Mayor Tom Bates has taken the first step in implementing the “most pressing” recommendation of his Task Force on Permits and Development—amending Berkeley’s obscure “ex parte” communications rule. The rule, adopted by the City Council in 1985 and strictly interpreted by City Attorney Manuela Albuquerque, places restrictions on communications with city councilmembers on pending construction developments. Presently, it bans all but written communication outside of a public hearing with councilmembers who are presently deciding—or might possibly decide in the future—on an application or appeal on a pending city development project.  

Albuquerque has warned councilmembers that contact with interested parties before the hearing raises questions of due process on the grounds that the councilmember could base decisions on evidence not submitted at the public hearing or that he would develop a bias before learning all the facts. 

City commissions which also conduct hearings are not bound by the council rule. Albuquerque, however, also counsels them against having ex parte communications and requires that they disclose any such communications before the hearing. 

In a late March letter seeking recommendations from the city’s various commissioners, Bates wrote that Berkeley “prohibit[s] in person private communication between ... decision makers and parties with an interest in the outcome of the decision. ... Many other cities follow less restrictive rules.” The City Council has scheduled an April 20 hearing on the issue. 

“It would be a much needed reform,” said Mayor Bates. “I think these issues would be less contentious if we had a chance to talk with people and give them guidance.” 

“[The ex parte rule is] the largest restraint to free speech in Berkeley history,” Councilmember Kriss Worthington remarked. 

His frustration is not uncommon. The city’s rule on ex parte communications—literally translated, conversations from one side—is one of the few issues that unite developers and the residents who most vociferously oppose their projects. 

Residents like Tim Hansen, denied the chance to talk to his councilmember about pending developments, haven’t been shy about voicing their dissatisfaction with the ex parte rule. 

“It’s outrageous. If you have to wait until a public hearing it’s almost assured the council will never have time to study your point,” Hansen said. 

“It puts the staff in a terrible position,” Mayor Bates said. They’re trapped in the middle between developers and neighbors, while we’re rendered neutral, so by the time things get to us people are furious.” 

Councilmember Gordon Wozniak faulted the current system with leaving the council in a “vacuum.” “We’re not able to get a give and take of the issues and we end up having nine minutes to find a solution in an ad hoc manner.” 

Even prominent Berkeley developer Patrick Kennedy of Panoramic Interests supports a change in the ex parte rule, saying he has always been “puzzled by the city attorney’s interpretation of the law.” 

Despite the apparent momentum for loosening restrictions, passage of a reform is hardly guaranteed. Since the council adopted the rule in 1985, it has twice voted against reforming it, most recently in 2001. Both times City Attorney Manuela Albuquerque recommended keeping the stricter interpretation. 

Not everyone favors a change, however. Councilmember Betty Olds noted that constituents can “send us e-mails galore,” and said she didn’t see anything unfair in the current system. 

Former councilmember Polly Armstrong said the current rule preserved a level playing field between all parties to a development issue. Armstrong also threw cold water on a proposal to change the ex parte rule by allowing parties to contact decision-makers privately, and then have the decision-makers fill out a disclosure form of who contacted them and what was discussed. Armstrong said it was “absurd” to think councilmembers or commissioners would make the effort to fill out the forms. “It’s not going to happen,” she said. “There’s no way people aren’t going to do it.” 

Albuquerque, meanwhile, believes that the city could face legal challenge if the council does not take the strictest and safest interpretation of the constitutional rights to due process, even though, she acknowledged, the law is unclear on the subject.  

“It’s not like it’s a clear cut issue. The U.S. Supreme Court has said this is a matter of flexibility, but there is no case in California that has ruled on this question.” 

State law does not mention ex parte communications in cases where the council or city commissions undertake a judicial proceeding, but does require that both sides of the argument receive due process. In essence for a hearing to be considered fair, all parties must be apprised of all information which has been provided to the decision-making body, so each party can be aware of and respond to that information.

For the second year in a row, the Berkeley High Jazz Band came away as winners of the Monterey Jazz Festival’s Annual National High School Jazz Competition. The event, held last weekend in Monterey, is the premier jazz band competition nation-wide and featured jazz band from across the country. 

The high school’s jazz band, under the direction of Charles Hamilton, beat out the Los Angeles County School for the Arts and Brethren Christian High School from Huntington Beach to claim first place.  

“We weren’t so sure we were going to make it into the finals but once we were in and heard the other bands, I sorta’ knew we were going to win,” said Raffi Garabedian, a sophomore who plays tenor sax. 

Band members said their win was in large part due to Hamilton, who they said has continually been an inspiration. 

“Our director, he’s got soul,” said Eric Ashkenas, a sophomore who plays alto sax. “He leaves it in our hands to decide whether we like the songs. He gives us a lot of freedom, so it’s basically the kids creating music and he’s giving direction.” 

Besides tight execution, the band said a large part of the win was thoughtful selection of their music pieces. Unlike some of the other bands, the Berkeley High group picked several complicated and intricate pieces. On the list were Caravan by Duke Ellington, Goodbye Porkpie Hat by Charles Mingus, and a Latin piece called Cabeza de Carne. 

Several members of the band were also individually recognized, including pianist Jullian Pollack, who won a scholarship to the University of the Pacific summer program. Pollack also won an award for outstanding soloist. 

Several of the musicians were named to the festival’s All-Star High School Big Band (including trombonist Danny Lubin-Laden, this writer’s cousin) and will be traveling with the band throughout Japan this summer. The entire Berkeley High Jazz band will also be invited to perform during the 47th annual Monterey Jazz Festival this September. 

For those who missed the competition but still want to see the band (or just want to come out to support them) they will be performing April 18 as part of a gala at the Berkeley Rep. The concert will be a benefit brunch sponsored by Downtown Restaurant and will offer gourmet food and wine as well as a silent auction. All the proceeds will benefit the Berkeley High music program. For more information and for tickets, contact 527-8245.›

The stumbling economy has brought good news to Berkeley apartment dwellers. Although hard numbers are difficult to find, it appears that rental rates are dropping in the city at the same time home prices have been tracking upward.  

The best figures come from UC Berkeley’s Cal Rentals, a service which lists rentals suitable for students. 

“Landlords I’ve talked to say that local vacancy rates are between five and seven percent, the highest in the many years I’ve been working here,” said Cal Rentals Director Becky White. 

“2001 was definitely the peak,” she said. “Now landlords will list their units at one price and then knock them down until they can find tenants.” 

White’s figures show studio apartments peaking in June, 2001, at $1,102 per month, dropping to a low of $744 in September, 2003, while rising to $852 this February. 

One-bedroom apartments peaked at $1,375 in July 2001, dropped to a low this January at $1,064, and rose again slightly to $1,080 in February. Two bedroom units peaked in July 2001 at $1,822 and dropped to a low of $1,356 this February. 

Link Corkery, a real estate broker who chairs the Market Conditions Committee of Rental Association of Northern Alameda County, said apartment vacancy rates have soared from less than one percent in 2000 to seven percent last November. 

Corkery surveyed vacancies in 2,100 apartments in the region. While his survey was heavily weighted toward Oakland, with a vacancy rate of 7.3 percent, he said Berkeley landlords reported vacancies of 4.9 percent. 

Berkeley vacancy rates appear to have stabilized, Corkery said, with most owners reporting they are “treading water.”  

According to figures compiled by RealFacts, a commercial service that tracks privately developed, non-subsidized apartment complexes of 50 units or more in the San Francisco Bay Area, the rental costs per square foot for apartment rents throughout Alameda County dropped from $1.81 to $1.16 between Jan. 1, 2002, and Sept. 30, 2003, a 36 percent drop. 

During the same period, county large building occupancy rates actually increased from 93.9 percent to 95 percent. 

RealFacts Director of Marketing Gerald Cox said there were few hard numbers for Berkeley, because most large apartments in the city were university-owned, built with public funding, or contained subsidized units for low-income residents. As a consequence, RealFacts tracked only three complexes in the city. 

In the greater Bay Area, Berkeley’s large complex rental average of $1,776 ranked near the top of a range that ran from a low of $885 (in Glen Ellen) to the peak of $1,999 (in Menlo Park). 

The overall decline in apartment rents parallels declines for office, retail and industrial leases—although across the board drops were less in the East Bay than for San Francisco and San Jose, according to figures from EDAB, the Economic Alliance for Business, an East Bay consortium of businesses and local governments. 

EDAB figures also show that sales prices for apartment buildings have also taken a hit—by 26 percent in San Francisco and 27 percent in San Jose between Jan. 1, 2001, and Sept. 30, 2003, reflecting sharp drops in employment. The East Bay decline was smaller, at 17 percent. 

In the same period, sales prices for homes rose less than one percent in San Jose and about five percent in San Francisco, while East Bay homes were selling for nine percent more by the end of the same period. 

Rent figures are especially significant in Berkeley, because figures compiled for the 2001 update of the Housing Element of the Alameda County General Plan place Berkeley with the county’s third highest percentage of renters—61.8 percent—trailing only Oakland (62.5 percent) and Emeryville (89.9 percent). The countywide rental rate was 48.5 percent. Piedmont boasted the highest percentage of home ownership at 90.5 percent. 

A 2001 two-year study by the League of Women Voters of Berkeley, Albany, Emeryville (LWV), highlights another Berkeley anomaly. While Berkeley homeowners have higher incomes than the countywide mean ($64,939 versus $58,894), Berkeley renters earn considerably less than average ($24,557 versus $39,410). 

An additional factor complicating Berkeley’s apartment scene is the University of California, which is the city’s largest landlord.  

The university will be opening units designed to house an additional 2,000 more students by the fall of 2005, according to Kathleen Quirk of the university housing office. That will bring the total UC student occupancy rate to 7,200. The increase will probably exert additional downward pressure on rents in private apartments, according to a spokesperson for the Berkeley Property Owners Association. 

Another indication of the soft rental market came last October when the city Rent Stabilization Board denied rate increases to apartment owners covered under the city’s rent control ordinance. The vote was only the second in the board’s 22-year history to deny any increase to landlords. 

The ruling does not apply to single-family home rentals or new construction. ›

Jakob Schiller 

Ernesto Salazar, 9, of Cuauhtli/Mitotiani Dancers performs at a recent Berkeley High School Cesar Chavez birthday commemoration. 

TUESDAY, APRIL 6 

American Red Cross Blood Services Volunteer Orientation from 9:30 a.m. to 11 a.m. at 6230 Claremont Ave., Oakland. Advance sign-up needed. 594-5165. 

Berkeley Ecological and Safe Transportation hosts a public discussion of car-free housing at 6 p.m. at Berkeley Public Library, 2090 Kittredge, 3rd floor meeting room. 652-9462. 

Death Penalty Vigil, from 4:30 to 6 p.m. at the North Berkeley BART station. Sponsored by Berkeley Friends Meeting. 528-7784. 

Map and Compass 101 An introduction to backcountry navigation at 7 p.m. at REI, 1338 San Pablo Ave. 527-4140. 

St. John’s Prime Timers meets at 9:30 a.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. Leonar Joy will speak on Human Rights at 11 a.m. We offer ongoing classes in exercise and creative arts, and always welcome new members over 50. 845-6830. 

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.  

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. 548-3991. www.berkeleycameraclub.org 

Passover Seder at 6 p.m. at GTU’s Hewlett Library, 2400 Ridge Rd. Cost is $10-$25. Reservations required. 649-2482. 

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 7 

Return to the Oakland Docks for the one-year anniversary of the 2003 shutdown of SSA and APL, and Oakland police crackdown on the anti-war movement. Meet at 4 p.m. at OPD, 455 7th St. See www.actagainstwar.org for details. 

“Liberation from War: Afghan Women Resist” with Sahar Saba of The Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghan- 

istan at 7 p.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. Suggested donation $20, no one turned away for lack of funds. All proceeds will benefit RAWA and the Buddhist Peace Fellowship. 433-9928. 

“Zapatista: A Big Noise Film” on the first four years of the Zapatista Uprising in Chiapas from 1994-1998 at 7 p.m. at The Fellowship of Humanity, 390 27th St., Oakland. 393-5685. 

Bridging Zapatismo, a community study group on local struggles and the Zapatista movement at 7:30 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center, 3105 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $5-$10 sliding scale. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Tilden Tots, a nature adventure program for 3-4 year olds accompanied by an adult. We’ll explore and taste the five parts of a plant. Bring a plain T-shirt. Fee is $6, $8 for non-residents. Registration required. 525-2233. 

“Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, Aboriginal Rights, and a Livable Future for All” A conversation at 7 p.m. at the GTU Hewlett Library, 2400 Ridge Rd. Part of the Roundtable on Ecological Ethics and Spirituality. 649-2560. 

Collaging Yourself Forward A life coaching workshop with Ryl Brock Wilson at 7 p.m. at Changemakers, 6536 Telegraph Ave. Cost is $25, pre-registration required. 384-4795. ryl@ArtAsAccess.com 

“The Jew and the ‘Other’ in Antiquity: Alienation or Integration?” A lecture by Erich S. Gruen, professor of history and classics, UC Berkeley. One of the 91st Faculty Research Lectures. At 5 p.m., Berkeley Art Museum Theater, 2621 Durant Ave.  

Berkeley Communicators Toastmasters meets the first and third Wednesdays of the month at 7:15 a.m. at Mediterraneum Caffe, 2475 Telegraph Ave. For information call Robert Flammia 524-3765. 

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

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 

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. 

Berkeley Stop the War Coalition meets every Wednesday at 7 p.m. in 255 Dwinelle, UC Campus. www.berkeleystopthewar.org  

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

Community Dances, traditional English and American dances, 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, APRIL 8 

Morning Birdwalk Meet at 7 a.m. at Tilden Nature Area to look for early nesters. 525-2233. 

Tilden Tots A nature adventure program for 3-4 year olds accompanied by an adult. We’ll explore and taste the five parts of a plant. Bring a plain T-shirt. Fee is $6, $8 for non-residents. Registration required. 525-2233. 

Tilden Explorers A nature adventure program for 5-7 year olds to learn about plant parts and pollination. Fee is $6, $8 for non-residents. Registration required. 525-2233. 

“Salmon: Farmed and Dangerous” A slideshow presentation by Sophika Kostyniuk from the Coastal Alliance for Aquaculture Reform at 7 p.m. at the Ecology Center, 2530 San Pablo Ave. 548-2220, ext. 233. www.ecologycenter.org 

“Our Local Parks” with John Medlock of Albany Parks, Mark Selevenow of Berkeley Parks and Hank VanDyke of Emeryville Public Works, at noon at the Albany Public Library, Edith Stone Room, 1247 Marin Ave. at Masonic. Sponsored by the League of Women Voters. 

East Bay Mac User Group Special session with Inuit, Inc. We meet the 2nd Thursday of every month, from 6 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. at Expression Center for New Media, 6601 Shellmound St. www.expression.edu 

Grizzly Peak Flyfishers, a group dedicated to furthering the noble sport of fly fishing through education and conservation, invites you to its monthly meeting at 7 p.m at the Kensington Community Center, 59 Arlington Ave. in Kensington. 547-8629. 

Host an International Student Let Europe come to you this summer. SWIFT Student Exchange program is bringing Spanish and French middle and high school students to the Bay Area for 3-4 week stays. Informational evening, from 6-8 p.m. at the SWIFT office in Oakland. Call 433-0414 for directions and more information. 

FRIDAY, APRIL 9 

“So How’d You Become an Activist?” with Medea Benjamin, Co-Founder, Global Exchange and Fernando Suarez del Solar, anti-war activist after his son was killed in Iraq war, at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists, 1924 Cedar St., at Bonita. Suggested donation $5. For more information call 528-5403. 

Best of the Banff Mountain Film Festival at 7 p.m. at Wheeler Auditorium, UC Campus. Cost is $12 for REI members, $15 others. 527-4140. 

“Wild Style” a film of outlaw artists in the South Bronx, at 8 p.m. at the Long Haul Info Shop, 3124 Shattuck Ave. 540-0751.  

“When the Storm Came” A film screening and discussion with Shilpi Gupta, UC Berkeley graduate student in Journalism and International Studies, on her film about a village in Indian-Administered Kashmir that survived a mass rape by Indian security forces in 1991. Winner, 2004 Jury Prize in Short Filmmaking, Sundance Film Festival. At 6 p.m. at FSM Café at Moffitt Library, UC Campus 

City Commons Club Noon Luncheon with Don Olander, Prof. Nuclear Engineering, UCB, “Scientific Fraud and Hoaxes.” Luncheon 11:45 a.m. for $12.50. Speech at 12:30 p.m., at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant St. For information and reservations call 526-2925 or 665-9020. 

“If the Buddha Came to Dinner” a lecture and book signing with Halé Sofia Shatz at 3:30 p.m. at Pharmaca Integrative Pharmacy, 1744 Solano. 527-8929. 

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. 

Berkeley Critical Mass Bike Ride meets at the Berkeley BART the second Friday of every month at 5:30 p.m. 

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 

Passover Seder with Kol Hadash at 6 p.m. at the Albany Community Center, 1249 Marin Ave. Reservations required. 428-1492. www.kolhadash.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, APRIL 10 

Mini-Gardeners A garden exploration program for 4-6 year olds accompanied by an adult. We’ll look at dirt and look for worms, at 2 p.m. at Tilden Nature Area. Fee is $3, $4 non-resident. Registration required. 525-2233. 

Wildflower Walk A hike through Big Springs Canyon to see what is in bloom. Meet at 10 a.m. at the Big Springs Canyon sign on South Park Drive in Tilden Park. 525-2233. 

Make Wildflower Trading Cards Discover Tilden’s wonderful wildflowers, for ages 8-12, from 1 to 3 p.m. at Tilden Nature Center. Fee is $3, $4 for non-residents. Registration required. 525-2233. 

Greens at Work will help Friends of Sausal Creek remove invasive Cape Ivy at the Upper Watershed in Joaquin Miller Park at 10 a.m. The patch of land is home to California native plants that are being smothered by the ivy. Meet at the beginning of the Sunset trail. Bring water and gloves. Take Joaquin Miller Road east from Highway 13 to the Woodminster Amphitheater parking lot. The Sunset Trail begins where the driveway enters Joaquin Miller Road. For more info e-mail greensatwork@yahoo.com  

Native Plant Walk in Strawberry Creek Canyon with Terri Compost. Meet at noon in the parking lot of the Strawberry Canyon Fire Trail head, below the UC Botanical Gardens on Centennial Drive. Cost is $5-$15 sliding scale, no one turned away for lack of funds. 658-9178. 

Aesthetic Pruning of Tress and Shrubs with Marie Miller. Learn how to shape your plants, including Japanese Maples, for maximum beauty, at 10 a.m. at Magic Gardens Nursery, 729 Heinz Ave. 644-2351. www.magicgardens.com 

Free Emergency Preparedness Class in Disaster First Aid from 9 a.m. to noon at 997 Cedar St. To sign up call 981-5605. www.ci.berkeley. 

ca.us/fire/oes.html 

“Riding the Rails” a documentary of teenagers during the Great Depression, at 8 p.m. at the Long Haul Info Shop, 3124 Shattuck Ave. 540-0751.  

Spring Festival at Bay Street Emeryville, with arts and crafts, live music, spring bunny and more, from noon to 2 p.m. 

“Awaken the God or Goddess Within” with Lolita Thomas-Kendrick, performance life coach and strategist, at 3 p.m. at Elephant Pharmacy, 1607 Shattuck Ave. 549-9200. www.elephantpharmacy.com  

Yoga for Seniors at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant St., on Saturdays from 10 to 11 a.m. The class is taught by Rosie Linsky, who at age 72, has practiced yoga for over 40 years. Open to non-members of the club for $8 per class. For further information and to register, call Karen Ray at 848-7800. 

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. 

Dream Workshop on Saturdays, from 10 a.m. to noon at 2199 Bancroft Way. Cost is $10. www.practicaldreamwork.com 

SUNDAY, APRIL 11 

Before Sunrise Birdwalk Greet the dawn and learn the songs of our avian friends. Meet at 6 a.m. at Tilden Nature Center. 525-2233. 

Easter Sunrise with Epworth United Methodist Church at 6:39 a.m. at the foot of Cesar Chavez Park overlooking the Bay. We will greet the sunrise with music, readings and hot cocoa. 524-2921. 

Who Was Easter? Look for sign of spring and learn the lore and customs of Eostre and her bunny companion. From 1 to 2:30 p.m. at Tilden nature Center. 525-2233. 

Golden State Model Railroad Museum open from noon to 5 p.m. Also open on Saturdays and Friday evenings from 7 to 10 p.m. Located in the Miller-Knox Regional Shoreline Park at 900-A Dornan Drive in Pt. Richmond. Admission is $2-$3. 234-4884 or www.gsmrm.org 

“Cracking the Easter Egg” with Sarah Lewis of the GTU, at 9:30 a.m. at Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley, 1 Lawson Rd., Kensington. 525-0302, ext. 306. 

Tibetan Buddhism, with Lama Palzang and Pema Gellek on “Cultivating the Essential Link of Devotion” 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. 415.990.8977 or mayahealer@yahoo.com.  

MONDAY, APRIL 12 

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 nesting birds and flowering shrubs, 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. 

“Iron Jawed Angels” a film depicting the strength, courage and perseverance of the 2nd generation suffragettes in their struggle to secure the vote for women. At 1 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Everyone welcome. Refreshments will be provided. 644-0480. 

Women’s Cancer Resource Center, volunteer training, every second Monday of the month, from 6 to 8 p.m. at 5741 Telegraph Ave. To sign up call Emily at 601-4040, ext. 109. emily@wcrc.org 

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

Baby Yoga Learn how to soothe your infant. Bring a pillow, blanket, mat and olive oil. at 11 a.m. at Belladonna, 2436 Sacramento St. Admission by donation. 883-0600. 

Yoga and Meditation for Children from 2:45 to 3:45 p.m. at at Belladonna, 2436 Sacramento St. Admission by donation. 883-0600. 

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. 

ONGOING 

Project Open Hand’s Senior Lunch Program is welcoming new participants in the East Bay. For information, please call 415-447-2300 or email seniors@openhand.org. 

Help Protect Berkeley’s Public Trees by campaigning for a Berkeley Public Tree Act. To learn more and help call 594-4088, or visit www.BerkeleyIssues.org 

Find a Loving Animal Companion at the Berkeley-East Bay Humane Society Adoption Center, from 11 a.m. - 7 p.m. Tue. - Sun. 2700 Ninth St. 845-7735. www.berkeleyhumane.org  

Medical Care for Your Pet at the Berkeley-East Bay Humane Society low-cost veterinary clinic. 2700 Ninth St. For appointments call 845-3633. www.berkeleyhumane.org  

Spring Bulb Bonanza at the Botanical Garden, 10:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., to April 15, 200 Centennial Drive. 643-2755. http:// 

botanicalgarden.berkeley.edu 

CITY MEETINGS 

Commission on the Status of Women meets Wed., Apr. 7, 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., Apr. 7, at 7:30 p.m. at the Public Safety Building, 2100 Martin Luther King Jr. Way, 2nd floor. David Orth, 981-5502. www.ci.berkeley.ca. 

us/commissions/firesafety 

Berkeley Rent Stabilization Board meets Turs. Apr. 8, at 7 p.m. in City Council Chambers, Pam Wyche, 644-6128 ext. 113. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/rent 

Commission on Early Childhood Education meets Thurs., Apr. 8, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Marianne Graham, 981-5416. www.ci.berkeley. ca.us/commissions/earlychildhoodeducation  

Two-by-Two Meeting of elected City and School officials to dicuss common concerns, Thurs., Apr. 8, at 8:30 a.m., in the Redwood Room, 6th floor, 2180 Milvia St. 644-6147, 981-7000. 

West Berkeley Project Area Commission meets Thurs. Apr. 8, at 7 p.m., at the West Berkeley Senior Center. 981-7520. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/westberkeley  

Zoning Adjustments Board meets Thurs., Apr. 8, at 7 p.m., in City Council Chambers. Mark Rhoades, 981-7410. www.ci.ber- 

keley.ca.us/commissions/zoning  

It’s not walking and it’s not biking, but it’s transportation that doesn’t hurt the environment. Many say it’s the newest invention that promises to revolutionize the 21st century. 

It’s bio-diesel, made from recycled restaurant oil. Thanks to a number of concerned and motivated local citizens it’s becoming increasingly more accessible to the regular consumer here in Berkeley. 

The City of Berkeley is already on bio-diesel’s cutting edge. In 2001, thanks to a large push from the Ecology Center, a local community and environmental organization, the city became the first to run its entire fleet of recycling trucks on the new alternative fuel. The success of the switch impressed city officials, and today a large part of the city’s diesel fleet—including fire trucks, school busses and public works vehicles—run on bio-diesel at least part of the time. 

Because bio-diesel runs in regular diesel engines with no mechanical modifications needed, the only necessary part of the equation is the supplier. 

