A speaker’s comments disparaging homosexuality cast a cloud over an informal high school graduation ceremony earlier this month. 

Evangelical preacher the Rev. Manuel Scott Jr. made derogatory remarks about gays as part of his keynote address at the annual Berkeley High School African-American Studies Department Celebration of Excellence June 10. 

The event, sponsored by community members and the chair of the department—though it is not an official Berkeley High graduation—assembled hundreds of students, families, church figures and others at St. Paul African Methodist Episcopal Church in Berkeley, to honor students’ successes. 

Scott, a Los Angeles-based Baptist Evangelist, gave a five- to 10-minute speech themed “After you graduate, be careful what you put in your system.” He identified an assortment of temptations to which students must not succumb such as drugs, alcohol and promiscuity. Rounding out the list was homosexuality, lesbianism and bisexuality. 

School board Director Nancy Riddle, who attended the ceremony as she has each year for four years, was appalled. 

“I know some people have those religious beliefs, but it was still shocking to hear,” she said. 

Some people in the audience were visibly bothered, a ceremony participant said. Riddle received a phone call from a parent upset by the sermon, as did City Councilmember Darryl Moore, the first openly gay, black public official in the East Bay. 

“I do think these graduations are great, but I think there is no place for homophobic comments,” Moore said. “We in Berkeley appreciate the diversity of our community. I think the speaker could have been just as forceful without making these extremely negative comments.” 

BHS African-American Studies Department Chair the Rev. Robert McKnight, who is responsible for the event, stands behind the speaker. 

“We do not censor anyone,” he said. “We defend free speech for everyone. If it’s right wing, if it’s left wing or in the middle, it’s free speech.” 

McKnight approached Scott, a longtime friend, to serve as keynote speaker. The evangelist was paid an honorarium for his services. Past speakers have included a former NAACP youth director and local clergy members. 

In a phone interview Thursday, Scott reiterated his message from the pulpit. 

“Homosexuality, bisexuality, they are sins according to the word of God,” he said. “I understand that the climate (in Berkeley) is a climate that values political correctness, but that’s not my concern. I’m concerned with biblical correctness.” 

The Celebration of Excellence is a 16-year-old, community- and church-supported tradition in Berkeley, which has come to be known as the black graduation—though it is open to all students, McKnight said.  

“This is the largest and most positive event in the African-American community,” he said.  

This year’s ceremony involved prayer, homage to African-American leaders who have passed, the awarding of scholarships, and featured several guests, including Berkeley resident Doris Branch-Tabor, B-Tech Academy Principal Victor Diaz and Riddle, who spoke in place of Berkeley High School Principal Jim Slemp. 

Students stood before audience members, introduced themselves and revealed their post-high school aspirations. Aside from Scott’s comments, the event was lively and inspirational, Riddle said. Several of those in attendance agreed, the ceremony was, overall, very positive.  

“It’s an opportunity for the black students to have some words and be encouraged by leaders of the black community,” said Michael McBride, who works with African-American male students at B-Tech.  

The African-American celebration was one of three cultural high school graduation ceremonies held at local churches this year. (The others were for Latino and Asian students.) They are supplementary to and unaffiliated with the official Berkeley high school convocation, which took place Friday, June 16, at the Greek Theatre. 

Berkeley Unified School District (BUSD) retains stringent policy on controversial speakers, but the rules don’t apply to cultural celebrations because they are not district-sanctioned. 

On Wednesday, Board Vice President Joaquin Rivera, who is gay, said BUSD should clarify its role relative to these ceremonies.  

“I know they may be community events…” he said, “but anytime there’s that kind of hate speech, it’s completely unacceptable.” 

When the mayor’s proposed Compromise Landmarks Preservation Ordinance got before the council at around 12:20 a.m. Wednesday morning, Councilmember Laurie Capitelli balked. 

“I haven’t read it,” Capitelli said, arguing the matter should be put over. 

“Don’t worry,” answered Mayor Tom Bates, pointing out that the draft proposal, released late Friday would get a full airing at the Thursday Landmarks Preservation Commission meeting. 

Councilmember Dona Spring argued against the substance of the mayor’s draft proposal: “Just because it’s [called] a ‘compromise,’ doesn’t mean it’s a compromise,” she said. 

“It wipes out the ‘structure of merit,’” Spring said. Buildings currently designated as structures of merit are generally in the flatlands and have historic value, even if not designed by famous architects. 

In a phone interview Wednesday, Spring elaborated: “The structure of merit provides the backbone of historic protection, particularly in the flatlands of Berkeley.” The compromise would disallow most new structure of merit designations by mandating that they be located near an already-designated landmark, Spring said. 

But mayoral assistant Calvin Fong said the ordinance leaves the door wide open for change, allowing the Landmarks Preservation Commission to write new criteria for structures of merit, which would then be approved by the City Council. 

While some argue that the current structure of merit designation is simply a way to stop development, Spring pointed to development consistent with the historic designation. An 1894 home at 2418 California St., designated as a structure of merit, was raised and two units added beneath the original structure. 

The designation “doesn’t stop the site from being developed,” she said. 

In the end, rather than approving the mayor’s proposal to “support, in principle, the draft compromise revisions to the Berkeley Landmarks Preservation Ordinance,” the council voted 8-1 simply to pass the draft on to the LPC and allow the commissioners to hash it out, before sending it back to council. Spring voted in opposition. The word compromise was dropped from the title. 

Any ordinance passed by the City Council, however, will become moot if a November historic preservation ballot measure is approved by the voters. 

Bates’ draft ordinance is available at http://www.berkeleyheritage.com. 

Two days after releasing details on a proposed downtown properties land sale that is supposed to help pay off $65 million already owed by the Oakland Unified School District to the State of California, the state-appointed OUSD administrator has proposed putting the district $35 million more in debt. 

On Monday, the district posted a Letter of Intent with east coast developers Terra Mark and Urban America calling for a $60 million purchase price for 8.25 acres of Lake Merritt-area property owned by the district, including the Paul Robeson Administration building, three schools, and two early childhood development centers. 

The developers are proposing putting up five high-rise residential buildings on the property, as well as 100,000 square feet in commercial space. 

The total purchase price is not scheduled to be paid for five years, and the Letter of Intent calls for reductions in that amount depending on the developers securing concessions from the City of Oakland. 

Negotiations on the final deal are currently being held between the district and the developers, and are not scheduled to be announced until September 13. 

Meanwhile, at a Wednesday Board of Education meeting, OUSD Administrator Randy Ward proposed borrowing the remainder of the district’s $100 million line of credit from the state to finance the move of the district’s administrative headquarters from the Paul Robeson Building to Carter Middle School in North Oakland, remedying problems in the district’s financial software, and re-establishing a 2 percent reserve fund that was wiped out when the district nearly went bankrupt three years ago. 

The district currently spends close to $4 million a year to pay off the $65 million currently borrowed from the state.  

OUSD Public Information Officer Alex Katz said he did not have an exact figure on the administration building relocation costs, adding that “it is still under discussion” between Ward and State Superintendent Jack O’Connell over “whether that money would come from a draw-down on the state line of credit” or from the $435 million in Measure B bond money passed by Oakland voters in this month’s election. 

In telephone interviews following Wednesday’s meetings, trustees said that borrowing the full $35 million was not in the best interests of the district, but since the state takover of Oakland Unified in 2003, the board of trustees functions as an advisory body only, and has no power to affect decisions made by the state-appointed administrator. Ward said only that he was considering the borrowing option, and would make an announcement at a later date.  

Trustee Dan Siegel, who chose not to run for re-election and is leaving his seat on the advisory board at the end of the year, said that borrowing any of the $35 million was a bad idea. 

He said that return to local control was contingent on restoring the district’s fiscal health, “and borrowing more money makes it more difficult to do that.” 

Siegel added that when local control is returned, “the new board will be saddled with an extra $2 million a year in debt payments on top of the $4 million” already in the budget. 

Trustee Greg Hodge said that he had mixed feelings about Ward’s proposal. 

“Even though return to local control is not contingent on paying off the loan from the state, there is a perception in the state legislature that this is one of the criteria, so I would be wary of adding to the debt,” Hodge said. 

“Still,” he added, “we’re only paying a 1.6 percent interest rate on the loan, so it’s cheap money, and maybe borrowing it is not a bad investment.” 

But Hodge said that under any circumstances, he would not borrow money for the renovation of Carter Middle School for the relocation of the district’s administrative offices, since, he said, that money should be factored into the proceeds from the proposed sale of the current administration building. 

Board President David Kakishiba said that it was “absolutely ridiculous” to use the state line of credit money for administrative relocation costs, saying that the loan money should be “reserved for its original purpose only, addressing the fiscal mismanagement from the past. It should not deal with current or future financial concerns, no matter what those concerns are.” 

Kakishiba said that the only money he would suggest borrowing from the remaining $35 line of credit would be to restore the district’s 2 percent operating reserve. 

“That’s appropriate,” he said, “because loss of the reserve resulted from the mismanagement problems in 2002 and 2003.” 

Meanwhile, Kakishiba said that even though the board has no power to block the sale of the Lake Merritt area properties, trustees are scheduled to give their recommendation on the sale in September following public hearings scheduled for July 12, August 16, and September 6. 

Kakishiba said that he expects presentations at the July 12 hearing from district staff members on the exact cost of relocating the three schools and two early childhood development centers from the Lake Merritt properties, as well as the cost of relocating the administrative offices. In addition, Kakishiba said, he wants the district to present enrollment projections for the district. 

Both Kakishiba and Siegel were concerned about the affect of the proposed sale on the existing schools on the Lake Merritt properties, particularly La Escuelita. Kakishiba represents District 2 where La Escuelita and the administrative offices are located. 

Under the Letter of Intent between the district and developers Terra Mark and Urban America released early this week, the district reserves the right to keep the schools on 3.2 acres of the property if suitable replacement sites cannot be found. 

Siegel said flatly there is no replacement site for La Escuelita. 

“There are no parcels of two acres or more within a mile of the administration building,” Siegel said, adding that a new La Escuelita could not be built on property two acres or less. 

In addition, he said that the 90 day window given by the district to either find new school sites for the five schools or keep them on the current sites is not enough time to secure new property. 

Siegel is also calling for a new appraisal of the 8.25 district property parcel to determine if the $60 million asking price is a good deal. 

Kakishiba said that the Letter of Intent “does not satisfy my concerns about La Escuelita.” 

He agreed that he does not see any property available in the Eastlake area to relocate the school “and even if there were, it would cost a lot of money to do so. I can’t see the value in that, because a big chunk of the revenues coming from the property sale would be eaten up by relocation costs.” 

Kakishiba also said he was concerned that the district “currently has no business plan for moving the administrative offices.” 

Letter of Intent Details OUSD Land Sale Deal 

By J. Douglas Allen-Taylor 

Under the proposed Letter of Intent, Terra Mark and Urban America pays an unrefundable $200,000 to the Oakland Unified School District for negotiating rights to purchase OUSD’s Lake Merritt-area properties. 

The developer also agrees to pay a $5 million option to purchase once a deal has been reached, which can be refunded if the developer backs out of the deal within 90 days.  

If all of the property is purchased by the developer and the developer is able to win all of the concessions within the proposed deal, the developer will pay another $55 million for 8.25 acres of district-owned land that include the Paul Robeson Administration Building, La Escuelita Elementary School, Dewey and MetWest High Schools, and two early childhood development centers. 

This would bring the total purchase price to $60 million if all of the concessions and conditions are met. However, the Letter of Intent does not specify how low the actual purchase price could go if all of the concessions are not met, and says only that “the parties will negotiate a more precise allocation of the Property value” under those circumstances.  

In addition, the bulk of the payment for the property is not due until five years after the developer exercises its option to begin purchasing the property. 

The developer is proposing to build five high rise residential towers on the property with a total of as high as 1,388 residential units, as well as building 100,000 square feet of unspecified commercial development. 

Other details of the proposed OUSD Lake Merritt properties agreement are: 

• The district has until September 13, 2006 (90 days from the signing of the Letter of Intent) to decide whether the 3.2 acres containing the three schools and two early childhood development centers will be included as part of the deal. 

• The property will be sold in five separate parcels under the following schedule (details on the location of the parcels were not included in the Letter of Intent): Parcel One for $7.8 million due within six months of the approval of the project’s building permit, Parcel Two for $9.3 million due no more than two years following groundbreaking for Parcel One, and Parcel Three ($12 million), Parcel Four ($11.1 million), and Parcel Five ($14.7 million) all due no more than five years following the developer’s exercise of its option to purchase the first parcel.  

• The $60 million purchase price is dependent upon the developer getting approval from the city to put 1388 residential units on the total property to be purchased. 

If the city approves less than that, down to 1,000 units, the purchase price for the property will be reduced by $20,000 for each unit the developer is not allowed by the city to build. (If the developer can only build 1100 units instead of the 1388, for example, the purchase price will be reduced by $5.8 million.) 

• The entire development proposal is also dependent on the developer being able to purchase “at market value” what is only called “property presently owned by the City of Oakland in the Lake Merritt Channel Area, which property will be made available by the realignment of 12th Street.” 

The actual site of that city-owned property to be purchased by the developer is not identified more specifically in the Letter of Intent.

For almost half a century now, Mario’s on Telegraph Aveue has built up a reputation for a lot more than its chile verde and grilled burritos. 

Mayor Tom Bates is known to frequent its banquet lunches, UC Berkeley students flock there during lunch and the homeless find refuge in its free bean and rice dinners—all served under the watchful eyes of Mario and Rosalinda Tejada, the owners of Mario’s La Fiesta.  

The couple, who have served Berkeley through their restaurant and banquet hall since February 1959, will be celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary on Saturday. 

They have worked together tirelessly for the last 47 years to make their business the Berkeley institution it is today. 

At a time when a lot of old timers on Telegraph are folding up their shops, Mario and Rosalinda are the embodiment of survival. 

“The only thing we pray for right now is that we make it to the restaurant’s 50th anniversary three years from now,” said Mario as he returned from his Thursday morning market visit. 

Rosalinda said that during Mario’s trips to the local market, he handpicked anything the restaurant might need for the day’s business.  

At the age of 75, his optimistic spirit is only one of the many remarkable things about Mario, something he says has been a part of him since he immigrated to the United States from Guanajuato in 1954. 

“After serving in Korea till 1956, I came across a classified ad for a sandwich shop on Telegraph Avenue and purchased it,” he explained. “Then I fixed it up to look like a Mexican restaurant and introduced real Mexican food to Americans. Rosalinda and I haven’t looked back since then.” 

When asked about the declining businesses on Telegraph, Mario said that he has seen it all before. 

“It’s all part of the cycle, there will be good times and bad times. It was the same way during the free speech movement of 1962 and the People’s Park incident of 1969,” he said. “Business was down back then too, but it revived once again. It always does. I am hopeful it will do so this time around too.” 

The secret to success, Mario said smiling, was the restaurant’s old customers. “They always come back,” he said. “With children, grandchildren or even just on their own, my customers from UC visit me the moment they land in Berkeley. Just the other day one of my old patrons visited me from Israel. They love it here.” 

However, he does admit that some of that old world charm that made Telegraph what it was is missing today. 

“The atmosphere has definitely changed. It is more about being hip, about all things new,” Mario said. “But we have to realize that life is all about change. So many of my friends who started businesses around the same time as me have either died or moved away. Take Larry Blakes for example. The owner sold the restaurant before he died, but the place still exists.” 

When asked about the charitable work that both he and his wife do for the homeless in Berkeley, Mario says that it’s something the couple feel is a duty towards the community. 

“We give donations to UC Berkeley, to different organizations whenever we can,” he said. “Offering food to the homeless is also a form of giving.” 

Dan McMullan of the Disabled People Outside Project praised the couple for their services. 

“For 50 years these good people have served our community not only with their great food but with a quiet and loving acceptance of all people,” he said. “They have for years provided food for the truly needy, a kind word for everyone and the power that has run every People’s Park event since 1969. They are truly a Berkeley treasure and I know I speak for many when I wish them another great 50 years.” 

Apart from offering free food during events at People’s Park, the couple also allows event organizers at the park to use their electricity for different shows.  

“They serve as a bridge, from Mayor Bates to the different merchants to the homeless,” said Michael Diehl of the Berkeley Free Clinic. “Mario and Rosalinda have been there for all.” 

On Saturday, the couple plans to celebrate with family and friends. When asked about future plans, Mario said that he wants to see Telegraph Avenue retain its lost glory. 

“The mayor is trying, the merchants are trying.” he said. “I am sure something positive will happen soon. As for me. I would like to retire, but hopefully not too soon.” 

Library Gardens—the apartment complex nearing completion behind the Berkeley Public Library—is going condo, if the Berkeley Planning Commission approves. 

If the city gives the nod, the 176 apartment and four commercial spaces in the building at 2020 Kittredge St. could all become for-sale condos. 

But that doesn’t mean condos would go on sale any time soon, Berkeley Housing Director Steve Barton said Thursday. 

“As best I know, they are putting in an underlying condo map now because now is the time to do it,” he said. “As far as I know they have no intention at this time to sell” units. 

But Deputy Planning Director Wendy Cosin said she understood that the units will be marketed as condos, though they may be initially rented as apartments. 

The project was originally approved as apartments, with the intent to rent the relatively small one- and two-bedroom units to UC Berkeley students. 

Barton said that applying for a condo map at this point makes good financial sense for several reasons. 

“Lenders like it because the property keeps its value if they have to foreclose for any reason,” he said, because condos appreciate with the housing market. 

And even buildings purposefully built for condo sale are often rented initially because a 10-year warranty period accompanies the sale of new condos, Barton said. 

Builders can rent the units until the warranty expires and then sell without incurring the same obligations that would come from sales during the warranty period, he said. 

In addition, concerns over the rental market provide another incentive to see approval as a condo project. 

Getting the map approved now before the units are rented also exempts the developer from being forced to pay mitigation fees incurred if the switch is sought after the units have been rented, Barton said. 

Ownership questions 

Barton said he isn’t certain about the ownership status of the project. According to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, developer John DeClerq had a nonbinding agreement to sell the property to GMH Communities Trust, a Maryland real estate investment trust (REIT). 

GMH, which specializes in rentals to college students and the military, subsequently experienced a dramatic decline in stock value. The property is not currently listed among their holdings. 

DeClerq did not return calls from the Daily Planet. 

Asked if DeClerq still owned the property, Barton said, “I always assumed he was the agent for some big money source.” 

Robert H. Bisno—who is listed with the California Secretary of State as the agent of TransAction Financial Corporation, of which DeClerq is vice-president—is an attorney based in Oakland and Los Angeles. 

According to the website of Ponte Vista, a San Pedro development in which he is a participant, Bisno has investments in more than 70 properties in 40 cities, totaling over 6 million square feet, 

Those properties include, among other things, 3,600 residential units, 600,000 square feet of retail buildings, 1.1 million square feet of office buildings, parking lots, a conference center and a ski resort mixed-use development. 

Long controversy 

Library Gardens proved controversial from the start, in part because construction entailed the demolition of one of the city’s most popular parking lots, a 362-space structure built for the long-vanished Hink’s department store and heavily patronized by movie-goers. 

As originally proposed, the developer would have replaced all 362 spaces in a two-level underground lot. Citing higher costs, De Clerq resubmitted plans that included only 116 ground-level spaces, of which all but 11 were reserved for tenants—and promptly ran into strong resistance. 

The project was approved when he added another 124 underground spaces, but in the final version of plans given the city’s blessing, the project includes only 130 spaces. 

No sooner had the project been approved by the Zoning Adjustments Board than a critic of the project appealed. 

Oddly, that critic was none other than DeClerq, who was seeking to overturn the city’s requirement that the project include units reserved for low-income tenants. Hitting a stone wall from a city council that has consistently pushed for the so-called inclusionary units, the developer surrendered.

The draft budget Mayor Tom Bates presented to the council on Tuesday picked up only $900,000 worth of council and community wishes, leaving much of the rest of the $4.4 million potentially available—beyond approximately $300,000 in fixed costs for parks, police, planning and the like—to the city manager’s plan to allocate the funds to street and storm-drain repair. 

About half of the funding in Bates’ spending plan comes from an anticipated augmentation of 25 cents per hour in parking meter fees. The council will vote on the fee hike next Tuesday as part of the final budget vote. 

Preceding the council budget discussion, citizens lined up for a public hearing, asking for funds for their pet projects and then it was the councilmembers turn to ask the mayor to add their wish lists to the pot. Bates said in an interview on Thursday that he’s already begun making changes in his proposed budget to fund some of the items advocates spoke for at the meeting. 

For example, a number of individuals from the Peace and Justice and Labor commissions asked to fund implementation of a “sweat-free” ordinance, mandating that the city purchase goods from companies whose products are not made in sweat-shop conditions. Funding would help the city identify which products are “sweat-free” and which should be avoided. 

“Getting suppliers to disclose their sources raises consciousness,” Peace and Justice Commissioner Diana Bohn said. Bates said Thursday that he is planning to add partial funding to the project. 

Robbin Henderson, executive director of the Berkeley Arts Center made a plea for more funding than the $11,000 the Bates’ budget allocated, noting that she is about to retire and that attracting a director may take a salary increase. 

“We’ve had a job listing since March,” Henderson said. “We can’t afford competitive salaries.” Bates said his new budget will reflect an increase. 

The mayor said he is dropping funding for a pilot train-whistle project, advanced by Councilmember Linda Maio in response to some citizens who objected a year or so ago to the whistling sound.  

The budget Bates put forward at the council meeting also includes: 

• additional funding so that the Fire Department can be fully staffed during high fire season; closures of one fire station per day will continue during the rest of the year, despite a plea from the BudgetWatch group. “We need fully-staffed fire stations year round,” Barbara Allen told the council; 

• a part-time watershed coordinator, requested when the Creeks Ordinance was discussed; 

• Rubicon vocational training, that aims to place disabled—mostly mentally challenged people—in jobs after appropriate training; 

• police, mental health and beautification on Telegraph Avenue; 

• a youth services coordinator; 

• the Center for Accessible Technology; 

• the Ashby BART community process 

Among the items not making the cut were funds for: 

• the warm-water pool; 

• landscaping for traffic barriers;  

• an additional senior planner.  

Parking in Side Yards 

A proposal to allow parking in side and back yards “by right,” that is with an across-the-counter permit, was scaled down to allow one car to park “by right” in the side yard only, as long as there is two feet of landscaping protecting the neighboring property. 

The council first rejected 4-2-3 a proposal by Councilmember Kriss Worthington to make the process more difficult by demanding a use permit, which would mandate notification of neighbors, with Capitelli and Bates voting in opposition and Maio, Councilmember Darryl Moore and Councilmember Max Anderson abstaining. 

The ordinance was approved conceptually 6-3 with Councilmembers Dona Spring, Betty Olds and Kriss Worthington opposing. 

Refuse costs rise 

Nobody came to council public hearing to protest an 8 percent refuse rate hike, which the council approved unanimously. 

When it came to raising residential sewer fees, however, the council majority refused 5-0-4 despite the city manager’s warning that the piper would have to be paid in future years. Commercial users will have their bills increased by 1 percent and public agencies will see a 3.5 percent increase. Spring, Worthington, Maio and Bates abstained on the matter.  

Citizen appeal denied  

LA Wood lost his appeal on the permit for Pacific Steel Castings carbon adsorption filter 9-0, with Maio promising “continuous monitoring” of the plant. 

Speaking at the public comment period Christopher Kroll of the West Berkeley Alliance for Clean Air and Safe Jobs called for more study of the issue. “The community does not trust the settlement agreement” with PSC, he said. 

In other matters, the council: 

• voted unanimously to take no action on the question of a threatened eviction of artists from the Nexus workspace, owned by the Humane Society; 

• turned down putting a measure on the ballot or using certificates of participation to fund a new warm pool for disabled and elderly people; Spring’s motion failed for lack of a second. 

More than 50 supporters of the Wishing Well came to Tuesday’s City Council meeting to request the city save the 35-year-old recycling box on the sidewalk median strip of the 1700 block of Channing Way. 

A life-size cardboard cut-out of the Wishing Well was on display at the meeting along with posters, flyers and supporters dressed up in fairytale garb to support the well. 

Residents of Channing/Roosevelt/ McGee neighborhood have exchanged clothing and other useful items at this free box for the last four decades. A petition asking the city to remove the recycling amenity was received on April 17, signed by some of the block’s residents.  

Supporters of the freebox claim that the box’s use of the sidewalk strip precedes the encroachment ordinance by many years. The removal of this last neighborhood free box was ordered by the city manager’s office on May 16. 

“I have grown up in this neighborhood as a foster child and the free box is the only sign which told me whether any human being cared if I lived or died,” Nancy Delaney told councilmembers during the public hearing session. 

Barbara Cappa, a Well Wisher—an informal group formed to save the free box—informed councilmembers about the positive effect the well had on the neighborhood. 

“It’s not perfect, but it’s not violent or noisy either,” she said. “Six hundred people have signed the petition to save the well. We request the council to think carefully before making a decision.” 

Wes Ikenchi said that the well was an embodiment of nurturing, caring, and compassion, which was what the city itself stood for.  

Councilmember Donna Spring said that it was a great tool for recycling and that it was in the city’s best interest to preserve it. 

Councilmember Betty Olds added, “It’s too good to be true that there is such a free box in the city and that it is so well maintained.” 

The council and the city manager decided that the case would be reviewed once again in hopes that some kind of agreement could be reached with the neighbors.

Former City Clerk Sara Cox wasn’t in her office when the Daily Planet went there to speak to her on Wednesday. 

On a plane heading toward Italy, the city clerk had said good-bye to the weekly and bi-weekly 500-page council packets. 

Cox left her post as Berkeley’s number one clerk after a year and four months on the job. She’ll begin a new job as city clerk in a four-person department in Napa in mid July. 

Until an acting replacement is found, former City Clerk Sherry Kelly, who has been working as a consultant in the clerk’s office, is expected to fill in, said City Manger Phil Kamlarz. 

“We’re fortunate to have people here like Sherry,” Kamlarz said, adding that Kelly had been planning to help with the November elections. Kelly was not available for comment on Thursday. 

Councilmember Dona Spring called the clerk’s position “a burn-out job,” demanding 80 hours a week and 100 hours at election time. 

“No one could handle all the details,” Spring said, adding that Cox told her that she and her husband needed to slow down and live at a slower pace. 

This year, the clerk’s department of 11 has been down three people, with two on maternity leave and one in the military. 

Kamlarz said the council has authorized him to hire another staff person in the next fiscal year for that office. Finding people to act as temporary replacements is difficult, Kamlarz said, with “weekly deadlines and no room for mistakes.” 

Spring said the department has enormous turnover. “Staff gets trained and transfers out to other departments,” she said. “How can you run a department that is so time-consuming and never stable?” 

“It’s a workload issue,” said Mayor Tom Bates, noting that active citizens and commissioners create a demand for information. “People come here and learn by fire, then go to another city and it’s a piece of cake.” 

“It’s a strain every week” to get out the council agenda packet. “Sara and Sherry made it look easy.” Kamlarz said. “Sara did a good job.”

The Berkeley teachers’ union is urging the school district to apologize for threatening to dock the pay of teachers who skipped school last month to attend protests. 

A number of Berkeley Unified School District (BUSD) teachers received letters stating that their salaries would be dinged for skipping classes May 1, the day of immigrant rights rallies nationwide. Berkeley teachers have since received paychecks for the month of May, and no deductions were made. It is unclear, however, whether the initial threat has been rescinded or will be carried out in the future.  

“There’s been no decision made as to how we’re going to handle the situation,” said Superintendent Michele Lawrence. 

Now, the Berkeley Federation of Teachers (BFT), the union representing 700 teachers, counselors, librarians and others, is seeking a formal admission of error.  

“We think the best way for them to resolve this at this point is to send teachers an apology,” said BFT President Barry Fike in an interview earlier this month. 

The letters state that missing school to attend immigrant rights rallies does not adhere to terms of the union’s contract. Specifically, they cite a provision, which stipulates that a request for leave must be made in writing on discrete grounds, such as a death in the family, a wedding or a court appearance. 

Fike says even if teachers failed to comply with standard absence reporting procedures, the district does not, per the contract, have license to cut pay. The average teacher would lose about $285, and could miss out on retirement credits.  

Letters went out at the site level and were signed by principals and vice principals on school letterhead, but the text in the various missives is similar, Fike said, leading him to speculate that central administration spearheaded the effort and school administrators followed along. 

The district, however, is not accepting responsibility. On Wednesday, Lawrence said she did not know where the letters originated. 

Almost 80 teachers missed school May 1, though how many reported absent to attend rallies is not known, Lawrence said. Also a mystery is why some employees who were absent received letters whereas others did not. 

Berkeley High School English teacher Ingrid Martinez believes employees with Latino surnames were targeted, pointing out that two white teachers she knows attended protests, but were not disciplined. 

“This is a strong negative message they’re sending about what happens when you stand up for yourself,” she said. “And this is Berkeley? I’m shocked …I would love a public apology and acknowledgement that this was not the right way to go about it.” 

Lawrence adamantly denies claims of racial profiling. “That is absolutely and totally false,” she said. 

Berkeley High history and English teacher Tim Moellering, who is not Latino, received a letter after admitting to a vice principal that he skipped school to attend a protest at UC Berkeley. Though he called the threatening memo “a really stupid idea,” he said he’s not taking it to heart. 

“I don’t consider it personal in any way,” he said. “I don’t think that there is anyone who is opposed to the (immigrants’ rights) cause, I think it’s a matter of the superintendent (and her staff) trying to show that they’re in charge.”

The Berkeley Unified School District (BUSD) has hired a new assistant superintendent of human resources, a district spokesperson announced last Thursday. 

Lisa Udell, director of human resources in the 9,750-student Milpitas Unified School District, will replace Patricia Calvert, Berkeley’s existing director of certificated employees, who leaves the district June 30. 

Udell secured a two-year contract. She will earn $134,931 a year, effective July 1.  

“I’m really excited about coming to Berkeley,” she said in a phone interview Tuesday.  

Udell, 55, a former school administrator and elementary, middle and high school teacher, has worked in human resources in the Milpitas school district for three years, at one point acting as both the HR director and interim assistant superintendent when a colleague fell ill. 

“I’ve had the full experience of human resources,” she said. “From negotiations, to hiring to layoffs.” 

She counts minimizing employee layoffs during a budget crisis and peaceful negotiations with the district’s two unions among her successes in Milpitas. 

In the 9,000-student Berkeley Unified School District, Udell will face myriad hiring complexities associated with the district’s grants, special taxes and federal accountability standards. She also inherits a reputedly fractious work force, marked by 1,500 employees and five unions. 

“Berkeley is a little more contentious, but that’s OK,” she said. “Conflict is inherent to the job.” 

Udell is BUSD’s first assistant superintendent for human resources. In April, the Berkeley Board of Education approved replacing the director title with a higher-paying position as part of a larger effort to fill holes in the district’s managerial infrastructure. 

In the same meeting, the board issued pink slips to more than 70 employees, most of whom were paraprofessionals who had not yet met the higher education requirements of the federal No Child Left Behind Act. 

In a 22-0 vote last week, workers at the Landmark Theater-owned Shattuck Cinemas won their union. 

“It’s exactly what we were expecting, but it feels good,” said Harjit Gill, organizer with the Industrial Workers of the World. 

“Though the struggle may not be over, workers at the Shattuck are looking with high hopes towards the future, and with massive support from the citizens of Berkeley and a landslide victory now behind them, that future looks bright indeed,” the cinema workers said in a press release. 

Landmark affirmed that the company is ready to sit down at the table. 

“Since the union has won, then Landmark intends to bargain with them and work hard to reach an acceptable agreement,” said Melissa Raddatz, director of publicity for Landmark Theaters. 

Once the election is certified by the National Labor Relations Board, “bargaining will commence,” Raddatz added. 

The sign Ramzi Obeid carried Tuesday afternoon at the downtown Berkeley BART station demonstration read: “Killing and destruction in Gaza—paid for by our taxes.” 

The demonstration that attracted about 100 protesters and a dozen counter-demonstrators was aimed at making the public aware of the recent killings in the Gaza strip, Palestine, and was organized by the Berkeley-based Middle East Children’s Alliance and the American Arab Anti-discrimination Committee. 

Obeid—a Palestinian-American who says he cannot go to the family home his mother left in 1948 in Jaffa, Israel-Palestine, because “I am not Jewish”—condemns the Israeli shelling of Palestinians in Gaza. 

