Standing on the bed of a blue pick-up truck, draped with a red Industrial Workers of the World banner and energized by guitar and fiddle music, Shattuck Cinemas workers and their supporters addressed working conditions at the theater Wednesday.  

The rally outside the downtown theater on Shattuck Avenue near Kittredge Street was a prelude to the National Labor Relations Board-sponsored union election scheduled at the theater today (Friday). 

“They need to treat us with respect,” Ryan Hatt told the crowd that grew to around 50 listeners. “There are no benefits, unless you count free movies and popcorn. People working [at the Shattuck] for over six years get $8.05 cents an hour. What we’re fighting for is a voice.” 

The Shattuck Cinemas is owned by Los Angeles-based Landmark Theaters, which did not return calls before deadline. 

Hatt has worked at the theater for nine months. In addition to a lack of health benefits, he said he does not get scheduled breaks and there is no procedure to address managers about complaints. 

“There are no sick days, no holidays and no overtime,” he said. 

Hatt works for $7.25 an hour. Workers are scheduled for reviews and raises at three months, six months and a year on the job, he said. But Hatt said he has yet to be reviewed.  

“I got a three cents an hour raise,” he said. “It’s an insult.”  

The workers say they are sure they’ll get a union, but that’s just the beginning.  

“I worry about how long they will draw out the contract,” said Sharon Shatterly, a worker recently transferred to the Shattuck Cinemas after the closing of the Act1 and 2 Landmarks Theater on Center Street.  

Organizer Hajit Singh Gill says workers at the only other unionized Landmarks Theater, in Cambridge, Mass., have been bargaining since July when they won their union and are still without a contract. 

IWW—better known as the Wobblies—has organized other workers in Berkeley, including the Ecology Center’s curbside recyclers and workers at Stone Mountain and Daughter Fabric.

Late to a school dance one evening in March, a Berkeley High School sophomore rounded the corner of Shattuck Avenue at Allston Way, in front of Ross Dress for Less, where a group of eight to 10 teenage boys were idling about. The street was otherwise sparsely peopled, though not empty. As he passed, one of the boys called out, “Hey! Let’s get you.” The student recognized a member of the group from tryouts for a sports team. He thought little of the comment and moved along. 

Moments later, someone grabbed his shirt collar. As he turned, slightly stunned, a clenched fist plummeted headlong into his face. 

He sustained two fractures to the jaw and spent six weeks with his mouth wired shut. 

Police officers chased after the suspects, the student said, but never made an arrest. Incidentally, a similar crime occurred minutes earlier, a couple of sources say: Same culprits, same neighborhood, different injury. That victim, an adult, suffered a cracked orbital. 

Random acts of violence, where teens are the perpetrators and often the victims, have attracted growing visibility in recent weeks, as parents have increasingly demanded accountability for the attacks their children endure. 

At a joint meeting of the city and the school district Tuesday, parents of young victims spoke out. The parents of the aforementioned teen, whose name the Daily Planet is withholding to protect him from possible retribution, described his assault in vivid detail. Another parent recounted how her son was attacked after school by a group of four teens with designs on his iPod. In a phone interview later that day, a parent revealed that her daughter was smacked in the face while waiting in line for a college counselor because she told a male student to “watch out” when he bumped into her. The student, she later found out, did not attend Berkeley High. 

Other concerned parents at Tuesday’s meeting said they feel threats to their children’s safety persist. 

“It’s getting worse, not better,” said Tina Bury, who plans to send her daughter to Berkeley High next year. “It’s getting out of control and we can’t do anything about it. I don’t [want to] believe that, but that looks like how it’s going.” 

In 2005, the Berkeley Police Department made 35 youth arrests for simple assault, 34 for robberies and 15 for aggravated assault. Certain hotspots, like downtown Berkeley near the high school, and a section of South Berkeley, laid claim to higher concentrations of arrests. It is unclear how many of the perpetrators were from Berkeley and how many were from Oakland or elsewhere. Data for the current year is unavailable. 

Overall, though, juvenile crime in Berkeley has waned, said Youth Services Det. Sergeant Dave White, although he does not have current statistics. Schools superintendent Michele Lawrence says disturbances have decreased in the school district, however, on Tuesday, she too was unable to produce data. 

On campus, Principal Jim Slemp says incidents have gone down by 200 percent in the last two-and-a-half years. 

When a handful of parents met with Slemp to express their concerns over the assault in March, they earned a lukewarm reception, at best, they said.  

He was unwilling to acknowledge that there is a violence problem, said Ying Fei Wei, whose son attends Berkeley High. “I didn’t feel he was very supportive,” she said. “He was very defensive.” 

Slemp said he bristled because the parents had outlandish ideas for preventing attacks. But other parents have made similar complaints. The parent whose daughter was slapped by a non-Berkeley High student said her daughter saw the assailant on campus after the attack, complained to administrators and was ignored. 

“When my daughter saw him, she was afraid and didn’t want to go to school,” the parent said. “We got no response from [the administration and security]. We were just blown off.” 

“What we’re hearing from families is kids are afraid to leave school,” said Julie Sinai, senior aide to Mayor Tom Bates. Sinai’s work focuses on youths and families.. “That may not be evident in arrest data, but it’s there in dialogue.” 

The attack on the Berkeley High student in front of Ross a few months ago is one of three similar incidents currently under investigation. It mirrors a series of assaults that occurred in 2003, when a group of kids were arbitrarily assaulting other teens as a point of initiation, White said.  

“They would find some unsuspecting kid and assault him, push him, kick him and do a pocket check,” where they would inspect for money or other valuables, said White. Those attacks went on for an extended period of time, but eventually officers targeted the ringleader and the pack dissolved.  

Soon after one group disbands, though, another one crops up, White said. The kids are different and they hang out in different places, but the delinquent behavior is the same. 

Discussions about such assaults often invoke the question of race. A few parents, like Laura Menard, whose son was attacked several years ago, believe that black-on-white violence is a significant problem in Berkeley. The student attacked in March thinks the assault was racially charged. He is white. The assailants were black. 

The police department does not have statistics available on the race of youth offenders and victims. However, a general study conducted by the Bureau of Justice Statistics found that violence within races is much more common than it is between races. Berkeley High School senior Jennifer Purdy agreed: “Mostly I see black on black” violence, she said. 

Sinai said that white victims might simply be more inclined to report incidents. 

“Many of the white families there [at Tuesday’s meeting] were talking about black-on-white violence, but issues of safety cross all ethnic lines,” she said, pointing out that when assaults occur, white families may e-mail around, contact the press and lobby public officials. Comparable incidents could be equally prevalent in the Latino community, but families may choose to not go public, she said. 

Which points up the further issue of underreporting. An article in the May issue of the BHS Newsletter, a publication of the Parent Teacher Student Association, said just two of six recent attacks on teens were reported to the police because the families feared retaliation. Most of the parents interviewed for this Daily Planet article asked to not have their names printed for the same reason.  

“One of the things that’s difficult to overcome is this culture of silence,” said Police Chief Doug Hambleton on Tuesday. “A lot of these kids probably know who the perpetrator is, but they don’t say anything. If someone gets assaulted and doesn’t tell us who did it, there isn’t much we can do.” 

The police department is in the process of increasing efforts to curb youth violence, said Hambleton. The department deploys all its bike cops to Berkeley High at peak times and increasingly officers coordinate with Health and Human Services to get help for young criminals. Berkeley High has also beefed up security, with eight campus guards and regularly locked doors to keep unwanted visitors away.  

Retiring Berkeley High School teacher Rick Ayers agrees the threat of random violence should not loom over students’ lives—his own child was beat up at Berkeley High in 2003—but he does not believe ramping up police and security is the best emollient. Creating small communities within the school, where young people form relationships with adults, is a better solution, he said.  

“I know it’s safer when kids are in a community,” he said. 

Terry Doran, president of the Berkeley Board of Education, said the board is doing its part to discipline offenders by approving more suspensions and expulsions. “Even one incident is terrible,” he said. “We do have a zero tolerance policy in the schools.”

Questions of traffic tie-ups and union-busting did not stop the City Council from giving the green light to the West Berkeley Bowl early Wednesday morning, a project which supporters say will bring affordable fresh produce and vitality to an oft-neglected area of the city. 

After hearing from some 70 members of the public, divided between those calling for approval and others demanding significant changes in the plans, a motion by Councilmember Dona Spring to delay the vote one week so that the question of unionization could be resolved failed 4-4-1, with Councilmembers Laurie Capitelli, Betty Olds, Gordon Wozniak and Mayor Tom Bates in opposition and Councilmember Darryl Moore abstaining. 

The 12:15 a.m., 6-0-3 vote to approve the Bowl—with Councilmembers Max Anderson, Dona Spring and Kriss Worthington abstaining—included the use permit, zoning changes and approval of the environmental report that describes impacts on the project area and mandates improvements where possible. 

“How many trees died from this four-year process,” said Moore who represents the area, pointing to 3,000-pages of documents stacked before him. “We’re not talking about Safeway or Albertsons, but a homegrown grocery store.” 

Neighbors support, criticize 

Many supporters of the project—estimated to be up and running in two or two-and-a-half years—live just blocks from the Ninth Street and Heinz Avenue site. 

Laura Coates is among them. “There are 13 families with children on the block—everyone on the block is in support,” she told the council. 

Representing the 66th Street neighborhood group, Roxanne Schwartz, added her support. Christine Staples, another nearby resident, put it this way: “The corner liquor store doesn’t carry organic milk.”  

Another neighbor, Natalie Studer, a nutritionist, based her support on access to healthy food. “The Berkeley Bowl is a public health issue,” she said. 

Some neighbors, however, expressed ambivalence and others, outright hostility. 

A group from the Potter Creek Neighborhood Association and the French-American School had proposed a traffic plan to keep Bowl traffic out of their neighborhood. The developer has agreed to put $20,000 into the project, but city planners said they do not want to plan traffic mitigations until the store has been running for six months, so they can address real rather than assumed traffic problems. Moreover, planning staff said they fear the Potter Creek plan would send traffic to other neighborhoods. 

Barbara and David Bowman have lived in the neighborhood since 1977. “I’m thrilled to have Berkeley Bowl come to the neighborhood,” Barbara Bowman told the council, but added: “Protect our neighborhood.” 

And Maurice Levitch who works at 10th Street and Heinz argued that “waiting until the store’s up to fix traffic is too late.” 

Union question 

The union issue caused a number of councilmembers and the public to raise questions, even among the project’s strong supporters. While Dan Rush of the United Food & Commercial Workers Butchers’ Union Local 120 called for a card check vote—where employees simply turn in cards for or against unionization—Bowl owner Glenn Yasuda said he wants a National Labor Relations Board-run election. Rush characterized that process as having “no appeal and no protections.”  

Pointing to the union vote at the Oregon Street Berkeley Bowl in 2003 where the NLRB determined that owners had retaliated against union organizers, Rush said, “The Bowl has proven the need to scrutinize (it).”  

Calling himself a red-diaper baby and speaking in favor of the store, Gene Agress, one of the founders of Berkeley Mills on Seventh Street, argued, “It’s not my business to tell the Berkeley Bowl how to work things out with the union.” 

But others said it is the city’s business. Jane Welford contended that zoning approvals—the area had to be rezoned commercial so that a grocery store could be sited there—should be tied to the company approval of a union card-check election. Councilmember Dona Spring also hoped to use the permit process to compel the Bowl to accept a card check. 

But City Attorney Manuela Albuquerque argued that linking zoning to unionization is illegal. 

Many of those speaking against the project size—55,000 square feet of groceries, 29,000 square feet of storage and 4,000 square feet of office space—were nearby business owners who fear being overrun by Berkeley Bowl traffic. Rick Kelley, Ashby Lumber general manager, said the project’s traffic analysis “began at the Berkeley border” and didn’t take into consideration cumulative impacts of other nearby projects. 

Kelley and others argued, moreover, that traffic planners ignored evidence that the Bowl would be a regional draw and not simply serve the immediate neighborhood. 

Pointing to the 27 businesses opposing the size of the project, mayoral candidate Zelda Bronstein called on the council to “hold off (on the vote) and ask staff to do an economic impact analysis.”  

While supporters lauded the Bowl for its unique array of produce, several said they feared a Walmart or Target could come in, if the Bowl were to pull out of the project.  

“We need to be sure it stays a grocery store in perpetuity,” said Rick Auerbach, a Grayson Street business owner and resident. 

It was with that in mind that Councilmember Laurie Capitelli tacked an amendment on to the final vote, which would tie the use-permit to “a very carefully defined grocery store,” with the Bowl’s large area of fresh produce and fish. Another operator would have to get a new use permit, Capitelli said.

The state-operated Oakland Unified School District announced this week that a black-owned, New York-based real estate company has been chosen to negotiate with for the potential sale of the OUSD Administration Building and some 8.25 acres of prime Lake Merritt area property. 

But the real power behind the deal may be an old school New York real estate and investment firm with a $4 billion portfolio and ownership of exclusive Park Avenue office buildings. 

In a Wednesday press announcement, OUSD Public Information Officer Alex Katz said that a Letter of Intent has been signed with TerraMark/Urban America Team, giving that company the first rights to negotiate for the purchase or lease of the OUSD properties, which include the administration building and several schools. 

The text of the Letter of Intent and TerraMark/Urban America Team’s proposal for the OUSD Lake Merritt properties has not yet been released by the district. 

UrbanAmerica was founded in 1998 by Richmond McCoy, the son of a Harlem landlord. According to a recent Time Magazine profile, McCoy initially founded the McCoy Realty Group, which Time said “had become the largest real estate management firm controlled by an African American, [with a] Park Avenue headquarters in Manhattan [that] catered to Wall Street bigs.” Time said that involvement with helping churches develop property in poor neighborhoods led McCoy to the development of UrbanAmerica, which the magazine called “the first real estate investment company to focus on distressed urban areas.” 

In 2000, UrbanAmerica spent $19.5 million purchasing the Eastover Shopping Center in the Washington D.C. suburbs, its largest acquisition. 

But last year, McCoy launched a second venture, UrbanAmerica II, with what the Forbes/Slatin Real Estate Report last year called “a powerful partner in hand: Fisher Brothers, a multi-billion-dollar New York-based family development and ownership organization” founded in 1915. 

Forbes/Slatin article said that “McCoy isn’t shy about leveraging his new partner [Fisher Brothers]’ name and reputation to the max … He takes pains to stress that Fisher is involved as a ‘significant owner of the general partnership. This is not a strategic partnership or joint venture,’ he declares, adding that Fisher has pledged to invest up to 10 percent with the limited partners in any development undertaken by the fund.” 

The UrbanAmerica II partnership is targeting development projects in Daytona Beach, Florida and Kansas City, Missouri, where McCoy’s original UrbanAmerica already has investments, as well as northern and southern California, Phoenix, and parts of Texas.  

Meanwhile, after keeping the public in the dark for more than a year while negotiations went on with developers over the original RFP, state and local officials have now pledged to open the process to the public. 

State Senator Don Perata (D-Oakland), whose SB39 bill in 2003 is the foundation for the state takeover of the Oakland Unified School District that has led—directly or indirectly—to the proposed sale of the Lake Merritt area properties,this week released the text of a letter to State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell, in which Perata asked O’Connell to hold public hearings on the proposed sale. 

“[I]t is important that appropriate public review and comment precede final decision on the sale. It is imperative that local residents—particularly parents —are shown how the sale might affect the primary mission of the district,” Perata wrote. “For example, one board member has questioned in the media the wisdom of selling this administration complex, intimating that it would force the district to convert existing school sites as replacement facilities. Concerns like these can be allayed by a public presentation by the state administrator at a public hearing held before any formal sale negotiations commence.”  

In the release announcing the selection of TerraMark/Urban America Team, Katz said that “plans for three public hearings [on the proposed sale]—in July, August and September—are well underway.” 

In his letter to O’Connell, Perata said that an amendment was placed in SB39 allowing the use of the sale or lease of the property to pay back the state loan to the Oakland Unified School District “at the district’s request.” Perata, however, did not identify which OUSD officials made the request to put the provision in state law allowing the sale proceeds to go toward the loan repayment or when that request was made.  

The Oakland Unified School District has been run by the state of California since 2003, since it was forced to accept a $100 million line of credit from the state to stave off bankruptcy. Of that line of credit, $65 million has actually been loaned to the district, with another $7 million in loans pending. There is speculation that money from the proposed sale of the Lake Merritt area properties could be used to help pay off the state loan, but it is unclear whether a significant paydown of the loan would lead directly to a return to local control of the schools. 

Reducing crime, particularly property crime, was addressed by Police Chief Doug Hambleton at a 5 p.m. council workshop Tuesday. 

“The overall crime rate has been declining in Berkeley over the past several years,” consistent with other Bay Area cities, the chief reported in his report to the council.  

Auto thefts, however are increasing, with 1,189 in 2004 and 1,266 in 2005. This year, the trend looks like it may be easing up with 340 auto thefts during the first quarter of this year, compared to 364 during the first quarter of last year.  

“We recover 93 percent of the autos that were stolen,” the chief said. Most are recovered without significant damage. “Most are stolen for transportation, not to be stripped down,” he said. 

The chief noted that the department has purchased 1,000 steering-wheel locks to give away to residents, especially owners of older Toyotas and Hondas, to help deter thefts. Hambleton said he does not yet have a distribution plan. 

The police force has been reduced by 13 officers over the last two years, Hambleton noted. However, the department is increasing its presence on Telegraph Avenue by paying officers overtime. (Councilmember Kriss Worthington noted, however, that with the increase of policing on Telegraph, there has been an increase in complaints of drug trafficking on Regent Street.) 

People can help deter auto break-ins by locking cars and keeping inviting-looking objects out of sight. The department will be doing a public information campaign on crime deterrence for new students in August-September. 

While the chief said he would like additional officers, “I’m also in favor of more tutors and recreation leaders. We have to take a holistic approach,” he said

The woman grabs the arm extending from the cylindrical drum and rotates it three times causing several dozen cards within it to fly. She stops the motion, opens the device and reaches for one card, then another. When 10 are picked, the City Clerk reads the names inscribed on each. 

The 10 chosen at council meetings, up until recently, earned the exclusive right to address the mayor and council in public. 

But SuperBOLD (Berkelyans Organizing for Library Defense) says that system of choosing speakers limits free speech. The group threatened to sue both the city and the library, whose trustees also choose speakers by lottery.  

“A combination of public criticism and the threatened lawsuit has certainly forced the City Council to think about the issue a lot more,” said Councilmember Kriss Worthington. 

The council addressed the issue in closed session Monday, the irony of which was not lost on Worthington. 

“It’s funny we’re talking about this in executive session,” he said in an interview before the Monday session. “It’s much healthier if the actual analysis of public comment could be made in public.” 

It looks like a public airing will happen. In an interview Tuesday, Mayor Tom Bates said he would place a discussion on the subject on the June 27 council agenda. 

“It’s important to have a public discussion” on the question, Bates said.  

Meanwhile, he added, “I’ll be exercising more latitude.” 

In fact, at the Tuesday evening City Council meeting Bates had the City Clerk call 15 people to speak for two minutes each, rather than 10 people for three minutes each, then asked others in the public to speak if the issue they had come for had not been addressed. 

And Library Trustee Ying Lee said, with new library leadership—the library director who acts as secretary to the trustees has been replaced—new systems are likely to be instituted. 

Sophia Cope, attorney with the First Amendment Project, representing SuperBOLD in the threatened lawsuit, addressed the question of the lottery in an April 19 letter to the city attorney: “The public comment lottery system improperly denies willing speakers the right to address the council and board at public meetings and it improperly prevents certain agenda items from receiving public comment.”  

“There are lots of people who want to speak, but don’t get to,” said Gene Bernardi, a founding member of SuperBOLD and a regular attendee at both council and library meetings. 

But in a May 11 letter to Cope, City Attorney Manuela Albuquerque countered that Berkeley already provides sufficient avenues for public input. 

“Berkeley City Councils have, for many years, with little fanfare, used a variety of mechanisms to ensure and maximize public input,” she wrote, citing “over 40 boards and commissions with citizen commissioners [that] preside over a lively and robust public debate and discourse on a gamut of public policy issues.”  

The public can submit comments to the council by letter or the Internet and the council holds public hearings both required and not required by law in which every member of the public can speak, the city attorney said. 

“Thus it appears that the council already receives extensive public comment both orally and in writing on subjects both on its agenda and within its jurisdiction, much of which is cumulative and repetitive from one meeting to the next and which often overlaps with public hearings on the subject,” Albuquerque wrote. 

Bates said that one concern, when considering various scenarios for increasing public comment, is council gridlock caused by permitting too many speakers. But Bernardi said there are ways to avoid that, such as the council holding additional public hearings on days it has no scheduled meeting. 

“Democracy is not an easy thing,” Bernardi commented. 

According to Cope, the bottom line is that the city and library must make changes “or we’ll put (the lawsuit) in front of a judge.”

In an about-face Wednesday, the Planning Commission suspended its support of a Transportation Services Fee (TSF) program, and recommended that the City Council follow suit.  

Commissioners voted 5-4 in favor of a motion urging the City Council to reject the program, which would charge developers for projects that would impact the city’s vehicular traffic. Those fees would go toward alternative transportation programs and projects. 

Commissioner Harry Pollack, who made the motion, identified Berkeley’s economic downturn as a rationale for rejecting the program, saying extra costs could motivate developers to take their business elsewhere. 

“Now is not the time to impose a fee like this,” he said. 

Commissioners Susan Wengraf, Jordan deStaebler, James Samuels and Larry Gurley agreed. Commissioners David Stoloff, Helen Burke, Mike Sheen and Gene Poschman dissented. 

In November, the commission expressed theoretical support for the program but quibbled with details of the proposed fee schedule. City staff from the transportation, planning and economic development departments compromised on a revised proposal that decreases fees overall, differentiates between new and change-of-use development, and reduces the fees for “priority uses” or projects that various city plans deem crucial to Berkeley’s economic well-being. 

The monies collected through the program would support marketing and incentive campaigns to encourage alternative forms of transportation, transit service and signage improvements, and bicycle and pedestrian facilities. 

But on Wednesday, a procession of public comment from members of the business and development community swayed several commissioners to rethink the program altogether. 

The Telegraph Business Improvement District opposes the fees “in totality,” said Executive Director Roland Peterson, dropping the “C” word (Cody’s, the popular Telegraph Avenue bookstore slated to close in July) as evidence for why the city must do everything in its power to spur, not deter, economic development. 

Developer Patrick Kennedy concurred. 

“The regulatory thicket one has to go through for a small business or office is far worse now than it’s ever been,” he said. “I would like to exhort the Planning Commission to not think of yet another regulation, but think what can you prune to revitalize districts.” 

Representatives from the Downtown Berkeley Association and the West Berkeley Business Association, the vice president of the Berkeley Chamber of Commerce and others also lambasted the program. 

According to Dave Fogarty, the city’s community economic development project coordinator, retail sales in the city of Berkeley have dropped significantly. In 2005, the city brought in about $12.8 million in sales tax revenue. In 2000, that figure was closer to $14 million—or more than $15 million when adjusted for inflation, Fogarty said.  

Commissioner Burke pointed out that the city’s economy spiraled downward without the help of the TSF program. “The economic situation is somewhat independent of having a fee,” she said. 

Commissioner Stoloff called Pollack’s motion “embarrassing,” and floated an alternative that would initiate the program only if sales tax dips below a threshold and certain exemptions are granted (to change-of-use projects, for example). That motion failed. 

Public supporters of the TSF program were notably absent from Wednesday’s meetings. One commissioner ventured the guess that they’re saving their ammunition for City Council meetings, where the final decision will be cast. The council is expected to weigh in on the fee program July 11.

Music, food, and blessings will mark the 20th anniversary of Berkeley’s Juneteenth festival on Sunday—reputed to be the longest running in Northern California. 

According to Sam Dyke, organizer and chair of the Merchants Association of Adeline and Alcatraz, the celebration of Juneteenth in Berkeley has a life of its own, which evolves with every passing year.  

“Community played a very important role in the success of the last 19 celebrations,” he said. “Every year city officials, corporations, community groups, businesses, churches, media representatives, educators, artists, and others contribute time and money which results in the conglomeration of a wide section of the Bay Area community in the celebration of a major African American cultural event.” 

Juneteenth, the oldest nationally celebrated commemoration of the end of slavery in the United States, has its roots in Galveston, Texas, where it was observed as the African American Emancipation Day on June 19, 1865.  

Today the festival has spread across the country, crossing borders, ethnicities, colors and calling for the end of bigotry, hatred and racism among nationalities. 

“It is on this day that we think about the time when those enslaved in Galveston received news about their freedom. We can only guess their emotions, their jubilant dances at being free again, at embarking on an adventure into the unknown,” said Dyke. 

Last year the Juneteenth festival attracted a crowd of more than 10,000, and has established itself as a local tradition over the years. The festival is also celebrated in other countries, including Ghana, Israel, France and England. 

Since Juneteenth falls during summer, it is considered an ideal time to have a barbecue, roast corn-on-the-cob and throw a yard sale. The event also provides an opportunity to listen to music. This Sunday, the festivities are scheduled to take place from 10 a.m to 5 p.m. near the Black Repertory Theatre on Adeline and Alcatraz streets and will include drummers, the singing of the Negro National Anthem, a performance by the Grass Roots Jazz Band, Ricardo Scales, Kito Gamble and Faye Carol. 

For Children, there will be hands on art activities, face painting and a storytelling session by Griot-Tureeda Mikell. A two-on-two basketball tournament is also scheduled for the day. 

For more information, seewww.juneteenth.com or call 655-8008. 

It has stood on a block on Channing Way for most of the last four decades doing what wishing wells do best—making wishes of those in need come true.  

Local legend has it the free box began in the charming tree-lined neighborhood of Channing Way during the ‘60s to keep alive the spirit of love and sharing, a receptacle for collecting clothes and other things that their owners have outgrown but might find use somewhere else. 

The City of Berkeley however views the wishing well as an encroachment according to the city’s encroachment ordinance and as a “non-commercial decorative installation.” 

In a May 16 letter to Ratzlesnatch Co-operative, in front of whose property the disputed structure is located, City Manager Phil Kamlarz wrote that the co-op could apply for an encroachment permit, but added that such a request would be denied, and therefore it needed to be removed or relocated within 30 days. 

Councilmember Dona Spring, in whose district the well is located, said that Kamlarz had informed her that the matter was now in the hands of the City Council and the structure would not be taken down until the council made a decision at Tuesday’s meeting.  

“I will be bringing this up at Tuesday’s City Council meeting and requesting the council to give the wishing well an encroachment permit,” Spring said. “I want the city to realize its responsibility to help facilitate something that helps hundreds of people in Berkeley. We need to support something that helps recycling and has so far been beautifully upkept by the surviving neighborhood.” 

On Thursday afternoon, Berkeley resident John Lynch was signing a petition to save the wishing well at the site. 

“Five hundred people have already signed it, and I hope the city hears our request before making a decision,” he said. “People come to Berkeley to live because of amenities like this—it is a great way to care for the local community. The wishing well is one of the reasons why I chose to live in this particular neighborhood. I have friends all over the world who know about this well. It will be really sad if it gets taken down.” 

Wes Ikenchi, who has lived in the area for the last 25 years, said that most of his clothes had come from the wishing well. 

“It’s an incredible resource for the entire community,” he said. “Mothers bring their kids here to pick up art and craft materials, Halloween costumes and so much more. It’s one of the things I appreciate about the city, it’s what makes Berkeley what it is.” 

Barbara Cappa and Dan Lambart of the Well Wishers, an informal group that has been set up to petition to save the wishing well, feel that this is selective enforcement on the part of the city. 

“It’s a place that really cuts across different barriers, races, and political views,” Cappa said. “It’s a place where people can meet one another and talk and get in touch with each other’s humanity ... It means so much to a lot of people, we just cannot let it be taken down.” 

Lambert said that even if the group wanted to file for a permit, it could not afford the $1,000 fee. 

“We have a letter from the Director of Ecology Action, Martin Borque, urging the council to support the wishing well,” he said. “It’s not just homeless people who use the box everyday—the neighbors use it too. Anybody can put things in it and take things out. Users themselves take responsibility to keep it tidy.”

The moral vacuum which has engulfed the international policy of the United States of America became even more apparent this week as mid-level officials popped off with their gut reactions to the suicides of three prisoners in the Guantanamo concentration camp.  

Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy Colleen Graffy, one of the legion of airhead flaks now employed by the State Department instead of policymakers, called the deaths “a good PR move” in a giggly BBC interview. The jailer-in-chief, camp commander Rear Admiral Harry Harris, said truculently that the suicides were an “act of asymmetric warfare waged against us.” Cooler heads in the Bush administration tried to backtrack later with saccharin expressions of concern, but since these were mixed with “life is cheap in the Orient” racist clichés their sincerity was dubious. 

The most obvious interpretation of suicide committed by captives is despair. Prisoners commit suicide when they’ve lost hope that they will ever be released. One of the Guantanamo dead was scheduled for release soon, indicating that prison authorities had reason to question why he’d been incarcerated in the first place, but no one told him that.  

Habeas corpus, one of the oldest pillars of legal systems like ours which are derived from English common law, seems to have evaporated. In theory, prisoners have the right to have a court examine whether or not they’re lawfully held, but most Guantanamo prisoners have now been jailed for years without legal recourse—an ongoing series of legal challenges has produced few results. 

But it’s not only the prisoners in the hellish Guantanamo camps who are seized by despair. As the United States increasingly turns to incarceration as the solution to its social problems, many prisoners who do not belong in prison see suicide as their only release. Andrew Martinez, considered one of Berkeley’s likable eccentrics when he was a student known as “The Naked Guy,” committed suicide in the Santa Clara county jail, where he was held after he got into a fight at a halfway house while he was being treated for mental illness. A lawyer who practices in that county says that prosecutors prefer to charge mental cases with crimes, because it ups the box score on convictions to include a high percentage of mentally-ill defendants who can’t defend themselves in court. Suicides in juvenile facilities, where the rules are vague and release date is uncertain, are an increasing problem. 

It’s bad enough when adults who have been convicted of real crimes after fair trials are imprisoned. Hellish facilities like Pelican Bay are little more than factories for producing future criminals, especially when more and more prisoners have to be released without proper parole supervision because of over-sentencing. The goal of rehabilitation of criminals has just about disappeared in California, partly because of the political muscle of the powerful prison guards’ union. One study found that suicides are the third leading cause of death in prisons and the leading cause in jails (short-term incarceration faculties). 

The modest amount of information which has leaked out of Guantanamo seems to indicate that a substantial number of inmates there might be cases of mistaken identity. Five members of China’s Uighur ethnic minority group, for example, were caught up in sweeps in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and spent four and a half years in the camp. No charges were ever filed against them, and they were finally released last fall. 

Families of the Guantanamo suicides say that their sons were innocent of any crime, and that as devout Moslems they believed suicide to be sinful. Moazzam Begg, the British citizen released without charges who has written a book about his experiences at Guantanamo, has expressed his own doubts. U.S. officials, however, have charged the suicide victims with an assortment of radical and terrorist affiliations, and continue to try to brand their deaths as political acts. Now that they’re dead, the truth may never be known. For the rest of the Guantanamo prisoners too, the truth might never be discovered without fair trials, which seem increasingly unlikely.  

The Bush administration loves to claim the moral high ground, as evidenced, they say, by their support among certain factions of the Christian community. Members of the religious right, mostly but not exclusively evangelical Christians, preach sanctimoniously about the “right to life.” If they really support the right to life for everyone, they should join the outrage against the inhumane treatment of prisoners in Guantanamo and elsewhere.  

Their brothers and sisters in the more mainstream National Council of Churches are calling for the facility to be closed. The suicides are “another milestone in a sordid history of human rights denial and crimes against humanity,” said the Rev. Dr. Bob Edgar, NCC General Secretary. “Americans who love their country and its historic ideals are mortified by this continuing blot on our honor, on our steadfast defense of freedom, and on our commitment to democracy and the rule of law.”  

The NCC’s online arm, FaithfulAmerica.org, has already collected 10,500 signatures on a petition to close Guantanamo. Those who agree with Rev. Edgar—left, right and center, religious or not—should add their names to it. A petition by itself probably won’t change much, but it can at least blow some fresh air into the moral vacuum which now exists in Washington. 

Developers floated preliminary concepts for a high-rise hotel in downtown Berkeley Wednesday. 

The Boston-based Carpenter & Company offered a crowd of about 100 public officials, businesspeople and other community leaders a few details of the proposed four-star hotel at Center Street and Shattuck Avenue. 

The facility, to be named the Berkeley Charles Hotel, will include 210 guest rooms, a conference room, a ballroom, retail space and 50 residential condominiums, among other features. 

UC Berkeley spearheaded the project—and the hotel is slated for construction on university property—but development falls to Carpenter & Company. 

“This is a very exciting time for us,” said company president Dick Friedman in a lively presentation to stakeholders at the Berkeley Repertory Theatre Wednesday. “In addition to building hotels, we really care about communities and urban planning.” 

The hotel will have one of the best restaurants in Berkeley and possibly a jazz bar, he said. “It will look like it belongs in Berkeley, it will feel like it belongs in Berkeley,” he said.  

Cambridge Seven Associates, Inc., the architecture firm retained by the developer, will work with a local architect and a green building specialist in designing the hotel, Friedman said. 

The firm has planned several hotels in Massachussetts and elsewhere in the country, including the Charles Hotel in Cambridge, Mass. and the St. Regis in San Francisco. The company also built an aquarium ine Lisbon, Portugal, a medical facility at Mass General and the Museum of African Diaspora (MoAD) in San Francisco. 

Gary Johnson, a principal for Cambridge Seven, said the general concept for the Berkeley Charles takes into account the design sensibilities of the surrounding structures and serves as a point of attraction for both visitors and residents. 

“We’re really interested in a hotel that’s like the city’s living room,” he said. 

The firm is open to a design that allows for the daylighting of Strawberry Creek, which runs beneath downtown, and a pedestrian-only Center Street, Johnson said. It could also be one of the greenest hotels in the country, he said.  

A hotel task force, formed by the Planning Commission, met for several months in 2004 to outline recommended features of the proposed development. A handful of members at Wednesday’s reception expressed support for the preliminary concepts. 

“I’m really pleased tonight,” said former task force chair Rob Wrenn. “I really feel like they took the task force’s recommendations into consideration.” Maintaining a design that allows Center Street to be closed to cars—as part of the larger revisioning process of downtown Berkeley--is very important, he said. 

City Councilmember Dona Spring also expressed her support. 

“It seems like a perfect match for Berkeley,” she said of the developers. “They’ve got a track record of involving the community. And I especially like the idea of making it an ecological building . . . This could be a vision of how to integrate our urban area with the natural world.” 

Mayoral candidate Zelda Bronstein, who was vice-chair of the hotel task force, was pleased with the presentation, but said she looked forward to more information. 

