After months of negotiations, Berkeley has reached a tentative six-year contract with its four municipal labor unions representing 60 percent of the city’s work force, city and union leaders said Monday. 

When final, the 1,119 union members who range from secretaries to engineers will get 28.5 percent raises over six years – nearly as high as the 31.5 percent increase awarded to police officers last year. 

Getting parity with public safety employees was a main point of contention in contract negotiations that began in January. Their last contract expired July 6. Since then union workers have been under terms of their old contract. The new contract will be retroactive to the July expiration date. 

The deal ushers in an era of relative labor peace in Berkeley. With the police union signing a six-year deal, and the municipal unions now in fold, the city’s labor costs are nearly fixed through 2007. Only the firefighters’ contract, which expires in 2004, looms.  

Locking up long-term union contracts benefits the city, said Dave Hodgkins, a city employee relations officer. He said that with the labor costs fixed, city officials can more accurately forecast future budgets. 

The deal is expected to win official approval from union members and City Council next month. 

Two unions, Local 1245 of International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, which represents city electricians, and the Local 790 of Service Employees International Union (SEIU), which represents clerical workers, have already ratified the agreement. 

The two other unions, Local 535 of SEIU, which represents social workers and planners, and Local One of the Public Employees Union, which represents professionals, will vote on the contract this week. 

Following union approval, City Council is expected to approve the contract. 

The contract provides for a cumulative 28.5 percent raise over six years. The workers will receive 6 percent in year one, 3.5 percent in year two, 5 percent in year three, 4 percent in year four and 5 percent in each of years five and six. 

Additionally, the city will maintain its policy of boosting salaries when workers with similar job descriptions in nearby communities earn more money. 

The new contract also enhances employee benefit packages. A new formula to calculate pension benefits will will result in a roughly 24 percent annual increase for workers 55 and older.  

To fund the pension increase, the city must increase the employee contribution to the program paid by all city workers from 7 percent to 8 percent. Because the pension provision will affect all city workers, not just employees in the four unions, it thus requires a separate vote by city employees. The vote is scheduled for next week. 

Union members say they are excited to put the negotiations behind them. 

“We’re very happy with the deal,” said Rick Chan, a shop Steward with the electrician’s union. “We feel we’re just as important as policemen and firefighters.” 

Recently the City Council heard a request from members of the community to place a charter amendment on the November ballot requiring the school district to conduct performance audits. The city attorney responded by asking an attorney with experience in this area for an opinion as to whether the city has the power to do this. The reply was that the district is already required to provide a “yearly audit of its books and performance,” and that there was no evidence that the current audit structure needed to be fixed or that the request to require a performance audit was workable. As a consequence, the proposal was derailed and sent to the Joint City-School District “2x2” Committee and the superintendent of schools. The council also directed staff to seek a further opinion from the Attorney General.  

Throughout the discussion, opinions were expressed, pro and con. Frankly little light was shed and the main point, establishing accountability, seems to have been lost. Our schools are probably our community's most important asset. We all pretty much agree that if we don't have good schools, we lose as a community. We also seem to agree that our schools urgently need as much community support as possible. Performance audits will help us pinpoint the problems. It isn't a question of costs, legalities, or individual personalities. It is a question of how best to proceed to fix the problems. A financial audit will tell us what the dollars were spent on, but a performance audit will dig deeper into the details of how and why the dollars were spent and the results those dollars achieved. 

We know the district is in financial trouble and we have read in the papers some of the reasons for that. It is the responsibility of everyone in the community to rally around our schools and to offer them support. It is also our duty to ensure that productive change occurs. Such change is occurring under the new superintendent and the school board, but to restore public confidence, we must ensure that the process is clear, understandable, verifiable and independent.  

If the governor signs AB 2859 (Aroner), the Fiscal Crisis Management Team that comes may be able to do this through their comprehensive assessment process in which they closely examine such areas as governance, community relations, personnel, facilities, and academics. This comprehensive assessment process may produce the same information as a performance audit. However, the public must still be assured that this will adequately meet their concerns, and that recommendations from this process will result in permanent and constructive change. This process must be a true partnership of board, superintendent, staff, parents and students and community, all pulling together with the common goal of supporting and improving our schools. Secondly, safeguards need to be in place so that the recommendations of the assessment team will be implemented and continue after the team leaves. This process must be open and above reproach if we are to achieve excellence in our schools. 

I am pleased that our city auditor has instituted a number of performance audits of city programs, and I encourage her to significantly expand this effort. In a time of a declining economy city and schools must spend our resources wisely to achieve the best possible result. The reason why I am disturbed enough to write this article urging the school district take similar action, is my distress over learning what had happened with the district's much-vaunted food policy and program. I am astonished to learn that in just one year the district ran approximately $1 million into debt for this one program and ended up serving more unhealthy meals today to fewer students than it did when the program started. 

It is just such issues that performance audits will examine so that real solutions can be found. That is what I am hoping to achieve. 

Recommending a performance audit should not be seen as a criticism of the school board or the superintendent, who are working hard on our behalf. In fact, I invite them all to join me in making sure performance audits are done, and then in making sure that solutions are developed and implemented. The time has come for performance audits to be done. It's a beginning step that I believe should be taken.  

Tuesday, Sept. 24 

Sustainable Business  

Alliance of the East Bay 

5:30 to 7:30 p.m. 

Panoramic Room of the Gaia Building  

Reception and talk by Mal Warwick of Mal Warwick Associates, entitled: “You Don’t Have to Choose: How One Company Does Good While Doing Well” 

282-5151 

members $8, nonmembers $12 

Vitamins, Minerals, and Nutritional  

Supplements: Possible Interactions with Medications 

1 p.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center  

1901 Hearst St. 

Discussed by Alic Meyers, RN 

981-5190 

Wednesday, Sept. 25 

Planning Commission workshop 

7 to 9:30 p.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center, corner of Hearst and Martin Luther King Jr. Way. 

Interactive roundtable discussion about issues, problems, and opportunities relating to density and land use in Berkeley. 

981-7481 

Berkeley Gray Panthers 

1:30 p.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center  

1901 Hearst St. 

Berkeley Gray Panthers general meeting.  

548-9696 

Saturday, Sept. 28 

Free Legal Workshop:  

“Crossroads: Health and the Law.” 

10 a.m. to 3 p.m. 

514 58th St. at Telegraph Avenue 

Navigate your way through legal issues when living with cancer or any serious illness. Panel presentation on employment, insurance and public benefits and one-on-one sessions with attorneys. Please, pre-register. 

601-4040, Ext. 102 for information  

or Ext. 103 to register 

Free  

Garage Sale/ Car Wash  

Belize/ Berkeley Scouts 

10 to 2 p.m. 

Epworth UMC, 1953 Hopkins St. 

International exchange fundraising effort for scouts. 

525-6058 

A Forum on the Arts with the Berkeley Mayoral Candidates 

11 a.m. to 1 p.m. 

Aurora Theater, 2081 Addison St. 

558-1381 

Free 

Tuesday, Sept. 24 

Zydego Flames 

7:30 p.m. 

Ashkenaz, 1317 San Pablo Ave. 

$8 door. 12 and under free. 

Wednesday, Sept. 25 

DP & Rhythm Riders 

9:30 p.m. 

Ashkenaz, 1317 San Pablo Ave. 

$15 door. 12 and under free. 

Karen Casey & the Niall Valley Trio 

8 p.m. 

Freight & Salvage, 1111 Addison St. 

548-1761 www.freightandsalvage.com 

$15.50 in advance. $16.50 at door 

Thursday, Sept. 26 

Kriby Grips, Michael Zapruder, Joe Bernson 

9:30 p.m. (21 and over) 

The Starry Plough, 3101 Shattuck Ave. 

841-1424 

$5 

Martin Hayes & Dennis Cahill 

8 p.m. 

Freight & Salvage, 1111 Addison St. 

548-1761 or www.freightandsalvage.com 

$19.50 in advance. $20.50 at door 

Friday, Sept. 27 

The Cracked Normans,  

Paradigm & Soul Americana 

9:30 p.m. (21 and over) 

The Starry Plough, 3101 Shattuck Ave. 

841-1424 

$5 

Eric Bogle 

8 p.m. 

Freight & Salvage, 1111 Addison St. 

548-1761 or www.freightandsalvage.com 

$16.50 in advance. $17.50 at door. 

Fair Weather, Liars  

Academy and Open Hand 

8 p.m. 

924 Gilman St. 

525-9926 

$5 

Reggae Angels with Earl Zero  

and Jah Light Music 

9:30 p.m. 

Ashkenaz, 1317 San Pablo Ave. 

$15 door. 12 and under free. 

Saturday, Sept. 28 

Barry & Alic Oliver 

8 p.m. 

Freight & Salvage, 1111 Addison St. 

548-1761 www.freightandsalvage.com 

$16.50 in advance. $17.50 at door. 

From Monument to Masses,  

Victory at Sea and Yesterday’s Kids 

8 p.m. 

924 Gilman St. 

525-9926 

$5 

"Balancing Acts" 

Through Oct. 10 

Gallery 555, 555 12th St., 

Oakland City Center 

Oakland's 'Third Thursday' art night features Ann Weber's works made of cardboard. 

http://www.oaklandcitycenter.com.  

Free. 

“Hunger: What will you do about it?”  

Through Oct. 30, Mon.-Fri.,  

9 a.m. to 5 p.m. 

The Civic Center Building 

2180 Milvia St., 5th floor 

Featuring 40 photographs  

by Berkeley artist David Bacon. 

834-3663, Ext. 338, uchanse@secondharvest.org 

Richard Misrach, Berkeley Work 

Though Oct. 13 

UC Berkeley Art Museum & Pacific Film Archive, 2626 Bancroft Way 

On view in Gallery 2, presents two photographic series by this internationally recognized Berkeley-based artist.  

642-0808, www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

$7. $5 BAM/PFA members.  

$4 UC Berkeley students. 

“Recent Acquisitions” 

Oct. 13 through Dec. 14 

Thurs., Fri., and Sat., 1 to 4 p.m. 

Berkeley Historical Society, Veterans Memorial Building, 1931 Center St. 

848-0181 

Free. 

Misch Kohn - Celebrating Sixty Years of Printmaking 

Through Oct. 16. Tues.-Fri., Noon to 5:30 p.m.; Sat., noon to 4:30 p.m. 

Kala Arts Institute, 1060 Heinz Ave. 

549-2977, kala@kala.org 

Nancy Salz 

Through Oct. 23, Tues.-Fri. 10 a.m.-5:30 p.m., Sat 10 a.m.-4 p.m. 

Barbara Anderson Gallery, 2243 5th St. 

848-3822 

Timoteo Ikoshy Montoya 

Through Nov. 1  

Reception Sept. 20, 6 to 8 p.m. 

Gathering Tribes Gallery  

1573 Solano Ave.  

Acrylic/air brush paintings  

by this Native American artist.  

528-9038 

Threads: Five artists who  

use stitching to convey ideas 

Oct. 6 through Dec. 15, Wed.-Sun., noon to 5 p.m. 

Berkeley Art Center 

Live Oak Park, 1275 Walnut St. 

Information: www.berkeleyartcenter.org, 644-6893 

Free. 

A Thousand and One Arabian Nights 

Through Sept. 28, Fri.-Sun. 8 p.m.; Sun. 4 p.m. 

Forest Meadows Outdoor Amphitheater, Grand Avenue at the Dominican University, San Raphael 

Marin Shakespeare Company’s  

presents this classic story with  

original Arabic music. 

415-499-4488 for tickets 

$12 for youth. $20 for seniors. $22 general. 

Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar 

Through Oct. 12 

Thurs. through Sat. 8 p.m. 

LaVal’s Subterranean Theatre  

1834 Euclid Ave. 

234-6046 

$10. 

The House of Blue Leaves 

Through Oct. 27 

Berkeley Rep's Roda Theater  

2015 Addison St.  

647-2917 or 888-4BRTTIX 

$10-$54. 

The Shape of Things 

Through Oct. 20 

Aurora Theatre Company  

2081 Addison St. 

Play by writer/director Neil LaBute's spins a morality tale of a young art student, his art major girlfriend, and the Pygmalion-like changes that bring into question how far one should go for love. 

843-4822, www.auroratheater.org for reservations 

$26-$35. 

Ceramics - Opening Reception 

Through Nov. 17 

3 to 5 p.m. 

A New Leaf Gallery, 1286 Gilman St. 

525-7621 

Free. 

Tuesday, Sept 24 

“Wild Splendors of California” 

7:30 p.m. 

Easy Going Travel Shop & Bookstore 

1385 Shattuck Ave. at Rose 

Lalo Fiorelli, photographer and author, will give a multimedia presentation and talk. 

843-3533 

Free. 

Wednesday, Sept 25 

Poetry Slam with Host Charles Ellik 

9:30 p.m. (21 and older) 

Featured poet: Daphne Gottlieb 

The Starry Plough, 3101 Shattuck Ave. 

841-2082 

$7. 

“Healing Our Hearts  

for the Sake of the World” 

7:30 p.m 

First Congregational Church  

2345 Channing Way 

A reading by Sylvia Boorstein. Proceeds support  

The East Bay Dharma Center. 

595-0408 

$5 to $10 

Thursday, Sept 26 

As ad AbuKahil 

7 p.m. 

Revolution Books, 2425 Channing Way 

Author reads and signs his new book “Bin Laden, Islam and America’s New War on Terrorism” 

848-1196 

Steinbeck, “The Grapes of Wrath,” and Labor Issues of Depression-Era California 

7:30 p.m.  

Easing Going Travel Shop and Bookstore, 1385 Shattuck Ave. 

843-3533 

Free.

Mia Jerkov could earn a salary playing volleyball right now but instead is leading Cal to its best start in 13 years. 

The 19-year-old sophomore from Split, Croatia, is a big reason why the Golden Bears, who had a 10-18 record last year, won their first nine matches this season. Jerkov, pronounced YAIR-cove, led the Bears with 152 kills and earned MVP honors in three tournaments as Cal won 27 straight games. 

Cal's 9-0 start matched what the Bears did in 1989, which was also the last time they had a winning season. However, just like the '89 team, Cal lost its 10th match, falling in three sets to Stanford last Friday night in Maples Pavilion. The Bears played the Cardinal close in the first two games, falling 30-28 and 30-25. Stanford, the defending national champion, closed out the final set 30-18. 

Jerkov led the Bears with 13 kills and had seven digs but wasn’t happy with her performance. 

“I was kind of looking for my own rhythm the whole match and couldn't find it,” she said. “We were struggling with them, battling. The first two games were really tight. If you ask, me we should've won those. But since Stanford is a much more experienced team, they battled and they won.” 

No matter what her rhythm, Cal coach Rich Feller is just glad to have her around. Jerkov played in only 10 games for Cal last year due to tendonitis in her left shin and commitments to the Croatian national team. 

That was a big hole to fill. 

“She's one of the top players out there,” Feller said. 

A 6-3, 157-pound outside hitter, Jerkov boasts an impressive resume: She is a member of the Croatian national team and has played in various youth and European championships. Jerkov comes from an athletic bloodline, as her 6-11 father, Zeljko, was a starting center on the Croatian national basketball team. 

Jerkov was playing for Croatia in the 1999 Youth World Championships in Portugal when she learned the Bears were trying to recruit her. Cal, along with USC, previously tried to contact Jerkov through Croatian officials, who did not pass on the news. Instead, Jerkov made her first Cal connection through a chance meeting with Cal assistant coach Lee Maes, then an assistant with the U.S. national team. The two ran into each other at an ice cream parlor in Madeira, Portugal, where Maes piqued her interest in playing in Berkeley. 

In 2000, Jerkov made a detour while visiting family friends in San Francisco. She watched as Cal lost to Florida, three games to one, in the Golden Bear Classic. 

Despite the loss, the Bears intrigued Jerkov. 

“I liked what I saw,” she said. “It was a good team and still is a good team.” 

Going to Cal was just one of her choices. Jerkov says that several Italian professional clubs – six teams in the first division and the entire second division – wanted to sign her up, based on her play with her national team. 

But she didn't want to sit on the bench in Italy, which boasts the best league in the world in which rookies tend to wait their turn behind veteran players. And she didn't want to play professionally anywhere else when she could hone her skills and get an education in the United States. 

“Going to Cal was the optimal solution,” she said. “It's a risk, because I want to play professionally afterwards, and you can never tell if you're going to develop into something great or something real bad. These are the crucial years as a player. That's one of the main reasons why I didn't choose Italy or a professional league. I didn't want to be that pressured and I wanted to feel normal about playing and developing myself as a player.” 

“We got lucky that this was the right school for her,” Feller said. “I don't think that happens unless we have something good to offer her here. She had to trust us that we were going to be good.”

Teachers and community leaders are fuming about a cost-cutting move to fold Berkeley High School’s historic African-American studies department into one or several other departments. 

“I think it’s the manifestation of white supremacy at its zenith,” said Robert McKnight, a teacher and former chair of the department. “We are not going to just completely acquiesce.” 

But Associate Superintendent of Educational Services Christine Lim said the district is not picking on African-American studies. She said the program is just one of several small departments the cash-strapped district, $3.9 million in debt, is consolidating to save money. 

The change, scheduled in the coming weeks, will not limit the number of black studies courses offered, but will deprive the department of a chairperson and meeting time. 

The move will bring an end to the first – and Berkeley educators say only – African-American studies department at a public high school in the nation. The department has been in place since 1968. 

The school district won approval for the change in August, during contract negotiations with the Berkeley Federation of Teachers over pay for department heads.  

During talks, the district called for the consolidation of any departments with fewer than 15 classes per year, erasing the need for several chairpersons and saving thousands of dollars. 

The union agreed to the move, in part as a trade-off to win “above average” compensation for the remaining department heads, according to BFT President Barry Fike.  

Department chairs, under the agreement, will receive stipends of $5,000, $3,750 or $2,250 depending on the size of their programs. 

The two sides signed the pact on Aug. 20, folding the African-American studies and English language learners programs into other, unspecified departments, and combining the visual and performing arts departments. 

Associate Superintendent of Educational Services Christine Lim said the district has not yet decided how to redistribute the effected teachers. The African-American studies program could be transferred wholesale into the social studies department or an African-American dance class could go to the physical education department while a literature class goes to English, she said. 

McKnight said he was deeply disappointed that neither the district nor the union consulted him on consolidation before signing the agreement. 

“That’s a tremendous slight and insult to the department,” he said. 

Lim said it is the union’s job, during negotiations, to keep its membership informed. 

“It’s a negotiated item, so [they] have representatives at the table,” she said. “Where the communications broke down would have been [with the union].” 

Fike acknowledged that he did not consult with the department heads during negotiations over the issue of consolidation. But he said consultation was unnecessary – BFT knew that members wanted to retain all the existing departments and the union, in turn, pushed to keep them in place. The district, he said, simply would not budge on the issue. 

“When you go into negotiations, you don’t always get what you want,” Fike said. 

Fike, who has also received complaints from members of the English language learners and arts departments, said he is willing to take the issue of consolidation back to the bargaining table. 

But Lim said the district is unlikely to sign a new agreement. 

“I seriously doubt we would look again at something that has been negotiated,” she said. 

Several members of the community expressed outrage over the consolidation and the district’s failure to consult with the African-American studies department. 

“It seems that, for the past year or so, the trend has been to make decisions and let people know after the fact,” said Michael Miller, a member of Parents of Children of African Descent (PCAD), a group active on school issues. 

“Once the students find out, there’s going to be a large uproar,” said Sean Dugar, a recent graduate of Berkeley High who is running for the Board of Education. “I’ll make sure of that.” 

School board members Shirley Issel and Terry Doran, when contacted by the Daily Planet, said they had not heard about the shift and did not have enough information to comment at length. But Doran voiced general support for the African-American studies department. 

“I have always supported the African-American studies department as a distinct department and I still believe that that’s important for the school,” he said. 

Superintendent Michele Lawrence was out sick Monday and was unavailable for comment. 

LOS ANGELES — Citing jury misconduct, a Los Angeles Superior Court judge on Monday ordered a new trial in the Oakland Raiders’ $1.2 billion conspiracy lawsuit against the National Football League. 

In a 9-3 vote last year, a Superior Court jury rejected the Raiders’ claims that the NFL sabotaged the team’s plans to build a new stadium in the Los Angeles area and that the team still owned the NFL rights to the Los Angeles market. 

The Raiders moved back to Oakland from Los Angeles in 1995 — 13 years after they moved south. 

The misconduct allegation was raised after five jurors in last year’s six-week trial said they overheard one member of the panel say he hated the Raiders and team owner Al Davis and would never vote in their favor, Raiders attorney Larry Feldman said. 

The ruling calling for a new trial was made by Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Richard C. Hubbell, who heard the first trial. 

“The Raiders are elated with the court’s decision and look forward to having an opportunity to try their case to a fair and impartial jury,” Feldman said. “The Raiders have always believed that they would be playing football games at a state-of-the-art stadium at Hollywood Park today if it were not for the NFL’s interference with their negotiations.” 

Feldman said a new trial date would be set Dec. 3. 

Feldman said the complaint was significant because the jury favored the NFL by a 9-3 vote. One additional vote for the Raiders would have resulted in a hung jury. 

“We’re disappointed. We will review the decision with our attorneys,” NFL spokesman Greg Aiello said from his New York City home. 

“We believe this is the right decision, a just decision,” Raiders chief executive Amy Trask said from her office in Oakland. “The NFL celebrated too soon.”

City Councilmember Linda Maio continues to explore the possibility of spaying and neutering Berkeley raccoons, considered a nuisance by many, despite a public outcry over the proposal. 

“I’m still quite concerned and I’m going to pursue this,” she said. 

Maio’s plan calls for trapping raccoons, neutering them and releasing them in the city. State regulations prohibit the city from releasing them outside of Berkeley. 

Critics say the council member should abandon the plan, deeming it unnecessary, unworkable and cruel. 

“I think it’s a loony idea,” said Nancy Ober, a member of the Berkeley Citizens Humane Commission. 

Maio, who has had her own problems with raccoons in a rental property she owns, said residents have reported an increase in raccoons knocking over trash cans and invading homes. 

But Kate O’Connor, manager of the city-run Animal Care Shelter, said there is no hard evidence of an increasing raccoon problem. 

Maio, who first floated the idea in August, said she needs to gather more information about the effectiveness of spaying and neutering before making a final decision on whether to bring a program before the City Council. 

Dr. Rene Gandolfi, a veterinarian with the Castro Valley Companion Animal Hospital, suggested that a program would probably not succeed. 

“In the immediate run, it will do no good, because you still have the same number of raccoons,” he said. 

Gandolfi said it would take eight to 10 years before the raccoons’ inability to reproduce would limit the size of the next generation and have any effect on the overall population. 

Gandolfi added that, even if the population eventually declined, raccoons from surrounding areas would simply fill the capacity, as long as there are enough food sources in the area. 

Eliminating those food sources, he said, is the best way to keep raccoons away. 

O’Connor urged residents to secure their garbage can lids and pick up dead fruit to cut off the food supply. 

Maio said educating the public on preventative measures is an important part of any strategy. At a minimum, the councilmember said, she will recommend a new public education effort at a City Council meeting in the next few weeks. 

But, she still holds out the possibility of adding a spaying and neutering program. Maio said a letter that appeared in the Daily Planet this weekend from a Berkeley resident who claimed to have received multiple rabies shots after a raccoon attack had added new urgency to the issue. 

The woman who wrote the letter could not be reached for comment. 

Gandolfi said the resident’s doctor may have administered rabies shots as a precaution, but that no raccoons on the West Coast have ever tested positive for rabies. 

O’Connor said any spaying and neutering program would tax city resources, requiring a significant increase in shelter staff. She added that the city does not have adequate facilities to house raccoons during the spaying and neutering process, which can take 24 to 48 hours. 

City Councilmember Dona Spring, known for advocating animal rights, said she would support a public education campaign but would not back a spaying and neutering effort. 

“We’ve been able to co-habitant with raccoons and skunks and possums for as long as I’ve been in Berkeley,” she said. 

OAKLAND — Terrence Long refused to pack enough for more than a week, figuring it could be bad karma. 

Besides, the outfielder is sure his Oakland Athletics will be at home in a week to start the playoffs, AL West title in hand. 

Not everyone was quite so confident as Oakland prepared for its final road trip of the regular season, starting Tuesday in Seattle. A sign in the clubhouse said: “Pack Warm. At NY?” 

The A’s hold a three-game lead over the Anaheim Angels in the division race and plan to maintain the same focus as they make their final push toward the postseason. 

Oakland can do no worse than the AL wild-card berth. But it would rather win the AL West, of course, and the team’s magic number for clinching the division is three. The A’s close with three games at Seattle and three at Texas. 

Lose the division title, and Oakland would head straight from Arlington, Texas, this weekend to New York to play the five-time defending AL East champion Yankees in the first round of the playoffs. 

“Too many things can still happen,” A’s manager Art Howe said. “We have the edge, but it’s up to us to take advantage.” 

His players celebrated quietly when they secured a playoff spot last week — and only once they’ve wrapped up the AL West will it be time to really have some fun.

Frank and Veronica Thomas stood in disbelief on the blood-stained Berkeley street where their 7-year-old granddaughter was struck on her bike by a police car while visiting a relative Saturday. 

They know that a police review says the lieutenant who hit her was driving within the speed limit. But the Thomas’ doubt it and plan to hire an investigator. 

The girl, who lives with her grandparents in Concord, remains in Children’s Hospital in Oakland recovering from a concussion and a broken left leg, they said. Her name is not being released because of her age. 

At Children’s Hospital the girl’s spirit is strong, said Veronica Thomas, but she has been sedated to deal with the pain. 

“She sees our faces and knows that someone is there,” Veronica Thomas said. “Sometimes she asks for her brother and her mother.” 

The accident occurred shortly before 2 p.m. on the 2100 block of Roosevelt Street. The girl was visiting her aunt who lives on the block.  

According to police, the girl was riding without a helmet on the sidewalk. She entered the street between two parked cars, so would have been hidden from view.  

Lt. Eric Gustafson was driving a cruiser northbound and did not stop in time. The girl collided with the right front bumper. The impact launched her over the roof of the car, police said. 

Judging from orange measurements drawn on the street by police and the location of dried blood, the Thomas’ estimated that their granddaughter rolled 35 feet from the impact point. 

Gustafson was driving within the 25 mph speed limit, Police Information Officer Mary Kusmiss said. 

California Highway Patrol officer L.D. White concurred. A preliminary review did not show any wrongdoing by the officer, White said. CHP is required to investigate traffic accidents involving city police officers. 

The Thomas’, though, are not convinced by police findings. Equipped with a tape measurer and a camera, they studied the accident scene to piece together what happened. 

“It’s hard to figure out,” said Veronica Thomas, who has questioned several eye witnesses. “Some said [Gustafson] was driving too fast and some said he was driving 20 mph.” 

A full CHP report is expected to be completed within two weeks, but the Thomas’ aren’t taking much stock in the findings. 

“Were going to get an investigator,” said Frank Thomas, who doubted that Gustafson was driving within the speed limit.  

The injured girl has a long recovery ahead of her. The collision broke her tibia and femur and bent her fibula, the three largest leg bones. Her grandparents expect her to be released from the hospital in two weeks. They said she’ll wear a cast for three months and eventually have metal rods inserted into her leg. They hope she can return to school in a wheelchair within four weeks. 

Hospital spokesperson Susan Martinez was more optimistic. She said the girl was expected to be released within a few days and ultimately make a full recovery. 

The Thomas’ commended the Berkeley Police Department’s handling of the accident. Veronica Thomas said that acting Chief Roy Meisner visited the girl in the hospital and Gustafson had sent his condolences. 

They added that despite their granddaughter’s injuries, she was fortunate not to have been hurt more severely. 

“Her bike ended up under the car’s front wheels,” said Veronica Thomas. “I just thank god that she didn’t.” 

SAN FRANCISCO — Al Gore harshly criticized President Bush’s push for war against Iraq, saying it has hurt the United States’ standing and could dangerously undermine the rule of law around the world. 

“After Sept. 11, we had enormous sympathy, goodwill and support around the world,” Gore said Monday. “We’ve squandered that, and in one year we’ve replaced that with fear, anxiety and uncertainty, not at what the terrorists are going to do but at what we are going to do.” 

In his first major speech on the Iraq situation, the once and possibly future Democratic presidential candidate accused Bush of abandoning the goal of a world where nations follow laws. 

“That concept would be displaced by the notion that there is no law but the discretion of the president of the United States,” he said. 

“If other nations assert the same right, then the rule of law will quickly be replaced by the reign of fear,” and any nation that perceives itself threatened would feel justified in starting wars, he said. 

Gore also told the enthusiastic crowd at the Commonwealth Club of California that he would decide in December whether to challenge Bush again for the presidency in 2004. 

Republicans quickly pounced on the speech as evidence of Gore’s weakness. 

“It seemed to be a speech more appropriate for a political hack than a presidential candidate by someone who clearly fails to recognize leadership,” said Jim Dyke, a spokesman for the Republican National Committee. 

Gore described his speech as an effort to lay out an alternative to the course of action pursued by the Bush administration. 

Even before securing United Nations support for a multinational war against Iraq, Bush has asked Congress to approve the use of “all means that he determines to be appropriate, including force,” in a unilateral effort to topple Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. 

Gore urged Congress not to give the president such a broad mandate. 

“It needs to be narrowed,” said Gore, adding that Congress should urge Bush to go back to the U.N. Security Council and secure the “broadest possible international support” for a regime change in Iraq. 

Meanwhile, Gore said, “Bush should not allow anything to distract us from the mission of avenging the murder of 3,000 Americans.” 

Gore always has supported overthrowing Saddam, and was one of the few Senate Democrats who voted in favor of the Gulf War resolution after Iraq attacked Kuwait. He said he felt betrayed by the first President Bush’s “hasty withdrawal from the battlefield.” 

But like other leading Democrats, Gore has expressed reservations in recent months about military action against Iraq, suggesting the diplomatic costs would be extremely high. 

His speech Monday was much more critical, warning of ominous and untold consequences, ranging from a short-term power vacuum that could increase the danger of chemical and biological attacks, to the creation of legions of enemies angry and fearful about U.S. domination. 

“If we end the war in Iraq the way we ended the war in Afghanistan, we could easily be worse off than we are today,” Gore said. 

Volunteers with Berkeley’s Ohlone Greenway Group are introducing one of three new public art installations as “four steel cows with distinctive personalities.” 

One may wonder how a steel cow can have a distinctive personality, but after seeing Elsie, Ferdinand, Laxmi and Kali, the description begins to make sense.  

“Look at the way Ferdinand looks longingly at Elsie,” sighed Karl Linn, project coordinator for the exhibit. 

The new exhibit is located on the stretch of Ohlone Greenway between Peralta Avenue and Gilman Street. 

Linn, a garden lover known throughout the community, has lived near the Ohlone Greenway for more than 10 years. He stressed that many neighbors and volunteers that have made the project possible. 

The cows are the most striking of the three new works of art, but of equal interest are the adobe column “Peralta Gateway” and the mural “From Elk Tracks to BART Tracks.” 

The gateway commemorates the pre-Gold Rush period when California was part of Mexico with images, text and cheerfully colored tiles painted by local children. The 72-foot mural, a collaboration of six artists, depicts the history of transportation and migration in the East Bay.  

The aim of the exhibit is to teach people about the history of the area but also, according to Linn, to help build community. 

“The whole point is it bring people together. People take down their defenses and connect to their deeper core of being. They see the art and stop to talk to each other, animating the greenway,” he said. 

As if to prove Linn’s point, neighbor Rayce H. Mason paused in his stroll to examine the steel cows. 

“I like the cows,” said Rayce. “My grandmother had so many cows... I started milking when I was seven.” 

“Me too,” Linn replied. “Thirteen cows, three times a day.” 

The cows, created by artist Amy Blackstone, were landscape architect Ted Vorster’s idea, and were inspired by Vorster’s conversations with elderly Berkeley residents about life in the East Bay in the 1920s. 

“There were lots of cows, open fields and pastures,” said Vorster. “During the 1920s, cows would get loose, walk into gardens and soil sidewalks with cow patties. These days it’s only dogs we have to worry about.”  

Funding for the exhibit was provided by BART, the Berkeley Civic Arts Commission, and the city’s department of parks, recreation and waterfront, with fiscal sponsorship by Berkeley’s Partners for Parks.  

The dedication for the Ohlone Greenway Natural and Cultural History Interpretive Exhibit is 10 a.m. today. A public celebration is scheduled 2 to 4 p.m. Sept. 29. Ceremonies begin at the Peralta Community Garden on Peralta Avenue near Hopkins Street in north Berkeley. For more information call 464-6119.

OAKLAND — A $2.4 million federal public works grant to start infrastructure design at the closed Oakland Army Base was announced Monday. 

The grant award from the U.S. Department of Commerce Economic Development Administration is the federal share of a $3.2 million public works project. The federal grant will allow the Oakland Base Reuse Authority to design and engineer the core infrastructure for the city’s planned Gateway Development Area at the former base. 

The authority will take over the 425-acre base this fall on behalf of the Oakland Redevelopment Agency. 

The base is situated on the Oakland waterfront, between the Port of Oakland and the eastern part of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge.

n Assault and Robbery 

Two female teenagers were attacked and robbed by three females on the 2200 block of Durant Street at 5:26 p.m. Saturday, police said. One suspect grabbed a victim from behind by the hair and knocked her to the ground, while another suspect then started grabbing at her purse. Meanwhile, a third suspect grabbed a different victim’s purse. When the second victim resisted, the suspect punched her in the face, bloodying her nose. The three suspects then fled with purses in a car that pulled up at the crime scene. The car, driven by a male, is described as a tan 1984 Chevrolet station wagon, license 1KKM571. 

n Shoplifting 

Police arrested Kevin Grimes, 31, for shoplifting clothes from a retailer on the 2300 block of Telegraph Avenue Friday. 

n Robbery 

A robber pried open a window on the 2100 block of Haste Street Sunday afternoon, police said. The suspect stole books, a laptop and several CDs. 

n Car Theft 

A 1993 Mercedes Benz, license 4WBC433, was reported stolen from the 1600 block of Seventh street at 2:06 p.m. Saturday, police said. 

Purchasing a home can be a complex process, especially for first-time homebuyers. There are many forms to read and fill out, including termite inspections, appraisals, and of course, financing details. One form that is often passed on to the buyer is an acceptance of the responsibility for compliance with the Residential Energy Conservation Ordinance (RECO).  

RECO was adopted to improve energy and water efficiency in Berkeley’s existing housing, and was designed to protect homeowners from having high energy bills. RECO mandates that the seller installs basic energy conservation measures prior to closing. However, buyers may sign papers to assume this responsibility. If they do so without first getting an idea of the work that will need to be completed, it can be an unanticipated expense. 

Most first-time buyers aren’t aware of RECO. Wise buyers will familiarize themselves with the ordinance, and have an idea what it will cost them to come into compliance before signing the transfer.  

So, what needs to be done to make a residence comply with RECO? The following areas of energy consumption need to be addressed: the building “envelope,” meaning its walls, ceiling/attic, and floor; water fixtures, such as toilets, showerheads and faucets; and the heating and hot water systems. In homes with fireplaces, the chimney and flue need to be inspected for dampers. 

In the building envelope, the ceiling/attic must be insulated to a minimum of R-30, which is bout 9 inches of blown-in cellulose, or 7 inches of fiberglass. (“R-Value” is a material’s resistance to, or reciprocal of its thermal conductance. The higher this number, the greater a material’s insulating value.) 

If the home has knob-and-tube wiring, a licensed electrician must do a safety inspection first before insulation is installed. If the existing insulation is not R-30 more insulation must be installed to bring the R-value up to at least R-30. 

Exterior doors must have permanent, screwed-in place weatherstripping attached to the doorframe, and a door sweep installed along the bottom of the door. If weather-stripping is already there, it must be in good condition, without gaps or tears. This will prevent drafts, making the space more comfortable in cold weather. 

Low-flow devices must be installed onto showerheads and faucet aerators. Showerheads must have a maximum flow of 3 gallons a minute, and kitchen and bath faucets must have a flow rate of 2.75 gallons or less. These devices are available free from the East Bay Municipal Utilities District (EBMUD; www.ebmud.com/conserving_&_recycling/conservation_devices/default.htm ), or for a nominal fee from Berkeley Conservation & Energy (BC&E; www.Ecologycenter.org ) available at all Berkeley Farmers’ Markets. 

Toilets must be low-flow, at a maximum of 1.6 gallons per flush; alternatively, complying flow-reduction devices can be installed. Any toilet replaced during a renovation must be replaced with a 1.6 gallons per flush model. 

Heating systems need R-3 insulation on exposed ductwork, or for hot water systems, R-3 insulation on hot water pipes. Hot water heaters must be wrapped with R-12 insulation, and the hot and cold water pipes at the tank must be insulated to a minimum of R-3 for the first two feet from the tank. For maximum heat retention, all exposed hot water pipes could be insulated at very little cost. 

How much should you spend on bringing the property into compliance? For single-family homes, a single-structure with two condos or live/work units or less, the maximum required expense is 0.75 percent of the sale price ($750 per $100,000). For one dwelling structure with three or more units, the rate is $0.50 per square foot. 

Note that any residential property that undergoes renovation with a total construction cost of $50,000 or more, must also comply with the requirements of the RECO ordinance. RECO inspection and documentation for renovation work is done through the normal building inspection process. 

To discover what your home may need to comply with RECO before buying or selling, check the full Compliance Guide available at Berkeley’s Energy Office at 2180 Milvia St., or call 981-5435. You may also visit the website at www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/ENERGY/RECO.html 

Perform the recommended measures for your home. Once the measures are installed, you should call for an audit, at 649-4854 weekdays, or 569-3080 weekday evenings. An authorized inspector will come to your home and conduct the audit. The current cost for the initial audit is $45 for a single-family unit, plus $5 for each additional unit.  

Once the building has passed the RECO inspection, you will receive a “FORM A, Certificate of Compliance,” which must be filed at the city’s Building and Safety Division at the Permit Service Center. Filing costs $15; once you have passed the audit and filed Form A, your home will be in compliance. Your energy bills will reflect this, saving you money and energy from now on. 

For more helpful tips on saving energy, visit the city’s Energy Office website at www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/ENERGY, or call 981-5435. 

Alice La Pierre is an energy analyst for the City of Berkeley. She promotes green building and energy conservation in Berkeley.

Read Bay Area’s Olympic bid on the Internet 

The Bay Area team seeking to bring the Olympics to the region in 2012 said Monday it has placed its proposal on the Internet, pointing out that most of the needed facilities are ready and waiting. 

If the Bay Area Sports Organizing Committee succeeds in beating New York City to become the U.S. candidate, and then in three years becomes the international choice for the 30th Olympiad, the activities would stretch from Napa County through both San Francisco and the East Bay to Santa Clara County and even Monterey's old Fort Ord campus. 

Added to the appeal of the Bay Area's bid is the region's moderate summer climate, renowned geography, cultural diversity and wealth of existing athletic venues. The boosters are calling their loop of sporting structures around the Bay the “Ring of Gold.”  

Partly because 80 percent of the needed infrastructure is already in place, proponents say the games would produce a $7 billion economic boost for the region and turn a $400 million profit for the U.S. Olympic Movement. 

The roughly 1,000-page bid, including finances and transportation plans, is available on the Internet at www.basoc2012.org. 

The next word for Bay Area Olympic boosters is expected on Nov. 3, when the U.S. Olympic Committee will select the U.S. candidate city. The United States has hosted the Games eight times. 

Richmond landfill fire out but area hot 

RICHMOND – A Richmond Fire Department spokesman says a two-acre landfill fire appears to be extinguished but firefighters will stay at the scene overnight in case it starts back up. 

Battalion Chief Jim Fajardo said the damaged portion of the landfill, which is located at the end of Parr Boulevard west of Richmond Parkway near Richmond, appeared black at 10:30 p.m. However, firefighters continued to spray water because of an unusual amount of steam, which he said means the area is still hot. 

“It looks impressive but not as impressive as the fire and smoke,” he said. 

The fire started at about 7 p.m. Crews assisted from Contra Costa County Fire Protection District, Pinole, Rodeo/Hercules, Richmond, Martinez, Lafayette, Moraga and Orinda.

LOS ANGELES — California became the first state in the country to enact a comprehensive paid family leave program for workers under a bill signed Monday by Gov. Gray Davis. 

Supporters hoped the bill would serve as a nationwide model, while business groups denounced it as too costly for employers. 

“I don’t want Californians to choose between being good parents and good employees,” Davis said during a signing ceremony at the University of California, Los Angeles’ Mattel Children’s Hospital. 

The new law allows workers to take six weeks off to care for a newborn, a newly adopted child or ill family member. Under the plan, employees will be eligible to receive 55 percent of their wages during their absence, up to a maximum payment of $728 a week. 

The paid-leave law is the latest of several groundbreaking social and environmental laws passed in California this year. 

Earlier, California became the first state to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. On Sunday, Davis signed a bill to allow stem cell research in the state, hoping it will attract scientists who someday might be able to use the research to cure chronic diseases. Last year, President Bush restricted federal funding for human embryonic stem cell research to a select number of existing cell lines, but critics say many of those stem cells are in poor condition and are useless for research. 

Under the state’s new paid-leave program, workers would be allowed to start taking leaves as of July 1, 2004. 

The program would be funded entirely by employee payroll deductions, averaging about $27 a year and ranging up to $70 a year for those earning more than $72,000 annually. About 13 million of California’s 16 million workers would be eligible, exempting state and local government employees who contribute to a different plan. 

The bill does not provide protection for all workers. Businesses with fewer than 50 employees are not required to hold a job for a worker who takes paid family leave, according to the AFL-CIO, which helped write the bill.

BERKELEY — A Philadelphia-based think tank has launched a Web site called Campus Watch on which plans to list and discuss instances of anti-Israeli sentiment around the country with a focus on activity at several universities, including three from the San Francisco Bay area. 

The site is managed by Middle East Forum, according to an introduction on the homepage, and will monitor reaction to the Palestinian/Israeli conflict and profile individuals who teach the subject throughout the United States. 

It focuses, however, on 14 schools which have had experienced intense campus unrest related to the conflict, including the University of California, Berkeley, San Francisco State University and Stanford University. 

Harvard University, Colorado College and the University of North Carolina also are included on the list. 

The new site comes to the Internet just days after Harvard University president Lawrence Summers denounced as anti-Semitic a campaign, which began at Berkeley, that condemns Israel for human rights abuses and urges universities to divest in companies there.

SAN FRANCISCO — The state Department of Transportation has reversed course on how it will comply with a judge’s order to treat U.S. flags and banners the same, saying Monday it now will remove them all from highway overpasses because of concerns about safety. 

Last week, Caltrans said it would comply with a January court order by leaving up all flags and banners that did not pose a safety hazard. 

Judge Ronald Whyte of U.S. District Court in San Jose issued the order in response to a lawsuit brought by Amy Courtney and Cassandra Brown last year. They argued their anti-war banners were taken down because of their content, while U.S. flags were left up. 

Whyte ordered the agency to enforce its rules on a content- and viewpoint-neutral basis, saying the agency could not grant exemptions for U.S. flags. Caltrans’ policy has been to take down all banners and signs except for American flags. 

The decision means the agency is reverting to its decision made shortly after the judge’s order.

SAN FRANCISCO — A federal appeals court has referred a lawsuit over a $3.3 billion settlement between California and one of the state’s largest utilities to the state Supreme Court. 

Both sides called the decision by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals a victory in the battle over whether the California Public Utilities Commission could use a court settlement to maintain record-high electricity rates for customers of Southern California Edison. 

The Utility Reform Network, a consumer advocacy group, sued to stop the agreement between the utility and its regulator, saying it was reached behind closed doors and violated the state’s deregulation laws that set a rate freeze for retail customers. 

Edison amassed about $6 billion in debts when wholesale electricity rates soared above the capped retail rates the utility charged its customers in 2000 and 2001. State lawmakers and Gov. Gray Davis debated for months on what role the state should play in Edison’s future, but legislation to bail out the utility failed. 

The PUC settled a federal suit with the utility in October to help Edison pay debts by maintaining for two more years a temporary rate increase approved a year earlier. 

The federal judges Monday upheld the PUC’s authority on several federal issues, which PUC and Edison officials said validated their arguments. 

“We are pleased that the court affirmed the settlement against all federal law challenges, and that the California Supreme Court will be deciding the important state law issues that it raises,” said Gary Cohen, general counsel for the PUC. “We are confident that the settlement ultimately will be upheld by the California Supreme Court.” 

But, the federal court said, there was “a serious question of whether the agreement between the commission and SoCal Edison violated state law, both in substance and in the procedure by which the commission agreed to it.” 

That means the state Supreme Court will have to choose whether to decide if the PUC violated the 1996 deregulation law and the Bagley-Keene Open Meeting Act, said Nettie Hoge, executive director of TURN. 

Edison officials said the state’s open meeting law allowed an exception to allow state agencies to meet privately with attorneys and that’s what the PUC was doing while crafting a settlement of a lawsuit. 

LOS ANGELES — The shortage of affordable housing is affecting Latinos more than any other group of Californians and could force many immigrants and their families out of the state, according to a Pepperdine University study. 

Foreign-born Latino homeowners on average spend 43 percent of their income on mortgage payments, compared with an average of 32 percent among U.S.-born Californians, according to the study scheduled for release Tuesday. 

The affordability gap risks leaving the segment of the population “discouraged, alienated and politically detached,” the study said. It could also create conflicts between a permanent class of renters and homeowners, according to the report, whose sponsors included the Olson Co., a builder of affordable housing for minorities. 

Hispanics account for about 12 million of California’s 35 million residents and buy more than one in five homes sold in the state. 

By the middle of the century they are expected to form the majority ethnic group in the state. But many Latino families may instead choose to leave for more affordable regions of the country if the shortage of affordable housing is not properly addressed, the report said. 

The study calls on companies to extend credit to working and middle class families and on the government to adjust the tax system so it depends less on retail sales — a policy that can favor the development of shopping malls over residences. 