Standing on a pick-up truck south of the BART station, Middle East Children’s Alliance Executive Director Barbara Lubin described the June 9 incident on a beach in Gaza when eight members of one family, including a six-month old infant, were killed while picnicking, allegedly a result of Israeli shelling. 

Lubin read a statement from Mona Elfarra, a physician working in Gaza: “An Israeli gunship suddenly fired at random against the beach while army tanks fired artillery shells and Apache helicopters crossed the sky; 40 civilians were injured, 10 killed.” The picnickers were among them. 

Counter-demonstrators flew Israeli flags and sported placards such as “Pro-Israel/Pro-Peace.” When Lubin addressed the rally from the truck, several pro-Israeli demonstrators moved from the north side of the BART station close to the demonstration, where picketers were circling as they listened to Lubin. 

“You’re lying Barbara, you’re lying,” yelled a counter-demonstrator through a bullhorn as he approached the truck with several others carrying Israeli flags. 

Lubin encouraged protesters to keep marching and ignore the other protestors as Berkeley police moved in to keep the pro-Israel group away from the pro-Palestine rally. 

Sanne DeWitt, a spokesperson for the pro-Israel demonstrators from Stand With Us, San Francisco Voice for Israel and Israel Action Committee of the East Bay, told the Daily Planet: “A lot of lies have been told.” 

Speaking to the protesters, Lubin contended that Palestinian functionaries have not been paid for months; the Israelis collect taxes and refuse to turn them over to the Palestinian Authority. “There’s no money to feed the children,” she said. 

DeWitt defended the Israeli government’s refusal to relinquish the Palistinian funds. “I’m concerned that Hamas [the ruling party] will use the funds to buy weapons and fight,” she said. 

After a few short speeches the protesters took their march to University Avenue down to Sacramento Street then back up to the BART station.

Le Conte neighborhood residents have raised several concerns to the city of Berkeley about the storage facility on 2721 Shattuck Ave. They claim that since developer Patrick Kennedy bought the property in January the building has been undergoing construction non-stop without adequate permits.  

According to Jim Hultman, a neighborhood resident, neighbors have turned in nine requests for service since January with no response from the city. 

“I have hand-delivered three myself,” said Hultman. “In April permits were finally taken out for the installation of a new elevator. However, the work being done goes way beyond elevator work, sometimes beginning as early as 6:30 a.m.” 

Jim Hynes, assistant to the city manager, said that although there were discrepancies on the file about the permits, the application was under review at the moment. 

“Only after this has been reviewed can we comment on the case,” he said. “However, it is my understanding that the construction is going on at the site with all the proper permits.” 

Kennedy did not return calls for comment. 

Neighbors have also complained about storage lockers being installed in the loading area where vehicles are supposed to be able to pull into the building to offload on the Ward Street side. 

“Additionally, the required ‘no offloading vehicles’ sign on the outside of the building has been removed,” Hultman said. “Keep in mind that offloading of vehicles is clearly prohibited under Section 23E.32.010 Off-street Loading Spaces C, F. They have been noticed in the past that no vehicles may offload on Ward Street. Instead, vehicles must pull entirely inside the building to offload. If unable to do so they are supposed to use the Shattuck Avenue lot.” 

A resident who has lived on Ward Street for more than 20 years but did not want to be named said that the neighbors wanted the facility to stop ignoring the zoning laws. 

“We do not want the streets, sidewalks, or entrances blocked because of the trucks offloading or being parked in the area,” the resident said. “We don’t want them to sell parking space—it’s really surprising to see that the last two parking spaces the storage facility had in the Shattuck Avenue lot are now painted City Carshare vehicles only.” 

The resident said “City Carshare is a great program, but we are furious that neighbors were not contacted, just like the time when the previous owners began renting Ryder Trucks, which we put a stop to. There should be some kind of an input from the residents about what can be done in the neighborhood, but instead we continue to be ignored.” 

Neighbors also oppose the construction of 18 cellphone towers on the same property. Karl Reeh, president of the Le Conte Neighborhood Association, told The Planet that the association had recently sent a letter to the city council to stop this construction. 

“We feel the decision where [the city] did not allow antennas on Gilman Street also applies to us,” Reeh said. “We think we should have been notified before they started construction on the towers a month ago. It is really inappropriate to start building even before the appeal has been passed.”

The future of the Ashby BART Task Force remains an open question, itself comprised of a host of lesser questions, ranging from the geographic to the mundane, says Co-chair John Selawsky. 

But Mayor Tom Bates has asked the City Council to approve $40,000 “for a community process to discuss the future of the Ashby BART West Parking Lot.” 

Just what that process would be isn’t spelled out in the mayor’s budget recommendations, but he had indicated earlier that he saw some role for the existing task force set up to administer a state grant that never materialized. 

His request would replace one third of the $120,000 grant denied by CalTrans last month to plan a transit-oriented development atop the parking lot. 

The task force had been created under the aegis of the South Berkeley Neighborhood Development Corporation to select a developer and create the outlines of a project for the site. 

Caltrans officials said they rejected the grant because it scored low on the agency’s list of priorities. 

Since that denial, the task force has been wrestling with its own future—as have the panel’s two biggest boosters on the city council, Mayor Tom Bates and Councilmember Max Anderson. 

Meeting privately two days before Monday’s public meeting, task force members had agreed they needed to seek new direction from the City Council, Selawsky said. 

“We also agreed unanimously that we were pulling a discussion of eminent domain off the table,” said Selawsky. 

The group, which was created to plan development on the main parking lot of the Ashby BART station, took no action at their Monday meeting, he said. 

While some of the issues facing the task force are highly charged political questions, another one is more basic—the need for a petty cash fund to pay for flyers, copies of minutes and other mundane expenses. 

“Right now we don’t have any funding,” Selawsky said. “As it is, we’re only talking about $400 or $500.” 

Another question is a venue for future task force public meetings. “We have the South Berkeley Senior Center on Mondays through July. What happens after that we don’t know,” Selawsky said. 

The largest question is geographic—defining a boundary for the area the task force should study. 

“At our last public meeting Tom and Max Anderson said it was possible to expand the scope” of the task force beyond the Ashby BART site, Selawsky said. “Tom was talking about the whole Adeline Corridor, which is a huge site. So it could be anything from the BART site to the whole corridor.” 

Because the Adeline corridor and surrounding territory is most of South Berkeley, Selawsky said, “It would take a five-year task force to develop a plan, and I have no idea how we’re going to do that.” 

Selawsky said he wanted to dispel concerns that the task force is serving as an agent for Bates, Anderson and Ed Church, the development professional who has been working for the South Berkeley Neighborhood Development Corporation, the private nonprofit agency picked by the city to spearhead the project. 

“Tom has said he wanted condos, and Max has said he wants affordable housing,” Selawsky said. “$700,000 condos are not compatible with low income housing, so you’d have to be schizophrenic to be their agent.” 

Osha Neumann, who lives across Martin Luther King Jr. Way from the site and who serves as attorney for Community Services United, the group that administers the Berkeley Flea Market which is held weekends on the lot, attended Monday’s task force meeting and came away with more questions than answers. 

“They told us they would listen to our questions, but they wouldn’t respond,” he said. 

Neumann said he learned of the mayor’s budget request later, though the document was prepared earlier on the same day as the meeting. 

“It doesn’t say who is getting the funding,” he said. 

Bates had told an earlier task force meeting that he hoped to see the planning process extended to include the whole Adeline Street corridor—though the budget requests keeps the focus solely on the parking lot. 

“What the task force is keeps morphing,” Neumann said.

A Marin County judge Wednesday endorsed claims by environmentalists and the East Bay Regional Parks District (EBRPD) that the city of Richmond violated environmental law in its sale of Point Molate to casino developers. 

The statement came in a ruling that held that the city and two casino development companies are liable for the costs of an earlier lawsuit.  

The three-page ruling by Superior Court Judge Vernon F. Smith awards $250,000 in legal fees and costs—the full amount they had sought. 

Upstream Point Molate, LLC, the corporation founded by Berkeley developer James D. Levine to develop the casino, had already paid $13,740 to the state Attorney General’s office as part of a Jan. 20 settlement that ended the lawsuit. 

Levine said he will appeal the ruling. 

The third defendant in the action was Harrah’s Operating Company, the world’s largest gambling firm and the would-be operator of the 2,500-slot-machine casino, hotel, entertainment and shopping complex planned for the North Richmond shoreline. 

The East Bay Regional Parks District filed one action, and a parallel suit was filed by the Sierra Club, Citizens for East Shore Parks (CESP) and the North Richmond Shoreline and Open Space Alliance. Both actions charged that the Richmond City Council violated the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) in their Nov. 16, 2004 vote to sell the property.  

The judge awarded $150,000 to the parks district, and the remainder would pay for all costs incurred by CESP and the environmentalists. 

“They gave us everything we asked for,” said CESP President Robert Cheasty, an Albany attorney. “This is a major victory for the forces of right and for the protection of our fellow creatures.” 

“We’re very grateful that the judge’s recognition of the significance of our lawsuit,” said Stephen C. Volker, the Oakland attorney who represented the environmental groups. 

The fees were awarded under a state provision that awards fees to private citizens and groups who act in the public interest under the so-called private attorney general doctrine. 

Smith wrote that the settlement “led to the enforcement of an important right that conferred significant benefits on the public.” 

While the city and the developers had claimed the litigation costs didn’t transcend the parks district’s interest in seeing the site remain open space or a possible addition to the parks system, Smith said the district “represents the interests of all residents and visitors to the area who would benefit from protection of the natural resources of this parcel.” 

“We think the judge took a swing and a miss,” said Levine. 

“This is another example in a long line of examples where the lower courts got it wrong,” said Levine, adding that it took a U.S. Supreme Court ruling to overturn lower ruling upholding school segregation. 

In a prepared statement, parks district attorney Ted Radosevich said the district had to take action because the potential loss of bay access, recreational opportunities and wildlife habitat as well as impacts to historic buildings and archeological sites could be enormous. 

The key issue—which was resolved by the settlement—was that the city couldn’t sign a binding agreement to sell the land, a former U.S. Navy refueling station it had bought for a dollar from the Navy. 

The Richmond City Council approved the sale on Nov. 9, 2004, after interim City Manager Phil Batchelor placed the long-term value of the Upstream offer at over $350 million, a powerful incentive for a city then awash in a sea of red ink. 

The parks district and the environmentalists charged that the sale was illegal because it took place without an environmental review—a process from which the city claimed it was exempt. 

Under the settlement approved in January, the city agreed it could select any use for the property, and the developers agreed that a decision not to sell or lease the land to them wouldn’t constitute a breach of the sale agreement. 

While the environmentalists and the parks district won the battle, the war may be lost. 

A joint environmental review is now underway under both state and federal processes, as is the application of the Guidiville band of Pomo tribespeople to take the law as a reservation. 

That document should be ready sometime this fall, Levine said. 

The developers plan a full Las Vegas-scale casino, along with a showroom, an upscale shopping complex, and a hotel complex at the site. If the Bureau of Indian Affairs denies the tribe’s application, Levine is looking at a condominium project as an alternative. 

The settlement also barred the city from lobbying the state and federal governments to approve the casino proposal, which Volker said was both pernicious and illegal.

The city’s downtown planning committee flexed its muscles Wednesday, demanding access to a previously closed tax force. 

And the developers of a proposed new university-backed hotel at the heart of downtown made it clear they want fast approval for their project. 

Closed meet challenge 

Members of the Downtown Area Plan Advisory Committee (DAPAC) voted 18-0-1 to open up meetings of the previously closed technical advisory committee (TAC). 

Former City Councilmember Mim Hawley abstained. 

Members said they were irked that they could receive only second-hand accounts of the meeting of experts helping the city staff and UC Berkeley officials on key details of the planning process. 

“I don’t find that you telling us for five minutes about what the TAC did really helps me understand,” Lisa Stephens told Matt Taecker, the planner hired by the city with university money to direct the planning process. 

Stephens and other DAPAC members had been barred from attending the first of three scheduled TAC meetings. 

“I know this is a sensitive issue,” said DAPAC Chair Will Travis, who urged the committee to postpone the discussion until after the presentation on the UC-backed hotel/convention center/condo complex. 

But members wanted a decision, and opted to hash out the issue instead of holding a discussion about their individual visions for the future of the downtown. 

In the end, members voted for a resolution mandating that all meetings attended by a majority of TAC members would be noticed as public DAPAC meetings where no action would be taken. The meetings would also be open to the public. 

Fatal delays 

If the city stalls the final go-ahead for the proposed new UC-backed downtown hotel complex beyond “a year or two,” the deal could die. 

That was the ultimatum handed down Wednesday by Richard L. Friedman, CEO and president of Boston-based Carpenter & Co. 

With construction costs at record highs of about $300 a square foot for similar projects and China consuming most of the world’s building supplies, any longer delay could prove fatal to the project, he said. 

“I heard about the four-year approval for a supermarket,” he said, referring to the long battle over the just-approved new Berkeley Bowl at Ninth Street and Heinz Avenue. 

The still-unnamed hotel could become the tallest new construction in Berkeley since the construction of the 13-story Power Bar building in 1971. 

“It’s unbelievable that Berkeley doesn’t have a great hotel,” Friedman said. “This is a tremendous opportunity” 

One of the country’s leading builders of upscale hotels, Carpenter was picked by UC Berkeley to develop a hotel at the northwest corner of the Shattuck Avenue/Center Street intersection. 

He shared his vision of the hotel—and the admonition—during Wednesday night’s meeting. 

DAPAC is working on a new downtown plan mandated in the settlement of a city lawsuit that challenged the university’s Long Range Development Plan outlining expansion plans through 2020, much of it into the downtown area. 

Though the hotel is a private development and will only lease its site from the university, the facility has been a key element in the university’s plans because of the need for upscale rooms for university visitors and guests. 

One Sept. 1, 2003, the university and Carpenter signed the first of a series of exclusive development agreements, which finally culminated earlier this month in the announcement that the details had been resolved and planning would begin. 

The City Council responded by appointing a UC Hotel Task Force, which developed a series of recommendations during a series of eight meetings. 

Peter Diana, vice president and general counsel for the firm, praised “the incredibly thoughtful report” prepared by the task force, and explained that many of the group’s suggestions would be incorporated in their plans. 

“The task force recommended 175 to 225 rooms, and we’re proposing 210,” he said. The ultimate design will also open up the hotel to Center Street, as recommended in the report, and the building will also contain condominium units, another recommendation. 

Similarly, all 200 parking spaces will be underground, another task force recommendation. 

Friedman and architect Gary C. Johnson of Cambridge Seven Associates, who will be designing the project with an as-yet-to-be-hired area architect, said they had no problems with closing Center Street, another task force recommendation. 

But Friedman said closing the eastern lanes of Shattuck Avenue where the roadway splits at Shattuck Square would be a deal-breaker. 

“If you closed Shattuck and Center Street, you wouldn’t have a hotel,” he said. “It would be a non-starter.” 

Several task force members have called for closing the eastern lanes and relocating all traffic to the west. 

The Massachusetts trio received a friendly reception from DAPAC members, answering questions. 

Planning Commissioner and DAPAC member Gene Poschman asked if the university was receiving any special accommodations from the hotelier. 

“This is a market rate hotel,” said Friedman. Though UC would probably be the largest single source of clientele, there was no deal on rates, he said. “We’re not subsidizing them. They’re not subsidizing us.” 

When Poschman asked about ownership of the land, Friedman said Bank of America, the current owner, would only sell to the university, because of a deal that gave the bank tax benefits. 

DAPAC member Patti Dacey said she was excited about the project, “but one of my concerns is that the hotel honor the historic character of the downtown.” What she heard, she said, “has made me feel better.” 

Asked about rates, Friedman point to the company’s Charles Hotel near Harvard Square in Boston, where rooms average about $250 a night. 

“Could you charge more for Stanford and USC fans,” quipped DAPAC member Jenny Wenk. 

Friedman smiled. 

Rat pack invaders 

A half dozen juveniles, all clad in dark clothing and one with his face masked by a bandana, burst into a home in the 2800 block of McGee Avenue minutes after 4 p.m. on June 5 and staged a BB-gun-point robbery. 

The invaders held the weapon on the home’s lone occupant, another youth, until he handed over his own BB-gun, whereupon the invaders departed, said Berkeley police spokesman, Officer Ed Galvan. 

Walk-in banditry 

A pair of strong-arm robbers walked into the unlocked back door of a residence in the 900 block of Virginia Street June 6, confronted the surprised resident and demanded his wallet. 

When he declined their offer, the bandits decided to retreat, and they had vanished by the time police arrived. 

Failed carjack 

An El Sobrante man told police about 3 p.m. on the 6th to report that he’d been sitting in his GMC SUV at the foot of the pier in the Berkeley Marina when he and a companion were approached a gang of 10 or so short fellows, one of whom reached in the opened window and made an unsuccessful attempt to grab the keys from the ignition. 

Cohorts managed to rob the companion of a cell phone and wallet, he said. 

Walk-by shooting 

A 47-year-old Berkeley woman called to report that she’d been shot by a pellet gun wielded by one of a trio of men who approached her while she walking in the 1800 block of Oregon Street just after 5 p.m. on the 6th. 

The men, all wearing white hats and matching T-shirts were gone by the time officers arrived. The woman declined medical treatment.  

Home invader 

“I’m looking for a job,” declared the tall man in the dark blazer who forced his way into a home in the 2700 block of Benvenue Street on June 8 just before 10:30 a.m. 

Trolling a wheeled suitcase behind him, the intruder forced the home’s terrified 32-year-old occupant to hand over her keys before he departed. 

Officers arrived in time to locate the suspect nearby, a 23-year-old. 

Shoving bandit 

A strong-arm bandit robbed a Berkeley woman by shoving her to the ground as she walked along Derby Street near the Milvia Street intersection about 3:40 p.m. on June 8, Officer Galvan reported. 

Foiled heist 

A 34-year-old Oakland woman managed to fend off the attack of two strong-arm bandits who accosted her as she walked along the 1800 block of Seventh Street at 1:30 a.m. on June 10.

About 700 students graduated from Berkeley’s high schools Friday. 

Families and friends gathered at the Greek Theater that evening to watch students from Berkeley High School, the Berkeley Alternative School and Independent Study receive high school diplomas. 

Additional ceremonies for Communication Arts and Sciences (CAS) and Community Partnerships Academy (CPA), small schools within the larger high school, were held earlier in the month. 

Three cultural graduations on separate days also took place, including a celebration at St. Joseph the Worker on Saturday (pictured above) for the school’s La Raza group. 

This is the first year public school students were required to pass an exit exam to graduate from high school. Between 20 and 30 students in the Berkeley Unified School District did not receive a diploma because they have not passed the exam, according to the district. 

Seniors who met all other graduation requirements but did not pass the exam were still allowed to walk the stage Friday and have additional opportunities to pass the test. 

A group of neighbors is proposing a new plan for the East Campus/ Derby Street field that just might find stalwarts on either side of the “Close Derby-Leave Derby Open” debate standing well in agreement. 

Members of the East Campus Neighborhood Association (ECNA) have drafted a blueprint for the vacant South Berkeley playing field, which would allow a regulation-sized baseball diamond to coexist with an open Derby Street. The potential closure of Derby—hitherto deemed a necessity to accommodate a standard baseball field for the Berkeley High School baseball team—has been an ongoing source of contentiousness in the city, pitting the BHS athletics community against neighbors and other stakeholders.  

The new proposal for East Campus, a Berkeley Unified School District-owned expanse bounded by Martin Luther King Jr. Way and Ward, Carleton and Milvia streets, would involve reconfiguring Derby to form an arc half way up the block to Milvia. A corner of the baseball diamond would fit squarely in that curvature. 

The plan, aptly dubbed “Curvy Derby,” would feature a discrete, multi-use playing field, a basketball court and most notably, proponents say, Derby stays open. Derby hosts a weekly farmers’ market often billed as a cultural asset to the neighborhood.  

“The problem needed a solution and it wasn’t getting anywhere,” said Susi Marzuola, an ECNA member and architect by profession. She forged the plan with a handful of others. “It’s an evolution from the [closed-street] plan and a good one.” 

To achieve the configuration, Carleton would have to be narrowed to 28 feet, Marzuola said, such that one side loses on-street parking. To compensate, Milvia will hold about 20 spaces, and the neighborhood will not suffer any net loss of on-street parking, she said. 

The concept has earned the tentative backing of both School Board President Terry Doran and Director John Selawsky, typically opponents on the East Campus issue.  

“I think it has possibilities,” said Selawsky. 

In a phone interview Friday, Doran said, “I’m so impressed. I want to thank the neighbors for coming up with a very creative plan that looks like it meets everyone’s needs.” 

Doran is a longstanding supporter of building a regulation-sized diamond for the BHS baseball team, which currently practices at San Pablo Park, a site that is not within walking distance from Berkeley High. 

Men’s baseball team coach Tim Moellering has also expressed support for the Curvy Derby proposal. “It looks pretty good to me,” he said. 

Because the decision to close Derby would ultimately fall to the City Council, city officials are additionally weighing in on the new plan. City Councilmember Max Anderson of District 3, said Friday, “It looks like it has some real promise, and it’s certainly worth exploring.” 

Curvy Derby represents a compromise for East Campus neighbors, Marzuola said; it must therefore be considered in conjunction with a series of requests. Among them: that a community design process take place, that the farmers’ market be allowed to operate on Derby and that BUSD make restrooms available to the farmers’ market. 

“For us to support this plan, these conditions have to be not only considered, but enforced,” she said.  

In February and May, the Board of Education agreed to allocate funding for an environmental impact report to analyze the effects of a closed- and an open-street plan. ECNA members hope the new proposal gets thrown into the mix. Since the plan is in its infancy, ECNA is asking the school district to hold community meetings that would permit a full, public vetting process.  

“The intent initially from the community is that it be a starting place,” said Pam Webster, an East Campus neighbor and volunteer at the Berkeley Alternative High School, which stands directly adjacent to the site. “We don’t expect it to be an end-all.” 

At a two-by-two meeting between the school district and the City Council last Tuesday, Mayor Tom Bates commended the proposal and exacted pressure on BUSD to take it into consideration. 

“It looks like it has a lot of elements that are very positive,” he said. “We encourage the district to put this on the table.”

Health care advocates and labor leaders stepped up their pressure on Alameda County supervisors this week to help the Alameda County Medical Center close a $4.8 million budget gap by asking the county to cut loan interest and rent payments owed by the medical center. 

Final adoption of the 2006-07 county budget is scheduled for Friday. The medical center board of trustees is scheduled to review the 2006-07 medical center budget next Tuesday. 

At Monday’s Board of Supervisors hearings on the Alameda County budget, SEIU Local 250 representative Charlie Ridgell accused supervisors of operating a “three-card monte” game over health care Measure A monies, saying that the medical center “would not have a deficit except for its $200 million debt to the county, and that debt only came up for discussion after the passage of Measure A.” 

Measure A was a supplemental health care package passed by Alameda County voters in March of 2004. 

Ridgell charged supervisors that because the language of Measure A did not allow the county to dip directly into the measure’s funds. “You invented a reason to take that money away anyhow,” he said. 

Seventy-five percent of the Measure A’s sales tax money earmarked to supplement the budget of the Alameda County Medical Center and the other 25 percent going to local health care clinics and other supplemental health care services. Measure A sales tax revenues have been running above budgeted expectations, with the county received $95.8 million in Measure A monies in fiscal year 2004-05 and another $74.2 million as of the first eight months of fiscal year 2005-06.  

In a letter sent to Board of Supervisors President Carson prior to Monday’s hearing, SEIU Local 616 Executive Director Fran Jefferson asked supervisors to “forgive $6.6 million in ACMC interest payments to the county” and “$1.5 million in ACMC rent payments to the county for the Eastmont, Winton, and Newark health clinics.” Jefferson said that such a forgiveness of the debt and rental payments “should result in no impact on the county’s operating budget.” 

County staff members said that rental payment to the county for the use of the health care clinics was included in the original agreement with the medical center, and that the county must make the rental payments themselves to the owners of the clinics’ property. 

Board of Supervisors President Keith Carson prefaced the public comment period of the hearing by citing a list of past financial obligations that he said had been transferred from the medical center to other county departments. But giving indications that he might not support the proposed interest payment and rent payment forgiveness, Carson said that the past debt transfer process between the county and the medical center was “merely robbing Peter to pay Paul.” 

Carson also said that Medical Center CEO Wright Lassiter has pledged to cut the remaining $4.8 million medical center deficit, and said that he while he expected Lassiter to follow through with that commitment, he said he would also introduce backup measures to supervisors this week to close the center’s funding gap in the event Lassiter cannot make the necessary cuts. 

“County government is the safety net for citizen health care,” Carson said. 

But Vote Health chair Kay Eisenhower urged supervisors to come up with the deficit money without asking the center to do so, saying that the medical center is proposing cutting 100 additional staff positions on top of another hundred layoffs already in the works, a process she said would severely hurt the medical center. 

“There’s very little that Lassiter can do but more layoffs,” Eisenhower said, adding that it was “particularly distressing that most of the [medical center’s] budget problems comes from debt to the county,” which she said came from periods when federal or state funds to the medical center were late, and the county had to make payments for the center. 

Eisenhower called it “galling that the county is asking for interest on this debt,” and said that when county agencies such as the sheriff’s department come up short, “the county comes up with money for the department but doesn’t call that a loan to be paid back.” 

Eisenhower said that was a “backdoor way of getting Measure A funds.”  

She said that the issue of the medical center debt to the county came up during discussions of the “blue ribbon task force convened by Supervisors Nate Miley and Gale Steele” that eventually led to the writing of the ballot language that became Measure A. 

“When I first looked at the language that was in the measure, I asked the county counsel if the measure as it was then written would allow the county to get its dibs on the health care bond money even before it went to the medical center,” Eisenhower said. “Supervisor Steele said that wasn’t the intention of the measure, but the county counsel told me that yes, the language would allow that, and so that language was taken out of the measure before it actually went before the voters.” 

Sen. John Kerry dropped by Berkeley Fire Department Station No. 2 on Friday to talk to firefighters. The senator stopped by the Berkeley Way station after visiting Google headquarters in Mountain View on his way to San Francisco. 

“John Kerry is a big fan of firefighters and he often pays them a visit,” said Gil Dong, Berkeley’s assistant fire chief. “When he ran for president, the firefighters were one of the first to endorse him.”  

The Berkeley Fire Department has recently received four federal grants totaling $1.3 million, including one from FEMA, an accomplishment which Berkeley Deputy Fire Chief David Orth pointed out to Kerry. 

Kerry has been an advocate for firefighers and has pushed for better funding to upgrade equipment in departments around the country. He said that half the firefighters don’t have the radios they need to communicate in a crisis. 

The senator asked whether the department had a communication system integrated with the Berkeley Police Department and other government offices. Dong replied that such a system was expensive and would require additional funds. 

“We have been working with the UC engineering department to work on government shortfalls and build better equipment,” Dong said. 

Kerry spent about 30 minutes chatting with the firefighters, asking about their duties and operations. He observed demonstrations of a breathing apparatus and an auto ejector. 

“Berkeley has a fine Fire Department and it’s very well equipped,” Kerry said. “The spirit is just great. However, there is immediate need to speed up certain technology such as the integrated comm system which would help firefighters in more ways than one during disaster.” 

Asked about his current work, the senator said he has been keeping busy and has been working with more than 150 Democratic Senate candidates. “I am hopeful about Pennsylvania, Montana and Missouri,” he said. 

Asked whether he was planning to run for president again, Kerry said, “I am thinking about it. Let’s see how 2006 goes.” 

Photograph by Riya Bhattacharjee

As the Berkeley City Council heads down the final stretch toward its mid-July summer recess, it will face a packed agenda that will include a discussion of possible eviction of the artists from the Nexus Workshop.  

Citing a law that says if West Berkeley artist workspace is taken out of use, it must be replaced, the Civic Arts Commission is asking the City Council to step in and help delay the eviction of some 25 artists from the 2700 block of 8th Street that has served artists since 1973.  

The Berkeley Humane Society owns the property and wants to sell it. It threatened to evict the tenants June 1, but has not yet done so. 

“It’s private property,” said Councilmember Darryl Moore, who represents the area. The best the city can do is help the artists negotiate with the landlords, he said. 

“They have the right of first refusal [to purchase the property] but they don’t seem to have the resources,” he said.  

“Nexus is ... theoretically ... protected by the arts and crafts ordinance and the protective zoning that requires comparable replacement space for arts and crafts uses elsewhere in West Berkeley if those uses are removed from their existing location,” artist Bob Brokl wrote in a letter published June 9 in the Daily Planet. 

However, a staff report written by Thomas Myers, acting manager of economic development, also says the city cannot intervene. In response to the Civic Arts Commission request, Myers recommends “the council take no action regarding private disputes between a landlord and tenants.” 

The staff report concludes that it “cannot force the Berkeley Humane Society to sell the property to Nexus or any other buyer as that is the right of the owner.” 

Landmarks ordinance 

The council will also be asked to approve new “compromise” revisions to the 30-year-old Landmarks Preservation Ordinance. Copies of the draft ordinance—which staff is still reviewing—were issued around 5:30 p.m. Friday by Mayor Tom Bates’ office to those who requested the ordinance. To receive an ordinance by e-mail, call Bates’ office at 981-7100. 

When reached by the Daily Planet Sunday evening, Landmarks Preservation Commissioner Lesley Emmington had yet to study the draft revision. Emmington supports the November ballot measure that would preserve the ordinance almost as it is now written with minor updates. 

The present ordinance “embraces the diversity of the neighborhoods,” Emmington said, explaining that she fears changes will make it easier to remodel or demolish historic buildings without first having gone through a thorough public process.  

Bates’ draft ordinance tightens timelines for review of structures believed to have historic significance, something which Emmington fears might hurt citizen participation in the review process. 

If the council gives its approval to the draft ordinance, it will go back to the Landmarks Preservation Commission for more discussion and to the State Historic Preservation Office for review. Bates’ report says the ordinance will come back to the council in July for approval. 

Fee Hikes? 

The council will hold a public hearing and then vote on hiking residential sewer fees 3 percent for residential uses, 1 percent for commercial and 3.5 percent for public agencies. 

The council will also hold a public hearing and then vote on a fee increase of 8 percent for trash pickup services. 

On the Ballot? 

The City Council will vote on whether to put four proposed measures on the November ballot. (It costs the city about $10,000 for each measure it places on the ballot). The measures would: 

• increase to the parcel tax to fund the warm pool for the disabled and elderly at Berkeley High on the November ballot or fund it another way, according to the proposal by Councilmember Dona Spring. 

• allow 17-year-olds in Berkeley vote for school board members. This measure supported by the Youth Commission would be a survey, rather than a mandate, given that state law prohibits people under 18 from voting. 

• amend the Berkeley Waterfront Plan so that public and commercial recreation sports facilities can be built, thus permitting construction of the Gilman Street Playing Fields at the foot of Gilman Street within the 16 acres belonging to the East Bay Regional Parks District without going through a public hearing process. 

• ask the council to “support aggressive efforts to reduce climate changing green house gas emissions.” 

State Bill on Sweeping Citations 

From time to time the council takes positions on bills before the state legislature. Because it will increase the costs of the city’s street sweeper program, the city manager is asking the council to oppose SB 1404, which says that if an individual whose street has not been swept receives a parking citation, that person can contest it. 

“The city of Berkeley already mandates that parking enforcement officers stay at maximum one block ahead of street sweepers to ensure that if the street is not swept, no citations are issued,” a city manager’s report says. 

Other items 

The council will also hear an appeal of a May 11 Zoning Adjustments Board decision granting a permit for a carbon adsorption system to reduce odors at Pacific Steel Casting’s Plant No. 3 near Camellia and Second streets in West Berkeley. 

The installation of the filtration system is one of a number of requirements the Bay Area Air Quality Management District imposed on PSC to reduce air quality problems. L.A. Wood is appealing ZAB’s approval, alleging that the ZAB meeting was not held according to open meeting requirements and that the BAAQMD does not have the experience to choose a filtration system for this plant. 

The council will also discuss the back yard and side yard parking ordinance.

While the City Council will hold a public hearing on the budget tonight (Tuesday), only a fraction of Berkeley’s $300 million budget is actually in question. 

