporters and other public officials can and can’t see. Instead, he said, it makes public agencies explain in detail why making the documents public would endanger some private or public interest. 

“This doesn’t automatically make anything public that used to be confidential,” he said. “It simply would require the government to make a clear and convincing explanation of why secrecy is required in a given case.” 

Coalition director Kent Pollock said he thinks the amendment will make government better. 

“I think it means government will be able to conduct itself more effectively when people are participating and bringing scrutiny to the process. That is a valuable thing that public officials don’t acknowledge.” 

SACRAMENTO — California may need a quarter-cent sales tax increase to help pay the cost of responding to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, legislators said Wednesday, even as they called on the federal government to cover the bulk of the new precautions. 

Police, fire and medical groups already are drafting a November 2002 ballot measure that would boost the sales tax and provide more than $1 billion a year. 

“We’re not adequately prepared because we’re not adequately funded,” said Assembly Transportation Chair John Dutra, D-Fremont, as the Assembly’s Task Force on the Impact of Terrorism in California drafted recommendations for legislation and spending to be considered next year. 

The money should go to “first responders” like police, fire and emergency workers, suggested Assembly Public Safety Committee Chairman Carl Washington, D-Paramount. 

But other lawmakers quickly added to the possible beneficiaries. 

The state’s public health system is “woefully underfunded” and unprepared for possible bioterrorism attacks, and should be first in line for more money, said Health Committee Chairwoman Helen Thomson, D-Davis. Trauma centers that would likely handle injuries from terror attacks also are financially strapped, she said. 

California must combat drivers’ license fraud with high-tech — and costly — methods to cut counterfeiting, said Labor and Employment Chairman Paul Koretz, D-West Hollywood. He also wondered if the state should be doing more to increase security at the state Capitol. 

There is an urgent need to improve radio communications between law enforcement and emergency response agencies, and increase bioterrorism training for emergency responders, said Governmental Organization Chairman George Nakano, D-Torrance. 

It would cost about $300 million just to safeguard the most vulnerable state waterways, offered water committee Chairman Dean Florez, D-Shafter. 

Los Angeles-area transit systems need terrorism safety training, surveillance equipment and financial help because of decreased ridership, said Assemblywoman Jenny Oropeza, D-Long Beach. 

And tourism, travel, manufacturing and other industries are calling for tax incentives and other subsidies to help them recover from business downturns they blame on the terror attacks, said Revenue and Taxation Chairwoman Ellen Corbett, D-San Leandro. 

Since Sept. 11, the state has beefed up security at bridges, highways, nuclear plants, airports, aqueducts, and other potential targets at an estimated cost of $1 million a day. 

Law enforcement “is spending at levels that cannot be sustained without additional resources,” said Assembly Speaker Robert Hertzberg, D-Van Nuys. 

Early versions of the proposed sales tax initiative give 28 percent of new income to fire agencies and 20 percent each to city police, county sheriffs and hospital and trauma centers. 

Tax opponents said the money should come from the state’s existing budget, already hard hit by the economic downturn and a dispute over repaying the money the state has spent to buy electricity on behalf of three cash-strapped utilities. 

Hertzberg and other lawmakers said they must put bipartisan pressure on Congress to pay the bulk of states’ costs. 

Gov. Gray Davis told U.S. homeland security director Tom Ridge a week ago that California had spent $143 million directly attributable to the attacks. 

Ridge said the federal government hopes to make a “substantial contribution” in the next federal budget year, though he offered no specific proportion. 

“We are putting an enormous financial burden this state and on this country,” Assemblywoman Hannah-Beth Jackson, D-Santa Barbara, said Wednesday. “We need federal funding desperately.” 

Californians can make suggestions to the Assembly task force by calling: 1-800-977-SAFE. 

——— 

On the Net: 

Read about the Assembly task force at www.californiasafe.ca.gov. 

SACRAMENTO — Four people died and two were injured Wednesday in a fiery crash involving three tractor-trailers on a highway south of Sacramento, authorities said. 

The morning pileup closed Route 99 near Grant Line Road for hours. The northbound lanes reopened midday. But the southbound lanes were likely to remain closed most of the day and officers were diverting traffic to Interstate 5, said California Highway Patrol spokesman Tom Marshall. 

At least three trucks were involved in the crash shortly after 9 a.m. — two of which were engulfed in flames, Marshall said. 

Authorities did not yet know the names of those killed Wednesday afternoon. Two other victims were taken to an area hospital, at least one with burns, Marshall said. Their conditions were unavailable. 

The pileup apparently was triggered when one tractor-trailer crossed the highway’s center divide and hit two other trucks and an automobile, Marshall said. 

Witnesses told dispatchers the trucks appeared to be exploding, but Marshall said that likely was caused by the gasoline tanks. He said one of the trucks carried rice meal, another held electronic equipment and the third was nearly empty. 

The crash investigation continued Wednesday, but fog may have been a factor. The area’s heavy seasonal fog — often the cause of dangerous driving conditions and wrecks — was reported throughout the Sacramento region Wednesday morning. 

Last year fog-related crashes killed 44 people and injured 2,188, said CHP spokeswoman Anne DaVigo. In 1999, 52 people died in similar crashes and 2,064 were injured. 

Authorities are urging drivers to use caution when driving in fog. This year, Marshall said the CHP is running paid advertisements for the first time providing tips for driving in fog. 

They include: 

— Reduce speed. 

— Keep headlights on, but use low beams. 

- Partially open driver’s side window to hear outside activity. 

- If your car becomes disabled, pull off the highway as far as safely possible and turn off you headlights. If possible, get out of the car and walk away from the road while waiting for help. 

——— 

On the Net: 

For more driving safety tips see http://www.chp.ca.gov/ 

RIVERSIDE — A woman said she heard a gunshot on her ranch moments before spotting one of two suspects in the slaying of a 16-year-old Las Vegas girl, whose body was later found on the Southern California property, a detective testified Wednesday. 

Riverside County sheriff’s Detective David Scott Brown said during a preliminary hearing the woman identified 21-year-old Janeen Snyder as the person she saw on her Rubidoux ranch. 

Snyder and Michael Thornton, 45, both of Rialto, have been charged with torturing and killing Michelle Curran. 

Thornton and Snyder were initially charged with burglary for breaking into the woman’s home and a tack room. They were arrested while fleeing, Brown said. 

Authorities allegedly found a large amount of blood at the ranch and Curran’s identification in Thornton’s truck, but no body. 

“There were several theories and speculation” in the days before the body was discovered, Brown said at the hearing, which was scheduled to conclude Thursday. “Initially we believed there was a third outstanding suspect.” 

Brown said investigators visited the property at least four times before the body was discovered by the property owners in the compartment of a horse trailer. 

Deputy District Attorney Michael Rushton began laying out the case by asking Brown to trace eyewitness accounts of Turner and Thornton whereabouts on April 19, 2001, the day authorities believe Curran was killed. 

In the hour before Snyder was spotted on the Rubidoux property, the couple was seen with a dark-haired teen-age girl at a nearby park, Brown said. A park ranger who saw the three said they appeared to be under the influence of drugs, he said. 

The two were later spotted in a nearby neighborhood entering homes to try to elude authorities. 

“They said ’Don’t call the police,”’ Brown said. 

But Snyder’s attorney, Carl Johnson, questioned the eyewitness accounts. 

“They were asking for help?” he said. 

“Yes,” Brown said. 

“They made no direct threats?” Johnson said. 

“Verbal threats? No,” Brown said. 

Johnson also attacked the credibility of the crime scene at the Rubidoux ranch, suggesting it had been trampled by too many officers over too many days. 

“Is it safe to say there were 15 to 16 officers there?” he said. 

Brown said he did not know how many were at the ranch. Although he said in the subsequent days it ranged between two and 10 a day. 

Candy Curran, the teen’s mother, attended the hearing clutching a stuffed animal she said was one of the last gifts her daughter ever gave her. 

She said she would watch the entire hearing, which will determine whether Turner and Snyder stand trial. 

“I’m not prepared for it,” Curran said. “But I want to make sure these two get what they deserve.” 

Curran reported her daughter missing from her Las Vegas home April 5. Although authorities classified the case as a runaway, Curran’s mother has insisted her daughter was kidnapped and had no reason to run away. 

924 Gilman Dec. 21: Kepi, Bonfire Madigan, Kevin Seconds; Dec. 22: The Lab Rats, Onetime Angels, A great Divide, Last Great Liar, Gabriel’s Ratchet; Dec. 23: 5 p.m., Over My Dead Body, Panic, Breaker, Some Still Believe; Dec. 28: What Happens Next, Rambo, Lie, Youth Riot, Lugosi; Dec. 29: Defiance, The P.A.W.N.S., Panty Raid, Sexy, Gluk; Jan. 4: Champion, Carry On, Stay Gold, The First Step, The Damage Done; Jan. 5: Iron Lung, B.G., Crucial Attack, Blown To Bits; Jan. 11: Bananas, Numbers, Lowdown, Doozers, Iron Ass; Jan. 12: Plan 9, The Sick, The Hellbillies, Oppressed Logic, Deltaforce; All shows start a 8 p.m. unless noted; Most are $5; 924 Gilman St. 525-9926 

The Albatross Pub Dec. 20: Keni “El Lebrijano”; Dec. 27: Keni “El Lebrijano”; All shows start at 9 p.m., 1822 San Pablo Ave. 843-2473  

Anna’s Dec. 20: Jazz Singers’ Collective; Dec. 21: Anna and Percy Scott on piano; 10 p.m., Bluesman Hideo Date; Dec. 22: Jazz Singer Robin Gregory; 10 p.m., The Distones Jazz Sextet; Dec. 23: Jazz Singer Ed Reed; All music starts 8 p.m. unless noted. 1801 University Ave., 849-2662. 

Ashkenaz Dec. 20: 9 p.m., Darol Anger, Scott Nygaard and The Improbables, $8; Dec. 21: 8 p.m., “Celebrating the Life of David Nadel,” Aux Cajunals, Nigerian Bros., Tropical Vibrations, $8; Dec. 22: 9 p.m., SensaSamba, $11; Dec. 23: 8 p.m., Ecology Center /Media Alliance Cuba Trip Benefit, $10 - $12; Dec. 25: 10 p.m., Lickshot, DJ Tony Moses, $5; Dec. 26: 10 p.m., Zulu Spear, Fireproof, $5; Dec. 27: 10 p.m., Grateful Dead DJ Nite, $5; Dec. 28: 9:30 p.m., Mood Swing Orchestra, $11; Dec. 29: 9:30 p.m., Caribbean All Stars, $11; Dec. 30: 8 p.m., Marimba Pacific, $8; Dec. 31: 8 p.m., Balkan New Year’s Eve with Edessa and Anoush, $15; 1317 San Pablo Ave., 525-5054, www.ashkenaz.com.  

Blake’s Dec. 29: 11 p.m., Jack West & Curvature, $5; 2367 Telegraph Ave., 877-488-6533. 

Club JJang-Ga Dec. 22: Heaven & Hell, Blue Period; Dec. 29: Deducted Value, 3rd Rail, Noiz, Un Sed; 400 29th Ave., Oakland, (925) 833-7820, savageproductionssl@ yahoo.com. 

Cal Performances Jan. 20: 3 p.m., Midori and Robert McDonald. $28 -$48. Zellerbach Hall, UC Berkeley, Bancroft Way at Telegraph. 642-9988 

Eli’s Mile High Club Every Friday, 10 p.m. Funky Fridays Conscious Dance Party with KPFA DJs Splif Skankin and Funky Man. $10; 3629 Martin Luther King Jr. Way, Oakland. 655-6661 

Freight & Salvage Coffee House Jan. 5: The Bluegrass Intentions CD Release Party; Jan. 6: Allette Brooks; All shows begin 8 p.m., 1111 Addison St. 548-1761, www.freightandsalvage.org.  

Julia Morgan Theatre Dec. 23: 7:30 p.m., an evening of Irish music and dance with Todd Denman and friends. $10, $5 children; Dec. 31: 8 p.m., New Year’s Eve Gala Concert, Program of classical favorites of the San Francisco Chamber Orchestra; Jan 11: 8 p.m. San Francisco Chamber Orchestra, sizzling program of classical party music; Jan. 12: 8:p.m., “Club Dance,” Teens come together to express their individual personalities and gifts as dancers. $10, Students and Seniors $6, Children ages 5 and under $6. Julia Morgan Theatre, 2640 College Ave., 845-8542, www.juliamorgan.org. 

Jupiter Dec. 20: Joshi Marshal Project; Dec. 21: Crater; Dec. 22: Post Junk Trio; Dec. 27: Joshi Marshal Project; Dec. 28: Ben Krames & Candlelight Dub; Dec. 29: Berkeley Jazz School Presents: Kirk Tamura Trio; All shows are free and begin at 8 p.m. unless noted. 2181 Shattuck Ave., 843-7625, www.jupiterbeer.com. 

La Peña Dec. 23: 3:30 p.m, Café Domingo de Rumba, Free; La Peña, 3105 Shattuck Ave. 849-2568, www.lapena.org 

Rose Street House Dec. 25: 3 p.m., Annual “Dykelah Escape-from-you-know-what-day Musical Extravaganza!”; Jan.17: 7:30 p.m., Allette Brooks. 1839 Rose St. 594-4000 x687, rosestreetmusic@ yahoo.com. 

Yoshi’s Jazz House Dec. 22: 1 p.m. - 4 p.m., 7th Annual Youth Arts Benefit Concert and Dance, $15; Dec.18 - 23: Charlie Hunter; Dec. 26 - 31: New Year’s Fiesta, The Afro-Cuban Jazz Masters; Jan. 2 - 6: Charles Lloyd; Jan. 13: Jacqui Naylor Quartet; All shows at 8 p.m., and 10 p.m., unless noted. 510 Embarcadero West, Jack London Square, Oakland. Check for prices and Sunday Matinees, 238-9200, www.yoshis.com. 

Berkeley Symphony Orchestra Dec. 18: 8 p.m., under the direction of Maestro Kent Nagano, plus the world premiere of Ichiro Nodaira’s “Kodama” written for and featuring Mari and Momo Kodama. $21 - $45; Zellerbach Hall, UC Berkeley, 841-2800, jeaston@berkeleysymphony.org. 

“Dotha’s Juke Joint: Everett and Jones Barbeque” Dec. 21: 8 & 10p.m., Faye Carol and her Off the Hook Blues Band, $15; Jack London Square, 126 Broadway at Second St., reservations, 663-7668.  

The Oakland Interfaith Youth Gospel Choir’s 5th Annual Christmas Concert Dec. 22: 7 p.m., “The Reason Why We Sing”; The Regents Theater, Holy Names College, 3500 Mountain Blvd., Oakland, 839-4361, www.oigc.org. 

“Music on Telegraph” Dec. 22: Kaz Sasaki Duo, Blackberry Ginger, 2520 Durant; Dec. 23: Almadecor, Ann’s Kitchen, 2498 Telegraph Ave.; All shows 2 - 4 p.m., Free. 

First Congregational Church of Berkeley Jan. 6: 3 p.m., Stephen Genz in his West Coast debut; 2345 Channing Way, 527-8175, www.geocities.com/mostlybrahms. 

Berkeley Piano Club Jan.11: 8 p.m., Kate Steinbeck and Renee Witon; Berkeley Piano Club, 2724 Haste St., (510) 531-1487. 

Berkeley High School Dance Production Jan. 11, 12, 18 &19: 7:30 p.m., Diverse mix of classical and modern ballet to hard-core hip-hop. $5. Florence Schwimley Little Theatre, Allston way and MLK., 644-6120 

“Much Ado About Nothing” Through Jan. 8: Check theater for specific dates and times. Shakespeare’s classic romantic comedy chronicles a handful of soldiers returning from a winning battle to be greeted by a gaggle of giddy maidens. Directed by Brian Kulick. $10 - $54. Berkeley Repertory Theatre, 2025 Addison St. 647-2949 www.berkeleyrep.org 

“Every Inch a King” Jan. 11 through Feb. 9: Thur. - Sat. 8 p.m., Sun. 5 p.m.; Three sisters have to make a decision as their father approaches death in this comedy presented by the Central Works Theater Ensemble. $8 - $18. LeValls Subterranean, 1834 Euclid Ave. 558-138, www.centralworks.org.  

“Murder Dressed in Satin” by Victor Lawhorn, ongoing. A mystery-comedy dinner show at The Madison about a murder at the home of Satin Moray, a club owner and self-proclaimed socialite with a scarlet past. Dinner is included in the price of the theater ticket. $47.50 Lake Merritt Hotel, 1800 Madison St., Oakland. 239-2252 www.acteva.com/go/havefun 

Pacific Film Archive Jan. 3: 7 p.m., 9 p.m., Unfinished Song; Jan. 4: 7 p.m., 9:15 p.m., Going By; Jan. 5: 7 p.m., 9 p.m., Under the Moonlight; Jan. 6: 1p.m., 3 p.m., Paper Airplanes, 5:30 Shrapnels in Peace; Jan.10: 7 p.m., 9 p.m., ABC Africa; Jan.11: 7:30 p.m., The Girl at the Monceau Bakery and Suzanne’s Career, 9:05 p.m. The Sign of the Lion with Place de l’Etoile; Jan. 12: 7p.m., La Collectionneuse, 8:50 p.m., My Night at Maud’s; Jan.13: 1p.m., 3p.m., Os 

“Veiled and Revealed” Through Dec. 23: Human beings, costumed in native dress are captured by visual artists in a seven-person exhibit. Sat. Dec. 8, 15, and 23, 11 a.m. - 5 p.m. Free. Simultaneously showing at ART-A-FACT, 1109 Addison St., and Metaversal Lightcraft, 1708 University Ave. 848-1985 

“Images of Innocence and Beauty” Dec. 19 through Jan. 8: An exhibit featuring Kathleen Flannigan’s drawing and furniture - boxes, tables, and mirrors, all embellished with images of the beauty and innocence of the natural world. Addison Street Windows, 2018 Addison St. 

“From With These Walls” Jan. 5: Educational studio opening celebration gallery show of student works in steel, bronze, aluminum, cast iron, glass, neon, ceramic, stone and paper; jewelry. The Crucible, 1036 Ashby St. (Entrance is one block south on Murray St.) 843-5511, fran@thecrucible.org. 

“The First Five Years” Through Jan.11: Exhibit represents a selection of drawings, paintings, prints and sculpture created by students during their 7th & 8th grade years. 7a.m.-9:30 p.m. Mon-Fri, 5:30- 9:30 p.m. Sat., Bucci’s Restaurant, 6121 Hollis St., Emeryville, 547-4725, www.bucci.com 

“Carving, Canvas, Color: Art of Julio Garcia and Wilbert Griffith” Through Jan.12: Brightly colored wooden figures and colorfully detailed paintings. Gallery is open by appointment and chance, most weekdays 10:30 a.m. - 4 p.m.; The Ames Gallery, 2661 Cedar St., 845-4949, amesgal@home.com 

“Matrix 195” Through Jan. 13: German artist, Thomas Scheibitz’s, first solo museum exhibition in the United States showcases semi-abstract representations of everyday objects and landscapes. Wed., Fri. - Sun. 11 a.m. - 5 p.m., Thur. 11 a.m. - 9 p.m. $3-$6. Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, 2626 Bancroft Way, 642-0808 www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

“Analogous Biology: Balance and Use,” Mark J. Leavitt, Dec. 20 through Jan. 19; Tue. - Sat., 11 a.m. - 5 p.m., Ardency Gallery, 709 Broadway, Oakland. 836-0831, www.artolio.com. 

GTU Exhibit: “Holocaust Series” by Cleve Gray Through Jan. 25: Comprised of 21 works on paper that constitute “a catharsis... for all of humanity.” Mon. - Thurs. 8:30 a.m. - 9:45 p.m., Fri. 8:30 a.m. - 6 p.m., Sat. 10 a.m. - 6 p.m., Sun. noon - 7 p.m.; Free. Flora Lamson Hewlett Library, Graduate Theological Union, 2400 Ridge Rd. 649-2541 www.gtu.edu 

Pro Arts: “Juried Annual 2001-02” Dec. 19 through Feb. 2: An exhibition of painting, sculpture, mixed media, photography and more by Bay Area and  

regional artists. Pro Arts, 461 Ninth St., www.proartsgallery.org. 

“Water Media” Jan. 10 through Feb. 8: An exhibit by Christine “Caipirinha” Mulder. Capoeira Arts Cafe Gallery, 2026 Center St., 666-1349 for hours. 

Traywick Gallery: “New Work by Dennis Begg and Steve Briscoe” Jan. 5 through Feb. 9: Dennis Begg’s sculpture explores memory as the building block of consciousness, learning and experience. Steve Brisco’s paintings on paper address issues of identity through evocative combinations of text and imagery. Tues. - Sat. 11 a.m. - 6 p.m., 1316 10th St. 527-1214 

“Enduring Wisdom: Artwork and Stories by Homeless and Formerly Homeless Seniors” Through Feb. 15: 18 homeless and formerly homeless elders reveal how they learned and applied wisdom that is timeless. Mon. - Fri. and Sundays 11 a.m. - 2 p.m. Reception and presentation by the elders Thurs. Nov. 15, 4 p.m. - 6 p.m. Free. St. Mary’s Center, 635 22nd St., Oakland, 893-4723 x222 

“The Other 364 Days: A Day in the Life of the Queer Community” Jan. 2 through Feb. 16: An exhibit of black and white photographs by East Bay photographer Limor Inbar-Hansen. Mon. - Fri., 8:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m., Sat., 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., Reception for artist, Jan. 12: 6 - 8 p.m., Photolab Gallery, 2235 Fifth St., 644-1400, limor@indelible-images.com. 

“Ansel Adams in the University of California Collections” Dec. 12 through Mar. 10: A selection of photographs and memorabilia presenting a different perspective on Adam’s career as one of the leading figures in American photography. Wed, Fri. - Sun. 11 a.m. - 5 p.m., Thur. 11 a.m. - 9 p.m. $4- $6. The University of California, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, 2626 Bancroft Way, 642-0808, www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

“Migrations: Photographs by Sebastiao Salgado” Jan. 16 through Mar. 24: Over 300 black-and-white photographs of immigrants and refugees taken by the Brazilian photographer. Wed. - Sun. 11 a.m. - 7 p.m. $4 - $6. The University of California, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, 2626 Bancroft Way. 642-0808, www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

"Earthly Pleasures" assemblage and photographs by Susan Danis, Jan. 11 through March 30: 10 a.m. - 6 p.m., Mon. - Sat.; Sticks, 1579 B, Solano Ave., 526-6603.  

“The Art History Museum of Berkeley” Masterworks by Guy Colwell Faithful copies of several artists from the pasts, including Titian’s “The Venus of Urbino,” Cezanne’s “Still Life,” Picasso’s “Woman at a Mirror,” and Botticelli’s “Primavera” Ongoing. Call ahead for hours. Atelier 9, 2028 Ninth St., 841-4210, www.atelier9.com. 

Readings 

Cody’s on Telegraph Ave. Jan. 8: Theodore Hamm discusses “Rebel and a Cause: Caryl Chessman and the Politics of the Death Penalty”; Jan. 10: Joan Frank reads from her new book, “Boys Keep Being Born”; Jan. 11: Christopher Hitchens, “Letters to a Youn Contrarian”; Jan. 14: Pamela Logan talks about “Tibetan Rescue: A Woman’s Quest to Save the Fabulous Art Treasures of Pewar Monastery”; All events are free and start at 7:30 p.m. unless noted. 2454 Telegraph Ave., 845-7852. 

Coffee With A Beat - Word Beat reading series Dec. 22: Debra Grace Khattab, Jesy Goldhammer; Dec. 29: Steve Arntson, Michelle Erickson, Clare Lewis; All readings are free and begin at 7 p.m., 458 Perkins, Oakland, 526-5985, www.angelfire.com/poetry/wordbeat. 

The Humanist Fellowship Hall Jan. 9: 7 p.m., “Our Wings Are Pregnant Seesaws,” Reading performance of a play by H. D. Moe. 390 27th St., Oakland, 528-8713. 

“World Ground Poetry” Dec.19: 7-9 p.m., Featuring Abdul Kenyatta & Paradise Freejahlove Supreme; World Ground Cafe, 3726 Mac Arthur Blvd., 482-2933, www.worldgrounds.com. 

