Two major forces dominating American society in the 1950s—one waning, the other waxing—collided in Sproul Plaza 40 years ago today, Oct. 1, climaxing in an epochal moment. 

“The connections to the civil rights movement are extensive, along with a continuation of the organizing against McCarthyism,” said Bettina Aptheker, a participant in the events of that memorable day and today a professor and chair of Women’s Studies at UC Santa Cruz. 

Many of the activists on Sproul Plaza that day had been active in the movement against McCarthyism and its embodiment in the notorious House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). 

Four years earlier, another UC Berkeley student coalition, SLATE, organized another memorable protest when HUAC came to San Francisco looking for Reds under beds in Berkeley and elsewhere around the bay, said Peter Franck, one of the group’s leading activists. 

Hundreds of Berkeley students arrived outside San Francisco City Hall on the morning of May 13, 1960 to protest the HUAC hearings underway inside. 

After denying students admission to the building, police brought in high pressure fire hoses and blasted them down the steps, arresting dozens, including 31 Cal students. 

The next day brought 5,000 demonstrators. 

Repercussions of the protest included the resignation en masse of the Daily Californian staff after a university crackdown on the publication for urging students to join the protest, the banning of SLATE from campus activities and the sowing of seeds that would burst forth four years later on Sproul Plaza. 

Aptheker had arrived on campus two years after the HUAC protest, and she was on that plaza that day, Oct. 1, 1964, to set up a table for the W.E.B. Dubois Club, a prominent civil rights organization of the day with extensive ties to the Old Left. 

As the daughter of leading Marxist journalist Herbert Aptheker, long reviled by the FBI, she knew first-hand the repressive passions nurtured by Wisconsin Republican Sen. Joseph McCarthy, and her childhood friendship with future African American organizer Angela Davis had deepened her sympathies with the rising demands for equality that were shaking the nation. 

Tables on Bancroft Way at Telegraph Avenue had been banned by university officials on Sept. 14, but organizers for the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and other civil rights organizations defied the ban, Aptheker among them. 

In retaliation, campus deans later came out and took the names of all those who were sitting at the tables—Aptheker included—for possible administrative action. 

“For every person whose name was taken, another person would then sit down at the table,” she said. “The deans had taken the names of over 800 students by the end of the day.” 

In response, members of the United Front, a coalition of 18 groups of all political persuasions, held a meeting where Mario Savio, a junior recently arrived form New York, spoke out. 

“I remember him saying that the principle was freedom of speech on campus, not the tables. So he suggested moving the tables to Sproul Plaza. That was when the police car came,” she said. 

Among those who had set up tables directly in front of the administration building was Jack Weinberg, a UC alum with a long involvement in civil rights who was organizing for CORE. 

Bruce Africa, now a psychiatrist on the staff of Napa State Hospital, was one of those at the tables. “It was the first time in my life I ever did anything overtly against the law,” he recalled. “Jack Weinberg was one of those who emerged as a leader, and he’s been one ever since.” 

When police asked Weinberg for his name and non-existent student ID card, the young radical stood mute and the officers arrested him. He went limp, and was carried into the car. 

“I don’t know who shouted ‘Sit down!’ I was standing right by the driver’s side front fender, and sat,” Aptheker said. “There were thousands of us. 

“And that was the beginning.” 

In a brilliant bit of improvisation, the students quickly deflated the tires and the police car was trapped. 

For 32 hours, thousands of students continued the sit-in. 

It wasn’t long before they realized that the roof of the captive car offered a perfect soap box, and it was from there that Savio emerged as the voice of the movement, a figure who had in a few short hours captured the attention of the world. 

“I remember him sitting on top of the police car, talking to a Chronicle reporter in his stocking feet,” said Marilyn Noble, who was to play a unique role in the ensuing events. 

“I said, ‘Who does your laundry? You don’t have time any more.’ Then I got his address,” she said. 

Before the sit-in ended, campus officials released Weinberg, refusing to press charges. 

Yet at the moment, Aptheker and her friends had no sense they were participants in an historic moment. “None of us understood that until much later.” 

For her, the recognition came on Nov. 20., when the UC regents met in University Hall on Oxford Street. 

“We organized a rally on the Sproul footsteps and we marched to the regents’ meeting. There were 5,000 of us, and for me that was when I understood that we had a huge movement and I began to feel that we were part of something that was historic,” she said. 

In the interim, Marilyn Noble had emerged as the caretaker of the core leadership of what had become the Free Speech Movement. 

She fed them and kept them in clean clothes—suits and ties for Savio and the other men in those short-haired, clean-shaven pre-Hippie days. 

When it came time for the November march on the regents, “I took one of Jackie Goldberg’s sorority bed sheets and made a sign” that students carried at the head of the march as the paraded through Sather Gate and on to the regents’ meeting. 

Perhaps the most fitting memorial to those events of 400 years ago will come Friday noon, Oct. 8, during the upcoming Free Speech Movement 40th anniversary, from atop the roof of another police car in Sproul when FSM participants will seize the moment to dissect the latest challenge to free speech in America, the Patriot Act. 

“That’s the best way to commemorate the signal victory of the Free Speech Movement,” said Michael Rossman, a key organizer of the week-long celebration. ª

Homeowners who live beside Berkeley creeks have less to fear from mother nature after the City Council Tuesday affirmed their right to rebuild their homes after a disaster. 

The unanimous vote, which amends Berkeley’s 1989 Creeks Ordinance, came after property owners, mostly from the Berkeley Hills, spent over three hours lambasting the council’s current policy at Longfellow Middle School. 

After amending the ordinance, the council also voted unanimously to revisit the creeks issue in two weeks and consider whether to form a task force or designate the Planning Commission to revise the ordinance.  

Designed primarily to restrict the construction of new culverts that push creeks underground and are prone to collapse, the 15-year-old law forbids new construction of roofed buildings within 30 feet of the centerline of a creek or culvert. The only way to build in the setback area required obtaining a city variance, which Planning Director Dan Marks said would have been “very difficult.” The council Tuesday decided that existing owners would no longer have to get an variance to rebuild after a disaster such as an earthquake or fire. 

Creek advocates were greatly outnumbered in the packed 450-seat auditorium by homeowners organized under the banner of Neighbors On Urban Creeks. 

Given two choices by city staff, the council granted owners of any type of structure—residential or commercial—the right to rebuild essentially the same building in the same footprint after a disaster with no requirement to study the feasibility of moving the new building outside of the 30-foot setback. Homeowners, however, will need to submit a report by a licensed structural engineer that a new building would not damage the culvert or the creek and would still comply with building codes enacted since their original house was built. 

The issue had remained under the radar, said Planning Director Dan Marks, until last year when creeks advocates started lobbying to tighten restrictions on new structures near creeks and the city produced electronic maps that gave more exact estimates of the roughly 2,400 homeowners possibly affected by the law. 

At the Tuesday council meeting, homeowners declared that once insurers, bankers and real estate agents found out, their homes would be impossible to insure, impossible to refinance, and impossible to sell. 

“This is my retirement, this is my savings, this was what I was going to leave to my children and you made it worthless,” said Katherine Bowman, who learned earlier this month that her house just off Grizzly Peak Road fell under the ordinance. 

John Ellwood, a professor of public policy at UC Berkeley, criticized the council for passing the ordinance without any fiscal analysis of whether the law would diminish assessed property values and consequently cost the city vital property tax revenue. 

“There are no numbers here,” he told the council. “Forget that we’re going to go broke, you’re going to go broke.” 

Ellwood said colleagues with business expertise at UC told him the creek law had make his house worthless, but he questioned why the council didn’t have any real estate or insurance experts to testify if the homeowners’ fears were founded. 

Bill McDowell, an agent for Berkeley Hills Realty, said Wednesday that he didn’t think the ordinance had affected home prices. 

Creek advocate Carole Schemmerling, who also lives beside a creek, drew boos when she said the fears “seemed to have been whipped up by the bogeyman that creeks are bad and that we need to get rid of them.” 

Ann Riley, one of the principal authors of the creek ordinance, said the law was never intended “to prevent someone from rebuilding their home.” 

Creek advocates want the city to strengthen the creek law so it applies to roofless structures such as parking lots and adjusts the 30-foot setback rule in cases where the watershed is wider.  

Several homeowners Tuesday, however, called on the council to scrap the entire law or at least apply it only to public property. 

Not included in the current ordinance, but still looming over the creeks debate, is who will be required to pay the estimated tens of millions of dollars to repair the city’s 17,000 feet of concrete culverts built under private property.  

Already the city is embroiled in a lawsuit with neighbors of Strawberry Creek, who challenge the city’s claim that the property owners are responsible for repairing a dilapidated culvert that runs underneath their homes. 

Creek fans on the council, including Kriss Worthington, Dona Spring, Margaret Breland and Mayor Tom Bates, said they wanted to form a public taskforce to examine creek issues. 

But councilmembers Gordon Wozniak, Betty Olds and Hawley, all representing large swaths of the Berkeley hills, stated their preference for the Planning Commission to tackle the creeks issue. 

Hawley called city task forces “democracy by exhaustion,” where the residents best able to withstand months of relentless meetings—usually activists—ultimately make the decisions. 

City Manager Phil Kamlarz said either option would cost the city several hundred thousand dollars in staff time and consultants. He promised to return to the council in two weeks with estimates on the costs. 

Gov. Arnold Schwarze-negger signed into law Thursday a new measure that increases the inclusionary bonus granted to builders who included low income housing in apartment and condominiums building. 

The inclusionary bonus allows developers to builder bigger buildings than normally allowed under local ordinances when the structures contain units reserved for low-income tenants or mid-income buyers. 

Under the old law, builders were granted a 25 percent increase in building size if they set aside 20 percent of units. The new law boosts the bonus to 35 percent. 

Berkeley’s representative Loni Hancock was one of four California Assembly members who voted against the measure when it came up for a final vote on Aug. 24. The measure cleared the Senate on a unanimous vote two days later. 

The density bonus has become a thorny issue in Berkeley politics because of its role in the construction of controversial downtown buildings. 

Though the downtown plan limits structures to five stories, the density bonus allowed Patrick Kennedy to build the seven-story-plus Gaia Building, and a combination of the density and cultural bonuses has resulted in the proposed nine-story Seagate. 

With the additional bonus enacted Thursday, Berkeley could be seeing ten-story edifices in the city center in years to come.ª

Richmond City Council members tabled Tuesday night’s planned vote on a casino complex development pact for Point Molate after ChevronTexaco offered a lucrative last-minute alternative. 

The oil company is offering a total of $80 million: $55 million paya ble on execution of a deed to the city-owned property at Point Molate and Point San Pablo and a million dollars a year for 25 years. 

The annual payments would be earmarked for development and maintenance of public improvements on the site. 

“We have provided the city with both a serious and a generous offer,” said Dean O’Hair, spokesperson for the oil company’s Richmond refinery, situated just across the ridgeline from the Molate site.  

The only reason the oil company was able to make the offer Tuesday was because the exclusive negotiations pact signed by the city with Berkeley developer James D. Levine’s Upstream Point Molate LLC, which proposed building a casino on the site, had expired at midnight Monday. 

Levine and others involved in the Upstream p roject met Wednesday in Sacramento with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s legal staff for an informational meeting. 

Chevron had floated an earlier offer on Aug. 13, when Richmond was legally barred from receiving it. Chevron then offered a $5 million down pay ment followed by another $29 million in payments spread out over two decades. Levine said his deal would give the city over $400 million in the same period. 

Levine offered a $20 million down payment, with additional $2 million a year for the following 15 years. 

In addition, the Guidiville Rancheria band of Pomo tribespeople, who would own the site as a reservation, has agreed to compensate the city for required city services. They would pay $8 million a year for the first eight years after gambling oper ations commence and $10 million annually thereafter. 

The tribe would also pay additional compensatory fees to cover lost sales and hotel occupancy taxes. 

But the path to a tribal casino is strewn with potential stumbling blocks, requiring authorizations at the federal, state, and local levels. 

Then there’s Gov. Schwarzenegger’s stalled pact that would grant Casino San Pablo exclusive slot machine rights within a 35-miles radius. If approved by legislators, the plans for a half-dozen or so other Bay Area casinos, including Point Molate, would be derailed instantly. 

Thus, the promise of an $80 million bird in the hand has to look tempting to a city government struggling with more than $30 million in debt. City councilmembers have laid off large numbers of municipal workers, drastically reduced municipal services and privatized the city’s water and sewer systems. 

Vince Sollitto, deputy press secretary for the governor, said the meeting was requested by Upstream and the governor’s office accepted “becaus e the administration always attempts to learn the plans of sovereign Indian nations. 

“It is my understanding that the tribe does not have land in trust and therefore they are not in a position to pursue a gaming compact at this time,” he said.  

The Upst ream pact was scheduled for signing when the city council met Monday evening, and a sizable contingent of would-be speakers had planned to address the council. 

But right after Mayor Irma Anderson had gaveled the council to order, Assistant City Manager R ichard McCoy, the city’s point man for casino negotiations, asked that the item be pulled from the agenda “to allow the council to have additional information from the proposal just received from Chevron. 

“They have indicated they would be receptive to a n agreement,” he said. “I recommend one week to negotiate a contract with them,” with the new agreement to be presented alongside the Upstream proposal at next week’s council meeting. 

Announcement of the offer drew a few gasps from the audience, but as t he official proposed, the council disposed, shelving the vote and prompting an exodus of would-be speakers. 

The addition of Point San Pablo would give the oil firm control of the entire western side of the Point San Pablo Peninsula, though the site may b e a key sticking point in negotiations with the city. 

The city-owned seven and a half acre terminal at the tip of the peninsula lost its two major tenants in the last decade. 

“The inclusion of Point San Pablo along with our own Point Lorean property ens ures that we’ll have public park and open space all the way to the end of the peninsula,” said O’Hair. 

But McCoy said Thursday that no deal could be signed that included Point San Pablo. During a meeting between Chevron representatives, McCoy, interim Ci ty Attorney Everett Jenkins, and city outside counsel John Knox, “We advised them that inclusion of the point was unacceptable.” 

Because the land was city-owned, it would have to first be offered to other government agencies, McCoy said. 

“That was the s ame point Chevron made when they tried to block the sale of Point Molate, so it’s kind of ironic,” he said. 

The city also advised Chevron that any sale of Point Molate would have to include a guarantee that Chevron would contain provisions that allowed s ome development that would create jobs and boost the local economy—mandates of the Base Closure Act under which the city acquired the former Navy property, McCoy said. 

Councilmember Tom Butt also opposes the Point San Pablo sale, a sentiment apparently s hared by others in municipal government. 

Chevron has until the close of business Monday to present a formal offer, and their legal staff was sorting through records in City Hall Thursday to aid in their effort, McCoy said. 

The proposal will go to the ci ty council for review during a closed-door executive session prior to next Tuesday evening’s public meeting when the council will have the option of accepted either of the two offers or rejecting both. 

O’Hair said the oil company’s cash would give the ci ty up front funds for infrastructure improvements and leave Richmond with cash on hand. 

Councilmember Butt’s accusation 

The most dramatic part of Tuesday council meeting came during a heated discussion of a controversial e-mail from member Butt. 

In a s cathing message dispatched to constituents on his Tom Butt E-Forum, the councilmember blasted acting City Attorney Everett Jenkins and his assistant Bruce Soublett for garnishing his “meager City Council wages” to recoup a 9 year old civil judgment result ing from a Butt Public Records Act. 

Butt, not yet a councilmember at the time, had sued the city to force disclosure of Chevron’s “unique exemption” from the city Utility User Tax. 

Butt wrote in an earlier e-mail on April 2 that he won most of records h e sought the suit. The judgment stemmed from a failed bid to recoup legal costs from the city. 

Butt’s Sept. 27 e-mail declared that “the city attorney’s office is just as dysfunctional as the rest of City Hall” with “a huge backlog of uncollected judgmen ts going back a decade or more that they are too lazy or too incompetent to collect. . .It’s interesting that the only one they have gotten around to acting on is mine.” 

The missive declared that “Soublett was a puzzling choice to play the hatchet man. H e has a troubling reputation for seldom showing up for work and spending long lunch hours with Human Resources Director Cedric Williams at the Hotel Mac paid for by taxpayers through City credit cards. Based on past credit card receipts submitted by Willi ams, Butt’s monthly payments will not even support Williams’ and Soublet’s gourmet dining style.”  

During the Tuesday council session, Jenkins fired back. “I object to the criticism. . .that e-mail is not accurate and not appropriate according to the cou ncil’s own code of conduct.” 

Councilmember Maria Viramontes called the missive “an outrage, an absolute outrage Tom. You’ve totally, utterly crossed the line.” 

ª

State officials Thursday afternoon approved a developer’s plans to dredge marshland at the edge of a highly polluted Richmond site, though some neighbors remain deeply concerned about possible effects to neighboring lives and property. 

Cleanup of Stege Marsh on the South Richmond shoreline is mandated as part of the cleanup of the site of the former Zeneca chemical manufacturing complex, where large quantities of contaminated soil have already been buried under a clay soil cap. 

Work could begin immediately under the approval issued by Bruce F. Wolfe, executive officer of the San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board. 

Cherokee-Simeon Ventures, a partnership of a Marin County developer and a Colorado firm specializing in developments on rehabilitated toxic sites, is proposing a 1,330-unit residential complex of high-rise, mid-rise and townhouse condos plus low-rise loft apartments adjacent to the marsh. 

Tuesday morning’s meeting in the second-floor conference room of an office building on the site attracted a standing-room-only crowd, with large contingents from state regulators, the developers and concerned neighbors. 

While the marsh cleanup was a foregone conclusion, the residential complex is another matter entirely, said Stephen J. Morse, assistant executive officer for the Water Quality Control Board. 

“We’re not anywhere close to discussing homes on the site,” he said. 

During the century it operated until its closure in 1997, the 40-acre site—located west of I-580, southwest of Meade Street, near the Bayview Avenue exit—housed plants producing industrial and agricultural chemicals. 

At the site, Stauffer Chemical refined sulfur from iron pyrite, adding high levels of contaminants to the soil, and Zeneca, Inc., added additional noxious compounds from the production of nitric acid, fungicides, herbicides, insecticides and a potpourri of other compounds. 

“My understanding is that there are arsenic concentrations on this site,” said Contra Costa County Health Director Wendell Brunner. 

“This site’s got everything,” replied Morse. 

Curtis Scott, chief of the Regional Water Quality Control Board’s Groundwater and Waste Containment Division—the lead agency on the site cleanup—said 98 percent of the site remediation had been completed, 90 percent of it before Cherokee-Simeon bought the property. 

Cleanup of the marsh adjacent to the bay has been mandated because the soils contain levels of metals that, while judged safe for humans, have proven harmful to birds and other creatures living at the interface between land and sea. 

The polluted fill will be replaced by certified clean soil which is now being trucked into the site, Scott said. 

Because of shorebird nesting seasons—including that of the endangered clapper rail, a bird which has been observed on the site—the timeline for marsh excavation is limited to a short window in the fall. 

The excavated muck would be stored on the project site until spring, when it would be shipped out after drying sufficiently to enable on-site compacting, said Bill Carson, a specialist for Emeryville-based LFR Levine Fricke, the environmental clean-up firm conducting the site restoration. 

Many site neighbors were frustrated that the meeting had been called on short notice and scheduled during the workday, and all of them were concerned about surface dust blowing off the muck piles and onto their property. 

Their immediate concerns centered on wind-blown dust from the drying surface of the muck heaps reaching their businesses on property adjacent to or near the site. 

Cecil Felix, the water board’s project manager for the cleanup, said monitoring stations, one of them a mobile unit which could be repositioned as conditions warrant, would detect any wind-blown dust leaving the site and notify staff by pagers. 

Other sensors monitor for volatile organic compounds, a class of chemicals that includes some particularly toxic compounds. 

Work would be shut down at the first visible sign of dust leaving the site, he said. 

In the event they spotted blowing dust, neighbors asked what they could do to spark a shutdown.  

“We have the authority to do that,” Felix said. “We’re not that far away. We can make a trip down here,” from the board’s Oakland office and shut down work. 

How many calls would it take to provoke a shutdown, asked Jesse Kray, whose Kray Cabling Inc. is adjacent to the site on 49th Street. “What is the actual process? Is it one call and you’ll be out here? Two calls? Three calls?” 

“It shouldn’t be the responsibility of people living around here to do the monitoring,” said Dr. Brunner. 

Scott finally acknowledged that the board usually acts after five calls have been received. 

“Please give me a call if you have problems,” said Russ Pitto, head of Simeon Properties. 

“We’re looking for success here,” said Morse. 

The highest ranking state official on the scene was Rick Brausch, assistant secretary for external affairs of the California Environmental Protection Agency, which has overall supervision of the agencies involved in the cleanup. 

“They are asking you as a regulatory agency to give them some assurance that measures are in place to monitor the project and that you will shut things down if there is any risk of exposure,” Brausch interjected. 

Scott assured him that such was the case. 

Shortly before he left the meeting, health director Brunner acknowledged that “things have certainly moved forward since July in terms of responses form regulatory agencies, but it’s clear that there’s more work to do. 

“It will be helpful for future meetings for the regulatory agencies to lay out what’s there on the site and what material they’re moving out. The University of California did that,” he said, adding that “a lot of the questions raised here are absolutely clearly appropriate.” 

Pollution levels are even worse in marshland on the UC Berkeley Field Station to the north of Campus Bay, said Scott, describing them as “very, very huge.” The university site includes portions which also housed Zeneca plants. 

The same neighbors who had harsh words for Cherokee-Simeon joined Brunner in singing the praises of the university, which has conducted tours of the station, pointing out environmental hot spots. 

“The university was very forthcoming, very straightforward. They gave me a greater comfort level than I’ve had over here,” said one neighbor. “Sherry Padgett (a Richmond resident active in opposing the development) and other people in this community have had to fight tooth and nail every time we finally get information, and every time we get it, we find out that there’s more information behind the information and we have to fight to get that.” 

“The residents of Marina Bay have received nothing,” said Dr. Claudia Carr, a resident of Marina Bay, a residential community to the northwest. A UC Berkeley Professor of Environmental Science, Policy & Management, Carr has been active in the movement challenging and the handling of the cleanup. Like many others, she opposes the residential project. ª

On a typical day Berkeley’s Veterans’ Memorial Building has plenty of veterans inside; they just aren’t where one would expect to find them. 

The door marked “Disabled Veterans of America, Post 25”, just to the right past the front entrance, actually ope ns into the janitor’s closet. As for the door marked American Legion, Post 7, that’s now the entrance to the men’s room. 

Most of the veterans who frequent the building at 1931 Center St. do so to use the numerous city services which operate inside. The b asement is home to a men’s shelter and the Veterans’ Hall on the first floor houses the nonprofit Options Recovery Services. 

Now some local veterans’ organizations—angry over the perceived commandeering of the building by social service agencies—want a s tronger voice in what they say is rightfully theirs.  

“They’ve been made to feel like squatters in a place dedicated to them,” said Mark Chandler of the Alameda County Veterans Affairs Commission. 

Acting on the requests of Berkeley veterans’ groups, Cha ndler has lobbied Mayor Tom Bates, Rep. Barbara Lee and city officials to rehabilitate the seismically unsafe building and restore access to it for both veterans and the community. 

Currently, Chandler said, in the cavernous building the Disabled American Veterans and the American Legion have been relegated to a six-foot by nine-foot meeting room, and the Veterans of Foreign Wars have left for Albany where the veterans’ building has been renovated. 

A seismic upgrade that could open up more of the Berkele y building to public use, however, seems unlikely. The project would cost an estimated $12 million, according a 2002 city manager’s report and with the city already facing a $7.5 million shortfall next year, there is little political support for a bond me asure. 

Currently the second floor of the building is off-limits to the public. The first floor and basement remain open because they have direct exits to egress in the case of an emergency. 

Since the building is on the National Register of Historic Plac es as part of a historic district, Chandler asked Rep. Lee to seek federal funding to upgrade it. 

Ed Harper, adjutant of the Berkeley’s Disabled American Veterans (DAV) Post 25, said his group, which meets once a month, didn’t have designs on taking over space from the social services, but wanted the city to make a concerted effort to restore the building and include them in the building’s management, as required by agreement. 

“What we need is respect that we exist and this is a veterans’ building,” he said. 

One token of respect the city can show, said Chandler, would be to restore veteran access in the evenings to Veterans Hall, where for years veterans held gatherings, but now is essentially an office space for Options.  

“You can’t do anything in th ere anymore,” he said. 

The ornate first floor auditorium had previously been used by a variety of civic groups for formal gatherings, said Ken Cardwell of the Berkeley Historical Society, which is also based in the veterans’ building and like other nonpr ofit tenants doesn’t pay rent to the city.  

Berkeley’s veterans’ building was completed in 1928, around the same time other veterans’ buildings sprung up in Alameda County thanks to a state law allowing counties to set aside taxes revenue to construct buildings “in memory of veterans.” 

The county maintained eight veterans’ buildings, including the one in Berkeley, until the late 1980s when budgetary constraints forced it to transfer most of them to the host cities.  

Berkeley veterans’ groups, fearful they would lose special privileges, fought the transfers. 

As far back as 1980, Councilmembers Gilda Feller and Florence McDonald proposed wresting control of the building from the county to house nonprofits. The building, they wrote in a proposal to the council, was only used two evenings a week for veterans’ meetings and rentals to other groups at the discretion of the Veterans Commission. 

Ultimately, Berkeley veterans negotiated a deal with the city when Berkeley finally took control in 1988, a year b efore the Loma Prieta earthquake. 

The veterans’ groups were given exclusive use of the second floor, one office on the first floor, the right to use other portions of the building on the same conditions as other members of the public, and a guarantee tha t their input “shall be sought by the city manager in developing building uses and improvements.” 

However, Chandler said, the commission designed to guarantee veterans’ input was disbanded and the city closed access to the second floor shortly after the earthquake. 

In 1992, the homeless shelter moved into the basement and a few years ago Options took over Veterans Hall. 

Chandler said his group has fought other cities to preserve the rights of veterans, and after reaching a settlement to transform a po rtion of the veterans’ building in Oakland into a senior center, he said, “Berkeley is the only one we have a problem with right now.” 

If the veterans and other civic groups have gotten squeezed out of Veterans’ Hall, city officials and representatives o f the non-profits insist it wasn’t by design. 

“It never even occurred to me that people couldn’t use [the hall] for general purposes anymore,” said Marci Jordan, who runs the homeless shelter and sits on the board of Options Recovery Services. 

Since Opt ions received permission about three years ago from former City Manager Weldon Rucker to move from the basement to the first floor, the group has erected cubicles along the sides of Veterans Hall and on the main stage, making it difficult for civic groups to use the venue for events. 

ªa

Building on the city’s reputation as being one of the homes of the best and the brightest, two Berkeley-based winners were among the 23 recipients of this year’s MacArthur Fellowship awards. 

David Green, executive director of technology transfer compan y Project Impact, and UC Berkeley assistant history professor Maria Mavroudi each received five-year, half-a-million-dollar grants from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Fellowship awards from the Chicago-based foundation come with the po pularly-accepted title of “MacArthur genius.” There are no restrictions on how the monetary awards can be used. 

MacArthur Fellowships cannot be applied for. Rather recipients are nominated by an anonymous committee, and the recipients are not supposed to know that they are under consideration until they receive notice of their awards from the foundation. 

Green, who holds a Master of Public Health Degree from the University of Michigan, founded the nonprofit Project Impact four years ago for the purpose of developing, manufacturing, and distributing affordable medical technologies to Third World countries. His company describes itself as a “compassionate capitalist company.” Green has also received social entrepreneur fellowships from both the Ashoka glo bal organizations and the Schwab Foundation. 

Through its Affordable Hearing Aid Project, Project Impact sells high-end hearing aids in undeveloped areas of the world for less than $200 apiece, more than one-tenth the price that such hearing aids sell for commercially. 

In 1992, Green helped establish Aurolab, an India-based company which manufactures plastic implants used to restore sight to patients suffering from cataracts and other eye diseases. The now independent company produces hundreds of thousan ds of such lenses a year, distributed in more than 85 countries at a substantially lower price ($4 per lens) than such lenses available in developed countries ($100 in the United States). 

Project Impact spokesperson Ramona Lugo Pedersen said that Green was presently traveling on the east coast and “pretty overwhelmed” by the award. She said the MacArthur money “ensures that David will be able to continue his outreach indefinitely, which is fantastic. This really lights a fire under him so that he can go forward with the research and exploration.” 

Pedersen said that Green “now wants to turn inward to apply the affordable hearing aid project to the United States,” a project which she said is being considered in coordination with the Lions organization. Pr oject Impact is also currently working on a program to distribute AIDS medicines at low prices. 

Green says that there is no mystery to his price structure: he simply practices high-volume, low-profit-margin sales as opposed to the low-volume, high-profit-margin practices used by most medical technology companies. Last year, he told Business Week magazine that “demystifying the cost structure” was “the key to making any technology affordable.” 

UC assistant professor Mavroudi has been using her skills as a “language detective” to explore links between the Greek medieval empire of Byzantium and its Islamic neighbors. It is a field of study that once might have been thought of as obscure, but has taken on increasing importance with the need to understand the roots of the current rise of conflict between the Christian and Muslim worlds. 

The 37-year-old Mavroudi said in a statement that when she answered the phone she had no idea of why a MacArthur Foundation might be calling her, and “thought that maybe he wanted my opinion on someone else. I just couldn’t believe he would be calling to announce I was a winner.” 

She said she has not yet decided how she will use the grant money, except that it will almost certainly be an aid in her research. 

Martin Jay, chair of UC Berkeley’s History Department, had high praise for Mavroudi. “In a very short time,” he said, “[she] has established herself as a path-breaking, internationally acclaimed scholar in the history of Byzantine-Arabic cultural relations in the 10th century, as well as a brilliant philologist and translator of earlier texts from the ancient world. The implications of her work for the more general issue of cultural contacts between the great civilizations of the world are profound.” 

A philologist is someone who studies the relationships between literature and language. 

Mavroudi, who grew up in Greece, holds a B.A. from the University of Thessaloniki, Greece and an M.A. and Ph.D. from Harvard University. She is the author of “A Byzantine Book on Dream Interpretation: The Oneiroticon of Achmet and its Arabic Sources.” 

After nine straight hours on her feet as an event usher, Carol Harris could sympathize with the workers she passed at 11:30 p.m. who were walking a 24-hour picket outside the Claremont Hotel at the end of August.  

That’s why Harris honked three short times in support as she headed up through the heavy traffic on Ashby Avenue, past the hotel and towards her Oakland home. The next thing she knew, Harris saw flashing lights. A Berkeley police officer pulled her over and issued a ticket for unreasonable use of her horn. 

“I could see if I laid on the horn for 50 years, but three short beeps?” said Harris, who thought about fighting the ticket but finally decided to pay it, but not before calling the Daily Planet to complain. Nonetheless, she is still wondering why she was pulled over for such a minor infraction. “I was so pissed off, just because I empathize with these people who are making slave wages, they must have really meant it if they were out there at 11 p.m.” 

According to Joe Oakies, the Public Information Officer for the Berkeley Police, Berkeley and Oakland officers responded to the picket after neighbors complained about the noise created by the picket, including the car horns. He said officers were in the area from around 11 p.m. to 2 a.m. and issued roughly 30 citations. 

The picket, which started on the night of Aug. 27 and lasted for the next 27 hours, was organized by the Oakland-based Hotel and Restaurant Employees (HERE) union local 2850. It was meant to commemorate the three-year anniversary of their boycott against the hotel which has refused to sign a union contract for spa workers and renew two existing contracts for other employees. 

Before the police showed up, some neighbors came down to the picket and respectfully asked the union to give them warning before scheduling another all-night picket, according to Claire Darby, an organizer with the union. 

“There were one or two that said ‘you are driving me crazy, please go away,’” she said. 

Before issuing the honking tickets, officers also forced the union to shut down their amplified sound in compliance with the sound permit issued by the Oakland city clerk. 

The union did so, but asked the officer’s to refrain from issuing tickets. They told officers that motorists would have no way to know they would violate the law by honking. Picketers tried to make a sign that told passersby not to honk, according to Darby, but they couldn’t find anything big enough to convey the message in the dark. They resorted to using hand gestures to deter people from honking but were not very successful. 

“I think there is a lot of support for Claremont workers in Berkeley and Oakland and you cannot shut it down,” said Darby. It was also ironic, said Darby, because one of the officers issuing citations was on a motorcycle that made noise every time the officer started it up to chase a car. 