Carpenter & Company was selected by the university to develop a hotel in downtown Berkeley in 2004, but has met with some difficulties in getting the project underway, in large part because Bank of America owns a portion of the site proposed for building (the university owns the majority). Friedman said he is in the process of working out a deal with the bank—which will likely be incorporated into the hotel—and now expects the project to take on a faster pace. 

The company will formally present its plans to the Downtown Area Plan Advisory Committee June 21, after which point the rigorous planning process begins. Matt Taeker, principal planner for the Downtown Area Plan, says the hotel will undergo the “highest level” vetting process. 

The company plans to work closely with the community, Friedman said, adding: “This hotel will only be successful if Berkeley supports it.”

The faces were lined, framed by graying and thinning hair, but the passion that had animated them—and the humor—were rekindled as firebrands of the ’60s recalled one of their own. 

They were veterans of the Free Speech Movement, the battles for People’s Park and Vietnam War protests, who had gathered in a Grizzly Peak Boulevard home in late May to celebrate the life of one of their own. 

A founder of the Yippies and the always merry and oft-arrested prankster who ran a pig for President outside the infamous 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago, Stew Albert was a luminary in a legendary era. 

He died of liver cancer on Jan. 30 at his home in Portland, Ore. He was 66. 

As his friends recalled, Albert was a man whose intellect, skills, charm and ready wit bridged political chasms. 

Born in New York in 1939, he was led to activism by the May 2, 1960, execution of Caryl Chessman, a Californian inmate whose bestselling Cell 2455, Death Row had ignited a national debate about capital punishment. 

Albert came to San Francisco in 1965, befriending poet Allen Ginsberg and other prominent figures of the Beat era before finding his way to Berkeley and plunging into the heady radicalism ignited two years earlier by the Free Speech Movement. 

He never gave up his radicalism or his friends. 

Judy Gumbo, his partner for 32 years, attended Saturday’s event. She didn’t speak during the tributes but listened, smiling and exchanging frequent hugs with the speakers. 

“He was a very effective inciter of disturbances,” recalled Art Goldberg, who met Albert in 1967 and served as emcee of the memorial. 

“Stew Albert was a co-founder of the Yippies and a friend of Jerry Rubin and a friend of Abbie Hoffman and a friend of Eldridge Cleaver and a friend of John Lennon and a friend of thousands who identified with the Movement,” said Oakland City Councilmember Jane Brunner. 

Rubin and Hoffman were seminal figures in Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), and later in the Yippies—the Youth International Party. Cleaver was the Information Minister of the Black Panther Party. 

Brunner, who had marched with Albert, quoted from the resolution she wrote and her colleagues passed, which declared Feb. 1 Stew Albert Day in Oakland. 

He “was a target of J. Edgar Hoover and a target of Richard Nixon and a target of the FBI and the victor in a lawsuit against their harassment and an irrepressible critic of the unjust and the idiotic to the moment he died, addressing the power that rules us now,” she read. 

Thrown into Alameda County jail at Santa Rita in 1970 for his role in the People’s Park protests, Albert decided to run for sheriff. “It was (now-U.S. Rep.) Barbara Lee who encouraged him and got him to run,” said Goldberg. 

Albert collected 65,000 votes—a thousand for every day he spent at Santa Rita—carrying Berkeley by 10,000. 

One victim of an Albert prank was Max Scherr, editor of the Berkeley Barb, that legendary paper of the days of “the Movement.” 

“A lot of Jewish kids were converting to Buddhism then,” Paul Glusman said, so Albert cooked up a hoax, getting a letter mailed from Japan to the paper reporting that “all the Buddhist kids in Japan were converting to Judaism.” 

Scherr ran the letter. 

Several speakers spoke of Albert’s fondness for cannabis—he was anything but the model of the puritanical Old Left. 

“I had my greatest moments with him during the conspiracy trial,” said Anne Weills, who met Albert through Jerry Rubin. 

The trial was the prosecution of the Chicago Seven. Hoffman, Rubin and five others were tried on federal conspiracy charges for their part in the demonstrations at the Democratic Convention. 

Several speakers said Albert was frustrated that he wasn’t indicted for his own very considerable role in Chicago events, which included the brilliant inspiration to declare Pigasus the official Yippie presidential candidate. 

Steve Tappis recalled several friends who lamented “Poor Stew” when they heard he hadn’t been charged. “We should indict him posthumously,” he said, drawing laughter and smiles. 

Tappis met Albert during preparations for the Oct. 21, 1967, demonstration at the Pentagon, where more than 100,000 showed up to protest the Vietnam War. 

“I always thought Stew was the ambassador, the Yippie who talked to the Marxist-Leninists. He was no liberal. He was hardline and hard core, but nonsectarian—and that is a trip,” Tappis said. 

“I saw him two days before he died, and he said, ‘I never changed my politics,’” said Conn “Ringo” Hallinan, who recalled Albert’s brief flirtation with the Progressive Labor Party (PL), a Maoist faction. 

“The Communist Party liked PL because they made us look like we had a sense of humor,” quipped Hallinan, former editor of The People’s World. 

Gloria Polanski, who met Albert when she was 17, spoke of “his humility and his bravado.” 

Jonah Raskin first met Albert in October, 1970, when he and other radicals flew to Algiers where Eldridge Cleaver was playing host to Timothy Leary after the LSD guru had broken out of prison with the help of the Weather Underground and fled overseas. 

“Eldridge sat around with an AK-47 in his lap,” and much marijuana and considerable LSD was being ingested. 

When Cleaver abruptly decided to put his guest under virtual house arrest, Raskin and Albert were moved to ponder the strange course of events. 

“He had his theory: ‘It’s just that every so often in history there’s this person, Dr. Doom, who intervenes and fucks things up,’” Raskin said, smiling at the memory. “It was his convenient way to explain things in history that are otherwise not explainable.” 

And while Albert wasn’t a man of violence, he had called a press conference to hail the bombing of the U.S. Capitol by the Weather Underground, the revolutionary splinter group of Students for a Democratic Society. 

Jeff Jones, once a leader of both, remembered Albert in a letter. 

“Stew was different. He always had a strategy and a plan,” Jones wrote. “More than anyone, he helped Abbie and Jerry give definition to the Yippie movement. Without his ability to broker their competitive egos and channel their ideas into strategy, what is passing into history as the Yippie story would have been different, definitely diminished and possibly disregarded.” 

Carol Cullum was a young Quaker when she met Hoffman during the Pentagon protest. She was speaking because Albert had asked her to. “You should tell nothing but the truth,” he had said, adding, “but you don’t have to stay with that part.” 

They would later discover that a mutual friend was informing on both of them to the feds. 

“He was a kindly, wonderful, loving, bright and hilarious person who was able to work with everyone,” she said, and he used those skills when he went with Hoffman and Rennie Davis to persuade John Lennon and Yoko Ono to work with the peace movement. 

“Stew was that person who had that connection with people,” she said. “I miss him a whole lot.” 

“I have a sideways memory of Stew and Judy,” said Jean Friedman, who met them as fellow parents at a Montessori school in Berkeley 25 years ago. 

While she’d not been a fan of the Yippies, she discovered in her new friends a model family, “the most wonderful people. So I forgave them for being Yippies,” she said, smiling. 

“What a model for my marriage,” said Naomi Price, when met Albert in a synagogue. “He was a family man. He embodied what a husband and a father should be.” For more on Albert, see his web site, http://members.aol.com/stewa/stew.html. His autobiography, Who the Hell is Stew Albert?, was published last year by Red Hen Press.

Last December a group of older women (many with long experience as activists) met to form Grandmothers Against the War, dedicated to “ending the shameful war in Iraq” and “inviting all like-minded people (of whatever age, gender, and parental status) to join in the effort.” Their first action was “Take Us Instead,” their Valentine’s Day rally and attempt to enlist at the Oakland Induction Center. 

That was followed on April 17 (income tax deadline) by a rally leafleting outside the Oakland IRS office to protest the eventually “Trillion Dollar War” being financed by our taxes. Plans for subsequent actions and long-term projects are ongoing. 

One of these, The Grandmothers’ Letters Project, chaired by Marge Lasky, got underway on June 9. Aimed at starting a unique letter-writing campaign, it was sparked by Helen Isaacson’s urge to “write something to my 10-year-old granddaughter—not to scare her about the war and the state of the world but to help her to live positively in the world she must grow up in.” 

The Project committee agreed that age and experience (“We’ve lived through so many wars!”) made them well qualified to pass on to younger generations the helpful lessons they had learned. One way, they agreed, was to write letters, describing their own real experiences to people of the younger generations, and, most important “Not lectures and sermons and slogans.” said Pat Cody, “Concrete examples of how we learned something or did something.”  

One of the committee members had brought along a letter she was thinking of sending to her grandson.  

“I don’t know. It’s not even about Iraq.”  

“Read it to us,” suggested Julie Forsmith. 

She read aloud the letter printed (with permission) below: 

Dear Willie, 

I was just a little older than you are when Yoshio disappeared from my seventh-grade class. At recess that day about six of us stood in the schoolyard talking about him. Donny, one of the slow learners in our class, said he didn’t understand what our teacher had told us. “I don’t get it,” he said. “Why did Yoshio have to go away?” 

I was at the top of our class. I could recite everything that our teachers, our parents, and the newspapers said. I explained that, since Japan had attacked Pearl Harbor, San Francisco might be next; Japan was not a democracy like ours, it was ruled by an emperor who was worshipped as a god; this religious worship made Japanese believe they should do anything for the emperor.” My classmates nodded, a little bored at hearing it all again. 

All except Donny, who wrinkled up his forehead, shook his head slowly in confusion, and asked, “What has all that stuff got to do with Yoshio?” 

Then someone yelled, “I found the ball,” and everyone ran off to start a game. 

I just stood there alone for a minute, turning hot with rage. Then I turned cold with shame. My stomach turned over with disgust—for myself. I, the smart one, had swallowed everything I was told, and then had given it back, word for word, like passing a test. Donny, the dumb one, had asked a simple question that blew my little speech apart, showed me that our government, our teachers, our neighbors, our parents—none of them bad people—were lying to us and, worse, to themselves.  

I wish I could tell you that I went around asking Donny’s question everywhere, but I was afraid to. I knew that I would just make the adults very angry at me, because, deep down, they knew they should be asking the same question: why were Americans like Yoshio and his family being put behind barbed wire in desert camps? That unasked question sank into a great silence that lasted years and years—until it was broken, leaving a terrible shame that became part of our history, yours and mine. 

I never forgot Donny, and I try not to forget the lessons he taught me: that being smart is harder and deeper than filling in the blanks on a test; that smart people in the highest positions can be wrong; that asking a simple, “stupid” question takes courage, because people get angry if you catch them lying or showing their ignorance. Above all, I try to remember that there are no stupid questions; what’s stupid is swallowing whatever you’re told and repeating it without making sure you understand it. 

If people tell you that two plus two equals four, and that a red light means STOP, you can believe them. Anything more complicated than that—ask questions until you’re very sure you understand. Just asking might stir up some hidden truth, and that truth might start other people asking more questions. And if everyone keeps asking questions, we might avoid doing some bad things. We might even manage to stop someone else from doing bad things, and, best of all, succeed in doing some good things together. 

Love, 

Grandma  

The committee agreed that her letter certainly was about issues surrounding the war in Iraq, and that it might nudge writers who had trouble getting started. “Let’s send it, along with our call for letters, as a sample to encourage writing.” 

“Not a model!” said Wendy Oser. 

“Absolutely not,” said Renate Sadrozinski, “just a hint that could trigger a memory or an idea.” 

The committee then put together a list of criteria for letters to actual children and young people, or imaginary ones, along with copies to friends, relatives, newspapers—with requests to forward it to others, and to write more letters to be sent to the addressee and disseminated widely, above all to the Grandmothers Letters Project! They agreed on the following guidelines: 

• 1. Length can range from 200 to 1,000 words. 

• 2. Addressee should be preferably an actual young person, but may be imagined.  

• 3. Letters should focus on a real experience, something the writer has seen or done or not done (or perhaps wished s/he had done), something s/he wants to pass on as valuable action or learning experience. 

Finally, the group laid out a few rules for the Letters Project Committee and for letter contributors:  

• 1. Letters will be edited solely for clarity (proofreading) and brevity (under 1,000 words, cutting repetition). No substantive changes will be made without consulting the writer. 

• 2. Contributors must include name and all contact numbers (email, snail mail, telephone). No anonymous letters will be accepted, but the writer’s name will be withheld if requested.. 

• 3. Submitting a letter to the Grandmothers Letters Project constitutes permission for the Project to publish the letter in any format—newspapers, email, blog, printed book, sound recording Website or beamed to the stars of our galaxy. This is, of course, a non-exclusive right, and the main purpose of the project is that writers disseminate their own letters in every way possible (another reason for putting your name to your letter). 

• 4. Grandmothers Letters Project will bear only its own costs of printing, distribution, website fees involved in distributing the letter and so on. In the extremely unlikely event that any money beyond what might cover these costs comes back to the Letters Project from its efforts to publish letters, that money will be donated to peace organizations. 

• 5. People who don’t want to write a letter can volunteer to help in other ways: promotion, printing, editing, distribution, etc. 

“Did we miss anything?” Marge asked the group. 

“We should try to get some well-known authors to write a letter too.” 

“Okay, call up your famous friends.” 

“But don’t forget, this is for everyone—people like us, who struggle with writing, as many people as possible.” 

Marge looked around at the group. “That’s it? Okay, let’s get the word out. Telephone, email, snail mail—tell everybody we EAGERLY await their letters. Tell them, sit down and write, NOW!” 

If you want to contribute a letter, (or help in some other way) send an email to: GAWletters@hotmail.com. Or send snail mail to Grandmothers Against the War, Letters Project, P.O. Box 9476, Berkeley, CA 94709. 

To get on the email list for announcements from Grandmothers Against the War, contact bayareagrandmothers@yahoo.com.

1. Where were you born and where did you grow up, and how does that affect to how you regard the issues in Berkeley and in your district? 

I was born in Palo Alto, came to Berkeley when I was about six months old, went back to Palo Alto after kindergarten, grew up in Palo Alto, graduated from Palo Alto high school and bounced around for a couple of years, came back to Berkeley as an undergraduate, graduated in 1969. 

My family has a long history in Berkeley. My grandparents lived here. When I first came back to Berkeley we lived on El Camino. Then we moved down in the flatlands on Woolsey. When I came back here as a student I lived in the south campus area. Then I lived in the apartment in Walnut Square above a guy name Alfred Peet who opened up Peet’s Coffee a year after I moved in. 

Then I taught high school history and social studies for seven years in Martinez. Living in Berkeley. Got married in 1968. Had our first child in 1970 and our second child in 1972. A daughter and a son. They both went through Berkeley schools, graduating from Berkeley High. 

In 1978 I got a real estate license and I started practicing real estate. A couple of years later I did a small development on Henry Street where I built four new town houses. I’ve worked in various aspects of real estate all of 27 years. I’ve lived in my house which is in my district since 1972. So I think I know my district pretty well. 

A lot of the problems in my district are kind of nuts and bolts. Particularly over the years as a small developer I learned about the difficulties and the political nature of the permit process. I can understand how that frustrates homeowners and business people. I’ve been on Solano Avenue as a business man since 1978. I know that street very well and that neighborhood and I have lots of friends in that district. 

2. What is your educational background, and how did that help prepare you for being a council member? 

I graduated from UC Berkeley in political science. I wasn’t really a great student until I got focused on deciding I wanted to be a teacher. Probably what I learned best from being a student at UC was how to find information when I needed to find it. I went on and got a teaching credential and taught high school for seven years. 

3. What are the top three most pressing issues facing District 5? 

I think two issues that are coming up in the next six months. 

One is creeks and how to regulate them. And balance that against homeowner’s rights. 

[One issue] we’re looking ... is the Landmarks Preservation Ordinance, looking to be, I hope, fair and equitable as we revise that ordinance. That’s an issue people are concerned about. 

And I think the third is kind of nuts and bolts: Infrastructure kinds of issues. Sewers, streets, sidewalks, those kinds of things. 

4. Do you agree with the direction the city is heading in. Why or why not?  

I do. I think the city is moving in a direction towards working towards consensus. For a long time this city has had individuals in our community that have taken really strong, sometimes rigid positions, unable or unwilling to see another perspective on an issue. I think in the last few years, before I came on the council, I think we were moving in a direction where I think we were working towards consensus. And I think we’ve seen that with the creeks issue. With the preservation issue and with many other issues. 

5. What is your opinion of the proposal to develop a new downtown plan and the settlement with the University of California over its LRDP? 

I think those are two separate issues. I’m encouraged by what’s occurred so far in the downtown. The hopeful rebuilding of the Shattuck Hotel. The potential construction of a hotel conference center. The construction of housing in the downtown I think has been great. It’s brought more people into the downtown. The junior college [Berkeley Community College] opening this fall. The Seagate building hopefully will go under construction in the next six months. Library Gardens is going to come on line towards the end of the summer. Lots of new housing in the downtown. 

There’s been lots of development in the Theater District. Kimball’s East is hopefully going into the UC Theatre. There’s lots of activity. I’d like to see some more small retail in the downtown. And I think I will as more people live in the downtown and there’s the demand for it. 

On the LRDP, some people have made claim, and I think incorrectly, that somehow the university has taken over zoning or development of the downtown. That’s just not the case. And if anybody reads the settlement agreement with the city, they will see that. 

The fact of the matter is we operate at a huge disadvantage to the university. The university operates independently when it owns land and wants to develop it. And what we have to do is get them to the table to negotiate so that community interests are protected and UC can meet its needs. 

6. How do you think the mayor is doing at his position? Are you considering running for mayor, and if so, what changes would you try to make?  

I endorsed Tom Bates. 

7. Has Berkeley’s recent development boom been beneficial for the city? What new direction, if any, should the city’s development take over the next decade?  

I think it’s been a great benefit. People living, working, walking around shopping in the downtown has been a great benefit to the downtown. And I think you have seen some substantial development along transit corridors, University and San Pablo, Shattuck and Telegraph. I think that’s where we want to focus. 

We have some exciting new projects coming along in public transportation. We have the bus rapid transit that will be coming up from Oakland. And potentially we have a ferry system developing in the next ten years. And that will most likely be at the bottom of University. 

8. How would you characterize the political climate in Berkeley these days? 

I think we are operating more with a consensus than in the past but I think we still have a ways to go. 

9. What is your favorite thing about Berkeley? 

I love the physical layout of Berkeley. I love the buildings. I work in real estate. I go in and out of homes all week long. I love our neighborhoods. The small shopping districts. I don’t think there’s a community in the Bay Area where you can go and find as many really vibrant neighborhoods as you see in the Adeline/Alcatraz area, the Elmwood area, around Monterey Market and the Solano area. I think these are some of the jewels of Berkeley. 

10. What is your least favorite thing about Berkeley? 

The traffic. Too much traffic. There are far fewer people living in Berkeley now that lived here when I came here finally in 1964. There are fewer people but twice as many registered cars. 

I certainly am put off by how contentious we seem to feel. We need to maintain the level of discourse in this community. We could be a little more community driven, more consensus driven. 

The council unanimously approved putting a number of budget items on a list for further consideration. They include:  

• the costs to implement an anti-sweatshop policy for the city—the purchase of goods not made in sweatshops: $50,000 

• Office of Emergency Services: $120,000 

• Center for Accessible Technology: $10,000 

• Civic Arts Commission work plan: $12,000 

• Fire Department Services: $1 million 

• West Berkeley Neighborhood Development Corporation and food festival: $10,000 

More controversial was Councilmember Gordon Wozniak’s proposal to place on the budget-request list $50,000 for the Public Safety Commission. Councilmember Dona Spring argued that the Police Review Commission should take on that function. The measure passed 6-0-3, with Councilmembers Spring, Max Anderson and Laurie Capitelli abstaining. 

The council put over until next week a proposed ballot measure to support greenhouse gas emission reductions and a review of the environmental impact report for southeast campus projects, including Memorial Stadium.  

Students came to the council meeting to lobby for a November ballot measure to survey Berkeley voters on the issue of lowering the voting age to 17 for school board elections, but council put off a discussion of the question until June 20. The group’s website is www.berkeley.youthrights.org. 

Also held over until an undetermined date was the zoning ordinance allowing side yard and backyard parking with an across-the-counter permit.

“The poor man’s game is for the rich only.” Such is the cry of sports writers across the Arab world these days. From my position monitoring Arab media for a U.S.-based non-profit, I’ve watched the fallout from the decision by soccer’s governing body to grant exclusive World Cup broadcast rights in the Middle East to a Saudi-financed television network. The result of the deal: Middle Easterners must pay upwards of $500 to view the competition. 

Though only two Arab teams, Saudi Arabia and Tunisia, are playing in the World Cup, soccer-mania has spread like wildfire throughout the Middle East, as it does every four years. But diehard fans from Morocco to Yemen are furious at FIFA’s (Fédération Internationale de Football Association) deal with the Arab Radio and Television Network (ART). 

In Algeria, President Abdelaziz Bouteflika gave instructions to the ministry of information to pursue all possible means to convince FIFA to grant Algeria TV the broadcast rights for the games. All efforts failed. Last week an Algeria TV news anchor apologized profusely to the country’s soccer fans and consoled viewers that they could at least watch the highlights of 64 games. 

Even the European channels, which are popular in Algeria, will be encrypting live match broadcasts according to their own agreements with FIFA. An Algerian fan complained in French, “Shame on French television ... how they could do this to us? We gave the French National Team Zenedine Zeidan (known as “Zizou” to the French). Without him, France would not have won the World Cup in 1998.”  

In the war-torn country of Iraq, residents of Baghdad have been pooling their money to watch the games at designated family members’ homes. According to a report on Al-Arabiya TV, coffee shops have been opening late to accommodate the fans, but many chose to stay at home, fearing suicide attacks by insurgents. The Iraqi national team, once one of the best teams in the Asia Division, did not qualify this year for lack of practice and long layovers due to the turmoil in the country.  

“I don’t care who wins the championship, I just want a few minutes of escape,” one Iraqi fan told an Al Arabiya reporter. “The fact that ART is charging us a fee to watch the World Cup is despicable,” he said, but was not his main concern. “I hope that we’ll have electricity during the games,” he sighed. 

In the Middle East, I’ve seen this love of soccer temporarily quell conflict between the bitterest of foes. In December 1998, I watched the final World Cup match, between France and Brazil, at the American Colony Hotel in Jerusalem. The hotel set up a wide-screen television in its open-air garden, where crowds of Palestinians, Israelis, foreign tourists and reporters munched on Arabic mezza and nervously sucked on their argilehs (water-pipes) while watching the action. Within five minutes of the start of the match, soccer fans separated according to their favorite teams. The majority of Palestinians and Israelis rowdily cheered Brazil, while foreigners more politely supported “le bleu, blanc, rouge.” 

Today, inside the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem, a small coffee house that will remain nameless is serving its mixed patrons Arabic coffee and argileh along with World Cup matches via a pirated receiver. “During the match, there is no war,” the owner tells me with pride on the telephone. “If you discuss politics here, I’ll kick you out—end of story.” This year, he says, Palestinian and Israeli fans are united against one common enemy: satellite and cable carriers charging hefty fees for the privilege of watching this global game. 

Here in the United States, Arabs who choose to pay to watch the games in Arabic on ART won’t get a respite from reminders of the war and conflict savaging the Middle East. I’ve been watching these ART broadcasts in San Francisco because the ESPN announcer bores me and my third-grade Spanish is no match for the lively Univision sportscaster. At the end of each game, and after the long-distance phone company and travel agency ads, there is a peculiar pitch: Special Agent Hassan, a confident and beautiful Arab-American woman, appears. 

“I have a masters in chemistry,” she says in English, “I am a weekend soccer goalie, I stop the plans of terrorists ... I am a special agent with today’s FBI.” The next advertisement typically features a U.S. Army soldier, who says, “I am a bridge between two civilizations. I am an American soldier and an Arabic translator ... Join the Army and get a reward of up to $10,000, and speed up the process of obtaining U.S. citizenship.” 

I miss the days when a game could make fans in a garden courtyard in Jerusalem forget, for a moment, the troubles of their conflicted land. Soccer’s popularity is gaining in America, but it’s got a long way to go. When the U.S. team was annihilated by the Czech Republic, 3-0, few seemed to notice here. I mentioned “the game” to a colleague. “It was a one-sided match,” I said. 

“Yeah,” he replied, thinking I meant the previous evening’s basketball face-off. “Shaq had an off-day.”  

Jamal Dajani is director of Middle East programming at Link TV.

House prices surged faster than household income and inflation, the national home-ownership rate fell for the first time in over a decade, housing inventories shot up with slowing sales, and the volume of sub-prime loans has soared. 

But despite these findings, released today by Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing, the outlook for the housing market is generally good. 

“The greatest threat to housing markets is a precipitous drop in house prices. Large house-price declines appear unlikely for now. But if the economy falters, both job growth and housing prices will come under renewed pressure. This would spark higher default rates, especially among sub-prime borrowers, and turn housing from an engine of economic growth to a drag,” according to the report, The State of the Nation’s Housing 2006. 

By 2005, house prices were rising at the fastest pace since 1978, the report states, and “media reports of a housing bubble reached a fever pitch. But, when and if house prices do fall, the so-called bubble is more likely to deflate slowly rather than burst suddenly.” 

Typically, job losses, overbuilding and population outflows are factors in home-price declines, the report states. “While dips of a few percentage points are common, nominal house prices rarely drop by 10 percent or more.” Though about half of the nation’s 75 largest metro areas have seen nominal house prices drop by 5 percent or more at least once in the past 30 years. 

Over the past several years, real estate economists have said that the strength in the housing market has served to buoy the nation’s economy. Now, the performance of the general economy will help to determine how well the housing market weathers this slowdown. “Housing’s contribution to economic growth is already diminishing and will begin to turn negative if home sales, starts, and home equity borrowing continue to decline.” 

Nicolas Retsinas, director of the Joint Center for Housing Studies, said, “We’ve turned the corner, certainly, from a seller's market to a buyer's market. The days of double-digit (price) appreciation are certainly behind us. The question before us, in this period of price correction, is, 'Will it be a flattening for the market or a more severe drop?'” 

He added, “Overall, the market is probably fairly solid, but in the short term there will be some rough patches. The wild card ... is the economy.” 

While price appreciation is slowing, Retsinas said that prices likely will not moderate enough to eliminate affordability problems. Rising energy costs have also affected housing affordability. From 2001-04, the number of households paying half of their incomes for housing increased by 1.9 million -- an estimated 15.6 million low- and middle-income households are classified as having “severe cost burdens” for housing, according to the report. And about 49 percent of poor working families with children had severe cost burdens in 2004, while 75 percent had at least moderate burdens. 

Affordable rental housing for those earning $16,000 or less each year shrank by about 13 percent from 1993 to 2003, according to the report, and “a significant portion of the remaining affordable stock is in financial stress.” 

Household growth is expected to grow from about 12.6 million over the past 10 years to 14.6 million in the next 10 years, the report states, while “widespread affordability problems will also intensify.” 

An increase in foreclosures is likely as the market transitions, Retsinas said, given that it may not be as easy for some distressed homeowners to sell their properties and avoid a foreclosure process. “If I had a problem making my mortgage payment a year ago I could put my house on the market. If I had a problem this year it might not be quite as easy. I might not have that 'escape hatch.'” 

Meanwhile, the overall home-ownership rate dipped from 69 percent in 2004 to 68.9 percent in 2005, the first drop after 12 consecutive years of gain, according to the report, as the rental market began to rebound. 

New single-family home sales increased 6.7 percent from 2004-05, while existing single-family home sales increased 3.4 percent and existing condo and co-op sales grew 9.3 percent. Median new single-family home prices grew 4.4 percent from 2004-05, existing single-family prices gained 9.4 percent, and existing condo and co-op prices rose 13.4 percent. 

“Although 2005 surpassed 2004 on many measures, housing markets were clearly moderating. Indeed, the year-over-year change in sales of existing homes turned negative late in 2005,” the report states, noting that a rise in interest rates is the likely culprit. 

Slowing sales boosted the inventory of new and existing homes to a supply of about 5.3 months to 5.5 months in March 2006. The months' supply is used to gauge how long it would take to exhaust the for-sale inventory of homes given the current sales rate. A supply of six months is considered to be roughly equilibrium between a buyer's market and a seller's market, with a shorter supply indicating a seller's market and a longer supply indicating a buyer's market. 

The inventory of condos reached a “near-term oversupply,” the report also concludes, with the supply climbing from 3.9 months to 6.9 months. 

Investor demand for real estate is expected to cool, according to the report. “In the hottest markets, the overhang of investor properties may be absorbed rapidly if housing production continues to fall. The recent sharp increase in vacant single-family homes for rent suggests, however, that this process will not be smooth.” 

Investors bought 4 percent of single-family homes built and 13 percent of condos sold, according to a June 2005 survey by the National Association of Home Builders, while investors bought an average 11 percent of new single-family homes and 15 percent of condos in the 30 large markets that posted the fastest price appreciation. 

“Among the housing markets with the highest investor loan shares are several Florida and inland California metros, as well as Boise, Phoenix and Las Vegas. In most markets, the investor share more than doubled from 2000 to 2005,” the Harvard report states. 

“I think we've reached a point where housing is no longer seen as a purchase for investment. It's something to live in,” Retsinas said. 

The volume of sub-prime loans has jumped “dramatically,” the report notes, from $210 billion in 2001 to $625 billion in 2005, with last year's sub-prime lending total representing 20 percent of the dollar value of loan originations and about 7 percent of mortgage debt outstanding. The share of sub-prime loans that were at least 60 days delinquent or in some stage of foreclosure was seven times higher than that of prime loans in fourth-quarter 2005. 

Interest-only loans, which defer principal payments for a specified number of years, “went from relative obscurity to an estimated 20 percent of the dollar value of all loans and 37 percent of adjustable-rate loans originated in 2005,” according to the center's report. “Payment-option loans, which let borrowers make minimum payments that are even lower than the interest due on the loan and roll the balance into the amount owed, accounted for nearly 10 percent of last year's loan originations.” 

Meanwhile, adjustable-rate mortgages, which doubled their share of the market to 35 percent in 2004, dropped slightly to 31 percent in 2005. 

The construction of new rental properties has slowed from 275,000 units in 2002 to 203,000 units in 2005, which—along with the conversion of some rental units to condo units—has assisted in lowering the vacancy rate from 10.2 percent in 2004 to 9.6 percent at the end of 2005. 

At around 12:15 a.m. Wednesday morning, the Berkeley City Council approved the West Berkeley Bowl project by a vote of 6-0-3 with Councilmembers Max Anderson, Dona Spring and Kriss Worthington abstaining. 

After hearing from more than 70 members of the public, divided between those who called for approval and those who demanded significant changes in the plans, a motion by Councilmember Dona Spring to put the issue off a week so that the question of unionization could be worked out failed 4-4-1 with Councilmembers Laurie Capitelli, Betty Olds, Gordon Wozniak and Mayor Tom Bates in opposition and Councilmember Darryl Moore abstaining. 

The Judah L. Magnes Museum is in escrow to purchase the historic Armstrong College building in downtown Berkeley, sources said Monday.  

The non-profit Jewish museum has signed a purchase agreement for the building, said Ted Terlecky, president of Armstrong Properties Inc., which owns the property. 

The organization, currently located on Russell Street in the Elmwood District, plans to “metamorphose (the building) into a world-class museum that’s going to cost millions and millions of dollars,” he said. 

According to Terlecky, museum representatives approached him in the fall about purchasing the building. An agreement was signed in April, and escrow is slated to close in November, he said. 

Terry Pink Alexander, executive director of the Magnes, confirmed news of the sale but declined to discuss the matter further, saying the museum would release details later this week. Neither Alexander nor Terlecky would disclose the selling price. 

The Armstrong College building, a city-designated landmark located on Harold Way at Kittredge Street, is currently leased to UC Berkeley Extension’s International Center, which has occupied the site since 1998. The university’s multi-year lease expires at the end of 2006.  

Jim Sherwood, dean of UC Berkeley Extension, was caught off guard Monday when he learned from the Daily Planet that Armstrong Properties Inc. had settled on a buyer.  

“We have no plans in the works” to move elsewhere, he said, adding that he hopes new owners will consider allowing the center to continue inhabiting the Armstrong College building. 

The historic structure was built in 1923 by then city architect Walter H. Ratcliff Jr. Though the name of the family trust that owns the property has changed over the years, the building has never been sold, Terlecky said.  

The building was designated a landmark in 1994. It features multi-pane windows, stucco siding, tiled roofs and an entrance sheltered by a Baroque-style balcony and arched windows, among other architectural highlights, said Landmarks Preservation Commissioner Leslie Emmington. Design-wise, little has changed since it was constructed, she said. 

In recent months, scaffolding has gone up on the structure’s Kittredge façade to replace three rotting windows on the second floor. This incited a small stir among preservationists who said the structure was not permitted for those changes, and senior planner Janet Homrighhausen issued a work-stop order. 

According to Terlecky, the installation is on hiatus because the new owners are planning a major refurbishment, and it would be pointless to proceed with improvements while the sale is in escrow, he said. 

The Magnes owns additional property in Berkeley, including 2911 Russell St., a landmark site where the museum is headquartered, and 2121 Allston Way, which is currently leased out to UC Berkeley for the university’s Bancroft Library collection. 

Emmington expects the non-profit to take good care of the Armstrong College building.  

“They have other landmark properties, and they’ve been great conservators,” she said, “So they can be expected to do the same here.” 

The state-appointed administrator of the Oakland Unified School District has confirmed that negotiations have begun with a developer over the sale or lease of prime Lake Merritt area land owned by the district, including the Paul Robeson Building administrative headquarters and several operating schools. 

In a letter sent last week to OUSD Advisory Board President David Kakishiba, state administrator Randolph Ward said that a letter of intent could be signed as early as Monday, June 12, and that his office would then schedule “public hearings to review options, receive input and discuss the possibility of selling property at fair market value.”  

Ward’s letter mentions 8.25 acres between 10th and 12th streets, the Lake Merritt Channel and 4th Avenue, including La Escuelita Elementary and MetWest and Dewey High Schools, but school board representatives have estimated that the inclusion of streets within the property boundaries brings the total acreage to 9.47. 

According to a spokesperson in State Superintendent Jack O’Connell’s office, the final decision on the contract will be made by Ward, “but because he was appointed by Mr. O’Connell, obviously he is going to keep the state superintendent abreast of all the developments.”  

It was not clear from Ward’s letter how the public hearings would be organized, though district Public Information Officer Alex Katz said by telephone that the process “will be totally transparent and will fully involve the public.” 

While the proposed property disposition is expected to be raised by the public at the next school board meeting, to be held beginning at 4 p.m. this Wednesday, June 14, at the Paul Robeson Administration Building, 1025 Second Ave. in Oakland, the item is not on the meeting agenda. 

