Page One

CORRECTION 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I want to commend the Daily Planet for publishing Michael Rossman’s controversial article on Clark Kerr. In a letter which also speaks highly of Rossman’s piece, Gilbert Bendix is in error about the emasculation of the Enola Gay exhibition at the Smithsonian. This inexcusable act was performed by I. Michael Heyman, who, when he was chancellor of UCB attempted to keep the Free Speech Movement marker from being put in place in Sproul Plaza. In that attempt to stifle free speech Heyman was fortunately unsuccessful. 

Peter Selz 

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MEA CULPA 

Editors, Daily Planet:  

Sherry Smith is right, and I was wrong. Indeed, I confused two former UCB chancellors. Clark Kerr had no connection with the Smithsonian. My apologies to all concerned. 

Gilbert Bendix 

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UNIVERSITY AVENUE 

Editors, Daily Planet:  

The city council is to be commended for initiating the long overdue process for adopting the zoning standards of the University Avenue Strategic Plan at their Jan. 27 meeting. 

The first meetings that eventuated in the plan were held more than 10 years ago, in the fall of 1993. The plan itself was approved by the council three years later. In those intervening three years, citizens, commissioners, city staff, and skilled consultants exercised an immense amount of care and effort to ensure that the plan represented the best, collaborative thinking of which our community was capable.  

Why is the city still struggling almost 10 years later with the problems that the plan addressed? In part, it is because the zoning standards developed in the plan have amazingly, after all this time, never been officially adopted. Passage of the plan raised expectations. By failing to enact the plan’s zoning standards, the city has guaranteed the perpetual dashing of those expectations and encouraged hopelessness and cynicism about planning in general as well as needless antagonisms between residents and developers.  

Residents deserve the protections and amenities they worked so hard to secure in the plan. Developers deserve the certainties that clear zoning standards offer and the confidence that they can proceed with their projects without facing interminable antagonism from shocked and apprehensive neighbors. 

The longer we delay enacting the fundamental recommendations of the plan, the more we exacerbate those negative features of the street identified in the plan and lose opportunities to develop its strengths, as envisioned by the plan. I hope others will let the city council know you appreciate their finally taking action to get those standards in the zoning ordinance. 

Rob Browning 

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YMCA RESPONSE 

Editors, Daily Planet:  

Mark Johnson asked “Did it ever occur to the YMCA that its patrons could get a little exercise on their way to exercise at the gym by riding their bicycles there?” (Letters, Daily Planet, Jan. 13-15). 

Yes, Mark, it did. And many Y patrons do ride their bikes to the Y. 

But apparently it did not occur to you that not all of our “patrons” come to the YMCA “to exercise at the gym”. The Y has many programs not directed to exercise—Y-scholars, arts programs, family swims for pleasure, Head Start, summer camp, day care, etc. 

Moreover, some of our “patrons” are unable to ride bicycles to the Y, because of either age, health, disability, or circumstances (for example, we have many parents who bring very young children or a number of children to the YMCA, the transportation of which by bicycle would be impossible or impractical at best). We also have patrons who live in areas which would make biking impractical because of distance, hills, weather, or personal security (for example, woman at night in some areas). 

I hope that answers your question, and hopefully you will take the time to learn more about the YMCA, its programs, and its patrons. 

David M. Weitzman 

YMCA Board Member 

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AC TRANSIT PLAN 

Editors, Daily Planet:  

The City of Berkeley has always discouraged cars on residential streets, through the use of frequent stop signs, traffic barriers, etc. If AC Transit’s plan is implemented, where are cars supposed to go? Back on residential streets? Telegraph, Shattuck, Sacramento, and San Pablo are supposed to be the cross-town routes. 

In the future we may have noisy, diesel-spewing buses take over two of these streets. Why? Because AC transit wants more riders and figures faster buses would do it. Sorry, that won’t work. People drive their cars because cars go to places where buses don’t go. Parents prefer cars and vans because of all the impedimenta they carry around, such as car seats and sports equipment, not to mention car-pooling of kids to school. So there will be millions of dollars wasted, the streets will look like hell, everyone will be angry, and AC Transit will scratch its head and wonder what went wrong. 

