Berkeley may lower the boom on car stereo systems that some residents say have gotten out of hand. 

On Tuesday, City Council will consider a proposal from Mayor Shirley Dean to toughen the city’s laws against noise pollution. The proposal would enable police to go after those who drive with their supped-up stereos on full blast and possibly impose fines. 

“I really want the city to put a stop to it,” said Dean, who added that she can sometimes hear car music from her fifth floor office downtown. 

Dean said the excessive car stereo noise has gotten worse in recent years, and the city’s current noise ordinance is vague and hamstrings police from ticketing offenders. 

The call for tougher laws comes amid increasing evidence that excessive car stereo noise can cause health problems, according to the mayor’s report. 

Repeated exposure to boom stereos not only brings hearing loss, but can lead to insomnia, high blood pressure, irritability and learning difficulties in children, explained Mychelle Balthazar a public health specialist with the Deafness Research Foundation. 

Technological advances, despite health concerns, have allowed companies to offer consumers more powerful systems at more affordable prices. 

At a 2001 national car stereo competition in Kansas City Mo., the winner reached 174 decibels – about eight times louder than the sound of an airplane, said Ted Rueter, director of Noise Free America. 

A 2001 report by the Justice Department says that noises louder than 80 decibels can damage hearing. 

According to a salesman at Creative Car Sterel in Lafayette, a high-powered car stereo costs about $4,000 and can reach 130 decibels, about half the price of a comparable system five years ago. 

High decibel levels are only part of the problem, Rueter said. Many car stereo systems now include technology that can produce sounds with such a low base frequency that the resulting thumping can cause buildings to vibrate. 

“It’s acoustic terrorism,” he said, noting that the 2000 U.S. Census report listed excessive noise as the number one complaint among Americans. 

In Berkeley, most complaints against boom stereos are made by residents near James Kenny Park in west Berkeley. In May, Ronald Rugato, who lives near the park collected about 200 signatures for a petition asking city officials to crack down on stereo noise. 

“Young men are empowering their vehicles with $3,000 watts of subwoofer equipment, making houses shake and assaulting people with their second hand sound,” he said. 

A Berkeley police study found that in January 2002 residents filed 35 complaints of boom car stereo noise. 

But according to a city manager’s report, Berkeley law gives police few tools to cite the offenders.  

Presently, the law requires that before police take action, a citizen must identify the culprit and that the noise be intentional and reach a specific volume level. Because the offender is usually in a car, police can have difficulty locating the noise source. 

Dean said she would like the ordinance changed so police could take more initiative in the enforcement of noise laws. She suggested that first-time offenders be given a brochure explaining the risks involved with excessive noise and that multiple offenders receive fines. 

Her proposal is relatively tame compared to the actions of other cities. Since passage of a 1997 law, Chicago drivers risk having their car towed and a $615 fine if their car stereo can be heard from 75 feet away. Drivers in Popalion, Neb. who violate the same restriction can face up to three months in jail. 

Not all Berkeley residents find boom stereos a problem. “As long as the driver is passing by and not sitting in front of the house, let them enjoy their music,” said Tamira Chappell, who lives across from James Kenny Park. 

Dean’s proposal asks staff to review ways to toughen Berkeley’s ordinance and return the issue to council within four months.

NEW YORK — Barry Bonds became baseball’s first five-time Most Valuable Player, winning the NL award unanimously Monday. 

Bonds received all 32 first-place votes and 448 points in balloting by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America. None of his previous MVP wins was unanimous. 

St. Louis outfielder Albert Pujols was second with 26 second-place votes and 276 points, followed by Houston outfielder Lance Berkman (181) and Montreal outfielder Vladimir Guerrero (168). 

Bonds also won the MVP award for Pittsburgh in 1990 and 1992 and for the Giants in 1993 and 2001, and is the first player to twice win the honor in consecutive seasons. No other player has won an MVP award more than three times, and only 10 others have won it in consecutive seasons. 

Last year, Bonds received 30 of 32 first-place votes, with two Chicago writers casting their ballots for Cubs outfielder Sammy Sosa. Bonds finished second to Atlanta’s Terry Pendleton in 1991 and to teammate Jeff Kent in 2000. 

Bonds became the 14th unanimous winner, and just the fifth in the NL, joining Orlando Cepeda (1967), Mike Schmidt (1980), Jeff Bagwell (1994) and Ken Caminiti (1996). 

The 38-year-old Bonds won his first NL batting title this season with a .370 average and set records with 198 walks, 68 intentional walks and a .582 on-base percentage. He had a .799 slugging percentage, down from his record .863 last year but still good enough to lead the major leagues. 

“The guy to me, Bonds, has been the most dominant from what I’ve seen in 35 years of watching major league baseball,” said Hall of Famer Reggie Jackson, the AL MVP in 1973. “I haven’t seen anybody do what Bonds has done the last two years.” 

Bonds hit 46 homers, down from a record 73 the previous year, and had a team-high 110 RBIs as San Francisco won its first NL pennant since 1989. But Bonds and the Giants lost the World Series to Anaheim in seven games after being just six outs from the title in Game 6. 

“It’s not going to haunt us,” he said after the Game 7 loss two weeks ago. “We’ll go to spring training and start again.” 

MVP voting was conducted before the postseason, when Bonds hit .356 with eight homers, 16 RBIs and 27 walks. The outfielder, who often appears aloof and combative, said he enjoyed the World Series, even though the Giants didn’t win. He claims to dislike the attention. 

“I just want to go to the ballpark, do my job just like anybody else, go home and be with my family,” he said during the World Series. “I chose to play baseball because I want to be the best at it for whatever it is for me. Being a team concept, doing the best I can. I don’t like to talk about it really. I’d rather just show it on the field.” 

He is showing his talents in Japan this week as part of the major league all-star tour. He homered twice Saturday against the Yomiuri Giants, struck out three times Sunday against Japanese stars, then hit a two-run homer in Monday’s 8-2 loss. 

Pujols hit .314 with 34 homers and 127 RBIs, one short of Berkman’s league-leading total. 

Bonds gets a $500,000 bonus added to his $13 million salary. He would have gotten $150,000 for the World Series MVP award — he was a 5-0 winner when votes were collected with the Giants ahead late in Game 6 but lost 4-1 to Anaheim’s Troy Glaus when the Series ended the following night. 

Berkman gets $25,000 for finishing third, and Los Angeles outfielder Shawn Green gets $50,000 for finishing fifth.

To the Editor: 

Councilmember Miraim Hawley says developers are nobody special at City Hall, but it’s clear from events concerning the project at Acton Street and University Avenue that developers are flying first class while citizens are stuck in coach. In this case it cost Berkeley citizens $157,433 (Daily Planet, May 17). Meanwhile Berkeley schools go begging and the city budget is so bust the city can’t afford the red ink. 

Here is how it played out. The state of California owned a piece of property at 1392 University Ave. with a value estimated between $700,000 and $1 million. (You may remember it was once part of a proposed deal with Maxam/Pacific Lumber in exchange for old growth redwoods.) The state of California transferred that parcel to Panoramic Interests and Jubilee Restoration charging only a transfer fee of $40,000 with the understanding it would be used to create 20 units of affordable housing – the maximum residential density for the parcel size. Fast forward to July 2001, the city of Berkeley, deaf to neighborhood appeals, approves the project (currently under construction) that added 51 housing units (71 total) reduced required setbacks, reduced required parking, reduced required open space and calls for the entire ground floor to be retail space. (This is double the residential density as outlined in the Berkeley General Plan.) 

The state of California now sees that what was earmarked to be a charitable land transfer to support affordable housing has instead gone to make a shopping plaza with apartments stuck on top. Since commercial space was never a part of their transfer, the state of California demanded payment for the proportion of the parcel used for commercial space: $78,000. You might think since it was Panoramic Interests and Jubilee Restoration that drew up the plans contrary to the wishes of the state and since they profit handsomely from the development, it should be their responsibility to pay the money. Not so. The Berkeley City Council paid the money. 

Edwin Allen 

Berkeley

Tuesday, Nov. 12 

Holiday Craft Baazar 

10 a.m. to noon 

St. John’s Presbyterian Curch, 2727 College Ave. 

Handmade items, sweet treats, and knick knacks will be for sale. All are welcome 

845-6830 

“Garbage and Globalization: Victories in the Fight Against Corporate Polluters” 

7 to 9 p.m. 

Ecology Center, 2530 San Pablo Ave. 

Inspiring talk on corporate accountability and environmental justice in the Philippines, Asia, and around the world 

548-2220 x233 

Free 

Tuesday Tilden Walkers 

9:30 a.m. 

Meet at Little Farm parking lot, Tilden Regional Park 

Join seniors and other slower walkers and enjoy the beauty of Tilden Park 

Contact Yvette Hoffner at 215-7672 or teachme88@yahoo.com  

Wednesday, Nov. 13 

League of Women Voters Meeting 

Noon 

LWVBAE office, 1414 University Ave. 

Discussion will focus on regional issues 

849-2154 

Thursday, Nov. 14 

Unitarian Univeralist Meeting Featuring Professor Michael Nagler on Peace 

12:45 p.m. 

UC Berkeley Faculty Club  

Professor Nagler, author and founder of UC Berkeley’s Peace and Conflict Studies Program, speaks on non-violent approaches to current events. Open to all 

For more information call (925)376-9000 

Free 

The Drug Resource Center-UC Berkeley 

6:30 to 7:30 p.m., Open House 

300B Eshleman Hall (on Bancroft) 

7;30 to 10:00 p.m., Celebration 

LaVal’s Pizza, 2156 Durant Ave 

Inaugural Event followed by an evening of food and fun, during which speakers will how the center will benifit the community. 

Berkeley Path Wanderers Meeting 

7 to 9 p.m. 

Hillside Club, 2286 Cedar St. 

Meeting to include a presentation by best- selling author Adah Bakalinsky who will speak about her book, “Stairway Walks of San Francisco” 

Free 

Grandparent Support Group 

10 to 11:30 a.m. 

Malcolm X Elementary School, 1731 Prince St. Room 105 A 

Support group facilitated by Marjorie Holloway LCSW for Kinship Caregivers and others 

644-6517 

Free 

Friday, Nov. 15 

“Imagining A World Without Prison” Opening Night Benefit 

8 p.m. to 1 a.m. 

Black Box, 1928 Telegraph Ave. 

The Prison Activist Resource Center events features dynamic speakers, music, art, and food. The exhibit, which features writing and artwork from prisoners, former prisoners, and family members of prisoners, runs Nov. 10 to 30  

For more information call 893-4648 or visit www.prisonactivist.org 

$5- $25 sliding scale 

Berkeley Free Folk Festival Meting 

4 p.m. 

2180 Milvia Way, 5th Floor, Red Bud Room 

Discuss final site location, date of 2003 festival, and volunteers 

649-1423, hlih@yahoo.com 

Free 

Saturday, Nov. 16 

Latina Leadership Conference 

9 a.m. to 4 p.m. 

UC Berkeley Campus 

Lambda Theta Nu Sorority Inc. will provide non-college bound Latinas information about options in higher education and tackle the high drop out rate of Latina girls  

Free 

Magic School Bus Video Festival 

10:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. 

Lawrence Hall of Science, Centennial Drive-above UC Campus, below Grizzly Peak Blvd. 

www.lawrencehallofscience.org 

Puppet Show at the Hall of Health 

1:30 to 2:30 p.m. 

2230 Shattuck Ave, lower level 

Al children adn their parents are invited to see the award-winning puppet troupe, The Kids on the Block 

549-1564 

Suggested donation $2/ children under three free 

The First Ever Integrative Medicine Conference in Berkeley 

10 a.m. to 4 p.m. 

2060 Valley Life Science Building at the UC Berkeley campus 

Interactive day of speakers and workshops exploring alternative, complementary, and integrative medicine as a whole 

For information or reservations see www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~sim/conference 

$5 with pre-registration 

Sunday, Nov. 17 

17th Annual Jewish Genealogy Workshop 

12:30 to 4 p.m. 

Berkeley-Richmond Jewish Community Center, 1414 Walnut St. 

Lectures and specialty sessions included 

Info at www.jewishgen.org/sfbajgs 

$5 for non-members 

Simplicity Forum 

7 to 8:30 p.m. 

Berkeley Public Library, Claremont Branch, 2940 Benvenue Ave. 

cecile@simplicitycircles.com 

Free 

Monday, Nov. 18 

Community Meeting 

6 to 8 p.m. 

Berkeley Alternative High School, 2107 Martin Luther King Jr. Way 

Led by the Superintendent, this discussion aims to serve as a collaboration towards establishing a long-term planning process 

R.S.V.P. to Queen Graham  

644-87649 

Women and Welfare Reform: Who Benefits and Who Loses? 

5 to 6:30 p.m. 

Women’s Faculty Club Lounge, UCB 

Lecture featuring Mimi Abramowitz of CUNY’s Hunter College 

Struggles for Racial Justice in Education 

4:30 to 6:30 p.m. 

Oakland Technical High School Library, 45th and Broadway, Oakland 

The Peace and Justice Caucus of the Oakland Education Association sponsors this event, which addresses race, youth, and education through a variety of community speakers 

654-8613 or jzern1@yahoo.com 

Tuesday, Nov. 19 

Concensus Unit: State Community College Study 

10:30 a.m. 

Berkeley Public Library, Central Branch 

Community Room 

Shattuck Ave. and Kittredge 

Sponsored by the Berkeley League of Women Voters 

549-9719 

History and Planting of Golden Gate Park 

1 p.m. business meeting, 2 p.m. program 

Epworth United Methodist Church, 1953 Hopkins St. 

The Berkeley Garden Club presents Ernest Ng, volunteer city guide, who will speak about the history and planting of San Francisco’s historic park 

524-4374 

Tuesday Tilden Walkers 

9:30 a.m. 

Meet at Little Farm parking lot, Tilden Regional Park 

Join seniors and other slower walkers and enjoy the beauty of Tilden Park 

Contact Yvette Hoffner at 215-7672 or teachme88@yahoo.com 

Berkeley Intelligent Conversation 

7 to 9 p.m. 

Berkeley-Richmond Jewish Community Center, 1414 Walnut St.  

Join the bimonthly discussion group informally led by fomer UC Berkeley extension lecturer, investment advisor and finncial planner Robert Berend. Open to all. Please bring light snacks or drinks to share. This session’s topic: To be determined by those present 

527-5332 

Free 

Wednesday, Nov. 20 

Mental Health Commission 

6:30 p.m. 

2640 Martin Luther King Jr. Way, Auditorium 

981-5270 

“Deep Healing Sleep” 

6:30 to 7:30 p/m/ 

Pharmaca, 1744 Solano Ave. 

Stress management expert, author, and Oregonian Nancy Hopps leads this integrative session 

527-8929 

Free 

Berkeley Gray Panthers General Meeting 

1:30 p.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center, 1901 Hearst Ave. at MLK 

Covering the Nuts and Bolts of Senior Health and Safety, with guest speakers 

548-9696 

Thursday, Nov. 21 

Workshop for Homeowners 

6 to 8 p.m. 

Learn how to lower your utility bills and use building materials that are healthier for your family and the environment at a free green building workshop 

Free 

Simplicity Forum 

7 to 8:30 p.m. 

Claremont Branch Library, 2940 Benvenue Ave. 

Kerrie Hein explores spirituality, life purpose, and simplicity in this discussion session. Open to all 

549-3509 or www.simpleliving.net 

Free 

“Green Building and Remodeling” 

6 to 8 p.m. 

Building Education Center, 812 Page St. 

Special fall seminar with architect Greg Van Mechelen and the Alameda County Waste Management Authority and Recylcing Board 

525-7610 

Free 

Tuesday, Nov. 12 

Open Mike with Ellen Hoffman Trio 

8 p.m. 

Anna’s Jazz Bistro, 1801 University Ave. 

$4 

Tom Rigney & Flameau 

7:30 p.m. doors open, 8 p.m. dance lessons with Patti Whitehurst, 8:30 p.m. show 

Ashkenaz, 1317 San Pablo Ave. 

Violinist-fiddler-composer Tom “Rigo” Rigney’s East Bay quintet Flambeau play traditional Cajun and zydeco two-steps and waltzes, low-down-blues, and New Orleans R&B 

525-5054 

$8 

Wednesday, Nov. 13 

Classical Piano Concert 

1:15 p.m. 

North Bekeley Senior Center, 1901 Hearst Ave. at MLK 

Solange Buillaume will be playing Beethoven, Bach and other cassical works 

Free  

John Wesley Harding 

8 p.m. 

Freight & Salvage, 1111 Addison St. 

Harding’s biting social commentary and outrageous humor blend seamlessly with his warm, personal songs. 

548-1761 

$15.50-$16.50 

Jimmy Ryan Jazz Quartet 

8 p.m. 

Anna’s Jazz Bistro, 1801 University Ave. 

$4 

Brenda Boykin & Home Cookin’ 

7:30 p,m. doors, 8 p.m. swing dance lessons w/ Nick & Shanna, 9 p.m. show 

Ashkenaz, 1317 San Pablo Ave. 

East Bay belter Boykin and her band Home Cookin’ purvey a West Coast Swing dance style she calls Afrobilly Soul Stew-also the name of the band’s second CD. 

525-5054 

$8 

Thursday, Nov. 14 

Peter Mulvey, Mark Erelly 

9:30 p.m. 

The Starry Plough, 3101 Shattuck Ave. 

21+ 

$10 

Alef Null 

8 p.m. 

Anna’s Jazz Bistro, 1801 University Ave. 

Moroccan and Kurdish music 

$4 

Friday, Nov. 15 

Walter “Ogi” Johnson and His Native American Flute 

7:30 p.m. 

Fellowship Hall, 1924 Cedar St. 

Fellowship Cafe & Open Mike is sponsored by the Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists. Poets, singers, musicians, and storytellers are invited to sign up for the open mike.  

540-0898 

$5-$10 donation 

The Slackers w/ Buffalo Soldier, The Phenomenauts,The Locals and Hebro 

7:30 p.m. doors, 8 p.m. show 

Ashkenaz, 1317 San Pablo Ave. 

New York’s hot ska band, The Slackers, headline an almost non-stop evening of live reggae,ska and rock dance music. 

525-5054 

$10 

Classis Jazz with Anna de Leon 

8 p.m. 

Anna’s Jazz Bistro, 1801 University Ave. 

$4 

Cynthia Dall 

9:30 p.m. 

The Starry Plough, 3101 Shattuck Ave. 

21+ 

$8 

Saturday, Nov. 16 

An Evening of Choral Music 

7 p.m. 

Pacific School of Religion Chapel, 1798 Scenic Ave. 

A wide variety of choral styles from Bay Area groups including Voci, Opus-Q, Let’s Do It!, and New Spirit Community Church Choir 

849-8280 

$15-$20, sliding scale 

Jeff Tauber and Friends 

8 p.m. 

Anna’s Jazz Bistro, 1801 University Ave. 

$5 

Alpha Yaya Diallo 

9 p.m. doors, 9:30 p.m. show 

Ashkenaz, 1317 San Pablo Ave. 

Rooted in West African Dance Music, Diallo’s lilting style brings in an African medling of Cuban, Cape Verdean, Arabic and North American blues and Jazz. 

525-5054 

$12 

Sunday, Nov. 17 

Mingus Amungus 

4:30 p.m. 

Jazzschool, 2087 Addison St. 

This seven-piece band combines be-bop, funk and hip hop jazz. 

845-5373 

$10-$15 

A Night at the Casbah 

6:30 p.m. doors, 7 p.m. show 

Ashkenaz, 1317 San Pablo Ave. 

Alexandria & the Near Eastern Dance Company presents an evening of classical belly dance and authentic folk dance from the Near and Middle East 

525-5054 

$7 

Ceramics - Opening Reception 

Through Nov. 17 

3 to 5 p.m. 

A New Leaf Gallery, 1286 Gilman St. 

525-7621 

Free 

“Shove Off to Birthday Island” 

Through Nov. 30 

Reception Nov. 2 from 5 to 8 p.m. 

Tue. through Sat., 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.  

Ardency Gallery, 709 Broadway 

A collaborative exhibition of Tonya Solley Thornton and Frank Haines including video and sculptural installations. 

836-0831 

Children of the Gulf War Photo Exhibit 

Through Nov. 30 

Mon. through Thurs., 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. 

Fri. through Sat.., 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. 

Sun., 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. 

Berkeley Public Library, 2090 Kittredge St. 

Featuring works of Takashi Morizumi 

Information: www.savewarchildren.org 

“Recent Acquisitions” 

Through Dec. 14 

Thurs. through Sat., 1 to 4 p.m. 

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

848-0181 

Free 

Threads: Five artists who use stitching to convey ideas 

Through Dec. 15, Wed. through Sun., noon to 5 p.m. 

Berkeley Art Center 

Live Oak Park, 1275 Walnut St. 

Information: www.berkeleyartcenter.org, 644-6893 

Free 

Peaceable Kingdom 

Through Dec. 22, Weekends, Nov. 30 to 22, Weekdays, Dec 16 to 20 

10 a.m. to 6 p.m. 

The Berkeley Potters Guild, 731 Jones St. & 4th St. 

Elephants! 

Through Jan. 12 

Daily, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. 

Lawrence Hall of Science, Centennial Drive-above UC Campus, below Grizzly Peak Blvd. 

Daily activities, Larger than Life, 10:30, 11:30, a.m., 12:30 p.m., Elephant Tails storytelling, 1:30, 2:30, 3:30 p.m.  

www.lawrencehallofscience.org 

$8 adults. $6 youth, seniors, disabled, $4 children 3-4, Free, children under 3, LHS members, UC Berkeley students 

Alarms and Excursions 

Nov. 15 through Dec. 22 

Aurora Theatre Company, 2081 Addison St. 

Michael Frayn's comedy about  

the irony of modern technology. 

843-4822, www.auroratheater.org for reservations 

$26 to $35. 

Menocchio 

Nov. 6 through Dec. 22 

Berkeley Repertory Theatre, 2025 Addison St. 

Berkeley Repertory Theatre presents the world premiere of Lillian Groag’s charged comedy 

647-2949, www.berkeleyrep.org  

$38 and $54/ sliding scale 

“Cinemayaat: The Arab Film Festival” 

Through Nov. 12 

Various locations throughout Berkeley, San Francisco, and San Jose. 

For more information contact the Arab Film Festival at info@aff.org, (415) 564- 1100, or www.aff.org

Despite critics’ fears, the University of California’s “comprehensive review” admissions policy has not lowered academic standards or skirted a ban on the consideration of race in admissions, according to a new study. 

Comprehensive review, used in all UC admissions for the first time this year, weighs intangibles like achievement in the face of adversity and community leadership, in addition to traditional academic measures like grades and test scores. 

Advocates argue that the process, used by many competitive schools around the country, allows for a full view of each applicant. But critics say the new system undercuts UC’s high academic standards and serves as a way around Proposition 209, passed by California voters in 1996, which forbids preferential treatment based on race. 

A study released last week by the Board of Admissions and Relations with Schools (BOARS), a key faculty committee, found only a small decline in the academic qualifications of this year’s freshman class and a minor increase in the number of “underrepresented minorities” - African-Americans, Latinos and Native Americans – accepted. 

Prior to this year, the nine-campus University of California system accepted 50 to 75 percent of its students on academic factors alone, and the rest under comprehensive review. 

According to the new study, the mean grade-point average dropped only 0.05 points this year and SAT scores went down only slightly system-wide. At UC Berkeley in particular, the mean GPA dropped 0.03 points and SAT scores fell five points, from 1,337 to 1,332. 

Meanwhile admissions of underrepresented minorities increased slightly on some campuses, with the largest gains coming at UCLA and UC San Diego, and dropped at UC Davis and UC Irvine. UC Berkeley saw a small increase, from 16.3 to 16.5 percent of the population. 

But many of the critics are still unsatisfied. Bret Manley, president of UC Berkeley College Republicans, said comprehensive review provides a way around Proposition 209 and encourages applicants to embellish any hardships they may have faced prior to college. 

“People are compelled to exaggerate on their applications,” he said. 

The BOARS report, however, cited a pilot program at UC San Diego that required 437 applicants to verify self-reported family income, honors and achievements, academic enrichment programs and community service. Only one student, according to the study, could not provide documentation. 

The UC San Diego verification program did not focus on applicants’ personal statements, which would include a discussion of any hardship. But all of the applicants in a small system-wide study spearheaded by the UC president’s office were able to provide documentation supporting their statements, according to the study. 

All UC campuses are scheduled to launch a verification program beginning with the fall 2003 admissions cycle. 

The BOARS report also sought to downplay any concerns that admissions offices are placing undue weight on non-academic factors like hardship. 

“In reviewing campus policies, implementation plans and admissions outcomes, BOARS found no evidence to indicate that the role of hardship had increased substantially, nor that it is used inappropriately in the admission process,” the report reads. 

“Nevertheless, BOARS recognizes that in the intensely competitive college admission environment in which UC operates, we have an obligation to reassure the general public that the values implicit in our selection criteria and processes are appropriate.” 

The report found that UC Davis and UC San Diego, which assign point values to non-academic factors in a weighted admissions formula, did not place undue emphasis on hardship. UC San Diego weighted factors like community service and leadership at almost 11 percent and hardship at almost 13 percent. Academic factors counted for almost 77 percent. The UC Davis figures were similar. 

The study found no wrongdoing at UC Berkeley or other campuses which do not use fixed weights, but encouraged them “to conduct analysises that will illuminate the role of ‘hardship’ in their decisions and to communicate the results of those analysises broadly.” 

The UC Board of Regents is set to review the BOARS study this week at meetings in San Francisco. During a September meeting Regent Ward Connerly, who authored Proposition 209, called for an independent study of comprehensive review to allay public concerns that it provides a way around the ban on considering race in admissions. 

Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante, also a Regent, blasted the idea and said the university should wait for the BOARS report. 

The BOARS committee supported comprehensive review prior to conducting last week’s study. 

Contact reporter at scharfenberg@ 

berkeleydailyplanet.net

OAKLAND — Billy Beane already had envisioned his first deal as Boston’s new general manager: Pedro Martinez to the Oakland Athletics. 

Yeah, right! 

The A’s general manager could joke about swapping the Boston ace Monday, after announcing he had changed his mind and decided to stay in Oakland rather than take over baseball operations of the Red Sox. 

Beane said he decided to stay for several reasons, including his love for the organization he has built into a perennial playoff team, and staying close to his daughter who lives in Southern California. 

Beane reportedly was offered about $2.5 million per year to take the Boston job — a position he considered attractive because of the franchise’s deep history and prestige. Beane currently makes about $400,000 annually with the A’s, and said he did not ask for a raise to stay put. He said he will fulfill his Oakland contract, which runs through 2008. 

“For 24 hours, to think I took the choice not to have Hudson, Mulder and Zito, that’s a fool,” Beane said at a news conference. “I was never really gone, but I’m so glad I’m back.” 

He was referring to Oakland’s three aces — Tim Hudson, Mark Mulder and Barry Zito — players Beane has watched develop into three of baseball’s best pitchers. 

“Boston is definitely a great team, but I think he realizes we still have a bright future,” Hudson said. “Both the front office and the players have something to be proud of, we have for a few years now, and that’s one of the reasons he wanted to stay around. These are the guys he’s seen come through the system and have success. 

“I think it was a good choice for him. He might not get the paycheck he would have, but I think he’ll be happy.” 

The 40-year-old Beane withdrew from consideration for the Boston job Sunday night, ending a whirlwind weekend in which he agreed to leave. 

Red Sox chief executive officer Larry Lucchino said he would proceed with a search in a timely manner. 

“We are disappointed, but not devastated,” Lucchino said. “We think Billy Beane would have been an outstanding GM here and we believe that he would have adjusted to the East Coast ways and culture and lifestyle. But we respect the judgment that he made for the reasons that he made it.” 

After high school, Beane signed with the New York Mets based solely on money, and later regretted it. That played into his decision this time. 

He spent most of the weekend at home in his pajamas trying to decide what to do. A deal with the Red Sox was all but done, provided the teams could settle on compensation. 

“I know he agonized over it a long time,” a relieved owner Steve Schott said. 

Beane is given much of the credit for building a team whose 103 wins tied for best in the major leagues this season, and for assembling the solid young pitching staff. 

“He would have had two of the best pitchers in Pedro and Derek Lowe,” Hudson said. “But with us three, we have as good a shot to win as anybody.” 

Beane, who also said he didn’t want to move far from his daughter, stood in the same room at the Coliseum in which two weeks ago he announced the hiring of bench coach Ken Macha to replace manager Art Howe. 

“Now we’re back here two weeks later to welcome Billy back,” Schott said.

To the Editor: 

I think that no other ballot measure in Berkeley history has lost by such a large margin as Measure P, the height initiative, with 80 percent voting against it. This decisive vote should be the end of NIMBYism in Berkeley, but it obviously won't be. Howie Muir mentions a series of lawsuits (Daily Planet, Nov. 6) that could stop development. It is more disturbing that two backers of Measure P are running for the Executive Committee of the Northern Alameda Group of the Sierra Club: Elliot Cohen and Carrie Olsen.  

The Sierra Club did not oppose Measure P because the Northern Alameda County Group voted to oppose the measure by only 5 to 4, just short of the required two-thirds majority. If these two people are elected, this group will have a NIMBY majority. It will undoubtedly do its best to oppose new housing in Berkeley, despite chapter and national Sierra Club policies that support smart growth. City Councilmember Dona Spring has done a mailing asking people to vote for these two candidates (and one other candidate) in the Sierra Club election. Dona Spring took a public position against Measure P as a matter of political expediency, but she also did her best to kiss up to Measure P supporters. She was endorsed for re-election by the pro-P Berkeley party. Now, it looks like she is trying to build a NIMBY political machine within the local Sierra Club group. 

The ballot is in the current Sierra Club Yodeler. If you are a Sierra Club member and you voted against Measure P, then please vote in this Sierra Club election, even if you have never voted in one before. Vote for anyone except Elliot Cohen and Carrie Olsen. The pro-P faction is obviously a tiny fringe element in Berkeley politics. It should not be allowed to use back-room politicking to take over the local Sierra Club.  

Carl A. Adams 

Berkeley

A week after voters narrowly defeated a $1.05 billion bond to seismically retrofit BART facilities, the transit agency is searching for new sources of funding. 

“I don’t think there’s any question that we have to proceed with a seismic retrofit,” said Joel Keller, president of the BART Board of Directors. “We have a duty as stewards of the system.” 

Keller said the agency will look for new pools of state and federal money to pay for a retrofit of the transbay tube, connecting Oakland and San Francisco, and a host of other projects. But in the end, he suggested, BART will likely pursue a combination of fare increases and a new, less-expensive bond measure on the next ballot. 

“Maybe $1 billion is the psychological barrier,” Keller said, arguing that a $900 million bond coupled with $100 million in fare increases might be more palatable to voters. 

Voters in three counties, San Francisco, Alameda and Contra Costa cast votes on the $1.05 billion Measure BB last week, with 64.2 percent approving. 

The bond required a two-thirds majority, or 66 percent of the vote, to pass. 

BART put the measure on the ballot after a 1 1/2-year, $25 million study, completed in June, found the system vulnerable to a major earthquake. 

If passed, the measure would have raised property taxes in all three counties an average of $7.80 per $100,000 of assessed value for the next 40 years. 

But critics argued that riders, not property owners, should foot the bill for any seismic retrofit. The Alliance of Contra Costa Taxpayers, which led the fight against Measure BB, said fare increases starting at 11 cents and rising to 59 cents would eventually cover costs. 

Alliance President Ken Hambrick stuck to the same argument Monday. He said BART, in the wake of the Measure BB defeat, should now turn to a fare increase if it wants to brace against a major earthquake. 

“If they really believe in this, they ought to come back with a fare-based bond,” he said. 

But Keller argued that a retrofitting program rooted in substantial fare hikes could hurt ridership. 

“The thing I’m worried about is public transportation, in order to be viable, has to be affordable,” he said. 

Hambrick countered that an 11 cent jump would not turn riders away from BART. But at least one BART rider interviewed Monday, David Jameson of Oakland, bristled at the idea of riders, rather than property owners, paying for a retrofit. 

“I think rich people should pay for it,” he said. 

Whatever the political prospects of a new bond, BART board director Roy Nakadegawa, who represents parts of Berkeley and several surrounding cities, said the transit agency must pursue it. 

“Whether it’s doable or not, I’m saying it’s necessary,” said Nakadegawa who, like Keller, supports a mix of bond money and fare increases. 

Nakadegawa said quick movement on a new bond is necessary to ensure the public safety sooner rather than later. He also said the longer BART waits, the more the price will escalate. 

“I think it’s foolish to hold off,” he said. 

Nakadegawa said BART has learned one important lesson from the Measure BB defeat. Next time, Nakadegawa said, the transit agency will have to do a better job convincing voters of the traffic nightmare that would result from a BART shutdown. 

“Five years ago, when workers went on strike, it was a tremendous backup, not just on the [Bay] bridge,” he said. 

Keller suggested that an improved economy, in the next couple of years, might put voters in a more generous mood. 

Contact reporter at scharfenberg@ 

berkeleydailyplanet.net

DENVER — The Oakland Raiders turned Monday Night Football’s anniversary celebration into a record-setting show for their old folks. 

With 36-year-old Rich Gannon completing 21 straight passes and 40-year-old Jerry Rice becoming the first player to score 200 career touchdowns, the Raiders broke a four-game losing streak by beating the Denver Broncos 34-10. 

Rod Woodson, 37, extended his own career record of interception returns for touchdowns with a 98-yarder in the first quarter that sent the Raiders on their way. 

The win on ABC’s celebration of its 500th Monday night telecast brought Oakland (5-4) within a game of the Broncos (6-3) in the AFC West. 

Along with scoring two touchdowns for a total of 201, Rice broke Walter Payton’s record for total yardage.

To the Editor: 

Is it just me, or was Russ Ellis’ introduction of Mayor-elect Tom Bates at their victory celebration scary? He said, “We're gonna make some music. We're going to make some moral music.” (Daily Planet, Nov. 7) 

These are the type of sanctimonious, naive and misguided words that end up coming from the cockpit of a 747 heading toward the World Trade Center. And ironically, uttered by anyone with an agenda out of step with theirs, would not be tolerated. 

Greg Schlappich 

Berkeley 

Berkeley voters last Tuesday were in keeping with the statewide trend of avoiding election polls in record numbers. 

Citywide turnout on Election Day was 54.7 percent, down from the 75.6 percent of registered voters participating in the 2000 election and more than five points down from attendance in the last two non-presidential elections. City Clerk Sherry Kelly said citywide voting totals would likely rise as remaining absentee ballots trickle in, but not significantly. 

Despite a lower draw, Berkeley still outpaced the statewide average of 44.8 percent turnout, which the Secretary of State’s Office called the lowest in Election Day history. Alameda County turnout, as a whole, was 47.6 percent. 

Berkeley officials, in spite of a high-profile mayoral race and at least two landmark ballot initiatives, said they were not surprised with the low number of voters. 

“The top of the ticket just wasn’t that exiting,” said Mayor-elect Tom Bates, who defeated incumbent Mayor Shirley Dean by a 14 percent margin. 

City Clerk Kelly agreed. 

“We had the core group of voters who are concerned with local issues, but not a lot of draw for state races,” she said. 

The mayor’s race was the biggest draw of Berkeley’s local issues, with 33,825 of the city’s 64,838 registered voters weighing in. 

Measure O, which forced coffee retailers to sell only organic, shade-grown or "Fair Trade" cups of coffee, was the second most-popular issue, garnering 31,916 yes and no votes. Measure P, which set strict height limits on new buildings, collected a total of 31,205 votes. Neither measure passed. 

UC Berkeley’s student government estimated that about 45 percent of the students voted this year – either in their hometown or in Berkeley’s election. 

“The student population really influenced the District 7 and 8 [City Council] races,” said Jimmy Bryant, vice-president of external affairs of the Associated Students of the University of California. 

UC students were candidates in the two districts that share a northern border with the campus. In the 7th District, sophomore Micki Weinberg was defeated by incumbent Councilmember Kriss Worthington, though he won an admirable 39 percent of the vote, noted Bryant. 

In the 8th District, student Andy Katz won 36 percent of the vote, enough to force a runoff election with candidate Gordon Wozniak. 

“The students also contributed to Bates’ big win,” Bryant added.

To the Editor: 

I am writing in horror. What is America coming to that we think we can shoot up people in Yemen with missiles fired by “predator drone airplanes”? What ever happened to international law? Is the American government now free to kill anyone who is opposed to the American way of life? Don’t people who are accused of a crime usually have a trial? Go to jail if guilty, set free if innocent? Since when have we felt that we can kill anyone we want? And the scary thing is that the current reporting of the incident is that this appears to be an OK way to behave. Heaven preserve us from ourselves, because certainly our own government is not going to. What are we teaching the younger generation? 

Wendy Markel 

Berkeley

BAGHDAD, Iraq — Iraqi lawmakers denounced a tough, new U.N. resolution on weapons inspections Monday as dishonest, provocative and worthy of rejection — despite the risk of war. But parliament said it ultimately will trust whatever President Saddam Hussein decides. 

One after the other, senior lawmakers rejected the resolution, the latest in a long effort to ensure Iraq scraps its weapons of mass destruction. This time, however, the United States and Britain have made clear they will attack Iraq if it does not fully comply. 

Parliament speaker Saadoun Hamadi said the resolution was stacked with “ill intentions”, “falsehood”, “lies” and “dishonesty.” Salim al-Koubaisi, head of parliament’s foreign relations committee, recommended rejecting the resolution but also advised deferring to the “wise Iraqi leadership” to act as it sees fit to defend Iraq’s people and dignity. 

“The committee advises ... the rejection of Security Council Resolution 1441, and to not agree to it in response to the opinions of our people, who put their trust in us,” al-Koubaisi told fellow lawmakers. 

Saddam has used parliament’s action as cover for difficult decisions in the past, and harsh rhetoric does not necessarily mean parliament will reject the proposal. Saddam ordered parliament to recommend a formal response, and lawmakers were expected to vote on recommendations for the Iraqi leadership Tuesday. 

According to the resolution, Iraq has until Friday to accept or reject the resolution, approved unanimously last week by the U.N. Security Council. 

U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard said there are numerous interpretations for the deadline — the minute the resolution was adopted, the minute Iraq was notified, the end of business Friday, or midnight on Friday. It is up to the Security Council to interpret its own resolution, Eckhard said. 

Anne Power, a spokeswoman with the British mission at the United Nations, said Britain intepreted the deadline to be seven 24-hour periods from the minute the resolution was adopted. That would mean that Iraq has until 10:17 a.m. EST Friday, Nov. 15 to respond. Other Security Council members could have different interpretations however. Chinese deputy ambassador Zhang Yishan, the current council president, said he was checking on the exact deadline. 

If Saddam fails to follow through, a Pentagon plan calls for more than 200,000 troops to invade Iraq. 

Parliament’s advice on the new U.N. resolution, which demands Iraq cooperate with U.N. weapons inspectors or face “serious consequences,” will go to the Revolutionary Command Council, Iraq’s ruling body headed by Saddam. 

Should parliament recommend acceptance, it would allow Saddam to claim the decision was the will of the Iraqi people and more smoothly retreat from previous objections to any new resolution governing weapons inspections. 

In Washington, President Bush’s national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, rejected the legitimacy of the parliament debate. 