Most of the budget is comprised of fixed costs: parks, police, fire, the planning department, the housing authority and more. These are ongoing costs that rise according to the cost of living and labor negotiations. 

There is about $4.4 million available for one-time expenditures, according to Budget Manager Tracy Vesely. The councilmembers have referred about three dozen budget items to a list they would like to see funded with that money.  

Funds available come mostly from more revenue than anticipated from real estate transfer taxes, the sale of property on Sixth Street and other property-related revenue, according to Vesely. 

If the council approves an increase in parking meter fees from 75 cents per hour to $1 an hour, as the city manager has recommended, that will add about $400,000 to the funds available to the council. (The funds will add up to about $800-$1 million per year, but it would take six months to get the meters recalibrated, Vesely said.) 

Meanwhile, the eight councilmembers, mayor and the public are likely to have a wide range of opinions on how to spend the available funds. 

Councilmember Darryl Moore said he wants to spend money on “those things that serve our young people.” He has recommended a $50,000 expenditure on the Berkeley Boosters/Police Activities League.  

Also, fixing storm drains is a priority, Moore said. In his budget recommendations, the city manager has called for a one-time expenditure of $2.5 million for storm drains above the budgeted annual expenditure of about $3 million.  

And Moore wants to see the planning process on San Pablo Avenue expedited. That would take hiring a senior planner at a cost of about $100,000. The planner would work on Telegraph Avenue area, San Pablo Avenue and other projects. 

Moore said some of the funds required for one-time projects might come from the reserve. The city has 11 percent of its general fund in reserve, he said. “It may be we’re talking about some of that.”  

Vesely, however, said the city manager was considering keeping a higher percentage of the budget in reserve. The amount on hand (actually 7 percent liquid reserve) would fund the city after a disaster like Katrina for one month only, she said. 

Councilmember Gordon Wozniak said he had the impression that the city manager had already allocated funds for one-time expenditures. If funds become available from the parking meters, however, he, like Moore, would like to see the Berkeley Boosters funded. 

“I’m worried about crime—they do great things with kids,” he said. 

And, Wozniak said he’d like to see the fire department funded. It would cost $900,000 to end the rotation of “brown-outs,” where stations close (maximum one per day) to save money on overtime. “Even raising the parking-meter rate would fund only part of it,” he said. 

While much attention has been paid to funding Telegraph Avenue improvements—Councilmember Kriss Worthington is calling for restoring funding at least to the programs that were cut on Telegraph Avenue, including two bicycle police officers and a mental health team ($324,000)—Councilmember Dona Spring is asking for some of the same attention to the downtown area. She wants a mobile crisis team for Telegraph and for downtown. 

“Both suffer from some of the same problems,” she said. 

Spring is also calling for $1 million to be spent for affordable housing, especially for low and very-low income people.  

At tonight’s public hearing, citizens are likely to line up to lobby council for dozens of worthy projects. 

“The system encourages people to ask for more than there is,” Wozniak said. “We have to make a realistic assessment. What will get funded will need five votes.”

The Zoning Adjustments Board is set to consider a mixed-use development project on the two-acre site at 700 University Ave. Thursday. 

The project would involve the construction of two residential structures, complete with retail space and parking, and would include the restoration of a historic railroad station. Two existing buildings which house Brennan’s Irish Pub and Celia’s Restaurant would be demolished, and Brennan’s 

could relocate to the train station. On Thursday, the public is invited to comment on a draft environmental impact report (DEIR) for the development. 

The proposed project would be bounded by Addison and Fourth streets and the Union Pacific Railroad to the west. Surrounding land uses include a parking lot, offices, a sake factory, a discount grocery store and a yet-to-be-complete mixed-use project. The vacant historic train station building, the Southern Pacific Railroad Station, was most recently Xanadu Restaurant. 

The larger of the two proposed edifices, the North Building, would feature 60 dwelling units, 7,335 square feet of retail space and a 19,385-square-foot parking garage and would stand 55-feet high. The area is zoned such that buildings over 50 feet must obtain a variance. 

The smaller South Building would feature 113 units, a 1,720-square-foot fitness and leasing area, and below-grade parking. It would stand 45 feet tall. 

Units would be “for sale” condominiums with either one bedroom or two bedrooms.  

Daniel Deibel of the Urban Housing Group, a San Mateo company that specializes in infill apartment housing communities, is the developer for 700 University Ave. He could not be reached for comment by press time. 

According to the DEIR, the project would cause significant and unavoidable impacts, namely, that traffic at two key intersections would increase. Other potential impacts on air and water quality, noise and transportation could occur. 

Some residents have expressed additional concerns. 

“I think it should be smaller,” said Stephanie Manning, who lives a block from the proposed development. “It’s just too big for this neighborhood.” 

Manning is also concerned about parking. Though the project meets the city’s standards for the amount of parking developers must provide per residential unit, Manning thinks it doesn’t suffice. “It’s already very difficult to park,” she said. 

For Berkeley resident Gale Garcia, one of the project’s greatest drawbacks is that it spells the end for the Brennan’s and Celia’s structures, built in 1959 and 1946 respectively. Last year, Garcia unsuccessfully attempted to secure landmark status for each building. (The Landmarks Preservation Commission designated Celia’s a structure of merit, but the City Council later countermanded that decision.)  

“They’re our meeting places, they’re locally owned small businesses,” Garcia said. “They have history and people care about them.”  

Some have called into question the assumption that Brennan’s will relocate to the railroad station, as the DEIR indicates it will. Margaret Wade, daughter of founder John Brennan, was reached at the restaurant Monday, but refused to comment. 

The review period for the DEIR ends June 26. 

Also on the ZAB agenda Thursday are two other University Avenue projects:  

• The board will continue a hearing on 1865 University Ave., where Toyota of Berkeley hopes to operate an automobile sales and service facility. 

• The board will take public comment on a mixed-use development proposal at 1885 University Ave., which includes retail space for a Trader Joe’s, 148 residential units and a two-level parking garage. 

The Zoning Adjustments Board meets Thursday at 7 p.m., in City Council Chambers, at 2134 Martin Luther King Jr. Way.

People’s Park freebox users have filed a suit against the City of Berkeley for not holding to its 1994 agreement with UC Berkeley, which stated that a freebox, in which people put clothing and other items for others to pick up, must remain in People’s Park. 

Over the last few months, advocates of the freebox have been trying to reconstruct the box at People’s Park despite repeated efforts by UC Berkeley to remove the box. The park currently does not have any kind of freebox. 

The plaintiffs in the case are People’s Park activists Dan McMullan and Michael Diehl and all users of the freebox, who charge the city with not trying to force the university to restore the freebox. 

The mayor’s office declined comment on the suit. 

McMullan, who is also associated with the Disabled People Outside Project, said that the absence of the freebox from the park was causing problems for the homeless who depend on it for their survival everyday. 

“The box wasn’t doing anybody any harm,” he said. “We are people who depend on it for clothes and so much more. Everytime we want to build a new one, UC takes it away. It’s very frustrating. The box has been on the park premises forever.” 

Diehl, who works at the Berkeley Free Clinic, agreed. 

“The UCB police tell us that it’s been done to curb drug and alcohol dealing but the fact of the matter is that all these activities go on anyway,” he said. “The whole situation has actually gotten worse since the box was taken down. Right now there is even some talk of cutting down the trees in the park.” 

According to Diehl, the city had been asked through numerous letters to enforce the 1994 agreement with UC but had not received any kind of response, prompting them to file a lawsuit on June 9 at the Oakland Superior Court.

Members of the Landmarks Preservation Commission will meet Thursday to discuss changes proposed for the city’s Landmarks Preservation Ordinance (LPO). 

Mayor Tom Bates and Councilmember Laurie Capitelli have proposed revisions to the LPO, measures strongly backed by developers and opposed by preservationists. 

Changes to the law require a review under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), which mandates an analysis of impacts to a wide range of factors, including cultural resources. 

The mitigated negative declaration prepared by city planning staff found the proposed revisions would have minimal impact on the city’s historical character—a claim strongly dispute by several LPO members. 

Thursday’s meeting was called to give the commissioners time to comment on the proposal within the time window mandated by CEQA. 

Their comments must be addressed in the final environmental document. 

The mayor’s proposal, which would come in the form of a council action, could be trumped by a November ballot initiative drafted by supporters of the current ordinance. 

That measure would keep the provisions of the existing law, while making timing fixes required by the state Permit Streamlining Act. 

The need for changes prompted a rewrite of the ordinance by LPO members, while the Planning Commission undertook their own rewrite. 

The mayor’s measure significantly changes the ordinance, and would add considerably to the commission’s workload—a move some members claim would undermine the commission’s mandate to preserve the city’s historical features. 

Supporters turned in an estimated 3,200 signatures on petitions to send their initiative to the November ballot. They needed only 2,007. 

If voters approve that measure, it would take precedence over any revisions imposed by City Council action. 

Thursday night’s meeting was called as an unusual second monthly meeting by the LPC because of the full agenda at their regular meeting June 1. 

The session begins at 7:30 p.m. Thursday at the North Berkeley Senior Center, 1901 Hearst Ave. at Martin Luther King Jr. Way. 

New member  

Thursday’s meeting will be the first for the commission’s newest member Miriam Ng, a principal in the real estate company Korman & Ng. 

Ng has been a prominent figure in city affairs; she served two terms as president of the Berkeley Chamber of Commerce and currently serves on the boards of the California Association of Realtors, Aurora Theatre Company and the Berkeley Public Library Foundation. 

“I had served together with Miriam on the Housing Advisory Committee,” Moore said. During a recent conversation, Moore said, “I happened to tell her I was looking for someone to serve on the landmarks commission, and she said she had a working relationship with several of the commissioners.” 

Ng replaces Moore’s first appointee Ted Gartner, who resigned several months ago.

Berkeley’s School Lunch Initiative has attracted a big helping of publicity in recent days, including a feature in the San Francisco Chronicle’s Food section and a spread in Time Magazine. Now, it is garnering the attention of the research world.  

On Wednesday, the Berkeley Board of Education will decide whether to allow three organizations to formally evaluate the initiative, a districtwide effort that attempts to improve the health and well- being of Berkeley’s public school students by placing food at the fore of the classroom. Students learn about where food comes from and are actively engaged in producing what they consume. 

The program is a partnership of the Chez Panisse Foundation and the Berkeley Unified School District (BUSD) in collaboration with the Center for Ecoliteracy and Children’s Hospital Oakland Research Institute (CHORI). 

The center and the research institute, in addition to the UC Berkeley Center for Weight and Health, and the UC Berkeley Institute for the Study of Social Change will take up different areas of research with relation to the initiative. Each is expected to publish findings.  

“I think it is the next logical step,” said school board director John Selawsky, whose work on the board has focused heavily on student nutrition. “I think it’s very exciting.” 

The Center for Weight and Health will look at the initiative’s impact on students’ knowledge, behavior and attitudes on health and nutrition. The study will evaluate fourth- and fifth-graders over three years, and will involve site visits and interviews with food service staff, teachers and parents. Reporting is anticipated by 2010. 

The Institute for the Study of Social Change, which examines issues surrounding race, ethnicity, class and gender, will hone in on social relationships and contexts as they relate to eating habits. Groups of middle school students and their families are slated for study, with a report expected by 2009.  

CHORI, a biomedical research institute, in conjunction with the Center for Ecoliteracy, will analyze students’ physical and metabolic characteristics as they relate to the program. Results may be released as soon as the fall of 2007. 

Data from the California Fitness Test revealed that about a third of BUSD students were overweight in 2003-2004, and a UC study found that the district’s 11- to 15-year-olds were eating only about half the recommended amount of produce. 

The school lunch initative, which counts edible gardens and kitchen classrooms as central components, was implemented in 2004 under the auspices of Alice Waters of Chez Panisse fame. 

Also Wednesday, the Berkeley Board of Education is expected to: 

• vote on a resolution calling for a school parcel tax measure to be placed before voters this November. Berkeley Schools Excellence Project of 2006, as it will be called, is expected to supply the district with about $19.6 million a year for 10 years to maintain small class sizes, arts programs and fund professional development. Directors approved the formal language of the measure at their last regularly scheduled meeting. 

• discuss the district’s 2006-2007 preliminary budget. 

• hear a request to negotiate contracts with the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers Local 21, which represents the district’s technical staff. 

• vote to increase the price of student meals by 50 cents, bumping up the cost of dining on campus to $3 for elementary school students, $3.50 for middle school students and $4 for high schoolers. This will be the first hike in student meal prices in more than 10 years. 

The Berkeley Board of Education meets Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. at 2134 Martin Luther King Jr. Way. For more information, call 644-6206.

Depite a warning from the city attorney that her office hasn’t time to prepare a ballot measure on publicly financing local elections, the Fair Campaign Practices Commission will meet Thursday to discuss putting the measure on the ballot. 

The meeting is at 7:30 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center, 1901 Hearst Ave. 

The City Council voted to charge the FCPC with reviewing the measure, but the city attorney discouraged the commission from meeting in a special session earlier this month to do so. 

Supporters say if the city attorney hasn’t time to write the measure, the city can get outside lawyers to do it. The measure must go to council for approval before being placed on the ballot. 

The opinion editors of this publication have lately been badgered by several people who claim a divine right to pop off repeatedly at any length they choose and as often as they choose in these pages. Regular readers can attest, undoubtedly with some annoyance, that we have often indulged such writers and published them again and again.  

One more time: our slogan is “All the news that fits, we’ll print”. And this is doubly true for opinions, both shorter letters and longer “op-ed” commentary pieces. This is a small paper, and we do try to get at least part of the cost of publishing it paid by selling advertisements. White space between the ads is precious. There is no inherent “right to reply”—using up space in the paper is a privilege, not a right. 

We generally publish opinion content in the order received on a space available basis. Time-sensitive pieces are sometimes moved ahead, local writers take priority over out of town ones, and we don’t choose to print personal attacks against private citizens.  

Many in Berkeley are still waiting for the triumph of socialism, but until that happy day citizens have a constitutional right to free speech, but limited rights to a subsidized platform or a microphone. We’re pleased to note that some library fans—members of a dedicated free speech community—are threatening a legal challenge to Berkeley’s longstanding and almost certainly illegal practice of limiting public comment at civic meetings to ten people selected by lottery. Probably in response to this threat, the Mayor has lately been cutting the soundbytes from citizens from three minutes to two, in order to cram more talking heads into the measly half-hour he’s willing to spare to listen to vox populi. He’s also been soliciting additional comment from anyone who thinks their point of view hasn’t been heard.  

This is all the airtime that government provides, and that’s only thanks to the Brown Act. Beyond this, someone has to pay for disseminating opinions in our capitalist system. Up to a point, The Planet is happy to have the privilege of providing a free speech venue for East Bay citizens.  

We do have correspondents who can’t sneeze without consuming a thousand words, so lately we’ve been putting their second and subsequent iterations on topics of limited general interest in the web edition only. The longer a piece is, the harder it is to fit into our print pages. Web postings are just as widely read as print, over a bigger geographic area, and they cost us much less.  

And those few writers who think they can get themselves moved up in the queue by threatening or insulting us are just wrong. One recent whiner even had the temerity to try to hide under the skirts of the copyright law. He’s happy to excoriate the paper and its owners any way he wants to in his emails but says we can’t quote him doing so. Oh please! Starting with this issue, threats and insults directed at the paper or its management are a sure path to cyberspace-only publication.  

• 

On to a happier topic: Pat Cody suggests in this issue that “The Berkeley Charles” isn’t the best choice of names for a new hotel in Berkeley. We agree. The Charles River is in Boston, after all. Granted, the “Berkeley Strawberry Creek” doesn’t have quite the same Brahmin cachet.  

A wag at the DAPAC meeting suggested that “Charles” was a tribute to our famous Waving Man, the late lamented Joseph Charles, which conjures up agreeable visions of a bronze statue of Mr. Charles out in front of the hotel. Or perhaps the not-local but equally beloved Ray Charles, or maybe Charles Brown or … no, we’re not getting anywhere this way.  

Here’s a better idea: the Berkeley Daily Planet hereby announces a naming contest for the planned hotel, first prize one night on the premises if it’s actually built (and it’s going to be pricey, so this is a big deal.) The second prize will not be two nights in the hotel (which W.C. Fields might have suggested) but one night’s parking in the hotel garage, car or bike, your choice.  

Of course, we can’t guarantee that the hotel developers will go along with this, but we can at least express our opinions. To give them an incentive to cooperate, we’ll let them choose the winner. Contest entries should be sent to hotel@berkeleydailyplanet.com or mailed to 3025A Shattuck, Berkeley 94705. We’ll forward them to the developers. 

The election season is beginning in earnest now. Oakland took the sensible path and got it all out of the way early, before anyone noticed what was going on. The election there proved a couple of things:  

(1) Instant run-offs would save everyone a lot of time and money. Imagine how foolish it would have been (or perhaps could still be) for Alameda County to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars proving that Nancy Nadel’s voters liked Dellums as their second choice.  

(2) Image counts. Ron Dellums has been standing up in front of the voters for a long time now, and they’ve formed a generally good impression of him. His most recent campaign produced few conceptual breakthroughs to tell us how he’ll use the “strong mayor” powers Jerry Brown took unto himself and then ignored.  

Longtime supporters say that Dellums’ real strength is that he’s a smart guy who reads everything and reads constantly. This doesn’t mean spy novels: He’s known to read all the tedious reports which bureaucratic lifers are fond of using to conceal their planned course of action. In other words, he takes serious responsibility for being well-informed and for making his own decisions. (Some naysayers find this hard to believe, because Dellums still looks like a matinee idol at 70, but he’s not just a pretty face.) He’s also been known for his strong staff, people who have their own ideas and talk back to him if needed, not just the usual crowd of sycophants a la Jerry Brown’s Jacques Barzhagi. Jerry started out as a smart guy, but failed as mayor because of his hubris, thinking he had all the right answers, asking none of the right questions, tap-dancing on the edge of the abyss. 

In Berkeley, the election season is getting under way slowly. Mayoral candidates are circulating their petitions, from the super-serious (Zelda Bronstein) to the silly (you pick). At least two incumbent councilmembers, Dona Spring and Kriss Worthington, have held their kick-off parties already. Their opponents are much in evidence these days at civic events: one the past president of the downtown merchants’ association and the other the current president of a neighborhood group.  

Spring and Worthington are both long-time public servants in the Dellums mode. She’s noted for her openness and her big heart: no worthy cause, right down to her beloved animals, is neglected, and she’s never afraid to speak up for what she thinks is right. Worthington is another one of those guys who actually reads and understands everything put in front of him by the lifers. Reporters know that if they need to be sure, for example, whether an ordinance is up for first or second reading, Kriss will be able to tell them, and can parse the language changes while he’s at it. 

We’ve lately seen a lot of high-minded, well-written prose on the Internet, and even occasionally in print, bemoaning the U.S. Congress’s lack of— what to call it in polite discourse? Let’s just say courage. With the occasional exception of a Russell Feingold or an Arlen Spector, Congress begs to be trampled on these days.  

But no one thinks George Bush is in charge either. It’s generally believed that the United States of America is now being governed by the unelected spokespersons for the oil industry who now populate the highest reaches of government, the Roves, Rumsfelds and Cheneys. Citizens feel, and perhaps are, powerless to affect national government.  

What a lot of well-meaning Berkeleyans might not realize is that local government is suffering from a similar affliction, here and elsewhere. The domestic equivalent of the energy industry is the building industry: also rich and able to purchase seats at the table of power on many levels.  

The building industry’s muscle shows up in Berkeley as the University of California consumes more and more of our city in its drive to build bigger edifices of all kinds. Many regents—e.g. Richard Blum, husband of Senator Dianne Feinstein—owe their wealth and accompanying power to the building industry. 

This scenario was played out in local government when most elected officials rolled over for UC’s Long Range Development Plan. The only holdouts were Worthington, Spring and Betty Olds. Observers of the City Council say that Spring has heart, Worthington has brains, and Olds has backbone on occasion. 

Watching the City Council in action is embarrassing. More often than not, it’s obvious that the mayor and most councilmembers have only a foggy idea of what’s on the table. They rely on staff presentations to tell them how to vote most of the time, and all too frequently lately the staff reports are TBD—To Be Delivered: not in the published council packets, so they have to be read on the fly at the council meeting. And often they aren’t read at all. 

For example: take item No. 40 on Tuesday’s council agenda. It’s headed “Compromise Landmarks Ordinance.” Keep your eye on that word “compromise.” It’s the local manifestation of the technique originally patented by Newt Gingrich: he who controls the language controls the action. “Compromise” is one of those weasel words, in the same league with the “Healthy Forests Initiative” made famous by the Bushies.  

And here’s what the staff is asking the City Council to do: “…support, in principle, the draft compromise revisions to the Berkeley Landmarks Preservation Ordinance (LPO) and refer those changes to staff, the Landmarks Preservation Commission, and the State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO) for review in time for the scheduled council public hearing in July.” In other words, here’s a blank check, please sign on the line in the lower right hand corner, and the rest will be filled in later. Maybe.  

The on-line agenda has an attached puff piece from the Mayor touting his “compromise” which says it has an attachment, “draft ordinance language,” but guess what? It’s not attached. TBD. 

Some policy wonks have gotten what may or may not be a recent draft from the mayor’s office which they were still trying to read through at press time. One reader said it’s riddled with errors, typical of the sloppy drafting often presented to the City Council for approval. He also thinks it introduces some new and even worse ideas calculated to cater to those in the building industry who view historic buildings as potential development sites.  

And now the mayor’s big buddy Councilmember Darryl Moore has added a bit of extra insurance to the equation on behalf of the development industry. He’s appointed Miriam Ng to the Landmarks Preservation Commission, just in time for her to be able to vote on that “compromise” ordinance. 

Who’s she? A principal in Korman and Ng, developer of the hideous Golden Bear building on University, the first of the Big Uglies to squat on that rapidly uglifying boulevard. She’s even rumored to be a Republican. It figures. 

• 

SPARE THE AIR DAY 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Spare the Air Day, but not in Berkeley. So I heard that the city of Berkeley wants to get serious about cleaning the city’s air. Get more people on bikes, car pooling, on AC transit, and convert all the remaining city vehicles to bio-diesel or hybrids. What about Berkeley’s #1 contributor to bad air—Pacific Steel! Not only are they pumping out green house gases that contribute to global warming, they release a large amount of PM-10s, which contribute to global dimming. And once again the city turns a blind eye. After all, Pacific Steel contributes to the Spare the Air Day fund! Therefore it should be able to continuing polluting on Spare the Air days. I smell their stench as I try to get a breeze through my window on this hot Spare the Air Day. 

Patrick Traynor 

• 

THE BERKELEY  

MAYBECK? 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Your story on the hotel to be built downtown reports that it is to be called the Berkeley Charles Hotel, named after a square in Boston which has little resonance with Berkeleyans. The developer president says that “we really care about communities” and “it will feel like it belongs to Berkeley.” To truly belong perhaps it could be named with more local interest—such as the Berkeley Maybeck or the Berkeley John Muir. 

Pat Cody 

• 

JUSTICE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Hello, I am Salvador Nieves Jr.’s sister. 

I read the article that was written about the accident that caused the death of my brother as well as Jessica’s. 

It is a great article with many details that go into high speeds chases by cops, and how nothing is done about that and that’s why they continue. 

My family and I plan to be very involved in all aspects of this case, so that justice will be served in Jr. and Jessica’s names, as well as for the other young lady who survived but will be scarred forever. 

I cannot go into details on what my family plans on doing, as advised by our attorney, but I can tell you that we will not rest until justice is served. 

Thanks again for a great article. We hope to be in contact with you in the near future. 

Rocio Nieves 

• 

LOW-INCOME  

PARKING 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I’d like to call to your readers’ attention the fact that the city of Berkeley charges half the normal rate ($15 instead of $30) for permit parking to anyone who comes with proof in hand or duplicated by mail that their income is below $29,800. Unfortunately, the Finance Department doesn’t include that information on the renewal notice. I wonder why? 

Estelle Jelinek 

• 

PSC POLLUTION 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

When I saw that Saturday’s Downtown Berkeley Vision Workshop would be held in the brand new Berkeley High School library, I thought “uh-oh.” I can’t climb stairs, and from previous experience I knew that the elevator might be, uh, somewhat problematic. Sho ’nuff, when I arrived at the elevator in question at about 1:20, there was a hand-lettered sign that read, “HANDICAPPED ACCESS—for elevator use see janitor or front desk [wherever that is]. BHS will not leave elevator unlocked.” (When that sign was put up is an interesting if irrelevant question.) 

After a few minutes, a city staffer came by, saw my plight, and went off to look for the janitor. After about 15 minutes, she came by for the third time and fumed, “you mean he’s not here yet? I’m as mad as you are.” At about 1:50 the janitor showed up, after apparently having his lunchbreak cut short, turned on the elevator and gave the city staffer his cell phone number. When it came time to leave, I went up to the city staffer (who was easy to find, fortunately), and she called the janitor; this time I only (!) had to wait 15 minutes to get out. 

When I complained to Dan Marks and Matt Tacker about having to wait half an hour to get upstairs, they complained in turn that the school district had promised that someone would always be available to turn on the elevator. This response begs two questions. 1) Even if someone is always available, how do you make sure they can be located? 2) Even assuming that someone with an elevator key can be easily found, is having to wait 5 or 10 minutes for them to come and unlock the elevator considered an acceptable level of accessibility? There are a number of suitable, perfectly accessible spaces (the senior centers, for example); why wasn’t one of them used? 

Then there is the question of why the elevator is key-operated in the first place. I’ve had similar maddening experiences when I’ve gone to the San Francisco Free Folk Festival at Roosevelt Middle School. It seems school authorities are averse to letting teenagers ride elevators. I’m curious as to how justified this aversion is; let's assume for the sake of argument that it is justified during school hours. Does anybody think it applies on evenings and weekends when very few if any teenagers are likely to be around? 

Hale Zukas 

P.S. On Monday, after I had drafted most of this letter, I was informed that the city planning department was sending a letter of complaint to the school district. While I am gratified that the city is responding expeditiously, I have not taken this response into account here, because I think the concerns raised here need to be addressed regardless. 

• 

ZEALOUS POLICE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Zealotry in our two police departments—both UC and the city’s—has never been greater. We folks who drive on campus and city streets are in danger of being ticketed everywhere and at all times. Never before have the cops worked harder at public safety. Some recent examples:  

Meters begin to operate at 9 a.m. in most places. If your car is parked before 9 and you are hurrying to rescue it by 9, you better make sure you’re present, as the ticketing begins at 9:01 in many places. No leeway.  

Recently a friend of mine was leaving north Berkeley BART station and turned to enter Sacramento Avenue. She saw a woman standing in the middle of the northbound lane. She stopped for a while. The woman did not move, so she moved on slowly and close to the median to avoid hitting her and was immediately nailed by a police car that had been waiting at the intersection for just such an incident. The woman was a decoy. 

I have heard reports of stealth operations on Solano Avenue. A car stops in a red zone at 7 p.m. for 20 seconds near a restaurant to let out an elderly woman who has trouble walking. Though no police car is in sight, within seconds there is one ready to hand out those expensive citations. A spotter?  

And apparently the appeals process rarely allows appeals now. 

We all know the city needs money. We all want car safety to be a norm, and most of us do not flout the law. But this quick and dirty way to pay for the city’s needs is making drivers feel as if we are the enemy. Is this punitive attitude to become the norm? Has the wretched meanness of Washington wafted westward? 

And where are the police cars that could better assure public safety in those streets that need them for real crimes—drug dealing, teen gangs, gun violence. What are our priorities? 

Joan Levinson 

• 

THE SPIN BEGINS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The spin machine is off to an early start with Carolyn Jones’ snide article (“Landmarks Ordinance in Critics’ Crosshairs,” San Francisco Chronicle, June 18) about our Landmarks Preservation Ordinance (LPO). The Chronicle doesn’t print letters from Berkeley preservationists, unless their policy has changed, so I am sending my response to our local newspaper—the voice of the people—the Daily Planet. 

A picture of the Celia’s building is included in the article. Despite Ms. Jones’ insults, it looks great—interesting roof line, nice bay window, positively cute. By contrast, the drawings of the condo/apartment project proposed to replace it show a cheesy, characterless hulk, very similar to the Andante of Emeryville.  

I suggest that people bicycle or drive past the Andante, at the corner of 40th Street and San Pablo Avenue. Then check out Celia’s Restaurant at 2040 4th St. in Berkeley. Years of neglect by its owner have taken a toll, but it’s a cool little building, full of character and life. 

Brennan’s Bar and Restaurant next door, which is also in danger of demolition for the Hulk, is specifically mentioned in the West Berkeley Plan as a “part of West Berkeley history.” 

Both restaurants appear to be thriving, serving the community and contributing revenue to the city—the kind of locally-owned small businesses that Berkeleyans used to treasure and protect. 

Condos have begun to languish, unsold, here and in most of the bubbly real estate markets of the country. What will become of the limitless dot-condos and bubbleminiums already in the works? The building binge should be over soon—there’s no need to lose more of our history and vitality for mindless greed.  

Gale Garcia 

• 

CORRECTION 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

A fine article by Ms. Yamamoto about the exhibit at the Richmond Museum of History, “Siempre Aqui” (Berkeley Daily Planet, June 16-19), except that the portrait photographs were misattributed to Richmond High School students. 

They were taken by a young Latina photographer, Mariela Alcocer. Ms. Alcocer, whose parents are from Mexico and Venezuela, lives in San Pablo and is a recent graduate of the California College of Arts in Oakland. 

Maria Sakovich, Guest Curator 

• 

FEE HIKES 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I just read your article on page 11 of the June 20-22 edition regarding our City Council’s consideration of sewer fee rate hikes and a fee increase for refuse service. 

Our citizens need to know just what their getting for their money: 

1. City government that completely shuts down every month on VTO days (Voluntary Time-Off) and for a week in the winter. 

2. A refuse division that we are forced to pay for, with staff that works an “assumed work day.” This means they get off work when they are done with their routes. This takes them about 4-5 hours, but they are paid for eight hours of work. To make matters worse, they are paid overtime for anything they do after they finish their four-hour route.  

3. Worker’s compensation rates in the upper stratosphere with a Public Works director who manages the largest department in Berkeley and models herself for her staff by filing her own Worker’s Comp. Claim. (Guess which department has the most workers out on injury?)  

Should we pay more for city services? I think not, we should pay less because that’s exactly what we’re getting.  

Shame on our City Council for considering more fees, shame on our city manager for not corralling runaway staff and shame on us for allowing them to this to us time and time again. 

—Ken Lock 

• 

GOOD SOUND MINDS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

FDR was president when I was in grade school. I cannot remember our country in worse shape than it is in now. We need some good sound minds in charge, not ones who try to take all they can get from the American people.  

Mrs. Ina Boyles 

• 

GET THE LEAD OUT 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

If you could save a child from the harmful health effects of lead at little or no cost, wouldn’t you want to take action? 

Everyone knows lead poses health risks for kids. The National Center for Disease Control says there is absolutely no safe level of lead in the bloodstream of young children. Harmful health effects of lead include reduced IQ, learning disabilities, attention deficit disorders, behavioral problems, stunted growth, impaired hearing, and kidney damage. Between 14 percent and 20 percent of the total childhood lead exposure comes from drinking water that flows through plumbing with too much lead.  

I have posed this question to my legislative colleagues with Assembly Bill 1953, which will phase-out the use of lead plumbing materials in both homes and large water utilities. Lead is commonly used as a component in brass water utility and household plumbing parts and fixtures. As water moves from the water main through the water meter and valves and into the household plumbing, lead can leach from lead-brass parts into drinking and washing water. As many as 20 percent of Californians are getting water with elevated lead levels.  

A.B. 1953 offers the solution to this problem. By phasing out the use of lead in plumbing materials, our water and our children will be safer. Passing this bill will not be easy. We won passage in the Assembly by a vote of 41–37, but we’re facing a tough fight in the Senate.  

Several major utilities in California, including East Bay Municipal Utility District, the L.A. Department of Water and Power, and the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission have already begun voluntary programs to install plumbing parts that are lead-free. Furthermore, the San Francisco PUC offers lead-free household fixtures for sale to customers at a discount.  

Lead in drinking water should be a significant concern to the health of all Californians, especially to the most vulnerable, our children. With new lead-free plumbing materials available today, there is absolutely no reason California’s lawmakers should allow old-style lead products to be used.  

We know there is too much lead in our drinking water and AB 1953 offers the solution. Don’t our children deserve that? 

