Page One

FRED LUPKE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Fred Lupke was a wonderful person. We are saddened by his passing in September from injuries sustained when a vehicle struck his wheelchair on Ashby Avenue near the South Berkeley Senior Center. 

As an activist Fred helped improve our community and was pleasant to work with. Fred contributed to pedestrian safety efforts along with many other important activities. He helped the pedestrian safety tax Measure L gain a majority of votes in the 2002 election. 

We appreciated his help. Unfortunately, Measure L did not receive the necessary two thirds vote and thus funds for improving disabled access as well as other much needed pedestrian safety improvements are in short supply. Although fewer than 25 percent of registered voters opposed Measure L, many voters did not vote on L at all and so it failed.  

Half the traffic fatalities in Berkeley are pedestrians: Fred has joined this number. We already miss Fred Lupke. 

Wendy Alfsen,  

Walk & Roll Berkeley 

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VOTE TALLY 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Those who have heard about possible problems with hacking of the code used to count votes in the Diebold voting machines may be interested in the following statistics from Tuesday’s vote. 

Schwarzenegger received 3,694.436 votes. McClintock received 1,014,895 votes . Yet only 4,188,199 voted for the recall. This leaves at least over half a million voters (521,132 or 6.8 percent) who voted for a Republican replacement for Gray Davis yet voted to keep Mr. Davis in office.  

Food for thought. 

George Palen 

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NO MANDATE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Tuesday’s vote is no landslide mandate for Arnold. Three and a half million people voted against the recall to keep Davis and 3.5 million voted for Arnold. 

Tom Lent 

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STRAWBERRY CANYON 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Janice Thomas says she is “bewildered” by my letter about development in Strawberry Canyon (Daily Planet, Oct. 7-9), but that is obviously because she didn’t bother to read it carefully.  

First, she did not even get my name right. It is Siegel, not Spiegel.  

Second, I said clearly that one resident of Strawberry Canyon creates a greater environmental impact than one employee there. That obviously does not mean that the 265 residents create more of an impact than the 4,000 employees there, as Thomas claims. It does mean that it is hypocritical for residents to say they love the wildlife in the canyon, when they are actively degrading the habitat of that wildlife.  

Third, she says she is mystified by the point of my reasoning. Am I saying that saving what remains of the canyon is a lost cause? Or am I saying that the labs and neighborhood should go away? Or am I “just saying that the neighborhood should go away”? 

Since I said there should be no development in Strawberry Canyon, my point should be obvious. As our immediate goal, we need to stop all new 

development in the canyon. As our long-term goal—though it may take a century or more—we should try to remove existing development from thecanyon.  

We should begin by removing the development that restores the most land at the least cost. Some activists have already suggested that Memorial Stadium should be removed. But it would probably be more cost-effective to remove the residences there, as the first step toward restoring the canyon.  

We could use a study of all the options for removing development from the canyon, to find which would be most be cost-effective. If we start planning to remove development and restore the canyon as open space, that will be the strongest statement we could possibly make against any new development there.  

Charles Siegel 

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XXXXXXX 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

A similarity between George Washington and Arnold Schwarzenegger occurred to me when I hear Arnold’s apology to women he had harassed, after the complaints about his behavior had become known. According to legend, Washington had proclaimed that he would not lie when he was found with a hatchet in his hand, next to a hacked up cherry tree and when he hardly had the choice of not confessing the deed. Arnold has already become a politician.  

Max Alfert 

Albany 

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XXXXXXX 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Regarding “Oakland’s Murderous Summer” (Daily Planet, Sept. 26-29): The frequency of murder in Oakland is an ongoing tragedy. 

During the 20 years (1975-95) I worked there, the city averaged 100 murders per year—a total of 2,000. This going to be another “average” year. 

Realistically, it can’t be said that the Oakland Police Department is ever indifferent to murder. It solves an unusually high number of homicides, no matter where they happened in the city. This is an outstanding achievement, but it is a limited one: Killers are arrested, convicted, go to prison do their time, and some come out again; the victims stay in their graves. Police investigations by their very nature cannot prevent murders; they begin after the death. It is part of our social tragedy that a successful investigation can only repair part of the social fabric torn by a murder. It cannot restore the victim, nor (except while a potential recidivist is in prison) can it prevent other crimes. 

People in Oakland do cooperate with their police department. If the solution to the murder rate were only better police-community relations, the murder rate would be back to 10 or 20 a year, as in the 1940s, and the community would not live in fear. 

Major parts of the problem must be solved elsewhere than in Oakland. Put simply, there are too many guns in circulation, and too much ammunition—ammunition with a practically unlimited shelf life. For the common good, our state and federal governments have a duty to adopt serious gun control (and gun elimination) programs. Ultimately, our goal should be to have cities that can be patrolled by police officers who (as in England) do not need to carry guns. 

And we need to put our minds in order: Owning a gun in the city should be as socially unacceptable as driving a humvee or chain smoking in church. 

Phil McArdle