Scenes from the Abu Ghraib prison torture came to life in front of UC Berkeley’s Boalt Hall Law School on Tuesday, as students and professors turned up to mark “Bush Crimes Day” and protest against Boalt professor John Yoo’s Oct. 19 attack on the independent judiciary in the Wall Street Journal. 

Dressed in black hoods and orange prison garb, student activists from The World Can't Wait! Drive Out the Bush Regime! enacted the infamous photo of hooded Iraqi prisoners being electrocuted at Abu Ghraib. 

World Can’t Wait! along with Rev. Taigen Dan Leighton of the Berkeley Graduate Theological Union, has been holding weekly “Teach-Ins and Vigils Against American Torture and the Dictatorial Presidency” in front of the Boalt Hall Law School since February.  

Tuesday’s participants included Boalt Hall Law Professor Emeritus Robert Cole, Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg and Ann Wright, former deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Mongolia, who resigned in protest of the Iraq War. 

“We meet at Boalt Hall Law School today because its Professor John Yoo is a primary legal architect, through the infamous ‘torture memo’ he wrote, of the Bush Torture program,” said Leighton. 

“It is only because of the highly controversial opinions of John Yoo, who defines ‘torture’ as limited to death or destruction of major organs, that President Bush can now claim that we do not torture,” Leighton said. “Professor Yoo teaches at UC Berkeley without the university disassociating itself from his views, which include condoning the torture of children. We do not seek to limit John Yoo’s academic freedom but to express our strong objection to the torture and unlimited presidential powers he advocates.” 

Participants rallied against Yoo’s celebratory letter to the Wall Street Journal editorial page which supported the Military Commissions Act that was signed by President Bush last week. The act’s relationship to larger issues of the administration’s policies and politics were also discussed. 

Leighton read excerpts from Yoo’s letter in the newspaper, which stated: 

“During the bitter controversy over the military commission bill, which President Bush signed into law on Tuesday, most of the press and the professional punditry missed the big story. In the struggle for power between the three branches of government, it is not the presidency that ‘won.’ Instead, it is the judiciary that lost. The new law is, above all, a stinging rebuke to the Supreme Court. It strips the courts of jurisdiction to hear any habeas corpus claim filed by any alien enemy combatant anywhere in the world.” 

Yoo’s letter also said that the U.S. Supreme Court had “gotten away with many broad assertions of judicial authority before,” which drew protests from several attendees. 

Professor Cole, who teaches Constitutional Law at Boalt Hall, said that the Military Commissions Act would place the Bush administration beyond checks and balances and would de-facto abolish the writ of habeas corpus, the basis for law and order in the Western world since the Magna Carta in 1215. 

According to Cole, the act, which did not have any standards about where the prisoners would be held or how long they would be held, was creating a system of “incognito detention.” 

“The act defines ‘torture’ as severe infliction of pain,” he said. “However it says that disputed degrees of torture can be done for information. What could mean torture to someone, might not be torture to the U.S. government. Therein lies the heart of the evil.” 

Cole drew praise from several attendees, including Ellsberg, for being the first professor to step out of Boalt Hall to protest against Yoo. 

“Why aren’t there more students and professors from the Law School protesting out here today?” asked Ellsberg. “These are the very people who are supposed to be saving us.” 

Ann Wright called the Military Commissions Act a “travesty of the legal system of the United States.” 

Business for Better Govern-ment—the Berkeley Chamber of Commerce political action committee (PAC)—has fired the first salvo of its campaign against Measure J. 

A first-class postcard mailer from a non-union printer, mailed in Carlsbad, began arriving in Berkeley mailboxes this week, full of charges certain to provoke controversy in the waning days of campaigning before the Nov. 7 election. 

“I think it’s a pack of lies,” said Laurie Bright, one of the two principal sponsors of the initiative written to update the city’s controversial Landmarks Preserva-tion Ordinance (LPO). “It’s full of flat-out misrepresentations.” 

Laurie Capitelli, a Berkeley city councilmember who endors-ed the anti-J mailer, acknowledged, “Yes, it’s a campaign piece,” adding quickly, “but yes, I agree” with it. 

“It’s unfortunate we live in this world of 30-second sound bites and 10-word messages on post cards,” Capitelli said. 

The Chamber PAC filed its campaign finance statement with the city on Thursday afternoon, reporting that it had spent $39,600 on mailers in opposition to Measure J. 

Other endorsers of the anti-J mailing, listed prominently, were: 

• Mayor Tom Bates; 

• Councilmembers Max Anderson, Linda Maio, Darryl Moore and Gordon Wozniak; 

• Assemblymember and Bates’ spouse Loni Hancock (D-Berkeley); 

• Landmarks Preservation Commission member Burton Edwards; 

• Planning Commissioner Harry Pollack; 

• Liveable (sic) Berkeley board member Alan Tobey and 

• Sally Woodbridge, an architectural historian. 

Asked about specific allegations made on the postcard, Chamber President Roland Peterson said, “I haven’t looked at the mailer in a few weeks, but most of the information we have came from a few folks in West Berkeley.” 

Asked who in West Berkeley, Peterson offered one name, Michael Goldin, an interior design architect and a leading figure in the West Berkeley Business Alliance. 

Goldin, reached late Thursday afternoon, said, “I’ll have to call you back,” then complained that this newspaper had published his home address, which was the location of a meeting held by Measure J opponents. 

The front of the mailer features a photo of Celia’s Mexican Restaurant, a 1946 building at 2040 Fourth St. that was the subject of a controversial February 2005, historic designation by the Landmarks Preservation Commission later overturned by the city council. 

Beneath a photo taken of the building’s least attractive side, complete with fire escape, is the headline, “ANOTHER LANDMARK? Designated a landmark because Boy Scouts may have met there!” 

Peterson said he couldn’t comment on the text because “I have to admit I haven’t looked at it (the mailer) in a couple of weeks.” 

But the Landmarks Preservation Commission finding that designated the building a Structure of Merit emphasized that the structure had been designed by prominent Bay Area architect Irwin Johnson, who designed several noted structures and one residential historic district in Oakland. 

Designed for a now-defunct paint company, the structure later housed offices of the Mount Diablo Council of the Boy Scouts of America. 

“There’s no ‘may’ about it,” said Bright. “The Boy Scouts did meet there.” 

Among the allegations raised in the mailer are charges that Measure J: 

• “gives total control over your property to unelected officials,” apparently meaning the LPC, which is appointed by city councilmembers. Bright said control isn’t total because all commission decisions may be appealed to the city council, as was the case with the Celia’s designation. 

• “requires only 25 people to create a Historic District.” Rival legislation drafted by Mayor Bates and Capitelli, which was placed on hold after Measure J qualified for the November ballot, also called for 25 signatures, a number Bright said was the suggestion of the state Office of Historic Preservation. 

• “removes state historic standard of integrity from our landmarking process,” which Bright said was a blatant lie. “The standard isn’t included in our present ordinance, but we added it to Measure J as one of the criteria that can be used in designating a local property,” he said. 

Bright said Measure J gives less power to the LPC than the Bates/Capitelli ordinance, which would subject all residential alterations on older homes to the LPC, “while ours doesn’t.” 

Because Chamber of Commerce officials cut their calls short, a reporter wasn’t able to ask how much the organization had spent on the mailer. 

The PAC held a $250-a-head fundraiser at Goldin’s home on Sept. 21, attended by about 40 members and invitees. The invitation described the event as “one of the most important fundraising events for the future of Berkeley.” 

The money was raised to fund opposition to Measure J and to support Bates and City Council candidates Raudel Wilson and George Beier. 

Bright said he believed the mailer was designed to incorporate the results of a mysterious and costly mid-summer poll that presented a large number of Berkeley voters with a long and detailed list of possible arguments against Measure J, asking if they would be more or less likely to oppose it if each argument were true. 

“This was clearly done in response to that poll,” said Bright. 

No one has claimed responsibility for the survey, conducted by Communications Center Incorporated, a 19-year-old polling firm with calling centers in Washington, D.C., Spokane and Lakeland, Fla. 

Caller ID identified the calls as coming from the Spokane area. Questioned by a reporter, a representative of the firm refused to identify who had signed their checks. 

Because no one filed to report it as a campaign expense, the poll is currently under investigation by the city’s Fair Campaign Practices Commission.  

Capitelli said he had no idea who had sponsored the survey. 

Debate nixed  

Measure J’s sponsors had also sent emails to Bates and Capitelli asking them to debate the ordinance in a gathering that would be broadcast by KPFA radio. 

“We never got an acknowledgment from Bates, but Laurie Capitelli did respond this afternoon,” Bright said Thursday. 

An email from the councilmember’s office declined the invitation, noting that the proposed moderator Gianna Ranuzzi. had expressed support for Measure J.  

Roger Marquis, Measure J’s other sponsor, replied with another email, offering Capitelli the option of picking a different moderator, “someone you feel will be fair and impartial.”

A lawsuit charging illegal campaign practices, allegations of illegal contributions and outright lies, and an apology for stealing campaign literature? 

No, it’s not GOP politics à la Karl Rove in the heart of the Bible Belt. It’s Democratic city candidates squaring off against each other in Albany. 

The latest and potentially most serious broadside fired in an unusually heated race came Wednesday in a lawsuit charging candidate Caryl O’Keefe and her supporters with violations of city and state election laws. 

The action, filed Wednesday in Alameda County Superior Court, alleges that O’Keefe, her spouse Alan Riffer and the organization Concerned Albany Neighbors (CAN) violated both the city’s Campaign Reform Act of 1996 and the California Political Reform Act of 1974. 

Alan Riffer, CAN’s assistant treasurer and the signer of the group’s Oct. 5 campaign finance report, was a 2004 council candidate himself. He is also one of the six members of O’Keefe’s campaign committee. 

CAN has distributed flyers condemning candidates Marge Atkinson and Joanne Wile, who are running a joint campaign under the Save Our Shoreline (SOS) umbrella, while praising the positions of O’Keefe and Francesco Papalia, the fourth of the quartet of candidates running for two at-large seats. 

The Albany campaign law bars all contributions to candidates from organizations, and the suit charges that CAN’s two mailings and other expenditures are, in fact, contributions to O’Keefe and should have been reported as such. 

The action, filed by attorney Lowell Finley, an Albany resident who is widely known as an electoral law specialist, seeks an injunction banning CAN from making in-kind contributions to O’Keefe and her campaign committee and banning O’Keefe and her committee from taking any such contributions.  

The action asks CAN and its officers to pay the city three times the amount of any illegal contributions made to O’Keefe and a similar assessment from O’Keefe for any illegal contributions received. The suit also seeks attorney’s fees and court costs. 

In an earlier letter, Albany resident and contractor Peter Maas had asked City Attorney Robert Zweben to look into the claims, but the lawyer declined. Subsequently, the City Council voted 3-2 to take up the issue, though logistical problems delayed the follow-up meeting until this coming Monday. 

Maas cited three contibutions to CAN that topped the $100 maximum allowed under city law, including $200 from Riffer. The Finley lawsuit repeated many of the allegations in Maas’ letter. 

“Neither I nor anyone on my committee has asked Concerned Albany Neighbors to do anything. My committee and I know the campaign rules and follow them,” said O’Keefe in response to the Maas complaint. 

Non-endorsement endorsement? 

The other controversy concerns whether or not Papalia endorsed Proposition 90, possibly the most radical and controversial measure to confront California voters on the Nov. 7 ballot. 

The Save Our Shoreline website declares that “On 9/29/06 Papalia endorsed Proposition 90, a truly scary anti-environmental measure being pitched by Orange County property rights extremists.” 

“That’s wrong,” Papalia declared Monday. “That a lie, a lie, a lie. I never did endorse Proposition 90.” He pointed to the No on 90 website, which Monday showed Papalia as one of many Californians who have called for a no vote on the measure (www.noprop90.com/coalition/ index.php). 

But a check of the same website Wednesday found his name missing from the list of opponents. Kathy Fairbanks of Bicker, Castillo & Fairbanks, the campaign management firm that runs the website, said, “Anybody can sign up on the website, but we don’t list candidates, and when we found out that’s what he was, we took him off.” 

And while the comments he made about Proposition 90 during the Sept. 29 League of Women Voters debate—the basis of the claim made on the SOS website—didn’t contain the words “I endorse,” Papalia offered unqualified praise for the ballot measure: 

“Proposition 90 is to really protect everyone from eminent domain abuse,” he said. “It’s there not to protect the corporations or large landowners. It is there to protect the small property owners. A very famous case has been in the news about property owners. I think it was in New Jersey or New York where the city had declared wonderful homes blighted properties so they could be taken to create a commercial development. So this whole thing is designed to protect the property rights of everyone.” [The latest campaign statements from all Albany candidates, including Papalia, can be found in the opinion section of today’s Planet.] 

In fact, Kelo v. City of New London, the case decided by the U.S. Supreme Court in June, concerned riverfront property in Connecticut, where land was taken to develop a research park, upscale housing, office towers and a marina. Owners of several modest homes on part of the site filed the lawsuit that was ended by the high court ruling. 

While Proposition 90 and similar measures on the ballots in other states would bar seizing private land for commercial development, the measure’s other provisions would effectively end most of the powers of state and local governments to limit development, critics say, by paving the way for lawsuits by owners seeking compensation for any regulations that limit their ability to develop property to the maximum extent otherwise allowed by law before the regulation was enacted. 

Even the strongly pro-development California Chamber of Commerce opposes the measure, along with many other business and conservative groups, who say it goes too far in allowing potentially onerous lawsuits by property owners affected by regulatory actions. 

Stolen literature 

Another furor emerged after news broke that Wile had swiped some of Papalia’s campaign literature as she was walking precincts in the city. 

Unlike Berkeley’s Tom Bates, who swiped a sizable number of copies of the Daily Cal before his first election as mayor, Wile said she took only a few of the leaflets, replacing them with copies of her own handout.  

“I picked up about a dozen flyers when I had a temper tantrum,” she said later. “I apologized to the City Council and to him. I offered to place his literature all over the city.” 

She told the council, “I am extremely remorseful and regretful over my uncharacteristic lapse in behavior, for which I offer no excuse. What I did was wrong and will not be repeated by me or anyone connected to my campaign.”

The Mayor Ron Dellums era in Oakland started dramatically and three months early this week with a Thursday morning press conference by the incoming mayor on the City Hall steps, announcing that he had brokered a deal to prevent the impending infusion of thousands of dollars of business money into the last two weeks of the District 2 City Council and City Auditor races. 

With Michael Colbruno, chairman of the politically powerful OakPAC Oakland Chamber of Commerce political action committee, standing on one side and Congressmember Barbara Lee standing on the other, Dellums told a battery of television cameras and reporters that OakPAC had voluntarily agreed not to spend some $116,000 in last-minute money planned for local candidates in the Nov. 7 election. 

The agreement means Oak-PAC will not exercise the rights it won last week to break Oakland’s six-year-old campaign expenditure rules. A U.S. District Judge had temporarily lifted Oak-land’s spending limit for political action committees. 

The City Hall press conference, attended by District 2 Coun-cilmember Pat Kernighan and her challenger, Aimee Allison, as well as several other City Council-members and local political figures, came immediately following an hour-long Thursday morning meeting between Dellums and OakPAC officials, in which the deal was brokered.  

“The timing was inappropriate,” Dellums said. “This is not the time to change the rules. OakPAC agreed to back away and not pull the trigger. This signals that if we come to the table with each other, there’s no problem that we cannot address. This marks a new day in Oakland.” 

OakPAC chairman Colbruno said that his organization will immediately pull any money they had planned to put into the Oakland races. 

“We are happy and pleased to join Mr. Dellums in this agreement,” he said. “The tenor of Karl Rove-type politics has grown ugly around the nation, and if Mr. Dellums thinks that an infusion of cash into the Oakland races at this date is a bad thing, it is important that we honor that. We will have a philosophical discussion about the appropriateness [of the Oakland political expenditure guidelines] following the election in November.”  

Asked why OakPAC would voluntarily give up a court victory it had so recently fought and won, Colbruno glanced at Dellums standing next to him and said, a little sheepishly, that “we have a compelling and persuasive mayor coming into office.” 

Neither man went into details of what was said in the hour-long negotiation session that preceded the joint press conference. 

While the negotiations did not include other political campaign committees, Dellums said that he “hoped that every independent expenditure group steps back as well” and voluntarily refrains from spending above the existing Oakland limits.  

Dellums does not take the mayor’s office until next January, and has kept a decidedly low profile in the months since he won the June election. But the brokered deal showed the enormous power and influence the former Congressmember wields. Current Congressmember Barbara Lee said that the brokered agreement was “a marvelous example of what’s to come under Mayor Dellums’ leadership. We always knew that Ron was a uniter, not a divider.” 

Pointedly absent from the press conference, or the negotiations, were representatives of the current occupier of the Oakland mayor’s office, Jerry Brown. Asked if he had consulted with Brown over the OakPAC negotiations, Dellums said, “No, but perhaps he’s been busy, out campaigning.” 

Brown is running in the general election for California Attorney General. 

The Dellums/OakPAC agreement and press conference ended a rapid-fire series of events beginning on Thursday of last week. 

On that day, U.S. District Court Judge Martin J. Jenkins temporarily granted OakPAC’s petition to overturn Oakland’s political action spending limits, suspending those limits through the November election. Under Oakland’s campaign expenditure law, on the books since 2000, political action committees can collect as much as they wish, but are limited in the amount of money they can spend in a race from each donation received. OakPAC had argued that the limits unconstitutionally infringed on First Amendment freedom of speech rights. 

OakPAC immediately announced that it was planning to spend “at least $116,500 on campaign mailings, door hangers and automated telephone calls to support and oppose local candidates,” according to the Oakland Tribune. OakPAC has endorsed incumbent Kernighan over challenger Allison in the Oakland District Two Council race and challenger Courtney Ruby over incumbent Roland Smith in the City Auditor race. 

Facing a last-minute onslaught of money in opposition to her candidacy, on Tuesday Allison and her supporters held a rally on the steps of Oakland City Hall denouncing the judge’s decision and OakPAC’s actions. 

“They are trying to buy this election for Pat Kernighan,” Allison said in a prepared statement. “Whoever you’re supporting, it’s a stunning and unconscionable subversion of clean election and clean campaign laws. We are standing together to say that District Two—and Oakland—cannot be bought.” 

Asked on Thursday if his intervention into the campaign finance issue signaled a defacto endorsement of Allison—Dellums has not made an endorsement in the District Two race—the mayor-elect said, “I am not getting involved in a partisan level in that race. I will have to be able to work with whoever gets elected. I’m taking the position that if the voters of Oakland were smart enough to elect me, they are smart enough to decide on their own who should be the next councilmember from district two.” 

That did not dampen Allison’s spirits. Following the Dellums/OakPAC press conference, a delighted Allison led a spirited victory celebration with supporters in front of City Hall. She told reporters that she obviously supported the agreement, saying that “to change the law in mid-stream subverts the process.” 

For her part, a more subdued Kernighan said “sure” when asked if she supported the Dellums/OakPAC agreement. “I think it’s a wonderful agreement. I think it’s a good sign that Dellums is bringing people together in this city, and I support that.” 

The councilmember added, “Now we can get back to the real issues in the campaign, which are who has the experience and the track record of activism and can best serve District 2.” 

Kernighan said that she had not participated in the Dellums/OakPAC meeting that led to the spending limit agreement, but that she “hadn’t asked for the extra [financial contribution] help in the first place. I don’t think it was helping me. I am a longtime proponent of campaign expenditure limits. I support the current Oakland law.”

UC Berkeley’s Memorial Stadium will get local landmark  

status as designated June 1 by the Landmarks Preservation Commission, a unanimous City Council said Tuesday night. 

In other business, the council put off a decision on a plan for cultural uses at the Allston Way Gaia Building, approved a scaled-down housing and commercial development at Harrison Street and San Pablo Avenue, waived city fees for the installation of solar panels and approved standards for housing dogs outdoors. 

Stadium landmark reversal 

In an Oct. 24 report to the council, planning staff had called for a delay of the local landmarks designation for Memorial Stadium, calling for the question to be sent back to the commission. However, in an 11th-hour reversal on Tuesday, planning staff asked the council to uphold the commission’s designation of the stadium as a local landmark. 

The last-minute staff recommendation was made orally by Deputy Planning Director Wendy Cosin. 

The local landmarks status had been called into question by Irene Hegarty, UC Berkeley’s community relations director, who pointed out discrepancies between the local and national applications for landmarks status. The City Council called for a public hearing to resolve the discrepancies.  

Landmarks status is critical at this time, according to advocates of the designation, because the university is planning a number of controversial building projects in southeast Berkeley where the stadium is located, which will include remodeling the stadium. The UC Regents are expected to vote on the Southeast Campus Integrated Projects at their Nov. 15-16  

meeting. 

While the half-dozen residents who spoke at the public hearing favored the landmarks designation, some asked why the designation had not happened months earlier. Speaking at the public hearing, Panoramic Hill resident Janice Thomas underscored that the Landmarks Preservation Commission had made its decision months earlier. 

“Why the delay?” she asked. “The public would like answers.” 

While he voted to support the new staff position on the question, Councilmember Kriss Worthington criticized the process, whereby the council was asked to make a decision based on an oral report.  

During the council discussion, City Attorney Manuela Albuquerque responded to an e-mail she received that afternoon from former mayor Shirley Dean. In her email, Dean argued that the council had not taken correct steps in scheduling the public hearing on the landmarking decision. 

“As the Council did not “certify” the action there is no appeal before the council at this time,” Dean wrote. 

In a written response to Dean, Albuquerque said Deputy City Attorney Zach Cowan had “listened to the tape [of the council meeting] and it was absolutely clear that the council was asked to (and did) set this for hearing, in order to resolve discrepancies between the city’s … and National Register designation.” 

On Wednesday, Deputy Director Wendy Cosin explained the 11th-hour change in the staff recommendation, saying, after public outcry and a Daily Planet story on the question, staff looked again at the need to address the discrepancies and concluded there was no need to do so. 

It would have been procedurally incorrect “to have the council deny [the designation] for the purpose of sending it back to the LPC” to address the differences between the two, she said. 

Why was the change in the staff recommendation made only at the last minute? “I don’t know. It shouldn’t have happened that way,” City Manager Phil Kamlarz told the Daily Planet on Wednesday. Dean said that she was “delighted” by the outcome, whether or not she was responsible for it. 

Gaia 

The council majority voted 5-3-1 to delay a decision on a plan to make cultural uses a priority at the Gaia Building, at 2116 Allston Way. Councilmembers Dona Spring, Betty Olds and Darryl Moore abstained on the question, while Worthington voted in opposition. 

While most of the council appeared to favor a plan that outlined the amount of time to be dedicated to cultural uses, several councilmembers raised questions on the definition of culture in this context. 

The plan recommended by staff says that 30 percent of use would be dedicated to cultural events; non-cultural events would be permitted as long as cultural activities had priority and 51 percent of the weekend dates had to be devoted to some cultural use. 

The city is involved in defining cultural uses at the building as well as designating how often space in the building should be used for such activities because developer Patrick Kennedy was allowed to build the structure two stories higher than would have been otherwise permitted in exchange for a promise to provide cultural uses on the first two levels of the building. 

Kennedy addressed the council, arguing he had more than 100 cultural events at Gaia in the last six months and urged the council to approve the plan immediately. “The protracted dialogue has been ruinous,” he said.  

Urging the council to send the question back to the zoning board for further definition of cultural use, Anna de Leon, who owns a jazz club in Kennedy’s building, argued before the council that Kennedy included church services and Haas School of Business dinners as cultural uses, but these, in fact, were “incidental” and not cultural. 

De Leon further objected to the Gaia marquee outside her establishment that had advertised church-related activities for two weeks. (In response, Kennedy promised the church would use the marquee only on Sunday mornings in the future.) Others supporting de Leon complained of drunken patrons from private parties at the building interfering with the club operation. 

The issue “should go back to ZAB [the Zoning Adjustment Board] for definition,” de Leon said. 

“Both sides have said they will take us to court on this matter,” noted Mayor Tom Bates. But City Attorney Manuela Albuquerque downplayed the importance of the threat, saying, “People sue us all the time. The line forms around the block.” 

Advising the council not to send the question back to the zoning board, Albuquerque argued, “The religious use issue is a red herring,” and that church services would not be considered a cultural use. 

Other matters 

In other actions, the council approved: 

• A five-story, 27-unit condominium project built over commercial space at Harrison Street and San Pablo Avenue, which was scaled down after neighbors appealed the project;  

• Waiving city fees for those installing solar panels; 

• Specifying requirements for shelter, food and water for dogs left outside.

Energized with recorded rhythms such as Public Enemy’s “Fight the Power,” some 60 protesters rallied outside the Berkeley Public Safety building then marched through the streets and demanded the reopening of police complaint hearings.  

The demonstration ended at the Police Review Commission [PRC] meeting, where ralliers crowded into a meeting room at the North Berkeley Senior Center for a public hearing on the suspension of complaint hearings. 

The rally was organized by Copwatch, the organization that also had collected more than 50 signatures to compel the PRC to hold the public hearing. 

“The PRC has been a model for civilian complaints for 33 years,” said Copwatch leader Andrea Pritchett, speaking at the rally. 

“We believe there are good cops in there,” she said, adding there are also “dirty cops” such as Sgt. Cary Kent, who was convicted on felony drug theft charges earlier this year because he took drug evidence from a locked evidence vault, and other officers on administrative leave pending formal charges. 

“We’ve got to restart a movement for community control of police,” Prichett said. 

Calling for reopening the hearings to the public, mayoral candidate Zachary Running Wolf asked why other candidates were absent. “Where’s our mayor? Where’s [mayoral candidate] Zelda Bronstein?” he asked. 

PRC hearings on complaints against police were suspended in mid-September, after the State Supreme Court ruled in Copley Press vs. San Diego County that disciplinary actions against police officers must be kept confidential. This ruling coincided with a four-year-old Berkeley Police Association lawsuit against the city, similarly arguing that the public should not have access to disciplinary procedures and records.  

Before the PRC hearing, City Attorney Manuela Albuquerque told the audience that the city’s position was that the Copley decision should not apply to Berkeley because the PRC does not actually discipline officers, as the Civil Service Board did in the Copley case. She said the BPA suit is invalid for similar reasons. 

“The city’s right as a charter city to create a public accountability procedure to review the actions of its police officers that are entirely separate from its disciplinary and personnel procedures is derived directly from the California Constitution,” Albuquerque said in a written memo. 

“Hearings are on a temporary hold—we’re not shutting them down,” she said. “We’re fighting this case to the hilt.” 

Underscoring the need for open hearings on complaints against police, Copwatch began the public hearing with a video in which police officers refused to show their badge numbers and moved Copwatch members filming arrests away from the scene.  

Former PRC Commissioner Mark Schlosberg, police policy director for the Northern California chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, was among the speakers urging the commission to begin to explore ways of continuing the hearings immediately, and not to wait for a Nov. 14 hearing on the BPA lawsuit. 

“I think we should plan for various outcomes,” he said. 

“These are strange times, where everyone loses privacy except the police,” said Dean Tuckerman, telling the commission, “Don’t give up and let the police state run you over.” 

Because Berkeley’s PRC has been a model for other cities, people from outside Berkeley also attended the hearings. “It is very important that the hearings continue even if they must be closed  

to the public at this time,” said Chris Morray-Jones from the Oakland-based Ella Baker Center for Human Rights. 

PRC Chair Sharon Kidd said comments at the public hearing would not be discussed by the commission until after the Nov. 14 court hearing on the BPA lawsuit. 

In other Police Review Commission matters, Kidd said the commission has delayed until further notice review of the case of the Berkeley police officer convicted earlier this year of stealing drugs from a locked evidence vault and review of the pending cases of two other officers on administrative leave who may be charged with criminal acts.

The Planning Commission voted on Wednesday to recommend that the City Council adopt the proposed Creeks Task Force revisions to the Creeks Ordinance while taking into account the recommendations by the commission. 

Board members Helen Burke and David Stoloff will represent the Creeks Task Force and the Planning Commission respectively when they appear before the City Council. 

Former mayor Shirley Dean urged board members to review the July 11 and Oct. 24 letters to the commission from the group Neighbors on Urban Creeks, which made the following points: 

• creek culverts should not be part of the creeks ordinance,  

• homeowners should have the right to rebuild irrespective of whether their house had been destroyed by termites or by fire, 

• the city should review who had financial responsibility for repairing culverts, 

• the city should come up with a comprehensive watershed management plan to deal with floods, and 

• the city should also come up with a proper mapping system for creeks and culverts. 

At the Oct. 13 planning meeting, board members and city staff had grappled with whether use permits or variances were needed for construction within 30 feet of an open creek. The task force recommended that a variance should be required. The commission voted 5-4 on Wednesday to require a use permit instead of a variance. 

The commission passed a motion stating that it was concerned about the high costs to the homeowners of the culvert section and asked the City Council to research this before taking further action. 

Task Force Chair Burke said that public safety was at stake. “It is important to keep in mind that homeowners should not relocate on culverts that could collapse,” she said. 

With respect to the contentious issue of whether culverts should be removed from the creeks ordinance or not, board members said that the city needed to deal with this issue. 

“We are stepping into the middle of a huge policy issue. This is not something the Planning Commission should deal with,” said Commissioner Tim Perry. 

The City Attorney has said that culverts have to be kept in the creeks ordinance.  

“If taking culverts out of the creeks ordinance would result in lower costs for homeowners or address the cost, time, intelligence and quality issues, then I would do so,” said commissioner Gene Poschman. “But it’s not, and therefore I think we need to concentrate on other important things.” 

The commission also decided to keep the definition of “creek” as proposed by the task force, although there were concerns regarding whether the word “swale” should be included. 

The commission will adopt the staff’s recommended amendments to the Zoning Ordinance related to the Creeks Ordinance and related to rebuilding after the involuntary destruction of a structure.

Two Oakland men have pleaded guilty in connection with the March slaying of a Berkeley man who was hosting a party for his three children and their friends. 

Antonio Harris, 19, had been charged with murder and attempted murder in the killing of Aderian Gaines, 36, and the wounding of Nathaniel Dudley in the March 25 incident at Gaines’ Prince Street home, but he was allowed to plead guilty to voluntary manslaughter and assault with a firearm. 

James Freeman, 29, pleaded guilty to being an ex-felon in possession of a firearm, the charge that he faced all along. 

Harris and Freeman entered their pleas in Alameda County Superior Court on Monday. 

Deputy District Attorney Greg Dolge said he allowed Harris to plead guilty to a lesser charge because “after a thorough review of the case and talking to witnesses, there were some significant questions that we’ll never get an answer to.” 

Gaines and his wife, Afeni, were hosting a party for their three children and their friends. They charged $2 admission and searched guests for weapons. The party was the fourth they had hosted in an effort to give their children something to do on a weekend night, according to Berkeley police. 

Dolge said Gaines disarmed Harris and kicked him out of his house after discovering that Harris had a gun. But he said Harris was able to get his gun back and return to the party. 

Dolge said the prosecution’s case was complicated by the fact that Gaines had a rifle with a fixed bayonet in his house that was prominently displayed and was in the possession of three different adult chaperones, including Gaines, at various times during the party. 

He said, “There was an odd confluence of circumstances, the party was crowded and dimly lit, and witness accounts varied widely.” 

Dolge said, “The unanswerables were significant enough to make me less confident that we could prove the murder and attempted murder charges beyond a reasonable doubt.” 

The prosecutor said he talked to Gaines’ family members about the pleas but declined to comment on their reaction, stating that he would leave it up to them to comment on their own. 

Harris, who originally faced a possible sentence of life in prison, is scheduled to be sentenced Nov. 27 and will get a nine-year state prison sentence as part of his negotiated plea. 

Freeman is scheduled to be sentenced on Nov. 21 and will get two years, according to Dolge.

Not arson, despite odor 

Smelling volatile chemicals and spotting flammable fluids, Berkeley police figured they had a case of arson when they arrived at a burning home at 1156 Miller Ave. just after 6:16 Wednesday evening. 

“It was not an arson,” said Deputy Fire Chief David Orth, “though I can see why they thought it was.” 

The real culprit was a discarded cigarette, combined with the dry late-autumn weather and a recent and still-odorous application of linseed oil to the front deck. 

The prompt arrival of firefighters extinguished the blaze, but not before the flames had done $35,000 in damage to the structure and another $12,000 to contents. 

“It’s lucky there wasn’t a wind,” said one police officer. “That could have spread really fast.” 

Grounds for blaze 

An unwatched coffee pot takes the blame for a fire that did a total of $11,000 in damage to a home at 1031 Channing Way Sunday evening. 

Orth said the occupant had started a pot of coffee on the stove, then forgot about it after he walked out into his backyard. 

Spotting the flames, he called 911, and firefighters arrived in time to quench the blaze before it did more serious damage.

When the pall of death hung over the East Bay during the October fire of 1991, I turned to the preparation of the evening meal devoid of feeling. To my astonishment, as I went through the routines of chopping, stirring, blending and serving, I felt as though a corner of this pall were lifting. 

The growing and preparation of food are of course rife with cliché, so fundamental are they to our well-being, but never before had I experienced their spiritual component so strongly. 

At this time of year we remember the deadly fire while we rejoice in the life-giving summer harvest, gathering beans, tomatoes, pumpkins and herbs, some for fresh eating, others for their preservation for the months ahead. 

Even if one has no garden, or lives miles away from a farmer’s market, if one is lucky enough to have access to ethnic groceries, or a mail-order system, some of this harvest is available to us year round. And this season, my attention has been diverted from fresh produce to the dried chili pepper. 

If this introduction seems laborious, it serves as a reflection of the complexity of the chili (or more correctly, in Spanish, chile) pepper. For dried chilis often have names that are different from their fresh origins, denoting a change worth marking in their personality, or character, during the ripening process. The ubiquitous jalapeno, for example, becomes the chipotle pepper. 

Since I live a few blocks away from a taqueria that sells small freshly packaged varieties of these dried exotica, I decided to try a tasting experiment of chili pastes by making a base of simple ingredients and testing four chilis, adding them one at a time to the base, hoping to achieve four variations on a single theme. 

Chilis are rated for heat on a scale of one to ten, originally devised in the early 20th century by a chemist, Wilbur Scoville. Today’s scientific measurement of the heat component, capsaicin, still honors his name. Jalapenos are rated 6 on the scale, too hot for me. I limited my experiment to those chilis in the mid-range, 3 and 4, which I hoped would reveal spicy flavors not masked by heat. After all, some capsaicin levels are so high that mouth and lungs can blister. 

The website www.gourmet sleuth.com has a useful heat scale for dried chilis, worth printing for reference. 

The results of the experiment were rewarding. Since my aim was a taste rather than a meal, quantities were small. The base was one tablespoon of tomato paste, one of tamari, one clove of garlic, a pinch of salt, and half a cup of water. To this were added one or two tablespoons of prepared chili, and no more than six drops of lemon juice. The paste was then refrigerated overnight to ripen before the tasting ceremony the next day. 

The preparation of the actual chilis is a little more elaborate. First, they are soaked in water. When sufficiently rehydrated, they are drained and patted dry, stemmed and de-seeded, torn into pieces, and dry-roasted in a heavy pan on both sides until crisp but not burnt. Finally they are ground, traditionally in a mortar and pestle, more conveniently in a coffee grinder. 

Blend, tip into a small jar, and refrigerate. 

Before describing the results, for readers who enjoy very hot peppers, the usual cautions obtain for their handling. However, rather than wearing gloves, one can readily avoid touching them entirely by impaling the pepper with a fork in one hand, and operating on it with a small sharp knife in the other. Interestingly and confusingly, heat levels even within the same variety can be altered by the environment in which the pepper was grown.  

The first pepper I chose was in fact not quite a dried one, though it was certainly leathery, ripe, bright red, long and skinny, labeled by Monterrey Market a paprika. I include it here because not only did it make a delicious paste, but it also inspired the subsequent experiments. I found myself naming all these pastes. This one is “The Pioneer.” 

The second choice was the ancho pepper, a dried poblano, shaped like a heart, commonly found in local markets fresh and very dark green. Its flavor in the paste was profoundly intense, smoky, almost burnt, and very good. Surely Moctezuma would have relished it, so I named it “The Aztec”. 

The third choice was the cascabel, meaning bell in Spanish. It took 24 hours to soften, and added to the base was so bitter that I briefly simmered the whole lot. After ripening in the refrigerator, it was still bitter. I tried adding it to tahini (thinned with water) and discovered thereby its properties, for it not only gave the tahini a hint of heat but also utterly transformed its very nature. In fact it sang like a bell with one pure note. Cascabel also means rattlesnake, and since it needs careful handling, and is a challenge to appreciate, this is what I named the paste. 

Last but not least, for there are others waiting to be tried, I chose the guajillo pepper. The guajillo is easy to prepare, and the result was so scrumptious that I ate the lot with a spoon. Fruity, floral, mild, with peppery overtones, I call it “The Flower.” 

All these pastes without additions make interesting dips. They enhance scrambled eggs, reinforce soups and braised meats, add sparkle to beans and salads. For me they are a daily necessity, rich in vitamin A. I will try them pulverized straight from the package, and soaked but untoasted in dips. To the base I will add peanut butter, or pineapple, or yogurt. Variations seem endless. Excellent recipes using dried chilis can be found in The Food and Cooking of Mexico, by Jane Milton, available from Cody’s on Fourth Street. 

Let us give thanks for our food that endures and comforts and restores us to whole life in bleak times.

Born into an aristocratic British family with fascist tendencies, Jessica Mitford—a.k.a. Decca Treuhaft or Dec, also called Susan by some of her six siblings—reinvented herself throughout her life, eloping to Spain at 19 with a second cousin who had fought against Franco in the Spanish Civil War, moving to America, joining the Communist Party and becoming a celebrated Oakland author in her middle age. 

Throughout it all “letter-writing was the life-line that held her many worlds together,” wrote Peter Y. Sussman, editor of Decca, the Letters of Jessica Mitford, just published by Alfred A. Knopf. 

In an interview in his South Berkeley home, Sussman, a San Francisco Chronicle editor from 1964 to 1993, talked about obtaining, then sifting through “thousands and thousands and thousands” of letters spanning Mitford’s life. 

Several years after her death in 1996, radical attorney Robert Treuhaft, Mitford’s second husband, asked Sussman, who was in Mitford’s circle of friends for 30 years, to edit the letters.  

Sussman first met Mitford when, working as a young Chronicle copy editor, he was trying to track down paramilitary activities in the East Bay. She had heard about his project and invited him to meet and discuss it. 

“Any number of other people had the same experience,” Sussman said. “She was very encouraging.”  

Sussman said he selected the letters or parts of them to capture Mitford’s voice. “By that I mean her special stance toward the world,” he said. “She saw things in our culture that others did not see.”  

For example, there was the way Mitford regarded funerals. “It was absolutely preposterous,” Sussman said, “They are corpses, they are dead, but the way they advertise cushioned soles [for shoes] to put on them in their coffins. Decca could see the ridiculousness of it.” 

The editing process entailed omitting letters or parts of them that told highly personal stories of friends or family. 

“There’s a kind of falsification that takes place anytime you edit, select, trim, explain. So I had to keep stepping back and asking, ‘Am I being true to what I’m sensing in her, in these letters I have?’” Sussman said. “It’s not like this is an interpretive work, yet there’s a conscious interpretation that comes into it. Just the act of choosing one letter over another or one anecdote over another.” 

Another challenge Sussman faced was taking care not to reveal names of Communist Party members whose affiliation was not public. And he had to watch for libel, as Mitford would write whatever came into her mind. 

“I thought I was done with the whole thing and then I’d start getting letters from the British lawyers because there are entirely different libel laws in Britain,” Sussman said. 

The letters, which span her youth to her deathbed, bring out Mitford’s famous humor and edginess. Even at 19, the headstrong Mitford wrote her mother from Paris, “When  

I went to cousin Dorothy’s I didn’t tell you I had met Esmond Romilly. To put it shortly, by the time you get this we shall be married,”  

The couple’s move to America nurtured Mitford’s politicization. On a trip through South Carolina, she wrote: “Some of the shacks where the poor farmers live are simply incredible, they are wooden & look like old, broken-down children’s houses. We couldn’t believe people actually lived in them till we saw them inside.” 

In his introduction to each segment of Mitford’s life and in his comprehensive footnotes, Sussman fills the reader in on some of the tragedies in Mitford’s life that she wrote little about, such as the death of her young husband, killed fighting Nazism in WWII. 

Sussman points out the strength it must have taken to rebel against her tight-knit family. Mitford totally broke with one of her Nazi-sympathizing sisters, with whom she was, as she called it in her letters, “off-speakers” for life. 

Mitford moved to the San Francisco Bay Area and embraced life as a single working mother—she was pregnant when Romilly was killed—with a job at the Office of Price Administration, whose objective was to control prices and rents.  

Mitford’s letters give a taste of the growing repression in the United States. For instance, in this April 1943 letter, she wrote:  

“The FBI (like Scotland Yard) are investigating a lot of people in our [OPA] division at the moment, including me. This is part of a general red-baiting program.” Later letters speak about being called before the House Un-American Activities Committee. 

Mitford married Robert Treuhaft in 1943, characteristically writing to her mother: “You will be surprised to hear I am married to Robert Treuhaft.” 

The couple moved to Oakland in the mid-1940s and joined the Communist Party. Mitford became executive secretary of the East Bay Chapter of the Civil Rights Congress. In introductory remarks to one of the sections, Sussman quotes from a 1981 lecture she gave on the CRC:  

“It was the fact of effective black leadership in the fight for black equality that gave our embattled organization its strength, that set it apart from such virtually all-white organizations as the American Civil Liberties Union which concerned itself primarily with the problems of white liberals and generally turned a blind eye to the vicious, rampant discrimination against blacks…” 

Sussman expressed gratitude to those who combed through attics, basements and shoeboxes for Mitford’s letters. It was an expression of the debt they owed her, he said, writing in the acknowledgment section of the book: “I was the beneficiary of the debt of gratitude they, too, owed Decca.”  

Reading of Jessica  

Mitford’s Letters 

Peter Sussman, Jessica Mitford’s children and grandchildren and friends will be reading from her letters at 7 p.m., Sunday, Oct. 29 at a benefit for KPFA at King Middle School Auditorium, 1781 Rose St. Tickets $15 advance at local independent bookstores and $20 at the door. For more information, see www.PeterySussman. com.

The main issue in Albany is what will be the future of the waterfront. I want to preserve as much of the waterfront as possible as park and open space and complete the vision of access to the waterfront and bay that has been a goal of many groups. I would like to see the completion of the East Shore State Park in Albany between Berkeley, El Cerrito and Richmond. Since this land is zoned recreational and for the race track, I would see no reason for the city to change the zoning without a study of possibilities. I would hold the city accountable to a fair and transparent method of soliciting citizen input about ideas for the waterfront. This does not assume that I want or encourage Golden Gate Fields to leave. It is their property and they have been active community members for many years. However, I think that Magna Entertainment Corp. needs to recognize that Albany residents do not favor a large development next to the waterfront and I would hope that the city and Magna could initiate communications as to what would be a win-win situation for both them and Albany.  

Albany may be a small town and in some ways feels insulated, but we are impacted by the urban area, which surrounds us. Our survival in many ways will be a combination of continuing to value, promote and protect the small town character, which has attracted so many of us here, and at the same time find ways to cooperate and enhance our relationships with the surrounding communities. As I have talked to residents I have become aware of many neighborhood issues and problems that concern people. As a councilmember I would look forward to working with the various communities to solicit ideas of how they can work with the council and be part of the solution to our common concerns.  

I am running for the Albany City Council because I believe that the citizens that support me need a seat at the table to have a voice in Albany politics. These are the more than 2,500 Albany citizens that signed the Citizens for the Albany Shoreline Initiative and who want me to speak up for park and open space on the waterfront, environmental and sustainable concerns, and that any development on the waterfront does not compromise the shoreline, suck the vitality out of our Solano Ave. and San Pablo and compromise the small town ambiance that Albany represents. And lastly, it is important to understand that for Magna, the racetrack owner, a mall represents an opportunity to create and enhance gambling on the waterfront, an effort that has seen success at other racetracks that Magna owns. I will fight any efforts to try to increase gambling on the waterfront or at the racetrack. 

It seems that Albany taxpayers have been asked over and over in recent years to tax themselves for various measures. Most citizens vote for these measures because they want to support city services and they care about keeping Albany a great place to live. Having enough money is one side of the equation. Albany’s budget is balanced every year, there will be 1 million every year for repairing the storm drains, and, realistically, there is never enough in anyone’s or any city’s budget to do everything desired at once. I would want to reexamine budget be sure the money is spent wisely and as intended. I support a fiscally sound plan with clear priorities so that the city does not have to go to the voters unless absolutely necessary. The next time there is a request for more taxes, it is incumbent on the council to make sure the citizens are clear about what is needed and why. 

I think the city does need to foster more economic development, and I think they have been working at doing this, particularly along the San Pablo corridor. I think many things can be done to enhance the vitality of Solano and San Pablo to encourage more of a variety of businesses. Shoppers and visitors come here from many other cities and I think there are ways to encourage them to stay longer on Solano. I think Albany residents need to be encouraged to come to Solano instead of heading over to El Cerrito or Berkeley. Also, sources of revenue don’t necessarily come from one big source but from several smaller ideas that can add up to significant resources for the city. I would definitely talk to other cities about ways that have worked for them to increase revenue. Cities like Pleasanton, Walnut Creek and Grass Valley come to mind as examples of creating a downtown ambiance that encourages folks to come and shop and use the services. I would also encourage Albany to look at how green businesses can be encouraged to come to our city and the ways that they might improve our local economy. 

I am in a unique position as a teacher to foster a good working relationship between the city and the school district that can enhance our community and support our youth and families. My experience over the last almost 25 years of working in the school district and my precinct work as co-chair for the United Democratic Campaign in the East Bay has meant that I have met and worked with thousands of Albany residents, a great honor and pleasure that I look forward to maintaining. 

A vote for Marge Atkinson is a vote for preserving open space on the waterfront, having a seat at the Albany political table for those who do not see a mall as a panacea for whatever ails Albany, for environmentalists and those that see sustainability as a quality of life, a voice for open, transparent government, a voice against increased gambling at the racetrack, and a candidate that listens to the concerns of Albany residents. 

I have been endorsed by Barbara Lee, Loni Hancock, the Alameda Democratic Council, the California Democratic Party, Keith Carson, Alameda County Supervisor, Albany Council Members Robert Good and Robert Lieber, the Sierra Club, Citizens for the Albany Shoreline, Albany Teachers Assn., Sylvia McLaughlin, League of Conservation Voters, Ron Rosenbaum, Principal of Albany High School and hundreds of Albany citizens.

I am a 22 year Albany resident running for City Council. Like so many others, my family chose to live here for the public schools. My husband and I have stayed on after our children graduated because we love Albany. This love of Albany has led me to participate in a variety of local civic and non-profit organizations over many years. With my civic experience and professional background, I feel I have much to offer Albany on the City Council.  

Professionally, I earned a BA in Economics from Illinois College and worked 35 years for the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) as an economist. For 15 of those years I was an Assistant Regional Commissioner for an eight state region, directing a staff of about 85. In that role I had policy-making and budgetary responsibility. This long policy experience in government is particularly good background for service on the City Council. I retired June 2, which allows me more time to serve Albany. 

Locally, I have volunteered fifteen years with the Friends of the Albany Library, a non-profit that currently raises about $35,000 a year for our library. I served in every role for the Friends and am currently Secretary. I was appointed to the City of Albany’s Library Board eight years ago and still serve on that Board, which exists to advise the Council on library issues including budget. I also volunteer with the Friends of Five Creeks, a cross-city environmental group, and am Secretary for the Albany Waterfront Coalition.  

There are two key reasons I decided to run for City Council. The first reason is to offer my experience as an economist for Albany’s fiscal future. I have voted for every tax measure over the years but would like to work on alternative options for funding City services. Albany’s funding has been “hand to mouth” for years. While the City is fiscally sound now, there is a possibility of a deficit next fiscal year (FY2007/08). This is driven by structural issues including revenues increasing at a slower rate than the rate of expenditures. The City’s longstanding tradition is to cut expenditures as needed to approve a balanced budget.  