I’m old enough to remember the “beautification of Shattuck Avenue.” For months (years?) Shattuck was a mess when BART was being installed. But that was OK, because we knew we would have a great transit system, and it would be underground.  

AC Transit should go back to the drawing board. 

Jean Shirley Auka 

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FAILING GRADE 

Editors, Daily Planet:  

I am writing to comment on, “Did Real Estate Drive Takeover of Schools?” (Daily Planet, Jan. 30-Feb. 2) by J. Douglas Allen-Taylor. The article implies that Sheila Jordan, Alameda County Schools Superintendent, is involved in some “plan” to put Oakland schools on the path to real estate development. I have two children in Berkeley schools and have worked closely with Sheila Jordan over the past four years on education projects. I know Sheila Jordan to be a dedicated leader in the education community. I am impressed with the many “plans” coming out of the Alameda County office of Education (ACOE). Did you do your homework before writing your article? I give your article an “F.” I sincerely hope you do better next time.  

Kim Boston 

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Editors, Daily Planet:  

I just returned from a short trip to New York City where, among other things, I spent some time at the office of the Board of Standards and Appeals, which is the NYC version of ZAB. We are partners with our daughter in a small apartment in Queens which overlooks a vacant lot where a developer wants to put up a monster building. The BSA staff person returned my call and invited me to look at the file which was provided by very courteous counter staff, who then provided me, unrequested, with a staff phone list in case I have follow up questions. Truly amazing.  

Christopher Adams 

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Editors, Daily Planet:  

How interesting it is that our hyper-violent and erotically-oriented corporate culture of entertainment blithely puts on an uncensored, national spectacle of crotch-grabbing, naked pomposity, yet succumbs to tremendous pressure on a film maker (Mel Gibson) to delete a biblical scene from one of the most anticipated and perhaps relevant motion pictures of our time. 

Marc Winokur 

Oakland 

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Editors, Daily Planet:  

In her letter to the Daily Planet (Jan. 30-Feb. 2 edition), Carolyn La Fontaine asks for an explanation of the awful parking situation around Andronico’s on Solano Avenue. Here it is.  

It seems that at the behest of Andronico’s, the Solano Avenue Association and Councilmember Mim Hawley, the city’s office of transportation installed city signs converting the seven parking spaces in front of the Solano side of the store into a loading zone from 7 to 10 a.m. Monday through Saturday so that the area could be used by trucks making deliveries to the market.  

These signs are illegal. They directly violate the terms of Andronico’s use permit, which stipulate that except for meat and poultry, which may be hand-carried into Andronico’s Fresno entrance, all deliveries must occur on the store’s premises.  

Also illegal is the sign declaring the parking space on Fresno just south of Solano a loading zone 7-10 a.m. every day except Sunday, as well as the red cones and signs in the parking spaces on Colusa just south of Solano declaring the area a loading zone in the morning.  

The situation on Colusa is particularly distressing. Even if it were legal for delivery trucks to park on Colusa north of the egress from the market’s parking lot, it would still be dangerous. Drivers turning out of the parking lot cannot see southbound traffic coming onto Colusa.  

When Andronico’s expanded in the early ‘80s, it accepted the terms of its use permit; it has not honored them. Instead, it has taken over the parking on the three streets that surround its site, while using its on-site delivery bays for storage. Worse yet, instead of getting Andronico’s to comply with the terms of its permit, the city is helping the store to evade them.  

Neighbors have complained before to the city before about the noise, the inconvenience and the parking and traffic issues raised by Andronico’s delivery trucks, to no effect. Nor have current objections gotten any response. Last Friday, an hour before reading Ms. La Fontaine’s letter, I delivered a letter from the board of the Thousand Oaks Neighborhood Association (TONA) to City of Berkeley Transportation Director Peter Hillier asking him to remedy the situation by removing the illegal signs and working with other city officials to ensure that deliveries on Colusa stop and those on Fresno be curtailed.  

Since then, I have not heard from Mr. Hillier. The signs and the cones remain, and the delivery trucks continue to park on the street instead of on Andronico’s property. Meanwhile, the word from Councilmember Hawley and her staff is that the store is going to seek a revision in its use permit that will allow the on-street parking of delivery trucks. Councilmember Hawley supports such an effort.  

Whether or not the market does pursue a revision, in the meantime its current use permit is in effect. The TONA Board will continue to press the city to get Andronico’s to play by the rules.  