It will be discussed in closed session, and Kakishiba said in a telephone interview that how much, if anything, Ward would say about the deal in public session depended upon whether the letter of intent is signed by the time of the meeting. 

The letter of intent had not been signed by Monday afternoon, and district spokesperson Katz said that the signing “got pushed back a little” and was not expected by Tuesday, either. 

News that contract negotiations for the proposed sale or lease of the OUSD Lake Merritt area property were reaching a final stage was first reported in the Planet last month, but since then, representatives of the State Superintendent for Public Instruction Jack O’Connell and Ward have been quiet about the proposed deal. 

In his letter, Ward began his letter to School Board President Kakishiba by saying that the sale was being considered “to continue to move toward local control of the Oakland Unified School District and generate significant additional resources for schools and the classroom.” 

Ward said that the contract proposal grew out of a 2004 discussion between his office and school board members over the sale or lease of the properties “as a way to pay down the debt and generate more funds for schools and students.”  

The Oakland Unified School District was seized by the state in 2003 after it was forced to receive a $100 million line of credit from the state to close a massive budget deficit. About $65 million of that line of credit has been loaned to the state, with another $7 million loan for high-tech equipment approved by the state but not yet completed. The elected school board functions now as an advisory body to the state administrator, with no legal powers. 

In a telephone interview Board President Kakishiba said that Ward’s letter “raises a lot of alarm bells for me” because, while Ward committed to “prioritiz[ing] the presence of La Escuelita Elementary School and the pre-kindergarten community in the Eastlake area,” Kakashiba said the state administrator “does not commit to keeping La Escelita on that site.” 

“I don’t see a lot of land available in the Eastlake area to move La Escuelita,” Kakashiba said, adding that the continued residential development boom in the Eastlake/Chinatown area “makes it critical that we should be planning for the future educational needs in this community.” 

Kakashiba said that while “it would be great to unload the $3.8 million debt service to the state” stemming from the state loan, he said he was concerned that school availability and expansion would be sacrificed if the proposal goes through in its present form. 

“Is the state going to turn away from a multi-million dollar deal because it can’t find land to relocate La Escuelita?” he asked. “I don’t think so.” 

Kakishiba said, however, that the commitment by Ward to a public input process was “a positive thing. That’s very new. I don’t think that this was contemplated before by the administration.” 

In a telephone interview, Katz, the district spokesperson, said that “La Escuelita will remain here” in the Eastlake neighborhood, and that while it was not yet determined whether that location will be on the existing OUSD properties or somewhere else in the area “our commitment is to improve their situation. They have been requesting a better campus.” 

The location of MetWest and Dewey High Schools on the property is less of an issue because unlike La Escuelita, these schools draw students from all over the district, and relocation to abandoned school site properties in other areas of the city would not have an impact on attendance in the Eastlake/Chinatown area. 

There was also some disagreement over the role of return to local control in the proposed property sale. 

Katz said that return to local control was “only one of the purposes of the proposed sale. It is ‘a’ purpose. The main purpose is to use this huge resource for the educational mission of the district, instead of seeing it crumble to the ground.” 

Noting that the OUSD administration building is not earthquake safe, Katz said, “The only reason we’re doing this is to redirect this resource to the benefit of our kids and schools and for the benefit of the Eastlake neighborhood.” 

Katz said that any new development in the administration building area would be an improvement over the present structure. 

“It’s not like we’re going to put up a Wal-Mart here,” he said. “This is going to be a structure that improves the community.” 

Still, Katz said that using the proceeds of the sale to pay down the state debt “would probably be a big step towards return to local control. State Superintendent O’Connell has said publicly that would be a factor.” 

California Education Department Public Information Officer Hilary McLean said that “significant repayment of the debt will be a criteria for return to local control” of the Oakland Unified School District. 

But at least one school board member, Gary Yee, said that it was unclear if the sale or lease of the property would directly lead to a return to local control, even if that money is applied to the state debt. Yee said he has taken a look at the district’s 2005 Multi-Year Recovery Plan, the document which is the state-mandated blueprint for return to local control. 

“It was just a cursory look,” Yee said, “and maybe I overlooked it, but I didn’t see anything that mentioned sale of district property as part of the fiscal recovery plan.” 

In its section on “Conditions for Return to Local Governance” the district’s Multi-Year Recovery Plan, put together in 2005 by Ward’s office, does not mention payment of the debt as a condition for return to local control. 

Instead, referring to the SB 39 state legislation that authorized the state takeover, the recovery plan notes that “in order to have local governance returned, the district must demonstrate implementation of 138 FCMAT [Fiscal Crisis Management Assistance Team] Standards, covering five major functional areas of the district: 1) Community Relations and Governance, 2) Pupil Achievement, 3) Financial Management, 4) Personnel Management, and 5) Facilities Management, on a scale of 1 to 10. In each functional area, the district is expected to achieve an overall score of six with no individual standard within that functional area scoring below a four. When this scenario is achieved FCMAT will recommend to the Superintendent of Public Instruction that this particular condition of SB 39 has been met and thus control of that functional area should be returned to the Governing Board. [Italics and bold in the original recovery plan document.]” 

FCMAT is the semi-private organization set up by the State of California to intervene to assist so-called troubled school districts. 

SB 39 itself only required that the state line of credit be repaid over a 20 year period at a 1.78 percent interest rate. 

Yee, who was elected to the board after the budget problems surfaced but before the district was taken over by the state, said that he was one of the trustees who initially proposed the sale of the administration building in order to prevent the state takeover. He says his position now is that the sale or lease of the Lake Merritt area school district properties should be a decision made by Oakland citizens rather than the state. 

And in a letter to a local OUSD parents group email list, trustee Dan Siegel, who is retiring from the board at the end of the year, called on citizens to “organize to prevent the giveaway of the District's assets.” 

“I am very concerned about the potential sale and worried about the prospect of a sweetheart deal with a politically connected developer,” Siegel wrote. “I am also very skeptical that Dr. Ward can make a deal that makes sense financially.” 

Siegel added that “a sale [of the proposed property] must not only take into account the assessed value of the land, but also the costs to the District of moving and recreating the five schools and the future needs of the Eastlake and San Antonio communities for school sites. I think that it would be extremely irresponsible to sell school district property without considering these factors. …[I]t would be very foolhardy to sell property and then place the future leaders of the district in the position of having to buy additional property at much higher costs.” 

The question of how to save Cody’s Books and rescue Telegraph Avenue brought a standing-room-only crowd of property and business owners, residents, street vendors, students and street people to Trinity United Methodist Church Thursday. 

While a panoply of suggestions were floated at the meeting, what seemed to unite the 200 or so attendees at the Bancroft Way church was the notion that gaining economic stability should not come at the cost of the unique spirit of the street and store. 

If Cody’s can’t be saved, said Leslie Berkler, head of school sales and spouse of owner Andy Ross, “We can keep the spirit of Cody’s alive.”  

When he took the microphone, Ross did not take up the theme of saving the 50-year-old flagship store, which he reaffirmed would close July 10. Instead, he offered advice to a future bookseller on his corner: cut overhead, pay lower rent, run a smaller store. 

Ken Sarachan, owner of Rasputin’s Records and the empty lot that sits on the corner of Haste Street and Telegraph, said he thought the area’s best bookstore is Moe’s and offered its owner $250,000 to move her store to the Cody’s site to create “a bigger and greater Moe’s.” 

Someone suggested 1,000 people invest $1,000 in a Cody’s co-op.  

“If Cody’s closes, it won’t be the last to close. Many are just barely hanging on,” said Councilmember Kriss Worthington, who had billed the meeting as “a wake-up, not a wake.” 

He said even more critical than saving Cody’s is reviving Telegraph. 

Al Geyer, owner of Annapurna, painted his vision of Telegraph: book and music stores, boutiques, classic movie theaters and monthly events. 

The community can define a vision for Telegraph but it needs city help to make it work, many said. “For the last 10 years the city has been treating Telegraph like a crime problem. It should have been treated like an economic opportunity,” Ross said. 

Many emphasized saving the uniqueness of Telegraph. “Now we finally see everything different being replaced by everything the same,” Eric Dynamic said. “Resist chains.” 

The need for convenient parking was a recurrent theme. 

Worthington said that many university lots permit evening and weekend parking, but they need clear signage to let people know. 

The city was criticized for allowing large loading zones such as the nine spaces at the First Presbyterian Church, on Dana street and Channing Way, a block south of Telegraph. Also drawing heat were the yellow loading zones along Telegraph near campus that never permit customer parking and the new motorcycle parking on Telegraph south of Dwight Way that removed about 18 parking spaces. 

While some hoped the city would turn part of Telegraph into a pedestrian-only mall, most speakers spoke against the idea. And several people spoke in opposition to the dedicated bus lane AC Transit proposed. 

Some policies initiated years ago no longer make sense, Sarachan said: zoning that restricts the number of specific kinds of businesses was instituted when “there was a crisis with too many cookie stores. That ended 20 years ago.” 

Worthington and Mayor Tom Bates have asked the council to fund a city planner to expedite permits in the Telegraph area. 

A number of speakers bemoaned the loss of the Telegraph Area Association, which brought residents and business owners together. “TAA was a great little institution. It should never have lost its funding,” said Marc Weinstein, owner of Amoeba Music. 

Bates targeted high rents and vacancies. “We can’t hold out for the highest possible rents,” he said, promising to meet with property owners. 

While several speakers said they are not intimidated by street people exhibiting bizarre behavior, many said panhandlers keep shoppers away from the avenue. 

George Beier, challenging Worthington for the Telegraph-area City Council seat, called for stepped-up police enforcement and social service outreach to curb drug and alcohol abuse on the Avenue. 

While some pointed to a need for more visible foot and bike police, Dan McMullan, who has been homeless, shared another view. 

“What needs to be restored is the spirit and freedom of Berkeley,” he said. “The last thing we need is more police.” 

Nevertheless, he supported stepped-up undercover police operations to catch drug dealers.  

At their June 27 meeting, the City Council will vote on the budget, including funds for Telegraph: two bicycle cops, a team of social workers and a city planner. The public hearing on the budget is June 20. 

They call themselves “the Kitcheneers.” 

They want to strengthen participatory democracy by engaging citizens in local issues. They promise to deliver your ideas to city officials and, if you are too tired for that Thursday night City Hall meeting, they will bring the City Hall to you—courtesy the Internet. 

Meet the husband and wife duo of Robert Vogel and Simona Carini—founders of Berkeley’s www.kitchendemocracy.org, which could become the Craigslist for municipal government in the future. 

Vogel, who used to run a software company and recently finished graduate studies in physics from UC Berkeley, confessed that he had never found time for City Council meetings in the past.  

“I realized that this was definitely not good for participatory democracy,” he said. “I wanted to do something about it. I wanted to make it easier for them and decision makers in City Hall to connect to each other on issues that mattered to citizens. And thus KD was born in March.” 

With a background in literature, nursing, and clinical database management, Carini is the perfect  

partner for Vogel. Quick and articulate, she keeps regular tabs on every new comment that residents send their way every day. The website currently posts a maximum of 20 new comments daily, which get screened first for personal attacks. 

When asked why they chose the name Kitchen Democracy, Robert said, “It’s because we think that people’s participation nurtures democracy like healthy food. It’s as simple as that.” 

On Kitchen Democracy, Berkeley residents can also read about local issues from experts who represent many sides, both inside and outside City Hall. 

“The meetings are often held late at night, and a lot of people who attend have no clue about the background of the issue,” Vogel said. “People usually have to speak very quickly because of the time limit. The experts’ page is a great place to start to clear your doubts.” 

Residents can also vote on an issue and see the comments of their neighbors and those of neighboring communities. Anyone living within 50 miles of Berkeley is welcome to vote and post comments on the website but only registered Berkeley voters are included in the Kitchen Democracy tally. 

Some of these comments have been noticed by City Hall. Vogel gave the example of Bolfing’s Hardware on College Avenue, which was seeking city permission to renovate and build three housing units. Two-hundred-and-forty people wrote Kitchen Democracy to express support for those changes. 

“It felt great to help the local small business community of the Elmwood shopping district in some way because its members always face competition from bigger chains,” he said. “We want to do more stuff like that.” 

Three months after setting up shop, Kitchen Democracy has gained the attention of Berkeley officials.  

“Kitchen Democracy provides a forum for residents of Berkeley to express their views and ideas on some of the issues that come before the Planning Commission,” said Susan Wengraf, city planning commissioner. “For those people who cannot come to commission meetings, it creates an invaluable way for me to learn what they are thinking about specific issues so that I can make an informed decision in my role as commissioner.”  

Vogel explained that the website features topics based on “how interested the council members are about an issue. Presently we are working mainly with councilmember Gordon Wozniak, who represents District 8, which is the district we belong to, but we are slowly expanding to all the other districts.” 

Vogel said that about 450 Berkeley residents are now using their website, but hopes Kitchen Democracy becomes a place all 70,000 registered voters in Berkeley will use. Vogel also hopes to start putting up the ZAB agenda and the City Council agenda on the website soon. 

“We want to bring up local issues significant to every district.” he said. “Currently, some of the issues residents are voting on are whether the language of the BUSD parcel tax ballot measure should incorporate the BeSMaart recommendation and if the Berkeley Transportation and Planning Commissions should hold public hearings on the Bus Rapid Transit project.” 

Recently, 27 registered voters voted yes on the issue of whether or not the traffic diverter at Domingo and Hazel streets should become a community garden, a project which was approved May 31. 

According to Councilmember Wozniak: “Kitchen Democracy is a great tool to help me better understand my constituents’ opinions on specific issues and to help them arrive at an informed opinion . . . I’ve checked the website twice a day to read the comments and the vote tallies.” 

Vogel said he is proud of the role the website is beginning to have in civic affairs and its potential to keep Berkeley’s elected officials honest. 

“KD is probably the first of its kind,” Vogel says. “I don’t think anything like this exists anywhere else. What makes it really interesting is that it serves as a community memory. In a year from now, people will be able to go back and see it if City Hall’s decisions reflect that of the community, . . . if the City Hall actually keeps its word.”

Rick Ayers is a mild-mannered, genial guy, just shy of 60, with an affinity for travel, opera and Greek tragedy. He is also, according to students at Berkeley High School, the Community Arts and Sciences Original Gangsta’. 

That’s “CAS OG” for short, CAS being the small school within a larger school he cofounded at Berkeley High, and O.G. being “a comrade of long standing, a veteran or elder,” according to the Berkeley High School Slang Dictionary, which he helps produce. Ayers, who earned his OG stripes teaching media, journalism and English at Berkeley High for more than a decade, retires this year. 

Ayers, 59, is credited with galvanizing the small schools movement in Berkeley and navigating the choppy political waters of Berkeley High to advocate for CAS, where he is lead teacher, and small schools in general. 

His legacy at Berkeley High includes work as the advisor to the school newspaper, The Berkeley High Jacket, when students famously broke a story on a Berkeley landlord accused of importing Indian girls for indentured servitude. He has authored several books on education; the most recent, Great Books for High School Kids: A Teacher’s Guide to Books That Can Change Teens’ Lives, was written up in the San Francisco Chronicle last month. He also works part-time teaching curriculum at the University of San Francisco. 

Ayers takes leave of Berkeley High to pursue a Ph.D. in education at UC Berkeley. 

“I work very hard, I’m up at 5 a.m.,” he said recently at his home in North Oakland. “I would find it impossible to even go down to part-time (at Berkeley High). I felt if I was going to move on, I would have to make a clean break … I am tired, you know? I’m 59 years old.” 

Ayers spent much of his working adult life as a chef before turning to teaching in his 40s, after watching his eldest daughter struggle in high school. At Berkeley High, Ayers secured his first—and to this date only—high school teaching position. 

“Teaching has been incredible for me,” he said. “It’s the best job I’ve ever had, the best opportunity to make a difference.” 

Not that it’s been an easy ride. 

Ayers formed CAS as a program at Berkeley High nine years ago with fellow teacher Bill Pratt, confident that students learn most effectively in small, diverse communities. Not everyone agreed. When Ayers and others mobilized to reinvent Berkeley High as a medley of small schools, they met marked resistance. 

The school board compromised and OK’d a partial restructure, in which some small schools coexist within the larger school. In 2003, CAS opened its doors as Berkeley High’s first small school. Today there are four. 

Ayers is used to rustling feathers. As an undergraduate at the University of Michigan—where he dated the late comedian Gilda Radner—he was drafted into the army and immediately took to organizing anti-war sentiment. When his company was deployed to Vietnam, he went AWOL, subsequently joining up with the Weather Underground, a radical anti-war group responsible for dynamiting public buildings like draft boards, prison offices and, most notably, the Pentagon. (Ayers declines to comment what activities he was involved in—if any.) 

He grew up in the suburbs of Chicago, his father a businessman, his mother a stay-at-home mom. In high school, Ayers was part of a self-described “nerdy, artsy group,” and though a precocious student, he felt stifled by his surroundings.  

“I was in honky heaven, and we were just dying,” he said. “Every time we could, we went out to Chicago and would hang out at blues clubs and go to museums.” 

Ayers never completed his studies at the University of Michigan. After seven years on the lam, he turned himself into authorities and spent 10 days in jail. He finished his undergraduate degree at UC Berkeley in nutrition sciences and went on to receive a master’s from Mills College in education. 

In his first years at Berkeley High, Ayers realized the limitations of teaching in a large school. Students filed in and out of his classes like strangers. Forging student-teacher relationships wasn’t part of the equation. Ayers worked to change that. 

At CAS, where there are about 60 kids in each grade, students enroll in the same courses, have the same teachers and occupy the same physical space. The benefit? 

“You gain community,” he said. 

CAS students take on internships at hospitals, schools and other community institutions. They have traveled to foreign countries like Cuba and Mexico to learn about social justice. They participate in media literacy projects: the Berkeley High School Slang Dictionary, a class project where students contribute to an index of contemporary teen argot, is the most prominent example. 

But the small schools experiment has not reached the heights Ayers hoped it would. Ayers and other small schools advocates are convinced the advantages of small schools can only be fully realized if all of Berkeley High is divided into small communities—which isn’t expected to happen anytime soon.  

“There’s part of me that’s like, ‘I don’t want to spend my whole career at Berkeley High School, and not be able to do the work I want to do.’ It’s frustrating,” he said. “Do I want to spend the next seven years on this program with one hand tied behind my back?” 

So he’s getting out—though he feels ambivalent about it. “I’m very torn about leaving,” he said. 

After completing the Ph.D. program at UC Berkeley, Ayers plans to move on to training teachers, in hopes of instilling his own passion for teaching in others: 

“As I think back on my career, I started out making a lot of mistakes, and looking at my class this week, that still happens,” he said. “I still fail—and succeed—on different days. But that’s what’s so beautiful about teaching.” 

A celebration for Rick Ayers is scheduled for Saturday, June 17, 11 a.m.-2 p.m. at Berkeley High School’s Donahue Gym.  

The question of whether property owners should be allowed to put parking on side or back yards “by right”—with a simple across-the-counter permit—or whether they should have to obtain Administrative Use Permits, which kicks in a process to alert neighbors of a project, is among the more thorny questions before the City Council tonight (Tuesday). 

Also before the council is the question of whether the Berkeley Bowl should get a use permit and be allowed to move forward with its proposed West Berkeley store. The question of a unionized workforce and traffic concerns are likely to be under consideration. 

Parking 

Planning staff argued, in a June 13 report to the council on the question of allowing back and side yard parking, that few parcels would be affected “because there are relatively few lots on which such new parking can be accommodated.”  

“That’s complete nonsense,” responded citizen activist Robert Lauriston in a phone interview Monday. He said that structures on many of Berkeley’s small property lots could be built higher if under the new ordinance owners were permitted to pave over the backyard to accommodate parking. 

“There are literally hundreds of lots that would be affected,” he said. 

Lauriston further argued that commercial establishments that back up on residential neighborhoods must now have a 10-foot landscaped barrier between parking and the residence. That buffer would be eliminated under the new ordinance, he said. 

City staff claimed in its report that requiring an administrative use permit would slow projects, add to homeowner frustration and increase demand on planning staff time. 

Unavailable 

The council will also be reviewing a UC Berkeley draft environmental impact report that includes Memorial Stadium. 

The staff report on the project was not available before the Daily Planet deadline on Monday. 

Also on the agenda, but not available to the press and public until late Monday afternoon, is the city attorney’s report on why public financing of elections will not make the November ballot. 

The council’s 2006-2007 budget update was also not available. 

Budget questions 

While the City Council is not slated to vote on its 2006-2007 budget until June 27, councilmembers are proposing to add a number of expenditures to the growing list. An affirmative council vote does not approve the item, but allows it to go to the next stage of consideration. A public hearing on the budget will be held June 20. 

The council will consider a $1 million request by councilmembers Betty Olds and Gordon Wozniak to restore funding to the Fire Department. (The Fire Department had asked for $800,000-$900,000, according to Assistant Chief David Orth.) 

When cuts were made last year, the department eliminated its overtime expenses by introducing a system they call “brown-outs,” which means that when there were absences, staff did not work overtime, but was shifted away from a station. (The department began with brown-outs at two stations, found it impacted service and, with $300,000 from the council, continued with brown-outs at one station only.)  

“At this point, no incident delay in response time has cropped up,” Orth said, noting that, in the beginning, firefighters were so conscious of doing things more quickly—such as getting into firefighting gear—that the response time was actually quicker. 

Other budget requests include: 

• $60,000 to implement and monitor an ordinance whereby the city avoids purchasing goods made in sweatshops; 

• $10,000 for the West Berkeley Neighborhood Corporation, $6,000 of which is for the 2007 International Food Festival and $4,000 is for the corporation’s operating budget; 

• $120,000 to restore funding for staffing the Office of Emergency Services; 

• $10,000 to restore funding to the Center for Accessible Technology, cut from $20,000 in the 2004-2005 budget. The center provides computer technology and training for people with disabilities. 

• $50,000 to create and staff a Public Safety Commission to focus on reducing crime. 

Crime report 

At 5 p.m., preceding the 7 p.m. council meeting, the police chief will present a report on the status of crime and crime-reduction strategies in the city.

Attempting to balance Berkeley’s ever-mounting gridlock with smart economic growth, the Planning Commission will consider a program that charges transit fees for future development projects. 

The Transportation Services Fee (TSF) program would impose tolls on development shown to exacerbate Berkeley’s vehicular traffic. Fees would depend on the nature of the project and the amount of traffic generation anticipated. Those funds would support alternative transportation programs, like EcoPass and the Downtown Berkeley Bike Station, among others. 

Planning commissioners are slated Wednesday to hold a public hearing and possibly take action to recommend the program to the City Council. 

The Planning Commission looked into adopting transportation services fees in November per recommendations from the Transportation Commission but declined to pass a resolution expressing support. Commissioners cited concerns with the fee schedule, which charged higher rates overall and failed to distinguish between new development and change-of-use projects.  

According to Planning Commissioner Harry Pollack, the proposal overlooked broader land use issues. 

“It was not done with a planning perspective, it was only done wearing transportation glasses,” he said. 

The updated proposal, developed by transportation, planning and economic development staff, would exact a fee of $2,543 per car trip generated on new buildings and $1,381 on existing structures redeveloped for new use. 

A new 1,000-square-foot café, for instance, would rack up $4,059 in transportation services fees, but converting a comparably sized space from a retail outlet to a café would not involve any transit costs because it would not likely generate additional traffic. 

Pollack lauded the structure, pointing out that a flat fee could deter businesses from setting up shop in Berkeley. 

“For existing buildings, a fee generally is not a good thing because it will make it more difficult to change uses,” he said. “As we see from Cody’s and Radstons and the empty storefronts downtown, we have enough trouble keeping stores.” 

The new fee proposal also cuts a deal for “priority uses,” or projects designated by city plans as germane to neighborhood revitalization and economic development. Those include: theaters, food service and product stores, exercise and dance studios, nightlife establishments, childcare facilities, nursing homes, community centers and several others. Affordable housing would be exempt from any transportation fees. 

With the exception of the latter use, Transportation Commissioner Rob Wrenn said he is completely against reducing the fee for certain projects. “This won’t generate any money,” he said. “It’s a joke. It’s letting developers off the hook.” 

Steve Wollmer, a vociferous opponent of a proposed mixed-use building at 1885 University Ave. that would include a Trader Joe’s grocery store, agreed, pointing out that giving some projects priority over others could encourage developers to lobby for exemptions.  

“They won’t be paying for the real impact they’re going to have,” he said. Projects like 1885 University Ave. “have enormous impacts, and you’re saying you’re going to exempt them? It opens the door to all kinds of pleading from other sources.” 

Several East Bay cities levy transportation fees in some form. For a mixed-use 176-unit apartment-retail structure, developers in Fremont would pay more than $348,000 in transportation and traffic fees. In Emeryville, the levy would be around $94,000, compared with almost $104,000 in Berkeley.  

Erecting a new café would involve roughly $5,000 in transit costs in Emeryville and Fremont, and slightly less ($4,059) in Berkeley. 

Berkeley used to require developers to pay transportation fees, but due to legal uncertainties, the city ceased collecting, said Pollack. 

The TSF program would fund marketing and incentive campaigns aimed at encouraging alternatives to cars, transit service and signage improvements, and pedestrian and bicycle facilities. 

City staff expects the program proposal to move to the City Council by July 11.  

On Wednesday, the Planning Commission will also take a look at the Landmarks Preservation Ordinance, City Council action on the Creeks Ordinance revision and recommendations on the UC Berkeley Southeast Campus Integrated Projects draft environmental impact report. The meeting takes place at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center, 1901 Hearst Ave. 

The Berkeley High School Men’s Lightweight 4+ boat powered its way to a gold medal at the U.S. Rowing National Youth Championship in Cincinnati, Ohio, on Sunday. 

The Women’s Varsity 4+ boat placed first in the petite final. Both teams qualified for this national competition by medaling in the U.S. Rowing Southwest Regional Junior Championship Regatta May 20 and 21 at Lake Natoma in Folsom.  

Berkeley High School and Saint Ignatius College Prep High School were the only two Bay Area teams to come home with gold medals from the U.S. Rowing National Youth Championships. 

As the only public high school competing in California, the Berkeley High rowers compete against much larger club teams and private schools that recruit athletes from a broad range of students. Funding for the Berkeley High Crew team comes primarily from parents and family members. No more than 5 percent of the overall team budget comes from the school district. 

The Men’s Lightweight 4+ boat, with sophomores Ian Horton and Patrick Stolcke, junior Cole Peticone and seniors Alex Mog and Daniel Krasnor as coxswain, won their Friday heat. 

The Berkeley boat came in first by two and a half seconds, qualifying them to advance to the semi-finals on Saturday. In the Saturday semi-finals Berkeley just made it to advance to the finals, coming in third. In the final race on Sunday, Berkeley High came in first by more than two seconds over the competition. 

The Women’s Varsity 4+ boat, composed of sophomores Rosa Cox and Emma Cox and seniors Katherine Powelson, Jessie Moritz and Phoebe Kasdin as coxswain, and coached by Rob Welsh, competed on Friday in the first of three heats coming in third. This meant the women needed to go to the repechage the next day to make the semi-final. 

The Berkeley boat came in first in their Saturday morning repechage by over six seconds advancing them to the semi-finals later that same day. In that race, the Berkeley women’s boat come in fourth, which sent the women to the petite finals on Sunday where Berkeley finished first by nearly four seconds. 

For more information, see www.berkeleyhighcrew.org.

Though foes of a planned mall at Golden Gate Fields collected enough signatures to qualify an initiative for the November ballot, the race track’s owners have filed a legal challenge. 

Alameda County Superior Court Judge Judith Ford Wednesday ordered a July 19 hearing on Pacific Racing Association’s motion for a writ of mandate and a permanent injunction blocking the initiative. 

Pacific Racing Association is the legal name of the entity that owns the track and is in turn owned by Magna Entertainment Corporation. 

At issue is whether or not proponents of the Albany Waterfront Specific Plan Initiative failed to issue proper public notice before they began circulating petitions to qualify their measure for the ballot. 

The initiative would ban new development within 500 feet of the shoreline and create a planning process for new projects outside that limit. The boundary would effectively block plans by track owner Magna Entertainment and Los Angeles developer Rick Caruso to build an upscale open air mall at the site. 

Citizens for the Albany Shoreline (CAS) collected 2,446 signatures from Albany voters, nearly three times the number required, which they turned in to City Clerk Jacqueline Bucholz on May 16. 

But the petition filed Monday alleges that the signatures have to be tossed out because the initiative’s backers failed to give proper legal notice before they began collecting them. 

The state Elections Code requires initiative sponsors to publish notice of their plans in a paper that a judge has previously declared eligible for printing the notices. 

Initiative backers printed their notice in the West County Times, the same paper regularly used by the city for its notices. 

Albany City Attorney Robert Zweben said that while the paper hasn’t been judicially recognized, the city publishes notices there because it is widely read in the community. 

“We satisfy the legal requirement by posting notices in the city,” he said. The state Elections Code allows the requirement to be fulfilled by posting the notices prominently in at least three locations within the community. 

Zweben said court rulings on the issue are mixed. While some cases have cited the need for specific compliance, in recent cases findings have looked at whether or not the intent of the law was fulfilled. 

“Their response could be, ‘Do you think the 2,400 people who signed didn’t know what they signed,’” he said. 

“I’m not going to predict the outcome, but there’s a significant risk” for the initiative’s proponents, Zweben said. 

“Magna’s attack is aimed at keeping the initiative off the ballot,” said Sally Douglas Arce, one of the initiative’s proponents. “Despite the fact that this initiative has received extensive press and TV coverage, Magna’s lawyers are claiming there was inadequate public notice.” 

“This is a heavy-handed effort by the race track to prevent the citizens of Albany from voting on an initiative for waterfront planning, said CAS co-chair Bill Dann. 

Named as defendants in the action were Bucholz, the Albany City Council and Alameda County Registrar of Voters Brad Clark.

There’s no Police Blotter today because the Berkeley Police Department didn’t return calls from the Daily Planet.

Candles again 

An apartment dweller at 2125 Ninth St. learned that walking out of rooms where candles are burning is anything but wise. 

It was shortly after 5 a.m. last Wednesday when the resident of the lower unit in a two-story, two-unit structure discovered that the pleasant warm flicker of burning wax had been replaced by a raging inferno. 

A second bad decision followed, in the attempt to extinguish the blaze before making that all-important 9-1-1 call, said Deputy Fire Chief David P. Orth. 

By the time firefighters arrived, flames were roaring in the adjacent kitchen as well, and before the last ember was quenched, the blaze had done an estimated $150,000 in damage to the structure and $25,000 to contents. 

Most of the damage was confined to the lower unit, Orth said. 

Truck arson 

Firefighters rushed to 1500 block of Second Street just after 11 p.m. Wednesday to discover that a 2002 Chevrolet 1500 pickup was fully engulfed in flames. 

Subsequent investigation revealed that the blaze had been intentionally set, triggering a criminal investigation that is still continuing, Orth said. 

Electrical fire 

A short circuit on a work bench ignited a blaze inside an auto repair shop at 1809 San Pablo Ave. sometime before 8:30 p.m. Friday. 

The ensuing flames did $75,000 in property damage and about $25,000 in contents to the shop and a nearby structure, said Orth.

Have you ever had the feeling you’re sitting up on a hill observing two high-speed trains headed towards one another on intersecting tracks, with a collision all but inevitable? That’s the picture we’re getting of the ongoing interaction between Berkeleyans eager to preserve the city’s historic buildings and those who’d like to tear some of them down in order to make way for “progress,” variously defined as mall-type chain stores, lots of condos downtown, big new hotels or lebensraum for UC expansion.  

The chain store romance started during the reign of Mayor Shirley Dean. At least two potentially charming downtown store buildings were remodeled to suit the taste of corporate clients, both now long gone. Gateway Computers pulled out of Berkeley and of retail altogether. Edy’s ice cream parlor, the kind of attractive longstanding downtown business that today’s planners can only wish for, was essentially demolished by a scandalous building process that amounted to fraud on the city’s inspection procedures, to be replaced by a flash-in-the-pan dismally unsuccessful outpost of the Eddie Bauer corporate empire. It stands empty today.  

The Big Ugly Box movement, which is just now transitioning from faux rentals to the much-more-profitable condo phase, was kicked off by the Gaia Building, whose investors have made millions from the extra floors generated by developer Patrick Kennedy’s promises, promises for space devoted to cultural pursuits—promises which have been broken again and again. Gaia took the place of an old dairy building, one of Berkeley’s oldest, which would have been an ideal spot for the kind of restoration and re-use that make towns like Monterey tourist attractions. Another Kennedy coup was demolishing the University Avenue Victorian home of one of Berkeley’s founders.  

Starting in the Dean period, now-gone City Manager James Keene took aim at the city’s 25-year-old Landmarks Preservation Ordinance. He and his allies in the Planning Department and city attorney’s office used the excuse of an easily fixed minor inconsistency between the ordinance and the state’s permit streamlining act to generate a draft of a complete re-write intended to make it much easier to demolish historic buildings. The Landmarks Preservation Commission (I was a member for seven years) worked hard to produce an acceptable compromise, but just as it was finished the composition of the City Council changed and it was never enacted. 

When Mayor Tom Bates and Councilmember Laurie Capitelli took office with the financial backing of development interests, they elevated previous skirmishes to a full-bore war on historic buildings. Bates’s much-touted Task Force on Permitting and Development had few other significant outcomes, but it did eventually lead to another draft of a new landmarks ordinance which was even worse than those which preceded it.  

At a public hearing, more than 40 citizens spoke against his draft, while only four people, all allied with building interests in some way, spoke for it. But Bates and his allies on the council are seldom deterred by public opinion. Livable Berkeley, a development-lobby front which might have been named by George Orwell, has made its wishes known in letters and at behind-closed-doors meetings with the mayor and councilmembers. It now appears that they’ll get what they want, and soon.  

Some community members who support historic preservation have been predicting this outcome for months. They’ve now successfully circulated petitions for an initiative measure which will submit the existing LPO, which has served Berkeley well for many years, plus the few small changes necessary to conform to new state law, to the voters for approval in November. If the initiative wins, it will place the ordinance out of reach of politicians, which might be a good idea.  

But the “official” historic resource supporters at Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association haven’t yet taken a position on the initiative, probably because some board members are worried that megabucks from developers will be dumped into the campaign against it. There are no limits on campaign contributions for initiatives, as there are for candidates. Patrick Kennedy’s Sacramento mother-in-law, for example, contributed $5,000 to the campaign which defeated a height limitation initiative a few years ago, a purchased victory which is now cited as Berkeley’s endorsement for ever-taller buildings. If the LPO enactment is defeated in November because citizen supporters are outspent, it might be spun as a vote against preservation.  

A Livable Berkeley stalwart sent out an e-mail last week, widely copied around the Internet, which predicted that “…there will be an active campaign committee established to defeat the initiative, which will …work as a political wedge issue, in the words of one non-mayoral politico ‘separating the rational NIMBYs from the paranoid NIMBYs’ (and requiring Zelda to embed with the paranoids)… I will probably work actively for that campaign, which will succeed. Developers will line up to contribute….”  