Uncertain funding over the years has strained Albany’s ability to pay for all our needs. There is great demand for a variety of City services. Residents tell me they sometimes clean up parks near their homes. Others worry about car suspensions on some of our roads. Many would like more City recreation opportunities that currently are constrained by space limitations. I am concerned about completing repair of old sewers and storm drains as soon as possible. Albany has been operating under a cease and desist order for twenty years due to ground water pollution caused by decrepit sewers and storm drains. About three quarters of the problem has been resolved but there still is more to do. While the City has been successful in locating grants to supplement tax revenues, there are challenges paying for all the demand. I would like to find ways to upgrade our commercial tax base, including our business environment on Solano and San Pablo Avenues. My economist experience would be a unique addition on the Council to assist with Albany’s fiscal future. 

The second reason I decided to run is to offer a more open perspective for Albany’s waterfront. Debate about the best uses of the waterfront has been longstanding and sometimes contentious. I support an open planning process that is directed by the City, and includes the property owner and public, to develop plan options for our waterfront. I oppose any effort to change State law that could permit casino-style gambling in Albany.  

Our waterfront needs help! My personal goals for our waterfront are completion of the permanent (not just interim) Bay Trail through Albany, additional open space or park near the water with better maintenance, and assurance of necessary revenues for Albany. Our publicly-owned 88 acres at the waterfront should be more accessible and usable, ideally with better signage and some restroom facility. Currently the area is marred by huge chunks of construction debris remaining from its landfill days. Another goal is to find a way to increase local open space in the Eastshore State Park by giving the Albany Bulb to the park. Finally, my process goal is to promote a more positive climate for discussing waterfront options. 

It is safe to consider a variety of possible land uses on our waterfront, due to Albany’s 1990 Measure C. The 1990 Measure C prohibits any change in zoning or land use at the waterfront unless a majority of Albany voters approves the change. Due to the interest expressed by the voters in passing the 1990 Measure C, I think it most appropriate for Council members to be willing to consider options objectively—then let the people decide. I trust Albany voters’ judgment about any proposal. 

I am the only Council candidate to elect Albany’s voluntary campaign finance reform limitations, and decided to accept no contribution from anyone outside of Albany. I signed the Code of Campaign Ethics and have made every effort to run a fair and constructive campaign focusing on issues. Twenty former and current Albany mayors and School Board members—who understand the demands of public service—have endorsed me. The list of endorsers’ names and my points about Albany issues are available on my website at carylokeefe4albany.com. I welcome questions by email at caryl4council@comcast.net. Please consider me for Albany City Council, and vote on November 7.

My motto is Albany First, which is the foundation for all of my ideas about how to handle the myriad issues facing Albany today. Our 1.7-square-mile city—the Biggest Little City in the East Bay—must grapple with finding the money to maintain its high quality of life without taxing its homeowners to the point of extinction!  

We must expand the flow of commercial taxes—our largest tax revenue contributor is Golden Gate Fields at about $1.6 million annually—so that we can keep pace with our city’s many needs. This is but one instance of putting Albany First. We cannot afford to allow an international organization like the Sierra Club, which pays no taxes here nor will feel any service cuts, to dictate how we set up our waterfront. This is a decision that belongs to the Albany voters—no representation without taxation!  

In an attempt to determine how best to use its waterfront, Albany has committed to an open planning process, overseen by the City, that gives everyone a voice. This is an important step to finding our way to a waterfront plan that we can all live with. Clearly, open space is important to everyone, as is a Bay Trails connection, the Gilman ball fields and some way to gain revenue from the waterfront. Albany voters deserve to be heard and to vote on a realistic proposal by someone who is prepared to invest the millions required by a CEQA review and an EIR. Any subsequent plan will go before voters as Measure C ensures. Albany’s right to vote on such a plan is another example of Albany First—of Albany voters insisting they want to take care of themselves, that they want to determine how they live. 

Another outside interest that is at odds with Albany is Proposition 90. This boondoggle of a plan, created by a wealthy East Coast developer, would severely restrict Albany’s ability to manage our own city. It would pre-empt the power of Measure C, passed in 1990. Too often initiatives are written by outside interests whose actual agenda is hidden in the initiative’s details.  

Albany residents deserve more than this. We are a community of thoughtful people who moved here because they wanted to live in Albany, or were born here. One of Albany’s big draws is our schools, which, as costs rise in all sectors, need increasing amounts of money to maintain their high quality. Outsiders like the Sierra Club, or their proxies, disregard the potential effects of their plans on our schools. Or that their goals won’t keep funds flowing to our police and fire departments. Or maintain our streets and sewers. Many of our streets are deteriorating and storm drains need repair. Again, the issue is Albany First; we must find the money to take care of these problems. The City has had to ask us for additional taxes to handle such issues. I am determined to find and maintain new tax bases so that there is more money to draw from, so homeowners aren’t bearing the cost yet again. As things stand, we will probably face deficits in the coming years. I want to work to avoid, or at best, minimize, such deficits so that we don’t have to make painful decisions to cut programs and services. Putting Albany First means that we create whatever opportunities possible so that we don’t have to settle for a smaller police force or fewer sports teams at the high school. 

One way to generate new sources of commercial income would be to appoint an Economic Development Officer at City Hall. This person would work with the Chamber of Commerce, local business leaders and experts from UC Berkeley Planning and Land Use Departments to develop a comprehensive program to revitalize Solano and San Pablo avenues, the I-80 corridor and the waterfront. Again, the mandate of such an officer would be to put Albany First. This would mean bringing the Albany shopper back to Albany. As a community, we can make an active decision to support local businesses. The City Council could work with the staff and local business owners to develop effective policies that stimulate economic development.  

In my 19 years here, I have found that because Albany is a small community, people have the means of talking to each other easily. During this campaign I have been walking through Albany neighborhoods to meet constituents and find out what people are concerned about. It’s been a wonderful experience, and as a council member, I intend to keep listening to our voters. Communication keeps our city going. People communicate over fences, in organizations, as volunteers, in our many fantastic restaurants and on playing fields. There is a huge community of people of all ages and backgrounds who use playing fields shared by Albany and Berkeley. Their interplay is a wonderful example of people enjoying where they live. 

Being elected to the City Council would be a privilege and an honor. I will not let outsiders, who do not have to pay a teacher’s salary or pick up the tab to repair streets, control our city. Albany will be first.

Albany is a special community. Our quality of life comes from our unique small town character. People know and care about each other. We have schools, libraries, parks, and public services that we are proud of. Our shopping areas on Solano and San Pablo Avenues have small businesses and restaurants that make our town a safe place to stroll and shop. 

Our quality of life is threatened by proposed developments such as the Magna/Caruso mall and casino plans. That’s why I oppose them. These developments will bring major traffic gridlock on Highway 80 and on our key streets. We will see Solano Avenue’s vitality disappear. The Eastshore State Park will never be completed. 

Join me in creating a different vision for our future as we join California’s Green Revolution. 

1. I want a community park and a development plan that is integrated at the waterfront. We can build a green hotel away from the shoreline and the wetlands. It will be good for Golden Gate Fields (should they decide to stay), good for Albany’s revenues, and good for merchants on Solano and San Pablo Avenues. Albany will receive a 10-12 percent hotel tax, rather than a 1 percent sales tax from a mall. 

My opponents have both supported large scale development by southern California developer Rick Caruso. Coffees held at the O’Keefe-Riffer household endorsed his development plan. Mr. Papalia’s campaign staff was formerly a Caruso public relations employee. These matters are of grave importance, since Mr. Caruso stands to reap millions of dollars in profits if his plan is approved by the City Council. 

2. I would like to see Albany participate in California’s Green Revolution, so that we can benefit from the $60 million and 17,000 new jobs which are being created by the state’s new law reducing greenhouse emissions. We can attract research and development businesses to Albany, along Cleveland Avenue, which is part of the city’s redevelopment zone. 

3. I am advocating collaborative regional planning for the San Pablo corridor, so that we can decrease our reliance on cars, have mixed use, affordable housing with open space and schools, so that the corridor will be an attractive place to live.  

I have worked for 35 years in the Department of Public Health in San Francisco. In the past ten years I have been the Director of the Division of Community Services, in charge of programs acknowledged for their outstanding clinical service, cost effectiveness, high staff morale, and state of the art emergency preparedness and security practices. 

I have worked with Willie Brown, Gavin Newsom. and Mark Leno developing strategies to maintain these programs in difficult times. To give you a sense of the fiscal context of my work, the San Francisco mental health budget alone is roughly six times the budget for the entire city of Albany. 

I have been endorsed by Barbara Lee, Loni Hancock, the California Democratic Party, Keith Carson, Albany Council Members Robert Good and Robert Lieber, the Sierra Club, Sylvia McLaughlin, and the League Conservation Voters.

UC Berkeley’s Memorial Stadium will get local landmarks status as designated June 1 by the Landmarks Preservation Commission, a unanimous City Council said Tuesday night. 

In an Oct. 24 report to the council, city planning staff had called for a delay of the designation, calling for the question to be sent back to the commission. However, in an 11th-hour reversal, planning staff asked the council to uphold the commission’s designation of the stadium as a local landmark. 

Landmarks status is critical at this time, according to advocates of the designation, because the university is planning a number of controversial building projects in southeast Berkeley where the stadium is located, which will include remodeling the stadium. UC Regents are expected to vote on the Southeast Campus Integrated Projects at their Nov. 15-16 meeting. 

The council unanimously supported the recommendation, made orally by Deputy Planning Director Wendy Cosin. 

The local landmarks status had been called into question by Irene Hegarty, UC Berkeley’s community relations director, who pointed out discrepancies between the local and national applications for landmarks status. The City Council called for a public hearing to resolve the discrepancies.  

While the half-dozen members of the public who addressed the landmarks question at the public hearing favored the staff reversal, they asked why the designation process did not happened months earlier. 

Janice Thomas, a resident of Panoramic Hill, next to the stadium, noted that the Landmarks Preservation Commission made its decision on June 1 and asked “Why the delay? The public would like answers.” 

While Councilmember Kriss Worthington voted to support the staff reversal, he objected to the process, in which the council was being asked to make a decision based on an oral report.  

During the council discussion, City Attorney Manuela Albuquerque responded to an e-mail she received that afternoon from former Mayor Shirley Dean. Dean argued that the council had not taken correct steps in scheduling the public hearing on the landmarking decision. 

“As the Council did not ‘certify’ the action there is no appeal before the council at this time,” Dean wrote. 

In a her written response to Dean, Albuquerque said Deputy City Attorney Zach Cowan had “listened to the tape [of the council meeting] and it was absolutely clear that the council was asked to (and did) set this for hearing, in order to resolve discrepancies between the city’s … and National Register designation.” 

The Daily Planet is waiting for a city staff explanation on how and why the last-minute reversal came about. 

Former vice president Al Gore came to Berkeley Monday to support the “Yes on 87” campaign. 

Prop. 87 promises to end California’s dependence on foreign oil with cleaner, cheaper alternatives such as wind, solar and biofuels that will improve the economy and reduce air pollution that causes asthma, lung disease and cancer. At the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Park rally, Gore emphasized that half of California’s foreign oil comes from the Middle East. 

“I am pretty tired of depending on oil from the Middle East,” he said, after arriving at the rally in a hybrid vehicle. “It’s not good for us because a lot of the money for oil is siphoned off to finance terrorist groups. And it’s not good for them to build up their economy predominantly from oil. This has got to stop.” 

On Oct. 9, Gore appeared in his first ad since he last ran for office in 2000 in order to endorse the oil tax initiative, sparking speculation that he was considering running for president again.  

Gore, known for advocating environmental issues, this year released a documentary on global warming, An Inconvenient Truth. 

“We want Gore,” and “Gore for President,” supporters chanted, a large number of whom were students from Berkeley High and UC Berkeley. Gore was joined by Congresswoman Barbara Lee and Mayor Tom Bates, both of whom urged citizens to vote yes on Measure 87. 

“I urge you not to be carried away by the deceptive ads on the other side,” Bates said, adding that the measure has major ramifications for the economy and for the future of energy. “One of the reasons for me to care so deeply about this was because of the inspiration I received from Gore. I think it’s a fantastic idea.” 

The word of the day, Gore told the crowd, was “crisis.” 

“We are filling up the air with toxic gases every day,” he said. “How much more evidence do we need before we sit up and take notice? How many more catastrophes? It’s time for us to take control of our own future and we are going to start by passing Measure 87.” 

Opponents of Prop. 87 have reportedly spent more than $52 million to campaign against the oil tax initiative, which would impose up to $485 million a year in taxes on companies extracting oil from California land. They argue that a tax on oil revenues would increase gas prices in California. 

The Berkeley City Council voted unanimously to endorse Prop. 87 earlier this year. 

“If we are going to change the way we do business, this is the best way to start,” said Councilmember Laurie Capitelli, who was at the rally. 

Gore also spoke about the Katrina Hurricane disaster and how the Bush administration failed to address it.  

“Look around the world,” he said. “There are disasters everywhere. The genocide in Darfur, the child warriors and the rape of our forests and rivers—these are not just political problems, these are everybody’s problems. If the government back in Washington, D.C., is paralyzed, then it’s up to citizens to take up the leadership to save our planet.” 

Rio Bauce contributed to this report

Before the Le Conte Neighborhood Association’s Thursday evening candidates night, secretary Jerry Miller was undecided about whom he’d pick for mayor. But after listening to the three candidates—incumbent Mayor Tom Bates, former Planning Chair Zelda Bronstein and community activist Zachary Running Wolf, Miller told the Daily Planet: “I could really see the difference between the candidates. I don’t think I’m unclear now.”  

Some 60 people came to the LNA forum at the LeConte School auditorium. Earlier in the week, about 80 people had attended the Willard Neighborhood Association evening in which mayoral and District 7 and District 8 City Council candidates spoke and fielded questions. (Candidate Christian Pecaut did not attend either event.)  

Questions from residents in the two nearby neighborhoods reflected similar concerns: housing, homelessness, the impact of the university and preservation of neighborhoods. 

Development 

“What is the need for all this development? What is in it for the citizens of Berkeley?” one Le Conte area resident asked the candidates. 

Bates responded that allowing high-rise buildings to abut residences is a problem created by the city’s faulty zoning laws. “We need to respect the neighborhoods,” he said. 

There is need for more development to reverse Berkeley’s shrinking population, Bates said. Development at transit hubs can provide housing, while keeping people out of their cars. The housing created must be “workforce” housing—condominiums and apartments. “People who work here can’t live here. People in our police department, fire department, nurses and teachers don’t live here,” he said. 

But Bronstein argued that people “are not going to move into the little Calcutta-size apartments that are being built on the thoroughfares in Berkeley. They want yards for their children to play in.” 

Furthermore, she argued that when Bates talks about “workforce housing,” he lumps together firefighters, police and UC clericals. “Excuse me,” Bronstein said, “the police in this city are averaging $124,000 per year.”  

Most of the housing being built is not available to working people, she said, adding that the city needs to make housing genuinely affordable. 

But Bates, who claimed that 500 “workforce” housing units and 300 low-income units were built in the city during his term in office, argued the city needs to take a regional perspective when looking at developing low-income housing. 

“We need a broader vision for affordable housing,” he said. It can be in one of the neighboring cities and not necessarily in Berkeley, he said.  

Bronstein further criticized Bates for proposing housing at Ashby BART, arguing that the city applied for a planning grant without first proposing the project to the City Council. The grant was denied, yet, “Mayor Bates continues to ram this project through South Berkeley,” she said, pointing to $40,000 funded through the city’s general fund to support a task force on the project. 

Bates responded that prior City Councils have said there should be housing at the Ashby station. “Ashby BART is a planning grant, you guys,” he said. 

While the original grant proposed 300 units, the project is not yet defined, Bates argued. “This is not a fait accompli,” he said. 

Ellin McGovern, who lives near UC Storage at Shattuck Avenue and Ward Street, opposes the cell-phone antennae which owner Patrick Kennedy wants to install there. She and her neighbors appealed the zoning board’s approval, which the council has remanded to the zoning board for further discussion. McGovern asked the candidates how they would approach the problem. 

Bates declined to discuss specifics because, as mayor, he may have to vote on the question. Instead, he pointed to state and federal legislation which makes it difficult for municipalities to have control over locating antennae. “We have to fight back against this,” he said. 

Bronstein responded that the zoning board approval was a good example of the mayor and City Council not giving the Planning Department good direction. She acknowledged, however, that federal law does not allow people to bring health issues into play when considering the placement of antennae. The city should do whatever it can to protect the neighborhood, she added. 

UC-city agreement 

At the LNA event, Bates accused Willard neighborhood resident Doug Buckwald of repeating his questions about a UC-city settlement agreement at various candidates’ nights. 

“You’ve asked this question at three different forums,” Bates said, then added, “Nice to see you again, by the way.”  

The city sued the university over its development plans and over the fees it pays for various city services. In July 2005 the city settled the suit—that settlement was the basis of Buckwald’s questions. 

“The mayor has been telling people that the city has control of planning as a result of this agreement,” Buckwald said at the Willard candidates’ night. “That is not true. In fact the city gave up its control over planning in downtown as the agreement states.”  

He further argued that when the mayor says he’s gotten the university to pay the city $22 million, “what he doesn’t say is that’s $22 million over 15 years.” 

As mayor, Bronstein said, she would rescind the agreement. By approving the settlement “the mayor and the City Council majority voted to give up the rights that the city had,” she said. The agreement forces the city to get university approval on whatever is planned downtown, she said.  

But Bates objected. “If we don’t like what they plan, we can go our own way,” he said, noting that would mean that the city would simply lose $100,000 of the $1.2 million the university is paying in annual fees for city services. 

Further, he said, Berkeley “got the best deal any city in California has ever gotten with any public university (given that) the university is a sovereign body not subject to our laws.”  

Buckwald also challenged Bates on having settled the lawsuit behind closed doors. Bronstein added that the confidentiality agreement was signed even though the mayor had promised to make the terms of the agreement public before a council vote. “I do not believe that every settlement involves a confidentiality agreement,” she said. 

But Bates argued: “Any lawyers will tell you that when you get a settlement agreement, you end up having a confidentiality statement where you can’t talk about what goes on in the settlement agreement.” 

Running Wolf’s challenge 

Community activist Running Wolf has not solicited endorsements or campaign contributions, but has debated Bronstein and Bates at numerous neighborhood forums. Like Bronstein, Running Wolf says he will rescind the UC-city agreement if elected. “On Nov. 7, we’ll decide if this is Berkeley or UC Berkeley,” he said. 

He opposes criminalization of the homeless, and the anti-sleeping and lying ordinances that both the mayor and Bronstein support. “We’re slipping down a slippery slope, with too much policing,” he said, promising to address homelessness by getting people into job training and housing them in unused buildings.  

On creating new parking slots, he said one student asked him what he is going to do about parking. He said he answered,” Absolutely nothing,” and called on young people to give up their cars and ride bicycles, as he does. 

Explaining that his culture considers seven generations when making planning decisions, Running Wolf addressed the antenna question saying, “I wouldn’t allow cell-phone antennas at all.”  

The end 

While the candidates presented themselves and fielded questions at Willard for just under an hour, sandwiched in between the District 7 and District 8 candidates, the closure of the Le Conte event was somewhat controversial. 

At 8:30 p.m. the chair said that there had been an agreement that closing statements would be made at 8:30 p.m., but Bronstein argued that the event should be extended. “It seems like there’s been hardly any questions,” she said. 

After the three candidates gave closing statements, Bates and most the audience left; Bronstein and Running Wolf stayed to field additional questions. 

If there’s a single issue dominating the race for Albany’s vacant city council seats, it’s the now-you-see-them, not-you-don’t plans of a Canadian race track mogul and a Southern California shopping mall magnate for the city’s waterfront. 

While developer Rick Caruso announced he was giving up on Albany and looking for a new site elsewhere in the East Bay, the mall remains a hot issue in part because no one really believes Caruso has given up on one of the last remaining prime waterfront sites located next to a major freeway exit. 

The four candidates running for the two at-large seats are divided precisely across the fault lines that formed after Golden Gate Fields owner Magna Entertainment and megamall developer Caruso Affiliated Holdings unveiled plans for an upscale mall on the racetrack’s northwestern parking lot. 

While all four candidates are registered Democrats, the two who won the endorsement of the state and county party as well as Rep. Barbara Lee and Assemblymember Loni Hancock are running as the “Save Our Shoreline” anti-mall team of Marge Atkinson and Joanne Wile. 

Wile and Atkinson played leading roles in the signature drive that led to a fourth of Albany’s registered voters signing petitions to place an initiative on the November ballot that would have blocked the Magna/Caruso mall while creating a planning process to plot the future of waterfront lands. 

An Alameda County Superior Court judge voided the initiative because backers hadn’t conformed to all the public notice requirements before circulating their petitions. 

Their opponents are Caryl O’Keefe and Francesco Papalia, with Papalia the more outspoken of the two development advocates. 

Papalia, O’Keefe 

“When organizations whose constituency is outside of Albany are given the power to make decisions, all accountability is lost,” declares Papalia, a salesman with the Daniel Winkler & Associates real estate brokerage in Albany. 

Campaigning under the slogan “Albany First,” Papalia sees waterfront development as a means to reduce the proportionate share of the tax burden that falls on homeowners and a way of generating new revenues—through taxes and developer concessions—to fund schools, emergency services and parks. 

For Papalia the waterfront development issue is clear-cut: The Sierra Club is exerting massive pressure to restrict development not on a natural site, but on artificial bay fill in a move that would take away the city’s prime potential source of new tax revenues while forcing property taxes on the owners of residential property. 

“If the Sierra Club has its way, over 50 percent of the land in the city would be tax-exempt,” said Papalia, who charges that the club’s goal is the eventual closure of Golden Gate Fields and the site’s transformation into still more exempt parkland for which the overwhelming majority of users would not be Albany residents. “I will stand up to the Sierra Club at any cost,” he said. 

He said the lot where the mall was proposed was perfect for development because of declining attendance at the track because of off-track betting—which yields no revenue for the city unlike bets at races held at the track that are place by attendees in the stands. 

O’Keefe, who served for 35 years as an economist for the Bureau of Labor Statistics, is a member of the Albany Library Board, the Friends of Five Creeks and the Albany Waterfront Coalition. She charged that the Save Our Shoreline proposals would result in the loss of more than a half million dollars in property taxes to Albany schools, “and I can’t reconcile that with their statement that their proposals would not affect out schools.” 

She also faulted the slate for calling for a ban on waterfront development while at the same time calling for an open and democratic process to determine the fate of the shoreline, stands she said were contradictory. 

O’Keefe said the Albany City Council also needs candidates with a broader range of skills at dealing with the wide range of issues facing city government. 

“I see nothing in their campaign materials about streets, sewers, open space and the other problems that take up the majority of the council’s attention,” she said.  

Atkinson, Wile 

Atkinson said, “We decided to run as a slate because we both came out of Citizens for the Albany Shoreline (the group sponsoring the abortive initiative). I was chair and Joanne was on the executive committee. We share expenses, and that gives us double the impact.” 

Rather than a shopping mall close to the waterfront as the Magna/Caruso proposal sought, Wile said she and Atkinson favor new revenues raised through creation of a model “green” hotel closer to the freeway on track-owned land, and a program to encourage new alternative energy firms to locate on Cleveland Avenue. 

The impetus for the energy firms would come from legislation signed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in August that calls for placing a million solar panels on the roofs of state houses, schools, public buildings, farms and businesses over the next 12 years. 

“We’re in an ideal location because of our proximity to UC Berkeley,” Wile said. 

Atkinson said she and Wile have complementary expertise and abilities. 

“Joanne has a background in public health and mental health and is very aware of environmental and health issue, and my forte has been more on community activism and connections in the Democratic Party,” she said. “We are both very concerned with the future of Solano and San Pablo avenues, we both have excellent relations with Loni Hancock and we both have a depth of contacts that will be very helpful for Albany.” 

Wile spent 10 years as Director of Community Services for the San Francisco Public Health Department and serves on the Albany Parks and Recreation Commission. Atkinson has taught in Albany schools for 16 years and has served as vice president of the Albany Teachers Association, president of the local chapter of the California School Employees Association and president of the Albany High School Site Council and is co-president of the Berkeley-Albany-Emeryville Democratic Club. 

“Albany needs to have a citizen-driven plan for the waterfront,” said Wile. The goal should be to plan for generations to come, using environmentally friendly practices for “developing effective ways to increase our tax base, revitalize our downtown and fund our school, library and emergency services.” 

Websites 

While O’Keefe and Papalia maintain separate web sites — carylokeefe4albany.com and albanyfirst.org — Wile and Atkinson maintain a joint site, www.saveourshorelineteam.com. 

Stephan Volker, the lawyer handling a lawsuit challenging UC Berkeley’s long-range plans, filed a similar action Monday in Santa Cruz. 

The Oakland lawyer filed a suit on behalf of nine Santa Cruz County residents challenging the environmental impact review for the Long Range Development Plan (LRDP) for that campus. 

Volker is waging a similar action in Alameda County Superior Court that challenges a settlement reached by the university and the City of Berkeley after the city filed a legal challenge to UC Berkeley’s Long Range Development Plan through 2020. 

Daily Planet Arts and Calendar Editor Anne Wagley is one of four plaintiffs in that action. 

In an announcement from his office, Volker said the UC Santa Cruz plan, which would almost double the size of the campus over the next 15 years, “failed to provide essential environmental reviews, thwarting informed public agency review and comment.” 

Among the arguments raised, the suit alleges that the university failed to provide an adequate baseline for evaluating impacts, failed to disclose that the university system was concentrating growth at the UCSC campus rather than at other nearby campuses, deprived the public of meaningful information on transportation and housing impacts and failed to offer meaningful mitigations. 

The action asked the court to issue a writ of mandate setting aside the LRDP and its environmental documents until the university complies with all provisions of the California Environmental Quality Act, which governs the impacts of new developments. 

The City of Berkeley’s challenge to the UC Berkeley LRDP ended in a settlement, negotiated and agreed to in secret, that resulted—among other things—in the creation of a new downtown plan for the city. 

The Downtown Area Plan Advisory Committee is currently laying the foundation for the plan.

Architects and developers of buildings that promise to transform the face of Berkeley watched and listened Thursday as a city panel tweaked their plans. 

Present for the meeting of the Design Review Committee (DRC) were developers of major projects at 700 and 1885 University Ave., 2020 Addison St., 2929 Ashby Ave., and 2701 Shattuck Ave. 

700 University 

The 700 University project—a two-building project on the block that holds the landmarked Southern Pacific Railroad Station—will feature 171 units of housing over retail frontage that will extend the Fourth Street shopping scene south of the city’s main east/west thoroughfare. 

The number of units was reduced from the 212 specified in initial plans by architect Kava Massih. 

Dan Diebel of Urban Housing Group brought along a new financial partner and their architect to unveil new plans for the project, which they bill as the city’s new gateway landmark. 

The new partner is real estate investment trust (REIT) Essex Property Trust, represented at Thursday night’s meeting by Josh Corzine, the firm’s director of acquisitions for the East Bay and Marin County and the son of New Jersey Democratic U.S. Sen. John Corzine. 

The new partner is a corporate kin of Urban Housing Group, which is in turn a subsidiary of Marcus & Millichap Company, a leading national real estate investment brokerage firm, headquartered in Palo Alto and with offices across the country. Corporate chair George M. Marcus serves as an advisor to the Haas Real Estate Group of UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business. 

Marcus is also chairman of the board of Essex, and the first director listed after him on the firm’s web site is William A. Millichap—as in Marcus & Millichap. 

According to the firm’s media kit, before joining with Urban Housing, Essex owned 27 apartment complexes in the Bay Area, with a total of 6,626 units, including the Regency Tower in Oakland and 13 San Marcos in Richmond. 

Half of the firm’s properties are located in Southern California, with another quarter in North California and the rest in the Seattle, Wash., area and Portland, Ore. 

Before the new partner was added, Urban Housing had brought in new architects, Christiani & Johnson, replacing Massih. 

“The design has changed dramatically,” Corzine told the DRC, which is charged with approving plans before they go to the Zoning Adjustments Board. 

And DRC members loved the changes, which bring the height of the complex to within the 50-foot West Berkeley limit, and broke up the structure so that the two buildings look like more. 

Architect David Johnson said the design “will focus on cultural icons, the train station and Brennan’s.” 

Brennan’s Irish Pub, a cultural if not legal landmark, occupies a building at the northeast corner of the lot which will be demolished to make way for the project. Current plans call for the pub to be relocated in the train station, which was declared a city landmark in 2001. 

The new design is a faux industrial scheme, designed to make the new construction resemble conversions of older industrial buildings, complete with large expanses of corrugated metal and wood siding. 

“The loudest and clearest concern I heard was that (the previous design) wasn’t representative of West Berkeley,” said Johnson. The new version, he said, “is more eclectic and more free-form in the way we have handled the massing.” 

“I’m frankly amazed,” said Bob Allen, DRC chair and a ZAB member and architect himself. “I didn’t think I’d see a project here I was going to get excited about. I think it’s terrific.” 

“It’s handsome, exciting, playful,” said architect Burton Edwards, a DRC member and one of two representatives from the Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC). 

“I agree,” said the DRC’s landscape architect Charles McCulloch. “It’s really great.” 

“I also was pleasantly surprised,” said Carrie Olson, the LPC’s other representative to design review. 

The only qualms from members concerned the addition of a functionless tower on one of the structures, an example of what Olson called false historicism. David Snippen, the Civic Arts Commission representative to the DRC agreed, though he too had praise for the overall concept. 

The loudest sour notes came during the public comment period came from Adolfo Cabral and Sarah Satterlee. 

Cabral, a member of the West Berkeley Project Area Commission, faulted the city for considering a primarily residential project ”when the use is not even legal.” Cabral also said that the plans fail to carry through the historic character of the station. 

Satterlee and other activists who created West Berkeley’s only landmarked historic district a block south of the project—the Sisterna Historic District 106—have criticized the plans as out of scale and inappropriate for the neighborhood and with creating the potential for traffic, parking and other problems.  

The site contains another one-time landmark, the building at the southeast corner of the lot that houses Celia’s Mexican Restaurant. 

A structure of merit designation bestowed on that building by the LPC was subsequently overturned by the City Council. 

1885 University 

Plans for this 148-apartment five-story residential-over-commercial structure, variously known as the Kragen Auto Part project (for the retailer now located at the site( and the Trader Joe’s building (for the prospective major ground floor tenant) have been a constant lightning rod for criticism by residential neighbors. 

Located at the corner of University and Martin Luther King Jr. Way, the site faces two major thoroughfares, with a residential street, Berkeley Way, immediately behind to the north. 

Developers Chris Hudson and Evan McDonald stepped the structure back on the northwest side in response to criticism that the original plans would literally overshadow nearby homes, and propose a traffic barrier near the western edge on the property on Berkeley Way. 

The barrier was a response to complaints from neighbors on Berkeley Way and Grant Street that locating the entrance to the building’s commercial parking lot on Berkeley Way would create a major increase in traffic and crowd already scarce parking slots on their streets. 

While some neighbors said they were pleased with the changes, others said they weren’t enough. 

And while DRC members had some criticism of details of the plans, the overall scheme proved much to their liking—save for Carrie Olson, who said, “I think we’ve all been steam-rolled.” 

But DRC approved the designs, with minor changes, and sent them on the ZAB, which will conducted a public hearing Nov. 9. 

2701 Shattuck 

Another project to win DRC approval was the five-floor mixed-use condominium complex planned for 2701 Shattuck Ave. 

The owner is the Choyce Family Trust, the creation of Rev. Gordon Choyce Sr., pastor of the Missionary Church of God in Christ and head of low-income housing builder Jubilee Restoration. 

The original plans for 2701 Shattuck, a for-profit project, were rejected by DRC and ZAB, going through multiple changes before the version presented Thursday. The building approved Thursday is a major change from the original plans, which called for a nondescript boxy structure. 

After going through multiple redesigns and rejections, the structure DRC approved resembles an ornate, turn-of-the-last century creation—adorned with what project spokesperson Krystelle Guzman called “a tremendous amount of detail.” 

But the detail was too much for DRC member, who ordered a scaling back, along with changes to the facade along Derby Street, which marks the property’s northern boundary. 

The resulting structure will still present perhaps the most complex facade of anything built in the city in recent years. 

“We’re going to make it a landmark building, a classical turn-of-the century apartment building,” said architect Todd Jersey. “I’m excited about the building.” 

DRC members ordered Jersey to abandon the ornate color stencil paintings of flowers planned for the exterior and simplify the ornate balcony railings. But the approved design still contains multiple elevations, both vertical and horizontal. 

2929 Ashby 

The committee got its first look at developer/realtor John Gordon’s plans for his building at 2929 Ashby Ave., just east of the College Avenue intersection in the Elmwood Business Improvement District. 

Partly vacant, the structure features a variety of storefronts and uses, including a garage and Dream Fluff Donuts. 

Gordon told DRC he plans to unify the front architecturally, with final plans to be determined by the number of eventual tenants, which he said could range from one to seven. 

The developer said he had run into some conflicts with other Elmwood merchants, “who want us to solve all the parking problems in the neighborhood.” 

Rather than adding a underground parking lot some merchants want, Gordon’s plans from architect Jim Novosel call for a waiver from providing three parking spaces. 

Gordon said he also faced the problem of finding tenants who would fit in with the quota system the city has in place in the district. 

Principal Planner Debra Sanderson urged the DRC to approve the project in a way that allowed Gordon the flexibility to alter the frontage according to the number of final tenants. 

“In this case, we are trying to give some flexibility as if it were a new building,” she said. 

DRC will give the plans more review before acting. 

2076 Ashby 

Because of a feud with the owner of a neighboring gas station owner, developer Athan Magannas was forced to resort to a middle-of-the-night, descent-from-the-rooftop stucco application rather than apply the siding in his original plans. 

Magannas brought the project to DRC for retroactive approval of the change, which he got. But members didn’t like other things they saw, including the colors he chose and the fact that utility meters were out in the open instead of in a closed closet as had been the case in the plans they had approved earlier. 

Magannas said the colors had been approved by a city planning staffer, now on maternity leave. 

DRC members approved the stucco, held back on the color schemes till a check could be made with the staff member and ordered the meters enclosed. 

Image: An artist’s rendering shows architect David Johnson’s plans for a 171-unit apartment and retail complex at 700 University Ave., which won high praise from the Design Review Committee Thursday. Plans call for the project to carry the Fourth Street retail shopping area south of the University Avenue overcrossing. This view looks west at the project from near the corner of Fourth Street and University.  

The Fair Campaign Practices Commission decided on Thursday that it will begin an investigation of the anonymous phone poll that was conducted throughout Berkeley in July 2006. 

Roger Marquis, who serves as treasurer of the Landmarks Preservation Ordinance 2006 Update PAC-LPO 2006, had complained to the FCPC on Oct. 11 that reportable expenditures had been made for the anonymous telephone poll against Measure J but that no committee had disclosed the expenditures on the first pre-election statement. 

According to Marquis’ complaint, the calling operators had indicated that they worked for Communications Center, Inc., a 19-year-old polling firm with calling centers in Washington, D.C., Spokane, Wash., and Lakeland, Fl.  

Caller ID had identified the calls made to Berkeley residents to be coming from the Spokane area code. 

The complaint stated that several people, including Berkeley resident Sharon Hudson, had received calls from CCI and on recording one or more of the questions had concluded that it had been a “push poll” designed both to gather information and campaign against Measure J, the Landmark Preservation Ordinance Initiative. 

When CCI operations manager Judy Goodrich was contacted by the Daily Planet to verify this information and request the name of the person or organization who had purchased this poll, she acknowledged that her firm was conducting the poll but refrained from revealing their client’s name. 

During public comment, Marquis noted that this particular activity/expenditure should have been reported by the Oct. 5 filing deadline as per BERA and FCPC regulations but that as of Oct. 11 no entity had submitted the required campaign finance documentation. 

“I believe this is a violation of both the city and state election law and request that BERA and/or the FCPC investigate the matter,” he said.  

Kristy van Herick, FCPC secretary and staff counsel, said that no staff investigation had been carried out. She also said that so far the only investigation on the issue had been carried out by the Daily Planet, and that the staff did not have much to add to that. 

Marquis said that push polls had been conducted in the past by Berkeley developer Patrick Kennedy, Mayor Tom Bates and former mayor Shirley Dean and that the Berkeley School District had also conducted polls to judge the support for certain school taxes. 

“What is unusual about the July push poll is that no one is disclosing who is doing it,” he said. 

FCPC chair Eric Weaver pointed out that if hiring an out-of-state polling company helped people to hide what they were doing, this could turn into a tremendous loophole for fair campaign practices.  

Commissioner John Denvir suggested that it might be a good idea to call up people who could have possibly benefited from this poll and ask them point blank if they were behind it. 

“If we ask them directly, then they might be reluctant to say no,” he said.  

Weaver stressed that it was important for the commission not to take names from the Daily Planet and turn into an investigative arm for the newspaper.  

“If Patrick Kennedy has made a donation, he should be asked. If Tom Bates has opposed it, he should be asked. But we shouldn’t go fishing for every name in the paper,” he said.  

Denvir replied that there was nothing wrong with asking people questions to get to the bottom of the matter and that he assumed people would cooperate.  

In the end, the board unanimously passed a motion to direct the staff to carry out an investigation which would involve questioning both opponents and proponents of Measure J, as well as those who were on the Chamber of Commerce PAC list. If nothing is disclosed, then staff would call up CCI and ask them to disclose the name of the party or organization who had asked them to carry out the poll, and if CCI refused to do so, FCPC would come back to them with a subpoena. 

The commission also said that the Oct. 26 election filings would be looked at to see whether anyone listed the polling expenditures on them, although these expenditures should have been reported in the first filing itself. 

Why is city staff pushing to overturn landmark status for UC Berkeley’s Memorial Stadium in the final weeks before UC Regents meet to decide the fate of the historic coliseum? 

“That’s a good question,” said John English, the retired planner who drafted the application approved by the city’s Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC). 

City Councilmembers will consider overturning the designation at tonight’s meeting, which begins at 7 p.m. in Council Chambers at Old City Hall, 2134 Martin Luther King Jr. Way. 

While the memorandum from Planning Manager Mark Rhoades doesn’t call for permanent rejection of the landmark designation, it does call for overturning the version passed by the LPC June 1 until a new version can be drafted. 

That would leave the stadium without a formal landmark designation at the very time the University of California Regents are scheduled to vote on a quarter-billion project for redeveloping the stadium and adjacent properties. 

Regents are scheduled to meet at UCLA Nov. 15-16, where they are expected to approve the Southeast Campus Integrated Projects. If the council does as Rhoades recommends, regents would be able to act with no designations in place. 

English also drafted another, similar application for a national designation, but that application is pending. 

The request to overturn the designation came in a July 11 email from UC Berkeley Director of Community Relations Irene Hegarty, sent at 4:11 p.m., less than an hour before the close of the appeal period. 

Hegarty charged the city-approved designation “carries forward many misrepresentations” not present in English’s subsequent application for national landmark status. 

English said that he met with a city planning staff member in a meeting in which no changes were advocated, but consisting instead of preparation of an account of things which could be changed. 

Rhoades’ account, English said, misrepresents the meeting “by making it sound like I’m advocating for the changes.” 

If the council overturns the designation and sends it back to the LPC, “it would probably take a couple of months before the commission could act,” said commission Secretary Janet Homrighausen. 

“Action would require a public hearing, and it’s now too close to the commission’s Nov. 2 meeting to give the public notice” required before a hearing, she said. “The earliest they could act would be the Dec. 7 meeting.” 

With action by the keeper of the National Register of Historic Places some months away, the stadium will not appear as a designated local, state or federal landmark—which English says could potentially pave the way for actions by the regents that might not be possible were a designation in place. 

“It’s a gray area,” said Homrighausen. City action would be forestalled because an application was pending, but that might not be binding on another, independent agency, she said. 

While the university contends it wants the changes “for scholarly reasons,” English said, he suspects the real reasons might be different and related to the upcoming regents meeting. 

“The differences between the two versions are largely subjective,” English said, “and not matters of objective fact.” 

Neither federal law nor the Berkeley Landmarks Preservation Ordinance requires the two to read identically, he said. 

English said a preferable alternative would be for the council to leave the current designation in place and refer the differences back to the LPC for review and future action. 

The university plans a quarter-billion-dollar building project at and around the stadium, including a 132,500-square-foot Student Athlete High Performance Center immediately west of the stadium, installation of a press box and luxury sky boxes above the stadium rim, a 325,000-square-foot multi-level underground parking garage northwest of the stadium and a new 186,000-square-foot building that would join offices and functions of the university’s law and business schools. 

The city has already threatened legal action challenging the project’s environmental impact report (EIR) for failing to give adequate consideration of the massive changes the construction and its aftermath could bring to the surrounding city. 

Planning Director Dan Marks wrote a blistering 54-page critique of the EIR, which he characterized as fundamentally flawed, and councilmembers voted Sept. 26 to hire an attorney to pursue action.

Questions on whether a lecture on religion is a cultural use of the Gaia Building and whether Sunday church services are considered culture will be among the issues facing the City Council at tonight’s (Tuesday) meeting. 

The questions arose because builder Patrick Kennedy was allowed to build the mixed-use housing-cultural development at 2116 Allston Way two stories higher than the city would have otherwise permitted, in return for providing dedicated cultural uses in the first two stories of the building. 

Also on the council agenda are the proper housing of dogs left outside, the proposed housing-retail project at Harrison Street and San Pablo Avenue, waiving solar panel permit fees and considering building permits for a house on Miller Avenue. 

Anna de Leon, owner of Anna’s Jazz Island, located in the Gaia Building, said she doesn’t have a problem with religious forums. But she questions whether an Oct. 21 lecture on theology and Christ Church’s Sunday services should be deemed cultural uses of the building. 

The lecture addressed the issues, “Can science disprove the existence of God? Is there a conflict between mainstream science and Christianity?” 

Deputy Planning Director Wendy Cosin told the Daily Planet that lectures such as the Oct. 21 event are deemed cultural events, but, she said, “Sunday morning services are not cultural.”  

Similarly, in an Oct. 18 letter, de Leon wrote to the council: “Although the Christ Church of Berkeley continues to use the theater, this religious assembly use, clearly defined in our zoning ordinance, is not an approved [cultural] use.”  

In a phone message to the Planet, Kennedy argued, however: “I don’t think there is a bright line between something that is cultural and spiritual, nor would I think there’s a reason to make that distinction.” 

He further contended that the church services are a boon to the city, bringing 150 people downtown who would not otherwise be there.  

The issue has come to the City Council several times over the last few months and been delayed each time. At today’s meeting, staff will ask the council to approve a new proposal by Kennedy to make cultural use a priority, with most weekend dates reserved for cultural use and one-third of the days of the year scheduled for cultural use. 

Housing dogs 

Animal control officers often get calls from people concerned about conditions in which dogs are left outdoors. But since there are no clear standards for housing and feeding these pets, animal control can do little. So the Citizens Humane Commission is asking the City Council to approve an ordinance which states the kind of shelter a dog must have if kept outside, as well as the food and water that must be accessible to the animal.  

Housing people: Harrison and San Pablo project 

The proposed five-story, 27-unit project of housing above retail will be back on the table for discussion today. Last week the developer and the neighbors who had appealed the zoning board’s approval of the project, agreed, in concept, on a modified project. They will take next steps to formalize the agreement today. 

In other business, the council will consider: 

• Waiving permit fees on solar panels. This item, introduced by Councilmember Dona Spring, is intended to encourage use of solar electricity in Berkeley. Waiving the fees will cost the city about $20,000 annually, according to City Manager Phil Kamlarz. 

• Affirming or overturning the zoning board’s approval of a large dwelling at 1017 Miller Ave., in the North Berkeley hills. Sixteen neighbors have appealed the zoning board’s approval of the project, saying it obstructs their views, is not compatible with the neighborhood and does not protect trees. 

• Opposing new Homeland Security rules that would hold employers liable for violating immigration law if they continue employment of workers with letters from the Social Security Administration saying their Social Security numbers don’t match the names or numbers they have on file. Under current law, the employer simply provides the worker with the “no match” letter. 

“The new rule would create burdensome, inappropriate, and unclear new requirements for employers by forcing them to act as agents of the federal government to enforce immigration law,” says the council item authored by Mayor Tom Bates and Councilmember Kriss Worthington. 

Once again, Berkeley’s Planning Commission will look at the Creeks Ordinance this week. 

That controversial bit of legislation, ordered by the City Council to handle legal questions surrounding the city’s miles of above-ground and buried waterways, goes back before the commission again Wednesday night. 

Commissioners considered the ordinance during its last session two weeks ago but were unable to reach consensus on a final version. 

The meeting begins at 7 p.m. in the North Berkeley Senior Center, 1901 Hearst Ave. at Martin Luther King Jr. Way. 

With two weeks to go in the hotly contested Area 7 Peralta Trustee race, two predominant issues have emerged. 

The first is over procedures and priorities for spending the Peralta Community College District’s recently passed Measure A facilities bond. The second is over the aborted proposal by Oakland developer Alan Dones to put together a development plan for Peralta administration and certain Laney College lands. 

In both of these issues, both two-term incumbent Alona Clifton and her challenger, Abel Guillen, appear to have gotten significant facts wrong. 

The West Oakland/North Oakland-based area 7 also includes the Lake Merritt and Chinatown areas, as well as small portions extending into East Oakland to 14th Avenue. Laney College is the only Peralta college within its boundaries. 

Last June, area voters overwhelmingly passed Peralta’s facilities bond Measure A, giving the district authority to issue $390 million in bonds to construct and upgrade facilities at the district’s four colleges, as well as the district’s project at the Alameda Air Facility, the district headquarters and districtwide services and projects. 

At candidate forums at Laney College and at Oakland City Hall earlier this month, Guillen questioned how that bond money will be spent, and said that the community and Peralta staff and students should be brought in to set priorities. 

At the Oct. 17 Laney College candidates forum, where questions came directly from an audience made up primarily of Laney faculty, staff, and students, Guillen said that Peralta “doesn’t have a plan for the spending of that bond money, just a laundry list of projects.” He added that even though the district is in the process of setting up an oversight committee to oversee the spending of the Measure A monies, “the oversight committee doesn’t have the power it should have. It doesn’t set priorities. I want to involve students to decide where that money goes.” 

At the Oct. 13 League of Women Voters forum at Oakland City Hall, where questions were screened by the League leadership, Guillen was more specific, saying that “before we spend that [Measure A bond] money I want to conduct an open community process where we invite alumni, students, staff, and community members to ask them what is their vision for the community college district and let them have some input into the decision-making of how we spend that $390 million.” 

In fact, other than deciding which projects go first, neither the Peralta Board of Trustees, the chancellor’s office, or the Measure A Oversight Committee has any discretion in deciding where the Measure A bond money is spent. 

Unlike past Peralta bond measures, Measure A was passed under the authority of California’s Proposition 39, passed by voters in 2000, which requires that projects using the bond money be limited to those projects listed in the ballot language and approved by voters. 

And, in fact, as it appeared on the June ballot, Peralta’s Measure A listed the projects for which the bond money must be spent. In addition, Proposition 39 sets up the state requirements for oversight committees for bond measures, like Measure A, set up under its authority, limiting them to reviewing actions approved or taken by the district trustees or administration, and charged only with making sure that the bond money spent is in conformance with the projects listed on the ballot. Based on the Proposition 39 guidelines, the seven-member Measure A Committee will consist of one representative apiece of local business, senior citizens, and taxpayers organizations, one enrolled student, one individual active in an organization supporting the community college district, and two members selected at-large. All of the members will be recommended by the chancellor and approved by the trustees. 

But despite the fact that she voted along with other trustees to approve the Measure A projects before they were put on the June ballot, Clifton appeared unaware at the Laney forum how the bond projects had been divided. 

After Laney students and faculty members asked repeated questions indicating they felt Laney had been shortchanged in Peralta’s facilities budget, Clifton gave the impression that the Measure A bond money had to be spread evenly across the district’s four colleges. 

“We have to work on the basis of an economy of scale,” Clifton said. “The board has the responsibility of making sure that all colleges operate at the same level. I appreciate the fact that Laney wants the lion’s share, but we have to have equity in our spending practices. We have to work on behalf of all of the colleges.” 

In fact, Laney is scheduled to get the lion’s share of the Measure A bond expenditures. 

Last summer, in a list of $518.6 million in Measure A projected capital improvement projects (the figure included the $390 Measure A bond money plus matching state and federal funds), the district noted that 44.5 percent of the amount ($234.9 million) would go towards Laney building renovation and modernization projects, including $22 million for the Administration Building, $22 million for the college library, $22 million for the student center, $15 million for the college theater, and expenditures between $15 million and $27 million for the college’s A, B, F and G buildings. 

Berkeley City College, on the other hand, will get less than 1 percent of Measure A facilities funds, with Merritt and the College of Alameda getting 28.2 percent and 16.5 percent, respectively. 