Before the city’s switch, consumers had few supply options for the fuel. Several were reduced to brewing it in backyard blenders. 

Alternative outlets now exist. The newest and most promising is the budding Biofuel Oasis, a small biofuel station in South Berkeley. The Biofuel Oasis is still in its beginning stages; it is open several days a week, but with a limited supply of product. There are hopes for expansion though, for it now functions as a mainstay for those few who have made the switch.  

Biofuel Oasis, which only recently has been serving fuel, is the brainchild of SaraHope Smith and Jennifer Radtke. They are limited by city regulations and can only store 55 gallons one site for now. They hope to have a pump eventually, but are still waiting for full approval from the city. 

Nonetheless, Smith and Radtke say hurdles will be overcome and are excited about contributing to a change that many hope will revolutionize the way the gas business is done. “We started because we had to, it makes so much sense,” said Smith. 

Besides reducing harmful emissions, bio-diesel has another redeeming quality setting it apart from fossil fuels—it is made from vegetable oil, a renewable resource. The only modification needed is a process that uses chemicals to thin the oil and create the same viscosity as regular gasoline. bio-diesel recycles oil that would otherwise be dumped in landfills. In addition, its supporters say, engine performance is not reduced 

The Biofuel Oasis does not make its own fuel and instead buys it in bulk from a supplier in Ukiah. At $2.90 per gallon it’s still more expensive than regular gas, but the price has dropped substantially from earlier times. According to Smith, biofuel used to go for upwards of eight dollars a gallon. 

The other option here in Berkeley is the Berkeley Bio-Diesel Co-Op. Officially formed on the one-year anniversary of 9/11, the group has around 30 active members. The general public can’t but from the co-op, but Berkeley residents can join. 

According to co-op member Jason Wilkinson, the Biofuel Oasis has helped fill the supply gap lately so the co-op has turned their efforts more towards advocacy. Last week, the group held a bio-diesel car show with a variety of personal and city vehicles on display. Bio-Diesel Co-Op runs workshops on how to make bio-diesel and are working on getting an established office space. 

“bio-diesel is fuel for the revolution because it has the potential to be democratic and de-centralized,” said Jason Wilkinson, a co-op member. “It’s the one way for the community to reclaim the power we’ve given to unaccountable politicians and multinationals.” 

A third alternative fuel option is a different take on the same concept. As part of business called Neoteric Fuels, local Berkeley resident Craig Reece sells and installs kits on diesel cars that run pure vegetable oil. Unlike bio-diesel, which needs to be thinned, Reeces’ engines run on vegetable oil straight from restaurant fryers. 

Instead of thinning the oil, Reece and his partner came up with an attachment that fits onto the engine and heats and filters the oil. Heating the oil, like adding chemicals, increases the viscosity and allows the car to run without any other modifications. 

The car modification is an add-on, costing in the neighborhood of $600, but it’s a one time thing and frees people from dependence on a Biofuel supplier. Reece gets his fuel from a local restaurant that ends up giving him more fuel per week than he can use. The restaurant is happy because they used to have to pay to have the oil taken away. For his part, Reece has no complaints, either. He gets his gas free. 

One variation of Reece’s add-on is the two tank system where the car starts on regular diesel or bio-diesel and then, with heat from the engine and an auxiliary heater, the car starts running on vegetable oil at the flip of a switch. Like bio-diesel, vegetable oil doesn’t reduce the car’s performance. 

Reece says he can comfortably store enough fuel in his tank and in five-gallon containers in the back of his car to go about 2,400 miles. Unlike bio-diesel, vegetable oil can be purchased in grocery stores. 

With the two tank system “people can still go on the road. They can still fill up on diesel or go to a local Chinese restaurant or Costco,” said Reece.      ˇ

GALENA, Alaska—The Nuclear Regulatory Commission hasn’t issued a permit for a new commercial nuclear power plant in the United States since the late 1980s, when the technology topped the list of energy industry taboos following the infamous meltdown of the Chernobyl reactor in the U.S.S.R. But if Japan’s Toshiba Corporation has its way, the prototype for a new generation of “micronuclei” power plants will be constructed on a remote stretch of the Yukon River in Alaska before the end of the decade. 

Last summer, representatives from Toshiba made the journey from Tokyo to Galena, a predominately Alaska Native village with a population of about 700. They met with community leaders to present their “4S” system, which stands for Super-Safe, Small and Simple.  

According to Toshiba, the 4S could cut electricity costs for the village by more than 75 percent for at least 30 years. The plant would also use water from the Yukon River to create hydrogen gas to be stored in fuel cells, one of the most talked-about forms of renewable energy in recent years. 

Galena serves as a hub for a handful of smaller villages along the Yukon and its tributaries. The region is made up of thousands of square miles of largely untouched boreal forest encompassing three National Wildlife Refuges, and includes some of the world’s most renowned moose habitat. Like most communities in Western Alaska, Galena is a fly-in village; there are no highways, roads, or power lines linking it to the state’s larger population centers. Large diesel generators must produce all electricity locally, using fuel delivered by a river barge during the summer months when the Yukon is ice-free. 

The resulting electricity costs for local residents per kilowatt-hour is nearly three times the national average, even with assistance from a state-funded subsidy program.  

Toshiba has pledged that the 4S prototype would be constructed at no cost to the village. Galena would have a cheap, clean-burning solution to all its energy needs for three decades, in exchange for becoming an international nuclear guinea pig.  

Community member Rand Rosecrans cautioned Toshiba representatives at the presentation that many residents would have strong opinions: “You say the word ‘nuclear‚’ and lots of people are going to have an automatic negative reaction.” So far, tribal and city leaders have expressed a cautious interest and desire to learn more about the idea. 

“Like anything new, it’s going to have to be studied pretty closely before we agree to bring it in,” Louden Village Council Chief Peter Captain told the Anchorage Daily News. 

In 2001, the Baker Institute for Public Policy at Rice University released working papers that examined the 4S system and three other similar reactors. The report was co-authored by Neil Brown, a Nuclear Engineer at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. In a phone interview, Brown explained that besides being smaller than most reactors, the 4S is a liquid sodium-cooled reactor, not a water-cooled one. 

According to Brown, there are 21 sodium-cooled reactors around the world—including Japan’s MONJU reactor, which Toshiba helped construct with three other companies in the 1985.  

After construction delays, MONJU first went critical in 1994, but was shut down after an accidental sodium leak and fire occurred in late 1995 while operating on low power. No radiation leaked out, but community concerns have kept MONJU shut down. 

“MONJU has definitely not been a success,” says Paul Gunter, a reactor specialist with the Nuclear Information and Resource Service in Washington, D.C. Gunter said that experience with sodium-cooled reactors in the United States has not been much better. “The main concern (with this type of reactor) is that sodium and water have a tremendous explosive reaction. There was another near accident in Detroit at Fermi Unit One in 1966, resulting from loose parts.” 

But attorney Douglas Rosinski, of the Washington, D.C., firm Shaw Pittman, which represents Toshiba, says the 4S system is nothing like the infamous nuclear power plants of the past. He compares the 4S to a completely self-contained, automated “nuclear battery” with no moving parts. At the heart of the 4S system is a log-sized uranium core, which would generate power for 30 years before needing to be disposed of and replaced. 

Brown said the reactor is similar to the first submarine reactors, and that Toshiba’s design includes inherent safety characteristics, making it “a low-pressure, self-cooling reactor.”  

Toshiba hopes to have a 4S system operational by the end of the decade, but the cost of testing and licensing the prototype to the satisfaction of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission could keep it from getting off the ground. Which is why a rural Alaska Native village with remarkably high-energy costs was chosen as an ideal site for a prototype. 

Rosinski and others seek to gather enough political support to secure significant funding for the project. Alaska’s senior Senator, Republican Ted Stevens, the Senate pro tempore and chair of the powerful appropriations committee, has said that he supports Toshiba’s proposal, but that it will have to first clear the hurdle of public opinion. 

The Department of Energy plans to send staff to the region to evaluate energy production capabilities, including the 4S. They plan to complete a report by the summer. 

Eric Mack is a freelance writer based in Galena, Alaska.›

On Sunday I attended my friend Jernae’s fourteenth birthday party. It was held at the Martin Luther King Pool, located at Bayview Playground on Third Street in Hunter’s Point. Behind a chain link fence, her mother and relatives had dragged a portable barbecue across a grassy field and cooked up a pile of ribs and wings. They covered a picnic table with enormous square pans filled with potato salad, coleslaw, deviled eggs and macaroni and cheese. Paper plates overflowed with chips and dip, pickles and pork rinds. Coolers sat on the ground, packed with soda pop and ice tea. 

Each young party guest brought with them 50 cents, and when the pool opened they all ran inside and jumped into the shallow end. There they yelled and screamed and splashed at each other along with dozens of other kids, all crammed behind the rope that divided them from the rest of the facility. Nervous, serious lifeguards paced up and down along the cement apron while three quarters of the clear blue chlorinated pool water lay calm, empty and undisturbed, reserved for those who knew how to swim. 

I couldn’t help but contrast this coming of age party to the bat mitzvah I had attended the year before. It was held at San Francisco’s Great American Music Hall, a beautiful old venue which was ornately refurbished to resemble the site of Cinderella’s ball, a New York City debutante’s coming out party, and a scene from a Roman orgy. There, over 100 well-dressed guests lined up at the open bar and later were formally seated at small linen covered tables where we dined on filet mignon, seared salmon, perfectly grilled baby vegetables and champagne while listening to classical music. After dinner, a fully orchestrated blues band, whose members knew the words and music spanning a multitude of generations, cajoled everyone onto the dance floor where we wiggled and swayed, attempting pathetic interpretations of the Twist, the Pony and the Cool Jerk. It was a far cry from the scratchy boom box playing the latest mumbled rap lyrics on the picnic table at Bayview Playground. 

It might be easy to dismiss that bat mitzvah as over the top, bordering on ostentatious, except that it wasn’t. It was fun and tasteful and the occasion so joyous and celebratory, so full of meaning and hope and good intentions that even thinking about it now makes me smile. I want every little girl to have a party like that. Hell, I want a party like that myself, where the community that surrounds me—my friends, my parents, their friends and congregation—promises to look after and guide me, support me in my endeavors, turn me around should I go down the wrong path. I want a full-on blues band to play the Oldies But Goodies. I want a crowd of people to lift me in a chair above their heads and rap ancient lyrics while spinning me around and clapping. I want to blow out 52 candles on a gourmet chocolate cake and share it with everyone. 

Back in Hunter’s Point, Jernae’s mother lit 14 candles on a fluffy white Safeway sheet cake that had pastel pink, yellow and blue roses gracing the top. We all sang “Happy Birthday,” which then transcended into a modern rendition that I was unfamiliar with, but it had a good, hip swinging beat. Jernae blew out the candles and made a wish. I made one too: a silent pledge of support and a hope that every kid across the Bay Area, from Hunter’s Point to Sea Cliff, from West Oakland to Woodside, from East Palo Alto to Mill Valley, will have a birthday party like those I attended at the Great American Music Hall and Martin Luther King Pool, where family members and friends promise to love and guide their children toward a future that is bright, beautiful and full of positive, buoyant possibility.›

UNIVERSITY AVENUE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

On a recent foray into the shattered buildings and decaying manufacturing plants of Sutphin Boulevard in Jamaica Queens, New York in February, I saw what could be University Avenue 20 years from now: a stretch of land stretching to the water devoid of human feeling and quality. Sitting smack in the middle of Queens and leading from the center of the borough to the East River, Jamaica has been victimized by a stunning failure to modernize zoning laws to meet the needs of the local, immigrant-oriented community. 

Berkeley is facing that same fate. 

On University Avenue, Berkeley and its citizens have an opportunity to build a centralized mass transit oriented zone that welcomes residential and commercial denizens alike. The shortcomings are more traffic and higher density. But if we are to reduce sprawl and keep the economy moving forward, it is necessary to allow both. The City Council is in the bad position of being historically over-zealous on the issue of high-density housing; passing projects that raise questionable issues about the use of state matching dollars for low-income housing construction while failing badly to preserve the sentimental qualities of the city’s historic structures. This means that any opportunity to raise population and meet the growing demand of residents and the University of California for space for its students, faculty, and visitors while enticing commercial investment will only be met with doubt by community interest groups. The real community interest, the same one I encountered in Queens, is that Berkeley meet the large demand to force developers to provide commercial services and space to businesses along with any housing being considered. The City Council must force developers to reserve space for commercial tenants and bring state legislators into the act to bring an exemption to the “bonus system” of giving extra space to builders willing to house low-income residents. Needless to say, creating an incentive for a community-wide, fee-based parking lot on the site of the former Smart and Final would be an excellent way to allow for growth along the vital University-San Pablo corridor. 

Everyone in Berkeley should understand that it is in the state’s best interest to allow the exemption: the state would earn far more from the taxes of small businesses than they would simply off building owners alone, who are likely to gain a large tax concession from any deal. 

The real cost will come later, years from now when Berkeley will be faced with problems stemming from its terrible administration of its public schools, which will probably be stressed to their limits by the inflow of children whose parents will live in these proposed University Avenue developments. But that’s for another column. 

John Parman 

Berkeley and New York 

• 

PARKING 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Developers have begun building large, overbearing housing blocks throughout Berkeley. These buildings steal light, privacy and parking from adjacent neighborhoods. They are replacing viable businesses, with poor retail spaces, increased traffic, noise and pollution. 

Housing advocates, developers and self-appointed urban reformists say they will avoid these problems by reducing parking in their projects. City officials agree. Berkeley City Planners Mark Rhoades and Dan Marks recently told the Planning Commission that they believe Berkeley’s parking requirements are the lowest required by any U.S. city. They added that it is Berkeley’s official goal to reduce traffic by eliminating parking. 

Rhoades and Marks argue that people will give up their cars and use public transit if they can’t find parking. Several Planning Commissioners questioned this argument. When asked, Marks and Rhoades were unable to cite statistical support for the city’s parking policy. They explained that they know of no study that supports the city’s policy. 

When similarly challenged others are less candid. Livable Berkeley members readily cite the quality of life found in European cities as support for Berkeley’s parking policy. They argue that the high population density, job proximity, public transit found in European cities reduces traffic by eliminating the need for cars. This in turn provides a better city. 

Unfortunately, such references are vague and lack supporting detail. European cities simply fail to support such conclusions. I have been visiting Bilbao Spain, my wife’s hometown, regularly for the past 10 years. It is about the same size as San Francisco. It has excellent transportation with well integrated subway, rail and bus networks. These networks are well explained in readily available brochures and signs. Public transit is thoroughly used. One is lucky to find seats day or night. 

Bilbao also has unrelenting traffic. The traffic is so intense that sensors are used to monitor traffic. Their readings are shown on electronic flow maps located throughout the city so that drivers can respond to real time information while selecting how to get around. 

Bilbao’s parking is quite difficult and getting harder every year. People often park their cars as much as a 15 minute walk from their apartments. The problem is so pressing that many old buildings have had multi-level basements excavated for parking. Vertical access is provided by auto elevators operated from within the car! 

Despite all this and $5 a gallon gas prices Bilbao’s cars continue to proliferate. Great public transportation doesn’t mean that people will stop using cars. People want to leave the city on weekends and holidays; they travel evermore often to the city’s periphery to shop in growing shopping centers. Cars make this possible. 

In conclusion one can not equate removing parking with traffic mitigation. Doing so is simplistic, without precedent and contrary to actual experience. Removing parking, judging from European examples, will increase congestion, reduce commercial viability and encourage road rage. Failure to provide sufficient parking for future development will harm our neighborhoods for decades to come. 

I urge all who agree to engage the city in a broad debate on parking, traffic, and development. Failure to do so will lead to added congestion and flood our neighborhoods with overflow parking. 

Jon Alff 

• 

SECTION 8 HOUSING 

It has been three months but Berkeley Housing Authority Supervisor Sharon Jackson has been keeping my request for “reasonable accommodation” hanging—a request for a permission that will enable me undergo needed medical treatment. And until she does so, I cannot start my treatment. 

Can our elected representatives help me here? I’m a tenant living in an apartment under the Section 8 program. Berkeley Department of Housing oversees that program. I have to leave my apartment for a needed medical treatment and that may take more than a month. I talked with the Section 8 department and they said that usually they don’t allow tenants to leave for more than 30 days.  

A staff attorney of East Bay Community Law Center, who is their expert on the Section 8 program, researched the statutes for me and she gave the opinion that there is nothing in the law that prevents them from granting my specific request and so they are legally required to accommodate my request. A second attorney of EBCLC concurred. I also sought the help of Housing Rights Inc, a nonprofit contracted by the City of Berkeley to advise the Section 8 department and they also concurred. In fact, they wrote the letter to the Housing Department requesting the “reasonable accommodation” on my behalf citing the relevant laws that requires them to grant my request. My physician also wrote a letter explaining the medical necessity of getting that treatment. These letters were submitted to Ms Sharon Jackson at the end of December.  

When Ms. Jackson didn’t respond in a month, I sought the help of Councilmember Kriss Worthington. His office called Mr. Steven Barton—the director of Berkeley Housing Department and Ms. Jackson’s supervisor. I also went and talked to him. However, I haven’t received the permission yet. I’ve been calling his secretary every week or two but her answer has been “We are working on it.” I asked her, “What is there to work on except for writing out the approval letter?” She has no answer. Even the people of Housing Rights Inc. are horrified at this conduct of Ms Jackson. They suggested me to complain to HUD about this discrimination. There is the possibility that because I had complained about her to her superior in the past, she is retaliating against me. 

A few days ago I talked with Mr. Barton’s office again. His secretary called Ms Sharon Jackson and she communicated to me that “Sharon Jackson said that she has nothing against granting my request” but she has referred my matter to the Department of Housing and Urban Development. And she will answer only when they respond.  

Would our elected officials investigate this matter? This has been three months since my letter was submitted and what did Ms Jackson do within these three months? When did she refer my request to HUD? How long did she hang on my letter before sending it to HUD? My guess is that she has done it only recently when she ran out of all objection to granting my legitimate request. Does she refer all requests for “reasonable accommodation” to HUD or have I been singled out? And why did she not approve the letter in the first place especially when she has “nothing against granting it” If she has nothing against granting a request, does she refer that request to HUD for approval in other cases as well? Or does it not seem that she is trying her best to harass me? 

What has she done to deserve her outrageous salary of $90,000 a year, outrageous when you compare it with her mediocre job performance, coming out of the pocketbooks of Berkeley taxpayers? Why can’t the city hire a competent person to do her job instead? 

Sooner or later, the city will be sued if this pattern of harassment continues. Why can’t the city prevent that in time by giving her a pink slip? 

T. Alam 

PS: After I told Mr. Barton, the director of housing for Berkeley, that I intended to publish this letter in the Daily Planet, things started moving. I got my approval. But all my questions still remain. Why was I harassed for three months for this? Will our elected officials answer me? 

• 

OAKLAND VIOLENCE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

In the March 19-22 Daily Planet there was an article called “A Teenager Looks At Oakland’s Murderous Row.” I feel really bad for the girl whose father was shot in Oakland, but some of the comments made were very prejudiced. I am African American and I have lived in East Oakland all my life. I am now 17. One of the girls commented that “black people are crazier that any other race.” That is a very ignorant comment because people are individuals and you cannot blame a whole race of people for the actions of a select few. Believe me I do understand where those girls are coming from because up until I was five my whole family used to live in East Oakland.  

However, they all moved to the Sacramento area when my 16-year-old cousin was shot and paralyzed from the waist down. My family got scared and, just like the young girl who wrote the article, thought that Oakland was a violent city and if they just went somewhere else things would get better.  

But contrary to popular belief they did not. Eight years later my 19-year-old cousin was shot and killed in Suisun Valley by a group of Mexican boys. Now I could be prejudiced and say, “I’m not surprised because you know, Mexicans are crazier than any other race.” I do not do this because I know that killings happen no matter what skin color you are or what city you are in. People do not come to Oakland and then get the sudden urge to kill. It is not fair to single out a specific group of people in a specific area. The blame lies solely on the person who pulls the trigger—no more, no less. 

Andrea Page 

Oakland 

ˇ

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I am writing to protest the irresponsible, inflammatory “news” story written about King Middle School by Matthew Artz and published as fact by your newspaper on March 26 “School District Fails to Protect Bullying Victim at MLK”). The article presented a distorted, one-sided viewpoint and was designed to create a negative image of our school and district. Artz deliberately omitted all evidence that King, as well as all middle schools in Berkeley Unified, are working hard to prevent bullying and harassment in our schools.  

I teach eighth grade English and history at King and am released from the classroom part time to coordinate BUSD’s anti-bullying efforts at the middle school level. Your readers should know that on Wednesday, March 17, Matthew Artz called me about the upcoming article. I explained to him that, in addition to current policies and practices already in place, all middle school staff members met together on our Feb. 2 professional development day to create action plans to further address bullying and harassment in our school communities. We have refined these plans at staff meetings in February and March and have made a strong commitment to further implement the activities throughout the school year.  

Matthew Artz was also provided with extensive materials related to our district’s efforts, including information about “Let’s Get Real,” a cutting edge documentary where teenagers talk frankly about their roles as bullies, bystanders and allies. The documentary was shown on Feb. 2 to staff and since that time, in all humanities and English classes as well as parents and guardians at King, Willard and Longfellow, followed by discussions and related activities. Every middle school department addressed some element of bullying. For example, math classes explored startling statistics about bullying and harassment; physical education teachers discussed safety in locker rooms; science teachers administered a survey to gather data about how safe students feel in various areas of school, and which forms of harassment are most common. In addition, each school conducted an anti-bullying poster design contest, with prizes generously funded by the East Bay Community Foundation.  

Although I spoke with Artz at length and arranged for him to receive the follow-up information, he did not include one word of what I said in his article; nor did he refer to the materials provided to him. Artz intentionally chose to ignore the positive and instead located people to support his false premise that King is an unsafe school with an irresponsible administration. 

Artz also failed to look at the bigger picture. Bullying and harassment exists in all schools in the nation, including at King. According to the Family and Work Institute’s 2002 National Survey of Students in grades 5-12, 66 percent of youth are teased at least once a month. The National Crime Prevention Council reports that six in every 10 teenagers witness bullying at least once a day (2003). Every school has problems. 

Furthermore, no district has found a viable solution to the problem. I recently spoke at the annual conference of the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development which was attended by 10,000 educators from all over North America. The exhibit center was filled with programs to create “Bully Free” schools, teach respect and resolve conflicts among students. Each year, the number of these programs increase; this is an indication that harassment and bullying is a pervasive and complex problem with no simple solutions.  

Although it is certainly a school’s responsibility to create safe and respectful learning environments, we must also look at the society in which we are raising our children. We live in a violent, hostile world full of racism, sexism, homophobia, economic inequities and other forms of oppression. Children learn at an early age that some groups have power and others are marginalized. Violence is a sold as entertainment; put-downs are a source of comic relief in films; and disrespectful language is pervasive. Our country fights invisible enemies and limits the freedom of its citizens in the process. Yet, we expect students to respect themselves and others and resolve conflicts peacefully when they are surrounded by institutionalized bullying put in place by adults! The staff at King will continue to work hard to make our school safe, and it is an uphill struggle. 

When I received my B.S. in journalism from Boston University, we learned that the job of a reporter was, above all, to remain objective, present all sides of a story, put the facts in context of the bigger picture, and maintain impeccable ethics. Matthew Artz failed in all of these areas. His one-sided attack on our school is not journalism; rather, it is bullying and harassment given an audience by the Daily Planet. 

Jan M. Goodman 

Teacher, King Middle School 

Seagate Properties breezed through the Civic Arts Commission recently with a density bonus proposal that should have raised the eyebrows of more than the three commissioners who voted it down. 

The density bonus is designed to “increase the supply of suitable space for fine arts and performing arts organizations in the downtown” by offering two extra floors to builders who include a public space for the arts. 

The concept is inspired. The language, however, is ambiguous, and mixed with a developer’s pressure and the planning department’s sometimes short-sighted enthusiasm, the results can be as embarrassing as the empty cultural space that bestowed the density bonus on Patrick Kennedy’s downtown Gaia building, which argued successfully that the inclusion of a (now defunct) bookstore satisfied the density bonus requirements, and netted the community an empty hole. 

The Seagate Properties’ promoters brought the Berkeley Repertory Theater into the package to add solidity to the deal and oversee the performance  

space, but negotiated with that group and the Planning Department for 32 months in private, by their own admission, presenting the proposal to the commission as a done deal. Their proposal states, “It should be noted that these drawings were approved in draft form with Phil Kamlarz, city manager then acting as planning director as part of the three-way negotiations between the Berkeley Rep and City of Berkeley and Seagate. The application contains these very same drawings and pre approved text.” 