The double-talk lexicon of flaks for the building industry is hard to parse sometimes. Do we believe that Tom Bates really wants to run for office as the Anti-Preservationist, or that opponent Zelda Bronstein wants to run as a “paranoid NIMBY”? It’s not clear just what a “rational NIMBY” might be, or why such a person would vote for the candidate opposed to preservation of historic resources. Even paranoids have enemies, of course, and sometimes they’re the same enemies as those of their more rational associates. But if the Bates-controlled City Council really does pass the latest bad draft of the emasculated LPO, or an even worse one rumored to be in the works, it will at least give voters of all stripes who believe that re-using our historic buildings is sound public policy some clear choices in November. 

WISHING WELL 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I have learned the city manager has ordered the Wishing Well removed. It has been in my neighborhood since before I moved in 35 years ago. It is a great recycling tool. People can put things in they don’t want, other people can take them out. It is delightful. I live two blocks from it. Near my house, when people want to get rid of stuff they simply put it out on the parking strip with a sign: “Free.” I counted five such deposits in my short walk around today. I always admired the Wishing Well since it is such a neat, attractive, organized even elegant way to handle giveaways on a block. It should be replicated, not torn down. I want to know what kind of thinking has led to the present action. Really. It makes no sense. 

Joanne Kowalski 

• 

POOR GRAMMAR 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Steven Donaldson’s opinion piece, “Is the West Berkeley Bowl dead?”, is really badly written, and riddled with embarrassingly illiterate grammatical errors: “who’s” for “whose,” “it’s” for “its,” “which” instead of “whom” when referring to people. No matter if one agrees with Donaldson’s opinion or not, his poor writing doesn’t help to advance his cause, or the Berkeley Bowl’s. If Mr. Yasuda is a client of Donaldson’s company, he might want to think twice. 

Aija Kanbergs 

Oakland  

• 

DOWNTOWN PARKING 

Editors, Daily Planet:  

In his June 13 letter Steve Geller poses a prescription for the sure death of downtown Berkeley: limited parking with higher parking fees. OK—I have to shop for several items that are too bulky to carry on a bus or bike, so I choose to drive. My options? I can drive downtown, circle for blocks to park within walking range of a few scattered retail shops, and pay a high parking fee. Or I can drive an extra ten minutes to Emeryville or El Cerrito, find ample free parking, and be surrounded by stores with everything I need (at lower prices). And the suggestion that remedies in London or Portland might somehow apply to Berkeley is just silly. 

Jerry Landis 

• 

WHERE TO WORSHIP? 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The Pope, and Christians in general, may be in for some discomfort. If and when Jesus returns, where do you think He might go to worship? 

Harry Gans 

• 

NEXUS INSTITUTE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The Berkeley Daily Planet has published many un-truths in the past few weeks regarding the Berkeley-East Bay Humane Society and its tenant, Nexus Institute. For the record, here are the facts.  

The Nexus Institute was informed by their landlord, the Berkeley-East Bay Humane Society (BEBHS), in October 2005 that their lease would not be renewed because the property was being sold. They were invited to purchase the buildings they leased, and they said they were interested. BEBHS provided Nexus a term sheet in December and a draft purchase and sale agreement in February. The truth is that Nexus refused to commit to anything, and that, when BEBHS finally demanded that Nexus make a written purchase offer, Nexus stopped talking to BEBHS entirely. Instead, Nexus has chosen to concoct a sob story as to ill-treatment which they have been peddling all over town, at the same time as they have sued BEBHS for breach of contract – there is no contract.  

Meanwhile, with the Nexus lease expiration fast approaching on May 31, Nexus refused to respond to repeated inquiries from BEBHS’ lawyer as to whether Nexus would vacate without the necessity of legal action. Now it’s mid-June; they illegally occupy our property, and are doing everything they can to delay eviction.  

The property is for sale. The reason it is for sale is because BEBHS wants to build a new facility at its current location and needs the money from the sale to do this. If Nexus wants to buy the property, make us an offer, please! We understand that what Nexus really wants is to continue renting from BEBHS at 11 cents a square foot, and who wouldn’t? However, our commitment is to serve animals and their caretakers, not to act as a landlord providing deeply subsidized rents to an exclusive group of tenants with a well-coordinated P.R. machine and a highly developed sense of entitlement. Every dollar BEBHS has to spend in its defense against this tenant is a dollar less that goes to help animals. This is the truth the Berkeley Daily Planet should be reporting.  

Mim Carlson 

Executive Director, Berkeley-East Bay Humane Society  

• 

MISTAKEN MISTAKE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The Daily Planet has the best letters to the editor section in these environs. It is a valuable resource for opinions, rants, differences of opinion. Newspaper articles, on the other hand, are supposed to provide unbiased information. So I was confused when Robert Brokl’s piece, “Eviction Threat Imperils Nexus Building,” was printed as an article. The piece was a clearly biased and incomplete account of the facts about the building owned by the Berkeley East Bay Humane Society and until recently, rented to Nexus artists. 

Robert Brokl is certainly entitled to his opinions, but opinions should not be printed as though they were factual news reports. 

Mary Milton 

EDITOR’S NOTE: The writer is mistaken. Robert Brokl’s June 9 piece ran on the commentary page, not as a news article. 

• 

COLUSA AVENUE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Your recent correspondent Paul M. Schwartz (June 6), in his good-citizenship mode, has called our attention to the pitfalls of an apparent new city policy manifested by the (vandalized) sign on Colusa Avenue which now says “PEE LIMIT 25 MPH.” (If you missed this Daily Planet exclusive report, I suggest you view the letters archive at www.berkeleydailyplanet.com.) 

Herewith a comment on three of his major concerns: legal, riparian and economic.  

He notes that our new city policy seems to target only the unruly residents of the Thousand Oaks area. I live on Colusa Avenue at Thousand Oaks (bulls-eye!) and agree with him that this is a clear example of illegal discrimination. (Ref. Bush’s “Relief of the Upper Classes Act” of 2001...and 02...and 03, etc). 

I think he is only half-right in calling attention to possible impact on our birds and fish “upstream and downstream.” There certainly may be p-endangered wildlife downstream, but upstream...? Most research shows that the only thing upstream is the p-perpetrator. This should relieve (some of) his worries. 

He may be further relieved to learn that the answer to his budget and enforcement concerns flows directly from his own data. Even if he doubts that Berkeley citizens will all mind their Ps and Qs, his own research shows that no one can pee 25 mph. 

Ergo, the city has wisely given us a new law that is constitutionally dubious, self-enforceable. and therefore without cost to our exchequer or our fauna uphill. 

Sounds to me like an ideal Berkeley policy. 

Victor Herbert 

• 

A UNIONIZED BERKELEY 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

As our standard of living continues to sink, it becomes more urgent than ever to shop at unionized establishments. The union density in the private sector has declined from around 35 percent in the mid 1950s to about 8 percent currently. As a result, a growing number of working people, including full-time all year round workers, are finding it more difficult and even impossible to make ends meet. In turn, purchasing power has stagnated, and the economy itself is rapidly becoming a candidate for bankruptcy court. 

Only a mass labor movement similar to the surge in the 1930s has the potential of lifting all boats. But we ourselves can accomplish a great deal NOW by patronizing unionized workplaces, one of which is Berkeley Honda. As a result of our victory at Berkeley Honda, workers are assured of a living wage that can support both themselves and their families. Also, the health insurance benefits are good and they enjoy a defined benefit pension plan, which pays a pension based solely on age and years of service rather than on the vicissitudes of the stock market. If all those who work for a living are able to achieve a similar situation, our quality of life would improve tremendously.  

A request to Honda owners; please bring your automobiles to Berkeley Honda for service and repairs. Doing so sends a very important message to other dealers, which in turn makes them more susceptible to a successful union drive. Not least, the contract requires that all the striking workers be offered their jobs back. But business must pick up to sustain these jobs. As a result of the boycott, repair business was cut by about 70 percent. These workers really need your help. 

Building a strong pro-union environment in Berkeley and vicinity despite the considerable barriers is an achievable goal but only with your commitment and involvement. 

Harry Brill 

Berkeley Labor & Community Coalition 

• 

DOWNTOWN AND TELEGRAPH 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I have lived in Berkeley for 45 years and have noticed continued decline in the downtown and Telegraph areas. All quality stores have closed and moved and replaced with “dollar stores” types of businesses. Soon, good restaurants will leave also and more cheap hamburger and burrito take-outs will take over. I feel there are many reasons for this decline to happen: unfair rentals which force owners out of business, more and more aggressive panhandlers at the tune of four or five on each block and total hostile attitude towards drivers and cars. Christopher Adams’ letter in the June 9 edition sums it all in his humorous letter on “cancerous car concentration.” The Fourth Street area is doing great but if city officials have their way, the free parking lots will be eliminated and access will be limited to mostly busses and bicycles. I personally love to walk and take the bus whenever possible. I truly believe, however, that cities that have done well in terms of providing free or low cost parking areas get their payback in increased sales and higher quality stores. There are a lot of older and slightly handicapped people who live in the surrounding areas who would shop in Berkeley again if we offered decent parking in the downtown and Telegraph areas. Right now these people have to pay for dropping a check at their banks and the one hour or half an hour limit is totally inadequate for a meal at a local restaurant. Wake-up, city officials! 

Andree Leenaers Smith 

• 

THANKS, CALPIRG! 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Let’s hope that CALPIRG gets a box seat at DAPAC’s workshop (Berkeley High Library, Allston and Milvia, 1-4 p.m.) this Saturday for Downtown Visioneers. 

While many groups talk endlessly about the future of Berkeley’s downtown, the local chapter of the California Public Interest Resource Group is one progressive organization with the leadership and resolve to actually do something. 

Their vision? Simple. Downtown as a vertical surface—a backdrop on which to post brightly colored announcements for “Jobs to Save the Environment” as far as the eye can see.  

Thank you, CALPIRG! You are a leader in the fight for the right to blight. 

Jim Sharp 

• 

DEVELOPMENT 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I applaud Becky O’Malley’s reasoned editorial about the present Berkeley development scheme. The problem in Berkeley, like with so many other institutions, is a complete lack of transparency in city planning and development. What has been so woeful is that there are many in the city government who are trying hard to buck the trend, and kudos go to Kriss Worthington for his work on the Save Telegraph campaign. The meeting at Trinity UMC was followed even by Berkeleyans in the nation’s capital. Tom Bates and others are willful in their ignorance of the public’s right to know on many, many issues of social and urban development. With that, so many necessary moves to shore up our schools, our civic institutions, and our willingness to call Berkeley home are lost in a process shrouded in secrecy. As a journalist, I know sunshine laws in California are the strongest in the country and The Planet and every editor concerned with the administration of their city should be trying hard in court and in city hall to wedge open the doors of primitive, stupidly secret planning committees and their ilk. But sunshine laws are not just for journalists, they are for any person who willfully seeks the truth about their government. Why are we not doing more? 

John Parman 

College Park, MD 

• 

PUBLIC LIBRARY 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Thank you for printing Shirley Stuart’s letter on the situation at the Board of Trustees concerning the director of the library, and the article from last Friday on the progress in moving toward a healthier workplace at the BPL. I missed the paper on Friday, missed the meetings last week at City Hall, and thus missed the news. I went back to read the article online. 

When you do a Google search and call up the article up from the Daily Planet archive, the banner ad at the top has four links which all seem to promote RFID. I would be willing to help code the HTML so that the smallish print in white inside of the green header bar which says “Ads by Gooooooogle” was larger and perhaps in a flashier color to emphasize that it is an ad. Currently, to an inexperienced web viewer of your news it looks strangely like RFID is a good thing, as links to information on how to get it surround the article. 

There are no links to the Caspian website, to the ACLU, or to the Electronic Frontier Foundation website in this banner ad. Nor to the SEIU website. The ads in Google’s directory work off of keywords designated (perhaps) by the buyer of the ad—or perhaps the bigger the advertising budget, the more likely the ad is to appear near an article with RFID in the text. How ironic. RFID is invasive, expensive, harmful technology in this application and it served as a pivotal issue in the push to remove the director from her post. 

If the Board of Library Trustees can heed Shirley Stuart’s suggestions for how to proceed to organize communications to try to grow trust among patrons and staff in the oversight of the Director and the practices of the board, then the future of the library looks better than it has for over two years.  

If we can change the future by changing the way we “frame” the news we get from the mainstream media, could we emphasize that the “frame” we get in online news from the Planet is a frame? Otherwise some of us may miss it. 

Lynda Winslow 

• 

SWEAT-FREE  

ORDINANCE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

On June 27 the Berkeley City Council will decide whether to fund the Berkeley Sweat Free Ordinance. If Berkeley provides the $60,000 needed for Berkeley to join San Francisco and Los Angeles in enforcing wage and working condition guidelines, it will have a national impact and be the beginning of a coordinated multi-million dollar purchasing fund which will go only to suppliers who comply. There will no longer be a race to the bottom by competing businesses since they must meet fair wage and labor standards if they wish to sell their product. Since the cost of the labor component of a product is relatively small, maintaining higher uniform standards will not have a major impact on city budgets. The difference to the worker in China, the Philippines or Haiti, will, however, be profound. If ever there were a time for the City Council to think globally, but act locally it will be on June 27. This is the “war” we should be fighting if we wish to begin creating a positive image of the United States around the world. 

Tom Miller 

• 

ELECTION RESULTS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Let’s make it illegal to accept any election results until all of the votes are counted, and until the vote count is transparent and honest and open and provable. It is the responsibility of the election officials to prove by open means that the election results were honestly arrived at.  

Demand that the Busby-Bilbray election results in be 100 percent hand-counted to ensure that the results are accurate in light of improper procedures on Diebold machines used in the election. 

It has come to my attention that the Busby-Bilbray special election in CA-50 on June 6 was conducted on Diebold voting machines, many if not all of which were left unsecured in the homes, cars and offices of poll workers in the weeks prior to the election. Diebold touchscreen and optical scan machines have been proven by California’s own Secretary of State to be unreliable in the field and vulnerable to hacking in unsecure environments. Because improper procedures were used in this election, no one has proof that these machines were not subject to memory card switches or other easy tampering techniques such as manipulating the counters.  

I do not have confidence in the close outcome of the Busby-Bilbray election because of the use of Diebold machines and the fact that the chain of custody of the machines was broken and compromised by the failure of to maintain the machines in a secure environment. In another June 6 election in Pottowattamie County Iowa, optical scan machines showed one candidate winning while a hand count of paper ballots showed the other candidate winning. I believe that hand counting in CA-50 could also change the results.  

I am hereby demanding that all of the paper ballots from the Diebold optical scan machines and the paper trails from the DRE machines and any other absentee and early voting ballots be hand counted and audited, with proper oversight, as soon as possible. I ask that the results of the election not be certified until this hand recount is completed.  

Voters must have confidence in the outcome of elections or else the security of our elections and our democracy will be undermined. This election belongs to the voters in CA-50, and people all across the nation have an interest in its outcome. Neither candidate has the right to concede this election when Diebold vote machines were used in a manner that fails to comply with normal security procedures.  

Sandra Yolles 

Richmond 

On behalf of Urban Ore, its customers and employees, I’ll accept Steven Donaldson’s “special thanks” in the June 13 Daily Planet for opposing the regional grocery store that Berkeley Bowl wants to build. Building such a Big Bowl in that location really is a bad idea despite its owners having left it “a wonderful derelict, trash-strewn lot,” according to Mr. Donaldson’s eyewitness review.  

A big price will be paid. People using Ashby Avenue and Seventh Street in all four directions will pay for it in time and money as their cars and brains idle uselessly in the sludgy traffic that the Big Bowl will cause.  

My business, Urban Ore, is open every day on property about 30 feet from this intersection. I and my employees hear the honking horns, the cries of road rage, the occasional crash and crumple of car metal and plastic getting bent.  

When I drive in to work from Richmond via Ashby Avenue I see that the eastbound queue lane for turning left onto Seventh Street is frequently filled with its quota of eight to 10 vehicles. From our parking lot on Murray Street I see how these vehicles trying to turn left onto Seventh get stuck in the path of westbound Ashby traffic trying to get out to the freeway. The myriad traffic lights on Seventh northbound team up to stop the turning queue because the drivers at the back of the queue can’t see around the corner to the lights that will stop them in mid-turn. No amount of retiming will fix the volume problem. 

This clanky left turn is a major track that out-of-area shoppers will use to get to the Big Bowl at 920 Heinz from I-80 four blocks away.  

When the Ashby queue line fills up as it will, the next step is for left-turn vehicles to spill out into the left eastbound lane of the two-lane Ashby Avenue exit, slowing and reducing to one lane all the vehicles coming off the freeway who are heading for all the rest of Berkeley. It’s easy to imagine eastbound traffic backups on Ashby going back, maybe, all the way to 880 northbound.  

Seventh southbound is already impossible. I have long since abandoned it as a way to get to my business during the afternoons. Seventh clanks up because there are so many traffic lights needed to let people and trucks out of the side streets, and the Ashby intersection half a mile from where the queueing starts is so overloaded in all directions.  

The queue line on Seventh going north routinely backs up onto Folger eastbound and occasionally all the way around the corner to northbound Hollis, adversely affecting drivers coming to Berkeley from all those hyperbusy commercial districts down south in Emeryville.  

Oddly given these design considerations, Mr. Donaldson spends the rest of his rant supporting the Big Bowl. He’s the president of a company with the words “Design Intelligence” in it, so perhaps he can explain why willfully creating traffic gridlock at Seventh and Ashby is intelligent design.  

Daniel Knapp is president of Urban Ore, Inc.  

Reading about the recent losses (first Cody’s, now Radstons), gives me a profound sense of déjà vu, as I saw essentially the same thing happen to downtown Palo Alto in the mid-’90s. A thriving central business district that had local shops which actually supplied real needs turned into a frou-frou boutique zone for the nouveau riche (aka “yuppie scum”). As in Berkeley today, the primary culprit was the same: rising rents that forced out long-time tenants. 

When I arrived there in about 1990, there was a real music store plus a sheet-music seller, a sewing machine shop, a long-time local coffee roaster (McMillan Coffee), several independent booksellers (both new and used), and a long-established local stationer. Along with the usual assortment of restaurants were a number of small eateries where one could get a quick bite to eat inexpensively that wasn’t necessarily from some far-off exotic place or the trend-o-matic cuisine du jour. 

All these places are now history. 

The parallels with what’s happening in Berkeley are clear. So what can we learn from this? Why is this happening? Why are rents going sky-high? What, if anything, can be done about it? 

Unfortunately, I’m fairly sure that the answer to the last question is “pretty much nothing.” The yuppification of Palo Alto proceeded fairly quietly, while in Berkeley there is the obligatory hue and cry, accompanied by much liberal hand-wringing and gnashing of teeth. All of which provides balm for our souls, but not much in the way of actual change in the real world. Because, as it turns out, there’s only so much that those in city government can do. Short of a commercial rent-control policy with teeth (yeah, like that’s gonna happen!), what can the city do that would actually reverse rising rents and the flight of businesses? (In the spirit of giving credit where it’s due, the proposed streamlining of business permits for the Telegraph Ave. district is probably a step in the right direction.) 

The irksome thing is that there probably were lots of things that the city could have done in the past to stave off the present situation, starting with not rolling over and playing dead every time an incoming business asked for special favors. But now that the barn door is open ... Since the city’s hands are essentially tied, I’d much prefer it if city officials didn’t grandstand and pretend that they can reverse the remaking of downtown Berkeley in the image of New World Capital. The problem is that this tends to give their constituents false hope that maybe, just maybe, they can “save” Cody’s and Radstons and the Elmwood Pharmacy and Ozzie’s (and while you’re at it, how about Edy’s?) by rallying the good citizens against the evil chains, etc. But I ask them: just how are you going to bring that about? Mind you, I agree with their sentiment. I’d love to see the corporate invaders run out of town and replaced by home-grown businesses. I just don’t see any realistic way to actually make this happen, given current economic realities. So don’t promise what you can’t deliver. 

David Nebenzahl is a North Oakland  

resident.

The Ashby Community Flea Market represents a marketplace that existed over the ages in all of the seven continents. Upon walking into it you are greeted with the welcoming call of the drums played by people from all walks of life. Dancers move in the middle of the circle inviting guests to watch or join in. You are instantly surrounded by the sweet aroma of incense coupled with the smell of African and Caribbean food. Colorful cultural decorations and canopies filled with clothes from ancient places around the world, jewels from far away lands sparkle on table clothes, and handmade soaps and oils lure all who walk amongst this space. Within these clothed walls people are able to pick up Chinese chalk and fruits and vegetables while walking under the sunshine, mingling with friends and strangers, bargaining with vendors. This is not the average flea market selling old junk to those who find it to be treasures, this is a sacred space. This fusion of world cultural traditions gives the Ashby Community Flea market a sense of place—as if it has been here all along.  

Rising up in 1975, as the final step in the historic age of enlightenment and revolution known to many as the Berkeley Hippie Black Power Movement, the Ashby Community Flea Market emerged as a place for people to make a living, support families, and nurture a community environment that included and valued ancient cultural items. As one patron said, “It was a place to meet your wife.” 

Found in the historic Ashby Station District also known to residents as South Berkeley, the Ashby Community Flea Market has a regional draw making it a heart beat of Berkeley. In the old days, this neighborhood was the birthplace of the first steam train and electric transport systems connecting Oakland with Berkeley. Originally this land was bought by Mark and William Ashby, who were pioneer farmers, intending to build a ranch. Yet the visions of Governor Leland Stanford and real estate developer Francis Kittredge Shattuck overshadowed their farming idea as they put in a steam train line that would be the vein of what is now called the city of Berkeley. It was considered to be “one of the most attractive portions of Oakland’s surroundings” and was often referred to as the streetcar suburb. It has always been a place of comers and goers. Pit stops to enjoy the sun, meet new faces, and meet old friends. 

Locating on the corner of Ashby Avenue and MLK Jr. way, it stands as a monument of cultural uplift as old folks reminisce about Black Panther Party meetings and the renaming of old Grove Street after great freedom fighter Martin Luther King Jr. The environment surrounding the Ashby Flea Market is a sacred space allowing ancestors and freedom fighters to be honored and their legacy upheld.  

In the late 1980s, the flea market stood strong amidst the attack on the black community via crack cocaine and co-intelpro (CIA infiltration). Propelled by the beats and exodus of drums from all over the African Diaspora, the Ashby Community Flea Market remained amidst barren conditions, as people and neighborhoods were levelled by crack cocaine almost as fast as the atomic bomb destroyed Hiroshima. Neighborhoods that were once rooted in the tradition of hard work and self empowerment were ruined, as crack cocaine consumed the second and third generation simultaneously. The drums of the marketplace beat louder holding down the African roots of its attacked people while providing a safe haven and an outlet for those who might otherwise be the victim of this urban genocide of the 1980s. Providing a place to receive shamanistic healings via herbal lore and sound waves, the Ashby Community Flea market allowed most who were victimized by Reaganomics physically, mentally, and emotionally a safe haven to heal. 

In the 1990s, I first hit the marketplace as a teenager searching for myself. The Ashby Community Flea Market allowed most of us to find ourselves as we wore our African dashikis, long Moroccan skirts and big gemmed hippie jewelry that nobody could find anywhere else with pride. It also planted within me the idea of entrepreneurship as I found confidence in watching the young vendors make a living without selling out to corporate America. But more than anything, the flea market was a place to actually touch, hold, and take home things from places around the world. At this market I bought my first red, gold and green African medallion and learned the other names for Africa. Native American dream catchers and turquoise filled my first medicine bag. As Marcus Garvey and Malcolm X told me to go back to Africa, the flea market allowed me to first take this Hajj mentally as I learned of books about the Black Panthers, eating to live, and Egypt. It allowed what might have only been pictures in books to be real and alive. This place is a sacred spot acting as a vessel into ancient worlds just as the Great Pyramids, Stonehenge, and the shell mounds have swelled upon this great earth. The Ashby Community Flea Market should also bear the title of greatness and be held as a historic place. 

Now in the new millennium, as condos and cement are coagulating mother earth, even in places like Berkeley, the flea market is once again playing the war drum as concrete structures threaten its lively hood. Corporate America has once again found its weak link to take advantage of within the city of Berkeley and is planning to submerge the Ashby Flea market under the guise of urban development. In a time where most of us struggle to save and preserve the little bit of what is left of ancient culture, it is time we save what is here right now so that our children and their children will reap its benefit! The Ashby Community Flea market cannot be moved and contorted by the motions of money but must be preserved and recognized for its richness of cultural unity. Removing or moving this sacred space will serve as the mechanism for the divide and conquer motions of colonialism. So let’s allow this flea market to pour out into the streets and its influence to be the beacon of city uplift and beautification by building around it and not upon it. Let’s allow the drums beat and the smell of incense flow through the neighboring communities just as the old steam trains chugged up and down the streets connecting us all to each other and giving birth to a city that always held love, change, and vision at its core. And as the little engine blue engine cried out, “I think we can!” 

Toya Groves is a South Berkeley resident.

PUBLIC LIBRARY 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The dismissal of Jackie Griffin as Director of the Berkeley Public Library was good news indeed. It is unfortunate that it could not have come before so much damage had already been done to our library. Many excellent staff members who left the library rather than continue to serve with Griffin as director will not be persuaded to come back to their former jobs; we cannot get the thousands of books that she ordered thrown into dumpsters returned, nor can we get our money back from the installation of the RFID system, but we can hope that our library will be returned to a more humanized, community friendly institution, with a staff that is not being punished for trying to do a good job. 

Some suggestions for the revitalized library: 

Griffin may not have abused her dual role as library director and secretary to the Board of Library Trustees, but in future, to avoid even the possibility of inappropriate bias, the library director should not also be the board secretary. The position of secretary should be held by a person not otherwise connected to the library. 

E-mail and U.S. mail to the board should not have to be addressed care of (and therefore filtered though) the library director, but should be sent to individual directors or to a dedicated address. The board must function as a completely separate entity. 

The purpose of the Board of Library Trustees is not to back up the director’s decisions, but to oversee the director’s administration. In the past, the board has seemed to favor the director’s opinions and desires over the positions of both the public and library staff, and the board must bear at least part of the responsibility for the disastrous impact of Griffin’s years at Berkeley Public Library. She should have been supervised more carefully and judiciously. 

Shirley Stuart 

• 

MONEY 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The people of Berkeley seem to have no idea where money comes from. The only way to “Save Cody’s” would have been to provide easy parking near Telegraph, get rid of the runaways, and stop making it so generally difficult to do business in Berkeley. But too late for Cody’s. 

Now, West Berkeley Bowl is threatened by death from a thousand cuts, as the Berkeley political system seeks to micromanage every detail in search of the way life ought to be. The car dealers are ready to up and bolt. 

The city, meantime, is considering charging homeowners with extra sewer fees to upgrade the city’s ailing system. Sewers count as basic services, the kind of stuff cities are supposed to provide before funding anything else. They’re in the category of street tenance, fire protection, police services, garbage pickup, etc. 

Other cities are busy attracting business. Charitably, it might be said the Berkeley is struggling to hang on to existing business. More realistically, Berkeley is chasing business away. The result: costs go up, revenues can’t keep up, city services decline. 

The city had better rethink its business development strategies—because voters aren’t going to support new property or parcel taxes for the City of Berkeley. No way. 

Tom Case 

• 

TELEGRAPH AVENUE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I was impressed by the meeting called by Councilmember Kriss Worthington to discuss the future of Telegraph Avenue. The room was packed by a cross section of Telegraph players. Store owners, vendors, residents, students, People’s Park activists, advocates for the homeless, members of the religious community, to name a few. It was refreshing to see people really take a hard look at Telegraph’s woes and not just blame them on the homeless and young people. I was a little disappointed by the city’s proposal. For years now, every time there is a little dip in retail sales on the Avenue the city’s response has been to throw more cops at the problem and paint something. The last thing we need now is more cops on Telegraph.  

What we do need is to fix up the triangle at the intersection of Dwight and Telegraph. This is the gateway our storied section of Telegraph and it looks like some ghetto back alley. I’d love to see some kiosks that tell the story and history of Telegraph, some beautiful plants and flowers and a gourmet coffee stand. I’ve been asking for a permit for such a stand for years only to be met with profound silence. After Thursday’s meeting I was approached by merchants who asked if I would be interested in putting together more shows in People’s Park to draw more people up to the Ave. I think it would be great to get back into putting shows together and think it would be a good idea to establish a Telegraph event committee that not only puts together People’s Park shows but also brings in great street performers. Thursday’s meeting not only made me more hopeful that the ills of Telegraph can be corrected but that we can make Telegraph better and more prosperous than it has ever been. And all this can be done while respecting the rights and dignity of everyone whether young or old, rich or poor.  

Thursday night was a good start. Let’s keep the ball rolling. 

Dan McMullan 

Disabled People Outside Project 

• 

ANARCHY AND IMPERIALISM 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Anarchists are all too familiar with the smug titters of authoritarians, who are too obtuse to conceive of any kind of organization created by anarchists. But to impute the situation of increasing disorder and escalating bloodshed in Iraq, as editorial cartoonist De Freitas has done, either to the political philosophy of anarchism or to those who identify themselves as anarchists is an offense beyond insult. Regardless of what one may think of the strategies of the various armed factions jockeying for power in the situation of political instability created by the U.S./UK invasion and occupation (should we then characterize these imperialist powers as anarchist?), it is obvious that none of them is proposing international anti-state anti-hierarchical federations of working class people. Indeed, if we are to believe the mainstream reports, the insurgents who are vying for state power in Iraq are driven by religious sectarianism and/or ethnic chauvinism—not by a desire to abolish the state and capitalism. To equate the universally recognized symbol of anarchism (the circle-A) with the chaos and horror of imperialist occupation and/or civil war is the height of bad faith and monumental ignorance.  

C. Boles 

• 

EDUCATION 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I am a retired teacher employed in a No Child Left Behind after school tutorial program run by the non-profit Art, Research, and Curriculum (ARC) Associates.  

On Wednesday, June 7, staff members from ARC met to plan ways we could improve on the success of our current reading and math programs. What we did not discuss was the possibility that we may or may not get paid for our time and expertise. 

I am proud to be a part of a program where children come first and not a program where the business model means that children are secondary to greed and profit. 

Nancy Kron 

Kensington 

• 

TRANSPORTATION 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I’ve been reading all the letters in the Tuesday Planet “transportation issue”—about Ashby BART, Brower Center, Telegraph Avenue and the BRT. I think this literature shows a degree of disconnect from reality, similar to that exhibited by Republicans with regard to global warming. 

We in Berkeley need to connect with the reality that we’re too dependent on the automobile. We can’t have unlimited parking, accommodating an unlimited number of cars. Our cars are ruining our local environment, and in the process, directly contributing to a global climate disaster. We can see all the cars clogging the streets, waiting impatiently at traffic lights, filling the on-street parking spaces, lined up to drink more $3/gallon gas. But these scenes don’t seem to trigger alarm bells like disappearing glaciers, drowning island nations and swirling hurricanes, all of which can be seen in the movie An Inconvenient Truth. There’s a big graph showing the increase in carbon dioxide and temperature. Would we wake up if we saw a graph of the increase in cars, parking or congestion? 

Today I took the No. 9 bus to the marina. While I was there, I checked the toes of the Guardian. They are still above water, but I was impressed with how few feet it is from the toes to the waves. I had a vision of the fishing pier awash. 

I bought the book that goes with the movie. I’m considering sending a copy of An Inconvenient Truth to George Bush. I could send a copy of Donald Shoup’s “The High Cost of Free Parking” to Michael Katz, or one of the other Berkeley people who think we’ve got to have ever more parking. Berkeley “ratified” Kyoto, but a lot of our fine environmentalists are unwilling to give a lane to the BRT, or reduce the number of downtown parking spaces. They think local business will die if we don’t provide parking for all the cars that come. This is just as ideologically blind as Bush’s refusal to deal with global warming. 

OK, time to stop being negative. Here are some positive things we can do: 

1. Put a high price on downtown parking; use the revenue to improve the downtown environment (Don Shoup’s idea). 

2. Replace downtown all-day parking with short-term parking (TDM Study’s idea). 

3. Impose a “congestion tax” on cars found downtown (London UK’s idea). 

4. Set a maximum on the number of parking spaces downtown; make transit free downtown in “fareless square.” (Portland OR’s idea) 

5. Put in a bus-only lane for the BRT; shift drivers to bus-riding (AC Transit’s idea, and maybe UCB’s idea?) 

6. Implement a local package delivery service for stores on Telegraph, Shattuck and University (my idea). 

Steve Geller 

• 

PRE-SCHOOL 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I hear there is a proposal to require credentialing for pre-school caregivers. I know we all believe in credentialing, but we need to know what skills are most important for pre-school caregivers. The most important skill is sensitivity to the unspoken needs of a child. 

The second most important skill is the heart to give a child open attention even when the caregiver is stressed or worn out. The desire to reach out to the community for support is another important skill. Along with these skills, the pre-school caregiver certainly needs to know the developmental stages of the child and tested techniques for providing children challenges and opportunities. But the ability to make a child feel secure is essential. Pre-school caregivers should be selected not only on the basis of their credentials but also for their capacity for nourishing human relations. 

Romila Khanna 

Albany 

• 

THE FIELD MANUAL 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Does the field manual for high-ranking military officers require that they disconnect themselves from tragedy? Rear Admiral Harry Harris was asked about the deaths by hanging of “enemy combatants” detained for over four years at Guantanamo detention center in Cuba and blamed the victims. “They have no regard for human life, neither ours nor their own,” he said. Speaking of no regard for human life reminds me of the two dozen civilians killed by Marines in Haditha, Iraq, last November. 

Does the field manual also supply the new locution that enabled Admiral Harris to create his own reality? “I believe,” he said, “this was not an act of desperation but an act of asymmetric warfare against us.” Wonder of wonders! Two Saudis and one Yemeni, in total isolation for over four years, used fabricated nooses to commit war against their jailers. I can’t help but wonder why Patrick Henry, instead of talking about it, did not commit asymmetric warfare against the British over two centuries ago when he so eloquently pledged his liberty more dear than his death. 

Marvin Chachere 

San Pablo

I have a particular fondness for the Berkeley Bowl. I fought the chair of the Zoning Adjustments Board and the mayor when they tried to approve a MacFrugal’s Bargain Closeouts at the Bowl’s current Oregon site a decade ago. The neighborhood, reeling from the closing of their Safeway, begged the city not to allow anything but a grocery store. Staff responded by commissioning a $25,000 report that “proved” no grocery store would ever be profitable there! 

In the end the city sided with the neighbors, and as a result the Bowl is what and where it is today. Now the Bowl wants to open up in West Berkeley, and again the local neighborhood is excited at the prospect, and again I’m hoping to see it happen. But now that the Bowl is a Bay Area powerhouse, I’m also hoping we’re not about to help it expand at the cost of our ability to navigate our overburdened streets and our commitment to fair-labor practices. 