“The motorcycle was making more noise that we were,” said Darby.ª

A boor given to embarrassing behavior, an American lackey on Iraq, a clown. He toes the U.S. line of not dealing with terrorists, yet his government may have secretly paid a ransom to free two kidnapped Italian aid workers. These are some of the darts critics throw at Italy’s Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. Yet, none seems to matter to the Italian electorate as Berlusconi has managed to hold onto power. What explains his mystique?  

To Italians who had seen lifelong politicians run their state to the ground and cover it with shame, Berlusconi's rise as a political force was a fresh start. The continuing failure of the Italian political system to represent the aspirations, dreams and needs of Italy’s average citizens has helped keep his grip on the helm of state. 

The famous Mani Pulite (Clean Hands) anti-corruption sweep that ousted Italy’s postwar political elite in the 1990s made room for Berlusconi’s rise. The Tangentopoli corruption scandal confirmed the popular impression that all politicians were from a party-based oligarchy that perpetuated regimes of privilege for politicians and their chosen “special interests” or constituencies. 

Government by coalition prevailed in Italy from the end of World War II, an arrangement in which majority and minority parties co-managed Italian political life. The downfall in the late 1980s of the Christian Democrats, the centrist party that governed Italy alone or in coalitions without interruption, revealed a labyrinth of bribes and kickbacks that consumed the entire political system. Even the Communist Party, which had floated above the fray and was only peripherally touched by the corruption scandals, was infected by the virus of profiteering. 

With the resulting investigation of political leaders and parliamentarians, the Italian political system crumbled like a house of cards. Arrests and convictions decapitated the Christian Democrats, who split in at least three groups to become a shadow of what once Italy’s most powerful party. The Socialist Party, which led the governing coalition from the mid-’80s to the early ‘90s, was swept away by the uproar. Its leader Bettino Craxi—the longest-serving prime minister of postwar Italy, until Berlusconi equaled his record last month—fled to Tunisia to escape arrest.  

In this climate of chaos, institutional crisis and economic recession, Berlusconi—a self-made billionaire with extensive interests in real estate, media and publishing—made his first move for control of the Italian political system.  

Voters believed he knew the value of hard work, and he never missed an opportunity to stress that this was what set him apart from his opponents. Voters ignored his left-wing critics, who accused him of belonging to the Loggia P2, a covert Masonic organization that conspired to control the political system since the 1970s. Voters ignored his 1988 conviction for perjury for denying his P2 ties, and that he was under investigation for corruption and bribery.  

With his media empire Berlusconi has had no problem shaping public opinion to his liking. He conveys the image of an average guy who happens to have the means to launch a personal crusade to save Italy from the grip of leftists and jaded politicians. He founded the Forza Italia (Go Italy!) party, calling for the emancipation of the average citizen from the intrusions of an overbearing state. He won the majority of the popular vote and earned the right to form a new government.  

The first Berlusconi government lasted about 6 months. He lacked the numbers to rule alone. As the coalition he formed fell apart, his government was forced to resign. But he rose again in 5 years. A bickering center-left coalition led by Romano Prodi took over, then fell apart in 1998, followed by a series of governments led by technocrats, including Massimo D’Alema, a former Communist. This political merry-go-round further disenchanted the electorate. 

The second half of the 1990s saw the rise of a strong “me first” mentality among average Italians. Gone were the anti-fascist ideals of post-Resistance Italy. Hedonistic personal improvement and leisure became the national preoccupation. In this climate, Berlusconi’s call to get the state out of people’s personal lives, meaning, out of the citizens’ path to wealth, resonated strongly with former Christian Democrats, disgraced ex-Socialists and the so-called “qualunquisti” or the growing portion of the public disinterested in politics and oblivious of the nation’s history.  

It can no longer be denied that today’s Italians are markedly different, politically and culturally, from those of the first republic born out of World War II. Berlusconi, as a modern-day model of personal success, appeals to these new Italians. His near-monopoly of the TV market and overwhelming influence on the Italian media conveniently perpetuate popular tendencies. Berlusconi understands that Italy needs a new ethic and puts forth a cocktail of American-style-almost Reaganesque-free-market values. 

Left commentators, political analysts and parties have yet to provide a real alternative to Italians’ yearning for personal wealth and freedom. Rehashed ideological programs or tweaked versions of Berlusconi’s political agenda won’t do. Berlusconi may be a “buffoon,” but he has feet planted on the zeitgeist. Italy’s center and left reformers have their work cut out for them: How do you solve a problem like the modern Italian mentality?  

Paolo Pontoniere is the San Francisco-based correspondent of Focus, Italy's leading monthly magazine.  

ª

With nearly 100 residents in Berkeley and Albany nearing the end of their first week without telephone service, SBC, as of press time Thursday, continued to repair water-logged underground cables. 

The telephone company expected to restore service to the customers before Friday, said SBC spokeswoman Bridget Stachowski.  

Since service first failed last Friday evening, she said, the company had restored service to about 90 percent of the estimated 960 homes and business affected in a radius stretching from just north of Solano Avenue to Hopkins Street in Berkeley. 

Telephones died at approximately 8 p.m. Friday when SBC’s air pressure system malfunctioned. Without the system, designed to keep ground water away from fragile telephone cables, water flooded four cables at the corner of Marin Street and Ventura Avenue, one block south of Solano Avenue. 

The damaged cables sit in the heart of the Marin Watershed where the water table is high and culverts are built into adjacent streets to carry creek water into the Bay.  

Stachowski said replacing the cables was a laborious process that entailed connecting thousands of wires. 

“We’ve had people out there nearly 24 hours a day,” she said. 

Business owners interviewed Thursday said the telephone problems hadn’t severely impacted sales. 

“We couldn’t pass through credit card purchases this morning, but for the most part it hasn’t had any effect,” said Pete Raxakoul of Coffee Market on Hopkins Street, which experienced brief service interruptions Thursday. 

Jennie at Lilly’s Restaurant, also on Hopkins, said the restaurant’s telephone had a lot of static, but never went out of service. 

The service disruptions have not followed a consistent pattern. On the 1600 block of Solano Avenue, just one block from the damaged cables, shopkeepers said their telephone service hadn’t been affected. Meanwhile five blocks south at the corner of Hopkins and Monterey Avenue, most of the merchants on the south side of the street said they suffered sporadic service failures, while across the street at the Elixir Salon, telephones worked throughout the week. 

Also several merchants and residents reported not losing service until Sunday or even later this week. 

Stachowski said the service failure likely hit different customers at different times because it took time for the water to seep through different lines in the cable. 

She added that malfunction of the air pressure system was rare. 

Neil Meyer, who doesn’t own a cell phone, has been traveling to his Berkeley office to make personal calls since his telephone service died Sunday. 

“I keep bumping into people who tried to call me,” he said.ª

People’s Park is not just a park—it’s an institution. It’s home to all sorts of people, gardeners, hopeful athletes, dancers, poets and musicians, and many of Berkeley’s poor, homeless and hungry. 

In the course of a year the park hosts a variety of events and a big annual bash celebrating the park’s anniversary, now in its 36th year. And in the course of every week a great variety of food appears in the park for distribution to diverse but hungry people. There are drop-offs of quantities of surplus bread, cakes and other goods from local markets and from time to time a group will bring their left-overs from a fancy dinner party. 

Organizations provide regular meals. Progressive, service-oriented Catholic Workers serve breakfasts, social justice activists Food Not Bombs serve vegetarian dinners weekday afternoons. Sometimes the Hari Krishnas or a church group will show up with a meal. The food activities are centered around the stage. There is a log to set the dishes on for servers that don’t bring their own tables and there are plenty of pleasant places for folks to sit and enjoy their meals. 

Since last March another meal serving has been appearing at 4 p.m. on Thursdays and Fridays, and the word has gone out that these are some delicious meals. Last Thursday for example, people had a choice of any or all of the many dishes—pasta with sausages, seasoned mashed potatoes, a vegetarian tofu and squash dish, fish sticks, and a lovely mixed green salad. There was tea and Pepsi to drink and Ghirardelli chocolate squares for desert. Almost 200 people enjoyed that meal. 

The people who prepare and serve these meals are not strangers on the scene. Ina Ehrenfeucht has been coordinator of Dorothy Day House meal programs for fourteen years. J.C. Orton and his Catholic Worker Night on the Streets van are a familiar sight in the park and the streets providing food for the hungry and homeless. Richard Weaver, who has worked as a chef and caterer and loves to cook, has been cooking for friends, homeless and housed, for many years. Other members of their crew have experienced homelessness and are equally committed to serving good food to the community.  

They are all volunteers. They got together because there was a need, a sudden gap in the fabric of the food network providing for the homeless and poor people. For 30 years the Berkeley Emergency Food and Housing Project (BEFHP) has been providing a number of services for the poor, including the Quarter Meal. It’s a hot meal served every weekday afternoon costing a quarter (though nobody is turned away for lack of a quarter). Quarter Meal is prepared and served at Trinity Methodist Church at Bancroft and Dana.  

But times are tough. Agencies providing social services for the needy are confronting serious erosion of their funding from both government and private sources. BEFHP runs more than a half dozen different programs—and this costs a lot of money. They had to reduce their expenses which meant setting priorities and cutting programs. They decided to focus more on homelessness than on hunger, a terrible decision to have to make. A big expense is paying at least a minimum wage and providing decent benefits for their staff. Ironically, most of the people working at the BEFHP are themselves living marginally, and if they were laid off they would immediately become clients of the agency. Cutting out two days of the Quarter Meal was the least painful way to go. 

When the cutback was announced, Ina called Richard, Richard called some of his friends who like to cook, they connected with J.C. Orton and they all agreed that they had to fill the gap. Officially they’re sponsored by Night on the Streets, much of their food comes from St. Vincent de Paul, BEFHP gives them a small stipend for paper plates and such, and this dedicated crew of cooks gives their collective time and energy and love. 

“Ina and I are sort of directors” Richard says, but “there’s nobody in charge. If Eric or Jim comes up with an idea, fine...” 

Getting those meals out every Thursday and Friday is a big commitment. Richard says he is very aware that “I can’t screw up and not show up one day ... most of the people who come to the meals are friends of mine.” 

Ina is pragmatic about her motivation. “It’s a job that needs to be done. A need which needs to be filled,” she says, but admits “I enjoy doing it.” 

Kevin Foos who comes from a Catholic Worker house in Rochester, New York, says “It’s a good way to do—feed people, fill them up not only with nourishment but good feelings and good love.” 

Philip Williams, who has worked as a cook and been through some hard times, says, “Seeing people eat has always made me happy. ... If people can start their day with a good meal they can make it through the day well. Or end their day well.” 

No one knows how long they will have to continue doing this, if and when Quarter Meal can resume the five days a week meal servings at Trinity, or what will happen when the weather gets cold and rainy.  

Ina and Richard and the rest of the crew have another vision too—they want to establish a catering business of their own. They’ve already had one successful gig and a promise of more. In the meantime, they are giving something very special to the community. What other city can boast about being able to offer free gourmet meals, to anyone in need, prepared by a group of great cooks—with a lot of love and respect included. 

ª

BERKELEY BUDGET 

Editors, Daily Planet:  

I find it highly amusing to read all the whining about the Berkeley budget when Berkeley is about to spend a couple of million dollars for the rich peoples’ amusement by replacing perfectly serviceable boat docks down at the Berkeley Marina. This approximately $2 million is going to only maybe 20 percent of the slips, so they’re going to be spending more in the future. 

I suggest they be a little more socially responsible and maintain what they’ve got and put those resources to housing the latest round of boat people they kicked out. 

Carl Max 

• 

LACKING SPECIFICS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The recent letter from Latinos Unidos criticizes some board candidates and touts two candidates who are running. But they neglect specifics. What exactly did the two school board members do or not do? What are the “innovative and effective solutions” which they didn’t “prioritize?” And what is the “vision” of the two candidates? How do they propose to achieve “excellence, equity, and achievement for all students?” 

Without specific details, it is impossible to take their letter seriously. 

Jenifer Steele 

• 

BAREFOOT CHILDREN 

Editors, Daily Planet:  

A recent article cited a lieutenant in Iraq who called his mother in Danville and told her that the heat makes it hard for barefoot Iraqi children to get about. Consequently, a collection of sandals for Iraqi children was initiated at a local school. With religious fury the shoes poured in. 

Piles and piles of shoes poured in, many donated by loving children who understood that other children have no shoes to protect their feet from the hot, hard ground. They don’t know, because we don’t tell them, that the lieutenant and his comrades are killing Iraqi fathers and mothers and yes, even barefoot children, because they live on land which has oil and waterways coveted by our government. Nobody tells the lieutenant and his comrades, either, but everybody knows. 

The husband of a friend of mine has lived for many years in a mental health institution. Every night he dreams of little brown, bare-bottomed children running away. He was told by his commanding officer in Vietnam to “shoot anything that moves.” He was a good soldier and he followed orders. 

Piles of shoes may soothe our consciences, but a dead child is still a dead child, with or without shoes.  

Lillian Euchenhofer 

• 

DRIVER LICENCES 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

As a life-long Democrat, I applaud Gov. Schwarzenegger’s veto of Assembly Bill 2895 to grant driver licenses to undocumented immigrants. I was told by a deputy of Loni Hancock that such licenses would improve traffic safety, but he provided no supporting evidence. Common sense, as well as my personal experience as a result of a temporary illness, suggests that unlicensed people drive more carefully, not less carefully, in order to avoid detection. 

A reported 1,000 undocumented immigrants cross from Mexico into the U.S. each day, and the U.S. Census Bureau projected that California population will increase 52 percent between 2000 and 2025. We need to plan and pay for expanded infrastructure which is not being done, for budgetary reasons, at the present time. Encouraging or partially legitimizing undocumented immigration with driver’s licenses demeans other individuals who follow the rules, both in the native and the host country (my legally adopted son was born in the Dominican Republic). I have not heard good reasons from my fellow liberal Democrats for granting such licenses except political expediency. 

Robert Gable  

• 

JOHN SELAWSKY 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The Latinos Unidos commentary opposing the re-election of Berkeley School Board President John Selawsky (“Latino Group Praises Board Candidates,” Daily Planet, Sept. 28-30) was not only misdirected but entirely omitted any mention of John’s many significant accomplishments as board president. 

It is critical to understand that within the first two months of John’s term, he inherited a fiscal nightmare (the district was $5-$6 million in the red at the time) that threatened to implode the school district and likely force it into a state receivership similar to the state takeover of the Oakland School District. 

Under John’s leadership, a successful three-year recovery plan was implemented that rebuilt the district’s fiscal, personnel and payroll systems. Without this recovery plan, the challenges within the Berkeley Unified School District would likely have been very difficult or impossible to address. 

Working with Berkeley Arts in Education, John spearheaded the effort to maintain art and music program needs for all of Berkeley’s middle schools. Moreover, John has overseen the successful transition to establish “small school” academic settings in district schools—a crucial component toward improved academic success across the district.  

As a middle school teacher, I appreciate John’s professional integrity, knowledge and accessibility as a board member. His board colleagues selected John as board president for these qualities. John is also the father of a Berkeley High School student. 

John is endorsed by Alameda County Schools Superintendent Sheila Jordan, veteran BUSD teacher Jessie Anthony, Community College Trustee Darryl Moore, Mayor Tom Bates and dozens of community members. 

Chris Kavanagh  

• 

KEEPING SCORE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The president was applauded at the beginning of his campaign for declaring that given a choice between defending Saddam Hussein and defending America, “I’ll choose America, every time.” Last week using similar logic Mr. Bush repeated what has become a campaign leitmotiv: “If we stop fighting terrorists in Iraq, they would be free to plan attacks in America and other countries.”  

No one of sane mind advocates giving up the struggle against terrorism. Furthermore, there were no terrorists in Iraq before the occupation and that means his invasion of Iraq was not to fight terrorists. Nevertheless, despite or maybe on account of such meaningless statements, Mr. Bush maintains a high approval rating. 

The same logic is used in the president’s unilateral promise: “I will never cede to other nations responsibility for the security of the American people.” 

The art of politics requires the ability to fashion statements that resonate among voters. Politicians score big if they say things so devoid of meaning that they cannot later be held accountable. In this respect Mr. Bush consistently scores higher than Mr. Kerry. 

Marvin Chachere  

• 

THE PAPER TRAIL 

Editors, Daily Planet:  

There has been a ridiculous amount of debate over the feasibility of a paper trail for electronic voting in order to later recount the votes cast to verify the tally—how impossible and/or expensive it would be, etc. Why, I don’t understand. Every time I buy groceries at any of at least four of my local food chains I get a highly itemized receipt telling me not only what I bought but how much, the regular price, the sale price, the quantity, any tax charged, and the amount of money I saved, the date, and the name, address and phone number of the store, and whether or not I am entered into some contest. I go to my local library and leave not only with my books but a printed receipt of the name of the book, its author, bar code number, when it is due, the present date, my name and the name and hours of the branch I visited.  

Yet the argument is that it would be impossible to do this sort of thing on a ballot! Let me point out that voting is not a peculiar, frivolous activity people get up to in a democracy but the very heart of democracy itself! The fact that here in the U.S. we have people who don’t vote because they are sufficiently ignorant about what’s on a ballot that they think there is nothing there for them since they don’t like the choices of candidates at the top only reflects how poorly we educate our populace. Even an enterprising chicken can find a whole corn kernel in what the cow leaves behind—surely there is something on a ballot which affects the voter such that a choice is desirable and welcome. It isn’t necessary for a paper ballot receipt to print out every item of choice available on the ballot, but simply the choices the voter has actually made—just as my supermarket sales receipt does not print out the name of everything available in the store but only what I bought at that time. 

We have sent people to the moon, we have cloned sheep, we have persuaded stem cells to turn into various new body cells—but somehow we find it too difficult to provide a paper trail to make sure there is an accurate recount in an election if any question arises! The makers of voting equipment with ties to particular political parties tell us to trust them, their software is honorable, impeccable and fail-proof as well! Remember Saint Ronald? “Trust, but verify!” Nevada recently managed this. So where in hell are the rest of us?  

Marcia Frendel 

• 

TAX MEASURES 

Editors, Daily Planet:  

Mayor Tom Bates should start telling the truth to the taxpayers of Berkeley. The increased taxes are to pay for the outrageously generous salaries, benefits and perks, enjoyed by members of the city’s bloated bureaucracy. City employees, unlike other municipalities, do not contribute to their own retirement fund. They can retire at age 50 at as much as 90 percent of their highest yearly salary for the rest of their lives. This fact alone will keep Berkeley in growing budget deficits year after year and the City of Berkeley will have to continue to raise taxes each year to pay for it! 

When you add the city-negotiated, automatic, five percent yearly salary increase, health and dental care (including family members), city-paid life insurance, city-paid membership to the YMCA, subsidies for public transportation, 14 sick days a year, three weeks paid vacation after four years, every holiday known to man, free parking, and the list goes on and on, you begin to have a real problem. We have more city employees per capita than any city in the East Bay and they can be neither fired or laid off. Mayor Bates signed away any right to renegotiate a contract and then has the nerve to come and ask the tax payers for more money or he is going to close the libraries! 

The people of Berkeley have to say no to any new taxes. They must demand an audit of the city finances and a renegotiation of contracts with the over-numerous and over-compensated city workers. They must wake up and realize that every time a project is approved for one of the numerous “nonprofits,” that parcel of property is taken off the tax rolls. The budget problem is then compounded because the “residents” of these now tax-exempt properties are the very ones who use a disproportionate amount of Berkeley’s generous services and resources. Taxpayers take a double hit. 

The City of Berkeley has been very smart in systematically increasing the number of renters and, therefore, their chances of passing tax increases. If Berkeley was truly concerned with helping families and improving neighborhoods, they would promote home ownership and sell condos instead they are building apartments at break neck speed and keeping people renters all their lives. But, homeowners, of course, bear the tax burden and are less likely to continually vote to raise taxes and more likely to ask questions and demand accountability form Berkeley city government. It is time for Berkeley to get a reality check instead of a blank check. Vote no on all tax measures.  

Michael Larrick  

• 

A CROOK 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates, has been a devious crook since way back. He now calls for a tax increase in Berkeley. He ought to cough up the money he misappropriated! Mr. Bates is the kind of Democrat who gives his party a black eye. 

Max Alfert 

Albany 

• 

BETTY OR NORINE? 

Editors, Daily Planet:  

Hillside District 6 was shaped by dedicated early citizens who melded homes and byways with the natural environment. We must continue that stewardship and elect a councilmember who knows this district via shoe sole route, who will protect the essence of this very special place. We need Norine Smith. 

When the shocking plans to destroy the most beautiful section of Codornices Creek at 1301 Oxford St. came forward, Norine protested, portraying a tree holding the bank, an essential component of a natural creek. The green canopy that attracted the first farm in Berkeley is now gone. A treeless channel has been substituted to make way for a driveway wide enough to load six buses. The current representative of District 6, Betty Olds, voted for it! Old’s aide and appointee to the Planning Commission had been instrumental in preventing any expansion on the site by the Chinese Christian Church; then her own congregation purchased the site and brought forward a plan for 35,000 square feet of development and Betty Olds voted for it! 

When a plan more recently came forward to remove a hundred trees from the Marina in order to pave a “spur trail” next to the south shore, Norine Smith led the protest as a member of the Waterfront Commission. Given the limited green space on the south shore of the marina and the necessity of boats crossing to the dock, kids crossing to the little beach to cross this new “spur trail,” and a more than adequate parallel roadway a block away, the proposal was a dangerous and destructive use of Bay Trail funds—funds still needed to complete Bay Trail. Betty Olds voted for the “spur,” to remove trees and widen paving in its place. 

Betty Olds has gone along with many development plans for certain developers that violate our adopted policies. For example, new buildings cantilever out over narrow sidewalks downtown so that there can never be effective street trees—even where the adopted Downtown Plan specifically says wider setbacks should be provided along Oxford Street and no other open space is being provided for all the new residences!  

Norine Smith knows our city as a pedestrian and will protect a human-scale, planet-friendly Berkeley. Betty Olds has demonstrated that she will not protect our heritage. 

It’s past time for a change. 

Eva Bansner 

• 

OAKLAND CRIME 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Kudos to Anthony Moore for his excellent letter in the Sept. 28 Daily Planet. 

Frankly, I have long been appalled at J. Douglas Allen-Taylor’s contorted defenses of the lumpen criminal element in Oakland ( “Police Chief Oversteps Bounds in Banning Shrines,” Daily Planet, Sept. 24-27). There is nothing cute or charming or funky about Oakland’s criminal element. Leftist apologias for underclass crime have longed played into the hands of the Right as the elections of the past 40 years have demonstrated. Nor does the law abiding element of the whole community, regardless of race, benefit from the permissive attitudes toward anti-social behavior indulged in by various public officials. 

That said, I do support the Daily Planet’s call to vote for Prop. 66 to reform the utter arbitrariness of the three strikes laws. One of the more asinine attacks on Prop. 66 came from our right-wing mayor, Jerry Brown, who by the way has done nothing to fight crime in Oakland. Let’s remember that when this joker runs for attorney general in 2006. 

Michael P. Hardesty 

Oakland 

• 

BRACE YOURSELVES 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Voters in Berkeley and others in California hope that in November Bush will be kicked out of the office he was put into by the Supreme Court. 

Unfortunately, after the media took Howard Dean and John Edwards out of the running for the Democrat nomination to be president, the hope for exciting speeches and a lively campaign for ending the disaster in Iraq ended. 

The Kerry campaign seems to think it will win the election on the basis of Kerry being a better war president than Bush. He says he will continue the Bush War in Iraq. The very reasons for Kerry and many others to had for opposing the war in Vietnam and Richard Nixon are the same reasons of those opposing the Bush War in Iraq today. The U.S.A. does not need another “war president.” 

The U.S.A. does not need more billions of dollars to spend on the war. Instead of admitting the war was a mistake and is making this country less safe, not more safe from attacks by those who hate what the Cheney, Rumsfeld and the rest of the Bush gang are doing in the Middle East.  

Republicans have gotten control of the commercial TV stations and Dick Cheney, and Dr. Strangelove Rumsfeld and Karl Rove are having their lies believed by over half of the American voters. It was a propaganda coup. If Bush Gang win this election they will also make over the Supreme Court—an issue seldom spoken about by the Kerry campaigners. Berkeley Democrats may think that all those demonstrations at the GOP convention reflect the mood of the rest of America, but unfortunately they do not. 

Unless someone convinces John Kerry that his present campaign strategy will lead to his defeat in November we had better brace ourselves for four more years of Cheney and Rumsfeld in control of the government and W. Bush as their dummy in the White house. 

If you want to know what the U.S.A. will be like then, read what happened in Chili after General Pinochet came to power. 

Max Macks 

• 

LAURIE CAPITELLI 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

As a student and renter on a limited income, I did not attend the Alligator’s Ball Fundraiser for District 5 Candidate Laurie Capitelli so cannot comment about which developers attended (“Deconstructing the Alligator’s Ball,” Daily Planet, Sept. 24-27.) However, I do know a few things about Capitelli’s record that should alarm all District 5 voters who are concerned about keeping Berkeley an affordable place to live. 

While on the Planning Commission, Laurie Capitelli unsuccessfully attempted to get language into the Berkeley General Plan that would have called for the repeal of rent control. In 2000, he also signed the ballot argument against Measure Y, which helped stop phony owner move-in evictions by real estate speculators. Berkeley voters passed Measure Y with 57 percent of the vote. 

Berkeley Citizens’ Action refused to endorse Capitelli at its meeting on Sunday, precisely because of his record opposing rent control. Nobody benefits if housing is made less affordable except for the real estate industry—which Capitelli has been a part of for over 20 years. Every District 5 voter should think hard before supporting him, and I am extremely disappointed at some progressives for supporting his candidacy because they view him as less objectionable than candidate Barbara Gilbert. 

Fortunately, there is a third candidate running in this race: Jesse Townley. Jesse Townley is the only District 5 candidate who supports rent control, and has been endorsed by City Councilmember Dona Spring, School Board President John Selawsky, and myself. He is also the only District 5 candidate to endorse the four pro-tenant candidates for the Rent Board. Townley deserves our support. 

Paul Hogarth 

Vice-Chair, Berkeley Rent Board  

• 

MEASURES J AND K 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

As the executive director of LifeLong Medical Care, Berkeley’s Community Health Center organization, I have decided to endorse Measures J and K. 

Every day LifeLong provides approximately 300 much needed medical visits to area residents. This amounts to 100,000 visits a year to people who have no insurance, people who have complex health problems, and people who need health services which fit their language or culture. Most of these people would have no other way to get health care except by waiting hours at a local emergency room to get very expensive and inappropriate care. Many, like our elders, also come to LifeLong because they know that we provide the best care available for their particular problem. 

In addition to payments from public insurance, LifeLong relies heavily on government grants and contracts to pay for the care and pharmacy costs for those who have no insurance. In the last several years we have seen those government funds reduced as budget makers at the federal, state and local levels struggle with deficits related to our war spending and tax cuts for the wealthy. When funds are reduced LifeLong is forced to turn away some of the uninsured people who seek care with us or restrict the pharmaceuticals that we can purchase for their care. 

I have decided to endorse Measures J and K because it is time to say, at least at the local level, that we as a community support people getting basic services and that we will not cave into Bush and Schwarzenegger policies. No budgeting process is perfect but Berkeley has done a good job trying to balance its budget and meet all of our needs at the same time. The city needs Measure J to avoid further cuts and it needs Measure K to assure that our kids get the services they need. 

Please support basic services in our community and join me in voting for Measures J and K. 

Marty Lynch 

• 

A CENTRIPETAL FORCE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I’m reading the follow-up book to Bowling Alone and came across this quote in the chapter titled Portland: Rick Seifert, publisher of the Hillsdale Connection: “Mass media are centrifugal. They pull your attention away from the community. A local paper is centripetal, it draws you in.” I thought it applied beautifully to your paper. That chapter, if no other in the book, is well worth a read. 

Dale Smith 

• 

GETTIN’ BUSY 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Are you one of the millions of American who believe George Bush’s policies are bad for our country? 

If so, I urge you not to become discouraged by polls or media coverage of this campaign. Don’t let anything deter you from your objective. If you want to defeat George Bush do everything in your power to register new Democratic voters and get them to the polls. Join a local phone bank calling swing states, write letters to unregistered women in swing states with Mainstream Moms Opposing Bush (www.themmob.com) or go to Nevada or Oregon to help register voters and get out the vote. 

The best political analysts are saying the voter turnout will decide the election. So don’t get discouraged, roll up your sleeves and get busy! 

Carole Bennett-Simmons 

?

East Bay liberal-progressives pride themselves on the fact that they saw the errors of Iraq early-on and long before the rest of the country—the half-truths and misstatements by the nation’s leaders, the faulty conclusions, the failure of the media to as k the tough questions and point out the inconsistencies. 

Odd, then, isn’t it, that Oakland—which sits in the heart of the East Bay—can’t seem to recognize it when that very same type of policy-by-dissembling occurs within its own borders. [American Herit age Dictionary note: Dissemble. “To conceal the real nature or motives of.”] 

We’re talking, again, about Oakland Police Chief Richard Word’s decision last week—without bringing it before the City Council—to ban violence victim street shrines. As far as w e can tell, the shrines—collections of stuffed animals and sympathy cards and flowers and candles and photos of the deceased—are generally spontaneous memorials put together by friends and families of the victims both to honor the memory of the victims an d to provide either a public notice or public protest of the manner of their deaths. 

But in the course of a couple of days last week, the shrines have come to be viewed by the general public as both dangerous and associated with the perpetrators of viole nce, rather than the victims and, thus, fair game for the chief’s banning. 

How did that happen so suddenly? Did the nature of the shrines change overnight, or did we misunderstand their true purpose all along? 

The answer, I think, is that the shrines h ave not changed at all, but have become an easy scapegoat for politicians and police who are under intense pressure from Oakland residents to decrease the city’s cycle of violence. [American Heritage Dictionary note: Scapegoat. “One bearing blame for othe rs.”] 

For the sake of advancing this discussion, let’s make one assumption and assume two facts.  

The assumption is that Oakland public and police officials want to diminish Oakland’s violence (we can leave off talking about why different officials want to diminish that violence for another day). 

The first fact to be assumed is that most of the causes of the city’s violence are well beyond the ability of the present city or police officials to affect. Still, they’ve got the job to do something about it, and when someone in Oakland gets shot, the public holds these city and police officials accountable. 

The second fact to be assumed is that whether or not Oakland’s total level of violence is lessening, the rate of murders in this city—which is the stat istic which the public and the press generally use to conceive whether the level of the city’s violence is rising or falling—has gone down from last year to this year. Because of that, violence in Oakland is less of a public issue than it was at this time last year. 

But now comes a horrific event that vaults Oakland’s violence back into the headlines and the top spot on the evening news. In mid-September, the Tribune reported two possibly-related East Oakland shootings within a dozen blocks of each other that left 10 people injured and two dead. The second shooting took place at the corner of 94th Avenue and A Street on the east side, at a street shrine memorial that had been set up for an earlier shooting victim. The shootings—which Oakland police belie ve are gang-related—were linked to earlier shootings at two separate funerals in Hayward, and caused an Oakland homicide investigator to say that it was “the most violence I’ve seen in such a short period of time since I’ve been an officer with the Oaklan d Police Department.” 

The string of shootings prompted shock and outrage across an Oakland that is, after all, not easily shocked and outraged. In response, Oakland’s police chief could have done a couple of things. He could have issued a statement sayin g that while the September shoot-outs were bad, they were an aberration. Anti-violence efforts are working and Oakland violence is going down, the chief could have said (if that, indeed, was actually true), and the chief could have added that Oakland poli ce were pursuing the perpetrators of these new shootings vigorously, and would have them arrested and brought to justice as soon as possible. In the alternative, if it were warranted, the chief might have made a decision to step up anti-gang efforts of the department. With the available evidence, we can’t judge whether either of these courses were the correct one. But either course might have lessened the public pressure on the police department and allowed them to move forward with serious anti-violence measures. 

Instead, Chief Word made the oddest of choices. He decided to attack the street shrines—rather than the shooters, the gangs, or other conditions—as the source of the September shoot-outs. But it’s not just Word’s choice of the shrines as a targ et that’s the most interesting, it’s the choice of words used by the chief and others in the Tribune that draw our attention. “The [shrines] seem to be a magnet for violence,” Word is quoted as saying. “You can almost count on some sort of retaliatory vio lence while people are mourning at these shrines.” 