Tours 

Golden Gate Live Steamers Grizzly Peak Boulevard and Lomas Cantadas Drive at the south end of Tilden Regional Park Small locomotives, scaled to size. Trains run Sun., 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Rides: Sun., noon to 3 p.m., weather permitting. 486-0623  

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Fridays 9:30 - 11:45 a.m. or by appointment. Call ahead to make reservations. Free. University of California, Berkeley. 486-4387 

Museums 

Habitot Children’s Museum “Back to the Farm” An interactive exhibit gives children the chance to wiggle through tunnels, look into a mirrored fish pond, don farm animal costumes, ride on a John Deere tractor and more. “Recycling Center” Lets the kids crank the conveyor belt to sort cans, plastic bottles and newspaper bundles into dumpster bins; $4 adults; $6 children age 7 and under; $3 for each additional child age 7 and under. Mon. and Wed., 9:30 a.m. to 1 p.m.; Tues. and Fri., 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Thur., 9:30 a.m. to 7 p.m.; Sat., 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Sun., 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. 2065 Kittredge St. 647-1111 or www.habitot.org  

Oakland Museum of California “Kwanzaa Community Celebration” Dec. 30: 12-4 p.m.,Nia Kwanzaa is an African American holiday that honors black family history; Through Jan. 13: Grand Lyricist: The Art of Elmer Bischoff, featuring paintings and works on paper that trace the evolution of Bischoff’s career. $6 adults, $4 seniors and students, free for children under 5. Wed. - Sat. 10 a.m. - 5 p.m., Sun. noon - 5 p.m., 10th St., Oakland, 888-625-6873/ www.museumca.org 

UC Berkeley Museum of Paleontology Lobby, Valley Life Sciences Building, UC Berkeley “Tyrannosaurus Rex,” ongoing. A 20 foot by 40 foot replica of the fearsome dinosaur made from casts of bones of the most complete T. Rex skeleton yet excavated. When unearthed in Montana, the bones were all lying in place with only a small piece of the tailbone missing. “Pteranodon” A suspended skeleton of a flying reptile with a wingspan of 22-23 feet. The Pteranodon lived at the same time as the dinosaurs. Free. Mon. through Fri., 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Sat. and Sun., 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. 642-1821 

UC Berkeley Phoebe Hearst Museum of Anthropology will close its exhibition galleries for renovation. It will reopen in early 2002.  

University of California Berkeley Art Museum Pacific Film Archive has reopened after its summerlong seismic retrofit. “Martin Puryear: Sculpture of the 1990s” through Jan. 13; “The Dream of the Audience: Theresa Hak Kyung Cha (1951 - 1982)” through Dec. 16; “Face of Buddha: Sculpture from India, China, Japan, and Southeast Asia” ongoing rotation through 2003; “Matrix 194: Jessica Bronson, Heaps, layers, and curls” Sept. 16 through Nov. 11; “Matrix 192: Ceal Floyer 37’4”” Sept. 16 through Nov. 11; Wed., Fri., Sat., Sun. 11 a.m. - 5 p.m., Thur. 11 a.m. - 9 p.m., PFA Theater, 2575 Bancroft Way; Museum Galleries 2626 Bancroft Way; 642-0808 www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

Lawrence Hall of Science Dec. 26: 1 p.m., Professor Smart’s Fun with Physics Show; Dec. 27: 1 p.m., Slapstick with Derique; Dec. 28: 1 p.m., Rhythmix; Dec. 29: 1 p.m., Magic with Jay Alexander; Dec. 30: 1 p.m., Music and Storytelling with Dennis Hysom; Dec. 31: 1 p.m., New Year’s Eve Party, special daytime holiday party for kids; Dec. 26 through 31: Free Energy Star compact fluorescent light bulb; Through Jan. 26: Scream Machines: The Science of Roller Coasters; “Within the Human Brain,” ongoing. Visitors test their cranial nerves, play skeeball, master mazes, match musical tones and construct stories inside a simulated “rat cage” of learning experiments. “Saturday Night Stargazing,” First and third Saturdays each month. 8 - 10 p.m., LHS plaza; Open daily, 10 a.m. - 5 p.m., $7 for adults; $5 for children 5-18; $3 for children 3-4. Centennial Drive, UC Berkeley, 642-5132, www.lawrencehallofscience.org. 642-5132. 

Holt Planetarium Programs are recommended for age 8 and up; children under age 6 will not be admitted. $2 in addition to regular museum admission. “Constellations Tonight” Ongoing. Using a simple star map, learn to identify the most prominent constellations for the season in the planetarium sky. Daily, 3:30 p.m. $7 general; $5 seniors, students, disabled, and youths age 7 to 18; $3 children age 3 to 5 ; free children age 2 and younger. Daily 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Centennial Drive, UC Berkeley 642-5132 or www.lhs.berkeley.edu  

Send arts events two weeks in advance to Calendar@berkeleydailyplanet.net, 2076 University, Berkeley 94704 or fax to 841-5694.

TUCSON, Ariz. — Environmental scientists from around the world are supporting a plan for the U.S. Department of Energy to team with Columbia University to use Biosphere 2 for climate research, its director said. 

Government and academic scientists from countries including Russia, Japan, Italy, Australia and Israel met at the sealed giant terrarium to determine whether it would be a suitable site for such research. No specific plan has been devised. 

The conference, which ended Tuesday, was viewed as one that will guide the future of the Biosphere 2 Center, which now is an arm of Columbia University, managed by Columbia’s Earth Institute. 

University officials see the controlled-environment facility as critical to learning how the earth responds to changes in climate. Biosphere 2 has distinct ecological sectors, or biomes, that were built to mimic the earth’s: a rainforest, desert, savannah and its own miniature ocean. 

In addition, there is an area for growing crops or other plants which is now being used to test how cottonwood trees respond to different levels of carbon dioxide. Scientists say the research will provide insight into the effects of global warming. 

“Before the Department of Energy would reprogram funds to invest in Biosphere 2 or provide new funds for research projects, they require the scientific community to identify compelling scientific questions that can’t be addressed without a facility like Biosphere 2,” said Barry Osmond, president and executive director of the center, a 3.15-acre glass-and-steel domed complex northeast of Tucson. 

DOE officials also want to see a clear demonstration that the scientific community would use the facility if it was supported by the department, he said. 

“I think we got an abundant definition of those questions and indication that the community will participate,” Osmond said. 

Biosphere 2 has “considerable potential as a major facility at the frontier of global change science,” said Paul Rich of New Mexico’s Los Alamos National Laboratory. 

Scientists who attended the conference will put together a report for the DOE. The paper will suggest how studies at the facility would help the department in its objectives. 

Osmond said the likeliest outcome would be some kind of partnership between DOE and Columbia, “because there’s no doubt that Columbia wants this to be a university campus.” 

It might be modeled after projects that support oceanographic research, he said. There also were discussions about construction of additional facilities for researchers at the complex, Osmond said. 

“We would use Biosphere 2 as the sort of controlled experimental device but would like to put it into the context of all the outdoor real-world experiments that one can do in this region.” 

——— 

On the Net: 

Biosphere 2: http://www.bio2.edu/ 

Energy Department: http://www.energy.gov/ 

Shopping bags stuffed with gifts were given to 230 women and children Tuesday during the annual Christmas party for those who regularly use the services of the Women’s Daytime Drop-in Center. 

The celebration, complete with a holiday meal of baked ham, potatoes au gratin, mashed sweet potatoes, biscuits and blackberry pie, was held at North Berkeley’s School of the Madeleine. 

At the WDDC, homeless women and children receive support, meals and access to community resources. The nonprofit agency serves an average of 150 women and children each month. 

Gwen Grayson, a single mother of seven children aged between 2 and 14 years old and a client of the center, filled up one of the long tables with her smiling family.  

Grayson and her children recently found themselves homeless when they moved back to Berkeley from the Fresno area. She sought assistance from the WDDC, which quickly found the family housing in Oakland. 

Berkeley Police Department officers “donated a large number of gifts with cash out of their own pocket, along with other organizations too,” said Linda Lazzareschi, WDDC director. 

Reserve Police Officer Rich Wolfman had a central role, playing a jolly Santa Claus. Wolfman was mobbed by the younger children wanting to hug and touch Santa Claus, as he distributed the gifts. 

The WDDC is located at 2218 Acton St., Berkeley. For more information call 548-2884. Services are available at no fee to any homeless woman or child.  

The Berkeley Police Department and the Berkeley Fire Department were called to the 1700 block of McGee Avenue at around 9 a.m. Wednesday after a woman found a suspicious white powdery substance in her driveway. 

The victim told police that she suspected the powder may have been laundry detergent, since she could not find the box of it she bought the night before. Thinking the powder could have been anthrax, she evacuated the premises and asked the city to take a look. 

Officer Dan Frederick of the BPD was the first to arrive at the scene. After scrutinizing the powder’s appearance and smell, he determined that it was, in fact, detergent of some sort.  

Frederick considered using the victim’s garden hose to wash the substance away, but held off in light of the city’s policy on dumping materials into storm drains. 

Members of the BFD’s Station Four were temporarily stymied by the traffic-calming bumpers on McGee Avenue, but were able access the house after driving around the block.  

The firefighters confirmed Frederick’s detective work.  

They used a broom and dustpan from their truck to sweep up the bulk of the detergent, then used the garden hose to eliminate the remaining traces. 

Asst. Fire Chief Dave Orth later said it was the first anthrax call the department had received in quite a while. 

“The number of calls we’ve received has practically diminished to nothing,” he said. 

Orth said despite the fact that the scare turned out to be unwarranted, the caller did the right thing.  

“We don’t blame people,” he said. “If you really don’t know and you feel uncomfortable, you should call. That’s part of the service we provide.”

Researchers say they have discovered the key component in red wine that explains the so-called French Paradox, or the way the French can eat lots of cheese, buttery sauces and other rich foods and still suffer less heart disease than Americans. 

The explanation is pigments known as polyphenols. 

The pigments are not present in white wine or rose, and they seem to be less potent when they are present in grape juice. 

Polyphenols inhibit the production of a peptide that contributes to hardening of the arteries, researchers report in Thursday’s issue of the journal Nature. 

In laboratory dish experiments, polyphenols in red wine decreased the amount of the peptide endothelin-1 produced by cells taken from the blood vessels of cows. 

Endothelin-1 is a potent blood vessel constrictor, and overproduction of the compound is thought to be a key factor in why arteries clog with fatty deposits, said the researchers from the William Harvey Research Institute at the London School of Medicine & Dentistry. 

In the study, the cow cells were exposed to extracts from 23 red wines, four white wines, one rose and one type of red grape juice. 

Researchers found the decrease in endothelin-1 levels was related to the amount of polyphenols in the wines. 

The white and rose wines — which contain little or none of the pigment — had no effect on endothelin-1 levels. 

Red grape juice, which has plenty of the pigment, was markedly less potent in reducing endothelin-1 than red wine. The researchers said that suggests that something in the winemaking process changes the pigment’s properties. 

Researchers believe the pigment comes from red wine skins. In white wine and rose, the grape skins are taken out before fermentation. 

The type of grape also appeared to matter.  

Four of the six most effective red wines used in the study were made entirely or partially from cabernet sauvignon grapes. 

“The key message is moderate consumption of red wine is likely to prevent heart disease, but we have no evidence that white wine or rose would have a similar benefit,” said Roger Corder, who led the study. 

The lower incidence of heart disease in France, despite a diet rich in butter and other fats, has led researchers to look to the consumption of red wine, another staple of the French diet. 

Other studies have shown red wine helps fight heart disease, and scientists have theorized that the benefits are caused by antioxidant compounds that prevent or slow the damaging effects of oxygen on the body. 

Corder’s research shows a different mechanism altogether. He said it is a more plausible explanation for the French Paradox. 

David Klurfeld, a researcher at Wayne State University who linked red wine and a reduction in heart disease in 1981, noted that the cells were tested in a dish and said it is unclear how polyphenols work in the body. However, he said, the research opens another pathway that should be pursued. 

“Is this the only mechanism, or is it a combination? There’s not enough evidence that points us in any direction,” Klurfeld said. “We’re basically playing spin the wine bottle here.”

BOSTON — The popular pain reliever ibuprofen blocks the heart-protecting effects of aspirin, according to a study that sounds a warning for people who take both medicines. 

“It would not do you a lot of good to take one medication only to have another wipe out its effects,” said Dr. Muredach Reilly, a University of Pennsylvania cardiologist who took part in the 30-patient study reported in Thursday’s New England Journal of Medicine. 

Many heart patients regularly take aspirin because it thins the blood and prevents the clots that cause heart attacks. Ibuprofen, which is in Motrin and Advil, is widely used for arthritis and other aches and pains. 

In the study, when patients took a single dose of ibuprofen beforehand, aspirin lost 98 percent of its blood-thinning power. When aspirin was taken first, three daily doses of ibuprofen sapped aspirin of 90 percent of its benefit. 

The researchers believe that ibuprofen clogs a channel inside a clotting enzyme known as cyclooxygenase-1. Aspirin gets stuck at the bottleneck and cannot reach its own active site inside the enzyme. 

The study found show no conflict between aspirin and three other arthritis drugs: rofecoxib, diclofenac, and acetaminophen, which is in Tylenol. But the researchers suggested that other drugs with structures like ibuprofen, such as indomethacin, will similarly block aspirin. 

Ibuprofen belongs to a widely used class of pain relievers known as nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs. 

“This isn’t an indictment of all nonsteroidals, but it does give one pause,” said Dr. Leslie Crofford, an arthritis specialist at the University of Michigan. She wrote an accompanying editorial. 

She said researchers should now study humans to verify if these laboratory findings translate into a real danger of heart attacks. 

The study was funded partly by the National Institutes of Health and aspirin maker Bayer. 

Fran Sullivan, a spokesman for Advil maker Whitehall-Robins Healthcare of Madison, N.J., said if the study is right, “it’s more a matter of timing.” He suggested that regular aspirin be taken two hours before ibuprofen. He said enteric-coated aspirin, which is released more slowly into the blood, could be taken at bedtime without a conflict. 

On Thursday, the journal also published a separate study on unintended effects of aspirin and acetaminophen. The study, overseen at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, showed a 2 1/2 times greater risk of chronic kidney failure in patients who regularly take either drug. Earlier research suggested similar side effects.

SAN JOSE — With their $22.2 billion merger threatened, Hewlett-Packard Co. and Compaq Computer Corp. fired back Wednesday with a 50-page report detailing their reasons for the deal and criticizing leading opponent Walter Hewlett. 

“In the words of Dave Packard, ‘In the fields of advanced and rapidly changing technologies, to remain static is to lose ground,”’ the document says. “Now is the time to take this decisive step to address the changes in our industry.” 

The report, filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, says Palo Alto-based HP and Houston-based Compaq need each other to become stronger players in business computing, Internet access devices and printing, and to save at least $2.5 billion a year. 

HP’s fiscal 2003 pro forma earnings per share, the companies say, would rise 13 percent with the deal, creating value that exceeds the premium paid for Compaq. 

Also Wednesday, an HP lawyer denied that the company’s top leaders are threatening to resign if shareholders reject the Compaq deal. 

In a letter filed with the SEC, HP attorney Larry W. Sonsini told an attorney for Hewlett that such assertions are “incorrect and misleading.” Sonsini was responding to a letter from Hewlett’s lawyer that expressed concern over news reports implying top HP brass would step down if the Compaq deal falls through. 

For one, Hewlett was upset because HP director Richard Hackborn told The New York Times that shareholders “will have to get a board and a management” to fix HP’s problems if the deal fails. 

The fight over the merger has intensified in recent weeks, with Hewlett lobbying other shareholders to veto the deal and asking the companies to scrap it. Hewlett and Packard family interests with 18 percent of HP stock have lined up against the acquisition. 

Hewlett believes the deal is too risky and would increase HP’s exposure to the weak personal computer market while reducing the role of its cash cow printing division. Other opponents such as David W. Packard have criticized HP for planning to lay off as many as 15,000 employees if the deal is completed. 

The companies acknowledge that the combined HP-Compaq would lose revenue in the short term, but their report contends that Hewlett and his advisers greatly miscalculated the resulting effect on the company’s profits. 

Robert Wayman, HP’s chief financial officer and a member of the board, said he was confident analysts and investors would respond favorably to the filing. 

“This shows that if you put these two companies together, the result is a much stronger company both financially and competitively,” he said in an interview. 

Without the deal, the companies said, they are stuck with weak operating models in some fields and are not in position to respond quickly enough to customers’ needs. They blasted Hewlett for having no real competing vision and said he has failed to understand the growth possibilities in key areas such as servers and data storage. 

Hewlett believes the report wrongly singles out him out, spokesman Todd Glass said. 

“Walter Hewlett is not alone in his opposition to the Hewlett-Packard-Compaq transaction,” Glass said. “The market has been very outspoken on this transaction. ... We believe it is HP’s filings that rely on faulty financial assumptions and analysis.” 

HP also began running advertisements in newspapers around the country in hopes of winning shareholder support. The first shows one of HP’s earliest products, an oscilloscope, on one page and asks on the other, “What if we had stopped here?” 

Hewlett-Packard shares rose 20 cents to $20.70 Wednesday on the New York Stock Exchange. Compaq fell 9 cents to $9.02. 

——— 

On the Net: 

http://www.hp.com 

http://www.compaq.com 

SAN JOSE — The number of people who have high-speed Internet connections at home grew to a record 21.3 million in November, a 90 percent increase over the same month last year, according to a report. 

In all, broadband users make up about 20.2 percent of the total of all home Internet surfers, whose ranks grew only 11 percent during the same period, according to Nielsen/NetRatings. 

The shift in growth, despite the slumping economy, bodes well for Internet commerce. Last year, broadband surfers spent 67 percent more money online than dial-up, or “narrowband” users, the report said. 

“Broadband surfers tend to log onto the Internet more often, stay online longer and are more likely to shop online than narrowband surfers,” said T.S. Kelly, NetRatings’ director and principal analyst. 

Other research firms estimate that about 12 million households will have broadband access by the end of this year. NetRatings differs by counting the number of unique users who have access, said Jarvis Mack, senior analyst at Nielsen/NetRatings. 

Cahners In-Stat Group, for instance, forecast about 12.1 million total households connected to the Internet via cable modem, Digital Subscriber Line, fixed wireless or satellite, said senior analyst Ernie Bergstrom. 

The year’s growth in broadband usage comes as several service providers have filed for bankruptcy protection or gone out of business. 

NorthPoint Communications and Rhythms NetConnections, which provided high-speed access over telephone lines, shut down earlier this year. 

ExciteAtHome, which provides services over television cable lines, announced earlier this month that it will close down at the end of February after months of financial turmoil. 

In most cases, users have shifted to other broadband providers, such as major telephone companies for DSL or cable companies for cable modem service. 

——— 

On the Net: 

NetRatings: http://www.netratings.com 

The Associated Press 

SAN FRANCISCO — Seeking to reassure investors about its financial strength, rapidly expanding power generator Calpine Corp. said Wednesday it plans to raise $400 million in a private placement of debt that can be converted into the company’s stock. 

The placement comes amid deepening concerns about Calpine’s plans to build 30 power plants during the next year. This month’s bankruptcy of industry giant Enron Corp. raised questions of taking on new debt to add more generating capacity during a time of falling energy prices. 

Calpine’s plans received another setback when Moody’s Investor Service downgraded the company’s credit rating to junk. 

San Jose-based Calpine has maintained that it remains a healthy business and Wednesday’s announcement seemed to hearten investors. The company’s shares gained 69 cents to close at $14.69 on the New York Stock Exchange. 

Calpine plans to use the proceeds to shore up its balance sheet by buying back a portion of its zero-coupon convertible debentures. The debt on those securities totaled $878 million as of Dec. 12. 

The interest rate on the new debt, as well as the stock conversion ratio, will be determined at a later date, Calpine said. 

——— 

On The Net: 

http://www.calpine.com 

PHILADELPHIA — Lawyers for Mumia Abu-Jamal said Wednesday they will ask a federal appeals court to grant him a new trial, expressing dismay that a judge upheld the former Black Panther’s 1982 conviction for murdering a police officer while throwing out his death sentence. 

U.S. District Judge William Yohn on Tuesday found errors in the sentencing phase of the original trial and ordered Abu-Jamal, 47, to be resentenced within 180 days, or face life imprisonment. 

But Yohn rejected 28 other defense claims, among them that the trial judge and jury were biased, evidence was suppressed, Abu-Jamal’s confession was fabricated and his lawyer was ineffective. 

“This is a partial victory,” said defense attorney Michael Coard. “There were more glaring errors in the trial itself, not just in the sentencing.” 

District Attorney Lynne Abraham is also preparing an appeal, calling the judge’s decision “legally flawed.” 

The appeals will likely take years to resolve, prolonging a case that has been a touchstone in the international death penalty debate. Abu-Jamal’s writings on the justice system have gained him a worldwide following of celebrities, foreign politicians and death-penalty opponents, while police groups say he deserves to die. 

If Abu-Jamal wins a new sentencing hearing, it will be nothing like the one conducted after his conviction for shooting Daniel Faulkner on Dec. 9, 1981, prosecutors and defense attorneys said Wednesday. 

In the first sentencing proceeding, only two witnesses testified. A police clerk confirmed Faulkner was employed as a police officer, an aggravating circumstance that allowed the jury to impose the death penalty. Abu-Jamal also took the stand during the one-day hearing, denouncing his lawyer as inadequate and the judge as a “black-robed conspirator” and a “hangman.” 

A second hearing would likely take weeks. The new jury would have to be informed on the facts of the case; witnesses and evidence from the original trial could be presented to help jurors decide on a sentence of death or life imprisonment; and Abu-Jamal’s lawyers could try to introduce new evidence they say exonerates him, said Joseph McGill, who prosecuted Abu-Jamal in 1982.

BOSTON — Excessive wear on a throttle linkage part has been blamed for more than a dozen crashes or forced landings of older Cessna planes, The Boston Globe reported Wednesday. 

In the most serious crash blamed on the throttle control arm, a Cessna 200 lost power and crashed during a sightseeing flight in Alaska in 1996, killing the pilot and two passengers, the newspaper reported, citing federal records. Cessna stopped using engines with the part in 1992. 

Over the last decade, pilots and some of the Federal Aviation Administration’s own inspectors have urged the agency to issue an order fixing the problem, the Globe reported. 

However, FAA spokeswoman Laura Brown said the agency believes poor maintenance, rather than design problems, leads to rapid wear of the part, which is made of bronze rather than more durable steel. 

The FAA, Cessna and Teledyne Continental Motors — which made engines for Cessna planes before 1992 — have all urged pilots and mechanics to make frequent checks of the part in older Cessnas. 

Cessna officials say more than 1,000 of their aircraft built before 1996 have the part, and Teledyne officials said they have produced about 175,000 engines in the last 50 years with bronze throttle arms. 

When Providence, R.I.-based Textron bought Cessna in 1992 for $600 million, it switched to using only Textron Lycoming engines, which uses steel linkage parts. 

Cessna and Teledyne have blamed each other for the bronze throttle arm’s tendency to wear quickly. 

More than a year before the Alaska crash, Cessna urged Teledyne to make the arm out of steel, but the request went unheeded, the Globe said. Cessna officials refused to comment. 

Teledyne said any wear was due to Cessna’s design of the linkage, adding that some mechanics servicing the thousands of engines in the field were to blame for not making certain that connections were tight, the newspaper said. 

John Barton, chief technology officer for Teledyne Continental Motors, said the arm cannot wear if its connection is properly tightened. 

At least 25 failures of the throttle arm have been reported to the FAA since 1975, according to the Globe. Some were discovered in routine maintenance. However, at least 15 times before the fatal Alaska crash — and twice since — planes were forced to make emergency landings because of failure of the throttle arm, the newspaper said, quoting voluntary reports to the FAA. 

Both the FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board found that the failure of the part caused the Alaska crash. 

The families of those killed in the Alaska crash received six-figure settlements from the companies last year. 

Berkeley High School students called on the district to put effective leadership in place at their school and to address the “achievement gap” separating white and minority students, during a student forum on small schools held Tuesday. 

“If you’re good at your job, then help us out,” said Joseph Abhulimen, a junior at BHS, addressing Shirley Issel, president of the Board of Education. 