Google launches news page 

MOUNTAIN VIEW — Internet search engine Google has launched the beta version of Google News, a new Web page containing links to breaking news headline stories from 4,000 media outlets worldwide. 

The top stories are highlighted under common categories such as world, U.S., science and technology news, and each contains a reference to when the story was most recently updated. 

The placement of the stories on the page is determined by Google’s search term algorithm and doesn’t use the news editors that many other Web portals employ, according to Google product manager Marissa Mayer. 

Clicking on a link takes the reader to news sites that display stories by The Associated Press and other wire services, as well as their own content. Google News only links to stories generated within the past 30 days. 

Mayer said Monday the company has been working on the Google News project since January and will keep the Web page in a trial phase before looking at ways to possibly cash in on the feature in the future. 

Microsoft, HP to invest  

$50 million in promoting .NET 

REDMOND, Wash. — Microsoft Corp. and Hewlett Packard Co. will spend $50 million over the next two and a half years to add sales and technical personnel to help drive adoption by businesses of Microsoft’s .NET-based software. 

HP, based in Palo Alto, Calif., and Redmond-based Microsoft plan to spend about $25 million each, said Rick Fricchione, vice president of Enterprise Ready Microsoft Services at HP. 

A formal announcement of the new effort was scheduled for Tuesday. 

JDS Uniphase cuts first-quarter sales outlook 

SAN JOSE — JDS Uniphase Corp., citing continued weakness in the telecommunications market, lowered its first-quarter sales outlook to between $190 million and $200 million. 

The San Jose-based optical technology company said Monday it expects to report an operating loss of 6 cents to 8 cents a share in the first quarter, excluding restructuring costs. 

The pro forma loss is unchanged from the company’s July outlook, and compares with analysts’ estimates of a loss of 6 cents a share for the period, according to Thomson First Call. 

JDS previously announced a first-quarter sales outlook in the range of $200 million to $210 million. 

The company said its lower sales estimate for the first quarter, which ends Sept. 30, reflects contract cancellations of $10 million to $20 million.

Berkeley police say they are looking for people who may have witnessed an armed robbery at the Cambridge Sound Works store at 2350 Shattuck Ave., Sept. 15, even though witnesses may not have known what was going on. 

Police say three men took over the store at about noon and stole more than $75,000 worth of electronics. One suspect has been arrested. Two remain at large. 

The robbers posed as store employees and ushered customers out of the business while employees were bound and locked in a bathroom. They locked the store doors and pretended to be closed after turning a number of customers away. 

Anyone who was at Cambridge Sound Works between noon and 2 p.m., Sept. 15 is urged to contact Berkeley police at 981-5742.

SAN FRANCISCO — The federal government resumed its bid to ban Oregon doctors from helping terminally ill patients commit suicide, filing papers Monday with an appeals court in an effort to strike down the only such law in the nation. 

Attorney General John Ashcroft is seeking to sanction and perhaps hold Oregon doctors criminally liable if they prescribe lethal doses of medication, as the voter-approved Death With Dignity Act allows. 

“The attorney general has permissibly concluded that suicide is not a legitimate medical purpose,” Justice Department attorney Jonathan H. Levy wrote in the appeal filed at the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. 

A federal judge in Portland, Ore., blocked the Justice Department from punishing Oregon doctors — such as stripping them of their ability to dispense medication if they prescribe lethal doses of medication to the terminally ill. 

The case is a classic states’ rights battle, with Oregon defending its assisted-suicide law against attacks from the Justice Department. 

In a sharp rebuke to Ashcroft, U.S. District Judge Robert Jones ruled in April that the Controlled Substances Act — the federal law declaring what drugs doctors may prescribe — does not give the federal government the power to say what is a legitimate medical practice. 

Ashcroft first declared the federal government had such power on Nov. 6, 2001, and the government reiterated that point Monday, arguing the act “prohibits physicians from prescribing controlled substances except for legitimate medical purposes.” 

The Pacifica Foundation radio network will return to Berkeley by March, three years after it fled the city amid protests and lawsuits. 

The radio network’s interim Board of Directors voted 12-1 Sunday to move its headquarters from Washington D.C. back to Berkeley, where it was founded more than 50 years ago. 

The surprisingly lopsided vote came after an interim board decision last month to put off the network’s move. 

Sunday’s vote means the network’s executive director and top decision making staff will again be stationed in Berkeley. To win the support of Washington interim board members who were opposed to the Berkeley move, the body decided to establish a national news bureau in Washington. 

Board members said the return to Berkeley was poetic justice after the destructive policies of the previous board. 

The 1999 board tried to fire staff members and moderate the political view of its Berkeley station KPFA. Station supporters took to the streets in protest and filed lawsuits against the board. In response, the board in January 2000, moved its headquarters under the cover of darkness to Washington.  

In addition to KPFA, Pacifica also holds licenses of community stations in New York, Los Angeles, Houston and Washington. 

“It’s important to right the wrongs of the past,” said interim board member Leslie Cagan. “One of those wrongs was the theft of the office from Berkeley.” 

Pacifica’s interim board was formed as part of a legal settlement between the former board and protesters.  

The board’s decision was not as simple as the 12-1 vote may appear. After it voted in March to return to Berkeley by the end of the year, a faction of board members tried to stall the move. 

Dominated by board members from Washington, they passed a resolution last month by a 7-4 vote that effectively halted the foundation’s return to Berkeley because of a lack of funds.  

After two years of internal legal wrangling, Pacifica has been left $1.5 million in debt, and interim treasurer Jabri Zakiya said a move would cost several hundred thousand dollars.  

However, at Sunday’s board meeting in Houston, new Executive Director Dan Coughlin presented a budget for 2003 that estimated the move at $120,000.  

Because Pacifica owns its Berkeley headquarters and rents its current site in Washington, Coughlin estimated that the move would actually save the network $73,900 a year and would pay for itself within two years. 

Additionally, rank-and-file members of the five stations pressured board members to support the move. According to interim board member Debbie Spooner, every station manager told board members that Pacifica could not heal from its recent turmoil until it had returned to its rightful home in Berkeley. 

Even Washington station members voted by a slim margin in favor of returning the headquarters to Berkeley. 

In the final vote, only Jabari Zakiya, the Washington-based treasurer voted against the move.Zakiya could not be reached for comment.

To the Editor: 

The Berkeley coffee initiative featured in the Sept. 20 issue, requiring retailers to sell only organic, shade grown, or Fair Trade coffee, may end up hurting the coffee farmers it is intended to protect. A better alternative would be to inform buyers of unfriendly coffee and that it may be harmful to the environment and unkind to small-scale coffee growers. Educated consumers would then have a choice and many would choose the friendly coffees. The initiative would mostly result in higher prices for brewed coffee, often with the buyer not knowing why. 

The informational approach could spread to other cities and make many people aware of the problem. The coercive approach, though, could be rejected by other cities as just another example of Berkeley's proclivity for intervention. By rejecting the educational approach, the coffee initiative treats Berkeley residents as heartless louts who would spurn friendly coffee if informed and given a free choice. When we force people to do good, it destroys the development of a good conscience. By voting in this initiative, we will never know how well voluntary methods would have worked. 

Fred Foldvary 

Berkeley

For three weeks the Cal football team took advantage of just about every opportunity it had. On Saturday against Air Force Academy, missing out on those opportunities cost the Golden Bears their undefeated season. 

Cal (3-1) nearly took the game into overtime, failing on a last-gasp two-point conversion that would have tied the game, but lost 23-21 to the Falcons (3-0) at Memorial Stadium in front of a crowd of 31,816. 

The Bears wide receivers dropped 10 passes on Saturday, hurting both the team’s chances at winning and quarterback Kyle Boller’s passing numbers. After completing 63 percent of his passes in the first three games, Boller was just 13-for-37 for 216 yards against Air Force. Boller’s only interception of the day was caused by wideout LaShaun Ward’s bobble, with Air Force’s Wes Crawley taking the ball out of Ward’s hands in the first quarter. That turnover led to the Falcons’ first score, a 34-yard field goal that tied the game 3-3. 

Ward’s catching problems didn’t end there. With the Bears down 23-15 and two minutes remaining, Boller led the offense down the field for Cal’s only touchdown of the game on a 17-yard pass to Jonathon Makonnen. But the Bears could have scored several plays earlier when Ward dropped a wide-open post pattern, one of three drops by the senior on that drive alone. 

“We can’t drop the ball like that and expect to beat a good team like Air Force,” Cal head coach Jeff Tedford said. “But Kyle kept throwing darts and eventually someone made a play.” 

The ensuing two-point conversion attempt nearly tied the game, as Boller rolled out to the right and had tailback Joe Igber open for a split-second in the endzone. But Air Force safety Jeff Overstreet got a hand on the pass to clinch the Falcons’ upset victory. 

“I’ll probably have a nightmare over and over about that hand getting in there,” Boller said. “[Overstreet] couldn’t have timed it any better. That ball was going to hit Joe right in the chest.” 

But if Boller and the offense had been able to put just one more ball into the endzone earlier in the game the last-minute drive wouldn’t have been necessary. From the first play of the game, when Air Force quarterback Chance Harridge fumbled the ball away on his own 28-yard line, the Bears had plenty of chances to take the ball down the field. But six of their drives all stalled inside the Air Force 25-yard line, as penalties and dropped passes doomed them to six field-goal attempts. 

“It just came down to us kicking too many field goals and not scoring enough touchdowns,” Tedford said. “[Kicker] Mark Jensen did a great job, but we have to get touchdowns.” 

Jensen set a school record for field goals with five, with his only miss blocked by Air Force’s Wes Crawley. 

“I appreciated the fact that I’m getting the opportunity to help the team, but it’s a little bittersweet because it means the offense isn’t finishing drives,” Jensen said. 

The Cal defense did an admirable job against the Air Force option attack for most of the game, but gave up a few big plays at key moments. Fullback Steve Massie plowed through the middle of the line for a 45-yard gain in the third quarter that led to a six-yard touchdown run by Harridge that cut the Cal lead to 12-10.  

Then after the Falcons had taken a 16-15 lead on a two-yard touchdown by Harridge and forced the Bears into a three-and-out, the quarterback picked up 45 yards on four carries on his team’s final drive, including a 13-yard touchdown run. 

“We quit trying to run outside, we quit trying to run sweeps and we just started running the triple option right at them,” Harridge said of the second half. “They just couldn’t stop it. We ran right at them for the entire second half of the game.” 

Harridge seemed to get tougher to tackle as the game wore on, ending up with 124 yards on 25 carries after running for just 37 yards in the first half. The 5-foot-11, 185-pound junior repeatedly chose to keep the ball on the option rather than pitch out to a running back and took some big hits, but he just kept bouncing back up for more punishment. 

“We over-pursued at times when [Harridge] cut back against us,” Cal defensive coordinator Bob Gregory said. “The option is about assignments on defense. You have to take away the dive, the keeper and the pitch. If you have one part that’s not covered they’ll hurt you.” 

Notes: Cal linebacker Matt Nixon suffered a knee sprain in the fourth quarter. Tedford said he would be re-evaluated today... Igber moved into fifth on the Cal career rushing list with 2823 yards... The win over Cal gave Air Force victories over a Big Ten team and a Pac-10 team in the same season for the first time. The Falcons beat Northwestern earlier in the season.

The likelihood that the Berkeley Unified School District will not balance it’s projected $3.9 million budget this year, will apparently have little effect on the district’s relationship with the Alameda County Office of Education, despite earlier concerns that it might. 

County Superintendent Sheila Jordan said Friday that, while she would prefer that the district close the gap this year, she will provide Berkeley Unified with some flexibility to pursue a multi-year deficit reduction strategy. 

“Obviously we would like them to eliminate [the deficit this year], but we are working together on it,” said Jordan. 

The county office rejected Berkeley Unified’s 2002-2003 budget early last week, in part because of the deficit problem. 

The office has ultimate sanction over the district’s budgeting. 

On Friday, despite county budget concerns, Superintendent Michele Lawrence said the Berkeley Unified School District will probably not make cuts necessary to erase the deficit this fiscal year. 

County rejection of the budget, coming in in a letter Tuesday, found fault not only with the $3.9 million deficit, but with a vague financial recovery plan. The district has until Dec. 15 to develop a more detailed blueprint for recovery. 

If the district fails to meet county standards, it will go back to the drawing board but will face no additional penalties, Jordan said. The county will take over the district if the budget is ultimately deemed unworkable, Jordan said. 

Lawrence said the district will comply with the Dec. 15 deadline for a revised budget and new, likely multi-year, recovery plan. But Berkeley’s complex budget problems may prevent the district from providing the sort of specificity in its recovery plan that the county is seeking. 

“It may not be as detailed as, perhaps, they would like,” she said. 

Jordan said there will likely be some “give and take” over the level of detail, but said the scheme will have to be a “viable” one. 

“We need to be assured that there really is a plan in place,” she said. 

The recovery plan will serve as the basis for future cuts. Lawrence said it is too early to speculate about what types of reductions will be on the list. But the board, which slashed millions in February through layoffs and class size increases among other measures, will face a particularly painful round of cuts this time, she said. 

“We’ve pealed away the onion layers and we’re at the heart of things,” Lawrence said. “The next cuts are going to be hard.” 

School board member John Selawsky said more layoffs are a possibility. 

“I would really hate to say it’s a probability, but I think, realistically, we’re going to have to look at it,” he said. “Personnel cuts are going to be on the table.” 

Mid-year layoffs are unlikely, and illegal in the case of certified teachers and administrators, but staff reductions could go into effect for the 2003-2004 school year. 

Community members have argued that the district did not include the public enough when it made the cuts last year.  

Lawrence has long contended that the district had to move quickly then because it did not learn the enormity of the budget crisis until January. This year, she said, Berkeley Unified will seek more public input. Lawrence said she has not yet determined how she will seek input. 

In her letter to the district Tuesday, Jordan laid out not only short-term, but long-term budget concerns for Berkeley Unified. A roughly 300-student drop in district enrollment, she noted, will lead to a dip in state funding next year. 

Lawrence said she is not overly concerned about the enrollment decline because, while fewer students means less revenue, it also means fewer costs. Berkeley Unified, for instance, may be able to cut down on the rent it pays for portable classrooms at overcrowded schools if it has fewer students to serve, she noted. 

The county office also raised concerns about the district’s ability to grant its employees salary increases in the face of a fiscal crisis. Board member Ted Schultz said those concerns are legitimate ones. 

“I’m hopeful that we can give reasonable salary increases, but I think Sheila Jordan is perfectly right – if we are in a real bind financially, that’s going to be difficult to do,” said Schultz. 

Stephanie Allan, business agent for Local 39, which represents classified employees in Berkeley Unified, said the district’s four unions are looking warily to the spring, when their contracts expire and the issue of wages resurfaces. 

“I can assure you the district has the money,” said Allan. “The question is, where do they spend it?”

To the Editor: 

Peter Teichner’s dismissal of smart growth (Forum, Sept. 17, 2002) typifies an attitude that unfortunately is gaining currency in the Bay Area as we contemplate our future and don’t like what we see. 

What we see is tremendous growth – approximately 1 million more people in the next 20 years and a 120 percent increase in automobile congestion, according to the Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG). It might be nice to slam the door on all these people and say “No more, you can’t come in,” but more than half of these are our children and the natural increase that they bring as we all live longer. The current economic slump is only temporary, and the Bay Area is still one of the most desirable places in the country in which to live and work despite its problems. 

If we do not provide denser and more affordable housing on transportation corridors that will enable people to live close to their work and have real transit options, they’ll live in sprawling suburbs and they’ll drive. A lot more of those cars will be traveling in and out of Berkeley. 

In Berkeley, some very well-designed 3-5 story buildings along our major transit corridors are creating a more vibrant, exciting, diverse city with thriving neighborhood stores and allowing our teachers and public workers to live here instead of in far-off suburbs. In my own neighborhood, a vacant lot was turned into a five-story building that houses a cafe and a Mexican ceramics store. It is a great addition to our community and because of the location along transit, the residents own many fewer cars than their counterparts in sprawling suburbs. 

Teichner rails against Berkeley’s big developers, but he has the wrong enemy in his sights. Our coalition teams up with Greenbelt Alliance and the Sierra Club to defeat large sprawling projects in the Bay Area Greenbelt. We fight the likes of Shea Homes and Sunset Developers, the mega-sprawl developers. We are successfully convincing voters in areas like Livermore to defeat new sprawl developments because we still have space in our underutilized transit corridors. The sprawl developers are just waiting for smart growth to fail so they can show the voters there is no antidote to sprawl and get their bulldozers to work in undeveloped outlying areas. 

Berkeley once had 8,000 more residents than it does today and we have to continue to provide housing. The alternative is to remain silent as farms and open space are plowed to make way for new homes. I urge all to oppose Measure P, which would bring new housing to a screeching halt in Berkeley. After all, among others, these are our children we are trying to house. I'd like them to have the choice of vibrant neighborhoods instead of more sprawl. 

Stuart Cohen 

Executive Director, 

Transportation And Land Use Coalition (TALC) 

Sophomore Mike Muñoz had a goal and an assist to lead the Cal men’s soccer team past San Francisco, 2-0, on Sunday at Edwards Stadium. 

The win was the third straight for the Bears (4-2-1), who haven’t given up goal during that stretch. 

The Bears out-shot USF 14-7 and controlled the ball for most of the second half, just missing on several opportunities to score additional goals. 

“Today was probably our best game from minute one to minute 90,” Cal head coach Kevin Grimes said. “We came out completely focused, motivated and anxious to play.” 

Cal scored just their second first-half goal of the season on Sunday. Muñoz drove a corner kick high into the area and freshman Tyson Wahl rose and headed the ball into the upper-right corner of the goal, just over a defender’s head. The 32nd-minute goal was Wahl’s first college score and Muñoz’s first assist of the season. 

“We’ve been working hard on set pieces in training, and it finally paid off today,” Grimes said. All of Cal’s previous goals came from the run of play. 

Muñoz gave the Bears a two-goal cushion in the 51st minute, with freshman Garrett Terracciano flicking a cross back onto Muñoz’s foot from near the goal line. Muñoz took a touch before slamming the ball past USF goalkeeper Mark Muleady for his team-high third goal of the season. 

The Bears travel to Santa Clara on Thursday to take on the Broncos, then host Tulsa on Sunday at noon at Edwards Stadium. 

• FRESNO – Cal freshman Tracy Hamm tallied her first career hat trick, scoring three goals against Fresno State on Sunday in a 4-1 win. Hamm leads the Bears with six goals on the season. 

Freshman Dania Cabello scored the other goal for Cal (5-1-1) off of a Carly Fuller corner kick, while Kotri Koivisto-Nokso scored for Fresno State (1-7). Kim Yokers and Kassie Doubrava also had assists for the Bears. 

Cal heads east next weekend for games against Penn and Hartford.

For a city that has changed immeasurably since its hippie heyday, Telegraph Avenue can sometimes seem a land suspended in time. But some peace activists say that after this weekend, it will never be the same. 

John Vance, an icon among Telegraph avenue tablers has decided to pack up his “F--k Bush” bumper stickers and “Don’t Believe Everything You Think” pins and ride off into the sunset of San Diego. 

“Telegraph is like an outpatient clinic,” said Vance who has worked as a street merchant in Berkeley since 1991. “I’ve reached the point where I want to go somewhere for some quiet time.” 

But in fitting form, the Berkeley rabble rouser did not leave quietly. 

Friends and fellow activists threw Vance a rollicking going away party Sunday at another testament to Berkeley’s counter-culture past – People’s Park. 

In what seemed like a time warp, members of the original People’s Park movement, homeless activists and even a colony of nudists frolicked on the lawn in celebration of Vance’s contributions to Berkeley. 

The freewheeling scene reminded Vance why he decided to leave Oregon for Berkeley in 1991. 

“I thought Berkeley was a place where I could do what’s not so acceptable in other places,” he said. 

Since his arrival, Vance became the glue to Berkeley’s disparate activist community. From his table at the corner of Telegraph Avenue and Channing Way, Vance served as a liaison between activists of different causes and made a monthly calendar highlighting their events and rallies. 

Vance, though, has his own political agenda. Many of the stickers, pins and other paraphernalia he designs and sells express his distaste for President George W. Bush and his concerns about police brutality. 

Vance does not come off as the prototypical Berkeley leftist. A former landscaper and Vietnam veteran, with thick muscular hands, Vance seems more carpenter than activist.  

He said he never considered politics until he was in his 20s, when he watched a documentary about a Massachusetts’s company that poisoned the environment of a New England town. Since viewing the film, he began organizing for progressive causes and became a bit of a vagabond. He has crisscrossed the country several times, making several stops in Berkeley during the ‘60s, ‘70s and ‘80s. 

Although his imminent move to San Diego may signal a desire to slow down, Vance doesn’t plan on keeping his stickers and buttons in the moving box for too long. 

“I’ll be looking for a spot there too,” Vance said. “It will be interesting dealing with San Diego. They have a progressive community, but they also have a lot of Republicans who need to get woken up.” 

To the Editor: 

When my family moved to south Berkeley almost six years ago, this neighborhood was a frightening place. Drug dealers pedalled openly on the streets, soliciting all, and enlisting the active participation of young children. My neighbors were so overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of the crime level that we had a hard enough time even reaching out to each other, much less anyone else and when we did, we had a hard time getting the city to take the situation as seriously as it warranted. That is, until we connected with Shirley Dean. Dean was, and is, the one reliable person who always listened and responded with appropriate action. She doesn't just talk a good line; every single time we talked to her about the desperate problems in our neighborhoods, she acted and did whatever was possible for each given situation. She made sure all the other city agencies, in a position to respond to our needs, were contacted and engaged. She followed through and we developed an active, constructive, three-way chain of communication with the police department, ourselves and the mayor. 

Not all the problems have been solved. Some of the problems have been plaguing south Berkeley for the past 30 years and even consistent, dedicated effort doesn't provide solutions to every woe. Nevertheless, south Berkeley is a far better, far safer place to live and raise your children than it was a few years ago and before I met Dean. Quite frankly, I can't imagine where we would be now had it not been for the mayor's tenacious support. I hope my neighbors will retain a clear memory about where we were, how far we've come and just how very much we owe to Dean when it's time to vote in the next mayoral election. 

Sam Herbert 

Berkeley

No. 25 Kansas State 27,  

No. 11 USC 20 

MANHATTAN, Kan. – Ell Roberson came off the bench to throw one touchdown pass and run for another score. 

No. 9 Oregon 41, Portland St. 0 

EUGENE, Ore. – Onterrio Smith ran for 115 yards and two touchdowns and Jason Fife threw for two more as No. 9 Oregon defeated Portland State 41-0. 

No. 17 Wisconsin 31, Arizona 10 

MADISON, Wis. – Anthony Davis ran for 110 yards and two touchdowns as 17th-ranked Wisconsin built a 24-point halftime lead and coasted to a 31-10 victory over Arizona. 

Colorado 31, No. 20 UCLA 17 

PASADENA – Chris Brown ran for 188 yards and three touchdowns Saturday as the Buffaloes upset No. 20 UCLA 31-17.  

No. 18 Washington State 45, Montana State 28 

PULLMAN, Wash. – Jermaine Green ran for two touchdowns and caught a pass for another as 18th-ranked Washington State beat Montana State 45-28 win.

GIZEL, Russia – A 500-foot-high chunk of glacier crashed down a Caucasus mountainside, burying a village in ice, rocks and mud and leaving as many as 100 people missing and feared dead Saturday — among them, a popular Russian action star who was filming a movie. 

Part of the village of Nizhny Karmadon was destroyed, a government spokeswoman in Moscow said. The village, home to about 50 people, was almost entirely covered in ice, leaving little chance of finding anyone alive there, an emergency official at the scene said. 

At least 86 people were missing, said Lt. Gen. Ivan Teterin, the Emergency Situation Ministry official heading the search, including 17 people whose houses were destroyed in the village of Nizhny Karmadon, six of them children. The missing also included hikers and 40 people with the crew led by actor-director Sergei Bodrov Jr., said Marina Ryklina, a ministry spokeswoman in Moscow. 

She said officials suspected the total number of missing was about 100. 

The avalanche raged down the Karmadon Gorge in the Russian republic of North Ossetia late Friday after a glacier 495 feet tall broke off from below a peak in the rugged Caucasus Mountains, gathering a mix of mud, rocks and uprooted tree trunks its path. 

Moving at more than 62 mph, the avalanche slid 20 miles before it stopped on the Gizel-Karmadon highway about 6 miles from the regional capital of Vladikavkaz. 

Seen from the road, the path of destruction was about 300-400 yards wide. 

Teterin said that one man from the area near Nizhny Karmadon was found dead, his body seriously damaged. A spokesman for North Ossetian President Alexander Dzasokhov said four bodies were found, the Interfax news agency reported. 

Eight houses and a three-story sanatorium in the village were destroyed, but it was unclear whether anyone was in the sanatorium at the time, Teterin said. He said three people were plucked from the area near the avalanche by helicopters and 31 others found and taken to safety by rescuers. 

Mikhail Shatalov, the prime minister of North Ossetia, a tiny region about 940 miles southeast of Moscow, told the ITAR-Tass news agency that up to 100 people were feared dead. 

Bodrov had been filming a movie with a crew of 27 people in the area — where he has made movies in the past. Along with the crew were 13 drivers and other people who were also among the missing, Ryklina said. 

Mikhail Maltsev, a spokesman for STV film company, told Echo of Moscow radio that Bodrov’s crew had been filming a movie for the company in the mountains near the site of the avalanche. 

In Moscow, Russian President Vladimir Putin said the avalanche was “truly a great tragedy.” 

“The main task is to find the missing people, restore the region’s infrastructure, I mean electric lines and vital necessities,” he told reporters after meeting Bulgarian President Georgi Parvanov. 

Gulya Revazova, a spokeswoman for North Ossetia’s traffic police, said that two traffic police officers had accompanied the Bodrov’s group and were among the missing. 

Two border guards patrolling nearby also were missing as of Friday night, the emergency official said. The area is near the border with the former Soviet republic of Georgia. 

Several tourist campsites are located in the gorge where the glacier fell, but it was unclear whether they had been in the avalanche’s path. 

Ambulances and officials from North Ossetia and the nearby republic of Ingushetia converged Saturday on the blocked highway. Rescuers went over the ice and mud on foot to look for survivors. 

Murat Batayev, head of the rescue service of the nearby republic of Ingushetia, said in the late morning that 25 people had been rescued. He did not elaborate. 

Bodrov is best known for his roles in the Russian action movies “Brother” and “Brother 2.” His father is an acclaimed director and Bodrov Jr., 30, has starred in some of his films, including the acclaimed “Prisoner of the Caucasus,” set in the same mountains where he went missing Friday. 

OAKLAND – An Alameda County jury decided in favor of NBA players Gary Payton and Brian Shaw Wednesday after a five-week civil trial in connection with a defunct Emeryville billiards club.  

The four plaintiffs, who demanded $300,000 compensation and punitive damages, accused Payton and Shaw as well as mutual friend William Brew and Payton’s agent Aaron Goodwin of reneging on a verbal agreement to invest in the club First Place Sports Bar and Billiards.  

Though the jury said in its questionnaire that it believed Payton and Shaw made false representations, it also said neither man crossed the line of fraud and owes nothing to the plaintiffs. 

Payton currently plays for the Seattle Supersonics and Brian Shaw plays for the Los Angeles Lakers. Both are originally from Oakland. 

Though Payton and Shaw were acquitted, the jury ordered Brew, a part owner of the club, to pay $150,000 to plaintiffs Michael Ohayon and brothers Robert and Victor Aissa and Goodwin to pay $38,160 to Glenn Matsuhara. 

In October 1995, under the name First Place Development Partnership, Ohayon, and the brothers became minority shareholders of First Place Sports Bar and Billiards. In a partnership with Brew and Matsuhara, Robert Aissa said he and his brother refinanced their home and invested $300,000 in hopes of expanding the business, which collapsed in 1998.  

Robert Aissa said Payton and Shaw gave numerous “legally binding” verbal assurances they would also invest in the billiard club. 

“They were hanging out at the club all the time, drawing people there, and telling us that they were in for sure,” he said. “Brian Shaw said he just needed to wait until after he renegotiated his contract with the [Orlando] Magic, [Shaw’s team at the time].” 

The defense attorneys for both players said the case had no merit. 

“The plaintiffs don’t have a right to money because Gary Payton has money,” said John Burris, Payton’s attorney, in his closing statement. “You don’t have to let someone ride your coattails unless you give them permission.” 

Robert Aissa said the partners planned to open up more billiards clubs in the East Bay and attract customers based on the popularity of other NBA players who expressed interest in the business.  

However, the business venture began to unravel in June 1997 when Matsuhara accused partner Brew of using $196,000 of the business’ funds for personal expenses. At the time, the club was late on rent payments and had taken on a $380,000 loan.  

In August 1998, Matsuhara said he sold his shares of the company as part of a deal in which Payton agreed to spend $150,000 on business expenses and Brew offered Matsuhara a $95,000 buy-out. Ohayon and the Aissa brothers said the deal meant that Payton should be liable for some of the their loses when the business went under, but Payton’s attorney said they were mistaken. 

“Payton would have been responsible for the corporation if he was a director or operator, but he wasn’t,” Burris said.  

David Bass, the attorney for Brian Shaw, argued that his client’s interest in the business did not qualify as commitment to invest. He added that Shaw and the plaintiffs had informal discussions, but no binding contract was signed. 

Plaintiff Robert Aissa said he was baffled by the jury’s decision. 

“They’re saying that [Payton and Shaw] lied, but didn’t commit fraud,” said Aissa. “I don’t understand the logic of the jury’s decision.” 

William Brew said the verdict against him could have been worse.  

“I’m very, very happy [with the jury’s decision],” Brew said.

Man shot, killed on 580 

RICHMOND – The Richmond Police Department says a 20-year-old Vallejo man was gunned down on the Regatta Boulevard on-ramp to Interstate Highway 580 early Sunday morning. 

Officers summoned to the intersection of Regatta Boulevard and Erlandson Street at 2:30 a.m. today found the bullet-ridden body of Kamal Rasheed Moore lying beside Golden Gate Gas Station, Lt. Johan Simon said. 

The Contra Costa Coroner determined that Moore died at around 1:30 a.m. Evidence suggests that Moore was shot on the freeway on-ramp as he was driving a rented 2002 Dodge Neon. He then got out of the car and started to run away from the gunman, who continued to shoot at Moore until he collapsed, Simon said. 

Police found his car abandoned on the on-ramp with the engine running and the windows shattered, Simon said. 

Richmond Police say they have no suspects and no motive for the murder. 

Tiger attack victim released 

PALO ALTO — An investigation into whether a tiger that attacked a 6-year-old boy was under proper control by its handlers is expected to be forwarded to a state agency Monday. 

The attack occurred Friday during a Baymonte Christian School assembly in Scotts Valley. The 150-pound female tiger, Sima, lunged over a row of seats and clamped its jaws around the kindergartner’s head. 

“It’s really not a question of whether the tiger bit the child or not; it’s going to be a question of whether the tiger was under proper control by the handler,” said Scotts Valley police Sgt. John Wilson. 

The report will be forwarded to the Department of Fish and Game, which will decide whether to recommend the county prosecutor press charges. 

The boy sustained two 5-inch cuts on his head, which required 55 stitches. It is unclear whether the gashes were caused by the tiger’s teeth or by the silver medallions on the handler’s belt. 

The boy, whose name has not been released, was discharged from Lucile Salter Packard Children’s Hospital in Palo Alto on Saturday. 

Police have asked David Jackson, director of Zoo to You Wildlife Education Inc., which owns Sima, to keep the tiger confined.

SACRAMENTO – California opened its doors Sunday to stem cell researchers whose research has been restricted by a federal limits on the cells that come from fetal and embryonic tissue. 

Gov. Gray Davis was joined by actor Christopher Reeve, a stem cell research activist since an accident left him paralyzed from the neck down, in announcing a new law that expressly permits the research. 

Davis, Reeve and other supporters said the legislation is necessary to keep California at the forefront of medical research. 

The bill was opposed by the Catholic Church and anti-abortion groups and contradicts President Bush’s efforts to limit stem cell research. 

Stem cells, which are found in human embryos, umbilical cords and placentas, can divide and become any kind of cell in the body. Opponents contend that the research is tantamount to murder because it starts with the destruction of a human embryo. 

Last year, Bush restricted federal funding for human embryonic stem cell research to a select number of existing cell lines. Critics say many of those stem cells are in poor condition and are useless for research. 

Sen. Deborah Ortiz, D-Sacramento, authored the bill that states California will explicitly allow embryonic stem cell research, and allows for both the destruction and donation of embryos. 

The bill requires fertility clinics that do in-vitro fertilization procedures to inform women that they have the option to donate discarded embryos to research. It requires written consent for donating embryos and bans the sale of embryos. 

Ortiz and supporters of her bill said the research could be valuable in curing or alleviating chronic and degenerative conditions, such as Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s and spinal cord injuries. 

Reeve, an ardent supporter of stem cell research, has been paralyzed since a horseback riding accident seven years ago. He has said that he has regained some feeling in his fingers and toes, but is urging further stem cell research as a way to treat paralysis. 

“Since stem cells were first isolated in 1998, the political debate has had a chilling effect on our scientists,” Reeve said Sunday. “It is painful to contemplate what advances could have been made” if that research wasn’t stifled. 

The move will attract “the best and the brightest” researchers to California, said Larry Goldstein, a professor at University of California San Diego, and halt the migration of stem cell researchers to other countries where it is permitted. 

Movie producer Jerry Zucker also joined Davis in the announcement, saying he learned about stem cell research after discovering that his young daughter had diabetes. 

“After learning the daily routine, we began to ask what was being done to cure diabetes,” he said. “Everyone told us that embryonic stem cell research is her best hope for a cure.” 

Zucker said he immediately discovered “that the biggest obstacle in finding a cure for our daughter is our own government.” 

Congress hasn’t acted on any stem cell research bills, or a bill to ban human cloning, and Ortiz said there was still a question over whether California’s law would be pre-empted by a federal statute. 

Measures pending in Congress range from allowing research to criminalizing it and prosecuting those who traveled abroad for treatment derived from stem cell research. 

Reeve said it will take a grass-roots movement to get federal policy that “truly expresses the will of the people” and he said he hoped California’s law would encourage other states to follow suit. 

“The debate will continue in the country, but these debilitating diseases affect nearly everyone in one way or another,” Davis said. “As the country ages, however, more and more Americans will see the value stem cell research has in enhancing the quality of life for the people they love.”

SACRAMENTO – A top state economist is challenging recent findings that California’s economy has slipped to sixth place overall in the world. 

A report released earlier this week by the Los Angeles Economic Development Corp. indicates that France has moved ahead of California and become the world’s fifth largest economy. 

The report puts California’s gross state product in 2001 at $1.309 trillion, or $1 billion below France’s estimated gross domestic product of $1.310 trillion. 

But Howard Roth, chief economist of the California Department of Finance, said the California number seems too low. 

Official numbers won’t be released by the U.S. Commerce Department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis until June 2003. 

In the meantime, Roth said state economists assume the gross California product has grown by the same amount as total state personal income. 

“Three independent sources estimate that California personal income increased in 2001,” Roth said. “Accordingly, we are very confident that California still ranks fifth largest in 2001.” 

California’s economy has been a bragging point for Gov. Gray Davis in his bid for re-election in November.

Cornerstone principles of Berkeley Reads – the city library’s free adult literacy program – are fostering voice and action. A new publication of student writings demonstrates these ideas. 

Today 10 authors who gained their skills through Berkeley Reads will be reading their work and signing free copies of “Another Leaf Has Fallen,” the book they wrote, from 2 to 4 p.m. at the Berkeley Main Library. 

Student Will Wright, who learned to read with an education tool that scans books and reads them back to its user, is one of the contributors. He writes: 

People are made of places, they carry with them the remembrance of the places they lived 

As if they have a bag of memories, they take with them wherever they go.  

Snowy white cotton fields, shotgun houses. 

These are my oldest memories with the smell of warm greens, neck bones and hot water corn bread. 

Contributors to “Another Leaf has Fallen,” are of various backgrounds and ages. Although it’s not an English as a Second Language (ESL) program, Berkeley Reads caters to pupils from many different nations. 

In the book Nepali-born Bijaya Simmons discusses her dream of revisiting her homeland. She also wrote an essay on how computers made it simpler for her to contact her family in the wake of Sept. 11, 2001. 

Elsie Blount attends the Small Group roundtable on Monday evenings, at which students share ideas among themselves and with teacher Kristin Papania. Elsie wrote an epigram using the first letters of her name. 

Charles Joseph spent many years in the Navy and government service before a work supervisor referred him to Berkeley Reads. Now he turns out powerful poetry. “The Mighty Sea,” details his experience as a young sailor: 

Come and go with me,  

let us ride upon the bosom 

of this angry sea,  

Hoping, watching, that some great thought might come to me. 

Joseph uses metaphor to describe his journey to literacy, in a story called “The Dungeon of 

Darkness.” The “monster that dogged his steps is dead,” he writes, noting that with the help of the program, he's made many gains during the last six years.  

Gloria Ashford has been involved in literacy for 14 years, first as a student and now as an outreach coordinator. In her contribution called “My Easter Sunday,” she recounts her Berkeley childhood, full of delightful sights and smells, including Langendorf Bakery's jelly rolls and the now closed jawbreaker factory between Hearst Avenue and Delaware Street in west Berkeley. 

Berkeley Reads Director Amy Prevedel said the book documents the students’ progress. 

“I think the book is a testament to the process,” Prevedel said. “It's evidence that quality work is being done,” said , who has headed the program for three years. When you actually get a book done, it's evidence that dynamite things are happening. It just represents so much dedication to something higher.”  

Five hundred copies of the 84-page collection are available to the public. After tomorrow’s reading Mayor Shirley Dean will give the students certificates.

To the Editor: 

Recently, I had the occasion, while sitting in a waiting room at Oakland Kaiser, of reading a letter in these pages from a raccoon sympathizer who advocated for the neutering of bad Berkeley drivers over these pathetic scavengers, forced to break into cars for stale snack foods. Imagine my surprise, when later that evening while walking my two miniature dachshunds – as if scripted in some bizarre book of fate – I was attacked and bitten by a wild raccoon in my south Berkeley neighborhood. 

It was early in the evening, about 8 p.m., when we approached a corner lot, and my dogs began growling at the pack of barking dogs within the fenced yard. As I coaxed my dogs down the street, I was assaulted from behind by a large adult raccoon. It jumped on me, clawed at my legs and bit me. I screamed hysterically and picked up my terrified dogs while it repeated its attacks to my back and legs. After a few jumps, the raccoon simply ran back down McGee Avenue and behind another house. 

Concerned neighbors ran out of their homes wielding baseball bats, brooms, and army surplus-sized flashlights. 

Recognizing my shock, one promised, “Oh, it couldn't have been one of ours. Ours never leave the yard.” 

“One of your...raccoons?” I stammered. “You keep raccoons in your yard?”  

“Yeah, but that wasn't one of ours, because ours never leave the yard.” I assumed it is illegal to keep wildlife in your yard in the city. I decided to report the attack as well as my neighbors did. 

When the police arrived at my door, the officer questioned me about the identity of my attacker. “This is a rather delicate question,” he hesitated, “but, did you get a good look at this raccoon?”  

It was about 30 pounds, wearing dark glasses and a fur coat. 

I have been reading these letters debating the value of Berkeley's increasingly bold, hostile pests while awaiting my rabies injections at Oakland Kaiser. So far, I have had 13 of 14 injections. The first 10 were extremely painful. 

My last one will be this week. Anyone who thinks that rabies are innocuous or neighborly critters in need of our friendship and protection, should come see my scratches, bites and injection sites.  

Susan Charlip 

Berkeley

Did a beautiful Berkeley landmark rise in part because an Italian landmark fell? It’s speculation, but an interesting possibility.  

The Berkeley landmark is our famous bell tower, the Sather Campanile, designed by John Galen Howard and completed in 1914 as a centerpiece for the UC Berkeley campus. 

There were, of course, other famous free standing bell towers well before Berkeley’s Campanile. A century ago (July 14 1902), half a world away residents of Venice were shocked to hear and see one such tower—their cherished and ancient campanile in the Palazzo San Marco – give way and collapse to earth in a hail of shattered masonry and statuary.  

An eyewitness to the Venice collapse wrote in the Times of London, “On Monday, early, the Campanile was resplendent in the sunshine...Suddenly I saw it slowly sink directly downward behind a line of roofs, and a dense gray dust rose in clouds...On arrival the sight was pitiful. Of that splendid shaft all that remained was a mound of white dust, spreading to the walls of St. Marks (Cathedral).” 

Venice’s venerable brick campanile had been begun in the 12th century, and was considerably modified and expanded during the Renaissance, in the 16th century. After the collapse, Venetians decided to reconstruct their treasured tower. The replica, completed in 1912, still stands today.  

When the Venetian campanile collapsed, architects around the world surely took note of the dramatic structural failure of such a prominent building. One who heard the news, presumably, was John Galen Howard, the University of California's supervising architect. 

We don't know how news of the Venetian tower's collapse might have affected Howard. We do know, in the words of author Harvey Helfand, that Howard was, in part, “inspired by the campanile of San Marco in Venice” in his design for Berkeley’s Sather Campanile. 

Like other architects trained at the famous Ecole de Beaux Arts in Paris, Howard was inclined to model his designs on great buildings of the past while also improving on the original. And perhaps he considered the Venetian collapse in his work to design a campanile for Berkeley that would be both beautiful and strong. 

Howard’s final design for Berkeley’s campanile was about the same height and visually similar in many respects to the ill-fated Venetian campanile but sheathed in granite over steel, instead of red brick. The first known Howard sketches of different concepts and designs for the Berkeley tower date to February, 1903, coincidentally, or not, only about six months after the Venetian tower fell. 

It is also known that with the assistance of his consulting engineer on the project, Berkeley’s Dean of Engineering, Professor Charles Derleth, Jr., Howard made Berkeley's tower exceptionally resilient to collapse. 

Berkeley’s Campanile is not only a beautiful building but makes beautiful music with its world-renowned Carillon of 61 bells. A high quality recording of music of the Campanile is available, on a CD produced by the Berkeley Historical Society available in local stores. You can attend the CD’s “Release Party” 3 to 5 p.m. Sept. 29 at the Berkeley History Center, 1931 Center St. The event is free. 

Feminists objected loudly in 1997 to the content of Neil LaBute’s striking but misogynistic film “In the Company of Men.” In that tale, two corporate Gen-X guys abused and humiliated a woman for fun. 

The movie went on to win the Filmmaker’s Trophy at the Sundance Film Festival and a New York Film Critics Circle Award. LaBute himself rode the notoriety to further film success, soon directing “Nurse Betty” with Renee Zellweger and “Possession” with Gwyneth Paltrow. 

But LaBute began his career as a playwright, and he continues to produce plays. On Thursday, Aurora Theater in downtown Berkeley opened a production of LaBute’s 2001 London stage hit “The Shape of Things to Come.” 

In some ways, “Shape of Things” turns the tables on “In the Company of Men,” calling for a woman to give a man a big, sadistic slice of humble pie. 

In “Shape,” a young college art student (the secretive Stephanie Gularte) spraypaints the genitals of a museum statue as a statement against “false art.” In the process, she takes up with a naive literature student (the shy Craig Marker) who is moonlighting as a museum security guard. 

Before it’s all over, she has taught him a big lesson about trust, betrayal and art. The problem is – intriguing concept aside – the play itself isn’t very good. 

In “Shape of Things” the young couple works on their new relationship, contrasting to f the relationship of two engaged friends (obnoxious frat boy Danny Wolohan and bland blonde co-ed Arwen Anderson). Each pair of romances is between a weak-willed person and a strong-willed person. 

In 10 scenes over two hours, with no intermission, the four meet in various combinations at the museum, in a restaurant, at Starbucks or in the park, to hash and rehash interminable relationship issues. 

It’s like a fourth-rate episode of “Friends” without the glamour or the sitcom jokes. A twist at the end digs the story out at the 11th hour, but by then the play has stretched to an unwieldy and unbearable length. 

In many ways this feels like a formulaic college playwriting class project. It opens with that familiar elliptical dialogue which is the son of Mamet, which is the son of Pinter, which is the son of Beckett. 

The characters are not particularly original or interesting. They have the predictable range of relationship problems, but who cares? The stakes just don’t seem very high for such vanilla people. 

Here’s a dialogue sample. Man says, “Love is a big word.” Woman answers, “I know. That’s why I used it.” 

Further, the characters spend a lot of time fumbling inarticulately and tediously through plot points that the audience already understands. 

Director Tom Ross and the talented Aurora team try valiantly to blow air into this leaky balloon. The play is well directed, acted and staged, although the actors are too old to play college kids. 

On a pale wood-bare stage, scenic designer Kate Boyd cleverly uses large white blocks that become alternately a bed, or chairs, or museum pedestals, or park benches. 

Sound designer Yvette Janine Jackson’s music breaks get the blood flowing. Between scenes she samples house, jazz, rock, new music, electronic, all with a strong beat, like a heartbeat.  

Costume designer Maggie Whitaker’s work simulates authentic youth clothing, with an appropriately gaudy twist for the woman artist. 

But you can do only so much with a sophomoric script. It seems a pity that the women in “Shape of Things” weren’t given a stronger vehicle by which to avenge their shabby mistreatment in “The Company of Men.” 

Saturday, September 21 

Jody Stecher & Kate Brislin 

8 p.m. 

Freight & Salvage, 1111 Addison St. 

548-1761 www.freightandsalvage.com 

$19.50 in advance, $20.50 at door 

Fernando, Garrison Star  

and Old Joe Clarks 

9:30 p.m. (21 and older) 

The Starry Plough, 3101 Shattuck Ave. 

841-2082 

$7 

Jack Wembly, Phemomenauts  

and Rock ’n Roll Adventure Kids 

8 p.m. 

924 Gillman St. 

525-9926 

$5 

West African Highlife Band 

9:30 p.m. 