And later in the Trib’s Sept. 17 story: “Word said bottles of liquor and drug paraphernalia, which are often a part of the shrines, will be thrown away. Many of the mourners have also begun spray-paintin g slogans of remembrance and gang graffiti around the shrines.” And still later in the same story, the Trib quotes Fruitvale resident Svea O’Banion, a member of a group called Safety First, as saying that her neighborhood has been “held hostage by the shr ines” adding that “the shrines have often become a focal point for drug dealing, littering and loitering.” 

But as far as I can see, the Tribune—Oakland’s only daily newspaper—has not asked any tough questions on this issue or pointed out any inconsistenc ies in the statements of the people in favor of the chief’s unilateral shrine ban. Have any of the Bay Area’s other media outlets done any independent investigation? Not that I know of. 

Are Oakland’s street shrines actually a “magnet for violence,” as th e chief alleges? Can you “almost count on some sort of retaliatory violence” when they are set up? Do the shrines—all of them, most of them, or more than a few of them—contain drug paraphernalia and spray-painted gang signs? Do they “often” become the “fo cal point” for drug dealing and littering? 

How did Oakland’s shrines go so quickly from protests against violence to the actual causes of violence? Did that actually happen, or is that just somebody’s spin? Were the street shrines made the target because it’s easier to take down a stuffed bear and a pot of flowers than it is to break up a violent street gang? Did politics drive this decision? Have Oaklanders been played? Or has our desire for quick solutions to hard problems led to no solutions at all? 

Questions. Questions. Questions. Clearly, my friends, there’s more here to be talked about in order to get some answers. 

ª

As the election approaches, the Bush Administration is appealing for votes from the military and from civilians who want to feel safe from terrorist attacks.  

It is a good idea to check what this Administration is doing about members of the military who decide they can no longer fight and kill others. 

16. To Deal Fairly With Conscientious Objector Claims 

All males in the U.S., legally or illegally, are required to register with the Selective Service System on reaching 18 (except men on travel or student or diplomatic visas). The form no longer provides space to apply for Conscientious Objector status. 

The No Child Left Behind Act permits school districts to automatically turn over names, addresses, and telephone numbers of every high school student to the U.S. military to receive recruitment material, unless parents request otherwise. The Peace Fresno Education Committee insisted that their school board notify all parents that they could opt out. 

Since January, 2004, several hundred U.S. Service members have applied for Conscientious Objector (CO) status, although few have gone public. Very few applicants receive a discharge. Decisions on CO applications take six months to a year, sometimes longer, and statistics on COs lag about one year. The military also does not count CO applications from servicemen absent without leave. 

Report 16.1 

Department of Defense Consistently Denies Conscientious Objector Status (Gabriel Packard, “Hundreds of Soldiers Emerge as Conscientious Objectors,” Common Dreams, Apr. 15, 2003.) 

Report 16.2 

Department Of Defense Deploys Conscientious Objector Applicant to Iraq (“Army Ships GI Who Tried to File CO Claim to Iraq After First Isolating Him To Barracks,” Citizen Soldier, June 2003.)  

Report 16.3 

Marine Corps Sentences Conscientious Objector Applicant (“Demand Freedom for Stephen Funk 1st War Resister to be jailed Nov. 15, 2003 - Camp Lejeune Military Base, North Carolina,” Refusing to Kill, Nov. 10-14, 2003.)  

17. Not to Maintain Weapons of Mass Destruction or Design New Nukes 

Since 9/11, many people have become concerned about the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and about some of the weapons the U.S. is using there. The Lawyers Committee on Nuclear Policy says the Bush Administration announced that it is out of, or is trying not to comply with: Antiballistic Missile Treaty, Biological & Toxic Weapons Convention, UN Agreement To Curb International Flow of Illicit Small Arms, International Criminal Court Treaty, Land Mines Treaty, and Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.  

Report 17.1 

Administration Acts Against Commitments To Limit Arms (Nicole Deller, Arjun Makhijani, and John Burroughs, “Multilateral Treaties Are Fundamental Tools for Protecting Global Security,” Lawyers’ Committee on Nuclear Policy, June 2004.) 

Report 17.2  

DOD, Congress Trying To Change Nuclear Weapons Policies (Carl Hulse, “Senate Backs New Research on A-Bombs,” New York Times, June 16, 2004, p. A16.) 

Report 17.3 

Bush Ignores World Court Opinion on Nuclear Weapons (Walter C. Uhler, “Policy is a dangerous return to anxieties of the Cold War,” Philadelphia Enquirer, March 18, 2002.) 

Report 17.4 

U.S. Forces Use Depleted Uranium in Iraq; Many Affected (Juan Gonzales, “Poisoned?: Shocking report reveals local troops may be victims of America’s high-tech weapons,” The New York Daily News, April 3, 2004.)  

Report 17.5 

U.S. Contaminating Afghanistan with Uranium (Dr. Mohammed Daud Miraki, “The Silent Genocide from America,” Afghan DU & Recovery Fund, June 5, 2003.) 

The Government’s Duties to Protect People’s Rights 

The founding fathers had two basic concerns about the rights and liberties of themselves and their fellow residents of the new United States: fairness and freedom.  

18. To Guarantee Due Process of Law, Right to Counsel, and Habeas Corpus 

It is instructive that the people who had just defeated the King of England in battle immediately put into their written Constitution in Article I, Section 9, the Clause 2: “The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.” Anyone arrested or detained or incarcerated has a right immediately to file a petition for the writ to find out why they are being held. A hearing on a habeas corpus petition is the moment when the jailer must tell the judge, in the presence of the detainee, on what charge the detainee is being held.  

The founders placed this right in the basic Constitution, with no limitations on who has this right. They obviously intended that anyone coming within the jurisdiction of the U.S. would have this right, whether citizen or alien, illegal immigrant or person held on territory governed by the U.S.  

The revolutionary citizens of 1787 were willing to wait to spell out further rights in civil and criminal cases in the Bill of Rights, adopted in 1791. The Fifth Amendment “right to due process of law” covers both civil and criminal cases.  

To be continued... 

Berkeley resident Ann Fagan Ginger is a lawyer, teacher, activist and the author of 24 books. She won a civil liberties case in front of the U.S. Supreme Court in 1959. She is the founder and executive director of the Meiklejohn Civil Liberties Institute, a Berkeley-based center for human rights and peace law. 

Contents excerpted from Challenging U.S. Human Rights Violations Since 9/11, edited by Ann Fagan Ginger (© 2004 Meiklejohn Civil Liberties Institute; Prometheus Books 2005). Readers can go to mcli.org for a complete listing of reports and sources, with web links. 

V

Bank Robbers Strike 

Two different robbers hit Berkeley banks Wednesday and Thursday. 

A man in his mid-20s walked into the Wells Fargo branch at 1095 University Ave. abut 4:45 p.m. Wednesday and threatened a teller, demanding cash. 

After the teller complied, the robber fled. Witnesses said the suspect, his hair braided into cornrows, was about six feet tall and estimated his weight at 185 pounds. 

Another felon, this one in is late 30s, struck the Union bank branch at 2333 Shattuck Ave. at 11:09 a.m. Thursday, threatening a teller and demanding cash. 

Witness described the second fellow as an thinly built male in his late 30s. He was wearing a long sleeved white pullover shirt and dark jeans. 

Anyone with information on this crimes is requested to call the Berkeley Police Robbery Detail at 981-5742 or e-mail tips to police@ci.berkeley.ca.us.  

Needs Better Wheelman 

A would-be purse snatcher not only failed to steal the purse she tried to grab from a young woman walking along Telegraph Avenue near Prince Street early on the evening of Sept. 23, but she chose the wrong way to flee. 

The young bandit, an underaged girl, leapt on the handlebars of her accomplice’s bicycle, who couldn’t pedal fast enough to evade the officers who responded to the would-be victim’s call, said Berkeley Police spokesperson Officer Joe Okies. 

Gardener’s Nasty Surprise 

A Berkeley man received a rather nasty shock when he walked into his back yard shortly before 1:30 p.m. on Sept. 24. He discovered a young man with a passion for gardening tools who attempted to lay into him with one of his own trowels. 

The would-be assailant had fled by the time officers arrived. 

Unkindest (Hair) Cut of All  

A 50-something fellow sat through his haircut at a Sacramento Street barbershop last Friday afternoon. 

When it came time to settle the tab, the customer walked out. And when the barber tried to confront him, the customer flashed a knife. 

The barber wisely relented and the recalcitrant barbee departed. 

Alarming Awakening 

It was just before 4 a.m. last Saturday when a Russell Street resident was awakened by a loud percussive sound outside his window. 

Roused from his slumber, he looked out his window to investigate, only to discover a fresh bullet hole through his glass. He called police, but the shooter had already departed, said Officer Okies. 

Friendly Fracas Turns Mean 

An Monday night argument among friends took a decidedly unfriendly turn when one of the disputants slammed another into an ice machine, causing enough injury to send the victim trudging off for medical care. 

Police were summoned and the 23-year-old pusher was charged with felony battery. 

Beer-Booster Busted 

When a 33-year-old fellow attempted to walk out of Fred’s Market at Telegraph Avenue and Dwight Way Wednesday night with beer he hadn’t bought, a clerk took exception and a fracas followed. 

Police arrived in time to offer the bandit new accommodations, sans the brewskis. ª

Moore Denies Endorsing Edwards 

A minor controversy has emerged over a major endorsement in the Area 4 Peralta Community Colleges District Trustee race. 

As published in the Daily Planet earlier this week, candidate Kamau Edwards had listed outgoing Area 4 Trustee Darryl Moore as one of his supporters. Shortly after the publication of the article, Yuen said that the listing of Moore’s endorsement for Edwards was “flat out wrong.” 

Two days later, Moore issued a statement stating that “I have never endorsed Mr. Kamau Edwards.” In a subsequent telephone interview, Edwards agreed. 

Moore has endorsed one of Edwards’ opponents, Nicky Gonzales Yuen. In his statement, he said that he “made this very clear to [Edwards] early on in the race and so [I] was startled to see his listing of me as a supporter.” 

The Planet article also listed Moore as an endorser of Yuen. 

The Moore endorsement information for Edwards in the article came from Edwards’ Candidate’s Statement form obtained from the Alameda County Registrars Office. Instructions on the form are that it is a “statement...expressed by the candidate himself/herself.” At the bottom of Edwards’ typewritten list of education and qualifications for the trustee position, he included a handwritten list of “some of my supporters,” including Moore. 

When asked about the Moore endorsement in connection with this story, Edwards initially said, “That’s not true. I haven’t got Darryl Moore’s endorsement. You must have gotten me confused.” 

When told that the endorsement information came from his filed campaign statement, he initially denied it, stating, “My candidate’s statement doesn’t even have any endorsements on it.” Edwards eventually admitted that Moore’s name was on the statement turned in to the registrar.  

“We turned that in,” he said. “At the time you turn [these statements] in, people were still wrangling to get endorsements. At that time I was trying to get [Moore’s] endorsement, but Nicky [Yuen] ended up getting it.” 

Edwards, a Berkeley attorney, was appointed in late August to the Berkeley Public Works Commission by Councilmember Maudelle Shirek. He also lists membership on the California State Assembly’s Select Committee on Community Colleges, to which he was appointed by Assemblymember Mervyn Dymally (D-Compton) in August. 

Moore is running for the Berkeley City Council District 2 seat being vacated by Councilmember Margaret Breland. 

—J. Douglas Allen-Taylor 

Richmond Progressives Upstage Council Meetings 

A coalition of Richmond activists has been turning recent city council meetings into something akin to guerilla political theater. 

The Richmond Progressive Alliance, a coalition of liberal Democrats, Greens, union activists and others, has fielded two candidates in the November city council race, Andres Soto and Gayle McLaughlin, both frequent visitors to the podium during council meets. 

During Tuesday’s session, Soto made frequent visits to the microphone, often accompanied by allies supporting whatever cause he was espousing at the moment. 

In one of his first appearance, a group of tenants—including several Hmong residents—followed him to the mic when he rose to call for a “just cause” eviction law and a rent stabilization measure.  

Colorful multilingual signs added to the impact. 

Then there’s Jerome Smith, who invariably opens his remarks with a poem (John Milton and Robert Frost were two recent choices) and closed one of his commentaries with a song Tuesday night. 

Smith also includes “the four-gones” in his opening statements, referring to the four sitting councilmembers the alliance hopes to see gone after the elections. 

Their tactics are clearly starting to wear on the council, eliciting the occasional rebuke from Mayor Irma Anderson, who tries to keep her council colleagues under a tight reign. 

The ultimate test of the group’s effectiveness will become apparent on Nov. 3 after the last ballot is counted. 

—Richard Brenneman 

Regents Approve Underhill Funds 

The UC Board of Regents has approved close to $39 million in construction funds for UC Berkeley’s Underhill Parking Facility and field replacement, although the money itself will not come from state funds but from fee-based monies operated by UC Berkeley. 

As part of its Underhill Area Project, UC Berkeley is planning to replace the current Underhill Parking lot on College Avenue between Channing and Haste with a new three-level parking structure with a playing field on top. The Environmental Impact Report for the project was approved in 2000. 

The regents’ approval is intended for money for preliminary plans, working drawings, and construction. 

Actual construction on the facility is expected to begin next summer. 

UC Berkeley Facilities Services Communications Manager Christine Shaff said that the regents’ action, taken at last week’s San Francisco meeting, was “part of the regents’ managerial role. Essentially, they’re giving us the go-ahead to continue with the project based upon the fact that the university has identified a funding source.”  

UCB’s Parking and Transportation and Recreational Sports self-supporting programs will provide $31 million of the funds, while $8 million will come from UCB’s parking System Net Revenue Fund and Parking Replacement Reserve Fund. 

Construction for the new facility has not yet been sent out to bid. 

—J. Douglas Allen-Taylor 

ª

Berkeley firefighters were forced to summon assistance from Oakland, Albany and Alameda County to battle a Tuesday night blaze that nearly destroyed a dwelling at 2811 Stuart St.  

The fire, ignited by spontaneous combustion of tarps being used by painters staining the exterior of the recently remodeled home, did $600,000 in damage to the structure and $250,000 in damages to the contents, said Acting Fire Chief David Orth. 

Fire spread from the tarps to the walls and roofs, and once the flames reached the interior, fighting them became difficult because of so-called “balloon” construction, which doesn’t provide fire barriers in interior ceilings, Orth said. 

An additional complication was the two-story dwelling’s location at the end of a cul de sac with utility wires, preventing the use of a ladder truck to fight flames on the roof. 

“We had to pull our firefighters off the roof and fight the flames from below after they spread through the attic,” Orth said. 

Exhausted by the heat and the intensity of the blaze, Berkeley crews were forced to call in outside aid. One Berkeley firefighter suffering from heat exhaustion was transported to a local hospital for emergency room treatment, said the chief. 

The fire started at 10:30 p.m., and it wasn’t until five-and-a-half hours later that the last of the flames were extinguished, he said. The roof was destroyed, and there was significant damage to both floors. 

The blaze left six people temporarily homeless, the owners and one child from the second floor and three UC students who rented rooms on the ground floor. 

ª

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Letters to the Daily Planet criticizing and mourning the destruction of the meadow in Eastshore State Park must have hit a nerve to evoke two heavy hitter articles from the powers that be, among them Mayor Bates, various environmental organizations, and the East Bay Regional Parks District (Daily Planet, Sept. 24-27).  

Since I’m one of the critic-mourners, I think what’s at issue is important enough to respond to meadow-destruction rationales advanced in the articles. Please remember that the background is that the meadow was a thriving, blooming natural habitat, home to many bird species (including redwing blackbirds, finches, crows), wild geese, rabbits, ground squirrels, snakes, and an insect universe. It was managed solely by nature. If you go see what it looks like now, bring your hankies.  

The spokesperson for the Regional Parks District presents like a mantra the removal of non-native plants in the meadow as a rationale for its destruction. However, nature distributes life forms by any means necessary to wherever a niche for survival can be found. Bird droppings, air currents, animal skins etc. are carriers. Thus on-going disbursal ensures diversity and an invigoration of existing ecosystems.  

The standard for the meadow could be, not is it native or not, but does the existing ecosystem provide natural habitat for many species. If this standard is accepted as just as valid, then the argument for “restoring” the meadow falls apart.  

Nextly, before the destruction of the meadow, pedestrian and dog traffic through it was limited to the rugged few. Most dog walkers and pedestrians stuck to the adjacent road. The meadow’s natural design protected it from human invasion. That’s why the meadow was teeming with life.  

However, the proposed installation of four eight-feet-wide “interior trails” of wheelchair-inaccessible (!) gravel, from each corner of the meadow, and the increased traffic these trails will encourage, guarantee that the meadow will cease to exist as a meadow. We will soon have an imitation meadow, a developed, landscaped area, dominated by people not wildlife, with two information buildings in it at each end, where once a real, live meadow used to be. I can’t understand how e.g. Save the Bay can support it.  

We are told though that “nesting locations for the Northern harrier will be protected with fencing.” Pray that the harrier will follow the signs to its designated fenced-in spot. Where is the concern for the plentiful life that lived in the meadow?  

Additionally, the hearings on park plans held two years ago are referred to in the articles tellingly without any mention of the large vocal lobby who argued at many meetings against developing the meadow and for leaving it intact as a natural sanctuary. Our participation in the “process” was a charade without any impact whatsoever. The state and city decided what they were going to do from the beginning, and for their own reasons.  

Finally, the meta-message coming across is that natural creation wasn’t/isn’t good enough for the decision makers. As far as the meadow is concerned, they argue they can improve on what nature did and do a better job. After all, they are the experts.  

M

Who remembers the proposal a few years ago for the Albany casino development in the vicinity of Golden Gate fields? To sweeten the deal, developers promised a ferry service for the anticipated boatloads of gamblers and shoppers. This proposal went to court and was defeated on appeal.  

On the heels of this Albany waterfront casino defeat, Rep. George Miller created a loophole in Congress that allowed an Indian gaming casino to be built in the nearby town of San Pablo. 

I support Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s last-ditch federal effort to undo the congressional act by Rep. George Miller who caused California’s first urban casino to slip into law by attaching his amendment to a bill all ready to sail through Congress.  

In order to make this urban casino possible, Congress set the clock back 12 years.  

In 2000, Congress designated a real estate parcel acceptable for an Indian card room in the city of San Pablo as land having been taken into trust for the tribe prior to 1988—a federal cutoff date that had passed many years prior. 

The way in which Casino San Pablo came into being was undemocratic. The job of our representative is to represent all of us constituents and the interests of the community-at-large. Every politician has a constitutional responsibility to exercise that basic American principle which declares we are a government of all the people, by all the people, and for all the people. 

Isn’t it intolerable that Rep. Miller created a law that allowed a casino for an Indian tribe to be built when a neighboring community had recently won a court case against another casino developer?  

An act of Congress allowed for one card room called Casino San Pablo. Because the city of San Pablo is only one among several neighboring communities, the decision to build an Indian owned card room or gaming casino should have been a community wide decision instead of a Congressional decision. 

What started out as an act of Congress allowing one card room in the year 2000  

is now, in 2004, permitting the prospect of three additional large casinos in my community. The social and economic impact of four casinos to my area needs to be addressed and discussed with this community and not via Congress. 

This act of Congress failed to address the social and economic impacts of bringing a card room to the city of San Pablo and the neighboring area. Studies have shown that real costs of these impacts exceed the benefits of a casino. 

The one sentence bill by Sen. Feinstein seeks to strike that portion from the law,  

leaving the tribe to once more seek “trusted land” through normal federal channels; and would also block the tribe’s casino plans indefinitely. 

Feinstein is pushing to see her bill clear the U.S. Senate Indian Affairs Committee before Congress finishes its session in mid-October. I urge you to help make this happen. 

Mina Edelston is an El Cerrito resident. 

ª

For the last 35 years Cal Sailing Club has occupied a small piece of land in the Berkeley Marina, on the south side of University Avenue. CSC is a non-profit sailing co-operative. Historically it was a UC student activity, but in 1979 it severed its last ties, and became officially open to the public. 

Cal Sailing Club’s mission has always been to provide very low-cost access to sailing, and over the years it has been phenomenally successful. CSC currently gives free sailboat rides to about 2,000 people per year during bi-monthly open house events, takes at-risk youth from several local organizations out sailing during the summer, and offers very affordable sailboat and windsurfer access to about 1,000 members every year. 

It does this with virtually no financial support from the city, in fact, while most cities with comparable community boating programs have to budget hundreds of thousands a year, CSC manages to actually pay rent to the Berkeley Marina. CSC is a local treasure if there ever was one. 

But all of this is about to change if the Berkeley Marina management has its way. In 1999, the city increased CSC’s annual rent from $2,880 to $4,200 per year, escalating by about $200 per year thereafter. Now the City proposes our rent to $10,000 per year, with $500 per year increase to follow. 

This will kill off the Cal Sailing Club and the access opportunities it provides. CSC has already been forced to raise its dues to cover the increases under the old agreement and membership has declined as a result. There is no further increase that is sustainable. 

The majority of active members are probably not concerned with an extra few dollars dues, but a dues-supported volunteer organization like CSC depends on a delicate balance between low cost, new membership, volunteerism and quality of services. We are already on the wrong side of the curve after the increases in the last few years. Our options will be to shut down or become similar to a commercial sailing school with market-rate pricing three to four times as high and no volunteers to give rides to youth groups or the public. 

Marina staff have insisted that Cal Sailing Club should pay the same rent as nearby Cal Adventures, the recreational arm of the University. But Cal Adventures has a half-million dollar budget compared to CSC’s $90,000. Cal Adventures uses paid employees for teaching, administration and boat repair while CSC relies on member volunteers. Cal Adventures charges high commercial rates for a program which closely resembles commercial sailing schools while CSC’s dues are only a fraction. ($60 for three months of unlimited sailing lessons, cruising, daysailing, and windsurfing. NO other fees are ever charged.) 

We realize the financial plight of the city but Cal Sailing Club is being asked to absorb increases well above what private berthers have sustained and is being asked to pay a percentage of gross revenue well above what the commercial for-profit business in the marina are paying. Doesn’t a public serving, access-enhancing, volunteer based organization, deserve better? 

In these hard times, with recreational programs being cut back all over the city, isn’t it more important than ever to support the ones that tap the resources of volunteer labor and turn them into affordable opportunities for all? Especially when they can run themselves with no direct financial support? 



The Planet has asked our readers to submit short questions for Berkeley City Council candidates, who will be given space for short answers. Candidates may answer any questions, even those addressed to other candidates. 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I am submitting candidate questions for District 5 candidates Laurie Capitelli and Barbara Gilbert: 

1. Both of you were involved in the Mayor’s Task Force on Permitting and Development (Laurie as chair and Barbara as active observer). What were the most important things you learned from that experience? 

2. Many of the Task Force recommendations aimed at improving the public process, yet none of these recommendations—even simple ones that cost no money—has yet been implemented. Which changes in the permitting process do you think are the most important to implement right away, and as council member, what will you do to implement them? 

3. Do you have any other ideas to improve the development process in Berkeley? 

Sharon Hudson 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

A friend told me the Daily Planet asked for questions we’d like to see answered by those running for office in Berkeley, so here are two of mine: 

1. For District 3: Do you favor closing Derby Street for a baseball field? 

2. For all districts: Do you favor enlarging the path around the marina to a width of 12 feet, plus four feet of shoulder, and the removal of 98 mature trees in order to accommodate more bikers? 

R

Caffe Trieste, the North Beach institution that takes credit for popularizing espresso culture on the west coast, opened a Berkeley café last week. 

The cafe, at 2500 San Pablo Ave., is open late, until 11 p.m. on Friday and Saturdays, until 10 p.m. other days. The owners said that they wanted create something new in the west Berkeley neighborhood, a welcome meeting spot for families and workers, as well as bring a new accent to the city’s storied coffee culture. 

“There are lots of coffee houses and cafes in Berkeley, it’s true,” said Berkeley resident Hal Brandel, one of the four owners of the new Caffe Trieste. “But this is an Italian coffee house. We serve an Italian style of coffee. Trieste is the coffee capital of the world. Yeah, you can get a cup of coffee anywhere, but this is an Italian experience.” 

And entering the cafe does create an Italianesque, or an Italian-American, flavor. The menu offers a full selection of espresso drinks, made from their own blend and roasted at their Portrero Hill plant, wine and beer (including Moretti), pannini, antipasta plates, Italian pizza, an array of specialty desserts, including canoli, tiramisu, and, of course, gelato and afogato, which is espresso poured over ice cream. 

Music completes the scene, ranging from Frank Sinatra to Italian opera. Giovanni Giotta, the founder of Caffe Trieste, plans to sing opera at the cafe on Sunday afternoons. He has performed with his family at the San Francisco shop since it opened and will now bring his act to Berkeley. 

Plans to open the Berkeley cafe began a few years ago when Brandel, a longtime regular at the North Beach cafe, convinced Giotta to come look at the Berkeley property he owned with Walter Wright. Arturo Guariniello, who ran the Caffe Trieste in Sausalito, runs the Berkeley shop. The four men own the cafe together. 

Giotta remembered his enthusiasm upon seeing the Berkeley location, “I said, what a place, che fantastico, so I said why not? I like the people of Berkeley, they are fantastic people. I love Berkeley.”  

Giotta—or Papa Gianni as everyone calls him—was eager to tell his life story to a new customer over an espresso the other day. He was born in Rovigno (now part of Austria) in 1920, near Trieste. The son of a fisherman, he remembers growing up poor and hungry and full of dreams of coming to the United States. 

He told stories of his years in the Navy during World War II. Afterwards, he settled down with his wife Ida and worked in the shipyards of Trieste. Then in 1951 he had the chance to immigrate and landed with family in San Francisco, where he took up window washing. 

A photograph of himself with a group of window washers from those years hangs on the wall of the new cafe, along with dozens of other photos chronicling the history of Cafe Trieste. The photos include many celebrity visits at the cafe over the years, including shots of Giotta singing with Luciano Pavarotti, having a drink with Laurence Ferlinghetti, making espresso with Bill Cosby, and many family gatherings and musical appearances at the cafe. 

Giotta is a energetic man with a great deal of confidence in his product and Caffe Trieste’s place in local coffee history. When he opened the Vallejo Street shop in 1956, he said, he introduced espresso to the Bay Area. 

“Back then espresso was not really known around here,” he said. “We exported this thing. We started cappuccinos and now today they are all over.” 

Even now that he has moved onto the home turf of Peet’s Coffee, Giotta’s said he is undaunted. 

“My name is strong and the coffee is good,” he said. “I’m afraid of nobody, not Starbuck’s, not Peet’s, nobody.” 

Or, to put it another way, Giotta said that he has been pulled to Berkeley by the people, and he was happy to oblige. 

“My name has been big for a half century and people would come to my cafe, many from Berkeley, and say, ‘why don’t you open a cafe in Berkeley?’, so I come to Berkeley so the people can be happy. It’s going to be excellent.”ª

It’s make it or break it for Berkeley’s Nabolom bakery. 

After losing their major wholesale account with Felini Coffeebar on University Avenue last April, along with two years of varying retail sales, the worker-owned cooperative on Russell Street in Elmwood is threatening to close its doors come January if it cannot figure out a new strategy to increase revenue. 

In a last ditch effort, collective members held a town hall meeting in their store Monday evening to ask for any sort of help the community could provide including fundraising suggestions, donations and new business strategies. 

The meeting, attended by between 40 and 45 people, brought well wishers from around the city including long-time patrons, neighbors, a Berkeley city councilmember and several students from the Haas Business school who have teamed up as part of a class project to try and offer their help. 

“I have to have my hamentaschen in April!” said Kathryn Dowling, one of several patrons who said she would do whatever she could to keep the doors open. 

Jim Burr, who manages the bakery’s finances, laid out a grim scene for audience members, telling them the bakery is currently around $10,000 behind on expenses. They haven’t paid their $3,886 rent for two months and still have several outstanding bills with their suppliers. 

On top of that is $33,000 worth of debt, $22,000 of it is on Burr’s personal credits cards charging 18.4 percent interest (about $400 a month). Crow Bolt, another collective member, has contributed about $9,000. 

According to Bolt, the bakery has cut expenses by 40 percent, employees gave up health benefits and several people have taken pay cuts or donated their time, but the debt continues to grow. The bakery specializes in organic products that carry added costs. 

At the meeting, Bolt said the bakery’s main priority is to secure at least one major retail account that pays them enough to break even. Other possible business strategies proposed included staying open later and serving pizza, applying for a beer and wine license, and hosting live music performances. 

“It’s not impossible to get from where we are to a sustainable business,” Burr said.  

The problem with expanding their services, according to Bolt is that it would force them to re-zone. According to Dave Fogerty from the city’s economic development office, Nabolom is currently zoned as a take-out instead of a sit-down restaurant. The zoning rules would also have to be changed if the bakery wanted to stay open later. 

Burr said the co-op is trying to re-finance their loans and have even tossed around the idea of issuing promissory notes where patrons would contribute lump sums and then be paid back over time in backed goods with interest. The idea was a hit with patrons anxious to help right away, and by the end of the night people had pledged over $5,000, with two people pledging $1,000 each. 

Councilmember Kriss Worthington, who lives in the neighborhood, offered his support for the expanded services and said the bakery should try and re-zone. Several patrons offered to chip in and help pay the filing fees the bakery will be charged if they hold a public hearing to change the zoning. 

Worthington also said he thought that it was a more realistic business strategy for the property owners, who were also at the meeting, to help Nabolom stay alive instead of trying to find a new occupant.  

Burr said the bakery is going to decide what to do within the next couple of weeks. They hope to hold another town meeting at that time to announce their decision. They will decide whether or not to close around the beginning of December. 

“We all want the place to stay here,” Burr said. “I’ll work here for another decade, but I won’t do it only eating two meals a day.ª

Lysistrata, Aristophanes’ classic of ancient comedy—and the preeminent modern antiwar stage production—will be presented by The National Theatre of Greece Friday, Oct. 1 (8 p. m.) and Sunday, Oct. 3 (3 p. m.) at Oakland’s Calvin Simmons Theatre. Adapted to modern Greek and directed by Kostas Tsianos (who will give introductory talks an hour before each performance), Lysistrata will have English supertitles. Lydia Koniordiu stars as Lysistrata. These performances mark its American debut after its presentation at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens—and celebrate the National Theatre's 100th anniversary. 

Originally produced in 411 B. C., Lysistrata tells how the Athenian woman of that name (a pun on "Demobilize!") convinces other women to withhold sexual relations from their husbands and to occupy the Acropolis until peace is declared. The comedy was written after the disastrous Athenian expedition to Sicily; in modern times—particularly since the Popular Front Against Fascism in the 1930s— Lysistrata has been read, illustrated, published and performed as the greatest of antiwar plays, liberating in its comic eroticism.  

On March 3, 2003 (03-03-03), over 1,000 staged readings internationally of the Lysistrata Project, including one on the stage of the Berkeley Rep (with the biggest cast of actor-readers in the world, seen by 1,200 spectators), as well as other productions at several dozen locations throughout the Bay Area, marked a day of protest at the impending invasion of Iraq. 

There have been two schools of thought about the original meaning of Aristophanes’ play: one emphasizes the antiwar aspect, the other focuses on sexual roles overturned in both the civic and domestic life of Athens. In either case, the double meanings and deliberate ambiguities of this bawdy comedy translate easily into contemporary issues—just as, in classical Greek, Aristophanes spoke with extremely up-to-the-minute topicality through his outrageous situations and elaborate puns. Its satire snares every party in its own self-importance.  

Playing Aphrodite, goddess of love, and Athena, warlike virgin and patroness of Athens, against (and yet for) each other, Lysistrata and the woman turn the Acropolis—the heart of the public (that is, men’s) life of the city—into a sacred home, a domestic place just for women. Absurdities like these make the Athens on stage become a brief “comic utopia.” 

A year ago, the National Theatre of Greece brought its production of Euripides’ Medea to the UC Greek Theatre. Critical reaction was overwhelmingly positive for that production, focusing on the brisk pacing yet profound power of the tragedy of a spurned woman, outsider to civilized society. Previous to those performances, the National Theatre had not performed on the West Coast since the 1984 Olympics Arts Festival in Los Angeles, with perhaps the best-known ancient tragedy, Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex. Now this great national troupe has returned on its centennial to show the comic face of classical Greek drama, seemingly just as topical as it was 2,400 years ago, staged amid the savage absurdities of the contemporary world. 