During the campaign for Measure A last June, Peralta Chief Financial Office Tom Smith justified the project expenditures, saying that Berkeley City College (formerly Vista College) had taken the bulk of Peralta’s previous construction bond money in the building of the college’s new downtown facilities, and that Laney had the district’s oldest facilities, with the greatest need for renovation. 

Peralta has spread the bond measure money evenly in its first round of expenditures, scheduling roughly $50 million apiece for projects at Laney, Merritt, and the College of Alameda in its recently-released five-year construction plan. That money includes funds still left over from Measure E, the construction bond measure passed by local voters in 2000 under the pre-Proposition 39 bond allocation rules. 

In both the League of Women Voters and Laney College debates, challenger Guillen said it was the proposed 2004-05 Alan Dones deal that first gave him the idea of running for the trustee board against Clifton. 

“The reason I got involved in this election was that I was opposed to the sale of nine acres of land by the Peralta Colleges,” he said at both candidate forums. 

The reference was to the controversial exclusive negotiating agreement with Oakland developer Alan Dones, which was authorized by the board of trustees in November of 2004 and that was voluntarily withdrawn by Dones himself in May in 2005 of the next year after intense media criticism and heavy lobbying against the proposal by Laney faculty and students. 

The Dones proposal, however, never spelled out the sale of any Peralta administrative or Laney College property, but only involved authorizing Dones to present a proposal for the development of that property. Both the board and the office of Chancellor Elihu Harris reserved the right to approve or disapprove the actual development proposal, which was never produced by Dones. 

“In the eight years I have been on the board, there has never been a proposal before the board to sell any educational land,” Clifton said at the League of Women Voters forum. “The proposal was only for district administrative land and for the [Laney College] parking lot next to [the Peralta administrative headquarters].” 

However, although Dones eventually indicated that he was only interested in preparing a development proposal for the lands that Clifton indicated, the original November 2004 agreement—for which Clifton voted—was ambiguous about which Laney lands it referred to, and Dones himself offered various interpretations at various times. At the November 2004 board meeting he indicated that he would prepare a proposal for the development of the Laney College athletic fields, but after fierce opposition emerged to that idea, Dones backed off, saying that he had been misinterpreted, and only wanted to ehance the athletic field land for athletic uses. Under the authority of the exclusive negotiating agreement, Dones met with Laney college faculty, staff, and students in February of 2005, urging them at one point to call for the delay of the pending construction of the Laney Art Annex so that the land could be included in Dones’ development plans. Laney representatives present at that meeting refused to call for such a delay, and the Art Annex was eventually built, completed in the summer of 2006. 

For his part, at the League of Women Voters debate, challenger Guillen criticized the board procedure under which the Dones contract negotiations were originally authorized. The item had been on the agenda as an information item, which would not have resulted in action, but trustees voted at the November 2004 meeting to move it to an action item and immediately voted to approve the Dones negotiation agreement. 

Clifton defended that decision, saying that it had been “passed under the rules of the board [that were in existence] at that time.” 

Guillen said that if elected, he “won’t be a proponent of switching an informational item to an action item where the public didn’t even know they had the chance of coming to speak on an item. That’s the policy of the board. I would change that policy.” 

Trustees have already instituted that reform, changing Peralta board meeting policy so that action cannot be taken on information only items. 

If you were in Downtown Berkeley last week, you may have seen Berkeley High School students dressed in red and gold clothing or as celebrities and said to yourself “What’s going on?”  

Every year, Berkeley High School (BHS) students of all ages and grades come together and unite to celebrate one thing: school spirit. The week was widely successful, despite the last-minute commotion with the departure of the student activities director. 

“I think it’s been wonderful,” commented BHS Principal Jim Slemp. “Students have used great judgment. It was perfect from my point of view.”  

To prevent disorderly conduct which plagued the celebration in past years, BHS Vice Principal Pasquale Scuderi, prior to the events, sent out an e-mail detailing the guidelines for the week: 

1) Any student engaged in hazing, vandalism, or physical or verbal abuse of another student will be suspended. 

2) Students found intoxicated or in possession of any illegal or controlled substance will be suspended. 

3) Students inappropriately dressed will be sent home (too revealing, drug imagery, profane slogans, etc.). 

4) No boom boxes or sound systems may be used without administrative clearance. 

5) The staff encourages all students to enjoy spirit week and to celebrate in a safe and positive manner.  

Some students had a different take on the student conduct during the week, in sharp contrast to Slemp. 

“I don’t think it’s a huge issue,” said an anonymous junior, “but I felt a little unsafe when there were some kids around me drinking and getting high. The halls smelled like alcohol and marijuana.” 

For the past month, student government helped plan activities for the week and voted to establish the theme for each day. The days were: Superheros & Villains Day (Monday), Celebrity Day (Tuesday), Western Day (Wednesday), 80’s Day for seniors and Pajama Day for all other classes (Thursday), and Red & Gold Day (Friday). 

“We decided on the days collectively as a group,” said Connie Chan, BHS junior and ASB Club Commissioner. “After Ms. McKnight-Johnson left, the seniors in leadership changed the days, going against the vote of all of leadership. Thursday was intended to be Celebrity Day for underclassmen and Tuesday was supposed to be Tropical Day. They didn’t want to be upstaged by underclassmen.” 

Many students were dissatisfied with the themes, which were very different from previous years. However, students still found a way to celebrate regardless of the lackluster themes.  

“I didn’t think they were particularly good,” said Ilan Gonzalez, BHS junior, “especially Celebrity Day. They were very unimaginative in my opinion.” 

Some students even made their own days. For example, some underclassmen who attended Willard Middle School dressed up in Willard paraphernalia on Thursday. Some seniors dressed up as hicks on Western Day. 

Before Slemp’s arrival, spirit week had been cancelled due to a combination of disorganization and unorderly behavior. Slemp felt that it was important to happen again. 

“I tried to make it happen again,” remarked Slemp,”because it was very important for the students. Mostly all students in all different social groups were involved in their own way [this year]. That was what was really cool.” 

As exemplified in previous years, Red & Gold Day had the biggest student showing. After school, an optional spirit rally, held in the Donahue Gym, provided most of the excitement for the week. 

During the rally, each class elected a Homecoming King, Queen, Dutchess, and Duke to represent them. Additionally, each class choreographed a unique dance to urge on their class to show school spirit. 

“The rally went really well,” said Maddie Tien, BHS sophmore. “It was so much fun. Everyone was really spirited and all the dances were amazing. Best day all year.” 

Many students in the class of 2009 were upset that their class’ dance performance was disqualified, alleging that the class of 2010 “stole” their dance. 

“The freshmen stole our dance and won’t admit it,” said Geoff Mahley, BHS sophomore. “Because of that, we got disqualified too. This is a perfect example of how immature this year’s freshmen are.” 

All in all, despite the minor complications, the overall attitude of the students was positive, and they are hoping that the [BHS] administration will continue the celebrations next year.  

“I was blown away by the enthusiasm of the students to participate during the week” said BHS senior Peter Angell. “I hope that the administration will continue Spirit Week in the future.” 

We love our special city, and for good reason. Berkeley is a remarkable place, admired and even envied by people around the globe. We of course want it to keep it at its best and work to make it even better. 

When I raised my children here as a single parent, Berkeley was a quieter place. Artists, writers, musicians, bookstore and grocery clerks, teachers and bus drivers could find affordable places to live. Traffic seemed manageable. Lives were slower and people seemed less pressured. 

It’s not merely nostalgic to remind ourselves of such values, of those qualities of life that we once took for granted. I have learned in my work on the Council that most of my neighbors long to strengthen those values of neighborhood and community life.  

I encounter this desire at every community meeting I hold in my district. I believe we are moving in that direction, and I intend to continue doing all I can to accelerate that movement, working with other City officials and staff, residents, community leaders, and businesses to achieve the highest possible quality of life for everyone who lives in our city.  

Berkeley now has fewer residents than it had 20 or 30 years ago, but we have more and faster cars. How can we reduce our overwhelming traffic volumes? In problem-solving with residents, I approach traffic impacts with four strategies. One offers immediate improvement while the others are longer-term: 1.traffic calming, 2. securing affordable housing for our workforce so people don’t have to commute into Berkeley, 3. encouraging people to use alternatives to cars, and 4. lobbying at regional and state levels for better public transit.  

We discuss all four strategies at our neighborhood meetings, but mostly we focus on traffic calming through street design and installations that slow traffic. We’ve had some solid successes 

throughout the district. Working together, I’m confident there are many more to come. 

Berkeley is lucky to have savvy residents who are committed to careful planning and who follow through with action. My work with residents and City staff has been among my most gratifying efforts because we see significant improvements relatively quickly. 

Because Berkeley has many more jobs than housing units, a longer-term traffic-reduction strategy requires that we secure permanently affordable housing for our workforce, helping address our jobs/housing imbalance. Infill housing in a built-out city like Berkeley must be very carefully planned and sited, to ensure that it respects adjoining neighborhoods. On the major transit corridor a half block from my home, several relatively dense housing structures have been constructed in recent years. Some are assets to their neighborhoods. Some, like the bulky and uninspired building at Acton and University (which I opposed, and which was approved by former Mayor Dean and not by Mayor Bates), looms over adjacent homes, reminding us 

how important it is to insist on architectural quality and respect for neighbors. 

Because District One includes an industrial sector, we have air quality issues. Residents have frequently been subjected to unpleasant industrial odors. This past year, responding to community complaints, the Bay Area Air Quality Management District identified one of three plants operated here by Pacific Steel Casting as the major odor source. Relatively idle for many years, this plant recently increased production. But, amazingly, until this month it had no pollution controls. Finally responding to pressure from myself, the Mayor, and the community, the company is currently testing a four-million-dollar carbon adsorption system, which should measurably reduce odors and other emissions. At my urging, the City has contracted with an independent consultant to provide expert scientific advice, and the Air District will conduct 

ambient air monitoring and analysis. Mayor Bates’ appointment to the Air District board will undoubtedly strengthen our efforts to press for additional improvements. We must insist that Berkeley industry meet the strictest air quality standards. 

I treasure Berkeley’s historical heritage and will fight to preserve it. Because our landmarks process is flawed and exposes Berkeley to litigation, a cross-section of strong landmark advocates has carefully crafted the needed changes, with the Mayor, to ensure that our landmarking process meets state requirements while fully protecting our historic resources. Measure J on the ballot won’t provide the needed legal safeguards and undercuts those needed changes. That’s why I oppose it. 

It has been a privilege to serve on the Council. If re-elected, I will continue to work diligently and actively on my City’s behalf. I will continue to advocate for securing affordable housing, particularly for our workforce, for improving our neighborhoods, balancing the budget, strengthening our economy, and focusing the City’s efforts on our youth. As a strong 

environmentalist, I will do all I can to advance Berkeley’s pioneering role in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, promoting environmental education, and developing renewable energy sources. 

When I was a little girl, my mom would stop traffic when ducks were crossing the road. No one else seemed to do such things then, but in time, I too became a crosser of ducklings, turtles, and a doer of deeds needing doing.  

Now, having lived in Berkeley for many years, I’m considering the problems of problem solving in our unique city. I understand too much to shrug and say, “You can’t change City Hall!” We must!  

To me our city’s “Powers that Be” are a lot like those small fishes that swim together pretending to be one big, rather intimidating fish. Amazingly they maintain form when changing direction, and move on, baffling all with their performance. But what if the leader makes a mistake?  

Wouldn’t it be great if little fishes of a different perspective, could warn of trouble, and not just helplessly go through motions?  

In Berkeley we have many solvable problems that are getting worse! Here are examples from the heart of our city. 

Our Downtown is filthy and dangerous. It needs to be sparkling clean and safe for all of us. We have the resources to clean it up and we have money for bike and walking cops who help keep the peace. But the BPD has been understaffed with shrinking numbers of sworn officers especially since Tom Bates became Mayor.  

A way to pay for public safety, besides the usual sources of general fund and grant monies, is with $2 million set aside for overtime (at time and a half.) This money should be used instead for hiring needed officers. Overtime means tired, easily stressed- officers, not what we need for a safe, peaceful and happy city!  

Our Mayor, whose slogan is “Berkeley at it’s Best!” walks to work through the downtown and sees how filthy, littered and scary it is there, but does not fix the problems. His brewing plans include “economic development,” Bus Rapid Transit, and Transportation Services Fees, which hurt business or discourage businesses we need. It seems that Bates and his associations are deliberately trying to destroy our historic downtown to actively promote redevelopment, transit villages, and highrises. 

We need satellite parking and a shopper shuttle for downtown. Our surface parking lots at Oxford/ Alston and Berkeley Way/ west of Shattuck belong to the city and are perfect for satellite parking. But the Mayor and current city council majority are using and planning development on these lots for their purposes. They tell us to walk or take a bus. As a biker, I know how disheartening it can be to bike/ walk/ bus downtown through polluted air and noise and how hard it is to carry items and children. Shopping and visiting would be fun on a shoppers’ shuttle. But the Mayor and company plans make Downtown noisier, filthier, and darker/colder. “Berkeley at it’s Best!” 

Another problem downtown is that the environment isn’t good for our High School student’s lunch. It is dangerous, with open drug use, and not enough bike and traffic cops. But the High School provides only 300 meals for 3,000 students!  

We could close the block of Allston Way to Civic Center Park during lunchtime. Favorite healthy foods could be delivered by local businesses and a fruit and healthy snack stand, smoothie-maker, healthy ice cream and frozen fruit/ yogurt bars be provided. The School District should have available for all students at reduced cost, a version of the O’Malley lunch, in a recent Berkeley Daily Planet Editorial-sandwich, fruit, milk, and a healthier dessert. Note, our teenagers are not given dessert at Berkeley High but research shows a little sugar is calming and helps concentration! 

Many enjoyable activities should be available for our youngsters at lunchtime. Workout in the YMCA, classes at Vista College that count toward a degree or job training, bike touring, jogging, and rollerblading on slow street and greenways, auto shop, mural painting and restoration, Curves workout/ with singing performance, etc. 

Folks may wonder why I write about Mayor Bates and not Linda Maio, our 14-year incumbent in District 1. The reason is that Linda is a facilitator for Bates and Linda was a friend of mine. She had been a wonderful friend. But it took about 10 years of bending her into form before BCA would allow her to run on their ticket for City Council. Even then they were all controlling and would sometimes threaten to run Boona Cheema, of BOSS (Berkeley-Oakland Support Systems) for Linda’s seat if she didn’t tow the Party line. I loved the old Linda before the bending process. 

BCA (Berkeley Citizens Action) has a chilling effect on democratic participation in other ways. A good example occurred when a prominent commissioner came to a Berkeley Independents meeting way back when, seeking endorsement for City Council. She was impressive, down to earth, but as we were about to vote the door opened and an activist named Pancoast rushed in. He said, “She lied to us, and she’ll lie to you!” He explained that the candidate had screened with BCA and their process included agreement that one not run for office unless chosen by BCA. Poor woman! What was done to her, and many others, is like pinning a live butterfly by a wing, to my thinking. It should be a violation of our democratic rights because it discourages candidates, and encourages a ruling political machine, power by few, and all that goes with that. 

My website, in progress, is merrilie.org.  

I’m honored that a diverse coalition of senior citizens, environmentalists, neighborhood leaders, students, tenants, and homeowners asked me to give our community a viable alternative to the out-of-step District 8 Councilmember in this election. 

As the only candidate in this race to earn the endorsement of The Democratic Party and this newspaper, The Berkeley Daily Planet, I’m grateful to have widespread support from all segments of our community, including the AFL-CIO Central Labor Council; Berkeley Citizens Action (BCA); the Berkeley Progressive Coalition; a host of local democratic clubs; Councilmembers Max Anderson, Dona Spring, and Kriss Worthington; neighborhood leaders like former Panoramic Hill Neighborhood Association President Janice Thomas; and an endless list of student leaders. 

But this campaign isn’t about me; it’s about our efforts together to defend our community’s values—values that haven’t been upheld by our Councilmember. 

Defending our values 

I was shocked when the incumbent was the only Councilmember who voted against a Council resolution that opposed Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s ridiculous, wasteful, and blatantly anti-union Special Election. It’s no wonder the Democratic Party endorses my candidacy in this race. 

Throughout our campaign, I’ve heard so many express a clear desire for change from an incumbent so clearly out of step with the mainstream values and priorities of our community. Our campaign is about positive change and defending our values—voters will soon have the opportunity to choose between two vastly different visions for our community. 

Like many, I’ve been deeply troubled by the incumbent’s unapologetic support for the secret, backroom settlement deal with UC. This surreptitious deal completely shut city residents out of the entire process and thwarted genuine democratic government of the voters, resulting in a deal that dumped tons of traffic and pollution into our neighborhoods and increased our tax burden by over $1 million citywide. 

This deal was marked by a cloak of secrecy that I would make illegal. I’ll push to re-negotiate—but this time, in the open air where Councilmembers don’t keep the public away from the bargaining table. 

We deserve positive leadership that that invites the public into the process. But it goes much further—the incumbent’s voting record has been deeply troubling on an entire range of issues. 

Protecting our community 

Like many of my neighbors, I was outraged when the incumbent closed down our fire stations for 286 days out of the year and cut 19 positions from the police and fire departments. 

Cutting police and fire resources is not just irresponsible, but cause for great fear among many. After cutting this funding, the incumbent conspicuously proposed creating a “public safety commission.” But we don’t need mere studies and bureaucracy, we need dollars. 

As a Community Service Officer for the police department, I patrolled our neighborhoods and helped keep them safe. I know first-hand just how critical these decisions are.  

Public safety isn’t just some abstract public policy discussion—the police or fire department’s response time can mean the difference between life and death. That’s why my first act in office would push to restore funding he slashed. 

And since disaster preparedness is crucial, why has the incumbent just begun campaigning on this? 

At the same time he was cutting funding for vital public services, he’s made it increasingly difficult to afford living in our community. 

It’s troubling that, by increasing homeowners’ sewer fees, the incumbent voted to increase the tax burden on everyday families. I would do the opposite. 

And to add insult to injury for those not yet able to afford a home, he’s proposed seven specific ways that would increase tenants’ rents. Yet in four years on the Council, he’s refused to put a dime into the affordable housing trust fund from the city’s general fund. As an elected official, I’ve consistently supported affordable housing without allowing inappropriate development; and I’ll continue this strong record. 

I’ll continue to lead the fight against potentially devastating proposals like Measure I, which would allow 500 evictions per year just to give landlords lucrative condo conversions. I’m proud that Mayor Bates, Assemblywoman Hancock, and Councilmember Capitelli have joined us in our opposition to Measure I. Why is my opponent, the District 8 incumbent, not among them? 

In addition to unapologetically supporting the settlement deal that will dump tons of new traffic right into our neighborhoods, the incumbent has taken no steps to ease traffic congestion—simple, concrete things I’ll do as soon as I’m elected. 

For example, we should demand origin-destination studies, reclaim Ashby from Caltrans, and oppose expansion of the Caldecott Tunnel. And let’s stop the cheap talk about pushing UC and major employers to provide a free, traffic-reducing EcoPass—let’s actually do it. It’s not just a quality-of-life issue, but also an environmental one. 

A positive new vision 

Our campaign is about a bold vision that shares our community’s values. I’m running to provide leadership that will be stronger on all our issues, that will bring together our diverse community, that will invite everyone back in who has felt left out, and that will provide action that reflects this commitment. 

It’s shameful that in a study released last year, the incumbent had appointed zero African Americans, zero Latinos, one Asian American, and just one student out of his 35 commissioners. He was also the lone vote against supporting the statewide commission on Asian American Affairs. And in addition to neglecting, rejecting, and disrespecting students, he has ignored the concerns of seniors at Redwood Gardens who have been asking to have their bus shelter repaired for years. We deserve leadership that doesn’t just represent a small sliver of the community—because I’d never make senior citizens stand in the rain. 

The incumbent is out of step with our values—and we deserve better. Join The Democratic Party, the AFL-CIO, The Berkeley Daily Planet, and so many others in supporting new leadership that will defend the values of our community, fight for a positive vision that includes everyone, and work tirelessly to resolve the issues that affect us all. www.jasonoverman.com  

In 2002 I ran as an independent who could bridge the gap between the two often-warring factions on the City Council. Council meeting were acrimonious and often ran into the wee hours of morning. Under the leadership of Mayor Bates, the City Council has developed a more collegial manner while addressing difficult issues. I am proud to have played an important role in this transformation. 

Budget 

During the last four years, the Council has addressed a serious structural budget deficit, due to a combination of increased pension & salary costs and weak business revenues. The Council eliminated a $20 million deficit by implementing a hiring freeze, reducing the City’s workforce by 10 percent, delaying wage increases and raising fees. The workforce reductions were done via normal attrition (7 percent/year) so that no employees were laid off. With stronger revenues, pension costs leveling off and all of the City’s labor contracts up for renewal, we have a unique opportunity to eliminate the City’s structural deficit, decrease its unfunded liabilities ($160 million), and put its finances on a firm footing without resorting to new taxes.  

Workers’ Compensation 

Although it is popular to bash the City for its many perceived failings, it has an impressive success story with regard to workplace injuries. When I joined the Council, I was surprised to learn that injury rates of 20 percent/year were not uncommon. These high injury rates cost the City over $6 million a year in workers compensation costs.  

Since I believe that the City has an obligation to provide its employees a safe working environment, I requested the City Council to ask for quarterly reports on Employee Safety and Workers’ Compensation. In addition, the City implemented a safety bonus program, where employees received a year-end bonus, if they met certain safety goals. During the next three years, medical and indemnity claims dropped by a half and a third, respectively. In addition, workers compensation costs have dropped significantly, with projected savings of up to $1 million in the current fiscal year. This is a great success story that the City, its employees, and its citizens should be proud of. 

Crime 

In the summer of 2005, I requested that the City Council ask for quarterly crime reports. These quarterly crime reports have been well received by Council. In response to my questioning, the police department has adopted a goal of reducing property crime by 40 percent in the next five years. In addition, the crime maps showed hot spots where the crime rate can be ten times larger than the rate in other parts of the City.  

I believe that all residents of Berkeley deserve a safe environment, free of crime. To make a major reduction in crime in Berkeley, we need to engage the community to come up with innovative solutions. To this end, I have proposed the creation of Public Safety Commission to work cooperatively with the police department on the goal of making all Berkeley neighborhoods safe. Recently, Vince Casalaina, a resident of District 8, put forth an innovative proposal for reducing auto theft in Berkeley (www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/council8/AutoTheft.pdf). The auto theft rate in Berkeley is 50 percent higher than the rate in Alameda County and 100 percent higher than the rate in California. My Office is currently working with the Mayor’s office to implement a pilot auto theft prevention program during the current fiscal year. 

Promoting local businesses 

Early in my tenure on the City Council, business in the Elmwood Business District was undergoing hard times. The Avenue Books store closed, Nabolom’s and Ozzie’s announced that they were closing, and there were a number of empty storefronts. Today, the Elmwood has turned around. We have a great new bookstore (Mrs. Dalloway’s), Jeremys has expanded, Nabolom and Ozzie’s have been revitalized and a new ice cream store (Ici) has recently opened. 

During the last two years, my office has worked with the merchants and neighbors to organize semi-annual Elmwood cleanup & beautification days. This summer my office hired a summer intern to recruit local businesses to participate in Caltopia and to promote the Elmwood to 30,000 Cal students. Thousands of students stopped by the booth and sampled pastries from Nabolom, curry dishes from The House of Curry, and beauty products from Body Time. Hundreds of brochures promoting the Elmwood, discount coupons from Elmwood Hardware, and literature from Mrs. Dalloway’s were passed out. Almost 700 students signed up for a raffle with gift certificates donated by Elmwood Merchants. 

Improved town/gown relations 

With the advent of the settlement agreement between the City and the University, Town & Gown relations have greatly improved. Currently, my office is helping to implement a pilot program to improve disaster preparedness in the Greek Community, which is especially close to the Hayward fault. In addition, we helped facilitate a pilot program featuring additional trash pickups both before and after games days. I have also proposed that the City and the University work together to extend the AirBears network off campus so that students can access wireless in their residences. Finally, my office worked with the University, the Telegraph business community to help construct a new website: www.telegraphlive.com to promote businesses in the Telegraph area to students. 

Communication with constituents 

Each year, my office host’s dozens of community meetings on different topics from traffic to problem properties. We publish a regular electronic newsletter to keep constituents informed on City issues and events. Recently, we have used the Internet as a tool to promote citizen participation in municipal decision-making. In particular, we have worked with KitchenDemocracy (www.kitchendemocracy.org) on local and citywide issues.  

Group endorsements: 

Berkeley Fire Fighters Association, Berkeley Democratic Club, and Berkeley Chamber of Commerce 

Elected officials: 

California State Senator Don Perata, Assemblywoman Loni Hancock, Mayor Tom Bates, Former Mayor Shirley Dean, Councilmembers Laurie Capitelli and Betty Olds, ASUC Executive Vice President Jason Chu , School Board members Shirley Issel, Nancy Riddle, and Joaquin Rivera 

For a complete list of my 500 endorsers go to: www.wozniakforcouncil.com/ 

Wednesday night the genteel old Berkeley City Club (I’m so old that I remember it as the Women’s City Club) was the scene of a discussion between the two candidates for Berkeley’s District 7 City Council seat. Present in the audience and on their best behavior were some distinguished graying veterans of the venerable group known as People’s Park activists, as well as a number of members of the Telegraph Avenue Merchants’ Association which sponsored the event, some neighborhood residents and a small but enthusiastic claque supporting candidate George Beier. (An overheard conversation as the audience left suggested that some of these were from Oakland and Concord, but it’s OK if they came to cheer for a friend or family member—one was his sister.)  

It was billed as a debate, but it wasn’t the kind of no-holds-barred debate I remember from high school or which you can see in the British Parliament on late-night TV. The format was more like what Americans have gotten used to accepting, where docile representatives of big media ask predictable questions of polite centrist candidates. Much to my eventual discomfort, I was cast in the reporter role for this event, somewhat unsuitable since I’m currently an editor and have already endorsed candidate Kriss Worthington. But our small reportorial staff is more than tied up on Wednesdays with multiple city meetings to cover, so it was me or no one.  

The invited Chronicle reporter bailed, so the questioners were just the Planet’s O’Malley and the Daily Cal’s Sean Barry, along with Al Geyer, representative of the merchants’ association and the owner of the Annapurna head shop on Telly. (Gloss for younger and older readers, from Wikipedia: “A head shop is a retail outlet specializing in paraphernalia related to consumption of cannabis, other recreational drugs, and New Age herbs, as well as generally selling counterculture art, magazines, music, clothing, and home decor.” 

Geyer (a handsome sixtyish boomer with a sleek grey pompadour) and his associate Mark Weinstein (younger, with a frizzy balding shoulder-length ‘do), proprietor of Amoeba Records, met with Barry and me before the show started. They explained the format and told us what questions they thought we should ask. But I’m certainly too old (and Sean is probably too young) to take instructions like that, so we ended up generating our own questions more or less on the fly, though Sean did write his out beforehand.  

Geyer and Weinstein seemed most interested in the nine-point plan for improving Telegraph which was floated by Mayor Bates and Councilmember Worthington after Cody’s Books pulled out, just before it was sold to the Japanese conglomerate. In particular, they hoped that someone would ask a question about how the bad behavior of people on the street could be controlled, and they went on, chapter and verse, about how some of the street people were saying dreadful things using awful words. The anecdote which seemed to shock them most was that someone called a policewoman a bitch, and “she just rolled up her window and drank her smoothie.” She couldn’t do anything about it, they said, and that needed to be fixed. Both of them clearly hoped that some ambiguous verbiage in the Nine Points about future (read: post-election) measures meant that the Berkeley city authorities were going to try once again to put a stop to all of that. 

I bit my tongue, not wanting to start a fight just before the cameras rolled, but REALLY, guys. Free speech, remember? That tiresome old First Amendment? Those who don’t remember history are condemned to repeat it?  

Anyone who wants a thumbnail update of what happened the last time the City of Berkeley tried to stifle speech on the street should look at the excellent website maintained by volunteers at Berkeleycitizen.org. The whole history of the city’s expensive and illegal attempt to control street speech with Measures N & O is recounted at www.berkeleycitizen.org/poorlaws.html. It was a colossal mistake, as original backer Andy Ross, Cody’s owner at the time, later admitted. 

My colleague Barry did ask the candidates a question about street activities, and both gave answers which showed that they understood that trying to control unpleasant behavior by making it illegal has limited value. I think Worthington did a bit better at conjuring up the kind of trouble such a course of action would make for Telegraph merchants (but he is my horse in this race.) Last time it was boycotts, demonstrations, picketing, sit-ins … bad for business, always. Don’t go there, please. 

This whole discussion got me thinking about how Telegraph Avenue and its problems have been misused as an icon in this campaign. The city of Berkeley in general, and the mayor and his council allies in particular, have adopted a policy of benign neglect in the last few years, de-funding police and mental health service that are desperately needed and then blaming the victims for the inevitable consequences. Worthington has fought hard for services for his district, but got little support from the likes of Bates and Wozniak (both of whom, not coincidentally, endorse Beier) until Cody’s left. 

Beier actually put his finger on the cause when he said during the debate that South of Campus’s real problem is the drug culture. And it’s not just the aging potheads who buy their bongs at Annapurna and their ’60s hits at Amoeba, it’s also the ageless alcohol victims and cocaine users who come up to the Ave for their drugs of choice who contribute to the seedy atmosphere. The majority of the stores on Telegraph evoke what’s left of the counter-culture, which inevitably attracts young people whose brand of nostalgia includes deliberate, self-conscious anti-social street behavior.  

It seems the height of hypocrisy for today’s merchants to act shocked by this. I’ve been going to Telegraph longer than any of them. I remember when Amoeba’s building was a Lucky’s grocery store, when Pauline Kael ran her movie theater in what is now a fraternity bar, and when the clothing stores featured mostly Oxford-cloth button-down collared shirts. Today the newest tenant is a tattoo parlor, and is it any surprise that there are surly tattooed and pierced kids on the street, some of whom might even use rude language and sit defiantly in doorways displaying their piecings?  

When I was an undergraduate living on the corner of Channing and Telegraph, the building which now houses Rasputin’s was Frazier’s, a famous mid-century modern home furnishing emporium. We started our software company in the loft space of the same building in the early ’80s, which we could afford because the turmoil of the ’60s had brought rents down dramatically. There were plenty of victims of alcohol and other drugs on the streets then too. A suit-wearing visitor from the East was pursued from the parking garage to our office by a fellow yelling “Businessman, Businessman.” But he (and we) survived. The current owners of the building have restored it and seem to be surviving too, even in the face of fierce Internet competition.  

That’s the real villain in this picture. Beier, who has a business school degree and should know better, is trying to use the percentage decline in Telegraph retail revenues and Cody’s closure as campaign issues. But the major businesses there in recent decades have been the kinds of stores which are losing out nationally to Internet sales. Books and music, once Telegraph’s anchors, are now much easier to buy online. You can get vintage clothes and medicinal herbs on Ebay as well as on Telly, and there’s probably even a source for hash pipes somewhere online. And the counterculture itself is slowly dying. None of this can be blamed on Kriss Worthington or even on street people.  

There are some real signs that things are looking up in the South of Campus business district. Peet’s has finally gotten a permit to move into the old Krishna Copy location, and Krishna has moved down the street into even fancier digs in a newly restored historic building. (Let’s hear a cheer for Krishna, without whose help our early business would not have survived.) The library of another landmarked historic building, old Westminster House, designed by Walter Ratcliff, has been adapted for re-use as the elegant and successful Adagia restaurant. New owners promise to spruce up the Med. There are still too many nasty chain fast-food places, but interesting new owner-operated ethnic restaurants, Indian, Jamaican, Korean and more, have opened. A charming Solano Avenue world art store, What the Traveller Saw, has taken over some of Cody’s abandoned space.  

It adds up to a lot of positive progress which should be celebrated. Candidates and merchants alike need to pay attention to Marketing 101: advertise the many improvements on the Avenue and environs, and stop knocking the product. 

Mohammed Ali, the iconoclastic boxing champion originally known as Cassius Clay, used to describe his technique this way: “Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.” We’ve tried to take that as our motto for the editorial column of this publication, but evidently we’ve overdone it on the butterfly side. I got an anguished call last week from my old friend the Marxist Tax Accountant, who surprised everyone by becoming the father of twins just about the time the rest of us were seeing our kids off to college.  

“Lies,” he said. “They’re telling lies about Measure A.” He was referring to the pronunciamentos emanating from North East Berkeley (translation: top of the hills) about the school tax measure that’s on the November ballot, which may or may not have been authorized by that area’s homeowners’ association.  

He implored the Planet to endorse Measure A. “We did endorse Measure A already.” I said. “We need a big headline saying Vote YES on Measure A,” he said.  

And to back it up, I got an also-anguished e-mail from another old friend, our erstwhile soccer reporter, a former Washington policy wonk who’s moved back to Berkeley to raise the kids in a place where they could attend excellent public schools. He offered to load me up with statistics for a new editorial that would really knock the socks off opponents.  

Well, a few facts never hurt any argument, so let’s start out with a few good ones not debated by either side: 

Measure A replaces the two expiring parcel taxes: BSEP (from 1994) and Measure B (from 2004) at existing rates. It is neither a new tax nor a tax increase. It extends the expiring BSEP (12-year measure since 1994) and Measure B (two-year BSEP supplemental measure since 2004) for an additional 10 years. 

The Measure A tax rate is the exact sum of the expiring BSEP and Measure B tax rates (22.8 cent per square foot residential; 34.36 cents commercial—square footage means of building, not lot). The “typical” 1,500-square-foot-home owner pays $343 per year (actually closer to $220 since this is a deductible property tax). 

The current BSEP and B account for: 

• About 25 percent of the operating budget of the district.  

• About 30 percent of all classroom teachers. 

• The entire elementary and middle school music and library programs.  

• “Site funds” allocated by parent/staff committees at each school.  

• A small amount for parent outreach, teacher training, and evaluation. 

Measure A continues the same allocations as BSEP and B except that a small capital projects fund was eliminated and replaced with additional teacher training, outreach, and evaluation. 

Opponents’ beefs about the way the Berkeley Unified School District don’t dispute any of these facts. Instead, their criticism of BUSD has taken the form of complaints about outcomes, primarily which ethnic or socioeconomic group is doing well or poorly, and of their suspicions that the extra money raised by local taxes only makes it possible to spend foolishly in other areas, especially for administrators’ salaries. Some of their substantive complaints about the way the district is run have real merit, but they’re devalued by being used to oppose Measure A. Such arguments compare apples and oranges.  

No one seriously questions the notion that Berkeley’s school kids need the items which the extra taxes are supposed to pay for. No one has seriously argued that anyone’s stealing the money, or even that the oversight committee has been lax as regards the use of the extra funds. Very few Berkeley property owners would claim that three hundred dollars a year more or less is crucial to making ends meet.  

Opponents contend that a ten-year term is too long. That’s nonsense: there’s no credible reason to believe that needs will go down instead of up. It didn’t happen during the 12-year term of the original BSEP, and it won’t this time either. Some school districts even make the supplemental taxes they need permanent. Elections are costly, especially when needs don’t change. If Bill Gates decided to bestow a billion dollars on BUSD, any unneeded taxes could be repealed then, but don’t hold your breath waiting for that. 

The only real criticisms Measure A’s opponents can come up with are of management choices regarding allocation of available funds, and, as we’ve said before, a vote on taxes is not the right way to express your opinion on that topic. To use a well-worn metaphor, it’s throwing out the baby with the bath water.  

One more time, clearly: Vote yes on Measure A because the schools simply can’t run without that extra money. There are better ways to offer them management advice.  

And don’t be put off by the shameless attempt of some candidates (not clear which ones) to grab Measure A’s coattails to help their own campaigns. The two likely suspects continue to be Shirley Issel, whose return address was on the mailer which used this tactic, and Tom Bates, whose countenance was plastered all over it. All the other candidates, including Zelda Bronstein, also running for mayor, support Measure A too.  

Absent major scandal (none has been suggested) it seems likely that current school directors Issel and Nancy Riddle will be re-elected. But anyone who’s really unhappy with the way the schools are now being run has the option of voting against one or both incumbents to express their sentiments.  

Among the new candidates, Karen Hemphill seems to have an excellent grasp of the issues which the School Board will face, and useful relevant experience as a African-American parent of a BUSD student. We endorse her candidacy. 

David Baggins, Ph.D., on the other hand, is trying to make a big deal, with absolutely no credible data to support his allegations, of the malign influence of the presence of a finite number of students who don’t have a fixed Berkeley address in the public schools. And voters who dance to his tune are not worrying about students seeping over the border from Rockridge or Kensington.  

Dr. Baggins uses academic double-talk, social-science-speak, to thinly disguise what looks to this one-time English major like either old-fashioned racism or newfangled classism: “A one-third underperforming cohort generates more negative force than intervention can hope to alter. Only half this cohort is predicted from the census to reside in Berkeley.” In other words, if you don’t think your kids are doing well enough in school, blame those trashy Oakland and Hayward kids in their classes. No footnotes for this charge, however. Uh-huh. We recommend that you don’t vote for Baggins. 

Three seats will be filled in this election. If you think that on average the school directors have been doing a good job, you should vote for the incumbents plus Karen Hemphill. If you think they need to be told to make some changes, you can vote for Hemphill and one of the other candidates. If you don’t like what the Baggins campaign stands for, you should cast your protest vote for Norma Harrison, who’s a breath of fresh air, approaching education from an original perspective consistent with her perennial Peace and Freedom Party support at the state level.  

Let’s just make it perfectly clear one more time. If you care about public schools in Berkeley, and everyone should, here are the Planet’s firm endorsements: Yes on Measure A, Karen Hemphill for one school director slot. You’re on your own for the other two seats.  

ALBANY 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

On Oct. 10, I submitted a letter and supporting documents to Albany’s city attorney requesting that the city take action to halt violations of Albany’s Campaign Finance Reform Act by the organization Concerned Albany Neighbors (CAN), Francesco Papalia’s Albany First, and the Committee to Elect Caryl O’Keefe. Albany’s Campaign law’s set rigid limits on amounts that can be contributed to local campaigns and require that only individuals may make these contributions. If one follows the paper trail of Form 460 and 410 statements as well as the partisan attack flyers that CAN has been dropping on Albany doorsteps, it appears that CAN is illegally funneling money into the Papalia and O’Keefe campaigns. These violations are being made to benefit a candidate (Ms. O’Keefe) who claims to be running her campaign within the voluntary limit and by some the same folks who have complained the loudest about others improper behavior and/or violations of California’s Initiative law. It was my hope that the city attorney would promptly look into this matter and bring the campaign back to the discussion of issues. At this point it is unclear what the city is willing to do in regards to enforcement of this matter. What is the point of Albany’s campaign finance law if it is not enforced, and if this law is not enforced, what is to stop mega millionaire race track owners or L.A. developers from channeling revenues into Albany and subverting the democratic process? 

Peter Maass 

Albany 

• 

ALBANY COUNCIL ELECTION 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The City Council election in Albany this cycle is a microcosm of the national elections: Two progressive candidates, Marge Atkinson and Joanne Wile, are challenging two from the “incumbent” ruling group—which for too long has held majority power on the Albany City Council in support of large-scale development on the waterfront.  

For the incumbents, Mr. Papalia through his organization “Albany First,” raises fears of outsiders controlling Albany (although he supports a mall by L.A.’s Caruso and Canada’s Magna Corporation) and imminent financial bankruptcy (Albany is currently in the black and running million dollar reserves going forward). His campaign manager recently was on the payroll of Rick Caruso, the Republican developer come to Albany to build a mall next to the racetrack. In a letter to residents last week, Golden Gate Fields for the first time in 25 years interfered in the City Council elections by attacking Atkinson and Wile by name. 

The second “incumbent,” Caryl O’Keefe, hopes to split the progressive candidates, Atkinson and Wile, by claiming to be against the mall and running within campaign finance limits. Voters should not be confused.  

First, O’Keefe hosted Mr Caruso in her living room to pitch the mall; not once, but twice. Then, contrary to her claim that she abides by Albany’s campaign finance limitations, excessive donations were made to a front group, “Concerned Albany Neighbors” (CAN). Formed in part to support and oppose candidates, CAN has distributed numerous flyers personally attacking Marge Atkinson and Joanne Wile, and endorsing O’Keefe and Papalia.  

These flyers neither disclose that O’Keefe’s husband, Alan Riffer, is CAN’s assistant treasurer, nor declare that O’Keefe’s campaign accepts donations (apparently in excess of the limit) through CAN.  

Further, using CAN to attack her opponents allows O’Keefe to create the appearance of being ethical and even-handed while using swift-boat tactics against her opponents.  

The City Council and City Attorney should investigate these violations of the Albany Campaign Reform Act. Otherwise, we may expect more “hit pieces” designed to split the Save-Our-Shoreline team and sway votes to the pro-mall candidates at the last minute.  

Bill Dann  

Co-Chair, Citizens for the Albany Shoreline  

Albany WaterFront committee member  

• 

EL CERRITO 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

El Cerrito’s 23,000 citizens have a virtual news blackout about city issues, with local newspaper coverage minimal and slanted. Our town has the second-highest crime rate of Contra Costa County, it is among the six worst of 107 Bay Area cities in pavement maintenance. Lighting, sewers, the library, the senior center, parks are all neglected. Without citizen approval, the council has systematically deprived other programs of funds and bonded the city, all for a new City Hall. Paying off the bonds will cost $650,000 a year for 30 years. 

Our local paper, the El Cerrito Journal, dutifully quotes council and staff comments, but ignores residents who spoke against the huge future debt. The editorial staff has endorsed the right of the current mayor to run for a (locally) unprecedented third term. They refused to report that challenger David Boisvert is supported by 16 former city council members, 14 of them past mayors! The paper’s editorial page banners Jefferson’s exhortations about a free press being the bedrock of democracy, yet it promotes one-sided pro-council views. They have a right to state their editorial preference, but not at the cost of stifling their reader’s comments and the citizens’ right to make informed choices. 

Rosemary Loubal 

• 

FALSE REGISTRATION 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

It is very difficult to run a city-wide campaign on a $300 dollar budget. Without Becky O’Malley’s mean-spirited defense of $10 million of annual theft against the city in the form of false registration, I’m quite sure the false registration issue would not have emerged as a defining concern of this year’s election cycle. No School Board member or candidate is defending the status quo. Hence it could have been difficult to initiate needed dialogue in this important area of policy. Ms. O’Malley has performed a public service, intended or not, by creating the conditions for a consensus to emerge that something must be done to fix the broken system. Once the issue was highlighted it took off because the effects of mass false registration are something people involved in the schools experience regularly. 

Despite the contribution she has made in highlighting this issue, her content remains in error. Last time I corrected that “every demographic group feels entitled to cheat, including of course well off neighbors in Rockridge and Kensington. Berkeley’s Students and tax payers are the losers.” The harms to Berkeley from running a famously false registration system are numerous (see San Francisco Chronicle article on my web site for footnote). They include: loss of locally raised tax revenue, increase in the achievement gap, violence, potential liability, loss of community and complicity of the district in illegal conduct.  

David Baggins 

Candidate for School Board 

• 

MILO FOUNDATION 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I was shocked and dismayed to read Jane Tierney’s attack on the Milo Foundation’s Solano location. As a dog owner, I am painfully aware that many people do not share my concerns, but that was the most mean-spirited op-ed I have seen outside of politics. 

As to the concern over health risks, I sincerely doubt that my vet, puppy class teachers and dog day caretakers were lying when all agreed that my dog did not have to wait “several weeks or months” after immunizations to interact with other people or dogs. Although I will not claim any authority to speak to the research on communicable diseases, for anyone concerned or at risk—use common sense—don’t kiss the dogs or roll around on the sidewalk. (I was given the same advice as a child about the alleyways full of needles, broken bottles and crack vials—don’t go there). I would venture to guess that there are plenty of other areas that are highly trafficked by people (and dogs) where I wouldn’t want to touch anything either—why pick on the Milo Foundation? The Milo Foundation is and has been providing a valuable community service in rescuing abandoned, lost, abused animals and in educating the public about responsible care. It’s disheartening to see such a negative response to all their hard work. 

Karen Eisenstadt 

• 

WORTHINGTON 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Why I cast my vote for Kriss Worthington for City Council for the third time: 

Because he makes me feel safe as an old woman when he shows up at Berkeley Gray Panther meetings on a regular basis. 

Because he was the only City Council member to stand by the accusers of Lakireddy Bali Reddy when nobody else would, and was instrumental in getting the rest of the city interested in the matter of sex slavery perpetrated by this largest rental property owner in our city. 

Because he initiated tenant protection for elder residents and long-term residents so they could not be evicted by owners claiming they wanted their units. 

Because he is a strong supporter of the arts and helped obtain money for the Berkeley Poetry Festival. 

Because he pays attention to the needs of his constituents no matter who they are or where they come from and he respectfully returns phone calls and is willing to have extended conversations on issues. 

Because he does not require 3 paid political consultants to help him run his campaign for reelection. 

Because he lives modestly and rides his bicycle everywhere. 

Because he shows up at all the progressive meetings and demonstrations that I go to. 

Because he cares about his community which is my community which is all of our community—the city of Berkeley. 

Because he is inclusive in his attention to his constituents. What other City Council member has put as many students on various boards and commissions as he has? 

Because he instituted Holocaust Remembrance Day and has made it an observance which honors all of us so as to prevent another tragedy from hurting any other group. 

Because he cares about affordable housing. 

Because he cares about the environment. 

Because he cares about healthcare for all. 

Because he supported instant runoff voting and knows this is the most democratic form of holding any election so all our voices can be heard. 

And just because he is a nice guy and no he is not responsible for the decline of Telegraph Avenue—I have lived here and watched it happen since the ’90s and I do recall mayors and others on the City Council cutting back on services and the funding needed to deal with the problems that have developed—when Kriss was calling for help. 

I suggest the residents of my district join me in re-electing a true progressive who talks the talk and walks the walk—Kris Worthington— a man truly worthy of the esteem in which he is held, for living a principled life and being a responsive political representative. 

Thank you, Kriss. 

Sheila Goldmacher 

• 

MISINFORMATION 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I admire the Planet’s commitment to the First Amendment, but reading some of the recent letters about Berkeley issues on the Nov. 7 ballot makes me wish the Bill of Rights had guaranteed “responsible” as well as “free” speech. 

I’m amazed in particular about the opposition to Measure A, the parcel tax renewal to support local schools. What a load of inaccuracies! Voters, please look further than the Planet to inform your decisions. 

This year the ballot pamphlet is not much better, as demonstrated by the letter run in the Oct. 23 Planet from Johnnie Porter, past president of the Berkeley NAACP. “… Though my name is on the ballot argument against Measure A … it was initially misrepresented to me and upon further research …I have now rescinded my original position and … both endorse and fully support Measure A.” (Thank you Mr. Porter—that took courage.) 

The best source of accurate information for all these ballot issues may be the endorsements. We’re all getting deluged with campaign mailings, so access to this information is easy. Endorsers are generally trusted community leaders and organizations (it’s up to you to determine which ones you trust), most of whom have heard out the various positions and made responsible decisions. This is going to be a prime source of decision-making for me on the issues I haven’t been personally involved in. 

One more thing: the work Mayor Tom Bates has done on local youth issues was recently described in the Planet as little more than “baby kissing.” That unfairly trivializes the important results he and his capable staff are achieving. In the 13 years I have worked on local school issues, Tom Bates is the mayor who has brought different forces together to bring meaningful improvements to our schools, cash-strapped community agencies, and the children they serve. Baby kissing isn’t a bad start, but I know first-hand that Tom Bates is working to bring all our babies health and opportunity, lifelong.  

Trina Ostrander 

Executive Director, Berkeley Public Education Foundation 

Past Chair, Berkeley Fair Campaign Practices Commission  

• 

AGAINST MEASURE A 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I have never in my life voted against a school tax measure. But this year I will be voting against Measure A. I’ll be voting against Measure A because I think that in its present form it works against the best interests of our children and their education. How so? It’s not because I think the measure asks for too much money. It’s because it is fundamentally undemocratic. It limits public input. It allows the BUSD administration to avoid public accountability. It asks for the right to take away our rights. Whether you are liberal or conservative or anywhere in between, I believe you should vote against Measure A, too. 

The problem is that the measure sets the parcel tax in concrete for ten years. There are only two effective ways the public can influence policy at the BUSD. One is by voting for School Board members. The other is by voting on taxes. Do we, the residents of Berkeley, really want to hand so much power over the school administration for 10 years? 

