Inspired by the need to pay for the school’s beloved drama program, the Parent Teacher Student Association at Malcolm X Arts and Academics Magnet School has come a long way from bake sales. 

In 1998, Malcolm X, at 1731 Prince St., was selected to become a magnet school, and receive a $650,000 federal grant in three annual installments. The one requirement was to establish a program that would prosper when the money ran out. 

Principal Cheryl Chinn says the money was used for teacher training workshops and construction, but the majority was spent on the visual and performing arts program. 

“We had to go with our strengths,” Chinn says. “We had to give parents a reason why they would choose Malcolm X over the other schools.” 

When the magnet money ran out, the Malcolm X PTSA took over the responsibility of paying for the drama program. 

Starting with a fall membership drive and ending with the Spring Fair in May, the 150-member PTSA works to ensure Malcolm X students have the same opportunities as private school students. This year’s goal is $40,000, said Jill Wild, co-chair of the fund-raising committee and mother of a third grader. 

“Every child has a right to go to a good school,” Wild says. “The parents involved in the PTSA feel strongly about public education and we want it to work.” 

As early as kindergarten, arts are incorporated into the student’s curriculums through classes such as drama, singing, art and cooking. Every year, Malcolm X students present many different productions, including an All-School Singing Chorale and operas, like last year’s An Adventure like No Other, that are written, directed and produced by the students.  

“When you see a kid on-stage singing and dancing you can see it empowers them. It’s incredible,” Wild says. “You see confidence in a child to do that.” 

In addition to a boost in self-confidence, the students learn that art is a way to express themselves, says drama teacher Simon Kaplan. 

“It’s good to show kids that you can take emotions and put them into something constructive,” he says.  

The money raised by the PTSA pays for programs not included in the school’s annual budget, which consists of $50,000 from Berkeley Schools Excellence Project and $80,000 in state funding, says Chinn. 

Last year, the school’s sports, drama and after-school programs like karate and ceramics, as well as salaries of the school librarian and drama teacher were completely paid for by the PTSA’s fund raising.  

For PTSA members, the benefits are well worth the time, says Stina Charles-Harris, co-chair of the fund-raising committee. 

“This school is in one of the poorest neighborhoods in the city and there’s kids being bussed in from the other side of town because they want to be a part of the programs we fund,” she says. 

The school’s motto, “Together We Can,” is exemplified by the relationship between the parents and the teachers, said Chinn. 

“Each piece is equally important,” she said. “We wouldn’t be able to do it without the parents and the staff working together hand in hand.” 

The newest PTSA event is the May Spring Fair raffle, started by Wild three years ago. The raffle prizes range from theater tickets to a digital camera. The grand prize is a trip to Disneyland, including round-trip airfare purchased with PTA members donated frequent flyer miles. Last year’s raffle raised $15,000, says Wild. 

Thanks to the efforts of the parents and the teachers at Malcolm X, the school’s visual and performing arts program will be protected from state budget cuts, says Chinn. 

“We’re family,” she says. “We have a mutual respect and when we come to a budget challenge, we work together and rise above it.” 

This is the eleventh and last in a series profiling the Berkeley elementary schools. The reports were written by students of the UC Berkeley Journalism School.

A strongly worded audit report released last week charges that Berkeley’s parking enforcement has suffered a decline in production and morale, and officials have failed to safeguard parking meter money. 

On Tuesday, the audit, overseen by City Auditor Ann-Marie Hogan, will go before the City Council, which doesn’t escape the audit’s criticism. 

Also on Tuesday’s agenda, the council will hear an appeal of permits for the construction of a five-story condominium project at 2700 San Pablo Ave. and consider approving up to $2 million in contracts for outside environmental and planning studies on new developments. 

With Berkeley facing a $7.5 million structural budget deficit next year, city officials are eager to boost revenues from parking enforcement operations which have lagged behind city expectations. 

The audit found that from fiscal year 2003 to fiscal year 2004 parking enforcers, per person, issued 6 percent fewer tickets. Due to higher ticket fines and fewer parking enforcers on sick leave, revenues nevertheless increased from $6.7 million in 2003 to $8.3 million last year—still below the city’s $9 million target. 

Even though they haven’t met city goals, parking enforcers still took in nearly triple the revenue required to pay for the enforcement, the audit found. To boost parking fine revenue, Berkeley police are proposing hiring three new parking enforcers and one new supervisor in the department that currently consists of 23 parking enforcers and six supervisors. 

The audit found that parking enforcers face numerous obstacles to meeting city collection goals. On an average day, about 400 of Berkeley’s approximately 2,900 parking meters are out of service and the color painted on the specially marked curbs is not always clear, keeping parking enforcers from ticketing for infractions like parking in a red or blue zone. 

Inconsistent enforcement goals from City Council have also hurt productivity, the audit found. According to police, parking enforcers had been asked not to cite violators for several types of transgressions and had been ordered to ease off on the enforcement of residential preferential parking on Saturdays when the Cal football team was in action.  

But the council in 2002 required parking enforcers to issue multiple parking tickets to cars that overstayed their time at broken meters. 

“It appears that council has not yet explicitly, publicly and clearly stated to parking enforcement operations the parking enforcement goals and the best way to achieve the city’s overall parking enforcement goals,” Hogan wrote. 

She also concluded that the mixed messages had contributed to low employee morale. From employee interviews, Hogan wrote that 84 percent of parking enforcers disagreed with the statement, “The city respects a job well done.” 

Although the audit found no evidence of misappropriating parking revenues, Hogan warned that cash handling procedures were inadequate. Among her concerns were that all traffic maintenance workers had access to the city safe with parking meter keys, which was observed to be unlocked for an entire day and that no one had responsibility for safeguarding canisters with meter coins. 

“Given the current system of accounting for coins, if there were missing canisters or less money in the canister than there should be, there would be no way to track down who was responsible,” Hogan wrote. 

The audit also faulted the police department, which manages parking enforcers, for failing to keep accurate enforcement statistics. From 2001 through 2003, police records for parking enforcement and finance department records revenue differed by as much as $2.1 million. Even when police revised their numbers after learning that they were not properly using an accounting program a discrepancy remained. 

Hogan called for the police to follow her recommendation from a prior audit and hire a public safety business manager to “provide for adequate budgetary and performance measure reporting.” 

Hybrids May Get to Park For Free 

In another twist to the city’s parking enforcement policies, councilmembers Gordon Wozniak and Linda Maio are proposing that the city study the costs and benefits of allowing hybrid and other fuel efficient vehicles to park for free at metered spaces. 

Appeal of Condo Project 

The council will hear an appeal over a five-story project with 30 condos, four live/work units and ground floor commercial space at San Pablo Avenue and Derby Street. After local developer Patrick Kennedy failed to develop the plot in the face of neighborhood opposition, he sold the site along with several already approved permits to San Francisco developer Charmaine Curtis. 

Last December the Zoning Adjustment Board granted Curtis a permit for the project. A group of neighbors has appealed. 

The appellants argue that the Zoning Adjustment Board should have required Curtis to start the permit process anew, failed to make proper findings to permit a fifth floor, should have required a more thorough environmental review and failed to ensure that the project followed the spirit of Berkeley’s law requiring that developers set aside units for affordable housing. 

Planning Contracts 

The Planning Department is asking that the council approve four contracts with outside planning firms to provide services for developers seeking to expedite Berkeley’s planning process. The three-year contracts would not exceed $500,000 per contract and would be paid by the project applicant. 

In his report to the council, Planning Director Dan Marks wrote that “having a consultant function as a ‘dedicated planner’ for a specific project allows it to move faster” because city staff have other duties. He cited 2020 Kittredge St. and the “Blood House” at 2526 Durant Ave. as examples of consultants successfully being used to work on projects. 

Marks is recommending the city contract with Crawford, Multari & Clark, Pacific Municipal Consultants, Amy Skews-Cox and Chandler Lee. 

Former Planning Commissioner Zelda Bronstein said that in the past consultants have ignored Berkeley zoning rules, causing projects to actually be delayed. Chandler Lee, she said as an example, was hired to work on the West Berkeley Bowl, which has been withdrawn from the Planning Commission’s agenda pending revisions and is now two months behind plan. 

“I don’t think this will make anything go faster,” Bronstein said. ô

Former East Bay Democratic Assemblymember Dion Aroner has become a lobbyist for a Canadian racing track firm which has teamed up with powerful Los Angeles developer and Republican Rick Caruso, intensifying their push for a massive “theme” mall on the Albany waterfront. 

The chosen site is a disused 45-acre parking lot at Golden Gate Fields, where crowds have dwindled to a small fraction of avid racing fans who once thronged the track. 

Caruso, who is planning a 600,000- to 800,000-square-foot upscale megaplex, is working with Magna Entertainment, the Canadian owner that also controls the largest share of the nation’s horse racing venues. 

Aroner formally represents Golden Gate Fields, but has been actively urging Albany officials and environmental groups to meet with Caruso, a well connected Republican who is pals with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and raised large sums for the presidential campaigns of George W. Bush, entitling him to the official status of “Bush Ranger.” 

“I was sorely disappointed when I heard that Dion Aroner was willing to work for Magna,” said Robert Cheasty, a former Albany mayor and a leading East bay environmental activist. 

Aroner said her firm was hired to do “public outreach and listening” for the track. Just what that entails, she isn’t saying because it would involve disclosing details of the contract. She said Caruso wasn’t involved when she started working for the track, and that she’s been asking Albany officials to meet with the Los Angeles developer only because he’s partnered with Magna. 

After losing her seat to term limits, Aroner and two associates founded a lobbying firm, AJE Partners, with offices at 1803 Sixth St. in Berkeley. She was replaced in the legislature by Loni Hancock, who is Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates’ spouse. 

Before serving in the legislature, Aroner served on Bates’s staff before he too reached the end of his term limit in the Assembly. 

The mall move represents the latest evolution in the declining fortunes of the “Sport of Kings,” as horse racing is known. Once a major attraction for throngs of racing fans, the track has fallen onto hard times. 

Off-track betting has claimed much of the audience in other states, as races are captured on satellite video feeds and broadcast to betting parlors and other racetracks. 

Then there are casinos. 

A study completed in January by LECG, Inc., the high-priced legal and economic consulting firm in Emeryville headed by UC Berkeley Haas School of Business Professor David W. Teece, predicts the end of both Golden Gates Fields and the Bay Meadows track should the proposed 2,500-slot machine San Pablo casino ever open. 

The LECG study says that Golden Gate would close first, as the track’s estimated return of 3.5 percent on wagers fell to a minus 1.9 percent. 

The casino opening would slash profits at Bay Meadows from 3.5 percent to 0.4 percent, and profits would drop to a minus 9.2 percent once Golden Gates Fields closed, reports the study by LECG Director William Hamm and principals Ronald M. Schmidt and Richard Siegel. 

Closure of both tracks would end 80 percent of the racing season in the region, reports LECG. The remaining 20 percent represents the much shorter racing calendars of North California’s county fair circuit. 

Both tracks are owned by Magna, which has also teamed with Caruso to develop a similar mall project at their Santa Anita track in Southern California, modeled after the French Quarter in New Orleans. 

There is currently no sign that Santa Anita is as badly afflicted as its Northern California counterparts, and construction plans there also include new barns for the racing stock. 

Cheasty, as an attorney and environmentalist who serves as president of Citizens for Eastshore Parks, along with the Sierra Club and other environmentalists want the track site transformed into a shoreline park, while allowing for a smaller project inland near the casino. 

Magna, other racing interests and California card clubs—when players bet against each other and not the house—floated a statewide initiative last November that would have granted those venues the right to add slot machines to their gambling fare. 

The measure went down to decisive defeat.  

Magna has one ace in the hole, a video track slated to arise in Yolo County specifically designed for the video camera coverage required for OTB betting. 

The Magna/Caruso plans have provoked strong opposition from some members of the Albany City Council and the Chamber of Commerce, notably from Councilmember Robert Leiber. 

The Albany Council remains divided on the shopping center issue, with the three candidates endorsed by the Sierra Club—Leiber, Farid Javandel and Mayor Robert Good—opposed to the project, and Vice Mayor Allan Maris and Councilmember Jewel Okawashi expressing willingness to consider the Caruso/Magna proposal. 

Former Los Angeles Deputy Mayor Matt Middlebrook has been deeply involved in lobbying for the project, said Cheasty and Lieber. He handled media relations for Los Angeles Mayor James Hahn. Middlebrook resigned from Hahn’s staff to take the job as a senior vice president of Fleischmann-Hilliard, one of the nation’s most powerful public relations and lobbying firms. He heads their operations in the Bay Area. 

According to a Dec. 1 profile in the Los Angeles Times, Caruso is a successful entrepreneur, a man who wears $6,000 suits and lives in a 20,000-square-foot home in tony Brentwood, where he, his spouse and their four children are tended to by a staff of 10. 

He is a friend of Kenneth Starr, the special prosecutor who went after Bill Clinton, and a major backer of Hahn, running for reelection in today’s (Tuesday’s) Los Angeles mayoral contest.ª

A week after the Berkeley Unified School District board heard praises for its conversion plans for East Campus, a board director has asked for a new plan with a baseball diamond on the site, reigniting a long-standing controversy over the property and possible Derby Street closure. 

At its Wednesday meeting, the BUSD board will consider a resolution by Director Terry Doran to ask architects to design proposals for the one-block closure of Derby Street between Milvia Street and Martin Luther King Jr. Way, find an alternate space for the Farmers’ Market, and place a regulation-size high school baseball field on two district-owned lots surrounded by Milvia, King, Carleton, and Ward streets. 

The board meeting will be held at 7 p.m. at the Old City Hall on Martin Luther King Jr. Way downtown. 

Ruth Reffkin, East Campus Site Committee member, called Doran’s baseball field proposal a “back-stabbing,” “a betrayal,” and a “bait-and-switch” tactic, and promised that East Campus neighbors would fight any plans to close Derby Street. 

Last week, after a series of meetings that included East Campus neighbors, school officials, and baseball field supporters, WLC Architects produced two proposals for the use of the East Campus property. The architects were hired by the Berkeley school board with instructions that their plans neither include the closure of Derby Street, nor create any structure that would prevent the closure of Derby Street and the building of a baseball field sometime in the future. The plans are expected to be presented to the board in May. 

Doran’s resolution would authorize up to $10,000 to amend the district’s contract with WLC for the architects to produce a third plan, including the street closure and the baseball field. The street closure, if chosen, must be approved by the City Council. 

Doran said his motivation was to “give board members information on all of the alternatives” concerning the district’s Derby Street properties. 

He said that it would save the district money to look at the baseball field now, in conjunction with the temporary plans, rather than waiting until a later date. 

Doug Fielding, chairman of the Association of Sports Field Users of Berkeley and Albany and a supporter of locating the baseball field on the Derby Street property, said that Doran’s motion is critical. 

“We feel if we can’t get the motion passed, [the baseball field] deal is dead,” he said. 

At the end of last week’s WLC-sponsored community meeting at the Berkeley Alternative High School, members of the “Friends of Derby Street Fields” passed out a 12-page pamphlet which advocated Derby Street closure and the building of a baseball field. The pamphlet included a schematic that showed the possible location of the baseball field, the retention of the Alternative High School in its present location, an alternative site for the Farmers’ Market, as well as the community garden, tot field, and basketball courts called for in the WLC plans. 

Friends of Derby Street Fields is an informal organization of Berkeley residents formed in the late 1990s and resurrected a year ago when the BUSD board reopened consideration of development of the Derby Street properties. 

Doran said it would be hard to imagine WLC coming up with anything different from the Friends of Derby St. Fields proposal. He also said formal discussion of a regulation baseball field plan “would lay to rest the rumors about lights, or sound systems, or locked gates on that site. Those things have never been on the table, as far as I’m concerned.” 

Doran said that what was missing in the Friends’ plan—and what would be included in a WLC plan—would be a cost-analysis of building a baseball field from scratch, or converting to a baseball field after either of the temporary plans were put in place for a few years. 

Site Committee member Ruth Reffkin said that East Campus neighbors “all feel very betrayed by this. I’ve been involved in this process for months and months, and we were all told that all they would come up with was a temporary plan which would not include a baseball field, and which would not include the closure of Derby Street.” 

Reffkin was one of the neighbors who spoke in praise of both the WLC process and the proposed plans at last week’s board meetings. 

“They came up with incredible designs that included both community use and student use of the fields,” she said. “But all of a sudden, this proposal came up without warning. It’s my belief that it was Terry’s (Doran’s) agenda to close Derby Street all along, and now he’s trying to sneak this item in at the last minute.” 

Reffkin said that installing a baseball field would be too expensive and destroy community trust.  

“With a teacher contract dispute going on, and the district having financial problems, is this the most important thing to be spending our money on at this time?” she asked. 

Reffkin said she was concerned that a baseball field would mean stadium lights and loudspeakers, despite Doran’s assurances. Reffkin said that she and other East Campus neighbors would not oppose multi-use athletic fields on the property. 

“We live in this city,” she said. “These are our kids. We want them using the fields. What we’re objecting to is the destruction of our community.”?

For several of her nearly 20 years in Berkeley Sara Holmes didn’t know there was ever a fountain at the Arlington Traffic Circle. But now that it’s back, she can’t take her eyes off of it.  

All year long, Holmes frequently descends to the underground control room to clean filters, treads through knee-high pools of water to change light bulbs and plugs away for hours at graffiti using nothing but a toothbrush to make sure the centerpiece of her neighborhood looks as good as it did when neighbors brought it back to life nine years ago.  

“For a long time I couldn’t spin around the circle without looking for something to fix,” said Holmes, who lives a few blocks from the fountain. 

In a time of declining city services, the retired airline sales representative has become the guardian angel for Berkeley’s only working public fountain. 

“Sara and her crew have just been an incredibly wonderful resource for the city,” said Deputy City Manager Lisa Caronna. “They do all the little stuff that we never get the time to do.” 

Holmes and her husband Harvard first took up the fountain’s cause as part of a neighborhood drive in 1993 to restore the traffic circle at Marin Avenue to its past glory. First built in 1911 as the centerpiece of the fledgling Northbrae neighborhood, the circle’s fountain and its signature concrete bear cubs, which more than a few neighbors had mistaken for rats, came crashing down in 1958 underneath a run-away truck. 

For years the traffic circle was home to juniper scrubs, until 1996 when neighbors under the banner of Friends of the Fountain and Walk raised over $100,000 to install a replica fountain. 

“After the dedication, everyone kind of went back to their lives except me,” said Holmes.  

As a member of community group, Holmes drew up the procedures for maintaining the fountain and had the most thorough knowledge about how it worked. She also assumed responsibility of recruiting a loyal band of about a dozen volunteers that have come out on the first Saturday of every month to landscape the circle and surrounding grounds, including the nearby Fountain Walk. 

“To me it wasn’t about the fountain. I wanted to do something to make me feel like I was contributing to the neighborhood,” she said. 

For Malcolm Potts, who recently celebrated his 70th birthday at the fountain with fellow volunteers, fountain upkeep has drawn him closer to his neighbors. “This is spontaneous social combustion,” he said. “There are few things we do in the modern world where we can come together as neighbors and improve our community.” 

Last Saturday was the first day on the job for Larry Miller, who recently bought a home near the fountain after marveling at it while visiting his daughter at UC Berkeley. 

“I was never especially driven to fountains, but there’s something about this one that really attracted me to the area,” he said. “At first I thought, ‘Wow, the City of Berkeley keeps this up,’ but now I know better.” 

Holmes works closely with the city on upkeep of the circle and commends city employees for their work. City workers landscape the grass around the fountain and perform more technical maintenance jobs. But, as the city has had to scale back services to balance budgets, Holmes has started to do more of the dirty work herself. 

If the fountain were left to the city’s maintenance schedule, Holmes said, light bulbs would go unreplaced, graffiti would stain the circle and algae would reduce the fountain to a trickle. 

“We have a certain standard in this neighborhood that we like to keep up,” she said. 

Holmes once took it upon herself to resurface the circle bench with a wire brush after finding that people had etched their names in it. She also keeps a concrete mixture identical to the one used for the fountain for touch up work. Her last job came four years ago, she said, when a VW Bug spun out of control and clipped the fountain. 

In her battle against graffiti vandals, Holmes has formed an alliance with SBC, whose green telephone utility box at the circle is a frequent target. 

“The phone company gives her spray paint to match the color of the box,” Harvard Holmes said. 

“They deliver it to my door,” Sara chimed in. When it comes to tagging the porous fountain, Holmes’ tools are a toothbrush, some “globby” graffiti remover and plenty of sweat. 

Although the sculpture is coated with an anti graffiti seal, she said, “It’s a crapshoot whether it comes out or not.” 

During the summer months, Holmes said she and her husband travel to the underground control room several times a week to keep filters free of algae that clog the flow of water. For years, Holmes would jump down into the four foot pit and climb back up, but after she hurt herself, her husband Harvard, an engineer, built a subterranean staircase. 

Holmes’ hard work has won her the loyalty of her once-a-month helpers. “If anyone else called me to work on a Saturday morning I’d probably find an excuse not to come,” said Bob Young.  

“Sara is so faithful,” said Paddy Wolf, an 81-year-old Englishwoman, pulling weeds up from a traffic median. “If it wasn’t for her this place would just be full of graffiti.” 

In return, Holmes throws her fellow volunteers an annual year-end party. At last year’s party she gave each volunteer a fountain magnet. 

Holmes said keeping up the fountain always offers new problems to solve. Recently two trucks knocked out pillars that surround the circle and a pump problem has left the fountain pool covered with worms.  

Still, Holmes isn’t about to beg off her duties. 

“I know there are so many people who appreciate the fountain as much as I do,” she said. “When someone tells me how much it means to them, that’s what keeps me going. Otherwise, it’s brutal.” 

›

With the West Berkeley Plan up for reconsideration this year, the fate of Berkeley’s industrial core hangs in the balance. 

Which is why two city councilmembers, an economic analyst, a union official, a commercial real state expert and three West Berkeley business owners gathered at Alliance Graphics Thursday night to consider the future of the neighborhood. 

A standing-room-only crowd of West Berkeley residents packed the seats, along with other community activists, including Barbara Gilbert, former City Council candidate, and Zelda Bronstein, former planning commission chair. 

Woodworker John Curl convened the meeting on behalf of the West Berkeley Association of Industrial Companies (WeBAIC), an organization dedicated to preserving the neighborhood which plays host not only to corporate giants like Bayer but also a host of smaller businesses and a legion of artists and craftsfolk. 

Mary Lou Van Deventer of Urban Ore, a recycling business at Seventh Street and Ashby Avenue, is a passionate advocate of the plan. 

“We can’t afford retail rent,” she explained. Her firm, which recycles discarded and rejected goods into saleable products, combines a warehouse with a workshop and a sales area. 

Ironically, she explains, the business wouldn’t have been allowed in West Berkeley absent a zoning amendment that was passed to allow a “recovery firm” into the area. 

“Had the council not acted, we would have been in Oakland or Vallejo,” she said. 

Sharon Cornu, representing the Central Labor Council of Alameda County, said industrial zoning leads to good jobs for cities faced with job losses in the public sector. 

“They provide jobs so that workers don’t have to leave the metro area to find work,” she said. 

Councilmember Linda Maio acknowledged that artists and craftspeople couldn’t exist in West Berkeley with high rents, and she said the area formed a perfect fit for the growing numbers of green businesses as well. 

“At the end of the day our main objective is to improve the lives of West Berkeley residents,” said Councilmember Darryl Moore. 

Don Yost, a partner in Norheim & Yost, a West Berkeley commercial real estate firm, blamed part of the pressures on the misinterpretation of the West Berkeley Plan. He said one solution to the growing number of vacant properties in the area might be to upgrade the zoning in some areas to Industrial Manufacturing to attract bigger firms. 

Neil Mayer, an economic consultant who worked on the West Berkeley Plan, said, “Manufacturing is good for the basic health of Berkeley. The employment levels are fairly steady across the years and the vacancy rate is very low.” 

Susan Libby, whose father started Libby Laboratories at Sixth and Virginia streets in 1950, said her topical pharmaceutical firms has provided steady jobs and good salaries for Berkeley residents. 

“We provide 25 to 30 good jobs with good wages and benefits for those with little education all the way up to Ph.D.s,” Libby said. I’d like to see the city give industrial businesses a little respect. We provide a good diversity for the community and we plan on staying here. It would be ill-advised for the city not to take advantage of what we have to offer.” 

Maio said she’d like to see more auto dealerships, which provide substantial tax revenues for the city. But the only way to attract them would be to offer them sites along the freeway, the now-preferred location. 

Curl said he was especially concerned about growing pressures for development along the Gilman Street, University Avenue and Ashby Avenue corridors. 

“West Berkeley is being chopped up into a complex variety of uses concentrated around the uses already there,” he said. “There is great pressure on those three areas to change their uses to generate more revenue for the city.” Curl said. 

For that reason, Curl and other West Berkeley activists have been fighting the latest proposed incursion on the Ashby Corridor, the city’s second Berkeley Bowl outlet proposed for the corner of 9th Street and Heinz Avenue. 

They fear that the high rents and land prices that go with commercial zoning could force rezoning of the cheaper light industrial and manufacturing sites. 

V

An Oakland education activist was physically removed by a bodyguard from a San Francisco press conference called by State Superintendent of Instruction Jack O’Connell Monday morning when he tried to deliver a letter asking the Superintendent to meet with Oakland residents over the operation of the Oakland Unified School District. 

Michael Siegel, one of six persons arrested last week in the OUSD administrative offices in Oakland, said that he was “grabbed from behind by [O’Connell’s] personal security guard and wrestled from the room.” 

The confrontation took place at the City Arts and Tech Charter High School in San Francisco where O’Connell was announcing a state grant of $14 million in facility funds to the school. Siegel was released by the security guard outside the room where the press conference took place, and was not arrested. He was accompanied by Oakland District 2 Council candidate Pamela Drake, who was also arrested in last week’s demonstration. 

The Oakland Unified School District was seized by the State of California two years ago after teacher pay raises shot the district well over its budget. O’Connell now runs the district through an appointed state administrator, Randolph Ward. 

O’Connell press secretary Hilary McLean confirmed that Siegel was removed from the press conference, stating the action was taken “because he disrupted the event.” 

McLean also disputed a contention of last week’s OUSD office sit-in demonstrators that O’Connell has refused to come to Oakland to meet with concerned parents. 

“The superintendent is a public official and, of course, is always willing to meet with citizens,” McLean said. “I think their actions are designed to get press attention which is fine and well, if that’s the tactic they want to use.”  

Albany City Councilmember Robert Leiber said that Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates, Dion Aroner’s predecessor in the state Assembly, told him that he wants a hotel built on part of the Golden Gate Fields property within Berkeley city limits, something the mayor denies. 

Most of the track site falls within Albany city limits. 

In a statement issued through chief of staff Cisco DeVries, Bates acknowledged that the two had talked about project planning and revenue-sharing in the event of a track closure, but DeVries said, “Tom said he did not make that suggestion and he’s not suggesting that a hotel be built there.” 

“That’s funny,” said Leiber. “He sure said it to me.” 

Bates said that if the track closes, he’d prefer to see the whole site turned into park land, but he’s seen nothing to indicate the track may be closing. 

Since both Berkeley and Albany land is in the area is zoned commercially, Bates said, in the event of closure he would like to the see the two cities plan any development and share the proceeds, minus the amount necessary to make good lost track revenues for Albany. 

“It’s a chance to do something no two cities have ever done before,” he said.?

East Bay Assemblymember Loni Hancock’s urban casino legislation is within two weeks of completion, and other, similar measures are nearing introduction into the state Senate. 

The announcement of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s plans for a massive casino in San Pablo—originally planned for 5,000 slot machines and now reduced by half—has triggered concerns from urban legislators around the state. 

Hancock’s opposition is credited in part to what she sees as the negative economic and social impacts of a casino in the Bay Area metropolitan area, and in part to transportation impacts. 

Many of her fellow Democrats are more ambivalent, said Robert Cheasty, a former mayor of Albany and an attorney and environmentalist, who has been active in the anti-casino movement. 

Promised jobs during construction and permanent jobs inside the gambling parlors have generated strong support from unions, mainstays of financial and political support of Democratic politicians, he said. 

The strongest opponents are coming from the Republicans, in stark contrast to their titular leader, Gov. Schwarzenegger, who has proposed five pacts with tribes guaranteeing the state a larger share of gambling revenues in exchange for regional monopolies. 

Armando Viramontes, the Hancock staff member handling casino issues for the legislators, said her second measure, a proposed amendment to the state constitution covering urban casinos, will be submitted to fellow lawmakers in about a month-and-a-half. 

That measure would ultimately require approval by the state’s voters before it could become the law. 

As for the state senate measures, “word on the street is that they will be submitted to committees even before the assembly measures,” Cheasty said.

Berkeley residents got their first official chance to weigh in on the conversion of Berkeley Unified School District’s sprawling West Campus properties last week when developers hired by the district held their first community meeting. 

The Thursday meeting was held in the cafeteria of the old Berkeley Adult School, which moved its operation to the district’s Franklin Street property last year. 

That leaves the district with a sprawling, mostly-vacant, six-and-a-half-acre 10-building site on University Avenue between Bonar and Curtis streets variously described by residents at the meeting as an “asset,” an “eyesore,” and an “armpit.” 

While most of the old Adult School buildings are largely unused, the property currently houses a day care center, a Head Start program operated by the Berkeley YMCA, a gymnasium used by community members, and an outdoor pool operated by the City of Berkeley. District officials say that the property is far larger than is needed to house its administrative offices, which it plans to move from its present Old City Hall site, as well as operations presently housed at the district’s Oregon/Russell street property. 

On Thursday night, representatives of Berkeley-based Design, Community & Environment (DCE) development planning company asked some 40 West Campus neighbors and school and city officials to give preliminary suggestions for what else they might want on the site. DCE has been hired by the school district to present a proposal for the conversion of the old Adult School. 

Included in the suggestions were: 

• Expansion of the campus parking lot to accommodate not only district staff but spillover parking from the University Avenue commercial zone. 

• A suggestion by Board Director Terry Doran that some of the excess space be used “for things the district doesn’t currently do,” such as a teacher education and staff development center or a professional library. 

• A possible hundred-member school for “problematic, special needs students.” That brought a sharp expression of concern from at least one neighbor, who did not want such students brought into the neighborhood. 

• Commercial development, including housing. An assistant to Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates, Calvin Fong, told participants that “the mayor clearly wants development on the University Avenue part of this property because it would help both the city and the school district with their financial problems.” 

But while DCE representatives filled several poster-sized sheets full of community ideas which they said would be synthesized into their report, they provided little information about what might be possible on the site. 

DCE principal David C. Early said that his organization was waiting for a survey of BUSD staff to see what parts of the site might be used up by BUSD projects. In addition, Early said that his company had no idea yet as to how many of the buildings on the site were seismically safe and could be preserved in a new plan. 

Early also said that because state law was unclear on how to treat city zoning law over mixed education and non-education uses on school district-owned land, he would not know what part of the development might be subject to Berkeley’s zoning ordinances until actual proposals are drawn up. The zoning issue is expected to be critical because Berkeley’s creek ordinance prevents new construction near existing creeks, and Strawberry Creek runs under the West Campus parking lot. 

Meanwhile, while neighbors expressed wariness about what the district might eventually put on the property, most expressed delight that it was going to be upgraded. 

“The site has been poorly maintained,” one woman said. “We’ve got folks lighting fires and smoking crack in the walkthrough, and people are leaving human waste on the property.” 

She also complained of long-standing neglect by the district, saying that the boys’ gym was painted halfway up five years ago, with the painting never completed. She called the West Campus site in its present form “a blight on our neighborhood.” 

DCE plans three more meetings on West Campus before drawing up formal proposals and presenting them to the district in June. At the next meeting, to be held at the West Campus site on April 7, participants will be asked to put down their ideas for site uses on property maps. Early said that maps of the property would be posted on the district’s website soon, as well as notes from each meeting.?

RFID INSTALLATION 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

As the library’s board of trustees debates the decision to install radio frequency identification tags (RFID) in circulation materials at Berkeley public libraries, here are some reasons why they should decide against it. 

