Telegraph Avenue neighbors and merchants packed a Planning Commission meeting Wednesday to protest proposals to speed up buses from downtown Berkeley all the way to San Leandro by eliminating some traffic lanes for motorists on Telegraph Avenue and turning the three northernmost blocks of the street into a car-free, bus-only pedestrian mall. 

“This would be the end of the world as we know it. Telegraph would look like a Greyhound Station,” said Ken Sarachan, owner of Rasputin Music, who along with other leading Telegraph merchants—including the owners of Cody’s Books, Moe’s Books and Amoeba Music—opposed banishing cars from Telegraph north of Haste Street. 

Five years in the works and at least four years from completion, AC transit is developing a Bus Rapid Transit System, funded by regional bond money and federal grants, that promises faster service, fewer stops and a drastically different streetscape for Shattuck and Telegraph Avenues. 

To avoid Berkeley bottlenecks, AC Transit plans to study a variety of options that include ripping out the median on Shattuck Avenue to build two dedicated bus lanes, 80-foot bus stations in the middle and beside major city streets, two-way dedicated bus lanes on Bancroft Way, two-way traffic on Durant Avenue and, most controversial, a pedestrian-transit mall on Telegraph from Bancroft to Haste Street and the elimination of two car lanes on Telegraph south of Dwight Way to make room for dedicated bus lanes. 

The system, AC Transit officials said, would guarantee buses every five minutes during rush hour, instead of the current 15 and cut 10 minutes off the commute time from UC Berkeley to Downtown Oakland and ultimately to the Bay Fair Bart station. Those improvements would make service more appealing to thousands of riders who commute by car between along the route which already constitutes 20 percent of all AC Transit passengers, said AC Transit Board Member Greg Harper. 

“We’ve learned the key to get more riders onto the system is to look at the routes that have the most riders and make them fast,” he said, adding that a less ambitious project along San Pablo Avenue had increased ridership and reduced riding time by 20 percent.  

By law, the Planning Commission could only offer AC Transit suggestions on which options to study in their upcoming Environmental Impact Report due out at the end of the year. Final suggestions will come next month from the Transportation Commission. But while AC Transit is in charge of the project, the agency’s project manager, Jim Cunradi, said Berkeley will have the final say since it controls traffic flow on its streets. 

Most Telegraph neighbors and merchants said they want the status quo, fearing better bus service would send car commuters through residential streets to avoid increased congestion on Telegraph. 

“Ashby is a parking lot, College is a parking lot. The goals are great, but we need to quantify the impact of lost car lanes on the neighbors,” said John Caner, president of the Willard Neighborhood Association. 

The hot-button issue remains the plan to transform the northern three blocks of Telegraph into a virtually car-free pedestrian mall with two-way bus traffic. Despite repeated assurances from AC Transit that delivery trucks and motorists dropping off used books and music at Telegraph shops would still be allowed, merchants argued that without car access many customers would shun their businesses. 

AC Transit officials offered no drawings and gave no sense of the ambiance envisioned for the car-free mall. 

The route would run east from the Downtown Berkeley BART to Telegraph, then on to Oakland and San Leandro. All plans for Shattuck include opening two lanes for buses, with one plan calling for elimination of left turn lanes for cars, another eliminating the barrier between diagonal street parking and traffic lanes and a third eliminating diagonal parking spaces altogether. 

On the southside, one plan calls for two-way bus traffic on Bancroft, two-way car traffic on Durant and the pedestrian/transit mall on Telegraph. A second proposal keeps the mall but leaves Bancroft and Durant as one-way streets. Two other options would forsake the mall—permitting cars to share the street beside a dedicated bus lane—with one plan putting two-way bus traffic on Bancroft and two-way car traffic on Durant and the other keeping both one-way but with dedicated bus lanes. 

The 80-foot bus stations, built so wheelchair users can enter buses without a ramp, would be located on the sides of Bancroft and in the middle of Telegraph. 

Planning Commissioner Rob Wrenn said the proposals basically reflect what the city calls for in its recently completed Southside Plan, except that the plan didn’t envision two-way car traffic on Bancroft. 

Funding for the project remains uncertain. AC Transit has $23 million at its disposal from Ballot Measure E, but is counting on an additional $65 million from a March ballot initiative to raise Bay Bridge tolls to $3 to fund local transit projects. 

A defeat, “would definitely be a hit for the project,” Cunradi said.

FRIDAY, JAN. 30 

City Commons Club Noon Luncheon with Sekig N. Kaplan, Professor Emeritus, Nuclear Engineering, “Who Was Any Kochergin? The Saga of a Haida Carving” 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 reservations call 526-2925.  

Reception for Lynn Stewart at 7 p.m. at Middle East Children’s Alliance, 901 Parker at 7th. She will be interviewed on KPFA at 5 p.m. 548-0542. 

“Shanghai: The Evolution of a City” a panel discussion with Seymour Topping, Joan Chen, Thomas B. Gold, and Pamela Yatsko from 4:30 to 6 p.m. at the Graduate School of Journalism, 121 North Gate Hall, Euclid at Hearst. Sponsored by the Institute of East Asian Studies, UC Berkeley. 

Docent Training for Berkeley Historical Society, from 1 to 4 p.m. in the Veteran’s Memorial Building, 1931 Center St. 848-0181. 

The Bravest vs The Finest Basketball Contest The Berkeley Fire Dept., The Bravest, takes on the Berkeley Police Dept., The Finest, in a charity basketball game at Berkeley High’s Donahue Gym, at 7 p.m. Tickets are $5 and can be purchased at 2100 MLK, first floor window, or prior to the game at the BHS ticket window. All proceeds will go to City youth programs. 925-672-2544, 981-5506. 

Richmond’s Future: A Community Forum hosted by The Richmond Progressive Alliance, a coalition of progressive Democrats, Greens, and Independents, featuring guest speaker Matt Gonzalez, President of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, speaking on progressive unity. From noon to 4 p.m. at the Madeline F. Whittlesey Community Room, 325 Civic Center Plaza, in central Richmond, next to the Richmond Public Library, near Macdonald and 27th. Free admission with light refreshments served. Wheelchair accessible. For further information, contact the Richmond Progressive Alliance at 496-2722. 

Berkeley Chess Club meets Fridays at 7:15 p.m. at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant Ave. Players at all levels are welcome. 652-5324. 

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 Entrance to UC Berkeley, on Oxford St. near University Ave. People of all traditions are welcome to join us. Sponsored by the Buddhist Peace Fellowship. 655-6169. www.bpf.org 

Overeaters Anonymous meets every Friday at 1:30 p.m. at the Northbrae Church at Solano and The Alameda. Parking is free and is handicapped accessible. For information call Katherine, 525-5231. 

SATURDAY, JAN. 31 

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

“T’ween and Teen Adolescent Girls: Where Do They They Fit In?” Workshop sponsored by Bay Area Children First, from 1 to 3 p.m. at 1400 Shattuck Ave., Suite 7. Fee is $25. For information call 883-9312. 

Fabulous Fruits, an introduction to gardening with fruit trees at 10 a.m. at Magic Gardens, 729 Heinz Ave. 644-2351. 

Authors Dinner in support of the Berkeley Public Library Foundation at 7 p.m. at the Berkeley Public Library. 981-6115.  

Piedmont Children’s Choir Auditions for ages 7-10, between 9:30 a.m. and noon. Children with no experience are encouraged to apply. To arrange an appointment call 547-4441, ext. 2. 

Yoga for Seniors at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant St., on Saturdays from 10 to 11 a.m. Open to non-members of the club for $8 per class. 848-7800. 

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

Car Wash Benefit for Options Recovery Services of Berkeley, held every Sat. from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Lutheran Church, 1744 University Ave. 666-9552. 

SUNDAY, FEB. 1 

Geological Voyage Through Time The earth’s continents have moved in marvelous ways over the last billion years! After a slide show review, we'll make a flip-book of the supercontinent Pangaea breaking up to form today’s land masses. From 2 to 4 p.m. at Tilden Nature Area, in Tilden Park. Wheelchair accessible. Registration required. Cost is $5, non-residents $7. 525-2233. tnarea@ebparks.org  

“African American Women in California History” with Shirley Ann Wilson Moore, Professor of History at CSU, Sacramento, at 2 p.m. at the Oakland Museum of California, 10th and Oak Sts. 238-2200. www.museumca.org 

Tibetan Buddhism, Abbe Blum on “Balance, Insight and Relaxation,” at 6 p.m. at the Tibetan Nyingma Institute, 1815 Highland Pl. 843-6812. www.nyingmainstitute.com 

Eckhart Tolle Talks on Video, free gatherings at 6:30 p.m. to hear the words of the author of “The Power of Now” at the Feldenkrais Ctr., 830 Bancroft Way. 547-2024. EdScheuerlein@aol.com 

MONDAY, FEB. 2 

The Mayor’s Task Force on Permitting and Development will be discussed by former City Council members Polly Armstrong and Nancy Skinner and League of Women Voters member, Jean Safir who served on the Task Force. The report is scheduled to come before the City Council on Feb. 17. Sponsored by the League of Women Voters. The public is welcome. At 6:30 p.m. Berkeley Central Library, 2090 Kittredge St., 3rd floor meeting room. 843-8824. 

The Oakland/East Bay Chapter of the National Organization for Women will hold its monthly meeting at 6 p.m., at the Oakland YWCA, 1515 Webster St. Our treasurer will discuss the history of Oakland/ 

East Bay NOW. Then we will brainstorm what our chapter’s goals should be in 2004. For more information call 287-8948. 

“Uncovered: The Whole Truth About the Iraq War,” video followed by discussion, at 7 p.m. at Walden Pond Books, 3316 Grand Avenue, Oakland. Note change in location. Donation $1. Sponsored by East Bay Community Against the War. 658-8994. www.ebcaw.org 

Tea at Four Enjoy some of the best teas from the other side of the Pacific Rim and learn their cultural and natural history. Then take a walk to see wintering birds and dormant ladybeetles, from 4 to 5:30 p.m. at Tilden Nature Area, in Tilden Park. Registration required. Cost is $5 for residents, $7 for non-residents. Wheelchair accessible. 525-2233. 

“Invasive Species in the SF Bay” with Roger Buttermore who will tell us about voracious crustaceans, smothering seaweeds and other threats at 7 p.m. in the Edith Stone Room at Albany Community Center, 1249 Marin, Albany. 848-9358. www.fivecreeks.org 

Fitness for 55+ A total body workout including aerobics, stretching and strengthing at 1:15 p.m. at the South Berkeley Senior Center. 981-5170. 

Berkeley CopWatch organizational meeting at 8 p.m. at 2022 Blake St. Join us to work on current issues around police misconduct. Volunteers needed. For information call 548-0425. 

TUESDAY, FEB. 3 

“Whales, Bears, Eagles and Icebergs: The Wonders of Alaska” with wildlife photographer Ron Sanford at 7 p.m. at REI, 1338 San Pablo Ave. 527-4140. 

“Conscience and the Constitution” a film about the incarceration of Japanese Americans during WW2, at 6 p.m. at Rockridge Branch Library, 5366 College Ave. Sponsored by Refuse and Resist. 704-5293. 

Writers’ Room Coach Training is offered from 7 to 9:30 p.m. for volunteers who would like to help students improve their writing and critical thinking skills. To attend please call Terry Bloomburgh at 849-4134 or email Bloomburgh@sbcglobal.net 

“Taking Care of Your Elderly Parent” meets Tuesdays, Feb. 3 - 24 at 7 p.m. at the Berkeley Richmond Jewish Community Center, 1414 Walnut St. Fee is $40. 848-0327, ext. 112. 

Berkeley Ecological and Safe Trasportation (BEST) monthly meeting at 6 p.m. at the Berkeley Central Library, 2090 Kittredge St. 913-4682. 

“Judaism, What is it all About?” an interactive lecture series with Rabbi Judah Dardik, at 7:30 p.m. on Tuesdays at Beth Jacob Congregation, 3778 Park Blvd., Oakland. 482-1147. www.bethjacoboakland.org 

Tuesday Tilden Walkers We are a few slowpoke seniors who walk between a mile or two each Tuesday, meeting at 9:30 a.m. in the Little Farm parking lot. To join us, call 215-7672.  

St. John’s Prime Timers meets at 9:30 a.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. Paul Bendix, Transportation Advocate, will talk about Amtrak’s Coast Starlight and the future of Amtrak at 11 a.m. 845-6830. 

Berkeley Camera Club meets at 7:30 p.m., at the Northbrae Community Church, 941 The Alameda. Share your slides and prints and learn what other photographers are doing. Monthly field trips. 234-4783. www.berkeleycameraclub.org 

WEDNESDAY, FEB. 4 

Public Meeting/Workshop on West Street, formerly Santa Fe Railroad Right of Way, Improvement Project for Bikeway and Pedestrian Path that will run from Delaware St. to University Ave., at 7 p.m. at Ala Costa Center, 1300 Rose St. For information call Niran at 981-6396 or Michael at 981-2490. 

Lynne Stewart will speak at 6 p.m. at Boalt Law School, UC Campus. Sponsored by the National Laywers Guild. For more information call 684-8270. www.lynnstewart.org 

Want your country back? Join your neighbors at the next Meet-up for Democratic presidential Candidate Howard Dean. Learn more about Dr. Dean, and what you can do to make a difference, at 7 p.m. at three Berkeley locations: Au Coquelet, 2000 University Ave., Sweet Basil Thai, 1736 Solano Ave., and Raleigh's, 2438 Telegraph Ave. 843-8724. http://Dean2004.Meetup.com.  

Northbrae Community Church monthly dinner at 6 p.m. at 941 The Alameda. The Berkeley Camera Club will show slides on “Bhutan and Nepal.” Dinner cost is $7.50 for adults, $3.50 for children. For reservations call 526-3805.  

Fun with Acting class meets at 11 a.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Free, all are welcome. 985-0373. 

Prose Writers Workshop We're a serious but lively bunch whose focus is on issues of craft. 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. 

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. 

Berkeley Peace Walk and Vigil at the Berkeley BART Sta- 

tion, corner of Shattuck and Center. Vigil at 6:30 p.m. followed by Peace Walk at 7 p.m. www.geocities.com/vigil4peace/vigil 

Amnesty International Berkeley Community Group meets the first and third Wednesdays of the month at 7 p.m. at the Berkeley Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, 1606 Bonita Ave., at Cedar St. Join fellow human rights activists to help promote social justice one individual at a time. 872-0768. 

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

Berkeley Communicators Toastmasters meets the first and third Wednesdays of the month at 7:15 a.m. at Hide-A-Way Café, 6430 Telegraph Ave. For information call Fred Garvey, 925-682-1111, ext. 164. 

Community Dances, traditional English and American dances, at 8 p.m. every Wednesday, $9. 7 p.m. first Sunday, $10. Grace North Church, 2138 Cedar St. 233-5065. www.bacds.org 

Free Feldenkrais ATM Classes for adults 55 and older at 10:30 and 11:45 a.m. at the Jewish Community Center, 1414 Walnut at Rose. For information call 848-0237. 

THURSDAY, FEB. 5 

Tuesday Morning Birdwalk at Tilden Nature Center from 7:30 to 9:30 a.m. Call if you need to borrow binoculars. 525-2233. 

“Insurrection: Citizen Challenges to Corporate Power” with Kevin Danaher and Jason Mark from 7 to 9 p.m. at the Ecology Center, 2530 San Pablo Ave, near Dwight Way. 548-2220, ext. 233.  

Alameda County Measure A organizing committee to support the initiave which would raise the sales tax to support our county’s public health system from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m at District 5 headquarters, 2135 Broadway, Oakland.  

“The Bancroft Library: Past, Present, and Future” with Charles Faulhaber, Director of The Bancroft Library, at 6 p.m. at the Society of California Pioneers, 300 Fourth St. at Folsom in SF. 415-957-1849. www.californiapioneers.org 

“How the West was Made: Faults, Plates, and Other Geological Wonders” with Dr. Tanya Atwater, award-winning professor of geophysics at U.C. Santa Barbara, at 7:30 p.m. at The College Preparatory School, Buttner Auditorium, 6100 Broadway (north), Oakland. Cost is $5-$10. 658-5202.  

Presentations and Public Dialogue on 9/11, Demolishing Pretexts For The “War On Terror” at 6:30 p.m. at 1924 Cedar St. at Bonita. Sponsored by the Social Justice Committee of the Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists. Suggested donation $5. 527-7543.  

Berkeley Liberation Radio 104.1 FM holds public meetings for all interested people first and third Thursdays, 7 p.m. at the Long Haul Info Shop, 3124 Shattuck Ave. 595-0190.  

ONGOING 

KPFA Candidate Forums for Local Station Board will be aired on Berkeley Community Media Channel 33, at 6 a.m. and 8 p.m. through Feb. 1. More information available at www.kpfa.org 

Young People’s Symphony Orchestra misses its alums! As our nation’s second oldest youth orchestra, based in Berkeley, YPSO is in possession of a treasure trove of memorabilia dating as far back as 1936. To preserve and share these photographs, letters, programs and other interesting materials YPSO is creating a Digital Online Museum. If you participated in the Young People’s Symphony Orchestra please contact David Davis at davisde@yogashorts.com or 543-4054. 

Did Your Family Live in Berkeley from 1890 to1925? This spring the Berkeley Historical Society is opening an exhibit on early Berkeley Bohemians, artists, poets, writers, musicians, photographers and other creative folks who lived in our city 1890-1925. If your family was here then, check your photo albums and other records to see if you have any photos or personal accounts of these activities. If so, we would like to try to include this information in our exhibit. If you can help, please contact Ed Herny, co-curator for this exhibit at 415-725-4674 or by e-mail at edphemra@pacbell.net  

Support the Berkeley Public Library On-line Auction Visit www.bplf.org and bid to name a character in a work by Michael Chabon, have dinner with Elizabeth Farnsworth and Khaled Hosseini, let Bill Schechner tell your story, work with Adair Lara on a memoir, hear Maxine Hong Kingston at your book club, and much more. 981-6115. 

Vocal Jazz Workshops on Saturdays for teenagers and adults, beginners and intermediate, begin Feb. 7 and run to April 10, at the Albany Community Center, 1249 Marin Ave. Cost is $122 for Albany residents, $132 for others. 524-9283. 

Tae-Bo, a cardiovascular workout composed of kick punches and stretches will be offered at Frances Albrier Recreation Center, 2800 Park St., on Tuesdays & Thursdays, 6:30-7:30 p.m. Cost is $20 per month or $4 drop-in. For information call 981-6640.  

Voice Technique Classes for Adults begin Feb. 11. Cost is $290 for 8 wks. Ongoing classes for children and teens. Verna Winter Studio, 1312 Bonita Ave. 524-1601. 

Valentine Day Weddings The Alameda County Clerk-Recorder’s Office is pleased to announce that the office will be open Valentine’s Day, Sat., Feb. 14 from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. to issue marriage licenses and perform wedding ceremonies. The office is located at 1106 Madison Street, in Oakland. The fee for a marriage license is $79, which includes one certified copy. The fee for a ceremony is $50 (cash or checks accepted). Interested parties should make an appointment. 272-6362.  