Everyone knows that public education is in crisis, in Berkeley and around the United States. All voters—parents, teachers, property owners, renters—need to preserve a democratic voice to influence policy and an ability to say no if they see the administration taking a bad turn. 

The BUSD is forecasting disaster should this measure not pass. There will be no disaster. The district can come back to the voters within months with a measure that doesn’t grab so much power away from voters. The standard period for similar measures in most other districts is four years. Four years is reasonable. Ten years is far too long a time.  

A no vote on Measure A is a vote for school administration accountability. A no vote is pro-education and pro-democracy. 

Russ Mitchell 

• 

STANDUP FOR KIDS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

As the co-executive director of StandUp For Kids, Berkeley I would like to say that StandUp For Kids works hard to reach out to homeless kids here in America. But, at this time I would like to bring attention to the crisis that is happening to kids and their families in Africa. It is important that we hold our Public Officials accountable for the 400,000 men, women, and children who have been killed in Darfur. This genocide is being called the worst humanitarian crisis in the world today and it shall not be ignored. Candidates running for public office this November have an agenda to accomplish, stopping this genocide should be at the top along with the prevention of youth homelessness here in our nation’s streets, where 13 kids die everyday as a result! I am asking you to let these candidates know we care about kids all over the world and that we need them to StandUp For Kids! 

Nikiya McWilliams 

• 

NO ON PROP. 83 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Over 80 percent of sexually abused children never tell anyone, mostly because their abusers are within their own families or someone trusted by their families. Only 10 percent of child sexual abuse is perpetrated by strangers. Prop. 83 (Jessica’s Law) is well-intentioned, but is severely misguided. Among it’s faults is that it will make children even more reluctant to tell what they know. 

Research shows that sex offenders in a stable environment (with stable housing, jobs, and social support) are less likely to commit new sex offenses compared to those offenders who lack such stability. Unfortunately, residency requirements reduce this stability. Under Prop. 83, most convicted sex offenders will be forced to relocate to rural areas where they will be far away from treatment and support services. Access to treatment and support services is critical toward the protection of children. 

In Iowa, where there is a similar law, there has been a 50 percent drop in the rate of sexual offenders who register with authorities. 

These organizations have come out against Prop. 83: 

• The California Coalition Against Sexual Assault, a statewide victim advocacy coalition of 84 rape crisis centers and sexual assault prevention programs, www.calcasa.org. 

• The California Coalition on Sexual Offending, www.ccoso.org.  

• The Child Molestation Research & Prevention Institute, www.cmrpi.org.  

I hope everyone who reads this will tell everyone they know how important it is to vote no on Prop 83. 

Susan da Silva  

CMRPI Volunteer 

Kensington 

• 

IN FAVOR OF MEASURE A 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

As a parent, grandparent, teacher and Berkeley taxpayer with over 30 years involvement with the BUSD I strongly support Measure A, which funds renewal of the Berkeley Schools Excellence Project (BSEP). Passing Measure A will not increase taxes. We have been paying these taxes since 1986. These funds have made a dramatic difference in the quality of our children’s education. Here’s how: 

Class size: When my children attended elementary school in BUSD they frequently were in classes with 32 children. When I first started teaching elementary school in BUSD my classes often had 32 children. By the time I retired, thanks to BSEP, my classes had 20 students. The difference was dramatic: more time for targeted teaching, more time for attention to individual student’s social needs, more time for engaging projects to encourage critical thinking, and greater student success. As I volunteer now in my grandson’s kindergarten class, the benefits of teaching to a class of 20 are reaffirmed, as I watch his teacher being able to work successfully with an increasing number of English Language Learners and the new BUSD Special Education model. 

Site enrichment funds: In my early teaching years not only did I spend part of each paycheck to provide classroom materials, but there were endless sales of candy, stuffed animals, and T-shirts to enable my class to participate in special projects. This took teaching and planning time away from students, and meant that enrichment was up to individual teachers. With site discretionary funds BSEP supports enrichment programs so that students receive equity in classrooms, schools can plan an articulated model of enrichment, and teachers can focus on teaching—not fundraising. 

Staff development: When I was hired by BUSD in 1984, staff development was limited to presentations by textbook publishers and volunteer mentor teachers. The hours I spent in sink-or-swim teaching and seeking out solutions to already solved problems were legion. This is no longer true. Berkeley teachers participate in staff development programs at all levels of their career: from BTSA for beginning teachers to study groups and alternative assessment programs for experienced teachers. Professional development in curriculum and instructional strategies such as Guided Language Acquisition Design (GLAD) is part of every teacher’s career. Measure A helps fund professional development. 

Oversight: In the early years of BSEP I served on the Planning and Oversight Committee and as chair of the class size subcommittee. The process was both time consuming and invigorating. In addition to meetings there were always documents to be read, people to be consulted with and time needed to think through complicated issues. Yet it was invigorating because this representative body spent the time to be reflective and arrive at difficult decisions. Having a Planning and Oversight Committee has always been an essential part of BSEP’s success. It is retained in this measure. 

I find that most of my taxes, especially on the federal level, are used in ways I deplore. Voting Yes on Measure A is a small affirmation of my values. 

Louise Rosenkrantz 

• 

DISTRICT 7 RACE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I’ve been struck by the extraordinary amount of letters published in support of George Beier. But what really seems to stand out is that the letter-writing campaign seems to focus almost entirely on the personal “fan club” type of testimonials designed to persuade people that if the candidate is a good and essentially decent person his politics do not really matter.  

But when all is said and done, I thought George Beier was running for a City Council position. So when the elections are over, we are going to have to live with the person elected and the views, politics, vision, and votes of that elected official.  

I haven’t heard anything but positives about Kriss Worthington as a person either. And so when deciding to whom to really vote, how about voting for Berkeley’s present and future based on electing the person who would make the best council member? 

From what I gather, Beier is pro-development, pro-business, and has easy sound-bite answers to hard choices facing the City Council.  

In contrast, look at Kriss Worthington’s actual record. Kriss has been an extremely hard working council member who has proven over and over again that his views, vision, energy, commitments to social, political, and justice issues, and his actual votes as a councilmember, make Kriss the only real choice. 

So even if you think you’ll have more fun at lunch with George, when the councilmember’s work begins, and the councilmembers’s votes count, I hope you voted for the best candidate and elected Kriss Worthington. 

Stephen M. Mackouse 

• 

MEASURE J 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I was disappointed to read the outright lies being circulated about Measure J. Here are just two examples: Important development on the site of Celia’s Restaurant, on Fourth Street, is being held up because it has been designated as a landmark and that owners of property on Otis Street went bankrupt because of its designation as a “structure of merit.” 

Livable Berkeley and Mayor Bates are saying that the reason they recommend against Measure J is because ridiculous and unfair landmarks decisions have been made. This doesn’t make sense to me because I watch City Council meetings and have heard to the public comments in opposition to the council’s proposed changes. It took me awhile to piece together the information but here it is. Every decision by the Landmarks Preservation Commission is automatically placed on the City Council agenda for approval before any decision becomes final. Any “ridiculous” decision is the fault of the council, not the law. So what happened in my two examples? The LPC approved Celia’s as a landmark, the City Council disagreed, so the building never was designated as a landmark. The request for demolition of that building and others on that site is on hold pending the project’s meeting the state law requirements to do an environmental impact review, not because of Berkeley’s Landmarks Preservation Ordinance. 

The council also disagreed with the Otis Street decision so that property never became a structure of merit. The neighborhood, opposing the conversion of a single family home into a multi-unit project with a paved over backyard to meet parking requirements, purchased the property giving three developers $80,000 each to walk away from the project.  

Let’s not be misled by special interests that simply want to grease the wheels of demolition and inappropriate development. We can prevent throwing out an ordinance that has served this City well for 32 years by voting Yes on Measure J on Nov. 7. 

Maggie Reid 

• 

HATEFUL CITY 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

As a Berkeley citizen over 40 years I asked the question, how can the city who is suppose to represent all Berkeley citizens continue to show its hate by denouncing Christ-based organizations like the Sea Scouts, but will quickly promote destructive, anti-family organizations that are bent on homosexuality, atheism, anti-U.S.A. and such?  

When will we citizens elect and hire people who truly represent the citizens of the City of Berkeley? When? The demographics in Berkeley have changed overall for the worse over the past 20 years. It’s become anti-Christ, anti-family, anti-Black American, anti-American and anti-right! 

COB leadership please continue to support the Sea Scouts who along with the Boy Scouts of America promote life and stop promoting organizations that value sickness and death. 

Lisa Robin 

• 

PEOPLE’S PARK IS A SEWER 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I was born in 1961 in Berkeley and have lived there most of my life. The only thing that I remember about People’s Park is that it was a hangout for the scum of the world and all that entails. All of you pony-tailed liberal/yippie/hippy/whatevers need to take off the rose-colored glasses and realize the ’60s was nothing but a bad experiment that failed. Give it up already! That means the drug dealers paradise known as People’s Park and put in condos, or anything. It is far better use than an open-air sewer and a pit for the rags of society to hang out. 

If these people choose to live this way they should do it somewhere else. This is what is really what’s killing south Berkeley, specifically from Sather gate to the triangle.  

Christopher D. Fuller 

Rocklin, Calif. 

• 

MORE ON MILO 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Arlen Stahlberg’s recent letter repeats some very important misunderstandings. We acknowledge and respect the spirit of the volunteers, but it is the impact on our neighborhood which needs to be addressed and how MILO handles the obvious sanitation issues is not our problem to solve. That this situation has gone on for so long is also not in any way relatable to us, but rather MILO’s own negligence.  

The issue is not nobility of the idea of pet adoption; we all acknowledge this. The problem is trying to fit a regional service which gathers animals from a huge part of Northern California into our densely-populated neighborhood. MILO doesn’t even have a yard of any kind at this facility! We are, in good faith, attempting to reach mutually-agreed operating conditions which will help MILO operate peacefully while preserving our long-established neighborhood, and all this name-calling rhetoric is counter-productive. We hope MILO supporters as well as challengers will calm down and allow the mediation process to work. 

We are being mischaracterized and the issues have been shifted time and again to “with us or against us.” which sounds much more like the Bush administration, don’t you think? 

Robert Yoder 

Solano Avenue Neighborhood  

Association 

• 

PROPERTY TAXES 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Is there anyone out there besides me who has not received a property tax bill yet? 

I thought the bill was supposed to arrive before the election so we could read the bad news before voting.  

Frank Greenspan 

• 

POLICE PAY 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I am compelled to write to correct an inaccurate statement reported in the Berkeley Daily Planet’s Oct. 24 edition. Mayoral candidate Zelda Bronstein responded in a discussion regarding who should qualify for “workforce housing” by remarking, “The police in this city are averaging $124,000 per year.” 

As a public organization, Berkeley police salaries are a matter of public record and are arrived at via negotiations with the city manager’s office. In addition, our contracts must be approved by the City Council before they are valid and binding. Our contracts are intended to be appropriate compensation for a demanding and often dangerous job. They are comparable to and competitive with the salaries of similar sized agencies in the Bay Area. The top pay for a senior officer is substantially less than the figure quoted by Ms. Bronstein. Unfortunately, she is misinformed about this issue. Even more troubling, is the appearance of using inaccurate information to satisfy immediate political aims. Either way, she is wrong on this issue. 

I would encourage Ms. Bronstein and those who would like to know more about Berkeley police officers to look up the information on web at www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/police and make an informed opinion about this core public safety issue. 

Henry Wellington 

President, Berkeley Police Association  

• 

THE STRAIGHT FACTS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Please get your facts straight when reporting on major issues that affect Berkeley! Richard Brenneman “reports” in his article regarding the last Design Review meeting that developer Hudson-McDonald suggested the traffic barrier for the project at 1885 University Ave. Au contraire! It was, and still is, the Berkeley Way neighbors who proposed the barrier, much to Hudson-McDonald’s dismay. They have finally openly admitted, after pretending to go along with the concept for expediency’s sake, that they oppose the barrier. Please do not give them any credit for trying to salvage our neighborhood. As I pointed out in a previous commentary, they have had been given every opportunity to mitigate their project’s damage to the neighborhood. They brazenly refuse because, as they frequently like to point out, they can. 

Regan Richardson 

• 

GOOD LUCK, SUSAN 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

We are all indebted to Susan Parker for increasing our awareness of the disabled community—both disabled and care givers—and doing it with a respectful, pitch-perfect tone, with informative good humor, neither exploiting Ralph’s condition nor demanding pity for him or for herself. I hope she also provided some sense of visibility and solidarity for the disabled and their loved ones, as well. Now that Ralph is free, I hope she is free to think of happier times they had together. Good luck, Susan.  

Dorothy Bryant 

• 

PACIFIC STEEL 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I am outraged by the constant pollution to our air quality in Berkeley thanks to Pacific Steel Castings—the largest steel foundry on the entire West Coast. They continually violate their agreements with the Bay Area Air Quality Management District by operating night and day with their doors wide open-allowing all of the toxins to freely escape into the surrounding community. On top of that they use city streets like their private property—allowing their castings to cool and off gas on public streets. Where is the city to crack down on this? If they were on Shattuck Avenue and they put their work out on city sidewalks they would be shut down in five minutes. Where is the city on this? What is Mayor Bates doing? What is Linda Maio doing? 

And what is the public doing? The residents of Berkeley need to come together in this time of a public health crisis and demand that this is not allowed to continue. Anyone reading this who is concerned for their health and the health of their families should attend the planned public rally and protest set for Nov. 11 at 11 a.m at Ninth and Gilman streets in Berkeley. Come out and make some noise! 

And for those of you unaware, here are a few facts:  

1. PSC dumps over 250,000 ponds of toxins into our air every year. 

2. Our of over 2,000 stationary pollution sources in six Bay Area counties, PSC is number 12—ahead of the Richmond Chevron refinery! 

3. PSC dumps known carcinogens into our air such as maganese, lead, zinc, copper and many other toxins. 

4. Berkeley has a real public health threat on it’s hands with PSC and it cannot be allowed to continue. 

David Landon 

Call me frustrated. Some weeks ago—never mind how long precisely—I set out to try to get straight answers from Mayor Bates about some questionable statements he has made about the recent settlement agreement between the City and the University of California. I dutifully attended campaign forum after forum, patiently waited for the question period, then stood up and carefully aimed my inquiries. But every time it seemed that the mayor would be obliged to give a direct answer to one of my queries, he slipped away into the unfathomable depths. Alas! Did my efforts ultimately prove as fruitless as Captain Ahab’s hunt for the great white whale? We shall see. 

A little background before we embark 

In 2005, the City of Berkeley and the University of California engaged in secret negotiations and reached an agreement to settle the city’s lawsuit over the campus’ 2020 Long Range Development Plan. The terms of this agreement were not revealed to the public until after the document was signed—in spite of the fact that Mayor Bates had made a public promise to allow the community time to review and comment on any such proposed settlement before the city approved it. This singular betrayal of the public trust seriously undermined Berkeley citizens who were trying to put practical limits on UC’s expansion and get effective mitigations for the significant detriments caused by UC’s off-campus growth. 

Recently, Mayor Bates has been contrite about the secrecy issue—claiming that the city attorney “agreed to that condition” without his knowledge. (Hmm…is that really how things work?) But he has been completely unapologetic about the agreement itself, calling it “the best deal we could have gotten.” Neighborhood residents, however, view it in a different light: they regard it as one of the worst deals the city has ever made with UC. They are acutely aware that all the negative impacts of UC’s uncontrolled growth that they already endure—traffic, pollution, parking shortages, noise, and the effects of multiple-year construction projects—will become far worse in the future if UC goes ahead with its plans. So while the city did secure a limited (but far less than adequate) amount of compensation from UC for the city services it uses, it obtained exactly zero effective mitigations for the serious damage Berkeley residents will suffer over the next 15 years while the agreement remains in effect. 

The chase is on 

I charted a course and set sail through the election events: the Livable Berkeley candidates forum, the Willard Neighborhood forum, the Le Conte forum, and last Saturday’s forum at the Unitarian Universalists’ Hall in North Berkeley. I hoped to get answers to three questions: 

1. You have maintained that you effectively represented the interests of Berkeley residents during the negotiations with UC. Can you point to any part of the settlement agreement that includes explicit protection for residents from the significant detriments they currently endure—and which will become far worse—as a direct result of UC’s expansion? 

2. Regarding downtown planning, exactly which elements of planning and development does our city have final unilateral authority over since you signed the agreement with UC? How does this compare with the rights the City had before you signed the agreement? In your response, please take into account the following statements that appear in the actual agreement: (a) “All public meetings regarding the DAP [Downtown Area Plan]…must be jointly planned and sponsored by the city and UC Berkeley.” (b) “Any mitigation measures included in the EIR [environmental impact report] must be acceptable to UC Berkeley…” and (c) “UC Berkeley reserves the right to determine if the DAP or EIR meets the Regents’ needs. The basis for making such a determination would be that the DAP or EIR does not accommodate UC Berkeley development in a manner satisfactory to the Regents.” 

3. You have claimed in many recent campaign speeches that you have established a new “cooperative” relationship with UC. Can you explain how well this new relationship is working in regards to the university’s announced plans for massive construction in the Southeast part of campus? (Your recent remarks about these proposed projects have included the following: “We’re about to go back to battle. These plans are totally unacceptable. We’ll have to sue them again unless they change their course.”) 

Stormy seas 

I soon realized that getting answers to my questions would be a real challenge. First, there was not a lot of time for audience questions, and there were always more people who lined up to speak than would get the chance. To me, this was a clear indication of how little true dialog with the community there has been over the last four years. Everybody seemed to know that this was a rare opportunity, not to be missed. But it also meant that there was pressure from the moderators to limit the audience members to very short questions. This was a major handicap for anyone who wanted to discuss an issue that was at all complex—and let’s face it, most of the important issues facing Berkeley are quite complex. In spite of these odds, I prepared to face my elusive quarry. 

Thar she blows! (The mayor’s campaign flyer, that is) 

As I waited in line at the first forum to ask a question, I happened to spy a flyer from the Bates campaign entitled “UC-City Partnership Agreement Fact Sheet.” I began reading, and quickly became astounded. Some of the statements in the flyer were so blatantly inaccurate that they would have been visible even from the crow’s nest. One statement in particular burst out of the page: UC Berkeley “has agreed—for the first time and from pressure from the city—to follow Berkeley’s existing land use rules for all new buildings on the Southside of campus and in the downtown when the city’s new downtown area plan is completed.” This would be an amazing development if it were true. There’s one small problem, however: it’s not true. In fact, the mayor’s claim is flatly contradicted by a plain declaration in the actual legal agreement: “The Regents will reserve their autonomy from local land use regulation.” (section II, B,1) The meaning of this statement is unambiguous, and it is not qualified or amended by any other statement in the document. Why was the mayor’s flyer proclaiming something that is exactly the opposite of what is true? 

It was suddenly my turn at the microphone. I realized that this was a question that would fit into the limited time frame, and I asked the mayor, ”Is there any language anywhere in the text of the agreement with UC that supports your assertion that the university has agreed to follow our land use laws?” My question hung suspended in mid-air as I awaited his reaction. 

How did Mayor Bates respond? I could describe the thrashing, the twisting and turning, the flying foam, the deep dives into murky side issues—and my well-honed harpoon falling harmlessly into the vast salty deep. Let’s just say he completely evaded my question, and went on to try to convince the crowd of how unquestionably positive the settlement was—adopting the tone and cadence of a religious revival preacher. I would have been able to rebut each and every one of his claims with direct evidence, but there was just no time for that. In the end I barely had time to point out that the mayor had not answered my specific question at all. Nor did he answer it at any of the other candidates forums, where I made a point of repeating the exact same question. 

Why this matters 

Many Berkeley voters do not follow the big picture of local politics, let alone the details. Most often, they read a handful of campaign brochures just before an election. That’s why it is so important that we challenge the false statements that appear in these campaign materials.  

Was Mayor Bates concerned that his campaign flyer might contain misleading statements? Not at all, as was clear from his responses. He is still circulating these flyers because he believes, whatever their accuracy, they will earn him votes—and that’s all that matters. He knows most people are not paying attention. And he might get away with it without any personal consequences during this election. But if he does, the entire city will suffer from the community’s growing distrust of the unaccountable and dishonest political process that has been the chief hallmark of his administration. 

Doug Buckwald is a long-time resident of the Willard neighborhood. 

A lot of readers are focusing on the effects Proposition 90 will have on eminent domain in California, but many are missing that this is one of the most squarely anti-environmental initiatives to reach the California ballot in decades.  

Under Proposition 90, virtually any new “government action” taken to protect the environment, including urban growth boundaries, setbacks, the CA Endangered Species Act, pollution regulations, water quality laws, restrictions on timber harvest and restrictions on off-shore drilling could result in landowners receiving huge payments from governments. But when the government (and ultimately taxpayers) inevitably cannot afford to pay the landowner, the environmentally destructive actions are allowed to proceed. 

Proposition 90 is modeled after Oregon’s infamous Measure 37, which passed statewide in the 2004 election. Measures like these are now being proposed in states across the country, as part of a national agenda funded by greedy out-of-state development interests in New York City.  

I was campaigning against Measure 37 in OR when it passed and, as a result, spoke to hundreds of people during my days as a phone banker. I did talk to some people with legitimate claims for why the land use planning system needed reform. But Proposition 90 is just too broad a brush.  

Land-use planning is essential for regulating potentially incompatible future uses of your neighbor with existing uses of an area. You wouldn’t, for example, want a mining operation right next to your rural residential land. And in state that is growing exponentially in the coming years, it’s more important now than ever to be thoughtful and capable in passing and enforcing smart residential and industrial growth in California.  

The overwhelming sentiment in Oregon now is regret; many of the people who voted for Measure 37 now wish they hadn’t. Over 2,700 claims have already been filed to develop 143,000 acres in Oregon since November 2004, with claimants seeking nearly $5 billion in compensation. The claims being filed already go beyond what you could imagine: claims to convert berry farms into high-density housing, turn lily farms into mobile-home parks, drill geothermal test wells inside the Newberry National Monument and yes, to launch a large gravel mining operation within 200 feet of neighboring homes. And in nearly every one of the 700 cases that have been settled, the government, handcuffed by Measure 37, has agreed to waive the regulations in question.  

Following in the footsteps of the deceptively named “Clear Skies” or “Healthy Forest” initiatives, the “Protect our Homes” Initiative is not about property rights for landowners or limiting government regulation. Strong regulations, if done correctly, increase our quality of life and actually raise property values by protecting you and your land from the potentially adverse uses of nearby landowners. Likewise, strong environmental laws protect wildlife and habitat for the enjoyment of future generations.  

Rather, a vote for Proposition 90 is a vote against open spaces, spectacular vistas, controlled urban sprawl and the quality of life that makes California special.  

Samantha Murray is the conservation director of the Golden Gate Audubon Society.  

NEBA DEFECTIONS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Effective this week we are former members of the board of directors of the North East Berkeley Association (NEBA). We were deeply disturbed by the inaccuracies in the recent Daily Planet commentary by Eleanor Pepples on behalf of our association. We believe that the vote by the NEBA board to oppose Measure A was based on faulty information, and that the arguments put forward by its president in the NEBA Newsletter and the Daily Planet do not reflect our views or those of the our North East Berkeley Neighborhood. When the NEBA board refused to reconsider its vote this past week or to reconsider faultily presented information, we decided to resign. 

We are writing to express our complete support for Measure A. We agree with its purposes and recognize it as a proper replacement for existing BSEP and Measure B funds. Its allocation of funding is clear. Mechanisms for auditing, oversight, and accountability are built not only into the measure, but are mandated by state Assembly Bill 1200 as administered by the Alameda County Office of Education.  

Berkeley public schools are an important institution in the life and fabric of the City of Berkeley. Over the last five years they have improved dramatically, due to the efforts of a new Superintendent, a less politicized Board, better teacher support and the devoted work of many volunteers. BSEP and Measure B funds have been vitally important to this steady progress and stability. Our schools have depended on the financial support that BSEP and Measure B have provided and that Measure A will continue. 

We still believe that neighborhood associations can provide crucial information on the issues and provide a forum for many points of view.  

Please vote yes on Measure A. Our schools need everyone’s support. 

Ann Plant 

Robert Remiker 

Kathryn Snowden• 

GEORGE BEIER 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

OK, so I am not impartial. George Beier is my life partner of almost 18 years. Nevertheless I thought I could add to the dialog by telling you some things about George that you might not know: 

George is kind. He is always the first one to reach out to family and friends in time of need. He also has compassion for those in need in our community. Just ask the folks at Options Recovery Service, where he regularly volunteers, and they will tell you what I mean. 

George loves people. When he comes home from a long trip, he usually tells me the life stories of the people who sat next to him on the plane. And often to my frustration, George is stopping and savoring discussions with strangers, as well as acquaintances, that we happened to encounter in our day-to-day lives. 

George is smart. Whether he is doing the New York Times crossword puzzle, solving a programming bug, or working on a neighborhood plan, he does it all! And I can tell you if you are going to engage him in an argument, make sure you have your ducks in a row. 

Finally, George is passionate about life. I think anybody who has met him can attest to his intense love of life, people, work, family, friends, neighborhood, community, and Berkeley. As my sister Phoebe told me when she first met George, “Life with George will never be boring.” Boy was she right! 

John Caner 

• 

AN OUTRAGED ALUMNUS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Several hundred UC Berkeley custodians protested last week the callous and highly immoral treatment they are receiving from the administration. Would you believe it!—though the custodians won money from the state to increase their poverty level earnings, the university has refused to release the funds. Why? Because the administrators, undoubtedly with a nod from the Board of Trustees, are withholding the money as a bargaining chip to compel the Union, AFSCME Local 3299, to make concessions on the pension plan that would further erode their take home wages.  

So Berkeley Councilmember Max Anderson’s remarks at the rally, that giving these workers a living wage “is a matter of will, not finances” is right on. Reflecting a typical situation, one custodian complained that her wage increased in the last six years from her starting wage of $11.22 an hour to $11.83 cents. Although custodians now begin with $11.34, the starting hourly rate at Chabot Community College is $18.89. Both the starting and top hourly rate for custodians are substantially higher at other state funded colleges. 

As an alumnus of the university, I am appalled at the message they are communicating to the understaffed and overworked custodians. It is a serious affront to their dignity as human beings. And what kind of education are they giving to its students by implying that those who clean their rooms deserve to be treated in a shoddy and contemptuous manner. Max Anderson gave some very good advice to the university administrators—the custodians clean the rooms, now “the university should come clean.” 

Harry Brill 

• 

HEMPHILL FOR SCHOOL BOARD 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

More than a century ago, the American educator and philosopher John Dewey wrote: “What the best and wisest parent wants for his own child, that must be what the community wants for all of its children. Any other ideal for our schools is narrow and unlovely; acted upon, it destroys our democracy.” Although the Berkeley Unified School District has a long way to go to realize the ideal of providing the best possible education for all of our children, there are many wise and compassionate individuals in our schools working to achieve this goal. One of these individuals is School Board candidate Karen Hemphill. From working with her and observing her leadership at Washington Elementary and at Berkeley High School (Karen and I were co-presidents of the BHS PTSA in 2005-2006) I know that she is passionately committed to fostering schools where all students are challenged and supported. In addition, her education and practical experience in public administration have given her the skills necessary to find new resources for our schools and to manage our resources wisely. Most important, Karen has demonstrated her ability to bring together people from differing backgrounds (and sometimes with opposing viewpoints) to work productively for common goals. We need Karen Hemphill’s leadership on the Berkeley School Board. 

Carol S. Lashof 

• 

BEIER BRINGS NEW IDEAS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

George Beier offers new ideas and planning objectives for revitalizing Telegraph Avenue, and this is one reason I support his candidacy for City Council in District 7. Another reason is George’s remarkable ability to get people involved at the neighborhood level in quality-of-life activism. Through the Willard Neighborhood Association he has organized trash cleanup days, volunteer gardening on neglected city-owned spaces, informal neighborhood watch activities, and very successful street fairs which have brought students and long-term residents together in ways we haven’t seen before. His commitment to public dialogue takes tangible shape in ways we can all see and which allow for participation at whatever level people are comfortable . 

To paraphrase JFK, George encourages people to ask, “What can I do for my city, to make it better for all of us?” and then organizes ways for that sense of commitment to find useful expression. I think he will be an excellent representative for District 7. 

Rebecca Tracy 

• 

“LEADERSHIP” 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Under what passes for the “leadership” of Berkeley City Councilmembers Kriss Worthington, Dona Spring and Linda Maio, their respective districts have seen commercial enterprises go bankrupt or move elsewhere and crime escalate. They provide no stimulus to Berkeley’s economic well-being. On the contrary, their actions in this realm have been utterly counterproductive, their obstructionist politics doing the city grave harm.  

Of course, where this otherwise torpid trio have been most active is the arena of international politics, wasting Berkeley citizenry’s time and money on issues where the city has absolutely zero influence. By so doing, they perpetuate Berkeley as just plain laughable in the eyes of the rest of the country. 

In sum, it’s time for a change. In the upcoming election, those who wish to see Berkeley’s betterment in an improved economic climate and reduction of crime should vote these inert ideologues out of office. 

Dan Spitzer 

Kensington 

• 

MEASURE A 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Regarding your Oct. 17 editorial, the Measure A campaign has endorsed no candidate nor ballot measure other than Measure A itself. 

Measure A is endorsed by every elected official (representing Berkeley) and every serious candidate for public office. This includes among others: 

• Zelda Bronstein and Tom Bates, and all other candidates for mayor, as well as the previous Mayor Shirley Dean. 

• Councilmembers Linda Maio, Darryl Moore, Max Anderson, Donna Spring, Laurie Capitelli, Betty Olds, Kriss Worthington, and Gordon Wozniak and Council candidates Raudel Wilson, George Beier and Jason Oberman. 

• School Board Directors Nancy Riddle, Shirley Issel, Joaquin Rivera, Terry Doran, and John Selawsky, and candidates Karen Hemphill, and David Baggins. 

• Congresswoman Barbara Lee, Senator Don Perata, Assemblywoman Loni Hancock, and Superivsor Keith Carson. 

• Measure A is also supported by the Chamber of Commerce, the League of Women Voters, the Berkeley Association of Realtors, the Berkeley Democratic Club (BDC), Berkeley Citizens Action (BCA), the Green Party, the Central Labor Council, the Berkeley Federation of Teachers, the Berkeley PTA Council, the National Women’s Political Caucus, Sierra Club, Berkeley NAACP, and many more organizations and individuals. 

Thank you for the opportunity to clarify Measure A’s position of not endorsing any candidate or other measure. 

Dan Lindheim 

Co-Chair, Yes on Measure A 

• 

NORTH SHATTUCK 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Really, Mr. Goldberg, someone must have put something unpleasant in your breakfast cereal to cause such a negative and just plain grouchy invective against proposed improvements for the north end of Shattuck supported by many of the local business owners and North Berkeley residents alike (Commentary, “Myopia, Not Vision, in North Shattuck Plan,” Oct. 20). I recommend that you look again at the conceptual sketch provided at www.northshattuckplaza.org, and you will see that your mistaken vision has nothing to do with the proposed design. At least, I do not see a major high rise condo project there, as you have imagined.  

This portion of Shattuck Avenue, a tangle of arterials, cross streets and a block-long secondary traffic and parking aisle, has been crying out for a sensible re-design and configuration that would put pedestrian safety and comfort first, and the automobile second, since the railroad tracks were removed a half-century ago. As someone who had a little bit to do with the nearby Sonoma/Hopkins/Josephine Triangle project recently, I strongly endorse private initiatives to replace areas of unnecessary asphalt roadway with attractively landscaped public spaces such as the North Shattuck Plaza proposal. Just think of the potential good that might be done, rather than all of the negative scenarios you have dreamed up. And then, have a bowl of Quaker Oats for good measure.  

David J. Snippen 

• 

LANDMARKS ORDINANCE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

In the debate around whether to vote Yes to keep the city’s 30-plus-year Landmarks Preservation Ordinance or to vote no so that the mayor can have his way to weaken that ordinance, I can’t help but thinking the neighborhoods that will bear the brunt of this decision are in the flatlands. 

No one is going to demolish a genuine Maybeck or Morgan in the hills. What about the Maybeck that sits on the corner of Berryman and Martin Luther King? What about mowing down that stately row of turn of the century homes across from the South Berkeley BART Station in the mayor and City Council’s zeal to build a transit village? What about the wonderful old home on Virginia that’s just across from the North Berkeley BART station, an area in the sights of developers for increased density? What will come down around Sacramento and Dwight Way to build more of the four stories that went up on the corner of Blake and Sacramento? Everything on San Pablo Avenue is at risk—even the nice single-story commercial buildings that currently house the Sierra Club. Come on guys you, support five stories up and down the avenue. How about replacing the quaint old buildings on the north side of Vine at Shattuck in the new plan to redevelop the Gourmet Ghetto? 

Who will miss these places? I will and everyone who loves Berkeley will. Everyone should vote yes on Measure J and send our mayor and council a message to stop listening to their developer contributors and start hearing the people who live here. 

Katie Morgan 

• 

DISTRICT 7 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Alan Selsor wrote a letter last week arguing that Telegraph Avenue is “not fun or funky”—it’s depressing. I wholeheartedly agree. What’s worse is that the demise of Telegraph is infiltrating the surrounding neighborhood.  

Robbery, home-invasion, auto theft, and drug-related crimes are up, according to the Berkeley police community liaison for my south campus neighborhood, which encompasses Telegraph Avenue and People’s Park. In fact, these types of crimes are more concentrated in District 7 than in any other district in Berkeley.  

Kriss Worthington has represented the district for 10 years. In that time, business on Telegraph has declined by a whopping 30 percent, according to a San Francisco Chronicle article published Oct. 16. Worthington says he’s been working hard on the problem—but after 10 years, we should expect to see some results. Instead, 20 storefronts remain empty on what could and should be one of Berkeley’s most vibrant economic and community centers. 

District 7 needs new leadership. It needs economic revitalization. And it needs a committed focus on crime reduction and public safety. That’s why I support George Beier. He is not an ideologue, but rather a committed and progressive community activist who will work with all his constituents and stakeholders to revitalize our flagging neighborhood. 

Kristine Dixon 

• 

PECAUT’S SLUR 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Mayoral candidate Christian Pecaut begins his statement as follows, 

Landlords: remorseless, lying, blood-sucking parasites. More property, more vicious. Give back every dollar stolen from the tenants immediately, in cash. Rent is theft.  

Recently, the Daily Planet and its editor were criticized for publishing a rant that many in Berkeley saw as anti-Semitic. I’m not writing to criticize Becky O’Malley for printing Pecaut’s statement—actually, she did us all a service by letting him parade his views. What I want to point out is that his opening remark is exactly like the anti-Semitic slurs that were so reprehensible to this community a few months ago.  

Indeed, what is striking about his remark is how its language parrots that of tyrants from decades past, like Mao and Stalin. It’s the language their followers used as a prelude to seizing property from its owners and imprisoning or murdering them in the name of “the people.” German and Austrian Jews of course suffered a similar fate from Hitler and his cohorts—following attacks and slurs put forward with identical phrasing.  

As a property owner, I will be interested to see who else chimes in with me to condemn the language and implications of Pecaut’s remark. He has the right to say it, and Becky O’Malley to publish it, but it is indefensible, especially in light of all we know about its past use. Actually, it’s mind-boggling to me that Pecaut could still believe it, but I guess that proves the point that those who don’t understand history are doomed to repeat it.  

John Parman 

• 

MILO FOUNDATION 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I was shocked and distressed to read the article on the Milo Rescue Store on Solano Avenue in the Daily Planet. There was not one word of acknowledgment for the incredible work the Milo Foundation has done over the years. Nor was there acknowledgment for the many people in the community who donate their time to working with Milo and the animals. Nor were there suggestions on how to help remedy the sanitation problems the shop is facing. 

Thousands of homeless animals have been rescued by Milo. Milo ranks with the best of non-kill shelters in the country. The writer seemed unaware of all of this and referred to the owner and her four dogs. Incredibly discouraging piece of writing. I felt like I was reading something by the Bush administration. 

Please do a real piece on Milo—research the foundation and see how we can find ways to help them. 

Arlen Stahlberg 

• 

BEER OR HOUSING? 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

George Beier’s offer to buy $1,000 worth of beer for students in dorms shows just how out of touch he is with the real needs of the student community. Sure, everybody likes free beer, but soon these students will need off-campus housing. Kriss Worthington works hard everyday to keep housing affordable to students, to appoint them to commissions, and to act on their concerns. 

Worthington is not flashy. He wouldn’t offer beer for votes, even if he could afford it, because that would be crossing an ethical line that Beier doesn’t even see. Worthington knows the issues, responds to his e-mail, and works very hard, so hard that we’ve come to take him for granted. He almost makes it look easy, and that could cost him the election. Beier’s fortune may give voters the impression that he can solve their problems as easily as he can buy them drinks, but it won’t make him a better public servant than Worthington. 

Lenny Chen 

• 

KRIS WORTHINGTON 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

When I got a copy of the Berkeley Democrat, the Berkeley Democratic Club’s election guide, I was disappointed to see that they are supporting the challengers to the progressive members of the City Council. For years Kriss Worthington has been a great help to the community peace and justice work while working to make Berkeley a better place. Phone calls to his office are always returned promptly and responded to, whether it is to find out how to get a permit for an event or about stop signs at tricky intersections. Dona Spring is an important voice on the City Council. 

The Planet reports that Beier is outspending Kriss two to one. Can it be a coincidence that the club is taking no position on Proposition 89, the Clean Money Proposition which would limit contributions and expenditures in political campaigns? I was frankly shocked to read that George Beier’s campaign attempted to buy students’ votes with a beer party. 

Carolyn Scarr 

• 

BBEMA FOR MEASURE A 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

There has been a considerable amount of dialogue, conversation and debate surrounding the renewal of Measure A. And rightly so. No matter what side of the issue one stands, the future of our children is at stake. Here we all stand at an impasse, staring the most significant issue of our city squarely in the face. It is clear to us that African-American children in our district are performing well below average. It is also very clear that there is much work to be done to find new strategies and implementation processes to address these gaps of achievement in our community.  

However, as pastors representing every major black church in this city, and many of the families and urban communities affected most by this achievement gap and other debilitating and paralyzing social ills, we are convinced that the best way to reach this goal is not by eliminating $20 million of resources the district has come to rely upon. The Berkeley Black Ecumenical Ministerial Alliance (BBEMA) has been in ongoing dialogue with the superintendent to constructively address these issues. As we make progress in our strategic plans and implementation, we will need the resources of Measure A to bring to bear upon factors contributing to the achievement gap. 

As we support Measure A, it is our expectation that BUSD will work to increase the Math and English scores of African-American students. It is our expectation that BUSD will recruit, hire and retain more African-American administrators and teachers. It is our expectation that BUSD will create alternative programs to deal with the high number of suspension/expulsions and special education problems indicative across multiple grade levels. We believe that if we commit ourselves to our children’s future, by passing Measure A and continuing our collaboration, BUSD can provide African-American students the access necessary for attaining the hope, tools and possibilities every child is entitled to and deserves. BBEMA urges everyone to vote yes on Measure A! 

Pastor Michael McBride for BBEMA 

BBEMA is comprised of African-American congregations including: Church By the Side of the Road, Covenant Worship Center, Ebenezer Missionary Baptist Church, Church of the Good Shepherd, Liberty Hill Missionary Baptist Church, McGee Avenue Baptist Church, Phillips CME Church, Progressive Missionary Baptist Church, Rock of Truth Baptist Church, St. Paul AME Church and The Way Christian Center. 

• 

A NEW SLOGAN 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Thanks ever so much for continuing to entertain the masses with the mirthful musings of jocular journalist Richard Brenneman. Until encountering his cutesy crime chronicles in your pages, I failed to focus on the fun in felonies or the alliterative amusement of misdemeanors. Some may carp and cavil about Mr. Brenneman’s jokey jottings and criticize them as prosey preciousness or doltish drivel. Ignore their nay-saying and nattering. Scrawl on uncensored, say I. Next time I come face to face with a “beefy bandit,” a “dangerous duo,” or any of the other colorful criminals who people Brenneman’s Berkeley, I’ll chuckle as I turn over my wallet, imagining how he might describe the scene. 

Dan Brekke 

• 

SUPPORT PUBLIC SCHOOLS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

As a parent I am so appreciative of the forward-thinking people who went before me and built a school system in Berkeley to be proud of. My question to you if you are against Measure A is: Why would you want to hurt the children? I’m hearing that there’s no oversight. That is just not true. There is a ton of oversight for this money with regular, independent audits. Measure A is a great investment. Good Schools = Good Neighborhoods = Good Property Values. Even if you don’t have kids or even if they go to private schools, it still benefits you to have excellent schools in the community.  

Come on, people of Berkeley! Continue to care! It’s not a new tax. It just continues what we have. Vote yes on Measure A for the children and for our community, and help get out the vote! 

Cathryn Bruno 

• 

ALBANY CITY COUNCIL 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The campaign for the Albany City Council election is turning ugly. Specifically the “Concerned Albany Neighbors” (CAN) have issued flyers personally attacking Marge Atkinson and Joanne Wile. Though the contributors to CAN are certainly entitled to their opinions, under the city’s election law they are not legally allowed to donate more than $99 per candidate. They have spent far more than that producing their hit pieces and pushing their pro-mall candidates, Francesco Papalia and Caryl O’Keefe, and are likely to spend more still. The city attorney has refused to investigate these illegal contributions. 

Citizens should know that CAN’s assistant treasurer, Alan Riffer, is O’Keefe’s husband, and that they hosted the representatives of the mall developer Rick Caruso for a neighborhood “coffee” in their home to promote the proposed mega-development at the shoreline. 

CAN has demonstrated its contempt for both the spirit and the letter of the Albany campaign law. Watch for more last minute hit pieces, rumors, and innuendo. And ask yourself where the money is coming from. The choice to Albany voters is clear—Atkinson and Wile will protect the shoreline—Papalia and O’Keefe will sell it to the highest bidder. 

John Dyckman 

Albany 

• 

CARYL O’KEEFE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Contrary to her claim that she abides by Albany’s campaign finance limitations, City Council candidate Caryl O’Keefe has accepted illegal contributions from a front group, “Concerned Albany Neighbors” (CAN). 

CAN has distributed numerous flyers personally attacking O’Keefe’s opponents, Marge Atkinson and Joanne Wile, and endorsing O’Keefe and candidate Francesco Papalia. These flyers do not disclose that O’Keefe’s husband, Alan Riffer, is CAN’s assistant treasurer, and O’Keefe does not declare CAN’s flyers as campaign donations. 

Having CAN attack her opponents allows O’Keefe to create an appearance of being ethical and even-handed while using swift-boat tactics against her opponents. 

The city has declined to investigate these illegal contributions. What is the point of Albany’s campaign finance law if it is not enforced? 

Meanwhile, how many more “hit pieces” on Atkinson and Wile are in the pipeline designed to sway votes to the pro-mall candidates at the last minute? How many attacks will be funded by Golden Gate Fields, racetrack owner Magna, or L.A. developer Caruso, who would all like nothing better than to see pro-mall candidates O’Keefe and Papalia elected? 

Caruso spent large sums to elect candidates favorable to his developments in other cities. Will we allow Albany’s democracy to be hijacked in the same way? 

Diana Sloat 

• 

LAST-MINUTE SMEARS COST $$$ 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I’ve noticed more flyers than usual arriving at my doorstep as the election approaches, each attacking the Save Our Shoreline Team, Joanne Wile and Marge Atkinson. In one case, Golden Gate Fields sided with the Caruso/Magna developers, stating that there were no plans to develop a casino because gambling is against California law. What wasn’t mentioned was that when gambling is legalized, and there is a movement on to pass such a law, then these developers can easily install the new video slot machines, which these developers have already installed elsewhere. What are their future plans in this case? Will they sign a contract that no gambling of any kind will ever exist at the waterfront, even if it is legalized? 

From what I understand, there is evidence that Caryl O’Keefe’s campaign finances are being overly funded by Concerned Albany Neighbors (CAN) where her husband is assistant treasurer. Why are the city attorney and city council not investigating the evidence and making this issue public, one way or the other? This is a question, not an attack.  

One way to sway the public vote is to bombard the public with false information right before an election. Don’t be taken in by the last minute smearing tactics. Remember, Joanne Wile and Marge Atkinson are local residents who have and are dedicated to serving their community. They represent the Albany residents who want a reasonable development on the waterfront to bring in revenue for Albany, while preserving as much open space as possible. 

Wynette Weaver 

Albany 

• 

ILLICIT STUDENT ENROLLMENT 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I want to commend Professor David Baggins for raising the issue that falsely registered students constitute a serious problem in terms of utilization of resources and safety. 

I reside and work across from Berkeley High, and regularly take various public transportation in the mid-afternoon from Berkeley to different points in the East Bay. I frequently witness a large number of Berkeley High student’s exodus to homes in other cities. I offer this fly-on-the-wall generalization: some of these students behave well, some are less-well mannered, and a small number behave horrendously. 

It is my understanding that there is frequently violence at Berkeley High and in the surrounding area after school. It is commonly believed that a high percentage of the trouble comes from out-of-district registrants, but there is no firm data available. Most recently, a police officer intervening in two student’s brawl on Shattuck was himself then assaulted and injured by approximately 10 students. Because it is not ‘officially’ known which students are illicitly registered, concerned citizens will again not be informed whether those taken into custody are or are not residents. Unless we begin asking repeatedly, starting right now. 

Illicitly enrolled out-of-district students are essentially Berkeley’s guests. And if out-of-district students are committing acts of violence, officials should have an obligation to returned those students to their home districts. Some self-styled progressives feel that the most violent students are examples of those who are most at-risk, and require more, not less, of our attention. But surely there are some actions we should be unwilling to tolerate from a non-resident student. This isn’t punitive: There is an obligation to provide a safe atmosphere, and one conducive to learning, for the rest of Berkeley High students, whether resident or illicitly enrolled. 

I assume the vast majority of illicit out-of-district enrollees are good kids, who also prefer less violence at school. And I understand that out-of-district parents are enrolling their children with the best intentions. Some Berkeley residents feel social justice requires that BUSD should act as a safety net for the problematic school systems in the region. Many also recognized the unintended consequences of illicit enrollment include disproportionate utilization of resources for remedial needs, and depriving funding from neighboring districts that desperately need it. 

Many feel that when it was a smaller number of students, it was acceptable. It has now been estimated that approximately 20 percent, or 600 Berkeley High students, may be wrongfully enrolled. There comes a point when our generosity can exceed our limited resources, and we begin sacrificing our obligation to Berkeley’s own residents. Education administration has recently acknowledged that resources are indeed dramatically and disproportionately utilized to service a large number of out-of-district student’s remedial needs at the expense of Berkeley’s own average and remedial students. 

It is good that this issue has entered the public discourse this election season. And, I ask, am I the only one who suspects that the district will soon return to ignoring the problems caused by illicit registration unless David Baggins wins a seat on the School Board? 

Michael Cohn 

• 

MEMORIAL STADIUM OAKS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Sit in, on, around and under them oaks. Hello, might as well block the roadway while we’re at it. Think they’ll call the cops or the football team? Join us, ol’ Bear Bates? Which furhrer is behind this, the football coach, the athletic director. . . 

Arnie Passman 

• 

AGAINST MEASURE G 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Global warming can only be slowed down if there is a worldwide movement to greatly reduce greenhouse gasses. The reason the world has not moved swiftly to avoid an ecological catastrophe is that people fear the economic consequences: a great reduction of production and therefore massive unemployment. There is only one way to eliminate pollution without harming the economy: the “green tax shift.” Make polluters pay for the damage they cause, and simultaneously reduce taxes on wages and goods. 

Taxes on sales, wages, and business profits cause great economic damage. The reduction of these taxes would greatly increase enterprise and employment. That would offset the cost of pollution charges. A revenue-neutral green tax shift is win-win for the environment and the economy. 

But instead, the proponents of Measure G have said they would impose regulations and require sacrifices and lifestyle changes. Command-and-control regulations impose big costs for little benefit. They would not lead the world in a global movement to reduce greenhouse gasses. Dictating what kinds of cars we can own, when we may drive, how many cars a family may own, or mandating mileage standards for cars imposes hardships on folks who may pollute very little. 

Anyone who advocates “sacrifices” is really saying that we will impose hardships for little social benefit. The green tax shift does not require sacrifices. If we fine a person who litters, the fine is a penalty, not a sacrifice. Pollution taxes are compensation for committing damage. Those who pollute may then either pay the charge or else make adjustments such as using more public transit or car pooling or walking; it’s their choice. 