First, the range of the RFID signal is not 18 inches as claimed by the system’s salespeople, but rather dependent on the transmitter’s power and the receiver’s sensitivity. One can copy the barcode on any book or CD, and create a list of “sensitive” library materials. Using a powerful transmitter/receiver with such a list, one could use RFID to locate library materials anywhere, without the patron’s knowledge. Patrons might no longer wish to research politically unpopular or potentially embarrassing subjects. The newest RFID systems will include signal encryption, reducing such risks of privacy invasion, so the Board should wait to purchase a more secure system. 

Further, there have been no repetitive stress injuries among library employees in 2004 (Daily Planet, Feb. 18), the library already has self-checkout machines and proven antitheft devices, and the true cost of RFID, including staff time, is greater than the projected two-year deficit. Faced with a budget crisis, I see no reason the board should buy RFID at all. 

Mark W. Hendrix 

• 

WHAT DOES IT TAKE  

TO BUILD A FIELD? 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

High school students looking for examples of how power and politics work in the real world might want to study the Derby Street/baseball field debate, but they shouldn’t expect to witness any profiles in leadership. This is Berkeley’s version of a political third rail, and this time it’s the School Board that is trying to wiggle out of touching it by cynically neglecting to include a full-sized baseball field option in the current round of plans. 

You see, it happens that this new athletic facility, which would serve our children, would be located in one of the more politically potent parts of town, where a vocal group is opposed to it. As a result, the Derby Street field is a political hot potato that the City Council and the School Board have let kick around for more than six years. The city manager has a 1999 EIR for the Derby Street baseball diamond, complete with Farmers’ Market, sitting on the shelf, waiting to be dusted off and updated, once the council gets the request from the board. Now Derby Street has the backing of the mayor and, it seems, the votes needed to pass the council. 

At next week’s School Board meeting, on March 9, BUSD Director Terry Doran is introducing a motion to keep the Derby Street baseball field alive. The motion is almost pathetically tame, asking merely that the district include a regulation baseball diamond as a possibility in the planning process, period. This has been enough to cause the Derby Street political behemoth to stir once again, lashing out against officials that support the ball field and broadcasting two-faced praise of the district’s “fair” planning process, a process that was designed specifically to not include the diamond, so that, once again, the board can dodge a politically charged decision. 

There are children at Berkeley High who remember their older, now graduated, friends showing up in force in 1999 in support of the field. And now, six years later, it’s come down to asking for three votes to keep it from being killed altogether, with no guarantee that it will ever be built, and with no up or down vote on the merits of the proposal. Chalk up another victory to those who know how to work the “process.” Small wonder it’s so hard to motivate people outside the dominant political channels to see the point in taking part in our civic life. 

Phyllis Orrick 

NEW BUSES ARE POPULAR 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Dorothy Bryant’s recent op-ed piece was highly critical of AC Transit’s fleet of Van Hool buses, but the facts present a very different picture. The truth is that the vast majority of AC Transit’s passengers really prefer these buses. 

AC Transit staff devoted considerable time and resources in designing a bus with passenger-oriented features that are actually based on market research and consumer preferences. These vehicles, with their low-floor entry, have been used throughout the world for many years. They are now an industry standard in Europe and Asia, where millions of daily riders in cities like Paris, Zurich, Berlin, Madrid, Rome, and Tokyo, to name a few, strongly prefer this style bus to the old high-floor buses that require people to lumber up and down three high steps to get on and off. 

The Van Hool bus actually achieved worldwide recognition in 2003 and 2004, as the best designed and engineered transit bus in Europe, beating out some of the biggest bus manufacturers in the world, including Mercedes Benz, Volvo, Neoplan of Germany, and DAF/Berkhof of the Netherlands. More than 15 journalists, who regularly cover the transit market in Europe, judged the highly competitive competition. 

AC Transit surveyed nearly 500 passengers when our prototype Van Hools arrived more than two years ago, and the average quality rating among those surveyed was 4.2 out of a maximum of 5. Equally significant, since we launched regular service with our Van Hool fleet in 2003, AC Transit’s overall ridership has climbed 7 percent. In particular, our San Pablo Rapid (Line 72R), which features Van Hools exclusively, has experienced a 66 percent growth in ridership. 

To be sure, some people don’t like our new buses. It’s impossible to please everyone, but the majority of our customers really do appreciate the new design and its many passenger-friendly conveniences, like low-floors, wide doors, electric door openers, big windows, rear windows, great views, bright destination signs, easy access for people in wheelchairs, third-door exits, and a wide-open area in the center of the coach to better accommodate extra passenger loads. 

Jaimie Levin  

AC Transit director of marketing and communications 

• 

BERKELEY BOWL 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

In a Feb. 11 Daily Planet commentary piece, Dale Smith wrote “yes, it’s possible to grocery shop on a bicycle, but not when you’re feeding a family of four.” I’ll admit my family is only three at the moment, but I don’t see any barrier to shopping for one more. People often comment on my cart as a I push it down the aisles at the Berkeley Bowl, “does that hook to the back of a bicycle?” The answer is yes it does, and I’m always tired of shopping long before it is full. My main complaint about shopping at the Bowl by bike? The bike racks are frequently full, and I have to park across the street at Walgreen’s. 

Bryce Nesbitt 

• 

PETER HILLIER 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

James Day (Letters, Marc 4-7) admits he was not at the meeting that I reported on, and that Mr. Hillier walked out on, despite appeals from both the chair and audience members that he stay and discuss the issues. Mr. Day agrees with my premise that public officials work for us and should answer to us, and that those who don’t should leave office, yet he characterizes my letter as an “ugly attack” and an “ugly mockery...spewed out” by me. I did not intend my letter to attack or mock Mr. Hillier, but to describe the event and state my premise, and in fact, I forwarded my letter to Mr. Hillier as well as to the Daily Planet. 

I’m pleased to learn that Mr. Hillier was helpful with the Adult School matter. We have not found that the case with issues surrounding Solano and Marin avenues. I hope that he may have another less stressful opportunity to discuss those issues with us. 

Jerry Landis 

• 

OAKLAND SHOOTING 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Patrick McCullough is a black man. If he were a white man living in Burlingame, I doubt that the newspapers would be as critical of his actions. 

It seems that black men are supposed to know their place. Black men aren’t allowed to complain if drug dealers—who by some sorry coincidence also happen to be black—insist on selling drugs in front of their homes. Black men are supposed to maintain “solidarity” with all other black people—even if the other black people are criminals. Black men are supposed to keep quiet when drug dealers, and the added crimes they and their customers commit, move into the neighborhood. 

Black men aren’t allowed to own property, either. It seems if a black man spends 10 years of his life working to buy a house, it is somehow “property that is easily replaced” and the black man is expected to give it over and lose his equity without a fuss. 

Black men aren’t allowed to protect their families. After all, everyone knows that “real black men” have no love or affection for their families because of a history of slavery. Any black man who would defend his family is obviously an evil violent person, as opposed to the “real black men” who kill each other over drug turf. 

And most important of all, reputable, educated middle-aged hardworking black men who have no criminal record are to be considered to be no more believable than juveniles who hang out on the corner with disreputable companions who sell drugs. After all, as every real white person knows, all black people not only look alike, but they act alike. And if they don’t behave in the fashion approved by real white people then obviously they need to be “corrected.” In the past the Klan did the correction; but today’s methods are not as crude. Today the newspapers and “activists” demand that the police, the district attorney, and others remind black people to stay in their place—and to remember that all black people are to be considered equally credible—except that those who best resemble unfortunate stereotypes are to be considered the most credible of all. 

Nadja Adolf 

Newark 

• 

GIANT MOUND OF DIRT 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

To answer Miko Sloper’s question in the March 4 Daily Planet: That “giant mound of dirt” west of the freeway and south of Seabreeze Market and Deli is one of many mounds of dirt that have been on that site for decades. The property is leased by a construction company that uses it for temporary storage of topsoil—a “put and take” operation, aka a “dirt hotel.”  

Change is in the works, however. This area is now part of the Eastshore State Park, and the first draft of the site plan for this section of the park has recently been released. It can be viewed at www.well.com/user/pk/waterfront/photo-of-the-week/Photo050221.html.  

State and East Bay Regional Park representatives will be on hand to discuss details of the plan at the Waterfront Commission meeting on Wednesday, March 9. at 7:30 p.m. in the Marina Conference room.  

Paul Kamen 

Chair, Berkeley Waterfront Commission 

?

Click here to view the latest work by Planet cartoonist Justin DeFreitasÿ

Is the “Coalition of the Willing” unraveling in Iraq? The recent shooting by U.S. troops of kidnapped Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena and her rescuer Nicola Calipari is raising suspicion that the coalition’s operations in Iraq are slipping into disarray. Moreover, the incident has driven deeper the wedge between Washington and its reluctant European allies.  

A hail of gunfire from a U.S. military checkpoint hit Sgrena’s convoy as it approached Baghdad International Airport, killing Calipari, the Italian intelligence operative who had secured Sgrena’s release from her insurgent captors and who had rescued other Italian hostages before. Two of Calipari’s colleagues and Sgrena herself were wounded.  

Besides the senseless loss of life, the incident is producing a diplomatic rift between the U.S. and Italy. The Berlusconi government has been a staunch U.S. ally in Iraq despite the unpopularity of the war among Italians. The shooting has deepened anti-American sentiments and, with a new election coming up, protests calling for the withdrawal of Italian troops have put Berlusconi on the defensive.  

Suspicion of the truthfulness of the U.S. account of the incident is widespread. Italian media wonder how a sensitive operation, such the liberation of a kidnapped Western journalist, could have been possible without the knowledge of U.S. authorities in Iraq. On at the least two other occasions in the past—the freeing of Simona Pari and Simona Torretta, two Italian NGO workers kidnapped in September 2004 and that of four Italian security operatives—U.S. and Italian authorities worked in close coordination, with U.S. Marines playing a pivotal role in the freeing of the two women.  

Are Washington and Rome still talking to each other in Baghdad, some Italian analysts wonder, or is the Iraq operation turning into a Somalia redux? Many foreign correspondents present on the ground in Somalia in 1993 believe the American go-it-alone posture was a major factor that fatally undermined a key operation on Oct. 3, 1993, when the “Blackhawk Down” ambush killed 18 U.S. Army rangers and wounded 84 others. Observers blamed the debacle on the U.S. decision to stage the assault against a warlord’s hideout without informing coalition partners or sharing intelligence, or taking into account the intelligence provided by other contingents.  

Italian journalist Giovanni Porzio, who was in Somalia for one of Italy’s leading periodicals, recalls that the U.S. forces rarely “touched ground” and worse, barely crossed paths with other international contingents. The lack of coordination and communication, plus the U.S. decision to act on its own, condemned the Blackhawk operation to failure.  

The facts of the March 4 Calipari-Sgrena shooting in Baghdad seem to show at the very least a redux of the Somali incident.  

“There’s no coordination in Iraq between the various national contingents,” says Gianni Perrelli, L’espresso special envoy to Iraq. “Except for the British, who are able to really control their territory, the other national contingents live confined to their barracks.” Perrelli says he has “sensed that there’s no longer an established channel of communication between the coalition countries and the U.S. occupation army.”  

But some, including Sgrena, are theorizing that the attack on her convoy may have been deliberate, part of a larger strategy directed at preventing foreign countries from negotiating with insurgents to free their kidnapped nationals.  

Sgrena says the Italians had informed their American counterparts that the operation was under way and that the convoy had already passed all the American checkpoints when it came under fire, without any warning. She says the convoy was proceeding at a regular speed, not at high speed as the United States claims.  

“In light of all the discrepancies I cannot exclude the possibility that I may have been targeted,” Sgrena told Italian wire agencies in the hours following her return to Italy.  

“It is not a mystery that the Americans do not like people to negotiate with insurgents, and that they do whatever they can to discourage it,” Sgrena said. “Also, my captors had warned us to be wary of the Americans. ‘Be careful,’ they said, ‘the Americans want you dead.’ In light of what has happened it is difficult to not believe that this may have been their goal.”  

The White House quickly dismissed Sgrena’s speculation as “absurd.”  

Sgrena’s ordeal, however, has given new meaning to a controversial episode at the last World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. During one of the sessions, Eason Jordan, chief of international news for CNN, said he believed that the Defense Department was deliberately targeting journalists in Iraq, and that he knew of at the least 12 journalists who had been targeted and later killed by the U.S. military there. Jordan had to retract his statement and later resigned from CNN.  

The Committee to Protect Journalists, a New York-based advocacy group, has placed Iraq on top of its list of the most dangerous places for journalists. So far, said a committee report, 37 journalists and 18 media personnel have been killed in Iraq, the greatest number of any single conflict since the Vietnam War. Typically, the committee notes, journalists’ deaths in wartime are targeted killings. “The deliberate use of overwhelming force in the Al Jazeera case,” says committee spokesperson Joel Campania, referring to the bombing attack on the Arab television station’s headquarters in Baghdad that killed one journalist, “was never explained by U.S. forces.”  

As truth and journalism in Iraq become frequent victims of war and military rhetoric, the Bush administration is finding it more difficult to convince Europeans that the U.S. occupation of Iraq is all about “spreading democracy” and not a neoconservative imperial pipedream.  

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

New Yorker regular Malcolm Gladwell has written a new book about instantaneous decision-making called Blink. The title would provide an apt characterization for the presidency of George W. Bush, whose actions often are based on little more than his gut-feelings. 

A prime example of the Bush decision-making process can be seen in his advocacy of the National Missile Defense (NMD) system. On Feb. 15 a NMD test aborted when an interceptor missile failed to get out of its silo, the latest in a series of debacles that stretch back to the inception of the program. Despite this woeful track record, the Bush administration continues to move forward with a multi-billion-dollar deployment of a system that doesn’t work now and, most likely, will never meet its objectives. 

The NMD system, as the Strategic Defense Initiative or “Star Wars,” was conceived in 1983, after Ronald Reagan shared a “dream” with his science advisor, Edward Teller. The basic idea seemed simple enough: If a missile is fired at the United States, our radar systems detect it, causing an interceptor rocket carrying an “exoatmospheric kill vehicle” to be launched; within minutes the kill vehicle climbs to the upper reaches of the atmosphere, finds the missile, and destroys it by ramming. 

This scenario presented a difficult technical challenge, comparable to designing a system to consistently hit one bullet with another; nonetheless, scientists initially were optimistic, believing that with specialized onboard computers, and sophisticated tracking radar, they could design a reliable kill vehicle. However, as development proceeded, the designers uncovered a major problem: the kill vehicle would likely not encounter a single target; instead it would intercept a cluster of warheads—one live and the others, decoys. 

The challenge of quickly discriminating between multiple potential targets has proved beyond the capability of modern technology. So far, there have been no successful tests conducted under realistic conditions. (Whenever the government reported a positive test, independent observers—most notably MIT scientist Theodore Postol—have quickly poked holes in the results, sometimes uncovering what appeared to be fraud.) 

Despite its abysmal track record, NMD has been supported by every president since Reagan—$51 billion dollars had been spent by the end of the Clinton presidency. It again became the cornerstone of US defense strategy when the Bush administration pushed a $100 billion dollar deployment through Congress in 2001. Last October, construction of the first stage of the system began at Fort Greeley, Alaska. Some estimate the ultimate cost of NMD as more than $1 trillion. 

Many ask why the US continues to fund a billion-dollar system that doesn’t work and, probably, isn’t needed. Even before 9/11, experts questioned the emphasis on missile defense given that the most likely threat to the US would come from a bomb delivered by conventional means—suitcase, container, truck, or airplane. Indeed, the most serious missile threat, North Korea, does not have the capability to hit the American mainland; it is their immediate neighbors—China, Japan, and South Korea—that are threatened.  

Bush “logic” propels NMD’s deployment. A dissection of the president’s rationale reveals a pattern, the same process involved in actions such as the war in Iraq or the “reform” of Social Security. The typical Bush decision is one-third pragmatism, another third obstinacy, and a final third “blink.” 

The pragmatic part stems from the political reality that continuing to build NMD is good for major Republican aerospace donors, such as Raytheon and TRW. Similarly, the war in Iraq may be bad for America, but it is good for Halliburton. 

NMD is a neo-conservative article of faith, and Bush and his advisers are true believers. Despite dramatic evidence to the contrary, they stubbornly hold on to the major Neo-con tenets, such as: Star Wars will make us safe; Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction; cutting taxes is good for everyone; and war is peace.  

The final ingredient in the Bush rationale is “blink,” seat-of-the-pants reasoning. Malcolm Gladwell argues that instantaneous decisions are best formed out of years of experience. In other words, it’s okay to reach quick decisions, but there should be an underlying “seasoned” process. The problem with most of Bush’s “blink” decisions is that there is no evidence of this foundation. What we see, instead, are snap decisions wrapped in authoritarian rigidity. Once Bush locks onto a solution to a problem, he won’t consider any other alternatives. For example, while North Korea has nuclear weapons and a missile-delivery system, the Bush administration assumes that NMD will protect the American mainland and, therefore, remains closed to all but military solutions to solve the danger of the rogue nation. The United States refuses to participate in real diplomacy. 

There are two other problems with the Bush “blink” style: Once the president makes a decision, however ill-considered, his administration demands that all Americans support it and labels those who dissent as “unpatriotic.” In addition, Bush tends to surround himself with “yea sayers,” partisans who will not question his rationale. As a result, there is no “feedback loop” that enables the White House to learn from mistakes. (In most decision environments, there is a simple feedback loop: adopting a policy, trying it out programmatically, evaluating the results, and taking corrective action based upon the lessons learned—for example, modifying or abandoning the policy.) Instead, the primary rule for Bush decision-making seems to be: never admit making a mistake. The administration places a premium on its image of resolute toughness and, therefore, believes it to be a sign of weakness to acknowledge any policy shortcomings. For this reason it is incapable of learning from its mistakes. NMD is a classic illustration of this weakness. 

While inventors and artists often succeed because of “blink” decisions, political leaders typically do not fare as well. History provides many examples of national leaders who let hubris overwhelm their judgment and, as a result, came to disastrous ends: Napoleon refused to listen to wise council that warned him of the perils inherent in an invasion of Russia; a century later, Adolph Hitler, no doubt believing himself the intellectual superior to the French Emperor, engaged in a second disastrous foray into Russia. Now George Bush, ruler of the strongest nation in the world, buoyant from winning the 2004 election, surrounded by advisers who know better than to argue against his impulsive judgment, makes one strategic error after another. The results are as predictable, as they are disheartening: Rather than strengthening the United States, Bush policies systematically weaken it. Rather than forging an intelligent, flexible defense for the homeland, the president proffers an unfeasible, wasteful alternative. 

Bush has probably never read about Thomas Andrews, a “blink” thinker best known as the designer of the Titanic. Andrews went along on the maiden voyage of the great ship, knowing that it carried far too few lifeboats, but feeling secure because he supposed that the vessel was indestructible. 

Sheltered by his unique decision-making style, George Bush sleeps soundly, believing that because of NMD, and the other ill-considered policies of his administration, the United States is impregnable. Meanwhile, the good ship, America, steams unaware into the cold, iceberg-laden sea. 

Bob Burnett is a Berkeley writer and activist. He can be reached at bobburnett@comcast.net. 



In the spirit of Susan Orlean’s recent “Lost Dog” piece in The New Yorker, I feel compelled to tell my own lost dog story. Actually I have two, a bonus for the reader, extra credit for me. 

But unlike the owners in Orlean’s tale, I didn’t leave my dog in the car with the key in the ignition, the engine running, and the air conditioning on. I can’t imagine how anyone could do such a thing and not expect bad behavior to follow. I once left my dog in my car with the windows open while I ran a quick errand in Marin County. Within minutes the San Rafael police were in the parking lot, ready to impound my car and arrest me. On the flip side, I have seen a baby locked in a running Land Cruiser on Piedmont Avenue while the driver shopped at A. G. Ferrari’s. I’m not defending my behavior. I’m just pointing out a difference between police workloads in Alameda and Marin counties.  

Years ago, just after my husband’s bicycling accident, an acquaintance gave me a dog. (Note to readers: do not give someone a dog after their husband has returned from the hospital a C-4 quadriplegic.) I was too distracted by other, more important things to return the gift. Instead, I gave the pooch a new name and let her natural curls grow wild. She’s a smart little dog, a miniature Schnauzer, who hates cats and craves affection. From the beginning of our relationship Whiskers has been my constant companion, my substitute bedmate, my one true love.  

But one day Whiskers disappeared. I searched the neighborhood, and learned she had been sighted near Children’s Hospital. Like the distraught dog owners in Orlean’s story, I posted Lost Dog signs, ran an ad in a local newspaper, visited the pound, and berated myself for not being a better mom.  

Fifteen days went by without a trace of Whiskers, and then suddenly there was a breakthrough. I received an e-mail from a woman who said she thought she had found my dog. I called her, but it turned out she didn’t have Whiskers. What she had though was nothing short of a serendipitous miracle. She had read in the Montclarion, under the heading “Found Items” an announcement that someone had found an undersized Schnauzer near Oakland’s Children’s Hospital. “I thought your ad matched this one,” she explained. “Perhaps you should call the number listed.” I did so and found Whiskers ensconced on a llama farm in eastern Contra Costa County.  

I drove the hundred mile round-trip to get her. She was living in rural utopia, soaked in perfume, adorned with pink ribbons, and surrounded by llamas. She was not excited about returning to North Oakland. But back to Oakland she came and I took better precautions to keep her in check, or so I thought. 

Several months later I walked with her to Temescal Pool and left her outside while I swam. When I returned to the place where she was tied, she was gone. I scoured the neighborhood, made posters, and ran another Lost Dog ad. Two days later a woman called and asked me a peculiar question. “Next time you go away,” she said, “can I take care of your dog?” “My dog is lost,” I cried. “No she’s not,” she replied. “She’s sittin’ across the street from my apartment.” “Where?” I asked. “37th Street,” she answered, “right off Telegraph Avenue.”  

I jumped in my car and headed down to 37th, and there was Whiskers, hanging out on the corner, freshly washed and groomed, looking as if she was waiting for me. I scooped her in my arms and thanked the finder. I dished out a second reward and took my doggie home. Another lesson learned. My baby requires a bomb shelter to keep her safe, or maybe I just need to use common sense. No more car trips to Marin, or walks to Temescal Pool. I built a fence around my house, and placed a gate across the wheelchair ramp. These are the sacrifices you must make when you have a dog that’s irresistible.  

Indoor Grass Fire 

Berkeley firefighters were summoned to an apartment at 945 University Ave. in the wee hours of the morning of Feb. 28. 

What they discovered was a grass fire—of sorts. 

The missing tenant had a garden going in the back bedroom, cultivating lots of a leafy green herb of dubious legality. 

“A grow light fell down and burned a hole through the floor and burned up a bookcase,” said Deputy Fire Chief David Orth. “He was long gone by the time we got there.” 

The blaze did relatively little damage, Orth said, and the growing operation was referred to the Police Department for further study. 

Dumpster Blaze 

An inconsiderate smoker is the likely cause of a dumpster fire last Saturday evening at 1040 University Ave., said Chief Orth. 

“Someone dumped some smoking material down the garbage chute, and it ignited the contents of a dumpsters down below,” he said. Firefighters got the call at 9:14 p.m. 

Fortunately, the dumpster was in a room designed to handle such fires, and the effects on the dwelling units above were confined to a little smoke, he said. 

Sweaty Pipe Fire 

A plumber sweating pipes with a torch prior to applying solder managed to ignite insulation in the walls of a home at 2267 Hearst Ave. just after 1 p.m. Sunday, said Deputy Chief Orth. 

Though damage was minor, Orth said that pipe sweating is a surprisingly common cause of structural fires in the city. 

When a Tree Falls. . . 

Two cars sustained substantial damage Sunday when an oak tree, the hold of its roots weakened by the recent wet weather, succumbed to winds and toppled over on the vehicles parked in the 1800 block of Arch Street about 1:15 p.m., said Orth.W

Being a forensic clinical psychologist who has chosen to work, at Atascadero State Hospital, with “Sexually Violent Predators,” as well as other mentally disordered forensic patients, I have counted on the CalPers retirement to make up the core of my retirement planning. I chose to work with the forensic population for the simple reason that I found it interesting to work with mentally disordered criminal offenders and especially with the “Sexually Violent Predators,” who have been committed. I wanted to work with a group of people for whom many professionals find it difficult to provide treatment. I have found existential meaning in this work because 1) I am helping to assess whether or not these people are safe to return to the community; and, 2) I am helping people who otherwise would be pushed to the absolute margins of society and perhaps re-offend due to their social alienation. Ultimately, I have wanted to provide treatment to these folks so that in some small way I can contribute to the safety of my state.  

Yet, I work for about two thirds of what my peers, in similar settings across the nation, earn for their work. I work for about 30 to 40 percent less than what other psychologists in private practice make. Even more concerning is that I currently earn about what my peers’ median salary was in 1995. I have lost pay raises because I have topped out and the 5 percent pay raise we were to be given two years ago was withdrawn and/or sucked up by increased costs for medical insurance. We psychologists in public service, caring for the worst of the worst sex offenders and dangerous mentally disordered criminals don’t even receive retention and recruitment bonuses.  

Now! Now, I am being told that Gov. Schwarzenegger wants to “starve the monster,” by destroying my retirement, for the simple reason that he wants to destroy CalPers’ influence upon corrupt corporations such as Enron. As the issue is described in the print media, I am going to have to pay 100 percent more in my contribution to the health plan. I am likely to lose my safety retirement, due to the governor’s plan to 1) create a two tier retirement system after 2007; and, 2) the incentives he would give current CalPers enrollees would provide a short term benefit, but would destroy the base of the current retirement system that I have counted upon. It is likely that I and those public employees, who work for essential public services in circumstances in which being killed is a distinct possibility, are being asked to carry the burden of an obscene deficit on our own backs. I work with patients, who would kill me if they weren’t afraid of a third strike (they have told me this to my face). Further, I am not in a secured setting like a prison; I work amidst the forensic patients and the SVP patients; and if my fellow employees fail to look out for each other and me, I or someone else could die. That safety retirement, i.e., combat pay, was going to enable me to build a decent retirement over the next 10 years. It made working in a high risk environment more palatable. The safety retirement was going to form the core of my retirement.  

Now, I see this overly affluent, blatantly ostentatious, action-adventure, Austrian-actor, with more money than he knows how to spend, taking action against the security of my and my wife’s future! I am livid. And what galls me is that I voted for him and that the California taxpayer will go for this plan (referendum) because the solution to the budget deficit will be paid off the backs of California public employees, rather than raising taxes so everyone pays their fair share of the costs of Gray Davis’ caving to power companies. I feel betrayed.  

The day my pension is changed is the day I leave my public sector job and return to the private sector, in another state. I will have to do so because I will need to increase my income and pay into IRAs at a staggering pace, to secure any retirement security. This state promised me something for working with people for whom few psychologists are willing or capable of providing decent assessment and psychological care. Now the governor wants to renege upon this promise!  

I am so irreducibly incensed that I want to rage against the dying of my future plans and those of my fellow public employees. But then I brace myself to reality and ask what can I do? What can the few hundred thousands of public employees do to assist the governor to admit to the heartbreaking changes in lifestyle that his political—not truly fiscal—attack upon CalPers will necessitate. We are out numbered by the other California voters, who don’t care about the retirement of police officers, firemen, nurses, physicians, paramedics, social workers, parole officers and psychologists. Consequently, when the governor calls for a referendum, we public employees are likely to suffer—as are our families and our futures. Being powerless as one stands in front of a steamroller is deeply distressing.  

Yesterday, I spoke with several of my colleagues and each of them—well the seven of them—said they would leave state service if what Arnold Schwarzenegger wants is passed by the legislature and/or voted for, through a referendum, by the people of California.  

If the governor and the Department of Mental Health believe they are going to keep quality professionals at DMH, when they threaten our retirement security, they are wrong. Here at ASH, just since I have been here, there has been nearly a 55 percent turnover rate of psychologists. And that turn over rate has been with the current CalPers system! Further, we find it difficult to recruit and retain psychologists, as things now stand. We have had as many as six to eight unfilled psychologist positions for as long as a year. And that has occurred with the current pension and medical insurance benefits. Who are you going to employ, if CalPers is destroyed?  

I am 52 years old. I can’t go anywhere else and obtain a reasonable retirement in the time left in my professional practice. I don’t even have the time to build up my IRAs to meet the shortfall that will occur if Schwarzenegger sabotages my pension. So, it seems I will be working for many more years than I had expected (but not for the State of California).  

Finally, if the governor and his ilk in state government do offer so-called golden incentives for people to leave the CalPers pension, those of us who have counted upon it will lose everything because the incentives will draw down the support base. People always go for the cash in the pocket now instead of thinking ahead and instead of supporting their community of fellow workers. I see a maelstrom ahead and I am angry. More, I am apprehensive regarding my future and the future of California’s public employees, who provide necessary services. I feel betrayed. Does anyone else feel betrayed by this governor?  

Warren E. Icke is a clinical forensic psychologist at Atascadero State Hospital.o

I spent four hours at the City Council meeting on Tuesday, Jan. 18, enjoying watching democracy in action. The issue was the reconfiguration of Marin Avenue, which I oppose. 

It seemed generally accepted that about 20,000 cars use Marin each day, that it takes at least two minutes to drive from The Alameda to San Pablo under average conditions, and that under the reconfiguration it would take 30 seconds (or more) longer. The city planners used a longer time for the possible delay, so I will use 36 seconds to make the arithmetic easier. 

Thus, what follows is data provided by Albany on their web site and the figures I heard from the Berkeley city planners, plus simple arithmetic and reasoning. 

If 20,000 drivers are delayed 36 seconds each, that is 12,000 minutes or 200 hours per day. 200 hours per day! 

This will surely increase air pollution significantly, especially to the residents along Marin. We heard a few speakers say that traffic will be smoother, thereby causing less pollution. Is that believable? During peak hours, with some congestion, the pollution and fuel efficiency is at its worst. 

Going hand in hand with the increased pollution is the reduced fuel efficiency of more stop-and-go traffic together with the extra fuel burned with an extra 200 hours of driving per day. 

Early on Tuesday night we heard from the Kyoto group who were praising the City Council for making Berkeley the first U.S. city to endorse the Kyoto agreements. They spoke of global warming as the most serious threat we are facing (amended to one of the most serious threats). I’m pleased to see the City Council endorsement. But those are just words. When it comes to deeds, increasing driving time on Marin by 25 percent is going in the opposite direction to the goals of Kyoto. Imagine how pleased we’d be if the Bush administration mandated a 25 percent increase in fuel efficiency for cars. Well, narrowing Marin goes 25 percent in the opposite direction. How do we have any moral claim to be Kyoto backers when we reduce fuel efficiency on Marin by 25 percent? 

Another point is the cost to drivers. As many speakers said, what’s the big deal if a driver has to spend a minute longer on Marin, if that saves lives. Put that way, who could refuse. 

But the way to understand the cost to drivers is to add them up. 200 hours can be valued in various ways. We can value driver’s time at $20/hour ($40,000/year, not so far from what the average driver earns, many of whom are on their way to or from work). At $20/hour, 200 hours gives $4,000 per day or one million dollars per year! For each driver, it is only $50/year. In one sense, that is not so much. On the other hand, how do the tax payers react to a request for a $50 increase in taxes? What does one million dollars mean in the context of the Berkeley or Albany city budget? 

Well, no speaker at the Tuesday meeting talked in these terms; it all about safety and how things will affect the street on which one lives. So, let’s talk about safety. 

The reconfiguration may or may not make Marin safer. During off peak hours it is not clear why traffic will be slower, but because it is in a single lane rather than two, when a traffic light turns green there will be a longer group of cars pulling away from the light (rather than doubled up) and hence a pedestrian will be less likely to find a break between cars when trying to cross at a corner without a light. 

During peak hours traffic will be slowed if there is more congestion, and I find it hard to believe things will be safer for pedestrians if there is more congestion. 