ª

FRIDAY, OCT. 1 

EXHIBITION OPENINGS 

Berkeley Arts Festival Opening and celebration of National Arts Day at 5 p.m. at Berkeley Arts Festival Gallery, 2324 Shattuck Ave. Exhibition includes woodcuts by Berkeley High Students and teachers. www.berkeleyartsfestival.com 

“Search and Restore” with works by Clayton Bain, Carolyn Gareis, Vannie Keightley, Naomi Policoff and Dorothy Porter. Gallery hours are Mon.-Fri., 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., Sat. 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. ACCI Gallery, 1652 Shattuck Ave. www.accigallery.com 

THEATER 

Aurora Theatre Company, “The Persians” runs through Oct. 17. Tickets are $28-$45. 843-4822. www.auroratheatre.org 

Berkeley Rep, “The Secret in the Wings” at the Roda Theater, 2015 Addison St. until Oct. 17. Tickets are $10-$55. 647-2949. www.berkeleyrep.org 

California Shakespeare Theater, “All’s Well That Ends Well” Tues.-Fri. at 7:30 p.m., Sat at 8 p.m., Sun. at 4 p.m. at the Bruns Memorial Amphitheater, through Oct. 10. Tickets are $13-$32. 548-9666. www.calshakes.org 

Impact Theatre, “Fluffy Bunnies in a Field of Daisies” a sexually-honest comedy, at 8 p.m. at La Val’s Subterranean Theater, 1834 Euclid, and runs Thurs. - Sat. through Oct. 2. Tickets are $10-$15. 464-4468. www.impacttheatre.com 

National Theater of Greece, “Lysistrata” in Greek with English supertitles at 8 p.m. at the Clavin Simmons Theater, Oakland. Tickets are $35-$65. 866-468-3399. 

Oakland Opera Theater “Akhnaten” an opera by Philip Glass, Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m. Sun. at 2 p.m. through Oct. 3 at Oakland Metro Theater, 201 Broadway, at 2nd St. Tickets are $18-$32, available on line at www.oaklandopera.org  

Shakespeare in the Yard, “Notes From William, III” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 4 p.m. at Sister Thea Memorial Theater, 920 Peralta St. West Oakland, through Oct. 17. Tickets are $5-$20. 208-5651. 

Shotgun Players “Dog Act” Thurs. - Sun. at 8 p.m. at The Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby Ave. through Oct. 10. Free admission with pass the hat donation after the show. 841-6500. www.shotgunplayers.org 

TheatreFirst “Joe Egg” at 8 p.m. at Mills College, 5000 MacArthur Blvd. Through Oct. 17. Tickets are $22. 436-5085. 

Unscripted Theater Company, “The Short and the Long of It,” an improv theater experience, Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m. at Temescal Arts Center, 511 48th St. at Telegraph, through Oct. 2. Tickets are $7-$10. 415-869-5384. www.un-scripted.com 

Woman’s Will, “Lord of the Flies” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 3 p.m., at Eighth Street Studios, 2525 Eighth St., through Oct. 24. Every performance followed by a discussion on democracy, violence cessation, and preservation of just societies. Free, donations encouraged. 420-0813. www.womanswill.org 

FILM 

The Films of Roy Anderson: “Songs from the Second Floor” at 7 p.m. and Commercials and Shorts at 9 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Evelyn C. White reads from her biography, “Alice Walker: A Life” at 8 p.m. at Berkeley Public Library’s Community Room, 2090 Kittredge. Sponsored by the Berkeley Arts Festival and the Friends of the Library. 981-6100. www.berkeleypubliclibrary.org 

7th International Juried Enamel Exhibition Slides and lecture with Katy Bergman Cassell at 7 p.m. at ACCI Gallery, 1652 Shattuck Ave. Gallery hours are Mon.-Fri. 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., Sat. 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. 843-2527. www.accigallery.com 

Aron Ralston describes his decision to amputate part of his right arm to save his life in “Between a Rock and a Hard Place’ at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books, 1730 Fourth St. 559-9500. www.codysbooks.com 

Francisco Goldman describes his new novel “The Divine Husband” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

David Brin, scientist and Hugo Award-winning science fiction author, will discuss his book “The Transparent Society” at 3 p.m. at the Cal Student Store. 642-7294. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

National Ballet of Canada at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $36-$68. 642-9988. www.calperfs.berkeley.edu 

“Mediavoid” by Shahrzad Dance Academy at 8 p.m. at the Crowden School, 1475 Rose St. Tickets are $12-$15. 215-2166. www.sdadance.org 

Marcel Dronkers, soprano, at 8 p.m. at Arlington Community Church, 52 Arlington Ave., Ken- 

sington. Tickets are $12-$15.  

Oakstock Concert with Country Joe McDonald and Shana Morrison at 7 p.m. at the Oakland Museum of California, 10th and Oak Sts. in conjunction with the exhibit “California and the Vietnam Era.” www.museum.ca.org 

Jon Langford Ship and Pilot at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $12. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

Moodswing Orchestra at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Swing dance lesson with Nick and Shanna at 8 p.m. Cost is $13. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Last Band Standing at 8 p.m. at La Peña. Cost is $10. 849-2568. 

Dick Hindman Trio at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $12-$18. 845-5373. www.jazz- 

school.com 

Barbary Coast by Night with Daniel Torres, flamenco guitarist at 7 p.m. at Cafe Raphael’s, 10064 San Pablo Ave., by Central Ave., close to El Cerrito BART. Cost is $5. 860-5533. 

Jared Karol, singer-songwriter, at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

The Toasters, New Blood Revival, Monkey at 9:30 p.m. at Blakes on Telegraph. Cost is $10. 848-0886. www.blakesontelegraph.com 

Hakim, music of the Middle East and Arab diaspora at 7 p.m. at the Scottish Rite Temple, 1547 Lakeside Drive, Oakland. Tickets are $65-$100. 415-218-1801. www.sheekimage.com 

Reilly & Maloney, contemporary folk duo, at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Jackie Ryan Quartet at 9 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810. 

Karrin Allyson at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square, through Sun. Cost is $15-$18. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

Natural Vibes, reggae, at 9 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low, 2284 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $10. 548-1159. www.shattuckdownlow.com 

Jason Webley, Dear Nora, Readyville, The Flying Marrows at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St. Cost is $6. 525-9926. 

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

SATURDAY, OCT. 2 

CHILDREN  

“Wild About Books” with Larry Kluger on cowboy roping and storytelling at 10:30 a.m. at the Berkeley Public Library, 2090 Kittredge St. 981-6223. 

EXHIBITION OPENINGS 

Richmond Art Center Members’ Showcase Reception from 3 to 6 p.m. at 2540 Barrett Ave., Richmond. Slide lecture and artist talk with Tamara Scronce at 1:30 p.m. 620-6772. www.therichmondartcenter.org 

Emeryville Art Exhibition featuring works of 100 artists and craftspeople in Emeryville. Exhibition open daily from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. at 5603 Bay St. 652-6122. www.EmeryArts.org 

THEATER 

Ruben C. Gonzales “The Mes- 

siah Complex: Rebelations of a Mad Mexican” at 8 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $7-$10. 849-2568. www.lapena.org  

FILM 

The Films of Roy Anderson: “A Swedish Love Story” at 6:30 p.m. and “Giliap” at 8:50 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Watershed Environmental Poetry Festival with Robert Haas, Lawrence Ferlingheti, Pattiann Rogers, George Keithley, Lucille Lang Day, Marc Bamuthi Joseph and more from noon to 5 p.m. at Civic Center Park. 526-9105. www.poetryflash.org  

Sarah Stewart and David Small introduce their new picture book for young readers “The Friend” at 10:30 a.m. at Cody’s Books, 1730 Fourth St. 559-9500. www.codysbooks.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

National Ballet of Canada at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $36-$68. 642-9988. www.calperfs.berkeley.edu 

“Mediavoid” by Shahrzad Dance Academy at 8 p.m. at the Crowden School, 1475 Rose St. Tickets are $12-$15. 215-2166. www.sdadance.org 

The Whole Noyse, “From Shawm to Cornett” at 8 p.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. Tickets are $10-$25. 528-1725. www.sfems.org 

Four Seasons Concerts with Tai Murray, violin at 7:30 p.m. at Calvin Simmons Theater. Tickets are $25-$35. 601-7919. www.fourseasonsconcerts.com 

New Millennium Strings performs Sibelius, Janacek, JS Bach, and Giuliani at 8 p.m. at Grace Lutheran Church, 15 Santa Fe Ave., El Cerrito. Suggested donation $10-$15. 528-4633. www.newmillenniumstrings.org 

Trinity Chamber Concert “Two Faces of Orpheus” with Franklin Lei, Renaissance lute and classical guitar, at 8 p.m. at Trinity Chapel, 2320 Dana St. Tickets are $8-$12. 549-3864. www.TrinityChamberConcerts.com 

Dan Zemelman, solo jazz piano, at 8 p.m. at Giorgi Gallery, 2911 Claremont Ave. at Ashby. 604-1473. 

Eve of Acapella: A Night of Female Voice, featuring Ya Elah at 8 p.m. at Studio Rasa, 933 Parker St., between 8th and 9th. Cost is $10-$20 sliding scale. 843-2787. www.studiorasa.org 

Groundation, reggae classic and band originals at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $13. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Resistoleros, Eddie Haskells, Proud Flesh at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $6. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com  

Old Blind Dogs at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $19.50-$20.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Doni Harvey, original acoustic blues, at 8 p.m. at The Jazz House. Cost is $8-$15. www.thejazzhouse.org 

Marcos Silva and Intersection at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $12-$18. 845-5373. www.jazzschool.com 

Samantha Raven, singer-songwriter, at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

Braziu, Nobody from Ipanema at 9 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low, 2284 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $10-$12. 548-1159. www.shattuckdownlow.com 

Tom Jonesing, The Sun Kings at 9:30 p.m. at Blakes on Telegraph. Cost is $15. 848-0886. www.blakesontelegraph.com 

Danny Heines & Joey Blake at the 1923 Teahouse at 8 p.m. Suggested donation of $5-$10. 644-2204. www.epicarts.org 

Macy Blackman Quartet at 9 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810. 

Babyland, Pitch Black, Midnight Laser Beam at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St. Cost is $6. 525-9926. 

SUNDAY, OCT. 3 

CHILDREN  

Celebrating the Folk Arts of Mexico Family day activities include paper cuts and paper flower workshop, folk dancing, music and puppets from 1 to 4 p.m. at Phoebe Hearst Museum of Anthropology, UC Campus, Bancroft at College. 643-7648.  

EXHIBITION OPENINGS 

“Celebrating the Berkeley Fire Department’s Centennial” Reception from 3 to 5 p.m. at the Berkeley History Center, 1931 Center St. The exhibit traces the history of the Berkeley Fire Department, its innovations, and the fires it has fought. Gallery hours are Thurs.-Sat. 1 to 4 p.m. 848-0181. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/histsoc/  

“War Peace and Civil Liberties” Works by 52 artists in a variety of media. Opening reception 2 to 4 p.m. at the Berkeley Art Center, 1275 Walnut St. 644-6893. www.berkeleyartcenter.org 

“Fragments of Travel in the Gold Country: Pioneer Jewish Cemeteries,” an installation by Ann Chamberlain. Discussion and reception from 2 to 4 p.m. at the Judah L. Magnes Museum, 2911 Russell St. 549-6950. www.magnes.org 

“Threshold: Byron Kim” Guided tour at 2 p.m. at Berkeley Art Museum, 2626 Bancroft Way. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

The Korean Potter Gallery presentation with Gary Holt and Sheila Keppel at 3 p.m. at Berkeley Art Museum, 2626 Bancroft Way. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

“Seawomym Images” Reception at 3 p.m. at Changemakers, 6536 Telegraph Ave. 655-2405. 

THEATER 

National Theater of Greece, “Lysistrata” in Greek with English supertitles at 3 p.m. at the Clavin Simmons Theater, Oakland. Tickets are $35-$65. 866-468-3399. 

“Talking with Angels” A one-woman show with Shelley Mitchell at 7 p.m. at Studio Rasa, 933 Parker St. Cost is $20. 843-2787. www.studiorasa.org 

FILM 

The Magic Worlds of Czech Animation: Shorts by Jirí Trnka at 5:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Poetry Flash with Susan Herron Sibbet and Lynn Lyman Trombetta at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. Donation $2. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

Sarah Klise, illustrator, introduces “Regarding the Sink” and “Shall I Knit You a Hat” for young readers at 4 p.m. at Cody’s Books, 1730 Fourth St. 559-9500. www.codysbooks.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

National Ballet of Canada at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $36-$68. 642-9988. www.calperfs.berkeley.edu 

“Imagining a Map of the World” solo dance performance by Evangel King at 11 a.m. at 1374 Francisco St. Donation $7-$15. 841-9441. 

“Mediavoid” by Shahrzad Dance Academy at 7 p.m. at the Crowden School, 1475 Rose St. Tickets are $12-$15. 215-2166. www.sdadance.org 

New Millennium Strings performs at 3 p.m. at Arlington Community Church, 52 Arlington Ave. Donation $10-$15. 528-4633. www.newmillenniumstrings.org 

Music and Art Meditations on a Journey of Faith with Vukani Mawethu, Caribbean Rhythms and the Oaktown Jazz Workshop at 3 p.m. at the United Lutheran Church, 8800 Fontaine St., Oakland. Tickets are $10-$20. 569-0689. 

Americana Unplugged, The Circle R Boys at 5 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Moonlife, Round Three Fight, Red Horizon at 8 p.m. at Blakes on Telegraph. Cost is $6. 848-0886. www.blakesontelegraph.com 

The Laura Love Duo, Afro-Celtic funk, at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $17.50-$18.50. 548-1761 www.freightandsalvage.org 

Mimi Fox with Joe Gilman at 4:30 at the Jazzschool. Cost is $12-$18. 845-5373. www.jazz- 

school.com 

MONDAY, OCT. 4 

EXHIBITION OPENINGS 

“Life Moments” pictoral narratives by Stan Cohen opens at the BRJCC, 1414 Walnut St. and runs through Nov. 4. 848-0237. 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Actors Reading Writers “Vengeance from Beyond the Grave” stories by Edgar Allen Poe and Bram Stoker at 7:30pm at Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant Ave. 

McKenzie Wark introduces “The Hacker Manifesto” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

Last Word Poetry Series with Mark Schwartz and Francesca Bell at 7 p.m. at Pegasus Books, 2349 Shattuck Ave. 649-1320. 

Poetry Express, featuring Camincha from 7 to 9:30 p.m., at Priya Restaurant, 2072 San Pablo Ave. berkeleypoetryexpress@yahoo.com 

MUSIC 

Scott Amendola’s Chambers of Grace at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $8-$12. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

TUESDAY, OCT. 5 

EXHIBITION OPENINGS 

NIAD’S 20th Anniversary with guest artist John Toki. Reception at 5:30 p.m. at 551 23rd St., Richmond. 620-0290. www.niad.org 

Worth Ryder Art Gallery First Year Graduate Exhibition Reception at 4 p.m. at 116 Kroeber Hall, UC Campus. 642-2582. 

FILM 

Alternative Visions: The Films of Julie Murray at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES  

Poetry Diversified with Jan Steckle at 7:30 p.m. at World Ground Cafe, 3726 MacArthur Blvd., Oakland. 482-2933. 

Art Spiegelman introduces his cartoon autobiography “In the Shadow of No Towers” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books, 1730 Fourth St. 559-9500. www.codysbooks.com 

Natalie Goldberg considers “The Great Failure: A Bartender, A Monk and My Unlikely Path to Truth” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Sauce Piquante at 8:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cajun dance lesson with Cheryl McBride at 8 p.m. Cost is $9. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

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

Michael Wilcox & Sheldon Brown at 8 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810. 

Jazz House Jam hosted by Darrell Green and Geechy Taylor at 8 p.m. at The Jazz House. Donation $5. www.thejazzhouse.com 

Jenna Mammina at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $15. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

ª

While many of us think of the ride to Pleasanton as a nasty commute and weekend excursions eastward as much more pleasant, Pleasanton, in fact, has a rather charming Main Street, complete with the old arched lighted white sign overhead, antique stores, and ye old tack shop. 

I remember Pleasanton as a place my parents used to drive me through on the way to Livermore swim meets. We would never actually stop there! 

Now it’s worth the trip. Located about seven miles west of Livermore in the Amador Valley where elk, grizzly bears, cougars, salmon, coyotes and reptiles once roamed, the area was first settled 4,000 years ago by the Ohlone, who called themselves The People. Native settlements on Pleasanton Ridge and on the lagoon were part of the largest concentration of Native Americans in North America. 

Mission San Jose de Guadalupe in Fremont, the 14th California mission, was founded on June 11, 1797 by Father Lausen, the second successor to Father Junipero Serra as the president of the missions. Lausen’s people raided the Ohlone and took their land as the mission’s pasture in the Alizal area to raise cattle for tallow and income for the mission. 

After Mexico won its independence from Spain, the Secularization Law supposedly meant Mexican citizens would share the land with Native Americans, but it never happened. In the late 1830s, most of Alizal land, as Pleasanton was called, had been granted to Mexican politicians and soldiers as part of the Rancho el Valle de San Jose land grant. 

In 1867 the name was changed from Alizal to Pleasanton, the misspelled effort of pioneer John Kottinger to name it after Civil War General Alfred Pleasonton. 

Eventually Amador Valley became an agricultural center with the oldest horse racing track in the United States, and farmers grew hops here sold throughout the U.S. and Europe to make fine beers. Because of Pleasanton’s Old West Main Street, Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm with Mary Pickford was filmed in Pleasanton, making it temporarily “Hollywood of the North.” 

The first housing boom followed the railroad’s arrival in 1869. Successive growth spurts since the 1960s led to development of tract housing, large malls, strip malls, and industrial complexes, all leading to the neglect of downtown. Just in the nick of time, local historians helped revitalize downtown, and the average detached three-bedroom house now sells for nearly $830,000. 

Charles Bruce was the only real architect in town, but many builders bought plans from designers “back east.” The Amador–Livermore Valley Historical Society offers two excellent pamphlet guides to identify historic buildings as you stroll or roll Main Street.  

Once the site of the local Women’s Club, City Hall, the Police Station, and then the Library, the Historical Society Museum is worth the trip, with rotating exhibits, including “The Wonder Years: Pleasanton in the ‘50s and ‘60s” beginning Oct. 2. The Town of Pleasanton still uses the vault in a back room to store important historical papers, and the museum has 6,000 archived documents available to the public. 

Two doors north of the museum is an old fashioned Christensen’s Western & English Wear, with Tack Room, Saddlery, and Remedies, and everything the real or wannabe cowpoke could want. 

The Wine Steward and Wine Bar, supposedly the largest wine shop in the East bay, offers 50 of Kermit Lynch’s wines, local boutique wines from John Christopher Cellars, Darcie Kent, and Wood Family wineries, 60 wines under $10, and different themed tastings each week. Expect to be greeted by Bruce the border collie-malmut mix or Haley the Jack Russell yerrier, who playfully guard the A.G. Ferrari pastas and sauces. 

The historic Pleasanton Hotel has a nice restaurant, and Main Street is lined with several Italian, Mexican, and nouveau Californian restaurants, with local or chain coffee houses and bakeries interspersed.  

Pleasanton hosts its annual Antique Fair on Saturday, Oct. 10 on Main Street. 

Kids will love the water slide in the 296-acre Shadow Cliffs Regional Park just east of town on Stanley Boulevard, which also offers an 80-acre lake with trout fishing, hiking, and picnicking. Rowboats, electric motorboats, and paddle boasts can be rented year round, and bait and tackle are available at the boat house. Shadow Cliffs is a former gravel quarry donated to the East Bay Regional Park District by Kaiser Industries.  

Pleasanton Ridge Regional Park off Foothill Road in Pleasanton is the beginning of a planned Ridgelands Regional Park stretching to Kilkare Canyon, Sunol Ridge, and Stoneybrook Canyon. Because of the park’s multi-purpose trail system, the park is great for hiking, riding horses, cycling, and just meditating over the almost clear canyon streams and views. 

FRIDAY, OCT. 1 

City Commons Club Noon Luncheon with Barbara Ertter on “Personal Insights in Iran’s Priceless Natural and Cultural Heritage.” Luncheon at 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.  

First Fridays Film Series “Hijacking Catastrophe: 9/11, Fear and the Selling of America” at 7:30 p.m. at St. Joseph the Worker Church, 1640 Addison St. Free. 482-1062. 

Berkeley-Palma Soriano Sister City Association report-back from recent trip to Cuba at 6:30 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Donation $8-$15. 981-6817. 

“The Election Year 2004” with Prof. Constance Cole at 1:30 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-5190. 

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. 

SATURDAY, OCT. 2 

Watershed Environmental Poetry Festival with Robert Haas, Lawrence Ferlingheti, Pattiann Rogers, George Keithley and many more from noon to 5 p.m. at Civic Center Park. 526-9105. www.poetryflash.org 

24 Hour Swim for West Campus Pool begins at 10 a.m. at King Pool, 1700 Hopkins St. To participate or donate, call 527-0830, 843-3442. 

Mini Farmers A farm exploration program for children accompanied by an adult. Wear boots and prepare to get dirty. From 2:30 to 4 p.m. at Tilden Nature Area, in Tilden Park. Cost is $3-$5, registration required. 525-2233. www.ebparks.org 

Leaf Art Print Collect dried leaves on a tree study walk, then make a card or decorate a t-shirt of your own. For ages six and up at 10 a.m. at Tilden Nature Area, in Tilden Park. Registration required. 525-2233. www.ebparks.org 

Berkeley Path Wanderers Claremont Elmwood Walk Meet at 10 a.m. at the corner of Ashby and Elmwood Aves, just east of College Ave. 654-5448. 

Berkeley Historical Society Walking Tour “Transformation on the Waterfront” led by Susan Schwartz. At 10 a.m. Cost is $8-$10. 848-0181. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/histsoc/ 

Walking Tour of Old Oakland around Preservation Park to see Victorian architecture. Meet at 10 a.m. in front of Preservation Park at 13th St. and MLK, Jr. Way. Tour lasts 90 minutes. Reservations can be made by calling 238-3234. www.oaklandnet.com/wallkingtours 

California Natives, a free class on site preparation, plant communities and chosing plants at 10 a.m. at Magic Gardens, 729 Heinz Ave. 644-2351. www.magicgardens.com 

Berkeley Solar Home Tour Self-guided tours from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. starting at the Shorebird Nature Center, Berkeley Marina. Tickets are $15 per group. For more information call 377-5849. www.norcalsolar.org/tour/berkeley/ 

Voter Education and Political Forum from 10 a.m. to noon at St. Paul AME Church, 2024 Ashby Ave. 848-2050. 

Swim a Mile for Women with Cancer from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Mills College Trefethan Aquatic Center. Also on Sun. Proceeds benefit the Women’s Cancer Resource Center. To register call 601-4040, ext. 180. www.wcrc.org 

Walk Against Domestic Violence at Lake Merritt, Oakland, to support A Safe Place, Oakland’s only shelter for battered women and children. For pledge forms and information call 986-8600. www.asafeplacedvs.org 

Walk for Farm Animals at 11 a.m. at Splash Pad Park, across the street from the Grand Lake Theater, Oakland. For pledge forms and information see www.walkforanimals.org 

A Conversation with Daniel Ellsberg at 2 p.m. at the Oakland Museum of California, 10th and Oak Sts. In conjunction with the exhibition “What’s Going On? California and the Vietnam Era” 238-2200. www.museumca.org 

“A Village Gathering” A day of information, resources and support for African-Americans with disabilities from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Claremont Middle School, 5750 College Ave. Oakland. 547-7322, ext. 15. 

The Silence Of Our Friends a workshop presented by the UNtraining, a program for untraining white liberal racism. From 1 to 5 p.m. at Berkeley High School Library, 1980 Allston Way. Sliding scale $10-50, no one turned away for lack of funds. Everyone welcome. Wheelchair Accessible. 235-3957. www.untraining.org  

Great Dog Lick Off A fundraising event for the Berkeley-East Bay Humane Society at noon at Alan’s Petzeria. Cost is $5. 

Sick Plant Clinic The first Sat. of every month, UC plant apthologist, Dr. Robert Raabe, UC entomologist Dr. Nick Mills, and their team of experts will diagnose what ails your plants. From 9 a.m. to noon at the UC Botanical Garden, 200 Centennial Dr. Free. 643-2755. 

Free Emergency Preparedness Class on Fire Supression from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at 997 Cedar St. To sign up call 981-5605. www. 

ci.berkeley.ca.us/fire/oes.html 

Pee Wee Basketball for Girls ages 6-8 begins at 10 a.m. at 1255 Allston Way. Cost is $25 for residents and runs for 6 weeks. Sponsored by Berkeley Youth Alternatives. 845-9066. 

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, OCT. 3 

One Long Hike From 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. beginning at Tilden Nature Area, in Tilden Park. Bring water, sunscreen and lunch as we take a look at the natural and cultural history of Wildcat Canyon. 525-2233. www.ebparks.org 

Plant It and They Will Come Learn the simple steps to attract wildlife to your backyard, from 1 to 3 p.m. at Tilden Nature Area, in Tilden Park. 525-2233. www.ebparks.org 

Neighborhood Disaster Training for Panoramic Hill from 9 a.m. to noon. Sponsored by the City of Berkeley. For information and to register call 981-5506. 

“Moral Responsibility, the Mind-Body Problem” with Gunther Stent, Prof. of Molecular and Cell Biology, UCB, at 9:30 a.m. at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley, 1 Lawson Rd., Kensington. 525-0302.  

Mid-Autum Children’s Festival Celebrating the Vietnamese Moon Festival from 4 to 8 p.m. at the Oakland Museum of California, 10th and Oak Sts. In conjunction with the exhibition “What’s Going On? California and the Vietnam Era” 238-2200. www.museumca.org 

Free Sailboat Rides between 1 and 4 p.m. at the Cal Sailing Club in the Berkeley Marina. Bring warm waterproof clothes. www.cal-sailing.org 

Tibetan Buddhism with Stephanie Hoffman on “Tibetan Text Preservation: Preserving an Endangered Tradition” at 6 p.m. at the Tibetan Nyingma Institute, 1815 Highland Pl. 843-6812. www.nyingmainstitute.com 

MONDAY, OCT. 4 

“Does America Need a New President?” with William Kristol, editor of The Weekly Standard and Mark Danner, professor at the UCB Graduate School of Journalism at 7:30 p.m. at Zellerbach Auditorium, UC Campus. Tickets are $10 available from 642-9988. http://journalism.berkeley.edu 

Tea at Four Taste some of the finest teas from the Pacific Rim and South Asia and learn their natural and cultural history, followed by a short nature walk. At 4 p.m. at Tilden Nature Area, in Tilden Park. Cost is $5-$7, registration required. 525-2233. www.ebparks.org 

Berkeley Measure Q: Pros and Cons at the The Oakland/East Bay Chapter of the National Organization for Women meeting at 6 p.m. at Chanel Hall of the Lutheran Church of the Cross, 1744 University Ave. at McGee. 287-8948. 

“Separation of Church and State: Where Are We Today?” A panel discussion sponsored by Americans United Against Church and State, the ACLU, Secular Humanists of the East Bay and Kol Hadash at 7:30 p.m. at BRJCC, 1414 Walnut St. 848-0237. 

World Affairs/Politics Discussion Group for people 60 years and over meets Mondays at 10:15 a.m. at the Albany Senior Center, 846 Masonic Ave. Join at any time. 524-9122. 

Academic Center of Excellence at St. Paul AME Church, 2024 Ashby Ave. on Mon. and Wed. from 3 to 6 p.m. A free resource for students in grades K-12 in partnership with UC Berkeley. 848-2050. 

Copwatch Class Learn about the history of police, community policing, racial profiling, government surveillance of anti-war protestors and pre-emptive arrests, and what your rights under the Patriot Act. From 6 to 7:30 p.m. at 2022 Blake St., near Shattuck. Free and open to the public. 548-0425. 

TUESDAY, OCT. 5 

Free Speech in Dangerous Times Celebrating the 40th anniversary of the Free Speech Movement, Oct. 5 - Oct. 10. at UC Berkeley. For details on events, see www.fsm-a.org  

“Is God a Republican?” with Theodore Roszak and David Randolph at 9:45 a.m. in Mudd Hall 103, Pacific School of Religion, 1798 Scenic Ave. 

Mid-Day Meander Meet at 2:30 p.m. by the bulletin board at Big Springs parking lot in Tilden Park (the wide spot on South Park Drive) for a rocky trail hike to ponder the “mystery walls” and muse about trees. 525-2233. www.ebparks.org 

“Introduction to Judaism” Explore Jewish spirituality and ethics with David Cooper at 7:30 p.m. at BRJCC, 1414 Walnut St. 848-0237. 

Family Story Time at the Kensington Branch Library, Tues. evenings at 7 p.m. at 61 Arlington Ave. 524-3043. 

Docent Training at the Regional Parks Botanic Garden every Tuesday through Feb. 8 at the Regional Parks Botanic Garden, Tilden Park. Cost is $125. To register please send check to Dr. Glenn Keator, 1455 Catherine Drive, Berkeley, 94702. For more information call 527-9802. www.nativeplants.org 

Eastern European Singing Workshops with Esma Redzepova and Ansambal Teodosievski at 7 p.m. at Eckhardt Room, Naropa University, 2141 Broadway, Oakland. Cost is $25.00. Advance reservations strongly recommended. 444-0323. www.kitka.org 

“Cuts to Low-Income Housing” a video at 1 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-5190. 

Acting and Storytelling Classes for Seniors offered by Stagebridge, at Arts First Oakland, 2501 Harrison St. Classes are held at 10 a.m. Tues.-Fri. For more information call 444-4755. www.stagebridge.org 

Organic Produce at low prices sold at the corner of Sacramento and Oregon Streets every Tuesday from 3 to 7 p.m. This is a project of Spiral Gardens. 843-1307. 

Phone Banking to ReDefeat Bush on Tuesdays from 6 to 9 p.m. at Cafe de la Paz, 1600 Shattuck Ave. Bring your cell phones. Please RSVP if you can join us. 415-595-1289. dan@redefeatbush.com 

St. John’s Prime Timers meets at 9:30 a.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. 845-6830. 

Berkeley Camera Club meets at 7:30 p.m., at the Northbrae Community Church, 941 The Alameda. 548-3991. www.berkeleycameraclub.org 

WEDNESDAY, OCT. 6 

Wednesday Bird Walk Discover the first of the migrants and help us with the monitoring of the shoreline, at 8:30 a.m. at Martin Luther King Jr. Shoreline. Turn into the park off Swan Way, follow the drive to the end and meet at the last parking lot by the observation deck. 525-2233. 

Molly Ivins on “The State of the Union” at 7 p.m at Zellerbach Auditorium, UC Campus. Event is free but tickets are required and will be available at 5 p.m. on Lower Sproul Plaza. Part of the Free Speech Movement’s 40th Anniversary. www.savio.org 

Candidates Night for School Board and Districts 2 and 3 at 6:30 p.m. at Frances Albrier Center at San Pablo Park. Hosted by South and West Berkeley Community Action Team and San Pablo Park Neighborhood Council.  

No Child Left Behind Town Hall Meeting with Graduate School of Education Dean P. David Pearson, UC Berkeley education professors Judith Warren Little and Alan Schoenfeld, and Phil Daro, executive director of the Public Forum on School Accountability, at 7 p.m. at Room 2040, Valley Life Science Building, UC Campus. 

Human Rights Video Project will show “Every Mother’s Son” about police brutality and “Books Not Bars” about the prison industry at 6:30 p.m. at Richmond Public Library Community Room, 325 Civic Center Plaza, near 26th and MacDonald, Richmond. 620-6561. 

“The Issues: Values and the Social Issues” with Kristin Luker, Prof. of Sociology and Doug Strand, UCB Survey research Center at 3 p.m. at 109 Moses Hall, UC Campus. http://www.politics.berkeley.edu 

“Behind the Sun” a film of rival families living in the desert landscape of the Brazilian Northeast at 7 p.m. at the CLAS Conference Room, 2334 Bowditch St. In Portuguese with English subtitles. 642-2088. www.clas.berkeley.edu 

“To Serve and Protect” A documentary on police brutality at 7 p.m. at Humanist Hall, 390 27th St., Oakland. Donation $3-$5, no one turned away. Sponsored by the International Council for Humanity. 419-1405.  

Neighborhood Coffee at 10 a.m. at Cafe Roma, College and Ashby. Hosted by the Council of Neighborhood Associations. www.berkeleycna.com 

Walking Tour of Oakland City Center Meet at 10 a.m. in front Oakland City Hall at Frank Ogawa Plaza. Tour lasts 90 minutes. Reservations can be made by calling 238-3234. 