Ashkenaz, 1317 San Pablo Ave. 

$11 door/ Free for 12 and under 

Sunday, September 22 

Broceliande 

8 p.m. 

Freight & Salvage, 1111 Addison St. 

548-1761 www.freightandsalvage.com 

$15.50 in advance, $16.50 at door 

Dick Hindman Trio 

4:30 p.m. 

Jazzschool, 2087 Addison St. 

845-5373 

$10-$15 

Grito de Lares 

5:30 to 8:30 p.m. 

The Black Box, 1728 Telegraph,  

downtown Oakland 

Celebrate el Grito de Lares with Prophets of Rage, Piri Thomas,  

and live bomba music. 

389-5660 

Les Yeux Noirs 

8 p.m. 

Ashkenaz, 1317 San Pablo Ave. 

$12 door/ Free for 12 and under 

Monday, September 23 

Pieta Brown w/ Bo Ramsey 

8 p.m. 

Freight & Salvage, 1111 Addison St. 

548-1761 www.freightandsalvage.com 

$15.50 in advance, $16.50 at door 

Tuesday, September 24 

Zydego Flames 

7:30 p.m. 

Ashkenaz, 1317 San Pablo Ave. 

$8 door/ Free for 12 and under 

Wednesday, September 25 

DP & Rhythm Riders 

9:30 p.m. 

Ashkenaz, 1317 San Pablo Ave. 

$15 door/ Free for 12 and under 

Karen Casey & the Niall Valley Trio 

8 p.m. 

Freight & Salvage, 1111 Addison St. 

548-1761 www.freightandsalvage.com 

$15.50 in advance, $16.50 at door 

Thursday, September 26 

Kriby Grips, Michael Zapruder, Joe Bernson 

9:30 p.m. (21 and over) 

The Starry Plough, 3101 Shattuck Ave. 

841-1424 

$5 

Martin Hayes & Dennis Cahill 

8 p.m. 

Freight & Salvage, 1111 Addison St. 

548-1761 or www.freightandsalvage.com 

$19.50 in advance, $20.50 at door 

Friday, September 27 

The Cracked Normans,  

Paradigm & Soul Americana 

9:30 p.m. (21 and over) 

The Starry Plough, 3101 Shattuck Ave. 

841-1424 

$5 

Eric Bogle 

8 p.m. 

Freight & Salvage, 1111 Addison St. 

548-1761 or www.freightandsalvage.com 

$16.50 in advance, $17.50 at door 

Fair Weather, Liars  

Academy and Open Hand 

8 p.m. 

924 Gilman St. 

525-9926 

$5 

Reggae Angels with Earl Zero  

and Jah Light Music 

9:30 p.m. 

Ashkenaz, 1317 San Pablo Ave. 

$15 door/ Free for 12 and under 

Saturday, September 28 

Barry & Alic Oliver 

8 p.m. 

Freight & Salvage, 1111 Addison St. 

548-1761 www.freightandsalvage.com 

$16.50 in advance, $17.50 at door 

From Monument to Masses,  

Victory at Sea and Yesterday’s Kids 

8 p.m. 

924 Gilman St. 

525-9926 

$5 

Sunday, September 29 

Si Kahn  

8 p.m. 

Freight & Salvage, 1111 Addison St. 

548-1761 www.freightandsalvage.com 

$15.50 in advance, $16.50 at door 

Cellist Gianna Abondolo 

4 p.m. 

Crowden Music Center, 1475 Rose St. 

Classical favorites and original  

compositions for cello. 

559-6910 

$10 general, 18 and under free 

Weber Iago and Harvey Wainaple 

4:30 p.m. 

Jazzschool, 2087 Addison St. 

845-5373 

$10-$15 

David Friesen and Uwe Kropinski 

8 p.m. 

Jazzschool, 2087 Addison St. 

845-5373 

$10-$15 

Blowing Zen: A Performance of Shakuhachi 

7:30 p.m. 

St. John’s Presbyterian Church  

2626 College Ave. 

528-2027 

$12 at door / children $5 / seniors $10 

Chamber Music 

4 to 5:15 p.m. 

Crowden Music Center 1475 Rose St. 

Gianna Abondolo & Friends  

celebrate the release of their  

classical and jazz CD. 

559-6910 

$10, 18 and under free  

BACA National Juried Exhibition 

Through Sept. 21, Wed.-Sun. Noon to 5 p.m. 

Berkeley Art Center, 1275 Walnut St., Live Oak Park 

40 artists from across  

the U.S. including 28 Bay Area artists. 

644-6893 

Free 

"Balancing Acts" 

Through Oct. 10 

Gallery 555, 555 12th St., 

Oakland City Center 

Oakland's 'Third Thursday' art night features Ann Weber's works made of cardboard. 

http://www.oaklandcitycenter.com.  

“Hunger: What will you do about it?”  

Through October 30, Mon.-Fri.,  

9 a.m. to 5 p.m. 

The Civic Center Building 

2180 Milvia St., 5th floor 

Featuring 40 photographs  

by Berkeley artist David Bacon. 

834-3663, ext. 338, uchanse@secondharvest.org 

“Virtually Real Oakland - The Magic, The Diversity and the Potholes” 

Through Sept. 21, Mon.-Fri.  

8:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. 

Photolab Gallery, 2235 Fifth St.,  

Exhibit by Ken Burson; digitally enhanced photos of Oakland. 

644-1400 

Free 

Richard Misrach, Berkeley Work 

Though Oct. 13 

UC Berkeley Art Museum & Pacific Film Archive, 2626 Bancroft Way 

On view in Gallery 2, presents two photographic series by this internationally recognized Berkeley-based artist.  

642-0808, www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

$7, $5 BAM/PFA members  

$4 UC Berkeley students 

“Recent Acquisitions” 

October 13 through December 14 

Thurs., Fri., and Sat., 1 to 4 p.m. 

Berkeley Historical Society, Veterans Memorial Building, 1931 Center St. 

848-0181 

Free 

Misch Kohn - Celebrating Sixty Years of Printmaking 

Through Oct. 16: Tues.-Fri., Noon to 5:30 p.m.; Sat., noon to 4:30 p.m. 

Kala Arts Institute, 1060 Heinz Ave. 

549-2977, kala@kala.org 

Nancy Salz 

Through Oct. 23, Tues.-Fri. 10 a.m.-5:30 p.m., Sat 10 a.m.-4 p.m. 

Barbara Anderson Gallery, 2243 5th St. 

848-3822 

Timoteo Ikoshy Montoya 

Through Nov. 1  

Reception Sept. 20, 6 to 8 p.m. 

Gathering Tribes Gallery  

1573 Solano Ave.  

Acrylic/air brush paintings  

by this Native American artist.  

528-9038 

Threads: Five artists who  

use stitching to convey ideas 

Oct. 6 through Dec.r 15, Wed.-Sun., noon to 5 p.m. 

Berkeley Art Center 

Live Oak Park, 1275 Walnut St. 

Information: www.berkeleyartcenter.org, 644-6893 

Free 

A Thousand and One Arabian Nights 

Through Sept. 28, Fri.-Sun. 8 p.m.; Sun. 4 p.m. 

Forest Meadows Outdoor Amphitheater, Grand Avenue at the Dominican University, San Raphael 

Marin Shakespeare Company’s  

presents this classic story with  

original Arabic music. 

415-499-4488 for tickets 

$12, youth; $20 senior; $22 general 

Henry IV: The Impact Remix 

Eighth Street Studio, 2525 Eighth St. 

Through 21, Fri. and Sat., 8 p.m. and Sun., 7 p.m. 

Julia Morgan Center for the Arts 

2640 College Ave. 

Impact theatre’s first Shakespeare production staring Rich Bolster as Prince Hal and Bill Boynton as Falstaff. 

464-4468, www.impacttheatre.com 

$15 general/$10 students 

Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar 

Through Oct. 12 

Thurs. through Sat. 8 p.m. 

LaVal’s Subterranean Theatre  

1834 Euclid Ave. 

234-6046 

$10 

The House of Blue Leaves 

Through Oct. 27 

Berkeley Rep's Roda Theater  

2015 Addison St.  

647-2917 or 888-4BRTTIX 

$10 - $54 

The Shape of Things 

Through Oct. 20 

Aurora Theatre Company  

2081 Addison St. 

Play by writer/director Neil LaBute's spins a morality tale of a young art student, his art major girlfriend, and the Pygmalion-like changes that bring into question how far one should go for love. 

843-4822, www.auroratheater.org for reservations 

$26 to $35  

Ceramics - Opening Reception 

Through Nov. 17 

3 to 5 p.m. 

A New Leaf Gallery, 1286 Gilman St. 

525-7621 

free 

Saturday, September 21 

“Memorizing Windows” 

8 p.m.  

Berkeley Art Center, 1275 Walnut St.  

Dancer Lucinda Weaver and writer Alan Bern bring to Berkeley their program of dance, poetry and stories. 

526-7901 or abbern@sbcglobal.net 

Sunday, September 22 

Piri Thomas & Max Schwartz 

7:30 p.m. 

Cody’s Books, 2454 Telegraph Ave. 

845-7852, www.poetryflash.org 

$2 donation 

Monday, September 23 

“What is a lesbian date?” 

7 p.m. 

Boadecia’s Books, 398 Colusa Ave. 

559-9184 

Free 

Tuesday, September 24 

“Wild Splendors of California” 

7:30 p.m. 

Easy Going Travel Shop & Bookstore 

1385 Shattuck Ave. at Rose 

Lalo Fiorelli, photographer and author, will give a multimedia presentation and talk. 

843-3533 

Free 

Wednesday, September 25 

Poetry Slam with Host Charles Ellik 

9:30 p.m. (21 and older) 

Featured poet: Daphne Gottlieb 

The Starry Plough, 3101 Shattuck Ave. 

841-2082 

$7 

Thursday, September 26 

As ad AbuKahil 

7 p.m. 

Revolution Books, 2425 Channing Way 

Author readds and signs his new book “Bin Laden, Islam and America’s ‘New War on Terrorism’” 

848-1196 

Saturday, September 21 

Buddhist Peace Fellowship with The Deer Park Monastery - Public Lecture 

9 a.m. to 5 p.m. 

Lake Merritt, Oakland  

Lakeside Park, Bandstand Area 

Join Vietnamese peace activist Zen master Thich Nhat Hahn for a public lecture: “Coming Home: a day of community and healing” 

433-9928 

$45, $25 - seniors, $65 - donor level  

BREAD and Roses Garden Party 

1 to 5 p.m. 

Peralta Community Garden,  

Berkeley Hopkins & Peralta, Wheelchair accessible  

BREAD's birthday party - five years of dismantling corporate rule through local currency. 

644-0376 

$12 advance, $15 door,  

low-income rate $10 

Berkeley Alliance of Neighborhood Associations (BANA) 

9:15 to 11 a.m. 

St. John’s Church, 2727 College Ave. 

mtbrcb@pacbell.net 

Free 

Do-It-Yourself all-Natural  

Body Care from Your Kitchen 

Ecology Center, 2530 San Pablo Ave. Learn how to make your own  

all-natural skin care from products you might already have in your  

own kitchen. 

548-2220, Ext. 233,  

erc@ecologycenter.org 

$10 for members 

$15 for nonmembers 

Puppet Shows 

1:30 and 2:30 p.m. 

Hall of Health, 2230 Shattuck Ave. 

Shows promote acceptance,  

understanding of physical,  

mental and medical differences. 

549-1564 

$2 suggested donation 

Third Annual David Brower  

Youth Awards 

6 p.m. 

Schwimley Theater, 1920 Allston Way 

Celebrate the next generation of environmental activists at Earth Island Institute’s award ceremony. R.S.V.P. 

(415) 788-3666, Ext. 260  

www.earthisland.org/bya 

Coastal Cleanup Day 

10 a.m. 

Work at the outflow of Strawberry Creek to clean up the  

San Francisco Bay coastline. 

info@strawberrycreek.org  

848-4008 

Fall Plant Sale 

10 a.m. to 2 p.m. 

200 Centennial Dr. 

Annual plant sale featuring rare  

and unusual plants. Members-only preview and auction from 9 to 11 a.m.  

643-2755  

www.mip.berkeley.edu/garden/ 

Free  

Sunshine Workshop 

10 a.m. to noon 

Sixth floor, City Hall, 2180 Milvia St. 

Get up to speed on open records laws, open meetings laws and sunshine ordinances. Experts, including Terry Francke of the California First Amendment Coalition, will speak. 

BerkeleySunshine@yahoo.com 

Free  

East Bay Shoreline Clean Up 

9.am. to 12 p.m. 

Sea Breeze Market and Deli  

meeting/staging area. 

On the corner of West Frontage Road and University Avenue,  

Arrive promptly to sign appropriate waivers , get coffee and listen to safety talk. We will provide bags, tally cards and a raffle of donated prizes; groups of ten or more need to pre-register by calling 644-8623. 

Free 

Sunday, September 22 

Yoga/Tibetan Jack van der Meulen on “The Theory and Practice of Kum Nye Tibetan Yoga.” 

3 to 5 p.m. - introduction;  

6 to 7 p.m.- Lecture by Jack van der Meulen, Tibetan Nyingma Institute 1815 Highland Place 

Kum Nye is a system of movement, breath, and awareness exercises. 

843-6812 

Free 

Candidates Forum 

4 to 7 p.m. 

UC Berkeley Faculty Club, Heyns Room 

Candidates forum for District 8 City Council and Berkeley mayor. 

Women’s Cancer Resource Center 

Seeking volunteers to help support women with cancer, their families  

and friends. 

601-4040 Ext. 109  

emicly@wcrc.org 

Tuesday, September 24 

Sustainable Business  

Alliance of the East Bay 

5:30 to 7:30 p.m. 

Panoramic Room of the Gaia Building  

Reception and talk by Mal Warwick of Mal Warwick Associates, entitled: “You Don’t Have to Choose: How One Company Does Good While Doing Well” 

282-5151 

members $8, nonmembers $12 

Vitamins, Minerals, and Nutritional Supplements: Possible Interactions with Medications 

1 p.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center  

1901 Hearst St. 

Discussed by Alic Meyers, RN 

981-5190 

Wednesday, September 25 

“Healing Our Hearts  

for the Sake of the World” 

7:30 p.m 

First Congregational Church  

2345 Channing Way 

A reading by Sylvia Boorstein. Proceeds support  

The East Bay Dharma Center. 

595-0408 

$5 to $10 

Berkeley Gray Panthers 

1:30 p.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center, 1901 Hearst St. 

Berkeley Gray Panthers general meeting.  

Thursday, September 26 

Medical Marijuana 

6 p.m. to 8 p.m. 

Berkeley Central Library  

2090 Kittredge St.  

From Prop. 215 to Health and Safety Code 11362.5, a review of its history to present day current events. 

981-6100 

Saturday, September 28 

Free Legal Workshop:  

“Crossroads: Health and the Law.” 

10 a.m. to 3 p.m. 

514 58th St. at Telegraph Avenue 

Navigate your way through legal issues when living with cancer or any serious illness. Panel presentation on employment, insurance and public benefits and one-on-one sessions with attorneys. Please, pre-register. 

601-4040, Ext. 102 for information  

or Ext. 103 to register 

Free  

Garage Sale/ Car Wash  

Belize/ Berkeley Scouts 

10 to 2 p.m. 

Epworth UMC, 1953 Hopkins St. 

International exchange fundraising effort for scouts. 

525-6058 

A Forum on the Arts with the Berkeley Mayoral Candidates 

11 a.m. to 1 p.m. 

Aurora Theater, 2081 Addison St. 

558-1381 

Free 

Sunday, September 29 

Tibetan Buddhism  

“Healing Mind” 

6 p.m. 

Tibetan Nyingma Institute  

1815 Highland Place 

Sylvia Gretchen discusses how the teachings cultivate the mind and redefine what healing means. 

843-6812 

Free 

“Iron Chef” Style Cook-Off  

3 to 4 p.m. 

(followed by reception, 4 to 6 p.m.) 

Spenger’s Fresh Fish Grotto 

1919 Fourth St.  

In this “Crabby Chef” Competition 2002, top East Bay chefs vie for this year’s title by creating the tastiest crab dish. Master of Ceremonies will be KGO-AM’s Gene Burns. 

845-7777 or 845-7771 

Free 

City of Berkeley - 2002 Public Art Competition 

1 to 3 p.m. 

Berkeley Central Public Library  

2090 Kittredge St.  

A public art informational workshop will be open to all artists regarding public art site proposals. 

981-6100 

Free 

The Berkeley Yellowjackets went into halftime of Friday’s game against Liberty High a team looking for their hearts. As they proved in the second half, the Jackets have plenty of it. 

Three touchdowns by the Berkeley High defense sparked a second-half scoring orgy that left Liberty (1-1) helpless, as the Jackets scored 49 points after halftime on the way to a 55-14 win in their first game of the season. 

Sophomore cornerback Patrick Henderson led the way with two interception returns for touchdowns, one in each half. The plays were nearly identical, with Liberty quarterback Bryan Beaver overthrowing his target into Henderson’s arms, right down to Henderson dancing down the left sideline into the end zone. 

“I basically just read the play both times, and he threw the ball at me. I just had to catch it,” Henderson said. “Then I was just thinking about the endzone.” 

Berkeley’s Aaron Boatwright got the Jackets going straight out of the locker room with an unusual-looking touchdown return. As the kickoff bounced toward him, he kicked the ball, then grabbed it on a bounce, ran into his own player, rebounded back five yards, and took off around the corner for 65-yard touchdown for a 13-6 lead that Berkeley would never give back. 

Senior defensive end Robert Hunter-Ford got the Jackets’ second defensive touchdown, recovering a Beaver fumble in the end zone in the third quarter. That score started a run of three Berkeley touchdowns in eight plays, as the Lions failed to pick up the ensuing kickoff and Berkeley recovered on the 25-yard line. Two plays later quarterback Jeff Spellman hit Craig Hollis down the middle for a touchdown and a 27-6 lead. 

On a third-and-long on the next series, Bryan threw Henderson’s second pick, which pretty much put the game away for the Jackets. 

“Our defense really kept us in the game in the first half, and the ball just bounced our way most of the time in the second half,” Berkeley head coach Matt Bissell said. “We just had to get our bearings, work out some kinks.” 

Berkeley would score three more touchdowns in the fourth quarter, one on an inside handoff to wide receiver Sean Young for a 56-yard score and the final one coming on a Chris Watson 17-yard scamper. Hollis had a 56-yard run of his own called back on a holding call. 

But the story of the day was the Berkeley defense. Although they allowed Liberty to gain 359 yards, most of them came on a 74-yard touchdown run by Alejandro Rivera near the end of the first half that tied the game 6-6 and some garbage-time passes by Beaver. The Jackets continuously made big plays, with Hunter-Ford coming up with two fumble recoveries and a sack, Rodney Jones two sacks and Finus Cokes one sack (and a touchdown run). Throw in Henderson’s two interceptions and Jamal Johnson-Lucas stuffing several inside runs, and it adds up to a dominating performance. 

“This is what we expected to do,” Hunter-Ford said. “We watched a lot of tape on Liberty, and our coaches told us what we had to do. We just went out and did it.” 

one coming on a Chris Watson 17-yard scamper. Hollis had a 56-yard run of his own called back on a holding call. 

But the story of the day was the Berkeley defense. Although they allowed Liberty to gain 359 yards, most of them came on a 74-yard touchdown run by Alejandro Rivera near the end of the first half and some garbage-time passes by Beaver. The Jackets continuously made big plays, with Hunter-Ford coming up with two fumble recoveries and a sack, Rodney Jones two sacks and Finus Cokes one sack (and a touchdown run). Throw in Henderson’s two interceptions and Jamal Johnson-Lucas stuffing several inside runs, and it adds up to a dominating performance. 

“This is what we expected to do,” Hunter-Ford said. “We watched a lot of tape on Liberty, and our coaches told us what we had to do. We just went out and did it.” 

Notes: Berkeley High’s junior varsity fell to Liberty High’s JV, 32-8... Sophomore runing back Antoine Cokes impressed his coaches with 43 yards on eight carries... Bissell was vague about whether Spellman would keep the starting quarterback job for next week’s game against Kennedy High. Backups Foster Goree and Dessalines Gant both played on Friday.

Mayor Shirley Dean was dealt a blow by the city’s Fair Campaign Practices Commission Thursday, when commissioners found the mayor, who is rapt in her bid for re-election, to be in “probable violation” of Berkeley campaign finance law. 

The commission is asking Dean to admit she improperly accepted about $550 above contribution limits during her successful 1998 mayoral run. In a second decision, the commission is asking Dean to re-classify about $3,000 of office funds as 2002 campaign contributions. 

The decisions come in response to complaints filed by the treasurer of the Tom Bates For Mayor Committee, which is seeking to unseat Dean this November, and a fellow Bates supporter. 

Dean called the complaints a political ploy and criticized the Fair Campaign Practices Commission for heeding the grumblings of her opponents and making a big deal of a small issue. 

“Normally, they just ask you to re-file paperwork,” Dean said. “The commission wants me to confess to wrongdoing.” 

Dean said her financial reporting in question was approved by the city attorney’s office, and if any reporting was done incorrectly, it was because she acted on bad legal counsel. 

“It’s not a question of trying to hide anything,” Dean said. “I just followed the advice of city staff.” 

The city attorney could not be reached for comment Friday. 

In the first complaint against Dean, Berkeley resident Carrie Olson alleged that the mayor accepted five contributions above the $250 limit for her 1998 campaign. The total illegal contributions amounted to between $550 and $700, Olson said. 

“There was negligence somewhere and when you’re an elected official, it’s your responsibility [to make sure that doesn’t happen],” Olson said. 

Dean explained that the city attorney’s office advised her to declare some of the money as “office holders” for operational expenses, not campaign contributions. Thursday’s Fair Campaign Practices Commission decision contradicts the city attorney’s counsel, she said. 

Dean tried to reach the city attorney Friday to clear up the matter, but was unsuccessful. 

Dean also said that with more than 2,000 contribution checks coming into her office during the 1998 race, an accounting mistake is possible. 

In the second complaint against Dean, Bates campaign treasurer Mal Burnstein said Dean incorrectly declared $3,000 of surplus funds from her 1998 campaign as “office holders.” Since the money was spent after the 1998 race, Burnstein successfully argued that the money should be counted toward the mayor’s 2002 campaign expenses. 

“We want to make sure we have a level playing field [in this November’s race],” Burnstein said earlier this week. 

Dean said the misallocation complaint was merely a matter of “filing a form.” 

No financial penalties accompany the commission’s decisions.

To the Editor: 

It is rare that news gets me so worked up that I take the time to respond but the CNN feature about the man who gathered enough signatures on a petition to have the type of coffee the people of Berkeley (and visitors too) can drink, restricted to three types left me in wonder.  

Yes, we have the freedom to bring a petition forward for a vote, but we are becoming a global joke. We sue for any number of inane reasons mainly because we have become a culture that chooses not to take personal responsibility for individual actions. Now someone with more time than good sense tries to force his version of what coffee the population of Berkeley should be drinking. (Germany1936 comes to mind.) Is this man sane? 

Would someone please remind this misguided fool we have a Constitution that guarantees me and everyone the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. We have choices built in our Constitution and I'll encourage him to move to anyone of several dictatorships, operating on the planet where he might find the appreciation for our hard-fought freedoms and life here. What does he plan next? To help us all choose what cereal we can eat? Fabric we can weave for clothing? Good grief the list is incredible - and so is his logic. 

I'll not tolerate that type of suppression of my personal rights, nor will I seek to visit a place that functions on such a backward level. Perhaps the Dark Ages haven't past into history after all. 

Sherrie Beshore 

Fort Collins, Colo. 

PITTSBURGH — When Willie Nelson helped start Farm Aid in 1985, he and the other organizers — John Mellencamp and Neil Young — held out hope their message about the plight of America’s small family farmers would be heard, and Congress would react. 

Seventeen years later, Nelson is still waiting for that to happen. 

“What has changed is that nothing has changed,” the 69-year-old singer-songwriter said before this year’s Farm Aid benefit concert, the 15th in the series. “That’s what has made me more unhappy than everything else.” 

Nelson will be joined by Kid Rock, Neil Young, Mellencamp and other performers in the Saturday’s concert outside Pittsburgh. It will be broadcast live on CMT. 

In 14 concerts over 16 years, Farm Aid has raised some $24 million. Since the beginning, the money has financed organizations and efforts that directly help farmers struggling to keep their farms in the face of foreclosures. 

But Nelson — who was disappointed by passage this year of a farm bill he believes provides little benefit to small farmers — said that, when the concert series began, he thought politicians might rally to the cause and find a way to protect small farmers from losing their land.

St. Mary’s High squandered a 20-7 halftime lead and lost, 29-20, at El Cerrito High Friday night. 

The Panthers (0-2) built their first-half lead with two touchdown runs by quarterback Steve Murphy and a blocked punt that defensive lineman Jarrell Booker returned for a touchdown. But an inspired Gauchos defense and three St. Mary’s turnovers – a Murphy interception and two fumbles by tailback Fred Hives – kept the Panthers out of the end zone in the second half. 

Hives finished the game with 18 carries for 86 yards and three fumbles. Murphy was just 3-of-10 passing for 39 yards and an interception. Lawson replaced Murphy with backup Scott Tully on St. Mary’s final drive, but Tully missed on all seven of his passes. 

“We let a good ball club stay in the game, and then momentum started to swing, and they really took it to us in the second half,” St. Mary’s head coach Jay Lawson said. “The came out a little bit more physical. A couple times we had people defensively out of position or in a deep-third zone and let somebody get behind them when they shouldn’t have. El Cerrito made plays.” 

“It seemed like every time we were on a drive, we’d cough the ball up and give them opportunities.” 

El Cerrito (1-1) was much more productive offensively in the second half. The Gauchos ran for 122 yards compared to just eight in the first half and quarterback Ricky Gatewood threw for 133 yards and two scores. For the game, Gatewood was 10-for-17 for 201 yards, three TDs and two interceptions. 

Gatewood began the comeback with an 11-yard toss to Elijah Vincent in the third quarter to make the score 20-14. The key play on the drive was a 25-yard screen pass on fourth-and-four that got the ball to the St. Mary’s 13-yard line. 

The Gauchos’ biggest play came on second and seven at their own 47 with 9:03 to go in the fourth quarter. Gatewood hit wide receiver Phillip Bique with a long pass and Bique streaked 53 yards down the right sideline for the score. The point after gave El Cerrito the lead for good at 21-20. 

The Gauchos tacked on a 3-yard touchdown run by John Norman and a 2-point conversion for the final score with 5:47 to go in the game. 

Things looked rosy for St. Mary’s in the first half, as Murphy scampered for 1- and 5-yard touchdowns in the second quarter. 

A turnover also hurt the Panthers in the first half. Murphy fumbled a punt return, which led to El Cerrito’s first score – Gatewood’s 19-yard throw to James Cannon. 

With 39.2 seconds remaining in the first half, the Panthers blocked El Cerrito’s punt deep near El Cerrito’s own end zone, and Booker rumbled six yards to paydirt. Cannon blocked Brendan Slevin’s PAT, Cannon’s second block of the night, to keep the score at 20-7 at halftime. 

Things went downhill from there for St. Mary’s. 

A turnover also hurt the Panthers in the first half. Murphy fumbled a punt return, which led to El Cerrito’s first score – Gatewood’s 19-yard throw to James Cannon. 

With 39.2 seconds remaining in the first half, the Panthers blocked El Cerrito’s punt deep near El Cerrito’s own end zone, and Booker rumbled six yards to paydirt. Cannon blocked Brendan Slevin’s PAT, Cannon’s second block of the night, to keep the score at 20-7 at halftime. 

Things went downhill from there for St. Mary’s.

University of California officials cited faculty recruitment, staff salaries and housing as chief long-term concerns at the Board of Regents meeting this week. 

With enrollment at UC’s nine campuses expected to jump 40 percent from 1998 to 2010, in a surge dubbed “Tidal Wave II,” university officials are moving to hire as many as 550 new faculty a year this decade to keep up with the growth. 

But a number of obstacles, most of them financial, have university officials worried. UC is paying faculty 7.5 percent less than eight universities it references for comparative purposes, officials said, which makes it harder to attract faculty candidates. 

The average UC full professor is making $109,214 per year, according to university statistics. The salaries are measured against not only public schools like the University of Virginia and University of Illinois but private universities like Harvard, Yale and Stanford. 

“We compete, very much, with leading private institutions for faculty,” said UC Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs C. Judson King. 

The salary shortfall is due, in part, to a decline in state funding in recent years. This year, the state Legislature gave UC only a 1.5 percent increase in funding for salaries. That figure falls well below the 4 percent target laid out in a partnership agreement between the university and the state dating back to the Wilson administration. 

With the short-term health of the state budget in doubt, UC officials are worried that they will not see the 4 percent increases anytime soon. Analysts predict a $10 billion state shortfall next year on the heels of this year’s $24 billion hole. 

But Vice President for Budget Larry Hershman held hope for a long-term economic recovery, which would boost state revenues and improve UC’s fortunes. 

“The fundamentals of the California economy are strong,” he said. “We will catch up again.”  

In the meantime, with hundreds of faculty hires in the pipeline, start-up costs are another concern. King said it costs the university an average of $200,000 to make lab modifications, provide new equipment and hire graduate students for new professors. 

Logistical concerns around the sheer number of searches to be conducted and physical space for new professors on campus are also at issue, King said. 

Officials from UC’s Housing Task Force said shelter, in the face of an expensive California housing market, is another long-term concern. Systemwide, UC is housing 26 percent of its students. UC Berkeley, at 20 percent, falls below the average, while UC Santa Cruz, at 42 percent, leads the pack. 

By the 2011-12 school year, UC hopes to house 38 percent of its students. The target at UC Berkeley is 29 percent. 

UC Berkeley has made progress this year on housing, opening a new 120-bed housing complex at the corner of College and Durant avenues and clearing the waiting list for housing for the first time in recent history. 

The university plans to have 1,100 new beds in place by the end of 2005. 

But some students say the university needs to do more. 

“There’s definitely still a need,” said Micki Weinberg, a UC Berkeley sophomore and candidate for Berkeley City Council. 

University officials, in a wide-ranging review of UC’s long-term health at the Board of Regents’ meeting, gave the institution high marks in a number of other areas. 

UC has exceeded goals for boosting undergraduate and graduate enrollment, for example, and has increased its share of federal research dollars in recent years, officials said.

To the Editor: 

What a load of compost and granola. Thanks to our City Council's forceful stand against space weapons in or above the city limits, Berkeley is finally comic relief not just for the rest of the country but for the whole planet. For those who missed the resolution, you can read about it in the online Wall Street Journal under a heading, “Spaced Out.” 

I have not ceded the space above my home to Dona Spring, the City Council, the Jedi Council or the Evil Empire. Please do not speak for me in this matter. It's embarrassing. 

Heather Jacobsen 

Berkeley

When Cal has the ball 

The ground game 

Tailback Joe Igber ran for a season-high 108 yards against Michigan State last week, a sign that the Bears’ running game might be coming around. Igber actually gained some yardage up the middle for the first time this season rather than bouncing everything outside, a good philosophy to follow against the undersized, speedy Air Force defense. Don’t expect head coach Jeff Tedford to use much of the option attack he pulled out of his hat in the second half, as the Falcons are good at defending the edges, but there should be plenty of holes up the middle for Igber to run through. 

In the trenches 

Air Force only uses three defensive linemen, but they blitz linebackers from all over. That means the Cal offensive line will have to move around and communicate efficiently, keeping blitzers off of quarterback Kyle Boller. One missed assignment can mean disaster against the opportunistic Air Force defense. The small Falcon defensive line shouldn’t pose much of a challenge, as they all give up more than 30 pounds to their Cal opponents. 

Taking to the air 

Boller should be able to continue his outstanding season against the Falcons, who haven’t faced a passing attack like Cal’s yet this season. Watch for some three-receiver sets from the Bears as Tedford takes advantage of size mismatches against the Air Force secondary. When’s the last time you heard that about Cal’s wide receivers? 

When Michigan State has the ball 

The ground game 

The Falcons are leading the nation in rushing yards per game, and the Bears looked vulnerable to the option against New Mexico State, a much less efficient option team. The key will be the Cal linebackers – if they can flow to the ball and swarm Air Force quarterback Chance Harridge quickly, they can stop plays before they start. But if Harridge can get to the outside and get the ball to halfback Leotis Palmer, who is averaging more than eight yards per carry, watch out. The Falcons are perfectly happy marching up the field without using big plays, as their discipline and fitness are unmatched. 

In the trenches 

Air Force is relatively small up front, but they do a good job holding their blocks while Harridge creates chaos. They also don’t have to worry much about pass-blocking, which makes them more aggressive. They also do a lot of cut blocking, which brings defenders to the ground and makes them worry about protecting their legs instead of tackling the ball-carrier. If the offensive line can get to Cal’s linebackers it will mean big plays for the Falcons. 

Taking to the air 

The only way the Falcons will beat anyone with the pass is if the opposition falls asleep. Harridge has completed just eight passes in two games and doesn’t have much talent to work with at receiver. As long as the Cal cornerbacks don’t get fooled, Harridge won’t hurt them with his arm. 

With Berkeley’s coffers low, Councilmember Betty Olds wants the city to reduce one of its more frustrating expenses: zoning appeals.  

The city spends about $1,300 handling each appeal to the Zoning Adjustment Board, which determines whether building proposals comply with city law. 

This week, City Council approved Olds’ plan to consider raising the $63 fee for people who live more than 300 feet from a proposed building or development. Residents within the 300-mile radius would still pay $63. 

“Some people are appealing for the sake of appealing,” Olds said. “City staff doesn’t have the manpower to deal with all the frivolous claims.” 

The $1,300 cost estimate includes 12 hours of staff research and administration work, or $109 an hour, to prepare a report for City Council that details an appeal’s merits, City Planner Mark Rhoades said. At any time, city planning staff is working on five to nine appeals, which prevents staff from addressing other work that may be more pressing, , Rhoades said. 

The chief of out-of-neighborhood appeals, Olds said, is Berkeley resident Howie Muir. An opponent of dense development, Muir has led a campaign to stop several multistory housing projects throughout the city. 

On July 23, City Council heard three appeals in which Muir protested new housing developments. Of the three, Muir lived two blocks from one development, but was more than a mile away from the other two. 

Muir said he understood council’s concern, but said that Olds’ suggestion was unfair and didn’t solve the problem: Berkeley’s zoning ordinance is too vague. Because city zoning laws are devoid of uniform standards for developments, developers and neighbors often disagree about how to interpret the laws.  

When the ZAB sides with developers, residents accuse the board of favoring developers. 

Muir added that the city’s refusal to set population density standards has exacerbated the problem. Because there are no clear limits on units a developer may put in an apartment complex, Muir said they have an incentive to build as many units as they can. 

“Developers are always pushing the envelope to do denser buildings,” he said. Such developments anger many Berkeley residents who think that dense developments in certain neighborhoods threaten the vitality of the city. 

If council passes an appeal fee hike, Muir said he would continue his appeals and might challenge the hike’s validity as well. 

“It implies that residents shouldn’t have a say in their own city,” said Muir, adding that Berkeley neighborhoods extend beyond the 300 foot threshold suggested by Olds. 

Rhoades, however thought the proposal was fair. 

“If you live 2 or 3 miles away it can’t possibly have the same effect as if you live in the neighborhood,” he said. 

The proposal is still a long way from approval. The ZAB, Planning Commission and Landmarks Preservation Commission will all discuss it before city staff offers council a plan next year. 

To the Editor: 

On May 8, Berkeley, Oakland, Albany and other communities led and participated in a spirited rally and lobbying effort in Sacramento on behalf of our beleaguered public schools. School board members from Berkeley and Oakland joined with community members to get busloads of parents, teachers, students, and community activists to the state capital. 

I believe it is important to advocate for and lobby on behalf of public school funding on a regular basis in Sacramento. Most of a local school district’s funding begins in Sacramento, and almost all of the funding decisions that are made on the local level are actually defined by the level of state funding in any given fiscal year. California, as most of you know, has allocated far too little to our public schools for over 20 years now. Berkeley, with its uncommon community support for public education, has supplemented this inadequate state funding with local bonds and parcel taxes, starting in 1986 with the first Berkeley Public Schools Educational Excellence Project measure, to help alleviate this serious historical underfunding of our schools. 

I have the names and e-mail addresses of dozens of Berkeley residents who participated in last May’s event. I also have the names of additional people who expressed interest in continuing a presence in Sacramento at a community meeting I held on June 5. I intend to hold other community meetings this school year, at least in part to organize and get people involved in lobbying efforts in Sacramento. In my view, it is important that we start a regular, ongoing lobbying effort in Sacramento early in the budget process. 

Please contact me at jwebsky@earthlink.net or 848-0305 to add your name to those interested in lobbying efforts in Sacramento. Expect a notice of a meeting or meetings to begin sometime in late October. 

John Selawsky 

Berkeley School Board director 

BERLIN — With an oblique but damaging comparison between George Bush and Adolf Hitler hanging over the final hours of his re-election campaign, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder sought Friday to defuse tensions in a conciliatory letter to the U.S. president. 

The letter was sent shortly before a defiant Justice Minister Herta Daeubler-Gmelin again denied remarks attributed to her by a German newspaper. It had quoted her as saying Bush, like Hitler, was threatening war to distract attention from domestic problems. She claimed she was misquoted and libeled. 

“The minister has assured me that she never made the remarks attributed to her,” Schroeder said in the letter to Bush. “She has said this publicly, as well.” 

“I would like to assure you that no one has a place at my Cabinet table who makes a connection between the American president and a criminal,” he wrote. 

In Washington, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said he wasn’t convinced by Daeubler-Gmelin’s denials. “The statements made by the justice minister were outrageous and inexplicable,” he said. “The president continues to view this as a troubling event.” 

The opposition conservatives, hoping to oust Schroeder from power in Sunday’s election, called for Daeubler-Gmelin’s resignation. 

“Every day, every hour that this unbearable woman remains in office and represents Germany is damaging to Germany, very damaging,” Schroeder’s conservative challenger, Edmund Stoiber, told thousands of supporters at his closing campaign rally Friday night in Berlin. 

The ruckus with Washington, and the reference to Germany’s dark past, has tainted an election already characterized by unusually harsh rhetoric about the Bush administration. The United States helped rebuild Germany after World War II and has been one of its staunchest allies. 

Stoiber has accused Schroeder of damaging U.S.-German relations with his emphatic opposition to American military action to oust Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. 

Tensions spiked after the Schwaebisches Tagblatt regional newspaper reported Thursday that Daeubler-Gmelin told a labor union meeting: “Bush wants to distract attention from his domestic problems. That’s a popular method. Even Hitler did that.” 

At a news conference Friday, Daeubler-Gmelin gave a different version. She said during the course of a chaotic discussion that touched on Iraq, she had referred to diversionary tactics and had used the words “we know that from our history, since Adolf Nazi.” But she denied saying the name Hitler. 

German analysts suggest it is Schroeder’s rhetoric that has created the combative atmosphere in which others feel free to launch more general attacks on the United States. 

“I think that his position certainly wasn’t intended as anti-American. But there has been perhaps some unintended consequences that people are feeling freer to challenge the United States,” said Deidre Berger of the American Jewish Committee office in Berlin. 

With the focus on the Middle East and the war on terrorism, some comments have broken taboos that German politicians have for two generations been careful to obey. 

The campaign has revealed “tones of anti-Americanism, tones of anti-Semitism and tones of anti-Zionism,” Berger said. 

For example, the liberal Free Democrats isolated their deputy leader and threatened to walk out of a rally in Bonn on Thursday if he didn’t leave. They were protesting his continued attacks on prominent German Jewish leader Michel Friedman. They vowed to seek his ouster. 

A leading member of Schroeder’s party, former Defense Minister Rudolf Scharping, was quoted by New York Times columnist William Safire this week as saying Bush wanted to overthrow Saddam to please “a powerful — perhaps overly powerful — Jewish lobby.” 

In protest, the World Jewish Congress sent letters to Schroeder, Stoiber and Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer warning “that the hour may be too late” to undo damage already done. 

“Some of the ugly remarks of the past few days require immediate attention,” World Jewish Congress leader Israel Singer said in a letter to Fischer. “I know the hour is late. However, we need to remedy the situation which has resulted from gross insensitive and ugly behavior.” 

Even before her remarks were published, Daeubler-Gmelin denied them to the newspapers’ editors. She said she wasn’t comparing Bush and Hitler, but rather their methods. The newspaper claimed it had cleared the quote with her before it was published, as is the custom in German journalism. She denied that. 

On Friday, Daeubler-Gmelin showed no inclination to step down. 

“I don’t have to answer for the reporting ... but I believe that relations between our countries are good, despite the unbelievably emotion-charged discussion over the Iraq conflict,” she told reporters. 

She said it was “absurd and libelous to attribute to me a comparison between a democratically elected politician and a leading Nazi.” 

While Schroeder has had his own diplomatic rift with Washington over his Iraq position, the stand has resonated with Germans, most of whom oppose a new Middle East war, according to polls. 

After trailing Stoiber for months in the polls over the weak economy, Schroeder pulled slightly ahead. The election stands to be one of the closest since World War II. 

A step in the fight against breast cancer was made last weekend, when sports and entertainment celebrities raised $200,000 at Berkeley’s Alta Bates Summit 2000 Celebrity Classic. 

The celebrity lineup included KTVU-TV’s Faith Fancher as master of ceremonies, comedian Bob Sarlatte as the headline entertainment and a variety of exhibition matches including a face-off between tennis greats Tracy Austin and Zina Garrison. 

“People loved the quality of the tennis, it was a beautiful day, and the energy from the crowd was electric,” said Steve Lundin, president of the Alta Bates Summit Foundation. 

Proceeds from the event will go to the Comprehensive Breast Center, a soon-to-be built breast cancer diagnostic center and prevention clinic at Alta Bates Summit, at 2450 Ashby Ave. 

Lundin said breast cancer screening at the new center will be “unparalleled in Northern California” in its speed and accuracy. 

ALAMEDA – Alameda city officials have announced plans for a memorial service for Mayor Ralph Appezzato, who apparently commit suicide Monday. He was 67. 

Appezzato had been diagnosed with prostate cancer several months ago and died of a gunshot wound, police said. 

Appezzato, who retired as a colonel from the U.S. Marine Corps in 1983 after 26 years, had served as mayor of Alameda since 1994. He was seeking a seat on the Alameda County Board of Supervisors at the time of his death. 

The public is invited to attend the service scheduled 10 a.m. on Saturday aboard the USS Hornet at Alameda Point.

OAKLAND – Three unrelated shootings overnight in Oakland pushed the city's number of homicides this year to 84, police officials said. 

Sgt. Paul Figueroa said the first slaying occurred at 9:51 p.m. Thursday near 30th and Magnolia streets in West Oakland. A 53-year-old man was shot and killed and a woman was also shot but she was said to be in stable condition Friday. 

The second killing occurred at 1:12 Friday morning in front of 1067 21st St. in West Oakland, just a few blocks from the first homicide. Figueroa said a 19-year-old man was shot and killed. 

The third killing, the city's 84th of the year, occurred in the 1200 block of 49th Avenue in East Oakland at about 1:15 a.m. Friday. An unidentified man was found shot and killed in a car.

n Attempted arson 

An man went to put gas in his car at 8 a.m. Wednesday and found that someone had stolen his gasket and stuck a partially burnt white cloth inside the gas tank. This is a common method to try to set a car on fire. According to police, the man suspects that a family member did it. 

n Graffiti 

Enterprise Rent-A-Car on the 3000 block of Shattuck Avenue was tagged with graffiti sometime early Wednesday morning. 

n Stolen car 

A white Toyota van, license 2M58246, was reported stolen from the 2100 block of Ashby Avenue at 11:22 p.m. Wednesday night. 

n Stolen bike 

A yellow Diamondback Sorrento 21 speed girl’s bicycle was reported stolen from the 1800 block of Fairview Street at 9:49 a.m. Tuesday. 

Fairfield police investigate  

pipe bombing 

FAIRFIELD –Fairfield police are still investigating the explosion of a pipe bomb in a parked car on San Clemente Street Wednesday night. No one was injured. 

Police said they heard the 10:10 p.m. explosion a mile away from the blast that threw metal from the destroyed 1987 Subaru GL into homes and cars as far away as 200 feet. 

Lt. Mike Hill said Friday police have information regarding a suspect or suspects but declined further comment on the investigation. The owner of the car has been identified, Hill said. 

The rear end of the vehicle was blown out and the car was engulfed in flames when police arrived. 

The pipe bomb blast was the second violent explosion in Solano County within a week.  

Vallejo police are investigating the firebombing of a Vallejo home on Sept. 13. Four suspects threw Molotov cocktails into a Miller Street home, sending twin, 12-year-old boys to the hospital with serious burns. 

Hill said Fairfield police see no connection between the two incidents. 

Judge denies 13-year-old’s request for injunction 

FAIRFAX — A Marin County Superior Court judge cleared the way for Friday’s election at White Hill Middle School. 

The judge Thursday rejected a request from a 13-year-old student to halt the vote until resolution of a suit she filed as a candidate for student body president. 

Eighth-grader Elektra Fike-Data sued the school for refusing to let her give a campaign speech that involved student participation. 

Judge Michael Dufficy refused to halt the election, but Fike-Data’s attorney says his client will pursue the suit anyhow. 

“I’m not in this to win the battle, I’m in this to win the war,” said attorney James Wall. “Life is a series of setbacks, but you have to go on.” 

Fike-Data had planned to ask the assembled students to all scoot over a few inches and introduce themselves to the person sitting next to them. 

Then she would say “See, I just cleaned the gym and improved student relations. Just think of what I could do in a year as president.” 

The school rejected the speech because of the participation aspect. 

Officials say a rule banning student participation in such speeches has been in place for years. 

“The real issue is that a 13-year-old girl wanted to get students to scoot five inches to the left then five inches to the right and shake hands with the person next to them,” Wall said. “If that is so frightening that it threatens the security of the school, then other issues need to be addressed, not Elektra’s speech.” 

