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Campus tree-sitter Zachary Running Wolf makes an unsuccesful plea to UC Regents—by means of the cell phone Doug Buckwald is holding—urging them not to approve a high tech gym that will require decimation of the grove along Memorial Stadium’s western wall. Photograph by Richard Brenneman.
Campus tree-sitter Zachary Running Wolf makes an unsuccesful plea to UC Regents—by means of the cell phone Doug Buckwald is holding—urging them not to approve a high tech gym that will require decimation of the grove along Memorial Stadium’s western wall. Photograph by Richard Brenneman.
 

News

UC Regents Approve Controversial Projects

By Richard Brenneman
Friday December 08, 2006

Tree-sitting protesters, impassioned comments by neighbors and environmental activists, a poem, a bit of guerilla theater and the allotted 90 seconds of reasoned argument from Berkeley’s chief planner failed to sway UC Regents Tuesday. 

After a fast-paced public session, a single unanimous and largely telephonic vote by the board’s Committee on Grounds and Buildings gave the green light to the construction of a tree-clearing high tech gym at UC Berkeley and approved a critical, state-mandated document authorizing seven major projects atop and around the fault-sitting Memorial Stadium. 

Thursday, the second working day after the vote, UC Berkeley issued a call for contractors to apply for prequalification to submit bids, with a conference of would-be bidders slated for 9 a.m. Tuesday in Conference Room 231 at 1936 University Ave. 

The largest projects include a 912-space underground parking lot, a new office and meeting complex joining the functions of the university’s law and business schools and major additions to a seismically upgraded and refurbished Memorial Stadium. 

Lawsuits are certain to follow, with lawyers already hired for just that purpose by the City of Berkeley and the Panoramic Hill Association, which represents residents of the hillside above the stadium, recently recognized as a National Historic District. 

Meanwhile, the ranks of protesters who are taking to the branches of the imperiled trees have grown, along with the ranks of their supporters. 

Julia Butterfly Hill, the inspiration for the protest, paid a quiet visit Tuesday to the grove of coastal live oaks, California redwoods and other trees largely doomed by UC Berkeley’s plans to build a 138,000-square-foot high tech gym at the site. 

Former mayor candidate Zachary Running Wolf—the first protester to take up residence in the branches—cited Hill as the inspiration for his protest. 

Running Wolf ascended a redwood at the stadium grove during the pre-dawn hours of Big Game day Saturday. He has since been joined by other protesters who have taken up residence in nearby trees. 

“The tree-sitters are 100 percent committed to staying up until the trees are safe,” said Doug Buckwald, the environmental activist who has been coordinating support for the tree-in. 

Running Wolf and fellow protester Jess Walsh, who is perched on a platform high in one of the oaks, have been maintaining their perches full time, while Aaron Diek, a student, is being spelled while he completes his final exams, Buckwald said. 

“They’re all doing great,” he added. 

 

Regents act 

Running Wolf was one of the project opponents who spoke to the regents Tuesday, another disembodied telephonic voice—in his case, relayed through the cell phone Doug Buckwald held up to the public microphone in the meeting room at UC San Francisco’s Mission Bay Conference Center. 

“There are options open to you in other areas,” pleaded Running Wolf, a Native American activist as well as a recently defeated candidate for Berkeley Mayor. 

While earlier reports listed the probable cost of the Student Athlete High Performance Center to be built at the grove site as $125 million, Wednesday’s announcement cited an estimated cost of $75 million, or $543 per square foot compared to the earlier $880—funds to be raised by private donors who are expected to pony up more than a third of a billion dollars for the seven projects included in the Southeast Campus Integrated Projects (SCIP) environmental impact report (EIR). 

Combined with an eighth adjacent project, an addition to Bowles Hall, the projects will create as much floor space as that enclosed by one third of the block-square, 102-story Empire State Building. 

While the tree-sitters have drawn the media’s attention to the loss of a grove which includes oaks that would be protected inside the surrounding city, Berkeley officials and neighbors are concerned about both the cumulative impact of the massive projects and the potential dangers to students and university staff they say are posed by building so much near a locked and loaded earthquake fault. 

“The city is clear. Our basic concern is safety,” said Marks. “We are the first responders.” 

One legal basis for a challenge is the Alquist Priolo Act, which governs building on or adjacent to active faults—a law that clearly applies to Memorial Stadium, which is bisected by the Hayward Fault, rated by federal geologists as the Bay Area’s most likely source of a major earthquake in the coming two decades. 

But UC Berkeley Vice Chancellor Edward J. Denton, who heads the university’s building program, told the regents the worries are groundless, and pleas to move the training center and the stadium itself were out of the question. 

The chief reason he cited was the need to preserve a stadium which played a central role in the memories of graduates who return to campus, especially for the Big Game with Stanford that is the highlight of the campus football season every other year. Left unsaid but implicit was the awareness that is those very folks the university wants to tap for money to build the projects. 

Also rejected were pleas by Don Sicular to withhold plans to build a higher bank of seating on the stadium’s eastern side—a project that would block the view of fans who flock to Tightwad Hill, a slope overlooking the stadium where fans can watch for free. 

The high tech gym is critical, Denton said, as a “daily operations hub” for campus athletic programs. 

He also rejected pleas by several critics to build the gym and a new stadium near Edwards Field, a notion he called “bad planning” because the site is also a landmark, and because a stadium there would overshadow downtown buildings immediately to the west. 

Mike Kelly said Panoramic Hills residents aren’t opposed to the training center, only its location. Like the city, the neighborhood association is alleging the university failed to follow the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) in preparing the SCIP EIR. 

“We’ll pursue legal action,” he said, because the stadium is built on a fault. 

Approval of the EIR triggered a 30-day window during which opponents can file suits challenging its legal adequacy 

UC Berkeley officials, supernumeraries to the regents, a hired legal gun and the largely disembodied telephonic voices of the regents occasionally offered comments during Tuesday’s meeting, which was preceded by a closed-door conference presumably involving the threatened litigation. 

Charles Olson, an environmental and property law partner in San Francisco law firm Sanger & Olson, represents the university, while a lawyer with similar specialties, Harriet Ann Steiner of Sacramento law firm McDonough, Holland & Allen, represents the city. Alameda environmental law specialist Michael Lozeau represents the Panoramic Hill Association. 

 

Tight leash 

Acting Secretary Anne Shaw kept the speakers on a tight leash and shortened speaking time. Because 23 people signed up to speak during the 20 minutes allotted for public comments, she cut the standard two-minute segments to 90 seconds, with a maximum of 159 seconds if two others were willing to sacrifice their time to a third speaker. 

Running Wolf was followed by retired Berkeley schoolteacher Scott Walchenheim, an advocate of the Edwards Field site for a new stadium and training center. He said the EIR was also faulty because it failed to list destruction of the grove as a significant impact that couldn’t be mitigated. 

Jim Sharp said another EIR issue was the document’s failure to include the project to transform Bowles Hall, now a men’s residence, into a corporate executive education facility, a project that would add another 50,000 to 80,000 square feet of new construction to the mix. The site is immediately across Stadium Rim Way from the 912-space underground parking lot to be built northwest of the stadium as part of the SCIP projects. 

“Withdraw, revise and recalculate,” he urged. 

Two alumni and one student athlete spoke in favor of the athletic training center, agreeing with university officials who have described the school’s current facilities as the worst in the PAC 10 and possibly the worst of all the major NCAA schools. 

Pleas to spare the oaks came from Dr. Ellen Gunther of the Alameda County Sierra Club and Berkeley poet Bob Randolph, who read from his work, “Two Oaks.” Letters pleading for the oaks came from the California Oaks Foundation and the California Nation Plant Society. 

Berkeley environmental activist LA Wood quoted Berkeley’s most famous environmental activist, David Brower, who he said had once urged the university “not to build another monument to stupidity.” 

Buckwald, who had held up his phone for Running Wolf’s comments, performed a bit of guerilla theater, offering a spring of oak, a broken mirror and an acorn to “invisible gods” of the disembodied regents as the ancient Druids had offered up sacrifices to their own invisible pantheon of spirits. 

The oak was for the trees, the mirror so the regents could reflect on the shattered town/gown relationship and the acorn as a symbol of hope for the future, he said. 

But in the end, after a few questions to Denton and Olson, the committee voted 7-0 for approval, clearing the way for bids in January and the cutting of trees and beginning of excavation in March. 

The entire project should be complete by February 2009, Denton said. 

Meanwhile, Buckwald said, UC Berkeley Police have warned protestors that their banners are illegal and could be removed. Officers visiting the site Tuesday also took down the names of some supporters. 

Still the police presence wasn’t anything like the regents meeting, where no fewer than 10 officers, including a captain and a lieutenant were armed, ready and highly visible outside the meeting room. Three officers later sat in on the meeting itself.


Council Passes New Landmarks Ordinance

By Judith Scherr
Friday December 08, 2006

The Berkeley City Council approved (6-3) Tuesday night an ordinance preservationists say will make landmarking historic sites and structures more difficult and ease the way for developers to demolish older buildings. 

Councilmembers Betty Olds, Kriss Worthington and Dona Spring voted to oppose the revised Landmarks Preservation Ordinance. 

In other council business, the Downtown Business Improvement District was renewed, but a vote on the controversial Solano Avenue BID was delayed a week. The council also approved mandatory reporting for laboratories working with nanoparticles. 

 

Landmarks ordinance 

About two dozen opponents of the revised landmarks ordinance attended the meeting, many of whom had fought the new law at the ballot box with Measure J, an unsuccessful attempt to extend the current Landmarks Preservation Ordinance with minor changes. 

Some said that they were infuriated when they saw that the ordinance posted on the city website on Thursday had been revised three times over the weekend in order to add a new clause saying that the ordinance is not “severable”, which means that if any part of it is struck down the whole law will be considered repealed. 

For preservation activist Laurie Bright, who says he intends to start gathering signatures for a referendum on the ordinance as soon as the second reading is approved Dec. 12, this change would likely mean that he will be forced to challenge the entire ordinance, rather than simply asking the voters to reject parts of it. 

“We’re discussing it with our lawyers,” Bright said on Thursday. 

While Mayor Tom Bates defended the addition of the non-severability clause as a minor addition, Councilmember Kriss Worthington attacked the manner in which the clause had been added, calling it “trickery” and arguing that voting on something the council and public had not seen until Monday violates council rules.  

Councilmember Betty Olds agreed, calling for the council to put off the vote until January. A vote on Olds’ motion was defeated 3-3-3, with councilmembers Laurie Capitelli, Gordon Wozniak and Mayor Tom Bates voting in opposition and councilmembers Linda Maio, Darryl Moore and Max Anderson abstaining. 

Wendy Markel, president of the Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association, addressed the council before its vote on the ordinance: “We’re seeing [the revised ordinance] this evening—we’ve never seen it before,” she said. “The ordinance requires public review.” 

Preservationist Anne Wagley (Daily Planet calendar editor) read a letter to the council written by attorney Susan Brandt-Hawley that said, because of the impacts the ordinance could have on the environment, it should undergo formal environmental review, saying that “… the proposed LPO will reduce protections to the city’s historical resources and therefore requires study in an EIR [environmental impact report]. 

Jesse Arreguin, member of the Rent Stabilization Board, added another point of view. Making it easy to demolish old houses will impact low-income renters, he said, adding that the ordinance “undermines the existing supply of affordable housing.” 

While no members of the public spoke in favor of the revised ordinance, the Berkeley Chamber of Commerce Political Action Committee spent about $100,000 to defeat Measure J, arguing that the old landmarks ordinance made it difficult for property owners to develop their properties. 

 

Solano BID 

Unhappy with the Solano Avenue Business Improvement District, 80 business owners registered protests with the city. The BID, which assesses businesses on the Berkeley part of the street, which traverses the Berkeley/Albany border, can be disbanded only by protest votes of businesses representing more that 50 percent of the assessment. 

By unanimous vote, the council decided to delay the decision until next week.  

The 80 protesting businesses represent $14,000 of the $34,000 assessment, not enough to overturn the BID, Economic Development Director Michael Caplan told the council. “It’s a serious challenge that should be taken into consideration,” he said. 

A number of business owners spoke at the public hearing to explain the nature of their protest. Several said their funds have been mismanaged and called for an audit; others complained there was too much emphasis of the Solano Avenue Stroll, which many business owners dislike.  

BID Executive Director Lisa Bullwinkel resigned from her post two weeks ago, reportedly citing personal reasons. 

“There’s been overspending by $15,000,” Greymuira Miller, owner of Feet of Dreams, told the council. “They failed to explain how this happened.”  

City Manager Phil Kamlarz said the city has the power to audit the BID.  

Councilmember Capitelli, a partner in Red Oak Realty, which has an office on Solano and pays the BID assessment, supports the BID. He told the council that one of his partners would like to raise the assessment.  

At a break in the meeting, some business owners questioned whether Capitelli has a conflict of interest and should not participate in council discussions and vote on the question, since his business is located on Solano. On Thursday, Capitelli said he was in discussions with the city attorney on the question and would recuse himself from voting on the BID if he were directed to do so. 

However, he said nothing prevents him from meeting with fellow business owners to address the question. At a meeting Wednesday night, he said the merchants talked about a number of possible solutions—approving the BID with a new work plan or even approving it with no budget, to allow time to review the effectiveness of the district. 

 

Nanoparticles 

The council voted unanimously to create a mandatory reporting system for businesses that work with nanoparticles in Berkeley. “It’s an important and potential problem,” said Mayor Tom Bates.  

Asked whether Lawrence Berkeley Labs would comply with the ordinance, lab spokesperson Ron Kolb sent the Daily Planet the following statement:  

“Berkeley Lab appreciates the concerns expressed by the Berkeley City Council about the possible risks and safety issues surrounding the research into, and production of, nanoparticles. At the Laboratory’s Molecular Foundry, a nanoscience facility, work on extremely small quantities of nanostructures is conducted under the strictest applicable federal and state guidelines and within the necessary constraints of our environment, health and safety protocols.  

“Berkeley Lab is not subject, as a federal institution, to the mandates of municipal government. The Laboratory has, however, voluntarily sent annual hazardous material reports to the City of Berkeley. We would expect in the future to include hazardous nanoscale materials in this report and describe the Molecular Foundry’s methods for safe handling, containing, and disposing of them.” 

University spokesperson Marie Felde was out of town and unavailable to comment Thursday on whether the university would honor the ordinance.


Oakland’s Condo Conversion Bill Comes To Quick End

By J. Douglas Allen-Taylor
Friday December 08, 2006

In a dramatic and rapid end to one of Oakland’s more swiftly rising development controversies, Oakland 6th District Council-member Desley Brooks withdrew her proposal to rewrite Oakland’s condominium conversion law shortly after midnight Wednesday morning, sending the issue to the same “blue-ribbon” citizens’ panel that has been charged with studying the city’s proposed inclusionary zoning law.  

“In closed session tonight, I learned that the changes we have made in the proposed law since it was first introduced may not have adequately addressed the concerns people have about it,” Brooks said from her Council Chamber seat in announcing the withdrawal. “While I think we are making real progress on this law, I am not prepared to move forward with condo conversion at this time.”  

Brooks’ withdrawal announcement at first stunned, and then delighted, more than a hundred community activists who had waited at City Hall for more than six hours to record their opposition to Brooks’ bill. 

The bill—which languished for two years after it was originally introduced by Brooks in 2004—picked up considerable steam this fall after Council President Ignacio De La Fuente and At Large Councilmember Henry Chang signed on as co-sponsors. The bill would have made it easier condominium conversions in the city, in part by adding a provision that would allow proposed converters to pay money into a housing assistance fund instead of forcing them to provide a new unit of rental housing for every rental unit converted to condominiums. 

Brooks said that her bill would increase the number of low-to-moderate income homeowners in Oakland, while tenant activists charged that the bill would primarily benefit developers and reduce the amount of low-to-moderate rental housing available in the city. 

The bill, in fact, was heavily supported by developers, with the Better Housing Coalition—an organization made up of developers that includes Forest City Developers and Signature Properties—sending out a full-color mass mailing late last month to houses throughout Oakland asking citizens to lobby their councilmembers for the bill.  

The blue-ribbon commission to which the condo conversion issue will now go was established in October during the council vote that postponed the Brunner-Quan inclusionary zoning ordinance. It will be made up of citizens appointed by outgoing Mayor Jerry Brown, Mayor-Elect Ron Dellums, the City Council, City Attorney John Russo, and City Administrator Deborah Edgerly. 

A top Dellums aide, Dan Lindheim, said following the council meeting that the addition of condo conversion to the commission’s charge will probably change Dellums’ selection to that group, “since the commissioners are now going to need a wider field of expertise.” 

Brook’s withdrawal announcement capped a day of furious maneuvering and speculation in which proponents and opponents plotted strategy and counted votes. Opponents had charged that Brooks, De La Fuente, and Chang were rushing through the bill so that outgoing Mayor Jerry Brown—a strong development supporter—would be able to break a possible 4-4 Council tie instead of incoming Mayor Ron Dellums, who has indicated that he wants to take a comprehensive look at all of Oakland’s development issues before moving forward with legislation. 

But on the day of the council vote, East Bay Express political reporter Will Harper reported on the newspaper’s 92510 Blog that bill opponents on the council were preparing to scuttle a possible Brown tie-breaking vote by preventing a tie. “Opponents of the proposal figure Brown will vote in favor of the ordinance, so they’ve come up with a plan to keep the mayor on the sidelines,” Harper wrote. “In the event of a tie, Councilwoman Jean Quan, who opposes the condo conversion law, says at least one of the council’s condo-critics will abstain instead of voting no. Technically, that means there would be no tie for Brown to break.” 

With Councilmember Larry Reid expected to join Brooks, De La Fuente, and Chang to vote for the bill, and Quan, Jane Brunner, and Nancy Nadel on record against it, that left Councilmember Pat Kernighan as the swing vote, with veteran Oakland political observers professing they had no idea which way she intended to go.  

Kernighan, who acknowledged that she had been “identified as the swing vote” on this issue and “lobbied heavily by both sides,” said shortly after Brooks withdrew the bill that while “I think the goal of trying to provide home ownership to moderate income people in Oakland is laudable … I would not have supported the bill as written because we did not have sufficient data available on how it would affect the rental housing market in the city.” 

Without Kernighan’s vote, the bill would have been doomed. By agreeing to the compromise, Brooks ensured that the issue will be studied, and some form of revision to Oakland’s condominium conversion ordinance is still on the table. 

Local labor leader and former Dellums For Mayor campaign manager Andre Spearman, one of the community leaders of the opposition to the condo conversion bill, praised Brooks and Councilmember Larry Reid for “showing leadership” in withdrawing the bill “rather than forcing this thing down the throats of citizens. At the end of the day, we hope a full study of all of Oakland’s housing issues will be able to come up with good public policy.” 

Spearman also said he wanted to “commend [Councilmember] Pat Kernighan for being open to delaying it.” 

Despite the fact that the condo conversion bill was no longer on the table, a number of citizens remained at the City Council meeting to record their opposition to the bill for councilmembers. 

 


Hills Opposition Doomed Measure J

By Rob Wrenn, Spcial to the Planet
Friday December 08, 2006

Voters in the hills and more affluent neighborhoods of Berkeley provided the strongest opposition to Measure J, the landmarks preservation measure on November’s ballot, assuring its defeat. 

Measure J got its strongest support in neighborhoods where voters have supported progressive candidates for many years. South Berkeley and student precincts voted for the measure, though typically not by large margins.  

In areas where new development has been taking place in recent years and where neighbors have battled developers, voters were more likely to vote for the measure than were voters in areas where little change has taken place or been proposed. 

The Alameda County Registrar of Voters has now released the official “Statement of Vote” with results from November’s election. The statement, which can be viewed online at the Registrar’s Web site, includes precinct-by-precinct results.  

Turnout in this year’s election was up substantially in comparison to 2002, the last gubernatorial election. Almost 5,000 more votes were cast this year and turnout increased from 59 percent to 66 percent.  

Turnout was, however, down sharply compared to the 2004 presidential election, when turnout hit 77 percent and over 60,000 votes were cast, the highest turnout since 1984. In Berkeley, turnout has historically always been higher in presidential election years.  

A record number of absentee ballots were cast in this year’s election. Almost half the ballots were absentees compared with 37 percent in 2004. Absentee voting is much more common in the hills and in homeowner areas than in areas where tenants and students make up a majority of voters. 

 

Measure A 

The local issue that generated the most interest this year was Measure A, the school district parcel tax measure. More votes were cast for or against this measure than were cast for mayoral candidates or for any other local ballot measure. 

Berkeley voters continued their 20-year tradition of giving strong support for financial measures to help local schools. Measure A won easily; achieving more than the required two-thirds vote in every precinct in the city. Opposition to the measure from the North East Berkeley Association (NEBA) apparently influenced few District 6 voters.  

The fact that the measure was renewing two already existing school parcel taxes at existing rates probably contributed to the measure’s particularly large margin of victory.  

Citywide it garnered 79.7 percent of the vote. The original parcel tax measure, 1986’s Measure H, won with 76 percent of the vote. Two bond measures and two additional parcel taxes for the schools passed with percentages ranging from 72 percent to 83 percent of the vote in subsequent election years. 

 

Measure J 

Of all the local measures on this fall’s ballot, Measure J was the most hotly contested. Supporters gathered signatures to place it on the ballot after the City Council took steps to change the city’s Landmarks Preservation Ordinance. 

Most preservationists, including the Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association, supported the measure. The measure was strongly opposed by developers and by the Berkeley Chamber of Commerce. Business for Better Government, the Chamber’s PAC, reported spending over $60,000 to defeat the measure.  

Most City Council members came out against Measure J, but the division on the Council did not reflect the usual “progressive”-“moderate” split. Traditionally “progressives” on the Council represent and get their votes from tenants, students and from a sizeable chunk of homeowners in the area south of the UC campus and in the flatlands of Central, South and West Berkeley. More affluent homeowners in the hills and North Berkeley are the political base for “moderates.” 

Measure J was backed by progressive District 4 councilmember Dona Spring and by moderate District 6 councilmember Betty Olds. Opposing J was moderate District 5 councilmember Laurie Capitelli, but also progressives Max Anderson and Linda Maio.  

Mayor Tom Bates, elected with progressive support, opposed Measure J and has strongly backed the proposed changes to the landmarks law. Former mayor Shirley Dean, whose political base was in District 5 and in the northeast Berkeley and Claremont hills, supported the measure, signed the ballot argument in favor, and contributed financially to the campaign.  

Yet Measure J passed in Mayor Bates’ own precinct, albeit by a narrow two-vote margin, but lost in all the hills precincts that gave Shirley Dean her strongest support in her four campaigns for mayor. 

In fact, all 28 precincts (out of 100) that voted in favor of Measure J are precincts where voters favored Bates over Dean in the last mayoral election. Measure J passed in only two of eight council districts: District 3 (South Berkeley) and District 7 (the Telegraph Ave. area). Measure J was narrowly defeated in District 4, Dona Spring’s district in Central Berkeley.  

Voters in Districts 5 and 6, both moderate strongholds, rejected J by large margins (64-36 percent and 63-37 percent respectively). But progressive voters were clearly divided. While winning narrowly in Districts 3 and 7, the measure got less than 45 percent of the vote in flatlands districts 1 (Northwest Berkeley) and 2 (Southwest Berkeley) 

It will probably come as a surprise to many preservationists that students were among the strongest supporters of Measure J. Every student dorm precinct voted in favor of J, as did most of the areas with student coops and fraternities and sororities. 

In District 8 in southeast Berkeley, Measure J was defeated in the Claremont-Elmwood and Willard neighborhoods, but passed in the student areas north of Derby. In District 7, Measure J was favored in the student areas and, by a slim margin, in the LeConte neighborhood west of Telegraph, but lost in most of the residential area east of Telegraph.  

Measure J also passed in the downtown precinct where a lot of new housing, including the Gaia building, has recently been built. In fact, in areas of the city where development has been taking place or is being proposed, voters were more likely to favor J than in parts of the city that are free of development pressures.  

Attitudes toward development certainly influenced how some voters viewed Measure J. Opposition to the measure by the Chamber PAC and by developers and real estate interests who contributed to it was reported in articles in the Daily Planet on campaign contributions to local campaigns. 

One of the strongest areas of support for Measure J was in South Berkeley precincts near the Ashby BART, where a proposal to fill the BART parking lots with housing has generated a lot of community opposition. A recently formed group, Neighbors of Ashby BART, endorsed the measure.  

Measure J won in the precinct of West Berkeley where a new Berkeley Bowl has been approved. It won in the precinct that includes the Kragen Auto Parts site at Martin Luther King and University where neighbors are opposing the current design of a project that would include housing and a Trader Joe’s.  

The only District 1 precinct where Measure J got a majority is a precinct near University and San Pablo where a group of residents concerned about out-of-scale development successfully fought to downzone the 1100 block of Hearst. 

While there were substantial pockets of support for J, most residents of precincts bordering major commercial streets like University, San Pablo, Telegraph and Shattuck, where new development has been concentrated, voted against Measure J, but not by the same margins as people in the hills who live further away from areas targeted for development.  

 

Rob Wrenn plans to report further on how Berkeley residents voted in November's election in an upcoming issue. 

 


Corbeil Named New Library Director

By Judith Scherr
Friday December 08, 2006

Donna Corbeil, Solano County Library deputy director, was named Berkeley’s new library director Wednesday night. 

But the announcement, coming after a 90-minute closed-session meeting of the Berkeley Board of Library Trustees, was not greeted with enthusiasm by the three dozen people in attendance. 

Before the closed-door session, staff and public participants, speaking during the public comment period, asked the board to delay the decision to name the new director in order to get broader public and union input into the job description and to recruit a larger field of candidates. 

Reached by phone on Thursday, Corbeil was upbeat. “I’m so excited,” she said. “I feel I am going to give this my best effort to move the library forward in a positive manner.” 

Asked how she would overcome the community’s initial disappointment, Corbeil said she would work through the issues with the staff and the public. “I hope people are willing to work with me,” she said. 

Corbeil will replace former Director Jackie Griffin, forced out of her position last summer under pressure from the staff, who said she retaliated against outspoken librarians and from the public, which protested Griffin’s initiation of radio frequency identification (RFID) tags in books with little public input. 

Before going to work in Solano County two years ago, Corbeil, an Oakland resident, headed the San Francisco branch libraries for five years and, before that, worked at the Oakland Public Library.  

During the public comment period, Jane Welford of SuperBOLD, Berkeleyans Organizing for Library Defense, criticized the trustees for writing a job-search brochure without asking the community what they wanted in a librarian. 

And Gene Bernardi, also of SuperBOLD reminded the trustees that the community had collected 1,000 signatures in opposition to the RFID tags, but that was ignored in the search process. 

“We’re asking you to step back, open the process to other candidates,” said Roya Arasteh, a library worker speaking for herself.  

Trustee Chair Susan Kupfer made the announcement to the silent group, praising the unanimous selection. Responding to criticism about the selection process, Kupfer carefully detailed the composition of panelists—community, staff, trustees—who had interviewed and evaluated the candidates. “I’ve never seen a process this public,” she said. 

Trustee Ying Lee, called on the public for their help. “We’ve all got to support the director,” she said. “She’s got to have a long honeymoon period.” 

Blasting the trustees’ treatment of the union during the selection process as “totally disrespectful to the union,” Anes Lewis-Partridge, field director for SEIU Local 535, addressed the trustees after the selection was announced.  

The selection process had been flawed from the outset, she said, noting that the union had been excluded from participating in developing criteria for the position. The union had asked that candidates write about their experience with labor relations as part of the application process. “All we got was one line about labor relations” in the job announcement, she said. 

And, she added, the union had asked for a union panel to interview the candidates and raise specifically union issues.  

Library trustees said they were unaware of the concerns, which Lewis-Partridge said she had directed to Acting Director Roger Pearson.  

“We did not have input. This does not bode well for us,” Lewis-Partridge said. “We are not beginning on the best foot.” 

In the Thursday phone interview, Corbeil said she plans to move quickly to fill the many library vacancies, which she said must be a burden on the present staff.  

At the Nov. 18 public interview, Corbeil addressed hiring, saying her philosophy was “grow your own.” She said she hoped to move people up the ranks, promoting from within the library. She also said diversity and hiring from the community was a priority. “The library staff should reflect the community,” she said.  

Also at the Nov. 18 public question period, Corbeil responded to a question on the RFID tags, acknowledging that this could be a privacy issue. “Privacy is a very important issue for librarians,” she said at the time, noting, however, “The Board of Trustees has made a commitment to RFID.”


Rosie Lee Tomkins (Effie Mae Howard), 1936-2006

By Eli Leon, Special to the Planet
Friday December 08, 2006

African-American quiltmaker Effie Mae Howard who, under the name of Rosie Lee Tompkins, produced astonishing works of patchwork art, died at the age of 70, Thursday or Friday, of unknown causes. New York Times art critic Roberta Smith wrote that Tompkins’s textile art works “demolish the category.” 

“Tompkins’s work reminds us,” Smith said, “that the truly global nature of 20th-century modernism is not yet fully known. It also confirms that the persistence of painting is but one part of a larger phenomenon: the cross-medium, transcultural ubiquity of the pictorial.” 

On a more down-to-earth note, Smith said. “These pictorial powerhouses are like multifaceted jewels spread flat before the eye yet turning in the light, their sparkling shards of color and mutating geometries full of mystery and life.”  

One of 15 children, Tompkins grew up helping her mother piece quilts in rural southeast Arkansas, where poverty constrained the family to use every available scrap of cloth. Her prodigious talents, however, were eventually widely recognized. 

“Writers have compared Tompkins,” said New Yorker reviewer Andrea Scott, “to canonical bigwigs like Mark Rothko, Joan Mitchell, and Alfred Jensen. But for all their affinities with modernist paintings, her quilts have a tactile allure and wobbly ecstasy unmatched by any canvas.” 

“I doubt that Tompkins set out to trump painting with her quilts,” said Artforum critic Meghan Dailey, “but with cloth and thread she does achieve a kind of improvisational restlessness, and ultimate coherence, that a lot of painters can only hope to approximate.” 

“Resolutely nonreferential,” said Art in America critic, Eleanor Heartney, “Tompkins’s quilts bring to mind the efforts of early American modernists to forge a language of pure abstraction. That she does so with scraps of cloth instead of paint in no way diminishes her achievement.” 

“Here is inventiveness and originality so palpable and intense,” said former Whitney curator Lawrence Rinder, “that each work seems like a new and total risk, a risk so extreme that only utter faith in the power of the creative spirit could have engendered it.” 

“These quilts are works of such distinction and devotion” Artweek critic Alison Bing said, “that they supercede established art-historical categories, forcing reviewers to retreat to that dumfounded admiration that attracted us to art in the first place.” 

Tompkins never went to high school, but she moved to Milwaukee and Chicago before going west in 1958. She took adult education classes in Berkeley, passed a test to get into college and took a few business classes at Oakland City College. Then she completed one course in nursing at the Martha Howard School of Nursing and another at Richmond High. She eventually settled in Richmond and worked as a practical nurse in rest homes, a job which she loved. Married twice, she raised five children and stepchildren. She is survived by her mother, two sons, and numerous other relatives.. 

Deeply religious, Tompkins felt that she was God’s instrument. Her patchworks were designed by Him; she was grateful to have found this uplifting way of worshiping. Following an elaborate personal code that came to her during prayer, she pieced with particular family members in mind. Empowered by a force greater than herself, she thus attended to in-family spiritual relationships in the course of fabricating her extraordinary works of art. 

Tompkins was intensely private. She only ever met four people as the artist “Rosie Lee Tompkins” (curator Lawrence Rinder, Africanist Robert Farris Thompson, historian Glenna Matthews, and myself, since I am a quilt scholar). But she heard voices, believed that her phone was tapped, and never arrived at the peace she so desired. 

“I feel like I don’t have any privacy—” she told me, “like I’m living in a glass house or something—where everybody’s always looking in or listening to what I say.” 

She covered one wall of her bedroom with patchwork crowded with appliqued crosses, hoping it would impede the intruding voices, but it failed to do so. 

Images of Tompkins’s quilts frequently illustrated magazine and newspaper coverage of exhibitions that included her work. Threads magazine featured one of her quilts on their October 1989 cover; this quilt was later purchased by the Whitney Museum. Her work was accorded a separate gallery for the High Museum’s 1996-1997 “No Two Alike: African-American Improvisational Quilts” exhibition and featured in the show’s poster. Her first one-woman exhibit (“Rosie Lee Tompkins,” Berkeley Art Museum, 1997), was hailed as a defining moment in fiber art history. 

“The critical barriers that once stood,” wrote Candace Crockett, quoting San Francisco Chronicle critic Kenneth Baker, “between art and craft, between popular and elite sensibility, between European and pan-cultural aesthetics, are down.” 

In 2002, Tompkins’s entries in the Whitney Biennial were characterized as the best “painting” in the show. Her work has graced five of of my cataloged exhibitions and is now featured on the catalog cover for “Accidentally on Purpose,” showing at the Figge Museum of Art in Davenport, Iowa until Feb. 11. The Shelburne Museum plans to do a one-woman show of her work from May to October 2007. It will be called “Something Pertaining to God.” 

 

Contributed photo  

Three Sixes (quiltmaker's title). Pieced by Rosie Lee Tompkins, Richmond, California, 1987. Quilted by Willia Ette Graham, Oakland, California, 1996. 77" x 98". Front: polyester doubleknit, polyester knit, broadcloth, ottoman, poplin, wool jersey. Back: muslin.


Committee Looks at People’s Park’s Future

By Judith Scherr
Friday December 08, 2006

“The university has no plans to bulldoze the berms or anything else at People’s Park,” said People’s Park Advisory Committee Chair John Selawsky, reading from a UC Berkeley memo to the 35 or so park supporters crowded into the advisory committee meeting at Trinity United Methodist Church Monday evening. 

They had come to protest what they feared was the latest attempt by the university to wrest park control from the people who frequent it. 

Most of the crowd left after the 30-minute public comment, many irked that they did not have the opportunity to speak. And so they missed the substance of the meeting: a discussion of hiring a consultant who could bring significant changes to the 2.8-acre park made famous in 1969 when students and others faced off with police to demand control of the university-owned city block. 

The question of removing the berms or mounds of earth was brought to the university–appointed committee by city and university police who want to remove obstructions to give officers a clear view into the park from their patrol cars, in order to control the drug trade that most acknowledge takes place in the park. 

Reflecting the mistrust between park users and the university built up over 40 years, park supporter Robert Smith cautioned during the public comment period that if the university says it is not going to “bulldoze” the berms, it could use other means to get rid of them. “A backhoe” someone called out. 

The berms have historic significance to park regulars, volunteer gardener Terri Compost told the committee. Buried beneath them are pieces of asphalt torn out from volleyball courts installed against park activists’ will in 1991 and removed six years later.  

The berms serve another purpose, separating the garden from the street and creating a habitat for wildlife, one speaker said. 

“Change can happen in the park,” Compost said. “But it has to be done with respect; it has to involve the community.”  

Nobody argued that there is not hard drug dealing in the park or that there should not be police presence there—park users insisted, however, that the university listen to them on how to address the problem. 

“Taking out the berms will not get the dealers out,” said Michael Diehl, a mental health commissioner, active around People’s Park issues, “Taking out the free box will not get them out—talking to us will get them out.” 

“Go in with a foot patrol and get the drug dealers out,” insisted one park user.  

Neighbors from the Willard Park Neighborhood Association called for a safer park that all can use. 

While Advisory Committee Chair John Selawsky, a school board member, called for tabling the discussion on the berms because the university had said it would not bulldoze them, the committee majority wanted to discuss the question.  

Joe Halperin, an advisory board member who lives in the Willard Park area, argued for the removal of the berms so that passers by can see into the park. He argued that safety is not just an issue for people housed in the neighborhood. “The homeless are subject to crime,” he said. 

But Lydia Gans, advisory committee member representing Food not Bombs, an organization that brings free food to the park, argued: “The park provides sanctuary. It’s a place people can get a little privacy.”  

There may be some reasonable changes needed, she said, adding, “There are so many people who care so deeply, for the university to come along and say to change it, it’s arrogant and stupid.” 

Believing that the berms would not be removed, the committee took no action on the question and, with only about 10 people remaining in the audience, moved to a discussion of hiring a consultant to, perhaps, redesign the park. 

The university has put aside $100,000 for the effort. At this point, the reason for hiring the consultant is vague—the committee is in the process of choosing among applicants. The consultant would work with park “stakeholders” and complete a needs assessment by April, according to the university’s announcement for the job. “The award and scheduling of subsequent phases, including additional planning, design and construction, will be determined as funding permits,” says the announcement. 

While to some “design and construction” could foreshadow big changes in People’s Park, university spokesperson Marie Felde said that isn’t so. The consultant will be hired only to do a needs assessment. The phrase “design and construction” is standard language, used so that if there were design or construction to be done, the winning consultant would be permitted to do that, she said. 