It’s not surprising that the Berkeley Repertory Theater was an enthusiastic partner. A review of the proposed floor plan shows that the actual performance space is only slightly larger than the “ancillary support” and “production support” storage space set aside for the Berkeley Repertory Theater alone. The programming proposal offers only 100 days of regularly scheduled public events, only 52 of which are required to be offered to other arts groups, who will be charged rent by the Berkeley Repertory Theater for the privilege of the use. 

If this sounds okay to you, then it won’t bother you at all that part of the square footage helping to meet the density bonus requirement is a pedestrian walkway connecting Center and Addison streets which will have space for “visual display.” 

Seagate Properties will be collecting rent on its upper floors 365 days a year, and, with the assistance of the most well-heeled theater group in town, robbing the downtown of an honest, and honestly public, community arts amenity. 

District Council Representative Dona Spring, to her credit, is suggesting tightening up the ambiguous language in the current arts density bonus. But the language is not necessarily the problem. We should be asking much more from those who interpret the language, so that Berkeley’s artists are not shut out again. 

Carol Denney is a Berkeley musician.

If you’ve ever used a moisturizer that left your skin feeling soft and smooth instead of greasy, you have Libby Labs, one of West Berkeley’s major light manufacturers, to thank. “We brought that technology into the industry,” says the company’s founder and guiding spirit, 85-year-old Henry (“Hank”) Libby. Today, Libby’s daughter Susan, 56, and son Gordon, 59, run the company, which makes both cosmetics and pharmaceuticals.  

Hank and Susan recall how the “disappearing” moisturizer was developed in 1963.  

“Two ladies came by with a station wagon full of tomatoes and papayas and things like that,” says Hank Libby. “They said, ‘We want you to make cosmetic products out of fruits and veggies—natural products.’ I said: ‘This is ridiculous.’ [Remember, this was 1963.] ‘But we can extract the papayas or we can buy strawberry extracts on the market, and we can put them into product vehicles—rational products.’”  

By rational products, Hank Libby meant things that could be formulated in a manner that could be controlled and tested. He also meant things that were commercially viable—things that would sell and that had shelf life. What the ladies in the station wagon had was an idea that might or might not have been feasible. They “were just kind of mooshing it together in their kitchen,” says Susan Libby. When they showed up at the lab, they “were about ready to give up,” her father recalls. “They had no place else to go, so they stayed with me.”  

Libby gave the two women what they needed—formulations that enabled them to transform their kitchen concoctions into marketable goods. Under the label Holiday Magic, his clients sold herbal shampoo, banana lotion and strawberry cream. Besides providing the vehicle for their concept of fruit-and-vegetable-based cosmetics, Libby Labs developed at their behest the first cosmetic cream that disappeared into the skin. 

“The ladies’ product got big,” says Libby. “I implemented production for them in Canada and in Mexico. Eventually, they took it around the world. That launched Libby Labs.” 

Since then, Libby has formulated thousands of products. A few of its introductions: a cream that keeps cows’ udders from freezing up in cold weather, the fingertip moistener that sits in little tubs on bank counters, clear glycerin soap (developed for the Berkeley company now known as Body Time), and the first non-PABA sunscreen. Most of the lab’s creations are made in response to client requests and are designed to the customer’s specifications, if possible.  

Indeed, one issue that needs to be resolved at the start is whether a client’s idea is doable. “People always think it’s going to work,” says Susan Libby. But “sometimes people ask for things that can’t be done.” There’s also the question of whether a client’s request is an appropriate assignment for the company. To begin, is it safe? Will it meet public health and regulatory requirements? A further consideration is whether it will involve ingredients that Libby Labs doesn’t want to handle—hazardous substances, for example. And will it require equipment that the lab doesn’t have? “Sometimes,” says Susan, “we do product development and charge fees for it, even if the formulation doesn’t work out….You never know who’s going to make it. Some of the odd ones do!”  

With only twenty-five employees, family-owned Libby Labs is a rarity in a pharmaceutical industry that is dominated by giant corporations. “There aren’t very many companies like us,” says Susan Libby, “because at this time it’s hard to exist in this business and be small.”  

One factor here is the plethora of regulations, the likes of which didn’t exist when Hank Libby started the business in 1959. Libby Labs has to meet requirements for storm water, EBMUD waste water, OSHA and air quality, among other things. The company works with a consultant who’s an expert on environmental regulations and hazardous materials.  

Susan Libby’s not complaining. On the contrary: “We do a lot of stuff that you don’t have to do,” she says. “Yes, we do it because the Food and Drug Administration requires certain things. We are highly regulated because we are a drug manufacturer. But we don’t have to do it for our cosmetics. The FDA really doesn’t care about our cosmetics, even though they come here. But we care about it ourselves, because it makes it easier to make good product consistently. So, if you check your raw materials before you put them in the batch, then you don’t have a batch that goes awry because there was something wrong with the raw materials.”  

There’s another reason that small pharmaceutical labs like Libby are rare: few people know how to formulate. “In the old days”, says Susan, “the pharmacists had to take the active drug, put it into the vehicle, and actually make the products. Nowadays, it’s all pre-made.” Even in 1955, when Hank Libby went back to school—he was already a practicing industrial chemist—and earned a Pharm. D. from the University of California, San Francisco, UCSF was one of the few places you could study the old, artisanal compounding heritage, updated to current scientific concepts.  

With his degree in hand, Libby could have been a pharmacist, and in fact he was very active in organizing the pharmacy at the now-defunct Co-op. But he dreamed of becoming an entrepreneur—of starting his own lab where new products could be developed. In the early years, says Susan, Libby Labs “was a family operation. All the kids would come and help on the weekends—Mom, too. She did the invoicing….Dad talked about the business over the dinner table every night. I used to work there in the summertime. It was just part of life.” So, too, to judge from the tones with which Susan and Hank Libby jointly describe their firm, was a deep mutual respect and affection between father and daughter. 

The Libbys are proud of their company, and not just because of its record of innovative product development. They also see Libby Labs as making important contributions to the local economy and community in its capacity as a light manufacturer. The first benefit to the city, says Susan, is diversity. “You don’t want to put all your eggs in one basket. Second, the kinds of jobs we have. We do employ people at all skill levels. We have good benefits. They’re quality jobs. And I think we’ve laid one person off since 1959.”  

From the other side, the business has benefited from Berkeley’s commitment to manufacturing. Indeed, Libby Labs is where it is—in West Berkeley on the southwest corner of 6th and Virginia—because in the mid-1970s city officials invited it to be there. At that time the land belonged to the city. Envisioning the firm as an anchor for an industrial park, Berkeley sold the site to Hank Libby for $90,000—“a deal,” he says. The park never came to pass, but Libby Labs stayed and prospered. 

Unofficially, Berkeley also provided the Libbys with something that money couldn’t buy: instant cachet. “When I started the business,” says Hank, “you’d get on the phone and start talking business around the world, and when you said, ‘I’m calling you from Berkeley, California,’ you had immediate status, due to the University and the community. The success of Libby Labs depended on Berkeley.”  

It depended on one thing more: Hank Libby’s spirit of inquiry, enterprise and goodwill. Half a century after the founding of Libby Labs, that spirit is in ample evidence in the enthusiasm with which he describes a current project. “I’ve got some stuff here,” he says, gesturing toward the contents of a small, covered jar that sits on his desk, “that’s a concept. We did a product for polo ponies. When they get a scratch, they’re susceptible to infection—you’ve got to keep the insects away. Well, you know those kids in Africa—you see pictures with wounds with bugs on them? Well, I want to adapt that product to help that.”  

You can’t help believing that Hank Libby and Libby Labs will find a way. 

›

The last time bartender Joshua Cluff had to toss people out of the Albatross pub was because they were arguing too loudly about the Iraq war. Last Saturday, the Albatross froze as a woman yelled in triumphant glee, not because the University of Connecticut had made it to the NCAA finals, but because she had just won a game of trivial pursuit on an obscure geography question. At the table to the woman’s right, Liz Guneratne and Tajma Evans sat drinking a flask of wine while their dog Luke munched on popcorn crumbs. 

Sound like a typical bar? Probably not. But that’s why the Berkeley’s Albatross pub is special. Unlike any other local watering hole, the Albatross has created an alternative niche that’s fits in perfectly, Berkeley-style. 

“It’s kind of like a community center that happens to sell liquor,” is how co-owner Wendy Halambeck would describe the Albatross. She and Linda Zsilavetz, the other co-owner, bought the pub seven years ago from brothers Bob and Val Johnson. This Wednesday, the Albatross turns 40, and all are encouraged to come out and celebrate both the old and new, the legacy, and what has quickly re-become a community mainstay. 

Originally opened in 1964, the Albatross was hip during the ‘60s and ‘70s but afterwards fell into disrepair. Then came Halambeck and Zsilavetz. Along with refurbishing almost everything in the bar, the pair worked to create a new and unique bar-scene atmosphere that would foster comfortable socialization, not just drinking. 

They kept the dartboards in the back, brought in a pool table, bought every board game imaginable, decided to allow dogs on leashes, put local artists’ work up on the walls, and made sure to play the music low enough so you could hear the person talking with you from across the table. 

On any given day of the week, you can walk into the Albatross and find a group of young men drinking beer and playing darts and immediately to their left a pair of older men talking philosophy. In the next room, college kids at their table will be screaming like 7-year-olds as they play “Connect Four.” Tucked away in a corner, near the wood burning stove, are a couple enjoying the atmosphere and the fact that they don’t have to go hoarse from shouting at each other. 

Combined, all the patrons create a sort of balance. 

“It’s a weird hybrid of a coffee shop and bar,” is how bartender Joshua Cuff describes the atmosphere. “People don’t come here to drink, they come here to do things around drinking. It provides an opportunity for people to engage on another level.” 

Nonetheless, the drinking is still an important part. With 13 beers on tap (local, national and international), more than 50 bottled beers (there is an emphasis on Belgian beer), a variety of single malt and Irish whiskeys, and a certain class of mixed drink (absolutely no umbrella drinks), there is plenty to chose from. 

Another perk is the Sunday night trivia competition. Hundreds pack into the back room to intellectually duke it out over pitchers of beer. Hosted by Jeff, another bartender, the game draws swarms of locals—intellectuals and non-intellectuals alike. There is also live music several nights a week. 

The pub has drawn a host of interesting characters over the years. There is Funny Old Bruce, who has walked through the front door every day since the Albatross opened 40 years ago, and who drinks only root beer and Calistoga water. According to Halambeck, Sean Penn also stops by once in a while. 

Along with the patrons are the stories. One that sticks out in Halambeck’s mind is the time that the pub staff helped a young man propose to his girlfriend during trivia night. They set up the questions so that each answer was one of the words in the sentence, “Will you marry me?” As Jeff read off the answers, saying the sentence over the microphone, the man got down and proposed. 

Another story is the one of a young woman who had come to the pub to work on her physics homework. The waiter serving her saw she was struggling and knew there was a physics professor in the other room, so the waiter brought the two together. 

The pub has also gained notoriety outside of Berkeley. According to Cluff, the Albatross has become part of a larger well-known bar circuit with patrons coming from all parts of the Bay Area. 

“You feel like you’re part of a community when you’re here,” said Michelle Mulkey, who was with a group from San Francisco who had made the trip across the Bay just to come to the Albatross. “I would give anything to have this in San Francisco.” She added that she’s glad it’s not, “or I’d be an alcoholic.” 



TUESDAY, APRIL 6 

EXHIBITION OPENINGS 

Paintings by Julia Ross, colorful acrylics and watercolors, urban scenes and florals on display at The French Hotel, 1538 Shattuck Ave. through April 30. 527-0173. 

CHILDREN 

Craft Program Make “Wild Things” masks at 2 p.m. at Berkeley Public Library South Branch, 1901 Russell St. 981-6260. 

FILM 

Alternative Visions: “Something More Than Night” at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

“Qawwali: The Sacred Music of the Sufis” a workshop from 2:10 to 5 p.m. at Starr King School for the Ministry, 2441 Le Conte Ave. Free. 845-6232. 

Ian Johnson, Pulitzer Prize winner for his reporting on China will speak at 5 p.m. at the IEAS Conference Room, 2223 Fulton St., 6th Floor. 

“The Passion of Christ” from an Evangelical Perspective with the Dean of the GTU at 12:30 p.m. in the Hewlett Library, 2400 Ridge Rd. 526-1356. 

Annie Koh co-author of “How to Get Stupid White Men Out of Office” at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698. www.blackoakbooks.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Brass Menagerie at 8:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Balkan dance lesson with Nancy Klein at 8 p.m. Cost is $9. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

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

www.thejazzhouse.com 

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

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

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 7 

CHILDREN 

Craft Program Make “Wild Things” masks at 2 p.m. at Berkeley Public Library Claremont Branch, 2940 Benvenue Ave. 981-6280. 

Craft Program Make Harry Potter wizard hats and wands at 2 p.m. at Berkeley Central Library, 2090 Kittredge St. 981-6223. 

FILM 

Meet Your Makers: “Peep Show” at 7:30 p.m. Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

A Conversation with Ballet Stars Kyra Nichols and Sally Streets Join Berkeley native, Kyra Nichols, star of the New York City Ballet, and her mother, renowned ballet teacher and former NYCB dancer, in a discussion of their respective careers, at 7 p.m. at SF Performing Arts Library and Museum, Veteran’s Bldg., 4th flr, 401 Van Ness Ave., SF. Cost is $15, and reservations can be made by calling 415-255-4800. www.sfpalm.org 

Cara Black reads from her mystery, “Murder in the Bastille,” at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698. www.blackoakbooks.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 

“The Asian Galleries” a conversation with Joanna Williams and Raka Ray at noon at Berkeley Art Museum, 2626 Bancroft Way. 642-0808. 

“An Afternoon with Charles Burnett,” with the artist in person at 3 p.m. at at Berkeley Art Museum, 2626 Bancroft Way. 642-0808. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

VaaM, collaborative efforts of artists, musicians and filmmakers from around the Bay Area, at iMusicast, 5429 Telegraph Ave., Oakland. Doors open at 7:30 p.m. all-ages welcome. 

The Creole Belles with special guest Andrew Carriere at 8:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cajun dance lesson with Diana Castillo at 8 p.m. Cost is $9. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Josh Redman Unit, modern jazz, at 8 p.m. at The Jazz House. Donation $5. 649-8744. www.thejazzhouse.com 

John Wesley Harding, social commentary and humor, at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage Coffee House. Cost is $16.50 in advance, $17.50 at the door. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Whiskey Brothers perform old time and bluegrass at 9 p.m. at Albatross, 1822 San Pablo Ave. 843-2473. www.albatrosspub.com 

Orquestra Sora performs salsa music at 8 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low, 2284 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $5-$10. 548-1159.  

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

Sam Bevan Trio at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

THURSDAY, APRIL 8 

EXHIBITION OPENINGS 

“Kids Collect: Honoring Elders” an exhibition by students from four Oakland schools. Runs to June 6 at the Oakland Museum of California, 10th and Oak Sts. Admission $4-$8. 238-2200. www.museumca.org 

“The Big Picture” an exhibition of large format prints at Kala Art Institute, 1060 Heinz Ave. Reception for the artists from 6 to 8 p.m. Exhibition runs to May 22. 549-2977.  

FILM 

Charles Burnett: “Nat Turner: A Troublesome Property” at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

College National Poetry Slam opens at 5 p.m. and continues April 9 and 10. Tickets are $7-$10 available from www.virtuous.com 

Word Beat Reading Series at 7 p.m. with featured readers Jeanne Powell and Wendy Brown, at Mediterraneum Caffe, 2475 Telegraph Ave., near Dwight Way. For information call 526-5985 or 205-1749.  

“Ant Farm 1968-1978” Guided Tour at 12:15 and 5:30 p.m. at Berkeley Art Museum, 2626 Bancroft Way. 642-0808. 

“The Best Travellers Tales 2004” at 7:30 p.m. at Easy Going Travel Shop and Bookstore, 1385 Shattuck Ave. at Rose. 843-3533. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

The Albatross’ 40th Anniversary Party from 7 to 10 p.m. at 1822 San Pablo Ave. Buffet, prizes, pool and darts and live music by the Bluegrass Intentions. Free admission. 843-2473. 

Shoghaken Ensemble, traditional Armenian music, at 8 p.m., Wheeler Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $26, available from 642-9988. www.calperfs.berkeley.edu 

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

Oakland Wolf Walk Bluegrass Festival with Jimbo Trout and the Fish People at 9 p.m. at Oakland Metro, 201 Broadway, Cost is $8. 763-1146. www.oaklandmetro.org 

Markus James and the Wassonrai featuring Mamadou Sidibe at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $9. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Ralph Stanley & the Clinch Mountain Boys at 5 and 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage Coffee House. Cost is $29.50 in advance, $30.50 at the door. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Swoop Unit at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

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

Bitches Brew, Flowtilla at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $6. 841-2082.  

www.starryploughpub.com 

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

FRIDAY, APRIL 9 

CHILDREN 

Easter Treasury at 10:30 a.m. at Barnes and Noble. 644-3635. 

FILM 

Sound of Music Sing-A-Long to April 15 at 7 p.m. (except April 11, 12) at the Landmark California Theatre, 2113 Kittredge St. Tickets are $10-$15 available from 866-468-3399 or on-line at www.ticketweb.com 

Charles Burnett: “Glass Shield” at 7:30 p.m. at Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

THEATER 

Aurora Theatre Company “Antigone Falun Gong” at 8 p.m. Wed.-Sat., Sun. at 2 and 7 p.m. at 2081 Addison St. through May 16. Tickets are $28-$40 available from 843-4822. www.auroratheatre.org 

Berkeley Repertory Theater, “Ghosts” by Henrik Ibsen, at 8 p.m. and runs through April 11. 647-2917. www.berkeleyrep.org 

Shotgun Players “The Miser” opens at 8 p.m. at the Julia Morgan Theater, Thurs. - Sun. through May 2. Free. 704-8210. www.shotgunplayers.org 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Katya Kamisaruk introduces “Beat the Heat: How to Handle Encounters with Law Enforcement,” at 7 p.m. at AK Press Warehouse, 674A 23rd St., Oakland. 208-1700. www.akpress.org 

College National Poetry Slam opens at 6 p.m. and continues April 10. Tickets are $7-$10 available from www.virtuous.com 

“By the Light of the Moon” open mic for women at Changemakers, 6536 Telegraph Ave. Cost is $3-$7. 655-2405. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

“Company” a musical performed by UC Choral Ensembles at 8 p.m. in the Choral Rehearsal Hall, Room 20 (basement level) of Cesar Chavez Student Center, UC Campus. Tickets are $8-$10. 

“Ancestories ... Stories from Beneath the Skirts,” dance and drum works of the African Diaspora at 8 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $12 in advance, $15 at the door. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

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

Joel Futterman, Ike Levin, Alvin Fielder Trio, at 8 p.m. at The Jazz House. Sliding scale donation $15-$18. 649-8744. www.thejazzhouse.com 

O-Maya at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $13. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Ralph Stanley & the Clinch Mountain Boys at 5 and 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $29.50 in advance, $30.50 at the door. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Oakland Wolf Walk Bluegrass Festival with The Crooked Jades at 9:30 p.m. at Oakland Metro, 201 Broadway, Cost is $10. 763-1146. www.oaklandmetro.org 

The Case Worker, Minmae, Built Like Alaska at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $7. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

Quarteto Sonado, Afro-Cuban jazz, at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

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

Jackie Ryan with the Jeff Pittson Trio at 8:30 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810. 

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

Wil Bernard and Mother Bug at 9 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low, 2284 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $7, $5 with student i.d. 548-1159. 

www.shattuckdownlow.com 

Look Back and Laugh, Iron Lung, Add-C, Ashtray at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St. Cost is $5. 525-9926. 

SATURDAY, APRIL 10 

CHILDREN  

Los Amiguitos de La Peña with Music Together at 10:30 a.m. at La Peña. Cost is $4 for adults, $3 for children. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

“Wild About Books” storytime at 10:30 a.m. at the Berkeley Public Library, 2090 Kittredge St. 981-6223. 

EXHIBITION OPENINGS 

Fibers and Dyes Exhibit Plants are the origin of the most popular fibers we use in our daily lives and of the dyes that provide us with colors. Feel fabrics, see and smell dyes and look at the many uses of fibers from around the world. In the Botanical Garden’s Conference Center during Garden hours 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Free with Garden admission. UC Botanical Garden, 200 Centennial Drive. 643-2755. http://botanicalgarden.berkeley.edu 

FILM 

Volker Schlöndorff: “Circle of Deceit” at 7 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Charles Burnett A panel discussion on the film director’s work at 2 p.m. at Berkeley Art Museum, 2626 Bancroft Way. 642-0808. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Youth Movement Records Artists at 8 p.m. at Youth Radio Cafe, 1801 University Ave. Cost is $3. 435-5112.  

Berkeley High Jazz Combo at 2 p.m. at Down Home Music, 10341 San Pablo Ave., El Cerrito. 525-2129. 

Angel Amkgik at 9 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low, 2284 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $20. 548-1159. www.shattuckdownlow.com 

Gomer Hendrix, ska humor band at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

Val Esway, Karry Walker and Kim Norlen at the 1923 Teahouse at 8 p.m. All ages welcome. Suggested donation of $7-$10, no one turned away for lack of funds. 644-2204. www.epicarts.org 

Suzy Thompson at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $15.50 in advance, $16.50 at the door. 548-1761.  

www.freightandsalvage.org 

Go Jimmy Go, Chris Murray, Solemite and The Soul Captives at 8:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $10 in advance, $12 at the door. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Oakland Wolf Walk Bluegrass Festival with The Papermill Rounders at 9:30 p.m. at Oakland Metro, 201 Broadway. Cost is $12. 763-1146. www.oaklandmetro.org 

“Blaze” Hip Hop Dance Showcase with New Style Motherlode at 6:30 p.m. at Sweet’s Ballroom, 1933 Broadway Blvd., Oakland. Tickets are $10 in advance, $15 at the door. 597-1056. www.newstylemotherlode.com 

John Santos Quintet at 8 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $12 in advance, $14 at the door. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Mark Hummel, harmonica virtuoso, at 8 p.m. at the Jazz- 

school. Cost is $12-$18. 845-5373. www.jazzschool.com  

Sam Rivers, an evening of conversation and music, at 8 and 10 p.m. at The Jazz House. Tickets are $15 in advance, $20 at the door. 649-8744. www.thejazzhouse.com 

Spikedrivers, Anna Coogan & North 19 at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $7. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

Famous Last Words at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Collective Amnesia at 8:30 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810. 

Communique, Kissing Tiger, The New Trust, Pistolito, The Killer Watts at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St. Cost is $5. 525-9926. 

SUNDAY, APRIL 11 

CHILDREN 

Asheba at Ashkenaz at 3 p.m. Cost is $4 for children, $6 for adults. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

FILM 

“Jesus, You Know” at 5 and 7 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Poetry Flash with Joanna Goodman and Tucker Malarky at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. Donation $2. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

“Ant Farm 1968-1978” Guided Tour at 2 p.m. at Berkeley Art Museum, 2626 Bancroft Way. 642-0808. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Alfred Brendel, piano, at 7 p.m., Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $32-$62, available from 642-9988. www.calperfs.berkeley.edu 

Chamber Music Sundaes with musicians from San Francisco Symphony performing Schumann, Brahms and Grieg at 3:15 p.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. Tickets are $7-$18, available at the door. 415-584-5946. 

Joel Futterman, Ike Levin, Alvin Fielder Trio, at 8 p.m. at The Jazz House. Sliding scale donation $15-$18. 649-8744. www.thejazzhouse.com 

Queens of Boogie Woogie at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $16.50 in advance, $17.50 at the door. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Flamenco Open Stage with Carolla Zertuche at 7:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $9. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

MONDAY, APRIL 12 

THEATER 

“Jane Austen in Berkeley” Andrea Mock’s one-woman play at 8 p.m. at Epic Arts, 1923 Ashby Ave. Tickets are $7. 841-9441. 

Shotgun Theater Lab “Persistent Vegetative State” at 8 p.m. at La Val’s Subterranean Theater, 1834 Euclid. Runs Mon. and Tues. through April 20. Free admission. 704-8210. www.shotgunplayers.org 

FILM 

“The Agronomist” a documentary on the life of journalist and human rights activist Jean Dominique of Haiti, at 7 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Sponsored by the Center for Latin American Studies. 642-2088. 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Herb Kohl discusses the public education system in “Stupidity and Tears” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.comÄ

The Ohlone, who were living in the Bay Area when the first Europeans arrived, left only a few scraps of oral tradition to puzzle over. One is a song, or part of a song, that goes: 

I dream of you, 

I dream of you jumping, 

Rabbit, 

Jackrabbit, 

Quail 

Anthropologists aren’t sure what to make of this. (Imagine trying to reconstruct our culture from, say, a couple of lines from “Uncle John’s Band.”) It could have been a hunting song. The Ohlone, according to Malcolm Margolin, relied heavily on brush rabbits and black-tailed jackrabbits for clothing (200 rabbit skins made a blanket) and food. They killed them with sticks, snares, slings, and arrows. Whole villages would set the underbrush on fire or beat the bushes to chase rabbits into a net. Rabbit drives were occasions of feasting, at which a good time was had by everyone except the rabbits. 