Bellydance Benefit for John Kerry Performances from classic cabaret to techno tribal and beyond at 7 p.m. at the Afghan Oasis Restaurant, 2086 Allston Way. Donation $15. 684-6530. www.home.earthlink.net/~dance4democracy 

Chocolate Cooking Class from 4 to 5 p.m. at Scharffen Berger Chocolate Maker and Café Cacao, 914 Heinz Ave. Cost is $30, registration required. 981-4066.  

Blood Drive from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. in the Pauley Ballroom, UC Campus. Also On Oct. 7. 1-800-GIVE-LIFE. 

Friends of the Oakland Public Library Booksale at 10:30 a.m. through Oct. 9 at The Bookmark Bookstore, 721 Washington St., Oakland. 444-0473. 

Walk Berkeley for Seniors meets at 9:30 a.m. at the Sea Breeze market, just west of the I-80 overpass. Everyone is welcome, wear comfortable shoes, sunscreen and a hat. 548-9840. 

Berkeley Peace Walk and Vigil at the Berkeley BART Station, corner of Shattuck and Center. Sing for Peace and Vigil at 6:30 p.m. Peace Walk at 7 p.m. www.geocities.com/vigil4peace/vigil 

Prose Writers Workshop from 7 to 9 p.m. at the Jewish Community Center, 1414 Walnut, at Rose. 524-3034. 

Berkeley Communicators Toastmasters at 7:15 a.m. at Mediterraneum Caffe, 2475 Telegraph Ave. 524-3765. 

THURSDAY, OCT. 7 

Morning Bird Walk: The Birds of Jewel Lake From 7 to 9 a.m. Call for directions or to reserve binoculars. 525-2233.  

Foods of the Americas An exhibit of the abundance of the fall harvest from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. through Oct. 27 at the Botanical Garden, 200 Centennial Drive. 643-2755. http://botanicalgarden.berkeley.edu 

Survey of California’s Native Trees A class on Thurs. evenings to Nov. 4, from 7 to 9 p.m. at the Botanical Garden, 200 Centennial Drive. Cost is $155, $135 members. Registration required. 643-2755. http:// 

botanicalgarden.berkeley.edu 

Public Hearing on Housing Trust Fund Proposals at 7:30 p.m. at the South Berkeley Senior Center. Copies of the proposals are available for review at the Central Library, 2090 Kittredge. 981-5400. 

BHS South Campus Construction Plan Workshop with school officials, students, staff and designers at 7 p.m. at Berkeley High School Library, 1980 Allston Way. 644-6320. 

“A Class Divided” A film on a daring lesson in discrimination taught by Jane Elliott to her third graders in the small, all-white town of Riceville, Iowa in 1970. At 7 p.m. in the Albany High School Library, 603 Key Route Blvd. in Albany. Please enter the gymnasium doors on Thousand Oaks Blvd., turn right, go through another door and walk straight down hallway to the library. Sponsored by Embracing Diversity Films and Albany High School PTA. 527-1328. 

An Evening at the Auction House A benefit for St. Vincent’s Day Home in Oakland. From 5:30 to 8 p.m. at the Harvey Clars Auction Gallery, 5644 Telegraph Ave. Cost is $50. For tickets call 526-3883. 

CITY MEETINGS 

Council Agenda Committee meets Mon., Oct. 4, at 2:30 p.m., at 2180 Milvia St., Sherry M. Kelly, city clerk, 981-6900. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/citycouncil/agenda-committee 

Berkeley Rent Stabilization Board meets Mon. Oct. 4, at 7 p.m. in City Council Chambers, Pam Wyche 644-6128 ext. 113. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/rent 

Landmarks Preservation Commission meets Mon., Oct. 4, at 7:30 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Gisele Sorensen, 981-7419. www.ci.berkeley.ca. 

us/commissions/landmarks 

Peace and Justice Commission meets Mon., Oct. 4, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Manuel Hector, 981-5510. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/peaceandjustice 

Youth Commission meets Mon., Oct. 4, at 6:30 p.m., at 1730 Oregon St. Philip Harper-Cotton, 981-6670. www.ci. 

berkeley.ca.us/commissions/youth 

City Council meets Tues., Oct. 5, at 7 p.m in City Council Chambers, Sherry M. Kelly, city clerk, 981-6900. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/citycouncil 

Commission on the Status of Women meets Wed., Oct. 6, at 7:30 p.m., at the West Berkeley Senior Center. Tasha Tervelon, 981-5347. www.ci.berkeley. 

ca.us/commissions/women 

Fire Safety Commission meets Wed., Oct. 6, 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 

Community Environmental Advisory Commission meets Thurs., Oct. 7, at 7 p.m., at 2118 Milvia St. Nabil Al-Hadithy, 981-7461. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/environmentaladvisory 

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

ca.us/commissions/housing 

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

ô

A group of former students of Lincoln Elementary School in southwest Berkeley returned last week to find a school that was significantly larger, better-landscaped, and more ethnically diverse than the one they left some 60 years ago. Oh, and yes, of course, the name has been changed, to Malcolm X Arts and Academics Magnet Elementary. 

The gathering was part of last weekend’s 50th reunion activities of the Berkeley High School Class of 1954. Reunion participants were encouraged to fan out across the city on Friday morning to visit their old elementary schools. 

At Malcolm X, the participants—all of whom were African-American—toured the school, poured over old class photos in the library, shared stories, and sat in on class sessions to answer student questions about “the old days.” They are part of a forgotten portion of Berkeley—middle class blacks who grew up in what they like to call “challenging economic circumstances” in the city just prior to World War II, and whose ranks were later overshadowed by the huge influx of Southern blacks who came up from Louisiana and Texas and Arkansas in the early ‘40s to work in the wartime shipping industries. 

Participants recalled a black East Bay community of the ‘30s, ‘40s, and ‘50s whose recreation events stretched from the tennis courts and baseball fields of San Pablo Playground in Berkeley—where barnstorming Negro League semipro teams used to draw large crowds for weekend games—to dances at the Paramount and Fox and T&D theaters in Oakland entertained by big-name performers like Nat King Cole. 

“My students were totally fascinated by them,” said second grade teacher Susan Alexander, reflecting on the class visit by the alumni. “They were most interested in one of the stories about how students used to be popped with a leather strap. When I asked my students what they would think if I did something like that to them, they looked at me like I was out of my mind.” 

Corporal punishment was outlawed in California in 1987, long before the second graders were born. 

Mort Hilliard, a former Lincoln student of the ‘40s, was amused by one question in particular: “Did you have cellphones back then?” 

“When I went to Lincoln, we had one telephone in our house,” he said. “When you picked it up, you had to ask the operator to get the number for you.” 

Jai Waggoner, Curriculum Coordinator at Malcolm X, was also fascinated by the reunion participants, particularly their memories. “I was amazed that they could look at photos and remember the names of all of those classmates,” she said. “Sometimes it’s hard for us teachers to remember the names of all of the students in the classes we’re teaching.” 

One participant spent about 15 minutes jotting down the name of some 25 student crossing guards for the school history records to be kept in the library. The photos had been taken nearly 60 years ago. 

The student photo reminiscing prompted some good-natured “ribbing” and “boot-jacking,” included one gentle dig by Malcolm X principal Cheryl Chinn. Seeing a young photo of Homer Martin, who attended Lincoln in the late ‘40s, she asked, “What happened, Homer? You looked so good, then.” Martin smiled and shot back, “You’re trying to say that I look cute now, but I just looked cuter then.” The reunion crowd roared with laughter. 

Martin said that the Lincoln Elementary environment was “dramatically different” when he attended, particularly the racial makeup. “The school was 90 percent black in those days,” he said, even though the surrounding neighborhood was not all black. “I learned later that we were subject to red-lining. But, of course, I didn’t know that while I was a child.” 

Martin, who acted as contact man for the Malcolm X participants, chose not to limit the gathering to Berkeley class of ‘54 participants, and so the Malcolm X gathering included students who attended over roughly a 10 year period spanning the ‘40s. It also included 76 year old Newman Rebell, a Berkeley resident who graduated from the school in 1938. 

Rebell said that though he passes by Malcolm X “quite a bit” last Friday was the first time he had returned to the school since he graduated. He remembered the old Lincoln as a one-building school “with a lot of asphalt, all around.” When someone joked about it being a “one-room schoolhouse,” someone else said, “No, that’s a little bit further back than our time. You’re confusing us with Louisiana.” 

Most of reunion participants said that this was not the first time they’d gotten back together; in fact, they said that a group of longtime African-American Berkeley residents in their 60s regularly meet for breakfast, once a month, as a social event. They explained that the gatherings grew out of “penny-ante” poker games run by four or five old friends and enlarged, some two years ago, into the informal monthly events. 

“It’s primarily guys who grew up in Berkeley,” one of them said. “At this point, we even have some women show up.”?

If the big one hits, Frank Morris fears that he, and more than 2,000 Berkeley residents like him, might not be allowed to build anew. 

They live within 30 feet of one of the city’s estimated 75,000 linear feet of open and culverted creeks. If a house falls victim to an earthquake, fire or any other natural disaster, owners can’t rebuild without permission from the city.  

There is no known case of the city standing in the way of a homeowner desperate to rebuild, but that isn’t enough to comfort Morris, who lives in the Indian Rock neighborhood by the Marin Watershed. 

“I don’t trust the city very much for anything,” he said. 

When the City Council convenes for a special meeting at Longfellow Middle School Tuesday it will seek to reassure homeowners like Morris, whose concerns are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to tackling the city’s dreaded creek question. 

Already, Berkeley is facing roughly $30 million of immediate repair to creek culverts, not one dime of which is accounted for in the city’s budget, according to a July report from the city manager. 

The problem stems all the way back to the beginning of the 20th century when Berkeley built nearly 34,000 linear feet of creek culverts, pushing the open watercourses underground and in some cases redirecting them to enable development. Many of the estimated 2,000 homeowners within 30 feet of culverted creeks weren’t aware of the culverts until earlier this year when the city released a map of its creek system. 

The concrete culverts were only built to last between 60 and 80 years, and now that they are reaching the end of their useful lives, the city is facing an unfunded liability of mammoth proportions. Just last week the City Council had to make a $250,000 emergency allocation to fix a broken culvert at Allston and Harold ways. 

“It’s a huge giant timebomb,” said Councilmember Dona Spring.  

Take for example Strawberry Creek, one of the city’s ten watersheds. The city manager’s report said that the creek, which leaves UC property at Oxford Street and flows into the Bay, has six damaged culverts, including the one at Allston and Harold, that will cost roughly $11 million to fix. 

Complicating the issue is that some of the culverts run underneath private property, and although the city’s 1989 Creek Ordinance is silent on the matter, city policy places the responsibility for fixing them on homeowners. Some property owners built culverts in the early part of the 1900s, but since permits for culvert construction weren’t required until 1928, little definitive information exists as to their origins. 

Already the city is facing lawsuits from a slew of neighbors on North Valley Street, who claim that the city or neighbors who live upstream should bear the costs of fixing a damaged culvert that has placed several houses in jeopardy of collapse (see insert). 

Since some culverted creeks also serve as conduits for transporting city storm water to the Bay, even some councilmembers question the legality of the city’s stance of leaving the problem to property owners. 

“To say it’s totally the private property owner’s problem, seems a little simplistic to me,” said Councilmember Gordon Wozniak. 

When the council meets Tuesday, it will try to decide exactly what to do with its 15-year-old creeks ordinance. The law, designed to restrict further culverting of open creeks, prohibits new roofed-construction and expansion within a 30 feet of the creek line or culvert that runs along the natural creek path. 

When Berkeley passed the law in 1989 just after the Loma Prieta earthquake damaged culverts in San Francisco, the city was hailed as an innovator in preserving watersheds. But since then other cities, including Santa Cruz and Santa Barbara, have passed more restrictive laws that local creek advocates want Berkeley to copy. 

Juliet Lamont, an environmental consultant and member of Friends of Five Creeks, wants the 30-foot setback also to apply to some non-roofed structures such as parking lots, as well as monetary incentives for homeowners to help them fix culverts and a plan to prevent stormwater pollution, often caused by illegal sewer hookups and illegal dumping of waste down storm drains on city streets. 

Parts of the city’s storm water system are about as old as its culverts, and for Strawberry Creek alone the city will need to spend roughly $10 million in storm water system repairs, according to the city manager’s report. 

To tackle all of the issues collectively, creek advocates and their allies on the City Council are calling for the council Tuesday to form an independent task force to review the 1989 ordinance. 

But councilmembers who are more leery of enacting restrictive new measures favor sending the issue to the Planning Commission. 

“I don’t see why a taskforce is necessary,” said Councilmember Betty Olds. “It’s primarily a land use issue, that’s what the Planning Commission does.” 

Tom Kelly, a city health commissioner and creeks advocate, argued that the Planning Commission had other items on its plate and would take too long getting acquainted with the issues.  

“The best expertise rests with the large group of creek supporters,” he said. 

Either way, the first question in a review the creek ordinance will be how to pay for the process. City Manager Phil Kamlarz, who isn’t recommending either option, said revising the ordinance would take several years and hundreds of thousands of dollars in staff time. 

Although the biggest creek issues well might be debated for years, the council Tuesday could guarantee the rights of residents like Morris to be able to rebuild their homes after an earthquake or a fire.  

On the agenda are two proposals: The first would let residents rebuild the footprint of their home within the 30-foot setback under any circumstances and the second would require them to move the house to a portion of the property beyond the setback unless doing so proved “unfeasible.” 

Creek advocates prefer the stricter of the two proposals and want the issue to first go to the taskforce. But Councilmember Betty Olds said she would push for a resolution Tuesday. “This is the biggest issue for a lot of people,” she said. “They’re terrified what will happen if their house were to burn down.” 

?

On a quiet cul-de-sac in central Berkeley, the neighbors will chat about nearly anything except the tangle of lawsuits they have filed against each other and the city. 

“I’m busting to talk, but it’s in litigation,” said Brian Huse of 2163 North Valley Street who is being sued by eight neighbors and is countersuing all of them as well as the city and Strawberry Creek Lodge, a senior living facility. 

At issue is who is responsible for paying an estimated $1.3 million to repair the dilapidated culvert. When it was built, sometime in the early 20th century, it sent Strawberry Creek racing below their houses and now threatens to drag at least two of their homes and the Strawberry Creek Lodge down into the creek. 

Last year Anthony Cody and Kristin Prentice of 2152 North Valley decided to take the matter to Superior Court. They filed suit charging that the collapse of a section of the cement culvert had resulted in damage to the foundation of their home. Since they didn’t live over the culvert, and they didn’t know where culpability rested, they sued the city and the neighbors who lived upstream from them above the damaged culvert. 

The suit spawned a series of countersuits that have been consolidated before Superior Court Judge Bonnie Sabraw.  

Although they have entangled one another in lawsuits, Jay Pederson, the attorney for Marie Andrushuk of 2151 North Valley, said the neighbors were essentially charging that the damaged culvert is the city’s responsibility. The city attorney’s office disagrees. 

With much of Berkeley’s 34,000 linear feet of concrete culverts coming to the end of their natural lives, the question of who is responsible for paying to repair culverts running underneath private property will either claim millions from the city’s coffers or from homeowners’ wallets. 

The dispute arose in 2001 when creek advocates working near the culvert at North Valley Street peeled back ivy and vines to find that a 15-foot slab of concrete had broken off from the culvert. 

An ensuing engineering study by Oakland-based Applied Materials & Engineering found that “severe deterioration” had occurred on the west end of the culvert and in one section the culvert’s strength was measured at 241 PSI (pounds per square inch), when the standard strength was 3,500 PSI. The engineer also found that the culvert had sustained multiple cracks and lacked any steel reinforcement to protect it from further cracking 

The collapse of the culvert has changed the flow of water, which during heavy rains ricochets off the displaced concrete and slams into the creek bed and the sides of the creek banks. Since the culvert has started to cave, the creek bed and banks have eroded threatening the stability of the lodge and homes of both Cody and Andershuk. 

The neighbors are contending that the culvert is part of the city’s storm water drainage system that funnels rain water from city streets into the Bay, Pederson said. If the culvert is part of the city’s flood control system, it is the city’s responsibility to fix, their complaints allege. 

The city replied that Strawberry Creek is not part of its storm drain system. Instead, Deputy City Attorney Matthew Orebic held that the city has a “formal storm drain system of pipes that run parallel to the creek.” 

Orebic also contended that the city had no record showing that the damaged section of the culvert, believed to be built between 1915 and 1928, was constructed by the city. 

He wrote in the city’s Complex Case Management Conference Statement that it was likely that a private developer extended a different culvert to increase the amount of land available for development. 

While the issue of liability remains tangled in litigation, the city and neighbors are working on an emergency repair job to prevent further erosion this rainy season. 

The project, estimated to cost in the tens of thousands of dollars, would place rock filled wire baskets against the creek banks and break up the large slabs of fallen concrete culverts to slow the rush of the water, said Ed Ballman, a civil engineer at Balance Hydrologics, one of two Berkeley-based companies asked to bid on the project. 

Ballman said the work would have to be completed by Oct. 15, the state-mandated date to cease all work in streams before the onset of the rainy season. 

With no final settlement in sight, Richard Register, the head of Ecocity Builders, a chief advocate of unearthing creeks, has floated a compromise.  

He suggested establishing a land trust in which developers would pour money into a trust to buy out the homeowners in return for height waivers for new projects in downtown Berkeley or other acceptable locations. When homeowner wanted to sell, he said, the trust would buy their land and unearth the creek. 

“So far a lot of people have been fearful of it, but we think it’s a good idea,” he said. 

?

For the 20 years Maudelle Shirek has sat on the City Council she could always count on the support of Berkeley’s foremost progressive political organization. 

Until now. 

Berkeley Citizens Action, which has endorsed Shirek in all of her council races, at times unanimously, voted overwhelmingly Sunday to back her rival in District 3, Max Anderson. 

The 41-17 vote for Anderson, the chair of Berkeley’s Rent Stabilization Board, cemented the challenger’s credentials as the standard-bearer of Berkeley’s left and finalized a painful separation between Shirek and some of her core supporters. 

Don Jelinek, a former councilmember, who introduced Anderson to the convention, said giving his speech endorsing Anderson was “the most difficult thing I’ve ever done in my life. 

“The idea of saying those words in front of Maudelle was painful beyond imagination,” he said. 

Telephone calls to Shirek Monday went unanswered. 

Anderson said he was “extremely grateful” for the BCA endorsement. “I think they see me as someone who represents and embodies their interests.” 

The vote by 59 dues-paying BCA members came after the BCA Steering Committee voted 4-1 to recommend endorsing Shirek.  

The 93-year-old Shirek has been one of the most revered figures among Berkeley progressives for her decades of work fighting for civil rights and against housing discrimination in the city. 

But in recent years she has frequently voted with more moderate councilmembers, and last month when a procedural slip-up cost Shirek her place on the ballot, progressives bolted en masse for Anderson. 

With Shirek running as a write-in candidate after she failed to collect enough valid signatures to qualify for the ballot, she has seen Anderson win the endorsement of progressive organizations like the Sierra Club and the East Bay Gay Lesbian Transgender Club which Shirek had received in prior races. 

Jae Scharlin, a BCA trustee who collected the signatures for Shirek that the city clerk disqualified because fewer than 20 of the names were from District 3, said she was no longer working on the Shirek campaign and questioned Shirek’s decision to mount a write-in campaign. 

“We need unity in the district,” she said, fearing that Shirek’s campaign could tip the election in favor of Laura Menard, a more moderate community activist. 

Had Shirek qualified for the ballot, Jelinek said BCA members probably wouldn’t have seen her as a spoiler and might have voted differently. 

“If she had qualified I think we would have had a dual endorsement,” he said. 

While Shirek was getting squeezed out of Berkeley progressive establishment, she was trying, with some success, to make inroads with Berkeley moderates. For the first time Thursday, Shirek sought the endorsement of the Berkeley Democratic Club, the moderate’s flagship organization. 

Shirek failed to win the endorsement but drew enough votes to keep Menard from winning it and left with the pledged support of councilmembers Gordon Wozniak, Betty Olds and Miriam Hawley, widely considered the three most conservative members of the council. 

Olds, who had already endorsed Menard, said Monday she would now endorse both candidates for District 3. 

While the BDC failed to endorse any candidate in District 3, they did endorse Olds for city council in District 6 and ZAB Commissioner Laurie Capitelli in District 5. They made no endorsement in District 2, where Peralta Community College District Trustee Darryl Moore is a big favorite. For school board, the club endorsed incumbent Joaquin Rivera and for the ballot measures only the schools tax managed to win 60 percent of the vote. 

Besides endorsing Anderson, the BCA endorsed Moore in District 2, Karen Hemphill and John Selawsky for School Board and Nicky Gonzalez Yuen for the Peralta Board of Trustees. In District 5 neither Capitelli, whom the steering committee recommended, nor Green Party member Jesse Townley could manage the 60 percent of the BCA vote required to earn an endorsement. State Senator Don Perata also failed to get the BCA endorsement. 

?

Three seats on the Peralta Community College District Board of Trustees in the Daily Planet’s coverage area will be filled by newcomers. 

In Area 2 (East Oakland) currently represented by Lynn Baranco, Area 4 (Albany, Emeryville, and the western portions of Berkeley) currently represented by Darryl Moore, and Area 6 (North Oakland the eastern portions of Berkeley) currently represented by Susan Duncan, the incumbents are not running for re-election. 

Peralta operates four colleges—Laney, Merritt, College of Alameda, and Vista—with a combined student population of 27,000, 70 percent of whom are minorities. 

The district operates on a $90 million budget which Chancellor Elihu Harris, former assemblymember and Oakland mayor, says is “underfunded” by between $8 million and $10 million. Prior to Harris’ selection as chancellor earlier this year, this district was often described by local media as “troubled.” The district is currently embarking on a $67 million project to build a first-time, 165,000-square-foot campus for Vista College in Berkeley. 

Area 2 

The Area 2 Trustee race pits two public school employees against each other: Hayward Unified School District teacher Marcie Hodge against Castlemont High School counselor Johnny Lorigo. Area 2 takes in the extreme southern tip of Oakland, roughly from Seminary Avenue to the San Leandro border. Incumbent Lynn Baranco, the outgoing Peralta Trustee president, is not running for re-election. Both candidates are graduates of Peralta colleges. 

In her candidate’s statement filed with the Alameda County Registrar of Voters, Hodge said that one of her goals as trustee is to “demand better fiscal accountability. Every dollar should be used to improve classroom instruction and for student financial aid so that college is an affordable option for everyone.” Hodge also said that she would “work to expand the number of course offerings to ensure students graduate on time” and “expand vocational training programs so students gain the skills they need to get good jobs.” 

Hodge owns MLH Psychotherapy Group and is the sister of Oakland School Board member Jason Hodge, who has endorsed her candidacy. 

Hodge lists Oakland Councilmembers Larry Reid and Henry Chang and Peralta Trustees Lynn Baranco [the outgoing incumbent], Darryl Moore, and Susan Duncan as her endorsers, as well as East Oakland political powerhouse pastors J. Alfred Smith Sr. of Allen Temple Baptist Church and Bob Jackson of Acts Full Gospel Church.  

Lorigo has worked in both the Oakland Unified School District and the Peralta Community College District and served for 10 years on the Laney College Educational Opportunities Service advisory board. In one of his campaign leaflets, he says that he wants to “bring fiscal solvency back to the district through a shared decision-making process,” but stresses that he wants to do so “without sacrificing quality education to students [or] the livelihood of our committed faculty and staffs.” 

“The students are my top priority,” Lorigo adds. “I’m real concerned about the playing field being more level. We need to go above and beyond what the state is giving us to subsidize books and tuition and child care. If you just settle for what the state gives you, you’re always going to have a bare minimum.”  

Among his endorsers, Lorigo lists State Senator Don Perata, Oakland City Attorney John Russo, Peralta Trustees Linda Handy, Darryl Moore, Bill Riley, and Amey Stone, former Black Panthers David Hilliard and Bobby Seale, as well as the Alameda County Democratic Party, the John George and MGO Democratic clubs, and several local unions. 

Area 4 

In Area 4, incumbent Darryl Moore is giving up his seat to run for Berkeley City Council District 2 seat. Running to replace him are DeAnza Community College political science instructor Nicholas González Yuen, Berkeley attorney Kamau Edwards, and Lincoln University Associate Professor James Peterson. Area 4 includes the entire cities of Albany and Emeryville, as well as the western portion (generally) of the City of Berkeley. 

“One issue [in this campaign], obviously, is timely completion of Vista,” says Edwards, referring to the Peralta College in Berkeley. “Vista is a college that hasn’t always gotten its fair share of the funds. The number one issue for me is to make sure Vista gets completed on time—January 2006—and trying to make sure Vista gets its fair share of the funding. The second issue is an offshoot of Vista and an offshoot of the Peralta Colleges as a whole: funding—that is, trying to find enough funds for the Peralta colleges to become premier institutions as we move forward.” 

He also says that as one of his goals as trustee, he wants to create “custom-tailored classes” for the local business community. 

Edwards has taught courses at New College and has served on the state Select Committee on Community Colleges. He lists some of his endorsers as Peralta trustees Lynn Baranco, Amey Stone, Alona Clifton, Darryl Moore, and William Riley, as well as Albany school board member Peggy Thompson. 

Peterson is the chief financial aid officer at Lincoln University, as well as the designated school official for the Homeland Security program “In which we monitor and review all foreign students coming into the school.” He was an assistant to former Congressmember Ron Dellums, and ran unsuccessfully for Berkeley City Council District 3 in 2000. 

Among his goals, Peterson says he “would work to restore the lost California state funding. [I] shall encourage the governing board and staff to seek funding replacement through direct federal and private sector foundation sources.” Peterson also says he will “work to maintain equality among the diverse college campuses,” and says that he will “support successful on-time and within budget completion of Vista College.” 

Peterson is a former member of the Berkeley Zoning Adjustment Board. He includes former Berkeley Mayor Shirley Dean and California Assembly Speaker Pro Tempore Leland Yee among his endorsers. 

Yuen, who worked in 2001 as a congressional fellow to the late United States Senator Paul Wellstone, lists three major issues that need to be addressed by Peralta’s board: access, equity, and excellence. 

“By access, I mean that we need to work to ensure the ongoing availability of community college resources to students of modest means. [By equity], we have to make sure that there is a level playing field for people in our society. At Peralta, this means working to insure high success rates for students from groups not traditionally well served by society’s social and educational institutions. Excellence to me means making sure that the quality of education we provide to Peralta students is as good as or better than they can get at any other educational institution in California.” 

Yuen lists Congressmember Barbara Lee, local legislators Don Perata, Loni Hancock, and Wilma Chan, Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates, Berkeley Councilmembers Kriss Worthington, Margaret Breland, Linda Maio, Dona Spring, and Miriam Hawley, Peralta Trustees Darryl Moore [the outgoing incumbent] and Linda Handy, the Alameda County Central Labor Council, both the Green and Democratic parties of Alameda County, the Peralta Federation of Teachers, and the Wellstone, John George, and MGO Democratic clubs among his endorsements. 

Area 6 

With incumbent Susan Duncan retiring after 20 years as trustee, the Area 6 race pits psychologist and former Alameda County Director of Mental Health Outpatient Services Melanie Sweeney-Griffith against community college educator and Rockridge News editor Cyril (Cy) Gulassa. Area 6 includes the eastern portion (generally) of Berkeley, as well as a portion of flatlands North Oakland running up into the Montclair area of the Oakland hills. 

Gulassa has worked for 30 years as an English professor at DeAnza Community College, and was the president of the faculty collective bargaining unit for 15 years. He says that during his time on the bargaining unit, he “pioneered a concept called shared governance; it’s an opportunity for faculty, staff, and the community as well as all managers and make major decisions regarding allocations. That prevents the kind of collective bargaining games that normally prevail, where they hide the money and you ask for more than you know you want, they pretend to have less than they can give you, and then you go through this ugly game of fighting it out.” 

Gulassa says that Peralta’s colleges “need a trustee with classroom and governance experience, not political ambition. Bickering among trustees must be replaced by strategic planning, accountability, financial oversight, and open decision making that includes staff, students, and community.” He also lists ensuring that Vista College receives adequate funding is one of his highest priorities. 

Among other endorsements, Gulassa is backed by State Senator Don Perata, Oakland City Councilmembers Igancio De La Fuente, Jean Quan, and Nancy Nadel, Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates, Berkeley City Councilmembers Miriam Hawley, Linda Maio, and Betty Olds, Peralta trustees Linda Handy and Amey Stone, as well as by the Peralta Federation of Teachers, the Board of the Faculty Association of California Community Colleges, the Alameda County Central labor Council, and SEIU Local 790. 

Sweeney-Griffith, a former Merritt College instructor and aide to then-state assemblymember Barbara Lee, says that “as a psychologist, I know the learning process does not begin and end in the classroom. Top-notch facilities, solid funding, appropriate curriculum, legislative action, and strong oversight fuel it.” She says she will bring “15 years of experience in these areas, including leadership skills, policy development, and multimillion-dollar budget management. I will work to ensure that my leadership is student centered, visionary, and inclusive of all partners of Peralta—community, students, faculty, and employees.” 

She says that one of her goals is “to be an innovative visionary for Peralta’s growth through creative land use and fostering collaborations with other educational institutions and the community.” 

Among her endorsements, Sweeney-Griffith lists Alameda County Supervisor Keith Carson, County Board of Education members Gay Cobb and Dennis Chaconas, Peralta Trustees Lynn Baranco, Alona Clifton, Susan Duncan [Area 6’s outgoing incumbent], and William Riley, Berkeley City Councilmembers Margaret Breland, Maudelle Shirek, Donna Spring, Kriss, Worthington, and Gordon Wozniak, the Alameda County Democratic Party, the National Women’s Political Caucus, and the Black Women Organized For Political Action.ô

An unexpected increase in Berkeley High School student attendance has caused the addition of 10 new classes at the school, the creation of the equivalent of two new full-time teaching positions, and the reshuffling of some student schedules. 

BHS officials say that school enrollment is currently “fluctuating around 2,900 students.” 

In an e-mail sent to BHS parents and supporters last week, Vice Principal Mark Wolfe said that while the school “recognize[d] that these schedule changes may create a temporary disruption, they will balance classes more equitably and reduce overall class size.” 

Students received the new schedules on Monday after school counselors and volunteers worked over the weekend to draw them up. School counselors said that the schedule reorganization went well with the students “since it relieved some of the complaints we were getting about overcrowded classes.” 

Although complete data was not available at press time, counselors Stephen Chang and Susan Werd said that the combination of new staff and schedule changes will result in smaller class sizes for at least some students. 

Chang said that the class reshuffling came “later in the school year than we’d like, but there’s no question that we needed it.” 

Both Chang and Werd attributed a good portion of the unexpected increase to what Chang called “a huge extra bump in incoming freshmen.” 

Freshman counselor Werd said that more than 120 freshmen have registered at Berkeley High since the beginning of the new school year earlier this month, an increase which she called “significantly more than last year.” 

Although she did not have figures on freshman enrollment coming in after the beginning of the last school year, she said that she typically holds two orientations for such students, while this year she has already held four.ß

When heavy construction equipment moved in to the meadow on Aug. 18, a lot of Berkeley residents were angered at the sudden closure of the 72-acre site between the I-80 frontage road and the Berkeley Marina. 

Environmentalists and park officials acknowledged that they could’ve done a better job alerting the public to what was to come, but insist that the final result will be something worth cherishing. 

Arthur Feinstein, director of conservation and education for the Golden Gate Audubon Society, called the project “a wonderful opportunity for the restoration of coastal scrub habitat.” 

Addressing critics, Feinstein asked, “Do we sacrifice that wonderful opportunity to create an educational experience for our children to see what coastal habitat once was? Here’s a chance where we’re actually trying to improve the world,” he said. 

Critics aren’t so sure, arguing that the land should’ve been left untouched as a natural habitat that evolved in harmony with the ecology of today, not an ecology of an imaginary past on land that didn’t exist until trucks started dumping in trash and other landfill into the waters of San Francisco Bay. 

“I’m pretty mad,” said Curt Manning, a West Berkeley activist who has harshly criticized the project. “They’re killing all the animals. It’s a piss-poor way of starting the development of the Eastshore State Park.” 

“Creation wasn’t good enough for all these people. They think they can improve on it,” said Maris Arnold, another critic. “The native plant people have no credibility in my mind. Besides, so many of us here are transplants.” 

Under the Eastshore Park General Plan adopted two years ago, the meadow—a 72-acre bloc of landfill between the I-80 frontage road and the Berkeley Marina—will be transformed into a re-creation of the seasonal wetland and upland ecology typical of the Bay Area before Europeans first appeared on the scene. 