The streets 

When a project as sizable as the Bowl is proposed, California law requires us to evaluate its effect on the environment, especially on traffic. The Bowl’s nearest major streets are Berkeley’s only state highways, Ashby and San Pablo. The environmental impact report (EIR) says that that intersection, already the city’s most congested, will be greatly harmed by the Bowl, and also claims that nothing we can do will fully undo the damage. To make matters worse, the analysis leading to that conclusion is based on far-from-credible assumptions that dramatically underestimate the effect. 

In evaluating the new site’s traffic impacts, Fehr & Peers, the EIR traffic consultants, used the standard industry average for American supermarkets, dismissing the Bowl’s obvious high patronage. And when asked to explain why they found zero increased regional draw from opening a new Bowl just four blocks from Highway 80, their representative said that no regional traffic would want to take the freeway because it was too crowded. When cornered in public testimony, he repeatedly fell back on the argument that, with 5,000 to 10,000 homes within a mile and a half of the project, the new Bowl would not need regional traffic to sustain it. But the question their analysis was supposed to be answering was how much traffic the Bowl would generate, not how much patronage it would need to turn a profit. 

The artificially low numbers not only distorted the analysis of what will happen to the already miserable San Pablo–Ashby intersection, but also fed into a distorted analysis of the parking spaces needed to prevent the Bowl parking from overflowing onto neighborhood streets. That number was already reduced by taking at face value the owner’s improbable claim that the new Bowl will have fewer employees than the existing store, even though at twice the size it will be the largest supermarket in the Bay Area. 

The workplace 

Now I have to turn to an unpleasant topic that all Berkeleyans who like me love the Bowl must face up to: the Bowl is not a pro-union business. 

Four years ago, when the union struggle at the Bowl played out, I thought—as I suspect most of us thought—that the unionization of the Bowl’s workforce meant its labor issues were resolved. Far from it. Glen Yasuda, the Bowl’s owner, fought the union so hard that the NLRB cited him for unfair practices and issued an order forcing him to negotiate a contract in good faith or face sanctions. The eventual contract contained no provision for the unionization of the new store. Mr. Yasuda’s representative Dan Kataoka, when asked if he’d allow a “card check” election to let a clear majority of the new workers establish their right to join a union, labeled that fundamental democratic practice undemocratic and refused, setting the stage for another protracted and uncertain struggle at the new Bowl. 

If it remains non-union, Mr. Yasuda will have a strong incentive to close the old unionized store and retain the new non-union one, creating profound ramifications for Berkeley traffic. When asked why he didn’t evaluate that circumstance, the traffic consultant called it “speculative” because Mr. Yasuda told him he has no intention of closing the existing store. (As if it’s speculative to assume that a businessman who wants to build a much bigger establishment just two miles away might be building a replacement instead of an expansion. That’s what has happened to Cody’s, which got the identical kind of gift for their Fourth Street expansion.) The city’s zoning director then jumped in to volunteer that he thought that if the old Bowl were to close, it would have no effect on traffic to the new site, dismissing with a wave of his hand the question that should have necessitated a whole new section of the EIR. 

And add to the list of worries the possibility that Mr. Yasuda could accept his $10 million rezoning gift, then turn around and sell the site to a similar company of his choice. That might be Whole Foods, which at least would serve the neighborhood, but also—dare I utter the word—WalMart. Right now, there’s nothing in the permit or proposed zoning revision to prevent that. 

The City Council meets on the project tonight (Tuesday). The gift they are holding out to Mr. Yasuda is large. In exchange he should be required to truly address the traffic problems the new Bowl will create, maintain the viability of local business, ensure that the supermarket we’re changing our zoning for is the one we’re going to get, and deal with all Bowl employees fairly. Every issue can’t be resolved tonight, but this project, which will have greater impact on the lives of Berkeley citizens than any project that’s come before any of our Councilmembers, rates better than the wishful neglect it’s met with so far. 

Dave Blake is vice chair of the Zoning Adjustments Board. 

Well let’s stand up and cheer! The Berkeley Bowl maybe withdrawing it’s application to build a new store in West Berkeley. No fresh organic produce, no great prices, no community meeting rooms, no food court, no quality shopping for West Berkeley. 

Gosh, now we will have preserved a wonderful derelict, trash strewn lot for future generations. What more could we ask for? 

Who do we have to thank? The Zoning Adjustments Board (ZAB), who imposed an additional $1.8 million traffic “mitigation fee” on the owners of the Bowl for possible but undefined traffic impacts. (This is already beyond significant dollars committed as part of current in traffic mitigations the Berkeley Bowl has already agreed to). 

Yes, let’s cheer at imposing all the costs of change (and new costs we can invent) on to someone willing to take a risk and make the significant investment to open a store in this area. Remember, the Berkeley Bowl is a business built up over 30 years of hard work by a great hard working local Japanese family and they are willing to take this bold step to open a second store, making the improvements, putting in the buildings and attempting to make this all profitable. Oh if this were to happen, the City of Berkeley gets the property tax revenue and sales tax receipts—but we don’t need that, do we? 

Oh, special thanks to those who kept fighting—the inflated fears of the French school, Ecole Biligue and their kids—gosh, do they live in that neighborhood or even walk to school?—no, Zelda Bronstein our esteemed candidate for mayor, who’s been continually fighting this project and also fought the La Farine Bakery on Solano Avenue (and lost)—does she live in this neighborhood?—oh, a no. 

The struggling artisans and industrial works fighting to protect jobs—who’s jobs, what jobs? oh, not the jobs created by the Berkeley Bowl—sorry that’s not going to happen. 

And special thanks to the owners of Urban Ore, the City of Berkeley subsidized business that has put up the good fight to keep their business operating with a positive cash flow from your taxes and who has continually opposed the Berkeley Bowl locating in West Berkeley. 

Lastly, thanks to all the folks who are afraid of anything new in Berkeley no mater who it may benefit as long is it’s not going to affect them. 

I’m one of many voters, residents and property owners in West Berkeley extremely upset at the Berkeley Bowl withdrawing it’s application for a permit to build at the new West Berkeley Bowl site on Heinz near Ashby. This is an enormous blow to Berkeley and in particular West Berkeley residents who have no place of any significance to shop. It also gives the impression this City allows a handful of people (some of which do not live in West Berkeley) with money, time, influence and a personal agenda to stall, restrict and impose additional costs on such a fantastic project from a true Berkeley pioneer, benefiting thousands of West Berkeley residents and, that any other city would welcome with open arms. 

Berkeley should be proud we have examined, commented, dissected, reexamined and treated this project to the most unbelievable scrutiny over two and a half years. It makes you really question the value and purpose of our approval process. What are the roles of the commissioners? Are they not to look out for what’s good for the city and the citizens of this city—as a whole, not one person’s particular gripe or unsubstantiated fear no matter how irrational it is? 

I feel that leadership and action are necessary to benefit the citizens who are direly in need of a quality grocery store in the West Berkeley area. 

If you agree please e-mail the mayor or your council representative with your comments. It may not be too late. 

Steven Donaldson is president of Brand Guidance > Design Intelligence (BGDi). 

I thought I’d never encounter another community as gleefully contentious on an endless cornucopia of issues as the City of Berkeley. 

I was wrong.  

Town v. Gown’s got nothing on Breast v. Bottle. And who knew that how you put your baby to sleep was an unabashed declaration of politics, parenting philosophy, outlook on life, mettle, and presence or absence of soul? 

“Attachment Parenting (AP)” = respond respond respond to baby’s crying ‘til you’re blue in the face, even if it doesn’t stop him or her from crying. “Cry It Out (CIO)” = Close the nursery door and let ‘em cry ‘til they drop. 

Tom Bates? Attachment Parenting. Shirley Dean? Cry It Out for sure. 

And naturally, the parenting world has its own library of private-cliquesque acronyms—AP, CIO, SAHM (Stay At Home Mom), WM (Working Mom), DS/DD/DH (Darling Daughter/Son/Husband), BF (breastfeeding). Just to keep outsiders in their place, lonely and clueless outside our kingdom of wisdom—like all acronyms! 

When my husband and I had our first baby (and probably Only—er, another rabid debate, don’t get me started) five and a half months ago, we little dreamed we were entering a tribal war zone. But war zone it is—of vision, philosophy, words, and purchase choices. 

In fact, the World of Parenting lines up pretty closely with the People’s Republic of Berkeley: 

SAHM v. WM? Town v. Gown. 

Cloth diapers v. disposable? Paper cups v. Styrofoam. 

AP v. CIO? Homeless advocates v. business community. 

Breastmilk v. formula? Organic gardens and sustainable development v. supermarkets and chain stores. 

Public school v. private school v. homeschooling? Cars v. bikes v. pedestrians. 

Aaaaaaaaaaargh!!! 

And the militant moms and pushy poppas are just as passionate about their views—and smug about the wrongness of others—as the creek savers, People’s Park protectors, and pro-business bullies. Breastinistas preach at formula feeders. SAHMoms bewail the cruelty of WMoms. CIO practitioners shake their heads at AP ‘coddling’. 

So just as Berkeley’s civil wars let Telegraph Avenue and South Berkeley deteriorate and cars without parking spaces engulf the city, so it is in the parenting world—as parents fire one-liners at each other in the Craigslist parenting forum and trash the sincerely thought-through choices of other parents, all the while we have no paid maternity leave, no universal health care for children, and a bill authorizing pre-school for all four-year olds takes a nose dive. 

Can’t we all just get along?? 

Say it with me, people: Unity! United we stand—or divided we will fall... and bicker... and choke on our breastmilk lattes in Styrofoam bottles being couriered through car-clogged Berkeley streets by diaper-wearing homeless cyclists... 

Huh??? 

Exactly. 

Sonja Fitz is a BFing WM who sometimes SAH and always lets her DH CIO.

The Berkeley Daily Planet published an article about the administrative problems at the Berkeley YMCA, noting that I had been expelled for writing a series of memos about problems there. The article noted efforts on the part of the Y administration to disrupt efforts to unionize workers. This alone, characterizes the administration at the Berkeley Y, and should give the City of Berkeley concern about supporting this organization.  

My expulsion from the Berkeley Y represents a shameless attempt by the Y to avoid addressing many safety, hygiene, liability issues. I had expressed these concerns in a series of memos to Director Peter Chong and Aquatics Director Aaron Dence. They never offered any substantive reply, and responded by trying to defame me.  

My background as a Certified Pool Operator and competitive swimmer has given me the benefit of seeing how pools can operate safely and successfully. I found myself sending many memos to Dence about breaches of safety and etiquette in the lap pool, and never receiving a reply. But he continued to solicit my input in a patronizing manner.  

Chong relied on a series of false incident reports to depict me as anti-social and revoke my membership. In fact, the incident reports used to discredit me were solicited by Y administrators. This has been confirmed by Y staff members, who want to keep their jobs, but who don’t enjoy formal whistleblower protections.  

I submitted no less than three written complaints to the Y about the threatening nature of gay men harassing non-gay men in the shower area. The Y ignored these memos, and depicted me as anti-gay. Expressing my objection to unwanted sexual advances in the men’s locker room does not make me anti-gay. Yelling at a child who has done something threatening or frightening doesn’t make me a threat to children.  

Last year, I raised over $1,300 for the Berkeley Y’s Annual Fund Drive. As a professional fundraiser with management training, I gave sales meetings, and a lot of counsel to other volunteers who were less experienced. It was frustrating, because of an outdated date base, so that 75% of the calls made were to non-working or wrong numbers. I proposed that the Y set up a table in the lobby to manually update the contact information for all members. It didn’t happen, and I chose not to participate in this year’s Campaign.  

On March 28, I was “summoned” by Chong and Dence to account for a series of incident reports about me. I was allowed to see them, and quickly determined that each of them was totally fabricated. One was solicited and manipulated by the Y’s Membership Director, Brenda Tatum Davis! A staff member, who also wants to keep his/her job told me that , “I talked to the boys and they told me that Brenda put them up to filing the incident report, and ‘they didn’t even know what one was until Brenda put them up to it.’” In the incident report, the boys admit to their own bad behavior that elicited my response. Yet, Chong and Davis chose to dignify it because it was solicited for the purpose of revoking my membership.  

The pool culture at the Berkeley Y is characterized by poorly trained lifeguards and reckless indifference towards safety and etiquette. All other pools dedicated for lap swimming rigidly enforce an etiquette system, to ensure that swimmers of ALL abilities are safely accommodated. There no such code enforcement at the Berkeley Y pool.  

Dence chooses not to enforce the common etiquette, and maintains other ongoing sources of provocation for swimmers. He has failed to properly train the lifeguards in pool management. On April 8, a violent head-on collision occurred between two members, because a lifeguard sat passively while a swimmer entered a lane right in front of her and caused the accident!  

My experiences leave no room for compromise when it comes to pool safety. This includes two drownings at pools, where I issued similar warnings that were ignored. I’ve also performed two rescues when guard staffs were inattentive.  

In August 2000, I sent a letter to Director Michael Kammler, at the Osher-Marin Jewish Community Center, advising that their day camp swim program was “an accident waiting to happen.” This was prompted by the absence of any real instruction and the prevalence of chaos, but this letter was ignored. In November 2000, I was suspended from the JCC for doing yoga on the pool deck! No kidding. This is the same JCC that was sued in 2003 when they tried to prohibit breast-feeding on the pool deck. In June 2002, a child, Natasha Lujon-Isaacs, drowned at the Osher-Marin JCC day camp. No one lost their job over this tragedy. The Osher-Marin JCC initiated a campaign of brutal defamation against me, when I tried to publish the prior-warning letter in the Marin Independent Journal.  

The City of Berkeley subsidizes over 1,000 memberships at the Berkeley Y, and provides other unusual financial benefits. Because of these generous subsidies, the Berkeley Y serves as a community center for the City of Berkeley. It should therefore be subjected to the same governmental requirements with regard to fairness, the right to organize a union, and constitutional protections of its staff and membership. The financial relationship between the Berkeley YMCA and the City of Berkeley infers a “social contract” between the two entities. The Berkeley YMCA must abide by the same protections and guidelines as any government agency or contractor! Otherwise, the city must sever this relationship.  

H. Scott Prosterman is a Berkeley resident. 

At the so-called “Downtown” Berkeley YMCA suspended member Scott Prosterman’s abysmal but utterly unsurprising below par experience is, I can personally attest, par for the course—as is the absent or empty response members typically receive from the organization’s administration to their most compelling cares and concerns! 

In December 2004 I simply let my own “adult access” membership lapse un-renewed after being a “full-service” member there for some eight years since October 1996. Why? I just got extremely tired and sick to death of supporting financially the equally imperious and indifferent attitude toward members, to say nothing of the typically contemptuous atmosphere, so rampantly perpetuated there by both entrenched administrators and staffers alike. 

Like Scott, I had occasion to fruitlessly submit over my nearly decade-long membership multiple written complaints to then director Fran Gallati, who never once cared to address or reply to even the first one. Apparently, Gallati’s spineless administrative approach, now duly handed down to director Peter Chong, was(and is)to outright ignore and disregard member complaints long enough, hoping they’ll simply disappear. So Bravo to Scott for possessing the tenacity and resolve I lacked to persevere with his protest in the face of such obstinate administrative indifference and unconcern! 

Denial is epidemic in Berkeley generally but particularly so at that Y. But what’s really rich about Scott’s case is director Chong’s public pronouncements about expected member “decorum.” And man, do Y administrators and staffers alike exult and rejoice at all times in preaching their hypocritical gospels and sanctimonious sermons!  

Plastered all over that facility are silly signs superficially proclaiming and extolling the virtue of “respect.” Well, here’s just a small sampling of instances of the paltry “respect” consistently exhibited to members by Y staffers(especially those punk flunkies, as I term them)on a daily, excruciatingly regular basis which this entire sordid episode currently recalls to mind. And mind you, none of these are isolated incidents: 

• At the very outset there was one scowling, finger-wagging woman, signing me up for the “adult access” membership, sternly dictating to me to “make sure” sufficient funds were kept available in my account to be directly debited for my monthly membership dues “or else” this or that—as if I presumably intended to default on my payments, or as if management of my personal bank account was any of her business to begin with! If my limited budget priorities demanded that I pay my monthly membership dues later than the appointed transaction date then I(not her and not any other Y staffer)would decide if and when I would—and, indeed, sometimes did! 

• Rather than welcome you with a civil let alone courteous(God forbid!)greeting the front reception desk “union” night staff, riveted so immovably to their comfortable reclining chairs, would consistently and sternly accost you verbally with their punctual facility closing-time updates—as if after nearly a decade of membership you still didn’t know the operations hours already, or as if your entry might detain them at their shiftless posts a single nanosecond longer than they could possibly tolerate! Why, once I was accosted there by a puny little scowling preschooler barking aloud, “The Y’s closing in a half hour!” That’s the sort of “respect” toward members these permissive “adult” night staffers instill in their childish charges. So I leaned over to instill some edification of my own and told him quite simply, “No, the Y’s open for another half hour. Think positive!” 

• Either that or a gaggle of chattering punk-flunky groupies would stand there gawking and giggling like adolescent dunces should you encounter difficulty entering the front turnstile(because your faded and worn ID card was barely readable by the scanner light)rather than display some semblance of consideration and move their shiftless butts to actually assist you (again God forbid!). And then upon exiting the facility you’d witness that very same idle gaggle of groupies all gathered together, grumbling about how trying and troublesome toiling so strenuously at their shiftless little posts really was! 

• Then on to the “strength training center” weight room where equally inept and incompetent floor monitors pretending to be expert fitness “trainers” would abruptly disrupt your bench-press focus and concentration by imposing on you their unsolicited(and unneeded)“spots” or by dispensing equally unsolicited, not to mention downright BOGUS if not detrimental training tips and advice. For the longest time employed there was this graying senior and rather decrepit gaffer-staffer hitting 60 who actually deluded himself into thinking he was some sort of super-stud and irresistible to even the gym’s most pubescent girls! 

• The height of irresponsible folly occurred there when the Y hired through spousal nepotism a genetically oversized, mal-proportioned bulk-builder who was temporarily permitted to dupe a whole gang of gullible groupies, knowing no better(still), into practicing a multitude of unsound and unsafe weight-bouncing-jerking-and-swinging(rather than lifting)movements, consisting of cheat-style leverage and momentum(rather than strength or skill), compelling those groupies to attempt detrimental weight-lifts they couldn’t conceivably yet be capable of performing correctly much less beneficially; this all happening on absolutely no other logical or rational basis except that he was “big” and had won some amateur bulk-building contest trophies! Foisted upon the gullible groupies as well were the bulk-builder’s equally excessive protein-ingestion habits responsible for acidic ketones and kidney stress due to impossibly processed amino acids; contributing to their becoming fatter rather than “bigger” as they unsuspectingly expected due to excessive ingestion of fatty meat products. Most tragically was the recent premature death of an older weight-lifting kidney-dialysis casualty, killed by kidney failing-related complications—but doubtless aggravated by his own stubborn, exaggerated protein-ingestion—who had been likewise duped into following blindly and robotically that bulk-builder’s detrimental dietary mal-practices! 

• Then onward downstairs to the swimming pool where at closing time the listless lifeguards either shuffled lazily over to the hot tub spa to rudely eject bathers, moaning and groaning all the while about how tired they were and how badly they wanted to go home, or stood clear across the pool, lording it over everyone, shouting loudly and commandingly, “Let’s go! Let’s go!” One punk-flunky girl once insisted that I leave the pool area because it was five minutes(the recommended time limit in the spa for which I was headed)before closing and then leapt off her high horse to actually follow me to the spa to keep on insisting that I heel and leave—in front of multiple bathers still soaking in the spa, where I retorted just as insistently that I’d leave when she stopped singling me out and ordered everybody else out, including multiple swimmers still doing their laps in the pool! Another punk-flunky gave his orders resorting to the finger-wagging routine which I finally told him to stop pointing at me. So fed up did I get with these pool punk-flunkies that I finally myself shouted clear across the pool at one, admonishing him—to the great glee of all spa bathers present, “Address these people as adults sometime and you just might elicit a better response from them! Grow up!” And likewise in the locker rooms the incessantly harping “talking clocks” announcing closing time made their repeated rounds. 

Yes, gruff supervising “adults” at the Y inculcate their churlish charges to revel in giving their stern and surly orders. Please or Pardon Me, you see, just aren’t part of their already extremely limited vocabulary under their obnoxious mal-practice of “respect.” The redundantly tedious and tiresome situation there got so ridiculously absurd that sometimes I took to entering the facility with admittedly facetious quips like, “Request permission to enter the stockade!,” or, “Issued any good commands lately?” And upon exiting, saluting, “Yavo, Commandants!” 

Not even the slightest semblance of common courtesy much less civil customer service exists at that Y. Its supremely boorish staff appear incapable of grasping the painfully simple concept that members themselves don’t work hard at their own jobs to pay exorbitant gym dues to be high-handedly berated, condescended to, lectured, reprimanded or otherwise ordered around by a bunch of flippant punk-flunkies and their grumpy “adult” indoctrinators. 

Free speech and expression on the part of any members happening to object or take exception to the outright ludicrous and laughable situation there is of course held by the negligent, do-nothing administration in the most scurrilous contempt or even derisive ridicule. One haughty “Kinder Kid” punk-flunky, scolding me for lingering several minutes late in the weight-room, huffily commanded, “You know you’re not supposed to be here! Follow instructions!” Well, I just ultimately told them I follow my own instructions unless they come from others with some small semblance of politeness and “respect” (nothing too terribly complicated or outrageous to expect!), and that where I’m supposed to be is in the end my own decision: so I just left. 

Through the gossipy grapevine, though, I’d heard that my own infrequent complaints to the administration were quite the behind-the-back laughingstock amongst the Y’s sarcastic and scornful punk-flunky staff. Well, now that Scott Prosterman has defiantly dared to publicly protest against this preposterous nonsense and take the Y to task we can well wonder who’s then having the best, last and loudest laugh! 

Joseph Covino Jr American Council On Exercise-certified fitness trainer. 

When my good friend, Wilson Riles Jr., ran against Jerry Brown for mayor of the City of Oakland four years ago, I thought he made two major mistakes. The first mistake was that he waited too long to go after Brown’s record as mayor. The second was that he did the going himself. 

In the new politicalspeak of slate mailers and media soundbites, going after your opponent’s record is considered a negative act, and is made synonymous with the popular term “mudslinging.” The two, however, are not synonymous. You can point out the errors in your political opponent’s record without being nasty about it, though that’s a trick that is not as easy as it might seem. A lot of politicians aren’t particularly good at the art, my good friend, Wilson Riles, being one of them. He has the demeanor of a pacifist and a thoughtful man—both of which he is—and so, when he took to criticizing Mr. Brown for his failure as mayor back in the 2002 election, it was so out of character that it probably lost Mr. Riles more votes than it gained him, and contributed to his getting roundly trounced by Mr. Brown, 64 percent to 36. 

Comes the dreary race this spring for the Democratic nomination for the attorney general of the State of California and Los Angeles City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo, flexing his street cred as a tough kid from East L.A., decided to hit Mr. Brown early and often in news releases and debate statements and e-mail updates.  

“Speaking to a group of Alameda County Democratic lawyers,” the San Francisco Chronicle reported last spring, Mr. Delgadillo “accused Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown of failing to fulfill a campaign promise of reducing crime in Oakland to the level of Walnut Creek. Oakland has had 31 killings so far this year compared to zero in Walnut Creek. ‘He calls 31 homicides a surge, I call it a crisis,’ said Delgadillo, who also accused Brown of waffling on the death penalty.” 

As a result, in last week’s primary Mr. Delgadillo did slightly better than Mr. Riles, losing only 63 percent to 37 percent. 

State media outlets mostly credited Mr. Brown’s decisive primary win not on the issues so much as on his name recognition and star power, with the Los Angeles Alternative newspaper giving out the bad news in an article called “Rocky In A Hard Place” a month before the actual vote took place: “Delgadillo—a decent guy with no surplus of magnetism—is running against the most famous Democrat in California, Oakland mayor and former governor Jerry Brown, one of the most articulate people alive. Brown’s name is the top brand. And, unlike other former governors (Wilson, Deukmejian, Davis), Jerry doesn’t just have fans—he has True Believers. … Jerry’s thousands of ex-Brownies are out there in all walks of life, in appointed and elected offices all over the state, spreading the word. Hence, Rocky’s rough road.” 

Calling Mr. Brown “one of the most articulate people alive” aside (??????), myself, I think that’s a misreading of the race. Mr. Delgadillo’s problem against Mr. Brown was not that he attacked a state icon, but that he attacked him in the wrong way. True, Mr. Brown made public safety a major platform in his two runs for Oakland mayor and true, under Mr. Brown’s watch, homicides skyrocketed. But in places like Lodi and Fresno and Santa Barbara and San Diego, I’m sure, they figured of course, homicides skyrocketed in Oakland … it’s Oakland, after all … and at least Jerry Brown went there and tried, taking on a tough and dirty and thankless job. It’s not Jerry Brown’s great image that made the difference so much as Oakland’s poor one. Who, in the rest of California, expects much out of us? 

Brace yourself, friends. For those of us who have followed Mr. Brown’s work (or lack, thereof) as mayor of Oakland, and wouldn’t wish that experience on the rest of the state, it gets progressively worse (pun intended). If Mr. Brown is a bad choice for California attorney general, there is pretty much no choice at all in the general election. Our Republican friends, bless their right-wing hearts, have managed to nominate someone who Schwarzenegger Republicans will have to hide their faces about. 

Witness the sampling of Project Vote Smart ratings on two-term Fresno State Senator Chuck Poochigian, the Republican attorney general nominee: On the issue of abortion and a woman’s right to choose, Mr. Poochigian voted with Planned Parent Affiliates of California 11 percent of the time in 2005. Three years before, Project Vote Smart reports, NARAL-Pro Choice flatly “determined Senator Poochigian to be anti-choice.” On budget spending and taxes in 2005, the Fresno State Senator supported the California Taxpayers’ Association 100 percent of the time and the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association 94 percent. He supported the California Chamber of Commerce 93 percent in 2005, slipping a little from his 100 percent support a year before. On the environment last year, Mr. Poochigian supported only 9 percent issues important to the California League of Conservation Voters, and the Sierra Club, flat-out never. He voted with CalPIRG 19 percent on governmental reform issues in 2005, but 100 percent with the Gun Owners of America the same year on issues important to that organization. On labor concerns, he voted with the California School Employees Association 10 percent of the time in 2005, the California Labor Federation-AFL-CIO 11 percent. And PawPAC, the animal rights folks, gave him an F grade in 2003-04. Grrrrr…. 

In his campaign website letter to his “Dear Friends” of California, Mr. Poochigian tells us that “the holder of [the California attorney general’s] office has no more important duty than protecting Californians and their families from crime.” 

In reality, Californians tend to depend upon law enforcement agencies that actually have police officers and police powers to do that particular job, from the various city police departments to the county sheriff’s offices and the State Highway Patrol, as well as prosecuting officials like the county district attorneys. The attorney general’s office has a much broader mandate, intervening in civil and legal and political matters in a way that can have a profound effect on local situations (an example was when, in 2003, current Attorney General Bill Lockyer gave an “opinion” against the transfer of construction bond money to bail the Oakland Unified School District out of its budget problems, leading directly to the state takeover of the Oakland schools). 

(In all fairness, in his “Dear Friends” letter Mr. Poochigian says that the attorney general’s job “also includes a wide range of duties, including civil justice, representation of the executive branch of government, advising law enforcement and other local and state public agencies.” The addition, however, appears to be an afterthought to his emphasis on the law enforcement aspects of the job.) 

Mr. Poochigian immediately went the ridicule route on Mr. Brown, reprinting on his campaign website a recent Jim Boren Fresno Bee column that manages to revisit both the old Governor Moonbeam tag put on Mr. Brown in 1978 by Chicago Tribune columnist Mike Royko and Mr. Brown’s old love affair with singer Linda Ronstadt, none of which, one imagines, will make much difference to California voters in November. 

But also, as one would expect of someone with his political background and his take on the responsibilities of the job, Mr. Poochigian has also taken out after Mr. Brown’s Oakland crime record, writing on his website that “Jerry Brown took a big gamble when he decided to wage his campaign for Attorney General based on a pledge to ‘lead the fight against crime as I have done as Mayor of Oakland.’ Brown was betting that he could confuse the press and public into buying his Soprano-style boo kkeeping regarding crime statistics. … Unfortunately for Jerry, the release of actual crime statistics not filtered through the lens of his attorney general campaign has caused the Mayor’s crime-busting claims, built on a house of cards, to come tumbling down.” 

Sigh… 

My guess is that Mr. Brown, ever the artful dodger throughout his political career, will be able to dodge this one, too, running not so much on the platform of “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” as he will on the slogan “Oakland’s so broke, nobody could fix it.” But if there is any choice in the California attorney general’s race in November, you can label them Worse and Worser, without much difference in which candidate gets stuck with which.  

Siempre Aqui. Always here. Two words that simply convey a tome-like history. Aqui referring to California and more specifically the area around greater Richmond. From the early 19th century days of California’s Rancheros to 20th century jobs in mining and railroads up through today, the Hispanic presence has been an integral part of California. This saga is well showcased in the current exhibit at the Richmond Museum of History. 

The small Seaver Gallery, brightly lit and paneled in green and red, artfully displays artifacts, photographs and text chronicling Hispanic contributions both culturally and environmentally. Following the room’s perimeter, I enjoyed a concise history course of interpretive panels and accompanying illustrations. Collected from both old time residents and new comers to the community, the visuals tell the story of an age-old quest for a better life and a safe haven for raising a family. 

The story begins in the early 1800s on the Rancheros when huge tracts of land provided grazing for cattle, sheep and horses. A large, illustrated family tree traces the descendants of Joaquin Ysidro Castro (born 1730) and Maria Martina Botiller (born 1733) through five generations during the days of Rancho San Pablo, a land grant of 18,000 acres. Artifacts from this period—a full-size cow hide, a branding iron and a glass-encased adobe brick from the 1843 Castro home—provide a glimpse of everyday life, as does a 1830 sketch map of Rancho San Pablo. 

The next chapter leaps to the early 1900s when jobs in agriculture, mining and railroads created the next influx of immigrants. New immigration laws restricted Asian and European workers and World War I had designs on American men. Meanwhile, Mexican land reform policies, depriving 98 percent of the population of their land, and revolution catalyzed men to head north for work. Many ended up in Richmond at the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad, others at Standard Oil. A page from a 1914 Santa Fe Magazine attests to their presence. In three full-page columns an English-Spanish glossary translates a thorough list of work-related terms, including “pay day” to “dia de pago” and even provides a pronunciation guide. 

Mexican family roles, men, women, boys and girls, and social life are explored photographically. La Hispano-Americana Mercado from 1931 is represented in a classic black and white shot as well as with a brightly illustrated calendar from 1939 displaying the Golden Gate Bridge. A group of smiling gaily dressed young ladies at a Mexican Independence Day Celebration and another at a Sunday afternoon tardeada at Sweet’s Ballroom shine a light on the lighter side of life. The role of dance is displayed through Mexican dance costumes vibrant in their colors, seemingly poised to whirl into action. A black skirt sequined with images of the Mexican eagle and a traditional dress festooned with flowers in every spectral color would be highlights at any celebration. 

The time line progresses as World War II draws Mexican Americans from other areas to work in the Kaiser shipyard, where women and their daughters also joined the workforce. One photo shows the nine Gonzalez siblings, originally from Arizona, here to work at the Kaiser Shipyard. By this point in time, a second generation of Mexican Americans is looking higher both politically and socially. I love the family portrait of mother Martinez, face a little smug with pride, surrounded by her five adult children. 

By the time I reached the turbulent 1950s and ’60s, I was joined by Executive Director, Donald Bastin. Having collected most of the images from the community, Donald spoke of the interest this generated at the exhibit opening. Guests crowded before portraits looking for relatives and friends, some even running into acquaintances they hadn’t realized lived in the area. As much cultural as historical, exhibits such as this one recognize personal and ethnic contributions to society as a whole. I listened in on a conversation between a Hispanic mother and her son, at the exhibit for a school assignment, passing the baton from the past to his role in the present and the future. 

Striving to improve the quality of their lives, Mexican-Americans supported Cesar Chavez and joined La Raza. Locally many worked with the Richmond United Council of Spanish Speaking Organizations and more became active politically. 

The Hispanic presence has grown in Richmond. Aside from Native Americans, it is the group with the greatest longevity in the area. Today a young population, Latinos make up more than 60 percent of West Contra County school populations. Representing this young group are several students from Richmond High School, along with their own artistic statements. The rear wall of the gallery displays wonderful color portraits of today’s Mexican-Americans. A young boy with large, warm brown eyes, an older boy holding the sign “My parents are not criminals,” the represented artists from Richmond High and two family portraits bring this exhibit full circle to the people we see everyday. 

A collaboration by Richmond High School staff and students, Home Altar is a striking exhibit. A combination of shrine, a place for worship and prayer and somewhere to remember loved ones, the photos and artifacts represent religious and personal icons while photos and mementos pay homage to students who have passed away. 

Donald Bastin and the museum staff see this exhibit as a work in progress, as is the story of all mankind. Like so many immigrant groups, Mexicans came to California to fill a need, supplying their labor and seeking opportunities for themselves and their families. The culture they brought with them not only enriched their lives put also added to the complex tapestry of what is now the Bay Area. The value of the exhibit, in my opinion, is threefold. Siempre Aqui, always here, serves as affirmation to those whose ancestors paid their dues. It also serves as a bridge to recent immigrants helping them find familiarity and their footing in a new land. Lastly, Siempre Aqui reminds non Mexican-Americans of the long time presence of a vital segment of our society. Two simple words far weightier than the eleven letters of which they are composed.

In the 19th century and the very early parts of the 20th, coal burning was a common way of heating our homes. It seems amazing to us now that such a wasteful, dirty and downright dangerous method of heating would be, not only the choice of a generation, but literally built into the homes of the era as permanent systems. 

I’m quite sure that carbon monoxide poisoning was rife in society in much the same way that lead poisoning was commonplace and unidentified amongst the Romans. Many, I’m sure were killed by the noxious gas but far more lived depressed lives of inexplicable lethargy (as is common with carbon monoxide poisoning). 

Future scientists may judge our forced-air heating systems in a similar way. Although these were considered state-of-the-art in the 1950’s, we’ve moved on in many ways and discovered many things about these systems which cause me to question the logic in retaining this technology. 

The main reason for my dislike of this extraordinarily common heating method is its lack of efficiency. This starts with the whole idea of heating the air, as opposed to, say, the floor or the walls. When we heat air and blow it around, there is a great deal of heat loss.  

These systems, for the most part, have relatively low efficiencies with loads of our hard earned Therms going up the chimney. While there are higher efficiency forced-air heating systems available (90 plus or condensing furnaces), these have a range of efficiency problems as well. 