CITY MEETINGS 

Council Agenda Committee meets Mon., Feb. 2, Mon. at 2:30 p.m., at 2180 Milvia St., Sherry M. Kelly, city clerk, 981-6900. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/ 

citycouncil/agenda-committee 

Landmarks Preservation Commission meets Mon. Feb. 2, 7:30 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Gisele Sorensen, 981-7419. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/landmarks 

Berkeley Rent Stabilization Board meets Mon., Feb. 2,  

at 7 p.m., in City Council Chambers, Pam Wyche 644-6128 ext. 113. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/rent 

Peace and Justice Commission meets Mon., Feb. 2, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Manuel Hector, 981-5510. www.ci.berkeley.ca. 

us/commissions/peaceandjustice 

Youth Commission meets Mon., Feb. 2, at 6:30 p.m., at 1730 Oregon St. Philip Harper-Cotton, 981-6670. www.ci. 

berkeley.ca.us/commissions/youth 

Commission on the Status of Women meets Wed., Feb. 4, at 7:30 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Ruby Primus, 981-5106. www.ci.berkeley.ca. 

us/commissions/women 

Fire Safety Commission meets Wed., Feb. 4, at 7:30 p.m. at the Emergency Operations Center, 997 Cedar St. David Orth, 981-5502. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/firesafety 

Community Environmental Advisory Commission meets Thurs., Feb. 5, at 7 p.m., at 2118 Milvia St. Nabil Al-Hadithy, 981-7461. www.ci. 

berkeley.ca.us/commissions/environmentaladvisory 

Housing Advisory Commission meets Thurs. Feb. 5 at 7:30 p.m., at the South Berkeley Senior Center. Oscar Sung, 981-5400. www.ci.berkeley.ca. 

us/commissions/housing 

Public Works Commission meets Thurs., Feb. 5, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Jeff Egeberg, 981-6406. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/publicworks 

West Berkeley Project Area Commission meets Thurs. Feb. 5, at 7 p.m., at the West Berkeley Senior Center. 981-7520. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/westberkeley

REALITY CHECK 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Thank you for giving us Michael Rossman’s reality check on Saint Kerr (“Free Speech Movement Activist Finds Tarnish On Clark Kerr’s Legacy,” Daily Planet, Jan. 23-26). Could you induce Rossman to provide a follow-up piece on how the Smithsonian emasculated the Enola Gay exhibit on Clark Kerr’s watch?  

Gilbert Bendix 

• 

GREATEST OF EDUCATORS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

What are Michael Rossman’s credentials that would justify publication of his denigration of Clark Kerr? Kerr was greatest of educators. Anyone who could garner the ill-will of Ronald Reagan must have been a noble person. 

Karl Kasten 

Professor Emeritus  

• 

CHARITABLE ANALYSIS 

Michael Rossman has given us his version of the Free Speech Movement’s struggles with Clark Kerr—a view from “Ground Zero, in the actual trenches of making history”—and also his opinions about Kerr as an educator. 

Kerr—Quaker and man of peace—probably was unprepared for the determination and brashness of the FSM activists. Wanting to keep the Berkeley campus operating, he sought compromises, which satisfied no one, least of all the regents and Gov. Reagan, who soon fired him. 

Can Rossman imagine the range of interests continually pulling on the chief administrator of a multi-purpose, multi-campus public university? By what standard, one may ask, should the interests of 1,000 student activists have been allowed to disrupt the work of the 30,000 other students and faculty? 

From my several years working with Kerr, I think he was well aware that huge universities could be “depersonalizing,” as Rossman charges. Thus he regarded creation of the Santa Cruz campus, with its smallish colleges and relatively close student-faculty contact, as one of his signal accomplishments. 

Rossman worte that Kerr ha no “vision...geared to deep values.” On the contrary, one of his “deep values” most certainly was the idea of access—that virtually any high school graduate in California could aspire to a college degree—via UC, CSU, and the community colleges—at very low cost (then). This was the 1960 Master Plan, of which Kerr was chief author. 

He believed in experimentation and innovation in higher education. In one of the first reports from the Carnegie Commission on Higher Education, Kerr proposed a federal agency, which became the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education, that over the years funded thousands of innovative projects on all sorts of campuses. 

Michael Rossman and his FSM colleagues did indeed make history—in the sense of triggering a national and international student protest movement. But so also did Clark Kerr, with his vision of (and design for) inexpensive higher education for all. 

One might have expected Rossman, aside from the target of his ire being no longer alive to rebut, to have been more charitable in his analysis—if for no other reason than without Clark Kerr, Rossman himself might never have become the history-maker he indicates he was. 

Richard Peterson 

Sonora 

THE OBVIOUS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

To state the obvious, why can’t immigrants buy an English/whatever dictionary and take same to the doctor’s office, and point to proper word or sentence? What’s wrong with pointing to the back of your open mouth and saying, “Have sore throat,” etc.? How come when we take vacations to other countries we don’t demand translators??? Is there no end to our collective stupidity? 

You people are nuts. 

David Seamen  

• 

SCHOOL FLOODING 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I am responding to the letter written by Yolanda Huang (Daily Planet, Jan. 16-19) regarding the flooding that occurred at Malcolm X. Ms Huang stated, “The cure for flooding at Malcolm X is estimated to be at least $44,000, while a simple half hour of raking leaves would probably have prevented the flooding.” “Probably” was not the case; the problem was a flood, a torrent of water that no drains could handle because of the volume of water that was flowing from the street. Our drains were clear and running. 

Because I have been working here as the BUSD Grounds Supervisor for the past two years I am proud of the services that my staff provides the district improve and have seen dramatic improvement in these two years. We have seven gardeners who maintain 106 acres of grounds, and we are adding new landscapes all the time, thanks to the generosity of Berkeley residents. We have a new 20,000-square-foot lawn at Cragmont, and another 20,000-square-foot lawn at King. My staff works in partnership with parents to create these environments Ms. Huang so unkindly attacks. Since she herself has created beautiful gardens she should recognize how much time, love and caring our schools require. The maintenance department works very hard to keep our schools looking good, and do so with a lot of personal pride. Now she says that our hard-working gardeners can’t even rake leaves. W e believe our entire district is moving in a positive direction, so we are both hurt and offended by this attack. 

John W. Crockett  

BUSD Grounds Supervisor 

• 

SEPARATE BUT EQUAL 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

It is the 50th anniversary of Brown vs. Board of Education and the issue of “separate but equal” has reared its ugly head yet again. The school board in all their wisdom appears to be fighting against Prop. 209, the separate but equal policy implemented to “re-segregate” schools. Pacific Legal Foundation, why now? 

My father integrated LSU in 1950. He was the first black American to attend the law school. I grew up in Berkeley. I was bussed in order to create diversity in Berkeley Schools in the ‘60s. I cannot express the priceless benefits attained from being in a diverse classroom! What a concept, integration in education then and now… 

As the parent of two little girls who attend Emerson Elementary, I am amazed at how easily the children parlay amongst each other. A second year law student and volunteer at KPFA, I am time-challenged in many ways. However, I contribute and volunteer when possible. I sit on a committee or two. This is the continued legacy of classroom diversity. 

Berkeley should continue to press on for equality in education. This is where we are different from Oakland and San Francisco who gave up and gave in. Because of the value Berkeley residents place on education, freedom of speech, and equal protection under the law, our city and schools are healthier, more efficient and holistic. Our streets are safer. The relationship between Berkeley Police Department and residents is one of mutual respect and unencumbered dialogue. I cannot say the same for San Francisco or Oakland. Berkeley has not had to build a juvenile hall or close any schools lately. Nor have we had to pay off victims for the misfeasance of a few rogue cops. No disrespect to San Francisco or Oakland and their decisions to comply with 209. I shudder the thought of looking to the San Francisco or Oakland position on this matter. 

Gabrielle Wilson 

• 

SIDEWALK SAFETY 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Not being terribly stable on my feet and prone to unexpected lurches to the left or right, it is pretty startling and scary when bicyclists or skateboarders unexpectedly whiz by me on sidewalks in Downtown Berkeley. If I was to deviate unexpectedly from my walking path, the approaching bicyclist (which can come from back or front or even from weaving around me and others) could cause me serious harm.  

Riding a bicycle or skateboard on the sidewalks in Downtown Berkeley is not only dangerous to people walking on the sidewalk, but also to people just stepping out from stores onto the sidewalks. And as one gets older, falling can result in injuries involving loss of independence which can be devastating. Also young children can be very unpredictable, you never know when they may suddenly stop or turn or whatever.  

I for one think the Berkeley cops that are giving out tickets for bicycling on sidewalks in Downtown Berkeley are not such terrible villains. In fact, after being narrowly missed by skateboarders and bicyclists on downtown sidewalks, I’ve often wondered with anger why the cops didn’t do anything to protect us pedestrians young and old.  

Pat Nagamoto 

• 

PARKING WOES 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

There’s probably a perfectly logical explanation for the current parking situation around Andronicos on Solano, but I guess I would like to hear it.  

The posted parking restrictions are as follows: 

Fresno: 4 spots yellow zone: No Parking 7 AM - 6 PM 

Solano: 7 meters: No Parking 7 AM - 10 AM, Mon - Sat 

Colusa: 3 spaces: Cones and posted Tow Away signs 

Behind store: Approx 30 spaces reserved for customers 

Fresno: “No through” traffic barrier blocking beyond the store parking lot 

Parking in Berkeley is always a challenge. It has grown increasingly so along Solano with these new restrictions.  

Carolyn La Fontaine 

• 

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Editors, Daily Planet: 

The resolution regarding Rachel Corrie was sent before our city council because peace/human rights workers were being targeted for attack by the Israeli military, a concern that is shared by Amnesty International. Berkeley residents who participate in International Solidarity Movement (ISM) and similar groups that advocate for human rights are at risk. Numerous eyewitnesses of Corrie’s death assert that the driver of the Caterpillar bulldozer saw Rachel and deliberately ran her over, twice. It is possibly an act of murder.  

Tom Hurndall, a British citizen, and also a volunteer with ISM, was shot by an Israeli sniper within a mile of where Rachel was killed. In that case, after months of pressure by the British government, a thorough investigation was undertaken. This resulted in the arrest of the Israeli soldiers responsible and retraction of the story the Israeli government told for months regarding the facts of that case. 

We mourn all the deaths that have taken place in the conflict; Palestinian, Israeli, and internationals, who have been killed in a conflict fueled by a brutal military occupation. I would concur that any attack on civilians is a human rights violation. However, the Israeli and U.S. government already has investigated the deaths of those U.S. citizens killed in suicide bombings and attacks conducted by Palestinians. Is Mr.Gertz saying that the U.S. and Israeli authorities are negligent in that regard as well?  

And what of the Palestinian children and civilians killed and injured by the Israeli military? Like Hurndall’s mother, we ask if they are “children of a lesser god?” Why no Congressional resolution regarding their deaths, and continued U.S. funding of this conflict without even a debate in Congress? 

I would urge people, who want to read the full text of the Berkeley resolution, and desire more information, including the letter of that the Corrie’s sent the city council, to visit www.tomjoad.org.  

Jim Harris 

• 

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Editors, Daily Planet: 

Thanks for printing the spirited rejoinders to John Gertz’ ghoulish smear of Rachel Corrie and the Berkeley City Council (“Corrie ‘Parable’ Evokes Spirited Replies,” Daily Planet, Jan. 27-29). Good for them all, and shame on the pathetic Mr. Gertz. 

I found the quotation in this letter in one of the saddest antiwar books I’ve read, In Flanders Fields, by Leon Wolff, a military historian. Read it in a military history course in college 40-odd years ago, and rediscovered it gathering dust on a Commonwealth Club shelf last year. To wit: 

“As the sordid, shameful Bush/Blair Iraq debacle proceeds with all the inevitability of a Greek tragedy, a chilling passage in David Lloyd George’s 

war memoirs from 70 years ago provides a painfully apt analogy. Regarding his cheery top general, Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig—whose predictably doomed 1917 offensive squandered hundreds of thousands of lives in the ghastly bog of Flanders, the wartime Prime Minister wrote: 

“It naturally pleased Haig to have carefully chosen and nicely cooked little tidbits of “intelligence” about broken German divisions, heavy German 

casualties, and diminishing German morale served up to him....He beamed satisfaction and confidence. His great plan was prospering. The whole 

atmosphere of this secluded little community reeked of that sycophantic optimism which is the curse of autocratic power...” 

And so it goes. 

Kenneth E. Scudder 

San Francisco 

• 

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Editors, Daily Planet: 

For those in the Berkeley community who do not know, the BUSD Food Service Departments’ dedicated, long-term, hard-working, non-management personal have been served some bad fare recently by the BUSD Board of Education in the form of layoffs and reduced salaries—all due to no fault of their own. How could this happen when only two and a half years ago that department had $1.2 million in reserve?  

What happened was the Berkeley Board of Education chose to hire, at the recommendation of Superintendent Michele Lawrence, an inexperienced director to operate the department—in doing so, the board chose to eliminate several highly qualified candidates—one of whom piloted a revenue-generating organic food program at Santa Monica USD, and to this day, remains highly successful and revenue-generating. The “director” that Berkeley USD hired had no formal education to run such a multi-million dollar department and came from a school district where she was in middle management performing a simple supervisory role. This newly hired director didn’t even have the financial background to write a budget and she asked several of her underlings to either help her write a budget or to simply write it for her during her first year as director. 

Didn’t anyone in the department alert the district to this person’s true lack of experience or how she was performing once hired? 

I did, and I stood before the Berkeley USD Board of Education in May 2002, and stated such information to the board. Sadly, my words fell on deaf ears, and as a result of my alert, I became the very first layoff casualty for the department (so much for being a dedicated BUSD employee and alerting the district to a disaster in the making). 

Since this new director has come on-board, the BUSD Food Service Department has lost an average of $70,000 per month. No other school districts’ food service department in the entire Bay Area is losing money.  

Why is BUSD’s Food Service Department losing money and how can someone remain as a director, losing an avenge of $70,000 a month for said department, and still keep their job? I, myself, cannot answer that question—but Superintendent Lawrence and the BUSD Board of Education can—and should—explain to the Berkeley community and to the Food Service non-management staff why keeping this director is justified. 

The time is now for said explanation, Superintendent Lawrence and Berkeley Board of Education. Inquiring minds want to know! 

I also call on any appropriate federal or California state department to launch an investigation into BUSD’s hiring of said Food Service director and her continued employment at BUSD. 

Rick Fuller 

Former BUSD Food Service employee 

Antioch

FRIDAY, JAN. 30 

FILM 

Mann’s World: “Devil’s Doorway” at 7:30 p.m. and “Winchester ‘73” at 9:10 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Faulkner Fox discusses “Dispatches From a Not-So-Perfect Life: Or How I Learned to Love the House, the Man, the Child” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. www.codysbooks.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Dance IS Movement, featuring Company C, Ophelia’s Stage Dance Company, Berkeley Ballet Theater Youth Company, Berkeley High and others at 8 p.m. at Julia Morgan Center for the Arts. Tickets are $10-$15. 925-798-1300. 

Dance Theater of Harlem, at 8 p.m., Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $32-$52. 642-9988. www.calperfs.berkeley.edu 

Hamsa Lila performs acoustic trance music at 9 p.m. at Ashkenez. Cost is $15. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Flautas Internacionales with The Snake Trio at 8:30 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $12 in advance, $14 at the door. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Cascada de Flores, traditional music from Cuba and Mexico’s Gulf coast at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $15.50 in advance, $16.50 at the door. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

ROVA Saxophone Quartet performs post-bop free jazz and avant garde at 8 p.m. at The Jazz House. Sliding scale donation $10-$15. 649-8744.  

www.thejazzhouse.com 

Jackpot, Rich McCully Band, John Blaylock at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $6. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com  

Maseo at 9 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low, 2284 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $15. 548-1159. www.shattuckdownlow.com 

Joshi Marshall & Friends at 9 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

A Kimbo, Plot to Blow Up the Eifel Tower at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St. Cost is $5. 525-9926. 

Mystic Roots at 9:30 p.m. at Blakes on Telegraph. Cost is $7. 848-0886. www.blakesontelegraph.com 

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

SATURDAY, JAN. 31 

FILM 

“Closely Watched Trains,” a film about a train dispatcher in a German-occupied Czech town in 1942, at 8 p.m. at the Long Haul. 3124 Shattuck Ave. Wheelchair accessible. 540-0751. www.thelonghaul.org 

“Viva Chile M...! “ A tribute to the life and work of Fernando Alegría at 4:30 p.m. at La Peña. Cost is $14. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Mann’s World: “Naked Spur” at 7 p.m. and “The Tall Target” at 8:50 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Authors Dinner in support of the Berkeley Public Library Foundation at 7 p.m. at the Berkeley Public Library. 981-6115.  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Dance IS Story, featuring Dohee Lee, Fellow Travelers Performance Group, Berkeley Ballet Theater Youth Company, Mills College, Berkeley High School, at 8 p.m. at Julia Morgan Center for the Arts. Tickets are $10-$15. 925-798-1300. 

Dance Theater of Harlem, at 2 and 8 p.m., Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $32-$52, available from 642-9988. www.calperfs.berkeley.edu 

Magnificat early music at 8 p.m. at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, Ellsworth and Bancroft. 415-979-4500. www.magnificatsf.com  

Oakland Symphony Chorus Discovery Day, a sing-along of Mozart’s C Minor Mass, at 9 a.m. at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church, 6013 Lawton Ave, in Rockridge. Tickets are $30 at the door. 207-4093. www.oaklandsymphonychorus.org 

“Heroes: The Power of Art in Young People’s Lives” a showcase of children in arts programs in Oakland. From 7 to 9 p.m. at First Congregational Church, 2501 Harrison St., at 27th St. Donations benefit youth programs. 444-8511, ext. 15. www.artsfirstoakland.org 

Baksheesh Boys and Brass Meangerie at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $13. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

ROVA Saxophone Quartet performs post-bop free jazz and avant garde at 8 p.m. at The Jazz House. Donation $10-$15. 649-8744. www.thejazzhouse.com 

The Stacks, Flair, The Mitts at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $6. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

Warren Gale Quartet at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $10-$15. 845-5373. www.jazzschool.com 

Fred Randolph Jazz Trio at 9:30 p.m. at Albatross, 1822 San Pablo Ave. Cost is $3. 843-2473. www.albatrosspub.com 

Laura Sawosko and Tree Leyburn at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

Lou and Peter Berryman, folk music’s funniest folks, at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $17.50 in advance, $18.50 at the door. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Pansy Division, Subincision, Readyville at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St. Cost is $5. 525-9926. 

The Fourtet, jazz piano quartet, at 9 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

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

SUNDAY, FEB. 1 

EXHIBITION OPENINGS 

Stephen A. Fisher, “Perspectives” photographs with recurring compositions opens at the Community Art Gallery, Alta Bates Medical Center, 2450 Ashby. Through March 26.  

Margaret Herscher Memorial Exhibition opens at the Kala Art Institute, 1060 Heinz Ave. A life celebration of Margaret’s work will be held from 2 to 4 p.m. Exhibition runs to Feb. 5. 549-2977. www.kala.org 

CHILDREN 

Shabbat Family Art Workshop with Errica Glass from 2 to 4 p.m. at the Berkeley Jewish Community Center, 1414 Walnut St. Cost is $5-$10. Supplies included. 848-0327, ext. 112. 

Bandworks at 2:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $4. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

FILM 

Victor Sjostrom: “The Sons of Ingmar, Parts 1 and 2” at 5:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Rinzler’s Return, a workshop on getting published, with editor Alan Rinzler, at 3 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

Poetry Flash with David Biespiel and Thom Gunn at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. Donation $2. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Dance IS Social Change featuring Big Moves, Dance Access/KIDS!, Rebecca Salzer Dance Theater, Our Thing Performing Arts Company, Destiny Arts, and Omphalos Dance Theater at 2 p.m. at Julia Morgan Center for the Arts. Tickets are $10-$15. 925-798-1300. 