But a good idea, often used in England, is to have flashing lights which go on when a pedestrian pushes a button in order to cross the street. The flashing lights may be on posts on both sides of the crossing and in the middle, or they may be flashing lights along the crosswalk.  

We are about to spend tens of thousands of dollars, but why hasn’t an experiment been done first? Traffic cones can be put out to narrow Marin to two lanes. We can get a pretty good idea of what will happen within a few days. 

Summing up, I believe that we have now embarked on a costly decision, contrary to environmental concerns, in the hopes of improving life for Marin residents and pedestrians when there are better ways to achieve those goals. I heard almost none of the issues I have raised discussed by the public or the city planners, who are supposed to be the experts on transportation issues. 

Rob Kirby is a Berkeley resident.o

They’re back! 

A solitary lunch on a solitary beach adjacent to the Historic Lifeboat Station at Chimney Rock. I’m enjoying my lunch of bread and cheese while absorbed in National Geographic. Intermittently I hear a soft, indistinct burbling sound. Look up, nothing there. Maybe it’s just the sound of the water splashing against the pier. Then I hear it again, closer. I look up and can’t believe my eyes. 

Now is the time to visit the headlands of the Point Reyes Peninsula, perched 10 miles into the Pacific Ocean, and immerse yourself in wildlife. At the Point Reyes Lighthouse and nearby Chimney Rock you’ll become a voyeur to the complex life cycles of the behemoths of the sea, the California gray whale, northern elephant seal and California sea lion; and the jewels of the grassland, California’s palette-creating wildflowers. 

At the end of California’s longest peninsula, at the most western point of the park stands a “California style” squat white lighthouse and Visitor Center. On the one-half mile walk f rom the parking lot get in the wildlife mode by checking the trees for resident raptors, the north cliff for a colony of common murres and the rocks below for those, any rock will do, sea lions.  

It’s a cardio workout reaching the observation platform co veted for spotting the delicate heart-shaped plumes that signal the presence of the California gray whale. Three hundred steps equivalent to thirty stories down, and unfortunately, back up, lead to the lens room where a rotating beam has cast its light since 1870. Exhibit panels tell the history of the light and its keepers. Isolation and incessant fog were not kind to those who tended the three-ton lens of 1000 prisms. Keepers were plagued with “incidents of insanity, violence and alcoholism.” Keep this in mind and have a back-up plan if fog or strong winds threaten your day. 

On a quest for food and the warm waters needed for reproduction, California gray whales spend one-third of their lives in migration from Alaska to Baja California and back. Their 1 0,000 mile round trip is the longest for any mammal. Life in the deep dark ocean proceeds far from human eyes, but during the months of January and March, we have an opportunity to catch a glimpse of their size and grace. 

The Gulf of Farallones is a 20-m ile wide corridor through which the whales travel, at times close enough to hear the breathing of cow and her calf. I’ve always considered whale watching a Zen experience. You see a plume of spray out to sea. Is that a whale sounding? Spouting? Spyhopping? Whether I spot whales or not it’s enough to know that these natural treasures are out there, symbols of survival and tenacity, having come back from the brink of extinction. 

A short walk or drive from the Lighthouse parking lot leads to the Sea Lion Ov erlook, another cardio workout. A steep 54-step staircase descends the side of the cliff, where you can enjoy the sights and sounds of the colony that calls this protected cove home year round. After swimming in 53-degree waters, the sand and rocks are ju st the place to haul out and bask. Spring brings an added delight—mothers and their pups. 

My favorite spot on the Headlands is Chimney Rock, a one-stop haven for viewing whales, sea lions, elephant seals and wildflowers. A two-mile loop trail leads you a cross the headland toward the Pacific. From late February through March flowers blanket the ground with bright colors contrasting against the vibrant green of the grasses. Pick any color: pink cow clover; orange poppy; yellow mule ear sunflower, buttercup and bush lupine; white milkmaid and cow parsnip; blue-eyed grass. My favorites are the Douglas iris in shades from pale lavender to intense purple, so delicate but able to survive the harsh conditions along the coast.  

After several days of heavy rains, I recently revisited Chimney Rock. Worm-dodging, I followed the main upper trail and smaller footpaths skirting the perimeter of the headlands and feasted on the dramatic views before me: cliffs falling in jagged edges to the open blue of the ocean below, red-rock walls topped by plateaus of shamrock-green, raptors hand-gliding, layers of leaden sky with towering clouds contrasting with bands of vibrant light giving view to the Farallon Islands twenty miles distant, immobile sea lions on white sand. The trail ends at a fenced cliff edge overlooking a sea stack named Chimney Rock, another great whale watching spot. I sat among the wildflowers with binoculars and a thermos marveling at the beauty surrounding me. 

The lower trail leads to the Historic Lifeb oat Station and that solitary beach. If your visit corresponds with an extreme low tide, you can walk along the coastline and explore rich biodiverse tide pools and secluded coved beaches. 

Another trail leads to the Elephant Seal Overlook, above the nort h end of Drake’s Beach. Since 1981, from December through March, breeding colonies of elephant seals have returned to Point Reyes. Another “survivor” species, they have made a remarkable recovery after being hunted nearly to extinction. At last count, the Drake’s Beach colony numbered 180, while the entire Point Reyes population stood between 1500 and 2000.  

There’s never any doubt that you’ve spotted an elephant seal and the overlook is so close that binoculars aren’t necessary. Adult males of 5,000 pounds, females nursing their pups, “weaners” and juveniles—in assorted groups on the beach for a few months before beginning migrations that will take them over 11,000 miles and as far as one-mile deep in ocean waters.  

They’re the highlight of my day and I easily heard the colony long before I reached the overlook, as far away as Chimney Rock. The symphony of distinctive vocalizations reminded me of a busy playground with high-pitched screechings, lower rumblings from mom and the deep throated trumpeting of the males above the din. By closing my eyes and just listening I could imagine the scene before me: territorial tension relieved by two males chest to chest and proboscis to proboscis; sunlight gleaming on undulations of muscles as individuals scooted forward then collapsed; lonely weaned pups, their mothers long gone and the comical sight of one juvenile relieving an itch by squirming upside down on the sand.  

I was in no hurry to leave these odd yet distinguished mammals. My first close-up view was many years before while eating my lunch. Looking up I saw that large nose and gentle eyes watching me curiously while making those distinctive sounds. I’ve been a fan ever since. 

Important decisions need to be made before you head out. A visit on a weeke nd or holiday requires using the shuttle bus system that originates at Drake’s Beach, the road being closed to private cars. The upside it that everyone gets to enjoy the view and there are docents available for questions at the lighthouse and the elephan t seal overlook. The downside is that this is a very popular weekend destination. 

My recent visit was on a weekday. I had the road to myself and shared the headlands only with the wildlife. There were no docents but I felt like a queen in her domain.  

Whatever your choice, starting early will afford you the most time for the most options—a picnic on the headlands or a homeward visit to Drake’s Beach. This long walkable expanse of white sand, gentle waves and neck craning sandstone cliffs is home to the Kenneth Patrick Visitor Center and the Drake’s Beach Café, where local ingredients and a rustic setting bring the seashore indoors. 

Despite adversity, the whales and elephant seals have made a comeback. Despite encroachment, wilderness continues to exist and in some cases, expand. Point Reyes is home to over 45 percent of North America’s bird species and 18 percent of California’s plant species. For a few months every year, it’s also home to a large sea mammal that may, if you’re lucky, pay you a visit o n a solitary beach.  

Getting there: from Highway 101 North take Sir Francis Drake Boulevard to Route 1 in Olema. Turn right, then left on Bear Valley Road. From Bear Valley Road, turn right onto Sir Francis Drake Boulevard and follow it past the town of Inverness to where it forks. Follow the fork left out to the lighthouse and the headlands. 

For more information about Point Reyes National Seashore call (415) 464-5100, or see www.nps.gov/pore. Peak of northern whale migration is mid-March.  

Point Reyes Lighthouse: 10 a.m.-4:30 p.m. open Thursday through Monday. Closed when winds exceed 40 mph. (415) 669-1534 

Kenneth Patrick Visitor Center: 10 a.m.-5 p.m. open weekends, holidays. (415) 669-1250. 

Drakes Beach Café: open weekends, holidays. 

Ranger led activities: 

Journey of the Whales: 1:30 p.m., weekends through March 

Experience Elephant Seals: weekends through March 15. Docents at overlook 11 a.m.-4 p.m. 

Whales and Wildflowers: 1 p.m., weekends in March. 

d

The Shotgun Players is running a new translation (Tom Hoover’s) of Albert Camus’ The Just (Les Justes) at the Ashby Stage. The program’s studded with quotations, not only from Camus, but also from Shakespeare, Thoreau, Emerson, emphasizing zeal for justice, such as Emerson’s “Heroism feels and never reasons, and therefore is always right.” The play explores that zeal which gives birth to revolutionaries—and the courage necessary for them to act. 

Shotgun is staging its production on the centennial of the event it explores, the assassination of Russian Grand Duke Sergei, uncle to the Tsar, a precipitant event of the 1905 revolution. The play, first staged in 1955, explores the assassins’ experience. This production doesn’t have much to say about present day terrorism despite the attention it has received in that regard in the production notes and in other articles. 

“Can one speak of terrorism without taking part in it? You have to be in the first row.” These words of Ivan “Yanek” (Taylor Valentine), in a bourgeois drawing room above the street which the Grand Duke takes to church, show the kind of hypnotic repetition the revolutionaries employ in thinking of their task, to keep in focus, “to put themselves in tune with murder.” 

Each in the play has his own mantras; Yanek wants to feel he’s throwing a bomb not at a man, but at despotism itself, and retain his innocence; Stepan (John Nahigian), who’s been tortured, says he has “a crystal-clear idea of shame ... I survived; I have nothing to be ashamed of.” 

When asked by Dora (Beth Donohue) “Why are you smiling?” Stepan replies, “Was I smiling? I do that sometimes.” And he asks, “How many [bombs] would it take to blow up Moscow?” 

Camus’ play bristles with irony, each verbal sally unfolding unresolved contradictions. Dora and Yanek share a love deferred by duty. Dora wants “real love, more than just a monologue—an answer from someone else!” But, she also says, “It takes time to love; we barely have time for justice.” 

The crisis keeps getting deferred, the suspense is prolonged. The question arises: What about the fate of children in the line of fire? Stepan demurs: If the bomb isn’t thrown, “thousands of Russian children will die of starvation. Have you ever seen a child die of starvation? I have!” 

Doubts, deferred action and dissent take their toll on the characters’ nerve: one comrade asks Boris privately, shamefacedly to be transferred back to committee office work when one merely “issues the order of execution ... you don’t see the man you have to kill.” (Boris replies: “Even cowards can serve the Revolution; they just have to find their niche.”). Another looks forward to being arrested after the act: “In prison, there’re no decisions to be made.” 

The final two acts take place in a gloomy dungeon and a dank cellar hideaway (good sets by Alf Pollard, well lit by Jared Hirsch), contrasting sharply with the placid drawing room—so filled with anxiety—of the first three acts. New characters are introduced, the latter two in particularly good turns: Foka (Eric Burns), a pithy trustee; Skouratov, commissioner of police (John Thomas, by turns dangerously affable and catty: “You start out wanting Justice, and end up organizing a police force!” Also, the religious Grand Duchess (Michele Beauvoir-Shoshani), who wants to forgive the conspirators against her husband’s life. 

“Imagine God without prisons,” smiles Skouratov, introducing her, “How lonely he’d be!” 

At least one critic has complained that the philosophical arguments made in the play slow down the action—but they are the true, Aristotelian form of action, a moral action. With little precedent to build on, Shotgun’s ambitious mounting of The Just, except at moments, is a little “monovalent,” as they say in critical theory; it’s too much on one track. 

The ironies decay to sarcastic contradictions, the tragic dilemma becomes a melodrama—those protagonists Camus says he loves and respects seem a bit too pathetic. The suspense that impels the first acts isn’t equaled by its complement, an almost-tangible group sense of oppression, a thick atmosphere impeding action and speech. And the cynical and desperate revelations in dungeon and cellar aren’t balanced out by the tragically renewed sense of resolve, of community, of a future springing from a meager present. 

The seeming hopelessness these revolutionaries face must be felt deeply by the audience, as well as the virtue that leads them on: “Men don’t live by justice alone!” and “When their bread’s stolen from them, what else do they have to live by?”

TUESDAY, MARCH 8 

FILM 

Alternative Visions: New Works by Andrew Noren at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Robin Tolmach Lakoff discusses her revised edition of “Language and Women’s Place” at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698.  

Deborah Rudacille looks at “The Riddle of Gender: Science, Activism, and Transgender Rights” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852.  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

In Harmony for Asia, a cappella fundraiser for tsunami relief, at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage Coffee House. Cost is $19.50-$20.50. 548-1761.  

The Nebulas, The Lava Rats at 9 p.m. at Blakes on Telegraph. Cost is $5. 848-0886.  

The Red Thread, The Famous, alt country, at 9:30 p.m. at The Stork Club, 2330 Telegraph Ave., Oakland. Tickets are $5. 444-6174.  

Kurt Rosenwinkel Quintet at 8 and 10 p.m. Yoshi’s at Jack London Square, through Wed. Cost is $10-$16. 238-9200.  

The David Lefebvre Duo at 8 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810. 

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 9 

THEATER 

“Bright River” A hip-hop retelling of Dante’s Inferno, every Wed. through March 16 at 8 p.m. at Oakland Metro, 201 Broadway. Tickets are $12-$35 available from 415-256-8499.  

EXHIBITIONS 

Berkeley Youth Arts Festival opens with a reception at 5 p.m. at the Berkeley Art Center. Exhibition runs to April 2. 644-6893.  

FILM 

History of Cinema: “Umberto D.” at 3 p.m. and Games People Play: “Parallel Universum, Part II” at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

“The Artistry of Keith Jarrett” with Susan Muscarella at 7 p.m. at The Musical Offering, 2340 Bancroft Way. Free.  

Frank Delaney introduces his novel “Ireland” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852.  

Pam Houston reads from her new novel “Sight Hound” at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698.  

Berkeley Poetry Slam with host Charles Ellik at 8:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $5-$7. 841-2082.  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Wednesday Noon Concert, “Handel & Telemann” with the Kharabaja Baroque Ensemble at Hertz Hall, UC Campus. 642-4864. http://music.berkeley.edu 

Keith Jarrett, Gary Peacock and Jack DeJohnette at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $36-$80 available from 642-9988.  

Ned Boynton Trio at 8 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810.  

Ka Ua Tuahine Fundraiser, Tahitian music and dance at 8 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $15. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Peppino D’Agostino, guitar, at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761. 

Rad Audio, indie nu-wave, at 9 p.m. at Blakes on Telegraph. Cost is $5. 848-0886.  

Tetsuo at 9:30 p.m. at The Stork Club, 2330 Telegraph Ave., Oakland. Tickets are $5. 444-6174.  

THURSDAY, MARCH 10 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Edible Photographs” by Don Melandry of plants at the Edible Schoolyard at King Middle School. Reception from 6 to 8 p.m. at Mrs. Dalloways, 2904 College Ave. 704-8222. 

“New Works in Papier-Mache” at the Addison St. Windows, 2018 Addison St. Diverse works by artists ages 6 to 80. Reception from 6 to 8 p.m. 981-7546. 

“Drawn by the Brush: Oil Sketches of Peter Paul Rubens” guided tour at 12:15 p.m. at Berkeley Art Museum, 2625 Durant Ave. 642-1295.  

“Blind at the Museum” guided tour at 5:30 p.m. at Berkeley Art Museum, 2625 Durant Ave. 642-1295.  

FILM 

Film amd Video Makers at Cal: “Intimate Team” at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

T. J. English discusses “Paddy Whacked: The Untold Story of the Irish American Gangster” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852.  

Word Beat Reading Series at 7 p.m. with Mike Hardy and Maggi H. Meyer at Mediterraneum Caffe, 2475 Telegraph Ave. 526-5985.  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Oluyemi and Ijeoma Thomas, adventurous jazz and spoken word at 12:15 p.m. in the Music and Art Room, Berkeley Library, 2090 Kittredge. 981-6100.  

“It’s Berkeley” International Talent Show at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $10. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Mills College MFA Dance Thesis Concert at 8 p.m. at Lisser Hall, 5000 MacArthur Blvd. Tickets are $5-$7. 430-2175. 

Rose Street House of Music Harmony, collaboration, and community for Women’s History Month at 7:30 p.m. at 1839 Rose St. Donation $5-$15. 594-4000, ext. 687. www.rose- 

streetmusic.com 

Albany Superintendent’s Concert, middle and high school musical groups at 7 p.m. at Albany High School Gym, 603 Key Route Blvd., Albany. 558-2575.  

Leftover Dreams with Tony Marcus & Patrice Haan at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $17.50-$18.50. 548-1761.  

Blowout, Wataka at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $5. 841-2082.  

Steve Lucky, solo piano, at 8 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810. 

Ruth Brown at 8 and 10 p.m. through Sun. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square., through Sat Cost is $22-$26. 238-9200.  

Greg Tannen at 8:30 p.m. at Epic Arts, 1923 Ashby Ave. Cost is $5-$10. www.epicarts.org 

Dynamite 8, The Insurgence, Year of the Wildcat at 9:30 p.m. at The Stork Club, 2330 Telegraph Ave., Oakland. Tickets are $5. 444-6174.  

FRIDAY, MARCH 11 

THEATER 

Bare Stage Productions “One Room” Fri. at 8 p.m., Sat. at 3 and 8 p.m. and Sun. at 3 p.m. at the Choral Rehearsal Room, Cesar Chavez Student Union, UC Campus. Tickets are $5-$7. http://tickets.berkeley.edu  

Central Works, “Enemy Combatant” at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant Ave. Performances are Thurs.-Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 5 p.m. through March 26. Tickets are $9-$25. 558-1381. www.centralworks.org 

Contra Costa Civic Theater, “Buried Child” on the disintigration of the American Dream, Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 p.m., 951 Pomona Ave., El Cerrito. Tickets are $10. 524-9132. www.CCCT.org 

Cuentos: Voices for (Our) Stories: “You so Fake!” with Leilani Chan and “Rise” with Shyamala Moorty at 8 p.m. at La Peña. Tickets are $7-$10. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Impact Theatre, “Othello” at 8 p.m. at La Val’s Subterranean Theater, 1834 Euclid. Thurs.- Sat. through March 19. Tickets are $10-$15. 464-4468. www.impacttheatre.com 

Shotgun Players “The Just” by Albert Camus. Thurs.- Sun. at 8 p.m. at The Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby Ave. through April 10. Tickets are sliding scale $10-$30. 841-6500. www.shotgunplayers.org 

UC Theater, “Three Sisters” a contemporary staging of Chekhov’s drama, Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 p.m. to March 13, at Zellerbach Playhouse, UC Campus. Tickets are $8-$14. 642-9925. http://theater.berkeley.edu 

Un-Scripted Theater Company “You Bet Your Improvisor!” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m. through March 26 at Temescal Arts Center, 511 48th St. at Telegraph. Tickets are $7-$10. 415-869-5384. www.unscripted.com 

Word for Word Performing Arts Company “Stories by Tobias Wolff” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m. at Julia Morgan Center for the Arts. Tickets are $25 at the door. www.juliamorgan.org 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Blind at the Museum” Conference, from 4 to 7 p.m. and Sat. from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. at Berkeley Art Museum, 2625 Durant Ave. 642-1295. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

FILM 

International Asian American Film Festival “Ethan Mao” at 7 p.m. and “Keka” at 9:15 p.m. at Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

By the Light of the Moon open mic and salon for women hosted by Karen Broder at 7:30 p.m. at Changemakers, 6536 Telegraph Ave., Oakland. Cost is $3-$7. 655-2405. ww.changemakersforwomen.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $32-$54. 642-9988. www.calperfs.berkeley.edu 

En Pointe Youth Dance Company Fifth Annual Spring Performance featuring five original pieces choreographed and danced by Berkeley youth at 8 p.m. at the Roda Theater, 2015 Addison St. Tickets are $6-$8. www.enpointe.org 

Rachel Garlin in a benefit concert for King Middle School student delegation to Washington D.C., at 7 p.m. in the King Middle School Auditorium, 1781 Rose St. Suggested donation $10-$20. 843-0822. king@rachelgarlin.com  

Frank Martin Trio at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $18. 845-5373. www.jazzschool.com 

Mills College MFA Dance Thesis Concert at 8 p.m. at Lisser Hall, 5000 MacArthur Blvd. Tickets are $5-$7, free to Mills students. 430-2175. 

The Athena Trio at 8 p.m. at Giorgi Gallery, 2911 Claremont Ave. Cost is $12-$15. 848-1228.  

The Aggrolites, The Uptones, Monkey, presented by Bay Area Ska, at 8:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $10. 525-5054. 

Mac Martin & The Dixie Travellers, bluegrass from central Appalachia, at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761.  

Lua at 8 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave. 548-5198.  

Riot A-Go-Go, Chow Nasty, The Inversions at 9 p.m. at Blakes on Telegraph. Cost is $5-$7. 848-0886.  

Farma, Firecracker, The Unravellers at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $12. 841-2082.  

Brian Melvin Quartet at 9 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810. 

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

Otis Goodbight, Shotgun Wedding at 9 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low, 2284 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $7-$10. 548-1159.  

Rob Bayne, Ira Marlowe & Friends at 8:30 p.m. at Epic Arts, 1923 Ashby Ave. Cost is $5-$10. www.epicarts.org 

Babyland, Rajah, and local film shorts at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St. Cost is $6. 525-9926. 

High Violets, Astral, Foxtail Somersault at 9:30 p.m. at The Stork Club, 2330 Telegraph Ave., Oakland. Tickets are $5. 444-6174.  

SATURDAY, MARCH 12 

CHILDREN  

East Bay Children’s Theater “Shoemaker and The Elves” at 10:30 a.m. and 1 p.m. at Oakland Museum, 10th and Oak Sts. Tickets are $6. 655-7285. www.childrens-theatre.org 

EXHIBITIONS 

“13 @ 13” “Berkeley Boys Coming of Age” Portraits by Phoebe Ackle. Reception at 7 p.m. at Fourth Street Studio, 1717D 4th St. 527-0600. www.fourthstreetstudio.com 

“Dulcis Domus” Utilitarian ceramics by Julia Galloway at Trax Gallery, 1812 Fifth St. through April 9. 540-8729. 

FILM 

International Asian American Film Festival “And Thereafter” at 5 p.m., “Oldboy” at 7 p.m. and “Cutie Honey” at 9:45 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Chun Yu talks about “Little Green: Growing Up During the Chinese Cultural Revolution” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater at 2 and 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $32-$54. 642-9988. www.calperfs.berkeley.edu 

En Pointe Youth Dance Company Fifth Annual Spring Performance featuring five original pieces choreographed and danced by Berkeley youth at 8 p.m. at the Roda Theater, 2015 Addison St. Tickets are $6-$8. www.enpointe.org 

Mills College MFA Dance Thesis Concert at 2 p.m. at Lisser Hall, 5000 MacArthur Blvd. Tickets are $5-$7, free to Mills students. 430-2175. 

Baroque Etcetera “Italian Beauties” at 8 p.m. at Zion Lutheran Church, 5201 Park Blvd., Oakland. Donation $10. 540-8222. www.baroquetc.org  

American Recorder Orchestra of the West “Music of the British Isles” at 7:30 p.m. at All Souls Church, 2220 Cedar St. Free, donations appreciated. 843-2425. www.schweter.com/arow 

Contra Costa Chorale at 2 p.m. at El Cerrito Methodist Church, 6830 Stockton Ave. Tickets are $12-$15. 514-1861. 

Berkeley Youth Arts Festival Flute Fest with students in grades K-5 at 2 p.m. at the Berkeley Art Center. 644-6893.  

Nancy Schimmel and Friends, in celebration of Nancy’s 70th birthday, at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $17.50-$18.50. 548-1761. 

Mujeres/Women: Holly Near and Ronnie Gilbert at 7:30 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $18-$20. 849-2568.  

Hal Stein at 9 p.m. at Cafe Van Kleef, l621 Telegraph, Oakland.  

“Collage des Cultures Africaines” with the Diamano Coura West African Dance Company at 8 p.m. at Calvin Simmons Theater, Oakland. Tickets are $10-$30. 733-1077. www.urbanevents.com 

The Wilders, The Earl Brothers at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $7. 841-2082.  

Palenque, Cuban Son, at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $13. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

The People, The Debonaires, Soul Captives, ska, hip hop, reggae at 9:30 at Blakes on Telegraph. Cost is $8. 848-0886.  

Frank Sally at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344.  

The David Jeffrey Jazz Fourtet at 9:30 p.m. at Albatross, 1822 San Pablo Ave. Cost is $3. 843-2473.  

Kellye Gray at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $12-$18. 845-5373. www.jazzschool.com  

Carl Sonny Leland Trio at 9 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810. 

R.A.M.B.O., Voestek, Born/ 

Dead, Ashtray at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St. Cost is $6. 525-9926. 

The Great Auk at 8:30 p.m. at Epic Arts, 1923 Ashby Ave. Cost is $5-$10. www.epicarts.org 

Floating Goat, Drink the Bleach, Secret Order of the Tusk at 9:30 p.m. at The Stork Club, 2330 Telegraph Ave., Oakland. Tickets are $5. 444-6174.  

SUNDAY, MARCH 13 

THEATER 

“Beowulf” The epic translated and performed by Philip Wharton at 7:30 p.m. at La Val’s Subterranean, 1834 Euclid. Sun. nights through Mar. 20. Tickets are $10-$15. 415-608-9683. 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Drawn by the Brush: Oil Sketches of Peter Paul Rubens” guided tour at 2 p.m. at Berkeley Art Museum, 2625 Durant Ave. 642-1295.  

FILM 

International Asian American Film Festival 3:45 to 8 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Poetry Flash with Sandra Gilbert and Chana Bloch at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. Donation $2. 845-7852.  

International Women’s Writing Guild hosts Katherine V. Forrest at 3 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. 

Janet Stickmon reads from her biography “Crushing Soft Rubies” at 4 p.m. at Eastwind Books, 2066 University Ave. 548-2350. 

Peter Phillips and Webster Tarpley discuss what the media failed to report about 9/11 at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

The Sor Ensemble performs Bartok, Dvorak and Prokofiev at 4 p.m. at Crowden Music Center, 1475 Rose St. Tickets are $12, free for children. 559-6910. www.crowdenmusiccenter.org 

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater at 3 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $32-$54. 642-9988.  

Cantabile Choral Guild “Songs of Love and Liturgy” at 7:30 p.m. at First Congregational Church, 2345 Channing Way. Preview lecture 30 minutes before the concert. Tickets are $6-$25. 650-424-1410. www.cantabile.org 

Sounds New A program of new American music at 7:30 p.m. at Unitarian Universalist Church, 1 Lawson Rd., Kensington. Donations $10-$15. 524-2912. www.SoundsNewUS.org 

Soli Deo Gloria and Camerata Gloria “Across the Pond,” a concert of a cappella music by English composers at 3:30 p.m. at Zion Lutheran, 5201 Park Blvd., Piedmont. Tickets are $15-$20. 415-982-7341. www.sdgloria.org 

Organ Recital by Rodney Gehrke at 6 p.m. at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, 2300 Bancroft Way. 845-0888.  

Baroque Etcetera “Italian Beauties” at 4 p.m. at The Episcopal Church of the Good Shepherd, 1823 Hearst St. Donation $10. 540-8222. www.baroquetc.org 

International Women’s Day Celebration “In Song and Struggle” with Shelley Doty and Rachel Garlin at 7 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $10. 849-2568.  

Dave Lefevbre at 4:30 at the Jazzschool. Cost is $12-$18. 845-5373. www.jazzschool.com 

Earl Howard and David Wessel at 8 p.m. at CNMAT, 1750 Arch St. Tickets are $5-$10. www.cnmat.berkeley.edu/calendar 

Robin and Linda Williams, contemporary acoustic country, at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761.  

Jacqui Naylor at 2 and 8 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square, through Sun. Cost is $5-$14. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com

While we’re waiting for the first delicate ash-tree leaves to unfurl, and their later-rising neighbors to follow their example, I’m going to talk about why trees in a city are a good thing, and why we should think long and hard before cutting down a healthy one.  

Trees are efficient providers of habitat. A city with nothing but humans, our pets, rats, mice and cockroaches (OK, maybe Argentine ants) is not a very pleasant place. That’s aside from the thoroughness of destruction it represents. We’ve made the discovery that we can stack more of ourselves into small spaces if we build up: high-rises, skyscrapers. The same works for trees. On a footprint of a mere few square feet, it can stack yards and yards of habitat and food for birds, butterflies, squirrels and such pleasant company. Planting them in cities, we mitigate some of the insults we offer the land with paving, buildings—even exotic plantings that are useless to local animals.  

That vertical advantage works for us, too, in quantifiable ways. Along with their shade, city trees cool their surroundings by transpiration, as they exhale enough water vapor to drop the temperature around them by a few degrees, and lower it more by spending energy in the process of vaporizing the water in their leaves. Cop a feel of a healthy tree’s leaves, and you’ll notice how cool they are. Urban surfaces of stone and steel and concrete heat the air enough to affect weather in some places; we need that bit of cooling.  

Trees reduce energy needs, if we plant them right. Deciduous trees shade and cool what’s just north or east of them in summer and let sunlight through to warm the place in winter. A staggered row of evergreens on the north side of a building buffers the wind and reduces heating needs in winter. That means PG&E burns less fuel and spares the air—and there are other measurable ways trees improve air quality. 

Some are quite local. Trees in parking lots not only keep cars cool and reduce the need for A/C; they slow the rate at which asphalt paving volatilizes its petroleum compounds. Like all plants, trees produce oxygen and consume the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide; furthermore, they sequester the carbon part of it, by using it to build themselves, and, being long-lived, they sequester it for a long time.  

They keep more noxious gases and particulates out of human lungs, too. A preliminary study of Chicago air in 1991 estimated that the trees that shade 11 percent of the city filtered out 210 tons of ozone, 98 tons of nitrogen dioxide, 93 tons of sulfur dioxide and 17 tons of carbon monoxide. The study also showed trees removing 234 tons of particles less than 10 microns in size. These, especially the ones smaller than 2.5 microns, are strongly associated with lung diseases from asthma to lung cancer, with heart disease—even with strokes.  

Dust like this has been a feature of cities ever since we invented them. They are kicked up from the soil by foot, draft animal, and wheeled traffic; rubber tires and internal combustion engines are late additions to the grind. Industries have strewn the air with particles since the first days of blacksmithing; smokestacks are more a difference in degree than kind.  

Trees take up this dust both by absorbing it through their stomata—the respiratory pores in their leaves—and just by trapping it on leaf surfaces, especially if they’re fuzzy. Surface particles might blow away again, or be washed off harmlessly in rain, or just stick and be incorporated into leaf litter: mulch, compost—useful soil nutrition instead of dangerous pollution. In cities, disposable, compostable lungs become a good idea.  

When we cut a tree down, we immediately destroy all its efficient habitat, and even replacing it with a younger tree doesn’t mitigate that until years later, when the replacement gets as big as its predecessor. Meanwhile, a few generations of displaced small wildlife dies out. We’ve also eliminated an oxygenating air filter, and reversed the process of carbon sequestration as the dead wood decays. Trees are mortal, and sometimes we must cut dangerously ill individuals. But whenever we cut a city tree, we’re eliminating one of our best citizens.  



TUESDAY, MARCH 8 

International Women’s Day Proclamation at Berkeley City Council, 7 p.m. City Council Chambers. 981-6900. www.ci. 

berkeley.ca.us/citycouncil 

“Best Mountain Bike Rides in the Bay Area” A slide presentation with mountain bike racer Lorene Jackson at 7 p.m. at REI, 1338 San Pablo Ave. 527-4140. 

“Guadalajara: The Silicon Valley of Mexico?” with Kevin Gallagher, Asst. Prof, Dept. of International Relations, Boston Univ., at Noon in the CLAS Conference Room, 2334 Bowditch St. 642-2088. www.clas.berkeley.edu 

“The Gravel Pirates: Strip-Mining the Russian River Water Supply” with L. Martin Griffin, Jr., Founder, Friends of the Russian River, at 5:30 p.m. in 105 North Gate Hall, UC Campus. Sponsored by the Water Resources Center Archives. 642-2666. 