“One has to be a bit skeptical of the independence of the Iraqi parliament from Saddam Hussein,” she said. “I don’t think anyone believes this is anything but an absolute dictatorship and this decision is up to Saddam Hussein.” 

She also said Iraq has no right to accept or reject the resolution. “They are obligated to accept, but the U.N. thought it best to ask for return-receipt requested,” Rice said. 

On Sunday, Arab League foreign ministers ended meetings in Cairo, Egypt, with a final communique urging cooperation between Iraq and the United Nations. The Arab ministers also called on the United States to commit to pledges Syria said it received that the resolution could not be used to justify military action. They also put forward a united position of “absolute rejection” of military action. 

In a statement Monday, Saudi Arabia urged the Iraqis to accept the resolution “in order not to provide any opportunity for harm to come to the Iraqi people.” 

Parliament is stacked with Saddam’s allies. During opening speeches aired live on Iraqi television, lawmakers applauded every mention of Saddam’s name in speeches praising “His Excellency Mr. President, the holy warrior leader Saddam Hussein.”

The East Bay Regional Park District is seeking written proposals for livestock grazing on 2,860 acres at Black Diamond Regional Preserve in Antioch. 

The park district uses livestock grazing as a “resource management tool” on approximately two-thirds of the 93,000 acres of parkland it owns in Alameda and Contra Costa counties. 

Local ranchers contract with the park district to lease land where they may allow their cattle to graze, under controlled conditions intended to achieve fire prevention goals and to benefit plant and animal life. 

A mandatory field tour to familiarize prospective applicants with the grazing unit and to answer questions will be held Nov. 15. Applicants should meet at the Black Diamond park office at 9 a.m. 

A Request for Livestock Grazing Proposal, which explains the application process, may be obtained by contacting Ray Budzinksi at (510) 544-2344.

OAKLAND — One or more gunmen opened fire on a group of teenagers standing on a sidewalk in Oakland's Elmhurst neighborhood Monday, killing a 15-year-old girl and injuring two boys, police said. 

The shooting, which occurred in front of a white, single-story home at 1214 89th Ave. near B Street, was reported at 11:13 a.m. 

Police spokesman George Phillips said the victims on the sidewalk were struck by bullets that tore through an Oldsmobile Cutlass Cruiser station wagon parked along the curb. Several of the car's windows were shattered by gunfire. 

“They were outside of the car, standing on the sidewalk. An individual drove up in a car and opened fire,” Phillips said. The suspect or suspects then drove away from the scene. 

Police did not identify the victims, but Roneisha Tillman said her cousin Tamellia Cobbs, 15, was the girl who was shot dead. Tillman, who lives at 1214 89th Ave., in the house in front of which the shooting occurred, said her cousin was a 10th-grader at Castlemont High School. 

The other two victims, identified only as boys in their late teens, were receiving treatment at Highland Hospital this afternoon. Phillips said one was listed in serious condition and the other was stable. 

The slaying was the city's 97th of the year, police said. Phillips said police have no motive in the killing and no suspects. 

Tillman, 18, said that her cousin Tamellia, whom they called “Mellia,” had run into the 89th Avenue house last night after someone opened fire on her. 

“There was some mess last night and she ran from bullets last night and today she didn't get a chance to run because the man shot and killed her for no reason,” Tillman said. “Why? We don't know.” 

Tillman said she has been laughing and joking with her cousin and the other boys moments before the shots rang out Monday. She had just gone inside the house when she heard the sound of rapid gunfire. 

She ran outside and found Tamellia sprawled on the ground, with her eyes rolled back in her head. Tillman insisted that her cousin and the two boys had done nothing to place themselves in jeopardy. 

“They're not gangbangers, they're not hoodlums, they ain't selling no drugs, they ain't out here doing none of that,” Tillman said. “We're out here like normal kids having fun.” 

She said the family is convinced that the killer is a man known as “One-eyed Eric,” who had known Tamellia much of her life. 

Phillips said police have no suspect information. 

Oakland City Councilman Larry Reid, who responded to the shooting scene, said the gunfire today had snuffed out yet another young person's dreams. 

“This is a 15-year-old -- you don't expect 15-year-old kids to die the way this young lady died,” Reid said. “You expect kids to live longer than their parents. 

“There's got to be some way to deal with this whole madness that is taking place here in Oakland,” he added. 

He said there is a “terrible mindset” in evidence that pushes young people to shoot one another. He added that he doesn't believe the struggling economy is to blame for the spate of slayings in Oakland this year. 

“I don't think the economy has anything to do with this insanity that's going on out here in the streets,” Reid said. “I just think there's just a total lack of value of human being life.” 

Phillips said the block where the shooting occurred has been a “hotspot” targeted in the past by a crime response team, composed of one sergeant and seven officers. 

“(It's) an area where we have experienced violence and an area where we have experienced sales of narcotics,” he said, without elaborating. Phillips cautioned that it's still much too early to tell what may have sparked today's shooting. 

Simote Tupouata, 40, who lives several doors from the shooting scene, said his children were home from school today and heard multiple shots ring out. 

He has lived in the neighborhood since 1994 and said he has made frequent reports to police about illicit drug activity on the block. He said his five children are only allowed to play in front of the house when he is present.

OAKLAND — A 12-year-old girl missing since last week was found unharmed Monday morning in Oakland, police said. 

Tajanik Thompson turned up at 6:15 a.m. Monday at an Albertson's store in the 4000 block of Macarthur Boulevard, said Sgt. J. Wong. Police plan to return Thompson to her family in Oakland. 

Police are investigating the girl's disappearance Wednesday after she allegedly told her family she planned to meet a 25-year-old man. 

Investigators have not confirmed earlier reports that the man Thompson was meeting was a pimp.

HAVANA — A rejected epilogue for Ernest Hemingway’s “For Whom the Bell Tolls,” a 1941 letter from Ingrid Bergman and more than 20 letters from the 19-year-old Italian contessa he was in love with are among thousands of the author’s documents Cuba is making available to outside scholars. 

President Fidel Castro and an American group led by U.S. Rep. James McGovern signed an agreement Monday to collaborate on the restoration and preservation of 2,000 letters, 3,000 personal photographs and some draft fragments of novels and stories that were kept in the humid basement of Finca de Vigia, the villa outside Havana where Hemingway lived from 1939-1960. 

“I personally have much for which to thank Hemingway,” said the gray-bearded Castro, who wore his olive fatigues during the ceremony at Finca de Vigia. “The honor that he gave us by choosing our country in which to live and write some of his best work.” 

Also at the ceremony were Hemingway’s grandson Sean, his niece Hillary and daughter-in-law Angela. 

Funded by the Rockefeller Foundation, the joint effort by the New York-based Social Science Research Council and the Cuban National Council of Patrimony will produce mircofilm copies of the material, restore some documents damaged by the Caribbean climate, and help conserve the house, including a 9,000-volume library and Hemingway’s fishing boat, El Pilar. 

The microfilm copies will be stored at the John F. Kennedy Library in Boston, but originals will stay at the Hemingway Museum at Finca de Vigia, long a source of pride for Cuba. 

Hemingway’s fourth and last wife, Mary Welsh Hemingway, donated the estate to the Cuban government in 1961, just after the author committed suicide in his Ketchum, Idaho, home. Cuban curators preserved the home exactly how the Hemingways left it, looking like the writer “just stepped down the driveway to pickup his mail,” said Jenny Phillips, granddaughter of Maxwell Perkins, Hemingway’s editor. Phillips’ January 2001 visit to the villa set in motion the events that led to the project. 

Visitors can see the writer’s collection of moccasins lined against a wall, reading material, and bottles of liquor on the table next to Hemingway’s favorite reading chair. The estate includes the graves of four of Hemingway’s dogs. 

Curators prohibit visitors from entering the house — tourists peer through windows — a decision U.S. scholars and researchers say has protected the collection from deterioration and pilfering.

LONG BEACH — A man believed to be the serial rapist who terrorized women in California and Washington state for more than eight years was arrested three days after police stopped him on an unrelated drug charge and performed DNA tests. 

“People of Long Beach, sleep well tonight, sleep well,” Police Chief Anthony Batts said Monday as he announced the arrest of Mark Wayne Rathbun, 32, of Long Beach. 

Rathbun was arrested Sunday night in Oxnard for investigation of rape after police said DNA evidence linked him to 13 assaults dating to 1996. He was jailed in lieu of $2 million bail and had not yet secured an attorney, police said. 

The Long Beach man is also a suspect in 18 other rapes and attempted rapes, said Long Beach police spokeswoman Nancy Pratt. 

Nine of the rapes he was arrested for occurred in Long Beach, police said. The first one, on Aug. 1, 1996, was in Seattle, with its victim a 40-year-old woman. The other two occurred earlier this year in the Southern California cities of Huntington Beach and Los Alamitos. 

Rathbun was arrested Thursday for investigation of possessing a crack cocaine pipe after he was stopped while riding a bicycle just three blocks from where a man had broken into a house and attempted to assault a woman earlier in the day. He was one of several people in the area questioned. 

“We have made it a practice to investigate anybody who’s within the perimeter of these sorts of crimes,” said police Sgt. Paul LeBaron. 

Authorities said Rathbun voluntarily gave a DNA sample before being released on bail on a misdemeanor charge of possessing drug paraphernalia. He was arrested Sunday night after authorities said lab results came back matching his DNA to the 13 rapes. 

Pratt said circumstantial evidence makes him a suspect in the 18 other cases, including another 1996 rape in Seattle. The other assaults and attempted assaults occurred around Southern California. 

In most cases, the attacker entered the homes of women who lived alone, gaining entrance either late at night or early in the morning through an unlocked window or door. He always wore a mask, was sometimes nude and sometimes covered the faces of his victims, who ranged in age from their early 30s to their 80s. 

The string of 31 attacks began in May 1996, with the first two in Seattle. 

Authorities believe the rapist then moved to Southern California, where the first attack was reported in Long Beach in January 1997. 

The vast majority of the attacks occurred within a 20-mile radius of Long Beach, and for several years the perpetrator was known as the “Belmont Shores rapist,” after the well-to-do waterfront community where many of the earliest assaults happened. 

LeBaron said Rathbun’s mother lives in Long Beach, but that he has moved in and out of the area over the last several years, staying with friends. He also has ties to the Seattle area, LeBaron said. 

His arrest came just 2 1/2 days after Long Beach police announced a $50,000 reward leading to the rapist’s arrest. Although tips poured in as result, none of them led police to Rathbun. 

“It could be coincidence or it could be his carelessness or maybe we’ve learned enough through this investigation that we were finally able to adapt to his movements,” LeBaron said. “But the bottom line is, he’s caught.” 

LOS ANGELES — It was no trifle truffle. 

A restaurateur and director of television commercials has spent $35,000 on an enormous, 2.2-pound white truffle — an exotic mushroom grown in Italy and prized by gourmets around the world. 

Joe Pytka, 64, made the purchase during Sunday’s fourth annual charity truffle auction known as Asta Mondial del Tartufo Bianco d’Alba. It was the largest ever paid for a single truffle. 

Pytka, who recently opened the French restaurant Bastide in West Hollywood, said he will use the truffle in a variety of dishes made by chef Alain Giraud. 

The rare mushroom caused a spirited bidding war between Pytka, Tony May, the owner of San Domenico restaurant in New York and a dog named Gunther IV, heir to a large German fortune, whose bids were made by owner Maurizio Dial. 

The truffle auction was held simultaneously in three places, linked by closed-circuit satellite television. 

Pytka bid at Valentino restaurant in Santa Monica, where 75 other truffle aficionados gathered. All local proceeds from the sale benefit the Jonsson Cancer Center Foundation at University of California, Los Angeles, and the families of 26 Italian schoolchildren who were killed in a recent earthquake. 

May bid from his New York restaurant, where a boisterous crowd of 120 joined the action. Gunther was at the castle of Grinzane Cavour, just outside Alba, which is home to the enormous white truffle. About 350 people were gathered at the castle to participate in the bidding. 

Thirty truffles were auctioned off for a total of $126,000. 

The appearance of Pytka’s truffle on the TV screen brought loud gasps of appreciation from the crowd at Valentino. Most truffles weigh a few ounces. Daniele Bera of Funghi & Tartufi, a truffle store in Alba, said Pytka’s truffle was the biggest he had seen in his 17 years in the business. 

The truffle will be shipped to Pytka and should arrive Tuesday. Pytka’s purchase nearly doubled the record-setting $19,000 that Wolfgang Puck of Spago paid last year for a 1.82-pound truffle.

SUNSPOT, N.M. — Scientists say they have made the unprecedented discovery of solar flares erupting almost simultaneously on opposite sides of the sun. 

The flares — massive eruptions of hydrogen from the sun’s surface — were observed by researchers at the National Solar Observatory in southern New Mexico on the morning of Oct. 31. 

Simultaneous solar flares have been seen in the past, but never so far apart. Scientists at the observatory are trying to determine whether the eruptions were linked or a coincidence, said solar physicist Don Neidig. 

Experts said the discovery could have far-reaching consequences if more cases are observed. 

“Now we have only one example of two flares that go off simultaneously that far apart, so it could be an accident. If we see more of these ... then it becomes extremely important,” said Stephen Greggor, a professor of physics and astronomy at the University of New Mexico. 

Observatory researchers speculated that magnetic fields may have primed the flares to erupt seconds apart. They cautioned, however, that there is too little data even to put forward a theory.

LOS ANGELES — The turnaround time for container ships at the West Coast’s largest ports has returned to normal but fewer container ships are showing up, scared away by a shutdown that resulted in a month of congestion and delays. 

Nearly 200 vessels were stranded outside West Coast ports during a 10-day lockout, which was ended by a federal injunction Oct. 9. At the time, industry experts estimated it would take at least six weeks to get through the backlog. 

But officials in the ports of Los Angeles, Long Beach and Puget Sound, which includes Seattle and Tacoma, said long lines have vanished. 

“We’re now declaring ourselves at the high end of normal,” said Dick McKenna of the Los Angeles-Long Beach Marine Exchange, an industry cooperative that monitors ship movements. 

Although the return to normal was welcomed, McKenna said it’s only because the number of ships entering the ports are down. Typically the two ports receive about eight container ships a day, but in recent weeks the average has been about 3 1/2, he said. 

It’s likely the drop is temporary and traffic will return to typical levels in coming weeks as shipping lines resume normal rotations, McKenna said. 

The Marine Exchange at Puget Sound, the coast’s other major commercial shipping complex, also declared this weekend that “vessel scheduling has returned to normal.” 

However, some terminal yards remain jammed with containers and are short on equipment and labor, causing delays in the movement of cargo to customers, according to representatives of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union and the trucking industry. 

“It’s definitely improving,” union spokesman Steve Stallone said. “But it will be a couple more weeks before things are really cleared up.” 

Retailers report little improvement thus far in getting goods onto store shelves, said J. Craig Shearman, spokesman for the National Retail Federation. 

“I don’t know the exact technical details of what they mean when they say things are clearing up at the ports, but there’s the whole rest of the infrastructure that’s got to move that product. If we’ve moved it from the ship to the dock we’ve got to get it from the dock to the shelf,” he said. 

“From what we’ve been hearing from retailers, merchandise is still trickling into the stores very slowly,” he said. 

The hardest-hit products have been toys, consumer electronics, shoes, clothing and housewares, Shearman said. Ninety to 95 percent of toys and more than 50 percent of electronics sold in the United States are made in Asia, he said, while over 40 percent of shoes sold here are imported from China. 

Truck traffic at the ports is still snarled, although Union Pacific reports train traffic continues to steadily improve, in large part because many shippers load train cars right from the docks. 

Containers continue to be piled up on the docks while longshoremen spend more time unloading ships than organizing containers and loading them on trucks, according to the California Trucking Association. 

“It’s better than it was initially, but it’s still chaos,” association vice president Stephanie Williams said. “It’s not back to normal.” 

Williams said the Pacific Maritime Association profits more by serving the needs of shippers rather than those of truckers. 

While longshoremen work around the clock to unload cargo vessels, they are actually working shorter days to load trucks. As a result, trucks returning empty containers are often turned away after waiting for five hours or more, she said. 

The auto industry was never too hard hit by the dispute, because the Big Three auto manufacturers do not rely heavily on parts made in Asia and used air freight to get around the difficulty, said David Healy an auto industry analyst at Burnham Securities Inc.

SACRAMENTO — California has reached its first settlement with an energy producer it accused of overcharging the state last year, trimming $1.4 billion from a $4.3 billion long-term contract with an Oklahoma energy producer and reaping about $400 million more in refunds. 

The state’s deal with Tulsa-based Williams Cos., however, does not immediately translate into lower monthly bills for ratepayers nor ease the state’s budget deficit. 

Aides to Attorney General Bill Lockyer, announcing the settlement Monday, declined to discuss negotiations with several other energy companies but said more settlements may be on their way. 

Williams admitted no wrongdoing as part of the agreement, which Gov. Gray Davis called “a victory for ratepayers. The new contract provides us more reliable power when we need it at much more favorable terms.” 

In May 2001, California Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante and state legislators sued Williams and four other power generators, alleging they conspired to drive up electricity prices. 

Bustamante sued on behalf of California taxpayers to recover the generators’ excess profits on power sales to the state since Jan. 17, 2001, when the state started buying power for three struggling utilities. 

The generators were Duke Energy, Dynegy Inc., Mirant Corp., Reliant Resources Inc. and Williams. 

The suit charges that the five companies gained control of the state’s power market and used unlawful trading practices to manipulate prices. 

Despite the settlement, Williams stock dropped 19 percent Monday, as investors reacted to a federal grand jury subpoenas of its California energy trading records. 

The Williams’ refunds include $180 million in contract price reductions, $90 million worth of power plant turbines to be given to the cities of San Francisco and San Diego for energy production and $150 million in cash to be divided among numerous public entities across the state. Some of the money will be used to retrofit schools across California to produce their own solar energy.

MENTASTA LAKE, Alaska — When the earthquake struck this rural community in Interior Alaska, 20-foot-tall spruce trees whipped back and forth, slapping the ground on each side like windshield blades. 

Tree trunks split open. Mountains slumped. Roads buckled and cracks yawned in the earth. Houses rocked and jumped, shattering dishes and toppling TVs. Tap water turned brown, sewer lines broke, oil tanks toppled. 

“It was like riding a boat on the roughest sea,” said Angela Pete, at home with her seven children and niece. 

But when one of the most powerful quakes ever recorded in the United States eased a few minutes later, no one had been killed and few were hurt. The most serious injury reported so far occurred when Mentasta elder Cherry Nicolai fell on the ice and broke an arm as she fled her home, tribal officials said. 

“We believe in God. We believe in Jesus,” said Kathryn Martin, the Mentasta Lake tribal administrator. “We just know that God was watching over us here.” 

The Slana-Mentasta Lake region, about 250 miles northeast of Anchorage, is a country of log cabins hunkered deep in spruce forest, bounded by the snow-covered foothills of the Alaska Range. 

For days after a 7.9 earthquake ruptured along the Denali fault on Nov. 3, shocks continued to jolt residents of the area. People waded into homes and businesses awash in dishes, bottles, cans, books and knickknacks. Crews began repairing a highway rumpled with crevices up to 8 feet deep. 

Representatives from state and federal agencies were inspecting homes and buildings and investigating reports of damage. The American Red Cross had sent teams to several communities, and other agencies were delivering donated food, clothing and building supplies. 

The quake hit at 1:12 p.m. on Nov. 3 at a depth of about three miles. Over the next 80 seconds, the new rupture “unzipped” the Denali fault through nearly 150 miles of the Alaska Range, said state seismologist Roger Hansen. 

People in 143 North American ZIP codes, from Louisiana to New York, from California to Alaska, reported feeling the motion. The energy released made it the largest quake recorded so far in the world in 2002. 

It sliced right through Mentasta. 

At the Mentasta Lodge, located on the fault, owner Linda Lester was in the kitchen when an employee shouted “Earthquake!” She bolted outside and immediately lost her footing on a glaze left by freezing rain. 

Crouched on bare hands and bruised knees, Lester watched cracks rupture the parking lot, producing ridges in the chip-seal that looked like the traces of giant gophers. Chunks rose up, the highway wrenched away from the driveway, a log guest cabin tilted over backward. 

From inside the lodge came the clamor of dumping freezers and spilling shelves. An ATM leapt from its bolts. Bottles of syrup and sauce and beer shattered, covering surfaces with sticky, smelly goo. Sewer and water lines snapped in the basement. Walls bulged, floors heaved, Sheetrock cracked. 

But Lester’s attention was drawn to her Chevy van. It was prancing toward her on successive jolts. 

“I thought, ’Oh my god, I’m going to get run over by my own van,’ “ she said. 

A few miles to the northwest along Mentasta Lake, Benny Funk, 61, and his dog, Pal, burst from his log home. He fell to the icy ground and watched as an avalanche roared down a mountain and his porch shifted and buckled. 

But then Funk saw something he’d never imagined — a big wave surging from the benign lake he had known all his life. 

“It looked like a tsunami wave came up into the yard,” he said. “It washed some huge ice chucks up in the yard.” 

Some of the worst cracks sheared through the ground beneath the home of the Pete family. David Pete was outdoors. 

“All of a sudden, I got shocked to the ground, and all I could see was trees touching the ground like windshield blades swishing back and forth. I’ve never seen such great power.” 

As the land under his house sank, his driveway buckled. A hole wrenched open in the forest floor, exposing roots and boulders, a spruce tree ripped up the middle like a twig twisted too far. As the shaking eased, he ran inside the family’s small cabin.

DENVER — The haze over Colorado’s national parks dissipated throughout the 1990s thanks to cooperation among Western states and cleaner power plants and fuels, a federal study shows. 

The study will be presented Nov. 21 to the state Air Quality Control Commission. 

But while the air is clearer, it is not necessarily cleaner. 

Ozone and nitrogen deposits have crept up in Colorado the past few years, according to the report. In Rocky Mountain National Park, for instance, ozone levels are up nearly 30 percent, and in Mesa Verde National Park they are up 19 percent. 

The progress of the 1990s could be difficult to sustain as more people, more cars and more need for power accompanies growth and development. 

From 1990 to 2000, Colorado’s population swelled by nearly 1 million people, to 4.3 million. And a study by the University of Colorado’s Center of the American West estimates the population will grow to 6.2 million by 2050. 

“It’s a little bit of a mixed story,” Vickie Patton, a lawyer for the Environmental Defense Fund office in Boulder, said of the Park Service’s report. “We’ve made some progress, but we clearly have our work cut out for us with these challenges.” 

The stakes are high. Haze spoils scenic vistas, which can hurt tourism. Lousy air also hurts flora and fauna, as well as people, triggering asthma attacks and hastening deaths. 

Haze happens when sunlight hits pollution particles, which either absorb the light or scatter it, shortening the view and muting colors. 

The Park Service collected 10 years’ worth of data from three air monitors in Colorado. 

While the report shows improvement in the degree of haziness for Rocky Mountain National Park and Great Sand Dunes National Monument, Mesa Verde National Park in southwestern Colorado is slipping. 

Data on ozone was collected at Rocky Mountain National Park and Mesa Verde, and it showed both were experiencing increasing ozone. 

Part of the problem in Mesa Verde may be pollution drifting to the area from San Juan County in northwestern New Mexico, a region on the verge of violating federal ozone standards. 

Nationwide, air quality has improved or stayed the same in half of the 32 parks tested. 

Still, Colorado’s national parks have a long way to go to fulfill the promise of the Environmental Protection Agency’s 1999 regional haze rule.

ORTLAND, Ore. — What’s left of the wreck of the New Carissa could finally be removed from the Oregon coast if the state wins a lawsuit expected to go to jury this week. 

The state has accused the ship’s owners of trespass. It wants $20 million to cover the cost of removing the 1,500-ton stern and an unspecified amount to cover damage to the beach caused by the 1999 wreck during a winter storm. 

Lawyers for both sides are scheduled to deliver their summations Tuesday in a Coquille courtroom before Circuit Judge Richard Barron. 

“This is going to make the difference between whether the stern stays on the beach or is removed from the beach,” said Kevin Neely, a spokesman for state Attorney General Hardy Myers. “If the state prevails, the wreck is gone.” 

But the complex lawsuit could also have larger ramifications. 

The state has argued that the owners of the New Carissa were negligent in allowing the ship to run aground. A ruling favoring the state could influence the outcome of the federal government’s effort to collect compensation from the New Carissa’s owners for environmental damage. 

The state’s lawsuit also could affect the outcome of a federal lawsuit the ship’s owners have filed, claiming that navigation charts were defective. The owners are seeking $97 million.

With war looming in Iraq this Veterans Day, local veterans attending a commemoration in Albany expressed solidarity with American troops stationed in the Middle East but were skeptical about the mission they might be assigned. 

“I’m not enthused about [possible war with Iraq],” said Carl, a veteran of Korea and Vietnam who did not give his last name. He feared that a U.S. attack might lead to a regional war. 

Don Diani, who fought in Korea, said he would support President Bush’s decision, but hopes the president will do his best to avert an armed conflict. “Certainly we don’t want to see more kids go to war. I’m praying that it doesn’t happen and we can solve this verbally,” he said. 

Carl and Diani were among 10 veterans and about 15 residents and city officials who attended Albany’s third annual Veteran’s Day Celebration at the Albany Veterans Building Sunday. 

Although attendance was low, spirits were high. The Albany Jazz Band played classic marching tunes that had most of the veterans tapping their feet and a couple singing and marching in place. 

“This is very nice. Everyone here is very respectful” said Diani, who grew up in the East Bay and is now a coach for Saint Mary’s High School baseball team. 

Veterans who spoke at the commemoration sounded a somber note. “I will always remember my comrades,” said Gus Luty of Albany Post 2658 of the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW). “They were my friends and my buddies and I will remember them forever.” 

Most of the veterans at the ceremony were members of both the VFW and the Post 292 of the American Legion. They meet several times a month and are good friends. 

Carl said that despite their common bond, they rarely trade battle stories because the experiences of soldiers in World War II, Korea and Vietnam were so different. Instead they prefer to share humorous tales about the rigors of military life that are more universally experienced. 

As an example, he mentioned the many empty promises of receiving a warm meal while fighting on the front lines during the cold North Korean winter. 

Today Berkeley will honor its veterans with a 9 a.m. ceremony at Civic Center Park. San Leandro will host a Veterans Day Parade at 10 a.m., and the Emeryville Rotary Club will host a lecture at the Holiday Inn on Powell Street by Capt. John Lindford, a retired Air Force pilot. 

Contact reporter at  

matt@berkeleydailyplanet.net

Tuesday, Nov. 12 

Holiday Craft Baazar 

10 a.m. to noon 

St. John’s Presbyterian Curch, 2727 College Ave. 

Handmade items, sweet treats, and knick knacks will be for sale. All are welcome 

845-6830 

“Garbage and Globalization: Victories in the Fight Against Corporate Polluters” 

7 to 9 p.m. 

Ecology Center, 2530 San Pablo Ave. 

Inspiring talk on corporate accountability and environmental justice in the Philippines, Asia, and around the world 

548-2220 x233 

Free 

Tuesday Tilden Walkers 

9:30 a.m. 

Meet at Little Farm parking lot, Tilden Regional Park 

Join seniors and other slower walkers and enjoy the beauty of Tilden Park 

Contact Yvette Hoffner at 215-7672 or teachme88@yahoo.com  

Wednesday, Nov. 13 

League of Women Voters Meeting 

Noon 

LWVBAE office, 1414 University Ave. 

Discussion will focus on regional issues 

849-2154 

Thursday, Nov. 14 

Unitarian Univeralist Meeting Featuring Professor Michael Nagler on Peace 

12:45 p.m. 

UC Berkeley Faculty Club  

Professor Nagler, author and founder of UC Berkeley’s Peace and Conflict Studies Program, speaks on non-violent approaches to current events. Open to all 

For more information call (925)376-9000 

Free 

The Drug Resource Center-UC Berkeley 

6:30 to 7:30 p.m., Open House 

300B Eshleman Hall (on Bancroft) 

7;30 to 10:00 p.m., Celebration 

LaVal’s Pizza, 2156 Durant Ave 

Inaugural Event followed by an evening of food and fun, during which speakers will how the center will benifit the community. 

Berkeley Path Wanderers Meeting 

7 to 9 p.m. 

Hillside Club, 2286 Cedar St. 

Meeting to include a presentation by best- selling author Adah Bakalinsky who will speak about her book, “Stairway Walks of San Francisco” 

Free 

Grandparent Support Group 

10 to 11:30 a.m. 

Malcolm X Elementary School, 1731 Prince St. Room 105 A 

Support group facilitated by Marjorie Holloway LCSW for Kinship Caregivers and others 

644-6517 

Free 

Friday, Nov. 15 

“Imagining A World Without Prison” Opening Night Benefit 

8 p.m. to 1 a.m. 

Black Box, 1928 Telegraph Ave. 

The Prison Activist Resource Center events features dynamic speakers, music, art, and food. The exhibit, which features writing and artwork from prisoners, former prisoners, and family members of prisoners, runs Nov. 10 to 30  

For more information call 893-4648 or visit www.prisonactivist.org 

$5- $25 sliding scale 

Berkeley Free Folk Festival Meting 

4 p.m. 

2180 Milvia Way, 5th Floor, Red Bud Room 

Discuss final site location, date of 2003 festival, and volunteers 

649-1423, hlih@yahoo.com 

Free 

Saturday, Nov. 16 

Latina Leadership Conference 

9 a.m. to 4 p.m. 

UC Berkeley Campus 

Lambda Theta Nu Sorority Inc. will provide non-college bound Latinas information about options in higher education and tackle the high drop out rate of Latina girls  

Free 

Magic School Bus Video Festival 

10:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. 

Lawrence Hall of Science, Centennial Drive-above UC Campus, below Grizzly Peak Blvd. 

www.lawrencehallofscience.org 

Puppet Show at the Hall of Health 

1:30 to 2:30 p.m. 

2230 Shattuck Ave, lower level 

Al children adn their parents are invited to see the award-winning puppet troupe, The Kids on the Block 

549-1564 

Suggested donation $2/ children under three free 

The First Ever Integrative Medicine Conference in Berkeley 

10 a.m. to 4 p.m. 

2060 Valley Life Science Building at the UC Berkeley campus 

Interactive day of speakers and workshops exploring alternative, complementary, and integrative medicine as a whole 

For information or reservations see www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~sim/conference 

$5 with pre-registration 

Sunday, Nov. 17 

17th Annual Jewish Genealogy Workshop 

12:30 to 4 p.m. 

Berkeley-Richmond Jewish Community Center, 1414 Walnut St. 

Lectures and specialty sessions included 

Info at www.jewishgen.org/sfbajgs 

$5 for non-members 

Simplicity Forum 

7 to 8:30 p.m. 

Berkeley Public Library, Claremont Branch, 2940 Benvenue Ave. 

cecile@simplicitycircles.com 

Free 

Monday, Nov. 18 

Community Meeting 

6 to 8 p.m. 

Berkeley Alternative High School, 2107 Martin Luther King Jr. Way 

Led by the Superintendent, this discussion aims to serve as a collaboration towards establishing a long-term planning process 

R.S.V.P. to Queen Graham  

644-87649 

Women and Welfare Reform: Who Benefits and Who Loses? 

5 to 6:30 p.m. 

Women’s Faculty Club Lounge, UCB 

Lecture featuring Mimi Abramowitz of CUNY’s Hunter College 

Struggles for Racial Justice in Education 

4:30 to 6:30 p.m. 

Oakland Technical High School Library, 45th and Broadway, Oakland 

The Peace and Justice Caucus of the Oakland Education Association sponsors this event, which addresses race, youth, and education through a variety of community speakers 

654-8613 or jzern1@yahoo.com 

Tuesday, Nov. 19 

Concensus Unit: State Community College Study 

10:30 a.m. 

Berkeley Public Library, Central Branch 

Community Room 

Shattuck Ave. and Kittredge 

Sponsored by the Berkeley League of Women Voters 

549-9719 

History and Planting of Golden Gate Park 

1 p.m. business meeting, 2 p.m. program 

Epworth United Methodist Church, 1953 Hopkins St. 

The Berkeley Garden Club presents Ernest Ng, volunteer city guide, who will speak about the history and planting of San Francisco’s historic park 

524-4374 

Tuesday Tilden Walkers 

9:30 a.m. 

Meet at Little Farm parking lot, Tilden Regional Park 

Join seniors and other slower walkers and enjoy the beauty of Tilden Park 

Contact Yvette Hoffner at 215-7672 or teachme88@yahoo.com 

Berkeley Intelligent Conversation 

7 to 9 p.m. 

Berkeley-Richmond Jewish Community Center, 1414 Walnut St.  

Join the bimonthly discussion group informally led by fomer UC Berkeley extension lecturer, investment advisor and finncial planner Robert Berend. Open to all. Please bring light snacks or drinks to share. This session’s topic: To be determined by those present 

527-5332 

Free 

Wednesday, Nov. 20 

Mental Health Commission 

6:30 p.m. 

2640 Martin Luther King Jr. Way, Auditorium 

981-5270 

“Deep Healing Sleep” 

6:30 to 7:30 p/m/ 

Pharmaca, 1744 Solano Ave. 

Stress management expert, author, and Oregonian Nancy Hopps leads this integrative session 

527-8929 

Free 

Berkeley Gray Panthers General Meeting 

1:30 p.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center, 1901 Hearst Ave. at MLK 

Covering the Nuts and Bolts of Senior Health and Safety, with guest speakers 

548-9696 

Thursday, Nov. 21 

Workshop for Homeowners 

6 to 8 p.m. 

Learn how to lower your utility bills and use building materials that are healthier for your family and the environment at a free green building workshop 

Free 

Simplicity Forum 

7 to 8:30 p.m. 

Claremont Branch Library, 2940 Benvenue Ave. 

Kerrie Hein explores spirituality, life purpose, and simplicity in this discussion session. Open to all 

549-3509 or www.simpleliving.net 

Free 

“Green Building and Remodeling” 

6 to 8 p.m. 

Building Education Center, 812 Page St. 

Special fall seminar with architect Greg Van Mechelen and the Alameda County Waste Management Authority and Recylcing Board 

525-7610 

Free 

Monday, Nov. 11 

Renegade Sidemen 

8 p.m. 

Anna’s Jazz Bistro, 1801 University Ave. 

Featuring Calving Keyes 

$4 

Greatdul Dead DJ Nite 

10 p.m. to 2 a.m. 

Ashkenaz, 1317 San Pablo Ave. 

525-5054 

Tuesday, Nov. 12 

Open Mike with Ellen Hoffman Trio 

8 p.m. 

Anna’s Jazz Bistro, 1801 University Ave. 

$4 

Tom Rigney & Flameau 

7:30 p.m. doors open, 8 p.m. dance lessons with Patti Whitehurst, 8:30 p.m. show 

Ashkenaz, 1317 San Pablo Ave. 

Violinist-fiddler-composer Tom “Rigo” Rigney’s East Bay quintet Flambeau play traditional Cajun and zydeco two-steps and waltzes, low-down-blues, and New Orleans R&B 

525-5054 

$8 

Wednesday, Nov. 13 

Classical Piano Concert 

1:15 p.m. 

North Bekeley Senior Center, 1901 Hearst Ave. at MLK 

Solange Buillaume will be playing Beethoven, Bach and other cassical works 

Free  

John Wesley Harding 

8 p.m. 

Freight & Salvage, 1111 Addison St. 

Harding’s biting social commentary and outrageous humor blend seamlessly with his warm, personal songs. 

548-1761 

$15.50-$16.50 

Jimmy Ryan Jazz Quartet 

8 p.m. 

Anna’s Jazz Bistro, 1801 University Ave. 

$4 

Brenda Boykin & Home Cookin’ 

7:30 p,m. doors, 8 p.m. swing dance lessons w/ Nick & Shanna, 9 p.m. show 

Ashkenaz, 1317 San Pablo Ave. 

East Bay belter Boykin and her band Home Cookin’ purvey a West Coast Swing dance style she calls Afrobilly Soul Stew-also the name of the band’s second CD. 

525-5054 

$8 

Thursday, Nov. 14 

Peter Mulvey, Mark Erelly 

9:30 p.m. 

The Starry Plough, 3101 Shattuck Ave. 

21+ 

$10 

Alef Null 

8 p.m. 

Anna’s Jazz Bistro, 1801 University Ave. 

Moroccan and Kurdish music 

$4 

Friday, Nov. 15 

Walter “Ogi” Johnson and His Native American Flute 

7:30 p.m. 

Fellowship Hall, 1924 Cedar St. 

Fellowship Cafe & Open Mike is sponsored by the Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists. Poets, singers, musicians, and storytellers are invited to sign up for the open mike.  

540-0898 

$5-$10 donation 

The Slackers w/ Buffalo Soldier, The Phenomenauts,The Locals and Hebro 

7:30 p.m. doors, 8 p.m. show 

Ashkenaz, 1317 San Pablo Ave. 

New York’s hot ska band, The Slackers, headline an almost non-stop evening of live reggae,ska and rock dance music. 

525-5054 

$10 

Classis Jazz with Anna de Leon 

8 p.m. 

Anna’s Jazz Bistro, 1801 University Ave. 

$4 

Cynthia Dall 

9:30 p.m. 

The Starry Plough, 3101 Shattuck Ave. 

21+ 

$8 

Saturday, Nov. 16 

An Evening of Choral Music 

7 p.m. 

Pacific School of Religion Chapel, 1798 Scenic Ave. 

A wide variety of choral styles from Bay Area groups including Voci, Opus-Q, Let’s Do It!, and New Spirit Community Church Choir 

849-8280 

$15-$20, sliding scale 

Jeff Tauber and Friends 

8 p.m. 

Anna’s Jazz Bistro, 1801 University Ave. 

$5 

Alpha Yaya Diallo 

9 p.m. doors, 9:30 p.m. show 

Ashkenaz, 1317 San Pablo Ave. 

Rooted in West African Dance Music, Diallo’s lilting style brings in an African medling of Cuban, Cape Verdean, Arabic and North American blues and Jazz. 

525-5054 

$12 

Sunday, Nov. 17 

Mingus Amungus 

4:30 p.m. 

Jazzschool, 2087 Addison St. 

This seven-piece band combines be-bop, funk and hip hop jazz. 

845-5373 

$10-$15 

A Night at the Casbah 

6:30 p.m. doors, 7 p.m. show 

Ashkenaz, 1317 San Pablo Ave. 

Alexandria & the Near Eastern Dance Company presents an evening of classical belly dance and authentic folk dance from the Near and Middle East 

525-5054 

$7 

Joanne Rand & Jenny Bird 

8 p.m. 

Rose St. House of Music, 1839 Rose St. 

The Dynamic Duo in Concert 

594-4000x687 

Zony Mash 

9:30 p.m. 

Blakes on Telegraph 

2367 Telegraph Ave. 

A mix of funky fusion, eclectic experimentation, and acoustic pieces for jazz quartet. 

848-0886 

$8 

Mamborama 

8 p.m. 

Anna’s Jazz Bistro, 1801 University Ave. 

Brazillian Jazz 

$5 

Monday, Nov. 18 

“Renegade Sideman” w/ Calvin Keyes 

8 p.m. 

Anna’s Jazz Bistro, 1801 University Ave. 

$4 

Tuesday, Nov. 19 

The Dave Haskell Group 

8 p.m. 