The event, sponsored by Youth Together, a leadership group focused on school reform, drew about 30 students and a handful of teachers and activists. 

Participants questioned four panelists – Issel, Terry Doran, another school board member, Rick Ayers, a teacher who heads up the BHS Communication Arts and Sciences school-within-a school; and Dana Richards, director of Common Ground, another small school at the high school 

Kye Tavernier, a junior, and member of Youth Together, said the group sponsored the forum to give students a chance to influence the hotly-debated small schools’ policy put forward by the Coalition for Excellence and Equity. 

The coalition, a grassroots group of parents, teachers and education leaders, has called for the division of BHS into a series of compact, relatively autonomous “learning communities” with different themes. Activists say the creation of small schools will help to address the achievement gap and other lingering problems at BHS. 

“There’s been a lot of debate about small schools,” said Tavernier, “and a lot of students felt our voice...wasn’t coming across.” 

Students took the opportunity to tell panelists that the district needs to stop talking about solutions to the achievement gap and take action.  

“I’ve been in meetings like this since freshman year,” said Joy Broussard, a senior, “and nothing ever gets done.” 

Issel said she shares the students’ concerns, but has reservations about moving forward with small schools at this point. She said the district must have adequate time to assess the financial ramifications of changing the high school structure, and evaluate the successes and failures of the schools-within-a-school already in place at BHS. 

“It’s not the goal (that is the issue),” said Issel, “it’s how you get there.” 

Bradley Johnson, president of the high school’s sophomore class, said that if the school board rejects the small schools approach, it must come up with a plan to address the achievement gap within the existing, larger school. 

Issel agreed. “You are right to want that blueprint,” she said. “It’s been very distressing to all of us that we haven’t had leadership in this area.” 

Students also said they were frustrated with constant changes in leadership at the high school, including the departure of Principal Frank Lynch earlier this year. 

Issel said the selection of a new principal is a top priority, but she added that the current leadership team, composed of four vice principals, has been effective. 

“You have a darn good crew right now that’s doing an excellent job,” she said. 

Richards, director of the Common Ground program, sharply disagreed. “They’ve been putting down the leadership of the (existing) small schools,” he said, “and they’ve been elevating people who are into numbers and accountability and systems.” 

“These people are working on a kind of top-down, intimidating, fear style that shuts people up who are trying to be innovative,” he continued. 

Students voiced general support for the small schools concept, arguing that pupils in the existing schools-within-a-school have developed better relationships with teachers than those in the larger high school. 

But some said that ultimately, the quality of teaching, no matter what the school structure, will make the difference. 

“The main thing is for us to get better educated,” Broussard said, “and we can’t get better educated if the teachers don’t want to be there.” 

Ayers said poor teachers currently escape scrutiny in the larger BHS. If small schools are put in place, he said, unqualified teachers will not be able to hide, and teacher accountability will improve. 

The school board is set to consider the latest version of the coalition’s small schools policy at its bi-weekly meeting tonight. 

The meeting begins at 7:30 p.m. at Old City Hall, 2134 Martin Luther King Jr. Way. It is broadcast on KPFB-FM 89.3 and Ch-25. 

Annie Borton knew that a tough pre-season schedule would prove beneficial in the long run, even if it meant dropping a few games. 

The logic went, if the young Berkeley High girls’ soccer team – after losing eight seniors from last year’s playoff team – could hang with the ultra-competitive “valley” teams early on, there’s no telling what could happen when the Yellowjackets squared off against their admittedly weaker league competition. 

“Even if you’ve lost these games you still feel like you’ve accomplished a lot,” Borton said of the pre-season matches. “It’s fun to win 10-0, but that doesn’t really help develop you as a player too much.” 

Maybe not, but it sure is fun clobbering league opponents, which is what Berkeley has done so far this season.  

Already, the ’Jackets have whipped ACCAL newcomer Hercules 15-0 in the league opener, and last week they thumped Encinal 10-0. 

For her part, Borton scored three goals and added two assists in the victory over Hercules. The junior forward knocked in another goal against Encinal. 

“We played such good teams in the pre-season that it really challenged us,” said Borton, who’s become a leader of the youthful Berkeley squad. “My first year we were in the EBAL and we only won two games. It was really competitive and in some ways it’s nicer to be in an easier league.” 

’Jackets’ head coach Suzanne Sillett intentionally scheduled challenging pre-season games against the likes of Arroyo, Clayton Valley, Monte Vista and Livermore, as well as the team that booted Berkeley out of the playoffs last season, Amador Valley. The only win the ’Jackets mustered in five games was a 4-1 triumph over Livermore in which Borton scored a goal and recorded an assist. 

Nevertheless, Berkeley’s pre-season performance wasn’t terrible, considering that Borton, as team captain, is leading a squad that’s returning just three starters from last year’s ACCAL championship team.  

It’s a tall order, but Sillett will be the first to acknowledge that Borton is capable of pulling the ’Jackets together. 

“She knows what’s expected of the team,” Sillett said. “Annie’s always led by example, but this year she’s become more vocal and that’s helped.” 

Continuing to describe Borton’s commitment to soccer and to the team, Sillett also praised the three-year starter’s work ethic.  

“She’s played practically every minute of every game since she came here her freshman year,” Sillett said. “She has an incredible intensity and I’ve never seen her give less than 100 percent.” 

Borton, 16, grew up in Berkeley and began playing soccer for a club team when she was 5 years old. But even before that, the young athlete could be seen kicking a soccer ball on the sidelines of her two older brothers’ games.  

Characterized by Sillett as a “naturally great athlete,” Borton has played on the Bay Oaks club team for eight years and competed in tournaments throughout the United States and the world.  

Three years ago the team traveled to Denmark where it competed in the Dana Cup. Borton’s select team, which requires annual three-day tryouts and is comprised of athletes from all around Northern California, won its division in the tournament. 

“That was great,” Borton said. “We went to this small town, Hjorring, that’s population doubles in size when there’s a soccer tournament, and we represented the United States. It was a lot of fun.” 

Borton takes time out from the Bay Oaks to play for the ’Jackets. Her entire calendar year – except maybe a couple weeks during the summer – is filled with soccer. Borton said the club team practices three days a week and competes on the weekends.  

During the high school season, she typically spends two hours a day, five days a week on the soccer field.  

“And on the weekends I usually do a little kicking or running,” she added. 

Volleyball, basketball, baseball and even the violin used to go head-to-head against soccer for Borton’s attention. But only one activity could win Borton’s full concentration. 

“I had to make a decision and I chose soccer,” she said. “It’s so much fun, really competitive and hard sometimes, but you get a good workout. I like the team aspect and I’ve been really lucky with the teams I’ve played on.” 

Although just a junior, Borton is Berkeley’s chosen leader this season. She’s played varsity for the ’Jackets since she was a freshman, was named all-league last year and teammates voted her Most Inspirational Player.  

This year, Borton is Berkeley’s team captain. 

Despite having nearly two full seasons of soccer left before graduating from high school, Borton said the opportunity to play collegiate soccer is a top goal. 

“I would love to play in college,” she said. “I’m looking a little more (at schools on the) East Coast, but I’m still pretty wide open. I haven’t got into that whole (recruiting) thing yet. I’m avoiding it.” 

When she does choose a school, it will probably have a good soccer team, but it will also likely help Borton move forward on her career path, which includes following in her father’s footsteps to become a lawyer. 

But for now, she’s focused on keeping the ’Jackets atop the ACCAL and headed into the playoffs for the second straight season.

Wednesday, Dec. 19

Blanket Drive for  

Afghan Refugees 

8:30 - 9:30 a.m. 

2:30 - 3:30 p.m. 

Black Pine Circle School, Lower Campus 

2027 Seventh St. 

4:30 - 5:30 p.m. 

Black Pine Circle School, Upper Campus 

2015 Sixth St.  

A large truck will be parked outside the lower school for collection of clean, serviceable, blankets, quilts, and sleeping bags. These will be delivered to the American Friends Service Committee in San Francisco, then shipped to refugee camps in Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan. 526-4771, nanscape@yahoo.com. 

Feldenkrais Classes for  

Seniors 

10:30 and 11:45 a.m. 

Jewish Community Center 

1414 Walnut 

Gentle movement class for older adults. Free. ellmor1@home.com 

Lecture Series on Women  

Medieval Mystics 

7:30 - 9 p.m. 

All Souls Parish 

2220 Cedar St. 

Three Women Mystics: An Advent Lecture Series. Exploration of their spiritual quests designed to offer a new sense of spiritual possibilities in modern times. Free. Supervised childcare will be provided. 848-1755. 

Thursday, Dec. 20

Blanket Drive for  

Afghan Refugees 

8:30 - 9:30 a.m. 

2:30 - 3:30 p.m. 

Black Pine Circle School, Lower Campus 

2027 Seventh St. 

4:30 - 5:30 p.m. 

Black Pine Circle School, Upper Campus 

2015 Sixth St.  

A large truck will be parked outside the lower school for collection of clean, serviceable, blankets, quilts, and sleeping bags. These will be delivered to the American Friends Service Committee in San Francisco, then shipped to refugee camps in Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan. 526-4771, nanscape@yahoo.com. 

Islamic Cultural Celebration 

7:30 p.m. 

La Peña Cultural Center  

3105 Shattuck Ave. 

Mark the end of Ramadan with music, poetry, and stories from various parts of the Islamic world. Proceeds will be donated to RAWA. $10. 849-2568, www.lapena.org. 

Friday, Dec. 21

18th Annual Telegraph Ave.  

Holiday Street Fair  

11 a.m. - 6 p.m. 

Telegraph Ave., between Dwight and Bancroft ways 

Telegraph Avenue presents a mix of free music, good food, festive lights, colorful decorations. More than 300 artists will display handmade crafts. 

Berkeley Women In Black  

Vigil 

noon - 1 p.m. 

Telegraph Ave. at Haste 

(Outside Cody’s Books) 

Vigil in support of Women in Black in Jerusalem against military solutions to end the occupation of Palestine. 

Saturday, Dec. 22

Santa’s Solstice Bazaar 

11 a.m. - 5 p.m. 

Metaversal Lightcraft 

1708 University Ave. 

Come shop while kids visit with Santa for free. Fine arts, crafts, 

clothing and gift booths in a magical and colorful scene. 644-2032, www.lightcraft.org. 

So Lovely! So Lively! Solano! 

12 - 6 p.m. 

Solano Ave. 

Berkeley and Albany 

More than 50 street performers – jazz bands, carolers, talking trees, & toy soldiers during the holiday season along Solano Avenue. www.solanoave.org 

Berkeley Farmers’ Market  

Holiday Crafts Fair 

10 a.m. - 4 p.m. 

Martin Luther King, JR. Civic Center Park 

Fair will include organic produce, handcrafted gifts, live choral music, massages, and hot apple cider. 548-3333, www.ecologycenter.org 

Magic School Bus Video  

Festival 

10:30 a.m. - 1:30 p.m. 

Lawrence Hall of Science 

Centennial Drive, above UC Berkeley Campus 

Ms. Frizzle takes her skeptical class from outer space to inside a dog’s noise in seven different video adventures. Free popcorn and free magic school bus gift. $3 - $7. 642-5132, www.lawrencehallofscience.org 

18th Annual Telegraph Ave.  

Holiday Street Fair  

11 a.m. - 6 p.m. 

Telegraph Ave., between Dwight and Bancroft ways 

Telegraph Avenue presents a mix of free music, good food, festive lights, colorful decorations. More than 300 artists will display handmade crafts. 

Sunday, Dec. 23

A Service of Lessons and  

Carols 

4 p.m. 

St. Augustine Church 

400 Alcatraz 

The St. Augustine Choir fill an afternoon with carols. 653-8631. 

So Lovely! So Lively! Solano! 

12 - 6 p.m. 

Solano Ave. 

Berkeley and Albany 

More than 50 street performers – jazz bands, carolers, talking trees, & toy soldiers during the holiday season along Solano Avenue. www.solanoave.org 

18th Annual Telegraph Ave.  

Holiday Street Fair  

11 a.m. - 6 p.m. 

Telegraph Ave. 

Between Dwight Way and Bancroft 

Telegraph Avenue presents a mix of free music, good food, festive lights, colorful decorations. More than 300 artists will display handmade crafts. 

Julia Morgan Center for the  

Arts Features A Celtic Peace:  

A Bay Area Celtic Christmas  

Celebration 

7:30 p.m. 

Julia Morgan Theatre 

2640 College Ave. 

“A Celtic Peace,” an evening of Irish music and dance for the whole family. This musical program is dedicated to world peace. $10 adults, $5 children. 845-8542, www.juliamorgan.org. 

Monday, Dec. 24

Midnight Mass 

11:45 p.m. 

St. Augustine Church 

400 Alcatraz 

Prelude music begins at 11:15 p.m., mass begins at 11:30 p.m. 653-8631 

18th Annual Telegraph Ave.  

Holiday Street Fair  

11 a.m. - 6 p.m. 

Telegraph Ave., between Dwight and Bancroft ways 

Telegraph Avenue presents a mix of free music, good food, festive lights, colorful decorations. More than 300 artists will display handmade crafts. 

Tuesday, Dec. 25

Guided Tours of Jewish Art and History 

12 - 4 p.m. 

Judah L. Magnes Museum 

2911 Russell St. 

Family Day at the Museum. The tours will present over 250 objects from the Museum’s permanent collections on display in the major exhibition “Telling Time: To Everything There is a Season.” 549-6950 www.magnesmuseum. org 

Puppets and Puppet Making 

1 p.m. and 3 p.m. 

Berkeley Richmond Jewish Community Center 

141 Walnut St. 

Jennifer Levine presents “Princess Moxie Rules!” a 30 minute puppet show followed by a puppet-making project. 848-0237, www.brjcc.org. 

Gerry Tenney & California Klezmer Jewish Music 

2 p.m. & 3 p.m. 

2911 Russell St. 

Hands-on Art Projects. 848-0237, www.brjcc.org. 

Wednesday, Dec. 26

Professor Smart’s Fun with Physics Show 

1 p.m. 

Lawrence Hall of Science 

Centennial Drive, above UC Berkeley Campus 

Professor Smart shrinks his head, has toilet paper flying, juggles and has the audience’s hair standing on end all the while demonstrating the principles of physics. $3 - $7. 642-5132, www.lawrencehallofscience.org 

Thursday, Dec. 27

Slapstick with Derique 

1 p.m. 

Lawrence Hall of Science 

Centennial Drive, above UC Berkeley Campus 

Ham Bone body drumming, physical comedy, and circus arts are sure to stimulate your “funny bone” as New Vaudeville artist Derique lets you into his hip style of circus arts. $3 - $7. 642-5132, www.lawrencehallofscience.org 

Friday, Dec. 28

World Rhythms 

1 p.m. 

Lawrence Hall of Science 

Centennial Drive, above UC Berkeley Campus 

Japanese taiko, African marimba and djembe, Middle Eastern dumbek, Afro-Cuban chekere, and conga drums celebrate musical traditions from around the world. $3 - $7. 642-5132, www.lawrencehallofscience.org 

Saturday, Dec. 29

Magic Show 

1 p.m. 

Lawrence Hall of Science 

Centennial Drive, above UC Berkeley Campus 

Jay Alexander performs his magical mixture of comedy and illusion with special effects that will entertain visitors of all ages. $3 - $7. 642-5132, www.lawrencehallofscience.org 

Sunday, Dec. 30

Music and Storytelling 

1 p.m. 

Lawrence Hall of Science 

Centennial Drive, above UC Berkeley Campus 

Familiar nursery rhymes and fairy tales come to life in musical stories by children’s performer Dennis Hysom. $3 - $7. 642-5132, www.lawrencehallofscience.org 

Editor: 

Regarding “New Day at Willard,” 12/14, I was surprised by the story on Willard Middle School and its “new day.” The day before the story appeared there was a terrible fight at Willard between two girls. It was not the first this year. But more troubling is the lack of day-to-day discipline. Students walk into classes late, constantly interrupt teachers with conversations etc. and there are no consequences. My son’s teachers are all excellent, but they are hampered by the lack of a school wide plan for dealing with minor infractions. The small things lead to big problems. 

The Winter Dance was cancelled, even though the first one went well. Students have been told they cannot wear pajamas for a Spirit Week pajama day, the school is fanatical about keeping children from wearing hats. What our kids wear seems more important than what they do. My observations and those of other parents not interviewed for your story is that things are different this year, but not much better. 

Tonia Johnson 

Berkeley

MUSIC 

924 Gilman Dec. 21: Kepi, Bonfire Madigan, Kevin Seconds; Dec. 22: The Lab Rats, Onetime Angels, A great Divide, Last Great Liar, Gabriel’s Ratchet; Dec. 23: 5 p.m., Over My Dead Body, Panic,Breaker, Some Still Believe; All shows start a 8 p.m. unless noted; Most are $5; 924 Gilman St. 525-9926 

The Albatross Pub Dec. 19: Whiskey Brothers; Dec. 20: Keni “El Lebrijano”; Dec. 27: Keni “El Lebrijano”; All shows start at 9 p.m., 1822 San Pablo Ave. 843-2473  

Anna’s Dec. 19: Bob Schoen Jazz Quartet; Dec. 20: Jazz Singers’ Collective; Dec. 21: Anna and Percy Scott on piano; 10 p.m., Bluesman Hideo Date; Dec. 22: Jazz Singer Robin Gregory; 10 p.m., The Distones Jazz Sextet; Dec. 23: Jazz Singer Ed Reed; All music starts 8 p.m. unless noted. 1801 University Ave., 849-2662. 

Ashkenaz Dec. 19: 8 p.m., The Earls, $10; Dec. 20: 8 p.m., Darol Anger, Scott Nygaard and the Improbables, $8; Dec. 21: 8 p.m., “Celebrating the Life of David Nadel,” Aux Cajunals, Nigerian Bros., Tropical Vibrations, $8; Dec. 22: 9:30 p.m., Sensa Samba, $11; 1317 San Pablo Ave., 525-5054, www.ashkenaz.com.  

Club JJang-Ga Dec. 22: Heaven & Hell, Blue Period; Dec. 29: Deducted Value, 3rd Rail, Noiz, Un Sed; 400 29th Ave., Oakland, (925) 833-7820, savageproductionssl@ yahoo.com. 

Cal Performances Jan. 20: 3 p.m., Midori and Robert McDonald. $28 -$48. Zellerbach Hall, UC Berkeley, Bancroft Way at Telegraph. 642-9988 

Eli’s Mile High Club Every Friday, 10 p.m. Funky Fridays Conscious Dance Party with KPFA DJs Splif Skankin and Funky Man. $10; 3629 Martin Luther King Jr. Way, Oakland. 655-6661 

Freight & Salvage Coffee House Jan. 6: Allette Brooks. All shows begin 8 p.m., 1111 Addison St. Call 548-1761 for prices or see www.freightandsalvage.org.  

Julia Morgan Theatre Dec. 23: 7:30 p.m., an evening of Irish music and dance with Todd Denman and friends. $10, $5 children; Dec. 31: 8 p.m., New Year’s Eve Gala Concert, Program of classical favorites of the San Francisco Chamber Orchestra; Jan 11: 8 p.m. San Francisco Chamber Orchestra, sizzling program of classical party music; Jan. 12: 8:p.m., “Club Dance,” Teens come together to express their individual personalities and gifts as dancers. $10, Students and Seniors $6, Children ages 5 and under $6. Julia Morgan Theatre, 2640 College Ave., 845-8542, www.juliamorgan.org. 

Jupiter Dec. 19: Spectraphonic; Dec. 20: Joshi Marshal Project; Dec. 21: Crater; Dec. 22: Post Junk Trio; Dec. 27: Joshi Marshal Project; Dec. 28: Ben Krames & Candlelight Dub; Dec. 29: Berkeley Jazz School Presents: Kirk Tamura Trio; All shows are free and begin at 8 p.m. unless noted. 2181 Shattuck Ave., 843-7625, www.jupiterbeer.com. 

La Peña Dec. 23: 3:30 p.m, Café Domingo de Rumba, Free; La Peña, 3105 Shattuck Ave. 849-2568, www.lapena.org 

“Music on Telegraph” Dec. 22: Kaz Sasaki Duo, Blackberry Ginger, 2520 Durant; Dec. 23: Almadecor, Ann’s Kitchen, 2498 Telegraph Ave.; All shows 2 - 4 p.m., Free. 

Berkeley Piano Club Jan.11: 8 p.m., Kate Steinbeck and Renee Witon present music of Bach, Taktakishvili, Hummel and Peterson-Berger. Berkeley Piano Club, 2724 Haste St., (510) 531-1487. 

Rose Street House Dec. 25: 3 p.m., Annual “Dykelah Escape-from-you-know-what-day Musical Extravaganza!”; Jan.17: 7:30 p.m., Allette Brooks. 1839 Rose St. 594-4000 x687, rosestreetmusic@ yahoo.com. 

Berkeley High School Dance Production Jan. 11, 12, 18 &19: Fri. & Sat., 7:30 p.m., Diverse mix of classical and modern ballet to hard-core hip-hop. $5. Florence Schwimley Little Theatre, Allston way and MLK., 644-6120 

Yoshi’s Jazz House Dec.18 - 23: Charlie Hunter; Dec. 26 - 31: New Year’s Fiesta, The Afro-Cuban Jazz Masters; Jan. 2 - 6: Charles Lloyd; Jan. 13: Jacqui Naylor Quartet; All shows at 8 p.m., and 10 p.m., unless noted. 510 Embarcadero West, Jack London Square, Oakland. Check for prices and Sunday Matinees, 238-9200, www.yoshis.com. 

Berkeley Symphony Orchestra Dec. 18: 8 p.m., under the direction of Maestro Kent Nagano, plus the world premiere of Ichiro Nodaira’s “Kodama” written for and featuring Mari and Momo Kodama. $21 - $45; Zellerbach Hall, UC Berkeley, 841-2800, jeaston@berkeleysymphony.org. 

“Dotha’s Juke Joint: Everett and Jones Barbeque” Dec. 21: 8 & 10p.m., Faye Carol and her Off the Hook Blues Band, $15; Jack London Square, 126 Broadway at Second St., reservations, 663-7668.  

The Oakland Interfaith Youth Gospel Choir’s 5th Annual Christmas Concert Dec. 22: 7 p.m., “The Reason Why We Sing”; The Regents Theater, Holy Names College, 3500 Mountain Blvd., Oakland, 839-4361, www.oigc.org. 

Youth Arts Benefit Concert Dec. 22: 1p.m. to 4p.m., Yoshi’s House of Jazz and Poetry Works host the 7th annual Youth Arts Benefit Concert and Dance, $15. Yoshi’s World Class Restaurant, 510 Embarcadero West, Oakland, 238-9200 

Blake’s Dec. 29: 11 p.m., Jack West & Curvature, $5; 2367 Telegraph Ave., 877-488-6533. 

First Congregational Church of Berkeley Jan. 6: 3 p.m., Stephen Genz in his West Coast debut; 2345 Channing Way, 527-8175, www.geocities.com/mostlybrahms. 

THEATER 

“Much Ado About Nothing” Through Jan. 8: Check theater for specific dates and times. Shakespeare’s classic romantic comedy chronicles a handful of soldiers returning from a winning battle to be greeted by a gaggle of giddy maidens. Directed by Brian Kulick. $10 - $54. Berkeley Repertory Theatre, 2025 Addison St. 647-2949 www.berkeleyrep.org 

“Every Inch a King” Jan. 11 through Feb. 9: Thur. - Sat. 8 p.m., Sun. 5 p.m.; Three sisters have to make a decision as their father approaches death in this comedy presented by the Central Works Theater Ensemble. $8 - $18. LeValls Subterranean, 1834 Euclid Ave. 558-1381 

“Murder Dressed in Satin” by Victor Lawhorn, ongoing. A mystery-comedy dinner show at The Madison about a murder at the home of Satin Moray, a club owner and self-proclaimed socialite with a scarlet past. Dinner is included in the price of the theater ticket. $47.50 Lake Merritt Hotel, 1800 Madison St., Oakland. 239-2252 www.acteva.com/go/havefun 

FILM 

Pacific Film Archive Jan. 3: 7 p.m., 9 p.m., Unfinished Song; Jan. 4: 7 p.m., 9:15 p.m., Going By; Jan. 5: 7 p.m., 9 p.m., Under the Moonlight; Jan. 6: 1p.m., 3 p.m., Paper Airplanes, 5:30 Shrapnels in Peace; Jan.10: 7 p.m., 9 p.m., ABC Africa; Jan.11: 7:30 p.m., The Girl at the Monceau Bakery and Suzanne’s Career, 9:05 p.m. The Sign of the Lion with Place de l’Etoile; Jan. 12: 7p.m., La Collectionneuse, 8:50 p.m., My Night at Maud’s; Jan.13: 1p.m., 3p.m., Os 

“Veiled and Revealed” Through Dec. 23: Human beings, costumed in native dress are captured by visual artists in a seven-person exhibit. Sat. Dec. 8, 15, and 23, 11 a.m. - 5 p.m. Free. Simultaneously showing at ART-A-FACT, 1109 Addison St., and Metaversal Lightcraft, 1708 University Ave. 848-1985 

EXHIBITS 

“Images of Innocence and Beauty” Dec. 19 through Jan. 8: An exhibit featuring Kathleen Flannigan’s drawing and furniture - boxes, tables, and mirrors, all embellished with images of the beauty and innocence of the natural world. Addison Street Windows, 2018 Addison St. 