It’s possible, although not likely, that Rabbit was an Ohlone culture hero (Central California was more Coyote’s territory). The Owens Valley Paiute had a hero named Cottontail who attacked the Sun for being too hot, and Rabbit the Trickster was a prominent figure among some Southeastern and Great Lakes tribes. To the Yuchi, who lived along the Georgia-South Carolina border, he was a Prometheus figure who stole fire from its guardians. Contacts between Native Americans and African slaves in the plantation South may have grafted the rabbit character onto stories of West African tricksters like Anansi the Spider, giving rise to the tales of Br’er Rabbit. 

No offense to the Br’er, or to Bugs Bunny, but I’ve always had trouble with Rabbit as a trickster. Coyote or Raven, sure. Rabbits, though, don’t seem all that astute: you never wonder what a rabbit’s thinking. 

Granted, brush rabbits, the locally common species, have to be at least a little tricky to stay alive in a world full of enemies. (Brush rabbits are considered to be cottontails, a group unique to the Americas, although the undersides of their tails are brindled gray rather than cottony-white. The 15 or so cottontail species include the common eastern cottontail, introduced to parts of the West as a game animal, and the semi-aquatic swamp rabbit, which was likely the critter that went after Jimmy Carter in that notorious rabbit attack incident). 

The brush rabbit’s strongest suit is concealment. Its home range centers on thick cover, like an impenetrable (to us) blackberry tangle, through which it has established a maze of tunnels and runways. Before venturing out to eat, usually at dusk, it pauses at the threshold to scan for signs of danger. When hunted, brush rabbits are reluctant to break cover. They’ll climb into the shrubbery, even into low trees, rather than bolt into the open. 

They’re also good at keeping quiet. Like other rabbits, they don’t vocalize unless they’re frightened or in pain. After taking refuge in its briarpatch, a brush rabbit may thump its hind foot out of nervous tension. 

But predators—coyotes, foxes, bobcats, weasels, hawks, owls, snakes, even scrub-jays—still take a significant toll. As with many small mammals, brush rabbits counter by breeding early and often. Mating season in California runs from December through May; by April, most adult females are either pregnant or nursing young, or both. 

The authors of one study figured the average female brush rabbit produced 15 offspring per year. Without predation, that could amount over time to a lot of rabbits (just ask the Australians). In 1948 someone introduced brush rabbits to predator-free Ano Neuvo Island off the San Mateo County coast, best known for its elephant seal colony. The rabbits had built up population densities of 50 per acre by the 1960s, and had eaten enough of the island’s plant cover to ruin it as nesting habitat for white-crowned sparrows and other birds. Typical brush rabbit densities seem to be more like 17 per acre. 

Young brush rabbits, like other cottontails and “true” rabbits, are precocial: born blind and helpless. In contrast, hares like the jackrabbit give birth to altricial young that are up and around right away. A female brush rabbit hides her young in a form, a shallow burrow lined with her own fur and covered with a fur plug. Her only contact with them during their two weeks in the nest comes in nocturnal nursing visits. (The milk of European rabbits is said to be richer than cow or goat milk, although there have been practical obstacles to a rabbit dairy industry. I don’t know of any comparable studies for cottontails.) 

Egg production and delivery, of course, is beyond the talents of brush rabbits and their relatives. You have to wonder what the pre-contact Ohlone would have thought about that bit of Western mythology. 

While Berkeley’s office vacancy rate is the lowest in the East Bay, the city is not so fortunate when it comes to retail space—those street-level locations so prized by merchandisers and restaurants. 

The city got an unpleasant jolt and reminder of this fact in recent days with the announcement of the closing of the See’s Candy store at 2170 Shattuck Ave. The See’s closing as part of a move by the South SanFrancisco-based chain to shift operations to shopping malls. See’s is owned by billionaire investor Warren Buffett. 

While a public protest last month apparently has saved the last See’s store in Oakland—in the city’s Lakeshore District—Berkeley’s store is closing without a fuss. A new store will open on Bay Street in Emeryville’s mall-heavy Bay Street. 

And the loss of See’s was not the only blow. 

Joining the list of Berkeley’s commercial casualties late Thursday afternoon was computer manufacturer Gateway Inc., which announced it was closing all of its 188 retail stores in the nation, including its downtown Berkeley outlet. No date was available at press time for the actual closures.  

Berkeley’s Gateway store stands on Shattuck Avenue next door to the Eddie Bauer retail clothing outlet, also recently closed by a national chain, and only a block away from Huston’s Shoes, a retail store which went out of business last year. The loss of the three retail outlets, one right after the other, leaves an enormous hole in Berkeley’s downtown. 

No one’s sure just how poorly Berkeley’s retail leasing sector is doing, because retail vacancies aren’t tracked with anywhere near the same precision as office space. But all the sources contacted for this story agreed Berkeley houses too many vacant storefronts. 

Downtown has been the hardest hit, while the Solano Avenue, College Avenue, Fourth Street and South Shattuck corridors have been faring better.  

“The last update I had was a year ago, and we were running about ten percent vacancies downtown then,” said Ted Burton, the city’s Economic Development Project Coordinator. 

That’s better than 1992, when vacancies hit 16 percent, but a lot worse than 2000, when the rate was four percent. 

“I don’t think it’s bottomed out yet,” said Burton’s boss, acting Manager of Economic Development Thomas A. Meyers. “Investors and developers are going to hold back a little longer to see how the national and state economies are going.” 

Another crucial factor facing the city is the fact “most agents dealing in retail space don’t do business in Berkeley,” said Jim McMasters, national retail chair for Colliers International, a major trans-national real estate agency. “Berkeley’s always been an enigma. It’s is a very difficult market to lease space in. The city isn’t a popular market for traditional retailers. The cultural environment doesn’t welcome chains, they don’t like fast food outlets or the chain coffee shops. Berkeley wants unique shops and boutique retail stores.” 

Both city officials and Berkeley consumers seem to agree that, except for drug stores, auto parts shops, supermarkets, gas stations, and a clothing store or two, Berkeley prefers to remain unchained. 

Berkeley’s distaste for mass production and mass marketing poses unique difficulties. “New mom and pop stores don’t have the track records and credit histories of chain outlets, and if you’re leasing space, you have to find one well equipped to survive,” McMasters said. 

The population of Berkeley differs from the rest of the Bay Area too, he added. “There’s a heavy student population and a liberal, health oriented populace that’s not as interested in acquiring things as people in Walnut Creek and Concord.”  

And chains, the dominant force in retail elsewhere in America, rely on standardization, concentration and locations in major shopping centers with massive on-site parking facilities. 

Acting Manager of Economic Development Meyers acknowledged that “it’s definitely more of a challenge to get a particular retail client to match a particular location in Berkeley, in part because city residents play a greater role in deciding which businesses will locate in the city. The community has a more focal input to city government, and that’s definitely a double-edged sword.” 

Restrictive zoning in the city also poses more challenges to business trying to locate, here, “and to our credit,” Meyers said. 

“We’re having a hard time attracting big tenants,” said John Gordon of Berkeley’s Gordon Commercial Real Estate Services. “The worst news I’ve heard in a long time is that the former Pier One store [at 1824 University Ave.] is becoming a Salvation Army Thrift Store. The larger tenants are having difficulty here and they’re moving to places like El Cerrito.” 

Chains also face the additional challenge posed by the lack of large sites and major parking facilities. “We don’t have the facilities for stores like the Gap and Old Navy,” Meyers said, but added that the city does offer potential locations for outlet stores. 

Researchers looking for information on the extent of retail vacancies have a much harder time coming up with hard numbers compared with office and apartment vacancies. 

“In the Bay Area, there are probably 800 brokers specializing in industrial space and 600 or so specializing in office space. But when it comes to retail there are only 80 or so, and the bulk of business is done by 12 or 15,” McMasters said. “Most of that business is in new growth areas like Concord, Walnut Creek” and out into the Central Valley. 

Gordon’s agency is handling downtown Berkeley’s biggest vacancy at 2201 Shattuck Ave., the site just vacated by the closing of the Eddie Bauer clothing store. 

“The new Vista College building and the new university hotel project will help downtown,” Gordon said, “but the thing that will make retail thrive is more housing downtown. When you have more people on the streets, it enhances the retail sector.” §

For students at Thousand Oaks Elementary School, the only thing worse than losing a game at recess was losing their ball in the polluted Blackberry Creek that runs through their schoolyard.  

“We’d pick it up, wash it down really well, and then not use it for a couple of days,” said Isaiah Torrez, a fifth grader. 

Tuesday, one year after Torrez and his classmates went before the City Council to demand a stop to the dangerous amounts of bacteria flowing down their stream, Mayor Tom Bates arrived with good news. 

After an exhaustive search that cost an estimated $120,000, the city believes it has plugged the leaks from which flowed fecal coliform—minute bacterial particles can cause hepatitis A or diarrhea if ingested in large doses.  

A 60-year-old abandoned sewer line on Solano Avenue was leaking the particles into a catch basin that flowed into the creek, said Director of Public Works Renee Cardinaux, who joined Bates at a school assembly for fourth and fifth graders at Thousand Oaks Elementary. 

Since maintenance workers plugged the holes in the sewer line four months ago, tests have shown acceptable levels of fecal coliform in the creek. Cardinaux said that in about two weeks, if the next reading is also okay, the city would take down the warning signs posted along the creek, which also flows past a toddler park. 

The contamination hadn’t stopped students from learning about science at their creek, teacher Jon Bindloss said. But instead of an outdoor biology laboratory, the creek better resembled a superfund site. Students had to wear elbow-length rubber gloves when they performed their own tests for the particles, he said.  

High readings of fecal coliform have plagued Blackberry Creek intermittently since the city unearthed the 250-foot segment in 1995.  

City engineers worked 200 hours and maintenance workers 140 hours trying to locate the source, Cardinaux said. They shot dye through the plumbing of the buildings on the 900 block of Colusa Street and the 1800 block of Solano Avenue, dropped cameras into storm drains, and dug holes outside of Zachary’s pizza in search of the leak. 

“This kind of thing can drive you nuts,” Cardinaux said. The city is littered with old sewers, he added, and most people aren’t aware they might have an illegal hookup. 

Finally city workers dug a hole at a catch basin beside Peets Coffee and found a culprit they didn’t even know existed. With the holes to the abandoned sewer line plugged, the city is rerouting the catch basin to the storm drain system, before giving Blackberry Creek a clean bill of health, Cardinaux said. 

Blackberry Creek has been an ongoing problem because of its locations in the Berkeley Hills, where there are far more independent and aging sewers that break due to minor earthquakes, said Carole Schemmerling of the Urban Creeks Council. 

The cleanup of Blackberry Creek comes just as advocates for unearthing city creeks are pushing ahead with their most ambitious project: the daylighting of Strawberry Creek at Center Street as part of the redevelopment of the block along with a planned hotel and convention center. 

Juliet Lamont, an environmental consultant for the Urban Creeks Council, insisted Strawberry Creek would not be as susceptible to contamination because it flows above ground through much of the UC Berkeley campus. “If there were a problem it would be very easy to pinpoint where it was coming from,” she said. 

The city’s two other sections of unearthed creek—Strawberry Creek, between Acton and Bonar Streets and Cordonices Creek, between Eighth and Ninth streets—have occasionally tested for unsafe levels of pollution, but not to the extent of Blackberry, Cardinaux said. “Urban creeks are seldom really clean as much as we might wish they are.”  

But that doesn’t mean the problems at Blackberry Creek have biased him against future daylighting projects. 

Cardinaux said that if the creek had not been daylighted and water tests in the bay had shown pollution coming from Blackberry Creek, the city would have had a much tougher and more expensive job locating the problem. 

Students all said they were happy to hear their creek was finally clean, but not everyone was completely satisfied. “It’s really ridiculous how long it’s taken to fix it,” said Julianna Meagher, a fifth grader. “I mean, there’s a tot park right here with two-year-olds. They can’t read the signs.” 

Student Xochi Hernandez had said one problem remained. “I wouldn’t get as freaked out when I touch it now, but if you walk by the pipes, it still smells really bad.”.

While Berkeley Police are offering few details about the in-custody death of 45-year-old Tyrone Hughes Sr., the dead man’s son is talking lawsuit, and he’s already arranged for a private autopsy. 

Hughes Sr. died early Monday morning, March 29, after lapsing into convulsions during booking at the city jail, according to police spokesperson Kevin Schofield, who said paramedics found a plastic container lodged in Hughes’ throat. 

Schofield said suspects sometimes try to swallow drugs to prevent their discovery by officers. 

“My father’s known for not ever taking pills,” said his son, Tyrone Hughes Jr. in a telephone interview with the Daily Planet. 

Deirdre Spears, the deceased’s former wife and Hughes Jr.’s mother, said Hughes wouldn’t take pills unless he had first crushed them into powder. “He’d gone to jail so many times before,” she explained. “He would just do his time. He was a drug addict. That’s why I divorced him. But he was a devoted father. He was there at his grandson’s birth, and he came to visit his son every week.”  

Hughes Jr. described his father as 5’7” and weighing “less than 140 pounds.” 

Hughes had been arrested after a routine traffic stop when officers discovered an outstanding warrant on drug charges. Schofield said that officers who frisked Hughes found pieces of suspected rock cocaine in his pockets,. 

During booking at the city jail, Hughes “appeared to suffer from and medical problem and became unresponsive,” Schofield said. 

Paramedics took the stricken man to Alta Bates Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 3:27 a.m., said Dan Apperson, a supervisor at the Alameda County Coroner’s office. “The cause of death is pending. It’s under investigation by Homicide Sgt. Howard Nonoguchi of the Berkeley Police Department.” 

Hughes Jr. said Berkeley police have refused to talk to him except for Nonoguchi’s comment that “it could be weeks or months before they have a report.” 

“I haven’t eaten since Monday and I can’t sleep,” the young man said over the telephone as his infant son cried in the background. “It’s so hard,” he added, lapsing into sobs. 

After his divorce from Spears, Hughes married Pastor Carol Hughes Willoughby, founder of NewLife for Christ Community Ministry and a candidate who came in third in the 2000 race for the District 2 seat on the Berkeley City Council. 

Spears and her son said they have contacted the office of Oakland attorney John Burris, well-known for pursuing actions against police, but “he hasn’t agreed to represent us yet,” Spears said. “It was a real shame that the police wouldn’t tell my son anything, and that he had to find out the details from the papers,” she added.H

FRIDAY, APRIL 2 

City Commons Club Noon Luncheon with David Hooson, Prof. Emeritus, Geography, UCB on “Inner Asia.” Luncheon 11:45 a.m. for $12.50. Speech at 12:30 p.m., at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant St. For information and reservations call 526-2925 or 665-9020. 

“A Lot in Common” a documentary on the growth of community in a North Berkeley neighborhood as residents, artists, and other volunteers build and use the Peralta and Northside Community Art Gardens, at 7:30 p.m. at the Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists at the corner of Cedar and Bonita.  

“EarthDance“ Environmental Film Festival, showing ten short films on urban, rural and wild environments, from 6 to 9 p.m. at Oakland Museum of California, Oak and 10th Sts. Admission is $5-$8. 238-2022. www.museumca.org 

“From Frybread to Fueltank: Bringing Biodiesel to Native America” Join us in a benefit to support a biodiesel bus tour led by Zachary Running-Wolf that will leave from Oakland and cover the Southwest. At 7:30 p.m. at the Ecology Center, 2530 San Pablo Ave, near Dwight Way. $5 donation requested. 548-2220, ext. 233. 

“State of California Environmental Issues” with Terry Tamminen, Secretary of the Califormia EPA at 6 p.m. in the Lipman Room, Barrows Hall, UC Campus. Co-Sponsored by the Class of 1935 and the Energy Foundation. 642-1760. 

Kite Fly from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Cesar Chavez Park, Berkeley Marina. Part of National Kite Month celebration. www.NationalKiteMonth.org 

Womansong Circle: Songs of Rebirth and a Greening Earth with Betsy Rose at 6:45 p.m. at First Congregational Church, 2345 Channing Way. Suggested donation $8. Bring a snack to share. 525-7082. 

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, APRIL 3 

Behind the Scenes Tour of the Orchid Greenhouse Exotic, rare, fragrant and extensive. Tour with orchid expert Jerry Parsons and hear about the Garden’s global collection of hundreds of orchids and epiphytes. At 1 and 3 p.m. Registration required. UC Botanical Garden, 200 Centennial Drive. 643-2755. http://botanicalgarden. 

berkeley.edu 

Sick Plant Clinic from 9 a.m. to noon, the first Sat. of every month, a team of experts will diagnose what ails your plants. Free. At the Botanical Garden, 200 Centennial Drive. 643-2755. 

Color and Art in the Garden with Keeyla Meadow, garden designer and artist at 10 a.m. at Magic Gardens Nursery, 729 Heinz Ave. 644-2351. www.magicgardens.com 

California Wildflower Show from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., also on Sunday from noon to 5 p.m. at Oakland Museum of California, 10th and Oak Sts. Admission is $5-$8. 238-2200. www.museumca.org 

Free Emergency Preparedness Class in Shelter Operations from 9 a.m. to noon at 2100 Martin Luther King Jr. Way. To sign up call 981-5605. www.ci. 

berkeley.ca.us/fire/oes.html 

Northern California Socialist Conference 2004 “Resisting US Empire, Fighting for a Better World” from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. at Dwinelle Hall, UC Campus. Cost is $10-$50 sliding scale. For information call 333-4604 or email ISObayarea@aol.com 

“News from Haiti: Eyewitness Accounts” with missionaries Sandra and Daniel Gourdet at 10 a.m. at South Berkeley Community Church, 1802 Fairview, at Ellis. 652-1040. 

Yoga for Seniors at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant St., on Saturdays from 10 to 11 a.m. The class is taught by Rosie Linsky, who at age 72, has practiced yoga for over 40 years. Open to non-members of the club for $8 per class. 848-7800. 

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, APRIL 4 

“What’s Up Down Under?” Explore the fascinating subterranean hemisphere of the hidden half of plants by attending the annual Unselt Lecture delivered this year by UCB Professor of Plant Biology, Dr. Lewis Feldman. Lecture concludes with a walk through the Garden to observe root diversity. From 1 to 4 p.m. at the Botanical Garden, 200 Centennial Drive. Registration required 643-2755. http://botanicalgarden.berkeley.edu 

Soda Bottle Ecosystem Build a take-home eco-system that sits in the palm of your hand. Bring two 2-liter bottles. At 10:30 a.m. at Tilden Nature Center. Registration required. 525-2233. 

Protist April Toss the plankton net, tow it in, and see what members of the Kingdom Protista you can find in the 14-power Discovery scope. From 2 to 4 p.m. at the Tilden Nature Area. 525-2233. 

Full Moon Walk Meet at 7 p.m. at Inspiration Point in Tilden Park. Learn about the origin and history of the moon, and see where the astronauts walked. 525-2233. 

“Ratcatcher” a film set in Scotland during the national garbage strike in the 1970s. At 8 p.m. at the Long Haul Info Shop, 3124 Shattuck Ave. 540-0751.  

Golden State Model Railroad Museum opens from noon to 5 p.m. Located in the Miller-Knox Regional Shoreline Park at 900-A Dornan Drive in Pt. Richmond. Admission is $2-$3. 234-4884 or www.gsmrm.org 

Berkeley Historical Society’s Annual Meeting, with Cathy Luchetti on ”Women of the West,” from 3 to 5 p.m. at the Berkeley History Center, Veterans’ Memorial Bldg, 1931 Center St. 848-0181. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/histsoc/ 

Free Sailboat Rides at the Cal Sailing Club, from 1 to 4 p.m. at the foot of University in the Berkeley Marina. Bring warm, waterproof clothes. For more information, visit our website at www.cal-sailing.org 

Zonta Club “Day at the Races” A benefit for the Writers’ Room Project in the Berkeley Schools. Tickets are available from 644-4480. 

“Meditation for Healing and Renewal” with Robin Canton at 6 p.m. at the Tibetan Nyingma Institute, 1815 Highland Pl. 843-6812. www.nyingmainstitute.com 

“The Journey of a UU Christian and Pagan Mystic” with Cathleen Cox Burneo at 9:30 a.m. at Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley, 1 Lawson Rd. Kensington. 525-0302, ext. 306. 

“Eckhart Tolle Talks on Video” at 6:30 p.m. at the Feldenkrais Ctr., 830 Bancroft Way. First and third Sunday of each month. $3 donation requested, no one turned away for lack of funds. Contact Maitri at 415-990-8977. 

MONDAY, APRIL 5 

The Oakland/East Bay Chapter of the National Organization for Women has cancelled its April meeting because of the Jewish holiday. We usually meet the first Monday of each month at the Oakland YWCA. Hope to see you next month. 841-1672. 

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 nesting birds and flowering shrubs, 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. 

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

Baby Yoga Learn how to soothe your infant. Bring a pillow, blanket, mat and olive oil. At 11 a.m. at Belladonna, 2436 Sacramento St. Admission by donation. 883-0600. 

Yoga and Meditation for Children from 2:45 to 3:45 p.m. at at Belladonna, 2436 Sacramento St. Admission by donation. 883-0600. 

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, APRIL 6 

American Red Cross Blood Services Volunteer Orientation from 9:30 a.m. to 11 a.m. at 6230 Claremont Ave., Oakland. Advance sign-up needed. 594-5165. 

Berkeley Ecological and Safe Transportation hosts a public discussion of car-free housing at 6 p.m. at Berkeley Public Library, 2090 Kittredge, 3rd floor meeting room. 652-9462. 

Death Penalty Vigil, from 4:30 to 6 p.m. at the North Berkeley BART station. Sponsored by Berkeley Friends Meeting. 528-7784. 

Map and Compass 101 An introduction to backcountry navigation at 7 p.m. at REI, 1338 San Pablo Ave. 527-4140. 

St. John’s Prime Timers meets at 9:30 a.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. Leonar Joy will speak on Human Rights at 11 a.m. We offer ongoing classes in exercise and creative arts, and always welcome new members over 50. 845-6830. 

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.  

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. 548-3991. www.berkeleycameraclub.org 

Passover Seder at 6 p.m. at GTU’s Hewlett Library, 2400 Ridge Rd. Cost is $10-$25. Reservations required. 649-2482. 

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 7 

Return to the Oakland Docks for the one-year anniversary of the 2003 shutdown of SSA and APL, and Oakland police crackdown on the anti-war movement. See www.actagainstwar.org for details. 

“Liberation from War: Afghan Women Resist” with Sahar Saba of The Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan at 7 p.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. Suggested donation $20, no one turned away for lack of funds. All proceeds will benefit RAWA and the Buddhist Peace Fellowship. 433-9928. 

“Zapatista: A Big Noise Film” on the first four years of the Zapatista Uprising in Chiapas from 1994-1998 at 7 p.m. at The Fellowship of Humanity, 390 27th St., Oakland. 393-5685. 

Bridging Zapatismo, a community study group on local struggles and the Zapatista movement at 7:30 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center, 3105 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $5-$10 sliding scale. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Tilden Tots, a nature adventure program for 3-4 year olds accompanied by an adutl. We’ll explore and taste the five parts of a plant. Bring a plain T-shirt. Fee is $6, $8 for non-residents. Registration required. 525-2233. 

“Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, Aboriginal Rights, and a Livable Future for All” A conversation at 7 p.m. at the GTU Hewlett Library, 2400 Ridge Rd. Part of the Roundtable on Ecological Ethics and Spirituality. 649-2560. 

Collaging Yourself Forward A life coaching workshop with Ryl Brock Wilson at 7 p.m. at Changemakers, 6536 Telegraph Ave. Cost is $25, pre-registration required. 384-4795. ryl@ArtAsAccess.com 

“The Jew and the ‘Other’ in Antiquity: Alienation or Integration?” A lecture by Erich S. Gruen, professor of history and classics, UC Berkeley. One of the 91st Faculty Research Lectures. At 5 p.m., Berkeley Art Museum Theater, 2621 Durant Ave.  

Berkeley Communicators Toastmasters meets the first and third Wednesdays of the month at 7:15 a.m. at Mediterraneum Caffe, 2475 Telegraph Ave. For information call Robert Flammia 524-3765. 

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

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 

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. 

Berkeley Stop the War Coalition meets every Wednesday at 7 p.m. in 255 Dwinelle, UC Campus. www.berkeleystopthewar.org  

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

Community Dances, traditional English and American dances, 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, APRIL 8 

Morning Birdwalk Meet at 7 a.m. at Tilden Nature Area to look for early nesters. 525-2233. 