Advisory committee member, George Beier, president of the Willard Park Neighborhood Association, said in a telephone interview on Tuesday that he envisages changes in the park that include a memorial to the free speech movement and a café. 

He added however: “People are so adverse to change. If they think you’re about to change one blade of grass to the berms, 100 people will show up.” 

Also speaking by phone on Tuesday, Mental Health Commissioner Diehl said he is open to changes that would bring in the greater community, and keep out the hard-drug dealers. But simply rounding up people committing minor infractions does not help, he said, noting that a lot of young people that cause trouble in the park and on Telegraph are coming out of the foster care system or juvenile hall. 

“Sending them to prison is not doing much good,” Diehl said, arguing that they go to Santa Rita and come back “hanging with real criminals.”  

Services including jobs and housing should be designed for them, he said. 

Councilmember Kriss Worthington, whose district includes People’s Park, said Wednesday that spending $100,000 on a consultant is wasting money. Housing for the homeless and creating assisted housing for people with mental health needs should be prioritized, along with a detox center, he said. 

Funds need to be spent on community involved policing, where the same officers work the same beats and get to know the people who frequent the area. 

Police should “target people selling hard drugs,” not smoking a joint, Worthington said. “We need a surgical tool, not a sledge hammer.”  

A subcommittee of the advisory committee will evaluate finalists among the applicants for the consultant position at a meeting at 7 p.m., Jan. 8 at Trinity Church, 2362 Bancroft Way.


Police Blotter

Berkeley Woman Stabbed
Friday December 08, 2006

Berkeley Woman Stabbed While Confronting Burglar 

 

An angry burglar stabbed an elderly Berkeley woman in the head after she confronted him on the back steps of her home late Wednesday afternoon. 

The woman, who is in her late 70s, sustained a broken foot as well as knife wounds to her head and body during her confrontation with the burglar, said Berkeley Police spokesperson Officer Ed Galvan. 

Now being treated in a local hospital, she is expected to recover, Officer Galvan said. 

The woman was working in the backyard garden of her home in the 1100 block of Parker Street when she saw a young, scruffy-looking man entering her home. When she confronted him, the burglar attacked with his knife. 

Called moments after the 5 p.m. attack, police fanned out through the area but could find no trace of the attacker, who the victim said was between 16 and 23 years old, said Officer Galvan. 

Another search that began soon after sunrise turned up a bloody knife in a nearby garbage can. 

“This is really unusual,” said one officer. “Burglars usually run, they flee. They don’t attack people.”


UC Berkeley Readies for Durant Hall Renovation

By Richard Brenneman
Friday December 08, 2006

UC Berkeley’s latest building project isn’t a new structure but renovations to an old one—Campbell Hall, now called Durant Hall—recognized as a landmark by city and state and listed on the National Register of Historic Places. 

The university’s Department of Facilities Services this week posted a call for an architect for the projected $7.5 million renovation of Durant Hall, the original home of Boalt Hall, UC Berkeley’s law school. 

After the law school moved to new quarters in 1951, the hall was renamed for Rev. Henry Durant, the university’s first president, and became home to the Department of East Asian (formerly Oriental) Languages and its East Asiatic Library. 

The current tenants are slated to leave in the coming year, and following the renovations, the building will be used to house offices of the university administration. 

The three-story reinforced neoclassical concrete structure was designed by John Galen Howard, creator of many landmarked buildings both on and off campus, and was completed in 1911. 

The renovations include division of the 23,737-square-foot interior into administrative rather than classroom-sized subdivisions, structural upgrades to current building and fire code standards and modifications needed to meet the standards of the Americans with Disabilities Act. 

The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982, nine years before it was also designated a City of Berkeley landmark. 

The deadline for architects to apply is Jan. 4 at noon.


Council to Look at Commission Term Limits

By Judith Scherr
Friday December 08, 2006

Councilmember Laurie Capitelli said he wants to pass around Berkeley commission posts more equitably, which is why he has written an ordinance that will come before the City Council on Tuesday and that would limit a person’s service to eight years on a particular commission during any 10-year period and limit one person’s service to one commission. 

There is currently an eight-year limit, but it is circumvented, he said on Thursday. 

The new rule will limit the service of people who now serve seven-plus years, quit a commission, then begin the eight-year period anew.  

Councilmember Kriss Worthington said in an interview Wednesday that the most qualified person should serve on commissions. He said people apply to him for the posts and he chooses the best applicant. If councilmembers want to limit service on a commission, they have the right to replace their own commissioners, he said. 


New BUSD Board Tackles District Healthy Food Program

By Sindya N. Bhanoo, Special to the Planet
Friday December 08, 2006

With two recently reelected board members and a new one, Wednesday’s meeting of the school board was both festive and deliberative as it swore in the winners and voted unanimously to elect Joaquin Rivera as president and John Selawsky as vice president of the board.  

Reelected members Shirley Issel and Nancy Riddle were sworn in along with new member Karen Hemphill, who received applause and a standing ovation from an audience of more than 20. Before sitting down, she embraced her husband and young son. 

The board members also congratulated each other on the passing of Measure A, which insures the continuation of smaller classes and enrichment programs for students and teachers. In addition to electing its new officers, district Superintendent Michele Lawrence was named secretary. 

Much of the crowd soon exited and the board returned to business.  

 

Healthy food program 

Melanie Okamoto, supervisor for the California Nutrition Network, presented the annual evaluation of a program that has had 3,500 children planting, growing, harvesting and cooking their own fruits and vegetables for the last six years. She said the program was popular, but finding an effective way to evalute its success has been hard. 

“Anecdotally, we’ve heard so much from parents and teachers,” Okamoto said. “Kids are coming home and asking for more fruits and vegetables. We see this and hear this, but our challenge is really finding a good evaluation tool.” 

Funding for the program is offered to any school where more than half of students receive free or reduced cost lunches. Berkeley has 14 qualifying schools—11 pre-schools and elementary schools, Willard and Longfellow Middle Schools and Berkeley Technology Academy.  

The $1.5 million a year program is fully funded by the state. 

Though the board commended the program, they criticized the state’s methods of evaluation including the complex questions surveyors asked students about food intake.  

Board member Selawsky said he supported the program but deemed the evaluation a “futile exercise.” 

Issel snickered when she heard some of the questions and results read by Okamoto. 

“During the past seven days, how many times did you drink 100 percent fruit juices such as orange juice, apple juice, or grape juice?” Okamoto read. “Consumption of 100 percent juice decreased by 0.191 times during the past seven days; fruit decreased by 0.05; green salad increased by 0.141…” 

“I have confidence that they are being taught well and to be healthy. This survey is an obvious disconnect and is ridiculous,” Issel said. 

Okamoto she said that in the future she had proposed the state numerically tabulate how students responded to fruits and vegetables after growing them.  

“If more children are willing to consume persimmons during lunch at the end of the month after harvesting them and cooking them earlier, it would be an indication,” Okamoto said.  

This year, the district also plans to survey parents about their children’s eating habits, she added. 

The board praised the creative attempts but requested Okamoto and Ann Cooper, the district’s director of nutrition services, consider renegotiating with the state to determine a more efficient and useful method of evaluation. 

Despite their dissatisfaction with the evaluation process, the board voted to renew the CNN Evaluation Contract for the current school year.


First Person: KALX’s ‘The Sunday Morning Show’ Will Be Missed

By Jonathan Wafer
Friday December 08, 2006

I'm bummed. “The Sunday Morning Show” on UC Berkeley's radio station, KALX (90.7 FM), has been canceled. On Sept. 10 General Manager Sandra Wasson and management decided to pull the plug on the 20-something-year-old show for what they call a lack of direction.  

For those who care about the history, here it is: “The Sunday Morning Show” was started by the late Charles “Natty Prep” Douglass when he was an undergraduate at Berkeley in 1984. The original name of “The Sunday Morning Show” was “Music for the People” and the original intent of the show was community and educational outreach through music and programming.  

At a time when the community in the Bay Area is in desperate need of media outlets to vent their many frustrations, activists are now coming to terms with another source that has been lost. Over the years “Music for the People” and “The Sunday Morning Show” spawned a number of artists, through music and radio experience. 

One of these is Rickey Vincent, “The Uhuru Maggot,” who had a segment in the ’80s called “The History of Funk.” This popular show still airs every Friday night on KPFA. Vincent also wrote a book, The History of Funk, which has been translated into Japanese. Then there was Michael Marshall, who as a Berkeley High student in the ’80s had a show called “The Final Score,” a sports wrap-up show, and who was moonlighting as a singer. 

His song “Rumours” by the Berkeley-based group Timex Social Club was first played on KALX and then picked up steam all the way to number one on the national charts. 

I had a poetry and book review segment called “Calm Authority” on “Music for the People” when I was an undergraduate student at Cal in the ’80s as well.  

And last but not least, there was David “Davey D” Cook, a UC Berkeley graduate who, after winning a 1991 Gavin Award for Best Non-Commercial Rap Show in the country, parlayed his work on “The Sunday Morning Show” into a gig at San Francisco radio station KMEL. (I had the pleasure of working with Davey D as a volunteer on KALX and KMEL in the ’90s under the air name of The Calm Authority.) 

For over twenty years “Music for the People/The Sunday Morning Show” has tried to continue the tradition that “Natty Prep” started by passing the torch to different deejays/activists. Today, like the world, UC Berkeley has changed. Diversity and full participation, which were the rule on “Music for the People/The Sunday Morning Show”, are more of a challenge these days. And now with the removal of this show from the airwaves, it has become harder still. Proposition 209, the legislation that ended affirmative action on California college campuses, has swept away many minorities from the universities (African-Americans in particular) and now the creative outlets that encouraged, fed and entertained those communites are fading away as well. 

As an artist I found KALX to be one of my creative outlets. I have that outlet no longer and it hurts. RIP “Sunday Morning Show,” you are missed.


DAPAC Discussion Highlights Tensions Over Downtown

By Richard Brenneman
Friday December 08, 2006

Tensions within the panel helping to draft the new downtown plan emerged more clearly Tuesday night during a fast-paced meeting. 

While the existing plan for Berkeley’s city center stressed historic preservation, the dominant theme emerging in the discussions of the Downtown Area Plan Advisory Committee can be summed up in one word: sustainability. 

“The big problem I see is that when I look at buildings downtown, and I see buildings that are designated as structures of merit, many of them are not worthy of that,” said Dorothy Walker, a retired UC Berkeley vice chancellor appointed to DAPAC by City Councilmember Betty Olds. 

Carole Kennerly and Jenny Wenk agreed. 

The same trio is among the seven committee members who made a successful proposal to create a DAPAC subcommittee to help organize city/university collaboration on the 800,000 square feet of uses the university wants to add in the city center. 

The other four are Victoria Eisen, former Councilmember Mim Hawley, Planning Commission James Samuels and Linda Schacht. 

While DAPAC members were unanimous in endorsing the committee, the one tension that emerged was over its composition. 

Samuels said the absent DAPAC Chair Will Travis had told him he planned to appoint the seven proponents, himself and UC Berkeley’s three ex officio representatives to the panel. 

“That’s exactly why we would want more,” said fellow Planning Commissioner and DAPAC member Gene Poschman. 

“I agree,” said Patti Dacey. 

The seven initial proponents had voiced the least sentiment for a strong preservation emphasis, and Hawley said the committee had no good reason even to refer to the earlier plan. 

But the vote came down for a committee that could include up to 11 DAPAC members—one short of a quorum of the full committee. 

Each of the proponents volunteered to serve with Travis—a given. Three other DAPAC members who have indicated more sympathy for preservation also volunteered—Poschman, Jesse Arreguin and Wendy Alfsen. 

Jennifer Lawrence McDougall, the UC Berkeley principal planner assigned to the downtown project, reminded the committee that the university had presented them with clear goals for downtown space in March. 

The university is bankrolling the plan, the result of a settlement agreement that ended a city lawsuit challenging the university’s long range plans through 2020. 

The university has plans for the old state Department of Health Services building site that occupies much of the extended block bounded by Berkeley Way on the south, Hearst Avenue on the North, Oxford Street on the east and Shattuck Avenue on the west. 

Some DAPAC members have suggested using the western end of the site for a major retailer or mixed use housing over retail development. 

McDougall warned that the university plans to use much of that site, with the intent of building a community health campus providing space for both classrooms and community services. 

While the university might allow some development there by the city, it wouldn’t approve any plan that didn’t allow the university its full allocation of 800,000 square feet. “We don’t want you to be surprised,” she said. 

The university is paying the salary of Matt Taecker, the planner who is drafting the plan for the city, as one of the conditions of settlement of the lawsuit. 

The university came in for heavy criticism earlier in the meeting during the public comment period when Doug Buckwald and Sharon Hudson urged the panel to adopt mechanisms that would ensure that neighbor complaints are heard during construction of university projects. 

“There’s nothing about residential livability” in the documents before DAPAC Wednesday night, said Hudson, who said the plan needed a mechanism of handling neighbor construction complaints. 

Buckwald, who came to the meeting straight from the grove outside Memorial Stadium where he is coordinating support for tree-sitting protesters challenging university plans to demolish it to make way for a high tech gym complex, said DAPAC would be accepting a major failure if it failed to develop a mechanism for resolving complaints. 

“If you want lots of construction problems downtown, let UC have complete carte blanche,” he said. 

 

Other tensions 

The “street behavior” conundrum was back on the table again Wednesday, with Hawley leading the charge. “I would like to put it back on the table. It’s a critical economic issue,” she said. 

“I’ll second it,” said Samuels., 

Wenk agreed, saying Center Street merchants spent considerable costly efforts cleaning up sidewalks and the street. 

“Whose behavior are we talking about? Are we talking about the homeless?” asked Winston Burton, who works to find jobs for the homeless. “It’s not an economic issue to me.” 

The lack of public restrooms was the real economic issue, said Lisa Stephens. 

Poschman said he was concerned because in the draft of themes prepared by city staff, UC was considered only under the sustainability heading. “It is nowhere else in the outline,” he said. 

Other members said the sustainability section also needed more attention to shadowing, greenhouse gases and recycling. 

“Urban infill,” said Walker. 

Environmentalist Juliet Lamont urged the addition of 10 to 15 strategies for promoting sustainability. 

“We need to do more development, because that’s the thing that will make us more sustainable,” said Walker. 

Density without more services wouldn’t help, said Arreguin. 

The debate continued, covering topics ranging from the benefits of retrofitting old buildings versus construction of new, the relative benefits of high rise versus shorter buildings, the need for more public transit pitted against the need for more public parking, and the issue of whether developers could “game” green building standards. 

“This has been an extraordinary discussion,” said city Planning and Development Director Dan Marks when the dust finally settled. “You guys have put a lot on the plate.”


Swanson Bill Seeks to Return Some Local Control to OUSD

By J. Douglas Allen-Taylor
Friday December 08, 2006

16th District Assemblymember Sandré Swanson (D-Oakland) quickly delivered on a promise made several times during the months since he won the June Democratic primary, introducing a bill on his first day as a state legislator to immediately return some measure of local control to the Oakland Unified School District. 

The bill would leave fiscal control in the hands of the state. Even then, getting the legislation passed and signed into law, and actually returning power to Oakland’s elected school trustees, will be a considerably more difficult matter. 

Swanson’s simply-worded four-page AB45 would “require the [California] Superintendent [for Public Instruction] to immediately return the rights, duties, and powers regarding the operational areas of community relations and governance, facilities, management, personnel management, and pupil achievement to the governing board of the Oakland Unified School District.” 

Under Swanson’s bill, fiscal management authority over OUSD would continue to be held by the state superintendent through an appointed state administrator. The bill gave no timetable as to when local control over fiscal management would be returned. 

Swanson’s bill was also silent on the issue of the controversial proposed sale of Oakland Unified’s downtown properties. State Superintendent Jack O’Connell is currently negotiating the sale of 8.25 acres of OUSD property—including the district’s administrative headquarters and five adjacent schools and early childhood learning centers—to the east coast-based development team of TerraMark/UrbanAmerica. 

The developers want to put a high-rise luxury condominium development on the site. The Oakland school board, the Oakland Education Association, the Oakland City Council, the Peralta Community College District Board of Trustees, Swanson, Oakland Mayor-elect Ron Dellums and numerous community groups have all come out in opposition to the proposed sale.  

The state seized control over all aspects of Oakland Unified in 2003 in the wake of a severe fiscal crisis in the district. Under the legislation that authorized the takeover, the state superintendent has the final authority to decide when local control can be restored. The takeover legislation also authorized a $100 million line of credit for the district from the state, all of which has now been drawn down. 

Swanson held a public meeting on Thursday night at the district’s Second Avenue administrative headquarters to solicit community input for his bill. The meeting was held after the Daily Planet’s deadline. 

In a prepared press statement, Swanson said that “Education is our greatest example of democracy. The return of local control is essential in our goal to achieve academic excellence. This legislation recognizes and implements the progress in accordance with [the Fiscal Crisis Management Assistance Team’s] recovery plan and recommendations.” 

FCMAT, a Bakersfield-based education organization set up by state legislation, has been charged with evaluating Oakland Unified’s progress under state control. The organization’s most recent progress report on the district, issued last September, recommended that control be returned to the district in the area of community relations and governance. 

Despite that recommendation, originally made in September of last year, State Superintendent O’Connell has failed to return that area of local control to Oakland Unified. 

The Swanson local-control bill faces several formidable hurdles, even if Swanson is able to get it passed in the Assembly. The first hurdle is State Senate President Don Perata (D-Oakland), who wrote the original 2003 SB39 legislation that authorized the state takeover. 

Perata has not yet indicated a position on the Swanson bill, and without Perata’s support or—at the very least—without the powerful senator’s promise not to actively oppose, it is difficult to see how the bill would be able to get through the State Senate. 

In addition, Swanson must gain Republican support for the local control bill, either with a bloc of Republican legislators or with California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. Even with unanimous support from Democratic legislators, Democrats do not hold enough seats in the state assembly and senate to be able to override a gubernatorial veto.


Richmond’s Activist Librarian Honored By Colleagues

By Richard Brenneman
Friday December 08, 2006

Tarnel Abbott isn’t just a staunch defender of free speech: she’s also a dedicated practitioner. 

She can often be found addressing the Richmond City Council and walking picket lines, and she recently pounded the pavement in support of the campaign of Mayor-elect Gayle McLaughlin. She’s a leader in her union, SEIU Local 790, which represents most of the city’s workers. 

But it was her work at the Richmond Public Library that won her honors as a champion of intellectual freedom. 

Her passionate devotion to the right to express unpopular views proved inspirational to the California Library Association’s (CLA) Intellectual Freedom Committee, which recently awarded her the Zoia Horn Intellectual Freedom Award for 2006. 

“As one of our committee said, ‘If every library had someone on staff taking these actions, imagine what a strong voice the library community would have in the fight to defend freedom of speech!’” wrote committee chair Janis O’Driscoll in the letter announcing the award. 

The honor is named for the librarian—and sometime Daily Planet contributor—who went to jail for contempt when she refused to testify against Rev. Philip Berrigan and his six co-defendants in the “Harrisburg Seven” trial in 1972. She had met them while serving as head reference librarian at the Bucknell University reference library in Lewisburg, PA. Horn is now retired and lives in Oakland. 

Among the activities cited by the CLA were Abbott’s annual displays of banned books, an annual film series co-sponsored by the American Civil Liberties Union’s Berkeley-Albany-Richmond-Kensington chapter, her ongoing work with Richmond Sister City Regla, Cuba, her part in helping to found Librarians for Intellectual Freedom and her role in winning a city council resolution opposing the PATRIOT Act’s provisions that allow federal investigators to snoop on the reading habits of library patrons. 

“The Committee honors your proactive intellectual work,” O’Driscoll wrote, citing a committee member who said, “What I like about what Tarnel does is that she tackles the issues before there is a specific incident.” Said another, “Many librarians never think about ‘intellectual freedom’ until someone tries to deny its importance.” 

The vote to bestow the honor on the Richmond librarian was unanimous.  

 

Colorful career  

An East Bay native, Abbott wasn’t always a librarian. “I’ve done a lot of different jobs, from being a short-order cook to stringing barbed wire for East Bay MUD,” she said. 

But a love of books was always there, along with a literary heritage that goes back to her great-grandfather, radical author Jack London. 

“There are some things you can’t avoid, and this was just something I was bound to do,” said Abbott as she sat at a table in the Richmond library. 

“My grandmother was an author who became a librarian and worked for the labor federation. My great-aunt was also a librarian, and so was my former mother-in-law. 

Her first “intellectual job” was a position with the Holmes Book Co. in Oakland, once one of the city’s great bookstores. 

A single mom, Abbott enrolled at Antioch University West and went on to earn her Masters in Library and Information Science from UC Berkeley in 1986—a program no longer offered by the university. 

After jobs with the Benecia and Contra Costa County libraries, she began as a children’s librarian in Richmond in 1990, and in 2001 moved into her role as reference librarian. 

The low point in the library’s history came three years later when the city, faced with a $35 million budget shortfall, laid off two-thirds of its staff, and reduced most of those left to half-time positions. 

“That set us way back. We have increased the hours and rehired or replaced most of the staff, but sometimes it’s almost like people don’t know we’re here. Library use is way down, and we don’t know exactly what’s going on. Part of it may be fear of violence,” she said, referring to the crimes that have earned the city the dubious statistical honor of being one of the state’s three deadliest communities. 

But Abbott doesn’t get discouraged. She runs a nine-week program once a year with the Small Business Administration and the Small Business Development Center on building a business from scratch. “I’m a great advocate of small business,” she said. 

“I try to do one or two cultural programs a year, and we did a human rights video series.” 

She’s also eager to teach young people the skills of information-seeking, and in an era where students are often overly reliant on the Internet for their homework, she’ll help them learn to use the web better, along with the more traditional ink-on-paper media. 

 

 

Cuban connection 

A lifelong progressive, Abbott went to Cuba along with other city officials when Regla became Richmond’s sister city, and was very much involved when Regla officials came to Richmond in 2001 as the first-ever official delegation from that island nation to the West Coast. 

“The two cities have a lot in common. Both are communities in larger metropolitan areas, and Regla is right across the bay from Havana. It has a large Afro-Cuban population, and like Richmond it is poor and it has refineries,” she said. 

Abbott came away impressed by the dynamism she found, and with unique programs devoted to aiding at-risk young people. 

“We were gifted with prints by Antonio Canet, a world-famous artist who does linoleum block prints,” Abbott said. The 96-print series traces the history of the Cuban Revolution from Fidel Castro’s disastrous 1953 assault on the army’s Moncado Barracks through to recent times. 

What particularly impressive Abbott was a program Canet has started to take at-risk youth from the streets and teach them the art of print-making. “He’s started an alternative school, and it seems to be working,” she said. 

Another impressive Regla citizen is Dr. Raúl Gil Sánchez, director of the city’s community mental health program, Abbott said. 

“He’s very dynamic, and their whole approach to mental health is very radical and is becoming a model for Cuba and the world.,” she said. “They do an annual program with the whole community to help integrate the mentally ill into the community so they are not so isolated. 

“We have a lot to learn from them.” 

Abbott is also plays an active role in the ongoing drive to provide medical supplies to the community clinic in Regla. 

 

Political causes 

Abbott is a mainstay of the Richmond Progressive alliance, an ardent critic of ChevronTexaco and an outspoken critic of the city’s rush to embrace the casino economy. 

“Issues around the environment are really important to me,” she said. 

Her concern with pollution led her to join the Community Advisory Group appointed by the state Department of Toxic Substances Control to help with the cleanup of the Campus Bay housing development site, the UC Berkeley Richmond Field Station and other contaminated sites on the southern Richmond shoreline. 

“I live right across the highway” from Campus Bay, “where they buried 100 years worth of toxic waste under a thin concrete and paper cap. That’s pretty scary,” she said. 

“Chevron’s a whole issue in itself,” she said, “and I’ve marched against Chevron’s headquarters in San Ramon.”  

Her concerns with the oil giant involve not only pollution, but its secrecy in reporting on utility use and its ongoing battles to avoid taxes—including the massive funds it spent on unsuccessfully trying to defeat McLaughlin’s run for mayor and its winning drive to defeat Measure T, which would have increased the business taxes it paid to the city. 

“It’s always about the money,” she said. “Chevron throws peanuts at the city, but it’s the people who suffer from the stuff they put in the air.” 

As for the two casino proposals now awaiting approval, one in unincorporated North Richmond and one in the city limits at Point Molate, “they’ll be sending most of their money to their out-of-state backers” while increasing traffic and without any guarantee of providing good jobs for local residents. 

“Richmond never got the benefits of all the good years” when industry was booming and profits were flowing out of the city, she said. “Now we need to look at creating new ways to build a green economy.” 

But the library is the first and most important need, she stresses. “We need to educate our public, and we need the public to come in. The most important thing the public can do is to come in and use our materials. That’s the best way to support us.” 

And through it all, Abbott said, she’s been able to rely on the support of her spouse, Robert Fowler, who raises and sells palm trees. 

“He’s been wonderful,” she said, smiling. “He’s not an activist the way I am, but he’s nice, and he cooks me dinner.” 

 

 

Photograph by Richard Brenneman. Richmond Reference Librarian Tarnel Abbott’s display about Sister City Regla Cuba was just one of the examples cited by state librarians when they honored her for her ongoing defense of intellectual freedom. She is the great granddaughter of another East Bay activist, author Jack London.


Flash: Council Approves First Reading of LPO Revision

By Judith Scherr
Tuesday December 05, 2006

The Berkeley City Council, in a 6-3 vote, approved the first reading of an ordinance Tuesday which preservationists contend will make landmarking historical sites and structures more difficult and will make it easier for developers to demolish older buildings. 

Voting in opposition were Councilmembers Betty Olds, Kriss Worthington and 

Dona Spring. 

About two dozen opponents of the revised ordinance attended the meeting, many of whom had fought the new law at the ballot box with Measure J, an unsuccessful attempt to extend the current Landmarks Preservation Ordinance with minor changes. Some said that they were infuriated when they saw that the ordinance posted on the city web site on Thursday had been revised three times over the weekend in order to add a new clause saying that the ordinance is not “severable”: that if any part of it were struck down the whole law would be considered repealed. 

For those preservation activists who have promised to start gathering signatures for a referendum on the ordinance once the second reading is approved on Dec. 12, this change means that they will be forced to challenge the entire ordinance, instead of just asking the voters to reject the parts of it they dislike.  

Proponents of the new law include the Berkeley Chamber of Commerce Political 

Action Committee, which spent about $100,000 to defeat Measure J in order to 

ease restrictions on private property development. 


Protesters Take to the Trees to Save Threatened Live Oaks

By Richard Brenneman
Tuesday December 05, 2006

In the wee, dark hours of Big Game, a Wolf made like a Butterfly and took to the trees. 

By Monday, he had two companions perched in neighboring trees, and the three had drawn a trio of TCV trucks and their telescoping antennae, as well as an assortment of print media types. 

Though he had failed in last month’s run for Berkeley mayor, Zachary Running Wolf had become a media celebrity, eagerly cheered on by neighbors of UC Berkeley’s Memorial Stadium and eager environmentalists. 

Perched in a comfortable hanging cloth chair, the Native American activist has risen to new heights in a media-savvy campaign to save the stand of coastal live oaks that is threatened by the university’s plans to build a $120 million high-tech training gym as the site. 

UC Regents are scheduled to meet this afternoon, Tuesday, to approve plans for the $120 million Student Athlete High Performance Center. 

“I hope we’re going to have something to celebrate tomorrow,” Running Wolf said Monday afternoon, “but if we don’t, I’m going to stay here as long as it takes.” He’s acquired some impressive support. 

“Country Joe McDonald has been a big help,” said Doug Buckwald, a neighborhood activist who has taken a lead role in organizing logistics for the protest. “He talked to the student UC regent for quite a while yesterday, and he brought a whole trunk full of food and water by today. He’s also offered to hold a benefit concert.” 

Running Wolf said his protest was inspired by the example of Julia Butterfly Hill, the young environmental activist who spent 738 days in a California Redwood beginning on Dec. 10, 1997, to protect it and older old growth trees from loggers. 

“I never knew much about tree-sitting until two weeks ago when I started organizing this,” said Running Wolf. 

Should the regents approve the training center and start cutting, “They’re going to have to extract me from this tree, because that’s the only way I’m going to leave this oak grove.” 

Scott Walchenheim applauded. 

The 65-year-old retired Berke-ley public school teacher said the only thing keeping him out of a tree was Parkinson’s disease. 

“For six years I lived in a 100-acre Oak grove on the edge of a wilderness,” he said. “I came to love Live Oaks and all the animals and plants that evolved together and live together. 

“The university says they’ll replace each tree with three saplings. That’s a joke. Each one of these trees had a thousand times the biomass of the saplings and a thousand times the habitat. A flock of bushtits came here yesterday, birds that eat insects they find under the leaves. We would lose all that, along with the last remaining grove in the flat part of Berkeley.” 

“We’re now opposed to the training center,” said Mike Kelly of the Panoramic Hill Association, which represents neighbors who live on the slopes above the stadium. “This is just the wrong place for it.” 

Kelley said he’ll be in attendance at today’s regents meeting, addressing members of the Grounds and Building Committee through a telephone circuit set up in San Francisco. 

Running Wolf’s companions in the trees are Aaron Diek, a UC Berkeley student, and Jess Walsh. 


ABAG: Berkeley Must Double New Housing

By Richard Brenneman
Tuesday December 05, 2006

The presence of BART and the invisible hand of UC Berkeley have prompted a powerful but little-known regional government to demand that Berkeley more than double the number of new housing units built in the city. 

Under the guidelines now being proposed by the Associa-tion of Bay Area Governments (ABAG), Berkeley would have a quota of 2,712 new housing units by 2014, up from a goal of 1,269 for the previous seven years, 1999-2006. 

The new figure works out to more than 387 new housing units a year. 

“That would mean we have to find a place to put almost 3,000 new housing units, and remove any policy barriers to that housing being produced,” said city Planning and Development Direc-tor Dan Marks. 

“The result of the pressure is that downtown Berkeley is becoming the dumping ground for new housing in the city,” said Planning Commissioner Gene Poschman. 

A further complication is the presence of UC Berkeley, the city’s major employer and the source of a student body whose low income further skews the city’s demographics. 

ABAG—the layer of government between Bay Area city and county governments and the state—is finalizing its latest housing needs survey, one that could transform the face of Berkeley. 

If the city wants to be assured of receiving government funds for affordable housing, Berkeley must adopt a new housing element for its General Plan that calls for fulfilling the ABAG quotas. 

The proposed draft of the ABAG housing quotas was adopted by the agencies in November, and local agencies and the public has until Jan. 17 to comment on the document, which is available online at www.abag.ca.gov/planning/housingneeds/. 

“One of the problems is that the cities that don’t want affordable housing won’t adopt the quotas and the only penalty is that the state tells them they won’t give them any money for affordable housing,” said city Housing Director Steve Barton. 

“I think the penalty ought to be that if they can find a non-profit that wants to build affordable housing in that city, the state should give them all the money they need,” he said. 

“ABAG’s penalties are largely smoke and mirrors,” said Poschman. “People like me in Berkeley took the quotas seriously and tried to meet them, but others in other cities didn’t and the penalties are almost zilch.” 

While ABAG’s quotas nominally only affect state affordable housing funds, Barton noted that many programs—including tax credit funding—are dispensed through state governments. 

Two factors make the proposed new quotas especially onerous for the city. One is that ABAG has changed its methods of determining which cities should be assigned the highest quotas. The other is the presence of UC Berkeley. 

 

ABAG impact 

ABAG, the state’s first council of regional governments, was formed in 1961, followed four years later by its Los Angeles-based counterpart, the Southern California Association of Governments, SCAG. 

The two organizations have evolved into powerful entities with the power to impose mandates on member governments. 

ABAG is the primary source of the enormous pressure on Berkeley’s city government to build large numbers of new apartments and condominiums, even though the U.S. Census Bureau estimated the city’s 2005 population to be 90,432, or 23,559 fewer than in 1970, the first census conducted after ABAG’s creation. 

State law requires periodic elements of city and county plan housing elements, and in the Bay Area, it is ABAG that sets the quotas that governments must approve to win state approval. 

The basis of the quotas is set by ABAG’s Housing Methodology Committee, which Poschman said “is totally dominated by the outer rim” of communities outside the region’s urban core. 

“ABAG’s stakeholders (in the committeee include) the Green Belt Alliance, which believes that if you build studio apartments in Berkeley, people will not want three-bedroom homes in Antioch,” he said. 

ABAG also determined that new housing should be built near rail transit, further increasing the impact on Berkeley, and effectively “railroading” the city, the commissioner agreed. 

The net impact is to more than double the demand on the city for new housing. 

By comparison, the figures have dropped from peripheral jurisdictions like Antioch (4,459 to 2,300), Dublin (5,436 to 3,437), Pleasant Hill (714 to 592), Pleasanton (5,059 to 3,685) and San Rafael (2,090 to 1,490). 

Oakland saw the largest increase in actual numbers, (7,733 to 17,088), and San Leandro also more than doubled, from 870 to 1,903. 

“The only place we can put those new units is downtown and on the city’s major transit corridors,” Marks said, citing Shattuck Avenue, San Pablo Avenue, Telegraph Avenue and University Avenue, “among others.” 

Marks said that in a city already suffering “significant anxiety and difficulty over new development,” the increased quotas are bound to cause still more. 

Barton said another factor that may complicate quota fulfillment is the cooling housing market. “We expect a major investment downcycle during the first part of the next period,” he said. 

The gradual collapse of the inflationary housing bubble and the declining dollar have been cited as causes in the financial press. 

 

Denial hard 

As the law currently stands, the city has little ability to deny housing projects or grant developers density bonuses that lead to more massive projects than otherwise allowed by city zoning ordinances. 

“The laws are complex and unclear,” Barton said, “and we’ll have to wait for a court decision to clarify them.” 

Neighborhood opposition has virtually guaranteed that new projects will focus on the downtown, itself currently subject of a recently mandated new area planning process. 

Marks, who sits on the ABAG Housing Methodology panel, has consistently fought to lower the city’s quotas, which he said will cause the city “a significant challenge finding opportunities and locations for this level of development in its 2009 Housing Element update.” 

Poschman said one result may be more buildings like the high-density, five-story project planned for the northwest corner of the University Avenue/Martin Luther King Jr. intersection. 

“It’s a humongous project,” Poschman said, “and the first of its kind to be built by a residential neighborhood.” 

And while state law doesn’t mandate that the city build the units, it does declare that for those who want to build them, the way must be paved. 

Barton said all that state law requires that the city prove to the state’s satisfaction “that it is zoned such that the private sector could build that many units. There are enough places downtown and on the commercial corridors where one-story buildings could be torn down and replaced with multi-story housing,” he said. 

“It’s like a Sword of Damocles hanging over the city,” said Poschman. “It may be a blunt sword, but it’s still there.” 

 

University complications 

Another complication is the university’s impact on the city. Many of the thousands of people employed at UC Berkeley don’t live in the city, either because they can’t afford the relatively high rents and housing prices or because they want to live elsewhere. 

And the students, most of whom have either no jobs or part-time jobs, further skew the city’s income picture. 

“We’re asking them to take that into account,” Marks said. 

ABAG has responded favorably to repeated city requests that it incorporate methodology that recognizes that many students live in groups, rather than the typical two people or less who otherwise inhabit the city’s apartments. 

Still, no matter how much new housing is added, it’s unlikely that many additional university employees will live in the city, though ABAG counts them in its methodology because of their jobs, Marks said. 

Under the formula used by ABAG, jobs count for half of the projection numbers, with other half consisting of projected household growth and the proximity of housing to mass transit. 

The exact formula weights projected household growth at 40 percent, 20 percent on existing employment, projected employment growth at 20 percent, 10 percent to the projected growth of jobs near mass transit and 10 percent to housing growth near transit. 


UC Berkeley’s Billion Dollar Building Boom Surges Ahead

By Richard Brenneman
Tuesday December 05, 2006

UC Berkeley’s building boom is surging forward as the university launches a search for architects for its newest projects—a $42.4 million, seven-level lab and office building and the restoration of Hearst Mining Circle. 

That project, mandated because the building has been listed as potentially dangerous in the event of a major earthquake, is just one small facet of the university’s multi-billion dollar building boom. 

The new building—dubbed for now the Campbell Hall Seismic Replacement Building—would be located on the site of its current namesake just across University Drive from the Mining Circle and immediately adjacent to LeConte Hall on the south and west. 

The existing building was completed in 1959 from a design by architect John Warnecke. 

The Mining Circle—a feature designed by John Galen Howard, the architect who created much of the historic campus, including the Sather Tower or campanile, its most prominent landmark—was sacrificed to the exigencies of constructing the far more massive Stanley Hall, now nearing completion immediately to the east. 