These systems are heavily dependent upon a complete lack of leakage in ducting in order to maintain their efficiency and leakage is extremely common in these systems. They also tend to lose loads of heat straight through the ducting surface where the insulation is loose or missing. 

Many older systems (even those which include a new replacement furnace) have little or no insulation on the ducting and these lose loads of heat to crawlspaces, basements and other unused areas thus reducing the efficiency and using heat, Natural gas and money unnecessarily. 

Forced air heating systems also blow air around in the house and with the air comes noise, dirt, dander and other pollutants. Although it is possible to make very quiet forced-air systems, most are not so well-designed and many actually whistle or make other noise. The fans also make noise, although I confess this is a small part of my dislike of this technology. The detritus stored and blown about by these systems is, on the other hand, a major complaint for me.  

I’ve been inside these systems on many occasions and, as a rule, they’re filthy and their contents are constantly being blown back into the living space. Sometimes system which come to contain moisture through leaks or condensation end up harboring airborne microbes such as Legionnaire’s Disease, although this is uncommon on the West Coast. 

While such systems can effectively filter the air as they run, most are not properly outfitted in this regard. Many have ancient filters that should have been changed long ago and rely too fully on owner maintenance (this also causes the furnace to struggle and overheat). The typical filtration methods are poor and filters are often located in places that are hard to reach and often ignored (although these issues can be addressed by dogged or thoughtful technicians or owners). 

A heating system which doesn’t suck and blow air needs no filtration and can keep allergens (and house cleaning) to a minimum. Of course, a forced-air system that has great filtration can actually lower indoor air pollutants but these are few and far between. Overall, I would tend to prefer a system that doesn’t blow anything around my house in the interest of heating. The more direct the form of heat transport, the better. 

Another, and perhaps central, failing of the forced-air system is the lack of engineering in the flow of air. It is not enough to merely cut some holes, here and there, in the floors of your house and then to connect them up to the two ends of a furnace. The flow of the system must be considered. Otherwise, as is all too often true, one room is well heated, while another is quite cold. Also, without good return flow from every space to the intake (the big grill usually located in the living or dining room), the entire system will run inefficiently and the furnace can also overheat. 

Many houses that have heating registers (the ends of the heating ducts inside the rooms) have little or no space below doors for the heat to circulate back the intake and thus heat slowly and poorly. A forced-air system is a circulatory system and a blockage in a circulatory system is precisely what you don’t want. It has been suggested by some that forced-air systems should have a small cold air intake in every room. 

But so far, this has remained theory in virtually all applications. While some houses do have more than one cold air intake, the most I’ve ever seen has been three and they were all outside of bedrooms. 

Forced-air heating systems also have some degree of inherent hazard as they can, under certain conditions, take exhaust gases (including carbon monoxide (CO)) and put them into the ducting system along with the warm air. This is the main reason that these units should be examined regularly (once a year is a good practice). 

This is not true for all heating systems, although exhaust leaks into living space are certainly an issue with gas wall and floor furnaces. 

My final area of complaint with forced-air heating is the problem of where to put it. While the furnaces are not so very large and condensing units can employ plastic flues which exit near the unit, the ducting still can take up hundreds of cubic feet of interior space and make construction and remodeling very complicated. 

They can also keep you from doing the architecture you really want to do. For professional designers, this remains a source of real frustration. The huge hoses have to be run through every room of the house and greatly complicate and inhibit the shaping of spaces. Often, entire second floors end up without registers due to this complexity and few systems end up being truly balanced. 

Given these issues (and there are certainly more we could trench up if there were time) I suggest that it’s time for all of us to revise our notions about heating. Sadly, solar heating methods have not been given much attention in the last two decades despite a fair amount of research in the late 1970s under Jimmy Carter. We should all continue to push for advances in passive and active solar heating since, ultimately, it is the logical and most parsimonious realm of home heating. In the absence of this, I think that hydronic, or hot-water heating, is the next best thing. 

Modern hydronic heaters, like the little Munchkin are very stingy with BTU’s (British Thermal Units) and use plastic tubing to communicate heat through the dwelling. These tubes are so small that they can be threaded through the floors or walls of the home without any other deliberate modification. 

In other words, you can put the heater exactly where you want it and you don’t have to worry about where to put the soffits, walls or hallways. You can also heat the underside of a floor providing one of life’s great pleasures … a warm floor. If you keep the floor at 70º, the ambient room temperature can be 65º and you’re going to feel nice and warm, especially if you like to walk around in your bare feet. It’s nicer on your lungs too. The warmest part of the room should be the floor since ultimately, it’s going to convect upward to the top of the room. 

Hydronic systems can also provide heat using radiators and the remodel of a house need not involve the removal of the living room ceiling when radiators can be placed upstairs to serve the bedrooms. 

Since there is no way for CO to enter a room through the water in the tubing, the greatest danger inside the house is a leak. Hydronic heat is also more efficient and less costly in the long run because it’s heating something that doesn’t dissipate so rapidly every time the door gets opened. 

When we heat a radiator or the floor, those things don’t rapidly cool when someone opens a window or a door. When you heat the air, the ability of that heat to escape the house through door, window or other means is far greater. 

The reason that forced-air has won out for so many years is that it’s fairly cheap to install and hydronic is not. A hydronic heating system is generally going to be over 12 grand even for a very scaled down system and can be 20 grand for a larger house. Forced-air, on the other hand runs from 5-8K for most small to mid-sized systems. Also, with so many forced-air systems in place, people will tend to continue to upgrade parts of this system rather than junk the whole think in favor of a better system. But two kinds of people tend to choose the hydronic alternative, the rich and the smart. 

People buy these systems for their great comfort and their long-range cost profile (they’ll actually save you money if you own them long enough). Some also choose these systems when members of their families are allergy-prone. High tech folks like engineers tend to choose these systems because they make sense despite (and perhaps because) they’re not being the common fare. 

It’s funny how this thing has come around from the distant past. Hot water, radiator-based systems were quite popular a hundred years ago, although they were far less efficient and much more expensive to install. We had our flirtation with forced-air and I’d say that the romance has soured; so we trudge, somewhat chagrined back to our old flame. 

There’s a certain set of people who fancy succulents, and, as the judge famously said about pornography, “I know it when I see it.” 

Succulents in general are plants that hold lots of water within their leaf or stem tissues. The term refers to a strategy, not really a taxon. They come from all sorts of families, including geraniums and cucumbers.  

One thing they have in common, right on the surface: they look, shall we say, distinctive. We might even say “kinky” if we weren’t worried about offending cacto-Americans. (A letter-writer recently gave me a noodge about “some unaware race/cultural bias,” which was a bit off the mark. I’m quite aware of the biases I’m making fun of.)  

They tower in spires if they’re cacti, dress in temporary delicate leaves and permanent ferocious spikes, disguise themselves as weird green toe-sies barely poking out of the ground, crouch in scowly brown lumps and send out a delicate green thread to the world. 

They’re cuddly and scary, graceful and ridiculous. They burst into outrageous scarlet and crimson and yellow and white blooms, some of them intensely fragrant, some of them only at night. Serious cereus infatuation rapidly becomes euphorbia euphoria. 

In short, they’re irresistible.  

They’re also tough, if you know how to treat them, and for a local virtue, they don’t drink much. This means more than reduced water bills. 

It means you can plant them in a place as rough and stressful (for plants) as a rooftop garden, and they’ll stand up to withering winds and constant sun.  

West Berkeley’s a good analogue of a rooftop—flat, windy, and mostly sunny. So Cactus Jungle has picked a good location to show off its weird wares, just a few blocks from the Fourth Street shopping corridor. 

It’s a small lot, aesthetically unified by the red lava rock underfoot and mulching all the plant pots, and the pots themselves almost entirely good old red clay, the best thing for succulents.  

The Jungle’s proprietors, Peter Lipson and Hap Hollibaugh, have been raising succulents 20-some years. 

Besides this retail spot, they install succulent gardens, including rooftop oases. They’re also turtle fanciers, so of course they’re good people.  

One neat innovation here is the collection of landscaping succulents, blabla and blabla and such, intended as groundcover and garden plants and sold in sixpacks—not your average sixpacks, but plantable dissolving peat pots in little wooden crates, as sets or mix-and-match. Ecogroovy and handsome besides.  

They have a little greenhouse of succulent houseplants, too: tillandsias and sanseverias and a stapelia like my own obnoxious office pet. 

(That’s the starfish or carrion flower, several inches across, hairy, and scented like rotting meat. Which reminds me: don’t dare use “kinky” around me as a put-down.) Also a select few grasses, bamboos, and other congenial perennials.  

Pots, fertilizers, remedies, accessories, and tools, too—the last from The Rumford Gardener, a British company whose products include a favorite of mine, a simple rounded, laterally curved piece of metal with great utility in small spaces.  

Democrats appear to be gaining momentum in their bid to wrest control of the House of Representatives from the Republicans. According to veteran D.C. prognosticator, Charlie Cook, there are now 46 House seats in play. 

That’s an increase of ten over his previous forecast. In order to prevail, the Democrats will have to hold onto 10 shaky seats and win 15 of the 36 tenuous GOP seats.  

Judging from the results of last Tuesday’s hotly contested election to replace disgraced Republican Congressman Duke Cunningham in California’s District 50, Democrats have their work cut out for them. Despite running a strong race, the Dems’ candidate, Francine Busby, lost by 4 percent. (In 2004 Bush carried the district by 10 percent.) Repugs felt that they had to retain this seat and lavished more than $5 million on Brian Bilbray’s campaign, outspending Dems 2:1.  

Here’s a look at sixteen races where Democrats have good shot at taking a Republican Congressional seat: 

• Arizona 8th district: Republican Jim Kolbe is retiring. A Sept. 12 primary will determine the final opponents. They’re likely to be conservative Republican Randy Graf against Democrat Gabrielle Giffords or Patty Weiss.  

• California 11: Democrat Jerry McNerney is running for the Congressional seat occupied by ultraconservative Republican Richard Pombo. The district leans Republican, but there is great dissatisfaction with Pombo. McNerney has a real shot, but may be too liberal for the district. At least that’s what Repugs will claim in what promises to be the most expensive California Congressional contest. 

• Colorado 7: Republican Congressman Bob Beauprez is vacating this seat and running for Governor. The August 8th primary will determine whether Democrat Peggy Lamm or Ed Perlmutter runs against Republican Rick O’Donnell.  

• In Connecticut two Republican Congressman are vulnerable in Districts that have traditionally voted Democrat. In the 2nd district, incumbent Rob Simmons is getting stiff opposition from Democrat Joe Courtney. In the 4th district, incumbent Chris Shays is having trouble with Diane Farrell. Cook rates both races as toss ups. 

• Florida 22: Incumbent Republican Clay Shaw will face a Democratic opponent selected in the September 5th primary, probably Ron Klein. 

• Illinois 6: Ultraconservative Republican Henry Hyde is retiring. The contest will pit Republican Peter Roskam versus Tammy Duckworth, a retired Army pilot who lost both legs when her helicopter was shot down in Iraq. While this is a slightly Republican district, it’s hard to imagine that anyone who meets Duckworth would vote for her opponent. 

It’s an indication of the trouble the GOP is having that two of their Indiana seats are vulnerable. In the 8th district, incumbent John Hostettler is getting the race of his life from County Sheriff Brad Ellsworth. In the 9th district, incumbent Mike Sodrel is having a tough time with Democrat Baron Hill. The Dems may well win both races. 

• Iowa 1: Republican Jim Nussle is retiring to run for Governor. Democrat Bruce Braley will face Republican Mike Whalen in a district that leans Democrat. 

• Kentucky 4: Republican Geoff Davis is facing stiff competition from the former Democratic incumbent Ken Lucas. Although this district has traditionally voted Republican, Cook calls the race even. 

• New Mexico 1: Republican Heather Wilson is facing stiff competition from New Mexico Attorney General Patsy Madrid. Polls show that this interesting race is a dead heat. 

There’s a lot going on in Ohio in this election. The 6th district Representative was Democrat Ted Strickland, who’s running for Governor. Now, Democrat Charlie Wilson is favored over Republican Chuck Blasdel. In the 18th district, incumbent Republican Bob Ney is under investigation for his relationship with Jack Abramoff; Democratic challenger Zack Space is running an unexpectedly strong race. 

• Pennsylvania 6: Republican Jim Gerlach appears to be falling behind Democratic challenger Lois Murphy. 

• Texas 22: Republican Tom Delay resigned. The contest will pit former Democratic Congressman Nick Lampson versus a Republican candidate to be decided by Texas Repug bosses and an independent candidate, former Republican Congressman Steve Stockman. 

For the Democrats to win control of the House, they have to take all of these seats, or pick off a couple from the more than two dozen other races where their candidate has a shot at unseating a Republican incumbent. They also must protect contested Democratic seats in Georgia, Jim Marshall (8) and John Barrow (12), Illinois, Melissa Bean (8), Iowa, Leonard Boswell (3), Louisiana, Charlie Melancon (3), South Carolina, John Spratt (5), Texas, Chet Edwards (17), Vermont, where Independent Bernie Sanders is running for Senate and Democrat Peter Welch is favored, and West Virginia, Mollohan (1). 

Democrats have a reasonable chance of regaining the House, but it’s far from a slam-dunk as the Busby loss illustrates. 

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

My friend Ronnie Caplane ran for Assembly representing Oakland’s 16th District.  

It’s exciting to know a politician, to be able to say nonchalantly when her name comes up in conversation, “Oh Ronnie Caplane, of course I know her.” It is less thrilling to acknowledge that as her friend, I should be out there on the campaign trail with her, supporting her causes, informing her constituents, contributing in some way to her power base.  

Even before Nora, Ronnie’s campaign manager, e-mailed me with a polite request for help, I knew I was in trouble. I wanted to lend a hand, I really did, but I am not a campaigner. I cannot stand in front of Safeway and collect signatures for a cause. I cannot make myself knock on doors and talk about political issues with strangers. I cannot shake people’s hands and ask them to vote for someone, even an intelligent, courageous dear friend. This is, perhaps, why I am not yet the president of the United States.  

Despite my aversion to ringing doorbells and making cold calls, I knew I had to do something, so I went down to campaign headquarters and got a Ronnie Caplane For Assembly yard sign. I stuck it in the garden in front of my house and felt better, but not for long.  

Almost every weekend for 14 months Ronnie crisscrossed the district, hard at work giving speeches, cutting ribbons, marching in parades, and attending fundraisers. I was inconspicuously absent, never able to make a rally or fair, a house party or precinct walk.  

“Can you give me a campaign button to wear?” I asked.  

“Yes,” said Nora wearily, “but that’s not really the help we need.”  

“Do you have any jobs that don’t require the ability to talk?”  

Nora cheered up. “When it gets closer to voting time I’ll let you know.”  

As promised, Nora called me right before the election and asked if I could distribute door hangers to certain houses in my neighborhood. “You don’t have to talk,” she said.  

“You don’t even knock on the door. You just wrap the promo piece around the knob and go on to the next residence.”  

“Okay,” I said. “I can handle it.”  

“And,” she added, “you don’t go to every house. You only hit the homes of female registered Democrats.”  

It turns out that as a doorknob campaign tagger I’m an overachiever. I didn’t just tag the houses that were on my list—I hung a piece of literature on EVERY doorknob on every house and apartment building within my precinct. And when I found that I had extra hangers, I called Nora and volunteered to do all the blocks between 51st and Aileen streets.  

No one yelled at me. No one kicked me off their porch or told me to take my door hangers elsewhere. In fact, no one really noticed me at all. My confidence boosted, I asked Nora for another assignment.  

“On election day can you call everyone on your list and remind them to vote?”  

“Yes,” I said. “I’ll do it.” I was becoming a real go-getter. Good lord, I was morphing into one of those annoying people whom I always hang up on. 

Last Tuesday I phoned each individual on my list. With only one exception, everyone I spoke with was polite and friendly. Sometimes they even thanked me for calling.  

Ronnie did not win the election. But she proved herself to be strong and energetic, dedicated, resourceful, and sincere. I hope she decides to run again for office. If she does, I’ll ask if I can be in charge of silent literature distribution. I liked making a small contribution to the democratic process, and, as it turns out, I’m really quite good at the doorknob thing.  

Bottlebrush trees are one of the bright, amusing notes on our streets, sporting those funny flowers shaped like, yes, bottlebrushes with perky little green-leaf tufts at their ends. They’re tough and not pest-prone, and easy enough to find in nurseries. Their hard little leaves and shreddy bark give them a ragamuffin air to match the spiky inflorescences. The red flowers attract birds—hummingbirds of course, but I’ve seen a stray Cape May warbler, a nectar-seeker in winter, using them too.  

We’ve lost a few of the trees that I knew in North Berkeley, but enough of them are in gardens and public places than I don’t worry about a population decline. Besides, they’re exotics—from Australia—and as far as I know in no danger in their home range.  

The bottlebrush—Callistemon—species I see here, mostly of the weeping (C. viminalis) or lemon (C. citrinus, formerly C. lanceolatus) sort, are among those trees that people ought to be planting under utility wires, because they generally don’t get very tall and it’s easy to control their height. They’re fun to prune.  

In fact, my general complaint about local weeping bottlebrushes is that people don’t know how to prune them. Longtime readers of this column will not be surprised to hear that, as people who prune despite not knowing how are a frequent target of my uncharitable scorn. But weeping bottlebrush trees, especially, practically have roadmaps built in.  

It’s easier to show you than to tell you, as Bre’r Rabbit would say, but here’s a first step: Don’t just shear them at the bottom in the equivalent of a bowl cut. Get underneath—after nesting season is over, please—and start cutting the branches closest to the trunk. They almost have “Cut Here” dotted lines; just cut on a leaf node, above a row of seedpods if there are any on the branch. For the first few, though, cut next to the trunk. 

When you’ve opened those up a bit, stand and watch the tree. It should be a bit more flowing when it moves now, a bit bouncy but graceful. Cut a little more, still from the inside. Leave some deeper layers, but make them of uneven lengths.  

When you have two forks in a twig, cut off the lower, inside one. This is counterintuitive only the first time, and is a good strategy with any weeping tree. Weepers should reach out a little, bounce like a waterfall; half their charm is in their motion in the breeze and their illusion of flowing even when still.  

If you end up with something that looks like a parasol, stop. The tree will soon fill in some of the space, and you’ll be able to form your own ideas of what you and the tree can make happen next. Within whatever limits you have—traffic, the side of a building—try to broaden the reach of the tree, to let it move and dance and show off its flexibility.  

There are two reasons for the opening-it-up strategy: Those inside branchlets are the ones that accumulate dirt, insects, mold, and such, and because they get less sun they’re less vigorous. Callistemons are tough, but there’s no need to stress the tree by making part of it a bug-and-pathogen farm. Also, they really aren’t supposed to look like bottlebrushes themselves: the common name refers to their startling, usually red, flowers.  

Since the ones we see here are generally strictly ornamentals and generally small, it’s startling to read a quote from nineteenth-century handbook of Australian plants that recommends the wood of lemon bottlebrush for “ship-building and wheel-wright’s work and… mallets.” 

But if you’ve ever had to cut one down, you’ve come to appreciate the toughness of the wood. The wood of some Callistemons is recommended for use in fenceposts and such things that come in contact with soil, because they resist rot. But mostly they’re ornamentals here. They’re tough enough to be used in hot places like parking lots, and their density is easily controlled so they make good screens of whatever opacity you like. I haven’t heard that they’re invasive, but if you live next to wildlands, check that out before planting one. Plant it high and don’t let it stand in water, and it’ll be good company.  

Photograph by Ron Sullivan:  

The exuberant flowers of weeping bottlebrush attract birds as varied as hummingbirds and Cape May warblers. This one is a street tree on Park Avenue in Oakland. 

FRIDAY, JUNE 16 

THEATER 

Aurora Theatre “Permanent Collection” Wed.-Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 and 7 p.m. at 2081 Addison St., through July 23. Tickets are $28-$45. 843-4822. www.auroratheatere.org 

Berkeley Rep “The Glass Menagerie” at 8 p.m. at the Thrust Stage, 2025 Addison St. Tickets are $59. Runs through June 18. 647-2949.  

Berkeley Rep “The Miser” at 8 p.m. at the Roda Theater, 2015 Addison St. Tickets are $53. Runs through June 25. 647-2949. www.berkeleyrep.org 

California Shakespeare Theater “The Merry Wives of Windsor” at the Bruns Amphitheater, 100 Gateway Blvd., Orinda. Tues.-Thurs., 7:30 p.m., Fri.-Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 4 p.m. through June 25. Tickets are $15 and up. 548-9666.  

“Lily, The Felon’s Daughter” 19th Century fun, frolic and music, Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 3 p.m., at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley, 1 Lawson Road, Kensington. Suggested donation is $20. 524-2912. www.uucb.org 

Masquers Playhouse “The Fantasticks” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m. at 105 Park Place, Point Richmond. Tickets are $18. 232-4031. www.masquers.org 

Pinole Community Players “Oliver!” the musical, Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m., selected Sun. at 2 p.m., at the Community Playhouse, 601 Tennent Ave., Pinole, through July 15. Tickets are $14-$17. 724-3669, 223-3598.  

San Francisco Recovery Theatre “The Spot” A teenage couple’s lives change dramatically when she gets pregnant, at 8 p.m., Sat. at 2 and 8 p.m. at Live Oak Theater, 1301 Shattuck Ave. Tickets are $18. 1-866-468-3399, 650-438-3964. 

Shotgun Players “King Lear” Thurs.-Sun. at 8 p.m. at the Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby Ave. to June 18. Tickets are $15-$30, reservations suggested. 841-6500. www.shotgunplayers.org 

TheatreFirst Staged readings of four plays under consideration for next season, Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m. at at 469 9th St., Oakland. Free. 436-5085. 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Saccharine” Artwork by Jennifer Dranttel. Reception at 8 p.m. at The Living Room Gallery, 3230 Adeline St. Donation $5. 601-5774.  

FILM 

Isabelle Huppert: Passion and Contradiction “Every Man for Himself” at 7 p.m. and ”Passion” at 8:50 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Anthony Bourdain introduces his new stories from the kitchen in “The Nasty Bits” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. www.codysbooks.com 

“The Music of Sepharad, Ashkenaz, And Their Melodic Environments” with Martin Schwartz at 6:30 p.m. at the Magnes Museum, 2911 Russell St. Cost is $6-$8. 549-6950. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Altipampa, Andean music, at 8 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $12-$14. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Betsy Rose “Welcome To The Circle” at 7:15 p.m. in the Small Assembly of First Congregational Church of Berkeley, 2345 Channing Way. Suggested donation $15-20 sliding scale. 

Irina Rivkin, Clara George Celebrate LGBT Pride with the Rose Street Harmony Tours at 8 p.m. at Eli’s Mile High Club, 3629 MLK, Oakland. 654-6124. 

Ann Ryu, Mariana Levine, violins, Jessica Cande, viola, Liz Varnegan, cello, at 8 p.m. at Giorgi Gallery, 2911 Claremont Ave. Cost is $15. 848-1228.  

Swiss Cheese Sonata An evening of work by Pappas and Dancers, Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m., interactive family matinee Sun. at 2 p.m. at Temescal Arts Center, 511 48th St., at Telegraph, Oakland. Tickets are $10-$20 for the evenings, $7 for the interactive. 599-2325. 

Jules Broussard/Ned Boynton Quartet at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $7. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Jill Knight, singer-songwriter, at 8 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

Freight 38th Anniversary Revue with Phil Marsh, David Jacobs-Strain, Audrey Auld Mezera and others at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $16.50-$17.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Clifford Lam Duo at 9 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810.  

Grace Woods and David Serotkin, singer-songwriters, at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

Luv Planet, Robert Temple & His Soulfolk Ensemble, Groovy Judy at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $7. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

Requiem, Spag, Placenta 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. 

Grease Trap, oaktown funk, at 9 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low, 2284 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $5. 548-1159.  

Inspector Double Negative at 9 p.m. at the Uptown Nightclub, 1928 Telegraph, Oakland. Cost is $18-$10. 451-8100. www.uptownnightclub.com 

Guru Garage, jazz-funk, at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Goapele at 8 and 10 p.m. through Sun. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $15-$24. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

SATURDAY, JUNE 17 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Turnstyle” works by Los Angeles graffiti artist Joe Joe Webb at 4 p.m. at Transmissions Gallery, 1177 San Pablo Ave. 558-4084.  

FILM 

Against Indifference: The Cinema of Krzysztof Kieslowski “Three Colors: Blue” at 4 p.m. “Three Colors: White” at 6:45 p.m. and “Three Colors: Red” at 8:45 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Jan Steckel reads from her new book of poetry “The Underwater Hospital” at 2 p.m. at the Lakeview Branch Library, 550 El Embarcadero, Oakland. 238-7344.  

Mark Bowden describes “Guests of the Ayatollah: The First Battle in America’s War with Militant Islam” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. www.codysbooks.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

The Mirage Ensemble “Images and Reflections” Music of Messiaen, Debussy, Argento, Griffes and Reger at 8 p.m. at Trinity Chapel, 2320 Dana St., bet. Durant and Bancroft. Tickets are $12-$18. 549-3864.  

Meghana Gadgil, “Bharatnatyam Arangetram” dance performance at 2 p.m. at Julia Morgan Center for the Arts, 2640 College Ave. 

La Peña Community Chorus at 9:30 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $10-$15. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

John Richardson Band at 9 p.m. at Circus Pub, 389 Colusa Ave, Kensington. The show is free and all ages. 

Robin Gregory and her Trio at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $10. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

James Brennan and Rabbit, singer-songwriters, at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

The Jimdangles, contemporary jazz, at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Fiddlekids Camp Faculty Fiddlefest at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Vocal Sauce at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $12. 845-5373. www.jazzschool.com 

Ben Adams Jazz Trio at 9:30 p.m. at Albatross, 1822 San Pablo Ave. Cost is $3. 843-2473. www.albatrosspub.com 

John Richardson Band at 9 p.m. at Circus Pub, 389 Colusa Ave, Kensington. Free, all ages. 

The Uptones at 8 p.m. at the Uptown Nightclub, 1928 Telegraph, Oakland. Cost is $10. 451-8100. www.uptownnightclub.com 

Grapefruit Ed, John Howland Trio at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $10. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

Sour Mash Jug Band, Pine Hill Haints, The Can Kickers, 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. 

SUNDAY, JUNE 18 

THEATER 

“Boomtime” sketch comedy with Brent Weinbach, Moshe Kasher, and Alex Koll at 8 p.m. at La Val’s Subterranean Theater, 1834 Euclid Ave. Tickets are $8-$10 sliding scale.  

FILM 

Isabelle Huppert: Passion and Contradiction “Heaven’s Gate” at 3 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

“India Goes Global: Art and Modernity” with Vishakha N. Desai at 2 p.m. at the Berkeley Art Museum. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

Poetry Flash with Anne Marie Macari and Jean Mead at 7:30 p.m. at Diesel Bookstore, 5433 College Ave. Donation $2. 653-9965. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Chamber Music Sundaes, with members of the San Francisco Symphony and friends at 3:15 p.m. at St John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. Tickets at the door are $9-$21. 415-584-5946. www.chambermusicsundaes.org 

“Joy Crocker Celebration Memorial Concert” at 3 p.m. at First Presbyterian Church, 2619 Broadway at 27th St., Oakland. 703-9350.  

WomenSing “In the Wake of Music” at 4 p.m. at First Congregational Church, 2354 Channing Way. Tickets are $10-$20. 925-974-9169. www.womensing.org 

Preston Reed, guitar, at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $17.50-$18.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Jesus Diaz at 6:30 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $40. Benefits Lighthouse Community Charter School. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Yolanda Alicia Quartet at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $10. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Americana Unplugged: Craig Ventresco and Meredith Axelrof bluegrass and oldtime showcase, at 5 p.m. at Jupiter. 655-5715. 

Skinny String Gals at 11 a.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344.  

Imperial Leather at 5 p.m. at 924 Gilman St., an all-ages, member-run, no alcohol, no drugs, no violence club. Cost is $5. 525-9926. 

MONDAY, JUNE 19 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

William Claassen discusses “Alone in Community: Journey’s into Monastic Life Around the World” at 6:30 p.m. at the Lakeview Branch of the Oakland Public Library, 550 El Embarcadero. 238-7344. 

Kate Horsley describes “Black Elk in Paris” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500.  

Jeff Angus will talk about “Management by Baseball” at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698.  

Poetry Express with Tim Nuveen at 7 p.m., at Priya Restaurant, 2072 San Pablo Ave. berkeleypoetryexpress@yahoo.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Trovatore, traditional Italian music, at 7 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

Blue Monday Jam at 7:30 p.m. at the Uptown Nightclub, 1928 Telegraph, Oakland. Cost is $5. 451-8100. www.uptownnightclub.com 

Larry Vuckovich Quartet at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $10-$14. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

TUESDAY, JUNE 20 

CHILDREN 

Traditional Chinese Instruments Music and demonstrations with Mandy Cheung at 7 p.m. at the Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave. 526-3720, ext. 17. 

THEATER 

“Bigger Than Jesus” Rick Miller’s one-man show at 8 p.m. through Fri. and Sat. at 2 and 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Playhouse, UC Campus. Tickets are $30. 642-9988. 

FILM 

Against Indifference: The Cinema of Krzysztof Kieslowski Personnel and Final Documentary Shorts at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808.  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Ellen Hoffman Trio and Singers’ Open Mic at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $5. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Michael Coleman Trio Jazz Jam at 8 p.m. at the Uptown Nightclub, 1928 Telegraph, Oakland. Bring your instrument. 451-8100.  

Javon Jackson Quartet at 8 and 10 p.m. Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $10-$16. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

Mal Sharpe, jazz, at 7 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

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

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 21 

FILM 

“Under Ten” short films under 10 minutes at 9 p.m. at Rock Paper Scissors Collective, 2278 Telegraph Ave., Oakland. 238-9171. 

International Latino Film Festival “Tijuana Jews,” “Jai,” and “Deep Sea” at 7 p.m. at La Peña. Cost is $5-$6. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Against Indifference: The Cinema of Krzysztof Kieslowski “the Scar” at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Kathleen Cleaver describes “Target Zero: A Life in Writing by Eldridge Cleaver” at 7:30 p.m. at First Congregational Church of Berkeley, 2345 Channing Way. www.codysbooks.com 

Gary Younge, columnist for the London Guardian on his new book “Stranger in a Strange Land: Encounters in the Disunited States” at 6 p.m. at Oakland Public Library, AMHL Dept., 125 14th St. 238-3134. 

Victor Navasky reads from “A Matter of Opinion” at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698. www.blackoakbooks.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Garden of Memory Summer Solstice Concert with Terry Riley, Paul Dresher, Pamela Z, Matmos, Ellen Fullman, and others at 5 p.m. at Chapel of the Chimes, 4499 Piedmont Ave., Oakland. Donation $5-$10. 415- 563-6355, ext. 3. 

Roy Zimmerman in “Faulty Intelligence” An evening of satirical songs, Wed.-Fri. at 8 p.m. at The Marsh Berkeley, 2118 Allston Way, through July 27. 800-838-3006. www.themarsh.org  

Al Raja Palestinian Folkloric Dance Troupe at 7:30 p.m. at Julia Morgan Center for the Arts, 2640 College Ave. Tickets are $5-$15. 677-6247.  

Calvin Keys Trio at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Orquestra Candela at 8 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low. Cost is $5-$10. 548-1159.  

Chocolate O’Brian at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Ugly Beauty at 8:30 p.m. at the Uptown Nightclub, 1928 Telegraph, Oakland. Cost is $5. 451-8100. www.uptownnightclub.com 

The Websters & Scott Nygaard at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Whisky Brothers at 9 p.m. at Albatross, 1822 San Pablo Ave. 843-2473. www.albatrosspub.com 

Javon Jackson Quartet at 8 and 10 p.m. Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $10-$16. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

THURSDAY, JUNE 22 

EXHIBITIONS 

“XTOWN2NE” (cross-town-toon): Comic Book Art & Cartoons. Reception at 5:30 p.m. at The NIAD Art Center, 551 23rd St., Richmond. Exhibit runs to July 28. 620-0290. www.niadart.org 

FILM 

“Under Ten” short films under 10 minutes at 9 p.m. at Rock Paper Scissors Collective, 2278 Telegraph Ave. Oakland. 238-9171. 

Isabelle Huppert: Passion and Contradiction “The Piano Teacher” at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Stewart Florsheim reads from his book of poetry, “The Short Fall From Grace” at 7:30 p.m at Mrs. Dalloway’s Literary and Garden Arts, 2904 College Ave. 704-8222. 

Nomad Spoken Word Night at 7 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

Estelle Frankel reads from “Jewish Spiritual Teachings on Emotional Healing and Inner Wellness” at 7:30 p.m. at the BRJCC, 1414 Walnut St. Cost is $10-$20, benefits Aquarian Minyan. 465-3935. 

Phyllis Stowell reads from “Arc of Grief” at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698. www.blackoakbooks.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Roy Zimmerman in “Faulty Intelligence” An evening of satirical songs, Wed.-Fri. at 8 p.m. at The Marsh Berkeley, 2118 Allston Way. 800-838-3006. www.themarsh.org  

John Richardson Band at 9 p.m. at Cafe Van Kleef, 1621 Telegraph, Oakland. 

Adrienne Young & Little Sadie at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $17.50-$18.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Cathy Felter Quartet at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $5. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

The Crooked Jades, Virgil Shaw at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $10. 841-2082 www.starryploughpub.com 

Akosua, West African and Latin fusion, at 8 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $8-$10. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Kenny Garrett at 8 and 10 p.m., through Sun. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $10-$22. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

Warsaw Poland Brothers at 9 p.m. at the Uptown Nightclub, 1928 Telegraph, Oakland. Cost is $8. 451-8100. www.uptownnightclub.com 

The Fantasticks, which just opened at the Masquers Playhouse in Point Richmond, isn’t quite 50 years old (running over 40 of those years in its original production in New York), yet has been saddled with the odd reputation of being an old chestnut. 

This despite its ever youthful air of putting on a show, which also gives it license not to take itself seriously—a virtue which, along with its demonstrable simplicity, makes it stand out in the rather top-heavy, elaborated repertoire of post-war musical comedy. 

“A boy, a girl, two fathers and a wall ... anything else we need, we can get out of a box,” announces El Gallo (Paul Macari), the wry, deadpan master of ceremonies and “Professional Abductor” to introduce that simple universality of plot and action, after he sings the show’s most enduring hit, “Try To Remember.”  

In fact, the seeming transparency of the play almost hides by indirection the clever synthesis of theatrical and musical elements that composer Harvey Schmidt and lyricist-playwright Tom Jones put together. Taking inspiration from the Belle Epoche comedy Les Romanesques by Edmond Rostand (author of Cyrano de Bergerac), Jones has made French Romantic irony into instant Americana by staging The Fantasticks in the manner of Our Town’s bare stage, but with the spirit of the very early musical comedies of the ’20s, a tongue-in-cheek ingenuousness that owed much to George M. Cohan’s burlesque melodramas ... a very knowing theatricality. 

