Fred Lupke, a fighter for Berkeley’s disabled population, remained in a coma Tuesday at Eden Medical Center in Castro Valley where he was hospitalized after a car struck his motorized wheelchair Thursday evening. 

“He suffered massive head trauma. The doctors don’t know if he will recover,” said longtime friend Rich Rhodes. 

According to Berkeley Police Officer Matthew Meredith, Lupke was traveling westbound on Ashby Avenue about seven feet from the curb in the right lane between Harper and Ellis Streets when a woman driving the same direction struck the back of his chair, throwing Lupke and the chair about 55 feet. 

California law requires that riders keep motorized wheelchairs on sidewalks. 

Lupke’s friends agonized over his judgment to ride down Ashby in the thick of rush hour traffic with fellow drivers heading straight into the setting sun. But, they said, uneven sidewalks along Ashby and speed bumps on neighboring roads might have given him little other option. 

“I never go on Ashby because the sidewalks are all broken up,” said Blane Beckwith, president of the local chapter of ADAPT an advocacy group for the disabled. 

“There is a big hole in the sidewalk [where Lupke was riding],” Beckwith said. “If you hit it, you break your chair.” 

Beckwith said many of the curb cuts to the sidewalk were built incorrectly on Ashby and throughout Berkeley, making it even more difficult for people on wheelchairs to get off the street. 

The city shares responsibility for upkeep of Ashby—a state highway— with the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans), but the sidewalks are the city’s responsibility, said Councilmember Dona Spring, who also rides a motorized wheelchair. 

Spring said after the defeat of last year’s Ballot Measure L last year—which would have funded pedestrian safety projects—the city doesn’t have the money to make needed repairs. 

Lupke’s closest alternatives to Ashby—Russell Street to the north and Prince Street to the south—have speed bumps which are painful for some disabled people to traverse. 

“Fred avoided speed bumps if he could [because they caused him pain,]” said Rhodes, who said Lupke tended to choose the closest distance between two points and often rode down busy streets. 

The city issued a moratorium on building more speed bumps several years ago after disabled residents complained that they caused pain and firefighters reported that they slowed down and damaged fire trucks responding to emergencies. 

In 1999 the Commission on Disabilities petitioned the city to remove them, but the council declined. 

Peter Hillier, the Berkeley’s Director of Transportation, said that about 50 Berkeley streets have speed bumps. 

“I have no access to roads with speed bumps,” said Emily Wilcox, chair of the city’s Commission on Disability. Wilcox, who is not wheelchair-bound, said driving over the bumps in her car causes severe pain. 

Beckwith said many wheelchair riders choose to avoid the bumps because they damage their chairs. 

“MediCal is going into the crapper. They’re not going to be willing to pay for new chairs and people are having trouble getting new chairs and chair repairs authorized,” Beckwith said. 

The average motorized chair costs about $15,000, he said, and replacements were granted every five years. 

Disabled advocates say Berkeley streets are getting more dangerous for wheelchair riders. “I have two or three close calls a month,” Beckwith said.  

Sharon Spencer was killed two years ago when her wheelchair was struck by an oncoming car as she crossed Ashby at Piedmont Avenue, and Karen Craig was struck two weeks ago crossing Colusa Street at Solano Avenue when a motorist answering a cell phone call didn’t see her in the crosswalk. She did not suffer serious injuries. 

Police treat people on wheelchairs as pedestrians and do not track the number of wheelchair-related accidents. 

Wheelchair riders do credit Berkeley for taking the lead in safety for the disabled. “Berkeley is the best,” Beckwith said. “It at least tries hard for good sidewalks and curb cuts.”  

No doubt Fred Lupke deserves some credit for Berkeley’s high marks.  

Lupke moved to the area in 1986 when he knew a degenerative back condition, caused by a spinal tumor diagnosed in 1973, would soon force him into a wheelchair. 

“He knew about the Center for Independent Living, and the weather, and he thought it would be a good place to go,” said Rhodes, who moved to Berkeley at the same time. 

After he got his first chair in 1988, Lupke became a tireless advocate for the disabled, fighting for access to city buildings and parks. 

Although his degree is in linguistics, Lupke used his analytic skills to pore over building plans to see if they provided access to people in wheelchairs. An avid swimmer, he championed Measure R in 2000, a ballot proposition that provided funds for a warm water pool at Berkeley High School. 

“I admire his independence,” said Wilcox. “He never asked for anything from anybody. He did for himself, just as he did for other people.”

TUESDAY, SEPT. 23 

Access to the Outdoors for People with Disabilities, a pre- 

sentation from 1 to 3 p.m. at the Berkeley Main Library Conference 

Room, 3rd Floor, 2090 Kittredge. Pre-registration required, call Access Northern California at 524-2026. 

Equinox Gathering at the Solar Calendar, Cesar Chavez Park, Berkeley Marina. Workshop at 6:30 p.m. on the seasons led by Alan Gould, Law- 

rence Hall of Science. 845-0657. www.solarcalendar.org  

Berkeley Fair Elections Coalition volunteers meeting and speaker training at 7 p.m. Call 693-5779 for location. 

“Mobilizing Millions: How Internet Activists are Helping the World,” with Joan Blades, co-founder of MoveOn.org, at 7:30 p.m. at The College Prep- 

aratory School, Buttner Auditor- 

ium, 6100 Broadway (north), Oakland. Cost is $10 adult, $5 student. 658-5202. www.college-prep.org/livetalk  

“Hillel: Tenets of Judaism” at 7:30 p.m. at International House, Home Room, Piedmont at Bancroft. 642-9460. 

Lawyers in the Library at 6 p.m. at the West Branch, University above San Pablo. 981-6270. 

WEDNESDAY, SEPT. 24 

“The Voting Machine Scandal: The Promise and Pitfalls of Touch-Screen Voting” with Katherine Forrest, Co-founder of the Commonweal  

Institute, at 1:30 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Sponsored by the Berkeley Gray Panthers. 548-9696.  

Berkeley Peace Walk and Vigil at the Berkeley BART Station, corner of Shattuck and Center. Vigil at 6:30 p.m. followed by Peace Walk at 7 p.m. www.geocities. 

com/vigil4peace/vigil 

Free Lead-Safe Painting and Remodeling Class Learn how to detect and remedy lead hazards and conduct lead-safe renovations for your older home, from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Emery- 

ville Child Development Center, 1220 – 53rd Street, Emeryville. For information or to register, call 567-8280.  

Prose Writers Workshop Novices welcome. Experienced facilitator. Community sponsored, no fee. Meets 7 to 9 p.m. at the Jewish Community Center, 1414 Walnut, at Rose. For information call 524-3034. 

Berkeley CopWatch open office hours 7 to 9 p.m. Drop in to file complaints, assistance available. For information call 548-0425. 

THURSDAY, SEPT. 25 

Defeat Prop 54 Rally and March, at noon at Sproul Plaza, UC Campus. Sponsored by the Committee to Defend Affirmative Action. www.bamn.com 

“Unanswered Questions of 9-11,” presented by The Robber Barons, at 7 p.m. at Ashkenaz, 1317 San Pablo Ave. Free. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Brower Youth Awards at 6 p.m. in the Florence Schwimley Theater, 1920 Allston Way. Meet six of the nation’s outstanding young environmental leaders and learn about their work in conservation, preservation and restoration of the earth. Free, but reservations suggested. 415-788-3666 ext. 260. www.earthisland.org 

Alameda County Democratic Party Unity Dinner at the Airport Hilton in Oakland from 6 to 9 p.m. The cost of the event is $75 per person with the proceeds from this event funding our 2004 grassroots campaign throughout Alameda County. If you wish to attend, please call 791-2179 or 635-3121. 

“Masai Culture in the 21st Century” with Kores Ole Musuni Solomon at 7:30 p.m. at International House, Home Room, Piedmont at Bancroft. 642-9460. 

“Watt‘s In It for Us?” Renewable Energy Forum Learn about current incentive programs including state rebates, low-interest financing, and tax credits. Panelists will include solar system owners, renewable energy experts and representatives from the City of Berkeley, PG&E and the California Energy Commission. From 7 to 9 p.m. at the Ecology Center, 2530 San Pablo Ave., near Dwight Way. 548-2220 ext. 233. 

“The Presidents of the United States and the Jews,” with Rabbi David Dalin at 7:30 p.m. in the Dinner Boardroom, Hewlett Library, 2400 Ridge Rd. Presented by the GTU’s Center for Jewish Studies. 649-2482.  

FRIDAY, SEPT. 26 

City Commons Club Noon Luncheon with George Coffin, MD, Pediatrician, on “Headed- 

ness.” Luncheon at 11:45 a.m. for $11.50 - $12.50, speech at 12:30 p.m., at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant St. For information and reservations call 526-2925 or 665-9020. 

“The War in Iraq and the American Economy,” with Paul Krugman, New York Times columnist Professor of Econo- 

mics and International Affairs at Princeton University, at noon at Anderson Auditorium, Haas School. Sponsored by The Graduate School of Journalism, Haas School of Business and The World Affairs Council of Northern California. 642-3383.  

Wisdom and Action A three-day conference dedicated to the positive relationship between wisdom and action. This conference honors the person, work, ideals, and influence of Joanna Macy. At St. John's Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. Cost is $295 for three days. For information call 415-575-6115 or visit www.ciis.edu/pcc/conference 

Women in Black Vigil, from noon to 1 p.m. at UC Berkeley, Bancroft at Telegraph. wibberkeley@yahoo.com 548-6310, 845-1143. 

Meditation, Peace Vigil and Dialogue, gather at noon on the grass close to the west en- 

trance to UC Berkeley, on Ox- 

ford St. near University Ave. 496-6000, ext. 135. www.bpf.org 

SATURDAY, SEPT. 27 

Friends of Five Creeks work party beginning 9 am. Plant natives and celebrate new plaques with a picnic at our Codornices Creek at Ohlone Greenway, opposite 1200 Masonic or take Greenway north from Gilman.  

Gardening with Kids at 10 a.m. at Magic Gardens Nursery, 729 Heinz Ave. 644-1992. 

Green Living Series: Introduction to Sustainable Living Identify the most harmful consumer practices and ways that you can lighten your impact on the earth, including transportation, food, heating and appliances, reuse and recycling, renewable energy, and getting involved in local community. From 10 a.m. to noon at the Ecology Center, 2530 San Pablo Ave. For information call 548-2220 ext. 233.  

Gardening for Life: Monoculture vs. Biodiversity Learn to garden in a way that supports a diversity of life. From 10 a.m. to noon at the 59th St. Community Garden, between Market and Adeline, Oakland. For information email karenjoy@uclink.berkeley.edu 

“Palestinian Crisis: Another Catastrophe in the Making,” slide show presentation by Anne Gwynne, at 6:30 p.m. at Redwood Gardens, Community Room, Clark Kerr Campus, 2951 Derby St. Fundraiser for the children of Nablus, $20 suggested donation, no one turned away for lack of funds. www.geo- 

cities.com/vigil4peace/vigil 

“Illuminations: Cuba’s Fate and Ours” A talk and slide show on sustainable development in Cuba by Philip S. Wenz, editor of “ECOTECTURE: The Online Journal of Ecological Design.” At 7 p.m. at 1450 Hawthorne Terrace. Please RSVP to Kirstin Miller at 419-0850 as seating is limited. www.ecotecture.com  

Free Emergency Preparedness Class on Fire Suppression, for anyone who lives or works in Berkeley, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at 997 Cedar St. Register on-line at www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/fire/oes or by calling 981-5506. 

Berkeley Historical Society Walking Tour, Women on UC Berkeley Campus, led by Betty Marvin. Begins at 10 a.m. Reservations and a donation of $8 required. 848-0181. 

Pet Adoptions, sponsored by Home at Last, from noon to 5 p.m., Hearst and 4th St. 548-9223. 

String Band Convention, featuring a string band contest followed by a community dance. Hosted by Suzy Thompson of Bluegrass Intentions California Cajun Orchestra, and co-sponsored by KPFA radio, with Mary Tilson as MC. From 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Farmers’ Market, Center St. at MLK, Jr. Way. 548-3333. www.ecologycenter.org  

Careers in International Trade, a workshop on Sept. 27 from 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. at Vista Community College’s Allston Way Annex, 2075 Allston Way. Register at www.peralta.cc. 

ca.us or call 981-2927. 

SUNDAY, SEPT. 28 

How Berkeley Can You Be? Grand Parade and Festival from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Parade up University Ave. followed by festival at Civic Center Park. Outdoor stage, live music and dance, food and drink booths, crafts, non-profits and children's activities. 654-6346. www.hesternet/event 

Bay Area Women in Black, Community Tashlich Observance, a Jewish New Year's ritual in which the wrongdoings of the past year are cast off into moving waters. Meet at the Emeryville Marina at 4 p.m. Everyone welcome. For further information call 597-1070 or email bayareawomeninblack 

@earthlink.net 

Berkeley City Club free tour from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. Tours are sponsored by the Berkeley City Club and the Landmark Heritage Foundation. Donations welcome. The Berkeley City Club is located at 2315 Durant Ave. For group reservations or more information, call 848-7800 or 883-9710. 

“Out and About in Rockridge” Street Fair, Picnic in the Street and Kitchen Tour from 11 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Free except for Kitchen Tour. For tickets and information call 644-4228 or visit www.rockridge.org, www.rockridgedistrict.com 

“Genetic Engineering: Who Draws the Line,” with Charles Weiner, Professor of History of Science and Technology, MIT, at 2 p.m. at Museum Theater, Berkeley Art Museum. Cost is $10. Registration recommended. 642-4111.  

Fall Plant Sale at the Botanical Garden offering a diverse range of plants for the Bay Area gardener including many which are not widely available: the Chilean bellflower, rare South African bulbs, natives such as the giant coreopsis, as well as exotic carnivorous plants and houseplants. Members only sale at 9 a.m., open to the public at 10 am. 643-2755. botanicalgarden.berkeley.edu  

MONDAY, SEPT. 29 

Rally for Environmental Justice Join California environmental justice leaders to make your community’s voice heard. At 1 p.m. in Preservation Park, 1233 Preservation Park Way, Oakland. 834-8920.  

East Bay Community Against the War Video screening and discussion of “Unprecedented: The 2000 Presidential Election,” at 7 p.m. at Grand Lake Theater, 530 Lake Park Ave. $1 suggested donation, no one turned away for lack of funds. Sponsored by East Bay Community Against the War 658-8994. www.ebcaw.org 

Berkeley CopWatch organizational meeting at 6 p.m. at 2022 Blake St. Join us to work on current issues around police misconduct. Volunteers needed. For information call 548-0425. 

ONGOING  

Acting and Storytelling Classes for Seniors, offered by Stagebridge. Wednesdays and Fridays, at 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. Held at Arts First Oakland, 2501 Harrison St., close to BART and AC Transit. 444-4755. www.stagebridge.org 

People's Park Community Advisory Board is seeking members. Applications will be accepted until Sept. 30. They are available at the People's Park office, 642-3255; the UC Office of Community Relations, 643-5299; and via e-mail to plspark@uclink.berkeley.edu. 

Free Smoke Detectors for City residents and UC Berkeley students who live off-campus. Applications are available from the Environment, Health & Safety office of UC Berkeley, at any Berkeley Fire Station, or at the Fire Admin. Office located at 2100 MLK, Jr. Way. 981-5585.  

Free Energy Bill Payment Assistance The City of Berkeley has money to help low-income households pay their gas and electric bills. For applications contact the Energy Office at 644-8544. TDD: 981-6903. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/energy 

Swim a Mile for Women with Cancer The East Bay’s Women’s Cancer Resource Center is seeking participants, supporters, and in-kind donations for its annual non-competitive fundraising event, to be held on Oct. 4-5 at the Trefethan Aquatic Center on the Mills College campus. For more information on how to register for this event, please call 601-4040, ext. 180 or email swimamilewcrc@yahoo.com 

Cal Community Service Days Students, alumni, faculty, staff and community members are invited to participate in a series of workshops and community service projects from Sept. 29 to Oct. 4. For information on how to get involved, see http://students.berkeley.edu/calcorps/cad.html 

CITY MEETINGS 

Civic Arts Commission meets Wed., Sept. 24, at 6:30 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Mary Ann Merker, 981-7533. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/ 

commissions/civicarts 

Disaster Council meets Wed., Sept. 24, at 7 p.m., at the Emergency Operations Center, 997 Cedar St. Carol Lopes, 981-5514. www.ci.berkeley.ca. us/commissions/disaster 

Energy Commission meets Wed., Sept. 24, at 6:30 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Neal De Snoo, 981-5434. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/energy 

Planning Commission meets Wed., Sept. 24, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Ruth Grimes, 981-7481. www.ci.berkeley. ca.us/commissions/planning 

Police Review Commission meets Wed., Sept. 24, at 7:30 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Barbara Attard, 981-4950. www.ci.berkeley. 

ca.us/commissions/policereview 

West Berkeley Project Area Commission meets Thurs., Sept. 25, at 7 p.m., at the West Berkeley Senior Center. 981-7520. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/ 

commissions/westberkeley  

Zoning Adjustments Board meets Thurs., Sept. 25, at 7 p.m., in City Council Chambers. Mark Rhoades, 981-7410. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/zoning

A few years ago I saw a terrific production of “The Wiz” at Berkeley High. One of the best characters in this update of “The Wizard of Oz” is the Wicked Witch of the West, Evillene. Her signature refrain is: “Don’t nobody bring me no bad news!”  

Recent emanations from Berkeley High remind me of this production. Two papers, the Berkeley Daily Planet and the Oakland Tribune, made conscientious efforts to find out exactly why new B.H.S. Principal James Slemp canceled a football game with Oakland Tech. Our reporter had a lot of trouble getting information from anyone in the Berkeley Unified School District except BUSD’s PR guy, Mark Coplan, so he went to his sources in Oakland, where he’s lived and worked for many years, to report the story from the Oakland perspective. The day the story appeared in the Planet and the Tribune, Coplan posted this e-mail message on an email tree maintained by parents of Berkeley students: 

"The cancellation of the Berkeley High - Oakland Technical High School football game was covered in the local papers today (Friday Sept. 12). Because of the dissimilarity in their reports, I direct you to the coverage in the Berkeley Voice for the more accurate version." 

The Planet takes our reputation for accuracy seriously, so we immediately responded to the posting with a request that Mr. Coplan specify exactly what in our coverage he found inaccurate. We have still not received a reply from Mr. Coplan. We sent School Board Vice-President John Selawsky a copy of our request, and his comments are on the facing page.  

First, yes, the headline writer (not the reporter) did make the mistake of assuming that the School Board had approved the game cancellation—not an unreasonable assumption, but incorrect. But Mr. Selawsky offers no specifics to back up these vague charges: 

“Inaccuracies and speculation abound in the article; very little actual information is offered. I'm disappointed in the low level reportage of this story, the inaccuracies it includes, the omissions it does not, and the harm such inaccurate reportage does to our district and community.” 

What inaccuracies is he talking about? The hard facts in the Planet’s article were substantially the same as the facts in the Tribune. Both papers made an effort to go further than the very sketchy details provided by the BUSD public relations officer. Both were forced to rely on Oakland sources because they couldn’t get information in Berkeley. (The Voice, presumably, earned BUSD’s accolade by sticking to BUSD press releases.) If the Berkeley District, even now in retrospect, would like to provide specific and accurate information about why the game was canceled, I’m sure both papers would be delighted to print it. We agree with Mr. Selawsky that inadequate information harms the community. 

Why is this important? Because we, as citizens, parents and administrators, do have a responsibility to use all reasonable precautions to ensure the safety of our schoolchildren. On the other hand, it is very harmful to our young people for us to make decisions based on vague, unspoken rumors of possible danger from unnamed shadowy persons. Such conclusions, if undocumented, could be the local equivalent of Bush and Blair’s speeches about WMDs. Kids these days have plenty of real problems to worry about, and adults don’t help them by appearing to panic.  

School district administrators and school board members should remember the story of Chicken Little, which belongs in every first grade classroom, and not be too quick to say that the sky is falling. They should remember the old story of the shepherd boy who cried once too often that a wolf was threatening his flock, so that he wasn’t believed when the wolf actually came.  

The best efforts of reporters at two local papers have still produced almost no specifics about what information prompted Slemp to call off the game, and not much about where he got it. Was he worried about student-to-student violence? Between team members or spectators? Or was it outsiders, adults or teens? Gang-related or not? Did Slemp fear an invasion of marauders from Oakland, or from another city? Why couldn’t the Berkeley Police department handle such a situation? (They provided a large contingent of officers at the Solano Stroll, enough to handle almost anything short of an army in tanks.) If the police can’t deal with high school football games, what will happen the next time there’s a big pop concert at the Berkeley Community Theater, also on the Berkeley High campus?  

Questions like these deserve answers, from both administrators and school board members. As a community, we need to separate scary rumors from proven threats, and to know if our police department can’t cope with such threats if they’re real and might recur in the future. 

This is not the first time the Berkeley Unified School District has been less than candid. Our Planet predecessors won an award for uncovering school board meetings which violated the Brown Act. One of their reporters uncovered an unpublicized agreement to axe the African-American studies department at Berkeley High. Neighbors are now suing the district for failing to comply with California Environmental Quality Act disclosure requirements for proposed projects on school sites. City Manager Weldon Rucker (whose wife is a former school board member) sent a pointed letter asking for a full environmental impact report on these projects. It was ignored. 

The Berkeley Unified School District needs to start taking responsibility for making sure that citizens get the facts, and get them promptly. The Planet will report on whatever we can find out about. We will also report on what we should know about, but don’t. Even if that’s bad news for board members and public information officers…. 

I used Google on the Internet to verify Evillene’s exact quote, and found it, among other places, in a sermon posted by the Rev. Frank Logue, a rector in a small town in Georgia. He chided his congregation for wanting only cheery sermons using this analogy: 

“Small town local newspapers are known to be like sundials, they only work in the sunny hours and so are filled with good news. But, even our local Tribune and Georgian too often has to report bad news.” 

The Daily Planet, though a small town local newspaper, aims to be more than a sundial. Whether the BUSD likes it or not, sometimes we have to report the bad news.  

Full disclosure: Executive Editor Becky O’Malley’s three daughters graduated from Berkeley High, and her daughter Eliza O’Malley was musical director for “The Wiz.”

Ron Kaell, a lead actor in “The Old Neighborhood,” Aurora Theatre’s regional premier of one of David Mamet’s most recent plays, probably said it best, the play’s “about going home, but you can’t go home again.” 

It’s a painful idea but then, people don’t go to see a Mamet production expecting lighthearted fun and games. However, what we can expect from Aurora, and do get in this production, is first-class acting and staging. The actors are, as usual, highly talented and are intelligently and sensitively directed by veteran theater professional Joy Carlin.  

Famous for his incredible use of language, until recently Mamet has been reticent about using autobiographical materials in his work. He seems to have let down that barrier in both this play—actually developed as three entirely separately “playlets”—and its predecessor, the Obie Award winning “The Cryptogram.” 

The playwright’s sister, Lynn Mamet, is quoted in the playbill as saying the new work is “as if David had replayed six or eight of our phone conversations.” 

What this says about their family life is not something that many of us would want to think about too closely. 

This 90 minute production is played straight through with no intermissions. Mamet describes the playlets as “Three explorations of the same theme.” Bobby Gould (Michael Santo), who recently left his wife and children, has come back to Chicago’s Northside to look up people from his past. What he is actually searching for seems to be an issue of identity and values, intimately entwined with his background as a non-religious Jew. 