Measure G timidly sets the 80 percent reduction goal in 2050. By then it may be too late, as global warming could accelerate due to feedback effects. No, we and the world need to cut emissions to 80 percent in 10 years, by 2017. We can do this effectively with minimal economic damage with pollution levies that rise every year, while the city reduces taxes on utilities, improvements, and enterprise. 

Voting no on G is a vote for an effective and swift green tax shift and a rejection of authoritarian commands and controls. Voting yes on G means giving the city government a signal to issue restrictive regulations which will have large costs and little effect. A no vote is sophisticated, rejecting only an “anything goes” signal. A yes vote is simplistic, seeming to favor greenhouse gas reductions, but in reality giving a go-ahead to futile policies. 

Will Berkeley voters be sophisticated enough to vote no on G? Or will they take the lazy way out and vote yes just because the politicians endorse it? We can boldly lead the planet towards a swift, effective reduction of emissions by 2017, or strangle ourselves with futile regulations that, even if they reduce greenhouse gasses by 80 percent in 2050, will be way to late to do the world much good. 

Fred Foldvary 

A RESPONSE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Laurel Leichter’s Oct. 13 letter (“Action, Not Invective”) characterizing me as an “attack-chihuahua” was not only impolite but also revealed what I would have to describe as misdirected frustration. 

I can only presume that Ms. Leichter assailed me because I stated (in an Oct. 3 letter) that District 7 City Council candidate George Beier—whom Ms. Leichter supports—was the featured speaker at the Berkeley Property Owners Association’s (BPOA) special dinner event on May 18. This is the very same day that Mr. Beier announced his City Council candidacy. 

The BPOA is the city’s largest and most powerful real estate industry/rental property owner organization. 

In my Oct. 3 letter, I listed the BPOA’s well known political agenda: consistently hostile to rent control and opposed to most of the Rent Stabilization Board’s affordable housing policies and decisions. 

BPOA members are also responsible for initiating, collecting signatures, and currently campaigning for Berkeley Measure I—the condominium conversion initiative—on the Nov. 7 ballot. 

If passed, Measure I would enable rental property owners—over the next several years—to convert literally thousands of affordable rental units across Berkeley into expensive condominiums, evict hundreds of renter and family households, and subsequently sell the converted units for a windfall profit. The current market price for a Berkeley condominium is roughly $500,000. 

Incumbent District 7 City Councilmember Kriss Worthington is perhaps the Council’s strongest supporter of rent control and affordable housing, and is opposed to the BPOA’s historical political agenda. 

Chris Kavanagh 

• 

BATES’ SLOGAN 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I was walking home from the library yesterday afternoon when I saw a yard sign in support of Tom Bates for mayor of Berkeley. The sign read, “Mayor Tom Bates — Berkeley at its Best.” As I continued walking, I decided that I should help Mr. Bates along and suggest a contest for his campaign! People could send suggestions to Tom on how to make his slogan even better than that one.  

Here are some of my entries into the contest. How about “UC Berkeley at Its Best”? Or “Walnut Creek at Its Best”? Or my personal favorite, “High-Rent Housing at Its Best.” 

“Berkeley at Its Best” is something that happened 40 years ago. Let’s help bring Tom bring his campaign slogan more up to date! 

Jane Stillwater 

• 

MEASURE J 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

After reading Sharon Hudson’s commentary, “What the Matter with Berkeley?” in which she advocated for Measure J, I sat down with my voter pamphlet, spent an hour digesting the ordinance and the arguments pro and con, and decided to vote against it. Knowing and respecting signers on both sides, I had to rely on my own experience as a West Berkeley resident for the past 27 years. 

Measure J does not maintain the existing Landmarks Preservation Ordinance (LPO) but revises it, making it easier to landmark buildings, other structures, and sites. Evidently the authors are reacting against a council revision in the opposite direction. 

Landmarks preservation is an admirable and necessary tool for saving the historical character of a municipality. I saw the importance of such an ordinance last year when I returned to my hometown, Port Jervis, N.Y., which has no such provision and has suffered major damage to its Victorian red brick roots, whereas nearby Milford, PA has dedicated itself to preserving its Colonial charm and has prospered doing so. 

But Berkeley is no small town, and the brown shingle homes in the hills or the stucco craftsman cottages in the flatlands are not the buildings in current contention; it’s the commercial development of West Berkeley and the downtown that’s at stake. We have a choice. We can approve the construction of new well designed buildings, which may entail the demolition of others and the cleaning up of contaminated lots, or we can erect barriers to such development. 

We who live in West Berkeley face a different landscape than those who inhabit purely residential neighborhoods. It’s not so charming down here. We live among rubble and litter, ugly multiplexes, poisoned ground, decaying industrial buildings, crime, and traffic. But we also have the waterfront, diversity, all kinds of creative business ventures, and a vibrant spirit of enterprise. I can’t envision how Measure J would enhance the positive and decrease the negative elements in this environment. 

Much of the damage to West Berkeley’s architectural heritage was done before the passage of the original LPO. But now that these ticky-tacky apartments, decrepit factories and warehouses, and cheap boxy stores are over forty years old, should they be eligible for preservation? They are, after all, representative of the historic post-war era. Under Measure J just 25 people with an ax to grind could stop the demolition of structures that deserve to be replaced. 

Landmarks preservation should be used not to contradict or inhibit the zoning and planning process or to frustrate investment but to enhance the urban environment and support our economy and tax base. I’m voting against Measure J because it will be an impediment to the improvement of West Berkeley.  

Toni Mester 

• 

BATES’ POSTERS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

This past weekend, I couldn’t help noticing all the Bates posters stuck up high on the telephone poles around my friend’s place on Roosevelt Street. My friend said she had been disturbed by a loud mechanical noise and looked out to see a guy in a cherry picker quickly putting up the signs while hunkering down as if he didn’t want to be identified. 

My first thoughts were to question the propriety as well the legality of putting signs on telephone poles. Both of us wanted to take the signs down simply because they’re neighborhood eyesores. However, signs put up via a cherry picker are too high to be easily removed. This (expensive) mechanism of self-promotion strikes me as another strategy aimed at winning by any means—e.g., spiriting away newspapers that promote your opponent—in this case, by being able to outspend the competition. 

Such high-rise papering obviously isn’t about informing the public of Bates’ worthiness for re-election. Those of us who are paying attention already know enough about how Mr. Bates acts in the office of mayor to have formed an opinion. In my West Berkeley neighborhood at least, we are daily exposed to the many cheap-looking in-your-face high-rise shanties that have sprung up since his term of office began. I’m also very, very displeased by both the number of business that have recently left town (yes, I am one who is forced to shop in Emeryville, El Cerrito, and San Francisco because there’s nothing to buy in Berkeley) as well as how architecturally ugly Berkeley is becoming. As I see it, the destructive trends we’ve been experiencing lately should not be allowed to continue. I hope everyone will vote in favor of the November ballot measures that could stop them and save what’s left of our once-vital and beautiful town. 

Nicola Bourne 

• 

SHATTUCK COMMONS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I can’t believe the city would spend a dime or even a minute on the new Shattuck Commons idea. There are so many other neighborhoods in Berkeley that need attention. The Shattuck/Rose neighborhood has a farmers market on Thursdays while the Curtis/Hearst neighborhood has the Needle Exchange on Thursdays. Shattuck/Rose has nice restaurants, a bookstore, and clean sidewalks. University/San Pablo has filthy sticky sidewalks and empty littered lots and empty storefronts. Shattuck/Rose is fine as it is. “Berkeley at it’s Best” should be about raising the quality of all of Berkeley, not just the fancy parts. 

Teal Major 

• 

MEASURE A IS ESSENTIAL 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

It’s interesting that Yolanda Huang included the table “Dropouts by Ethnicity” in her recent commentary piece opposing Measure A. It’s the data on which she based her earlier letter to the Planet expressing great alarm about the “whopping 33 percent dropout rate” of Pacific Islanders at Berkeley High School—and the data in this table show she’s talking about a total of one student dropout. Why didn’t she report the 0 percent dropout rate among Berkeley’s Native American students and Filipino students? Are those numbers somehow less significant than the data she does quote, or do they just not fit her agenda of casting our Berkeley schools in the worst possible light? The use of this data is typical of the campaign to defeat Measure A by misinforming the public. You don’t have to study the data or even to read the actual measure’s precise specifications for the use and oversight of its funds (although you should) to realize that this opposition group has an enormous credibility deficit. If our schools are as bad as they would like us to think, why do so many students from other districts want to attend them? If out-of-district students are a problem, defeating Measure A would certainly remove their incentive to come here, but would it be rational to ruin the schools for our own children, just to get rid of someone else’s? 

Do opponents of Measure A really think their Voter Information Pamphlet claim that “average BUSD teacher compensation” is “$87,000” will fool anybody? Average teacher salary is obviously much less than that, in fact, it’s about $57,000 a year. The $87,000 figure is even more than the district’s cost per teacher, including health and retirement benefits, workers compensation, and payroll taxes, which is about $80,000/year. Isn’t it equally absurd for them to claim (also in the Voter Information Pamphlet) that we could replace the 20 percent of our district’s budget that would be lost if Measure A fails to pass by the savings from things like “enforcing attendance” and “stopping cafeteria food overproduction?” 

Could any reasonable person buy their argument that devastating cuts to school funding would actually result in improved student achievement? Increasing class sizes and eliminating school libraries, parent outreach, and elementary and middle school music programs would remedy the achievement gap? After all this, do they have any credibility at all when they say they “support children” and “support public school education?” Please vote yes on Measure A to renew existing school funding. Don’t be fooled into a no vote, which would drastically cut funding for our Berkeley public schools. Remember, Measure A must pass by a two thirds majority, so opponents only need to win more than 33.3 percent of the vote to defeat this well-written, essential measure for the continued support of our public schools. 

Julie Holcomb

Editors, Daily Planet: 

On the heels of the NEBA Newsletter piece against Measure A, comes the justification written by NEBA president Eleanor Pepples. Like the newsletter it is nonsense from beginning to end, and raises only the question, why is anyone with such a defective knowledge of our school system working so hard to bring it down? 

How can BSEP, which is a square footage tax, have “brought in an extra $970,000 because of high property values.”? How can a 12-year tax be “extended” to 10 years? 

Past BSEP measures have not been, as stated here, for four years. The 1986 BSEP parcel tax was for a period of eight years, the second, in 1994, for 12 years. This is a point much belabored, but it may still be worth, for once, getting right. 

She says that BUSD will collect “an extra 11 percent from the state, about $8,244.” In fact, we are getting something in the neighborhood of 4 percent. Some additional funds will be distributed by the county; but it appears that the money will be mostly restricted in use and one-time only. It is wonderful to have, but it is not the stuff of multi-year budgets, even in the bizarre world of NEBA. 

What is this “academic choice lottery which gives some families the opportunity to pick which school their children can attend” …to which “many children are denied access”? Could this be a description of the highly regarded BHS Academic Choice program, as seen from Mars?  

Everyone who wants to gets in the lottery—just as with the other small schools at Berkeley High—but, as in most lotteries, not everyone’s name is drawn. The system which sorts the children at BHS into small schools isn’t perfect, but it is also not yet two years old. A lot of people don’t like the system, but Ms. Pebbles is so far the only person who has suggested that taking away 25% of the budget and hurling the district into insolvency would be a good way to fix the problem. 

“It is interesting,” she writes, “that the Council for Neighborhood Associations (CNA) and the Berkeley Alliance of Neighborhood Associations have also come out against Measure A. No, what is interesting is that both BANA and CNA are dominated by the same small group of people, and these are the same people—neither NEBA members nor board members—who provided the inaccurate anti-Measure A information to the NEBA board. When NEBA was contacted with the offer to have a speaker familiar with school finance available to them, the offer was declined. 

As for the old insinuations about accountability, loopholes, and money diverted to administrators salaries, I can only say, read the Measure, read the report of the independent auditor.  

Ms. Pepples offers no useful suggestions as for improving the Measure, no information that is not hopelessly garbled, no facts that are not howlingly wrong. But, to be fair, she has a closing worthy of Monty Python, in which she begs the reader, almost tearfully, to vote against school funding—for the sake of the children.  

Laurie Snowden  

• 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Eleanor Pepples opinion piece in the Oct. 17 issue of he Daily Planet doesn’t really explain much about her opposition to Measure A, the renewal of the Berkeley School Excellence Project (BSEP), other than the fact she doesn’t seem to understand the measure. For the past 20 years, BSEP has enabled Berkeley students to go to less crowded classrooms, enjoy books in the school library, and have the opportunity to learn to play real musical instruments. Measure A does nothing but renew the Citizen’s of Berkeley commitment to the education of ALL our children by continuing the funding of BSEP at current rates. As a parent of a 5th grader in Rosa Parks School, a school with one of the poorest populations in the district, it is hard to imagine what our school would be like without this enhanced funding. 

Rather than debate it among the NEBA board members, they should have visited the schools themselves and talked to the parents at the sites - especially those who don’t have the resources to send their children to anything but a public school and those involved in the oversight of BSEP funds. At Rosa Parks School it has meant that teachers have more time with their students and students with special needs get help necessary to keep up; teacher skills have been enhanced in language skills and math through attendance at training courses funded by BSEP; discipline and respect are taught on the play yard by coaches who are contracted using BSEP funds; and an Environmental Science Magnet School can actually have a full time science teacher. 

Little of this would be possible and Rosa Parks School would not be making significant advances without the generous support of all Berkeley residents. These programs and many more at the other Berkeley schools are in danger if BSEP is not extended through the passage of Measure A. 

Many of the concerns about oversight and usage of the funds ignore the fact that his is an ongoing project with a history anyone can look at if they made the effort. BSEP has its own organization and independent audit trail, which is continued in Measure A. School Site Council meetings, which have oversight responsibility for BSEP funds at the individual schools, are open to anyone interested in attending. I know that the parents involved in the Site Councils take their responsibility seriously and would strongly resist and dilution of their oversight duties. Quarterly and annual reports are made to the BUSD board on income and spending of BSEP funds and are a matter of public record, a practice continued in Measure A. 

Typical of those who don’t understand what BSEP funds, Ms. Pepples brings up such irrelevant issues as the warm water pool, which has nothing to do with anything even related to Measure A, and the possibility that BUSD may get more money from the State this year, which probably won’t make up for the shortage of funding from the State in 2004 and 2005. Maybe I haven’t encountered the “academic choice” lottery yet, but anyone thinking that reducing the number of teachers would enhance any selection system is missing something. The attribution of increased revenues because of “high property values” shows that Ms. Pepples doesn’t even understand the funding mechanism; this is a parcel tax, based on size of the property, not the value.  

Something Ms. Pepples wrote everyone can agree with “...Every student deserves to have the same materials from the day class starts until graduation day and strong core curriculum..” BSEP goes a long way to achieve this goal. Approval of Measure A will keep this valuable project alive for all the students in Berkeley schools. 

Tom Killilea, Treasurer, Rosa Parks School PTA 

• 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I’m writing about Travis C. Ash’s outstanding op-ed: “Do the benefits of drug war outweigh the costs?” (berkeleydailyplanet.com, Oct. 17). The obvious answer to this question is: No. 

So why does our obviously counterproductive war on drugs continue? Why do apparently intelligent people want to arrest and jail other people who use or sell easy-to grow weeds and other chemicals that harm nobody except the willing users themselves? 

Perhaps to understand the position of our drug war cheerleaders we should study the history of the United States.  

Alcohol prohibition. The notorious gangster Al Capone made most of his illegal money from alcohol prohibition. Capone often bragged that he “owned” the city of Chicago. Obviously, he didn’t own all of the city of Chicago; however, he had most or all of the politicians and police who ran the city on his payroll. Al Capone was a successful businessman and its not unreasonable to suspect that the drug cartels of today are following his business model. 

Its also not unreasonable to suspect that the drug cartels may have many high-level politicians and police officials on their payroll. Obviously, the type of politicians the drug cartels would have on their payroll are those who advocate the continuation of the status quo of drug prohibition, which is making the drug cartels so fabulously wealthy. I’m not saying that any specific so-called “drug warrior” is on the payroll of the drug cartels—just a little suspicious. I’m just a little suspicious of the motives of all of the drug war cheerleaders. 

Kirk Muse 

Mesa, AZ 

• 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Regarding Travis C. Ash’s thoughtful Oct. 17th op-ed, the drug war is in large part a war on marijuana, by far the most popular illicit drug. Punitive marijuana laws have little, if any, deterrent value. The University of Michigan’s Monitoring the Future Study reports that lifetime use of marijuana is higher in the United States than any European country, yet America is one of the few Western countries that uses its criminal justice system to punish citizens who prefer marijuana to martinis. Unlike alcohol, marijuana has never been shown to cause an overdose death, nor does it share the addictive properties of tobacco. The short- term health effects of marijuana are inconsequential compared to the long-term effects of criminal records. Unfortunately, marijuana represents the counterculture to many Americans. In subsidizing the prejudices of culture warriors, the U.S. government is subsidizing organized crime. The drug war’s distortion of immutable laws of supply and demand make an easily grown weed literally worth its weight in gold. The only clear winners in the war on marijuana are drug cartels and shameless tough-on-drugs politicians who’ve built careers on confusing drug prohibition’s collateral damage with a relatively harmless plant. The big losers in this battle are the taxpayers who have been deluded into believing big government is the appropriate response to non traditional consensual vices. Students who want to help end the intergenerational culture war otherwise known as the war on some drugs should contact Students for Sensible Drug Policy at www.ssdp.org. 

Robert Sharpe 

Policy Analyst 

Common Sense for Drug Policy 

Washington, D.C. 

• 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I wanted to write and complement your newspaper on the great articles that J. Douglas Allen-Taylor was been writing about the state takeover of the OUSD. 

I was I teacher at Skyline High School in Oakland from Fall 2003 to Spring 2005 then was laid off as part of the reduction in force. During my time in Oakland I saw that things could be very different. Since I left, I have been using Google News to stay informed about the goings on in OUSD. Through that I found J. Douglas Allen-Taylor’s articles. I always felt that there where stuff going on that we where not being told. Thanks to your articles I feel enlightened about OUSD. 

Keep up the good work. 

Hank Postma 

• 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

In the story called “ A Closer Look at State Bond Measures", in the edition of The Planet for October 13-16 

I was amazed to read that somehow with Prop 1B 19 BILLION dollars would be spent with only a 19.9 MILLION bond issue!! 

This is a trick which W. Bush and the his massive debt being accrued would be happy to learn. 

Max Macks 

• 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

From the very first moment I saw Barack Obama interviewed on television, I said, “Now here’s a man I’d like to see in the White House. “But not now—he’s too young, too inexperienced and no way is this country ready for a black president.” But seeing him yesterday interviewed on the Charlie Rose Show, I thought, “Who says he’s too young?” Here’s a man of dignity, high intelligence, compassion, and one with a reasoned view of critical world issues (characteristics sadly lacking in Washington at the present). Democrats—don’t let Barack Obama get away. We need him!  

Dorothy Snodgrass 

• 

TRAFFIC SAFETY 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

This evening on my way home, I had a disturbing experience. I was driving down MacArthur Boulevard past the Emeryville border between Market and Telegraph. After the light turned green, I saw a couple of pedestrians on the opposite side of the median. I see one of them look in my direction and bolt across the street in front of me. The light had changed a few moments earlier, and I was traveling down the road around 25 mph. I slammed on my brakes to avoid hitting the group of young people attempting run across the street. The first person in the group made it across, and I missed him by inches. The second person came to a sudden halt and ended up inches from the left side of my car. I was completely shaken after the near contact. I know as a driver it is my responsibility to give pedestrians the right of way. Unfortunately, these young people were attempting to cross the far away from the intersection and crosswalk in a darkly lit section of the street. I don’t want to cast blame here, but it was a miracle I didn’t hit one of them and cause severe injury to these careless pedestrians. I wish this was the only near miss incident I have had, but I see pedestrians running across this dark street at dusk or later every other week. To all of the drivers and pedestrians out there be careful, and be logical. To the pedestrians, cross at the crosswalk, look for oncoming traffic, and cross with the green light. To all of the drivers, look out for people coming from all directions and travel slowly on dark streets.  

Jame Ervin 

Oakland 

• 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

After reading the full text Of Measure H as outlined for the voter of California, in the Sample Ballot and Voter Information Pamphlet for the Nov. 7 election, I can not give my full support to the Measure. As a long-time Berkeley resident, I find that the attempt to impeachment President Bush and Vice President Cheney to be a mere distraction of important facts. 

Although I do agree with some parts of the full text version Section 2 Findings and Declaration as noted under section number 4 A thought B. I would like to note that a full investigation of Departments, persons who provided information regrading said matter may serve American and insure the integrity of information provided to future President and their administrations.  

I would like to note that the statement’s of support by person as noted with the Arguments In Favor Of Measure H are somewhat unfair and unwarranted. These types of accusation are best handle when persons and departments are held accountable for their actions. This may include but not limited to local, state and federal offices and a review of Prop 13 pay closer attention to the monitor of programs under prop 13. Other program such as the Program for Felons which give and outline of State and local government responsibilities and Possible Federal intervention which include monitoring. The status of Limitation clause as noted with Cold Cases from local and State agencies such and Police, Sheriff, CHP and California Justice departments also make provision for possible monitoring. Local funding Under Education 2000 and other programs in which the State Senate and California Voters support allow the Federal Government to Collect and Internet Usage, this may also be true do to case filed by with The Human Rights Office, cases of ID theft ( such information can be used to investigate fraud, etc). Funding for Education and research allotted the Children Hospital can allow for cross referencing of related documents and noted with funding clauses. 

The words Above The Law also seem out of context. considering cases currently in being held by said persons. 

I urge Berkeley to vote no on H! 

And asking your local Government for detail information on programs like No Child Left Behind and the supplements services. The teaching standard and requires for Public school and after school care. 

It may be time for California to find better political leadership! 

A. Charlene Matthews 

Sole Owner Of C.Y.A. InterPrizes

Over the past few weeks, Chris Kavanagh and his comrades have flooded the Daily Planet with denunciations of Measure I, the citizen initiative that would allow a limited number of surplus rental units to be converted to condominiums. According to Kavanagh the measure is nothing but a conspiracy to evict thousands of tenants. Simply stated, the truth has not been told. 

Let me set the record straight. Measure I not only preserves existing protections enjoyed by Berkeley tenants, it adds to them. In the process, it addresses the most serious problem facing our city: the loss of our middle class due to a lack of entry-level housing. Workers and young families can’t pay $700,000 for a “starter” home. Our own children cannot afford to stay in the town where they grew up. Since few people want to remain tenants forever, they move away, leaving behind a city divided between real-estate haves and have-nots. 

We are becoming a city where the people who work here—teachers, firefighters, librarians and clerks cannot afford to live here. 

Our population becomes less and less diverse each year as enrollment in our public schools decline. This as rental vacancy rates have climbed from between 6-10 percent city-wide, double the norm of a healthy rental market! 

The City Council agrees there is a problem. Two years ago it passed a law encouraging the conversion of apartments into condominiums in an effort to create a form of affordable home ownership. But their law is not working. Their cap on conversions (100 per year) is too low, and their fee is far too high. 

Fourteen percent of the gross sale price of a converted condominium (12.5 percent conversion fee, plus 1.5 percent transfer tax) is paid to the city. None of this money goes to tenants who need and deserve a chance to become homeowners. Furthermore, these fees will simply inflate sale prices reducing the affordability of condominiums. While the actual statistics are hard to find, it appears that after two years, not one unit of converted housing has been created and no conversion fees have come into the city treasury. Lastly, a long-promised public workshop on the subject has been canceled or postponed indefinitely. 

What would Measure I do? 

Measure I would allow the conversion of a limited number of surplus rental units to be converted to condominiums, provided that the present owner: 

1. Pay a substantial fee to the city’s Affordable Housing Trust Fund (about $8,000 for a typical unit). This fee must be paid up front, regardless of whether the unit is ever sold. Under current law an owner may obtain a subdivision map and not pay anything until and unless he sells to a third party. 

2. Give existing tenants a right to buy their own unit and cash equal to 5 percent of the purchase price (typically, about $20,000), thus covering part or all of the down payment. This redirects funds to tenant(s) that under current law goes to the city. No city in California has such an aggressive program to assist new homeowners. 

3. Observe all existing tenant rights under Berkeley’s rent control and “just cause eviction” laws. 

4. Agrees to pay tenants who choose not to buy their unit relocation benefits twice the amount they would receive under current law. 

5. Agrees not to exercise their right to evict under California’s Ellis Act until and unless the tenant’s lease has expired and all of the benefits described above have been offered and refused by the tenant. 

What about mass evictions?  

It cannot happen! Under Measure I conversions are limited to about 2 percent of the rental stock. If vacancy rates fall below 3 percent, conversions stop. Berkeley has about 20,000 rental units. If (conservatively) there is a 5 percent vacancy rate, the conversion of 500 units (about 2 percent of the stock) would return us to the current quota. The “thousands of evictions” threatened by Kavanagh are mathematically impossible. He is not merely incorrect but engaging in irresponsible scare tactics designed to obstruct affordable home ownership in Berkeley. 

The elephant in the corner (which Measure I opponents ignore) is the threat of conversion of rental units to tenants that is common (TICs). By court order, cities cannot collect fees on or limit the number of such conversions any longer. 

TIC ownership is complex, highly unregulated, does not generate city conversion revenues and provides no purchasing assistance to tenants. However, in the face of current condominium conversion restrictions, TIC conversions will occur to the detriment of the city, tenants and buyers alike. 

There are two different visions of Berkeley. One, a place divided between rich homeowners and permanent tenants who have no hope of climbing the ownership ladder. This is the “rich city, poor city” phenomenon that economists and sociologists warn of. That’s where Berkeley seems to be headed. The city has told the federal government that affordable home ownership is a “low priority” here and that our focus is rental housing. The results are all around us. Ownership is beyond the reach of all but the rich. Rental units are vacant or under-occupied yet more are being built. Older buildings decay and the tax rolls are filled with under-valued properties. Tenants who want to set down roots and raise families must go elsewhere. 

Measure I helps to solve these problems. It allows surplus rental units to be converted to affordable housing with fees paid up front. Measure I helps tenants become owners and increases tax revenues paid to the city. Measure I will keep young families in Berkeley, put more children in our public schools and allow more public safety workers to live alongside the people they protect. Measure I is good for tenants, homeowners, the city and everyone who hopes for the freedom and security that home ownership provides.  

Kavanagh and his ilk seek to keep tenants in a state of perpetual economic disenfranchisement. Measure I does the opposite. Measure I helps erase the line between the real estate haves and have-nots, creating a city of greater stability, equality and security. 

John Koenigshofer is a Berkeley landlord. 

Opinions expressed in Daily Planet commentary and letters to the editor are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Daily Planet or its staff.  

By Dan McMullan 

George Beier’s recent letter to the Planet about David Anderson, the homeless man who was a hero in the Aug. 9 fire at 2600 Hillegass has got to be one of the most shameful exploitations I have seen in Berkeley politics in a long time. George portrays himself sitting with this poor man, listening sympathetically to his story and then crying out to us, “Is there any good Samaritan out there that can give our hero a guitar!” I mean, come on George, you’re a multi-millionaire for Pete’s sake. You probably spent more than the price of a guitar on your last bottle of wine and you let that man leave your meeting without one?  

For quite awhile I had been hearing, reading about and seeing the damage George has visited upon the less fortunate of our community. In his capacity as point man for the university, he has waged an unceasing war on the homeless and used his position as president of the Willard Neighborhood Association to help put into play the University of California’s most ambitious and audacious land-grab to date.  

It’s important to me to get my facts straight, so I called George and invited him to come out and take a ride on my wheelchair trailer. As we rode along, I asked him questions. I wanted to understand how someone that had so many blessings in his life could be so callous towards those that had so little. I asked him why he went after the young people at the Le Chateau student co-op housing. He told me that all the kids there were on heroin! I think their crime was that they allowed Food not Bombs to cook one meal there a week for the homeless and poor in People’s Park and were generally supportive to community efforts to help those in need. George said that he only helped organize the lawsuit and that it was his life partner John that was actually a plaintiff and got a monetary award.  

“But don’t you live three blocks away and around the corner,” I asked.  

“Well not really that far,” he answered.  

Then I asked him about his favorite scare tactic: the assertion that “We have found 1,000 hypodermic needles in People’s Park in the last eight months.” I call this the “Thousand Points of Fright” platform. In 20 years of working (and at one point living) in the park, I have found maybe three. I asked Terri Compost who has been doing the gardening almost daily for many years. She said she might have come across five, and my wife, who was born in Berkeley and has been playing in People’s Park since she was 8, said that she never has found one, but maybe has seen some caps that go on the needles. We bring our young kids to the park and childproof the area before we let them play and if there were needles there I’d be the first up in arms.  

His attacks on the free-box that brought clothes to many homeless and working poor have left many out in the cold, and has even left my family without enough clothes. And the promise to completely redesign the park to be “more like Willard” while not only being disrespectful of years of work of the people of this community is completely insane. Willard Park has like three trees!!! You would cut down the trees in People’s Park while the polar ice caps fall off into the ocean?  

And then there was the little business about the pamphlet put out by George and the Willard Neighborhood Association. The flyer distributed to students and renters in his neighborhood was titled “How to be a good neighbor” and schools the peasants on how to behave. It even points out the laws you could be breaking if you make too much noise or your car is ugly. George said that the flyer was actually written by Irene Hagerty, director of Community Relations at Cal. When I asked him didn’t he think it a little unethical to use a neighborhood association as a front for the university and a vehicle to gobble up the Southside neighborhood, he seemed perplexed. In an interview with Irene and George dated Sept. 21 by Kate MacMillan in NorthGate Online, an online newspaper put out by the Cal Graduate School of Journalism, Ms. MacMillan, who takes no pains to hide her revulsion of the lower classes, quotes Irene Hagerty as saying, “The university has no plans to build anything more substantial than a childcare center or rehab center in the park.” What will they be rehabbed for, their lack of greed and avarice? When asked about People’s Park, George says, “It’s gross, something has got to be done.” What is gross, George? All the trees? The green grass? Or is it the people that Ms. MacMillan describes as gray lumps?  

Sometime back someone wrote that if I use strong words like Nazi and fascist in my writing, what will I have to use when I am confronting real evil? What we tend to forget is that before the Nazis went full out evil on the Jews, they did a test-run on the homeless and the disabled. When not many cared to speak up, they figured they could get away with anything. Some people say that the ideals of the park are outdated and naive, but I feel that with a horrible war and our planet and the human race in dire peril from global warming, we have never needed the park and its message of a community united more. The politics of fear have always been used by those who lack the skill and vision to tackle the real problems. If you want to improve People’s Park, ask the university to stop demonizing the park and scaring away good people who would make use of it. In Ms. MacMillan’s article student Katie Solinberger is quoted as saying, “I always take a longer route to the park. They pretty much warned us about doing that during orientation. It would be nice to hang out there, but there are always cops there and it just seems like there is a lot of shady stuff going on.” But what Ms. Solenberger does not know is that the folks up in the UC have plans for the park and if she hung out there it would become much harder for them to bring that about.  

It’s been almost 15 years since I told Andy Ross at Cody’s that if he ran off all the characters on Telegraph, he would have to hire actors to play them. Our community and Cal students are not enough to sustain the businesses on Telegraph and their high rents. These rents are reflective of a place that is a tourist destination. So when you run people off, chase them around with green machines and deploy cops on every corner, it tends to put a damper on the scene those tourists are looking for. I was up on the Avenue the other night and there were two cops for every person out there. While they were harassing homeless people down by Haste, a young student got shot up on Durant. There is a lot of crime in that area, but it comes in the form of out-of-town people who see our students as rich and easy marks. Not from People’s Park, the free-box or the homeless. We need to address the reality of what is going on. Berkeley police spokeswoman Mary Kusmiss says about Telegraph and People’s Park, “The perception of crime has as much impact on a community as actual crime,” and she is right. Isn’t it time we came together and changed these perceptions, dust off the ideals that made this community a leader in doing the right thing for all people and admired throughout the world? Isn’t it time before the point is moot and our planet is irreparably damaged and we are all under water?  

Dan McMullan works with the Disabled People Outside Project. 

Opinions expressed in Daily Planet commentary and letters to the editor are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Daily Planet or its staff.  

On Aug. 23, 17 members of the Warm Pool attended the School Board meeting asking for your support. We were not just representing ourselves. We were representing approximately 400 people a week, in ages ranging from two months old to 88, who exercise, rehabilitate themselves, and gain strength and peace of mind at this valuable facility. Included in this group are the following: 

• 21-month-old Alejandro Gonzales, one of 30 other infants in the Parent-Tot classes that meet each week. He loves playing with his parents in the water and especially doing the Hokey Pokey.  

• 3-year-old Kamiko Schrader, one of fifty-five disabled children in Dori Maxon’s Special Needs classes. She’s blind with Cerebral Palsy, and the warm water drastically reduces her seizures and relaxes her enough to sleep at night.  

• Dr. Andrea Thatch, one of 200 who benefit from the Recreation Department’s Disabled and Senior Swim Program. She suffers from degenerative arthritis. Before coming here, she had to rely on a cane and on mind-clouding medications. Now her pain has decreased 80 percent.  

• Iris Gomez, one of a hundred men and women who attend Berkeley City College’s Disabled Swim classes. She has Lupus, Congestive Heart Failure, and Fibromyalgia. The warm water not only soothes her pain, but allows her to survive without a pacemaker. Without the pool, she wouldn’t be able to function. She might not be alive. 

I should also mention the 40 men and women who participate in Arthritis Movement classes, Fear of Swimming classes, and Spirit Walking Aqua-Chi classes.  

At the Aug. 23 meeting each of us got a turn to address the board. When the last person was finished, there was a surprising silence in the room. None of you asked a question, made a comment, or expressed an opinion, with the exception of your president Terry Dolan. He gave a stirring speech asserting how he’d always been a strong advocate of the Warm Pool, and would continue to do everything in his power to help us. I was about to leap out of my wheelchair and start doing cartwheels ‘til I caught his concluding sentence. “Unfortunately,” he said, “I will no longer be on the board after the election.”  

When I rolled out of the meeting later that evening, I’d had my fill of silent stares and passionate oratory. I wanted to hear some straight talk from the board, individually and collectively. I still want to hear it. Why were the rest of you silent? What do you stand for Joaquin Rivera? Nancy Riddle? John Selawsky? Shirley Issel? Superintendent Lawrence? 

Are you willing to commit yourself to the Warm Pool not just in words, but on paper?  

Are you, in fact, going to give the tennis court property to the city so that a new pool can be built there, or are you planning to sell it instead?  

Or will you refuse to do either, and wash your hands of the situation?  

Most importantly, are you prepared to assure us that the Warm Pool will be renovated in its present location or that a new one will be built before any demolition occurs?  

I believe these questions should be answered as soon as possible, preferably before the upcoming November elections. We’ve already waited too long for a resolution to this issue. 

I think part of the problem is that you underestimate how valuable this facility is, how essential it is to its constituents. The Warm Pool is not your average Berkeley pool. I cannot emphasize this enough. It is the only heated public pool in the East Bay. Unlike other pools, when it is closed we users are not merely disappointed, but suffer actual physical pain. Our bodies tighten up. Our muscles spasm. It becomes much harder to sleep. Does that happen to you when you miss a day of swimming? If you took the time to check it out for yourself you’d discover what a unique community it is, the most democratic community in Berkeley. The aged, obese, sick, and disabled who are still often discriminated against in our progressive city, are treated with compassion. The pool is a constant source of emotional support. Empathy. You can talk about your difficulties and people will pay attention, which itself is a therapeutic experience. It’s also a place to gain helpful information. New medications, alternative treatments, and the names of innovative doctors are shared. Each time we slide into the soothing waters we regain a tiny part of ourselves which had been taken away by disease, injury, or the unrelenting process of aging.  

I do appreciate the board’s willingness all these years to house the Warm Pool at the Milvia location. I’m grateful for your efforts to maintain it; fixing the broken windows, making sure the electrical doors work smoothly, keeping the locker rooms functional and clean. I also want to thank you for including the Warm Pool Committee in the Site Planning Process. Most of all, I want to express my gratitude to you for offering the tennis court property across the street as a possible new location for the Pool. 

There is some confusion, however, regarding this offer which I’d like clarified. For too long, a cloud of ambivalence has hovered over this subject. In 1996 Jack McLaughlin, the BUSD Superintendent, actively encouraged the Warm Pool Committee to participate in meetings with teachers and architects to convert the Old Gym building, into classrooms and athletic facilities. He repeatedly told us that the Warm Pool was definitely included in his plans.  

In 2000, when Berkeley voters passed a $ 3.2 million bond to finance the renovation of the pool, we assumed that McLaughlin’s promises would reach fruition. However, studies showed that the pool was seismically unsound. As a result, the BUSD decided to tear down the present building and replace it with new classrooms. That’s when assurances were given about the tennis court land. Lew Jones, the school district’s facility director, made promises to that effect. So did present board member Shirley Issel. And Terry Dolan has reiterated this on a number of recent occasions.  

The problem is that neither McLaughlin’s words, nor Ms. Issel’s, nor Mr. Jones, nor Mr. Dolan’s, nor the statements of any of their colleagues were ever made in writing. There are no legal documents.  

Kind words and promises only go so far. At some point, we need to see something definitive, something concrete that we can count on.  

That time is now.  

Your soon-to-be-ex-president, given his speech at the Aug. 23 meeting, is willing to work with you. The City Council is willing to work with you. We in the Warm Pool Committee are willing to work with you. I call on you to make a commitment, to join us in this effort. Anything less is a betrayal of all the voters who passed the $3.2 million bond, as well as the hundreds of us who regard the Warm Pool as our lifeblood.  

Daniel Rudman has been a Warm Pool user for 20 years. 

Opinions expressed in Daily Planet commentary and letters to the editor are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Daily Planet or its staff.  

There are times when the tensions between Venezuela and the Bush Administration seem closer to commedia dell arte than politics: Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez compares President George W. Bush to the devil, right down to the smell of sulfur; Homeland Security responds by strip searching Venezuela’s Foreign Minister at a New York airport; Venezuela seizes 176 pounds of frozen chicken on its way to the U.S. Embassy in Caracas. 

But recent initiatives by the White House suggest that the Administration has more than tit for tat in mind. 

In late June, Southern Command, the arm of the U.S. military in Latin America, concluded that efforts by Venezuela, Ecuador and Bolivia to extend state control over their oil and gas reserves poised a threat to U.S. oil supplies. 

While Latin America produces only 8.4 percent of the world’s oil output, it supplies 30 percent of the U.S.’s needs.  

“A re-emergence of state control of the energy sector will likely increase inefficiencies and, beyond an increase in short-term profits, will hamper efforts to increase long-term supplies and production,” the study concludes. In an interview with the Financial Times, Col. Joe Nunez, a professor of strategy at the U.S. Army War College, added an observation that ought to send a collective chill down the backs of the three countries named: “It is incumbent upon the Command to contemplate beyond strictly military matters.”  

That one of the U.S. military’s most powerful arms should find itself deep in the energy business should hardly come as a surprise. 

Four months after Bush took office, Vice President Dick Cheney’s National Energy Policy Development Group recommended that the administration “make energy security policy a priority of our trade and foreign policy.” 

The Administration has faithfully followed that blueprint for the past years, where it has used war and muscular diplomacy to corner energy supplies for U.S. in the Middle East and Central Asia 

But what most Americans don’t know is that Venezuela sits on the largest energy reserves in the world, a staggering 1.3 trillion barrels of oil, almost three times the reserves of Saudi Arabia, Iraq, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait combined. 

Most Venezuelan oil is heavy and expensive to refine, but as long as oil stays above $30 a barrel—and few doubt it will go lower—it is an almost endless gold mine. 

The bone the U.S. is picking with Hugo is not about bombast; it’s about oil. 

Shortly after Southern Command’s report, the White House appointed J. Patrick Maher, a 31-year Central Intelligence Agency veteran, to head up a special task force for gathering intelligence on Venezuela and Cuba. Only North Korea and Iran have similar posts. In a move that almost exactly parallels how intelligence was handled in the run up to the Iraq war, Maher will bypass the CIA and report directly to President Bush. 

Maher’s appointment followed a full court press by a group of neo-conservatives grouped around National Security Director John Negroponte, then CIA chief Porter Goss, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and her deputy, Robert Zoellick.  

The campaign against Chavez on the executive side is matched by a similar push on the congressional side. Senator Richard Lugar (R-In), chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, recently urged the Bush Administration to adopt “contingency plans” in case of a disruption of oil supplies from Venezuela. In a July letter to Rice, the Senator said that Venezuela has an “undue ability to impact USA security and our economy.” Lugar went on to warn that there was a “real risk” that Venezuela could “act in concert” with other countries and that “we have a responsibility to plan appropriate contingencies that protect the American people.” 

The current campaign against Chavez is really Round Two in the White House’s drive to unseat him. 

As Freedom of Information Act documents reveal, the Bush Administration already tried to overthrow Chavez in an April 2002 coup. 

Then Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, Otto Reich, met several times with coup leaders, and Deputy Secretary of Defense for Western Hemispheric Affairs, Rogelio Pardo-Maurer met with military coup leader Gen. Lucas Romero Rincon.  

Cuban exile Reich, and Pardo-Maurer, were major players in the 1980s Contra war against Nicaragua. Pardo-Maurer was the Contra’s leading spokesperson, and Reich was forced to resign from the Reagan Administration for planting false stories in the U.S. Media.  

The CIA, through the National Endowment for Democracy and the United States Agency for International Development, bankrolled Chavez’s opponents, and helped organize and support the strike by white collar oil workers and ships captains eight months after the coup collapsed. 

Since then, the administration has kept up a drumbeat of attacks. Rice warned that Chavez was, “A major threat to the region,” U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld compared Chavez to Adolph Hitler, and Zoellick told the Senate that Chavez was part of a new “creeping authoritarianism.”  

In March, a National Security Strategy document charged that Chavez was “undermining democracy,” and at an Oct. 2 meeting of Latin American defense ministers in Managua, Nicaragua, Gen. Bantz J. Craddock of Southern Command called Chavez a “destabilizing” force in the region. 

What really worries the U.S. is that Chavez is trying to diversify Venezuela’s clientele. 

Venezuela is currently building a pipeline across Colombia in order to ship more oil to China, and is working on plans for a $25 billion pipeline across the Amazon to markets in Chile, Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina. According to the Latin American Energy Organization, the Great Southern Pipeline could save Latin Americans $100 billion in lower gas and oil prices over the next 20 years. 

China is pouring in billions to develop fields in Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador to give it the inside corner on future resources. 

The “China connection” is one that concerns the Bush Administration, not only because it siphons off oil that normally would go to the U.S., but also because the White House sees China as a rival and has done its best to elbow Peking out of the Middle East and Central Asia.  

But Latin America is a different place than it was a decade ago when it was mired in debt, characterized by low growth and beholden to the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. When Rice told House members that the Bush Administration was building a “united front” against Venezuela, it is likely to be a narrow front indeed. 

Venezuela has helped bail Ecuador and Argentina out of debt, invested in projects in Bolivia, and poured almost $20 billion in bond purchases and debt relief into Latin America. In contrast, U.S. aid to the region is $1.7 billion a year, and a billion of that is for the U.S. war on drugs. 

Given Chavez’s enormous popularity in his country and Latin America—according to Datanalius, his positive rate on the continent is 77 percent—it is hard to see what the White House can do about Venezuela’s president.  

But that is not likely to discourage it from trying, and the people the Administration has recruited to target him are just the kind of operatives who won’t shy away from anything up to, and including, the unthinkable: assassination. 

Sometimes, in politics, you come to a point where it is not possible to provide definitive answers, only questions. We seem to have come to such a point in the proposed sale of the Oakland Unified School District downtown properties. The question is: Why is that proposed sale still on the table? 

The original Letter of Intent giving exclusive negotiating rights to developers TerraMark/UrbanAmerican expired in mid-September, but that deadline was extended by mutual agreement of the developers and the developees (the developees in this case being represented by the office of State Superintendent Jack O’Connell, even though it’s Oakland Unified School District property that we’re talking about).  

What TerraMark and Mr. O’Connell have been doing since then is anybody’s guess. Are they negotiating new terms? Are they passing new proposals back and forth by fax or email? Are they talking over the telephone or holding meetings in Sacramento or New York? Are they trying to peel away portions of the land sale opposition, particularly representatives of the three schools and two child development centers who will be directly affected by the proposed property sale? Or are the developers and Mr. O’Connell just sitting on the deal, waiting on a possible change in the political winds? The public—particularly the Oakland public—doesn’t know. 

Meanwhile, though the legal foundation of the proposed land sale rests solidly on state law (the SB39 legislation that authorized the state takeover of Oakland Unified), the political foundation of that proposed sale is on decidedly shaky ground. 

State Senator Don Perata, who wrote SB39 and engineered its passage through the legislature in 2003, says that the provisions authorizing the sale of OUSD property to help pay down the state loan was put in at the request of the school board. 

While technically it was, memories are now murky on who originally came up with the idea. Did it come from board members themselves, or did they pick up suggestions that were being floated by other source? I’ve asked, and no one now seems to remember. Some of the board members certainly thought before the takeover actually took place that the sale—or lease—of the administration lands might speed up the time that local control could be returned. And trustee Dan Siegel now recalls that the land sale provision that ended up in the 2003 board resolution requesting the state bailout loan came from former Superintendent Dennis Chaconas, but only in the context of a request for a state trustee, rather than a state administrator (the difference is significant; under a trustee, the district would have retained most of its powers, including the power to sell, or not sell, its own land). And none of the board members who voted on the 2003 state loan resolution say they believed at the time that any land sale would involve property on which schools were located—as is the case in the current TerraMark/UrbanAmerica proposal. 

In any event, sale of the OUSD property to pay down the state loan was not required under SB39; it was only authorized. And clearly, no matter what OUSD board members thought about that idea in those frantic days in 2003 when they were trying to stave off both bankruptcy and state takeover, board members have since changed their minds. Six of the seven sitting board members have gone on record opposing the sale of any district property until local control is restored. And even the one board member who believes that surplus administrative property should be sold to help pay down the loan—Kerry Hamill—has expressed criticisms about the way Mr. O’Connell and the folks at TerraMark/UrbanAmerican have structured the current proposed deal. 

In other words, whatever support among OUSD board members in 2003 for a proposed sale or lease of OUSD properties has long since vanished in the face of three years of state control of Oakland Unified and the actual terms of the TerraMark/UrbanAmerica deal. Mr. O’Connell can no longer use that former board support as his reason for the current deal. 

And, yet, the deal remains on the table. Why? In the absence of any details coming out of the state superintendent’s office these days, we can only speculate. 

One theory is that while the T/U deal doesn’t make financial sense for the district, it is an exit strategy for Mr. O’Connell, a way for him to leave the district without taking responsibility for the bleak financial situation that has escalated at Oakland Unified under his watch. It has been widely acknowledged—even in the state legislation that authorized the state takeover—that the school board and former Superintendent Dennis Chaconas failed to balance the district’s budget only because they were given incorrect financial information. But since the state takeover the unbalanced budgets have continued, even though Mr. O’Connell and his chosen state administrator have known that they are engaging in deficit spending. 

That particular fact was most troubling to the Fiscal Crisis & Management Assistance Team (FCMAT), which wrote in its latest report that “an issue of great concern is the structural deficit [at Oakland Unified]… The size of the district’s long-term debt has increased and the district has not remedied its previous pattern of deficit spending. Expenditures surpassed revenues in the 2004-05 and 2005-06 budget years. Although the district was still closing its books at the time of FCMAT’s [recent] visit, district reports showed deficit spending of $2.9 million and an undesignated unrestricted fund balance of [a negative] $8.3 million. The draw down of the remainder of the state loan [the $35 million former state administrator Randolph Ward borrowed in his last days before leaving the job], while perhaps necessary, will tend to inflate the district’s revenues for the 2006-07 budget year with one-time funds that will not support ongoing operational expenditures.” 

How can Mr. O’Connell possibly overcome such dismal ratings in the area of financial management of Oakland Unified, the major area that the state was supposed to come in and fix? Like the old Vietnam War era exit strategy of simply declaring victory and leaving, perhaps Mr. O’Connell is planning on saying that the TerraMark/UrbanAmerica deal—if signed—puts the district back on sound financial footing with an infusion of cash. He could then say that through the deal he solved Oakland Unified’s financial problems, and could then recommend taking the first steps towards local control. 

It’s a shaky argument, at best, but when you’ve failed so miserably at your assignment—as Mr. O’Connell has so far in his assignment to fix Oakland Unified’s finances—you’ve got to grasp at any straw you can get. 