WriterCoach Connection Volunteer Training Help students improve their writing and critical thinking skills. Training session from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m. To register call 524-2319. www.writercoachconnection.org 

Berkeley School Volunteers Training workshop for volunteers interested in helping in Berkeley Public Schools at 3 p.m. at 1835 Allston Way. 644-8833. 

International Women's Day Dance Party at 7 p.m. at Belladonna, 2436 Sacramento St. Cost is $10. Proceeds go to benefit Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA) and a scholarship for the Belladonna Mystery Camp for Girls. 282-2486. www.belladonna.ws 

Shivaratri - Night of Shiva A benefit for tsunami relief with yoga, rituals, food and music, from 4 to 10:30 p.m. at Yoga Mandala, 2807 Telegraph Ave. 486-1989. 

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

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

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 9 

Great Decisions 2005: “China” with Prof. Emeritus Joyce Kallgren, UC Davis, from 10 a.m. to noon at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant St. Cost is $5, $40 for the series. For information and reservations call 526-2925. 

Information Night for BHS Class of 2009 at 7 p.m. at the BHS Community Theater and the C Building. Presentations on academic departments, the 9th grade curriculum, small schools, athletics and activities. 644-6320. 

“Memorial Party for Judi Bari” a film screening at 7 p.m. at Humanist Hall, 390 27th St., Oakland.  

AARP Free Tax Assistance for taxpayers with middle and low incomes, with special attention to those 60 years and older. From 12:15 to 4:15 p.m. at the Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave. This service will continue through April. Appointments must be made in advance. 526-3720, ext. 5. 

Home Buyer Assistance Information Session at 6 p.m. at 1504 Franklin St., Oakland. Sponsored by the Home Buyer Assistance Center. Reservations required. 832-6925, ext. 100. www.hbac.org 

Poetry Writing Workshop with Alison Seevak at 7 p.m. at the Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave. 526-3720. 

“Does God Exist?” A talk on the Reconstructionist, Humanist and Other Jewish Views about God’s Existence with Rabbi Jane Litman at 11 a.m. at the BRJCC, 1414 Walnut St. Cost is $5. 848-0237, ext. 110. 

“Faith and Politics” at 7:30 p.m. at All Souls Parish, 2220 Cedar St. Part of the Journey of Faith Lenten Series. 848-1755. 

Winter Walk Berkeley for Seniors meets every Wednesday at 9:30 a.m. at the Sea Breeze Market, just west of the I-80 overpass. Heavy rain cancels. 548-9840. 

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 

Berkeley Peace Walk and Vigil at the Berkeley BART Station. Vigil at 6:30 p.m. Peace Walk at 7 p.m. www.geocities.com/ 

vigil4peace/vigil 

THURSDAY, MARCH 10 

Bird Walk along the Martin Luther King Shoreline to see marsh birds at 3:30 p.m. for information call 525-2233. 

Hidden Lodges of Berkeley An illustrated lecture on the Senior Men’s Hall and Senior Women’s Hall, with Harvey Helfand, Campus Planner, at 7:30 p.m. at Senior Hall, UC Campus. Cost is $10. For information contact Berkeley Architectural Heritage at 841-2241. www.berkeleyheritage.com 

Community Meeting on the Future of Old City Hall at 7 p.m. at Old City Hall Annex, 1835 Allston Way. 

“Diet for a Dead Planet” with author Christopher Cook at 7 p.m. at the Ecology Center, 2530 San Pablo Ave. 548-2220. 

“The Great Conspiracy: The 9-11 News Special You Never Saw” benefit screening with producer Barrie Zwicker, at 7:30 p.m. at The Grand Lake Theater Oakland. Tickets are $10, available at local bookstores. 452-3556. 

“So How’d You Become an Activist?” with Carolyn Scarr and Dr. Marc Sapir at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists, 1924 Cedar St., at Bonita. Donation $5. 528-5403. 

Grizzly Peak Flyfishers meets at 7 p.m at the Kensington Community Center, 59 Arlington Ave. Steve Beck will discuss fly fishing in the Sierra Nevada National Parks. 

“The Universal Grammar of Religion” with Prof. Huston Smith at 7:30 p.m. at Memorial Chapel, Pacific School of Religion, 1798 Scenic Ave. 848-9788. 

“Awakening the Heart of Enlightenment” with Dr. Gaylon Ferguson, at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Shambhala Center, 2288 Fulton St. Donation $25. www.norcal.shambhala.org 

FRIDAY, MARCH 11 

City Commons Club Noon Luncheon with I. Michael Heyman, Prof. Boalt Hall on “Life at the Smithsonian.” Luncheon at 11:45 a.m. for $13, speech at 12:30 p.m., at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant St. For information and reservations call 526-2925 or 665-9020.  

Native American Spiritual Celebration Weekend with Jerry Farlee, Lakota Spiritual Leader from the Cheyenne River Sioux Indian Reservation in South Dakota, Fri. eve. through Sun. at Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley, 1 Lawson Road, Kensington. 525-0302. www.uucb.org  

“Beyond the Age of Innocence - A Worldly View of America” with Kishore Mahbubani, Dean, Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy in Singapore, at noon at 2223 Fulton Street, 6th Floor. Sponsored by the Institute of East Asian Studies. 642-2809. http://ieas.berkeley.edu 

“Transforming Our Communities: An Inclusive Approach to Environmental Justice” A forum of open dialogue with scholars, policy makers, activists, community organizers and environmental lawyers, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Boalt Hall, UC Campus. For more information please see http://els.boalt.org/ej2005/ 

“So How’d You Become an Activist?” with Roy Campanella II, new General Manager of KPFA Radio and Andrea Buffa, Global Exchange Peace Campaign Coordinator at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists, 1924 Cedar St., at Bonita. Suggested donation $5. 528-5403. 

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

“Three Beats for Nothing” a small group meeting weekly at 10 a.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center to sing for fun and practice, mostly 16th century harmony. No charge. 655-8863. dann@netwiz.net 

Berkeley Chess Club meets Fridays at 7:15 p.m. at the East Bay Chess Club, 1940 Virginia St. Players at all levels are welcome. 845-1041. 

Women in Black Vigil, from noon to 1 p.m. at UC Berkeley, Bancroft at Telegraph. wibberkeley@yahoo.com 548-6310. 

Meditation, Peace Vigil and Dialogue, gather at noon on the grass close to the West Entrance to UC Berkeley, on Oxford St. near University Ave. People of all traditions are welcome to join us. Sponsored by the Buddhist Peace Fellowship. 655-6169. www.bpf.org 

SATURDAY, MARCH 12 

Kids Garden Club For children 7-12 years old to explore the world of gardening. We plant, harvest, build, make crafts, cook and get dirty! From 2 to 4 p.m. at Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park. Cost is $5-$7, registration required. 525-2233. 

Free Garden Tours at Regional Parks Botanic Garden Sat. and Sun. at 2 pm. Regional Parks Botanic Garden, Tilden Park. Call to confirm. 841-8732. www.nativeplants.org 

Junior Rangers of Tilden meets Sat. mornings at Tilden Nature Center. For more information call 525-2233. 

Green Building 101 Learn about healthier building materials and how to lower your utility bills and reduce home maintenance from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Ecology Center, 2530 San Pablo Ave. Cost is $10-$15, no one turned away. 548-2220, ext. 233. 

Seeds for Spring and Summer at 10 a.m. at Magic Gardens Nursery, 729 Heinz Ave. 644-2351. www.magicgardens.com 

“Historic Hotels--Could They Be Built Today?” with Henrik Bull, FAIA, at 3 p.m. at the Claremont Hotel, Horizon Room, followed by hors d'oeuvres and a no-host bar at 4 pm. Cost is $15, $20 at the door. www.mitcnc.org/www/Events_Single.asp?eventID=1083 

Berkeley Youth Arts Festival Making Plays with Beth Templeton, for children in grades 3-5, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Berkeley Art Center. Cost is $5-$15 sliding scale. 644-6893. www.berkeleyartcenter.org 

Berkeley Youth Arts Festival Monoprinting with Karen Weil from 1 to 4 p.m. at Artists at Play Studio, 1649 Hopkins Ave. Families welcome. Cost is $5-$15 sliding scale. 644-6893. www.berkeleyartcenter.org 

Berkeley Youth Arts Festival Dance of India with Purnima Jah from 3 to 4 p.m. at the Berkeley Art Center. Cost is $5-$15 sliding scale. 644-6893.  

Poets’ Dinner with contest winners and poet James Keller at 11:30 a.m. at Spenger’s Restaurant. 1919 Fourth St. Cost is $23. For reservations call 235-0361. 

“Democracy, Maoists and the Monarchy: Nepal at the Crossroads” Experts brainstorm on solutions to Nepal’s political crisis at Lipman Room, Barrows Hall, 8th floor, UC Campus, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. 643-4487. http://igov.berkeley.edu  

Radio Camp Build an FM transmitter and learn the fundamentals of micropower broadcasting in this 4-day workshop in Oakland. Class runs from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Mar. 12-13, 19-20. Cost is $150-$200 sliding scale. For information and to register call 625-0314. www.freeradio.org 

Kol Hadash Family Brown Bag Shabbat/Purim Celebration at 10:45 a.m. at the Albany Senior Center, 8465 Masonic Ave. Come in costume and bring lunch for your family and finger food to share. Free, all ages welcome. 428-1492. 

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, MARCH 13 

Prehistoric Life Today Join us for a hike back in time to discover ferns, liverworts and silverfish at 2 p.m. at Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park. 525-2233. 

Berkeley Youth Arts Festival Making Musical Instruments from Recycled Materials with Fran Holland, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Berkeley Art Center. All ages and families welcome. Cost is $5-$15 sliding scale. 644-6893. www.berkeleyartcenter.org 

Amnesty International Conference “A Turning Point for Human Rights” from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Room 126, Barrows Hall, UC Campus. Free and open to the general public. RSVP to norcal@aiusa.org 

Book Release Party for “From Ike to Mao and Beyond - My Journey from Mainstream America to Revolutionary Communist” a memoir by Bob Avakian, at 6:30 p.m. at Revolution Books, 2425 Channing Way. 848-1196. 

CancerGuides, a workshop to train integrative cancer care counselors through March 19 at The Claremont. Sponsored by Center for Mind-Body Medicine. 202-966-7338, ext. 222. 

Berkeley Cybersalon “Information Wants To Be Free, But Programmers Want To Get Paid,” with Paulina Borsook, Jon Callas, and Phil Zimmermann at 6 p.m. at the Hillside Club, 2286 Cedar St. 843-3733. 

“Prisoner of Paradise” Film about Kurt Gerron, German-Jewish actor in pre-war Berlin at 2 p.m. at the BRJCC, 1414 Walnut St. Cost is $5. 848-0237, ext. 110. 

Family Film Sunday Series ”The Wizard of Oz” at 11 a.m. at Julia Morgan Center for the Arts, 2640 College Ave. Cost is $5 at the door. 

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 

Lake Merritt Neighbors Organized for Peace Peace walk around the lake every Sun. Meet at 3 p.m. at the colonnade at the NE end of the lake. 763-8712. lmno4p.org 

Tibetan Buddhism with Lama Palzang and Pema Gellek on “The Healing Mantras” at 6 p.m. at the Tibetan Nyingma Institute, 1815 Highland Pl. 843-6812. www.nyingmainstitute.com 

MONDAY, MARCH 14 

Tea and Hike 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 

Mercury in View The best evening views of the planet Mercury are during the next two weeks. Join us at Tilden’s Inspiration Point at 6:30 p.m. and we’ll walk down Nimitz Way. 525-2233. 

“US Military Operations and Militarized Prostitution” The resistance of the women of Olongapo, Philippines, at 7 p.m. at Mills College Student Union, 5000 MacArthur Blvd., Oakland. Free. 430-2019. 

“Problems in Argentine Commercial Law” with Carlos Rosenkrantz, Prof. of Law, Univ. of Buenos Aires, at 4 p.m. in the Goldberg Room, Boalt Hall, UC Campus. 642-2088. www.clas.berkeley.edu 

“Brazil’s Global Leadership: The Role of Civil Society” with Luiz Dulci, Secretary General, Brazil, at 4 p.m. in the Morrison Room, Doe Library, UC Campus. 642-2088. www.clas.berkeley.edu 

World Affairs/Politics Discussion Group for people 60 years and over meets Mondays at 9:45 a.m. at the Albany Senior Center, 846 Masonic Ave. Join at any time. Cost is $2.50 with refreshments. 524-9122. 

Senior Health with Dr. McGillis on molds, mildews, and their relation to health at 10:30 a.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 

Introduction to Conscious Bookkeeping with Bari Tessler at 7 p.m. at Belladonna, 2436 Sacramento St. Cost is $15. 883-0600. www.belladonna.ws 

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

ONGOING 

Bringing Back the Natives Garden Tour The tour, on May 1, will showcase Alameda and Contra Costa County gardens that contain at least 30% native plants, don’t use synthetic pesticides or fertilizers, and provide habitat for wildlife. Admission is free, but tickets are required. Kathy@KathyKramerConsulting. 

net or 236-9558.  

All Net Basketball for boys and girls ages 9 to 11, begins Tues. Mar. 8, from 4:30 to 6 p.m., and runs for five weeks. Fee is $10-$15. For information call Berkeley Youth Alternatives, 845-9066. sports@byaonline.org 

Domestic Violence Training for people interested in volunteering at Oakland’s battered women’s shelter, Sat. March 12 - April 9 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. 986-8600, ext. 316. 

“Half Pint Library” Book Drive Donate children’s books to benefit Children’s Hospital. Donations accepted at 1849 Solano Ave. through March 31. 

Spring Break Program for Children offered by the City’s Recreational Division, March 28-April 1, for children ages 5-12, at the Frances Albrier Community Center, 2800 Park St. For information call 981-6640. 

CITY MEETINGS 

City Council meets Tues., Mar. 8, at 7 p.m in City Council Chambers. 981-6900. www.ci. 

berkeley.ca.us/citycouncil 

Commission on Disability meets Wed., Mar 9, at 6:30 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Don Brown, 981-6346. TDD: 981-6345. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/disability 

Homeless Commission meets Wed., Mar. 9, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Jane Micallef, 981-5426. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/ 

commissions/homeless 

Library Board of Trustees meets Thurs. Mar. 9, at 7 p.m. at South Berkeley Senior Center. Jackie Y. Griffin, 981-6195. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/library 

Planning Commission meets Wed., Mar. 9, Wed., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Janet Homrighausen, 981-7484. www.ci.berkeley. ca.us/commissions/planning 

Police Review Commission meets Wed., Mar. 9 at the South Berkeley Senior Center, 981-4950. www.ci.berkeley. 

ca.us/commissions/policereview 

Waterfront Commission meets Wed., Mar. 9, at 7 p.m., at 201 University Ave. Cliff Marchetti, 644-6376 ext. 224. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/waterfront 

Commission on Early Childhood Education meets Thurs., Mar. 10, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Angellique De Cloud, 981-5428. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/earlychildhoodeducation 

Community Health Commission meets Thurs, Mar. 10, at 6:45 p.m., at the South Berkeley Senior Center. William Rogers, 981-5344. www.ci.berkeley. 

ca.us/commissions/health 

Housing Advisory Commission meets Thurs. Mar. 10, at 7:30 p.m., at the South Berkeley Senior Center. Oscar Sung, 981-5400. www.ci.berkeley.ca. 

us/commissions/housing 

West Berkeley Project Area Commission meets Thurs., Mar. 10, at 7 p.m., at the West Berkeley Senior Center. Iris Starr, 981-7520. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/westberkeley  

Zoning Adjustments Board meets Thurs., Mar. 10, at 7 p.m., in City Council Chambers. Mark Rhoades, 981-7410. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/zoning V

Two issues not listed on the agenda—a teacher “work to rule” slowdown and a proposed plan for the district’s Derby Street field—dominated discussion at this week’s meeting of the board of directors of the Berkeley Unified School District. 

Members of the Berkeley Federation of Teachers (BFT) union began the work action last month in a contract dispute with the BUSD. Participating teachers are refusing to conduct any school activities outside their contracted seven-hour day. Contract negotiations between BFT and the BUSD are being conducted through a state-appointed mediator. The next mediation session is scheduled for March 15. 

On Wednesday night a string of anguished parents appeared before the board during the public comment period, most of them critical of the district administration. 

“At first I was saddened about the current situation, but my sadness has turned to anger,” said parent Alejandra Nuñez, whose child attends Thousand Oaks Elementary. “Our children are suffering.” 

Nuñez, who said she had attempted in vain to get information on the district’s contract position, told board members that the teachers deserve a raise. 

“Teachers put far more hours into their work day than they are compensated for,” she said. 

Another parent, Marilyn Sagna, said that she was upset about the teachers’ plight. 

“I’m concerned that there is no recognition of the amount of work being done by the teachers,” she said. “I’m concerned about the working conditions. I’m concerned about the condition my daughter is in.” 

And Gwyneth Galbraith, the parent of a Thousand Oaks kindergarten student, said that she was “appalled that parents haven’t been informed about these contract negotiations” before the work slowdown began. 

“All I’ve heard is through the grapevine, and that’s probably not reliable,” she said. “I realize that there are two sides to this issue, and the district has its financial obligations. But teachers are due their fair share.” 

Galbraith urged the district to “resolve this dispute quickly and fairly.” 

In later comments during the director report period, Board Director John Selawsky told the assembled parents, “We’ve heard your comments, and we will get out more information to you.” 

Superintendent Michele Lawrence said the reason why the district has not been more forthcoming is that state mediation law prevents the district from discussing contract negotiation details in public. 

Berkeley PTA Council President Roia Ferrazares said that her organization has scheduled a March 14 session at Longfellow Middle School to present information on the contract dispute. 

“This is purely an information session for the public” she said. “It won’t be a debate or a contract negotiation.” 

Ferrazares said that the PTA was prevented by state law from entering into the contract dispute, but urged the district to submit any proposed contract to the public for comment “once negotiations are completed, but before the contract is signed.” 

Board members also weighed in on the dispute. Director Joaquin Rivera, who is a member of the district contract negotiating team, said the district’s interest is keeping the district solvent. 

“Our incentive is to get better salaries for our employees. But it’s not in the best interest of the students or the district to go back to the brink of bankruptcy.” 

Student-Director Lily Dorman-Colby got applause from some members of the audience when she called the work slowdown “a very upsetting time for students.” 

“Our teachers won’t grade some of our papers, they’re not as prepared as they used to be, and they won’t give us help at lunch or after school,” said Dorman-Colby, a student at Berkeley High School. “Our education is definitely being affected right now.” 

Pointing to the situation in the Oakland Unified School District, which was seized by the state two years ago after it gave a teacher pay raise it could not afford, Dorman-Colby warned that the district “is in danger of losing our school board and being replaced by a state administrator if we promise extra pay and can’t meet our obligations.” 

Derby Street Fields Development 

In other matters, a second string of citizens—these ones residents of the neighborhood surrounding the district’s old East Campus property on Martin Luther King Jr. Way—came out to praise the district’s recent movement toward converting the property to park ground and playing fields. 

East Campus neighbors are locked in an ongoing dispute with advocates of a Berkeley High baseball field. Field advocates want Derby Street closed between MLK and Milvia so that a regulation-sized high school baseball field can be built on the East Campus property and the district’s adjoining Berkeley Alternative High School property. While most East Campus neighbors want the old East Campus buildings to be torn down and something done with the property, they oppose the closure of Derby Street. 

While waiting for a City Council decision on the possible closure of Derby Street, the district has hired WLC Architects of Emeryville in association with Vallier Design Associates of Richmond to come up with temporary plan for the use of the East Campus property. During a Monday night community meeting at the Alternative High School, WLC and Vallier released proposed drawings of two alternative plans for the property, both of which involve a combination of a multi-purpose field for the use of Berkeley High sports teams, basketball courts, a tot playground, and a community garden. 

Vallier said that the plans would probably be submitted to the board sometime in May. 

But already, East Campus neighbors say either of the two plans are fine with them. 

Ruth Reffkin, a community representative on the East Campus site committee, told board members, “I can assure you that the community will support these plans.” 

Those sentiments were echoed by neighbor Pam Webster. “In the past, the process [surrounding the use of the East Campus property] has been contentious, but this round has been exceptional. We have real respect for the district staff and the design team in what they’ve been doing.” 

Webster said she had 500 cards signed by neighbors in support of “keeping Derby Street open, the Farmer’s Market remaining on Derby Street on Tuesdays, and the development of the East Campus site for multiple uses for youth.” 

The only dissent at the board meeting was presented by baseball field advocate Doug Fielding. Fielding told the board, “The logical and most cost efficient approach” would be for “the design contract to be amended to include a closed Derby plan. The minor increase in staff load at this juncture will more than offset the additional amount of time staff would spend to repeat this entire process for a full size field.” 

Fielding said that both field supporters and East Campus neighborhood residents “would like this all to come to an end. Build the [regulation size baseball] field or don’t build the field, but don’t keep the sword of Damocles hanging over the heads of the neighborhood and don’t continue to dangle a baseball field in front of the field supporters. Get your plan, get your costs, make your decision, and let us all move on to other things.” 

›

Trying to lower consumer energy bills and increase its use of renewable energy, Berkeley, along with other Bay Area cities, is considering jumping into the energy business. 

Last week, the city’s Energy Commission voted unanimously to recommend that the City Council put aside $100,000 to cover start-up costs for a plan that would put the city, not PG&E, in charge of picking its energy suppliers. 

The goal of the feasibility study to see if the city can keep rates on par with PG&E and determine how much green energy can be added to Berkeley’s portfolio, said Neal De Snoo, the city’s energy officer. The city hopes that by diversifying its energy sources, Berkeley will release fewer greenhouse gases and be less prone to wild swings in the natural gas market, he said. 

“We think this can give us more energy independence, stable prices and non-polluting energy sources,” said Councilmember Kriss Worthington. 

Besides California, Ohio and Massachusetts have passed laws allowing cities to establish bulk energy consortiums, known as community aggregates. 

Ohio’s program, established in 2001, currently has 905,000 customers, according to The Office of the Ohio Consumers’ Counsel. 

Under California’s law, passed in 2002, PG&E would continue to distribute power through its system, and Berkeley residents would have the option of sticking with the utility as its purchaser of electricity. 

“We have always supported the idea of giving customers a choice in their energy service provider,” said Brian Swason, PG&E spokesperson. Previously, PG&E had sought to block a plan for San Francisco to follow the lead of Alameda and take control of both the utility’s purchasing and distribution network. 

Berkeley is working with Oakland, Emeryville, Pleasanton, Marin County, Richmond and Vallejo to form a consortium that could negotiate bulk rates for electrical energy and possibly take ownership of green power plants, De Snoo said. No California city has begun buying energy outside of PG&E under the law, but San Francisco and Chula Vista are also setting up separate purchasing blocks. 

Even if the other Bay Area cities backed out, De Snoo said, Berkeley could go ahead with the program, although it would face higher administrative and planning costs.  

In the event that Berkeley joined forces with neighboring cities, they would likely form a joint-governing body to oversee energy purchases and investments, De Snoo said. Because the energy load must be planned continuously, he said, Berkeley or the consortium would likely contract out those duties.  

Under the California law, PG&E would continue to bill consumers and then turn over the money to Berkeley to pay energy producers. Annually, Berkeley consumers, excluding UC which has its own energy contracts, use 530,000 megawatt hours of electricity at a cost of $46 million, De Snoo said. 

City officials said they believe Berkeley has two advantages over PG&E that would enable it to buy more expensive renewable energy while keeping rates in line with the public utility. Since PG&E charges small business a higher rate to subsidize residential customers across its system, De Snoo said, Berkeley, which has proportionally more small businesses, pays more to PG&E. Also, since Berkeley can borrow money more cheaply than PG&E, it could reap greater profit from investing in a generation plant. 

“That’s where there’s a real economic benefit,” De Snoo said. “If we just purchase power from private producers we wouldn’t have any advantage over PG&E.” 

De Snoo said the most likely energy investment for the city or consortium would be to upgrade a wind farm. A feasibility study, funded by the California Energy Commission, is slated to be ready for the City Council’s review in April, De Snoo said. 

The state energy commission is pushing the consortiums to boost renewable energy sources, like wind and solar power, to 40 percent of their total use. PG&E is required make renewables 20 percent of its portfolio by 2017. 

Energy deregulation has a bad name in California, where the state’s previously forced utilities to buy energy on the volatile daily spot market. Under the new law, cities like Berkeley would be able to enter into long-term contracts for power as utility companies have historically done. 

“In Ohio, it’s been a success, but not as big a success as some people were hoping for,” said Robert Burns, senior research specialist with the National Regulatory Research Institute at Ohio State University.  

Burns said that as a result of cites more aggressively seeking lower prices than utility companies, customers have seen a 5 percent average rate decrease. However, when added municipal administration costs are factored in, he said, the total savings was unclear. 

The program, he added, had unquestionably helped boost the use of renewable energy in a state where 85 percent of energy comes from burning coal. 

The future of reform in California rests largely on rules set forth by the State Public Utilities Commission, expected to be finalized by the end of the year. The PUC will have the final say on how much PG&E can charge for handling billing, fees paid to PG&E for exiting their energy contracts as well as on whether large-scale users will again be free to negotiate independent deals. 

PG&E’s next purchasing round is scheduled for June, De Snoo said. If Berkeley hasn’t announced its intention to exit the PG&E purchasing plan by then, he said the city will have to pay an added opt-out penalty if it leaves. 

De Snoo didn’t think a move by larger companies to buy power outside of the community blocks would affect Berkeley. However, he added, if small businesses chose to stick with PG&E, Berkeley would lose part of the financial incentive for buying its own power. 

Backed by a coalition of activists and endorsed by their county’s leading public health official, Richmond City Councilmember Gayle McLaughlin’s call for a change in oversight at two toxics-contaminated shoreline sites won the unanimous endorsement of her colleagues Tuesday. 

If accepted by the California Environmental Protection Agency, the city’s request would give the state Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC) the lead role in the ongoing cleanups at UC Berkeley’s Richmond Field Station and the adjacent Campus Bay site. 

Tuesday’s vote represents a major victory for the activists of the Bay Area Residents for Responsible Development (BARRD), a coalition formed in response to earlier actions at Campus Bay, and for McLaughlin and the Richmond Progressive Alliance to which she belongs. 

An earlier version of the measure had been voted down two weeks earlier, despite the protests of a packed audience. 

Sherry Padgett, BARRD activist and an outspoken critic of cleanup activities at both sites, hailed the council’s action. 

“I’m impressed that the council came around to the right answer and unanimously passed the resolution. After they read the facts, they came to the same conclusion as has the rest of the community, that DTSC should be in charge,” she said.  

Padgett works mere yards away from Campus Bay and emerged as a critic after she became the victim of several life-threatening cancers and other ailments her doctors said they believed were caused by environmental exposures. 

Peter Weiner, a leading San Francisco attorney who has volunteered to lead the legal fight for BARRD, said, “The unified expression of the city council in asking the California Environmental Protection Agency for action is both very unusual in itself and very important to state government. My expectation is that Cal EPA will listen very closely.” 

Both DTSC and the water board are EPA sub-agencies.  

Richmond Mayor Irma Anderson, who had voted no on the earlier proposal, said Tuesday, “I feel the resolution now. . .is a win-win proposition. I’d like to thank Councilmember McLaughlin.” 

Though more than thirty people had signed up to speak in favor of the resolution, Mayor Anderson told them it wouldn’t be necessary. The council was now willing to give its endorsement. 

“I’m willing to make it unanimous,” said John Marquez, who had voted against the earlier draft. 

Beaming, McLaughlin praised Anderson, new City Manager Bill Lindsay, Padgett, BARRD, the business owners who live near the sites and the community for their backing. 

Though UC Berkeley had resisted the switch, Contra Costa County Public Health Director Wendel Brunner offered support in a Feb. 18 letter to Lindsay. 

While both sites had been under the jurisdiction of the San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board, the board ceded control over the upland portion of Campus Bay following a Nov. 6 legislative hearing on the site called by Assemblymember Loni Hancock. 

Brunner’s testimony played a major role in that change. In his letter to the Richmond council endorsing McLaughlin’s proposal, Brunner wrote concerning Campus Bay that “the Regional Water Quality Control Board has neither the expertise or experience to handle a site this complex.” 

Brunner also noted, “In my 20 years of experience as Public Health Director, the [DTSC] has been the lead agency in the remediation of all toxic sites in Contra Costa that have been this complex.” 

Although he wasn’t as concerned with the Richmond Field Station—also known as Bayside Research Campus—Brunner wrote that “nevertheless, I believe the DTSC would be the best agency to provide oversight to that property also.” 

Both sites hosted long-term manufacture of dangerous compounds, contaminating the soil and shoreline marsh with a wide range of highly dangerous substances ranging from heavy metals such as mercury as well as a variety pesticides, some now banned, to noxious volatile organic compounds, PCBs and similar hazardous and potentially lethal chemicals.  

UC Berkeley registered strong opposition to the measure when it first appeared on the council’s agenda on Feb. 15. Mark B. Freiberg, director of the university’s Office of Environmental Health and Safety, told the council that the school was quite happy running its own cleanup under water board supervision. 

The original measure was twice defeated at that meeting, in part because several councilmembers wanted Brunner’s input before they voted. The physician wrote his letter three days later. 

McLaughlin’s resolution was redrafted, incorporating the council’s concerns that the water board continue to play a role under DTSC supervision, and brought back to the council. 

Included in the draft was a new provision that calls for deed restrictions on both sites to protect the public health and safety to “return these properties to the tax rolls for the long term benefit to the residents and businesses of Richmond.” 

Freiberg was present in the audience for the unanimous vote. He didn’t sign up to speak during the public hearing nor did anyone from Cherokee Simeon Ventures, the firm set up by Marin County developer Russ Pitto and a multinational venture capital firm to develop Campus Bay. 

Activists focused on the Field Station in November after a Daily Planet report revealed that the university had picked CSV as their choice to build a 2.2-million-square-foot corporate/academic research complex on the site. 

BARRD and other Richmond environmental activists, most notably Ethel Dodson, have criticized Cherokee Simeon’s role of the Campus Bay cleanup, and word that the firm may be developing the second site spurred them into action and led to the inclusion of both sites in McLaughlin’s resolution. 

Padgett said the next stage for the activists is making certain that Cal EPA follows through on the council’s request. 

A group of six Oakland residents were arrested in the offices of Randolph Ward, the state school administrator, Tuesday evening after demanding a meeting with State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell over plans to close adult education. 

The six demonstrators, including an attorney, two teachers, and an Oakland City Council candidate, were arrested on trespassing charges during a sit-in in Ward’s office that prevented the offices from closing for the day. On the street outside the Oakland Unified School District Administration Building, about 100 demonstrators rallied during the sit-in to support the demonstration. 

The arrestees were led out by police in handcuffs, and were released an hour later on bail. 

The sit-in was organized by a coalition of organizations, including the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, Oakland Parents Together, Education Not Incarceration, and Youth Together. 

Ward reportedly left his office shortly before the demonstrators arrived, and was at a “funders meeting” in Piedmont while the demonstration and arrests took place. 

Oakland Unified School District Board members Dan Siegel and Greg Hodge, both candidates in next year’s Oakland mayoral race, were among a group congregating in the third-floor hallway outside of Ward’s office in support of the sit-in demonstration. The two board members did not participate in the sit-in itself, and left when police cleared the hallway. 

Oakland public schools were taken over by the state two years ago after discovery of a massive budget shortfall. Ward was hired by O’Connell to run the schools and pay off a $100 million state loan. Since that time, Ward has closed several schools, and recently announced possible takeover of a second group of Oakland schools by charter organizations. But what sparked Tuesday’s demonstration was Ward’s announcement of the possible closure of Oakland Unified’s adult education program. 