Dance Theater of Harlem at 3 p.m., Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $32-$52, available from 642-9988. www.calperfs.berkeley.edu 

Live Oak Concert with BACH: Baroque and Classical Harmonies at 7:30 p.m. at Berkeley Art Center. Cost is $9-$10. 644-6893. www.berkeleyartcenter.org 

Miles Graber and Arkadi Serper in a concert for two pianos, four hands at 4 p.m. at Crowden School, 1475 Rose St. Tickets are $12. 559-6910. www.crowdenschool.org 

Jewish Love Tales and Songs with Maggid Daniel Lev at 7 p.m. at Chochmat HaLev, 2215 Prince St. Admission is $10. 704-9687. www.chochmat.org 

MONDAY, FEB. 2 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Last Word Poetry Series with Mark States and Paradise at 7 p.m. at Pegasus Books, 2349 Shattuck Ave.  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

“Sweeter Than Roses” with Andrew Lawrence-King, baroque harpist, Zoe Vandermeer, soprano, and Joanna Blendulf, cello at 8 p.m. at Trinity Chapel, 2320 Dana St. Tickets are $12-$18. Reservations suggested. 549-3864.  

TUESDAY, FEB. 3 

FILM 

Robert Beavers: “My Hand Outstreched” Program 1 at 7:30 p.m., with the artist in person, at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Susie Bright introduces “The Best American Erotica 2004” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

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

Jazzschool Tuesdays, a weekly showcase of ensembles from Berkeley Jazzschool at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

WEDNESDAY, FEB. 4 

FILM 

“The Fog of War” clips from the Oscar-nominated documentary followed by a panel discussion between former U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert. S. McNamara and film director Errol Norris. at 7:30 p.m. at Zellerbach Auditorium. Cost is $5 for Commonwealth Club members, $10 for others. Free for UC Berkeley students. 643-3274. 

Film 50: “The General Line” at 3 p.m. and Video: They Might be Giants, “Gary Hill” at 7:30 p.m. at Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa. 

berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES. 

Z.Z. Packer talks about her new book, “Drinking Coffee Elsewhere” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

Berkeley Poetry Slam with host Nazelah Jamison and Karen Ladson at 8:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $7,  

$5 with student i.d. 841-2082.  

www.starryploughpub.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Wednesday Noon Concert with Perfect Fifth, 16-voice a cappella ensemble, at International House, Piedmont Ave. at Bancroft. 642-4864. http://music.berkeley.edu 

Jonathan Lemalu, baritone, with Malcolm Martineau, piano, at 8 p.m. at First Congregational Church, 2345 Channing Way. Tickets are $46. 642-9988. www.calperfs.berkeley.edu 

Dennis Kamakahi, Cyril Pahinui and Cindy Combs, Hawaiian singers and guitarists at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $17.50 in advance, $18.50 at the door. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Bandworks at 7:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $4. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Nicole and the Sisters in Soul at 9:30 p.m. at Beckett’s Irish Pub, 2271 Shattuck Ave. 647-1790. www.beckettsirishpub.com 

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

Vince Wallace Jazz Machine at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Safeway, Implied Five, The Hunks at 9:30 p.m. at Blakes on Telegraph. Cost is $5.  

848-0886. www.blakesontelegraph.com 

THURSDAY, FEB. 5 

EXHIBITION OPENINGS 

“Time’s Shadow: Photographs from the Jan Leonard and Jerrold Peil Collection” opens at the Berkeley Art Museum, Theater Gallery and runs through Aug. 8. 2626 Bancroft Way. 642-0808. 

THEATER 

Aurora Theatre, “Man of Destiny” by George Bernard Shaw, directed by Barbara Oliver at 8 p.m., through March 7. 843-4822. www.auroratheatre.org 

FILM 

They Might be Giants: “The Passing” at 5:30 p.m. and Robert Beavers “My Hand Outstretched” Program 2 at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Lunch Poems with Maxine Hong Kingston at 12:10 p.m. in the Morrison Library in Doe Library, UC Campus. Free. 642-0137. http://lunchpoems.berkeley.edu 

Alice Flaherty discusses “The Midnight Disease: The Drive to Write, Writer’s Block, and the Creative Brain” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

Sayre Van Young, a Berkeley research librarian, introduces us to “London’s War: A Traveler’s guide to World War II,” at 7:30 p.m. at Easy Going Bookstore, 1385 Shattuck Ave. 843-3533. 

Word Beat Reading Series at 7 p.m. with Barbara Minton and Grace Morizawa, at Mediterraneum Caffe, 2475 Telegraph Ave. 526-5985.  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

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

George Pederson and His Pretty Good Band at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $5. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

Vanessa Lowe and Bug-eyed Sprite, acoustic, experi-pop quartet at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $15.50 in advance, $16.50 at the door. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

San Francisco Medicine Ball at 9:30 p.m. at Beckett’s Irish Pub, 2271 Shattuck Ave. 647-1790. www.beckettsirishpub.com 

Savant Guard at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

FRIDAY, FEB. 6 

EXHIBITION OPENINGS 

Frank Garvey “Genetically Modified Surrealism” new paintings, drawings and prints. Reception for the artist from 5 to 7 p.m. at Epic Arts Gallery, 1923 Ashby Ave. 644-2204. www.epicarts.org 

Hilda Robinson “The Art of Living Black,” oil pastels, opens at the Women’s Cancer Resource Center, 5741 Telegraph Ave. 601-4040, ext. 111. www.wcrc.org 

THEATER 

Actor’s Ensemble of Berkeley, “Helen of Troy (Revised),” written by Wolfgang Hilesheimer, translated and directed by David Fenerty at 8 p.m. at Live Oak Theater, 1301 Shattuck. Fri. and Sat. evenings through Feb. 21. Admission is $10. 649-5999. www.aeofberkeley.org 

Albany High School, “Grease” at 8 p.m. at Albany High School Little Theaer, 603 Key Route Blvd. Also on Sat. at 1 and 8 p.m. and Sun. at 2 p.m. Tickets are $5-$10, 558-2575. 

Aurora Theatre, “Man of Destiny” by George Bernard Shaw, directed by Barbara Oliver at 8 p.m. Through March 7. 843-4822. www.auroratheatre.org 

Berkeley Repertory Theater, “Yellowman” by Dael Orlandersmith, directed by Les Waters, 2025 Addison St. Through March 7. 647-2949. www.berkeleyrep.org 

Impact Theater, “Say You Love Satan” opens at 8 p.m. at La Val’s Subterranean, 1834 Euclid, and runs through March 13. 464-4468. www.impacttheater.com 

Independent Theater Projects, “Three One-Acts”, performed and produced by Berkeley High students, at 8 p.m. at the Hillside Club, 2286 Cedar St. Tickets are $4-$8 at the door. gcrane0601@hotmail.com 

Bill Santiago’s “Spanglish 101” at 8 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $10. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

FILM 

Workshop with Robert Beavers at 3 p.m. and Anthony Mann: “The Great Flamarion” at 7:30 p.m. and “Strange Impersonation” at 9:10 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Merce Cunningham Dance Company at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $26-$46, available from 642-9988. www.calperfs.berkeley.edu 

Mozart Birthday Celebration with the San Francisco Chamber Orchestra, at 8 p.m. at First Congregational Church, 2345 Channing Way. Tickets are $20. 415-392-4400. www.sfchamberorchestra.org 

Ives Quartet, “Les Vendredis” featuring chamber works by Russian composers, at 8 p.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. Tickets are $10-$18. 415-883-0727. 

The Christy Dana Quartet at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. 524-1124. 

Viviane e Prefixo de Verão, from Brazil, at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $13. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Route 111, Thriving Ivory, Polly’s Orchid at 9:30 p.m. at Blakes on Telegraph. Cost is $6. 848-0886. www.blakesontelegraph.com 

Pete Best Experience, Cover Girls at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $5. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

Triple Play, jazz trio, at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

Ira Marlowe at 8 p.m. at The Jazz House. Sliding scale donation $10-$15. 649-8744. www.thejazzhouse.com 

Denise Perrier at 8:30 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810. 

Quetzal at 9:30 p.m. benefit for Urban Promise Academy, at Shattuck Down Low, 2284 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $10. 548-1159. www.shattuckdownlow.com 

Steve Seskin & Allen Shambkin at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $17.50 advance, $18.50 at the door. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

The Katy Jay Band at 9:30 p.m. at Beckett’s Irish Pub, 2271 Shattuck Ave. 647-1790. www.beckettsirishpub.com 

Good Clean Fun, Time for Living, Kill the Messenger, Case of Emergency, at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St. Cost is $5. 525-9926. 

Flowtilla at 9 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Teed Rockwell, Hindustani classical music at 8 p.m. at Bansuri’s Spring Gallery, 3929 Piedmont Ave. Oakland. 594-0754. www.bansuri.net 

About 30 protesters withstood steady drizzle early Thursday morning, worried that once Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) completes its newest laboratory complex, far smaller, more dangerous particles could rain down on them. 

“We don’t know anything at all about the health effects or environmental impact of what they’re doing here,” said Tom Kelly of the Community Health Commission. 

This morning (Friday, Jan. 30), LBNL breaks ground on its Molecular Foundry. The six-story, 94,000-square-foot facility, financed by $84 million from the Department of Energy, will catapult the lab into the forefront of nanotechnology, one of the fastest-growing but least-understood disciplines of physics. 

Nanoparticles are up to 100,000 times smaller than a human hair, but when properly manipulated, they have applications in every field from environmental preservation to repair of spinal tissues and creation of weapons of mass destruction. 

Demonstrators assembled outside the lab’s entrance questioned how the new building—planned to sit just above a watershed 600 meters from an earthquake fault—could have evaded a rigorous environmental review. They doubted the lab’s capacity to keep nano-particles from escaping into air and possibly drifting into their lungs, and they questioned the lab’s will to keep potential contaminates from seeping into nearby creeks that feed the Bay. 

“They’re wearing blinders on this project,” said Community Environmental Advisory Commission (CEAC) member LA Wood. “Not only do they not know the science, but they’re disregarding the environmental contamination of the hill.” 

Last year the city council rejected CEAC’s call to request the lab perform an Environmental Impact Report on the project. Aware that nanotechnology is too new for an EIR to analyze potential inhalation risks, CEAC has called for the lab to hire an independent auditor to perform an annual review of the foundry’s operations, as well as clean up soil and ground water contaminated with radioactive tritium just uphill from the foundry sight and bar new construction while other buildings on their 200-acre Berkeley Hills campus remained vacant.  

Lab spokeswoman Terry Powell has said in previous interviews that tritium levels were within federal standards and the lab would consider annual external reviews for work at the foundry.

Chanting “Hey! Hey! Ho! Ho! M-T-O has got to go!”, an overflow crowd of city workers told the Berkeley City Council Tuesday night that a city manager’s mandatory time off (M-T-O) proposal to help close the budget gap wasn’t acceptable to the city’s non-public safety unions. 

The dispute surfaced on the same night the public learned that union officials and representatives of the city manager’s office have been holding productive weekly meetings over the past few months to discuss the budget crisis—resulting in one agreement that could save Berkeley close to half a million dollars a year in workers’ compensation costs. 

Earlier, at the council’s 5 p.m. working session, City Manager Phil Kamlarz gave the grim current details of Berkeley’s present budget problems, reporting that the city faces a budget shortfall of close to $10 million for all funds for the upcoming fiscal year (fiscal year 2005), rising to a $19.5 million gap by fiscal year 2009. 

Kamlarz wants to close the budget gap with a combination of cost-cutting and revenue-raising plans, including putting a possible tax-increase measure on the November ballot. The council will discuss the proposals in a series of public working sessions between now and late March. 

Among the more controversial proposals is the possible consolidation or elimination of some city commissions—but perhaps not as controversial as the mandatory city close-for-a-day idea. The fire on that one came at 7 p.m. Tuesday night, when more than 100 purple-sweatshirt-clad workers representing Berkeley’s various Service Employees International Union locals packed council chambers to capacity, with uniformed police officers blocking the stairway to keep the overflow crowd from coming up. 

The union members turned out to protest Kamlarz’ request for authorization to “meet and confer” with SEIU officials over mandatory one-day-a-month city shutdowns. The city manager projected the proposed shutdowns would generate $1.2 million a year in savings, once implemented at the start of the new fiscal year in July. 

When Councilmember Gordon Wozniak said a failure to adopt such cost-cutting measures might lead to the more drastic step of permanent layoffs, several union members in the audience called out, “Lay them off!” 

Councilmembers authorized the negotiations on an 8-1 vote, with Kriss Worthington dissenting after he was turned down on his request for the “meet and confer” language to be removed—language he said “targets certain employees in what could be perceived as an antagonistic way”—and suggested that the city manager should “explore the whole range of budget options” with the unions, calling that “a more nuanced and respectful approach.” 

Following the vote, union members filed out of the meeting with calls of “This ain’t over,” “I didn’t think this was a kingdom,” and “Remember who got you in, Tom. We can take you out.” 

Kamlarz said after the meeting that the “meet and confer” language in the resolution was necessary to put the unions on notice about the mandatory time off proposals. Without the language, he said, one-day city closings could not be implemented. 

Earlier, City Building Inspector Sharon Crosby, representing Service Employees International Union Local 535, told the council, “I want to thank the city for really working with the unions over the past several months. I really want to stress that they have been meeting cooperatively with us.” 

But to applause and shouts of approval from the assembled union members, Crosby went on to oppose the mandatory time off proposal. “We’d like to ask [the council] to not give authorization to open our contract. We’d like to look at efficiency. We’d like to look at reductions within the departments before you go to M-T-O. I just think that it’s a matter of respect. To ask us to give up wages and then continue to come to work with a smile on our faces—that just makes it hard. We would like to work cooperatively with the city in terms of reducing the budget, but M-T-O is not the way. We think that V-T-O [voluntary time off] is the way to go.” 

Sandra Lewis, East Bay Regional Vice President of SEIU Local 790, said, “We all know that there has to be savings. But using the word ‘mandatory’ is not going to get us there. We have been building up a relationship with the city manager to work together to solve our problems. Putting that whip over our head and using that word ‘mandatory’ is just going to put us further apart from each other. If you authorize the city manager to mandate that we take this one day off, I guarantee you, you’re not going to save any money.” 

In the earlier budget working session, the city manager’s office released a 45-page document giving the first details of proposed cuts to Berkeley’s upcoming budget. Cuts ranged from the reducing the “number and quality of meals served to the council and staff as part of council meetings” (at a savings of $3,000) to the elimination of some 90 full-time or part-time city jobs, of which nearly 50 are currently filled. 

The proposed reductions amount to a little over $6 million a year in savings, with outgoing Budget Director Paul Navazio stressing that this left a “$2 million to $3 million recurring problem thereafter,” even after the 2005 budget is balanced. 

Tuesday was Navazio’s last official Berkeley City Council meeting before he leaves to take a similar job in Davis.

A lawsuit filed early last week in San Francisco Superior Court by the Center for Environmental Health in North Oakland and another Bay Area activist organization could force the growing farmed salmon industry to radically change the way their product is raised. 

And at the very least, the lawsuit shines a spotlight on massive changes in the commercial fishing business. 

Brought against 50 of the largest farmed-salmon producers and retailers, the suit claims the companies violate California’s Proposition 65 anti-toxins law because they don’t warn consumers about potentially dangerous levels of PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls) in the fish. 

Based on reports released by the Environmental Working Group (the co-plaintiff) and the peer-reviewed journal Science, the groups are asking farmed salmon producers to stop using feed that is high in fatty fish and fish oils because PCBs—carcinogens banned in 1976—tend to concentrate in fats.  

Both reports show that tests of farmed salmon from companies in United States, Canada, Scotland, England, and Norway reveal PCB levels that would raise health concerns under guidelines established by the Environmental Protection Agency.  

Prop. 65, passed by voters in 1986, requires businesses to notify Californians about significant levels of toxic chemicals in products they purchase. Farmed salmon companies however, have found a loophole in the structure because the EPA guidelines only apply to wild salmon.  

After the reports were released, representatives cited the FDA standards to defend their product —but critics say those levels were originally set in 1984 and have not been reset due to heavy lobbying by the farmed salmon industry. 

A representative from the FDA said the department is not concerned with the report and is still encouraging consumers to eat the fish. 

EPA levels set in 1999 “are 500 times more protective than the PCB limits applied by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to commercially-sold fish,” the report says.  

“In the intervening two decades new scientific research has shown that PCBs that build up in fish and people are more potent cancer-causing agents than originally believed.” 

“Under the law, the only thing the company has to do is put a [warning] label, but because it is so market-driven, they don’t want to,” said Joanna Mattson, a toxics researcher with CEH. Instead, “we use the law to force them to reformulate.” 

Both groups stress the specificity of the case, saying the suit aims to change the feeding process, not discourage people from eating fish. 

Berkeley’s well-known Berkeley Bowl supermarket was one of the test sites in the EWG study that took samples from stores in Portland, Ore., the Bay Area, and Washington D.C. last May. The fish in question came from SalmoCo, a farmed salmon company in Scotland—and, like the rest, their meat showed high levels of PCBs. 

According Ted Iijima, fish department manager at the Berkeley Bowl, the store has discontinued most farmed salmon, both as a result of the reports and because their supplier switched the type of salmon they sold. He estimates that it now constitutes less than one percent of total sales. 

On the other hand, he says, salmon is the fish department’s biggest seller. He now buys between 1,000-3,000 pounds twice a week. 

“Salmon here is our bread and butter,” he said. “If we couldn’t sell salmon I’d half to let go of half my people.” 

Salmon sales according to several reports have steadily grown for years, promoted as a heart-healthy protein source. According to the EWG report, salmon overtook “fish sticks” last year as the third most popular seafood in the American diet, behind tuna and shrimp. They say 23 million Americans eat salmon more than once a month, most of it farmed. 

Shelly Heart, an Oakland resident shopping for salmon at Berkeley Bowl Wednesday, said her family eats salmon once a week. They don’t eat much farmed salmon because they don’t like the taste. After hearing the report, she says she’ll probably never eat farmed salmon again.  

“As you get older, you have to be careful,” she said. 

Since the report, many sellers have moved to label their wild salmon as an incentive for buyers. Iijima says he’s been labeling the his fish for more than 10 years, but until recently not many people paid attention. 

Several farmed salmon companies, including Black Pearl and Clare Island Sea Farm, have taken the lead in ensuring their salmon are low in PCB levels. According to a Black Pearl press release, contaminant levels are kept down by using fish meal sources “composed of line trimmings from herring, mackerel, shrimp and crustacean (scampi) plants,” creating a product “that is as close to the wild as possible while being certified GMO, animal protein and sea mammal protein-free.” 

More broadly, the tests have helped spotlight the farmed salmon industry as a growing environmental hazard, part of what University of Alberta professor of Biological Sciences John Volpe calls the blue revolution. 

Like the green revolution on land, he said, the blue revolution has increased sea production at the cost of the surrounding environment. In a recent article published in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer Volpe describes some of the risks associated with farmed salmon. 

“Each net pen (numbering in the hundreds on both of Canada’s coasts) is tantamount to an untreated sewer outfall introducing solid and dissolved wastes directly into the marine environment,” he wrote. 

Aquaculture, he said, poses additional environmental risks that could be more severe than those on land.  

“When you try to engage in aquaculture, there are a lot of problems,” he told the Daily Planet. “[Water] doesn’t play by the same rules as a feedlot.” 

He also examined the issue from a social perspective, focusing on the push by industry to increase productivity of the coasts, the last frontier for agriculture. 

“The bottom line is that all the environmental problems we face are physical manifestations of social injustices. This is not a science problem. The multi-nationals are liquidating the natural capital of the coasts,” he said. 

Off the Canadian coast, he said, five multinationals now control 80 percent of the farmed salmon industry. As with land-based industries, he says, the companies are interested in increasing profit margins and slashing costs—resulting in a process he calls bio-amplification. 

The corporations have developed techniques such as feeding the fish high-fat diets and raising them in offshore pens that not only threaten the environment and our health, but also the fishing community’s culture and sustainability.  

Increased production has slashed retail prices, driving out small producers. He points to Chile, where farmed salmon production has skyrocketed. Now, he says, New York fish markets are able to sell farmed Chilean salmon cheaper than wild salmon from Maine. 

Like mining or timber, he says, the companies are eager to extract profit and move on. In the end, the culture that surrounds salmon and salmon fishing could be wiped out.  