“From With These Walls” Jan. 5: Educational studio opening celebration gallery show of student works in steel, bronze, aluminum, cast iron, glass, neon, ceramic, stone and paper; jewelry. The Crucible, 1036 Ashby St. (Entrance is one block south on Murray St.) 843-5511, fran@thecrucible.org. 

“The First Five Years” Nov. 3 through Jan.11: Exhibit represents a selection of drawings, paintings, prints and sculpture created by students during their 7th & 8th grade years. 7a.m.-9:30 p.m. Mon-Fri, 5:30- 9:30 p.m. Sat., Bucci’s Restaurant, 6121 Hollis St., Emeryville, 547-4725, www.bucci.com 

“Carving, Canvas, Color: Art of Julio Garcia and Wilbert Griffith” Through Jan.12: Brightly colored wooden figures and colorfully detailed paintings. Gallery is open by appointment and chance, most weekdays 10:30 a.m. - 4 p.m.; The Ames Gallery, 2661 Cedar St., 845-4949, amesgal@home.com 

“Matrix 195” Through Jan. 13: German artist, Thomas Scheibitz’s, first solo museum exhibition in the United States showcases semi-abstract representations of everyday objects and landscapes. Wed., Fri. - Sun. 11 a.m. - 5 p.m., Thur. 11 a.m. - 9 p.m. $3-$6. Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, 2626 Bancroft Way, 642-0808 www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

Ardency Gallery, Mark J. Leavitt, “Analogous Biology: Balance and Use,” Dec. 20 through Jan. 19; Tue. - Sat., 11 a.m. - 5 p.m., 709 Broadway, Oakland. 836-0831, www.artolio.com. 

GTU Exhibit: “Holocaust Series” by Cleve Gray Through Jan. 25: Comprised of 21 works on paper that constitute “a catharsis... for all of humanity.” Mon. - Thurs. 8:30 a.m. - 9:45 p.m., Fri. 8:30 a.m. - 6 p.m., Sat. 10 a.m. - 6 p.m., Sun. noon - 7 p.m.; Free. Flora Lamson Hewlett Library, Graduate Theological Union, 2400 Ridge Rd. 649-2541 www.gtu.edu 

Pro Arts: “Juried Annual 2001-02” Dec. 19 through Feb. 2: An exhibition of painting, sculpture, mixed media, photography and more by Bay Area and  

regional artists. Pro Arts, 461 Ninth St., www.proartsgallery.org. 

“Water Media” Jan. 10 through Feb. 8: An exhibit by Christine “Caipirinha” Mulder. Capoeira Arts Cafe Gallery, 2026 Center St., call 666-1349 for hours. 

Traywick Gallery: “New Work by Dennis Begg and Steve Briscoe” Jan. 5 through Feb. 9: Dennis Begg’s sculpture explores memory as the building block of consciousness, learning and experience. Steve Brisco’s paintings on paper address issues of identity through evocative combinations of text and imagery. Tues. - Sat. 11 a.m. - 6 p.m., 1316 10th St. 527-1214 

“Enduring Wisdom: Artwork and Stories by Homeless and Formerly Homeless Seniors” Through Feb. 15: 18 homeless and formerly homeless elders reveal how they learned and applied wisdom that is timeless. Mon. - Fri. and Sundays 11 a.m. - 2 p.m. Reception and presentation by the elders Thurs. Nov. 15, 4 p.m. - 6 p.m. Free. St. Mary’s Center, 635 22nd St., Oakland, 893-4723 x222 

“The Other 364 Days: A Day in the Life of the Queer Community” Jan. 2 through Feb 16. An exhibit of black and white photographs concentrating on the exquisite in everyday life. Mon.-Fri., 8:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m., Sat., 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Reception for artist, Jan. 12. Photolab Gallery, 2235 Fifth St., 644-1400, limor@indelible-images.com 

“Ansel Adams in the University of California Collections” Dec. 12 through Mar. 10: A selection of photographs and memorabilia presenting a different perspective on Adam’s career as one of the leading figures in American photography. Wed, Fri. - Sun. 11 a.m. - 5 p.m., Thur. 11 a.m. - 9 p.m. $4- $6. The University of California, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, 2626 Bancroft Way, 642-0808, www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

“Migrations: Photographs by Sebastiao Salgado” Jan. 16 through Mar. 24: Over 300 black-and-white photographs of immigrants and refugees taken by the Brazilian photographer. Wed. - Sun. 11 a.m. - 7 p.m. $4 - $6. The University of California, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, 2626 Bancroft Way. 642-0808, www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

"Earthly Pleasures" assemblage and photographs by Susan Danis, Jan. 11 through March 30: 10 a.m. - 6 p.m., Mon. - Sat.; Sticks, 1579 B, Solano Ave., 526-6603.  

“The Art History Museum of Berkeley” Masterworks by Guy Colwell Faithful copies of several artists from the pasts, including Titian’s “The Venus of Urbino,” Cezanne’s “Still Life,” Picasso’s “Woman at a Mirror,” and Botticelli’s “Primavera” Ongoing. Call ahead for hours. Atelier 9, 2028 Ninth St., 841-4210, www.atelier9.com. 

Readings 

Cody’s on Telegraph Ave. Jan. 8: Theodore Hamm discusses “Rebel and a Cause: Caryl Chessman and the Politics of the Death Penalty”; Jan. 10: Joan Frank reads from her new book, “Boys Keep Being Born”; Jan. 11: Christopher Hitchens, “Letters to a Youn Contrarian”; Jan. 14: Pamela Logan talks about “Tibetan Rescue: A Woman’s Quest to Save the Fabulous Art Treasures of Pewar Monastery”; All events are free and start at 7:30 p.m. unless noted. 2454 Telegraph Ave., 845-7852. 

Coffee With A Beat - Word Beat reading series Dec. 22: Debra Grace Khattab, Jesy Goldhammer; Dec. 29: Steve Arntson, Michelle Erickson, Clare Lewis; All readings are free and begin at 7 p.m., 458 Perkins, Oakland, 526-5985, www.angelfire.com/poetry/wordbeat. 

“World Ground Poetry” Dec.19: 7-9 p.m., Featuring Abdul Kenyatta & Paradise Freejahlove Supreme; World Ground Cafe, 3726 Mac Arthur Blvd., 482-2933, www.worldgrounds.com. 

Tours 

Golden Gate Live Steamers Grizzly Peak Boulevard and Lomas Cantadas Drive at the south end of Tilden Regional Park Small locomotives, scaled to size. Trains run Sun., 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Rides: Sun., noon to 3 p.m., weather permitting. 486-0623  

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Fridays 9:30 - 11:45 a.m. or by appointment. Call ahead to make reservations. Free. University of California, Berkeley. 486-4387 

Museums 

Habitot Children’s Museum “Back to the Farm” An interactive exhibit gives children the chance to wiggle through tunnels, look into a mirrored fish pond, don farm animal costumes, ride on a John Deere tractor and more. “Recycling Center” Lets the kids crank the conveyor belt to sort cans, plastic bottles and newspaper bundles into dumpster bins; $4 adults; $6 children age 7 and under; $3 for each additional child age 7 and under. Mon. and Wed., 9:30 a.m. to 1 p.m.; Tues. and Fri., 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Thur., 9:30 a.m. to 7 p.m.; Sat., 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Sun., 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. 2065 Kittredge St. 647-1111 or www.habitot.org  

Oakland Museum of California “Kwanzaa Community Celebration” Dec. 30: 12-4 p.m.,Nia Kwanzaa is an African American holiday that honors black family history; Through Jan. 13: Grand Lyricist: The Art of Elmer Bischoff, featuring paintings and works on paper that trace the evolution of Bischoff’s career. $6 adults, $4 seniors and students, free for children under 5. Wed. - Sat. 10 a.m. - 5 p.m., Sun. noon - 5 p.m., 10th St., Oakland, 888-625-6873/ www.museumca.org 

UC Berkeley Museum of Paleontology Lobby, Valley Life Sciences Building, UC Berkeley “Tyrannosaurus Rex,” ongoing. A 20 foot by 40 foot replica of the fearsome dinosaur made from casts of bones of the most complete T. Rex skeleton yet excavated. When unearthed in Montana, the bones were all lying in place with only a small piece of the tailbone missing. “Pteranodon” A suspended skeleton of a flying reptile with a wingspan of 22-23 feet. The Pteranodon lived at the same time as the dinosaurs. Free. Mon. through Fri., 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Sat. and Sun., 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. 642-1821 

UC Berkeley Phoebe Hearst Museum of Anthropology will close its exhibition galleries for renovation. It will reopen in early 2002.  

University of California Berkeley Art Museum Pacific Film Archive has reopened after its summerlong seismic retrofit. “Martin Puryear: Sculpture of the 1990s” through Jan. 13; “The Dream of the Audience: Theresa Hak Kyung Cha (1951 - 1982)” through Dec. 16; “Face of Buddha: Sculpture from India, China, Japan, and Southeast Asia” ongoing rotation through 2003; “Matrix 194: Jessica Bronson, Heaps, layers, and curls” Sept. 16 through Nov. 11; “Matrix 192: Ceal Floyer 37’4”” Sept. 16 through Nov. 11; Wed., Fri., Sat., Sun. 11 a.m. - 5 p.m., Thur. 11 a.m. - 9 p.m., PFA Theater, 2575 Bancroft Way; Museum Galleries 2626 Bancroft Way; 642-0808 www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

Lawrence Hall of Science Dec. 26: 1 p.m., Professor Smart’s Fun with Physics Show; Dec. 27: 1 p.m., Slapstick with Derique; Dec. 28: 1 p.m., Rhythmix; Dec. 29: 1 p.m., Magic with Jay Alexander; Dec. 30: 1 p.m., Music and Storytelling with Dennis Hysom; Dec. 31: 1 p.m., New Year’s Eve Party, special daytime holiday party for kids; Dec. 26 through 31: Free Energy Star compact fluorescent light bulb; Through Jan. 26: Scream Machines: The Science of Roller Coasters; “Within the Human Brain,” ongoing. Visitors test their cranial nerves, play skeeball, master mazes, match musical tones and construct stories inside a simulated “rat cage” of learning experiments. “Saturday Night Stargazing,” First and third Saturdays each month. 8 - 10 p.m., LHS plaza; Open daily, 10 a.m. - 5 p.m., $7 for adults; $5 for children 5-18; $3 for children 3-4. Centennial Drive, UC Berkeley, 642-5132, www.lawrencehallofscience.org. 642-5132. 

Holt Planetarium Programs are recommended for age 8 and up; children under age 6 will not be admitted. $2 in addition to regular museum admission. “Constellations Tonight” Ongoing. Using a simple star map, learn to identify the most prominent constellations for the season in the planetarium sky. Daily, 3:30 p.m. $7 general; $5 seniors, students, disabled, and youths age 7 to 18; $3 children age 3 to 5 ; free children age 2 and younger. Daily 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Centennial Drive, UC Berkeley 642-5132 or www.lhs.berkeley.edu  

Send arts events two weeks in advance to Calendar@berkeleydailyplanet.net, 2076 University, Berkeley 94704 or fax to 841-5694.

It’s 1:30 p.m. on a chilly afternoon at the south end of Aquatic Park, and about 15 men are engaging in a long-standing tradition in the remote and secluded area – cruising for casual sex with strangers. 

The small parking lot at the end of Bolivar Drive is filled with cars. About half of the drivers still sit behind their steering wheels, attempting to make eye contact with the drivers of other cars who are slowly circling a small roundabout covered with trees, shrubs and bright, green grass. 

Just inside the park, in a seemingly continual cycle, a lone male emerges from a grove of trees that separates the park from the railroad tracks, walks quickly to his car and drives off. Another car pulls into the available space and its driver, in turn, disappears into the same grove of trees. 

For 30 years the south end of Aquatic Park has been known as a gay cruising spot. The area has been convenient for the activity because of its seclusion and easy access to Interstate 80 from the Ashby Avenue on and off ramps.  

But an increase in park use by joggers, Frisbee enthusiasts and children is quickly making the traditional cruising area obsolete, according to Parks and Waterfront Director Lisa Caronna.  

In recent months the city has initiated a multi-departmental strategy to curtail sexual cruising in the area. 

“Our goal is make sure the park is safe and friendly and our policy is that we do not condone public sex of any kind,” she said. “This is a historic activity but not an appropriate one.” 

In the last year, the new Dreamland for Kids Playground and Frisbee golf course have brought new users to the park and Caronna said that once the Pedestrian Bridge across Interstate 80 opens up, the southern section of Aquatic Park will see a huge increase in use with bicyclists and pedestrians populating the park’s pathways to access the bridge. 

“The police have been making sure there’s no one in the park after 10 p.m. and maintenance crews have been trimming back some of the heavy underbrush where people tend to meet,” she said. 

In addition the Department of Health and Human Services is concerned because the casual sex that men are engaging in is considered to be high risk for contracting HIV. 

According to Leroy Blea, the city’s HIV/AIDS Program Director, outreach workers have been distributing condoms and information about the prevention of AIDS on a weekly basis in the park since March 2000. 

“Our work is focused on HIV prevention,” Blea said. “But besides risky sex, the people who participate in public sex environments are also vulnerable to police harassment, fines and being mugged.” 

Dr. Fred Conrad, who has rowed on the lagoon in the center of the park every day for the last six years, said he has seen a decrease in cruising activity in the last six months since the police and parks departments have begun to discourage it. But he said it still goes on. Especially on weekend afternoons. 

“It’s not unusual to see 20 to 30 men down there on weekends. I mean this is a lot of people, all guys,” Conrad said. “The number of guys down there is so great that you couldn’t go down there with your family and sit at the picnic tables and get out a picnic lunch. The atmosphere is too foreboding.” 

The Waterfront Commission has been considering a series of possible solutions to the problem including more education and outreach, enforcing the parking and park closure regulations and modifying the roadway to discourage illegal parking. 

Commissioner Claudia Kawczynska said for the last 30 years the city has either not had the resources to address the problem or has ignored it. 

“It’s an area that hasn’t been well-used by the general public and the city has neglected that part of the park for a long time,” said Kawczynska who frequently visits the park. “It might be one thing if people were cruising during the night but there are literally people there 24 hours a day.” 

Kawczynska said new parking signs, upgraded roadways and increased use by the general public will discourage cruising in the park. 

Blea said that many men who curse for anonymous public sex are often not openly gay, some are married with families, and generally have no other way to meet men.  

Frank Gurucharri, the director of the Pacific Center for Human Growth, a nonprofit that provides a host of services and support groups to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning individuals, said these individuals are faced with a particular dilemma. 

“They wouldn’t come to the Pacific Center because they don’t identify as gay or bi, which can leave them unable to access information that will help them understand the risk they are in and the risk they are putting others in,” he said.  

Gurucharri said that men cruising for casual sex are often motivated by sexual isolation and loneliness. 

“If you can go to a support service and get support from other men it’s a powerful alternative to casual sex,” he said. 

Blea and Gurucharri have been discussing the possibility of creating a group support center in the Health and Human Services Department that’s open to everybody. Such a place, Gurucharri said, would be a comfortable place for men who have sex with men but don’t identify themselves as gay or bisexual. 

But according to Blea there is currently no funding available for such a project. 

For more information about support services available at the Pacific Center for Human Development call 548-8283 or visit its Web site at www.pacificcenter.org.

Editor: 

I am writing to express my support for the work of the Coalition for Small Schools. Although my older daughter is a ninth grader in Common Ground (which she chose because of her interest in ecology), I had not formed an opinion on the question of transforming Berkeley High as a whole into small schools until I watched the School Board meeting last night on BTV. The presentation of the Coalition impressed me as thoughtful, well-researched, and persuasive. I was dismayed that some members of the Board seemed to dismiss the presentation as an expression of “passion” to be weighed against other expressions of passion. I trust that small schools proposal will be judged on its merits and weighted against other researched and reasoned proposals, if there are any, for achieving equity and excellence at Berkeley High. 

Although small schools will not in and of themselves solve the myriad problems of Berkeley High, this movement seems to me to offer our best hope for systemic change that will allow us to move in the direction of providing an excellent education for all of our children. In my experience of living eighteen years in Berkeley, half of them as the mother of children in BUSD schools, such a collaborative effort of parents and teachers reaching across differences of race, socio-economic status, and educational advantage is unique. I would be proud to be part of such a movement, and I tremble to think what will happen if the dream of transformation is deferred yet again. 

For what it is worth, I have seen the view from the front of the bus. I am white, highly educated, and middle-class. My children are high achievers and have benefited from the ability of my husband and me to act as effective advocates for their educational needs. They will probably be fine, academically at least, even if BUSD misses this chance to make our schools into laces where all children can get a good education. But Berkeley will not be fine. It will not be the kind of place where my children will want to settle and send their children to school. 

Carol S. Lashof 

Berkeley

Fears that a federal arts grant to the Berkeley Repertory Theatre might be denied on political grounds were dispelled on Tuesday, when the National Endowment for the Arts reported the theater was among the winners of its latest round of grants. 

The BRT applied for a NEA “Creativity” grant to produce “Homebody/ Kabul,” a new play by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Tony Kushner, which is set partly in Afghanistan. 

The New York Times reported on Dec. 1 that Robert Martin, acting NEA chairman, had delayed the BRT’s grant application. Many people speculated that the chairman suspected something unsavory in the combination of Berkeley, Afghanistan and playwright Kushner.  

The author is probably best known for his two-part play, “Angels in America: A Gay Fantasia on National Themes,” which won the Pulitzer Prize for drama in 1993.  

Tony Taccone, The Rep’s artistic director, will direct the theater’s production of “Homebody/Kabul.” He said on Tuesday he was “relieved and excited” that the NEA grant came through and was thrilled to be working on the show. 

“It’s a very unique and original play,” he said. “(Kushner) is a writer of epic proportions.” 

Taccone said that the BRT had applied for the grant well before Sept. 11 and the war in Afghanistan, and he was somewhat puzzled by the reported review of his application. 

“We’ll never know exactly what happened, but probably someone red-flagged the play because it was about Afghanistan,” he said. “Then someone either decided the play was OK or that denying the grant would cause a scandal.” 

The NEA awarded the BRT only $60,000 of the $100,000 it had requested for the production. 

Susie Falk, the BRT’s public relations manager, said that she did not expect the $40,000 shortfall to delay or harm the production. She said that potential funders contacted the theater when it looked like NEA funding would not come through. 

“Several people have shown interest in the production since the story broke,” she said.  

Councilmember Kriss Worthington was one of the many Berkeley officials who was disturbed by initial indications that the NEA might kill the grant. 

Worthington said that he wrote a letter to NEA officials asking them to expedite the review of the application.  

“All we knew that (Robert Martin) had delayed the application to ask questions, which frequently is a sign that it will be killed,” he said. 

Mark Weinberg, the NEA’s director of communications, said that the organization could not discuss the details of the controversy.  

“I am obviously aware of those reports, but as a matter of long-standing practice we do not discuss the deliberative process,” he said.  

“Homebody/Kabul” is scheduled to run from April 19 to June 9 at the BRT. 

The play makes its American debut tonight at the New York Theatre Workshop. Its run at that theater has already been extended by two weeks because of the high demand for tickets. 

Seven other Berkeley organizations were awarded NEA Creativity grants on Tuesday – Heyday Books, Kelsey Street Press, Poetry Flash, Threepenny Review, Cal Performances, the Pacific Film Archive and Warzinake Productions. 

A total of $181,500 was given to the eight Berkeley-based grant winners. By contrast, only five Oakland organizations won awards, totaling $80,000. 

Wendy Lesser, editor of the Threepenny Review, said that the award would be used to pay for authors’ fees and a subscription drive for the small literary journal. 

Lesser said that the grant, which totaled $15,000 or 7.5 percent of the journal’s annual budget, was the largest it had ever received from the NEA.  

The Threepenny Review’s web site carries a blurb from Kushner, and Lesser said that when she heard about the controversy surrounding the BRT’s application, she wrote the theater and the playwright to offer her support.  

“I was afraid I’d have to renounce my grant if they refused theirs,” she said.

The Berkeley Daily Planet received this letter addressed to the Berkeley School Board: 

Five years ago BUSD spent a huge amount of energy and money into what was called “reconfiguration” the idea that K-5 schools are better for children than the previous K-3, 4-6 configuration. The whole process was very stressful for everyone caught in it, especially students and teachers who had to move to other schools apart from friends and colleagues. 

Now we are going though a similar thing, "small schools" at BHS, which has been tried 30 years ago. There seems to be a perpetual need for change for change’s sake in Berkeley. However, there is no evidence that these changes have improved the students’ academic achievement. The same problems seem to remain every time: truancy and achievement gap.  

We need to address these issues but has anyone stopped to think how these drastic changes might have negative affect on the students? The very same students tossed about in the reconfiguration are caught in this current turmoil. What are they seeing? Here they go again, parents arguing and teachers and community divided over issues. After having three principals in four years and many policy and schedule changes what the BHS students need is stability. How can we ask them to learn anything when things keep changing?  

Small schools are not for everyone. While they may be good for some students they are not for others. If they are forced they are bound to fail. The students in BHS have a choice, which other schools cannot afford. If there is a need for more small schools one or more could be created with willing teachers. There is no need to divide the whole school into small schools now. 

Change in itself does not always solve the problem. In some cases it enables one to elude responsibility for failure. Lets keep what is working now and work on improving what isn’t.. 

Noriko Nishizawa 

Parent of two BHS students 

Berkeley 

OAKLAND – There was standing-room-only Monday night as local candidates campaigned for endorsements from the Political Action Committee of the National Women’s Political Caucus, Alameda North Chapter.  

About 60 people packed a meeting room at the Rockridge branch library to hear candidates give short speeches and respond to questions.  

Chair Lori Durbin said this was the organization’s largest turnout ever, which she attributed to the number of candidates running for office. 

The NWPC Political Action Committee, a nonpartisan group, endorses women candidates only and bases its support on those who value the organization’s key tenets – non-discrimination, a woman’s “right to choose,” economic justice, education, health and wellness, and support for women and children.  

In addition to the published endorsement, chosen candidates also receive funds, training and volunteers to help their campaigns.  

Endorsed candidates are chosen by a vote of all members present at the candidates forum, with a majority of 60 percent needed to win. 

Longtime Berkeley resident Kitty McLean said the endorsement is about more than just money and official support. Word-of-mouth support from the powerfully connected women present can mean a lot to local candidates. 

Even though the NWPC doesn't endorse men anymore, “the men keep coming,” she noted. “At least they can hope we won’t endorse their opponents.” 

Education was the issue of the evening, and nearly every candidate listed it as a 

priority. 

The evening began with what is perhaps the most important race this election season – the primary for the 14th District State Assembly seat being vacated by term-limited Assemblymember Dion Aroner. (Since the district is overwhelmingly Democrat, the March primary is considered the key election.) 

Candidates Loni Hancock and Dave Brown both spoke to the gathering; attorney and West Contra Costa School Board member Charles Ramsey did not attend.  

It was no surprise that Hancock, longtime local leader and Berkeley mayor from 1986 - 1994, received the endorsement. A founding and current member of the local NWPC chapter, Hancock lost no time highlighting her 15 years in local politics, and pointing out that she’d already worked with a number of people in the room on other issues. 