Before police were called, OUSD Chief of Staff Woodrow Carter tried to reason with the sit-in demonstrators, suggesting that they either wait in the building’s downstairs lobby or outside, and offering to pass on a request for a meeting to O’Connell. Carter said that he did not have O’Connell’s telephone number and said that when he called Ward’s bodyguard, he was told that Ward was making a presentation and “could not be disturbed.” 

Malcolm X Grassroot Movement member Kali Akuno, an Oakland-based educator acting as the spokesperson for the sit-in demonstrators, called Carter’s efforts to contact his superiors “ridiculous.” Akuno also rejected later efforts by Oakland Police Lt. Ed Tracey to end the demonstration short of arrests. 

“It’s been two years since the Oakland schools were taken over by the state, and Jack O’Connell has refused to come down and meet with us,” Akuno said. Tracey asked him, “Do you want to be arrested?” Akuno answered that Carter “has made his point plain, and we’ve made our point plain. You do what you have to do.” 

During the sit-in, the discussions between demonstrators and Carter and Tracey were polite and formal, if not cordial, and Tracey told demonstrators, “you have to understand, the police don’t want to take a position on this. We’re neutral.” 

In a prepared statement, Akuno said that the coalition “does not recognize the current district leadership as legitimate. We call on Superintendent O’Connell to restore democratic control to Oakland’s public school system.” 

Arrestee Michael Siegel, the son of Boardmember Dan Siegel, added in the prepared statement, “Recent actions by State Administrator Randolph Ward to close schools without community input, to open our campuses to private school and charter school corporations, and to threaten the complete shutdown of our adult education program only further our resolve to resist this hostile takeover until Oakland parents, educators, and community members can once again decide how best to educate our children, youth, and adults.” 

The coalition also issued four demands, including the “immediate restoration of local democratic control over the Oakland Unified School District, no school closures and no charter conversions, no layoffs, and an immediate meeting with State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell to discuss the implementation of these demands.” 

State Superintendent O’Connell’s press secretary, Hilary McLaean, said that O’Connell had no comment directly concerning the sit-in or arrests, adding only that “Jack O’Connell is most concerned about academic achievement in the Oakland schools. He hopes that people in Oakland who are passionate about their schools will direct their passion toward the improvement of those schools.” 

State-appointed Oakland school administrator Ward did not return phone calls to answer questions concerning this article. 

Coalition members have called a meeting for Tuesday, March 8, at 6 p.m. at the First Congregational Church on Harrison Street in Oakland to discuss further action. In addition, the Oakland Education Association has scheduled a March 15, 4 p.m. march and rally at the State Office Building on Clay Street in Oakland to protest the school closures. 

In addition to Akuna and Siegel, the four other demonstrators arrested at the Tuesday action were Micah Clatterbaugh of the Chicano Moratorium Coalition, civil rights attorney Anne Weills, Community Day School teacher Linda Halpern, and Oakland adult education teacher and Oakland City Council District 2 candidate Pamela Drake. 

?

A member of the Oakland Unified School District Board of Education is calling the proposed charter takeover of a West Oakland elementary school “illegal” and the justification for the takeover “to put it nicely, untrue.” 

Boardmember Dan Siegel made the comments in response to an announcement by Oakland Schools state-appointed administrator Randolph Ward that OUSD plans to close Golden Gate Elementary this spring, to be turned over to a partnership run jointly by the University of California at Berkeley and Oakland-based Aspire Public Schools non-profit organization. 

As a boardmember, Siegel has no say over the charter conversion. Oakland Unified School District was seized by the State of California two years ago. State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell hired Ward to run the schools, with the Oakland school board acting in solely an advisory capacity. 

Genaro Padilla, vice chancellor of student affairs at UC Berkeley, called the charter collaboration “a wonderful opportunity” for UC. And P. David Pearson, dean of UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Education, called it “a chance for us to demonstrate that diversity in all of its faces—racial, linguistic, intellectual, and economic—provides the right context for preparing high school students for the challenges they will face in the colleges and universities of tomorrow.” 

The school is scheduled to initially serve 120 to 160 sixth and seventh grade students in a college preparatory curriculum, with priority given to students living in the school’s neighborhood. 

Aspire currently operates 11 charter schools in urban areas of California, including two in Oakland, two in East Palo Alto, and four in the Stockton-Modesto area. 

In announcing the closure of the San Pablo Avenue school, Ward invoked a provision of President George Bush’s No Child Left Behind Act, which calls for district action after a school operates under a low-performance “Program Improvement” status for four consecutive years. 

But Siegel says that the national education law allows for other possible actions against low-performing schools besides converting them into charters, including a catchall phrase that allows “any other action that reforms the school and gives rise to an expectation of better performance.” 

“Those of us who don’t want these types of charter takeovers believe that Ward could have used Oakland’s previous policy of restructuring Golden Gate in the autonomous, small school model,” Siegel said. “He had the flexibility to do that.” 

In addition, Siegel charged that by announcing the school closure first and then awarding a charter afterwards, as was done in the case of Golden Gate, Ward is breaking a California state law mandating that a majority of teachers at an operating public school have to approve its transformation into a charter school. 

“I think that makes his actions illegal,” said Siegel, who is a practicing civil attorney. “Dr. Ward is using reasons that run from the fanciful to the ludicrous to justify the circumvention of state law and the closing of Oakland schools.” 

Ward did not return telephone calls to answer questions for this article. 

Siegel says he was “somewhat torn” about the UC Berkeley/Aspire charter school. 

“It seems to me that if they can put together a good school for that area, that’s a good thing,” he explained. Citing the fact that he participated in OUSD School Board approval of 12 to 13 charter schools in recent years, including Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown’s Oakland School For The Arts, Siegel said that he had reservations that charters can do a better job than schools run by a public school district. 

“I’m not dogmatically opposed to charter schools in principle,” he said. “What I am opposed to is charter schools being forced down the throat of the community. That’s what’s happening in this case.” 

A UC press release said the school would be funded through state Average Daily Attendance monies and regular federal school funds. Startup costs have been financed by a $400,000 grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation through the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation.›

Proposed revisions to the city’s Landmarks Preservation Ordinance hit a minor stumbling block Wednesday when a Planning Commission subcommittee couldn’t agree on what to change. 

Members of the Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) had worked over a period of years to hammer out a new ordinance, only to run into objections from the Planning Commission, where some members had other notions of what the law should be. 

All sides agreed that some aspects of the current law needed revision, particularly when it comes to bringing the ordinance into line with the state Permit Streamlining Act, which mandates that local governments act on building permits within a strict timeline. 

Four Planning Commissioners attended the session, including commission Chair Harry Pollack and colleagues Susan Wengraf, Sara Shumer and Helen Burke. 

Three LPC members also showed up: Carrie Olson, Leslie Emmington and Fran Packard, as well as former LPC member and Berkeley Daily Planet Executive Editor Becky O’Malley. All had plenty to say, with the exception of Packard. 

Under the proposal, all structures 50 years old and older would automatically be submitted to the LPC for review. If deemed significant by the commission or a member of public, a landmarking application could result, setting in motion a process with specific deadlines. 

Much of the early part of the session dealt with Planning Director Dan Marks’s description of the “worst case scenario” timeline a developer could face waiting to learn the fate of his application to demolish or alter a potential landmark structure. 

Emmington challenged Marks’s term. 

“I always cringe when I hear this phrase ‘worst case scenario,’ I am concerned with the importance of this ordinance to community,” she said, objecting to the use of a term with decidedly negative connotations. 

“I stand corrected,” said Marks. 

Then the planners launched into a discourse about the use of the term “integrity,” prompting a discussion about places where “Mario Savio slept here” and an eventual burst of laughter from O’Malley and more discussion. 

In the end, the planners couldn’t agree and voted to accept Burke’s suggestion to send the proposal back to LPC for clarification. 

“We’re done,” said Marks. “We haven’t changed any of the past recommendations.” 

That left hanging Pollack’s discussions of incorporating the Landmarks Ordinance into the Zoning Ordinance and revision of the process of getting projects through the LPC.  

City planning staff will send the ordinance back to the planners with cleanup language in time for the commission’s regular meeting next week. 

Two months after threatening to shut down Berkeley’s historic ice rink, city officials are giving a tentative thumbs up to Berkeley Iceland’s plan to upgrade its operations. 

“At this point Iceland is staying in business,” said Deputy Fire Chief David Orth. “They’re doing exactly what we asked them to do.” 

A city audit of Iceland last year found 36 violations, the most serious connected to the rinks’ ammonia-based system used to chill the ice surface.  

Ammonia, a common refrigerant for skating rinks, is a toxic gas that can be lethal in high concentrations, and can turn highly combustible when mixed with oil. 

In response to fire department demands, Iceland, which opened in South Berkeley 64 years ago, has agreed to three safety mechanisms designed to reduce the risk to firefighters and patrons in the event of a leak. The rink will install a discharge tank in its control room to neutralize escaped ammonia by dumping it into water, a water spray system to treat ammonia contaminated air, and a remote control system to allow firefighters to move the ammonia away from the source of the leak without having to enter the contaminated control room. 

Last week, Iceland submitted its upgrade plans for city approval and is scheduled to complete the work by November. 

The Fire Department’s only objection at this point is Iceland’s contention that an open garage door qualified as providing a continuous source of outside air, Orth said.  

Iceland officials were unavailable to comment on the price of the upgrades and whether they planned to pass the costs to customers. General Manager Jay Wescott had previously ruled out installing a Freon-based cooling system, used at the company’s other rinks, because it couldn’t afford the estimated $300,000 price tag. 

Berkeley’s Toxics Supervisor Nabil Al-Hadithy said the city would hire a consultant to review Iceland’s plan, and bill the rink for the work. 

In addition to addressing the Fire Department’s priorities, Iceland must address other city concerns including demonstrating that the concrete building is structurally sound in the case of an earthquake and improving management controls and safety procedures, Al-Hadithy said. 

Meanwhile tests of the rinks piping, performed by a consultant for Iceland, showed that the rink’s equipment were in working order. 

›

The Library Board of Trustees will likely hold off voting on a controversial reorganization plan that would mean pink slips for an estimated 12 employees. 

“The feeling is we need more information and more time to study the facts before making a decision,” said Darryl Moore, the City Council’s representative to the library board. 

Library Director Jackie Griffin had originally hoped to win approval for her plan at Wedesday’s monthly meeting to stay on track with the city’s schedule for adopting next year’s budget. 

Facing a $1 million shortfall, and not wanting to further reduce service hours, Griffin had proposed reorganizing library staff and cutting positions, primarily library aides and library assistants. 

If the plan is approved, the library would be the only city department to issue lay-offs. 

At last month’s trustee’s meeting SEIU Local 535, which represents library workers, offered countermeasures it said could save money and reduce lay-offs. The union proposed, among other ideas, reducing work weeks from 40 to 37.5 hours and instituting mandatory and voluntary time-off days. 

Moore said the board is looking for library officials to return with a cost analysis of the union’s proposal. The analysis, Moore added, might be difficult for the library to produce since it lost its long-standing finance head, Bob Derbin, retired last month. 

The board meeting is scheduled for 7 p.m. Wednesday at the South Berkeley Library at the corner of Russell Street and Martin Luther King Jr. Way. 

—Matthew Artz›

Plans for the proposed Ed Roberts Center for the disabled took a major step forward Wednesday when a key congressional committee endorsed a $3 million funding package for the Ashby Bart Station project. 

The same funding package also includes $1.5 million for long-delayed improvements to the Gilman Street/Interstate 80 interchange and $2 million for bus shelters and intelligent systems for AC transit which will be installed along Telegraph Avenue. 

Last year, the city installed temporary lane striping as a stopgap measure to improve traffic flow at the frequently congested Gilman/I-80 interchange. 

The funds are part of $16 million in funding for the 9th Congressional District included in the Transportation Equity Act, said Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Oakland). 

Calling on the full House of Representatives to pass the $284 billion funding measure, Lee said the bill “provides much-needed money for East Bay transportation projects and a vital economic stimulus for our community.” 

The city’s Zoning Adjustments Board has approved the permits for construction of the Ed Roberts Center earlier this year, a necessary step before center directors can receive the full funding needed to building the project, which will house a wide range of groups serving the needs of the regional disability community. 

The bill would fund a variety of projects in Lee’s district including $1 million for an transit center at the Emeryville Amtrak Station and $2.5 million in improvements to I-880 in Oakland.›

The hotly contested March 8 mayoral race in Los Angeles has put a spotlight on the contentious issues of urban racial balkanization, white flight, surging Latino voter strength, declining black political power and police abuse. Two of the top challengers in the race, California State Sen. Richard Alarcon and Los Angeles City Councilman Antonio Villaraigosa are politically savvy and nationally known Latino candidates. Villaraigosa was a national co-chair of Sen. John Kerry’s presidential campaign.  

Alarcon and Villariagosa have made no overt appeals to Latino voters. But if either one wins, he would become the first Latino mayor in modern times to run the nation’s second-biggest city. That would be a major boost for Latino political power in Los Angeles and in California, the nation’s most populous state. Latinos now make up nearly half of the city’s 3.8 million residents. In the past decade their vote numbers have nearly tripled. They now account for one in five Los Angeles voters. Many Latinos have prospered in the professions and business and have deepened their influence within the Democratic and Republican parties. Latino political leaders and activists relentlessly demand that political and social issues no longer be framed solely in black and white.  

As Latino voting strength has grown, black voting strength has declined in Los Angeles and in California. The number of blacks in the state legislature has plunged in the past decade. In Los Angeles, Latinos now make up the majority of the population in what were once exclusively or predominantly African-American neighborhoods in South Central Los Angeles. The number of black elected officials in Los Angeles almost certainly will erode further in the next decade.  

These facts have deeply worried some African-American leaders. A win in the mayor’s race would be a chance to stop the political hemorrhaging. Many black leaders have rallied behind the candidacy of Bernard Parks, an African-American. During a contentious term as LAPD chief, Parks and the department garnered national headlines following the 1999 shooting of Margaret Laverne Mitchell, a middle-aged, homeless African-American woman. The killing sparked massive protests and renewed demands for LAPD reform.  

Parks was a popular, reform-minded chief, but he bumped heads with the mostly white police union. The city’s white mayor, James Hahn, unceremoniously dumped him. African-American leaders screamed racism and betrayal. They had overwhelmingly backed Hahn for election largely on the promise that he’d retain Parks as chief if elected. Parks banks heavily on the anger and long memory of black voters to help put him over the top.  

The recent shooting of an African-American teen, allegedly while fleeing from police, again dumped the hot-button issue of police violence back on the city and nation’s political table. The mayor and the other candidates have promised to make LAPD reform a priority issue.  

Mayoral candidates have repeatedly promised reform in the past. Yet, the issue of police violence continues to tatter relations between the LAPD and African-Americans in Los Angeles. Whoever wins the top spot again will be called upon to fulfill that promise. Elected officials in other cities will be watching closely to see if that happens.  

White flight has also inflamed passions during the campaign. Another top candidate, former California Assembly speaker Robert Hertzberg, has demanded the breakup of the Los Angeles school district, which is predominantly black and Latino. This is a not-so veiled effort to pander to suburban whites. In the 1970s and 1980s, white parents waged bitter court fights, lobbied the state legislature, and sponsored ballot initiatives to split the district. That would have created a two-tiered system in which white students attended better-funded, high-achieving suburban schools, and blacks and Latinos remained trapped in poorer, grossly underserved inner city schools.  

California’s Republican governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has endorsed Hertzberg, another signal to conservatives to line up behind Hertzberg.  

Villaraigosa has barnstormed through the city promising to forge a multi-ethnic coalition. If he can pull it off, that could serve as a model for racial peace and progress in Los Angeles and beyond. Four years ago, though, Villaraigosa’s multi-ethnic pitch fell on deaf ears in black communities. He got less than one-fifth of the black vote. Blacks went overwhelmingly for Hahn. While Hahn won’t get much of the black vote this time around, the real test for multi-ethnic politics is whether enough blacks, Latinos and whites can resist the tacit and overt racial appeals and vote for the candidate that has the best program to combat the city’s towering urban and racial ills.  

Mayor Hahn and his challengers have publicly promised to unify the city’s widely diverse ethnic groups, a promise made and broken time and time again. This election is yet another chance for the candidates to keep that promise. The nation is watching.  

Hutchinson is author of the forthcoming Beyond Michael Jackson: The Clash of Celebrity, Sex and Race (AuthorHouse Press, April 2005). ›

It’s a hundred-million-dollar-a-year business, a business that provides outstanding benefits for its 147 employees, that engages in many practices to protect the environment, supports community building around laudable causes, avidly promotes participation in sports—and produces something indescribably delicious and outrageously healthy. 

Clif Bar Inc., headquartered in Berkeley, was founded in 1992 by Gary Erickson who was motivated, the company literature says, by “his love of the outdoors, cycling, business, good food and social responsibility.” It’s all there, in spades. 

Starting with the Clif Bar, named after Gary’s father Clifford Erickson, the company now makes six different products; the original Clif Bar in 14 flavors, Clif ZBaR for kids in three flavors, Luna for women in 12 flavors, Clif Builder’s heavy on the protein in three flavors, MOJO Bar with a salty-sweet taste in four flavors, Clif Shot, an energy gel for really athletic types in five flavors. And they’re coming up with new ones all the time. 

They all use organic, natural ingredients, no partially hydrogenated oil, no trans fats or genetically modified products. Just reading the nutrition information and the names of the bars will make you feel virtuous and your mouth water—Luna “Nutz Over Chocolate” or “Orange Bliss, Clif “Cranberry Apple Cherry” or “Chocolate Almond Fudge,” while three of the Clif Shots contain caffeine for an extra burst of energy. All are loaded with vitamins and minerals galore. 

These are the basics but there’s a great deal more to be said about Clif Bar, Inc. It’s a fantastic place to work. Thao Pham, Human Resources Director, has been working for the company for four years she says but, “It doesn’t feel like four years. It’s like that first day of work, the excitement of going through the door, still enjoying people, still enjoying your work.” 

There are all sorts of perks she explains, for the employees “to help relieve stress in their lives.” There’s a fully equipped exercise room to match the poshest gyms, offering classes and a personal trainer available for the asking. There’s a hair dresser/barbershop on the premises, someone who takes employees’ cars to be serviced, clothes to be dry cleaned, who picks up take out dinners for people to bring home; taking care of things, Thao explains, “that employees have to do that would take them away from their families.” Employees are eligible for a six month sabbatical every seven years. 

The workplace itself is energizing. Large bright, airy rooms with lots of plants, decorations on the walls and one entire wall made to simulate a climbing wall. The individual work spaces are arranged randomly with no confining screens around them—there are no cubicles here. And just as the employees don’t sit in little boxes, they are encouraged to think outside the box.  

Dean Mayer, communications manager, ticks off the principles that motivate the operation of the company: “Sustaining our business, our brands, our people, our community and the planet.” All are equally important.  

“Giving back” to the community encompasses some a truly impressive programs. Through its “2080 program” the company donates 2,080 hours a year, that’s the equivalent of one full time employee, to community service. The way it works is that the employees are encouraged to perform volunteer work for a non profit community organization of their choice—on company time. Almost all the employees participate, Thao says, averaging about 20 hours each. 

The company also supports many fund raising events, in partnership with community organizations, or as Clif Bar, Inc—there is a small theater space right in their building. Bryan Cole, Northern California Field Manager describes some of them. 

“We get a ton of sponsorship proposals” he says. “We look for something that’s going to give back to the local community.” 

They like environmental projects with groups like Save-The-Bay or local creek clean-ups and, not surprisingly, they love to have a tie-in with sports, like a 10-K or bike run for a cause. The sports they support, are individual, human powered sports, “unlike other kinds of nutrition bar companies,” Bryan points out. “You won’t see us partnering with NASCAR.” And of course those are all great places to give away their bars and gain Clif Bar devotees—what better way to promote their product.” 

Luna Bar, which is formulated specifically for women, provides a beautiful example of creative marketing and powerful community building. Heidi Slavsky is the guiding spirit of that one. 

She says, “A lot of the work we wanted to do with Luna is to take the product beyond the wrapper, make the product come to life for people to show how we can be involved in communities, how we support and empower women, bringing different parts of their lifestyle to life through the different programs that we oversee and develop.” 

Five years ago they started Lunafest, a film festival by, for and about women. The purpose was to give more of a voice to women in the film industry and to raise money for The Breast Cancer Fund. The first year they produced eight Lunafests around the Bay Area. This year they expect to do 70 all over the country. The festivals have raised thousands of dollars for the fund and won a loyal following for Luna Bars. 

Other Luna Bar promotions include support of V-Day, a global movement started by Eve Ensler of “Vagina Monologues” to end violence against women and girls. Luna co-sponsors fund raisers for V-Day with college and community organizations and has even put on a couple of events in their own theater space.  

Promoting women’s sports is another big item on their agenda. The Luna Chix go out into communities and get women involved in sports, organizing teams for competition or just for fun and socializing. Luna Bar will support a team by providing equipment, uniforms and even a tent they can put up at events. New sports and new cities are being added all the time. 

These are just a sample of Clif Bar, Inc. projects that support their principle of sustaining the community. To carry out their broader vision of sustaining the planet they do everything possible both in operating the business and the events they sponsor to limit their impact on the earth—composting, recycling, using biodegradable products wherever they can, using bikes and generally reducing CO2 emissions in every way possible. Educating and increasing public awareness gets worked in too. 

Marketing Manager Bryan Cole describes a recent ‘biodiesel mobile marketing tour’ on the east coast “driving this biodiesel rig which is all branded with Clif Bar logos and stickers and also educational materials about biodiesel.” 

They even have an ecologist on the staff. 

Clif Bar, Inc. is a fine example of a company that combines successful business with ethical principles. The workers there credit founder and owner Gary Erickson for the inspiration and the vision that sustains their programs—and the fact that not being a publicly traded company they don’t have to answer to a mass of shareholders interested in the bottom line. Let’s hope it stays that way. It is a Berkeley treasure. 

PUBLIC LIBRARY 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

If Laura Anderson really wants the community to help the Berkeley Public Library find solutions to preserve intellectual freedom at BPL she would find a bigger space for the next BOLT meeting on March 9 and she would make sure that the Daily Planet printed correct information in its announcement for this meeting. 

Pop Vox 

• 

total security 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Thank you for your editorial on the analogy between squirrels/bird-feeders and the homeland security problem (“The Total Security Myth,” March 1-3). I feel a lot safer now. I hope in the future Becky O’Malley will have time to delve into raccoon mating habits and their relationship to nuclear proliferation. 

Wade Ramey 

• 

TUBMAN TERRACE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

On the Planet’s March 1 front page, once again Berry Gardner, the president of the Tenants Council at Harriet Tubman is heroized. No mention is made of the Black History Month dinner not being served until 7:30 p.m.—and cold, at that. Well, not such a big deal? We were lectured—forced to sit on hard chairs for over two—while Mr. Berry was getting all the credit for putting on this event with donated money and a definite lack of consideration for people’s comfort. The event was not well attended. 

My purpose here is not necessarily to criticize Mr. Berry—just the glorification of “our president.” Margo Norman, a poet and tenant and activitist—member of the Council on the Aging for the City of Berkeley—was not in attendance. On New Year’s Eve she also cooked a huge dinner for a party which could not be held in the multi-purpose room presently reserved for only the Tenants Council—when, really, it is a room for all of the tenants. Mr. Berry has not dealt with our management over the decision to withhold this meeting place until after the renovations of the new owners; and, who knows when that may be. Why can’t it be used if no one is using it? 

There are so many problems that need correction at Harriet Tubman Terrace. Use of the multi-purpose room seems insignificant—but, just as with our mighty and unchecked President Bush—abuses of power and praise should not go unchecked.  

Iris Crider  

• 

OH, ‘DEM DEMS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Regarding Bob Burnett’s Feb. 25 article “Howard Dean Hits the Ground Running”:  

Insider reports of the Dem machinery at work are of some interest, but the question is are they of use—do they shed light on the party’s dilemmas? I would like insider reports that explain something, like the Dems’ failure to challenge elections scams, let alone the war in Iraq or the Patriot Act. It’s nice to hear thinking about “messaging” from the “ground up,” presumably the same terrain as in “Howard Dean hits the ground running.”  

What does that say about policy issues? Did the candid discussions deal, for instance, with Dean’s thinking about the implications of being killed off by the media, after his anti-war campaign proved surprisingly popular? If Dems are to be anti-war—and most of the convention delegates in 2004 were, and were silenced by party bosses—how will Dean address that issue? 

I see our job as “outsider” supporters to lobby the insiders to face these huge challenges. We just had a success in persuading Barbara Boxer to sign on to the Black Caucus 2004 election challenge, and prevent the debacle of 2000 when—as seen in Fahrenheit 9/11—Al Gore surrealistically gaveled down the challenge to his own questionable loss of the presidency.  

There is a history in the Democratic Party of a substantial minority opposed to empire, war, and neo-colonialism—just like the 2004 delegates. This history is disposed of in the same manner as was Howard Dean’s anti-war popularity—it is killed off by the Establishment, which should be understood to include the majority of insider Dems. (A piece of that history has to do with the role of the New York Times as establishment Dems, whose mild insider critiques are positioned to head off the nitty-gritty ones of the populist, anti-imperialist wing. That is why you never see an op-ed piece by Noam Chomsky, the most widely read political writer in the world.) 

I see our outsider position as saying the “Emperor Has No Clothes.” Sure enough, we know that the insiders and office-seekers will have to compromise, but let’s make them do so after hearing the rank-and-file message loud and clear. So, what has Howard been saying lately about the military budget and the war in Iraq? 

Neal Blumenfeld 

• 

TEACHERS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

There is no more important group of people to the residents and families of Berkeley than our public school teachers. They take our children for half their weekday waking hours and teach, guide, nurture, advise and inspire them, prepare them for life’s challenges and mold their outlooks on the world. 

I have been a parent of children in the Berkeley public schools for seven years (and will be so for ten more). My children’s teachers have been, almost without exception, hard-working and dedicated, willing to go beyond the call (and hours) of duty to take care of special needs, introduce special projects, innovate and stimulate the students. The recent “work-to-rule” action reminds us just how hard and long these teachers work, in ways that we have come to take for granted. 

It is critical, especially given the projected 4.2 percent increase in unrestricted funs coming into BUSD, that we give our teachers their fair share, for several reasons: 

1. Fairness: They deserve, at minimum, the cost-of-living increase they are asking for, after going more than two years without. 

2. Quality: We cannot maintain or improve the overall quality of our teachers without meeting basic economic necessities for them, or have salaries slip in comparison with nearby school districts. This is basic supply-and-demand economics. And if the quality of our teachers decline, we will inevitably lose more children to the private schools, further draining the schools of outside resources and active families. 

3. Morale: Even the most dedicated teachers-- as anyone in any job-- will stop going the extra mile when they feel their employer, and, by extension, the entire community, is disrespecting their efforts. By neglecting even basic cost-of-living increases, we are saying to them, you are just not quite important enough for our community for us to go the extra mile for you. For the impact on all students and our community, we cannot afford for that to happen.  

As for the class size issue: Class size reduction has been the single biggest improvement in California in the last generation. Let us put into practice and maintain the commitment we as voters made with Measure B, as the teachers have reminded us. 

We need to support the teachers within Berkeley, while expanding our efforts statewide and with the governor to obtain more money for education for all California teachers and schools. Let us all go the extra mile—for our teachers, for our children. 

Rick Goldsmith 

• 

DIABLO VALLEY COLLEGE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Many of you may be familiar with Diablo Valley College, a community college out in Pleasant Hill, which for many years had the reputation of being among the very top community colleges in the state. It gained this reputation because it was largely a faculty-driven college, run on the assumption that the people in contact with the students everyday should have a great deal of input on how the college and curriculum operate. This faculty empowerment led to a high degree of faculty involvement and dedication, which in turn led to a high degree of student success. Diablo Valley College has for a long time been one of the top colleges for transferring students to UC Berkeley. I bring this to your attention because I predict that things will change. 

The administration at the Contra Costa Community College District has begun a campaign to break down the faculty. It started two years ago when the elected faculty division chairs were fired and replaced with high paid deans that were unfamiliar with the college, but only had to answer to the president. Thus enabling the highly paid administrators who have little contact with the students a great deal of power in running the college. The faculty have been in contract negotiations with the district since last July, and the only offer the district has made entails: a 7 percent permanent salary reduction retroactive to July 2004, a considerable increase in faculty pay towards healthcare, an increase in class sizes, and the administration would like to control when and where faculty prepare for and grade coursework. To top that off, last September, during contract negotiations, the board of directors “fired” the chancellor, and his severance package included $250,000 and life-time health benefits. For some reason California law doesn’t require community colleges to reach binding arbitration, and the district has been offering the same “last best and final offer” since September, which they will soon have the right to impose upon faculty. 

I bring this to the attention of the people of Berkeley because there are a large number of students that attend DVC from Berkeley, and a large number that transfer to UC Berkeley. I predict that if the administration at DVC get their way, the faculty which has in the past given 110 percent because they loved their jobs, will do only what is required of them. They will teach, hold office hours and leave. The quality of the education DVC offers will decrease, and the quality of students transferring to UC will decrease. For the administration it looks good on paper to have low paid faculty, few full-time faculty, and large classes. In their equation revenue is up, expenses are down. Strange how this equation doesn’t include the quality of education. 

If you have five minutes and care about the community college system, go to the Contra Costa Community College website at www.4cd.net, click on governing board, and let them know how you feel. 

Karl McDade 

South Berkeley resident 

Professor, Diablo Valley College 

• 

HOWARD DEAN 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

While not as optimistic as Bob Burnett’s fine recent article: Perhaps you already saw the op-ed piece in the Feb. 5 New York Times by David Brooks about Howard Dean leading the Democratic Party. 

Brooks feels that Dean and others already in party leadership positions are far enough to the left that the Democrats will be able to attract only quite liberal voters. He even mentions our fair city, saying: 

“Thanks to this newly dominant group, the Democrats are sure to carry Berkeley for decades to come.” 

Perhaps the Dems are simply continuing in the proud tradition of Mondale, Dukakis, and Gore. We choose people who we like to do practical things and feel good about it. But we don’t pick people who have much chance of succeeding in their roles in practical terms. 

And the Republicans, for all their sometimes hard-to-fathom views, don’t mind picking people who can actually succeed.  

Is it possible that the Dems have become a sort of Lite version of the Green party? The Greens would call the Dems too centrist to be relevant, but perhaps the Dems too liberal to be more than semi-relevant. Are the Dems as self-marginalizing as the Greens are, only to a lesser degree? 

Or are the Dems in the pay of the administration... to be a semi-useless opposition party to keep all of us lefties occupied while the administration does so many things in the interest of who knows what? A nicely paranoid notion, but what is it that makes the Dems so impractical and ineffective?  

Many of us (present company excepted) seem to be spinning our wheels politically. What can be done to get some actual traction? If the Republicans can do it and we can’t, will liberalism simply become extinct, one of political evolution’s dead ends? 

Nice cartoon you may have seen in The New Yorker, with a very large man in a suit sitting behind a large desk looking down at a very small man standing before the desk.  

The very large man says: “I don’t believe in evolution, but I do believe in Darwinian selection.” 

Or were the Democrats practical enough to win the last election but the result was changed through unfair means? In which case, do we need to change the Democratic Party at all?? 

Brad Belden 

P.S. Thank you for a wonderful, vibrant paper for this interesting, important city. 

• 

PETER HILLIER 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Regarding Jerry Landis’ ugly attack on city traffic chief Peter Hillier in the last Daily Planet: 

Yes, there are some officials in Berkeley who have to be dragged into helping their fellow citizens and some who are prone to snits. They should, as Landis says, leave office since we “pay your salary; you work for us and answer to us.” 

Judging from my experiences during the Adult School fight, these are usually elected officials.  

Peter Hillier, on the other hand, treated us in a thoroughly open and professional manner and worked hard to mitigate the effect of the school on our neighborhood. It may have helped that we respected the heavy demands on his time and acknowledged (eventually) that there are not always perfect solutions to traffic problems and that some problems are well beyond the reach of any traffic strategy. 