Anna’s Jazz Bistro, 1801 University Ave. 

$4 

TEMPE, Ariz. – What a turnaround for the California Bears under first-year coach Jeff Tedford. Too bad it might not end in a bowl invitation. 

Kyle Boller matched his career high with five touchdown passes to lead California past No. 25 Arizona State 55-38 Saturday night. 

The Bears beat a Top 25 team on the road for the third time this season — a first in the school’s history. But Cal is ineligible for postseason because of NCAA rules violations that occurred under ex-coach Tom Holmoe, who was fired after last year’s 1-10 season. 

The Bears have appealed to the NCAA, but the outcome hasn’t been announced. 

“I’ve never been to a bowl game, so I’m fired up,” said senior running back Joe Igber, who ran for a season-high 144 yards. “Hopefully, the football gods are smiling upon us, whoever that may be, and maybe we’ll go. If we don’t, life goes on. My goal was to win.” 

Arizona State lost despite 477 yards passing and four touchdowns from Andrew Walter. He completed 29 of 50 passes and broke Arizona State’s single-season record for passing yards, even though he didn’t start until the fifth game. 

With two games to play, Walter has 2,994 yards, breaking the record of 2,878 set by Danny White in 1973. Walter’s 25 TD passes are second on the ASU single-season list. 

“Andrew certainly did some very nice things,” Sun Devils coach Dirk Koetter said, “but there’s no solace in numbers. There is only one number that counts, and that’s the one at the end.” 

Igber also had a 17-yard touchdown catch for the Bears (6-4, 3-3 Pac-10) in a game that featured six lead changes. 

The Sun Devils (7-4, 4-2) were doomed by three fumbles deep in their own territory, an interception returned 85 yards for a Cal touchdown, and a blocked punt that was returned for a score. 

“We have it posted in our locker room that the keys to winning are winning the turnover battle, win in the fourth quarter, and win the third-down battle,” Koetter said. “We didn’t do any of those things.” 

California, coming off a bye week, scored the game’s final 20 points after Arizona State took a 38-35 lead on Hakim Hill’s 2-yard touchdown run with 2:36 left in the third quarter. 

“It’s fun to keep battling back, that type of thing,” Tedford said. “It’s great to see the kids coming off the field, the look in their eyes, to keep encouraging them. When you see the kids laying it on the line out there, that’s what makes it worthwhile.” 

Cal led the Pac-10 in takeaways going into the game, and wound up recovering four fumbles along with the big interceptions. The Sun Devils recovered two Cal fumbles and picked off one pass. 

Shaun McDonald caught six passes for 138 yards for the Sun Devils, including touchdown receptions of 28 and 68 yards. McDonald broke Arizona State’s single-season record for receiving yards at 1,203. 

All of which was little consolation to a Sun Devils team that lost its second Pac-10 game in a row. 

“I think they were really affected by the loss last week against Washington State,” Igber said. “I could feel it while we were playing them that their minds weren’t totally there. Maybe it’s because we’re Cal.” 

Boller completed 16 of 35 passes for 213 yards and was intercepted once. 

There were 38 points scored in a third quarter that lasted almost 1 1/2 hours. The quarter ended in a 38-38 tie, and the Bears on the Arizona State 2. 

“That was the longest third quarter I could imagine,” Boller said. 

California led 35-24 after Nnamdi Asomugha intercepted Walter’s screen pass and raced 85 yards for a touchdown with 7:15 to go in the quarter. The Bears took a 28-17 lead when Ryan Gutierrez blocked Tim Parker’s punt and Wale Forrester returned it 18 yards for a touchdown with 10:03 to play in the third quarter. 

There were four touchdowns scored in a 3:17 span in the third period. The final one, an 85-yard pass from Walter to Daryl Lightfoot, cut Cal’s lead to 35-30 with 6:36 to play in the third. Hill’s 2-yard run, and Walter’s 2-point conversion pass to Skyler Fulton, gave Arizona State its brief, final lead. 

Mark Jensen’s 48-yard field goal tied it at 38 with 35 seconds left in the third quarter. 

Two plays later, a blitzing Paul Ugenti knocked the ball loose from Walter and Tully Banta-Cain recovered for Cal at the Sun Devil 13. The defense held at the 2, but Jensen’s 20-yard field goal put the Bears up for good 41-38 with 14:20 to play. 

A personal-foul facemask penalty set up Boller’s TD pass to Igber. Jonathan Makonnen caught his second touchdown pass of the night, from 28 yards, to seal the victory with 5:58 remaining.

To the Editor: 

Sharon Browne, an attorney with the Sacramento-based Pacific Legal Foundation, is absolutely correct when she states (Daily Planet, Nov. 8) that “If they [Berekely Unified School District] are using different social indicators as a proxy for race, that would violate Proposition 209.” 

The Student Assignment Advisory Committee is not suggesting that we “drop racial balance,” as the title of the Daily Planet article implies, nor are we suggesting using diversity factors as a “proxy for race,” which Ms. Browne rightly cautions against. Our current student placement plan to achieve student diversity has two significant weaknesses: diversity is being narrowly defined as being only about race, and using race as a factor in our plan, which is now illegal. 

Our committee spent considerable time and effort considering the issues of diversity and equity in our schools. We examined district statistics, academic studies, legal cases, etc. We came to the conclusion that diversity is valuable in education for reasons that are of benefit to the individual student, the district, and the community at large. We concluded that diversity helps promote equitable schools and that mere racial diversity is not enough. We need racial and ethnic diversity as well as diversity by many other measures including the “social capitol” of the family (income, education, access to resources, etc.). 

The system we are proposing is designed to create diversity across a number of factors, something we have identified as beneficial. The proposed new system does not use race as a factor in placing students (in compliance with Proposition 209,) and it results in different measures of diversity including race, socioeconomic, etc. 

These issues are complicated and require significant time for proper explaination. To that end, we are holding a public forum at Malcolm X Elementary School on Dec. 4 at 7 p.m. We invite members of the public to attend, understand the issues and share feedback with us. 

Derick Miller and Roia Ferrazares 

Student Assignment Advisory Committee

The Associated Press 

SANTA ANA – A cheese manufacturer has been fined $300,000 after being accused of selling packaged products that weighed less than their labels indicated. 

Without admitting wrongdoing, Sorrento Lactalis Inc., which produces and distributes such specialty brands as Precious, Mountain Farms, and Dairy Fresh, agreed to pay the fine to settle a lawsuit brought by the consumer protection units of the district attorney’s offices in six counties. 

The Buffalo, N.Y.-based company, which has two plants in California, was accused of mismarking weight by as much as 12 percent due to poor quality control, said Orange County Deputy District Attorney Andrea L. Burke. 

Sorrento Lactalis cooperated fully in the investigation and made several changes to prevent future problems, including buying new equipment to better regulate its packaging, Burke said. 

The case was initiated by inspectors from the California Department of Food and Agriculture Division of Measurement Standards in 19 counties.

UC Berkeley enrollment for the fall semester is higher than expected, sparking fears that the university will violate an enrollment cap agreed upon with the city and put an additional drain on local services. 

Enrollment reached 33,145 students this semester, according to data released by the university last week, 585 more than expected. The 33,145 figure includes those studying abroad, so it does not reflect the actual number of students on campus – a figure that will be available in the spring. 

Under a 1990 agreement with the city, scheduled to expire in 2005, the university is not supposed to exceed a two-semester average of 31,200 students in Berkeley per year. 

Irene Hegarty, UC Berkeley’s director of community relations, said spring enrollment is generally lower than fall enrollment and may reduce the two-semester average this year. Still, she said the university is worried that it might exceed the cap. 

The town-gown agreement, part of a document called the Long Range Development Plan, does not set out any specific penalties for exceeding the cap. But it does require the university to conduct a new study of the effects of student growth on the local environment. It also calls for a new enrollment agreement with the city. 

Arrietta Chakos, chief of staff for city manager Weldon Rucker, said significant student and staff growth has significant fiscal impacts on the city. 

UC Berkeley enrollment for the fall semester is higher than expected, sparking fears that the university will violate an enrollment cap agreed upon with the city and put an additional drain on local services. 

Enrollment reached 33,145 students this semester, according to data released by the university last week, 585 more than expected. The 33,145 figure includes those studying abroad, so it does not reflect the actual number of students on campus – a figure that will be available in the spring. 

Under a 1990 agreement with the city, scheduled to expire in 2005, the university is not supposed to exceed a two-semester average of 31,200 students in Berkeley per year. 

Irene Hegarty, UC Berkeley’s director of community relations, said spring enrollment is generally lower than fall enrollment and may reduce the two-semester average this year. Still, she said the university is worried that it might exceed the cap. 

The town-gown agreement, part of a document called the Long Range Development Plan, does not set out any specific penalties for exceeding the cap. But it does require the university to conduct a new study of the effects of student growth on the local environment. It also calls for a new enrollment agreement with the city. 

Arrietta Chakos, chief of staff for city manager Weldon Rucker, said significant student and staff growth has significant fiscal impacts on the city. 

Berkeley provides a host of services for the university, including sewer, fire response, and paramedic response. Hegarty said the university, in accordance with the Long Range Development Plan, pays the city about $500,000 per year to offset costs. 

Chakos puts the figure between $300,00 and $500,000 and says it is not enough. 

“It’s our belief that [the payment] is woefully inadequate,” she said. 

The city has spent the past five months analyzing the cost of the services it provides to the university, but Chakos said Berkeley will need an outside consultant to complete the work. The city manager’s request for a $50,000 study is currently tied up in City Council politics. 

City Councilmember Kriss Worthington said that with negotiations on a new Long Range Development Plan set to begin soon, it is vital for the study to move forward. 

“The city is not in a good negotiating position because we don’t have the information,” said Worthington, whose district stretches south of the UC Berkeley campus. 

Mayor-elect Tom Bates said that, once the information is available, he will push the university to fully compensate Berkeley for city services. 

But the enrollment issue is bigger than UC Berkeley alone. Between 1999 and 2010 the larger, nine-campus University of California system is expecting a 40 percent surge in student enrollment, known as Tidal Wave II. UC Berkeley is expected to absorb 4,000 of the new students over time, and has taken in roughly 2,000 already. 

Bates said the city can take 4,000 new students but will have to work with the state and the UC Board of Regents to either limit the number of students coming to UC Berkeley long-term, after Tidal Wave II, or win state dollars required to properly reimburse the city for services. UC Berkeley, like all UC campuses, receives much of its funding from the state. 

In the meantime, Hegarty said UC Berkeley is considering a range of short-term strategies to keep enrollment down. In the past, she said, the university has provided $500 tuition rebates for students, near graduation, who finish their studies in the summer rather than spend an extra semester on campus. Hegarty said the university will probably put that program in place again this summer, but she warned that it has met with only limited success in previous years. 

“So far, we haven’t had huge numbers taking us up on that,” she said. 

Hegarty said the university will also consider expanding its study abroad program to draw more students away from the campus. 

Hegarty said that, while increased enrollment might raise concerns about the cap, there is a positive spin on the issue. 

“The good news... is that fewer students are dropping out,” she said. 

Bates added that the increase in students will also give the local economy a boost and provide the city with a jump in sales tax revenue. 

Contact reporter at  

scharfenberg@berkeleydailyplanet.net

Cal senior midfielder Brittany Kirk scored with 14 seconds left in regulation to beat Arizona State, 2-1, on Sunday, keeping the Golden Bears’ postseason hopes alive. 

Kirk’s goal put 15th-ranked Bears in a tie with the No. 23 Sun Devils for sixth place in the Pac-10 Conference at 4-5. Had Arizona State won to knock Cal into seventh place, Kirk’s team might have missed the postseason tournament despite its national ranking. 

“The wins this weekend (Cal beat Arizona on Friday) keep us where we want to be,” Cal head coach Kevin Boyd said of his team’s tournament status. “We gave ourselves a little cushion to make sure we get in.” 

Freshman Tracy Hamm gave Cal a lead with a goal in the 24th minute, and the Bears managed to hold off a furious Arizona State charge for much of the second half. But when ASU put a free kick into the goalmouth in the 84th minute, Stephanie Peel knocked the ball into the Cal goal to tie the game. 

It looked as if the teams were headed for overtime when the Sun Devils had a throw-in deep in their territory with less than a minute left in regulation. But the ball came free to Cal’s Carly Fuller near the top of the box, and she slid the ball sideways to Kirk, who fired a shot from 22 yards out into the upper-right corner of the ASU goal for the game-winner. 

“I was just hoping for another chance before the whistle blew,” Kirk said. “I don’t know if I could have handled overtime.” 

Boyd was thinking the same thing, as moments before the goal he sent Kassie Doubrava to the scorer’s table to replace Kirk. But before Doubrava could get into the game, Fuller found Kirk and Kirk found the net. 

“Boy, I’m glad the ball didn’t go out of bounds,” Boyd said with a grin. “Brit looked like she was done, but I guess she had something left.” 

Cal 1, Fresno State 0 

• Calen Carr headed in the game-winning goal in the 75th minute for the Cal men’s soccer team Sunday afternoon at Edwards Stadium against Fresno State for a final score of 1-0. The Golden Bears improved to 13-3-2 (6-1-1 Pac-10) as the Bulldogs fell to 5-10-4 (2-6-1 Pac-10).  

Carr connected with a cross brought in by Nick Hatzke off of a corner kick to record his second goal of the year.  

The first half was uneventful, as Cal got off six shots to Fresno’s two.  

“It took us 45 minutes to get going,” noted Grimes. “We played well in the second half, creating a lot of scoring opportunities.”  

The Bulldogs best scoring opportunity came in the 59th minute when Kupono Low fired a shot right below the crossbar but was intersected by the outstretched Saunders.  

Cal, currently in second place in the Pac-10 conference, wraps up the Pac-10 season this upcoming weekend, traveling to Washington Friday and then facing Oregon State Sunday.  

Daily Planet Wire Service contributed to this story.

To the Editor: 

Here we are at another Veterans Day holiday. Holiday? No. A holiday is when people have the day off from work to recognize that day. Take, for instance, Memorial Day. Most people say that it is the start of summer. Other say it is barbecue day. No one says that it is a time to reflect on people that have left this life for a better one. How many people actually go to Mass or reflect, in some way, upon the people who have passed on? The same is true of Veterans Day. Let’s remember the men and women who gave up their lives so that ours would be better. Take the day off. Tell your kids what Veterans Day means to Americans. Reflect. 

Michael Council 

Berkeley 

While Berkeley’s search for a new police chief is just getting underway, neighboring Albany recently selected a new top cop. 

Gregory Bone, a 25-year veteran of the Albany Police Department, was chosen by the Albany City Council in September to succeed 16-year Police Chief Larry Murdo. 

“Chief Bone brings years of local experience, strong leadership and innovative ideas to the Albany Police Department,” said Mayor Peggy Thomsen, who along with City Council members settled on Bone after conducting a nationwide search that included more than 60 applicants. 

Bone said the decision to promote from within was not lost on him or other officers. 

“It shows approval of the work we have been doing and the trust we have built over the years,” he said. 

Bone joined the APD in 1977 as a patrol officer and detective. In 1986 he was promoted to administrative and patrol sergeant, and in 1991 he was assigned the rank of lieutenant, responsible for the patrol division. 

As chief, Bone is not planning any major changes for the department. “Chief Murdo has gotten us in a good position. We have a good and relatively safe community,” he said. 

Bone’s appointment as police chief marks a first for Albany. Until last year, Albany and Santa Clara were the only two California cities to popularly elect their police chiefs. 

City Administrator Beth Pollard explained that the election practice, set forth in the 1909 city charter, was devised to ensure that the chief would be an Albany resident in touch with local issues.CHIEF BONE/From Page 1 

She said city officials saw no need to change the system as long as Chief Murdo continued to run for the post. 

But after he announced in 2000 that he would not seek another four-year term, voters approved a change to the city charter providing for an appointed chief. 

“It’s hard for police to live in the community as housing prices increase,” Pollard said. “It made the number of potential officers slim to none.”  

Bone, who resides in Moraga, said his first priority is to hire new officers to bring the department back up to full strength. 

Albany typically maintains 27 uniformed officers to protect a city of roughly 18,000. But, as has been the case throughout the Bay Area, early retirements have left the APD shorthanded, and it is currently making do with a force of 23. 

“Our immediate challenge is hitting the academies,” Bone said. He will have plenty of competition from other cities also looking to hire. Last year Berkeley offered its full retirement package to officers at age 50 in order to help it recruit and retain officers. Albany offers the same top benefits at age 55. 

Bone is hoping to foster improved cooperation between the Albany and Berkeley police departments. The APD uses the Berkeley jail and does some community service work with its Berkeley counterparts, but for the most part, they operate in separate spheres. 

Bone said he has spoken to acting Berkeley Police Chief Roy Meisner and is interested in the two departments performing joint traffic enforcement on Marin Avenue, a major boulevard which runs through both cities. 

Residents on both sides of Marin Avenue have complained about cars speeding down the street. However, Berkeley officials recently expressed concern about an Albany plan to reduce car traffic on the Albany stretch of Marin, fearing that motorists would opt for Berkeley roads instead. 

Last month Berkeley hired Roseville–based Bob Murray and Associates, an executive search firm, to conduct a nationwide search for a chief to succeed Dash Butler, who retired earlier this year. The search is expected to last six months, and current Berkeley officers are expected to apply for the post. 

Contact reporter at  

matt@berkerkeleydailyplanet.net 

To the Editor: 

With voter turnout at somewhere around 40 percent of the electorate, that means that 50 percent more people stayed home than voted, and that less than one quarter of the electorate voted Republican. The word “mandate” has lost all meaning. 

Our democracy rapidly becomes meaningless unless citizens take it seriously and participate. I would like to offer a modest proposal. The act of driving a gasoline consuming vehicle has major implications for both domestic and foreign policy. I propose, therefore, that receiving the license to drive be dependent upon accepting the responsibility of democratic participation in the policies that support it. No renewal of your drivers license unless you can prove that you have voted in at least two of the last three elections. 

Tom Lent 

Berkeley 

The University of California vice president who has overseen operations for the past year at Los Alamos, Lawrence Berkeley and Lawrence Livermore national laboratories has resigned. 

John McTague, the labs’ first vice president of laboratory management, announced his resignation Friday. The office was created in 2001 to give oversight to security, safety and accountability at the three national labs. 

McTague said he’s been planning to leave the UC system since February and that his decision has nothing to do with a recent FBI investigation that alleged two Los Alamos employees had illegally spent more than $50,000 using lab credit cards, The Albuquerque Journal reported. 

“We have been looking into the robustness of our purchasing system for some time now at all three of the labs,” he said.  

“I put into place an independent external investigation team to look at the whole issue of credit-card use and purchase orders.” 

McTague, 63, said once a replacement is found, he plans to return to teaching at UC Santa Barbara. 

He said he had been waiting to leave the labs until new management systems were in place. It was a “sensible time to leave,” since the systems became operational this fall, he said. 

Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham said he is indebted to McTague for his role in improving the management of the three national laboratories during his tenure.

To the Editor: 

A rattlesnake attacked a rancher and killed one of his children. The snake was cut into pieces, but the ranch was gripped by grief and fear. The rancher knew that there were other snakes and sooner or later they might strike if they weren’t destroyed. He talked with one neighbor who agreed because the snakes threatened his oil wells. Another neighbor agreed because he sold guns to kill snakes. The local pastor agreed that if snakes weren’t good for ranchers, they must be evil. Almost everyone agreed except one fellow who was not convinced that guns are the best way to get rid of snakes. 

Outside the ranch there was support and opposition. The snakes and those who love them were bitterly opposed. Some people agreed with the rancher that snakes are dangerous but thought the town should be consulted. Others suggested alternatives to guns. But nothing can stop a rancher who wants to protect his family; a man who wants to benefit his friends and believes that he is justified by faith. Not even the possibility that his efforts might destroy innocent people as well as snakes, impoverish many while enriching a few, and distort the faith he professes. 

David James Randolph 

Albany 

CAIRO, Egypt – Arab foreign ministers urged Saddam Hussein on Sunday to accept the U.N. Security Council resolution ordering new, tougher weapons inspections and demanded that Arab arms experts be included on the U.N. teams. 

The ministers adopted the eight-point statement shortly after the Iraqi leader ordered his nation’s parliament to meet to recommend a response to the U.N. resolution, which was adopted Friday and gives Baghdad a seven-day deadline for acceptance. Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri said parliament would convene Monday 

The United Nations is not obliged to heed the Arab ministers’ demand on weapons inspectors, adopted at the end of a two-day meeting of the 22-member Arab League in Cairo. 

The United States, meanwhile, warned it will not tolerate any Iraqi failure to cooperate with weapons inspectors. “We do not need to waste the world’s time with another game of cat and mouse,” National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice warned while making the rounds of Sunday news talk shows in Washington. 

Arab foreign ministers, including Sabri, worked into the evening on a final communique that demanded Iraq and the United Nations work together and called on the United States to commit to pledges Syria said it was given that the resolution would not be used to justify military action. 

The Arab ministers “called on the permanent Security Council members who presented Syria with assurances to commit to what they presented, that the resolution is not used as an excuse to wage war on Iraq and does not constitute automatic military action,” the statement said. 

The Arab League document did not specify how many Arab experts it wants on inspection teams or say which countries they should represent. 

However, Mohamed ElBaradei, director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, is an Egyptian, and would be on the advance team of inspectors headed to Iraq if Saddam accepts the resolution. ElBaradei’s agency is in charge of looking for clandestine nuclear arms programs. 

A spokesman for the U.N. inspection operation said a list of inspectors and their country of origin was not immediately available. 

The Arab League document also demanded “the continuation of U.N.-Iraq cooperation to solve all standing issues peacefully in preparation for the lifting of sanctions and the end of the (U.N.) embargo as well as the suffering of the Iraqi people.” 

It put forward a united Arab position of “absolute rejection” of any military action against Iraq, saying it represents a threat to the security of all Arab nations. 

In addition, it called on the Security Council to require Israel to rid itself of weapons of mass destruction because they “constitute a serious threat to Arab and international peace and security.” 

Arab foreign ministers have said they fully expect Iraq to accept the U.N. resolution. 

Rice dismissed the prospect of Saddam seeking parliament’s advice as “ludicrous.” 

“Saddam Hussein is an absolute dictator and tyrant, and the idea that somehow he expects the Iraqi parliament to debate this — they’ve never debated anything else,” Rice said Sunday on the ABC network’s “This Week” program. “I’m surprised he’s even bothering to go through this ploy.” 

Iraq’s parliament is stacked with Saddam’s allies. Should parliament recommend acceptance to the Revolutionary Command Council, led by Saddam, he would have some cover for retreating from previous objections to any new language in a resolution governing weapons inspections. 

In brief remarks to journalists on Sunday, Sabri said only that the Arab position is firm in rejecting any U.S. use of military force. He said Saturday that “no decision has been taken” by Baghdad on cooperating with the resolution. But if Saddam fails to follow through, U.S. officials have said a Pentagon plan calls for more than 200,000 troops to invade Iraq. 

Britain sent similar signals, with Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon telling Sky News on Sunday that his country is prepared for possible military action against Iraq should diplomatic efforts to disarm Saddam fail. 

Earlier Sunday, Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher said he expected a positive response from Iraq, and Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal also indicated Iraq would agree to the resolution. 

Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk al-Sharaa said he received a letter from Secretary of State Colin Powell “in which he stressed that there is nothing in the resolution to allow it to be used as a pretext to launch a war on Iraq and that if the U.S. administration had any intention of resorting to military action, this resolution wouldn’t have taken seven weeks.” 

Syria, now holding one of the rotating seats on the U.N. Security Council, has taken on the task of selling Iraq and other Arab nations on the resolution.

To the Editor: 

The Republicans aren’t interested in helping people find and train for work. Once the Bush administration decided it was going to balance the budget and cut taxes at the same time, work and training didn’t look as appealing. Its answer was to drop the money from helping people find work and let the individual states do whatever they wanted. The states have every incentive to start a race to the bottom - any state that offers extra job assistance or extra cash will attract unwanted poor people from other states. 

Ron Hoover 

Oakland

OAKLAND – A $50 million cash advance from the county to help the Oakland School District pay its teachers will likely be approved this week, according to county officials. 

The school district’s cash shortage is unrelated to the fact that the district overspent by $37 million last year after gravely miscalculating its budget, officials said. 

The district typically borrows tens of millions of dollars from private lenders around this time of year to make ends meet until state funds come in, officials said. 

The budget crisis was discovered in recent months as the district switched to a new accounting system.

SAN RAFAEL – Women in wealthy Marin County suffer one of the nation’s highest breast cancer rates, a cluster that has confounded health officials. 

And women aren’t the only ones who suffer. The county has a high frequency of many other cancers, sometimes surpassing the national average. 

On Saturday, about 2,000 volunteers traveled door-to-door to gather what could prove to be important data — how many residents have cancer, where they live and if they have any idea why rates have climbed so high. 

“My hope now is that everybody realizes that as a community we can change our statistics,” said Judi Shils, a founder of the Marin County Cancer Project, which organized the effort. 

Shils said volunteers talked to at least 50,000 people and tried to collect at least $1 per person to fund an epidemiology map of cancer incidences based on 20 years of statistics gathered by the cancer center. 

But it wasn’t always easy getting people to participate. 

Tina-Lise Curtis, a 41-year-old dentist who volunteered for the project, walked away from many unanswered doors Saturday. She said she wasn’t sure the survey would have a large impact, but said that as a cancer survivor she wanted to help. 

“I don’t know what they’re going to gain from it. It’s a very small step,” Curtis said. “You think, ’Did we waste our time?’ I don’t think we did, someone had to do something.” 

Curtis, who said her family doesn’t have a history of cancer, was diagnosed with both squamous cell carcinoma, which is a form of skin cancer, and laryngeal cancer since she moved to San Rafael with her husband David in 1988. Both cancers are in remission. 

The volunteers asked residents a series of questions, ranging from age and ethnicity to family cancer history and whether they could identify any environmental factors that might contribute to the cancer rate. 

Many residents Curtis talked to only offered speculation based on what they had seen in the media. 

“I feel like I just found out in the last six months that it is an epidemic,” said Lisa Knutson, a longtime Marin resident who said that no one in her household has been diagnosed with cancer. 

According to the Berkeley-based Northern California Cancer Center, white women living in Marin County are 45 percent more likely to develop breast cancer than women elsewhere in the country. 

The researchers focused on white, non-Hispanic women because fewer than 10 cases of breast cancer are found each year in Hispanics, blacks or other populations in Marin County, which is 80 percent white. 

The center’s statistics also showed that Marin men are 25 percent more likely to get cancer than other men in California. 

“I’m concerned about it. There’s something wrong here,” said Frank Hanson, 81, who was diagnosed with bladder cancer in 1962. “They’ve just got to figure out what it is.” 

Hanson said that he didn’t think his cancer, which has been in remission for many years, had anything to do with his 78-year residency in Marin. 

While residents and researchers alike continue to search for an environmental cause, some scientists point to socio-economic factors. 

Marin County boasts a per capital income more than 200 percent the U.S. average and 44 percent of its adults hold at least a bachelor’s degree. The lifestyle linked with those populations — bearing fewer children, having them later in life or taking estrogen and other hormones to alleviate the onset of menopause — may trigger cancer, some researchers believe.

LOS ANGELES – A new statewide report detailing the impact of cell phones on car accidents has been delayed as the California Highway Patrol re-examines how the data was collected. 

The report, which was given to Gov. Gray Davis last week, has been returned to the CHP after the agency learned the numbers may have been too low, CHP Commissioner Dwight O. “Spike” Helmick told the Los Angeles Times in an article published Sunday. 

The reworked report will include data showing drivers using cell phones had been blamed for nearly seven times the number of accidents originally cited in the report. Helmick said. 

“We’re not changing any of our conclusions,” Helmick said. “It’s just adding additional data that might make it clearer for everybody.” 

The report, which has not been made public, was ordered last year by the Legislature to assist in a debate on whether the state should require handsfree cell phones. 

The report counted only 913 accidents in 2001 in which officers statewide indicated cell phone use was to blame. Three of those accidents involved fatalities, and 423 caused injuries. 

But a Times analysis of traffic accident data showed the total would be higher if the CHP included all accidents in which the driver responsible for the crash was using a cell phone. 

Helmick said officers began collecting these numbers in April 2001 at the urging of the Automobile Club of Southern California. These figures suggest at least 4,699 accidents could be blamed on drivers using cell phones.

MORAGA – What if a shopping cart became a computer on wheels, a sales vehicle sophisticated enough to analyze individual buying habits so it could pinpoint which shoppers got the best prices? 

Safeway Inc., the nation’s third-largest grocer, is quietly searching for the answer by testing a smart shopping cart. The trial reveals how retailers might capitalize on the reams of consumer information they have been stockpiling since the mid-1990s. 

It is unfolding at two of Safeway’s northern California stores, one in the affluent town of Moraga near San Francisco, the other in rural Cameron Park. 

Shoppers are greeted by the “Magellan” — a shopping cart with a book-sized computer on the front handle. A side slot lets shoppers swipe their Safeway “club” cards — the identification most major grocers now require for discounts on certain items. 

Reading the club card enables the shopping cart’s computer to tap into the buying histories Safeway has compiled on most customers. The cart can then display four grocery items offered at sales prices unavailable to anyone else. 

The computer also provides a guide to each consumer’s most frequently purchased items and monitors the shopper’s steps through the aisles, flashing ads to promote nearby merchandise. 

Safeway and other grocers experimenting with similar technology believe the tools will make it easier to reward their best customers and increase sales. 

Keeping these customers happy is becoming even more important to supermarkets as they face increased competition from the likes of retail powerhouse Wal-Mart Inc. 

The grocers also believe customers will embrace the cart’s other bells and whistles, such as store maps. 

Consumer advocates fear the smart carts will cultivate a caste system in which grocers cater to big spenders by offering deep discounts unavailable to poorer consumers. 

“I am concerned that some people are going to be left behind by this technology,” said John Vanderlippe, associate director for Consumers Against Supermarket Privacy Invasion and Numbering, a watchdog group. 

The computer, for instance, could conclude that a single man generates relatively little profit compared to a mother buying groceries for her husband and two kids. 

There’s a powerful incentive for supermarkets to be more discriminating about their prices. 

Industry data show 30 percent of supermarket shoppers generate 75 percent of a store’s sales. Analysts say it makes sense for grocers to pamper the big-spending customers to make sure they keep coming back. 

But “the best customers at supermarkets often get some of the worst treatment,” said Arthur Middleton Hughes, a vice president for CSC Advanced Database Solutions, a database-building company in Schaumburg, Ill. 

As an example, supermarket customers buying the most groceries are routinely stuck in the longest checkout lines while shoppers with just a few items use express lanes, Hughes said. “Giving greater discounts to the best customers could be just one way to reward them for standing in longer lines.” 

But the technology also might work against big spenders. For instance, the smart cart might determine that a mother buys peanut butter for her kids every week, no matter the price, and conclude there’s no reason to ever offer that shopper a discount. 

Although the consumer response during the trials so far has been “fairly good,” Safeway doesn’t have any current plans to introduce the smart-cart system in all 1,650 stores nationwide, spokesman Brian Dowling said. 

“We think this could be a unique way to deliver more offers to our customers,” Dowling said. “It would be a bad assumption to conclude all the offers will only go to high-income individuals.” 

Helen Rosenberg of Moraga swipes her card through the computerized cart to get more good deals, but she doesn’t like the system. 

“It’s horrible. It’s totally like Big Brother is watching you,” Rosenberg said. 

Safeway isn’t the first grocer to experiment with smart shopping carts. Last year, Iowa-based Hy-Vee Inc. tested similar technology that used infrared tracking devices and video screens to make special offers at some Kansas City, Mo. stores. 

The company that developed that system, Salt Lake City-based Klever Marketing Inc., has been trying to sell its smart carts to toy stores, warehouse stores and other discount merchants, according to regulatory filings. Klever Marketing officials didn’t return calls seeking further comment. 

Smart-cart critics, meanwhile, hope the technology fails. 

“This idea could backfire,” Vanderlippe said. “It could help people realize just how much information they are sharing about themselves.”

LOS ANGELES – California’s unemployment rate remained unchanged at 6.4 percent in October from September’s revised figure as the state produced a net gain of 19,800 jobs, the Employment Development Department reported. 

The rate still remained above the 5.9 percent recorded in September 2001. The state’s unemployment rate has remained fairly steady over the past six months. 

It also was higher than the national average. Last week, the U.S. Labor Department reported that the jobless rate climbed to 5.7 percent in August. 

About 1,122,000 Californians were unemployed last month, a decline of 7,000 from last month, but up by 90,000 compared with October last year. 

Of those, 655,300 were laid off, 98,100 left their jobs voluntarily and the rest were either re-entering the labor market or joining it for the first time, the EDD said Friday. 

“It is positive that we did gain 19,800 jobs because across the nation there is a loss of 5,000 jobs,” said Michael Bernick, director of the EDD. “We ran against the national trend.” 

Most job growth was in government, specifically in education as schools reopened after the summer break. 

Government jobs increased by 70,700 statewide in October, which was higher than expected. 

The largest employment decline was in the manufacturing sector, which lost 26,100 positions. 

“We continue to see some very disturbing trends,” said Brad Williams, chief economist with the Legislative Analyst’s Office. “The high-paying industries continue to lose jobs in the state. Manufacturers continue to be squeezed by soft business spending and slumping exports.” 

A bright spot in the report was that unemployment continued to decrease in Los Angeles County. 

The unemployment rate for October was 6.1 percent, down from 6.7 percent in September and 6.8 percent in August. 

But Williams said the drop may have more to do with population shifts and an increase in government jobs and does not reflect a rise in private sector employment, particularly in the aerospace industry.

By Angela Watercutter 

The Associated Press 

SAN FRANCISCO – Two El Cerrito men got so sick of receiving America Online promotional compact disks they decided to do something about it. Now they’ve had thousands delivered to their doors. 

Jim McKenna and John Lieberman, who are both in their 30s and work in information technology, are collecting the CDs from the four corners of the globe and say that when they get one million they’re going to AOL’s front door in Virginia to say, “You’ve got mail.” 

“Basically, we’ll enlist the help of volunteers who are willing to take a pickup load and drive back to AOL headquarters with us,” said McKenna. “We will be as obvious as possible and very polite.” 

With the assistance of their Web site, the El Cerrito men have collected more than 80,000 disks, which offer trial subscriptions to AOL’s services. 

Their site, which has received more than one million hits since it was launched in July of 2001, features pictures of the various things people have done with their unwanted disks and even has a section of Haiku poems that disgruntled folks have written about the CDs. 

The men say they want to build an international alliance for their cause. They already have partners in France, Germany, Australia and the United Kingdom. The allies have their own Web sites and serve as receiving points that send their accumulated disks on to Lieberman and McKenna. 

“People find this action very cool and the ecology aspect is very loved in France,” said Aziz Ridouan of Stop CD France, which has accumulated about 1,600 CDs for the men so far. 

Ridouan is the vice president of the League of Protection of the Internet with Cable, which was created to protest against AOL monopolies in some areas of France. Stop CD France is a part of the league, Ridouan said via e-mail. 

McKenna and Lieberman stress they have nothing against AOL, they just see the disks as a waste of resources and have found a creative way to ask the Internet giant nicely to stop making and sending them. 

“If they reach their goal ... I’d be happy to give them directions and greet them at the door,” said AOL spokesman Nicholas Graham. “We would make a contribution ourselves to put them over the top.” 

Graham wouldn’t say how many of the disks AOL distributes each year and noted that if anyone isn’t happy about getting the CDs they can call the company and ask to not receive them. He also noted that anyone can return their unwanted disks so the company can recycle them. 

But McKenna said AOL won’t block his address, although he has tried multiple times to be taken off the company’s mailing list. 

Just because McKenna and Lieberman may show up at the door with one million disks doesn’t mean that the company will stop distributing them. The promotion is still the best way for AOL to reach its customers and they have responded well to the disks, Graham said. 

Similar promotional tactics are used by companies like AT&T, Earthlink and others, but AOL uses the CD plan most pervasively. Their disks appear in magazines, at the post office, at movie theaters, and, of course, in mailboxes. 

“I can’t stand all the CDs I get from them,” said Leslie Byster of the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition, which handles problems caused by electronics waste. “It’s just adding more plastic to the scrap heap and the planet can’t afford to handle any more junk than it’s already getting.”

rains and wind blew themselves out heading into Sunday, damage lingered from a trio of powerful storms that swept through California. 

In all, nearly 1.6 million people suffered a power outage since the storms hit Wednesday night. By Saturday night, about 20,000 Pacific Gas & Electric customers remained without power, while another 1,000 Southern California Edison customers were still in the dark. 

Clean-up crews in the Sierra Nevada foothills town of Sonora spent Saturday slogging through a muddy flash flood that rushed though city streets overnight. No injuries were reported. 

Meanwhile, the U.S. Coast Guard has called off searches for two people swept out to sea by giant waves — a 4-year-old boy who lived north of Eureka and a 26-year-old Connecticut man who was walking Friday afternoon on a beach near Santa Cruz. 

“The chances of survival were pretty much nil,” said Coast Guard Petty Office Carl Hausner of the Santa Cruz drowning. Buoys in the area showed swells between 20 and 25 feet. 

The storms dumped nearly two inches of rain on San Francisco and up to eight inches in coastal mountains south of the city, according to the National Weather Service. 

Downtown Los Angeles received close to two inches of rain in the past four days, said Philip Gonsalves, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service. 

In Southern California, rain fell steady, but increasingly lighter throughout the day. Drivers also encountered dense fog that reduced visibility on the roadways to a quarter-mile. 

In Santa Monica, a one-story, Craftsman-style duplex slipped down a slight slope and ruptured a gas meter late Friday evening, prompting an evacuation of several nearby homes, fire officials said. The 1920s-era building was not bolted to the foundation and authorities had not determined if the incident was related to the weather. 

Light rain and clouds will continue through Sunday afternoon and a warming trend will begin Monday, Gonsalves said. 

The storms did have an upside. 

The only two Lake Tahoe ski resorts open so far – Boreal atop Donner Summit and Mt. Rose above Reno – offered top-to-bottom skiing Saturday for the first time this season. 

“It’s dumping right now. It’s awesome,” Boreal spokeswoman Jody Churich said. “People are totally stoked because it’s a light, dry powder.” 

State fire officials have lifted a dry-season ban on outdoor fires and were preparing to close fire season across Northern California. Also Friday, two inches of rain finally extinguished the four-month-old Biscuit Fire, which straddled the California-Oregon border and was the biggest single wildfire in the nation this year at nearly 500,000 acres.

CLAREMONT – Ever since Robyn Cole can remember, she has wanted to honor her father, a World War II veteran, with something as simple as a card on Veterans’ Day. 

This year, her wish has come true. 

After four years of writing letters and filling out petitions, Cole has finally helped persuade Hallmark to manufacture the cards for the first time in its history. Company officials said they had twice considered creating the special occasion cards, but dropped the idea because of a perceived lack of demand. 

When Cole, 32, recently saw the cards for the first time at a Hallmark store, she sat on the floor and cried — her emotions overwhelming her. 

“My father is my hero,” said Cole, who works in student services at Claremont Graduate University. “I want to honor him and celebrate the fact that he’s still here and that he fought for our freedom.” 