Assemblymember Wilma Chan 

• 

WE CANNOT WIN THIS WAR 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Today’s newspaper front-page headline told us that Iraqi troops who our soldiers were training, shot and killed two American trainers. Clearly, anti-American feeling runs deep in Iraq. With each passing day it becomes clearer that we cannot “win” this aggressive war. We must get our troops out—the sooner the better.  

Ms. Roberta Maisel 

• 

UNCOMPASSIONATE CONSERVATIVES 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Look who the mouthpieces are for the Bush administration: Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter, muckrakers with no conscience. Ghouls who strangle words, use contrived metaphors and extrapolate untruths.  

Religious right-wingers now control all processes and venues of the U.S. government. Uncompassionate conservatives who bury their greed and hypocrisy in Christian ethics. Ethics and honesty have taken a nosedive under the current administration? Any wonder why America is headed in the wrong direction?  

The GOP divides and polarizes with the help of its egregious pundits; it’s the only way they can hope to win elections and stay in power.  

Ron Lowe 

Grass Valley 

“Redevelopment should be pursued primarily for the benefit of the community as a whole and of the people who live in the ... area; not for the redeveloper or his eventual tenants.” Herbert J. Gans, The Urban Villagers, 1962. 

Whenever I hear about large infill (re)developments / high density traffic corridors and their purported purpose of reducing urban sprawl by re-attracting people into the urban core, I wonder what evidence there is that this strategy will work. Over my years as a Flatlands resident, I’ve known many middle-income people including administrators (from both U.C. and the city), teachers, musicians, mechanics, chefs, firefighters, artists, carpenters, gardeners, health care workers and even doctors and lawyers who have moved from Berkeley to the suburbs and beyond. While affordability was often a consideration, they didn’t leave simply because of price but because the ‘city’ (Berkeley/Oakland/S.F.) did not provide the kind of housing they wanted at a price they could afford. They wanted, for instance, a larger house (or simply a house instead of an apartment/condo) where they could raise their kids. A quieter, less hectic, safer, friendlier area with less traffic and less noise. A cleaner, less polluted environment (for some their health depended on it.) More space to have a studio or workshop, to house an extended family, grow food, keep animals, store a boat, play music —in short, a more comfortable place where they could do the kinds of things that they enjoyed.  

Such anecdotal accounts are mirrored by statistical findings. Data from the US Census Bureau’s National Housing Survey shows a consistency over the years for the reasons people give for wanting to move from their neighborhoods. These are (in the order of frequency of reporting):  

—Noise (both street and aircraft) 

—Heavy traffic 

—Deteriorating infrastructures (e.g. streets, schools, lighting) 

—Crime 

—Commercial and industrial development 

—Litter 

—Deteriorating housing 

—Noxious odors 

—Abandoned buildings 

Intuitively, this list makes sense as each of the factors can negatively impact people’s health and well-being. For example, noise (as anyone familiar with psychological torture techniques can tell you) has long been recognized as having a debilitating effect on the human organism. Repeated exposure to loud noise can cause hearing loss. Noise is also a general biological stressor that contributes to stress related conditions like high blood pressure, coronary disease, ulcers, migraine (and other) headaches and a general lowering of the immune system. It is also associated with irritability, insomnia, fatigue, digestive disorders and neuroticism. On a social level, noise interferes with communication, disturbs normal domestic and educational activities, creates safety hazards and is a source of extreme annoyance. And workers exposed to high levels of noise have a significantly greater rate of accidents, diagnosed medical problems and absenteeism. It is understandable, therefore, that people would want to move away from noise.  

Taken as whole, the list is evocative of a pattern in urban areas across the US (like Cleveland, Buffalo, Toledo, Oakland, Chicago and Detroit) where vast urban wastelands inhabited by the very poor take up much of the central core while new massive institutional/corporate complexes along with housing for the well-to-do are constructed along the periphery, destroying neighborhoods and pushing settled residents into the ever outwarding spiral of urban sprawl.  

The list also has predictive value. One could anticipate, for instance, that a high density housing development built on a relatively small triangle of land bordered by three major arteries and above a transit station would be high on the factors of noise, heavy traffic and noxious odors. One could expect, therefore, that no matter the original intent, this housing would become transitional because residents would find it uncomfortable to live in for long periods of time. Similarly, construction of an athletic field with high intensity lights and evening practices/games across from a residential neighborhood would increase noise, traffic congestion and litter. This, in turn, would disturb normal domestic activity, motivate stabler, longer term residents to relocate, the neighborhood to become more transitory and crime to increase.  

Nor should we ignore the fact that reconstruction itself can have an impact on the livability of an area. It is noisy. It creates noxious fumes and odors. Blocked roads direct cars onto nearby streets thereby increasing traffic congestion. Nearby business suffer as street parking is eliminated during construction, foot traffic declines and old customers seek pleasanter and easier to get to places to shop. For example, the construction of a high rise hotel complex and a 9 story condo development within a block of each other in a relatively small, narrow streeted, suburban downtown that will take years (if not decades) to complete is certain to have a negative impact on nearby businesses, offices and residents. If such construction is necessary, help for the afflicted in the form of rental subsidies during construction, liquidation funds for small store owners and relocation assistance should be considered as a cost of the redevelopment and appropriately budgeted for.  

In order to reduce sprawl and re-attract people to the inner city we might better concentrate on creating a more livable environment by reducing noise and traffic, improving infrastructures like streets, schools, lighting, transportation, libraries, sewers, health services and parks, reduce pollution, repair deteriorating housing and increase public safety. We should strive to retain residents already in the city by working with neighborhoods to determine what they need and want. And we should encourage economic opportunities for all by promoting locally owned start-ups and small businesses including street vendors, farmers’’ markets, home offices and studios, flea markets, artisans, street musicians and solo practitioners. Redevelopment should be carefully done and over scale reconstruction limited to areas already abandoned. In short, if we truly want people to remain in or return to the cities, we should create a quieter, healthier, saner, more equitable place to live.  

Joanne Kowalski is a Berkeley resident.

Last Saturday I attended the “Visioning” meeting of the Downtown Area Plan Advisory Committee (DAPAC). It is hard to find much to recommend about the usual “going through the motions of community input” workshop. But the upbeat attitude of the sub-group in which I participated made it enjoyable. Rather than the usual listing of problems, we started by listing the strong points of downtown Berkeley. So I came away with my own list of downtown’s assets and a renewed sense of regret at the threat posed to our city center by the mayor’s deal with the university.  

Consider some of the current downtown Berkeley plusses: 

Music: The Jazzschool, Jupiter, Anna’s Jazz Island, Becketts, The Down-Low Lounge, with Freight and Salvage coming ... soon?  

Berkeley Central Library, not only a world class library but the site of many special events produced by the Arts and Music Department.  

Three movie theaters with 22 screens.  

Legitimate theater: The Aurora and Berkeley Rep have three stages; The Marsh uses the theater in the Gaia Building occasionally (but that’s another story). 

Great variety of restaurants in ethnicity, price and ambiance. 

Convenient to BART and AC Transit. 

Plenty of parking. 

People on the street late into the evening. 

So when people say that downtown is dead perhaps they should look again.  

They should look again at the mythical lack of parking. When they say there is no parking they must mean there is no parking at meters in front of their destination because there are any number of parking garages within a few steps to two blocks of all of the places listed above. If it were true that we lacked parking, it is still of no moment because in a couple of years, after the Berkeley Megabowl is completed, the traffic snarl at Ashby and San Pablo will stop people from neighboring communities and across the Bay from coming downtown except by BART. 

It is true that downtown is dead as far as retail. Retail interests have visions of downtown being lined with small shops like College or Solano avenues, but developers have bought up all the available real estate and sent rents into the stratosphere, which has brought on a wholesale exodus of the small owner-run shops. Should we just sit by and watch as the Invasion of the Land Snatchers makes its final grasp? What if we had actually been invited to the DAPAC public meeting to be heard rather than as a cover for their schemes to obliterate all vestiges of downtown as we know it.  

If I had a voice I would describe a downtown that is a cultural mecca with multi-purpose performance and exhibition spaces in our lovely, old, well-proportioned buildings. I can see Shattuck Avenue with sidewalk cafes full of residents of all ages who live in affordable, height-limited apartments. (Now only students can afford the high rents. For some reason there are few older people who want to sleep in bunk beds with five roommates). Then, as more and more people want to live downtown, a new vitality would make Shattuck Avenue a place everyone could enjoy. The air would be clear as people ride their bikes, walk or take the non-polluting buses that run every few minutes.  

Why isn’t that within our reach? Greed in Berkeley? Not Berkeley, the home of Mario Savio and the Free Speech Movement, not Berkeley that for some reason remains a symbol of a progressive city. We need to face the fact that Berkeley is the Neo-Con of cities and is in serious danger of being exposed for the fraud it is. 

We were probably done for when, in the dark of night, the city climbed in bed with the giant corporation that looms over us. 

But if enough people take a hard look at the current power structure and make some significant changes in November, there is an outside chance that we may keep our human proportions. 

Bonnie Hughes is the director of the Berkeley Arts Festival.

SOCIAL SECURITY 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

There is a change in the way banks work that is very bad for seniors. If your bank balance is low or overdrawn, the bank takes the overdraft out of your direct-deposit Social Security check, charging a high interest rate. The bank does this without your permission or informing you. 

We have had several people call the Gray Panther office complaining that they did not know that they would be without rent and food money when their Social Security check was deposited because of this practice. In my case, they used to take the overdraft out of my savings account, which is OK with me. Now they take it out of my social security check and do not inform me. And they charge more! 

Is this legal? When did this come about? What can we do to change this? I think we should be able to tell the banks not to do this, or at least inform us when they do. 

Margot Smith 

• 

OUTRAGED 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I live in Supervisor Miley’s district and voted for Measure A to keep the county hospital open. I am approaching 50 and have had serious illnesses and in the event that I lose my health insurance I want to know that I can receive treatment in my county. I am now told that the county hospital since the passage of Measure A is being asked to subsidize the county.  

Is it true that Miley is asking the hospital to give the county close to $20 million (in debt repayment, interest and rent increases)? 

I hope that this is not true. If you ask the public to subsidize a hospital and then pull the money back out to pay for other services you have effectively lied to the public.  

I am outraged to hear that a hospital that my tax dollars support may be in a financial crisis because Supervisor Miley expects a county hospital to give money to the county for other services.  

Sethard Fisher 

Oakland 

• 

MANIPULATIVE, SELF-INJURIOUS BEHAVIOR 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

On the tree of life we humans rank high, “a little below the angels” it says in Psalm 8, verse 5. We have fallen from this lofty perch because, in pursuing the “global war on terror,” we behave like soulless beasts, evidenced by news reports concerning Abu Graib, Guantannamo Bay, Haditha and much, much more. That’s bad but we’ve slipped even lower. 

Brig. Gen. Richard Formica reported that keeping prisoners on bread and water for 17 days was too long but it takes longer than that to develop protein or vitamin deficiency, that “inadequate policy guidelines” and not “personal failure” were to blame and that the jailers did wrong but were not deliberately abusive.  

When officials excuse the inexcusable they abuse language and when they tell us that prisoners inflict “asymmetric warfare against us” with their “manipulative, self-injurious behavior” then we can no longer wear the “crown” of “glory and honor” awarded to us by the Psalmist.  

Marvin Chachere 

San Pablo  

• 

SAME OLD STORY 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

It’s same old, same old at Berkeley High. Twenty-five or 30 years ago a woman started the first rape crisis center in the country, Bay Area Women against Rape, after her daughter was raped at the school and school authorities refused to call the police. 

Nancy Ward 

• 

BERKELEY BOWL PARKING 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Thank you for your fine coverage of the West Berkeley Bowl project. I am a frequent customer of the current (and previous) Berkeley Bowl. One problem: Since the store is so popular, and its parking lot usually full during business hours, delivery trucks double-park on Adeline Street, either in the bike lane or in the right lane itself. As I understand our traffic laws, double parking is always and everywhere illegal; in addition, the delivery trucks pose a safety hazard for those driving, biking, or walking by. As scarce as the street parking is around the Bowl, I’d rather see some of it restricted to loading zones than the current situation. Since the West Berkeley Bowl project includes a warehouse, I would hope that most deliveries will occur there, with goods shuttled to the current store off-hours, and that the congestion on Adeline will be mitigated. 

Robert J. Cohen 

• 

NOT-SO-BERKELEY BOWL 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I’ve just become aware of the controversy over a new Berkeley Bowl in West Berkeley by watching the council meetings on channel 33. Apparently the Bowl owners are unwilling to agree to recognize a union and thus hire union employees. By this time, the Bowl owners are obviously worth millions and millions of dollars. Their parking lot on Adeline is always overflowing. The checkout lines are longer than any other grocery store in Berkeley history. So, what’s the problem with these Bowl owners? If they can’t give up some of their monstrous profits to benefit new employees they shouldn’t be allowed in Berkeley, the City of Light and Fair Play. Even Safeway and Albertson’s are unionized! Unions are the only protection employees have. Shame on you Berkeley Bowl for not guaranteeing union rights. And shame on you City Council if you allow them to start a new store without union employees. And lastly, I challenge the right of these Bowl owners to use the name “Berkeley” in their store. If no union, then it should be called the “Murky Hole.”  

Robert Blau 

• 

TEXAS HUMOR 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

When Nancy al-Masri Pelosivich states that “she speaks for the American people,” clearly she does not! She speaks for a small minority of groups and not the majority of American voters. She speaks for the anti-war, anti-American, anti-capitalist, Marxist-Socialist (liberal-progressive) “groups” of Godless Communist Feminist, queers, eco-nazi’s, government plantation blacks, “illegal wet-backs,” and antique lame-stream media. And that is the very reason why Democrats “are the minority.” 

James Weaver 

• 

NEXUS BUILDING 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

As a somewhat disillusioned former volunteer at the Berkeley Humane Society, I don’t doubt Robert Brokl for a moment when he states that Humane Society has been non-responsive and unilateral in their dealings with Nexus. But the reality is that they are in desperate need of a facilities renovation and have been unable to raise anywhere near the amount of cash required via a capital campaign to make the necessary updates to the facility. That the only way they can raise the money is to sell the Nexus property, most likely to a commercial client given the retrofitting that must be done to the unreinforced masonry part of the property, is really unfortunate. What needs to happen here is that the resources of some in the Berkeley community need to be directed towards providing a safe, secure, comfortable and attractive space for homeless animals waiting for adoptive homes (and I would add that there are also significant capital needs at the municipal shelter and the new Milo facility on Solano Avenue). This is an opportunity to put philanthropic dollars to work. It is not in the interests of the city of Berkeley to pit worthy organizations against each other. To shortchange the animals to service the arts and artisans is shortsighted and wrong. To do the opposite is no better. This is a lose-lose situation at the moment. Please, those of you with resources to spare, and I know they exist in our community, put an end to this silly standoff, and pledge the money needed to renovate the Humane Society. It can be done, and needs to be done for the good of our city.  

Tracy Rosenberg 

• 

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 

• 

SAN PABLO AVENUE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Talk of revival for the Telegraph and Shattuck business districts mentions problems of high rents, lack of bus service and absence of parking. On these three areas another old business stretch in Berkeley deserves mention for doing rather well.  

San Pablo Avenue has a string of businesses in “mom and pop” and non-profit mode. Store rents are not those of “uptown.” Property owners find it hard to charge a ridiculous rent when the property next door is an auto repair shop, or similar “industrial” type operation—of which San Pablo has many. So, San Pablo (and its the adjacent blocks), have cozy pubs, cozy dance venues, a candle shop, calendar shop, three small furniture stores, a hardware, shoe store, two small bakeries, three pet supply places, the ecology center, a medical marijuana center, the blues hall of fame, a number of “store front” churches, three recreation supply stores, supply stores for items from India and other Asian countries, and there are restaurants for the cuisine of India, Pakistan, Ethiopia, Mexico, China, Japan, and Thailand. You can also get pizza, donuts, fried chicken, and lattes.  

About a year ago AC Transit added to its 72 line on San Pablo, providing enough service for the bus to run nearly every few moments. The buses do substantial business, which one can’t say for lines that run once or twice an hour.  

Only a couple of blocks of San Pablo have parking meters, and there are sizable free parking lots by Gilman and University avenues.  

Amid the hustle and bustle the issue of those in poor clothes who are without homes is neutralized, for San Pablo is truly an avenue of Good Vibrations.  

Ted Vincent  

• 

DIVISIVE LANGUAGE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I usually don’t read the Daily Planet cover to cover, but I did this time (June 13 edition). I was so impressed with your coverage of current issues; I will be reading it regularly from now on. 

The article by Jean Damu on the book Sociology of the African-American Language fascinated me. I, too, have traveled to Cuba. Not that I identify myself with their politics, but I admire the egalitarian relationship of their people. They don’t call themselves African, Brazilian or Venezuelan Cubans. They are just Cubans. 

I am a naturalized American, not even native, and I would be insulted if someone would call me a “European American.” African Americans are not African any more than I am a Native American. Americans, ancestrally from Africa, are simply Americans. Let us stop being divisive. I mean all of us, stop being divisive! 

Edward J. Levitch 

• 

ART MUSEUM CONTROVERSY 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

So Chris Gilbert’s brilliant rescue of the Berkeley Art Museum’s Matrix Program from puerile irrelevance will not be followed by more good work. In spite of winning every battle in his fervent war to support the dynamic of contemporary life with the dynamic of contemporary art, he resigned his curatorship. The only cost of staying on would have been a little less grandeur to the flourish of resignation at the peak of hostilities. 

Gilbert is right on almost every point. “Solidarity” and “alignment,” with or without “support” are much more accurate and eloquent, in describing the show and its relationship with the university than the staff’s (prolonged and unsuccessful) attempt to substitute “connection with.” The staff’s “neutrality” and “balance” are appropriate for litigation not for art. Their constant efforts to destroy and vitiate his ideas made his job more difficult—but they gave up. 

His defense of his tactics to the press is unfortunate. Even the most irrefutable truth, expressed solely as a generality, is platitude (hear Dubya). “Class struggle,” “capitalist imperialism,” “organized violence,” invoked in argument without explaining their application to the specific case, come off as merely quaint. There is plenty of case history in Now Time: Venezuela I and II. Handsomely presented, it is winningly, convincingly, case history. 

He might have explained, for example, why the university museum, like many other universities and museums, is “corrupt.” There is no institutional method in this country to support them. They need money for building and maintenance, staff, collection. They are forced to court the rich for gifts to the museum. The rich? They are trained in other ways, and depend, most of them, on dealers. The dealers know, create and control the art market, which depends to a great extent, on connection and on advertising. Using a little faux algebra to shrink the equation, the taste and program of most great museums is shaped by the dealer’s sense of what can be made (through advertising and “celebrity”) to appreciate in value by 15 or 20 percent a year. The dealer runs the show, and, to perfect the system, the givers get their money back through tax breaks. 

For a moving and hilarious recap of The System, including the removal of Diego Rivera’s mural from the New York City Rockefeller Center, see the movie The Cradle Will Rock. 

Ariel Parkinson 

• 

GROCERY OPTIONS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I’d like to comment on the May 17 letter by Jessica Taal. She complained about the choices of places to buy groceries in the area and that “We should have a health food co-op that is on par with Rainbow in San Francisco.” I like Rainbow Foods in San Francisco and would definitely shop there if one showed up in Berkeley. That being said, businesses don’t magically appear just because we think they should. Starting and running small businesses are not easy things to do and may in fact be harder now than ever. The combination of competing with larger businesses, start-up capital, high rents, not enough parking and fighting the regulations that the City of Berkeley imposes can be overwhelming. Any one of those obstacles would be enough to stop a lot of potential small businesses from opening. The combination of all of them makes it borderline impossible. 

I also wanted to point out that, while not perfect, I think our choices of places to buy groceries is overall great. I had some visitors from back east recently that spent half an hour just staring in disbelief at the produce options at Monterey Market. People in most places in the world would love to have the options we already have in Berkeley! 

Rich Crowl 

The stacks of Pacific Steel Casting rise high above the northwest Berkeley skyline of Oceanview. Once surrounded by manufacturing and light industry, the foundry now finds itself constrained by residential neighborhoods and a growing retail presence. This move towards gentrification is on a collision course with PSC’s massive expansion of its operations. Indeed, Pacific Steel, which claims to be the third largest facility of its kind in the country, has been the city’s number one zoning conflict for over a dozen years.  

Despite huge increases in the steel mill’s production and the commensurate increase in odors, airborne chemicals and particulates over the last decade, Berkeley’s Zoning Adjustments Board has refused to move forward and demand an honest measurement of the health risks to residents. Since 1991, the board has allowed Pacific Steel to operate with an incomplete use permit, and has consistently avoided a review of the foundry’s operations.  

This has never been more evident than it was several weeks ago when PSC’s use permit for Facility No. 3 was placed on the board’s agenda. As has been its custom in years past, ZAB elected to open the public discussion of the steel company’s proposal in the wee hours of the morning while most of Berkeley slept.  

The late-night hearing concerned PSC’s request to install a two-million-dollar carbon adsorption system at Facility 3. As expected, the project’s approval by ZAB has met with community opposition. An appeal was filed which is now on the council agenda for this week. Of the ZAB members who managed to stay awake, it’s doubtful that any of them understood much about the proposed carbon system.  

In ZAB’s haste to streamline the foundry’s permit process, the board simply streamlined the public out. From a perspective of community health, Pacific Steel’s investment will provide very little by way of emissions control. ZAB’s approval not only has given the board’s blessing to PSC’s runaway expansion, but also license to pollute even more.  

Using carbon adsorption or filtration to control odors is certainly not a new idea. It has been employed in many commercial and industrial applications, but has seen extremely limited use by steel production companies other than Pacific Steel. Those who support the notion that the proposed carbon system will adequately abate all health concerns for nearby residents should reflect on the history of tobacco regulation and the lessons learned.  

Joe Camel and Pacific Steel 

Everyone remembers the public uproar a number of years ago concerning cigarette smoke and cancer. Back then, the tobacco industry refused to admit any adverse health impacts associated with cigarettes. Since then, science has come a long way in understanding the dangers of smoking. Equally important was the discovery that exposure to secondhand cigarette smoke is also extremely harmful. Similarly, there is a growing concern about PSC’s emissions and the severe harm that could result from long-term exposure.  

A city ordinance now prohibits cigarette smoking within 20 feet of commercial doorways. What should the safety zone be for nearby residents exposed to emissions from PSC’s stacks? Unfortunately, not enough is known about the company’s emissions to determine that at this time. The Bay Area Air Quality Management District (BAAQMD), which regulates the foundry’s air discharge permits, brushes aside this and all other questions about public health while adamantly defending PSC’s emissions as safe.  

It is interesting to note that even the tobacco industry has employed carbon technology in some filtered cigarettes. Among other things, the filter was supposed to control unwanted odors, not unlike the proposed carbon adsorption system at PSC. The difference is that a huge amount of money was funneled into the researching tobacco consumption, but little is known about the true nature of PSC’s emissions or what the proposed carbon adsorption system can or can’t do. It isn’t for lack of opportunity. Carbon systems were installed at PSC’s No. 1 and No. 2 facilities in 1985 and 1991.  

Exhaustive investigations into the effects of cigarette smoking were conducted on laboratory animals. At Pacific Steel, it’s the residents who have been made the guinea pigs because of BAAQMD’s poor oversight and PSC’s missing health assessment.  

It should be remembered that the foundry’s carbon adsorption systems and stacks represent far more than just giant cigarettes. Unlike tobacco, the range of chemical emissions, high volume of particulates, and dispersion patterns make PSC’s emissions far more problematic for the surrounding community. And unlike cigarette smoking, living downwind from the foundry’s stink is not a choice for many residents.  

Public health first, then jobs 

The momentum to daylight public health concerns relating to PSC emissions has been 30 years in coming. The current efforts by BAAQMD to investigate the factory’s air discharges have been repeatedly criticized by the affected community as woefully inadequate. The air district’s failure to do so reflects its strong industry bias. BAAQMD has resisted all opportunities to understand PSC emissions and has allowed the foundry to lag behind normal regulatory science.  

An overt sign of these serious shortcomings can be seen in the recent intervention last month by the Golden Gate School Environmental Law and Justice Clinic as well as Communities for a Better Environment into the discussion. Working together, Golden Gate and CBE have noticed Pacific Steel of their intent to sue over violations of the Clean Air Act. This legal challenge questions whether PSC has violated its emissions limits and points to the company’s failure to correctly record its activities. Facility No. 3’s use permit, now before the City Council, is a central focus of this outside legal inquiry. 

Perhaps the most important issue highlighted by the lawsuit relates directly to the health assessment being constructed by BAAQMD. If PSC is shown to have exceeded its emissions limits, then how can the air district begin to accurately quantify the health risk to residents and avoid underestimating the adverse health impacts? 

The politics of tobacco and those that encompass Pacific Steel are remarkably similar. Like the tobacco industry, PSC’s $25-million payroll and its 600 plus union employees pack a big political wallop. Like tobacco interests, the steel company is driven by profits, so the political imperative for PSC has not been to invest in scientifically understanding community health risks, but in touting the number of jobs it provides in Berkeley. It should be noted that although PSC is a family-owned operation, most of its employees live outside Berkeley. 

Neighbors have also had to contend with an outside lobby that includes Oakland’s recent mayoral candidate, De La Fuente, who continues to exert his influence in resisting any review of the foundry. Because of heightened public awareness of its emission problems, Pacific Steel has hired both a PR firm and the services of Dion Aroner, an ex-assemblywoman turned paid-political consultant. Needless to say, the community has been no match for this professional team, which has been quite successful in running roughshod over the neighborhood and the regulatory process.  

Even Berkeley’s big-business mayor, Tom Bates, has joined the team and now sits on the air district’s board of directors. Was this move a direct reaction to the pending lawsuit against PSC or is it an attempt to appear more “green” for his upcoming re-election bid? In any case, the purpose of these backroom deals has not been to daylight Pacific Steel’s emissions, but to stabilize community insurgency. Bates’ presence at the air district will only ensure that the foundry is further shielded from public scrutiny. 

It’s time to set aside all the regulatory speculation and politics regarding PSC’s emissions once and for all. Verify, verify, verify! This can only be done with continuous stack and fence-line air monitoring of actual emissions levels. Permanent air monitoring should be made mandatory with the pending use permit. Compared to the two- million-dollar price tag of another carbon system, monitoring is a small enough investment given what’s at stake. Pacific Steel’s cost to operate should not be paid for with our community’s health.  

LA Wood is a long-standing Berkeley environmental watchdog. 

Here is my 12-point plan for changing Telegraph Avenue as part of my campaign for Berkeley City Council, District 7. I believe Telegraph should be safe, drug-free, clean, diverse, vibrant and prosperous. It should be dominated by independent stores. It should honor its history and encourage its mix of eclectic shops and restaurants. It should be a regional draw and also have stores that serve the neighborhood. Here’s how we get there from here: 

1. Establish a Telegraph Avenue Commission 

The Telegraph Commission, led by the Telegraph Czar/Czarina would be a joint committee of the city, the university, merchants, students, and neighbors to proposals through the city and university bureaucracies. The Telegraph Commission will consider proposals to: 

2. Increase drug and alcohol addiction outreach 

Many people on the street are hurting. It’s our duty to help them with treatment that is free and available to all. 

3. Increase drug enforcement 

Sometimes people need a “nudge from the judge” to get into recovery. Let’s also review the effectiveness of existing ordinances regulating urban quality of life issues including graffiti, litter, loitering, and vandalism. 

4. Completely re-think the quota system 

It’s been much harder to get a Peet’s Coffee (which requires a variance) than a tattoo parlor. That doesn’t make any sense. 

5. Celebrate the relationship between the city and the University of California 

Let’s start from scratch and construct inclusive processes to build trust, commerce, understanding, and respect. Working together we can build a world class street for our world class university. 

6. Build long-term affordable rental housing and affordable condominiums 

Housing is very expensive in Berkeley—how can, say, a teacher afford to buy a home here? We’ve got opportunities to build affordable rental and condominium housing above some of our retail. First-time buyer programs will create homeowners on Telegraph who will commit to the neighborhood. 

7. Study how shoppers get here 

Let’s promote alternatives to the car: walking, biking, riding the bus. Let’s also consider additional short-term and long-term parking to help the merchants. 

8. Shepherd the mayor’s proposals 

Mayor Bates has proposed a plan for façade improvements, permit prioritization, improved street lighting, and other improvements. Let’s ensure that these proposals get followed up on. 

9. Get Cal Debit Cards for the Avenue 

We need to get the Cal cards used on the Avenue in addition to the university. 

10. Defeat the dedicated lane/transit mall proposal by AC Transit 

Removing two car lanes on each direction south of Dwight and removing cars altogether north of Dwight will cripple our struggling district.  

11. Put the “People’s Café” in People’s Park 

More usage of the park makes it safer. Let’s re-landscape the park and put in a memorabilia-laden café to celebrate the park’s history and to make it a safer, more inviting place. 

12. Consider the “Free Speech Trail” 

Let’s create an urban walking trail to highlight historic places on the Avenue—let’s honor our history! The university has thousands of students take tours and they end up in Sproul Plaza. Let’s give them a brochure that marks the trail. And tell them to go shopping! 

George Beier is a District 7 candidate for Berkeley City Council.

Last Saturday, the public finally got to speak at length to the city’s seven-month-old Downtown Area Plan Advisory Committee (or DAPAC—the only acronym you’ll need to read this column). One unexpected event at this “workshop” was that the inmates promptly took over the asylum. 

Another was that most participants seemed satisfied with the immediate results—although suspicions remain about the purposes and mechanism behind Berkeley’s development of a new downtown plan. 

The revolt began right after city staff planner Matt Taecker gave a slideshow packed with maps, graphs, and design options, then announced the afternoon’s intended format: Participants were to discuss their “issues of greatest concern” about the downtown in assigned “large groups,” then form smaller groups to pursue their favorite topics (things like “UC Growth & Oxford Edge”) by filling in maps with markers or Monopoly-money tokens. 

Playing the Jack Nicholson role from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest was current mayoral candidate and former Planning Commission chair, Zelda Bronstein. Quoting current zoning, she challenged Taecker’s account of downtown’s building height limit (she said it’s seven floors, not eight) and area (she said the northern edge is University Avenue, not the Hearst Avenue boundary DAPAC is using). 

“To properly develop any of the ideas you’ve just shown us would take a planning process of several months,” she told Taecker. “The most respectful thing you could do, in terms of self-respect,” she told the audience, “would be to go home right now.” 

Next up, in the role of Nicholson’s Cuckoo’s Nest ally Billy Bibbitt, was mayoral candidate Christian Pecaut. A sign reading “Manufacturing Consent” summarized his view of the workshop. “They need your consent to proceed with this,” he said, referring to city staff. “And if you give it to them, they’ll keep all the power.” 

Then DAPAC chair Will Travis suggested that if people were concerned about the process, they could form a small group later to talk process. This got a round of unintended laughter. 

A speaker from the Star Alliance Foundation (a Berkeley nonprofit, not the United Airlines code-sharing partnership of the same name) admonished us to put goodwill into the process if we wanted goodwill to come out. Yours truly asked Taecker just what our authority was. “We want your raw, unfiltered feelings,” he said. 

DAPAC member Rob Wrenn heatedly addressed the suggestion that staff had predetermined the contents of the new downtown plan. “We will write the plan,” he emphasized, referring to the committee’s 21 appointed members. 

Around this point, enough consent was manufactured to start the large-group discussions. Then a funny thing happened. Most people seemed to decide they liked their “large” group enough to keep it together for the rest of the afternoon. So the idea of small groups organized around specific topics got tossed out, along with the corresponding placecards and the Monopoly money. A few people who found their assigned group unsympathetic reshuffled to other tables. 

A table anchored by environmentally-oriented DAPAC members Wrenn and Juliet Lamont suggested closing Center Street, daylighting Strawberry Creek, and closing lanes on Oxford Street. 

Longtime Berkeley commentator Richard Register, now a resident of downtown Oakland, left our table to start his own small group. He reported reaching consensus on the kinds of things he’s advocated for years: tall, terraced buildings with rooftop gardens. 

Our group was a mix of mostly unaffiliated Berkeley residents, including some UC employees attending as individuals. We filled a flipchart with things we liked most about downtown, and wanted to promote or at least not lose. Several people praised downtown’s independent businesses, and wanted to see the city help them thrive. Someone suggested a free shopper’s shuttle, which others liked. 