8th-grader threatens to shoot  

KENTFIELD — A Kent Middle School student may be expelled for allegedly firing a pellet gun at one classmate and threatening another on campus this week. 

The eighth-grade boy said, “I wonder if this hurts,” then allegedly shot another boy in the thigh with a plastic pellet, according to Marin County sheriff’s deputy Gary Wilbanks. The victim suffered a welt on his leg. 

The boy then showed the gun to other students and threatened to shoot one of them with a real gun when the boy said he was going to turn him in.

SAN FRANCISCO — A 6-year-old boy spent the night in a hospital recovering from a gash to his hairline after he was attacked by a tiger at a school assembly in Scotts Valley. 

The female tiger, called Sima, was being led on a leash out of an auditorium at Baymonte Christian School by her trainer Friday afternoon when she leaped over a row of seats and grabbed the boy’s head in her jaws, said Capt. Harry Bidleman, Scotts Valley Police. Authorities have not identified the boy. 

Anita Jackson, an employee of the business that owns Sima, said the incident was not an attack, but simply a case of a playful tiger. 

Principal Steve Patterson was sitting one row behind the boy and wrestled him away from the animal, said school spokeswoman Jenny Paul. 

The boy was airlifted to Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital in Palo Alto, where he was doing well Friday afternoon and was receiving stitches for a laceration along his hairline, according to Dr. Phillip Harter. 

“He’s a very lucky young man. He’s been up talking to us and smiling,” Harter said. A CT scan found no other injuries, he said. 

Police said the tiger was in custody of its owner, Zoo to You Wildlife Education Inc., a Southern California-based company that makes educational presentations at schools. Police planned to coordinate any possible investigation with Santa Cruz County Animal Services and the state Department of Fish and Game. 

“It sounds more accidental than criminal, but there could be some overseeing bodies that would want this completely investigated,” Bidleman said. 

The school said the 1-year-old tiger was brought to the school as a reward for children who had sold 10 or more magazine subscriptions. About 150 students, from kindergarten through eighth grade, attended the assembly and were kept clear of the animal during the event, Paul said. 

“(She) was here last year when (she) was a little cub. It was (her) second visit here,” Paul said. 

Zoo to You did not immediately return calls for comment. 

But in a televised interview Friday evening in San Jose next to an open van with the tiger inside, the company’s supervisor of animal care and training said Sima had not attacked the boy, but was just playing. Anita Jackson said the children had been asked to sit down as Sima left the room but several jumped up, attracting the tiger’s attention. 

“Of course, we’re going to think about what happened today. But I don’t think we have a problem with her. She was never aggressive,” Jackson said. “She just saw them playing and she wanted to play as well.” 

She said the 140 to 150 pound animal had been used in at least 150 assemblies. Sima never had been aggressive and the company has no plans to stop bringing her to schools, she added. 

Scotts Valley is about 60 miles south of San Francisco. 

Sick sea otter to get MRI exam at human hospital 

SALINAS — A wild sea otter suffering grand mal seizures successfully underwent a magnetic resonance imaging exam — believed to be the first administered to a sea otter — at a hospital for humans Friday. 

The female otter, which is between 1 and 2 years old, rode into the examination room at Salinas Valley Memorial Healthcare System wrapped in ice on a gurney Adrienne Laurent, a hospital spokeswoman. 

The otter, which does not have a name, has been at the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Sea Otter Research and Conservation program since being found stranded at San Simeon Beach, south of Big Sur, on July 17. 

The otter is believed to be suffering from domoic acid poisoning, which otters can contract by eating shellfish that fed on toxic plankton. The toxin is suspected of killing hundreds of animals, from sea lions to dolphins to sea birds, along California’s coast this year. 

The creature has not responded to treatment, and veterinarians believe domoic acid poisoning may have caused brain damage leading to the seizures. 

If the otter does not show improvement over the next week or so, it likely will have to be euthanized. 

Davis cancels fund-raiser  

in face of criticism 

LOS ANGELES — Gov. Gray Davis canceled a controversial fund-raiser with bullet train advocates a day after he authorized a vote on a $9.9-billion high-speed rail bond. 

“We’ve always had a strict line between discussing policy and our finance events ... under the circumstances, the governor didn’t think it was appropriate,” campaign Press Secretary Roger Salazar said, less than two hours before the Friday evening event was to begin. 

The fund-raiser was planned at the Santa Clara home of Rod Diridon, Davis-appointed chairman of the California High Speed Rail Authority. 

Republican challenger Bill Simon blasted Davis over the fund-raiser at a morning press conference in Santa Monica. After the cancellation, he went to Diridon’s home, set up a podium outside the closed door and called for an investigation of Davis’ fund-raising. 

“Davis seeks to exploit the power of his signature to further his campaign contributions,” Simon said. 

Judge bars enforcement of slate-mailer disclosure  

SACRAMENTO — A federal judge Friday blocked enforcement of a slate-mailer campaign disclosure requirement imposed by California voters when they passed Proposition 34 in 2000. 

U.S. District Judge Lawrence Karlton granted a preliminary injunction sought by four slate-mailer publishers, saying the plaintiffs had shown a “high likelihood” the requirement violated the First Amendment. 

“With the November 2002 elections on the immediate horizon, absent an injunction, plaintiffs will have to choose between self-censorship or the real possibility of an enforcement action” by the state Fair Political Practices Commission, Karlton said. 

“This harm outweighs any that would be suffered (by the FPPC) or the public by the issuance of a preliminary injunction.” 

Proposition 34 was mainly about limiting the size of campaign contributions to state candidates, but it included a provision requiring slate mailers resembling a communication from a political party to state in bold letters if voter positions advocated by the mailers differ from those of the party. 

Slate mailers are brochures sent to voters advocating positions on candidates or ballot measures. Candidates frequently pay to be listed on the mailers. 

The FPPC, charged with enforcing Proposition 34, said the disclosure provision is needed so that voters aren’t tricked into thinking that the mailers come from a political party. 

But the publishers argued that the Proposition 34 disclosure language takes up valuable space and violates their free-speech rights. 

They said they would continue to use a previously required disclosure requirement that says the mailers were not published by an official party organization. 

Sigrid Bathen, a spokeswoman for the FPPC, said commission officials were studying Karlton’s decision and had no comment. 

SAN FRANCISCO — A pillar of the U.S. philanthropic scene, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation may cut up to half its staff and reduce its nonprofit grant programs for next year, a foundation spokesman said Friday. 

For the second year in a row, the foundation will slash its grant program, though not as dramatically as in 2002, said foundation spokesman Chris DeCardy. 

The 2003 budget will be slashed by $50 million. In 2000, the foundation handed out more than $616 million. That was cut to $450 million in 2001, and again cut by $200 million for 2002. 

“We saw tremendous expansion in the 1980s and knew it had to plateau,” DeCardy said. 

Money for grants typically comes from the endowment earnings, leaving it to the whim of the stock market, he said, adding that the impact of the latest cutbacks will be felt internally more than in the grant programs. 

The Los Altos-based foundation has been among the country’s most prominent grant makers. With its future made uncertain by diminishing endowment funds, however, the organization is redirecting its mission and consolidating its grant programs. 

“We need to narrow the range of our work to keep depth in what programs we’re keeping,” DeCardy said. 

West Coast ports  

return to normal 

LOS ANGELES — Goods flowed on schedule through the nation’s largest port complex on Friday, as West Coast operators and union dockworkers stepped back from the brink of a major work stoppage. 

The Pacific Maritime Association, which represents 87 shipping companies and terminal operators, suspended its threat to lock out workers at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach Thursday night after it said the union had ended a three-day slowdown at a Long Beach terminal. 

The two ports were operating “relatively normally” on Friday, although cargo traffic was heavy and not all requests for labor could be filled, PMA spokesman Steve Sugerman said. 

There were no reports of slowdowns at any other of the 29 West Coast ports, he said. 

State gets tentative approval for PG&E creditor revote 

SAN FRANCISCO — A federal bankruptcy judge tentatively approved a request from state power regulators that would give creditors of Pacific Gas and Electric Co. a second chance to indicate which of two visions for the utility’s future they’d prefer. 

California’s Public Utilities Commission and a key committee of PG&E’s creditors asked the court to let thousands of businesses and individuals to whom the utility owes more than $13 billion vote again. 

The PUC’s plan won approval from only one class of creditors this summer, despite the backing of the creditors committee. However, voters had little time to digest the state’s revised plan before they had to cast their ballots. PG&E, whose plan garnered the most approval, opposes a re-vote. 

Oracle chairman resigns from Apple Computer board 

SAN FRANCISCO — Software mogul Larry Ellison resigned from Apple Computer Inc.’s board Friday in a move that analysts attributed to investors’ demands for more vigilant directors. 

Ellison, the flamboyant chief executive officer of Oracle Corp., had attended less than 75 percent of Apple’s board meetings during each of his five years as a director, according to Securities and Exchange Commission filings. No other Apple director missed as many meetings during that time. 

Ellison stepped down after concluding his attendance record wouldn’t improve in the upcoming months, given his duties at slumping Oracle and his upcoming bid to win the America’s Cup yacht race. 

“My schedule does not currently allow me to attend enough of the formal board meetings to warrant a role as a director,” Ellison said.

SAN FRANCISCO — Like any proud father, Ted Benna takes pride in the accomplishments of his brainchild, the 401(k) account. 

But that doesn’t mean he ignores his progeny’s shortcomings — flaws facing more scrutiny as the nation’s once-ballooning 401(k) savings deflate under the weight of a bearish stock market and corrupt companies. 

Yes, Benna says, it was a bad idea to let so many 401(k) investors buy the stocks of their employers. The employees at scandal-ridden Enron Corp. hammered this point home when they loaded up on company stock and lost a collective $1.3 billion after the energy trader collapsed late last year. 

And Benna knows that many of the nation’s 48 million 401(k) participants might not have lost so much money during the past two years had they been given more guidance and choices by their employers. 

He will even bluntly admit that 401(k) accounts “stink” when it comes to helping financially struggling workers making less than $10 per hour. 

What you won’t hear Benna say is that the country would have been better off if he hadn’t unveiled the first 401(k) plan nearly 22 years ago. 

“People can beat up the 401(k) all they want, but this is the only retirement plan a lot of employees are ever going to have,” Benna said in an interview after a recent financial seminar in San Francisco. 

“I’ve had people come up to me to complain they only have $70,000 in a 401(k) account that had $100,000 a couple of years ago and I say, ’Well, how much would you have saved now without the account?’ That usually makes them stop and think.” 

A closer look at 401(k) plans is long overdue, said Karen Friedman, director of policy strategy for the Pension Rights Center, a Washington, D.C. watchdog group. She thinks the stock market’s recent troubles have proven that most people aren’t ready to manage their own retirement accounts, a skill that 401(k) plans require. 

“There really has never been a policy debate about this because no one really criticized 401(k)s during the 1990s when the stock market was raging and everyone thought their accounts would just keep rising with the tide,” Friedman said. “Now, a lot of people are discovering that 401(k)s might not be quite what they are cracked up to be.” 

Benna, 60, is doing his part to help people learn more. His latest book, “401(k) for Dummies” will be released next month by Wiley Publishing. In the meantime, Benna continues to give financial seminars throughout the country while heading up the 401(k) Association, a Jersey Shore, Pa., group dedicated to improving plan benefits. 

While he supports efforts to better educate 401(k) investors, Benna believes most employers sponsoring the plans aren’t up to the challenge and probably never will be. 

About 97 percent of the nation’s 400,000 401(k) plans are offered by small and medium-sized businesses with fewer than 500 employees, Benna said, leaving them “no better equipped for making investment decisions than the participants are.” 

Congress is considering a variety of 401(k) changes, including limits on the amount of employer stock that can be held in the plans and reforms in the way the plans are run. 

Benna agrees some changes may be in order, but prefers a free-market approach to government mandates. 

Friedman believes the government should play a greater role because 401(k) accounts provide one of the nation’s biggest tax breaks — about $60 billion annually. That figure likely will rise over the next few years as the maximum annual 401(k) contribution per investor rises from $11,000 this year to $15,000 in 2006.

U.S. Rep. Sam Farr, D-Carmel, on Wednesday derided what he calls the "pure corporate greed'' that causes large coffee buying companies to purchase coffee at prices that are lower than the cost of production. 

Farr claims the practice results in millions of Latin American growers and their families being forced to live lives of poverty. He was supported by political activist Bianca Jagger and Santa Cruz resident Nancy  

Abbey. 

The congressman made his remarks Wednesday as the international relief agency Oxfam released a report showing that coffee prices are at a 100-year low in real terms. A glut of low-quality beans has left 25 million  

coffee farmers broke, banks have collapsed and malnutrition is on the rise among the farmers' children, the report found. 

"We've got a dire situation where the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing,'' said Farr, who recently co-sponsored a congressional hearing on the coffee crisis in Latin America. 

"The U.S. government spends billions of dollars on economic and social development in Latin America while U.S. private industry undermines our foreign policy by buying cheap, low-quality coffee and ruining the lives and livelihoods of Latin American coffee farmers. 

"I will keep raising awareness on Capitol Hill about the coffee crisis and encouraging my colleagues to buy Fair Trade Coffee,'' he avowed. 

To become Fair Trade certified, an importer must meet stringent international criteria -- paying a minimum price per pound of $1.26, providing credit to farmers and providing technical assistance such as help  

transitioning to organic farming. 

Jagger pleaded with large U.S. coffee-buying companies to show more concern for the survival of coffee-growing countries. 

"Free trade is not Fair Trade, and Fair Trade is a matter of life and death,'' said Jagger, who was born and raised on Nicaragua. 

Abbey, a member of the U.S.-Cuba Sister Cities Association, is one of a group of Santa Cruz residents actively pursuing a relationship between both the city and county of Santa Cruz and the region of Santiago de Cuba. 

Abbey is a staunch supporter of lifting the trade and travel embargo to Cuba, according to Farr, and will travel with a delegation in January to strengthen ties with this region. 

"If we're ever going to be able to trade with Cuba, you can be sure our organization will support Fair Trade Coffee for its coffee growers.'' 

Educators hope a joint doctorate program between two educational systems will create more accessible and affordable education, while bolstering urban school district leadership throughout the Bay Area. 

Made possible by a $405,000 grant, the University of California at Berkeley and California State University campuses in San Francisco, San Jose and Hayward on Wednesday announced plans to offer a joint three-year doctorate degree in education, beginning next year. 

"This joint doctoral program builds upon the mutual strengths of our four universities to prepare future leaders for California's urban public school systems and community colleges to meet the needs of K-12 students,'' said Emily Brizendine, co-coordinator of the joint doctoral program and associate dean of Cal State Hayward's School of Education and Allied Studies.  

By creating the joint program and using CSU campuses, the universities are developing a more affordable and accessible alternative for working educators. 

According to CSU figures, only 21 percent of Californians live within 10 miles of a UC campus, compared with 56 percent who live the same distance from a CSU campus. In relation to cost, CSU tuition and fees for graduate study is less than half the cost of the University of California. 

California's lack of affordable Ed.D programs is evident in comparison with other states, since it is less than two-thirds the national average, California State University Chancellor Charles Reed said in a speech last year. 

Brizendine explained that the degree program will provide up to 15 graduates a year with the skills to lead urban school districts in the state. 

The initiative to allow California State University campuses to offer doctoral studies programs was formalized last November after the two systems agreed on the need to make such programs more accessible and affordable to working educators in all regions of the state.

SACRAMENTO — Rural California counties will receive more than $20 million for crime prevention efforts under two bills signed Friday by Gov. Gray Davis. 

Part of the money will go to safeguard food, water and agriculture chemicals from terrorist threats, said the sponsor of the first bill, Assemblywoman Barbara Matthews, D-Tracy. 

It creates a new Central Valley Rural Crime Prevention Program encompassing Fresno, Kern, Kings, Madera, Merced, San Joaquin, Stanislaus, and Tulare counties.

SAN JOSE — The Silicon Valley looked itself in the mirror Friday, and what it saw was scary. 

By the end of the decade, the heartland of American high technology will have recovered from its devastating economic downturn and be coping with increased population, continuing housing shortages and more traffic. The big question is whether the infrastructure can keep up. 

That was the image projected in a report on demographic trends through the year 2010 released by the Silicon Valley Manufacturing Group at a day-long series of panel discussions held at San Jose State University heavily attended by representatives of non-profit organizations and public agencies. 

Key predictions in the 48-page “Projections 2002: Silicon Valley” report: 

— Population in the Silicon Valley, covering Santa Clara, San Mateo and parts of Alameda and Santa Cruz counties, is expected to jump 13 percent, from 2,771,148 to 3,128,426. 

— Employment will have recovered and there will be almost 1.7 million jobs, an increase of almost 190,000 over 2002 levels that have been impacted by layoffs and business failures costing nearly 100,000 jobs. 

— The number of households will increase 12 percent to an estimated 1,074,942, requiring additional housing in a region already stretched almost to the limit, and the need for affordable housing will be critical. The report estimates nearly 152,000 new homes will be needed by 2010. 

— Traffic will remain stalled. It’s estimated vehicle traffic in the region will increase 20 percent to 40 percent and traffic on the San Mateo and Dumbarton bridges will jump almost 50 percent. While a variety of transportation projects designed to alleviate some of the worst congestion in the country are slated for completion between late this year and 2007, the long-awaited BART extension to San Jose isn’t expected to be operational until at least 2012. 

— The region’s educational system will be severely taxed, with an estimated 650,000 school-aged children by 2010 and enrollments up nearly 5 percent. 

— Strains on power and water systems will increase. The use of recycled water alone is expected to jump from 10 million gallons per day in 2001 to more than 6 billion gallons in 2010. Despite growing conservation, energy demand is expected to increase significantly — although precise projections can’t be made. 

Acknowledging that it’s hard to accurately predict the future, keynote speaker Richard Carlson, president of Spectrum Economics in Mountain View, offered an upbeat peek at what he sees ahead. 

“This economy will revive,” he said. “It’s stalled now but it will revive beginning this fall or early next year, but it will lag behind other sectors by three to six months.” He predicted it will take at least four years, probably five or six, “before we get back where we were.” 

Carlson foresees a slow but steady growth in jobs, and a strong housing market that will show improvement from “ghastly to terrible.” 

“As long as we get a modest economic recovery and interest rates are low, I can’t see any collapse in housing prices,” he said. But commercial real estate is another matter, said Carlson and it will remain in the doldrums for “a long, long time” before it fully revives. 

“We’re in a very special recession,” said Carlson, “an investment collapse recession and there’s a very real risk of deflation. It’s a consumer heaven and manufacturer’s hell.” 

Why the hard times? In part, Carlson said, he thinks Silicon Valley’s suffering is due to the problems of too much money. 

“There’s no limit to sillyness when companies have billions of dollars,” he said. 

SACRAMENTO — More than a year after they first reported funding losses, California’s nonprofits are still feeling the crunch. 

A survey conducted last September by California Cares, a coalition of the state’s nonprofits, found that nonprofits have faced dramatic funding losses and increased demand since the stock market decline and the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. 

After managing to break even by the end of the year, they now have another money concern: the California state budget. 

The state’s plan for the new fiscal year chops about $7.5 billion from state programs, affecting thousands of nonprofit organizations throughout the state. Nonprofits on average receive about 30 percent of their money from the government, according to the California Association of Nonprofits. 

Child Welfare Services, for instance, had to let go of 500 social workers after losing $49.5 million in state money, and the California Arts Council cut its budget by 40 percent. 

Ken Larsen, public policy director of CAN, said the cutbacks have especially affected areas of aging, developmental disabilities and mental health. 

Last December, California Cares released a report claiming an estimated year-end $25 million drop in donations for the state’s nonprofit organizations, who were also experiencing a 20 to 40 percent increase in demand for services. 

The startling figures prompted California Cares to launch a statewide ad campaign, urging donors to continue giving. A follow-up survey released in June reported that most nonprofits ended up receiving the same, if not more, money than they had projected. 

But there may be more tough times ahead. 

Adding to the recent budget woes, Californians seem to be continuing to keep a firmer hand on their pocketbooks during these economically lean times. 

The Napa Valley Wine Auction, touted as the world’s largest charity event, raised almost $6.2 million for local charities last June, but the total was a significant dip from the event’s all-time high of $9.5 million raised in 2000 at the peak of the dot-com wave. 

“People are a little more cautious right now,” said Jeri Hansen, a spokeswoman for the Napa Valley Vintners Association, which organizes the annual wine auction benefiting various local charities. 

Foundations have also been reeling from the stock market plunge. 

“As recently as two years ago, some of our work was in the stratosphere,” said Sterling Speirn, president of Peninsula Community Foundation. “Now we’re down into the atmosphere.” 

Speirn said the state’s community foundations have also taken on the extra burden of closing the gap for nonprofits left by the government cutbacks. 

Many have been forced to cut their grant-making to nonprofits by 20 to 30 percent, Larsen said. But some, including PCF and the California Endowment, the state’s largest health care foundation, have opted to absorb the financial difficulties. 

“At this point, we’re committed to maintaining the same level of grant-making,” said Julie Tugend, chief executive officer of the California Endowment. “We have a very diversified portfolio, so we’re already been seeing some rebound.” 

Investment experts have said the David and Lucile Packard Foundation should do the same. Almost entirely invested in Hewlett-Packard stock, the Los Altos-based foundation has seen its $13 billion asset base cut in half since 1999, when HP’s stock slide began. This year, it expects to award $250 million in grants, down from $450 million in 2001. 

Meanwhile, nonprofits have relied more heavily on fund-raising events rather than government or grant funding, Larsen said. Some have also looked into entering partnerships or mergers to stay financially afloat. 

Despite uncertain futures for California’s nonprofits, Speirn remains optimistic. 

“When times are hard, it inspires more giving,” he said. “People who weren’t giving at a certain level are now giving ... because they can really see where it makes a difference.” 

SAN FRANCISCO — A new study by two Stanford University scientists could shake up a long-held theory that helps geologists forecast earthquakes. 

The theory holds that earthquakes are “time-predictable,” meaning the energy buildup that causes them happens on a somewhat regular basis. But the scientists found that wasn’t the case in a rather geologically simple area of the San Andreas fault near Parkfield. 

Stanford geophysicists Jessica Murray and Paul Segall say in the Sept. 12 issue of Nature that their research in Parkfield shows the time prediction model failed in what should have been an ideal locale for its application. 

“I think we’ve really shown that quantitatively this model doesn’t work at this location,” Murray said. “I think that this will lead people to realize how uncertain this model is.” 

The Stanford team’s findings make the successful application of the theory even harder in complex fault regions such as the San Francisco Bay area. 

Scientists in Parkfield have been waiting for a substantial earthquake since 1988, when time prediction said the area was due for a quake. Midsize earthquakes have hit the area roughly every 22 years since 1857. 

The Stanford researchers used a long history of data from the Parkfield site, as well as data on how much the earth had moved. They found there was enough energy for an average-sized quake, and showed that effects from nearby temblors had passed. 

No quake came, leading them to believe the time prediction theory didn’t work. And the current lapse of time between earthquakes is one of the longest in recorded history, according to Murray. 

However, it could just be that Parkfield isn’t as timely as scientists had originally thought, and now the site is showing it can be as irregular as anything else in nature, according to Ross Stein, of the U.S. Geological Survey in Menlo Park. 

“On the one hand it’s almost one complete cycle late, yet we have to acknowledge we see that kind of variability everywhere,” Stein said. 

Earthquakes are caused by the constant scraping of the North American and Pacific continental plates. When the ground gets stuck it jerks loose in sudden bursts that shake the ground. What scientists still hope to determine is how to predict when they’ll occur. 

Even if the Stanford team’s findings lead to dismissal of the time-prediction theory, there are still other theories scientists can investigate and use. Some attempt to predict the size of the shake, but not when it will happen. Others look at how earthquakes interact to anticipate where the next section will break. 

“It’s an important study, and every time we can test something we assume we’re ahead of the game no matter what the consequences,” Stein said. 

SAN FRANCISCO — The federal government has determined California’s state fish, the golden trout, may need to be listed as an endangered species. 

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said Friday there’s substantial evidence to support listing the trout. The finding comes almost a year after the conservation group Trout Unlimited sued the agency to force it to consider such a move. 

The fish’s population has declined because of habitat loss, hybridization, competition with non-native trout, and even overgrazing by livestock. At one time, the fish were found in 450 miles of streams in the Southern Sierra Nevada, but over the past 100 years that has dwindled to just over 80 miles. 

The service now will begin a 12-month review to determine if a listing is warranted and, if it is, whether that listing will be as a threatened species or as an endangered one. A threatened species is likely to become endangered in the foreseeable future, and an endangered one faces the threat of extinction throughout part or all of the range where it lives. 

Native populations of the fish now are found only in the Golden Trout Creek and South Fork of the Kern River. The rivers are both in the Golden Trout Wilderness in Inyo National Forest. 

“It’s great news,” said Scott Yates of Trout Unlimited. “What’s interesting is the habitat for these fish is on federal land. The Endangered Species Act could really be productive in terms of focusing conservation efforts and trying to get the state to conserve native fish.” 

Yates said the biggest threat to the fish is hybridization, or breeding with other species of trout. 

Trout Unlimited sued the Fish and Wildlife Service in November 2001, and this June a federal judge gave the service three months to start the process of listing the fish. 

The Fish and Wildlife Service faces a backlog of other endangered species requests and lawsuits. 

“We’ve gotten so many petitions; we’re responding to many, many lawsuits,” said Jim Nickles of the service. “We’d like to be able to act on them as quickly as possible, we just have a real crunch in the resources we have.” 

So far, fishing of the colorful trout, a subspecies of rainbow trout, is not affected. If the fish is listed as endangered, state fish and game regulators would need to come up with guidelines for taking the fish. 

WASHINGTON — The first northern right whale calf to be seen in the eastern North Pacific Ocean in perhaps a century was reported by the National Marine Fisheries Service on Friday. 

Marine mammal specialists at the service called the sighting a cause for celebration. 

“The North Pacific right whale population is in danger of extinction. A mother and calf embody hope for the whales,” said Jim Balsiger, regional administrator for the fisheries service in Alaska. 

The northern right whale is the most endangered whale in the world, the agency said. 

There is no reliable population estimate for that whale in the eastern North Pacific and scientists have seen only a dozen or so in the area in recent years. 

The calf was spotted on Aug. 24 by fisheries researchers who were studying whales in the southeastern Bering Sea. 

“The weather was heavily overcast when we first made the sighting,” said scientist Lisa Ballance, who led the research cruise. “We immediately launched a small boat with three scientists aboard to get a closer look, and to take photographs and biopsy samples.” 

After studying for about an hour, they concluded it was a female and her calf. The calf was smaller than the other whale and it swam in alongside the flank of the larger whale in a drafting position typical of whale calves. The larger animal seemed intent on keeping itself between the small boat and the calf, Ballance said. 

Photos do not show much, since the sighting was at night, but study of a skin sample from the larger whale confirmed it was female. 

Since 1997 scientists have identified six individual eastern North Pacific right whales, all male. 

In July 1996, another NOAA research expedition came across right whales in the same area, possibly including a calf, but the photo evidence was not clear enough to confirm the calf sighting. 

Between 1900 and 1994 there were only 29 reliable sightings of right whales in the eastern North Pacific. Since then scientific expeditions have found a few whales — between about four and 13 individuals — in the eastern North Pacific each year. 

Right whales were hunted extensively in the early 1900s because they were easy to catch, and floated after they were killed. Right whale flesh is very rich in oil. They’ve been listed as endangered since 1973. 

The National Marine Fisheries Service is part of the Commerce Department’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. 

SHISHMAREF, Alaska — Stripped to his shirt sleeves on a desolate polar beach, the Inupiat Eskimo hunter gazes over his Arctic world. 

The midnight sun glitters on navy waves surrounding his island village. The town sits amid the ruins of dugouts that his ancestors chipped from the permafrost when pharaohs were erecting pyramids in the hot sands of Egypt. 

His children and their cousins play tag on a hummock where his wife’s parents and their parents are buried. 

Thousands of years ago, hungry nomads chased caribou here across a now-lost land bridge from Siberia, just 100 miles away. Many scientists believe those nomads became the first Americans. 

Now their descendants are about to become global warming refugees. Their village is about to be swallowed up by the sea. 

“We have no room left here,” says 43-year-old Tony Weyiouanna. “I have to think about my grandchildren. We need to move.” 

Weather dictates survival in the Arctic. Always it has been the fearsome cold that meant life or death. Now, Native Alaskans are alarmed by a noticeable warming trend. 

Average temperatures in the Arctic have risen more than 4 degrees since 1971 — about the same time, coincidentally, that the first snowmobile made an appearance. 

Weyiouanna still remembers, “It was mind-boggling to see a sled move without dogs pulling it.” 

Snowmobile aside, this is still a very rustic village. Its forlorn breakwater of sandbags, tires and rusting vehicles, is often breached by storms. Recently, four homes tumbled into the sea as villagers huddled in the Lutheran church. 

Fuel and water tanks teeter just a few strides from the brink. Another gale or two and the entire island — a half-mile at its widest, 10 feet at its highest — could be inundated. 

Weyiouanna’s ancestors simply would have loaded their dogsleds and mushed inland. But in modern times, moving a town means Shishmaref’s 600 residents must vote. 

It will cost at least $100 million, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers says. 

It’s a staggering sum even by standards of Shishmaref, where a light bulb costs $10 at the Nayokpuk Trading Co. (They’re down the aisle from the Pringles and the wolf pelts.) 

Residents figure the government will pay, although state and federal officials say no relocation fund exists. 

It’s an upheaval many Americans might face in coming decades. 

In June, the Bush administration submitted a report to the United Nations acknowledging for the first time that climate change is real and unavoidable. The administration recommends adapting. 

Still unresolved is whether rising temperatures are caused by smokestacks and traffic jams pumping more heat-trapping emissions into the atmosphere. Or, natural variations in the complex relationship between the oceans, the atmosphere and the sun. Maybe it’s a little of each. 

Burger King pulls ad  

making fun of students 

COEUR d’ALENE, Idaho — Community colleges had it their way. Burger King has decided to pull a television commercial that poked fun at students in two-year schools. 

In the ad, two students are shown chatting with a talking menu, which decides they probably don’t have a lot of money and likely never will because they attend a junior college. 

A Burger King spokeswoman confirmed Thursday that the spot is being pulled because of complaints from numerous junior colleges and community college officials. 

Michael Burke, president of North Idaho College, said he recognized when he saw the ad Wednesday that it was supposed to be funny, but it didn’t work for him. 

“It implies that community college students don’t receive a quality education,” he said. “Our students leave here and are very successful at university work. Those who leave our professional-technical program enter the work force making an excellent salary. It certainly doesn’t reflect reality.” 

He shot off an e-mail to Norma Kent, vice president of communications for the American Association of Community Colleges, who wrote back that she registered the complaint with Burger King in Miami. 

“They are pulling the disgusting ‘junior college’ spot. Will take a couple days to get it out of the pipeline, and then it goes into the trash heap of ad history where it belongs,” Kent wrote. 

Burger King spokeswoman Michelle Miguelez said the students didn’t know they were being filmed, then were asked if they’d be willing to be in an ad and were shown the film. 

“They found the ad to be funny,” Miguelez said. “They were not offended in the least.” 

From Fredbird to jailbird 

ST. LOUIS — Donny Chilton, who worked in 2000 as a backup to the feathered St. Louis Cardinals’ mascot known as Fredbird, was found guilty Wednesday of first-degree burglary and misdemeanor stealing. Circuit Judge Robert Dierker Jr. revoked Chilton’s bond and ordered him jailed pending sentencing Oct. 11. 

Chilton, 21, and two others entered Busch Stadium in the early hours of May 9, 2000, got into a storage area near the Cardinals’ clubhouse and took a player’s set of golf clubs, one yellow baseball used in batting practice and a batting helmet. Court records do not identify the player whose clubs were taken. 

A team employee spotted the three leaving the ballpark, followed them across the street and questioned them — and they dropped the loot, authorities said. 

Cardinals officials plucked Chilton after they matched his employee identification photo with a videotape image from a surveillance camera, assistant circuit attorney Amy Fite said. Authorities were unable to identify the two others. 

Jurors recommended Chilton get a five-year prison term — the minimum — on the felony burglary charge and a fine for stealing. 

A spokesman for the Cardinals did not return a phone call seeking comment. 

——— 

FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. (AP) — Alice Morrison was looking for a better way to seal her pickles. What she heard made her want to seal her ears. 

The 71-year-old Sunday school teacher was unhappy with the canning lids on her sweet pickle jars. So she reached for her box of Kerr mason lids and called the consumer help number printed on the side. 

Instead of advice for her lids, she was greeted by a recorded, raspy voice that she was about to hear “sexy introductions from callers” and that for $1.99 a minute she could “join the fun.” 

“I assure you, I wasn’t looking for any hotline,” Morrison said. 

It isn’t the first time people seeking information about canning have discovered themselves hooked up to a phone sex line. 

Officials with the company that makes the lids have fielded plenty of confused and sometimes angry calls from across the country, said Judy Harrold, manager of consumer affairs for Alltrista Consumer Products Co. 

Harrold said that about a year and a half ago, Alltrista decided to consolidate two canning companies, Ball and Kerr, under one helpline. Kerr’s old 800 number was returned to the phone company, she said, and the phone company assigned it to a phone sex company. 

“We attempted all we could to get that number back,” Harrold said. “But once it was released, there was nothing we could do.” 

Kerr’s new packaging is printed with the consolidated 800 number. Morrison wasn’t sure she would try the other number. 

“I might just put everything in the refrigerator and eat it now rather than messing with another number,” she said. 

——— 

SEATTLE (AP) — It didn’t take long for Barb Trenchi to spot her car after she reported it stolen: It was speeding toward her, with police in hot pursuit. 

“I guess it missed me by about 4 inches,” she told The Herald of Everett. 

Trenchi reported the stolen car Thursday morning and then took the bus to her job in downtown Seattle. 

After getting off the bus, she was crossing the street when she spotted a car barreling toward her, followed by police cars, their lights flashing. 

Trenchi said she barely stepped out of the way of the speeding car when she noticed the Vanderbilt sticker in the window and recognized it as her own. 

Police said the car ran a red light, swerved onto a sidewalk, hitting a woman, and then crashed into cars in a parking lot. 

The injured 67-year-old woman was taken to Harborview Medical Center with a broken leg and other injuries. 

Police arrested the driver and two other young men in the car. 

Trenchi said the heavily damaged car was being held by police for their investigation. 

SACRAMENTO — On the eve of California’s 18th annual Coastal Cleanup Day, Gov. Gray Davis signed a bill Friday to allocate part of a $2.6 billion bond measure to protect the state’s coastal waters. 

The bill, by Assemblywoman Fran Pavley, D-Agoura Hills, will apply $223 million from Proposition 40 to a number of water conservation programs to reduce pollution of the state’s water resources. 

Water conservation groups applauded the spending plan. Joe Caves, a legislative advocate for The Nature Conservancy, called it “the most important and comprehensive water quality bill we’ve passed in decades.” 

Pavley said she designed the legislation to allow environmental groups fair access to the money. It will be distributed through competitive grant programs, rather than earmarked it for specific projects. 

The largest chunk, nearly $47 million, will go toward watershed restoration projects like controlling erosion, protecting fish and habitat and reducing contamination. Another $46 million will go toward cleaning up beaches. 

The remainder will go to grant programs to help small communities meet water pollution control requirements, help reduce storm water runoff pollution, improve agricultural water quality. 

Last March, voters approved the $2.6 billion bond proposal to improve air and water quality, fund state and local parks and protect water resources. It specifically devoted $375 million to water resources. 

Davis has not taken a position on Proposition 50, another water conservation bond up for a vote on the November ballot. 

However, he has signed bills by Sens. Sheila Kuehl, D-Santa Monica, and Mike Machado, D-Linden, that allocate money from that bond in the event it passes. That may provide an indicator of his views, said Mary Nichols, secretary of the California Resources Agency. 

“Our beach and our coastline are a precious part of California’s character,” Davis said in a prepared statement Friday. “It’s our historic obligation in future generations to do everything we can to keep our beaches healthy and clean.” 

Coastal Cleanup Day, organized by the California Coastal Commission, organizes volunteers to help clean up more than 400 beaches. It takes place on the third Saturday of each September. 

Coffee activists officially kicked off a campaign Wednesday backing a November ballot measure that would ban the sale of some of the city’s finest and cheapest brewed coffee. 

If passed by voters, the initiative would require all Berkeley merchants – from the trendiest cafe to the dingiest gas station – to sell only environmentally and small farmer friendly types of coffee. 

Initially scoffed at as a quintessentially-Berkeley attempt to save the world, Rick Young, the initiative’s author, says his idea has gained steam. 

“People are becoming more aware of what is happening to coffee farmers,” Young told about 70 supporters. 

Young’s initiative would outlaw the sale of brewed coffee that is not certified organic, shade grown or Fair Trade.  

Such politically responsible brews constitute about 1 percent of the U.S. market.  

Young is hoping his initiative will turn the tide against malicious corporate producers that threaten the livelihood of millions of coffee farmers in Latin America, Africa and Asia. During the last 30 years, coffee conglomerates have clear-cut rain forests to overproduce coffee beans, he said. Consequently the price paid per pound to independent growers has plummeted from $1.20 in 1999 to about 50 cents today, which Young says is not enough for them to fight off the advance of corporate producers. 

Under the initiative, Berkeley stores must buy coffee that was grown without the use of chemicals, in a shady field or purchased under trade rules in which a nonprofit organization pays the farmer an above-market price.  

Young said that Berkeley coffee drinkers will not have to sacrifice taste or price to help the farmers. 

“The cost might go up pennies a cup at most,” said Young. Since most Berkeley coffee drinkers prefer pricey high-end coffee, he said, the price difference would be negligible. However, diners and convenience stores that usually brew store-bought brands would have to raise their prices more significantly.  

Asked about the loss of variety, Young said that although some coffee drinkers would no longer be able to buy their favorite brand at a Berkeley shop, the law would encourage the sale of new coffee varieties that taste just as good. 

Young’s opponents, however, who include nearly all Berkeley coffee merchants, say that his price estimates are off and his politics are misguided. 

Dorothee Mitrani-Bell, a Berkeley restaurant owner, said that because she buys less coffee than a cafe, she would have to charge 75 cents more for a cup of certified coffee. She said she would be willing to offer customers a choice but fears a customer backlash if she is forced to switch brands. 

“I’m all for organic, but they’re going to say ‘You’re snotty’ because you only serve expensive coffee.” she said. 

Opponents say that in addition to hurting Berkeley businesses, the initiative would hurt the very farmers Young is trying to protect. According to Krystell Guzman, director of coffee programs for Jeremiah’s Pick Coffee, 85 percent of coffee sold in the United States is grown by small farmers. To become certified organic, shade-grown or Fair Trade these farmers are often at the mercy of indiscriminate certifiers who can take up to a year to review the farm and often charge as much as $50.  

Young, on the other hand, says that certification is free to farmers. 

Guzman added that gourmet coffee roasters such as Peet’s and Jeremiah Pick Coffee already pay farmers higher than market price to ensure they can afford to make quality beans.  

“The initiative is based on an ignorance of the real coffee market,” Guzman said. “The emphasis should shift to the Maxwell Houses which don’t pay a fair price.” 

The initiative includes penalties of a $100 fine and six months in jail for offenders. Young said the penalties are standard for any misdemeanor. He added that the city could enforce the law by having health inspectors check coffee bags during regular inspections.

To the Editor: 

“Tom Bates for Mayor” signs include the phrase: Berkeley at it's Best. I find the suggestion laughable. Bates is a comrade to the forces and politics that wreaked havoc on our city. He espouses views long ago tried and failed and relies on PC sloganeering to obscure the fact that his political philosophy is disconnected from the real world.  

As an active environmentalist, proponent of wilderness, civil libertarian and lifelong democrat, I view Bates and his associates as dangerous enemies of freedom, civility and fairness. They are the builders of incompetent and wasteful bureaucracies who notably oppose the spirit of invention, commerce and individualism.  

Remember Berkeley in the hands of progressives. We were a dying town with abandon buildings, dark streets and high crime. Our housing stock was in decay and virtually nothing was being built or renovated. Look now. We have a vibrant downtown where one can safely walk at night from cafe to cafe, hear live music, see any of 20 different movies, a play or two at the new Berkeley Rep, attend the jazz school or practice Capoera. We have a pedestrian bridge that links thriving Fourth Street and Oceanside neighborhoods with the Marina and waterfront. We have a beautifully rebuilt and expanded central library and a major project under way at Berkeley High.  

Throughout the city there are many small in-fill housing and loft projects reflecting the creativity and entrepreneurial efforts of local architects and artists. Berkeley progressives are devoted to ideology not solutions. They are more interested in symbolic gesture than real work. As is demonstrated by their rigid alignment to rent control and other regressive systems, they are not interested in facts or the real-world outcome of policy but rather in perpetuating their dogma and mythology.  

Bates is no exception. As mayor he would facilitate endless, meaningless, and ineffectual symbolic politics on every global issue and would, (like progressives before him) ignore crime, waste tax dollars, fail to maintain infrastructure and escort our city into another Dark Age.  

John Koenigshofer 

Berkeley

In “Les Miserables” Jean Valjean stole a loaf of bread to feed his starving family and got in big trouble. In Dario Fo’s “We Won’t Pay, We Won’t Pay,” a contemporary housewife struggling to make ends meet helps ransack a grocery store, and gets in big trouble, too – but with a significant difference: “Les Miserables” is earnest, high-flown drama, while “We Won’t Pay” is farce. 

Victor Hugo attacked an oppressive social system by heading for the heartstrings, while Fo aims lower, at our bellies (as in belly-laughs). 

Fo is George Bernard Shaw in a fright wig. 

Fo penned the play during hard times in Italy, when starving workers were close to revolt. “Let us pay what we want for food, or we won’t pay at all!” they demanded, and in that unstable atmosphere Fo got jailed for showing his work to a working class crowd. For Shotgun’s version, director Rebecca Novick and her cast have moved its setting from Italy to Oakland, adding references to Kaiser Hospital and Ikea, along with jabs at contemporary issues like homeland security, global warming and downsizing, but bellies, empty and full, are still center stage, though they’re not always what they seem. 

The madness-with-a-method starts when that housewife, Antonia, bursts into her drab flat loaded with shopping bags. Gleefully she tells her friend Margherita how a mob of angry women fought food costs by making off with all they could snag. 

“The store decided to raise prices?” she sniffs. “With whose permission?” 

The battle lines are drawn. 

But not so fast, trouble’s ahead. Antonia is trying to figure out how to explain the sudden plenty to her husband, when a cop on a house-to-house search bangs on the door. The women panic, shoving most of the food under a bed, the rest under Margherita’s jacket. Then Antonia’s gift for lying sparks a string of looney misunderstandings when she insists to the cop that her friend isn’t hiding food, she’s pregnant. 

Margherita’s husband flips out at the news. It’s the first he’s heard of it. 

Fo is famous as a daring provocateur who thumbs his nose at the system, but this Berkeley incarnation of “We Won’t Pay” feels tame. Because we’re watching it in a town where activism of all kinds is daily bread? Because no one in the audience is likely out of a job or food? Whatever the reason, though the play’s engine is cranked by hunger, once that engine starts ticking, it runs more on the fuel of farce than of social issues like joblessness. Not that we don’t see Fo’s intentions, but his play feels quaint, like a dissertation on a firebrand when that firebrand is history. 

Removed from the clamoring streets, “We Won’t Pay” dies a little. 

Still, it’s pretty wild stuff, and Shotgun’s genial if not definitive production gets laughs. Katjah Rivera is the too-clever-for-her-own-good Antonia, Andrea Day is Margherita, who gets knocked around like a head of lettuce by a zealous bagger, and Ian Petroni is her credulous husband Luigi. Best in the cast are sharp, dependable Clive Worsley as Antonia’s down-to-earth husband, Giovanni, and Kevin Kelleher, who keeps the spirit of Monty Python alive in several off-the-wall characters, from a subversive beat cop to a lugubrious undertaker. 

But why is “We Won’t Pay” at the bare-bones Eighth Street Studio rather than in Shotgun’s long-promised new Allston Street Theater in the Gaia Building? Headman Patrick Dooley explains: “… we raised the money, we got the plans approved and now the developer doesn’t have enough money to build out the rest of the space.” The good news is that the delay is only a temporary, and Shotgun, which has survived much more, is sure to survive this. 

Thursday, September 19 

Houston Jones 

8 p.m. 

Freight & Salvage, 1111 Addison St. 

548-1761 or www.freightandsalvage.com 

$19.50 in advance, $20.50 at door 

The Influences, Plus Ones  

and The Simple Things 

The Starry Plough, 3101 Shattuck Ave. 

9:30 p.m. (21 and older) 

841-2082 

$5 

Friday, September 20 

Cris Williamson, Teresa Trull  

& Barbar Higble 

8 p.m. 

Freight & Salvage, 1111 Addison St. 

548-1761 or www.freightandsalvage.com 

$19.50 in advance, $20.50 at door 

Double Fling Ding, The Crooked Jades & Bluegrass Intentions 

9:30 p.m. 

Ashkenaz, 1317 San Pablo Ave. 

$12 door/ Free for 12 and under 

New End Original, Counterfeit  

and Lo Lite 

8 p.m. 

924 Gillman St. 

525-9926 

$5 

Redmeat 

9:30 p.m. (21 and older) 

The Starry Plough, 3101 Shattuck Ave. 

841-2082 

$6 

Saturday, September 21 

Jody Stecher & Kate Brislin 

8 p.m. 

Freight & Salvage, 1111 Addison St. 

548-1761 www.freightandsalvage.com 

$19.50 in advance, $20.50 at door 

Fernando, Garrison Star  

and Old Joe Clarks 

9:30 p.m. (21 and older) 

The Starry Plough, 3101 Shattuck Ave. 

841-2082 

$7 

Jack Wembly, Phemomenauts  

and Rock ’n Roll Adventure Kids 

8 p.m. 

