Features

ONE YEAR 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I congratulate the Daily Planet for hanging in there a whole year—the first of many, I hope, giving us facts to set beside the abstract slogans we hear too often. I never miss an issue, and this is the only publication I read in which I never skip the ads. I want your advertisers to know that if it they are selling anything I need, they are the first people I’ll patronize. 

Dorothy Bryant 

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DOWNTOWN VACANCIES 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Your story quoted the city’s Economic Project Coordinators as not having had an update (on downtown vacancies) since a year ago (“See’s, Gateway Closings Jolt Downtown Retail Outlook,” Daily Planet, April 2-5). What, pray tell, is in the person’s job description? 

Two other reasons for the vacancies, which your interviewees were too polite to mention, were 1) the deplorable conditions on Shattuck Avenue with encampments and spare change artists, shopping carts, etc. which discourage anyone with a choice from coming to downtown Berkeley to Shop and 2) the inordinate expense of time and money it takes to get a business permit through the morass at City Hall. 

Out of town business owners have a choice of where to locate, and they take these factors into their decision-making process. Wouldn’t you? 

Steve Schneider 

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OPEN ARMS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I was really puzzled by the remark made by John Gordon in the article about commercial storefronts in Berkeley (“See’s, Gateway Closings Jolt Downtown Retail Outlook,” Daily Planet, April 2-5). He said “The worst news I’ve heard in a long time is that the former Pier One Store [at 1814 University Ave.] is becoming a Salvation Army.” What nonsense on several levels.  

For starters we don’t need more empty storefronts sitting empty waiting for the “perfect” tenant. The City of Berkeley has a habit of subsidizing these so called perfect tenants (Eddie Bauer, etc.) only to have them leave on the whim of a faceless corporate board. I’ve also noticed that thrift stores don’t go out of business that often. As I understand it, Salvation Army also provides valuable services to people who are down and out seeking a second chance. 

If a business isn’t doing anything illegal and its goods and services are in demand why not welcome them with open arms? I own a business on University a block a way and I look forward to having them as neighbors! 

Richard Crowl  

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CERRITO THEATER 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Dave Yandle (Letters, Daily Planet, April 2-5) and others interested in updated news about the Cerrito Theater might want to check out the website cerritotheater.org. I believe they will be quite happy to hear the status of the Cerrito, not the least of which is that Speakeasy Theaters, operators of Oakland’s Parkway, is planning to operate the Cerrito as well. 

Now if only something could be done with the UC... 

Garrett Murphy 

Oakland 

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SIERRA CLUB 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Ms. Burke’s letter (Daily Planet, March 26-29) reminds me of why I quit the Sierra Club the last time the immigration issue came up. In 1998, if you expressed an interest in discussing or exploring the impacts of population growth and immigration on the environment it was promptly construed as an anti-immigrant bias, with overtones of racism. The same things appear to be happening this time. Ms. Burke claims that the “anti-immigration slate” wants to redirect club priorities into anti-immigration issues. This is certainly not what I wanted, and it is not what I have been reading in the communications from the Sierrans for U.S. Population Stability (SUSPS). 

I hope that most people recognize that population control is a necessary component of any long-range plan for environmental protection. It may be that you can deal with population growth without dealing with immigration, but you can’t know that unless you are willing to first ask the question and do some work to find the answers. I find it disturbing that “mainstream” Sierrans are unwilling to ask this question themselves, but I find it even more disturbing that they denigrate the motives of those who do wish to. The message this sends to people makes the Sierra Club part of the problem instead of part of the solution. 

My response to the club’s disappointing attitude towards open discussion was to redirect my money and efforts to some of the many other environmental organizations available, and to join two groups that are involved in the population issue: EngenderHealth (www.engenderhealth.org) and the Population Connection (www.populationconnection.org). Current Sierrans may want to consider similar options if the club still refuses to consider the environmental effects of population growth. 

Robert Clear 

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ACACIA TREE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Today my respect for Berkeley City Government increased tenfold. 

Three days ago, I discovered a notice on the Black Acacia tree in Oak Park, informing the neighborhood that the tree’s days were numbered. At some unspecified time during the next 30 days, the Berkeley Parks, Recreation and Waterfront Department would chop down this beautiful Acacia which shades the entire park. The notice invited me to contact Jerry Koch, the department’s Senior Forestry Supervisor, with questions or comments. 

Serendipitously, the next day I threw a big “Beat Bush” event for Party For America, and found myself surrounded by my neighbors. No one wanted to loose the tree, so we all signed a petition requesting that it be allowed to live out its years into peaceful retirement. 

Yesterday I left messages both for Jerry Koch and my council representative Gordon Wozniak. This morning, Jerry called me back. When I told him about the neighborhood consensus, he was pleased to change the plans - “the tree is not in immediate danger of falling” he told me, and there is no problem with leaving it standing.  

Thank you Jerry. Together, we all saved the tree. Now I’m that much more confident that working together, we can beat the Bush. 