I was not at the meeting Landis writes about.  

However, if Hillier did something wrong—and reportedly some think he didn’t do anything terribly wrong—then he should make it right. Ditto anyone else at the meeting who may have been over the top. Maybe a lot of people around here should review their communication skills. 

Perhaps Hillier was just being a human being under pressure. Unfortunately that is not a safe thing to be in a town with so many scolds lurking everywhere (see Bates v. the Daily Californian).  

In any case, nothing deserves the ugly mockery Landis spewed out in his letter.  

Of course, most of us like to rant and rail at officials. They usually deserve it, it’s fun, and it eases the pain of losing. It’s the price the powers that be pay for getting their way. But some rants are better kept private lest we wake up the next morning embarrassed and owing apologies.  

Finally, it’s true that Hillier does not have—nor in a grown-up world should he need to have—the bullshitter smile too many of our city and school district officials and flacks have perfected, that kindly establishment face that says to the lowly citizen heavy with worry, “We’ll just put you in our Process Machine for a year or two and you’ll come out completely numb, neutered and never wanting to bother us again, and you’ll even thank us for it.” 

Maybe a dour puss is a sign of integrity.  

James Day 

• 

GRAMMAR 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Kathleen Berry’s spirited response to Michael Larrick’s complaints about teachers is fascinating. It is not particularly fascinating for its pettiness, which may, perhaps, have been called for. What is fascinating is that she accuses Larrick of being uneducated and inattentive to detail because he uses poor grammar, while her parenthetical boast at the beginning of the letter claims she was “a teacher who, incidentally, had all As and three Bs in four years of high school...” Larrick may have difficulty with subject-verb agreement, yet one would hope that our teachers would understand what the word “all” means, especially those teachers who criticize logical fallacies. 

Besides, whose job was it to teach Larrick grammar? 

Justin Azadivar 

• 

GRADING THE TEACHER 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Kathleen Berry, the “I am a teacher”, who wrote suggesting that Mr. Larrick might benefit from a course in remedial English should consider taking the course with Mr. Larrick. Ms. Berry wrote that she “had all As and three Bs in four years of high school … .” If she had all As, why did she have any Bs? 

Dan Brown 

Emeryville 

• 

PUBLIC APOLOGY 

People of Berkeley: 

This letter is a public apology. On Wednesday, March 2, at approximately 12:50 p.m., I was driving northbound on Sacramento Street between Bancroft Way and University Avenue. I was not paying attention and I almost hit an elderly African-American woman pedestrian who was legally crossing Sacramento from east to west. 

Although I missed hitting her and nobody was injured, I have no excuse for my actions. A white woman in an SUV with a peace sign followed me, issued a middle-fingered gesture in my direction and called me an “a--h---”. In that instant, she was justifiable in doing so. If she hadn’t done it, I might not have thought twice about my regrettable actions.  

After crossing University Avenue, I made a legal U-Turn at the first available opportunity and tried to find the elderly pedestrian whom I had just missed hitting to personally apologize for my careless and thoughtless actions. I couldn’t find her. 

Therefore, I do hope she is reading this. I am profoundly sorry. I myself was run over by an 18-wheel semi truck while riding my bicycle through Oakland four years ago. The driver was at fault. I am lucky to be alive today and I would never dream of (even accidentally) causing anyone the pain I suffered in my own accident. Please accept my sincerest apologies. I will be much more careful and attentive from now on. 

Steve Ongerth 

• 

BUSD BUDGET 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Superintendent Michele Lawrence continues to blame Gov. Schwarzenegger for Berkeley Unified’s alleged inability to keep its teacher salaries competitive, but her stance leaves three crucial questions unanswered:  

1. Why is it that other districts in this area are able to offer their teachers cost of living adjustments even though they face the same statutory burdens as BUSD, and even though Berkeley has a base revenue limit per child higher than the state average? BUSD’s overall expenditure per student is roughly $10,000, while the state average is $7600. In Northern California only the Palo Alto school district has higher overall expenditures per student than Berkeley.  

2. What steps has this district taken in the two years that negotiations have been going on to ensure that when significant new revenue was finally available, as it will be next year, they would be in a position to keep their teachers’ salaries competitive? At the table they have offered no cost of living adjustments, but are demanding significant new employee contributions to health care costs. Superintendent Lawrence must know that her recent comment to the Daily Planet that, “...compensation is similar to other districts” is false under the district’s proposals. Indeed, with other districts in this area getting cost of living adjustments for this year, which the BFT has not asked for, Berkeley Unified teacher compensation levels are reportedly slipping below average already.  

3. What steps did Superintendent Lawrence and the school board take in the last five years to ensure that teacher compensation in Berkeley, which had finally become average for this area after years of rock-bottom conditions, could be maintained at a competitive level? It’s true that this district has made cuts, but much of the savings came on the backs of children and teachers who have had to suffer through the largest class sizes this district has seen in at least a decade. When our last contract was signed we urged this district to commence a careful examination of its finances so that Berkeley teachers could stay at average compensation levels into the future. Should Berkeley students and teachers now have to pay the price for BUSD’s failure to restructure its budget?  

Cathy Campbell  

• 

BUSD SALARIES 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I seem to remember that the superintendent of Berkeley schools got a pay rise this or last year. I believe the same thing happened in Oakland. If so, you may have published the figures at the time. But even if you did, it’s worth printing them again, so amounts can be checked against the teachers’ salaries. How much do these superintendents make? 

Nancy Ward 

• 

UNIVERSITY AVENUE PROJECT 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I have never seen a description of the project underway at the foot of University Avenue, just south of the Seabreeze Cafe adjacent to the bicycle bridge. What is going on there? It is a giant mound of dirt with no indication of intent. Please illuminate me! 

Miko Sloper 

• 

ARNOLD’S TEAM 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Did you know that Terry Tamminen, cabinet secretary of the governor’s office does not even have a B.A. degree? He is a good example of how far one can get with having the right personal contacts. Tamminen was a ship captain and a part-time Shakespeare actor in Australia. He came to the U.S. and cleaned pools in Beverly Hills and Malibu when he met his wife. He thought he is an environmentalist since he had been cleaning pools, so he teamed up with a friend and opened an environmental firm. Later he met Schwarzenegger and convinced him that he is the best candidate to lead the Cal/EPA, thus Schwarzenegger appointed him. After a year-long resistance from scientists who hold PhDs, Schwarzenegger appointed Tamminen to the highest position in his cabinet. 

Would this have been possible if Tamminen were a woman? 

Mary Hayes 

• 

NO TAX FOR WAR 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

In a recent letter (Feb. 1) to Daily Planet, I wrote that I would not file taxes this year to oppose the war and hopefully stop it. I believe that if people collectively refuse sending their tax money to IRS, the Bush’s regime will go bankrupt and will have to stop the war. Bush has recently asked for 82 Billion more for the war. I will not contribute a penny to it. 

There are people in America who do not file taxes to oppose the war. There is a group in Northern California. There will be a rally in Berkeley in April. Interested people can check the following sites: www.nowartax.org/Main%20HTML%20Pages/index.html, www.nwtrcc.org, www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0212-03.htm. 

Helena Bautin 

• 

BUSH’S BUDGET 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

No one was surprised when the first budget of Bush’s second term was immediately attacked. It does not contain the costs of military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. It does contain a deficit. It adds up to astronomical dollars and ordinary citizens are too busy to read the multiplicity of items much less evaluate them.  

We who did not vote for Mr. Bush must, per force, rely on Congressional Democrats, left-leaning think tanks, progressive columnists and non-partisan agencies who agree, at least in general, that the Bush budget favors the military industrial network, treats the rich kindly and big corporations deferentially but is inordinately mean toward many millions in need, towards voiceless children, the chronically poor and infirm.  

Thus, as a born again Christian the president delivers a budgetary theme that updates the moral climax of the Prodigal Son parable in Matthew Chapter 20: many are called to satisfy the greed of the chosen few. And those among us desperately clinging to the lower rungs of society are thus abandoned to continue weeping and gnashing their teeth. 

Marvin Chachere 

San Pablo 



Click here to view the latest work by Planet cartoonist Justin DeFreitas

What should be the role of the police in our community? 

Once a crime has been committed, we rely upon the police to gather the evidence that leads to the arrest of a suspect, and allows the district attorney to prosecute—and the courts to convict—the guilty party. 

But we have also charged the police with another role-crime prevention. In some communities, that means working closely with groups of citizens to monitor problem situations and step in early to prevent them from escalating into crimes. That type of work has sometimes been called “community policing,” although it is one of those easily-confusing terms that means different things to different people. In any event, in Oakland that police-community crime prevention collaboration usually comes in the form of the Neighborhood Crime Prevention Councils (NCPCs), which function as neighborhood crime watch groups. 

In this column, we have spoken in the past about one potential problem with calling this NCPC-police collaboration “community policing.” The people who participate in these crime prevention councils do not represent the entire community, and so sometimes what the NCPC people want the police to do is not necessarily what others in the community want the police to do. This doesn’t mean that the NCPC members are bad people. Most of them, I suspect, are good, concerned, dedicated citizens who take out time out of busy days and nights to try to make the community better for all of us. But we always have to be careful in confusing the interests of the few with the interests of the whole. 

But there is another, more serious potential conflict between the crime prevention role of the police in their NCPC collaboration, and the investigative role of the police once a crime has been committed. What if the person accused of a crime is a member of a crime prevention group with which the police have been working? 

Of course, most of us know that the police often play favorites in law enforcement, giving one person a break, coming down hard on another, taking sides based upon their own prejudices and assumptions. The Oakland Police Department is currently operating under federal court monitoring because of just such problems, and three former Oakland police officers (commonly known by the name of the “Riders,” a gang-like title they gave to themselves) are on trial on charges of breaking the law to harass people who they couldn’t legally put in jail. 

But when making public comments after a crime has been committed, police usually try to make a show of objectivity to make us believe that they are being fair. 

In the case of the recent North Oakland flatlands vigilante shooting, at least one prominent Oakland police official is not even bothering to do that. 

In reading the Berkeley Daily Planet article on the shooting by Matthew Artz and two San Francisco Chronicle articles by Jim Herron Zamora, we can agree upon two sets of facts: First, 49-year-old North Oakland homeowner Patrick McCullough is a member of the North Central Oakland NCPC who has been active in recent years trying to rid his 59th Street neighborhood of drug dealers. Second, on a Friday night in mid-February, McCullough shot 16-year-old Melvin McHenry in the arm while McHenry was with a group of young men on the sidewalk in front of McCullough’s home. McHenry was not seriously injured. 

After that, the stories of the perpetrator and the victim go in opposite directions while describing the same chain of events. 

According to the newspaper accounts, McCullough said that the group of youths taunted him as he was walking out to his car, at least one of them calling him a “snitch” because of his actions in calling the police on local drug dealers. McCullough then said that some of the youths threw some objects at him, and he got in a scuffle with one of them-McHenry. McCullough says that McHenry then went to one of his friends to get a gun at which point, to protect himself, McCullough pulled his own weapon and shot the youth in the arm. 

McHenry, who is a junior at Deer Valley High School in Antioch and lives with his family a few doors away from McCullough, said that it was McCullough who instigated the confrontation, yelling at the youths as he came out of his house. McHenry says that he and his friends called McCullough a “snitch” in retaliation, and that McCullough then came up to him and grabbed him. He said he punched McCullough, and then McCullough pulled the gun and shot him as McHenry was trying to leave. McHenry denies that he was trying to get a gun from one of the other youths. 

Both McCullough and McHenry are African-American. 

Both stories sound plausible and when you read it in the paper—without knowing the individuals involved or all of the circumstances—you can’t really tell which side is correct. Sorting out the truth of it—and presenting the evidence to the district attorney’s office—is the job of the police. To get at that truth, the police need to approach their investigation with an objective eye. 

But it’s hard to find any objectivity in the statements of Lt. Lawrence Green, the North Oakland watch commander and police liaison with the North Central NCPC. 

“The reason that Patrick was assaulted by these suspects is that he stands up to drug dealers in a way that normal citizens do not,” Lt. Green was quoted in one Chronicle article. In the second Chronicle article, Lt. Green says, “In our opinion, [the 16 year old] was the aggressor—he instigated the whole event.” The “our” in this case presumably means both Lt. Green and the officers under his command who are charged with investigating the case. And the Planet article says that Green has gone even further, mobilizing North Central NCPC members through an Internet discussion group to pressure the district attorney’s office not to prosecute McCullough. Green has told the Chronicle that it is the younger McHenry who should be prosecuted. 

Perhaps Lt. Green is right, and the 16-year-old and his friends were the aggressors in the incident. But as a society, that is something we are supposed to decide in an orderly process—in a criminal trial, where each side gets to present its facts, and the police are called upon to testify as to what they have uncovered. When police officials become impatient and decide that they need to interject themselves as public advocates for one side or the other before the trial begins—before anyone has even been charged—then the question necessarily arises: did the police have their minds made up when they got the first call of a shooting on 59th Street and found out it was one of their allies who was charged with a shooting? And if that is so, how can any police investigation in this matter be trusted, or any evidence they present be believed? 

By going from investigator to public advocate, Lt. Green has crossed a line. The rest of society is free to take sides in such disputes. The police department is not.

Last summer my then-14-year-old daughter Liana and her friend Jen walked up to Telegraph Avenue to participate in the all-time favorite teen pastime: hanging out. As defined by Liana, “hanging out can mean anything. Going to a friend’s house and sitting around, watching TV or playing video games, going in the backyard or just talking about stuff. Basically, hanging out is this: 

“Going somewhere to do whatever there is to do there, whether it’s nothing or whatever.” 

End quote. 

The girls walk around the avenue doing whatever for awhile then end up at La Val’s to do whatever. Actually, they wanted to shoot pool—an activity that defies time by defining cool—and waited for a table to open up. As they began to play, Liana noticed that the two guys at the adjacent table kept staring at them. Liana glanced their way to see if she knew them. “They were really old, like 28 or 35 and they looked scraggly.” 

“Hi, Princess,” the one with the gold tooth says. 

Liana smiles and quickly looks away. The decrepit old guys keep looking but Liana and Jen ignore them. They eventually hobble out of there only to return a short time later. “They each took one of us and started talking.” Liana grimaces. 

“Hey, how ya doin. Do you smoke? Really? You don’t smoke at all? Not even just a little bit? Do you drink? Not at all? Really? Well, me and my friend want some company to maybe smoke a little, drink a little. You know, have a good time.”  

“Um, yeah. We’re 14.” Liana looks at the guy like he’s some kind of perv.  

“Aw, for real? You’re really 14?” 

The guy talking to Jen echoes, “Fourteen? For real? My man over here wanted to get with your friend. Please don’t tell me she’s 14, too?” The old fogies nudge each other, say “Alright,” then leave. 

How did you feel when they left, I asked.  

“We laughed. It was really stupid, those old guys trying to hit on 14-year-olds...It was weird. Actually, it was kind of gross.” 

And then some.  

A few weeks later Liana was hanging out with another 14-year-old girlfriend, Zee, this time doing whatever on Shattuck Avenue. Two guys they recognized as high school seniors were following them, repeatedly calling out “Excuse me! Excuse me!” After a block and a half of this, the girls finally turn around.  

The boys fall in stride. The taller one starts in on Liana. 

“What’s your name? Where are you from? Let’s exchange numbers so we can talk sometime.” 

“I don’t even know your name.” 

“My name’s (Creepo).” 

“Well, I don’t know. I don’t even know you.” 

“Well, we can be friends.” 

“I’ll be a friend.” 

“Friends with benefits?” 

Liana laughs. “No. I’ll just be your friend.” 

“Well, where are you guys going?” 

“Around to McDonald’s.” (I never feed my kids fast food, honestly! What a sneak!)  

(Creepo) returns to the issue at hand. “So, you wanna be friends with benefits?” 

“I don’t even know you,” Liana responds. “Do you go to Berkeley High?” 

“Yes.” 

“How about if I just see you next year?” 

(Creepo) laughs. “Oh man, c’mon.” He then turns his attention to Zee. 

“How about you? What’s your name? Where are you from?” 

Liana and Zee exchange looks. After a few more minutes, the boys take off. “Alright.” 

Yeah. 

What did he mean by “benefits”? I ask. Liana patiently explains:  

“Benefits means sex. Friends with benefits are friends you have sex with.” 

Oh my god. So, hanging out with friends can include fringe benefits. For whom? I remember navigating these same rocky waters as a teenager in the late ‘60s—early ‘70s. The terminology may be different but as my grandma used to say: “The more things change, the more they remain the same.” Here’s hoping my daughter is wiser than I was. So far, so good.  

›

Imagine you are walking downtown with the two kids in tow. It’s Saturday afternoon. The streets are bustling with people. Suddenly, The Noise, louder than anything you’ve ever heard, blasts your attention. It sounds like the pulsing pressure of a motorcycle, grating like a car alarm, with the intensity of a foghorn blasting right into your ears. What the? It’s so LOUD! Gotta get away. Where is it coming from? People on the street are running every which way, hands glued to their ears, eyes squinting with pain. Not that way. Not there. Try inside the building. Where’s Susie? You look down at her terrified face. Blood is trickling from her ears. Her eyes are about to explode. You can’t bend down to carry her because your hands are locked over your ears. It doesn’t help. The Noise is blaring inside your head. You head into the building. The pulsing. The grating. Machine guns are shooting into your ears. People are falling over each other. You can’t hear their screams. You only feel the pulsing pain. And the warm blood running down your neck. 

A horror something like this happens to the intelligent animals that live in the sea, whales and dolphins, when the U.S. Navy activates its hyper-loud, under-water sound blaster called Surveillance Towed Array Sensor System (SURTASS) Low Frequency Active (LFA) sonar. The Navy’s LFA sonar blasts The Noise so loudly that whale ear drums break, their sinuses explode, blood hemorrhages in their brains and lungs. In March, 2000, immediately after a Navy LFA sonar test in the Bahamas, fourteen whales  

ended up “stranded”; their dead bodies washed up on the sand. Biologists from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute examined them and observed the tissue damage. The Navy’s test blared The Noise at 195 decibels (dB). LFA sonar’s full operating volume of 240 dB is 20,000 times LOUDER. 

Under the sea, sunlight dims quickly. Deeper than 100 ft., little can be seen. Whales and dolphins use sound to find food, to evade danger, to watch over their young, to communicate with their mates, and to keep their group together as they swim on their migrations. Their sense of hearing is highly developed and very sensitive. They can hear much better than humans, and like bats, they use sound echoes to locate prey and each other. While we use sight to orient ourselves, to know where we are and to communicate, whales and dolphins use hearing. Caught within the radius of The Noise, sea mammals get disoriented. They can’t hear, they can’t see, they don’t know where they are, or which way is up. They loose their young. Those not killed from tissue damage starve from deafness. 

As sound travels outward from its source, it attenuates. Yet, even at distances between 100 to 200 miles from the LFA, where the 240 dB Noise diminishes to “only” 160 dB, severe tissue damage still occurs in sea mammals. Deafness, disorientation, and other dysfunctions occur wherever The Noise is louder than 120 dB, more than 1,000 miles from the LFA source. 

Why is the Navy sound-blasting the silent seas? Navy documents claim they need loud, “active” sonar to detect enemy submarines over long distances. But Rear Admiral Malcom Fages has pointed out that passive (silent) listening systems are more effective. Former Director of the U.S. Naval Weapons Lab, Dr. Charles Bernard, says that active sonar identifies the source vessel and highlights our own submarines as well as enemy subs, thereby placing our own personnel in jeopardy. LFA would alert an enemy to our intention to track them. It would give them warning to take evasive action. 

Others have said that the Navy needs active sonar to communicate with our deep-water nuclear subs. Normally, these fully-loaded behemoths deploy large, floating antennas to pick up low-frequency radio waves in order to know whether to launch their nukes and go to war. But when they are in “stealth” mode, deep under water where radio waves don’t penetrate, only sound messages travel through the dark ocean’s depths. So, to control our nuclear arsenal, the Navy must send sound signals to its subs. The LFA hyper-loud speakers are being deployed to reach them wherever they may be, The death and injury of thousands of creatures is considered unfortunate, unavoidable, collateral damage. 

A strange thing happens to sound deep under the sea. Within the first 400 to 500 feet, wave action and warming from the sun keep the water turbulent. Below the turbulent surface area lies a stable layer of deep water called the isothermal sound channel, capable of conveying sound over thousands of miles with little attenuation. Eons ago, whales discovered this and use it for navigation and long distance communication. When the Navy’s LFA sonar is fully deployed, 80 percent of the world’s ocean could be polluted with sound. Sound so loud, according to the Marine Mammal  

Commission’s 1997 report to Congress, that uncountable numbers of living creatures will die. What will happen to the ecology of the ocean? What will happen to our source of seafood? What will happen to us, if we allow such pain and suffering to be unleashed upon other feeling beings? Will we still be able to call ourselves human? Or will we become “golem,” soul-less creatures in human shape? 

“National security”, “homeland security”, “protection from terrorists,” these are the magic mantras that fuel the Navy’s single-minded quest to wire up the seas like a huge loudspeaker. So focused are they on this one technology that their response to thousands of objections to the Navy’s Environmental Impact Statement on deploying SURTASS-LFA has been to seek exemption from the environmental review process. Undeterred that the LFA technology is not as effective, and also more dangerous, than passive sonar, the Navy has not seriously looked at alternative technologies. There are other ways to communicate with our hidden nuclear submarines. Effective methods exist that would not damage and possibly destroy nearly all sound-sensitive sea creatures. 

One such alternative is the use of Local Acoustic Transducers (LATs). These are relatively inexpensive, floating devices that contain radio receivers and low-level acoustic transducers (speakers). When the Navy needs to communicate with a particular sub, a coded message could be sent via satellite to the floating radio buoys. Only the buoys nearest the specific sub would activate its sonar transducers. Being closer to the sub, its sound would not need to be as loud as the LFA sonar. Being specifically activated, the total amount of noise in the sea would be greatly reduced,  

and the sea animals and fish would be spared suffering a horrible death. Inexpensive buoys could be anchored to the sea floor, and be regularly replaced if they were dislodged. Highly sensitive microphones on the subs would enable them to receive communications within a range of several hundred miles from each floating LAT. Enough LATs could be deployed so that each sub would be within range of two or three LATs to assure accurate communication. 

Perhaps even better technologies are possible as well. But none will be explored unless the Navy is stopped from deploying SURTASS-LFA sonar. Funds for this deadly program (over $ 350 million has already been spent) should be reassigned to other methods. Our Senators and Congress representatives need to know that we are concerned and opposed to the Navy’s sonic blasters. Gordon England, Secretary of the Navy, and Donna Weiting, Chief of the National Marine Fisheries Service, as well as President Bush and Defense Secretary Rumsfeld need to know that destruction of the silent sea and most of the ocean’s life is not a viable option for living on Earth. 

Bruce Joffe is the founding principal of GIS Consultants in Oakland, which provides geographic information planning, management, and public policy services to public agencies.  

›

COCHABAMBA, Bolivia—The U.S. government is demanding that the Bolivian Congress approve an agreement that would grant immunity to U.S. troops and officials accused of human rights violations, exempting them from prosecution by the International Criminal Court. That effort, which includes a threat to withhold financial aid and access to free trade, seems to be backfiring.  

Bolivia is one of 139 nations that have signed the Treaty of Rome, which set up the International Criminal Court (ICC) in 1998. A respected Bolivian judge, Renee Blattmann, also sits as a member of the court. The treaty’s goal, according to its Preamble, “is to establish an independent permanent International Criminal Court with jurisdiction over the most serious crimes of concern to the international community as a whole.”  

It was in the ICC that the former Serbian leader, Slobodan Milosevic, was tried for crimes against humanity. The United States, alongside China, Iraq, Libya and others, is one of just seven nations to vote against the treaty. Many believe that the war in Iraq and cases of U.S. torture have made the United States vulnerable to criminal charges of international human rights violations.  

The Bush administration has been pressing its opposition to the ICC. In 2002, the U.S. Congress approved the American Servicemembers Protection Act, which prohibits the United States from providing military aid to any nation that does not agree to grant U.S. soldiers and officials immunity from the ICC.  

Since then, the Bush administration has been pressuring poor countries worldwide to ratify bilateral immunity pacts with the United States, often under the threat of withholding aid. Government officials say that the United States has already secured more than 90 such agreements. At least 50 governments, however, have refused to cede to the U.S. demands. The new president of Uruguay recently announced that his government would refuse the U.S. request, declaring that his country honors its international agreements.  

The primary threat by the United States to countries like Bolivia has been to withhold military assistance, including discount prices on used military hardware such as tanks. Gary Fuller, a spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in La Paz, described the government’s position as, “If countries aren’t willing to protect our soldiers, why should we sell them equipment?”  

But the United States has just upped the ante, by adding the threat of withholding economic aid, a sanction included in an amendment approved by the U.S. Congress late last year. Human Rights Watch reports that U.S. diplomats have informally threatened economic sanctions for some time. The group says that an assistant secretary of state informed foreign ministers of Caribbean states that they would lose the benefits for hurricane relief if their governments did not sign immunity accords.  

“U.S. ambassadors have been acting like schoolyard bullies,” wrote Richard Dicker, director of the International Justice program at Human Rights Watch, in a letter to then-U.S. Secretary of State Collin Powell.  

Some within the Bolivian government have pressed hard for the country to cede to the United States’ request. The Bolivian minister of government, responding to charges that such a resolution was an affront to the nation’s dignity, was quoted as saying, “You can’t eat dignity.” Last year the Bolivian Senate approved an immunity pact, creating a political uproar. The lower house has steadfastly refused.  

U.S. power is a major political flashpoint in Bolivia. The U.S. government is at the heart of the controversial war on drugs here, and U.S.-forced eradication of coca farms is an ongoing target of public protest and accusations of human rights abuses.  

Meanwhile, U.S. threats against Bolivia appear, for now, to be more gums than teeth.  

The economic sanctions just approved by the Congress specifically exempt counties covered by the anti-poverty Millennium Challenge program, which includes Bolivia. Bolivian government sources reported here earlier this month that the United States has privately threatened to keep Bolivia out of talks to form an Andean free trade pact with the United States if immunity is not approved.  

However, free trade pacts with the United States are no more popular among the Bolivian left than is U.S. military aid, and it is the Bolivian left that is the main stumbling block for approval.  

Evo Morales, the leader of the Socialist Party, who came in second by just two percent in the last presidential election and is a front-runner for 2007, has declared the U.S. sanctions “blackmail” and has threatened nationwide protests. President Carlos Mesa has said that the government would only approve an agreement for U.S. immunity if it were supported by the majority of the Bolivian people, something highly unlikely here.  

“Bolivia would be the only country in the world to agree to such a pact that also has a judge on the court,” says Sacha Llorenti, president of Bolivia’s National Human Rights Assembly. “We believe in the fundamental principles of international law. Honestly, we’re not especially worried about what will be the pressure coming from the U.S.”  

Attempted Murder 

Police have few leads in the attempted murder of a Berkeley man who was found unconscious in the parking area of a building in the 2100 block of Dwight Way about 5:30 p.m. Wednesday night, said Berkeley Police spokesperson Officer Joe Okies. 

The victim was rushed to a local hospital, where he remains unable to speak. 

Okies declined to give the name of the injured man. 

Wrench Assault 

A wrench attack on a bicyclist in Peoples’ Park early Monday ended in the arrest of two suspects on charges of robbery and assault with a deadly weapon. 

Iris Chantel Hodges, 19, and Hank Travis B. Williams, 29, were booked in city jail after Berkeley Police responded to a call for help.  

Home Invasion 

Two young gunmen men appeared at the home of a 59-year-old Berkeley woman about 9 p.m. Wednesday night and forced their way into the home near the corner of Dohr and Oregon streets, said Officer Okies. 

They left with her purse and contents. 

Stabbing Suspect Arrested 

Police arrested a 49-year-old man on a charge of assault with a deadly weapon after a 31-year-old man was attacked in the 2100 block of Oxford Street just after 5 p.m. Tuesday. 

Officer Okies said the victim received a non-life-threatening laceration to his neck.›

As the City of Berkeley and the University of California tackle the problems of the LRDP 2020, it seems they are both avoiding the real issue of cooperation to solve the problems it creates. It is useful to see how other large public universities manage their relationships with their host cities, and the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor provides a good example. 

In a search to determine how other great public universities treat the communities they preside in, U of M in Ann Arbor has the right approach. U of M is considered one of the top universities in the world. The physical layout is strikingly similar to UCB and Berkeley. The U of M is located in the city of Ann Arbor just as UCB is in Berkeley. 

Now comes the striking differences on how the two universities treat their host cities. According to an article from the Ann Arbor Regional Business to Business September 2004, Volume 24, No. 9, the U of M is a partner in the community. 

In 2002, the U of M paid $14,262,245 to the city of Ann Arbor and city affiliates. Yes—this is a public university just like UCB. 

“The U of M property rentals and leases contributed to the city and affiliates through direct payments and property taxes”. Examples are $149,000 to the public school system for use of the district’s parking lots for athletic events. U of M paid Ann Arbor nearly $3,500,000 in property taxes, imputed in rental fees. This amounts to about 5 percent of the city’s total tax revenue. 

Ann Arbor received more than $6,000,000 for water and sewer services. $600,000 was donated to analyze the city’s sanitary system to assess its adequacy against current and projected needs, and U of M does much more.  

The Ann Arbor Police Department has received more than $102,000 for supplemental police services. The university’s own 56 police officers in turn provide assistance to the city police force. 

The U of M also is a partner in many capitol improvement projects in the city. “They have helped construct and fund projects such as the 1996 Main Street and Stadium Boulevard street widening project, Fuller Road/Oakway storm sewer project, and the South State Street AATA commuter parking lot.” U of M donated the land for the last project. For the Forest Ave. parking structure, the university contributed $5,751,000. “The U of M pays an average of $250,000 per year for its share of the annual city street repaving program. The city and U of M teamed up to research ways to improve lighting and opportunities for restoring two-way traffic on one-way streets. The university paid $30,000 of the $130,000 projected cost. 

The Ann Arbor Fire Department is called upon in the event of a campus fire, just like UCB does. The difference is the level of support both planning and financial. The U of M is also an environmental leader in its community. It constantly monitors overall environmental performance to the benefit of the outlying community. 

All of the above and more can be found on the U of M web-site under community relations. In light of the lawsuit filed by the city against the university the above facts should be the goal of Berkeley. This is true university-city cooperation which benefits all. 

Ann and Dean Metzger 

ô

Berkeley is becoming the poster child for the Brave New World of radio frequency identification (RFID) tracking tags in library materials, and helping to legitimize a potential billion-dollar RFID industry—unless citizens take action to stop it. A piece in the jigsaw puzzle of the surveillance society is now being installed at public expense at the Berkeley Public Library—with little public discussion beforehand and a library administration selling it with information that is incomplete, misleading, and at times simply wrong. 

In late December 2004, Library Users Association and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) jointly requested documents from the library about the costs and benefits of RFID. In particular, we wanted to examine the library’s repeated claims that repetitive stress injuries (RSI) have cost the library significant amounts of money and that RFID would cut those costs. While the library responded to our request with less information than we expected, the documents that we did receive tell a markedly different story than that presented by the library administration. 

What the library trustees were told: In December 2003, Board of Library Trustees (BOLT) President Laura Anderson asked if the RFID system “would result in savings.” Library director Jackie Griffin responded that “the library spent about $1 million in direct costs for workers’ compensation claims for the past five years, mostly due to repetitive motion injuries. This technology should result in a significant decrease in injuries and associated costs.” (BOLT Minutes, Dec. 10, 2003) 

What the documents show:  

The documents provided by the library do not support the library director’s response. 

1. For the five years ending June 30, 2003, the library spent $642,161 on all workers’ compensation claims. All RSI-related claims totaled $167,871, just 26 percent of the five-year total. 

2. In the five-year period 1995-2000, the library spent $1,079,807 on all workers’ compensation claims—but just $4,009 on RSI claims, or less than 1 percent of the total. 

3. In the seven-year period 1998-2004, RSI claims accounted for 19 percent of the library’s workers’ compensation costs ($167,871 out of $894,067).  