Several people mentioned conserving and reusing historic buildings, and filling vacancies before building more capacity. Berkeley Arts Festival director Bonnie Hughes, who lives downtown, said that older buildings often provide better performance spaces. 

“I keep getting shown new buildings with seven-foot ceilings,” she said. “Few musicians can perform gracefully in seven feet.” 

Others said that downtown should preserve sunlit areas, avoiding the shady, wind-tunnel effect of the tall towers flanking Center Street. Some noted the recovery of the top three blocks of upper University Avenue and Center Street, the latter thanks to city and university investments that shouldn’t be screwed up. 

By the time every group reported back, the session seemed to have pleased most people, including some tough customers. “I thought it was interesting that nobody used the game pieces,” Lamont later told me. “They just discussed what they wanted to discuss.” 

Wrenn said the workshop “had some value as another opportunity for the public to put forward their concerns.” He emphasized that “we also want them to submit their ideas in writing.” After this public meeting, or another planned for the fall, he hoped participants would “write a memo saying ‘We had a really good discussion, and here’s what we proposed...’.” 

“I am very pleased with the workshop,” Taecker wrote me, saying that it “provided a clear indication of shared community values for a downtown that is: vibrant, welcoming, greener, and pedestrian-friendly.” 

I heard much less satisfaction about broader questions of why and how Berkeley is developing a new downtown plan, with UC’s funding and substantial involvement. Many other DAPAC members and observers have suspicions rooted in the mayor’s May 2005 closed-door settlement with UC that launched that process. This settlement dropped a city lawsuit over UC’s 2006–2020 Long Range Development Plan. And to feel one’s way around this elephant is to enter a different movie—Rashomon, Akira Kurosawa’s 1950 classic about different witnesses’ conflicting recollections of a brutal rape and murder. 

Several people criticized the settlement (which you can download from: www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/manager/LRDP/ucblrdpagreement.pdf) for giving UC “veto power” over the new downtown plan’s contents. But others point out that the university is constitutionally exempt from local planning controls. 

Under this agreement, UC at least agrees to consider following the guidelines the city develops. Its right to block the release of a new downtown plan is a problem only if you think the city needs to replace its existing one, which was adopted in 1990. 

Does Berkeley need a new downtown plan? Mayor Bates, writing in these pages last Sept. 27, said so. But others disagree. 

And Wrenn and Lamont both told me they were glad DAPAC has scheduled sessions to review the existing Downtown Plan and decide what language to keep. “We can’t meet the deadline if we start from scratch,” said Wrenn, who said he would have preferred to focus on implementing the city’s current Downtown and General Plans. 

“The train has left the station, and you can be on it or not,” Lamont said. “We’re trying to make something good of it.” 

Several other people identified beneficiaries other than the university. In their view, Mayor Bates is pursuing a three-point agenda to please high-density developers and their fans. Replacing the current Downtown Plan would serve the first two points, by freeing developers from its closely specified height limits and design guidelines. The third point, in this view, is the mayor’s parallel effort to facilitate demolitions by weakening the Landmarks Preservation Ordinance. 

The convening of a DAPAC “Technical Advisory Committee,” whose meetings are closed to the public and to DAPAC members themselves, was a surprise even to many DAPAC members. “That’s never, to my knowledge, happened in the history of Berkeley planning,” said Wrenn. 

Then there’s money. Under the settlement, UC increases its annual payment to the city for services received. But critics complain that UC gets to unilaterally determine the purposes of much of the new funding, and that the city gives up the right to pursue the substantially larger compensation that it is arguably due. 

Other disagreements could easily fill another column: Is DAPAC’s expanded definition of “downtown” a threat, or a protection, for adjoining residential neighborhoods? Is DAPAC’s appointed membership better or worse than a “stakeholder” model? And what about the real bottom line: the university’s exemption from local zoning, which folks on all sides seem to agree is archaic? 

One clear conclusion I reached after Saturday’s short workshop is that people in all roles are approaching this new downtown plan with goodwill. But they’ll do their best work with close public scrutiny and involvement. 

DAPAC meets the third Wednesday of each month, usually from 7–10 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Their contact information is at: www.cityofberkeley.info/planning/landuse/dap.

While the Israeli military is denying it had anything to do with the deaths of eight Palestinian civilians at Beit Lahia beach in the Gaza Strip, June 10, a former Pentagon battle damage expert says “all the evidence points” to an artillery shell fired by Israel. 

According to Defense Minister Amir Peretz, “The accumulating evidence proves that this incident was not due to Israeli forces.” The Israeli Defense Force (IDF) claim the deaths and injuries were caused by an explosive device buried in the sand. 

But Marc Garlasco, a former U.S. Defense Department damage expert who worked in Kosovo and Iraq, says that the shrapnel he collected, as well as the nature of the wounds, points to a land-based 155mm howitzer shell, the basic artillery round for the U.S. and Israeli militaries.  

Garlasco found one shell fragment with “55mm” on it, and he dismissed the IDF’s theory that the explosion was caused by a 155mm shell buried by Hamas militants. He said most of the injuries were to the head and torsos of the victims, wounds inconsistent with a buried device. “If this had been a landmine,” Garlasco told Donald MacIntyre of the London Independent, “I would have expected to see serious leg injuries.” He called the IDF theory “ridiculous.”  

Human Rights Watch is calling for an independent investigation, which, so far, the government of Prime Minster Ehud Olmert is stonewalling.  

While the incident has vanished from the American media, it has sparked widespread discussion in the Israeli press. Writing in Haaretz, columnist Danny Rubinstein challenged the idea that the bloodshed was “the result of a tragic error. It was clear to everyone that in the exchanges of fire in the narrow Gaza Strip, where the population density is among the highest in the world, it was just a matter of time before an entire family was hit.” 

Rubinstein says there is not only no military solution to the overall conflict, it is “increasingly clear that there is no military solution for putting an end to the Qassam rocket attacks.” 

In the past year, the IDF has fired over 6,000 shells into Gaza, demolishing houses, fields, roads, bridges and launching sites, and killing more than 80 Palestinians (in the past two years eight Israelis have died from Qassam rockets). “None of this helped. On the contrary: there are many more rockets and missiles in Gaza today than in the past,” writes Rubinstein.  

But, according to the columnist, the shelling and the refusal to talk with the Palestinians has a purpose: “It is best that the Palestinians remain extremists because then no one will ask the government of Israel to negotiate with them. How do we insure that the Palestinians remain radical? We simply strike at them, over and over, via assassinations and incessant bombings, until they drive any thought of supporting a peace policy out of their minds.” 

Israeli peace activists marched on IDF Chief of Staff Dan Halutz’s house in Tel Aviv to protest the Gaza killings. Among the protestors was Dana Olmert, daughter of the Prime Minister. And five human rights organizations sent a letter to Olmert and Peretz calling on them to end the killing of Palestinian civilians in the territories, and to “uproot the elements that contribute to this killing.” 

There is lots of blame to spread around for the recent riots in East Timor that killed over 30 people and paralyzed the capital, Dili. For starters, the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Australia, and the U.S.  

The trigger for the unrest was a decision by Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri to dismiss 600 of the new nation’s soldiers. Alkatiri was responding to pressure from the World Bank and the IMF to curb government spending and impose austerity on the debt-laden island. 

The dismissed soldiers were mostly easterners, and westerners largely dominate the present East Timor government. The media has played up this “ethnic tension” angle, although there are no ethnic differences between the two populations. What has caused tension is that the current government is mostly composed of exiles that fled during Indonesia’s 25-year reign of terror.  

When the soldiers claimed that they were being discriminated against by Dili-dominated government, Alkatiri cavalierly dismissed them. 

The real source of the problem is that East Timor was first ravaged by the Indonesians, and then quickly abandoned by the United Nations, in large part because the UN is under severe budget pressure from United States and Great Britain. The United States is opposing efforts to send UN troops back in. 

East Timor is the poorest country in Asia. It lost 200,000 residents during the 1974-99 Indonesian occupation, a kill ratio higher than Pol Pot achieved in Cambodia. When the country voted for freedom in 1999, Indonesian militias destroyed 70 percent of East Timor’s infrastructure, and herded 250,000 people into concentration camps in Indonesian-dominated West Timor. According to a study in The Lancet, Britain’s leading medical journal, one third of East Timor’s people met the criteria for post-traumatic stress disorder following the 1999 rampage. 

Timor’s underdevelopment is due not only to Indonesia’s rapacious exploitation, but also to Australia’s refusal to turn over billions of dollars in oil revenues from the Timor Sea. Under current international law those fields belong to East Timor, but Australia claims they are “disputed.” 

Indonesia could not have invaded East Timor without the explicit permission of President Gerald Ford’s administration (then Secretary of State Henry Kissinger personally gave the green light to Indonesian President Suharto) and without the passive acceptance of the illegal occupation by Australia and Great Britain. 

Instead of pressuring Indonesia to turn over 400 people accused of war crimes during the long occupation and 1999 rampage, the United Stated and Australia have remain largely silent on the issue The Bush Administration recently announced it would begin selling arms again to the Indonesian military. 

Indeed, the U.S. Justice Department is actively aiding Indonesia’s illegal occupation of West Papua by charging that the Free Papua Movement is a “terrorist” organization, thus giving the Indonesian army the cover it needs to try and crush the separatist movement. 

The great colonial powers—in East Timor’s case, Portugal—plundered the less powerful, throttling their economies and strangling their political evolution. Then they shake their heads and tsk-tsk about “failed states” when things go badly, as if they bear no responsibility. 

Former Italian Prime Minster Silvio Berlusconi’s line on the April 9-10 razor close Italian elections was that they were a “fluke,” and that Romano Prodi’s center-left government was not long for the world. Well, the “fluke” turned into an old fashioned trouncing in local elections May 28-29, when the center right was lucky to hang onto Berlusconi’s hometown, Milan. 

The center-left’s candidate for mayor of the big industrial city of Turin crushed the center-right candidate, burying the myth that the wealthy north is right wing, while the scruffy south is left.  

Center left candidates swept 14 major cities, including Rome and Naples. The center right did hang on to the governorship of Sicily, but then again the victor, Salvatore Cuffaro, is on trial for aiding the Mafia.  

Not that Prodi will have smooth sledding. According to the Financial Times, Berlusconi’s mania for tax cutting left public finances in dreadful shape. 2006-07 will be a year of living dangerously for Prodi’s government, as it tries to fulfill promises with depleted coffers.

This is a time of euphoria for progressive Oakland—that small, special period between the promise and the practical reality of the Ron Dellums administration, a dizzy, giddy, magnificent time when hopes soar, the world appears as an incredible place, and all things suddenly seem possible. 

They salsa’d and danced the electric slide at the Dellums victory celebration at Kimball’s Carnival on election night, even before the first precinct count had come in, and when the former Congressmember got on the stage and said he believed “to a moral certitude” that the campaign would end with him occupying the mayor’s office at Ogawa Plaza, the faithful roared their approval and not a doubt of the ultimate outcome lurked in any corner in the club. 

Forgive me, then, my skepticism, and my words of caution in these in-between days, while the Dellums go off on a well-deserved vacation and City Hall prepares, some of the staff a little nervously, for the January inauguration and the changing of the guard. 

Mr. Dellums told us, more than once, that he was not the Man of Steel come to save Oakland. No red “S” is painted on his chest, and he will almost certainly walk up the steps to get to his desk, not fly in through an upstairs window. We should take heed, and believe him, because the time is soon coming for the governing part of this experience, and that will be far more difficult and challenging than the election ever was. 

Tucked in the middle of a Los Angeles Times article this week about the race between outgoing Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown and State Senator Chuck Poochigian for California Attorney General was a predictable quote from California Democratic Party consultant and strategist Darry Sragow: Jerry Brown has “done a lot of things since 1982,” Mr. Sragow told the Times, “most recently a good job as mayor of a city that's pretty tough to govern.” 

This is what we should and have come to expect from Mr. Brown’s supporters when the current mayor is attacked on his record in Oakland; Oakland is so screwed up, they will tell everyone listening, that none of Mr. Brown’s massive failures were his fault but were only due to Oakland’s own deficiencies. We’re so bad, nobody could have done it any better, they will say, and we and the rest of the state ought to be thankful for the effort Mr. Brown put forth on our behalf. After all, who else could have done better? 

Forgive the use of the Anglo-Saxon, but that’s a bullshit excuse, smelling like the holding pens out at the Rowell Ranch. But it’s an excuse that will resonate around the state, because that’s what they think of Oakland in Bakersfield and San Bernadino and up in Tulare County, and so Mr. Brown will probably get away with it. 

Oakland would not have been so tough to govern for somebody who came to work every morning and completed the list of tasks that were set out on his desk for him to do. But Jerry Brown, the free spirit whose mind was always drifting with the breeze to other, more interesting (to him) pursuits and challenges, was never one for completion of the tasks he was supposed to be doing and for which we paid him, handsomely and regularly. 

Living the slacker life in City Hall’s upper floors will certainly not be the case with Mr. Dellums, who is legendary for his work ethic. 

But his term as mayor of Oakland is going to run into immediate difficulties for other reasons, some of them in large part because of the expectations raised by the way Mr. Dellums ran his campaign. 

This was a campaign that was heavy on inspirational talk and light-in-the-ass on the accompanying details, and that made it an exceptionally smart campaign in which Mr. Dellums was able to win decisively, without a runoff. Coming out with details on how he would redo the Oak to 9th or the Forest City deals would probably not have won Mr. Dellums a single new vote from the pro-developer crowd, but it might well have peeled away elements of that large and diverse coalition of his support—open space environmentalists or labor activists or members of the various ethnic-racial groups—who might have found, suddenly, that Mr. Dellums’ shoes didn’t fit their feet in quite the way they thought they would. But in running a campaign of vagueness, Mr. Dellums was an opaque pot into which progressive voters—immensely frustrated with the Brown years—could pour all of their long-ignored ingredients for a shining new city by the bay. What dish was rising in there, who knew, since most of Mr. Dellums’ supporters were convinced that whatever it was, it would certainly come out to their taste. 

We will soon come to the proof in this particular pudding, and find out how well Mr. Dellums can hold his campaign coalition together once it becomes an actual governing coalition. Who will get what important jobs and who will not? Will this be an administration in which one overall vision prevails, with others getting small handouts here and there to keep them satisfied and interested in the game, or will this be a mayoral office that moves by consensus between several powerful, progressive political interest groups? Watch, particularly, how Mr. Dellums satisfies the competition between his African-American and organized labor constiuencies, two immensely important Oakland groups without which Mr. Dellums would have remained a D.C. lobbyist. These two groups often find themselves on the same side of important issues, but just as often are at odds. Will Mr. Dellums be able to keep that competition friendly, or will the fight over the election spoils turn nasty? 

Another significant challenge for the incoming Dellums Administration, and for the citizens who supported him, is that many of the groups that had their way in Oakland during the Jerry Brown years were not created or even introduced by Mr. Brown—his administration simply facilitated their activities. They will not go away with Mr. Brown, because they will continue to believe that, regardless of the outcome of the election, they are entitle to certain entitlements and privileges in Oakland. 

The current mayor came to office promising that he would spur Oakland’s residential and commercial development without the nasty and embarassing public subsidies of the past. Remember when he said he was going to “put Oakland on the map?” Mr. Brown certainly did, but probably under a designation that read, like the Wayans Brothers movie, “Mo’ Money, Mo’ Money, Mo’ Money!” I haven’t done the math, but it seems like the subsidies and public land tradeoffs for Forest City, for example, are larger than anything ever offered by City Hall under Mr. Wilson or Mr. Harris. Mr. Brown managed to sell away part of the Jack London Square waterfront that belonged to the City of Oakland since—well—since there was a City of Oakland, and his suspension of CEQA protections in downtown development (thanks in large part to assistance from State Senator Donald Perata) was a developer’s dream. With so much money to be made, the developers will be pressuring City Council and the Dellums Administration for similar concessions from the moment Mr. Dellums assumes office, and even before.  

The same will be true of such groups as the national educational interests who, under the state seizure, have turned Oakland into a massive educational experimental ground.  

There will also be problems reining in the powerful Oakland Police Officers Association, which continues to believe that they are doing us such a service that we should continue to pay them massively while they ignore accountability. 

These are among the challenges that Mr. Dellums always said he could not, and would not, face by himself, but in cooperation with the rest of the Oakland citizenry. 

The Dellums election, therefore, is not so much a victory as it is an opportunity, an opening of doors for larger numbers of Oakland citizens to walk in and sit down at the table where the decisions that govern our city are made. What happens next depends to some degree on what Mr. Dellums does next. But taking him at his word on the portion of his election speech in which he was the most consistent, he can hardly do all of this on his own. What happens next in Oakland depends, in large part, on us. 

Morning dawns on a Berkeley summer day. Gray light filters into bungalow-style rooms, a shawl of mist moistens stately plane trees and palettes of roses. Knowing the sun will soon make its presence felt, this is a good time to set out with a plan for the day. Within walking distance are specialty food shops, cozy eateries, an inspiring nursery, a comfortable park and a wonderful neighborhood library. Welcome to Northbrae. 

Snappy morning air signals “get going” to this peripatetic biophile, the perfect time to recharge batteries with heart-elevating activity. At the King School Park, the running track is already busy with walkers, joggers and a tot-sized soccer game on the center turf. More tots are lost in their own world among slides and swings shaded by towering eucalyptus; older kids attempt the tire obstacle course. Wimbledon fans with varying skills pop and lob balls across the net while gleeful sounds reverberate off the surface at the Public Swim Center. Something for everyone. 

The temperature fits for a neighborhood stroll, especially with the dangling carrot of coffee and accoutrements. Down quiet side streets, bucolic in nature, I pass well- 

maintained homes amid flourishing yards. One- and two-story California bungalows in stucco and brick border tree-lined streets. Handsome in colors of gray, puce and café au lait, their roofs peak above small porches or larger verandas and multi-paned windows. Pink evening primrose and magenta bougainvillea glow as light diffuses down through trees whose height reveals their longevity. 

I think back to 1841 when this area was the first in Berkeley to be settled by Europeans. On the south side of Cordonices Creek is the site of Jose Peralta’s adobe dwelling and nearby the wood-frame house he later added. 

Although it’s still early, the tables and benches at Espresso Roma are quickly filling up, this being a popular local meeting place. With coffee and bagel, I grab a table, content to absorb the pulse of this family neighborhood. I watch mom and dad distribute Mexican scrambled eggs and oven potatoes to a young girl, aglow in summer pink, and her stroller-enclosed brother. The young miss is also enjoying hot oatmeal, while her final course is a huge M&M studded cookie. An older couple, sitting in filtered sun, seems totally engrossed in books. Each lost in their own world, they barely notice as gentle breezes alter leaf patterns above their pages. 

It’s hard to see the former gas station in this lovely outside café sheltered from street traffic by salvia hedges. At the service island, the corrugated roof is almost hidden by thickly growing honeysuckle. Small trees and umbrellas offer sun and shade options for catching up on the news or the latest gossip. Some linger, reluctant to leave this relaxing refuge. For others, like myself, shopping calls. 

Anchoring the south end of this neighborhood is Monterey Market. Founded by Tom and Mary Fujimoto in 1961, this village-based business “provides good fruits and vegetables in season” supporting local farmers and the community. It was originally across the street. I remember squeezing sardine-like around a single lap, filling my basket as I waited in line.  

Though today’s space seems hundreds of times larger than the original market, laden carts still fill the aisles. What better way to celebrate summer than with an array of fresh produce? Blushing apricots and plump cherries, a cornucopia of berries from golden raspberries to long stemmed strawberries, glistening spring onions in purple and white and enough fungi for a mushroom festival, from toadstool-like trumpet royale morels to velvety brown porcinis.  

Magnani Poultry adds to my basket with free-range chicken and Muscovy duck legs. The Deliza bar provides squirt-your-own dispensers of vinegars and olive oils. Yum, white balsamic and Phoenician extra virgin olive oil vinaigrette over roasted asparagus and beets. In the deli case I see a picnic ready to be sampled—pork loin with proscuitto and apricots and a red potato and herb salad. 

At my next stop I vicariously travel the world as I sample cheeses: smokey bleu from Oregon, Humboldt Fog’s Chevre, Italian Taleggio, French Chaunces, Spanish goat milk Cabra, English Stilton, grilling cheese from Cypress and Swiss raclette. Along with the cheeses, the bulk spice and herb selection is unbeatable: at pennies an ounce, they’re the best bargain around. 

The catchword at Monterey Fish is sustainability, taking into account the environment, fishing industry and community. 

Everything on offer is of the freshest quality, not the lowest prices. Staffed by a hip, knowledgeable crew and backed by classic rock, Monterey Fish gleams and tantalizes. There’s eco-farmed salmon on offer from Scotland but the bright wild Atlantic salmon makes my mouth water. For appetizers, the Oyster Bar holds a choice of Humboldt’s Kumamoto and Tomales Bay’s Hog Island. 

Can’t say “fini” until the sweet tooth has been satisfied. A summer fete needs cake and I can’t improve on Mango Mousse Torte or Italian Cream Cake from Hopkins Street Bakery. Then there’s that chocolate cupcake bedecked in sprinkles and the cranberry cinnamon Breakfast Bun, both tempting mouthfuls. Can’t forget the bread on my list. Many Grain or Dill Parmesan Baguette—I’ll take both. 

With nutritional needs met I now seek “food for the soul”. In the 1920s George Budgen of Berkeley Horticultural Nursery stated, “It’s not a home until it’s planted”. This worthy goal is easily satisfied with the oasis of greenery on hand at Northbrae’s Berkeley Hort.  

Not for the indecisive, myriad choices will make your head spin. Inspired by Monterey Market, I check out the vegetable six-packs ready to drop in the ground. Just in zucchini I must decide between green, black, costata romanesco, magda and ronde de nice. Tomatoes occupy three entire shelves, but are well sorted by ripening season. 

Below arched room size areas topped by shade-giving screens, paved paths delineate specific plant varieties. Light and air freely circulate under the high peaked central structure and mature specimen plants line the walkway. Fallopia japonica’s variegated leaves appear sprayed with white paint and the huge pink-tinged white flowers of Patricia Marie Rhododendron are strikingly lovely. More than just a nursery, Berkeley Hort is a wondrous botanical garden, except I get to take the plants home with me. 

As the sun reaches its zenith the northern neighborhood anchor beckons. Like a heartbeat, the North Branch Berkeley Public Library maintains a steady rhythm. Within its triangular, park setting of wide lawns and circling trees, the Spanish revival building with central tower, tiled roof and deeply inset arched windows serves as a gateway to this mellow neighborhood. 

Each morning patrons patiently wait until doors open. Computers are quickly put to use. At reading tables, study materials spread out and the latest newspapers are perused; open windows framed in foliage keep interiors cool. In the children’s wing the tables and chairs are smaller and joyful voices display appreciation of weekly Picture Book and Family Story Times. As with a dear friend, I find myself visiting several times a week.  

In the golden slant of afternoon light, I head down Hopkins under the tree-tunnel of far reaching sycamores. Satisfied with my excursion and purchases I’m ready to savour my feast of local bounty—food, plant life and books. Steady, without pretense, Northbrae fits my needs, is home. 

Espresso Roma Cafe, 1549 Hopkins St, 528-8010 

Monterey Market, 1550 Hopkins St, 526-6042, www.montereymarket.com 

Magnani Poultry, 1576 Hopkins St, 528 6370 

Monterey Fish, 1582 Hopkins St, 525-5600, www.montereyfish.com 

Hopkins Street Bakery, 1584 Hopkins St, 526-8188 

Berkeley Horticultural Nursery, 1310 McGee St, 526-4704, www.berkeleyhort.com  

North Branch Berkeley Public Library, 1170 The Alameda (at Hopkins), 981-6250 

When Maurice Strelinger, aka M.B. Curtis, built the fabulous Peralta Park Hotel, he envisioned it as a hostelry for theatrical companies passing through San Francisco. This dream never came to pass, but Curtis did manage to lure at least one stage star to his new subdivision. 

In October 1889, the California Architect and Building News (CABN) reported that Lord & Boynton was building for Miss Anita Fallon a two-story frame house on Lot 5 in Peralta Park. Designed by Fred E. Wilcox, the house cost $3,500, to be paid in four stages. 

Miss Fallon was a well-known San Francisco actress. In 1890, her city address was 120 McAllister Street. As befits a country residence of the late 1880s, the Fallon house in Berkeley is a beguiling fantasy. The main mass is a rectangular box, set back and surmounted by an enormous Dutch gambrel roof. At the front, a stout round turret flanked by a rustic stone chimney sports a bell-shaped roof that assumes a saddle shape as it connects to the gambrel roof. 

The exterior is clad in stucco—practically unheard of in an American house of the Victorian era—yet the 1889 contract notice stipulated a payment to be made after the first coat of mortar was put on. One can only speculate about the nature of the original walls. They may have been clad in an early form of stucco. Alternatively, the turret may have been shingled, the rest of the house clapboard.  

Unique in Berkeley, the Fallon house was kin to the fanciful East Coast villas featured monthly in the Scientific American Architects and Builders Edition. It was the perfect setting for its flamboyant owner.  

Anita (Annie) Fallon was born in San Jose on April 16, 1854. Her father, Captain Thomas Fallon (1825–1885), had been a member of the John C. Fremont expedition to Alta California. Later he joined the Bear Flag Revolt and on July 11, 1846 led a volunteer force that captured the pueblo of San Jose. He would serve as San Jose’s mayor in 1859–1860. 

Annie’s mother, Carmel Fallon (1827–1923), was the granddaughter of General Joaquin Ysidro Castro and the daughter of Martina Castro Lodge, the first woman to receive a Spanish land grant—Rancho Soquel, comprising 34,000 acres along the coast south of Santa Cruz. 

Carmel inherited one-tenth of Rancho Soquel, which she and Tom Fallon parlayed into land investments in the San Jose area. In the center of town they built a 15-room Italianate mansion that stood higher than City Hall and boasted the first bay windows in the South Bay area. Located across the street from the Luís Maria Peralta adobe (1797), the house is now part of the Peralta Adobe-Fallon House Historic Site. 

In 1874, Annie Fallon went to Paris to study painting, continuing to Germany the following year. Her pictorial subjects were apparently academic and uninspired, consisting mostly of Madonnas and landscapes. In 1878, she married John F. Malone, a young lawyer and Santa Clara County Deputy District Attorney. Participation in local amateur Shakespearian productions propelled the couple to theatrical renown. 

On August 16, 1880 they made their San Francisco professional debut in Edward George Bulwer-Lytton’s drama “Richelieu, or The Conspiracy,” staged at the Baldwin Theatre on Market Street. John played the title role, while Annie portrayed Richelieu’s ward, Julie de Mortemar. 

The marriage soon went awry, and in 1886 Annie sued for divorce on grounds of neglect and failure to provide sustenance. She soon became a star in her own right, performing at the Alcazar and Golden Gate theatres. For her independent-living role model, the a cigar-smoking actress needed look no further than her own mother. 

Ten years earlier, Carmel had caught her husband in flagrante delicto with the housekeeper. After thrashing the errant pair with a fire poker, Carmel promptly filed for divorce and moved to San Francisco with her unmarried children. 

An astute businesswoman, Carmel invested her fortune in San Francisco real estate, building the Carmel Hotel and the Fallon Hotel. In 1894, she commissioned a three-story commercial/residential building at the intersection of Market, Octavia, and Waller streets. It would serve as her home for the next 29 years. 

Designed by the San Jose architect Edward Goodrich, the trapezoidal Fallon Building survived the 1906 Earthquake and Fire through the personal intervention of the 79-year old Carmel.  

In the late 1990s , now owned by the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Community Center, the Fallon Building was threatened with demolition but saved through the efforts of the advocacy group Friends of 1800. It is now a designated landmark. 

Following her mother’s example, Anita engaged in building activities. In 1889, Fred Wilcox designed not only her Peralta Park house but an extant 4-story building of flats at 270 Divisadero Street. Like the Berkeley house, it features a prominent round turret, this one crowned by a witch's cap.  

Little is known about Wilcox. In 1889 and 1890, he had an office in the Flood Building on Market Street and resided at 828 Powell Street, on top of Nob Hill. According to architectural historian Bradley Wiedmaier, Wilcox spent only a few years in San Francisco. Half a dozen buildings in the city are known to have been designed by him, including the Pacific Heights homes of Baldwin Theatre manager Alfred Bouvier (2524 Broadway) and businessman Stanley Forbes (2614 Scott St.), both in Eastern Shingle style. For capitalist Isaac Hecht, Wilcox remodeled and enlarged three Italianate row houses on Green Street. 

Anita Fallon’s house in Peralta Park may well have been Wilcox’s only East Bay commission. For over 60 years it was the centerpiece of an oversized lot that extended from Albina Avenue to Fleurange Avenue (now Acton Street), just across Codornices Creek from the Peralta Park Hotel building. This lot had been the site of José Domingo Peralta’s adobe. A 1911 map indicates that the property (the address was 1304 Albina) included a water tower, a coop, and a car garage. It remained intact until the early 1950s, although the house had undergone some renovations, most likely in the ’20s and/or ’30s. 

How long Anita Fallon retained ownership of the house is not known. From 1911 until 1929 she was embroiled in a much-publicized dispute with her brother over their mother’s estate, which newspapers estimated at a million dollars. A five-year court case was finally resolved in an out-of-court settlement. Anita died in San Francisco on May 14, 1932. 

In the early 1950s, the former Fallon property was broken up into seven lots, and the house was turned around and moved to the western corner on Acton Street. On the Albina frontage, four modern houses went up, and an apartment building was later erected in the middle of the block. 

From the 1970s through the ’90s, the Fallon house was the home of William and Helga Olkowski, co-founders of the Farallones Institute and the Integral Urban House project. In 1979 the Olkowskis founded the Bio-Integral Resource Center, whose office was located on the first floor of their residence. 

The house is now owned by two writers: Phyllis Kluger, author of Needlepoint Gallery of Patterns From the Past, and Richard Kluger, author of a Pulitzer Prize–winning history of the American cigarette business, Ashes to Ashes. Mr. Kluger has just completed his next book, Seizing Destiny, in which he examines how the United States amassed its territories. The book will be released by Knopf next year. 

The Klugers have been good to the Fallon house. Beautifully restored with no structural alterations and minimal updating, it imparts grace, refinement, and beauty to its surroundings. 

This is the third and final part in a series of articles on Peralta Park.

In my job, I’m often asked to estimate what a particular job might cost. Mrs. Jones wants to know how much a new furnace might cost, or perhaps a roof. These aren’t too hard to roughly gauge and costs won’t vary by 100 percent (most of the time). 

I might even be able to give a pretty fair guess; but a paint-job is a horse of a different color when it comes to estimates and let me tell you why. There are paint jobs and paint jobs and paint jobs. They diverge in quality so much that it’s almost as though two different painters are in different lines of work.  

I mention this because I saw a classic case the other day. A true “blow and go” (I realize this gets used for lawn-care too but it really does apply, as you’ll see, to painting). This paint job was done so quickly and was so thin that there were actually voids on the surface that looked like thin leaves of paint in the places where it had failed to form a continuous sheet. 

Also, you could see from the clear image of the grain of the rough wood below that the thickness of the paint was probably about that of a sheet of paper. The painter must have gotten a lot of coverage out of that five-gallon bucket of paint. If you add a little water, you might just make it around to the other side and be done before 10 a.m. In other words, the house had a new color, but nothing that I would actually call a paint job. 

Now, let’s contrast, just within this one criterion, with another paint job. Last week I saw a paint job that I gave a very big vote of confidence to and boy, it was sweet. 

One of the ways in which it was clear that this was a great paint job was that the fine definition of surface reticulation or, in English, the texture of the surface below the paint, was very much obscured. 

This isn’t always a good thing, in terms of aesthetics, but they found a very good compromise and having enough paint on the outside of a house is a darned nice thing. 

The paint was rolled in the right places and brushed in the right places and was nicely built-up at the joints between surfaces so that it was very clear that, making allowances for the paint quality itself, this paint job would be around, protecting the house for a long time to come (10 years?). 

So even if the only thing we talk about is volume and thickness of paint, we can be talking two different world. By the way, the first product was literally in need of repainted now and I think it was done last month. If it were done twice as well, it might have needed to be repainted in a year or two. That’s how big the difference is. 