Directors of the East Bay Regional Parks District gave formal approval to the meadow restoration last April 6 during a meeting in which directors also voted to accept $365,335 from Cherokee Simeon Ventures. 

Cherokee Simeon is a partnership between a Marin County developer and Cherokee Investment Partners, a Colorado firm which specializes in cleaning up and developing “brownfield”—contaminated—property. 

While the partnership is developing Campus Bay, a controversial Richmond waterfront housing development on a toxic waste site, their involvement in the meadow stems from their Metroport project in Oakland. 

Because the developer is filling in a 2.4-acre Oakland wetland site, state law requires them to fund an effort to reclaim another wetland site. 

The work now underway at the meadow is the first of three planned phases, and involves 16.5 acres of the site. Cherokee Simeon funds go toward creating 3.25 acres of new seasonal wetlands and enhancement of 2.5 acres of the existing site. The other 10.75 acres will be coastal prairie recreated with native plants and existing native scrub brush. 

The partnership will design, construct and monitor the improvements for up to five years. 

Les Rowntree, a long-term Berkeley resident and Professor of Environmental Studies at San Jose State, said the Meadows project will likely need more monitoring than that. 

“We still don't know how long it takes to create a sustainable wetland, since we’ve only been restoring wetlands in San Francisco Bay since 1970,” he said. “Five years does not seem long enough—that’s a mere snapshot in what should be an ongoing process. They monitor it for five years, and think it's successful, but it might not be.” 

Rowntree also questioned the environmental value of the project, saying, “They’re just looking for a convenient place to do a trade-off on the no-net-loss agenda of the Bay Control and Development Commission.” 

When fully complete, the project will be permanently fenced, and four entrances will lead to two roughly perpendicular paths that bisect the meadow. Dogs won’t be allowed inside the paths to prevent disturbances to the wildlife. 

“What is out there did not exist in 1985,” said Norman La Force, legal chair of the San Francisco chapter of the Sierra Club. “In October of that year Santa Fe bulldozed the entire meadow clean. They scraped it. In the intervening years, all this has come back.” 

The railroad, once the major shoreline landowner, had dropped out of the picture in the intervening years and the meadow was acquired by the Eastshore State Park, which now owns 2,262 acres along the waterfronts of Oakland, Emeryville, Berkeley, Albany and Richmond. 

Under the plan adopted by park directors, over half of the site will remain as upland habitat for the protection of harriers and kites, two species of raptors who nest in the meadow. 

Once the land is scraped and replaced with clean soil, site developers will reintroduce native species and exclude “a lot of exotic plant species that are not necessarily healthy for wildlife,” La Force said. 

The Sierra Club activist acknowledges that the park district made one tactical error leading up to the restoration project by not posting explanatory signs before work commenced. That error has been belatedly rectified, and signs and an explanatory information sheet are now posted on the temporary fencing surrounding the site. 

One of the main challenges will be keeping out exotic plant species, the varieties imported intentionally or inadvertently by European colonizers.  

“It’s going to take a lot of effort,” Feinstein said. “But in Berkeley we expect plenty of volunteers to help us, so when the time comes, come on down and weed.” 

Manning scoffed at the notion. “The possibility of going around and getting rid of the foxtails and all the invasive species is like trying to wipe out the opposition in Iraq. Clean all that ground and the first thing to come in will be weeds.” 

“Basically, there’s going to be a lot of grubbing and removing of exotic vegetation,” said Larry Tong, Interagency Planning Manager for the East Bay Regional Park District. 

“The existing willows and other species are being protected by snow fences, and we’ll be finished with the initial 17-acre phase within two months,” Tong said. 

Construction is being scheduled around the nesting seasons of the harriers and kites, Tong said. 

Tong said that the park district, working with the California Parks Department and the California Coastal Conservancy, conducted a two-year series of public hearings, with 24 meetings and thousands of participants before the final plan was adopted two years ago. 

Berkeley City Councilmember Betty Olds, a project proponent, said Tong had explored all the issues with various environmental groups, who had signed off on the project.

Controversy over the high density Campus Bay waterfront residential development on a toxic waste site in Richmond continues to mount as eager-to-build developers are pitted against anxious residents. 

The next round in the controversy begins at 9 this morning (Tuesday, Sept. 28) when the Regional Water Quality Control Board and developer Cherokee-Simeon Ventures present a briefing on the proposed restoration of Stege Marsh along the shoreline. 

The meeting will be held on the Campus Bay site in the two-story building with greenhouses near the Bayview exit off I-580. 

Employees who work near the site have expressed concerns that digging up the marsh and pouring the excavated soil on top of already capped toxic wastes on the site would pose a threat to their health. 

Berkeley attorney Peter Weiner, a partner in the San Francisco office of powerhouse firm Paul, Hastings, Janofsky & Walker, has been representing concerned residents on a pro bono basis. 

“He really should get a citizen of the year for all the work he’s done for us,” said Sherry Padgett, who works near the site and has been one of the key opposition leaders. 

Weiner fired off an e-mail last week to Curtis T. Scott, chief of the Regional Water Quality Control Board’s Groundwater Protection & Waste Containment Division, challenging both the meeting and the water board’s handling of the project. 

“We are deeply and grievously concerned that you are preparing a workplan approval letter without further consultation with the community, given all the concerns that have been raised,” Weiner wrote. 

The attorney also challenged the basis of the meeting, noting that it had “not been noticed to the public at large,” nor was it being held in a neutral location or at a time when working residents could attend. 

While the state Department of Toxic Substances Control had raised serious questions about the site’s fitness for a high-density residential complex, the water board has taken the role of lead agency in the project—a matter that concerns Padgett and other critics of the project. 

—

Richmond City Council members are scheduled to decide the fate of the Point Molate Casino proposal when they meet Tuesday night, Sept. 28, in their chambers at the Marina City Hall, 1401 Marina Way South. 

Councilmembers already signaled their intention to sign the agreement with Upstream Molate LLC, the creation of Berkeley developer James D. Levine, during a unanimous Aug. 31 vote. 

Final action was blocked by a civil injunction filed by ChevronTexaco, owners of the massive refinery just over the hill from the site of the major casino resort, shopping center and hotel complex planned by Upstream and Harrah’s Entertainment, the world’s largest casino company. 

That injunction was overturned last week by a Contra Costa County Superior Court judge, paving the way for a final decision by the council. 

Upstream’s exclusive right to negotiate ended at midnight Monday, leaving the council free, in theory, to sign a deal with another entity. 

In an e-mail sent to his constituents Monday afternoon, Richmond City Councilmember Tom Butt said he expects ChevronTexaco officials to make a more substantial offer for the property than a $34 million offering made on Aug. 13. 

Calls to Dean O’Hair, the oil firm’s Richmond spokesperson, weren’t returned.  

—

Members of the University of California community gathered at midday last week at the spreading lawn below California Hall to remember and mourn the loss of friends and colleagues during the past year. 

The Sept. 21 event was the third annual Campus Memo rial Service, a campus tradition initiated during the tenure of retiring Chancellor Robert Berdahl, who introduced the occasion with quiet grace and dignity.  

Noting it was his last day and last public event in office Berdahl, a consistent advocate of r einforcing a sense of campus community, said “I can think of no more fitting manner to close my tenure as chancellor.” 

The audience, spilled back into the trees, formed a contemplative nucleus at the center of the University, as hundreds of students stre amed past on adjacent pathways, headed to and from class.  

“I believe we become a stronger community by remembering how much these colleagues and friends have meant to us and to the life of this University,” Berdahl said. “Each one was loved by someone here who mourns their passing.” 

A speaker’s podium, flanked by blue and gold wreaths, stood in front of the campus flagpole, while an adjacent pedestal bore the names of nearly 80 faculty and staff—including retirees—and students of the Berkeley campus known to have died in the past year.  

Next to the pedestal, a cone of incense, placed in memory of Robert Black from Native American Studies, sent a faint wisp of smoke into the bright mid-day sun. 

The memorial roll included several faculty members wi th international fame: Berkeley’s first chancellor, Clark Kerr, once the most influential figure in American higher education; Nobel Prize winner Czeslaw Milosz, as well as fellow poet Thom Gunn; engineer T.Y. Lin.  

A late addition to the list was legen dary Cal water polo coach Pete Cutino, who died just days before the memorial.  

“To mark the passing of these giants does not diminish the service of the others,” Berdahl said, taking special note of deceased staff members.  

The list included staff me mbers who had faithfully worked at Cal in non-teaching jobs as police officers, librarians, office assistants, administrators, “the fellow who ran Cal’s lost and found,” Berdahl said.  

Berdahl shared a message from Professor Daniel McFadden who said “his Nobel Prize would not have happened” without the work and support of Grace Katagiri, a member of the Economics staff since the early 1970s.  

Earlier this year, when she knew she was dying, Katagiri wrote to her work colleagues. “It has been a privilege and a pleasure to have been associated with the Economics Department…I ask that everyone do their best to keep things going as if nothing is wrong.” 

“So many of you have done just that,” Berdahl said to the audience of family members and faculty, staff, students, alumni. “This is what a community is.” 

After a moment of silence, three readers came to the podium in succession to recite names. Professor Robert Knapp read those of faculty and other academic personnel, while Margo Wesley, Director of the S taff Ombuds Office, recited the list of non-academic employees.  

Misha Leybovich, President of the Associated Students, read the briefest of the three lists, the names of students who had died. 

“Though I’m very grateful that my participation in this is relatively short, I wish I didn’t have to say anything at all,” Leybovich quietly added.  

Professor of English and former United States Poet Laureate Robert Hass talked about his friend, Nobelist Czeslaw Milosz, who died in August, and recited a Milosz poem, “And the Books.”  

“I had visions of him in the 1960s freshly arrived in Berkeley after his exile” from Poland, Haas said, picturing Milosz walking down the steps of Doe Library after each foray into the literature collections. 

Three Berkeley chan cellors attended the service: Berdahl; his successor Robert Birgeneau; and their 1980s predecessor, Ira Michael Heyman, who is also the former secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. He, like Birgeneau, sat quietly in the audience.  

One of the names o n the list of the deceased was Therese Thau Heyman, the former chancellor’s wife, who had her own distinguished career as a curator at the Oakland Museum of California. 

The names of faculty from Chancellor Berdahl’s home department, history, were notably present on the list, including William Bouwsma, Gunther Barth, and Thomas Smith, in addition to Reginald Zelnik who died in an on-campus accident earlier this year. 

At the end of the ceremony P.J. MacAlpine, a 2003 Cal alumnus, sang a soaring “Come Sund ay” by Duke Ellington. Musician Jeff Campbell closed the ceremony as it had begun, with a solo performance on the bagpipes.  

As the strains of “Amazing Grace” rang out, a small covey of white pigeons was released, rose into the bright blue sky, and ra pidly circled several times over the crowd before disappearing into the distance. 

For a complete list of those memorialized this year and in recent years, visit death-response.chance.berkeley.edu 

Lorie Harnden, whose daughter is a first grader at Fairmount Elementary School, is just one of several anxious El Cerrito parents awaiting the arrival of a service signed into law Friday by Gov. Schwarzenegger that allows the Department of Justice to post information about registered sex offenders on line. 

Harnden and other Fairmount parents are well aware of the law because two weeks ago they learned that a school neighbor, Paul Alfred Jagoda, 57, was arrested in a Sacramento hotel by the Department of Justice on charges of attempted child molestation. 

The legislation that created the law, AB 488, was introduced by Rep. Nicole Parra, D-Hanford, and endorsed by the California Attorney General. It will update and expand services provided under a provision called Megan’s Law, which has made sex offenders’ information public since 1996. The law is named after 7-year-old Megan Kanka, a New Jersey girl who was raped and killed by a neighbor with a sex offense record that was unknown to Megan’s parents. 

Until now the information could only be accessed through a Megan’s Law database maintained at law enforcement agencies that serve populations of over 200,000. The new law will make the database of sex offenders available over the Internet. 

Not only should sex offender’s information be listed online, said Harnden, they should also “have to wear a hat that says ‘I’m a sex offender.’” 

According to the attorney general’s website, the new online system will have detailed physical descriptions along with a home address and picture if available, for the most serious offenders, including sexual predators and those classified as “high risk,” and “serious.” The service must be running on or before July 1, 2005. 

A serious sex crime offender is defined by the attorney general as someone convicted of committing a lewd act upon a child under 14 or some one who committed a sex crime that includes elements of force or fear. Examples of serious crimes include rape, child molestation, sodomy with a minor or by force, oral copulation with a child or dependent adult, and abduction of a child for purposes of prostitution. 

High risk sex offenders are defined as “serious sex offenders who have been convicted of at least one violent sex offense and a combination of other offenses.” 

In El Cerrito there are 13 serious but no high risk offenders whose information will be available. Their crimes range from rape, to lewd or lascivious acts with a child under 14, to continual abuse of a child, according to information the Daily Planet found on the Megan’s law database at the Alameda county sheriff’s department. 

“I never though about looking [sex offenders] up [on a Megan’s law database] because to get up and go to a police station, I don’t have that time,” said Lashelle Jones, who has one daughter at Fairmount. “But if it was on the Internet I could do it at work.” 

Angelique Shaw, 15, whose two younger sisters go to Fairmount, is a student at El Cerrito High. She said she is going to use the service and encourage her friends to do the same because they are constantly approached by older men. 

“High school girls are gullible, they want to meet older guys because they think it will make them cooler. If you run into a desperate girl and she needs a boyfriend, she’ll talk to anyone,” she said. 

According to information released by the attorney general, over 85,000 of the state’s 101,589 registered sex offenders are classified as high risk or serious. The remaining 16,307 registrants, classified as “other,” will still have their information published on the website but their zip code will be released instead of their home address. 

El Cerrito Detective William K. Zink said he doesn’t see the need for El Cerrito’s sex crime offenders to have their information listed on the Internet. He said that accessing the Megan’s Law database at the sheriff’s office was enough public disclosure. 

Zink, who is in charge of registering the sex crimes offenders every year by state law said he hasn’t had a problem keeping track of them. Four of the city’s 13 serious offenders are in violation because they failed to re-register, but he said that’s because they fled the country and have not come back. 

“I don’t think publishing their address is going to accomplish much, other than to create some hysteria,” said Zink. 

The decision by the governor brings California into line with more than 30 other states that already post varying amounts of information about their sex offenders on-line. Like the laws in those states, AB 488 has been opposed by groups who say posting information on the Internet is a violation of the offender’s due process and privacy rights. 

Francisco Lobaco, the director of the legislative office of the ACLU in Sacramento, said the law violates due process rights because the state should have to establish that the defendant will continue to be a risk before they posts the defendant’s information. 

“There is no wash out clause in the legislation,” he said, for those who committed one crime years ago and are “otherwise leading a law abiding life.” 

For parents like Jones, however, intrusion on someone’s privacy is not her main concern. 

“If [a molester] has done their time, you want to give them a second chance,” she said. “But what if they go and re-offend, that’s not like robbing a store. You can’t return a child’s childhood 

n

ELECTION 2004 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Thank you, Daily Planet, for your Sept. 21 editorial (“Whine After the Election, Not Now”), and also for J. Douglas Allen-Taylor’s Aug. 20 piece (“Let Kerry Be Vague Until the Election is Over”). This is the stuff progressives need to hear, and readers who missed either one should look them up on your website. We might easily hand this race to Bush by talking ourselves into impotent despair, and the opposition will cheer us on as we do it. 

I’ll join in gleefully and chew John Kerry to ribbons as soon as he’s president-elect, but until Nov. 3, please, let’s focus on the job at hand. If you can’t bring yourself to take part in the campaign, there’s voter registration and poll-watching (electionprotection.org). At least do nothing now that hinders the effort to get rid of that man.  

If I may wander from the deadly serious to the seriously ridiculous, does anyone but me remember the neon sign by the Bay Bridge approach where, throughout my childhood, a can poured red paint over the globe thousands of times, illustrating the slogan “Cover the Earth?” The proposed Brower monument is similarly absurd, but probably not as appealing to children as that sign was. Unless kids are allowed to climb on it, but even then it would be ludicrously at odds with the environmentalist ideal: “Take only pictures; leave only footprints.”  

Instead, if we’re making a better wildlife habitat of the Berkeley Meadow, couldn’t that be dedicated to Dave Brower? 

Daryl Ann Sieck 

• 

NOTICES OF DECISION 

Editors, Daily Planet:  

Decisions of the Zoning Adjustments Board can be appealed only for 14 days after the Planning Department has posted the relevant notice of decision (NOD) on a particular project’s application for a use permit.  

So it’s troubling that, at a time when the department no longer mails out notices to interested parties, it’s also stopped posting NODs on its website. The website has a menu that includes “Notices of Decision,” but when you click on those words, no such notices can be found.  

Or so it seemed to me for a month or two this summer. Wondering if I’d missed something, I called the Planning Department on Sept. 23 and asked if the NODs were being posted on the website after all. Turns out, they’re not. The reason given was that the website is being reconfigured. “You could call the office,” said the staff person.  

Yes, I could call the office—and actually, that day I already had called about a particular project. But why should I or any other citizen have to call—and, in all likelihood, call and call and call—when notices of decision could simply be posted on the website? All we’re talking about is a list of projects by address and the date of the NOD posting. That should be feasible even while the website is being revised.  

And while you’re at it, City of Berkeley zoning staff, could you please restore the names of project applicants—another important item (though not nearly as important as the notice of decision) that’s also disappeared from the Planning Department website?  

Zelda Bronstein  

• 

AESTHETIC MISFORTUNES 

Editors, Daily Planet:  

I recently revisited my childhood haunts in northern Minnesota, home of Paul Bunyan and his companion Babe the Blue Ox, a duo commemorated by numerous colossal statues. On my way home I followed a substantial portion of the Lewis and Clark trail, marked by the conventional 19th-century image: “explorer pointing with outstretched arm.” Imagine my surprise when I returned to Berkeley to be greeted by a marriage of the two in the form of the proposed David Brower sculpture: a colossal Brower with outstretched arm (exploreresque or from The Mummy? Hard to say), confidently (or is it precariously?) astride a huge blue globe. 

When I was 5 or 10 I gazed awestruck at the colossal incarnations of Mr. Bunyan, but my taste has matured since then. As for things carved out of stone, they range from tacky to sublime, so I withhold judgment on the big quartzite ball. More dubious is attaching bronze to rocks, but I’m willing to give that a chance. But the sleepwalking figure? Surely you jest. If the drawings are accurate, it is a clumsy aesthetic afterthought, laughably trite as both literalism and symbolism. I ask you, does Berkeley really need this “Bunyan on a Beach Ball”? 

Like so many of the recent aesthetic misfortunes that are coming to define the public space and public face of Berkeley, is this going to be yet another insider/autocratic decision made against the public will? If so, then—as usual—hundreds of hours of citizen labor will probably be spent trying to stop another ill-conceived stupidity. Or, if people are too tired to fight City Hall, Berkeley can, again, “act in haste, repent at leisure.” 

Sharon Hudson 

• 

BUSD PROJECTS 

Editors, Daily Planet:  

I am responding to the letter from Dean Olson (Daily Planet, Sept. 24-27) regarding the school construction that has taken place in the BUSD within the last decade. The incredible bond measures that Berkeley voters approved followed the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake that devastated many of our schools. When the work began, my son entered kindergarten at John Muir Elementary School, so I can answer to the quality of work that took place there. Thank goodness that we did not have to level John Muir, because it is one of the Berkeley Unified School District’s oldest—and, we felt, one of our most beautiful—schools. It was probably the wood structure that saved it from complete earthquake destruction like Cragmont and Thousand Oaks. The district put $1,945,590 into retrofitting to save this historical landmark and modernized the facilities, meanwhile adding much needed new classrooms. With work still ongoing, the total price tag will be $2,360,590. The John Muir community will tell you that it was worth it. 

Work started at LeConte Elementary a few years later, coinciding with my son beginning the fourth grade there. The work in progress or completed today at LeConte totals $3,818,108, with $693,000 in future projects scheduled. The cost of all of the work on Emerson has a total price tag of $2,955,848. The new buildings unveiled at Berkeley High School last year was $35,000,000 and if you had been at the open house in April, you would have seen the value. With the opening of the new Berkeley Adult School this year, the BUSD can proudly say that every one of Berkeley’s public schools are safer then ever before, and that Berkeley is the first city in California able to boast that our schools are 100 percent retrofitted. The BUSD will be opening up a new website in October, and one of the added pieces is a complete facility page for each school that outlines every stage of their construction: 

www.berkeleypublicschools.org. The current site (same address) already has good information about our schools, including photos of the Willard Middle School beautification project. 

Mark A. Coplan 

Public Information Officer, BUSD 

• 

A GLARING OMISSION 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The principal of Willard wrote a nice, polite letter to the editor (“Principal’s Perspective on Willard Garden,” Daily Planet, Sept. 21-23). But she made one glaring omission. She did not invite the community to work with the school in partnership to repair the damage, and to complete the work. Once again, the school and school district’s attitude is that they and they alone get to make the decisions. It’s the theme of the school district these days. It reflects the way government, including the federal government operates. 

In the Measure B, which they are busy touting, they have removed all citizen input into decision making. They eliminated all elected school committees and the district Planning and Oversight Committee. The school district, and the school district alone, will make the decisions on how the increased taxes (if the Measure B passes), will be spent. 

I heartily voted for BSEP, twice, because of the citizen input and oversight. The school district has shown itself incapable of proper fiscal management. The school district has gone into bankruptcy, and fiscal deficit over and over. BSEP works because of its wonderful, democratically elected committees to provide input and oversight. Measure B has none of this. 

For this reason I urge you to vote NO on measure B. 

Jennifer Havens  

President, Seniors for Fair Taxation 

• 

STREET SHRINES 

Editors, Daily Planet:  

Mr. Allen-Taylor seems to think that it is OK for what amounts to unsightly trash to be left in front of someone’s residence that just happened to be the location of the latest tragic homicide (“Police Chief Oversteps Bounds in Banning Shrines,” Daily Planet, Sept. 24-27). I must disagree. These shrines of candles, balloons and yes liquor, drug paraphernalia and the like are unsightly and should not be tolerated for more than a couple of days if at all. Do you actually live in urban Oakland? If you were paying attention instead of driving through really fast in your Subaru, you’d notice the crazy behavior under the auspices of mourning such as impromptu sideshows, public drunkenness and conspiracy to commit more violence in retribution takes place at most of these shrines. Please spare me the condescending sociology lesson on mourning traditions in black culture. We are not talking about the African village or plantation, but a large cosmopolitan area with thousands of people per square mile. 

You are more than welcome to allow your front lawn host the many monuments to urban crime. As for me, I have instructed my loved ones that should the unthinkable ever happen to me (especially while visiting family on 93rd Avenue) to not allow a shrine in front of someone’s home. Remember me at the cemetery or local park or seashore and clean up after yourselves. 

Anthony Moore 

Oakland 

“I didn’t think that guy was queer, but now that I give it some thought, I guess I did think he acted a little funny, and yeah, it makes sense that he’s a homo.” 

I was on a week-long visit to New Jersey, sitting in my parents’ living room, watching the evening news. New Jersey Gov. McGreevey had just announced that he was gay, and that he was stepping down from office. Viewing the news with my parents is always rife with potential landmines. I know I should keep my mouth shut during broadcasts but I can’t help myself. 

“Daddy,” I said. “Don’t talk like that.” 

“What’s the matter?” asked Dad, sitting next to me on the couch. “You didn’t know he was a homo?”  

“I never thought about it,” I answered. “I’m too busy worrying about the politics of my adopted home state. You never know what Arnold is going to do next.” 

“Well,” said my father, “at least you’ve got a red-blooded American for a governor.” 

“Daddy!” I shouted. “Arnold Schwarzenegger is from Austria. Why do you think he talks so funny?” 

“You know what I mean,” said my father. “He holds up family values. He believes in America. He’s a flag waving, right-thinking Republican. Personally, I like the guy. Not as much as Reagan, of course. But at least he isn’t a homo.” 

Just then my mother came into the room. “Oh no,” she said, wringing her hands and plopping down on the couch beside me. “More about McGreevey on the news? I can’t stand it. Think of his poor wife and children.” 

“You know, Susan,” said my father, ignoring my mother and staring straight ahead at the screen, “It doesn’t really bother me that the guy is a homo. But what does bother me is that he’s a cheat. He gave that Israeli guy a job and the slob never went to work. Just collected a paycheck and wrote poetry. What a crock, and a crook.” 

“Yes, Daddy,” I said. “He shouldn’t have done that and for that reason, and that reason alone, he should resign. But not because he’s gay.” 

“What about family values?” asked my mother. “What about Bill Clinton and Ted Kennedy?” 

“What do Clinton and Kennedy have to do with this?” I asked, but I knew what was coming. 

“Well, for one thing, they’re both Democrats,” said Dad. 

My mother looked at me. “You know that horrible Teddy Kennedy walks around in his underwear in Florida and takes young girls home from bars. And Bill Clinton, he’s the man who taught the youth of America about… about...” 

“About what?” I asked. 

“You know what…” said Mom by way of explanation. 

“No, what?” I asked. I knew exactly what she was getting at but I wanted her to say it out loud, just for once. 

“You know full well what your mother is referring to,” said Dad. 

“What?” I asked again.  

“You know,” said mom. 

“Sex,” said Dad. 

“Oral sex,” said Mom.  

“In the White House,” said Dad.  

“How disgusting,” said Mom. 

“With that woman,” added Dad. 

“And god knows who else,” said Mom. 

“I guess how you view what happened has to do with how you feel about oral sex,” I said to no one in particular. 

Both of my parents looked at me in alarm. It was getting uncomfortably warm sitting on the couch between them. 

“Susan,” said my father. 

“What?” I asked. 

“I want you to sit very still,” he said. 

“Yes?” 

“Sit very still and don’t say another word,” he said. 

“Don’t say another word?” I asked. 

“Yes,” said my father. “Don’t say another word for the rest of your visit.”›

The U.S. governmental system sets forth rights of all peoples under U.S. jurisdiction (described in previous columns in 11 sections), and duties of the U.S. Administration (starting in this column.) 

These duties are described in the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights and Amendments, and are also part of the common law and the law of nations. The Administration uses the common law and law of nations in its reports on violations of law by other nations (see section 15 below). The U.S. has a commitment to enforce this law within the U.S. and in all of the actions of the U.S. government. 

The Government’s Duty To Count the Votes Accurately & Report to the People Honestly 

The most obvious duty of the federal government is to see that the votes in federal elections are counted honestly. This count permits the Electoral College to decide who won the power to run the administrative branch of the federal government, and the U.S. military.  

12. Congress and the People Challenge Administration Words and Actions 

The sharp questions about the Florida and other election results led to anger at the Administration in many communities, particularly African American and low income. The Congressional Black Caucus took the unprecedented step of asking the United Nations to send observers to monitor the 2004 election. (The U.N. only has the power to grant such requests when a national government makes the request.) 

Immediately after the allegations of lying about the election returns, the Administration made statements about weapons of mass destruction requiring U.S. invasion of Iraq. The U.S. Constitution article II is full of duties of the President to report to Congress and to the people. The U.N. Charter sets forth similar duties by the heads of state. 

Report 12.2 

Wilson Stated Administration Used Information Known To Be False: Joseph Wilson (Joseph C. Wilson, “What I Didn’t Find in Africa,” New York Times, July 6, 2003.) 

Report 12.3 

Investigation of Administration Leak of CIA Agent’s Identity: Valerie Plame (Terence Hunt, “Bush Consults Lawyer in CIA Leak Case,” Guardian, June 3, 2004.) 

Report 12.4 

9/11 Widow Files RICO Lawsuit Against Bush: Ellen Mariani (Ellen Mariani, “911 Victim Ellen Mariani Open Letter To The POTUS,” Scoop New Zealand News, Nov. 27, 2003.) 

Report 12.6 

Waxman Report Exposes Administration’s Misleading Statements: Henry Waxman (Committee On Government Reform —Minority Staff Special Investigations Division, “Iraq on the Record: The Bush Administration’s Public Statements on Iraq,” a.k.a “Waxman Report,” U.S. House of Representatives, March 16, 2004.) 

Report 12.7 

U.S. Office of Strategic Influence Proposed to Issue Lies (“The Office of Strategic Influence is Gone, But Are Its Programs Still In Place?” Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, Nov. 2002.) 

The Government’s Duty To Obey the Constitution and Law of Nations 

The U.S. Constitution, Article I, Sec. 8, cl. 10, specifically gives Congress, not the President, the power “to define and punish ... Offenses against the Law of Nations,” thus recognizing that the U.S. is bound by this law. 22 former U.S. Ambassadors, four retired Generals, Admirals, and Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff issued a statement against Bush's re-election on June 16, 2004, because his first term was such a “complete and terrible disaster.” 

13. Not To Send Military For Regime Change In Afghanistan Or Haiti 

As a member of the U.N., the U.S. is committed not to use “threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state,...” and to “settle ... international disputes by peaceful means,...” (U.N. Charter Arts. 2.4 and 2.3) 

Report 13.1 

U.S. May Have Directly Killed 3,400 Afghans, Indirectly Killed 20,000 (Jonathan Steele, “Forgotten Victims,” Guardian UK, May 20, 2002.) 

Report 13.2 

U.S. Bombing Killed Children in Afghanistan (“U.S. Bombing Kills Afghan Children,” BBCNews.com, December 7, 2003.) 

Report 13.3 

Bush Charged with Orchestrating Removal of President Aristide in Haiti (“Aristide: U.S. Forced me to Leave,” BBC News, March 2, 2004.) 

14. Not To Send Troops for Invasion of Iraq 

The U.S. Constitution does not mention going to “war against poverty” or “war against drugs” or “war against terrorism.” Bush did not ask Congress for a declaration of war against Iraq with clearly stated goals and a plan to return power to the Iraqi people after the U.S. invasion. 

Report 14.1 

U.S. Troops Open Fire, Kill Baghdad Protesters 

(Fred Abrahams, “As U.S. Kills Two Iraqi Demonstrators In Baghdad, Human Rights Watch Demands Full Investigation Of U.S. Killings In Falluja,” Democracy Now!, June 18, 2003.) 

Report 14.2  

After Iraq Invasion, U.S. Troops Killed Thousands of Civilians (Human Rights Watch, “Off Target: The Conduct of the War and Civilian Casualties in Iraq,” Dec. 2003.)  

Report 14.3 

Over 12,000 U.S. Casualties from Iraq Invasion (Mike Lee, “Casualty Ward: U.S. Medical Center Handles Thousands of Trauma Cases From Iraq War,” ABC News, Aug. 8, 2004.) 

Report 14.4 

U.S. Appointed Ex-CIA Operative Head of Iraq After He Allegedly Murdered Six: Iyad Allawi (Paul McGeough, “Allawi Shot Prisoners in Cold Blood: Witnesses,” Sydney Morning Herald, July 17, 2004.) 

15. Not To Support Abusive Regimes or Violations of World Court Opinions 

The U.S. Department of State is required to make a report to Congress and the people every year on the human rights record of every nation so that federal funds cannot be allocated to abusive governments without an express waiver request from the President agreed to by Congress (Human Rights and Security Assistance Act). Administration requests for military, and civilian, aid to Israel and Egypt totally ignore the human rights report by DOS. 

Report 15.1 

U.S. Government Provides Aid to Abusive Regimes in Violation of Federal Law (“Country Reports on Human Rights Practices—Sudan,” U.S. Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, Feb. 25, 2004.)  

Report 15.2 

U.S. Supports Israel’s Rejection of the World Court Opinion (Aluf Benn, “ICJ: West Bank Fence Is Illegal, Israel Must Tear It Down,” Haaretz, July 9, 2004.) 

Report 15.3 

U.S. Intervention in Colombia Poisons People and the Environment (Kristine Herwig, “The Environment, Plan Colombia, and U.S. Aid,” Macalester Environmental Review, Sept. 25, 2002.) 

To be continued... 

Berkeley resident Ann Fagan Ginger is a lawyer, teacher, activist and the author of 24 books. She won a civil liberties case in front of the U.S. Supreme Court in 1959. She is the founder and executive director of the Meiklejohn Civil Liberties Institute, a Berkeley-based center for human rights and peace law. 

Contents excerpted from Challenging U.S. Human Rights Violations Since 9/11, edited by Ann Fagan Ginger (© 2004 Meiklejohn Civil Liberties Institute; Prometheus Books 2005) 

Readers can go to http://mcli.org for a complete listing of reports and sources, with web links. 

n

Those of us who watched the GOP convention, or have recently had conversations with Republicans, have been struck by their emotional fervor, their passion for George Bush and their hatred for liberals. Who are these true believers? 