Instructors at UC Berkeley Extension’s English Language Program believe politics played a role in the university’s decision Monday to terminate the 31-year-old program. 

Faculty members had filed two unfair labor practice charges before the Public Employee Relations Board (PERB) in December, claiming Extension officials failed to alert faculty members of changes in teacher qualification and layoff policies. 

“Considering the administrative mess they’re in, they couldn’t have picked a more convenient time to close the program,” said Kimberly Green, one of the instructors. 

Margot Rosenberg, the teacher’s attorney, termed the closure “suspicious,” adding the teachers had been a thorn in the side of Extension by challenging layoffs and might next file charges of retaliation. 

The program has offered English instruction to students from all over the world since 1973. Twenty-six teachers are expected to lose their job when the program shuts its doors to its roughly 2,700 students May 7.  

Jim Sherwood, dean of University Extension, refused comment on the pending complaints, but insisted the decision to terminate the program stemmed from the recommendations of a new strategic plan.  

Using the buzzwords “Berkeley Quality/Berkeley Appropriate,” Sherwood said Extension wanted to shift priorities to programs that better meshed with the university’s mission and resources—which precludes ELP since new language schools have sprouted across the Bay Area, he said. 

But the program has always had a banner reputation, using the Berkeley name to attract an elite group of students. “I know a number of the teachers and I respect them greatly,” said Linguistics Professor Robin Lakoff. 

Dave Winet, an instructor since 1978, said “People send their kids here because it’s Berkeley. Our students are going to be influential in their country some day. I don’t see why Berkeley would want to lose that good will.” 

Especially confusing to the teachers are data supplied to them from the Extension accounting office showing the program remains profitable, netting $2.5 million last year. 

Sherwood insisted the program actually turned a loss, but refused to provide evidence, and said finances weren’t a factor in his decision. “We’re not in the business to make money,” he said. “Finances are a consideration, but we need to focus on meeting our mission.” 

He said the strategic plan, produced by the consulting firm of Moore, Iacofano and Goltsman, identified 15 percent of the school’s 2100 course offerings that didn’t meet program requirements, though so far ELP is the only program to be terminated. 

ELP teachers are not unionized, but say they are the only extension teachers to work full-time and receive health benefits. Their relationship with the administration had grown rocky in recent years, especially after UC Berkeley shut down the San Francisco ELP last year. 

At first only the three least-experienced of the 12 teachers were given transfers to Berkeley, said Bonu Ghosh one of those who was laid-off. She and her colleagues filed a grievance hearing with the university and won their jobs back. 

Confusion from the consolidation has bred more animosity. 

Rosenberg said the university, without consulting the staff, changed rules by giving preference for English-business classes to teachers that met new qualifications including past business experience, a business degree or sufficient business courses. 

Teachers suspected the policy was a ploy to lay-off more experienced, higher-paid teachers, but Sherwood insisted the policy was in line with improving academic rigor in the class.

Top textbook publishers are giving students a costly lesson in exploitative pricing, according to a study released Thursday by California Student Public Interest Research Group (CALPIRG). 

UC students will spend an average of $898 on textbooks this year, the student group concluded. That’s 20 percent more than the $642 dollars students spent seven years ago, according to a 1997 UC survey. 

“It’s clear that students are being taken advantage of,” said Zachary Kruth, CALPIRG chair at UC Berkeley. 

The culprits, the report concludes, are the top few publishers—Pearson, McGraw Hill and Thompson—that have made habits of releasing new editions every three to four years even if little has changed in the course of study, filling books with elaborate graphs and charts and bundling them with expensive CD-ROMs and workbooks that professors often ignore. 

For many disciplines like math, the reports’ authors charge, the goal of the new edition is not to improve instruction, but to limit the number of used books in circulation to maximize sales.  

New editions are often virtual carbon copies of past ones, with a different order and review questions, said UC Berkeley Calculus Professor Jenny Harrison at a Thursday press conference. “It’s just cutting and pasting sections,” she said holding up the fifth edition of Calculus Early Transcendentals—which sells new for $122 at the UC Bookstore. “This book cost Cal students $150,000. I could do this in a couple of afternoons.” Last year the fourth edition of the book cost students $90 used. 

Once the new edition is released however, Harrison said, there aren’t enough old editions to go around, meaning the professor must order a new book. “We have control over which book we have in our class but we can’t assign a book that doesn’t exist,” she said. 

The CALPIRG report is based on interviews with 156 faculty and 521 students at 10 public colleges and universities in California and Oregon. An average new textbook, according to the report, costs $102.44, 58 percent higher than the price of a used textbook, $64.80. Also, 65 percent of faculty reported never or rarely using the bundled CD-ROMs and workbooks that now accompany half of all new books. 

Data from the National Association of College Stores supports CALPIRG’s claims. Over the past three years, the textbook price index has jumped by an average of seven percent, compared to 3.4 percent for other books. 

Not everyone thinks the textbook business is crooked. Cliff Ewert, spokesperson for Follett Higher Education Group, manager of the UC Berkeley bookstore, said the price of new textbooks is fair. “There are no economies of scale in the textbook business,” he said. “A text book requires a tremendous amount of research and editorial review for a book that prints about 20,000 copies and is often printed and bound with higher quality materials.” 

Despite being the largest campus bookstore management firm in the country with 680 stores, Follett doesn’t try to flex its muscles with publishers or professors, Ewert said. “We believe in total academic freedom for the faculty. It’s always up to the professors.” 

But a manager at Ned’s Books, which sells textbooks to UC Berkeley students, said professors are often unwittingly sold textbooks by sales representatives without knowing about the increased costs passed on to students and potential losses to the stores. 

“We’re the ones getting killed,” he said. “Margins on textbooks are lower than potato chips.”  

Campus bookstores have traditionally made their money from buying and selling used books, but with the rapid turnover in textbooks, Ned’s has fewer used books to sell. 

Students are beginning to rebel against excessive pricing on all fronts. At Berkeley, ASUC Senator Misha Leybovich instituted a used book swap last year that that his year hosted 2,000 students at Sproul Plaza trading and selling their used books for better prices offered by the bookstores. 

Other students interviewed reported buying their books online from discount retailers ctextbook.com and half.com. 

To get reduced prices, Kruth wants to get faculty members to sign a statement that textbooks are overpriced and to lobby for online textbooks and supplements to books when new scholarship becomes available.  

Most students interviewed at the campus bookstore, however, seemed resigned to high prices. “It doesn’t hurt me that much said Junior Thom Malowski. “My parents pay for school. They’re more disgusted than I am.”

Friends and family of a well-known Berkeley activist will gather this Saturday to remember the remarkable life of Mildred Schoenberger, a 30-year resident of the city who died Dec. 15 at the Loving Care Nursing Home in El Cerrito after a long illness, three weeks shy of her ninety-eighth birthday. 

A resident at Strawberry Creek Lodge in Berkeley for nearly 20 years, she was a strong advocate for older citizens.  

Ms. Schoenberger moved to Berkeley from New York City in the early 1970s, dedicating her time and talent to many progressive causes and took an active role in the lives of her young grandchildren. 

In Berkeley, she was active in the anti-Vietnam War movement and in the 1970s she worked to save the Grove Street Campus of Merritt College to ensure access to higher education in low-income neighborhoods. In the following decade, she organized, demonstrated and risked arrest in the effort to discontinue the development of nuclear arms at Lawrence Livermore Lab. In the 1990s she was a leader of the drive to convert the Bel Air Motel on University Avenue to offer services for the homeless. 

A member of the National Organization for Women, she became increasingly active in women’s issues. A contributor to countless charitable and progressive organizations—local, state and national—she volunteered her time and skills to many organizations and institutions until her early ‘90s, including the Berkeley chapters of the Women for Peace, the Gray Panthers, the United States-China Peoples’ Friendship Association, the Meiklejohn Civil Liberties Institute, the Congress of California Seniors and the Niebyl-Proctor Library. Mayor Loni Hancock appointed her to the city’s Commission on Aging. 

She worked for the campaigns of Ron Dellums, Gus Newport, Mark Allen, Ying Lee Kelley, Loni Hancock and many other BCA candidates, and supported George McGovern, Eugene McCarthy, Carol Mosely Braun and many other progressive leaders.  

She served as president of the Tenants Association at Strawberry Creek Lodge—her home for 20 years—and on its board and executive committee, pressing for increased tenant involvement in decision-making and operations. 

She participated in the literature and writing programs at the North Berkeley Senior Citizens Center, where she wrote poetry, some of it published through the Senior Center and the Edge of the World Press—a collective of senior writers, and one of her oil paintings was displayed in the official 1948 anniversary celebration of the founding of the City of New York. 

When she became a teacher in the New York City School system in 1931, she immediately joined the Teachers Union, taking an active role in its campaigns to improve teachers’ economic and job security and its efforts to obtain breakfasts and clothing for impoverished children, smaller class size and special educational programs for disadvantaged neighborhoods.  

Spain was her special focus during the 1930s. As she once explained, “Some of us met regularly, devotedly, and often for reading and discussion of new social and economic theories. We raised money and support for the Spanish Loyalists in their tragic war against Franco, and many tears were shed at the fall of Barcelona.”  

In the early 1950s, her union activities led to her to fight the New York City School Board’s dismissal of her teaching colleagues for their political beliefs and associations. Four decades later, she wrote in the publication by the Committees of Correspondence, Tribute of a Lifetime, about those teachers: 

“To those stout hearts goes the credit for establishing the right of teachers to be judged by their classroom performance and not by their politics. They made history. Their lawsuit … resulted in a decision in their favor. The NYC Board of Education had to make a public apology for the firings; had to grant them service credit for the years of service lost; and to offer them the choice of returning to the classroom.” 

Her experiences then formed the basis of her contribution to Ann Fagan Ginger’s The Cold War Against Labor. 

As she explained to a friend decades later, “During my teaching career, … in the Teachers Union, we carried out many progressive campaigns of an educational nature, for smaller class size, larger appropriations, improvement of conditions in the Harlem schools, of racist restrictions in the hiring of teachers and elimination of racist attitudes and stereotypes in the textbooks and teaching materials of that period.” 

Born in Manhattan on Jan. 5, 1906, she was the third of four sisters. A graduate of New York City public schools, she earned a math B.A. from Hunter College in January 1929, and two years later began a nearly 40-year teaching career at Washington Irving High School, where she had earned her own diploma. 

In 1935 she married attorney Joshua Bernard Schoenberger in Rockaway Beach in Queens, NY. They had one son, Edward Alexander, born in 1939. 

Her husband died, and the following year she received a masters in mathematics education at Hunter College—by then part of the City of New York University System—where, at age 57, she became a math instructor, teaching there until 1970. After retirement in 1970, she moved to Berkeley to be with her son and his family. 

The early 1990s found her demonstrating about and advocating for progressive educational issues in Sacramento, just as she had in her teaching days in New York.  

She had joined the Progressive Party when former Vice President Henry Wallace left the Democratic Party in 1948, and participated in party’s presidential nominating convention that year. In California, she joined the Peace and Freedom Party, and belonged to numerous other organizations committed to school integration, disarmament, health security and rent control. 

In the 1950s, she was active in the nuclear disarmament movement and in the next decade joined the anti-Vietnam War movement and attended the March on Washington in August of 1963 at which Martin Luther King delivered his now world famous “I have a dream” speech. In San Francisco, at age 82, she marched for civil rights, jobs and justice. 

A classical pianist, she enjoyed listening to a variety of music, and math, especially non-Euclidian geometry, was her intellectual love. Mondrian was a particular, and she often wore clothing that dramatically sported his colorful designs. 

She also completed the New York Times crossword puzzle daily. 

A world traveler, she appreciated the varieties of different cultures and embraced their contribution to her understanding of how people lived and worked, visiting more than 25 different countries on every continent. 

Mildred was the third of four daughters—the only one with bright red hair. Her parents, both enterprising Jewish immigrants in the late 1870s from Mishkulz in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, lived on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Her father, Alexander Wagner, spoke Hungarian, German, Yiddish and English and ran several small businesses including a family restaurant on the lower East Side and a dancing school. 

When her father died of tuberculosis when Mildred was still in school, she took a crash course in secretarial skills, working during the day and attending college at night. She continued to work, help with the household expenses until she received her B.A. Though her mother, Henrietta Bachner, had only completed the eighth grade, she opened the first employee cafeteria in a major New York department store and later took operations of a hotel on Long Island and later ran one in Miami Beach. 

In 2003, she celebrated her ninety-seventh birthday with members of her extended family. Said a friend, “Mildred was an exceptional person. She had very clear and defined views about politics. But she never lost her humanity. She always tried to do well everywhere she went. It did not matter if you agreed with her or not.” 

Members of her family were with her on the day of her passing. She is survived by her son and daughter in law, Edward and Jenifer Schoenberger, granddaughter Beth Amy Schoenberger and her husband, Harvey Levine and her great-granddaughter, Emma Levine, six, and grandson Peter Schoenberger and his wife, Allyson Hitt and great-grandson, Jasper Schoenberger, two, all of the Oakland-Berkeley area. She was also very close to members of her extended family. 

Her husband, her three sisters, Ethel, Julia and Sadie, and her long time companion and friend, Max Mandel of Berkeley, all preceded her in death. 

A celebration of her life will be held Saturday, Jan. 31, at 2 p.m. at Strawberry Creek Lodge, 1320 Addison St. Donations in her name may be made to Women for Peace, 2309 Ellsworth, Berkeley, 94704; the Gray Panthers of Berkeley, 1403 Addison St., Berkeley, 94702; The National Organization for Women, 1000 16th St, Washington, D.C., 20036.

Sprint Wireless Communications and North Berkeley residents will have to wait another week to wait to find out whether city councilmembers will approve Sprint’s controversial cellular antennae facility at the corner of Shattuck Avenue and Cedar Street. 

Sprint wants to put three antennae on the roof and corresponding equipment in the basement of a commercial building housing two restaurants. After the Zoning Adjustments Board approved the facility, neighbors appealed to the council—which held a public hearing last week, and had been expected to rule at Tuesday’s meeting. 

But after several councilmembers, particularly Gordon Wozniak, expressed concern that Sprint hadn’t made its case that the facility was necessary, councilmembers postponed their vote. 

Wozniak said he’d done his own test of Sprint telephone service on two occasions at peak hours, finding no loss of service. 

Sprint’s written rebuttal submitted after last week’s hearing included an allegation that the Tri Field Meter used by one of the proposed facility’s detractors to measure power readings near Shattuck and Cedar is “most popular with ghost hunting and UFO cults.” 

Sprint included an advertisement which called the meter “the Ghost Detector—one step beyond the average EMF meter for Parapsychological and Paranormal field work.” 

Resident Shahram Sharuz had alleged that the meter showed that power emissions in the area of the proposed cellular facility already exceed FCC standards. 

The council also turned aside a motion by members Kriss Worthington and Betty Olds to refer another controversial proposal—setting aside on-street parking near the Ashby BART station—for the city’s parking enforcement officers (the so-called “meter maids”). Instead, members voted 5-3-1 to approve a recommendation by Miriam Hawley, Linda Maio and Wozniak to move the parking sites away from commercial areas and reduce the numbers from the original 21. 

Spaces will be set aside in curbside areas currently marked red, so that parking for other citizens won’t be reduced. Councilmembers Dona Spring, Olds, and Worthington opposed the motion; Councilmember Maudelle Shirek abstained. 

At Spring’s request, the council unanimously set March 16 for a public hearing to discuss a possible moratorium on above-three-story, mixed use buildings in the University Avenue area. 

Spring and University Avenue area residents have requested the moratorium to give the city time to bring the zoning code in compliance with the University Avenue Specific Plan. Councilmember Olds was out of the room for the vote, and Maio recused herself on the city attorney’s advice because of a possible conflict of interest. 

After hearing assurances from the Parks, Recreation and Waterfront Department that they would have plenty of time to review the possible cutting of close to 100 trees before the power saws are actually turned on, the council voted 8-1 (Spring voting no) to allow the Bay Trail Extension to Berkeley Marina plan to go forward in its first phase. 

Spring had held up the vote at last week’s meeting because of her concerns about the trees, and Councilmember Worthington asked staff members to present a plan to “save as many trees as possible” before the actual construction begins. 

Councilmember Margaret Breland, who has missed the past two meetings due to illness, participated in Tuesday’s meeting by telephone.

Fewer students applied to the University of California this year than last, the first such drop in over a decade, according to a UC report released Tuesday. 

International and out-of-state applicants led the decline, which comes as UC braces for higher student fees and lower enrollment from anticipated state budget cuts. 

“We never welcome a decrease in applications, but given the situation this year it may ease some pressure on the system,” said UC spokesperson Lavonne Luquis. 

Applications for prospective freshman dropped 4.1 percent from 76,931 last year to 73,794. While applications from California residents dropped only 2.9 percent, applications fell 18.2 percent for international students and 9.4 percent for out-of-state students. 

Helping bridge the gap, 24,373 community college transfer students applied to UC this fall, up 5.7 percent from last year. California transfer applications rose 12.9 percent, while out-of-state and international transfers fell 14.2 percent and 56.1 percent. In total, 98,658 students applied to UC—a 1.3 percent decline from last year. UC Berkeley saw enrollment slip 0.7 percent 

Luquis attributed the drop to negligible growth in the number of high school graduates in California this year, federal immigration laws making it more difficult for students to obtain visas and higher student fees. 

California residents have seen their tuition rise 40 percent in the past year, and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has proposed an additional 10 percent hike bringing annual tuition close to $6,000. 

Out-of-state students, who now pay about $20,000 per year, are also facing fee hikes at a time when some regents are pushing for more to be admitted to help fund in-state students. 

A racial breakdown shows that transfer student application rates rose across the board, but for freshmen only Chicanos, American Indians and Asians saw applications increase, while African Americans experienced the biggest drop, with seven percent fewer applications. 

—Matthew Artz

Tie-up 

Two masked men entered a cellular telephone store on the 3300 block of Adeline Street at 4:13 p.m. Wednesday, flashed guns at the lone clerk and tied him up before taking his wallet, police said. Anyone who may have seen the two men flee the store is asked to call the Robbery Detail at 981-5742. 

Drug Bust 

After numerous community complaints, police searched a home on the 1800 block of Prince Street Wednesday afternoon, finding an ounce of crack-cocaine and a handgun. Five people found inside the house were arrested on charges ranging from possession of cocaine for sale to weapons violations. 

Armed Robbery 

Two people were robbed at gunpoint early Tuesday morning at the corner of Channing Way and Curtis Street, police said. The two robbers stole a backpack and drove off in a white minivan.

My Mexican friends tell the story of two brothers who lived in a fishing village on the Monterey coast in the days when Alta California was still part of Mexico. From the time they were babies, the two brothers were all but inseparable; where one would be, so would be the other. One summer morning when they were in their late teens, however, they came into dispute. One of them wanted to go to the market at San Miguel, while the other wished to travel to the town of Gregorio, where a young woman lived. For the first time, neither would give way to the will of the other, so finally, one of the brothers hit upon the plan.  

“Let us put on blindfolds and set out from home together,” he said. “We shall let Fate decide where we go.”  

And so they did. Blinded, arm in arm, they walked along the road, and after many turns and bumps and bruises and stumblings into the brush, they heard the sounds of a town in front of them. Pulling off their blindfolds, they found themselves on the outskirts of San Miguel. When one of the brothers showed his disappointment, the other brother insisted he should not. “After all,” he said, “it was only Fate that brought us to the town where I wanted to go.” “Either that,” replied the other, “or one of us peeked along the way.” 

The moral of this story, my Mexican friends explain, is that when a group reaches a destination to which one member of the group always wanted to go, luck or divine intervention can generally be ruled out as the cause. 