The first section, entitled “The Disappearance of the Jews” has Bobby visiting with his childhood buddy, Joey (Ron Kaell). They’re drinking—Ron rather more than Bobby—and running through their memories. Off stage, Kaell laughs at the thought of “two bald guys” sitting there, repeating to each other: “It’s funny, you haven’t changed a bit.” 

But their conversation is far more than that. It goes into their experiences with women in general, Jewish women, shiksas, their marriages, what they hoped to get from life, what they still dream. Curiously, Bobby, although he is the central character who holds these three playlets together, is far less verbal than are the three characters with whom he engages in his search for himself. He maintains a kind of dignity that the others lack in their more verbose scramblings for meaning. Michael Santo is well cast for the role.  

As the play is presently presented, the second section is entitled “Jolly,” the extraordinary misnomer selected for Bobby’s resentment-loaded sister, played by Amy Resnick. And the third section is “Deeny,” the name of an old girlfriend (Delia MacDougall) whom he sees for the first time in 15 years. 

The explanation for the phrase “as the play is presently presented” in the previous paragraph is that Director Joy Carlin says that before the run is over, she may switch the order of the last two sections: “Deena” will become the second, and “Jolly” the final act. Carlin says that she talked with David Mamet who was in the Bay Area in the last few days to oversee a production in San Francisco. Mamet told her that he had come to realize that the two parts of the play should be changed.  

Carlin didn’t go into detail about his reasons for the proposed alteration, but on the face of it, it seems like an excellent idea. Amy Resnick’s “Jolly” is a screeching, resentment-filled harridan, totally fixated upon the various psychological wounds she carries from her childhood. The scene opens with her endlessly detailed account of unfair treatment in a will—the kind of thing that arouses no compassion at all in the listener. But there is a touching moment when she is able to break through her mask of rage, turns to her brother and says “They didn’t love us at all.”  

But there is love in the support that she receives, both from her brother and from Carl, (Tom) her quiet, rather brow-beaten, non-Jewish husband. Placing this section at the end of the play provides some kind of warmth and sense of resolution which is missing in the present arrangement. 

“Deeny” has a less positive outcome and is, in fact, more static. Although Delia MacDougall does fine work with the character, she is sabotaged by a script which keeps her talking almost non-stop for the entire piece. Bobby had apparently thought he might revive the relationship they once had, but they miss an emotional connection that they both appear to have hoped for.  

At one point she remarks “I never knew what you wanted.” 

Sadly, that seems to still be the case. And Bobby leaves.

TUESDAY, SEPT. 23 

EXHIBITION OPENINGS 

“Reality and Illusion: The City of Berkeley Photographed” Reception from 4 to 6 p.m. at the Worth Ryder Gallery in Kroeber Hall, UC Campus. 642-4800. http://art.berkeley.edu/rev2/ 

wrGallery  

CHILDREN 

Lemony Snicket Day at Cody’s Books. “The Slippery Slope” will be available. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

FILM 

The Films of Germaine Dulac: “The Smiling Madame Beudet” and other films at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Robert Hass, Poet Laurate and co-founder of River of Words, reads at 7:30 p.m. at Barnes and Noble. 644-0861. 

Maxine Hong Kingston, reads from “The Fifth Book of Peace,” a hybrid of memoir and fiction at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books, 1730 Fourth St. 559-9500. www.codysbooks.com 

Amy Wallace discusses her new memoir “Sorcerer’s Apprentice: My Life with Carlos Castaneda” at 7:30 p.m. at Barnes and Noble. 644-0861. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

DP and The Rhythm Riders at 8:30 p.m., with a Cajun dance lesson with Cheryl McBride at 8 p.m., at Ashkenaz. Cost is $9. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Mimi Fox, solo guitar, at 8 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810. 

Beth Robinson, Doug Blumer, singer-songwriter double bill, at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage Coffee House. Cost is $15.50 in advance, $16.50 at the door. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Dayna Stephens House Jam at The Jazz House. Donation $5. 649-8744. www.thejazz- 

house.com 

WEDNESDAY, SEPT. 24 

FILM 

“Discovering Dominga,” documentary by Patricia Flynn at 8 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. A benefit for the Guatemala Accompaniment Project. Cost is $8-$12 sliding scale. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Rainer Werner Fassbinder: “Veronica Voss“ at 5 p.m. and 9:15 p.m. and “Satan’s Brew”at 7:05 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Poets from the San Francisco Bay Area will gather with a sym- 

bolic giant peace dove at La Peña at 6:30 p.m. to read their “win with words not war” messages.  

Meredith Maran discusses “Dirty: Inside America’s Teen- 

age Drug Epidemic,” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

Liz Franklin discusses her new book, “How to Get Organized Without Resorting to Arson,” at 7:30 p.m. at Barnes and Noble. 644-0861. 

PEN West an evening of readings and discussion in observation of Banned Book Week, at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698. www.blackoakbooks.com 

Berkeley Poetry Slam with host Charles Ellik at 8:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $7, $5 with student i.d. 841-2082. www.starryplough.com 

Café Poetry and Open Mic hosted by Paradise at 7:30 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Donation requested. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Wednesday Noon Concert University Symphony Orchestra, David Milnes, conductor, Chevron Auditorium at International House, corner of Bancroft and Piedmont Aves. Admission is free. 642-4864. 

Nanjing University Traditional Instruments Orchestra perfrom at 8 p.m. at the International House Auditorium, 2299 Piedmont. Free for I-House members, residents and alumni, $5 for the general public. 642-9460. landerso@uclink.berkeley.edu  

Sólas, traditional and contemporary Irish music, at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage Coffee House. Cost is $19.50 in advance, $20.50 at the door. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

The Anthony Paule - Mz. Dee Band at 9 p.m., with a swing dance lesson with Nick and Shanna at 8 p.m., at Ashkenaz. Cost is $9. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Jules Broussard, Bing Nathan and Ned Boynton at 8 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810. 

Outbound Trio at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

THURSDAY, SEPT. 25 

FILM 

Genetic Screenings: “Homo Sapiens 1900” at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Guided Tour: Gene(sis): Contemporary Art Explores Human Genomics, at 12:15 and 5:30 p.m., Berkeley Art Museum, 2626 Bancroft Way. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

Word Beat Reading Series at 7 p.m. with featured readers Steve Arntson and Anna Wolfe, followed by an open mic, at Mediterraneum Caffe, 2475 Telegraph Ave., near Dwight Way. For information call 526-5985 or 205-1749.  

Wayne Bernhardson shows slides and talks about his new book, “Moon Handbook: Buenos Aires” at 7:30 p.m. at Easy Going Travel Shop and Bookstore, 1385 Shattuck Ave. at Rose. 843-3533. 

Neal Stephenson reads from his new novel, “Quicksilver” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

Educator’s Night, for K-12 educators, with author Meredith Maran, at 6 p.m. at Barnes and Noble. Please RSVP to 644-0861. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Otep Myrrhy Music from Medieval Bohemia at 8 p.m. at St. Alban’s Church, 1501 Washington St., Albany. Tickets are $12-$15 and are available from 486-2803 or 524-7952. www. 

timrayborn.com/Festival 

Julieta Venegas, Mexican singer at 8 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $12 in advance, $15 at the door. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

The Influents, The Flipsides, The Spinning Jennies at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $5. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

Kathy Kallick, album release show, at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage Coffee House. Cost is $15.50 in advance, $16.50 at the door. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Rosh Hashana Concert at 8 p.m. at the 1923 Tea House. 644-2204.  

Keni El Lebrijano, flamenco guitar, at 8:30 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810.  

FRIDAY, SEPT. 26 

CHILDREN 

Amelia Bedelia, Bookworm, celebrates her 40th birthday at 10:30 a.m. at Barnes and Noble. 644-0861. 

FILM 

British Fim Revivals: “A Cottage on Dartmoor” with Neil Brand on piano, at 7:30 p.m. and “How to be Eccentric: The Films of Richard Massingham” at 9:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

“Spirited Away,” Japanese animation ghost story, at 8 p.m. at the Long Haul, 3124 Shattuck Ave. Wheelchair accessible. 540-0751. www.thelonghaul.org 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

“Martin Guitar Master- 

pieces,” a new book in celebration of the 170th anniversary of the guitar maker, will be introduces by Dick Boak and Steve Miller at 4 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

“Grass Roof, Tin Roof Project” Launch, with a free book - one per person, first come, first served - for the simultan- 

eous reading of Dao Strom’s new novel about a Vietnamese family resettling in Northern California. At noon at all five Berkeley Public Library locations. 981-6100. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

U-Theatre/Drummers from Taiwan perform “The Sound of Ocean” a presentation of complex drumming and martial art techniques at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $22-$42. 642-0212. www.calperfs.berkeley.edu  

Keith Frank and the Soileau Zydeco Band at 9 p.m. at Ashkenez. Cajun dance lesson with Cheryl McBride at 8:30 p.m. Cost is $13 in advance, $15 at the door. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

“Strictly Skillz,” a celebration of Hip Hop in its purest form at 9 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $10. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Winfred E. Eye, Moore Brothers, Deers at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $6. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com  

Scott Amendola Band at 8 p.m. at The Jazz House. Suggested donation $15. 649-8744. www.thejazzhouse.org 

Danny Caron and Friends at 9 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810. 

Golden Bough, Celtic-American trio, at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage Coffee House. Cost is $17.50 in advance, $18.50 at the door. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Phantom Limbs, 400 Blows, Nakatomi Plaza, Marathon at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St., an all-ages, member-run, no alcohol, no drugs, no violence club. Cost is $5. 525-9926. 

Wig Salad, Brown Baggin at 9:30 p.m. at Blakes on Telegraph. Cost is $6. 848-0886. www.blakesontelegraph.com 

The People with LZ Phoenix, Sol Americano and Dr. Mas- 

seuse at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $10. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Indian Classical Music with Jyoti Rout, Pandit Habib Khan, and Prof. Mohini Mohan Pattnaik at 7 p.m. at the Julia Morgan Center for the Arts. Tickets are $15-$20 available from 925-798-1300.  

Tim Barsky, master of beat boxing at the 1923 Teahouse at 8 p.m. Suggested donation of $7-$15. 644-2204. www.epicarts.org 

SATURDAY, SEPT. 27 

La Peña Cultural Center celebrates Quinque Cruz, aka Claudio E. Duran, author of “Autobiography of an Ex-Chess Player,” with a mutimedia event exploring the idea of aesthetic and terror, at 6:30 p.m. Tickets are $10-$25. 849-2572. www.lapena.org 

FILM 

Arab Film Festival, “Cinemayaat” from 1 to 9:45 p.m. at Wheeler Auditorium, UC Campus. Tickets are $9, students and seniors $7. For schedule of titles and times see www.aff.org 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

“Where Does the Music Come From?” with Neil Brand on piano, silent film accompanist at 7:30 p.m at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

Rhythm and Muse with Katherine Harer and Joe Vance, at 7 p.m. at the Berkeley Art Center. 644-6893. www.berkeleyartcenter.org 

Roshni Rustromji reads from her new novel “Braided Tongue” at 4 p.m. at Eastwind Books of Berkeley, 2066 University Ave. 548-2350. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

U-Theatre/Drummers from Taiwan perform “The Sound of Ocean” a presentation of complex drumming and martial art techniques, at 2 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $22-$42. 642-0212. www.calperfs.berkeley.edu  

University Symphony, David Milnes, director, at 8 p.m. at the First Congregational Church, 2345 Channing Way. Tickets are $8, $6 seniors and UC staff, $2 UC students, and are available from 642-9988.  

Indian Classical Music with Jyoti Rout, Pandit Habib Khan, and Prof. Mohini Mohan Pattnaik at 7 p.m. at the Julia Morgan Center for the Arts. Tickets are $15-$20 available from 925-798-1300.  

West African Highlife Band at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. African dance lesson with Comfort Mensah at 9 p.m. Cost is $13. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

James McMurtry, Johnny Childs at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $6. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

Sol Americano, KGB at 9:30 p.m. at Blakes On Telegraph. Cost is $7. 848-0886. www.blakesontelegraph.com 

Mark Murphy, jazz singer, at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $20-$25. 845-5373. www.jazz- 

school.com 

Delta Nove at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Rama with DJ Dave Mak at 8 p.m. at The Jazz House. Donations suggested. 649-8744. www.thejazzhouse.org 

Dix Bruce and Jim Nunally, roots country and bluegrass guitar and vocals, at Freight and Salvage Coffee House. Cost is $16.50 in advance, $17.50 at the door. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Alice Stuart at 2 p.m. at Down Home Music, 10341 San Pablo Ave., El Cerrito. 525-2129. www.downhomemusic.com 

The People with LZ Phoenix, Sol Americano and Dr. Masseuse at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $10. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Kent Glenn-Putter Smith Jazz Quartet at the 1923 Teahouse at 8 p.m. Suggested donation of $7-$15, no one turned away for lack of funds. 644-2204. www.epicarts.org 

Spencer Day Group at 9 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810. 

Over My Dead Body, In Control, The Control, Stand Up and Fight, Our Turn perform at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St., an all-ages, member-run, no alcohol, no drugs, no violence club. Cost is $5. 525-9926. 

SUNDAY, SEPT. 28 

EXHIBITION OPENINGS 

Berkeley Art Center, “One Struggle, Two Communi- 

ties,” Late 20th Century Political Posters of Havana, Cuba and the San Francisco Bay Area at 2 p.m. 644-6893. 

Berkeley History Center, “Early Women of Berkeley (1878-1953),” at 2 p.m. An exhibit celebrating how women shaped Berkeley's history, working alone and through their clubs. 1931 Center St. 848-0181. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/histsoc 

CHILDREN 

Ecuadorian Dance, Music and Art for the whole family from 1 to 4 p.m. at the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum, UC Campus. Free with museum admission. 643-7648. www.gal.berke- 

ley.edu/~hearst/ 

FILM 

Arab Film Festival, “Cinemayaat” from 1:15 to 8:45 p.m. at Wheeler Auditorium, UC Campus. Tickets are $9, students and seniors $7. For a schedule of titles and times see www.aff.org 

The Films of Germaine Dulac: “La Belle Dame Sans Merci” at 5:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

The Editors of The Bark on “Dog is my Co-Pilot: Great Writers on the World’s Oldest Friendship,” at 3 p.m. at Cody’s Books, 1730 Fourth St. 559-9500. www.codysbooks.com  

Poetry at Cody’s with Jacqueline Kudler and Diane Sher Lutovich at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. Donation $2. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

J. Robert Lennon reads from his new novel ”Mailman” at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698. www.blackoakbooks.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Crowden Music Center presents Irene Sazer, violin and Gianna Abondolo, cello at 4 p.m. at 1475 Rose St. Tickets are $12 general, free for children 18 and under. 559-6910. www.thecrowdenschool.org  

In the Balance: Poetry and Jazz at 2 p.m. in the Peralta Community Garden on Peralta St. between Hopkins and Gilman. 231-5912. kirklumpkin@mac.com 

Deaf Electric, electronic, turntablism, experimental music and visuals, at 7 p.m. at The Jazz House. Sliding scale donation $6-$15. 649-8744. www.thejazzhouse.org 

Midnite, reggae quintet from St. Croix, Virgin Islands, at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $15 in advance, $20 at the door. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Party of Seven, world music ensemble, at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage Coffee House. Cost is $15.50 in advance, $16.50 at the door. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Mark Levine and the Latin Tinge plays standards and original in Afro-Cuban style at 4:30 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $12-$18. 845-5373. www.jazz- 

school.com 

Astral Realm, The Volumes, Tregenza at 9:30 p.m. at Blakes On Telegraph. Cost is $5. 848-0886. www.blakesontelegraph.com 

Americana Unplugged Series: High Country at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

MONDAY, SEPT. 29 

EXHIBITION OPENINGS 

“5 x 3” exibition opening at 7 p.m. Berkeley Public Library Central Community Room. An informal session with three resident artists, Ana Bravo, Malle Malaam and Joseph Alverez.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Alex Wellen talks about a law-student’s entry into the legal profession in “Barman: Ping Pong, Pathos and Passing the Bar” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

Poetry Express, open mic theme night: Recall, from 7 to 9:30 p.m., at Priya Restaurant, 2072 San Pablo Ave. berkeleypoetryexpress@yahoo.com 

Kirk Read discusses “How I Learned to Snap: A Small Town Coming-Out and Coming-of-Age Story” at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698.  

www.blackoakbooks.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Berkeley Symphony Orchestra 25th Anniversary Celebration, honoring conductor, Kent Nagano, with guest soloist Frederica von Stade, at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall. Pre-concert lecture at 7 p.m. Tickets are $21-$45, students $10, available from 841-2800 or www.berkeleysymphony.org 

Mimi Fox, solo guitar, at 8 p.m. at Downtown, 2102 Shattuck Ave. 649-3810. 

Arty McGlynn and Nolliag Casey, traditional music duo from Ireland world music ensemble, at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage Coffee House. Cost is $15.50 in advance, $16.50 at the door. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Steve Gannon Band and Mz. Dee at 9:30 p.m. at Blakes on Telegraph. Cost is $4. 848-0886. www.blakesontelegraph.com 

Neighbors of the defunct Franklin Elementary School filed suit against the Berkeley Unified School District Monday, jeopardizing the BUSD’s plan to shift the Adult School to the Franklin campus. 

Under the title Friends of Franklin, Tim Arai and his wife Carrie Adams charged in Alameda County Superior Court that the district’s environmental plan for the move underestimated the traffic burden posed to neighbors and purposely ignored the second half of the district’s plan—moving the administrative offices to the West Campus site at 1222 University Ave., which currently houses the Berkeley Unified Adult School. 

Neighbors have fought with the district for months over its plan to relocate the Adult School to their backyard, which they fear would result in less on-street parking, more crime, reduced play area for their kids and lower property values. 

“The lawsuit is the tool to try to get the district to deal with us in a responsible manner,” said Arai. “So far they have blown us off.” 

BUSD spokesperson Mark Coplan said the district had not received a copy of the filing and could not comment on it. 

The suit could potentially derail the move of the Adult School to Franklin, which has been abandoned since the elementary school closed in 2002. 

Under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), a plaintiff may ask for an injunction to halt construction while briefs are filed. Arai refused to say if he planned to do just that, but if a judge approved an injunction, construction scheduled to start on Nov. 1 could be delayed indefinitely. 

“Our construction schedule is built on the idea of starting Nov. 1,” said Lew Jones, BUSD director of facilities. “That gets us finished around the middle of next July.” 

Any delay that pushes the completion date past the start of the next school year, Jones said, would undercut the district’s $6.5 million refurbishment program. 

City Manager Weldon Rucker, in a July 29 letter to the district, charged that BUSD’s decision to issue a Mitigated Negative Declaration was faulty because it examined only the impact of the Adult School’s move to Franklin, not the impending move of BUSD’s administration office and its maintenance operations to the current adult School. 

In his letter, Rucker cited BUSD documents as well as statements by district officials that tied the two projects together. He insisted the district is required to perform an Environmental Impact Report studying the entire plan, not just the Franklin School segment. Neighbors at the West Campus have urged the district to keep the adult school at the site, because the increased street traffic fends off prowlers. 

The district has said they plan to move their offices from Old City Hall on Martin Luther King Jr. Way to the Adult School before its $1-per-year lease on the city building ends in 2009, but insist that the plan is too preliminary to do a study. 

“We don’t know what we are going to do yet,” Jones said. “There might be opportunity classes (for troubled students). There might be other classes. There are a host of things we can’t study there at this point.” 

The district settled on the current shakeup of their facilities because the Adult School requires major construction work and district officials say moving the Adult School during construction, only to return it later, would cost too much. 

The suit also alleges that the district has failed to mitigate traffic congestion presented by the roughly 1,300 Adult School students. The plan calls for paving over a playground and grass area to build about 200 parking spaces on the site to accommodate students at the four-square-block West Berkeley school bounded by San Pablo Avenue to the west, Curtis Street to the east, Virginia Street to the north and Francisco Street to the south.  

Neighbors worry that an entrance located near the intersection of Virginia and Kanis Street and an exit on Francisco would cause traffic congestion throughout the 8:30 a.m.-9:30 p.m. school day. The district found that the report, in accordance with CEQA, would not “significantly” impact neighborhood traffic. 

Arai argued that the report examined the impact at major intersections, like Cedar Street and San Pablo, but not the smaller streets that might be most impacted by the school traffic. “They studied the impact at Sacramento and Delaware [Street], they may as well have studied San Pablo and Alcatraz [Avenue] too.” 

Jones contended that the city chose which streets to study and that studying major traffic arteries is standard procedure for environmental reports. 

The district petitioned the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) to allow a right-turn-only driveway on San Pablo to ease congestion on residential streets, but Caltrans spokesperson Brigetta Smith said the agency planned to reject the district’s request because they failed to provide traffic studies on the impact of the new driveway and had not specified where on the block they would construct the driveway. 

Jones said the district could still win Caltrans approval if they provided the required information. 

Peter Hillier, Berkeley director of transportation, said the San Pablo Driveway is pivotal, but that other traffic concerns still needed to be addressed. The city is pushing to forbid motorists driving southbound on Kains Street—one block east of San Pablo—from entering the parking lot to keep students from flooding the street. 

Arai said neighbors had promised to help fund the lawsuit but that he had advanced most of the roughly $1,000 already spent on the lawsuit. “All we’ve ever asked is to stop the project and look at all the parts,” Arai said. “If [the district] doesn’t have a master plan they should create one.”

FOR PROP. 54 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I support Proposition 54. When I (an Anglo) legally adopted my Hispanic son who was born in the Dominican Republic, we started a color-blind family. I think that society should be that way. Racial classification permits discrimination and reverse-discrimination which may become more prevalent as a result of illegal immigration and overpopulation. 

Opposition to Prop. 54 based on the claim that the health exceptions in the proposition are in adequate is a completely untested supposition. I have supervised large health research grants for Kaiser Permanente, and it is very likely that markers of health vulnerability other than race can be found when individual data (the best kind) are not available. Individual differences of physiology, attitude, skill, and social class within racial groups is very wide. Let’s recognize and honor people as individuals as much as we can. It’s not easy but it’s the right thing to do. 

Robert Gable 

• 

FAIR TRADE COFFEE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Your article about fair trade coffee (Daily Planet, Sept. 16-18) is an example of not providing the background needed to understand the issues. Procter & Gamble is mentioned five times (misspelled four times) and not once does the article mention what kind of coffee Procter & Gamble manufactures. In fact, it’s not even clear whether P&G is a coffee manufacturer or retailer. The company is simply described as “the largest seller of coffee in the U.S.” 

It’s not common knowledge that Procter & Gamble, primarily known as a manufacturer of household cleaning products, makes the Folgers and Millstone brands of coffee. But nowhere was this mentioned. One of the first rules of journalism is that anything that isn’t common knowledge should be included in an article. Readers were left with a lot of confusion about what it is that P&G sells that fair trade coffee advocates are objecting to. 

Jim Davidson 

• 

LOOKING DEEPER 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The piece on Arianna Huffington starts out by quoting polls. 

It is important to learn that polls are meaningless, they are based only upon those registered in the last election and has nothing to do with the millions of newly registered voters. Why not teach students how meaningless crime statistics and polls really are instead of using them as a reliable source of information? 

Huffington understands the issues and is by far the best candidate for students. She and Camejo are the only ones who understand that the prison slave labor empire is breaking our backs, breaking our hearts and the priorities are wrong. I didn’t feel that the author really knows the issues or the process. Feel free to visit our website to learn how special interests are controlling our State. 