Pollster Stanley Gree nberg tells us that Republicans are 46 percent of all voters—matched by an equal percentage of Democrats. The GOP core is made up of two fervent constituencies: conservative Christians and economic conservatives. 

Roughly 26 percent of Republican voters a re white Evangelical Christians; that is, fundamentalist, Pentecostal, “born-again”, or Charismatic Christians. Concerned primarily about morality, these religious conservatives believe that America is deteriorating because Christian values are under atta ck and the secular media is fostering immoral, “alternative” lifestyles. They are the heart of the “guns, God, and gays” social conservative movement. 

George Bush plays to this audience by emphasizing his born-again religiosity, as indicated by his recen t acceptance speech: “Because a caring society will value its weakest members, we must make a place for the unborn child. Because religious charities provide a safety net of mercy and compassion, our government must never discriminate against them. Becaus e the union of a man and woman deserves an honored place in our society, I support the protection of marriage against activist judges.” 

Economic conservatives are another 17 percent of the GOP. They have a different set of concerns from religious conserv atives, primarily taxes and privilege. Bush’s acceptance speech had language specifically designed for them, “America must be the best place in the world to do business. To create jobs my plan will encourage investment and expansion by restraining federal spending, reducing regulation and making the tax relief permanent.” 

Added together, religious and economic conservatives constitute approximately one-quarter of the electorate. These Republicans have reached a strategic accommodation; they focus on what they have in common, rather than their differences. Both groups despise liberals. Religious conservatives blame liberals for the perceived decay in American values, for preventing America from being a Christian nation. Economic conservatives blame liberal s for taxes and “big” government. They decry a liberal “tax and spend” philosophy that has them paying exorbitant taxes; they see the solution as “tax relief” because, in Bush’s words, “the people know best how to spend their money.”  

While on an individ ual level most economic conservatives are libertarians, as a group they support the socially conservative agenda espoused by their sanctimonious brethren; for example, they are willing to support limitations on choice so long as evangelicals defend tax cu ts. Christian conservatives reciprocate by blindly supporting the economic conservative agenda even when it is in their economic interest to oppose it. The two groups have an ethically challenged, but politically effective relationship. 

Pollster Greenberg characterizes the remaining fifty-plus percent of Republicans as residents of the South and rural America, as well as blue-collar white men. What all these conservatives share is a grim perspective that sees the world as a jungle, one where evil forces constantly threaten the citizens of the United States; only by maintaining “fortress America” can our safety be ensured. Republicans argue that in these terrifying times the usual rules go by the board; what the nation needs is a strong leader who will do whatever it takes to defend us. They buy what UC Professor George Lakoff describes as the “strict father” model of leadership: The US needs a macho President; one who is resolute and willing to do anything to protect America. 

The Bush campaign relentles sly plays to this theme. They package George W. as a regular guy, who was called by God to become a tough, resolute leader. In his acceptance speech, the President played to this imagery: “This election will also determine how America responds to the continuing danger of terrorism—and you know where I stand…I wake up every morning thinking about how to better protect our country. I will never relent in defending America, whatever it takes.” He returned to his characterization of Kerry as a “flip-flopper” and noted: “In the last four years, you and I have come to know each other. Even when we don’t agree, at least you know what I believe and where I stand.” The core of Bush’s campaign is that he is resolute and Kerry is not; it is based on the argument tha t America cannot win the war on terrorism without a strong leader. 

The outcome of the election depends upon whether the general public will believe that Kerry is a strong leader who will make America safer. So far, the “swing” voters—those who register i ndependent as well as malleable Republicans and Democrats—have bought another stereotype; they see Bush as the strong leader who is winning the war on terror. That reality has finally lit a fire under Kerry the fighter. Stay tuned. 

Berkeley resident Bob Burnett is working on a book about the Christian right. 

e

Editors, Daily Planet:  

A renaissance of interest in condominium development (”Developers, City Push Conversion to Condos,” Daily Planet, Sept. 21-23) should raise a few red flags amongst Berkeley’s affordable housing advocates. Frankly, condominiums are not the panacea for either Berkeley’s shortage of affordable housing, nor for Berkeley’s current (or is it permanent?) fiscal crisis. Condominium development does provide developers with quick profits far in excess of those obtainable through rental housing. Condominiums do nothing to increase the availability of affordable rental housing in our community. At the suggested sale price range for “affordable” units, virtually none of Berkeley’s low-income families could afford to buy into the so-called American dream, notwithstanding the formulae of “affordability” described—which clearly does not deal realistically with the low-income sector. Many of the claimed benefits of condominium development need seriously deeper investigation as the feel-good sloganeering in support of condos may be nothing more than air. One in particular—that condo ownership is good because “people who invest in their homes have a long-term interest in the community” is a cliché which strongly suggests that those who don’t “own” don’t have a long-term interest in Berkeley. This is simply poppycock. Many thousands of long-term Berkeley residents who have a serious commitment to this community have been renters for many years—and this due to the existence of Berkeley’s rent stabilization ordinance. Rent stabilization has provided a source of stabilization for our community. A long-term commitment to the community comes from many different sources, not simply from ownership of land. Current condominium ownership and residency should also be surveyed—nothing in the article provides the percentage of current condos which are actually owner-occupied, and particularly the percentage of owner-occupancy in those condos constructed since 1981. Other issues related to the claimed tax-benefits to the city should also be evaluated. But more significantly, condominium development must be reviewed in the context of a housing master plan, including the housing element requirements under state law.  

r f

Editors, Daily Planet:  

For some time now we have been sadly disappointed in Berkeley School Board incumbents John Selawsky and Joaquin Rivera. They have lacked leadership on issues of urgent concern to the Latino and African American Communities as well as to a vast number of mainstream students who are disengaged from their education, particularly at Berkeley High.  

About two years ago, Latinos Unidos brought together a broad coalition of diverse parents and community leaders who share a deep frustration with the district. “United In Action” was formed and out of that partnership came an articulation of common priorities that unified us in the need to change the makeup of the School Board.  

On Nov. 2, we have an opportunity to elect two new school board members with experience and skills that directly match these priorities, Kalima Rose and Karen Hemphill. 

What are the priorities?:  

A strong and mobilizing vision of innovative and effective education. 

Full collaboration with all segments of the community. 

Excellence, equity & achievement for all students. 

Teachers, staff & School Board Directors that reflect the diversity of 

students.  

Financial expertise that will generate new resources. 

A board that clearly leads rather than follows the Superintendent. 

A board that brings a sense of urgency to all of the above. 

Unfortunately, it has come to our attention that many progressive and mainstream democratic leaders are endorsing, somewhat out of habit and prematurely, Selawsky and Rivera. They are endorsing them prior to a full consideration of the merits of the new candidates, an assessment of the incumbents’ real track record, and their responsiveness to the Latino & African American community. Some are endorsing Karen Hemphill, who is African American, and Joaquin Rivera under the noble and legitimate belief that the board needs Black and Brown representation.  

Many people in the community assume that Joaquin Rivera would be the choice of Latinos because of his Latin surname. As you can see by the signers of this letter, Rivera does not have the support of the Latino leaders who are directly involved with the community. We appreciate the community’s commitment to diversity on the board, however we urge you to look beyond the name and examine past performance, and the current state of the schools. Rivera has served for eight years. It has been over 40 years since anyone has even run for the school board for a third term, let alone served on the board for a third term. It is time to move on.  

Both Joaquin Rivera and John Selawsky, have let us down on many fronts—their lack of outreach and collaboration being one of them. Nor have they prioritized with any urgency the innovative and effective solutions that are needed to reshape the schools for the success of all students in Berkeley. 

Latinos Unidos is clear that this is not a personal issue. Selawsky and Rivera are both hard working and good people. We appreciate their dedication to the district, as we appreciate all those who make the sacrifice to serve, particularly during difficult times. This is not an easy decision for many of us who have and will continue to work with them on other endeavors. But it is time to move on and elect board members who will have a close connection with the full spectrum of diversity that makes up the BUSD. John and Joaquin have had their chance, and we will honor their service in ways that do not include re-election.  

Half of what they have done is good. However, we do not want 50 percent effective Board Directors in whom we have lost all confidence. We want 100 percent effective board members who are fully collaborative with all segments of the community, and who can move Berkeley to the forefront of much neglected educational change. Such effectiveness includes giving the Superintendent the enlightened direction from the community and School Board that she needs, a role that has been largely abdicated by the incumbents.  

Let us remind ourselves that this is Berkeley, and that we should always march to a higher standard. The fate of our children is at stake. Our patience is worn and our resolve is hardened, and it is time to move forward with fresh approaches and new leadership. We are convinced that Karen Hemphill and Kalima Rose are the best choice this time around. And we highly endorse their campaign and urge the community of Berkeley parents and voters to vote for them on Nov. 2. Please see their web sites for more detailed information as well as a list of upcoming school board candidate forums where you can meet them.  

Fr. George Crespin Santiago Casal 

Beatriz Leyva Cutler Fr. Rigoberto  

Caloca-Rivas 

Lupe Gallegos-Diaz Liz Fuentes 

Federico Chavez Angela Gallegos Castillo  

Carlos Muñoz  

Latinos Unidos is a forum largely for Latino professionals who represent various constituencies in Berkeley. Though it has concerns with health, housing and labor, the primary focus has been on education. Latinos Unidos includes representatives from Mentoring for Academic Success/Multicultural Institute; Berkeley Organizing for Congregational Action; Chicano/Latinos for Academic Success; St. Joseph the Worker Church; Vista Community College; Multicultural Academic Student Development—UC Berkeley; Bay Area Hispanic Institute for Advancement/Centro Vida; the Cesar Chavez Memorial Solar Calendar and Education Project, and an assort of individuals (teachers, city and school district workers, judicial, labor, etc.) ?

LIMA, Peru—“Vamos! Do you have that heart rate at 80 percent?” 

I’m pedaling like mad in a spinning class at Planet Fitness in the lower middle-class neighborhood of San Miguel—one of the myriad nodes of globalization mushrooming throughout the Andean nation of Peru. The internationally certified Peruvian instructor is playing salsa, but her commands of first, second, and third positions would be understood by any spinner anywhere on the globe.  

Just a few years ago, globalization came to middle and upper class Peruvians in the form of Blockbusters and Burger Kings set up in well-off neighborhoods like Miraflores and Monterrico. Gringo-style, shrine-like shopping malls such as Jockey Plaza rose alongside Lima’s prestigious horse-race track.  

But spinning classes like the one in San Miguel, as part of fully equipped fitness centers, have sprouted in lower middle-class barrios as well as in low-income shantytowns called pueblos jovenes (young towns), where wages are commonly just $2 a day. Global chains such as Gold’s Gym opened up equal sweat opportunities to thousands of Peruvians for whom, until very recently, fully equipped gyms were as inaccessible as country club memberships.  

One of these gleaming gyms sits astride the new and aptly named Mega Plaza shopping center in Comas, a low-income sector in northern Lima. As I stand at the plaza’s entrance I find it hard to believe that this used to be a car-grease, mud-caked and garbage-strewn side of the road off the Pan-American highway cutting through a highly densely populated metropolis of Peru’s working poor.  

Today the Mega Plaza is flanked by Toddus, a “hyper market,” and Max, a discount department store. The food and fashion displays at both stores are picture-perfect images of bounty and beauty. In combination with the cacophony of price-scanner beeps at the checkout counters, memories of quaint and dirty Third World open-air markets fade.  

Nestled between Toddus and Max are more than 100 boutique stores with the latest genuine or knockoff shoes, jeans and other apparel. Shoppers can catch Spider Man 2 at the cineplex and chow down at the English-named “Food Court,” complete with KFC and Dunkin Donuts. There’s even what had been until recently an oxymoron—fast-food Peruvian—at Peruanissimo.  

In this globalized, homogenized village, Dad can watch the kids at a 10,000-square-foot mini amusement center while Mom gets a plastic surgery quote at one of three storefronts enticing customers to “Finally make that change that will change your life.”  

So how do the poor afford the Mega Plaza experience? For one, the informal economy, so well documented by Peruvian economist Hernando de Soto, has created a new entrepreneurial class among the low-income “chichas,” Andean Indians who have migrated to the city.  

Their businesses have generated high revenue, which they have invested back in these densely populated communities that had been ignored by mainstream capitalists. They have established private schools and clinics where people used to suffer decrepit state schools and hospitals. The other big service business is gyms. Also for the chichas, the deep-seated Andean value of ayllu, or community, means they pool their resources to buy in bulk.  

But credit-card seduction also contributes. An economic culture that used to be hand-to-mouth, with all transactions paid in cash, is quickly becoming an indebted society. Multinationals have discovered Latin America’s emerging market: 250 million low-income consumers, who, due to their sheer numbers (50 to 60 percent of the region’s population), have an annual purchasing power of $120 billion.  

Poor Peruvians are deluged by an unprecedented wave of tens of thousands of credit card offers with which to fuel the purchasing of middle class dreams. The advertised interest rate is 2 to 5 percent, but because it’s compounded monthly, the actual annual rate is a stunning 27 to 80 percent.  

Now, as poor Peruvians dress in the latest fashions, use sophisticated deodorants and perfumes and watch the latest flicks, they too are getting sucked into compound debt like American consumers.  

Yet, in the midst of this restless globalization, the ancient Peruvian Catholic soul still peeks through the Nike swoosh.  

In Arequipa, high up in the Andes, where the consumerist dynamic too is manifest through shopping malls and easy credit, there still beats a deeply felt fervor for the Virgen del Carmen and the Twelve-Year-Old-Boy.  

Outside the Cathedral, anxious parishioners purchase “milagros” (miracles)—two-inch high aluminum molds representing health for body parts such as hearts and lungs, or desires, such as for happy homes and relationships—to be pinned as petitions on the flowing manta (shawl) of the Virgen saint. When the manta is ceremoniously pulled off the Virgen and brought down to the supplicants, it is held up horizontally at the four corners. A dozen people at a time scurry underneath for a special blessing.  

Under the manta the murmur of prayers begins, “...forgive us our debts....”

“An apocalypse can be a funny thing.” 

It seems appropriate that, after long peregrinations of their own, the Shotgun Players are opening their first season at their new home, Ashby Stage (1901 Ashby Ave., across from Ashby BART), with Dog Act, Liz Duffy Adams’ play about wandering vaudevillean survivors of an apocalypse who’re just trying to make it to China for a gig.  

Dog Act, inspired by “a vision of a small group of people toiling across...bleak wintry marshes...carrying...something” (glimpsed from an Amtrak train, New York City to Boston, 1998), features a strange band of travelers on “a quest to survive in a world turned inside-out.” All the characters (played by Shotgun members Beth Donohue and Dave Meyer, joined by Richard Bolster, Eric Burns, C. Dianne Manning and Rami Margron) play musical instruments that Stewart Port has fashioned from found objects.  

It’s an after-the-end-of-the-world, neovaudevillian tale of performer Rozetta Stone (Beth Donohue) and her companion, Dog (voluntarily demoted in species from young man—Richard Bolster), on the road to their next gig—if they can ever make it to China, and find it when they get there.  

On an appropriately bare stage, Rozetta’s cart (which unfolds into a stage, and is coveted by Vera Similitude—Dianne Manning) provides the focus, though it’s really the ensemble’s acting and the strange, rhythmic quality of the spoken text that carry the show...and singing: Rozetta and Dog sing to each other to communicate, and the cast sings new lyrics to old tunes, “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” being one (with the forlorn cart as backdrop). 

Phrases like “an owl” become “nowl”—and the changed times are expressed in other ways: tribal loyaties, codes of the performers and profane scavengers, with constant testing of other survivors to measure their authenticity. The play’s deliberately slow in establishing character’s identities and relationships, and ends with a rehearsal of the show Rozetta hopes to take to China (from a ruined North America? it’s never really clear), a kind of Creation Myth, new and old—though not exactly a Miracle Play...  

Originally premiered at the 2002 Bay Area Playwrights’ Festival, Dog Act’s directed by Kent Nicholson, director of new works for TheatreWorks on the Peninsula—a prolific director, who directed Adams’ Wet at NYC’s Summer Play Festival (and filled in admirably for a sick cast member the night this reporter was in the house). 

It’s all part of Shotgun’s program to support and produce new plays and experimental work in the Bay Area. That commitment is made clear by what’s been going on at the Ashby Stage even before Shotgun’s homecoming on Wednesday: Their Theatre Lab was producing Susannah Martin’s work-in-progress, The Faith Project, midweek while Oakland-based Iranian company Darvag staged The Death of Yazdgerd weekends, with personnel familiar to Shotgun audiences wearing various hats in the show. 

This community spirit will continue, at a time when most urgently needed in the current California scene of slippery funding with theater space bartered out like trophy homes. The Eastenders, for instance, whose series A Century of Political Theater just finished at San Francisco’s Eureka Theater, will return to the East Bay this spring with original plays, one by founding Artistic Director Charles Polly, to be staged at the Ashby. 

The Shotgun Players have made many a gig themselves at a variety of venues since their founding in 1992, when Artistic Director Patrick Dooley and about a dozen others put on David Mamet’s Edmund in the basement of LaVal’s Northside pizzeria. They’ve covered plays from Sophocles and Euripides, through Shakespeare and Marlowe, to Chekhov, Brecht and Genet—as well as experimental pieces and originals, like last year’s hit, The Death of Meyerhold—on stages indoors and out, the old UC cinema to the Julia Morgan Theater, John Hinkel Park to San Francisco’s McLaren Park Amphitheatre. 

The Shotgun Players have always been ambitious; settling down isn’t likely to decrease their vigor. This is one gig on their own stage these heretofore-wandering players have not only made, but one they may be playing (with many different texts) for quite awhile. 

Writer, activist, and Oakland resident Evelyn C. White settles into a comfortable leather chair at a Piedmont Avenue café and talks about her ten year project, researching and penning the biography of author Alice Walker (Alice Walker: A Life; W.W. Norton; September 2004; 496 pages; $29.95). 

“I arrived in San Francisco about the same time the movie The Color Purple was released by Warner Brothers. It was January 1986 and the protests against the film were just winding up,” she said. “The Hollywood chapter of the NAACP was critical of the portrayal of blacks in the film. Alice Walker was the first African American woman to win the Pulitzer Prize in fiction and yet the movie version of her groundbreaking work was giving her the ‘biggest headache of her life.’” 

Despite the fact that Walker had requested that people of color work on the film, and even with the presence of many black actors (Whoopi Goldberg, Danny Glover, and Oprah), and even Quincy Jones’s musical accompaniment, the movie still met with opposition. 

“Blacks were protesting against a work of art by a woman who had grown up the daughter of sharecroppers in the Jim Crow South, broken color lines, and marched for civil rights,” White said. “The first picket line Alice Walker ever crossed was the one for her movie. Sometimes you just can’t win.” 

Walker, a Berkeley resident, has gone on to write a number of critically acclaimed books, champion black women writers (most notably Zora Neale Hurston), and has become one of the world’s leading spokespersons against genital mutilation. White has also written several critically acclaimed books (Chain Chain Change: For Black Women in Abusive Relationships and The Black Woman’s Health Book) and is currently a Visiting Scholar in the Women’s Studies Department at Mills College. 

Formerly a staff reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle, White attended journalism school at Columbia University, the John F. Kennedy School of Government, and taught expository writing at Harvard. She is a crusader for women’s rights, particularly as it relates to women of color.  

Brought up in a working class family in Gary, Indiana, White attended all black elementary schools and was involved with Upward Bound. 

“Every summer I was sent to college preparatory programs at places like Phillips Exeter, Yale and Purdue,” she said. “I chose to go to a Catholic high school because it was small, but the nuns tried to put me in the secretarial track. I had to take typing and I became very fast at it. It’s because of the racism of the nuns that I developed a skill that I’ve been able to put to good use ever since.” 

White graduated with honors and in 1972 she entered Wellesley College with the goal of becoming a prison warden. 

“All the groovy people were going to prison: Martin Luther King, Angela Davis. I thought that’s where I should be too,” she said. “But by the time I took child psychology my sophomore year I knew I didn’t want to be a warden.” 

What did she want to major in? “Theater,” she said.  

After graduating from Wellesley in 1976, she headed to Denmark where she worked for a theatrical company. When she returned to the United States she enrolled in the Theater Studies Department at the University of Washington. But while in Seattle she began freelancing as a writer.  

“When I realized someone was going to pay me to write, I applied to Columbia’s School of Journalism, and after a stint with the Wall Street Journal, I took a reporting job with the San Francisco Chronicle,” she said. “I fell in love with the Bay Area, the weather, the diversity, the vibrations in the Castro, and with the lemon, orange and avocado trees. I’ve been here ever since.” 

In a writing career that has spanned over twenty years, what is she most proud of besides the Walker biography? 

“It’s a series of articles I did for the Chronicle: homophobia in the black church, teen pregnancy, and an investigative piece on black farmers in the Central Valley,” White said. “I’m very concerned about environmental issues pertaining to black people and the land. It’s painful for me to go to the Oakland Farmers’ Market and not see one black farmer. African Americans are descendants of an agricultural society dating back to the plains and valleys of Africa. We’ve lost that heritage and we need to reclaim it.” 

What’s next for White in terms of writing? “I’m going to open myself to the cosmic forces,” she says. “I’m inclined to sit on chairs just like this for awhile and rest. And then I’m going to take piano lessons.” 

Sponsored by the Berkeley Arts Festival and the Friends of the Library, Evelyn White will read from Alice Walker: A Life, and will be interviewed by KPFA’s Andrea Lewis, at the Berkeley Public Library (2090 Kittredge Street) on Friday, October 1 at 8 p.m. For more information call 510-981-6100 or connect to www.berkeleypubliclibrary.org.a

TUESDAY, SEPT. 28 

FILM 

Loose Ends: “The Seventies” at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Neal Stephenson introduces the third book in The Baroque Cycle, “The System of the World” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

Micheline Aharonian Marcom introduces us to her historical novels of the Turkish genocide against Armenians in “Three Apples Fell from Heaven” and “The Daydreaming Boy” at 7:30 p.m. at Easy Going Bookstore, 1385 Shattuck Ave. 843-3533. 

The Whole Note Poetry Series, with Charles Curtis Blackwell and Tim McKee at 7 p.m. at The Beanery, 2925 College Ave., near Ashby. 549-9093. 

Poets Gone Wild open mic night, at 7:30 p.m. at Barnes and Noble. 644-0861. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Creole Belles with Andrew Carrier 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 

Greg Lamboy debuts his new album in benefit concert, at 3 p.m., 5951 College Ave. at College Ave. Presbyterian Church, next to Dreyers. Admission free, donations will benefit the Friday Night Community Meal.  

Dave LeFebre Horn Duo at 8 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810. 

Jazz House Jam, hosted by Darrell Green and Geechy Taylor at 8 p.m. at The Jazz House. Donation $5. www.thejazz- 

house.com 

Mark Murphy at 8 and 10 p.m. Yoshi’s at Jack London Square, through Wed. Cost is $10-$18. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

Jazzschool Tuesdays, ensembles from Berkeley Jazzschool at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

WEDNESDAY, SEPT. 29 

EXHIBITION OPENINGS 

California College of the Arts 2004 All-College Honors and Scholarship Awards Exhibition Reception at 6 p.m. 658-1224.  

THEATER 

“Wives” a gathering of the queens of Henry VIII at 7:30 p.m. at the Hillside Club, 2286 Cedar St., at Arch. Tickets are $15. 525-5625. 

FILM 

“Hidden Internment” and “Caught in Between: What to Call Home in Times of War” at 8 p.m. at La Peña. Cost is $5-$25. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Performance Anxiety: “Paul McCarthy” at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

“Vermeer in Bosnia” A talk by American art historian and writer Lawrence Wechsler, director of the New York University Institute for the Humanities, at 7 p.m. at Wheeler Auditorium, UC Campus. Tickets are $10. 642-9988. 

Terry Gross, from National Public Radio, visits to sign copies of “All I Did Was Ask” at 12:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

Gilles Kepel describes “The War for Muslim Minds: Islam and the West” at 7:30 p.m. at at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

Carla Woody introduces “Standing Stark” at 7:30 p.m. at Barnes and Noble. 644-0861. 

Berkeley Poetry Slam with host Charles Ellik, featuring Three Blind Mice, at 8:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $5-$7. 841-2082 www.starryplough.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Wednesday Noon Concert, with University Symphony Orchestra at Hertz Hall, UC Campus. 642-4864. http://music.berkeley.edu 

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

Red Archibald and the Internationals at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Dance lesson with Nick and Shanna at 8 p.m. Cost is $6. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Salsa Caliente at 8 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low, 2284 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $5-$10. 548-1159.  

Saul Kaye Trio at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Lunasa, Irish quintet, at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

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

Acoustic Wednesday at 9:30 p.m. at Blakes on Telegraph. 848-0886. www.blakesontelegraph.com 

THURSDAY, SEPT. 30 

FILM 

Maurice Pialat: “Van Gough” at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

“The Fourth World and Folk Art” lecture by Nelson Graburn, professor of social cultural anthropology, UC Berkeley at noon at the Phoebe Hearst Museum, Bancroft at College. Admission $4. 643-7648. http://hearstmuseum.berkeley.edu 

Rex Weyler describes “Greenpeace” at 1 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

Toinette Lippe describes “Caught in the Act: Reflections on Being, Knowing and Doing” at 7:30 p.m. at at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

Word Beat Reading Series at 7 p.m. with featured readers Gypsy the Acid Drama Queen and Debra Grace Khattab, followed by an open mic, at Mediterraneum Caffe, 2475 Telegraph Ave., near Dwight Way. For information call 526-5985.  

PB Kerr introduces “Children of the Lamp,” especially for young readers, at 1:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. Reservations required, email events@codysbooks.com 

Bay Area Writing Project featuring teachers from Berkeley and Oakland who are also writers at 7:30 p.m. Barnes and Noble. 644-0861. 

Camille Cusumano, editor, introduces “France, A Love Story: Women Write About the French Experience” at 7:30 p.m. at Easy Going Travel Shop and Bookstore, 1385 Shattuck Ave at Rose, 843-3533. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

National Ballet of Canada at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $36-$68 available from 642-9988. www.calperfs.berkeley.edu 

Tap Roots and New Growth: Cultivating World Music with the Slackers, The Phenomenauts and Teenage Harlots at 7:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $5-$15. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Austin Willacy, contemporary folk, Bread and Roses Community Night, at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $15.50-$16.50. 548-1761. www.freight 

andsalvage.org 

The Uptones, Berkeley’s 8-piece ska band, at 8 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $10. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Jazz Mine, string swing jazz quartet, at 6:30 p.m. at King Tsin Chinese Restaurant, 1699 Solano Ave. www.jazzmine.net 

The Weary Boys, J. Byrd Hosch Trio at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $8. 841-2082.  

www.starryploughpub.com 

Gini Wilson, solo piano, at 8 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810. 

Witches Brew at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

FRIDAY, OCT. 1 

EXHIBITION OPENINGS 

Berkeley Arts Festival Opening and celebration of National Arts Day at 5 p.m. at Berkeley Arts Festival Gallery, 2324 Shattuck Ave. Exhibition includes woodcuts by Berkeley High Students and teachers. www.berkeleyartsfestival.com 

“Search and Restore” with works by Clayton Bain, Carolyn Gareis, Vannie Keightley, Naomi Policoff and Dorothy Porter. Gallery hours are Mon.-Fri., 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., Sat. 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. 1652 Shattuck Ave. www.accigallery.com 

THEATER 

Aurora Theatre Company, “The Persians” runs through Oct. 10. Tickets are $28-$45. 843-4822. www.auroratheatre.org 

Berkeley Rep, “The Secret in the Wings” at the Roda Theater, 2015 Addison St. until Oct. 17. Tickets are $10-$55. 647-2949. www.berkeleyrep.org 

California Shakespeare Theater, “All’s Well That Ends Well” Tues.-Fri. at 7:30 p.m., Sat at 8 p.m., Sun. at 4 p.m. at the Bruns Memorial Amphitheater, through Oct. 10. Tickets are $13-$32. 548-9666. www.calshakes.org 

Impact Theatre, “Fluffy Bunnies in a Field of Daisies” a sexually-honest comedy, at 8 p.m. at La Val’s Subterranean Theater, 1834 Euclid, and runs Thurs. - Sat. through Oct. 2. Tickets are $10-$15. 464-4468. www.impacttheatre.com 

National Theater of Greece, “Lysistrata” in Greek with English supertitles at 8 p.m. at the Clavin Simmons Theater, Oakland. Tickets are $35-$65. 866-468-3399. 

Oakland Opera Theater “Akhnaten” an opera by Philip Glass, Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m. Sun. at 2 p.m. through Oct. 3 at Oakland Metro Theater, 201 Broadway, at 2nd St. Tickets are $18-$32, available on line at www.oaklandopera.org  

Shakespeare in the Yard, “Notes From William, III” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 4 p.m. at Sister Thea Memorial Theater, 920 Peralta St. West Oakland, through Oct. 17. Tickets are $5-$20. 208-5651. 

Shotgun Players “Dog Act” Thurs. - Sun. at 8 p.m. at The Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby Ave. through Oct. 10. Free admission with pass the hat donation after the show. 841-6500. www.shotgunplayers.org 

TheatreFirst “Joe Egg” at 8 p.m. at Mills College, 5000 MacArthur Blvd. Through Oct. 17. Tickets are $22. 436-5085. 

Unscripted Theater Company, “The Short and the Long of It,” an improv theater experience, Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m. at Temescal Arts Center, 511 48th St. at Telegraph, through Oct. 2. Tickets are $7-$10. 415-869-5384. www.un-scripted.com 

Woman’s Will, “Lord of the Flies” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 3 p.m., at Eighth Street Studios, 2525 Eighth St., through Oct. 24. Every performance followed by a discussion on democracy, violence cessation, and preservation of just societies. Free, donations encouraged. 420-0813. www.womanswill.org 

FILM 

The Films of Roy Anderson: “Songs from the Second Floor” at 7 p.m. and Commercials and Shorts at 9 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Evelyn C. White reads from the biography, “Alice Walker: A Life” at 8 p.m. at Berkeley Public Library’s Community Room, 2090 Kittredge at Shattuck. Sponsored by the Berkeley Arts Festival and the Friends of the Library. 981-6100. www.berkeleypubliclibrary.org 

7th International Juried Enamel Exhibition Slides and lecture with Katy Bergman Cassell at 7 p.m. at ACCI Gallery, 1652 Shattuck Ave. Gallery hours are Mon.-Fri. 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., Sat. 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. 843-2527. www.accigallery.com 

Aron Ralston describes his decision to amputate part of his right arm to save his life in “Between a Rock and a Hard Place’ at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books, 1730 Fourth St. 559-9500. www.codysbooks.com 

Francisco Goldman describes his new novel “The Divine Husband” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

National Ballet of Canada at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $36-$68 available from 642-9988. www.calperfs.berkeley.edu 

“Mediavoid” by Shahrzad Dance Academy at 8 p.m. at the Crowden School, 1475 Rose St. Tickets are $12-$15. 215-2166. www.sdadance.org 

Marcel Dronkers, soprano, at 8 p.m. at Arlington Community Church, 52 Arlington Ave., Ken- 

sington. Tickets are $12-$15.  

Oakstock Concert with Country Joe McDonald and Shana Morrison at 7 p.m. at the Oakland Museum of California, 10th and Oak Sts. in conjunction with the exhibit “California and the Vietnam Era” www.museum.ca.org 

Jon Langford Ship and Pilot at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $12. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

Moodswing Orchestra at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Swing dance lesson with Nick and Shanna at 8 p.m. Cost is $13. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Last Band Standing at 8 p.m. at La Peña. Cost is $10. 849-2568. 

Dick Hindman Trio at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $12-$18. 845-5373. www.jazz- 

school.com 

Jared Karol, singer-songwriter, at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

The Toasters, New Blood Revival, Monkey at 9:30 p.m. at Blakes on Telegraph. Cost is $10. 848-0886. www.blakesontelegraph.com 

Hakim, music of the Middle East and Arab diaspora at 7 p.m. at the Scottish Rite Temple, 1547 Lakeside Drive, Oakland. Tickets are $65-$100. 415-218-1801. www.sheekimage.com 

Reilly & Maloney, contemporary folk duo, at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Jackie Ryan Quartet at 9 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810. 

Karrin Allyson at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square, through Sun. Cost is $15-$18. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

Natural Vibes, reggae, at 9 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low, 2284 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $10. 548-1159. www.shattuckdownlow.com 

Jason Webley, Dear Nora, Readyville, The Flying Marrows at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St. Cost is $6. 525-9926. 