4. Since 2001, the library’s total worker’s compensation claims and its RSI claims have declined steadily. Indeed, for fiscal year 2004 the library spent only $10,548 on workers’ compensation claims and zero on RSI claims. 

Simply put, the documents we received from the library contradict the library’s claims that RSI is a major financial burden. 

Nor do the documents support the library’s claim that the new RFID system will significantly decrease RSI injuries. The logic here is that using RFID will eliminate repetitive motions associated with using bar code scanners to check books in and out. But we see no evidence that the library’s RSI injuries were caused by bar code scanners, which have been used for years. There were no RSI claims in 1998, 2000, and 2004, and only one RSI claim worth $1,008 in 1999.  

Even if all of the library’s RSI problems were caused by bar code scanners, the savings afforded by an RFID system costing at least $643,000 (for which the library took out a $500,000 loan costing $52,360 in interest over five years) are minimal at best. Moreover, the library has never explained why other, cheaper mitigating measures, such as rotating employees more often between tasks, are inadequate. 

Reassurances from the library administration and BOLT President Laura Anderson (Daily Planet, Feb. 25) that RFID poses no privacy threat are as unsupported as library claims about RSI. Unlike bar codes, RFID tags can be read secretly through clothing, book bags or briefcases by anyone with the appropriate reader device. There are various ways to associate a book title and bar code, both with AND WITHOUT access to the library’s database. Furthermore, tracking where you go with a tagged item requires only the ability to read its tag. Therefore, retailers, individuals, and government agencies armed with RFID portable or doorway scanners will have the potential to figure out what you are reading, where you go with the material, and when.  

To some, this may sound like science fiction, and we hope it stays that way. But every month we read about some new high-tech method for invading privacy, while our current reliance on massive computerized databases of personal information has brought us an epidemic of identity theft and data “spills.” The lesson? The surveillance society will not be built in a day by evil people. It will be built because we accept privacy-invading technologies for supposed short-term convenience, ignoring the long-term social costs. 

Have no doubt about it: the soul of the public library as an open forum for ideas and information, free from the threat of spying and potential chilling effects, is under attack from the RFID implementation happening now at the library. Berkeley should not spend its library dollars on a technology that Big Brother would love. This implementation should end, now. 

Peter Warfield is executive director and co-founder of Library Users Association. Lee Tien is a senior staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation and a long-time Berkeley resident. 

The challenge that confronts the working class in America is mounting. Unprecedented levels of military spending and tax cuts for the wealthy have left federal, state and local governments scrambling to address growing budget deficits. The result has been widespread layoffs of public sector employees and the privatization of well paying public sector jobs with union representation. With an emphasis on profits and market share, private sector employers must cut costs to remain competitive, and these costs include workers’ wages, retirement, and health care. Attempts by workers in the private sector to organize are often met with strong resistance by employers who seek to stave off workers’ demands. This shift from public to private and the accompanying “de-unionization” of the workforce has been disastrous for working people: real income continues to decline for workers while the richest one percent in the U.S. now own as much wealth than the bottom 90 percent combined; over 40 million Americans lack basic health care and those with coverage face soaring costs; and retirement security is being threatened for working people across the country.  

The economic inequality, rising health care costs, and attack on retirement security that now confront the U.S. working class did not come to pass in a vacuum. These problems are the result of policies that were planned and implemented by elected government officials, most notably George W. Bush, often in plain view of the very people who are most harmed by them. So, how is it, one might ask, that the person who is responsible for many of the problems faced by the U.S. workforce was just re-elected for another four years? There are many reasons for this discrepancy; let’s examine two of them. First, many Americans remain apathetic with respect to U.S. electoral politics (e.g.; 40 percent of eligible voters did not participate in the 2004 presidential election). The reasons for such apathy are complex. Nevertheless, opinion polls are a good place to begin. Polls taken on the eve of the 2000 elections, for example, reveal that about 75 percent of the electorate regarded the 2000 elections as a game played by rich contributors, party managers, and the PR industry, which they believe trains candidates to project images and produce meaningless phrases that might win some votes. In other words, its likely that large numbers of Americans stayed home on election night because they believe that candidates do and say what they need to in order to get elected but that, in the end, they answer mainly to the “rich contributors” who bankroll their campaigns. 

Secondly, those who do vote are subjected to such a torrent of misinformation and deceit that it is very difficult to accurately extrapolate anything about a person based on the way he or she votes in a U.S. presidential election. As voters correctly assume, electoral campaigns are essentially run by the PR industry, the guiding principle of which is deceit. The goal of the PR industry is not to provide information but to delude voters into supporting a specific candidate. This deceit was rampant in the months leading up to the 2004 elections, with the Bush camp demonstrating an unrivaled mastery in the art of deception. Take Bush’s “tax relief” plan, for example. The relief that was to flow from Bush’s proposed tax cuts would be experienced mainly by middle and low income earners, we were told, and it was on these grounds that workers supported the cuts. Well, here’s how Bush’s tax cuts will actually play out: those with annual earnings of $1 million will receive a tax cut of approximately $135,000 a year, while those with annual incomes less than $76,000 will get about $350 on average. That is, while millionaires will be given a raise that amounts to nearly 13.5 percent of their income, the great majority of Americans will see their incomes increase by about 1 percent. Given the deception that surrounded the selling of Bush’s “tax relief plan” to middle and low-income earners, it is not difficult to understand why this group supported a plan that, in the end, will do very little for them, but will shower huge sums of money upon the richest one percent of the population.  

The deceit that plagued the 2004 presidential campaigns makes it next to impossible to infer anything about a person based on how he/she voted in the election. Opinion polls, on the other hand, can tell us a great deal and despite all the post-election lamentations about a “divided nation”, recent polls suggest that a majority of Americans have a great deal in common. For example, polls reveal that the vast majority of Americans are deeply concerned about issues such as economic justice, health care, and retirement security. In some polls, voters cited “greed and materialism” as the most urgent moral crisis facing this country, while “poverty and economic justice” were a close second (Pax Christi). With respect to domestic programs, mainstream polls reveal that up to 80 percent of Americans favor guaranteed health care even if it would raise taxes (in reality, a national health care system would probably reduce expenses because much of the heavy administrative costs associated with for-profit health care would be avoided). Large majorities of those polled also favor the expansion of social security and other domestic programs such as public education (Chicago Council on Foreign Relations). Although opinion poll results should be interpreted with caution, they suggest that there is the potential to organize vast numbers of Americans around the issues of economic justice, universal health care and retirement security.  

Labor unions are in a strong position to reach out to the millions of Americans who believe they are unable to affect real change in their lives, or who believe that “leaders” such as George W. Bush are truly fighting on their behalf. Unions, which have been at the forefront of campaigns for economic justice, affordable health care, and retirement security, have the potential to rally workers around these three issues which, according to polls, resonate with working people from across the political landscape. Organized labor can offer a message of hope to those who have given up on political action as a means to realize their dreams for a better life, and can counter deceitful campaigns by exposing the lies that are heaped upon voters, while attending to the bread and butter issues that matter most to working people. The impact that millions of working people could have on the U.S. political system if they were to speak with one voice would be profound. Such an impact could yield free quality health care for all, a secure retirement in which retirees worry about where to vacation instead of how they will make ends meet, and a living wage so that all working people can enjoy a quality of life that is currently enjoyed by only a minority of the workforce. Such gains, however, will not come easy. It will take a lasting and well coordinated effort within organized labor to confront the cynicism and misinformation that afflicts many working Americans, and to therefore bridge the gap that divides working people and leaves them unable to affect real change in their lives. 

Michael Marchant 

Don’t let the title fool you. The San Francisco Chamber Ensemble’s American Classics program this weekend pays due homage to both Europe and America, the past and the future, crabbed age and youth. 

From Europe’s past, from its youth, there are two now hoary Bach concertos. From America, there are New World compositions from Aaron Copland (20th Century) and Paul Dresher (21st Century). An especially youthful note will be sounded by debut artist Juliann Ma, a 15-year-old tenth grader at Albany High School and already a highly acclaimed performer. 

If you were lucky enough to catch the San Francisco Chamber Ensemble’s New Year’s Eve Concert, you know how much fun this group and its music director, Benjamin Simon, can be. That evening, as well as performing the world premiere of Harold Meltzer’s quirky “Concerto for Two Bassoons,” a couple of Boccherini’s fluffy confections and an exquisite rendering of Mozart’s “Sinfonia Concertante,” there was also a fund-raising auction for the Ensemble that lead to Mr. Simon’s surrendering his baton to an adorable little girl who hammed her way through all the choruses of Burns’ “Auld Lang Syne” with the audience singing along. 

It put me in mind that Mozart and Burns were contemporaries and fellow Masons. It was a perfect transition, both musically and emotionally, into the new year, effervescent, wacky, yet still haimish. 

This weekend’s program promises just as much mixing of music and moods. The Bach pieces, the “Third Brandenburg Concerto” and the “D minor Piano Concerto,” are acknowledged masterpieces. Like so much of Bach’s greatest work, they seem to peel the skin off the universe to reveal “all that mighty heart” pulsing underneath. One of the oddities of the “Third Brandenburg Concerto” is its inexplicable two-chord second movement. It feels at once truncated and modern. In the ensemble’s version, the violinist will play a brief improvised cadenza leading into the final movement. 

Juliann Ma will be featured on the “D Minor Piano Concerto,” a piece Bach wrote to display his own harpsichord virtuosity in performances with his orchestra at Zimmerman’s Coffee House in Leipzig. This is a muscular music that is still tender, celestial and inevitable. 

Our scene shifts from the German baroque to the American modern with Aaron Copland’s “Appalachian Spring,” here performed in its original version as a suite for thirteen instruments. Copland (1900-1990) started out as a neo-classical follower of Nadia Boulanger, but in the Thirties his music took a populist path when he wrote the ballet scores, “Billy the Kid” (1938) and “Rodeo” (1942), both set in the American Old West. 

Then in 1943, dancer Martha Graham commissioned “Appalachian Spring.” The title comes from a Hart Crane poem, but the ballet was about a Shaker couple building a new farmhouse in Pennsylvania. The old Shaker hymn, “Tis the Gift to Be Simple” is featured prominently in the suite. As a lagniappe, the Ensemble’s version will also include additional ballet music that was left out of the suite. 

The Ensemble’s world premiere of Paul Dresher’s “Still, Rise, Fall, Again” takes us from 20th Century modern into 21st Century post-modern. Dresher’s compositions show an awareness of American jazz, folk, rock and popular music; indigenous non-European music; and classical and avant-garde European music. 

In other words, everything. The writing of this new piece also took into account the fact that it would share the program with Copland’s original chamber version of “Appalachian Spring.” Beyond that, expect to be surprised. The same might be said of the whole tripartite program, a big, delicious slice of musical Neapolitan ice cream.  

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When Nancy Schimmel is invited to perform for a fourth grade California History unit, she tells stories using her mother Malvina Reynolds’ experiences in the 1906 quake, then sings “Heroes,” a song Nancy wrote about acts of courage in crisis by ordinary people. 

For the fifth grade U. S. History unit, she tells stories about her own participation in the 1963 “I have a dream” March on Washington and in the later San Francisco Palace Hotel sit-ins for black workers’ rights, then sings “A Child Like Me,” her song about child activists. 

“I’m thinking about a song for the Rosie the Riveter Park in Richmond, inspired by my mother’s working in a World War II bomb-casing factory while my father built scaffolding at the Mare Island shipyards,” she said. 

Nancy’s mother Malvina wrote her first songs in 1948 when she and Nancy’s father, carpenter, raconteur, and union organizer Bud Reynolds were working on the Henry Wallace campaign. Nancy was about 13, and the meld of music and activism was in the very air she breathed in their homes in northern and southern California. She had some piano and dance lessons, but she wasn’t looking toward a career in music. 

She entered UC in 1952, first with an interest in zoology, but took her degree in psychology. “Why? I don’t know, because people were always telling me their troubles? By the time I graduated, I knew I didn’t want to be a therapist.” 

The man she married in the late ‘50s was a social worker. “I tried that for about a year,” she said, “but it wasn’t for me.”  

She and her husband lived in San Francisco, where Nancy was active in neighborhood community organizations and in wider ones, like Women for Peace. She also sang and did storytelling in the Potrero Hill Library. Inspired by the community-oriented librarian at Potrero Hill, she went to library school, and became a children’s librarian in 1965. For the next 10 years she answered reference questions, helped kids find books, and did the storytelling hour in libraries all over the Bay Area. 

“First in the city, then in Marin County, then San Mateo County, all the way from Belmont to Pescadero,” Nancy said, as she laughed. “You know how books in certain fields, like astrology, tend to get stolen from libraries—in Pescadero it was the books on goat husbandry.” 

She also became active in the American Library Association. 

The mid-’70s brought big changes: she ended her marriage, came out as a lesbian, and quit her library job. That was when Guy Carawan (of the famous civil rights center, the Highlander School in Tennessee) persuaded her to attend the 1975 Storytelling Festival in Jonesborough, Tenn. 

“The scales dropped from my eyes!” Nancy said. “I took my retirement money out of the state fund, bought a van and hit the road. Through my ALA contacts, I knew librarians all over the country who invited me to tell stories or do a workshop.” 

For seven months Nancy and her then-partner Carole drove 22,000 miles, giving over 60 performances and workshops, attending 20 Women Library Workers meetings, hitting two conferences along the way. 

“It was great, but I never spent that much time on the road again,” she said. “I was a basketcase by the time we got home!” 

Since 1976 Nancy has been based in Berkeley and for nearly that long has been with Berkeley librarian Claudia Morrow. 

“Claudia used to be a lawyer,” Nancy said. “She’s a great organizer, of her union and of the Storytelling Festival in Kennedy Grove The Jonesborough Festival just got too big, gigantic, mobs of people. The festival we started here in the early eighties attracts story-tellers from all over the U.S., but it’s still manageable.” This year’s festival, east of El Sobrante, at the foot of San Pablo Dam, is May 21 and 22, information at www.bayareastorytelling.org. 

Nancy reached another goal in 1993, reconnecting with her daughter, born when Nancy was in college and given up for adoption. 

“She’s a fiction writer and a software designer,” Nancy said. “She designed my website and came to one of our storytelling festivals. We’ve led some workshops together for adoptees and their parents, both adoptive and biological.” 

As Nancy goes on listing her current projects, I imagine a creative juggler keeping many balls in the air while relishing every tricky moment. In addition to writing songs and giving singing/storytelling performances for local schools and libraries, she still travels to conferences and workshops. I Will Be Your Friend (a song and activity book free to teachers from Tolerance.org) includes her “1492,” a song that reminds children that other peoples were here before Europeans came. She is helping to compile archival songs for a Malvina Reynolds Lyrics website. 

She has been recording songs written by herself, by her mother, and by others since 1982, starting with Plum Pudding, a record of songs and stories for children performed when she was part of the group, Plum City Players. A compilation CD of more recent songs she wrote with Candy Forest, Sun, Sun Shine: Songs for Curious Children, is available, along with information about her other activities at www.sisterschoice.com. 

“I’m still singing with the Freedom Song Network, which started back in 1982 with people getting together to share activist-political-freedom songs,” Nancy said. “We meet to sing old songs and try out new ones. It’s a loose bunch of people who are ‘on call’ to sing at demonstrations, on picket lines like the Claremont Hotel strike. People call us every month or so, and whoever can make it shows up. Of course, for a big peace march or demonstration, no one has to call us; everyone’s there.”  

Another current project is singing with the Threshold Choir, founded by Kate Munger in 2000, and soon inspiring similar groups in Bay Area counties and beyond. The Threshold Choir offers songs, often specially composed, sung a cappella by two to four people at the bedside of comatose and dying patients. 

“You have to choose songs carefully,” Nancy said. “People who are very near death can’t take even quiet polyphonic songs like our Saint Francis Prayer (‘Make me an instrument of your peace—’), set as a round. For them a pure unison line works best.” 

The songs on the CD Listening at the Threshold, recorded live in the tunnel at the Marin Headlands, have spiritual, non-sectarian titles like “By Love Alone” and “It’s All Right,” and are uniformly mellow and calming. For more information on this CD (which includes one of Nancy’s songs) and on the founding of the choir go to www.thresholdchoir.org. 

“Of course,” Nancy said, “we take requests, and a conscious person or a family member might ask for some old favorites. Recently I was called to Alta Bates to sing old lefty songs for a Jewish woman who was dying. I also sang her a Yiddish lullaby I’d learned from my mother. Her son really appreciated that.”  

Nancy’s voice, like her mother’s, is soft, with little resonance, but a surprisingly wide range, an unpretentious “ordinary” voice that encourages you to forget your inhibitions and sing along. She takes satisfaction in that fact, but takes even more pleasure in her ability to write a song with an important message in a style so simple that everyone gets the tune and the words right away. “I like it when a child hears a couple of verses of a new song, and then begins to sing along with the refrain on the next verse,” she said. 

Nancy will celebrate her 70th birthday on Saturday night, March 12, at Freight and Salvage. It’s a benefit concert for Freight and Salvage as well as for the Threshold Choir and the Freedom Song Network. “We’ll all be performing,” Nancy said, “the Plum City Players, Candy, Judy, and my daughter.” 

Details at www.sisterschoice.com. Tickets at the door or at www.thefreight.org.º

A prime candidate for Berkeley’s most under-recognized asset may well be the University’s Theater Department. (Actually the academic title is the mouthful “Department of Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies” but, for the nonce, you’ll probably forgive the abbreviation).  

Blessed with an abundance of budding professional actors—who work for free—a faculty who have proved their directoral, acting and design chops in very impressive surroundings—as well as control over the campus’s beautiful Zellerbach Playhouse, these people can put on productions that would be totally impossible for most theater companies. Last year’s terrific Marat Sade stands as an example.  

As does, of course, Chekhov’s Three Sisters that opens at Zellerbach’s Playhouse this weekend and plays through the next one. That’s the one real problem with the Theater Department’s productions: you have to make up your mind pretty fast if you intend to go. There really isn’t time to wait around for the reviews to come out before the run is over. The academic environment does require that the department’s presentations fit into the academic schedule, and that’s it.  

So we get a two week run of Chekhov’s Three Sisters. First presented in 1901 at Stanislavski’s Moscow Art Theatre, it is considered one of his greatest plays and Chekhov himself is considered perhaps the greatest playwright of the 20th century. Directed by the well-known director and actor Christopher Herold, there is every reason to expect a good production. 

The actors almost chorus their delight in their experience with him. 

The play is famous for its presentation of Russia’s upper class in the years leading up to the revolution of 1917 (Chekhov himself died in 1904). It is a complex study of a family of young adults—and their friends—who live in the provinces of Russia trying desperately to find meaning in lives in a world which does not expect them to work.  

Three out of four of the actors who play leading characters, the sisters themselves, and the dashing lieutenant-colonel “Vershinin” (Cole Smith), are committed to establishing professional careers in acting. The one exception is Pamela Davis, who plays “Irina,” the youngest sister. She’s a Political Science major at this point but seems to be spending quite a lot of time in the theater department.  

The others appears to have no qualms; they’ve known for years how they want to spend their lives. Smith, who will graduate this year, seems never to have questioned his goal.  

Holly Chou, who plays Olga, the oldest sister, first began to act in the third grade. Jennifer Kretchmer, who plays the sexy “Masha,” has parents “in the business” who “very strongly wanted me to go into something else.” It didn’t work.  

With a cast of fourteen, a great (and large) set, and the endless numbers of other artisans that produce the evening, it will probably be a good while before there is another production of this drama as elaborate as the one that will play for these two weekends.  

UC Berkeley’s Department of Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies presents Three Sisters. 

8 p.m., March 4 and 5; 7 p.m. March 6; 8 p.m. March 11 and 12; 2 p.m. March 13. 

Zellerbach Playhouse on the UC campus. 

$14 general admission, $10 UC faculty/staff, $8 students/seniors. 

For tickets or more information call 642-9925 or see http://theater.berkeley.edu. 

FRIDAY, MARCH 4 

EXHIBITIONS 

Jeremy Kirsch Photographic Portraits. Reception at 8 p.m. at Auto 3321 Gallery, 3321 Telegraph Ave., Oakland. Exhibition runs to March 31. www.freewebs.com/ 

autoartgallery 

Boontling Gallery “Overhung,” Works by over 50 Bay Area artists. Opening reception at 7:30 p.m. Exhibition runs to March 15, at 4224 Telegraph Ave. www.4leagueindustries.com 

“The Journey of Staying,” mobile sculpture by Stan Huncilman. Reception at 5:30 p.m. at Atelier Gallery, 1812B Sixth St. Exhibition runs to March 25. 486-1485. www.ateliergallery.com  

FILM 

Women of Color Film Festival “Bending the Beat” at 7:30 p.m at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

THEATER 

Aurora Theatre, “Dublin Carol” by Conor McPherson Wed.-Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun at 2 and 7 p.m. through March 6 at 2081 Addison St. Tickets are $28-$45. 843-4822. www.auroratheatre.org 

Central Works, “Enemy Combatant” at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant Ave. Performances are Thurs.-Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 5 p.m. through March 26. Tickets are $9-$25. 558-1381. www.centralworks.org 

Contra Costa Civic Theater, “Buried Child” on the disintigration of the American Dream, Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 p.m. through March 13, 951 Pomona Ave., El Cerrito. Tickets are $10. 524-9132. www.CCCT.org 

Impact Theatre, “Othello” at 8 p.m. at La Val’s Subterranean Theater, 1834 Euclid. Thurs.- Sat. through March 19. Tickets are $10-$15. 464-4468. www.impacttheatre.com 

Shotgun Players “The Just” by Albert Camus. Thurs.- Sun. at 8 p.m. at The Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby Ave. through April 10. Tickets are sliding scale $10-$30. 841-6500. www.shotgunplayers.org 

UC Theater, “Three Sisters” a contemporary staging of Chekhov’s drama, Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. Mar. 6 at 7 p.m., Sun. Mar. 13 at 2 p.m. at Zellerbach Playhouse, UC Campus. Tickets are $8-$14. 642-9925. http://theater.berkeley.edu 

Un-Scripted Theater Company “You Bet Your Improvisor!” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m. through March 26 at Temescal Arts Center, 511 48th St. at Telegraph. Tickets are $7-$10. 415-869-5384. www.unscripted.com 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Ward Churchill talks about “Kill the Indian, Save the Man: The Genocidal Impact of American Indian Residential Schools” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com  

The Great Night of Soul Poetry at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $17.50-$18.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

California Bach Society “Schütz Cantiones Sacrae” at 8 p.m. at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, 2300 Bancroft Way. Tickets are $10-$25. 415-262-0272. www.calbach.org  

Dance IS Festival at 8 p.m. at Julia Morgan Center for the Arts. Tickets are $10-$15. 925-798-1300. www.juliamorgan.org 

Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg, violin, at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $32-$56. 642-9988. www.calperfs.berkeley.edu 

Jenna Mammina, in a celebration of International Women’s Day at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $12-$18. 845-5373. www.jazzschool.com 

Prefixo de Verão, Brazilian, at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $13. 525-5054.  

Beth Waters with Adrianne at 8 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

Lee Waterman’s Shake/Silver Moon Band at 9 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810.  

Liesl’s Wet Dress at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

Luke Janela with Sam Stearns at 8:30 p.m. at Epic Arts, 1923 Ashby Ave. Cost is $5-$10. www.epicarts.org 

The J. Byrd Hosch Trio, Jug Free America, Audrey Auld Mezera, at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $6. 841-2082. www.starryplough.com 

Phenomenauts, Rasputin, Sheephead, Stiletta at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St., an all-ages, member-run, no alcohol, no drugs, no violence club. Cost is $6. 525-9926. 

3 Hours Old, Alia for Release at 9:30 p.m. at Blakes on Telegraph. Cost is $8. 848-0886. www.blakesontelegraph.com 

Richard Bitch, The Absentee, Scissor for Lefty at 9:30 p.m. at The Stork Club, 2330 Telegraph Ave., Oakland. Tickets are $5. 444-6174. www.storkcluboakland.com 

Brown Baggin, funk, jazz, at 9:30 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low, 2284 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $5. 548-1159.  

Pat Martino Quartet in a tribute to Wes Montgomery at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square, through Sun. Cost is $12-$20. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

SATURDAY, MARCH 5 

CHILDREN 

Jeff Smith visits with “Bone” at 3 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500.  

EXHIBITIONS 

“The Art of Living Black Art Tour” Sat. and Sun. from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Richmond Convention Center. For information call 620-6772. www.therichmondartcenter.org 

“Exhibitions of Expression” a conference and forum for Asian Americans in art, from 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. at Dwinelle Hall, UC Campus. 643-5497. httpp://multicultural.berkeley.edu/apasd/conference2005 

T. Scott Sayre, paintings, prints and murals at Au Coquelet, 2000 University Ave. Reception for 6 to 8 p.m. 848-9847. www.studiowindows.com 

FILM 

Women of Color Film Festival “Our Cosmos, Our Chaos” at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Smug Shift, a night of underground stand-up comedy at 9:30 p.m. at The Stork Club, 2330 Telegraph Ave., Oakland. Cost is $6. 444-6174. 

John Cho, Asian American actor, on his career at 7 p.m. in Wheeler Auditorium, UC Campus. 643-5497.  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Dance IS Festival at 8 p.m. at Julia Morgan Center for the Arts. Tickets are $10-$15. 925-798-1300. www.juliamorgan.org 

New Millenium Strings with Christa Pfeiffer, soprano, at 8 p.m. at the Arlington Community Church, 52 Arlington Ave., Kensington. Donation $10-$20. 528-4633. 

Trinity Chamber Concert “Brassiosaurus” at 8 p.m. at Trinity Chapel, 2320 Dana St. Tickets are $8-$12. 549-3864. http://trinitychamberconcerts.com 

Nayo Ulloa, Andean flute virtuoso at 8 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $10-$12. 849-2568. www.lapena.org  

Berkeley Community Chorus and Orchestra Recital featuring Elspeth Franks, mezzo-soprano with Daniel Lockert, piano at 8 p.m. at Crowden School Auditorium, 1475 Rose St. 601-1718.  

Marley’s Ghost at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $17.50-$18.50. 548-1761.  

Rhiannon with Bowl Full of Sound at 8 p.m. at the Jazz- 

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

Beausoleil at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $20. 525-5054.  

Earl Howard and David Wessel at 8 p.m. at CNMAT, 1750 Arch St. Tickets are $5-$10. www.cnmat.berkeley.edu 

Vince Lateano Quartet at 9 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810.  

Samantha Raven at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344.  

Braziu at 9:30 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low, 2284 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $10-$12. 548-1159.  

Charmless, Collisionville, The Cushion Theory at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $6. 841-2082. www.starryplough.com 

Nasty Breeze, Kung Fu Vampire, World Wide Sickness, hip hop, at 9 p.m. at Blakes on Telegraph. Cost is $10. 848-0886. 

Wayward Monks at 8:30 p.m. at Epic Arts, 1923 Ashby Ave. Cost is $5-$10. www.epicarts.org  

Fleshies, Veronica Lipgloss & The Evil Eyes at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St. Cost is $6. 525-9926. 

SUNDAY, MARCH 6 

CHILDREN  

Gayle Schmitt & The Toodala Ramblers at Ashkenaz at 3 p.m. Cost is $4-$6. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

THEATER 

“Beowulf” The epic translated and performed by Philip Wharton at 7:30 p.m. at La Val’s Subterranean, 1834 Euclid. Sun. nights through Mar. 20. Tickets are $10-$15. 415-608-9683. 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Quilt Self-Protraits” by students of Peralta Elementary School. Reception at 2 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

“Drawn by the Brush: Oil Sketches of Peter Paul Rubens” guided tour at 2 p.m. at Berkeley Art Museum, 2625 Durant Ave. 642-1295.  

FILM 

Women of Color Film Festival “Querida Familia” at 5:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808.  

“Imagining Brightly Colored Flowers I Rise” The late Neala Haze’s look at a dancer’s artistic process, at 7:30 p.m. in the Mills College Music Building Concert Hall, 5000 MacArthur Blvd. Tickets are $25-$75.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Women’s History Month Lecture with JoAnn Levy discussing “Unsettling the West: Eliza Farnham and Georgiana Bruce Kirby in Frontier California” at 2 p.m. at the Oakland Museum, 10th and Oak Sts. 238-2200.  

“Picturing Pain in Rubens’ Time and Our Own,” a panel discussion at 3 p.m. at the Berkeley Art Museum, 2625 Durant Ave. 642-1295.  

“Folk and the Tales They Tell” with African-American artist and storyteller, Karen McKie at 2 p.m. at the Phoebe Hearst Museum, Bancroft at College. 643-7648. 

Mildred S. Barish will discuss her book, “Tamalpais Tales: A Berkeley Neighborhood Remembers,” at 7:30 p.m. at The Hillside Club, 2286 Cedar St. 527-0450. 

Poetry Flash with Cathy Coleman and David St. John at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. Donation $2. 845-7852.  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Pacific Boychoir with organist William Ludtke at 8 p.m. at First Church of Christ Scientist, Dwight Way at Bowditch. Tickets are $25-$30, to raise funds to replace the roof of this historic 1910 landmark. 925-376-3908. www.friendsoffirstchurch.org 

Berkeley Youth Orchestra performs “A World of Melodies” at 2:30 p.m. at the Laney College Theater, Oakland. Tickets are $5 at the door. 663-3296.  

Dance IS Festival at 2 p.m. at Julia Morgan Center for the Arts. Tickets are $10-$15. 925-798-1300. www.juliamorgan.org 

Chamber Music Sundaes with Catherine Payne, flute, at 3:15 p.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. Tickets at the door $7-$19. 415-584-5946.  

Musicians from Marlboro at 3 p.m. at Hertz Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $38. 642-9988.  

Volti “Left Turn @ Albuquerque” a cappella music of Cuba, Peru, Argentina and Mexico at 4 p.m. at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, 2300 Bancroft Way. Tickets are $8-$20. 415-771-3352. www.voltisf.org 

ACME Observatory Contemporary Performance Series With Welsh harpist Rhodri Davies at 8 p.m. at 21 Grand, 441B 23 St. Cost is $6-$10 sliding scale. http://music.acme.com 

Montclair Women’s Big Band at 4:30 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $20. 845-5373.  

Pappa Gianni and the North Beach Band from 2 to 5 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198. 

Potential Threat at 9:30 p.m. at The Stork Club, 2330 Telegraph Ave., Oakland. Tickets are $5. 444-6174.  

Twang Café at 8:30 p.m. at Epic Arts, 1923 Ashby Ave. Cost is $5-$10. www.epicarts.org 

Steve Gillette & Cindy Mangsen, contemporary folk, at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $17.50-$18.50. 548-1761.  

Mikey Dread, Pacific Vibrations at 9:30 p.m. at Blakes on Telegraph. Cost is $12-$15. 848-0886.  

MONDAY, MARCH 7 

FILM 

Buddhism and Film: “Lost Horizon” at 3 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Mark Danner explains “Torture and Truth: America, Abu Ghraib, and the War on Terror” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

Actors Reading Writers Celebrating writing through live readings. “Eccentric Children” stories by Truman Capote and Frank O’Connor, at 7:30 p.m. at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant Ave. 845-8542, ext. 376. 

Bart Schneider reads from his novel “Beautiful Inez” at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698. www.blackoakbooks.com 

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

The Last Word Poetry reading with Jannie Dresser and Rich Yurman at 7 p.m. at Pegasus Books Downtown, 2349 Shattuck Ave. 649-1320. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Songwriters Symposium at 8:30 p.m. at Blakes on Telegraph. 848-0886. www.blakesontelegraph.com 

Trovatore, traditional Italian songs, at 7 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

Mimi Fox in a tribute to Wes Montgomery at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $8-$12. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

TUESDAY, MARCH 8 

FILM 

Alternative Visions: New Works by Andrew Noren at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Robin Tolmach Lakoff discusses her revised edition of “Language and Women’s Place” at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698. www.blackoakbooks.com 

Deborah Rudacille looks at “The Riddle of Gender: Science, Activism, and Transgender Rights” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

In Harmony for Asia, a cappella fundraiser for tsunami relief, at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage Coffee House. Cost is $19.50-$20.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

The Nebulas, The Lava Rats at 9 p.m. at Blakes on Telegraph. Cost is $5. 848-0886. www.blakesontelegraph.com 

The Red Thread, The Famous, alt country, at 9:30 p.m. at The Stork Club, 2330 Telegraph Ave., Oakland. Tickets are $5. 444-6174. www.storkcluboakland.com 

Kurt Rosenwinkel Quintet at 8 and 10 p.m. Yoshi’s at Jack London Square, through Wed. Cost is $10-$16. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

The David Lefebvre Duo at 8 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810. 