So when we speak of one paint job costing three grand and another being 12, it may well be that the 12 is a far better value and that the painter puts less money in their pocket than the felon (oops, I mean fellow) charging 3. We’re not just talking apples and oranges, we’re talking row boats and aircraft carriers. 

The second issue and the one that I usually use as my primary criterion is preparation. It’s often been said that preparation should be largest part of any paint-job, although the percentages I hear bandied about (of course I never bandy myself, gave it up years ago) range from 50-90 percent. 

Not withstanding statistics, the point is that preparation is extremely important and that gallons of the best paint, painstakingly applied by caring hands cannot prevent the ill results of inadequate prep. 

One very important example relates to moisture. If one paints a surface that is not fully dry, the moisture below the new paint coating will vaporize in the heat of the day and form blisters, which lead to delamination and pretty soon the coating has gone all wonky (technical terminology). 

If the paint job is applied over a dirty or oily surface, the paint can similarly begin to detach and fail in the course of a year or two. 

A real favorite of mine, because I see it so often, is paint failure (now or soon to come) when paint is placed (usually sprayed) over old peeling paint. 

There’s no paint strong enough to keep the paint layer in place very long when the surface it’s attached to is already hanging in leaves off the house. 

A simple scraping would have been enough to prevent this but many a painter has left such stuff on the outside of the house and blown over it in pursuit of a quick check (or simply because they didn’t know any better). 

A quick aside is due at this point to offer some explanation as to why such workmanship comes into existence. I do not believe that most tradespeople are corrupt. Most are just trying to get by and are going the best work they know how to provide. The larger problem is the lack of knowledge and experience out there. 

The really great painter knows so much more than their sorry counterpart. They might even know fast and inexpensive ways to remove all the detritus from the outside so that they can create an iron-clad surface without spending months preparing the surface. 

In any event, they are not going to be cheaper. That’s the sad but consistent truth about this kind of work (and, of course, many other kinds of work). 

Two plumbers might be darned close on their estimates and the rules on connecting pipe will help to keep their work somewhat similar, but painter A (Starving Student Painters of Lower Lower Rockridge) will simply not provide the same product as painter B (Francine Flaubert Faux Finish et Decorating), despite their best efforts. 

Again, it’s up to the buyer to do the bewaring and to help push the quality uphill. We do this by saying no the low bid and by looking at a painter’s past pains for paltry products. Talk to clients from two or three years ago and go see their house before you sign on. 

Paint thickness and good preparation are just two of the criteria one should be looking at when comparing paint jobs and your poor servant’s column space is nearly filled but let it be sufficient to say that there is a lot of difference between a good and a bad paint job and hopefully, just as great a difference between a cheap and a costly one. 

Got a question about home repairs and inspections? Send them to Matt Cantor, in care of East Bay Real Estate, at realestate@berkeleydailyplanet.com.

We old coots play a game, based on how long we’ve been in Berkeley: You Shoulda Been Here When. In my circle it runs heavily to vertical samplings of bird populations, politics, public venues: often the interesting little store that filled a niche, got big, got bought, got corporatized, got bland.  

Some of us remember The Nature Company, which to some extent filled the fieldguide niche of the late Lucas Books and had a merrily unpredictable collection of optics, toys, and garden tools (like my favorite switchblade pruning saw) along with the bird feeders, coffeetable books, and art.  

The Nature Company got bought out by some Eastern corporation, then sold back to a founder, then re-sold to become The Discovery Channel Store. By the time Discovery downsized and closed its only Berkeley venue, all it had in common with the original was the “The”—and one knowledgeable employee. Lots of electronic bling, but no fieldguides to speak of, no Bateman or Parnall prints, no inspired garden tools, no complete line of binoculars.  

The story of Smith and Hawken is similar, even sold to the same corporation. All that Ecology of Commerce stuff, and Paul Hawken turned it over like the sheets in a by-the-hour motel.  

Smith and Hawken was always a bit pricey and over-the-top in some departments. Olde propagators’ pots from some cellar near Great Dixter, with preserved mossy rime included, that sort of thing. Garden clothes you couldn’t afford to get dirty. But interesting: “Japanese” farmers’ pants with drawstring ankles and pockets for kneepads. Real Wellington wellies.  

Some tools were big cutlery, all shiny and expensive, and came with an honest lifetime guarantee; I know two professional gardeners who collected on that, and still love their replacements a decade later. My biggest gripe against S&H was the weirdly precious catalogue prose.  

S&H sold top-quality interesting plants then, too. The Berkeley store’s nursery department is gone now, just a lone lavender seedling hanging on in the gravel. The bargain section that was open on weekends has disappeared, too; the stuff there usually seemed overpriced for its condition anyway. But without those bits, it all seems less interesting. 

My impression last week was, “It’s converging on Target, but it’s still more pricey.” The merchandise looked generic and familiar. I actually laughed when I found that S&H sells some of its lines through Target. They need some sort of design backflow control valve, apparently. Target’s big on “accessible design,” but what’s S&H’s reason to exist? The corporate owner —Scott’s Miracle-Gro, of all things—promises a “Renaissance.” Show me. 

Teilhard de Chardin’s “everything that rises must converge” is unsupported speculation, but it looks as if everything that corporatizes must get more boring. 

My advice: Use S&H for a first look and a place to try on Felcos. Ignore the house-brand imitations; they’re almost as expensive, and Felco will probably exist and sell you parts longer than S&H’s latest corporate owners—maintain an interest in that line. Check out any bargains, but don’t spend money without comparison shopping. If you’re going to support a soulless corporation, you might as well do so for less. 

Ron Sullivan is a former professional gardener and arborist. Her “Garden Variety” column appears every Friday in East Bay Home & Real Estate. Her column on East Bay trees appears every other Tuesday in the Berkeley Daily Planet. 

Take a Good Look Around 

It’s surprising how few of us have walked around our home to take note of which furniture is ready to injure us in a serious quake. There’s usually quite a bit of it, folks!  

I’ve done many consultations where the homeowner thinks that because a piece is heavy, like an armoire or a desk, for example, it won’t fall. Or that because something is on wheels, like a baby bed, it will slide and not fall. Not true! Pieces like these are crying out for securing.  

For the handy person, securing is no big deal. Just go to your friendly hardware store and find the earthquake hardware section. 

If you’re not inclined this way, or just don’t have the time, hire your own handyman or go to my website. 

This is not that expensive. Most importantly, in a big quake, most injuries are due to falling objects (not fire).  

Is it worth taking a chance that you or somebody you love could be badly hurt? And, try comparing the securing cost of $150-$350 to the expense of replacing all kinds of furniture, computers, and TVs, after the quake destroys them.  

Larry Guillot is owner of QuakePrepare, an earthquake consulting, securing, and kit supply service in the East Bay. www.quakeprepare.com.

Scanning through my recent e-mails, I came across one with the subject line “Gallicentral News.” It was from news@gallicentral.com.  

I’m cautious about opening e-mails from unfamiliar addresses, and I’m quick to delete anything that refers to teenage girls, bodily fluids, requests for money, or rocket-sized thingies.  

But this e-mail caught my attention. It sounded slightly familiar. I tried to recall who I knew named Galli. Whose newsletter was I getting? 

I opened it. After a quick glance I recognized the source. The person behind the website is Richard Galli, a lawyer and writer I’d contacted years ago. Mr. Galli is the author of several books including Rescuing Jeffrey, a memoir about his son’s July 4, 1998 diving accident that resulted in a devastating spinal cord injury. Just days before his 18th birthday, Jeffrey Galli was rendered paralyzed below his neck, unable to move his arms or legs, incapable of breathing on his own.  

Richard Galli and I both published books at about the same time on similar subjects, but there the similarities end. Mr. Galli’s story is about saving his son from drowning only to temporarily regret it and consider not saving him from quadriplegia. My book is about taking care of my husband after a bicycling accident rendered him a C-4 quad, like Jeffrey, confined to an electric wheelchair, dependent on others for his care. 

Rescuing Jeffrey wrestles with big—very big—questions about life and death. I can’t say that I enjoyed reading Mr. Galli’s book, or even pondering the issues presented. I wasn’t much taken with the idea of letting Jeffrey die. He was conscious, alert, and cognitive. Eventually Richard and his wife, Jeffrey’s mother, came to the same conclusion, but not before arguing with the ethics board of the hospital where their son was cared for by a team of specialists whose duty was to keep him alive.  

After reading Rescuing Jeffrey I contacted Mr. Galli. It was easy to do so since his website was announced on his book jacket and he was soliciting funds for Jeffrey’s education and well-being. In my e-mail I told Mr. Galli that I had read his memoir, that my husband had suffered an injury similar to Jeffrey’s, and that I, too, had written a book about a freak accident and our subsequent struggles. Would Mr. Galli like to see a copy of Tumbling After? If so, I would send it to him. 

Mr. Galli wrote back to me. No, he wasn’t interested in my book; in fact he wasn’t interested in anything to do with me or the publishing industry in general. I don’t recall what else was in the e-mail. I just remember the tone: bitter, angry, sarcastic. I do remember my reply: “Are you always like this or did I just contact you on a bad day?” I erased his first and subsequent responses. What I had hoped would be a positive connection had turned disappointing. I didn’t want to pursue it. 

But here in my inbox years later is an update on Mr. Galli’s life: new books and movie projects; photographs and articles; opportunities to buy his merchandise and contribute to Jeffrey’s trust fund; and a request to forward the link to his newsletter on to others.  

I remember the lesson I learned from Mr. Galli during that long ago correspondence, that the stress and pain of taking care of a loved one is no excuse for becoming an unhappy cynic. So I pass his website on to you. Check it out. There is much to be learned from Jeffrey and his family’s struggle, and even more to be learned from Mr. Galli’s savvy marketing skills. I’d consider taking a lesson or two from him if I wasn’t so busy just trying to get by.  

For more on Richard and Jeffrey Galli go to www.gallireport.com, www.richardgalli.com, and www.rescuingjeffrey.com.

I’m always a little startled when I get a response to one of these pieces. Sometimes it’s about something that requires correction, like the incident of the owl in the Embarcadero BART station. Other comments call for amplification. 

A while back, in a column about Jerusalem crickets, I mentioned that I had no idea how these alarming-looking insects got their name. All the known species are North American natives, with no historical association with the Middle East. 

Then David B. Weissman, who studies Jerusalem crickets at the California Academy of Sciences, sent me a copy of an article in which he addresses that question. He looks at several alternative theories and comes to a conclusion that, while admittedly speculative, makes sense to me. 

The first few scientific descriptions of these insects either used no common names or translated local Spanish or Indian names, like “child of the earth.” “Jerusalem cricket” first appears (without explanation) in a paper by entomologist Vernon Kellogg in 1905, and UC Berkeley’s E.O. Essig employed the name in 1913.  

In a popular article in Pacific Discovery, predecessor of the late lamented California Wild, in 1971, N. W. Baker conjectured that a Jerusalem cricket viewed from above in its normal resting position “resembles a Jerusalem Cross, an angled cross with short bars across the ends, these short bars represented in the cricket by the long spines above the tarsi [hind legs].” Weissman didn’t find this at all convincing, nor do I.  

Weissman wrote to several senior entomologists for their interpretations. Keith Kevan suggested that the name came from the insect’s tendency to feed on roots and tubers, the source of another common monicker, “potato bug.” Maybe it was regarded at some point as a pest on Jerusalem artichokes, AKA sunchokes. The “Jerusalem” in the plant’s name is a corruption of the Italian girasole, meaning “turning to the sun,” for the heliotropism it shares with other sunflowers. But this turns out to be another appealing theory destroyed by an inconvenient fact: the ranges of Jerusalem artichokes and Jerusalem crickets don’t overlap. The crickets occur in the arid West, the chokes originally in the Northeast. 

The version Weissman gives the most weight to comes from Richard L. Doutt, who pointed out that “Jerusalem” was in common use in the 19th century as a mild epithet (perhaps about the intensity level of “Holy cow”), usually indicating surprise. Doutt envisions a young western farm boy turning over a rock to reveal a large and ominous insect and exclaiming “Jerusalem! What a cricket!” 

This wouldn’t be the first time an expression of surprise got attached to an animal. One of the local names for the ivory-billed woodpecker was “Lord God,” which is what people tended to say when this duck-sized bird burst out of the deep timber. 

Another response, this time from a friend, involved the column about the steelhead in Codornices Creek in which I regretted the absence of eels in California. What about the Native American eel fishery on the Klamath River, he wanted to know. For that matter, what about the Eel River itself? 

Good question. But those weren’t eels, strictly speaking. They were lampreys. In his Handbook of the Indians of California, A. L. Kroeber refers to the “lampreys, also known as eels, much prized by the Yurok for their rich greasiness,” and adds that the Yurok caught them in nets and pots as they swam up the Klamath to spawn. The Eel River tribes were also avid lamprey fishers. There were separate spring and fall runs in both rivers; on the Klamath, the river eddies where lampreys were taken were individually owned. Like salmon, the lampreys were split and smoked for storage.  

Lampreys may be eel-shaped, but they’re something else entirely—survivors, along with the hagfish, of one of the earliest groups of vertebrates. They lack jaws and paired fins, have cartilaginous skeletons, a notochord (the precursor to 

the vertebrate backbone), and only one nostril. And their brains are small, even for fish.  

Most lamprey species are anadromous, like salmon, steelhead, and sturgeon: spending most of their lives at sea, returning to their natal streams to spawn. They typically prey on other fish by attaching to the victim’s side with their suckerlike mouth, rasping a hole with their sharp tongue, and sucking their host’s blood and body fluids. But a few California lampreys, like the rare Kern brook lamprey, spend their entire lives in freshwater where the larvae feed on algae and detritus and the adults don’t eat at all. 

In addition to the North Coast tribes, Europeans have prized lampreys at various times and places: they figure in Portuguese, Galician, Bordelaise, and Finnish cuisine. And seafood scholar Alan Davidson notes that the city of Gloucester gave Elizabeth II a lamprey pie to commemorate her jubilee in 1977. I hope it didn’t go to waste.  

The absence of true eels in California remains a mystery. East Asia has them, and eastern North America and western Europe. As a unagi fan, I feel somewhat cheated. 

Photograph by Robyn Waayers. 

FRIDAY, JUNE 23 

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 

“Bigger Than Jesus” Rick Miller’s one-man show at 8 p.m. and Sat. at 2 and 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Playhouse, UC Campus. Tickets are $30. 642-9988. 

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. www.calshakes.org 

Central Works “The Inspector General” a new comedy, Thurs., Fri., and Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 5 p.m. at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant Ave., through July 30. Tickets are $9-$25. 558-1381. 

Crowded Fire Theater Company “We Are Not These Hands” a comedy about the friendship between two teenaged girls in a fictional third-world nation, Thurs.-Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 7 p.m. through July 16 at The Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby Ave. Tickets are $10- $20. www.crowdedfire.org 

Masquers Playhouse “The Fantasticks” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m. Sunday Matinees at 2:30 pm on June 25, July 2, 9, 16. at 105 Park Place, Point Richmond, through July 22. 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.  

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. 

FILM 

Isabelle Huppert: Passion and Contradiction “Malina” at 7 p.m. and “The Trout” at 9:25 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Davy and Peter Rothbart introduce “Found II” at 8 p.m. at Pegasus Books Downtown, 2349 Shattuck Ave. 649-1320. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Roy Zimmerman in “Faulty Intelli gence” An evening of satirical songs, Wed.-Fri. at 8 p.m. at The Marsh Berkeley, 2118 Allston Way. 800-838-3006. www.themarsh.org  

Jessica Jones Quartet at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $7. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Tim O’Brien at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $24.50-$25.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

David Gans, Mario DeSio and Jeff Pehrson at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

Pellejo Seco, Cuban son, at 9 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $12. 849-2568.  

The Girlfriend Experience, Machine Green, Tokyo Decadence at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $6. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

“Listen” recordings by contempory sound makers at 8 p.m. at Studio Rasa, 933 Parker St. Tickets are $10-$18. 843-2787. 

Blanks 77, Hellbillies, Ashtray, Peligro Social at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St., an all-ages, member-run, no alcohol, no drugs, no violence club. Cost is $7. 525-9926. 

Hyim & The Fat Foakland Orchestra at 9 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low. Cost is $5. 548-1159.  

Du Uy Quintet at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Mike Marshall, Angel of Thorns, The Brod Rob Experience at 9 p.m. at the Uptown Nightclub, 1928 Telegraph, Oakland. Cost is $10. 451-8100. www.uptownnightclub.com 

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 

SATURDAY, JUNE 24 

FILM 

Isabelle Huppert: Passion and Contradiction “Merci pour le chocolat” at 6:30 p.m. and “Violette Nozière” at 8:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Rhythm & Muse will host an appreciation and fundraising night for the Berkeley Art Center, which is in jeopardy of closing its doors due to the cumulative effects of funding cuts by the City of Berkeley over the past three years. Open mic sign up at 6:30 p.m., reading at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Art Center, 1275 Walnut St., between Eunice & Rose Sts. 644-6893. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Summer Solstice Celebration in Oakland’s Laurel neighborhood with over 50 musical groups performing from 3 to 7 p.m. at MacArthur Blvd. and 38th Ave. 531-1499. 

Hal Stein Quartet at 4 p.m. at 4024 MacArthur Blvd. Free. 

“Praise Him in Song” Gospel Concert at 5 p.m. at Linen Life, 1375 Park Ave., Emeryville. tickets are $20-$25. 776-8222. 

“Stand Still” with Gospel soloist Yvonne Cobbs-Bey, at 7:30 p.m. at Harmony Missionary Baptist Church, 4113 Telegraph Ave. at 41st St., Oakland.  

Baba Ken & Kotoja at 9:45 p.m. at Ashkenaz. African dance lesson at 9 p.m. Cost is $12-$15. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Dance in the Key to Life Dance from Hawai’i, Tahiti, North India, Zimbabwe, New Zealand, and West Africa at 8 p.m. at Regent’s Theater, Holy Names University, 3500 Mountain Blvd., Oakland. Tickets are $25. 925-798-1300. 

Company of Prophets, AIDS Awareness and hip hop show, at 8 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $8-$10. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Khalil Shaheed/Yasir Chadley Quartet at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $10. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Rick DiDia and Nate Cooper at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

The Ravines at 8 p.m. at Spud's Pizza. Suggested donation $7, no one turned away. 540-7874. 

Bill Kirchen at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Sister Farmers Big Machine at 9 p.m. at Blakes on Telegraph. Cost is $8-$10. 848-0886. www.blakesontelegraph.com 

Eric Muhler, solo piano, at 9 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810.  

Santa Diabo, Project Greenfield, Mission Players at 9 p.m. at the Uptown Nightclub, 1928 Telegraph, Oakland. Cost is $8. 451-8100. www.uptownnightclub.com 

Jagadambe, part of the Kirtan devotional music series at 7 p.m. at Studio Rasa, 933 Parker St. Tickets are $15-$18. 843-2787. 

The Devil Makes Three, The Blue Roots at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $8. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

A Night of Voices, stories by Matt Holdaway and music by The Isabellas, Kou Chen, at 5 p.m., and Slydini at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

SUNDAY, JUNE 25 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Inner Visions” Abstract paintings by Judy Levit and Susan Hall. Reception from 4 to 6 p.m. in the Foyer Gallery of the Albany Community Center, 1249 Marin Ave.  

“Staff Picks” New work from William Smith, Jennie Ottinger, Kvin B. Chen, Robert Armstrong, Edward Foley through July 27 at Barbara Naderson Gallery, 2243 Fifth St. 848-3822. 

FILM 

Isabelle Huppert: Passion and Contradiction “Saint-Cyr” at 3 p.m. and “Coup de torchon” at 5:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. 642-0808.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

PEN Oakland Poetry Benefit “Words Upon the Waters” to benefit Centers for Independent Living in Mississippi, at 3 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. 841-JAZZ.  

Reading for Two Late Barbarian Poets: Eli Copolla and David Lerner at 7:30 p.m. at Moe’s Books, 2476 Telegraph Ave. 849-2087. 

Eric Dinerstein talks about “Tigerland and Other Unintended Destinations” at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698. www.blackoakbooks.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Friends of Negro Spirituals Bay Area Negro Spirituals Heritage Day at 3:30 p.m. at the West Oakland Senior Center, 1724 Adeline St., Oakland. 869-4359. 

Mozart in the Garden preview concert for the Midsummer Mozart Festival in the East Bay Hills. Tickets are $65. 415-627-9141. 

Kalanjali: Dances of India at 1 p.m. at Julia Morgan Center for the Arts, 2640 College Ave. Free. www.juliamorgan.org 

Brazilian Soul Quartet at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $10. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Americana Unplugged: Homespun Rowdy at 5 p.m. at Jupiter. 655-5715. 

Pat Ryan’s Celtic Junket at 11 a.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

Jessica Neighbor Quartet at 8 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810.  

MONDAY, JUNE 26 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

“New Writing by Women of the Iranian Diaspora” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. www.codysbooks.com 

Amy Spade and Owen Hill read at 7:30 p.m. at Moe’s Books, 2476 Telegraph Ave. 849-2087. 

Poetry Express open mic on “The Blues” at 7 p.m. at Priya Restaurant, 2072 San Pablo Ave. berkeleypoetryexpress@yahoo.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Blue Monday Jam at 8 p.m. at the Uptown Nightclub, 1928 Telegraph, Oakland. Cost is $5. 451-8100. www.uptownnightclub.com 

Bruce & Matt, traditional Italian music, at 7 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

Jake Shimabukuro at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $8-$12. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com  

TUESDAY, JUNE 27 

CHILDREN 

Gretchen Woefle reads from her book “Animal Families, Animal Friends” as part of the Kensington Library’s Summer Reading Program at 7 p.m. at 61 Arlington Ave., Kensington. 524-3043. 

Puppet Company “Fantasy on Strings” a magical excursion with a variety of 3 feet tall, fully articulated marionettes at 7 p.m. at The Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave. 526-3720, ext. 17. 

FILM 

Against Indifference: The Cinema of Krzysztof Kieslowski “No End” at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Belinda Rathbone reads from “The Guynd: A Scottish Journal” at 7:30 p.m at Mrs. Dalloway’s Literary and Garden Arts, 2904 College Ave. 704-8222. 

Tell It On Tuesday Storytelling at 7 p.m. at Julia Morgan Center for the Arts, 2640 College Ave. Cost is $8-$12 sliding scale at the door. www.juliamorgan.org 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Golden Gate International Childrens’ Choral Festival at 3 p.m. at the Mormon Interstake Center, Oakland. 547-4441. 

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. www.uptownnightclub.com 

Randy Craig Trio, jazz, at 7:30 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

Chris Chandler and David Roe House Concert at 7 p.m. at 1609 Woolsey St. 649-1423. 

Zemog El Gallo Bueno at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $10-$16. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

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

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 28 

FILM 

Arab Women Film Series “Ashiqat Al-Cinema” at 7 p.m. at La Peña. Cost is $5-$10. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

The Puppet Animation of Kihachiro Kawamoto “Demons, Poets, and Priests” at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

“Writing Teachers Write” monthly student and teacher reading series at 5 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

Natalie Coughlin and Michael Silver describe “Golden Girl: How Natalie Coughlin Fought Back, Challenged Conventional Wisdom, and Became America’s Swimming Champion” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. www.codysbooks.com 

Roy Zimmerman in “Faulty Intelligence” An evening of satirical songs, at 8 p.m. at The Marsh Berkeley, 2118 Allston Way. 800-838-3006. www.themarsh.org  

“Ten Excellent Reasons Not to Join the Military” presented by Cindy Sheehan, Paul Rockwell, and Aimee Allison at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698. www.blackoakbooks.com 

Berkeley Poetry Slam with host Charles Ellik and Three Blind Mice, at 8:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $5-$7. 841-2082 www.starryploughpub.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Golden Gate Childrens’ Community Concert at 7:30 p.m. at Unitarian Universalist Church, Kensington. 547-4441. 

Justin Hellman Trio at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $5. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

J Soul 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 

Zemog El Gallo Bueno at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $10-$16. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

THURSDAY, JUNE 29 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Somewhere in Space” Installations and paintings by Mayumi Hamanaka and Eric Larson. Reception at 6 p.m. at Swarm Studios + Gallery, 560 Second St., Oakland. 839-2787. 

“TRASHed” an eco-friendly art exhibition of recycling bins on Bay Street through the end of August. 655-4002. www.baystreetemeryville.com  

FILM 

The Puppet Animation of Kihachiro Kawamoto “Absurdities, Legends, and Fairy Tales” at 7 p.m. and “The Book of the Dead” at 8:35 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Sandra M. Gilbert and Phyllis Stowell read from thier new books on death and grief at 3 p.m. in the 3rd floor Community Meeting Room, Berkeley Public Library, 2090 Kittredge St. 981-6107. 

“For Review” with Jack Marshall discussing his memoir “From Baghdad to Brooklyn: Growing Up in a Jewish Arabic Family in Midcentury America” at 6:30 p.m. at the Magnes Museum, 2911 Russell St. Cost is $6-$8 549-6950. 

Michelle Tea will read from her new book “Rose of No Man’s Land” at 6 p.m. at Oakland Public Library, West Auditorium, 125 14th St. 238-3134. 

Siddharth Dhanvant Shangvi describes “The Last Song of Dusk” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. www.codysbooks.com 

Nomad Spoken Word Night at 7 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

Elizabeth Grossman talks about “High Tech Trash: Digital Devices, Hidden Toxins, & Human Health” at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698. www.blackoakbooks.com 

“The Da Vinci Code: Is the Truth Stranger than Fiction?” with Rabbi Harry Manhoff at 7:30 p.m. at BRJCC, 1414 Walnut St. Donation $5. 839-2900, ext. 249. 

Word Beat Reading Series with Ronda Lawson and Eugene David at 7 p.m. at Mediterraneum Caffe, 2475 Telegraph Ave. 526-5985. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

“Full Circle “ Dream Dance Company and Jose Francisco Barroso and Carlos Mena, Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m. at Laney College Theater, 900 Fallon St. at 9th St., Oakland. Tickets are $12-$15. 597-1619, ext. 110. dreamdancecompany.org  

Lloyd Gregory Trio at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $5. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Triskela, three harps, at 7 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

Hali Hammer CD Release Party at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Unitarian Fellowship Hall, 1924 Cedar St. at Bonita. Suggested donation $5-$10 sliding scale, no one turned away for lack of funds. 649-1423. 

Roy Zimmerman in “Faulty Intelligence” An evening of satirical songs, at 8 p.m. at The Marsh Berkeley, 2118 Allston Way. 800-838-3006.  

No More Stereo, Melaquis, The Team Hate at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $5. 841-2082. 

Jimi Bridges, music without borders at 8 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $6-$8. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Take 6, a capella, at 8 and 10 p.m., through Sun. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $28-$32. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

Jennifer Johns at 8:30 p.m. at the Uptown Nightclub, 1928 Telegraph, Oakland. Cost is $8. 451-8100.

Al Gore may be soaking up the spotlight with his doc du jour An Inconvenient Truth, but The Road to Guantanamo, opening today (Friday) at Shattuck Cinemas, is a far more incendiary film and one that many Americans would do well to see. 

Guantanamo tells a harrowing tale, and though it ends happily enough for the young Englishmen whose story it relates, it is full of anguish and anger on behalf of the potentially hundreds of innocent detainees who have not fared as well. 

The film is part documentary, part dramatization. It tells the story of the “Tipton Trio,” three Englishmen of Pakistani origin who set out for their native country so that one of them can get married there. There were actually four of them at the start of the journey, but one vanished somewhere in Afghanistan, where the young men had traveled to be of some help to fellow Muslims caught in the crossfire between the United States and the Taliban.  

They were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time, rounded up with a group of alleged Taliban soldiers, arrested by the Northern Alliance, turned over to the American military, and eventually shipped off to Camp X-Ray at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. They were lucky to even make it that far, but that was far from the end of their troubles. At Guantanamo the trio was subjected to inhumane conditions and repeated interrogations. They were systematically humiliated, beaten, abused and degraded. 

Though the story is dramatized, the action is interspersed with news footage and interviews with the Tipton Trio themselves. The technique may sound clumsy on paper but it works quite well, taking the simple, just-the-facts monologues of the young men and illustrating them with dramatic re-creations of their experiences. 

The dramatized segments feature young actors with little professional experience, chosen because they reflected many of the same traits as the men they portray; they are young, adventurous, brash, not especially religious and certainly apolitical. They are just kids, really, caught up in something too dark and too vast to comprehend, and the casting of these young actors brings those qualities to the fore. 

The film has already sparked controversy for its unflinching portrayal of the trespasses of the U.S. and British governments. Doubtless, its claims will be refuted, written off as politically-charged fantasies. But the tale is real. 

It seems like just a few years ago that tales of abduction, torture, indefinite detention and unlawful imprisonment occurred only in far-off lands: criminal deeds done by lawless, totalitarian governments or shadowy drug cartels in exotic locales. But now the American government is in on the act, if not for the first time then certainly for the first time on such a grand scale.  

Fahrenheit 9-11 kicked off this latest wave of political documentaries, but unlike that film and the many that followed in its wake—Outfoxed, The Corporation, Wal-Mart: The High Price of Low Cost, and even An Inconvenient Truth—Road to Guantanamo is not so easy to dismiss as a politically motivated polemic, especially in light of the recent suicides at Guantanamo.  

The film avoids many of the pitfalls of some of its recent predecessors, keeping the focus on the story itself rather than on the political players; George Bush, Donald Rumsfeld and Tony Blair make only brief appearances. 

The filmmakers spend little time recounting the How and the Why, instead focusing their cameras on their subjects and sticking to the What. Why distract the audience with the pale justifications, obfuscations and moral rationalizations of politicians? Directors Michael Winterbottom and Mat Whitecross dispense with the small talk and get right to the point, knowing that it is far more effective to simply stick to the facts, to simply show what happened to these men and leave spin to others. There is no more effective and affecting story to be told than the disturbing tale of how an unchecked government and an unwinnable war robbed these young men of more than two years of their lives. 

But those two years were not wasted, for these men did not cave in; they did not give in to the temptation to ease their suffering by saying what their captors wanted to hear. 

“It only made me stronger,” one of the men says in an interview, and the line received a round of applause from a recent San Francisco preview audience. This sense of irony is pervasive throughout the film, as we watch burly, ruthless Marines—“Honor-Bound to Defend Freedom,” as their slogan reads—systematically subverting every tenant of their democratic ideals in a misguided effort to protect freedom by destroying it.  

At times the film draws uneasy laughter, as if it were simply a comedy of errors as the big, bad bully misses the forest for the trees, lording his power over the powerless while his world crumbles around him. It is truly bewildering and dispiriting to think of the U.S. Marines wasting the time and resources to ask a few clueless kids, over and over, “Where’s Osama?” 

The film reinforces the realization that bin Laden has in fact achieved a crucial—if “asymmetric”—victory, having reduced the once-mighty United States to a nation of paranoia and recklessness, ruled by an increasingly undemocratic government bent on squandering its vast power and wealth in pursuit of the unattainable goal of an undefined victory over an unseen enemy.  

But the military acts at the behest of our president, and our president prefers to paint with a broad brush, with good represented by white faces and evil represented by brown ones. The Tipton Trio never had a chance.  

Even when evidence to the contrary rests right before their eyes, the Marines at Guantanamo see only what they want to see, choosing to gaze instead through the same polarizing lens favored by al Qaeda. 

And for many Americans, that’s quite all right. “My country, right or wrong,” apologists say. But they never finish the quote, never include the words Missouri Sen. Carl Schurz used to modify the statement: “My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right.” 

Contributed Photo.  

A scene from the part documentary, part dramatization The Road to Guantanamo

Over 40 local poets—including Ntozake Shange, Floyd Salas, Avotcja, Gerald Nicosia, Tennessee Reed and Reginald Lockett—will read to benefit the Hurricane Katrina victims of Mississippi, and to celebrate the self-publication of a book of poems on Katrina, Words Upon the Waters, this Sunday, 3 p.m., at Anna’s Jazz Island. 

Both the production of the book and the reading come from a collective effort by the artists involved, building on an earlier benefit at La Peña, to send all proceeds directly to elderly and disabled Katrina victims through the Center for Independent Living in the East Bay.  

“All of us are artists; I never thought we’d have a book,” said Kim McMillon, who hosts a reading series at Anna’s Jazz Island, and will preside at Sunday’s benefit with fellow organizers Wanda Sabir and Karla Brundage. 