Another theory as to why the proposed OUSD land sale deal with TerraMark/UrbanAmerica remains on the table is that Mr. O’Connell, by himself, can’t take it off. 

With much of Oakland united against it, the T/U deal clearly hurts Mr. O’Connell’s chances of winning the Democratic gubernatorial nomination in 2010, something he has said he is interested in seeking if Mr. Schwarzenegger wins re-election next month. If Mr. O’Connell had the power to drop the deal himself, and personal political ambition was the only factor, it would seem that he would have gone to the TerraMark/UrbanAmerica folks some weeks ago and said that it’s been nice, guys, but I’m going to have to cut you loose. 

But there are other politicians with interest in this pie, and they may be the ones who are holding Mr. O’Connell’s hands to the cooking fire, even if it ends up burning the state superintendent politically. 

One of these politicians, obviously, is State Senator Don Perata, who reportedly has been pushing for the sale of the district administrative properties for several years, who has threatened the state takeover of Oakland Unified several times, and who put the property sale provisions into his OUSD state takeover bill. There are reports that Mr. Perata does not favor the TerraMark/UrbanAmerica deal, but with Mr. Perata and development deals, one doesn’t always necessarily know, does one? 

And then there is outgoing Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown. Robert Gammon of the East Bay Express has said that TerraMark owners the Fisher family of New York had a longtime relationship with Mr. Brown, and that TerraMark officials came to Oakland and met with Brown in the fall of 2003, when, according to Mr. Gammon, Mr. Brown “told [the developers] about the city's then-red-hot housing market and his so-called ‘10K Plan’ for bringing ten thousand residents to downtown.” Shortly afterwards, TerraMark was deep into its proposal with the state superintendent’s office to buy the Oakland Unified property. In his August 16 article about the OUSD land sale, Mr. Gammon never said that Mr. Brown and TerraMark made a deal about the Oakland Unified land, but the inference was that TerraMark met Mr. Brown’s approval, and that the outgoing mayor could be the main one pushing Mr. O’Connell to keep the deal alive. 

Somebody is keeping the TerraMark/UrbanAmerica deal alive, in any event. But right now, Oakland has only been provided with a continuing set of questions, and not many answers.  

If you’re looking for architecture inspired by precedent, there’s no better place to look than the University of California campus. Nowhere else in town is so much architectural variety concentrated within such a confined area. And the precedents are apparent in all manner of buildings, from the most prominent to the humblest. 

Anthony Hall (1957) 

Just a few paces east of Sather Gate, between Moses Hall and the hulking Barrows Hall, a charming pavilion shelters under oaks and redwoods on the south bank of Strawberry Creek. Most people would recognize it by the bronze pelican statue on the lawn. 

The building is strongly reminiscent of the First Church of Christ, Scientist: wide, sheltering roof eaves; unfinished redwood posts and beams; dragon-head beam ends; industrial steel-sash windows; rough stucco tinted a blotchy red; a colonnaded trellis; cast-concrete post capitals bearing pelican reliefs. They all cry out, “Maybeck!” 

But wait a minute! Those plain round concrete pillars supporting the trellis are modern. Maybeck never used those. How can this beguiling pavilion be so Maybeck and yet not be? 

The answer harks back to April 16, 1903. On that day, wealthy UC student Earle C. Anthony (1880–1961) founded the humor magazine California Pelican. Begun with a staff of ten, the Pelican was in operation until the 1980s and for many years ranked among the top college humor magazines in the nation. Along the decades, its contributors included the likes of Rube Goldberg, Jon Carroll, and the jazz singer Susannah McCorkle. 

Following graduation, the enterprising Anthony made his name in cars and broadcasting. From 1915 to 1958, he was the Packard distributor for all of California. It is said that one out of every seven Packards ever sold passed through his showrooms. In 1923, the Los Angeles Packard dealership’s neon signs were the first installed in the United States. 

With his father, Anthony invented the gas station, opening the first two in California. Their trademark was the chevron, which Anthony soon sold to Standard Oil. He was also a bus-line pioneer, founding the company that would become Greyhound. In the early 1920s, Anthony built the Los Angeles radio station KFI AM, to which he would add KECA AM, now KABC. 

The Packard showrooms in San Francisco, Oakland, and Los Angeles were designed in the 1920s by Bernard Maybeck, who was also responsible for Anthony’s Los Angeles mansion. Thus, when Anthony decided in 1954 to donate $90,000 for a Berkeley campus building to house the Pelican, it was Maybeck he turned to. 

The elderly architect, already in his nineties, declined the commission, referring it to Joseph Esherick (1914–1998). Esherick, a leading Bay Area modernist who taught at UC Berkeley for many years, would co-found the College of Environmental Design with William Wurster and Vernon DeMars. His best-known projects are Wurster Hall (with DeMars and Donald Olsen), Sea Ranch, the San Francisco Cannery, and the Monterey Aquarium. 

Anthony Hall is Esherick’s tribute to Maybeck. It’s been called “a unique overlap of First and Second Bay Traditions.” In their obituary for Esherick, Richard Peters and Jean-Pierre Protzen marveled, “Who would ever guess that the architect of the Pelican Building on the Berkeley campus is also the architect of Wurster Hall?” In 1992, the AIA California Council fittingly honored Esherick with the first Maybeck Award. 

And what of the Pelican? According to Bob Wieder, who edited the magazine in the ’60s, Anthony had funded the building “with the stipulation that it would forever house the Pelican and only the Pelican. It took the University years of legal weaseling to undo the terms of his will…Pelly was booted from the Pelican Building around 1973 and gradually withered away in Eshleman Hall.” 

Anthony Hall is now the home of the Graduate Student Assembly. 

Senior Hall (1906) 

If Anthony Hall is a traditional building by a modernist, Senior Hall is a vernacular building by an academician. 

“Perhaps the most famous and quintessential wood building is the log cabin,” notes architectural historian Richard Guy Wilson, who adds, ”by the mid 19th century, these simple buildings had captured the American imagination and have remained there ever since. Celebrated in politics and prose, and illustrated innumerably in paintings and prints, the log cabin came to represent the frontier spirit and earlier times.” 

Popularly associated with integrity and democratic values, the log cabin was a fitting venue for leaders of the Cal student body when they gathered to discuss problems and issues of common interest. These discussions were the main purpose and activity of the Order of the Golden Bear, founded in 1900. 

In 1905, when the Order of the Golden Bear received permission to build a student hall on campus, the university’s supervising architect was John Galen Howard, a product of the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Having arrived at Cal in 1902, he already had a few campus buildings to his name, chief among them the Hearst Greek Theater the Hearst Memorial Mining Building (the latter still under construction), and California Hall, all with Classical antecedents. 

On the face of it, Howard was the person least likely to design a log cabin. Yet this New Englander was attuned to vernacular architecture, went on various sketching expeditions, and would design several brown-shingled buildings on campus and nearby. 

Steve Finacom, who compiled the history of the Order of the Golden Bear, wrote that Howard’s intent was to reflect “characteristic California Architecture.” Located behind the Faculty Club, Senior Hall was likened by Professor Henry Morse Stephens to the “heart” of the university, with the Faculty Club representing its “mind.” 

Sather Tower (1914) 

In John Galen Howard’s body of work, a log cabin was a decided aberration. Far more typical was the stately Campanile, which almost overnight turned into Berkeley’s most enduring icon. 

Howard wanted the bell tower to “rise with a slender stem, bursting into bloom at the summit.” No American precedent could fit the bill, and Howard reached over the Atlantic for his model. Anyone who has visited Venice or seen pictures of Piazza San Marco will recognize Sather Tower as a simplified version of the Campanile di San Marco. 

There are differences between the two towers. The shaft of the Venetian Campanile is built of red brick, whereas Sather Tower is a steel structure clad in granite. The Italian belfry features four arched openings on each side, while the California version has three. The original has a ribbed shaft with slit fenestrations along the sides; in the copy, the shaft is almost plain, and the slits run down the center. On the other hand, only Sather Tower is ornamented with corner obelisks topped by bronze finial flames symbolizing enlightenment. Yet there’s no mistaking its origin. 

The Campanile di San Marco is 323.5 feet tall (Berkeley’s reaches 303 feet). It was built between the 9th and 12th centuries. Having suffered earthquake damage in 1511, the tower was restored by the architects Giorgio Spavento and Bartolomeo Bon, assuming its present appearance in 1513. 

Several additional restorations took place over the intervening centuries, but on July 14, 1902 the Campanile di San Marco collapsed. Photos of the time show a hillock of rubble in Piazza San Marco that fortunately left the surrounding buildings unharmed. 

The Venetians wasted no time and rebuilt their Campanile dov’era e com’era (exactly where and as it had been). The reconstructed tower was inaugurated on St. Mark’s Day, April 25, 1912. The following year, construction began on Sather Tower in Berkeley. 

Photograph by Daniella Thompson. Built in 1957, Anthony Hall looks like a Maybeck building for a reason.  

One of the toughest parts of my job has always been finding the justification to support large expenditures on my client’s part. While it may be fun to spend someone else’s money, you won’t make much of a reputation telling everyone that they need a new foundation. You have to parse the good-enough from the doesn’t-cut-it and that’s often disconcerting (for me and for my client). 

On the other hand some calls are easy. Anything that’s somewhat life threatening and or life saving and involves the amount of money in the average person’s wallet is a clear and resounding ‘yea.’ Locks on windows that prevent escape can be removed without any cost if the client is amenable and possessing of a screwdriver. 

A double cylinder lock (locks from both sides) can prevent escape in a fire and can be replaced with a single cylinder type for about 20 bucks and the same screwdriver. The replacement has a thumb turn on the inside and can be opened almost unconsciously by a fleeing would-be victim. 

Old breakers can be replaced by able persons for about five bucks a-piece (don’t try this unless you have real experience and knowledge of high watts) and improve the fire safety of the building. 

These are just a few examples and there are many more. I love these trick or treat inspection gimmies and try to throw lots of them out in my daily work because a) they put smiles on faces and b) they can save lives when the dollars are shy. 

The one I love the most is particularly timely just now as the clocks are about to change and it is our new little friend the smoke-detector. I say new because the device isn’t even 40 years old (invented in 1969 by Kenneth House and Randolph Smith in the U.S.). Also, I mention the changing of the clocks because it’s time to change the batteries and certainly time to review the state of your smoke-detectors. 

If you’re a landlord (Ooooo, evil word in Berkeley. You must be keep slaves and worshiping Baal if you own an apartment) you should be particularly sensitive to the state of smoke-detectors. I’ve seen a lot of disabled smoke-detectors in tenant occupied spaces in my years in the biz and it behooves (you cloven heel, you) landlords to check and service smoke-detectors regularly since tenants tend to be less aware of these issues. 

It’s also common for the young immortals of our dear Alma Mater to remove batteries that are annoyingly chirping (in need of changing) or to steal the battery for more amusing uses (like that cool radio controlled monster truck). 

Many agencies and yours truly recommend changing smoke-detector batteries when you change the clocks, twice a year. I recommend buying 9V batteries, which are pricey, in large allotments when the sales are on at the drug store, at places like Costco or other discount stores. Check the sales and stock up on regular Alkaline 9V batteries (these are the rectangular ones with the two terminals on one end). I don’t recommend Lithium long-life batteries since they don’t tend to last nearly as long as reputed and they tend to make us forget about servicing the smoke detector. 

If you keep half a dozen or more in the house, you’re more likely to change them when they start to chirp and less likely to just back that battery off 1/8” as I so often see. Here’s a protocol I practice. Never back the battery off. Just take it out. That way you won’t think there’s a battery inside (nor will the next person). You have to look carefully to see the difference between a backed-off battery and a fully installed one. The other protocol is that I never leave the cover on a smoke-detector that is missing a battery. Leave it open as a reminder if you have to go get a battery and make the replacement a priority. In Berkeley we would call that “taking care of yourself” and that’s a GOOD thing. It’s also taking care of your family, your tenant and the neighbors, since all those people may be affected. Your fire, can quickly become a fire for others. If you live in an apartment or condo complex, your fire can ruin the day or life of many others so it’s vital that you keep good batteries in these things.  

It’s like voting. If you couldn’t vote (all too new to you women out there) you’d be terribly excited when it came along and you’d rush to the polls as those, new to free-elections, tend to do (ah if we could only turn out in numbers like that).  

We should treat smoke-detectors like that. They are life-saving miracles that cost less than a typical lunch out and the batteries cost about the same as a Grande Decaf at Starbucks. There is no reason in the world not to have plenty of them and to keep them fully charged and ready to scream. By the way, do test your smoke-detectors when you put the batteries in and, at least, seasonally. Do it when you clean the house (it also helps to vacuum the detectors itself). Keep a rod of some sort around to test them with so that you won’t need a ladder.  

Smoke-detectors don’t do a very good job when the smoke can’t reach them so here’s some general thinking on where to put them and roughly the number you will need. This also comes from the NFPA (National Fire Protection Agency) and most local fire departments. 

Smoke-detectors need to be on both sides of the door to your sleeping room (and everyone else’s sleeping room too). That means that you want one in the hall or the living room and that you want one in each of the bedrooms. You also want to have at least one on every level of the house. If you have a three-bedroom, split-level house, this means you’ll want to have five detectors. They’re easy to install and if you want to use some two-part Velcro to put them up, that’s just fine. 

Smoke rises (Because it’s hot and has a lower density than air) and this means that it heads for the ceiling first. If the smoke-detector is on the wall, it takes longer to go off and longer to wake you up. Put smoke-detectors on the ceiling and try to place them at least 4” away from the corner since smoke tends to curl past the corner and hits the ceiling a few inches in from the wall. Place detectors on the highest part of the room if there is a change in height (even though this will make battery replacement more difficult). You might want to get yourself a good ladder for installation and servicing of these. 

A few notes on smoke-detectors. There are different types and some are better than others but the primary safety, in my never-humble opinion, is in have plenty of them. Having 3 or more working smoke-detectors virtually assures that you’ll be awoken from your reverie in time to preempt this most terrible and unnecessary of deaths. 

Consider installing at least one “hard-wired” smoke-detector. This type wires into the 120 volt house current and only fails to function if the power is out (what’s the likelihood that both things will occur at the same time?). If you’re doing a mid-sized remodel on your home (such as a bath remodel), the city will likely force this gift-of-safety upon you. By the way, speaking of gifts, this, like the carbon-monoxide tester, makes a great gift and really does say I love you in a way that a bottle of wine just doesn’t. 

I inspected for an Oakland fireman a few years ago and we chatted quite a bit about fires, smoke-detectors and home escape. At one point I asked him a question about the removal of occupants from burning building and he sort of laughed and said ”Oh, we don’t do that much anymore. Since smoke-detectors started being used, the people are usually already outside and we just have to put out the blaze.”  

I think I’ll leave it right there.  

Got a question about home repairs and inspections? Send them to Matt Cantor at mgcantor@pacbell.net.

The older and bumblinger I get—and believe me, I’m starting from an advanced baseline of bumblitude—the more I appreciate how forgiving a process gardening is. Composting is one of the more forgiving parts of it, and cheapest. It can stink if you do it wrong—but, if you do it wrong, it generally still works.  

The theory: Pile some greens and some browns in alternating layers, aerate, and in a little while you’ll have wonderful fertilizer instead of garbage. Sounds easy until you have a can of garbage and you start analyzing. 

“Greens” means wet stuff, high-nitrogen: vegetable garbage (meat scraps are strictly for industrial-size piles) or fresh leaves, grass clippings. “Browns” means dry stuff, high-carbon: straw, shavings, dried leaves, sawdust.  

What else is compostable? Paper towels! Dryer lint! Dust bunnies! The stuff from the vacuum cleaner! Torn newspaper! Love letters cut up into little bitty pieces! 

Got a paper shredder? The confidential shreds get obliterated at the bottom of the compost pile. Pile the coffee grounds right on top of your classified secrets. (Coffee grounds are high-nitrogen seed meal, after all.) Run eggshells through the blender with a cup of water and toss the result onto the pile.  

You’re supposed to do all this in layers, get it into a 70/30 ratio, keep it moist but not wet, turn it every so often to let air in, even take its temperature, fuss fuss fuss. You know what? All that speeds the process, but even if you do it haphazardly you’ll get compost. One thing: put your heap on the ground; if you must put it on pavement, add a few shovelfuls of dirt from the garden by way of starter. In fact, that’s a good idea anyway.  

Sometimes you even get pleasant surprises. A few years ago, we had something in the bin way out back that drew biggish black flies. They’d spend hours sunning on the white garage doors. It was spring, and we started hearing a familiar terweep! all day, and we discovered a family of black phoebes, a pair and two youngsters in residence. They took care of the flies most entertainingly, darting from their perches to catch them with an audible snap and treating the garage doors as a smorgasbord.  

It’s nice to have a process that works well even if you do it badly but rewards learning and skill too. (OK, another process.) A well-managed compost heap does have an advantage besides speed: it gets hot enough to kill off a lot of disease organisms. Local organizations and Alameda County’s Stopwaste/Bay-Friendly program can mail you more information, and it’s easy enough to find in the library.  

You can become a Master Composter and earn college credits for it through the county, too; applications for the weekly February-through-May 2007 class are being accepted now. The county will also sell you a Biostack composter for $39 and/or a Wriggly Wranch worm composter for $29, if you’re a resident.  

Call 444-SOIL (7645) or see www.stopwaste.org for more information and to order or sign up.

How’s Your Earthquake Knowledge? (Part 3) 

Rate yourself: Are the following statements true, or false? 

1. The latest seismic technology has made earthquake prediction possible, but is only accurate up to 30 minutes before a major rupture.  

2. We can tell where an earthquake has occurred because we can see where the ground on the surface that has moved. 

3. The most shaking in earthquakes occurs next to the epicenter. 

The answer to each of the above is “false.” 

1. We do not have the ability to accurately predict earthquakes. 

2. We can only view a fault on the surface if the rupture which generated the earthquake extends to the surface. Strong earthquakes can occur without the rupture extending to the surface. The rupture did not extend to the surface in the 1994 Northridge earthquake, nor the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. 

3. The epicenter is only the point on the surface above the location where the fault begins the slip which generates the earthquake. The epicenter is not synonymous with “ground zero.” 

Larry Guillot is the owner of QuakePrepare, an earthquake consulting, securing and kit supply service. Contact him at 558-3299. Visit www.quakeprepare.com to receive e-mails and safety reports.  

It’s worrisome enough that Berkeley has failed to maintain a relatively simple blinking crosswalk at the risky Ashby/Piedmont intersection, as the Daily Planet reported on Oct. 6. 

But it’s really disturbing that Berkeley transportation manager Peter Hillier hadn’t been told about this months-old hazard until the Planet called him. And that traffic engineer Hamid Mostowfi is evidently refusing to fix it, for no stated reason. 

This is just one of several complaints that I’ve recently read or heard about Berkeley transportation management. 

For example, recent Daily Planet issues have contained an ad from a neighborhood group calling itself “tscb.org.” Its members complain that the city abruptly declared their block a no-parking zone, despite overwhelming local opposition. Their Website explains the issue in some complexity. 

Easier to understand is the botched stoplight phasing at Oxford/Hearst. That signal was given separate turn phases to reduce delays. Yet somehow, everyone now seems to wait longer to get through the intersection—especially pedestrians. 

Still easier to understand are the unwarranted “No Turn On Red” signs that have sprouted at that intersection and others. They’re widely ignored, because they’re unnecessary—“Yield” signs would have worked fine. 

But more importantly, no one recalls any public process by which Berkeley residents decided to give up our God-given Californian right to turn right on red. 

Then there was the recent change in Claremont Avenue’s posted speed limit—reportedly in response to one individual’s request, with no consultation of other nearby residents. 

Most notoriously, there were the 22 car parking spaces on Telegraph Avenue that suddenly turned into motorcycle parking spaces. This wasn’t because the Harley-Davidson community had requested more chopper parking. 

Rather, one of the kids on the city’s Bicycle Commission—sorry, “Transportation” Commission—apparently came up with a creative reading of the state’s lane-width requirements. And sold that to a city traffic engineer, who decided to just restripe the lanes and narrow the parking spaces to motorcycle width. 

He never bothered to warn adjacent merchants, who were understandably livid. Councilmember Kriss Worthington has reportedly persuaded the city to undo the fiasco, at a roundtrip cost of perhaps $65,000. 

Three common threads run through these stories. First, the Transportation Office has evidently done odd things by following procedures so by-the-book as to produce absurd results. 

Second, Transportation has tended to do odd things based on requests from one or two individuals, without consulting other affected parties. 

Third, Transportation has been slow to undo odd things—and has failed to do needed things—because of a broader reluctance to consult with the public. 

It’s not just ordinary city residents who can’t tell what Hillier’s priorities or guiding principles are. Professionals at some other agencies say they’re just as mystified, because Hillier and his staff have withdrawn from some joint meetings. 

This is all a paradox. Hillier came to Berkeley from Toronto, a lively big city that runs so smoothly that actor Peter Ustinov once called it “New York operated by the Swiss.” 

The department under which Hillier’s Transportation Office has been placed, Public Works, is one of Berkeley’s most responsive. Claudette Ford and her crews seem to get potholes filled almost as soon as residents report them. 

Hillier himself is perfectly courteous in one-on-one communications. And I’ve heard of at least one neighborhood that’s as happy with his work as the folks with the website are displeased. 

Mostowfi, I should also acknowledge, promptly answered an inquiry from me last spring. (I had asked him about a bizarre new curb extension at the Le Conte/Hearst intersection that dangerously blocks bicyclists’ paths. He couldn’t explain to me why he’d built the thing, but I appreciated his taking the time to try.) 

Overall, Berkeley transportation management didn’t used to be such a black box. One of Hillier’s predecessors, Jeff Knowles, actively engaged the community. He wrote newspaper commentaries offering the public a menu of traffic-management options, and invited our responses. 

So if we assume that good people are now producing disappointing results, the question is: why? 

One theory is that the Transportation Office’s recent snafus and stonewalling reflect higher officials’ lapses in exercising real oversight. Back when Knowles was polling the public about how to manage everyone else’s cars, we still had real debates on the City Council and its advisory commissions. 

That was when commissions held wide-open public workshops (not hand-picked “task forces”), and welcomed members of the public to participate as equals. Zelda Bronstein’s Planning Commission even transformed the city’s General Plan revision from a cloistered staff function into a remarkable citywide exercise in participatory democracy. 

Now, under Mayor Bates, public meetings tend to be short and collegial. Because they’re meaningless—all the real decisions have been made ahead of time, in private. And because commissions are stacked with compliant yes-people. 

The message from City Hall now is: Trust us to run things from the top down, because we’re experts. 

Except they’re not, and we can’t. Just ask the Telegraph merchants whose customers can hardly park, because 22 parking spaces evaporated. Or the Ashby BART neighbors who almost ended up with a megadevelopment made to order for a few well-connected boosters. 

On the whole, Berkeley’s government runs uncommonly well at the staff level. But it ran best when there was scrappy argument, and public clamor, at the elected and commission levels—and two uncoopted factions kept a vigilant eye on each other. 

A second theory is that Berkeley’s current transportation problems are rooted deeper and further back. Until a staff reorganization midway through Shirley Dean’s mayoralty, transportation management was itself productively divided. There were transportation planners in the Advance Planning department, and an independent Traffic Engineer’s office. 

That separation of powers actually served the public well. The planners would promote all the latest fads about how to inhibit the movement of vehicles with more than two wheels. The traffic engineer would often push back, arguing for the mobility of vehicles with four or more wheels. (Fire engines, for example, have a whole bunch.) 

They’d often argue to a compromise. The result was a city where it was very easy for me to ride my bike, but where cars, buses, and ambulances still sort of moved. 

Maybe merging those two constituencies into a single office was inherently a mistake. Perhaps senior planners are best at supervising planners, and senior traffic engineers are most authoritative at supervising traffic engineers.  

Merging the two cultures may have squelched worthwhile professional debate that would otherwise be out in public. Out, for example, in the form of healthily conflicting recommendations to the Council and its commissions. Call the merger Berkeley’s counterpart to burying FEMA under, um, “Homeland Security.” 

In any case, transportation issues rile Berkeley residents as much as anything does. How those issues get managed shouldn’t be a mystery. 

In this election season, you might hope that everyone in city government—from top electeds down to crews on the street—might recognize the merit of letting more sunlight flow into and out of the Transportation Office. 

Michael Katz served on the Berkeley Traffic Commission. For one meeting. It was great. 

The Alta Bates Emergency Room doctor gave Ralph 24 hours to live. An attendant wheeled Ralph, in a hospital bed, into the East Wing of ICU. The admitting doctor said Ralph probably wouldn’t make it through the night.  

Ralph’s eyes were open and he was struggling to breathe, but he wasn’t aware of my presence. “Take care of yourself,” everyone said, so I went home and lay down on the couch. The nursing staff promised to contact me if things got worse.  

At 11 p.m. they called and I went back to the hospital. I walked the six flights up to ICU, rang the security buzzer for admittance, sat beside Ralph’s bed for three hours and told him all the things I needed to say. He kept breathing, and his blood pressure rose. “Go home,” said the staff. “He’s gotten a little better.”  

Saturday went by and then Sunday. On Monday morning the doctors said they wanted to give Ralph a blood transfusion.  

I okayed the procedure, but issued a warning: “The last time Ralph had a transfusion, he almost got up and mowed the lawn. Be prepared for him to complain about food and cable TV.”  

“Your husband’s heart rate is dangerously high,” they said. “The transfusion could make him more comfortable, but the odds are 50/50 he’ll survive.”  

They didn’t know Ralph. By Tuesday he was asking for the sports page and preparing to watch the A’s on TV. The oxygen mask was removed from his face, revealing a huge, angry sore where the plastic edges had dug into his nose. He had a large black and blue mark on his neck caused by life saving measures in the ambulance. I couldn’t bear to pull down the sheet that covered the rest of his body.  

Late Tuesday night Ralph started to go down hill again. Wednesday morning Doctor Peterson said that Ralph would last only another 24 hours.  

Forty-eight hours went by before Ralph finally called it quits.  

But 26 days have passed and he still seems present. An autographed photo of Sandy Koufax arrived just the other day, an E-Bay purchase Ralph had secretly made when I wasn’t paying attention. Another package arrived soon after, a photograph of Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig, a small boy hoisted between them, all three smiling joyfully into the camera lens.  

Now comes the bills and the paperwork, the phone calls and the out-of-town guests, followed by cleaning and purging and a Social Security mess. I call the wheelchair people and tell them they are two weeks late on their follow-up appointment and the man who used the chair no longer needs it. Within record-breaking time someone returns my call and makes arrangements to pick up the chair. I wait around the house for hours but no one arrives. “Come get it now,” I shout angrily into the phone several days later, and they finally do.  

Funeral arrangements are made, credit card and bank accounts closed. The cell phone company needs an official death certificate in order to cancel our joint account. I’m not penalized for the closure, but I have to open a new one for myself, no breaks on the start-up fees.  

The Kaiser psychiatry department calls and explains they’ve gone through my records and notice that I haven’t seen a psychiatrist in over 10 years. Technically, they say, I shouldn’t be getting a prescription for anti-depressants without a yearly check-up. “You need to make an appointment ASAP before the prescription runs out,” they inform me. But the first appointment isn’t available until mid-January, and a quick glance at the pill bottle tells me I’ll need a refill long before then. “Can I get an extension until the appointment?” I ask. “No,” says the woman on the other end. “You can’t.”  

I decide not to argue with her. I can hear Ralph whispering in my ear. “You don’t need those damn pills anymore,” he says. I wonder what he’ll be telling me next.

Berkeley was a much different place 80 years ago. But then as now, it was prime barn owl territory. During the summer of 1926, E. Raymond Hall of UC’s Museum of Vertebrate Zoology kept track of a family of owls nesting in the tower of the First Presbyterian Church that then stood at Dana and Channing. Hall, who habitually worked late, heard them calling while walking home from the museum between 10 p.m. and midnight. 

Curious about their diet, he persuaded the church custodian to give him and Professor G. L. Foster access to the tower. Beneath the perches of the two adults and five nearly fledged young owls was a treasure trove of pellets—the residual bones, fur, and feathers coughed up by the birds. 

Allen painstakingly teased apart the pellets, identified their components, and tabulated them by species. His results, published in the Condor, the journal of the Cooper Ornithological Society, in 1927, make interesting reading. (I am indebted to Lisa Owens Viani, founder of Keep Barns Owls in Berkeley, for discovering Allen’s article, and to the University of New Mexico, whose Searchable Ornithological Research Archive project has made the contents of the Condor, the Auk, the Wilson Bulletin, and other journals available on-line.) 

Of nine mammal species represented in the pellets, the California vole (“meadow mouse,” in Allen’s terminology) was by far the most abundant, with 276 individuals. Pocket gophers came in a distant second (84), followed by white-footed mice (52). Only 37 house mice and two Norway rats were identified. Other bits and pieces included the remains of two young brush rabbits, a shrew, a song sparrow, and two Jerusalem crickets. 

Allen noted that the church owls’ diet differed from that of barn owls in Wildcat Canyon, which Foster had previously analyzed, in representing a narrower range of prey species and fewer white-footed mice. “The greater number of House Mice found in the church tower is hard to explain,” he wrote. Well, as a Berkeley resident and occasional house mouse victim, I find that statement hard to explain. Maybe house mice were more discreet in 1926. 

The First Presbyterian barn owls, Allen figured, were hunting mostly in the Berkeley Hills. He had detected east- and west-bound owl traffic over his home on Panoramic Way, up to 17 in a single summer evening. A couple were seen carrying pocket gophers back to their urban nests. Allen figured the owls would have a particularly strong impact on the voles, or meadow mice; his own vole surveys detected a sparser population near the Berkeley city limits than farther east, along the crest of the hills.  

“[T]he utilitarian-minded will infer,” he wrote, “that this belt, with a relatively small meadow mouse population along the city limits, functions as a protection to the well-watered, green lawns in the city. These lawns the meadow mice would seriously damage during the dry season, if a sufficient population could exist in proximity to them. Thus a possible conclusion is that, in Berkeley, a sufficient population of Barn Owls is one factor in maintaining attractive lawns!” 

It’s hard to avoid a twinge of nostalgia for such innocent times when the main perceived rodent problem was meadow mice munching the lawn, not rats frolicking in city parks. But at least the barn owls are still on the job. 

Readers may recall that around the time the barn owl became Berkeley’s city bird, I invited readers to send in owl-inspired stories, poems, art, whatever. I can’t say that the response was overwhelming. However, I did get the poem by eight-year-old Jackson Kinder—a shaped poem, apparently—that accompanies this column. Thanks, Jackson, and my apologies for not getting it into print sooner. The same to Penny Bartlett, whose reminiscence of house-hunting barn owls will appear in a future issue of the Planet. 

And in other owl news, the estimable Hungry Owl Project is having a fund-raising event on October 26 at the Marin Art and Garden Center in Ross, from 6 to 9 p.m. HOP’s second annual Evening with Owls will be hosted by Joe Mueller, biology professor at the College of Marin, and will feature a presentation on great gray owls by Jon Winters. (No, there are no great gray owls in Berkeley, more’s the pity. These are mountain birds, sparsely distributed in the Sierra). Live owls will be present. Tickets ($50) may still be available; call (415) 898-7721, or visit www.hungryowl.org.

FRIDAY, OCT. 27 

THEATER 

Actors Ensemble of Berkeley “Hedda Gabler” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m. through Nov. 18 at Live Oak Theater, 1301 Shattuck Ave. at Berryman. Tickets are $12. 525-1620.  

Altarena Playhouse “Merrily We Roll Along” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 p.m. at 1409 High St, Alameda, through Nov. 12. Cost is $15-$18. 523-1553.  

Antenna Theater, “High School” An interactive theatrical walking tour of Berkeley High, 1980 Allston Way. Walk lasts about 45 minutes. Tickets are $20 adults, $8 students. Reservations required. Runs through Oct. 29. 415-332-9454. www.antenna-theater.org/highschool.htm 

Berkeley Rep “Passing Strange” at the Thrust Stage, 2025 Addison St. through Dec. 3. Tickets are $45-$61. 645-2949.  

Central Works “Andromache” Thurs.-Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 5 p.m. at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant Ave. through Nov. 19. Tickets are $9-$25. 558-1381. 

Fusion Theater “Beauty and the Beast” Thurs.-Sat. at 8 p.m. at Laney College Theater, 900 Fallon St., Oakland. Tickets are $3-$10. 464-3544. 

Impact Theatre “Colorado” Thurs.-Sat. at 8 p.m. at La Val’s Subterranean, 1834 Euclid Ave. Tickets are $10-$15. Runs through Oct. 28. 464-4468.  

Shotgun Players “Love is a Dream House in Lorin” by Marcus Gardley, inspired by true stories of Berkeley’s historic Lorin District, Thurs.-Sun. at 8 p.m. at the Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby Ave., through Nov. 12. Sliding scale $15-$30. 841-6500. www.shotgunplayers.org 

TheatreFirst “Criminal Genius” Thurs.-Fri. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 3 p.m. at Old Oakland Theatre, 481 Ninth St., at Broadway, Oakland, through Nov. 19. Tickets are $19-$25. 436-5085.  

UC Dept. of Theater “Suburban Motel” six plays by George Walker at Zellerbach Playhouse, UC Campus, through Nov. 19. Tickets are $8-$14. For schedule see  

EXHIBITIONS 

“Body Language” Paintings and sculpture. Sidewalk reception at 6 p.m. at Addison Street Windows. 981-7533. 

“Fiber 2006” Featuring eight Bay Area artists at ACCI Gallery, 1652 Shattuck Ave. to Nov. 4. 843-2527. 

“United States of Decay” Recent photographs by Peter Grant Honig. Reception at 6 p.m. at the ASUC Art Studio Gallery, UC Campus. Exhibition runs to Nov. 16. 642-3065.  

FILM 

Claire Burch Film Festival with the filmmaker at 6:30 p.m. at Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists, 1924 Cedar St. 528-5403. 

A Theater Near You “The Case of the Grinning Cat” at 7 p.m. and “Yang Ban Xi: The Eight Model Works” at 8:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Isabel Stirling, biographer and Gary Snyder, poet, introduce “Zen Pioneer: The Life and Works of Ruth Fuller Sasaki” at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698. www.blackoakbooks.com 

Hiroko Shimbo demonstrates “The Sushi Experience” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Pianist Sarah Cahill Concert for Berkeley Arts Festival: 8 pm Jazzschool, 2087 Addison St. Cost is $10-$20. www.berkeleyartsfestival.com 

Country Joe McDonald, with Pat Nevins and friends in a 1960s-style show at 7:30 p.m. at Berkeley Art Center, 1275 Walnut St. Cost is $10. 644-6893.  

Matt Renzi Trio, saxophone jazz at 8 p.m. at the Hillside Club, 2286 Cedar St., Berkeley. Cost is $15. www.hillsideclub.org  

Bay Area Classical Harmonies “Sounds from the Underworld” in celebration of Halloween at 7:30 p.m. at Pro Arts Gallery, 550 Second St., Oakland. Tickets are $10-$15. 868-0695. www.bayareabach.org 

Lyon Opera Ballet at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $32-$58. 642-9988.  

Gypsy Flamenco Stars at 5 and 9 p.m. at Cafe de la Paz, 1600 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $65-$95, includes dinner. 287-8700. 

The Jazz Express at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $10. 841-JAZZ.  

Moodswing Orchestra at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Swing dance lesson at 8 p.m. Cost is $11-$13. 525-5054.  

The Mixers at 9 p.m. at The Pub at Baltic Square, aka The Baltic, at 135 Park Place, Pt. Richmond. Cost is $5. 237-4782.  

Reverend Billy C. Wirtz at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761.  

Gerald Beckett Trio with Eric Swinderman at 9 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810.  

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

Meliaquis, Diegos Umbrella at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $5. 841-2082.  

Trainwreck Riders, Genghis Khan, Rum & Rebellion at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St. Cost is $6. 525-9926. 

Aqualibrre, Los Pingous at 9 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low. Cost is $10. 548-1159.  

Brazuca Brown at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

The Yellowjackets at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square, through Sun. Cost is $22. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

SATURDAY, OCT. 28 

CHILDREN  

Los Amiguitos de La Peña with Betsy Rose, Halloween songs and activities, at 10:30 a.m. at La Peña. Cost is $4 for adults, $3 for children. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

A Harvest of Peace An alternative Halloween Concert for children and families at 10:30 a.m. at La Pena Cultural Center, 3105 Shattuck Ave. Please bring a fruit or vegetable of the season for the harvest altar. Also bring pictures or remembrances of grandparents, favorite pets or those you consider ancestors. Cost is $3-$4. 849-2568. 

EXHIBITIONS 

“California as Muse” The Art of Arthur and Lucia Mathews opens at the Oakland Museum of California, 10th and Oak, Oakland. Cost is $5-$8. 238-2200. www.museumca.org 

“Nine at Gaia: A Group Show” Works by Carol Brighton, Helen Chellin, Debra Jewell, Tessa Merrie, Hearne Pardee, Sylvia Sussman, Sandy Walker, Christine Walter, Gina Werfel. Opening reception at 7 p.m. at Gaia Arts Center, 2120 Allston Way. 653-3433. 

Randy & Jan McKeachie Johnston “New Work” Reception at 5 p.m. at Trax Gallery, 1815 Fifth St. Exhibition runs to Nov. 22. 540-8729. 

“Wheels” Works by Christopher Peterson, Harrod Blank, Philip Hall and Troy Paiva. Paintings and photographs of cars. Opening reception at 3 p.m. at Montclair Gallery, 1986 Mountain Blvd. 339-4286.  

FILM 

A Theater Near You “The Case of the Grinning Cat” at 7 p.m. and “The World” at 8 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Watershed Envoronmental Poetry Festival from noon to 6 p.m. at Berkeley City College, 2050 Center St. Opening Creek Walk, with poetry writing and reading led by Chris Olander, Meet at 10 a.m. on the UC Berkeley Campus, Oxford and Center Sts. 526-9105. www.poetryflash.org 

“At Thadeus Lake” Conversation with the artist Sherri Martin, winner of the 2006 Kala Board Prize at 2 p.m. at Kala Art Institute, 1060 Heinz Ave. Exhibition runs to Nov. 25. 549-2977. www.kala.org 

“Healing with Music” a lecture by Therese West at Berkeley Piano Club, sponsored by Four Seasons Concerts. Tickets are $25. 601-7919. 

“Positive Black Males in Literature” A six-hour reading presented by The Black Publishers Association in conjunction with the Rockridge Branch of the Oakland Library, from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Rockridge Branch of the Oakland Library, 5366 College Ave. 

“Braided Lives: A Collboration Between Artists and Poets” at 7:30 p.m. at Studio Rasa, 933 Parker St. Donation $5-$15. 843-2787. www.studiorasa.org 

Andrea Nguyen descrbes “The Vietnamese Kitchen: Ancient Foodways, Modern Flavors” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. 

Douglas Kent discusses “Firescaping” at 7:30 p.m. at Mrs. Dalloways, 2904 College Ave. 704-8222. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Harvest of Song with new compositions by Allen Shearer, Peter Joseff, Don Walker and others at 7:30 p.m. at Berkeley Art Center, 1275 Walnut St. in Live Oak Park. Cost is $10. 644-6893. www.berkeleysrtcenter.org 

Young People’s Symphony Orchestra Fall Concert at 8 p.m. at First Congregational Church of Berkeley, 2345 Channing Way, Tickets are $12-$15. 849-9776. www.ypsomusic.net 

Kensington Symphony with Thomas Shoebotham, cello, performs Shostakovich, Lalo, Beethoven at 8 p.m. at Northminster Presbyterian Church, 545 Ashbury Ave., El Cerrito. Donation $10-$15, children free. 524-9912. 

Lyon Opera Ballet at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $32-$58. 642-9988.  

Flamenco Halloween at 8:30 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $15. 849-2568.  

Hindustani Ragas by Teed Rockwell at 7:30 p.m. a Fourth Street Yoga, 1809 Fourth St., #C. Cost is $10. For reservations call 548-8779.  

Ellen Robinson & Her Trio at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island. Cost is $12. 841-JAZZ.  

Lost Coast and Dark Hollow, bluegrass, at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $10-$12. 525-5054. 

Inspector Double Negative and the Equal Positives at 9 p.m. at the Uptown Nightclub, 1928 Telegraph, Oakland. Cost is $10. 451-8100.  

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

Wake the Dead at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $19.50-$20.50. 548-1761.  

Radio Suicide, CD release, at 9 p.m. at Blakes on Telegraph. Cost is $10. 848-0886.  

Wil Blades and Brian Pardo at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $12-$15. 845-5373.  

Rhonda Benin & Soulful Strut at 9 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810.  

Carl Nagin, flamenco, at 8 p.m. at Spuds Pizza, 3290 Adeline St. Cost is $7-$10. 558-0881. 

Murder Ballads Bash at 9 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $8. 841-2082.  

Guru Garage at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Halloween Weekend Show with Minor Threat, Youth of Today, Negative Approach and others at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St. Cost is $6. 525-9926. 

SUNDAY, OCT. 29 

CHILDREN 

Reading and Learning about Gardens for children at 1 and 4 p.m. at Mrs. Dalloways, 2904 College Ave. 704-8222. 

Muriel Johnson Storytelling at 2 p.m. at Bananas, 5232 Claremont Ave., Oakland. Registration required. 658-7353. 

FILM 

A Theater Near You “Neighborhood Watch” at 7 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808.  

“Desperate Hours” at 7:30 p.m. at the JCC, 1414 Walnut St. Donation $5. 848-0237. 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

“Celebrating Decca” readings from the newly published letters of Jessica Mitford by friends, family and distinguished authors in a benefit for KPFA at 8 p.m. at King Middle School, 1781 Rose St. Tickets are $15-$20. 848-6767, ext. 609. 

“The Furniture Shop and Its Legacy” The design and decoration of the furnishings of Arthur and Lucia Mathews at 2 p.m. at the Oakland Museum of California, 10th and Oak, Oakland. Cost is $5-$8. 238-2200.  

Ghost Walk and Graveyard Tales with Bay Area mystery and crime writers Simon Wood, Hailey Lind, Camille Minichino at 7 p.m. at Chapel of the Chimes, 4499 Piedmont Ave. Oakland. 228-3207. 

Poetry Flash with Norman Fischer and Paul Naylor at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698.  

Representa! bilingual hip-hop and spoken word at 6 p.m. at La Peña. Cost is $5-$10. 849-2568. 

“Laughing Bones/Weeping Hearts” Gallery talk with artists Joe Bastida Rodriguez and Deborah Rumer at 2 p.m. at the Oakland Museum of California, 10th and Oak, Oakland. Cost is $5-$8. 238-2200.  

“Aili” by Matti Kurikka, dramatized reading in English of the 1887 Finnish feminist play at 2 p.m. at Kaleva Hall, 1970 Chestnut St. Donation $5. 849-0125.  

Kevin Coval reads from “Slingshots (A Hip-Hop Poetica)” at 5 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Harvest of Song with new compositions by Allen Shearer, Peter Joseff, Don Walker and others at 7:30 p.m. at Berkeley Art Center, 1275 Walnut St. in Live Oak Park. Cost is $10. 644-6893.  

Susan Werner at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761.  

The English Concert at 3 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $30-$42. 642-9988.  

University Wind Ensemble at 3 p.m. at Hertz Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $4-$12. 642-4864. http://music.berkeley.edu 

Janet Oliphant Rossman and Carol Dechaine, showtime favorites at 7 p.m. at Altarena Playhouse, 1409 High St., Alameda. Benefits the Let The Music Play Fund. 

Brazilian Soul at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $9. 841-JAZZ.  

Evelie Posch at 11 a.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. 

Americana Unplugged: The Saddle Cats, western swing, at 5 p.m. at Jupiter. 655-5715. 

Clockwork, a cappella jazz, at 9 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810.  

Susan Muscarello Trio, Halloween jazz, at 4:30 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $18. 845-5373. www.jazzschool.com 

Susan Werner at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $17.50-$18.50. 548-1761.  

The Yellowjackets at 7 and 9 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $22. 238-9200.  

MONDAY, OCT. 30 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Wangari Maathai, founder of the Greenbelt Movement at 7:30 p.m. at First Congregational Church of Berkeley, 2345 Channing Way at Dana. Suggested donation $10. 559-9500. 

Art, Technology and Culture Colloquium at 7:30 p.m. at the Center for New Media, 160 Kroeber Hall, UC Campus. www. ieor.berkeley.edu/~goldberg/lecs 

Poetry Express open mic theme night on “night poems” at 7 p.m., at Priya Restaurant, 2072 San Pablo Ave. 644-3977. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Khalil Shaheed, all ages jam, at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $5. 841-JAZZ.  

“An Evening of Improvised Music” at 8 p.m. at the Hillside Club, 2286 Cedar St. 

Denny Zeitlin Trio at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $10-$16. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

TUESDAY, OCT. 31 

FILM 

Alternative Visions “Experiments in Terror” at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Tell It On Tuesday Storytelling by Julia Jackson, Sandra Niman, Kikelomo Adedeji and Steve Budd at 7:30 p.m. at Julia Morgan Center for the Arts, 2640 College Ave. Cost is $8-$12. www.juliamorgan.org 

Freight and Salvage Open Mic at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $4.50-$5.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Balkan Halloween Masquerade, songs from the Greek underworld and beyond at 8:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $10, $8 with costume. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Singers’ Open Mic with Ellen Hoffman at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Dia De Los Muertos Celebration with Anthony Blea y su Charanga at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Come in costume. Cost is $10. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

WEDNESDAY, NOV. 1 

THEATER 

Gate Theatre of Dublin “Waiting for Godot” Wed.-Fri. at 8 p.m., Sat. at 2 and 8 p.m. and Sun. at 3 p.m. at the Roda Theater, 2025 Addison St. Tickets are $65. 642-9121. 

FILM 

“Morality, Politics and War” selected and introduced by film historian James Forsher at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Anthony Shadid, Washington Post correspondent, talks about his new book, “Night Draws Near: Iraq’s People in the Shadow of America’s War” at 8 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698. www.blackoakbooks.com 

Alexei Yurchak introduces “Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More: The Last Soviet Generation” at 5:30 p.m. at University Press Books, 2430 Bancroft Way. 548-0585. 

Hecho in Calfias Festival Madrinas and Padrinos of Hecho, at 7:30 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $10-$12. 849-2568.  

Eastern European Artists-in-Residence Artists Talk with Kalin Serapionov and Aleksandra Janik at 7 p.m. in the Kala Gallery, 1060 Heinz Ave. 549-2977. 

Peter Stone discusses “Heist: Superlobbyist Jack Abramoff...” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 415-559-9500.  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Wednesday Noon Concert, with performances from the Graduate Composition Seminar at Hertz Hall, UC Campus. Free. 642-4864. http://music.berkeley.edu 

Yefim Bronfman, piano, Gil Shaham, violin and Lynn Harrell, cello at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $30-$52. 642-9988. www.calperfs.berkeley.edu 

Calvin Keys Trio at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $7. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Whiskey Brothers Old Time and Bluegrass at 9 p.m. at Albatross, 1822 San Pablo Ave. 843-2473. www.albatrosspub.com 

Afrissippi, world boogie, African blues at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $9. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Humbria, at 9:30 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low, 2284 Shattuck Ave. Salsa dance lessons at 8 p.m. Cost is $5-$10. 548-1159.  

Casey Neill & Jim Page at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $17.50-$18.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Kenny Rankin, in a solo show at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $10-$16. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

THURSDAY, NOV. 2 

THEATER 

Albany High School Theater Ensemble “Pretend-O-Cide” Thurs. at 7 p.m., Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m. at Albany High School Little Theater, 603 Key Route Blvd, Albany, through Nov. 11. Tickets are $5-$10. www.myspace.com/ahsuburoi 

Azeem’s “Rude Boy” opens and runs Thurs.-Sat. at 8 p.m. at The Marsh, 2120 Allston Way, through Nov. 25. Tickets are $15-$22. 415-826-5750.  

EXHIBITIONS 

Semina Culture: Wallace Berman and His Circle Guided tour at 12:15 p.m. in Gallery 2, Berkeley Art Museum, 2626 Bancroft Way. 642-0808. 

FILM 

“Jean Renoir, The Boss” at 5:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Free first Thursday. 642-0808.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

“The Architecture of Ratcliff” with Woodruff Minor, author, and Kiran SIngh, photographer, at 5 p.m. at the Oakland Museum of California, 1000 Oak St., Oakland. 238-2200. 

Murray Silverstein, poet, at 7 p.m. at the Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave. 526-3720 ext 17. 