Hancock stressed the importance of early childhood education and of college counseling to middle and high school students, especially in low-income areas. 

Candidate Dave Brown, the young former chief of staff for Oakland City Councilmember Alice Lai-Bitker, was the underdog of the evening. Brown emphasized his roots in the 14th District, and involvement in Democratic Party campaigns, including Assemblymember Wilma Chan’s supervisoral campaign. He also placed education at the top of his priority list, and said that his experience teaching in Richmond means he knows what works to improve underperforming schools. His highest priority in education is to ensure all students learn to read before they leave elementary school. 

Also featured was the race for the Alameda County Superior Court judgeship being vacated by Judge Judith Ford. G. Judson Scott Jr., Lise Pearlman, Michael Goldstein and Trina Thompson Stanley addressed the gathering Monday night; the endorsement went to Stanley. Voters countywide participate in electing a judge to this post. 

Stanley, presently a juvenile court commissioner, talked of her extensive trial experience, experience as a public defender, and her decision to mentor a local college student every year.  

“With me you get someone who has a great deal of dimension, a lot of diversity, and a very quick study,” she said to resounding applause. 

The contest between Jacki Fox Ruby and incumbent Jerome Wiggins for the Alameda 

County Board of Education, District 1 seat is shaping up to be one of the hotter races of this election. District 1 includes the cities of Albany, Berkeley, Emeryville, and Piedmont and portions of Oakland. Though both parties were civil during the event, some mudslinging has already been going on in the campaign literature. No endorsement was made in this race. 

Wiggins, a board member since 1992, stressed his expertise in budgets and economics, his concern over recent deficits and budget problems, and his strengths in collaboration and compromise. 

Ruby, a longtime Berkeley resident and teacher for over 35 years, called for new leadership on the board.  

Also endorsed Monday night were incumbent Sheila Jordan for Alameda County 

Superintendent of Schools, Alice Lai-Bitker for Alameda County Supervisor, District 3, 

Desley Brooks for Oakland City Council District 6 and Susanne Lea for Oakland School 

Board District 4. 

No endorsement was made in the Oakland City Council District 4 race between David 

Stein, Melanie Sweeney-Griffith, Nedir Bey, and Jean Quan. 

Dan Siegel, incumbent for Oakland School Board District 6, addressed the forum as did Danny Wan, unopposed candidate for Oakland City Council District 2. 

Editor: 

Back a couple years ago, after that lady who used a wheelchair was killed in the crosswalk on Ashby, for a short period the Berkeley Police Department made regular enforcement efforts on Ashby, and for a period of perhaps six months after that, for the only time in the last quarter century, it was possible to cross Ashby between College and Telegraph without feeling like you were playing Russian roulette. Difficult as it is to believe, during this short period drivers actually obeyed state law and yielded right-of-way to people in crosswalks!!! 

Unfortunately, after a time BPD stopped its enforcement efforts and drivers figured out that they no longer would suffer any consequences if they went back to driving like they want to kill pedestrians who venture into crosswalks, and Ashby reverted to being a very dangerous road to cross on foot or bike. 

This suggests, rather strongly, doesn't it, that it would be a help if BPD went back to enforcing traffic laws here in Berkeley. Ashby especially needs it, but so does University and Shattuck and Hearst and Rose and Cedar and Marin, and other streets too numerous to mention. 

Incidentally, as a bicyclist I have come to the conclusion that most Berkeley drivers are quite courteous. It's the people driving in and out of town, to and from work or shopping, who drive like they either a) don't see me, or b) want to kill me. 

If the city plans to keep Polly Armstrong's flags waving, I suggest that each be stenciled with the statement: “I'm carrying this flag because BPD doesn't enforce traffic laws affecting pedestrian safety in Berkeley.” 

Jim Powell 

Berkeley 

The California Housing Finance Agency is loaning millions of dollars to Berkeley and 15 other California cities, including Oakland, to help create affordable housing opportunities for low-income residents. 

The $12.8 million in loans, announced Tuesday by Gov. Gray Davis’ office, go to Housing Enabled by Local Partnerships (HELP), a program designed to create affordable housing through private and public aid. The funds will “help communities provide housing for families, the disabled and senior citizens in need,” Davis said in a statement. 

The low-interest loans are coming from the California Housing Finance Agency as part of the HELP program's five-year, $100 million commitment, according to the governor. 

Monterey, Stockton and Merced will also receive aid.

Editor, 

This is a reply to Leuren Moret’s charge (Daily Planet 12/12/01) that I failed to file proper disclosure. After reading her letter I checked with the city clerk and the Fair Political Practices Commission and confirmed that an employment disclosure was not required. The city attorney had raised questions about a previous commissioner’s job links to the tritium labeling facility, but these concerns do not apply to my employment. I was laid-off at LBNL at the end of 1997, and now work there on a part-time as needed basis. In fact, I actually have not even had any LBNL work since October. As a “casual” employee I have no budgetary or management oversight over any lab projects. Prior to 1998 I worked on vision and lighting energy use issues. Since then I have done statistical modeling of window energy use, roof heat flows, and radon levels versus soil classifications. I have never worked for the tritium group, public relations, health and safety, or any of the lab operations and maintenance groups where I might have a conflict of interest with my duties as an environmental commissioner. 

As long-time readers of the Daily Planet may know, I became involved in the lab tritium issue in 1997, when it was claimed that field trips to Lawrence Hall of Science involved an unacceptable risk to our children. As a parent, I was naturally concerned. My analysis of the situation convinced me that the concerns were wildly overblown. Many of the claims that have since been put forth indicate a lack of understanding of the fundamental scientific factors involved in evaluating risks from radioactive releases. If policies based on what I feel are unscientific claims come before the Community Environmental Commission, I feel that I not only have the right to vote on them, but an ethical obligation to do so. 

LBNL has not “infiltrated” CEAC. I have mentioned my employment at LBNL in print and at meetings numerous times in the past. More to the point, I do not represent LBNL. 

Robert Clear 

Berkeley

Two UC Berkeley graduate students in anthropology are generating international interest with a 600-page anthology relating to the events of Sept. 11. 

Misha Klein and Adrian McIntyre, who are in the campus's College of Letters & Science, are busy sorting through requests for “September 11: Contexts and Consequences,” the thick, paperback reader they edited to provide critical thinking and informed debate about the new U.S. war. 

The anthology offers maps, background information, poetry, opinion pieces, research articles by scholars and an interview with Osama bin Laden – all relating to the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center.  

Hundreds of calls and e-mails have arrived from South Africa, Oxford University, London, Michigan, Australia, Texas and India, as well as from other universities and colleges across the 

United States, asking for the anthology or thanking the students for preparing it. 

Barrie Thorne, a professor in UC Berkeley's sociology and women's studies departments said the anthology feeds a tremendous hunger for knowledge and perspective about Sept. 11 and its aftermath. 

“This is a university at its best: scholars taking the initiative to compile and share knowledge, with a sense of collective urgency to learn and to discuss,” Thorne said. “Misha Klein and Adrian McIntyre have drawn together knowledge that makes a difference in the world.” 

Nezar AlSayyad, professor and chair of UC Berkeley's Center for Middle Eastern Studies, said the center has several copies of the anthology that are available for students and the public. 

“It is useful for anyone with little knowledge of the background and context of U.S./Arab and Muslim relations prior to 9/11,” he said. 

While there is a staggering amount of information on the Internet, Klein and McIntyre said much of the accurate, readable material they found came from the library of the UC Berkeley anthropology department, consistently one of the top three anthropology programs in the country.  

The students said they chose the information with their own families in mind.  

“What we really wanted to do was create a work with multiple perspectives that can be easily understood,” McIntyre said. “We asked ourselves, ‘Would our families want to read this?’”  

They also said they chose materials that show the current conflict is far from new, but represents an escalation of a longstanding, international conflict on several levels.  

“Because we keep treating this as a crisis, there is no effort to understand it in any way other than as a series of isolated events,” Klein said. 

Klein and McIntyre drew on their experiences in anthropology, in the classroom and in the field. Klein is finishing her doctoral dissertation on ethnic and national identity in Brazil. 

McIntyre is a doctoral student focusing on the interpretation of history and heritage in contemporary Jordan.  

The material is organized in four sections: geographical, historical and cultural background; terrorism; war and violence; and post-Sept. 11 commentaries. 

In the first section, selections include a 1989 essay by UC Berkeley anthropologist Laura Nader noting that while the “West” laments the plight of women in Third World countries and vice-versa, misleading cultural comparisons by both sides divert attention from processes at work to control women in each society. 

It also features a primer with distinctions between terms such as Arab, Middle Eastern and Muslim. It explains what a “rogue state” really is and contains a piece detailing the anthropology of Islam. It explains the variety and forms of Islamic religion and spirituality with the goal of promoting understanding without labeling, the students said. 

The second section features the bin Laden interview, a 1982 piece by Chalmers Johnson about terrorism, Gore Vidal’s “Vanity Fair” article called “The Meaning of Timothy McVeigh” and an outline of 10 important things to know about terrorism. 

The third section focusing on war and violence includes material from Hannah Arendt, Margaret Mead and Sigmund Freud. 

In the final section are a couple dozen commentaries from the days following Sept. 11 by authors such as Susan Sontag, Arundhati Roy and Barbara Kingsolver. It also includes an 

explanation by Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Oakland) about why she voted against the U.S. strikes against Afghanistan. 

“It is a superb collection of materials on Afghanistan, war, and the current situation following Sept. 11th, with a variety of anthropological and other informed sources,” said Gerald 

Berreman, professor emeritus of anthropology at UC Berkeley. “It should be essential reading for anyone seriously interested in ‘the politics of truth.’” 

“From World War II through the post-Cold War period, anthropologists such as Margaret Mead, Marshall Sahlins, Gerald Berreman and Laura Nader have dedicated themselves to understanding war while advocating for peace and justice,” wrote McIntyre and Klein. “We seek to continue this commitment to linking academic research with active engagement in broader public discussions.” 

The anthology is being made available on reserve at local public libraries in the city of Berkeley and at other colleges and universities around the San Francisco Bay Area, with the aid of some funding from the UC Berkeley Graduate Assembly. 

Deborah Pruitt appreciates having copies of the anthology available to her students in anthropology and cross-disciplinary research at Laney College in Oakland, Diablo Valley College in Pleasant Hill, Chabot College in Hayward and the Western Institute for Social Research in Berkeley.  

“For those of us teaching in community colleges and small private schools caught in the middle of a semester of overload teaching schedules, there is no time to do the background 

research necessary in a timely way to provide sufficient information to our students to help them make sense out of such dramatic world events,”she said. “This anthology allows us to broaden our scope quickly, facilitating accurate and thoughtful information flow.” 

The anthology is available at CopyCentral, 2560 Bancroft Ave., Berkeley. The CopyCentral phone number is (510) 848-8649 and its Web site is www.copycentral.com. The anthology, priced only to cover costs, is $41.68 plus tax.

SAN FRANCISCO — Advancements have been made in the fight against the vine-killing disease threatening California’s $33 billion wine industry, including the development of grapevines genetically engineered to be resistant to it. 

But consumers wary of genetically modified foods may not have to worry about their wine, since the new plants could have a hard time finding their way into vineyards. 

While many conventional growers appreciate the research, they’re not likely to switch their vines over to the new ones resistant to Pierce’s disease if they become available. 

Most growers are interested in learning more about the genetically engineered vines, but they haven’t yet expressed a desire to plant them, said Karen Ross, director of the California Association of Winegrape Growers. 

“Most growers and most of the people in the industry support doing genomic research because we believe it’s an important diagnostic tool to better understand the problems we’re facing,” she said. 

In an industry where old vines are prized, the new ones could have a hard time breaking into existing vineyards. New plants take four to five years before they bear fruit worthy of winemaking. And once the vines are producing, the wines take another two to three years to make, said Kari Birdseye, director of communications for the San Francisco-based Wine Institute. 

“Because we’re such a traditional industry to begin with and because wines take so long to make, it takes longer for us to implement new sciences like this,” she said. 

It also would be costly to plant the new vines. 

“You usually try to get 25 to 30 years at least out of a vineyard,” said Mora Cronin, vice president of public relations for Beringer Vineyards in Saint Helena. “You don’t replant on a whim.” 

Beringer has more than 10,000 acres of vines in California, and about 8,000 acres in Australia. 

Pierce’s disease is caused by bacteria, carried through California predominantly by the glassy-winged sharpshooter. It clogs the water vessels in the vines, causing them to die. There is no cure. 

California alone has spent about $10 million on research and about $40 million on efforts to combat the sharpshooter and the disease in the last two years. 

The new vines were developed by University of Florida researchers who patented the genes in May. The scientists still are doing research on the genes, and Dennis Gray, a professor of developmental biology at the University of Florida Mid-Florida Research and Education Center, said it could be almost a decade before the vines are ready to be sold to growers. 

If they ever are, growers will have to decide if it’s worth the expense to switch their vineyards over. 

“We want people to enjoy our wines,” Birdseye said. “If people aren’t going to buy our wines because of what we’re doing with our vines, that’s going to defeat the purpose.’ 

Jay Van Rein, a spokesman with the California Department of Food and Agriculture, also emphasized the research portion of the scientists’ work, and not the production of an altered vine. 

“I think the growers would question whether they would be able to sell that product,” he said. 

The European Union has banned biotech foods, effectively eliminating that market from California vintners if they decided to use genetically engineered vines. Exports of U.S. wine, 96 percent of which came from California, grew 2 percent in 2000 to $560 million. 

And certified organic wine growers can’t use genetically modified plants if they hope to keep their certification. 

“I find it very difficult to believe that we would rely on a genetically engineered plant,” said Ted Hall, owner of Long Meadow Ranch, a certified organic winery. “It seems to me there are many other approaches to maintaining balance in the environment than fundamentally altering the structure of a plant beyond what you could achieve with breeding and hybridization.” 

The damage to vineyards in California by Pierce’s disease hasn’t been measured very accurately, Van Rein said. It has mostly affected Southern California vines. 

Efforts to combat Pierce’s disease include inspecting shipments of nursery plants or agricultural commodities for the glassy-winged sharpshooter, Van Rein said. 

The state also is using a wasp that lays its eggs in the sharpshooter’s eggs to keep the bug under control. 

California wine accounts for the bulk of the wine consumed in the United States, with roughly three out of every four bottles sold in the country coming from the state. If California were a nation, it would be the fourth-leading wine-producing country in the world, according to Wine Institute statistics. 

SAN FRANCISCO — The California AIDS Ride, a feel-good event in which 11,000 cyclists have raised $40 million since 1994, is being abandoned by the nonprofit agencies it benefits. They say it’s unacceptable they get only 50 cents of every dollar raised. 

Cyclists from all over the country have joined the annual ride from San Francisco to Los Angeles, a grueling, one-week, 575-mile trek down Highway 1. The inspiring cause — and the breathtaking views of the Pacific Coast — help ease the pain of the punishing hills. 

“It’s an amazing community of people that are there dedicated to doing something that changes the lives of people,” said 51-year-old Cathy Johnson, who alone has raised more than $22,000 from friends and family to participate in the past three California AIDS Rides. “That’s also what gets people past their personal boundaries on a day-to-day basis.” 

But the San Francisco AIDS Foundation and the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center say Pallotta TeamWorks, the ride’s organizer for the past eight years, has mismanaged the event and increased its overhead so much that they’re better off running it themselves. 

So this year, they’re planning their own competing six-day fundraising ride, dubbed AIDS/LifeCycle, along the same route next summer, two weeks before the traditional AIDS Ride. 

In response, Pallotta Teamworks is suing the nonprofits, and has found a new charity for the AIDS Ride. 

“We’ve raised over $40 million in California since 1994 for people living with HIV and AIDS,” said Pallotta spokesman Norm Bowling. “Now the prospect of two competing events is just going to divide the community ... and will affect everyone ultimately by having less funds raised.” 

Johnson, who said she was “appalled” that only 50 cents for every dollar went to charity, already has signed up for AIDS/LifeCycle. 

“All the repeat riders I know are doing LifeCycle because people were really turned off by (the AIDS) Ride last year.” 

The charities say skyrocketing costs — from $2,373 per rider in 2000 to $3,022 last year — cut too far into the money they need to provide services for people living with AIDS and HIV. 

“We understand it’s an expensive event to produce,” said Bonnie Osborn, spokeswoman for the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center. “Our concern is that it’s costing more now than in the past.” 

The California AIDS Ride provides about a quarter of the San Francisco AIDS Foundation’s $24 million annual operating budget, according to spokesman Gustavo Suarez. 

“This year they raised more money than ever before, and we got back a lower percentage,” he said. “Something happened to it.” 

In 2000, the foundation received 65 cents of every dollar raised. Last year, Suarez said, that went down to about 50 cents. 

Expenses generally should not exceed 35 cents per dollar, according to the Better Business Bureau’s Wise Giving Alliance. 

The California ride is one of the nation’s biggest AIDS rides. Tens of thousands of cyclists have participated in AIDS Rides across the country since 1994, raising nearly $70 million overall. 

Riders are totally supported with meals, medical care, sleeping tents, hot showers and portable toilets. They’re followed by trucks and trailers and swept up if they get into trouble. Such logistics ran 37 percent over budget this year, at $2.7 million. 

Riders also were hit with a barrage of marketing — slickly produced books, glossy brochures and signs — both before and during the ride. 

Bowling acknowledged that Pallotta ran 8 percent or 9 percent over budget overall this year, but he said the AIDS Ride has a “great track record” and that the charities are overstepping their bounds. 

He said the company’s contract with the charities specifically prohibits them from organizing their own bike-a-thon. 

“They can do any kind of fundraising event they want other than the California AIDS Ride,” Bowling said. 

The nonprofit agencies believe they’re on solid ground. 

“There are differences in the route and the focus and the feel of the event,” said Gwenn Baldwin, executive director of the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center. “Using bicycles to fund raise is not a unique concept.” 

Both nonprofit agencies say they felt they had no choice but to sever their relationship with Pallotta. They said they’re still sorting out questionable expenses, including delinquent taxes owed to the city of Philadelphia, a Web address connected to a nonexistent canoeing event and executive travel to Chicago for a book tour. 

“There are many things that make us question exactly what is going on here,” Suarez said. 

Bowling acknowledged money disputes with the charities and said Pallotta is trying to resolve them through arbitration. 

The nonprofits also complained about heavy marketing and cross-promotion last year of other Pallotta-planned events, such as the Avon Breast Cancer 3-Day walk. 

A court hearing on Pallotta’s suit is set for Jan. 14 in Los Angeles County Superior Court.

GILROY — Bonfante Gardens, the bucolic but cash-strapped theme park built by a former supermarket mogul, is expected to open again in the spring after the City Council approved a rescue plan. 

The city agreed to allow development of 85 homes on 50 acres of nearby land owned by Michael Bonfante, who sold his Nob Hill grocery store chain in 1998 to build the tree-dominated amusement park. 

The zoning change effectively increases the land’s value, which will help Bonfante secure another $7.5 million in funding to keep the park in business. It is not known whether any new houses will be built. 

After more than 20 years of planning, the $100 million, 75-acre park opened last June to critical acclaim for its unusual focus on nature. It also featured rides such as the Artichoke Dip and Garlic Twirl. 

It closed for the season in September, 13 weeks early, due to a financial shortfall despite having attracted more than 280,000 visitors. 

Gilroy officials earlier rejected a plan that would have guaranteed bank loans. 

The park, located about 30 miles south of downtown San Jose, is expected to reopen March 29, said spokesman Dan Orloff. 

——— 

On the Net: 

Bonfante Gardens: http://www.bonfantegardens.com 

SAN FRANCISCO — The parents of John Walker Lindh, the 20-year-old American captured in Afghanistan alongside Taliban fighters, are upset that a letter they sent him through the Red Cross has not been delivered. 

In a statement released Tuesday, Frank Lindh and Marilyn Walker said they’re growing impatient because the Red Cross told them it has been unable to deliver their Dec. 4 letter of support. 

“It is very painful to think that John has no idea his family is sending him love and support during the most difficult time of his life,” Lindh’s parents said in a statement released by their attorney. 

The family reiterated its hopes the American public will withhold judgment on Lindh, seen by some as a traitor for taking up arms with the Taliban. 

A spokesman for the U.S. war effort had no immediate comment Tuesday on the letter, and questioned how the family knew it had not been delivered. 

Earlier in the day, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz said Lindh is “being treated consistent with the Geneva protections for prisoners of war.” 

Under those rules, prisoners of war are allowed to send and receive letters and cards, which must be conveyed rapidly and cannot be withheld “for disciplinary reasons.” Wolfowitz added, however, that because Lindh “is not a legal combatant ... he’s not legally a prisoner of war.” 

Lindh, of San Anselmo, was found holed up with Taliban fighters after northern alliance forces brought an end to a prison uprising near the northern Afghan city of Mazar-e-Sharif more than two weeks ago. 

Lindh had been held as a prisoner in a detention center at Camp Rhino, the U.S. Marine base in southern Afghanistan. Late last week, he was flown to the USS Peleliu, the lead ship of a military unit off the coast of Pakistan. 

“We understand that there are many American parents who are concerned about the welfare of their children, especially at this time of year,” Lindh’s family said. “We continue to hope that the government will allow us access to John so that he knows his family loves him and wants to help him through this period.” 

The U.S. government has not yet determined whether Lindh’s case falls under the jurisdiction of military or civilian justice. 

“We are encouraged that President Bush and other administration officials have said that no conclusions should be reached about John until all of the facts are known,” the statement said. “We hope that all Americans will also withhold judgment until we know what all the facts are.” 

SACRAMENTO — The San Francisco Bay area produced nearly a third of the marijuana plants seized in California this fall, eclipsing the 16 percent seized in the North Coast’s “Emerald Triangle” area that once accounted for the majority of the locally grown crop. 

That reflects a dangerous trend toward huge pot farms tied to Mexican-based drug cartels that also produce and distribute narcotics, Attorney General Bill Lockyer said while releasing the statistics Tuesday. 

More than 101,000 of the 313,776 plants seized this growing season were in Santa Clara, San Mateo, Sonoma and Napa counties in the Bay Area. Officials aren’t sure if that reflects an increase in production or merely better law enforcement efforts there. 

The Central Valley, which last year accounted for half the seizures because of four large pot farm discoveries, this year produced 23 percent of the seized plants. Last year set the record with seizures of 345,207 plants, nearly triple the number seized in 1997 and 1998. 

Northern California had about 22 percent of seized plants this year, including 54,504 in Tehama County south of Redding, the most of any county. 

Santa Clara County in the Bay Area was second, with 47,574 plants, followed by Mendocino in the Emerald Triangle and the Bay Area’s San Mateo County. 

About 70 percent of marijuana farms statewide, and about 80 percent in the Bay Area, had apparent ties to Mexican drug cartels, Lockyer said. 

Most frequently, armed immigrants tend and guard farms hidden in remote areas of state and national forests and other public land, he said, where they pose a danger to unsuspecting hikers and hunters. 

Those same cartels are increasingly involved in producing and distributing methamphetamine and other drugs, Lockyer said. 

Methamphetamine labs provide the “seed money — no pun intended — for the marijuana operations,” said California Department of Justice spokesman Mike Van Winkle. 

The cartels have found it is generally easier to grow or manufacture the drugs in the U.S. than it is to smuggle them across the border, he said. 

The Campaign Against Marijuana Planting (CAMP) has existed since 1983, and this year involved officers from more than 70 state, federal and local agencies under the supervision of Lockyer’s Bureau of Narcotics Enforcement. 

They conducted 149 raids in 23 counties from late July through early October, the prime growing and harvest season, made 20 arrests and seized 19 weapons along with the plants they valued at about $1.25 billion. 

——— 

On the Net: http://caag.state.ca.us 

SAN FRANCISCO — Makers and sellers of chewing tobacco have agreed to pay $2.75 million and post signs warning of smokeless products’ health hazards in stores to settle a suit, San Francisco City Attorney Louise Renne said Tuesday. 

“People, especially teens, need to know that chewing tobacco is toxic,” Renne said at a City Hall press conference. “It’s not the safe alternative to smoking.” 