Cole’s father, Robert Sauter, served in World War II as a Navy medical corpsman assigned to the Marines from 1943 to 1946. He was stationed in the South Pacific. 

When Cole was a child, she would sit with her father as he watched war movies. 

“What I saw those men go through awe-struck me,” Cole said. “I can’t imagine going to a foreign country away from family and friends and go and shoot a gun and fight a war. It must be so frightening.” 

Cole first wrote to Hallmark in November 1998 with her idea for Veterans’ Day cards. She received a polite response thanking her for the suggestion and saying the idea would be given to company officials. 

She waited a year and wrote again, but she received no response from the company. Cole then sent e-mails through Hallmark’s web site. 

By November 2000, Cole had created a petition and gathered more than 50 signatures. She also dropped off petitions to several VFW posts with the hope they would fill them out and send them to Hallmark. 

After writing CEO Donald J. Hall, Cole received a letter in July saying Hallmark was touched by her story and would launch a nationwide line of 20 Veterans’ Day cards. 

Hallmark manufactured the cards believing about 5,000 stores would order them, but more than 18,000 placed orders nationwide, said company spokeswoman Rachel Boulton. 

Boulton complimented Cole’s determination and said the cards became a reality because of people like her. 

“Robyn was a big part of helping to get these cards produced,” Boulton said. “She deserves credit and was definitely part of the effort that helped bring the cards into the stores.” 

Cole’s father smiled as he thought of his daughter and her efforts. “I knew she would never give up, but I never thought she’d get her way,” Sauter said.

ANAHEIM – Stung by the defeat of marijuana law reform measures in three states, proponents of decriminalizing the drug are preparing for a new round of political and legal battles. 

Voters on Tuesday defeated a Nevada measure to legalize possession of up to three ounces of marijuana, an Arizona initiative that would have likened pot possession to a traffic violation, and a South Dakota initiative that would legalize hemp farms. 

Several local measures did pass, including resolutions in 19 Massachusetts districts asking state representative to support making marijuana possession a civil rather than a criminal violation. 

But the “crown jewel” of marijuana reform laws was passed in San Francisco, authorizing the city to make it official policy to explore the establishment of a medical marijuana growing and distribution program, said Rob Kampia, executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based Marijuana Policy Project. 

It is in that city, where the mayor, top prosecutor and many voters support legalizing medical marijuana, that his group’s fight will be centered. 

“We in hypocrisy-filled, stinkyville Washington, D.C., want to use your beautiful city as a beachhead in the drug war,” he said. 

Kampia joined about 500 marijuana reform advocates in Anaheim this weekend for a three-day conference to regroup after the election and plan their next step. 

All attendees agreed they have a lot of work to do. 

Federal drug enforcement officials said the election marked the beginning of the end of the legalization movement. 

The election was “a stunning victory of common sense over pro-drug propaganda,” said federal drug czar John Walters. He said that from now on, “the tide runs our way.” 

“Well, I“m up to the challenge,” countered Kampia. “I say we fight.” 

The next offensive for the reform movement will take place in several different venues, said Kevin Zeese, president of Common Sense for Drug Policy. 

Politically, advocates plan to press the San Francisco city government to follow through on what some considered a somewhat symbolic piece of legislation and actually start planting pot gardens and giving the drug as medicine to sick and dying people. 

That would be illegal under federal law, despite state and local laws that allow it, said Drug Enforcement Agency spokesman Richard Meyer in San Francisco. 

“Whoever cultivates, possesses or distributes marijuana is breaking federal law regardless of intended use,” he said. “We’ll be conducting business as usual.” 

Zeese said such confrontations are necessary. 

“Part of the process is to sharpen the conflict,” he said. 

Eight states have approved medical marijuana and 35 states have passed legislation recognizing marijuana’s medicinal value. But federal law bans marijuana under any circumstances. 

In the past year, DEA agents have raided several medical marijuana providers in California, mostly without support from local law enforcement. 

Shawn Heller, national director of Students for Sensible Drug Policy, which has chapters at 200 college and high school campuses, said other local initiatives and perhaps another state proposal should be organized. 

On the legal front,a federal appeals court ruled last week in San Francisco that the government cannot revoke the prescription drug licenses of doctors who recommend marijuana to sick patients. 

During the next few months, federal judges in California are expected to hear several more cases involving a patient’s right to use medical marijuana, and in one case to retrieve pot confiscated in a raid. 

Angel McClary Raich, who uses marijuana every two hours to control pain for an array of medical problems including an inoperable brain tumor, has a case pending in U.S. District Court in Oakland. 

“I’m fighting for my life, but also I’m trying to help other patients,” she said. 

While lawyers and advocates are pushing for reform in public venues, a group of doctors have been investigating the possible medical benefits of marijuana. 

Those results, if conclusive, could sway the American Medical Association’s current opposition to medicinal marijuana and possibly result in the reclassification of marijuana under federal law. 

National Organization for Reasonable Marijuana Laws director Keith Stroup said his outlook for the marijuana law reform movement remains optimistic. 

He said the election losses “represent a temporary setback, but it’s one we know we can and will overcome.”

SAN DIEGO– It wasn’t federal agents but a real estate deal that closed a medical marijuana information center here last month. 

Steve McWilliams, owner of Shelter from the Storm, said the storefront closed because he lost his lease after the building was sold. 

“We were the only one operating in the entire county,” he said. 

McWilliams had set up a pot garden and cannabis club under Proposition 215, a state law that allows use of marijuana by patients with a doctor’s recommendation. 

But federal drug agents have cracked down on California clubs after a U.S. Supreme Court ruling last year held there was no medical necessity to violate federal drug laws. 

McWilliams pleaded innocent last month to federal charges of growing pot in a home garden. He faces five or more years in prison if convicted. 

Michael Barbee, a member of a city task force proposing medical marijuana guidelines, said the city will continue with a plan to issue identification cards to medical marijuana patients in San Diego. About 1,500 to 3,000 patients are expected to apply, Barbee said.

Worried about a legal challenge from the right, the Berkeley Unified School District may drop a policy requiring racial balance in schools, district officials said Wednesday. 

Berkeley currently mandates that most of its schools reflect the racial make-up of the surrounding area. But, faced with a growing number of California court rulings that forbid the consideration of race in governmental decision-making, officials said they may use other factors like household income and parent education levels to ensure diverse schools. 

“We’re going to have to go to another means of achieving diversity,” said Board of Education President Shirley Issel. 

Any policy shift, though, will face significant resistance. Three of the school board’s five members have expressed strong reservations about a school assignment system that does not include race. 

“I want to make sure that we don’t go back to segregated schools,” said Vice President Joaquin Rivera at the school board’s Wednesday night meeting. “I think that would be a horrendous mistake.” 

Rivera said he is open to other approaches, but is skeptical that assignments based on household income or parent education level will result in racial diversity. 

Legal experts say the cash-strapped district will be vulnerable to a costly law suit if it continues to assign students by race. UC Hastings law professor David Hastings, who worked to overturn San Francisco’s race-based school assignment policy, said Berkeley has been exposed since 1996 when California voters approved Proposition 209, prohibiting preferential racial treatment by public entities. 

“They’ve had their heads in the sand for quite some time,” said Levine. “It seems to me that it’s just utterly foolhardy, given the law, for them [to keep the current policy in place.]” 

District officials have periodically revisited Berkeley’s desegregation plan since 1996 but have declined to make any changes, arguing that Proposition 209 language is vague and does not necessarily apply to school assignment plans. Several board members made the argument again Wednesday night. 

But in May, a state appellate court in southern California ruled that Proposition 209 forbids schools from using race to balance schools. In August, the California Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal, leaving the appellate court ruling as the law of the land. 

School board member John Selawsky said the case, which involved the Huntington Beach Union High School District, should be studied. But, he said he is still leaning toward a school assignment system that includes race, even if it results in a costly law suit. 

“I think it is important to stand up for what we believe in,” he said, predicting that liberal advocacy groups would come to the district’s aid and pay any legal fees. Berkeley Unified currently faces a $3.9 million budget shortfall. 

UC Berkeley law professor emeritus John Coons warned that, in the wake of the Huntington case, a policy making explicit use of race is unlikely to pass legal scrutiny. But he argued that there are ways to ensure diversity without relying upon race. 

The Student Assignment Advisory Committee, a citizen group that has worked with the Berkeley Unified School District for two years, has developed the outlines of an alternative plan. 

At the Wednesday night school board meeting, the committee recommended that the district, in assigning students, weigh some combination of four factors: household income, parental education level, English proficiency and single-parent family status. 

The citizen group will present a more detailed plan at the board’s Nov. 20 meeting and will seek public input at a Dec. 4 forum. The board is currently scheduled to vote on a final plan Dec. 11, but indicated Wednesday night that it may delay the vote until after Christmas. 

Nancy Riddle, an advisory committee member and newly-elected school board member who will take office next month, said the group’s proposal has tested well in simulations. Although it does not weigh race, she said, it still results in the sort of ethnically-diverse schools that are currently in place. 

But school board members worry that, as Berkeley demographics change, the new system may not continue to produce racially-mixed schools. 

Roia Ferrazares, also of the Student Assignment Advisory Committee, counters that the district could track racial diversity, English proficiency and other factors from year-to-year and make adjustments in school assignments. 

But Sharon Browne, an attorney with Sacramento-based Pacific Legal Foundation, which sued the Huntington Beach district, warned against using measures like household income and English proficiency as stand-ins for race. 

“If they’re using different social indicators as a proxy for race, that would violate Proposition 209,” she said. 

Contact reporter at scharfenberg@ 

berkeleydailyplanet.net

Some feel America is now trading personal liberty for increased security in the current fight against terrorism. Opinions about the wisdom of this choice vary along the political spectrum. 

Berkeley Repertory Theatre chimed in on the question Wednesday with the opening of “Menocchio,” a new play written and directed by Lillian Groag. 

Intended as a cautionary tale about today’s narrowing political climate, “Menocchio” is a comedy/drama about one man’s discovery of independent thought in 16th century Italy. 

Playwright Groag is a well-known director of New York, regional and international opera and theater who has made forays into the world of scriptwriting in recent years. 

Berkeley Rep showcased her wonderful “Magic Fire” a few seasons back. The play about European immigrants to South America was based on Groag’s own family. 

Her “Ladies of the Camellias,” about dueling turn-of-the-century stage divas Sarah Bernhardt and Eleonora Duse, has been widely produced. 

Berkeley Rep’s “Menocchio” proves to be a strong technical production of a script that’s not quite there yet. Its black-and-white, good-and-evil story tends to be obvious and simplistic, and lecture downwards towards its audience. 

Based on an actual historical figure, Menocchio (Charles Dean) is an uneducated man and the operator of a mill. Taught to read by a local priest (Peter Van Norden) during fishing trips, Menocchio then reads a few banned books.  

He becomes fascinated with ideas about science, religion and other heresies. Word of his love of thinking filters through the community and reaches the ears of the church, which puts him on trial before an inquisitor. 

The acting is good in this production. Charles Dean is an amusing, twitching Menocchio, simultaneously both a simple man and a burgeoning thinker, discovering new parts of himself. 

Jeri Lynn Cohen is loving and sarcastic as his witty, agitated wife, concerned that Menocchio will get himself in trouble with the authorities. 

Dan Hiatt is wonderful as Menocchio’s worried friend Bastian. In one of the show’s highlights, Hiatt plays a hilarious succession of five characters brought in as witnesses in the church trial of Menocchio. 

Van Norden has amusing moments as the exasperated local priest, fearful that Menocchio’s unorthodox ideas will land him in the soup. Robert Sicular plays several roles effectively, including a foppish local nobleman and a vicious state prosecutor. 

Ken Ruta creates an interesting, multi-faceted church inquisitor with a low-key manner in the play’s second half. 

Designer Alexander V. Nichols has staged the action on an enormous astrolabe, a device for measuring the stars. The astrolabe rotates, and people rotate on it, as a reminder in this world of feudal religious views that we are part of a solar system governed by laws of science. 

“Menocchio” is a bit like a Mime Troupe show, but not a great Mime Troupe show. Broad agitprop, it is written in humorous, anachronistic, modern-day speech. 

Especially in the first half, the story tends to be black and white politically. Further, the humor of the script seems labored. The work of making it funny falls on the shoulders of the actors. 

Because the play tips its message early, it doesn’t have anywhere to go thematically. The message seems patronizing in its unsubtleness. The audience doesn’t learn so much as watch a tableau of sarcasm and ridicule. 

A cartoony description of evolution, for example, sends a frightened crowd fleeing from a bar. Later, a debate between Menocchio and the priest on their differing views reiterates the obvious. 

In the second act, when the play sets a serious tone at Menocchio’s trial, it is often more successful. Carried away with humorous self-confidence, Dean comes alive in a wonderful interaction with Ruta’s subtle, disturbing inquisitor,  

“Menocchio” is a cautionary story about intellectual freedom. But there’s a self-contradiction in this tale about the importance of thinking. The play asks the big questions, but before allowing the audience to think about them, quickly slips in the answers.

Thursday was a bittersweet day for the St. Mary’s High cross country team, as the Panthers got one outstanding individual performance but saw their team hopes fall away at the Bay Shore Athletic League championship. 

Sophomore Gabriela Rios-Sotelo won the girls’ race by more than a minute, extending the St. Mary’s run of girls champions to four straight seasons. Current Cal runner Bridget Duffy won the last three BSAL titles for the Panthers. 

But it was Piedmont High that carried the day, winning both the girls’ and boys’ team titles. While the St. Mary’s coaches were prepared for the Highlanders’ depth to carry them in the girls’ race, the sloppy conditions and an outstanding effort from Piedmont kept the Panthers from contesting the boys’ race. 

After a steady downpour made the Joaquin Miller Park course a little muddy, a deluge just before the boys’ race made it a veritable pigsty. Combine steep, muddy hills with a pack of runners jostling for position and a fall is inevitable. Unfortunately for the Panthers, the tumble came from their best runner, sophomore Tino Rodriguez. Just after tossing his fogged-up glasses to coach Jeff Rogers, Rodriguez fell on a downhill stretch, moving him back three crucial spots. 

With each team’s first five finishers scoring points, the Highlanders looked like easy winners when their first four runners were in second, fourth, fifth and seventh place. The St. Mary’s runners came in almost as a pack, with Scott Howard taking eighth, Martinez ninth and Matt Mullarkey 10th. Emilio Flores and Jake Texara came in 12th and 14th, respectively, to close out the Panthers’ scoring, and all that was left was to wait for Piedmont’s fifth runner. St. Mary’s needed Joey Aurora to come in later than 34th, a hope that was dashed when he finished just behind the 24th competitor to lock up his school’s second title of the day. 

“I don’t think we lost it as much as Piedmont won it,” Rogers said. “They just ran a great race. Even if Tino hadn’t fallen, we wouldn’t have won.” 

On the girls’ side, Piedmont dominated the competition, but St. Mary’s sophomore Emily Olsen made a good showing. Considering her goal was to finish in the top seven, Olsen’s fourth-place finish was a remarkable achievement. But it was Rios-Sotelo who stole the show, increasing her lead on every lap and establishing herself as a favorite in the North Coast Section race in two weeks.

To the Editor: 

What stands in the way of success in our several wars? 

At first, our “War on Poverty” went OK, but eventually we lost ground and now seem to have given up. Our “War on Crime” continues, but it’s hard to say who’s winning. The net result of our “War on Drugs,” according to reports, is more drugs. Will our “War on Terrorism” follow the same inconclusive routine? What’s wrong? 

I found the answer a few weeks ago when I read about the opening of a brand new Air Force headquarters. A detachment of military personnel will be armed and ready for deployment, not against an enemy outside our borders, but anywhere there is trouble in the homeland. 

This proves that vital parts of our governing body are susceptible to the “American Policy Virus.” All policy-making organs are vulnerable; for instance, the use of vouchers to fix our broken down educational system may be the result of infection by the AP Virus. The AP Virus consists of: (a) identifying a problem, (b) giving it a name, and (c) using the name to deduce policy measures aimed at eliminating the problem. The active ingredient is (c). 

Very soon after the mass murder of 9/11, the Bush administration labeled the problem war, and as a metaphor, the label carried a double whammy – we do not take war lightly and once engaged we use every available resource to win. Then the AP Virus set in and our governing body proceeded to deduce policy measures from its metaphoric label – witness the almost unanimous passage of the so-called Patriot Act. 

An apt metaphor brings focus to a problem in the same way that a book’s title focuses attention on its contents. The AP Virus, in effect, causes the governing body to wave the book’s title fatuously about instead of opening the book, i.e. trying to find out what we can by rational analysis. 

It remains to be seen how much effect the AP Virus will have on the problem of worldwide terrorism. Is seems obvious that war as metaphor leads nowhere. 

Marvin Chachere 

San Pablo

Friday, Nov. 8  

Alexander Cockburn’s Incendiary Rants 

7 p.m. 

AK Press Warehouse, 673-A 23rd St. 

Release party for muckraking maverick Alexander Cockburn’s new spoken word CD “Beating the Devil” 

208-1700 

Free 

Berkeley Women in Black Vigil 

Bancroft at Telegraph Ave. 

Weekly protest to “End the Occupation” 

Saturday, Nov. 9 

Book Sale and Auction 

10 a.m. to 4 p.m. 

The Center for AIDS Services, 5720 Shattuck Ave., Oakland 

This big sale will benefit the AIDS center 

655-3435 

An Afternoon of Mystery  

2 p.m. 

1901 Russell St. 

Berkeley’s South Branch Library presents mystery writers Jake Fuchs “Death of a Prof”, Owen Hill “The Chandler Apartments”, and Mary Halock “The Dog on the Roof” 

525-3948 

Free 

Sunday, Nov. 10 

World Run Day-national charity benefit 

All day 

Various cities across the nation  

(516) 859-3000, www.runday.com 

Tuesday, Nov. 12 

Holiday Craft Baazar 

10 a.m. to noon 

St. John’s Presbyterian Curch, 2727 College Ave. 

Handmade items, sweet treats, and knick knacks will be for sale. All are welcome 

845-6830 

Wednesday, Nov. 13 

Public Lecture by the Rev. Canon Naim Ateek 

7:30 p.m. 

UCC, on Dana St. between Durant and Channing 

Founder of the Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center and native of East Jerusalem, Rev. Ateek will lead a discussion sponsored by the First Congregational Church of Berkeley (UCC) and the Pacific School of Religion 

848-3696 

$10/ suggested donation 

League of Women Voters Meeting 

Noon 

LWVBAE office, 1414 University Ave. 

Discussion will focus on regional issues 

849-2154 

Thursday, Nov. 14 

Regret to Inform  

Reception 6:30 p.m. / Program 7 p.m. 

Berkeley High School Auditorium, 2234 Martin Luther King Jr. Way 

A screening and discussion with filmmaker Barbara Sonneborn. 

979-0190, liz_vogel@facing.org 

Free 

Berkeley Path Wanderers Meeting 

7 to 9 p.m. 

Hillside Club, 2286 Cedar St. 

Meeting to include a presentation by best- selling author Adah Bakalinsky who will speak about her book, “Stairway Walks of San Francisco” 

Friday, Nov. 15 

“Imagining A World Without Prison” Opening Night Benefit 

8 p.m. to 1 a.m. 

Black Box, 1928 Telegraph Ave. 

The Prison Activist Resource Center events features dynamic speakers, music, art, and food. The exhibit, which features writing and artwork from prisoners, former prisoners, and family members of prisoners, runs Nov. 10 to 30  

For more information call 893-4648 or visit www.prisonactivist.org 

$5- $25 sliding scale 

Berkeley Free Folk Festival Meting 

4 p.m. 

2180 Milvia Way, 5th Floor, Red Bud Room 

Discuss final site location, date of 2003 festival, and volunteers 

649-1423, hlih@yahoo.com 

Free 

Saturday, Nov. 16 

Latina Leadership Conference 

9 a.m. to 4 p.m. 

UC Berkeley Campus 

Lambda Theta Nu Sorority Inc. will provide non-college bound Latinas information about options in higher education and tackle the high drop out rate of Latina girls  

Free 

Puppet Show at the Hall of Health 

1:30 to 2:30 p.m. 

2230 Shattuck Ave, lower level 

Al children adn their parents are invited to see the award-winning puppet troupe, The Kids on the Block 

549-1564 

Suggested donation $2/ children under three free 

The First Ever Integrative Medicine Conference in Berkeley 

10 a.m. to 4 p.m. 

2060 Valley Life Science Building at the UC Berkeley campus 

Interactive day of speakers and workshops exploring alternative, complementary, and integrative medicine as a whole 

For information or reservations see www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~sim/conference 

$5 with pre-registration 

Sunday, Nov. 17 

17th Annual Jewish Genealogy Workshop 

12:30 to 4 p.m. 

Berkeley-Richmond Jewish Community Center, 1414 Walnut St. 

Lectures and specialty sessions included 

Info at www.jewishgen.org/sfbajgs 

$5 for non-members 

Simplicity Forum 

7 to 8:30 p.m. 

Berkeley Public Library, Claremont Branch, 2940 Benvenue Ave. 

cecile@simplicitycircles.com 

Free 

Monday, Nov. 18 

Community Meeting 

6 to 8 p.m. 

Berkeley Alternative High School, 2107 Martin Luther King Jr. Way 

Led by the Superintendent, this discussion aims to serve as a collaboration towards establishing a long-term planning process 

R.S.V.P. to Queen Graham  

644-87649 

Women and Welfare Reform: Who Benefits and Who Loses? 

5 to 6:30 p.m. 

Women’s Faculty Club Lounge, UCB 

Lecture featuring Mimi Abramowitz of CUNY’s Hunter College 

Struggles for Racial Justice in Education 

4:30 to 6:30 p.m. 

Oakland Technical High School Library, 45th and Broadway, Oakland 

The Peace and Justice Caucus of the Oakland Education Association sponsors this event, which addresses race, youth, and education through a variety of community speakers 

654-8613 or jzern1@yahoo.com 

Tuesday, Nov. 19 

Concensus Unit: State Community College Study 

10:30 a.m. 

Berkeley Public Library, Central Branch 

Community Room 

Shattuck Ave. and Kittredge 

Sponsored by the Berkeley League of Women Voters 

549-9719 

History and Planting of Golden Gate Park 

1 p.m. business meeting, 2 p.m. program 

Epworth United Methodist Church, 1953 Hopkins St. 

The Berkeley Garden Club presents Ernest Ng, volunteer city guide, who will speak about the history and planting of San Francisco’s historic park 

524-4374 

Tuesday Tilden Walkers 

9:30 a.m. 

Meet at Little Farm parking lot, Tilden Regional Park 

Join seniors and other slower walkers and enjoy the beauty of Tilden Park 

Contact Yvette Hoffner at 215-7672 or teachme88@yahoo.com 

Berkeley Intelligent Conversation 

7 to 9 p.m. 

Berkeley-Richmond Jewish Community Center, 1414 Walnut St.  

Join the bimonthly discussion group informally led by fomer UC Berkeley extension lecturer, investment advisor and finncial planner Robert Berend. Open to all. Please bring light snacks or drinks to share. This session’s topic: To be determined by those present 

527-5332 

Free 

Friday, Nov. 8 

The Librarians, Bitesize, and Glitter Mini 9:30 p.m. 

The Starry Plough, 3101 Shattuck Ave. 

All age show 

$7 

Chaskinakuy 

8 p.m. 

Freight & Salvage, 1111 Addison St. 

Beautiful vocal harmonies in Spanish and Quechua 

548-1761 

$15.50-$16.50 

An Evening of Cultural Harmony 

8 p.m. 

St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. 

The Barbard Ensemble, the San Francisco Klezmer Experience, and Lichi Fuentes & Jackeline Rago will treat listeners to music from Iran, Eastern Europe, and Latin America. 

704-7480 x755 

$25 general admission 

Black Dice, Dearly Departed (ex-Subtonix), and The Mass 

9:30 p.m. 

The Starry Plough, 3101 Shattuck Ave. 

$8 

Saturday, Nov. 9 

An Evening of Cultural Harmony 

8 p.m. 

St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. 

The Barbard Ensemble, the San Francisco Klezmer Experience, and Lichi Fuentes & Jackeline Rago will treat listeners to music from Iran, Eastern Europe, and Latin America. 

704-7480 x755 

$25 general admission 

Sunday, Nov. 10 

The Sheldon Brown Group 

4:30 p.m. 

Jazzschool, 2087 Addison St. 

Reservations: 845-5373 

$10-$15 

The Starry Irish Music Session with Shay Black 

8 p.m. 

The Starry Plough, 3101 Shattuck Ave. 

Tickets available on a sliding scale 

Monday, Nov. 11 

Renegade Sidemen 

8 p.m. 

Anna’s Jazz Bistro, 1801 University Ave. 

Featuring Calving Keyes 

$4 

Tuesday, Nov. 12 

Open Mike with Ellen Hoffman Trio 

8 p.m. 

Anna’s Jazz Bistro, 1801 University Ave. 

$4 

Wednesday, Nov. 13 

Classical Piano Concert 

1:15 p.m. 

North Bekeley Senior Center, 1901 Hearst Ave. at MLK 

Solange Buillaume will be playing Beethoven, Bach and other cassical works 

Free  

John Wesley Harding 

8 p.m. 

Freight & Salvage, 1111 Addison St. 

Harding’s biting social commentary and outrageous humor blend seamlessly with his warm, personal songs. 

548-1761 

$15.50-$16.50 

Jimmy Ryan Jazz Quartet 

8 p.m. 

Anna’s Jazz Bistro, 1801 University Ave. 

$4 

Thursday, Nov. 14 

Peter Mulvey, Mark Erelly 

9:30 p.m. 

The Starry Plough, 3101 Shattuck Ave. 

21+ 

$10 

Alef Null 

8 p.m. 

Anna’s Jazz Bistro, 1801 University Ave. 

Moroccan and Kurdish music 

$4 

Friday, Nov. 15 

Walter “Ogi” Johnson and His Native American Flute 

7:30 p.m. 

Fellowship Hall, 1924 Cedar St. 

Fellowship Cafe & Open Mike is sponsored by the Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists. Poets, singers, musicians, and storytellers are invited to sign up for the open mike.  

540-0898 

$5-$10 donation 

Classis Jazz with Anna de Leon 

8 p.m. 

Anna’s Jazz Bistro, 1801 University Ave. 

$4 

Cynthia Dall 

9:30 p.m. 

The Starry Plough, 3101 Shattuck Ave. 

21+ 

$8 

Saturday, Nov. 16 

An Evening of Choral Music 

7 p.m. 

Pacific School of Religion Chapel, 1798 Scenic Ave. 

A wide variety of choral styles from Bay Area groups including Voci, Opus-Q, Let’s Do It!, and New Spirit Community Church Choir 

849-8280 

$15-$20, sliding scale 

Jeff Tauber and Friends 

8 p.m. 

Anna’s Jazz Bistro, 1801 University Ave. 

$5 

Sunday, Nov. 17 

Mingus Amungus 

4:30 p.m. 

Jazzschool, 2087 Addison St. 

This seven-piece band combines be-bop, funk and hip hop jazz. 

845-5373 

$10-$15 

“Shove Off to Birthday Island” 

Through Nov. 30 

Reception Nov. 2 from 5 to 8 p.m. 

Tue. through Sat., 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.  

Ardency Gallery, 709 Broadway, Oakland 

A collaborative exhibition of Tonya Solley Thornton and Frank Haines including video and sculptural installations. 

836-0831 

Children of the Gulf War Photo Exhibit 

Through Nov. 30 

Mon. through Thurs., 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. 

Fri. through Sat.., 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. 

Sun., 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. 

Berkeley Public Library, 2090 Kittredge St. 

Featuring works of Takashi Morizumi 

Information: www.savewarchildren.org 

Ceramics - Opening Reception 

Through Nov. 17 

3 to 5 p.m. 

A New Leaf Gallery, 1286 Gilman St. 

525-7621 

Free 

“Recent Acquisitions” 

Through Dec. 14 

Thurs. through Sat., 1 to 4 p.m. 

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

848-0181 

Free 

Menocchio 

Nov. 6 through Dec. 22 

Berkeley Repertory Theatre, 2025 Addison St. 

Berkeley Repertory Theatre presents the world premiere of Lillian Groag’s charged comedy 

647-2949, www.berkeleyrep.org  

$38 and $54/ sliding scale 

Saturday Nov. 9 

Dorothy Allison and Jewelle Gomez appear in support of Boadecia’s Books 

8 p.m. 

Northbrae Community Church 

559-9184 

$25/ sliding scale 

Tuesday, Nov. 12 

Open Mic 

The Starry Plough, 3101 Shattuck Ave. 

7:30 p.m. 

Free 

Wednesday, Nov. 13 

Poetry Slam with host Charles Ellik 

8:30 p.m. 

The Starry Plough, 3101 Shattuck Ave. 

Cash prizes up to $90 

21+ 

$7/ general, $5/ students with ID 

Friday, Nov. 8 

“El Che” 

7 p.m. 

Redwood Gardens, 2951 Derby St. 

Film screening followed by salsa dancing to support Berkeley’s Cuban Sister-City Palma Soriano. 

548-6941 

$10 / sliding scale 

“Power and Terror: Noam Chomsky in Our Times” 

7:30 p.m. 

First Congregational Church, 2345 Channing Way 

The Middle East Children’s Alliance will premiere a new film. 

548-0542 

$15 

Berkeley progressives weren’t the only ones cheering on election night. 

While the far left celebrated gains on City Council, more conservative tax and spending opponents won an unprecedented victory with voters rejecting three of four proposed tax measures. 

Ballot initiatives calling for new taxes to pay for pedestrian safety, affordable housing and a retrofit of old City Hall were all soundly rejected. Only a property tax increase to pay for a new animal shelter met with voter approval. 

“The story of this election was a tax revolt,” said Bob Migdal, a former candidate for the 4th District City Council seat. He argued that mounting city budget deficits and middle class hardships had soured residents on supporting tax hikes for new spending. 

“Look at Proposition M,” Migdal said, referring to a call to increase the tax on home sales to pay for affordable housing, homelessness prevention and apartment retrofits. “Everybody [in council] signed on to that and it lost overwhelmingly. The old Berkeley would have approved it,” he said. 

In fairness to Berkeley’s tax and spend reputation, California law makes it hard to do either. A two-thirds vote is required to pass a ballot measure raising taxes. 

Until Tuesday, that was almost never a serious hurdle. 

Since 1997 Berkeley voters have passed eight of nine ballot initiatives calling for higher taxes. 

The only tax measure defeated by voters was a 2000 initiative that proposed property tax hikes to pay for new street lights. Though losing, the measure garnered 63 percent of the vote. 

This year, Measure M won only 51 percent of the vote. Measure L, which would have increased property taxes to raise $10 million for pedestrian safety improvements fared a little better, winning 54 percent support. The most expensive ballot initiative, Measure J, which asked property owners to cough up $21.5 million to retrofit old City Hall was soundly defeated. Only 40 percent of voters supported the plan. 

Deputy City Attorney Phil Kamlarz chalked the defeat of the tax measures to the weak economy. “Berkeley voters have been very generous and they may have reached a saturation point,” he said. 

Councilmember Kriss Worthington who championed Measures M and L agreed. “[In other years] the city was awash in cash, people were awash in cash,” he said. 

Now, according to recent budget information, Berkeley is running a $2.1 million deficit, which is projected to swell to $6.4 million in two years. Last month, council approved a temporary spending freeze until plans for the next two-year budget are finalized in June. 

Worthington though didn’t think voter rejection of the ballot measures amounted to a tax revolution. He said that if council had put fewer tax initiatives on the ballot, they may have won enough support to win.  

I think a lot of people saw all the tax measures on the ballot and said ‘OK, I’ll vote for three,’ said Worthington. “If we only had the animal shelter, pedestrian safety and affordable housing [on the ballot], I think they all might have won.” 

With Berkeley lacking in funds and tax hikes rejected, city officials need to find creative ways to fund programs.  

City Housing Director Stephen Barton said he would try to get more grant money to pay for building affordable housing, but said the city might have to tank its program to help keep at-risk, low-income residents from becoming homeless. 

“The city is facing a bunch of nasty trade-offs,” he said. “There are a lot of programs that are all good and important. I don’t know how you make trade-offs between child care and emergency assistance to keep people in their homes.” 

Contact reporter at matt@ 

berkeleydailyplanet.net 

NEW YORK — Three British exports from rock’s “new wave” of the late 1970s — The Police, The Clash and Elvis Costello and the Attractions — will join the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame next year. 

They’ll be inducted along with the Righteous Brothers, blue-eyed soul singers of “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’,” and Australian hard rockers AC/DC. 

The 18th annual Hall of Fame induction ceremony will be held March 10 in New York and televised later on VH1. 

The Police’s relatively short career included hits such as “Roxanne” and “Every Breath You Take.” Lead singer Sting maintains an active solo career.

Having already clinched a league title, the Berkeley High girls volleyball team moved one step closer to its third consecutive undefeated Alameda-Contra Costa Athletic League season on Thursday with a straight-set win (15-1, 15-6, 15-7) over El Cerrito High. 

As the Yellowjackets’ last regular-season home game, Thursday night was Senior Night, and Berkeley (20-10 overall, 13-0 ACCAL) seniors certainly came through with the spotlight on them. All four of the elder members of the team had good performances, led by middle blocker Vanessa Williams’ 12 kills, nine digs and four aces. Her front line partner, outside hitter Amalia Jarvis, had six kills, 10 digs and two aces, while setter Danielle Larue served up six aces. Rachel Phillips, who is a spot starter, took advantage of her increased court time with a season-high six kills to go with 12 digs. 

Berkeley has just one match left, a Tuesday match against Alameda High, in the way of an unblemished league record. Head coach Justin Caraway said he is “cautiously optimistic” that his team can run the table, which may be a bit of an understatement. Caraway’s squad hasn’t lost more than one game in an ACCAL match in the three years since joining the league, and Berkeley’s dominance doesn’t seem likely to end anytime soon. 

After the regular season, the Jackets will try to duplicate their remarkable North Coast Section title run of last year. Although several players are back from the upset wins over Bishop O’Dowd High and Castro Valley High, Berkeley’s subpar performance against top competition this year has Caraway a little nervous. 

“O’Dowd will be a mental hurdle again, because they’ve beaten us so many times,” Caraway said. “I also have no idea where we’ll be seeded because we have so many losses. I don’t know how that will affect us.” 

Berkeley came out on fire against El Cerrito (5-8 ACCAL), with Jarvis and Williams pounding the ball all over the court. Although the Jackets did let up in the subsequent games, allowing the Gauchos some easy points, Caraway was pleased with the emotion his players brought to the match. 

“I thought we came out and played very well in the first game, really put [El Cerrito] on their heels,” he said. “We lost some focus from there. We’ve struggled with the mental challenge of playing weaker teams all season.”

o the Editor: 

Thank you Daily Planet. Web site sfgate.com couldn't provide sufficient election news. Not very surprising that sfbayguardian.com was asleep mid-week, and why did I waste time checking the Oakland Tribune and the San Jose Mercury News? Perhaps it's the agricultural runoff I've been drinking in the tap water. 

Thank you for being there in our own little planet so that I could get the news of Election Day. 

Sarah Savage 

Davis

After a several block car chase, police tracked down one of two armed robbers who put a gun to three UC Berkeley students early Thursday. 

According to police, the three students were standing on the corner of Telegraph Avenue and Channing Way at 12:41 a.m. when a man wearing a ski mask, whipped out a long black shotgun and demanded their money. 

The victims complied, and the suspect ran into a red get-away car, driven by an accomplice, said Officer Mary Kusmiss. 

Police were notified, and began searching the area. A patrol officer spotted the car at Shattuck Avenue and Channing Way and drove after the suspects, south on Shattuck and then west on Dwight Way. 

The suspects fled their moving car at Dwight and Martin Luther King Junior Way. Officers chased down one of the suspects behind a fence on the 2500 block of Martin Luther King.  

A search of the suspects’ car, which plowed into a tree on the 1800 block of Dwight, turned up a shotgun, a pistol and the victims’ belongings. 

Police arrested Jonathan Agreda, 19, from Oakland on charges of armed robbery and possession of a loaded gun. 

To the Editor: 

Do we need polling places? Do we need ballot glitches? Computer failures? Inept workers? Lines and traffic? 

My absentee ballots work just fine and, of course, includes the full identity of the voter. Most of us fill in those sample ballots we all get anyway. Why can’t we all vote by mail, saving a great deal of money and major headaches? 

I suspect we would get more voters as well. 

Gerta Farber 

Oakland

ACRAMENTO — Four former members of the Symbionese Liberation Army accused of killing a woman during a 1975 bank robbery pleaded guilty to second-degree murder Thursday. 

The four are William Harris; his ex-wife, Emily Montague; Michael Bortin; and Sara Jane Olson, who is already serving 14 years behind bars for a 1975 attempt to blow up two Los Angeles police cars. 

They face prison terms of six to eight years in the plea agreement they entered in Sacramento County Superior Court. Sentencing is scheduled Feb. 14. 

The pleas bring the legal proceedings involving the SLA, the radical group that became prominent when it kidnapped newspaper heiress Patricia Hearst in 1974, almost to an end. 

Montague admitted in court that she had pulled the trigger in the shotgun slaying of 42-year-old Myrna Opsahl during an April 21, 1975, robbery of the Crocker National Bank in suburban Sacramento. Montague received the longest term of eight years. 

Opsahl’s death was “a very violent, horrific senseless crime,” said Sacramento County Assistant District Attorney Robert Gold. 

Montague, 55, fought back tears and said the shotgun discharged accidentally. 

“I was horrified at the time,” she said. “There has not been a day in the last 27 years that I have not thought of Mrs. Opsahl and the tragedy I brought on her family.” 

She also denied ever calling Mrs. Opsahl a “bourgeois pig,” as Hearst alleged in her 1982 book, “Every Secret Thing.” Montague said she didn’t want anyone to think she considered Opsahl’s life insignificant. 

All four former SLA members apologized to Opsahl’s family, sitting in the front row of the courtroom. 

“I say that from the bottom of my heart,” said Harris, 57, of Oakland. He faces a seven-year sentence, unless he can convince prosecutors and Judge Cecil Thomas to lower it to six years, which Thomas called “an uphill battle.” 

Olson, 55, of St. Paul, Minn., will receive a six-year sentence under the plea agreement. She will be allowed to withdraw her plea if the state’s parole board disagrees with that agreement, authorities said. 

“I never entered that bank with the intent of harming anyone,” Olson said. “I am truly sorry, and I will be sorry until the day I die.” 

The state Board of Prison Terms in October lengthened Olson’s original prison term for the attempted bombing by five years, citing the potential for violence and harm from the multiple intended victims. 

Bortin, 54, a Portland flooring contractor, also received a six-year sentence. 

During the robbery, Bortin said in court Thursday, he held a handgun that he “waved a little bit” and was the one who announced it was a robbery. 

He was “devastated and very ashamed” about his role in the robbery and murder, Bortin said. “I know it doesn’t mean much to say I am sorry to the family. ... I just cannot imagine how horrible it must be.” 

Bortin said the actions of the revolutionary band did “horrible damage” to people who peacefully protested social conditions. 

The guilty pleas essentially mirror Hearst’s account of a bank robbery that wound up with an unintentional shooting. 

Hearst gave “the FBI this information first in 1976 and then she wrote a book about it in 1982 and from what I understand the information ... from the defendants in absolutely consistent,” said George Martinez, Hearst’s attorney. “Her reaction is basically gratitude that this chapter in her life may now hopefully be finished.” 