Chana Bloch and Chana Kronfeld talk about translating from ancient and contemporary Hebrew, at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698. www.blackoakbooks.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

“The Unreleased Beatles: Music and Film” A multimedia presentation by music historian Richie Unterberger at 7 p.m. at Pegasus Books Downtown, 2349 Shattuck Ave. 649-1320. 

St. Mark’s Choir Association performs Requiem by Jacob Clemens non Papa at 7:30 p.m. at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, 2300 Bancroft Way. 845-0888. 

University Chamber Chorus Music for All Soul’s Day at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Art Museum, 2626 Bancroft Way. Free.  

Dia de los Muertos Benefit Concert for the Zapatistas, featuring Fuga, Los Nadies, La Plebe at 7 p.m. at 2232 MLK, Oakland. Cost is $8 - $20 sliding scale. www.2232mlk.com 

Fikir Amlak, Red Meditation, Binghi Ghost, Luv Fyah, reggae, at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $10. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

John Schott’s Dream Kitchen + 3, the music of Jelly Roll Morton with Suzy Thompson, Bob Mielke and Richard Hadlock at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $17.50-$19.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Hecho in Calfias Festival From Folclorico to fusion at 8 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $10-$12. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Max Perkoff Quartet at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $7. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

System 3, Burnt at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $5. 841-2082 www.starryploughpub.com 

Jazz Mine at 6:30 p.m. at King Tsin Chinese Restaurant, 1699 Solano Ave. 525-9890. 

Kenny Rankin, in a solo show at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $10-$16. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

Showtime @ 11 Hip Hop at 10 p.m. at the Golden Bull, 412 14th St. at Broadway, Oakland. 893-0803. 

“All you need to make a movie,” Godard once pronounced, “Is a girl and a gun.” 

In the loaded high drama of Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler, staged by Actors Ensemble at Live Oak Theater, the heroine, caught in a web of her own and others’ pretensions, isn’t just a girl—and the guns are a matched set of dueling pistols, which belonged to her late father, the general. 

The guns have become her playthings, and, as Chekhov said, “If you see a gun on the wall when the curtain goes up, you should expect it to be discharged by the end of the play.” 

Moving with a scathing yet tragic economy, Ibsen renders the scene: a bored young gentlewoman, with beauty and high spirits, just married to an academic completely preoccupied with his research; redoing the old villa they’ve moved into, but bridling at any suggestion of starting a family. Her ambition has been to inspire a man to greatness, and she learns that her original subject, her husband’s old academic rival, has returned, redeemed by the attentions of one of her old classmates who married an older businessman. Meanwhile, an old family friend looks on, using his influence to make arrangements for everyone, as well as himself. 

It’s the tale of three interpenetrating triangles, digging into the soil of the playwright’s native Scandinavia, and the European middle class in general, disclosing with irony the claustrophobic resentment and hypocrisy that made up the daily bread of society, which gathered up every romantic gesture of those wishing an escape, smothering it in sordid banality. 

The plot seems to turn on each phrase, each impulse carefully stifled or redirected: explosive—or implosive; spring-loaded, or boomeranging. 

Hedda Gabler, both the character and the play, were Ibsen’s answer to his fellow Scandinavian Strindberg’s aggressive charges that he coddled the overweening ambitions of his bluestocking heroines. Ibsen paid back in kind, appropriating something of the Swede’s dramatic manner, but in an objective mode, where the characters’ excesses are clearly shown in the context of a repressive situation. They seem to share something of that paradoxical fear of, yet impersonal hope for the future that marks Chekhov’s characters a generation later. There’s none of Strindberg’s “proto-Expressionism,” though there is a harsh poetry of the clear light of day shining on absurd, willful actions, dreamt up in some dark night of the soul. 

Wendy Welch’s Hedda is young, high-strung and florid; after the brittle exposition of the first act, the play gets going (literally with a bang) at the start of the second, when she “playfully” blasts away at unctious Judge Brack (Louis Schilling) as if an intruder in her garden. Their conversation is like the dialogue of two ham actors, each overly aware of their own comportment—and the other’s. 

The tense situation is volitilized by the return of wayward scholar Eilert Lovborg (Eric Carlson) with his new manuscript, who says he’s come just to ask how Hedda Gabler could’ve married Jurgen Tesman (Aaron Murphy), so much a straightman as to be a buffoon. Thea Elvsted (Thais Harris), unhappily married but serene in her role as Eilert’s muse, appears and reappears, confiding in her old schoolmate who used to twist her hair ... the clock is wound and will strike ... 

Stanley Spenger, who founded Subterranean Shakespeare and is now president of Actors Ensemble’s board (a good augury for their 50th season), has adapted the text well (Michael Meyer’s script for BBC and John Osbourne’s remarkable version are well worth reading) and, as director, gotten the most out of his actors (Marian Simpson plays maid and family retainer Berta and Maureen Coyne is Tesman’s self-sacrificing Aunt Juliana). 

The show moves swiftly, missing none of the complications or ironic exchanges, and will grow stronger in delivery and dynamics as it runs. Rose Anne Raphael’s fine set and Helen Slomowitz’s costume design do everything to place the action, abetted by Christine Dickson’s lighting. 

It’s a tough play in every sense, but this production has the right attitude, reflected in the director’s notes, which contemplate doing a masterpiece for its intrinsic value as well as for the sake of a spectator who, “like all of us at one time,” hasn’t seen the play--one that seems predicated on Judge Brack’s words at the end, though they seem to bookend the action: “People don’t do such things, even if they say them!” 

Hedda Gabler 

Actors Ensemble of Berkeley 

Through Nov. 18 

Fri.-Sat. 8 p.m. 

Live Oak Theatre, 1301 Shattuck Ave. 

Tickets $12 

525-1620, www.aeofberkeley.org 

San Francisco’s Shelton Theater, near Union Square, is a busy place. With at least six theater companies sharing four stages, the house’s logistics alone are almost a bedroom farce. So with farce in mind, I caught two of the resident comedy troupes last week. 

In comedy as in bedroom intrigues, timing can be everything. Not just for performers, but for audience members. The Un-Scripted Theater Company’s improvised Supertrain show is at its peak, but you have only until tomorrow to catch its last two performances (Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m.).  

Meanwhile, Richter Scale’s new Declaration of Codependence is an evening of comedy sketches still finding its stride as a unified show. But it’s promising, and will evolve as it runs for another month (Saturdays at 10 p.m. and Sundays at 8 p.m., through Nov. 26). 

Un-Scripted’s Supertrain is an evening-long improvisation built around audience suggestions, using one consistent frame: All the action takes place on a train. In the performance that I saw, the comedy never derailed and was often hilarious. 

The action rapidly took off on two surreal tracks—both “theme” cars randomly inspired by audience suggestions. In the “Fertility Car,” a gaggle of professionals tried to help a couple (Darlene Sorensen and Kurt Bodden) achieve parenthood and prepare for it—not necessarily in the expected order. 

In the “Screwball Gothic” car, a young man expecting a relaxing vacation (Alan Goy) was instead recruited to slay the train’s murderous stowaway, a werewolf-like “Beast.” 

If those premises don’t sound wacky enough, the results soon got even more unlikely. In the Fertility Car, a lounge singer (Derek Cochran) improvised flawlessly rhyming songs about various challenges of parenthood, as called out by audience members. 

Later, Sorensen and Bodden consulted an onboard counselor (Dave Dyson, an El Cerrito resident who’s also the show’s director—yes, improvisers have directors). At which point two “Inner Wrestlers” (Cochran again, and Mandy Khoshnevisan) suddenly emerged to fight out the couple’s unspoken hostilities. 

Amid a consistently strong cast, Bodden and Cochran—both credited as guest performers for the troupe’s 2006 season—were the two stand-outs. Bodden, a lanky comic who looks and moves uncannily like Jim Carrey, grabs you with affable understatement. 

Cochran, who’s NBA tall, effortlessly inhabited “big” roles like the wrestler and an evangelical preacher. But in a flash, he would shrink down to the wispy old oracle who tutored Goy about werewolf-slaying, using a vaguely British accent like James Mason’s. 

Un-Scripted spun off in 2002 from the region’s most established improv group, BATS. After Saturday, they’ll be on hiatus until mounting a Valentine’s Day fund-raiser. 

Richter Scale, an even newer sketch-comedy troupe, was the freshest act I saw at last July’s San Francisco Theater Festival. Their forte is material that’s simultaneously very political and very funny. Their new show reprises some of the best sketches that brought down the house in July. 

“Earth Elementary” brings the U.N. down to the scale of a classroom. There, an idealistic teacher (Berkeley native Tenaya Hurst) tries to keep an unruly kid named America from throwing lethal paper airplanes. You’ll have to see the show to find out how America manipulates classmates India, China, and England. 

“Dot-Com High” similarly portrays a virtual world, using kids who’ve graduated to socially competitive teenagers. In the inner circle, YouTube is on the phone to MySpace. But awkward Friendster is SO last year—she can’t find a friend. Other Internet icons also appear, in ways I won’t reveal. Digital humor can be a deadly oxymoron, and Richter Scale shows unusual skill in making this sketch genuinely funny. 

Also great is a post-global-warming tour of the former San Francisco. And there are well executed musical spoofs of everything from Handel’s Messiah to country music (the latter fronted by Brett Duggan). 

The new show is strung around a theme of dependency. As of opening weekend, some of the new material didn’t obviously fit. And some bits didn’t entirely take off—for example, a running gag in which a patient keeps ambushing his doctor in unlikely places to demand advertised prescription drugs. 

But others worked great. In one new sketch, a father can help his young son understand American history only by invoking brand names. In another, Paris Hilton (Holly Nugent) offers cave redecorating tips to Osama bin Laden. 

There are also revealing peeks “inside the Democratic Party think tank,” and some dueling political ads that get very personal—between the voiceover announcers. One of the longest and edgiest sketches, a “Fifth Annual September 11th Awards Show,” came off very  

strongly. 

By next weekend, Director Sammy Wegent told me, Declaration of Codependence will move to a different stage at the Shelton. And the sketches will be reshuffled into a very different order. 

This show should continue to firm up during its run. Richter Scale does risky stuff, and this is a chance to watch a talented sketch group shape something both trenchant and funny. 

SUPERTRAIN 

Presented by the Un-Scripted Theater Company at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, Oct. 27-28. $15 general, $10 students and seniors. (415) 869-5384. www.Un-Scripted.com. 

DECLARATION OF CODEPENDENCE 

Presented by Richter Scale at 10 p.m. Saturdays and 8 p.m. Sundays through Nov. 26. $20. (615) 268-7893. www.richterscalesf.com. 

Both shows at the Shelton Theater, 533 Sutter St., San Francisco (between Powell and Mason).

Terry Gilliam’s Tideland is a stream of surreal images and literary references. Based on Mitch Cullin’s 2000 novel, the film is, in the director’s own words, something akin to Alice in Wonderland meets Psycho. The parallels to both are clear: A young protagonist uses her (hyper)active imagination to escape the brutalities of the reality she inhabits, at one point even falling into a rabbit hole; and the American Gothic quality of the film, along with a few gender-bending details and the disturbing drama surrounding a depraved family, readily call to mind Hitchcock’s 1960 psychodrama. 

But Tideland owes just as much to William Faulkner, whose short story “A Rose for Emily” captured much of the same quality Gilliam is going for here. The movie borrows from Faulkner’s tale the very specific details of necrophilic fixation as well as the tragi-comic perspective that Faulkner often employed in his fictional explorations of rural Southern life. 

Other influences are more subtle but no less significant. The film’s visual scheme, with its restless crane shots and views of a dilapidated farmhouse as seen from across a golden field, recall “Christina’s World,” the 1948 Andrew Wyeth painting that conveys a host of conflicting tensions and emotions. Gilliam has used the visual aspect of the painting as well as its emotional tone, creating a movie that keeps the viewer slightly off balance, much as Wyeth did with his painting’s low vantage point. 

Tideland in many ways covers the same ground as Victor Erice’s 1973 film The Spirit of the Beehive (reviewed in the Daily Planet Sept. 29). Both movies examine imaginary worlds created by children in response to household turmoil, and both take place on desolate plains, the outside world gaining entry only via railroad tracks that cut through vast golden fields. But whereas Erice constructed a minimalist film that relied on mood and suggestion and for the most part only hinted at the dreams and associations in the mind of his lead character, Gilliam has uncorked a rush of visual techniques, from conspicuously canted camera angles to surreal special effects sequences, in an effort to bring the child’s fantasies directly to the viewer. 

Gilliam’s style is an acquired taste, and one that I confess I have yet to acquire. There is little in his work that I find entertaining, and even less that I find artistically satisfying. But there is no doubting his talent, skill, imagination and uncompromising vision. Once again, despite the odds, he has made exactly the film he wanted to make, another entry in his canon of signature off-kilter projects, and one that will certainly satisfy his fan base. 

Tideland opens today (Friday) at Shattuck Cinemas in downtown  

Berkeley. 

TIDELAND 

Directed by Terry Gilliam. Starring Jodelle Ferland, Janet McTeer, Brendan Fletcher, Jeff Bridges, Jennifer Tilly. Playing at Shattuck Cinemas.120 minutes. Rated R.  

Jodelle Ferland plays Jeliza-Rose, a girl who seeks respite from her troubled home life through an active and wild imagination. Photograph Courtesy of ThinkFilm

If you’re looking for architecture inspired by precedent, there’s no better place to look than the University of California campus. Nowhere else in town is so much architectural variety concentrated within such a confined area. And the precedents are apparent in all manner of buildings, from the most prominent to the humblest. 

Anthony Hall (1957) 

Just a few paces east of Sather Gate, between Moses Hall and the hulking Barrows Hall, a charming pavilion shelters under oaks and redwoods on the south bank of Strawberry Creek. Most people would recognize it by the bronze pelican statue on the lawn. 

The building is strongly reminiscent of the First Church of Christ, Scientist: wide, sheltering roof eaves; unfinished redwood posts and beams; dragon-head beam ends; industrial steel-sash windows; rough stucco tinted a blotchy red; a colonnaded trellis; cast-concrete post capitals bearing pelican reliefs. They all cry out, “Maybeck!” 

But wait a minute! Those plain round concrete pillars supporting the trellis are modern. Maybeck never used those. How can this beguiling pavilion be so Maybeck and yet not be? 

The answer harks back to April 16, 1903. On that day, wealthy UC student Earle C. Anthony (1880–1961) founded the humor magazine California Pelican. Begun with a staff of ten, the Pelican was in operation until the 1980s and for many years ranked among the top college humor magazines in the nation. Along the decades, its contributors included the likes of Rube Goldberg, Jon Carroll, and the jazz singer Susannah McCorkle. 

Following graduation, the enterprising Anthony made his name in cars and broadcasting. From 1915 to 1958, he was the Packard distributor for all of California. It is said that one out of every seven Packards ever sold passed through his showrooms. In 1923, the Los Angeles Packard dealership’s neon signs were the first installed in the United States. 

With his father, Anthony invented the gas station, opening the first two in California. Their trademark was the chevron, which Anthony soon sold to Standard Oil. He was also a bus-line pioneer, founding the company that would become Greyhound. In the early 1920s, Anthony built the Los Angeles radio station KFI AM, to which he would add KECA AM, now KABC. 

The Packard showrooms in San Francisco, Oakland, and Los Angeles were designed in the 1920s by Bernard Maybeck, who was also responsible for Anthony’s Los Angeles mansion. Thus, when Anthony decided in 1954 to donate $90,000 for a Berkeley campus building to house the Pelican, it was Maybeck he turned to. 

The elderly architect, already in his nineties, declined the commission, referring it to Joseph Esherick (1914–1998). Esherick, a leading Bay Area modernist who taught at UC Berkeley for many years, would co-found the College of Environmental Design with William Wurster and Vernon DeMars. His best-known projects are Wurster Hall (with DeMars and Donald Olsen), Sea Ranch, the San Francisco Cannery, and the Monterey Aquarium. 

Anthony Hall is Esherick’s tribute to Maybeck. It’s been called “a unique overlap of First and Second Bay Traditions.” In their obituary for Esherick, Richard Peters and Jean-Pierre Protzen marveled, “Who would ever guess that the architect of the Pelican Building on the Berkeley campus is also the architect of Wurster Hall?” In 1992, the AIA California Council fittingly honored Esherick with the first Maybeck Award. 

And what of the Pelican? According to Bob Wieder, who edited the magazine in the ’60s, Anthony had funded the building “with the stipulation that it would forever house the Pelican and only the Pelican. It took the University years of legal weaseling to undo the terms of his will…Pelly was booted from the Pelican Building around 1973 and gradually withered away in Eshleman Hall.” 

Anthony Hall is now the home of the Graduate Student Assembly. 

Senior Hall (1906) 

If Anthony Hall is a traditional building by a modernist, Senior Hall is a vernacular building by an academician. 

“Perhaps the most famous and quintessential wood building is the log cabin,” notes architectural historian Richard Guy Wilson, who adds, ”by the mid 19th century, these simple buildings had captured the American imagination and have remained there ever since. Celebrated in politics and prose, and illustrated innumerably in paintings and prints, the log cabin came to represent the frontier spirit and earlier times.” 

Popularly associated with integrity and democratic values, the log cabin was a fitting venue for leaders of the Cal student body when they gathered to discuss problems and issues of common interest. These discussions were the main purpose and activity of the Order of the Golden Bear, founded in 1900. 

In 1905, when the Order of the Golden Bear received permission to build a student hall on campus, the university’s supervising architect was John Galen Howard, a product of the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Having arrived at Cal in 1902, he already had a few campus buildings to his name, chief among them the Hearst Greek Theater the Hearst Memorial Mining Building (the latter still under construction), and California Hall, all with Classical antecedents. 

On the face of it, Howard was the person least likely to design a log cabin. Yet this New Englander was attuned to vernacular architecture, went on various sketching expeditions, and would design several brown-shingled buildings on campus and nearby. 

Steve Finacom, who compiled the history of the Order of the Golden Bear, wrote that Howard’s intent was to reflect “characteristic California Architecture.” Located behind the Faculty Club, Senior Hall was likened by Professor Henry Morse Stephens to the “heart” of the university, with the Faculty Club representing its “mind.” 

Sather Tower (1914) 

In John Galen Howard’s body of work, a log cabin was a decided aberration. Far more typical was the stately Campanile, which almost overnight turned into Berkeley’s most enduring icon. 

Howard wanted the bell tower to “rise with a slender stem, bursting into bloom at the summit.” No American precedent could fit the bill, and Howard reached over the Atlantic for his model. Anyone who has visited Venice or seen pictures of Piazza San Marco will recognize Sather Tower as a simplified version of the Campanile di San Marco. 

There are differences between the two towers. The shaft of the Venetian Campanile is built of red brick, whereas Sather Tower is a steel structure clad in granite. The Italian belfry features four arched openings on each side, while the California version has three. The original has a ribbed shaft with slit fenestrations along the sides; in the copy, the shaft is almost plain, and the slits run down the center. On the other hand, only Sather Tower is ornamented with corner obelisks topped by bronze finial flames symbolizing enlightenment. Yet there’s no mistaking its origin. 

The Campanile di San Marco is 323.5 feet tall (Berkeley’s reaches 303 feet). It was built between the 9th and 12th centuries. Having suffered earthquake damage in 1511, the tower was restored by the architects Giorgio Spavento and Bartolomeo Bon, assuming its present appearance in 1513. 

Several additional restorations took place over the intervening centuries, but on July 14, 1902 the Campanile di San Marco collapsed. Photos of the time show a hillock of rubble in Piazza San Marco that fortunately left the surrounding buildings unharmed. 

The Venetians wasted no time and rebuilt their Campanile dov’era e com’era (exactly where and as it had been). The reconstructed tower was inaugurated on St. Mark’s Day, April 25, 1912. The following year, construction began on Sather Tower in Berkeley. 

Photograph by Daniella Thompson. Built in 1957, Anthony Hall looks like a Maybeck building for a reason.  

One of the toughest parts of my job has always been finding the justification to support large expenditures on my client’s part. While it may be fun to spend someone else’s money, you won’t make much of a reputation telling everyone that they need a new foundation. You have to parse the good-enough from the doesn’t-cut-it and that’s often disconcerting (for me and for my client). 

On the other hand some calls are easy. Anything that’s somewhat life threatening and or life saving and involves the amount of money in the average person’s wallet is a clear and resounding ‘yea.’ Locks on windows that prevent escape can be removed without any cost if the client is amenable and possessing of a screwdriver. 

A double cylinder lock (locks from both sides) can prevent escape in a fire and can be replaced with a single cylinder type for about 20 bucks and the same screwdriver. The replacement has a thumb turn on the inside and can be opened almost unconsciously by a fleeing would-be victim. 

Old breakers can be replaced by able persons for about five bucks a-piece (don’t try this unless you have real experience and knowledge of high watts) and improve the fire safety of the building. 

These are just a few examples and there are many more. I love these trick or treat inspection gimmies and try to throw lots of them out in my daily work because a) they put smiles on faces and b) they can save lives when the dollars are shy. 

The one I love the most is particularly timely just now as the clocks are about to change and it is our new little friend the smoke-detector. I say new because the device isn’t even 40 years old (invented in 1969 by Kenneth House and Randolph Smith in the U.S.). Also, I mention the changing of the clocks because it’s time to change the batteries and certainly time to review the state of your smoke-detectors. 

If you’re a landlord (Ooooo, evil word in Berkeley. You must be keep slaves and worshiping Baal if you own an apartment) you should be particularly sensitive to the state of smoke-detectors. I’ve seen a lot of disabled smoke-detectors in tenant occupied spaces in my years in the biz and it behooves (you cloven heel, you) landlords to check and service smoke-detectors regularly since tenants tend to be less aware of these issues. 

It’s also common for the young immortals of our dear Alma Mater to remove batteries that are annoyingly chirping (in need of changing) or to steal the battery for more amusing uses (like that cool radio controlled monster truck). 

Many agencies and yours truly recommend changing smoke-detector batteries when you change the clocks, twice a year. I recommend buying 9V batteries, which are pricey, in large allotments when the sales are on at the drug store, at places like Costco or other discount stores. Check the sales and stock up on regular Alkaline 9V batteries (these are the rectangular ones with the two terminals on one end). I don’t recommend Lithium long-life batteries since they don’t tend to last nearly as long as reputed and they tend to make us forget about servicing the smoke detector. 

If you keep half a dozen or more in the house, you’re more likely to change them when they start to chirp and less likely to just back that battery off 1/8” as I so often see. Here’s a protocol I practice. Never back the battery off. Just take it out. That way you won’t think there’s a battery inside (nor will the next person). You have to look carefully to see the difference between a backed-off battery and a fully installed one. The other protocol is that I never leave the cover on a smoke-detector that is missing a battery. Leave it open as a reminder if you have to go get a battery and make the replacement a priority. In Berkeley we would call that “taking care of yourself” and that’s a GOOD thing. It’s also taking care of your family, your tenant and the neighbors, since all those people may be affected. Your fire, can quickly become a fire for others. If you live in an apartment or condo complex, your fire can ruin the day or life of many others so it’s vital that you keep good batteries in these things.  

It’s like voting. If you couldn’t vote (all too new to you women out there) you’d be terribly excited when it came along and you’d rush to the polls as those, new to free-elections, tend to do (ah if we could only turn out in numbers like that).  

We should treat smoke-detectors like that. They are life-saving miracles that cost less than a typical lunch out and the batteries cost about the same as a Grande Decaf at Starbucks. There is no reason in the world not to have plenty of them and to keep them fully charged and ready to scream. By the way, do test your smoke-detectors when you put the batteries in and, at least, seasonally. Do it when you clean the house (it also helps to vacuum the detectors itself). Keep a rod of some sort around to test them with so that you won’t need a ladder.  

Smoke-detectors don’t do a very good job when the smoke can’t reach them so here’s some general thinking on where to put them and roughly the number you will need. This also comes from the NFPA (National Fire Protection Agency) and most local fire departments. 

Smoke-detectors need to be on both sides of the door to your sleeping room (and everyone else’s sleeping room too). That means that you want one in the hall or the living room and that you want one in each of the bedrooms. You also want to have at least one on every level of the house. If you have a three-bedroom, split-level house, this means you’ll want to have five detectors. They’re easy to install and if you want to use some two-part Velcro to put them up, that’s just fine. 

Smoke rises (Because it’s hot and has a lower density than air) and this means that it heads for the ceiling first. If the smoke-detector is on the wall, it takes longer to go off and longer to wake you up. Put smoke-detectors on the ceiling and try to place them at least 4” away from the corner since smoke tends to curl past the corner and hits the ceiling a few inches in from the wall. Place detectors on the highest part of the room if there is a change in height (even though this will make battery replacement more difficult). You might want to get yourself a good ladder for installation and servicing of these. 

A few notes on smoke-detectors. There are different types and some are better than others but the primary safety, in my never-humble opinion, is in have plenty of them. Having 3 or more working smoke-detectors virtually assures that you’ll be awoken from your reverie in time to preempt this most terrible and unnecessary of deaths. 

Consider installing at least one “hard-wired” smoke-detector. This type wires into the 120 volt house current and only fails to function if the power is out (what’s the likelihood that both things will occur at the same time?). If you’re doing a mid-sized remodel on your home (such as a bath remodel), the city will likely force this gift-of-safety upon you. By the way, speaking of gifts, this, like the carbon-monoxide tester, makes a great gift and really does say I love you in a way that a bottle of wine just doesn’t. 

I inspected for an Oakland fireman a few years ago and we chatted quite a bit about fires, smoke-detectors and home escape. At one point I asked him a question about the removal of occupants from burning building and he sort of laughed and said ”Oh, we don’t do that much anymore. Since smoke-detectors started being used, the people are usually already outside and we just have to put out the blaze.”  

I think I’ll leave it right there.  

Got a question about home repairs and inspections? Send them to Matt Cantor at mgcantor@pacbell.net.

The older and bumblinger I get—and believe me, I’m starting from an advanced baseline of bumblitude—the more I appreciate how forgiving a process gardening is. Composting is one of the more forgiving parts of it, and cheapest. It can stink if you do it wrong—but, if you do it wrong, it generally still works.  

The theory: Pile some greens and some browns in alternating layers, aerate, and in a little while you’ll have wonderful fertilizer instead of garbage. Sounds easy until you have a can of garbage and you start analyzing. 

“Greens” means wet stuff, high-nitrogen: vegetable garbage (meat scraps are strictly for industrial-size piles) or fresh leaves, grass clippings. “Browns” means dry stuff, high-carbon: straw, shavings, dried leaves, sawdust.  

What else is compostable? Paper towels! Dryer lint! Dust bunnies! The stuff from the vacuum cleaner! Torn newspaper! Love letters cut up into little bitty pieces! 

Got a paper shredder? The confidential shreds get obliterated at the bottom of the compost pile. Pile the coffee grounds right on top of your classified secrets. (Coffee grounds are high-nitrogen seed meal, after all.) Run eggshells through the blender with a cup of water and toss the result onto the pile.  

You’re supposed to do all this in layers, get it into a 70/30 ratio, keep it moist but not wet, turn it every so often to let air in, even take its temperature, fuss fuss fuss. You know what? All that speeds the process, but even if you do it haphazardly you’ll get compost. One thing: put your heap on the ground; if you must put it on pavement, add a few shovelfuls of dirt from the garden by way of starter. In fact, that’s a good idea anyway.  

Sometimes you even get pleasant surprises. A few years ago, we had something in the bin way out back that drew biggish black flies. They’d spend hours sunning on the white garage doors. It was spring, and we started hearing a familiar terweep! all day, and we discovered a family of black phoebes, a pair and two youngsters in residence. They took care of the flies most entertainingly, darting from their perches to catch them with an audible snap and treating the garage doors as a smorgasbord.  

It’s nice to have a process that works well even if you do it badly but rewards learning and skill too. (OK, another process.) A well-managed compost heap does have an advantage besides speed: it gets hot enough to kill off a lot of disease organisms. Local organizations and Alameda County’s Stopwaste/Bay-Friendly program can mail you more information, and it’s easy enough to find in the library.  

You can become a Master Composter and earn college credits for it through the county, too; applications for the weekly February-through-May 2007 class are being accepted now. The county will also sell you a Biostack composter for $39 and/or a Wriggly Wranch worm composter for $29, if you’re a resident.  

Call 444-SOIL (7645) or see www.stopwaste.org for more information and to order or sign up.

How’s Your Earthquake Knowledge? (Part 3) 

Rate yourself: Are the following statements true, or false? 

1. The latest seismic technology has made earthquake prediction possible, but is only accurate up to 30 minutes before a major rupture.  

2. We can tell where an earthquake has occurred because we can see where the ground on the surface that has moved. 

3. The most shaking in earthquakes occurs next to the epicenter. 

The answer to each of the above is “false.” 

1. We do not have the ability to accurately predict earthquakes. 

2. We can only view a fault on the surface if the rupture which generated the earthquake extends to the surface. Strong earthquakes can occur without the rupture extending to the surface. The rupture did not extend to the surface in the 1994 Northridge earthquake, nor the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. 

3. The epicenter is only the point on the surface above the location where the fault begins the slip which generates the earthquake. The epicenter is not synonymous with “ground zero.” 

Larry Guillot is the owner of QuakePrepare, an earthquake consulting, securing and kit supply service. Contact him at 558-3299. Visit www.quakeprepare.com to receive e-mails and safety reports.  

FRIDAY, OCT. 27 

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 Dr. Lisa Feuchtbaum on “Newborn Screening” Luncheon at 11:45 a.m. for $14, speech at 12:30 p.m., at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant St. For information and reservations call 526-2925.  

“Unconstitutional: The War on Our Civil Liberties” A documentary by Robert Greenwald at 7:30 p.m. at Humanist Hall, 390 27th St., between Broadway and Telegraph, Oakland. Cost is $5. 

An Evening of Claire Burch Films, in appreciation and memory of Allen Cohen at 6 p.m. at Unitarian Fellowship, 1924 Cedar St. 547-7602. 

FCC Hearing on Media Ownership starting at 5 p.m. at the Oakland Marriott City Center, 1001 Broadway at 10th St. The public is encouraged to attend. Sponsored by the NAACP, Media Alliance, the Youth Media Council, and Free Press. For more information see www.media-alliance.org 

Haunted House at an historic English Tudor-style house, 2647 Durant Aven. Free to Berkeley and Oakland students from 4 to 6 p.m. 562-2506. 

UC Berkeley Asian Business Association’s Charity Fashion Show at 7 p.m. at Julia Morgan Center for the Arts, 2640 College Ave: Cost is $10. jchea@berkeley.edu  

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

SATURDAY, OCT. 28 

Parade of People for Impeachment and the Restoration of Our Rights from Oakland to Berkeley. Begins at 9:30 a.m. at Grand Lake, 11 a.m. at Piedmont clock tower, 12:30 p.m. at College & Ashby, 1:30 p.m. at the Berkeley BART. oakland@bluebottle.com 

Native Plant Fair with Berkeley native plants, bulbs, seeds, books, art, and crafts for sale, talks by experts and fun activities for children, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., and Sun. from noon to 3 p.m. at Native Here Nursery, 101 Golf Course Dr., Tilden Park. 496-6016. www.ebcnps.org  

Codornices Creek Watershed Tour Meet at 9 a.m. near the mouth of Codornices Creek at Albany Waterfront Trail, where Buchanan St. dead ends north of Golden Gate Fields, west of I-580. The tour will begin at the upstream end of the watershed and will consist of stops with different speakers along various points of the creek, ending at the mouth of the creek near the meeting point. 452-0901. 

Ohlone Dog Park Cleanup Day at 10 a.m. at Ohlone Dog Park, on Hearst between Martin Luther King Jr. Way and Grant St. Sponsored by Ohlone Dog Park Association. ohlonedogpark.org 

The New School Halloween Bazaar, with face painting, children's games, rummage and book sales, haunted house, food and entertainment from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at 606 Bonita Street, at Cedar. 548-9165. 

“Breaking the Silence” with former Israeli military commander Yehuda Shaul, founder of a group of ex-combatants who reveal how Israeli soldiers regularly violate the human rights of Palestinians while serving in the Occupied Territories, at 7:30 p.m. at Berkeley Unitarian Church Fellowship Hall, 1924 Cedar St., at Bonita. Sliding scale donation $5-$20. 465-1777. 

Breast Cancer in Our Community with Lisa Bailey, MD, Medical Director of the Carol Ann Read Breast Health Center at 11 a.m. at Elephant Pharmacy, 1607 Shattuck Ave. Registration is required. 549-9200. 

Teens Touch the Earth learn how to protect the bay, wildlife and native plants, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Miller Knox. Community service credit available. Registration required. 636-1684. 

“Fall Blooming Perennials & Shrubs” at 10 a.m. at Magic Gardens, 729 Heinz Ave. 644-2351. 

Harvest Festival, with activities for children and entertainment for adults from noon to 4 p.m. at Bay Street, Emeryville. 655-4002. 

Neighborhood Anti-War Rally at 1:30 p.m. at the corner Acton and University. Sponsored by the Tenants Association of Strawberry Creek Lodge. 841-4143. 

How Berkeley Came To Be Bring photocopies of photos, postcards and other memorabilia of your family’s arrival in Berkeley to create a community scrapbook at 2 p.m. at the Berkeley Public Library, South Branch. For information call 981-6147. 

“Dias de los Muertos” Feast of the Angelitos at 2 p.m. and Procession of the Day of the Dead at 6 p.m. at Chapel of the Chimes, 4499 Piedmont Ave., Oakland. 228-3207. arodman@lifemarkgroup.com 

Haunted Caves A spooky adventure for ages 3 and up from 1 to 3:30 p.m. at the Tilden Nature Center. Cost is $3-$5. 525-2233. 

Talking Pumpkins, Birds and Trees with storytellers and an enchanted walk at 10 a.m. at UC Botanical Garden, 200 Centennial Drive. Come in costume. Cost is $8-$10, $3 for each additional child. Registration required. 643-2755. 

O’Hallow’s Eve Fright Night from 1 to 8 p.m. at the Ashby Flea Market with music, games, dance contest, pie-eating contest, face painting and more.  

Halloween Face Painting for children Sat. and Sun. from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Elephant Pharmacy, 1607 Shattuck Ave. 549-9200. 

Dog Training: Slow Down! Teach your dog to walk without pulling at 9:30 a.m. and “Come Spot Come” at 10:30 a.m. at Grace North Church, 2128 Cedar St. Cost is $35-$40. Registration required. 849-9323. www.companyofdogs.com 

Animal Communication, for healing, at RabbitEars, 303 Arlington Ave. Cost is $25, for an appointment call 525-6155. 

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

Berkeley Haunted House for all ages from 6:30 to 8:15 p.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. Free, donations accepted. 845-6830, ext. 13. 

Monster Bash aboard the Aircraft Carrier USS Hornet Museum from 7:30 p.m. to midnight at 707 W Hornet Ave, Pier 3 in Alameda. Tickets are $10-$20. Proceeds will benefit the Aircraft Carrier USS Hornet Museum. 521-8448, ext. 282. www.hornetevents.com 

Bilingual Storytime Stories in English and Spanish for toddlers and preschoolers at 10:30 a.m. in the Edith Stone Room at the Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave. 526-3720, ext. 17. 

The Berkeley Lawn Bowling Club provides free instruction every Wed. and Sat. at 10:30 a.m. at 2270 Acton St. 841-2174.  

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.  

Around the World Tour of Plants at 1:30 p.m., Thurs., Sat. and Sun. at UC Botanical Garden, 200 Centennial Drive. 643-2755.  

Car Wash Benefit for Options Recovery Services of Berkeley, held every Sat. from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Lutheran Church, 1744 University Ave. 666-9552. 

SUNDAY, OCT. 29 

Remember to Set Your Clocks Back One Hour at 2 a.m. 

UCC-Toberfest with wine and beer tasting, silent auction, live music and food, from 1 to 5 p.m. at Piedmont Veterans Community Hall, 401 Highland Ave. Piedmont. Cost is $25. Benefits the Urban Creeks Council. 540-6669. 

Street Scare Halloween Block Party with pumpkin carving, bean-bag-toss, fun photos, crafts and more, from noon to 5 p.m. at 23rd St. and Telegraph. Sponsored by Rock, Paper, Scissors Gallery. 278-9171.  

Open House and Costume Party from 1 to 6 p.m. at Expressions Art Gallery, 2035 Ashby Ave. 644-4930. 

Alameda Fall Festival with live music, cookout, children’s activities and more, from noon to 5 p.m. at Alameda Marketplace, Park St. parking lot, 1650 Park St. www.alamedamarketplace.com 

Haunted House at an historic English Tudor-style house at 2647 Durant Ave. Open to the public from 6 to 9 pm. Cost is $3, and benefits The Green Stampede Homework Club. 562-2506. 

“Celebrating Decca” readings from the newly published letters of Jessica Mitford by friends, family and distinguished authors in a benefit for KPFA at 8 p.m. at King Middle School, 1781 Rose St. Tickets are $15-$20. 848-6767, ext. 609. 

El Cerrito Historical Society meets to discuss Historic Preservation at 2 p.m. at the El Cerrito Senior Center, located behind the El Cerrito Library, 6510 Stockton Ave. 526-7507.  

Beauty of Briones A moderate 5 mile hike through a spectaular park, led by naturalist Tara Reinertson. Meet at 10 a.m. at Bear Creek Staging Area. Bring lunch, sunscreen, and water. 525-2233. 

Berkeley Cybersalon with Steven Levy on “The Perfect Thing: How the iPod Shuffles Commerce, Culture and Coolness” at 5 p.m. at the Hillside Club, 2286 Cedar St. Cost is $10. whoisylvia@aol.com 

Home Greywater Workshop Learn about and help create the first permitted residential greywater system from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Berkeley Ecohouse, 1305 Hopkins St. Cost is $15 sliding scale. 547-8715. 

IRV Peace Meet-up and Rally at 1:30 p.m. at Splashpad Park, LakeShore and Grand Ave., Oakland. 644-1303. 

Get Your Freak On at the Kensington Farmers’ Market, tatoo booth, fortune telling, and more from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at 303 Arlington Ave., Kensington. 

“Voodoo: The Authentic Legacy of Marie Laveau in New Orleans” with Carol Carlisle at 9:30 a.m at Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley, 1 Lawson Rd., Kensington. 525-0302, ext. 306. 

“Healing with Mindfulmees Meditation” Four week workshop, Sun. at noon at 5272 Foothill Blvd. Cost is $10 each Sun. 533-5306.  

Tibetan Buddhism with Mark Henderson on “The Hidden Power of the Tibetan Prayer Wheel” at 6 p.m. at the Tibetan Nyingma Institute, 1815 Highland Pl. 843-6812.  

MONDAY, OCT. 30 

Batopia Learn the truth about bats with Maggie Hooper and her flying friends at 7 p.m. at the Piedmont Ave. Branch of the Oakland Public Library, 160 41st St. 597-5011. 

“Race and Immigration: Dividing Asians, Blacks, and Latinos” with Bill Ong Hing, professor of law and Asian American studies, UC Davis, at 7 p.m. at Pacific School of Religion, 1798 Scenic Ave. 

World Affairs/Politics Discussion Group for people aged 60 and over meets at 9:45 a.m. at the Albany Senior Center, 846 Masonic Ave. Donation $3. 524-9122. 

TUESDAY, OCT. 31 

Tuesday is for the Birds An early morning walk for birders through Bay Area parklands. Bring water, sunscreen, binoculars and a snack. This week we will visit Keller Beach at Miller Knox. For meeting location or to borrow binoculars, call 525-2233.  

“Combatants for Peace” Bassam Aramin and Yonatan Shapira speak on stooping the cycle of violence in Israel-Palestine at 5 p.m. at 145 Dwinelle, UC Campus. aafek@berkeley.edu 

Family Storytime at 7 p.m. at the Kensington Library, 61 Arlington Ave. 524-3043. 

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. 

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

WEDNESDAY, NOV. 1 

“Democracy on Deadline” the Global Struggle for an Independent Press, a documentary, at 6:30 p.m. at the Oakland Museum of California, 10th and Oak Sts. Panel discussion following the film. 238-3514. www.itvs.org 

Debate on Proposition 89: Public Financing of Campaigns with Yes on 89 spokesperson Jan S. Rodolfo and No on 89 spokesperson Sandy Harrison, at 7 p.m. in Room 2050, Valley Life Sciences Bldg., UC Campus. The public is encouraged to participate. Submit questions to caldebateseries@gmail.com 

“Exploring Patagonia” A slide show and talk by Wayne Bernhardson, author of “Moon Handbooks: Patagonia” at 7 p.m. at REI, 1338 San Pablo Ave. 527-4140. 

Berkeley School Volunteers Training workshop for volunteers interested in helping the public schools, from 2:30 to 3:30 p.m. at 1835 Allston Way. 644-8833. 

Healthy Eating Habits Seminar at 6:30 p.m. at New Moon Opportunities, 378 Jayne Ave. 465-2524. 

Breema Open House at 6 p.m. at 6201 Floria St., Oakland. 428-1234.  

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

American Red Cross Blood Services is holding a volunteer orientation from 10 a.m. to noon in Oakland. Registration required. 594-5165.  

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, NOV. 2 

“History of Western Ornithology” with Harry Fuller at 6:30 p.m. at Live Oak Recreation Center, 1301 Shattuck Ave. Sponsored by the Golden Gate Audubon Society. Cost is $15-$20. 843-2222. 

Mario Savio Memorial Lecture & Young Activist Award Ceremony with hip-hop journalist Jeff Chang, former State Senator and 60’s activist Tom Hayden, and spoken word artist Aya de Leon at 7:30 p.m. at Pauley Ballroom, Martin Luther King, Jr. Student Union, UC Campus. Free. 415-559-9500. www.savio.org/the_lectures.html 

“The Long Walk to Freedom and Justice in South Africa” with Francis Wilson, Univ. of Cape Town at noon at 223 Moses Hall, UC Campus. 642-8338. 

Drivewell: Promoting Older Driver Safety, with Colleen Campbell, from Alameda County’s Public Health Department’s Senior Injury Prevention Project at 1:30 p.m. at the Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave., Albany. 526-3720. 

“Day of the Dead Benefit for the Zapatistas” at 7 p.m. at 2232 MLK Way, near 19th Street BART, Oakland. Cost is $8-$20 sliding scale. 923-0676. www.chiapas-support.org 

“When God’s Friend Became God’s Problem The Punitive Elijah and the Loving God,” Distinguished Faculty Lecture by Dr. L. William Countryman at 7:30 p.m. at Pacific School of Religion, 1798 Scenic Ave. 649-2440. www.gtu.edu 

“Lives per Gallon: The True Cost of Our Oil Addiction” with Terry Tamminen at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books, 1730 Fourth St. 415-559-9500. 

Day of the Dead at Habitot Children’s Museum with activities from 9:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. at 2065 Kittredge St. 647-1111. www.habitot.org 

“Toxics and Children Don’t Mix” A workshop for parents and child care providers at 7 p.m. at Bananas, 5232 Claremont Ave., Oakland. Registration required. 658-7353. www.bananasinc.org 

“The Interplay of Buddhism and Law in the Pre-communist Mongolia” with Vesna Wallace, Associate Professor, Department of Religious Studies, UC Santa Barbara, at 5 p.m. at the IEAS Conference Room, 2223 Fulton St. 643-6536. http://buddhiststudies.berkeley.edu/events 

“What is Your Story?” an exploration of myth, storytelling and dream work connected to community building at 7:30 p.m. at Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley, 1 Lawson Rd., Kensington. 525-0302, ext. 306. 

“Forward Forever, Environmental Justice & Hip Hop” film and community discussion at 5 p.m. in the Laney College Theater. Fundraiser for the Ghana Study Abroad Program. www.peralta.edu/sustainable 

“Nutrition Bandits” Learn how to eat for health with Edward Bauman, at 5:30 p.m. at Pharmaca Interative Pharmacy, 1744 Solano Ave. 527-8929. 

AnewAmerica Annual Gala “Weaving Our Common Threads” at 6 p.m. at the Holy Redeemer Conference Center, 8945 Golf Links Rd., Oakland. Tickets are $75. RSVP to 540-7785, ext. 314. www.anewamerica.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 

Avatar Metaphysical Toastmasters Club meets at 6:45 p.m. at Spud’s Pizza, 3290 Adeline at Alcatraz. namaste@avatar.freetoasthost.info  

ONGOING 

Albany-Berkeley Girls Softball League Free Clinics Oct. 29- Nov. 6 in Berkeley, for girls in grades 1-9. For details see www.abgsl.org or call 869-4277. 

Volunteer at Emerson Elementary School Come anytime Mon.-Thurs. from 8:15 a.m. to 5:15 p.m. For details call 883-5247. 

Each One Teach One Mentoring Program of the Oakland Unified School District is curbing student absenteeism, decreasing suspensions and increasing student participation with the help of volunteer mentors like you. For more information call 495-4010, 495-4011.  

CITY MEETINGS 

Commission on the Status of Women meets Wed., Nov. 1, at 7:30 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Tasha Tervelon, 981-5190.  

Downtown Area Plan Advisory Commission meets Wed. Nov. 1, at 7 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-7487. 

Housing Advisory Commission meets Thurs., Nov. 2, at 7:30 p.m., at the South Berkeley Senior Center. Oscar Sung, 981-5400.  

Landmarks Preservation Commission meets Thurs. Nov. 2, at 7:30 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Gisele Sorensen, 981-7419.  

Public Works Commission meets Thurs., Nov. 2, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Jeff Egeberg, 981-6406.  

TUESDAY, OCT. 24 

CHILDREN 

“Three Witches of the Oakland Public Library” scary stories and songs for ages six and up at 7 p.m. at the Rockridge Branch, 5366 College Ave. 597-5017. 

FILM 

Alternative Visions China’s Cutting Edge: New Video From Shanghai at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Donald Rothberg describes “The Engaged Spiritual Life: A Buddhist Approach to Transforming Ourselves and the World” at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698.  

Jeff Biggers introduces his new book, “In the Sierra Madre” about Mexico’s Copper Canyon, indigenous Mexico and environmental concerns, at 7 p.m. at 118 Barrows Hall, UC Campus. Sponsored by Dept. of Ethnic Studies/Chicano Studies. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Tom Rigney & Flambeau at 8:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cajun dance lesson at 8 p.m. Cost is $9. 525-5054.  

Ellen Hoffman and Singers’ Open Mic at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $5. 841-JAZZ.  

Glass Half Full in a benefit for Breast Cancer Fund and SHARE, featuring Laurie Lewis, Jennifer Berezan, Barbara Higbie and others, at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $19.50-$20.50. 548-1761.  

NoMeansNo, The Freak Accident at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $10. 841-2082.  

Michele Rosewoman and Quintessense at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $10-$18. 238-9200.  

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

WEDNESDAY, OCT. 25 

CHILDREN 

“Three Witches of the Oakland Public Library” scary stories and songs for ages six and up at 4 and 7 p.m. in the Chilrens Room, of the Main Library, 125 14th St. 238-3615. 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Jardiin” Imagined botanicals by Donna Duguay. Reception at 7 p.m. at Artbeat Salon and GAllery, 1887 Solano Ave. Exhibition runs to Jan. 21. 527-3100. 

THEATER 

Berkeley Rep “Passing Strange” opens at the Thrust Stage, 2025 Addison St. and runs through Dec. 3. Tickets are $45-$61. 645-2949.  

FILM 

“Freedom’s Fury” and “Journey Home” films about the 1956 Hungarian Revolution at 6 p.m. at 22 Warren Hall, UC Campus. http://hungarianuprising.org  

Pirates and Piracy “Pirated Copy” at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Henry Chang reads from “Chinatown Beat” at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698.  

Bill Scher on “Wait! Dont’t Move to Canada: A Stay and Fight Strategy to Win Back America” at 6 p.m. at 2221 Broadway at Grand Ave., Oakland. 

Writing Teachers Write with Marty Williams and Chuck Forester at 5 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. 

William Kittredge introduces his novel,”The Willow Field” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. 

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

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Wednesday Noon Concert, 20th century music for the flute, at Hertz Hall, UC Campus. Free. 642-4864.  

Wynton Marsalis at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $34-$68. 642-9988.  

UC Jazz Ensembles at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $5. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com  

D.O.A., 5 Days Dirty, Freex at 8 p.m. at Blakes on Telegraph. All ages show. Cost is $8-$10. 848-0886.  

Orquestra Sensual at 9:30 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low, 2284 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $5-$10. 548-1159.  