Arianna cannot be bought and she has a rare quality that Thomas Jefferson said was necessary to good governing, that of “A love of people.” 

Look deeper. We need to turn the world right side up and Arianna is capable of doing that. Students need to get involved or suffer for their ignorance and apathy. 

B. Cayenne Bird 

• 

HUMMER NOT ALONE 

The Hummer is not the only politically incorrect tourist to Berkeley. I had a guest who had “Bleached Blonde” yelled at her on Telegraph Avenue. One would not dare to wear furs here...  

Margot Smith  

The Daily Californian and the student government board that holds its lease have set a last-ditch meeting Tuesday to decide if the independent paper will remain on campus. 

The paper’s board of directors signed a non-binding letter of intent Friday to move from its current home at student government-owned Eshleman Hall to a site across the street at 2460A Bancroft Way, the former home of Ned’s Clothing Store. 

The move would cost the student government about $72,000 in annual rent and end a seventeen-month dispute. This summer newly elected student government officials pushed to include clauses in the paper’s lease compelling it to develop a code of ethics and hire an independent editor to address concerns of minority students. 

Those on the Associated Students of the University of California (ASUC) Store Operations Board advocating the lease provisions say they are necessary to force the paper to address years of complaints. Minority groups charge that the paper’s editors are insulated from their concerns and that, as a result, coverage is skewed against them. 

The paper, along with the American Civil Liberties Union, called the provisions a violation of free speech and threatened to sue the student government. 

While both sides say they prefer a compromise, they admit that severing their landlord-tenant relationship—unique for a college paper and student government—might be best for both sides. 

“There is a fundamental conflict of influence,” said Daily Californian Editor in Chief Eric Schewe. “That we have to consider the impact of the stories on who we are writing about creates a chilling effect.” 

From a financial standpoint, the move to Bancroft and Telegraph seems like a no-brainer. The owner has offered a four-year deal, with an option for six more years on a 4,300-square-foot-office for about $60,000 per year. The paper has until Oct. 6 to sign the lease. 

“The ASUC has quite a deal to live up to compared to what we’ve been offered at this space,” Schewe said, noting that the paper pays the student government $72,000 a year for 4,100 square feet in Eshleman Hall. 

But the paper’s board of directors is hesitant to move the paper off campus again, Schewe said, and remains inclined to keep negotiating with the student government. 

Many of the paper’s board are alumni who remember the paper’s travails when it first left campus in 1971 and did not return until 1994.  

During those years the paper was subject to the fluctuations of Berkeley’s real estate market, and the paper failed to make rent payments on several occasions. 

Schewe said that although commercial real estate prices are down now, several board members prefer to remain on campus where rent prices are more stable. 

Taina Gomez, ASUC Executive Vice President and member of the 11-member Store Operations Board, said she would like to see the paper stay on campus, but that parting ways might be best for both sides. 

“This has been a contentious issue for both sides,” she said. “They want to make sure they are independent, but at the same time we are in an awkward position because as representatives of the students we felt we needed to make the paper accountable and address the problems students complained about.” 

The paper’s departure would free up office space for other campus groups, she said, and give the board more time to focus on other income producers, including the student government-owned clothing and book stores. 

Gomez said the popularly elected ASUC Senate has pressured the Store Operations Board to strike a deal, so not to lose the rental revenue paid by the paper. 

“It would definitely be a big hit for our budget,” Gomez said. Earlier this semester, the ASUC cut 0.7 percent from student groups after they found a typo in their budget that cost them $10,000. 

ASUC political infighting has hamstrung efforts to reach a compromise. 

The Store Operations Board—comprised of six students and five faculty and administrators—refused to consider the lease at their regularly scheduled September meeting after two graduate students were booted from the council because they had not been confirmed by the ASUC Senate. 

The students, Graduate Assembly President Jessica Quindel and Graduate Assembly Vice President Cintya Molina, were expected to win Senate confirmation last week, but in a move several board members said was politically motivated, the Senate rejected Quindel, who has a long affiliation with left-of-center student party CalServe. CalServe holds only five of the Senate’s 20 seats but controls the top ASUC executive positions. 

Molina is now expected to withdraw from the board in protest, leaving members to wonder whether or not to consider the issue as long as the graduate students are excluded. 

“The meeting has been called. Where we go from there I don’t know,” said Store Operations Board member and professor Pete Bucklin. 

The paper, which rents its space month-to-month, said the move off-campus would likely occur during the December break. Board members said they would not force the paper to leave immediately to make room for other student groups. 

“We have no desire to kick them out in a vindictive way,” said Molina. “We will give them ample time to move out.” 

Schewe said the paper probably won’t file suit against the ASUC on free speech grounds, as it had threatened earlier this month. Instead, he said, the paper is focused on moving past the lease negotiations.

Californians appear condemned to repeat history because they refuse to learn from it. I shake my head as the Berkeley recall of 30 years ago repeats itself on a statewide level.  

I became the only person ever recalled from the City Council in Berkeley, and one of the few—if not only—black ever recalled in California history on Aug. 21, 1973. No one learned from the Berkeley experience that recalls start with those who lost the election and always play on the fears of a nervous populace. Moreover, recalls allow 25 percent or less of the voters in the last election to force an elected official to get a majority of the votes in his/her defense. This means that even though as many as 49 percent of those voting may favor the targeted officeholder, without a majority he or she loses-—and the minority which started the fight wins. The Berkeley recall began with the partnership of the liberal left and the Berkeley Black Caucus. A native of Memphis, I had finished my law degree at Yale University, moved to California to work for Legal Services and joined the Caucus. Flush with success of electing black Congressman Ron Dellums, the Caucus ran a coalition slate of blacks, whites and women in the April 1971 city elections. I was tapped as part of the coalition.  

Our campaign platform included the creation of jobs with top priorities to minorities and women, expanded housing and child care programs, extended recreational facilities, and liberal juvenile justice policies. I promised quite clearly that I would serve the interests of the black community. Berkeley’s business, and conservative and moderate leaders were far from unified in the Council elections. But on the day after the election, the defeated conservatives and moderates announced a recall against our coalition. The strategies later became to recall Bailey and effectively neutralize the other black council member. 

As a Councilman I challenged the city’s racial fairness in Berkeley City government. In my two and a half years the city hired its first black city manager and city attorney, passed an affirmative action program, increased blacks in police and fire, and gave the all-black garbage workers an accelerated wage increase to help them achieve parity. We opposed the Vietnam War and blocked a shopping mall development at the Berkeley Marina. 

Conservatives and the business community mobilized their recall petition drive. The recall petition charged that I refused to compromise at council meetings; filibustered; and staged outbursts that caused the council to break up in disarray. They charged I disparaged the image of established black leaders, and introduced race into the politics of Berkeley. With financial support from businesses and relentless backing from the Berkeley Daily Gazette, Bailey recall went on the ballot. My financial backers became a subject of great interest-even reporter Mike Wallace pressed me on Sixty Minutes to reveal my financial sources. I was funded primarily by a discreet, progressive family who did not wish to be identified and not, as charged, by the CIA or Communists. 

I had many supporters: Congressman Dellums, who was heavily reliant on the white left, made some statements against the recall; Legendary Longshoreman leader Harry Bridges who understood the divisive implication of recall. My main support came from those who elected me in the first place —the black community and white activists who supported black political self-determination. 

Others came. Medgar Ever’s widow, Myrlie Evers and Jesse Jackson took to the streets of Berkeley for me. My fellow lawyers in National Bar Association took an unprecedented Convention vote denouncing the recall as “violating of Councilman Bailey’s constitutional right of free speech.” Black activist Angela Davis wrote that the recall’s “motivation is fundamentally racist and anti-democratic....D’Army’s seat was won by a coalition of voters who demanded representation, not for big business, but for the people.” The recallers’ main strategy was to make it appear that the 25 percent black population wanted me out. That strategy failed. I won every black precinct. But the conservatives weren’t really interested in what the blacks thought. I was beaten in the almost all-white, upper income Berkeley Hills where turnout was substantial. 

The recall group manipulated the timing of the recall election to occur in the summer when most of the Berkeley college students were away. Though that may not have affected the ultimate outcome, it reflected the recallers’ cynical attempt to disenfranchise a large segment of the city’s voters. Later Berkeley banned special elections in the summer. Californians failed to grasp the lessons from this Berkeley slice of history and now they are doomed to repeat them.  

For the past thirteen years D’Army Bailey has served as an elected State Circuit Judge in Memphis, Tenn. He is Tennessee’s designated founder of the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis.

The firing of a veteran Berkeley Bowl produce department worker and pro-union activist sparked a brief walkout Sunday, effectively shutting down the store for fifteen minutes. 

Arturo Perez, 56, was fired Friday from his position in the store’s produce section for what he and other employees are calling unfair and invalid reasons. 

Berkeley Bowl management declined to comment on the incident. 

Perez said he was fired for theft because of his purchase of four bags of marked-down garbanzo beans last Wednesday evening. 

Along with other employees at the Berkeley Bowl, Perez has been trying to organize a union at the store since early May. He charged that the battle of the beans was an excuse for management to fire him because he has been one of the most outspoken participants in the drive and one of the leaders among the workers in the produce section. 

“They were waiting for an excuse to fire me,” said Perez. “They were always watching me.” 

Perez said that, instead of stealing, he was only participating in a common practice where employees are able to purchase discount produce the night before if goes on sale in the store. 

Finding a box of garbanzo beans earmarked for the discount table, he said he took four bags and asked another employee to make an accurate and fair appraisal and re-price the bags. Supervisors are usually in charge of creating the markdowns but Perez says there wasn’t a supervisor on duty that night.  

Perez, who has worked at the store for over two years, had helped mark the discount produce in the past, so the employee told him to go ahead and make his own markdown. Perez made the reduction, following what he says is standard procedure for calculating the discount. 

Thursday was Perez’s day off and when he returned to work Friday he said he was questioned about the incident, served with his last check, then escorted off the property. 

Perez, who has five children and a sick spouse, said he was shocked about the accusation. 

“I’ve never stolen anything in my life,” he said. “In the two years I’ve worked at the Berkeley Bowl, I’ve never done anything wrong. I’ve never been late. I’ve never missed a day, even when I was sick.” 

Perez’s dismissal was not the first since the organizing drive began. Chuck McNally, another pro-union activist, was fired earlier in the year for what campaign workers say are also unfair reasons.  

Eric Freezell, another produce section worker, said Perez’s actions were fair and followed standard practice whereby employees have the first chance to buy reduced produce. 

“This has happened a million times. It’s common practice for employees to buy produce from the bargain section,” Freezell said. 

According to workers, management held a meeting with the produce employees on Thursday during which they said they had discontinued the policy where workers would have access to discount produce the night before it hits the shelves. 

Berkeley Bowl’s decision to fire Perez outraged other employees, who on Sunday—the store’s busiest day—staged a 15-minute walkout at 5 p.m., effectively shutting the store down. All but three of the cashiers walked out, along with several employees from other departments. 

Workers handed flyers explaining the walkout to customers waiting in line, clocked out one-by-one, then proceeded outside. 

Once outside, several held up signs reading, “Where is Arturo?” 

“We’re not going to sit back and let them do something so cold-hearted and calloused,” said Cory Abshear, one of the cashier who walked out. “I think we have run a pretty clean organizing campaign but they came at us with their fists flying. We wanted to show them they we could cripple them. If they think they can wear us down one by one they don’t understand we have a lot more in us.” 

Many customers standing in line said they were initially disgruntled until they learned why the employees were walking out. Some customers wrote pro-union comments on the back of the flyers, then dropped them in the store’s comment box. 

“I like the Berkeley Bowl, I think it’s a great community organization,” said Laura Anderson, one of the shoppers at the store during the walkout. “But I was supportive of the workers because I respect the work that they do. I think the employees are the core of the store. It can’t really function without them.” 

The union working with the employees, the United Food and Commercial Workers Butcher’s Union (UFCW) Local 120 is currently helping Perez find another job. In the meantime, Perez says he is going to take time off to settle down. 

“I feel terrible,” he said.  

For several days after he was fired, Perez stood outside the store but off store property, talking to workers who are supportive of the drive. 

“The other workers are incredible. Seeing them out there in support was better than getting $20 an hour,” he said.  

Abshear, from the cashier line, said that workers have pledged to stage an even larger walkout if another employee is fired. Cashier Kevin Meyer summed up the sentiment among many of the workers surrounding Perez’s dismissal. “This proves why we need a union,” Meyer said. “We’re going to show them that we have power too.”

Sadly, both Council and school board missed a rare and unprecedented opportunity to work together to achieve a better community. I am referring to the recent school board decision to move the Adult School from University Avenue to the Franklin School site, and while one or two Councilmembers have signaled their disapproval, Council itself has been silent. At this week’s Joint City/School “2x2” meeting, City representatives indicated that since the School Board had made their decision, let’s talk about how to deal with the resultant traffic problems. This is not leadership. This is not expressing a vision for the future. Besides ignoring environmental impact report regulations concerning the Franklin decision, this position doesn’t even recognize the core issue of the need for good planning. Any action regarding the use of precious public school sites affects every resident, no matter what neighborhood we live in.  

Residents throughout Berkeley are expressing deep concerns about what the school district intends to do about school sites at Franklin, West Campus, Oregon, Derby, and Hillside, as well as the recently purchased vacant lots on Gilman. They believe that future use of these sites is connected. They don’t know what the end uses that they will have to live with will be. They don’t know how these decisions will be made, nor what can be done about them. District documents and statements by senior District staff regarding the Franklin/Adult School switch all clearly point to the intention of the district to further develop the Adult School site. Residents are understandably not re-assured when they hear school officials now say that the district has no plans for the Adult School site. The uncertainty of the situation has served to heighten anxieties and create divisions.  

City Manager Weldon Rucker was absolutely correct when he wrote to the district requesting that their proposed Mitigated Negative Environmental Impact Declaration on the switch NOT be adopted. He stated the district had not considered the entire project, i.e., the impacts on both the Franklin site and whatever will occur at the Adult School site. Consideration of part of a project does not comply with California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) law, and, therefore, the project should not proceed until a new full project environmental impact study is completed and re-circulated for public comment. This is a fundamental requirement that applies to everyone, from private developers to the University of California. The school district is not exempt from this law.  

I urge the district to go a step further by withdrawing the Franklin project and developing a master plan for all of their facilities. One environmental impact report could be done on the master plan and smaller, focused studies could be tiered off of that report. A clear future vision could emerge from the process of creating a District Facilities Master Plan. The community has always supported the district with their dollars, but creating a master plan could solidify that support and provide a basis for building a better understanding of the academic goals, problems and achievements of the district. Such a plan would address citywide concerns about such matters as traffic and other physical planning issues. It could also serve as a financial planning guide for the school board around construction issues as well as achieving technological advancements such as conversion to solar energy. A school master plan could be a powerful tool to unite the community around a host of goals that could bring about better educational opportunities and better physical planning for school facilities. (The city’s own master plan must address the pressing need to lower city density--but that’s another story that I’ll take up later). Just imagine the possibilities of linked school district and city master plans; an action that would put Berkeley in the forefront of good planning.  

It is clear that in any of the significant changes being considered by the school district, two major interests must be accommodated: the educational needs of our children and impacts on the neighborhoods that such changes might bring. The district has responsibility for educating our children, and how their facilities are used for that purpose. The Council has responsibility for ensuring that all of Berkeley’s neighborhoods, now and in the future, are good places for people to live. These goals need not be in conflict. They both involve basic, good planning. When accomplished together, they create a great city. Such a process would not mean that changes could not occur. It does mean that people will be fully informed, and ensure that the actions taken today advance our shared vision for the future.  

I urge City Council to take immediate action to write to the school district indicating unqualified, unanimous endorsement of the manager’s letter, and further requesting respectfully the withdrawal of the Franklin School decision, and committing to work cooperatively with the district to provide the kind of joint good planning that accomplishes mutual goals. 

Shirley Dean is the former mayor of Berkeley.

The first small step towards election-day voter registration in California now rests on the desk of Gov. Gray Davis. 

The California Legislature passed a bill two weeks ago, sponsored by Assemblymember Wilma Chan (D-Oakland) and coauthored by State Senator Don Perata (D-Oakland/Berkeley), that would establish a two-year election-day registration pilot project in Alameda County. 

Under the pilot project, scheduled to run from January, 2004 through the end of 2005, Alameda County voters will be able to register and immediately vote on election day as well as during the two-week “blackout” period preceding an election. 

Under present California law, voters cannot cast a ballot in an election if they have not registered at least two weeks prior to that election. 

The Chan registration pilot project affects only municipal and school district elections (such as in Emeryville, Hayward, Pleasanton, Livermore, and Union City), which do not take place on the same day as state or federal elections. 

Regular municipal elections in Berkeley and Oakland, which are normally consolidated with state and federal elections, aren’t included in the pilot project, but any special elections in Berkeley and Oakland in the next two years will be affected which don’t take place on the same day as state or federal elections. 

Such special elections could include recalls of city or school officials, or votes to fill vacancies. 

According to Rachel Richman, Chan’s chief of staff, concerns about possible voter fraud and logistical problems have thwarted efforts to establish a statewide same-day voter registration and voting in California. “(The pilot project) is a way for us to test it out in a local election, see how it works, see what sort of fine-tuning needs to happen.” 

Same-day registration and voting “is especially important.” said Richman, “because oftentimes, people don’t begin paying attention to an election until a week or 10 days before. We hope that what this will do is increase voter participation.” 

A U.S. Census Bureau study of the November 2000 Presidential elections found that of the six states which currently allow same-day voter registration and voting—Idaho, Maine, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Wisconsin, and Wyoming—only Idaho had a voting percentage less than the national average of 60 percent. 

Three same-day voter registration and voting states—Wisconsin, Maine, and Minnesota—ranked in the top five states in the country in voter participation. 

California had a 58 percent voter participation percentage in the November 2000 Presidential election, just below the national average. 

Richman said that pending the results of the two-year study, a bill to establish statewide same-day voter registration and voting will be introduced in 2006.

Editors, Daily Planet: 

It’s both interesting and telling that nowhere in the article headlined “District Thwarts New Game Plan” (Daily Planet, Sept. 12 ) does the issue of student, staff, and audience safety appear. This is the primary reason that Berkeley High School Principal Jim Slemp canceled one football game between Berkeley High and Oakland Tech. The safety of our students, athletes, staff, and audience is of paramount concern in this decision. It’s also interesting that despite acknowledging Berkeley Police warnings of potential non-student violence at the scheduled game, the reporter chose quotes from Oakland football coaches (unidentified Oakland Athletic League coach, quoted thusly: “Canceling the game makes no sense to me.”). The article goes on to paraphrase this coach’s comments by stating that he didn’t understand why a game between Tech and Berkeley would be more dangerous than games regularly held between Oakland schools in community rivalries, to quote the reporter, “that are far older and have generated far more violence than has occurred recently in South Berkeley—North Oakland.” Oakland coaches, not familiar with the specifics of the information given to BUSD by the Berkeley Police Department, with far different policies and standards than our own community, are now apparently capable of making decisions for BUSD. Based on what authority, policy, and accountability? Is the level of violence in the Oakland community now to be used as a regional context for acceptable community standards? 

The page four overrun of the front page article is headlined “School Board Denies Bid to Revive Match.” Although I support Principal Jim Slemp’s decision, it’s important to note this matter never came to the Berkeley Board, and was appropriately handled by High School and District administrators. Inaccuracies and speculation abound in the article; very little actual information is offered. I’m disappointed in the low level reportage of this story, the inaccuracies it includes, the omissions it does not, and the harm such inaccurate reportage does to our District and community. 

John Selawsky 

Vice-president, Berkeley School Board

Last week I got a “same-day” appointment at Kaiser. 

A “same-day” appointment is for members who have something wrong with them, can’t wait the two or three weeks it may take to get an appointment with their regular doctor, but are not sick enough to go to the emergency room. 

Unfortunately “same-day” appointments aren’t always same day. 

I called on Friday at noon; I got an appointment for 8:30 a.m. on Monday.  

On Monday I saw a doctor who told me to cover my affliction with “warm compresses and not to touch it.” The entire meeting lasted five minutes—40 minutes less than the time it had taken me to make the initial appointment. I thought that her advice, “…use compresses, but don’t touch…” was slightly contradictory, but I did as I was told and by the end of the week I knew I was in trouble. 

Unable to move from the couch I vowed that if things weren’t better by Sunday night I’d make another appointment. But at 2 a.m. on Saturday I abandoned my plan. If I was going to lie awake all night in pain I might as well be in pain in the emergency room. At least, I thought, I’d be around others who could share in my misery.  

I drove to Kaiser in North Oakland. I went through security and stood in the brightly lit waiting room. There was no one at the information desk. The triage nurse was busy. 

I went to the registration desk, but no one was behind the glass partition. Across the room I saw an electric sign. It was new. I knew this because I’ve been to the ER waiting room many times before with my disabled husband. The sign was long and narrow and the words on it moved horizontally across the screen. It gave instructions in English and Spanish. “One:” it said, “Check in with the Desk Technician. Two: The Triage Nurse will call you. Three: The Registration nurse will register you. Four: If you have been waiting for longer than 30 minutes please tell a staff person and you will see a doctor.” 

I reread the sign. 

This was remarkable news. I’d never been to the emergency room when the wait to see a doctor was less than two hours. Sometimes it took longer. I looked at my watch. So far I’d been there 10 minutes. There was still no desk technician, or anyone at the registration desk. The triage nurse was with a patient. I waited and when she was free I approached her. “Sit down,” she said. “Open your mouth and let me take your temperature.” When she was through she told me to go to the registration desk.  

“Fifty dollars, please,” said the person who was now sitting behind the glass. The last time I had been to ER the charge had been $35. But it didn’t matter. I was in so much pain I would have paid with my left arm.  

I sat down and waited. I looked at my watch. I had been in the building for 25 minutes. The red neon sign kept spewing the same information. I decided to wait 30 minutes from the time I had registered before following the sign’s advice. 

At 3:10 a.m. the triage nurse was seeing a new patient. When she was finished I approached her. “The sign says that if I haven’t seen a doctor within 30 minutes I should tell you,” I said. “It’s been 45 minutes since I registered.”  

“What sign?” she asked.  

“The sign on the wall over there,” I pointed.  

“I’ve been on vacation,” she shrugged. “I don’t know anything about it, but I’ll find out for you.” 

Then she asked me to step aside so that she could take care of another patient. 

I went back to my seat. The triage nurse helped three more people. She had obviously forgotten my request. I went to the registration desk and asked the clerk about the sign.  

“What sign?” she asked.  

“The one over there that says I should tell someone if I haven’t seen a doctor within 30 minutes.”  

She squinted at the sign and read it as the words flipped by. “That sign is wrong,” she said. “Why don’t you ask the triage nurse about it.”  

“I did,” I answered. “But she’s busy and besides the sign says to ask a staff person. You’re a staff person, aren’t you?”  

The woman stared at me. “Yes,” she said. “I believe the sign was written that way because we’re having problems with our printer and if you don’t hear from us in 30 minutes it’s because the printer is jammed and we need to know about it.” 

“That’s not what the sign says,” I answered. I looked at my watch. “It’s been almost an hour since I registered. It’s been over 90 minutes hours since I’ve been in this room. I’d like to see a doctor.” 

“Yes,” she said. “I’ll see if I can get you a bed.”  

I knew what that meant. It meant that she was going to find a room to put me away in. It didn’t necessarily mean I’d see a doctor. 