Transformed into a parking facility for heavy equipment during construction of the new Stanley Hall and the earlier renovation of the Hearst Mining Building, university officials now want to restore Howard’s circle. 

Applications must be submitted by Friday, and design work would commence immediately after the architect is selected in January, with all construction and restoration work is to be completed by Sept. 1. 

Applications for the architectural post are due by Friday. 

The university estimated project costs at $250,000 to $300,000. 

 

Building boom 

Stanley Hall is the most expensive of the university’s current building projects, topping even the $125 million Student Athlete High Performance Center UC Regents are expected to approve today (Tuesday). 

If the Regents approve both the controversial Southeast Campus Integrated Projects and the conversion of nearby Bowles Hall into living suites for corporate executives attending special classes at a 50,000 to 80,000 square feet planned executive education facility, those projects added to already approved projects totaling over $925 million would bring the total to over $1.25 billion. 

That number could more than triple if and when regents approve a currently stalled plan to build an additional two million square feet to the university’s Richmond Field Station as an corporate/academic research park. 

That plan was stalled after protesters in Richmond forced a handover of the cleanup of toxic wastes at the site from the San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board to the state Department of Toxic Substances Control despite strong objections from the university and the would-be developer, Simeon Properties. 

The university is using its own funds only for replacement of existing buildings found to be seismically weak. All new construction, including the SCIP and Field Station projects, would be paid for with private gifts, corporate donations and developer funds. 

 

Campbell Hall  

Campbell Hall is another of the campus buildings designated unsafe in the event of a major earthquake.  

The current structure, which is seven floors and a basement, encloses 40,327 square feet of space. At 53,450 square feet, the new structure is one floor shorter but would occupy a larger footprint. 

Of the total area, 24,945 square feet would be devoted to research, 15,000 to academic offices, 10,205 to administration and support functions and only 2,400 to instruction—all for astronomy courses. 

Astronomy would also take the largest share of research, followed by physics and the Berkeley Atmospheric Sciences Center. Much of the physics research will occur in a low vibration laboratory in the basement level. 

Of the other current tenants, the offices of the deans of the College of Letters and Science and the Undergraduate and Interdisciplinary Studies program will move to Durant Hall while the undergraduate advisors for the College of Letters and Science will move to the Hearst Field Annex. 

Applications for this position are due Dec. 19. 

 

More Nanotech 

The 285,000-square-foot, $158.6 million Stanley Hall now nearing completion will house labs and offices, including facilities for the California Institute for Quantitative Biomedical Research and the Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society (CITRIS). 

Work on the project began on Feb. 3, 2003 and completion is scheduled for Jan. 25. 

One little-noticed Stanley Hall feature certain to provoke controversy is the Bio-Nano Technology Center, which will create prototypes of microrobots and other microscopic and sub-microscopic technology for medical research, treatment and other uses. 

Nanotechnology has become a political minefield in Berkeley, where a small group of dedicated activists opposes siting facilities locally for fear that the invisible products of research could leak into the atmosphere and create health problems for those who live and work nearby. 

While a Google search turns up more than 25,000 hits for the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory’s Molecular Foundry nanotech project—including more than 100 dealing with health and environmental concerns—a search for the Bio-Nano Technology Center rates only nine hits, none referring to similar concerns. 

Spurred on by critics the Berkeley City Council is scheduled to take up its own regulations governing nanotechnology during tonight’s (Tuesday) City Council meeting. 


Brown Withdraws Nomination That Drew Fire

By J. Douglas Allen-Taylor
Tuesday December 05, 2006

A controversial nomination of a conservative African-American Republican to the Oakland Planning Commission by outgoing Mayor Jerry Brown has been withdrawn under pressure from progressive community activists and Councilmember Jane Brunner. 

Charles Hargrave, who was sponsored by City Council President Ignacio De La Fuente, withdrew his nomination on Friday after Brunner complained to Brown about Hargrave’s conservative political positions. 

“I understand that he is pro-life and anti-gun control,” Brunner said following a community advisory meeting at Peralta Elementary in North Oakland on Saturday. “I told Jerry that I couldn’t support someone like that on the Planning Com- 

mission.”  

The 49-year-old Hargrave, a Berkeley native who grew up in the Brookfield Village community of East Oakland, said in a telephone interview that he withdrew the nomination after speaking with Brown and learning that the nomination had quickly become a controversial issue. “I was told that there would be pickets from pro-choice groups at the City Council meeting,” Hargrave said by telephone. “I can understand it if I was running for governor or state assembly or something, but I don’t see what being pro-life has to do with being on the Planning Commission. That’s ridiculous. All I wanted to do is be on a commission or board that can help change things in Oakland.” 

Noting that there are currently no African-Americans on Oak-land’s Planning Commission, Hargrave said that “now that Mayor Brown appoints one, Ms. Brunner says that she doesn’t want me.” 

Hargrave said that he will now wait until incoming Mayor Ron Dellums takes office in January “and introduce myself to [him] and see if he will appoint me.”  

Oakland Tenants Union co-founder James E. Vann, who opposed Hargrave’s nomination, said that “I don’t think Brown would have made the appointment if he had known about [Hargrave’s] staunch opposition to right-to-choose and his other ultra right-wing positions. It looks like so many of Brown’s appointments [that didn’t get fully vetted] where they simply saw him at a meeting someplace and impressed him, or they had some connection who lobbied for them.” 

Vann said he first came in contact with Hargrave in 2004 when Hargrave attempted to get a variance to Oakland’s condo conversion ordinance. Vann said that a group of builders represented by Hargrave wanted the city to exempt them from the requirement that housing taken off the rental market by conversion to condominiums must be replaced by the owners with a comparable number of rental units. The Tenants Union eventually opposed the city granting Hargrave’s group the variance. 

The withdrawl of the last-minute nomination was a political embarassment for Brown, who had complained eight years ago about then-outgoing Mayor Elihu Harris making similar last-minute appointments in the period after Brown won the mayor’s election but before he took office. Last June, San Francisco Chronicle political reporters Matier and Ross wrote that “despite [incoming mayor] Ron Dellums' call to hold off, outgoing Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown said he plans to make board and commission appointments right up to the very end of his term. Right now, there is one vacancy on Oakland's Port Commission, two vacancies on the Planning Commission and three on the Landmarks Preservation Advisory Board—all potentially key appointments when it comes to development deals. Dellums, who will replace Brown in January, asked the mayor to leave the Port Commission appointment till he takes office. … Brown spokesman Gil Duran said … that while the mayor would be open to discussing the matter, he planned to continue the ‘settled practice of the mayor exercising his authority through the end of the term, just as they do in San Francisco and in Sacramento.’” 

It is not clear whether Brown will attempt to make another nomination to the Planning Commission prior to his departure at the end of the year. Duran, Brown’s media representative, did not return a telephone message in connection with this story.  

Hargrave is a homeownership consultant for the Oakland office of Operation Hope, a non-profit public benefit organization founded in Los Angeles in 1992 in the aftermath of the Rodney King riots. He has twice lost badly against incumbent District 7 Congressman George Miller (D-Contra Costa/Solano) in recent years, 71 to 27 percent in 2002 and 76 to 24 percent in 2004. He graduated from Laney College in Oakland in 1981 with an associate's degree in finance. He currently serves as the tenant alternate on Oakland’s Housing, Residential Rent and Relocation Board, voting only when the regular tenant representative is not present at board meetings.  

Hargrave said the abortive Planning Commission appointment came after he attended a commission meeting earlier this year and talked with an aide to Council President De La Fuente. 

“I told him there should be African-American representation on the Commission,” Hargrave said, “and he asked me if I was interested. I told him I was, but it was my understanding that there would be no vacancies until May of next year. I had been looking at some of the boards and commissions earlier because I wanted to be on a commission to help Oakland.” 

Hargrave said that he had previously met De La Fuente while he [Hargrave] was seeking a Spanish-speaking counselor to work in the Operation Hope office. The office is in De La Fuente’s fifth Council District in the Fruitvale. 

With De La Fuente’s sponsorship, Hargrave was nominated by Brown late last month to serve on the seat vacated by real estate agent Nicole Franklin for a term ending in May, 2007. The nomination letter from Brown mistakenly indicated that “upon nomination of the Mayor, the following person is hereby appointed…” However, nominations for the seven-member Oakland Planning Commission are made by the mayor and must be approved by a majority of the City Council. 

The nomination set off a flurry of emails among Oakland community activists that included a 2002 candidate’s bio from the SFGate website listing Hargrave’s political positions taken during his Congressional run that year. That prompted Brunner to have the item pulled from its original December 5 City Council agenda date and rescheduled for December 19. Brunner said on Saturday that “Jerry [Brown] called me and asked why I pulled it.” After she explained her opposition to Hargrave’s conservative political positions contained in one of the emails she had received, Brunner said “he told me to send him the email. An hour later, he called back and said that Charles had pulled his name from consideration.”  

 


Revised Landmark Ordinance Back Before Council

By Judith Scherr
Tuesday December 05, 2006

The City Council will consider a revised Landmarks Preservation Ordinance at its meeting tonight (Tuesday), likely kicking off a fight to repeal the law before it takes effect. 

The revised ordinance was approved by the council in July, but put on hold when a ballot initiative that would have instituted some minor revisions in the current law was placed on the November ballot. The initiative, Measure J, lost at the ballot box and so the July ordinance is back before council today.  

The vote is being repeated because of a date change and the addition of a section explaining the need for revising the ordinance: “As a result of the extensive public process and negotiations, this chapter as reenacted in 2006 includes numerous compromises intended to address the legitimate concerns and aspirations of all stakeholders,” the new section states.  

Due to a city staff error, the July version of the ordinance, rather than the December version, was placed on the city website and in the council agenda packets. As of Monday morning, councilmembers had not been advised they had the wrong version in their packets, according to Councilmember Kriss Worthington, who said the vote should be delayed because of the error. 

A significant change from the original ordinance to the version before the council tonight (and in July) is the strict timeline during which the public is permitted to bring its weight to bear on the process, said Laurie Bright, one of the authors of Measure J. 

“It’s going to virtually eliminate public participation,” Bright told the Daily Planet. “The timeline is so short that neighbors will not have a chance to organize themselves to prevent demolition.”  

Bright plans to kick off a referendum drive against the law as soon as the second reading is approved, which is expected to be Dec. 12 unless the first reading is further delayed.  

The draft ordinance outlines the following steps to landmarking a property: (The steps below have been simplified. The full text of the ordinance marked “supplemental” can be found in the council agenda on the city website at http://www.ci.berke ley.ca.us/citycouncil/agendaindex.htm.) 

• A property owner asks the city whether or not a property merits consideration as a landmark in a process called a Request for Determination. 

• When it receives such a request, the city contracts with an independent consultant from a Landmarks Preservation Commission-approved list to complete a historic assessment. The applicant bears the cost. Alternatively, applicants can write their own reports, which would then be reviewed by an LPC-approved consultant at the applicant’s expense. 

• The LPC considers the completed Request for Determination at a public hearing to take place at its first regular meeting no less than 21 days after completion of the document.  

• If the LPC doesn’t initiate the property at this meeting (initiation is the beginning of the process by which the commission considers whether a property merits a historic designation), it can consider initiation at its next regular meeting. At that meeting the commission initiates the property or takes no action. 

• If it isn’t initiated at the second meeting, members of the public have 30 days to collect enough signatures to initiate it by petition. (Exceptions are made for environmental review.) 

• If no determination has been made within the above timeline, no initiation or designation can be made of the property within two years. 

Landmarks Commissioner Carrie Olson helped write the compromise ordinance and contended, in an interview Monday, that the timeline is “something to be encouraged.” Many times, in an open-ended process, interested people don’t come back to the commission, she said.  

Still, she said, she understands that in unusual cases—for example, in discussions with Native Americans, archeologists, neighbors and other groups around landmarking the shellmound under the Spengers parking lot—the commission may need to hear from several groups, which takes time. The city attorney’s advice was, however, that strict timelines were a legally mandated part of the revision, Olson said. 

Opponents of the revised ordinance say developers could flood the commission with applications, impeding the commission’s ability to deal with them within the mandated timeframe.  

But Olson said she thinks that would not happen. And if it were to happen, commissioners “would have to go to council to have the provision suspended,” she said. If the public didn’t get a proper hearing by the commission, they would be able to fight the city in court, she said. 

Olson further argued that if the consultant report says to tear down a structure that has historic merit, “my hope is that we have a strong enough commission to say we disagree.”  

Bright, however, calls RFD “Request for Development,” and says he believes he will be able to get the approximate 4,500 to 5,000 valid signatures necessary to put the measure on the November 2008 ballot. Referendum proponents have thirty days from the second reading to collect signatures. 

“Unfortunately it works out—probably by design—that signature gathering is happening during the holidays,” Bright said. If he gets the required signatures, Bright said he believes the original ordinance will be in effect until the November 2008 election. 

 

 

 

 


DAPAC, Landmarks Commissions Meet

By Richard Brenneman
Tuesday December 05, 2006

The Downtown Area Plan Advisory Committee (DAPAC) and the Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) are both meeting this week. 

DAPAC is meeting at 7 p.m. Wednesday in the North Berkeley Senior Center, 1901 Hearst Ave., to consider themes for the evolving plan and to consider a draft outline for the plan prepared by city staff. 

Also on the agenda is a request by six members of the committee to establish a subcommittee focused on UC Berkeley’s plans for developing the property it owns in the downtown area. 

The new plan being drafted under DAPAC’s auspices was mandated in the settlement of a city lawsuit filed against the university’s long range plans for development through 2020. 

The university plans to add a millions square feet of uses in the city center, with the enlarged boundaries encompassed by the planning effort. 

Landmarks commissioners are scheduled to meet the following evening and hold hearings on: New development at the Public Storage facility at 1120 Second St., a site that includes the landmarked Municipal Incinerator building; a home designed by noted architect Bernard Maybeck at 1300 Martin Luther King Jr. Way; the addition of an electrical room to the landmarked Webb Building at 1987 Ashby Ave.; and a proposal to alter the building at 2114 Center St. for a food service tenant. 

That meeting, also held in the North Berkeley Senior Center, begins at 7:30 p.m. Thursday.


UC Regents Set to Vote on Massive Southeast Campus Development

By Richard Brenneman
Tuesday December 05, 2006

The University of California Regents are scheduled to meet this afternoon (Tuesday) to approve the controversial document that will pave the way for massive development in the southeast campus. 

The environmental impact report slated for approval at the regents’ Committee on Grounds and Buildings focuses on the Southeast Campus Integrated Projects (SCIP) at and around UC Berkeley’s Memorial Stadium. 

The committee is also scheduled to approve plans for the Student Athlete High Performance Center, a four-story SCIP project to be built along the western wall of Memorial Stadium. 

The public can attend the 4:30 p.m. telephone conference meeting by appearing at the UC San Francisco Mission Bay campus Community Center, 1675 Owens St., San Francisco. 


Opinion

Editorials

Editorial: More Attacks on Citizen Participation Rumored

By Becky O’Malley
Friday December 08, 2006

Back in the olden days when I was a kid, we traveled a lot by streetcar, and sometimes by train. One interesting feature of rail travel is that long before you can see your streetcar or train coming, you can tell that it’s getting near by leaning over and putting your ear next to the rails (which was a lot easier when I was closer to the ground). This phenomenon came to mind last week as I heard rumbles about new moves in the City Council’s agenda committee to limit the power of citizen-based commissions. I’ll leave the exact details to the news reporters to document when they actually come into view, but the rumblings from the rails threw up two possible strategies: further term-limiting commissioners and limiting individuals to service on one commission at a time. 

Both of these must seem to the average Goo-Goo (naive believer in Good Government) to be marvelous pro-democracy innovations. What could be better that making sure that lots of different citizens get to serve on the Zoning Adjustments Board or the Public Works Commission?  

Well, the problem is that doing a good job on commissions requires the acquisition of a lot of arcane knowledge before you can even begin to contribute to intelligent decisions. Anyone who’s watched the ZAB in action knows that there are a couple of members who absolutely know the difference between a use permit and a variance, and there are other members who have the good sense to keep their mouths shut because they have no idea what’s going on. It’s the commissioners in the first category who are targeted by term limits.  

A lawyer I know always quotes the professor from the first day of her administrative law class: in any regulated industry, the regulators are eventually captured by the regulatees. Often, it’s not even corruption, it’s just that people who do business with each other repeatedly over the years tend to get friendly.  

In the real-estate development industry which is big-time in Berkeley right now, that means that staffers in the planning department are on first-name terms with Patrick and Darryl and Chris and Evan, and not with the neighbors who happen to be next door to the various target sites. (You’ll hear howls of outrage from the City of Berkeley’s Planning Department when they read that last sentence, but it’s not a criminal charge, just a fact of life in the world.) And it doesn’t help that the planning department is completely funded by development fees. 

The only chance members of the general public have to escape this rule is that there are a few citizens (probably 15, tops) who have donated enough of their personal time to commissions in the past to know what’s happening, to give the pros a run for their money. The same scenarios surface with every project, with the same claques brought in to lobby for the developers, but commissioners who haven’t seen these acts before are much more gullible.  

As I’m writing this, I hear a commotion in the cotoneaster outside my window, whistles and loud rustling of wings. I can’t actually see what’s going on without changing to my distance glasses, but because it’s the time of the year that berries are on the tree I’m pretty sure that the cedar waxwings are back. I don’t have to see their yellow bellies and their Lone Ranger masks, because I’ve seen them before and know what they sound like. That’s how the experienced commissioners identify bad deals for the public—they’ve heard the same thing before. 

It’s true that canny commissioners have been known to evade the current eight-year term limit by resigning after seven years and a few months and then getting re-appointed, but is that a bad thing? One proposal which is being talked up is an attempt to defeat this strategy by allowing service only for eight years out of 10. This is ironic in a city whose mayor took the term limits on the state Legislature to court (unsuccessfully) when he was an assemblymember. Berkeley has been pretty well served by long-term councilmembers like Betty Olds, but in any event term limits should start at the top if they’re at all desirable. The long-time commissioners bring a wealth of knowledge, which the city couldn’t possibly pay for, to bear on the problems they address, and getting rid of them makes little sense. 

The other scheme being bruited about is limiting commissioners to a single commission. It’s not as if all commissions are all full at all times—in fact some councilmembers have a very hard time filling vacancies. Reporters soon spot the commissioners who are on top of their game: who have the intelligence and the energy to know all the facts about what’s going on. Jesse Arreguin is a good example: a smart, dynamic undergraduate who’s on the Rent Board, the Housing Advisory Commission, the Zoning Board and perhaps more. If you want something complicated explained to you, he’s your guy. He’s the kind of talent Berkeley couldn’t afford if we had to pay for it, as someone undoubtedly will when he graduates and enters the job market. Such people are rare enough, and if they can make time to contribute to more than one body it’s a plus, not a minus.  

In George Bush II’s first term, he seemed to believe that he had a mandate from the people to enact his conservative agenda (even though some believed he’d lost the 2000 election.) He did what he wanted, ignoring even the Congress when it suited him by using the now-notorious signing statements to explain why he didn’t have to follow the law. As advised by Karl Rove, he gussied up his unpopular activities with populist rhetoric: The Healthy Forest Initiative was a coverup for more logging. And he made appointments to everything from the FCC to the Supreme Court to carry out his program. John Kerry wasn’t the right candidate to send Bush the message that he didn’t really have a mandate, so Bush II’s second term started out as more of the same. But a funny thing happened on the way to 2006: People finally caught on and figured out how to let him know that at the ballot box. Now it’s starting to look like the Bush dynasty might not be forever after all. 

The local dynasty (perhaps a more apropo term than “machine”) looks like it’s heading for some similar hubris, complete with Rovian double-speak (labeling the backroom deal which produced an emasculated landmark ordinance a “citizen compromise” in the pre-election propaganda) and signing statements (adding a last-minute clause to the new ordinance saying that the noxious parts couldn’t be repealed separately because of said deal.) They should keep in mind that even given the vast sums spent to defeat it Measure J got 43 percent, and by the time a referendum is voted on two years from now the voters might even have caught on.  

And that while Bush II was able to pack the Supreme Court during his first term, he won’t be able to do more damage in this term, which is why the City Council should think twice before listening to the blandishments of those who hope to weaken the city’s still vigorous and useful commissions any further.  


Council to Look at Telegraph, BIDs, Nanoparticles

By Judith Scherr
Tuesday December 05, 2006

When Cody’s on Telegraph announced its closure about six months ago, the City Council stepped in to upgrade the area by restoring police and social services. But the funding’s about to run out and the council will consider extending it tonight (Tuesday). 

Also tonight, the council will hold public hearings before renewing the downtown and Solano Avenue business improvement districts, address creating a nanoparticle policy and look at changing the definition of arts and crafts for purposes of zoning in West Berkeley 

 

Telegraph Avenue 

The six-month Telegraph Avenue Economic Assistance Program, approved by the council as part of the budget approved in July, funded police and mental health workers that had been slashed from the budget three years ago, provided sidewalk cleaning and included a push to streamline how new businesses in the area get permits. 

In a phone interview, City Councilmember Kriss Worthington acknowledged that the restoration of dedicated bike cops would not be in place for about 18 months. New officers have been hired and are being trained for the positions, he said. Meanwhile various officers working overtime patrol Telegraph, sometimes on bikes, sometimes in cars.  

“Without the assistance on Telegraph, we would have been in real trouble,” said Al Geyer, owner of Annapurna and founder of the new Telegraph Merchants Association, calling for renewed funding.  

But police services need to be tweaked, he said. Undercover police have been successful in addressing some of the problems. But now what is needed is more visible police, and a shift to crime prevention.  

“What I’d like to see are walking police, police who know who the regulars are and who see people who are new and problematic,” he said. 

Police, however, have told Geyer they want officers on bikes or in patrol cars so that they can respond to emergency calls. 

Geyer also wants officers assigned to Telegraph who want to work there. 

There’s still much to do for the homeless. Geyer pointed out that there are 900 chronically homeless people and about 250 beds for them in Berkeley. And, because of Berkeley’s tolerance of the mentally ill, they flock to the city—but Berkeley and the county need to put more resources into serving their needs and containing their unsociable behavior. 

Worthington said other improvements on Telegraph are moving ahead. Regulations to streamline permitting for new businesses have been approved by the Planning Commission and will come before the City Council in the next two months, he said.  

Restoration of 22 parking spaces eliminated on Telegraph is under way. Nine spaces have been brought back to Channing Way in front of the First Presbyterian Church. And there are plans to restore evening and weekend parking on Durant. 

However, parking in the yellow zones on Telegraph is still prohibited at all times. Worthington said he’s trying to work with the City Manager’s office to get short-term parking there. 

 

Business improvement district renewal 

Public hearings will be held on the Downtown and Solano Avenue business improvement districts (BID). The districts are funded through assessments of businesses within each area and administered through the business association of each area. The larger downtown BID has a $250,000 budget and the smaller Solano Avenue BID has a budget of $35,000. Some merchants in the Solano Avenue area have questioned the effectiveness of the BID, which performs services such as sidewalk cleaning and installation of planter boxes.  

 

Safety disclosure for nanoparticles 

The Community Advisory Commission wants the council to approve a health and safety disclosure for manufacturers who use nanoparticles. 

These are materials 100 nanometers in size or smaller—a nanometer is one-trillionth of a meter.  

Nanoparticles are used in health, technology and military applications, according to a report by city toxics staff. Robert Clear, chair of the Community Environmental Advisory Commission, said they can be used in products such as suntan lotion and cheese puffs. 

They can be inhaled and absorbed through the skin, which is the reason, says the city’s toxics staff, that there should be mandatory health and safety disclosure associated with their use. 

Without further understanding of nanoparticles, they “need to be treated as potent toxics. They need to put a safety plan into place,” Clear said. In the staff report, the precautionary principle is recommended—that is, treating nanoparticles as toxic unless they are proved not to be so. 

The proposal requires all businesses that manufacture or use nanoparticles to submit a report on methods for safe handling, monitoring, containing, disposing and tracking the inventory, “thus assisting with prevention and mitigation of releases,” says the staff report. 

UC Berkeley labs at Stanley Hall and Lawrence Berkeley Labs as well as private businesses in Berkeley use or manufacture nanomaterials.  

 

Revision of arts and crafts studio  

designation proposed 

The council is also scheduled to vote on a revised definition of an arts and crafts studio that would add computer graphics to the mix. 

The addition was requested by former Peerless Lighting owner Don Herst, the developer of a planned 5.5-acre West Berkeley project, who has proposed transforming his old factory site into a business and residential complex with live/work units for artists, condos, a large biotech building and storefront galleries. 

Under existing law, people who work with computer graphics are not considered artists under Zoning Ordinance provisions of the 1989 West Berkeley Plan. Herst asked for the changes to include them in his project.  

The Civic Arts Commission, prompted by a June 13 recommendation from City Council, drafted the proposed ordinance the council will consider tonight. 

 

 

Richard Brenneman contributed to this report.


Public Comment

Letters to the Editor

Friday December 08, 2006

TRAFFIC COURT MOVE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I am saddened to learn about the move of the Berkeley Traffic Court to Oakland. As the Berkeley Trial Court administrator from 1997 through March of this year, I worked closely with city and county officials to develop the kind of programming most needed and desired by the community. With the help of Supervisor Keith Carson, Mayor Shirley Dean, Dion Aroner, Loni Hancock and various members of the City Council, the Superior Court entered into a negotiated agreement with the City of Berkeley and the County of Alameda that would provide for a beautifully refurbished courthouse to remain at the foot of Center Street for the next 50 years.  

The Berkeley Courthouse was specifically constructed with one large non-jury courtroom for traffic matters, and one smaller non-jury courtroom for small claims and domestic violence matters. Clerical offices were designed to provide public services in the areas of civil/small claims, traffic, and court collections. The civil office was authorized to accept any type of Superior Court filing including family law, probate, and unlimited civil litigation as a convenience to the local bar.  

The Traffic Court served a much greater role in the community than just a forum for persons accused of motor vehicle violations. It also served persons accused of violating open container laws, incidental drug use, homelessness, trespassing, and even unlawful skateboarding. It was truly the People’s Court of Berkeley. Once moved to Oakland, it will no longer have ties to the community, nor will it serve in that capacity. 

I am hopeful that this change is merely temporary, driven by a need for the Superior Court to quickly vacate a court building in Oakland recently deemed unfit, and that the Berkeley Courthouse will return to its former level of service once a new courthouse is completed in Pleasanton. 

Benjamin D. Stough 

Alameda 

 

• 

PUBLIC TRANSIT 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Here in Berkeley we talk about getting out of our cars, but there is no plan for a practical transportation system that would really get us out of our cars. For example, in Paris as in other cities there is a Metro station every 100 yards with trains that run often and on time. In Mexico City they have one-peseta and two-peseta taxis that travel the mail drags and stop wherever hailed. Here, we have only cumbersome AC transit which runs late and infrequently. Our wonderful Arts District in downtown Berkeley is not served by AC transit after 6 p.m. 

We need to think of ways to provide good public transportation—beyond AC Transit. I would love to see a shuttle/jitney that goes from the base of Solano Avenue, down Shattuck to the Ashby BART station, another that goes down University Avenue, down Dwight Way, down Ashby, and maybe even Cedar, across Sacramento, etc. With this kind of system to give a local service for BART, being car-less would be more possible. 

The taxi scrip system for seniors and disabled people is only half-heartedly funded by the city. We have to fight for continued funding, and they constantly chip away at it—now it is only for low-income people, and the taxi drivers no longer have the convenience of cashing scrip often, so they are reluctant to honor it. Why not have taxi scrip for everyone? That would really reduce cars. 

I know about CarShare and bike routes, but that is for the able and well off. We need a transportation system that would serve working people and seniors and disabled that would feed into the business districts and the Arts district. Everyone would benefit. 

Margot Smith 

 

• 

THE IRAQ WAR 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

We never had a true reason to invade Iraq and there are only two reasons we are there now: 

1. To secure oil for the large oil/energy moguls in the USA and possibly Saudi Arabia. 

2. Because leaders are afraid that they or the United States will appear weak. 

There is no graceful way to admit a tragic mistake of this magnitude. If we can’t be graceful, at least we can attempt to be honorable by owning up to what we’ve done and doing the right thing, which will be leaving now, wait for the dust to settle and offering aid to repair the damage we created. 

If this seems a bitter pill for us to swallow, think of the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi’s who have lost their lives or had their lives shattered. Think of the Americans who have given their lives, their bodies and all to what purpose? Oil and ego? There is no real purpose and most soldiers in Iraq and most Americans will tell you that. Knowing this, how can we ask Americans to lay down their lives for one more day? 

This war must stop and apparently the only way this can happen is fro Congress to stop funding the war. 

P.S. This administration tells us that Social Security is going broke, yet they have developed billions upon billions of dollars to fight this war in Iraq? 

Lawrence Arsenault 

Alameda 

 

• 

TRADER JOE’S IMPACTS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Regan Richardson’s Dec. 5 letter asks for an explanation of the “miracle” that the Trader Joe’s project would reduce the number of daily car trips. It might be a draw, but has Richardson considered the exodus of Berkeley traffic on their way to Trader Joe’s in Emeryville or El Cerrito? 

Gerta Farber 

 

• 

EPITHETS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

What a relief! After reading the last bit of Glen Kohler’s letter I feel liberated from the usual PC-enforced respect. Now I can safely use the formerly derogatory insult “gypsy” to refer to anyone “not served or bound by societal conventions.” Of course Kohler should probably have made it a little more specific, saying something about thievery and hygiene, for instance. I wonder how soon the rest of us will be able to reclaim other choice “stock terms” like “nigger” and “spic” and “gook” (meaning anyone not served or bound by white conventions), “kike” (meaning anyone not served or bound by Christian conventions), “faggot” and “dyke” (meaning anyone not served or bound by heterosexual conventions). Certainly these other “stock terms” are as devoid of hatred and dehumanization as “gypsy.” So thanks Mr. Kohler, for opening the door and allowing us to use such neutral terms in public again without fear of scorn or rebuke. 

C. Boles 

 

• 

PEOPLE’S PARK 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The recent drug war and homeless attack on People’s Park by the UC police and Berkeley police wanting more clear lines of view into the west end of the park so the cops won’t have to get out of theirs cars must be exposed as what it is—an attack on the park and an ongoing attack on all of us. 

With the prohibition of drugs comes the high price of drugs, which has made it a very profitable trade, and because there are very few good paying jobs, our homes, streets and parks have become market places. In today’s newspaper reports, there are over seven million of our sisters and brothers “in the arms of the law,” one of every 32 American adults. A third of the seven million are in prison, which is up from last year. The children and families of the drug war casualties are hurt forever. According to the Sentencing Project reports in the age group 25-29, the racial disparities are one in 13 black men incarcerated (7.7 percent) verses 2.6 percent of the Hispanic population and 1.1 percent for white men. From 1995-2003 “inmates in federal prison for drug offenses have accounted for 49 percent of total prison population growth.” This only amplifies racism, division, and hatred among us. Worse of all the drug prohibition does not solve the problem. Drug use is at the same levels. 

The attack on the homeless is for sure an attack or war on all of us. The government has taken away the housing subsidies for the people and gave it to the landlords. The Western Regional Advocacy Project really lays it out how the feds stop giving $53 billion per year over the last 25 years for housing. 

Just like the war in Iraq is to steal the wealth of the people of Iraq, the drug war and the war on the homeless is to bring in big profits for the corporations by bringing down our wages and destroying collective solutions and our unions. Everybody is afraid of going to jail or being thrown into the street.  

Michael Delacour 

• 

WILLARD NEIGHBORHOOD’S NEEDS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

People’s Park cruelly neglects the needs of the rich.  

Two representatives of the wealthy Willard Neighborhood Association came to a Dec. 4 People’s Park Community Advisory Board Meeting to insist that while they appreciated People’s Park’s greenery and gardens, they still worry that most of their neighbors don’t feel “comfortable” there.  

Let’s admit it: Long-time park activists have sorely neglected the needs of the wealthy in the user-developed design of the park. Basketball, for instance, is offered as a recreational option, while polo is nowhere to be found.  

There’s no reason that the park can’t have a free-box with warm, clean clothes for the poor, while also offering financial counseling and tips about hedge funds for the rich. Let’s work together to make sure the needs of the wealthy are given equal weight in a new, fresh design for People’s Park, so that homeless people and people with time-share condos in Cabo can all play canasta together.  

Carol Denney 

• 

COMPLAINTS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I was disappointed to read Christopher Cherney’s laundry list of complaints about our neighborhood. It would be far more helpful to hear about what people are doing—maybe Christopher himself is doing something—to help improve the situation. 

Michael Carreira 

 

• 

ELECTRIC CARS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Jerry Landis, in his Dec. 1 letter, asks, “And where does the council think that electricity [for electric cars] comes from?” In replying that it mostly comes “from coal-burning generating plants, far more polluting than cars,” Landis perpetuates the myth that electric cars are connected by long extension cords to the electrical grid while they drive, and thereby depend on coal-fired generation plants. 

Most electric cars are powered by batteries which are re-charged overnight, at a time when power companies can scarcely give electricity away. When I leased an electric car from Honda (for four years), PG&E installed a time-of-use meter in my house, charging one-third of commercial rates between midnight and 7 a.m. My total electric bill actually went down! At night, moreover, it is as likely that electricity is generated by wind or hydro as by coal. 

Of course, the more fanatic electric-car owner will install solar panels, contributing to the power grid during the day, and drawing power back from the grid at night. What could be more green? 

Alan H. Nelson 

 

• 

CLINTON IN 2008? 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Sen. Hillary Clinton is considering a run for president in 2008. I like Hillary Clinton but she has negatives dogging her. She automatically loses tens of millions of votes from the religious and conservative right. Clinton is a divisive figure even though it’s not of her own doing.  

What about other Democratic stars who wouldn’t start the presidential campaign with a lot of baggage. Evan Bayh, Bill Bradley and John Edwards are proven winners without an entourage of negatives.  

With Hillary Clinton as presidential candidate, Democrats would be shooting themselves in the foot before the race even began. 

Ron Lowe  

Grass Valley  

 

• 

UC EXPANSION 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The world is facing huge ecological catastrophes. Our universities should be radically re-directing our resources to studying ways to turn around the causes and find solutions to get as many species through this collapse as possible, most notably our own. 

Spending millions of dollars to build an elite training gym on a precious oak grove is complete insanity! 

UC is so manipulated by corporate financial interests that not only is its contribution to solutions of humanity’s pressing problems minimal but it is unfortunately actively plummeting us in the direction of doom. Nukes, bio tech, and nano technologies are far more likely to harm than help the delicate ecology we need for survival. And don’t be fooled by a new proposed bio-fuel research mega-project. It will be in the vein of the disastrous industrial agriculture practices that are the problem. 

Of course there are voices of reason and hope within the university: Miguel A. Altieri, Ignacio Chapela, Patrick Archie, the Agrariana student group, the organic garden, the projects for sustainable Ag at Gill Tract (and the struggle to preserve it), the Save the Oaks Student group, some elements of the College of Natural Resources etc. It is toward these efforts the University should be directing it’s resources.  

We have so much to lose if the university is allowed to aggressively head down the tracks of doom fueled by a blind corporate greed. The building plans UC has, as reported in the Dec. 5 Berkeley Daily Planet, are very alarming. Please, sane reverent people, speak up. 

Cyndi Johnson 

 

• 

OAKLAND PLANNING 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I was appalled to read that Jane Brunner had blocked an appointment to the Oakland Planning Commission because she objects to the nominee’s positions on abortion and gun control. The planning commission never makes a ruling that has any bearing on those issues. It is this sort of behavior that has created the polarization that is plaguing the nation. If you don’t like his stance on those issues, it makes sense to oppose him for positions that involve health care and police policy, but there is no good reason to keep him off the planning commission that is not directly related to urban planning. 

Marcella L. Murphy 

 

• 

HOUSING AND DENSITY 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I was dismayed to read about the ABAG quota for new housing units in Berkeley. Although I agree that Berkeley needs affordable housing, we also need to remember why we love living in Berkeley. Personally, as a resident of the flats and a neighbor to Ashby BART, I enjoy walking through residential streets, admiring the gardens of neighbors, and knowing most of the other residents of my block. When huge increases in density are proposed (such as the ridiculous transit village idea) I know it will directly affect me. As usual, they are suggesting that these 2,712 units be built downtown, along major corridors, and close to public transportation (why do they never propose higher density in the more upscale neighborhoods?). In the past affordable housing was built to fit in with Berkeley. For example, Savo Island (bordered by Adeline, Stewart, Milvia, Oregon and Ward) has 57 units that were built for families, seniors and disabled people. Even at that size, it still feels somewhat densely populated as compared to the surrounding neighborhood. However high rise apartments, condos etc. will not enhance the quality of life in Berkeley. Here’s what really gets me: ABAG can dictate to member cities and counties our public policy. I thought that if policies are required which impact our daily quality of life, that we could vote to throw the suckers out! However, ABAG is not an elected board. While I appreciate a “regional approach” to transportation and air quality issues, I certainly don’t want city policy dictated by an unrepresentative board. I look forward to the Planet doing some further reporting on who and how people are appointed to ABAG, and what their agenda is. 