The ball got rolling for the benefits and the book one night last year when a few friends began e-mailing each other and talking on the phone. 

“We’re mostly of color—African American, Native and Asian American, Latina,” said McMillon of the group that coalesced from the mutual concern. “Some of us had relatives down there, or our families were from there—my parents were married in Gulfport. And we could see that the needs of people were being ignored, especially those of older and disabled victims.” 

The group decided to focus on Mississippi because such a wide area of that state got devastated; it wasn’t just New Orleans. 

“People feel helpless,” McMillon said. “But for us, it’s an opportunity to use our words to help—and we’re building a sense of community.” 

Sabir, whom McMillon called the backbone of the effort, spent the time following Katrina “in a daze, waiting for phonecalls” to account for family members in the stricken area. 

“The older people, especially those in their 80s and 90s didn’t leave,” she said. “The younger ones evacuated, the older stayed. I kept seeing photos of people in wheelchairs being evacuated to the Astrodome in Houston.” 

Sabir, who teaches at Alameda Jr. College, visited Mississippi last fall. “Aid was being blocked; people were going, taking blankets and food down.” 

On her return, she talked with others, then contacted Karla Brundage. 

“We’d done events for South Central, for abolishing the death penalty together. We had lots of names standing by,” Sabir said. “Karla organized the La Peña reading. The poetry was awesome; the testimony, fabulous. We taped the evening, and Karla, Kim Shuck, Leroy Franklin and other poets started talking about doing a book.” 

“Inkworks donated 500 covers and found a binder for us,” said McMillon. “The project deserved something more than a stapled chapbook and Reginald Lockett legitimized us with his Jukebox Press. We’ve got an ISBN number, and—after Karla and five others spent all night long, every night for a week at the Bay Area Alternative Pres—we have 500 bound copies. When you make something this way, when your hand touches every page, it puts a different value on it.” 

McMillon said publishers have been invited to the reading, in the hope that one of them will publish the book. 

All proceeds from the readings and a silent art auction of donated works at La Peña are being wired, without fee, by the Center for Independent Living to Mississippi and Houston. 

“We get detailed reports on how it’s been spent,” said Sabir. “Jan Garrett of CIL has been great—and Mr. Batiste, whose own family members were evacuated during Hurricane Rita. He knows.” 

Brundage commented on the interracial and intercommunity cooperation that’s sprung from a widespread disaster, teamwork that’s overcoming a sense of voicelessness from being confronted with a history of neglect. 

“There are places down there that don’t exist anymore,” Sabir said. “But our community of poets and artists are of the same ethnic diversity—even including a similar diversity of disabilities—as the Katrina victims. We span the spectrum, and when we feel something, we write a poem or a song, put on a concert.” 

The reading is sponsored by Oakland PEN, Before Columbus Foundation and Poetry Flash. McMillon credits Anna Rodriguez, of Anna’s Jazz Island with “really going to bat for us—and she contributed a great poem, too.” 

“The anniversary of Katrina’s just around the corner,” cautioned McMillon, “and it’s hurricane season again.” 

Words Upon The Waters 

A Healing Event for Katrina by Bay Area Poets & Artists 

Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way,  

Sunday, 3 p.m. 

$5 admission; book $20.

Morning dawns on a Berkeley summer day. Gray light filters into bungalow-style rooms, a shawl of mist moistens stately plane trees and palettes of roses. Knowing the sun will soon make its presence felt, this is a good time to set out with a plan for the day. Within walking distance are specialty food shops, cozy eateries, an inspiring nursery, a comfortable park and a wonderful neighborhood library. Welcome to Northbrae. 

Snappy morning air signals “get going” to this peripatetic biophile, the perfect time to recharge batteries with heart-elevating activity. At the King School Park, the running track is already busy with walkers, joggers and a tot-sized soccer game on the center turf. More tots are lost in their own world among slides and swings shaded by towering eucalyptus; older kids attempt the tire obstacle course. Wimbledon fans with varying skills pop and lob balls across the net while gleeful sounds reverberate off the surface at the Public Swim Center. Something for everyone. 

The temperature fits for a neighborhood stroll, especially with the dangling carrot of coffee and accoutrements. Down quiet side streets, bucolic in nature, I pass well- 

maintained homes amid flourishing yards. One- and two-story California bungalows in stucco and brick border tree-lined streets. Handsome in colors of gray, puce and café au lait, their roofs peak above small porches or larger verandas and multi-paned windows. Pink evening primrose and magenta bougainvillea glow as light diffuses down through trees whose height reveals their longevity. 

I think back to 1841 when this area was the first in Berkeley to be settled by Europeans. On the south side of Cordonices Creek is the site of Jose Peralta’s adobe dwelling and nearby the wood-frame house he later added. 

Although it’s still early, the tables and benches at Espresso Roma are quickly filling up, this being a popular local meeting place. With coffee and bagel, I grab a table, content to absorb the pulse of this family neighborhood. I watch mom and dad distribute Mexican scrambled eggs and oven potatoes to a young girl, aglow in summer pink, and her stroller-enclosed brother. The young miss is also enjoying hot oatmeal, while her final course is a huge M&M studded cookie. An older couple, sitting in filtered sun, seems totally engrossed in books. Each lost in their own world, they barely notice as gentle breezes alter leaf patterns above their pages. 

It’s hard to see the former gas station in this lovely outside café sheltered from street traffic by salvia hedges. At the service island, the corrugated roof is almost hidden by thickly growing honeysuckle. Small trees and umbrellas offer sun and shade options for catching up on the news or the latest gossip. Some linger, reluctant to leave this relaxing refuge. For others, like myself, shopping calls. 

Anchoring the south end of this neighborhood is Monterey Market. Founded by Tom and Mary Fujimoto in 1961, this village-based business “provides good fruits and vegetables in season” supporting local farmers and the community. It was originally across the street. I remember squeezing sardine-like around a single lap, filling my basket as I waited in line.  

Though today’s space seems hundreds of times larger than the original market, laden carts still fill the aisles. What better way to celebrate summer than with an array of fresh produce? Blushing apricots and plump cherries, a cornucopia of berries from golden raspberries to long stemmed strawberries, glistening spring onions in purple and white and enough fungi for a mushroom festival, from toadstool-like trumpet royale morels to velvety brown porcinis.  

Magnani Poultry adds to my basket with free-range chicken and Muscovy duck legs. The Deliza bar provides squirt-your-own dispensers of vinegars and olive oils. Yum, white balsamic and Phoenician extra virgin olive oil vinaigrette over roasted asparagus and beets. In the deli case I see a picnic ready to be sampled—pork loin with proscuitto and apricots and a red potato and herb salad. 

At my next stop I vicariously travel the world as I sample cheeses: smokey bleu from Oregon, Humboldt Fog’s Chevre, Italian Taleggio, French Chaunces, Spanish goat milk Cabra, English Stilton, grilling cheese from Cypress and Swiss raclette. Along with the cheeses, the bulk spice and herb selection is unbeatable: at pennies an ounce, they’re the best bargain around. 

The catchword at Monterey Fish is sustainability, taking into account the environment, fishing industry and community. 

Everything on offer is of the freshest quality, not the lowest prices. Staffed by a hip, knowledgeable crew and backed by classic rock, Monterey Fish gleams and tantalizes. There’s eco-farmed salmon on offer from Scotland but the bright wild Atlantic salmon makes my mouth water. For appetizers, the Oyster Bar holds a choice of Humboldt’s Kumamoto and Tomales Bay’s Hog Island. 

Can’t say “fini” until the sweet tooth has been satisfied. A summer fete needs cake and I can’t improve on Mango Mousse Torte or Italian Cream Cake from Hopkins Street Bakery. Then there’s that chocolate cupcake bedecked in sprinkles and the cranberry cinnamon Breakfast Bun, both tempting mouthfuls. Can’t forget the bread on my list. Many Grain or Dill Parmesan Baguette—I’ll take both. 

With nutritional needs met I now seek “food for the soul”. In the 1920s George Budgen of Berkeley Horticultural Nursery stated, “It’s not a home until it’s planted”. This worthy goal is easily satisfied with the oasis of greenery on hand at Northbrae’s Berkeley Hort.  

Not for the indecisive, myriad choices will make your head spin. Inspired by Monterey Market, I check out the vegetable six-packs ready to drop in the ground. Just in zucchini I must decide between green, black, costata romanesco, magda and ronde de nice. Tomatoes occupy three entire shelves, but are well sorted by ripening season. 

Below arched room size areas topped by shade-giving screens, paved paths delineate specific plant varieties. Light and air freely circulate under the high peaked central structure and mature specimen plants line the walkway. Fallopia japonica’s variegated leaves appear sprayed with white paint and the huge pink-tinged white flowers of Patricia Marie Rhododendron are strikingly lovely. More than just a nursery, Berkeley Hort is a wondrous botanical garden, except I get to take the plants home with me. 

As the sun reaches its zenith the northern neighborhood anchor beckons. Like a heartbeat, the North Branch Berkeley Public Library maintains a steady rhythm. Within its triangular, park setting of wide lawns and circling trees, the Spanish revival building with central tower, tiled roof and deeply inset arched windows serves as a gateway to this mellow neighborhood. 

Each morning patrons patiently wait until doors open. Computers are quickly put to use. At reading tables, study materials spread out and the latest newspapers are perused; open windows framed in foliage keep interiors cool. In the children’s wing the tables and chairs are smaller and joyful voices display appreciation of weekly Picture Book and Family Story Times. As with a dear friend, I find myself visiting several times a week.  

In the golden slant of afternoon light, I head down Hopkins under the tree-tunnel of far reaching sycamores. Satisfied with my excursion and purchases I’m ready to savour my feast of local bounty—food, plant life and books. Steady, without pretense, Northbrae fits my needs, is home. 

Espresso Roma Cafe, 1549 Hopkins St, 528-8010 

Monterey Market, 1550 Hopkins St, 526-6042, www.montereymarket.com 

Magnani Poultry, 1576 Hopkins St, 528 6370 

Monterey Fish, 1582 Hopkins St, 525-5600, www.montereyfish.com 

Hopkins Street Bakery, 1584 Hopkins St, 526-8188 

Berkeley Horticultural Nursery, 1310 McGee St, 526-4704, www.berkeleyhort.com  

North Branch Berkeley Public Library, 1170 The Alameda (at Hopkins), 981-6250 

When Maurice Strelinger, aka M.B. Curtis, built the fabulous Peralta Park Hotel, he envisioned it as a hostelry for theatrical companies passing through San Francisco. This dream never came to pass, but Curtis did manage to lure at least one stage star to his new subdivision. 

In October 1889, the California Architect and Building News (CABN) reported that Lord & Boynton was building for Miss Anita Fallon a two-story frame house on Lot 5 in Peralta Park. Designed by Fred E. Wilcox, the house cost $3,500, to be paid in four stages. 

Miss Fallon was a well-known San Francisco actress. In 1890, her city address was 120 McAllister Street. As befits a country residence of the late 1880s, the Fallon house in Berkeley is a beguiling fantasy. The main mass is a rectangular box, set back and surmounted by an enormous Dutch gambrel roof. At the front, a stout round turret flanked by a rustic stone chimney sports a bell-shaped roof that assumes a saddle shape as it connects to the gambrel roof. 

The exterior is clad in stucco—practically unheard of in an American house of the Victorian era—yet the 1889 contract notice stipulated a payment to be made after the first coat of mortar was put on. One can only speculate about the nature of the original walls. They may have been clad in an early form of stucco. Alternatively, the turret may have been shingled, the rest of the house clapboard.  

Unique in Berkeley, the Fallon house was kin to the fanciful East Coast villas featured monthly in the Scientific American Architects and Builders Edition. It was the perfect setting for its flamboyant owner.  

Anita (Annie) Fallon was born in San Jose on April 16, 1854. Her father, Captain Thomas Fallon (1825–1885), had been a member of the John C. Fremont expedition to Alta California. Later he joined the Bear Flag Revolt and on July 11, 1846 led a volunteer force that captured the pueblo of San Jose. He would serve as San Jose’s mayor in 1859–1860. 

Annie’s mother, Carmel Fallon (1827–1923), was the granddaughter of General Joaquin Ysidro Castro and the daughter of Martina Castro Lodge, the first woman to receive a Spanish land grant—Rancho Soquel, comprising 34,000 acres along the coast south of Santa Cruz. 

Carmel inherited one-tenth of Rancho Soquel, which she and Tom Fallon parlayed into land investments in the San Jose area. In the center of town they built a 15-room Italianate mansion that stood higher than City Hall and boasted the first bay windows in the South Bay area. Located across the street from the Luís Maria Peralta adobe (1797), the house is now part of the Peralta Adobe-Fallon House Historic Site. 

In 1874, Annie Fallon went to Paris to study painting, continuing to Germany the following year. Her pictorial subjects were apparently academic and uninspired, consisting mostly of Madonnas and landscapes. In 1878, she married John F. Malone, a young lawyer and Santa Clara County Deputy District Attorney. Participation in local amateur Shakespearian productions propelled the couple to theatrical renown. 

On August 16, 1880 they made their San Francisco professional debut in Edward George Bulwer-Lytton’s drama “Richelieu, or The Conspiracy,” staged at the Baldwin Theatre on Market Street. John played the title role, while Annie portrayed Richelieu’s ward, Julie de Mortemar. 

The marriage soon went awry, and in 1886 Annie sued for divorce on grounds of neglect and failure to provide sustenance. She soon became a star in her own right, performing at the Alcazar and Golden Gate theatres. For her independent-living role model, the a cigar-smoking actress needed look no further than her own mother. 

Ten years earlier, Carmel had caught her husband in flagrante delicto with the housekeeper. After thrashing the errant pair with a fire poker, Carmel promptly filed for divorce and moved to San Francisco with her unmarried children. 

An astute businesswoman, Carmel invested her fortune in San Francisco real estate, building the Carmel Hotel and the Fallon Hotel. In 1894, she commissioned a three-story commercial/residential building at the intersection of Market, Octavia, and Waller streets. It would serve as her home for the next 29 years. 

Designed by the San Jose architect Edward Goodrich, the trapezoidal Fallon Building survived the 1906 Earthquake and Fire through the personal intervention of the 79-year old Carmel.  

In the late 1990s , now owned by the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Community Center, the Fallon Building was threatened with demolition but saved through the efforts of the advocacy group Friends of 1800. It is now a designated landmark. 

Following her mother’s example, Anita engaged in building activities. In 1889, Fred Wilcox designed not only her Peralta Park house but an extant 4-story building of flats at 270 Divisadero Street. Like the Berkeley house, it features a prominent round turret, this one crowned by a witch's cap.  

Little is known about Wilcox. In 1889 and 1890, he had an office in the Flood Building on Market Street and resided at 828 Powell Street, on top of Nob Hill. According to architectural historian Bradley Wiedmaier, Wilcox spent only a few years in San Francisco. Half a dozen buildings in the city are known to have been designed by him, including the Pacific Heights homes of Baldwin Theatre manager Alfred Bouvier (2524 Broadway) and businessman Stanley Forbes (2614 Scott St.), both in Eastern Shingle style. For capitalist Isaac Hecht, Wilcox remodeled and enlarged three Italianate row houses on Green Street. 

Anita Fallon’s house in Peralta Park may well have been Wilcox’s only East Bay commission. For over 60 years it was the centerpiece of an oversized lot that extended from Albina Avenue to Fleurange Avenue (now Acton Street), just across Codornices Creek from the Peralta Park Hotel building. This lot had been the site of José Domingo Peralta’s adobe. A 1911 map indicates that the property (the address was 1304 Albina) included a water tower, a coop, and a car garage. It remained intact until the early 1950s, although the house had undergone some renovations, most likely in the ’20s and/or ’30s. 

How long Anita Fallon retained ownership of the house is not known. From 1911 until 1929 she was embroiled in a much-publicized dispute with her brother over their mother’s estate, which newspapers estimated at a million dollars. A five-year court case was finally resolved in an out-of-court settlement. Anita died in San Francisco on May 14, 1932. 

In the early 1950s, the former Fallon property was broken up into seven lots, and the house was turned around and moved to the western corner on Acton Street. On the Albina frontage, four modern houses went up, and an apartment building was later erected in the middle of the block. 

From the 1970s through the ’90s, the Fallon house was the home of William and Helga Olkowski, co-founders of the Farallones Institute and the Integral Urban House project. In 1979 the Olkowskis founded the Bio-Integral Resource Center, whose office was located on the first floor of their residence. 

The house is now owned by two writers: Phyllis Kluger, author of Needlepoint Gallery of Patterns From the Past, and Richard Kluger, author of a Pulitzer Prize–winning history of the American cigarette business, Ashes to Ashes. Mr. Kluger has just completed his next book, Seizing Destiny, in which he examines how the United States amassed its territories. The book will be released by Knopf next year. 

The Klugers have been good to the Fallon house. Beautifully restored with no structural alterations and minimal updating, it imparts grace, refinement, and beauty to its surroundings. 

This is the third and final part in a series of articles on Peralta Park.

In my job, I’m often asked to estimate what a particular job might cost. Mrs. Jones wants to know how much a new furnace might cost, or perhaps a roof. These aren’t too hard to roughly gauge and costs won’t vary by 100 percent (most of the time). 

I might even be able to give a pretty fair guess; but a paint-job is a horse of a different color when it comes to estimates and let me tell you why. There are paint jobs and paint jobs and paint jobs. They diverge in quality so much that it’s almost as though two different painters are in different lines of work.  

I mention this because I saw a classic case the other day. A true “blow and go” (I realize this gets used for lawn-care too but it really does apply, as you’ll see, to painting). This paint job was done so quickly and was so thin that there were actually voids on the surface that looked like thin leaves of paint in the places where it had failed to form a continuous sheet. 

Also, you could see from the clear image of the grain of the rough wood below that the thickness of the paint was probably about that of a sheet of paper. The painter must have gotten a lot of coverage out of that five-gallon bucket of paint. If you add a little water, you might just make it around to the other side and be done before 10 a.m. In other words, the house had a new color, but nothing that I would actually call a paint job. 

Now, let’s contrast, just within this one criterion, with another paint job. Last week I saw a paint job that I gave a very big vote of confidence to and boy, it was sweet. 

One of the ways in which it was clear that this was a great paint job was that the fine definition of surface reticulation or, in English, the texture of the surface below the paint, was very much obscured. 

This isn’t always a good thing, in terms of aesthetics, but they found a very good compromise and having enough paint on the outside of a house is a darned nice thing. 

The paint was rolled in the right places and brushed in the right places and was nicely built-up at the joints between surfaces so that it was very clear that, making allowances for the paint quality itself, this paint job would be around, protecting the house for a long time to come (10 years?). 

So even if the only thing we talk about is volume and thickness of paint, we can be talking two different world. By the way, the first product was literally in need of repainted now and I think it was done last month. If it were done twice as well, it might have needed to be repainted in a year or two. That’s how big the difference is. 

So when we speak of one paint job costing three grand and another being 12, it may well be that the 12 is a far better value and that the painter puts less money in their pocket than the felon (oops, I mean fellow) charging 3. We’re not just talking apples and oranges, we’re talking row boats and aircraft carriers. 

The second issue and the one that I usually use as my primary criterion is preparation. It’s often been said that preparation should be largest part of any paint-job, although the percentages I hear bandied about (of course I never bandy myself, gave it up years ago) range from 50-90 percent. 

Not withstanding statistics, the point is that preparation is extremely important and that gallons of the best paint, painstakingly applied by caring hands cannot prevent the ill results of inadequate prep. 

One very important example relates to moisture. If one paints a surface that is not fully dry, the moisture below the new paint coating will vaporize in the heat of the day and form blisters, which lead to delamination and pretty soon the coating has gone all wonky (technical terminology). 

If the paint job is applied over a dirty or oily surface, the paint can similarly begin to detach and fail in the course of a year or two. 

A real favorite of mine, because I see it so often, is paint failure (now or soon to come) when paint is placed (usually sprayed) over old peeling paint. 

There’s no paint strong enough to keep the paint layer in place very long when the surface it’s attached to is already hanging in leaves off the house. 

A simple scraping would have been enough to prevent this but many a painter has left such stuff on the outside of the house and blown over it in pursuit of a quick check (or simply because they didn’t know any better). 

A quick aside is due at this point to offer some explanation as to why such workmanship comes into existence. I do not believe that most tradespeople are corrupt. Most are just trying to get by and are going the best work they know how to provide. The larger problem is the lack of knowledge and experience out there. 

The really great painter knows so much more than their sorry counterpart. They might even know fast and inexpensive ways to remove all the detritus from the outside so that they can create an iron-clad surface without spending months preparing the surface. 

In any event, they are not going to be cheaper. That’s the sad but consistent truth about this kind of work (and, of course, many other kinds of work). 

Two plumbers might be darned close on their estimates and the rules on connecting pipe will help to keep their work somewhat similar, but painter A (Starving Student Painters of Lower Lower Rockridge) will simply not provide the same product as painter B (Francine Flaubert Faux Finish et Decorating), despite their best efforts. 

Again, it’s up to the buyer to do the bewaring and to help push the quality uphill. We do this by saying no the low bid and by looking at a painter’s past pains for paltry products. Talk to clients from two or three years ago and go see their house before you sign on. 

Paint thickness and good preparation are just two of the criteria one should be looking at when comparing paint jobs and your poor servant’s column space is nearly filled but let it be sufficient to say that there is a lot of difference between a good and a bad paint job and hopefully, just as great a difference between a cheap and a costly one. 

Got a question about home repairs and inspections? Send them to Matt Cantor, in care of East Bay Real Estate, at realestate@berkeleydailyplanet.com.

We old coots play a game, based on how long we’ve been in Berkeley: You Shoulda Been Here When. In my circle it runs heavily to vertical samplings of bird populations, politics, public venues: often the interesting little store that filled a niche, got big, got bought, got corporatized, got bland.  

Some of us remember The Nature Company, which to some extent filled the fieldguide niche of the late Lucas Books and had a merrily unpredictable collection of optics, toys, and garden tools (like my favorite switchblade pruning saw) along with the bird feeders, coffeetable books, and art.  

The Nature Company got bought out by some Eastern corporation, then sold back to a founder, then re-sold to become The Discovery Channel Store. By the time Discovery downsized and closed its only Berkeley venue, all it had in common with the original was the “The”—and one knowledgeable employee. Lots of electronic bling, but no fieldguides to speak of, no Bateman or Parnall prints, no inspired garden tools, no complete line of binoculars.  

The story of Smith and Hawken is similar, even sold to the same corporation. All that Ecology of Commerce stuff, and Paul Hawken turned it over like the sheets in a by-the-hour motel.  

Smith and Hawken was always a bit pricey and over-the-top in some departments. Olde propagators’ pots from some cellar near Great Dixter, with preserved mossy rime included, that sort of thing. Garden clothes you couldn’t afford to get dirty. But interesting: “Japanese” farmers’ pants with drawstring ankles and pockets for kneepads. Real Wellington wellies.  

Some tools were big cutlery, all shiny and expensive, and came with an honest lifetime guarantee; I know two professional gardeners who collected on that, and still love their replacements a decade later. My biggest gripe against S&H was the weirdly precious catalogue prose.  

S&H sold top-quality interesting plants then, too. The Berkeley store’s nursery department is gone now, just a lone lavender seedling hanging on in the gravel. The bargain section that was open on weekends has disappeared, too; the stuff there usually seemed overpriced for its condition anyway. But without those bits, it all seems less interesting. 

My impression last week was, “It’s converging on Target, but it’s still more pricey.” The merchandise looked generic and familiar. I actually laughed when I found that S&H sells some of its lines through Target. They need some sort of design backflow control valve, apparently. Target’s big on “accessible design,” but what’s S&H’s reason to exist? The corporate owner —Scott’s Miracle-Gro, of all things—promises a “Renaissance.” Show me. 

Teilhard de Chardin’s “everything that rises must converge” is unsupported speculation, but it looks as if everything that corporatizes must get more boring. 

My advice: Use S&H for a first look and a place to try on Felcos. Ignore the house-brand imitations; they’re almost as expensive, and Felco will probably exist and sell you parts longer than S&H’s latest corporate owners—maintain an interest in that line. Check out any bargains, but don’t spend money without comparison shopping. If you’re going to support a soulless corporation, you might as well do so for less. 

Ron Sullivan is a former professional gardener and arborist. Her “Garden Variety” column appears every Friday in East Bay Home & Real Estate. Her column on East Bay trees appears every other Tuesday in the Berkeley Daily Planet. 

Take a Good Look Around 

It’s surprising how few of us have walked around our home to take note of which furniture is ready to injure us in a serious quake. There’s usually quite a bit of it, folks!  

I’ve done many consultations where the homeowner thinks that because a piece is heavy, like an armoire or a desk, for example, it won’t fall. Or that because something is on wheels, like a baby bed, it will slide and not fall. Not true! Pieces like these are crying out for securing.  

For the handy person, securing is no big deal. Just go to your friendly hardware store and find the earthquake hardware section. 

If you’re not inclined this way, or just don’t have the time, hire your own handyman or go to my website. 

This is not that expensive. Most importantly, in a big quake, most injuries are due to falling objects (not fire).  

Is it worth taking a chance that you or somebody you love could be badly hurt? And, try comparing the securing cost of $150-$350 to the expense of replacing all kinds of furniture, computers, and TVs, after the quake destroys them.  

Larry Guillot is owner of QuakePrepare, an earthquake consulting, securing, and kit supply service in the East Bay. www.quakeprepare.com.

FRIDAY, JUNE 23 

Reduced City Services Today Call ahead to ensure programs or services you desire will be available. 981-CITY. www.cityofberkeley.info 

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 Andy Ross, owner of Cody’s Books, on “Can the Independent Local Bookstore Survive in Berkeley?” 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.  

How’d You Become an Activist & What Now? with Pauline Wynter and Jacques Depelchin of the Democratic Republic of the Congo at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, 1924 Cedar St. at Bonita. Donations appreciated. 528-5403. 

Ecocity Report from New Orleans at 7 p.m. at the Ecology Center, 2530 San Pablo Ave., near Dwight Way. Cost is $10 but no one turned away for lack of funds. 548-2220. 

East Bay Animal Advocates’ Dairy Documentary at 7:30 p.m. at Humanist Hall, 390 27th St., Oakland. Donations of $5 accepted. 

Moving Mom and Dad with Donna Robins on finding the right retirement community at 7 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-5190.  

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. wibberkeley@yahoo.com 548-6310, 845-1143. 

SATURDAY, JUNE 24 

Open the Little Farm Feed the goats, collect some eggs, hold a bunny and meet our new calves at 9 a.m. at the Little Farm, Tilden Park. 525-2233. 

Outdoor Art Learn how to make a natural mural at 11 a.m. at Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park. Cost is $3. 525-2233. 

A Visit with a Guide Dog at 2 p.m. at Kensington Library, 61 Arlington Ave., Kensington. Sponsored by Guide Dogs for the Blind of Marin. 524-3043. 

Spiral Gardens Food Security Project from 1 to 6 p.m. at the corner of Sacramento and Oregon St. Peaches, nectarines, cherries, root veges, garlic, onions, cabbage, and squash - with summer vegetables on the way!  

Challenge Hike on Sobrante Ridge Explore a fragile ecosystem and a small forest of rare manzanita on this 3-mile hike with some hills. Meet at 10 a.m. at the staging are at the end of Coach Drive, El Sobrante. For ages 10 and up. 525-2233. 

Send-Off for the 17th U.S.-Cuba Friendhipment Caravan with a film, music and food, at 6 p.m. at Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists Hall, 1924 Cedar St. at Bonita. Donation of $10-$15 requested, no one turned away. 650-367-9183. 

Walking Tour of Old Oakland “New Era/New Politics” highlights African-American leaders who have made their mark on Oakland. Meet at 10 a.m. at the African American Museum and Library at 659 14th St. 238-3234. 

Carribean American Heritage Commemoration at 10 a.m. at Frank Ogawa Plaza, 14th and Broadway, Oakland. 599-1645. 

Re-Fresh Festival A community celebration of creative re-use and recycling from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at 9235 San Leandro St., Oakland. 638-7600.  

Family Origami Craft Day from 2 to 4 p.m. at the Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave. Free. 526-3720, ext. 17. 

Buddhist Temple of Alameda Bazaar, Sat. from 4 to 9 p.m. and Sun. from noon to 8 p.m. at 2325 Pacific Avenue, Alameda. 

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. http://botanicalgarden.berkeley.edu 

Car Wash Benefit for Options Recovery Services from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Lutheran Church, 1744 University Ave. 666-9552. 

SUNDAY, JUNE 25 

Brooks Island Voyage Paddle the rising tide across the Richmond Harbor Channel to Brooks Island from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. For experienced boaters who can provide their own canoe or kayak and safety gear. For ages 14 and up with parent participation. Cost is $20-$22. Registration required. 636-1684. 

Free Sailboat Rides for ages 5 and up from 1 to 4 p.m. at the Cal Sailing Club in the Berkeley Marina. Bring change of clothes, windbreaker and sneakers. For more information and directions see cal-sailing.org 

Berkeley CyberSalon “Blogging Mommies” with Grace Davis, Joan Blades, Mary Tsau, Jenny Lauck, and Lisa Brewer Canter at 5 p.m. at the Hillside Club, 2286 Cedar St. Cost is $5-$10. 527-0450. 

Teach Your Dog to Walk Without Pulling from 3 to 4 p.m. at Grace North Church, 2128 Cedar St. To register call 849-9323. companyofdogs.com  

Epic Arts BBQ and Open House from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. 644-2204, ext. 12. 

Berkeley City Club free tour from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. Tours are sponsored by the Berkeley City Club and the Landmark Heritage Foundation. 2315 Durant Ave. 848-7800 or 883-9710. 

Sunday Summer Forum: Towards a More Just World with Dr. Theodore Rosak at 9:30 a.m. at Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley, 1 Lawson Rd., Kensington. 525-0302. 

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

Tibetan Buddhism Panel on “Memories of the World Peace Ceremony” at 6 p.m. at the Tibetan Nyingma Institute, 1815 Highland Pl. 843-6812.  

MONDAY, JUNE 26 

Healthy Eating Habits Seminar at 7 p.m. at New Moon Opportunities, 378 Jayne Ave., Oakland. Free, but registration required. 465-2524. 

Deeksha and Chanting at 7:30 p.m. at the Northbrae Church, 941 The Alameda. Donations accepted. 655-1425. 

Berkeley CopWatch organizational meeting at 8 p.m. at 2022 Blake St. 548-0425. 

TUESDAY, JUNE 27 

Cancer Prevention and Survival Cooking Course A series of 8 classes at 6:30 p.m. at Keller Williams, 2nd floor, 4341 Piedmont Ave. Oakland. Free, but registration is required. 531-2665. 

Raging Grannies of the East Bay invites new folks to come join us from 2:30 to 4:30 p.m. to sing and have fun at Berkeley Gray Panthers office, 1403 Addison St., in Andronico’s mall. 548-9696. 

Great Weekend Camping Trips A slide presentation with Matt Heid at 7 p.m. at REI, 1338 San Pablo Ave. 527-4140. 

Red Cross Blood Drive from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. East Pauley Ballroom, MLK Student Union, 3rd floor, UC Campus. To make an appointment call 1-800-GIVE-LIFE. www.BeADonor.com  

PC Users meets at 7 p.m. at 1145 Walnut St. near Eunice. 

Stress Less Seminar at 7 p.m. at New Moon Opportunities, 378 Jayne Ave., Oakland. Free, but registration required. 465-2524. 

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. We always welcome new members over 50. 845-6830. 

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 28 

Walkin’ in Pride a 4-mile shoreline walk in Point Pinole at 6:30 p.m. in celebration of LGBT Pride Month. For information call 525-2233. 

Trip to Audobon Canyon Ranch with the El Cerrito Senior Center, from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. Cost is $15, reservations required. 215-4340. 

Walking Tour of Old Oakland around the restored 1870s business district. Meet at 10 a.m. in front of G.B. Ratto’s at 827 Washington St. Tour lasts 90 minutes. Reservations can be made by calling 238-3234. 

“Ten Excellent Reasons Not to Join the Military” presented by Cindy Sheehan, Paul Rockwell, and Aimee Allison at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698. www.blackoakbooks.com 

“Bureaucracy vs The Environment: What Should Be Done?” with speakers Michael Shaw, Founder, Liberty Garden, Randy Simmons, Prof. of Political Science, Utah State Univ., Carl Close, Co-editor, Re-Thinking Green at 6:30 p.m. at The Independent Institute, 100 Swan Way, Oakland. Cost is $10-$15.  