A fifth suspect in the case, James Kilgore, 55, has been a fugitive since the 1970s. 

Before the pleas, prosecutors had been building their case in the 27-year-old robbery and murder. They cited new forensic evidence in bringing the charges after the 1999 arrest of Olson, who had moved to Minnesota in the 1970s, changed her name from Kathleen Soliah and became a housewife and mother. 

Gold cited several reasons for accepting the pleas, including “evidentiary difficulties” that existed even when the case was fresh. Gold also explained that while the defendants were violent criminals at the time, for the last 20 years or more, “each defendant has led an otherwise law-abiding life,” and is no longer is a danger to society. 

He said the Opsahl family agreed to the case’s resolution as long as the defendant each publicly admitted responsibility for Myrna Opsahl’s death. 

All agreed to pay restitution if requested by the family, and to give up any rights to profit from selling their version of the high-profile national case. 

Myrna Opsahl’s son, Jon Opsahl, who led the fight to see his mother’s killers arrested and tried, was in the front row of the courtroom, sitting next to his widower father. 

A smiling Opsahl declined comment, saying “I want to see it before I believe it.” 

Olson, the only defendant in custody, appeared wearing orange pants, a yellow top, and was shackled at the wrists and ankles.

To the Editor: 

I and others in the coffee trade are glad that Measure O, the coffee initiative, went down to defeat. It was a short-sighted approach to a complex problem that could not have been solved by vote but rather by education of the public to the importance of what is an arguably better product, produced with greater respect to worthy concerns. 

In the future, the coffee trade will develop along the lines desired by Rick Young; that is already happening now. 

Consumer demand will drive the specialty coffee trade to produce more organic coffees to satisfy that demand. It is essential for the public to remember that their dollars are power – and that business has to answer to that power. 

John Rippo 

Publisher and editor, ESPRESSO 

San Diego 

Julia Wildwood, the 56-year-old grandmother who left Berkeley in late September to walk to Washington D.C., is now in Flagstaff, Arizona. 

Fed up with high rents and the sluggish job market, and facing the prospect of homelessness after the financial failure of her Berkeley baking business Looney Moon Cookies, the social activist decided she wanted out.  

“Those who know me know that writing and organizing for peace and justice has been my calling for some 33 years,” Wildwood said. “Those with a similar calling can relate to the difficulty of balancing such purpose with making a living.” 

Wildwood's solution to the dilemma was, simply, to walk. She left Berkeley Sept. 30 with nothing more than a backpack, a hat, sunglasses and two walking sticks. 

“Call it a protest. What it will accomplish, I don't know,” she said. 

With five weeks of the trek under her belt, Wildwood said she has had many adventures, including a spat with an armed security guard over a broken ATM machine. However, she says she’s “met mostly caring people along the way.” 

Wildwood expects to reach Washington, D.C. by June, 2003. 

– Melissa McRobbie

To The Editor: 

Leon Mayeri's selective views and history of Berkeley's voter-approved 1980 Rent Stabilization Ordinance quite literally turn reality on its head (Forum Oct. 24). 

Mr. Mayeri's suggestion that a 45 percent across-the-board rent hike between 1990 and 1994 – the greatest rent increase in rent board history – was “anything but disastrous” for Berkeley's 19,200 rent controlled households is unfortunate. For tenants living in Berkeley at the time, the economic impact of this rent hike was, without exaggeration, staggering. 

Passed by a real estate industry-backed rent board majority, this 45 percent rent hike led directly to the 1994 landslide election victory of an affordable housing rent board slate. Since 1994, affordable housing majorities have won four consecutive rent board elections by wide margins – a solid vote of confidence by Berkeley's voters. 

In his letter, Mr. Mayeri cites a 1990 court decision (the “Searle Decision”) that pertained to the Rent Board. Mr. Mayeri implies that this court decision “ordered” the Rent Board to raise rents across-the-board by 45 percent. This notion is a myth. 

The Searle Decision never mandated or cited a specific rent level adjustment, percentage or number. The judge's decision only required the Rent Board to address the concerns of property owners who owned or bought Berkeley rental units before 1980 – the year Berkeley's rent control program started. 

Seizing upon this 1990 court decision at the time, the real estate-backed Rent Board majority first imposed an arbitrary 28 percent citywide rent hike, then passed additional rent hikes totaling 17 percent over four years (45 percent total). 

The board also imposed this 45 percent increase upon thousands of renters who lived in units purchased by property owners after 1980 – a clear contradiction of the Searle decision's intent. Taken together, all 19,000 rent controlled units were blindsided by these unreasonable and egregious rent increases. 

Finally, Mr. Mayeri complains that no study has ever been conducted to determine the household income of Berkeley tenants (“for fear of revealing the facts” about renter income levels). In fact, the 1990 U.S. Census details both Berkeley renter and property owner income levels. According to the U.S. Census, the median renter-occupied household income stood at $19,000. The median owner-occupied Berkeley household stood at $50,000. Meanwhile, the value of Berkeley property has exploded by 300 to 400 percent between 1980 and 2000. 

George Azar 

Berkeley

NEW HAVEN, Conn. — Two collegiate powerhouses, Yale and Stanford, have decided to take some of the stress out of the admissions process by ending their binding early decision programs. 

Starting next fall, students will be able to apply early but won’t be forced to attend if they get in. 

The presidents of both universities hope their switch to nonbinding “early action” policies will prompt other top colleges to end their binding early decision programs, which have been criticized for putting too much pressure on high school students. 

“This new policy offers those who have set their hearts on attending Stanford the opportunity to apply early in their senior year, without the additional pressure of having to commit before they are ready,” President John Hennessy said in a statement Wednesday. 

Binding early decision policies are especially difficult for students who need financial aid, because they cannot weigh aid offers from competing schools. 

Yale and Stanford’s new policies, however, won’t allow early applicants to apply for other nonbinding programs — unlike Harvard, which does. Harvard also does not require students who apply early to attend if they are accepted. 

Yale President Richard Levin acknowledged that the change may cost the Ivy League school up to 20 percent of its top applicants. 

“Our final thinking was that it would be unfortunate, but the value of making the change outweighs the concern,” Levin said. “Early decision programs help colleges more than applicants.” 

Early decision started at most elite colleges to allow top students to win admission to their first choice without having to go through the longer admissions process. Students apply in the fall, instead of in the spring. 

It’s not clear what effect the changes at Yale and Stanford will have on other top colleges. 

Brown, which reluctantly started offering early decision last year, is considering whether to alter its policy, university admissions officials have said. 

Princeton has no plans to change its binding early admissions program, spokeswoman Lauren Robinson-Brown said. 

SAN JOSE — A San Jose boy is lucky to be alive, and uninjured, after he and some friends decided to try a stunt they saw in the movie “Jackass.” 

The 14-year-old was spotted running down North Sixth Street in the downtown area by a San Jose Police officer on patrol Tuesday. The officer noticed him because he was yelling -- and his sweatshirt was on fire. 

“The flames were going above his head,” San Jose Police spokesman Sgt. Steve Dixon said this morning. 

The officer immediately pulled over, got a fire extinguisher from the trunk of her patrol car and sprayed the boy down.  

Amazingly, he suffered no burns and did not require any medical treatment, according to Dixon, who attributes that to the officer being in the right place at the right time. 

After the boy had been extinguished, the officer noticed a wet shirt around his neck. Dixon said the boy told her he and his friends had just seen the movie “Jackass” and he volunteered to be the guinea pig when the three decided to emulate one of the stunts for fun. 

The shirt had been dampened with lighter fluid. 

The boy was returned home to his mother, who “was not very happy,” Dixon said. 

“Jackass,” a movie based on the controversial MTV television series, stars Johnny Knoxville and a group of men who go around performing “a variety of strange, painful and often humiliating stunts for the amusement of themselves and those around them,” according to the movie's producers. 

Both the television series and the movie begin with this warning: “The following show features stunts performed either by professionals or under the supervision of professionals. Accordingly, MTV and the producers must insist that no one attempt to recreate or reenact any stunt or activity performed on this show. MTV insists that our viewers do not send in any home  

footage of themselves or others being jackasses. We will not open or view any submissions, so don't waste your time.” 

Regardless of the warning, Tuesday's incident in San Jose isn't the first time life has tried to imitate the new-age “art.” 

In January 2001, a 13-year-old Connecticut boy suffered second-degree burns when he copied a “Jackass” stunt in which Knoxville laid down on a barbecue in a fire-resistant suit hung with steaks. 

An 11-year-old boy, also from Connecticut, burned himself copying a stunt in which he soaked a rag with engine degreaser, wrapped it around his leg and set it on fire. 

In April 2001, an Ohio teen was injured after trying to jump over a moving car, a stunt that his friends videotaped and that spawned a lawsuit from the teen's parents.

SAN DIEGO — Jurors were asked Thursday to decide whether a county toxicologist murdered her husband to keep her drug use and office affair a secret or if he committed suicide. 

The seven-man, five-woman Superior Court jury began deliberating after two days of closing arguments. 

Kristin Rossum, 26, is accused of poisoning Gregory de Villers with a massive dose of fentanyl, a painkiller 80 times more powerful than morphine. 

His body was found in the couple’s bedroom on Nov. 6, 2000, with red rose petals scattered around him and a wedding photo propped up nearby. 

Rossum is charged with first-degree murder with special circumstances. She faces life in prison without possibility of parole if convicted. 

Prosecutors contend Rossum killed her husband to keep him from revealing to her employers at the San Diego County Medical Examiner’s office that she was a methamphetamine addict who was stealing drugs from work and having an affair with her boss, Chief Toxicologist Michael Robertson. 

In his closing argument Thursday, defense attorney Alex Loebig said there was no reason for Rossum to poison her husband, whose death was a tragic, unexpected suicide. 

The defense contended de Villers killed himself because he was despondent that his wife was about to leave him for Robertson. Loebig also said Rossum was not afraid her colleagues would learn of her affair because many of them already knew about it. 

“This idea of a secret relationship ... is malarkey. It’s not true,” he said. 

Prosecutor Dave Hendren claimed she had motive and thorough knowledge of the drug that killed him — as well as easy access to it. 

“She is a poison expert,” Hendren said in rebuttal. “Greg de Villers was killed with the perfect poison.” 

Prosecutors allege Rossum staged a suicide scene, scattering rose petals around him to mimic a scene from her favorite film, “American Beauty,” then placed a wedding photo nearby.

San Francisco's Nancy Pelosi moved Thursday to become the highest ranking Democrat in the U.S. House of Representatives, after Rep. Richard Gephardt announced he would step aside. 

Following the Democrats' poor showing in congressional races around the nation, Gephardt announced he would let others take the day-to-day reins while he took stock of the overall situation. 

Pelosi released a statement thanking the departing Democratic leader and supporting his vision and values. But she also said she planned to become a candidate for his job immediately.  

“I look forward to building upon the strong foundation he has established,” she said. Fellow Democrat Rep. Tom Lantos, of San Mateo, also expressed his gratitude to Gephardt for his eight years of service during “particularly difficult years for our party.” 

Pelosi, D-San Francisco, has been in the House since 1987. Last fall she made history by becoming the first woman to be named Democratic Whip, the party's No. 2 position in the House. 

She serves on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and is a senior member of the Appropriations Committee as well as its Subcommittee on Labor Health and Human Services and Education.  

Pelosi has made human rights and health services, particularly AIDS and breast cancer, central themes in her legislative efforts.

SACRAMENTO — Voters’ widespread approval of state and local school bond measures marked a surprising victory in the face of the struggling economy, analysts said Wednesday. 

Californians approved most state and local school bond measures on Tuesday, putting $22.4 billion into the pipeline for construction and other projects. 

Topping the list was state Proposition 47, a $13 billion general obligation bond that is the largest in California history. It passed with a decisive 59 percent of the ballots cast. 

“That’s a big vote in a recession,” said Stephen Levy, a senior economist at the Center for the Continuing Study of the California Economy. “This is clearly an electorate that, in a time of recession, is saying these investments are important for the future and the state’s quality of life.” 

The funds generated by Proposition 47 will be used to make repairs and relieve overcrowding at schools throughout the state, from kindergarten to university campuses. 

Schools throughout California will be getting another $9.4 billion from 90 local school bond measures approved Tuesday, according to School Services of California, a company that provides consulting services to school districts. 

In many areas, school bonds are being used to make up for decades of a swelling student enrollment and limited school construction. 

Kim Rueben, a public finance economist at the Public Policy Institute of California, said the bonds also help local districts access state money, which often requires districts to provide matching funds. 

Proposition 39, approved two years ago, made it easier to pass local school bonds by lowering the percentage of votes required for approval from two-thirds to 55 percent in most cases. 

Among the measures passed Tuesday was a $3.35 billion bond for the Los Angeles Unified School District — the largest local bond in California history. The district intends to use the money to build 120 new schools and create 115,000 new classroom seats. 

The measure passed decisively with 68 percent of the vote. The LAUSD previously passed a $2.4 billion school bond in 1997. 

Elsewhere, a $685 million bond will be used to make safety repairs and upgrade facilities for the 100,000 students enrolled in the San Diego Community College District. The San Juan Unified School District in Sacramento County will put the $350 million from its successful bond measure toward “basic needed repairs of the schools we already have,” said Deidra Powell, spokeswoman for the district. 

Taxpayer groups and other opponents rallied against many of the measures, saying the money used to pay off California’s enormous bond debt would eventually come out of the pockets of taxpayers and the budgets of other state programs. 

But Levy drew a distinction between state and local school bonds. 

When voters approve local bonds, they also sign off on specific property tax increases to pay them off, he said. With state bonds, however, there’s an illusion that the money’s free because the measures are paid for from the state general fund.

TAHOE CITY — Raindrops and snowflakes were falling on Lake Tahoe Thursday, but drought has left the lake at its lowest level in eight years — falling below the spillways that feed the Truckee River. 

“The bottom line is were not getting any water out of the lake,” said federal Water Master Garry Stone. 

Officials hope a series of strong storms expected through the weekend and a strengthening El Nino could help reverse dry conditions plaguing the region the last three years. 

If dry conditions continue this winter, substantial water supply problems could come next summer and suppliers would be forced to tap water stored in upstream reservoirs for drought emergencies. 

Sufficient storage remains in Boca Reservoir to maintain the federally mandated flows in the Truckee for a couple more weeks, Stone said. 

By the end of November, only natural flow from creeks and springs will enter the river, which could go nearly dry in places until the spring runoff. 

Tahoe currently is a few centimeters above the spillway rims of 6,223 feet above sea level. Its lowest level ever recorded was 6,220.26 feet on Nov. 30, 1992, in the midst of a lengthy drought. 

When the lake is full, up to 6 feet of water is stored above the natural rim for release into the Truckee River. 

“We’re back in a drought situation again and its just a matter of waiting for some precipitation,” Stone said. 

To raise Lake Tahoe far above its diminished levels, a significantly above-average if not epic winter will be needed, said Lori Williams, general manager of the Truckee Meadows Water Authority.

SAN FRANCISCO — As the stock of drug maker Titan Pharmaceuticals crashed to all-time lows, at least one savvy shareholder made a killing: its chief executive officer. 

Dr. Louis Bucalo legally cashed in 200,000 shares on Oct. 2 for about $9.5 million, according to federal filings, giving him a windfall nearly 40 times greater than the $1.28-per-share price average investors sold at that same day. 

Bucalo’s good fortune can be attributed to an investment strategy known as a stock collar — a popular tool in the hedging community but a rare and controversial move for an executive to make with his won company’s stock. 

Two years ago, Bucalo simultaneously made two bets: first that the stock would fall below $51.02 a share, second that the price would rise above $78.86. 

That collared his sale price between those two numbers — locking in a guaranteed minimum value for his shares. In exchange, he sacrificed potential profits should the stock rise above $78.86. 

At the time, Titan was reporting positive results from a Phase III trial of its experimental schitzophenia drug iloperidone. Its stock hovered near its all-time high of $65 a share. 

Since then, Titan’s shareholders lost $1.6 billion as the company’s stock tumbled with the market. 

When Bucalo’s two bets came due Oct. 2, the stock had cratered and he was able to sell 200,000 shares at $51.02. 

Bucalo initially disclosed the move in a November 2000 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, and again last month. Now, some are criticizing Bucalo for betting against the company he leads as chief executive and chairman. 

“It’s just not right for a chief executive of a development-stage company like Titan, which has never posted a profit, to bet against his company,” said David Miller, co-founder of the investment newsletter Biotech Monthly. 

Miller said the technique erodes investor confidence in money-losing startups and should be used only — if ever — by insiders at blue chip companies. 

Bucalo referred a telephone call for comment to Titan lawyer Fran Stoller of New York’s Loeb & Loeb. 

Stoller defended the collar as legal and appropriate, and said it was the first time Bucalo sold Titan stock since he founded the company in 1991. 

“After being in a company for ten years, it was time to do something,” Stoller said. “Everything he owns is in the company.” 

Judy Shine, president of money manager Shine Investment Advisory Services in Englewood, Colo., said it’s a good idea to hedge like Bucalo did when a person’s portfolio is loaded with a single stock. 

“I have presented this to people left and right,” Shine said. “It makes sense for a person with a highly concentrated portfolio to get into a collar.” 

Stoller said when Bucalo entered into the collar, nobody foresaw the stock’s crash. At the time, she said, Bucalo risked never realizing potential profits if the company’s stock soared past the $78.86 a share price. 

“He is no Ken Lay,” Stoller said. 

Stoller said the collar was a popular hedging strategy at the time. Miller and others disputed that, saying it’s rare among executives trading shares of their own companies. 

In the latest issue of Biotech Monthly, where Bucalo’s deal was first reported, nine biotechnology companies unanimously said they prohibit their executives from entering into similar deals, with one saying it was a fireable offense. 

“It happens, but not that often,” said Lon Gerber, director of insider research at Thomson Financial. “It is not a common practice.” 

SEC filings also show Bucalo bought 250,000 Titan shares at about $1.50 each in the week after his windfall. He now holds 300,231 shares in Titan, which is also developing drugs to fight cancer and Parkinson’s disease.

An international student group started a campaign that urges shoppers to avoid Gap clothing stores this holiday season by placing ads Thursday in newspapers at several leading universities. 

The United Students Against Sweatshops said it is acting in response to anti-union activity at factories manufacturing Gap products in El Salvador and South Africa. 

Ben McKean, the group’s spokesman, said Gap suppliers in those two countries have used physical harassment, termination and blacklisting to impede organizing efforts. 

“It’s hard enough to organize unions in a lot of these countries,” McKean said. “For management to take such a hard line is really unacceptable.” 

He called the group’s action a two-month “holiday campaign” meant to convey a message from the foreign factory workers to the American public. McKean said the effort is not a boycott, which he characterized as a movement that continues indefinitely. 

The organization will assess the effectiveness of the campaign early in the new year to determine if it will continue, McKean said. 

A spokeswoman for San Francisco-based Gap declined comment, referring to a section of the company Web site on “ethical sourcing,” where the retailer pledges to promote fair treatment for workers by the vendors who make Gap clothing. 

“All of us at Gap Inc. want factory workers to be treated with dignity and respect,” a statement on the site says. 

The anti-Gap campaign is starting with advertisements in five college newspapers, including those at Harvard University, the University of Arizona and the University of Michigan.

SAN FRANCISCO — Just because Gap Inc.’s sales rose for the first time in 2 1/2 years doesn’t mean the long-slumping retailer finally has turned the corner, company executives and industry analysts said Thursday. 

Gap raised hopes for better times by reporting October sales that far exceeded expectations. The San Francisco-based company’s same-store sales — a key measure of how a retailer is faring compared to the previous year — climbed 11 percent in October. 

The surge ended 29 consecutive months of declining same-store sales at the Gap. Spurred by a catchy advertising campaign tied to the “Green Acres” theme song, the Gap’s discount chain — Old Navy — fueled the comeback with a 24 percent increase in same-store sales. 

Business rebounded so much during October that Gap said its third-quarter profit will be at least two times higher than investors previously expected. 

Gap expects to earn 12 cents to 14 cents for its just-completed fiscal quarter, well above the previous consensus estimate of 6 cents among analysts surveyed by Thomson First Call. 

Investors cheered the news. Gap’s shares climbed 65 cents Thursday to close at $13.42 on the New York Stock Exchange. 

“The company is really starting to make things happen again, but it’s still too early to declare victory,” said industry analyst Richard Jaffe of UBS Warburg. 

Gap management isn’t ready to celebrate yet, either. 

“While we are pleased with October’s results, our outlook remains cautious until we see more consistent performance over time,” said Heidi Kunz, Gap’s chief financial officer.

SAN JOSE — A group that provides inexpensive and clean lighting to the poor around the world was among five innovators honored for applying technology to benefit humanity. 

The Alberta, Canada-based Light Up The World Foundation will split a $250,000 cash prize with the other four winners of the second annual Tech Museum Awards ceremony held Thursday night. 

The awards, which are presented by the San Jose-based Tech Museum of Innovation and chip-equipment maker Applied Materials Inc., were established to encourage individuals, organizations and companies to implement technology to address global challenges. 

“The heartwarming and inspiring stories of these remarkable people and organizations remind us of the potential goodness of technology,” said Tech Museum chief executive Peter Giles. 

The Light Up The World Foundation uses White Light Emitting Diodes to generate comfortable reading light that consumes only one-tenth of a watt of electricity and provides light for 10 years. 

So far, the group has lit up more than 500 homes in Nepal, 100 homes in India and 50 homes in Sri Lanka for $17,350. 

Organizers estimate a third of the world’s population relies on dirty, fuel-based lighting after nightfall. Wood fires and kerosene lamps not only provide poor lighting but also generate toxic fumes.

SACRAMENTO — The author of Proposition 51, the traffic congestion measure that failed passage this election, has resigned as executive director of the Planning and Conservation League. 

Gerald Meral said his departure has nothing to do with heavy criticism that Proposition 51 was a “pay for play” initiative designed to benefit developers and Indian tribes. 

Meral said he resigned because his wife, who’s a schoolteacher, is retiring and they plan to move to the Northern California coast. He said he will work part-time to raise money for an endowment for the Planning and Conservation League Foundation. 

Meral denied any pressure to step down, although Senate President Pro Tem John Burton wrote a letter to the league’s board of directors in September, calling the group’s approach to Proposition 51 “shortsighted, simplistic and heartless.” Burton also accused the group of “becoming a whore for the self-aggrandizement of Jerry Meral instead of being an organization committed to saving the environment.” 

Proposition 51 was one of only two state initiatives to lose Tuesday. Meral blamed newspaper coverage and legislative hearings for swaying voters. 

The initiative would have shifted about $900 million generated from vehicle sales tax revenue toward funding for more than 40 different projects. Though the league called the initiative a “traffic congestion relief and safe school bus act,” the projects ranged from construction of a railroad museum in Sacramento.

DURHAM, N.C. — The stone gargoyles perched atop the doors to Duke University’s new Gothic dormitory were meant to surprise and honor two wealthy donors. 

The university succeeded at surprise: Aubrey and Kathleen McClendon, who gave $5.5 million to build the dorm, were shocked to find their own likenesses staring down from the hall that bears their name. 

So shocked that the sculptures will be taken down at the couple’s request. 

“They were grateful,” said Peter Vaughn, spokesman for Duke’s development office. “They just didn’t approve of the way we showed our appreciation.” 

The caricatures resemble bobble-head dolls, with oversized smiling heads and tiny bodies. 

The sculptures of Aubrey McClendon, a 1981 graduate and CEO of Chesapeake Energy Corp. in Oklahoma City, and his wife, Kathleen, a 1980 graduate, will remain on McClendon Tower until new ones are crafted to replace them, university officials said. A plaque will honor the couple instead. 

In addition to the gift to Duke’s charitable trust, the McClendons’ have given other gifts to the university, including a $1 million donation to the Duke Basketball Legacy Fund.

DURHAM, N.C. — The stone gargoyles perched atop the doors to Duke University’s new Gothic dormitory were meant to surprise and honor two wealthy donors. 

The university succeeded at surprise: Aubrey and Kathleen McClendon, who gave $5.5 million to build the dorm, were shocked to find their own likenesses staring down from the hall that bears their name. 

So shocked that the sculptures will be taken down at the couple’s request. 

“They were grateful,” said Peter Vaughn, spokesman for Duke’s development office. “They just didn’t approve of the way we showed our appreciation.” 

The caricatures resemble bobble-head dolls, with oversized smiling heads and tiny bodies. 

The sculptures of Aubrey McClendon, a 1981 graduate and CEO of Chesapeake Energy Corp. in Oklahoma City, and his wife, Kathleen, a 1980 graduate, will remain on McClendon Tower until new ones are crafted to replace them, university officials said. A plaque will honor the couple instead. 

In addition to the gift to Duke’s charitable trust, the McClendons’ have given other gifts to the university, including a $1 million donation to the Duke Basketball Legacy Fund.

SACRAMENTO — School districts that grant charters to independent public schools don’t watch the schools to ensure they’re financially sound and meeting academic goals, a state audit released Thursday found. 

Charter schools are public schools run by nonprofit or private organizations, such as parent and teacher groups and, in some cases, for-profit companies. The schools are monitored by individual school districts that grant the charter and are allowed to bypass much of the red tape that bogs down regular public schools in exchange for increased accountability. 

The schools are required to hired only credentialed teachers, offer a minimum number of instructional time and certify that their students have participated in the state’s testing program. 

Too often, however, the districts that grant charters are not “ensuring compliance with these legal requirements at each of their charter schools,” the report said. 

Districts also don’t examine the school’s finances well, the report said. 

While districts can charge schools a fee for the financial oversight, none of the districts examined had documented their costs and may be charging schools too much or too little, the auditors said. 

The four public school districts examined by the state auditor — Fresno, San Diego, Los Angeles and Oakland — submitted lengthy rebuttals to the audit, saying the state’s education code is vague when it comes to district’s responsibilities. 

Fresno Unified School District’s response called the report “fundamentally flawed” because the auditors misunderstood the state’s charter school laws. 

Charter schools “do not exist for the purpose of being held accountable to public school districts,” the school district’s response said. Instead, charter schools were created to give parents, teachers and students “different and innovative teaching methods” and other alternative programs within public schools, Fresno officials said. 

The audit “fails to understand that charter schools are not, and never were intended to be, subdivisions of school districts,” the response said. 

Assemblywoman Sarah Reyes, who asked for the audit following the collapse of the Gateway Academy in Fresno, disagreed with the districts’ assessment of the law. 

“Your right and responsibility in signing an agreement with a charter school is to make sure they’re successful and that those students benefit,” she said. 

The failure of Gateway, which closed in January after it racked up a $1.3 million debt, Reyes said, showed that “the state is largely in the dark about oversight procedures used by chartering entities to oversee schools that they have chartered.” 

But Reyes, D-Fresno, said she was most surprised about the lack of oversight of charter schools’ academic progress. 

“That is the responsibility of the charter school, but it is also the responsibility of the entity that grants that charter,” she said. “By not assessing student performance against the charter terms, the schools are not demonstrating their accountability for meeting their academic goals.” 

A Reyes bill signed by Gov. Gray Davis this year will require charter schools to operate in the district’s boundaries or in the same county. That bill was designed to make it easier for local communities to oversee charter schools. 

The new law also set up financial requirements for schools that close, and required charter high schools to notify parents and students if their classes do not match up with college requirements. 

Reyes said she was considering legislation for next year that would further clarify the districts’ responsibilities. 

California spends $524 million each year on charter schools, Reyes said, and more oversight needs to be in place to make sure state money isn’t lost. 

Gary Larson, a spokesman for the California Network of Educational Charters, said the school districts needed more guidance on how to oversee the charter schools. But new laws directing oversight might not answer the audit’s criticism, he said. 

“It’s difficult to legislate problems out of existence,” he said. “If that were the case, we’d see a better system of public education with all the legislation enacted in the last 30 years.”

San Luis Obispo County is oak-studded hills, lush wineries and dramatic coastlines. But when the state ordered the region to zone for more than 18,000 homes in the next few years, it got anything but a bucolic response. 

The San Luis Obispo Council of Governments, representing six cities and the county, opposed the state figure as being 4,000 houses too many. Its members split recently on whether to wage a court fight, leaving the issue up in the air. 

For the first time in a decade, the state is issuing quotas to deal with California’s housing crisis, but some cities and counties are balking at what they see as forced urbanization. 

“They’re always afraid of becoming another Los Angeles,” said Ronald L. DeCarli, executive director of the San Luis Obispo government council. 

The council and some two dozen counties have until the end of next year to develop and adopt zoning plans to meet state projections of how much housing they will need in the next five years. Deadlines for other regions have been staggered, with the current cycle beginning in 1999 with San Diego County. 

Dense inner cities and rural towns alike have challenged the figures in court, in some cases arguing their growth rates won’t be as great as the state estimates. Local officials fear the consequences of rapid growth — from clogged freeways to water shortages — and worry they won’t be able to afford the roads, sewer lines and other services that waves of new residents will require. 

One recent lawsuit involves the Southern California Association of Governments, which represents a six-county area with 17 million residents. 

Even more governments have haggled with the state, negotiating to reduce the number of homes they must account for in zoning plans. 

“This has been something that communities haven’t had to struggle with for almost a decade, so they’ve kind of gotten out of the habit,” said Cathy Creswell, deputy director of the state Department of Housing and Community Development. “But the growth that has been projected is also higher than people have experienced in quite a long time.” 

Nobody argues that California is in a housing crisis. The nation’s most populous state is growing by 600,000 people a year and its population is expected to reach 52 million by 2030. 

An estimated 220,000 new housing units must be created each year to meet current growth, according to the state Department of Housing and Community Development. 

The best projections from government and industry sources have construction falling short by more than 50,000 units — in effect, the creation of a mid-sized town every year. 

With too many people and too few places to live, home prices and rental rates have soared in recent years, becoming a constant topic of conversation. The statewide median home price — the point at which half the homes sell for more and half for less — climbed to $323,310 in September, up more than 17 percent from a year earlier, according to the California Association of Realtors. 

The figure was much higher in some areas: $450,520 in Orange County and $529,250 in Santa Cruz County. 

Nine of the 10 least affordable metropolitan areas in the United States last year were in California, with the San Luis Obispo-Atascadero-Paso Robles area rated fourth, according to the National Association of Home Builders. 

The median home price there in September was $341,660, according to the real estate group. 

The lack of affordable housing has created both overcrowding and traffic congestion. State officials say garages are being converted into bedrooms, multiple families are packing into single households and people are moving farther from work, in some cases 100 miles or more, just to find housing they can afford. 

But state efforts to mandate planning for more homes has run up against public fear that building them will lead to urban sprawl, even worse traffic congestion, higher smog levels and crowded schools — in short, that runaway growth will destroy the charm of their local communities. 

The inexorable population growth has created a public backlash. Two years ago, there were 60 land-use initiatives on local ballots, most involving preserving land or slowing growth, said Dan Carrig of the League of California Cities, a nonprofit lobbying group for 477 cities. 

At least 25 growth issues are on Tuesday’s ballots in cities throughout the state. 

“You just have to look at the initiatives they are putting on the ballots ... to tell their own city councils when and where they’ve had enough,” Carrig said. 

Many local governments differ with state officials over how many housing units they’ll need through 2007. 

State law requires the so-called housing needs assessments to be made every five years, although budget cuts halted planning during the recession of the early 1990s. 

Using projected regional growth rates based on state Department of Finance population projections and other figures, the Department of Housing and Community Development issues a housing mandate to regional councils, who in turn divvy up the requirements to the counties, cities and towns that are their members. 

Those members then have a year to create zoning to allow the houses — although the law doesn’t require that a single home actually be constructed. 

So far, only about half of the cities and counties in the state currently have zoning plans that comply with state law. The state housing department believes it will achieve 70 percent compliance in the next few years. 

The state has no penalties for violating its requirements, but communities that fail to meet them aren’t eligible for potentially tens of millions of dollars in state and federal housing funds. 

If they adhere to the state numbers, many local government officials said they won’t be able to pay for the services required by the thousands of new residents who will follow new home construction. 

Local governments already twisting in the economic wind fear water supply problems and the cost of providing roads, sewer lines and schools to meet those obligations. Proposition 13, the 1978 initiative that capped property taxes, means single-family homes and other types of housing are money-losers, costing more in services than they provide in taxes, Carrig said. 

Cities and counties also are concerned they could overbuild if growth is slower than the state anticipates. 

“I think we know what we’re doing here. I think we have a good plan... I don’t think the state needs to tell us how to do this,” said Frank Mecham, mayor of Paso Robles, a town of 26,000 in San Luis Obispo County. 

Mike Rawson, director of the California Affordable Housing Law Project in Oakland, said he is involved in at least seven lawsuits involving elements of the state housing requirements. His group supports the state mandates as a way of providing critically needed housing. 

To Rawson, the critics have it wrong: making communities denser won’t create urban problems. Sprawl will. 

In his view, the age of the tract home is over. It leads only to clogged freeways and paved-over farmland. 

Rawson sees California cities being transformed into vibrant Paris-like communities of apartments and condominiums flourishing in the midst of restaurants, museums, parks and public transit. 

“Some communities have the vision of the ideal single-family neighborhood with tree-lined streets and everybody having a back yard and a front yard and two-car garage, and that’s not possible for half the families in California,” Rawson said. 

“There’s gonna be more urbanization,” he said. “Barring building a wall around the state and saying no one else can come in, that’s the only solution.”

FLORENCE, Colo. — Tom and Cece Sanders always know when fall has arrived. 

It’s not when the aspens start to change color or when an occasional dusting of snow tops Pikes Peak. 

It’s when the dozen black bear cubs and yearlings penned up in their back yard in Custer County begin to eat endlessly. Invariably, their consumption picks up when the weather cools. 

It’s the nature of the beast. 

To make it through six months of winter hibernation, the bears will have to eat at least 20,000 calories a day, nearly 10 times the amount a human eats. 

So the bears have been devouring everything the Sanders manage to scrounge. 

For nearly 16 years, the couple’s Wet Mountain Wildlife Rehabilitation on 80 acres near Colorado Springs has served as a temporary orphanage for wayward bears. 

The cubs, their mothers nowhere to be found, usually become lost while searching for food along countless creeks leading to cities such as Trinidad, Pueblo and Colorado Springs. 

The bears were picked up by Division of Wildlife officers during the summer and will be released into the wild in November. 

This year has been unusually bad because the drought has dried up much of the state’s scrub oak, virtually killing all the acorns, which are the black bear’s primary food source. 

Not one of the bears the couple took in last summer weighed more than 25 pounds — opposed to the 100-plus pounds the animal should weigh. Of the dozen bears the Sanders care for, at least six were picked up in Colorado Springs. 

One was found in June after his mother was illegally shot by a hunter. Another was discovered in July about 100 yards from Interstate 25. In August, a third bear was retrieved from an automobile dealership parking lot. 

“We maintain them, feed them, clean them, then ignore them, hoping we can give them some sort of second chance,” said Cece Sanders, 55, whose hands are as rough as leather from years of looking after the bears. 

She paused, then added jokingly: “Basically, we’re slaves.” 

But somebody has to do it. 

As people move to Colorado in record numbers and foothills subdivisions continue to grow, more of the state’s estimated 10,000 black bears lose their natural habitats and cross paths with people. 

Two decades ago, rescuing bears in the middle of the city simply didn’t happen, because there was less development and black bears had a much wider range to roam. 

If people encountered a black bear, chances were they were hunting it. 

But today bear rehabilitation has become a common practice among dedicated animal lovers such as the Sanders, former Pueblo schoolteachers who created the Wet Mountain Wildlife Rehabilitation nine years ago as a not-for-profit organization. The legal distinction allows them to apply for grants.

Stanley Ward, also known as “Farmer Stanley”, came to Tilden’s Little Farm three years ago. 

“Things were a bit run down,” Ward admitted, “and there was room for improvement.” 

But now, an increased sense of order and care permeate the Little Farm that sits in the Berkeley hills off of Grizzly Peak Boulevard. Ward’s knowledge experience and hard work have made their mark. Fences are renewed and sturdy, animals gambol “oink” and “quack” in clean pens and reseeded pastures.  

Ward’s animal farm, operated by East Bay Regional Parks, has provided Berkeley families a chance to learn about small farming for decades. There is no cost and the farm is open during regular park hours. With Ward tending the farm five days a week, there’s a good chance you’ll see Ward hard at work. 

“This is just the kind of work I enjoy,” he said. “I like being outdoors, I enjoy meeting the public, and I like working with nice breeds of animals on a small scale. (Because it’s a park,) I don’t have to squeeze profit out of the animals.” 

When asked how many animals he had at the farm, Ward said confidently, “19 hens, 2 roosters, 5 geese, 11 ducks, 5 female goats, 1 male goat, 16 female sheep, 2 rams, 3 cows-one is away at the bull to be bred, 2 calves, 2 pigs, 4 turkeys, and 2 rabbits, because the others were stolen, there should be 8.” 

Ward grew up in London and as a young boy had an interest in farming. His mother bought him the “Farmer’s Weekly” magazine. Ward took part in youth camps descended from the Order of Woodcraft Chivalry and was quickly introduced to the English countryside. 

At age 15, Ward became disillusioned with the state schooling he was receiving in London, he said, and left to hitchhike around Great Britain. Since he was good at carpentry, he found carpentry jobs and helped farmers with their hay harvests. He learned to shear sheep and became so good at shearing that he traveled to remote farms in Wales shearing as many as 280 sheep in an eight hour work day. 

In Wales, Ward later attended an agricultural college, becoming technically and practically trained in Animal Husbandry and Grassland Production. 

On holidays Ward liked to travel, sometimes to Ireland, sometimes farther a field; eventually he visited Sri Lanka. There he led bird safaris in wildlife sanctuaries and National Parks throughout India. In India he met his wife, Raju, who is from Orinda. 

This brought him to California in 1990 and, for several years, he studied geography and cartography at San Francisco State while working as a carpenter and landscape gardener. In 1998 he was hired by the East Bay Regional Parks as a carpenter and became the farmer at the Little Farm in 1999. 

One of Ward’s greatest accomplishments at the farm is his successful breeding program last year. He bred lambs, kids, calves and one litter of six piglets. One visitor, an Albany grandmother who brings her grandsons as often as possible, came to the farm last spring. They saw a nanny goat lick her just-born kid, and watched curly haired lambs leaping four feet into the air. The woman’s grandsons have stout boots like Ward and sometimes come to the park as much as twice a day.  

Over the past year, teachers and children alike have petted the real life versions of Wilbur, the pig from “Charlotte’s Web.” “Pigs are the most popular thing with the public, especially the baby pigs,” Ward said.  

Unfortunately, due to staffing restraints, the result of financial cut backs in the East Bay Regional Park system, the breeding program will not be possible this year. Ward has other goals. Among them, he would like to have a stronger educational emphasis. He believes urban and suburban people need more information about farming and the problems of real farmers. He thinks they should be educated about where their food is coming from and what is going on to produce it. 

Ward and his wife Raju are now raising their three-year-old daughter in Orinda so Ward intends to stay at the Little Farm for many years to come. 

To the Editor: 

I want to congratulate the Daily Planet, and reporter David Scharfenberg in particular, for his outstanding coverage of the local campaigns this election cycle. His concise, objective reporting was not swayed or tilted to either side of the traditional partisan political process, yet he reported both the positive sides and the warts of every campaign with the same candor and lack of ulterior motive. 