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 9 

THEATER 

“Bright River” A hip-hop retelling of Dante’s Inferno, every Wed. through March 16 at 8 p.m. at Oakland Metro, 201 Broadway. Tickets are $12-$35 available from 415-256-8499. www.inhousetickets.com 

EXHIBITIONS 

Berkeley Youth Arts Festival opens with a reception at 5 p.m. at the Berkeley Art Center. Exhibition runs to April 2. Gallery hours are Wed. - Sun. noon to 5 p.m. 644-6893. www.berkeleyartcenter.org 

FILM 

History of Cinema: “Umberto D.” at 3 p.m. and Games People Play: “Parallel Universum, Part II” at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

“The Artistry of Keith Jarrett” with Susan Muscarella at 7 p.m. at The Musical Offering, 2340 Bancroft Way. Free. www.calperfs.berkeley.edu 

Frank Delaney introduces his novel “Ireland” at 7:30 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

Pam Houston reads from her new novel “Sight Hound” at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698. www.blackoakbooks.com 

Berkeley Poetry Slam with host Charles Ellik and 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, “Handel & Telemann” with the Kharabaja Baroque Ensemble at Hertz Hall, UC Campus. Free. 642-4864. http://music.berkeley.edu 

Keith Jarrett, Gary Peacock and Jack DeJohnette at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $36-$80 available from 642-9988. www.calperfs.berkeley.edu 

Ned Boynton Trio at 8 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810.  

Ka Ua Tuahine Fundraiser, Tahitian music and dance at 8 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $15. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Peppino D’Agostino, guitar, at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Rad Audio, indie nu-wave, at 9 p.m. at Blakes on Telegraph. Cost is $5. 848-0886. www.blakesontelegraph.com 

Tetsuo at 9:30 p.m. at The Stork Club, 2330 Telegraph Ave., Oakland. Tickets are $5. 444-6174. www.storkcluboakland.com?

Lacey, a pitbull mix, enjoys the afternoon breeze in West Berkeley Thursday afternoon. Lacey was rescued by Kathy Kear, a dog trainer who specializes in working with abandoned pitbulls.

Rain or shine, a good place to be in Berkeley this weekend is indoors, listening to a memorable musical performance.  

There are two special organ concerts on Sunday afternoon, each in an outstanding local setting.  

At one event you can hear organ and vocal music in Berkeley’s most remarkable church, the Bernard Maybeck-designed First Church of Christ, Scientist, and help to preserve the landmark structure.  

At the other, you can experience one of Berkeley’s great secular performance spaces, the Community Theater, and appreciate the grand tradition of “theater organ” music. 

Unfortunately, both concerts start at virtually the same mid-afternoon time. The choice may be hard but whichever you choose, the experience should be satisfying. 

To appreciate these concerts you need to put away any stereotypes of organ music being suitable only for weddings, funerals, and traditional Sunday hymns. In the hands of skilled musicians these organs, spiritual or secular, are wonderful instruments, capable of expressing a vast range of musical themes and traditions. 

Community Theater Concert 

The first concert on Sunday afternoon is sponsored by the NorCal Theater Organ Society, in the Berkeley Community Theater. The event starts at 2:30 p.m. Tickets are $12. 

The white-walled building is a masterpiece of mid-20th century Moderne architectural design and style, from the pleated, apple-green, seat supports in the immense oval auditorium to the sinuous, sky-high, bas relief sculptures on the exterior.  

I must confess, however, that before attending a February concert there I had no idea that the Community Theater also contained a Wurlitzer organ and a “mighty” one at that. But now I know, and I’m enthusiastically converted. 

If you’ve ever listened to an organ performance at a place like Oakland’s Grand Lake or San Francisco’s Castro Theater, you have a sense of what these instruments can do.  

Their devotees are careful to point out that they are not just ordinary organs but “theater organs,” designed to accurately simulate the music of entire live orchestras. 

Developed to accompany silent films, theater organs are played from an elaborate on-stage console, which gives the audience a good view of the energetic, sometimes acrobatic, performance techniques of the organist. 

When he or she has all four limbs in motion, manipulating the polished wooden console with its hundreds of stops, keys, and controls that look as elaborate as those in a jet airplane’s cockpit, this appears to be one of the most athletic types of musical endeavor. 

Berkeley’s organ—which rises from the floor on a moveable slice of stage—stands atop a lighted pedestal that glows, like the stage backdrop, with different colors to suit the mood of the music. 

Hidden from sight, but not sound, are some 4,000 pipes and 40 tons of elaborate back and above-stage organ equipment at the Community Theater.  

The organ can whisper soft music at the edge of hearing, rolic along in ragtime, tinkle with tiny bells, or roar out a stirring arrangement of the “Battle Hymn of the Republic.”  

The NorCal Theater Organ Society keeps watch over the Berkeley organ and holds public concerts and members events there. This Sunday’s concert is the third in a series of four, each featuring a different guest organist.  

Nationally known, Portland-based Jonas Nordwall is this weekend’s performer. He’s been a guest organist with several orchestras as well as an individual performer around the world, and has recorded 15 albums. 

If Nordwall’s work is in the same league with David Wickerham’s performance at the second series concert on Feb. 6, this should be a great occasion. Wickerham, an ebullient organist from Florida, almost literally bounced up and down with delight at the opportunity to play the Berkeley theater organ, while he called “one of the very finest, not only in the country but in the world.”  

Nordwall’s March 6 concert announcement promises music from the 1910s through the 1960s.  

The Community Theater is at 1930 Allston Way, on the Berkeley High School campus. Buses, BART, and public and private parking garages are nearby. 

Christian Science Church Concert 

The second concert this Sunday musically illuminates one of Berkeley’s best known buildings, the First Church of Christ, Scientist. If you haven’t seen the inside of this amazing building before, this is a superb opportunity to visit and listen to it fill with music.  

In designing the church, Bernard Maybeck orchestrated an eclectic hybrid of architectural styles, from Gothic to modern Industrial, in a way not seen before or since. 

The building is one of his undisputed masterpieces, and one of Berkeley’s National Historic Landmarks.  

William Ludtke will be at the organ for Sunday’s 3 p.m. concert.  

Ludke is the regular organist at First Church, and also a noted local composer. He plans to play Bach’s “Toccata & Fugue in D Minor,” as well as other selections. 

Ludke will be accompanied by singers from the Pacific Boychoir Academy. Founded in 1998 and headquartered at the First Presbyterian Church in Oakland, the organization enrolls more than 100 boys, ages 7–17, in either day school or after school programs and five different choirs. Two of those choirs, the Troubadors and Changed Voices, will perform at the March 6 event. 

Tickets for the concert fundraiser are $25 in advance, $30 at the door (if space is available).  

The purpose of the First Church concert is not to raise the roof, but to repair it. The building dates to 1910 and needs a substantial amount of renovation work. 

The church is at 2619 Dwight Way, corner of Bowditch Street. Paid parking is usually available in nearby University lots, and buses run nearby on Telegraph and College avenues. 

For information on the NorCal Theater Organ Society, call 632-9177 or go to http://theatreorgans.com/norcal. 

For information about the First Church concert and Friends of First Church, go to www.friendsoffirstchurch.org. 

›

FRIDAY, MARCH 4 

Annual Seed Swap Bring and get locally saved seeds and learn about BASIL, the Bay Area Seed Interchange Library, from 7 to 9 p.m. at the Ecology Center, 2530 San Pablo Ave. Free. 548-2220, ext. 233. 

Outings on Fridays with Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association Tour of The Pardee House in Oakland’s City Center, at 11 a.m. Cost is $15. Reservations required. 841-2242. www.berkeleyheritage.com 

City Commons Club Noon Luncheon with Steve Heminger, Exec. Dir., MTC on “Improving Traffic in the East Bay.” Luncheon at 11:45 a.m. for $13, speech at 12:30 p.m., at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant St. For reservations call 526-2925.  

Trees for Haiti Benefit from 5 to 7 p.m. at What the Traveller Saw, 1880 Solano Ave. For reservations call 524-7989.  

The Berkeley Forum “Reframing the Progressive Movement” with Prof. George Lakoff at 7 p.m. at Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley, One Lawson Rd., Kensington. Tickets are $12 in advance, $15 at the door. 525-0391, ext. 376. admin@berkeleyforum.org 

“Understanding the Israel-Palestine Conflict in Historical Context” with Rosemary Radford Ruether, Prof. GTU, at 7:30 p.m. at St. Joseph the Worker School, 2125 Jefferson St., behind the church. Free. This location is not wheelchair accessible. 482-1062. 

World Day of Prayer at 9:30 a.m. at McGee Avenue Baptist Church, 1640 Stuart St.  

Womansong Circle, a monthly participatory singing evening for women, celebrates Women’s History Month at 7:15 p.m. at First Congregational Church, 2345 Channing Way. Donation $10-$15. 525-7082. 

Alternative Lifelong Learning presents “Globalization and Its Impact on Iranian Culture,” with Maryam Javanshir at 1:30 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center.  

SATURDAY, MARCH 5 

Sick Plant Clinic UC plant pathologist 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 Botanical Garden, 200 Centennial Dr. 643-2755.  

Introduction to Herbs Learn simple herbal alternatives for the cold and allergy season, on a walk to identify the plants. At 1:30 p.m. at Tilden Nature Center. Cost is $5-$7, registration required. 525-2233. 

“Waterwise Gardening with California Natives,” a slide lecture with Nathan Smith at 12:30 p.m. at UC Botanical Garden, 200 Centennial Drive. Cost is $20-$25, registration required. 643-2755.  

Kid’s Garden Club for ages 7-12 to explore the world of gardening, from 2 to 4 p.m. at Tilden Nature Area, Tilden Park. Cost is $5-$7, registration required. 525-2233. 

Healthy Gardening at 10 a.m. at Magic Gardens Nursery, 729 Heinz Ave. 644-2351. www.magicgardens.com 

Origami with artist, teacher and storyteller Margo Wecksler from 2 to 4 p.m. at the Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave. Bring your own wrapping paper, or use paper provided. Free. 526-3720 ext 17. 

Reports Back from the World Social Forum and the Women and Water Forum with Phoebe Sorgen and Laura Santina at 10 a.m. at Gray Panther Office, 1403 Addison St. 548-9696. 

“Exhibitions of Expression” a conference and forum for Asian Americans in art, from 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. at Dwinelle Hall, UC Campus. 643-5497.  

Free Garden Tours at Regional Parks Botanic Garden Sat. and Sun. at 2 pm. Regional Parks Botanic Garden, Tilden Park. Call to confirm. 841-8732.  

Hands-on Cob Workshop Get your hands dirty and learn about building houses and other structures from earth, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Ecology Center, 2530 San Pablo Ave. Cost is $20-$30, registration required. 548-2220, ext. 233. 

Progressive Democrats of America, East Bay Chapter, general meeting, from 1 to 4 p.m. at Temescal Library, 5205 Telegraph, Oakland. 526-4632. 

Berkeley Forum Workshop: “Reframing Progressive Issues” from 2 to 5 p.m. at Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley, One Lawson Rd., Kensington. Cost is $10. 525-0391.  

“Closing the Achievement Gap” a seminar for parents and educators, with David Berg, educational therapist, at 9 a.m. at Black Pine Circle Upper School, 2016 Seventh Ave. Pre-registration required. info@makingmathreal.org 

Women in Leadership Conference “Reflecting Forward-Celebrating Progress and Inspiring the Future” from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Haas School of Business, UC Campus. www.wilconference.org 

Osh, by Gosh! A party for Oakland Zoo’s young elephant from 9 a.m. to noon at the Oakland Zoo. Free with Zoo admission. 632-9525. www.oaklandzoo.org 

Oakland Museum White Elephant Sale from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., and Sun. 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. at 333 Lancaster St., Oakland. 238-2200. 

Dr. Seuss Birthday Party with games and stories at 11 a.m. at Kensington Library, 61 Arlington Ave. Tickets required. 524-3043. 

“Write for Your Life: Unmasking Sorrow, Living Joy” A writing workshop with Beth Glick-Rieman from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley, One Lawson Rd., Kensington. Cost is $35. 524-2858. 

“The Bhagavad Ghita - The Mystery of Human Soul and its Symbols” at 7:30 p.m. at the New Acropolis Cultural Center, 1700 Dwight Way. Tickets are $7-$10. 665-3740. www.acropolis.org  

SUNDAY, MARCH 6 

Breakfast with the Birds Bring your own beverage and we’ll share pastries and wander down to the lake to see who is nesting, flirting and feeding. Binoculars available for loan. Cost is $3, registration required. 525-2233. 

Spinning Demonstration Watch the wool from the Little Farm’s sheep turn into yarn on our spinning wheel, from 10:30 a.m. to noon at the Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park. 525-2233. 

Work in the Garden We needs lots of help weeding, planting and preparing the garden for spring and the butterflies. At 4 p.m. at Tilden Nature Area, Tilden Park. 525-2233. 

Strawberry Creek Work Party from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Strawberry Creek Lodge, 1320 Addison St. Please wear sturdy shoes and bring work gloves. RSVP to kateholum@yahoo.com 

Sunset Walk with the Solo Sierrans through the Emeryville Marina with quiet views of San Francisco and the Golden Gate bridge. Paved trail, wheelchair accessible. Meet at 4 p.m. behind Chevy’s Restaurant at small parking lot. 234-8949. 

Alan Rinzler’s Writer’s Workshop at 3 p.m. at Cody’s Books. Seating is first-come, first-served. 845-7852. www.codysbooks.com 

Institute for World Religions Book Study Group meets at 2 p.m. at Vara Healing Arts, 850 Talbot at Solano. 548-4517. 

Lake Merritt Neighbors Organized for Peace Peace walk around the lake every Sun. Meet at 3 p.m. at the colonnade at the NE end of the lake. 763-8712. lmno4p.org 

Tibetan Buddhism with Lama Amdo on “Entering the Bodhisattva Path” at 6 p.m. at the Tibetan Nyingma Institute, 1815 Highland Pl. 843-6812. www.nyingmainstitute.com 

MONDAY, MARCH 7 

“Returning the Tides” to Salt Ponds Briggs Nisbet, Restoration Campaigns Manager for Save the Bay, will speak on restoring nature to more than 16,000 acres of San Francisco Bay salt ponds at Friends of Five Creeks’ monthly meeting at 7 p.m. at Albany Community Center, 1249 Marin. 848-9358. f5creeks@aol.com 

Tea and Hike 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.  

Mercury in View The best views of the planet Mercury are during the next two weeks. Join us at Tilden’s Inspiration Point at 6:30 p.m. and we’ll walk down Nimitz Way. 525-2233. 

Town Hall Meeting with Mayor Tom Bates and Councilmember Max Anderson at 7:30 p.m. at St. Paul A.M.E. Church, 2024 Ashby Ave. 981-7130. 

National Organization for Women, Oakland/East Bay Chapter with Lucy Sells on “The Future of the Democratic Party” at 6 p.m. at the Oakland YWCA, 1515 Webster St. 287-8948.  

Richard A. Walker, author of “The Conquest of Bread: 150 Years of Agribusiness in California,” will speak on agriculture in California at 7:30 p.m. at the Hillside Club, 2286 Cedar St.  

“Critical Viewing” examines the craft of short film, TV drama, and commercials from 1 to 3:30 p.m. at the BRJCC, 1414 Walnut St. 848-0237. georgeporter@earthlink.net 

TUESDAY, MARCH 8 

International Women’s Day Proclamation at Berkeley City Council, 7 p.m. City Council Chambers. 981-6900. www.ci. 

berkeley.ca.us/citycouncil 

“Best Mountain Bike Rides in the Bay Area” A slide presentation with mountain bike racer Lorene Jackson at 7 p.m. at REI, 1338 San Pablo Ave. 527-4140. 

“The Gravel Pirates: Strip-Mining the Russian River Water Supply” with L. Martin Griffin, Jr., Founder, Friends of the Russian River, at 5:30 p.m. in 105 North Gate Hall, UC Campus. Sponsored by the Water Resources Center Archives. 642-2666. 

WriterCoach Connection Volunteer Training Help students improve their writing and critical thinking skills. Training session from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m. To register call 524-2319. www.writercoachconnection.org 

Berkeley School Volunteers Training workshop for volunteers interested in helping in Berkeley Public schools at 3 p.m. at 1835 Allston Way. 644-8833. 

International Women's Day Dance Party at 7 p.m. at Belladonna, 2436 Sacramento St. Cost is $10. Proceeds go to benefit Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA) and a scholarship for the Belladonna Mystery Camp for Girls. 282-2486. www.belladonna.ws 

Shivaratri - Night of Shiva A benefit for tsunami relief with yoga, rituals, food and music, from 4 to 10:30 p.m. at Yoga Mandala, 2807 Telegraph Ave. 486-1989. 

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

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

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 9 

Great Decisions 2005: “China” with Prof. Emeritus Joyce Kallgren, UC Davis, from 10 a.m. to noon at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant St. Cost is $5, $40 for the series. For information and reservations call 526-2925. 

Information Night for BHS Class of 2009 at 7 p.m. at the BHS Community Theater and the C Building. Presentations on academic departments, the 9th grade curriculum, small schools, athletics and activities. 644-6320. 

“Memorial Party for Judi Bari” a film screening at 7 p.m. at Humanist Hall, 390 27th St., Oakland.  

AARP Free Tax Assistance for taxpayers with middle and low incomes, with special attention to those 60 years and older. From 12:15 to 4:15 p.m. at the Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave. This service will continue through April. Appointments must be made in advance. 526-3720, ext. 5. 

Home Buyer Assistance Information Session at 6 p.m. at 1504 Franklin St., Oakland. Sponsored by the Home Buyer Assistance Center. Reservations required. 832-6925, ext. 100. www.hbac.org 

Poetry Writing Workshop with Alison Seevak at 7 p.m. at the Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave. 526-3720. 

Artify Ashby Muralist Group meets every Wed. from 5 to 8 p.m. at the South Berkeley Senior Center, to plan a new mural. New artists are welcome. Call Bonnie at 704-0803. 

“Does God Exist?” A talk on the Reconstructionist, Humanist and Other Jewish Views about God’s Existence with Rabbi Jane Litman at 11 a.m. at the BRJCC, 1414 Walnut St. Cost is $5. 848-0237, ext. 110. 

“Faith and Politics” at 7:30 p.m. at All Souls Parish, 2220 Cedar St. Part of the Journey of Faith Lenten Series. 848-1755. 

Stitch ‘n Bitch Bring your knitting, crocheting and other handcrafts from 6 to 9 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave. 548-5198. 

Winter Walk Berkeley for Seniors meets every Wednesday at 9:30 a.m. at the Sea Breeze Market, just west of the I-80 overpass. Heavy rain cancels. 548-9840. 

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 

Berkeley Peace Walk and Vigil at the Berkeley BART Station. Vigil at 6:30 p.m. Peace Walk at 7 p.m. www.geocities.com/ 

vigil4peace/vigil 

THURSDAY, MARCH 10 

Bird Walk along the Martin Luther King Shoreline to see marsh birds at 3:30 p.m. for information call 525-2233. 

Hidden Lodges of Berkeley An illustrated lecture on the Senior Men’s Hall and Senior Women’s Hall, with Harvey Helfand, Campus Planner, at 7:30 p.m. at Senior Hall, UC Campus. Cost is $10. For information contact Berkeley Architectural Heritage at 841-2241. www.berkeleyheritage.com 

“Diet for a Dead Planet” with author Christopher Cook at 7 p.m. at the Ecology Center, 2530 San Pablo Ave. 548-2220. 

“The Great Conspiracy: The 9-11 News Special You Never Saw” benefit screening with producer Barrie Zwicker, at 7:30 p.m. at The Grand Lake Theater Oakland. Tickets are $10, available at local bookstores. 452-3556. 

“So How’d You Become an Activist?” with Carolyn Scarr and Dr. Marc Sapir at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists, 1924 Cedar St., at Bonita. Donation $5. 528-5403. 

“The Universal Grammar of Religion” with Prof. Huston Smith at 7:30 p.m. at Memorial Chapel of the Pacific School of Religion, 1798 Scenic Ave. 848-9788. 

“Awakening the Heart of Enlightenment” with Dr. Gaylon Ferguson, at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Shambhala Center, 2288 Fulton St. Donation $25. www.norcal.shambhala.org 

ONGOING 

Bringing Back the Natives Garden Tour The tour, on May 1, will showcase Alameda and Contra Costa County gardens that contain at least 30% native plants, don’t use synthetic pesticides or fertilizers, and provide habitat for wildlife. Admission is free, but tickets are required. Kathy@KathyKramerConsulting.net or 236-9558.  

All Net Basketball for boys and girls ages 9 to 11, begins Tues. Mar. 8, from 4:30 to 6 p.m., and runs for five weeks. Fee is $10-$15. For information call Berkeley Youth Alternatives, 845-9066. sports@byaonline.org 

Domestic Violence Training for people interested in volunteering at Oakland’s battered women’s shelter, Sat. March 12 - April 9 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. 986-8600, ext. 316. 

“Half Pint Library” Book Drive Donate children’s books to benefit Children’s Hospital. Donations accepted at 1849 Solano Ave. through March 31. 

Spring Break Program for Children offered by the City’s Recreational Division, March 28-April 1, for children ages 5-12, at the Frances Albrier Community Center, 2800 Park St. For information call 981-6640. 

CITY MEETINGS 

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

Council Agenda Committee meets Mon., Mar. 7, at 2:30 p.m., at 2180 Milvia St. 981-6900. 

www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/citycouncil/agenda-committee 

Creeks Task Force meets every Monday at 7 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center through April 4. Erin Dando, 981-7410. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/creeks 

Landmarks Preservation Commission meets Mon., Mar. 7, 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., Mar. 7, 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., Mar. 7, at 6:30 p.m., at 1730 Oregon St. Philip Harper-Cotton, 981-6670. www.ci.ber 

keley.ca.us/commissions/youth 

City Council meets Tues., Mar. 8, at 7 p.m in City Council Chambers. 981-6900. www.ci. 

berkeley.ca.us/citycouncil 

Commission on Disability meets Wed., Mar 9, at 6:30 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Don Brown, 981-6346. TDD: 981-6345. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/disability 

Homeless Commission meets Wed., Mar. 9, Wed. Feb. 16, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Jane Micallef, 981-5426. www.ci.berkeley. 

ca.us/commissions/homeless 

Library Board of Trustees meets Thurs. Mar. 9, at 7 p.m. at 1901 Russell St., Jackie Y. Griffin, 981-6195. www.ci.ber 

keley.ca.us/commissions/library 

Planning Commission meets Wed., Mar. 9, Wed., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Janet Homrighausen, 981-7484. www.ci.berkeley. ca.us/commissions/planning 

Police Review Commission meets Wed., Mar. 9 at the South Berkeley Senior Center, 981-4950. www.ci.berkeley. 

ca.us/commissions/policereview 

Waterfront Commission meets Wed., Mar. 9, at 7 p.m., at 201 University Ave. Cliff Marchetti, 644-6376 ext. 224. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/waterfront 

Commission on Early Childhood Education meets Thurs., Mar. 10, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Angellique De Cloud, 981-5428. www.ci.berkeley. ca.us/commissions/earlychildhoodeducation 

Community Health Commission meets Thurs, Mar. 10, at 6:45 p.m., at the South Berkeley Senior Center. William Rogers, 981-5344. www.ci.berkeley. 

ca.us/commissions/health 

Housing Advisory Commission meets Thurs. Mar. 10, at 7:30 p.m., at the South Berkeley Senior Center. Oscar Sung, 981-5400. www.ci.berkeley.ca. 

us/commissions/housing 

West Berkeley Project Area Commission meets Thurs., Mar. 10, at 7 p.m., at the West Berkeley Senior Center. Iris Starr, 981-7520. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/westberkeley  

Zoning Adjustments Board meets Thurs., Mar. 10, at 7 p.m., in City Council Chambers. Mark Rhoades, 981-7410. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/zoning ™

Oops. The Daily Planet’s reporter caught me trying to suppress a giggle or two as I watched last week’s meeting of the Planning Commission’s subcommittee on the Landmark Preservation Ordinance revisions. It’s true, the spectacle of Planning Department staff grappling with arcane concepts like “integrity” from the specialized world of historic resource preservation can look pretty silly to anyone who knows anything about what they’re trying to talk about.  

Don’t get me wrong—I’m no expert myself. But what I did learn in seven plus years on the Landmarks Preservation Commission is that the first thing you have to know is what you don’t know. I went to lots of conferences and training sessions sponsored by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the California Preservation Foundation and the California State Office of Historic Preservation. I read many books and papers on the subject. But in the last analysis, what I learned is that there’s always a lot more to learn about preserving history for future generations.  

Berkeley is a Certified Local Government, which means that it follows the State Office of Historic Preservation’s rules for choosing historic resource commissioners—Landmarks Preservation Commissioners, in Berkeley terminology—who have some degree of expertise in the subject matter. When I was on the commission, my fellow commissioners were almost all considerably more expert than I was. And more important, they were considerably better educated in the subject than any of the many city staff members who served in the revolving door position of commission secretary in the whole seven-year period. They devoted four of those seven years to the tedious task of updating their enabling ordinance, the Landmarks Preservation Ordinance (LPO). The draft ordinance they produced represented a lot of study and a lot of compromises. I voted for it myself because I respected the process that produced it, not because I thought it was perfect. 

A few provisions of the new ordinance, notably those that deal with alteration permits, require the addition of supporting language to Berkeley’s zoning ordinance. Like all zoning ordinance changes, these must be approved by the Planning Commission. But the Planning Commission, in what would be describe in less politically sensitive cities as “a naked power grab,” has decided to ask city staff to produce revisions for the whole LPO. Further, some members even suggested that the whole LPO be placed in the zoning ordinance so that it would be under Planning Commission jurisdiction. The City Council didn’t ask them to do any of this, and it’s not in their charter, but they’ve gone ahead anyway. 

Planning Commission Chair Harry Pollack has his own reasons for being annoyed with the existing ordinance, of course. He was Temple Beth El’s point man in their successful effort to get city approval for a controversial building project, which came before the LPC because it’s on a historic site. His organization eventually got everything they wanted from the city, though it took a while. It was a lengthy and tedious process, also stirring up the creek advocacy contingent, and it’s not surprising that someone who went through it might think the rules should be completely changed. But that’s not the current charge that the City Council has given to the commissions, not to the LPC and certainly not to the Planning Commission.  

The meeting I attended last week was graced by the presence of City Attorney Zach Cowan, Planning Department chief Dan Marks, Current Planning Director Mark Rhoades and LPC secretary Giselle Sorensen. Discussion got off into deeply uncharted waters on frivolous topics like landmarking Mario Savio’s student apartment, and yes, Virginia, they all looked somewhat silly, and I couldn’t help laughing a bit. 

Sometimes it’s better to laugh than to cry. But when I added up in my head the expenditure of burdened salaries required for the presence of so many high-level staff members, it came to well over a thousand dollars just for the two-hour meeting. As Berkeley is contemplating severe cutbacks in badly needed city services, that’s a fair chunk of change to expend in a couple of hours on something that the city council does not think is a priority. Multiplied by several subcommittee meetings and even more off-line staff time, this is turning out to be a very expensive wild goose chase for the Planning Commission to be engaged upon. 

Chair Pollack is appointed by City Councilmember Gordon Wozniak, who is making something of a reputation for himself by questioning unnecessary expenditures in the budget. This might be a good opportunity for the two of them to discuss whether or not it’s the right time for the Planning Commission to be taking off on creating yet another LPO draft, which could easily cost $100,000 in staff time before it’s done.  

—Becky O’Malley 

?

“…the data will, I am confident, reveal that Catholics are substantially underrepresented in investment banking…”  

Huh? What was that again? Who said that? And why would he say it? 

The speaker is the president of a corporation which, among other things, has a major role in training many of the leading U.S. investment bankers. He employs those responsible for admitting would-be investment bankers to elite training programs, and he hires those who train them. The speech in which he expressed this opinion lacked both citations for the data he confidently relied on and a hypothesis for why he believed it to be true. It is not unreasonable, therefore, to expect that in his executive role he would be poorly prepared to make sure that Catholics were not discriminated against in admissions or hiring.  

The question of religious belief qualifications for the lucrative but not necessarily well-regarded job of investment banker is seldom discussed these days, though it was probably a major issue a generation or more ago. My own acquaintance with movers and shakers in the finance industry has been limited to dealings with venture capitalists and investment bankers in the high-tech industry, and religion didn’t play a major role in my transactions.  

Ethnic stereotypes are a different matter. When I was in business I used my father’s White Anglo-Saxon Protestant name to balance my husband and partner’s Irish name on the management roster, and the stereotypically inclined were free to make whatever assumptions they wanted about our respective religions. They would usually be wrong, since I, despite my WASP name, was raised a Catholic, and Mike, despite his Irish name, was raised as a WASP, and neither one of us is now religious. When I used my WASP name, I did hear lots of anti-Catholic quips, even in the 90s.  

Nevertheless, the financial field is now full of people with Irish and Italian names, and it’s a reasonable guess that many of them are Catholics. The tragic loss of hundreds of employees of the Cantor Fitzgerald bond firm in the World Trade Center, all of whose names were listed in various memorial tributes, spotlighted the diversity which now exists in high finance. But just because there’s diversity, prejudice has not necessarily vanished.  

A Wall Street insider who witnessed the spectacle of Richard Grasso being drummed out of the president’s office at the Stock Exchange believes that Grasso’s Italian background was partly involved in the feeding frenzy over his high salary. This observer says that Italians have been traditionally supposed to do the lower level work in the back rooms of the Exchange. The fact that an Italian like Grasso rose through the ranks and ended up making more money than those who were supposed to be running things annoyed some, and they got rid of him. 

The corporation president who opined that Catholics aren’t investment bankers has a surname that seems to be of English origin. Does this make a difference? His WASP name puts him in the position I was in, able to overhear anti-Catholic stereotypes in the course of doing business. Perhaps he unconsciously absorbed them, and they formed the basis for the data-free opinion quoted here. He says about himself “I am Jewish, identified but hardly devout,” and it’s even conceivable that he has subconsciously bought into stereotypes about superior financial acumen associated with his own ethnic group.  

Why does any of this matter? Primarily because he’s an employer, and as an employer he has an obligation to obey laws against discrimination in employment and enforce them in his organization. He is most unwise, as an employer, to reveal his own stereotypic beliefs, if he does indeed hold them, because they give rise to justifiable suspicions that he is not complying with anti-discrimination laws in his corporation. 

And, of course, for those of you who haven’t already guessed his identity, Lawrence Summers is now being accused of condoning discrimination against another under-represented group within his corporation, which is Harvard University. The part of his speech in which he elaborated on his opinions about women’s capabilities got the most attention, but maybe Catholics too should start checking out hiring patterns at Harvard Business School. 

The flag of academic freedom has been erroneously waved over the discussion of Summers’ now infamous speech. He has, as a citizen, the right to think and say anything he wants, and in his role as a professor his right to do so on the job should also be protected. But when he’s speaking as the president of a corporation which is sitting on a $22.6 billion pile of capital, larger than the gross domestic product of Costa Rica, he has the responsibility of an employer, not a professor. His intemperate off-the-cuff remarks should give his board of directors (called Overseers in Harvard-speak) cause for concern about how well he’s carrying out his management duties. Like Caesar’s wife, the president of Harvard Inc. should be above suspicion of discrimination, whether against Catholics or against women.  

—Becky O’Malley 

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