Zelda Bronstein, President  

Thousand Oaks Neighborhood Association  

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Editors, Daily Planet:  

The latest piece of the Franklin Elementary School/Berkeley Adult School scam concerns a so-called “community garden” in Linda Maio’s e-mails to the e-mail list. Anything to take the focus off kids! It is essential to not only have a kid-friendly space, but to have a kid-oriented space. I don’t have kids and I never will, but it is morally repugnant to trash kids’ space. Period. The kids need a totland! 

Community gardens are locked. I considered joining the Peralta garden a while back and I received a letter from Karl Lynn saying I could join the homeowners group and pay money for access. Community gardens to get City of Berkeley money, but perish the though that a hungry person might try to eat the vegetables. 

Lingo is everything in this battle! 

Alice Jorgensen 

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Editors, Daily Planet: 

In reading the redundant untruths about Israel by the likes of ISM’er Jim Harris and the so-called Jewish Voice for Peace, one asks why one should respond to such screed? Alas, the answer lies in Himmler’s infamous instructions to Hitler’s minister of propaganda, Joseph Goebbels: “If you repeat the same lies enough, the people will come to believe them.” 

Harris and JVP member Hauer defend our city council’s canonization of ISM’er Rachel Corrie and the council’s refusal to support the investigation of those scores of American Jews murdered by Palestinian terrorists. Neither Harris, Hauer nor the council were able to acknowledge the differences between the death of Corrie and the numerous Jews. The latter were in Israel largely to visit family, friends or tour their holy shrines. They were killed simply because they were Jews. And any investigation would surely underscore that their murders were either ordered or supported by the leadership of Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the PLA’s Al Aqsa Brigade, and/or Yassir Arafat himself. 

Corrie, herself older than a good number of the Palestinian homicide bombers and capable for her own decisions, voluntarily joined International Sanctuary Movement—an organization which embraces Palestinian terrorists. Indeed, the term “”sanctuary”” is most appropriate as that organization both hid a leader of Islamic Jihad and played host to two Pakistanis who shortly thereafter became homicide bombers.  

Corrie died when she was trying to stop an Israeli bulldozer from destroying what later was found to be tunnels through which Palestinian terrorists imported arms from Egypt. As the sole ISM eyewitness told Reuters and Mother Jones Magazine, Corrie’s death was most likely an “accident.”  

Unlike the innocent Americans killed by Palestinian terrorists, Corrie was a member of an organization which aided and abetted said terrorists. Hence, she and her fellow ISM’ers could be termed “war criminals” as accessories to murder. It’s rather difficult to mourn for members of such an odious organization. 

If giving sanctuary to terrorists makes ISM well named, surely “Jewish Voice for Peace” is a misnomer in the vein of the American bomber the Reagan administration dubbed “The Peacekeeper.” JVP members, like their hero Noam Chomsky, are “Jewish” only by accident of biology. Chomsky forfeited any ties with his heritage by writing an introduction to a book by crackpot Holocaust denier Robert Faurisson. The JVP forfeit any connective tissue with their heritage by supporting Palestinian terrorists as freedom fighters and demanding a single party state encompassing Israel and the Palestinian territories, wherein Palestinians would have a ruling majority. 

Concerning the majority the Berkeley City Council who refused to consider a resolution calling for an investigation of American Jewish deaths in Israel, I would say, “Stop being a slave to the distortions of the pro-Palestinian ideologues of the so-called Peace and Justice Commission and try getting your news on the issue from sources other than the misinformation regularly swilling from KPFA.” 

Consistent lies about Israel are only the latest incarnation of one of mankind’s oldest form of bigotry, anti-Semitism. While distortions concerning 

Israel are not necessarily anti-Semitic, more often than not that is precisely what they are. 

Dan Spitzer 

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Dear Mayor Tom Bates: 

I’d just like to thank you for your sincere efforts on behalf of Berkeley’s homeless. I think in your own way, you’ve made a unique and powerful statement on the subject of urban homelessness. And I hope some of these other mayors take note. 