San Francisco joined the nonprofit Environmental Law Foundation in filing suit in 1998 against eight tobacco companies and 11 retail chains under Proposition 65, the Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act approved by voters in 1986. 

The law requires consumers be given a clear warning they may be exposed to chemicals that may cause cancer, birth defects or reproductive harm. 

The tobacco companies agreed to pay $2.75 million toward anti-tobacco education in California. The San Francisco Department of Public Health will receive $313,465. 

“The money couldn’t have come from a nicer bunch of fellows,” said James Wheaton of the Environmental Law Foundation of Oakland. Wheaton accused the companies of marketing sweetened products such as cherry-flavored chewing tobacco to children in order to “hook them for life.” 

The retail chains agreed to display warning signs in their stores. 

San Diego Superior Court Judge Ronald Prager approved the settlement, Renne said. 

The suit is the fourth successful suit the retiring Renne has filed for San Francisco against tobacco companies. Two of those suits were part of the national tobacco settlement in 1998 that resulted in $12 billion in payments to California cities and counties. San Francisco received $500 million. 

LOS ANGELES — In another sign that Hispanics will dominate California’s future, a university study has found that the ethnic group accounted for nearly half of all births in the state by the end of the last decade. 

Hispanic mothers had 247,796 of the 521,265 children born in California in 1998, or 47.5 percent, according to the University of California, Los Angeles study scheduled to be formally released Wednesday. 

Non-Hispanic whites had 33.9 percent, followed by Asians and Pacific Islanders with 10.7 percent. Blacks represented 6.8 percent of births and American Indians a half-percent of all births. 

California’s future economic health depends upon those Hispanics, who will soon be the majority of young adults and hence the working force, said David Hayes-Bautista, director of the Center for the Study of Latino Health and Culture at UCLA. 

“We can see the future population of California looking into the delivery rooms of today,” he said. “We have a very few years to make some choices,” such as improving education. 

The center’s study, based on state health department statistics, confirms the ethnic shift that made 2001 the year that California officially lost its white majority. The U.S. Census showed Hispanics made up nearly a third while non-Hispanic whites slipped to less than half of the state’s total population of 33.9 million. 

California’s experience is part of a “sea change” in the United States, where 23 states already have Hispanics as their largest ethnic minority, said Harry Pachon, president of the Tomas Rivera Policy Institute, a Claremont think-tank on Latino issues. 

Hispanics are becoming more prominent in everything from movies to politics, and that is good for the state, Pachon said. 

“If there was no penetration of social and political institutions, then you would have an isolated minority and that’s a recipe for social unrest,” he said. 

On the other hand, by the third generation one of every two Hispanics have married outside of their ethnic group, he noted. 

“There’s a Latinization of America but there’s also an Americanization of Latinos,” he said. “By third generation, a lot of them are losing their Spanish, they prefer American NFL to soccer.” 

The overall number of California births has been falling since the peak year of 1990 and the birth rate among all ethnic groups also has slowed. Hispanic births declined by 5.9 percent between 1993 and 1998. 

Nearly half of all Hispanic births were in Los Angeles County. Nearly 62 percent of all births in the county were to Hispanics, rising to nearly three-fourths in Imperial County, which borders Mexico. With a few exceptions, the number of Hispanic births in the far northern counties was small. 

The babies generally were as healthy as others, based on birth weight and mortality statistics, even though Hispanic mothers are less likely than others to receive prenatal care in the first trimester. 

“In spite of low income, low education and low access to care, Latino babies have a healthy profile,” Hayes-Bautista said. 

It is unclear why, he said, but other studies have shown that “in general, Latinas tend to smoke less, drink less, do drugs less — immigrants, especially.” 

Overall, nearly 65 percent of all Hispanic mothers were immigrants, ranking them second to Asian and Pacific Islanders at more than 84 percent. 

The babies tend to grow up healthy as well. Studies have shown that at virtually all stages of life, Hispanics, at least in California, Arizona and Texas, tended to suffer fewer major health problems such as heart attacks, cancer and strokes than other ethnic groups, Hayes-Bautista noted. 

The study supported previous research indicating that Hispanics lack private medical insurance and were more likely to rely on Medi-Cal. More than 58 percent of Hispanic mothers relied on the state program to pay for their deliveries — a higher percentage than any other ethnic group. 

Only about 15 percent of Hispanic mothers were 19 years old or younger. By comparison nearly 17 percent of blacks and 19 percent of American Indians were teen-agers. Non-Hispanic whites had a figure of nearly 7 percent.

LOS ANGELES — California dropped a few names and some big bucks into its latest ad campaign aimed at boosting the state’s slumping tourism. 

Gov. Gray Davis unveiled a 30-second television commercial Tuesday featuring actors Clint Eastwood and Jack Nicholson that urges people to start traveling again following the September terrorist attacks in New York. 

“Get out there,” says a leisurely Eastwood from the Pebble Beach golf course. 

Nicholson weighs in from courtside at Staples Center in Los Angeles. All work and no play “makes Jack a dull boy,” he says with his trademark grin. 

The ad, which also features world champion freestyle skier Glen Plake and restaurateur Michael Chow, will run in California and Mexico as part of a $7.5 million campaign, the second round of tourism marketing by the state since the attacks. 

In October, the government spent $5 million on print, radio and TV ads — its first attempt ever at encouraging Californians to enjoy their own state. 

Immediately following Sept. 11, California saw a 50 percent drop in tourism. The numbers have bounced back but are still 10 percent lower than last year, according to the California Technology, Trade and Commerce Agency. 

Davis said the latest campaign is more upbeat than the dreamy, sunset tone of the first. It’s designed to be a shot in the arm to the hospitality industry, which has lost thousands of jobs in the last three months, he said. 

“American soldiers are fighting overseas and we’re fighting back here to restore the economy,” he said before debuting the ad at a red-carpet ceremony outside Grauman’s Chinese Theater on Hollywood Boulevard. 

California’s Economic Development Department is funding the promotion with existing money, the governor’s office said. Davis has proposed $2.24 billion in cuts to the current state budget after forecasts that the next budget could produce a $12.4 billion deficit. 

Locals on Hollywood Boulevard said they supported the marketing campaign. 

“I’m not particularly afraid of travel myself. But this is a good idea. Popular people can be opinion leaders,” said Robby Downing, a student living in Los Angeles. 

“It can’t hurt,” added Jerry Perchesky, an L.A.-based actor who travels regularly up to Monterey Bay to see family. “But a lot depends on the economy.” 

Tourism is California’s third largest industry, worth $74.9 billion annually, and it generates $5 billion a year in tax revenue. It employs more than 1.1 million people. 

The latest ad follows a similar promotional effort by New York, which featured celebrities Barbara Walters, Billy Crystal, Woody Allen and Robert DeNiro. 

SAN FRANCISCO — Republican gubernatorial candidate Bill Jones called for California to boost its ranks of National Guard troops and give them more incentives to continue serving. 

The idea was part of an overall security plan offered Tuesday by Secretary of State Jones in a presentation before the California Public Policy Institute, a San Francisco-based nonprofit, nonpartisan think-tank. 

Among dozens of components, Jones’ plan calls for the creation of a 1,000-person National Guard force to protect California and urges the Legislature to offer Guard members a fee waiver at state colleges and universities. 

He also recommended that California create: 

— A California office of homeland security that would work with existing state agencies to catalog just how many vehicles, helicopters and airplanes California can count on to transport people and supplies during crises, such as a terror attack. 

— An advisory committee that would work with the FBI and other federal agencies to assess intelligence data and determine security recommendations. 

— A task force that would identify high-risk and potential targets for terrorists, such as nuclear power plants and water facilities, and create strategies for defending them. 

— A state health officer to assess public health threats and organize groups of doctors and health care workers with diverse areas of expertise that can respond quickly around the state. 

“We, all of us, are going to be held accountable,” Jones said. “This plan will be the one after the disaster that people go back and say, ’Why didn’t you do this?”’ 

Jones said the plan would cost at least $40 million, though not all costs were factored in. He said the state could cut costs by using already existing equipment and services. Funding for other parts of the plan would come from the federal government. 

Jones is vying with former Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan and businessman Bill Simon for the GOP nomination in the March primary. The winner will take on Gov. Gray Davis in November. 

Public documents show that Jones, a long-time lawmaker and farmer from Fresno, has a fraction of the personal fortune of his opponents. Jones also has struggled to raise campaign donations — drawing about $2 million, including more than $500,000 in loans, according to campaign finance records. 

A pair of recent statewide polls showed Riordan with a sizable lead over both Jones and Simon, and with a slight edge over Davis. 

——— 

On the Net: 

Davis: http://gray-davis.com/ 

Jones: http://www.BillJones.org/ 

Riordan: http://www.riordanforgovernor.org/ 

Simon: http://www.simonforgovernor.com/ 

SACRAMENTO — With winter still officially a few days away, state hydrologists say the Sierra Nevada already has accumulated half the snow the region normally gets in the wet-weather season. 

A series of storms brought enough snow to please ski resort operators and skiers, and local water supply managers say this could mean a healthy supply of water stored in the Sierra Nevada snowpack. 

The mountain range’s snowpack is the source of two-thirds of California’s water for cities, farms and recreational uses. 

The snowpack was at 136 percent of its normal water content for mid-December as of Tuesday, said Jeff Cohen, spokesman for the state Department of Water Resources. 

“We’re already at 51 percent of a normal winter for the Northern Sierra. That’s 51 percent of what we expect by April 1,” Cohen said. 

The measurements are better in the north, he said, with the region north of Tahoe at 146 percent of normal. The central region, between Tahoe and the San Joaquin River, is at 132 percent and the southern area is at 129 percent. 

“It just keeps snowing and snowing and snowing,” said Katja Dahl, spokeswoman for the Squaw Valley USA ski resort in Tahoe City. “I think we’ve had more great powder days so far this year than all season last year. Mother Nature has been kind and generous.” 

The National Weather Service forecasts the next storm approaching Wednesday, bringing periods of rain or snow through Thursday. 

——— 

On the Net: 

Department of Water Resources: http://www.water.ca.gov 

PHILADELPHIA — A federal judge threw out Mumia Abu-Jamal’s death sentence Tuesday and ordered a new sentencing hearing for the former Black Panther alternately portrayed as a vicious cop-killer and a victim of a racist frame-up. 

U.S. District Judge William Yohn cited problems with the jury charge and verdict form in the trial that ended with Abu-Jamal’s conviction and death sentence in the 1981 murder of Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner. 

Yohn rejected all of Abu-Jamal’s other claims and refused to grant a new trial. But he ordered the state to either conduct a new sentencing hearing within six months or sentence Abu-Jamal to life in prison. 

District Attorney Lynne Abraham said she will appeal. Abu-Jamal “has always been a remorseless, cold-blooded killer,” she said. “We believe that the judge’s decision is legally flawed.” 

The ruling pleased neither side in a case that has pitted Faulkner’s family, police groups and others against death penalty foes who say Abu-Jamal, 47, is a political prisoner of a corrupt justice system. 

“I’m angry, outraged, and disgusted,” said Faulkner’s widow, Maureen Faulkner. “I think Judge Yohn is a sick and twisted person, after sitting on this case for two years and making this decision just before Christmas. He wants to play the middle road and try to appease both sides and it doesn’t work.” 

Abu-Jamal’s lawyers did not immediately return calls seeking comment. 

Pam Africa, leader of the International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal, said Abu-Jamal should have been released from prison. “The only way it would be a good ruling is if the judge was honest and fair and released Mumia,” she said. 

Abu-Jamal is perhaps America’s most famous death row inmate, drawing support from celebrities, foreign politicians and capital punishment opponents. He was recently made an honorary citizen of Paris and last year gave an audiotaped lesson in civil rights to Antioch College’s graduating class while Faulkner’s widow and others protested outside. Police groups and others convinced of his guilt say he should be executed. 

Abu-Jamal, a cab driver and sometime radio reporter, was convicted of shooting Faulkner, 25, after the white officer pulled over Abu-Jamal’s brother. According to testimony, Abu-Jamal was in his taxi across the street, saw the officer scuffling with his brother and ran toward the scene. 

Faulkner was shot several times, and police found Abu-Jamal wounded by a round from Faulkner’s gun. Police also found a .38-caliber revolver registered to Abu-Jamal at the scene with five spent shell casings. 

Defense attorneys say the bullet that killed Faulkner cannot be positively traced to the gun. 

Yohn’s ruling had to do with how the jury was told to weigh mitigating and aggravating circumstances in deciding whether to impose the death penalty. 

The jury said it had found one aggravating circumstance (the victim was a police officer) and one mitigating factor (Abu-Jamal’s clean criminal record). In death-penalty cases, each juror is supposed to weigh aggravating factors against mitigating ones to decide if the defendant should be sentenced to death. 

Yohn said the jurors should have been able to consider mitigating circumstances even if they did not unanimously agree that such circumstances existed. He said the jury instructions ran counter to a 1988 U.S. Supreme Court ruling. 

Temple University law professor David Kairys said the ruling identified “a very clear error” that prevented Abu-Jamal from getting a fair sentence. 

“What really happened here is Mumia Abu-Jamal just got the same rules applied to him that apply to everybody else,” Kairys said. “They’re not technicalities; they really go to the heart of whether the jury meant to impose the death penalty or not.” 

Abu-Jamal exhausted his state appeals two years ago, but a petition filed in September argued that the defense had new evidence to clear him, including a confession from a man named Arnold Beverly. In a 1999 affidavit, Beverly claimed he was hired by the mob to kill Faulkner because the officer had interfered with mob payoffs to police. 

Abu-Jamal’s former lawyers, Daniel Williams and civil rights attorney Leonard Weinglass, said they thought the confession was not credible, and Yohn refused to order Beverly to testify on Abu-Jamal’s behalf. 

——— 

On the Net: 

Abu-Jamal supporters: http://www.mumia.org 

Faulkner supporters: http://www.danielfaulkner.com 

CHICAGO — Hepatitis A outbreaks in all age groups could be prevented if children were routinely vaccinated against the liver ailment, a study in Northern California suggests. 

When 66 percent of eligible children in Butte County received free hepatitis A vaccinations over six years, cases in the county dropped nearly 94 percent. The number of reported cases fell from 57 in 1995 to 4 in 2000, the lowest number in more than 30 years, the study found. 

The study was conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and was published in Wednesday’s Journal of the American Medical Association. 

Hepatitis A is an inflammation of the liver that can cause flu-like symptoms and jaundice. Children are less severely affected than adults and may even have no symptoms. The virus can be spread by human feces or contaminated water or food. The disease usually clears up in about two months. 

Federal estimates suggest there were 270,000 cases nationwide in 1997, and Western states are disproportionately affected. 

The CDC recommends routine vaccination of children in Western states with high rates of the virus: Alaska, Arizona, California, Idaho, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, Utah and Washington. 

Only Oklahoma and Alaska require the vaccine for children 2 and older, said Dr. Philip Rosenthal, president of the Northern California chapter of the American Liver Foundation. Nevada will begin requiring the shots in January, but efforts to make them mandatory in California have so far failed, he said. 

The vaccine became available in 1995 for American children ages 2 and up. 

During the study, 29,789 children ages 2 through 12 in Butte County received at least one dose; 17,681 received the recommended second dose. No serious side effects were reported. The incidence last year of 1.9 cases per 100,000 population was the lowest of any county in the state. 

NEW YORK — Newsday is eliminating a third section on weekdays and offering more early retirement packages as part of an ongoing effort to cut costs. 

Stu Vincent, a spokesman for the Long Island-based newspaper, said Tuesday the cutbacks were part of a cost-cutting program occurring throughout parent company Tribune Co., which also publishes the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune. 

The third section covered a different theme every day, including business, health, technology, entertainment and real estate. 

Newsday is moving many of the articles that had appeared in those pages into the main section, Vincent said. He said the biggest cutbacks would come in the technology and entertainment articles. 

The change will save the newspaper from making an extra delivery to newsstands since the first and second sections will now be delivered together. Previously the second and third sections had been delivered before the main news section, Vincent said. The second section contains feature articles and coverage of movies and television. 

Vincent also said the paper, which has 3,000 full- and part-time employees, expects about 50 staffers to accept the latest offer of retirement packages. That would be about the same number who accepted early retirement last summer. 

Vincent declined to say how much money the paper expected to save or exactly when the production changes and early retirement offers would be made.  

He said the newspaper has not made any layoffs. 

SAN JOSE — The leading opponent of Hewlett-Packard’s plans to buy Compaq Computer Corp. is demanding that HP clarify reports that directors and top executives would step down if shareholders reject the $22 billion deal. 

In a letter filed Tuesday with the Securities and Exchange Commission, a lawyer for Walter Hewlett called such reported threats “shocking” and said they “raise serious questions about the directors’ compliance with their fiduciary duties.” 

“Although you previously discounted these reports in conversations with me, the threats no longer can be ignored,” Hewlett attorney Stephen Neal wrote to an HP attorney. 

“If the threats are true, then Hewlett-Packard must immediately provide detailed information to the shareholders and the market about which members of management and which directors will resign. ... If the threats are not true, then Hewlett-Packard must immediately correct the record.” 

Hewlett, a member of the HP board and the son of late co-founder William Hewlett, wants the matter clarified in fairness to the shareholders who would vote on the Compaq acquisition if it wins regulatory approval, a spokesman said. 

An HP spokeswoman did not immediately return a call seeking comment. 

Hewlett’s letter referred specifically to an interview published last week in The New York Times with Richard Hackborn, an HP board member and avid supporter of both the Compaq deal and chairwoman Carly Fiorina. 

Hackborn told the newspaper that if HP shareholders reject the deal, “they will have to get a board and a management” to fix HP’s problems. Unidentified sources have made similar comments in other news reports, according to the letter. 

HP shares dropped 26 cents, or 1.3 percent, to $20.50 on the New York Stock Exchange on Tuesday. Compaq fell 38 cents, or 4 percent, to $9.11. 

In an HP filing with the SEC earlier Tuesday, the company quoted Fiorina as telling a group of top company managers that she was “disappointed and sad” about the Hewlett and Packard families’ opposition to the Compaq acquisition. 

But she reiterated her belief that buying Compaq is the best way for HP to serve more large corporations’ technology needs and take more leadership positions in the industry. 

“We are absolutely convinced that while this company always has options,” she said, “we have chosen the best one.” 

——— 

On the Net: 

http://www.hp.com 

http://www.compaq.com 

SAN JOSE — 3Com Corp. beat Wall Street expectations in the second quarter as the troubled network equipment maker’s loss narrowed and business showed signs of turning around. 

“Q2 was a quarter of great progress for 3Com,” said Bruce Claflin, the company’s chief executive. “Our second-quarter results confirm we are on or ahead of plan in virtually every part of our turnaround.” 

For the three months ended Nov. 30, 3Com lost $104 million, or 30 cents a share, compared with a loss of $142 million, or 41 cents a share, in the same period a year ago. 

Excluding special items, the company lost $47 million, or 14 cents a share, compared with a loss of $51 million, or 15 cents a share, a year ago. 

Analysts were expecting a loss of 22 cents a share, according to a survey by Thomson Financial/First Call. 

Revenues were down 50 percent to $394 million in the most recent quarter, from $789 million in the same period last year. It was a modest improvement from first-quarter sales of $390 million. 

The results were announced after the markets closed. Shares of 3Com closed up 27 cents, to $5.31 on the Nasdaq Stock Market. In after-hours trading, shares gained another 41 cents.

SALT LAKE CITY — In 1990, the idea of linking the central Wasatch Range’s seven ski areas came up in Salt Lake County planning circles and was rejected. Aerial trams over the top of the Wasatch and a tunnel through the range did not make much sense for the skiing public, although someone was sure to get rich off the scheme, recall those who participated in the debate. 

The so-called “interconnect” may have died a quick death, but the dream of linked ski areas is alive and well thanks to the gradual growth of Wasatch resorts. 

As a major winter storm began to pummel Little Cottonwood Canyon one recent Friday, a scene unfolded on Sugarloaf Pass that could be a sign of things to come for Utah skiing. 

Executives from Alta and Snowbird — neighboring rivals that boast the finest steeps and deeps in the ski business — opened the gate between Alta’s Albion Basin and Mineral Basin, Snowbird’s freshly developed backside bowl. 

For the first time in North America, skiers can glide from one resort to another on a combined pass. 

“This is just the beginning,” says marketing leader Kip Pitou, president of Ski Utah. “Interconnected resorts are the future for Utah skiing.” 

Let’s hope not, sigh Utah environmentalists, dismayed by the shrinking share of undeveloped Wasatch backcountry and the trend toward bigness in the Utah ski industry. 

“Each ski area and winter recreation area ought to have its own character,” says Salt Lake City ski historian Alexis Kelner, a founding member of Save Our Canyons. “Just because people are doing it in Europe doesn’t mean we should be doing it. Most of the people on the (Save Our Canyons) board are opposed to continual enlargement of ski areas in the face of declining demand for skiing.” 

Interconnect skiing is common in Europe’s Alps, where ski areas abut into vast networks of lift-serviced terrain and villages, but nonexistent in North America. Only in Utah is it even possible, thanks to the proximity of seven ski areas sandwiched between Park City and Alta — all within a six-mile radius of Solitude in Big Cottonwood Canyon. 

Two lifts could sew up a complete interconnect, assuming The Canyons completes its planned southward expansion to the edge of Park City Mountain Resort. Alta and Solitude are only a lift away via Grizzly Gulch. Same with Brighton and Park City Mountain Resort via Scotts Pass. 

Alta plans to offer cat skiing on private land in Grizzly, but officials declined to comment on rumors that the ski area is contemplating a lift there. 

As Utah backcountry skiers have known for years, you can already ski between canyons if you don’t mind hiking through avalanche terrain. For those less versed in the mysteries of avalanche avoidance and backcountry route-finding, there is Ski Utah’s Interconnect Adventure Tour — a $150 guided ski trek from Park City to Snowbird, riding lifts through five ski areas. 

“It’s an incredible marketing story,” Pitou says. “It’s something we can do that you can do nowhere else in the United States. We could have the biggest ski area in the world without adding infrastructure. You could ski all day without hitting the same lift twice.” 

Interconnecting resorts could cut down auto traffic in the canyons, since visitors staying at the three Park City ski areas could ride lifts — rather than drive — to Big and Little Cottonwood canyons, supporters say. 

“It is a natural. It’s all so close,” says engineer Beat VonAllmen of Alpentech, a Salt Lake City ski-industry consultant. “People are so interested in doing different things. They want extra variety.” 

But VonAllmen contends the concept was poorly thought out when it was first proposed and “interconnect” is now a loaded term that should be abandoned. 

Back in 1968, for example, when Salt Lake City began bidding to host the Winter Games, Olympic boosters touted ski-resort links as if the nonexistent tramways that would carry skiers from Midway to Brighton and Park City were already in place, according to Kelner’s research. 

This left people with the impression that interconnect was something to be forced down the public’s throat, rather than serve as a natural outgrowth of skier demand. 

Any trans-Wasatch interconnect would face major obstacles and could only happen one link at a time. 

“It will happen if it’s what skiers want and it’s best for the ski areas, not because of some grand marketing plan,” says Onno Wieringa, president of Alta Ski Lifts. 

After months of parent complaints, school officials reassigned a first grade teacher at Washington Communications and Technology Magnet School to another job in the district Friday afternoon, according to several people familiar with the move. 

Rita Kimball, principal at Washington, said the teacher, whose name the Daily Planet decided not to release, will not be working at her school any longer. Kimball said she did not know where the teacher will work, or what type of job the instructor will hold. 

Barry Fike, president of the Berkeley Federation of Teachers, the local teacher’s union, would not comment on the instructor’s new placement, and school district officials did not return calls from the Daily Planet requesting information on the transfer. 

Superintendent Michele Lawrence could not be reached before the Daily Planet’s deadline, but according to Kimball, the superintendent’s office engineered the transfer. 

Parents happy about the reassignment had argued that the instructor lacked control of the classroom, allowed students to wander out of class, left a child unattended in class on at least one occasion, and failed to teach the students properly. 

“We are pleased, and for us, it’s a big sigh of relief that we no longer have to fight this battle,” said Judy Greenspan, parent of a first grader in the teacher’s class. “We look forward to them getting a competent teacher in the classroom after the holidays.” 

Still, parents said they did not win the reassignment until they threatened to pull their kids out of the classroom on Monday, and broadly publicize their concerns.  