Many months ago, when the Oakland schools were still in the hands of Oakland citizens, and long before the present fiscal crisis, we began hearing suggestions about selling the Paul Robeson Administration Building on Second Avenue. These suggestions were not coming from the superintendent’s office, you understand, nor, if I remember, from members of the school board. Instead it was friendly observers who were saying that the administration was too big and too inefficient for the needs of the district, and should be done away with. The suggestions of selling the school administration building never seemed to make much sense to me, from the point of saving money for the district, any more than it makes much sense for somebody selling their mortgage-free house and then paying rent somewhere for the rest of their lives. Still, we kept hearing that this is what we ought to do. 

And if you believe the rumors—and Oakland is full of rumors, this morning—the sale of the Robeson Administration Building is what the Oakland school takeover was all about. In this scenario, real estate developers—under the cover of willing local politicians—would dearly like the Second Avenue property for upscale housing. Looking at the dreary neighborhood in which the Robeson Building sits, that wouldn’t seem to make any sense. Unless, that is, you take into account that Oakland is busily making plans to reconfigure the 12th Street-14th Street junction around Lake Merritt, and daylight the creek from the lake to the estuary. Very soon, therefore, the Robeson Building will be waterfront property, sitting on one of the most stunningly beautiful sites in the entire city. 

And so, this rumor goes, developers went to the local politicians, and the local politicians went to Superintendent Dennis Chaconas, trying to get him to agree to the sale. Chaconas would not agree, and it was never thought that such a crazy idea could ever get past an elected Oakland School Board, the Oakland public being as excitable as it is. And so they had to go, Chaconas and the elected school board, in one great sweep. And under this scenario, the Oakland school takeover was no necessary result of some accidental overbudgeting due to antiquated computer technology, but was orchestrated from start to finish. You could make a pretty good case for this, I suppose, starting with County School Superintendent Sheila Jordan sending over her financial adviser (Pete Yasitis) to run the Oakland school finances, continuing with Yasitis developing the teacher pay hike plan that led to Oakland’s overbudgeting, and ending with Jordan being one of the major players in stopping a Chaconas/School Board plan that would have held off the state “loan” and preventing the state takeover. I suppose we could ask Yasitis some interesting questions about this, but he has long since left the building. 

Anyhow, now comes a Sunday article by Alex Katz of the Oakland Tribune (and Tribune reporters have been doing some valuable work recently on the Oakland school issue), in which an extended quotation is in order. Talking about what to do with the five Oakland schools set for closure by state-appointed Oakland School Administrator Randolph Ward, Katz writes: 

“Another option would be to move the district’s central offices to one of the sites, making it possible to lease or sell the district’s valuable administration buildings... “Right now the whole administration building is up for discussion,” Ward said. … [A]n agenda for a Wednesday closed session meeting includes negotiations between the ‘district and prospective developers and/or owners’ of the district’s headquarters and adjacent buildings. … According to the agenda, the subject of closed session negotiations will be the ‘Price and/or Terms of Payment for Both the Purchase or Lease or Development of some or all of said property.’ State Sen. Don Perata … has encouraged the sale of the property, which [Perata] said would make spectacular housing, to help pay down the district’s $65 million loan from the state.” 

Mr. Ward told Katz that any possible decision on the sale of the Robeson Building had nothing to do with the plans to close the five schools. But looking to Mr. Ward for answers here is like asking a car how it ended up on your lawn. A conversation with the driver would seem more in order. As for the sale of the Robeson Building being behind the Oakland school takeover? Sounds fantastic. But like my Mexican friends say, when you end up at a location where someone in the crowd said they wanted to go, accident is not usually the cause.

Yellowman, which opened at Berkeley Repertory Theatre Wednesday night, finished the evening with two standing ovations.  

Two. Standing. 

That’s possibly the main thing you want to know about the production, but there’s some other rather exciting stuff involved, too.  

This is a two-person drama blessed with actors who give mesmerizing performances with what could be a difficult text. Diedre N. Henry (“Alma”) and Clark Jackson (“Eugene”) are seated in separate chairs on a bare stage. With no props and almost no physical interaction they each tell their own version of a relationship which begins in childhood and turns into a love affair destroyed by racial prejudices and stereotypes. That story’s been told before; I’m not at all sure that this one has. 

They are both, by common classification, black. But that’s an outsiders’ classification. Within the black community of South Carolina—and perhaps elsewhere—they belong to different and hostile worlds. Alma, the vivid, emotionally healthier of the two, is “black”—Eugene is “high yellow” and belongs to a “wealthy” family, i.e., they have indoor plumbing and invite people for dinner. 

But the tensions and generations-long rage about the class system within the black world tears his family apart. His father, a handsome, successful black man, cannot forgive his son for being born “yellow.” To his father, Eugene embodies all the slights and deprivations and disappointments in his own life that he blames on his color. 

There is historical evidence that, before emancipation, the children of inter-racial relationships (some perhaps consensual, some most certainly not) were sometimes treated with special favors in terms of educational opportunities and working situations by their white “owners.” Those with special advantages coalesced into a favored social class, still defined as black. It is understandable that such a situation would cause continued pain throughout the generations. 

It is quite possible that the playwright, Dael Orlandersmith, may be the first person to use a popular medium to directly address what is arguably one of the most tragic results of our country’s racial history. And while theater doesn’t reach the wide audience that movies do, it still is not as limited as is the number of people who read the heavy-duty social science books where the subject has, until now, been confined. 

The play is an attack upon the direct damage the slaveowners did. It concerns itself with the damage—carried down the generations—done to the psyche of people who were treated as less than human races that inevitably occurs when two groups live intimately together. (See your local anthropologist for the background material on that assertion).  

This play, seen by an audience largely composed of white people, is an important and exciting event. Berkeley Rep has done us all a memorable favor, whether or not it is the first to raise the subject to a larger audience. 

Yellowman runs through March 7 at the theater, 2025 Addison St. Ticket prices $43 to $55, available at the box office Tuesday through Sunday from noon to 7 p.m. or by telephone at 647-2949 or 888-427-8849.

Naked singers and local folk heroes helped a packed crowd celebrate years of Berkeley activism on homelessness and mark the opening of a new temporary shelter during a benefit show at the Freight & Salvage coffee house Wednesday night.  

The event, organized by the Berkeley Homeless Union, included performances by the well-known folk guitarists Carol Denney and Country Joe McDonald, along with the eye-opening partially to fully nude trio, “The X-plicit singers,” composed of members of Berkeley’s well-known nude theater group, the X-plicit players. 

Festivities opened with an awards ceremony where Mayor Tom Bates and Councilmember Linda Maio presented awards to some of Berkeley’s more well-known homeless advocates including Michael Deihl, attorney Osha Neumann, and Telegraph Avenue Street Calendar creators B.N. Duncan and Ace Backwords. 

Fred Lupke, Ray Reese, Father Bill, and Kevin Freeman, Berkeley activists who passed away last year were honored with songs, and pictures of Reese, Father Bill and Freeman stood behind the musicians as they performed. 

Highlights from the show included quips from many of the performers—in particular Carol Denney—about Berkeley’s low income housing projects and the city government’s failure to meet the needs of the homeless—all directed at Mayor Bates, sitting in the back of the audience. 

All of the money raised will be used to buy sleeping bags, ponchos and blankets, along with other cold weather necessities for the city’s homeless.

EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the last in a series of articles by UC Berkeley journalism students on the paths of Berkeley. 

La Vereda path seems like an orphan. Though it belongs to the Daley’s Scenic Park area, it finds little mention in histories of the neighborhood.  

“Early maps of the Daley’s Scenic Park region do not include La Vereda, probably because it was built post-1909,” Anthony Bruce, executive director, Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association, said in an interview. 

Daley’s Scenic Park was the first residential subdivision in the North Berkeley Hills. In the late 1890s, a group of concerned women formed the Hillside Club to encourage artistic homes complementing the natural beauty of Berkeley Hills. La Vereda path is on the eastern end of Virginia Street past La Loma. The tarred path and the houses flanking it have been constructed in accordance with the Hillside Club’s concept of “building with nature.”  

While the path is walkable, it is inconveniently steep, and a stairway beside the path, which connects it to La Vereda Road, is crumbling.  

“The right wall of the staircase at the top right column is pulling away from the upper column. Nobody seems to be taking the stewardship to set this right,” said Karen Kemp, editor and designer of the Berkeley Path Wanderers Association’s newsletter. 

La Vereda path was constructed based on a grided street structure, suitable for flat roads. The inclination and sharp turn of the path made it difficult for horse-drawn wagons to negotiate the bend. So the residents, members of the Daley’s Scenic Park and city engineers remodeled the path with retaining walls and stairways “that split the level of the roads and created much more gentle grades,” said Kemp.  

The neighborhood is a mixture of small cottages, modest homes, fraternity houses, and mansions. Describing Daley’s Scenic Park tract as the “town and gown area” of the Berkeley campus, Joan Seear, a resident of the area since 1957 said, “Many of the old houses having undergone gentrification, but the road and the railings require fixing. And with more people coming to live in this area, the parking situation is a zoo.”  

But with increased cost of living and budget crisis, “I don’t think it’s economically feasible for Berkeley to improve the road,” she added.

Washington should abandon a new Internet-based system designed to facilitate voting for American citizens overseas, declared a panel of top computer experts—including UC Berkeley professor David Wagner—in a recently issued report.  

Wagner—along with Aviel Rubin, an associate professor of computer science from John Hopkins University, David Jefferson, from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and Barbara Simons, a Bay Area technology consultant—say the Secure Electronic Registration and Voting Experiment (SERVE) has several important security risks and should not be used to tally votes during trial runs that are set to take place during the upcoming primary and general elections. 

Mandated by Congress and overseen by the U.S. Department of Defense’s Federal Voting Assistance Program , SERVE was designed to eliminate problems associated with the absentee ballot process that proponents say continually disenfranchise voters. 

But the authors of the Jan. 21 report say the new technology, while well intentioned, poses a series of severe risks. 

“Broadly, SERVE poses a much larger chance of election fraud than anything we have today,” said Wagner, a computer security expert. 

The firestorm over touchscreen voting systems identified a number of serious risks associated with computer voting. SERVE, say the authors, intensifies those risks by introducing using the Internet and personal computers.  

“Because SERVE is an Internet and PC-based system,” the authors say in their report, “it has numerous other fundamental security problems that leave it vulnerable to a variety of well-known cyber attacks…any one of which could be catastrophic.” 

Threats include insider attacks, denial of service attacks, spoofing, automated vote buying, and viral attacks.  

According to Barbara Simons, attacks could disenfranchise large sections of the 100,000 U.S. citizens (registered in seven states and currently residing in 50 countries around the world) who are scheduled to use SERVE in this year’s elections. 

“[The Internet and PCs] were never designed to be secure,” said Simons.  

In the report, the authors briefly describe the history of the Internet, stressing that its original construction did not emphasize security. Security barriers have been built to guard certain transactions, they said, but not Internet voting. 

“For all the importance of security today, the Internet has no general security architecture; in fact it is well known to be full of general vulnerabilities,” they wrote. 

As a result, attacks can be launched by someone with a relatively low skill level, and in a way that is unnoticeable. “These attacks can be perpetrated from everywhere; it could be some teenage kid, political party, political opponent, etc.,” said Simons. 

Unlike other Internet transactions, such as e-commerce and e-banking—both of which the report says are relatively secure—the e-voting process poses unaccountable security risks. 

People “assume that voting is comparable somehow to an online financial transaction, whereas in fact security for Internet voting is far more difficult than security for e-commerce,” they write.  

Additional e-voting risks include the inability to confirm correct transactions because of voter anonymity rules. Unlike e-commerce, where a customer can double-check transactions by referring back to receipts or order statements, a voter has no way to confirm that a choice was tallied correctly. 

As with touchscreen voting machines, voters using SERVE will receive confirmation that their vote was received by the polling place where they vote. But how the vote was counted can’t be confirmed because it would breach privacy rules. 

Any number of possible attacks could produce a vote switch, Simons said. A virus received by the PC could easily switch the selection after it was confirmed by the voter but before it was sent. The vote would be tallied and the virus could erase itself, leaving no trace. 

“Viruses and worms go around every week, and virus check software only works on known viruses,” said Simons. 

A denial of service attack would simply overload the election web server with junk e-mail, preventing it from counting votes. 

In their report the authors diagram the skill level needed to create all the different attacks and their possible severity. Most range from low to medium skill level and all result in large-scale disenfranchisement. 

Accenture, the company in charge of SERVE’s design, stresses that the report is only a minority report, part of a larger analysis also conducted by six other people, none of whom have yet issued their own reports. 

At least one of the other participants in the program, Michael Alvarez, a political science professor at Cal Tech, supports the project and says its design will help alleviate other, more severe problems that plague the absentee system. 

“The way in which overseas people vote is an arcane voting system, it’s disenfranchising,” said Alvarez.  

He said absentee ballots often arrive late at polling places or get jumbled in with an accumulating bundle of bulk mail that eventually is postmarked after the deadline. Small errors that are usually caught at the polling place, he says, also continually disqualify ballots.  

Criticism of SERVE, founded or not, he says, is directed at the wrong place.  

“We are not following the problems that already exist,” he said, and cited SERVE as a possible solution. 

He also stresses SERVE as a pilot program, meant to test results. One hundred thousand voters out of an estimated six million people living overseas, he says, is a small enough group to mitigate any kind of major interference.  

But it’s still too many for Simons, who points out that the 2000 general election was decided by a precipitously small number. She, along with Wagner, also stresses the importance of realizing that the technology has severe security problems that can’t be corrected with existing measures. Regardless of the security devices put in place by Accenture, there will be holes. 

“That’s the most disappointing part,” said Wagner. “After a lot of effort [to explore the system’s possibilities] we found that it is just not a possibility. It would require major changes to the architecture of the Internet and PCs. 

“We’re not saying that Internet voting is some evil that should never be used. The technology just isn’t ready yet.” 

Another concern cited by the authors is SERVE’s future expansion. They worry that once the system is adopted it will expand, increasing the dangers associated with it. 

The report has boosted the issue into the public forum, seemingly more quickly than the controversy surrounding touchscreen voting machines—an issue which hasn’t received much coverage until recently.  

Tellingly, the New York Times editorialized last Friday for Congress to suspend the program: 

“The intentions behind the Pentagon’s plan, the Secure Electronic Registration and Voting Experiment, are laudable…but the advantages of the Pentagon’s Internet voting system would be far outweighed by the dangers it would pose.” 

At the end of their report the authors praise the project’s directors, who they say have done everything in their power to ensure a secure system. 

“[The project managers] have been completely aware all along of the security problems we have described here, and we have been impressed with the engineering sophistication and skill they have devoted to attempts to ameliorate or eliminate them.” 

But, said Wagner, “They are in a tough position—they’ve been told to solve an un-solvable problem.”

TUESDAY, JAN. 27 

FILM 

Alternative Visions: “Double-Edged Sword” at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Chalmers Johnson introduces “The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic,” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. www.codysbooks.com 

Robert Guter, Shawn Casey O’Brien and Jean Stewart read excerpts from “Voices from the Edge: Narratives about the Americans with Disabilities Act” at 4 p.m. at Maude Fife Room, Wheeler Hall, UC Campus. sschweik@uclink4.berkeley.edu 

Kim Addonizio introduces her new book of poetry, “What Is This Thing Called Love” at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698. www.blackoakbooks.com 

The Whole Note Poetry Series with HD Moe reading poems from Maui at 7 p.m. at The Beanery, 2925 College Ave., near Ashby. 549-9093. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Ensemble Vermillian with Frances Blaker, recorders, Barbara Blaker Krumdieck, baroque cello, and Katherine Heater, harpsichord, performs chamber music from 17th century Germany by Buxtehude, Biber, Kinderman and others at 8 p.m. at St. Alban’s Episcopal Church, 1501 Washington Ave. at Curtis in Albany. Tickets are $18 general, $15 students and seniors. 559-4670. 

Austrian Musical Evening, with Gabriele Sima, Kammersangerin and Adalbert Skocic, cello at 8 p.m. at International House, Piedmont Ave. at Bancroft. Tickets are $25. 642-9460. 

Tee Fee Swamp Boogie at 8:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Dance lesson with Annie Marie Howard at 8 p.m. Cost is $9. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

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

Dayna Stephens House Jam at 8 p.m. at The Jazz House. Donation $5. 649-8744.  

www.thejazzhouse.com 

Jazzschool Tuesdays at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

WEDNESDAY, JAN. 28 

CHILDREN 

Preschool Storytime, a program introducing books and music to promote early literacy skills, at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Public Library West Branch, 1125 University Ave. 981-6270. 

EXHIBITION OPENINGS 

Addison Street Windows, “Aerial Views and Bead Forms,” paintings by Audrey Wallace Taylor and sculptures by Jenny Cole. Reception for the artists from 6 to 9 p.m. at 2018 Addison St. 981-7533. 

FILM 

Film 50: Edison to Early Griffith at 3 p.m. and Works by Nam June Paik at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Ted Roszak, author of “The Devil and Daniel Silverman” at 7:30 p.m. at the Berkeley Richmond Jewish Community Center, 1414 Walnut St. 848-0327, ext. 112.  

Vincent Sarich and Frank Miele talk about “Race: The Reality of Human Differences” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.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 

Berkeley Acdemic Quiz Bowl at 7 p.m. at Barnes and Noble.  

Charlene Sprenak discusses “Missing Mary: The Queen of Heaven and Her Re-Emergence in the Modern Church” at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698. www.blackoakbooks.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Wednesday Noon Concert with Garrett McLean, violin, Hannah Eldridge, violin, Andrew Strauss, viola, Alexandra Roedder, cello and Inning Chen, piano, perform Dvorák, Piano Quintet in A, at International House, Piedmont Ave. at Bancroft. 642-4864. http://music.berkeley.edu 

Dance Theater of Harlem, at 8 p.m., Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $32-$52, available from 642-9988. www.calperfs.berkeley.edu 

Za’Atar plays Jewish music of Arab and Muslim lands at 8 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $18.  

525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Sam Bevan Trio at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. Cost is $10. 848-8277. 

Country Joe Mc Donald, Carol Denney and friends at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage Coffee House. “Shelter from the Storm” fundraiser for community groups advocating for the homeless. Cost is $15.50 in advance, $16.50 at the door. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

4th Avenue Jones at 9:30 p.m. at Blakes on Telegraph. Cost is $6. 848-0886. www.blakesontelegraph.com 

THURSDAY, JAN. 29 

THEATER 

Oxford Elementary School, Fifth Grade, “Yo soy un Americano,” a celebration of Mexican American history as told through the eyes of a Mexican American grandmother and her grandson, Carlos, at 9 a.m. at 1130 Oxford Street. For more information, please call Ms. Inniss at 644-6300.  

FILM 

Victor Sjostrom: “The Girl from the Marsh Croft” at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Chris Dresser, Richard Rhodes and Mark Schapiro discuss “Living with the Genie: Essays on Technology and the Quest for Human Mastery” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

Ant Farm: Guided Tour at 12:15 and 5:30 p.m. at Berkeley Art Museum, 2626 Bancroft Way. 

Joan Steinau Lester discusses her biography of Eleanor Holmes Norton, “Fire in My Soul” at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698. www.blackoakbooks.com 

Word Beat Reading Series with Charles Curtis Blackwell and Mark G. at 7 p.m. at Mediterraneum Caffe, 2475 Telegraph Ave. 526-5985.  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Dance Theater of Harlem, at 8 p.m., Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $32-$52, available from 642-9988. www.calperfs.berkeley.edu 

Jessica Lurie Ensemble at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $8. 841-2082. www.starryplough.com 

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

Mas Cabeza at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Magic City Chamber of Commerce plus Steven Yerky 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 

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

FRIDAY, JAN. 30 

CHILDREN 

Rainy Day Stories at 10:30 a.m. at Barnes and Noble. 644-3635. 