Schmidt’s score is also various, running the gamut from lush, wistful sentiment (“Try To Remember,” “Soon It’s Gonna Rain”), to sprightly comic numbers (“Never Say No,” “It Depends On What You Pay”), upbeat showstoppers (like “I Can See It”), to the bluesy piano figures that mark some of the choruses in the second act. Music Director Pat King presides at the ivories, with Tom Silva on harp and Barbara Kohler, percussion—a bright trio. 

The Masquers have cast the eight roles well, with strong singers who can handle the genial, self-joshing humor of types that are sincere, but somehow know they’re more than a little bit absurd—“The Fantasticks” of the title, in the sense of eccentrics, extravagants, or what Sherwood Anderson called his provincial stand-outs, Grotesques. 

Introduced by El Gallo, The Girl (whose name we learn is Luisa—played by Bridgett O’Keefe) and The Boy (or Matt, played by Kyle Johnson) have managed to fall in love, despite the wall their feuding fathers have erected to separate their gardens and their offspring. 

Does this owe something to the burlesque romance of Pyramus and Thisbe in A Midsummer Night’s Dream? In any case it’s compounded by the comic portrayal of the self-serious craziness of the young people. But the fathers, Bellomy and Hucklebee (Alex Shafer and Keith Jefferds), prove to be in collusion, singing and dancing their philosophy of reverse psychology like an old vaudeville team: “Children, I guess, must get their own way/The minute that you say ‘No!’” 

Enter El Gallo to preside over the “delicious, very theatrical ... professional abduction” to give the final nudge to the young lovers, though he cautions the dads that “the proper word is rape, from the Latin; short and business-like”—and they haggle over the “the quality of the rape” in the number, “It Depends On What You Pay.” 

The self-serious fun goes up another notch with the arrival of the actors, Henry and Mortimer (Jim Colgan and Masquers Managing Director Robert Love), two old charlatans who owe something to the Duke and the Prince in Huckleberry Finn. Henry recites, running together many an old saw, and Mortimer (a Cockney Indian), dies, hilariously pantomimed by the droll Mr. Love. 

The old charlatans sweep the boy off to see the wide world, or to be seen in their Punch and Judy show of its broad deceptiveness, while El Gallo pretends to court The Girl, giving her a panoramic glimpse into that same cruel world, but emphasizing the play and illusion of its appearances. 

The ending is, of course, happy, though a little bittersweet as it recedes into the sepia of an ideal past, with The Mute (Betsy Bell Ringer), utility stage assistant and scenic mime, scattering the snowflakes that must follow the kind of September we’ve been exhorted to remember. 

The Masquers have struck the right chord, with Marti Baer’s direction of a tight little ensemble, with scenic, lighting and costume design by John Hull, Renee Echavez and Loralee Windsor, respectively, all community players, themselves a community, pooling their talents for the larger community of their enthusiastic audience. 

The 30th annual San Francisco International LGBT Film Festival, also known as Frameline30, takes place at a variety of Bay Area venues this weekend, including the Parkway Theater in Oakland. Screenings will be also be held in San Francisco at the Castro Theater, Roxie Film Center, Victoria Theater and CineArts @Empire.  

This year’s lineup features films from all over the world as well as the work of several East Bay filmmakers.  

Reporter Zero 

Saturday, June 24, 3:30 p.m.  

Roxie Film Center. 25 minutes. 

Carrie Lozano’s Reporter Zero is a short film about the career of Randy Shilts, the tenacious and brash San Francisco Chronicle reporter who doggedly covered the emerging AIDS crisis at a time when most media outlets were barely interested. 

The film features interviews with friends and colleagues as well as the public officials Shilts covered, resulting in an intriguing portrait of both the man and the mounting public heath crisis he documented. 

Shilts went on to write the best-selling book And the Band Played On about the first few years of the AIDS epidemic. Shortly after finishing the book he was diagnosed with AIDS and ultimately died of the disease at the age of 42. 

Lozano first came up with the idea for a film about Shilts while working on a short video piece about the gay marriage controversy in San Francisco. Chronicle reporter Rachel Gordon was dismissed from the beat after she married her partner at City Hall. This lead Lozano to wonder how Shilts—an openly gay and fiercely opinionated reporter—might have fared in today’s journalism climate. 

Reporter Zero recently won the gold medal for Best Documentary at the Student Academy Awards. Lozano, an alum of UC Berkeley’s graduate school of journalism, also shared in a 2003 nomination for feature-length documentary The Weather Underground, which she produced. 

Reporter Zero, her master’s thesis for the journalism program and her directorial debut, was the third UC Berkeley documentary in as many years to take home the top prize, “and I think that says a lot about the program,” says Lozano. 

Meth 

Friday, June 16, 3 p.m. 

Castro Theater. 79 minutes. 

Oakland filmmaker Todd Ahlberg interviews crystal methamphetamine addicts and recovering addicts in a sometimes graphic documentary examining the consequences speed addiction has had on the gay male community. 

The Quitter 

Sunday, June 18, 12:15 p.m. 

Castro Theater. 4 minutes. 

Oakland director Joy Taylor’s short video on the obstacle to love posed by smoking is part of a series of brief lesbian films titled “Dyke Delights.” 

Trans Francisco 

Sunday, June 18, 1:45 p.m. 

Victoria Theater. 8 minutes. 

This collection of locally produced transgender films includes Kaden, a short film by Berkeley filmmaker Harriet Storm documenting a Bay Area trans guy’s emotional preparation for transformative surgery. 

Breaking the Silence 

Sunday, June 18, 3:45 p.m.  

Roxie Film Center. 40 minutes. 

Breaking the Silence, shot at the Center for Digital Storytelling in Berkeley, is a collection of short first-person essays directed by Berkeley’s Nicky Yang Wu. The film features brief, self-produced films by young people from the foster care system who identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender or queer. Each tells a personal story of in a different way, covering in a sort of virtual show-and-tell the hardships they encountered as children and young adults navigating the foster care system while confronting the wracking personal identity issues that come with discovering one’s sexuality. 

Where Have We Been All This Time? 

Wednesday, June 21, 6 p.m.  

Roxie Film Center. 7 minutes. 

This short video, directed by Berkeley’s Erica Sokolowershain and shown as part of a series of youth films titled “Do It Yourself,” shows the intersection of lives on a BART train. 

Beyond Conception 

Saturday, June 24, 11 a.m.  

Roxie Theater. 75 minutes. 

Berkeley director Johnny Symons’ documentary tracks the efforts of a gay male couple to conceive a child through a surrogate. The film provides an insightful look at the myriad emotional and practical difficulties that surround the family planning process, even in queer-friendly San Francisco. 

Siempre Aqui. Always here. Two words that simply convey a tome-like history. Aqui referring to California and more specifically the area around greater Richmond. From the early 19th century days of California’s Rancheros to 20th century jobs in mining and railroads up through today, the Hispanic presence has been an integral part of California. This saga is well showcased in the current exhibit at the Richmond Museum of History. 

The small Seaver Gallery, brightly lit and paneled in green and red, artfully displays artifacts, photographs and text chronicling Hispanic contributions both culturally and environmentally. Following the room’s perimeter, I enjoyed a concise history course of interpretive panels and accompanying illustrations. Collected from both old time residents and new comers to the community, the visuals tell the story of an age-old quest for a better life and a safe haven for raising a family. 

The story begins in the early 1800s on the Rancheros when huge tracts of land provided grazing for cattle, sheep and horses. A large, illustrated family tree traces the descendants of Joaquin Ysidro Castro (born 1730) and Maria Martina Botiller (born 1733) through five generations during the days of Rancho San Pablo, a land grant of 18,000 acres. Artifacts from this period—a full-size cow hide, a branding iron and a glass-encased adobe brick from the 1843 Castro home—provide a glimpse of everyday life, as does a 1830 sketch map of Rancho San Pablo. 

The next chapter leaps to the early 1900s when jobs in agriculture, mining and railroads created the next influx of immigrants. New immigration laws restricted Asian and European workers and World War I had designs on American men. Meanwhile, Mexican land reform policies, depriving 98 percent of the population of their land, and revolution catalyzed men to head north for work. Many ended up in Richmond at the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad, others at Standard Oil. A page from a 1914 Santa Fe Magazine attests to their presence. In three full-page columns an English-Spanish glossary translates a thorough list of work-related terms, including “pay day” to “dia de pago” and even provides a pronunciation guide. 

Mexican family roles, men, women, boys and girls, and social life are explored photographically. La Hispano-Americana Mercado from 1931 is represented in a classic black and white shot as well as with a brightly illustrated calendar from 1939 displaying the Golden Gate Bridge. A group of smiling gaily dressed young ladies at a Mexican Independence Day Celebration and another at a Sunday afternoon tardeada at Sweet’s Ballroom shine a light on the lighter side of life. The role of dance is displayed through Mexican dance costumes vibrant in their colors, seemingly poised to whirl into action. A black skirt sequined with images of the Mexican eagle and a traditional dress festooned with flowers in every spectral color would be highlights at any celebration. 

The time line progresses as World War II draws Mexican Americans from other areas to work in the Kaiser shipyard, where women and their daughters also joined the workforce. One photo shows the nine Gonzalez siblings, originally from Arizona, here to work at the Kaiser Shipyard. By this point in time, a second generation of Mexican Americans is looking higher both politically and socially. I love the family portrait of mother Martinez, face a little smug with pride, surrounded by her five adult children. 

By the time I reached the turbulent 1950s and ’60s, I was joined by Executive Director, Donald Bastin. Having collected most of the images from the community, Donald spoke of the interest this generated at the exhibit opening. Guests crowded before portraits looking for relatives and friends, some even running into acquaintances they hadn’t realized lived in the area. As much cultural as historical, exhibits such as this one recognize personal and ethnic contributions to society as a whole. I listened in on a conversation between a Hispanic mother and her son, at the exhibit for a school assignment, passing the baton from the past to his role in the present and the future. 

Striving to improve the quality of their lives, Mexican-Americans supported Cesar Chavez and joined La Raza. Locally many worked with the Richmond United Council of Spanish Speaking Organizations and more became active politically. 

The Hispanic presence has grown in Richmond. Aside from Native Americans, it is the group with the greatest longevity in the area. Today a young population, Latinos make up more than 60 percent of West Contra County school populations. Representing this young group are several students from Richmond High School, along with their own artistic statements. The rear wall of the gallery displays wonderful color portraits of today’s Mexican-Americans. A young boy with large, warm brown eyes, an older boy holding the sign “My parents are not criminals,” the represented artists from Richmond High and two family portraits bring this exhibit full circle to the people we see everyday. 

A collaboration by Richmond High School staff and students, Home Altar is a striking exhibit. A combination of shrine, a place for worship and prayer and somewhere to remember loved ones, the photos and artifacts represent religious and personal icons while photos and mementos pay homage to students who have passed away. 

Donald Bastin and the museum staff see this exhibit as a work in progress, as is the story of all mankind. Like so many immigrant groups, Mexicans came to California to fill a need, supplying their labor and seeking opportunities for themselves and their families. The culture they brought with them not only enriched their lives put also added to the complex tapestry of what is now the Bay Area. The value of the exhibit, in my opinion, is threefold. Siempre Aqui, always here, serves as affirmation to those whose ancestors paid their dues. It also serves as a bridge to recent immigrants helping them find familiarity and their footing in a new land. Lastly, Siempre Aqui reminds non Mexican-Americans of the long time presence of a vital segment of our society. Two simple words far weightier than the eleven letters of which they are composed.

In the 19th century and the very early parts of the 20th, coal burning was a common way of heating our homes. It seems amazing to us now that such a wasteful, dirty and downright dangerous method of heating would be, not only the choice of a generation, but literally built into the homes of the era as permanent systems. 

I’m quite sure that carbon monoxide poisoning was rife in society in much the same way that lead poisoning was commonplace and unidentified amongst the Romans. Many, I’m sure were killed by the noxious gas but far more lived depressed lives of inexplicable lethargy (as is common with carbon monoxide poisoning). 

Future scientists may judge our forced-air heating systems in a similar way. Although these were considered state-of-the-art in the 1950’s, we’ve moved on in many ways and discovered many things about these systems which cause me to question the logic in retaining this technology. 

The main reason for my dislike of this extraordinarily common heating method is its lack of efficiency. This starts with the whole idea of heating the air, as opposed to, say, the floor or the walls. When we heat air and blow it around, there is a great deal of heat loss.  

These systems, for the most part, have relatively low efficiencies with loads of our hard earned Therms going up the chimney. While there are higher efficiency forced-air heating systems available (90 plus or condensing furnaces), these have a range of efficiency problems as well. 

These systems are heavily dependent upon a complete lack of leakage in ducting in order to maintain their efficiency and leakage is extremely common in these systems. They also tend to lose loads of heat straight through the ducting surface where the insulation is loose or missing. 

Many older systems (even those which include a new replacement furnace) have little or no insulation on the ducting and these lose loads of heat to crawlspaces, basements and other unused areas thus reducing the efficiency and using heat, Natural gas and money unnecessarily. 

Forced air heating systems also blow air around in the house and with the air comes noise, dirt, dander and other pollutants. Although it is possible to make very quiet forced-air systems, most are not so well-designed and many actually whistle or make other noise. The fans also make noise, although I confess this is a small part of my dislike of this technology. The detritus stored and blown about by these systems is, on the other hand, a major complaint for me.  

I’ve been inside these systems on many occasions and, as a rule, they’re filthy and their contents are constantly being blown back into the living space. Sometimes system which come to contain moisture through leaks or condensation end up harboring airborne microbes such as Legionnaire’s Disease, although this is uncommon on the West Coast. 

While such systems can effectively filter the air as they run, most are not properly outfitted in this regard. Many have ancient filters that should have been changed long ago and rely too fully on owner maintenance (this also causes the furnace to struggle and overheat). The typical filtration methods are poor and filters are often located in places that are hard to reach and often ignored (although these issues can be addressed by dogged or thoughtful technicians or owners). 

A heating system which doesn’t suck and blow air needs no filtration and can keep allergens (and house cleaning) to a minimum. Of course, a forced-air system that has great filtration can actually lower indoor air pollutants but these are few and far between. Overall, I would tend to prefer a system that doesn’t blow anything around my house in the interest of heating. The more direct the form of heat transport, the better. 

Another, and perhaps central, failing of the forced-air system is the lack of engineering in the flow of air. It is not enough to merely cut some holes, here and there, in the floors of your house and then to connect them up to the two ends of a furnace. The flow of the system must be considered. Otherwise, as is all too often true, one room is well heated, while another is quite cold. Also, without good return flow from every space to the intake (the big grill usually located in the living or dining room), the entire system will run inefficiently and the furnace can also overheat. 

Many houses that have heating registers (the ends of the heating ducts inside the rooms) have little or no space below doors for the heat to circulate back the intake and thus heat slowly and poorly. A forced-air system is a circulatory system and a blockage in a circulatory system is precisely what you don’t want. It has been suggested by some that forced-air systems should have a small cold air intake in every room. 

But so far, this has remained theory in virtually all applications. While some houses do have more than one cold air intake, the most I’ve ever seen has been three and they were all outside of bedrooms. 

Forced-air heating systems also have some degree of inherent hazard as they can, under certain conditions, take exhaust gases (including carbon monoxide (CO)) and put them into the ducting system along with the warm air. This is the main reason that these units should be examined regularly (once a year is a good practice). 

This is not true for all heating systems, although exhaust leaks into living space are certainly an issue with gas wall and floor furnaces. 

My final area of complaint with forced-air heating is the problem of where to put it. While the furnaces are not so very large and condensing units can employ plastic flues which exit near the unit, the ducting still can take up hundreds of cubic feet of interior space and make construction and remodeling very complicated. 

They can also keep you from doing the architecture you really want to do. For professional designers, this remains a source of real frustration. The huge hoses have to be run through every room of the house and greatly complicate and inhibit the shaping of spaces. Often, entire second floors end up without registers due to this complexity and few systems end up being truly balanced. 

Given these issues (and there are certainly more we could trench up if there were time) I suggest that it’s time for all of us to revise our notions about heating. Sadly, solar heating methods have not been given much attention in the last two decades despite a fair amount of research in the late 1970s under Jimmy Carter. We should all continue to push for advances in passive and active solar heating since, ultimately, it is the logical and most parsimonious realm of home heating. In the absence of this, I think that hydronic, or hot-water heating, is the next best thing. 

Modern hydronic heaters, like the little Munchkin are very stingy with BTU’s (British Thermal Units) and use plastic tubing to communicate heat through the dwelling. These tubes are so small that they can be threaded through the floors or walls of the home without any other deliberate modification. 

In other words, you can put the heater exactly where you want it and you don’t have to worry about where to put the soffits, walls or hallways. You can also heat the underside of a floor providing one of life’s great pleasures … a warm floor. If you keep the floor at 70º, the ambient room temperature can be 65º and you’re going to feel nice and warm, especially if you like to walk around in your bare feet. It’s nicer on your lungs too. The warmest part of the room should be the floor since ultimately, it’s going to convect upward to the top of the room. 

Hydronic systems can also provide heat using radiators and the remodel of a house need not involve the removal of the living room ceiling when radiators can be placed upstairs to serve the bedrooms. 

Since there is no way for CO to enter a room through the water in the tubing, the greatest danger inside the house is a leak. Hydronic heat is also more efficient and less costly in the long run because it’s heating something that doesn’t dissipate so rapidly every time the door gets opened. 

When we heat a radiator or the floor, those things don’t rapidly cool when someone opens a window or a door. When you heat the air, the ability of that heat to escape the house through door, window or other means is far greater. 

The reason that forced-air has won out for so many years is that it’s fairly cheap to install and hydronic is not. A hydronic heating system is generally going to be over 12 grand even for a very scaled down system and can be 20 grand for a larger house. Forced-air, on the other hand runs from 5-8K for most small to mid-sized systems. Also, with so many forced-air systems in place, people will tend to continue to upgrade parts of this system rather than junk the whole think in favor of a better system. But two kinds of people tend to choose the hydronic alternative, the rich and the smart. 

People buy these systems for their great comfort and their long-range cost profile (they’ll actually save you money if you own them long enough). Some also choose these systems when members of their families are allergy-prone. High tech folks like engineers tend to choose these systems because they make sense despite (and perhaps because) they’re not being the common fare. 

It’s funny how this thing has come around from the distant past. Hot water, radiator-based systems were quite popular a hundred years ago, although they were far less efficient and much more expensive to install. We had our flirtation with forced-air and I’d say that the romance has soured; so we trudge, somewhat chagrined back to our old flame. 

There’s a certain set of people who fancy succulents, and, as the judge famously said about pornography, “I know it when I see it.” 

Succulents in general are plants that hold lots of water within their leaf or stem tissues. The term refers to a strategy, not really a taxon. They come from all sorts of families, including geraniums and cucumbers.  

One thing they have in common, right on the surface: they look, shall we say, distinctive. We might even say “kinky” if we weren’t worried about offending cacto-Americans. (A letter-writer recently gave me a noodge about “some unaware race/cultural bias,” which was a bit off the mark. I’m quite aware of the biases I’m making fun of.)  

They tower in spires if they’re cacti, dress in temporary delicate leaves and permanent ferocious spikes, disguise themselves as weird green toe-sies barely poking out of the ground, crouch in scowly brown lumps and send out a delicate green thread to the world. 

They’re cuddly and scary, graceful and ridiculous. They burst into outrageous scarlet and crimson and yellow and white blooms, some of them intensely fragrant, some of them only at night. Serious cereus infatuation rapidly becomes euphorbia euphoria. 

In short, they’re irresistible.  

They’re also tough, if you know how to treat them, and for a local virtue, they don’t drink much. This means more than reduced water bills. 

It means you can plant them in a place as rough and stressful (for plants) as a rooftop garden, and they’ll stand up to withering winds and constant sun.  

West Berkeley’s a good analogue of a rooftop—flat, windy, and mostly sunny. So Cactus Jungle has picked a good location to show off its weird wares, just a few blocks from the Fourth Street shopping corridor. 

It’s a small lot, aesthetically unified by the red lava rock underfoot and mulching all the plant pots, and the pots themselves almost entirely good old red clay, the best thing for succulents.  

The Jungle’s proprietors, Peter Lipson and Hap Hollibaugh, have been raising succulents 20-some years. 

Besides this retail spot, they install succulent gardens, including rooftop oases. They’re also turtle fanciers, so of course they’re good people.  

One neat innovation here is the collection of landscaping succulents, blabla and blabla and such, intended as groundcover and garden plants and sold in sixpacks—not your average sixpacks, but plantable dissolving peat pots in little wooden crates, as sets or mix-and-match. Ecogroovy and handsome besides.  

They have a little greenhouse of succulent houseplants, too: tillandsias and sanseverias and a stapelia like my own obnoxious office pet. 

(That’s the starfish or carrion flower, several inches across, hairy, and scented like rotting meat. Which reminds me: don’t dare use “kinky” around me as a put-down.) Also a select few grasses, bamboos, and other congenial perennials.  

Pots, fertilizers, remedies, accessories, and tools, too—the last from The Rumford Gardener, a British company whose products include a favorite of mine, a simple rounded, laterally curved piece of metal with great utility in small spaces.  

FRIDAY, JUNE 16 

Impeachment Banner Fridays at 6:45 to 8 a.m. on the Berkeley Pedestrian bridge between Seabreeze Market and the Berkeley Aquatic Park, ongoing on Fridays until impeachment is realized. www. Impeachbush-cheney.com 

City Commons Club Noon Luncheon with a panel discussion on “Are the Traditional Ethics of Established Religion Outmoded?” Luncheon at 11:45 a.m. for $13.50, speech at 12:30 p.m., at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant St. For information and reservations call 526-2925 or 665-9020.  

Conscientious Projector: “Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room” A documentary film by Alex Gibney at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Fellowship Hall, 1924 Cedar St. at Bonita. Donations accepted. 528-5403. 

The Feng Shui of Sacred Land, Sacred Architecture A slide show and talk with Eva Wong at 8 p.m. at the Berkeley Shambhala Meditation Center, 2288 Fulton St. at Bancroft. Cost is $20 at door. 841-3242. 

Berkeley Chess School classes for students in grades 1-8 from 5:30 to 7 p.m. A drop-in, rated scholastic tournament follows from 7 to 8 p.m. at 1581 LeRoy Ave., Room 17. 843-0150. 

Berkeley Chess Club meets Fridays at 8 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. 845-1143. 

SATURDAY, JUNE 17 

Downtown Berkeley Visioning Workshop from 1 to 4 p.m. at Berkeley High School Library. The public is invited to attend and comment. 981-7487. 

Berkeley Alliance of Neighborhood Associations meets with City Manager Phil Kamlarz at 9:15 a.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, Sproul Conference Room, 1st Floor, 2727 College Ave. www.berkeleycna.com 

Temescal Street Fair from noon to 6 p.m. on Telegraph Ave. between 51st and 48th with food from local restaurants, performances, childrens’ activities. www.temescalmerchants.com 

Giant Yard and Bake Sale to benefit the animals of the Berkeley Animal Shelter, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at 1257 Hopkins St. http://share4shelter.org 

KPFA Yard Sale from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. in the KPFA parking lot on Berkeley Way at Martin Luther King Jr. Way. 

Dog Wash Benefit to raise funds for spay/neuter programs in Contra Costa County, from noon to 4 p.m. at RabbitEARS Adoption Store, 303 Arlington Ave., behind ACE Hardware, Kensington. 525-6155. 

Don’t be Rattled Learn the myths and facts about rattlesnakes at 10:30 a.m. at Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park. 525-2233. 

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 $6-$8, registration required. 636-1684. 

Berkeley Garden Club Plant Sale from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at 547 Grizzly Peak Blvd, top of Euclid. 524-7296. 

Juneteeth Celebration in Richmond from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Nicholl Park, MacDonald Ave. and 32nd St. Sponsored by the National Brotherhood Alliance and the City of Richmond. 620-6516. 

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

African American Women’s Health A community forum on a holistic approach to health and other issues, with speakers, resources and local service providers, from noon to 5 p.m. at Lakeshore Avenue Baptist Church, 3534 Lakeshore Ave. Free, but RSVP’s appreciated. 763-9523. 

West Stege Marsh Restoration Volunteers are needed to assist with the on-going effort to restore a portion of West Stege marsh, its surrounding uplands, and adjacent grassland, on UC’s Richmond Field Station, from 9 a.m. to noon. To register and for directions call 665-3689. www.thewatershedproject.org 

“Towards an Sustainable Oakland” with Mose Durst, senior director of the Global Economics Action Institute, at 2 p.m. at the Oakland Public Library, Rockridge Branch, 5366 College Ave. 597-5017. 

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 

Pre-School Storytime for 3-5 year olds at 11 a.m. at the Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave., through June 22. 526-3720, ext. 17. 

Around the World Tour of Plants at 1:30 p.m., Thurs., Sat. and Sun. at UC Botanical Garden, 200 Centennial Drive. 643-2755.  

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, JUNE 18 

Juneteenth Festival, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Adeline and Alcatraz. 655-8008. 

Father’s Day Pancake Breakfast from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. on board The Red Oak Victory Ship in Richmond harbor, 1337 Canal Blvd. Take HY 580 and exit at Canal Blvd. Cost is $6, children under 5 free. A tour of the ship is included. 237-2933. 

Father’s Day Dragon Boat Adventure from 9 a.m. to noon at the Berkeley Marina. Sign up to ride in a Chinese river boat. Cost is $25, free to Save the Bay members. 452-9261 ext. 109. www.savesfbay.org/bayevents  

Name that Snake Learn to identify the snakes that live in your backyard and local parks at 12:30 p.m. at Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park. 525-2233. 

Free Hands-on Bicycle Clinic Learn how to repair a flat, from 10 to 11 a.m. at REI, 1338 San Pablo Ave. 527-4140. 

Bike Tour of Oakland Explore Oakland and learn about its incredible history, its visionaries and scoundrels—who were often the same people. The leisurely two-hour tours are about five miles long, with no hills. Meet at 10 a.m. at the 10th St. entrance of the Oakland Museum of California. Participants must be over twelve years old and provide their own bikes, helmets and repair kits. Free, but reservations required. 238-3514. 

“Come Spot Come” Teach your dog to come when called, no matter what the distraction, from 3 to 4 p.m. at Grace North Church, 2128 Cedar St. Cost is $35, registration required. 849-9323. companyofdogs.com 

Tree Identification Walk Take a short walk around and learn about some of our native and non-native trees at 2 p.m. at Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park. 525-2233. 

Acupuncture for Seniors offered by Elder Well from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at 2880 Sacramento. Cost is $5-$35. Appointments required. 704-0593. 

Lake Merritt Neighbors Organized for Peace at 3 p.m. at the colonnade at the NE end of the lake. 763-8712.  

Sunday Summer Forum: Towards a More Just World with Loni Hancock, State Assemblymember on Reforming Campaing Financing, at 9:30 a.m. at Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley, 1 Lawson Rd., Kensington. 525-0302, ext. 306. 

Tibetan Buddhism with Jack Petranker on “Finding Comfort and Ease: Meditation for a Balanced Life” at 6 p.m. at the Tibetan Nyingma Institute, 1815 Highland Pl. 843-6812.  

MONDAY, JUNE 19 

“How to Rearrange Your Life to Drive Less” Learn about CityCarShare, telecommuting, living close to work, and more at 5 p.m. at Biofuel Oasis, 2465 4th St., at Dwight. Donations accepted. 665-5509. 

“Stop the Bombing at the Nevada Test Site” Learn about the issues at 7 p.m. at Humanist Hall, 390 27th St., Oakland. Cost is $5-$20. 665-5509. 

Berkeley CopWatch organizational meeting at 8 p.m. at 2022 Blake St. J548-0425. 

TUESDAY, JUNE 20 

Tuesday Twighlights Enjoy a stunning sunset and a five-mile hike over varied terrain. Meet at 6:30 p.m. at the Canyon meadow staging area, Redwood Regional Park. Bring a jacket, water and a flashlight. 525-2233. 

Berkeley East-Bay Humane Society Blood Drive for the American Red Cross at 9th and Carleton. To schedule an appointment see www.beadonor.com (sponsor code HUMANESOCIETY) or call 1-800-448-3543. 

Introduction to Storytelling Class meets Tues. from 7 to 8:30 p.m. for four weeks at Arts First Oakland, 2501 Harrison St., Oakland. Cost is $20 for the series. To register call 444-4755. www.stagebridge.org 

Stress Less Seminar at 7 p.m. at New Moon Opportunities, 378 Jayne Ave., Oakland. Free, but registration required. 465-2524. 

Tuesday Tilden Walkers Join a few slowpoke seniors at 9:30 a.m. in the parking lot near the Little Farm for an hour or two walk. 215-7672, 524-9992. 

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

St. John’s Prime Timers meets at 9:30 a.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. We always welcome new members over 50. 845-6830. 

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 21  

Summer Solstice Gathering at 7:30 p.m. at the Interim Solar Calendar, Cesar Chavez Park Berkeley Marina. Bring your questions about the workings of sun, earth and moon, and the meaning of the seasons. Workshop led by Tory Brady, Exploratorium Teacher Institute. www.solarcalendar.org 

“Stranger in a Strange Land: Encounters in the Disunited States” with Gary Younge, columnist for the London Guardian, at 6 p.m. at Oakland Public Library, AMHL Dept., 125 14th St. 238-3134. 

“The Corporation” award-winning documentary by Mark Achbar on the rise of the dominant institution of our time, at 7:30 p.m. at Humanist Hall, 390 27th St., Oakland. Donations of $5 accepted. www.HumanistHall.net 

Diversity Film “Raising Teens” A documentary about teens of gay parents at 6:30 p.m. followed by discussion at Ellen Driscoll Auditorium, Frank Havens School, 325 Highland Ave., Piedmont. Free. 655-5552. 

“Is Iran Next?” with Ali Mirabdal of Iranian-American Community of Northern California at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Gray Panthers Office, 1403 Addison St. 548-9696.  

Walking Tour of Historic Oakland Churches and Temples Meet at 10 a.m. at the front of the First Presbyterian Church at 2619 Broadway. Tour lasts 90 minutes. Reservations can be made by calling 238-3234. www.oaklandnet.com/ 

walkingtours 

“Girl, I’ve Been Through A Lot...” Poetry workshop for girls age 13 to 17 at 4 p.m. at Oakland Public Library, Room 219, 125 14th St. 238-3134. 

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

“Hormone Disruptors: Is your environment making you ill?” at 7 p.m. at The Teleosis Institute, 1521 5th St., Upstairs Unit B. Cost is $5-$10. Reservations required. 558-7285. 

The Berkeley Lawn Bowling Club provides free instruction every Wed. and Sat. at 10:30 a.m. at 2270 Acton St. 841-2174.  

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.  

Berkeley Peace Walk and Vigil at 6:30 p.m. followed by Peace Walk at 7 p.m. www.geocities.com/vigil4peace/vigil 

THURSDAY, JUNE 22 

Landmarks Preservation Ordinance Porposed Revisions will be discussed at a special meeting of the Landmarks Preservation Commission at 7:30 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-7484. 

Summer Solstice for Children Make musical instruments, paint with fairy dust, play games, dance, sing, and listen to stories from 3 to 7 p.m. at Habitot, 2065 Kittredge St. 647-1111. 

Easy Does It Disability Assistance meets at 6:30 p.m. at 1744A University Ave., behind the Lutheran Church. 845-5513. 

“Good Green Kitchens” with author Jennifer Roberts at 7:30 p.m. at Builders Booksource, 1817 Fourth St. 800-843-2028. 

Sacred Therapy: Jewish Spiritual Teachings on Emotional Healing and Inner Wholeness with Estelle Frankel at 7:30 p.m. at BRJCC, 1414 Walnut St. Cost is $10-$20. 465-3935. 

“Veterans Benefits for Assisted Living” an informational presentation at 2 p.m. at The Berkshire, 2235 Sacramento St. 841-4844. 

World of Plants Tours Thurs., Sat. and Sun. at 1:30 p.m. at the UC Botanical Garden, 200 Centennial Drive. Cost is $5. 643-2755.  

CITY MEETINGS 

Berkeley Rent Stabilization Board meets June 19, at 7 p.m. in City Council Chambers, Pam Wyche, 644-6128 ext. 113.  

City Council meets Tues., June 20, at 7 p.m in City Council Chambers. 981-6900.  

Berkeley Unified School Board meets Wed., June 21, at 7:30 p.m., in the City Council Chambers. Mark Coplan 644-6320. 

Citizens Humane Commission meets Wed., June 21, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Katherine O’Connor, 981-6601.  

Commission on Aging meets Wed., June 21, at 1:30 p.m., at the South Berkeley Senior Center. William Rogers, 981-5344.  

Downtown Area Plan Advisory Commission meets Wed. June 21, at 7 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-7487. 

Library Board of Trustees meets Wed., June 21, at 7 p.m. at South Berkeley Senior Center. 981-6195.  

Landmarks Preservation Commission Special Meeting to discuss proposed revisions to the Landmarks Preservation Ordinance, Thurs. June 22, at 7:30 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-7484. 

Zoning Adjustments Board meets Thurs., June 22, at 7 p.m., in City Council Chambers. Mark Rhoades, 981-7410.  

TUESDAY, JUNE 13 

CHILDREN 

Desert Dave and his pets kick-off the Kensington Library’s Summer Reading Program at 6:30 p.m. at 61 Arlington Ave. 524-3043. 

FILM 

Against Indifference: The Cinema of Krzysztof Kieslowski Early Works: Program 3 at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

“The State of Democracy Today” with Cecilia Tichi & Iain Boa at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698.  

Andrew Dean Nystrom introduces his “Top Trails Yellowstone Grand Teton National Parks” with a slideshow at 8 p.m at Mrs. Dalloway’s, 2904 College Ave. 704-8222. 

Laurie R. King introduces her new crime novel “The Art of Detection” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500.  

“Works In Progress” Women’s Open Mic at 7:30 p.m. at Montclair Women’s Cultural Center, 1650 Mountain Blvd., Oakland. Cost is $5.  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Singers’ Open Mic with Ellen Hoffman at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island. 841-JAZZ.  

Uncle Earl at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $17.50-$18.50. 548-1761.  

Michael Coleman Trio Jazz Jam at 8 p.m. at the Uptown Nightclub, 1928 Telegraph, Oakland. Bring your instrument. 451-8100.  

Debbie Poryes & Friends, jazz, at 7 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

Walter Savage Quartet at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $6-$10. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 14 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Edge of Desire: Recent Art in India” opens at the Berkeley Art Museum, 2626 Bancroft Way. Cost is $5-$8. 642-0808. 

FILM 

Against Indifference: The Cinema of Krzysztof Kieslowski “Camera Buff” at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Café Poetry hosted by Kira Allen at 7:30 p.m. at La Peña. Donation $2. 849-2568.  