Robert Vogel 

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AC TRANSIT 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Thanks to Daily Planet reporter Richard Brenneman for a detailed story about the just-passed federal Transportation Equity Act funding ACT’s “controversial” and outrageous Telegraph Avenue express bus lane reconfiguration scheme (“Local Projects Pass in House, Senate,” Daily Planet, April 6-8). Those details you wrote correctly inform readers of what’s been cooked up for our communities central and major arterial by the public transportation bureaucrats—without the communities knowledge or consent. 

I question ACT’s accuracy when they claim 40,000 current ridership on Telegraph Avenue buses, and that projected 20,000 ridership increase figure being used by ACT’s planners to justify shrinking Telegraph Avenue down to a one-lane street from Broadway in downtown Oakland to UC Berkeley. Your factual details are helping the community to understand that a possible regional transportation disaster is being planned by AC Transit. 

Robert Pratt 

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BOALT HALL BLUES 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The annual U.S. News and World Report rankings of law schools, released earlier this month, show the University of California, Berkeley, slipping once again: seventh place two years ago, tenth last year, now thirteenth (“Boalt Hall Maintains Solid Reputation,” April 6). No law school in the top 20 has fallen as sharply as Boalt Hall has in the last two years. While lawyers say that the rankings do not matter, a slip of nearly 100 percent does. 

The bad news is that the rankings were affected by Boalt’s poor student-faculty ratio and meager financial resources, which are among the lowest in the nation. 

And Boalt’s rank is not the only thing falling. During constitutional law class today, I leaned back slightly in my chair to sip some water, and it broke. I spilled the water on my shirt and pants as I fell backward, in front of my classmates and professor. 

Despite the bad news, Boalt is still the second ranked law school west of the Mississippi River, trailing Stanford. And, with lower fees than our rival across the Bay, Boalt may be the best value in legal education between Chicago and the Pacific Ocean. 

The real blessing of the rankings, however, is that Boalt’s lackluster performance will call attention to Governor Schwarzenegger’s untimely budget proposal. It recommends 40 percent fee hikes for law students, after we endured a 48 percent increase last year. This proposal is also unfair, because the extra money taken from law students would go toward paying California’s debt—not a dime to Boalt Hall. 

If California wants Boalt Hall to remain the model of public legal education, Sacramento politicians should take heed of the rankings by repairing our classrooms and chairs and by hiring more professors. Legislators should then reduce the proposed fee increase and return to its rightful place the money that students shell out for their law degrees. 

Mark Massoud 

UC Berkeley School of Law (Boalt Hall) 

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BULLYING 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Jan Goodman’s assertion that bullying and harassment exists in all schools is probably correct (“Bullying Article Was a One-Sided Attack on MLK Middle School,” Daily Planet, April 6-8). But, as the parent of a former Berkeley middle school student who endured months of intimidation and brutality from his fellow students, I would feel more optimistic if Ms. Goodman spent less time defending and more time explaining what the school has done to protect students.  

It sounds like everyone at King is doing a l lot of talking and discussing. How about some concrete action? Are the targets of bullies, like Dominique Reed, still put in solitary confinement at recess? Can students count on getting help if they ask for it? Or do they still need to defend themselves, and possibly face suspension?  

I think your reporter, Matthew Artz, was accused of a one-sided attack because he ignored King’s “sea of words” and focussed instead on the incident reporting system recently established at Willard. Unlike Ms. Goodman’s litany of discussions and training, the incident reporting system is a concrete change that will help the school identify chronic bullies and their targets. That kind of system could have helped my son. 

Laurie Leiber 

Oakland 

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TAKING AN OATH 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Recently at the public library I read in the January issue of Vanity Fair David Rose’s detailed and horrifying article “Guantanamo Bay on Trial.” This evening I watched on public television a two-hour long review of the cowardice of the developed countries of the West, and of the U.S. in particular during the holocaust in Rwanda. 

Put aside “under God,” Allah, Yahweh, Buddha, or who-or-what-ever. To strengthen their children’s ability to think critically, and to help them make sound moral judgments, present-day U.S. parents who still believe rote oath-taking has merit would do well to have their off-spring recite this up-to-date pledge to the flag: 

“I forswear allegiance to the flag of the Dis-united States of America and to the republic for which it stands, on nation now divided, denying liberty and justice for all—especially at Guantanamo, and for non-whites.” 

Judith Segard Hunt 

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POPULATION BOOM 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I read with horror that “in the next 10 years thousands of new residents” will be jammed into University Avenue (“Fighting to Save What We Have on University Avenue, Daily Planet, March 26-29). And I’m here to tell you: This is just the beginning! The California population is projected to increase form 34 million to 60 million over the next 20 years, almost entirely from our insane level of Mass Immigration. Does anybody out there happen to know where the endless millions of new homes are where these people are going to live? There’s only one solution to the looming nightmare that is now staring us in the face. Will the geniuses of Berkeley be able to figure out what that solution is? 

Peter Labriola