Nora Goodfriend-Koven 

 

• 

VISITOR’S PARKING WOES 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Instead of shopping at a mega-mall, I consciously decided to patronize a locally owned merchant in downtown Berkeley on a recent visit to the area. Figuring I was safe, I parked in a spot flanked with “90 minute parking” signs. As I returned to my car well within 90 minutes, my stomach sank as I noticed the small white envelope stuffed under my windshield wiper. Thanks to the arcane City of Berkeley parking regulations, I was slapped with a $30 visitor’s tax, AKA parking ticket. Merchants take heed: your city creates an uninviting environment for visitors wishing to patronize your stores. Next time, I will spend my dollars with local merchants in my own town rather than risk another encounter with Berkeley’s guerrilla parking department.  

Lisa Hill 

Reno, Nevada


Commentary: Berkeley’s Charm At Risk

By Fred Dodsworth
Friday December 08, 2006

Thank you for the excellent Dec. 5 article regarding the push to increase housing in the downtown Berkeley corridor. I especially liked that you paired ABAG’s demands with UC’s building boom on the front page. 

Let me see if I’ve got this right: The Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG) is threatening to restrict some federal funding options if Berkeley does not add approximately 387 new units of housing per year! (By the by, 387 new units a year also means nearly 1,000 new residents every year and an approximately equal number of vehicles.) 

That enormous oversized inappropriate sore thumb downtown known as the Gaia Building has only 91 apartments. ABAG is saying that we need to add the equivalent of more than four Gaia Buildings a year to our city/town, every year for the indefinite future! (Four Gaia Buildings would still be 23 units short of ABAG’s mandated annual minimum increase!) You quote Berkeley’s Planning Director Dan Marks as saying (in a slightly redacted form: “That means we would have to ... remove any policy barriers to that housing being produced.” 

Welcome to part two of the big business, big government assault on Berkeley. In addition to the on-going and current push to increase retail space throughout the city to add tax revenues to the city coffers, now our little flawed but charming town is being pimped out by a powerful regional governmental agency for every mixed-use developer’s pleasure.  

Recall that current commercial rents in Berkeley ($3 to $4 a square foot) already are too high for local non-chain store businesses. Say goodbye to neighborhood restaurants, coffee shops and bookstores. Say hello to national and international chain stores. 

Recall that current residential rent in Berkeley ($1,000-plus per month for a studio) is approximately the same amount a person working full-time at a minimum wage job makes in a month, before deductions! Say goodbye to diverse neighborhoods and low density neighborhoods. Say hello to entire families living in studio apartments and/or San 

Francisco-style professional-class neighborhoods. 

The political and financial pressures being brought to bear on our community are powerful, well-connected, well-financed, relentless, and ruthless. Additionally the university’s scheme to add several millions of square feet of commercial space, both on campus and in the downtown, will exacerbate the pressures from ABAG for more housing. On average (as I recall from my sojourn in architecture school three decades ago) every thousand square feet of commercial development adds three employees to the mix ABAG uses to set housing standards. With just two million square feet of additional development (that does not factor in the as yet unknown but substantial additional private development in the pipeline) ABAG will see 6,000 additional employees. 

Those employees are not likely to come from Berkeley’s under employed, unemployed and inadequately educated sub-classes. No, those employees will be from somewhere else and they’ll need someplace to live. Say good-bye to the little city/town of Berkeley. I, for one, don’t want any part of the city “our betters” are building for us. 

As was true in the 1970s, somewhere in Berkeley at some point in the near future, the people of this wonderful community are going to have to draw a line in the sand and insist that enough is enough, that we’re not willing to surrender the quality of life we love for some distant developer’s new second home. War has been declared on Berkeley’s quiet charm. The city/town we know and love is under attack and it will not survive in anything like it’s current form if we don’t defend it. 

 

Fred Dodsworth is a Berkeley journalist.


Commentary: Breathable Air Is a Human Right, Too

By Rita Maran
Friday December 08, 2006

Human Rights Day comes but once a year, on Dec. 10. It’s the same date in every country around the world no matter what the local religion or culture or nationality. On that date, people around the globe—not just here in the Bay Area—commemorate the adoption by the United Nations of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Back in 1948, people first got to hear this quietly revolutionary declaration by the United Nations, that had the full support of the United States. All the governments that were and are part of the UN agreed that every human being’s rights are automatically entitled to protection, thanks to the brand-new operating principle called “human rights.”  

It turns out that the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is the single best-known and most-utilized human rights document ever to see the light of day. Its operative terms are as powerful today as they were back then. The human right to be alive was first laid out 58 years ago, in the Universal Declaration, but human rights movers-and-doers couldn’t know as much as we know today about the scientific connection between the environment and the right to be alive. The rights first identified in the Declaration have gained strength, over these years, keeping pace with changes in the world’s technology. Only in the past decade or so, for example, have we come to understand that the air we breathe is an intrinsic part of the rights to which everyone can lay claim. 

The laws of our land have not until recently been much concerned with the right of people to grow up breathing unpolluted air. The term ‘environmental racism’ did not yet exist, for example, although the practice was widespread in industrialized societies, and is still so today. 

If, right now, we can succeed in identifying clean, breathable air as a right, our children will not have to take up that fight later on. These days for the first time, the Supreme Court is hearing arguments concerning the environment and climate change. Whatever the Court’s decision in this new field, we can be certain that the right to a healthy and sustainable environment, called for in international human rights agreements, is always going to be an intrinsic part of our community’s concern.  

What’s at stake? Nothing less than reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and associated global warming, reduction of mass extinction of biodiversity, protection of globally-endangered species, and a continued commitment to protect the ozone layer. 

Life in the Bay Area brings with it the added enrichment of knowing that here, the global actually translates into the local in productive and creative ways. For the most part, the federal government tends to respect the Universal Declaration’s protected rights, despite its refusal to sign on to the global agreement on climate change and clean air (the Kyoto Protocol). Taking the initiative locally, mayors around the Bay Area are enacting ordinances that will reduce energy usage, bring about switching to renewable sources, and revamp our communities’ environmental policies. All of us have something wonderful to look forward to: being beneficiaries of cities’ local implementation of the Kyoto principles.  

And I can look my new great-granddaughter squarely into her big dark eyes and say “It’s OK, little Rumi, we’re working on it. Breathe deep—deep—and be healthy. It’s your right.” 

 

Rita Maran teaches international human rights law UC Berkeley, and is vice-president of the United Nations Association-USA East Bay. Rumi Joon Maran, great-granddaughter, lives in Los Angeles and is nearly 6 months of age. 

 


Commentary: Better Places for TJ’s in Downtown Berkeley

By Stephen Wollmer
Friday December 08, 2006

On Thursday Dec. 14 Hudson McDonald’s Trader Joe’s project at 1885 University Ave. will come before the Zoning Adjustments Board for use permits. So far, the public controversy swirling about this project has missed the real issue: Hudson McDonald’s use of Trader Joe’s popularity as a wedge issue to extort “extra-legal” zoning concessions from our city.  

A mixed-use project with a Trader Joe’s, parking, and a cafe on the ground floor with three stories of housing (123-units) above is within city zoning and state law and requires no variances for approval. Indeed, neighbors are willing to work with the developer to configure a project of this size to minimize the traffic and parking impacts from Trader Joe’s. 

However Hudson McDonald demands that ZAB and the City Council approve a much larger building than our Zoning Ordinance permits or state law requires. According to Hudson McDonald a project with Trader Joe’s on the ground floor ‘needs’ the income from 25 additional market-rate residential units to compensate them for the fact that Trader Joe’s refuses to pay the full cost of their parking. To make up for Trader Joe’s below-cost rent, Hudson McDonald demands that ZAB issue them permits to build a five-story, 148-unit project. To build the this project requires three almost impossible to obtain variances from our zoning ordinance for a fifth story, for height greater than 50 feet and for a floor area ration (FAR) over 3.0. 

City staff and the city attorney are have been trying for months to connect the current project’s need for these variances with Hudson McDonald’s earlier affordable housing project, a project that could legitimately demand the same variances under state law to accommodate density bonus units. If ZAB approves these variances for the current project based on the earlier project’s protected status this project will be appealed to the City Council and, if necessary litigated, as this would constitute an abuse of discretion on the part of the city and be directly counter to state law’s requirement that density bonus units or incentives “shall contribute significantly to the economic feasibility of lower income housing in proposed housing developments.” (Government Code 65917) There is nothing in state density bonus law about making parking lots affordable for retail tenants and any court will look askance at the city’s use of a section of law written to produce affordable housing being hijacked to provide below-cost parking for a retail tenant.  

Granting additional market-rate residential units to a developer in order to bring a popular retail tenant to our city has no “cost” to the city. However, there would be other sorts of very real costs. The neighbors would be forced to live with a much larger project, the University/MLK intersection would descend further into gridlock, but worst of all this precedent would turn our zoning ordinance into a free-for-all of wheeling and dealing by every sharp actor in the development community. 

Contrast this “under the table” bribe to Hudson McDonald for bringing Trader Joe’s to Berkeley with the recent decision by San Jose to simply pay a rent subsidy of $2.8 million over 10 years to lure Trader Joe’s to a flagging mall (San Jose Mercury News, Aug. 18). I am not suggesting that Berkeley follow San Jose’s example, but at least their bribe was transparent and borne by the entire city, unlike Berkeley’s “creative” reading of our Zoning Ordinance and state law, which dumps all of the costs and impacts on our flatland neighborhood in perpetuity.  

If Berkeley wants a Trader Joe’s that is pedestrian- and transit-friendly, we should encourage them to consider the vacant Eddie Bauer/Gateway Computer storefronts at the corner of Allston Way and Shattuck Avenue, a space that is the same size as the MLK/University Avenue store and available today at $5,000 a month less rent. Unlike the MLK/University site, the Allston Way/Shattuck Avenue property really is downtown and between work and home for thousands of workers and students.  

By now I am sure you are wondering if a grocery store without a sea of parking surrounding it is feasible. Because of the existing transit and parking resources in downtown Berkeley I believe that Trader Joe’s could not only survive, but also thrive. There is no more “transit-centric” location in the East Bay than the two blocks along Shattuck Avenue between Allston and Addison, BART is less than 100 feet away and there are more than a dozen bus lines to every point in Berkeley within two blocks. But what about people with shopping carts filled with groceries? The 48 dedicated parking spaces at the MLK/University site can be replaced through metered street parking and/or validated parking at one of the four nearby lots; together with a dedicated pickup lane for a “valet cart” service where a Trader Joe’s attendant will take charge of your cart while you get your car and load your groceries when you return would make a dispersed parking model quite well and allow multi-stop shopping in downtown. Alternatively, Trader Joe’s offers a $4.95 delivery service for some of their urban stores, and at least for near-downtown residents this could be an attractive option. 

The creative re-use of a vacant storefront in the heart of downtown Berkeley’s transit crossroads is the environmentally preferable solution. Don’t let Hudson McDonald hold Trader Joe’s hostage. Write ZAB (zab@ci.ca.berkeley.ca) and the City Council (clerk@ci.berkeley.ca) asking them to deny Hudson McDonald’s current project, and then contact Trader Joe’s asking them to consider locating in downtown Berkeley. Call the Trader Joe’s head office at (626) 599-3700 or e-mail them through their website (www.traderjoes.com).  

 

Stephen Wollmer is a University Avenue neighborhood resident.


Commentary: Conflict of Interest, Cronyism, Secrecy and Profit Motive

By Peter Warfield and Gene Bernardi
Friday December 08, 2006

A triple dose of conflict of interest, secrecy, and outsourcing of most of the library director selection process to a private search firm, Dubberly Garcia Associates (DGA), and to an advisory committee of outside library directors, raises very serious questions. 

Whose interests are served when (1) most of the process is covered by a blanket of secrecy; (2) the responsibility for selecting four final candidates from the 13 reportedly provided by DGA, is turned over to an advisory committee of head librarians from other jurisdictions; (3) apparent conflicts of interest, suggesting cronyism, taint the whole process; and (4) profit drives the search firm and could potentially result in an expedient placement, rather than one that is best for Berkeley? 

These concerns would not exist if the Board of Library Trustees (BOLT) were to start over, managing the process itself with the help of the city’s workers and involving, throughout the process, the library’s unions, staff, and the public. 

Here are major concerns: 

 

Secrecy and pseudo-public process 

The process, and by whom carried out, for eliminating nine of the reported 13 candidates to the selected final four was withheld for too long from our inquiries and public knowledge. The names and written statements of the final four candidates were only released on Nov. 15, just a day before the interview panels began and three days before the poorly publicized public candidates’ forum on Nov. 18. 

 

Whose questions? 

BOLT planned for three interview panels to meet and interview the four finalists. But at least one panel was conducted by the search firm, and panel members were given pre-selected questions to ask, whose source we do not know. BOLT never clearly indicated how it would weigh the panels’ input, and delayed revealing names of staff and community panel members until well after the interviews took place, only after being repeatedly pressed by our questions at the library’s administrative office and by the public at the Nov. 29 special meeting. 

 

Finalist selection process unclear  

Who interviewed the 13 reported candidates and selected the four finalists? We understand that three members of the advisory committee of library heads interviewed them, but neither the library administration nor BOLT chair Susan Kupfer would confirm who made the selection. In addition we have received different stories as to who conducted the interviews. 

The minutes of BOLT’s Aug. 16 meeting list what is described as “the seven members of the advisory committee, besides Trustees Anderson and Kupfer.” They are: Anne Cain, county librarian, Contra Costa County Library; Linda Crowe, system director, Bay Area Library and Information System; Susan Hardie, retired (previously director of Alameda City Library); Carol Starr, director of library services, Marin County Free Library; Luis Herrera, city librarian, San Francisco Public Library; Susan Hildreth, California state librarian; and Carmen Martinez, library director, Oakland Public Library. 

A printed list from the library shows just three librarians—Hildreth, Cain and Starr—as being on the “Library Director Selection Panel”–“Advisory Committee.” Chair Susan Kupfer said at the Nov. 29 special BOLT meeting that there were three, but then gave four quite different names: Hildreth, Starr, Herrera, and Martinez . 

 

Conflicts of interest 

Two of the four final candidates are now working, or have worked, under members of the advisory committee of library directors chosen by BOLT to help with the selection of a new Berkeley Public Library (BPL) director. Donna Corbeil, deputy director at Solano County Library since August, 2004, worked under Susan Hildreth as Chief of Branches for five years when Hildreth headed the San Francisco Public Library (SFPL) until mid-2004. Gerry Garzon, deputy director of Oakland Public Library, currently works under Carmen Martinez, who heads that system. 

We think Hildreth and Martinez , at a minimum, should have recused themselves from serving on the interview panel, and the library’s printed list suggests that Martinez may have done so. But even if both recused themselves, how free would other library heads feel about potentially rejecting a candidate so close to a fellow committee member, especially a former subordinate of the State Librarian? 

 

The hidden pro-RFID bias... 

Susan Hildreth has publicly advocated for radio frequency identification (RFID) technology for libraries since 2003. Gov. Schwarzenegger, who appointed her California state librarian in mid-2004, recently vetoed California state Sen. Simitian’s bill that would have restricted, because of the privacy threats, the use of RFID in certain government-issued documents, including library cards. The Simitian bill was supported by the ACLU, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and many others. 

We noted in our Nov. 17 Commentary that BOLT’s seven-member librarian advisory committee includes four librarians who have advocated RFID or been associated with libraries that installed it. Could this have resulted in biasing the candidate selection process, affecting who was included—or excluded during the process? 

 

Search firm profit — potential conflict 

A search firm, of course, would like to make a successful placement, but for profit’s sake cannot spend too much effort. Berkeley’s contract with DGA provides a “guarantee” of another search for no fee if the new director should leave the position or be terminated “for cause” within the first year after appointment. 

Seeking profit results in another potential conflict regarding turnover. Any job change means an opportunity to fill the position just vacated. Rapid turnover, within reason, is good business for search firms, but not good for communities that want long-serving directors. 

 

Some bright spots 

The conflicts of interest we describe are inherent in the situation that was set up. The structure—interview panels and a public candidates’ forum—were good. Our concern is with the process as a whole and with good aspects that were vitiated by poor execution. In part, this may come from a split on BOLT. We appreciate, in particular, Trustee Ying Lee’s public service, her efforts to make herself accessible to all, and her advocacy for broad inclusion and participation. 

 

Conclusion 

We believe the trustees should sweep away the clouds of conflicted purposes and do what is best for Berkeley: start again and do this important job themselves, with help from the public, the library unions, and other city employees. 

Or how about hiring from within? Couldn’t Berkeley tap an excellent current or former employee for this job? Why not? 

 

Peter Warfield is executive director of the Library Users Association. Gene Bernardi and Warfield are members of Berkeleyans Organizing for Library Defense (SuperBOLD). 


Commentary: Gibson’s ‘Apocalypto’ Far From a Tribute to the Maya

By Gabriela Erandi Rico
Friday December 08, 2006

During the past week or so, tickets were distributed to UC Berkeley’s students in order to attract Mexican-Americans to view Mel Gibson’s new film, Apocalypto. When I first heard about the film, I was struck by Gibson’s investment in a project “reviving” an ancient Mesoamerican civilization not only because as a Mexican Indian (P’urhepecha/matlatzinca), I have great respect for the Maya but also because I’ve been fortunate to visit Catemaco, the wondrous place where the film was shot and was thus interested in how the site was used to capture the plot of the film. Curiosity got the best of me although I was a bit apprehensive about Gibson’s ability to accurately portray a Native American society or to present Native people in a positive light. I was right. 

I came out of the theater with mixed feelings—mostly awe, disgust, rage and indignity. Although I admit that I was visually awe-struck by the awesome aesthetic reconstruction of Maya architecture and by sitting through a film mostly casted by Native American actors and listening to a dialogue completely in the Maya Yucatec language, there were many elements of the movie I found deeply offensive.  

The central aspect of the film was undoubtedly violence. While I understand that violence is necessary to keep the plot moving along in an action film and while I can even entertain the notion that shock value is a gripping method effective in capturing the audience’s attention, I thought the use of violence in this film was grossly sensationalized, sometimes inaccurate and often unnecessary. The scenes that most stand out in my mind were those of unjust bloody battles, outright violent murder (including of women and children) with heavy and sharp weapons, and of course, mass human sacrifice. While I can see how human sacrifice can be a good attention-grabber for an adrenaline-hungry audience, I thought Gibson made his point after we saw one head falling from the steps of the central Mayan pyramid and that it was not necessary to have to sit through several scenes of sharp obsidian blades plunging into human flesh to extract pulsating hearts followed by fierce decapitations of sacrificial victims…all while onlookers of the Mayan king’s loyal subjects cheered and demanded more. The killers were portrayed as sadistic and bloodthirsty while the victims were other frightened, naïve (and apparently weaker) Indians. This nonstop violent carnage throughout the movie combined with the highlighting of human sacrifice portrayed the Mayas as bloodthirsty savages. While the stereotype is a painfully familiar one for Native people, I find it quite ironic that Gibson thought we would be somehow flattered at his interest in reconstructing our past “reality” or that we would find it at all glorifying.  

While sacrifice was, indeed, an important part of Aztec and Maya spirituality, many of the accounts given by Spanish soldiers and priests have been widely contested because of the bias coming from the source (conquistadores and Christian converters). The depictions in Maya and Aztec codices indicate that various forms of sacrifice were practiced and that they were, indeed, violent—but archeologists have been unable to find the mass numbers Spanish accounts claimed—proving that their alleged “eyewitness reports” (like Gibson’s representation) were gross exaggerations. Furthermore, it’s widely acknowledged by scholars who study the art of warfare that Mesoamerican societies like the Mayas and the Aztecs followed a strict set of rules of war. Their warrior societies did set out to find captives, yet the honor of the warrior was experienced in confronting another warrior on an individual basis and having him submit to his strength and valor—not, as Gibson portrays, in raiding villages or burning houses and definitely not in killing/raping women or disposing of children. Such cowardly acts would bring shame and dishonor to aspiring warriors.  

The truth (one acknowledged by Gibson on his Apocalypto site) is that the Mayas were one of the greatest civilizations in the Americas. They were highly advanced in astronomy, architecture, the arts and mathematics. They gave the world the concept of zero, came up with the most advanced writing system in the Western Hemisphere and designed a calendar far more accurate than the Gregorian one we live by today. Out of all these aspects of Maya society, Gibson chose to highlight sacrifice…this is far from paying tribute to the Mayas for their contributions.  

I understand that Gibson’s intent was to make a fast-moving action film; however, if carnage was what he wanted, why not focus on the extreme performance of human violence in the mass genocide of Mayas during the Spanish Conquest? Or perhaps, the systematic contemporary genocide Mayas have continued to suffer well into the 21st Century during the Central American civil wars at the hands of various governments? It’s ironic (yet not surprising) that one of the greatest civilizations is reduced to their violent practices while they themselves have been the worse casualties of ongoing violent warfare at the hands of European colonizers, their descendants and their imposed governments. I realize, however, that no one cares about the plights of contemporary Mayas; it’s much sexier in Hollywood to continue killing the dead ones. In Gibson’s film, for example, their racialized bodies are portrayed as disposable and to make matters worse, they are blamed for their own conquest! 

The film opens with a quote by W. Durant, “A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself from within,” somehow suggesting that the divisions and warfare a decadent Maya society was wreaking on itself were what essentially led to its downfall. This quote makes sense at the end of the film, when Jaguar Paw’s run ends at his and his persecutors’ surprise upon witnessing the arrival of European ships. The Spanish conquistadores (who were historically savagely violent in their own regard) are presented as mere bystanders to Jaguar Paw’s persecution; religious symbolisms such as crosses and bibles in the hands of friars indicate that the Spanish have arrived to Christianize the heathens in order to save them from the savagery they inflict on each other. The quote on the film’s billboards, “No one can outrun their destiny,” can thus be read as the tragic truth that Jaguar Paw’s exhaustingly heroic escape back to this home in the jungle is really in vain because he will still face destiny at the hands of the newly-arrived Spanish colonizers (and he will thus probably be killed or keep running). Such is the epic story of our tragic hero!—still destined to be extinguished by the canals of history and modernity. Not quite a flattering portrayal for Maya/Native people.  

During a time when the portrayals of Native Americans in the mainstream media are scarce, all representations of Native people make a statement. This is what’s scary about continuing to see films like Apocalypto being undertaken by directors like Gibson. Indigenous scholars like Vine Deloria and Shari Hundorf have theorized why as a population, which has been continuously preyed upon, dispossessed and colonized, Native Americans are particularly vulnerable to appropriation and commodification. Indian cultures continue being capitalized upon and Indians continue being disposable, exotic (and in this case violent) others. The only good thing Apocalypse did for Native people was leave to money in indigenous communities in Mexico, expose audiences to the Maya Yucatec language (thus enlightening them), and of course, give jobs and jumpstart careers for a few indigenous actors. Otherwise, it’s just another example of a white man’s gaze following and misrepresenting American Indians.  

 

Gabriela Erandi Rico is a doctoral student in comparative ethnic studies at UC Berkeley. 


Letters to the Editor

Tuesday December 05, 2006

TRADER JOE’S 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Much opposition to the Trader Joe’s project understandably focuses on the prospect of added traffic congestion in that area. I suggest that this offers a significant opportunity. MLK/University is one of many major Berkeley intersections that suffer from lack of modern traffic control. I propose that congestion from the TJ project could be almost totally offset by providing adequate control signals—coordinated left-turn arrows in all four directions at both University and Berkeley Way. Though Berkeley seems disinclined to spend money on modernizing our traffic control system, which is at least 50 years out of date, to bring it up to the standards of Albany, El Cerrito, or Emery-ville, let me suggest that you make it a condition of the TJ project that the developers be required to pay for the traffic control system. 

Jerry Landis 

 

• 

ASPHALT FOREVER 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I can’t agree more with Art Goldberg’s opposition to the North Berkeley Plaza! Anything that will make Berkeley more like Paris and less like the San Fernancdo Valley must be stopped! Join us for our march and protest song: 

Asphalt forever! 

Where the car is king. 

Asphalt forever! 

Never change a thing ... 

Mitchell Gass 

 

 

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ANNOYING WEEDS IN PEOPLE’S PARK 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Concerning “Community Ponders Planned Changes to People’s Park” (Daily Planet, Dec. 1), it seems there are all kinds of annoying weeds lurking behind those berms! How long before we, who are lucky enough to hide our behaviors behind house walls, are subjected to such police abuse? 

Gerta Farber 

 

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FUZZY MATH 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I continue to read in Riya Bhattacharjee’s coverage of the Trader Joe’s project at 1885 University Avenue that “those in favor of the project had said that it would reduce the number of daily car trips by a large margin.” At no time has any one of these pro- 

ject supporters satisfactorily explained how this miracle might occur. The Bay Area has the highest per capita car ownership of all of California, not to mention the entire United States. There is no guarantee that tenants of this project will not own cars, nor is there any guarantee that tenants of 1885 University will work in the immediate neighborhood and use public transportation. The continuing  

fantasy of a pedestrian-only housing project is but a pipe dream. 

Further, according to the traffic study attached to this project, a residential project of this size containing a Trader Joe’s will generate an estimated 1,300-plus extra car trips per day in this neighborhood. So please, Ms. Bhattacharjee, I implore you to investigate further the transparently false claim that car use will be dramatically reduced by this project. This is clearly fuzzy math! 

Regan Richardson 

 

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TRAFFIC COURT 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The dissolution of Berkeley’s traffic and small claims courts is indeed a disaster, for all of the reasons given in the Daily Planet article. And the experience of attending court is going to be far more arduous to unsuspecting Berkeley drivers than Pat Sweeten at Alameda County Superior Court is letting on. 

According to Richard Brenneman, Ms. Sweeten asserts that the experience in Oakland is convenient—supposedly because Oakland has more parking. But convenient for whom remains to be seen. My occasional liberties with traffic laws in recent years have lead me to sample the service in both courts. If you are used to settling up in Berkeley, you won’t like going to Oakland. 

Oakland handles a lot of “cases” (people). It has a bigger building with more sheriffs, who use a noticeably higher profile to “make ’em behave” than the quiet crew in the lobby at Berkeley. It is really crowded. And seriously cold in the morning (late fall through early spring) at 6:30 or 7 a.m.—which is when you must get there for same-day court. Cold air from the Alameda Estuary, funneled by the police building on one side and the Manuel W. Wiley Courthouse on the other, picks up speed right where you wait on the sidewalk for the sheriffs to process you. Which takes a while. You find yourself praying that a guy 10 people in front will finally get through the metal detector, so that in 10 more minutes you can step halfway into the breezy doorway, which you hope is better than the breezy sidewalk but isn’t really until you get all the way inside. 

Commissioner John Rantzman is a fair and compassionate judge who goes as far as he can to put people at their ease while discussing the business at hand. He and the helpful Berkeley court clerks are an irreplaceable loss to our community, which every day I reach out to feel for, as if in a dark room. 

Richmond is beefing up police and fire services. The CHP is hiring. And Oakland expands, while incredible, shrinking Berkeley wastes away under the eagle eye of Tom Bates, et al: stalwart and silent in the game of keep-away from the public vital decisions about our city and society. 

And all due respect to Mr. Silber-Becknell, for whom the only word that stood out in a diatribe about the homeless was “gypsies”: a stock term in our language for those not served or bound by societal conventions. 

Glen Kohler 

 

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LIBRARY DIRECTOR 

SELECTION 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The position of library director seems very important these days, with our recent history of the old director installing a very expensive “surveillance” technology, radio frequency identification (RFID), against the wishes of the public and cutting hours and staff at all the libraries in Berkeley, not to mention throwing out thousands of books so as not to have to put in the 60-cent RFID tags. So I was quite alarmed to hear that Dubberly and Garcia had been chosen by the advisory committee of librarians to select among a number of director candidates. (Dubberly and Garcia is a head hunting firm know for its role in privatizing libraries in the United States.) 

I was at the library early on Saturday Nov. 18 to hear statements by the four candidates winnowed down by some secret process from the 13 chosen by Dubberly and Garcia and to see for myself who they were and ask  

some questions. I heard an announcement over the PA system about some other event about to take place somewhere in the library that morning, however, it was never announced over the PA system that the public was invited to hear and question the candidates running for director. 

The only announcement I had come across about the meeting was on the calendar page of the Berkeley Daily Planet amid all the other events going on in Berkeley that week. Were the trustees really taking seriously what the public’s reaction to the candidates was and will they take our opinions and desires into consideration? Doesn’t look too hopeful. 

Jane Welford 

 

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LIBRARY TRUSTEES  

VIOLATE BROWN ACT 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The Board of Library Trustees, in their rush to select one of the candidates for director of our public library, have shunned the public by failing to properly notify members of the public of a candidates forum followed by a special closed meeting and a soiree held in connection with the candidates selection process. Failure to notify persons who have requested that a copy of the agenda of any meeting of the Board of Library Trustees be mailed to them, is a violation of Section 54954.1 of the 

 

Brown Act. Persons, requesting notification by mail, did not receive a notice of the Saturday, Nov. 18 special closed meeting preceded by a 20-minute public comment period held to discuss the selection of a new library director. 

Some may consider it iffy whether members of the community, who have so requested, should have received notification by mail of the Saturday, Nov. 18 candidates forum at which the candidates made presentations to the public and answered questions. However, since all five trustees were present at that forum, it was, therefore, a meeting by definition in the Brown Act, requiring prior notification, including by mail, to those so requesting. The Brown Act states a “ ‘meeting’ includes any congregation of a majority of the members of a legislative body at the same time and place to hear, discuss or deliberate upon any item...within the...jurisdiction of the legislative body.…” 

And, again, there was the Nov. 17, 7p.m., Friday night wine and cheese soiree in the lobby of the Berkeley Public Library to which the four candidates for library director, the members of the three review panels (held Thursday and Friday), members of the Friends of the Library, the Berkeley Public Library Foundation and the library trustees were invited. A majority of the trustees attended this occasion. But, could it be said to be “purely social” considering the party was wedged in between two days of interviewing candidates until 6 p.m. Friday and more candidate presentations on Saturday? According to the Brown Act [54952.2 (c) (5)] even if an event is considered “purely social” it is an illegal meeting if a majority of the members of a legislative body are present and they discuss among themselves business within their jurisdiction. At least four of the library trustees were present at the party and trustees Moore and Kupfer were observed having a “pow-wow.” Considering the circumstances, can it be credible that no trustees discussed the matter at hand, selection of a new library director? 

If you are concerned about the selection of a new library director, we heard via the grapevine, over two weeks ago, that there will be a third special closed meeting of the library trustees preceded by a public comment period, on Wednesday, Dec. 6, possibly at 7 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Please call Library Administration at 981-6195) to confirm time and place and attend and express your concerns. 

Gene Bernardi 

SuperBOLD (Berkeleyans Organizing For Library Defense) 

 

• 

XXXXXXXXXX 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Many of us in the community are following with interest and some trepidation the process for selection of Berkeley’s next library director. Thanks to last Friday’s commentary piece in this paper, as well as an articles in the Nov. 17 and Nov. 21 issues, we know that the four finalists gave presentations two weeks ago. Most comments coming to light since then are not enthusiastic. 

Meanwhile, the Board of Library Trustees who are entrusted with making the selection, have met twice: once on Nov. 18 (from 3 p.m. long into the evening) and again on Nov. 29 for at least several hours. Still, there’s no decision. What is taking them so long? At this point in the process, it should be absolutely clear! What’s going on in those hours and hours of closed meetings? What’s clear is that there’s no front-runner. What’s clear is that Berkeleyans are concerned. 

Our fear is the Board of Library Trustees is debating the lesser of the four evils. After three years of struggle and damage to our library, including cutbacks in hours and an unwanted expenditure of $1-2 million (depends on who you ask) on a useless RFID system, isn’t it worth a few more months to go out and look for the undeniably right person for the job? Undeniably, the wrong person for the job is candidate Rivkah Sass who is quoted in Library Journal as saying she cleaned out a floor of her currently library in Omaha, because it was “filled with old junk.” We’ve had enough of that in Berkeley. Let’s preserve our history, our library, our community. Surely, if we can pay $150,000 plus, annually for a library director, there must be better candidates out there. 

The Board of Library Trustees meets again this Wednesday, Dec. 6 at 7 p.m. (though they sometimes change the time at the last minute) at the South Berkeley Senior Center. The meeting begins with 20 minutes of public comment, so please, come out and speak to this issue.  

Rosemary Vimont, Sarah Kotzamani, H. Garabedian, S. Culver 

 

• 

XXXXXXXXXX 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Art Goldberg claims that the proposed North Shattuck Plaza is a “stalking-horse for high-rise development” because “Laurie Capitelli, a prime mover of the plaza project, annexed a stretch of city property into his condo development on Hearst Street between Milvia and Henry Streets.” The facts belie this claim. 

When Capitelli proposed that project, he expected to get it through the Zoning Adjustments Board without delay, and he was disappointed that it was sent to mediation after neighborhood residents (including me) asked him to widen the sidewalk and add landscaping. It was only later that he began to back the neighborhood proposal and helped to move it through the city bureaucracy. At the time, I got the impression that he backed it because he was convinced it was a real improvement to the city, and all his work for the city since then confirms my impression. 

Before this change, this stretch of Hearst had four lanes. Traffic was fast, dangerous and noisy. Between Henry and Shattuck, there was no parking on the south side of Hearst, so traffic passed only a few feet from residents’ windows. 

After the change, this stretch of Hearst was narrowed from four lanes to two lanes plus bicycle lanes, slowing traffic and increasing the distance between the traffic and residences. The change has made the neighborhood quieter, safer, and more attractive. 

No land was “annexed” by the condo development: there is a fence at the property line that divides the development from the public right-of-way, which is in the same location as in the original proposal. The added landscaping did not allow more development: the condo development itself is no different than it would have been if the roadway had not been narrowed. The only differences are in the public right-of-way, where on-street parking has been restored east of Henry St. and a 10-foot-width of asphalt has been replaced by a ten-foot-width of landscaping west of Henry Street. 

It seems that Art Goldberg dislikes development so much that he even dislikes improvements in the public right-of-way that a developer provided because local residents said they would make their neighborhood more livable. Or maybe he just dislikes grass and trees and prefers asphalt. 

Charles Siegel 

• 

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Editors, Daily Planet: 

On Wednesday, Pearl Harbor anniversary eve, Random House Inc. will publish the Iraq Study Group report just in time to become the essential gift for the political junkie on your Christmas list. 

Pre-publication hoopla started two weeks before the November elections and quickly moved past the Woodward precedent to that National Book Award stature attained not long ago by publication a prequel in the same genre titled The 9/11 Commission Report. Expectations are again stimulated by assorted page one leaks and peeks—pull back as many as 15 brigades, enlist help from Iran and Syria, etc. 

IGS will almost certainly outsell 9/11, not because it’s cheaper and shorter or because it may be brutal in rejecting current policy but because the stars who produced it have long out-shown all others in the political firmament. Your Christmas present is guaranteed, therefore, to get a gleeful reception; celebrities know how to sell.  

Grouped with James A Baker III (intimate of presidents) are two tokens: Sandra Day O’Connor (female) and Vernon Jordon (black), two Democrats: Leon Panetta and William Perry. plus five top-flight Republican formers: Guliani (mayor), Gates (CIA), Simpson, Hamilton and Robb (Senators). The convergence of persons of comparable experience and versatility for an independent bipartisan endeavor is rare. If there were some procedure for measuring collective experience and political brain-power, like a group IQ, this group would rate in the genius category. 

Caveat emptor; let the Christmas shopper be aware, however. Like many bestsellers the title is slightly misleading for despite our nation’s widespread ignorance of Iraq the group did not study Iraq itself but rather they pondered what to do about the ongoing tragic bloody mess. Rumors have it that the ISG report will set down alternatives for a change of course. Wow! 

Rumors aside, the nation’s history with investigations, commissions and study groups, on every conceivable subject—education, crime, medical care, drugs, security etc. indicates caution. Whether independent, partisaned, bi-partisaned, or blue ribboned, all reports arrive in the end at exactly the same conclusion. “Further study is needed,” which, like “Amen,” actually means “to be continued.”  

Marvin Chachere 

San Pablo 

 

• 

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Editors, Daily Planet: 

As a progressive who became all too familiar with the Black Panthers, I find it appalling that institutions of higher learning—such as the recent “celebration” at Merritt College—continue to create the illusion that there is much to celebrate about that less-than-admirable organization. While the Panthers’ articulated goals were honorable, and some young, idealistic black people joined the organization, in reality the Panther leadership exhibited a level of corruption, misogyny and outright murder that render fraudulent the many attempts, such as the recent Merritt colloquium, which depict the Panthers as praiseworthy. Young, impressionable students deserve the truth about the Panthers, not a ”whitewashing.” 