924 Gillman St. 

525-9926 

$5 

West African Highlife Band 

9:30 p.m. 

Ashkenaz, 1317 San Pablo Ave. 

$11 door/ Free for 12 and under 

Sunday, September 22 

Broceliande 

8 p.m. 

Freight & Salvage, 1111 Addison St. 

548-1761 www.freightandsalvage.com 

$15.50 in advance, $16.50 at door 

Dick Hindman Trio 

4:30 p.m. 

Jazzschool, 2087 Addison St. 

845-5373 

$10-$15 

Grito de Lares 

5:30 to 8:30 p.m. 

The Black Box, 1728 Telegraph,  

downtown Oakland 

Celebrate el Grito de Lares with Prophets of Rage, Piri Thomas,  

and live bomba music. 

389-5660 

Les Yeux Noirs 

8 p.m. 

Ashkenaz, 1317 San Pablo Ave. 

$12 door/ Free for 12 and under 

Monday, September 23 

Pieta Brown w/ Bo Ramsey 

8 p.m. 

Freight & Salvage, 1111 Addison St. 

548-1761 www.freightandsalvage.com 

$15.50 in advance, $16.50 at door 

Tuesday, September 24 

Zydego Flames 

7:30 p.m. 

Ashkenaz, 1317 San Pablo Ave. 

$8 door/ Free for 12 and under 

Wednesday, September 25 

DP & Rhythm Riders 

9:30 p.m. 

Ashkenaz, 1317 San Pablo Ave. 

$15 door/ Free for 12 and under 

Karen Casey & the Niall Valley Trio 

8 p.m. 

Freight & Salvage, 1111 Addison St. 

548-1761 www.freightandsalvage.com 

$15.50 in advance, $16.50 at door 

Thursday, September 26 

Kriby Grips, Michael Zapruder, Joe Bernson 

9:30 p.m. (21 and over) 

The Starry Plough, 3101 Shattuck Ave. 

841-1424 

$5 

Martin Hayes & Dennis Cahill 

8 p.m. 

Freight & Salvage, 1111 Addison St. 

548-1761 or www.freightandsalvage.com 

$19.50 in advance, $20.50 at door 

Friday, September 27 

The Cracked Normans,  

Paradigm & Soul Americana 

9:30 p.m. (21 and over) 

The Starry Plough, 3101 Shattuck Ave. 

841-1424 

$5 

Eric Bogle 

8 p.m. 

Freight & Salvage, 1111 Addison St. 

548-1761 or www.freightandsalvage.com 

$16.50 in advance, $17.50 at door 

Fair Weather, Liars  

Academy and Open Hand 

8 p.m. 

924 Gilman St. 

525-9926 

$5 

Reggae Angels with Earl Zero  

and Jah Light Music 

9:30 p.m. 

Ashkenaz, 1317 San Pablo Ave. 

$15 door/ Free for 12 and under 

Saturday, September 28 

Barry & Alic Oliver 

8 p.m. 

Freight & Salvage, 1111 Addison St. 

548-1761 www.freightandsalvage.com 

$16.50 in advance, $17.50 at door 

From Monument to Masses,  

Victory at Sea and Yesterday’s Kids 

8 p.m. 

924 Gilman St. 

525-9926 

$5 

BACA National Juried Exhibition 

Through Sept. 21, Wed.-Sun. Noon to 5 p.m. 

Berkeley Art Center, 1275 Walnut St., Live Oak Park 

40 artists from across  

the U.S. including 28 Bay Area artists. 

644-6893 

Free 

"Balancing Acts" 

Through Oct. 10 

Gallery 555, 555 12th St., 

Oakland City Center 

Oakland's 'Third Thursday' art night features Ann Weber's works made of cardboard. 

http://www.oaklandcitycenter.com.  

Free 

“Hunger: What will you do about it?”  

Through October 30, Mon.-Fri.,  

9 a.m. to 5 p.m. 

The Civic Center Building 

2180 Milvia St., 5th floor 

Featuring 40 photographs  

by Berkeley artist David Bacon. 

834-3663, Ext. 338, uchanse@secondharvest.org 

“Virtually Real Oakland - The Magic, The Diversity and the Potholes” 

Through Sept. 21, Mon.-Fri.  

8:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. 

Photolab Gallery, 2235 Fifth St.,  

Exhibit by Ken Burson; digitally enhanced photos of Oakland. 

644-1400 

Free 

Richard Misrach, Berkeley Work 

Though Oct. 13 

UC Berkeley Art Museum & Pacific Film Archive, 2626 Bancroft Way 

On view in Gallery 2, presents two photographic series by this internationally recognized Berkeley-based artist.  

642-0808, www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

$7, $5 BAM/PFA members  

$4 UC Berkeley students 

“Recent Acquisitions” 

October 13 through December 14 

Thurs., Fri., and Sat., 1 to 4 p.m. 

Berkeley Historical Society, Veterans Memorial Building, 1931 Center St. 

848-0181 

Misch Kohn - Celebrating Sixty Years of Printmaking 

Sept. 12 through Oct. 16: Tues.-Fri., Noon to 5:30 p.m.; Sat., noon to 4:30 p.m. 

Kala Arts Institute, 1060 Heinz Ave. 

549-2977, kala@kala.org 

Nancy Salz 

Sept. 20 through Oct. 23, Tues.-Fri. 10 a.m.-5:30 p.m., Sat 10 a.m.-4 p.m. 

Barbara Anderson Gallery, 2243 5th St. 

848-3822 

Timoteo Ikoshy Montoya 

Sept. 20 through Nov. 1  

Reception Sept. 20, 6 to 8 p.m. 

Gathering Tribes Gallery  

1573 Solano Ave.  

Acrylic/air brush paintings  

by this Native American artist.  

528-9038 

A Thousand and One Arabian Nights 

Through Sept. 28, Fri.-Sun. 8 p.m.; Sun. 4 p.m. 

Forest Meadows Outdoor Amphitheater, Grand Avenue at the Dominican University, San Raphael 

Marin Shakespeare Company’s  

presents this classic story with  

original Arabic music. 

415-499-4488 for tickets 

$12, youth; $20 senior; $22 general 

Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar 

Through Oct. 12 

Thurs. through Sat. 8 p.m. 

LaVal’s Subterranean Theatre  

1834 Euclid Ave. 

234-6046 

$10 

The House of Blue Leaves 

Through Oct. 27 

Berkeley Rep's Roda Theater  

2015 Addison St.  

647-2917 or 888-4BRTTIX 

$10 - $54 

The Shape of Things 

Through Oct. 20 

Aurora Theatre Company  

2081 Addison St. 

Play by writer/director Neil LaBute's spins a morality tale of a young art student, his art major girlfriend, and the Pygmalion-like changes that bring into question how far one should go for love. 

843-4822, www.auroratheater.org for reservations 

$26 to $35  

Ceramics - Opening Reception 

Sept. 21 through Nov. 17 

3 to 5 p.m. 

A New Leaf Gallery, 1286 Gilman St. 

525-7621 

free 

Friday, September 20 

“The Word/Music Continuum” 

7:30 to 10p.m. 

Fellowship Hall, 1924 Cedar St. 

A unique performance ensemble uniting music and spoken word. 

Donation $5 - $10 

Saturday, September 21 

“Memorizing Windows” 

8 p.m.  

Berkeley Art Center, 1275 Walnut St.  

Dancer Lucinda Weaver and writer Alan Bern bring to Berkeley their program of dance, poetry and stories. 

526-7901 or abbern@sbcglobal.net 

Sunday, September 22 

Piri Thomas & Max Schwartz 

7:30 p.m. 

Cody’s Books, 2454 Telegraph Ave. 

845-7852, www.poetryflash.org 

$2 donation 

Saturday, October 12 

“Antarctica and the Breath of Seals” 

7:30 p.m. 

Boadacia’s Books, 398 Colusa Ave.  

at Colusa Circle 

Lucy Jane Bledsoe presents a slide show based on travels in Antarctica. 

559-9184 

Free 

Friday, September 20 

Mid Autumn Moon Festival 

1:15 p.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center  

1901 Hearst St. 

981-5190 

Saturday, September 21 

Buddhist Peace Fellowship with The Deer Park Monastery - Public Lecture 

9 a.m. to 5 p.m. 

Lake Merritt, Oakland  

Lakeside Park, Bandstand Area 

Join Vietnamese peace activist Zen master Thich Nhat Hahn for a public lecture: “Coming Home: a day of community and healing” 

433-9928 

$45, $25 - seniors, $65 - donor level  

BREAD and Roses Garden Party 

1 to 5 p.m. 

Peralta Community Garden,  

Berkeley Hopkins & Peralta, Wheelchair accessible  

BREAD's birthday party - five years of dismantling corporate rule through local currency. 

644-0376 

$12 advance, $15 door,  

low-income rate $10 

Berkeley Alliance of Neighborhood Associations (BANA) 

9:15 to 11 a.m. 

St. John’s Church, 2727 College Ave. 

mtbrcb@pacbell.net 

Free 

Do-It-Yourself all-Natural  

Body Care from Your Kitchen 

Ecology Center, 2530 San Pablo Ave. Learn how to make your own  

all-natural skin care from products you might already have in your  

own kitchen. 

548-2220, Ext. 233,  

erc@ecologycenter.org 

$10 for members 

$15 for nonmembers 

Puppet Shows 

1:30 and 2:30 p.m. 

Hall of Health, 2230 Shattuck Ave. 

Shows promote acceptance,  

understanding of physical,  

mental and medical differences. 

549-1564 

$2 suggested donation 

Third Annual David Brower  

Youth Awards 

6 p.m. 

Schwimley Theater, 1920 Allston Way 

Celebrate the next generation of environmental activists at Earth Island Institute’s award ceremony. R.S.V.P. 

(415) 788-3666, Ext. 260  

www.earthisland.org/bya 

Coastal Cleanup Day 

10 a.m. 

Work at the outflow of Strawberry Creek to clean up the  

San Francisco Bay coastline. 

info@strawberrycreek.org  

848-4008 

Fall Plant Sale 

10 a.m. to 2 p.m. 

200 Centennial Dr. 

Annual plant sale featuring rare  

and unusual plants. Members-only preview and auction from 9 to 11 a.m.  

643-2755  

www.mip.berkeley.edu/garden/ 

Free  

Sunshine Workshop 

10 a.m. to noon 

Sixth floor, City Hall, 2180 Milvia St. 

Get up to speed on open records laws, open meetings laws and sunshine ordinances. Experts, including Terry Francke of the California First Amendment Coalition, will speak. 

BerkeleySunshine@yahoo.com 

Free  

East Bay Shoreline Clean Up 

9.am. to 12 p.m. 

Sea Breeze Market and Deli  

meeting/staging area. 

On the corner of West Frontage Road and University Avenue,  

Arrive promptly to sign appropriate waivers , get coffee and listen to safety talk. We will provide bags, tally cards and a raffle of donated prizes; groups of ten or more need to pre-register by calling 644-8623. 

Free 

Sunday, September 22 

Yoga/Tibetan Jack van der Meulen on “The Theory and Practice of Kum Nye Tibetan Yoga.” 

3 to 5 p.m. - introduction;  

6 to 7 p.m.- Lecture by Jack van der Meulen, Tibetan Nyingma Institute 1815 Highland Place 

Kum Nye is a system of movement, breath, and awareness exercises. 

843-6812 

Free 

Women’s Cancer Resource Center 

Seeking volunteers to help support women with cancer, their families  

and friends. 

601-4040 Ext. 109  

emicly@wcrc.org 

Tuesday, September 24 

Sustainable Business  

Alliance of the East Bay 

5:30 to 7:30 p.m. 

Panoramic Room of the Gaia Building  

Reception and talk by Mal Warwick of Mal Warwick Associates, entitled: “You Don’t Have to Choose: How One Company Does Good While Doing Well” 

282-5151 

members $8, nonmembers $12 

Vitamins, Minerals, and Nutritional Supplements: Possible Interactions with Medications 

1 p.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center  

1901 Hearst St. 

Discussed by Alic Meyers, RN 

981-5190 

Wednesday, September 25 

“Healing Our Hearts  

for the Sake of the World” 

7:30 p.m 

First Congregational Church  

2345 Channing Way 

A reading by Sylvia Boorstein. Proceeds support  

The East Bay Dharma Center. 

595-0408 

$5 to $10 

Thursday, September 26 

Medical Marijuana 

6 p.m. to 8 p.m. 

Berkeley Central Library  

2090 Kittredge St.  

From Prop. 215 to Health and Safety Code 11362.5, a review of its history to present day current events. 

981-6100 

Saturday, September 28 

Free Legal Workshop:  

“Crossroads: Health and the Law.” 

10 a.m. to 3 p.m. 

514 58th St. at Telegraph Avenue 

Navigate your way through legal issues when living with cancer or any serious illness. Panel presentation on employment, insurance and public benefits and one-on-one sessions with attorneys. Please, pre-register. 

601-4040, Ext. 102 for information  

or Ext. 103 to register 

Free  

Garage Sale/ Car Wash  

Belize/ Berkeley Scouts 

10 to 2 p.m. 

Epworth UMC, 1953 Hopkins St. 

International exchange fundraising effort for scouts. 

525-6058 

Junior Jeff Spellman will start at quarterback for Berkeley High in the Yellowjackets’ season opener tonight, head coach Matt Bissell confirmed Thursday. 

Spellman, a transfer from Bishop O’Dowd High in Oakland, beat out fellow junior Foster Goree and senior Dessalines Gant for the starting spot. Gant, however, will get some playing time against Liberty tonight no matter how well Spellman plays. 

Spellman was the starter for O’Dowd’s junior varsity team last season, while Goree ran Berkeley’s junior varsity. But Gant is the most physically talented of the trio and the coaches hope he can master the offense in time for league play. 

“We want to get Dez some time in the first few games, and hopefully he’ll emerge as the starter at some point,” offensive coordinator Clarence Johnson said. “No one is even close to him when it comes to arm strength.” 

Neither Spellman nor Goree has the arm strength to take full advantage of Berkeley’s speed at wide receiver, where Sean Young and Roberto McBean both run sub-4.5-second 40-yard dashes. Gant, who didn’t play football last season, is the only quarterback capable of hitting for big gains down the sidelines, where Young excelled last season. 

Gant, 6-foot-3, is also considerably taller than both of the juniors. Goree stands at 5-foot-9, while Spellman is 5-foot-8. 

“Foster’s not too tall, and Jeff’s even shorter than that,” Johnson said. “That’s an issue that won’t change.” 

If Spellman can lead the Jackets to an upset win over Liberty, however, he might just hang onto the starting job for a few more weeks. He’s confident he can get the job done. 

“I know I can run the offense,” Spellman said. “I ran the offense at O’Dowd the last two years without a problem. I just have to work hard, focus and find my rhythm.” 

While Spellman might end up being a temporary starter, Bissell certainly wants him to do well while he’s in the game. A win over Liberty would give the Jackets a much better start than last season’s 0-3 opening, and Bissell said he’s not looking for reason’s to pull his starter. 

“We’re going to give [Spellman] a shot and see what he can do,” Bissell said. “It’s our job to put him in a position where he can succeed.”

A November ballot measure to reduce the allowable heights of new developments has driven a wedge through Berkeley’s environmental community. 

The Northern Alameda Board of the Sierra Club on Tuesday failed for the third time to reach a consensus on the height initiative, known as Measure P, and has decided not to take a position. The nine-member board required six votes to oppose the ballot measure but after hours of intense debate opponents of the initiative could only muster five votes. 

Two weeks ago the Berkeley Green Party split on the initiative and also decided not to make a recommendation to voters. 

This leaves Berkeley’s two biggest environmental forces, with a combined membership of 10,000 people, on the sidelines during debate of one of the city’s most environmentally contentious initiatives in history. 

The height initiative lowers allowable building heights for developments in several neighborhoods and along major transit corridors such as San Pablo and University avenues. City planners have targeted these arteries for dense affordable housing development. But the initiative would interfere with these plans.  

The initiative pits the environmentalist’s goal of reducing suburban sprawl against the equally attractive goal of slowing local development. 

Environmentalists who oppose the initiative say the measure would directly harm the Bay Area’s environment. 

“Sprawl is one of the biggest enemies we have,” said Hank Resnik, who led the local Sierra Club’s effort to oppose the initiative. Reducing the number of building stories available to Berkeley developers would make new development unfeasible, he said. 

Instead of building on developed land near mass transit lines, developers would be encouraged to build on open spaces outside of Berkeley, increasing car traffic and air pollution and reducing valuable open space. 

Lindsay Vurek, a Sierra Club member, disagreed with Resnik’s analysis. 

“Intensifying development in Berkeley does not save nature,” Vurek said, noting that most people who move to the suburbs are motivated by the amenities of open space, safe neighborhoods and good schools. Even if Berkeley built more affordable apartments near transit corridors, he said, many locals would still move to the suburbs. 

But for other Berkeley environmentalists, the height initiative is seen through the prism of local politics. Many believe that City Council and city staff have allowed Berkeley developers to exploit zoning laws and overdevelop their properties. They argue that only strict height limits can keep developers from trampling on the rights of residents.  

Height initiative supporters point to the Gaia building in downtown Berkeley that was built by Berkeley developer Patrick Kennedy. Zoned for seven stories, the cultural center and housing complex stands nine stories after Kennedy was able to win city approval to build higher. 

Vurek said he didn’t want the Sierra Club to oppose the initiative, and appear to side with developers. 

Stuart Cohen of the Oakland-based Transportation and Land Use Coalition said he has noticed a trend: The more involved environmentalists are in Berkeley politics the more likely they are to support the height initiative. He said that residents are angered by what they say are perks given to developers such as Kennedy and view the initiative as anti-development rather than anti-environment. 

Cohen, however, said passage of the height initiative would make Berkeley a tool for developers. “The sprawl developers are laughing at Berkeley,” Cohen said. “They know they can use the initiative to prove that sprawl development is needed to support regional growth.” 

Berkeley’s largest environmental organizations have decided not to stand for or against the height initiative. But not because the members don’t have opinions. Vurek said heavy debate has taken place. 

“This has been a very divisive issue,” Vurek said. “I don’t know if we will heel from it.” 

To the Editor: 

I don't even blanch anymore when incumbent candidate for mayor Shirley Dean gives herself credit for others' achievements, like the improvements in downtown that her predecessor Loni Hancock brought about. Or when she claims to have built bandwagons she jumped onto at the last minute, like the Interstate 80 pedestrian bridge she resisted for years until Councilmember Dona Spring finally made it happen. 

I'm also tired of, if inured to, her regular appeals to divisiveness, such as pushing for playing fields in the new shoreline park. Having lost the Sierra Club endorsement to Tom Bates, she doesn't hesitate to suggest carving out a huge block of what wildlife habitat remains in the park, pitting parents against environmentalists to get a few more votes. 

But now she's gone too far, even for my roughened sensibilities. 

Fresh off losing the East Bay Lesbian/Gay Democratic Club endorsement to Bates just last week, she's now making an unabashed attempt to splinter that vote as well. I refer, of course, to the 11th-hour bombshell she dropped in Monday's Planet interview: “I'm the person with the finger in the dyke holding back the big machine from rolling over everybody.” Lesbians, don't be fooled. 

Dave Blake 

Berkeley

LOS ANGELES — The Walt Disney Co. is used to creating its own animated movies, not importing them. 

That changed when “Toy Story” creator John Lasseter persuaded the studio to take a chance on the Japanese anime film “Spirited Away” by adapting it with English dialogue and releasing it in U.S. theaters. 

The film, by writer-director Hayao Miyazaki, tells an “Alice in Wonderland”-style story about a girl who becomes trapped in a world of nature spirits and must escape to rescue her parents from a spell that transformed them into pigs. 

Strange? That’s what Lasseter liked about it. 

“When you go see a film, you’re amazed if there’s one or two unique visions that you’ve never seen before,” he said. “In ’Spirited Away,’ almost every sequence made me ask, ’How did he think of this?”’ 

Among his favorite moments was a mid-air battle between a flock of enchanted paper cut-out birds and a snake-like dragon. 

“Spirited Away,” known as “Sen to Chihiro no kamikakushi” in its homeland, last year became Japan’s highest-grossing movie ever, topping the American film “Titanic” by earning approximately $234 million. 

It is the first Japanese anime film to debut under the Walt Disney Pictures banner, which is normally reserved for the studio’s own family fare. 

Disney released Miyazaki’s “Kiki’s Delivery Service” (1989) on video in the United States in 1998, and in 1999 the corporation’s Miramax Films division organized a small theatrical release for his battle epic “Princess Mononoke” (1997), about an animal revolt against developers. 

If “Spirited Away” is successful in its initial limited distribution — it opens Friday in New York and Los Angeles — it would receive a wider release. 

Among the actors lending their voices to the English version are Michael Chiklis, John Ratzenberger, Suzanne Pleshette and Daveigh Chase, who also played the little girl in Disney’s “Lilo & Stitch.” 

Lasseter, who co-directed “A Bug’s Life” and “Toy Story 2,” had two jobs as executive producer of the English-language adaptation: make the film accessible to Western moviegoers, and preserve Miyazaki’s original vision. 

Many characters in the film are Earth spirits — the “souls” of natural entities ranging from rivers to radishes and mud — and the story takes place at a mystical bathhouse where they gather to relax. 

“In my grandparents’ time, it was believed that spirits existed everywhere — in trees, rivers, insects, wells, anything,” Miyazaki said through a translator. “My generation does not believe this, but I like the idea that we should all treasure everything because spirits might exist there, and we should treasure everything because there is a kind of life to everything.” 

Lasseter acknowledged that many of these elements will be unfamiliar to many Western moviegoers. 

“For Japanese audiences, they looked up on the screen and saw things that were familiar to them: a bathhouse, a village society, traditional earth spirits and river spirits,” Lasseter said. “So for us, Americans may look up at this film and not necessarily know what is going on.” 

He said the English-language script includes extra dialogue explaining the myths. That’s why characters sometimes talk to themselves, or their voices are heard even if they are not onscreen. 

For instance, a scene in which the girl walks away from a boy and looks back to see a dragon take off into the sky was played silently in the original film. In the English version, she cries out his name and wonders aloud if it’s a transformation. 

Children may be more willing than adults to allow some questions about the story to go unanswered, said Kirk Wise, co-director of Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast” and “Atlantis: The Lost Empire,” who directed the English dubbing of “Spirited Away.” 

“Older people may think it’s way out there, but if you say to children, ’Once upon a time there was a bathhouse where all the gods and spirits and monsters go on the weekends,’ they’ll accept it,” he said. “That’s one of the great things about kids.” 

Some of the film’s more disturbing elements, however, may be too much for young children. The pumpkin-headed, deeply wrinkled witch named Yababa borders on the grotesque, and so does a ghost named “No Face,” who adopts the personalities of people he swallows. Those are some reasons “Spirited Away” received a PG rating, suggesting parental guidance, instead of the typical G designation for family films. 

Wise compares the frightening scenes in “Spirited Away” to the sorceress with the poison apple in “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” or the whale Monstro from “Pinocchio,” who swallows the puppet boy and his father. “They had their share of spooky scenes, too,” he said. 

“When I create a film, I believe it should reflect real life,” Miyazaki said. “Even children would not believe a film that is filled with only happy sequences.” 

The Cal women’s soccer team is on a roll. The Bears have racked up two wins and a tie against their last three opponents, all of them ranked in the top 10 nationally. That’s not a big surprise, considering the Bears are currently ranked fifth. The big surprise is that they’re doing it without their best player. 

Senior forward Laura Schott, a two-time All-American and potentially the school’s all-time leading scorer, hasn’t played since the opener against Ohio State. She was red-carded in that game, forcing her out of the following match, then sprained her knee in practice. She will likely not play on Sunday against Fresno State and will be re-evaluated next week. 

Several players have stepped up in Schott’s absence. Senior midfielder Brittany Kirk had two goals, including a last-minute equalizer against St. Mary’s and the game-winner against defending national champion Santa Clara, and an assist last weekend, while freshman Tracy Hamm has three goals while starting in Schott’s spot up front. 

“It’s remarkable what we’ve done with our All-American sitting on the bench for all but 70 minutes of the season so far,” head coach Kevin Boyd said. “What we’ve done has been based more on toughness, grit and preparation.” 

Schott has never had a multi-game injury before, and she’s been surprised how the team has performed with her watching from the sideline. 

“It’s really cool that we’re doing so well without me,” she said. “But of course I’d rather be in there.” 

Schott is just six goals away from breaking Joy Fawcett’s school goal-scoring record. She needed just six games to score that many goals last season, but scores are harder to come by as the season gets older. The Bears have just four games left until Pac-10 play starts, and Schott is anxious about getting her season started. 

“This really wasn’t a very good time for something like this to happen,” she said. “I hope I can come back at full speed right away.” 

Boyd has gotten the opportunity to get a prolonged look at freshmen Hamm and Dania Cabello thanks to Schott’s absence, with both Bay Area products impressing early. But he knows the team needs Schott to come back and take control if the Bears are to have more success than last season, when they lost in the first round of the NCAA playoffs. 

“Being able to add an All-American halfway through the season can only give us a lift,” he said. “With Laura on the field, teams have to concentrate on stopping her. Give her one chance and she’ll put it in the back of the net. That’s something you can’t replace.” 

Notes: Kirk was been named to the Soccer Buzz Elite Team of the Week for Sept. 9-15. Earlier this week, Kirk was selected Pac-10 Player of the Week and to the Soccer America Team of the Week.

University of California Regent Ward Connerly called for an independent review of a racially-sensitive UC admissions policy, only to face strong opposition from Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante, at the Board of Regents meeting in San Francisco Thursday. 

Connerly said the university’s “comprehensive review” policy has opened it to charges of favoritism toward minority applicants. Bustamante, however, said there is no evidence of preferential treatment and that an independent study is unnecessary. 

The policy, fully-implemented for the first time this year, weighs factors like leadership, community service and success in the face of hardship, alongside 10 traditional academic measures like grade point average and SAT scores.  

Prior to this year, UC selected 50 to 75 percent of students based on academic factors alone and used comprehensive review to choose the rest. 

Critics say the new policy is simply a way to get around Proposition 209 – a 1996, voter-approved initiative that banned the consideration of race in admissions. But supporters note that many universities use processes similar to comprehensive review and argue that the policy allows for a fuller view of applicants. 

Connerly, who led the fight for Proposition 209, voted for full implementation of comprehensive review in November 2001. He said Thursday that he still supports the policy. 

But the well-known conservative said there is a public perception that comprehensive review is unfair. 

“Does this provide the opportunity to manufacture and embellish life’s experiences and obstacles?” he asked, describing one concern. “Is this, in some way, a circumvention of the California constitution and the reinsertion of race into the equation?” 

Connerly said only an independent “comprehensive review of comprehensive review” would put public fears to rest. 

Bustamante, who serves on the Board of Regents, said there is no evidence that the university used comprehensive review improperly. 

“I’m not quite sure I understand the reason for the issue being brought up,” said Bustamante. “When you raise the issue and you’re asking for a task force or independent auditors or reviews, it gives the impression that something is wrong.” 

Connerly emphasized that he has “a sincere interest not in burying comprehensive review, but in strengthening it.”  

Connerly received support from John Moores, chairman of the Board of Regents, who said that comprehensive review has been fairly applied, but argued that a need exists for “transparency” to ease public concerns about the procedure. 

But UC President Richard Atkinson took a stand against Connerly. 

“I certainly have seen no evidence to suggest that there is any hint of unfairness,” he said, rejecting the call for an independent audit. 

Connerly did not put forth a resolution calling for an independent audit, but asked his fellow Regents to think about the issue. 

The Academic Senate, which represents the faculty in the nine-campus UC system, is scheduled to present its own analysis of comprehensive review at the next Board of Regents meeting in November. 

This year, for the first time, the university selected all students based on comprehensive review. The percentage of “underrepresented minorities” admitted to the university – blacks, Latinos and Native Americans – rose modestly, up from 17.1 percent last year to 17.5 percent this year. At UC Berkeley, the figure moved from 18.6 percent to 19.1 percent. 

To the Editor: 

While zoning in theory may in practice help keep development orderly it has often been used as a tool to keep ethnic minorities and the poor out of neighborhoods. After the Supreme Court held racially restrictive covenants to be illegal in the late 1940s, white-flight suburbs often resorted to restrictions like requiring large lot sizes and prohibiting the building of apartments to keep the undesirables out.  

Re-examining our regulations on housing development is even more important in light of the exorbitant housing prices in this area. The prices are high because we have a housing shortage. Building more housing will bring the prices down. Landlords may not like that, but the rest of us will benefit. Government subsidies for affordable housing certainly will help, but unless we have the political resolve to impose much, much higher taxes we will have to count on the private sector to produce the bulk of the housing stock. Consequently, we should be doing utmost to encourage the private development of housing.  

When people are going hungry, we would not prevent private groups from helping and ask them instead to wait for the government to step in. Why should we treat housing any differently? 

Dense urban housing may not always be pretty, but the alternative of homelessness (not to mention the conversion of farmland and wilderness into suburbs) is much worse. Instead of debating whether to support density, we should be talking about how to make such development work aesthetically, economically, and socially. 

Mike Lai 

Berkeley

The Cal women’s volleyball team is undefeated this season – in fact, they haven’t even lost a game. At 9-0 with three tournament championships to their credit, the Bears are off to the best start in school history. But they face their biggest challenge of the season today when they face defending national champion Stanford. 

The Bears have been led by outside hitter Mia Jerkov, a sophomore who has won MVP honors at all three tournaments. A member of the Croatian national team, Jerkov has a team-high 152 kills and 21 service aces, both of which are the top marks in the Pac-10 as well. 

Stanford will be welcoming back USA team member Logan Tom, who has been away from the team due to national team commitments. Tom, last season’s college Player of the Year, is the most decorated player on a star-studded Stanford squad that is ranked fourth in the country. 

“We’re going to go down to Stanford and try to pull off a huge upset,” Cal head coach Rich Feller said Thursday. “We’ll try to take a game to start things off and go from there.” 

– Compiled from staff reports

BANGKOK, Thailand — It’s in the running for several Emmys on Sunday. But “Sex and the City” has long been on a winning streak with viewers — and not only in the United States. 

In Asia, the HBO comedy series is a smash hit among young professionals, despite (or maybe thanks to) its going against the region’s traditional ideas of womanhood. And, for retailers and fashion houses, it’s become a golden marketing tool to lure the show’s affluent audience. 

HBO claims a modest viewership of 4 million in 19 Asian countries and gives no figures for the number of people who watch “Sex and the City.” 

But the companies riding on the back of the show’s popularity realize that its viewers are a powerful segment of consumers — well-to-do, single, professional women with spare cash to spend on themselves, just like the show’s heroines. 

During the just-completed season, HBO teamed up with fashion and cosmetic companies in Bangkok and Manila to organize a series of fashion shows. “Sex and the City” star Sarah Jessica Parker’s image was plastered across Bangkok billboards and buses.

Four months after a controversial UC Berkeley course description made national headlines, University of California President Richard Atkinson announced that there would be a new review of how classes are listed. 

The course description for “The Politics and Poetics of Palestinian Resistance,” an English course taught by pro-Palestinian activist and graduate student Snehal Shingavi, warned in May that “conservative thinkers are encouraged to seek other sections.” 

After discovering the wording, university officials said the phrase violated the faculty code of conduct, which prohibits discrimination on the grounds of political beliefs. Shingavi deleted it from the description shortly after it first appeared on the campus web site. 

Atkinson expressed his “personal displeasure” with the class listing Thursday and said he has directed the Academic Senate, which represents faculty throughout the nine-campus UC system, to review the case and assess the procedures for creation and review of course descriptions. 

A task force composed of the Board of Regents, faculty and administrators will review the Senate’s findings and conduct its own study. 

Oren Lazar, an Israeli student in the course, said Shingavi has presented a biased history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. 

“I don’t object to learning about Palestinian poetry,” he said. “I have a serious objection to it being taught by someone with such a biased viewpoint.” 

Lazar said that four weeks into the 17-student course Shingavi has made use of only one historian, Edward W. Said, who has decidedly pro-Palestinian slant. 

Shingavi could not be reached for comment but English Department Chair Janet Adelman defended the class, arguing that it is ultimately about poetry, not historic truth. 

“If this were a course in the truth claims of the stories of the Palestinian perspective and the Israeli perspective, it would be inappropriate to present just one point of view,” Adelman said. “But that is not the subject of the course.” 

Adelman argued that the Said texts explain the historical vantage of the poets at the heart of the course and are therefore a legitimate resource. 

The university has put several oversight measures in place to ensure the integrity of the course. On the first day of class, Adelman told students they could come to her if they felt they were being graded on nonacademic grounds. 

The university has also placed a neutral observer, English professor Steven Goldsmith, in the classroom. 

Goldsmith declined to comment, but Adelman said he has been happy with Shingavi’s conduct of the course. 

Adam Weisberg, executive director of Berkeley Hillel, an independent Jewish cultural center on campus, said he has been generally pleased with university oversight of the course. 

“Given all of the turmoil and the publicity around the class, I’m glad that the university chose to put a professor in the class,” Weisberg said. 

The final course description, however, “left something to be desired,” he said. Although it excluded the line about “conservative thinkers,” which drew national condemnation, it left some inflammatory language in place. 

“This is a course of Palestinian resistance poetry,” the listing begins. “It takes as its point of departure the Palestinian literature that has developed since the creation of the state of Israel in 1948, which has displaced, maimed, and killed many Palestinian people.”

To the Editor: 

Discrimination based upon unfounded intolerance is a form of violence. Such intolerance comes in a variety of packages including racism, sectarianism, sexism and classism. Classism is a prejudice against a person because of their economic standing or lack thereof. Our current society favors the rich and the poor are excluded, especially the poorest of the poor, the homeless. 

In fact, this prejudice that is held and expressed against the homeless is comparable to one against a caste. America's homeless are treated with disgust and hatred, as the untouchables of America. While there is no denial that there are many of the homeless suffering from a variety of mental disabilities, substance abuse and behavior anomalies, such conditions do not make them any less human. 

Stop making the homeless into criminals for a condition they have not caused. They are human beings and have the same inalienable rights protected by the highest ideals of democracy. 

Bob Mills 

Berkeley

OAKLAND – Terrence Long hit a tiebreaking, two-run homer in the sixth inning as the Oakland Athletics broke a tie for first in the AL West by defeating the Anaheim Angels 5-3 Thursday. 

The A’s, who won the season series 11-9, reduced their magic number for clinching the division to eight. If the teams tie for first, Oakland would win the division based on head-to-head record. The Angels, who lead the wild-card race by 6 1/2 games, would have held the tiebreaker based on division record if they had won the game. 

Tim Hudson (15-9) allowed three runs in 7 1-3 innings to win his eighth straight decision as the A’s won for the fifth time in seven games. 

Long drove a 1-1 pitch from reliever Brendan Donnelly into the bleachers in right-center field in the sixth to also score David Justice, who singled with one out in the inning off Kevin Appier (14-11). 

For two teams with a history of playing close games, there was sure to be some drama left for their final meeting of the season. 

Ramon Hernandez drove in two runs for the A’s a day after sitting out to rest a sore wrist and Billy Koch worked the ninth for his 41st save in 47 chances. 

Anaheim scored twice in the sixth off Hudson to tie the game at 3.

WASHINGTON – President Bush asked Congress Thursday for authority to “use all means,” including military force if necessary, to disarm and overthrow Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein if he does not quickly meet United Nations demands that he abandon all weapons of mass destruction. 

At the U.N., Iraqi President Saddam Hussein delivered a defiant written message taunting the United States while claiming that Iraq has no chemical, biological or nuclear weapons _ and saying he welcomed inspections to prove it. 

Secretary of State Colin Powell said that Saddam's latest statement itself represented a backing away from his earlier promise to grant weapons inspectors unfettered access. 

The proposal Bush sent to Capitol Hill would give him broad war-making authority. “If you want to keep the peace, you've got to have the authorization to use force,” he told reporters in the Oval Office. 

The president worked to build support for a vote by Congress before lawmakers go home to campaign for the Nov. 5 elections, and legislative leaders said the vote could come in two weeks. Bush's proposed resolution says Iraq has repeatedly violated U.N. resolutions and international law by possessing chemical and biological weapons, seeking nuclear weapons, repressing the Iraqi people and consorting with terrorists. 

Although Democratic leaders predicted quick approval of a resolution on Iraq, they said they want to make changes. “I don't see any need for us to rush pell-mell,” said Senate Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Joseph Biden, D-Del. 

“We have some issues we want to raise with the administration about the wording,” Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., said Thursday night after meeting with other Senate Democrats. “We want to focus on Iraq, not Iran or other countries in the region that might pose a threat.” 

Some Senate Democrats were more critical. Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., said “it would be an affront to the Constitution to give the president this kind of power.” 

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin, D-Mich., said he would like the resolution to specify that Bush needs a U.N. resolution backing the use of force. “Going alone has some very significant risks,” Levin said. 

Republicans disagreed. 

“One veto in the U.N. Security Council shouldn't obstruct us doing what we have to do,” said Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala.  

GOP leaders praised Bush's proposal. “I'm perfectly happy with the language,” said Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss. He said he expected a Senate vote the first week in October. 

As drafted, Bush's resolution would authorize him to use force – unilaterally if he deemed necessary – without waiting for the U.N. to act. 

It reads: “The president is authorized to use all means that he determines to be appropriate, including force, in order to enforce the United Nations Security Council resolutions, defend the national security interests of the United States against the threat posed by Iraq, and restore international peace and security in the region.” 

Bush spoke to reporters after meeting with Powell on his difficult diplomatic effort to draft a U.N. resolution against Iraq. The administration has to overcome strong reservations by Russia and France, which have veto power as permanent council members. 

Britain is expected to side with the United States. The fifth permanent member, China, has voiced opposition to unilateral U.S. military action but has not threatened to veto measures calling for collective action. 

“The United Nations Security Council must work with the United States and other concerned parties to send a clear message that we expect Saddam to disarm,” Bush said. 

“And if the United Nations Security Council won't deal with the problem, the United States and some of our friends will,” he declared. 

The gap between Russian and American viewpoints was underlined in comments by Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov at the Pentagon, where he met with Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld. Ivanov said he believed U.N. weapons inspectors will settle the question of whether Iraq has weapons of mass destruction. 

“Being experienced in that sort of business _ both Americans and Russians _ I think we can easily establish (whether) there exist or not weapons of mass destruction technology,” Ivanov said. 

Hans Blix, the chief weapons inspector for the United Nations, told the Security Council Thursday that if all goes well at talks scheduled 

with the Iraqis in Vienna for Sept. 30, he could have an advance team on the ground by Oct. 15 and that some early inspections could be conducted soon afterward. 

Rumsfeld has said repeatedly that inspections are not reliable because Iraq has a long history of deceiving inspectors _ and because it 

has had nearly four years to figure out how to hide its weapons. 

Bush was to meet at the White House on Friday with both the Russian defense minister and its foreign minister, Igor Ivanov. 

Meantime, Saddam told the United Nations that Iraq is free of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons. 

“Our country is ready to receive any scientific experts, accompanied by politicians you choose to represent any one of your countries, to tell us which places and scientific installations they would wish to see,” Foreign Minister Naji Sabri told the world body, quoting the Iraqi president. 

Powell, appearing before the House International Relations Committee, scoffed at Saddam's message and noted that it appeared to limit where inspectors might go. Powell was referring to Saddam's demands that the inspectors respect Iraq's “rights, sovereignty and security” _ which the Bush administration says is Iraqi code for keeping inspectors out of what Iraq calls “presidential” sites. 

“He is already backing away, he is stepping away from the `without conditions' statement they made on Monday,” Powell said. “He's not 

deceiving anybody. It's a ploy we have seen before.” 

Many U.N. members, Powell said, want to take Iraq at its word and send inspectors back without any new resolution or new authority. 

“This is recipe for failure,” he said. 

The letters KRUDT are etched in scratched, block letters on one of the small windows at Cody’s Books on Telegraph Avenue. The mark, likely the sign of a criminal street tagger, is just one of 17 defaced glass panes at the bookstore. 

“It’s a really big problem,” said shop owner Andy Ross who recently spent $300 to replace plate glass that had been tagged. “It seems to be general nihilism. Destruction for destruction’s sake.” 

Glass etching is the latest art of street tagging, and the crime is costing Berkeley merchants thousands of dollars a year. 

Earlier this month, the Berkeley City Council decided to target the foremost tagging tools – acid and etching creams. While many taggers still use keys or other sharp objects, more advanced chemicals have become more popular among street taggers. 

Council passed a resolution supporting state legislation that aims to regulate the sale of acid and etching creams to minors. The pending legislation would increase penalties for those caught using the substances for graffiti. The law would require businesses that sell etching creams and acids to store the products behind the counter or under lock-and-key. 

If state legislators fail to enact the proposed legislation, expected to be discussed this year, City Council will ask the city manager to draft a municipal law addressing this problem. 

In 1988, the California Legislature passed a law prohibiting people younger than 18 to purchase more than six ounces of spray paint, which led taggers and graffiti artists to change their tactics. The law is part of what the state calls its street terrorism enforcement and prevention. Tags written in shoe polish or marker, on stickers – and now acid – have become increasingly common. 

The Telegraph area has been hardest hit, merchants say. Ross counted 700 windows that have been hit by vandals. 

“Everyone agrees it’s a problem,” he said. “But the city doesn’t have a plan in effect to crackdown. They need one. As long as city thinks it’s not that important of an issue, people will keep doing it.” 

Mayor Shirley Dean believes the proposed state law would abate graffiti in Berkeley.  

In addition, Mayor Dean is advocating for a zero tolerance stance on graffiti. The more times a person is caught defacing property, the more stiff the penalty, she said. 

The penalties in the proposed state law include mandatory community service, parent financial responsibility, loss of driving privileges and possible jail time. 

“Obviously it’s not any kind of long term fix to the problem” said Councilmember Kriss Worthington. “The real solution involves positive solution for the kids. But it’s always hard to get people in agreement over recreation and educational programs.” 

To combat the vandalism in the short term, some businesses are replacing streetfront windows with roll-down metal coverings to prevent window damage. But according to a staff report from Dean’s office, the roll-down facades create a “broken window effect,” in which an atmosphere of blight and neglect further encourages “acts of destruction and anti-social behavior.” 

Ross agrees. 

“Roll down gates are not the most attractive thing for a business district. They make it look like a war zone. The solution is almost worse than crime. The real solution is to catch the people doing it,” he said. 

Nasty shove 

A female employee at a Jack in the Box restaurant on the 2100 block of San Pablo Avenue was shoved Wednesday afternoon by an adult male who refused to move from outside the shop, police said. The male stood in front of the restaurant for longer than an hour when the employee finally went out side to ask him to move. The male subsequently pushed her and refused to budge. The employee then called police, but opted not to press charges. 

Hit and run 

A car chase and fist fight followed a car collision late Tuesday night, police said. Two cars collided at the corner of Ashby and San Pablo avenues. When one car sped away toward Oakland, the driver in the other car chased after it. Several block into west Oakland the two male drivers left their cars and began to throw punches. No one was injured. 

Car burglary 

A robber snatched an Aiwa car stereo from an unlocked car on the 1800 block of Short Street late Wednesday, said police. 

- Matthew Artz

OAKLAND — A man died Wednesday night after his car collided with a vehicle driven by a fleeing carjacker. 

Authorities say Oakland resident Theophilus Darku was killed in the wreck. His 10-year-old granddaughter was injured. 

Police say they had been watching for a carjacked vehicle when they spotted it and began chasing it. 

Authorities say the chase covered several blocks before the driver ran a stop sign and crashed into Darku’s car. 

The alleged carjacker tried to escape on foot, but was apprehended. His name was not released. 

Darku’s granddaughter was in stable condition at Children’s Hospital Oakland.

OAKLAND – Police report that a man was shot multiple times Wednesday evening near the intersection of 98th Avenue and Empire Road. 

No details are available about the shooting, which was reported at 8:26 p.m. 

Police say the victim was taken to an unspecified area hospital. 

The Alameda County Medical Center received a shooting victim around that time of night who is listed in stable condition. 

Police have one suspect in custody.

SAN FRANCISCO — Above hundreds of zooming cars on U.S. 101 leading into San Francisco, two Santa Cruz women triumphantly tied a banner to a pedestrian overpass Thursday after a state agency agreed to leave up all signs that do not pose safety hazards. 

Cassandra Brown and Amy Courtney sued the state Department of Transportation after their banners were ripped off highway overpasses while U.S. flags were allowed to remain. Their banner on Thursday read “War. At What Cost? $200 billion. 10,000 dead.” 

Caltrans’ move brings the department into compliance with a January order by Judge Ronald Whyte of U.S. District Court in San Jose. He ordered the agency to enforce its rules on a content- and viewpoint-neutral basis, saying the agency could not grant permit exemptions for American flags. 

“It’s a victory for the Constitution and that’s a victory for all of us,” said Brown, who also hung a banner in Santa Cruz on Thursday. 

The women say consolidation of the media has left Americans with few outlets to get their messages out to a large audience. They say their message is a protest against the use of force by the United States in the Middle East. 

“It’s a bittersweet victory,” Courtney said. “I think the real victory will come when the United States examines its foreign policy.” 

Caltrans spokesman Dennis Trujillo said the department’s policy has not changed, but that it simply decided to comply with the judge’s order while hoping to have it overturned on appeal. The appeal is scheduled to be heard Oct. 9 in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. 

Banners, American flags and any other items hung from freeway overpasses will be removed if they can fall or create a distraction, Trujillo said. 

But James Wheaton, of the First Amendment Project, said billboards along highways pose the same risk of distracting motorists. The organization is asking people to avoid safety problems by putting banners on the inside of fences on overpasses, using sturdy materials that will not shred, and fastening them securely with wire, rope or plastic. 

Courtney and Brown sued Caltrans last year arguing their anti-war banners were taken down because of their content, while American flags were left up. 

The two put up a banner in November reading “At What Cost?” next to an American flag on an overpass crossing busy Highway 17 in the Santa Cruz mountains. 

The sign was taken down by a police officer, and a second sign put up in December also was removed. 