Parents said the district should have acted much sooner to remove a teacher who has been the subject of complaints for years. 

“Mrs. Kimball, she knew about the situation,” said Shawn Cooks, whose daughter had the instructor two years ago for kindergarten, and was assigned to the teacher again this year, for first grade.  

Kimball offered no comment on the extent of parental complaints in previous years, citing the teacher’s right to privacy. But, she said she understood the parents’ concerns.  

“I think it’s just really hard for parents when they feel like things aren’t turning out right for their children,” Kimball said. However, she suggested that a teacher’s rights as an employee must be respected.  

“We need to make things happen for children,” Kimball said, “but we’re also bound by rules and laws and due process for human beings.” 

The most recent teachers’ contract, ratified in the spring, stipulates that an instructor can only be fired after receiving an unsatisfactory review at the end of a school year, and then taking another year to improve.  

Greenspan said the district should have given the teacher an unsatisfactory review in previous years, setting the stage for removal. “I think the problem is the result of the district’s failure to evaluate a bad teacher,” said Greenspan.  

Pamela Springer, whose son moved from the instructor’s class to another first grade class in early October, called for a complete change in the rules, allowing for swifter removal. “The process has to change to protect kids,” she said.  

Parents have been volunteering in the classroom, meeting with school officials, writing letters, and filing official complaints since school opened, charging that their children were in danger in the classroom. 

“We had real concerns for the safety of our children,” said Joseph Wakelee-Lynch, who was able to transfer his daughter to Berkeley Arts Magnet at Whittier three weeks into the school year. 

Wakelee-Lynch said he watched a child wander out of the classroom unnoticed during the first week of school, and filed an official complaint with the district based on the incident. 

Another parent, Tara Burton, said she approached the school on Nov. 5 and found one student standing by himself, upset, on a wooden ramp near the class, and another, Cooks’ daughter, sitting alone in the classroom, just as the fire alarm sounded. 

“Leaving a kid in a classroom unattended, during a fire alarm at that, was the last straw,” Burton said. 

Parents also complained that the instructor did not provide any structure in the classroom, and could not control the students. They said this lack of discipline effected their children’s ability to learn. 

“In that kind of environment, my daughter has a hard time learning,” said Wakelee-Lynch. “She needed more stability.” 

Springer said her son began acting out because of the lack of discipline in the classroom. 

“I can’t tell you how exhausting it was for me to come home to a kid who has learned that he can act out and be disruptive,” Springer said. 

Parents said their children lost the desire to learn under the previous instructor, and argued that it is essential to get a talented, new teacher in the classroom as soon as possible.  

“It’s important to get a competent teacher now, and repair the damage that has been done,” Greenspan said. 

Tuesday, Dec. 18 

The Spirit of Christmas Class 

7 - 9 p.m. 

1250 Addison St. 

Studio 103 

Explore the metaphysics of the Christmas Story. 540-8844, patricia@newthoughtunity.org. 

Feldenkrais Chair Class for  

Seniors 

1 p.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center 

1901 Hearst Ave. 

Gentle movement class for older adults. Free. ellmor1@home.com. 

Feldenkrais Floor Class for  

Seniors 

2 p.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center 

1901 Hearst Ave. 

Gentle movement class for older adults. Free. ellmor1@home.com. 

Berkeley Camera Club 

7:30 p.m. 

Northbrae Community Church, 941 The Alameda 

Share your slides and prints and learn what other photographers are doing. Monthly field trips. 525-3565. 

Wednesday, Dec. 19 

Blanket Drive for  

Afghan Refugees 

8:30 - 9:30 a.m. 

2:30 - 3:30 p.m. 

Black Pine Circle School, Lower Campus 

2027 Seventh St. 

4:30 - 5:30 p.m. 

Black Pine Circle School, Upper Campus 

2015 Sixth St.  

A large truck will be parked outside the lower school for collection of clean, serviceable, blankets, quilts, and sleeping bags. These will be delivered to the American Friends Service Committee in San Francisco, then shipped to refugee camps in Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan. 526-4771, nanscape@yahoo.com. 

Feldenkrais Classes for  

Seniors 

10:30 and 11:45 a.m. 

Jewish Community Center 

1414 Walnut 

Gentle movement class for older adults. Free. ellmor1@home.com 

Lecture Series on Women  

Medieval Mystics 

7:30 - 9 p.m. 

All Souls Parish 

2220 Cedar St. 

Three Women Mystics: An Advent Lecture Series. Exploration of their spiritual quests designed to offer a new sense of spiritual possibilities in modern times. Free. Supervised childcare will be provided. 848-1755. 

Thursday, Dec. 20 

Blanket Drive for Afghan  

Refugees 

daytime 

Black Pine Circle School 

2027 Seventh St. 

A large truck will be parked outside the lower school for collection of clean, serviceable, blankets, quilts, and sleeping bags. These will be delivered to the American Friends Service Committee in San Francisco and then shipped to refugee camps in Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan. 526-4771, nanscape@yahoo.com. 

Islamic Cultural Celebration 

7:30 p.m. 

La Peña Cultural Center  

3105 Shattuck Ave. 

Mark the end of Ramadan with music, poetry, and stories from various parts 

of the Islamic world. Proceeds will be donated to RAWA. $10. 849-2568, www.lapena.org. 

Friday, Dec. 21 

18th Annual Telegraph Ave.  

Holiday Street Fair  

11 a.m. - 6 p.m. 

Telegraph Ave. 

Between Dwight Way and Bancroft 

Telegraph Avenue presents a mix of free music, good food, festive lights, colorful decorations. More than 300 artists will display handmade crafts. 

Berkeley Women In Black  

Vigil 

noon - 1 p.m. 

Telegraph Ave. at Haste 

(Outside Cody’s Books) 

Vigil in support of Women in Black in Jerusalem against military solutions to end the occupation of Palestine. 

Saturday, Dec. 22 

Santa's Solstice Bazaar 

11 a.m. - 5 p.m. 

Metaversal Lightcraft 

1708 University Ave. 

Come shop while kids visit with Santa for free. Fine arts, crafts, clothing and gift booths in a magical and colorful scene. 644-2032, www.lightcraft.org. 

So Lovely! So Lively! Solano! 

12 - 6 p.m. 

Solano Ave. 

Berkeley and Albany 

More than 50 street performers – jazz bands, carolers, talking trees, & toy soldiers during the holiday season along Solano Ave. www.solanoave.org 

Berkeley Farmers’ Market  

Holiday Crafts Fair 

10 a.m. - 4 p.m. 

Martin Luther King, JR. Civic Center Park 

Fair will include organic produce, handcrafted gifts, live choral music, massages, and hot apple cider. 548-3333, www.ecologycenter.org 

Magic School Bus Video  

Festival 

10:30 a.m. - 1:30 p.m. 

Lawrence Hall of Science 

Centennial Drive, above UC Berkeley Campus 

Ms. Frizzle takes her skeptical class from outer space to inside a dog’s noise in seven different video adventures. Free popcorn and free magic school bus gift. $3 - $7. 642-5132, www.lawrencehallofscience.org 

18th Annual Telegraph Ave.  

Holiday Street Fair  

11 a.m. - 6 p.m. 

Telegraph Ave. 

Between Dwight Way and Bancroft 

Telegraph Avenue presents a mix of free music, good food, festive lights, colorful decorations. More than 300 artists will display handmade crafts. 

Sunday, Dec. 23 

A Service of Lessons and  

Carols 

4 p.m. 

St. Augustine Church 

400 Alcatraz 

The St. Augustine Choir fill an afternoon with carols. 653-8631. 

So Lovely! So Lively! Solano! 

12 - 6 p.m. 

Solano Ave. 

Berkeley and Albany 

More than 50 street performers – jazz bands, carolers, talking trees, & toy soldiers during the holiday season along Solano Ave. www.solanoave.org 

18th Annual Telegraph Ave.  

Holiday Street Fair  

11 a.m. - 6 p.m. 

Telegraph Ave. 

Between Dwight Way and Bancroft 

Telegraph Avenue presents a mix of free music, good food, festive lights, colorful decorations. More than 300 artists will display handmade crafts. 

Julia Morgan Center for the  

Arts Features A Celtic Peace:  

A Bay Area Celtic Christmas  

Celebration 

7:30 p.m. 

Julia Morgan Theatre 

2640 College Ave. 

“A Celtic Peace,” an evening of Irish music and dance for the whole family. This musical program is dedicated to world peace. $10 adults, $5 children. 845-8542, www.juliamorgan.org. 

Monday, Dec. 24 

Midnight Mass 

11:45 p.m. 

St. Augustine Church 

400 Alcatraz 

Prelude music begins at 11:15 p.m., mass begins at 11:30 p.m. 653-8631 

18th Annual Telegraph Ave.  

Holiday Street Fair  

11 a.m. - 6 p.m. 

Telegraph Ave. 

Between Dwight Way and Bancroft 

Telegraph Avenue presents a mix of free music, good food, festive lights, colorful decorations. More than 300 artists will display handmade crafts. 

Tuesday, Dec. 25 

Guided Tours of Jewish Art and History 

12 - 4 p.m. 

Judah L. Magnes Museum 

2911 Russell St. 

Family Day at the Museum. The tours will present over 250 objects from the Museum’s permanent collections on display in the major exhibition “Telling Time: To Everything There is a Season.” 549-6950 www.magnesmuseum. org 

Puppets and Puppet Making 

1 p.m. and 3 p.m. 

Berkeley Richmond Jewish Community Center 

141 Walnut St. 

Jennifer Levine presents “Princess Moxie Rules!” a 30 minute puppet show followed by a puppet-making project. 848-0237, www.brjcc.org. 

Gerry Tenney & California Klezmer Jewish Music 

2 p.m. & 3 p.m. 

2911 Russell St. 

Hands-on Art Projects. 848-0237, www.brjcc.org. 

Wednesday, Dec. 26 

Professor Smart’s Fun with Physics Show 

1 p.m. 

Lawrence Hall of Science 

Centennial Drive, above UC Berkeley Campus 

Professor Smart shrinks his head, has toilet paper flying, juggles and has the audience’s hair standing on end all the while demonstrating the principles of physics. $3 - $7. 642-5132, www.lawrencehallofscience.org 

Thursday, Dec. 27 

Slapstick with Derique 

1 p.m. 

Lawrence Hall of Science 

Centennial Drive, above UC Berkeley Campus 

Ham Bone body drumming, physical comedy, and circus arts are sure to stimulate your “funny bone” as New Vaudeville artist Derique lets you into his hip style of circus arts. $3 - $7. 642-5132, www.lawrencehallofscience.org 

– Compiled by Guy Poole 

, Dec. 28 

World Rhythms 

1 p.m. 

Lawrence Hall of Science 

Centennial Drive, above UC Berkeley Campus 

Japanese taiko, African marimba and djembe, Middle Eastern dumbek, Afro-Cuban chekere, and conga drums celebrate musical traditions from around the world. $3 - $7. 642-5132, www.lawrencehallofscience.org 

Saturday, Dec. 29 

Magic Show 

1 p.m. 

Lawrence Hall of Science 

Centennial Drive, above UC Berkeley Campus 

Jay Alexander performs his magical mixture of comedy and illusion with special effects that will entertain visitors of all ages. $3 - $7. 642-5132, www.lawrencehallofscience.org 

Sunday, Dec. 30 

Music and Storytelling 

1 p.m. 

Lawrence Hall of Science 

Centennial Drive, above UC Berkeley Campus 

Familiar nursery rhymes and fairy tales come to life in musical stories by children’s performer Dennis Hysom. $3 - $7. 642-5132, www.lawrencehallofscience.org 

Monday, Dec. 31 

New Year’s Eve Party 

1 p.m. 

Lawrence Hall of Science 

A daytime holiday party for kids featuring lots of hands-on activities. $3 - $7. 642-5132, www.lawrencehallofscience.org 

ONGOING EVENTS 

Sundays 

West Berkeley Market 

11 a.m. - 5 p.m. 

University Ave., between 3rd and 4th Streets  

Family-oriented weekly market. Crafts, music, produce, and specialty foods. 

654-6346  

Mondays 

Tuesdays 

Easy Tilden Trails (?) 

9:30 a.m. 

Tilden Regional Park, in the parking lot that dead ends at the Little Farm 

Join a few seniors, the Tuesday Tilden Walkers, for a stroll around Jewel Lake and the Little Farm Area. Enjoy the beauty of the wildflowers, turtles, and warblers, and waterfowl. 

215-7672; members.home.co 

m/teachme99/tilden/index.html 

Berkeley Farmers’ Market 

2-7 p.m. 

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

548-3333 

Berkeley Camera Club 

7:30 p.m. 

Northbrae Community Church, 941 The Alameda 

Share your slides and prints and learn what other photographers are doing. Monthly field trips. 525-3565. 

Wednesdays  

Toddler Storytime 

7 p.m. 

West Berkeley Library 

1125 University Ave 

For families with children three years or younger, a program to expose the youngest readers to multicultural stories, songs and finger plays. 

Every Wednesday through Nov 28 

Thursdays 

Free Anonymous HIV Testing (?) (?) 

5:15 - 7:15 p.m. 

Check in 5 - 7 p.m. 

University Health Services 

Tang Center  

2222 Bancroft Way 

Drop-in services and limited space is available.  

Call 642-7202  

Fridays 

Saturdays 

Berkeley Farmers’ Market 

10 a.m. - 3 p.m. 

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

548-3333 

Poets Juan Sequeira and Wanna Thibideux Wright 

Free Sailboat Rides  

1 - 4 p.m. 

Cal Sailing Club 

Berkeley Marina 

The Cal Sailing Club, a nonprofit sailing and windsurfing cooperative, gives free rides on a first come, first served basis. Wear warm clothes and bring a change of clothes in case you get wet. Children must be at least five years old and accompanied by an adult. 208-5460, www.cal-sailing.org. 

2002: Jan.6; Feb. 3; March 3; April 14, 27; May 12, 26; June 9, 23; July 4, 14; Aug. 4, 18; Sept. 8,22; Oct. 6; Nov. 10; Dec. 8;

Study parking 

Editor: 

December 14, the Downtown Berkeley Association submitted 622 petition signatures to the Mayor and City Councilmembers opposing General Plan Policy T-35 and urging a balanced approach to parking in the downtown. Within a two week period, downtown businesses collected these signatures from their customers. Around 90 percent of the signatures are Berkeley residents. 

The petition calls for: encouraging the use of public transit; preserving the existing parking supply; studying the need for new parking in the downtown; removing General Plan policy T-35 that prohibits the city from spending funds to increase the number of parking spaces in the Downtown. 

Deborah Badhia 

Downtown Berkeley Association 

924 Gilman Dec. 21: Kepi, Bonfire Madigan, Kevin Seconds; Dec. 22: The Lab Rats, Onetime Angels, A great Divide, Last Great Liar, Gabriel’s Ratchet; Dec. 23: 5 p.m., Over My Dead Body, Panic,Breaker, Some Still Believe; All shows start a 8 p.m. unless noted; Most are $5; 924 Gilman St. 525-9926 

The Albatross Pub Dec. 18: Panacea; Dec. 19: Whiskey Brothers; Dec. 20: Keni “El Lebrijano”; Dec. 27: Keni “El Lebrijano”; All shows start at 9 p.m., 1822 San Pablo Ave. 843-2473  

Anna’s Dec. 18: Tangria Jazz Trio; Dec. 19: Bob Schoen Jazz Quartet; Dec. 20: Jazz Singers’ Collective; Dec. 21: Anna and Percy Scott on piano; 10 p.m., Bluesman Hideo Date; Dec. 22: Jazz Singer Robin Gregory; 10 p.m., The Distones Jazz Sextet; Dec. 23: Jazz Singer Ed Reed; All music starts 8 p.m. unless noted. 1801 University Ave., 849-2662. 

Ashkenaz Dec. 18: 8 p.m., Tom Rigney & Flambeau, $8; Dec. 19: 8 p.m., The Earls, $10; Dec. 20: 8 p.m., Darol Anger, Scott Nygaard and the Improbables, $8; Dec. 21: 8 p.m., “Celebrating the Life of David Nadel,” Aux Cajunals, Nigerian Bros., Tropical Vibrations, $8; Dec. 22: 9:30 p.m., Sensa Samba, $11; 1317 San Pablo Ave., 525-5054, www.ashkenaz.com.  

Club JJang-Ga Dec. 22: Heaven & Hell, Blue Period; Dec. 29: Deducted Value, 3rd Rail, Noiz, Un Sed; 400 29th Ave., Oakland, (925) 833-7820, savageproductionssl@ yahoo.com. 

Cal Performances Jan. 20: 3 p.m., Midori and Robert McDonald. $28 -$48. Zellerbach Hall, UC Berkeley, Bancroft Way at Telegraph. 642-9988 

Eli’s Mile High Club Every Friday, 10 p.m. Funky Fridays Conscious Dance Party with KPFA DJs Splif Skankin and Funky Man. $10; 3629 Martin Luther King Jr. Way, Oakland. 655-6661 

Freight & Salvage Coffee House Jan. 6: Allette Brooks. All shows begin 8 p.m., 1111 Addison St. Call 548-1761 for prices or see www.freightandsalvage.org.  

Julia Morgan Theatre Dec. 23: 7:30 p.m., an evening of Irish music and dance with Todd Denman and friends. $10, $5 children; Dec. 31: 8 p.m., New Year’s Eve Gala Concert, Program of classical favorites of the San Francisco Chamber Orchestra; Jan 11: 8 p.m. San Francisco Chamber Orchestra, sizzling program of classical party music; Jan. 12: 8:p.m., “Club Dance,” Teens come together to express their individual personalities and gifts as dancers. $10, Students and Seniors $6, Children ages 5 and under $6. Julia Morgan Theatre, 2640 College Ave., 845-8542, www.juliamorgan.org. 

Jupiter Dec. 19: Spectraphonic; Dec. 20: Joshi Marshal Project; Dec. 21: Crater; Dec. 22: Post Junk Trio; Dec. 27: Joshi Marshal Project; Dec. 28: Ben Krames & Candlelight Dub; Dec. 29: Berkeley Jazz School Presents: Kirk Tamura Trio; All shows are free and begin at 8 p.m. unless noted. 2181 Shattuck Ave., 843-7625, www.jupiterbeer.com. 

La Peña Dec. 23: 3:30 p.m, Café Domingo de Rumba, Free; La Peña, 3105 Shattuck Ave. 849-2568, www.lapena.org 

“Music on Telegraph” Dec. 22: Kaz Sasaki Duo, Blackberry Ginger, 2520 Durant; Dec. 23: Almadecor, Ann’s Kitchen, 2498 Telegraph Ave.; All shows 2 - 4 p.m., Free. 

Rose Street House Dec. 25: 3 p.m., Annual “Dykelah Escape-from-you-know-what-day Musical Extravaganza!”; Jan.17: 7:30 p.m., Allette Brooks. 1839 Rose St. 594-4000 x687, rosestreetmusic@ yahoo.com. 

Yoshi’s Jazz House Dec.18 - 23: Charlie Hunter; Dec. 26 - 31: New Year’s Fiesta, The Afro-Cuban Jazz Masters; Jan. 2 - 6: Charles Lloyd; Jan. 13: Jacqui Naylor Quartet; All shows at 8 p.m., and 10 p.m., unless noted. 510 Embarcadero West, Jack London Square, Oakland. Check for prices and Sunday Matinees, 238-9200, www.yoshis.com. 

Berkeley Symphony Orchestra Dec. 18: 8 p.m., under the direction of Maestro Kent Nagano, plus the world premiere of Ichiro Nodaira’s “Kodama” written for and featuring Mari and Momo Kodama. $21 - $45; Zellerbach Hall, UC Berkeley, 841-2800, jeaston@berkeleysymphony.org. 

“Dotha’s Juke Joint: Everett and Jones Barbeque” Dec. 21: 8 & 10p.m., Faye Carol and her Off the Hook Blues Band, $15; Jack London Square, 126 Broadway at Second St., reservations, 663-7668.  

The Oakland Interfaith Youth Gospel Choir’s 5th Annual Christmas Concert Dec. 22: 7 p.m., “The Reason Why We Sing”; The Regents Theater, Holy Names College, 3500 Mountain Blvd., Oakland, 839-4361, www.oigc.org. 

Blake’s Dec. 29: 11 p.m., Jack West & Curvature, $5; 2367 Telegraph Ave., 877-488-6533. 

First Congregational Church of Berkeley Jan. 6: 3 p.m., Stephen Genz in his West Coast debut; 2345 Channing Way, 527-8175, www.geocities.com/mostlybrahms. 

“Much Ado About Nothing” Through Jan. 8: Check theater for specific dates and times. Shakespeare’s classic romantic comedy chronicles a handful of soldiers returning from a winning battle to be greeted by a gaggle of giddy maidens. Directed by Brian Kulick. $10 - $54. Berkeley Repertory Theatre, 2025 Addison St. 647-2949 www.berkeleyrep.org 

“Every Inch a King” Jan. 11 through Feb. 9: Thur. - Sat. 8 p.m., Sun. 5 p.m.; Three sisters have to make a decision as their father approaches death in this comedy presented by the Central Works Theater Ensemble. $8 - $18. LeValls Subterranean, 1834 Euclid Ave. 558-1381 

“Murder Dressed in Satin” by Victor Lawhorn, ongoing. A mystery-comedy dinner show at The Madison about a murder at the home of Satin Moray, a club owner and self-proclaimed socialite with a scarlet past. Dinner is included in the price of the theater ticket. $47.50 Lake Merritt Hotel, 1800 Madison St., Oakland. 239-2252 www.acteva.com/go/havefun 

Pacific Film Archive Jan. 3: 7 p.m., 9 p.m., Unfinished Song; Jan. 4: 7 p.m., 9:15 p.m., Going By; Jan. 5: 7 p.m., 9 p.m., Under the Moonlight; Jan. 6: 1p.m., 3 p.m., Paper Airplanes, 5:30 Shrapnels in Peace; Jan.10: 7 p.m., 9 p.m., ABC Africa; Jan.11: 7:30 p.m., The Girl at the Monceau Bakery and Suzanne’s Career, 9:05 p.m. The Sign of the Lion with Place de l’Etoile; Jan. 12: 7p.m., La Collectionneuse, 8:50 p.m., My Night at Maud’s; Jan.13: 1p.m., 3p.m., Os 

“Veiled and Revealed” Through Dec. 23: Human beings, costumed in native dress are captured by visual artists in a seven-person exhibit. Sat. Dec. 8, 15, and 23, 11 a.m. - 5 p.m. Free. Simultaneously showing at ART-A-FACT, 1109 Addison St., and Metaversal Lightcraft, 1708 University Ave. 848-1985 

“Images of Innocence and Beauty” Dec. 19 through Jan. 8: An exhibit featuring Kathleen Flannigan’s drawing and furniture - boxes, tables, and mirrors, all embellished with images of the beauty and innocence of the natural world. Addison Street Windows, 2018 Addison St. 

“From With These Walls” Jan. 5: Educational studio opening celebration gallery show of student works in steel, bronze, aluminum, cast iron, glass, neon, ceramic, stone and paper; jewelry. The Crucible, 1036 Ashby St. (Entrance is one block south on Murray St.) 843-5511, fran@thecrucible.org. 

“Carving, Canvas, Color: Art of Julio Garcia and Wilbert Griffith” Through Jan.12: Brightly colored wooden figures and colorfully detailed paintings. Gallery is open by appointment and chance, most weekdays 10:30 a.m. - 4 p.m.; The Ames Gallery, 2661 Cedar St., 845-4949, amesgal@home.com 

“Matrix 195” Through Jan. 13: German artist, Thomas Scheibitz’s, first solo museum exhibition in the United States showcases semi-abstract representations of everyday objects and landscapes. Wed., Fri. - Sun. 11 a.m. - 5 p.m., Thur. 11 a.m. - 9 p.m. $3-$6. Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, 2626 Bancroft Way, 642-0808 www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

Ardency Gallery, Mark J. Leavitt, “Analogous Biology: Balance and Use,” Dec. 20 through Jan. 19; Tue. - Sat., 11 a.m. - 5 p.m., 709 Broadway, Oakland. 836-0831, www.artolio.com. 