Merritt’s students should be encouraged to read honest reports about the Panthers, by fine journalists like Kate Coleman, among others. They should be told of numerous viscious crimes committed by that organization such as the well-known story of a young bookkeeper sent by Ramparts magazine to help the Panthers with their accounting. Not long after she determined that the Panthers were cooking the books for their ballyhooed breakfast program, the body of the single mother of three was discovered floating in the bay. This and innumerable other stories of the violence attendant to the Panthers’ leadership and its patently phony revolutionary rhetoric do not merit the praise professors like John Drisson and former Panthers continue to promulgate. 

Dan Spitzer 

Kensington 

 

• 

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Editors, Daily Planet: Revan Tranter’s Dec. 1 letter challenging my earlier Nov. 28 commentary on the Green Party of California’s election successes, missed the proverbial forest for the single tree in his criticism of the party. 

Mr. Tranter correctly states that elected municipal and county-level offices across California are—technically speaking—“nonpartisan” positions. However, it is an obvious axiom of politics that most, if not all, elected offices (at any level) are inherently political, and the purpose of political parties is to democratically win these positions. 

In fact, the very definition of “political party” is “an organization seeking political power” (Dictionary.com). 

California’s “nonpartisan” status for municipal and county-level offices is a direct legacy of the state’s Progressive Era reforms between roughly 1910 and 1920. At the time, California’s political parties and their elected officials were transparently corrupted and controlled by railroad and oil companies like Southern Pacific and Standard Oil that dominated the state economically and politically. 

Elected municipal and county-level offices such as Sherriff, Auditor, Fire Chief, etc were also controlled/tainted by these same corrupt political parties and corporate monopolies. Progressive, clean government reformers such as Governor Hirim Johnson (1910-1918) spearheaded the effort to rectify this situation. One reform measure established that all municipal/county-level elected offices be declared nonpartisan. 

Another Progressive Era reform measure is California’s current ballot proposition system: the idea at the time was to enable voters to circumvent the power of corporate monopolies over politicians and legislation, and allow the voters themselves to pass necessary legislation directly by ballot. 

Finally, regarding Mr. Tranter’s claim that Florida Green Party voters purportedly enabled George W Bush to win the 2000 presidential election (by voting for Ralph Nader): this myth represents the bitter and hypocritical musings of frustrated Al Gore supporters. It needs to be remembered that roughly half a million Florida Democratic Party members voted for George W. Bush rather than Al Gore during the 2000 election. 

Chris Kavanagh 

 

 

Save the Oaks for the Whole Team 

 

Without a doubt, UC Berkeley’s Jeff Tedford is one of the most talented and dedicated coaches working in collegiate athletics today. His record of success speaks for itself. As a teacher, I know how difficult it is to gain the trust and respect of young people, and then inspire them work as hard as they can to reach their true potential. Coach Tedford is the real deal, and his players and assistant coaches know it. He genuinely cares about the program and is trying to do his best for the team. 

The problem is this: Coach Tedford has forgotten that the community is also an important part of his team. As taxpayers, we provide Coach Tedford’s salary. In fact, we provide the salaries of all of the assistant coaches, trainers, and athletic medical staff—not to mention the funds to maintain Memorial Stadium. We pay to maintain the roadways that fans use to drive to the game, and our neighborhoods provide the parking spaces for thousands of fans for each game. Many of us must plan our schedules around the football games, because we have limited access to our residences due to the major traffic jams that accompany each home game. We must also contend with noise disturbances from parties that last for hours both during and after the game—and often extend until the early morning hours. Now, blasting noise also accompanies many of the practices in the form of “simulated crowd noise,” so the noise disturbances extend throughout the week. The talented football players that represent UC Berkeley are only part of Coach Tedford’s team: we, the members of the Berkeley community, are also an important part of his larger team. We’re all in this together. 

Coach Tedford certainly understands the he would not achieve any success on the field if he responded to the needs of only half of the football players on his team. When he ignores the interests of the larger community, he is ignoring the needs of the members of his larger “team”—including most everybody living in Berkeley, to be sure—who are impacted by the decisions he and his staff make about our lives.  

Coach, the vast majority of the members of your larger team do not want you to harm the oak grove by Memorial Stadium. They would like you to find another way to build a new gymnasium—one that does not require the destruction of this irreplaceable grove of trees, the last remaining oak woodland in the entire Berkeley lowlands. Because there are good alternative sites available for the gym that will not require the destruction of the oak grove, they would prefer that you pursue one of these alternatives and spare these beautiful trees. It will be impossible for you to achieve the success you dream of if you ignore the wishes of half your team.  

Doug Buckwald 

 

 

IDs Come Home to Roost: The UCPD Taser Case in a Global Context 

By now many people have seen the shocking YouTube images of a UCLA student being tasered by UCPD while refusing to be “escorted” out of the library because he didn’t have his student ID on him. Several weeks out, an ironic twist has emerged in the case. 

Since Mostafa Tabatabainejad, the student who got electro-shocked multiple times by UCPD, is an Iranian-American, the Iranian government has been quick to express shock at this show of US police aggression against “one of its own.” 

The twist is that Mostafa is a Baha’i, which is a religious minority in Iran that is heavily persecuted by the Iranian state, clergy, and your run-of-the mill zealots. Routinely denied civil rights and frequently arrested and even killed for identifying as Baha’is in their homeland, members of this faith, are part of a world-wide diaspora. Their crime: belief in Baha’u’llah and his teachings of oneness and unity, under a state that mandates that Muhammad was the Seal of the Prophets. 

The fact that the Iranian state would express consternation at the ill-treatment of a Baha’i is one layer of irony. The fact that Mostafa’s ill-treatment is a result of failing to show his identification is even more poignant, since Baha’i’s in Iran are persecuted precisely for failing to renounce their identification. 

To speak nothing of the Iranian police violence against non-Baha’I students at Tehran University a few yrs back, the ongoing harassment and penalization of Baha’i’s there, adds an amazing twist to the Iranian government’s intervention in Mostafa’s case. Even while they may very well have plans to throw his (hypothetical) Baha’i cousins in jail next wk for simply practicing their faith, the minister of foreign affairs or whoever is busy faxing Washington about their “outrage” at Mostafa getting tasered. 

Note: At this writing, the UN confirms that a new governmental surveillance program has been initiated to monitor the activities of Baha’i’s, and that 129 Baha’is are awaiting trial on false charges, targeted solely because of their religion. 

Ruha Benjamin 

 

Alameda Landing. 

Action Alameda urged Alameda citizens today to appear at the city council meeting Tuesday night to ask council to defer approval of the new proposed Disposition and Development Agreement (DDA) for Alameda Landing until both citizens and city council have had sufficient time to review this new agreement. 

Although the concept of re-development of the property has been discussed in public for some time, on Tuesday, Dec. 5 the council is being asked to approve a new financial proposal that has not had sufficient circulation to allow a full review by citizens. 

Action Alameda co-founder Denise Brady said “We are not necessarily opposed to the project. Our biggest concern is a process that negotiates agreements with developers behind closed doors, then announces the agreement while at the same time asking for approval of the agreement. While there has been public input on the concept of Alameda Landing, there has been no public input on this new agreement.” Brady recommends a public workshop to allow citizens to understand the true cost to the city of the proposal and to determine if it helps accomplish the goals of the city. 

At the same time Action Alameda announced some specific concerns related to the proposal itself, including: 

The city also has plans to develop Alameda Point which will rely on the same traffic corridor and access point as Alameda Landing. Alameda Landing traffic may consume much of the available capacity leaving little for Alameda Point. 

The original proposal called for Catellus to provide a “Tinker Avenue” connection to their development which would route traffic more efficiently to and from island access points. The current proposal calls for Catellus to pay "in lieu fees." Instead of in lieu fees the developer should pay for this infrastructure upgrade to Tinker Avenue. 

The current “revised configuration” includes 300 new homes with increased retail space and reduced commercial office space. The newly proposed retail mix includes potential for several big-box-type stores which tend to bring mostly minimum wage job opportunities. Commercial space would bring higher paying jobs that would allow more Alameda residents to live and work on the island, reducing traffic pressure on our access points. 

The city council meeting takes place at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Dec. 5 at City Hall at 2263 Santa Clara Ave. 

Action Alameda is a grassroots community action group that welcomes Alameda residents of any race, home ownership status or political party registration. 

David Howard


Commentary:The Full Story on Derby Field Discussions

By Mark Coplan
Tuesday December 05, 2006

It is my opinion that one of the most effective ways to get the word out in Berkeley is through the letters section of our local papers. I know that it’s the first place I look after I’ve read the front page, so I am asking for your assistance in getting the word out for this important event. This is a citywide issue, and we encourage everyone’s participation. 

The first of two community meetings to discuss the options for the Derby Street Athletic Field has been scheduled for Thursday, December 7, 7 p.m.–9 p.m. at the Berkeley Technical Academy (formerly Berkeley Alternative High School), 2701 Martin Luther King Jr. Way. The tentative date for the second meeting (January 11th) will be decided at the first meeting. 

The origin of these meetings 

When the Board of Education asked the City of Berkeley to assist in paying for the environmental impact report that had been requested for the Closed Derby Option, the COB asked the board to schedule community meetings first, so that neighbors and other interested groups or individuals would have the opportunity to include their input for the record. To date all of the comments to the board regarding the Closed Derby Option have been delivered during Public Comment at school board meetings. Because we now have the Curvy Derby Plan that to date has only been shared at one of the quarterly 2x2 meetings attended by two representatives from the City Council and from the Board of Education, it only makes sense to solicit feedback on that as well, but that can only take place after the community has finished making their comments regarding the Closed Derby Option, as the board has committed to meeting the COB’s request for that process, and asked staff to schedule these meetings. 

The last action by the board was to pursue the Closed Derby Option, so that is the only direction to staff. For the Curvy Derby Option to formally enter the picture, it has to come before the board for their consideration. If the meetings allow time for the community to include their input on this option, then that can also be included in the report that goes to the board. The third option still has to go before the board if it is to become a part of their discussion. 

Here are some good follow up questions we have received and want to share: 

 

Derby Field Community Meetings  

follow-up questions 

 

• Who is presenting each of the plans? 

BUSD Director of Facilities and Maintenance Lew Jones will give an overview of the two conceptual plans that the board has already seen, the Open Derby Plan and the Closed Derby Plan. Derby neighbors Susi Marzuola and Peter Waller have developed a third option called Curvy Derby, and Suzi will give an overview of that plan. 

• How long do they have to present? 

Each plan will have five minutes. The City Council and Board of Education called for these meetings to give the community the opportunity to give formal input on the Closed Derby Street plan, which is the plan that the board has conceptually approved, before we proceed together with the environmental impact report (EIR) for the Closed Derby plan. It is our hope that we will be able to receive everyone’s comments and any written material people wish to give to the board early enough in the two meetings to allow a more in-depth presentation of the Curvy Derby plan in the second meeting, as well as discussion and comments. If the public comments regarding the Closed Derby Street plan take all of the time we have, then we will have to schedule another opportunity for everyone to get together to discuss the alternative plan offered by the neighbors. We have to remember that the Curvy Derby plan has never been formally presented to the board, and for staff to move beyond these two meetings we will have to have it directed by the board. In the event that we have sufficient time to explore the possibility of everyone coming together before the board in support of the new option in these meetings, then that can be included in the report from these meetings. 

• How are the plans being presented?  

Just plans on boards or will there be a PowerPoint presentation or some other format? The plans should be presented with the display boards already created. The second presentation on the Curvy Derby plan could be a PowerPoint presentation, and while we know that city staff will be limited in what they can tell us about the effect of this plan from their perspective at this early stage, we are hoping that they will be able to give some general idea of what we might be able to expect if this plan were to move forward. 

• Who is running the public comment process and preparing and distributing minutes? 

BUSD Public Information Officer Mark Coplan will be facilitating the meeting, and we have asked Max Anderson to assist with that. We will have someone scribing the comments and taping to be sure they get it exactly. We will distribute the notes prior to the second meeting to give people a chance to doublecheck their comments. We will take revisions at the second meeting, before the script goes to the board. 

• What are the goals and desired outcomes for these meetings?  

The purpose of these meetings as directed by the board is to formally receive community input on the Closed Derby Street plan, which the board approved conceptually last year. It is clear that many in the community want to begin discussion of the Curvy Derby plan, and staff is hopeful that there will be time for us to move on to that discussion. As this is an opportunity for community input, that really is a process of the community from both sides of the discussion (Open Derby/Closed Derby), meeting to see if they can come together with an alternative to present to the board. The board will be given all of the information collected, and if they decide to change their current direction it would require board action at a scheduled board meeting. 

• Will this process allow for the possibility of changing the EIR preferred plan to one of the open street plans?  

The only way that this could change is if the Curvy Derby plan goes before the board and is conceptually approved, taking the current Closed Derby plan off of the table. 

 

 

 

Mark Coplan is the Berkeley Unified School District’s public information officer.


Commentary: Urban Realities Ever Present on Oakland-Berkeley Border

By Christopher Cherney
Tuesday December 05, 2006

For the past nine years, my wife and I have lived in Berkeley, on the border of Oakland. We are grateful for the many advantages that come with living in Berkeley. But it is hard to forget, even for a day, that we are living hard up against the sad realities of urban America. 

We are worried about neighborhood violence. Too frequently, we hear the toy-like pop-pop of gunshots. I have gotten into the practice of noting the time on the bedroom clock when I snap awake to the sound of gunshots in the night. Then I wait to see how long it takes before I hear the first police siren. 

More harrowing, I have learned to distinguish whether a shooter is on foot, and running toward or away from our house. If after a gun is fired I hear dogs barking louder and louder, then the shooter likely is heading our way, and I become hyper-alert. Once about six years ago at 2 a.m., two Berkeley police officers entered our yard with guns drawn, announcing their presence and pointing their flashlights. 

About four years ago, a stabbing occurred only a block away. The stabber, we heard, was taken away to a local psychiatric hospital, never to return. 

Last year a close neighbor had her car tires slashed 11 times, always late at night. The slashing ended after the presumed slasher—a near neighbor—died of a drug overdose. 

This year on July 4, a brick was thrown through the passenger-side window of our non-descript, 16-year-old car. 

The late-night car chases never are welcome. Only two years ago, a high-speed police car chase ended directly in front of our house, with the pursued criminal smashing a stolen car into three parked cars. I thought a plane had crashed. Amazingly, the driver got away on foot, outrunning the determined Berkeley police. 

We have come to respect the police. They are uniformly polite, and, when visible, comforting. I just wish they could do something to stop the blaring, thumping car stereos that incessantly ply neighborhood streets. 

There’s more. People smoke pot openly on the sidewalks. Every day we hear profane street language that often includes demeaning putdowns. I feel deeply sad when I hear those hurtful words. 

Our former roommate’s car was stolen three years ago. Four years ago our house was broken into while we slept. The intruder squeezed through a window that we have since replaced with half-inch-thick plexiglas. Miraculously we were not robbed or harmed. 

Here on the edge of Berkeley, people litter. It is common to hear a fast-food bag hit the street as it is flung out the window of a passing car. About once a month I find condoms on the sidewalk. We’re mere blocks from where prostitutes cruise San Pablo Avenue, within sight of the scores of new condos selling for $600,000 and up. 

I resonate with Berkeley’s history and complexity, and I do not shy away from the sometimes sad human parade that passes by our home. My wife and I have been here nine years, and plan to stay in our still-affordable home, raising our children, connecting to our neighbors and to our adopted city. 

Of course we’d like some things to be better. Absolutely we’d like the bullets to stop flying. And certainly we are trying to better understand the roots of the violence, crime, and human suffering that narrates much of the life of our urban Berkeley neighborhood. 

 

Christopher Cherney is a South Berkeley  

resident.


Commentary: Parking Tickets: A Hidden Agenda?

By Steve Tabor
Tuesday December 05, 2006

In the Nov. 28 issue Rob Browning gets yet another chance to explain his behavior during his Oct. 31 parking ticket incident. Mr. Browning’s arrest appears in a different light after Judith Scherr’s report on the City of Berkeley budget in the Nov. 17 issue. Scherr’s report shows an unexpected $500,000 increase in parking ticket fines for 2006, one of only three revenue items on the way up. No figures were given for total fines collected, but if a $500,000 increase is thought to be significant, total fines for the year must be in the millions. My opinion of the Browning incident has now done a 180-degree turn. It seems not all the facts about the incident have come to light. 

One thing missing in the Planet’s pages is the other side of the story. Why haven’t you allowed the parking enforcement officer equal time to tell her own version of the incident? Readers need to know why she thought it necessary to ticket a vehicle with one or two wheels on the sidewalk, a circumstance quite common on streets nationwide. Mr. Browning alleges in his original commentary that he was not blocking the sidewalk. What does the officer say? How much of the vehicle was on the sidewalk? Did she measure the width occupied, either in feet (or inches?) or in percentage of coverage? Was this “blockage” really a blockage, or merely an excuse to pad her statistics? More importantly, was this blockage worth a new addition to her colorful and stylish epaulet? Perhaps she never considered that such an addition to her epaulet (Browning’s ticket) would occur. Perhaps she is now aware that such an addition could indeed happen at any time, now that she knows the likely result of her ticketing such feet or inches of indiscretion. 

I think that this officer needs an opportunity to write her own commentary on the Planet’s pages. In the light of the City of Berkeley’s fervent tracking of yearly, monthly and daily dollars of parking fines, readers need to know if this officer is subjected to a quota of tickets during her daily rounds, and if so, exactly how much in fines she is expected to generate for the city each day. Is there a qualitative measure of what parking actions would warrant a fine and what exactly counts toward her quota? Does she receive a bonus for writing tickets, including tickets for “blockages” such as that of Browning? After all, parking fines are important to the City of Berkeley. Just how much of Berkeley’s $500,000 windfall was this officer responsible for in fiscal 2006? The officer needs an opportunity to state this for the record and to justify her actions. 

If this officer declines to write such a commentary, Planet readers are certainly entitled to at least know her name so they can interview her themselves. If the officer is prevented from telling her side of the story by her superiors, under the theory that she is merely an employee (as, for example, the Nuremberg defendants, “not responsible” for her actions), and anything she says would not represent parking enforcement policy (or whatever other lame excuse the department might give), then an official representative of Berkeley Parking Enforcement should be required to give the department’s side of the story. Perhaps such a representative could explain quotas, incentives, the place of parking fines in City budget projections, etc., and how these fines are used to offset property taxes for owners of homes worth $500,000 or $1,000,000. That’s the least the Planet can do to illuminate this incident further for your readers. I would think it your professional duty as journalists to give equal time to the Parking Enforcement Department. 

A recent article in the San Francisco Chronicle described four incidents of assaults on parking enforcement officers and their vehicles in that city in six days. To my knowledge none of the Browning-types in these incidents have apologized for their behavior. In fact, they reveled in it and laughed at the inane officers involved. Is Browning’s apology merely a new form of Berkeley “political correctness,” or is 

the San Francisco method the real way to go? Only Planet readers can decide, but we need more information. 

One has to wonder about a city with a $32 million annual property tax revenue spending so much time and effort collecting parking fines. And we don’t even know how many thousands of dollars each parking enforcement officer is making for her efforts; hopefully each one generates enough fines to pay her salary. Five hundred thousand dollars is an awful lot of pretty epaulets. Let’s hope Mr. Browning’s officer polishes or at least fondles hers daily. 

 

Steve Tabor is an Oakland resident. 

 


Columns

Column: Dispatches From the Edge: Madness and Insanity: Deciphering Words in the Desert

By Conn Hallinan
Friday December 08, 2006

Somewhere between 465 and 406 BC, the Greek tragic poet and playwright Euripides coined a phrase which still captures the particular toxic combination of hubris and illusion that seizes many of those in power: “Whom the Gods would destroy, they first make mad.” 

What other line best describes British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s address to his nation’s troops hunkered down at Camp Bastion, in southern Afghanistan’s Helmand Province? “Here,” Blair said. “In this extraordinary piece of desert, is where the future of world security in the early 21st century is going to be played out.” (New York Times, Nov. 21.) 

The speech would certainly have amused Percy Shelley, who would have found in it a reflection of “Ozymandias,” his poem mocking the arrogance of power that he drew from the ruins of a statue to Ramses the Great at Memnon: 

“And on the pedestal these words appear:  

“My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings, / Look upon my works, ye Mighty, and despair! / Nothing besides remains. Round the decay / Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare / The lone and level sands stretch far away.” 

While Blair was turning Afghanistan’s arid south into the Armageddon of terrorism, the rest of the country was coming apart at the seams. Attacks by insurgents have reached 600 a month, more than double the number in March, and almost five times the number in November of last year. (Associated Press, Nov. 13.) 

“We do have a serious problem in the south,” one diplomat told Rachel Morajee of the Financial Times, “but the north is a ticking time bomb.” (Financial Times, Nov. 22.) 

Suicide bombers have struck Kunduz in the north, where former U.S. protégé Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and his Hezb-e-Islami organization are hammering away at the old Northern Alliance. The latter, frozen out of the current government following the 2001 Bonn Conference, is busy stockpiling arms and forming alliances with drug warlords. According to the Associated Press, opium poppy production is up 59 percent. 

While Blair was bucking up the troops, their officers were growing increasingly desperate. Major Jon Swift, a company commander in the Royal Fusiliers told the Guardian (9/23/06) that casualties were “very significant and showing no signs of reducing,” and Field Marshall Peter Inge, former chief of the British military, warned that the army in Afghanistan “could risk operational failure,” military-speak for “defeat.” (Observer, Oct. 22.) 

The Brits don’t have a monopoly on madness, however.  

Speaking in Riga, Latvia, on the eve of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) meeting, President George Bush said, “I am not going to pull our troops off the battlefield before the mission is complete. We can accept nothing less than victory for our children and our grandchildren.” (Associated Press, Nov. 28.) 

In the meantime, a war that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said would cost $50 billion at the most was burning up more than twice that each year. The Pentagon just requested $160 billion in supplemental funds for the Iraq and Afghan wars for the remainder of fiscal 2007 (Forbes, Nov. 9). Nobel Laureate economist Joseph Stiglitz says the final costs may exceed $2 trillion. (New York Times, Oct. 24—Krugman column) 

It is sometime hard to fathom the source of the Blair’s madness, but there is no mistaking the origins of President Bush’s brand of insanity: the American experience in Vietnam. 

During his recent trip to that country President Bush said he thought the lessons of the Vietnam War were, “We’ll succeed unless we quit.” In short, the U.S. lost the war in Vietnam because it “cut and ran,” a victim of a backstabbing press and a loss of will. 

This particular myth is at the core of the Administration’s ideology, and when things began going badly in Iraq, Vice-President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and his deputy Paul Wolfowitz immediately targeted the press. Wolfowitz mocked reporters for being afraid to go outside the Green Zone, while Cheney and Rumsfeld attacked the media for sabotaging the U.S. effort, just like it had in Vietnam. 

The mythology that we “won” the Vietnam War on the battlefield but lost it at home is at the core of Dominic Johnson and Dominic Tierney’s book, Failing to Win: Perceptions of Victory and Defeat in International Politics. Johnson is a fellow at Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton, and Tierney is a professor at Swarthmore, and both are strong advocates for not withdrawing from Iraq. 

The two men argue that the Vietnamese’s 1968 Tet offensive was a military victory for the U.S., but because the American press portrayed it as a defeat, the U.S. was eventually forced to withdraw. (New York Times, Nov. 28.) 

But Tet was less a military battle than a political counterstroke aimed at American claims that there was “light at the end of the tunnel.” Bush is indeed correct in thinking that the Vietnam War is relevant for what is happening in Iraq and Afghanistan; he just hasn’t absorbed the lesson.  

That lesson was spelled out by Vo Nguyen Giap, the architect of Vietnam’s war against the French and the Americans, shortly after the Bush administration invaded Iraq: people don’t like foreign occupying armies and will fight to get them out.  

“In the long run,” says military historian Jack Radey, “there will be more natives of the country ready to die for it than foreigners,” adding, “Giap was always considerate enough to explain how this was going to work to the other guys, but they weren’t much interested in listening.” (Interview; Zhukov@worldnet.att.net). 

While armies can fight armies, they can’t fight a whole people and they fall apart when they occupy a country that doesn’t want them there. In an attempt to overcome this problem, the U.S. military recently issued a blueprint for how to conduct a “friendly” occupation. (New York Times, Oct. 5). 

But occupation, says Radey, is what creates the problem. “If you go out to make the other side love you by lowering your guard, taking off your helmets, not pointing guns at everyone and not running around in tanks, the other side gets a lot of easy shots at your guys. So you button up and shoot everything that moves, which means a lot of civilians die. Anyway you look at this you lose.” 

The inability to “win” a war in a place like Afghanistan was recently summed up by NATO General David Richards who commented, “You know at the end of 2001, the Taliban were defeated … and it all looked pretty hunky dory. We thought it was all done.” (UPI, Oct. 18.) 

To the Bush administration the solution to everything is more force, an argument that sometimes gets echoed in the ranks of those Democrats who argue that more “boots on the ground” would do the job.  

From August 1964 to January 1973, the U.S. threw 8.7 million military personnel into Vietnam, pounded the country with more bombs than were dropped on World War II Europe, and killed at least three million Southeast Asians. “Frankly, we’re going to snow the place with bombs,” Defense Secretary Robert McNamara said in 1966. “And I am doing it purposely to make them cry “stop!’” (New York Times, Nov. 18.) 

They never did, and in the end the United States had no choice but to withdraw. Eventually we will have to do so from Iraq and Afghanistan as well.  

The only question will be how many more Iraqis and Afghans we kill and maim, and how many more young Americans will we bring home in caskets or maimed in body and mind?


Column: Undercurrents: Brown Leaves Oakland With Legacy of Improper Planning

By J. Douglas Allen-Taylo
Friday December 08, 2006

Folks generally think about city planning in the same way that we think about central plumbing. It’s noticed only when it fails, and even then our attention is mostly on how to clean up the resultant mess, not on fixing the internal structures that originally caused the problem. 

Over the last couple of years, therefore, most of us have been focused on the battles over such individual projects as the big downtown developments—Oak to Ninth and Forest City’s Uptown—or the proposed sale of the Oakland Unified School District Lake Merritt lands to be turned into luxury high-rises, or the numerous smaller developments springing up all over the city. Last weekend, more than a hundred North Oakland residents showed up at Councilmember Jane Brunner’s regular community advisory meeting, most of them to announce adamant opposition to one or more of the some 845 new condominium units being built in or planned for that area. 

But underlying the glare and glitter of the Oakland building boom that was the Jerry Brown years is a growing public awareness by some—and a growing willingness to talk openly about it by others—that for all of that rash of development activity during the mayor’s two terms, the most important things to secure this city’s economic future may have been left undone, to the city’s detriment. 

And this is often coming from people who are normally staunchly pro-development. 

Last month, in anticipation of the changing of Oakland’s mayoral guard from Jerry Brown to Ron Dellums, the San Francisco Business Times produced a 20-page supplement on Oakland development. Towards the end of an article on Oakland developer Hal Ellis, reporter Ryan Tate made some interesting revelations about the results of Mr. Brown’s development policies: 

“Though downtown has added 4,000 housing units in the last eight years, filled up its office towers, including seven at City Center … retail has lagged,” Mr. Tate writes. “Instead of a regional mall, City Center has 60,000 square feet of mostly fast-service restaurants and small shops … A more recent mixed-use development from Forest City … also drastically scaled back its retail ambitions. In 2000, at the height of the dot-com boom, the project was to include 100,000 square feet of retail. Plans now under way call for 9,000 square feet of retail … That sort of organic retail growth can add character and bring excitement to a neighborhood. But it does not bring the kind of sales tax revenue that big-box retail … can bring the city. Nor does it meet many of the retail needs of new and soon-to-come residents. The resulting retail vacuum is the greatest failing of the development boom under Brown, [Hal] Ellis said, a boom he otherwise praises in no uncertain terms.” 

One has to remember a little history in order to understand the implications of that little business revelation. 

During his original 1998 run for mayor of Oakland, Mr. Brown repeatedly said that a central goal for the economic revitalization of Oakland was to bring retail back to the city’s downtown core by first opening up the downtown area to residential development. Once a critical mass of residents were living downtown, Mr. Brown assured us, the retail establishments would quickly follow, without our having to do all that embarrassing begging and subsidizing that past Oakland administrations had to resort to. Oakland, he said, would be “put on the map.” 

The idea became a powerful campaign slogan when Mr. Brown announced a goal of bringing 10,000 new residents into downtown Oakland—the 10K plan—and that campaign slogan later became official city policy during the Brown Administration, complete with its own page on the city’s website. 

But somewhere along the 10K way, the goal of 10,000 new downtown residents became an end in itself for the Brown Administration, with the retail revival gradually shuffled to the back until, finally, it was forgotten, conveniently and completely, as the program’s original goal. 

This is more than a matter of minor inconvenience for the new downtown residents. California’s post-Prop 13 economy works so that cities tend to go in the red on residential neighborhoods—paying out more for services than they get back in tax revenue—but make that money back on commercial districts. Without the promised added retail, Oakland is actually in worse shape financially, budget by budget, than we were before all the new downtowners moved in. 

And even in those areas where Mr. Brown’s policies have succeeded in bringing life back to Oakland’s downtown—residential development and entertainment establishments—he has left a minefield of potential problems in his wake. Prudent planning would have set aside a specific area of downtown for entertainment only—clubs and bars—with residences far enough away that people wouldn’t be bothered in the late night hours by loud music or the general coming-and-going associated with entertainment night life. Instead, by adopting a whomsoever-shall-come-let-them-build downtown policy, putting clubs and condos together side-by-side, hip-and-thigh, Mr. Brown has ensured enduring clashes between residents and party-goers in the downtown area, with the inevitable result that either both will suffer or one or the other will eventually collapse, and leave. 

The downtown resident-nightlife problem might have been easily solved with a plan. Oakland, in fact, has a plan for such things, but under Mr. Brown, the steps necessary to carry out that plan were long delayed. 

During an Oakland City Council meeting this week, At Large Councilmember Henry Chang noted that 10 years ago, Oakland began a process of updating its General Plan, the document which lays out the guidelines for what type of development is supposed to go where in the city. According to the city’s economic development agency, the General Plan is “the long-range vision and policy framework to guide development for the next twenty years in the City of Oakland.” The two major portions of that General Plan—the Land Use and Transportation Element, and the Estuary Policy Plan—were adopted in 1998 and 1999, about the time that the Brown years were beginning. 

What was supposed to come next was the updating of the city’s zoning map to conform to the General Plan. Normally, the two documents should be in sync, with the General Plan giving an overall view of what types of development and buildings should be allowed in a particular area, and the zoning map following with the detailed specifications. But Oakland’s zoning mapping was held up during the Brown years—some observers say purposely by Mr. Brown—leading to the present situation where the zoning map says one thing is allowed, while the General Plan says something entirely different. While legally the General Plan is the controlling document, developers and builders often have to apply for zoning variances to get their projects through. And the resulting confusion means developers and neighborhood residents are often unsure what will be allowed, and what will not. That makes for bad development in some cases, and completely halts it—to the detriment of the neighborhoods—in others. 

Pointing out that the zoning conformity project should have long ago been completed, Mr. Chang noted “I always complain about that.” 

In the meantime, some neighborhood groups have charged that in projects like Oak To Ninth Mr. Brown’s Planning Department has thrown out the General Plan altogether, ignoring the Estuary portion of the plan in its approval of what Signature Properties could put along the waterfront. 

Why would Mr. Brown hold up conforming the city’s zoning map to the General Plan? In the resulting confusion, it allowed him the ability to support various developments, without regard for how they all fit and meshed together for Oakland’s future economic health. 

For the average Oakland resident, much of this talk of General Plans and such has an eyes-glazing-over quality to it, with most people wondering why it matters. It only matters when you try to go down to the neighborhood shopping center, and you can’t find any parking. Or you can’t get down to the shopping center when you need to—just after five—because the streets and freeways are hopelessly clogged, and public transit is either inconvenient or nonexistent along the line you need to travel. Or, worse yet, there is no shopping center in your neighborhood at all. Proper city planning would not ensure that those particular needs would be met, but it is almost certain that without proper planning, most of Oakland’s problems got progressively worse in the Brown years. Most of the planning Mr. Brown was doing over the past eight years, it seems, was for where his hindparts and nimble feet would next land. 


About the House: Taking Action With Photovoltaic Solar Power

By Matt Cantor
Friday December 08, 2006

The death toll in Iraq this last month was the highest so far in a war that shows no end in sight. There is little doubt that the oil in the region has played a significant role in our willingness to participate in a “War on Terror” some sources now believe has resulted in nearly 700,000 deaths in Iraq, not to mention an outright civil war. 

To make matters worse, Americans appear to be more in love with gas guzzling mega-wagons than ever before and a trip to the Quicky-mart looks more like an overland assault than a mere shopping junket. What IS it about energy consumption that we’re so head-over-heels about and what’s so dorky and last-year about conservation? There’s nothing that gets me hot like seeing my wife shop at the Goodwill. And when we go for a walk, Oh Man, I can barely keep my hands off of her. There just something about a woman who’s into cheapness.  

Oh yea, sorry, got lost there for a minute. Oil, conservation, right. That’s where I was. Well I’m the house guy right, so what does this all have to do with houses?  

There are loads of changes one can make at home to affect global warming, international relations and sustainable human life on this planet and one of them, and it’s really good one, is to install a photovoltaic electrical generating system (solar panels, for short) on your roof. 

We have more than enough sunny days here in California to merit an investment in P.V. (photovoltaic), as it’s often called. The only downside seems to be a rather large initial investment, but if you think long-range, it’s a very good one. Currently, a typical system on a single family dwelling seems to get rung-up at about $30,000. However, current state credits will rebate about 1/3 of this and perhaps a bit more. The state claims that you can get up to half of your money back but my experience is that most folks don’t get that much of a credit. Nonetheless, 10 or 12 thousand dollars back is nothing to shake a dip-stick at. 

There are also Federal tax credits that will defray this expense even further and by the time you get done, it probably will be about 1/2 of the total up-front expense. Experts say that it can take around 10 years to repay the initial expense but after that, you can expect free, or nearly free electricity for another 30 years or so. Like I said, this requires long-range thinking so you have to be willing to pay your electric bill for the next 10 years right up front on the promise that you’ll be able to enjoy free electricity for decades to come. 

Now, all of these numbers are quite rough and it may turn out that future tax credits will further defray the expense. Additionally, energy costs may rise significantly in the coming years as we dig deeper into our limited supplies of coil, oil and natural gas. You may find yourself sitting hella’ pretty if you’ve made an investment in home electrical generation. Another possible windfall for the forward thinker may be in one change that has yet to have taken place and that’s the ability of home electrical generators to be fairly compensated for their contribution to the grid. Today, if you earn more than you use, you get no compensation. Nil, zip, nada. 

The funny and awful part of this story is that the leadership in Sacramento have told us a number of times in the last 10 years that our state’s generating capability isn’t up to the task at hand and when we’re at peak usage, we can end up browning or blacking out. At the same time they tell us that if we generate extra power, they won’t buy it. Go figure.  

I’d suggest calling your state assemblyman or writing to Aaaanold. This is just plain silly. To make matters worse (or better), PV power is at it’s peak when our use is at its peak, during those hot summer afternoons when the A/Cs are cranking away at full bore, so the state would do well to create a small army of generating citizens to meet its needs (unless the actual objective is to bilk the public through perceived shortfalls (Mr. Skilling, are you and your cellmate reading this?)) 

I’ve gotten a little bit ahead of myself in talking about PV and should really back up to explain a little bit about how it works and how it becomes a part of the grid. Most PV systems aren’t isolated. That is, they aren’t designed to provide power that’s used by you and you alone. This may sound stupid or counterintuitive but it’s actually much smarter than the way in which we usually do things in this goofy society. If you have a GRID-TIE system, which is what most people have, the panels on your roof don’t pump power directly into your house. Instead, what they do is add power to the entire local grid, off of which you draw power whenever you turn on the light. It’s is a very collective approach. When you’re not using the power, all the power from the panels flows out through the meter and turns the dials backward, lowering your bill toward $0. When you turn on the A/C during the day, a little less flows out and a little more flows in. Its as though you caught rainwater on your roof and pumped it out into the water piping system whenever you weren’t using it. 