Tilden Tots A nature adventure program for 3-4 year olds accompanied by an adult. We’ll explore and taste the five parts of a plant. Bring a plain T-shirt. Fee is $6, $8 for non-residents. Registration required. 525-2233. 

Tilden Explorers A nature adventure program for 5-7 year olds to learn about plant parts and pollination. Fee is $6, $8 for non-residents. Registration required. 525-2233. 

“Salmon: Farmed and Dangerous” A slideshow presentation by Sophika Kostyniuk from the Coastal Alliance for Aquaculture Reform at 7 p.m. at the Ecology Center, 2530 San Pablo Ave. 548-2220, ext. 233. www.ecologycenter.org 

“Our Local Parks” with John Medlock of Albany Parks, Mark Selevenow of Berkeley Parks and Hank VanDyke of Emeryville Public Works, at noon at the Albany Public Library, Edith Stone Room, 1247 Marin Ave. at Masonic. Sponsored by the League of Women Voters. 

East Bay Mac User Group Special session with Inuit, Inc. We meet the 2nd Thursday of every month, from 6 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. at Expression Center for New Media, 6601 Shellmound St. www.expression.edu 

Grizzly Peak Flyfishers, a group dedicated to furthering the noble sport of fly fishing through education and conservation, invites you to its monthly meeting at 7 p.m at the Kensington Community Center, 59 Arlington Ave. in Kensington. 

Host an International Student Let Europe come to you this summer. SWIFT Student Exchange program is bringing Spanish and French middle and high school students to the Bay Area for 3-4 week stays. Informational evening, from 6-8 p.m. at the SWIFT office in Oakland. Call 433-0414 for directions and more information. 

ONGOING 

Project Open Hand’s Senior Lunch Program is welcoming new participants in the East Bay. For information, please call 415-447-2300 or email seniors@openhand.org. 

Free Income Tax Help is available on Tuesday mornings between 10 a.m. and 12 noon at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. Ozzie Olson, AARP trained tax preparer is available by appointment. 845-6830.  

Find a Loving Animal Companion at the Berkeley-East Bay Humane Society Adoption Center, from 11 a.m. - 7 p.m. Tue. - Sun. 2700 Ninth St. 845-7735. www.berkeleyhumane.org  

Medical Care for Your Pet at the Berkeley-East Bay Humane Society low-cost veterinary clinic. 2700 Ninth St. For appointments call 845-3633. www.berkeleyhumane.org  

Spring Bulb Bonanza at the Botanical Garden, 10:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.,to April 15, 200 Centennial Drive. 643-2755. http:// 

botanicalgarden.berkeley.edu 

CITY MEETINGS 

Youth Commission meets Mon., Apr. 5, 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., Apr. 7, 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., Apr. 7, at 7:30 p.m. at the Public Safety Building, 2100 Martin Luther King Jr. Way, 2nd floor. David Orth, 981-5502. www.ci.berkeley.ca. 

us/commissions/firesafety 

Berkeley Rent Stabilization Board meets Turs. Apr. 8, at 7 p.m. in City Council Chambers, Pam Wyche 644-6128 ext. 113. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/rent 

Commission on Early Childhood Education meets Thurs., Apr. 8, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Marianne Graham, 981-5416. www.ci.berkeley. ca.us/commissions/earlychildhoodeducation  

Two-by-Two Meeting of elected City and School officials to dicuss common concerns, Thurs., Apr. 8, at 8:30 a.m., in the Redwood Room, 6th floor, 2180 Milvia St. 644-6147, 981-7000. 

West Berkeley Project Area Commission meets Thurs. Apr. 8, at 7 p.m., at the West Berkeley Senior Center. 981-7520. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/westberkeley  

Zoning Adjustments Board meets Thurs., Apr. 8, at 7 p.m., in City Council Chambers. Mark Rhoades, 981-7410. www.ci.ber- 

keley.ca.us/commissions/zoning  ª

Pedestrian tunnels, daylighted creeks, “green” construction, mass transit, a field trip to San Luis Obispo, street musicians, bus fumes and funding issues dominated the discussion last Wednesday night at the Planning Commission’s UC Hotel Task Force presentation. 

UC has proposed a massive hotel/conference center complex (with a museum complex possibly to follow) for most of the two block area between Shattuck Avenue and Oxford Street between University Avenue and Center Street. Called for in the city’s General Plan and activated at the request of the mayor and the City Council, the task force is charged with making recommendations to the council to both mitigate the project’s impact on the city and to enhance its positive effects. 

The one proposal that displayed significant support at Wednesday’s meeting was a plan to “daylight” Strawberry Creek for the one-block section of Center Street adjacent to the project. Another popular idea involved the creation of a pedestrian tunnel between the downtown BART station and the UC project. 

Task Force Chair and Commissioner Rob Wrenn suggested that the city might consider channeling some of the room occupancy taxes generated by the new hotel to finance stream daylighting and public art for the project. 

But Mayor Tom Bates, who floated between the task force meeting and a session of the Commission on the Status of Women also meeting in the North Berkeley Senior Center, dropped a wet blanket on the potentially costly proposals. 

“Let me remind you that we have a $10 million budget shortfall, and by the time all this is done, we could be facing a $20 million shortfall,” Bates said. 

Juliet Lamont of the Urban Creeks Council said “we are looking for outside funding for the creek because we can’t count on developer fees. It’s important to cobble together what you can from other sources.”  

Just how much revenue the complex might generate for city tax coffers remains an unknown quantity. The transient occupancy taxes paid by hotel guests will go directly into the city treasury—but university and state employees who stay there may be exempt from such tax. 

While many panelists said they hoped the new complex would help revitalize downtown Berkeley, task force member Bonnie Hughes said that “so far downtown Berkeley doesn’t have a good track record in attracting interesting businesses. There’s a kind of dream world we live in, in which interesting old shops driven out by high rents will come back and make things wonderful.” 

But Richard Register, president of Ecocity Builders and founder of Urban Ecology, said daylighting the creek could lead to a resurgence of the city core. He said a similar, city-funded daylighting project in San Luis Obispo had led to a resurgence of the town’s central business district. 

Register’s Ecocity Builders, in cooperation with Mayor Bates, Sarah McLaughlin, the City of San Luis Obispo, the Sierra Club, the Urban Creeks Council, and other organizations, have organized a May 20 overnight train trip to visit the San Luis Obispo creek daylighting and downtown renovation project. 

The next session of the task force, set for April 6, is the public’s last chance to offer suggestions. The meeting’s main focus, however, will be to hear recommendations from the business community. The final two sessions on April 13 and 27 will be devoted to finalizing the task force’s recommendations. 

“Members of the public can submit recommendations, but we will only be discussing those which at least one member of the task force thinks have merit,” said chair Rob Wrenn. 

While most of the proposals will be directed at Carpenter & Company, the project developer selected by the university, Wrenn said other recommendations might be submitted to BART, AC Transit, the university and other organizations.›

Kellie East-Bratt 

Firefighter/Paramedic Jim Fanning got a close shave from Fire Apparatus Operator John Higgins Saturday at Berkeley’s Fire Station 2 as part of a fundraising effort for the American Cancer Society. Firefighters from Berkeley Station 2 made the (nearly) ultimate sacrifice, shaving off their glorious heads of hair in solidarity with Bill Wigmore, a Station 3 Berkeley firefighter who has been battling cancer. The shaving event, along with another fundraiser held at Triple Rock Brewery, brought in $4,500, which will be donated in Wigmore’s name. Anyone wishing to make further contributions can contact the American Cancer Society directly. For the day, the Triple Rock Brewery named a beer for Wigmore: Wiggy ale.

After 16 years, four aborted attempts to win city approval and $600,000 lost, the design of UC Berkeley’s proposed Foothill Bridge across Hearst Avenue has changed dramatically—but not the opposition from neighbors. 

UC Berkeley is making what university Environmental and Long Range Planner Dave Mandel has said is likely its final push to connect the two halves of its Foothill Housing complex with a pedestrian bridge. The dorms themselves were first approved in 1988, with the bridge included in the original design. 

Mandel told participants at a Tuesday community forum on the project that the bridge would give dorm residents a safe passage across the hectic intersection at Hearst and Highland Street and provide access for wheelchair bound students currently shut out of the La Loma dormitory on the north side of Hearst. 

For most of the 350 students living in La Loma, the bridge would only shave about 50 yards off their 650-foot walk across Hearst to the Foothill dormitories where their mail boxes and dining commons are located. But for students in wheelchairs, those services are a world away. Because the terrain around the dorms is so steep, the only path to the mail boxes flat enough for wheelchair riders takes them on a half-mile journey all the way to the Greek Theater and around the complex. 

Not surprisingly, said Larry Wong, manager of the Foothill complex, no wheelchair-using students live in La Loma’s 12 wheelchair accessible units.  

The university has no shortage of disabled accessible housing units, but that wasn’t the point, said the Vice Chancellor for Resident and Student Service Programs Harry Le Grande. “What we want to do is make it accessible. If they want to live here they should be able to.” 

While the university originally pitched the bridge as a safety benefit for all residents, UC Planner Mandel said its chief concern is now access for the disabled. He said UC fears that a student could sue the university for denying access to a public building in violation of the Americans With Disabilities Act. 

Neighbors didn’t buy any of the university’s arguments.  

“If they’re seriously concerned about access for the disabled, they’d make the buildings more accessible,” said Chris Scott, an architect who worked on the design of UC Merced. Scott insisted that even with the bridge, disabled students would have limited access to the dormitory. 

Scott said many neighbors remain unsympathetic to the university’s argument for wheelchair accessibility because in 1988 they urged UC to build the dorm on the south side of campus on Bancroft Way and Fulton Street, where the Tang Medical Center is now situated. That location, Scott said, would have offered far better access to students in wheelchairs than the steep slopes of Hearst. 

The opinion of neighbors like Scott carry extra weight for this project because the university needs an encroachment permit from the City Council to build a bridge across the public right-of-way. 

The last three attempts to do so never made it to the council floor. In 1988, 1992 and 1998 the university offered different variations of a massive Bay Region style structure that boasted a slanted roof and wooden pillars, but few supporters.  

Neighbors said it would obstruct their views of the Bay, the Landmarks Preservation Commission opposed it 1988 and again in 1998 on grounds that it would obstruct the view of the national landmark Phi Delta Theta House at 2717 Hearst Ave. (now occupied by the Berkeley Family Church), and the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory feared it would collapse in an earthquake and block their passage for emergency vehicles. 

The new scaled back design proposes a steel and wood structure suspended 21 feet off the ground, measuring 11 feet tall, with a slightly arched green top and bottom. The design was developed by Riyad Ghannam of MacDonald Architects 

Lawrence Berkeley Lab backs the new design, which Ghannam says is more seismically sound than the previous versions. Berkeley Design Review lambasted the plan, however, according to Mandel. “They called it boring, ugly and too simplistic,” he said. 

At the meeting, neighbors didn’t focus on the design of the bridge as much as its symbolism. “We’re getting more and more institutionalized and I see this bridge as one more move to intrude on this fragile residential neighborhood,” said neighbor Daniella Thompson. 

The north side of campus and surrounding blocks have seen several new construction projects over the past decade. A decade after UC built Soda Hall on the north side of Hearst, the university is now breaking ground on Stanley Hall, a four-story building on the southside of Hearst. UC also continues work on the North East Quadrant Science and Safety Project. 

Roger Van Ouytsel, another neighbor, said his problem wasn’t with the bridge so much as with the university building projects that only serve students. “If the university wants to spend more than a million dollars it should spend the same amount to improve our neighborhood and improve the traffic which it is responsible for,” he said. 

Vice Chancellor Le Grande never imagined the bridge would end up costing so much. Had the university won approval for the bridge in 1988, the project would have cost $400,000, he said. So far, UC has spent $600,000 on various bridge designs, Mandel said, and would need to spend another $600,000 to build the bridge. The money, he said, would come from the original $65 million bond that funded the housing complex. 

If approved by the City Council, Project Manager Valarie Neumann said the bridge would be assembled off-site and could be attached to the buildings in one work day. 

The university is partnering with the city to improve pedestrian safety at several intersections along Hearst, said Peter Hillier, the assistant city manager for transportation. He said projects are in the works for the intersections at Oxford Street, and at Arch and Leconte streets. 

Councilmember Gordon Wozniak, who represents the district that encompasses the Foothill Dorm, empathized with the concerns of the neighbors at the meeting, but said he was leaning towards supporting the bridge. “It sounds like the bridge will allow disabled students access to different parts of the complex and also allow safer crossing for students,” the councilmember said. “That’s a plus.” 

Students were divided on the issue. Pammy O’Leary, a resident advisor at Foothill said despite the many hills, a bridge would make living in La Loma useful for a wheelchair-using engineering student, because most engineering classes are close to the dormitory. 

Scott Baker a freshman at La Loma, doubted students using wheelchairs would want to live in a dormitory so high in the hills. “I’m sure the money could go to something more useful,” he said.

Berkeley/Oakland Turf Battles Renewed?  

Berkeley and Oakland police are investigating a volley of gunfire that erupted in South Berkeley early last Saturday morning near the intersection of Adeline and Fairview streets, which they suspect may be a renewal of the turf wars between drug gangs that resulted in considerable violence last year. 

BPD spokesperson Kevin Schofield said several residents called police at 12:24 a.m. Saturday after hearing gunfire and seeing several people fleeing the scene. 

“Numerous BPD officers responded,” Schofield said. “They found one car that had been damaged by gunshots, but no indications that anyone was hit. We have very little to go on—no victims, no suspects. It could be a renewal of the turf war. We have investigators looking into it, and if they find it to be they case, they’ll decide what steps to take next.” 

In an e-mail to concerned citizens, Oakland P.D. Lt. Lawrence Green confirmed that the drug turf war appears to be heating up, adding two Monday incidents to list of engagements. “North Oakland drug dealers from 59th and Adeline went to the area of Prince and Russell and beat a South Berkeley drug dealer. Two hours later, Berkeley drug dealers went to 59th and Adeline and engaged North Oakland drug dealers in a running gun battle.” 

No one was injured in the exchange of gunfire, and Oakland Police immediately intensified enforcement efforts in the area, Green wrote.  

Drug Task Force Makes Crack Bust 

Several hours before the Saturday morning possible turf war shooting, officers of the BPD Drug Task Force noticed an increase in suspicious activity several blocks away in the 1200 block of 67th Street. Maintaining surveillance, they moved in after witnessing a suspected sale, arresting both the buyer and seller. 

Discovering that the alleged seller was on parole for a previous drug violation, officers searched his nearby residence, turning up more than 50 pieces of rock cocaine. 

“He was arrested for sale, possession for sale and probation and parole violations,” Schofield said. 

Apprehensive Bank Robber Sought 

Berkeley Police are seeking the flustered, would-be bank robber who made an unsuccessful try to rob a branch bank in the 2900 block of College Avenue on March 22. When the bandit handed a demand note to a teller, the stunned bank employee froze, and after a few tense seconds, the robber absconded without a dime. 

Releasing a grainy photo of the suspect captured by bank security cameras, Berkeley Robbery Detective Chris Stines said, “We know that someone out there knows this guy. We hope the community will contact us to identify this person so we can solve the case and prevent him from committing any more bank robberies.” 

Police described the suspect as an African American man, about five-and-a-half-feet tall and weighing about 170 pounds. They estimate his age at between 23 and 28. 

Anyone with information on the suspect should call the BPD robbery detail at 981-5742 or write to police@ci.berkeley.ca.us. 

Ongoing stings aimed at Berkeley liquor stores selling booze to teenagers have left the state’s Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control (ABC) District Administrator Everest Robillard “very unhappy.” 

“The usual violation rate on decoy operations is about 10 percent,” Robillard said, “and this last time the rate was well over 50 percent.” 

Teamed with officers from the Berkeley and UC police departments and two underage decoys, ABC has been running stings on city liquor sellers since January—most recently in a March 19 sweep that found 14 of the 26 targeted stores willing to sell to minors. 

The first raids in early January targeted merchants on San Pablo Avenue, where more than half the stores sold to decoys. On a follow-up operation in the same area, the rate dropped to zero, Robillard said. “In every case in Berkeley there was a common problem, an employee who was willing to sell to minors. The owners were involved.” 

Involved or not, it’s the owners who have to pay fines ranging from $750 to $3,000. 

The stings are being run with the help of $50,000 ABC grants to police departments in Berkeley, Santa Barbara, Los Angeles, Irvine, San Diego and Santa Cruz. 

The March 19 sting in Berkeley involved three ABC officers teamed with city and university police. The decoys, aged 17 and 19, were carefully screened volunteers recruited through community organizations. 

“We try not to use kids from the neighborhood, so we used Hayward kids in Berkeley,” Robillard said, adding that they were recruited from Community Prevention of Alcohol Related Problems. Volunteers from the Alcohol Policy Network of Berkeley, in turn, are used in stings in Hayward. 

—Richard Brenneman

Berkeley’s Commission on the Status of Women (COSOW) honored fourteen Outstanding Berkeley Women at a public awards ceremony Wednesday evening at the North Berkeley Senior Center. The honorees were recognized before friends and family for their contributions to the Berkeley community in various fields of interest.  

“These women certainly deserve this honor,” said Mayor Tom Bates in comments beginning the ceremony. “We’re so much better off and it’s so great to have them here.” 

The Fifteenth Annual awards are part of the COSOW’s commemoration of National Women’s History Month. 

For the last 15 years, the commission has chosen the Outstanding Berkeley Woman honor from a pool of women nominated by their peers for extraordinary devotion to their respective causes. This year’s honorees received certificates from both the commission and the California State Legislature. The 2004 winners work in fields ranging from public health to neighborhood organization and were presented at the ceremony by the people who nominated them.  

Commissioner Rivka Polatnick said she believes that recognizing the “unsung heroines” of the community is an excellent way to celebrate women’s history. 

This year’s award winners include long-time Berkeley community leaders like Sylvia McLaughlin, co-founder of Save the Bay, as well as a women from a new generation of community leaders like Brianna Georgi. A Berkeley High School senior, Georgi heads the Venture Crew 24, a coed, inclusive adventure program modeled after the Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts of America.  

Also honored was Margi Adam, a singer/songwriter known for her contributions to the women’s rights movement through her exploration and development of women’s music as a political force. Adam spoke about coming to Berkeley at the age of sixteen seeking acceptance in a diverse community, and emphasized the uniqueness and reputation of the city. “There are ideas grown from root in this town,” she said, “and ideas put to the test in this town.” 

Ethel Gomez, 19 year boardmember of the Berkeley Boosters Police Athletics League, reflected on her motivation in helping the city’s youth. “I love Berkeley,” mused Gomez. “I enjoy doing what I’m doing and as long as I can I’ll be out there.” 

Environmental activist Sylvia McLaughlin explained her reason for continuing her long career of activism. “We may be activist visionaries, but there’s still work to do.”  

Another young leader, tobacco prevention advocate Salita Mitchell, reminded the audience, “Us teenagers are the future.”  

Despite mounting pressure from parents for a November ballot measure that would add millions to the Berkeley Unified School District’s signature parcel tax, Superintendent Michele Lawrence urged community members Wednesday to consider a change in course that could delay the vote until 2005 or beyond. 

The time is ripe, Lawrence said, to move beyond the confines of the tax, called the Berkeley Schools Excellence Project (BSEP). Instead of identifying a few key concerns to allocate increased tax revenue, t he superintendent wants the district to embark on an ambitious evaluation of its programs and priorities with all revenue sources in play, including money from the general fund. 

“If we stay to the big [picture], I think we’re capable of finding and ident ifying what’s good for all students,” Lawrence told about 70 parents and district employees at Wednesday’s community workshop on the tax measure. 

BSEP is the biggest and the most widely supported tax measures in the city. In 1994, 82 percent of voters ap proved the $10 million parcel tax to fund specific programs the district’s general fund couldn’t cover. It was re-authorized in 1998 with 92 percent of the vote.  

Now, however, rising inflation has forced the district to cut back on programs the measur e was authorized to preserve, including music classes and elementary school librarians. The measure doesn’t expire until 2006, but parents who attended the first workshop last month voted overwhelmingly to renew it this year at a higher tax rate. Their call to take the measure to the voters comes as the city is considering four tax hikes, including one specifically targeted towards youth programs. 

The current $10 million tax comes to $234 a year from the average property owner. 

Wednesday’s workshop was originally expected to set the framework for how much money to request in the prospective November BSEP renewal and which projects to fund.  

Instead, Lawrence changed the rules of the game. 

With the district’s budget in its best shape since 2001 and her contract renewed through 2006, Lawrence called for the community to begin a “big-picture” review of district priorities and possibly alter the tax to provide greater flexibility for what it can fund and a more centralized site-based oversight committee t o distribute the money. 

Under the current measure, only 16 percent of tax revenue is discretionary. The rest goes directly for class size reduction, music programs, supplies and facility improvements.  

Lawrence also broached forming single school-site c ommittees that would control all discretionary funds for a school. Currently, control over discretionary funds is split over several committees.  

The superintendent insisted her proposal wouldn’t spell doom for a November ballot measure. That decision, along with how much money to seek, is ultimately up to the school board. Lawrence, however, did open the door to another community meeting on the tax, and to possibly holding a special election on it next March.  

Karen Hemphill, parent of a BUSD student, generally approved of Lawrence’s message, but remained steadfast in support of a November, 2004 vote. If approved, a November BSEP renewal would guarantee the added revenue for the following school year. “The delay concerns me,” Hemphill said. “There’s a real need right now. People in the school community wanted to come up with BSEP last year.” 

A final decision from the school board isn’t expected until June. Among their options include: authorizing a new 12-year tax measure for November, authorizing a t emporary measure that would ask voters to raise the parcel tax for a year or two while the district hammers out a long-term measure, or delaying the tax measure until the next scheduled elections in 2006 or a special election next year. 

School board dire ctors declined to discuss their preferences for when to go to before voters or for how much to ask.  

The stakes would be low for a ballot this November. Even if the measure failed, the district would continue to receive its current level of funding thro ugh 2006 and the district could return to voters with a revised measure, Lawrence said. 

At Wednesday’s workshop, participants were told to budget for $16 million in mock allocation exercises, but many said that wasn’t enough and Lawrence was adamant that the $16 million figure was non-binding. Class size reduction and funding for music and arts remained top priorities for parents at the workshop. Others included programs for literacy, libraries, mental health, bilingual education and nutrition. 

Even if the district holds off on a November ballot initiative, it could still win some relief from city ballot initiatives. Julie Sinai, an aide to Mayor Tom Bates, said that in addition to the proposed youth services tax, the city was exploring the possibility of including services for the school district in a potential library tax initiative. The money, Sinai said, could pay to send a city librarian to Berkeley elementary schools during after-school programs.e

The Oakland Tribune informs us that the Oakland School For The Arts (which it helpfully identifies as “Mayor Jerry Brown’s performing arts charter school,” so we’ll remember to whom it belongs) is planning on moving out of its present location at the Alice Arts Center and into tents and portables on the parking lots surrounding the Fox Oakland, sometime thereafter to move into the Fox building itself. The proposal is for OSA to pay the city (meaning us) a thousand dollars a month in rent, which is a good deal for them if they can get it, since Oakland brings in considerably more a month for parking revenue for that space. Oakland’s civic leaders, we learn, are willing to make the sacrifice. “Anything we can do to provide additional educational opportunities in Oakland we have to do,” the Tribune quotes Oakland City Council President Ignacio De La Fuente. It’s a good sound byte for a man who would be Oakland’s mayor, if we’d let him, and Don Perata don’t run. But as in all such cases, context—and a little history lesson—is all important. 

In passing the law that authorized charter schools, the California Legislature wrote that “it is the intent of the Legislature, in enacting this part, to provide opportunities for teachers, parents, pupils, and community members to establish and maintain schools that operate independently from the existing school district structure, as a method to accomplish [among other things] vigorous competition within the public school system to stimulate continual improvements in all public schools.” 

It’s doubtful that anybody really took that “vigorous competition” thing seriously for most charter schools, because a local church or community group going head to head with the public school behemoth would be something like a pickup basketball team joining the NBA. But then again, nobody envisioned that a city mayor would take up the task. 

Elected to run our city, Jerry Brown decided that he’d rather organize schools, instead. One of them was the nonprofit corporation Oakland School For The Arts, of which he serves as board chairperson. That there was already an existing magnet arts school program at Skyline High School that could have used the mayor’s attention and help seemed to have been somewhere outside Mr. Brown’s line of sight. In any event, OSA was approved by the Oakland School Board as an authorized charter school—with a one-year delay, however, because school board members were concerned that the school’s finances were on shaky grounds. And, in fact, the OSA has only been able to survive because of creative city financing made possible by Mayor Brown’s political clout. 