GTU Exhibit: “Holocaust Series” by Cleve Gray Through Jan. 25: Comprised of 21 works on paper that constitute “a catharsis... for all of humanity.” Mon. - Thurs. 8:30 a.m. - 9:45 p.m., Fri. 8:30 a.m. - 6 p.m., Sat. 10 a.m. - 6 p.m., Sun. noon - 7 p.m.; Free. Flora Lamson Hewlett Library, Graduate Theological Union, 2400 Ridge Rd. 649-2541 www.gtu.edu 

Pro Arts: “Juried Annual 2001-02” Dec. 19 through Feb. 2: An exhibition of painting, sculpture, mixed media, photography and more by Bay Area and  

regional artists. Pro Arts, 461 Ninth St., www.proartsgallery.org. 

Traywick Gallery: “New Work by Dennis Begg and Steve Briscoe” Jan. 5 through Feb. 9: Dennis Begg’s sculpture explores memory as the building block of consciousness, learning and experience. Steve Brisco’s paintings on paper address issues of identity through evocative combinations of text and imagery. Tues. - Sat. 11 a.m. - 6 p.m., 1316 10th St. 527-1214 

“Enduring Wisdom: Artwork and Stories by Homeless and Formerly Homeless Seniors” Through Feb. 15: 18 homeless and formerly homeless elders reveal how they learned and applied wisdom that is timeless. Mon. - Fri. and Sundays 11 a.m. - 2 p.m. Reception and presentation by the elders Thurs. Nov. 15, 4 p.m. - 6 p.m. Free. St. Mary’s Center, 635 22nd St., Oakland, 893-4723 x222 

“Ansel Adams in the University of California Collections” Dec. 12 through Mar. 10: A selection of photographs and memorabilia presenting a different perspective on Adam’s career as one of the leading figures in American photography. Wed, Fri. - Sun. 11 a.m. - 5 p.m., Thur. 11 a.m. - 9 p.m. $4- $6. The University of California, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, 2626 Bancroft Way, 642-0808, www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

“Migrations: Photographs by Sebastiao Salgado” Jan. 16 through Mar. 24: Over 300 black-and-white photographs of immigrants and refugees taken by the Brazilian photographer. Wed. - Sun. 11 a.m. - 7 p.m. $4 - $6. The University of California, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, 2626 Bancroft Way. 642-0808, www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

"Earthly Pleasures" assemblage and photographs by Susan Danis, Jan. 11 through March 30: 10 a.m. - 6 p.m., Mon. - Sat.; Sticks, 1579 B, Solano Ave., 526-6603.  

“The Art History Museum of Berkeley” Masterworks by Guy Colwell Faithful copies of several artists from the pasts, including Titian’s “The Venus of Urbino,” Cezanne’s “Still Life,” Picasso’s “Woman at a Mirror,” and Botticelli’s “Primavera” Ongoing. Call ahead for hours. Atelier 9, 2028 Ninth St., 841-4210, www.atelier9.com. 

Readings 

Cody’s on Telegraph Ave. Jan. 8: Theodore Hamm discusses “Rebel and a Cause: Caryl Chessman and the Politics of the Death Penalty”; Jan. 10: Joan Frank reads from her new book, “Boys Keep Being Born”; Jan. 11: Christopher Hitchens, “Letters to a Youn Contrarian”; Jan. 14: Pamela Logan talks about “Tibetan Rescue: A Woman’s Quest to Save the Fabulous Art Treasures of Pewar Monastery”; All events are free and start at 7:30 p.m. unless noted. 2454 Telegraph Ave., 845-7852. 

Coffee With A Beat - Word Beat reading series Dec. 22: Debra Grace Khattab, Jesy Goldhammer; Dec. 29: Steve Arntson, Michelle Erickson, Clare Lewis; All readings are free and begin at 7 p.m., 458 Perkins, Oakland, 526-5985, www.angelfire.com/poetry/wordbeat. 

“World Ground Poetry” Dec.19: 7-9 p.m., Featuring Abdul Kenyatta & Paradise Freejahlove Supreme; World Ground Cafe, 3726 Mac Arthur Blvd., 482-2933, www.worldgrounds.com. 

Tours 

Golden Gate Live Steamers Grizzly Peak Boulevard and Lomas Cantadas Drive at the south end of Tilden Regional Park Small locomotives, scaled to size. Trains run Sun., 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Rides: Sun., noon to 3 p.m., weather permitting. 486-0623  

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Fridays 9:30 - 11:45 a.m. or by appointment. Call ahead to make reservations. Free. University of California, Berkeley. 486-4387 

Museums 

Habitot Children’s Museum “Back to the Farm” An interactive exhibit gives children the chance to wiggle through tunnels, look into a mirrored fish pond, don farm animal costumes, ride on a John Deere tractor and more. “Recycling Center” Lets the kids crank the conveyor belt to sort cans, plastic bottles and newspaper bundles into dumpster bins; $4 adults; $6 children age 7 and under; $3 for each additional child age 7 and under. Mon. and Wed., 9:30 a.m. to 1 p.m.; Tues. and Fri., 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Thur., 9:30 a.m. to 7 p.m.; Sat., 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Sun., 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. 2065 Kittredge St. 647-1111 or www.habitot.org  

Oakland Museum of California “Kwanzaa Community Celebration” Dec. 30: 12-4 p.m.,Nia Kwanzaa is an African American holiday that honors black family history; Through Jan. 13: Grand Lyricist: The Art of Elmer Bischoff, featuring paintings and works on paper that trace the evolution of Bischoff’s career. $6 adults, $4 seniors and students, free for children under 5. Wed. - Sat. 10 a.m. - 5 p.m., Sun. noon - 5 p.m., 10th St., Oakland, 888-625-6873/ www.museumca.org 

UC Berkeley Museum of Paleontology Lobby, Valley Life Sciences Building, UC Berkeley “Tyrannosaurus Rex,” ongoing. A 20 foot by 40 foot replica of the fearsome dinosaur made from casts of bones of the most complete T. Rex skeleton yet excavated. When unearthed in Montana, the bones were all lying in place with only a small piece of the tailbone missing. “Pteranodon” A suspended skeleton of a flying reptile with a wingspan of 22-23 feet. The Pteranodon lived at the same time as the dinosaurs. Free. Mon. through Fri., 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Sat. and Sun., 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. 642-1821 

UC Berkeley Phoebe Hearst Museum of Anthropology will close its exhibition galleries for renovation. It will reopen in early 2002.  

University of California Berkeley Art Museum Pacific Film Archive has reopened after its summerlong seismic retrofit. “Martin Puryear: Sculpture of the 1990s” through Jan. 13; “The Dream of the Audience: Theresa Hak Kyung Cha (1951 - 1982)” through Dec. 16; “Face of Buddha: Sculpture from India, China, Japan, and Southeast Asia” ongoing rotation through 2003; “Matrix 194: Jessica Bronson, Heaps, layers, and curls” Sept. 16 through Nov. 11; “Matrix 192: Ceal Floyer 37’4”” Sept. 16 through Nov. 11; Wed., Fri., Sat., Sun. 11 a.m. - 5 p.m., Thur. 11 a.m. - 9 p.m., PFA Theater, 2575 Bancroft Way; Museum Galleries 2626 Bancroft Way; 642-0808 www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

Lawrence Hall of Science Dec. 26: 1 p.m., Professor Smart’s Fun with Physics Show; Dec. 27: 1 p.m., Slapstick with Derique; Dec. 28: 1 p.m., Rhythmix; Dec. 29: 1 p.m., Magic with Jay Alexander; Dec. 30: 1 p.m., Music and Storytelling with Dennis Hysom; Dec. 31: 1 p.m., New Year’s Eve Party, special daytime holiday party for kids; Dec. 26 through 31: Free Energy Star compact fluorescent light bulb; Through Jan. 26: Scream Machines: The Science of Roller Coasters; “Within the Human Brain,” ongoing. Visitors test their cranial nerves, play skeeball, master mazes, match musical tones and construct stories inside a simulated “rat cage” of learning experiments. “Saturday Night Stargazing,” First and third Saturdays each month. 8 - 10 p.m., LHS plaza; Open daily, 10 a.m. - 5 p.m., $7 for adults; $5 for children 5-18; $3 for children 3-4. Centennial Drive, UC Berkeley, 642-5132, www.lawrencehallofscience.org. 642-5132. 

Holt Planetarium Programs are recommended for age 8 and up; children under age 6 will not be admitted. $2 in addition to regular museum admission. “Constellations Tonight” Ongoing. Using a simple star map, learn to identify the most prominent constellations for the season in the planetarium sky. Daily, 3:30 p.m. $7 general; $5 seniors, students, disabled, and youths age 7 to 18; $3 children age 3 to 5 ; free children age 2 and younger. Daily 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Centennial Drive, UC Berkeley 642-5132 or www.lhs.berkeley.edu  

Send arts events two weeks in advance to Calendar@berkeleydailyplanet.net, 2076 University, Berkeley 94704 or fax to 841-5694.

After more than two years of public meetings and workshops, the City Council is expected to approve three sections of the Draft General Plan tonight. In question, however, is whether the council will move forward on four other proposed amendments, put forward by Ecocity Builders. 

Once approved, the plan will govern development, housing and environmental management for the next 20 years. 

While only the housing section of the draft plan faces a state-imposed deadline of Dec. 31, the council agreed two weeks ago to also approve the transportation and land-use sections tonight during its last meeting of the year. 

Prior to approving various proposed amendments, the council will have to work through several controversial policies, including a two-year moratorium on studying the need for additional public parking downtown, a policy calling for the definition of “cultural use” for downtown commercial space – the inclusion of cultural space means a developer can builder higher than zoning permits – and a series of amendments proposed by the nonprofit Ecocity Builders.  

Ecocity’s mission is to reshape cities and towns to environmentally benefit community centers and surrounding areas. At the heart of its strategy is the theory of increasing density in central locations, thereby allowing the restoration of surrounding natural resources, such as open space, creeks and wetlands. 

Headquartered in Berkeley with about 200 members, Ecocity Builders submitted four policies to the City Council as possible amendments to the draft plan’s land-use section. According to Ecocity President Richard Register, the four amendments have been endorsed by more than 100 educational institutions, nonprofits and businesses.  

The amendments would add language promoting energy efficient and environmentally sustainable building designs and increase housing density in the downtown and along transit corridors while restoring and daylighting creeks citywide. 

Planning Commission Chair Rob Wrenn said many Ecocity proposals, such as creek restoration and green building practices, were already included in the Draft General Plan and that the four amendments had been rejected by the Planning Commission because the commissioners thought they were too complex to implement fairly and they presented a threat to the development of affordable housing. 

While some aspects of the proposed amendments have been included in amendments put forward by councilmembers, Senior Planner Andrew Thomas suggested the council approve the land-use element of the draft plan and then convene a task force to study proposed amendments. 

“The financial aspects for transfer development rights would be very complex, perhaps too complex for the council to simply add to the plan without more study,” Thomas said adding that the General Plan can be amended up to four times a year. “The task force can carefully consider the possibility and then make recommendations to the Planning Commission and the City Council.” 

According to Register, one of the most important amendments is the Transfer of Development Rights policy. The TDR would allow developers to add as many as five floors to downtown developments in exchange for purchasing property on or near Berkeley creeks for the purpose of daylighting or restoration. 

The Draft General Plan, as it is currently written, calls for the daylighting and restoration of the city’s five creeks as well as restricted development over and nearby waterways. 

But Register said a TDR policy would additionally facilitate creek restoration by offering incentives to developers. The policy would increase downtown building heights from a maximum of seven stories permitted in the draft plan – and also in force today – to as many as 12 stories. Register also advocates increasing height limits on transportation corridors, such as University and San Pablo avenues, from four stories to seven or eight stories. 

“Unless you add higher density to these areas, you’re not going to solve the environmental problems facing us in the future,” he said.  

But Wrenn said during the 50 public hearings, meetings and workshops the Planning Commission held over the last two years, the public did not express a willingness to increase downtown height limits. 

“Transfer Development Rights have shown success in rural areas but they won’t work so well in a built-up urban area, especially one where property values are so high,” Wrenn said. 

Thomas agreed saying the exchange of increased building height for a section of restored creek is a “very complicated” thing to work out. 

“It’s not like the affordable housing bonus where it’s cut and dry,” Thomas said. “In that case it’s very clear that if a developer includes 20 percent affordable housing in a project, the overall density can be increased by 25 percent.” 

Thomas said there is no similar ratio with creek restoration and that is why he suggested a task force to study the issue and possibly come up with practical recommendations that might make the TDR policy, or a variation of it, possible. 

Wrenn said another reason the TDR policy – and another Ecocity proposal that would have allowed developers to add floors to downtown projects by donating to an environmental restoration fund – was not added to the draft plan was a concern that the policies would compete with the city goal of creating more affordable housing by giving developers more choices for density bonuses.  

“We didn’t want to dilute the affordable housing density bonus,” he said. “We really want to encourage first and foremost the development of affordable housing as we didn’t think the TDR was appropriate to that.” 

Register argued that if the downtown height limits were increased enough, they could create more affordable housing and restore environmental habitat. 

“If you don’t allow increased density, I suppose it’s true,” he said then added. “It’s a simple matter of allowing higher buildings in the downtown.”

Ecocity plan pro-profit 

Editor: 

The letters from density flack Richard Register usually make me mad, but the most recent one made me cruel. It made me want to give him a concertina, a guitar, a mike stand and mikes, a large salad, a hot apple pie, and watch him take the bus over to San Francisco’s Laurel Street in the rain. 

The “EcoCities Amendment” is a disguise for developer profits at the expense of real people with real transportation needs. Let’s get real about wheels, or risk sacrificing the livability of our beautiful town. 

Carol Denney 

Berkeley 

A pedestrian was reportedly hit by a car Friday morning at the intersection of Russell Street and Claremont Avenue, the very spot where flags had been placed with much fanfare the day before in order to make pedestrians more visible as they cross the street. 

As a result, some are asking if flags are enough, and if more radical traffic re-engineering might be necessary on busy Claremont Avenue. 

The details of the accident, according to The Associated Press, are as follows:  

Pedestrian Susan Wood, 53, was struck at about 10 a.m. Friday by Maya Bacha of Pleasant Hill, who was driving a Jeep. Bacha was cited for failing to yield the right of way to a pedestrian. Wood sustained minor injuries. 

Police have not yet released a report on the incident and will not comment. 

One other pedestrian vs. vehicle accident at the Russell Street and Claremont Avenue intersection was reported in November 1999, according to statistics covering the five years between Jan. 1, 1994 and Dec. 31, 2000. During that time, 17 vehicle vs. vehicle accidents were recorded. Seven injuries and no deaths were recorded as a result of the accidents.  

Councilmember Polly Armstrong, the force behind the flags popping up at various intersections around the city, still believes that the heightened pedestrian visibility will pay off in the end. Her district covers the intersection of Claremont and Ashby avenues – a block north of Claremont Avenue and Russell Street – through which 20,000 cars pass each day.  

The councilmember said the flags were never intended as “the solution to pedestrian safety.” That’s up to drivers who need to pay more attention. And to pedestrians who, even though they’re carrying a flag, still need to make eye contact with drivers of oncoming vehicles to make sure they’re seen, she said. 

“It’s just a check mark on the side of the power of pedestrians (vs. cars),” Armstrong said. 

But there are those, such bicycle activist Sarah Syed, who say greater changes need to be made, such as re-engineering Claremont Avenue. A proposal came to the Transportation Commission a few years ago to make a section of the busy Claremont Avenue south of Ashby Avenue a two-lane, rather than four-lane street. Syed said it would have slowed down traffic. (The stretch of Claremont where the pedestrian was hit is already a two-lane street.)  

The plan was opposed by nearby neighbors and eventually defeated in the Transportation Commission. 

Re-engineering “is likely to be more effective than putting out little flags,” said Councilmember Kriss Worthington, who had no plans at present to bring back the controversial lane-reduction proposal to City Council. 

Dean Metzger, who lives in the Claremont neighborhood, recalled the fight over the plan. “It was going to back the traffic up to Oakland,” he said. “It’s the only street that still works in Berkeley.” 

The re-engineering might have slowed down the traffic, Armstrong said, but the question is not speed, at that intersection. Rather, it’s a problem of distracted drivers talking on their cell phones or changing CDs. 

Armstrong said she’s had a positive response to the flags from neighbors living near Russell and Claremont. “We’ve just got to keep trying. We all have to be more careful.” she said. 

“I feel good about the flags, but bad about Ms. Woods.” 

Ecocity plan pro-neighborhood 

Editor: 

Berkeley should include ALL FOUR provisions of the proposed Ecocity Amendment in its’ General Plan update. Fears that the EcoAmendment would transform Berkeley into a glorified farm hostile to adequate housing, neighborhood integrity, and historic preservation are rendered groundless by a reasonably awake reading of the actual Amendment or a conversation with its sponsors.  

A significant net increase in affordable and market-rate housing as part of a viable, lively, diverse, “mixed-income/mixed-use,” and transit-oriented development downtown, as well as in other districts, would appear to be a cornerstone of the amendment, if what I’m reading is English in Policy Provision No. 3.  

And homeowners in Berkeley can relax – Policy No. 4 charts a course of gradual, voluntary, market-driven conversion of certain creek corridors and likely park and community garden sites into urban greenspace, which ought to add to surrounding residential property values. It is not out to destroy the value of single-family homes, or gobble up our cozy neighborhoods. On the contrary, we’d gain a number of additional assets in the mold of the Karl Linn Community Garden and Strawberry Creek Park.  

No, the EcoAmendment doesn’t seem to be out to assassinate our architectural heritage. The preservation and re-use of our John Galen Howards, Julia Morgans, and other historic buildings is readily acknowledged to be desirable and completely consistent with ecological redevelopment by none other than Richard Register and Kirstin Miller, principals in the EcoAmendment’s parent organization, Ecocity Builders.  

How do I know all this? I actually read the EcoAmendment myself.  

Sales for durable goods rose an amazing 12.8 percent during the month of October 2001, the largest-ever increase in sales in U.S. history. According to the U.S. Census Bureau’s Consumer Index Report,(http://www.census.gov/indicator/www/m3/adv/priorrel.htm) the vast majority of those purchases (more than 9 percent, or $15.3 billion) were the sale of cars and trucks. The bulk of those sales were for pick-up trucks and sport utility vehicles, or SUVs. 

Heavy advertising campaigns equating the purchase of a new truck or SUV with patriotism, combined with interest-free financing helped to spur record sales. However, the impact of these vehicles on the environment has yet to be calculated. 

The average SUV gets 17.5 miles-per-gallon (averaged between all makes and models’ city and highway driving, according to the U.S. Department of Energy – see http://www.fueleconomy. gov). By giving up a car that gets 25 miles per gallon, you will lose seven and one-half miles for every gallon of gas you burn. In an 18-gallon tank, that SUV will stop 135 miles short. Over the life of the vehicle, say, 100,000 miles, this will cost the owner an extra 1,714 gallons of gasoline to drive the same distance. At a conservative $1.55 per gallon, that’s more than a year’s tuition at UC Berkeley. 

It should also be noted that burning those 1,714 gallons of gasoline will produce more than 17 tons of greenhouse gasses, which contribute to global warming. The resultant air pollution will contribute to the destruction of the ozone, and to an increase in diseases related to increased vehicle emissions, such as asthma and cancer. And that is assuming the vehicle’s mileage doesn’t decline as it ages. 

Is there a better way to buy a new, and perhaps more reliable vehicle than to purchase a vehicle with so many downsides? New passenger vehicles have just as many safety features, and get better mileage than SUVs and trucks. The Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards for passenger cars, currently set at 27.5 mpg, has not been increased since the 1986 model year, but there are Congressional efforts aimed at increasing the standard to around 40 mpg. To find out how much money you’d save by getting 40 mpg over your existing rate, go to the Sierra Club’s web site http://www.sierraclub.org/iwantmympg/calculator.asp and perform the calculation. Increased mileage improves the air we all breathe, and will save you thousands of dollars during the life of the vehicle.  

Hybrid vehicles are a realistic option, and are now available from several manufacturers. These vehicles use a combination of gas and electricity – when the electric batteries need charging, the gasoline motor takes over to run the vehicle and charge the batteries. Once the batteries are charged, the gasoline engine switches off, allowing the electric motor to take over again. At this time, there are no hybrid vehicles that allow the user to plug in the car and charge the batteries using household current or solar energy. 

Other alternative fuel vehicles include the fuel cell vehicle. Fuel cells are powered by hydrogen, and are even more efficient than electric hybrid vehicles. However, hydrogen is extremely flammable – the flame from burning hydrogen is ultraviolet light and invisible to the eye. Many details still need to be worked out to make it safe for the consumer, but progress is being made. Recently, a German scientist developed a method for creating hydrogen on board in small amounts, eliminating some of the dangers of carrying large quantities of hydrogen. (See http://www.dwelle.de for details.) 

If you are in need of a vehicle, there is an easy way to compare mileage for all makes and models of cars from 1986 and newer. The Department of Energy has teamed up with the Environmental Protection Agency and created a web site (http://www.fueleconomy.gov) that will let you compare mileage in all categories of cars and trucks. This is especially handy when considering purchasing a used vehicle – many older vehicles, such as the1994 Honda Civic, get better mileage than new vehicles (the 1994 Civic gets 40 mpg in the city, 47 on the highway.) 

Car sharing programs in the Bay Area offer the convenience of driving a new car without the hassle of ownership. Using a car-share program means you don’t have to pay for gasoline or oil, monthly car payments or insurance payments. You only pay for the time (about $2.50 per hour) and mileage (about $0.45 per mile) you put on the vehicle, plus a small monthly fee ($10.00 currently) and a refundable deposit of $300.00. Contact City Car Share at http://www.citycarshare.org for more information on car sharing programs in the East Bay. 

An alternative to purchasing a new vehicle is to have your old one tuned up and maintained to perform better, and increase its mileage. The amount of embodied energy (energy used to manufacture a product) is considerable in a new car or truck, so not purchasing one until you actually need a new one may be the best way to save money and energy.  

Public transportation is a great option, offering a way to relax and read while commuting instead of sitting in traffic jams, and the cost and availability of parking at your destination. 

By far, the best option is to bicycle or walk when you can while running errands or commuting. It’s great exercise (save on those health club fees), lets you get to know your neighborhood, and helps reduce your stress levels, blood pressure and increase metabolism. For every gallon of gasoline you save by walking or bicycling, twenty pounds of atmospheric pollution is saved. 

For more information on energy and transportation, visit the City of Berkeley’s Energy Office Web site at http://www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/ENERGY.

There was some good transportation news in the Planet recently. Berkeley is providing the Eco-Pass to employees; several hundred have signed up, and will presumably be riding the bus for free. Earlier, the UC students voted to re-approve their “class pass”, even when the rate went up. 

But the car culture is still firmly in control. City streets are still snarled with traffic; most people still choose the car over the bus for all trips. 

It looks likely that the General Plan will not have a moratorium on more parking downtown. Berkeley looks likely to make policy T-35 meaningless, by eliminating the moratorium on new parking, and probably by not doing much of anything to improve public transit. 

Given the prevalent car-first attitude toward transportation, I can hardly blame downtown enterprises for pushing for more parking, or our Council for gutlessly going along. More parking is sure to bring more congestion, but the fact is that most people don’t care. 

The Eco-Pass is a great idea, but people still need good transit to ride. Parking gets most of the political attention, while public transit gets mostly lip service. Of course traffic will keep getting worse if public policy pours on the cars, and compounds the problem by leaving the buses to fight the resulting congestion. 

If we must endure all the cars, and provide them with parking, I think we should have bus-only lanes on major transit corridors like Shattuck, University and San Pablo. Elsewhere, these dedicated lanes have made a huge difference in transit service. BART keeps such a good schedule only because BART has a dedicated right-of-way. 

Among the issues the City Council will consider during its last meeting of the year will be an authorization for the city manager to increase a contract with Eden Council for Hope and Opportunity, Inc. by $50,000 to run the city’s Homelessness Prevention Program. The HPP program has already exhausted its annual $110,000 per year allocation due to an increase of clients. 

The HPP program is designed to assist people at risk of becoming homeless by providing cash and non-cash emergency assistance to those who can demonstrate they are in danger of losing their homes.  

According to the report, the HPP has seen an increase of clients since the e