As you’re probably well aware, the homeless problem is a national—and even international—problem in its scope and origin. And there’s probably not a lot that can be done on the local level, aside from putting Band-Aid solutions on the problem after the fact. But certainly the town of Berkeley can be proud of the Herculean effort it has made in that regard (a point I regularly make to some of these local bums who complain to me that Berkeley isn’t providing enough service to suit them. Compared to what?) 

Again, much thanks for your time, effort and good will. 

Ace Backwords 

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Dear Mayor Bates: 

City staff paycuts and mandatory time off (MTO) is a Bushy neo-con, neo-liberal concession and the wrong thing to do in an economic crisis. Are you going to be supporting big-box stores and labor abuse at Safeway and Albertson’s next? The neoliberals expect you to roll over as they gain more ground strategically in the US. Fortunately, history has shown that neo-liberal policies nearly always fail: remember Chile and Argentina? Well paid city staff help fuel a healthy local economy. Your recommended paycuts and even the threat of paycuts by businesses that happily follow your bad example, will help to ruin our local economy. No paycuts or labor rule manipulations for city staff.  

There’s plenty of money in this community. Plenty of value that can be taxed to pay for necessary city services if both the federal and state governments are not providing the revenues needed for necessary city services. It’s a lie that there are more efficiencies to be made in this city. Most people in civil service social service jobs are working an equivalent of three jobs at once. This must end. The rich of Berkeley aren’t going anywhere. You and the Berkeley City Council have to tax the wealthy residents—both corporate and individual. Close all loopholes. You have to tax property transfers above a certain amount and come up with other direct ways of raising revenue. If balkers move to Texas or the wasteland of middle Amerika, plenty of high quality others will come to replace them. A stand needs to be taken somewhere about the right thing to do to maintain a civilized society that adequately provides an infrastructure for an evolving civilized city. This city leadership, as any city being victimized by poor-mouthing state and federal leadership, must take the reigns itself and adequately, pro-actively and compassionately provide for the well being and necessary public services for it’s remaining middle class and needy citizens. Unlike neo-liberal policies, these policies nearly always produce a higher quality of life for everyone. 

Mayor, please work hard to open up business planning to larger non-special interest public oversight. Firmly ban package stores, soulless department stores and big boxes. Employ the creativity of the residents of this city to enrich the local economy. I would think that we could effect a socioeconomic balance here in Berkeley. You’ve done better in the past. Do far better now for the people you are charged to help. We don’t need a turncoat neo-liberal like Jerry Brown in the City of Berkeley. We need Tom Bates, who over his long tenure brought much needed social improvements in over 200 pieces of legislation that significantly helped the poor and middle class to have a higher quality of life, even in the face of early neo-liberalism under Reagan as California governor. 

Frank Snapp 

Oakland 

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Editors, Daily Planet:  

John Kenyon somehow became aware of five buildings he calls “signs of architectural life,” in the Berkeley flatlands, and told us about them (Daily Planet, Jan. 27-29), which is fine with me, but he prefaces and concludes his story by dismissing over half of Berkeley—everything west of MLK!—with generalizations both factually inaccurate and offensive to the large numbers of your readers who live here: 

“…an uneventful mix of modest bungalows ranging from ‘Sub Craftsman’ to ‘Plebian Ranch,’ made bearable here and there by surviving old trees…(a) visual limbo… Only a dedicated urban geographer would wish to be exposed to San Pablo Avenue or any stretch of the bland streets on either side.” 

As a south Berkeley resident who walks all over town for pleasure, I can show you dozens of “signs of architectural life,” in every part of South Berkeley and West Berkeley, if that means interesting, quirky remodels and home construction projects such as those shown in the article. Many are on main streets where Mr. Kenyon must have passed them. Perhaps none of them are to his taste, but it’s just as likely that, driving to somewhere else, he didn’t even see them.  

Kenyon’s careless remarks play to the ignorance and snobbism of some hill dwellers and out-of-towners. They would not deserve notice if so many of those people didn’t vote on matters affecting us, and drive daily on our main streets, often at 40 mph, turning them into daunting obstacles for walkers and bicyclists. Contempt for the flatlands environment implies that restrictions on traffic or development aren’t needed here, since we have little of value to be lost.  

For the record: uncontrolled traffic through the flatlands is a major problem that stops residents from walking or biking, thus making all of Berkeley’s traffic and parking worse. Please remember that people live here and slow down! 

Ann Sieck