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

SATURDAY, OCT. 2 

CHILDREN  

“Wild About Books” with Larry Kluger on cowboy roping and storytelling at 10:30 a.m. at the Berkeley Public Library, 2090 Kittredge St. 981-6223. 

EXHIBITION OPENINGS 

Richmond Art Center Members’ Showcase Reception from 3 to 6 p.m. at 2540 Barrett Ave., Richmond. Slide lecture and artist talk with Tamara Scronce at 1:30 p.m. 620-6772. www.therichmondartcenter.org 

Emeryville Art Exhibition featuring works of 100 artists and craftspeople in Emeryville. Exhibition open daily from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. at 5603 Bay St. 652-6122. www.EmeryArts.org 

THEATER 

Ruben C. Gonzales “The Mes- 

siah Complex: Rebelations of a Mad Mexican” at 8 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $7-$10. 849-2568. www.lapena.org  

FILM 

The Films of Roy Anderson: “A Swedish Love Story” at 6:30 p.m. and “Giliap” at 8:50 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Watershed Environmental Poetry Festival with Robert Haas, Lawrence Ferlingheti, Pattiann Rogers, George Keithley, Lucille Lang Day, Marc Bamuthi Joseph and more from noon to 5 p.m. at Civic Center Park. 526-9105. www.poetryflash.org  

Sarah Stewart and David Small introduce their new picture book for young readers “The Friend” at 10:30 a.m. at Cody’s Books, 1730 Fourth St. 559-9500. www.codysbooks.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

National Ballet of Canada at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $36-$68 available from 642-9988. www.calperfs.berkeley.edu 

“Mediavoid” by Shahrzad Dance Academy at 8 p.m. at the Crowden School, 1475 Rose St. Tickets are $12-$15. 215-2166. www.sdadance.org 

The Whole Noyse, “From Shawm to Cornett” at 8 p.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. Tickets are $10-$25. 528-1725. www.sfems.org 

Four Seasons Concerts with Tai Murray, violin at 7:30 p.m. at Calvin Simmons Theater. Tickets are $25-$35. 601-7919. www.fourseasonsconcerts.com 

New Millennium Strings performs Sibelius, Janacek, JS Bach, and Giuliani at 8 p.m. at Grace Lutheran Church, 15 Santa Fe Ave., El Cerrito. Suggested donation $10-$15. 528-4633. www.newmillenniumstrings.org 

Trinity Chamber Concert “Two Faces of Orpheus” with Franklin Lei, Renaissance lute and classical guitar, at 8 p.m. at Trinity Chapel, 2320 Dana St. Tickets are $8-$12. 549-3864. www.TrinityChamberConcerts.com 

Dan Zemelman, solo jazz piano, at 8 p.m. at Giorgi Gallery, 2911 Claremont Ave. at Ashby. 604-1473. 

Eve of Acapella: A Night of Female Voice, featuring Ya Elah at 8 p.m. at Studio Rasa, 933 Parker St., between 8th and 9th. Cost is $10-$20 sliding scale. 843-2787. www.studiorasa.org 

Groundation, reggae classic and band originals at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $13. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Resistoleros, Eddie Haskells, Proud Flesh at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $6. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com  

Old Blind Dogs at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $19.50-$20.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Marcos Silva and Intersection at 8 p.m. at the Jazz- 

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

Samantha Raven, singer-songwriter, at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

Braziu, Nobody from Ipanema at 9 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low, 2284 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $10-$12. 548-1159. www.shattuckdownlow.com 

Tom Jonesing, The Sun Kings at 9:30 p.m. at Blakes on Telegraph. Cost is $15. 848-0886. www.blakesontelegraph.com 

Danny Heines & Joey Blake at the 1923 Teahouse at 8 p.m. Suggested donation of $5-$10, no one turned away for lack of funds. 644-2204. www.epicarts.org 

Macy Blackman Quartet at 9 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810. 

Babyland, Pitch Black, Midnight Laser Beam at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St. Cost is $6. 525-9926.?

A couple of Fridays ago, a letter from Michael Farrell appeared in the Planet regarding my recent rant about bad pruning. I thank Mr. Farrell for his kind remarks, and I’m taking another column here to endorse his accurate and perceptive pointers about choosing and siting trees in city yards. 

To summarize: a fast-growing species chosen for quick effect will probably outgrow its space; some species are more flammable than others and should be avoided; trees get big and live long, and their owners need to calculate the space they’ll need in a few decades.  

(For the record, none of the problems Mr. Farrell cited apply to the unfortunate plum I was ranting about, more’s the pity.)  

Choosing the right tree for your yard is the best way to stop problems before they start. The tree’s ultimate size is a big consideration, and to know that you have to know its species. I know of two potential problems coming into season now. 

Every winter, you can buy cunning, inexpensive live Christmas trees, pre-decorated and planted in little pots covered with red foil. Sometimes you can keep them alive through the season, too, and plant them out. They typically have bluish-green short needles, and that’s the catch; they don’t look like their parents when they’re young. When they grow up, they exchange those for long dark-green needles, and they do grow up. They’re Italian stone pines. They get huge. (They also grow pignoli, which is nice if you get them before the squirrels do.) They turn into enormous mushroom-shaped dense-headed evergreen trees, with correspondingly serious roots.  

The folks across the street had a couple of these right up against their house. Some child had planted them as babies, maybe fifteen years before; placed them lovingly near the shelter of the front wall and tucked them in to grow. And grow they did. They were picking the house up off its foundation with their roots and trunks, and handsome though they were, they had to be cut down.  

The Ecology Center has years of history in dealing with distraught live-tree owners who want to donate trees after the holidays. The problem is that these folks were doing something a lot like trying to hand out free Rottweiler puppies. They’re cute when they’re small and endearing as adults, but they just plain don’t fit everywhere. So have a plan before you buy a live Yule tree, get a redwood and keep it in a pot outdoors for a few years, or bonsai your Monterey pine.  

When you choose a landscape tree, first know what species will fit in your yard and your microclimate. Consider a native species, because they’re adapted to the place and because they pay their biological dues. There are nice exotics, and I’ve planted some myself, but a native will sustain more native critters, and having those in the yard is a privilege. 

Research your species, considering heat (including reflected heat from paving or walls), water, microclimate items like wind and salt spray, and soil type. In Berkeley, it’s usually good old clay. Consider height, especially if there are overhead wires anywhere near the planting site. PG&E has guidelines about that: www.safetree.net 

Choose a tree with thicker trunk over a taller one, even if it costs a bit more. Don’t waste money on a big tree; in a few years, a one-gallon tree will catch up to its five-gallon neighbor. Look for healthy color, taking the season into consideration. A yellowing conifer is dead already. Nodes—the areas that buds and twigs emerge from—should be relatively close together. 

Some pruning for shape is fine, but there should be no stubs or ugly bark scars. A tree should be fairly symmetrical, and all its twigs should be plump, resilient, and unwrinkled. Its leaves should feel cool. There should be no gap between the soil and the sides of its container. A bare-root tree should be in a damp ball of shavings or moss, and show no withered buds or twigs. 

The best idea is to find a healthy individual of the species you want, in the wild or in someone’s garden, and find something that looks like it. 

?

TUESDAY, SEPT. 28 

Berkeley’s Creek Ordinance, a Public Hearing at a special Berkeley City Council meeting, at 6 p.m. at Longfellow School Auditorium, 1500 Derby St. 981-6900. 

School Board Candidate Night hosted by the Berkeley Special Education Parents Network at 7 p.m. at Ala Costa Center, 1300 Rose St. (at Cedar/Rose Park), Meet and ask important questions of school board candidates: Karen Hemphill, Merrilie Mitchell, Joaquin Rivera, Kalima Rose, and John Selawsky. 525-9262. 

“Humanity 2.0: Will your Grandchildren be Genetically Modified?” A conversation about the social and political implications of the new human biotechnologies with Bill McKibben and Marcy Darnovsky, moderated by Prof. Michael Pollan, from 6 to 8 p.m. at the North Gate Library, Graduate School of Journalism, Hearst at Euclid. 625-0819. www.genetics-and-society.org 

Furthering the Movement The War on Iraq, Political Prisoners, & Equal Rights, presented by James Cosner at 7 p.m. at Humanist Hall, 390 27th St. Oakland. Donation $5-$10, no one turned away. 419-1405. 

The Golden Game: California Baseball History Month A reception and panel discussion at 6 p.m. at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant Ave. 549-3564, ext. 316. 

“Any Woman Can Be An Endurance Athlete” Training tips for fitness, recreation or competition at 7 p.m. at REI, 1338 San Pablo Ave. 527-4140. 

Bridges Summer Field Research Symposium to learn about the work of graduate students in Latin America, at 2 p.m. at the CLAS Conference Room, 2334 Bowditch St. Also on Wed. 642-2088. www.clas.berkeley.edu 

Family Story Time at the Kensington Branch Library, Tues. evenings at 7 p.m. at 61 Arlington Ave. 524-3043. 

El Cerrrito Library Book Club meets to discuss “The Human Stain” by Philip Roth at 7 p.m. at the El Cerrito Library, 6510 Stockton Ave. 526-7512. www.ccclib.org 

Berkeley Camera Club meets at 7:30 p.m., at the Northbrae Community Church, 941 The Alameda. 548-3991. www.berkeleycameraclub.org 

Berkeley PC Users Group Problem solving and beginners meeting to answer, in simple English, users questions about Windows computers. At 7 p.m. at 1145 Walnut St., near corner of Eunice St. 527-2177. 

“Stem Cells, Religion and Presidential Politics” with Raymond Barglow at 7:30 p.m. at the BRJCC, 1414 Walnut St. Free. 848-0237, ext. 110. 

“Simchat Torah: A Meeting Point between Cyclical and Linear” at 7:30 p.m. at the BRJCC, 1414 Walnut St. Cost is $5. To register call 848-0237, ext. 110. 

WEDNESDAY, SEPT. 29 

KQED Public Radio’s “Forum with Michael Krasny” Live broadcast from the Pauley Ballroom East in the MLK Student Union, UC Campus. Program topics are: 9 a.m. Proposed changes to UC’s undergraduate eligibility standards, 10 a.m. Student activism 40 years after the Free Speech Movement. Free and open to the public. 415-553-2119. www.kqed.org/radio. 

Berkeley Candidates and Ballot Measures Forum hosted by the Council of Neighborhood Associations from 7 to 9 p.m. at the City of Berkeley Corporation Yard, Green Room, 1326 Allston Way. Refreshments will be served. On-site parking is available. Candidate interviews will be at 7 p.m. and ballot measures at 8 p.m.  

Candidates for the Berkeley School Board will speak and answer questions in the City Council Chambers in Old City Hall, 2134 Martin Luther King, Jr. Way. Starts promptly at 7 p.m. Sponsored by the League of Women Voters of Berkeley, Albany and Emeryville. 843-8824. http://lwvbae.org 

Peace Corps Informational Meeting Come learn more about “The Toughest Job You’ll Ever Love!” at 6 p.m. at the Berkeley Library Claremont Branch, 2940 Benvenue Ave. 415-977-8798. jruiz@peacecorps.gov  

“Hidden Internment: The Art Shibayama Story” and “Caught in Between: What to Call Home in Times of War” Two films on U.S. government policies toward immigrant communities at 8 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center, 3105 Shattuck Ave. Suggested donation $5-$25. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

“Food for Thought” and “Field of Genes” films at 7 p.m. at Humanist Hall, 390 27th St., Oakland. Admission is free. Part of the GMOs and Food series sponsored by GMO Free Alameda County. 527-9898. www.gmofreeac.org 

“The Pollsters Handicap the Horse Race” a panel discussion at 3 p.m. at 109 Moses Hall, Campus. Sponsored by the Institute of Governmental Studies. http://politics.berkeley.edu 

“The Archbishop Romero Case: Legal Accountability in U.S. Courts” with Russell Cohen, of Heller Ehrman White & McAuliffe LLP, and Matt Eisenbrandt, of the Center for Justice & Accountability, two of the attorneys who brought the case against Romero’s killers, at 4 p.m., Room 3, Le Conte Hall, UC Campus. 642-2088. www.clas.berkeley.edu 

“Against Leviathan: Government Power and a Free Society” with economist and political historian Dr. Robert Higgs at 6:30 p.m. at The Independent Institute Conference Center, 100 Swan Way, Oakland. Cost is $10-$15. 632-1366. www.independent.org 

Knitting Hour at 6 p.m. at the West Branch of the Berkeley Public Library, 1125 University Ave. All levels and ages welcome. Get inspired and meet other knitters. Limited supplies available. Beginners, please bring size 8 needles and one skein of yarn. 981-6270. 

Walk Berkeley for Seniors meets every Wednesday, rain or shine, at 9:30 a.m. at the Sea Breeze market, just west of the I-80 overpass. Everyone is welcome, wear comfortable shoes, sunscreen and a hat. 548-9840. 

Walking Tour of Old Oakland “New Era/New Politics” highlights African-American leaders who have made their mark on Oakland. Meet at 10 a.m. at the African American Museum and Library at 659 14th St. 238-3234. www.oaklandnet.com/walkingtours 

Over 90 Birthday Celebration with entertainment and refreshments at 1:15 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-5190. 

Solid Waste Management Public Workshop on the Site Master Plan for 2nd and Gilman Sts. at 7 p.m. at the Solid Waste Management Assembly Room, 1201 Second St. Sponsored by the City of Berkeley Solid Waste Management Commission. 981-6357. 

Bayswater Book Club meets to discuss “The Early Church” by Henry Chadwick and “The Early Church” by Glenn Hinson at 6:30 p.m. at Barnes and Noble Coffee Shop, El Cerrito Plaza. 433-2911. 

Fresh Produce Stand at San Pablo Park from 3 to 6:30 p.m. in the Frances Albrier Community Center. Sponsored by the Ecology Center’s Farm Fresh Choice. 848-1704. www.ecologycenter.org 

Prose Writers’ Workshop An ongoing group focused on issues of craft. Novices welcome. Community sponsored, no fee. Meets Wed. at 7 p.m. at the Berkeley Jewish Community Center, 1414 Walnut St. 524-3034. georgeporter@earthlink.net 

Berkeley Peace Walk and Vigil with a Sing for Peace at 6:30 p.m. at the Berkeley BART Station. www.geocities.com/ 

vigil4peace/vigil 

THURSDAY, SEPT. 30 

Strawberry Creek Cleanup Day from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Sather Gate on UC Campus. Come help remove trash from Strawberry Creek and help preserve this great resource and San Francisco Bay. All materials will be provided. Sponsored by the UC Berkeley Office of Environment, Health & Safety. 642-6568. stevemar@berkeley.edu 

East Bay For Kerry Debate Party at the Parkway Speakeasy Theater, 1834 Park Blvd., Oakland. Doors open at 5:15 pm. This event is first-come, first-served and is limited to 200 attendees, so be sure to arrive early to grab a spot and order food. Hosted by East Bay for Kerry-Edwards. 415-305-1345. 

Human Rights Video Project will show “Behind the Labels: Garment Workers in U.S. Saipan” at 6:30 p.m. at Richmond Public Library Community Room, 325 Civic Center Plaza, near 26th and MacDonald, Richmond. 620-6561. 

“Asian American and African American Religious Leaders Speak Out For Civil Marriage and Civil Rights” at 7 pm at Badè Museum, Pacific School of Religion, 1798 Scenic Ave. 849-8260, 849-8235. 

League of Women Voters General Meeting at 5:30 p.m. at Northbrae Community Church, 941 The Alameda. The panel topic “Getting Young People to Know How Cool it is to Vote.” Supper costs $15. Panel begins at 7 p.m. 843-8824. http://lwvbae.org 

West Berkeley Redevelopment Area Open House at 7 p.m. at the West Berkeley Senior Center. 981-7520.  

Brower Youth Awards at 6 p.m. at the Florence Schwimley Theater, 1920 Allston Way. 415-788-3666. 

“Watershed: Writers, Nature and Community” A symposium at 7:30 p.m. at UC Extension, 2222 Harold Way. For more information see www.unex.berkeley.edu/cat/038224 

“The Weather Underground” Video screening and discussion at 7 p.m. at Grand Lake Neighborhood Center, 530 Lake Park Ave., Oakland. Suggested donation $1.  

FRIDAY, OCT. 1 

First Fridays Film Series “Hijacking Catastrophe: 9/11, Fear and the Selling of America” at 7:30 p.m. at St. Joseph the Worker Church, 1640 Addison St. Free. 482-1062. 

Berkeley-Palma Soriano Sister City Association report-back from recent trip to Cuba at 6:30 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Donation $8-$15. 981-6817. 

“The Election Year 2004” with Prof. Constance Cole at 1:30 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-5190. 

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. 

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. Sponsored by the Buddhist Peace Fellowship. 655-6169. www.bpf.org 

Overeaters Anonymous meets at 1:30 p.m. at the Northbrae Church at Solano and The Alameda. 525-5231. 

SATURDAY, OCT. 2 

Watershed Environmental Poetry Festival with Robert Haas, Lawrence Ferlingheti, Pattiann Rogers, George Keithley and many more from noon to 5 p.m. at Civic Center Park. 526-9105. www.poetryflash.org 

Mini Farmers A farm exploration program for children accompanied by an adult. Wear boots and prepare to get dirty. From 2:30 to 4 p.m. at Tilden Nature Area, in Tilden Park. Cost is $3-$5, registration required. 525-2233. www.ebparks.org 

Leaf Art Print Collect dried leaves on a tree study walk, then make a card or decorate a t-shirt of your own. For ages six and up at 10 a.m. at Tilden Nature Area, in Tilden Park. Registration required. 525-2233. www.ebparks.org 

Berkeley Path Wanderers Claremont Elmwood Walk Meet at 10 a.m. at the corner of Ashby and Elmwood Aves, just east of College Ave. 654-5448. 

Berkeley Historical Society Walking Tour “Transformation on the Waterfront” led by Susan Schwartz. At 10 a.m. Cost is $8-$10. 848-0181. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/histsoc/ 

Berkeley Solar Home Tour Self-guided tours from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. starting at the Shorebird Nature Center, Berkeley Marina. Tickets are $15 per group. For more information call 377-5849. www.norcalsolar.org/tour/berkeley/ 

Voter Education and Political Forum from 10 a.m. to noon at St. Paul AME Church, 2024 Ashby Ave. 848-2050. 

Swim a Mile for Women with Cancer from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Mills College Trefethan Aquatic Center. Also on Sun. Proceeds benefit the Women’s Cancer Resource Center. To register call 601-4040, ext. 180. www.wcrc.org 

Walk Against Domestic Violence at Lake Merritt, Oakland, to support A Safe Place, Oakland’s only shelter for battered women and children. For pledge forms and information call 986-8600. www.asafeplacedvs.org 

Walk for Farm Animals at 11 a.m. at Splash Pad Park, across the street from the Grand Lake Theater, Oakland. For pledge forms and information see www.walkforanimals.org 

A Conversation with Daniel Ellsberg at 2 p.m. at the Oakland Museum of California, 10th and Oak Sts. In conjunction with the exhibition “What’s Going On? California and the Vietnam Era” 238-2200. www.museumca.org 

“A Village Gathering” A day of information, resources and support for African-Americans with disabilities from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Claremont Middle School, 5750 College Ave. Oakland. 547-7322, ext. 15. 

The Silence Of Our Friends a workshop presented by the UNtraining, a program for untraining white liberal racism. From 1 to 5 p.m. at Berkeley High School Library, 1980 Allston Way. Sliding scale $10-50, no one turned away for lack of funds. Everyone welcome. Wheelchair Accessible. 235-3957. www.untraining.org  

Great Dog Lick Off A fundraising event for the Berkeley-East Bay Humane Society at noon at Alan’s Petzeria. Cost is $5. 

Sick Plant Clinic The first Sat. of every month, UC plant apthologist, Dr. Robert Raabe, UC entomologist Dr. Nick Mills, and their team of experts will diagnose what ails your plants. From 9 a.m. to noon at the UC Botanical Garden, 200 Centennial Dr. Free. 643-2755. 

Free Emergency Preparedness Class on Fire Supression from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at 997 Cedar St. To sign up call 981-5605. www. 

ci.berkeley.ca.us/fire/oes.html 

Pee Wee Basketball for Girls ages 6-8 begins at 10 a.m. at 1255 Allston Way. Cost is $25 for residents and runs for 6 weeks. Sponsored by Berkeley Youth Alternatives. 845-9066. 

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, OCT. 3 

One Long Hike From 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. beginning at Tilden Nature Area, in Tilden Park. Bring water, sunscreen and lunch as we take a look at the natural and cultural history of Wildcat Canyon. 525-2233. www.ebparks.org 

Plant It and They Will Come Learn the simple steps to attract wildlife to your backyard, from 1 to 3 p.m. at Tilden Nature Area, in Tilden Park. 525-2233. www.ebparks.org 

Neighborhood Disaster Training for Panoramic Hill from 9 a.m. to noon. Sponsored by the City of Berkeley. For information and to register call 981-5506. 

“Moral Responsibility, the Mind-Body Problem” with Gunther Stent, Prof. of Molecular and Cell Biology, UCB, at 9:30 a.m. at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley, 1 Lawson Rd., Kensington. 525-0302.  

Mid-Autum Children’s Festival Celebrating the Vietnamese Moon Festival from 4 to 8 p.m. at the Oakland Museum of California, 10th and Oak Sts. In conjunction with the exhibition “What’s Going On? California and the Vietnam Era” 238-2200. www.museumca.org 

Free Sailboat Rides between 1 and 4 p.m. at the Cal Sailing Club in the Berkeley Marina. Bring warm waterproof clothes. www.cal-sailing.org 

Tibetan Buddhism with Stephanie Hoffman on “Tibetan Text Preservation: Preserving an Endangered Tradition” at 6 p.m. at the Tibetan Nyingma Institute, 1815 Highland Pl. 843-6812. www.nyingmainstitute.com 

MONDAY, OCT. 4 

“Does America Need a New President?” with William Kristol, editor of The Weekly Standard and Mark Danner, professor at the UCB Graduate School of Journalism at 7:30 p.m. at Zellerbach Auditorium, UC Campus. Tickets are $10 available from 642-9988. http://journalism.berkeley.edu 

Tea at Four Taste some of the finest teas from the Pacific Rim and South Asia and learn their natural and cultural history, followed by a short nature walk. At 4 p.m. at Tilden Nature Area, in Tilden Park. Cost is $5-$7, registration required. 525-2233. www.ebparks.org 

Berkeley Measure Q: Pros and Cons at the The Oakland/East Bay Chapter of the National Organization for Women meeting at 6 p.m. at Chanel Hall of the Lutheran Church of the Cross, 1744 University Ave. at McGee. 287-8948. 

“Separation of Church and State: Where Are We Today?” A panel discussion sponsored by Americans United Against Church and State, the ACLU, Secular Humanists of the East Bay and Kol Hadash at 7:30 p.m. at BRJCC, 1414 Walnut St. 848-0237. 

World Affairs/Politics Discussion Group for people 60 years and over meets Mondays at 10:15 a.m. at the Albany Senior Center, 846 Masonic Ave. Join at any time. 524-9122. 

“Ulysses” Discussion Book Group at 7 p.m. at the Long Haul, 3124 Shattuck Ave. We will meet every Monday night and hopefully finish by Bloomsday 2005. 

Academic Center of Excellence at St. Paul AME Church, 2024 Ashby Ave. on Mon. and Wed. from 3 to 6 p.m. A free resource for students in grades K-12 in partnership with UC Berkeley. 848-2050. Also in ongoing 

Copwatch Class Learn about the history of police, community policing, racial profiling, government surveillance of anti-war protestors and pre-emptive arrests, and what your rights under the Patriot Act. From 6 to 7:30 p.m. at 2022 Blake St., near Shattuck. Free and open to the public. 548-0425. 

CITY MEETINGS 

City Council meets Tues., Sept. 28, at 7 p.m at Longfellow School Auditorium, 1500 Derby St., for a Public Hearing on the Creek Ordinance. Sherry M. Kelly, city clerk, 981-6900. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/citycouncil 

Council Agenda Committee meets Mon., Oct. 4, at 2:30 p.m., at 2180 Milvia St., Sherry M. Kelly, city clerk, 981-6900. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/citycouncil/agenda-committee 

Berkeley Rent Stabilization Board meets Mon. Oct. 4, at 7 p.m. in City Council Chambers, Pam Wyche 644-6128 ext. 113. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/rent 

Landmarks Preservation Commission meets Mon., Oct. 4, at 7:30 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Gisele Sorensen, 981-7419. www.ci.berkeley.ca. 

us/commissions/landmarks 

Peace and Justice Commission meets Mon., Oct. 4, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Manuel Hector, 981-5510. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/peaceandjustice 

Youth Commission meets Mon., Oct. 4, at 6:30 p.m., at 1730 Oregon St. Philip Harper-Cotton, 981-6670. www.ci. 

berkeley.ca.us/commissions/youth?

Culture. Or as they say in America’s capital of culture, New York City, kulcha. Everyone’s for it, who could be against it? We’ve gotten a number of communications from representatives of what’s described as the “arts and culture industry” in Mayor Bates’ proclamation endorsing today, Oct. 1, as “California Arts Day” and October as “Arts and Humanities Month.” The Arts Day press releases are chock-full of shocking statistics about the California’s sorry state of support for the arts, the worst of which is this, from the California Arts Council: 

“California is the fifth largest economy in the world, yet California is ranked 50th in the nation for per capita support for the arts. The state spends less than three cents (2.7 cents) per person. The national average is $1.10; New York spends $2.75 per person.” 

It can’t get much sorrier than that: below even Mississippi or Alabama. California has been accumulating dismal statistical comparisons to other states as the Davis-Schwartzegger era moves forward. Just look at spending on schools as compared to spending on prisons in this state, or at slashed funding for state institutions of higher education. We got an anguished anti-Bush letter from a correspondent in Missouri who complained that she seems to have fallen into the Bible Belt by mistake. Here in California, despite our Democratic vote in presidential elections, we seem to have landed in Lower Slobbovia, the home of unwashed illiterates lampooned by Al Capp in the L’il Abner comic strip of yore. 

And yet…we don’t actually lack culture in this state, or in Berkeley. The Bay Area alone supports perhaps 15 small companies which present European classical opera. Blessed with a steady stream of immigrants from countries with respect for culture, we have Persian theater, Chinese classical orchestras, Mexican dance troupes…all kinds of great stuff. What we lack is a decent level of support from our own government for our citizens’ cultural endeavors—no one could argue with that. But instead of beating what in Berkeley should be a dead horse, we’d like to explore here what else can be done to support arts and culture in a time when cash is scarce.  

In the first place, we should try to stop thinking of the arts as a cash cow. The city proclamation says that “arts and culture funding is a critical investment in…the economy of our state, and the arts are a catalyst for economic growth, cultural tourism, and downtown redevelopment.” Well, sure. Accompanying our copy of the Mayor’s proclamation was a pricey city-funded report from a consulting group called “Arts Market” purporting to show actual cash benefits returned to the economy from arts expenditures. The conclusions are probably true, but they’re not 100% relevant. “Art for art’s sake” is a hoary slogan, but the intangible benefits that we gain from cultural pursuits as individuals and as a society are much greater than the dollars involved. Kids who take some time in the school day to sing a few songs or dance a bit are better learners in all subjects. Seniors who join a madrigal singing group almost certainly see benefits in their blood pressure.  

What can Berkeley do to promote involvement in cultural activities besides spend more money that doesn’t seem to be forthcoming? Well, for starters, city policy regarding space for the arts should promote much more than downtown redevelopment. The West Berkeley Plan was carefully engineered to preserve unstructured space for the practice of arts, and yet the last year has seen both open and furtive attempts to snatch that space away from artists and deliver it to real estate speculators. West Berkeley artist John Curl was summarily dumped from the Planning Commission and replaced by a proponent of commercial exploitation of West Berkeley. The Nexus gallery space continues to be the focus of pro-development pressure. Citizen-initiated landmarking might buy a bit of time for Nexus, but the forces which see West Berkeley, and the Gilman freeway exit in particular, as ripe for the picking are strong. 

Even downtown, in Berkeley’s officially designated arts ghetto, it’s been a constant struggle to save space for the arts. The UC Theater was headed for “redevelopment” as yet another cookie-cutter housing project, with faux-storefronts as a sop to the arts, when it was temporarily saved by, again, citizen-initiated landmarking. No one in City Hall, despite campaign promises to the contrary, has yet come up with a viable plan to re-use the great open space which the UC offers as a 700-seat performance hall, which is urgently needed by the Berkeley Symphony, repertory cinema and other endeavors which attract medium-sized audiences. City government greased the skids for the eventual obliteration of the Fine Arts Cinema, which a chorus of cynics accurately predicted would happen, in order for Panoramic Interests to construct more of the luxury student apartments which are going begging this fall. The monster Seagate project is getting away with providing token rehearsal space to Berkeley’s most favored, best-funded arts organization, the Berkeley Repertory Theater, in return for being allowed to build an extremely generous number of bonus condo units. Us cynics aren’t fooled.  

What’s needed, and what has been suggested by a number of critics, some in these pages, is for the city mothers and fathers, at a minimum, to drive much harder bargains with the Panoramics and the Seagates. In return for agreeing to run roughshod over the Downtown Plan on Seagate’s behalf, Berkeley should at least be able to demand a broad-based and substantial contribution to the arts from the developer. Perhaps, for example, Seagate could provide seed money for getting started on the adaptive re-use of the UC, its near neighbor.  

There are many other cases in point, too numerous to list here. The bottom line is that if the city fathers and mothers really believe, as they proclaim, that Berkeley should support arts and culture, there are ways of doing so even in an era of diminished funding. 

k

We’re going to start the Planet’s discussion of ballot choices for the November election with the easiest one to understand. Proposition 66 is a balanced, moderate reform of California’s badly drafted “Three Strikes and You’re In Jail for Life” law.  

There has been a fair amount of publicity for those outrageous cases where people have ended up with life imprisonment for petty second and third crimes like stealing pizza. The organization FACTS, Families to Amend California’s Three Strikes, has a long list of case histories on its website of miscarriages of justice which the current law has caused. California’s three strikes law, hastily passed in the wake of the Polly Klaas kidnapping, was intended to keep dangerous, violent offenders off the street. Polly’s grandfather, Joe Klaas, has agreed to be the official spokesperson for Yes on 66 because he recognizes that change is needed to fulfill the original purpose of the law correctly.  

A Field Poll released on Aug. 13 showed that the “Fix Three Strikes” initiative on the November ballot led by a 69 percent to 19 percent margin at that point. But the powerful prison guards union won’t let a profitable cash cow like the current three strikes law get away so easily. Between now and the election they and their supporters will be spending a lot of money campaigning to continue the wasteful practice of filling up prisons with people who don’t need to be there. Close to 65 percent of those serving second and third strike sentences were convicted of nonviolent, petty offenses such as simple drug possession or shoplifting. It costs on the order of three-quarters of a million dollars to keep each three strikes prisoner inside, so passing Proposition 66 can be expected to save taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars, much of the money diverted from the pockets of the guards’ union. 

Many voters have trouble making it through the long list of state ballot measures while they’re standing up in the polling booth, worried about keeping people behind them in line waiting. Nevertheless, you do want to make sure you cast your vote on the really important questions like Proposition 66. The best way to make sure that you have time to do the job well is to use a paper ballot and vote absentee, now relatively easy to do. This strategy is also reassuring for the many voters who distrust the new electronic voting machines.  

We will be discussing the rest of the state propositions and making our recommendations for Must Votes like Proposition 66 between now and Tuesday, Oct. 26, which is the cut-off date for the Alameda County Registrar of Voters to receive absentee ballot applications, which must be in writing. We want to do everything we can to help you make sure that your vote counts.  

Supporters of various proposals and candidates are already contributing to our opinion pages. Candidates for Berkeley City Council have been invited to submit long statements, 600-800 words, by this Friday, Oct. 1, which we will print in rotation through Oct. 22. Readers may also send in short questions for candidates, and starting on Friday we’ll print as many of them as space allows, to which candidates may submit short replies. Our “Berkeley This Week” calendar will continue to list the remaining candidates’ nights.  

We haven’t decided yet whether the Planet will endorse any local measures or candidates, but if we do so it will be by Oct. 26. That’s also a prudent cut-off date for mailing absentee ballots to be sure that they arrive by election day a week later, Nov. 2. Of course, if you don’t mail your absentee ballot in time, you can always take it to your polling place yourself on election day. You’ll still be able to fill it out in peace and quiet at home. And if you’re confused by anything in the election process or on the ballot, let us know, and we’ll try to get the information you need in time for it to help with your decision. 

’