Congress considers security bill 

SAN FRANCISCO — Congress may approve a bill that will give major airports six more months to meet security requirements demanded in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks. 

Sen. Ernest Hollings, D-S.C., chair of the Transportation Committee, filed the bill late Tuesday to allow up to 40 airports to extend the Dec. 31 deadline. 

San Francisco and Oakland are among the major airports that would benefit. 

James Loy, head of the Transportation Security Administration, told Hollings’ committee last week that engineering problems will cause as many as 35 of the nation’s 429 commercial airports, including some major hubs, to miss the deadline. 

Los Angeles International is the only major California airport that says it can meet the December deadline. 

MTC unveils new express buses 

SAN RAMON – Bay Area transit agencies will soon receive new state-of-the-art express buses, one of which was unveiled at a Metropolitan Transportation Commission ceremony in San Ramon Wednesday. 

The MTC launched a Regional Express Bus program, through which the agency has purchased nearly100 of the buses with funds from the governor's Traffic Congestion Relief Program. 

Metropolitan Transportation Commission officials say the new express buses are cost-effective, comply with California Air Resources Board requirements, and offer better-than-usual amenities such as bigger, reclining seats, more legroom, overhead reading lights and luggage racks. 

“Express buses are a convenient and cost-effective way to combat Bay Area traffic congestion because they don't require the capital investment of building new rail lines, yet they fill the gaps left by our regional rail system,'' said the commission's Randy Rentscler. 

“Everyone – from businesses to environmentalists – has long acknowledged the need for serious expansion of our express fleet, and we're glad the governor's Traffic Congestion Relief Program was able to fill part of that need,'' he said. 

Polo employees sue  

clothing retailer 

SAN FRANCISCO — Miffed at having to buy Polo’s high-priced clothing, employees at the retailer’s stores are suing Polo in a class-action suit against the company’s uniform policy. 

The complaint was filed Wednesday by Toni Young on behalf of other unnamed plaintiffs and claimed Ralph Lauren’s Polo stores require sales representatives to purchase and wear the latest clothing line from the retailer. 

“Defendants require all retail sales associates in their employment to purchase Polo Ralph Lauren clothing and accessories as a condition of their employment,” said the court documents. 

It was unclear from the complaint how much the sales representatives earned, though the court document said “sales associates, including the plaintiff, are paid low wages.” 

A typical man’s Ralph Lauren Polo shirt costs in excess of $50. Women’s apparel exceeds $90 for blouses.

OAKLAND — The well-known leader of a Black Muslim group was arrested Thursday for allegedly molesting a girl 20 years ago. 

Yusef Bey, 66, was arrested on suspicion of lewd acts with a child, according to Oakland police spokesman George Phillips. 

The alleged victim was 13 at the time, Phillips said. The unidentified Oakland woman claims Bey fathered her child, who is now 20. 

Phillips said the investigation was triggered when the woman, now 34, came forward and accused Bey of molesting her between September and October of 1981. 

“This is an ongoing investigation that began in June of this year,” he said. 

Phillips would not say what the woman’s relationship was to Bey or give further details about her or her child. 

Bey is the leader of the Oakland Nation of Islam, which is listed as a Black Separatist hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. He also owns the Your Black Muslim Bakery chain and ran for mayor of Oakland in 1994. 

Bey’s lawyer, Andrew Dosa, had no comment on the charges. He said a hearing was scheduled Sept. 26 in Alameda County Superior Court in Oakland. 

Bey was released on $50,000 bail. 

OAKLAND – Undercover Oakland police officers dressed in provocative clothing hit the streets of the Fruitvale District Wednesday night as part of a new campaign to crack down on prostitution. 

Police Chief Richard Word said the prostitution “Beat Feet'' operation is designed to address a growing problem with a troubling new face: younger and more vulnerable prostitutes. 

“We're seeing networks of these young girls being abused by their pimps,” he said. 

Word emphasized that cooperation with neighboring jurisdictions is key to tackling a problem without borders. 

A similar operation in Oakland last week resulted in 26 arrests of men suspected of soliciting prostitution, 24 vehicle seizures and arrests of four suspected pimps who allegedly attempted to recruit the undercover officers. 

In the first 30 minutes of operation tonight, the officers netted five arrests. The undercover decoys and arrest teams planned to work the streets for about eight hours, until 2 a.m. Thursday. 

City Council President Ignacio De La Fuente said the notion that prostitution is a victimless crime is a myth. 

“We know of more than 200 young girls that are working the streets of Oakland right now,” De La Fuente said. “And they are working for pimps who take all their money and, in many cases, beat and torture them to keep  

them working on the streets.” 

Lt. Benson H. Fairow of the Vice/Narcotics Division said the new initiative is part of a trend to focus more on the customers, men who solicit prostitutes, rather than on the prostitutes themselves. 

“Traditionally you go out and arrest the females, the prostitutes,” Fairow said. “Now we tend to look at them more as victims.” 

He said that some of the prostitutes working the streets of Oakland are in their early teens. 

De La Fuente said the city is considering a handful of support measures to attack the problem, including implementing enhanced penalties and fines against those who solicit prostitution and developing diversion  

programs for prostitutes and pimps. 

Under state law, solicitation of prostitution is classified as a misdemeanor. However, the Police Department seizes the vehicles of those who solicit prostitutes, essentially meaning that they must “buy back” their cars, police said. 

City Manager Robert C. Bobb said that tonight's operation is part of a comprehensive police action plan finalized by Chief Word this afternoon. 

“Every week in the city of Oakland there will be a different targeted criminal group,” Bobb said, describing the overall plan. “It will range from prostitution to drug dealers to individuals who are currently engaged in homicide and who are still out on the street.”

VANDENBERG AIR FORCE BASE— The launch of an unarmed Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile Thursday night provided a spectacular light show that was seen over much of California and as far away as Arizona. 

The missile, part of the Force Development Evaluation Program, blasted off at 7:36 p.m. and the colorful contrail was seen over almost all of the state, from Salinas in Northern California to Los Angeles and even in Phoenix. 

The three-stage, solid-fueled missile was blasted out of an underground silo located from the military base north of Santa Barbara. 

The two unarmed re-entry vehicles were expected to travel about 4,200 miles in about 30 minutes. The vehicles were to strike predetermined targets at the Kwajalein Missile Range in the western chain of the Marshall Islands in the Pacific Ocean, the Air Force said in a prepared statement. 

The mission was directed by the 576th Flight Test Squadron at Vandenberg and the 341th Space Wing and the 341st Space Wing, from Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana. 

The Force Development Evaluation Program’s mission is to test missile launching systems and make missiles more accurate and reliable. 

Gov signs $9.95 billion bond bill to boost high-speed rail 

SACRAMENTO — With antique locomotives as a backdrop, Gov. Gray Davis signed a $9.95 billion bond measure Thursday that would clear the way to let voters determine if there will be a high-speed rail system linking California’s major cities. 

“We have a 21st century economy, but we need a 21st century transportation system to keep us on track,” Davis said at a ceremony at the state’s railroad museum. “This launches a new era of transportation in this state.” 

The bill, by state Sen. Jim Costa, D-Fresno, would authorize the state to borrow $9.95 billion through the sale of bonds to start building a 700-mile system with trains running at top speeds of more than 200 mph. 

Davis’ signature puts the measure on the November 2004 ballot for voters to decide. 

Holocaust education,  

recovery bills signed into law 

SACRAMENTO — Survivors and heirs of the Nazi Holocaust will get more time to reclaim property stolen from them before and during the Second World War, under one of the three Holocaust bills signed Thursday. 

Gov. Gray Davis called aiding Holocaust victims “a moral imperative” as he signed the three measures. An estimated 14,000 to 20,000 survivors live in California, but supporters said the bills will provide a model nationwide. 

The first bill extends the statute of limitations until 2010 for lawsuits brought by Holocaust survivors or their heirs to recover artwork stolen from them and now housed in museums or galleries. 

The rightful owners often need extra time for research, said the author, Assemblyman George Nakano, D-Torrance. He said some of the artwork has since made its way to California. 

The second bars using Holocaust restitution payments and any related payments received after January 1, 2000, from being used to calculate a survivor or heir’s income tax or their financial need calculations for Medi-Cal, public assistance, disability, and educational benefits. 

It brings state law in line with federal law adopted last year and could help hundreds of survivors and their heirs, said the author, Assemblywoman Wilma Chan, D-Alameda. 

The third encourages teaching of Holocaust history to school children, as well as recording the histories of the aging survivors. 

Quieter off-highway  

vehicles coming  

SACRAMENTO — California will go from permitting among the noisiest off-road vehicles in the nation to requiring that they be among the quietest, the California Department of Parks and Recreation said Thursday. 

The department said a law effective Jan. 1 “represents the most sweeping reform of California’s off-highway vehicle program in its 30-year history.” 

The bill negotiated between environmental and off-road organizations protects the goals of both groups, Gov. Gray Davis said in signing the measure last week. 

It brings the state’s noise restrictions in line with federal standards for manufacturers, dropping the maximum decibel level from 101 to 96. 

It requires that gas taxes paid by owners of non-registered off-highway vehicles — about $21 million a year — go to conservation, repairing off-road damage, and law enforcement. And it channels 100 percent of money from off-highway vehicle fines and forfeitures to local law enforcement instead of giving the state half the money. 

It also requires the department to develop a voluntary off-highway vehicle safety program by 2005. And it requires the department to concentrate new land acquisition efforts for off-highway vehicle areas on locations that are not controversial and thus have a better chance of being approved. 

The law included recommendations developed over 18 months by a group organized by the department to represent interests on all sides of the debate. 

SAN FRANCISCO — The California Public Utilities Commission voted Thursday to forward SBC Pacific Bell’s request to enter the long distance market to the Federal Communications Commission, but found that Pac Bell does not comply with a state law designed to prevent anticompetitive behavior, Commission Jeff Brown said. 

The PUC said Pac Bell is in compliance with the federal Telecommunications Act of 1996. 

The findings will be sent to the FCC. Once Pac Bell forwards its request, the FCC will have 90 days to approve or deny it. 

Brown said because of the PUC’s conflicting findings — that it was in compliance federally and not for state law — the FCC could end up approving interstate long distance, while prohibiting the company from entering the market for calls within California. 

Pac Bell called the decision a victory. 

“We were very excited about the endorsement we received today that paves our way to offer long distance in California,” said Lora Watts, president of Pac Bell’s external affairs. 

But consumer advocates said the victory was a hollow one. 

“This is not the clean endorsement that SBC Pacific Bell would have liked,” said Regina Costa, telecommunications research director for the San-Francisco based watchdog group The Utility Reform Network. “The PUC is saying that if SBC Pacific Bell gets into long distance in California it will harm the competition here.” 

Pac Bell is the biggest service provider in California, and has spent four years trying to gain entrance into California’s $15 billion-a-year long distance market. 

Under the requirements of the Federal Telecommunications Act of 1996, the company first has to meet 14 requirements listed in the act. As of Thursday, Pac Bell had met 12. Brown said the two unmet requirements were minor. 

Watts said consumers will win if Pac Bell enters the long distance market — with lower rates sparked by a more competitive market, and with the convenience of having two bills in one. 

Consumer advocates worry that letting Pac Bell sell long distance only will cement its dominance in the state, not create cheaper rates or more options for consumers, Costa said. 

Brown said the PUC did not find Pac Bell in compliance with the state law because of cases where the company had been sued for using customer testimony to their advantage. They also could not find Pac Bell in compliance with the anticompetitive law because of the fact that as a virtually monopoly, the company would be able to take advantage of customer calls to pitch additional services. 

Emeryville’s Wham-O expands  

snow sports, surfing division 

EMERYVILLE — Outdoor toy maker Wham-O Inc. on Thursday expanded its snow sports and surfing lines by buying two product lines from Earth and Ocean Sports. 

Emeryville-based Wham-O picked up Redmond, Wash.-based Earth and Ocean’s Pro Boards and Sledz brands in a deal that helped the company continue to diversify beyond its signature toys, including the Hula Hoop and Frisbee. 

The acquisitions will supplement Wham-O’s Boogie boards and sleds. 

Privately held Wham-O didn’t disclose the purchase price, which included the acquisition of Earth and Ocean’s factory in Oceanside. 

Group says state auto insurance changes would hurt soldiers 

LOS ANGELES — U.S. soldiers returning to California from overseas or out-of-state duty would be hurt by a proposal to let auto insurers raise premiums for drivers with lapsed coverage, consumer activists said Thursday. 

A controversial bill awaiting the governor’s signature would allow insurance companies to offer discounts to drivers with continuous coverage, and add a new surcharge on drivers who were previously uninsured or had a lapse in coverage. 

Tire death lawsuit settled 

LOS ANGELES — The Ford Motor Co. and Bridgestone/Firestone Inc. settled California’s first “rollover” death trial Thursday for an undisclosed sum, a lawyer said. 

The companies did not admit any wrongdoing. 

The case involved an Oct. 31, 1999, accident that killed Cathy Dizon, 19, and injured four other people. All were members of a University of Southern California sorority and were returning from a San Francisco trip. 

Jury selection began Sept. 4, but a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge ordered that settlement discussions occur before another judge, who approved the deal. 

“After laying out our case in opening statement and putting on witnesses for a couple of days, the matter has settled,” attorney John Denove said. 

“I think this result is a victory for the consumers,” he said. 

3Com posts first-quarter loss, misses revenue expectations 

SAN JOSE — 3Com Corp. on Thursday posted a fiscal first-quarter loss of $32 million, missing Wall Street expectations as demand for networking equipment continues to be weak. 

For the three months ended Aug. 30, the company lost 9 cents per share on sales of $305 million, compared with a loss of $223 million, or 65 cents per share, on sales of $390 million in the same period last year. 

Analysts were expecting a pro forma loss of 3 cents per share, according to a survey by Thomson First Call. The estimate is not comparable to the company’s figures, which are based on General Accepted Accounting Principles. 

In terms of sales, 3Com fell short of the $313 million expected by analysts. 

The company expects second-quarter revenues to decline as much as 8 percent from the first quarter, said Mark Slaven, 3Com’s chief financial officer. He did not issue an earnings forecast. 

3Com, which has endured more than a year of downsizing, returned to pro forma profitability in its fiscal fourth quarter, which ended in June.  

Dockworkers suspend lockout plans 

LOS ANGELES — Plans for a lockout Friday morning at the nation’s busiest port complex appeared to have been averted when dockworkers on the Thursday night shift began re-staffing operations at a terminal where activity had been frozen most of the week.

If you’ve been curious about community gardens, composting, and urban agriculture, this weekend may be the chance to educate yourself. 

This Saturday, Sept. 21, Sustainable Agriculture Education (SAGE) is presenting Open Garden Day in the Bay Area. More than 125 gardens are part of the self-guided tour, including school and community gardens, horticultural training and therapy gardens, urban market gardens and demonstration and memorial gardens. 

Gardens are good for the spirit, said SAGE president Sibella Kraus, explaining that green places provide “people a respite from the fast-paced environment of the city.” 

Now in its seventh year, Open Garden Day aims to build public awareness about the necessity of urban agriculture for sustainable urban development. SAGE advocates the many benefits of urban gardens; they produce fresh food, help build communities by bringing people together and teach people about nature. 

Open Garden Day takes place in six Bay Area regions: San Francisco, the North Bay, Berkeley-Richmond, Oakland-Hayward and the South Bay. Special events planned include gardening and cooking demonstrations, composting lessons, produce and plant sales, community craft sales, authors’ readings, presentations by community leaders, and children’s activities.  

Open Garden day is scheduled 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Maps are available at the SAGE web site (www.sagecenter.org). For more information call 526-1793 

Tours and special activities in Berkeley-Richmond area include: 

Bike Tour- Bikers will meet at 10:30 a.m. at Halycon Commons, on Halycon Court between Webster and Prince streets (one block west of Telegraph Avenue near Whole Foods Market). For information call John Steere 849-1969 

Bus Tour- Bus leaves at 10:30 a.m. from east side of Ashby BART Station. Bus returns to same spot by 2 p.m. For information call Marcy Greenhut 652-9462 

Composting Demo- West Contra Costa County Waste Management Authority will sponsor a compost workshop at Rubicon Garden. For information call Mersina Purlantov 215-3021 

-Melissa McRobbie 

LOS ANGELES — County health officials warned Thursday of a marked increase in cases of whooping cough, the highly contagious disease that can cause weeks of severe coughing. 

In Los Angeles County, there have been 108 suspected cases of the disease, also called pertussis, so far this year, with infants making up most of those infected. 

The number is a 50 percent increase over the same period last year, said Dr. Jonathan Fielding, director of public health and health officer for Los Angeles County. Similar increases have been noted elsewhere across the state and nation. 

Traditionally, doctors have regarded pertussis as an infant disease, but it is making a global comeback in all age groups. 

Scientists suspect protection from immunization wears off after a few years and that the bug has outsmarted the vaccines that have controlled it for decades. Growing numbers of unimmunized children may also play a role in its comeback. 

Whooping cough is caused by the bacteria Bordetella pertussis. It is usually mild in adults but can be fatal in infants. It kills between five and 10 children in the United States each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 

“It is important for parents in general to try to keep people who are coughing away from their kids,” Fielding said. 

In most countries, infants get their first pertussis shot at 1 month old. They are immunized again at 2 months, then 3 months, and given a booster at 15 months. 

Most people with the disease have a cough that lasts more than three weeks. It can include night coughing that disturbs sleep, vomiting, 30-second sweating attacks and complications such as hernias or rib fractures. 

Health officials urge prompt reporting of pertussis cases to prevent its spread. At early stages, the disease is readily treatable with antibiotics. 

——— 

On the Net: Pertussis fact sheet http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dbmd/diseaseinfo/pertussis—t.htm 

MOFFETT FIELD — Veteran NASA manager G. Scott Hubbard has been appointed director of the space agency’s Ames Research Center, officials announced Thursday. 

Hubbard most recently served as deputy director for research at the Silicon Valley center. He replaces Henry “Harry” McDonald, who will join the faculty at the University of Tennessee, Chattanooga. 

As director, Hubbard will be responsible for all aspects of Ames, which focuses on new technologies related to NASA’s missions. 

As deputy director for research, Hubbard helped establish NASA’s Astrobiology Institute and served as its initial director. In other assignments, he was project manager of Ames’ portion of the 1997 Mars Pathfinder mission and NASA manager of the 1998 Lunar Prospector Mission. 

In 2000, after the failure of two missions to Mars, he was named the first Mars Program director at NASA headquarters in Washington. 

“After the failure of the Climate Orbiter and the Polar Lander, Scott was brought to Washington to help get our Mars exploration program back on track,” said NASA Administrator Sean O’Keefe. “Today, we enjoy unprecedented success in exploring the Red Planet, making discoveries no one would have thought possible a few years ago.” 

Hubbard received his bachelor’s degree at Vanderbilt University in Nashville and completed his graduate work at the University of California, Berkeley. 

——— 

On the Net: 

NASA Ames Research Center: http://www.arc.nasa.gov/ 

Bicycle enthusiasts met with the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission Thursday to lobby for access to the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge. 

Bicycle advocates point to recent studies that they say show the bridge provides ample room for both motorists and cyclists, despite arguments from transportation officials who fear the juxtaposition would create a safety hazard. The debate is an old one, spanning decades. 

“Public access on the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge would be feasible, inexpensive, and safe,” said Debbie Hubsmith, executive director of the Marin County Bicycle Coalition. “It's time for Caltrans to move forward with bicycle access.” 

Critics cite safety concerns. The bridge has a 12-foot-wide shoulder, but vehicles travel at high speeds, which some say makes it unsuitable for cyclists. 

The issue of bicycles on the bridge between Contra Costa and Marin counties dates back to 1975, when Caltrans resolved to let bicyclists use the outside shoulder of the road as a bike lane. The plan was subsequently tabled after a pipeline for water was installed due to the severe drought of the mid-1970s. 

Over the last two decades, bicyclists have continued to push for access and say the recent studies support their case. 

A “Public Access Study,” released in 1998, analyzed 10 years of statewide traffic data for more than 1,000 miles of California freeways. It concluded that bicycle access to the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge would be safer than most city streets, because of the unusually wide separation from traffic, good lighting at night, and the lack of traffic intersections.  

The most recent study, called “Statewide Safety Study of Bicyclists and Pedestrians on Freeways, Expressways, Toll Bridges, and Tunnels,” was conducted in 2001 at the request of Caltrans. The report's authors concluded that “bicycle collisions on bridges are rare events. Bridges and tunnels do not appear to have a greater safety problem than exists on the adjacent roadways.”

OAKLAND — California transportation officials announced plans Thursday to divide the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge project into six separate contracts to involve more small and disadvantaged businesses. 

The announcement followed complaints from minority-owned subcontractors who claimed they lost lucrative construction deals because of unfair bidding on the $2.6 billion project to replace the bridge’s eastern span. 

Caltrans plans to advertise the first of the contracts this month and announce a winner in December, with the rest to follow. 

The projects include building the tower and superstructure of the self-anchored suspension bridge, removing three U.S. Coast Guard buildings and one state building on Yerba Buena Island and building a temporary detour and permanent bridge on the island. 

Caltrans said in a release that earlier contracts did not meet the department’s goals for disadvantage business participation. 

The firms alleged that Caltrans and Kiewit/FCI/Manson Joint Venture, the prime contractor awarded the project’s $1.04 billion second phase, encouraged bids from so-called “disadvantaged business enterprises” to comply with federal requirements tied to more than $600 million of funds, but had no intent to hire. 

Caltrans has said the federal transportation department reviewed the contracts in question and found they were made in good faith.

OAKLAND – The Oakland Police Department airport bureau said tonight that officers are investigating a report that an individual listed by the federal government as possibly connected with terrorist activity was inside Oakland International Airport. 

The officers responded to the Jet Blue terminal at the airport. 

The airport police bureau could not confirm that anyone had been detained in the investigation.

CORONADO— They are pictured cooking, laughing, seated with their pets, standing with their wives. One is a famous senator. Another is a ukulele player. 

They refuse to dwell on how they were beaten and tortured as prisoners of war. Or on the dark, wasted years lost inside a Vietnamese prison camp. For most, life holds no time for anger or bitterness. 

“There’s no such thing as a bad day when you have a door knob on the inside of the door,” explains former Navy Cmdr. Paul Edward Galanti, one of 30 former POWs profiled and photographed in “Open Doors: Vietnam POWs Thirty Years Later” showing at the Coronado Museum of History and Art. The exhibit will be displayed aboard the USS Boxer in San Diego on Friday for National POW-MIA Recognition Day ahead of a national tour this winter. 

The exhibit was created by Taylor Baldwin Kiland, a Coronado writer and former Navy lieutenant who became intrigued by the lives of several former POWs she met while volunteering for Arizona Sen. John McCain’s presidential campaign. She realized she knew a good deal about the adversity POWs faced in captivity but little about how they had fared since. 

“You never hear anything about what they’ve done with their lives,” Kiland says. “I thought, I bet there are some good life lessons from them.” 

Along with childhood friend and photographer Jamie Howren Quinn, Kiland spent 18 months traveling across the country to interview and photograph 30 Vietnam POWs, one for each year since most prisoners in Vietnam were released. Their subjects were chosen from all branches of the military by word of mouth. Some were war buddies of Kiland’s father, a Navy man; others were supporters of McCain, the country’s most well-known POW, who spent six and one half years in captivity and is also featured in the exhibit. 

Like many Americans, before starting the project Quinn viewed most Vietnam vets as a class to be pitied. Too often she’d seen them with handwritten signs begging for change on street corners. But after meeting several of the POWs, she revised her opinions. Among the group are a congressman, a federal trade commissioner, an ophthalmologist, a Medal of Honor recipient and numerous businessmen. 

“I realized they don’t want pity in any shape or form,” Quinn says. “These people were very inspiring. They reinforced the fact that life is very precious, and the need to live it to the fullest.” 

Navy pilot Capt. Charles Everett “Ev” Southwick’s life is a good example. Shot down over Than Hoa, Vietnam, in May 1967, he spent six years in various prisons throughout the country, including the infamous “Hanoi Hilton.” 

“It’s the sort of experience you cannot describe in sound bites,” he says simply. “It wasn’t too pretty, let’s put it that way.” 

He describes the first three years as “stark terror” as prisoners were often bound with ropes while their limbs were slowly wrenched from their bodies in an effort to get them to denounce the United States’ war effort. Other POWs in the exhibit were forced to stand for four to five weeks with their arms over their heads; retired Marine Lt. Col. Orson Swindle, the current federal trade commissioner, was lashed on a stool for days. 

Southwick’s last three years were a maddening string of endless days, one bleeding into the next with nothing to occupy his time. He was freed in March 1973, 2,122 days after being shot down. 

Upon returning home, Southwick took a position in the Navy’s Office of Legislative Affairs where he lobbied Congress on military matters. It was a job he loved. 

Not everything went smoothly though. Southwick divorced three times. 

Still the 70-year-old says he has no time for bitterness. Retired and living in San Diego, he spends his time fishing and playing an old ukulele, which he is photographed with for the exhibit. 

“We’re just normal people like everybody else,” he says. “People say I never could have done that. ’Well yes, you could do that.’ You don’t know what you can do until you’re faced with it.” 

Life threw up challenges for other men, too. Air Force Col. William Beekman spent a year in captivity. He returned home in 1973 to resume a military career but was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. Active duty proved too physically demanding so he started a medical testing company. Working 60 to 80 hours a week, he turned the business into a multimillion dollar enterprise which he recently sold. 

Now retired, the Dayton, Ohio, resident has taken up swimming despite his deteriorating medical condition. In his profile, Beekman says he wants to compete in the 200-meter freestyle at his local YMCA. 

“When you’ve been through the worst, you feel you can do anything,” says Beekman who is pictured leaning on a cane and smiling widely. 

Galanti, the Navy commander who spent six and a half years as a POW, will speak aboard the USS Ronald Reagan in Newport News, Va., on Friday for National POW-MIA Recognition Day. 

“Always remember: No matter how bad you think you’ve got it, somebody has it worse,” Galanti says. He recalls that during low periods of his captivity, he’d think of Navy pilot Everett Alvarez Jr., another man featured in the exhibit, who spent eight and one half years as a POW. 

“Sometimes at night when I used to sit there and feel sorry for myself I’d think about Ed. He’d been in there 22 months longer than I had.” 

“There is always somebody who has it worse.”

SAN JOSE — On the night he learned his daughter’s charred body had been found in a car trunk near Yosemite National Park, a despondent Jose “Pepe” Pelosso set off to throw himself in front of a freight train. 

The burly cattle rancher tearfully recounted his suicidal thoughts as he testified Thursday in the death penalty phase of Cary Stayner’s trial for murdering his daughter Silvina and two family friends on a trip to the park three years ago. 

Pelosso and his wife, Raquel, testified about the impact the crime has had on their lives since they temporarily uprooted to California in February 1999 in the hopes of finding their daughter alive after she vanished. 

“A person who’s never had the fortune to have a child will never ... know what it’s like to lose one,” Jose Pelosso told jurors. “It’s a pain that doesn’t just hurt a person physically or on the inside. It also hurts down to a person’s soul.” 

The courtroom, a forum most recently of psychiatric opinions about Stayner’s sanity, became an emotional stage on the day jurors were told that Stayner’s life is in their hands. They are expected to hear weeks of testimony before deciding whether Stayner gets life in prison or goes to death row. 

The same panel convicted Stayner, 41, last month of murdering Carole Sund, 42, her daughter Juli, 15, both of Eureka, and Pelosso, 16, of Argentina. It found him sane Monday. 

Jurors tried to suppress tears as family members of the victims sobbed. On the other side of the courtroom, Stayner cried occasionally and his lead lawyer broke down during her opening statement. 

The emotional climax came as Pepe Pelosso took the stand a short distance from Stayner.

Last spring residents at 10th Street and Allston Way in west Berkeley demanded help. Their corner had been invaded by out-of-town drug dealers, they said, who intimidated neighbors and forced parents to keep their kids indoors. 

“It was the worst I had ever seen,” said Rebecca Falzone, a 13-year resident whose husband was attacked by a street dealer last spring. 

Since then things have changed. 

At a community meeting May 29, residents told police and city officials that they were under siege, and the city responded.  

What neighbor Barbara Gregory called “a nightmare living there” started to end the very next day. 

On May 30, the Berkeley Police Department started a drug crackdown, arresting 20 people for narcotic sales, several of whom had sold at 10th and Allston.  

Following the sting, residents didn’t expect significant changes. But since the May 30 arrests, 20 more people have been arrested for narcotic sales, police said. 

Neighbors have noticed a difference. 

“It’s been so much better,” said Falzone, who said some drug dealing persists but that the neighborhood “might be the quietest it has ever been.” 

Falzone and her neighbors attribute their relatively tranquil streets to a citywide strategy in which the police department and the city manager’s office work with neighbors to solve problems. 

In March, west Berkeley neighbors reported the drug activity to Sgt. Erik Upson, a community services officer. Upson sent beat officers and the police’s Special Enforcement Unit (SEU), an elite undercover team, to hit the streets. 

The SEU began a sting operation to arrest not only street level dealers but their suppliers.  

Rachel Crossman, a 15-year resident, pulled together neighborhood watch groups to help police investigators close in on their targets. 

“The neighborhood watch provides immeasurable help,” Upson said. “They see things 24/7 so they can tell us which house is a problem at which time of the day.”  

Although many neighbors were hoping that police would immediately arrest the drug dealers, Upson said that quick arrests would have been a temporary fix. “When we target for the long term, we get good cases on people so they don’t move down to other neighborhoods,” he said.  

Still, Upson acknowledged that the reduction of drug activity at 10th and Allston has been accompanied by increased activity elsewhere. But city officials are using their strategy in other blighted areas. Upson said that as the program matures results will come more quickly. 

Meanwhile, west Berkeley neighbors are pleased with the results. “The police were right on it,” said Rob Crossman. “It’s nice to see the city and the community work together.”

To the Editor: 

BART released its new schedule this week and Richmond line riders got left in the lurch. There are no more timed transfers to San Francisco. After waiting for years for what would appear to be a no-brainer – timed transfers to San Francisco on the Richmond-Fremont line – they have been removed.  

BART is telling riders to not bother transferring (except for night travel) since it won't help at all.  

What this essentially means is West Contra Costa residents just had their BART schedules to San Francisco cut in half. What used to be a 6 to 7 minute wait at commute time for service that would take you to San Francisco is now a full 15 minutes.  

How did this happen? Are we supposed to be overjoyed because soon we can go to the SF Airport and/or have longer trains for half the service? Ask most riders that regularly commute to San Francisco and the great majority would prefer increased. For those of us with children and tight schedules where ever minute counts, especially when you are paying for after school or babysitting, those extra 15 minutes are a nightmare. 

What is it about BART and West Contra Costa…. we have never been given the extensions we were promised years ago and now, more than any other line, our service has been severely disrupted. Hello, is anyone listening out there? We need more service not less if public transportation is to encourage us to leave our cars behind and increase ridership. Please rethink these schedules immediately. Is it really that difficult to continue to have timed transfers? 

Ann Lehman 

El Cerrito 

When is it healthy to dream of success, and when does that dreaming turn into dark and pathological obsession? That question comes to mind watching John Guare’s 1971 New York Drama Critics Circle award winning play “The House of Blue Leaves,” which Berkeley Repertory Theater is running. It’s a rich, disturbing production on the Roda stage in downtown Berkeley. 

“Blue Leaves” is a play about people trapped in unhappy, small middle-class lives. They look to their dreams for freedom but become trapped by their dreams. 

In “Blue Leaves,” middle-aged Central Park zookeeper Artie Shaughnessy fantasizes of breaking out of his claustrophobic family life. He lives in a cluttered Queens apartment and wants to hit the big time as a piano player and Hollywood songwriter. This would mean leaving his depressed, schizophrenic homebound wife for California with his new, star-struck girlfriend. 

Guare’s comedic script is dark, and the women in particular tend to be cartoon-like, one-dimensional characters. But director Barbara Damashek and her actors have done a superb job fleshing out the stick figures to create a wild dream world. 

Jarion Monroe’s Artie slides back and forth among the euphoria of a show biz success fantasy, enthusiasm for his new girlfriend, love for his crazy wife and despair at his present life. The mind shifts between the two women are fascinating. 

Rebecca Wisocky’s damaged schizophrenic wife Bananas Shaughnessy is wacky and feral. Part beast, wandering the run-down apartment in her bathrobe, she crawls and barks. At one point she rolls up into a ball and becomes a hedgehog. It is a remarkable performance. In one ridiculous and frightening scene, Bananas vacuums the smoke out of the air.  

As tacky girlfriend Bunny, Jeri Lynn Cohen fuels Artie’s dreams of Hollywood in a silly, talkative, sexual performance driven by her own empty life. 

It’s odd to think that these two women would put up with such a triangle. But this is a story from another era, and the Repertory production builds on the profound desperation underlying the situation. 

Damashek humanized the play’s cartoon characters and caused the audience to root for them. The characters almost dig themselves out of their holes, making the play’s tragic ending all the more shattering. 

There are many roller coaster shifts in the flow of this production. As the first half builds toward intermission, for example, the excitement of the characters’ Hollywood fantasies heat up until their dreams become the audience’s dreams. 

Scenic designer William Bloodgood’s colorful littered Queens apartment is filled with tattered bric-a-brac that captures both the distinctive detail of a dream, and its obscurity. Costumer designer Beaver Bauer has done good work also, including a bizarre, hyper-real, red plastic, faux-reptile-skin jumper for Bunny. 

Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara did the show off-Broadway more than 30 years ago. But the Berkeley Repertory is a better production. 

This is a story about peculiar American lives that have lost the ability to distinguish reality from dreams. It’s a disturbing play, and a magical evening in the theater. 

Thursday, September 19  

Simplicity Forum 

7 to 8:30 p.m. 

Claremont Branch Library 

2940 Benvenue Ave. 

A panel of people who will share their experiences and ideas for living inexpensively but richly. 

549-3509, www.simpleliving.net 

Free 

Freedom From Tobacco 

6 to 8 p.m. 

South Berkeley Senior Center  

A quit smoking class. First of six Thursday evenings through Oct. 24.  

981-5330, quitnow@ci.berkeley.ca.us 

Free to Berkeley and Albany residents, students and employees. 

Sukkot Holiday Workshop 

7 to 8:30 p.m. 

Berkeley Richmond Jewish Community Center, 1414 Walnut St. 

Join Dawn Kepler, director of Building Jewish Bridges, for hands-on crafts, food projects, creative sukkah decorations and tips for making your own sukkah (hut). 

848-0237 Ext. 127 

$10 BRJCC members/$12 public 

Buddhist Peace Fellowship  

with The Deer Park  

Monastery - Public Lecture 

7 p.m.  

Berkeley Community Theater  

1930 Allston Way  

Join Vietnamese peace activist Zen master Thich Nhat Hahn for a public lecture, “Deep Listening: the heart of compassionate action” 

433-9928 

$20 suggested donation  

Friday, September 20 

Mid Autumn Moon Festival 

1:15 p.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center, 1901 Hearst St. 

981-5190 

Saturday, September 21 

Buddhist Peace Fellowship with The Deer Park Monastery - Public Lecture 

9 a.m. to 5 p.m. 

Lake Merritt, Oakland -  

Lakeside Park, Bandstand Area 

Join Vietnamese peace activist Zen master Thich Nhat Hahn for a public lecture; “Coming Home: a day of community and healing”. 

433-9928 

$45, $25 - seniors, $65 - donor Level  

BREAD and Roses Garden Party 

1 to 5 p.m. 

Peralta Community Garden, Berkeley 

Hopkins & Peralta, Wheelchair accessible  

BREAD's birthday party - five years of dismantling corporate rule through local currency. 

644-0376 

$12 advance, $15 door,  

low-income rate $10 

Berkeley Alliance of Neighborhood Associations (BANA) 

9:15 to 11 a.m. 

St. John’s Church, 2727 College Ave. 

mtbrcb@pacbell.net 

Free 

Do-It-Yourself all-Natural  

Body Care from Your Kitchen 

Ecology Center, 2530 San Pablo Ave. Learn how to make your own all-natural skin care from products you might already have in your own kitchen. 

548-2220, Ext. 233, erc@ecologycenter.org 

$10 for members, $15 for nonmembers 

Puppet Shows 

1:30 and 2:30 p.m. 

Hall of Health, 2230 Shattuck Ave. 

Shows promote acceptance, understanding of physical, mental and medical differences. 

549-1564 

$2 suggested donation 

Third Annual David Brower  

Youth Awards 

6 p.m. 

Schwimley Theater  

1920 Allston Way 

Celebrate the next generation of environmental activists at Earth Island Institute’s award ceremony. R.S.V.P. 

(415) 788-3666, Ext. 260  

www.earthisland.org/bya 

Coastal Cleanup Day 

10 a.m. 

Work at the outflow of Strawberry Creek to clean up the San Francisco Bay coastline. 

info@strawberrycreek.org or 848-4008 

Fall Plant Sale 

10 a.m. to 2 p.m. 

200 Centennial Dr. 

Annual plant sale featuring rare and unusual plants. Members-only preview and auction from 9 to 11 a.m.  

643-2755, www.mip.berkeley.edu/garden/ 

Free  

Sunshine Workshop 

10 a.m. to noon 

Sixth floor, City Hall, 2180 Milvia St. 

Get up to speed on open records laws, open meetings laws and sunshine ordinances. Experts, including Terry Francke of the California First Amendment Coalition, will speak. 

BerkeleySunshine@Yahoo.com 

Free  

East Bay Shoreline Clean Up 

9.am. to 12 p.m. 

Sea Breeze Market and Deli - meeting/staging area. 

On the corner of West Frontage Rd. and University Ave., Berkeley. 

Arrive promptly to sign appropriate waivers , get coffee and listen to safety talk. We will provide bags, tally cards and a raffle of donated prizes; groups of ten or more need to pre-register by calling 644-8623. 

Free 

The Cal football team is a shocking 3-0 to start the season. The Golden Bears just took down Michigan State, considered by many to be a favorite to win the Big Ten. This Saturday they play a service academy team, not exactly a traditional football powerhouse. So why do the Bears sound so worried? 

“This is going to be our toughest game of the season,” defensive tackle Daniel Nwangwu said of Cal’s date with Air Force Academy on Saturday. “They have a great attack, and we’re going to have to practice hard to be ready for them.” 

Air Force is the only speed-option team in the nation, almost a relic of football’s past. They run three players out of the backfield, use just one wide receiver and have the heaviest run-pass balance in college football, keeping the ball on the ground 83 percent of the time so far this season. Quarterback Chance Harridge has completed just eight passes in two games, but the Falcons have gained 368.5 rushing yards per game, top in the country. 

Nearly all of the Falcons’ offensive plays start with the fullback plunging into the line. If he actually has the ball, the play stops there. But if Harridge fakes the handoff and sprints out along the line of scrimmage, that’s when things get interesting. The play usually turns into a simple option run with one of the wingbacks ready for a pitch, a play the Bears had trouble defending against New Mexico State two weeks ago.  

Although Harridge is averaging more than four yards per carry, forcing him to keep the ball might be the best option for the Bears. Leading rusher Leotis Palmer averages eight yards every time he touches the ball, while four other Falcons are above seven yards per carry. Then there’s the rare pass play when Harridge steps back and hopes the defense has become so fixated on stopping the run they’ve forgotten about the receivers. Two of Harridge’s eight completions have gone for touchdowns, a ratio that would make any offensive coordinator happy. 

Cal middle linebacker Marcus Daniels will be the key to stopping the option. He has to read the fullback and decide whether to plug the middle or pursue to the outside. One wrong decision by Daniels could mean a long gain for Air Force, and he knows it. 

“They want to influence the linebackers. That’s what their offense is all about,” Daniels said. “We have to stay disciplined on every play. it’s tough to do. If you over-pursue you open the gate for a big play.” 

But there’s a fine line between discipline and hesitance. The main difference between last year’s porous Cal defense and this season’s world-beaters has been confidence and swarming to the ball, a style that has served the Bears well so far. 

“The worst decision is indecision,” Daniels said, repeating the defensive coaches’ mantra for the season. “If you make a mistake, make it full speed.” 

Air Force also offers a unique look on defense, with a rare three-man front and five linebackers who blitz in different combinations on just about every play. The shifting defense and varied looks make it tough to prepare for the Falcons. 

“Sometimes they rush three, sometimes they rush six,” Cal quarterback Kyle Boller said. “You never know who’s coming. You just don’t see this kind of defense too often.” 

The Falcons’ defensive style is a necessity due to the academy’s strict fitness regimen, which keeps the players from bulking up to the usual gargantuan proportions of the average college defensive lineman. The biggest on Air Force’s front line is noseguard Nicholas Taylor, who weighs in at 265 pounds, 20 pounds lighter than any Cal offensive lineman. 

But what the Falcons lack in size they make up for in fitness and desire. Their pursuit is unmatched in the college game and every player can run. 

“They’re not very big, but they’re extremely quick,” Cal head coach Jeff Tedford said of the Air Force defense. “They have unbelievable intensity out there. There will be times when they make plays on defense.” 

Not too many times, the Bears hope.

The University of California’s chief budget official said further state cuts and voter rejection of a $13 billion construction bond in November would have grave impacts on the nine-campus system. 

Academic programs and a host of building projects, including the replacement of UC Berkeley’s seismically-suspect Stanley Hall, are in jeopardy. 

“If the bond issue doesn’t pass, we’re going to have a significant problem,” said UC Vice President for Budget Larry Hershman, speaking at the Board of Regents meeting Wednesday in San Francisco. 

The measure, Proposition 47, includes $11.4 billion for the state’s kindergarten through 12th-grade schools and $1.65 billion for higher education. Just over $408 million would go to the University of California. 

Roughly $80 million in construction projects slated for this year, including the replacement of Stanley Hall, will not go forward if voters reject Proposition 47 in November, university officials said. Over $300 million in projects next year would be in jeopardy as well. 

Hershman also expressed fears that UC, which took a relatively modest $108 million cut when Gov. Gray Davis signed the final 2002-2003 state budget earlier this month, may face further reductions. 

The legislature has directed Davis to recommend up to $750 million in additional cuts to “state operations” by January. The university could be a target of the reductions. 

“We’re going to do everything in our power to try to convince the governor and Department of Finance to minimize our cuts,” Hershman said. 

Department of Finance spokesperson Anita Gore said the $750 million in reductions are “still under discussion.” 

Gore noted that the governor has made education a top priority in the past. But she acknowledged that higher education and the prison system are two “big ticket” items that went relatively untouched in the September budget – suggesting that they could face further reductions. 

Hershman said it could be weeks or even months before the university learns if it will face further cuts this year. 

Next year could be even worse, he said, with the Legislative Analyst’s Office predicting a $10 billion shortfall. The Board of Regents, which has held the line on student fees for eight years, may have to consider an increase if the 2003-2004 budget is lean, Hershman suggested. 

A September Field Poll found early support for Proposition 47, with 54 percent of likely voters in favor, 35 percent opposed and 13 percent undecided. 

Field Poll Director Mark DiCamillo warned that only one in three of the voters had heard of the initiative when polled, but said the initial support for the measure is important. Bond measures that face early opposition or a 50-50 split generally fail, he said. 

The major stumbling blocks for Proposition 47 supporters, according to DiCamillo, are the large amount of money involved – $13 billion – and an economic downturn which has eroded voter confidence in the state’s fiscal health. 

These obstacles have UC officials concerned. 

“At this point, the outcome is seriously in question,” said Bruce Darling, UC’s senior vice president for university affairs, at the Board of Regents meeting. 

Darling said supporters, including the university, business leaders and the California Teachers Association have already won $7 million in commitments to fund a “Yes on 47” campaign. 

There is no organized opposition to the measure. But Lewis K. Uhler, president of the Sacramento-based National Tax Limitation Committee, said the state cannot afford such a large bond in a time of rising deficits. 

“Adding to the debt at this time is simply irresponsible,” Uhler said. “We could be up to our eyeballs in red ink.” 

The bond issue, if passed, would provide funding for two years of construction. Defeat would not only eliminate this year’s projects, Hershman said, but jeopardize next year’s plans. 

In the absence of bond money, he noted, the university would have to ask a financially-troubled state government for a direct cash infusion of over $300 million from its general fund. 

A second two-year construction bond, including $10 billion for public schools and $2.3 billion for higher education will go before voters in March 2004.  

A total of $1.3 billion, including the 2002 and 2004 bonds, is at stake for UC. The university would use the money for the replacement and rehabilitation of academic buildings.  

The university typically pays for the construction of housing and other capital projects out of its own budget, although a statewide housing bond on the November ballot includes a small amount of money for higher education housing.

To the Editor: 

Developer Lynda Hart wrote to the Daily Planet on Sept. 12, claiming that her proposed development was illegally rejected by the city of Berkeley. Let’s set the record straight. Prior to finalizing the current General Plan, the quiet residential north side of the 1100 Block of Hearst Avenue was zoned R-3 (hospitals, dormitories, etc.). 

This designation was clearly a zoning error and in conflict with the Berkeley General Plan. After careful consideration, the Planning Commission voted unanimously to modify the designation from R-3 to R-2A and the City Council affirmed their recommendation 7-1-1. 

Ignoring the zoning change, Ms. Hart continues to pursue her outsized development, which does not conform to either R-3 or R-2A standards. Further, her development requires the demolition of six existing rent controlled units – all of them affordable to low and moderate income residents – and the eviction of the current tenants. This, and the almost $250,000 in annual rents she expects from the development is hardly merely “enhancing a small rental property” as claimed by Ms. Hart. 

The Zoning Adjustments Board, which is authorized to make these judgments by Berkeley code, denied the Hart development, finding that it conflicted with General Plan and Zoning Ordinance policy and was not needed to help meet the city’s affordable housing goals – particularly when it removes more rent-controlled units (six) that it provides in inclusionary housing (four). 

Although Ms. Hart states that she is not trying to “skirt the zoning rules,” that’s precisely what she is trying to do by invoking an untested state statute to threaten a lawsuit. She contends that her development should not be held to the findings required by our zoning ordinance because the state has not yet accepted Berkeley’s new Housing Element. 