Deep Hello at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Kurt Rosenwinkle, Toninho Horta Group at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $10-$16. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

THURSDAY, OCT. 26 

EXHIBITIONS 

“At Thadeus Lake” by Sherri Martin, winner of the 2006 Kala Board Prize. Reception at 6 p.m. at Kala Art Institute, 1060 Heinz Ave. Exhibition runs to Nov. 25. 549-2977. www.kala.org 

“Educate to Liberate: A Retrospective of the Black Panther Community News Service” Exhibition in honor of the 40th Anniversary of the founding of the Black Panther Party, on display in the Oakland History Room at the Oakland Main Library, 125 14th St. 238-3222.  

“The Face of Poetry” Photographs by Margaretta Mitchell on display at the Berkeley Public Library, 2090 Kittredge St., through Oct. 30. 981-6100. 

“Looking for Hope” Photograhs by Matt O’Brien with text by students in the Oakland Public Schools opens at the Peralta Hacienda Historical Park Museum Gallery, 2465 34th Ave. Gallery open Thurs.-Fri. 4 to 6 p.m. and Sun. noon to 4 p.m. to March 31. 532-9142. www.peraltahacienda.org 

“Geographic Premonitions” Group show of fifteen emerging artists, at the Richmond Art Center, 2540 Barrett Ave., Richmond. Exhibition runs through Nov. 11. 620-6772. www.therichmondartcenter.org 

FILM 

Ousmane Sembene “The Camp at Thiaroye” at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

California Tiles: Arts & Crafts Principles Revive the Golden Era, with Riley Doty and Joe Taylor, at 8 p.m. at The Hillside Club, 2286 Cedar St. Cost is $10. 

Annie Leibovitz describes “A Photographer’s Life, 1990-2005” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. www.codysbooks.com 

Michael Sternberg and Larry Rothe describe “For the Love of Music: Invitations to Listening” music at 7 p.m., reading at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698. www.blackoakbooks.com 

East Bay Improv at 8 p.m. at Spud’s Pizza, Adeline and Alcatrz. Cost is $7. 964-0571. www.eastbayimprov.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

“Talking About Macdonald” performances based on community recollections of Richmond’s downtown at 6:30 p.m. at East Bay Center for the Performing Arts Winters Building, 339 11th St., corner of 11th and Macdonald, Richmond. 540-6809. www.ci.richmond.ca.us 

World Without End, Bob Frank & John Murry at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $17.50-$18.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Juke Joint Jazzers at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $7. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Oogog, The Brass Menagerie at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $5. 841-2082 www.starryploughpub.com 

Jazz Mine at 6:30 p.m. at King Tsin Chinese Restaurant, 1699 Solano Ave. 525-9890. 

Kurt Rosenwinkle, Toninho Horta Group at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $10-$16. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

Three Piece Combo, Mirkthon, Biran Kenney Fresno, progressive rock, at 8:30 p.m. at the Uptown Nightclub, 1928 Telegraph, Oakland. Cost is $5. 451-8100. www.uptownnightclub.com 

FRIDAY, OCT. 27 

THEATER 

Actors Ensemble of Berkeley “Hedda Gabler” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m. through Nov. 18 at Live Oak Theater, 1301 Shattuck Ave. at Berryman. Tickets are $12. 525-1620. www.aeofberkeley.org 

Altarena Playhouse “Merrily We Roll Along” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 p.m. at 1409 High St, Alameda, through Nov. 12. Cost is $15-$18. 523-1553. www.altarena.org 

Antenna Theater, “High School” An interactive theatrical walking tour of Berkeley High, 1980 Allston Way. One audience member enters the show every minute. Walk lasts about 45 minutes. Tickets are $20 adults, $8 students. Reservations required. Runs through Oct. 29. 415-332-9454. www.antenna-theater.org/highschool.htm 

Berkeley Rep “Passing Strange” at the Thrust Stage, 2025 Addison St. through Dec. 3. Tickets are $45-$61. 645-2949. www.berkeleyrep.org 

Central Works “Andromache” Thurs.-Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 5 p.m. at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant Ave. through Nov. 19. Tickets are $9-$25. 558-1381. 

Fusion Theater “Beauty and the Beast” Thurs.-Sat. at 8 p.m. at Laney College Theater, 900 Fallon St., Oakland. Tickets are $3-$10. 464-3544. mtorres@peralta.edu 

Impact Theatre “Colorado” A dark comedy about celebrity worship, Thurs.-Sat. at 8 p.m. at La Val’s Subterranean, 1834 Euclid Ave. Tickets are $10-$15. Runs through Oct. 28. 464-4468. www.impacttheatre.com 

Shotgun Players “Love is a Dream House in Lorin” by Marcus Gardley, inspired by true stories of Berkeley’s historic Lorin District, Thurs.-Sun. at 8 p.m. at the Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby Ave., through Nov. 12. Sliding scale $15-$30. 841-6500. www.shotgunplayers.org 

TheatreFirst “Criminal Genius” Thurs.-Fri. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 3 p.m. at Old Oakland Theatre, 481 Ninth St., at Broadway, Oakland, through Nov. 19. Tickets are $19-$25. 436-5085. www.theatrefirst.com 

UC Dept. of Theater “Suburban Motel” six plays by George Walker at Zellerbach Playhouse, UC Campus, through Nov. 19. Tickets are $8-$14. For schedule see http://theater.berkeley.edu 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Body Language” Paintings and sculpture. Sidewalk reception at 6 p.m. at Addison Street Windows. 981-7533. 

“Fiber 2006” Featuring eight Bay Area artists at ACCI Gallery, 1652 Shattuck Ave. to Nov. 4. 843-2527. 

FILM 

Claire Burch Film Festival with the filmmaker at 6:30 p.m. at Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists, 1924 Cedar St. 528-5403. 

A Theater Near You “The Case of the Grinning Cat” at 7 p.m. and “Yang Ban Xi: The Eight Model Works” at 8:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Isabel Stirling, biographer and Gary Snyder, poet, introduce “Zen Pioneer: The Life and Works of Ruth Fuller Sasaki” at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698. www.blackoakbooks.com 

Hiroko Shimbo demonstrates “The Sushi Experience” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. www.codysbooks.com  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Pianist Sarah Cahill Concert for Berkeley Arts Festival: 8 pm Jazzschool 2087 Addison Street, $10-$20 www.berkeleyartsfestival.com 

Country Joe McDonald, with Pat Nevins and friends in a 1960s-style show at 7:30 p.m. at Berkeley Art Center, 1275 Walnut St. Cost is $10. 644-6893. www.berkeleyartcenter.org 

Matt Renzi Trio, saxophone jazz at 8 p.m. at the Hillside Club, 2286 Cedar St., Berkeley. Cost is $15. www.hillsideclub.org  

Bay Area Classical Harmonies “Sounds from the Underworld” in celebration of Halloween at 7:30 p.m. at Pro Arts Gallery, 550 Second St., Oakland. Tickets are $10-$15. 868-0695. www.bayareabach.org 

Lyon Opera Ballet at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $32-$58. 642-9988. www.calperfs.berkeley.edu 

Gypsy Flamenco Stars at 5 and 9 p.m. at Cafe de la Paz, 1600 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $65-$95, includes dinner. 287-8700. 

The Jazz Express at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $10. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Moodswing Orchestra at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Swing dance lesson at 8 p.m. Cost is $11-$13. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

The Mixers at 9 p.m. at The Pub at Baltic Square, aka The Baltic, at 135 Park Place, Pt. Richmond. Cost is $5. 237-4782.  

Reverend Billy C. Wirtz at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Gerald Beckett Trio with Eric Swinderman at 9 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810.  

The Ravines at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

Meliaquis, Diegos Umbrella at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $5. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

Trainwreck Riders, Genghis Khan, Rum & Rebellion at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St. Cost is $6. 525-9926. 

Aqualibrre, Los Pingous at 9 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low, 2284 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $10. 548-1159.  

Brazuca Brown at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

The Yellowjackets at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square, through Sun. Cost is $22. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

SATURDAY, OCT. 28 

CHILDREN  

Los Amiguitos de La Peña with Betsy Rose, Halloween songs and activities, at 10:30 a.m. at La Peña. Cost is $4 for adults, $3 for children. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

A Harvest of Peace An alternative Halloween Concert for children and families at 10:30 a.m. at La Pena Cultural Center, 3105 Shattuck Ave. Please bring a fruit or vegetable of the season for the harvest altar. Food will be donated to a local soup kitchen. Also bring pictures or remembrances of grandparents, favorite pets or those you consider ancestors. Cost is $3-$4. 849-2568. 

EXHIBITIONS 

“California as Muse” The Art of Arthur and Lucia Mathews opens at the Oakland Museum of California, 10th and Oak, Oakland. Cost is $5-$8. 238-2200. www.museumca.org 

“Nine at Gaia: A Group Show” Works by Carol Brighton, Helen Chellin, Debra Jewell, Tessa Merrie, Hearne Pardee, Sylvia Sussman, Sandy Walker, Christine Walter, Gina Werfel. Opening reception at 7 p.m. at Gaia Arts Center, 2120 Allston Way. 653-3433. 

Randy & Jan McKeachie Johnston “New Work” Reception at 5 p.m. at Trax Gallery, 1815 Fifth St. Exhibition runs to Nov. 22. 540-8729. 

“Wheels” Works by Christopher Peterson, Harrod Blank, Philip Hall and Troy Paiva. Paintings and photographs of cars. Opening reception at 3 p.m. at Montclair Gallery, 1986 Mountain Blvd. 339-4286.  

FILM 

A Theater Near You “The Case of the Grinning Cat” at 7 p.m. and “The World” at 8 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Watershed Envoronmental Poetry Festival from noon to 6 p.m. at Berkeley City College, 2050 Center St. Opening Creek Walk, with poetry writing and reading led by Chris Olander, Meet at 10 a.m. on the UC Berkeley Campus, Oxford and Center Sts. 526-9105. www.poetryflash.org 

“At Thadeus Lake” Conversation with the artist Sherri Martin, winner of the 2006 Kala Board Prize at 2 p.m. at Kala Art Institute, 1060 Heinz Ave. Exhibition runs to Nov. 25. 549-2977. www.kala.org 

“Healing with Music” a lecture by Therese West at Berkeley Piano Club, sponsored by Four Seasons Concerts. Tickets are $25. 601-7919. 

“Braided Lives: A Collboration Between Artists and Poets” at 7:30 p.m. at Studio Rasa, 933 Parker St. Donation $5-$15. 843-2787. www.studiorasa.org 

Andrea Nguyen descrbes “The Vietnamese Kitchen: Ancient Foodways, Modern Flavors” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. 

Douglas Kent discusses “Firescaping” at 7:30 p.m. at Mrs. Dalloways, 2904 College Ave. 704-8222. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Harvest of Song with new compositions by Allen Shearer, Peter Joseff, Don Walker and others at 7:30 p.m. at Berkeley Art Center, 1275 Walnut St. in Live Oak Park. Cost is $10. 644-6893. www.berkeleysrtcenter.org 

Young People’s Symphony Orchestra Fall Concert at 8 p.m. at First Congregational Church of Berkeley, 2345 Channing Way, Tickets are $12-$15. 849-9776. www.ypsomusic.net 

Kensington Symphony with Thomas Shoebotham, cello, performs Shostakovich, Lalo, Beethoven at 8 p.m. at Northminster Presbyterian Church, 545 Ashbury Ave., El Cerrito. Donation $10-$15, children free. 524-9912. 

Lyon Opera Ballet at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $32-$58. 642-9988. www.calperfs.berkeley.edu 

Flamenco Halloween at 8:30 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $15. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Hindustani Ragas by Teed Rockwell at 7:30 p.m. a Fourth Street Yoga, 1809 Fourth St., #C. Cost is $10. For reservations call 548-8779.  

Ellen Robinson & Her Trio at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $12. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Lost Coast and Dark Hollow, bluegrass, at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $10-$12. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Inspector Double Negative and the Equal Positives at 9 p.m. at the Uptown Nightclub, 1928 Telegraph, Oakland. Cost is $10. 451-8100. www.uptownnightclub.com 

David Gans at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

Wake the Dead at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $19.50-$20.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Radio Suicide, CD release, at 9 p.m. at Blakes on Telegraph. Cost is $10. 848-0886. www.blakesontelegraph.com 

Wil Blades and Brian Pardo at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $12-$15. 845-5373. www.jazzschool.com 

Rhonda Benin & Soulful Strut at 9 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810.  

Carl Nagin, flamenco, at 8 p.m. at Spuds Pizza, 3290 Adeline St. Cost is $7-$10. 558-0881. 

Murder Ballads Bash, songs of misery, murder and despair, at 9 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $8. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

Guru Garage at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Halloween Weekend Show with Minor Threat, Youth of Today, Negative Approach and others at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St., an all-ages, member-run, no alcohol, no drugs, no violence club. Cost is $6. 525-9926. 

SUNDAY, OCT. 29 

CHILDREN 

Reading and Learning about Gardens for children at 1 and 4 p.m. at Mrs. Dalloways, 2904 College Ave. 704-8222. 

Muriel Johnson Storytelling at 2 p.m. at Bananas, 5232 Claremont Ave., Oakland. Registration required. 658-7353. 

FILM 

A Theater Near You “Neighborhood Watch” at 7 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

“Desperate Hours” at 7:30 p.m. at the JCC, 1414 Walnut St. Donation $5. 848-0237. 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

“Celebrating Decca” readings from the newly published letters of Jessica Mitford by friends, family and distinguished authors in a benefit for KPFA at 8 p.m. at King Middle School, 1781 Rose St. Tickets are $15-$20. 848-6767, ext. 609. 

“The Furniture Shop and Its Legacy” The design and decoration of the furnishings of Arthur and Lucia Mathews at 2 p.m. at the Oakland Museum of California, 10th and Oak, Oakland. Cost is $5-$8. 238-2200. www.museumca.org 

Ghost Walk and Graveyard Tales with Bay Area mystery and crime writers Simon Wood, Hailey Lind, Camille Minichino at 7 p.m. at Chapel of the Chimes, 4499 Piedmont Ave. Oakland. 228-3207. 

Poetry Flash with Norman Fischer and Paul Naylor at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698. www.blackoakbooks.com 

Representa! bilingual hip-hop and spoken word at 6 p.m. at La Peña. Cost is $5-$10. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

“Laughing Bones/Weeping Hearts” Gallery talk with artists Joe Bastida Rodriguez and Deborah Rumer at 2 p.m. at the Oakland Museum of California, 10th and Oak, Oakland. Cost is $5-$8. 238-2200. www.museumca.org 

“Aili” by Matti Kurikka, dramatized reading in English of the 1887 Finnish feminist play at 2 p.m. at Finnish Kaleva Hall, 1970 Chestnut St. Donation $5. 849-0125.  

Kevin Coval reads from “Slingshots (A Hip-Hop Poetica)” at 5 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Harvest of Song with new compositions by Allen Shearer, Peter Joseff, Don Walker and others at 7:30 p.m. at Berkeley Art Center, 1275 Walnut St. in Live Oak Park. Cost is $10. 644-6893. www.berkeleysrtcenter.org 

Susan Werner at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

The English Concert at 3 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $30-$42. 642-9988. www.calperfs.berkeley.edu 

University Wind Ensemble at 3 p.m. at Hertz Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $4-$12. 642-4864. http://music.berkeley.edu 

Janet Oliphant Rossman and Carol Dechaine, showtime favorites at 7 p.m. at Latarena Playhouse, 1409 High St., Alameda. Benefits the Let The Music Play Fund. www.altarena.org 

Brazilian Soul at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $9. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Evelie Posch at 11 a.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

Americana Unplugged: The Saddle Cats, western swing, at 5 p.m. at Jupiter. 655-5715. 

Clockwork, a cappella jazz, at 9 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810.  

Susan Muscarello Trio, Halloween jazz, at 4:30 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $18. 845-5373. www.jazzschool.com 

Susan Werner at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $17.50-$18.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

The Yellowjackets at 7 and 9 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $22. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

MONDAY, OCT. 30 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Wangari Maathai, founder of the Greenbelt Movement at 7:30 p.m. at First Congregational Church of Berkeley, 2345 Channing Way at Dana. Suggested donation $10. 559-9500. 

Art, Technology and Culture Colloquium at 7:30 p.m. at the Center for New Media, 160 Kroeber Hall, UC Campus. www. ieor.berkeley.edu/~goldberg/lecs 

Poetry Express open mic theme night on “night poems” at 7 p.m., at Priya Restaurant, 2072 San Pablo Ave. 644-3977. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Khalil Shaheed, all ages jam, at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $5. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

“An Evening of Improvised Music” at 8 p.m. at the Hillside Club, 2286 Cedar St. 

Denny Zeitlin Trio at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $10-$16. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

It’s not exactly High School Confidential, the interactive show Sausalito’s Antenna Theater is staging at Berkeley High through this weekend, but as an example of Antenna’s ‘Walkmanology,’ more of a tour through four years on campus compressed into 45 minutes, literally a walk-through of secondary education. 

High School has been staged twice before, at schools in Marin and San Francisco, in evolving, site-specific form, and is slated to continue at other schools throughout America. 

Chris Hardman, its creator (John Warren directed), is an alumnus of Snake Theater, probably the best-known “environmental” troupe of the ‘70s. 

More than 25 students are cast, seven in the student crew, and more than 50 voices, with tales from interviews swirling through an ambulatory auditor-spectator’s ears while strolling through the corridors and classrooms, confronted by masked (and sculpted) personnel, actual students, and a variety of conundrums to bring home the student experience. 

(The idea of High School took me back to my own—undisclosed—Bay Area alma mater, wherein with my gonzo guerrilla theater club, I put on—the operant term—a special Boot Camp for Freshman Orientation Day, with a suitably authentic Drill Sergeant, who took the incoming frosh through the wringer. The activities dean was not amused. Apparently, high school itself wasn’t meant to be theater, no matter how theatrical.) 

Antenna’s itinerary takes you from alarm clock and bus ride in the morning, to entering the doors of the campus--voices describing their thoughts on entering for the first time—through the Security Office (and an imposing cartoonish figure who escorts you out) and posing for an I.D. tag photo. Later you’ll glimpse gossipers out of the side of your eye as you stoop to open a locker, be lightly jostled by kids “cupcaking,” get mildly hazed in OCI (instead of detention) and witness through an upstairs window student brawlers with enormous 2-D arms broken up by the monolithic Security Guard. You’re taken all the way through to graduation, with the valedictorian asking, “What are you going to do with the rest of your life?” Remember? 

With the tidbits of real stories and students playing students amid the masks, I found it to be, though somewhat stylized, much more realistic than my old Boot Camp routine. Strange, I had the feeling at times of being on a game show, or of writing a sociology report, based on a simulation. 

And the freshmen voices were right about getting lost, too. I did. Mistaking a Walkman cue while standing at a stop sign for us spectators, one ambling through every two minutes, I went through a door someone left ajar—and got locked out. Standing on the pavement outside, I faithfully listened to the last few moments on tape, and returned by the street to square one. 

It served me right. Too long a passive onlooker, ensconced in a padded seat in the audience, taking notes. I couldn’t cut it as participant anymore; probably couldn’t even get cast as a spear carrier. 

They gave me my diploma, anyway. I felt much more awkward and teary than at my actual ceremony decades ago, though no-one played “Pomp and Circumstance.” Maybe you can’t go home again, but High School can really get to you. 

High School  

Presented by Antenna Theater through Oct. 29 at Berkeley High School, 1980 Allston Way. One audience member enters show every minute, walks lasts 45 minutes. $20 adults, $8 students. Reservations required. (415) 332-9454, www.antenna-theater.org.  

I am waiting for a rehearsal, held in the living room of a beautiful home, to begin. It’s the first time I will hear the pianist and soprano who are performing an aria that I wrote the libretto for. Earlier I saw the composer, Peter Josheff, going over the music with the pianist. He was totally focused. What he was telling her matters.  

After several singers and musicians have performed, the soprano gets up and says a few words about the aria: the character singing is Francesca da Rimini, the tortured soul doomed to the third ring of Dante’s hell where the damned, because they have been unable to resist the force of their desires, are blown about by an unrelenting wind.  

The aria is Francesca’s explanation of why she is in hell. It’s the first aria Peter and I have completed in our longer work-in-progress based on Francesca’s story in the Divine Comedy. Peter Josheff and I have collaborated on vocal music and improvisation for over 10 years. 

Even in collaboration, though, composing and writing are solitary processes.  

At the beginning of each project we develop, Peter tells me in general terms what he is looking for: the voices and instruments he wants to compose for, the length of the piece, its emotional content. I figure out an appropriate “story” and write a text. He then writes the music. Occasionally he’ll question words or the sense of a section of the text as he is writing.  

Although he has a clear idea of the piece in development, I only hear the finished product at the last moment: in final rehearsal or in performance. It’s in those moments that the work we’ve done changes, going from personal struggle in a solitary setting to a coherent event in a public setting. The collaboration between writer and composer has ended; the object created belongs to the performer and to the audience. 

Listening to Francesca’s aria, I evaluate our work. The music is ominous and gorgeous at the same time: the complexity of notes rising from the piano supports the intensely melodic line of the words, and surrounds the listener. It seems to blend with the light reflected from the walls of the room and the silence of the audience. 

You can hear the chilling despair of hell as well as the singer’s continuing desire for life and love; the soprano’s delicate interpretation is totally convincing. Peter has written this piece for her and he has woven the nuances of her voice into the music’s emotional threads. Though the aria will change once the rest of the opera is written, I find this version of “Francesca’s Complaint” perfect in and of itself. It has captured the constellation of meanings I endeavored to put into words and moved beyond them into something transformative. 

Each year Peter Josheff and Allen Shearer, two of the Bay Area’s most interesting and noteworthy composers, put together a concert of songs and premier them at the Berkeley Art Center as “The Harvest of Song.” They not only present their own new work, they also showcase the work of other Bay Area composers who write for voice and chamber ensemble; the music is played and sung by some of the most accomplished musicians in the Bay Area.  

We invite you to join us this year at the Berkeley Art Center. 

HARVEST OF SONG 

7:30 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 28 and Sunday, Oct. 29. Pre-concert discussion at 6:30 p.m. Berkeley Art Center, 1275 Walnut St. in Live Oak Park. 654-8651. 

Featured will be world premiere performances of new works by Allen Shearer, Ann Callaway, and the collaborative team of composer Peter Josheff and poet Jaime Robles, as well as recent works by Sue-Hye Kim, Dan Reiter, Mikako Endo and Don Walker. Also included will be a song from the 1930s workers’ musical Pins and Needles by Harold Rome. 

This program will feature performances by the Harvest of Song All Stars: Tod Brody, flute; Peter Josheff, clarinet; Karen Rosenak, piano; Ellen Ruth Rose, viola and Dan Reiter, cello; with vocalists Eliza O’Malley, soprano and Allen Shearer, baritone.  

At the Friday night opening concert of the 24th annual SF Jazz Festival, Sonny Rollins performed a half dozen tunes for almost two hours with an astounding amount of passion, strength and nobility. 

He roared through the title tune of his new CD, Sonny, Please and his own “Nice Lady,” a lovely calypso, before getting into a groove with three standards, “Stairway to the Stars,” “Some Day I’ll Find You” and “They Say It’s Wonderful,” and then closed with an exciting version of his own “Don’t Stop the Carnival.” He seemed to have inherited Thelonious Monk’s mantle, shuffle-dancing across the stage while playing intensely focused and profound saxophone lines. This incredible beginning augurs great things from the rest of the festival. The following programs are just the top picks from a consistently great lineup: 

Last year saw the death of jazz bass great Percy Heath, but his brothers, drummer Tootie Heath and saxophonist Jimmy Heath, will celebrate Jimmy’s 80th birthday in a concert on Wednesday, 7:30 p.m. at Herbst Theatre. The Heath brothers grew up in Philadelphia where they were high school friends of John Coltrane and Benny Golson. They were part of that generation of African-American jazz musicians from northern industrial centers who created hard bop. Jimmy started on alto, but soon picked up the tenor, soprano and flute. His original compositions, like “CTA” and “Gingerbread Boy,” have become jazz standards. Albert “Tootie” Heath is simply one of the greatest and most sensitive drummers in the history of jazz. Together the Heath brothers have recorded with almost every important jazz musician on a combined 900 albums. Young trumpet star Jeremy Pelt will join their fraternity for this performance. 

Pianist/composer Andrew Hill, who performs on Sunday, 7 p.m. at Herbst Theatre, with his Anglo-American Quintet, represents the generation of jazz players who straddled the period of bop and free jazz. As a teenager in Chicago in the early ’50s, he was playing on dates with Charlie Parker and Miles Davis. By his early 20s, he was working with Roland Kirk and Eric Dolphy. For this gig, he returns to material from his classic 1964 Blue Note album, Point of Departure. Also on the bill is six-string guitarist Nels Cline and his group playing fresh interpretations of Hill’s compelling compositions. 

The organ is the star on Friday, Nov. 3, with shows at 8 and 10:30 p.m. at the Great American Music Hall. Dr. Lonnie Liston Smith, joined by James Brown trombone alum Fred Wesley, kicks things off followed by young reed giant James Carter and his organ trio. Smith had a lot of success in the soul/funk/jazz world with his Cosmic Echoes group. Wesley takes in a lot of territory having not only worked with James Brown and George Clinton’s Funkadelic group, but replaced Al Grey with Count Basie. Carter can play anything from Djangoesque swing to screaming free jazz, but the organ format should bring out his nasty funky side.  

One of the great programming coups of this festival is the concert Saturday, Nov. 4, 8 p.m. at the Masonic Center, featuring pianist Alice Coltrane and saxophonist/son Ravi Coltrane with bassist Charlie Haden and drummer Roy Haynes. Alice is the widow and last pianist of jazz giant John Coltrane. Ravi is their son and John’s saxophone heir. Haden, who comes from a country music family, played in Ornette Coleman’s early combos and is now acknowledged as one of the great jazz bassists. Haynes has played with everyone and among other accomplishments was the drummer on Coltrane’s greatest version of “My Favorite Things” performed live at Newport. This is one of only three American concerts that this quartet will be presenting. 

Trombonist Roswell Rudd has been at the center of the free jazz movement since the early ‘60s. Before that he played the music of Thelonious Monk and in Dixieland bands. He has been on key albums with Archie Shepp and John Tchicai as well as on Charlie Haden’s Liberation Music Orchestra album. He recently began working with Mongolian throat-singers, the results of which can be heard on his 2005 disc Blue Mongol. Strangely, his warm, earthy, throaty trombone sound melds beautifully with the Badma Khanda Mongolian Buryat Band of throat singers and instrumentalists. They perform together on Sunday, Nov. 12, 2 p.m. at the Palace of the Legion of Honor’s Florence Gould Theatre. 

The festival comes to a close on Sunday, Nov. 12, 7 p.m. at the Palace of Fine Arts, with a farewell concert by John Santos and the Machete Ensemble. Afro-Latin percussionist John Santos is an educator and scholar as well as a major performer who has worked with Latin stars like Yma Sumac, Tito Puente, Patato Valdés, Armando Peraza, Lalo Schifrin, Santana, Cachao and Omar Sosa as well as jazz masters like Dizzy Gillespie, Max Roach, Art Farmer, Bobby Hutcherson, McCoy Tyner and John Faddis. His knowledge and experience of Afro-Latin percussion traditions, rooted in family, community, tradition, study, practice and meditation, is profound. For this final concert by the Ensemble, Santos will be joined by Ray Vega, Maria Marquez and a number of other special guests. 

I only have room to breathlessly mention such promising concerts as vibraphonist Stefon Harris (10/26), pianist Cyrus Chestnut (10/27), Astor Piazzolla pianist Pablo Ziegler, keyboard/reed/percussion phenomenon Peter Apfelbaum with the Kamikaze Ground Crew (11/1), and Django Reinhardt-styled guitar virtuoso Dorado Schmitt (11/12). For more information on the SF Jazz Festival call (415) 788-7353 or see www.sfjazz.org. 

Berkeley was a much different place 80 years ago. But then as now, it was prime barn owl territory. During the summer of 1926, E. Raymond Hall of UC’s Museum of Vertebrate Zoology kept track of a family of owls nesting in the tower of the First Presbyterian Church that then stood at Dana and Channing. Hall, who habitually worked late, heard them calling while walking home from the museum between 10 p.m. and midnight. 

Curious about their diet, he persuaded the church custodian to give him and Professor G. L. Foster access to the tower. Beneath the perches of the two adults and five nearly fledged young owls was a treasure trove of pellets—the residual bones, fur, and feathers coughed up by the birds. 

Allen painstakingly teased apart the pellets, identified their components, and tabulated them by species. His results, published in the Condor, the journal of the Cooper Ornithological Society, in 1927, make interesting reading. (I am indebted to Lisa Owens Viani, founder of Keep Barns Owls in Berkeley, for discovering Allen’s article, and to the University of New Mexico, whose Searchable Ornithological Research Archive project has made the contents of the Condor, the Auk, the Wilson Bulletin, and other journals available on-line.) 

Of nine mammal species represented in the pellets, the California vole (“meadow mouse,” in Allen’s terminology) was by far the most abundant, with 276 individuals. Pocket gophers came in a distant second (84), followed by white-footed mice (52). Only 37 house mice and two Norway rats were identified. Other bits and pieces included the remains of two young brush rabbits, a shrew, a song sparrow, and two Jerusalem crickets. 

Allen noted that the church owls’ diet differed from that of barn owls in Wildcat Canyon, which Foster had previously analyzed, in representing a narrower range of prey species and fewer white-footed mice. “The greater number of House Mice found in the church tower is hard to explain,” he wrote. Well, as a Berkeley resident and occasional house mouse victim, I find that statement hard to explain. Maybe house mice were more discreet in 1926. 

The First Presbyterian barn owls, Allen figured, were hunting mostly in the Berkeley Hills. He had detected east- and west-bound owl traffic over his home on Panoramic Way, up to 17 in a single summer evening. A couple were seen carrying pocket gophers back to their urban nests. Allen figured the owls would have a particularly strong impact on the voles, or meadow mice; his own vole surveys detected a sparser population near the Berkeley city limits than farther east, along the crest of the hills.  

“[T]he utilitarian-minded will infer,” he wrote, “that this belt, with a relatively small meadow mouse population along the city limits, functions as a protection to the well-watered, green lawns in the city. These lawns the meadow mice would seriously damage during the dry season, if a sufficient population could exist in proximity to them. Thus a possible conclusion is that, in Berkeley, a sufficient population of Barn Owls is one factor in maintaining attractive lawns!” 

It’s hard to avoid a twinge of nostalgia for such innocent times when the main perceived rodent problem was meadow mice munching the lawn, not rats frolicking in city parks. But at least the barn owls are still on the job. 

Readers may recall that around the time the barn owl became Berkeley’s city bird, I invited readers to send in owl-inspired stories, poems, art, whatever. I can’t say that the response was overwhelming. However, I did get the poem by eight-year-old Jackson Kinder—a shaped poem, apparently—that accompanies this column. Thanks, Jackson, and my apologies for not getting it into print sooner. The same to Penny Bartlett, whose reminiscence of house-hunting barn owls will appear in a future issue of the Planet. 

And in other owl news, the estimable Hungry Owl Project is having a fund-raising event on October 26 at the Marin Art and Garden Center in Ross, from 6 to 9 p.m. HOP’s second annual Evening with Owls will be hosted by Joe Mueller, biology professor at the College of Marin, and will feature a presentation on great gray owls by Jon Winters. (No, there are no great gray owls in Berkeley, more’s the pity. These are mountain birds, sparsely distributed in the Sierra). Live owls will be present. Tickets ($50) may still be available; call (415) 898-7721, or visit www.hungryowl.org.

TUESDAY, OCT. 24 

Tuesday is for the Birds An early morning walk for birders through Bay Area parklands. Bring water, sunscreen, binoculars and a snack. This week we will visit Wildcat Canyon. For meeting location or to borrow binoculars, call 525-2233.  

United Nations 61st Anniversary and Global Citizen Awards honoring Danny Glover and Larry Brilliant at 6 p.m. at International House, 2299 Piedmont Ave. Tickets are $10-$15. 643-8300. www.unausaseastbay.org 

“Election Pro and Cons” Sponsored by the League of Women Voters at 1:15 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center, 1901 Hearst. 981-5190. 

Debate on Proposition 87 Alternative Energy and Oil Tax at 7 p.m. in Evans Hall, Room 10, UC Campus. Submit questions to caldebateseries@gmail.com 

Berkeley High School Governance Council meets at 4:15 p.m. in the lobby of the Community Theater. Agenda items include Advisory Plan, WASC Plan, Attendance Policy and Homework Inequity. 644-4803. 

Berkeley PC Users Group meets at 7 p.m. at 25 Dartmouth Rd. email id you need directions, rits@surfbest.net 

Depression Screening Day and Address Your Stress Festival from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. at MLK Student Union, UC Campus. Free, public is welcome. www.uhs.berkeley.edu. 

Berkeley School Volunteers Training workshop for volunteers interested in helping the public schools, from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. at 1835 Allston Way. 644-8833. 

Volunteer at Emerson Elementary School Stop by any time from 8:15 a.m. to 5:15 p.m. or call 883-5247. 

“Canoe Expedition from the Canadian Rockies to Husdon Bay” with Michael Gregory at 7 p.m. at REI, 1338 San Pablo Ave. 527-4140.  

East Bay Children’s Theater Auditions for male and female adult roles for “Rumplestiltskin” from 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at Kehilla Community Synagogue, 1300 Grand Ave, Oakland. For details call 537-9957. 

Sleep Soundly Seminar A free class on how hypnosis can help you sleep at 6:30 p.m. at 378 Jayne Ave., Oakland. To register call 465-2524. 

Albany Library Homework Center is open from 3 to 5 p.m., Tues. and Thurs. for students in third through fifth grades. Emphasis is placed on math and writing skills. No registration is required. 1247 Marin Ave. 526-3720 ext 17. 

Torture Teach-in and Vigil every Tues. at 12:30 p.m. at the fountain on UC Campus, Bancroft at College. 

Handbuilding Ceramics Class from 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at St. John’s Senior Center, 2727 College Ave. Also Mon. from noon to 4 p.m. and Wed. from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the South Berkeley Senior Center, Ashby at Ellis Sts Free, except for materials and firing charges. 525-5497. 

Toddler and Me Discovery Group at 10 a.m. at the Jewish Community Center, 1414 Walnut St. 

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. 

WEDNESDAY, OCT. 25  

Claremont Elmwood Neighborhood Association Candidates Night with Mayoral and Disctrict 8 candidates at 7:30pm at St. John’s Church, Fireside Room, College and Garber. All welcome. www.claremontelmwood.org 

Preserve Police Accountability A rally and march to demand that citizen complaints continue to be heard. Meet at 6 p.m. at the Public Safety Building, MLK and Center St. to march to the North Berkeley Senior Center for the meeting on the future of the Police Review Commission. Sponsored by Copwatch. 548-0425. 

Tilden Explorers An after-school nature adventure program for 5-7 year olds, at 3:15 p.m. at Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park. Cost is $6-$8. Registration required. 636-1684. 

Walking Tour of Jack London Waterfront Meet at 10 a.m. at the corner of Broadway and Embarcadero. Tour lasts 90 minutes. Reservations can be made by calling 238-3234. www.oaklandnet.com/walkingtours 

Cut Housing? You’ve Got to be Kidding? A discussion with Wanda Remmers of Housing Rights and Councilmember Linda Maio at 1:30 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Sponsored by the Gray Panthers. 548-9696. 

Debate on Berkeley’s Measure I, Condominium Conversion Ordinance at 8 p.m. at North Gate Hall, UC Campus. Submit questions to caldebateseries@gmail.com. 

“Toxic Bust” A documentary on the relationship between breast cancer and chemical exposure at 7 p.m. at La Peña, 3105 Shattck Ave. 849-2568. 

“Timor-Leste: A Candidate for State Failure?” with James Cotton, Professor of Politics, University of New South Wales at the Australian Defence Force Academy at 4 p.m. at the IEAS Conference Room, 2223 Fulton St., 6th Floor. 642-2809. ttp://ieas.berkeley.edu/events 

Bayswater Book Club meets to discuss “Bubble Man: Alan Greenspan & the Missing 7 Trillion Dollars” by Peter Hartcher at 6:30 p.m. at Barnes and Noble, El Cerrito. 433-2911. 

Lead-Safe Painting and Remodeling A free introductory class to learn how to do safe renovations in you rolder home, from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Emeryville Recreation Dept., 4300 San Pablo Ave., Emeryville. 567-8280. www.aclppp.org 

New to DVD “Thank You For Smoking” Film and discussion at 7 p.m. at the JCC, 1414 Walnut St. 848-0237. 

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. Heavy rain cancels. 548-9840. 

Fresh Produce Stand at San Pablo Park from 3 to 6:30 p.m. in the Frances Albrier Community Center. Sponsored by the Ecology Center’s Farm Fresh Choice. 848-1704. www.ecologycenter.org 

Berkeley Peace Walk and Vigil at the Berkeley BART Station, 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, OCT. 26 

The Oakland Bird Club with Alan Kaplan, naturalist, retired from 33 years in the Interpretive Services division of the East Bay Regional Park District, on The History of Birding Field Guides, at 7:30 p.m. at the Oakland Public Library, Rockridge Branch, 5366 College Ave. 444-0355. 

“What are Americans Voting For?” Panel discussion with Joan Blades, George Lakoff, Markos Moulitsas, and Robert Reich, moderated by Bruce Cain at 7:30 p.m., Wheeler Auditorium, UC Campus. Free. 643-4487. 

North Shattuck Plaza Community Meeting to review the proposed plans for the area’s redevelopment at 7 p.m. at the Jewish Community Center, 1414 Walnut Street. info@northshattuckplaza.org 

“Talking About Macdonald” performances based on community recollections of Richmond’s downtown at 6:30 p.m. at East Bay Center for the Performing Arts Winters Building, 339 11th St., corner of 11th and Macdonald, Richmond. 540-6809. www.ci.richmond.ca.us 

“Cancer in Your Cosmetics?” Discussion at noon at Alta Bates Summit, Peralta Pavilion, 450 30th St., Oakland. Bring products to examine. Free but registration required. 869-8833. 

Environmental Film Series “Bum’s Paradise” and “Up Close & Toxic” on the Albany landfill, at 7 p.m. at the Ecology Center, 2530 San Pablo Ave. 548-2220, ext. 233. 

Easy Does It Disability Assistance Board of Directors Meeting at 6:30 p.m. at 1744A University Ave., behind the Lutheran Church between Grant and McGee. All welcome. 845-5513. www.easyland.org 

Traveling with Children with Lonely Planet traveling mother, Robin Goldberg at 6 p.m. at Oakland Public Library, 125 14th St. 238-3136 

American Red Cross Blood Donations from 8:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. at the Metro Center Auditorium, 101 Eighth St., Oakland. Call to schedule and appointment. 464-7712. 

Managing Type 2 Diabetes at 6 p.m. at Elephant Pharmacy, 1607 Shattuck Ave. 549-9200. 

El Cerrito Toastmasters “Fright Night” Open House at 7:30 p.m. at the El Cerrito Community Center, 7007 Moser Lane. 860-7906.  

FRIDAY, OCT. 27 

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 Dr. Lisa Feuchtbaum on “Newborn Screening” Luncheon at 11:45 a.m. for $14, speech at 12:30 p.m., at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant St. For information and reservations call 526-2925.  

“Unconstitutional: The War on Our Civil Liberties” A documentary by Robert Greenwald at 7:30 p.m. at Humanist Hall, 390 27th St., between Broadway and Telegraph, Oakland. Cost is $5. 

An Evening of Claire Burch Films, in appreciation and memory of Allen Cohen at 6 p.m. at Unitarian Fellowship, 1924 Cedar St. 547-7602. 

Haunted House at an historic English Tudor-style house, 2647 Durant Aven. Free to Berkeley and Oakland students from 4 to 6 p.m. 562-2506. 

UC Berkeley Asian Business Association’s Charity Fashion Show at 7 p.m. at Julia Morgan Center for the Arts, 2640 College Ave: Cost is $10. jchea@berkeley.edu  

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

SATURDAY, OCT. 28 

Native Plant Fair with Berkeley native plants, bulbs, seeds, books, art, and crafts for sale, talks by experts and fun activities for children, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., and Sun. from noon to 3 p.m. at Native Here Nursery, 101 Golf Course Dr., Tilden Park. 496-6016. www.ebcnps.org  

Codornices Creek Watershed Tour Meet at 9 a.m. near the mouth of Codornices Creek at Albany Waterfront Trail, where Buchanan St. dead ends north of Golden Gate Fields, west of I-580. The tour will begin at the upstream end of the watershed and will consist of stops with different speakers along various points of the creek, ending at the mouth of the creek near the meeting point. 452-0901. 

The New School Halloween Bazaar, with face painting, children's games, rummage and books sales, haunted house, food and entertainment from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at 606 Bonita Street, at Cedar. 548-9165. 

“Breaking the Silence” with former Israeli military commander Yehuda Shaul, founder of a group of ex-combatants who reveal how Israeli soldiers regularly violate the human rights of Palestinians while serving in the Occupied Territories, at 7:30 p.m. at Berkeley Unitarian Church Fellowship Hall, 1924 Cedar St., at Bonita. Sliding scale donation $5-$20. 465-1777. 

Breast Cancer in Our Community with Lisa Bailey, MD, Medical Director of the Carol Ann Read Breast Health Center at 11 a.m. at Elephant Pharmacy, 1607 Shattuck Ave. Registration is required. 549-9200. 

Teens Touch the Earth learn how to protect the bay, wildlife and native plants, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Miller Knox. Community service credit available. Registration required. 636-1684. 

“Fall Blooming Perennials & Shrubs” at 10 a.m. at Magic Gardens, 729 Heinz Ave. 644-2351. 

Harvest Festival, with activities for children and entertainment for adults from noon to 4 p.m. at Bay Street, Emeryville. 655-4002. 

Neighborhood Anti-War Rally at 1:30 p.m. at the corner Acton and University. Sponsored by the Tenants Association of Strawberry Creek Lodge. 841-4143. 

How Berkeley Came To Be Bring photocopies of photos, postcards and other memorabilia of your family’s arrival in Berkeley to create a community scrapbook at 2 p.m. at the Berkeley Public Library, South Branch. For infromation call 981-6147. 

“Dias de los Muertos” Feast of the Angelitos at 2 p.m. and Procession of the Day of the Dead at 6 p.m. at Chapel of the Chimes, 4499 Piedmont Ave., Oakland. 228-3207. arodman@lifemarkgroup.com 

Haunted Caves A spooky adventure for ages 3 and up from 1 to 3:30 p.m. at the Tilden Nature Center. Cost is $3-$5. 525-2233. 

Talking Pumpkins, Birds and Trees with storytellers and an enchanted walk at 10 a.m. at UC Botanical Garden, 200 Centennial Drive. Come in costume. Cost is $8-$10, $3 for each additional child. Registration required. 643-2755. 

O’Hallow’s Eve Fright Night from 1 to 8 p.m. at the Ashby Flea Market with music, games, dance contest, pie-eating contest, face painting and more.  

Halloween Face Painting for children Sat. and Sun. from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Elephant Pharmacy, 1607 Shattuck Ave. 549-9200. 

Dog Training: Slow Down! Teach your dog to walk without pulling at 9:30 a.m. and “Come Spot Come” at 10:30 a.m. at Grace North Church, 2128 Cedar St. Cost is $35-$40. Registration required. 849-9323. www.companyofdogs.com 

Animal Communication, for healing, at RabbitEars, 303 Arlington Ave. Cost is $25, for an appointment call 525-6155. 

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

Berkeley Haunted House for all ages from 6:30 to 8:15 p.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. Free, donations accepted. 845-6830, ext. 13. 

Monster Bash aboard the Aircraft Carrier USS Hornet Museum from 7:30 p.m. to midnight at 707 W Hornet Ave, Pier 3 in Alameda. Tickets are $10-$20. Proceeds will benefit the Aircraft Carrier USS Hornet Museum. 521-8448, ext. 282. www.hornetevents.com 

Bilingual Storytime Stories in English and Spanish for toddlers and preschoolers at 10:30 a.m. in the Edith Stone Room at the Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave. 526-3720, ext. 17. 

The Berkeley Lawn Bowling Club provides free instruction every Wed. and Sat. at 10:30 a.m. at 2270 Acton St. 841-2174.  

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.  

Around the World Tour of Plants at 1:30 p.m., Thurs., Sat. and Sun. at UC Botanical Garden, 200 Centennial Drive. 643-2755.  

Car Wash Benefit for Options Recovery Services of Berkeley, held every Sat. from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Lutheran Church, 1744 University Ave. 666-9552. 

SUNDAY, OCT. 29 

UCC-Toberfest with wine and beer tasting, silent auction, live music and food, from 1 to 5 p.m. at Piedmont Veterans Community Hall, 401 Highland Ave. Piedmont. Cost is $25. Benefits the Urban Creeks Council. 540-6669. 

Street Scare Halloween Block Party with pumpkin carving, bean-bag-toss, fun photos, crafts and more, from noon to 5 p.m. at 23rd St. and Telegraph. Sponsored by Rock, Paper, Scissors Gallery. 278-9171.  

Open House and Costume Party from 1 to 6 p.m. at Expressions Art Gallery, 2035 Ashby Ave. 644-4930. 

Alameda Fall Festival with live music, cookout, children’s activities and more, from noon to 5 p.m. at Alameda Marketplace, Park St. parking lot, 1650 Park St. www.alamedamarketplace.com 

Haunted House at an historic English Tudor-style house at 2647 Durant Ave. Open to the public from 6 to 9 pm.. Cost is $3, and benefits The Green Stampede Homework Club. 562-2506. 

“Celebrating Decca” readings from the newly published letters of Jessica Mitford by friends, family and distinguished authors in a benefit for KPFA at 8 p.m. at King Middle School, 1781 Rose St. Tickets are $15-$20. 848-6767, ext. 609. 

El Cerrito Historical Society meets to discuss Historic Preservation at 2 p.m. at the El Cerrito Senior Center, located behind the El Cerrito Library, 6510 Stockton Ave. 526-7507.  

Beauty of Briones A moderate 5 mile hike through a spectaular park, led by naturalist Tara Reinertson. Meet at 10 a.m. at Bear Creek Staging Area. Bring lunch, sunscreen, and water. 525-2233. 

Berkeley Cybersalon with Steven Levy on “The Perfect Thing: How the iPod Shuffles Commerce, Culture and Coolness” at 5 p.m. at the Hillside Club, 2286 Cedar St. Cost is $10. whoisylvia@aol.com 

Home Greywater Workshop Learn about and help create the first permitted residential greywater system from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Berkeley Ecohouse, 1305 Hopkins St. Cost is $15 slidign scale, no one turned away. 547-8715. 

IRV Peace Meet-up and Rally at 1:30 p.m. at Splashpad Park, LakeShore and Grand Ave., Oakland. 644-1303. 

Get Your Freak On at the Kensington Farmers’ Market, tatoo booth, fortune telling, and more from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at 303 Arlington Ave., Kensington. 

“Voodoo: The Authentic Legacy of Marie Laveau in New Orleans” with Carol Carlisle at 9:30 a.m at Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley, 1 Lawson Rd., Kensington. 525-0302, ext. 306. 

Tibetan Buddhism with Mark Henderson on “The Hidden Power of the Tibetan Prayer Wheel” at 6 p.m. at the Tibetan Nyingma Institute, 1815 Highland Pl. 843-6812.  

MONDAY, OCT. 30 

Batopia Learn the truth about bats with Maggie Hooper and her flying friends at 7 p.m. at the Piedmont Ave. Branch of the Oakland Public Library, 160 41st St. 597-5011. 

World Affairs/Politics Discussion Group for people aged 60 and over meets at 9:45 a.m. at the Albany Senior Center, 846 Masonic Ave. Donation $3. 524-9122. 

CITY MEETINGS 

City Council meets Tues., Oct. 24, at 7 p.m in City Council Chambers. 981-6900. www.ci. 

berkeley.ca.us/citycouncil 

Civic Arts Commission meets Wed., Oct. 25, at 6:30 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Mary Ann Merker, 981-7533. 

Disaster and Fire Safety Commission meets Wed., Oct. 25, at 7 p.m., at the Emergency Operations Center, 997 Cedar St. 981-5502.  

Energy Commission meets Wed., Oct. 25, at 6:30 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-5434.  

Planning Commission meets Wed., Oct. 25, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-7484.  

Police Review Commission meets Wed. Oct. 25, at 6 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-4960. 

Zoning Adjustments Board meets Thurs., Oct. 26, at 7 p.m., in City Council Chambers. 981-7410.