FILM 

Mann’s World: “Devil’s Doorway” at 7:30 p.m. and “Winchester ‘73” at 9:10 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Faulkner Fox discusses “Dispatches From a Not-So-Perfect Life: Or How I Learned to Love the House, the Man, the Child” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. www.codysbooks.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Dance IS Movement, featuring Company C, Ophelia’s Stage Dance Company, Berkeley Ballet Theater Youth Company, CSU Hayward, Berkeley High and others at 8 p.m. at Julia Morgan Center for the Arts. Tickets are $10-$15 available from 925-798-1300. 

Dance Theater of Harlem, at 8 p.m., Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $32-$52, available from 642-9988. www.calperfs.berkeley.edu 

Hamsa Lila performs acoustic trance music at 9 p.m. at Ashkenez. Cost is $15. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Flautas Internacionales with The Snake Trio at 8:30 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $12 in advance, $14 at the door. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Cascada de Flores, traditional music from Cuba and Mexico’s Gulf coast 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 

ROVA Saxophone Quartet performs post-bop free jazz and avant garde at 8 p.m. at The Jazz House. Sliding scale donation $10-$15. 649-8744.  

www.thejazzhouse.com 

Friday Afternoon Hang jam sessions from 5 to 7 p.m. at the Jazzschool. 845-5373. www.jazzschool.com 

Jackpot, Rich McCully Band, John Blaylock at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $6. 841-2082.  

www.starryploughpub.com  

Maseo at 9 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low, 2284 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $15. 548-1159. www.shattuckdownlow.com 

Joshi Marshall & Friends at 9 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

A Kimbo, Plot to Blow Up the Eifel Tower 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. 

Mystic Roots at 9:30 p.m. at Blakes on Telegraph. Cost is $7. 848-0886. www.blakesontelegraph.com 

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

SATURDAY, JAN. 31 

FILM 

“Closely Watched Trains,” a film about a train dispatcher in a German-occupied Czech town in 1942, at 8 p.m. at the Long Haul, a reading room, library and community center in South Berkeley located at 3124 Shattuck Ave. Wheelchair accessible. 540-0751. www.thelonghaul.org 

“Viva Chile M...! “ A tribute to the life and work of Fernando Alegría at 4:30 p.m. at La Peña. Cost is $14. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Mann’s World: “Naked Spur” at 7 p.m. and “The Tall Target” at 8:50 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Authors Dinner in support of the Berkeley Public Library Foundation at 7 p.m. at the Berkeley Public Library. 981-6115.  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Dance IS Story, featuring Dohee Lee, Fellow Travelers Perfromance Group, Berkeley Ballet Theater Youth Company, Mills College, Berkeley High School and Castlemont High School at 8 p.m. at Julia Morgan Center for the Arts. Tickets are $10-$15 available from 925-798-1300. 

Dance Theater of Harlem, at 2 and 8 p.m., Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $32-$52, available from 642-9988. www.calperfs.berkeley.edu 

Magnificat Early music with Warren Stewart, director, at 8 p.m. at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, Ellsworth and Bancroft. 415-979-4500. www.magnificatsf.com  

Oakland Symphony Chorus Discovery Day, a sing-along of Mozart’s C Minor Mass, at 9 a.m. at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church, 6013 Lawton Ave, in Rockridge. Tickets are $25 in advance, $30 at the door. 207-4093. www.oaklandsymphonychorus.org 

Oakland Opera Theater and Lotus Tribal Belly Dance present “Beneath the Veil: An Undulating Evening of World Fusion Beats and Belly Dance” at 8 p.m. at Oakland Metro, 201 Broadway, Oakland. Tickets are $10. 763-1146. www.oaklandmetro.org  

“Heroes: The Power of Art in Young People’s Lives” a showcase of the work of children in arts programs in Oakland. From 7 to 9 p.m. at First Congregational Church, 2501 Harrison St., at 27th St. Donations at the door benefits youth programs. 444-8511, ext. 15, www.artsfirstoakland.org 

Baksheesh Boys and Brass Meangerie at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Balkan dance lesson with Lise Liepman at 8 p.m.Cost is $13. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

ROVA Saxophone Quartet performs post-bop free jazz and avant garde at 8 p.m. at The Jazz House. Sliding scale donation $10-$15. 649-8744.  

www.thejazzhouse.com 

The Stacks, Flair, The Mitts at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $6. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

Warren Gale Quartet at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $10-$15. 845-5373. www.jazzschool.com 

Fred Randolph Jazz Trio at 9:30 p.m. at Albatross, 1822 San Pablo Ave. Cost is $3. 843-2473. www.albatrosspub.com 

Laura Sawosko and Tree Leyburn at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

Dancing the Refugee Home A Benefit Concert with Wing It! Performance Ensemble at 7:30 p.m. at Mudd 100, Pacific School of Religion, 1798 Scenic Ave. This concert benefits Enver Rahmanov, Wing It! member and PSR seminary student, and refugee from the former Soviet Republic of Turkmenistan. 814-9584.  

Lou and Peter Berryman, folk music’s funniest folks, 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 

Pansy Division, Subincision, Readyville 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. 

The Fourtet, jazz piano quartet, at 9 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

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

SUNDAY, FEB. 1 

EXHIBITION OPENINGS 

Stephen A. Fisher, “Perspectives” photographs with recurring compositions opens at the Community Art Gallery, Alta Bates Medical Center, 2450 Ashby. Through March 26.  

Margaret Herscher Memorial Exhibition opens at the Kala Art Institute, 1060 Heinz Ave. A life celebration of Margaret’s work will be held from 2 to 4 p.m. Exhibition runs to Feb. 5. 549-2977. www.kala.org 

CHILDREN 

Shabbat Family Art Workshop with Errica Glass from 2 to 4 p.m. at the Berkeley Richmond Jewish Community Center, 1414 Walnut St. Cost is $5-$10. Supplies included. 848-0327, ext. 112. 

Bandworks at 2:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $4. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

FILM 

Victor Sjostrom: “The Sons of Ingmar, Parts 1 and 2” at 5:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Rinzler’s Return, a workshop on getting published, with editor Alan Rinzler, at 3 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

Poetry Flash with David Biespiel and Thom Gunn at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. Donation $2. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Dance IS Social Change featuring Big Moves, Dance Access/KIDS!, Rebecca Salzer Dance Theater, Our Thing Performing Arts Company, Sarah Luella Baker, Destiny Arts, and Omphalos Dance Theater at 2 p.m. at Julia Morgan Center for the Arts. Tickets are $10-$15 available from 925-798-1300. 

Dance Theater of Harlem at 3 p.m., Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $32-$52, available from 642-9988. www.calperfs.berkeley.edu 

Live Oak Concert with BACH: Baroque and Classical Harmonies at 7:30 p.m. at Berkeley Art Center. Cost is $9-$10. 644-6893. www.berkeleyartcenter.org 

Miles Graber and Arkadi Serper in a concert for two pianos, four hands at 4 p.m. at Crowden School, 1475 Rose St. Tickets are $12, free for children. 559-6910. www.crowdenschool.org 

Jewish Love Tales and Songs with Maggid Daniel Lev at 7 p.m. at Chochmat HaLev, 2215 Prince St. at Fulton. Admission is $10. 704-9687. www.chochmat.org 

Domingo de Rumba Community participatory event for those who want to play, sing or dance, at 3:30 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. 849-2568. www.lapena.org  

MONDAY, FEB. 2 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Last Word Poetry Series with Mark States and Paradise at 7 p.m. at Pegasus Books, 2349 Shattuck Ave.  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

“Sweeter Than Roses” with Andrew Lawrence-King, baroque harpist, Zoe Vandermeer, soprano, and Joanna Blendulf, cello at 8 p.m. at Trinity Chapel, 2320 Dana St. at Durant. Tickets are $12-$18. Reservation suggested. 549-3864.  

Due to an editing error, the lead headline in Friday’s Daily Planet incorrectly stated that, at the request of Mayor Tom Bates, the Berkeley Planning Commission had voted to delay creation of a task force to examine the proposed UC hotel complex proposed for downtown. 

The planners did, in fact, establish the panel, and have set a schedule of meetings, where citizens can see and hear the proposals and offer comments.  

The first session is scheduled for Wednesday, Feb. 18, from 7 to 10 p.m. at the North Berkeley Community Center, 1901 Hearst Ave. (at Martin Luther King Jr. Way). 

Future meetings will be listed in the Daily Planet’s Berkeley This Week calendar.

Berkeley City Council members get their first look at City Manager Phil Kamlarz’ 2004-05 city budget proposals during a 5 p.m. working session tonight (Tuesday, Jan. 27), with votes on three specific cost-cutting measures scheduled for the 7 p.m. regular meeting. 

Councilmembers are also set to vote on North Berkeley neighbors’ appeal to stop the proposed placement of a Sprint cellular antennae facility in a commercial building on the corner of Cedar Street and Shattuck Avenue. 

The city manager’s proposals include a 20 percent reduction in all city departments as well as a controversial idea to eliminate some of the city’s commissions and consolidate others. And while Mayor Tom Bates earlier suggested a tax measure on the November ballot as a possible alternative, Kamlarz was more definitive. In his Budget Status Report to be released tonight, Kamlarz writes, “While the city council did not pursue a special tax measure in March, a November 2004 ballot measure is needed.” 

But Berkeley’s budget deficit continues to be a moving target. In his report, Kamlarz puts the shortfall for the upcoming fiscal year beginning in July (2005) at $8 million—the low end projections during last November’s debate over the since-discarded fire parcel tax. However, in a press release issued Monday announcing the Budget Status Report, Kamlarz estimates the “projected budget gap” as “up to $10-$12 million.” 

Kamlarz’ proposals are only the first step in a procedure scheduled to end with the adoption of the 2005 budget sometime in June, and the council will not vote on the proposals tonight. 

At its 7 p.m. meeting, councilmembers will consider two budget reduction proposals from the city manager’s office: one authorizing the city manager to open negotiations with the city’s labor unions over cost-cutting measures, another to look for savings by restructuring the police department’s PERS contributions. PERS restructuring is not expected to affect how much police officers actually receive from the retirement system. 

A third proposal from councilmembers Gordon Wozniak and Miriam Hawley would allow fellow councilmembers to voluntarily turn back their automatic cost-of-living raise this year. 

Tonight’s vote on the Sprint cellular facility stems from a two-year struggle by neighbors to prevent three antennae from being placed on the rooftop of a commercial building at Cedar and Shattuck, with related equipment in the basement. 

Sprint says the facility is needed to improve cellular phone coverage in North Berkeley, and is permissible under the city’s Wireless Telecommunication Facility Ordinance. Neighbors have argued that Sprint cellular coverage in the area is fine, and that the new facility poses a health hazard. 

Federal law places health issues of cellular phone antennae under the jurisdiction of the Federal Communications Commission, and Berkeley officials can’t consider the issue. The council held a public hearing on the neighbors’ appeal at last week’s meeting. 

Councilmembers have also scheduled consideration of a report from members Linda Maio, Miriam Hawley, Gordon Wozniak and Betty Olds on a controversial plan to provide free, no-limit, exclusive on-street parking spots for the city’s parking enforcement staff near the Ashby BART station. 

At the council’s request, the four-member subcommittee met last week with enforcement staff representatives and BART-area merchants and neighbors. The subcommittee is expected to present a compromise proposal at tonight’s meeting. 

The council will also discussion extension of the Bay Trail to the Berkeley Marina, pulled from the consent calendar last week by Councilmember Dona Spring because of her concerns about the plan’s proposal to cut nearly 100 trees.

Like many parents of Berkeley special education children, Maya MacArdle has had to scratch and claw to make sure her son Anthony received the education she thinks he deserves. 

Now, thanks to a special report commissioned by the Berkeley Unified School District, proposed changes could help make the task easier for her and less costly for the district. 

District Director of Special Education Ken Jacopetti estimates that by reforming the system and providing better training, the district might reduce the $1.1 million they spend on sending some special education students out of the district, and prevent some hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal expenses that in past years have gone to defend the district in due process hearings. 

As the system now stands, “it takes constant baby-sitting on our part because everyone [in the district] is so overworked,” MacArdle said. “I don’t know of a single parent not pulling their hair out.” 

When Anthony MacArdle, who is diagnosed with autism and cerebral palsy, first entered kindergarten, his propensity to flail his arms around and hit people had school officials pushing to banish him to a segregated special education class. After she fought off that plan, she grappled with the district over an instructional aide who often showed up late and unprepared. 

Eight years and three due process hearings later, Anthony is happily enrolled in general education classes at King Middle School with the help of an instructional aide and his mother, along with other parents of special education parents, hope that years of struggling against the district bureaucracy is finally paying dividends. 

Last Wednesday, the school board enthusiastically accepted the report it commissioned calling for the overhaul of special education—which administrators acknowledged has failed some children and ballooned budget deficits. 

“We cannot continue to operate the way we are,” said Superintendent Michele Lawrence. “The dysfunction especially in the budget process for special education is like mistletoe: It will consume and eat the tree and we’ll all die.”  

Special education students range from those diagnosed with autism or Down Syndrome to those with less serious learning disabilities and behavioral issues. Some are included in general education classes, but many are segregated—depriving them of opportunities to learn beside their peers and costing the district a chance to better allocate its limited resources. 

Though report authors Kathleen Gee of Sacramento State University and Diane Ketelle of Mills College didn’t crunch numbers, they recommended reforms that could ultimately trim some of the $14 million spent annually on special education, $7.9 million of which comes from the district’s already tapped general fund. 

The biggest problem, Ketelle said, was that the district viewed special education not as services within the regular school curriculum but as a separate place inside the school. 

To ensure that struggling students received assistance, Ketelle said Berkeley pushed them into special education—often segregating them from classmates and erecting walls between the special education department and the rest of the schools. She said Berkeley High School provides the worst example, often relegating special education students to “a school within a school,” but district elementary and middle schools face similar problems to varying degrees. 

The authors said that mindset has swelled the ranks of Berkeley’s special education students to 1,128—roughly one out of every 10 students—and spawned an inefficient web of services, including 52 teachers and 124 instructional aides, many providing one-on-one service. 

Ketelle and Gee called for reassigning many of those students, most notably the 191 assigned to special day classes, mostly students diagnosed with behavioral disorders, to general education classrooms with instructional aides inside to help them and other students.  

“They need to rethink the organization of their services to put more resources and efforts into instruction and fewer kids into special education,” she said, recommending reassigning some one-on-one aides to classrooms where they could assist several students during a lesson.  

Gee said that returning the bulk of special education students to regular classes will require extensive training for all teachers and aides to tailor classroom instruction to meet their needs, a process Lawrence said is already underway. 

More training could also save Berkeley some of the $1.1 million it currently spends to send 47 of its special education students to private academies with staff qualified to handle severely disabled children, often those with autism or behavioral disorders. 

To implement the classroom reforms, Gee and Ketelle call for structural changes to the special education department.  

First and foremost is a plan already being implemented to shift responsibility for special education student assessments from district managers to schools sites. Last year, state auditors found Berkeley Unified had mothballed around 300 student assessments and had failed to update students’ individual education plans, putting the district out of compliance with state law, and vulnerable to costly lawsuits. 

“If the school doesn’t take ownership for assessing the child, it goes to the district office and falls into a black hole,” said Director of Special Education Ken Jacopetti, who found the district 240 assignments behind when he assumed his job in September. 

He is acting on Gee and Ketelle’s recommendation to reform Student Study Teams in district schools, so students that are struggling in their general education classes can get early intervention and needed services without being assigned to special education. 

Support within the schools varies, the report said, with some doing a fine job at integrating special education students and teachers into the school and others lagging behind. 

The disparities in services are apparent to Lena Willis who is eager to move her five-year-old autistic son from Rosa Parks to Leconte after he cycled through seven instructional aides in his first five months of school.  

“At Leconte they have people manage the aides so they have a plan to work with the classroom teachers. At Rosa Parks the aides are thrown into the classroom and they get commands from three or four different people and ultimately quit,” she said. 

Berkeley’s problems are not unique, said Wendy Byrnes, a parent advocate with the Disability Rights Education & Defense Fund. “This is endemic of systemic problems across the board; it happens in a lot of places.” 

Like other districts, Berkeley gets little help in shouldering the burden of special education costs. This year the federal government will cover just 16 percent of all costs, though the 1975 Individuals With Disability Education Act had promised federal reimbursement of 40 percent. California exacerbates the money crunch by capturing federal dollars and funneling them to its own special education mandates.  

This year the state is expected to take the estimated $74.5 million growth in federal aid earmarked for special education in California and put it towards the $107.4 million the state is required to supply districts in cost of living and growth adjustments. 

Berkeley Unified officials pledged Wednesday to change their entire philosophy towards integrating special education students into their schools, which MacArdle believes will enrich the lives of other children as much as it has for Anthony. “He’s more motivated around typical peers. When he’s in an environment with only disabled kids, he just sits around and doesn’t do much,” she said. “In the regular class he’s stimulated to do his best.”

Berkeley flamenco aficionados anxiously anticipating last weekend’s dual performances by renowned guitarist Paco de Lucia found out they’re going to have to wait until March for rescheduled shows. 

The reason? The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) denied de Lucia and his troupe entry visas . 

The world’s most famous flamenco guitarist, de Lucia had to reschedule several performances on his upcoming U.S. tour—including two at Berkeley’s Zellerbach Hall—when DHS flagged his Cuban bass guitarist, Alain Rodriguez, for an additional security check.  

That action grounded the rest of the nine-member band even after approval from the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Department (formerly known as Immigration and Naturalization Services) and the American consulate in Madrid. 

Canceled tour dates have been rescheduled and event promoters have scrambled to make sure that the group will indeed receive visas. Unfortunately, they say, there’s been no direct communication with the Department of Homeland Security and the going has been slow. 

A spokesperson for DHS said privacy laws may be at fault, because the agency can’t release information about individuals and their visa applications to third parties.  

The cancellation isn’t a one-time phenomenon for the performing world, neither in Berkeley nor across the country. According to Scott Southard, director of International Music Network, DHS checks have been forced cancellations and delays of hundreds of concerts across the country since 9/11, resulting in the loss of millions of dollars for promoters.  

Southard, who represents the top four most popular groups from Cuba—including the Afro-Cuban All Stars, the Buena Vista Social Club, renowned jazz pianist Chucho Valdez and singer Cecilia Cruz, along with other popular groups around the world—has canceled or rescheduled over 200 shows since the Department of Homeland Security was created.  

He said 50-60 groups are denied entry each year, and other groups refuse to come because they won’t deal with the hassle of applying. 

“I’ve calculated the total economic value in ticket sales and other revenue lost and it’s around $10 million,” said Southard. And that’s just from the show’s he’s promoted. 

“My agency only represents a small number of artists, the numbers easily go into the tens of millions of dollars since the founding of the Department of Homeland Security.” 

Chucho Valdez, a Southard client who is an iconic figure in the American Jazz scene, has been denied a visa three times, he said. One denial came when he wanted to attend the Latin Grammy Awards, where he was up for an award. Valdez won, but couldn’t claim his prize in person. 

Lucia’s bassist, who carries a Cuban passport but is a legal resident of Spain, has been stopped multiple times. He was denied last year when traveling with Cecilia Cruz, an ardent anti-Castroist. 

“We know what side of the political spectrum he resides on,” said Southard. Yet he still can’t get in. 

Artists repeatedly denied entry come from countries high on Homeland Security’s terrorist country list, including Cuba, several countries in the Middle East, and North Korea. 

Britian’s Guardian newspaper reported Monday that five members of a Church of England girls’ boarding school were branded potential illegal immigrants and banned from a U.S. tour that included a concert at San Francisco’s Grace Cathedral. School headmistress Mary Steel called the refusal “barmy” and lodged a protest with American ambassador William S. Farish.  

Cal Performances, the agency which promotes shows at Zellerbach Hall, recently had a close call with the Masters of Persian Classical Music—again because one person was flagged. 