I am also pleased that the Daily Planet did not make specific endorsements so as to be able to stand apart from the partisanship that has affected (some might say infected) local politics here for decades. My candidates took a beating at the polls – so be it. That is what democracy is all about. I'm glad, and you should be proud, that neither side took a beating in your paper but had their message relayed and their campaigns reported upon fairly and accurately. 

Gregory S. Murphy 

Berkeley

Thursday, Nov. 7 

“Water, the Beverage of Life” 

11:30 a.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center, 1901 Hearst St. 

Aaron Miller, SF State Intern will discuss 

981-5190 

Additional Ferries from East Bay Sites 

noon to 2 p.m. 

Albany Public Library, 1247 Marin Ave. 

Discussion with a representative of the San Francisco Bay Area Water Transit Authority. Sponsored by the League of Women Voters 

843-8824 

Free 

Panel Discussion - “Resistance to the Free Trade Agreements in Mexico and Central America” 

7:30 p.m. 

La Pena Cultural Center, 3105 Shattuck Ave. 

Featuring video presentation of “Tierra Si, Aviones No”, and performance by the NoPPP Players 

$5 and $10/ suggested donation 

Friday, Nov. 8  

Alexander Cockburn’s Incendiary Rants 

7 p.m. 

AK Press Warehouse, 673-A 23rd St. 

Release party for muckraking maverick Alexander Cockburn’s new spoken word CD “Beating the Devil” 

208-1700 

Free 

Berkeley Women in Black Vigil 

Bancroft at Telegraph Ave. 

Weekly protest to “End the Occupation” 

Saturday, Nov. 9 

Book Sale and Auction 

10 a.m. to 4 p.m. 

The Center for AIDS Services, 5720 Shattuck Ave., Oakland 

This big sale will benefit the AIDS center 

655-3435 

An Afternoon of Mystery  

2 p.m. 

1901 Russell St. 

Berkeley’s South Branch Library presents mystery writers Jake Fuchs “Death of a Prof”, Owen Hill “The Chandler Apartments”, and Mary Halock “The Dog on the Roof” 

525-3948 

Free 

Sunday, Nov. 10 

World Run Day-national charity benefit 

All day 

Various cities across the nation  

(516) 859-3000, www.runday.com 

Tuesday, Nov. 12 

Holiday Craft Baazar 

10 a.m. to noon 

St. John’s Presbyterian Curch, 2727 College Ave. 

Handmade items, sweet treats, and knick knacks will be for sale. All are welcome 

845-6830 

Wednesday, Nov. 13 

Public Lecture by the Rev. Canon Naim Ateek 

7:30 p.m. 

UCC, on Dana St. between Durant and Channing 

Founder of the Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center and native of East Jerusalem, Rev. Ateek will lead a discussion sponsored by the First Congregational Church of Berkeley (UCC) and the Pacific School of Religion 

848-3696 

$10/ suggested donation 

League of Women Voters Meeting 

Noon 

LWVBAE office, 1414 University Ave. 

Discussion will focus on regional issues 

849-2154 

Thursday, Nov. 14 

Regret to Inform  

Reception 6:30 p.m. / Program 7 p.m. 

Berkeley High School Auditorium, 2234 Martin Luther King Jr. Way 

A screening and discussion with filmmaker Barbara Sonneborn. 

979-0190, liz_vogel@facing.org 

Free 

Berkeley Path Wanderers Meeting 

7 to 9 p.m. 

Hillside Club, 2286 Cedar St. 

Meeting to include a presentation by best- selling author Adah Bakalinsky who will speak about her book, “Stairway Walks of San Francisco” 

Free 

Thursday, Nov. 7 

Gary Thorp 

7:30 p.m. 

Cody’s Books, 2454 Telegraph Ave. 

Thorp will read from “Caught in Fading Light” 

845-7852 

The Non Prophets  

9:30 p.m. 

The Starry Plough, 3101 Shattuck Ave. 

Performing with special guest Vince Welnick of the Grateful Dead 

21+ 

$10 

Bandworks Recital 

7:30 p.m. to midnight 

Ashkenaz, 1317 San Pablo Ave. 

Hear student bands play rock, blues, and pop at this annual recital event 

525-5054 

$11 

Friday, Nov. 8 

The Librarians, Bitesize, and Glitter Mini 9:30 p.m. 

The Starry Plough, 3101 Shattuck Ave. 

All age show 

$7 

Chaskinakuy 

8 p.m. 

Freight & Salvage, 1111 Addison St. 

Beautiful vocal harmonies in Spanish and Quechua 

548-1761 

$15.50-$16.50 

An Evening of Cultural Harmony 

8 p.m. 

St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. 

The Barbard Ensemble, the San Francisco Klezmer Experience, and Lichi Fuentes & Jackeline Rago will treat listeners to music from Iran, Eastern Europe, and Latin America. 

704-7480 x755 

$25 general admission 

Black Dice, Dearly Departed (ex-Subtonix), and The Mass 

9:30 p.m. 

The Starry Plough, 3101 Shattuck Ave. 

$8 

Saturday, Nov. 9 

An Evening of Cultural Harmony 

8 p.m. 

St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. 

The Barbard Ensemble, the San Francisco Klezmer Experience, and Lichi Fuentes & Jackeline Rago will treat listeners to music from Iran, Eastern Europe, and Latin America. 

704-7480 x755 

$25 general admission 

Sunday, Nov. 10 

The Sheldon Brown Group 

4:30 p.m. 

Jazzschool, 2087 Addison St. 

Reservations: 845-5373 

$10-$15 

The Starry Irish Music Session with Shay Black 

8 p.m. 

The Starry Plough, 3101 Shattuck Ave. 

Tickets available on a sliding scale 

“Shove Off to Birthday Island” 

Through Nov. 30 

Reception Nov. 2 from 5 to 8 p.m. 

Tue. through Sat., 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.  

Ardency Gallery, 709 Broadway, Oakland 

A collaborative exhibition of Tonya Solley Thornton and Frank Haines including video and sculptural installations. 

836-0831 

Children of the Gulf War Photo Exhibit 

Through Nov. 30 

Mon. through Thurs., 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. 

Fri. through Sat.., 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. 

Sun., 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. 

Berkeley Public Library, 2090 Kittredge St. 

Featuring works of Takashi Morizumi 

Information: www.savewarchildren.org 

Ceramics - Opening Reception 

Through Nov. 17 

3 to 5 p.m. 

A New Leaf Gallery, 1286 Gilman St. 

525-7621 

Free 

“Recent Acquisitions” 

Through Dec. 14 

Thurs. through Sat., 1 to 4 p.m. 

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

848-0181 

Free 

Threads: Five artists who use stitching to convey ideas 

Through Dec. 15, Wed. through Sun., noon to 5 p.m. 

Berkeley Art Center 

Live Oak Park, 1275 Walnut St. 

Information: www.berkeleyartcenter.org, 644-6893 

Free 

Menocchio 

Nov. 6 through Dec. 22 

Berkeley Repertory Theatre, 2025 Addison St. 

Berkeley Repertory Theatre presents the world premiere of Lillian Groag’s charged comedy 

647-2949, www.berkeleyrep.org  

$38 and $54/ sliding scale 

Thursday, Nov. 7 

“Desert Hearts” 

1 p.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center, 1901 Hearst St. 

A 1950s lesbian romance featuring Helen Shaver and Patricia Charbonneau. 

Friday, Nov. 8 

“El Che” 

7 p.m. 

Redwood Gardens, 2951 Derby St. 

Film screening followed by salsa dancing to support Berkeley’s Cuban Sister-City Palma Soriano. 

548-6941 

$10 / sliding scale 

“Cinemayaat: The Arab Film Festival” 

Through Nov. 12 

Various locations throughout Berkeley, San Francisco, and San Jose. 

For more information contact the Arab Film Festival at info@aff.org, (415) 564- 1100, or www.aff.org 

Saturday Nov. 9 

Dorothy Allison and Jewelle Gomez appear in support of Boadecia’s Books 

8 p.m. 

Northbrae Community Church 

559-9184 

$25/ sliding scale 

Tuesday, Nov. 12 

Open Mic 

The Starry Plough, 3101 Shattuck Ave. 

7:30 p.m. 

Free 

Wednesday, Nov. 13 

Poetry Slam with host Charles Ellik 

8:30 p.m. 

The Starry Plough, 3101 Shattuck Ave. 

Cash prizes up to $90 

21+ 

$7/ general, $5/ students with ID 

Saturday Nov. 16 

Alice Walker and Brenda Boykin 

appear in support of Boadecia’s Books 

8 p.m. 

Northbrae Community Church, 941 The Alameda at Solano 

559-9184 

$25/ sliding scale 

Monday, Dec. 2 

Adam David Miller and Rita Flores Bogaert 

7 to 9 p.m. 

Pegasus Books Downtown, 2349 Shattuck Ave 

The Last Word announces a poetry reading that will include an open mic and featured readers 

649-1320 

Free

“Jazz is an idea that is more powerful than the details of its history – a concept bigger than any single one of its partisans could ever hope to define.” 

– Pat Metheny 

By Jane Yin 

Special to the Daily Planet 

Music without words sometimes speaks louder than lyric-filled melody. The Pat Metheny Group is case and point. Their latest musical creation “Speaking of Now” is a compilation of nimble jazz instrumentations that converse with the soul. With flavorful piano progressions running alongside Pat Metheny’s earth-shivering guitar-playing, the now six-piece group presents us with nine poignant pieces. The group performs at Zellerbach Hall next Tuesday evening. 

At the ripe age of 18, the mastermind guitarist and creator of the group, Pat Metheny, had already escalated his musical career far beyond that of most of his fellow musicians when he became the youngest instructor at the University of Miami. A year later, he became the youngest teacher in the history of Boston’s Berklee College of Music. As a musician and composer, Metheny has received more than 23 Grammy Awards for a number of achievements, including best electric guitarist and best guitar synthesizer. Metheny also performs as a solo artist and with his other group, the Pat Metheny Trio. Metheny is known for his extensive incorporation of the synthesizer in jazz music, even being hailed as an innovator by many musical experts. 

“My first relationship to any kind of musical situation is as a listener,” explained Metheny. “I have always considered myself to be someone who is a big fan of music in general who happens to occasionally find themselves in the middle of having to play or write something.” 

The seven-time Grammy-winning group has performed in more than 40 countries to sold-out audiences. The group’s sound, like the colorful collage that decorates their new album insert, inspires imagination of travel and exploration within listeners. Their music is a melting pot of the best sugars and spices, yet each instrument is granted an equal voice. 

“Speaking of Now” opens with “As It Is.” The track’s lurid piano and trumpet notes immediately captivate interest. “You,” track five on the album, is crafted with intricate artistry; the vocals provide a tender melody. The journey continues with the fast-paced, energized “A Place in the World” and slows down to a stroll with “Afternoon.” 

After taking a three-year break, the jazz greats constituting the original trio – Metheny as well as Lyle Mays and Steve Rodby – got back together after doing individual projects to add three new members and record “Speaking of Now.” They’ve acquired internationally recognized musicians, including drummer Antonio Sanchez, from Mexico City and Richard Bona, who is from Cameroon in West Africa. It wasn’t an effortless search for Metheny’s new members; some were a little more difficult to find than others. 

Metheny stumbled upon his last member, Cuong Vu, while listening to the trumpeter on an Internet radio station. Still overwhelmed by the excellent horn skills, Metheny quickly called fellow musicians to locate the musician with no luck. 

“Finally I just thought, ‘Well, how many Cuong Vu’s could there be in the phone book?’ I called 411, and it turned out that there was just one, a Brooklyn number, a likely place for a young aspiring musician in New York to live.” 

Metheny, armed with an undying passion for Jazz music, always looks toward the future, as he exclaimed, “We have to get our collective imagination working hard on a vision that is more concerned with what this music can become than what it has already been.”

What a difference a year makes. 

A full season after winning his first cross country race, Berkeley High junior Alex Enscoe repeated as the Alameda-Contra Costa Athletic League champion, winning Wednesday’s varsity boys race at Tilden Regional Park by 31 seconds. But in addition to Enscoe’s individual triumph, he led his team to its first ACCAL team title, ending Alameda High’s long reign at the top. 

“This was our most important race as a team,” Enscoe said. “Winning this one was our main goal going into the season.” 

After years of trailing Alameda, the Yellowjackets won Wednesday’s final race with a true team effort. While the Hornets had the second- and fourth-place finishers, Berkeley placed in spots five through eight to push for the title through strength of numbers. Although Alameda had the next two finishers, Berkeley wrapped things up by taking the 11 and 12 spots to close out the scoring and win by a margin of 23-34. 

“Berkeley has had a superb season,” Alameda coach Brian Lodge said. “They were good last year, but they’ve improved so much this year. We’re going to have to come up with something next year to challenge them.” 

Berkeley head coach Dave Goodrich said Wednesday’s win was the payoff for a hard summer and fall of work for his varsity group, which has largely been running together for three years. 

Just as in the first league meet of the season, Enscoe watched Alameda’s Yoji Reichert and Marty Skeels take an early lead in the race. Enscoe doesn’t like to be the pace-setter, preferring to sit back and let the other runners tire themselves out. By the time the race reached the top of the final hill, he knew the title was his. 

Enscoe’s emergence this season has been startling, even considering his breakout race last year at this event. He won all three of Berkeley’s ACCAL meets and has established himself as a favorite for North Coast Section honors. He ran Wednesday’s race with the cock-sureness of an undertaker, just waiting for his targets to fall. 

“Last year I knew I had a chance to win, but I had never won a race before,” Enscoe said. “This year I came in feeling a lot more confident, like I couldn’t lose.” 

Enscoe crossed the finish line before Reichert even came into view along the final stretch for a time of 16:54. Reichert came in at 17:25, then Pinole Valley’s Austin Hicks at 17:45. Skeels finished soon after, but then a flood of Berkeley runners filled the lane. Nic Riley, Bradley Johnson, Alex Weissman and Jon Finney crossed the finish line in that order with Enscoe urging them on, sealing the win. Sarmed Anwar and Gordon Jenkins finished Berkeley’s day, finishing just before the 20-minute mark. 

Alameda’s dominance didn’t take a holiday in the girls’ race, with the Hornets taking the top seven spots. Corrine Roberts was the first-place finisher.

It was a little past midnight Wednesday morning. 

Mayor-elect Tom Bates had already given his victory speech, received by wild cheers from more than 200 campaign workers and allies crowded into his Shattuck Avenue headquarters. 

Next it was campaign co-chair Russ Ellis’ turn. The former UC Berkeley vice-chancellor hummed into the microphone, grabbing the attention of the excited crowd, a mix of students, neighborhood activists and old old-guard Berkeley Citizens Action stalwarts. Ellis lifted a glass – actually a plastic cup – of champagne to toast the grinning, weary-looking Bates.  

The mayor-elect had been positive in his victory speech, but Ellis didn’t hesitate to take a jab at the losing candidate. 

“There was a moment in this campaign when we realized that (Mayor) Shirley Dean was not about song,” he said. “Tom Bates is. We’re gonna make some music. We’re going to make some moral music.”  

Activists at the gathering agreed, saying a Bates’ victory – along with the victories of progressive councilmembers Linda Maio, Dona Spring and Kriss Worthington – would bring significant positive change to the city. There will be a run-off in the 8th District race between graduate student Andy Katz, supported by progressives, and retired scientist Gordon Wozniak, supported by moderates. The progressives will have either a 6-3 majority or a 7-2 majority, depending on the runoff results. 

Now what does a supermajority mean? Will every council meeting will be an example of perfect harmony? Not necessarily. 

“The progressives are not monolithic,” said one attendee at the Bates victory party, who asked that his name not be used. Others around him agreed heartily. 

Progressive Councilmember Maudelle Shirek, who was not up for re-election Tuesday and could not be reached Wednesday, did not join her political allies this election season. She endorsed neither Bates nor his wife Loni Hancock, who won the state Assembly seat vacated by term-limited Assemblymember Dion Aroner. 

While the five members of the progressive block often vote together, they don’t do so exclusively. Councilmember Margaret Breland, for example, supported an early iteration of a very controversial housing project for San Pablo Avenue, while her council colleagues demanded modifications requested by neighbors before they would support it. 

Progressives also fought each other over whether police should be allowed to carry pepper spray. 

While citing Dean’s support for a McFrugals at the present Berkeley Bowl site and her support for office space in zones restricted to light industrial uses, Gene Poshman, vice chairperson of the Planning Commission, said he’s glad Dean will be out of the picture. Still, he said he’s not sure, without Dean as a common enemy, that the progressive supermajority will be united around planning issues. 

“The devil is in the details,” he said. 

One clearly uniting principle among all the councilmembers is that Berkeley’s vision for the future is better than that of the nation as a whole, moderate Councilmember Mim Hawley said, reflecting on the loss of the U.S. Senate to Republicans. “That (uniting vision) could be a start,” she said. 

Joe Brulensky, an active Bates’ supporter, has been a teacher in the Berkeley Unified School District for 33 years and looks forward to the new dynamic on council and Bates at the helm. 

Brulensky said he was excited about the education summit of teachers and public officials Bates promoted during the campaign. 

Berkeley librarian Jane Scantlebury had walked precincts for Bates, dropping literature and talking to neighbors about the race. She said that not only was Bates good for Berkeley as a whole, but that he would be able to bring the libraries and the city into closer collaboration. Under the current administration, the library has been a “separate, removed entity,” she said. “It was considered as an afterthought. Tom Bates is more conscious that it is part of the community.” 

Dave Fogarty is another city worker who pounded the pavement for Bates. He works in economic development and says the council bickering “affects the city’s reputation nationally,” which is not good for attracting new businesses. “Businesses just give up. They say nothing can be done in this environment.” 

He added that he hopes Bates’ leadership would make a difference, not only in bringing peace to the council, but in streamlining a slow permitting process. “The new mayor could make a difference over time,” he said, adding the caveat: “But there’s no guarantee.” 

South Berkeley neighborhood activist Joy Moore worked with Bates on improving Berkeley schools’ food, a project which, she said, was abandoned by the high school before it was given a chance to succeed. “School food is served to people with limited resources, African American and Latino children – our kids are eating that food,” she said, adding that she believed that Bates would have the clout to get additional resources for the project. 

Moore took a shot at Dean for ignoring the neighborhoods. She cited the current mayor’s campaign statements touting her role in economic development – for example attracting clothing store Eddie Bauer to the city. “The first thing out of her mouth is downtown. What about Sacramento (Street) and Ashby (Avenue)?” Moore asked. 

Among the most joyful at the Bates’ victory was Councilmember Kriss Worthington, who had first dropped his plan to run for the state Assembly, when Assemblymember-elect Hancock put her name into the running, then Worthington put aside plans to run for mayor when Bates put his candidacy forward. Worthington said Hancock and Bates both had better chances to win their respective seats than he did. 

In his bid for a third term on the council, Worthington trounced Dean-supported challenger, Micki Weinberg, an 18-year-old student active in the UC Berkeley Israeli Action Committee. In what Bates called an attack of “guilt by association,” Dean targeted Worthington in debates and campaign literature, arguing that it made it difficult for her to work with the university after Worthington joined an overnight student demonstration at the chancellor’s home protesting the lack of student housing.  

“For six years I have been abused and attacked (by Dean),” Worthington said. (Dean, in turn, has said she feels attacked by Worthington.)  

Councilmember Linda Maio, who won her council race with ease, said, similarly, that Bates would be a problem solver, building bridges between moderates and progressives. “He has the ability to work collectively,” she said. 

Moderate Councilmember Betty Olds, who lost both her longtime council ally Councilmember Polly Armstrong, who did not to run for a new term and ally Shirley Dean, said, when reached Wednesday by phone, that she was sick and unable to talk. 

Moderate Hawley, on the other hand, was able to react to the defeat with some lightheartedness – she had gone shopping Wednesday morning to relieve some of the stress.  

She also expressed the sadness she felt at the loss of her council colleagues. “I’m going to miss Shirley and Polly,” she said. “It means a lot to have people to talk to on the issues, even if there is some disagreement.” 

Still Hawley said she thought there were a number of projects on which she could work easily with Bates, such as cooperating with neighboring cities, particularly on the housing-jobs imbalance problem: tens of thousands of people come into Berkeley to work every day, but do not live in the city. 

Hawley also remarked that she has allies among the progressive faction. “I’ve worked with Linda (Maio) on various things. I enjoy working with her,” she said. “And (Vice Mayor) Maudelle (Shirek) and I co-sponsored a couple of kid-related things.” 

Still, “It sure is going to be different,” Hawley added.

To the Editor: 

It is very disheartening that Measure O, which intended brewed coffee served in the city to “be Fair Trade, shade-grown, OR organic”, was listed in the Alameda County touch screen voting as “be Fair Trade, shade-grown, AND organic”. Only one of the three conditions was required in the Berkeley Responsible Coffee Initiative – not all three. This misrepresentation of the measure is a great disservice to voters and the coffee farmers who may have benefited from its fairly chosen adoption. 

Travis Jordan 

Berkeley 

SAN FRANCISCO — The Asian Art Museum will postpone the opening of the new renovated museum, located at the San Francisco Civic Center, a spokeswoman announced Wednesday. 

Construction snafus have caused the museum to push its grand opening date back two months to March 20, 2003. 

“This construction project - seismic upgrade, historical renovation and adaptive re-use of an existing landmark building - is extremely complex, and our original opening date was quite optimistic,” said Emily Sano, museum director. “While construction schedules typically change ... the museum realized that the status of the building's renovation had impacted the schedule.” 

Once completed, the Asian Art Museum will encompass 40,000 square feet of gallery space, expanded educational service and state-of-the-art storage and conservation facilities.

Panthers third in BSAL 

The St. Mary’s High girls volleyball team will be the third seed in the Bay Shore Athletic League playoffs next week after beating St. Elizabeth High 15-9, 15-6, 15-12 on Tuesday. Jazmin Pratt had eight aces and six kills for the Panthers (9-3 BSAL), while Brittney Murrey had seven kills and nine assists. 

Sweeney wins ACCAL tournament 

Berkeley High swept the singles competition at the Alameda-Contra Costa Athletic League girls tennis championship tournament this week. 

Sophomore Megan Sweeney, who was undefeated as Berkeley’s top singles player, won three matches to take home the league title. She beat teammate Clara Mattei, 6-1, 6-2, in the final. 

Mattei beat No. 2 seed Gina Gossette of El Cerrito High to reach the final.  

Sweeney gets an automatic spot in the North Coast Section tournament, while Mattei will apply for an at-large berth. The Yellowjackets will also apply for team at-large berth. 

Cal water polo gains top ranking 

The Cal men’s water polo team was unanimously voted the top-ranked team in the country this week by the American Water Polo Coaches Association. 

The Bears, ranked No. 3 last week, beat formerly top-ranked Stanford last weekend as well as UC Davis. Their 15-4 record has them near the top of the MPSF Conference, led by junior All-American Attila Banhidy’s 40 goals. 

In addition, Cal senior goalkeeper Russell Bernstein was named MPSF Player of the Week after blocking 12 shots in his team’s 9-8 win over Stanford, including a save of a penalty shot. 

Cal returns to action on Saturday against MPSF-leader Pepperdine. The game starts at 10 a.m. at Spieker Aquatics Complex.

Just when you thought it was over, Berkeley’s election season, it appears, will continue. 

With nearly all the votes counted Wednesday, moderate 8th District City Council candidate Gordon Wozniak fell just short of the 45 percent threshold required to avoid a run-off for the seat, taking 42 percent of the vote. Progressive-backed UC Berkeley graduate student Andy Katz finished second at 36 percent in a four-way race to succeed retiring council moderate Polly Armstrong. 

Now voters in the 8th District, which stretches south of the UC Berkeley campus, will choose between Wozniak and Katz in an election that will help shape the political contours of a sharply-divided City Council. 

Before Tuesday, Berkeley’s progressive faction held a 5-4 edge over the moderates. On Election Day, the left built on its majority. Progressive incumbents won re-election in Districts 1, 4 and 7 and progressive mayoral candidate Tom Bates thumped moderate incumbent Shirley Dean. Berkeley’s mayor sits on the City Council, and with Bates in place, the progressives will have at least a 6-3 advantage. A Katz victory would increase the majority to 7-2. 

Moderates are intent on securing a Wozniak victory and avoiding a 7-2 progressive edge. 

“I think it would be a pity to have such an overwhelming progressive majority,” said moderate City Councilmember Miriam Hawley, who did not face re-election this year. “We need some balance on the council.” 

Katz and Wozniak play down the moderate-progressive divide. Both argue that they will work as independent officials, cooperating with council members of all political stripes and focusing on nuts-and-bolts issues like housing and safety. But, just a day into the new campaign, Berkeley’s political schism is already playing a role. 

“I think there is certainly a large constituency in my district and other districts that deserve representation – what the press calls the ‘moderates,’” Wozniak said. “I think it’s important that we keep this seat in the moderate column.” 

Katz, for his part, said the progressive gains in this year’s election demonstrate that Berkeley voters “want a change,” arguing that he can be a part of that change. He also suggested that his ties to the progressive majority would help him deliver for the district. 

“Certainly having support from the mayor-elect and five members of the council shows that my working relationships with them will help me bring back the best for District 8,” he said. 

Human rights consultant Anne Wagley finished third in the 8th District race, with 19 percent of the vote, and observers say the runoff between Wozniak and Katz could turn on which candidate wins over Wagley supporters. 

Precinct-by-precinct vote totals were not yet available Wednesday, so it was difficult to tell if Wagley’s support came from tenants, homeowners, students or some combination. Wagley, who ran a centrist campaign focused on improved public process, said Wednesday that her support is broad-based. 

She said she will probably endorse Katz or Wozniak, but declined to tip her hand. Wagley was closer to Katz on several campaign issues and the UC Berkeley student said he would push Wagley’s concerns if elected. 

“The issues Anne brought up in the race are very important to me – fiscal accountability and openness in government,” Katz said. 

But Wozniak argued that Katz’s constituency is among students, while he probably split the residential vote with Wagley. Wozniak, who has pushed the concerns of small homeowners in the campaign, suggested that residential voters will naturally gravitate toward his candidacy. 

Voter participation will be a key factor in the run-off. Just over 4,000 8th District voters participated in the Tuesday election, although the number may rise by a few hundred when the final absentee and provisional ballots are counted, said City Clerk Sherry Kelly. She added that participation usually drops by about one half in Berkeley run-off elections, predicting that roughly 2,000 voters will cast ballots.  

The 8th District run-off voting will be conducted by mail, with ballots scheduled to arrive in mailboxes on Nov. 15 or 16. Voters will have until Dec. 3 to mail back or drop off their ballots. 

Katz said the chief hurdle in mobilizing his supporters will be simply letting them know that there is a run-off and ensuring that they don’t accidentally throw away ballots. But, the candidate may face the additional hurdles of student malaise and a run-off that will coincide with finals season at UC Berkeley. 

Wozniak said he had not yet devised a “get out the vote” strategy for the run-off, but suggested that a mail-in campaign might require a different tack than the general election. 

Contact reporter at scharfenberg@berkeleydailyplanet.net 

To the Editor: 

Yesterday I voted using one of those new Accuvote-TS systems the city spent a great deal of money on, ostensibly to secure more reliable voting. The intent was to give citizens a greater assurance that their vote was being counted. The Accuvote-TS system, however, had the opposite effect. 

I am a former software entrepreneur. I am no Luddite. I know computer technology well enough that I trust paper ballots far more than I will trust a touch screen computer to record my vote. While with paper ballots there are actual ballot boxes that have to be thrown into the bay in order to accomplish wholesale voter fraud, it only takes a few clicks of a mouse to commit fraud in an electronic voter system. The Accuvote-TS provides for no audit trail and no accountability. 

To add insult to injury, the voting “booths” were hardly booths. What has happened to the secret ballot? There was no privacy given to me when I was voting. Everyone in the room could have seen how I voted. 

Please give us back the paper ballot. 

Sameer Parekh 

Berkeley 

SAN FRANCISCO – The San Francisco Giants announced Wednesday that they will not retain Dusty Baker as manager, only weeks after he led the team and the city to Major League Baseball's World Series Championship. 

A three-time National League Manager of the Year, Baker has worked with the Giants for 15 years.

Micki Weinberg, we hardly knew you. The UC Berkeley sophomore was one of seven City Council candidates to come up short Election Day. But as this year’s crop of overmatched and outspent longshots counted their losses, most took defeat with a stiff upper lip and an endearing sense of humor. 

“I didn’t really ever think I was going to win,” said 4th District candidate Bob Migdal, who garnered 20 percent of the vote compared to Dona Spring’s 67 percent. 

When told last week by a Spring supporter that she had been working 12 hours a day for three months on the campaign, he said reality set in. 

“I don’t want it that much,” Migdal said. “I don’t have it in me.” 

Still the disappointment of losing in Berkeley’s cut-throat political circus can leave scars. 

“I didn’t have to travel to the Congo to see the heart of darkness,” said Weinberg who managed 39 percent of the vote in a surprisingly nasty race against Councilmember Kriss Worthington in the 7th District. 

LA Wood, who like Migdal trailed far behind Dona Spring, expressed frustration with the entrenched support enjoyed by sitting council members. 

“I didn’t realize how difficult it would be to unseat an incumbent,” Wood said. “It was wishful thinking.” 

Berkeley politics has never been conventional, but the power of incumbency is as strong on the council as it is elsewhere in the nation. In the past two City Council elections incumbents have won six out seven contested seats. 

Norene Smith who ran an unsuccessful bid in 2000 to unseat Betty Olds in District 6 now muses on the difficulty of running an insurgent campaign. “She outspent me $38,000 to $7,000 and, let me tell you, after all her beautiful glossy mailings, if I weren’t an informed voter I would have voted for Betty too,” she said. 

“I tried ringing door bells, but in [hilly] District 6 I had to climb up 85 stairs and then the person doesn’t answer,” she added. 

This year’s candidates experienced many of the same frustrations. “I learned it’s very hard to run against two established machines,” said Anne Wagley who finished third behind the moderate and progressive candidates in the 8th District. 

Wagley spoke for most of the candidates when she expressed relief that the campaign was finally over. “I’ll be having dinner with my family tonight,” she said noting that making personal time for loved ones hadn’t been easy during the past few months. 

But, she and others said they plan to stay active in Berkeley politics. 

“I’m winding up not slowing down,” said LA Wood who said he will remain a fixture at City Council meetings. Still, despite his disappointment at losing, he acknowledged there was some upside to defeat.  

“It will be nice to still be able to go home [from council meetings] at a reasonable hour and indulge in my own passions. We have so little time,” he said. 

Contact reporter at matt@ 

berkeleydailyplanet.net

To the Editor: 

To my “fellow Americans”; 

I prayed for a dream to be realized before voting day, and it seems that the answer to this prayer is coming in a different form than I had imagined. I had hoped more people would get out and vote, and had prayed that no matter how disgusted we were about business as usual, we would still exercise this right. I am feeling let down by the results of this election. But perhaps it is because we still have work to do on a grassroots level and with our consumer votes. 

Now, my challenge to all of my country men and women is to send a message to the corporate criminals by refusing to shop. What if everyone who is so disgusted by this new regime decided to choose only one day out of the month to do something other than go to the store to buy stuff? What if we chose to buy secondhand only for a while? What if we chose to stop driving so much, use mass transit wherever possible, and do recreational activities at home or closer to home, within our own communities? What if we chose to buy items from locally owned small businesses and stopped going to the larger big box blights on the landscape? What if we decided to conserve all of our resources, not only because it is the right thing to do, but because we would not be putting more money into the hands of the corporate criminals? What if we all looked at our options for change and realized that without our money, the minority group of small minded fearful businessmen and women (who seem to need desperately to control everything) would not be getting richer at our expense, and then the power of greed would not be running the show? Perhaps we would all look at the problems of the world in a different way and then we would see we are all in this together.  

If we don't, we will have seen that this human experiment was a good idea while it lasted. Mother Earth will decide to get rid of us (with our cooperation, of course) and start again. Perhaps we will understand next time 

Kathleen Lassiter 

Jenner 

Eight Berkeley residents remain stranded in local hotels and a property owner says he faces financial peril after a suspicious fire damaged three south Berkeley buildings last week. 

“[City inspectors] won’t allow us back until the building is brought up to code,” said Shawn Goad, who lives one story above J&B Fine Foods at 3242 Adeline Street, where the displaced residents lived. 

Ali Kassim who owns both the ground floor shop and the building on Adeline Street says he doesn’t have the money to repair electrical circuits damaged by the fire and cannot pay relocation costs of the now homeless residents. 

The Red Cross is currently paying for temporary lodging, but after the aid expires Friday, Kassim is obligated to pay for the difference in the tenants’ housing costs for the next three months or until they can move back, as required by Berkeley law. 

“I’m in so much debt, I don’t even have enough money to pay my rent,” he said. 

The fire damaged the building’s electrical wiring, prompting fire inspectors to order power shut off to the building until repairs are made. 

Kassim said the lack of power at his store cost him $10,000 in spoiled foods and is now depriving him of further income he could use to repair the building. 

City officials said Kassim should take out a short-term loan to make repairs and get his business re-opened. Without a loan, Kassim likely will have to wait until his insurer sends a check, which city officials said could take months.  

Before tenants will be permitted to move back, Kassim must show city inspectors that all of the fire damages have been repaired and that no outstanding code violations exist. 

Goad who has been put up at the Shattuck Hotel by the Red Cross, said the top floor is not nearly ready to re-occupy. 

“The landlord hasn’t cleaned up at all,” he said. “There are scraps hanging from the ceiling, the floors are soaked, and there are holes in the back stairway,” he said. 

City officials said evidence at the scene of the fire points to arson as the cause of the fire. 

“It appears from fire inspectors that an excelerent [highly flammable material like gasoline] was present,” said Berkeley police spokesperson Mary Kusmiss. Police have no suspects in the case. 

Nobody was hurt in the three-alarm blaze that fire officials estimate caused $130,000 in damages. 

About 40 to 50 percent of Berkeley fires are intentional said Fire Department Assistant Chief David Orth, noting that Berkeley was ranked among the upper fifth of California cities for arson. 

The south Berkeley fire came one week after 69 residents of the UA Homes at 1040 University Ave. were allowed to return to their apartments after spending nine weeks in hotels while the building’s owners made repairs. That fire was not believed to be arson related. 

Contact reporter at matt@berkeleydailyplanet.net

SAN PABLO — She’s short, strong-willed and has a taste for KFC chicken dinners and Twinkies. Meet 113-year-old Mary Christian of San Pablo — the newest oldest American. 

Christian was pronounced the oldest American last week by the Gerontology Research Group, a nonprofit collection of volunteer demographers who study aging and chronicle those who age long and gracefully. 

Christian became the nation’s eldest after last week’s death of Mary Parr, 113. After Parr’s death, John McMorran, also 113, held the title briefly until Christian’s age was confirmed. 

Born in Taunton, Mass. on June 12, 1889, Christian now holds the distinction all to herself. 

“She’s physically in good health. She’s always astounding her doctors,” said her great-granddaughter, Sharon Hanney. “She had a cold when she was 102 and got over that.” 

Christian moved with her family from Massachusetts to California at age 10. She was working in a Richmond chocolate factory when the 1906 earthquake hit, and she recalled for relatives that the boss let employees take bits of the broken sweets home after they fell on the floor from the shaking. 

Christian now lives at the Creekside Care Center in San Pablo, an eastern suburb of San Francisco. Only a few of her closest relatives can hold a conversation with her, as she only recognizes their familiar voices, Hanney said. 

The elderly woman worked at a cannery, and later at a Macy’s, and grew up in Richmond before the city held that name. Christian has lost much of her vision, and essentially is bedridden, but retained her taste for fast food until two years ago. 

“She used to be just crazy about Kentucky Fried Chicken. We would take her to KFC,” Hanney said. “She also loved Twinkies.” 

It’s the genes Christian inherited that are whetting the academic appetites of researchers, says Dr. Stephen Coles, an instructor of gerontology the UCLA school of medicine. 

“Supercentenarians live as long as they do because they grow old more uniformly and they don’t have a weak link like heart disease that takes them out of the running early,” Dr. Coles said. 

Dr. Coles is part of the group that verified Christian’s age.

OAKLAND — Voters approved adding 100 police officers to Oakland’s streets, but refused to raise taxes to pay for them. Supporters say that means they want the department to increase efficiency, but some opponents argue voters didn’t understand the ballot. 

Measure FF, which passed Tuesday with 53 percent of the vote, would put 100 new police officers on the streets, paying their salaries with new tax revenue. The proposal was put on the ballot by Mayor Jerry Brown in response to the city’s rising homicide rate. 

But the three separate measures intended to fund the new jobs failed — all with more than 56 percent of the vote. They would have raised taxes from 7.5 percent to 8 percent on hotel stays, parking and utilities including electricity, gas and alternate fuels, as well as telephone and cable television. The tax increase would have amounted to $63.5 million over five years. 

That additional revenue would have paid for the new officers, who were to form new foot and bicycle patrols and work in neighborhoods impacted by the recent rise in crime. 

“People want more police and more crime prevention programs,” Brown said Wednesday. “But they want City Hall to prioritize and become more efficient. The voters are saying, ’Take a second look, do your job, but don’t come back to us with more taxes.”’ 

But a leading opponent of the measure, Oakland City Council member Nancy Nadel, said the outcome doesn’t necessarily mean that people want more cops on the streets. She said the measure, called “violence prevention” on the ballot, was confusing. 

“It’s very hard to vote against violence prevention, but most people don’t consider cops to be violence prevention,” Nadel said. “We need actual job programs, a mini WPA for our ex-offenders, after-school programs ... Police are just a small part of it.” 

Oakland, with a population of 406,000, is on track to surpass 100 homicides by year’s end for the first time since 1995. This year’s pace harkens back to the years of 1986 to 1995, when the city averaged 138 murders a year. 

As voters went to the polls Tuesday evening, the city’s murder toll rose to 96 when a 38-year-old man was killed in East Oakland just before 6 p.m.

Voters in Castro Valley have rejected a proposal to become an incorporated city and Fremont voters passed a $51 million fire station bond measure, according to complete unofficial election returns. 

Voters Tuesday night overwhelmingly rejected Measure Q, which would have created the new city of Castro Valley. The proposed city would have existed as of July 1, and been governed by a five-member city council. Some critics of the plan had said they were worried that the city would not be able to support itself financially. 

Nearly three in four Fremont voters approved Measure R, a $51 million bond measure that will replace three small fire stations and seismically upgrade seven others. A two-thirds was required for passage. 

Measure S, a bid to raise the salaries of Fremont City Council members and the mayor, went down to defeat. Under the measure, the monthly salary of each member of the City Council would have increased to $2,083 from  

$1,407 and the salary of the mayor would have increase to $2,916 from $2,211 per month. 

Alameda County voters passed Measure C, which will amend the county charter to specify that any county chief probation officer taking office after Wednesday will be appointed by, and serve at the pleasure of, the Board of Supervisors. 

On Friday, the current probation chief, Sylvia Johnson, announced that she would retire from office on Jan. 31. 

Measure A, approved by the voters, will allow the county to adopt a hotel and lodging tax of 10 percent of the rental charge that would apply to unincorporated areas of the county. With the exception of Piedmont, all cities in the county currently impose a hotel and lodging tax of 8 to 12 percent. 