To make a long story short, another hour went by and I finally saw a doctor. He took care of my problem. I was happy to have it solved. 

At 5 a.m. as I was leaving the emergency room I paused in front of the electric sign. It was still going ‘round and ‘round, promising something that wasn’t realistic.  

So here’s my message to Kaiser: Change the sign to read “If you don’t see a doctor within THREE HOURS tell a staff person.” 

Now I really do feel better.

Spanish music fans are in for a treat this Thursday when Julieta Venegas, the rising Mexican rock en español music star stops to perform at Berkeley’s La Peña cultural center as part of a nationwide tour. 

Her song, “Me Van a Matar,” captured the hearts of mainstream audiences when it appeared on the soundtrack for the widely popular Mexican movie “Amorres Perros.” 

Venegas is on tour to promote her second solo album, Bueninvento. She won several awards for her first, “Aqui, “released in 1997, including the Nuestro Rock award for best album and MTV Latino’s Best Female Performance for her video “Como se.” Her following in Mexico and Latin America is solid and her fan base in the U.S. and Europe is quickly growing. 

“We fell in love with her work on Amorres Perros,” said Fernando Torres, the publicity coordinator for La Peña.  

“People ask me what type of music she plays and it’s hard to put into a category,” said Juan Berumen, the program coordinator for La Peña. “What I can say is that it is unique, creative and very unconventional.” 

La Peña is located at 3105 Shattuck Ave. The concert begins at 8 p.m. and tickets are $12 dollars in advance and $15 at the door. For more information please contact Fernando Torres at 849-2568, ext. 15.

Zucchini can be considered the terrorist of the garden. 

Mild in taste and modest in appearance, it nevertheless manages, usually under cover of night, to produce more of itself than any normal human being, or collection of human beings, could possibly consume. 

The deception begins with the name, for this is simply a squash, an honest north American vegetable. The Narragansett called it “askutasquash” a word meaning you “can eat it raw if you haven’t got time to cook it.” 

Indeed, it was unknown in Europe, and is still not common there. The name “zucchini” was likely invented by a marketing genius who wanted to make squash sound exotic—in Italy, this relatively boring member of the Cucurbitae family (Ma Melon, Pa Pumpkin, Cousin Cucumber et al.) is usually called zucchine with an “e.” 

(By the way, those caps worn by the Roman Catholic hierarchy which look suspiciously like yarmulkes are called “Zuchetto”—in effect, a squash top.) 

The French are, in this case, more honest as “courgette” means little squash, and the British more elliptical with “vegetable marrow,” a concept best not dwelt upon. 

True trickery, however, is best displayed by the plant itself. 

Innocent gardeners, even some old enough to know better, plant zucchini seeds. They gurgle proudly as the shoots appear, and admire the first tiny blossom on the fuzzy thumb-size fruits. And filled with pride at their manifest success at vegetable husbandry, they turn to other pursuits for a time. 

This inattention—by a process not fully explained—stimulates the plant to an extraordinary degree. The next visit to the zucchini bed reveals a dozen or more of supermarket size and usually at least one specimen resembling a baseball bat, though of much greater diameter. 

It is easy to see how, in a city like Berkeley, with a population that is largely pro-vegetable, guilt-prone and garden-inclined, zucchini could precipitate psychosocial disaster, possibly of pandemic proportions. 

Thus an unsuspecting visitor happily agrees to take away a sample of a garden’s bounty, and is soon holding a 10 pound sack of squash, with a tomato or two sprinkled on top for cosmetic effect. 

It may be acceptable to offer vegetables in lieu of spare change to a street person but most often the gift languishes in its new home, awaiting the results of a frantic search for a recipe that will allow the new owner to thank the grower with a clear conscience. 

The zucchini, friends, can be sliced, diced, chopped and peeled. It can be sautéed, broiled, baked, stewed, used in soups and ragouts, eaten alone or combined with other vegetables. 

No matter what approach you take, it will not lose its essential quality. It is a squash. It has very little taste. 

Under the circumstances, it is probably best to combine it with something that has flavor enough to make you forget you are eating zucchini. Brown garlic or onions in sufficient quantity or a good fresh tomato sauce can do the trick, especially if you slice the zucchinis very thin, let them drain a while, and get them brownish. 

But don’t invite me over. I’ve had my share for this year. Maybe next.

After months of dry weather and as fall approaches, the temperature in the Bay Area rises, often accompanied by dry hot winds from the east. California is no stranger to the threat of huge fires; they have occurred from the coast to the high Sierra and in the north and south. 

On Sept. 17, 1923, and Oct. 20, 1991, two raging wildfires erupted in the East Bay hills behind Berkeley and Oakland. 

The 1923 Berkeley fire destroyed between 500-600 buildings in North Berkeley, most of them residential.  

The 1991 Oakland fire consumed approximately 3,000 buildings, also predominately residential, extending from above the Claremont Hotel south into upper Rockridge.  

In both instances the winds came from the northeast in exactly the same direction and it was only because of a change in wind direction that the fires were contained. Between these two major fires there had been two smaller ones that destroyed a total of 28 homes.  

A contemporary account from 1923 describes the destruction:  

“A square mile of charred relics spreading from Cragmont to the edge of the University grounds...no words could convey the power of the torrent of flame which demolished in a few short hours on Sept. 17, 1923 one of the most beautiful residence tracts of Berkeley...it was only a fortunate change in the wind after the flames had reached the very edge of the business center that saved the city from destruction...The scene of desolation will soon be a fading memory...providing the calamity that wrought it is not so completely forgotten as to make its recurrence possible.” 

Frank Stringham, mayor of Berkeley at the time of the 1923 fire, proclaimed: “The municipal government of Berkeley...is bending every effort to rebuild the burned area and to so direct and regulate construction that the fire hazard will be reduced, the traffic ways improved, and the uses of property better adapted to locality....” 

But lessons were not heeded. After the 1923, fire as well as after the 1991 fire, streets were not regraded, widened or straightened and property lines remained the same. 

In 1923 the few large parcels that had existed were re-subdivided into smaller lots. After the 1991 fire many of the new houses well exceed the size of those that were lost. In both cases the building density increased. 

The style of homes built after both fires is different from the older houses that were destroyed. 

In both cases most of the new houses reflect the styles popular at the time. 

For example, in 1923 Period Revival style buildings clad in stucco with tile or slate roofs were built. Not only were these the latest popular style, they were also considered more fireproof than the shingled houses which burned. For a time wood shingles were banned in Berkeley. 

Ironically, the areas which burned in the 1991 fire had been mostly built in the 1920s and 30s, predominately in Period Revival styles. Their tile roofs and stucco siding, placed over wood-framing, did not protect them from the heat of the raging fire. 

Fires are a personal tragedy for their victims and also a cultural and architectural loss for the community. Despite our modern firefighting equipment, when a 2,300 degree Fahrenheit firestorm rages in a hot, dry wind it appears there is little defense. 

Susan Dinkelspiel Cerny is author of the book Berkeley Landmarks.  

When the main attraction at last Tuesday evening’s UC Berkeley Proposition 54 debate didn’t show—University of California Regent Ward Connerly—it was still business as usual at the packed session in Booth Auditorium at Boalt Hall. 

Proposition 54 is the Oct. 7 initiative that would ban the collection of most race data by California government agencies. Connerly, its author and principal sponsor, dropped out of the Boalt Hall debate at the last minute for health reasons. 

A generally polite, racially diverse crowd of students reserved their toughest questions and occasional hisses and audible gasps for Connerly’s pro-54 replacement, Justin Jones, Director of Policy and Planning for the American Civil Rights Institute (ACRI). 

Both Jones and his debate opponent, California attorney Eva Paterson, are African-American. 

Some 75 to 100 students were turned away from the packed crowd at the auditorium for lack of space. A rally to protest Connerly’s presence at UC Berkeley and to demand his removal or resignation as UC Regent had been planned by the Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action and Integration (BAMN) to take place outside the debate. Students at the rally accused Connerly of ducking the debate. 

But an assistant at Connerly’s ACRI in Sacramento said Connerly was asked by his doctor yesterday to return for what the assistant called “routine tests to check on his heart” after the 64-year-old businessman had earlier taken a treadmill test. The assistant would not elaborate, but characterized the return hospital visit as “not serious” and “not newsworthy,” and said that Connerly was not hospitalized. 

During the debate itself Paterson, a Boalt Hall graduate and a frequent debate opponent of Connerly’s, argued that the most damaging effect of Prop. 54 would be the limitation on the government’s collection of race-based health data. 

While the initiative would allow the classification of medical research subjects and patients, Paterson said “that would leave a large gap in medical data. We know right now, for example, that the largest consumers of cigarettes in our society are Vietnamese men. The portion of our population most prone to suicide are young Filipino women. We also know that white citizens are more prone to certain diseases than other racial groups. 

“Disease is not color blind,” he said. “Proposition 54 will severely limit discovering the causes of diseases in different races.” Paterson also quoted former US Surgeon General C. Everett Koop as saying that “lives will be lost” if Prop. 54 passes. 

Jones dismissed the health concerns, calling it a “phony issue” that was already adequately addressed by the health data exemptions in the proposition. As for other concerns expressed by Prop. 54 opponents, he said flatly that “Proposition 54 will end racial profiling.” 

Connerly’s stand-in argued that the collection of race-based data by government agencies should end because “so long as we continue to focus on race in our data, the more we are going to be obsessed and attached to race as a concept. For the last hundred years, we’ve been tracking the education of students by race in order to determine why there is a racial gap in test scores. 

“And yet in all that time, that gap has widened. The current plan isn’t working. We need to do something different.” Asked by an audience member what he would do to replace current plans to address racial disparities, Jones said, “That’s a tough question. I can’t tell you right now what that plan should be. We’ve got to change people’s hearts in some way.” 

The Boalt Hall debate was sponsored by the Richard & Rhoda Goldman School of Public Policy. 

FRIDAY, SEPT. 19 

City Commons Club Noon Luncheon with Roy Meisner, Chief, Berkeley Police Department, “Keeping the Peace.” Luncheon 11:45 a.m. $11.50 - $12.50, Speech at 12:30 p.m., at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant St. For information and reservations call 526-2925 or 665-9020. 

Women in Black Vigil, from noon to 1 p.m. at UC Berkeley, Bancroft at Telegraph. 548-6310, 845-1143. 

Meditation, Peace Vigil and Dialogue, gather at noon on the grass close to the West Entrance to UC Berkeley, on Oxford St. near University Ave. 496-6000, ext. 135. www.bpf.org 

SATURDAY, SEPT. 20 

Coastal Clean Up Day Meet at 9 a.m. behind the Seabreeze Market at the corner of University and Frontage Rd. Everyone needs to sign waivers, and we will give you trash/recycle bags, pencils, tally cards and a map of the areas we need to clean. For information call Patty Donald at 644-8623 or visit ww.ci.berkeley.ca.us/marina/ 

marinaexp/cleanup 

Berkeley Association of Neighborhood Associations meets at 9:15 a.m. in the Fireside Room, St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. City Manager Weldon Rucker will discuss interfacing with City Depts. 587-3257. www.berkeleycna.com 

Nabisco Hall of Fame All-Stars versus Safeway Executives Charity Softball Game. The All-Star players include Pete Rose, Brooks Robinson, Vida Blue, Ozzie Smith, Ryne Sandberg, Steve Carlton, and Andre Dawson. They also include U.S. Olympic champion softball pitcher Lisa Fernandez. Evans Field, UC Campus. Gates open at 11 a.m., game starts at noon. Raffle prizes during the game include $1,000 of free groceries, a chance to hit against Lisa Fernandez, and signed memorabilia. Tickets are $5 each, available in advance from 925-467-3755 and also at the gate. All proceeds go to CaPCURE to fight against prostate cancer. 

Berkeley Historical Society Walking Tour in commemoration of the North Berkeley fire of 1923. Begins at 10 a.m. Reservations and a donation of $8 required. 848-0181. 

Foliage Color in the Garden, a free class with Aerin Moore at 10 a.m. at Magic Gardens Nur- 

sery, 729 Heinz Ave. 644-1992. 

Grasshopper Hunt We will search for grasshoppers, their relatives and other insects for a close-up look at locomotion by the six-leggers among us. From 2 to 4 p.m. at Tilden Nature Area, in Tilden Park. 525-2233.  

Identifying Native Shrubs with botanist Glen Keator, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., at the Visitor Center, Botanic Garden, Tilden Park, followed by a day in the field on Sun. Cost is $65 members, $75 non-members. Sponsored by the East Bay Regional Park’s Botanic Garden and the Native Plant Society. To register call 925-935-8871 or 925-820-1021. www.nativeplants.org 

Fall Permaculture: Introduction Come find out about using permaculture principles in your garden from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Wildheart Gardens, 463 61st Street, at Telegraph. Cost is $10 for Ecology Center members, $15 others, no one turned away. 548-2220, ext. 233. 

Pet Adoptions, sponsored by Home at Last, from noon to 5 p.m., Hearst and 4th St. 548-9223. 

California Writers Club meets at 9:30 a.m. at Barnes and Noble, 2352 Shattuck Ave. Bring pencil and paper for hands-on writing activities. Free and open to all. www.berkeleywritersclub.org 

Free Emergency Preparedness Class on Disaster First Aid, for anyone who lives or works in Berkeley, from 9 a.m. to noon at 997 Cedar St., between 8th and 9th Sts. Register on-line at www.ci.berkeley. 

ca.us/fire/oes or call 981-5506. 

Game Festival of new board , card and online games based on imaginative themes, from noon to 5 p.m., at Dr Comics and Mr Games is located at 4014 Piedmont Ave. in Oakland. 601-7800. 

Workshop on communication, anger, and identity in adolescent females, sponsored by Bay Area Children First, a local nonprofit organization working to reunify families. From 10 a.m. to noon at Bay Area Children First’s Berkeley office, 1400 Shattuck Ave., Suite 7. Fee is $30 at the door. 883-9312 

SUNDAY, SEPT. 21 

Run for Peace, sponsored by the United Nations Association, East Bay Chapter. Meet at 9 a.m. at Berkeley Marina Cesar Chavez Park for a 10k or 5k run/walk. Registration is $20. For information call Alma at 849-1752. 

International Indian Treaty Council, a report back on the summer activities of several youth groups, with music, spoken word and vendors, at 7 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Donation of $5 requested. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Thai Food Festival from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. in Civic Center Park. 331-4034. 

Herb Walk in the Berkeley Hills Learn to identify and use many edible and medicinal plants that grow wild in the Bay Area. Meet at noon at the Strawberry Canyon Fire Trail head, below the UC Berkeley Botanical Gardens on Centennial Drive. Sponsored by the Pacific School of Herbal Medicine. $6-$25 sliding scale, no one turned away for lack of funds. 845-4028. www.pshm.org 

Turnings Great and Small: Where the Global and the Local Meet A talk by teacher and author Joanna Macy to benefit Berkeley EcoHouse, from 4 to 6 p.m. at the Florence Schwimley Little Theater on Allston Way between MLK and Milvia. Tickets are $20 and are available at Cody’s Books, Black Oak Books on Shattuck Avenue, or at the door. 

Willard Community Peace Labyrinth Dedication at 2 p.m. at Willard Middle School, Telegraph Ave. between Derby and Stuart. Celebration includes song, refreshments, and a guided labyrinth peace walk. Free. Wheelchair accessible. Sponsored by the East Bay Labyrinth Project. 526-7377. 

Treasure Sale Benefit for Julia Morgan Center for the Arts, 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. 845.8542 ext. 376.  

Hands-on Bicycle Repair Clinic at 11 a.m. REI, 1338 San Pablo Ave. 527-4140. 

12th Annual Nude and Breast Freedom Day at noon at People’s Park, Haste above Telegraph. 848-1985 or email debbiemoore@xplicitplayers.com 

Tibetan Buddhism, Lama Palzang on “The Buddha’s Eight-fold Noble Path,” at 6 p.m. at the Tibetan Nyingma Institute, 1815 Highland Pl. 843-6812. www.nyingmainstitute.com 

“Growing Up Gay and Jewish in Germany,” with Rabbi Kai Eckstein at 7:30 p.m. at the ewish Community Center, 1414 Walnut St. 848-0237. www.brjcc.org 

Introduction to Tango Start correctly by learning from a master, Paulo Araujo, founder of the Instituto Brasileiro do Tango in Rio de Janeiro, 10:30-11:45 a.m. Cost is $15. The Berkeley Tango Studio. Registration and directions call 655-3585. 

MONDAY, SEPT. 22 

UC Berkeley’s 2020 Land Use EIR, Public Scoping Session, from 5 to 9 p.m. in the Krutch Theater, Clark Kerr Campus. Community members encouraged to attend. 643-9310. 

Berkeley High, Community Partnership Academy. Dinner at 6 p.m. in the BHS courtyard, information session at 6:30 p.m. in the Little Theater. 452-8822. 

League of Women Voters, Fall General Meeting from 5 to 8 p.m. at the Northbrae Community Church, 941 The Alameda. John W. Ellwood on “California After the Recall: Will Anything Change?” will speak at 7 p.m. Lecture is free, dinner is $15. For reservations call 843-8824. 

Berkeley CopWatch organizational meeting at 6 p.m. at 2022 Blake St. Join us to work on current issues around police misconduct. Volunteers needed. For information call 548-0425. 

TUESDAY, SEPT. 23 

Access to the Outdoors for People with Disabilities, a panel presentation from 1 to 3 p.m. at the Berkeley Main Library  

Conference Room, 3rd Floor, 2090 Kittredge. Pre-registration required, call Access Northern California at 524-2026. 

Equinox Gathering at the Solar Calendar, Cesar Chavez Park, Berkeley Marina. Workshop at 6:30 p.m. on the seasons led by Alan Gould, Lawrence Hall of Science. Learn how the park’s solar calendar works. 845-0657. www.solarcalendar.org  

Berkeley Fair Elections Coalition volunteers meeting and speaker training at 7 p.m. Call 693-5779 for location. 

“Mobilizing Millions: How Internet Activists are Helping the World,” with Joan Blades, co-founder of MoveOn.org at 7:30 p.m. at The College Prep- 

aratory School, Buttner Auditorium, 6100 Broadway (north), Oakland. Cost is $10 adult, $5 student. 658-5202. www.college-prep.org/livetalk  

“Hillel: Tenets of Judaism” at 7:30 p.m. at International House, Home Room, Piedmont at Bancroft. 642-9460. 

Lawyers in the Library at 6 p.m. at the West Branch, University above San Pablo. 981-6270. 

WEDNESDAY, SEPT. 24 

“The Voting Machine Scandal: The Promise and Pitfalls of Touch-Screen Voting” with Katherine Forrest, Co-founder of the Commonweal  

Institute, at 1:30 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Sponsored by the Berkeley Gray Panthers. 548-9696.  

Berkeley Peace Walk and Vigil at the Berkeley BART Station, corner of Shattuck and Center. Vigil at 6:30 p.m. followed by Peace Walk at 7 p.m. www.geocities. 

com/vigil4peace/vigil 

Free Lead-Safe Painting and Remodeling Class Learn how to detect and remedy lead hazards and conduct lead-safe renovations for your older home, from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Emeryville Child Development Center, 1220 – 53rd Street, Emeryville. For information or to register, call the Alameda County Lead Poisoning Prevention Program 567-8280.  

Free Marketing Workshops, sponsored by Sisters Headquarters, for women entrepreneurs, every Wed. from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. at 643 17th St. Oakland. For information call 238-1100. 

Prose Writers Workshop Novices welcome. Experienced facilitator. Community sponsored, no fee. Meets 7 to 9 p.m. at the Jewish Community Center, 1414 Walnut, at Rose. For information call 524-3034. 

Berkeley CopWatch open office hours 7 to 9 p.m. Drop in to file complaints, assistance available. For information call 548-0425. 

THURSDAY, SEPT. 25 

Defeat Prop 54 Rally and March, at noon at Sproul Plaza, UC Campus. Sponsored by the Committee to Defend Affirmative Action. www.bamn.com 

Brower Youth Awards at 6 p.m. in the Florence Schwimley Theater, 1920 Allston Way. Meet six of the nation’s outstanding young environmental leadrers and learn about their work in conservation, preservation and restoration of the earth. Free, but reservations suggested. 415-788-3666 ext. 260. www.earthisland.org 

“Masai Culture in the 21st Century” with Kores Ole Musuni Solomon at 7:30 p.m. at International House, Home Room, Piedmont at Bancroft. 642-9460. 

Watt's In It for Us? Renewable Energy Forum Learn about current incentive programs including state rebates, low-interest financing, and tax credits. Panelists will include solar system owners, renewable energy experts and representatives from the City of Berkeley, PG&E and the California Energy Commission. From 7 to 9 p.m. at the Ecology Center, 2530 San Pablo Ave., near Dwight Way. 548-2220 ext. 233. 

“The Presidents of the United States and the Jews,” with Rabbi David Dalin at 7:30 p.m. in the Dinner Boardroom, Hewlett Library, 2400 Ridge Rd. Presented by the GTU’s Center for Jewish Studies. 649-2482.  

ONGOING  

Acting and Storytelling Classes for Seniors, offered by Stagebridge. Wednesdays and Fridays, at 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. Held at Arts First Oakland, 2501 Harrison St., close to BART and AC Transit. For information call 444-4755. www.stagebridge.org 

People's Park Community Advisory Board is seeking members. The board reviews and makes recommendations on park policies, programs and improvements, and guides the implementation of the park's long-term plan. Current pro- 

jects include a peace garden and the improvement of the children's play area. Meetings are held the second Thursday of the month at 7 p.m. Applications will be accepted until Sept. 30. They are available at the People's Park office, 642-3255; the UC Office of Community Relations, 643-5299; and via e-mail to plspark@uclink.berkeley.edu. 

Free Smoke Detectors for City residents and UC Berkeley students who live off-campus. Applications are available from the Environment, Health & Safety office of UC Berkeley, at any Berkeley Fire Station, or at the Fire Admin. Office located at 2100 MLK, Jr. Way. 981-5585.  

Free Energy Bill Payment Assistance The City of Berkeley has money to help low-income households pay their gas and electric bills. For applications contact the Energy Office at 644-8544. TDD: 981-6903. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/energy 

CITY MEETINGS 

Parks and Recreation Commission meets Mon., Sept. 22, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Deborah Chernin, 981-6715. www.ci. 

berkeley.ca.us/commissions/parksandrecreation 

Solid Waste Management Commission meets Mon., Sept. 22, at 7 p.m., at 1201 Second St. Becky Dowdakin, 981-6357. www.ci.berkeley. 

ca.us/commissions/solidwaste 

Civic Arts Commission meets Wed., Sept. 24, at 6:30 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Mary Ann Merker, 981-7533. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/ 

commissions/civicarts 

Disaster Council meets Wed., Sept. 24, at 7 p.m., at the Emergency Operations Center, 997 Cedar St. Carol Lopes, 981-5514. www.ci.berkeley.ca. us/commissions/disaster 

Energy Commission meets Wed., Sept. 24, at 6:30 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Neal De Snoo, 981-5434. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/energy 

Planning Commission meets Wed., Sept. 24, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Ruth Grimes, 981-7481. www.ci.berkeley. ca.us/commissions/planning 

Police Review Commission meets Wed., Sept. 24, at 7:30 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Barbara Attard, 981-4950. www.ci.berkeley. 

ca.us/commissions/policereview 

West Berkeley Project Area Commission meets Thurs., Sept. 25, at 7 p.m., at the West Berkeley Senior Center. 981-7520. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/ 

commissions/westberkeley  

Zoning Adjustments Board meets Thurs., Sept. 25, at 7 p.m., in City Council Chambers. Mark Rhoades, 981-7410. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/zoning

PALESTINE PROPAGANDA 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

It doesn’t surprise me to see the letter in the Daily Planet from International Solidarity Movement member Jim Harris, praising the Berkeley City Council for calling for an investigation into the death of fellow ISM activist, Rachel Corrie. Unfortunately, the so-called “progressives” on the council were all too happy to promulgate ISM’s pro-Palestinian propaganda rather than investigate for themselves the source from which their information on the matter stemmed. 