Even with our Housing Element unfinished, our city is unquestionably one of the most effective in the state in providing affordable housing. The fact that state and city planners have not yet finished their work must not give a blank check to developers like Ms. Hart to build whatever they want.  

Paul Shain and Elaine Eastman for the Hearst-Curtis-Delaware Neighbors

I first saw “A Winter’s Tale” in Shakespeare’s hometown, Stratford-upon-Avon. That was more than 30 years ago, but I still remember the program note informing the audience that both Hermione and her daughter Perdita would be played by an up-and-coming young British actress. 

That actress’s name was Judi Dench. 

Cal Shakespeare’s new production of “A Winter’s Tale,” at the Bruns Theater in the Orinda hills, may not boast Dame Judi, but it has plenty of other things going for it—except for a jarringly misconceived Act 4. 

Still, 4/5 of a great drama is a pretty good fraction, and Cal Shakes makes that majority grandly stirring. 

The play is one of Shakespeare’s final trios, sometimes called “romances,” beginning in tragedy but ending in sweet reconciliation. They’re healing works, and there’s nothing quite like them, though their contradictions can make them tricky to pull off. The flawed tragic hero of “A Winter’s Tale” is Leontes, King of Sicilia, who flies into an Othello-like rage when he suspects his wife Hermione is carrying a child by Polixenes, the visiting King of Bohemia. “It’s a bawdy planet,” Leontes raves, his groundless jealousy driving him to imprison his wife and command that her child be abandoned on some far shore. 

That shore turns out to be Bohemia, where the girl, named Perdita by the shepherd who finds her, grows up and ultimately returns home to her remorseful father. The child finds her mother, too. Though Hermione is reported to have died, this magical play can bring even stone statues to life. 

For its version, Cal Shakespeare performs Acts 1, 2 and 3, calls an intermission, then offers us Act 4, set in Bohemia, in its outdoor “lobby,” before herding us back into the Bruns amphitheater for act five. If you head home at that intermission, you’ll have seen a superb production of a three-act tragedy. Everything in this initial sequence works, from the opening moment when Joan Mankin, as Time, offers a crystal ball to Leontes’ doomed son, Mamillius, to Kate Edmunds’ spacious set of boxy gray-green forms that reflect the rigidity of Leontes’ court. Meg Neville’s costumes encase the Sicilians in muted suits that enhance the effect, while Gina Leshman punctuates the action with sonorous cello work. Alexander V. Nichols’ lighting sets moods and picks out dramatic moments nicely, and Cliff Carruthers supplies thunderous sound. 

Under director Lisa Peterson’s deft guidance the acting here ranges from good to superb. L. Peter Callendar makes a warm and gracious Polixenes, Domenique Lozano gives Paulina dignity and spunk, and Dan Hiatt capably conveys Camillo’s troubled loyalty. Warren Keith is a dutiful but aggrieved Antigonus, and in the lead role Andy Murray creates a passionate and self-tormented Leontes. Most impressive is Stephanie Roth Haberle as Hermione. Wrapped in a moving dignity, Haberle gives the play a moral center, and her self-defense at her trial may be the most compelling acting of the fall theater season. 

Then there’s that aberrant Act 4, in which Cal Shakespeare funs-up the Bard with screaming teen-agers, mopeds and psychedelic motley. Some of the acting here is inept, some so broad that it nearly breaks the back of the play, though a strong Act 5 redeems the nonsense with an affecting reconciliation. 

“A sad tale is best for winter,” Mamilius pronounces in act one, but in “A Winter’s Tale” Shakespeare calls sadness back from the brink of tragedy to deliver a magical happy ending. 

Good for him—and good and for us, too.  

Berkeley High QB still  

up for grabs? 

Although Berkeley High head coach Matt Bissell said he hasn’t decided on a starting quarterback for Friday’s season opener against Liberty High, a source close to the team said junior Jeff Spellman will get the nod over junior Foster Goree. 

Bissell insisted on Wednesday that he and offensive coordinator Clarence Johnson won’t make a final decision until after Thursday’s practice. But the source said Spellman, a transfer from Bishop O’Dowd High in Oakland, will be behind center when the Yellowjackets kick off against Liberty. 

Berkeley High tennis loses 

The Berkeley High girls’ tennis team fell to Alameda High on Tuesday, the Yellowjackets’ first ACCAL defeat of the season. 

Top singles player Megan Sweeney and top doubles team Leah Hellerstein and Emily Levy were the only winners for Berkeley. 

The loss dropped Berkeley to 1-2 overall, 1-1 in ACCAL play. 

St. Mary’s High volleyball wins 

The St. Mary’s High girls’ volleyball team won their second straight match on Tuesday, taking down Encinal High 15-2, 15-4, 13-15, 15-8 in a non-league game.

The taxi driver scheduled to pick up Muslim speakers Wednesday for a UC Berkeley conference on Islam backed out at the last minute. 

He said he feared the FBI would interrogate him if he showed up at the airport to pick up the speakers, according to Agha Saeed, UC Berkeley political science professor and national chair of the American Muslim Alliance. Saeed noted the irony that began the daylong conference, Islam in America: Rights and Citizenship in a Post 9/11 World. 

The threat to the civil rights of Muslims and the need for the community to stand up to it was the thread tying morning speakers at the event. 

“We shouldn’t sacrifice civil liberties in order to feel safe,” speaker Sami Al-Arian told the conference audience of about 50 people. Al-Arian was placed on paid leave by the University of South Florida at the end of last year after a talk-show host brought up a 1991 statement he’d made calling for “death to Israel.” 

In an interview with the Chronicle of Higher Education, Al-Arian, a Palestinian born in Kuwait, said he did not call for the death to Jews, but to the Israeli state which he said had oppressed his people. 

The point, however, was not what he said. “The issue before us is academic freedom,” he argued. “We shouldn’t allow an Enron code of ethics to rule our society.”  

Al-Arian condemned post-Sept. 11, 2001 anti-Muslim bigotry and blamed the media for its role.  

Al-Arian explained that Robert J. Goldstein, the Jewish man arrested in Florida with 40 weapons, explosives, napalm, timers and wires, with a detailed plan to blow up 50 Islamic institutions, was treated differently than a Muslim would be treated.  

The media didn’t call him a terrorist; they "called him by his profession: a podiatrist," he said.  

Zahid Bukhari, a fellow at the Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University, underscored the challenge for Muslims in the face of media distortions and repressive legislation like the federal Patriot Act. 

"The Muslim community is fighting back," he said. But the community is not familiar with participating in the United States political arena. Even though there were Muslims who came to America with Columbus and Muslims who were among the enslaved Africans, the community was the "new kid on the block," he said. 

Muslims are not alone in America to face discrimination. The Jewish community and many others in America have suffered from bigotry. "They fought back. They got status in society. I still believe that" can happen for Muslims, he said. 

Bukhari added that even though there has been intolerance and repression, the events of Sept. 11, 2001 have had a positive impact on the place of Muslims in American society. "That exposure raised the level of debate on Islam and Muslims," he said. Islamic Centers, for example, have opened their doors to others in the community. The aftermath of Sept. 11 has also provoked internal discussions – "the neglected issues of extremism in Islam," he said. 

Salam Al Maryati, director of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, an agency that disseminates information about Islam, added that the post-Sept. 11 bigotry and repression should not become "an excuse for inaction [or] self-marginalization."  

Rather, the opposite should happen: "We need to be more engaged, more involved. We cannot afford to dilute the Muslim identity," he said. 

Wednesday’s event was sponsored by the American Muslim Alliance, the UC Berkeley Department of African American Studies and the Center for Middle Eastern Studies and the Islamic Society of the East Bay.

To the Editor: 

I am writing in an effort to provide balanced reporting in an article regarding the Berkeley City Council resolution titled: Oppose the P.A.T.R.I.O.T. Act, Justice Department Directives, and Executive Orders Preventing the Protection of Civil Rights and Liberties, a University of California professor who was quoted did not disagree with the Council's assertions that the Patriot Act is unconstitutional, he just said that “Once again the city of Berkeley is out of step with the rest of the nation.” 

For my fellow citizens, who are more concerned with our appearances to others than for their civil liberties, I want you to know that Berkeley has bravely joined 30 other cities nationwide in such condemnation. I would also recommend that all public servants who have taken an oath to defend the U.S. Constitution and California think of other expressions that will ultimately preserve our democracy from those who would steal it. 

Finally, to those Americans who are so afraid that they are willing to give up their own civil rights for “security,” please understand that you may not give up mine. 

Harry Wiener 

Berkeley

A small group of UC Berkeley students and activists called on the University of California to divest from Israel at a UC Board of Regents meeting in San Francisco Wednesday. 

“We’re starting an anti-apartheid movement,” said Hoang Phan of campus group Students for Justice in Palestine, which spearheaded the movement launched last spring. 

But the 26-member Board of Regents, which oversees the nine-campus UC system, was unmoved. 

“I don’t think we should get involved,” said Regent David Lee, arguing that the panel’s primary responsibility is to seek a solid return on university investments and provide a strong education for its students. 

The students claim that more than $6.4 billion of UC’s $52 billion portfolio is invested in companies that either produce or sell weapons technology to Israel or have substantial business operations in the country. 

UC spokesperson Trey Davis said he takes issue with some of the companies, like McDonald’s, listed by SJP. 

“If your argument is to remove military weapons, then it’s not clear that burgers and fries are, as yet, arms,” he quipped. 

But, Davis added, the university is not concerned with the divestment list, because the Regents have not taken up the issue. 

In a statement released several months ago, John J. Moores, chairman of the Board of Regents, laid out the panel’s position. 

The statement said the Regents “value and welcome the ideas of faculty, staff and students,” including calls for divestment. 

“The Regents also have a fiduciary responsibility to protect the security of the university’s pension and endowment funds,” the statement continued. “Those investments currently provide benefits to thousands of UC retirees and support university scholarship and research efforts.” 

Amy Aisen, a UC Santa Cruz graduate student and member of Students for Justice in Palestine, argued that divestment would have a minimal impact on UC’s portfolio and would send a powerful message to Israel, encouraging the country to change its policies. 

The UC system partially divested from South Africa in 1985, and students said the Regents should take similar steps in Israel. 

But Regent Lee took exception with students’ efforts to compare Israeli rule to South Africa’s apartheid government of the 1980s. 

“I don’t think it’s the right comparison,” he said. “[The Middle Eastern conflict] has been there for a thousand years, two thousand years.” 

Phan said the comparison is a fair one because Israel has contained Palestinians to specific geographic areas and deprived them of the same legal protections enjoyed by Jewish Israelis. The white South African government did the same to blacks, he said.  

Roughly 6,000 students and 200 faculty systemwide have signed petitions calling for divestment from Israel. 

To the Editor: 

It would be interesting to know how much it is costing the city to find out if having principles and being concerned about the future of the planet is cost-effective. And who authorized the expenditure?  

Bonnie Hughes 

Berkeley

UNITED NATIONS — Bucking an anti-war mood among their U.N. Security Council partners, the United States and Britain began crafting a toughly worded resolution Wednesday that would narrow the timetable for Iraqi compliance with weapons inspections and authorize force if Iraq fails to cooperate, diplomats said. 

The two allies plan to complete and circulate the draft next week to the three other permanent members of the Security Council — France, Russia and China — diplomats told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity. France, Russia and Arab nations oppose a new resolution. 

“Nothing is on paper yet,” said Rick Grennel, spokesman for the U.S. mission at the United Nations, who confirmed American and British diplomats met on a resolution. 

Iraq’s surprise announcement this week that it would accept the return of international weapons inspectors nearly four years after they left has divided the council, with the United States stepping up preparations for war even as weapons inspectors planned their return to Baghdad. 

In Washington, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld told Congress that it should authorize the use of military force against Iraq before the Security Council makes a move. 

“No terrorist state poses a greater and more immediate threat to the security of our people and the stability of the world than the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq,” Rumsfeld told the House Armed Services Committee on Wednesday. 

President Bush, also speaking Wednesday, said Iraq would not “fool anybody” with its about-face and predicted the United Nations would rally behind the United States despite Iraq’s “ploy.” His administration disclosed plans for moving B-2 bombers closer to Baghdad, preparing for possible war to remove President Saddam Hussein. 

But at the United Nations, U.S. allies on the Security Council seemed determined to stave-off a resolution as plans moved ahead for the return of weapons inspectors. 

“We hope that this step ... will be the first step toward a comprehensive solution to the crisis in the relations between the United Nations and Iraq and the lifting of the brutal regime of sanctions which has been killing our people for 12 years,” Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri said late Wednesday after meeting with U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan. 

In a statement, Annan said that Sabri had pledged his government’s full cooperation on finalizing arrangements for the swift return of inspectors. 

On Tuesday, Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov said he saw no need for another resolution on Iraq. But in Moscow Wednesday, Vladimir Lukin, a deputy speaker of the Russian parliament’s lower house, who once served as Russia’s ambassador to the United States, said Russia would likely compromise. 

“We are certainly against that, but, being realistic, we understand that the United States would get something anyway,” Lukin said. 

UC Berkeley students were treated to a celebrity visit Wednesday when professional basketball player Adonal Foyle of the Golden State Warriors spoke about Democracy Matters, a nonprofit organization he founded a year- and-a-half ago. Democracy Matters’ goal is campaign finance reform. Foyle believes politicians should be  

elected based on merit rather than who has the most money.  

The California Department of Forestry has issued a high fire danger alert in the North and East Bay Area hills for today. 

According to CDF spokesman Harry Martin, winds out of the north from 15 to 20 mph, stronger at the ridge tops, coupled with low levels of humidity triggered the alert. 

The National Weather Service reports that temperatures are expected in mid 80s in the warmest inland areas.

n Assault with a 2-by-4 

A woman laying in Civic Center Park with an ex-boyfriend was attacked by her current boyfriend at 4:07 p.m. Monday, police said. The woman was laying on the grass when her new boyfriend arrived with a 2-by-4 and threatened both her and her ex-boyfriend, who she also referred to as her fiancee. The woman said the new boyfriend hit her with the 2-by-4, but that she was not hurt. Police arrested Gregory Dromgoole, 45, for assault. 

n Attempted rape 

A woman was attacked by her ex-boyfriend at the 2400 block of Durant Street, police said. While the victim tried to get into her apartment she found her ex-boyfriend in the doorway. He allegedly pushed her to the ground and tried to rip off her blouse before leaving the premises. 

n Doggy door burglary 

A robber slid through the dog door at a house on the 1300 block of Fourth Street late Monday, police said. Once inside the suspect stole a guitar, a purse and a camera. 

n Stolen cars 

A 1982 burgundy Nissan Maxima, license 1FUF617, was reported stolen from the 2100 block of California Street at 12:12 p.m. Monday. 

A 1988 white Honda CRX, license 2J6X18, was reported stolen from the 200 block of Marina Boulevard at 6:45 p.m. Monday.

FOLSOM — Critics say the head of the agency that manages most of California’s power grid could have a conflict of interest because he also serves as attorney for a company that does millions of dollars of business with the grid operator. 

San Francisco lawyer Michael Kahn is chief of the California Independent System Operator, and also is handling a case in U.S. District Court for software developer ABB, a Swiss firm whose energy management programs are used by utilities and grid operators around the country. 

Kahn did not have any direct participation with ABB when he was named ISO chairman but now represents the company in a court battle over proprietary information it claims two previous employees misused. 

The suit mentions ABB’s history with the ISO numerous times, including its importance in fostering ABB’s technological expertise and ABB’s upgrades to ISO’s system to improve control over the state’s power supply. 

Deborah Rhode, who teaches ethics at Stanford University’s law school, said Kahn’s relationship could be in violation of state ethics laws. 

But Daniel Lowenstein, a UCLA law professor, said that depends on whether Kahn has an economic interest in ABB’s dealings with the agency. 

“If he does, then he is required to disqualify himself from any decisions that affect these entities,” he said. 

Kahn said he was his firm’s only available attorney to take the ABB case. He told the San Francisco Chronicle he has no idea what ABB’s contracts are with the ISO.

OAKLAND — A rookie cop who turned in three fired police colleagues now on trial for beating suspects and falsifying reports, testified Wednesday about how he was taught to “hit corners” and fabricate reports to cover his tracks. 

Keith Batt, 25, now a Pleasanton police officer, told jurors his supervisor and trainer, Clarence “Chuck” Mabanag taught him how to leave a few lines blank at the end of a suspect’s statement so they could be filled in later, after the suspect signed it. 

Being tried along with Mabanag, 37, are Jude Siapno, 34, and Matthew Hornung, 30. The fired officers, who called themselves “The Riders,” face a total 26 felony charges. 

Batt testified he watched Mabanag and his fellow officers on the night shift in West Oakland punch, kick and slap suspects. He also testified about how they “hit corners” or randomly accosted, handcuffed and searched people without probable cause. Later, police reports were concocted to match the cops’ version of events, Batt said. 

Prosecutor David Hollister questioned Batt about June 2000 events in which officers were called to Kenneth Soriano’s house to investigate the theft of his cousin’s car. 

Mabanag allegedly threatened to shoot Soriano’s dog and said he didn’t like Soriano’s attitude. It quickly escalated to several “Riders” kicking and beating Soriano, who ended up with a cut face, Batt said.

Redwood City tough  

on lawn furniture 

REDWOOD CITY — Residents of suburbs south of San Francisco may have to consider bolting quality patio furniture to their porches, or bring it indoors at night to avoid being the target of picky thieves. 

San Carlos and Redwood City police have received, during the last two months, more than a dozen reports of stolen quality patio furniture such as porch swings made of aluminum that retail at $341, or teak benches that retail at $950. 

Police are following up witnesses’ descriptions of a white van seen leaving the area of one of the August thefts. 

Marin County eighth-grader says freedom of speech denied 

SAN RAFAEL — A Marin County eighth grader filed a lawsuit against her middle school Wednesday, alleging her First Amendment rights were denied when she wasn’t allowed to give a speech that required audience participation. 

The lawsuit was filed in Marin County Superior Court on behalf of Elektra Fike-Data, 13, who is running for school president at White Hill Middle School in Fairfax. The suit seeks an injunction to stop Friday’s elections until a court can determine whether Elektra can give her speech. 

Fike-Data’s presentation was denied after school officials learned she planned to use audience participation — something they say is against the rules. 

“They can’t do that,” attorney Jim Wall told the Marin Independent Journal. “As long as she isn’t disruptive or obscene, she has free speech rights as a student.” 

Elektra said she thinks it’s a move by the administration to try to derail her campaign. 

White Hill Principal Rick van Adelsberg said students aren’t allowed to ask for audience participation for safety reasons. 

“I’m stumped as to why such a big deal is being made out of it,” he said. 

Man mistakenly flown  

to Mexico identified  

OAKLAND — The body of a man mistakenly flown to Mexico for burial was that of an Ethiopian refugee. 

Hagos Gebre-Amlak, 44, died Sept. 2. Family members in Oakland, who declined to reveal his cause of death, decided to sent his body to be buried in his native country where his mother still lives. But the body arrived in Mexico to the dismay of the grieving family of Roberto Castaneda. 

Castaneda’s body, which was supposed to be sent to his hometown in Mexico, ended up temporarily in Europe. 

A preliminary investigation has revealed the error occurred in a cargo warehouse at San Francisco International Airport owned by Delta Airlines but operated in part by Continental. 

The airlines have agreed to refund both families for the cost to fly the bodies.

Q: I own my home in Berkeley, and I would like to share it with a roommate. Will I have trouble getting rid of the roommate if things don’t work out? 

A: A landlord who is at least a 50 percent owner of a property that he or she occupies as a principal residence, and who shares a kitchen or bathroom with a tenant, is not subject to the Berkeley Rent Ordinance. If you meet those criteria, you do not need good cause to evict a tenant. You are still bound by state law, however, so if you have a month-to-month agreement with your tenant, he or she will be entitled to a 30-day written notice to leave.  

Q: I have questions about what I, as a landlord, am obligated to repair. One of my tenants, who has lived in her apartment for 15 years, wants me to repaint it, install new carpeting, and repair a cracked window. Am I required to do any of these things? 

A: If the paint or carpets pose a health or safety hazard -- for instance, the paint is flaking or peeling, or the carpet is moldy or a trip hazard -- you may be in violation of housing codes or the implied warranty of habitability, and you must remedy these problems. Paint or carpets in a condition that do not threaten a tenant’s health or safety may not have to be replaced. 

Under Berkeley’s Rent Ordinance, a tenant is entitled to stable services and conditions. If conditions in your tenant’s unit have substantially deteriorated since she first rented it, she can file a petition for a rent ceiling reduction. "Substantial deterioration" means a noticeable decline in the physical quality of the rental unit resulting from a failure to perform reasonable or timely maintenance. After 15 years, the paint and carpet may have outlived their useful life, and if so, should be replaced. Depending on the actual condition of the paint and carpeting, the tenant may be granted a rent ceiling reduction for deterioration until these items are replaced. 

A landlord is responsible for fixing a broken or cracked window, unless a tenant or his or her guest intentionally or carelessly broke it. So even if a vandal or a pebble kicked up from a passing truck is the culprit, the landlord must fix it. Under state law (Civil Code section 1941.1) landlords must maintain basic facilities, including windows and doors, in good repair, except for damage caused by the tenant or a guest (Civil Code section 1929). If the tenant or a guest was responsible for the crack, you may arrange and pay to have it fixed, and charge the tenant for the repair cost. 

You can e-mail the city of Berkeley Rent Stabilization Board at rent@ci.berkeley.ca.us for questions, or you can call or visit the office at 2125 Milvia Street 9 a.m. to 4:45 p.m. Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday noon to 6:30 p.m. on Wednesday. Our telephone number is (510) 644-6128. Our Web site address is www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/rent.

LOS ANGELES — West Coast ports headed toward the brink of a major labor stoppage Wednesday as negotiators for shippers and terminal operators accused dockworkers of staging a work slowdown and threatened to retaliate by locking out workers at all 29 ports. 

The slowdowns hit at the Ports of Long Beach and Oakland, causing dozens of union and casual workers to be sent home without pay, said Joseph Miniace, president and chief executive of the Pacific Maritime Association, which represents 87 shipping and stevedore companies. 

The actions of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, which represents about 10,500 port workers, raise the possibility of “economic disaster,” the PMA said. 

The West Coast ports handle more than $300 billion worth of goods a year, which comprise more than 7 percent of the gross national product. 

ILWU spokesman Steve Stallone denied the union had initiated any slowdown. He said the situation in Long Beach was the result of excess cargo and too few trained crane operators. 

In Oakland, workers were provoked to walk off the job by a last-minute change to their lunch schedule, which prohibited them from attending a scheduled demonstration, Stallone said. 

The ILWU’s port workers have been working without a contract since Sept. 1. Their labor agreement expired July 1, but both sides were agreeing to 24-hour extensions until talks temporarily derailed this month. 

The first signs of slowdown began in Long Beach briefly Monday night and resumed Tuesday night and Wednesday, Miniace said. 

The union was not dispatching drivers to handle heavy equipment, making it impossible to service a ship and adjacent rail yard at the Stevedoring Services of America terminal, Miniace said. 

In Oakland, about 20 truck drivers at the Maersk/Sealand terminal reported ill and went home after lunch, Miniace said. 

“The union is playing with fire and appears to be willing to jeopardize America’s economic interests by initiating hit and run tactics against members of the PMA,” Miniace said. 

Since contract negotiations with the dockworkers began in May, the PMA has warned that it could answer any slowdown with a lockout. 

Miniace said the PMA was united in its determination not to tolerate a work slowdown, but was still developing its response and did not expect to take action until after a PMA board meeting Thursday morning. 

“Clearly a lockout is an option and there are various variations on that theme,” he said. 

The ILWU said problems were limited to one ship in one terminal at one port. 

SAN FRANCISCO — Sun Microsystems unveiled its latest long-range plan to take another swipe at Microsoft’s desktop dominance as the company took the wraps off “Project Mad Hatter,” a new line of low-cost computers powered by the Linux operating system and geared toward workplace environments. 

The new desktops will use Intel-standard processors and the Linux rather than Sun’s own chips and its Solaris operating system, an effort Sun hopes will leverage the low costs associated with open-source software, said Jonathan Schwartz, Sun’s executive vice president of software. 

“If you’re cost-sensitive or security-sensitive, we want to talk to you,” Schwartz told the audience Wednesday in a keynote speech at the company’s SunNetwork Conference and Pavilion in San Francisco. 

Sun is choosing to use other manufacturer’s existing 32-bit chips rather than developing its own. The focus is on the customer demand for a Linux desktop, and not so much the underlying hardware brand, according to Peder Ulander, Sun’s director of marketing for the company’s x86-class projects.

Judge asks Intel, Intergraph CEOs to appear in court 

SAN JOSE — A federal judge in Texas has asked the chief executives of Intel Corp. and Intergraph Corp. to attend a mediation session in an effort to settle a patent lawsuit between the two companies. 

Intel chief executive Craig Barrett and Intergraph chief executive James F. Taylor Jr. were asked to be at the meeting Sept. 26 in Marshall, Texas. 

U.S. District Judge T. John Ward made the request after indicating he would rule next month on Intergraph’s patent infringement suit against Intel if the two sides cannot reach a settlement. 

Huntsville, Ala.-based Intergraph alleges Intel’s Itanium processor infringes on two patents. In another case settled earlier this year, Intel paid Intergraph $300 million to end a lawsuit involving Intergraph patents and Intel’s Pentium chips. 

Intel spokesman Chuck Mulloy said it was not known whether Barrett will personally appear at the mediation session. 

“We will have someone of senior rank present and willing to participate in the mediation,” he said. 

An Intergraph spokeswoman did not immediately return telephone calls seeking comment after business hours Wednesday. 

‘Monsters, Inc.’ sets  

one-day sales record 

LOS ANGELES — The Disney/Pixar animated film “Monsters, Inc.” set a one-day sales record of 5 million DVD and video copies on its first day of release, the studios reported Wednesday. 

The one-day figure breaks the previous record of 4.5 million units set by Disney’s “The Lion King.” 

Fewer than 1 million of the “Monsters, Inc.” sales came from pre-orders. Most sold at retail stores and over the Internet on Tuesday, Disney said. 

The film is available in the double-disc DVD edition at a suggested retail price of $29.99, and the VHS tape with a suggested retail price of $24.99. 

Pioneer warns of problem  

with DVD recorders 

LONG BEACH — Pioneer Electronics Inc. is warning consumers who use its popular DVD recorders to download and apply an important software repair to prevent permanent damage that could occur when recording video using new high-speed discs. 

Pioneer said it was “extremely important” that consumers apply the software repair, which it made available free on its Web site and by mail. Without it, Pioneer indicated its drives could freeze when using high-speed blank DVDs.

State Attorney General Bill Lockyer on Wednesday released annual statistics on anti-Arab hate crimes showing a roughly 15 percent spike in such incidents following last September's terrorist attacks. 

Lockyer noted that the increase marked a reversal of general trends toward fewer such problems. 

“The overall number of hate crimes reported last year would have decreased 5 percent from a year earlier if not for the bias-motivated assaults against Californians victimized because they are Muslim or appeared to be of Middle Eastern descent,” he said. 

In his report titled “Hate Crime in California 2001,” the attorney general noted that religiously oriented hate crimes either remained steady or declined for other groups. 

But from 2000 to 2001, the number of crimes targeting people of Middle Eastern descent or Muslims went up from 5 to 87. 

About three-fourths of the recorded anti-Arab incidents involved intimidation, assault or other serious or violent crime, he said.  

The report can be found on the Internet at http://ag.ca.gov/cjsc/publications/hatecrimes/hc01/preface.pdf. 

With state plans to turn the East Bay’s shoreline into a new state park, Berkeley’s Seabreeze Market is optimistic that it won’t get blown off the map.  

“Well, it certainly doesn’t look grim,” said Dottie Radcliffe, co-owner of the 23-year old fresh foods market. Located between Interstate 80 and a heap of dirt at the mouth of the Berkeley Marina, the grocery is in the heart of the planned 8.1 mile Eastshore State Park. 

City Council, however, was not as confident as Radcliffe that the market would remain when state officials begin developing the park next year. During last week’s council meeting, the council unanimously passed a resolution pleading that state planners keep the Seabreeze. 

City Council cannot alter the state plan, but it could influence its design. Council has criticized planners for banishing an independent art group from planned park space and for advocating the construction of sports fields near the Albany coastline. 

Council is now concerned that despite park plans calling for a market, restaurant and deli in roughly the same place as the Seabreeze, the plan doesn’t mention the market by name.  

But the state’s Chief Planner Don Neuwirth said the plan is written to preserve the Seabreeze at its current site. 

“We’re not allowed to lock a specific concessionaire into the plan,” said Neuwirth, adding that he included an identical style market to give the Seabreeze an advantage when the parcel’s contract is open to concessionaire bids. 

The Seabreeze is not a typical state park vendor. While most food operators at state parks sell packaged foods and sandwiches the Seabreeze sells fresh produce, baked goods, smoothies, gourmet seafood and deli sandwiches. 

But Ron Schafer, district superintendent of the state Department of Parks and Recreation, said a competitive advantage the Seabreeze might have over other bidders would stem from its experience, not its food selection. 

The parks department judges concessionaires on a point system, and an incumbent concessionaire gets additional points, Schafer said. “From a management perspective, we know visitors already like their service.”  

Although state officials agree the market is likely to remain at the park, some environmentalists want to see its operations scaled back to better resemble a traditional park concession stand. 

Norman La Force of the Sierra Club thinks the park concessionaire should not double as a produce market. He said the current market, after the park is established, would attract regular shoppers as well as park patrons and thereby crowd the park’s limited parking facilities. 

The environmentalists may get their way in scaling back concessionare operations. Park officials said the Seabreeze’s current home, built from shipping containers, might be razed to build a parking lot. In this case, the market would be moved to a nearby park headquarters building and there may not be room for the Seabreeze to sell produce. 

Shop owner Radcliffe said she is willing to eliminate her market to stay in the park, but doesn’t agree with La Force’s position. 

“If you’ve been stuck on the freeway, you’ll see that most cars aren’t coming this way,” she said. Besides, she added, most of the produce sold at the shop is fruit: “It would seem a shame to stop selling fruit to the kids at the park.” 

Radcliffe’s customers agree with her. Since the East Bay Regional Park District became the Seabreeze’s landlord two years ago, she has collected more than 9,000 signatures from customers asking that the deli continue to sell the same goods at the same location. 

Although he didn’t sign the petition, Radcliffe has a powerful supporter outside City Hall. “They make a really good salmon sandwich,” Neuwirth said.

To the Editor: 

Regarding Michael Goldberg’s letter (Forum, Sept. 11) I don’t think Councilmember Maio would deny that there are other sources of traffic in Berkeley besides those commuting here for work. Her arguments referred to the impacts of Measure P, the height initiative, which threatens the potential for meaningful amounts of housing, particularly affordable housing, to be built in Berkeley. People who work here but live elsewhere are major contributors to Berkeley’s traffic problems. 

Mr. Goldberg states that it is a mistake for Berkeley to look at itself in isolation. Measure P is a fine example of isolationist thinking. Neighborhoods are not static and neither are cities. I am glad that Mr. Goldberg raised the issue of what other communities are doing. While Berkeley is offering the rest of the Bay Area an example of how to obstruct the provision of housing with Measure P, communities throughout the Bay Area and beyond are promoting housing in their existing commercial areas (e.g., Oakland, San Jose, Livermore, Fremont, Mountain View, etc.). The larger outcome of this strategy is to relieve pressures for development on undeveloped green space. 

I would also ask Mr. Goldberg if he believes downtown Berkeley has become a more vibrant, enjoyable place in the last 10 years. The atmosphere in Downtown Berkeley has improved because of the addition of housing and residents to the downtown as well as commercial investment. Many of our other corridors in Berkeley – University Avenue, Shattuck Avenue near the downtown core, and San Pablo Avenue - would benefit from similar investment. Buildings that have commercial services on the ground floor and housing above create safer, livelier streets. To be economically viable, these buildings need to be more than 28 feet tall, the limit proposed by Measure P. 

Certainly we can not provide housing for everyone who works in Berkeley or grew up here, but we can resist efforts to limit the expansion of housing opportunities in Berkeley. Berkeley residents can demonstrate positive leadership in the face of a regional housing crisis by voting “No on P.” 

Nancy Bickel 

president 

League of Women Voters  

of Berkeley, Albany and Emeryville 

For a team that went 1-10 last year and was widely considered the joke of college football, the Cal Bears were remarkably restrained about being ranked No. 23 in the nation in this week’s Associated Press poll. Heck, some of them didn’t even know. 

“I had no idea we were ranked,” junior cornerback James Bethea said Tuesday. “It doesn’t change much. We still have to go out and play this weekend.” 

Bethea’s mind must have been wandering at the end of Monday’s practice, because head coach Jeff Tedford told his players about the ranking, the Bears’ first wince October of 1996. But Tedford said the national recognition didn’t seem to affect the players much. 

“We’re not going to get too excited three weeks into the season,” Tedford said. “It’s really great for the people around the program, the alumni, more than the team.” 

Quarterback Kyle Boller was the recipient of several awards for his performance against Michigan State on Saturday, including Pac-10 Offensive Player of the Week and national Player of the Week honors from USA Today and ESPN.com. Boller threw for two touchdowns, ran for another and caught a touchdown pass from wide receiver LaShaun Ward during Cal’s 46-22 upset of the Spartans.  

It’s hard to say who’s harder on Boller, Tedford or the quarterback himself. Boller has completed 61.5 percent of his passes and thrown seven touchdowns to just one interception, but both he and Tedford say there’s still plenty of work to do. Boller said he played “pretty well, but I missed a few throws.” 

“Kyle’s making good decisions, but I think he can still play better,” Tedford said. “Of course, I’m probably the wrong guy to ask. “Unless he completes every ball I’m going to think there’s room for improvement.” 

Notes: Cornerback Jemeel Powell was named Pac-10 Special Teams Player of the Week after a 90-yard punt return for a touchdown against Michigan State... Middle linebacker John Klotsche tore his ACL on Saturday and could miss the rest of the season. Tedford said Klotsche could possibly return by the end of the season but called it “unlikely.” Senior Marcus Daniels, who started the opener against Baylor, will take over Klotsche’s spot... Sophomore linebacker Sid Slater is done for the season after suffering what Tedford termed “a complete blowout of his knee.” Slater tore both his ACL and MCL as well as his meniscus. Slater was a special teams player... The Bears will arrive at Maxwell Family Field at 11:30 a.m. for the “March to Victory” before Saturday’s game against Air Force, which kicks off at 2 p.m.... Cal will unveil its new video board at Saturday’s game... Cal hopes to spur ticket sales with a three-game package for the final three home games of the season. The package, which includes games against UCLA, Arizona and Stanford, will cost $77 for a reserve seat, a $35 savings over individual tickets.

Wednesday, September 18 

Kick Off Party for the Berkeley Coffee Initiative 

7 p.m. 

La Peña Cultural Center  

3105 Shattuck Ave. 

Music, speakers and events in support of the Berkeley coffee initiative, Measure O. 

(415) 575-5338 

$5 at door 

Community Prostate Screening 

Appointment required (through Thursday) 

At the Markstein Cancer Education Center, on the Summit Campus of Alta Bates Summit Medical Center. 

In honor of National Prostate Cancer Awareness Week. 

869-8833 

Free 

Peace Walk and Vigil 

6:30 p.m. every Wednesday 

Meet at Downtown Berkeley Bart Station 

Join us for a peace walk along Shattuck Ave. for one hour. 

528-9217 

Free 

Thursday, September 19  

Freedom From Tobacco 

6 to 8 p.m. 

South Berkeley Senior Center  

A quit smoking class. First of six Thursday evenings through Oct. 24.  

981-5330, quitnow@ci.berkeley.ca.us 

Free to Berkeley and Albany residents, students and employees. 

Sukkot Holiday Workshop 

7 to 8:30 p.m. 

Berkeley Richmond Jewish Community Center, 1414 Walnut St. 

Join Dawn Kepler, director of Building Jewish Bridges, for hands-on crafts, food projects, creative sukkah decorations and tips for making your own sukkah (hut). 

848-0237 Ext. 127 

$10 BRJCC members/$12 public 

Buddhist Peace Fellowship  

with The Deer Park  

Monastery - Public Lecture 

7 p.m.  

Berkeley Community Theater  

1930 Allston Way  

Join Vietnamese peace activist Zen master Thich Nhat Hahn for a public lecture, “Deep Listening: the heart of compassionate action” 

433-9928 

Suggested donation - $20 

Saturday, September 21 

Buddhist Peace Fellowship with The Deer Park Monastery - Public Lecture 

9 a.m. to 5 p.m. 

Lake Merritt, Oakland -  

Lakeside Park, Bandstand Area 

Join Vietnamese peace activist Zen master Thich Nhat Hahn for a public lecture; “Coming Home: a day of community and healing”. 

433-9928 

$45, $25 - Seniors, $65 - Donor Level  

BREAD and Roses Garden Party 

1 to 5 p.m. 

Peralta Community Garden, Berkeley 

Hopkins & Peralta, Wheelchair accessible  

BREAD's birthday party - five years of dismantling corporate rule through local currency. 

644-0376 

$12 advance, $15 door,  

low-income rate $10 

Berkeley Alliance of Neighborhood Associations (BANA) 

9:15 to 11 a.m. 

St. John’s Church, 2727 College Ave. 

mtbrcb@pacbell.net 

Free 

Do-It-Yourself all-Natural  

Body Care from Your Kitchen 

Ecology Center, 2530 San Pablo Ave. Learn how to make your own all-natural skin care from products you might already have in your own kitchen. 

548-2220, Ext. 233, erc@ecologycenter.org 

$10 for members, $15 for nonmembers 

Third Annual David Brower  

Youth Awards 

6 p.m. 

Schwimley Theater, 1920 Allston Way 

Celebrate the next generation of environmental activists at Earth Island Institute’s award ceremony. R.S.V.P. 

(415) 788-3666, Ext. 260  

www.earthisland.org/bya 

Coastal Cleanup Day 

10 a.m. 

Work at the outflow of Strawberry Creek to clean up the San Francisco Bay coastline. 

info@strawberrycreek.org or 848-4008 

Fall Plant Sale 

10 a.m. to 2 p.m. 

200 Centennial Dr. 

Annual plant sale featuring rare and unusual plants. Members-only preview and auction from 9 to 11 a.m.  

643-2755, www.mip.berkeley.edu/garden/ 

Free  

Memorizing Windows 

8 p.m.  

Berkeley Art Center, 1275 Walnut St.  

Dancer Lucinda Weaver and writer Alan Bern host an evening of dance, poetry and stories. 

526-7901 or abbern@sbcglobal.net 

Sunshine Workshop 

10 a.m. to noon 

Sixth floor, City Hall, 2180 Milvia St. 

Get up to speed on open records laws, open meetings laws and sunshine ordinances. Experts, including Terry Francke of the California First Amendment Coalition, will speak. 

BerkeleySunshine@Yahoo.com 

Free  

East Bay Shoreline Clean Up 

9.am. to 12 p.m. 

Sea Breeze Market and Deli - meeting/staging area. 

On the corner of West Frontage Rd. and University Ave., Berkeley. 

Arrive promptly to sign appropriate waivers , get coffee and listen to safety talk. We will provide bags, tally cards and a raffle of donated prizes; groups of ten or more need to pre-register by calling 644-8623. 

Free 

The county has rejected Berkeley Unified School District’s budget for the second straight year, citing a $3.9 million deficit and a vague financial recovery plan, county officials said Tuesday. 

The Alameda County Office of Education is requiring the district to develop a new fiscal recovery plan and revise its budget by Dec. 15. The county will then decide whether to approve the new budget or send the district back to the drawing board. 

The Tuesday ruling was no surprise but still a blow to Superintendent Michele Lawrence and members of the Board of Education, who made fiscal recovery the top priority this year. 

“I think this is evidence of past mismanagement,” said Sean Dugar, one of seven school board candidates vying for three slots on the panel in November. 

Board President Shirley Issel, who faces re-election in November, said the public has a right to question board oversight of the budget. But Issel distanced herself from the board majority, arguing that she was one of the few to acknowledge the district’s financial problems when they surfaced two years ago. 

Board member Ted Schultz said the district has done as much as possible in recent months to address the deficit and to fix years of sloppy accounting practices. 

“I think we’re making progress,” said Schultz, who will retire at the end of his term. “I’m sure everyone’s a bit frustrated in that we’d like to move more quickly, but these things take time.”  

The school board has approved millions in cuts since January, when the extent of the 2002-2003 deficit became clear – laying off teachers, cutting administrative staff and increasing class sizes, among other measures. 

But by June, it was obvious that the board would not meet its goal of balancing the 2002-2003 budget before the close of the 2001-2002 school year. 

In the end, the board passed a budget June 26 that included a $2.8 million shortfall. After further study, district officials revised the deficit estimate to $3.9 million. 

Faced with a lingering shortfall, the board also approved a fiscal recovery plan June 26. The 2 1/2 page document was short on specifics, but suggested that further layoffs, solvency for the district’s cafeteria fund and the sale of district property, as a last resort, are all possible remedies. 

County Superintendent Sheila Jordan said Tuesday that the recovery plan is “inadequate” and in a letter to the district called for a new plan by Dec. 15.  

Crafting a new, workable recovery plan could prove difficult. By law the district cannot lay off any more certified teachers and administrators this year. Because employee salaries and benefits make up about 85 percent of the district’s budget, the rule is a significant stumbling block. 

“It’s going to be a challenge,” said Issel, acknowledging that the district may not be able to make all the cuts this year. 

School board candidate Nancy Riddle said she hopes that the district will listen closely to community concerns. 

“Last year, it was pretty top-down,” Riddle said. 

District officials have long contended that because they did not learn the magnitude of the budget problems until January, they were rushed to make cuts and did not include the community as much as they would have liked. 

Issel said the public process will improve this year. 

The county rejected last year’s budget after discovering that the district had not properly accounted for millions in revenue. 

This year the numbers were in proper order, Jordan said, even if they revealed a $3.9 million deficit. 

“That’s a very significant statement of progress – everyone knows what we’re dealing with now,” she said. 

But, even if the district has made progress it still faces a series of long-term financial concerns. In a letter to Berkeley Unified Tuesday Jordan pointed to, among other things, a decline in student enrollment, which will lead to a dip in state funding next year. 

Issel said she was not surprised by Jordan’s ruling or the points in her letter but is troubled by the persistence of budget issues, which dominated last year’s debate and now seem poised to again. 

“It’s going to take over the agenda once again, which is the thing that is to me the most disappointing,” Issel said. 

Berkeley’s Superintendent Lawrence and Associate Superintendent of Business and Operations Jerry Kurr were unavailable for comment Tuesday.  

To the Editor: 

Supporters of Measure P, the height initiative, represent a broad spectrum of political interests and geographic locations.  

The common concern agrees with the wisdom of Berkeley's new General Plan, which states as a goal to “encourage sensitively designed, thoughtfully planned in-fill development that is compatible with neighboring land uses and architectural design and scale.”  

For a while now, “in-fill” buildings have been allowed permits that mainly offer expensive and cramped living quarters, at a far greater density and height than the General Plan promised. The proposals are even more dense than the “ticky-tackies” apartments of the ’60s and ’70s. Plans show two bedroom apartments built into only 600 square feet, some rooms as small as 7 feet by l0 feet, some looking at an air shaft.  

As of April 2002 there were l,000 new units in the pipeline, meeting our “fair share” as set by the Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG), in one year instead of five.  

We are hearing that if the height initiative passes Nov. 5 in Berkeley, the whole “smart growth” proposition will go down the tubes in the entire Bay Area. Smart growth has not been publicly reviewed either by our Planning Commission or City Council, and yet it is being promoted as if it were law. One of ABAG's recent publications shows a map indicating southwest Berkeley is an impoverished area, ripe for changes like it or not.  

Martha Nicoloff 

Berkeley

Cal’s Kirk named Pac-10 Player of the Week 

Cal senior midfielder Brittany Kirk has been named the Pac-10 Women’s Soccer Player of the Week for Sept. 10-16, Commissioner Tom Hansen announced Tuesday.  

Kirk posted a goal and had the game-winning assist in a 2-1 win over No. 3 Santa Clara Sept. 13. In Cal’s first road game of the season, Sept. 15 against Saint Mary’s, Kirk helped the Bears escape with a 1-1 tie as she scored with 14 seconds left in regulation.  

The assist against the Broncos was the 18th of Kirk’s career, moving her into a tie for third place on the California all-time list. She is only six assists away from surpassing U.S. national team star Joy Fawcett’s school record of 23.  

Cal (4-1-1 overall, 0-0-0 Pac-10), which is ranked as high as No. 4 in this week’s Soccer Buzz poll, visits Fresno State on Sunday. 

Cal softball champs to take White House trip 

President George W. Bush and the White House will honor Cal’s 2002 NCAA champion softball team on Sept. 24 in Washington, D.C.  

The Bears will make the cross-country trip Monday and spend two days in the nation’s capital before returning to Berkeley.  

On Tuesday, the team will tour the White House before Bush addresses Cal and other spring NCAA champion teams. Bush will pose for photos with the teams in the State Dining Room. Cal’s two seniors on the ‘02 squad - pitcher Jocelyn Forest and third baseman Candace Harper - will present Bush with a custom Easton bat with the Cal logo and 2002 NCAA softball champions inscribed on it.  

Later Tuesday, the Washington chapter of the California Alumni Association will host a reception for the team.  

“I think it is a fantastic opportunity, especially with everything going on in the world, that we can go back and meet the president,” said head coach Diane Ninemire. “This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for us. It’s just something else that makes winning the national championship so special. It is a bond these women will have forever.”  

In May, Cal won its first NCAA championship with a 6-0 victory over defending champion Arizona.

The fight for mayor has a new battleground – campaign finance. 

Treasurer of the Tom Bates for Mayor Committee has asked the city’s Fair Campaign Practices Commission to examine three-year-old contributions made to incumbent Mayor Shirley Dean he says were illegal. 