Measure B, passed by the voters, will enable the county to continue to impose a business license tax in unincorporated areas. 

Measure AA, which would enable the Alameda-Contra Costa Transit District to levy a $24 annual parcel tax over the next five years, to protect bus services for children and seniors, help ensure passenger security and help reduce traffic congestion and air pollution appeared to have been passed by at least two-thirds of the voters in Alameda County in final unofficial returns. However, the measure was falling just shy of the two-thirds mark in Contra Costa County returns. 

Measure BB would allow the San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District to issue up to $1.05 billion in bonds to perform seismic upgrades on BART facilities in Alameda, Contra Costa and San Francisco counties. The passage of the measure is still too close to call by unofficial election returns. Measures AA and BB require a two-thirds majority in multiple counties for passage.

S.F. sues major contractor 

SAN FRANCISCO — The city of San Francisco has sued the major contractor that worked on San Francisco International Airport’s expansion, accusing the company of defrauding the city of tens of millions of dollars. 

The suit, filed Friday in federal court, seeks $30 million in damages from Sylmar-based Tutor-Saliba Corp., as well as forfeiture of profits and possibly millions more in damages from Tutor-Saliba and its partners, Massachusetts-based Perini Corp. and Pennsylvania-based Buckley and Co. It also seeks to keep Tutor-Saliba from bidding on future contracts in San Francisco. 

The city claims the company overbilled and company manipulated and defrauded the city-run minority contracting program to win lucrative airport contracts it shouldn’t have gotten. 

Company owner Ronald Tutor denies the charges. 

“I’m really taken aback. I did not believe they would do anything so unreasonable,” he said. 

U.S. Postal Service offers amnesty 

SAN FRANCISCO — The U.S. Postal Service is offering an amnesty to anyone in possession of its white plastic bins, commonly used to distribute large amounts of mail to businesses. 

The post office says about 10 percent of its 10 million boxes are missing nationwide. Each bin is worth about $3.50, but misuse of a single box can lead to a $1,000 fine or possible jail time. 

Each container, which is government property, clearly warns in blue print that the theft or misuse of it can entail the fine and a maximum penalty of three years imprisonment. 

Diversity enrollment up due to smaller class size 

BERKELEY — This fall’s diversity increase in enrollment at UC Berkeley is mainly due to a smaller freshman class than last year’s, said a university representative. 

The freshman class has a total of 3,655 students, a 5 percent decrease from last year, said assistant vice chancellor for admissions and enrollment, Richard Black. The university received 36,000 applications, accepting roughly one in four. 

Hispanics, blacks and American Indians compose 15.6 percent of the fall freshmen class, up from 14.7 in fall 2001. In 1997, the year before the Prop. 209 ban on affirmative action went into effect, the percentage of underrepresented students was 21 percent. 

Asian Americans increased to 46 percent.

LOS ANGELES — A grainy, security camera videotape has upstaged Winona Ryder’s movie work. 

Footage of the two-time Academy Award nominee walking out of a Beverly Hills Saks Fifth Avenue store with $5,500 worth of unpurchased items culminated Wednesday in two convictions. The jury in the shoplifting trial found the star of “Girl, Interrupted” guilty of felony grand theft and vandalism but cleared her of burglary. 

Ryder, 31, is expected to receive sentences of community service and probation — but the lingering embarrassment of the scandal may become an unofficial punishment. 

Months before the trial, the actress attempted to make light of the theft accusations during appearances to promote her films “Mr. Deeds” and “Simone.” 

In a “Saturday Night Live” monologue, Ryder deadpanned: “You know, people have been acting a little strange around here. You know, there’s like, you know, a lot of like locking of doors and — and shifty eyes and — and a lot of frisking.” 

In a later shoplifting sketch, she mockingly scolded other characters for stealing. 

Ryder also appeared on the cover of W magazine wearing a “Free Winona” T-shirt. 

The Los Angeles County district attorney’s office bristled at her apparently unremorseful attitude, rejecting Ryder’s efforts to get her charges reduced to misdemeanors.

SAN JOSE — Cisco Systems Inc.’s fiscal first-quarter earnings beat Wall Street expectations Wednesday despite the weak economy and soft demand for networking gear. 

But the company, which has managed to outperform competitors in recent quarters, predicted a soft fiscal second quarter with sales remaining flat or falling slightly. 

For the three months ended Oct. 26, Cisco earned $618 million, or 8 cents per share, on sales of $4.85 billion. For the comparable period last fiscal year, the company lost $268 million, or 4 cents a share, on revenues of $4.45 billion. 

Excluding special items, Cisco earned $1 billion, or 14 cents per share, compared with a profit of $332 million or 4 cents a share in the same period last fiscal year. 

Analysts were expecting a first-quarter profit of 13 cents per share on sales of $4.81 billion, according to a survey by Thomson First Call. 

“Despite the challenging market, we continued to execute ahead of our competitors, resulting in another solid quarter for Cisco,” said John Chambers, the company’s chief executive. 

In August, the company said first-quarter sales would range from flat to a slight percentage increase from the $4.83 billion reported in its fiscal fourth quarter. 

“They’re really driving the operational execution of the company to a very high tempo,” said Barry Jaruzelski, managing partner of the global technology practice at Booz Allen Hamilton, a consulting firm. 

Cisco has been particularly hard hit by the meltdown in spending by telecommunications companies, which drove much of its growth in the late 1990s. To compensate, the company has dramatically cut costs and focused more attention on other business opportunities. 

Chambers told analysts he remains optimistic about the company’s long-term prospects, saying Cisco’s results will quickly follow improvements in its customers’ sales and profits. 

“It is no surprise given our customers’ visibility is limited that our own visibility is limited,” he said. 

The company expects its fiscal second-quarter revenues to be flat to down as much as 4 percent over the first quarter, said Larry Carter, Cisco’s chief financial officer. 

In the worst-case scenario, Cisco’s second-quarter sales would be $4.6 billion. The consensus analyst estimate for the period was $4.9 billion. 

“It would not be a big surprise if factors increased or decreased,” Chambers said. “As our customers’ business improves, so will our business with a slight lag time.” 

Cisco, the leading maker of routers, switches and other network equipment, has managed to continue posting profits even as rivals Lucent Technologies, Alcatel and Juniper Networks Inc. post losses. 

Jaruzelski compared Cisco’s performance to Dell Computer Corp. in the personal computer business. 

“It’s a flat, not attractive marketplace with penny-pinching customers,” he said. “They’re getting more than their fair share ... at the expense of others. They’re not doing it by giving their products away.” 

In the past month, Cisco’s shares have risen about 50 percent. 

On Wednesday, shares closed up 27 cents, to $12.96, in trading on the Nasdaq Stock Market. After the company released its earnings, shares gained 10 cents in extended-session trading.

LOS ANGELES — The federal government is investigating whether Tenet Healthcare Corp. hospitals overbilled Medicare millions of dollars for costly procedures, the company said Wednesday. 

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services will audit Tenet’s accounts at several hospitals. The probe was triggered by an insurance company reporting concerns over billings for a higher-than-average number of procedures, such as heart surgeries, that qualify for special payments. 

The so-called “outlier” payments are meant to reimburse hospitals for expenses over and above the flat fee Medicare pays for certain conditions. 

“We’re seeing indications of a problem there and want to see how extensive it is,” said Katherine Harris, a spokeswoman for the inspector general’s office of the health department. 

The payments in question were made over a period of months this year, Harris said. 

“We’re going to visit hospitals to be sure Medicare claims complied with Medicare regulations and were based on usual and customary charges for private pay patients,” Harris said. 

“We are pleased to cooperate with this audit, as we are confident that it will demonstrate that our hospitals did, in fact, obey the rules,” said Jeffrey Barbakow, chairman and chief executive officer of the Santa Barbara-based company. 

Last week, federal agents searched the office of two doctors who practice at a Tenet hospital in Redding. Tenet also is investigating allegations that the two performed unnecessary heart surgeries. 

The California medical board is seeking a restraining order against the two doctors, saying the evidence to date constitutes probable cause that the pair performed unnecessary invasive heart surgeries.

Palm handhelds were something of a revelation when first launched in April 1996 — small, nifty computers that did a great job of organizing personal data and ran for weeks on a single set of batteries. 

Yet the very thing that let Palm succeed where others had failed — a simple, stripped-down operating system — is what’s been holding it back in recent years. 

The operating system and antiquated processors it runs on simply doesn’t have the muscle and the flexibility to support wireless network cards, cameras and stereo music. 

Palm’s new operating system, called OS 5, attempts to remedy that.

SACRAMENTO — A California state budget process that broke down last summer, triggering a record impasse between Republicans and Democrats, may become still more difficult next year with Republican election gains in the state Assembly. 

Assembly Democrats, who already needed four Republican votes for a two-thirds majority to pass a budget, now need six crossover votes — and possibly seven — in the two-year legislative session that begins in January. 

The final tally hinges on a lone San Joaquin Valley Assembly race that remained undecided on Wednesday. 

Elections officials in Kern, Kings, Tulare and Fresno counties said it may take two weeks to determine a winner in the 30th Assembly District. While thousands of absentee and provisional ballots remained uncounted, Democrat Nicole Parra held only a 475-vote edge over Republican Dean Gardner.

Progressive Tom Bates who returned to Berkeley politics last May, fresh off a six-year political hiatus, declared victory Tuesday night in his race to unseat Mayor Shirley Dean. 

“The work has just begun,” the former state Assemblyman told more than 200 supporters at his campaign headquarters on Shattuck Avenue. 

With 85 percent of the vote counted, Bates held a commanding 56 to 42 percent lead over the moderate incumbent at press time early Wednesday morning. 

Bates’ triumph ends a race that featured two of the city’s pre-eminent politicians. The pair offered similar visions for the city, but did so in contrasting and sometimes antagonistic styles. 

Bates, positioning himself as a consensus builder, won support of voters tired of a City Council that has been marred by partisan bickering. 

Noting nationwide gains for Republicans Tuesday, Bates insisted late Tuesday that Berkeley now has a mission to keep the progressive spirit alive. 

“We need to provide hope for the nation going in the wrong direction,” he said. 

Dean gave a short speech to supporters early Wednesday, but campaign officials refused to comment on their apparent defeat. 

Berkeley election returns filtered in slowly Tuesday night, with voters packing polling stations up to the 8:00 p.m.. closing time. Many polls remained open until 9:30 p.m. to accommodate crowds, according to City Clerk Sherry Kelly.  

The candidates’ headquarters told the story of the vote. 

While Bates’ headquarters was a raucous party with supporters cheering with each updated vote total, Dean played host to roughly 35 mostly subdued supporters, most of whom filed out by 10:30 p.m.  

The race for mayor pitted two political Goliaths who were close on many policy issues but stood on opposite sides of Berkeley’s moderate versus progressive divide for nearly 30 years. 

Dean, a 15-year member of City Council, was elected mayor in 1994, ending the progressives’ 16-year stranglehold on the office. Bates rode his progressive Berkeley base to 20 years in the state Assembly until term limits forced him to retire in 1996. 

The race, which saw both candidates raising roughly $150,000, was one of the most expensive in Berkeley history and sometimes appeared driven more by personal animosity between the candidates than by substantive policy differences. 

Dean fired the opening salvos, blasting Bates for allegedly blocking the construction of student housing and warning voters that a Bates victory would mean a return to run-down buildings and a derelict downtown. 

Bates eventually fired back, calling Dean a mean-spirited person. He blamed her for the partisan bickering at City Council meetings and noted her ballyhooed trip to Ohio to dig up dirt on arch rival Councilmember Kriss Worthington. 

The campaigns also dueled in the ring of campaign finance. Bates’ treasurer Mal Burnstein found that Dean had misfiled approximately $3,000 in campaign contributions from the 1998 race. Dean was ultimately ordered by a citizen commission to re-allocate the money to her previous campaign and file amended fundraising reports with the city. 

Dean’s campaign responded by plugging two citizen petitions, accusing Bates of illegal fundraising. Both charges against Bates were dismissed by the citizen commission.  

With both candidates calling for a Berkeley with more housing along transit corridors, better public transportation, good relations with the university and support of small businesses, Dean and Bates often ended up debating who was better suited to achieve their similar visions. 

Bates said his political connections throughout the state gave him an edge. Noting his ties to Sacramento politicians, including his wife, former Berkeley Mayor Loni Hancock, who was overwhelmingly elected to fill Bates’ former Assembly seat, Bates said he was better positioned to win state grants and negotiate with the university from a position of strength. 

Dean insisted that she had already made progress on these issues, and that Bates was at the head of a political machine that sought to control city politics.

To the Editor: 

My nine year old son and I were at the demonstration against the war in Iraq on Saturday in San Francisco. It was astounding, with apathy at appalling rates, to see so many thousands of individuals show up for anything. This was not just students or young people; there were lots and lots of families, young and old, brown, black, white and every color under the rainbow. When I said to a friend, “This is amazing,” she answered, “Yes but will the media cover it?” And I thought, “Of course they will.” 

Generally, I'm am very cynical about things, but I thought (mistakenly) that there was no way the media could ignore these numbers protesting our government’s war policy. I’m astounded I could have been so naive and so wrong. Where was most of the media? The demonstrations involved over 100,000 people in Washington D.C., and 50,000 in San Francisco, and concurrent events throughout Europe in the pouring rain. There was no real main stream reporting and, even when it was mentioned, no analysis. 

It saddens me, almost as much as our government's war policies, to realize that if these demonstrations had not been peaceful and nonviolent, they would have been considered newsworthy. When was the last time that many folks have turned out for any one event? 

Ann Lehman 

El Cerrito

Wednesday, Nov. 6 

North Berkeley Senior Center Advisory Council Meeting 

10 a.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center, 1901 Hearst St. 

981-5190 

Community Members Welcome 

Monthly Birthday Party 

1:15 p.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center, 1901 Hearst St. 

Featuring Jim Steinke, guitar and mandolin wizard 

981-5190 

2002 Surjit Singh Lecture 

5:30 p.m. 

Church Divinity School of the Pacific, Common Room, 2451 Ridge Rd. 

649-2440 

“The Chinese and Religion in the Context of Globalization” 

Reception 5:30 p.m. / Lecture 7 p.m. 

Bade Museum at Pacific School of Religion, 1798 Scenic Ave. 

A noted scholar and author, Professor Zhuo Xinping speaks 

649-2440 

Thursday, Nov. 7 

“Water, the Beverage of Life” 

11:30 a.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center, 1901 Hearst St. 

Aaron Miller, SF State Intern will discuss 

981-5190 

Additional Ferries from East Bay Sites 

noon to 2 p.m. 

Albany Public Library, 1247 Marin Ave. 

Discussion with a representative of the San Francisco Bay Area Water Transit Authority. Sponsored by the League of Women Voters 

843-8824 

Free 

Panel Discussion - “Resistance to the Free Trade Agreements in Mexico and Central America” 

7:30 p.m. 

La Pena Cultural Center, 3105 Shattuck Ave. 

Featuring video presentation of “Tierra Si, Aviones No”, and performance by the NoPPP Players 

$5 and $10/ suggested donation 

Friday, Nov. 8  

Alexander Cockburn’s Incendiary Rants 

7 p.m. 

AK Press Warehouse, 673-A 23rd St. 

Release party for muckraking maverick Alexander Cockburn’s new spoken word CD “Beating the Devil” 

208-1700 

Free 

Berkeley Women in Black Vigil 

Bancroft at Telegraph Ave. 

Weekly protest to “End the Occupation” 

Saturday, Nov. 9 

Book Sale and Auction 

10 a.m. to 4 p.m. 

The Center for AIDS Services, 5720 Shattuck Ave., Oakland 

This big sale will benefit the AIDS center 

655-3435 

An Afternoon of Mystery  

2 p.m. 

1901 Russell St. 

Berkeley’s South Branch Library presents mystery writers Jake Fuchs “Death of a Prof”, Owen Hill “The Chandler Apartments”, and Mary Halock “The Dog on the Roof” 

525-3948 

Free 

Sunday, Nov. 10 

World Run Day-national charity benefit 

All day 

Various cities across the nation  

(516) 859-3000, www.runday.com 

Tuesday, Nov. 12 

Holiday Craft Baazar 

10 a.m. to noon 

St. John’s Presbyterian Curch, 2727 College Ave. 

Handmade items, sweet treats, and knick knacks will be for sale. All are welcome 

845-6830 

Wednesday, Nov. 13 

Public Lecture by the Rev. Canon Naim Ateek 

7:30 p.m. 

UCC, on Dana St. between Durant and Channing 

Founder of the Sabeel Ecumenical Liberation Theology Center and native of East Jerusalem, Rev. Ateek will lead a discussion sponsored by the First Congregational Church of Berkeley (UCC) and the Pacific School of Religion 

848-3696 

$10/ suggested donation 

League of Women Voters Meeting 

Noon 

LWVBAE office, 1414 University Ave. 

Discussion will focus on regional issues 

849-2154 

Thursday, Nov. 14 

Regret to Inform  

Reception 6:30 p.m. / Program 7 p.m. 

Berkeley High School Auditorium, 2234 Martin Luther King Jr. Way 

A screening and discussion with filmmaker Barbara Sonneborn. 

979-0190, liz_vogel@facing.org 

Free 

Berkeley Path Wanderers Meeting 

7 to 9 p.m. 

Hillside Club, 2286 Cedar St. 

Meeting to include a presentation by best- selling author Adah Bakalinsky who will speak about her book, “Stairway Walks of San Francisco” 

Free 

Wednesday, Nov. 6 

Zabava! Izorno and Brass Menagerie 

7 p.m. doors open/ 8:30 live performance 

Ashkenaz, 1317 San Pablo Ave. 

Enjoy this celebration with live music from the Balkans, including dance lessons begining at 7:30 

525-5054 

$8 

Christopher Hitchens 

7:30 p.m. 

Cody’s Books, 2454 Telegraph Ave. 

Hitchens will discuss “Why Orwell Matters” 

845-7852 

Saadet Turkoz with Miya Masaoka and George Cremaschi 

8 p.m. 

Freight & Salvage, 1111 Addison St. 

Mysterious improvisations based on ancient Central Asian music in collaboration with local luminati Masaoka and Cremaschi on contrabass 

548-1761 

$15.50-$16.50 

Thursday, Nov. 7 

Gary Thorp 

7:30 p.m. 

Cody’s Books, 2454 Telegraph Ave. 

Thorp will read from “Caught in Fading Light” 

845-7852 

The Non Prophets  

9:30 p.m. 

The Starry Plough, 3101 Shattuck Ave. 

Performing with special guest Vince Welnick of the Grateful Dead 

21+ 

$10 

Bandworks Recital 

7:30 p.m. to midnight 

Ashkenaz, 1317 San Pablo Ave. 

Hear student bands play rock, blues, and pop at this annual recital event 

525-5054 

$11 

Friday, Nov. 8 

The Librarians, Bitesize, and Glitter Mini 9:30 p.m. 

The Starry Plough, 3101 Shattuck Ave. 

All age show 

$7 

Chaskinakuy 

8 p.m. 

Freight & Salvage, 1111 Addison St. 

Beautiful vocal harmonies in Spanish and Quechua 

548-1761 

$15.50-$16.50 

An Evening of Cultural Harmony 

8 p.m. 

St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. 

The Barbard Ensemble, the San Francisco Klezmer Experience, and Lichi Fuentes & Jackeline Rago will treat listeners to music from Iran, Eastern Europe, and Latin America. 

704-7480 x755 

$25 general admission 

Black Dice, Dearly Departed (ex-Subtonix), and The Mass 

9:30 p.m. 

The Starry Plough, 3101 Shattuck Ave. 

$8 

Sunday, Nov. 10 

The Sheldon Brown Group 

4:30 p.m. 

Jazzschool, 2087 Addison St. 

Reservations: 845-5373 

$10-$15 

Images of India-2002 

7 p.m. 

International House Auditorium, 2299 Piedmont Ave. 

‘Asha for Education,’ a campus based non-profit organization, holds its 12th annual event  

665-4889, ioi@ashanet.org 

$15-$25 / $10 students 

The Starry Irish Music Session with Shay Black 

8 p.m. 

The Starry Plough, 3101 Shattuck Ave. 

Tickets available on a sliding scale 

“Shove Off to Birthday Island” 

Through Nov. 30 

Reception Nov. 2 from 5 to 8 p.m. 

Tue. through Sat., 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.  

Ardency Gallery, 709 Broadway, Oakland 

A collaborative exhibition of Tonya Solley Thornton and Frank Haines including video and sculptural installations. 

836-0831 

Children of the Gulf War Photo Exhibit 

Through Nov. 30 

Mon. through Thurs., 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. 

Fri. through Sat.., 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. 

Sun., 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. 

Berkeley Public Library, 2090 Kittredge St. 

Featuring works of Takashi Morizumi 

Information: www.savewarchildren.org 

Ceramics - Opening Reception 

Through Nov. 17 

3 to 5 p.m. 

A New Leaf Gallery, 1286 Gilman St. 

525-7621 

Free 

“Recent Acquisitions” 

Through Dec. 14 

Thurs. through Sat., 1 to 4 p.m. 

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

848-0181 

Free 

Threads: Five artists who use stitching to convey ideas 

Through Dec. 15, Wed. through Sun., noon to 5 p.m. 

Berkeley Art Center 

Live Oak Park, 1275 Walnut St. 

Information: www.berkeleyartcenter.org, 644-6893 

Free 

Menocchio 

Nov. 6 through Dec. 22 

Berkeley Repertory Theatre, 2025 Addison St. 

Berkeley Repertory Theatre presents the world premiere of Lillian Groag’s charged comedy 

647-2949, www.berkeleyrep.org  

$38 and $54/ sliding scale 

Thursday, Nov. 7 

“Desert Hearts” 

1 p.m. 

North Berkeley Senior Center, 1901 Hearst St. 

A 1950s lesbian romance featuring Helen Shaver and Patricia Charbonneau. 

Friday, Nov. 8 

“El Che” 

7 p.m. 

Redwood Gardens, 2951 Derby St. 

Film screening followed by salsa dancing to support Berkeley’s Cuban Sister-City Palma Soriano. 

548-6941 

$10 / sliding scale 

“Cinemayaat: The Arab Film Festival” 

Through Nov. 12 

Various locations throughout Berkeley, San Francisco, and San Jose. 

For more information contact the Arab Film Festival at info@aff.org, (415) 564- 1100, or www.aff.org 

Wednesday, Nov. 6 

Poetry Slam with host Nazelah Jamison and Karen Ladson 

8:30 p.m. 

The Starry Plough, 3101 Shattuck Ave. 

Cash prizes up to $90 

21+ 

$7/ general, $5/ students with ID 

Saturday Nov. 9 

Dorothy Allison and Jewelle Gomez appear in support of Boadecia’s Books 

8 p.m. 

Northbrae Community Church, 941 The Alameda at Solano 

559-9184 

$25/ sliding scale 

Tuesday, Nov. 12 

Open Mic 

The Starry Plough, 3101 Shattuck Ave. 

7:30 p.m. 

Free 

Wednesday, Nov. 13 

Poetry Slam with host Charles Ellik 

8:30 p.m. 

The Starry Plough, 3101 Shattuck Ave. 

Cash prizes up to $90 

21+ 

$7/ general, $5/ students with ID 

Saturday Nov. 16 

Alice Walker and Brenda Boykin 

appear in support of Boadecia’s Books 

8 p.m. 

Northbrae Community Church, 941 The Alameda at Solano 

559-9184 

$25/ sliding scale 

Monday, Dec. 2 

Adam David Miller and Rita Flores Bogaert 

7 to 9 p.m. 

Pegasus Books Downtown, 2349 Shattuck Ave 

The Last Word announces a poetry reading that will include an open mic and featured readers 

649-1320 

Free

NEW YORK — Randy Johnson won yet another Cy Young Award and then he teed off. 

No, not on baseball. The Big Unit was getting ready to play Pebble Beach Golfs Links when his latest honor was announced Tuesday, and rather than delay his round, Johnson grabbed a cell phone and talked about his fastballs and sliders while deciding among woods and wedges. 

“I’m trying to make a putt on No. 2 right now,” he said, the California coast off to his side. 

No doubt, his score Tuesday was far lower than his perenially high strikeout total. 

Johnson was a unanimous pick over Arizona teammate Curt Schilling, winning a record-tying fourth straight National League Cy Young and fifth overall — one short of Roger Clemens’ record. 

The Big Unit, who will earn an additional $4 million because of the award, received all 32 first-place votes and 160 points from a panel of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America. 

“The big picture, obviously, is to get to the World Series. If you remain consistent and have a good year, it’s kind of a bonus,” Johnson said, referring to the award. “This has come from maintaining consistency, hard work and dedication, and my teammates being very supportive offensively, defensively and in the bullpen.” 

Schilling was runner-up for the second straight season, getting 29 second-place votes and three thirds for 90 points. Atlanta closer John Smoltz was third with 21 points. 

Johnson matched Greg Maddux (1992-95) as the only pitchers to win four straight Cy Youngs and became the NL’s 11th unanimous winner, the first since Maddux in 1995. Johnson and Schilling became the first pitchers to finish 1-2 in Cy Young voting in consecutive years. 

Johnson, who has won the award in all four seasons since signing with the Diamondbacks as a free agent, earned his first Cy Young with Seattle in 1995. 

“I’ve got them in my office, and they’re displayed nice,” he said. “I’m a very simple person, and I work hard, and I push myself, and this is the reward.” 

The Big Unit went 24-5 with a 2.37 ERA and 334 strikeouts, becoming the first major leaguer since Boston’s Pedro Martinez in 1999 and the first NL player since the Mets’ Dwight Gooden in 1985 to win pitching’s triple crown. 

The 39-year-old Johnson set a career high for wins, led the major leagues in strikeouts for the ninth time and became the first pitcher to reach 300 in five straight seasons. He also led the majors in innings (260) and complete games (eight), and led the NL in opponents’ batting average (.208). 

Schilling went 23-7 with a 3.23 ERA, 316 strikeouts and just 33 walks in 259 1-3 innings. Schilling, who has never won a Cy Young, was 21-5 with a 2.77 ERA though Aug. 31, while Johnson was 19-5 with a 2.63 ERA. 

Johnson sealed the award by going 5-0 with an 0.66 ERA in September as Schilling was 2-2 with a 6.19 ERA. On Sept. 20, Schilling allowed eight earned runs for only the third time and a career-high 14 hits in 9-4 loss to Colorado at Coors Field. 

Arizona, the NL West champion, was 55-15 when Johnson or Schilling started, 43-49 the rest of the time. The defending World Series champions were swept by St. Louis in the first round of the playoffs. 

Last year, Johnson and Schilling were co-MVPs of the seven-game World Series win over the New York Yankees. Johnson called that the “top of the mountain” and recalled the thrill of having his family at the Diamondbacks’ parade. 

Injuries to Luis Gonzalez and others crippled Arizona.

Berkeley’s two most-watched ballot measures appeared well on their way to defeat late Tuesday night. 

With 68 percent of city precincts reported, residents were appearing jittery about calls for socially-conscience coffee, voting 70 to 30 percent against the initiative that would require retailers to brew and sell only organic, shade-grown or “Fair Trade” cups of coffee. 

Berkeley voters also weighed in on the increasingly contentious issue of urban growth, rejecting an initiative that aimed to steer high-rise housing out of the city. 

With 68 percent of precincts reported, the initiative was losing 79 to 21 percent. 

Both Measure P, the height initiative, and Measure O, the coffee initiative, pushed historic thresholds of citizen-driven initiatives, bringing such issues as international trade and population growth into the realm of local policy-making. 

While disappointed by the loss of the height initiative, supporters remained confident that their attempts to put limits on the heights of new buildings could be established through other means. 

“There are three lawsuits against the city in regard to development and others in the pipeline,” said height initiative author Howie Muir, claiming that the city has illegally approved oversized projects and will likely be admonished by the courts. 

The height initiative had sought to reduce Berkeley’s population density by cutting permissible height limits along several major traffic corridors. On sections of San Pablo Avenue, under the initiative, limits would have dropped from four stories to two and on parts of University, Shattuck and College avenues height limits would have dropped an average of one story. 

“We’re the 20th densist city in the country for cities with more than 100,000 people,” Muir noted. 

While campaign literature conjured images of the Manhatten skyline taking shape in Berkeley, opponents of the height initiative said the rhetoric was overdone. 

Garnering support from the League of Women Voters, the entire City Council and advocates of so-called smart growth, the opposition made the case that much-needed housing opportunities would be lost if the measure passed. 

“We need to be able to continue revitalizing corridors like San Pablo and provide affordable housing along transit corridors. Measure P wouldn’t allow either of these things,” said Stuart Cohen, executive director of the Oakand-based Transportation and Land Use Coalition. 

A sign held by an opponent of the measure read, “Don’t P on Berkeley.” 

Opposition to Berkeley’s high-profile coffee initiative met with similar success. 

Peet’s Coffee & Tea, Starbucks Coffee and the National Coffee Association, each throwing more than $10,000 into the opposition effort, argued that politically correct coffee would hurt both local businesses and consumers because of its higher wholesale cost. 

Supporters of the coffee initiative, though, said untold costs of labor exploitation and environmentally-destructive farming practices would far exceed any local price increases. 

“If this would have passed, my money would have gone to small farmers who are struggling to survive. Now it goes to corporate farms and companies that don’t care about labor practices,” said Rick Young who authored the coffee initiative.

To the Editor: 

Interpreting the population density numbers being bandied about is a challenge. Let me address impacts on transit. As most of you know, that has been my field for 30 years. 

Average density for cities or neighborhoods is irrelevant to transit ridership. What counts is how many people and what activity is within walking distance of stops or stations. The rule of thumb is that people walk up to five minutes to a bus stop. On flat land, that is around a quarter mile. Both numbers stem from research on how far passengers actually walk. I have done some of the research. Our results duplicated those of other investigators. Historically, people have tended to walk further to rail transit stations. 

It is important to understand what the quarter mile means. It means that few passengers walk further. Beyond a quarter mile, you are looking at the tail of the distribution. Most passengers come from less than that. Since they come from all directions, imagine concentric circles, the market penetration (riders per unit of area) tails off even more rapidly with distance from the stop. 

Residences and activities have to be clustered really densely around stops if we expect many people to use transit. “Around” means just that. The high-density node should extend a block or two on either side of the arterial as well as along it. 

If we seek to shift future travelers from automobiles to transit, zoning must encourage high density at stops, not inhibit it. 

Robert R. Piper 

Former Director of Transportation 

Berkeley 

NEW YORK — Pallbearers wearing white unlaced Adidas carried the body of slain Run-DMC star Jam Master Jay from a funeral service Tuesday at which he was remembered as “the embodiment of hip-hop.” 

A funeral cortege of white stretch limousines and luxury SUVs was lined up outside the Allen A.M.E. Cathedral in the rapper’s native Queens. Inside, bandmates Joseph “Run” Simmons and Darryl “DMC” McDaniel eulogized their friend, whose real name was Jason “Jay” Mizell, as a great man and groundbreaking musical force. 

“Jason helped build hip-hop, and his job is finished,” said Joseph Simmons, now an ordained minister, wearing a broad-brimmed black hat and clerical collar. “He just couldn’t leave without drama.” 

The funeral came six days after Mizell was shot to death in his Queens recording studio by a masked assailant. No one has been charged. 

A who’s who of hip-hop attended the service. LL Cool J, Chuck D of Public Enemy, Queen Latifah and hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons, the brother of Joseph Simmons, were among the mourners. Many in the church and among the crowd outside wore the white Adidas and black leather that Run-DMC turned into a fashion trend in the 1980s. 

As DJ for the pioneering group, Jam Master Jay had worked the turntables as Simmons and McDaniels rapped a string of hits over nearly 20 years. 

McDaniels brought the overflow crowd of 2,300 to its feet with his eulogy, getting in a dig at anyone who would call the slaying just another example of rap violence. 

“Jam Master Jay was not a thug,” McDaniels said. “Jam Master Jay was not a gangster.”

ANAHEIM — The World Series champion Anaheim Angels aren’t about to let anyone monkey around with their mascot, especially when it comes to a movie. 

Larry Cano, an executive producer of the 1983 film “Silkwood,” views the Rally Monkey as a perfect role model for kids and wants to make a movie featuring the crowd-pleasing primate. 

Cano has filed both a trademark application for the term “Rally Monkey” and a script treatment with the Writer’s Guild of America. 

There’s only one problem. The Angels and major league baseball say they have prior rights to the name, and have already begun to enforce them against others looking to make a buck from the monkey. 

“The mere fact that somebody filed for trademark registration does not give them any special legal status,” said Rick Schlesinger, an attorney for the Angels. “Our position is that ’Rally Monkey’ is a protected trademark of the Angels and has been so since we first used it in the fall of 2000.” 

Not to mention the fact that The Walt Disney Co., which owns the Angels, might want to make its own Rally Monkey movie someday. 

The monkey with seemingly miraculous powers first made his appearance on June 6, 2000, when the Angels, losing to the San Francisco Giants, needed a boost. The operator of the video scoreboard in right-center field played a clip from the movie “Ace Ventura: Pet Detective” that showed a capuchin monkey jumping up and down. 

Fans went wild, the team won and a tradition was born. 

Until this year, the monkey restricted his appearances to inside the stadium. But as the Angels moved closer and closer to the baseball playoffs, the monkey made his way to T-shirts and other items.

In a recent union vote, local teachers overwhelmingly approved Berkeley High School’s controversial shift from a seven- to a six-period day, averting the financial cost and logistical nightmare of a mid-year switch back to the seven-period schedule. 

“I can start sleeping nights,” joked Berkeley High Co-principal Laura Leventer. “We’re very happy we don’t have to switch back to the seven-period day.” 

Teachers from all 15 of Berkeley’s public schools voted 297-54 to approve the switch during a two-week voting period, Oct. 14-25. A rejection would have required the high school, which has operated on a six-period schedule since August, to return to a seven-period day at the start of the spring semester. 

Proponents say the move to a six-period day has saved the cash-strapped district money, increased overall classroom time for students and eliminated “gaps,” or periods without class, for most pupils. Erasing gaps, they argue, has cut down on the number of students roaming the hallways and improved safety. 

Opponents complain that the move has cut into the high school’s successful double-period science program and reduced the number of electives available in music and African-American Studies. But district officials note that the overall number of electives has actually increased this year, with new classes in ceramics, photography, acting and other areas. 

Opponents also argue that the shift to a six-period day, which eliminated teacher hall duty, has cut down on the adult presence in the hallways during class and reduced student safety. 

The teachers’ vote ensures that the controversial schedule will remain in place at least through the end of the school year. But, with the current teacher contract set to expire in June, the issue will be on the bargaining table again in a matter of months. 

“Who knows what will come out of the negotiations this spring?,” said Berkeley Federation of Teachers (BFT) President Barry Fike, noting that teachers might re-assess the six-period day after a year of experience with the new schedule.  

The Board of Education approved the shift to a six-period schedule in February and determined that it would go into effect in August, with the start of the 2002-2003 school year. 

But the union argued, at the time, that the board could not unilaterally implement a six-period day. BFT held that the shift would affect the teachers’ contract and therefore had to be negotiated. This summer, an independent arbitrator agreed with the union, throwing the issue into formal negotiations. 

On Oct. 7, after six grueling sessions, the district and union hammered out a deal. The union agreed to accept the six-period day in exchange for several small concessions. But the deal did not go into effect until the rank-and-file membership approved it with the Oct. 14-25 vote. 

Initially, union and district officials had real concerns about teacher approval of the agreement. Shortly after inking the Oct. 7 deal, the union conducted a non-binding, informal poll of high school teachers who only approved of the agreement by a slim 62-46 margin. 

At the time, Fike said opposition was rooted in general disapproval of the six-period day and concerns, among some, about the quality of the concessions the union was able to win from the district. 

In the end, Fike said, fears of disrupting the Berkeley High schedule halfway through the year weighed on some teachers in voting for the deal.

To the Editor: 

Jeff Hoffman wrote a misleading and inaccurate letter to the editor (Forum, Nov. 4). Mr. Hoffman thinks that AC Transit should convert to hydrogen power immediately to reduce the use of oil and thereby pollution. While I wholeheartedly agree that we need to reduce our use of oil, Mr. Hoffman evidently doesn't understand that making hydrogen requires energy which is made using oil (hydroelectric power is all spoken for by our houses – additional energy is made from burning oil). Making hydrogen uses lots of energy – more than the hydrogen gives back. In fact, making hydrogen uses 50 percent more oil than the equivalent power obtained from putting the oil directly into a car. And hydrogen is not green. Just because a hydrogen powered bus isn't spewing pollution, doesn’t mean it is non-polluting. It just relocates the pollution to where the power is made, someone else’s neighborhood, and 50 percent more pollution to boot. 

We should support hydrogen power for the right reasons – as part of research into alternative energy systems. Just understand that every hydrogen powered vehicle right now is burning more oil and creating more pollution than if that vehicle were conventionally powered. They say that instead of learning how to make hydrogen powered vehicles, we should be learning how to make hydrogen cost effectively. 

Greg Hoff 

Oakland 

Berkeley’s progressive political faction appeared on course to win at least three of four City Council races and the mayor’s race late Tuesday night, solidifying its control over local politics. 

Incumbent councilmembers Kriss Worthington, Dona Spring and Linda Maio, all progressives, led by significant margins after midnight and former state Assemblyman Tom Bates, also a progressive, had declared victory over moderate Mayor Shirley Dean. 

Moderate Planning Commissioner Gordon Wozniak held a solid lead in a four-way race for the empty 8th District City Council seat. If he wins, Wozniak would succeed retiring moderate Polly Armstrong. 

But, just after midnight, with 80 percent of precincts counted, Wozniak had not reached the 45 percent threshold required to avoid a run-off. Wozniak held a 43 to 35 percent edge over his closest competitor, progressive-backed UC Berkeley student Andy Katz. 

If neither candidate wins 45 percent, the city will mail ballots to 8th District voters for a Wozniak-Katz runoff. The votes would be tallied Dec. 3. 

The Berkeley City Council consists of eight councilmembers and the mayor. Before Tuesday, progressives held a 5-4 edge on the panel. A Bates victory, coupled with the re-election of Worthington, Spring and Maio, would increase the progressive majority to 6-3. A Katz victory would mean a 7-2 edge. 

Four of Berkeley’s eight council members – moderates Betty Olds and Miriam Hawley, and progressives Margaret Breland and Maudelle Shirek – did not face re-election this year. 

A 6-3 or 7-2 re-alignment, progressives said, would lead to greater harmony on a council that has been sharply divided by partisan bickering. 

“We will have a completely different environment and tenor on the council,” said an exuberant Maio, late Tuesday night. “I’m looking forward to it.” 

Worthington was reluctant to declare victory in his own race, despite a late 60 to 38 percent lead over UC Berkeley student Micki Weinberg, but rejoiced in Bates’ apparent win.  

Still, Worthington played down the idea of a new progressive super-majority on the council and said Bates will work with both progressives and moderates. 

The 8th District race for an empty seat was the most competitive City Council contest this year. Moderates lined up behind Wozniak, while progressives backed Katz, who hopes to be the first student elected to City Council since 1984. Human rights consultant Anne Wagley and air conditioning mechanic Carlos Estradaran outside Berkeley’s two dominant political factions.