Clearly, the council members didn’t read the largely sympathetic story on Rachel Corrie in this month’s Mother Jones, not exactly a right-wing rag. The author, Joshua Hammer, went to the West Bank and found the following: ISM members by and large see suicide bombers as “freedom fighters.” Hence, it’s little wonder then that their members in Jenin hid Shadi Shukiya, a leader of Islamic Jihad, whom the Israelis arrested on March 27 for his role in the planning of four suicide bombings. 

After this, human rights organizations kept their distance from ISM and the International Red Cross kicked the ISM out of their shared office space. About 

a month later, in Rafah (where Corrie had been based), the ISM was found to have “socialized” with two Pakistani British citizens who soon blew themselves up as homicide bombers. Little wonder that other NGO’s decided they, too, wanted nothing to do with the ISM. 

Concerning the death of Rachel Corrie, the primary ISM witness later acknowledged that it could indeed have been nothing more than a tragic accident. And the international press, once sympathetic to what happened to Corrie, was alienated when several photos given Reuters News Agency by the ISM of Corrie turned out to have been taken several hours before her death. 

Whatever was left of concern for Corrie in most international venues evaporated when a picture of her burning a makeshift American flag in front of young  

Palestinian children was published. The Palestinians have rightfully been reviled for teaching children from pre-school on that the most honorable mission in life is to become a “shaheed,” a martyr who murders Jews. Here is the ISM heroine, Ms. Corrie, further fanning the flames of hatred in front of those too young to comprehend the complexities for themselves. 

In sum, Rachel Corrie, who probably died by accident, was a young woman whose ideals were superceded only by her ignorance. It’s one thing for the Stalinists in KPFA’s news department to daily disseminate Palestinian propaganda, yet another for said fabrications to be supported by our City Council. And why is the City Council, which has plenty of local business to attend to, wasting their time and ours paying lip service to the distortions of ideologues like the ISM who aid and abet the murder of innocent Israelis? 

Dan Spitzer 

• 

IN PRAISE OF COUNCIL 

Editors, Berkeley Daily Planet,  

I am another Jew who would like to thank the Berkeley City Council for its courageous action in calling for an investigation into the bulldozing death of Rachel Corrie by the Israeli Army in Gaza. 

The violence and killing must stop. All of it, without exception.  

When someone kills, the victim dies, but a part of the killer dies also. Their humanity is damaged. Similarly, when a nation acts oppressively toward another people, that people is hurt, but so is the nation acting oppressively. It is hurt in its hopes and dreams. It shrinks morally. 

This is happening to Israeli society. In extending its reach far into the lands of another people, in trying to force them to accept dispossession, Israel hurts Palestinians in every aspect of their lives. But the story does not end there. Israeli society becomes militarized, violent, fearful, and irrational. 

It betrays the hopes of Jews who wanted to build a society that would not only be a refuge from anti-Semitism, but would be a beacon to the whole world and embody the striving for freedom and for justice that have characterized our tradition at least since the time of Moses. 

Bulldozing of homes, their residents, and the people who try to protect them is the negation of Jewish tradition. It is a symptom of something going terribly wrong. 

Gentiles who look the other way undoubtedly mean well, but they are not doing Jews or Israelis any favor. If you know that your friend has an alcohol problem, do you ignore that and offer another drink? Of course not. What is needed is kind, but firm interruption of the harmful behavior. The terrible anguish of the Palestinians cries out for this. But Israelis need it, too. 

By calling for an investigation into Rachel Corrie’s killing, the council members acted as real allies to Jews and to Israelis. In an understated but firm way, they let it be known that they noticed that something was wrong, and that they care about it.  

Council members are being attacked for their trouble. These attacks should not be misinterpreted--they mean that members did something that matters. They acted with courage and integrity.  

Glen Hauer  

• 

SIERRA CLUB RESPONSE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I am compelled to respond to Mr. Fielding’s tirade, attacking the Sierra Club for its efforts to protect wildlife habitat while providing for recreational opportunities along the waterfront. In his ideological zeal, Mr. Fielding got his facts pretty well mixed up. Contrary to his claim that the club opposed the acquisition of 16 acres of land for playing fields, the Sierra Club actually engineered that acquisition and made it possible. Moreover, the Sierra Club/CESP plan for the Albany waterfront will provide more soccer and ballfields. In fact, the plan would provide enough fields to meet the stated need in the Albany-Berkeley area. Just why Mr. Fielding has refused to endorse this plan remains a mystery. 

As for the BHS rowing team, Mr. Fielding didn’t tell readers that the team currently rows at Lake Merritt and can still row there. Nor did he tell readers that as the Sierra Club volunteer leader on this issue, I offered to help the team find alternative locations. He also did not mention the fact that a wildlife biologist hired by the city concluded that the rowing team’s use of Aquatic Park would create an adverse impact on the rafting birds which rely on that body of water as a place of rest and nourishment on their migrations from the arctic to the Antarctic and back. Anyone who has seen “Winged Migration” will know what is required for that trip. 

Finally, Mr. Fielding failed to point out that at my request, Mayor Bates met with Arthur Feinstein for Golden Gate Audubon, members of the rowing team board and myself and reached an agreement on how we can work together to resolve issues in a constructive manner. We all owe a debt of gratitude to Mayor Bates for his good offices in this effort. 

It would be great if we saw the same kind of cooperative spirit from Mr. Fielding rather than the kind of screeds against the environmental community that we now associate with Rush Limbaugh and his ilk. 

Norman La Force, 

Chair, Sierra Club East Bay Public Lands Committee 

• 

NO ON PROP. 54 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I’ve generally supported the work of Ward Connerly to get us past Affirmative Action. I strongly believe in Martin Luther King’s dream of a country where race doesn’t matter. 

But I’m voting no on Proposition 54. I don’t think I’m being inconsistent. 

It did sound great to think that some official evaluating a form will no longer be biased by seeing which race was checked off. But Prop. 54 could have also banned having a check box for sex. That’s going too far, isn’t it? Well, there are legitimate reasons to record race, too. 

One reason is medical demographics—disease susceptibility does vary with race. 

But more important, like it or not, race matters politically, just as sex does. The only way to know if people are being processed differently depending on their race or sex is to record that information. 

If race discrimination were eliminated today, Prop. 54 might make sense. But we haven’t quite achieved King’s dream. Racial-steering in real estate goes on, and of course there is “driving while black.” The only way to combat such things is to collect statistics on a person’s race. 

So I’m voting no on Prop. 54. I want to see a race-neutral society, but I don’t think we have to pretend we humans are all one race. Are we going to pretend there’s only one sex? 

Steve Geller 

• 

FERRY SERVICE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Your article discussing the Bridge Toll Increase Bill was a bit lopsided. While the bill will provide improvements for over 30 transit projects, including very large funding to the Transbay Terminal, BART, and rail service on the Dumbarton Bridge, the article barely mentioned these projects. Instead, it focused only on proposed ferry improvements which constitute about five percent of the bill’s funding. It also failed to mention that this is the most significant funding proposed for public transit in over 20 years and it should have passed years ago: The bill not only provides money for capital expenses, but also provides for operational expenses. Because public transit is in such severe need of financing, even Dianne Feinstein is working to make the bill feasible at the federal level. 

Kriss Worthington and his small group of transit detractors miss the point completely when they complain about the bill and about new ferry service. They claim that money would be better spent on AC Transit. They don’t understand that buses and ferries work hand in hand. They don’t compete with each other; in fact, you can’t have ferries without buses. AC Transit supports new ferry service primarily because 25 percent of ferry funding will be allocated directly to increased bus service and landside connections. Besides, there is no one transit mode that will solve all our needs; it’s a combination of different systems that will serve our future public transit. This group also hasn’t read the Environmental Reports which conclude that new ferries will be far cleaner than bus systems. Ferries will be meeting higher standards—and exceeding the EPA guidelines—than most other transit modes. 

Another problem with the tiny anti-ferry group is their assumption that ferries are purely commuting vehicles. While it’s true that ferries primarily serve commuters (as do buses and BART), what is distinctly different about boats is that they serve two other very important functions. First and foremost, in an emergency or disaster, ferries are necessary for replacing disrupted land service. This was the case in the 1980 BART strike, the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, and the 2001 World Trade Center attack. In all these events, ferries provided emergency transportation for several weeks or months while buses and trains were down. Second, ferries provide recreational benefits that other modes cannot. On the weekends, ferries provide access to Alcatraz, Angel Island, and Golden Gate Recreational Areas, to name just a few—all areas inaccessible to buses or trains. 

Finally, your article seems to indicate that Gov. Davis might not support the bill. Since the bill is simply a users fee that goes to the users for their approval, it’s no big deal whether Davis supports it; he only needs to let the voters decide for themselves. Either the voters say yes, they are willing to pay $1 more in bridge tolls for improved public transit, or they say no and continue to put up with some of the worst congestion in the state. We are certain, in fact, that Bay Area residents are very clear about transit priorities. The only question is whether the governor will uphold his recent promise to listen to the voters in this recall climate.  

Jerri Holan, Friends of the Albany Ferry 

Linda Perry, Berkeley Ferry Committee 

Albany 

• 

CHECK AGAIN 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

“Google Site Bans Slurs Against Israelis...” Really? Run a search on “zionazi.” In fact, run a search on any epithet or slur aimed at Jews or Israelis; avalanche. There’s no ban or block. You get all the jaw-dropping diatribes. Lots of Indymedia.org hits, too. Pretty simple check to make if you want to maintain credibility, Paul Kilduff. 

Glad to clear Google of that indictment. I’m no loyalist, but it’s still a relief. 

Adam Seward 

• 

Q & A 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Iraq Q & A Highlights: 

Q. How do we invade Iraq without appearing to invade it? 

A. Lie about WMD then form a coalition. 

Q. How do we occupy Iraq without appearing to occupy it? 

A. We don’t occupy, we liberate. 

Q. How do we govern Iraq without appearing to govern it? 

A. Appoint a Temporary Governing Council. 

Q. How do we police Iraq without appearing to be police? 

A. Dress Iraqis in police uniforms. 

Q. How do we use Iraqi oil for the benefit of the Iraqi people? 

A. Make Halliburton hire Iraqis. 

Q. To get support from unsupportive allies, how do we give a little without appearing to give a little? 

Answer pending. 

Marvin Chachere  

San Pablo 

• 

GET OVER IT 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

All those rabid Republicans who advised Democrats to “get over” their outrage with the Supreme Court’s decision to stop the Florida recount, thereby enabling the losing candidate to become president, are now apoplectic over the Ninth Circuit Court’s decision to postpone the Davis recall. Hoo, Ha! The chickens are coming home to roost! 

Bruce Joffe 

Piedmont 

FRIDAY, SEPT. 19 

FILM 

Rainer Werner Fassbinder: “Fox and His Friends,” at 7 and 9:25 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

“They Live,” John Carpenter’s cult classic, at 8 p.m. at the Long Haul, 3124 Shattuck Ave. Wheelchair accessible. 540-0751. www.thelonghaul.org 

Berkeley Art Center Film Festival: Political and Social Commentary, at 7 p.m. at the Berkeley Art Center. Tickets are $5-$10 sliding scale. 644-6893. www.berkeleyartcenter.org 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

William Greider discusses “The Soul of Capitalism: Opening Paths to a Moral Economy,” at 12:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

Michael Parenti reveals the secret life of the empire in “The Assassination of Julius Caesar: A People’s History of Ancient Rome,” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Ravi Shankar The legendary sitarist performs with his daughter Anoushka at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $36-$68. 642-9988. www.calperfs.berkeley.edu 

Mary Watkins, pianist and composer, is featured at Fellowship Cafe & Open Mic at 7:30 p.m. at Fellowship Hall, Cedar and Bonita Sts. A donation of $5-$10 is requested.  

Jazz Singers Collective, with Walter Bankovitch, piano, Bill Douglass, bass, and Steve Robertson, drums, at 8 p.m. at the Jazz- 

school. Tickets are $7-$12 and are available from 507-2498. 

Donna the Buffalo performs roots rock at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $13. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Kris Delmhorst, contemporary songcraft, at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage Coffee House. Cost is $15.50 in advance, $16.50 at the door. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

CWK Trio performs acoustic modern jazz at 8 p.m. at The Jazz House. Suggested donation is $8-$12 sliding scale. 649-8744.  

www.thejazzhouse.org 

Redmeat and The Bellyachers at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $7. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

Michael Bluestein Trio at 9 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810. 

JND, Bray, and Thriving Ivory at 9:30 p.m. at Blakes on Telegraph. Cost is $7. 848-0886. www.blakesontelegraph.com 

Municipal Waste, Capitalist Casualties, Caustic Christ, Voetsek, Agents of Satan, Strung Up at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St., an all-ages, member-run, no alcohol, no drugs, no violence club. Cost is $5. 525-9926. 

Woman at 9:30 p.m. at Beckett’s Irish Pub, 2271 Shattuck Ave. 647-1790. beckettsirishpub.com 

Reorchestra at 8 p.m. at Jupiter, 2181 Shattuck Ave. 848-8277. 

Mokai and MarQue at the 1923 Teahouse at 8 p.m. Suggested donation of $7-$15. 644-2204. www.epicarts.org 

SATURDAY, SEPT. 20 

Euripides’ “Medea,” performed by the National Theatre of Greece at 8 p.m. at the Greek Theatre, UC Campus. Pre-performance talk with UC Berkeley Dept. of Classics Professor Mark Griffith at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $32 and $62. 642-0212. www.calperfs.berkeley.edu  

EXHIBITION 

Photographs of Inner Mongolia by Michael Sun, from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the 3rd Floor Community Room, Berkeley Public Library, 2090 Kittredge. 

CHILDREN 

Kids on the Block Puppet Show, promoting acceptance and understanding of physical and cultural differences at 2 p.m. at the Hall of Health, 2230 Shattuck Ave., lower level. Suggested donation $3. Children under 3 free. 549-1564. 

FILM 

Rainer Werner Fassbinder: “Mother Goes to Heaven,” at 7 and 9:15 p.m., at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

Berkeley Art Center Film Festival: Bums’ Paradise, at 7 p.m. at the Berkeley Art Center in Live Oak Park. Tickets are $5-$10 sliding scale. 644-6893. www.berkeleyartcenter.org 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Joe Conason, political columnist, reveals the right-wing in “Big Lies: The Right-Wing Propaganda Machine and How It Distorts the Truth,” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

Bruce Balfour reads from his new book, “The Digital Dead,” at 2 p.m. at The Other Change of Hobbit, 2020 Shattuck Ave.  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

San Francisco Early Music Society presents Anne Azema, soprano, and Shira Kammen, vielles and harp, at 8 p.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. Tickets are $22 for SFEMS members and Seniors, $25 for non-members, $10 for students. 528-1725. www.sfems.org 

Trinity Chamber Concerts, with Tom Rose, clarinet, and Miles Graber, perform an all English music program, at 8 p.m. at Trininy Chapel, 2320 Dana St. Admission by donation, $12 general, $8 students, seniors, disabled. No one turned away. 549-3864. 

Remember Shakti with John McLaughlin, guitar, and Zakir Hassain, tabla, U. Shrinivas, electric mandolin and V. Selvaganesh, ghatam and kanjira, at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $26-$56 and are available from 642-9988. www.calperfs.berkeley.edu 

Women Singing Out! presented by Rose Street House of Music and East Bay Pride at 8 p.m. at the Oakland Metro, 201 Broadway at 2nd in Jack London Square. Tickets are $8-$15 sliding scale. 594-4000 ext. 687. 

“Jah Music for the People” at the 1923 Teahouse at 8 p.m. Suggested donation of $7-$15. 644-2204. www.epicarts.org 

Suzy Thompson and Friends at 2 p.m. at Down Home Music, 10341 San Pablo Ave., El Cerrito. 525-2129. www.downhomemusic.com 

Barry and Alice Olivier, contemporary folk at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage Coffee House. Cost is $16.50 in advance, $17.50 at the door. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Brightback, Joanna Newsom, Sean Hayes at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $6. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

Pietro Lusvardi on the contrabasso at 8 p.m. at The Jazz House. Suggested donation is $6-$15 sliding scale. 649-8744. www.thejazzhouse.org  

Steve Smith-Mike Zilber Group with special guests Dave Liebman and Fareed Haque at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Tickets are $20-$25. 845-5373. www.jazzschool.com 

Alphabet Soup, El Jefe at 9:30 p.m. at Blakes on Telegraph. Cost is $7. 848-0866. www.blakesontelegraph.com 

Reggae Angels and Amandala Poets CD release party at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $13-$20. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Post Junk Trio at 8 p.m. at Jupiter 848-8277. 

Scott Amendola with Nat Su and Devin Hoff at 9 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810. 

Nicole McRory at 9:30 p.m. at Beckett’s Irish Pub, 2271 Shattuck Ave. 647-1790. beckettsirishpub.com 

SUNDAY, SEPT. 21 

Euripides’ “Medea,” performed by the National Theatre of Greece. at 7 p.m. at the Greek Theatre, UC Campus. Pre-performance talk with UC Berkeley Dept. of Classics Professor Mark Griffith at 6:30 p.m. Tickets are $32 and $62. 642-0212. www.calperfs.berkeley.edu 

Oliver Ranch Tour, to benefit the Richmond Art Center. A special opportunity to visit a private reserve dedicated to site-specific sculpture. Cost is $95 per person, which includes a $50 donation to the Richmond Art Center. Reservations required. Call A New Leaf Gallery at 525-7621, or email info@sculpturesite.com 

CHILDREN 

The Kids of the Dayton Tribune Meet Vanessa Thill and Kelly Reed, the 12-year-old founders of the Bay Area annual literary magazine, at 4 p.m. at Cody’s Books, 1730 Fourth St. 559-9500. www.codysbooks.com 

FILM 

“Homage to Chagall,” at 2 p.m. at the Berkeley Richmond Jewish Community Center, 1414 Walnut St. Suggested donation $2. 848-0237. www.brjcc.org 

The Films of Germaine Dulac: “Ame d’Artiste” at 5:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Jim Campbell/Matrix 208: “Memory Array” at 3 p.m. in Gallery 1, Berkeley Art Museum, 2626 Bancroft Way. Cost $8, free to UC staff, faculty and students. 643-6494. tctorres@uclink.berkeley.edu 

Guided Tour: Gene(sis): Contemporary Art Explores Human Genomics, at 2 p.m., Berkeley Art Museum, 2626 Bancroft Way. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

Poetry at Cody’s with Jennifer Arin, Katherine Case, Y. Morales, Annie Stenzel, Jennifer Sweeney and Virginia Westover at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. Donation $2. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

Tom Farber reads from his novels “The Beholder” and “A Lover’s Quarrel: On Writing and the Writing Life” at 7:30 p.m. Black Oak Books. 486-0698.  

www.blackoakbooks.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Pebble Theory, Cilantro, Sun Chasing Shadows at 9:30 p.m. at Blakes on Telegraph. Cost is $3. 848-0886. www.blakesontelegraph.com 

All Shoko Night, featuring the Natto Quartet and the Hikage-Segel Duo, at 8:15 p.m. at The Jazz House. Free, donations accepted. 649-8744. www.thejazzhouse.com 

Paula West at 4:30 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $20-$25. 845-5373. www.jazzschool.com 

Lucy Kaplansky with Nina Gerber, vocals with guitar accompaniment, at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage Coffee House. Cost is $19.50 in advance, $20.50 at the door. 548-1761 www.freightandsalvage.org 

The People with LZ Phoenix, Sol Americano and Dr. Masseuse at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $10. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Indian Classical Music with Jyoti Rout, Pandit Habib Khan, and Prof. Mohini Mohan Pattnaik at 7 p.m. at the Julia Morgan Center for the Arts. Tickets are $15-$20 available from 925-798-1300.  

Taarka seismic gypsy jazz at the 1923 Teahouse at 8 p.m. Suggested donation of $7-$15, no one turned away for lack of funds. 644-2204. www.epic- 

arts.org 

Americana Unplugged Series: The Whiskey Brothers at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

MONDAY, SEPT. 22 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Andrei Codrescu, NPR commentator and World Heavy- 

weight Champion, reads from his new poetry collection “it was today” at 7:30 p.m. at Moe’s Books at 2476 Telegraph Ave. 849-2087.  

Elinor Langer reveals the world of skinheads in “A Hundred Little Hitlers: The Death of a Black Man, the Trial of a White Racist, and the Rise of the Neo-Nazi Movement in America,” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

Poetry Express, open mic featuring Paradise, from 7 to 9:30 p.m., at Priya Restaurant, 2072 San Pablo Ave. berkeleypoetryexpress@yahoo.com 

Catherine Brady reads from her new collection “Curled in the Bed of Love,” which won the Flannery O’Conner Award for Short Fiction, at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698.  

www.blackoakbooks.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Steve Gannon Band and Mz. Dee at 9:30 p.m. at Blakes on Telegraph. Cost is $4. 848-0886. www.blakesontelegraph.com 

The Frail Rhino at the 1923 Teahouse at 8 p.m. Suggested donation of $7-$15, no one turned away for lack of funds. 644-2204. www.epicarts.org 

TUESDAY, SEPT. 23 

EXHIBITION OPENINGS 

“Reality and Illusion: The City of Berkeley Photographed” Reception from 4 to 6 p.m. at the Worth Ryder Gallery in Kroeber Hall at the Bancroft and College entrance to UC Campus. 642-4800. http://art.berkeley. 

edu/rev2/wrGallery  

CHILDREN 

Lemony Snicket Day at Cody’s Books. “The Slippery Slope” will be available. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

FILM 

The Films of Germaine Dulac: “The Smiling Madame Beudet” and other films at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Robert Hass, Poet Laurate and co-founder of River of Words, reads at 7:30 p.m. at Barnes and Noble. 644-0861. 

Maxine Hong Kingston, reads from “The Fifth Book of Peace,” a hybrid of memoir and fiction at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books, 1730 Fourth St. 559-9500. www.codysbooks.com 

Amy Wallace discusses her new memoir “Sorcerer’s Apprentice: My Life with Carlos Castaneda” at 7:30 p.m. at Barnes and Noble. 644-0861. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

DP and The Rhythm Riders at 8:30 p.m., with a Cajun dance lesson with Cheryl McBride at 8 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $9. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Mimi Fox, solo guitar, at 8 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810. 

Beth Robinson, Doug Blumer, singer-songwriter double bill, at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage Coffee House. Cost is $15.50 in advance, $16.50 at the door. 548-1761 www.freightandsalvage.org 

Dayna Stephens House Jam at The Jazz House. Donation $5. 649-8744. www.thejazzhouse.com 

WEDNESDAY, SEPT. 24 

FILM 

“Discovering Dominga,” documentary by Patricia Flynn at 8 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. A benefit for the Guatemala Accompaniment Project. Cost is $8-$12 sliding scale. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Rainer Werner Fassbinder: “Veronica Voss“ at 5 p.m. and 9:15 p.m. and “Satan’s Brew”at 7:05 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Poets from the San Francisco Bay Area will gather with a symbolic giant peace dove at La Peña at 6:30 p.m. to read their “win with words not war” message from three new anthologies: “Farewell to Armaments,” “Flaunt Peace in the Face of War,” and “For You World Peace IMAGINE.” 