According to treasurer Mal Burnstein, a $3,000 donation in 1999 was not properly reported to the city, and Dean has since used the money to finance her bid for re-election against former state Assemblyman Tom Bates. 

In a second formal complaint against the mayor, Bates supporter Carrie Olson says that Dean accepted more than the city’s $250 donation limit when she ran for mayor in 1998. 

Dean denied both allegations. 

“This is a political thing... We have never underreported anything,” she said. 

In regard to Burnsteins’ charges of inaccurate reporting, Dean said she followed the city attorney’s advice in complying with city law. 

Burnstein says Dean raised $7,750 more than she needed to cover her 1998 campaign debt and that $3,000 of the surplus was not reported as part of this year’s campaign when in fact it is. 

Dean maintains that the $3,000 was reported as an office support expense. 

“We worked with the city attorney on how to repay our debt and this is what she advised,” Dean said. 

And Olsen’s charge that Dean’s campaign took illegal contributions was unlikely to be true, said Dean. 

“We handle close to 2,000 checks... If we made a mistake with one of those checks, which I’m not sure we did, we’ll fix it,” she said. “We’re talking about a $100 mistake.” 

Burnstein, though, said every dollar counts when it comes to election spending. 

“We want to make sure we have a level playing field,” he said. 

The Fair Campaign Practices Commission will hear the complaints tonight at its 7:30 meeting. 

To the Editor: 

I would like to correct a statement in the Sept. 14 Daily Planet. In an otherwise informative article, “Lights out while neighbors squabble over signal patterns,” says the City Council mandated a public process to help resolve the issues and that, “In a pair of public meetings in August, run by the city's dispute resolution service, neighbors aired a series of competing concerns.” The meetings were not run by the city's dispute resolution service. Actually, Berkeley Dispute Resolution Service, a nonprofit organization doing conflict resolution and facilitation in Albany, Berkeley and Emeryville over the last 15 years, conducted the two meetings and will conduct the meeting to be held on Sept. 25 at Willard Middle School. Our actual and perceived independence is a crucial aspect of the work we do. Our job is to facilitate a civil discussion of the issues among all stakeholders, including the City, and not to any way take sides in the discussion. 

We have recently moved to new offices at 1968 University Ave., near San Pablo Avenue. Stop by and say hello or call us at 548-2377 if you find yourself in a conflict, large or small, that you would like help resolving. 

Brad Smith,  

president of the board 

Berkeley Dispute  

Resolution Service

A BART scheduling change designed to ease travel to the San Francisco International Airport has added up to five minutes to the Berkeley-San Francisco-Daly City commute, raising concern among riders and public transit advocates. 

“It gets annoying,” said Ming Yue, a Daly City resident who commutes to her job in Berkeley. 

The scheduling change, in effect since Sept. 9, eliminated “timed transfers” for riders on the Richmond line headed to San Francisco and Daly City in the morning, afternoon and early evening hours. Before, in the morning, when direct trains were 15 minutes apart, a Fremont bound train with a timed transfer could save commuters as much as five minutes even though they had to switch to a San Francisco bound train in Oakland. Now BART is telling people to go directly from their first boarding station to San Francisco. 

The delayed commute may affect ridership, said Stuart Cohen, executive director of the Oakland-based, nonprofit Transportation and Land Use Coalition. 

“Anytime that the waiting times could be increased for transit... it impacts people’s likelihood of taking transit,” Cohen said. “It impacts those marginal riders choosing between BART and driving.” 

But BART spokesperson Ron Rodriguez said he could not recall schedule changes making an impact on ridership in the past. He also argued that an additional five-minute wait will not convert BART riders to drivers, and played down the inconvenience for commuters worried about arriving late to work. 

“If you or your boss are reducing your day to five- or seven-minute segments, you’re in deep trouble,” he said. “Bosses don’t own us.” 

To accommodate an expected ridership jump on Richmond trains, BART has expanded the length of the direct Richmond-San Francisco-Daly City trains from six or eight cars to10 cars. 

At night, there is no direct Richmond-San Francisco-Daly City service. BART has kept timed transfers in place at night. 

BART eliminated the daytime transfers that had been in place since the early1990s, as part of a larger schedule shakeup in preparation for direct service to San Francisco International Airport, which is scheduled to start in January. 

Other schedule changes include extending the Dublin-Pleasanton line to Colma in preparation for service to the airport. 

Currently, the transit agency has designated only the Dublin-Pleasanton line for direct service to the airport. But BART spokesperson Ron Rodriguez said the agency may include other lines. 

If the Dublin/Pleasanton line provides the only direct service, Berkeley commuters will have to transfer at the West Oakland station to get to the airport. A ride from the Downtown Berkeley BART station to the airport will cost $5.15. 

That price includes a $1.50 airport surcharge and a recently-approved, system-wide 5 percent fare increase that goes into effect in January. 

To the Editor: 

The curtailment of Berkeley Adult School's 'senior aquatics' because of lack of city funding is curious. My understanding has been that older adult programs are state-funded through school districts. Also curious, is the failure of the Berkeley senior programs director to provide visible advocacy in this matter? 

Likewise, the Commission on Aging, and as demographics clearly show most elders are females, the Commission on Status of Women. 

Helen Rippier Wheeler 

Berkeley

City Council voted Tuesday to keep West Campus Pool open this winter and to investigate ways to keep Willard Pool open as well. 

Egged on by a about 100 Berkeley swimmers, council unanimously reversed its May decision to close both pools Nov. 15 to Apr. 15.  

“I’m very happy,” said Sydney Velin, a water aerobics class member and a leader in the swimmer’s fight to keep the pools open this winter. 

The closure was an idea to save the city approximately $80,000 to help offset its budget deficit. Now swimmers will help pay part of the cost and the city will search for other programs to cut. 

West Campus Pool, at Curtis and Addison streets, will remain open year-round. The pool is home to the 120-member Berkeley Bears youth swim team and the 50-member free senior water aerobics class. Both would have been severely impacted by a pool closure. 

To lower the city’s costs at West Campus Pool the Bears agreed to an annual rent increase from $12,000 to $22,000. The aerobics class, which was canceled last month due to a lack of funding will be restored permanently. Class members and city officials will meet to discuss how the students will pay for the class. 

The fate of Willard Pool at Telegraph Avenue and Derby Street will be decided at an Oct. 15 City Council meeting. City staff argued that poor winter attendance at Willard Pool made keeping it open too expensive.  

This year Willard Pool averaged 26 users on a typical day in March, and 177 in July. To keep the pool heated and operating during the winter months costs the city $27 a swimmer, while in July it cost only $4. 

Still, council asked the staff take a month to consider ideas to increase attendance and funding for the pool before shutting it down. 

If Willard closes this winter, the Berkeley High Water Pool Team will have to find a new home, and residents who lap swim will have to go to one of Berkeley’s four other pools. A shower program for the homeless will continue at Willard this winter even if it closes. 

Saving the pools does not come without a price. The Department of Parks Recreation and Waterfront, ordered to trim $100,000 from its budget, must now look to other programs for cuts. Many of the programs that were spared involve after school and summer youth programs, said Lisa Caronna, the department director. The pool closures would have saved the parks department approximately $80,000. Closing only Willard Pool will save the city $57,000, Caronna said. 

HEBRON, West Bank — Israeli police and Palestinian officials in the West Bank said they believe extremist Jewish settlers planted two bombs in a Palestinian school yard Tuesday. One device exploded, injuring five children. 

Yehoshua Mor-Yosef, spokesman for the Jewish Settlers’ Council, said the bombing was an “immoral and illegal act.” 

Israeli military officials said the explosion occurred near a water cooler in the courtyard of the Ziff junction secondary school south of Hebron. The second bomb was found and safely detonated. The Israeli military controls the junction, a remote region populated mainly by Bedouins. 

Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres’ office, meanwhile, said the government had rejected a Palestinian cease-fire proposal during a meeting at United Nations headquarters in New York. 

The proposal by Palestinian Cabinet Minister Nabil Shaath called for an end to Palestinian attacks against Israeli civilians in a first phase and an end to all attacks in the second. Peres’ office said the plan was unacceptable because it would allow attacks on those not classified as civilians during its first phase. That was taken to mean Jewish settlers and soldiers in the West Bank and Gaza. 

Shaath said the cease-fire also calls for an Israeli commitment to stop killing suspected Palestinian militants and destroying houses. “If Israel will do that, then this will pave a way for a comprehensive cease-fire, but unfortunately Mr. Peres said that he rejects it,” the Palestinian minister said. 

In other developments, the Israeli Supreme Court rejected a petition by the families of two Palestinian suicide bombers to prevent the destruction of their homes by Israeli forces, Army Radio reported. The two bombers carried out a Dec. 1 attack in which 11 Israelis were killed. Relatives denied they knew of the suicide attackers’ plans. 

Israeli troops entered the Khan Younis refugee camp in Gaza earlier Tuesday and blew up metal workshops where the Israelis say Palestinians were making weapons, the latest in a series of almost nightly raids by Israeli forces in Gaza.

SAN RAFAEL – The Marin County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously Tuesday to have staff draft a consumer privacy ordinance by Oct. 15, giving the board time to monitor developments in a lawsuit filed by two banks against San Mateo County over a similar law. 

Last week, Marin supervisors tied 2-2 over whether to support a privacy ordinance similar to one in San Mateo County. Neither side backed down today from their earlier stances, but Supervisor Annette Rose, who was absent last week, mediated a compromise that appealed to everyone. 

Every person at today's meeting, from financial industry representatives to angry citizens, spoke in favor of tighter privacy laws that protect personal financial information but disagreed over the cost of implementing and defending such restrictions. 

Supervisor Cynthia Murray said that in a budget year when the county will be receiving $4 million less from the state, spending $200,000 to defend a symbolic ordinance seems frivolous when the money could be spent on child health care. 

Supervisor Harold Brown, who first proposed the ordinance last week, countered that argument by saying it is OK to spend money on lawsuits if they make a point to state legislators and prove to the public that the  

board is listening to their complaints. 

Rose said she supports the idea of a privacy measure and wants it in place soon, but she also worried about the cost of the lawsuit and expressed doubts about being able to enforce it. San Mateo County is dealing  

with the issues of cost and enforcement, she said, so it is in Marin County's best interest to wait a month before taking any firm action. 

The other four members of the board agreed. In the meantime, they decided to have legislation for the Oct. 15 meeting drafted to reflect developments in San Mateo County, where Bank of America and Wells Fargo have filed a lawsuit to stop its restrictive ordinance.

OAKLAND — Three former Oakland police officers were inappropriate, even uncivilized — guilty of bad appearance and vulgar language — but innocent of any criminal wrongdoing, a defense lawyer said Monday in his opening statement at the Riders trial. 

“This is going to be a simple case if you don’t want to know the truth,” said Mike Rains, who represents Clarence “Chuck” Mabanag, 37, one of the officers facing a combined 26 felony charges, including beating suspects and falsifying reports. “The truth in West Oakland is ugly. The truth for these guys was ugly.” 

The former cops on trial along with Mabanag are Jude Siapno, 34, and Matthew Hornung, 30. Frank Vazquez, the alleged ringleader of the group, which was known as “The Riders,” is believed to have fled to Mexico to escape prosecution. 

Prosecutor David Hollister, in his opening statement last week, said the officers systematically set up young black men and conjured false accusations against them to feed their egos. 

But Rains painted a picture Monday of overworked cops under a tough mandate to reduce street-level drug crime. 

“These guys were out there doing a job with the knowledge and approval of their supervisors,” Rains said. 

He played an Alameda County jury of six men and six women excerpts from a police surveillance video showing two quick drug deals to give them a sense of the “insurmountable task” cops face in trying to get dealers off the streets. 

“The Oakland Police Department declared war. They declared a war on crime and criminals,” Rains said. “They sent their soldiers out to fight the war and those three soldiers are on trial for that war.” 

The officers, who have since been fired, are on trial for their activities during the summer of 2000. Siapno faces the most serious charges, including kidnapping and assault. All have pleaded innocent. 

The scandal, which has resulted in the dismissal of about 90 criminal cases, mostly drug-related, and 17 civil rights suits by 115 people, surfaced after a rookie officer reported what he saw on duty with Mabanag, his training officer. 

Keith Batt, now a police officer in Pleasanton, is the prosecution’s key witness. During the preliminary hearing last July, Batt gave a disturbing view of the officers’ “stop and grab” tactics in which suspects randomly were accosted on the street, handcuffed and put in the patrol car before they were questioned about their activities. He called their methods illegal and immoral. 

But Rains took steps Tuesday to discredit Batt, calling him a “smart,” “cunning,” “know-it-all” who was failing training. Any wrongdoing he thought he saw cannot be trusted, Rains said as he recounted Batt’s first night on the job. 

“Keith Batt went out into the darkness of West Oakland,” Rains said. “That was the third time in this man’s life that he had been in West Oakland. ... He had never ever been out there in the middle of the night and he had never been out there in a blue uniform — a target.” 

Police and city officials have repeatedly called “The Riders” a rogue group, but they have, nonetheless, instituted a series of protective measures, including more internal affairs investigators and more supervisors. The department also created an Office of Inspector General, an internal audit division, and has generally increased internal scrutiny. 

Judge orders striking  

Santa Cruz County employees  

back to work 

SANTA CRUZ — A strike by 2,000 Santa Cruz County workers continued for a second day Tuesday in a battle over pay and health care. 

On Monday, Santa Clara County Superior Court Presiding Judge Jack Komar ordered 195 county employees back to work, ruling their jobs were essential to health and safety. A hearing on that issue was to be held Friday. 

Also on Monday, the county and Local 415 of the Service Employees International Union agreed to get a state mediator involved in the dispute. 

The first-ever strike by workers in the county closed offices in Felton, Aptos and Watsonville, shuttered the Simpkins Family Swim Center in Live Oak and drastically reduced services in the offices that stayed open. 

Planning Director Alvin James predicted the strike was having its intended effect when asked how soon the strike would make county functions impossible. 

“[They already were] about a minute after the doors opened [Monday] morning,” James said. 

County workers voted to strike last week, complaining they were being paid an average of 7 percent less than workers doing the same jobs in neighboring counties. They also want improvements in health benefits. 

“We have been negotiating for 3 1/2 months, but we have basically been stonewalled on 95 percent of our proposals,” said Nancy Elliot, SEIU county chapter president. 

Mother, daughter die  

in Union City house fire 

UNION CITY – A two-alarm fire that raced through a mobile home late Monday night killing a mother and daughter while they slept, a Union City fire spokesman said. 

The cause has not yet been determined but foul play is not suspected. 

Neighbors in Central Park West, a long-established neighborhood near the Hayward-Union City line, reported seeing flames at the back of the family's mobile home at 2526 McArthur Ave. at 11:03 p.m. . 

Firefighters arrived at 11:10 p.m. to find the home engulfed in flames but knocked the blaze down within 15 minutes, firefighter spokesman Roberto Munoz said. 

Upon entering the home, firefighters found the body of a 10-year-old girl huddled under a window in the kitchen. Firefighters could not revive the girl, who had sustained both burn and smoke inhalation injuries, said Munoz. 

She was taken to St. Rose Hospital in Haywood where she was pronounced dead. 

Upon further inspection, firefighters later found the body of the girl's mother lying on the bedroom floor near a night table. Munoz said that neighbors said the woman was disabled with Multiple Sclerosis but moved around with the help of a walker and two different wheel chairs. 

She was pronounced dead at the scene. 

The father, who was apparently working away from home during the fire, was called at work and has been meeting with a crisis counselor. 

SACRAMENTO — Nearly all the blackouts that swept California during the state’s 2000-2001 energy crisis could have been avoided, according to a report released Tuesday by state power regulators. 

The analysis by the California Public Utilities Commission and Portland-based McCullough Research found that all Southern California blackouts and 65 percent of Northern California blackouts occurred because generators ramped down production at their power plants. 

On all but two of the 32 statewide blackout or service interruption days between November 2000 and May 2001, the state’s five largest non-utility electricity generators were not operating at maximum capacity, according to commission President Loretta Lynch. 

The report was presented Tuesday to the Senate Select Committee to Investigate Price Manipulation of the Wholesale Energy Market. It’s based on information obtained through the committee, which has collected more than 1 million documents and subpoenaed more than two dozen energy companies. 

“The only reason that is imaginable as to why generators would not generate power ... is because they thought that withholding (energy) from the market would drive the price up,” said the PUC’s general counsel Gary Cohen. 

The state claims it was overcharged nearly $20 billion during the power crisis by the five largest generators: Duke, Dynegy, Mirant, Reliant and AES/Williams. 

Cohen said the findings discredit the energy companies’ claims the crisis was caused solely by a lack of energy. 

“It wasn’t a question of California not having enough generatable capacity,” Cohen said. “That’s the story we heard over and over again from the generators when all this stuff was happening. This report shows that those excuses were simply untrue.” 

But Jan Smutny-Jones, executive director of the Independent Energy Producers, challenged the findings, arguing that California’s generators actually increased output by 88 percent during the energy crisis. 

“California’s merchant generators ran at historically high levels to power our state throughout the crisis,” Smutny-Jones said in a statement. “Our collective failure to address the state’s dysfunctional electricity market is what cultivated the energy crisis.” 

Gov. Gray Davis blasted the energy companies, calling their actions “inexusable.” 

“Their price gouging hampered California’s economic recovery, and that was bad enough,” Davis said. “But purposely putting the lives of Californians in jeopardy in the name of greed is inexcusable. This report is more fuel for the U.S. Department of Justice to take appropriate action.” 

SACRAMENTO — Using the label invisible man, the leading candidates for lieutenant governor accused each other Tuesday of piling up lousy participation records in their current jobs. 

The Republican nominee, state Sen. Bruce McPherson, R-Santa Cruz, said Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante broke a promise to voters by missing most meetings of the University of California Regents and the California State University Board of Trustees. 

“Mr. Bustamante has been an invisible lieutenant governor,” McPherson said a news conference. “Four years ago, (he) looked into the eyes of California voters and promised to make education a priority. He has broken that promise.” 

Aides to Bustamante said the Democratic lieutenant governor’s record as a regent and trustee was much better than McPherson claimed and that the senator had missed or ducked nearly 1,000 votes this year in the Legislature. 

“Bruce McPherson has been the invisible man,” said Bustamante spokeswoman Deborah Pacyna. 

McPherson said Bustamante has attended only 4 percent of trustees’ meetings and 17 percent of regents’ meetings since he became lieutenant governor in 1999. 

But the attendance at both boards can be figured differently, giving Bustamante a better record. The two panels typically meet for two or three days every couple of months, and sometimes their meeting dates coincide. 

Committee meetings are mixed into the sessions and, depending on when they are there, board members can be recorded as present at a committee meeting but not at a full board meeting. 

According to an Associated Press check of the minutes of trustees’ meetings, Bustamante has been to at least part of the four trustees sessions held this year, and Pacyna says he plans to attend a fifth Wednesday. 

But he attended only two of 21 trustees’ meetings in the previous three years for which attendance records are available, for an overall record of 24 percent. 

McPherson, counting attendance at full trustees’ deliberations, said Bustamante was present at only one of 25 board sessions, a 4 percent record. 

McPherson said Bustamante attended 17 percent of regents’ meetings, but when attendance at regents’ committees is counted the lieutenant governor has been to at least two-thirds of the regents’ sessions. Bustamante’s office says he’s actually been to more than three-fourths of the meetings. 

Bustamante’s staff said McPherson didn’t participate in a total of 966 votes on 730 bills this year. 

A McPherson spokesman, Adam Mendelsohn, said the vast majority of those missed votes were abstentions at the hectic end of the session on bills that McPherson didn’t feel had been adequately analyzed. 

“We’re not making a centerpiece of our campaign that we vote on every issue,” Mendelsohn said. “Abstaining is a policy statement.” 

Davis signs bills to protect  

energy market, promote solar energy 

SACRAMENTO — Power companies will be required to start building generating plants within 12 months after receiving a construction permit under a new law signed by Gov. Gray Davis Tuesday. 

Davis also signed two other bills that his energy advisers called attempts to shape the energy market and boost the state’s solar energy resources. 

Written by Sen. Steve Peace, D-El Cajon, the power plant law will give companies 12 months to begin construction of new plants after the state approves the projects. 

Calling it the “use it or lose it bill,” Peace said the new law was created to stop energy companies from trying to sell or trade their permits after receiving them to turn a profit. 

“Oftentimes these permits become commodities themselves and are traded, and consumers have to bear the brunt of that,” said Richard Katz, Davis’ adviser on energy issues. 

New law says rewards can be collected even if suspect dies 

SACRAMENTO — Rewards can be given even in cases where the suspect dies, under a bill signed Tuesday in response to a Sacramento spree killing last year. 

State law had authorized the governor to offer rewards for the arrest and conviction of criminals. That created a legal problem a year ago when security guard Joseph Ferguson killed himself during a shootout with police after a shooting rampage through Sacramento. 

The bill Gov. Gray Davis signed Tuesday clarifies that the reward can be offered regardless of whether the suspect is alive. 

“This bill will ensure that all tipsters are rightfully rewarded for their efforts to help law enforcement officials,” Davis said. 

In Ferguson’s case, Davis issued the reward anyway, and said at the time he would seek clarifying legislation. 

CHICAGO — McDonald’s Corp. said Tuesday that weaker-than-expected sales in the United States and Europe this summer have prompted it to reduce its estimate of 2002 profits, dropping its stock to a seven-year low. 

The hamburger giant also said it will slow the pace of new restaurant openings abroad in connection with a U.S. initiative that entails adding lower-priced items, renovating older restaurants and focusing on improving service. 

The announcement underscored McDonald’s continuing struggle with a sales slump at its 13,200 restaurants in the United States, where the proliferation of fast-food and casual-dining competition in recent years has eroded its sales and market share. 

The company, based in suburban Oak Brook, said it is cutting its full-year earnings forecast to $1.43 per share or more, citing flat sales in July and August and a more cautious outlook for the fourth quarter. Analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial/First Call had estimated $1.49 per share. 

It pegged third-quarter earnings at 38 cents to 39 cents a share, virtually unchanged from the 38-cent figure of a year ago. Wall Street analysts were anticipating 42 cents a share. 

McDonald’s shares fell $2.39, or 11 percent, to $19.30 in early afternoon trading on the New York Stock Exchange — the lowest level since October 1995. 

McDonald’s hopes to jump-start U.S. sales and its declining stock price with a plan that initially calls for selling two sandwiches — the Big ’N’ Tasty and McChicken — for $1 each next month, followed by an eight-item “dollar menu” in November. 

The program also will involve customer service initiatives, particularly during the lunchtime rush, and investments in its restaurant facilities ranging from new signs to improved drive-throughs to complete remodelings. 

The company also will reduce its share buyback program to $500 million in 2003, said Jack Greenberg, chairman and chief executive officer. 

Broker Charles Schwab to cut 10 percent of staff 

SAN JOSE — Charles Schwab Corp. announced Tuesday it will cut about 10 percent of its work force, or roughly 1,880 jobs, as the discount and online brokerage continues to struggle with weak trading volumes. 

In August, the San Francisco-based company hinted it would be making cuts but provided no numbers. At that time, the company had about 18,800 employees. 

It was not immediately known what business units would be targeted by the layoffs, which are expected to be completed by the end of November, said Greg Gable, a Schwab spokesman. 

The layoffs will represent Schwab’s second major payroll purge in two years as the brokerage continues to adjust to a bear market that has spooked investors and pinched the company’s profits. 

HP announces $1.3 billion  

services deal with CIBC 

SAN JOSE — In one of the biggest deals since its Compaq Computer Corp. acquisition, Hewlett-Packard Co. on Tuesday signed a $1.3 billion contract to provide computer services to Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce. 

Under the seven-year agreement, HP will manage a large percentage of CIBC’s computer infrastructure, ranging from desktop PCs and software to servers and networking gear. HP also will handle purchasing and program support. 

The services business is the largest and one of most downturn-immune areas in the information technology industry. The potential from combining HP’s and Compaq’s services divisions was a big selling point for their $19 billion marriage. 

“As the third-largest IT services organization in the industry, we are better poised than ever to continue to drive clear business value for our customers,” said Ann Livermore, executive vice president of HP services. 

Northern California businesses can seek disaster aid 

SACRAMENTO — Small businesses in Butte, Colusa, Glenn, Lake, Mendocino and Tehama counties may apply for low-interest loans to offset business they lost because of reduced revenue to farmers and ranchers caused by hail and freezing in March, the Small Business Administration. 

On Monday, the SBA said similar loans for similar reasons and a similar time period are available to small businesses in Contra Costa, Napa, Sacramento, Solano, Sonoma and Yolo counties. 

The businesses could qualify for 30-year, 3.5 percent loans of up to $1.5 million to help meet their financial obligations and operating expenses. Actual property damage from the hail or freeze isn’t necessary to qualify. 

The deadline to apply is April 16 at the SBA’s Sacramento office. 

Farmers or ranchers who suffered damage may be eligible under a different program offered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Farm Services Agency. 

——— 

On the Net: www.sba.gov 

SAN FRANCISCO — Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao reneged on a year-old pledge to help 200 garment workers collect more than $1 million in unpaid wages, the factory employees charged Tuesday. 

Speaking at a rally near the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco’s posh Nob Hill district, about 100 workers said Chao had ignored their cause after using it for her own publicity. Chao was scheduled to give a speech to the Commonwealth Club of California at the hotel, where the unpaid laborers staged a protest against Chao. A statement faxed from the Department of Labor in Washington said the speech had been canceled due to a scheduling conflict. 

A local politician, however, accused Chao of dodging the long-standing issue. 

“It’s pretty clear she’s trying to avoid this,” said Chris Daly, a member of San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors.  

“It’s ridiculous to suggest (Chao) changed her schedule just to avoid the Wins workers,” said Sue Hensley, a spokeswoman for the Secretary of Labor. 

The Wins grievance stems back to August 2001, when the plight of the workers first made headlines in San Francisco. At that time, Chao vowed to take up the case in the name of justice. 

According to the Oakland office of Sweatshop Watch, more than 200 garment workers — mostly Chinese immigrant women — worked for months without pay at Wins of California, Win Fashion and Win Industries of America. All three factories are owned by Anna Wong and her husband Toha “Jimmy” Quan.

SANTA CRUZ — Calling Santa Cruz a sanctuary from federal authorities, medical marijuana advocates — joined by city leaders — passed out pot to about a dozen sick people at City Hall. 

“Santa Cruz is a special place, and today we’re letting the world know how compassionate we can be,” Mayor Christopher Krohn said. “We’re taking a stand.” 

More than 1,000 community members jammed into the garden-like courtyard for a supportive demonstration during the giveaway. Some held signs reading, “DEA Go Away” and “U.S. Out Of Santa Cruz.” 

Several people in the crowd lit marijuana cigarettes, but it was mostly an alcohol and drug-free gathering, which was what organizers requested. 

Marijuana is illegal as a medicine or as a recreational drug under federal law. But state law, and county and city ordinances, say it’s legal if recommended by a doctor. 

Drug Enforcement Administration spokesman Richard Meyer said he was appalled by Tuesday’s event, and feared the community is sending a dangerous message to its children. 

“Marijuana is an illegal drug in this country,” he said. 

But Mike Corral, who helped distribute the marijuana, said the only message sent was that “marijuana is medicine.” 

In Santa Cruz and many California communities, local law enforcement works closely with growers and distributors who help sick people obtain marijuana. 

Krohn and his colleagues didn’t handle the marijuana Tuesday, but stood in solidarity with the clinic workers and users. 

Police Chief Steve Belcher said his officers didn’t plan to arrest registered, legitimate members picking up their medicine. However, he said, “This is not going to be a smoke-out at City Hall.” 

People who showed up to smoke marijuana without a doctor’s recommendation could face arrest, he said. 

The City Hall pot distribution comes less than two weeks after DEA agents arrested the owners of a local pot farm and confiscated 130 plants that had been grown for use as medicine. 

There was no official city sponsorship of the event. Council members and medical marijuana advocates simply acted on their own in a public space, said City Attorney John Barisone. 

Hal Margolin, who said he suffers chronic back pain, said he was relieved to receive his weekly marijuana dose. 

“We don’t buy it, we don’t sell it, we don’t ship it in interstate commerce and we don’t give it to children,” he said. 

Alaska, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Nevada, Oregon and Washington also allow marijuana to be grown and distributed to people with a doctor’s prescription. 

Community members in this liberal central California community repeatedly have supported medical marijuana. 

In 1992, 77 percent of Santa Cruz voters approved a measure ending the prohibition of medical marijuana. Four years later, state voters approved Proposition 215, allowing marijuana for medicinal purposes. And in 2000, the city council approved an ordinance allowing medical marijuana to be grown and used without a prescription. 

Gov. Gray Davis signed a bill Tuesday designed to combat elder abuse. 

State Assemblyman Joe Simitian, D-Palo Alto, who authored the bill, said the legislation received bipartisan support from the beginning. 

“[The bill] will help protect our seniors and dependent adults from physical abuse by increasing punishments for those who batter our elders.” 

The legislation establishes a new crime, “battery on an elder or dependent adult,” and sets the punishment at a fine of up to $2,000 and/or imprisonment in a county jail for up to one year. 

Those enhancements put elder battery on par with battery of a peace officer or spouse.  

The maximum penalties in Simitian's bill double those in existing law. 

The bill also protects elders when they are third-party victims, rather than the intended or primary victim. 

LONG BEACH— Trustees of the nation’s largest public university tentatively approved a tough new smoking policy Tuesday for the university’s 23 campuses that includes the authority to cite violators. 

The policy would also give California State University presidents the authority to set smoking regulations, such as banning smoking within 20 feet of campus buildings. 

A final vote, which is expected to easily pass, was scheduled for Wednesday’s board of trustees meeting. 

“In light of the well established health risks associated with exposure to secondhand smoke and the desire of the CSU to provide an environment for learning that is as free of health hazards as possible,” the staff recommends adoption, said Jackie R. McClain, CSU’s vice chancellor of human resources. 

Under the policy, a CSU president would be required to meet with faculty and staff before setting a campus smoking policy because it could affect working conditions. Presidents also would have to meet with students. 

Violation of the policy could result in misdemeanor citations, McClain told the board. 

Although some campus presidents could ban smoking altogether, that was deemed unlikely. 

Smoking has been banned in California’s public buildings since 1994. CSU also prohibits smoking within five feet of the entrances and exits of buildings, a limit set by state law. 

A student group first lobbied CSU for stricter smoking policies in May. The group, C.O.U.G.H. (Campuses Organized and United for Good Health), addressed the dangers of secondhand smoke and asked the board to delegate authority to campus presidents to prohibit smoking within 20 feet of university buildings. 

“I would encourage the presidents as you evaluate your campus to ... embrace the recommendations the students came forward with,” said Trustee Frederick W. Pierce. “I think that’s in the best health interests of those visiting our campuses.” 

Couple marries in a coal mine 

ASHLAND, Pa. — Some couples search the world over for the perfect wedding spot. 

A. John Dalton found it 400 feet below the earth’s surface. 

Dalton and his new wife, Sarah A. Yurkunas, were married Saturday in the Pioneer Tunnel Coal Mine, an anthracite mine that closed in 1931 and is now a tourist destination. 

A brief power outage nearly derailed the nuptials. But once power was restored, the wedding party and guests boarded the Pioneer Tunnel Coal Mine & Steam Train for the trip inside Broad Mountain. 

“I am the daughter and granddaughter of coal miners,” said Yurkunas, who grew up in Summit Hill, amid the region’s anthracite mines. 

But it was Dalton who suggested the venue, 1,800 feet into and 400 feet below the mountain’s peak. 

“You always hear of so much tragedy with mines, we thought, ’Why not connect them with something good?”’ he said. 

Ashland Mayor Rosemarie P. Noon, who officiated, said the site had at least one advantage. 

“For the rest of your lives,” she told the couple, “there is no place to go but up.” 

You never know... 

POCONO PINES, Pa. — One person’s reject can be someone else’s fortune. 

Just ask newly rich deli clerk Paula Buckley. 

The 21-year-old clerk at Pen Mart bought a $10 Power Play ticket because it was rejected by a customer — and then hit the $400,000 jackpot. 

Powerball tickets can’t be reissued the way other lottery tickets can, said Sally Danyluk, spokeswoman for the Pennsylvania Lottery Commission. 

Buckley, whose mother is the store’s manager, learned she had won Monday morning. 

“I ran the ticket through the machine and it said, ’Do Not Pay’ because it was a $400,000 winner, and we cannot pay those out at the store,” she said. 

The numbers were chosen by the machine at random. 

“The first thing Paula said was she was going to pay off her mother’s car. Her mom was hysterical, crying,” said Georgene Pechette, who works part-time at the store. 

Stay in the house 

FORREST CITY, Ark. — He’s no Harry Houdini, but he did manage to escape from a locked jail and return without anyone noticing — once. 

Upon Joseph Smith’s second attempt to escape the lockup and return undetected, he wasn’t so lucky. Smith, 33, was caught just hours after the escape and returned to jail. 

Tyrone Hall, 24, who also escaped with Smith, managed to elude capture by slipping back into the same window the two had pried open to freedom. He learned the trick from Smith. 

St. Francis County Sheriff Dave Parkman said Smith admitted to having used the same window Sept. 1 to escape, spent the night on the loose and returned unnoticed. It was Hall’s first reappearing act, the sheriff said. 

Smith had been held on a bench warrant and on a charge of driving on a suspended drivers license. Hall was held on two counts of breaking and entering, commercial burglary and theft. The two are now charged with second-degree escape. 

Both are now housed in a maximum security cell. 

YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK — It is stone masonry in the sky, and the role model here is the Greek builder Archimedes, who said, “Give me a place to stand, and I will move the earth.” 

A trail crew living and working in the Yosemite backcountry is rebuilding a terrifyingly steep granite stairway, moving rocks the size of computer terminals on the shoulder of Half Dome in Yosemite. 

The crew — five men and a trail boss — work on slopes with sheer drops of thousands of feet on either side. 

Since June their job has been to rebuild the last half-mile of the spectacular Half Dome trail. To do it, they are replacing or rebuilding more than 400 rock steps just below the steel cables that lead to the top of the granite monolith, which is 8,842 feet above sea level and 4,000 feet above the floor of Yosemite Valley. 

“This is not rocket science,” said Brian Ward, the foreman or crew boss. 

It is science nonetheless. The 21st century trail crew uses winches, levers, rollers and muscle — the techniques that built the pyramids of Egypt. 

There are no architectural drawings to guide them. The work is done relying on judgment and experience. Ward and Greg Torres, two of the top rock- layers in the business, make the calls. 

The Greeks built temples and forts atop hills in their rockbound country, but there was nothing like the glacier-carved cliffs of Yosemite in the ancient world; there is nothing like the smooth, glistening rock of Half Dome anywhere — the foot trail up the peak is famous for its difficulty. 

The crew on Half Dome, National Park Service employees, were hand-picked for this job, which is scheduled to be completed by the end of September. “This is the first time I’ve worked on a trail like this,” said John Ray, 44, who has worked on Yosemite trails for 13 seasons. He’s seen most of the park and a lot of the 800 miles of back country trails. This one is different. 

“It is all rock on rock,” he said. By that he meant there is no soil and no cement to hold the trail together. “It is pretty challenging to me.” 

Ray helped rebuild the steep Mist Trail on the cliffs at Vernal and Nevada falls, where thousands of people climb thousands of steps cut into the rock. 

Four hundred forty-two steps. That’s only the first stage of the 8.2-mile trip from the valley floor to Half Dome. The difference is that once out of the fir and pine forest, the trail leads steeper and steeper from the timberline up an exposed granite shoulder on 442 steps to the base of the dome itself. 

This piece of rock has no official name; the crew calls it “the Sub Dome.” Here is where the steep steps begin, straight up with nothing but air on either side. Beyond the steps is a small saddle and then 600 yards of sheer slope. To climb the last leg, hikers must pull themselves up by hanging onto steel cables. 

The Half Dome trip is a famous hike, the next best thing to rock climbing. On a typical summer Saturday, 1,000 people make it to the top of Half Dome. Many others turn back, gasping in the thin air. Others are terrified by the sheer slopes and can’t go on. 

But enough hikers have made the trip since the trail up Half Dome was opened in the 1870s that it has become worn and dangerous. This spring, the nonprofit Yosemite Fund put up $110,000 to rebuild the trail. 

It was just in time. 

Some of the steps and the carefully built up switchbacks, which connect sections of the steps, were no longer well-anchored and could have let go. 

“They were not tied into anything,” said Ward, the crew boss. 

“The trail had the potential to be dangerous,” Ray said carefully. “The potential was there for someone to get injured.” 

The potential also always exists that the crew could get hurt, moving hundreds of pounds of rock up and down the steep slopes, walking on the slick rock in most any weather. 

One slip, and ... well, they don’t like to think of that. 

The tools alone could ruin their day. They manhandle 18-pound crowbars — trail bars they call them — sledge hammers, a gasoline-powered jackhammer that weighs 70 pounds, a kind of winch called a grip hoist and chisels. 

It is dangerous work. 

The crew works four 10-hour days, Monday through Thursday. The trail is closed from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. those days, open the rest of the time. 

Armed Robbery 

Police are searching for a suspect who robbed two 19-year olds at gunpoint Monday night on the 2800 block of Derby St. One male and one female were walking to the female’s house when a suspect grabbed the female from behind the neck and pointed a black pistol at the male, police said. The female gave the suspect her cell phone and bag. The male victim then took a step toward the suspect at which point the two began a brief struggle. The female yelled for the male to stop fighting. The suspect took the male’s wallet and fled from the scene. The suspect is described as a black male in his mid 20s, 5 feet 9 inches tall with a muscular build. He had a closely cropped fade hairstyle and was wearing a black sweatshirt and baggy blue jeans.  

Assault and Robbery 

An adult male waiting for a bus with groceries early Monday morning was assaulted and robbed on the 2800 block of Shattuck Avenue. According to police the victim was sitting at a bus stop when a suspect sat next to him and proceeded to go through the contents of the bag. When the victim told him that the bag was full of food, the suspect punched him under the eye and demanded his wallet. A second suspect then started punching the victim from behind and took the victim’s walkman from his bag. Both suspects fled from the scene. 

WASHINGTON — The Bush administration is seriously considering lowering the nationwide terror alert back to code yellow because of disruptions in the al-Qaida terrorist network, including the arrest of a suspected Sept. 11 plotter, government officials said Monday. 

President Bush raised the alert to orange — the second-highest level — after U.S. intelligence warned of a “high risk” of a terrorist attack in connection with the Sept. 11 anniversary two weeks ago. 

Officials stressed that Americans should remain alert; even at code yellow, the nation faces a significant risk of attack. 

The change could be made as early as Tuesday as senior administration officials review new intelligence, weigh the potential for attack on U.S. targets and prepare a recommendation for Bush, said two officials familiar with the deliberations. They spoke on condition of anonymity. 

n Carjacking 

A man was forced from his car at gun point at approximately 1:50 a.m. Wednesday morning. According to police, the victim had stopped on Harmon Street to talk to a friend when a male acquaintance interrupted them and asked for a ride to San Pablo Avenue. The victim obliged, but during the ride, the suspect pulled out a gun and said, “This is a robbery.” The suspect stole the victim’s jewelry and ordered him to drive to 57th Street and San Pablo Avenue in Oakland. There, the suspect ordered the victim out of the car and proceeded to drive away. 

n Car burglary 

A thief busted through a car window to steal a stereo and two bags of clothes on the 2900 block of Benvenue Avenue Wednesday, police said 

OAKLAND – Firefighters remained at the scene of a four-alarm fire Friday that tore through roughly 10 acres of brush in the Oakland Hills Thursday evening, a spokeswoman for the Oakland Fire Department said. 

According to the spokeswoman, more than 100 firefighters from multiple agencies controlled the blaze in the area of Grizzly Peak Boulevard and Fish Ranch Road at 12:20 a.m. Friday. 

The spokeswoman says that crews are expected to conduct a fire watch in the immediate area for two to three days. 

Initially reported at 9:25 Thursday evening, a fourth alarm was struck about 40 minutes later and the fire was contained by 12:15 a.m. 

No structures were damaged, however, two firefighters suffered minor leg injuries and were taken to a local hospital.

TEL AVIV, Israel — A Palestinian blew himself up on a crowded bus Thursday in downtown Tel Aviv, killing at least five other people and wounding 49, the second suicide bombing in two days. In response, Israeli tanks charged into Yasser Arafat’s West Bank headquarters. 

The shrapnel-studded explosives tore through the bus on Tel Aviv’s Allenby Street while it was passing through the heart of a teeming restaurant and business district at lunchtime. The driver, his body blackened, slumped at the wheel. Passengers jumped out of shattered windows. 

There was no immediate claim of responsibility, though Israeli media outlets reported conflicting claims by the militant Palestinian groups Islamic Jihad and Hamas. 

In the evening, as Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon met with his Cabinet, Israeli tanks entered Arafat’s city-block-sized headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah, where the Palestinian leader was holed up in his offices. 

An official inside the compound said the Israeli tanks had advanced to the area of a helicopter landing pad outside Arafat’s office building, which is protected by piles of sandbags. 

Israel has held Arafat’s Palestinian Authority responsible for anti-Israeli attacks, saying it has not done enough to crack down on militants. Israeli troops have held Ramallah under siege for most of the year, with tanks breaking into the compound several times, destroying some buildings. Arafat has been confined to his office building most of the time since December.

SAN FRANCISCO — Berkeley’s Chez Panisse, Washington, D.C.’s Citronelle, New York’s Babbo and Whole Foods Market were among 200 restaurants, grocers and seafood distributors that pledged Wednesday not to buy, serve or sell fish created by biotechnology. 

“Scientists and corporations are playing with genetics without knowing the consequences,” said Eric Ripert, executive chef of New York restaurant Le Bernadin. 

The Food and Drug Administration is considering an application to market Atlantic salmon genetically engineered to grow twice as fast as salmon raised on “fish farms.” An FDA decision on the application isn’t expected for more than two years, since the company still needs to conduct environmental safety tests. 

An FDA-commissioned study issued last month by top scientists concluded that engineered fish pose significant environmental issues if they are released into the wild and breed with native species. 

The fish pledge was organized by three anti-biotechnology groups: Center for Food Safety, Clean Water Action and Friends of the Earth. Pledge signers include such celebrity chefs as Thomas Keller of Yountville’s French Laundry and David Pasternack of New York’s Esca. A dozen Alaskan seafood distributors and two dozen organic-food oriented grocery stores and chains signed the pledge. 

Many West Coast fisheries and environmental groups that depend on wild salmon catches also oppose biotechnology fish. They unsuccessfully asked California regulators last month to temporarily ban fish farmers from introducing genetically engineered fish into public waterways. 

Officials with the California Fish and Game Department said a de facto ban is already in place while they wait for environmental questions to be definitively answered. 

The anti-biotechnology groups and pledge signers, citing the FDA-commissioned study, said they also are concerned with the environmental threat biotechnology fish might pose to wild species. 

Executives with Aqua Bounty Farms of Waltham, Mass., which is developing the engineered salmon, said they weren’t surprised by the pledge or any of its signers. 

Aqua Bounty vice president Joseph McGonigle said the boycotters are “celebrity chefs and niche grocers. I see no serious seafood wholesalers on the list.” 

McGonigle said the attacks on Aqua Bounty’s engineered salmon are unfair because the company’s environmental studies have not been completed, making definitive conclusions impossible. 

“What’s disappointing is that their objective here is to avoid finding out the facts,” McGonigle said. “This is tantamount to prior restraint.” 

Aqua Bounty is developing an Atlantic salmon spliced with genes taken from Chinook salmon and the ocean pout, which enable the engineered fish to produce growth hormones year-round instead of just the summer months.

UNITED NATIONS — As U.N. weapons inspectors moved ahead with plans to return to Iraq, the United States and Russia clashed on Tuesday over whether to take Baghdad at its word or impose a new ultimatum. “We have seen this game before,” said a skeptical Colin Powell. 

The secretary of state reaffirmed Washington’s call for a tough anti-Iraq resolution by the U.N. Security Council, despite Iraq’s sudden about-face on inspections. 

But Russia’s foreign minister said he saw no immediate need for new U.N. demands if the inspectors are quickly dispatched. He was backed up by Arab leaders, Moscow’s traditional allies. The “logic of war” may now be replaced by “the logic of peace,” said one. 

The 15-member Security Council majority decided, despite a U.S. request for more time, to quickly schedule a meeting, possibly Wednesday, with chief weapons inspector Hans Blix to discuss renewed inspections. The Americans, supported by Britain and Colombia, wanted first to prepare a new resolution, diplomats said. 

Blix then met with Iraqi representatives, after which the Iraqis announced talks were set for Sept. 27 to make final plans. 

In the Middle East, the business of preparing for war went on, as American warplanes flew under aggressive new rules over Iraq, and U.S. commanders considered basing heavy bombers closer by. 

At a U.N. news conference at which Powell and Russia’s Igor Ivanov laid out conflicting views, Secretary-General Kofi Annan appealed for them to stick together on Iraq. 

This is “the beginning, not an end,” he said. “We should try to maintain the unity of purpose that has emerged.” 

The Security Council then went into closed-door consultations on a timetable for dealing with the fast-changing Iraq issue. 

The council sent weapons inspectors into Iraq after the 1990-91 Gulf War, to ensure that President Saddam Hussein’s regime destroyed any chemical or biological weapons it possessed, and any capacity to produce those or nuclear weapons. 

The inspectors left in 1998, ahead of U.S. airstrikes, amid Iraqi allegations that some were spying for the United States and countercharges that Baghdad wasn’t cooperating with the inspection teams. 

The international “unity of purpose” Annan cited emerged after President Bush, in a speech to the U.N. General Assembly last Thursday, forcefully called for the Security Council to threaten action against Iraq if it did not allow the inspectors back. 

If the world body didn’t act, Bush made clear, Washington would feel free to launch a military attack. 

Bush’s was the opening move in what may become a high-stakes diplomatic chess game.