Rabbi Michael Lerner will read from “The Left Hand of God: Taking Back Our Country from the Religious Right” at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698.  

Alison Bechdel introduces her memoir “Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500.  

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  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Luke Westbrook at 8:30 p.m. at the Uptown Nightclub, 1928 Telegraph, Oakland. Cost is $5. 451-8100. 

Orquestra La Verdad, salsa, at 8 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low. Cost is $5-$10. 548-1159.  

Dick Conte Trio & Dick’s Birthday Party! at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island. 841-JAZZ.  

Goapele at 8 and 10 p.m. through Sun. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $15-$24. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

THURSDAY, JUNE 15 

THEATER 

San Francisco Recovery Theatre “The Spot” A teenage couple’s lives change dramatically when she gets pregnant. Thurs. and Fri at 8 p.m., Sat. at 2 and 8 p.m. at Live Oak Theater, 1301 Shattuck Ave. Tickets are $18. 1-866-468-3399. 

FILM 

Isabelle Huppert: Passionand Contradiction “Madame Bovary” at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Janine Brown & Lucy Traber 2005 Members’ Showcase Winners. Artist discussion at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Art Center, 1275 Walnut St. in Live Oak Park. Free, donations appreciated. 644-6893. 

“Expect Respect: The Power, Joy, and Dignity of Being a Woman” Artists panel discussion at 5:30 p.m. at Prescott-Joseph Center for Community Enhancement, 920 Peralta St, Oakland. 835-8683.  

Sandy Tolan reads from “The Lemon Tree: An Arab, a Jew, and the Heart of the Middle East” at 7 p.m at Mrs. Dalloway’s, 2904 College Ave. 704-8222. 

Maqams/Modes: The Music of the Jews in the Land of Islam with Prof. Martin Schwartz, at 6:30 p.m. at the Magnes Museum, 2911 Russell St. Cost is $6-$8. 549-6950.  

Mike Madison will discuss “Blithe Tomato: An Insider's Wry Look at Farmer’s Market Society” at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698.  

Word Beat Reading Series on “The Lion Speaks: An Anthology for Hurricane Katrina” at 7 p.m. at Mediterraneum Caffe, 2475 Telegraph Ave. 526-5985. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Steve Traylor-Ramirez at 8 p.m. at La Peña. Cost is $8-$10. 849-2568.  

Slaid Cleaves at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $17.50-$18.50. 548-1761.  

“Slave, The Funk Party” at 8 p.m. at Kimball’s Carnival, 522 2nd St., Oakland. Tickets are $25-$35 from ticket web.  

Atmos Trio at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $5. 841-JAZZ.  

Houston Jones at 7 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

Mr. Lexicon, The Late Night Dates at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $5. 841-2082. 

Swoop Unit at 8:30 p.m. at the Uptown Nightclub, 1928 Telegraph, Oakland. Cost is $6. 451-8100. 

FRIDAY, JUNE 16 

THEATER 

Aurora Theatre “Permanent Collection” Wed.-Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 and 7 p.m. at 2081 Addison St., through July 23. Tickets are $28-$45. 843-4822. www.auroratheatere.org 

Berkeley Rep “The Glass Menagerie” at 8 p.m. at the Thrust Stage, 2025 Addison St. Tickets are $59. Runs through June 18. 647-2949.  

Berkeley Rep “The Miser” at 8 p.m. at the Roda Theater, 2015 Addison St. Tickets are $53. Runs through June 25. 647-2949. www.berkeleyrep.org 

California Shakespeare Theater “The Merry Wives of Windsor” at the Bruns Amphitheater, 100 Gateway Blvd., Orinda. Tues.-Thurs., 7:30 p.m., Fri.-Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 4 p.m. through June 25. Tickets are $15 and up. 548-9666.  

“Lily, The Felon’s Daughter” 19th Century fun, frolic and music, Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 3 p.m., at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley, 1 Lawson Road, Kensington. Suggested donation is $20. 524-2912. www.uucb.org 

Masquers Playhouse “The Fantasticks” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m. at 105 Park Place, Point Richmond. Tickets are $18. 232-4031. www.masquers.org 

Pinole Community Players “Oliver!” the musical, Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m., selected Sun. at 2 p.m., at the Community Playhouse, 601 Tennent Ave., Pinole, through July 15. Tickets are $14-$17. 724-3669, 223-3598.  

San Francisco Recovery Theatre “The Spot” A teenage couple’s lives change dramatically when she gets pregnant, at 8 p.m., Sat. at 2 and 8 p.m. at Live Oak Theater, 1301 Shattuck Ave. Tickets are $18. 1-866-468-3399, 650-438-3964. 

Shotgun Players “King Lear” Thurs.-Sun. at 8 p.m. at the Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby Ave. to June 18. Tickets are $15-$30, reservations suggested. 841-6500. www.shotgunplayers.org 

TheatreFirst Staged readings of four plays under consideration for next season, Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m. at at 469 9th St., Oakland. Free. 436-5085. 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Saccharine” Artwork by Jennifer Dranttel. Reception at 8 p.m. at The Living Room Gallery, 3230 Adeline St. Donation $5. 601-5774.  

FILM 

Isabelle Huppert: Passion and Contradiction “Every Man for Himself” at 7 p.m. and ”Passion” at 8:50 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Anthony Bourdain introduces his new stories from the kitchen in “The Nasty Bits” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. www.codysbooks.com 

“The Music of Sepharad, Ashkenaz, And Their Melodic Environments” with Martin Schwartz at 6:30 p.m. at the Magnes Museum, 2911 Russell St. Cost is $6-$8. 549-6950. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Altipampa, Andean music, at 8 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $12-$14. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Betsy Rose “Welcome To The Circle” at 7:15 p.m. in the Small Assembly of First Congregational Church of Berkeley, 2345 Channing Way. Suggested donation $15-20 sliding scale. 

Irina Rivkin, Clara George Celebrate LGBT Pride with the Rose Street Harmony Tours at 8 p.m. at Eli’s Mile High Club, 3629 MLK, Oakland. 654-6124. 

Ann Ryu, Mariana Levine, violins, Jessica Cande, viola, Liz Varnegan, cello, at 8 p.m. at Giorgi Gallery, 2911 Claremont Ave. Cost is $15. 848-1228.  

Swiss Cheese Sonata An evening of work by Pappas and Dancers, Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m., interactive family matinee Sun. at 2 p.m. at Temescal Arts Center, 511 48th St., at Telegraph, Oakland. Tickets are $10-$20 for the evenings, $7 for the interactive. 599-2325. 

Jules Broussard/Ned Boynton Quartet at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $7. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Jill Knight, singer-songwriter, at 8 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

Freight 38th Anniversary Revue with Phil Marsh, David Jacobs-Strain, Audrey Auld Mezera and others at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $16.50-$17.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Clifford Lam Duo at 9 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810.  

Grace Woods and David Serotkin, singer-songwriters, at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

Luv Planet, Robert Temple & His Soulfolk Ensemble, Groovy Judy at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $7. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

Requiem, Spag, Placenta 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. 

Grease Trap, oaktown funk, at 9 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low, 2284 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $5. 548-1159.  

Inspector Double Negative at 9 p.m. at the Uptown Nightclub, 1928 Telegraph, Oakland. Cost is $18-$10. 451-8100. www.uptownnightclub.com 

Guru Garage, jazz-funk, at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Goapele at 8 and 10 p.m. through Sun. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $15-$24. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

SATURDAY, JUNE 17 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Turnstyle” works by Los Angeles graffiti artist Joe Joe Webb at 4 p.m. at Transmissions Gallery, 1177 San Pablo Ave. 558-4084.  

FILM 

Against Indifference: The Cinema of Krzysztof Kieslowski “Three Colors: Blue” at 4 p.m. “Three Colors: White” at 6:45 p.m. and “Three Colors: Red” at 8:45 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Jan Steckel reads from her new book of poetry “The Underwater Hospital” at 2 p.m. at the Lakeview Branch Library, 550 El Embarcadero, Oakland. 238-7344.  

Mark Bowden describes “Guests of the Ayatollah: The First Battle in America’s War with Militant Islam” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. www.codysbooks.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

The Mirage Ensemble “Images and Reflections” Music of Messiaen, Debussy, Argento, Griffes and Reger at 8 p.m. at Trinity Chapel, 2320 Dana St., bet. Durant and Bancroft. Tickets are $12-$18. 549-3864.  

Meghana Gadgil, “Bharatnatyam Arangetram” dance performance at 2 p.m. at Julia Morgan Center for the Arts, 2640 College Ave. 

La Peña Community Chorus at 9:30 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $10-$15. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

John Richardson Band at 9 p.m. at Circus Pub, 389 Colusa Ave, Kensington. The show is free and all ages. 

Robin Gregory and her Trio at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $10. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

James Brennan and Rabbit, singer-songwriters, at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

The Jimdangles, contemporary jazz, at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Fiddlekids Camp Faculty Fiddlefest at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Vocal Sauce at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $12. 845-5373. www.jazzschool.com 

Ben Adams Jazz Trio at 9:30 p.m. at Albatross, 1822 San Pablo Ave. Cost is $3. 843-2473. www.albatrosspub.com 

John Richardson Band at 9 p.m. at Circus Pub, 389 Colusa Ave, Kensington. Free, all ages. 

The Uptones at 8 p.m. at the Uptown Nightclub, 1928 Telegraph, Oakland. Cost is $10. 451-8100. www.uptownnightclub.com 

Grapefruit Ed, John Howland Trio at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $10. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

Sour Mash Jug Band, Pine Hill Haints, The Can Kickers, 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. 

SUNDAY, JUNE 18 

THEATER 

“Boomtime” sketch comedy with Brent Weinbach, Moshe Kasher, and Alex Koll at 8 p.m. at La Val’s Subterranean Theater, 1834 Euclid Ave. Tickets are $8-$10 sliding scale.  

FILM 

Isabelle Huppert: Passion and Contradiction “Heaven’s Gate” at 3 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

“India Goes Global: Art and Modernity” with Vishakha N. Desai at 2 p.m. at the Berkeley Art Museum. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

Poetry Flash with Anne Marie Macari and Jean Mead at 7:30 p.m. at Diesel Bookstore, 5433 College Ave. Donation $2. 653-9965. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Chamber Music Sundaes, with members of the San Francisco Symphony and friends at 3:15 p.m. at St John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. Tickets at the door are $9-$21. 415-584-5946. www.chambermusicsundaes.org 

“Joy Crocker Celebration Memorial Concert” at 3 p.m. at First Presbyterian Church, 2619 Broadway at 27th St., Oakland. 703-9350.  

WomenSing “In the Wake of Music” at 4 p.m. at First Congregational Church, 2354 Channing Way. Tickets are $10-$20. 925-974-9169. www.womensing.org 

Preston Reed, guitar, at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $17.50-$18.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Jesus Diaz at 6:30 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $40. Benefits Lighthouse Community Charter School. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Yolanda Alicia Quartet at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $10. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Americana Unplugged: Craig Ventresco and Meredith Axelrof bluegrass and oldtime showcase, at 5 p.m. at Jupiter. 655-5715. 

Skinny String Gals at 11 a.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344.  

Imperial Leather at 5 p.m. at 924 Gilman St., an all-ages, member-run, no alcohol, no drugs, no violence club. Cost is $5. 525-9926. 

MONDAY, JUNE 19 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

William Claassen discusses “Alone in Community: Journey’s into Monastic Life Around the World” at 6:30 p.m. at the Lakeview Branch of the Oakland Public Library, 550 El Embarcadero. 238-7344. 

Kate Horsley describes “Black Elk in Paris” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500.  

Jeff Angus will talk about “Management by Baseball” at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698.  

Poetry Express with Tim Nuveen at 7 p.m., at Priya Restaurant, 2072 San Pablo Ave. berkeleypoetryexpress@yahoo.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Trovatore, traditional Italian music, at 7 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

Blue Monday Jam at 7:30 p.m. at the Uptown Nightclub, 1928 Telegraph, Oakland. Cost is $5. 451-8100. www.uptownnightclub.com 

Larry Vuckovich Quartet at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $10-$14. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

TUESDAY, JUNE 20 

CHILDREN 

Traditional Chinese Instruments Music and demonstrations with Mandy Cheung at 7 p.m. at the Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave. 526-3720, ext. 17. 

THEATER 

“Bigger Than Jesus” Rick Miller’s one-man show at 8 p.m. through Fri. and Sat. at 2 and 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Playhouse, UC Campus. Tickets are $30. 642-9988. 

FILM 

Against Indifference: The Cinema of Krzysztof Kieslowski Personnel and Final Documentary Shorts at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808.  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Ellen Hoffman Trio and Singers’ Open Mic at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $5. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Michael Coleman Trio Jazz Jam at 8 p.m. at the Uptown Nightclub, 1928 Telegraph, Oakland. Bring your instrument. 451-8100.  

Javon Jackson Quartet at 8 and 10 p.m. Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $10-$16. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

Mal Sharpe, jazz, at 7 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

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

The Trinity Lyric Opera company will perform the West Coast premiere of The Pilgrim’s Progress this weekend at the Dean Lesher Regional Arts Center in Walnut Creek. 

The opera was one of Ralph Vaughan Williams’ last compositions and he considered it his masterpiece, the culmination of over 40 years of work. 

Throughout his life he had composed parts of the piece, presenting some of them as finished work. At one point, thinking that he would never complete the opera, he folded several of its themes into his 5th Symphony. However, nearing his 80th year, Vaughan Williams finished the piece. In 1951, its presentation at Covent Garden in an inadequate and awkward production was “the bitterest disappointment of his musical life.” 

Described as a “morality,” The Pilgrim’s Progress more closely resembles an oratorio with its large chorus, which acts as a central musical figure within the piece, and its lack of aria-driven action. It was conceived by the composer as a series of tableaux, like that of a medieval morality play. 

But like all of Vaughan Williams’ music, it seems to be woven more of spirit and transcendence than of the didactic or moralistic. It took Vaughan Williams many years to develop his musical voice, and that development was sympathetically affected by his understanding of early English folk music. His is a spiritual music, but it is neither remote nor cold.  

Vaughan Williams uses the John Bunyan allegory as the foundation for his opera not because he shared Bunyan’s religious beliefs but because the universalism of the allegory appealed to him. 

“I want the idea,” he wrote to a friend, “to . . . appeal to anybody who aims at the spiritual life whether he is Christian, Jew, Buddhist, Shintoist, or 5th Day Adventist.”  

According to his widow Ursula, Vaughan Williams was “an atheist . . . who drifted into a cheerful agnosticism: he was never a professing Christian.”  

He was, however, a man with a deep social conscience. His work with refugees during the World War II led to the banning of his work by the Nazis. 

Vaughan Williams stripped away much of Bunyan’s Radical Protestant ideology in The Pilgrim’s Progress, especially that concerned with the Christian struggle with sin. What remains is a simpler, more universal journey of the soul. 

At the beginning of the opera, the character of Bunyan tells the audience of his dream, which is to become his book, and the Pilgrim enters the stage. He is driven by fear and the great burden he bears, and he cries out to be saved; The Evangelist sets him on a journey toward a light he can just see in the distance. Leaving his home, the City of Destruction, and heading toward the King’s Highway, Pilgrim finds himself at the House Beautiful, where he is relieved of his burden and given tokens to help him on his way. It is easy to read Vaughan Williams’ personal journey into to the voice of the Pilgrim when he sings: “Music in the house; music in the heart; music in heaven, for joy that I am here.” 

The first trial that Pilgrim undergoes on his journey to the Celestial City is his battle with interior demons, represented by Apollyon and his minions, the Doleful Creatures. Apollyon, the Destroyer, is a form of the devil, the angel of the bottomless pit in Revelations, but here he takes on the form of feudal lord or property owner, who declares that the land and everything in it is his. After the battle in which he overcomes Apollyon, the Pilgrim is wounded and then healed by two bearers of Life, soprano and contralto, who comfort him in a sweetly ethereal duet.  

His second trial takes place in Vanity Fair, where Pilgrim is confronted by the chaos of the marketplace, presided over by Lord Lechery singing a music-hall song. Gold, power, lust, pride of life are sold here, and when Pilgrim refuses to buy and rejects their patron god Beezlebub, he is thrown in jail and sentenced to die.  

What follows is the opera’s most moving scene. In jail, Pilgrim is in despair, he feels abandoned by his god, but in the middle of these dark moments he remembers the key that he had been given in the House Beautiful. He realizes that he has been carrying his freedom with him, that he has the power to open the prison doors with which the material world has enclosed him. The doors swing open, and the Pilgrim returns to his journey.  

It was clear in rehearsal last week that there are many fine singers in this production of The Pilgrim’s Progress. Jason Detwiler’s portrayal of the Pilgrim is especially wonderful, and in this prison scene it finds its most powerful realization. A fine bass-baritone, Detwiler has a voice with the weight and depth to give this scene the spiritual profundity it needs as his Pilgrim moves from black despair to radiant fulfillment.  

The libretto of the prison scene is also one of the more beautiful sections of the opera; taken from the Bible, the language is that of mystical writing across many traditions: “Surely the darkness shall cover me even the night shall be light about me. The darkness is no darkness with thee: but the night shineth as the day.” It is the kind of language that Vaughan Williams could translate perfectly into music, melding it into his own contemplative sound, filled with ecstatic and mysterious harmonies. 

Alan Thayer, the director of the Trinity Lyric Opera, founded and organized the company specifically to bring Ralph Vaughan Williams’ opera to the West Coast. This is a rare opportunity to hear an important work by one of the great composers of the 20th century.  

THE PILGRIM’S PROGRESS 

Trinity Lyric Opera’s production shows at 8 p.m. Friday, June 16, and Saturday, June 17, and 2 p.m. Sunday, June 18, at the Dean Lesher Regional Center for the Arts, 1601 Civic Drive, Walnut Creek. For more information, see www.trinitylyricopera.org.

The Freight & Salvage Coffee House celebrates its 38th anniversary this Friday with a show that reflects the musical heritage and diversity that has long been its hallmark.  

Friday’s lineup will feature Phil Marsh as host. Marsh will also perform as part of the Cleanliness and Godliness Skiffle Band, the first act to play at the Freight & Salvage when it opened nearly four decades ago. Sharing the stage with Marsh will be local country blues singer David Jacobs-Strain, known for his bottleneck guitar prowess, Audrey Auld Mezera, who prefers to describe her country-tinged folk style as “music with the dirt left on,” and clown/violinist and Cirque du Soliel veteran Geoff Hoyle. 

The diverse range of styles in the show reflects the wide variety of music that can be heard nightly at the Freight. Executive Director Steve Baker said his aim is “just try to put on a good show that people will enjoy.”  

In 1968 the Freight was the only club of its kind in the Bay Area and has been instrumental in the cultivation of the now flourishing local traditional music scene, Baker said. Its influence can be seen in the proliferation of folk music venues in the greater Bay Area, including San Francisco’s ever-growing Not Strictly Bluegrass Festival.  

The City of Berkeley is helping the club to purchase a new home in the downtown Arts District, which Baker hopes to move into by 2009. 

With the inclusion of the Cleanliness and Godliness Skiffle Band, the venue’s first performers, and more recent favorites such as Jacobs-Strain and Mezera, the Freight & Salvage Coffee House is celebrating its 38th anniversary with a nod to its past and a look towards its future. 

FREIGHT & SALVAGE  

38TH ANNIVERSARY SHOW 

Doors open at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $16.50 in advance and $18.50 at the door and are available through TicketWeb at 866 468 3399 or at the Freight box office from noon to 7 p.m. at 1111 Addison Street. www.thefreight.org.

Bottlebrush trees are one of the bright, amusing notes on our streets, sporting those funny flowers shaped like, yes, bottlebrushes with perky little green-leaf tufts at their ends. They’re tough and not pest-prone, and easy enough to find in nurseries. Their hard little leaves and shreddy bark give them a ragamuffin air to match the spiky inflorescences. The red flowers attract birds—hummingbirds of course, but I’ve seen a stray Cape May warbler, a nectar-seeker in winter, using them too.  

We’ve lost a few of the trees that I knew in North Berkeley, but enough of them are in gardens and public places than I don’t worry about a population decline. Besides, they’re exotics—from Australia—and as far as I know in no danger in their home range.  

The bottlebrush—Callistemon—species I see here, mostly of the weeping (C. viminalis) or lemon (C. citrinus, formerly C. lanceolatus) sort, are among those trees that people ought to be planting under utility wires, because they generally don’t get very tall and it’s easy to control their height. They’re fun to prune.  

In fact, my general complaint about local weeping bottlebrushes is that people don’t know how to prune them. Longtime readers of this column will not be surprised to hear that, as people who prune despite not knowing how are a frequent target of my uncharitable scorn. But weeping bottlebrush trees, especially, practically have roadmaps built in.  

It’s easier to show you than to tell you, as Bre’r Rabbit would say, but here’s a first step: Don’t just shear them at the bottom in the equivalent of a bowl cut. Get underneath—after nesting season is over, please—and start cutting the branches closest to the trunk. They almost have “Cut Here” dotted lines; just cut on a leaf node, above a row of seedpods if there are any on the branch. For the first few, though, cut next to the trunk. 

When you’ve opened those up a bit, stand and watch the tree. It should be a bit more flowing when it moves now, a bit bouncy but graceful. Cut a little more, still from the inside. Leave some deeper layers, but make them of uneven lengths.  

When you have two forks in a twig, cut off the lower, inside one. This is counterintuitive only the first time, and is a good strategy with any weeping tree. Weepers should reach out a little, bounce like a waterfall; half their charm is in their motion in the breeze and their illusion of flowing even when still.  

If you end up with something that looks like a parasol, stop. The tree will soon fill in some of the space, and you’ll be able to form your own ideas of what you and the tree can make happen next. Within whatever limits you have—traffic, the side of a building—try to broaden the reach of the tree, to let it move and dance and show off its flexibility.  

There are two reasons for the opening-it-up strategy: Those inside branchlets are the ones that accumulate dirt, insects, mold, and such, and because they get less sun they’re less vigorous. Callistemons are tough, but there’s no need to stress the tree by making part of it a bug-and-pathogen farm. Also, they really aren’t supposed to look like bottlebrushes themselves: the common name refers to their startling, usually red, flowers.  

Since the ones we see here are generally strictly ornamentals and generally small, it’s startling to read a quote from nineteenth-century handbook of Australian plants that recommends the wood of lemon bottlebrush for “ship-building and wheel-wright’s work and… mallets.” 

But if you’ve ever had to cut one down, you’ve come to appreciate the toughness of the wood. The wood of some Callistemons is recommended for use in fenceposts and such things that come in contact with soil, because they resist rot. But mostly they’re ornamentals here. They’re tough enough to be used in hot places like parking lots, and their density is easily controlled so they make good screens of whatever opacity you like. I haven’t heard that they’re invasive, but if you live next to wildlands, check that out before planting one. Plant it high and don’t let it stand in water, and it’ll be good company.  

Photograph by Ron Sullivan:  

The exuberant flowers of weeping bottlebrush attract birds as varied as hummingbirds and Cape May warblers. This one is a street tree on Park Avenue in Oakland. 

TUESDAY, JUNE 13 

Return of the Over-the-Hills Gang Hikers 55 years and older who are interested in nature study, history, fitness, and fun are invited to join as we circumnavigate Round Top, one of the highest peaks in the Berkeley hills and a center of ancient volcanic activity. From 10 a.m. to noon. To register call 525-2233.  

Civil Liberties Film Series “The Exonerated” followed by a talk with Natasha Minsker, ACLU Death Penalty Project, and Barbara Becnel, co-author with Stanley “Tookie” Williams, at 7 p.m. Richmond Public Library, Madeline F. Whittlesey Room, 325 Civic Center Plaza, Richmond. 620-6561. 

“Paws, Claws, Scales and Tales!” Albany Library Summer Reading Program begins. Children can pick up a game board and instuctions at the Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave. 526-3720, ext. 17. 

Berkeley High School Site Council meets at 4:30 p.m. in Room D218 of the Admin building. The agenda includes 10th grade counseling (SB813), Site Plan Subcommittee report, School Governance Council Proposal. 525-0124. 

Raging Grannies of the East Bay invites new folks to come join us from 2:30 to 4:30 p.m. at Berkeley Gray Panthers, 1403 Addison St., in Andronico’s mall. 548-9696. 

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, JUNE 14  

Parking and Traffic around Solano Ave. Andronico’s A Community Meeting at 7 p.m. at Thousand Oaks School Multi-purpose Room, on Colusa. For information call Councilmember Capitelli, 981-7150. 

Walking Tour of Old Oakland uptown to the Lake to discover Art Deco landmarks. Meet at 10 a.m. in front of the Paramount Theater at 2025 Broadway. Tour lasts 90 minutes. Reservations can be made by calling 238-3234. 

Protect Arroyo Viejo Creek Join a grassroots effort to protect and restore the Arroyo Viejo Creek in Oakland at 6 p.m. at Arroyo Viejo Recreation Center, 7701 Krause Ave., Oakland. 665-3546. 

“Winged Migration” A documentary dedicated to birds and their long-distance flights at 7:30 p.m. at Humanist Hall, 390 27th St., Oakland. Donations of $5 accepted. 

“How to Run a Successful Co-op and the Co-op Movement,” with Lisa Bruzzone and Cathy Goldsmith of The Cheese Board, at 1:30 p.m. at the Albany Senior Center, 846 Masonic. All welcome. 524-9122. 

Support the IWW Organizing Drive at Shattuck Cinemas Rally at 4 p.m. at 2230 Shattuck Ave. 925-487-4419. http://shattuckunion.iww.org  

East Bay Genealogical Society with Caroline Earhart on her family quilt “My Family’s Road to California” at 10 a.m. in the Library Conference Room of the Family History Center, 4766 Lincoln Ave. Oakland. All welcome. 635-6692. 

Celebrate Flag Day at Habitot by creating a giant community flag from 9:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. at 2065 Kittredge St. Cost is $5-$6. 647-1111. 

“Girl, I’ve Been Through A Lot...” Poetry workshop for girls age 13 to 17 at 4 p.m. at Oakland Public Library, Room 219, 125 14th St. 238-3134. 

Traditional Dances to Reconnect with the Earth at 10:30 a.m. at the Albany Senior Center, 846 Masonic, Albany. Donation requested. 528-2261. 

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

The Berkeley Lawn Bowling Club free instruction every Wed. and Sat. at 10:30 a.m. at 2270 Acton St. 841-2174.  

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.  

Jewish Community Federation of the Greater East Bay Annual Meeting at 6:30 p.m. at Congregation Beth El, 1301 Oxford St.  

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

THURSDAY, JUNE 15 

Family Day at UC Botanical Garden with hands-on activities from 10 a.m. to noon at 200 Centennial Drive. Cost for one parent and one child is $14-$18. Additional adult or children per family are $7 each. Registration required. 643-2755. 

Embracing Diversity Films “Out of the Shadow” a documentary of a woman with paranoid schizophrenia, at 7 p.m. at Albany High School Library, 603 Key Route Blvd. Please enter through gym doors on Thousand Oaks Blvd. Suitable for children over 12. Free. Discussion follows. 527-1328. 

LeConte Neighborhood Association meets at 7:30 p.m. in the LeConte School Cafeteria, Russell St. entrance. The agenda includes the proposed cell phone antennas at the former Bekins’ Building and Ashby Bart development plans. 843-2602. 

“Oakland Unified School District: A Tale of Two Schools” A discussion of teacher spending gaps and other OUSD issues at the Metropolitan Greater Oakland Democratic Club at 7 p.m. at Piedmont Gardens, 110 41st Ave. 834-9198. 

FRIDAY, JUNE 16 

Impeachment Banner Fridays at 6:45 to 8 a.m. on the Berkeley Pedestrian bridge between Seabreeze Market and the Berkeley Aquatic Park, ongoing on Fridays until impeachment is realized. www. Impeachbush-cheney.com 

City Commons Club Noon Luncheon with a panel discussion on “Are the Traditional Ethics of Established Religion Outmoded?” Luncheon at 11:45 a.m. for $13.50, speech at 12:30 p.m., at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant St. For information and reservations call 526-2925 or 665-9020.  

Conscientious Projector: “Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room” A documentary film by Alex Gibney at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Fellowship Hall, 1924 Cedar St. at Bonita. Donations accepted. 528-5403. 

The Feng Shui of Sacred Land, Sacred Architecture A slide show and talk with Eva Wong at 8 p.m. at the Berkeley Shambhala Meditation Center, 2288 Fulton St. at Bancroft. Cost is $20 at door. 841-3242. 

Berkeley Chess School classes for students in grades 1-8 from 5:30 to 7 p.m. A drop-in, rated scholastic tournament follows from 7 to 8 p.m. at 1581 LeRoy Ave., Room 17. 843-0150. 

Berkeley Chess Club meets Fridays at 8 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. 845-1143. 

SATURDAY, JUNE 17 

Downtown Berkeley Visioning Workshop from 1 to 4 p.m. at Berkeley High School Library. The public is invited to attend and comment. 981-7487. 

Berkeley Alliance of Neighborhood Associations meets with City Manager Phil Kamlarz at 9:15 a.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, Sproul Conference Room, 1st Floor, 2727 College Ave. www.berkeleycna.com 

Temescal Street Fair from noon to 6 p.m. on Telegraph Ave. between 51st and 48th with food from local restaurants, performances, childrens’ activities. www.temescalmerchants.com 

“A Holistic Approach to Healthy Challenges We All Face” A community converstion on mental health and wellness at The Lakeshore Avenue Baptist Church in Oakland. Free, but registration required. 763-9523. staff@thetraininginstitute.org 

Giant Yard and Bake Sale to benefit the animals of the Berkeley Animal Shelter, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at 1257 Hopkins St. http://share4shelter.org 

KPFA Yard Sale from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. in the KPFA parking lot on Berkeley Way at Martin Luther King Jr. Way. 

Dog Wash Benefit to raise funds for spay/neuter programs in Contra Costa County, from noon to 4 p.m. at RabbitEARS Adoption Store, 303 Arlington Ave., behind ACE Hardware, Kensington. 525-6155. 

Don’t be Rattled Learn the myths and facts about rattlesnakes at 10:30 a.m. at Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park. 525-2233. 

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 $6-$8, registration required. 636-1684. 

Berkeley Garden Club Plant Sale from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at 547 Grizzly Peak Blvd, top of Euclid. 524-7296. 

Juneteeth Celebration in Richmond from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Nicholl Park, MacDonald Ave. and 32nd St. Sponsored by the National Brotherhood Alliance and the City of Richmond. 620-6516. 

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

African American Women’s Health A community forum on a holistic approach to health and other issues, with speakers, resources and local service providers, from noon to 5 p.m. at Lakeshore Avenue Baptist Church, 3534 Lakeshore Ave. Free, but RSVP’s appreciated. 763-9523. 

West Stege Marsh Restoration Volunteers are needed to assist with the on-going effort to restore a portion of West Stege marsh, its surrounding uplands, and adjacent grassland, on UC’s Richmond Field Station, from 9 a.m. to noon. To register and for directions call. 665-3689. www.thewatershedproject.org 

“Towards an Sustainable Oakland” with Mose Durst, senior director of the Global Economics Action Institute, at 2 p.m. at the Oakland Public Library, Rockridge Branch, 5366 College Ave. 597-5017. 

Pre-School Storytime for 3-5 year olds at 11 a.m. at the Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave., through June 22. 526-3720, ext. 17. 

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 

Around the World Tour of Plants at 1:30 p.m., Thurs., Sat. and Sun. at UC Botanical Garden, 200 Centennial Drive. 643-2755.  

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, JUNE 18 

Juneteenth Festival, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Adeline and Alcatraz. 655-8008. 

Father’s Day Pancake Breakfast from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. on board The Red Oak Victory Ship in Richmond harbor, 1337 Canal Blvd. Take HY 580 and exit at Canal Blvd. Cost is $6, children under 5 free. A tour of the ship is included. 237-2933. 

Father’s Day Dragon Boat Adventure from 9 a.m. to noon at the Berkeley Marina. Sign up to ride in a Chinese river boat. Cost is $25, free to Save the Bay members. 452-9261 ext. 109. www.savesfbay.org/bayevents  

Name that Snake Learn to identify the snakes that live in your backyard and local parks at 12:30 p.m. at Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park. 525-2233. 

Free Hands-on Bicycle Clinic Learn how to repair a flat, from 10 to 11 a.m. at REI, 1338 San Pablo Ave. 527-4140. 

Bike Tour of Oakland Explore Oakland and learn about its incredible history its visionaries and scoundrels—who were often the same people. The leisurely two-hour tours are about five miles long, with no hills. Meet at 10 a.m. at the 10th St. entrance of the Oakland Museum of California. Participants must be over twelve years old and provide their own bikes, helmets and repair kits. Free, but reservations required. 238-3514. 

“Come Spot Come” Teach your dog to come when called, no matter what the distraction, from 3 to 4 p.m. at Grace North Church, 2128 Cedar St. Cost is $35, registration required. 849-9323. companyofdogs.com 

Tree Identification Walk Take a short walk around and learn about some of our native nad non-native trees at 2 p.m. at Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park. 525-2233. 

Lake Merritt Neighbors Organized for Peace at 3 p.m. at the colonnade at the NE end of the lake. 763-8712.  

Sunday Summer Forum: Towards a More Just World with Loni Hancock, State Assemblymember on Reforming Campaing Financing, at 9:30 a.m. at Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley, 1 Lawson Rd., Kensington. 525-0302, ext. 306. 

Tibetan Buddhism with Jack Petranker on “Finding Comfort and Ease: Meditation for a Balanced Life” at 6 p.m. at the Tibetan Nyingma Institute, 1815 Highland Pl. 843-6812.  

MONDAY, JUNE 19 

“How to Rearrange Your Life to Drive Less” Learn about CityCarShare, telecommuting, living close to work, and more at 5 p.m. at Biofuel Oasis, 2465 4th St., at Dwight. Donations accepted. 665-5509. 

“Stop the Bombing at the Nevada Test Site” Learn about the issues at 7 p.m. at Humanist Hall, 390 27th St., Oakland. Cost is $5-$20. 665-5509. 

Berkeley CopWatch organizational meeting at 8 p.m. at 2022 Blake St. J548-0425. 

CITY MEETINGS 

City Council meets Tues., June 13, at 7 p.m in City Council Chambers. 981-6900.  

Commission on Disability meets Wed., June 14, at 6:30 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Don Brown, 981-6346. TDD: 981-6345.  

Homeless Commission meets Wed., June 14, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. J981-5426.  

Planning Commission meets Wed., June 14, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. J981-7484.  

Police Review Commission meets Wed., June 14, at the South Berkeley Senior Center. 981-4950.  

Waterfront Commission meets Wed., June 14, at 7 p.m., at 201 University Ave. 981-6740.  

Design Review Committee meets Thurs., June 15, at 7:30 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-7415. 

Transportation Commission meets Thurs., June 15, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-7000.  

West Berkeley Project Area Commission meets Thurs., June 15, at 7 p.m., at the West Berkeley Senior Center. 981-7520.