First the mayor discovered—Columbus-like—that there was a nice, city-owned building (the Alice Arts Center) with a theater and rehearsal space where the arts school could be housed, with only the little messy detail that some natives—in the form of a long-running and highly successful community dance program with nationally known resident companies and packed classes—were already in occupation. OSA took up residence in unused side office and basement space, using a million dollars or so in city money for renovation (if I’m vague on the figures, it’s because there’s no actual line item in the city budget for “Subsidies Of The Oakland School For The Arts”). Thereafter, OSA benefited from city staffing, care and attention in a way available to no other Oakland-based charter school (with the exception of that other mayor-initiated charter, the military institute out on the old U.S. Army base). Some competition. 

What seemed inevitable was that the politically connected Arts School would eventually muscle the dance classes and the resident dance companies out of the Alice. And, in fact, at one point Mayor Brown so declared that to be an accomplished fact, meeting with the community dance folk and upstairs residents and telling them that the school was staying, and they would have to go (the dilapidated and long-unoccupied Fox Oakland, he suggested, would be a nice new home for the dancers and renters). The Alice-folk-who-was-already-there thought otherwise, organized and brought their case to the City Council, which showed some spine against the mayor and agreed that an existing community arts and recreation program benefiting thousands of Oakland citizens was a bit more important than a mayor-sponsored school housing less than 200 students, many (if not most of them) from outside of Oakland. Then came the Saturday Night Massacre (or whatever day it happened on) when the mayor fired City Manager Robert Bobb who, unlike the mayor, actually knew how things in a city get done. With Bobb gone, stiff opposition from the Alice dance folk, and the council against him, Mr. Brown really had no choice. And so it was the arts school that had to make the move to the Fox. 

But not without more and considerable subsidy from the City of Oakland. The potential loss of revenue from the parking lots is only the beginning. Brown is now proposing—through developer Phil Tagami—a full renovation of the Fox Theater, at the cost of millions in Oakland tax dollars, and all for the benefit of his little arts school. “This is my legacy,” Mayor Brown told the Tribune last year. But if it’s his legacy, how come it’s us who’s got to pay for it? 

Now, back to where we got into this. “Anything we can do to provide additional educational opportunities in Oakland we have to do,” says Council President De La Fuente, in agreeing to continued public subsidy of the arts school. If this is so, one wonders where my friend Mr. De La Fuente—and the rest of the City Council—stood a year ago when the Oakland Unified School District was being seized, en toto, by the state. Coulda used some help back then, guys. 

ˇ

CRYING ‘WOLF’ 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

As a Berkeley resident since 1985, I find it distressing that so many people feel that they must state their opinions in the form of nasty personal attacks. Epithets such as “racist,” “pro-developer,” “Zionist,” “elitist” and “anti-Semite” (to name a few) are used so loosely in debates, leaflets, letters to the editor, and public meetings that they lose their meaning. It is like the boy who cried “wolf.”  

In my view, an opinion is more persuasive if stated clearly without insults. 

Eric Weaver 

• 

GREEK THEATER 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I hear that the Greek Theater is going to increase the number of its concerts (“Clear Channel Loses Greek Theater Concerts,” Daily Planet, March 30-April 1). The Greek is a venue designed for acoustic events, but rare it is that an acoustic event is held in it. I can think of a couple of such events, such as the real Greek drama held there in the recent past. Most “concerts” are amplified, at noise levels far beyond what is required for the audience to hear. (But may be levels enjoyed, or required, by those high on drugs.) The levels of noise measured in the city of Berkeley are far higher than what is allowed by the Berkeley noise oridinance without a special permit, but we all know the almighty University of California, the largest corporate entitity in the state (at least it was when I last looked) and protected by its own section of the Consitution of the State of California, does not have to follow a puny city’s laws. 

Rather, the noise frequently blasts people attempting to live peaceful lives in their homes until 11 p.m. I know. I live on Panoramic Hill. And I find out from friends on the north side that sometimes they get the brunt of noise. What the university doesn’t realize, and from my experience certainly wouldn’t care even if they knew, is that not all persons living in neighborhoods impacted are young and healthy. Some are old. Some are sick on the night of the concert. Some want to go to sleep before 11 p.m. Shut out the noise? How? Most of these concerts are held in the late summer and early fall. Close the windows on a hot night and let the indoor temperatures rise above 100 degrees?  

Most certainly this noise never reaches the ears of the chancellor. And heaven forbid, if it ever should reach the ears of the president, Robert Dyne, whose residence is far from the Berkeley campus. Perhaps then something would be done. But frankly, I doubt it. 

Ann Reid Slaby 

• 

SISTERNA 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Thanks so much for doing the article about the Sisternas (“Sisterna Named City’s Newest Historic District,” Daily Planet, March 9-11).  

Rosario was my great-great-great grand father. 

Rosario’s son was Phillip, Phillip’s son was Arthur (the youngest) whose son was Arthur, my father. I am Toni Louise Sisterna, now Toni Spiegelberg 

Some time ago I wrote to the Berkeley Historical Society, asking about some history I had heard of from relatives about my family. I heard nothing from them, and as time went by forgot about it. I always felt they should be remembered. Thanks again.  

Toni (Sisterna) Spiegelberg 

• 

NOTES ON BUSD 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I recently had a conversation with Superintendent Lawrence about bullying at Longfellow and my recent petition to the Alameda County Civil Grand Jury to investigate BUSD’s Food Services Department for losing $2.4 million dollars over three years.  

The bullying involves a Muslim boy who is beaten and stolen from almost daily and is chased around the school yard to taunts of “Osama, Osama” So far there has been no action on that score. 

As to the petition to the Grand Jury, Ms. Lawrence claimed that the numbers in my petition was “old data,” and that she looked forward to making a “fool” out of me. I would love it if BUSD could make a fool out of me. I hope that they really didn’t lose $2.4 million serving lousy salt laden old storage and prepackaged food to our precious children.  

What I am asking is for BUSD to open its books, all of them, and allow a fair, independent and thorough examination of its numbers. 

I urge every parent to have lunch at school with your child.  

Boardmember Terry Doran calls that stuff “fresh, healthy and nutritious.” What do you call it? Every parent should know what the school district is feeding their kids, and why. 

Ray Couture 

• 

CORRECTIONS REQUIRED 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I’m writing in response to Zelda Bronstein’s commentary (“Bates, Stoloff and UC: Dean to the Extreme?” Daily Planet, March 26-29). Ms. Bronstein denigrates the mayor and at least half-a-dozen members of the City Council and the Planning Commission through innuendo, erroneous information, and disingenuous attempts to link unrelated events. 

I want to set the record straight about Tim Perry, one of her targets. I appointed Mr. Perry to the Planning Commission and I have always been proud that he was my appointee. He made substantial, positive contributions to the work of the Commission. His resignation was due to the pressures of his job, which at that time demanded a great deal of his time and energy.  

Councilmember Breland has demonstrated her good judgment by reappointing Mr. Perry to the Planning Commission, and I am confident she, too, will bepleased with his work. 

Mim Hawley 

Councilmember, District 5 

• 

THE GROVE STREET DOCK 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

John Kenyon’s fine article “Drawing and Painting the Oakland Estuary” (Daily Planet March 30 -April 1) stirred memories of my nights as a security guard on the Grove Street Dock in the 1970s. I was working two jobs and needed the night work as a place to rest. The darkened and rotting dock was just to the south of the giant scrap yard where ships met their doom. I could see the flare of cutting torches and the lights of large crane magnets hoisting the metal into ocean-going barges and rail cars. The only valuable thing on my dock was a sea-going crane that was destined for San Diego. It had been vandalized and set adrift once, and the owners wanted it guarded until it was moved. My first night, the guard from the scrap yard came over and recommended that I arm myself because Grove Dock was the favorite route of violent drug smugglers. Knowing that a sidearm would limit my options, I instead brought my son’s dog Sarah the second night. She was a husky with a suspected strain of wolf and was afraid of our cat. But she looked the part, and in case of trouble, she could run as fast as I. We would sit on the dark, silent end of the dock, guarding the looming crane, I fishing for small sharks until catching them palled. Then I would find a shadow and bed down with Sarah nearby. She barked at anything that moved, and we were left alone. In those dreamy nights it never occurred to me to buy the dock. Who could have seen the giant container hoists shipped in from China and the rise of that part of Oakland as a premiere port? Sleepy security guards don’t see these things. 

Barry Smith 

• 

UNIVERSITY AVENUE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

On a recent foray into the shattered buildings and decaying manufacturing plants of Sutphin Boulevard in Jamaica Queens, New York in February, I saw what could be University Avenue 20 years from now: a stretch of land stretching to the water devoid of human feeling and quality. Sitting smack in the middle of Queens and leading from the center of the borough to the East River, Jamaica has been victimized by a stunning failure to modernize zoning laws to meet the needs of the local, immigrant-oriented community. 

Berkeley is facing that same fate. 

On University Avenue, Berkeley and its citizens have an opportunity to build a centralized mass transit oriented zone that welcomes residential and commercial denizens alike. The shortcomings are more traffic and higher density. But if we are to reduce sprawl and keep the economy moving forward, it is necessary to allow both. The City Council is in the bad position of being historically over-zealous on the issue of high-density housing; passing projects that raise questionable issues about the use of state matching dollars for low-income housing construction while failing badly to preserve the sentimental qualities of The City’s historic structures. This means that any opportunity to raise population and meet the growing demand of residents and the University of California for space for its students, faculty, and visitors while enticing commercial investment will only be met with doubt by community interest groups. The real community interest, the same one I encountered in Queens is that Berkeley meet the large demand to force developers to provide commercial services and space to businesses along with any housing being considered. The City Council must force developers to reserve space for commercial tenants and bring state legislators into the act to bring an exemption to the ‘bonus system’ of giving extra space to builders willing to house low-income residents. Needless to say, creating an incentive for a community-wide, fee-based parking lot on the site of the former Smart and Final would be an excellent way to allow for growth along the vital University-San Pablo Corridor. 

Everyone in Berkeley should understand that it is in the state’s best interest to allow the exemption: the state would earn far more from the taxes of small businesses than they would simply off building owners alone, who are likely to gain a large tax concession from any deal. 

The real cost will come later, years from now when Berkeley will be faced with problems stemming from its terrible administration of its public schools, which will probably be stressed to their limits by the inflow of children whose parents will live in these proposed University Avenue developments. But that’s for another column. 

John Parman 

Berkeley and New York 

• 

POWERBAR 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The untimely passing last week of PowerBar magnate Brian Maxwell got me thinking once again about his big yellow legacy atop the eastern face of Berkeley’s tallest downtown building. 

Wouldn’t it be nice if downtown Berkeley could avoid the fate of that no-man’s-land in The Great Gatsby? 

…above the grey land and the spasms of bleak dust which drift endlessly over it, you perceive, after a moment, the eyes of Doctor T.J. Eckleburg. The eyes of Doctor T.J. Eckleburg are blue and gigantic—their retinas are one yard high. They look out of no face, but, instead, from a pair of enormous yellow spectacles which pass over a non-existent nose. Evidently some wild wag of an oculist set them there to fatten his practice in the borough of Queens, and then sank down himself into eternal blindness, or forgot them and moved away. But his eyes, dimmed a little by many paintless days, under sun and rain, brood on over the solemn dumping ground. 

I can think of no finer tribute to the memory of this energetic entrepreneur than to remove the PowerBlight sign at once. After all, since March 2000 we’ve been gazing at an appendage of breastfeeding pariah Nestle SA. 

Jim Sharp 

• 

PARKING 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Developers have begun building large, overbearing housing blocks throughout Berkeley. These buildings steal light, privacy and parking from adjacent neighborhoods. They are replacing viable businesses, with poor retail spaces, increased traffic, noise and pollution. 

Housing advocates, developers and self-appointed urban reformists say they will avoid these problems by reducing parking in their projects. Berkeley officials agree. Berkeley City Planners Mark Rhoades and Dan Marks recently told the Planning Commission that they believe Berkeley’s parking requirements are the lowest required by any US city. They added that it is Berkeley’s official goal to reduce traffic by eliminating parking. 

Rhoades and Marks argue that people will give up their cars and use public transit if they can’t find parking. Several Planning Commissioners questioned this argument. When asked, Marks and Rhoades were unable to cite statistical support for the city’s parking policy. They explained that they know of no study that supports the city’s policy. 

When similarly challenged others are less candid. Livable Berkeley members readily cite the quality of life found in European cities as support for Berkeley’s parking policy. They argue that the high population density, job proximity, public transit found in European cities reduces traffic by eliminating the need for cars. This in turn provides a better city. 

Unfortunately, such references are vague and lack supporting detail. European cities simply fail to support such conclusions. I have been visiting Bilbao Spain, my wife’s hometown, regularly for the past 10 years. It is about the same size as San Francisco. It has excellent transportation with well integrated subway, rail and bus networks. These networks are well explained in readily available brochures and signs. Public transit is thoroughly used. One is lucky to find seats day or night. 

Bilbao also has unrelenting traffic. The traffic is so intense that sensors are used to monitor traffic. Their readings are shown on electronic flow maps located throughout the city so that drivers can respond to real time information while selecting how to get around. 

Bilbao’s parking is quite difficult and getting harder every year. People often park their cars as much as a 15 minute walk from their apartments. The problem is so pressing that many old buildings have had multi-level basements excavated for parking. Vertical access is provided by auto elevators operated from within the car! 

Despite all this and $5 a gallon gas prices Bilbao’s cars continue to proliferate. Great public transportation doesn’t mean that people will stop using cars. People want to leave the city on weekends and holidays; they travel evermore often to the city’s periphery to shop in growing shopping centers. Cars make this possible. 

In conclusion one can not equate removing parking with traffic mitigation. Doing so is simplistic, without precedent and contrary to actual experience. Removing parking, judging from European examples, will increase congestion, reduce commercial viability and encourage road rage. Failure to provide sufficient parking for future development will harm our neighborhoods for decades to come. 

I urge all who agree to engage the city in a broad debate on parking, traffic, and development. Failure to do so will lead to added congestion and flood our neighborhoods with overflow parking. 

Jon Alff 

• 

OAKLAND VIOLENCE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

In the March 19-22 Daily Planet there was an article called “A Teenager Looks At Oakland’s Murderous Row.” I feel really bad for the girl whose father was shot in Oakland, but some of the comments made were very prejudiced. I am African American and I have lived in East Oakland all my life. I am now 17. One of the girls commented that “black people are crazier that any other race.” That is a very ignorant comment because people are individuals and you cannot blame a whole race of people for the actions of a select few. Believe me I do understand where those girls are coming from because up until I was five my whole family used to live in East Oakland.  

However, they all moved to the Sacramento area when my 16-year-old cousin was shot and paralyzed from the waist down. My family got scared and, just like the young girl who wrote the article, thought that Oakland was a violent city and if they just went somewhere else things would get better.  

But contrary to popular belief they did not. Eight years later my 19-year-old cousin was shot and killed in Suisun Valley by a group of Mexican boys. Now I could be prejudiced and say, “I’m not surprised because you know, Mexicans are crazier than any other race.” I do not do this because I know that killings happen no matter what skin color you are or what city you are in. People do not come to Oakland and then get the sudden urge to kill. It is not fair to single out a specific group of people in a specific area. The blame lies solely on the person who pulls the trigger—no more, no less. 

Andrea Page 

Oakland 

• 

CERRITO THEATER 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I am writing in praise and thanks for your great article, written by Dave Weinstein, on “Saving the Cerrito Theater.” It appeared in your Feb, 17 issue, but I didn’t get around to writing this letter until now.  

This beautiful theater must be saved! It is just too beautiful to be torn down to make way for another B.U.B. (Big Ugly Building). We here in Berkeley have already way too much of that! 

These “developers” tear down older buildings which are perfectly good, and in far too many instances, absolutely charming old buildings. 

The article described breathtakingly beautiful murals, many of them depicting gods and goddesses of Greek and Roman mythology, done in silver leaf! Imagine the energy and painstaking hard work that went into the project when the theater was built! And now, some guy that owns a furniture store was using the Cerrito Theater for storage for furniture. How crass! 

It was mentioned in the article that there are married couples who went to the Cerrito Theater for a film, on a date, and fell in love because of it. It must have a lot of meaning in their lives. How will tearing down the Cerrito Theater impact their lives, when they have a place in their hearts for the place they first fell in love? It just does not seem right at all to tear down this theater. 

I am sure that this theater can be retrofitted to make it “earthquake resistant.” I know that it could also be renovated with a modern theater audio dolby digital/DTS surround sound system, just like other cinemas. Imagine how awesome!  

The Cerrito Theater should be preserved. “Where there’s a will, there’s a way.” 

Thank you for the wonderful article about this. It is a part of California history and heritage. “”A city without a past lacks a soul.” (Weinstein). All the best, 

Dave Yandle 

Compiled for Councilmember Dona Spring by Leuren Moret. 

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Former Berkeley mayor 

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Dona Spring, City Councilmember 

I have been reviewing the proposed zoning code amendments to implement the University Avenue Strategic Plan, and I am disappointed that the balance of a citizen written plan promoting redevelopment along one of Berkeley’s most neglected Avenues has been lost and instead the Planning Commission is being presented with a blueprint for a four- and five-story University Avenue. This plan will burden Berkeley with a distorted development pattern of over-size buildings with little hope of realizing the avenue’s retail potential and severe and unmitigated privacy, shadowing, and traffic impacts to the residential streets that adjoin the avenue. The zoning code amendments that staff are proposing do a disservice to the entire planning process, they consistently ignore the purpose and the goals of the UASP plan, they emasculate and/or ignore the plan’s protections for the existing business and residential neighbors, and they open areas of ambiguity that will be fought over in the planning process and the courts for years to come. 

What staff presented to the Planning Commission and the public on March 24 is the most significant up-zoning Berkeley has experienced in many years. Every use type in the Avenue Nodes is increased by either five or 10 feet in height and one or two additional stories; in the University Avenue mixed-use areas, commercial and other-use use types are likewise granted an additional one story. Because these increases in height and number of stories can’t be accommodated within the existing 3.0 FAR (Floor Area Ratio), staff has unilaterally proposed increasing the FAR to 3.5 (before application of the state mandated density bonus). Acton Courtyard at 1392 University Ave. is an example of a recent project with a FAR of 3.19, but for a truly scary vision of the future University Avenue you need look no farther than the plans for 1885 University Avenue on http://planberkeley.org/1885ua_files/1885ProjHmPage.html which lords over the modest Berkeley Way neighborhood with a truly regal FAR of 3.67. 

The clear intent of the UASP plan to require retail (with an explicit exemption for accessible dwelling units) on the ground floor unless hardship could be shown has become an open invitation to developers to fill the ground floor with parking, because the amendments include parking as the only other permitted use besides commercial/retail. Unfortunately, the parking will be required for the residents and workers, and where shoppers and business customers will park is not discussed. If this is the best Berkeley can do to encourage retail we may as well resign ourselves to driving past serried rows of iron-gated garages up and down University Avenue as we drive to the malls in Emeryville and Albany, because there will be nowhere to park along the avenue. Possibly the most egregious example of the planning staff ignoring the clear intent of the plan is the omission of the vitally important caveat about building height and stories: 

“Sets minimum and maximum building height limits for residential, mixed-use, and commercial buildings within avenue nodes and avenue mixed-use areas. New buildings in avenue nodes will be required to be a minimum of two stories in height, and a maximum of four stores. Buildings in avenue mixed-use areas will be required to be at least two stories high and may be a maximum of three stories. These maximum heights may only be granted if all other solar, privacy, open space, signage, design, and parking standards are met.” (p. 34 UASP) 

I find it curious that staff could determine and incorporate the maximum heights for each and every use type, but not the accompanying, absolute requirement that these heights can only be granted if the UASP standards are met. The way the code amendments are proposed, there is no requirement that any of these standards are met—in the findings, where words get appealed and litigated, the language is toothless, unenforceable drivel: Be generally consistent with the design guidelines contained in the University Avenue Strategic Plan, as adopted by the City Council in November, 1996. Even worse, the staff has taken it upon themselves to offer an invitation to one and all developers to apply for a ‘get out of (zoning) jail free’ card by fulfilling any one of five poorly drafted ‘public use’ exemptions from all neighborhood protections. I await the first developer who after graciously providing a few bike racks in front of their building demands a complete exemption from yard development standards that are vital to protect adjoining residential districts—if you think this is impossible, I challenge staff to show us what in the code the city could use to refuse the request. 

I cannot tell you how appalled I am by planning staff’s work on this project. I had expected better from, and for Berkeley. The public hearing on these changes has been held open until April 14, I ask one and all to write to the Planning Commission and request that they reject the staff report, and direct staff to meet with the community to incorporate development standards that reflect the balance the community worked hard and long to build into the UASP. 

Stephen Wollmer  

ˇ

University Avenue is the main gateway to Berkeley and its appearance and function set the tone for our city. Currently, the avenue lacks the intensity of retail and pedestrian activities that characterize a vital urban street and support use of public transportation. This under-development creates an opportunity to build new housing, which will help provide housing for people who work here, revitalize existing commercial areas, and provide customers for new retail that can serve all Berkeleyans as well as our visitors. 

The Planning Commission is now preparing to amend the zoning on University Avenue to implement the University Avenue Strategic Plan (UASP). The UASP called for a maximum height of four stories on University Avenue. However, the UASP was adopted in 1996, and is now eight years old. What is now clear is that the UASP is out of date, and that a divergence from it would be appropriate in order to enhance University Avenue’s role as a transportation corridor and center for new housing development. University Avenue’s wide right-of-way makes greater heights more appropriate, as lovely older buildings such as University Avenue Homes and the Koerber Building demonstrate admirably.  

At the same time, new development along University Avenue raises legitimate concerns for neighborhoods immediately adjacent to it. In this light, the Planning Commission should consider the following issues when revisiting the zoning: 

1. Flexibility. As currently drafted, the proposed rezoning does not allow the Planning Commission or the City Council the ability to add density bonuses for particularly strong projects. It makes more sense for any revised zoning to allow either body to increase the allowable height of buildings up to five stories in the nodes designated by the General Plan. 

2. Shadow Setbacks. The proposed rezoning includes a significant setback on the north side of projects to prevent shadowing of neighboring properties. While it is important to reduce the impacts from development on University Avenue on adjacent properties, the proposed setback is based on the worst case scenario: the winter solstice at 9 a.m. The resulting rear setback is large enough to make many projects infeasible. A better solution would be for the city to adopt a more reasonable target date for setting rear setbacks: the spring equinox at noon. Furthermore, the city should allow up to 15 feet of shadow on adjacent properties at that time.  

3. Mixed Use. At present, the zoning for University Avenue allows an extra floor of height for mixed use projects through consideration of a use permit. Mixed use projects add vitality by bringing more residents, employees, and shoppers to the area, and should be encouraged. To ensure this sense of vitality on University Avenue, the provision that allows mixed use projects an extra floor should be kept with the current discretionary thresholds. 

4. Transitional Zoning. Neighborhoods bordering University Avenue have raised legitimate concerns about the impact of new development. Because the high-density corridor is only half a block a wide, unfortunate adjacencies can occur where taller buildings are located next to one-story bungalows. For a bungalow, it makes no significant difference whether a new building is five stories or four stories tall, so the proposed rezoning does not adequately addresses neighborhood concerns. It would be preferred for the city to instead study rezoning the blocks north and south of University Avenue to allow slightly higher densities. This would create a more gradual transition from University Avenue to the residential neighborhoods adjacent to it, and minimize the impact from the current stark transitions.  

The current rezoning process offers the possibility of enhancing University Avenue’s role as a center for new housing development and a transportation corridor. As one of the city’s main gateways, the character of University Avenue is of vital importance to the Berkeley community, and deserves the city’s focused attention.  

Towards a More Livable University Avenue 

By David Early, Chair, Board of Directors – Livable Berkeley 

TAKE A STAND 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

We read with interest Matthew Artz’s article “School District Fails to Protect Bullying Victim at MLK,” (Daily Planet, March 25-29). 

In our professional opinion, it is clearly time to take a firm stand and approach to address “hostile school environment harassment” and bullying. 

Current initiatives follow in the footsteps of a more than two-decade struggle in the workplace to end not only the instrumental and procedural forms of employee aggression but to also eradicate the more subtle interpersonal hostilities that create an atmosphere of disrespect. What can we take away from this history to guide us in the effort to improve the climate in schools? 

We are psychologists with a specialization in harassment and discrimination—in the workplace and in the schools. From more than 25 years of experience, we know that teaching employees the do’s and don’ts is not a very effective way to change culture. Students are still more complicated: Children and adolescents are not just “little adults.” It takes more than policy to change behavior. 

We know, because we have been doing it. 