Meredith Maran discusses “Dirty: Inside America’s Teen- 

age Drug Epidemic,” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

Liz Franklin discusses her new book, “How to Get Organized Without Resorting to Arson,” at 7:30 p.m. at Barnes and Noble. 644-0861. 

PEN West presents an evening of readings and discussion in observation of Banned Book Week, at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698. www.blackoakbooks.com 

Berkeley Poetry Slam with host Charles Ellik at 8:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $7, $5 with student i.d. 841-2082. www.starryplough.com 

Café Poetry and Open Mic hosted by Paradise at 7:30 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Donation requested. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Wednesday Noon Concert University Symphony Orchestra, David Milnes, conductor, Chevron Auditorium at International House, corner of Bancroft and Piedmont Aves. Admission is free. 642-4864. 

Nanjing University Traditional Instruments Orchestra perfrom at 8 p.m. at the International House Auditorium, 2299 Piedmont. Free for I-House members, residents and alumni, $5 for the general public. 642-9460. landerso@uclink.berkeley.edu  

Sólas, traditional and contemporary Irish music, at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage Coffee House. Cost is $19.50 in advance, $20.50 at the door. 548-1761 www.freightandsalvage.org 

The Anthony Paule - Mz. Dee Band at 9 p.m., with a swing dance lesson with Nick and Shanna at 8 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $9. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Jules Broussard, Bing Nathan and Ned Boynton at 8 p.m. at Downtown, 2102 Shattuck Ave. 649-3810. 

Outbound Trio at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

THURSDAY, SEPT. 25 

FILM 

“Unanswered Questions of 9-11,” presented by The Robber Barons, at 7 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Free. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Genetic Screenings: “Homo Sapiens 1900” at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Guided Tour: Gene(sis): Contemporary Art Explores Human Genomics, at 12:15 and 5:30 p.m., Berkeley Art Museum, 2626 Bancroft Way. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

Word Beat Reading Series at 7 p.m. with featured readers Steve Arntson and Anna Wolfe, followed by an open mic, at Mediterraneum Caffe, 2475 Telegraph Ave., near Dwight Way. For information call 526-5985 or 205-1749.  

Wayne Bernhardson shows slides and talks about his new book, “Moon Handbook: Buenos Aires” at 7:30 p.m. at Easy Going Travel Shop and Bookstore, 1385 Shattuck Ave. at Rose. 843-3533. 

Neal Stephenson reads from his new novel, “Quicksilver” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

Educator’s Night, for K-12 educators, with author Meredith Maran, at 6 p.m. at Barnes and Noble. Please RSVP to 644-0861. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Otep Myrrhy Music from Medieval Bohemia at 8 p.m. at at the Parish Hall, St. Alban’s Church, 1501 Washington St., Albany. Tickets are $12-$15 and are available from 486-2803 or 524-7952. www.timrayborn.com/Festival 

Julieta Venegas, Mexican singer and rock artist, at 8 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $12 in advance, $15 at the door. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

The Influents, The Flipsides, The Spinning Jennies at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $5. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

Kathy Kallick, album release show, at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage Coffee House. Cost is $15.50 in advance, $16.50 at the door. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Rosh Hashana Concert at 8 p.m. at the 1923 Tea House. 644-2204.  

Keni El Lebrijano, flamenco guitar, at 8:30 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810.

Opponents of the move of Berkeley’s Adult School to the vacant Franklin School site will file a legal challenge to the Berkeley Unified School District today, said Tim Arai, lead plaintiff for the group. 

“We are challenging the district’s traffic plan,” Arai said, “and we are filing suit under the provisions of the California Environmental Quality Act [CEQA]. It is our contention that the environmental review and the traffic impact analysis the district filed are faulty.”  

Arai said the plaintiffs, neighbors of Franklin School, are represented by attorney Rose Zoia of Santa Rosa, who specializes in environmental law. 

“We have to file suit [today] because we can only bring action within 30 days of presenting our objections to the plan,” Arai said. 

“We met with city traffic manager David Hillier [Thursday] to discuss major traffic issues, and the city seems to agree with us that the district” hasn’t taken adequate measures to mitigate traffic dangers to the neighborhood. 

Arai and his fellow neighbors want parking lot access on San Pablo Avenue, which CalTrans has opposed because the avenue is a heavily traveled state highway. 

Without the access to San Pablo, the main access to the school is via an entrance across from Kains Avenue and an exit onto Francisco Street. 

Arai met with fellow opponents Thursday night at Cedar Rose Park to discuss the litigation. 

—Richard Brenneman

I’m responding to Sally Reyes’ commentary “Many Failings in BUSD Report Card,” Daily Planet, Sept. 12-15), regarding the Fiscal Crisis Management Assistance Team (FCMAT) report issued in July 2003 to the Berkeley Unified School District (BUSD). Of course, the Planet’s headline for the commentary was inaccurate to begin with. However, I believe it will do more good to offer information regarding the FCMAT report, rather than to argue over Ms. Reyes’ opinions in her commentary or the Planet’s biases. There has been a general misunderstanding and misreading, as well as a misuse, of the FCMAT report since it was released to BUSD in July. The report chronicles about 500 legal, professional, and educational standards for the BUSD as part of FCMAT’s advisory role with Berkeley. One section of the FCMAT report deals with Facilities Management, and this is the section that Sally Reyes’ commentary refers to. In this one section there are 111 standards addressed, with recommendations in several areas for improvement and progress. 

At the Aug. 13 Special Board meeting in which the Board and District staff and the FCMAT team discussed and reviewed the submitted FCMAT report, the Board hardly “bristled” (Ms. Reyes’ term) at the FCMAT report. In fact, Board President Joaquin Rivera has appointed a two-boardmember subcommittee consisting of Director Shirley Issel and myself to help facilitate communication and understanding of the FCMAT report for the Board (a 750-page report, in five major District areas). Further, anyone attending the Aug. 13 Special Board meeting, or reading the preface, summary, and conclusions of the full report would have known several facts that expressly contradict several statements and assertions in Reyes’ Sept. 12 commentary. The preface to the FCMAT report contains these two paragraphs: 

“The findings presented in this report represent a snapshot of the district, and the recommendations are based on the improvement of student learning. In the time since the data-gathering portion of the review, the district has begun to address certain areas of concern, making progress that is not reflected in this report. FCMAT would like to acknowledge the cooperation of the district Governing Board, administration and staff during the review process.” 

I wouldn’t characterize any of this as the Board “bristling” at the report. And although it is very easy to misconstrue the nature of the 10-point scaling system that FCMAT employs in this and other reports, FCMAT, in its preface to the report and at the Aug. 13 Special Board meeting emphasizes and reemphasizes that the report is a deficit analysis, and that the 10-point scale is to be used to measure progress and improvement from this point forward:  

“Every standard was measured on a consistent rating format, and each standard was given a scaled score from zero to 10 as to its relative status of completeness. The following represents a definition of terms and scaled scores. The single purpose of the scaled score is to establish a baseline of information by which the district’s future gains and achievements in each of the standard areas can be measured.” 

A scaled score of zero indicated no significant evidence that the standard has been implemented. This could mean very simply that indeed the standard has not been implemented, or that the paper trail and compliance forms necessary to document the implementation of the standard were not readily available. 

A scaled score of between 1 and 7 indicates a partially implemented standard, lacking completeness, or met to a limited degree. This range is further broken down and defined as follows:  

Scaled score of 1: Some design or research regarding the standard is in place that supports preliminary development. 

Scaled score of 2: Implementation of the standard is well into the development stage, appropriate staff is engaged and there is a plan for implementation.  

Scaled score of 3: A plan to address the standard is fully developed, and the standard is in the beginning phase of implementation.  

Scaled score of 4: Staff is engaged in the implementation of most elements of the standard.  

Scaled score of 5: All standard elements are developed and are in the implementation phase. 

Scaled score of 6: Elements of the standard are implemented, monitored, and becoming systemic. 

Scaled score of 7: All elements of the standard are fully implemented, are being monitored, and appropriate adjustments are taking place. 

It is important to note that the district scaled score for the Facilities Management area that the commentary piece addressed received a 5.67 by the FCMAT reviewers, meaning that staff is engaged in the implementation of the standard, or that elements of the standard have already been implemented and are becoming systemic. 

For those interested, the scores of 8, 9, and 10 are defined as such:  

Scaled score of 8: All elements of the standard are fully and substantially implemented and are sustainable. 

Scaled score of 9: All elements of the standard are fully and substantially implemented and have been sustained for a full school year. 

Scaled score of 10: All elements of the standard are fully implemented, are being sustained with high quality, are being refined, and have a process for ongoing evaluation.  

The FCMAT report is a massive, daunting document that requires days of careful reading, rereading, area comparisons, and further research to fully make use of. It is of course tempting to view the scaled scoring as a “report card.” However, that was not FCMAT’s intended use of the scale, and the report and the FCMAT consultants at the Aug. 13 Special Board meeting explicitly stated that. Using the report as a baseline, a snapshot of our current operations, systems, and practices, and as a basis for continued monitoring and evaluation, is much more demanding, much more difficult, but in the long-term much more beneficial and positive for BUSD, our schools, our staff, our community, and of course, our children. This board is committed to using the FCMAT report as the tool it was intended to be.  

John Selawsky is vice-president of the Berkeley School Board. 

The East Bay Community Law Center will be celebrating its 15th anniversary Saturday, honoring the people who have helped the center become one of the most important resources for low-income residents battling to stay alive and in need of legal help.  

The celebration happens from noon to three at the clinic, 3130 Shattuck Ave. 

Founded on Sept. 26, 1988, by a group of Boalt law students, the center has continued to serve its original purpose of providing legal aid for those most in need. 

Brad Adams, one of the original founders, now runs the Asia Watch division of Human Rights Watch, one of the largest human rights groups in the country. He says many of the original founders had come to Boalt expecting the school to be a leader in social justice work. Quickly disillusioned, they started the center to tackle the work on their own—which for Berkeley meant handling the problems of the city’s large homeless population.  

“These were the days when you literally had to step over homeless people on Telegraph,” said Adams. 

For Adams, watching the center grow into a formidable institution with 14 staff attorneys and the ability to train around 30 Boalt interns every semester has been nothing short of amazing. 

“I never thought it was going to be possible to open the center. We were hardly encouraged by anyone,” said Adams. “They told us not to waste our time. But to see this many clients served is thrilling.” 

Today’s center offers help in four specialties, including housing and tenant’s rights, employment and income support, community economic development, and legal services to people living with HIV and AIDS. 

One constant throughout has been the training program for Boalt students, which led to their role in helping the law school to establish their first clinical training course—which remains the largest of those offered to Boalt students, giving hands-on training to 116 students in the past two years. 

Jeff Selbin, the center’s executive director, said unpaid Boalt interns do the majority of the case work, receiving school credit in return. Students who intern during the fall and spring semesters also have the opportunity to take a for-credit law class taught by clinic staff. 

Over the last decade-and-a-half, interns and staff attorneys have assisted more than 20,000 clients, Selbin said, helping people obtain the most basic survival needs, including shelter, income and medical attention. 

“In most cases, without legal assistance [the clients] would have never stood a chance,” said Selbin. 

Cseneca Parker is a prime example. Facing eviction, Parker approached the center and got the help he needed to win. A grateful Parker began volunteering, and serves as the center’s client liaison. 

Asked what might have happened had he not received help, Parker said, “I would have been on skid row more or less.” 

Some of those who have passed through the center’s clinical training program have signed on as staff attorneys, like Laura Lane. A student at Boalt when she interned with the law center in 1994, after graduation she signed on as a staff attorney and is now working on tenant’s rights issues. 

Lane knew she wanted to do public interest work before she got into law school, and says that her internship with the center was the most valuable experience she had at Boalt. 

“My internship was much more relevant than law school,” said Lane. “I learned so much more in a semester here than I did in three years of law school.” 

Before the center started its clinical training program, Boalt students went through simulated programs on campus but never received any hands-on training. 

Boalt Professor Steve Sugarman says the clinical practice that the law center provides is one of the most important parts of the student’s education.  

“The students have received tremendous benefit from the training,” said Sugarman. “They have also ended up being a very important provider for people in need.”  

Boalt has also given back to the law center with a $180,000 dollar annual contribution. 

The center’s total budget averages $1.5-1.6 million dollars per year, of which 60 percent comes from government sources and the rest from law firms, individuals and foundations. 

Most of the students from Boalt who participate in the internship continue on in public interest law, and a few open their own community law centers. 

“It’s a goal of ours to train the next generation of lawyers who will do economic and social justice work,” said Selbin. 

To date, over 600 students have participated in the internship program. 

Several of the students who participate in the internship program have been recognized with awards, including Mark Davey, who recently received Boalt Law school’s Brian M. Sax ’69 Prize for Excellence in Clinical Advocacy for his work with the center’s Suitcase Clinic Legal Services (SCLS)—a program that provides legal support for the local homeless community. 

Davey spent two years living on the streets of Berkeley after leaving home at 16, but was able to turn his life around after enrolling in Berkeley as an undergraduate and then moving on to attend Boalt. 

Besides becoming one of the leaders in the SCLS program, Davey co-founded the Vehicular Integration Program, a project that is being reviewed by the Berkeley City Council that would create designated areas for people living out of their cars. 

Among those planning to attend Saturday’s anniversary fete—which features free food and entertainment—are Boalt Law School Dean Robert C. Berring Jr., Alameda County Supervisor Keith Carson and Berkeley City Councilmember Kriss Worthington. 

For more information and to RSVP, contact Michelle Eddleman Shin at 548-4040.

Editors, Daily Planet: 

It was with great interest that I read the commentary piece by Sally Reyes (Daily Planet, Sept. 12-14) regarding the failing grade that FCMAT gave Berkely Union School District, especially for its actions in the maintenance area. I am the union representative for the district’s maintenance and custodial workers, among others. FCMAT’s assessment is one we share as do the employees in the maintenance and custodial departments. We suffer the direct consequences of the district’s mismanagement. Those words are chose carefully and based on direct daily experience. 

BSEP provide some $70,000 for BUSD to hire professionals, consultants building maintenance and the custodial area. They produced two comprehensive reports with explicit recommendations for reorganizing these functions. Those reports were the basis for the reorganization plan passed by the board and for Measure BB that provides some $4 million annually to run a competent maintenance department.  

Virtually the first action that this administration took upon coming to Berkeley in the summer of 2001 was to throw out the board’s reorganization plan, the professional recommendations and replace it with one done by district staff. Then the maintenance director, who had had a long career in building maintenance in the private sector, was forced out. 

Subsequently, the custodial manager was laid off and supervision of the custodians was dumped back on overworked principals. This was a repeal of a key reform that the consultant said was essential to overhauling the custodial function.  

In our experience, there is very little accountability being demanded for these actions and the consequences that Ms. Reyes and FCMAT have documented so clearly. The board appears to have abandoned its oversight responsibilities, asks no questions nor challenges actions at odds with its own policies. 

We hope that the FCMAT a report card and op-ed pieces like Ms. Reyes’ will produce some badly needed changes. 

Sincerely, 

Stephanie Allan 

Business Representative, 

Stationary Engineers, Local 29, AFL-CIO

Fred Lupke, 58, a popular Berkeley activist for the disabled community, was seriously injured Thursday evening when his wheelchair was struck by a car as he was crossing Ashby Avenue. 

Berkeley Police Officer Matthew Meredith said Lupke was taken to Eden Medical Center in Castro Valley, where he was rushed into surgery for head injuries. 

He was listed in critical condition Thursday evening. 

The driver of the car stopped and remained at the scene. She told officers she hadn’t seen Lupke. She was not arrested, Meredith said. 

The accident occurred at 6:07 p.m. between Harper and Ellis streets. Lupke’s wheelchair was struck from behind by the car’s right front bumper, knocking him to the ground, said the officer. 

Lupke is a familiar figure in Berkeley, and an active volunteer in the antiwar and disabled movements. He has been a frequent visitor at the Daily Planet, where he has helped with the community calendar.

The Berkeley City Council split the baby on three contentious issues this week, passing a new housing inspection fee over the objections of landlords, putting off for a week a decision on the Sprint Wireless roof antennae on Shattuck Avenue, and dropping for good its plans to discuss a second resolution concerning American deaths in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. 

Rental Housing Safety Program Fees 

The council approved the city manager’s recommendation to reaffirm Berkeley’s flat $17 per residential rental unit yearly inspection fee along with the $8.50 per room hotel and boarding house inspection fee, while passing slight increases for fees to reinspect rental units that have failed to correct housing code violations. City staff has said that the flat inspection fees, charged to all Berkeley residential landlords, are intended to make the inspection program self-sustaining. 

The Council’s Housing Advisory Commission earlier voted unanimously to recommend the fee schedule to Council. 

The Berkeley Property Owners Association (BPOA) has opposed flat inspection fees whenever they came before the council during the past two years, and they did so again Tuesday night. BPOA President Michael Wilson said the fees are illegally structured and completely unjustified, and contended that the Rental Housing Safety Program itself is “destined to result in litigation.” After the council vote, Wilson said his organization would now consider filing a lawsuit against the Rental Housing Safety Program. 

Councilmembers Olds and Worthington voted against the fee resolution. 

Sprint Wireless Antennae 

The council heard testimony from residents opposed to, and Sprint representatives in favor of, the phone company’s plans to place three cellular telephone antennae on the roof of a building at Shattuck Avenue and Cedar Street. Written argument for sides took up nearly half of the thick Council agenda background packet this week. The public hearing, which was postponed once last June, will be reopened again Oct. 21 to allow the submission of an evaluation by CSI Telecommunications of San Francisco, an independent engineering firm. 

Middle East Death Resolution 

The council sidestepped a second straight week of foreign policy squabbling when Councilmembers Hawley and Olds withdrew their resolution calling for a federal inquiry into the deaths of all Americans in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the last three years. 

A deeply divided Council—in front of an equally divided audience—last week killed the Hawley-Olds measure on a 4-4 vote while passing on a 5-4 vote the Peace and Justice Commission-recommended measure supporting an investigation into the death of American peace worker Rachel Corrie, who was run over by a bulldozer driven by an Israeli soldier while she was blocking the destruction of a Palestinian home in Gaza. The Hawley-Olds measure would have expanded that inquiry to include Americans killed by Palestinian suicide bombers. 

After the meeting, Hawley said the expanded resolution was pulled “because we didn’t have the votes, and because we really need to get away from these foreign policy debates and get back to matters that really have some effect on the citizens of Berkeley.” 

There was question as to how the defeated Hawley-Olds measure got back on the council agenda in the first place. Council rules allow for reconsideration of a defeated measure, but the council must vote on a motion to reconsider. There was considerable confusion at the end of the vote on the Hawley-Olds measure, but a videotape of the Sept. 9 Council meeting appears to show Mayor Bates placing the matter over to the Sept. 16 agenda “without objection” over the objections of a number of Council members. 

In other action, Council adopted close to a million dollars in one-time savings and close to a half-million in recurring cuts to make up for a $1.43 million shortfall in the Fiscal Year 2004 budget caused by shortfalls in expected state revenues. 

On first reading, Council passed two ordinances that will temporarily legalize 12 bed and breakfast establishments currently operating in residential neighborhoods contrary to Berkeley’s zoning laws. No complaints against the establishments had been received from local residents, and their illegal status was only discovered by staff researching revenues from the transient occupancy tax. 

The new ordinance allows the bed and breakfast establishments to continue operation, but only by the present owners. Council gave Planning Commission staff six months to come up with recommendations for amendments to the zoning ordinance that would allow the inns to apply for permanent licenses, which could then be sold to new owners. 

The council passed a resolution by Councilmember Dona Spring to host events honoring the 25th anniversary of Kent Nagano as conductor of the Berkeley Symphony. The measure permits the hanging of street banners in connection with the anniversary, required after an embarrassed Council discovered earlier this week that its strict banner ordinance wouldn’t have allowed the Nagano banners. Staff is currently looking into similar ordinances in other California cities, and Council may consider amending its banner ordinance later this term. 

Council is scheduled to meet again Oct. 14, with both a 5 p.m. public working session on budget and ballot measure issues and a 7 p.m. regular session.

The University of California may be getting a different type of diversity next year—part of a drive to find new revenue sources. 

At Wednesday’s Board of Regents meeting, UC President Richard Atkinson proposed hiking out-of-state tuition fees and expanding enrollment of out-of-state students to help pay the costs of California students whose education is subsidized by taxpayers. 

Atkinson’s idea was one of many proposed to deal with $484 million in state funding cuts that have wiped out UC’s funding for in-state enrollment growth next year. 

If approved, Atkinson’s proposal would put UC in line with other prestigious state university systems like those of Virginia and Michigan, which seek high out-of-state enrollment and charge those students “private school” fees. 

According to Peterson’s College Guide, last year 11 percent of UC Berkeley undergraduate students were from outside California.  

With recent fee hikes, they now pay around $19,000 in annual fees, nearly quadruple what California residents pay. 

In contrast, out-of-state students at the University of Virginia last year paid $25,000 including room and board and comprised 28 percent of the student body, according to Peterson’s. 

Other proposals to plug the state funding gap included cutting enrollment, freezing faculty pay, restricting community college transfers, laying off staff and raising student fees by $1,800—on top of a roughly $1,000 fee hike for resident undergraduates implemented this year. 

The Regents considered the proposals Wednesday, but aren’t scheduled to take action until January. 

Anu Joshi, executive vice president for the Associated Students of the University of California (ASUC), said Atkinson’s idea had promise. 

“I think [the ASUC] would support it if it keeps state prices low,” she said. 

Joshi said most of the regents were in agreement with students that ultimately lawmakers in Sacramento needed to stop targeting UC. 

“The truth is no matter the proposal we need to convince the legislature to give us funds,” she said. “Not a single person said we shouldn’t use our power to lobby the legislature.”

South Berkeley shooting 

Berkeley police arrested a suspect in a Wednesday night South Berkeley shooting in the 1500 block of Tyler Street. 

According to police, the victim, a Berkeley juvenile, was walking eastbound on Tyler Street when a man jumped out of a white four-door car and started heading towards him. The assailant displayed a gun and then shot the victim in the leg when the victim tried to escape westbound towards Sacramento Street. 

The victim managed to seek refuge at B-Town Dollar Market on the 2900 block of Sacramento, where a clerk called the police. He was taken to Highland Hospital, treated and released. 

Police arrested Terry Lee Lynch, 29, of Oakland during an area check shortly after the shooting. Police said Lynch matched the description of the suspect, but he had not been charged by press time Thursday night. 

The suspect is described as a black male, 16-18 years old, weighing about 150-160 pounds, approximately 5’7’’ tall, wearing a blue t-shirt with a white design on the front, dark pants and black or white cap. 

Berkeley Public Information Officer Sgt. Steve Odom said police have found no evidence linking Wednesday’s shooting to a string of shootings this year in South Berkeley that police attribute to a rivalry between groups in South Berkeley and North Oakland. 

Robberies 

A burglar sneaked into the bedroom window of an apartment in the 2200 block of Channing Street Wednesday night, police said. The burglar rummaged through the apartment, taking jewelry, a stereo and speakers before fleeing out a bathroom window. 

A burglar entered a house on the 2600 block of Matthews Street Wednesday by placing a chair up against a window and prying it open. According to police, the thief prowled all of the rooms and left with a guitar, credit cards and checks, before leaving through the front door.