“I don’t know if the Department of Homeland Security knows that affect this process if having on business,” said Hollis Ashby, associate director of Cal Performances. 

She says that de Lucia’s cancellation forced her organization—which has a budget separate from the university’s—to hire a half-dozen people for two days to call everyone who had tickets to the sold-out shows. Still more expense went into rescheduling the shows, which are now set to take place March 4 and 5. 

Ashby said the lack of recourse is especially frustrating. Because DHS won’t respond to their requests, they can only communicate through elected representatives. Ashby says she plans to contact Rep. Barbara Lee with her concerns. 

Southard said the only way his office receives information is when the State Department—specifically the Cuban desk—intervenes. Thus far, he said, the process has been slow but he credits the State Department with being helpful. 

Both Southard and Ashby say they’re frustrated with the process but resolved to cope, and if they have to start working six months earlier to ensure artists will be granted visas, so be it. They hope that, in return, the results are predictable. 

“We’re not going to let the Department of Homeland Security hold us back in doing the programs we do so well,” said Ashby.

Berkeley musicians Carol Denney, Country Joe McDonald, Buzzy Linhart and the Big Few, Will Scarlett and others will take the stage Wednesday night for the Shelter from the Storm benefit concert at the Freight & Salvage Co. to honor the Berkeley Homeless Union. 

The Homeless Union is an advocacy group for the homeless which successfully negotiated with Mayor Tom Bates to open a new emergency shelter at St. Mark’s Church during the winter’s coldest and rainiest months. The Homeless Union will be celebrating that agreement along with years of work at the benefit, which gets underway ay 8 p.m. at 1111 Addison St. 

Slated to open in a week, the shelter will be staffed by people from the Dorothy Day House and volunteers from the Berkeley Homeless Union. Debbie Moore, a member of the Homeless Union, said the new facility will be an enormous improvement over the encampments set up in years past to protect the homeless who have had nowhere to go as other shelters fill up. Those camps, which she said usually serve up to 75 people, were impromptu and often cleared out by police—as was last year’s, across from City Hall in Martin Luther King Jr. Park. 

Campers there had some shelter, but were still outside, exposed to the elements—which Moore said often leads to sickness and, sometimes, death. 

Denney, Country Joe, Buzzy Linhart and the Big Few, and Will Scarlett—who will play with Marc Silber and Steven Mann—will share the stage Wednesday with Bones and Yukon Hannibal and the X-plicit Singers, drawn from members from the X-plicit Players, Berkeley’s well-known naked street theater group. 

Mayor Bates will appear too, handing out awards to homelessness activists including Osha Neumann, Charles Gray and Marc Weinstein. 

The show is dedicated to Berkeleyans who passed away recently, including Fred Lupke, Ray Reese, Kevin Freeman and Father Bill O’Donnell. Proceeds will pay for immediate needs, including more sleeping bags, blankets and rain ponchos. 

For more information contact Debbie Moore at 848-1985 or debbiemoore@xplicitplayers.com.

Opponents of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger have petitioned the California Supreme Court to invalidate his executive orders lowering the Vehicle License Fee increase and cutting $148 million to education and other programs. 

The petition argues that the governor violated the California constitution by overriding the legislature in determining how state money is spent. 

“There was no hearing, no process about what should be cut. We didn’t think that was a fair process,” said Liz Geyer, executive director of the University of California Student Association, which joined the petition along with four UC students and civil rights advocacy groups Equal Justice Society and Californians For Justice.  

At issue is the governor’s November executive order lowering the vehicle license fee that was to provide money for cities and counties. To help restore funding to localities, Schwarzenegger declared a fiscal emergency in December, cutting $148 million, including $24 million from UC and CSU outreach programs that offer programs for poor and minority high school students to help them qualify for a state university. 

The petitioners, united in their determination to preserve outreach, contend Schwarzenegger could not lower the Vehicle License Fee when the state lacked the money to offset the cuts. 

“The governor’s director of finance clearly lacked authority under California constitutional and statutory law to offset the license fee decreases by imposing $148 in budget cuts without legislative approval,” said Warrington Parker III, an attorney with San Francisco law firm Heller, Ehrman White & McAuliffe, which represents the plaintiffs free of charge. 

H.D. Palmer, Department of Finance spokesperson, insisted that Schwarzenegger violated no laws and would not have considered the measures had he not been assured he was on firm legal ground. Former Gov. Gray Davis invoked similar privileges in 2001. 

The plaintiffs filed the petition directly with the state Supreme Court to seek a quick resolution, said attorney Nicholas W. van Aelstyn, acknowledging it would be “unusual” for the court to hear the case. 

The court can choose to make the governor respond to the petition, deny it or send it to a lower court. A decision is expected sometime this week.

Historical Society Seeks Bohemians 

In preparation for a spring exhibit on early Berkeley Bohemians, the Berkeley Historical Society is looking for help from families with longtime roots in the community. 

The exhibit focuses on artists, poets, writers, musicians, photographers and other creative folks who lived in Berkeley between 1890 and 1925. 

Along with profiling some famous and not-so-famous local Bohemians, the society is researching neighborhood activities and social events of the era related to the Bohemian theme.  

Because ordinary Berkeley families often gave parties featuring musical and dramatic presentations in their backyards and living rooms, the society is asking for those with families here then to check their photo albums and records for any photos or personal accounts of these activities. 

Relevant photos and documents can be scanned and returned to their owners. 

Anyone with possible submissions should contact Ed Herny, co-curator of the exhibit, at 415-725-4674 (cell) or by e-mail at edphemra@pacbell.net. 

UC Wins Lab Contract Extension 

As expected, the University of California has been granted a one-year contract extension to manage Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, lab officials said this weekend. 

The announcement comes as the U.S. Department of Energy finalizes a schedule for competitive bidding among universities and corporations for management of the Berkeley lab as well as UC-managed nuclear weapons labs Lawrence Livermore and Los Alamos. 

Los Alamos has been beset by scandal in recent years, prompting President Bush to sign legislation last fall opening all UC contracts to bid. 

The law allows the DOE to grant UC a second one-year contract extension for LBNL. 

UC officials have expressed their intention to bid for LBNL, which performs unclassified, general science research. Most experts assume they have the inside track considering the close links between lab staff and UC Berkeley faculty. 

—Matthew Artz 

Planners to Hear Bus Proposal 

Berkeley Planning Commissioners will hear an AC Transit proposal Wednesday that could significantly change bus service in downtown and South Berkeley. The meeting begins at 7 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center, 1901 Hearst Ave. 

As part of its East Bay Bus Rapid Transit project (BRT), AC Transit wants to construct bus-only lanes and light rail-like station structures along an 18-mile corridor from downtown Berkeley to Bay Fair BART. Possible plans include a pedestrian/bus mall on upper Telegraph Avenue just outside the UC campus. 

AC Transit is seeking Planning Commission feedback for inclusion in an Environmental Impact Report being prepared for the project. 

—J. Douglas Allen-Taylor 

Police Get Money To Fight Drunk Driving 

Drunk drivers will soon have plenty to fear when they cross into Berkeley. The Berkeley Police Department announced last week it had received a $222,185 federal grant to step up its drunk driving enforcement. 

The grant, part of $35.2 million in traffic safety grants distributed to California cities last year, will pay for two officers two nights per week, devoted solely to driving under the influence enforcement as well as eight DUI sobriety checkpoints. 

—Matthew Artz 

SHASTA FIRE STATION 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I am a concerned citizen who has consistently opposed the Shasta Road fire station. That battle has apparently been lost and the city has the court’s blessing to spend Measure G funds on this project. Positions on both sides of this issue became entrenched and arguments justifying the project took on a life of their own and had to be defended in order to prevail in court. Now that the issue is settled and in light of the budget crisis facing the city, the current administration should face up to some realities.  

(1) This is not an additional fire station and there is no reason to expend $369,000 to seismically upgrade or maintain the current Station No. 7 which will be no more than a warehouse on a very expensive lot in a residential neighborhood.  

(2) This project is not multi-jurisdictional and neither the size of the proposed facility nor its nearly $5 million budget is justified.  

I found it almost laughable that the city was expending funds on outside attorneys to defend the “additional” fire station, while debating the rotating closure of existing fire stations. The arguments of the opponents of the Shasta Road station were drowned out by parochial politics, but that doesn’t mean that their arguments weren’t valid. For example, we did identify a recently completed fire and police station project in Marin County that was larger in size than the proposed Shasta Road station and cost about half as much as we are budgeting. Since money—or the absence of it—is now an issue, maybe the current administration will reconsider its alternatives. It may be appropriate to replace the current Station No. 7 with a new facility on Shasta Road, but the new station should be recognized for what it is in its simplest form. It is a $5 million garage with living quarters for its three man crew. Debt service costs on even $4 million at 6 percent are equivalent to funding at least two city employees. The administration should consider reducing both the size of this project and the number of city layoffs necessitated by the impending budget crisis.  

Walter Geist 

• 

UC DEVELOPMENT 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Let’s see: UC Berkeley’s campus development plan calls for “a return to open grassy spaces and a move to preserve the original buildings in the campus’s core” while the city of Berkeley seems hell-bent on the opposite: tall, dense, new buildings with no setbacks or open space and the destruction of landmark structures. But then, of course, UC is correct in assuming that the ugly new buildings, dorms, and downtown hotels it wishes to build anywhere off-campus will be welcomed by the current crop of city politicians and planners. 

I especially like their plan to replace Evans Hall with two smaller twin structures on the grounds of clearing a better view of the Golden Gate Bridge, while simultaneously planning a hotel at the west edge of the campus which would block it. 

Carol Denney 

• 

TICKET PRICES 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

You know the city is badly in the red when they’re handing out $270 tickets for riding a bicycle on the sidewalk in downtown Berkeley. Luckily there are only a few Berkeley cops who are so lacking in a sense of fairness and justice to give out one of these offensive tickets (and they know who they are), and only one miserable judge who will uphold them. A word to the wise: If you get one of these tickets, either pay it right away and complain to the city council, or fight it all the way down the line, because the judge won’t reduce the fine, which is a travesty considering it costs more than a bicycle. He probably owns stock in Chevron. 

Sean McGuire 

• 

INSTANT RUNOFF VOTING 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The fact that Instant Runoff Voting (IRV) will save the city millions of dollars over the years and eliminate the need for a December runoff is a big bonus. We will be able to make our democracy stronger while at the same time saving money. How often does that happen? 

However, saving money is not the reason I am supporting Measure I. I would be perfectly willing to pay extra money to have a stronger democracy. The most important reason for supporting IRV is that it will hold our elected officials more accountable to the people who elect them. And it is irrespective of which end of the political spectrum one sits. 

A Democrat or Republican who consistently wins with 55 percent will think twice about selling out to their corporate sponsors when their first-choice votes are 30 percent and the Green or Libertarian second choices give them the extra 25 percent to win the majority. 

They will realize that a small shift to the third party could send them packing. No longer will candidates be able to take the votes of certain communities for granted. They will actually have to pay attention to their constituents. 

The problem is not that we have too many political parties, it’s that we don’t have enough. 

Yes, Measure I will save millions and that’s great, but more importantly it will bring substantive, responsive representation to our city. 

Jonathan Pilch 

0 

• 

SQUANDERED CASH 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

North Berkeley urgently needs a functioning fire station that is also comfortable for the firefighters who work there. But the current design has over 3,000 square feet devoted only to living space for three firefighters. 

Measure G will pay for such a building, but where is the money for upkeep and maintenance of such a structure? And where is the common sense? Just because the money is available doesn’t mean it should be squandered unnecessarily. 

Cindy Fulton  

• 

PARKING SPACES 

Dear Berkeley City Council and Mayor Bates: 

Rumor has it that Mayor Bates has suggested that the city parking patrol employees that work out of the Adeline Street office be given reserved parking spots. Before this decision is made I ask that each of you please drive by our small commercial district and walk around for a while. If you do, you will notice that this area is far from being a vital and functional commercial district for the neighborhood. And that taking away 20 of the parking spaces in this area will do little to attract new businesses. In fact, it will only highlight the city’s lack of concern and respect for this neighborhood. 

Recently a new business, Spud’s Pizza, applied for a use permit to run a sit-down restaurant on Adeline and Alcatraz. They were initially turned down for not providing off-street parking, and have been forced to lease parking at a nearby location. I find this hypocritical and without good reason. Day time parking is much more congested then evening parking, and yet the city would like to take 20 of the parking spots. 

This is only one of many decisions that are made that effect our neighborhood in a negative manner. How many of you have walked down Adeline between Alcatraz and Ashby or down Sacramento between Alcatraz and Dwight in the last year. Please do—you will notice that what these commercial districts need is city policies that encourage economic development by new business that are vital to a healthy neighborhood. You are the only people with the power to turn this neighborhood around, and the only reason that it fails to be a safe enjoyable and integral part of our lives. I am certain that if the city council and mayor made it a priority to turn Southwest Berkeley around that it would be done in five years. I am also certain that their are a myriad of excuses why not.  

Karl McDade 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The president who fabricated war in Iraq supposedly to bring democracy to that country is opposed to elections there. 

Bush’s so-called Healthy Forests Initiative allows increased clear-cutting of our dwindling resources. 

His so-called Clear Skies Initiative weakens air pollution standards. 

“No child left behind” actually means that all children are left behind to pay back his borrowing on the national debt that gave tax breaks to his very rich backers. 

Now he wants to excite us with his vision of going to Mars, while at the same time the director of NASA canceled the scheduled maintenance of the Hubble Space Telescope. If new batteries and gyros are not installed as planned, the most productive scientific instrument ever built will cease functioning, thereby wasting our expensive investment and squandering our opportunity to learn more about the universe. 

It’s time to replace this twisted administration. 

Bruce Joffe 

Piedmont 

Dear Werner Hertz, Candidate for KPFA Listener Board: 

I support you and will vote for you. I’ve been working on getting the KPFA program council to have guests on at least once a day that teach people how to impeach their president and his administration—it’s the everyday woman and man’s constitutional duty and democratic right to know. KPFA has been conducting programming on a neo-con neo-liberal, “need to know” militarized basis it seems to me—just like the mainstream press as far as actually indirectly discouraging specific and doable action that listeners can take to strengthen their democracy and, therefore, personal lives. It’s amazing the resistance that I’ve come up against at KPFA. Egos and personalities at KPFA are like deep fog banks clouding the clarity of the momentum needed to rise up against this despot, Bush. The program council is deficient currently in their commitment to teaching listeners about democratic process and the options open to them as U.S. citizens who matter—even in FCC legal indirect ways. We are not powerless as individuals or as a united group. We have been denied and need education as a group. However, KPFA current program council stands in the way of uniting those opposed to Bush policies from taking correct direct action to see that Bush is removed from office via impeachment. I’m afraid I can’t believe that KPFA staff and volunteers actually assume that the public already knows how to impeach their despotic president. It’s ridiculous to assume this and is against all my street experience. All I’ve been asking for is that someone be allowed on KPFA air several times a day as a guest who will, in about 30 seconds, describe the constitutionally encouraged process of impeachment against a clear criminal despot, Bush. Who to call: our federal representatives. What to tell this representative when we get her or him (or intern) on the phone, which is all quite simple but not known by most who want Bush out. Not a single KPFA producer has responded at all to my many dozens of reasonable, directed and very timely pleas. What are they waiting for on this most timely of matters—coordinating specific public response to erosion of our democracy? 

It’s much harder, friends from former communist Eastern Bloc countries say, to unseat a presumptuous despotic dictator than it is to prevent one in the first place. This should be obvious to KPFA producers and leadership, who one would think, could see the danger of a dictator having control of a vast military that is the largest, best-funded and most manipulative and manipulatable by a despot in the world. A lot to unseat without constitutional protections and a lot to rise up against eventual eastern-block style community informants thanks to revived provisions this year that were thought to be effectively killed last year in both the Patriot Act and Homeland Security Department discussions in Congress. Please help. Let me know your opinions on this matter.  

Sincerely yours,  

Frank Snapp 

Oakland 

THE “MIXED-USE” MISNOMER 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I draw your attention to a disturbing trend in the development feeding frenzy the City of Berkeley is suffering under—the incredible shrinking retail/commercial component of everyone’s favorite development misnomer: mixed-use. This trend may have escaped the notice of our Planning Department and its boards, but it is clear that developers who pay close attention to their return on investment are no longer willing to devote more than a fig leaf of square footage to space that will remain vacant or need to be rented to a charity case nonprofit. No, they have recognized that the real value of the retail/commercial space in mixed-use development is its near miraculous ability to slide oversized developments through the planning process, rather than in any economic return to them or for some “public purpose” in return for the significant zoning concessions granted to mixed-use developments. 

A case in point is the latest mutation of Panoramic Interests’ 1950 MLK project—now re-titled and re-oriented as 1885 University Ave. Proposed originally as a 119,280-square-foot mixed-use development with 191 dwelling units and 5,000 square feet of retail/commercial space, it is has metastasized into a 158,860-square-foot project with 179 dwelling units and 4,500 square feet of retail/commercial space. This “right-sizing” (to bring back a hated term from the ‘90s) has the effect of reducing the residential/commercial ‘mix’ from a laughable 4.2 percent to a derisory 2.8 percent. To get a sense of what this project will look like and how it will dominate the neighborhood, the next time you are eastbound on University Avenue and need to wait at the MLK stoplight, envision the Golden Bear development up the street at Milvia and University transported to your immediate left—because Panoramic Interests’ new project has the same square footage and footprint as the Golden Bear, but regrettably will not have either its honesty nor its charm. 

If the residential component of the current litter of mixed-use developments were evaluated as purely residential developments, they would need to conform to R3 zoning, with real setbacks, reasonable building heights, and meaningful detriment impact standards and findings. Even with the state-mandated density bonus of 25 percent a R3 development would provide the neighborhood, the city, and the region the housing it needs—without the ugliness of yet one more hulking structure presenting a vacant storefront with a perpetual ‘For Lease’ or ‘Available’ sign in the window as its smirking nod to the concept of mixed-use. We probably need more housing, but we certainly have no need for additional retail or commercial space. Furthermore, whatever need for such space that does arise over the next few decades can easily be accommodated by renovating today’s distressed and vacant inventory. There is no requirement in city or state law to approve a mixed-use proposal when there is no need for additional retail or commercial space. Just because a developer makes a proposal for a mixed-use project under the zoning code does not require approval by ZAB or the city council—a permitted use is not a by right entitlement—demand that our city begin to show some discretionary oversight over the development process. 

Stephen Wollmer

Measure I, on the March 2 Berkeley ballot, promises to save the city hundreds of thousands of dollars while expanding our democracy and saving voters the inconvenience of a December runoff election. Measure I will give Berkeley the option of enacting Instant Runoff Voting (IRV) at some point in the future if the city council determines it will not cost more money and is feasible.  

Measure I addresses several problems with December runoff elections used in Berkeley: They are expensive for taxpayers, they contribute to very low voter turnout, and they undermine campaign finance reform. According to the Berkeley city attorney, a citywide runoff costs $300,000 and a district wide runoff $100,000—and that’s just for a runoff by mail. That money could go to pay for social, health and other services that are threatened with cutbacks. 

Moreover, turnout in Berkeley’s December runoffs has declined for all eight runoffs since I986 by an average of 28 percent. Minorities, students, and low income voters are disproportionately hurt. This is not good for democracy. 

December runoffs also undermine campaign finance reform, because candidates must raise money for two elections, instead of one. The purpose of the runoff—to ensure majority support for elected officials—is sound, but the defects outlined above undermine this worthy goal. 

Some say we should abolish December runoffs, or move the runoff to February, or reduce the amount of votes needed to 40 percent. Unfortunately, all of these would create additional problems, such as the possibility of electing candidates who do not have the support of a majority of voters, or having even lower voter turnout in February.  