You needn’t concern yourself with whether you’re using the power that’s coming in from the panel or whether you’re buying it from the grid. You just use power and all the excess spins the meter backward. If you’ve sized your system properly, you’ll end up with a bill of roughly zero each month. Unfortunately, if you buy a system that is too large, you’ll get nothing for your additional contribution, so for today, it’s best to size for your actual needs. One day, hopefully, you’ll be able to sell the excess power back at a profit but we’re not there yet. Currently the German government is paying owners of these systems 8 times the utility company rate on excess power that they generate. As you might imagine, panels are flying off the shelves and last year, Germans (in a country less than a third our population) bought 9 times as many panels as we did. Tell that to Mr. Schwarzenegger (who’s Austrian, not German). 

[Another very sweet part of this deal is that you get paid at a higher rate during the sunniest part of the day and then get to buy power at a cheaper rate when you’re at home in the evening.] 

So here’s what a system looks like. While the panels are brilliant physics at work and the inverter (the central component other than the panels) is state of the art electrical engineering, the systems are actually quite simple. 

PV panels are very thin and quite lightweight, being made largely of polycarbonates (plastics) for support and a very thin wafer of silicon which is “doped” with a material that facilitates the photovoltaic effect. In fact, panels are so light that the main responsibility of the support frame is to keep them from blowing off of your roof when its windy. Panels do not need to “track” or follow the sun and are efficient enough when aimed into the pathway the sun will take during the day. This means that you will need to put most of your panels on one side of the roof or support them on slanted frames so that they’ll be able to suck up those juicy little photons. 

The PV panel converts photons (or sunlight if you prefer) into DC current (that’s the same kind of electricity you’ll find in a battery but not in your electrical outlet). The panels are very efficient and will generally be capable of producing power for at least 30-40 years. The panels get wired together in a simple grid and fed down to an INVERTER located near your main electrical panel. The inverter converts this DC power into AC power. The power then flows into the main panel where it either runs to your house (if you’re toasting bread) or out to the neighborhood on the wires overhead (or underground as the case may be). It’s just a matter of demand. 

The cost of Silicon is currently quite high because demand is at a peak. That’s a good thing because it means that people are buying solar panels (and other silly things like computers) but the cost is expected to drop by ’08 bringing down the cost of panels. A new “thin film” solar technology is being developed that will eliminate the need for silicon in solar panels. You’ll even be able to print panels on cars, clothing and roofing tiles. I’ll write more on these as they begin to become available. These “printed” panels hold the promise of greatly decreased cost and could herald in an era of highly affordable solar power. 

For the present, conventional solar panels are still a great deal if you can afford them. Currently, the Energy Return On Investment, or EROI, on a PV system for your home is in the 5-15 range.  

For you non-economists, that means that over the life of the system you can expect your initial investment to give you 5-15 times your money back. Any of your stocks doing that well? 

If you go to http://www.gosolarcalifornia.ca.gov, you can find out more about the incentive packages that are available in this state (there are some Federal tax advantages as well) . These rebates aren’t guaranteed to hang around indefinitely so it might be wise to bust a move.  

We don’t need to site idly by and watch the coral reefs turn to muck or the glaciers melt into so much Evian. We CAN take action. Here’s a powerful step you can take that will produce real results as well as inducing positive political change and providing you with improved long-range financial security. Now, what’s wrong with that? 


Garden Variety: Mrs. Dalloway’s is Not Just A Garden Bookstore

By Ron Sullivan
Friday December 08, 2006

I can’t resist Mrs. Dalloway’s—well, I can rarely resist any bookstore, though lately I know I’m guaranteed a headache when I venture into one without my reading specs. Since I rarely remember to carry those around with me and so end up craning and squinting my way through the shelves, browsing bookstores has become a bit of an S&M exercise. No matter. Mrs. D’s pulls me in just by the lovely (and amazingly persistent) vegetal scent of its woven-grass carpet. So I’m already biased in the place’s favor; let me get that disclaimer out right here at the start.  

There are always other intriguing scents in the air there. The universal bookstore scent, the one that comprises new paper and ink and binding-glue, that’s a big part of it of course, but there’s a tang of clay and potting soil, often a thread of rosemary or some other herb, sometimes a flower scent. 

Up front, where they’ll get light from the big shopwindows, there are always a small, select bunch of interestingly potted plants: maybe topiary herbs or ivy, succulents, usually some orchids, always something else wants to come home with me (like the stray kitten that recognizes a Crazy Cat Lady), all displayed like the jewels they are.  

With the live stuff is an unpredictable but always nifty scattering of vases and pots. There’s more art on the walls, and perched on seemingly random shelves with the books, like those funny corsages made of zippers—something about their topology makes me laugh. That art’s local and connected with gardens or the natural world in general. I’ve seen pieces by Keeyla Meadows there, speaking of things that make me grin, so even if you don’t have space for one of her whimsical gardens you can have a piece of her work.  

I’m a garden hound, yes, but I always get distracted by something else in Mrs. D’s too. The place has a plant slant, as is fitting, but it’s also a general-interest bookstore: fiction, poetry (I like their selection—books by people like Kay Ryan whose stuff doesn’t turn up just everywhere, and is great fun to read; Galway Kinnell’s new one, Strong Is Your Hold, Mary Oliver’s Thirst, Louise Glück’s Averno), art, travel, nonfiction including a good natural-history section.  

The stuff I like tends toward the sensual—that’s why I garden—so foodie stuff like James and Kay Salter’s Life is Meals: A Food Lover’s Book of Days gets my attention. So does Julia Child’s My Life in France. Mary Gordon’s recent story collection is in; I read her when I have the guts to pick up that Irish-childhood baggage for a few hours. She moves in different circles (and no doubt her circles move) but she Gets It about that stuff the way I experienced it.  

Don’t miss Lester Rowntree Hardy Californians, reprinted this year, or Home Ground: Language for an American Landscape, by Barry Lopez and Debra Gwartney, eds. 

Mrs. D’s will special-order pretty much anything, and get it in fast. The staffers actually know about the books they sell.  

 

 

Mrs. Dalloway’s 

2904 College Avenue, in the Elmwood 

704-8222 

Monday-Wednesday 10 a.m.-6 p.m 

Thursday-Saturday 10 a.m.-8 p.m. 

Sunday noon-5 p.m.


You Write the Daily Planet

Friday December 08, 2006

It’s time to submit your essays, poems, stories and photographs for the Planet’s annual holiday reader contribution issue, which will be published on Dec. 29. Send your submissions, up to 1,000 words, to holiday@berkeleydailyplanet.com. Deadline is 5 p.m. on Dec. 20.


Quake Tip: The Valves Are Coming! The Valves Are Coming!

By Larry Guillot
Friday December 08, 2006

You may have noticed that Contra Costa County has passed an ordinance requiring houses that are being sold to have an automatic gas shut-off valve. This will apply to all areas that are unincorporated, which means a lot of homes.  

I must commend the county on such a wise move, and I’ll venture to say that before long most cities and counties in the Bay area will follow suit. Why? Because it’s not just an issue of “encouraging” people to save their homes, but it has repercussions for whole neighborhoods. When a Big One hits, a house that catches fire (from a ruptured gas line igniting), increases the chance of neighboring houses catching fire.  

We’re seeing a huge increase in the number of folks interested in having a valve installed. This is going to make us all safer. 

 

 

Larry Guillot is owner of QuakePrepare, an earthquake consulting, securing, and kit supply service. Call him at 558-3299, or visit www.quakeprepare.com.


Barn Owls: House Hunting in Berkeley

By Penny Bartlett, Special to the Planet
Tuesday December 05, 2006

Editor’s note: The following article was submitted to Joe Eaton in response to his call for readers’ stories about barn owls. His column will return the Tuesday after next. 

 

It was just after dark on an evening in late July when I heard that screeching noise again. Raspy and raucous, reminding me of fingernails on a blackboard. It went on into the night with only occasional pauses. I had heard it the previous summer for a couple of months; it seemed to be coming from a tree next door. I never got around to finding out what it was and never noticed when it stopped. 

But now it was back. This time I would find out. I went out the gate onto Sacramento Street, looking at the tall trees in my neighbors’ yards. The screeching was louder but not nearby. I walked down the block, crossed Bancroft and continued into the next block. The sound was obnoxious. 

It was coming from a large Canary Island palm tree in somebody’s back yard. I did some minor stalking to see which yard it was, then knocked on a front door. 

The woman living there told me the palm tree was just over her back fence. Every year a pair of barn owls nested there, and every summer the babies made a huge racket at night, most of the night. Her daughter’s bedroom was close to the tree and sometimes it was hard for the daughter to sleep. I couldn’t imagine sleeping there since I could hear the noise clearly a block away. And who would have thought an owl could make such sounds; owls are supposed to hoot.  

A palm tree in the middle of Berkeley seemed a strange home for a barn owl, but I learned that they will also nest in cliffs, riverbanks, caves, church steeples, haystacks and even duck nesting boxes. Since there aren’t a lot of barns or haystacks in Berkeley, maybe a palm tree is upscale urban housing. If they nest in a tree it’s in a hollow cavity. Maybe under the mop of palm fronds there was a nice invisible hole. 

Now I began hearing other owl sounds almost every night. A short screech above me as I walked down the path to my house. Metallic clicking sounds and the smallest fluff of wings beating close overhead. A series of raspy screeches right outside my bedroom window as I fell asleep. How had I not noticed all this before? 

I had glimpses of a soft shadow sailing over a neighbor’s fence. I stood on the sidewalk in front of the palm tree in the moonlight and saw a shadow fly into the crown of the tree. 

The racket calmed down and I assumed some owlets were gulping rodent delicacies. 

Usually nestlings are quiet when parents are hunting until the parents approach with food, but these barn owlets kept up a continuous squawking. I thought maybe they just didn’t like being left alone; then learned that only the male hunts and mama is always home. The male hands his catch over to her and she tears it up and feeds the chicks and herself. It seemed strange that mama’s presence didn’t quiet the kids. 

During July and August the night chorus got gradually louder, then at the end of summer it stopped. I found another palm tree neighbor who had watched owlets fall out of the nest each year and bump around on the ground until their wings were strong enough to fly. 

She had seen this year’s brood and watched parents feeding them on the ground; now the kids had gone off on their own. 

Early the next summer I was paying attention. Then one night I saw a pair of ghostly white birds doing an aerial dance above Allston Way near Sacramento. Barn owls look brownly speckled from above but seen from below they are white. 

I watched them soaring and swooping around each other in graceful loops, clicking their bills and screeching. It looked like owl love. 

A week later I was sitting outside in the dusk with my neighbors when I heard screeches coming closer. I shouted to everyone to look up, and there came both owls, passing not too far above our heads in looping sensuous flight, shrieking as they went. 

A few weeks later the nighttime rackety chorus began, but this time it stopped sooner than in previous years. 

I wondered if all the chicks had fallen out of the nest early. I also knew the local raccoon posse loved to hang out in palm trees, and raccoons will eat anything. 

That winter I was driving down Sacramento when I noticed a big bare spot where the palm tree had been. It had been cut down. No more owl house.  

That was a year ago. Last summer was quiet. No owls. 

But a few nights ago while working at my computer, I heard a faint sound of fingernails on blackboard. It was far away. Then last night, falling asleep, there was a loud screech outside my window. 

I thought, yay! They’re back! But on reflection: either they’re hunting for food, or in this town, where it’s hard to find a place to live and the landlord can tear your house down, they may just be house hunting. 


Arts & Events

Arts Calendar

Friday December 08, 2006

FRIDAY, DEC. 8 

THEATER 

Altarena Playhouse “ The Man Who Saved Christmas” at holiday family musical Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 p.m. at 1409 High St., Alameda, through Dec. 17. Tickets are $15-$18. 523-1553. www.altarena.org 

Aurora Theatre “Ice Glen” Wed.-Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 and 7 p.m. at 2081 Addison St., through Dec. 10. Tickets are $38. 843-4822. www.auroratheatre.org 

Berkeley Rep “All Wear Bowlers” at the Roda Theater, 2015 Addison St. through Dec. 23. Tickets are $45-$61. 647-2949. 

Checkov International Theatre “Twelfth Night” at 8 p.m. Sat. at 2 and 8 p.m., Sun. at 3 and 7 p.m., at Zellerbach Playouse, UC Campus. Tickets are $65. 642-9988. 

Contra Costa Civic Theater, “And Then There Were None” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m. Sun. at 2 p.m. at 951 Pomona Ave., at Moeser, El Cerrito, through Dec. 9. Tickets are $11-$18. 524-9132. www.ccct.org 

Impact Theater “Jukebox Stories” Thurs.-Sat. at 8 p.m. at La Val’s Subterranean, 1834 Euclid Ave., through Dec. 10. Tickets are $10-$15. 464-4468. www.impacttheatre.com 

Masquers Playhouse “Company” by Stephen Sondheim and George Furth, Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2:30 p.m. at 105 Park Place, Point Richmond, through Dec. 16. Tickets are $18. 232-4031. www.masquers.org  

Naked Masks “Far Away” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m. Sun. at 7 p.m. at Berkeley City Club. Tickets are $10-$20. Runs through Dec. 17. 883-9872. www.nakedmasks.org 

Prophecy Theater, “Broken Moments: What’s Your Pleasure?” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m. at Egypt Theater, 5306 Foothill Blvd., Oakland. Tickets are $15. 1-800-838-3006. 

Shotgun Players “The Forest War” Thurs.-Sun. at 8 p.m. at the Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby Ave., through Jan 14. Sliding scale $15-$30. 841-6500. www.shotgunplayers.org 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Sacred Flame” An exhibition of menorahs, candelabras and votives opens with a reception at 5 p.m. at ACCI Gallery, 1652 Shattuck Ave. 843-2527. 

FILM 

“Burning Man Festival” at 7:30 p.m. in the 3rd Floor Community Room, Berkeley Public Library, 2090 Kittredge St. 981-6100. 

Janus Films: “Il Posto” at 6:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808.  

“McSweeney’s Wholphin III: DVD Magazine of Unseen Things” Preview at 7:30 p.m. at Pegasus Books, 2349 Shattuck Ave. 649-1320. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Berkeley Ballet Theater, “The Nutcracker” at 7 p.m., Sat. at 2 and 7 p.m. and Sun. at 2 p.m. at Julia Morgan Center for the Arts, 2640 College Ave. Tickets are $16-$21. 843-4689. 

Voci Women’s Vocal Ensemble “Voices in Peace” music from the Americas at 8 p.m. at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church. Tickets are $15-$20. 531-8714.  

Bella Musica Chorus and Orchestra Bach’s “Mass in B Minor” at 8 p.m. at Arlington Community Church, 52 Arlington Blvd., Kensington. Suggested dontation $10-$15. 525-5393. www.bellamusica.org 

University Symphony Orchestra at 8 p.m. at Hertz Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $5-$15. 642-4864.  

California Revels “Christmas Revels” Celebrating the stories, songs, dance, and drama of 19th century Quebec, at 7:30 p.m. at Scottish Rite Theater, 1547 Lakeside Drive near Lake Merritt, Oakland. Tickets are $15-$42. 452-3800. www.calrevels.org 

La Familia Son, contemporary Cuban, at 9 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $10. 849-2568. 

Yerbabuena Ballet Flamenco at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $24-$48. 642-9988. www.calperfs.berkeley.edu 

Sacred and Classical Turkish Music Necati Celik on oud and Arif Bicer on ney, with American Sufi musicians at 7:30 p.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. Tickets are $20-$25 at the door. 707-824-2230. 

SFJazz All-Star High School Ensemble at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $12. 845-5373.  

Hanif & The Sound Voyagers at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $10. 841-JAZZ.  

Tito y su Son de Cuba at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $13. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Cris Williamson with Teresa Trull & Barbara Higbie at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $22.50-$23.50. 548-1761.  

The Nomadics, jazz, at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344.  

Ragwater Revue, Vermillion Lies, Kira Lynn Cain at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $6. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

Iron Age, Cold World, Never Healed at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St., an all-ages, member-run, no alcohol, no drugs, no violence club. Cost is $7. 525-9926. 

Les Nubians, Jennifer Johns, Femi at 9 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low, 2284 Shattuck Ave. Tickets are $20 in advance from ticketweb.com . 548-1159.  

Subnautic at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Caroline Chung Trio at 9 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810.  

Eddie Palmieri y La Perfecta II at 8 and 10 p.m. Yoshi’s at Jack London Square, through Sun. Cost is $22-$26. 238-9200.  

SATURDAY, DEC. 9 

CHILDREN  

Los Amiguitos de La Peña with Colibri, Latin American music for the whole family, at 10:30 a.m. at La Peña. Cost is $4 for adults, $3 for children. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Gris Grimly reads from “Santa Claws” at 4 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. 

Elmwood Theater Matinee Benefit for local schools showing “Shrek 2” at 10 a.m. and noon, and noon on Sun. Cost is $2. Sponsored by Elmwood merchants. 843-3794. 

EXHIBITIONS 

3rd Annual Albany Community Art Show & Sale from noon to 6 p.m. at the Albany Community Center, 1249 Marin Ave., Albany. Features the work of many local artists. The event is free and wheelchair accessible. 524-9283. 

THEATER 

Checkov International Theatre “Twelfth Night” at 2 and 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Playouse, UC Campus. Tickets are $65. 642-9988. 

“Wong Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” Solo performance by Kristina Wong at 8 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $10-$12. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Seldom Seen Acting Company of St. Vincent de Paul “Rock Bottom Hope” at 7 p.m. at Oakland Museum's James Moore Theatre, 1000 Oak St., Oakland. Tickets are $20. 812-9421. 

FILM 

“Rare Rockin’ Film Clips” with rock historian Richie Unterberger at 10 p.m. at Fellini Restaurant, 1401 University Ave. Free. 841-5200.  

Janus Films “La strada” at 5 p.m. and “Seven Samurai” at 7:10 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Jeff Norman introduces “Temescal Legacies” at 2 p.m. at the Temescal Branch of the Oakland Public Library, 5205 Telegraph Ave. 597-5049. 

John Scharffenberger discusses “The Essence of Chocolate” at 2 p.m. at Mrs. Dalloways, 2904 College Ave. 704-8222. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Berkeley Ballet Theater, “The Nutcracker” at 2 and 7 p.m. and Sun. at 2 p.m. at Julia Morgan Center for the Arts, 2640 College Ave. Tickets are $16-$21. 843-4689. 

Yerbabuena Ballet Flamenco at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $24-$48. 642-9988. www.calperfs.berkeley.edu 

Oakland East Bay Symphony “Messiah” Singalong at 8 p.m. at Paramount Theater, 2025 Broadway, Oakand. Tickets are $15-$28. 625-8497. www.oebs.org 

Kensington Symphony performs holiday favorites by Handel, Johann Strauss, (pere and fils), Tchaikovsky, Telemann, others, at 8 p.m. at Northminster Presbyterian Church, 545 Ashbury Ave., El Cerrito. Suggested donation $12-$15, children free. 524-9912. 

California Revels “Christmas Revels” Celebrating the stories, songs, dance, and drama of 19th century Quebec, Sat. and Sun. at 1 and 5 p.m. at Scottish Rite Theater, 1547 Lakeside Drive near Lake Merritt, Oakland. Tickets are $15-$42. 452-3800. www.calrevels.org 

Oakland-East Bay Gay Men’s Chorus “Pacem” at 8 p.m. at Lakedhore Avenue Baptist Church, 3534 Lakeshore Ave., Oakland. Tickets are $12-$15. www.oebgmc.org 

Kairos Youth Choir “Choose Something Like a Star” at 7 p.m. at Veterans Memorial Auditorium, 1325 Portland St., Albany. Tickets are $10-$12. 704-4479.  

Oakland School for the Arts Concert Ensemble performs carols and gospel music at 3 p.m. at Chapel of the Chimes, 4499 Piedmont Ave., Oakland. Free, donations accepted. 228-3207. 

Rhythm & Muse Open Mic features jazz vocalist Felice York with Eliza Shefler, jazz piano, at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Art Center, 1275 Walnut St., between Eunice & Rose Sts. 644-6893.  

University Symphony Orchestra at 8 p.m. at Hertz Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $5-$15. 642-4864. http://music.berkeley.edu 

La Pena Community Chorus at 7 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $15. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Pete Excovedo & Ray Obiedo with Mambo Caribe at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $15. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Groundation, reggae, at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $15-$18. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com  

Holler Town and Ronnie Cato at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

Claudia Russell, Lucy Kaplansky at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $24.50-$25.50. 548-1761.  

Danny Mertens Trio at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $12. 845-5373. www.jazzschool.com 

The Bean Bag Apostles, folk, rock, at 8 p.m. at Spuds Pizza, 3290 Adeline St. Cost is $7-$10. 558-0881. 

Kirtan: Jaya Lakshimi at 7:30 p.m. at Studio Rasa, 933 Parker St. Cost is $16-$18. 843-2787. 

Workingman’s Ed at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $10. 841-2082.  

Ned Boynton’s North Beach Trio at 9 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810.  

Mucho Axe, South American world grooves, at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

SUNDAY, DEC. 10 

CHILDREN 

Childrens’ Authors’ Party with Joyce Carol Thomas, Thatcher Hurd, Barbara Quick and others at 6 p.m. at Black Oak Books. For all ages. 486-0698. 

Samantha Tobey and the Squeegees at Ashkenaz at 3 p.m. Cost is $4-$6. 525-5054.  

THEATER 

Checkov International Theatre “Twelfth Night” at 3 and 7 p.m. at Zellerbach Playouse, UC Campus. Tickets are $65. 642-9988. 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Works by Hana Waters” Opening reception at 4 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344.  

FILM 

Jacques Rivette “Joan the Maiden, Part 1” at 1 p.m. and “Joan the Maiden, Part 2” at the Pacific Film Archive. 642-0808.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

“Desert to Dream: A Decade of Burning Man” slide show and discussion with Barbara Traub at at 2 p.m. in the 3rd Floor Community Room, Berkeley Public Library, 2090 Kittredge St. 981-6100. 

Robert Hartman and Mary Snowden in conversation on the exhibition “Measure of Time” at 3 p.m. in Gallery 6, Berkeley Art Museum, 2626 Bancroft Way. 642-0808. 

Ann Fagan Ginger and Abiola Afollyn introduce “Landmark Cases Left Out of Your Textbooks,” including the Angela Davis case, the Pentagon Papers case and others at 2 p.m. at Berkeley Felloship of Unitarian Universalists, Cedar and Bonita. 848-0599. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Bay Area Flute Fest from 1 to 5 p.m. at the Chapel of the Chimes, 4499 Piedmont Ave., Oakland. Performers include Roger Glenn, John Calloway, Amy Likar and others. Free. 333-0474. www.bayareaflutefest.com 

Berkeley Ballet Theater, “The Nutcracker” at 2 p.m. at Julia Morgan Center for the Arts, 2640 College Ave. Tickets are $16-$21. 843-4689. 

Bella Musica Chorus and Orchestra Bach’s “Mass in B Minor” at 4 p.m. at St. Mary Magdalen Church, 2005 Berryman at Milvia. Suggested dontation $10-$15. 525-5393. www.bellamusica.org 

Kairos Youth Choir “Choose Something Like a Star” at 4 p.m. at Calvary Presbyterian Church, 1940 Virginia St. Tickets are $10-$12. 704-4479.  

Berkeley Symphony Orchestra “Underconstruction” at 7 p.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. Free. www.berkeleysymphony.org 

Arlekin Quartet, chamber music, at 4 p.m. at Crowden Music Center, 1475 Rose St. Tickets are $12, children under 18 free. 559-2941. www.crowden.org 

Healing Muses with Eileen Hadidian on recorder and flute and Patrice Haan on Celtic harp at 2 p.m. at the Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave. 526-3720, ext. 17. 

Sacred and Profane “Christmas in London” at 7 p.m. at All Souls Episcopal Church, 2220 Cedar St. Tickets are $12-$18. 524-3611.  

Selections from Handel’s “Messiah” at 5 p.m. at First United Methodist Church, 201 Martina St., corner of Richmond Ave., Point Richmond. Free. 236-0527.  

San Francisco Choral Artists “From Darkness to Light” at 4 p.m. at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, 114 Montecito Ave., at Bay Place, Oakland. Tickets are $12-$25. 415-979-5779.  

Chamber Music Sundaes “Memory Beams” at 3 p.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. Tickets are $18-$22. 415-753-2792.  

Oakland-East Bay Gay Men’s Chorus “Pacem” at 5 p.m. at Lakedhore Avenue Baptist Church, 3534 Lakeshore Ave., Oakland. Tickets are $12-$15. www.oebgmc.org 

Si Kahn at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $17.50-$18.50. 548-1761. 

John Stowell/Mike Zilber Group at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $10. 841-JAZZ.  

Madeline Eastman & Taylor Eigsti at 4:30 at the Jazzschool. Cost is $20. 845-5373.  

Jared Karol and Jayne Pohl at 11 a.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344.  

MONDAY, DEC. 11 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

“From Toothpicks to Cow Bladders: The Conservation of Modern Art” A brown-bag lunch with Michelle Barger, Conservator of Objects at the Museum of Modern Art at 12:30 p.m., Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave., Albany. 526-3720, ext. 17. 

Thomas Lynch reads Capote’s “A Christmas Memory” at 7:30 p.m. at Mrs. Dalloways, 2904 College Ave. 704-8222. 

Rabbi Edward Zerin presents “Jewish San Francisco” at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698. www.blackoakbooks.com 

Poetry Express with Abdul Kenyatta at 7 p.m. at Priya Restaurant, 2072 San Pablo Ave. berkeleypoetryexpress@yahoo.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

The Roches, with a Holiday Twist, at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $21.50-$22.50. 548-1761.  

SoVoSo, holiday concert, at 8 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $10-$14.. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com  

TUESDAY, DEC. 12 

CHILDREN 

Opera Piccola “The Guest” at 7 p.m. at Oakland Public Library, Rockridge Branch, 5366 College Ave. 597-5017. 

EXHIBITIONS 

The Photography of Matt Heron “Voting Rights: The Southern Struggle, 1964-1965” on display in the Catalog Lobby, Berkeley Public Library, 2090 Kittredge St., through Jan. 6. 981-6100. 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Susan Snyder introduces “Past Tents: The Way We Camped” at 7 p.m. at Phoebe A. Hearst Museum, 102 Kroeber Hall, UC Campus. 643-7649. 

George Leonard reads from “The Silent Pulse: A Search for the Perfect Rhythm that Exists in Each of Us” at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698. www.blackoakbooks.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Swamp Coolers at 8:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cajun/zydeco dance lesson at 8 p.m. Cost is $9. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Ellen Hoffman and Singers’ Open Mic at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $5. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

The Roches, with a Holiday Twist, at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $21.50-$22.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Charlie Hunter Trio at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square, through Sun. Cost is $16-$28. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

Jazzschool Tuesdays, a weekly showcase of up-and-coming ensembles from Berkeley Jazzschool at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

WEDNESDAY, DEC. 13 

THEATER 

Azeem’s “Rude Boy” Wed.-Thurs. at 8 p.m. at The Marsh, 2120 Allston Way, through Dec. 14. Tickets are $15-$22. 415-826-5750. www.themarsh.org 

FILM 

Janus Films “Throne of Blood” at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Café Poetry hosted by Kira Allen at 7:30 p.m. at La Peña. Donation $2. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Daniel Lev and Bobby Kinkead, storytelling at 7 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

Robert Marshall reads at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698. www.blackoakbooks.com 

Berkeley Poetry Slam with host Charles Ellik and Three Blind Mice, at 8:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $5-$7. 841-2082 www.starryploughpub.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Music for Advent with Ron McKean, organist, at noon at First Presbyterian Church of Oakland, 2619 Broadway. 444-3555. 

Terrence Brewer Quartet at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $8. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Zaatar at 8:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $10. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Karabali at 9:30 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low, 2284 Shattuck Ave. Salsa lessons at 8 p.m. Cost is $5-$10. 548-1159.  

Brown Bums, delta blues and soul at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

31 Knots at 8:30 p.m. at the Uptown Nightclub, 1928 Telegraph, Oakland. Cost is $5. 451-8100. www.uptownnightclub.com 

Greenbridge, Celtic trio, at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $17.50-$18.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

THURSDAY, DEC. 14 

FILM 

Jacques Rivette “Va savoir” at 7 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Robert Fisk on Iraq and Lebanon at 7 p.m. at the First Presbyterian Church, 2619 Broadway, at 27th, Oakland Tickets are $20, no one turned away. Benefit for children in Gaza, via the Middle East Children's Alliance. 548-0542. www.mecaforpeace.org 

Eric Kos and Dennis Evanosky talk about “East Bay Then and Now” with historic photographs of Oakland at 7:30 p.m. at Chapel of the Chimes, 4499 Piedmont Avenue. Donation $8-$10. 763-9218. www.oaklandheritage.org  

Nomad Spoken Word Night at 7 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

Robert Hanson introduces “The Rough Guide to CLimate Change” at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698. www.blackoakbooks.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Berkeley Symphony performs Shostakovich “Leningrad” and works by Arvo Part at at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $10-$56. 841-2800. www.berkeleysymphony.org 

Patrick Ball, “Christmas Rose” music from England, Ireland and Wales, at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $17.50-$18.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Steve Gannon’s Monday Blues at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $7. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Tommy Carns, Sean McArdle, Sweetbriar at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $7. 841-2082 www.starryploughpub.com 

Razero the Band, Unequaled Clarity and Five Characters in Search of an Exit at 8 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $5-$7. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Charlie Hunter Trio at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square, through Sun. Cost is $16-$28. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

The Time Flys, The Pets, The Makes Nice at 9 p.m. at the Uptown Nightclub, 1928 Telegraph, Oakland. Cost is $5. 451-8100. www.uptownnightclub.com 

 

 

 

 


Arts and Entertainment Around the East Bay

Friday December 08, 2006

BAY AREA FLUTE FEST COMES TO OAKLAND 

 

Roger Glenn, John Calloway and Amy Likar lead the list of performers at this year’s Bay Area Flute Fest from 1 to 5:30 p.m. Sunday at the Chapel of the Chimes in Oakland. Flutists, flute students and music lovers of all stripes are invited to attend an afternoon of music, exhibits and workshops. Admission is free. For more information, call 333-0474 or go to www.bayareaflutefest.com. 

 

‘BLACK NATIVITY HOLIDAY PAGEANT’ 

 

The Allen Temple Baptist Church Music Department will present a series of holiday performances beginning this weekend. Two shows will be presented on Saturday, the first at 2:30 p.m. and the second at 8 p.m.; Sunday’s show will be held at 6 p.m.; there will be a single matinee show at 2:30 p.m. on Saturday, Dec. 16; and a gala will be held at 3:30 Sunday, Dec. 17, followed by the final performance of the season. Tickets are $20 for adults, $10 for seniors and teens, $7 for youth, and free for children under the age of 5. 8501 International Blvd., Oakland. 544-8924. 

 

CELLULOID FLASHBACKS IN EL CERRITO 

 

The Cerrito Theater will present a couple of cinematic gems from yesteryear along with its usual fare this weekend. In its  

“Cerrito Flashback” series, the newly restored Art Deco theater will screen The Princess Bride, the popular 1987 fantasy, and the “Cerrito Classics” series will feature Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Grace Kelly and Louis Armstrong in High Society, the 1956 musical remake of The Philadelphia Story. The Princess Bride shows at 9:45 p.m. Friday through Thursday, Dec. 14, and High Society shows 6 p.m. Saturday and at 5 p.m. Sunday. 10070 San Pablo Ave., El Cerrito. 814-2400. www.picturepubpizza.com.


Moving Pictures: PFA Screens Two Italian Art House Classics

By Justin DeFreitas
Friday December 08, 2006

A fascinating pair of Italian films will screen this weekend at Pacific Film Archive. The first, Il Posto (1961), could be seen as a sequel to Francois Truffaut’s The 400 Blows, presenting another quietly observant portrait of a young man suffering through a rite of passage. It’s as though the 13-year-old Antoine Donel of the earlier film has now grown into the 18-year-old Domenico Cantoni, sent by his parents into the big city of Milan to find a job.  

Directed by Ermanno Olmi, Il Posto fits in with the Italian neo-realism school of filmmaking in its presentation of a humanistic tale of youthful dreams and ambitions sacrificed at the altar of security and conformism.  

Domenico seems to dread his entry into the working world, a world presented as one of time-worn adults marking time in soulless, dreary employment. However, a ray of light appears in the form of a young woman named Antonietta (Loredana Detto), and her sparkling presence illuminates the screen as well as the life of the hero. Together they navigate the job application process and take pleasure in each other’s company, the two bright-eyed youths constituting a slightly subversive presence in an otherwise stale maze of corridors, offices and standard-issue furniture.  

The key to the film is Sandro Panseri, a non-professional actor with soulful eyes and the gentle, timid face of a youth trying to comprehend and master the ways of a foreign territory. He’s a small, skinny waif masquerading as a grown-up in ill-fitting grown-up clothing. He hits all the right notes and Olmi captures each one, showing us in wordless close-ups the fear, uncertainty, shyness and delight that flitter across the face of the young protagonist.  

But about three-quarters into the film, Olmi suddenly abandons the main character for an extended sequence in which we learn something of the personal lives of each one of a number of accountants at the unnamed firm where Domenico has landed. It may seem like a tangent at first, but the sequence marks the opening salvo in a tour de force closing sequence that drives home the film’s major themes.  

Domenico is promoted, and in an uncharacteristic but highly effective montage, Olmi shows us why. One of the accountants we’ve encountered has passed away, possibly by suicide, and his desk is turned over to Domenico, much to the dismay of his new colleagues. One, a 20-year veteran, complains to the manager, and when Domenico agrees to move to a desk in the back of the room, a frenzied and ruthless rush ensues as the other accountants begin a mad dash to claim the desk immediately in front of their own, a desperate game of musical chairs for which they’ve apparently been waiting for decades. 

The final shot shows Domencio watching a man at the front of the room as he cranks what appears to be a mimeograph machine, feeding paper into one end and removing it from the other as a deafening mechanical whirr dominates the soundtrack. The grind has begun.  

Yet as bleak as this conclusion may seem, it is also somewhat ambiguous, for throughout the film we have seen Domenico warmly befriended by the adults in his new environment, receiving a series of reassurances that a simpler life of lower expectations is not all bad but is in fact full of small pleasures. With these gentle moments of camaraderie and kindness, Olmi provides a welcome softening of the film’s sharp edge.  

Domenico may have found himself in a dispiriting situation, but there is still energy and vivaciousness and curiosity in his face, a sign that although life is certainly capable of pummeling the spirit out of a young man, he still has a choice, plenty of choices as a matter of fact, and retains the power to shape his own destiny. And the fact that Domenico is able to so clearly see his predicament in the closing scene leaves us with hope that he has the strength and determination to overcome it, now that he finally understands it. 

 

Federico Fellini’s La Strada (1954) similarly focuses on a main character with enormously expressive eyes in the form of Gelsomina (Giulietta Masina), another youthful spirit facing dire circumstances. But the style and delivery of the tale could not be more different from the observational calm of Olmi’s Il Posto.  

La Strada tells the tale of a boorish brute of a traveling sideshow performer, Zampano, played by Anthony Quinn. When his wife dies, he travels back to her remote, impoverished village and essentially purchases her younger sister to take her place. Gelsomina has a clown-like countenance, and eventually she takes on the makeup of a clown, too. Her childish innocence calls to mind silent film comedian Harry Langdon, blending an adult body with an infantile purity that at times confounds us with its ambiguity.  

And despite its rather simple story, the film is full of ambiguities. Gelsominia is at once innocent and deeply aware of her place in Zampano’s life. And the Fool, a character capable of both cruelty and martyrdom, provides lessons in life and love for the main characters while treating them with a degree of contempt. 

The film itself seems to straddle two realms, leaning at times toward realism and at times toward a sort of fable-like fantasy. Beneath its circus settings, desolate stretches of beach and never-ending highways, it is a simple love story about a man who cannot admit his feelings and a child-like woman who is entirely governed by her own. 

La Strada concludes with a powerful shot of Zampano alone on the beach after learning that his dismissal of Gelsomina has led her to madness and death. As he faces the open sea, he glances upwards for a moment, as though discovering God for the first time and begging his forgiveness. And it seems like the first time that he has lifted his brooding gaze from the ground, the first time we have seen the whites of his eyes. But it is too late now, and Zampano simply crumbles to the ground as though merging with the brittle sand.  

The two films are showing as part of PFA’s tribute to Janus Films, the American distributor responsible for bringing so many foreign art house films to the United States in the 1950s and ’60s. The series concludes next week with a screening of Mario Monicelli’s The Organizer (1963). 

Both Il Posto and La Strada are available individually on DVD from the Criterion Collection or as part of Criterion’s new 50-film Janus box set, 50 Years of Essential Art House, available at www.criterionco.com. 

 

IL POSTO (1961) 

Directed by Ermanno Olmi. 93 minutes.  

6:30 p.m. Friday.  

 

LA STRADA (1956) 

Directed by Federico Fellini. 108 minutes.  

5 p.m. Saturday.  