Steven Dranoff and  

Wanda Dobrich 

• 

ESCAPED 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

This year, it will be exactly 30 years since I escaped the Berkeley public school system into private school. I had suffered three bladder infections in my two years at Willard Junior High School, because I was afraid to go to the bathroom—girls did their clandestine smoking there, and though all I really wanted to do was mind my own business, pee and get out, because I was a smart, “weird,” fat kid who liked my teachers (who, in fact, generally liked the company of adults better than my that of age-mates) the smokers assumed that I was going to rat them out. They would therefore gang up on me to abuse me physically and verbally. 

I stopped going to the bathroom at school, with the result I mentioned. My doctor wondered aloud what was wrong after the second infection; I told him and my mom I wasn’t going to the bathroom at school, and why. Mom told the school administration. And nothing changed. I went to the bathroom, I got beat up, I quit going. 

Let’s face it: Kids are hideous to each other. (Yes, adults are hideous to each other too, but let me at least make the point.) It’s a fact of life, and nobody does anything about it because nearly all of us adults either bullied or were bullied by some other kid in school. Most of us grow up and get over it; at the other end of the spectrum, there’s Columbine. The little girl I once was is personally in favor of corporal punishment for bullies, but I don’t see that happening in our (ahem) enlightened, modern Berkeley milieu. 

Meanwhile, I nourish a sweet daydream of standing across the street from my old school (any of them, really) in broad daylight on a school day and screaming at the top of my lungs, “F**K YOU, (LeConte/Malcolm X/Willard Jr Hi) School, f**k you all and everything you stand for, the Berkeley public school system sucks, it turned me into a f**king basket case and crippled me emotionally for years, so f**k you, f**k you, F**K YOU!!” 

But since I’m all grown up now—and actually have made considerable strides in my adult life to get over that damage—I just cherish the idea rather than acting on it. My school experience didn’t kill me, so it made me stronger? Maybe. But it sucks no less for that. 

Mad props to Dominique for having the guts I didn’t have, to stand up to the bullies, but I’m afraid that if in 30 years no real change has been made to address bullying in the BUSD middle schools, it’s not likely to be made anytime in the foreseeable future either. 

Leigh Ann 

• 

OUTRAGEOUS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I feel very angry about the non-protection of the bullied girl by the Berkeley School District. Why was not the bully kept in at lunch time, instead of the victim? Was the bully also suspended? No supervision at lunch time seems outrageous. 

Julia Craig 

• 

ZERO TOLERANCE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Thank you for bringing this difficult issue to people’s attention. Though you talk about middle school, our problem actually started in elementary school (Berkeley Arts Magnet). According to my kids, the bullies threatened, teased, mocked, pushed, punched and kicked as far back as kindergarten. The problem was never dealt with properly in the lower grades, so it continued to grow and worsen. In my experience, only one or two teachers ever dealt with the problem by confronting situations when they occurred and discussing the issue of bullying with the class. For the most part, when I talked to teachers and administrators about the problems my kids were having with bullies, the usual response was, “Unless I see it happen, there’s really nothing I can do about it.” 

In your article you wrote, “One policy that is uniform in the district is that any student who fights, even if it is in self defense, is suspended for at least one day.” Unfortunately that is not true. Children who fight are not always suspended (in the lower grades suspension is left up to the discretion of the teacher), and children are frequently suspended for more minor infractions. 

The victim is often blamed for provoking the bully’s “attack.” In fifth grade my son had to sit next to a boy who threatened every day to beat him up. The teacher refused to change his seat, so I went to the principal about the matter. She said my son was at fault for probably provoking the threats. In fact, most times when I approached the principal about my son’s problems with bullies, she found a way to hold the victim responsible. It’s easier to blame the victim than to discipline the bully. 

By middle school, the bullies were bigger, stronger and meaner. My son has been threatened, physically assaulted, had his basketball stolen, had a garbage can thrown at him and had a knife held to his neck—all this in his first year. 

When Dominique (the girl in your article) was denied outside lunch recess to protect her from her abusers, she was the one being punished. The bullies are the ones who should have been denied lunch recess. Instead of disciplining the bullies, the school punished the victim. 

The problem won’t go away by itself. The schools need to have a consistent, zero-tolerance policy for handling bullying in the schools. It must begin in elementary school, and it must treat the bully at the perpetrator and the victim as the victim. 

Debbie Dritz 

• 

KING STAFF DESERVE PRAISE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The article about bullying at King Middle School was an interesting analysis of a complex problem. However, the anecdote about the Reed family lacked many facts and focused the article on people who had problems at the school. However, my son had a recent experience with bullying at King that turned out well for him and our family. He wore a Halloween costume to school that evoked considerable teasing and eventually provoked a fight that caused him to be suspended. 

Unlike the Reed family, I found Vice Principal Sing, and my son’s teachers, to be pro-active and helpful. The administrative process and staff intervention that occurred after my son’s fight was a positive experience that helped him understand his role in the conflict and how he could prevent similar events in the future.  

Unfortunately, given the large number of students and variety of discipline problems, not every student’s issues can be addressed to the satisfaction of all. However, the staff at King should be praised for their hard work and expertise in a difficult environment. Ms. Sing in particular was wonderful with my wife, son and I.  

Name withheld to spare my son embarrassment 

• 

SIMILAR EXPERIENCES 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I wanted to write to you in response to your article “School District Fails To Protect Bullying Victim At MLK.” My children used to attend public schools in Berkeley and they encountered the same failure to protect victims at the grade school level. One memorable time when my son nearly had his thumb broken and his face had footprints on it from a bully, the then principal of Rosa Parks also tried to get my son in trouble and not take it seriously because my son tried to fight back.  

On top of that, nobody at Rosa Parks would take it seriously that this bully had attacked my son at the request of another child who threatened to have my son beaten up if he told the teacher about his harassment. Normally the police do not convict the victim if they are attacked and try to fight back to defend themselves, but the school district’s administration does not take the same attitude. There is nothing in place to help victims of bullies in the BUSD district, no tracking of who is being victimized, no paperwork trail of how often someone is attacked, so even the good administrators have no tools or records to deal with systematic abuse. BUSD’s “conflict resolution” programs only help a little bit since BUSD allows the instructors to force victimized children to work with their bullies and then get them in trouble if they object or are unable to work calmly with the same bully who calls them names, steals their things, destroys their things, and physically harms them on a regular, daily basis. The following is an excerpt from a poem I wrote in March 2002 about what my son suffered at Rosa Parks (and previous to that, at Thousand Oaks):  

“I can’t leave my oldest child/who no longer goes to school/because his nerves fire up in pain/because his body trips him up/because his classmates have been allowed/to show a face of hate/screaming him into a migraine/laughing when he falls down in pain/some trying to make him bad/because he is different and white/but he looks bewildered/when four black kids call him white boy/because they are the same color as his best friends/so they call him every other schoolyard bully name/that humans have not evolved away from.”  

To the Reed family, you have my sympathy and agreement. I chose to pull my son out of school rather than sue the school district, because I needed the energy to help my son deal with his educational and health needs. At this point, I am homeschooling both my sons through Hickman Charter School and will never force them to set foot in a Berkeley public school again. 

Debra Grace Khattab 

• 

KUDOS TO MATT ARTZ 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Great article on Dominique Reed at Martin Luther King Middle School. Kudos to your Matthew Artz for writing it. 

John Russell Uren 

• 

SUGGESTIONS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I applaud Mr. Reed for making a formal complaint to the police after his daughter’s school utterly failed to protect her from bullies. I would encourage him and the parents of other children in similar situations to consider two other measures: 

1. Enroll your child in an accredited, supportive and challenging martial art school. Such schools provide instruction in self-defense and in motor and mental skills that improve a child’s ability to perform scholastically. If your daughter has to defend herself, you should give her the ability to do so competently, in the ways least likely to result in permanent harm to herself or her attacker. Competent martial art instruction includes situational awareness and escape techniques, to allow you the means of avoiding assaults, as well as techniques for incapacitating an attacker. Make certain that the school you chose includes all of these in its curriculum. 

2. Get out of the public school system. It clearly is not teaching your child the same values you believe in. Look into private schools as quickly as possible and determine which schools refuse to tolerate student conduct like that inflicted on your child. Advocate for a voucher system and support political candidates who do likewise.  

Barry H. Bloch 

• 

DISABILITY RIGHTS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The bullying article raises questions about the treatment of students with disabilities in our public schools. According to the article, both students—the bully and the victim—have disabilities.  

The Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund (DREDF), a national law and policy center, has been headquartered in Berkeley since 1979. DREDF is the designated Parent Training and Information Center (PTI) for Alameda, Contra Costa, and Yolo counties under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). DREDF’s PTI helps the families of children with disabilities navigate public school systems and access special education services.  

One of DREDF’s training workshops concerns how to handle bullying targeted at children with disabilities at school. The training was written by the National Alliance for Parent Centers and reviewed by the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Special Education Programs. “Is Your Child a Target of Bullying: Intervention Strategies for Parents of Children with Disabilities” addresses parents of children with disabilities and the professionals who work with them. This training is available to the BUSD and any group interested in learning to deal with the complexities of bullying. 

Susan Henderson 

Managing Director 

Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund

With the violence in the Middle East, the slumping economy, the controversy over gay marriage, and a do-or-die election quickly approaching, the Jewish holiday of Passover is especially meaningful for many this year. 

The holiday, which starts at sundown on Monday, April 5, traditionally celebrates the liberation of Jews from slavery in Egypt. With the theme of liberation at its heart, it’s a time to remember the past but also reflect on the present. Not surprisingly, however, the holiday has been adapted over several thousand years to fit various individual and group takes on what it means to celebration liberation. You can probably guess that Berkeley is no exception. 

A good indication of just how varied this year’s celebration will be can be found at several of Berkeley’s local bookstores in the Haggadah section. The Haggadah is the book used during the dinner feast that guides participants through the ceremony developed to remember the events of Passover. One quick glance over the shelves reveals a variety of themes, including women’s rights, peace, lesbian rights, Yiddish culture, and youth, among others. 

“When we read the Haggadah we don’t want to think of something that happened in the past. If you don’t take into account what’s going on around you, it’s hard to understand it,” said Ira Steingroot, who currently works at Spectator Books but used to manage what he claims is the world’s largest selection of Haggadahs at Cody’s Books. 

“If we were in a place where everyone belonged to synagogues, like those of us from the East Coast, everyone would use the same Haggadah,” Steingroot added. “Now we’ re are out in the West—the frontier—and for that reason people are looking for an alternative way. You come to Berkeley looking for an alternative lifestyle.” 

According to Steingroot, Seders (the traditional Passover dinners) were strictly by the book until the 20th century. Around World War I he said, people began to develop their own themes, and by World War II, it was a free-for-all. Over the years, Steingroot admitted he’s seen everything from the strictest Orthodox interpretation to the most liberal reinvention. 

“Every generation needs their own interpretation, just like Homer or Dante,” he said. 

One theme that stays constant, however, is liberation.  

“Our religion is nothing else but a struggle for freedom, our own as well as for others,” said Rabbi Ferenc Raj, from Congregation Beth El. “Our teachings say that every person represents the entire universe. If you destroy one person, you destroy the entire universe. If you help one person, you help the entire world.” 

The Seder, Raj said, is a time to remember this basic teaching and a time to pass it on to the younger generations. 

Both Raj and Steingroot agree that much of the focus on liberation is also a result of more recent struggles within Jewish community. From the concentration camps, the pogroms, and the ghettos of Europe to the pronounced anti-Semitism existing here in the United States during the first half of the 20th century, the need for liberation has been a constant theme. 

“They cannot take this love of freedom from us,” said Raj. “Even when we were oppressed in the ghettos we were free because we did not let them take our souls. Jews are called prisoners of hope, and this is so true. We are obsessed with hope.” 

Steingroot said one of the most moving Haggadahs he ever saw was a copy printed by the American Army in Germany after WWII. The type machines they used to print the books were dirty so they had to find something to clean them. The only thing around were old Nazi flags, which they tore into shreds to clean the type. 

The holiday will also be unique because of the current political climate. As violence continues to plague Israel and Palestine, many Jews here find themselves in the middle of the controversy that surrounds the conflict. On the one hand, there is the Jewish connection to Israel, and on the other there is acknowledgment of the Palestinian struggle against the occupation. 

One group, Jews For a Free Palestine (JFFP), will be hosting a community Seder that focuses on the legacy of liberation among the Jewish community but refuses to restrict the struggle for freedom to Jews. For the JFFP, the Palestinian struggle against the Israeli occupation is just as important.  

“I think our goal is to create a space where we can celebrate the legacy of the biblical story of the exodus ” said JFFP member Eric Roman, “and at the same time build support among Jews and alliances of Jews and non-Jews, for modern day movements for liberation, especially in Palestine.” 

Roman said he, along with others, recognizes the strong legacy of social justice work in the Jewish community but are upset that parts of the community turn their back when it comes to the conflict with Palestine. 

“The strands of that legacy, the commitment to social justice, exist in the broader community,” he said. But unfortunately, he added, parts of the broader community also “have by and large really reactionary politics when it comes to the conflict. We talk about never again… and yet what I came to see in the world is that what some Jews meant was never again meant never again to us. I don’t mean to offer harsh criticism, but that’s getting it wrong.” 

Roman said the Seder that JFFP will host is meant to build community among Jews, non-Jews and allies who feel similarly and want to ensure that support for liberation means support across the board. 

Lisa Stampinsky, a graduate student at Cal and member of Tzedek, a progressive Jewish student group on campus, said their group is also planning a Seder that takes the theme of liberation to mean everyone. 

“Passover is centrally about liberation ,” she said, “so I think it’s important to open that up and not only focus on the history of our own people, but also use the issue to be able to think about the importance of liberation of all people.” 

Several of the Seders Berkeley groups are hosting are open to the public and both Jews and non-Jews are invited to attend. For information for the Seders at Congregation Beth El call 848-3988 ext. 11 or write to frontoffice @bethelberkeley.org. For the information on the Tzedek Seder on Tuesday, April 8, write to caltzedek@hotmail.com. For the JFFP Seder on Wednesday April 9, contact renouncealiyah @yahoo.com. To find Haggadahs, both traditional and alternative, contact Afikomen at 655-1977, or stop by their store located at 3042 Claremont Ave., Berkeley.

The sound of heaven is voices raised in song. With approximately 220 voices, Berkeley Community Chorus and Orchestra (BCCO) offers the East Bay community heaven on earth. Founded by Eugene Jones in 1966 as a Berkeley Adult Education Program class, BCCO offers all comers, without audition or judgment, the opportunity to rediscover the celestial song inside, despite any deficit in training or talent.  

Musical Director Arlene Sagan has lead BCCO since Jones retired in 1988. A Cal grad and professional musician who appears to be in her sixties, Sagan also directs the vocal group Bella Musica and an outreach group of the BCCO chorus known as the Berkeley Community Chamber Singers. The latter performs at hospitals, retirement homes, festivals, and the like. As director of BCCO, Sagan produces six free concerts each year for the enjoyment of nearly 3,000 appreciative classic music enthusiasts.  

This Saturday, April 3, a BCCO benefit recital features pianist and composer Julian White performing the works of Mozart, Schumann, and Schubert. The benefit will be held at 8 p.m. at the Crowden School, 1475 Rose St., Berkeley. 

White is an Arlene Sagan booster. “What makes Arlene’s situation possible is that she’s very, very open-hearted to anyone who wants to come,” he said. “It’s like out of a fairy tale: ‘If you don’t know how to sing or you don’t know how to read [music] don’t worry, we have free classes.’ She’ll teach you. I think that’s a very seductive embrace. ‘We like you independent of your vocal possibilities.’ You get accepted without having to fill out some huge IOU.” 

All that love doesn’t come without commitment. BCCO members rehearse weekly, with additional weekly sectional sessions available to those whose desire further help. And then there are the six concerts the Chorus performs each year. In early May the Chorus will perform Verdi’s Requiem three times at St. Joseph the Worker Church.  

“If you can walk, you can dance,” said Director Sagan. “If you can talk you can sing. Singing is the most wonderfully satisfying, spiritual experience. You mingle your breath together. We have people who are dying, and they come to a rehearsal and they feel better. It’s just… there’s always been singing, in terms of the history of people.” 

According to Sagan, three qualities make BCCO unique as a choral group. First, neither an audition, nor a musical education, nor vocal talent are necessary for membership.  

“When people say ‘there’s no audition,’ that usually means that you don’t have to read music,” said Sagan. “But we have people who can barely carry a tune. We’re willing to work with them. They don’t sing when they don’t know the music. And because of the fact that we do good work, and are very, very dedicated and work hard, in that group of 220 people we have graduates of music departments as well as people who’ve never seen a note before.”  

It is exactly the human quality of BCCO’s performances that Julian White appreciates most. 

“I think we’re a little bit spoiled,” White said. “We like to have our music at a certain degree of perfection that is really impractical and impossible. If I have a choice between hearing an orchestra where some of the instruments may be out of tune or some of them may be fast asleep, in some way that’s more gratifying than a really one-hundred percent perfect, industrialized, homogenized CD that has nothing to do with reality.” 

The second quality that makes BCCO unique as a chorus is the selection of music it performs. The artistic director deliberately picks difficult works by the recognized masters of classical music such as Bach and Brahms and Schubert and Verdi.  

Third, the chorus, with professional orchestral accompaniment, performs gratis, offering the public six free concerts a year.  

“When you go to concert with full orchestra, in The City or here, you pay $40, $50 a ticket,” Sagan explained. “We work very hard and we’re very organized so it’s also pretty good,” she added, with obvious pride. “We want beginners. In order to keep them we definitely make efforts to try to help them learn the music as much as they can. We’re pretty lucky because we’re big. But out of 200, 30 are basses, 20 are tenors, another 50 are sopranos and 80 are altos. So there are quite a bit more women than men, but we get enough.” 

Sagan also works to include people with disabilities in the chorus. 

“We get people who are in wheelchairs and we’ve had members who’ve been blind,” she said. More difficult is to get an ethnic balance that more represents this community. “Ethnically it’s very not mixed,” she acknowledged. “Our founding director was Eugene Jones. He was black, he tried and he couldn’t. There’s something about the kind of music we do that doesn’t attract a lot of [non-white] people.” 

While the chorus is not yet as ethnically mixed as Sagan would like, the audience is much more inclusive. BCCO fills the 500 seats available at St. Joseph the Worker for each performance. That’s 1,500 in attendance for each concert series.  

A benefit recital for Berkeley Community Chorus and Orchestra featuring pianist Julian White performing the works of Mozart, Schumann, and Schubert will be held Saturday, April 3 at 8 p.m. at the Crowden School, 1475 Rose St., Berkeley. Only 50 tickets ($30 each) remain. Call Johanna Clark at 526-2609 or 549-1336 to make reservations, limited seating maybe available at the door. A reception will follow.  

On May 2, 8 and 9 BCCO will perform Verdi’s Requiem for free at St. Joseph the Worker Church, 1640 Addison St., Berkeley. Call 964-0665 or visit www.bcco.org for more information.  



Comparing loans is often the most difficult part of mortgage shopping. It is important to keep in mind that mortgage packages consist of more than interest rates. They consist of a variety of factors, including when and how the interest rate may change, points, and other fees. 

Points are an up-front fee paid to the lender at closing. Each point equals one percent of the loan amount. Points are charged, or paid, to lower the interest rate on the loan. Most lenders will allow you to choose amongst a variety of rate and point combinations for the same loan product. Therefore, when comparing rates of different lenders, make sure you compare also the associated points. 

Closing costs typically consist of loan-related fees, title and escrow charges, government recording and transfer charges and can add thousands of dollars to the cost of your loan. When comparing lenders, it is important to compare loan-related fees (i.e. the fees which lenders charge to process, approve and make the mortgage loan), since the other fees are typically independent of the lender. 

Also, when comparing loans of different lenders you need to thoroughly investigate and compare all loan features. Pay special attention to the presence of prepayment penalties and the availability and terms of conversion options (such as rate reduction option, or option to convert an ARM to a fixed-rate mortgage). 

For each loan you are comparing find out the lock-in period, during which the interest rate and points quoted to you will be guaranteed. Lock-ins of 30, 45 and 60 days are common. Some lenders may offer a lock-in for only a short period of time (15 days, for example). Usually, the longer the lock-in period, the higher the price of loan. The lock-in period should be long enough to allow for settlement before lock-in expires. 

Finally, make sure that you are comparing the interest rates on the same day. Rates change daily, if not a couple of times a day.  

So, what is the best way to compare loans among different lenders?   

When you compare different lenders, you should compare loan products of the same type (e.g. 30 year fixed). It does not make sense to compare different types of loan programs (e.g. 30 year fixed vs. 15 year fixed, or fixed vs. adjustable). 

To compare loan products of the same type among different lenders: 

1. Fix all lenders at one interest rate and lock-in period. 

You have to compare different lenders on the same rate (e.g. 7.5 percent) and lock-in period, otherwise you will be comparing apples and oranges. 

Most lenders can offer you a variety of rate and point combinations for the same loan product and allow you to choose the lock-in period. 

2. Add up the total lender fees for that rate including points and loan related fees. 

There are a number of different fees paid in connection with loan, and some lenders have different names for them. One lender might offer to waive one fee and then add another one. So when comparing loans of different lenders you should look at the total sum of ALL loan related fees.   

These fees can include processing and underwriting fee, mortgage insurance premium, appraisal fee, the cost of a credit report, tax service fee, application, commitment, wire transfer fee, etc. Points can include discount and origination points and have to be converted into dollar amounts. 

3. The lender that has lower lender fees has a cheaper loan than the lender with higher fees. 

Example: For a loan amount of 100,000 on a 30 year fixed rate mortgage, lender A is offering you a rate of 5.375 percent with 0 points, 5.25 percent with 0.5 points, and 5.125 percent with 1 point. They also charge $450 in loan related fees. Lender B offers you 5.25 percent on the same loan with 0.375 points, 5.125 percent with 0.875 points, and five percent with 1.375 points and charges $680 in loan related fees. Both lenders are quoting rates on a 45 day lock. 

Russ Cohn is president of CohnsLoans in Albany and Berkeley.›

FRIDAY, APRIL 2 

CHILDREN 

A Love Story for Children at 10:30 a.m. at Barnes and Noble. 644-0861. 

EXHIBITION OPENINGS 

“A Woman’s Love” pastels by Kelvin Curry. Reception from 6 to 8 p.m. at Women’s Cancer Resource Center, 5741 Telegraph Ave. The artist will donate 25% of his sales to the WCRC. 601-0404, ext. 111. www.wcrc.org 

“Nudes: An Intimate View of Nature” photographs by Jane Magid. Reception from 6 to 8 p.m. Runs through May 27 at Red Oak Realty, 2983 College Ave. 849-9990. 

THEATER 

Albany High School Theater Ensemble “Alarms and Excursions” at 8 p.m. at Albany High School Little Theater, 603 Key Route Blvd., Albany. Also on Sat and Sun. Tickets are $5-$10 at the door. 558-2500, ext. 2579. 

Berkeley Repertory Theater, “Ghosts” by Henrik Ibsen, at 8 p.m. through April 11. 647-2917. www.berkeleyrep.org 

Everyday Theater, “The Bright River,” a show by Tim Barsky, at 8 p.m. at the Transparent Theater, 1901 Ashby Ave. Through April 3. Tickets are $12-$20 available from 644-2204. 

Hillside Players “Tangled Tales Three: It’s Not Easy Being Smee” a comic journey into The Enchanted Forest for the whole family at 7 p.m. at the Hillside Club, 2286 Cedar St. Tickets are $7, $4 for children, students and seniors. 384-6418. 

Un-Scripted Theater “Improv Survivor” opens at Temescal Arts Center, 511 48th St. at Telegraph, and runs to April 3. Tickets are $7-$10. 415-869-5384. www.un-scripted.com 

FILM 

Remembering Marlon Riggs: “Tongues Untied” at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

John Eidenow talks about “Bobby Fischer Goes to War: How the Soviets Lost the Most Extraordinary Chess Match of All Time” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

Simryn Gill: “Matirx 210” Curator’s Talk with Heidi Zuckerman Jacobson at 12:15 p.m. at Berkeley Art Museum, 2626 Bancroft Way. 642-0808. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Baaba Maal, Senegalese pop singer and guitarist, at 8 p.m., Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $22-$36, available from 642-9988. www.calperfs.berkeley.edu 

Soli Deo Gloria and Orchestra Gloria perform Bach’s St. Matthew Passion at 7 p.m. at Piedmont Community Church, 400 Highland Ave., Piedmont. Tickets are $15-$20 available from 415-982-7341. www.sdgloria.org 

The California Golden Overtones Spring Show at 8 p.m. in 155 Dwinelle Hall, UC Campus. Performances by the UC Men’s Octet and The Williams Octet. Tickets are $5-$10. 642-3880. http://ucchoral.berkeley. 

edu/uchoral/overtones 

“Stomp the Stumps” Benefit for Bay Area Coalition for Headwaters and Earth First with Wild Buds, Gary Gates Band, Funky Nixons and Day Late Fool’s Band at 8 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $10-$20. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

The Solace Brothers, Amee Chapman, Gina Villalobos at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $5. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

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

El 20 y 10: A Celebration of Dignity and Rebellion at 9 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $7-$10. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Herb Gibson, odd-school jazz, at 8 p.m. at The Jazz House. Sliding scale donation $10-$15. 649-8744. www.thejazzhouse.com 

Sylvia and the Silvertones play classic music of the 30s and 40s at 8:30 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810. 