“Alameda County: Present and Future” with Keith Carson, Alameda County Supervisor at 1:30 p.m. at North Berkeley Senior Center, 1901 Hearst Ave. Sponsored by the Berkeley Gray Panthers. 548-9696.  

“The Art of Placemaking: Transit-Oriented Development” A panel discussion on both the challenges and potential of making Transit-Oriented Development successful, at 5:30 p.m. at AIA East Bay, 1405 Clay St., Oakland. Cost is $10-$20, includes dinner. To register call 464-3600. www.aiaeb.org  

Indigenous Permaculture with slides and music and information from El Salvador at 7 p.m. at Ecology Center, 2530 San Pablo Ave. Cost is $5-$50 sliding scale. 548-2220, ext. 233. 

“McLibel” A documentary about two activists who take on MacDonalds in England, at 7:30 p.m. at Humanist Hall, 390 27th St., Oakland. Donations of $5 accepted. 

“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. 

Bayswater Book Club meets to discuss Rabbi Paul at 6:30 p.m. at Barnes and Noble, El Cerrito. Also organizing meeting to become a Democratic Central Committee Chartered Club. 433-2911. 

Red Cross Blood Drive from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. East Pauley Ballroom, MLK Student Union, 3rd floor, UC Campus. To make an appointment call 1-800-GIVE-LIFE. www.BeADonor.com  

The Berkeley Lawn Bowling Club provides free instruction every Wed. and Sat. at 10:30 a.m. at 2270 Acton St. 841-2174.  

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. 548-9840. 

Fresh Produce Stand at San Pablo Park from 3 to 6:30 p.m. in the Frances Albrier Community Center. Sponsored by the Ecology Center’s Farm Fresh Choice. 848-1704. www.ecologycenter.org 

Berkeley Peace Walk and Vigil at the Berkeley BART Station, corner of Shattuck and Center. Sing for Peace at 6:30 p.m. followed by Peace Walk at 7 p.m. www. 

geocities.com/vigil4peace/vigil 

THURSDAY, JUNE 29 

Ecological Sanitation in Haiti, Compost Toilet Project with Sasha Kramer on the work of Sustainable Organic Integrated Livelihoods at 7 p.m. at the Ecology Center, 2530 San Pablo Ave. Free. 548-2220, ext. 233. 

A UPB Conversation on how we can live with strong ecological values locally with Ernest Callenbach, author of “Ecotopia” and “Ecology: A Pocket Guide,” from 5:30 to 7 p.m. At University Press Books/Berkeley, 2430 Bancroft Way. 548-0585. 

Teen Science Fiction/Fantasy Book Club with guest speaker Tom Whitmore on “The Other Change of Hobbit” at 4 p.m. at Claremont Branch Library, 2940 Benvenue. 981-6133. 

Free Skin Cancer Screening Clinic at Markstein Cancer Education Center, Summit Campus, Oakland. Free, but appointments required. 869-8833. 

Women’s Initiative “Develop a Business Action Plan” A free seminar for women entrepreneurs from 9 to 10:30 a.m. at 519 17 St. at Telegraph. 415-641-3463. www.womensinitiative.org 

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. http://botanicalgarden.berkeley.edu 

CITY MEETINGS 

Parks and Recreation Commission meets Mon., June 26, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Virginia Aiello, 981-5158. www.ci.berkeley.ca. 

us/commissions/parksandrecreation 

Zero Waste Commission Mon., June 26, at 7 p.m., at 1201 Second St. Tania Levy, 981-6368. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/ 

commissions/solidwaste 

City Council meets Tues., June 27, at 7 p.m in City Council Chambers. 981-6900. www.ci. 

berkeley.ca.us/citycouncil 

Civic Arts Commission meets Wed., June 28, at 6:30 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Mary Ann Merker, 981-7533. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/ 

commissions/civicarts 

Disaster and Fire Safety Commission meets Wed., June 28, at 7 p.m., at the Emergency Operations Center, 997 Cedar St. 981-5502. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/ 

commissions/disaster 

Energy Commission meets Wed., June 28, at 6:30 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Neal De Snoo, 981-5434. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/energy 

Mental Health Commission meets Wed., June 28, at 6:30 p.m. at 2640 MLK Jr. Way, at Derby. Harvey Turek, 981-5213. www.ci.erkeley.ca.us/ 

commissions/mentalhealth 

Planning Commission meets Wed., June 28, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Janet Homrighausen, 981-7484. www.ci.berkeley. ca.us/commissions/planning 

Police Review Commission meets Wed., June 28 , at 7:30 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-4950. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/policereview 

School Board meets Wed. June 28, at 7:30 p.m., in the City Council Chambers. Mark Coplan 644-6320. 

By Judith Scherr 

The sign Ramzi Obeid carried Tuesday afternoon at the downtown Berkeley BART station demonstration read: “Killing and destruction in Gaza—paid for by our taxes.” 

The demonstration that attracted about 100 protesters and a dozen counter-demonstrators was aimed at making the public aware of the recent killings in the Gaza strip, Palestine, and was organized by the Berkeley-based Middle East Children’s Alliance and the American Arab Anti-discrimination Committee. 

Obeid—a Palestinian-American who says he cannot go to the family home his mother left in 1948 in Jaffa, Israel-Palestine, because “I am not Jewish”—condemns the Israeli shelling of Palestinians in Gaza. 

Standing on a pick-up truck south of the BART station, Middle East Children’s Alliance Executive Director Barbara Lubin described the June 9 incident on a beach in Gaza when eight members of one family, including a six-month old infant, were killed while picnicking, allegedly a result of Israeli shelling. 

Lubin read a statement from Mona Elfarra, a physician working in Gaza: “An Israeli gunship suddenly fired at random against the beach while army tanks fired artillery shells and Apache helicopters crossed the sky; 40 civilians were injured, 10 killed.” The picnickers were among them. 

Counter-demonstrators flew Israeli flags and sported placards such as “Pro-Israel/Pro-Peace.” When Lubin addressed the rally from the truck, several pro-Israeli demonstrators moved from the north side of the BART station close to the demonstration, where picketers were circling as they listened to Lubin. 

“You’re lying Barbara, you’re lying,” yelled a counter-demonstrator through a bullhorn as he approached the truck with several others carrying Israeli flags. 

Lubin encouraged protesters to keep marching and ignore the other protestors as Berkeley police moved in to keep the pro-Israel group away from the pro-Palestine rally. 

Sanne DeWitt, a spokesperson for the pro-Israel demonstrators from Stand With Us, San Francisco Voice for Israel and Israel Action Committee of the East Bay, told the Daily Planet: “A lot of lies have been told.” 

Speaking to the protesters, Lubin contended that Palestinian functionaries have not been paid for months; the Israelis collect taxes and refuse to turn them over to the Palestinian Authority. “There’s no money to feed the children,” she said. 

DeWitt defended the Israeli government’s refusal to relinquish the Palistinian funds. “I’m concerned that Hamas [the ruling party] will use the funds to buy weapons and fight,” she said. 

After a few short speeches the protesters took their march to University Avenue down to Sacramento Street then back up to the BART station.

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.  

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. 

Mal Sharpe, jazz, at 7 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

Jazzschool Tuesdays 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.  

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. 

Berkeley Symphony Orchestra with Jane Eaglen, soprano, at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $10-$54. 841-2800. www.berkeleysymphony.org 

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.  

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 

FRIDAY, JUNE 23 

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 

“Bigger Than Jesus” Rick Miller’s one-man show at 8 p.m. and Sat. at 2 and 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Playhouse, UC Campus. Tickets are $30. 642-9988. 

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. www.calshakes.org 

Central Works “The Inspector General” a new comedy, Thurs., Fri., and Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 5 p.m. at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant Ave., through July 30. Tickets are $9-$25. 558-1381. 

Crowded Fire Theater Company “We Are Not These Hands” a comedy about the friendship between two teenaged girls in a fictional third-world nation, Thurs.-Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 7 p.m. through July 16 at The Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby Ave. Tickets are $10- $20. www.crowdedfire.org 

Masquers Playhouse “The Fantasticks” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m. Sunday Matinees at 2:30 pm on June 25, July 2, 9, 16. at 105 Park Place, Point Richmond, through July 22. 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.  

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. 

FILM 

Isabelle Huppert: Passion and Contradiction “Malina” at 7 p.m. and “The Trout” at 9:25 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Davy and Peter Rothbart introduce “Found II” at 8 p.m. at Pegasus Books Downtown, 2349 Shattuck Ave. 649-1320. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Roy Zimmerman in “Faulty Intelli gence” An evening of satirical songs, Wed.-Fri. at 8 p.m. at The Marsh Berkeley, 2118 Allston Way. 800-838-3006. www.themarsh.org  

Pellejo Seco, Cuban son, at 9 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $12. 849-2568.  

Jessica Jones Quartet at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $7. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Tim O’Brien at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $24.50-$25.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

David Gans, Mario DeSio and Jeff Pehrson at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

The Girlfriend Experience, Machine Green, Tokyo Decadence at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $6. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

“Listen” recordings by contempory sound makers at 8 p.m. at Studio Rasa, 933 Parker St. Tickets are $10-$18. 843-2787. 

Blanks 77, Hellbillies, Ashtray, Peligro Social at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St., an all-ages, member-run, no alcohol, no drugs, no violence club. Cost is $7. 525-9926. 

Hyim & The Fat Foakland Orchestra at 9 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low. Cost is $5. 548-1159.  

Du Uy Quintet at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Mike Marshall, Angel of Thorns, The Brod Rob Experience at 9 p.m. at the Uptown Nightclub, 1928 Telegraph, Oakland. Cost is $10. 451-8100. www.uptownnightclub.com 

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 

SATURDAY, JUNE 24 

FILM 

Isabelle Huppert: Passion and Contradiction “Merci pour le chocolat” at 6:30 p.m. and “Violette Nozière” at 8:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Rhythm & Muse will host an appreciation and fundraising night for the Berkeley Art Center, which is in jeopardy of closing its doors due to the cumulative effects of funding cuts by the City of Berkeley over the past three years. Open mic sign up at 6:30 p.m., reading at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Art Center, 1275 Walnut St., between Eunice & Rose Sts. 644-6893. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Summer Solstice Celebration in Oakland’s Laurel neighborhood with over 50 musical groups performing from 3 to 7 p.m. at MacArthur Blvd. and 38th Ave. 531-1499. 

Hal Stein Quartet at 4 p.m. at 4024 MacArthur Blvd. Free. 

“Praise Him in Song” Gospel Concert at 5 p.m. at Linen Life, 1375 Park Ave., Emeryville. tickets are $20-$25. 776-8222. 

“Stand Still” with Gospel soloist Yvonne Cobbs-Bey, at 7:30 p.m. at Harmony Missionary Baptist Church, 4113 Telegraph Ave. at 41st St., Oakland.  

Dance in the Key to Life Dance from Hawai'i, Tahiti, North India, Zimbabwe, New Zealand, and West Africa at 8 p.m. at Regent’s Theater, Holy Names University, 3500 Mountain Blvd., Oakland. Tickets are $25. 925-798-1300. 

Company of Prophets, AIDS Awareness and hip hop show, at 8 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $8-$10. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Khalil Shaheed/Yasir Chadley Quartet at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $10. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Rick DiDia and Nate Cooper at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

Bill Kirchen at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Sister Farmers Big Machine at 9 p.m. at Blakes on Telegraph. Cost is $8-$10. 848-0886. www.blakesontelegraph.com 

Eric Muhler, solo piano, at 9 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810.  

Santa Diabo, Project Greenfield, Mission Players at 9 p.m. at the Uptown Nightclub, 1928 Telegraph, Oakland. Cost is $8. 451-8100. www.uptownnightclub.com 

Jagadambe, part of the Kirtan devotional music series at 7 p.m. at Studio Rasa, 933 Parker St. Tickets are $15-$18. 843-2787. 

The Devil Makes Three, The Blue Roots at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $8. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

A Night of Voices, stories by Matt Holdaway and music by The Isabellas, Kou Chen, at 5 p.m., and Slydini at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

SUNDAY, JUNE 25 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Inner Visions” Abstract paintings by Judy Levit and Susan Hall. Reception from 4 to 6 p.m. in the Foyer Gallery of the Albany Community Center, 1249 Marin Ave.  

FILM 

Isabelle Huppert: Passion and Contradiction “Saint-Cyr” at 3 p.m. and “Coup de torchon” at 5:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. 642-0808.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

PEN Oakland Poetry Benefit “Words Upon the Waters” to benefit Centers for Independent Living in Mississippi, at 3 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. 841-JAZZ.  

Reading for Two Late Barbarian Poets: Eli Copolla and David Lerner at 7:30 p.m. at Moe’s Books, 2476 Telegraph Ave. 849-2087. 

Eric Dinerstein talks about “Tigerland and Other Unintended Destinations” at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698. www.blackoakbooks.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Friends of Negro Spirituals Bay Area Negro Spirituals Heritage Day at 3:30 p.m. at the West Oakland Senior Center, 1724 Adeline St., Oakland. 869-4359. 

Mozart in the Garden preview concert for the Midsummer Mozart Festival in the East Bay Hills. Tickets are $65. 415-627-9141. 

Kalanjali: Dances of India at 1 p.m. at Julia Morgan Center for the Arts, 2640 College Ave. Free. www.juliamorgan.org 

Brazilian Soul Quartet at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $10. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Americana Unplugged: Homespun Rowdy at 5 p.m. at Jupiter. 655-5715. 

Pat Ryan’s Celtic Junket at 11 a.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

Jessica Neighbor Quartet at 8 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810.  

MONDAY, JUNE 26 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

“New Writing by Women of the Iranian Diaspora” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. www.codysbooks.com 

Amy Spade and Owen Hill read at 7:30 p.m. at Moe’s Books, 2476 Telegraph Ave. 849-2087. 

Poetry Express open mic on “The Blues” at 7 p.m. at Priya Restaurant, 2072 San Pablo Ave. berkeleypoetryexpress@yahoo.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Blue Monday Jam at 8 p.m. at the Uptown Nightclub, 1928 Telegraph, Oakland. Cost is $5. 451-8100. www.uptownnightclub.com 

Bruce & Matt, traditional Italian music, at 7 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

Jake Shimabukuro at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $8-$12. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com  

TUESDAY, JUNE 27 

CHILDREN 

Gretchen Woefle reads from her book “Animal Families, Animal Friends” as part of the Kensington Library’s Summer Reading Program at 7 p.m. at 61 Arlington Ave., Kensington. 524-3043. 

Puppet Company “Fantasy on Strings” a magical excursion with a variety of 3 feet tall, fully articulated marionettes at 7 p.m. at The Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave. 526-3720, ext. 17. 

FILM 

Against Indifference: The Cinema of Krzysztof Kieslowski “No End” at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Belinda Rathbone reads from “The Guynd: A Scottish Journal” at 7:30 p.m at Mrs. Dalloway’s Literary and Garden Arts, 2904 College Ave. 704-8222. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Golden Gate International Childrens’ Choral Festival at 3 p.m. at the Mormon Interstake Center, Oakland. 547-4441. 

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. www.uptownnightclub.com 

Randy Craig Trio, jazz, at 7:30 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

Chris Chandler and David Roe House Concert at 7 p.m. at 1609 Woolsey St. 649-1423. 

Zemog El Gallo Bueno at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $10-$16. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

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

Satiric singer/songwriter Roy Zimmerman returns to Berkeley at The Marsh with a new show, Faulty Intelligence, opening Wednesday. 

“I hope it gets good reviews,” Zimmerman quipped, “but mostly I hope it gets denied under oath by Karl Rove.” 

Zimmerman, who’s been called “a latter-day Tom Lehrer” by the LA Times, seems to strike a bargain between cabaret (out of Tin Pan Alley and Broadway) and the legacy of protest folksinging. 

With numbers like “Jerry Falwell’s God,” “Creation Science 101” and a paean to Dick Cheney as the sexiest man alive, Zimmerman’s playlist shows he certainly wears his spleen on his sleeve. 

He said he is delighted to be compared to Lehrer, the Cambridge, Mass., math professor and ’60s wit. 

“His records were like contraband when I was a teenager,” Zimmerman joked, “like they should be smoked in some out-of-the-way spot. My older brothers and their friends had them, and they weren’t only funny but I learned a lot.” 

These days the two sardonic songsmiths talk “a couple times a year” on the phone, “just to stay current,” Zimmerman said. He also remarked that Lehrer quit his second career as satirist when Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Prize. 

“He knew he couldn’t write anything funnier than that,” Zimmerman said. 

Zimmerman has played with bands for a good deal of his 20-year songwriting career; among those bands was The Foreman, the satirical folk quartet that toured during the ’90s and recorded for Warner Reprise, once playing a series of shows swapping songs with The Pixies’ ex-front man Frank Black. Zimmerman remarks that he has always “related to social songwriting” though “there’s not much tradition these days.” 

Keeping one ear open to the “really constructed mastery” of Lehrer and the Tin Pan Alley-Broadway lineage of Cole Porter and Lorenz Hart, and the other to “the more free-form” style of protest and folksong (Pete Seeger and Phil Ochs), Zimmerman said he aims at a contemporary satiric style. 

Zimmerman and his family just moved back to the Bay Area, where he grew up, and he says he’s excited to perform to Berkeley audiences. 

“Berkeley’s reputation for social protest is on my mind,” he said. “I remember the sense of glamor of the antiwar protests—I was too young to join in, watching from the safe distance of Sunnyvale. Of course, that glamor was deceptive. Real social change, the struggle for justice is work, not just music festivals.” 

FAULTY INTELLIGENCE 

June 21-July 27 at The Marsh Berkeley in the Gaia Arts Center, 2118 Allston Way.  

For more information, see www.themarsh.org or call (800) 838-3006.

I’m always a little startled when I get a response to one of these pieces. Sometimes it’s about something that requires correction, like the incident of the owl in the Embarcadero BART station. Other comments call for amplification. 

A while back, in a column about Jerusalem crickets, I mentioned that I had no idea how these alarming-looking insects got their name. All the known species are North American natives, with no historical association with the Middle East. 

Then David B. Weissman, who studies Jerusalem crickets at the California Academy of Sciences, sent me a copy of an article in which he addresses that question. He looks at several alternative theories and comes to a conclusion that, while admittedly speculative, makes sense to me. 

The first few scientific descriptions of these insects either used no common names or translated local Spanish or Indian names, like “child of the earth.” “Jerusalem cricket” first appears (without explanation) in a paper by entomologist Vernon Kellogg in 1905, and UC Berkeley’s E.O. Essig employed the name in 1913.  

In a popular article in Pacific Discovery, predecessor of the late lamented California Wild, in 1971, N. W. Baker conjectured that a Jerusalem cricket viewed from above in its normal resting position “resembles a Jerusalem Cross, an angled cross with short bars across the ends, these short bars represented in the cricket by the long spines above the tarsi [hind legs].” Weissman didn’t find this at all convincing, nor do I.  

Weissman wrote to several senior entomologists for their interpretations. Keith Kevan suggested that the name came from the insect’s tendency to feed on roots and tubers, the source of another common monicker, “potato bug.” Maybe it was regarded at some point as a pest on Jerusalem artichokes, AKA sunchokes. The “Jerusalem” in the plant’s name is a corruption of the Italian girasole, meaning “turning to the sun,” for the heliotropism it shares with other sunflowers. But this turns out to be another appealing theory destroyed by an inconvenient fact: the ranges of Jerusalem artichokes and Jerusalem crickets don’t overlap. The crickets occur in the arid West, the chokes originally in the Northeast. 

The version Weissman gives the most weight to comes from Richard L. Doutt, who pointed out that “Jerusalem” was in common use in the 19th century as a mild epithet (perhaps about the intensity level of “Holy cow”), usually indicating surprise. Doutt envisions a young western farm boy turning over a rock to reveal a large and ominous insect and exclaiming “Jerusalem! What a cricket!” 

This wouldn’t be the first time an expression of surprise got attached to an animal. One of the local names for the ivory-billed woodpecker was “Lord God,” which is what people tended to say when this duck-sized bird burst out of the deep timber. 

Another response, this time from a friend, involved the column about the steelhead in Codornices Creek in which I regretted the absence of eels in California. What about the Native American eel fishery on the Klamath River, he wanted to know. For that matter, what about the Eel River itself? 

Good question. But those weren’t eels, strictly speaking. They were lampreys. In his Handbook of the Indians of California, A. L. Kroeber refers to the “lampreys, also known as eels, much prized by the Yurok for their rich greasiness,” and adds that the Yurok caught them in nets and pots as they swam up the Klamath to spawn. The Eel River tribes were also avid lamprey fishers. There were separate spring and fall runs in both rivers; on the Klamath, the river eddies where lampreys were taken were individually owned. Like salmon, the lampreys were split and smoked for storage.  

Lampreys may be eel-shaped, but they’re something else entirely—survivors, along with the hagfish, of one of the earliest groups of vertebrates. They lack jaws and paired fins, have cartilaginous skeletons, a notochord (the precursor to 

the vertebrate backbone), and only one nostril. And their brains are small, even for fish.  

Most lamprey species are anadromous, like salmon, steelhead, and sturgeon: spending most of their lives at sea, returning to their natal streams to spawn. They typically prey on other fish by attaching to the victim’s side with their suckerlike mouth, rasping a hole with their sharp tongue, and sucking their host’s blood and body fluids. But a few California lampreys, like the rare Kern brook lamprey, spend their entire lives in freshwater where the larvae feed on algae and detritus and the adults don’t eat at all. 

In addition to the North Coast tribes, Europeans have prized lampreys at various times and places: they figure in Portuguese, Galician, Bordelaise, and Finnish cuisine. And seafood scholar Alan Davidson notes that the city of Gloucester gave Elizabeth II a lamprey pie to commemorate her jubilee in 1977. I hope it didn’t go to waste.  

The absence of true eels in California remains a mystery. East Asia has them, and eastern North America and western Europe. As a unagi fan, I feel somewhat cheated. 

Photograph by Robyn Waayers. 

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. 

“New to DVD” A screening of “Syriana” at 7 p.m. at BRJCC, 1414 Walnut St. 848-0237. 

“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 Proposed 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.  

FRIDAY, JUNE 23 

Reduced City Services Today Call ahead to ensure programs or services you desire will be available. 981-CITY. www.cityofberkeley.info 

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 Andy Ross, owner of Cody’s Books, on “Can the Independent Local Bookstore Survive in Berkeley?” 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.  

Ecocity Report from New Orleans at 7 p.m. at the Ecology Center, 2530 San Pablo Ave., near Dwight Way. Cost is $10 but no one turned away for lack of funds. 548-2220. 

East Bay Animal Advocates’ Dairy Documentary at 7:30 p.m. at Humanist Hall, 390 27th St., Oakland. Donations of $5 accepted. 

Moving Mom and Dad with Donna Robins on finding the right retirement community at 7 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-5190.  

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. wibberkeley@yahoo.com 548-6310, 845-1143. 

SATURDAY, JUNE 24 

Open the Little Farm Feed the goats, collect some eggs, hold a bunny and meet our new calves at 9 a.m. at the Little Farm, Tilden Park. 525-2233. 

A Visit with a Guide Dog at 2 p.m. at Kensington Library, 61 Arlington Ave., Kensington. Sponsored by Guide Dogs for the Blind of Marin. 524-3043. 

Challenge Hike on Sobrante Ridge Explore a fragile ecosystem and a small forest of rare manzanita on this 3-mile hike with some hills. Meet at 10 a.m. at the staging are at the end of Coach Drive, El Sobrante. For ages 10 and up. 525-2233. 

Outdoor Art Learn how to make a natural mural at 11 a.m. at Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park. Cost is $3. 525-2233. 

Walking Tour of Old Oakland “New Era/New Politics” highlights African-American leaders who have made their mark on Oakland. Meet at 10 a.m. and the African American Museum and Library at 659 14th St. 238-3234. www.oaklandnet.com/walkingtours 

Carribean American Heritage Commemoration at 10 a.m. at Frank Ogawa Plaza, 14th and Broadway, Oakland. 599-1645. 

Re-Fresh Festival A community celebration of creative re-use and recycling from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at 9235 San Leandro St., Oakland. 638-7600. www.svdp-alameda.org 

Family Origami Craft Day from 2 to 4 p.m. at the Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave. Free. 526-3720, ext. 17. 

Buddhist Temple of Alameda Bazaar, Sat. from 4 to 9 p.m. and Sun. from noon to 8 p.m. at 2325 Pacific Avenue, Alameda. 

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. http://botanicalgarden.berkeley.edu 

Car Wash Benefit for Options Recovery Services from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Lutheran Church, 1744 University Ave. 666-9552. 

SUNDAY, JUNE 25 

Brooks Island Voyage Paddle the rising tide across the Richmond Harbor Channel to Brooks Island from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. For experienced boaters who can provide their own canoe or kayak and safety gear. For ages 14 and up with parent participation. Cost is $20-$22. Registration required. 636-1684. 

Teach Your Dog to Walk Without Pulling from 3 to 4 p.m. at Grace North Church, 2128 Cedar St. To register call 849-9323. companyofdogs.com  

Epic Arts BBQ and Open House from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. 644-2204, ext. 12. 

Berkeley City Club free tour from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. Tours are sponsored by the Berkeley City Club and the Landmark Heritage Foundation. 2315 Durant Ave. 848-7800 or 883-9710. 

Berkeley Cybersalon “Mommies Online: Another Feminist Revolution?” at 5 p.m. at the Hillside Club, 2286 Cedar St. Coat is $10. 527-0450. 

Sunday Summer Forum: Towards a More Just World with Dr. Theodore Rosak at 9:30 a.m. at Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley, 1 Lawson Rd., Kensington. 525-0302. 

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

Tibetan Buddhism Panel on “Memories of the World Peace Ceremony” at 6 p.m. at the Tibetan Nyingma Institute, 1815 Highland Pl. 843-6812.  

MONDAY, JUNE 26 

Healthy Eating Habits Seminar at 7 p.m. at New Moon Opportunities, 378 Jayne Ave., Oakland. Free, but registration required. 465-2524. 

Berkeley CopWatch organizational meeting at 8 p.m. at 2022 Blake St. 548-0425. 

TUESDAY, JUNE 27 

Raging Grannies of the East Bay invites new folks to come join us from 2:30 to 4:30 p.m. to sing and have fun at Berkeley Gray Panthers office, 1403 Addison St., in Andronico’s mall. 548-9696. 

Great Weekend Camping Trips A slide presentation with Matt Heid at 7 p.m. at REI, 1338 San Pablo Ave. 527-4140. 

Red Cross Blood Drive from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. East Pauley Ballroom, MLK Student Union, 3rd floor, UC Campus. To make an appointment call 1-800-GIVE-LIFE. www.BeADonor.com  

PC Users meets at 7 p.m. at 1145 Walnut St. near the corner of Eunice. 

Stress Less Seminar at 7 p.m. at New Moon Opportunities, 378 Jayne Ave., Oakland. Free, but registration required. 465-2524. 

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. 

CITY MEETINGS 

Berkeley Rent Stabilization Board meets Mon., 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.  

Ecocity Report from New Orleans at 7 p.m. at the Ecology Center, 2530 San Pablo Ave., near Dwight Way. COs tis $10, but no one turned away for lack of funds. 548-2220.  

East Bay Animal Advocates’ Dairy Documentary at 7:30 p.m. at Humanist Hall, 390 27th St., Oakland. Donations of $5 accepted. 

Moving Mom and Dad with Donna Robins on finding the right retirement community at 7 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-5190.  

Historical & Current Times Book Group meets on Thursdays from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Albany Library, 1249 Marin Ave. 548-4517. 

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. wibberkeley@yahoo.com 548-6310, 845-1143. 

SATURDAY, JUNE 24 

Open the Little Farm Feed the goats, collect some eggs, hold a bunny and meet our new calves at 9 a.m. at the Little Farm, Tilden Park. 525-2233. 

A Visit with a Guide Dog at 2 p.m. at Kensington Library, 61 Arlington Ave., Kensington. Sponsored by Guide Dogs for the Blind of Marin. 524-3043. 

Challenge Hike on Sobrante Ridge Explore a fragile ecosystem and a small forest of rare manzanita on this 3-mile hike with some hills. Meet at 10 a.m. at the staging are at the end of Coach Drive, El Sobrante. For ages 10 and up. 525-2233. 

Outdoor Art Learn how to make a natural mural at 11 a.m. at Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park. Cost is $3. 525-2233. 

Walking Tour of Old Oakland “New Era/New Politics” highlights African-American leaders who have made their mark on Oakland. Meet at 10 a.m. and the African American Museum and Library at 659 14th St. 238-3234. www.oaklandnet.com/walkingtours 

Carribean American Heritage Commemoration at 10 a.m. at Frank Ogawa Plaza, 14th and Broadway, Oakland. 599-1645. 

Re-Fresh Festival A community celebration of creative re-use and recycling from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at 9235 San Leandro St., Oakland. 638-7600. www.svdp-alameda.org 

FAmily Origami Craft Day Albany Library from 2 to 4 p.m. on June 24, 2006, and make an origami star at this free drop-in family craft event! 1247 Marin Ave. 526-3720 ext 17 

Buddhist Temple of Alameda celebrates annual Vacationland Bazaar, Sat. June 24 - 4 to 9, Sun. June 25 - noon to 8, at 2325 Pacific Avenue, Alameda. 

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. http://botanicalgarden.berkeley.edu 

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 25 

Brooks Island Voyage Paddle the rising tide across the Richmond Harbor Channel to Brooks Island from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. For experienced boaters who can provide their own canoe or kayak and safety gear. For ages 14 and up with parent participation. Cost is $20-$22. Registration required. 636-1684. 

SLOW DOWN! Workshop for teaching your dog to walk without pulling. Sunday, June 25, 3 - 4 PM, Grace North Church, 2128 Cedar St., Berkeley. Registration: companyofdogs.com or 849-9323 

Epic Arts BBQ and Open House from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. 644-2204, ext. 12. 

Berkeley City Club free tour from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. Tours are sponsored by the Berkeley City Club and the Landmark Heritage Foundation. Donations welcome. The Berkeley City Club is located at 2315 Durant Ave. For group reservations or more information, call 848-7800 or 883-9710. 

Sunday Summer Forum: Towards a More Just World with Dr. Theodore Rosak at 9:30 a.m. at Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley, 1 Lawson Rd., Kensington. 525-0302, ext. 306. 

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

Tibetan Buddhism Panel on “Memories of the World Peace Ceremony” at 6 p.m. at the Tibetan Nyingma Institute, 1815 Highland Pl. 843-6812. www.nyingmainstitute.com 

MONDAY, JUNE 26 

Healthy Eating Habits Seminar at 7 p.m. at New Moon Opportunities, 378 Jayne Ave., Oakland. Free, but registration required. 465-2524. 

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

TUESDAY, JUNE 27 

Raging Grannies of the East Bay invites new folks to come join us the 2nd and 4th Tues, of each month, from 2:30 to 4:30 p.m. to sing(any voice will do), help plan our next gig, or write outrageously political lyrics to old familiar tunes, and have fun at Berkeley Gray Panthers office, 1403 Addison St., in Andronico’s mall. 548-9696. 

Great Weekend Camping Trips A slide presentation with Matt Heid at 7 p.m. at REI, 1338 San Pablo Ave. 527-4140. 

Red Cross Blood Drive from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. East Pauley Ballroom, MLK Student Union, 3rd floor, UC Campus. To make an appointment call 1-800-GIVE-LIFE. www.BeADonor.com  

PC Users meets at 7 p.m. at 1145 Walnut St. Near the corner of Eunice. 

Stress Less Seminar at 7 p.m. at New Moon Opportunities, 378 Jayne Ave., Oakland. Free, but registration required. 465-2524. 

Brainstormer Weekly Pub Quiz every Tuesday from 7:30 to 9:30 p.m. at Pyramid Alehouse Brewery, 901 Gilman St. 528-9880. not in Dec. 

Berkeley Camera Club meets at 7:30 p.m., at the Northbrae Community Church, 941 The Alameda. Share your digital images, slides and prints and learn what other photographers are doing. Monthly field trips. 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 offer ongoing classes in exercise and creative arts, and always welcome new members over 50. 845-6830. 

CITY MEETINGS 

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.