The saga of one of Berkeley’s most derelict and contested properties, in legal limbo after a series of controversies and misadventures—one of which found the elderly owner abandoned and stranded in a Paris bathroom two years ago—ended with a whimper Thursday. 

Alameda County Sheriff’s Deputies met with no resistance when they evicted Gregory Levin and Nattalia Yalke from the run-down rust-brown house at 1734 Bancroft St., which the pair insisted Rivka Sigal had promised to them before her death. Along with the couple, deputies booted nine homeless squatters who, with permission from Levin and Yalke, had set up tents and futons in the back yard. 

The eviction followed an Aug. 25 ruling by Alameda County Superior Court Judge John Kraetzer rejecting the couple’s claim that they had an oral contract with Sigal giving them the house in return for caring for her. The case spent two years in the court system, effectively giving Levin and Yalke control of the property until the judge’s ruling. 

Neighbors celebrated the couple’s removal. 

“When Rivka was here, the property was a mess, but she wasn’t threatening,” said one neighbor who insisted on anonymity for fear of reprisals. 

Last October the city had tried to intervene, sending in police, mental health officials and housing inspectors, who were turned back when the couple refused entry, said Michael Caplan of Berkeley’s City Manager’s office. “There was a question of whether or not they were the legal residents,” Caplan said. “If they were legal, then they have a right to deny access.” 

Caplan said the couple had already fixed the major complaint—trash lining the property—so the city opted not to get an inspection warrant. 

“It was really a messy situation from an enforcement issue,” he said. “The county said they were going through the process of getting them evicted, so we decided to take a back seat to them.” 

Although neighbors were glad to see Levin and Yalke go, they said Sigal was “no walk in the park.” 

A left-wing activist who charmed locals with spunky calls to local talk radio shows and infuriated neighbors with the 30 cats in her house and the eight-foot-high trash piles in her back yard, Sigal’s mental decline in the 1990’s set off a chain reaction that sent her house into legal limbo.  

According to Deputy Alameda County Counsel Sandra Bean, Sigal suffered from dementia and had a long history with the county’s department of adult protective services. Bean said Sigal had once shown up at Alta Bates Hospital covered in urine and feces. 

“She really couldn’t take care of herself,” Bean said. “She always had people to support her.” The court ruled that Sigal, who had no children, left her house—her only asset—to her three long-standing confidants: live-in care providers Mark Bellinger and Irene Cronin and ex-boyfriend Hunter Kuo. 

Levin and Yalte insisted their deal with Sigal superseded the will. 

Yalte said she was introduced to Sigal in April 1999, while she was caring for a friend of hers. “Rivka said ‘I want you to care for me.’ And so I went to work for Rivka cleaning out all the trash in the back yard,” Yalte said in an interview on her last night at the house. 

Yalte said Sigal agreed to make Levin and her joint tenants so that when Sigal died they would own the house. 

Though she said the couple said they drew up a contract to that effect, Sigal never signed. 

Her condition steadily worsened and in April 2001, according to court papers, Uzbek national Ali Abusgosh convinced Sigal to take out a $38,000 mortgage on her house. The two then flew to Paris, where he left her in a bathroom and disappeared with the money, presumably heading back to Uzbekistan. 

When Sigal returned, the county placed her under a conservatorship with the Public Guardian, who sent her to Willow Tree Convalescent Home in Oakland—one of three facilities where she resided until her death last January at the age of 71. 

Yalke and Levin insist their motives were pure and their care top notch. “Nattalia worked very hard caring for Rivka,” said Levin, a retired professor of music at the University of Calgary. “It wasn’t just about a house but about two people who cared for her.”  

According to the couple, Yalke returned to Canada in April of 2000 after she couldn’t convince Sigal to sign the contract turning over her house, but later returned to Berkeley five months later at Rivka’s request. “She would call me over and over again, ‘please come back,’” Yalke said. 

Even though Sigal still refused to sign, Yalke said she moved into the house in June of 2001, after the county put Sigal in the nursing facility. 

The couple’s court filing claimed they provided 92 weeks of work and services to Sigal worth more than $84,000. 

They filed suit against Sigal as the corporation Repuesto L.C. in June of 2001, alleging she had breached an oral agreement to put their names on the deed. After Sigal died, the county probate judge ruled that despite the will, the three named beneficiaries couldn’t take possession, because the lawsuit was still outstanding. 

The judge named the Alameda County Administrator to control the property while the legal case proceeded. 

Bean rejected Yalke and Levin’s claim, saying there was no evidence that they ever cared for Sigal and filed suit against them for elder abuse on the grounds that they pressured her to sign away her house. The suit was tossed out, Bean said, because she could not prove that Levin and Yalke had malicious intent. 

After Judge Kraetzer’s ruling, county authorities served the couple with an unlawful detainer order, demanding they vacate the property. Judge Kraetzer rejected the couple’s request for a 30-day stay, setting the stage for Thursday’s eviction. 

Yalke and Levin said they had no money left to appeal the case, and that, for the time being, they would stay at a friend’s house. “It never occurred to me that we could lose the place,” Yalke said. 

Tim, one of the nine homeless people squatting in the back yard seemed more upset about the eviction than Yalke or Levin. 

“This place is ideal because since it’s private, we can kick out any trouble makers,” he said. “If the city gave us a couple of houses like this one, it would solve the whole problem.”

The Berkeley High School Girls Crew Team will continue to paddle the waters of Lake Merritt for at least two more years, thanks to an agreement brokered by Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates and Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown. 

The deal gives the rowers a reprieve at Lake Merritt, where last year Oakland Park officials seemed eager to sever their 20-year relationship with the team. Meanwhile, Berkeley will study the team’s effect on migratory birds that flock to the team’s hoped-for home in Aquatic Park. 

The 48-member crew had set sights on the park for its new practice facility years ago, but a tussle with local environmentalists this spring put the brakes on a proposed ten-year lease with the city. 

Sierra Club activist John LaForce and Golden Gate Audubon Society Executive Director Arthur Feinstein threatened to fight the deal unless the city commissioned an Environmental Impact Report (EIR) to study how the team could avoid scaring off migratory ducks and geese that rest at the park’s main lagoon. A full report could take over a year and cost the city up to $100,000. 

Team officials were disappointed to lose out on the park. “Tom [Bates] says ‘Great, we have a compromise.’ But it’s not a great compromise,” said former team President Chris Noll. He said Aquatic Park, unlike Lake Merritt, would attract more kids who can’t commute to Oakland and provide enough storage space to house their four racing boats, three of which are slated to move to the park from the Berkeley Corporation Yard.  

Key for the rowers, Noll said, would be Bates’ effort to secure an after-school practice slot at Lake Merritt so the team could practice for two hours. Currently, the team is slotted to practice between 6:30 and 7:45 a.m—which is not enough time to compete with top-tier programs, he said. 

Candace Swimmer, president of the Lake Merritt Rowing Club, which rents space to the team, said she had no objections to letting the team practice in the afternoon, but noted that residents had complained to park officials about the girls making too much noise. 

LaForce praised the compromise, saying it bought time for both sides to reach a compromise and at least temporally staved off a potentially combustible feud between Berkeley students and environmentalists. 

“We were putting the Council in the role of ‘We have to split the baby here,’” he said. 

LaForce and Feinstein fought the team’s Aquatic Park plans, citing a city-funded report that found the rowers would likely scare away migrating seabirds in the park’s main lagoon. According to the report by Richmond-based environmental firm LSA Associates, the boats would rouse birds from their resting spots, expending precious energy needed to feed and eventually migrate. 

Under the deal, the city yielded to the environmentalists’ request to scrap its plan for a limited environmental study of the park and agreed to perform a full EIR. City officials hope to offset costs by combining the Aquatic Park study with an EIR to be conducted for nearby Eastshore State Park. 

The team’s future remains murky. Oakland is planning to transform the Lake Merritt Rowing Club offices into a restaurant in the near future, effectively displacing all of the club’s tenants, including the Berkeley team. Bates’ spokesperson Cisco DeVries said Oakland officials had given Bates assurances that they would give the team the same preference as Oakland teams in finding a new location. 

Last year, Oakland Parks Department Director Harry Edwards pushed to evict the girls to find more Oakland tenants. 

Practice facilities are scarce. Noll said the team had explored several options, including the Port of Oakland and the Jack London Aquatic Center—where the Berkeley boys’ team practices—but found all the alternatives either too costly or already full. 

Environmentalists and team officials met with Bates Saturday and pledged to coordinate efforts to find a compromise practice site.  

“Now I think everyone sees the value of working together,” said LaForce. 

Noll said he would cooperate with the environmentalists, but still considered Aquatic Park the team’s best option. “If they come up with a good location that would be a single location for the boys and girls close to Berkeley, that would be a permanent solution,” he said.

Deana Lopez graduated from Berkeley High School last year with her future very much in doubt. Although she is starting her second year at Vista College, as an undocumented immigrant she has no hope for financial aid to transfer to a four-year school and couldn’t work legally even if she graduated. 

“I can’t work because I don’t have a Social Security number and I can’t apply for federal or state aid, so community college is the only option for me,” said Lopez, 20, who was three when her parents illegally ferried her over the border from Mexico. 

On Tuesday Berkeley City Council unanimously endorsed national legislation aimed at giving Lopez and thousands of other Bay Area youth in her predicament a shot at the American dream. 

A bipartisan U.S. Senate Bill—the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act (DREAM)—would grant temporary residency to undocumented students provided they graduated from high school and lived in the United States continuously for at least five years. Students who then proceed to complete two years of college or a trade school, or enroll in the army or a volunteer service would be granted permanent residency. 

The House version of the bill is more generous, bestowing permanent residency to students enrolled in the seventh grade or higher who have lived in the country for at least five years. 

The Urban Institute estimates that between 50,000 and 60,000 undocumented students graduate from American high schools every year, though precise figures don’t exist because high schools are forbidden to inquie about students’ immigration status. 

By granting residency status to undocumented students, the legislation would enable them to apply for state and federal student loans, find a job and pay in-state tuition at state universities. 

Two years ago, California followed Texas as the second state to grant in-state tuition to undocumented students who spent at least three years in a state high school. Gov. Gray Davis signed the bill after rejecting a stronger version, which, like the Texas law, would have granted students access to state loans as well. New York and Utah are the only other states offering illegal aliens in-state tuition. 

The California law has opened educational opportunities for undocumented students, but without financial assistance or a work visa most attend cheaper local community colleges and find a dead end upon graduation, according to immigration advocates. 

“There are students who are going into adulthood who have no chance at a job and will become a drain on the system” said Humberto Retana of People United for the Legalization of Students. 

Brought over illegally as a child, Retana gained residency under a 1986 general amnesty signed by President Reagan. Retana said “this [legislation] is based on a simple idea—they’re here, we have to have some type of relationship with them, so this offers them the opportunity to integrate into American society,” he said 

Without the legislation, students say they have little motivation to excel, since a plum job is perpetually out of reach and deportation is never out of mind. 

“It affected my psyche in high school, said Luis Martinez, 20, a second-year student at Chabot College in Oakland and national CO-chair of Movimiento Estundtil Chicano de Aztlan (MeChA), a Latino student group. “It was really hard to be motivated, because no matter how many AP classes I took, I knew my future was limited.” 

Martinez, who was two when he illegally immigrated with his parents and older brother from Mexico, got a break a few years ago when his mother married a U.S. citizen. Since he hadn’t turned 18, he was granted residency, but his older brother was too old to qualify. 

“He is extremely limited with what he can do,” Martinez said. “If the Dream Act had been in place he would have had residency status and could have gone to college.” 

The legislation is opposed by the Washington-based Immigration Watchdog Group Federation for American Immigration Reform. The lobby argues that the legislation unfairly penalizes citizens and legal residents who do not violate U.S. immigration law and would open the flood gates to universal amnesty for illegal immigrants. 

“It’s a stepping stone,” said FAIR spokesperson David Ray. “The Dream Act exempts students from immigration laws and inevitably that loophole gets wider until no one is left out.” 

Ray said undocumented students should return to their native country, apply for university and then work the legal channels to petition for a visa. He said passing the legislation would prove an incentive for parents to smuggle their children across the border with Mexico. 

Humberto disagreed, saying most undocumented students have no interest in returning to a country they know little about. “Many of these students have been here for 10 to 15 years, he said. “They’re not going to go back from where they came from.” 

Neither side would wager on the legislation’s chances. Both bills are in their respective judicial committees, where the Dream Act is sponsored by powerful Utah Republican Committee Chair Orin Hatch.  

Still, after Sept. 11, the climate for immigration reform has cooled. President Bush buried a proposal to offer blanket amnesty to thousands of undocumented Mexicans after the 2001 terrorist attack, and has not voiced an opinion on the legislation. 

Lopez, meanwhile, says she is trying to concentrate on her studies in International Relations while the politics play out. “If this becomes law then hopefully I would transfer to UC Berkeley,” she said. “This would be a great opportunity for a person like me.”

Hoping to raise the $60,000 needed to keep Berkeley public swimming pools open this winter, the United Pool Council, a Berkeley community group, is sponsoring a swim-a-thon fund raiser this Saturday at the King pool, 1700 Hopkins St. 

Participating in the marathon will be upwards of 72 swimmers divided into three teams of 24 or more, with each individual swimmer swimming for an hour interval over the 24 hours of the event. The splashoff will be at 11 a.m. on Saturday, with the last lap ending at 11 a.m. Sunday. 

With city pools in danger of closing over the winter because of funding cutbacks, the Pool Council lobbied the Parks, Recreation and Waterfront Department and City Council to let them do their own fundraising to save several important programs at the two pools, Willard (Telegraph Avenue and Derby Street) and West (Addison and Browning streets).  

Blythe Lucero, coach of Berkeley’s Adult Masters swim team and the main organizer working with the pool council to sponsor the event, says pool closures would severely affect participants in the year-round programs, including those in the disabled community with a special need for the strenuous exercise only swimming can offer. 

“Fitness, whether is be competitive swimming or lap swimming, is a year-round thing, it’s important to make it routine,” said Lucero. 

Each swimmer participating in the swim-a-thon was responsible for finding donors that would sponsor them for at least up to $100, and some are pulling in up to $1,000 dollars. Several corporate sponsors have signed on, including Berkeley Sports and GU, local producer of an energy food product. 

Lucero aimed to raise at least $20,000 dollars through the event, an amount many thought out of reach. Now however, Lucero says that with all the support, the event might go beyond the original goal. 

In the meantime, the Pool Council has been raising other funds by working with the Parks, Recreation and Waterfront department to expand the programming at existing pools. They have also developed a plan to rent pool time out to private schools and other groups during non-use hours. 

Lucero says that everyone is really excited about the event and all have the common goal of ensuring that Berkeley’s public pools remain open. 

“I just want the pools to work,” said Lucero. 

For more information or to sign up and swim, call Blythe Lucero, 235-7018.

Students returned to Franklin Preschool Wednesday, four days after a suspected arsonist destroyed two classrooms in the school’s north wing. 

Nearly all of the three- and four-year olds were redistributed among the school’s other three classrooms and one permanent portable classroom that was not in use, said Jon Santoro, principal of early childhood education. 

About 15 of the school’s approximately 125 students, he said, were divvied among the district’s three other preschools. Two special education students were moved to an identical program housed at Rosa Parks Elementary School. 

The loss of the two classrooms did not drastically impact class size at the school, Santoro said. The four classrooms in use would house between 24 and 30 students, and the two classrooms destroyed in the fire both held about 25 students. 

Santoro is now working on replacing thousands of dollars in lost school supplies and appliances. 

Since the two charred classrooms housed all-day classes that provided students with meals and a nap time, Santoro said he will have to replace burnt sleeping mats, sheets, a refrigerator and convection oven, as well as shelves, chairs and desks. 

“We’re hoping for donations. Parents and neighbors have already given books and toys,” said Santoro. He has already secured a microwave oven, but would probably have to order new sleeping mats. 

The fire was set outside the north wing of the wooden building Saturday at approximately 11:50 a.m. “We’re calling it an arson,” said Fire Department Spokesperson Deputy Chief David Orth. “There was no reason for the fire to have started except for someone lighting it.” 

Fire inspectors have not announced a damage toll and it is not known if the north wing of the building can be salvaged. Police are investigating the incident. 

Students from the three undamaged classrooms returned Wednesday and were in high spirits, Santoro said. The students from the damaged classrooms returned Thursday and were more melancholy. “Some kids were teary-eyed,” Santoro said, “But so far it’s been OK.”

EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the first of a two-part series on UC Berkeley’s expansion plans. Part two will look at other impacts related to the Long Range Development Plan and UC expansion, including fiscal impacts and impacts related to housing, construction and permit parking  

Planning for further expansion, the University of California at Berkeley has begun the process of preparing a new Long Range Development Plan (LRDP) to guide development on the Berkeley campus and in adjacent areas through the year 2020.  

The proposed expansion poses challenges for the City of Berkeley and its elected leaders. 

Will it result in more traffic, loss of tax revenues, a tighter housing market and construction-related disruption, or can these and other negative impacts be avoided or mitigated effectively? 

An environment impact report (EIR) will evaluate the potential impacts associated with the development of additional academic facilities, housing and parking, and the University released a Notice of Preparation (NOP) for the EIR at the end of last month.  

The NOP states that the University may add up to 2,200,000 square feet of academic and support space, an increase of 18 percent over 2001-2002. The number of students attending UC during the spring and fall semesters may increase by as much as 5 percent from 31,800 to 33,450.  

The number of students attending UC in the summer could increase by as much as 50 percent, reaching a total headcount of 17,100.  

UC Berkeley will continue to be strongly oriented toward research, and will expand thusly devoted space with new research units to be located on blocks adjacent to campus. While the maximum increase in faculty is expected to be 13 percent, the remaining academic staff population (postdocs & visiting scholars included) is expected to grow by as much as 61 percent 

Altogether, the maximum campus headcount during the fall and spring semesters could grow by a maximum of 5,320, from 45,935 in the 2001-2002 school year to a maximum of 51,250 in 2020. Students would account for only 31 percent of this headcount increase. 

Of course, if the current problems with the state budget persist, expansion achieved by 2020 may fall substantially short of the estimated maximum growth presented in the NOP. 

While the 2020 LRDP EIR process is now underway, no actual 2020 plan exists. The university plans to produce a draft LRDP in the spring.  

Two already completed UC plans, the New Century Plan and the Strategic Academic Plan, define the policy framework for an updated Long Range Development Plan. 

The NOP includes five pages of parameters that will serve as the basis for environmental review, referencing both previous plans. 

The NOP also includes a list of alternatives that will also undergo environmental analysis. These include: “Reduced Enrollment Growth,” “Limited Research Growth,” “Some Research Growth Offsite.” 

How will the city be affected by further university expansion? 

Traffic impacts 

The University of California is Berkeley’s biggest employer with close to 13,000 faculty and staff (not including student workers), according to the NOP. Not surprisingly, it generates a lot of automobile traffic. A recent UC commuter survey found that about 51 percent of faculty and staff drive alone to work, as do 11 percent of the students. 

Traffic on various streets leading to campus will increase along with expansion unless the university takes steps to encourage more faculty, staff and students to walk, bicycle, carpool or take public transit to campus.  

The university’s record of promoting transit use is a mixed one.  

On the one hand the university has implemented a “Class Pass” for students, which allows students—who have actively supported the program—to ride AC Transit buses for free in return for a modest payment that all students pay as part of their annual fees.  

The university also has an alternative commute program for UC Berkeley employees called “New Directions for Faculty and Staff.” Faculty and staff can get a $10 a month subsidy for purchasing transit tickets and can use UC shuttles for free, and carpoolers can get certain types of UC parking permits for reduced or no cost. 

On the other hand, the university recently cut off funding for the Berkeley TriP Commute Store on Center Street in downtown Berkeley. The store, which closed as a result of the funding cuts, had been selling 110,000 transit tickets and passes a year and answering over 50,000 public inquiries a year.  

In addition, the university has been in discussions with AC Transit for a long time about creating an “EcoPass” for faculty and staff, which, like the student Class Pass, would allow passholders to ride the bus for free.  

Unions representing UC employees have lobbied for an EcoPass, but oppose UC’s proposal that staff should pay for the pass. (The City of Berkeley provides an EcoPass for its employees at no cost to the employees, as do most employers in the few other areas of the country that have such programs.)  

It also appears that implementation of an EcoPass for UC faculty and staff has been delayed because the University has been unwilling to offer enough money to make the program work financially for AC Transit. 

Parking Expansion 

The most controversial aspect of the LRDP project as presented in the NOP is its proposal for a huge expansion in the supply of UC parking. In addition to the Underhill parking structure planned for the Southside—which would add 690 spaces—UC is proposing to build as many as 2,300 more spaces, bringing the total to a maximum of 9,900 spaces by 2020.  

Since some spaces are occupied by more than one car during the course of a day, this is enough parking for perhaps an additional 4,000 auto commuters per day.  

Should these additional trips by auto materialize, it will add to traffic volumes on Berkeley streets and increase traffic congestion. It will certainly not do anything to improve air quality or reduce the local contribution to the global warming problem. 

The NOP indicates that UC is planning to locate a large majority of new parking to the west and south of the campus. The Downtown and the Southside are the two areas of the city with the highest level of transit service.  

What kind of message will commuters get if UC goes forward with plans to add more cars to the two areas of the city where getting around without a car is most practical? 

Transportation Demand Management 

The Southside/Downtown Transportation Demand Management (TDM) Study, jointly funded by the city and UC and completed in 2001, proposed a series of actions that could be taken to better manage transportation.  

These included EcoPass, transit preferential measures, additional bicycle parking, promotion of bicycle use and better utilization of existing parking. The TDM Study also suggested an expanded role for Berkeley TriP, which seems unlikely to occur unless the university reverses its decision to withdraw funding. 

The LRDP NOP makes no mention of TDM or specific TDM measures. Nor do any of the alternatives that will undergo environmental analysis mention TDM or policies to improve transportation “mode split” to reduce traffic by encouraging alternatives to driving alone to work.  

One alternative that will be considered by the EIR is a “Reduced or No New University Parking” option, but this assumes no reduction in demand for parking and focuses only on use of non-university parking as an alternative to more university-owned parking. 

The university’s New Century Plan does include, as one of its strategic goals, the aim of “achieving drive-alone rates under 50 percent for faculty/staff and under 10 percent for students.” As a “near-term objective,” UC proposes: “By the end of 2012, achieve five percent reductions in the percentages of student and faculty/staff drive-alone commuters from 2001 survey data.” 

The TDM study looked at how much of a shift away from driving alone would be necessary to obviate the need for more parking while accommodating anticipated growth through 2010-2011. 

To eliminate the need for more parking, the percentage of faculty and staff driving alone to work would have to be reduced from 50 percent to 44 percent—achieveable if the percentage of trips by carpools increased from 10 percent to 13 percent and if trips by transit increased from 16 percent to 19 percent. 

The TDM study concluded that the number of parking spaces needed to accommodate possible university growth through 2010-11 with no change in the percentage who drive would be 665. This is far less than the up to 3,000 spaces that UC is allowing for in the LRDP Notice of Preparation. 

Will the LRDP EIR’s environmental analysis include looking at the possibility of building less or no additional parking while undertaking TDM measures to reduce demand for parking and the percentage of people driving alone to campus? 

In the late 1980s, Stanford University General Use Permit EIR found that “Stanford could reduce the number of single-occupancy automobile commuters to campus in numbers sufficient to offset its daytime population increases.” Stanford successfully implemented a Traffic Mitigation Plan with a variety of TDM measures. 