There is a better solution. Instant Runoff Voting achieves the goal of a runoff election—majority rule—without the cost and hassle of a second election. Here’s how it works. 

IRV is much like the December runoff, except that voters select their runoff choices ahead of time. Voters select their favorite candidate, and then indicate their runoff choices by ranking candidates: first, second, third. If a candidate receives a majority of first choices, she or he is declared the winner. If not, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated, and a runoff round of counting occurs immediately using voters’ “runoff” rankings. Your ballot counts for your top-ranked candidate still in the race. Runoff rounds continue until there is a majority winner. 

In many ways, the “instant” runoff is not much different from the “delayed” December runoff—except that voters indicate their runoff choice at the same time as their first choice, so they don’t need to return to the polls if no candidate receives an outright majority. By doing it all in one election, we not only produce majority winners, we save millions of tax dollars over time. We also avoid the considerable headaches of a second election in the middle of the busy holiday season. 

Moreover, with IRV candidates have incentive to court the supporters of other candidates, asking for their second or third rankings. Successful candidates usually win by building coalitions, not by tearing down their opponents through negative campaigning. That’s good for democracy too. 

Voting with IRV also takes away the “spoiler” effect. If IRV had been used in the 2000 presidential election, the 100,000 Ralph Nader voters would have had the option of ranking their second/runoff choice. Undoubtedly thousands of them would have chosen Al Gore, and Gore would be president right now.  

San Francisco passed IRV recently, and it will be used for the first time in the November 2004 elections. Oakland and San Leandro have passed measures similar to Measure I. IRV also is used to elect the president of Ireland, the mayor of London, and the president of the American Political Science Association (and they know a thing or two about elections). 

Measure I will not implement instant runoff voting, it simply will give us the option of using IRV at a future date if the city council determines that it will not cost more than the current system and is feasible from an election administration standpoint. IRV makes good fiscal, practical and democratic sense, Vote yes on Measure I this March.  

John Selawsky is president of the Berkeley School Board. Nancy Bickel is president of the League of Women Voters of Berkeley, Albany and Emeryville.

Editors, Daily Planet:  

I am outraged by John Gertz’ latest attack on our city council (“A Parable for Councilmembers,” Daily Planet, Jan. 23-26). Its offense: daring to request an investigation into the death of Rachel Corrie. The young Corrie was crushed to death by an armored, U.S.-made Caterpillar bulldozer as she nonviolently placed her body in front of Palestinian homes the Israeli army was demolishing. After running her down, the army driver reversed and backed up over Corrie’s still-living body. Only days ago, Tom Hurndall, another young international, died from wounds inflicted when the Israeli army shot him as he was escorting a Palestinian child to safety in the occupied West Bank. 

Why would Gertz smear Corrie after her death? Why would he attack our city council for requesting an investigation of her killing? What does he want covered up?  

In Israel/Palestine, the systematic military violence of occupation harmonizes with the indiscriminate hatred of suicide bombings in a symphony of carnage and revenge. Courageous, big-hearted people worldwide are putting themselves in harm’s way because our nation does nothing to stop the bloodshed.  

To the Berkeley City Council: You have the support of Jews everywhere who do not accept oppression in our name. 

Glen Hauer 

Jewish Voice for Peace 

Editors, Daily Planet:  

In his recent open letter John Gertz condemns the five councilmembers who approved a resolution calling for an independent U.S. investigation into the slaying of Rachel Corrie, a 23-year-old American college student who was crushed to death by an Israeli bulldozer as she tried to nonviolently block the demolition of a Palestinian physician’s home. (The Israeli military had rapidly concluded that there was no culpability on the part of the military involved). Mr. Gertz creates a muddled parable, wherein Berkeley becomes a racist southern city and Rachel a war criminal, to express his pain as a Jewish resident that there was no similar call for an investigation into the deaths of American citizens, including Jews, who have been among the victims of the atrocity of suicide bombings. This notwithstanding that for every suicide bombing there is swift and sweeping retaliation by the Israeli government, including military incursions into Palestinian cities and extrajudicial executions of suspected militants, in the course of which scores of innocent Palestinian civilians are also killed.  

There is another kind of pain that many Jewish Americans feel, different from that described by Mr. Gertz. Old enough to remember and join the jubilation when the State of Israel was born, I have had to come to terms with the reality that Israel has become something other than the noble and besieged little country in the region. In reality it is now a formidable nuclear power and the fourth most powerful military in the world that has laid siege for over 36 years to an impoverished and defenseless civilian population. Thousands of innocent Palestinian civilians have been killed by the Israeli military, including hundreds of children. Land and water has been stolen, and more than 3,500 homes have been demolished, leaving an estimated 16,000 Palestinians homeless. (Statistics from B’Tsalem, Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories.)  

This is the nightmarish landscape where Rachel Corrie took her nonviolent stand against injustice. She paid with her life. This is the woman whom John Gertz, in his foolish parable, likens to a fictional “Richard Corrie,” a soldier “who had taken part in the Mai Lai massacre and would certainly have faced court martial had he lived …” What hysteria could have lead the good Mr. Gertz to smear the memory of this young American woman, crushed to death in the flower of her idealism? 

Avraham Burg is a member of the Israeli Knesset, and the former chair of the Jewish Agency for Israel. In a recent essay for Ha’aretz, Israel’s leading newspaper, Burg warned that the end of Zionism is near because the Israeli nation today rests on “foundations of oppression and injustice…There may yet be a Jewish state here, but it will be different sort, strange and ugly.” He concludes that “crying out [against Israeli oppression] is a moral imperative” and calls upon “Israel’s friends abroad—Jewish and non-Jewish” to help Israel move toward peace and justice. 

 I am profoundly appreciative that councilmembers Linda Maio, Kriss Worthington, Margaret Brelund, Maudell Shirek and Dona Spring had the courage to act on this moral imperative in demanding an independent U.S. investigation into the slaying of Rachel Corrie. In so doing they join, among others, Representative Barbara Lee, co-sponsor of House Concurrent Resolution 111, Amnesty International, and the Green Party. They give us cause for hope. 

Carol Sanders 

Editors, Daily Planet:  

A recent opinion piece in the Daily Planet excoriates me and four of my city council colleagues for a vote we made on Sept. 9, a vote that raised issues around the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The piece offers me the opportunity to let readers know what actually happened the night of the council vote.  

Berkeley’s Peace and Justice Commission had requested that the city council go on record in support of a congressional resolution (HR111), signed by over 40 members of Congress, including our own Barbara Lee. The resolution asked the U.S. government to conduct an independent investigation into the death of Rachel Corrie, an American peace activist who had been killed by an Israeli bulldozer. The Israeli government had conducted an investigation but would not release the report, not even to Rachel Corrie’s parents. My colleagues and I supported the request.  

Another motion, which I seconded, supported additional investigations of all American deaths in Israel, as requested by some members of the community. That motion was withdrawn when it became clear it would not pass. With hindsight, I now realize that what was needed that night was not a motion to investigate deaths, but one condemning all of the deaths and human rights violations in this war of rage and retribution. I take heart in supporting those who continue to stand for and engage in constructive Israeli-Palestinian dialogue, those who actively seek rapprochement and better understanding between the two peoples, those who are sowing the seeds of a just and peaceful solution to this painful and destructive conflict.  

Linda Maio 

Berkeley City Council 

Celebrating its 100th anniversary this month, Berkeley’s Etude Club is renewing its dedication to music performance and appreciation and to the encouragement of young musicians. 

“This anniversary is a testament to the enduring power of music, and it provides a fascinating window on the past,” says Janet Weinstein, club president.  

The Etude Club began Jan. 29, 1904, when six women gave a dinner party and performed a musical program afterwards. Opportunities for women to perform in public were slim at the time, and the evening was so inspiring that the women established a formal group to promote the study and performance of music. Members are either musicians or the ever-important associates, the listeners. 

Today the Etude Club continues, meeting monthly for a program of music performed by members, with tea and conversation following. The club encourages students to continue their pursuit of music and promotes musical development through an annual scholarship competition each spring, open to students in Alameda and Contra Costa counties. 

An Etude Club program today might look like the Feb. 26, 1914 program, which featured works by Beethoven, Mozart, and Mendelssohn. But other pieces heard recently at Etude were actually written during the Club’s lifetime. Among them: Francis Poulenc’s lyrical 1962 Sonata for clarinet and piano; the virtuosic 1939 Scaramouche for two pianos by Darius Milhaud; or Hubert Ho’s Tremble (2003) for flute and piano, performed with the composer at the keyboard. 

Over the past 100 years, Etude Club has felt the brush of history. “Our archives provide a wonderful glimpse into the last century,” says Joan Goodman, Etude historian. The club survived the 1906 earthquake, two world wars, and the turn of the millennium. It saw the 1918 Spanish flu epidemic claim the lives of several members. World War I found Etude Club members active outside music, with a table at the Twentieth Century Unit of the Red Cross making surgical dressings. 

When the 1923 fire broke out in central Berkeley, it happened to be an Etude meeting day. Past president Eda Cooper recalled that the door suddenly burst open mid-program and a voice shouted, “Berkeley is on fire! Go home immediately.”  

By 1931 the club had raised enough money to purchase its own piano, paying the then princely sum of $1,800 to Sherman Clay for a Steinway grand. Many card parties and extra performances were held to pay off the balance. And by 1946 the club was meeting at its current location at the Hillside Club on Cedar Street. Members are faithful, with one 98-year-old member writing this winter to say she regretted she would not be renewing her membership; attending meetings had become difficult.  

Times have changed. “Our members no longer attend in white gloves or arrive by streetcar or horse-drawn carriage,” says Goodman, “but our commitment to music remains the same.” Etude Club will be commemorating its centennial through the remainder of 2004. 

For additional information on joining the Etude Club or attending one of its programs as a guest, call 559-3959.

Berkeley’s Flatland, the gently sloping East Bay Shelf between, say, Martin Luther King Jr. Way and the water-edge, has never been famous for distinguished architecture. Most of it, apart from a handful of surviving Victorians in Oceanview—the original water-based settlement—is an uneventful mix of modest bungalows ranging from “Sub Craftsman” to “Plebian Ranch,” and made bearable here and there by surviving old trees and the city’s generous street-tree program. Friends or relatives from distant places might be driven slowly around the UC Campus or along Grizzly Peak for the views, but only a dedicated urban geographer would wish to be exposed to San Pablo Avenue or any stretch of the bland streets on either side. 

In recent years, the one dramatic intervention into this visual limbo is developer Denny Adams’ Fourth Street, that designer paradise of elegant shops and cafes that has become Berkeley’s Second Downtown. But now, here and there, are signs of architectural life in the residential flatland itself. Some are modest—a vine trellis here, a nice paint job there, or a cluster of nicely rehabbed dollhouse Victorians—but others are bold, novel, and happy to be admired. 

Drive along Ninth Street just south of Gilman, and you might notice, across the humble back-gardens and garages, a striking little studio tower rising behind a bungalow somewhere on Tenth Street. Drive back to Berkeley up Hollis, past Emeryville’s proud parade of industrial conversions, and you will come face to face, right at the turn to Berkeley’s Seventh Street, with two gleaming metallic live/work twins that challenge every cherished notion of desirable siting. Some of these new structures are detached houses, others second-floor additions, but all have in common freedom from the sort of “contextualism” that is, all to often, timid conformity to the prevailing neighborhood look. 

Here are six easy-to-find examples, all but one located in Berkeley: 

1025 West Place, Albany (off Posen). The urbane, strangely monumental house is a total surprise at the top of an alley-like dead-end street opposite St. Mary’s Campus. It skillfully exploits a quiet private lot, the back garden quite hidden from public view. The dominant walls—roofs hidden behind parapets—give it a very European or Latin American look. 

755 and 801 Folger St. (between Hollis and Seventh). These almost identical “live-work” buildings both match and improve their tough industrial setting—a contextual triumph for once! Above an office and an artist’s studio are elegant “high tech” apartments with lofts. The deep blue privacy wall and the shaggy trees have already softened the “metal shed” aesthetic. 

1406 Tenth St. (just south of Camellia). Mentioned above, this little tower built over the back portion of a late 1940s bungalow is an independent living unit with a view-loft above, clever color and a matching pitched roof link these quite dissimilar structures together and enliven the whole street. 

1265 Monterey Ave. (east side, north of Hopkins). This very suburban brick bungalow was the last house you’d expect to sprout a spirited “functionalist” expansion—mainly a north-facing double-studio for the occupants. However, a matching roof-slope, some changes to the existing frontage, creative use of color and a remarkable garden have pulled the whole gutsy thing together. 

1010 Cedar St. (just below San Pablo Avenue). A studio with a “barrel vault” roof and a view balcony in back creates a useful third level on this gently expanded old house. Despite the low-key wood boarded exterior, the city gave the owner a hard time for not “fitting in.” 

1813 Ninth St. (north of Hearst). Almost hidden behind an old red-painted cottage, this small, willfully picturesque house splits a largish back yard into three intimate outdoor areas. Bold stucco features, horizontal boards, exposed rafters and an additive-looking “shed” recall earlier Bay Region design. 

“Essential Berkeley” began around the magnificent hillside site of the UC Campus. Thus, almost all the local work of famous Bay Region architects is in this privileged area, along with hundreds of other delightful “view homes.” In contrast, the Flatlands—the busy traffic grid with its sea of humble dwellings on identical lots, seems boring if not ugly, and hardly gets a mention in architectural guidebooks. 

Encouraging, then, to see these modest demonstrations of lively professional design popping up in the city’s “forgotten half,” and likely to increase in number as the cost of building in the woodsy hills becomes astronomical.

Tom Bates’ unsuccessful attempt to sabotage the Planning Commission task force on the university’s proposed hotel, which he himself had requested only two months earlier, was unfortunately all too typical of his political style. He can’t seem to remember that Berkeley’s form of government is a weak mayor model—he’s supposed to be not much more than a councilmember-at-large, with some ceremonial responsibilities, including chairing the council meetings, and a bigger staff. He might try to get the local voters to change that, following the lead of the two Big Bad Browns who became mayors of neighboring cities after serving in Sacramento. But at this point few would say that the Brown experiments worked very well for Oakland or San Francisco, so Bates’ chances of becoming a strong mayor don’t look good. 

He obviously loves the picture of himself going mano-a-mano with the Big U, where he once quarterbacked a Rose Bowl football team. In his letter to the Planning Commission’s committee on the hotel proposal, he said that: “The city and the university are currently engaged in negotiations about the entitlement process. No agreement has been reached on who will serve as lead agency and what the exact permitting process will look like. I believe this proposal preempts those negotiations and may greatly complicate the eventual decision-making process.” 

The problem with this is, he’s not The City. He’s only the weak mayor. The City of Berkeley, in all its majesty, is the citizens, speaking through their representatives on the council and on the commissions (which, by the way, Bates and friends seem to be trying to undermine, but that’s another story.) The mayor doesn’t seem to understand how the commission system works, as evidenced by his worry in his letter that the task force proposal “does not address questions about the role of the Zoning Adjustments Board and the Design Review Committee in reviewing the project.” He wonders “how would discrepancies between design recommendations of the task force and the DRC/ ZAB be handled?” 

In a nutshell, the Planning Commission examines policy questions and makes recommendations to the council, which then enacts ordinances, which are subsequently administered by the city staff, with variance requests adjudicated by the Zoning Adjustment Board, which in turn gets non-binding advice from its Design Review Committee. There’s absolutely no reason for Bates and university planners to feel threatened by hearing the Planning Commission’s proposed policy recommendations, if what they want is consistent with citizens’ perceptions of the public good. But that’s a big If. 

Will the public interest be better served by secret negotiations with Tom Bates as point person? Michael Rossman recently digressed in these pages about how the California Schools for the Deaf and Blind were suckered out of what’s now the Clark Kerr Campus. His piece reminded old-timers that Bates and his wife Loni Hancock, then mayor of Berkeley, brokered that bad deal. The University of California took terrible advantage of both the school and its neighbors.  

The reason for making policy in open process is that you get better policy that way, especially in the City of Berkeley, where an unusual number of smart and well-informed citizens volunteer their services on bodies like the Planning Commission. Massive public building projects like sports stadiums and hotel-conference centers have, historically, often been good for developers but bad for localities. If the open public meetings of the planning commission task force turn out to pre-empt Bates’ currently secret negotiations, as he fears, maybe it’s better that way. The services of sharp-eyed public watchdogs like those on our planning commission will go a long way to ensure that this mega-project will be good for Berkeley, not just for UC Berkeley. Mayor Bates should appreciate their expert help in getting a good and fair deal for the city.  

Becky O’Malley is executive editor of the Daily Planet. 

“Ohmigod!” shouted my old friend, Ellen Porch. “Suzy Parker, you look exactly the same. Doesn’t she look the same, Mom? Look at her!”  

“Yes,” agreed Mrs. Porch, squinting over her bifocals. “Suzy Parker, you look exactly as you did 37 years ago! Why, I remember when you and Ellen were working at the motel down the street. Remember that Ellen? You were just little things. I couldn’t believe you had jobs. You were so young. So innocent. So skinny.” 

“Chambermaid Power!” shouted Ellen, raising her fist. “Remember those days, Suzy? Remember walking to work in those stupid white shoes? Remember those ambulatory stockings held up by garter belts? Those were the days, all right.” She shook her head and chuckled. 

I poured us each a glass of red wine and clinked glasses with my old friend and her mother. “Here’s to smelly polyester uniforms, sore feet and hairnets.”  

“No, seriously Suzy,” said Ellen, settling into my parent’s couch, and scrutinizing my face. “You look exactly the same.”  

“Yes,” agreed Mrs. Porch taking a sip of wine. Her hand trembled ever so slightly. 

The irony of these statements was not lost on me. I hadn’t seen either of them in 25 years. Ellen and I met when we were both 15. Our parents owned summer houses next to one another in Townsends Inlet, New Jersey.  

For several seasons we worked together, first as chambermaids, then as busgirls and finally, while in college, as waitresses. We were upwardly mobile. Our pay increased with each year. We became more seasoned, more hardened, more world-weary. Ellen went on to become a mother and a guidance counselor at a local high school. I had moved to California. Neither of us wore garter belts or hairnets or worked for tips anymore. 

Despite what Ellen and her mother had said, I knew I did not look the same. Ellen did not look the same. Her mother did not look the same. The years, the sun, the rich diets and the joys and pains of living had taken their tolls. You could see it in each of our faces, in our bodies, and in Mrs. Porch’s tremors.  

“Well, you both look the same too,” I said with as much conviction as I could. The truth was, I could probably pick them out in a police lineup, though it wouldn’t be easy. Ellen had put on at least 20 pounds since her chambermaid days and Mrs. Porch, who had at one time been very round in the middle had begun to shrink. 

“Yeah, right,” shouted Ellen with good humor. "Except now I look like Mommy did when she was my age and she looks like she’s going to disappear.” 

Mrs. Porch shook her head. “I’m not going anywhere,” she said. “I’m staying right here. Gonna finish up this wine with our old friend Suzy. Visit for a while and then go home to bed. That’ll be enough excitement for one evening.”  

Ellen patted her mother’s wrinkled hands. “Mommy doesn’t get around like she used to. Remember how she’d stand on the beach all day and watch out for everybody? Remember the Wesh kids and the Allens and the Wilers? Remember when the beach was bigger, the sand was whiter, the ocean was cleaner and there weren’t as many houses or people or trash?” 

“Yes,” I said. I poured us all another glass of wine. “And the sky was bluer.” 

“The sky was definitely bluer!” shouted Ellen and she laughed. It was the same giggle she had when she was 15 years old. I looked at her face more closely. Yes, Ellen did look exactly the same. I’d recognize her anywhere. She really hadn’t changed much, and neither had I. “Here’s to old friends,” I shouted, raising my glass again. “Here’s to hairnets and garter belts, to changing sheets and slinging hash. Here’s to hard-working chambermaids and busgirls around the world!”