The Waybacks, acoustic mayhem, 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 

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

Yaphet Kotto, Takaru, Confidante, Tafatka, A Light in the Attic 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. 

Mood Food at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Jazz Mine at 6:30 p.m. at King Tsin Chinese Restaurant, 1699 Solano Ave.  

SATURDAY, APRIL 3 

CHILDREN  

Los Amiguitos de La Peña with Gaile Schmitt and the Toodala Ramblers performing bluegrass at 10:30 a.m. at La Peña. Cost is $4 for adults, $3 for children. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Wild About Books with Jo Jo LaPlume and her marionettes at 10:30 a.m. at the Berkeley Public Library, 2090 Kittredge St. 981-6223. 

EXHIBITION OPENINGS 

“Paintings of Tilden” by Deborah Shappelle. Reception from 2 to 4 p.m. at the Environmental Education Center, Tilden Nature Area. 525-2233. 

Ant Farm Exhibition Tour at 1 p.m. and screenings at 2 p.m at Berkeley Art Museum, 2626 Bancroft Way. 642-0808. 

THEATER 

Albany High School Theater Ensemble “Alarms and Excursions” at 8 p.m. at Albany High School Little Theater, 603 Key Route Blvd., Albany. Tickets are $5-$10 at the door. 558-2500, ext. 2579. 

“Free and Ova Saopeng, Lao as a Second Language” at 8 p.m. at La Peña. cost is $5-$10. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Hillside Players “Tangled Tales Three: It’s Not Easy Being Smee” a comic journey into The Enchanted Forest for the whole family at 2 and 7 p.m. at the Hillside Club, 2286 Cedar St. Tickets are $7, $4 for children, students and seniors. 384-6418. 

FILM 

Charles Burnett: “Nightjohn” at 3 p.m., “Shorts” at 7 p.m. and “Sleep with Anger” at 8:10 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Michael Cunningham, Pulitzer Prize-winning author, discusses the process of bringing a book to the screen, at 8 p.m., Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $18-$28, available from 642-9988. www.calperfs.berkeley.edu 

"How to Survive in the Music Business” a panel discussion at 2 p.m. at The Jazzchool. Cost is $10, free for K-12 students. Sponsored by Music in Schools Today. www.jazzschool.com  

Bay Area Poets Coalition holds an open reading from 3 to 5 p.m. at the West Branch Berkeley Public Library, 1125 University Ave. 527-9905. poetalk@aol.com 

Joel Ben Izzy talks about “The Beggar King and the Secret of Happiness” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Harvard Glee Club and the Pacific Boychoir at 7 p.m. at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, 2300 Bancroft Ave. Tickets are $15 at the door or from 866-468-3399. 

The California Golden Overtones Spring Show at 8 p.m. in 155 Dwinelle Hall, UC Campus. Performances by the UC Men’s Octet and the Oxford College Out of the Blue. Tickets are $-$10. 642-3880. http://ucchoral.berkeley.edu/uchoral/overtones 

“Opera Scenes” performed by Holy Names College Opera Scenes Program at 8 p.m. at Regents’ Theater, Holy Names College, 3500 Mountain Blvd., Oakland. Tickets are $7-$10, available at the door. 436-1330. 

Julian White will play works by Mozart, Schumann and Schubert in BCCO’s Spring Recital, at 8 p.m. at the Crowden School, 1475 Rose St. Donation is $30, receptions follows. For reservations and information call Johanna Clark at 526-2609, 549-1336 or email johannaclark@comcast.net  

Samba Ngo, Congolese singer, songwriter, guitarist at 8 p.m. at iMusicast, 5429 Telegraph Ave. at 55th. Cost is $13. 601-1024. www.imusicast.com 

BAM/PFA Open House with performance by The Edlos at 3:30 p.m. at Berkeley Art Museum, 2626 Bancroft Way. 642-0808. 

Tom Rigney & Flambeau at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Dance lesson with Dana DeSimone at 8 p.m. Cost is $13. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com  

Rory Block, country blues, at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage Coffee House. Cost is $18.50 advance, $19.50 at the door. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Gojogo, Indian percussion with violin and acoustic bass, at the 1923 Teahouse at 8 p.m. Donation of $7-$15, no one turned away for lack of funds. 644-2204. www.epicarts.org 

Bill Holdens, The Cables, The Happy Clams at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $6. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

Rhoda Benin and Soulful Strut at 8:30 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810. 

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

Rock & Roll with Nicole at 9:30 p.m. at Beckett’s Irish Pub, 2271 Shattuck Ave. 647-1790.  

www.beckettsirishpub.com 

Time for Living, Killing the Dream, In Control, These Days, At Risk 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. 

Dave Gleason and Wasted Days at 9 p.m. at Oakland Metro, 201 Broadway. Tickets are $10 at the door. 763-1146. www.oaklandmetro.org 

Pickpocket Ensemble performs European café music at 9:30 p.m. at Albatross, 1822 San Pablo Ave. 843-2473. www.albatrosspub.com 

Happy Birthday Herbie! Cannonball plays the music of Herbie Hancock & The Headhunters at 9 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

SUNDAY, APRIL 4 

CHILDREN 

Radical Puppet Mini-Festival with performances and workshops with Princess Moxie, Big Tadoo Puppet Crew, Gitty Duncan and more at 3 p.m. at 1924 Cedar St. at Bonita. Cost is $4-$10. For reservations call 415-905-5958.  

THEATER 

Albany High School Theater Ensemble “Crimes of the Heart” and “Alarms and Excursions” at 4 p.m. at Albany High School Little Theater, 603 Key Route Blvd., Albany. Tickets are $5-$10 at the door. 558-2500, ext. 2579. 

Hillside Players “Tangled Tales Three: It’s Not Easy Being Smee” a comic journey into The Enchanted Forest for the whole family at 2 p.m. at the Hillside Club, 2286 Cedar St. Tickets are $7, $4 for children, students and seniors. 384-6418. 

FILM 

Volker Schlöndorff: “The Legend of Rita” at 5:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

“WORD: An Evening of Poetry and Prose for and by Homeless Youth” from 4 to 7 p.m. in the Large Assembly, First Congregational Church of Berkeley, 2345 Channing. Sponsored by Cody’s Books in a benefit for the Youth Program of Chaplaincy to the Homeless. Tickets are $35 available at the door or from 548-0562.  

Cathy Luchetti introduces ”Women of the West“ at the Berkeley Historical Society’s Annual Meeting from 3 to 5 p.m. at the Berkeley History Center, Veterans’ Memorial Bldg, 1931 Center St. 848-0181. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/histsoc/ 

The Temple of Olympian Zeus” with Prof. Emmanuel Korres, National Technical Univ., Athens, at 1:30 p.m. at the Archeological Research Facility, 2351 College Ave. 415-38-1537. 

“Eccentrics and Court Painters in Eighteenth-Century China,” guided tour at 2 p.m. and lecture with James Cahill at 3 p.m. at Berkeley Art Museum, 2626 Bancroft Way. 642-0808. 

Rinzler’s Return #3, with editor Alan Rinzler at 3 p.m. at Cody’s Books. Bring your manuscripts for a quick and candid evaluation. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

Poetry Flash with Adam David Miller and Francesca Bell at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. Donation $2. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

San Francisco City Chorus performs Gabriel Fauré’s Requiem and Cantique de Jean Racine, and Gioachino Rossini's Stabat Mater at 3 p.m. at First Congregational Church of Berkeley, 2345 Channing Way. Tickets are $20 general; $15 seniors and students. 415-765-7664. www.sfcitychorus.org 

Pro Sonus Chamber Choir and the 100-voice Chancel Choir of First Presbyterian Church perform Mozart’s “Requiem” and “Eli, Eli” by Frank La Rocca at 7:30 p.m. at 2407 Dana St. Pre-concert lecture at 7 p.m. Free admission, donations accepted. 848-6242. www.fpcberkeley.org 

“Out of the Blue” England’s Oxford University’s men’s a cappella chorus at 2 p.m. at Audubon Cellars, 600 Addison St. Tickets are $40, $50 at the door. 925-280-6609. 

UC Folkdancers’ Reunion at 2 p.m. at Ashkenaz Cost is $7. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Ray Obiedo and the Urban Latin Jazz Project at 4:30 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $12-$18. 845-5373. www.jazz- 

school.com  

Adrian Legg, British guitar master, 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 

MONDAY, APRIL 5 

EXHIBITION OPENINGS 

The 25th Annual Quilt Show at The North Branch of Berkeley Public Library, 1170 The Alameda, with over 50 quilts on display to May 27th during regular library hours, Mon.-Thurs., 10 a.m.-9 p.m., Fri.-Sat., 10 a.m.-6 p.m. There is no charge for admission. A detailed catalog, in both regular and large print, is available for patrons to use on a self-guided tour. 981- 6250. www.berkeleypubliclibrary.org 

CHILDREN 

Jazz/Art with Lisa di Prima and the Don Robinson Trio at 2 p.m. at the Berkeley Central Library, 2090 Kittridge, for the whole family. 981-6224. 

Craft Program Make Harry Potter wizard hats and wands at 2 p.m. at Berkeley Public Library South Branch, 1901 Russell St. 981-6260. 

FILM 

“Promotion of Universal Respect,” the 4th Annual United Nations Association Film Festival with documentaries from Iran, Canada, Russia and the US, at 7 p.m. at Pacific Film Archive. Tickets are $8-$10 available at the door. 540-8017. www.unausaeastbay.org 

THEATER 

“Jane Austen in Berkeley” Andrea Mock’s one-woman play at 8 p.m. at Epic Arts, 1923 Ashby Ave. Tickets are $7. 841-9441. 

Shotgun Players “The Miser” opens at 8 p.m. at the Julia Morgan Theater and runs Thurs. - Sun. through May 2. Free admission. 704-8210. www.shotgunplayers.org 

Shotgun Theater Lab “Persistent Vegetative State” at 8 p.m. at La Val’s Subterranean Theater, 1834 Euclid. Runs Mon. and Tues. through April 20. Free admission. 704-8210. www.shotgunplayers.org 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Last Word Poetry Series presents Joyce Jenkins and Francesca Bell at 7 p.m. at Pegasus Books, 2349 Shattuck Ave. 

TUESDAY, APRIL 6 

CHILDREN 

Craft Program Make “Wild Things” masks at 2 p.m. at Berkeley Public Library South Branch, 1901 Russell St. 981-6260. 

FILM 

Alternative Visions: “Something More Than Night” at 7:30 p.m.at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

“Qawwali: The Sacred Music of the Sufis” a workshop from 2:10 to 5 p.m. at Starr King School for the Ministry, 2441 Le Conte Ave. Free. 845-6232. 

Ian Johnson, Pulitzer Prize winner for his reporting on China will speak at 5 p.m. at the IEAS Conference Room, 2223 Fulton St., 6th Floor. 

“The Passion of Christ” From an Evangelical Perspective with the Dean of the GTU at 12:30 p.m. in the Hewlett Library, 2400 Ridge Rd. 526-1356. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Brass Menagerie at 8:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Balkan dance lesson with Nancy Klein at 8 p.m. Cost is $9. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

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

www.thejazzhouse.com 

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

This may be the most exquisite weekend of the year to explore the rolling hills and small, funky, and beautiful little towns of western Marin and Sonoma counties. The grass is still green, the leaves on the trees are brightly new and clean, lambs are popping, and the fish are jumping in Bodega Bay. 

Saturday and Sunday Bodega Bay hosts its annual Bodega Bay Fishing Festival, where you can sample salmon every which way, and take home crab right out of the water for $3.50 a pound live, or $5 a pound just boiled. 

If the festival crowds are too much, avoid Bodega Bay. There is plenty else to do if you follow this trip through fresh air and occasional animal fragrances. 

Follow Highway 101 north and take the East Washington Street exit in Petaluma. Follow East Washington straight across Petaluma Avenue, and keep following west as it becomes Bodega Avenue about seven miles later. Turn west (left) again at Tomales Road toward Two Rock Coast Guard Training Center and keep going, turning right (north) at Highway 1 into “downtown” Tomales. 

Almost immediately on your left is the Tomales Regional History Center in the old Tomales School, where docents include former students and teachers who still live in these sublime climes (open 1-4 p.m. Friday-Sunday, (707) 878-9443)). Tomales celebrated its 150th anniversary in 2000, which inspired the current terrific historical exhibit chronicling matters of farming, social, cultural, and civic importance, all Tomales High School yearbooks, and the community stature of the local fire department and Marconi Wireless Telegraph Stations. Do not miss the quietly elegant Coast Miwok Indian historical exhibit, respecting the area’s first residents. 

Tomales was once the second largest town in Marin and vied with San Rafael to become the Marin County seat. It was a major trading and farming center served by John Keys’ narrow gauge Northwestern Pacific Railroad connecting Tomales to the Russian River redwoods and Sausalito from 1871 to 1930. Art shows, lectures, quinceaneras, town meetings, weddings and “Grand Balls” still occur at the Town Hall, once the Tomales Temperance Club. Local oldtimers wait for the doors to open at the William Tell bar and restaurant, and the elegant Continental Inn occupies the corner at Dillon Beach Road. 

A real find is Cameron Ryan’s Tomales Bakery. A baking veteran of San Francisco’s Square One, Campton Place, and Splendido Restaurant, Cameron first learned to bake from Mildred Jeffreys, her grandmother in Lookout Mountain, Tennessee. She later polished her skills at the California Culinary Academy. Cameron and friends create pizzetti, pesto, sundried tomato chile twists, and other goodies in a former gas station. As a consequence, the few tables are outside, perfect for watching a parked bike. Tomales Bakery uses only Strauss Family Dairy milk, cream, and butter, and makes the most of local organic fruits, and Sebastopol’s Taylor Maid Farms coffees. 

Next door is Emily B’s Deli, with fabulous chili topped with grated cheese and avocado, loads of sandwiches, and local fish chowder—nothing over seven dollars. Across the street, Diekmann’s General Store is worth a trip through, with an excellent local wine selection, bait and tackle, tide information, and one of everything for your vacation kitchen. Explore Mostly Natives Nursery for plants that may work in Berkeley too. 

Dillon Beach Road heads west between Diekmann’s and the Continental Inn. Dillon Beach is a good beach with decent restrooms, picnic tables, and protective sand dunes, although controversy has surrounded the private access parking charge of $5.00 per car for years. The Dillon Beach Resort is now spiffed up with casually comfortable rooms, cabins, café, and a beach and snack store, right next to the trailer homes overlooking the ocean. Other nearby Marin County natural adventures include Tomales Bay State Park and the sprawling Point Reyes National Seashore to the south. 

Follow Highway 1 north seven miles and turn left toward Valley Ford, population 126 or so. Depending upon the ebbing and flowing fortunes of local antiques dealers, you may want to make a stop, or try the famous Dinucci’s Italian Dinners in its third generation of “excellence without extravagance.” 

Dinucci’s bar is noisy and old and sets the mood for the entire place, where the floors tilt slightly as do some of the customers. But one can enjoy a hugely filling dinner of antipasti, minestrone soup, salad, spaghetti or ravioli, and an entrée for under $16.50. Deep fried chicken, chicken cacciatore grilled petrale sole, cannelloni, and veal Parmigiana are all unsurprising and good. Soup and antipasti or salad, as well as Sonoma County and Italian wines are also available. 

As you continue north, you can either go east to Occidental, or north to the towns of Bodega and Bodega Bay. Bodega combines funk with history, including several shops with reasonably priced collectibles and antiques, and the Bodega Schoolhouse where Alfred Hitchcock filmed The Birds. Leah Taylor, whose parents Tom and Mary Taylor renovated the building decades ago, leads tours of the building where she and her family live and Leah occasionally gathers audiences to experience her performance art (contacts: (707) 876-3257; www.bodegaschool.com). 

Between Bodega and Bodega Bay are Doran Beach and the Birdwalk Coast Access area, the latter of which is part of the California Coastal Conservancy and managed by Sonoma County Regional Parks. Both are well worth exploring before trying some of the glitz of Bodega Bay. 

In Bodega Bay, my favorite food stop is informal Lucas Wharf, which has a restaurant and a café-fish market where you can enjoy sinfully fabulous deep fried oysters, scallops, calamari, or fish and chips (one order is enough for two) either inside among milling tourists or at tables between the buildings and in front of the fish house. Walk back to the fish market pier, and choose your crab or salmon right out of Bodega Bay. Heaven! 

No other article in the Daily Planet has produced as much response from readers as our recent article on a child who experiences bullying in a Berkeley public school. Many of the letters were heartfelt reminiscences about the writer’s own childhood struggles with bullies, or were from parents whose children have been bullied. Our piece was written primarily from the perspective of the victim and her anguished parents. Today’s commentary page includes a letter from a Berkeley Unified School District teacher and administrator who is trying to work on ways to solve on-going problems. 

Our readers have offered many answers to the question of how to defeat bullying. Today’s letter describes staff development days, videos, class discussions and other forms of exhortation, and points out that no school district claims to have solved the problem. At the other extreme, martial arts proponents have written in claiming that self-defense training protects kids from being harassed.  

I’ve always had a bit of trouble with the latter theory since a good friend of mine, a martial arts champion, was murdered by a hitchhiker he picked up. In general, I think preventing or derailing dangerous confrontations is safer than encouraging adults or kids to fight back physically. But how to do it? 

The school district’s approach, as described by the letter writer, seems to be trying to change the hearts and minds of the bullies, although, as she points out, this is hard when kids grow up surrounded by a culture of violence. But bullying has always been part of the human condition. The Old Testament, which describes a culture at least as violent as contemporary Berkeley, is full of stories about people being bullied, and how they responded to it. Folklore from around the world has many tales of how clever animals (or people) outwitted bullies: the third little pig in English folktales, Br’er Rabbit in African-American legends. One thing that all these stories have in common is that force alone never overwhelms the bully. It takes more than that, and what kind of more is what the stories are all about.  

Another reason that martial arts training is not the right way to deal with bullying in schools is that it’s a form of blaming the victim. The ethic of frontier America said that real men and real boys needed to learn how to defend themselves, a concept that many now want to extend to real women and real girls. But children in modern urban America should not be taught to “fight back.” They should be taught how to avoid fights if possible, and how to get adult help if they need it.  

There’s always a temptation to blame the victim in such cases, since our common culture frowns on whining, but school administrators have the responsibility of preventing this response in employees who work with children. The “solution” described in the article of keeping the bullied child indoors during playtime is worse than no solution. What it teaches the victim is not to complain, and if kids don’t complain the problem can never be solved. 

In a school setting, the single most important factor has always been to provide enough adult supervision to nip problems in the bud before they start. That means having a good adult-to-child ratio, and making sure particularly that playground supervision is adequate. Teaching kids how to ask for help, and then responding immediately and decisively to change the environment where the negative interaction takes place, almost always works, but it requires enough funding to pay for the needed personnel 

It’s hard, in a state which just elected as governor an actor who has made a career of portraying bullies on the screen, to hold fast to the goal of trying to promote harmony and tolerance among our school kids, but we need to continue to try. We adults in Berkeley shouldn’t waste our time and energy in arguments over whose fault bullying is. We need to do many things simultaneously. For the long term, we should work in the political sphere to try to get enough money in the school system to pay for enough adults to supervise kids at play, which is the surest way to prevent bullying. While we’re working on that, we need to educate kids in today’s schools about how to complain about bullies, which means making sure that complaints get results, which means educating staff as well.  

Finally, and this is the hardest, we need to work on teaching kids to want to be kind to one another, starting in kindergarten, not in junior high. That’s the hard one. 

This week celebrates the major holidays of two branches of the majority U.S. religious tradition, both of which have frequently tried to teach humans to love one another, but both of which have frequently failed to do so. 

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

Birthdays. Some people love them, some people hate them. For optimists, it’s a chance to have a party, to get gifts and bouquets from your friends, and to look forward with enthusiasm to new triumphs in the coming year. For pessimists, there’s the temptation to be excessively aware of how the time has slipped away since last year, with concomitant worrying about what hasn’t been accomplished. Pessimists are the people who need the parties and the bouquets, but often they greet friends’ efforts to cheer them up on birthdays with surly rejection.  

The Daily Planet’s Re-Birthday is April 1, a day when we’re on deadline for this issue, so we didn’t plan a party for that day. (Just as well as far as I’m concerned, since I am one of the surly birthday types.) We’ll have our cake next week, after our two close-together deadlines have passed, but this is the Official Anniversary Issue, offering the opportunity to reflect on where we’ve come in the last year and where we hope to go in the future. The high-minded editorial about news coverage, reflecting on the importance of the free press in a democracy, ran on March 19. This one is our chance to think about how well we’ve done on the smaller stuff that adds up to the big picture for our readers and advertisers.  

Trying to act like birthday optimists, we’ll concentrate on highlighting what we’ve accomplished so far: 

First, the expanded calendar! We said in our preview edition that “A comprehensive calendar is one of the most essential services of a local paper.” We’ve gotten that, and more, thanks to the dedicated efforts of Anne Wagley and the late Fred Lupke, who is sorely missed. It’s a huge job, assembling, collating and typing all of that information, and Anne is now doing it pretty much single-handed. 

Then, regular columnists. J. Douglas Allen-Taylor and Susan Parker, writers whose work we’d admired in other publications, got in touch with us early on and we eagerly snapped them up as columnists. Zac Unger has managed to work us in for some good columns in between his duties as a firefighter, book author and parent. Joe Eaton and Ron Sullivan, nature writers extraordinaire, have settled comfortably into the back page for our weekday editions, where we hope they’ll be for a long time.  

And features. We said: “We hope to showcase local talent as much as we can. We want to develop an inventory of excellent feature material by local writers which can be used when we have enough advertising to pay for some extra space.” We’ve enticed many local favorites (some of whom have international reputations) to write for us on a one or many time basis. They’re too numerous to mention individually, but we hope they will all continue to write for the Planet when they have time. Some even contribute their pieces gratis, which we especially appreciate. But we could always use more, especially as the paper grows in size. We have been delighted to be able to host the revived Pepper Spray Times, a beloved Berkeley institution that was much missed. 

News from outside Berkeley: In a year which began with the invasion of Iraq, national and international coverage continues to be essential. At readers’ request, we’ve dropped the conventional wire copy in favor of unique perspectives from smaller news services. We’ve added in-depth coverage of state, national and international news, primarily from our good friends at Pacific News Service, and also from Featurewell and Alternet. 

Finally, the real crowd-pleaser: the opinion section. We get more favorable reaction to our super-sized letters and commentary pages than to anything else in the paper. This is Berkeley, after all. News often breaks first in the Planet’s opinion pages; our readers know what’s going on, and they tell us, eloquently. Some of our most distinguished contributors write for our commentary page.  

Are the readers happy? A lot of you seem to be. We get many more bouquets than brickbats. We’re grateful to Dona Spring, Leuren Moret and Zelda Bronstein for collecting some bouquets for today’s paper. We thought about collecting some of the brickbats to give everyone a good laugh, but never got around to it.  

We have a wonderful roster of supportive advertisers, many of whose names are listed in this issue as an “honor roll.” We’d like many more, of course, since the paper is still not breaking even. And that’s where we’d like to enlist the readers’ help.  

A city voter survey discovered that, among regular voters in Berkeley, the Planet is the best-read East Bay paper, a demographic data point that ought to appeal to advertisers. When you shop locally (as we hope you do), ask the people you do business with to think about supporting the Planet with their advertising dollars. It would benefit them, and it would benefit us. 

Are there any negative thoughts amidst all this sweetness and light? A few. We’re sorry that some who hoped that “Berkeley would finally have a progressive paper” took that to mean we would tell only one side of multi-faceted stories and would suppress any bad news about “progressive” politicos. We’re disappointed when successful local businesses don’t think advertising in local publications is something they can afford. And we were profoundly saddened when a loyal advertiser called to say that she’d had calls asking her to drop Planet advertising because we’ve run letters critical of Israel’s policy toward Palestinians. The good news is that she refused.  

Finally, Mike and I very much appreciate the great staff we’ve got working with us, on the editorial side, in sales and in distribution. They treat their work at the Daily Planet as more than just a job—they take it seriously as a commitment to our readers and advertisers. And we are especially grateful to the community volunteers who worked hard for months to get us launched a year ago: people who believed that Berkeley deserved to have a paper, and put their own time, money and energy behind that belief when it counted most. We’ve discovered that despite the April 1 birthday, running a newspaper is no joke, but with a little help from our friends, we’ve done it, at least for one year. 

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