Rob Wrenn has lived in Berkeley since 1982 and is a member of Planning Commission and the Transportation Commission.

The public will get a critical opportunity to comment on future growth plans for the UC Berkeley campus when the University of California conducts a scoping meeting for the 2020 Long Range Development Plan and the Tien Center Environmental Impact Report Monday from 5 p.m to 9 p.m. at the Clark Kerr Campus Krutch Theater, 2601 Warring St. The session will provide an opportunity for public comment on the proposed scope of the environmental analysis.  

Written comments can also be submitted with a deadline of Monday, Sept. 29 at 5:00 p.m. Comments can be e-mailed to 2020LRDP@cp.berkeley.edu or mailed to Jennifer Lawrence, Principal Planner, Environmental & Long Range Planning, Capital Projects, 1936 University Ave., Berkeley, CA, 94720. 

The proposed scope of the EIR and a description of the project under consideration and a list of alternatives for environmental analysis are in the Notice of Preparation for the EIR. There is also an “Initial Study” which identifies the potential environmental impacts that will be addressed in the EIR.  

Copies of these documents and of the New Century Plan and Strategic Academic Plan can be found on the UC Capital Projects Web site: www.cp.berkeley.edu 

Copies should also be available for review in the main branch of the Berkeley Public library and at the offices of UC Capital Projects’ Physical and Environmental Planning offices, 100 A&E Building on the UC campus and at 1936 University Ave., Suite 300.

Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante made a campaign stop in Oakland the other day to answer questions by members of the Black Elected Officials of the East Bay organization and the progressive Socially Responsible Network. The Bustamante appearance was marked by the question that wasn’t asked, and the question that wasn’t answered. 

For starters, not a soul asked him about the N-word. 

For the record, Bustamante’s original N-word slip came at the oddest of times and places—a speech at a 2001 Black History Month banquet held in Emeryville by the Coaliton of Black Trade Unionists, when he mispronounced the word “Negro” as “nigger.” I’ve heard Southern white politicians embarrass themselves like that before a black crowd. But the white Southern-drawl pronunciation of “Negro” is “nigra,” which sounds like an awfully close cousin to “nigger” to the untrained or sensitive ear, and is probably where the “nigger” term came from in the first place. Bustamante, an articulate man with the diction of an English professor, could not claim that his accent made him do it. To his credit, Bustamante did not profess that he was misunderstood by the trade unionists, several of whom walked out of the 2001 meeting, nor did he offer any excuses. He has apologized profusely, from that moment to this.  

Apparently, it’s not enough. Log onto any California-based African-American Internet discussion group this month, and you can’t find a mention of Bustamante without a reference to his once and infamous use of the N-word. It will cost him some portion of black votes in the recall election, though no one can guess how many at the present. 

One of the reasons this issue lingers among black Californians, I believe, is that while Bustamante’s apologies have been more than adequate, his explanations have not. “This word comes out my mouth, and I didn't know what to do,” Bustamante said back in 2001. “I couldn't believe what came out of my mouth. I know it came out of my mouth, but it is not how I was taught, it is not how I teach my children.” 

Then how, many African-Americans wonder, did it come out of his mouth? 

When I was in my late 40’s, I heard my father curse for the first time. What I mean to say is, it was the first time I heard him curse, which is not the same as saying this was the first time he cursed. He did it easily, and in perfect context, in a way people do it when they are used to cursing. Up until that moment I believed that my father did not curse, because I had never heard him curse. Afterwards, I realized that he did not curse in front of his children, which is quite a different thing. 

This, I think, is how many African-American Californians view Bustamante’s use of the N-word at the Black History Month Speech. There is a lingering suspicion that this a word the Lieutenant Governor either regularly uses among trusted associates when he’s out of the public eye, or else a word he regularly used at some other time in his life. Neither of these, of course, may be true. This is a simmering issue that is never going to be entirely forgotten. But even at this late date, if Bustamante wants to mitigate it, he needs to provide a better explanation as to why this word popped out of his mouth, both for the sake of his own political future and, more importantly, for the sake of better relations with the state’s two largest minorities. 

The question that didn’t get answered was that of Oakland school activist Kitty Epstein, who wanted to know if Bustamante would do something about the handful of school districts—including Oakland—that have been seized by the California Legislature and turned over to the state school superintendent because of various fiscal problems. It would seem that this is a violation of the electoral rights of close to half a million Oaklanders, who must continue to pay for our public schools, but have no control over them. That sounds like taxation without representation to me, a situation over which the American colonists once fought the British in a lively little war. 

Bustamante, an intelligent man who hears as well as he talks, seemed to think the school takeover question was about equal funding for all California schools, or something like that. Anyway, that’s the question he decided to answer. 

I can understand why Bustamante would want to duck the Oakland school takeover question. I just don’t understand why more Oaklanders haven’t used the gubernatorial recall as a way to get this issue back into the public eye. But we’ll save that for another day’s thoughts. 

Anyway, Bustamante got mostly softball questions from a largely supportive, largely black Oakland audience and for him, I’m sure, that’s all that mattered. These other issues will just be allowed to linger...until somebody brings them up again. Or until they are resolved.

It has hosted concerts and commencements, demonstrations and divas, mass meetings and memorials. The home fires of university spirit have burned bright on its sandy floor, and many of the great names and performing groups of the past century have trod its stage. 

It is one of the most distinguished and indelible features of Berkeley’s cultural and physical landscape.  

Berkeley’s oldest and grandest public performing arts space—the Hearst Greek Theatre—turns one hundred this month. 

The centerpiece of the celebration of this centennial takes place this weekend, when the venerable institution hosts another venerable institution—the National Theater of Greece, dedicated to the authentic revival of ancient Greek drama—performing Euripides’ Medea. 

This Saturday and Sunday evenings, Berkeley’s Greek guests will perform using ancient staging techniques; the performance will be as classical Athenian audiences once saw it, down on the circular orchestra, rather than on the stage, with the participation of a full chorus, a tradition rarely seen in American productions of ancient drama. 

The performance will be in modern Greek, with supertitles projected on the stage (there are also numerous English translations of Medea in print and online, if you’re inclined to study up before the performance.)  

Medea tells a classic tale of betrayal and revenge, revolving around the soured relationship of Jason, the hero-captain of the Argo, and Medea, the Colchian princess he brought back from his adventures seeking (and stealing) the Golden Fleece.  

Although they have had two sons together, Jason abandons Medea to take up with the daughter of the King of Corinth in what he rationalizes as an attempt to secure the family fortunes. Exiled from Corinth, Medea exacts a horrific revenge on both the Corinthian royalty and her cheating husband. 

The story is as old as, well, ancient Greece, and as modern as yesterday’s news headlines detailing some shocking story of family violence in which one angry member of an estranged couple draws the children into a cycle of vengeance against the other. 

The appearance of the National Theatre is literally a unique event, analogous to the Bolshoi Ballet or Royal Shakespeare Company dropping in to Berkeley for a few performances. 

When it comes to the United States the National Theater typically only plays East Coast venues, usually in New York or Washington D.C.  

This time, they are making a special and brief trip to Berkeley specifically because of our Theatre and its centennial. 

The event is sponsored by Cal Performances, which manages the Greek Theatre and was founded there itself nearly a century ago, when a newly minted campus committee on drama and music started staging events in the Greek. 

I like what Professor of Classics Mark Griffith recently told a campus journalist about this event. “People will kick themselves if they miss this.”  

It’s a rare chance to experience history—a notable centennial—and see a distinguished performance at the same time. 

The appeal of seeing a classical staging of Medea is particularly interesting at the present time, since less than a year ago the Abbey Theatre performed Medea in Zellerbach Hall, with Fiona Shaw in the title role, and not too long ago the homegrown Shotgun Players also staged their own unique interpretation in the (temporarily) defunct UC Theatre downtown.  

If you saw either or both of those stagings, it is well worth seeing this Medea as well, in comparison. 

Although Cal Performances and the Greek Theatre are part of the university, they are also Berkeley jewels in a broader sense. Much of the audience for Cal Performances events is drawn from the surrounding community.  

The Greek Theatre helped put Berkeley on the map culturally, at the beginning of the 20th century. It was an embodiment in concrete of the aspirations of both town and university to become “Athens of the West.”  

Real estate developers, travel writers, and local intellectuals all pointed to the Greek as a tangible symbol of Berkeley’s culture and character, and townspeople regularly trooped to the Theatre to see civic events, performances, and even Cal student spirit rallies. 

Most Berkeleyans probably have a favorite memory of an experience in the Greek Theatre, from Grateful Dead Concerts to the once-annual performances by the San Francisco Opera, to Bread and Roses Festivals, or notable speakers such as Bishop Tutu, the Dalai Lama, or innumerable statesmen and women over the years. 

Tickets are still available for both performances of Medea this weekend. 

Call the Cal Performances Ticket Office at 642-9988, or go to their website at www.calperfs.berkeley.edu. Tickets are also available at the door.  

UC faculty and staff get a significant discount on tickets for this event, so if you are one—or have a friend or neighbor who works for the University—take advantage of that opportunity. 

(Steven Finacom is a long-time Berkeley resident and local historian and works at the University of California.) 

Two Pictures Attached: Suggested Captions:  

“Cal students prepare for a Fall, 1921, bonfire rally in the Greek Theatre. Student events and spirit rallies have been a tradition at the historic outdoor amphitheater since it was constructed” 

“The first official dramatic performance in Cal’s Greek Theatre was The Birds by Aristophanes, on September 24, 1903.” 

I saw a Hummer last month. More than that, I touched it. I rode in it. I even sat in the driver’s seat and pretended to run an armored car off the road. For a Berkeley kid like me, getting intimate with a Hummer is the ultimate taboo. It’s like a Bostonian rooting for the Yankees or a Kennedy marrying a Republican weight lifter. 

My friend Sabrina drove the beautiful beast up from LA for a visit. She’s got a dog and a couple of suitcases, so really, what else could she possibly drive? And her explanation for buying it (“Because I like it”) was good enough for me. 

I should mention that Sabrina hasn’t been in LA long, and buying the Hummer was her final act as a New Yorker; she drove that glorious pig right across this great land, touring gas stations east, west and central. If my math skills serve me—let’s see: carry the four, divide by $1.87, remultiply by n—the trip cost her just shy of forty million dollars. 

As I got out my flares and beacons and helped her back into a parking spot in front of my house, I got a guilty sort of pleasure. Men stared, children gaped, women dropped to their knees. The master of the motorways had arrived. 

I turned my back for a moment to ride the escalator into the back seat, and when I came out Sabrina was vigorously cursing at a passerby. She said he started it, that he’d made some comment about the war in Iraq being her fault. 

She shouted something back about how his obvious penchant for pot-smoking was as damaging to the country as her love for unleaded. It was a fairly irrelevant argument to be sure, but can’t we all just love a car that engenders public discourse? 

You’ve got to admire Sabrina’s willingness to drive into the lion’s den of Berkeley with only her wit and a Kevlar-plated demi-tank to protect her. This is a town where everybody is fully entitled to the opinion of everybody else. People share their feelings with wanton abandon, walking blithely through the streets castigating and condemning one another for faults real and imaginary. 

Sabrina told me that nobody in LA has ever said a thing to her, but that within hours of being here she’d had to defend her honor to strangers a dozen times or more. In Berkeley, apparently, you can’t own a Hummer; you can only be its curator as it is displayed for public comment. 

Of course, I tried to join the bandwagon of criticism, but I don’t have a leg to stand on. I am, after all, an Oldsmobile owner. 

I never wanted the Olds exactly. It came to me (along with a wood-handled ice-cream scooper) as an inheritance from my grandmother. But all doubt was removed the first time I sat down on those cigarette-burnt seats, flipped on Grandma’s radar detector and let those horsies run. 

I ask you, have you ever actually been in an Olds? Oh, you smug Subarites, you haughty Honda Civilians scurrying, always scurrying, ferrying groceries and babies and earnest intentions. In an Oldsmobile it is impossible to be harried or tired, unthinkable to imagine yourself trivial or weak. There are no speed bumps for me, my shocks are enormous, my suspension ethereal. I ride in style. 

The Oldsmobile, rounded and glistening like a lozenge, slides through town of its own accord. As a driver I am merely a pleasant accoutrement for my car; the Olds is a near-sentient luxury pod that attends to my every need. 

When I first saw my car it was amongst its own kind in South Florida and I worried that, stripped from it’s natural habitat and brought to California, it would fail to thrive. But by the time we’d driven cross-country together we had reached an agreement to eschew shame and beam out the pride of driving American. 

In Berkeley I scanned the streets in search of a sibling for my Olds. Now I know that there are half a dozen other Oldsmobile owners in this town of conservation and efficiency. When I see these fellow travelers I nod silently and they nod back, silver hair and ivory dentures bobbing up and down as a compliment to me for being wise beyond my years. 

They say that a person’s choice of car is a perfect reflection of their personality. It’s true my friend Sabrina is brash and loves to argue. She’s talking about driving her Hummer up for another visit and I think she may just need a little caustic sidewalk debate to add spice to her sunny Los Angeles life. 

But as for me, I never chose the Olds. Instead, it chose me and we’ve successfully asserted our right to exist in the fuel-efficient wilds of Berkeley. 

But still, it’s hard to find a parking spot that fits.

EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the second in a two-part series looking at UC Berkeley’s long range expansion plans. Part I of this special report (Daily Planet, Sept. 19-22) provided an introduction to UC Berkeley’s 2020 Long Range Development Plan process and focused on potential transportation impacts and how they could be avoided or mitigated. 

The pace of UC Berkeley expansion may accelerate during the next two decades, as the new 2020 Long Range Development Plan (LRDP) being prepared by the university could allow for more growth than the current 1990-2005 Plan. 

While a list of projects assembled by the city for the current 1990-2005 LRDP Fiscal Impact Study includes non-residential projects (including parking) with a total of about 1.4 million gross square feet of space, the Notice of Preparation (NOP) for the 2020 LRDP estimates that up to 2.2 million square feet of academic and support space could be built under the new LRDP—not including space for parking. 

While the 1990-2005 LRDP did not plan for increased student enrollment, the 2020 LRDP NOP states that the student body enrolled during the fall and spring semesters could increase by 1,650 students. 

The 1990-2005 LRDP planned for a net increase of about 1,000 parking spaces. About half of that parking was intended for student housing that was not built. The 1990-2005 LRDP called for a tiny net increase in commuter parking (only ten spaces) on the campus and in adjacent areas.  

The 2020 NOP allows for a net increase of 2,300 spaces on top of an increase of 690 spaces at the Underhill site in the Southside, which have been approved but not built. The NOP does not specify whether this parking would be for residents of UC housing or for commuters, but it appears likely that almost all of it would be for commuters. 

In response to the publication of the NOP, Berkeley residents have raised a number of concerns about the university’s future plans and have suggested actions that the university could take to address those concerns. 

Last Tuesday, City Council voted to refer to city staff a list of some 20 comments assembled by Councilmember Dona Spring.  

These comments raise a wide range of issues related to UC’s impacts on the community and their planned expansion and to the Environmental Impact Report that UC will prepare for the 2020 LRDP. Many of the issues raised by those comments are addressed below or were addressed in the first part of this report. 

Fiscal Impacts.  

Whenever the university buys or leases property, the city loses the property tax revenue since the university is exempt from property taxes.  

The university owns a lot of property in areas adjacent to the central campus. UC’s New Century Plan, published earlier this year, includes a Project Portfolio, which includes brief descriptions of projects that could be built on some of these UC-owned sites.  

The university has been quick to point out that these descriptions are conceptual; no firm decisions have been made on how specific properties will be developed.  

The New Century Plan, together with the Strategic Academic Plan published in June 2002, provide a policy framework for the new 2020 Long Range Development Plan which is now being prepared. 

The university’s June 2002 Strategic Academic Plan calls for UC to establish a new “Office of Real Estate.” Part of its charge would be “identifying and pursuing strategic land acquisitions, particularly on the blocks adjacent to campus and, for housing, along major transit corridors.”  

The more UC relies on acquiring new property for expansion rather than developing land it already owns, the greater will be the fiscal impact on the city in the form of lost revenues. 

Another fiscal impact is increased demand for city services. 

On November 12, 2002, the Berkeley City Council authorized the expenditure of $50,000 to fund a UC Berkeley Fiscal Impact Study. A consulting firm, Economic and Planning Systems, has been hired to do the study and work is underway. 

The city hopes to get updated information that can be used “to obtain appropriate and adequate compensation from UCB for services the city provides to the campus and its off-campus facilities”. On Aug. 29, Berkeley’s City Manager, Weldon Rucker sent a letter to UC Vice Chancellor Horace Mitchell requesting specific information.  

Information sought includes: 

• Current counts of students, faculty and staff, along with summer and extension program participants. 

• Data on where students, staff and faculty live. 

• Information about the status of 1990 LRDP projects. 

• Information about projects planned under the 2020 LRDP including data about “potential/planned acquisitions of land by project.” 

• A list of UC-owned and leased properties. 

• Data related to the public services demands of the UC related population. 

From 1990 through 2002, the university paid a total of close to $7.1 million to the city in mitigation payments. These payments are the result of an agreement signed by UC and the city in 1990.  

$914,000 was paid for a fire truck and most of the other payments were for fire and sewer services. The average annual payment was about $544,000. 

More housing for students 

The LRDP EIR’s Notice of Preparation estimates that a maximum of 2,600 beds of housing could be added by 2020. This would include up to 200 “family-suitable units” for faculty, staff or visiting scholars.  

The Student Housing Development Program outlined in the 1990-2005 LRDP called for between 2,350 and 3,410 new student beds in addition to 915 beds that were already under development as of 1988. Very little of the housing not already under development in 1988 was built.  

As part of the Underhill Area Master Plan, 120 beds have been built recently at College and Durant in the Southside and an additional 1,100 beds are now under construction. Since 1988, there has been a net increase of about 1,500 in the number of single students housed in dorms, cooperatives, fraternities and sororities.  

The university’s dorms, combined with fraternities, sororities and co-ops, currently house a little less than one-third of the university’s students. If the university builds the maximum amount of housing estimated by the NOP, that percentage will increase to around 38 percent since the additional beds would exceed the maximum number of additional students being planned for.  

UC’s New Century Plan and their Strategic Academic Plan call for UC to provide two years of housing to entering freshmen who desire it, one year of housing to entering transfer students and one year to entering graduate students. 

The heavy student demand for private housing in Berkeley has resulted in high rents for apartments near campus. A substantial increase in housing should have a positive impact, but a sizable majority of students will continue to have to hunt for apartments on the private housing market.  

UC dorms are not cheap places to live. Academic year rents range from $8,695 for a bed in a triple room in one of the high rise dorms to as much as $12,735 for a single room in a suite in the foothill or Clark Kerr Campus dorms.  

Construction impacts 

Construction of new UC housing currently underway in the Southside has led to complaints by area residents about noise, blocked sidewalks and loss of on-street parking spaces. All the additional construction envisioned by the New Century Plan and by the LRDP’s NOP has led concerned residents to call on UC to change its construction practices. 

Nearby residents have voiced concerns about construction that has been starting as early as 7 a.m. They would like construction to begin no earlier than 8 a.m.  

They are also very concerned about construction workers taking up on-street parking spaces. They have proposed that construction workers should be given strong incentives to carpool to work and should be provided with remote parking with shuttle service to the construction sites.  

The closure of public sidewalks bordering UC construction site and placement of construction office trailers on public streets also causes problems for area residents. Residents would like UC to take steps to minimize closure of public streets and sidewalks and the loss of on-street parking. 

Residential Permit Parking 

Construction workers should not be able to park in residential areas near construction sites without getting parking tickets since areas around campus have Residential Permit Parking (RPP) zones where non-residents without permits are not allowed to park for more than two hours. 

But residents complain that RPP is not adequately enforced, allowing construction workers and other visitors and commuters to UC to use on-street parking spaces as a free alternative to paying for parking in area parking lots and structures. 

One proposed solution: Ask UC to pay for RPP parking enforcement as an LRDP mitigation. 

Other Impacts and Proposed Solutions 

Concerns have also raised about development-related impacts on the watershed. Will more pollutants end up in local creeks as a result of development? Open space advocates want Strawberry Canyon and Claremont Canyon protected from development and have suggested that UC commit to creating more community open space. 

Other specific concerns about the EIR process include: 

• Ensuring that the cumulative impacts of various UC projects and plans are assessed. 

• Addressing the impacts of UC extension and summer programs.  

As the next wave of long range planning gets underway at UC, it raises important questions. 

Will the city and its elected leaders respond effectively to ensure that potential detrimental impacts that could adversely affect quality of life in Berkeley are kept to a minimum?  

Will the university take the city’s concerns seriously and adjust their plans and offer adequate and constructive mitigations to address those concerns?

Gov. Gray Davis Thursday named Berkeley attorney John Marshall True III to the Alameda County Superior Court. A graduate of UC Berkeley’s Boalt Hall, True is a partner with Leonard Carder LLP, an Oakland law firm. 

A practitioner of employment law, True won’t be the only member of his family to wear judicial silk. His wife, Claudia Wilkin, is a judge of the U.S. District Court. 

“I look forward to no longer being overruled at the dinner table,” he quipped. 

Though he got the word officially Wednesday night from Burt Pines, the former Los Angeles City Attorney and the governor’s judicial appointments secretary, he had received hints as early as last spring. 

“A while back someone suggested I might not want to take a vacation around this time,” he said. 

The new jurist didn’t take straight to law school after earning his bachelor’s degree. “I spent six years in the Peace Corps in Nepal and in Afghanistan,” he said. 

He moved to Berkeley in 1972 to attend Boalt, and has lived here ever since. After winning his law degree, he spent three-and-a-half years as an attorney for the National Labor Relations Board in Oakland and San Francisco before entering private practice. 

In 1985, True joined the staff of the Legal Aid Society of San Francisco, leaving in 1994. He had been with Leonard Carder for almost three years when his appointment came. 

True’s specialty has been representing workers in employee rights wage and hour litigation, and he has been serving as a mediator for the U.S. District Court. 

He has chaired the State Bar of California’s Labor Employment Law Section. 

He and his wife have two children, Peter, a senior at Berkeley High and editor of the school newspaper, and Sarah, a ninth grader. 

“I’m excited and quite pleased about the appointment,” he said. “It’s going to be a whole new professional life. I’ve been practicing 28 years in a quite specialized area of the law, and now I’m going to have to jump out of the boat and learn to swim all over again. It’s quite exciting.” 

True doesn’t know what assignment he’ll draw on the Alameda County bench. “I’ll be contacting the presiding judge, and he’ll take it from there.” 

True was one of two Boalt Hall grads Gov. Davis named to the Alameda County Superior Court Thursday. The other is First Assistant U.S. Attorney Don Clay of San Francisco, 48, who serves is the Science Advisory Board of UC Berkeley’s College of Letters and Science. 

Clay has practiced law in Alameda County since 1981. He earned his undergraduate degree from UC Berkeley and his law degree from UC San Francisco. 

He practiced in Oakland for 22 years doing criminal and entertainment law specializing in hip-hop musicians before joining the U.S. Attorney’s office a year ago as second in command.  

“I’m not certain when I’ll start,” Clay said. “I guess it depends on what the Ninth Circuit does with the recall. If they go ahead with the election, then I guess I’ll have to get sworn in before October 7,” the date of the gubernatorial recall until the federal judges put the election on hold earlier this week.