To the Editor: 

We at the Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley join our colleagues at the Weston Jesuit School of Theology and other voices around the world in urging the U.S. government not to attack Iraq. As Christians, we share a strong moral presumption against war. 

As members of international Jesuit centers for the study of Roman Catholic theology, it is our judgment that unleashing massive violence in a military invasion of Iraq is neither necessary or moral. 

We find the situation in Iraq and throughout the world deeply troubling. We share, with others, overwhelming concern about the stockpiling of biological and chemical weapons in Iraq and elsewhere. 

However, as persons of conscience, we are persuaded that the present circumstances do not warrant the use of force against Iraq. Our “Just War” tradition insists that peaceful and diplomatic alternatives must first be exhausted. It has not been demonstrated to the satisfaction of allies of the U.S. or its public that we have reached the point where war is our last resort. 

For 12 years innocent Iraqi civilians, especially children, the elderly and the infirm have suffered the effects of desperate deprivation brought about by military strikes and economic sanctions against their nation. 

As we read the signs of our times, we cannot remain silent in the face of a haunting moral question: What would become of a divided and chaotic Iraq after an attack? Given the course of U.S. interventions in Haiti, Somalia, Afghanistan and elsewhere, we cannot fail to observe that in the recent past the U.S. has demonstrated little of the patience that is required for the task of reestablishing order after imposing regime changes. Indeed the very phrase “nation-building” has acquired stigma in foreign policy discourse. 

In light of these observations and questions, we urge creative efforts in cooperation with United Nations, allies of the U.S. and the international community to find ways to contain and curtail Saddam Hussein’s threats without resorting to a military attack on Iraq. 

We, as followers of Jesus Christ, appeal to you: Pursue the ways of peace through diplomacy, not war. 

Graduate Theological Union 

Berkeley

With 85 percent of city precincts reporting late Tuesday night, it appeared Board of Education members Shirley Issel and Terry Doran would win re-election and parent activist Nancy Riddle would take the third school board seat up for grabs this year. 

A total of six candidates ran for three slots on the five-member panel. The two seats held by board members Joaquin Rivera and John Selawsky were not up for re-election this year. 

After midnight, Riddle had 24 percent of the vote. Doran was second with 21 percent and Issel had 20 percent. The next closest competitor, recent Berkeley High School graduate Sean Dugar, had nearly 13 percent of the vote. 

“I’m feeling pretty good,” said Riddle, who is chief financial officer for Monster Cable of Brisbane, speaking to the Daily Planet late Tuesday night. “I think probably the financial background helped a lot.” 

Issel and Doran won re-election despite persistent fiscal woes plaguing the Berkeley Unified School District, which faces a $3.9 million budget shortfall this year. 

Issel said her re-election marked an endorsement of the steps the board has taken in the past few years to bring solvency to the district. 

“I think the message is really clear – the voters feel we’re on the right track,” said Issel. 

The district’s financial woes were a chief issue in the campaign. Riddle suggested that the board, which slashed millions last year and still faces the $3.9 million budget shortfall, has taken a haphazard approach to cuts. 

She said members must demand detailed budgets and a range of cost-cutting options rather than “highly summarized budgets” and a few recommendations for cuts from Superintendent Michele Lawrence. 

Riddle also said the district needs to engage in long-term financial planning, rather than year-to-year cuts, if it hopes to get out of a cycle of financial crises. 

But Issel and Doran argued that the board has taken important steps on the road to fiscal recovery, replacing most of the district’s upper-level management in the last couple of years and putting a new data processing system in place that will help fix sloppy accounting practices.

LOS ANGELES — Once considered a future presidential contender, Gray Davis was content to win re-election Tuesday as governor of the nation’s most populous state. 

Davis’ aspirations were rarely mentioned as he struggled to combat a steep decline in popularity to secure his re-election against a lackluster candidate. 

Despite spending $68 million and facing rookie Republican challenger Bill Simon, Davis barely held onto his lead. 

As he enters a second term, he faces a multibillion dollar budget shortfall and the remnants of a statewide energy crisis that drove down his support. 

Even Davis’ confidantes concede he likely won because of the amount he spent and because of Simon’s low popularity and controversies surrounding his business practices. 

“If you have a sitting governor whose job ratings tanked a year-and-a-half ago and have never recovered, and you have roughly half the people in the state who think the state’s headed down the wrong track, those two things combined are usually a death knell for a sitting governor,” said Davis’ senior campaign adviser Garry South. “We are going to win anyway, in spite of that. That’s what our money got us.” 

Davis blamed his declining popularity on a nationwide recession and a generally negative mood among voters. 

A man who rarely lets down his guard, Davis has marched through 20 years in elected office defined by moderate politics and rare and unbending personal and professional discipline. 

He insists on being kept abreast of state business, is preoccupied with his public image and guarded about personal activities. He often focuses on headline-making issues while brushing off smaller troubles until they swell into crises. 

On the eve of the election, Davis vowed a state takeover of the tiny West Fresno Elementary School District after a fiscal crisis led teachers and staff to walk out. Davis had previously vetoed legislation that would have authorized a takeover and averted the crisis. 

Davis finds supporters in a range of groups — from environmentalists to police unions. He is credited with boosting spending for schools and signing scores of laws from expanding health care for poor children to ensuring overtime pay after an eight-hour workday. 

Personally, Davis, 59, is not known for small talk and is meticulous in his appearance.

A Berkeley plumbing contractor who hit hard times recently is now finding himself surrounded by friends. Greg Ticehurst, a Berkeley resident of 14 years, was involved in a motorcycle accident that left him paralyzed in late September.  

Ticehurst had been in the process of remodeling his home when the accident occurred and was unable to complete the project. Now, a group calling themselves “Friends of Greg” is determined to finish the job for him. 

The group, organized by longtime friend Gregory Sieben of Innovation Builders in Emeryville, is composed of friends, acquaintances, and other volunteers. Currently, said Sieben, there are about nine volunteers per weekend working on Ticehurst’s house. Local companies and individuals have donated money and materials for the project, and Sieben expects the remodel to be completed by Dec. 1. 

Many “Friends of Greg” know Ticehurst from the contracting industry. But Sieben said he is struck by the fact that many of the volunteers and donors are total strangers. He attributed the community’s generosity to karma. 

“Greg is a really giving person and has always helped people himself. He’s the type of guy who inspires this kind of giving in others,” said Sieben. 

Ticehurst was not able to comment on the effort, due to medical conditions from the accident. 

Donations can be made care of Innovation Builders at 1467 Park Avenue, Emeryville, CA 94608. Checks should be addressed to “Friends of Greg.” 

– Melissa McRobbie

SAN FRANCISCO — Two young sisters who had disappeared during a custody battle were dropped off at the doorstep of a San Francisco Bay area television station. 

Two members of a group that helps parents get custody of children in county protective care delivered Anna Nunez, 6, and her sister Emily, 4, safely to KGO-TV studios in San Francisco Monday. 

The girls had been at the center of a custody dispute after the 1999 divorce of their parents, Danny and Kelli Nunez of Contra Costa County. 

The mother had accused Danny Nunez of child abuse, and the girls disappeared in April after Kelli Nunez picked them up from a day care center. Danny Nunez has never been charged with child abuse. 

Kelli Nunez was arrested shortly after the disappearance, after telling a judge she had given the girls to strangers and had no idea where they were. She has been held on contempt of court charges at Contra Costa County jail.

OAKLAND – The Oakland Police Department says homicide detectives began investigating the city's 96th slaying of the year Tuesday night. 

Police were called to the scene of a multiple shooting in East Oakland, near the intersection of 105th Avenue and Acalanes Drive, at 5:55 p.m. 

A total of four people were injured by gunfire, police said.  

Three of the victims were taken by ambulance to Highland Hospital, where one of them was pronounced dead on arrival, a nursing supervisor said.  

A fourth victim from the same shooting walked in to the hospital. 

The three surviving victims were listed in stable condition Tuesday night.

WASHINGTON —The Supreme Court struggled Tuesday over the constitutionality of a California sentencing law that put a man who shoplifted children’s videocassettes in prison until 2046 and gave another man a life sentence for taking three golf clubs. 

Their sentences are due to California’s three-strikes-you’re-out law, which has been challenged as cruel and unusual punishment. The law requires tough sentences for repeat offenders. 

“No other state in the country would impose a punishment like this,” said Erwin Chemerinsky, the attorney for the man who stole $153 worth of videotapes. 

The three-strikes law was passed in 1994 after voters endorsed tougher sentences amid public furor over the kidnapping and murder of 12-year-old Polly Klaas. The law has been credited with lowering crime in California, and state officials said it gets career criminals off the streets. 

“There comes a point when the state has a right to say enough is enough,” Douglas Danzig, a deputy attorney general in California, told justices. 

More than 7,100 inmates are serving third-strikes sentences, including about 350 who received life terms for petty offenses, officials said. Justices are considering if the punishment fits the crime. 

Justice Antonin Scalia said the crimes may be more serious than they appear to be because of the potential for violence. 

But Justice John Paul Stevens questioned if states could also give long prison sentences to people who repeatedly break traffic laws, because of public safety concerns. 

Some court members seemed unsure how to handle the cases. 

“We cannot convert this court into a sentencing commission,” noted Justice Stephen Breyer, who also said the crimes seemed minor. 

Leandro Andrade, a heroin addict had previous burglary convictions when he was caught shoplifting nine videotapes, including “Snow White” and Cinderella,” from Kmart. Under his three-strikes sentence, he’ll be at least 87 when he gets out of prison. 

The California law requires a sentence of 25 years to life in prison for any felony conviction if the criminal was previously convicted of two serious or violent felonies. It is one of the toughest sentencing laws in the nation, although most states also impose longer terms for revolving-door criminals.

SAN CARLOS — The federal Food and Drug Administration has approved a new non-surgical method of female sterilization developed by a San Carlos company.  

The Essure device, manufactured by San Carlos-based Conceptus, Inc., can be implanted in a woman's fallopian tubes under a local anesthetic and without the need for any incisions. 

“Unlike other currently available surgical sterilization procedures for women, placement of the device does not require an incision or general anesthesia,” according to an FDA statement. 

The device is a small spring-like metallic implant that causes scar tissue to form in the fallopian tubes, blocking sperm from fertilizing an egg. 

None of the more than 600 women that have been successfully implanted with Essure devices in both fallopian tubes have become pregnant, according to the FDA. 

An estimated 700,000 women a year undergo sterilization by tubal ligation, a surgical procedure requiring general anesthesia and a hospital stay. Conceptus President Steve Bacich believes that Essure will provide an attractive alternative for women seeking permanent birth control. 

“After researchers have worked for more than three decades to develop an alternative to surgical tubal ligation, Conceptus is extremely proud to have developed Essure and be one step closer to bringing this breakthrough option to women seeking permanent birth control,” Bacich said in July when a FDA committee approved the product. 

The FDA formally approved the device Monday. The company hopes to begin offering the device nationwide by next spring.

LOS ANGELES — California Democrats hoping for their first sweep of statewide offices in more than a century found only the Republican nominee for state controller standing in their way Tuesday night. 

With more than two-thirds of precincts reporting, well-funded Democratic incumbents won their races for attorney general, treasurer and lieutenant governor. Democrats also were elected as insurance commissioner, secretary of state and superintendent of public instruction. 

Only state Sen. Tom McClintock, the Republican nominee for state controller, threatened to spoil the Democrats’ party — they haven’t swept all statewide offices since 1882. 

But McClintock, a veteran lawmaker, saw his lead dwindle as the evening wore on. Both he and Democrat Steve Westly, a dot-com millionaire who poured more than $5 million of his own money into his campaign, had 45 percent of the vote. 

Democrat John Garamendi defeated Republican challenger Gary Mendoza, 46 percent to 42 percent, to recapture the office he held as the state’s first insurance commissioner from 1991-1994. 

The state GOP had considered Mendoza a good bet to win and directed more than $1 million to his campaign in the final week. 

The only current Republican statewide officeholder, Secretary of State Bill Jones, has to give up his seat because of term limits. 

After trailing early in the race for secretary of state, Assembly Majority Leader Kevin Shelley, D-San Francisco, beat Republican Keith Olberg, a former Assemblyman, 46 percent to 42 percent. 

Gov. Gray Davis and Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante became the first pair of top office holders from the same party to win re-election in 40 years. 

Bustamante beat Sen. Bruce McPherson, a moderate Republican from Santa Cruz, 49 percent to 42 percent. 

Attorney General Bill Lockyer was already looking beyond his race against Republican state Sen. Dick Ackerman to a potential run for governor in four years. Lockyer won with 51 percent of the vote to Ackerman’s 40 percent. 

Treasurer Phil Angelides beat Greg Conlon, who struggled with a record as a former public utilities commissioner who advocated electricity deregulation, 49 percent to 41 percent. 

In nonpartisan races, three members of the California Supreme Court, justices Marvin Baxter, Carlos Moreno and Kathryn Werdegar were voted to another term. In the contest for superintendent of public instruction, teacher-turned-legislator Sen. Jack O’Connell, D-San Luis Obispo, defeated Katherine Smith, an Anaheim School Board president, 61 percent to 39 percent. 

In 1998, only two Republicans kept statewide office, Jones and Insurance Commissioner Chuck Quackenbush, who was forced to resign in scandal in 2000. 

Republican leaders feared another poor showing could stall efforts to rebuild the party in the nation’s most populous state, leave few viable candidates for future statewide races and hurt their chances to help President Bush in 2004.

REDWOOD CITY – A 55-year-old Redwood City woman was sentenced Monday to 35 days in the San Mateo County Jail for making bomb threats to her son's former parochial school last year. 

Linda Chulbna was also ordered to pay $360 in probation fees and $200 in restitution fines. She was actually sentenced to 60 days in jail, but has been credited for 25 days already served, according to the San Mateo County District Attorney's Office. 

Chulbna was accused of making a number of threatening phone calls to the Mt. Carmel Catholic School, at least one of which falsely reported a bomb, in April and May 2001. Administrators took the bomb threat very seriously, and on May 1 last year had to evacuate the 200-300 students there so that the campus could be checked for explosives. 

Chulbna was arrested after the calls were traced to her home and to St. Raymond's School, where she worked as a teacher's aide. 

Prosecutors said Chulbna had a grudge against Mt. Carmel school because her son was not allowed to remain going there more than six years before the threats were made. 

Originally charged with three counts of making criminal threats and one count of falsely reporting a bomb, Chulbna waived her right to a jury trial and was convicted of the bomb charge in August. The prosecution dismissed the threats charges before her trial before Judge Phrasel Shelton. 

Chulbna is scheduled to begin serving her jail sentence on Dec. 14, and until then remains free on $50,000 bail

SAN JOSE — After years of dreams and hype, Microsoft Corp. founder Bill Gates will launch digital tablets that can handle text like a paper notepad but run all the programs of a notebook PC. 

The “Tablet PC” is nothing but revolutionary, according to Gates, who has predicted the ultralight gadgets will be the most popular personal computer style within five years. 

But analysts who have toyed with the devices are not so impressed, particularly with the limited screen real estate and short battery life. And it’s not clear customers see the need, they say. 

“A lot of system architects are scratching their heads trying to figure out what the big advantage is here,” said Richard Doherty, director of The Envisioneering Group, a research firm. 

On Thursday, Gates will officially launch a version of the Windows XP operating system specifically for the devices. Thirteen hardware vendors from Hewlett-Packard Co. to Fujitsu will unveil models based on Microsoft’s software. 

All the tablets weigh about 3 pounds and are about the size and shape of a standard ultralight notebook. They have swiveling screens that can be written on with a pen-like stylus. 

The tablets are based on one of two designs, with a few mixing elements of both. Some are only tablets, with no input device other than the digital pen. Others are notebook computers in which the keyboard can be folded away and the screen used for entering data. Others still can be docked into a unit that provides network connections or additional drives. 

Microsoft’s operating system includes software that recognizes handwriting scribbled on the screen and converts it into plain text. Jotted notes also can be used in programs as graphics. 

Prices vary. Hewlett-Packard’s entry model costs $1,699 without wireless capability and $1,799 with wireless. Acer’s starts at $2,199 without wireless and $2,395 with the feature. 

Analysts say the devices are especially handy for those who have to enter data into forms while on the go, such as insurance or health care workers. Similar devices, which essentially bolted Windows onto proprietary hardware and software, have been available for 10 years and have sold well in industries where mobile form entry is important.

SAN FRANCISCO — With its “What Can Brown Do For You?” ad campaign, United Parcel Service Inc. uses its familiar brown-garbed workers and brown trucks to remind people of the company’s role in their lives and work. 

The ads also show a different UPS — a one-stop problem solver that handles a range of chores for corporate customers. They’re part of CEO Michael Eskew’s drive to develop services to complement the company’s bread-and-butter package delivery business. 

Under Eskew’s plan, more companies would hire UPS to serve as a distribution hub, an inventory warehouse, a high-tech repair shop and even a telephone call center for customer inquiries. 

“He has clearly articulated this vision — no ifs, ands or buts about it,” said industry analyst Stephen Jacobs of U.S. Bancorp Piper Jaffray. “It’s an absolutely pivotal strategy for UPS.” 

To diversify, Atlanta-based UPS has spent $1.3 billion on 27 acquisitions since 1998. The biggest deals came last year, when UPS picked up retail shipping chain Mail Boxes Etc. and freight forwarding service Fritz Cos. 

The shopping spree helped UPS’s non-package business generate revenue of $1.93 billion through the first nine months of this year, a 36 percent increase from the same time last year. UPS operates in 200 countries, generating more than $30 billion in annual revenue while delivering about 3 billion packages each year. 

Although this year’s shipping volume is slightly lower than last year and the company isn’t making as much money as investors hoped, UPS stock has held up well amid Wall Street’s turmoil. The company’s shares are up 13 percent so far this year, compared with a 21 percent decline in the Standard & Poor’s 500 index. 

Eskew, who became CEO 10 months ago, recently talked to The Associated Press about UPS’s performance and his plans for the future.

SAN JOSE — Calpine Corp. on Tuesday said third-quarter net income plunged 50 percent as higher fuel and project development costs and falling prices hammered the company’s bottom line. 

The San Jose energy concern Tuesday said profit fell to $161.3 million, or 36 cents a share. It earned $320.8 million, or 88 cents a share, in the same quarter last year. 

The latest results included a gain of $12.9 million, or 3 cents a share, from the sale of discontinued operations. 

The company also booked charges totaling 5 cents a share, including severance and other costs, deferred project-cost write-offs and a loss on the sale of turbines. 

Excluding items, the company said it earned $170.9 million, or 38 cents a share, below its August earnings estimates of 40 cents to 55 cents a share. The results, however, matched analysts’ expectations, according to Thomson First Call. 

Revenue, meanwhile, slipped 1 percent to $2.5 billion from $2.52 billion. 

Fuel expenses jumped 60 percent to $525.5 million, and project development costs more than quadrupled to $23.9 million.

Mayor 

*75 precincts reporting 

Tom Bates 56% 

Shirley Dean 43% 

John Patrick Boushell 1% 

City Council; District 1 

*8 precincts reporting 

Linda Maio 86% 

Rhiannon 14% 

City Council; District 4 

*7 precincts reporting 

Bob Migdal 21% 

Dona Spring 66% 

David A. Freeman 2% 

L.A. Wood 10% 

City Council; District 7 

*10 precincts reporting 

Micki Weinberg 39% 

Kriss Worthington 61% 

City Council; District 8 

*10 precincts reporting 

Carlos Estrada 3% 

Andy Katz 36% 

Anne Wagley 19% 

Gordon Wozniak 42% 

City Auditor 

*75 precincts reporting 

Ann-Marie Hogan 99% 

Director, Rent Stabilization Board (5 Elected) 

*75 precincts reporting 

Howard G. Chong Yes 

Chris Kavanagh Yes 

Selma Spector Yes 

Pinkie Payne Yes 

Robert J. Evans Yes 

Berkeley Unified School 

District (3 elected) 

*75 precincts reporting 

Lance Montauk 7% 

Cynthia Papermaster 8% 

Shirley Issel 20% 

Derick Miller 6% 

Nancy Riddle 25% 

Terry S. Doran 21% 

Sean P. Dugar 13% 

Measure I; New Animal Shelter 

(General Obligation Bond) 

*75 precincts reporting 

Yes (2/3 vote required) 68% 

No 32% 

Measure J; Old City Hall Retrofit (General Obligation Bond) 

*75 precincts reporting 

Yes (2/3 vote required) 40% 

No 60% 

Measure K; School Board Director Pay Raise (Charter Amendment) 

*75 precincts reporting 

Yes 67% 

No 33% 

Measure L; Property Transfer Tax for Pedestrian Safety Improvements 

*75 precincts reporting 

Yes (2/3 vote required) 54% 

No 46% 

Measure M; Property Transfer Tax 

*75 precincts reporting 

Yes (2/3 vote required) 51% 

No 49% 

Measure N; Waterfront Amendment 

*75 precincts reporting 

Yes 67% 

No 33% 

Measure O; Brewed Coffee Sale Restrictions (Citizen Initiative) 

*75 precincts reporting 

Yes 30% 

No 70% 

Measure P; Building Height Limits (Citizen Initiative) 

*75 precincts reporting 

Yes 20% 

No 80%

County Measures 

Measure A; Hotel and Lodging Tax (Majority Approval Required) 

*930 precincts reporting 

Yes 53% 

No 47% 

Measure B; Business License Tax (Majority Approval Required) 

*930 precincts reporting 

Yes 64% 

No 36% 

Measure C; Probation Officers (Charter Amendment - Majority Approval Required) 

*all precincts reporting 

Yes 59% 

No 41% 

Measure AA; Property Tax for Transportation – Alameda-Contra Costa Transit District (2/3 Vote) 

*568 precincts reporting 

Yes 68% 

No 31% 

Measure BB; Seismic Safety – San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District (Bond Issue - 2/3 Vote) 

*930 precincts reporting 

Yes 66% 

No 34% 

State Executive 

Governor 

*19, 314 precincts reporting 

Peter Miguel Camejo, Green 5% 

Gray Davis, Dem. 48% 

Bill Simon, Rep. 42% 

Lieutenant Governor 

*18, 516 precincts reporting 

Bruce McPherson, Rep. 42% 

Donna J. Warren, Green 4% 

Cruz M. Bustamante, Dem. 50% 

Secretary of State 

*18, 521 precincts reporting 

Kevin Shelley, Dem. ..................46% 

Larry Shoup, Green ......................4% 

Keith Olberg, Rep. .....................42% 

State Controller 

*19, 108 precincts reporting 

Tom McClintock, Rep. 45% 

Laura Wells, Green 6% 

Steve Westly, Dem. 45% 

State Treasurer 

*17, 503 precincts reporting 

Jeanne-Marie Rosenmeier, Gr. 5% 

Phil Angelides, Dem. 49% 

Greg Conlon, Rep. 41% 

Attorney General 

*17, 508 precincts reporting 

Glen Freeman Mowrer, Green 4% 

Bill Lockyer, Dem. 51% 

Dick Ackerman, Rep. 41% 

Insurance Commissioner 

*17, 362 precincts reporting 

Gary Mendoza, Rep. 42% 

John Garamendi, Dem. 46% 

David I. Sheidlower, Green 4% 

State Superintendent of Public Instruction 

*17, 416 precincts reporting 

Katherine H. Smith 39% 

Jack O’Connell 61% 

State Assembly 

Member; District 14 

*103 precincts reporting 

Lori Hancock, Dem. 98% 

Board of Equalization 

Member; District 1 

*930 precincts reporting 

Mark S. Bendick, Rep. 27% 

Carole Migden, Dem. 67% 

Judicial 

California State Supreme Court 

*930 precincts reporting 

Carlos R. Moreno Yes 

Marvin R. Baxter Yes 

Kathryn M. Werdegar Yes 

State Court of Appeal; 

District 1, Division 1 

*930 precincts reporting 

Sandra L. Margulies Yes 

William D. Stein Yes 

James J. Marchiano Yes 

State Court of Appeal; 

District 1, Division 2 

*930 precincts reporting 

J. Anthony Kline Yes 

State Court of Appeal; 

District 1, Division 3 

*930 precincts reporting 

Stuart R. Pollak Yes 

William R. McGuiness Yes 

Joanne C. Parrilli Yes 

State Court of Appeal; 

District 1, Division 4 

*930 precincts reporting 

Patricia K. Sepulveda Yes 

Maria P. Rivera Yes 

State Court of Appeal; 

District 1, Division 5 

*930 precincts reporting 

Mark Simons Yes 

Barbara Jones Yes 

Linda M. Gemello Yes 

Superior Court Judge; County of Alameda; Office 5 

*930 precincts reporting 

Lise Pearlman 32% 

Trina Thompson Stanley 68% 

Special Districts 

Director; East Bay Municipal Utility District; Ward 4 

*97 precincts reporting 

Charles L. Whitbeck 14% 

David Richardson 85% 

State Propositions 

Proposition 46; Housing and Emergency Shelter Act of 2002 

*930 precincts reporting 

Yes 65% 

No 35% 

Proposition 47; Public 

Education Facilities Bond Act 

*930 precincts reporting 

Yes 68% 

No 32% 

Proposition 48; Court 

Consolidation 

*930 precincts reporting 

Yes 76% 

No 24% 

Proposition 49; Before and After School Programs 

*930 precincts reporting 

Yes 55% 

No 45% 

Proposition 50; Water Quality and Supply 

*930 precincts reporting 

Yes 63% 

No 37% 

Proposition 51; Distribution of Existing Motor Vehicle Sales and Use Tax 

*930 precincts reporting 

Yes 44% 

No 56% 

Proposition 52; Election Day Voter Registration 

*930 precincts reporting 

Yes 51% 

No 49% 

U.S. Congress 

U.S. Representative; District 9 

*431 precincts reporting 

Jerald Udinsky, Rep. 15% 

Barbara Lee, Dem. 81% 

Catherine Liang, a UC Berkeley graduate student, struck gold at the Gay Games VI in Sydney, Australia last week. Liang was among the nine swimmers on Team Berkeley-Team Fuego, the Berkeley contingent that competed in the international games Nov. 2-9. 

Liang swam away with five gold medals and two silvers, with the Berkeley swim team tallying more than a dozen medals in total. 

“Winning the medals was definitely nice, but setting records for the Gay Games and for International Gay and Lesbian Aquatics (IGLA) was even more meaningful,” said Liang. “When I compete I am racing against my own times. I’m racing myself.” 

The Gay Games was founded in 1982 by the late Tom Waddell, an Olympic decathlete. He established a competitive forum for gay men and women who felt otherwise marginalized by athletics. 

“It’s been a long personal journey for everyone competing, and not in the sense of traveling to Sydney, just to participate in the games is so meaningful,” said Liang. 

The founding principle of the Gay Games is inscribed on Liang’s gold medal: “Inclusion, Participation, and Pursuit of one’s best.”  

In addition to sporting events, the games offers cultural and social activities. Liang described a reunion with her partner from Switzerland: “That was a personal highlight, it was like a date.” 

The quadrennial Gay Games originated in San Francisco and was featured there in 1982 and 1986. In 1990, the celebration moved to Vancouver, B.C. and hosted 7,500 athletes in 23 sports, making it the world’s second largest multi-sport event. The Summer Olympics is the largest. 

In 1994, New York City hosted more than 10,000 athletes and an estimated one million participants in the cultural events. The 1998 games unfolded in Amsterdam. Liang was among the 15,000 participants and 250,000 spectators in attendance. 

This year, Sydney hosted more than 13,000 athletes from 82 countries in 31 sporting events. 

“I was competing against people from Canada, London, Australia, and Belgium. It was incredible,” said Liang, “I hope to attend the 2006 games in Montreal [July 29 through Aug. 5] with Berkeley again.” 

Johan Steiner, a UC Berkeley sports department employee and former UC Berkeley swimmer, won a gold medal in the Triathlon and a silver in the 400 meter individual medley. 

Steven Czekala won a gold medal in the 800 meter freestyle, setting the Gay Games and IGLA record. He also won a bronze in the 400 meter individual medley and was a member of the gold medal winning 400 meter freestyle relay. 

Linda Buchanan won gold in the 200 meter individual medley, setting the Gay Games and IGLA records. Melon Dash won silver in the 200 meter individual medley. Barbara Moosmann won gold in the 200 meter freestyle. 

Liang won individual golds in the 50 meter backstroke, 50 meter freestyle, 50 meter butterfly and 100 meter freestyle. She won an individual silver in the 100 meter butterfly, a gold in the 400 meter freestyle relay and a silver in the 200 meter freestyle relay. 

More information on the Gay Games VI Sydney 2002 can be found at 

www.sydney2002.org.au/.

A jury decision this summer awarding $4.4 million to Earth First! activists Judi Bari and Darryl Cherney is now in the hands of a U.S. District Judge. 

Judge Claudia Wilken must decide the merits of a post–trial motion filed by attorneys for six Oakland Police Officers and FBI agents found liable for violating the civil rights of the two activists. There is no time table for Wilken to make a ruling. 

“There are fairly significant issues for her to address,” said Bill Simmons, an Oakland City Attorney who is representing the Oakland police officers in the case. 

The motion asks Wilken to consider either a new trial, a reduction in damages awarded to the plaintiffs, or a reversal of a portion of the jury’s verdict. 

Simmons and his fellow defense attorneys argue that the jury’s decision suffered from several inconsistencies, that the evidence it was based on was insufficient and that some of the evidence was improperly admitted. 

Two weeks ago Wilken held a 90–minute hearing on the motion. Most of Wilken’s questions were directed at the attorneys for the police and FBI, said Alicia Littletree, an employee at the Law Office of Dennis Cunningham, which represents Bari and Cherney. 

The two environmental activists were injured in 1990 when a bomb exploded inside their car.  

Oakland police immediately arrested them in connection with blast, insisting that they had accidentally detonated the bomb, which police said was constructed for use during an Earth First! operation. 

Prosecutors, though, declined to charge Bari and Cherney for the bomb blast.  

In 1991, the activists filed suit, claiming that Oakland Police and the FBI falsely arrested them and searched their homes to interfere with their political agenda. 

Simmons said he expected that the case will be heading to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals no matter how Judge Wilken rules.

SACRAMENTO — Power outages and traffic accidents brought in the rainy season Thursday, as northern and central Californians stumbled their way through their first storm of the fall. 

About 73,000 customers in the San Francisco Bay area lost power sometime during the day, according to Paul Moreno, a Pacific Gas & Electric Co. spokesman. All but 7,300 had their power restored by early evening. 

“It’s a very busy outage,” Moreno said, explaining that high winds were taking a toll on power lines. “We definitely feel this one.” 

The gusts blew tree limbs onto electric lines that then tumbled into each other, which can cause a short circuit. Mighty winds also prompted the California Highway Patrol to shut down the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge Thursday night due to construction debris blowing across the roadway. 

The lights also went out in Sacramento County for 1,500 homes, said Chris Capra, spokesman for the Sacramento Municipal Utility District. 

Some of the outages were caused by high winds, he said, but most were the result of “typical first-storm conditions.” 

That’s when the first storm doesn’t carry enough rain to wash off the accumulated dust and dirt on power lines, he said. Instead, there’s just enough moisture to create “a mud-like substance that drips down the lines to the pole.” 

“Electricity is always seeking ground, and the mud now provides an off-ramp and will short-circuit the lines,” he said. 

The CHP also spent Thursday scrambling to respond to a slew of traffic accidents caused by drivers struggling to adjust to lower visibility and more slippery roads. 

“The oil is clearly mixing with the water, and it’s becoming a formula for disaster in our state and local highways,” said Sgt. Wayne Ziese of the CHP’s Golden Gate Division, which oversees most of the Bay Area. 

Incidents of cars spinning out and crashing in that area have more than tripled overnight since the rain hit, Ziese said. 

The National Weather Service has issued a high surf advisory along much of the California coast and coastal flood watch in the northern and central part of the state through Sunday. 

The wet weather has been a much-needed change for California’s skies, after a hot, dry summer that has driven Central Valley farmers to request federal relief funds. 

Rainfall has been down as much as 70 percent in the San Joaquin Valley and southern California. 

The rain broke Sacramento’s third longest dry spell in recorded history — 167 days without rain. The city only saw less rain in 1903, with 174 consecutive dry days, and 1880, with 194. 

The storm, covering most of northern and central California, has also laid down a fresh layer of snow on the slopes. The Boreal ski resort announced it would be the first California slopes to open on Saturday, thanks to recent snowfall. 

Meteorologists are predicting unstable weather conditions in the coming months because of El Nino, a warming of the tropical Pacific Ocean that can dramatically affect weather patterns across much of the world. 

This year’s El Nino, considered a moderate but solid one, is expected to bring above-average rainfall across much of the South, Nevada and California.

UNITED NATIONS — The United States pushed for a quick U.N. vote Wednesday on a revised Iraq resolution which threatens Saddam Hussein with “serious consequences,” while trying to ease concerns about setting off a new war. 

But after eight weeks of intensive wrangling in the Security Council, and some major concessions by the Bush administration, France and Russia are still not satisfied. 

French President Jacques Chirac called Russia’s Vladimir Putin Wednesday to discuss the new text and both agreed that “ambiguities” that could be used to trigger an attack on Iraq must be removed, Chirac’s spokeswoman said. 

Nonetheless, both leaders saw “many improvements” in the new U.S. proposal, Colonna said. 

U.S. Ambassador John Negroponte said the United States intends to put the draft resolution to a vote on Friday and “deserves consensus support.” 

If the resolution is adopted on Friday, Iraq would have seven days to accept the terms. U.N. chief weapons inspector Hans Blix said an advance team would be in Baghdad within 10 days of its acceptance. 

Inspectors would have 45 days to actually begin work, and would have to report to the council 60 days later on Iraq’s performance. 

While the revised draft offers concessions to critics, including a greater role for the Security Council, it still meets the Bush administration’s key demands: toughening inspections, threatening Iraq with “serious consequences,” and freeing the United States to take military action against Iraq if inspectors say it isn’t complying. 

At the same time, it gives Iraqi President Saddam Hussein “a final opportunity” to cooperate with weapons inspectors, holds out the possibility of lifting 12-year-old sanctions imposed after Iraq’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait and reaffirms the country’s sovereignty. 

Negroponte officially introduced the new text at a closed-door council meeting, where Blix and other members noted several problems. “We’ll see if we can find some way to accommodate the concern that other delegations expressed and the points that Dr. Blix made,” Negroponte said. 

But the U.S. administration said that it was now in the endgame and that the new text offered Iraq an opportunity to avoid war. 

The Security Council scheduled another round of negotiations on Thursday, and Singapore’s U.N. Ambassador Kishore Mahbubani said “it’s very clear that we are moving closer and closer to consensus.” 

But whether the United States, and its co-sponsor Britain, can get all 15 council members on board remains to be seen. 

For a resolution to be adopted, it needs at least nine “yes” votes and no veto by a permanent member — the United States, Russia, France, China and Britain. 

No council member has mentioned a veto. Syria, Iraq’s Arab neighbor, remains opposed to any new resolution. Norway, Colombia and Bulgaria appear to be on board with the United States while Mexico and Singapore said their governments were studying the draft. 

“We are not there yet,” said Russia’s U.N. Ambassador Sergey Lavrov. 

He wouldn’t comment publicly on the new U.S. text, but diplomats said that inside the council, Lavrov said Moscow still saw several hidden triggers for the use of force. France had similar concerns, which Chirac and Putin discussed, diplomats said. 

Negroponte sidestepped a question on whether the new draft could authorize military action. 

Instead, he noted that President Bush believes “the use of force, war, would be a last resort. He wants to give the United Nations and the Security Council a chance.” 

Negroponte said the new resolution “is the best way to achieve the disarmament of Iraq by peaceful means provided that Iraq complies fully with those obligations.” 

Negotiations for a new Iraq resolution began after Bush’s Sept. 12 speech to the U.N. General Assembly, when he challenged world leaders to deal with Iraq’s failure over the last 11 years to comply with resolutions or stand aside as the United States acted. 

Both France and Russia initially favored two resolutions, one giving Iraq a chance to cooperate, and a second authorizing military action only if Iraq failed to comply. But the United States insisted on a single resolution which would not “handcuff” the administration. 

During negotiations, Washington modified language that would have authorized the use of force against Iraq and agreed to a two-stage process: inspectors would report any Iraq violations to the Security Council, which would then consider what to do. France’s U.N. Ambassador Jean-David Levitte said “very important progress” had been made on this issue. 

The latest draft softens one reference to Iraq being in “material breach” of its obligations to disarm under U.N. resolutions. Moscow and Paris believe the legal reference could be used by Washington to launch a war without Security Council authorization. 

But there is a second reference to Iraq being in “further material breach” if it makes any “false statements or omissions” in the declaration of its weapons programs and fails to cooperate with inspections. That still bothers Russia and France, diplomats said. 

Secretary of State Colin Powell spent a second day on the phone discussing the text with his French, British and Russian counterparts. 

A cornerstone of the U.S. proposal is a tough new inspections regime responsible for hunting for illicit weapons and reporting on any Iraqi failures to comply with its disarmament obligations. 

It requires Iraq to provide inspectors with “immediate, unimpeded, unconditional, and unrestricted access to any and all” areas, including eight presidential sites, where advance notice was previously needed for inspections. 

Inspectors could also decide whether to interview Iraqi scientists and government officials.

WASHINGTON — Republicans narrowly seized control of the Senate on Wednesday, ousting Democrats in Georgia and Missouri and giving President Bush’s legislative agenda a major boost in the next Congress. 

By winning their 50th seat in Missouri, the GOP was ensured control of the chamber next year because Vice President Dick Cheney will cast tie-breaking votes. 

Democrats took just one seat from Republicans when Arkansas Attorney General Mark Pryor, the son of former Sen. David Pryor, defeated incumbent Sen. Tim Hutchinson. 

In Georgia, Republican Rep. Saxby Chambliss defeated moderate first-term Democratic Sen. Max Cleland, a triple amputee from the Vietnam War, after chiding him for opposing President Bush’s plan for creating a new Department of Homeland Security. 

The GOP also could take control of the lame-duck session of the current Congress, which convenes next week to tackle unfinished budget business and perhaps other legislation because of Rep. Jim Talent’s victory in Missouri. 

Talent could be quickly sworn into office after defeating Democratic Sen. Jean Carnahan. She was appointed to the seat after her husband, Mel Carnahan, was elected in 2000, three weeks after he was killed in a plane crash. That would give the GOP at least 50 seats in Senate returning next week — enough for control because of Cheney. 

Rep. John Sununu was victorious for the GOP in New Hampshire, retaining a Republican-held seat that Democrats had high hopes of winning. He defeated Democratic Gov. Jeanne Shaheen, despite a lack of help from many conservatives bitter over his primary defeat of Republican Sen. Bob Smith. 

In Colorado, incumbent Republican Sen. Wayne Allard held off lobbyist and former U.S. Attorney Tom Stickland in a rematch of their race six years ago. 

The triumph came on a night that began with Democrats clinging to a one-seat margin, and it meant they will have to relinquish the majority they have held since Vermont Sen. James Jeffords abandoned the GOP in June 2001. 

With at least 47 senators, Democrats will still be able to use filibusters — procedural delays — to kill Republican initiatives because such roadblocks need only 41 votes to succeed. 

Even so, the GOP’s capture of the Senate denied Democrats their major remaining source of power. Republicans already control the White House and they recaptured their House majority Wednesday.