 

Pacific Film Archive, 2575 Bancroft Way. $4-$8. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu. 

 

 

Photograph: Sandro Panseri plays a young in search of secure job in Ermanno Olmi’s Il Posto (1961).


The Theater: Ten Red Hen Takes on ‘365 Plays’ Project

By Ken Bullock, Special to the Planet
Friday December 08, 2006

“We wanted to do these plays in people’s homes. My mentor called theater-making in this day and age ‘cultural migrant labor’—that is, you load your stuff into your car and go to where you do it.” 

So said Maya Gurantz, founder of Ten Red Hen, this past Wednesday in welcoming everybody to Day One of Week Four of Suzan-Lori Parks’ ongoing national 365 Days/365 Plays project, in Ruth Lym’s remarkable Bernal Heights townhouse, designed by architect Glenn Robert Lym. The show was followed by house party/performances at a trapeze artist’s studio in Fruitvale on Thursday. 

It continues in San Francisco’s Mission District tonight (Friday), and concludes Saturday at a housing co-op on the Berkeley-Oakland-Emeryville border. All shows are pay-what-you-will and BYOB. Reservations and directions are available by calling 547-8932 or e-mailing 365@tenredhen.net. 

The lively scene at the Lym townhouse underlined the troupe’s self-description: “a fledgling theater company based in Oakland ... committed to creating engaging, relevant new theater that integrates both the form of live art-making and the world around us.” 

Pulitzer Prize-winning, MacArthur “Genius” grantee Parks wrote a play a day throughout 2002. Before taking on performing week four of the project, Ten Red Hen produced a few months back as maiden voyage The 99-Cent Miss Saigon in the Willard School Metal Shop on Telegraph Avenue, one of the most audaciously theatrical events in the Bay Area this past year. In a way, they’re already old hands at putting on plays in places no one else would think of as a stage. 

Indeed the scene Wednesday had the feel of a bright holiday party in a fashionable and comfortable home, though with at least one noticeable difference: Jane Chen, featured in a one night only rendition of Napoleon Or Wellington? as the Imperial Eagle himself, practiced her accent on all and sundry with Gallic party patter, handing out blue handkerchiefs to those who agreed to be her loyal partisans.  

But then the chit-chat over wine and finger food suddenly died down as a fiddle stuck up an air reminiscent of Ken Burn’s “Civil War” TV theme, and a play began to take form as a tableau around a metal utility cart in the middle of the living room. 

The cart was being pulled ineffectively by a Confederate soldier (George Chan): “I can push the cart, sir!” The officer aboard took a pipe from his mouth: “Then go!” As he pushed with little more effect, the young soldier said: “I never seen a general walk. They all rode on carts, or horses—or over the shoulders of the men. My mother told me I was a general’s son, and that generals flew!” 

The scene was casual, but had the authority and tension to generate real stage presence; a few feet away, all around, the rest of us were rapt. As the motley crew settled down to camp, on what seemed one of the last days of that first great war of attrition, movie music—from a very particular movie—sounded out, and a vignette of two women (Alexis Wong and Issabella Shields), proved to be the rear guard of the retreat: “Do I look old? ... What is 20 years between two people who know each other ... who wrote letters!” And the Southern Belle had last word on it all: “Damn this war!” — “Yes, ma’am!” So played “House of Jones.” 

And so the evening went, in and out of the party, from which the plays seem to swirl up, like the dancers on the floor, or conversations over cocktails. Sometimes the only way to tell if a piece was starting was the silence that fell over the room.  

Some of the pieces are little more than poses, crystallizing a pensive moment, or one in transition. Others are sketchy, quick, playful takes the players sometimes sing their way through, refer to other plays out of context (“Why do you always wear black?” a dancer asks his partner in “Blackbird;” “Black is Beautiful!” she replies, playing off the opening lines of The Seagull), or various pairs of actors repeat a tableau, a phrase ... These often reminded me of bits and pieces, details from sometime-Oakland playwright Ed Bullins’ wonderful plays, seldom produced now, but pervasively influential in ephemeral touches as well as ideology. 

Finally, the whole party divided in two for The History Lesson, behind Wellington waving red scarves from the floor up at the blue scarf-wavers behind Jane’s Little Corporal in newspaper hat, along the staircase—who laughed derisively as Jane exclaimed, “Are you trying to teach me something?” To which the Iron Duke drew his toy sword and the French retreated upstairs. Maybe the colors, like “Red States and Blue States” were off, as well as battlefield topography, but The History Lesson was exhilarating. 

Following the principle that the end of a party is special, Dave Malloy and Conrad enacted a little male confrontation, “Pussy” (one of the “secret,” optional pieces) when almost everyone, including some of the players, had gone: “Looks like it hurts ...”—“I ain’t no pussy!”—closing with contention, a urinary obstruction, and architectural detail. 

Gurantz exhorted all to follow the future weeks of 365 Days/365 Plays on the Z Space or Theater Bay Area website, staged by East Bay groups like Berkeley Rep, Shotgun Players, TheatreFIRST, mugwumpin, Opera Piccola and Encinal High School. 

Next up for Ten Red Hen: Scriptural slapstick as Jane Chen plays both God the father and the Son of Man, in Clown Bible, just in time for Easter, this late March.


About the House: Taking Action With Photovoltaic Solar Power

By Matt Cantor
Friday December 08, 2006

The death toll in Iraq this last month was the highest so far in a war that shows no end in sight. There is little doubt that the oil in the region has played a significant role in our willingness to participate in a “War on Terror” some sources now believe has resulted in nearly 700,000 deaths in Iraq, not to mention an outright civil war. 

To make matters worse, Americans appear to be more in love with gas guzzling mega-wagons than ever before and a trip to the Quicky-mart looks more like an overland assault than a mere shopping junket. What IS it about energy consumption that we’re so head-over-heels about and what’s so dorky and last-year about conservation? There’s nothing that gets me hot like seeing my wife shop at the Goodwill. And when we go for a walk, Oh Man, I can barely keep my hands off of her. There just something about a woman who’s into cheapness.  

Oh yea, sorry, got lost there for a minute. Oil, conservation, right. That’s where I was. Well I’m the house guy right, so what does this all have to do with houses?  

There are loads of changes one can make at home to affect global warming, international relations and sustainable human life on this planet and one of them, and it’s really good one, is to install a photovoltaic electrical generating system (solar panels, for short) on your roof. 

We have more than enough sunny days here in California to merit an investment in P.V. (photovoltaic), as it’s often called. The only downside seems to be a rather large initial investment, but if you think long-range, it’s a very good one. Currently, a typical system on a single family dwelling seems to get rung-up at about $30,000. However, current state credits will rebate about 1/3 of this and perhaps a bit more. The state claims that you can get up to half of your money back but my experience is that most folks don’t get that much of a credit. Nonetheless, 10 or 12 thousand dollars back is nothing to shake a dip-stick at. 

There are also Federal tax credits that will defray this expense even further and by the time you get done, it probably will be about 1/2 of the total up-front expense. Experts say that it can take around 10 years to repay the initial expense but after that, you can expect free, or nearly free electricity for another 30 years or so. Like I said, this requires long-range thinking so you have to be willing to pay your electric bill for the next 10 years right up front on the promise that you’ll be able to enjoy free electricity for decades to come. 

Now, all of these numbers are quite rough and it may turn out that future tax credits will further defray the expense. Additionally, energy costs may rise significantly in the coming years as we dig deeper into our limited supplies of coil, oil and natural gas. You may find yourself sitting hella’ pretty if you’ve made an investment in home electrical generation. Another possible windfall for the forward thinker may be in one change that has yet to have taken place and that’s the ability of home electrical generators to be fairly compensated for their contribution to the grid. Today, if you earn more than you use, you get no compensation. Nil, zip, nada. 

The funny and awful part of this story is that the leadership in Sacramento have told us a number of times in the last 10 years that our state’s generating capability isn’t up to the task at hand and when we’re at peak usage, we can end up browning or blacking out. At the same time they tell us that if we generate extra power, they won’t buy it. Go figure.  

I’d suggest calling your state assemblyman or writing to Aaaanold. This is just plain silly. To make matters worse (or better), PV power is at it’s peak when our use is at its peak, during those hot summer afternoons when the A/Cs are cranking away at full bore, so the state would do well to create a small army of generating citizens to meet its needs (unless the actual objective is to bilk the public through perceived shortfalls (Mr. Skilling, are you and your cellmate reading this?)) 

I’ve gotten a little bit ahead of myself in talking about PV and should really back up to explain a little bit about how it works and how it becomes a part of the grid. Most PV systems aren’t isolated. That is, they aren’t designed to provide power that’s used by you and you alone. This may sound stupid or counterintuitive but it’s actually much smarter than the way in which we usually do things in this goofy society. If you have a GRID-TIE system, which is what most people have, the panels on your roof don’t pump power directly into your house. Instead, what they do is add power to the entire local grid, off of which you draw power whenever you turn on the light. It’s is a very collective approach. When you’re not using the power, all the power from the panels flows out through the meter and turns the dials backward, lowering your bill toward $0. When you turn on the A/C during the day, a little less flows out and a little more flows in. Its as though you caught rainwater on your roof and pumped it out into the water piping system whenever you weren’t using it. 

You needn’t concern yourself with whether you’re using the power that’s coming in from the panel or whether you’re buying it from the grid. You just use power and all the excess spins the meter backward. If you’ve sized your system properly, you’ll end up with a bill of roughly zero each month. Unfortunately, if you buy a system that is too large, you’ll get nothing for your additional contribution, so for today, it’s best to size for your actual needs. One day, hopefully, you’ll be able to sell the excess power back at a profit but we’re not there yet. Currently the German government is paying owners of these systems 8 times the utility company rate on excess power that they generate. As you might imagine, panels are flying off the shelves and last year, Germans (in a country less than a third our population) bought 9 times as many panels as we did. Tell that to Mr. Schwarzenegger (who’s Austrian, not German). 

[Another very sweet part of this deal is that you get paid at a higher rate during the sunniest part of the day and then get to buy power at a cheaper rate when you’re at home in the evening.] 

So here’s what a system looks like. While the panels are brilliant physics at work and the inverter (the central component other than the panels) is state of the art electrical engineering, the systems are actually quite simple. 

PV panels are very thin and quite lightweight, being made largely of polycarbonates (plastics) for support and a very thin wafer of silicon which is “doped” with a material that facilitates the photovoltaic effect. In fact, panels are so light that the main responsibility of the support frame is to keep them from blowing off of your roof when its windy. Panels do not need to “track” or follow the sun and are efficient enough when aimed into the pathway the sun will take during the day. This means that you will need to put most of your panels on one side of the roof or support them on slanted frames so that they’ll be able to suck up those juicy little photons. 

The PV panel converts photons (or sunlight if you prefer) into DC current (that’s the same kind of electricity you’ll find in a battery but not in your electrical outlet). The panels are very efficient and will generally be capable of producing power for at least 30-40 years. The panels get wired together in a simple grid and fed down to an INVERTER located near your main electrical panel. The inverter converts this DC power into AC power. The power then flows into the main panel where it either runs to your house (if you’re toasting bread) or out to the neighborhood on the wires overhead (or underground as the case may be). It’s just a matter of demand. 

The cost of Silicon is currently quite high because demand is at a peak. That’s a good thing because it means that people are buying solar panels (and other silly things like computers) but the cost is expected to drop by ’08 bringing down the cost of panels. A new “thin film” solar technology is being developed that will eliminate the need for silicon in solar panels. You’ll even be able to print panels on cars, clothing and roofing tiles. I’ll write more on these as they begin to become available. These “printed” panels hold the promise of greatly decreased cost and could herald in an era of highly affordable solar power. 

For the present, conventional solar panels are still a great deal if you can afford them. Currently, the Energy Return On Investment, or EROI, on a PV system for your home is in the 5-15 range.  

For you non-economists, that means that over the life of the system you can expect your initial investment to give you 5-15 times your money back. Any of your stocks doing that well? 

If you go to http://www.gosolarcalifornia.ca.gov, you can find out more about the incentive packages that are available in this state (there are some Federal tax advantages as well) . These rebates aren’t guaranteed to hang around indefinitely so it might be wise to bust a move.  

We don’t need to site idly by and watch the coral reefs turn to muck or the glaciers melt into so much Evian. We CAN take action. Here’s a powerful step you can take that will produce real results as well as inducing positive political change and providing you with improved long-range financial security. Now, what’s wrong with that? 


Garden Variety: Mrs. Dalloway’s is Not Just A Garden Bookstore

By Ron Sullivan
Friday December 08, 2006

I can’t resist Mrs. Dalloway’s—well, I can rarely resist any bookstore, though lately I know I’m guaranteed a headache when I venture into one without my reading specs. Since I rarely remember to carry those around with me and so end up craning and squinting my way through the shelves, browsing bookstores has become a bit of an S&M exercise. No matter. Mrs. D’s pulls me in just by the lovely (and amazingly persistent) vegetal scent of its woven-grass carpet. So I’m already biased in the place’s favor; let me get that disclaimer out right here at the start.  

There are always other intriguing scents in the air there. The universal bookstore scent, the one that comprises new paper and ink and binding-glue, that’s a big part of it of course, but there’s a tang of clay and potting soil, often a thread of rosemary or some other herb, sometimes a flower scent. 

Up front, where they’ll get light from the big shopwindows, there are always a small, select bunch of interestingly potted plants: maybe topiary herbs or ivy, succulents, usually some orchids, always something else wants to come home with me (like the stray kitten that recognizes a Crazy Cat Lady), all displayed like the jewels they are.  

With the live stuff is an unpredictable but always nifty scattering of vases and pots. There’s more art on the walls, and perched on seemingly random shelves with the books, like those funny corsages made of zippers—something about their topology makes me laugh. That art’s local and connected with gardens or the natural world in general. I’ve seen pieces by Keeyla Meadows there, speaking of things that make me grin, so even if you don’t have space for one of her whimsical gardens you can have a piece of her work.  

I’m a garden hound, yes, but I always get distracted by something else in Mrs. D’s too. The place has a plant slant, as is fitting, but it’s also a general-interest bookstore: fiction, poetry (I like their selection—books by people like Kay Ryan whose stuff doesn’t turn up just everywhere, and is great fun to read; Galway Kinnell’s new one, Strong Is Your Hold, Mary Oliver’s Thirst, Louise Glück’s Averno), art, travel, nonfiction including a good natural-history section.  

The stuff I like tends toward the sensual—that’s why I garden—so foodie stuff like James and Kay Salter’s Life is Meals: A Food Lover’s Book of Days gets my attention. So does Julia Child’s My Life in France. Mary Gordon’s recent story collection is in; I read her when I have the guts to pick up that Irish-childhood baggage for a few hours. She moves in different circles (and no doubt her circles move) but she Gets It about that stuff the way I experienced it.  

Don’t miss Lester Rowntree Hardy Californians, reprinted this year, or Home Ground: Language for an American Landscape, by Barry Lopez and Debra Gwartney, eds. 

Mrs. D’s will special-order pretty much anything, and get it in fast. The staffers actually know about the books they sell.  

 

 

Mrs. Dalloway’s 

2904 College Avenue, in the Elmwood 

704-8222 

Monday-Wednesday 10 a.m.-6 p.m 

Thursday-Saturday 10 a.m.-8 p.m. 

Sunday noon-5 p.m.


You Write the Daily Planet

Friday December 08, 2006

It’s time to submit your essays, poems, stories and photographs for the Planet’s annual holiday reader contribution issue, which will be published on Dec. 29. Send your submissions, up to 1,000 words, to holiday@berkeleydailyplanet.com. Deadline is 5 p.m. on Dec. 20.


Quake Tip: The Valves Are Coming! The Valves Are Coming!

By Larry Guillot
Friday December 08, 2006

You may have noticed that Contra Costa County has passed an ordinance requiring houses that are being sold to have an automatic gas shut-off valve. This will apply to all areas that are unincorporated, which means a lot of homes.  

I must commend the county on such a wise move, and I’ll venture to say that before long most cities and counties in the Bay area will follow suit. Why? Because it’s not just an issue of “encouraging” people to save their homes, but it has repercussions for whole neighborhoods. When a Big One hits, a house that catches fire (from a ruptured gas line igniting), increases the chance of neighboring houses catching fire.  

We’re seeing a huge increase in the number of folks interested in having a valve installed. This is going to make us all safer. 

 

 

Larry Guillot is owner of QuakePrepare, an earthquake consulting, securing, and kit supply service. Call him at 558-3299, or visit www.quakeprepare.com.


Berkeley This Week

Friday December 08, 2006

FRIDAY, DEC. 8 

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 Michael Sturtz on The Crucible, a non-profit educational colaboration of arts, industry at community. 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.  

“The Ground Truth” A documentary about soldiers returning home from Iraq at 7 p.m. at Buena Vista United Methodist Church, 2311 Buena Vista Ave., Alameda, followed by a panel discussion. Sponsored by the Lt. Ehren Watada Support Committee. Suggested donation $5. 527-1401. 

Womansong Circle with Betsy Rose “Fertile Darkness, Winter Light” at 7 p.m. at First Congregational Church of Berkeley, 2345 Channing Way at Dana. Cost is $15-$20. 525-7082. 

Chai, Pie and Buy Art Party with artwork donated by local artists to benefit homeless children at the Learning Center and the Ursula Sherman Village, from 5 to 7 p.m. at 1208 Peralta at Gilman. Also Sat. and Sun. from noon to 4 p.m. 649-1930. www.self-sufficiency.org 

“The Heart of the Buddha’s Message: The Middle Way and Other Disputed Concepts in Early Buddhism” with Oliver Firberger of the Univ. of Texas, at 5 p.m. at IEAS Conference Room, 2223 Fulton St., 6th flr., 643-6536. 

Women in Black Vigil, from noon to 1 p.m. at UC Berkeley, Bancroft at Telegraph. wibberkeley@yahoo.com 548-6310, 845-1143. 

SATURDAY, DEC. 9 

Berkeley Hills Path Walk led by Charlie Bowen, head of Berkeley Path Wanderers Assoc.’s path-improvement efforts. Meet at 10 a.m. at the toddler play area at Glendale LaLoma Park. Wear shoes with good traction and bring a walking stick. www.berkeleypaths.org 

“Holiday Sustainability Event” Make new toys out of reclaimed lumber, sew hats and stockings from salvaged fabrics and produce decorative wrapping paper, from noon to 4 p.m. at the Tinkers Workshop, 84 Bolivar Drive alongside Berkeley’s Aquatic Park. Fees for materials will be minimal or by donation. www.tinkersworkshop.org 

Berkeley Farmers’ Market Holiday Crafts Fair from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Center St. at Martin Luther King Jr. Way with local craftspepole, live music and prepared food. Benefits the Ecology Center. 548-3333.  

Telegraph Avenue Holiday Fair with more than 200 vendors, music and food, Sat. and Sun. from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. 

Holiday Fair at California College of the Arts, with live jazz and gifts made by students, alumni and staff, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at 5212 Broadway at College Ave., Oakland. 594-3666. 

3rd Annual Albany Community Art Show from 9 a.m. to noon at the Albany Community Center, 1249 Marin Ave., Albany. 524-9283. 

iPride Holiday Craft Celebration with special activities for children, from noon to 5 p.m. at 1581 LeRoy Ave. Benefits iPride’s work with multi-ethnic adopted children. 832-2375. www.ipride.org 

World of Good Development Organization Fundraiser with fair trade handcrafts from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. at 1380 10th St., near Gilman. www.worldofgood.com 

Folk Art Nativity Exhibit with over 250 creches from 74 countries on display from 5 to 8 p.m., Sat. from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Sun. from noon to 4 p.m. at St. Clement’s Episcopal Church, 2837 Claremeont Blvd. Donation of $15 goes to St. James Food Pantry. 843-2678. 

“Afghan Women: Victims of War” with Rahima Haya, co-founder of the Afghan Women's Association International at 2 p.m. at Berkeley City College, 2020 Center St., basement auditorium.  

“The State of Surveillance” Government Monitoring of Political Activity in Northern and Central California” with Mark Schlossberg, Police Practices Policy Director, ACLU, at 7 p.m. at Home of Truth Center, 1300 Grand St., Alameda. www.alamedaforum.org 

“Framing of an Execution” A documentary by Danny Glover on the case of Mumia Abu Jamal at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Unitarian Universalists Hall, 1924 Cedar St. at Bonita. Suggested donation $5-$10, no one turned away. 526-4402. 

Dimond Winter Festival “An Interfaith Celebration” from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Fruitvale Presbyterian Church, 2735 Mac Arthur Blvd. & Coolidge, Oakland. Donation $5. Canned goods appreciated. All ages welcome. 336-0105. 

Tree Trimming Contest from 1 to 6 p.m. at Expression Art Gallery, 2035 Ashby Ave. 644-4930. 

Vegetarian Cooking Class “A Healthful Holiday Feast” from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at First Unitarian Church of Oakland, 685 14th St., at Castro, Oakland. Cost is $50. To register, please call 531-2665. www.compassionatecooks.com 

“Solar Electricity For Your Home” A seminar from 10 a.m to 5 p.m. at Building Education Center, 812 Page St. Cost is $75. 525-7610. 

Wreath Making Workshop from 7 to 9 p.m. at the UC Botanical Garden, 200 Centennial Drive. Cost is $25-$30. Registration required. 643-2755. 

“Temescal Legacies...” with Jeff Norman, Temescal resident and artist at 2 p.m. at Temescal Library, 5205 Telegraph Ave., Oakland. 597-5049. 

“Local Wildlife and Habitat” with naturalist Josiah Clarke at 10 a.m. at Stanford Ave. Natural Habitat Garden, Stanford Ave. and Vallejo St., Oakland. Free, donations accepted. 428-2082. 

Great War Society, East Bay Chapter meets to discuss “Small Arms of WWI” by Terry McGill at 10:30 a.m. at 640 Arlington Ave. 527-7118. 

Community Spelling Bee From 3 to 5 p.m. at 1481 Solano Ave., Albany. Students in all grades welcome. Call to sign up. 558-8179. 

Origami at the Albany Library Learn to make a holiday star at 2 p.m. in the Edith Stone Room, Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave. For all ages. 526-3720, ext. 17. 

Dramatically Speaking Holiday Storytelling Party at 9 a.m. at 1950 Franklin St., Room 2F, Oakland. Admission is free, but RSVP required. 581-8675. 

“Discover Spiritual Keys to Life’s Mysteries” from 12:30 to 2:30 p.m. at Preservation Park in Oakland, 660 13th St. 549-2807.  

One on One Animal Communication at 5 p.m. at RabbitEars, 303 Arlington Ave., Kensington. Cost is $25. Appointments required. 525-6155. 

Produce Stand at Spiral Gardens Food Security Project from 1 to 6 p.m. at the corner of Sacramento and Oregon St. 

The Berkeley Lawn Bowling Club provides free instruction at 10:30 a.m. at 2270 Acton St. 841-2174.  

Petite Pooches Playgroup for small dogs from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., one block north of Solano on Ensenada at Talbot. 524-2459. 

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, DEC. 10 

Winter Festival Hands-on activities for the whole family for Christmas, Chanukah and Kwanzaa from 12:30 to 4:30 p.m. at the Oakland Museum of California, 10th and Oak Sts. 238-2200. www.museumca.org 

Chai, Pie and Buy Art Party with artwork donated by local artists to benefit homeless children at the Learning Center and the Ursula Sherman Village, from noon to 4 p.m. at 1208 Peralta at Gilman. 649-1930. www.self-sufficiency.org 

Architecture Tour of the Oakland Museum of California Meet at the koi pond at 1 p.m. 10th and Oak Sts. 238-2200. www.museumca.org 

Telegraph Avenue Holiday Fair with more than 200 vendors, music and food, from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. 

Kensington Holiday Craft Fair from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Kensington Farmers’ Market, Arlington and Amherst. 

Folk Art Nativity Exhibit with over 250 creches from 74 countries on display from noon to 4 p.m. at St. Clement’s Episcopal Church, 2837 Claremeont Blvd. Donation of $15 goes to St. James Food Pantry. 843-2678. 

Chanukah Fair in the afternoon at the JCC, 1414 Walnut St. For more information call 848-0237, ext. 127. 

Free Sailboat Rides from 1 to 4 p.m. at the Cal Sailing Club in the Berkeley Marina. Bring change of clothes, windbreaker, sneakers. For ages 5 and up. cal-sailing.org  

Holiday Appeal for Class-War Prisoners Benefit party for 16 political prisoners including Mumia Abu-Jamal and Leonard Peltier from 1 to 4 p.m. at the YWCA, 1515 Webster St., Oakland. Donation $5-$10. 839-0852. 

“Landmark Cases Left Out of Your Textbooks” with Ann Fagan Ginger and Abiola Afollyn on the Angela Davis case, the Pentagon Papers case and others at 2 p.m. at Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists, Cedar and Bonita. 848-0599. 

“The Last Abortion Clinic” a documentary at 2 p.m. at Parkway Speakeasy Theater, 1834 Park Blvd., Oakland. 415-864-1278.  

East Bay Atheists Solstice Party at 2:30 pm. at Giovanni’s Restaurant, 2420 Shattuckk Ave. 222-7580. 

“The Divine Feminine in the World’s Religions: Judaism” with Anna Matt of the GTU at 9:30 a.m. at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley, One Lawson Rd., Kensington. 525-0302, ext. 306. 

Tibetan Buddhism with Sylvia Gretchen on “Tools for Inner Change” at 6 p.m. at the Tibetan Nyingma Institute, 1815 Highland Pl. 843-6812.  

MONDAY, DEC. 11  

Red Cross Blood Drive from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m at the UC MLK Student Union. To schedule an appointment see www.BeADonor.com 

TUESDAY, DEC. 12 

Anti-Torture Teach-in and Vigil with Trevor Paglen member of the UC Berkeley Geography Department, investigator and author of “Torture Taxi: On the Trail of the CIA’s Rendition Flights” at 12:30 p.m. at Boalt Hall, School of Law, UC Campus. 649-0663. 

“Adventures from the Mojave to the Antarctic” with Lucy Jane Bledsoe at 7 p.m. at REI, 1338 San Pablo Ave. 527-4140. 

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

St. John’s Prime Timers meets at 9:30 a.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. We welcome new members over 50. 845-6830. 

WEDNESDAY, DEC. 13  

Golden Gate Audubon Society Volunteer Orientation Learn about the ways you can help protect local birds and their habitats at 7 p.m. at 2530 San Pablo Ave, Suite G. RSVP to 843-7295.  

“New Treatments for Irregular Heartbeat” with Dr. Steven Kang, cardiologist at 9:30 a.m. at Alta Bates Summit, Merrit Pavillion, Cafeteria Annex B & C, 350 Hawthorne Ave., Oakland. Registration required. 869-6737. 

Poetry Writing Workshop led by Christina Hutchins at 7 p.m. at the Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave. 526-3720, ext. 17. 

New to DVD “The Devil Wears Prada” at 7 p.m. at the JCCEB, 1414 Walnut St. 848-0237. 

“Natural Treatments for Low Back Pain” with Dr. Jay Sordean, LAc, OMD, at 1:15 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-5190. 

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. 548-9840. 

Fresh Produce Stand at San Pablo Park from 3 to 6:30 p.m. in the Frances Albrier Community Center. 848-1704.  

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

vigil4peace/vigil 

THURSDAY, DEC. 14 

“Robert Fisk on Iraq and Lebanon: Pointing the Finger of Guilt” at 7 p.m. at First Presbyterian Church, 2619 Broadway at 27th, Oakland. Donations $20, $50 for reception. 548-0542. 

“Natural Treatments for Low Back Pain” with Dr. Jay Sordean, LAc, OMD, at 1 p.m. at the South Berkeley Senior Center. 981-5174. 

ONGOING 

Help with Medicare Part D Enrollment Seniors who need to enroll in the prescription drug plan, or change their plan can get help and advice at Berkeley Senior Centers. Appointments required. Call 1-800-434-0222. www.lashicap.org 

CITY MEETINGS 

Youth Commission meets Mon., Dec. 11, at 6:30 p.m., at City Council Chambers, Old City Hall. 981-6670.  

City Council meets Tues., Dec. 12, at 7 p.m in City Council Chambers. 981-6900.  

Commission on Disability meets Wed., Dec. 13, at 6:30 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Don Brown, 981-6346. TDD: 981-6345.  

Homeless Commission meets Wed., Dec. 13, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Jane Micallef, 981-5426.  

Planning Commission meets Wed., Dec. 13, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-7484. 

Police Review Commission meets Wed., Dec. 13, at the South Berkeley Senior Center, 981-4950.  

Waterfront Commission meets Wed., Dec. 13, at 7 p.m., at 201 University Ave. 981-6740.  

School Board meets Wed. Dec. 13 at 7:30 p.m., in the City Council Chambers. Mark Coplan 644-6320.


Arts Calendar

Tuesday December 05, 2006

TUESDAY, DEC. 5 

EXHIBITIONS 

“eARTh MATTERS” A exhibition of environmental art opens with a reception at 4 p.m. at the June Steingart Gallery, Laney College Campus, Tower Bldg, 900 Fallon St. and runs through Dec. 22. 841-0588. 

FILM 

Radical Closure “War: The Visible Signs” at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Piri Thomas reads from “Stories from El Barrio” at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698. www.blackoakbooks.com 

Frank Portman reads from “King Dork” at 7:30 p.m. at Moe’s Books, 2476 Telegraph Ave. 849-2087. 

Janell Moon, poet, and Kaylah Marin, singer/songwriter, at Works in Progress Women’s Open Mic, at 7:30 p.m. at Montclair Women's Cultural Arts Club, 1650 Mountain Blvd., Oakland. Cost is $10. 276-0379. 

Sandor Katz on “The Revolution Will Not Be Microwaved: Inside America’s Underground Food Movements” at 7 p.m. at the Ecology Center, 2530 San Pablo Ave. 548-2220. 

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 

The Canadian Brass at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $24-$48. 642-9988. www.calperfs.berkeley.edu 

Tom Rigney & Flambeau at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cajun/zydeco dance lesson at 8 p.m. Cost is $9. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Ellen Hoffman Trio and Singers’ Open Mic at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $5. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

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

Eddie Palmieri y La Perfecta II at 8 and 10 p.m. Yoshi’s at Jack London Square, through Sun. Cost is $22-$26. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

WEDNESDAY, DEC. 6 

CHILDREN 

Fratello Marionettes “Peter and the Wolf” at 7 p.m.. at Oakland Public Library, Main Library Children’s Room, 125 14th St. 238-3615. 

THEATER 

Azeem’s “Rude Boy” Wed.-Thurs. at 8 p.m. at The Marsh, 2120 Allston Way, through Dec. 14. Tickets are $15-$22. 415-826-5750. www.themarsh.org 

FILM 

“Shadya” a documentary of a young Muslim girl in Israel who becomes a karate champion at 6 p.m. at the Oakland Museum of California, 10th and Oak Sts. Cost is $5-$8. 238-2200. www.museumca.org 

“Still Kicking” a documentary on six older women who are still performing at 7:30 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Benefit for the Over 60 Health Center. Donation $10. 849-2568.  

“Switch Off” A documentary on the struggle of Chile’s indigenous people to control their water at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Julia Scheeres describes growing up in a Christian fundamentalist family in “Jesus Land” at 7 p.m. at Revolution Books, 2425 Channing Way at Telegraph. 848-1196. 

Richard Abrams discusses “America Transformed: Sixty Years of Revolutionary Change 1941-2001” at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698. www.blackoakbooks.com 

Berkeley Poetry Slam with host Charles Ellik and Three Blind Mice, at 8:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $5-$7. 841-2082 www.starryploughpub.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Wednesday Noon Concert, with Chamber Chorus and University Chorus “A Child Was Born” at Hertz Hall, UC Campus. Free. 642-4864. http://music.berkeley.edu 

Music for Advent with Ron McKean, organist, at noon at First Presbyterian Church of Oakland, 2619 Broadway. 444-3555. 

WomenSing “Welcome Yule” at 8 p.m. at First Congregational Church, 2345 Channing Way. Tickets are $18-$20. 925-974-9169. www.womensing.org 

Calvin Keys Trio at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $6. 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 

Lost Weekend at 8:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Western swing dance lesson at 7:30 p.m. Cost is $9. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Rumbache, 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.  

Mysterioso, Gypsy and Klezmer tunes, at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

“Music as an Expression of Universal Harmony” Concert and lecture with Chris Caswell and Jon Schreiber at 6 p.m. at the Breema Clinic, 6201 Florio St., Oakland. 428-1234. 

THURSDAY, DEC. 7 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Fresh” New work in a variety of media. Opening reception at 6 p.m. at Kala Art Institute, 1060 Heinz Ave. Runs through Jan. 27. 549-2977. www.kala.org 

“Whitework Embroidery” at Lacis Museum of Lace and Textiles, 2982 Adeline St. Runs through Feb. 5. Hours are Mon.-Sat. noon to 6 p.m. Free. lacismuseum.org 

Semina Culture: Wallace Berman and His Circle Guided tour at 12:15 and 5:30 p.m. in Gallery 2, Berkeley Art Museum, 2626 Bancroft Way. 642-0808. 

Montclair Artists Group Exhibition Opening reception at 6 p.m. at Montclair Gallery, 1986 Mountain Blvd., Oakland. 339-4286. 

THEATER 

Checkov International Theatre “Twelfth Night” at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Playouse, UC Campus. Tickets are $65. 642-9988. 

FILM 

“Intensive Care” short works from the Middle East on the emotional response to violence and conflict at 5:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Free first Thursday. 642-0808.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

M. Nevin Smith on “Native Treasures: Gardening with the Plants of California” at 5:30 p.m. at University Press Books, 2430 Bancroft Way. 548-0585.  

Michael Lewis talks about his new novel of football “The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game” at 7:30 p.m. at Mrs. Dalloways, 2904 College Ave. 704-8222. 

Christina Hutchins, poet, at 7 p.m. at the Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave. 526-3720, ext. 17. 

Lunch Poems with Jack Marshall at 12:10 p.m. in the Morrison Library, in the Doe Library, UC Campus. http://lunchpoems.berkeley.edu 

Tom Laird reads from “Story of Tibet: Conversations with the Dalai Lama” at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698. www.blackoakbooks.com 

Nelson Martini’s Laugh-N-Luau Hosted by Bryan Moore at 9 p.m. at Temple Bar Tiki Bar and Grill, 984 University Ave. 524-6403. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

MLK Jr. Middle School Jazz Band and The Potentials Annual Winter Jazz Concert and Fundraiser at 7:30 p.m. at Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School Auditorium, 1781 Rose St. at Grant. Admission is free, donations requested. 

Marlon Asher & The Ganja Farmer, from Trinidad, at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is tba. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Cris Williamson with Teresa Trull and Barbara Higbie at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $22.50-$23.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

The Tarabinis with Yancie Taylor at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $10. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Eddie Palmieri y La Perfecta II at 8 and 10 p.m. Yoshi’s at Jack London Square, through Sun. Cost is $22-$26. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

Voodoo Economics, Plot Against Rachel, Farwell Typwriter at 8:30 p.m. at the Uptown Nightclub, 1928 Telegraph, Oakland. Cost is $5. 451-8100. www.uptownnightclub.com 

Everyday Stranger, Deep Hello at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $5. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

FRIDAY, DEC. 8 

THEATER 

Altarena Playhouse “ The Man Who Saved Christmas” at holiday family musical Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 p.m. at 1409 High St., Alameda, through Dec. 17. Tickets are $15-$18. 523-1553. www.altarena.org 

Aurora Theatre “Ice Glen” Wed.-Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 and 7 p.m. at 2081 Addison St., through Dec. 10. Tickets are $38. 843-4822. www.auroratheatre.org 

Berkeley Rep “All Wear Bowlers” at the Roda Theater, 2015 Addison St. through Dec. 23. Tickets are $45-$61. 647-2949. 

Checkov International Theatre “Twelfth Night” at 8 p.m. Sat. at 2 and 8 p.m., Sun. at 3 and 7 p.m., at Zellerbach Playouse, UC Campus. Tickets are $65. 642-9988. 

Contra Costa Civic Theater, “And Then There Were None” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m. Sun. at 2 p.m. at 951 Pomona Ave., at Moeser, El Cerrito, through Dec. 9. Tickets are $11-$18. 524-9132. www.ccct.org 

Impact Theater “Jukebox Stories” Thurs.-Sat. at 8 p.m. at La Val’s Subterranean, 1834 Euclid Ave., through Dec. 10. Tickets are $10-$15. 464-4468. www.impacttheatre.com 

Masquers Playhouse “Company” by Stephen Sondheim and George Furth, Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2:30 p.m. at 105 Park Place, Point Richmond, through Dec. 16. Tickets are $18. 232-4031. www.masquers.org  

Naked Masks “Far Away” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m. Sun. at 7 p.m. at Berkeley City Club. Tickets are $10-$20. Runs through Dec. 17. 883-9872. www.nakedmasks.org 

Prophecy Theater, “Broken Moments: What’s Your Pleasure?” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m. at Egypt Theater, 5306 Foothill Blvd., Oakland. Tickets are $15. 1-800-838-3006. 

Shotgun Players “The Forest War” Thurs.-Sun. at 8 p.m. at the Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby Ave., through Jan 14. Sliding scale $15-$30. 841-6500. www.shotgunplayers.org 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Sacred Flame” An exhibition of menorahs, candelabras and votives opens with a reception at 5 p.m. at ACCI Gallery, 1652 Shattuck Ave. 843-2527. 

FILM 

“Burning Man Festival” at 7:30 p.m. in the 3rd Floor Community Room, Berkeley Public Library, 2090 Kittredge St. 981-6100. 

Janus Films: “Il Posto” at 6:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808.  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Berkeley Ballet Theater, “The Nutcracker” at 7 p.m., Sat. at 2 and 7 p.m. and Sun. at 2 p.m. at Julia Morgan Center for the Arts, 2640 College Ave. Tickets are $16-$21. 843-4689. 

Voci Women’s Vocal Ensemble “Voices in Peace” music from the Americas at 8 p.m. at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church. Tickets are $15-$20. 531-8714.  

Bella Musica Chorus and Orchestra Bach’s “Mass in B Minor” at 8 p.m. at Arlington Community Church, 52 Arlington Blvd., Kensington. Suggested dontation $10-$15. 525-5393. www.bellamusica.org 

University Symphony Orchestra at 8 p.m. at Hertz Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $5-$15. 642-4864.  

California Revels “Christmas Revels” Celebrating the stories, songs, dance, and drama of 19th century Quebec, at 7:30 p.m. at Scottish Rite Theater, 1547 Lakeside Drive near Lake Merritt, Oakland. Tickets are $15-$42. 452-3800. www.calrevels.org 

La Familia Son, contemporary Cuban, at 9 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $10. 849-2568. 

Yerbabuena Ballet Flamenco at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $24-$48. 642-9988. www.calperfs.berkeley.edu 

Sacred and Classical Turkish Music Necati Celik on oud and Arif Bicer on ney, with American Sufi musicians at 7:30 p.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. Tickets are $20-$25 at the door. 707-824-2230. 

SFJazz All-Star High School Ensemble at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $12. 845-5373. www.jazzschool.com 

Hanif & The Sound Voyagers at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $10. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Tito y su Son de Cuba at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $13. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Cris Williamson with Teresa Trull & Barbara Higbie at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $22.50-$23.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org  

The Nomadics, jazz, at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

Ragwater Revue, Vermillion Lies, Kira Lynn Cain at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $6. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

Iron Age, Cold World, Never Healed at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St., an all-ages, member-run, no alcohol, no drugs, no violence club. Cost is $7. 525-9926. 

Les Nubians, Jennifer Johns, Femi at 9 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low, 2284 Shattuck Ave. Tickets are $20 in advance from ticketweb.com . 548-1159.  

Subnautic at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Eddie Palmieri y La Perfecta II at 8 and 10 p.m. Yoshi’s at Jack London Square, through Sun. Cost is $22-$26. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

SATURDAY, DEC. 9 

CHILDREN  

Los Amiguitos de La Peña with Colibri, Latin American music for the whole family, at 10:30 a.m. at La Peña. Cost is $4 for adults, $3 for children. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Gris Grimly reads from “Santa Claws” at 4 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. 

Elmwood Theater Matinee Benefit for local schools showing “Shrek 2” at 10 a.m. and noon, and noon on Sun. Cost is $2. Sponsored by Elmwood merchants. 843-3794. 

EXHIBITIONS 

3rd Annual Albany Community Art Show & Sale from noon to 6 p.m. at the Albany Community Center, 1249 Marin Ave., Albany. Features the work of many local artists. The event is free and wheelchair accessible. 524-9283. 

THEATER 

Checkov International Theatre “Twelfth Night” at 2 and 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Playouse, UC Campus. Tickets are $65. 642-9988. 

“Wong Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” Solo performance by Kristina Wong at 8 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $10-$12. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Seldom Seen Acting Company of St. Vincent de Paul “Rock Bottom Hope” at 7 p.m. at Oakland Museum's James Moore Theatre, 1000 Oak St., Oakland. Tickets are $20. 812-9421. 

FILM 

“Rare Rockin’ Film Clips” with rock historian Richie Unterberger at 10 p.m. at Fellini Restaurant, 1401 University Ave. Free. 841-5200.  

Janus Films “La strada” at 5 p.m. and “Seven Samurai” at 7:10 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Jeff Norman introduces “Temescal Legacies” at 2 p.m. at the Temescal Branch of the Oakland Public Library, 5205 Telegraph Ave. 597-5049. 

John Scharffenberger discusses “The Essence of Chocolate” at 2 p.m. at Mrs. Dalloways, 2904 College Ave. 704-8222. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Berkeley Ballet Theater, “The Nutcracker” at 2 and 7 p.m. and Sun. at 2 p.m. at Julia Morgan Center for the Arts, 2640 College Ave. Tickets are $16-$21. 843-4689. 

Yerbabuena Ballet Flamenco at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $24-$48. 642-9988. www.calperfs.berkeley.edu 

Oakland East Bay Symphony “Messiah” Singalong at 8 p.m. at Paramount Theater, 2025 Broadway, Oakand. Tickets are $15-$28. 625-8497. www.oebs.org 

Oakland-East Bay Gay Men’s Chorus “Pacem” at 8 p.m. at Lakedhore Avenue Baptist Church, 3534 Lakeshore Ave., Oakland. Tickets are $12-$15. www.oebgmc.org 

Kairos Youth Choir “Choose Something Like a Star” at 7 p.m. at Veterans Memorial Auditorium, 1325 Portland St., Albany. Tickets are $10-$12. 704-4479.  

Kensington Symphony performs holiday favorites by Handel, Johann Strauss, (pere and fils), Tchaikovsky, Telemann, others, at 8 p.m. at Northminster Presbyterian Church, 545 Ashbury Ave., El Cerrito. Suggested donation $12-$15, children free. 524-9912. 

California Revels “Christmas Revels” Celebrating the stories, songs, dance, and drama of 19th century Quebec, Sat. and Sun. at 1 and 5 p.m. at Scottish Rite Theater, 1547 Lakeside Drive near Lake Merritt, Oakland. Tickets are $15-$42. 452-3800. www.calrevels.org 

Oakland School for the Arts Concert Ensemble performs carols and gospel music at 3 p.m. at Chapel of the Chimes, 4499 Piedmont Ave., Oakland. Free, donations accepted. 228-3207. 

Rhythm & Muse Open Mic features jazz vocalist Felice York with Eliza Shefler, jazz piano, at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Art Center, 1275 Walnut St., between Eunice & Rose Sts. 644-6893.  

University Symphony Orchestra at 8 p.m. at Hertz Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $5-$15. 642-4864. http://music.berkeley.edu 

La Pena Community Chorus at 7 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $15. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Pete Excovedo & Ray Obiedo with Mambo Caribe at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $15. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Groundation, reggae, at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $15-$18. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com  

Holler Town and Ronnie Cato at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

 

 

 


Arts and Entertainment Around the East Bay

Tuesday December 05, 2006

THE POLITICS OF WATER 

 

At 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Pacific Film Archive will screen Manel Mayol’s 2005 documentary Switch Off. The film documents the efforts of the Pehuenche-Mapuche, the indigenous people of Chile’s Ralco Valley, to stop a Spanish hydroelectric firm from constructing one of the world’s largest dams. The Mapuche have resisted all kinds of intruders over the centuries, including the Incas and the Spanish conquistadors, but the battle against Endesa also means battling the Chilean government, which has used its anti-terrorism laws to put down dissent. 87 minutes. $4-$8. 2575 Bancroft Way. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu. 

 

 

FRESH at KALA 

 

“Fresh,” an exhibit at Kala Art Institute opens with a reception Thursday, 6 p.m., 1060 Heinz Ave. More than 50 artists will be exhibiting their work through Jan. 27. Kala Gallery hours are Tuesday-Friday, noon-5:30 p.m., and Saturday, noon-4:30 p.m. For more information, call 549-2977 or see www.kala.org. 

 

 

BERKELEY BALLET NUTCRACKER 

 

Berkeley Ballet Theater presents The Nutcracker Friday, 7 p.m., Saturday, 2 p.m. and 7 p.m., Sunday, 2 p.m., at the Julia Morgan Center, 2640 College Ave. Tickets $16-$21. For more information, call 843-4689. 

 


Wallace Berman and His Circle at BAM

By Peter Selz, Special to the Planet
Tuesday December 05, 2006

Wallace Berman was perhaps the last true Bohemian—a denizen of the Beat counterculture, which was Bohemia’s successor. Berman constructed his life and art outside the establishment, and he and his coterie of many friends were in search of an art that confirmed their nonconformist lifestyle. Berman was a man of many talents: poet, draftsman, sculptor and, as we see throughout the exhibition, a fine, rather conventional portrait photographer.  

He is best known as the inventor of Verifax collages in which a hand holds up a transistor radio in which a photograph has been inserted in the place of the speaker. Mysterious images and Hebrew letters were arranged in grids by the artist. The word itself, derived from Latin, suggests “true facts.”  

Between 1955 and 1964 Berman issued nine editions of his loose-leaf journal, Semina. It was printed in editions of a few hundred copies and sent out irregularly and gratis. It published early translations of Herman Hesse’s poems and poems by Jean Cocteau, Charles Baudelaire and Rabindranath Tagore, together with “Beat” poems by Allen Ginsberg, Philip Lamentia, Diane di Prima, David Meltzer, Michael McClure and Jack Hirshman, among others.  

Berman was also involved in the early avant-garde gallery scene in California. He had a solo show at the Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles in 1957 and was an early partner of the Dilexi Gallery when it opened in San Francisco in 1958. He is seen as the link between the anarchist avant-garde in Venice and North Beach. 

The show at the Berkeley Art Museum was organized by the Santa Monica Museum of Art. Berman lived in Santa Monica and produced the first issues of Semina there where his friend Bob Alexander taught him to print. Baza, as Alexander was called, also founded the Temple of Man and ordained those whom he invited. In 1960 Berman moved to a shack in Larkspur after his ill-fated show at the Ferus in Los Angeles in 1957. 

He had exhibited rather esoteric pieces with the motto: “Art is Love is God” in that space, when police officers, who had heard that the show was pornographic, stormed into the gallery. Ironically, they failed to notice an image of coitus hanging on a sculpture called “Cross” (1956-57). There was, however, an erotic, rather weird, but finely drawn picture of a woman having intercourse with a monster. It was made by Cameron {Marjorie Cameron], but the police arrested Berman, who would never again show in a commercial gallery after being brutalized by the LAPD. 

The show at the Berkeley Art Museum is mostly documentary. It includes, however, many notable and some excellent works of art. The above-mentioned Cameron drawing is there, as well as about a hundred items by Berman himself, including the fabulous Verifax collage, “Untitled (A7-Mushroom, D4-Cross),” (1966). 

There is a superb black and white painting by Jay DeFeo, “Temple (for B.C.)” (1980), and there are several works in different media by Bruce Conner himself. George Herms, the other principal assemblage artist is represented with his “Temple of the Sun” (1964), a large old steamer trunk, holding many esoteric objects. In addition to Joan Brown’s famous “Fur Rat” (1962) from the Berkeley Art Museum’s Funk collection, there is the vulnerable “Man on Horseback” (1957). And there are also collages by Los Angeles’ sardonic Llyn Foulkes. 

Fascinating are the many different artifacts and documents of lesser-known artists, poets, choreographers and performers. And there are works by members of the Berman circle who were, or became movie stars: Dean Stockwell has collages and assemblages of the ‘50s and ‘60s in the show, and there are excellent photographs by Dennis Hopper, including a photograph of Berman sitting triumphant on his motorcycle in 1964. Ten years later Wallace Berman was killed in an automobile accident on his 50th birthday, on the day he predicted he would die. 

 

Photograph: Berman's "Untitled (A7-Mushroom, D4-Cross)" (1966), a 56 -image Verifax collage.


Revels Mark Holiday Season

By Ken Bullock, Special to the Planet
Tuesday December 05, 2006

Once again, California Revels celebrates the Winter Solstice holidays with the 21st Christmas Revels: music and song, Morris and step dance, pomp and proclamations, choruses and soloists—as well as the popular participatory sing-along and the line-dance that runs through the entire audience, now a tradition—amid a sumptuous spectacle of holiday customs from other times, other places, all to unfold over the next two weekends at the Oakland Scottish Rite Theater, by Lake Merritt. 

This year the dance, drama, storytelling and “kitchen music” of 19th century Quebec will be celebrated, with guest performers Pierre Chartrand of Montreal, master dancer, dance caller and choreographer, cofounder of Danse Cadence; musician David Cahn of Seattle; and featured dancers Kalia Kliban of Sebastopol and Sarah Brug of Menlo Park (originally Montreal). 

The pageantry will be set in Trois Rivieres, now the province’s second or third largest city, but once a tiny village in the snow-covered forests of the 19th century. “Much of the show is based on a popular folktale, ‘The Flying Canoe,’ or ‘La Chasse galerie,’” said Dirk Burns, California Revels executive director. “There are many versions, but they all entail trappers or lumberjacks far from home, making a deal with the devil to fly their canoe back home in time for the holidays. In our version, there will be a dance-off with the devil to decide the fate of the voyageurs!”  

So join in with the other revelers when the Master of the Revels proclaims that the festivities have begun. 

 

 

The California Revels, Dec. 8-10 and 15-17, Fri., 7:30 p.m. and Sat-Sun., 1 and 5 p.m. at the Oakland Scottish Rite Theater, by Lake Merritt, 1547 Lakeside Drive. Tickets: $15-42. 452-3800 or www.calrevels.org


Other Minds Festival Begins This Weekend

By Ken Bullock, Special to the Planet
Tuesday December 05, 2006

The Other Minds Festival of New Music, now in its 12th year, presents concerts featuring the work of composers and improvisors from Norway, Australia, Canada, Germany, Holland, France—and Emeryville— this Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m., with composer panel discussions at 7 p.m., and on Sunday at 2 p.m. (panel at 1 p.m.) in Kanbar Hall at the San Francisco Jewish Community Center, 3200 California St. Tickets are $30 ($20 students) with three show packages at $72, through otherminds.org, (415) 292-1233, or at the SFJCC box office. 

“We have no theme, but try to bring older and younger composers together, those with 50 years composing experience with others just starting their careers,” said Other Minds founder and artistic director Charles Amirkhanian. “We have a four-day retreat at the Djerassi Ranch, which creates an internal mentoring situation. That chemistry’s irreplaceable.” 

This year, the “elder statesmen,” Amirkhanian said, include “the leading composers of their respective countries,” Peter Sculthorpe of Australia (whose “Saibai” for violin and piano will be played Fri. and “String Quartet #16 for Strings, with didjeridu,” Stephen Kent on didjeridu, will premiere Sun.) and Per Norgard of Norway (”Harvest-Timeless,” a string quartet, plays Fri. and “Wie ein Kind” for mixed chorus a capella on Sat.). 

Younger Norwegian composer Maja Radtke’s “Gagaku Variations” for accordion and string quartet plays Friday; on Saturday she performs with fellow Norwegians POING. “She’s a phenomenal performer,” Amirkhanian noted, “doing gymnastics with her voice, producing electronic sounds off her laptop to saxophone, accordion, bass ... yet composes string quartets as well. This is the type of new development we’re seeing in the younger composers.”  

Emeryville’s Daniel David Feinsmith’s Other Minds-commissioned “Elohim” will premier Friday. 

Canadian composer Ronald Bruce Smith’s “String Quartet #2, ‘Nostalgia,’” with material from Ravel and Bill Evans, will be played Sunday by Del Sol Quartet, “the house band,” to whom the piece is dedicated. At intermission Sunday, outside Kanbar Hall, VCS Radio, new music ensemble from Vacaville Christian School, under Ralph Martin’s direction, premieres their “Electrical Resonance Symphony,” to the memory of Nicolai Tesla, plated on conventional instruments, Theremin and Tesla Coil. 

Markus Stockhausen, son of renowned composer Karlheinz Stockhausen, performs “Compositions, improvisations and intuitive music” with Tara Bouman on Sunday as well. The other improvisor on the bill, Joelle Leandre, well-known to free jazz fans as a virtuosic double bassist, will play Sat. with Gunda Gottschalk and Xia Fengxia. Among the eminent international musicians performing during the festival will be Swiss pianist Eva-Maria Zimmerman. 

For more information, see www.otherminds.org. 

 


Barn Owls: House Hunting in Berkeley

By Penny Bartlett, Special to the Planet
Tuesday December 05, 2006

Editor’s note: The following article was submitted to Joe Eaton in response to his call for readers’ stories about barn owls. His column will return the Tuesday after next. 

 

It was just after dark on an evening in late July when I heard that screeching noise again. Raspy and raucous, reminding me of fingernails on a blackboard. It went on into the night with only occasional pauses. I had heard it the previous summer for a couple of months; it seemed to be coming from a tree next door. I never got around to finding out what it was and never noticed when it stopped. 

But now it was back. This time I would find out. I went out the gate onto Sacramento Street, looking at the tall trees in my neighbors’ yards. The screeching was louder but not nearby. I walked down the block, crossed Bancroft and continued into the next block. The sound was obnoxious. 

It was coming from a large Canary Island palm tree in somebody’s back yard. I did some minor stalking to see which yard it was, then knocked on a front door. 

The woman living there told me the palm tree was just over her back fence. Every year a pair of barn owls nested there, and every summer the babies made a huge racket at night, most of the night. Her daughter’s bedroom was close to the tree and sometimes it was hard for the daughter to sleep. I couldn’t imagine sleeping there since I could hear the noise clearly a block away. And who would have thought an owl could make such sounds; owls are supposed to hoot.  

A palm tree in the middle of Berkeley seemed a strange home for a barn owl, but I learned that they will also nest in cliffs, riverbanks, caves, church steeples, haystacks and even duck nesting boxes. Since there aren’t a lot of barns or haystacks in Berkeley, maybe a palm tree is upscale urban housing. If they nest in a tree it’s in a hollow cavity. Maybe under the mop of palm fronds there was a nice invisible hole. 

Now I began hearing other owl sounds almost every night. A short screech above me as I walked down the path to my house. Metallic clicking sounds and the smallest fluff of wings beating close overhead. A series of raspy screeches right outside my bedroom window as I fell asleep. How had I not noticed all this before? 

I had glimpses of a soft shadow sailing over a neighbor’s fence. I stood on the sidewalk in front of the palm tree in the moonlight and saw a shadow fly into the crown of the tree. 

The racket calmed down and I assumed some owlets were gulping rodent delicacies. 

Usually nestlings are quiet when parents are hunting until the parents approach with food, but these barn owlets kept up a continuous squawking. I thought maybe they just didn’t like being left alone; then learned that only the male hunts and mama is always home. The male hands his catch over to her and she tears it up and feeds the chicks and herself. It seemed strange that mama’s presence didn’t quiet the kids. 

During July and August the night chorus got gradually louder, then at the end of summer it stopped. I found another palm tree neighbor who had watched owlets fall out of the nest each year and bump around on the ground until their wings were strong enough to fly. 

She had seen this year’s brood and watched parents feeding them on the ground; now the kids had gone off on their own. 

Early the next summer I was paying attention. Then one night I saw a pair of ghostly white birds doing an aerial dance above Allston Way near Sacramento. Barn owls look brownly speckled from above but seen from below they are white. 

I watched them soaring and swooping around each other in graceful loops, clicking their bills and screeching. It looked like owl love. 

A week later I was sitting outside in the dusk with my neighbors when I heard screeches coming closer. I shouted to everyone to look up, and there came both owls, passing not too far above our heads in looping sensuous flight, shrieking as they went. 

A few weeks later the nighttime rackety chorus began, but this time it stopped sooner than in previous years. 

I wondered if all the chicks had fallen out of the nest early. I also knew the local raccoon posse loved to hang out in palm trees, and raccoons will eat anything. 

That winter I was driving down Sacramento when I noticed a big bare spot where the palm tree had been. It had been cut down. No more owl house.  

That was a year ago. Last summer was quiet. No owls. 

But a few nights ago while working at my computer, I heard a faint sound of fingernails on blackboard. It was far away. Then last night, falling asleep, there was a loud screech outside my window. 

I thought, yay! They’re back! But on reflection: either they’re hunting for food, or in this town, where it’s hard to find a place to live and the landlord can tear your house down, they may just be house hunting. 


Berkeley This Week

Tuesday December 05, 2006

TUESDAY, DEC. 5 

UC Regents Meeting in SF to decide the fate of the oak trees in Berkeley. Save the Oaks at the Stadium will arrange carpools to the meeting, scheduled for 4:30 p.m. at UCSF’s Mission Bay campus in the Community Center building, 1675 Owens St. in SF. Contact us for information and to share rides info@saveoaks.com or 841-3493.  

The Future of Lower Codornices Creek is in Your Hands The Codornices Creek Watershed Council is sponsoring a meeting so that the public can learn about restoration plans for the lower portion of Codornices Creek above Frontage Road and I-80 to the Union Pacific railroad tracks. It will include a presentation by Far West Restoration Engineering on restoration designs and land use scenarios for this area. From 7 to 9 p.m. at Four Corners Room, University Village Community Center, 1123 Jackson St., Albany. Enter UC Village from 8th St. 452-0901. 

Anti-Torture Teach-in and Vigil with Carlos Mauricio, survivor of torture by a Salvadoran death squad, at 12:30 p.m. at Boalt Hall, School of Law, UC BCAmpus. 649-0663. 

“Surviving the Next Pandemic: Bird Flu and Other Emerging Infectious Diseases” with Michael Greger, M.D. at 7 p.m. at Humanist Hall, 390 27th St., Oakland. Free, but RSVP requested. 925-487-4419. 

“When the Environment and Politics Collide: Recent Developments in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta” With Mike Taugher, environmental raporter, Contra Costa Times, at 5:30 p.m. at Golman School of Public Policy, Room 250, UC Campus. 642-2666. 

Senior Strength Training at 10 a.m. at the Berkeley YMCA, 2001 Allston Way. Free and open to the public. To register call 848-6834, ext. 502. 

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. 

Wreath Making Workshop from 7 to 9 p.m. at the UC Botanical Garden, 200 Centennial Drive. Cost is $25-$30. Registration required. 643-2755. 

Discussion Salon on Homeland Security at 7 p.m. at JCC, 1414 Walnut.  

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. In case of questionable weather, call around 8 a.m. 215-7672, 524-9992. 

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

WEDNESDAY, DEC. 6  

“Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill” Benefit screening and discussion with Judy Irving, the film’s producer and Mark Bittner, at 6:30 p.m. at Oakland Zoo, 9777 Golf Links Rd, in Knowland Park, Oakland. Cost is $12-$20 sliding scale, children $5. Proceeds benefit Mickaboo Cockatiel Rescue. 632-9525, ext. 122. www.oaklandzoo.org 

“Liberty and Leviathan” An evening with Robert Higgs discussing his new book “Depression, War and Cold War” and Thomas S. Szasz. Reception at 6:30 p.m., program at 7 p.m. at The Independent Institute, 100 Swan Way, Oakland. Cost is $10-$15. 632-1366.  

“The Role of Petroleum in the International World of High Finance” with Al Goldman at 1 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center, 1901 Hearst Ave. 981-5190. 

Wreath Making Workshop from 7 to 9 p.m. at the UC Botanical Garden, 200 Centennial Drive. Cost is $25-$30. Registration required. 643-2755. 

“Skiing Colorado’s 14ers” with free skier Chris Davenport at 7 p.m. at REI, 1338 San Pablo Ave. 527-4140. 

New to DVD “40 Up” at 7 p.m. at the JCCEB, 1414 Walnut St. 848-0237. 

“Shadya” a documentary of a young Muslim girl in Israel who becomes a karate champion at 6 p.m. at the Oakland Museum of California, 10th and Oak Sts. Cost is $5-$8. 238-2200.  

Red Cross Blood Drive from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m at UCB Fiji fraternity, 2395 Piedmont Ave. To schedule an appointment see www.BeADonor.com 

Red Cross Blood Services Volunteer Orientation at 10 a.m. at 6230 Claremont Ave., Oakland. Registration required. 594-5165. 

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

Fresh Produce Stand at San Pablo Park from 3 to 6:30 p.m. in the Frances Albrier Community Center. 848-1704.  

THURSDAY, DEC. 7 

Rally to Drive Out the Bush Regime and Call for Impeachment at noon at Sproul Plaza, UC Campus. 

Celebration of Human Rights Day and World AIDS Day with spoken word, poetry, dance, drumming and prayer at 7:30 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center, 3105 Shattuck Ave. Donation $7. 849-2568. 

Derby Street Athletic Field Community Meeting to discuss plan options at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Technical Academy, formerly Berkeley Alternative High School, 2701 Martin Luther King Jr. Way. 644-6320. 

Returning the Oakland School Oakland School District to Local Control, with Sandre Swanson, Betty Olson-Jones, Dan Siegel and others, at 7 p.m. at OUSD, 1025 Second Ave., Oakland. 272-6060. 

Avatar Metaphysical Toastmasters Club meets at 6:45 p.m. at Spud's Pizza, 3290 Adeline at Alcatraz. namaste@avatar. 

freetoasthost.info 

FRIDAY, DEC. 8 

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 Michael Sturtz on The Crucible, a non-profit educational colaboration of arts, industry at community. 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.  

“The Ground Truth” A documentary about soldiers returning home from Iraq at 7 p.m. at Buena Vista United Methodist Church, 2311 Buena Vista Ave., Alameda, followed by a panel discussion. Sponsored by the Lt. Ehren Watada Support Committee. Suggested donation $5. 527-1401. 

Womansong Circle with Betsy Rose “Fertile Darkness, Winter Light” at 7 p.m. at First Congregational Church of Berkeley, 2345 Channing Way at Dana. Cost is $15-$20. 525-7082. 

Chai, Pie and Buy Art Party with artwork donated by local artists to benefit homeless children at the Learning Center and the Ursula Sherman Village, from 5 to 7 p.m. at 1208 Peralta at Gilman. Also Sat. and Sun. from noon to 4 p.m. 649-1930. www.self-sufficiency.org 

“The Heart of the Buddha’s Message: The Middle Way and Other Disputed Concepts in Early Buddhism” with Oliver Firberger of the Univ. of Texas, at 5 p.m. at IEAS Conference Room, 2223 Fulton St., 6th flr., 643-6536. 

Women in Black Vigil, from noon to 1 p.m. at UC Berkeley, Bancroft at Telegraph. wibberkeley@yahoo.com 548-6310, 845-1143. 

SATURDAY, DEC. 9 

Berkeley Hills Path Walk led by Charlie Bowen, head of Berkeley Path Wanderers Assoc.’s path-improvement efforts. Meet at 10 a.m. at the toddler play area at Glendale LaLoma Park. Wear shoes with good traction and bring a walking stick. www.berkeleypaths.org 

“Holiday Sustainability Event” Make new toys out of reclaimed lumber, sew hats and stockings from salvaged fabrics and produce decorative wrapping paper, from noon to 4 p.m. at the Tinkers Workshop, 84 Bolivar Drive alongside Berkeley’s Aquatic Park. Fees for materials will be minimal or by donation. www.tinkersworkshop.org 

Berkeley Farmers’ Market Holiday Crafts Fair from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Center St. at Martin Luther King Jr. Way with local craftspepole, live music and prepared food. Benefits the Ecology Center. 548-3333.  

Telegraph Avenue Holiday Fair with more than 200 vendors, music and food, Sat. and Sun. from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. 

Holiday Fair at California College of the Arts, with live jazz and gifts made by students, alumni and staff, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at 5212 Broadway at College Ave., Oakland. 594-3666. 

3rd Annual Albany Community Art Show from 9 a.m. to noon at the Albany Community Center, 1249 Marin Ave., Albany. 524-9283. 

iPride Holiday Craft Celebration with special activities for children, from noon to 5 p.m. at 1581 LeRoy Ave. Benefits iPride’s work with multi-ethnic adopted children. 832-2375. www.ipride.org 

World of Good Development Organization Fundraiser with fair trade handcrafts from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. at 1380 10th St., near Gilman. www.worldofgood.com 

Folk Art Nativity Exhibit with over 250 creches from 74 countries on display from 5 to 8 p.m., Sat. from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Sun. from noon to 4 p.m. at St. Clement’s Episcopal Church, 2837 Claremeont Blvd. Donation of $15 goes to St. James Food Pantry. 843-2678. 

“Afghan Women: Victims of War” with Rahima Haya, co-founder of the Afghan Women's Association International at 2 p.m. at Berkeley City College, 2020 Center St., basement auditorium.  

“The State of Surveillance” Government Monitoring of Political Activity in Northern and Central California” with Mark Schlossberg, Police Practices Policy Director, ACLU, at 7 p.m. at Home of Truth Center, 1300 Grand St., ALameda. www.alamedaforum.org 

“Framing of an Execution” A documentary by Danny Glover on the case of Mumia Abu Jamal at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Unitarian Universalists Hall, 1924 Cedar St. at Bonita. Suggested donation $5-$10, no one turned away. 526-4402. 

Dimond Winter Festival “An Interfaith Celebration” from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Fruitvale Presbyterian Church, 2735 Mac Arthur Blvd. & Coolidge, Oakland. Donation $5. Canned goods appreciated, also. All ages welcome. 336-0105. 

Berkeley Lighted Boat Parade at 6 p.m. at the Berkeley Marina and Pier. 

Tree Trimming Contest from 1 to 6 p.m. at Expression Art Gallery, 2035 Ashby Ave. 644-4930. 

Vegetarian Cooking Class “A Healthful Holiday Feast” from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at First Unitarian Church of Oakland, 685 14th St., at Castro, Oakland. Cost is $50. To register, please call 531-2665. www.compassionatecooks.com 

“Solar Electricity For Your Home” A seminar from 10 a.m to 5 p.m. at Building Education Center, 812 Page St. Cost is $75. 525-7610. 

Wreath Making Workshop from 7 to 9 p.m. at the UC Botanical Garden, 200 Centennial Drive. Cost is $25-$30. Registration required. 643-2755. 

“Temescal Legacies...” with Jeff Norman, Temescal resident and artist at 2 p.m. at Temescal Library, 5205 Telegraph Ave., Oakland. 597-5049. 

“Local Wildlife and Habitat” with naturalist Josiah Clarke at 10 a.m. at Stanford Ave. Natural Habitat Garden, Stanford Ave. and Vallejo St., Oakland. Free, donations accepted. 428-2082. 

Great War Society, East Bay Chapter meets to discuss “Small Arms of WWI” by Terry McGill at 10:30 a.m. at 640 Arlington Ave. 527-7118. 

Community Spelling Bee From 3 to 5 p.m. at 1481 Solano Ave., Albany. Students in all grades welcome. Call to sign up. 558-8179. 

Origami at the Albany Library Learn to make a holiday star at 2 p.m. in the Edith Stone Room, Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave. For all ages. 526-3720, ext. 17. 

Dramatically Speaking Holiday Storytelling Party at 9 a.m. at 1950 Franklin St., Room 2F, Oakland. Admission is free, but RSVP required. 581-8675. 

“Discover Spiritual Keys to Life’s Mysteries” from 12:30 to 2:30 p.m. at Preservation Park in Oakland, 660 13th St. 549-2807.  

One on One Animal Communication at 5 p.m. at RabbitEars, 303 Arlington Ave., Kensington. Cost is $25. Appointments required. 525-6155. 

Produce Stand at Spiral Gardens Food Security Project from 1 to 6 p.m. at the corner of Sacramento and Oregon St. 

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. www.nativeplants.org 

Around the World Tour of Plants at 1:30 p.m., Thurs., Sat. and Sun. at UC Botanical Garden, 200 Centennial Drive. 643-2755. http://botanicalgarden.berkeley.edu 

Car Wash Benefit for Options Recovery Services of Berkeley, held every Sat. from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Lutheran Church, 1744 University Ave. 666-9552. 

SUNDAY, DEC. 10 

Winter Festival Hands-on activities for the whole family for Christmas, Chanukah and Kwanzaa from 12:30 to 4:30 p.m. at the Oakland Museum of California, 10th and Oak Sts. 238-2200. www.museumca.org 

Chai, Pie and Buy Art Party with artwork donated by local artists to benefit homeless children at the Learning Center and the Ursula Sherman Village, from noon to 4 p.m. at 1208 Peralta at Gilman. 649-1930. www.self-sufficiency.org 

Architecture Tour of the Oakland Museum of California Meet at the koi pond at 1 p.m. 10th and Oak Sts. 238-2200. www.museumca.org 

Telegraph Avenue Holiday Fair with more than 200 vendors, music and food, from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. 

Kensington Holiday Craft Fair from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Kensington Farmers’ Market, Arlington and Amherst. 

Folk Art Nativity Exhibit with over 250 creches from 74 countries on display from noon to 4 p.m. at St. Clement’s Episcopal Church, 2837 Claremeont Blvd. Donation of $15 goes to St. James Food Pantry. 843-2678. 

Chanukah Fair in the afternoon at the JCC, 1414 Walnut St. For more information call 848-0237, ext. 127. 

Free Sailboat Rides from 1 to 4 p.m. at the Cal Sailing Club in the Berkeley Marina. Bring change of clothes, windbreaker, sneakers. For ages 5 and up. cal-sailing.org  

Holiday Appeal for Class-War Prisoners Benefit party for 16 political prisoners including Mumia Abu-Jamal and Leonard Peltier from 1 to 4 p.m. at the YWCA, 1515 Webster St., Oakland. Donation $5-$10. 839-0852. 

“Landmark Cases Left Out of Your Textbooks” with Ann Fagan Ginger and Abiola Afollyn on the Angela Davis case, the Pentagon Papers case and others at 2 p.m. at Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists, Cedar and Bonita. 848-0599. 

“The Last Abortion Clinic” a documentary at 2 p.m. at Parkway Speakeasy Theater, 1834 Park Blvd., Oakland. 415-864-1278.  

East Bay Atheists Solstice Party at 2:30 pm. at Gionvanni’s Restaurant, 2420 Shattuckk Ave. 222-7580. 

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

“The Divine Feminine in the World’s Religions: Judaism” with Anna Matt of the GTU at 9:30 a.m. at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley, One Lawson Rd., Kensington. 525-0302, ext. 306. 

Tibetan Buddhism with Sylvia Gretchen on “Tools for Inner Change” at 6 p.m. at the Tibetan Nyingma Institute, 1815 Highland Pl. 843-6812. www.nyingmainstitute.com 

MONDAY, DEC. 11  

Red Cross Blood Drive from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m at the MLK Student Union, UC Campus. To schedule an appointment see www.BeADonor.com 

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

ONGOING 

UN Association’s UNICEF & Fair Trade Gift Center Closing Sale, Tues.-Sat. noon to 5 p.m. to Dec. 16, 1403 Addison St. 849-1752. 

Holiday Food Drive Sponsor a Food Drive at your business, school, place of worship or community center. Help the Food Bank reach its goal of collecting food for families in need during the holiday season. 635-3663, ext. 318. www.accfb.org  

Magnes Museum Docent Training Open to all interested in Jewish art and history. Classes begin Jan. 18th. For information contact cultural.arts@sbcglobal.net 

CITY MEETINGS 

City Council meets Tues., Dec. 5, at 7 p.m in City Council Chambers. 981-6900. www.ci. 

berkeley.ca.us/citycouncil 

Commission on the Status of Women meets Wed., Dec. 6, at 7:30 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-5190. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/women 

Disaster and Fire Safety Commission meets Wed., Dec. 6, at 7 p.m., at the Emergency Operations Center, 997 Cedar St. Gil Dong, 981-5502. www.ci.berkeley.ca. us/commissions/disaster 

Downtown Area Plan Advisory Commission meets Wed. Dec. 6, at 7 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-7487. 

Library Board of Trustees Special Meeting, Wed. Dec. 6 at 7 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Could not be confirmed at press time, call for further information 981-6195. http://www.berkeleypubliclibrary.org/support/bolt.html 

School Board meets Wed. Dec. 6, at 7:30 p.m., in the City Council Chambers. 644-6320. 

Housing Advisory Commission meets Thurs., Dec. 7, at 7:30 p.m., at the South Berkeley Senior Center. 981-5400. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/housing 

Landmarks Preservation Commission meets Thurs., Dec. 7, at 7:30 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Gisele Sorensen, 981-7419. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/landmarks 

 

The Berkeley Daily Planet lists local community and arts events in our calendars on a space available basis. Preference is given to local non-profits. As we run week-long calendars, we appreciate receiving the information at least two weeks in advance. Please send information in the body of an email, not as an attachment, to calendar@berkeleydailyplanet.com