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Ayr, one of the ground crewmembers supporting the tree-in protest at the California Memorial Stadium grove, took a painting break Monday afternoon. An archaeological record has raised the possibility of a Native American burial ground at the site. Photo by Richard Brenneman.
Ayr, one of the ground crewmembers supporting the tree-in protest at the California Memorial Stadium grove, took a painting break Monday afternoon. An archaeological record has raised the possibility of a Native American burial ground at the site. Photo by Richard Brenneman.
 

News

Oak Grove May Be Native American Burial Site

By Richard Brenneman
Tuesday February 20, 2007

Rediscovered evidence of Native American burials at the site of UC Berkeley’s Memorial Stadium—omitted in university environmental documents—raises new questions about the future of the oak grove beside the stadium where the university is planning a massive building project. 

Despite evidence in the university’s files of the burial site, key environmental documents were adopted by the UC Regents for the project without the archaeological survey which appears to be required by the California Environmental Quality Act when human remains have been found on a building site. 

“I’m quite concerned about this apparent whitewash of what could be a significant environmental resource,” said Stephan Volker, an attorney for one of the plaintiff groups now challenging university plans in court. “This appears to be a critical omission in the university’s environmental review.” 

Zachary Running Wolf, the former Berkeley mayoral candidate and Native American activist who began the ongoing tree-sitting protest in a grove of coastal live oaks at the site of a planned high-tech gym immediately west of the stadium, agreed. 

Running Wolf was arrested by university police Friday on suspicion of vandalism within hours of turning a copy of a record of the presence of human remains on the site over to the Daily Planet. He was served with an order to remain off-campus for 14 days, then released on $3,000 bail. 

“I am going back into the tree,” he said after his release. “I told them that if they go into the tree after me, I will see it as a threat and respond accordingly. If they attack me, they are attacking my entire community.” 

The record he obtained comes from the university’s Phoebe Hearst Museum of Anthropology. a single sheet of paper he said was provided “by someone at the university with a conscience.” It reports the discovery of “burials removed during the building of the U.C. stadium.” 

The activist described the discovery of the burials records as “very important for our people. I had always suspected there might be burials here,” he said. 

University officials were unavailable for comment Monday because of the Presidents Day holiday. 

Discovery of evidence of burials at the site could throw more complications into the university’s plans, bringing into play sections of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) regulating treatment of religious and burial sites as well as other provisions of state law. 

 

Site records 

The document, an archaeological site survey record for what was then the University of California Museum of Anthropology, identified the site as Ala-23, “beneath the present University of California stadium.” 

The document is the record of one artifact taken from the burials, a “coin from Sonora, Mexico (dating in second quarter of 19th Century.” (sic) The university’s accession (acquisition) number for the coin is 12-3490. 

The record cites a clipping from the June 21, 1925, San Francisco Examiner which noted the stadium burials as well as a second site, Ala-308, at the location of the university’s Faculty Club, then under construction. 

A microfilm copy of the newspaper, available at the San Francisco Public Library, features an article on page eight with the headline “Third Skeleton Found in Grove on U.C. Campus.” 

The skeletons cited in the headline were discovered during excavation for the Faculty Club, Assistant Professor of Anthropology Leslie Spier told the Examiner. 

“In addition to the three skeletons found on the clubhouse site, several more were found during the building of the stadium, a short distance away,” the article continues. 

Neither burial site is mentioned in either the draft environmental impact report (EIR) nor the final EIR on the Southeast Campus Integrated Projects (SCIP), the planning document for the university’s plans for building more than 300,000 square feet of new construction at and near the stadium. 

The closest the documents come to acknowledging the prior discovery of any archaeological remains at the site is a single sentence: “Cultural remains may have been impacted by prior construction.” 

A check with the university’s own museum would have revealed the discovery of burials at the heart of the immediate construction area. 

The EIR recommends—but does not require—an archaeological survey prior to construction, but does require work to be stopped if remains are discovered “until impacts to the sites can be mitigated.” 

“It appears that the university’s own records belie its EIR,” Volker said. “I will be filing a California Public Records Act request with the university for their files on any past and current archaeological resources at this location.” 

 

Regulations 

Native burials are cited in numerous section of California law, with the most significant references in CEQA sections 21083.2 and 21804.1. 

According to CEQA guidelines published by the Governor’s Office of Planning and Research, if the presence of unique archaeological sites is likely, “the lead agency should require a field survey by a qualified professional archaeologist in order to assess the significance of the resource.” 

No such survey was undertaken for the EIR, which was produced by a Berkeley consulting firm, David C. Early’s Design Community Environment (DCE), under contract with the university. The same firm produced the EIR for the university’s Long Range Development Plan 2020. 

While the state Public Resources Code created and empowered the Native American Heritage Commission and empowered it to regulate all native religious and burial sites in the state, government properties are exempted from commission oversight. 

Other section of the same code may apply, including the sections governing the State Historic Resources Commission, which is charged, among other things, with regulating state and nationally designated sites. The stadium and its surroundings were added to the National Register of Historic Places last year, a listing that includes the site in the commission’s purview. 

Another resources code specifically grants the state Department of Parks and Recreation oversight of archaeological resources on projects on public lands, including university property. The California Government Code also gives the state attorney general power to intervene in cases where native burials are threatened.  

 

SCIP projects 

The most controversial of the SCIP projects is the 142,000-square-foot Student Athlete High Performance planned along the stadium’s western wall. 

That site houses the grove now occupied by Running Wolf and the other protesters who have built platforms high in the branches, where they are supported by a crew of volunteers. 

The SCIP projects are currently the subject of legal challenges filed by four plaintiffs, including the City of Berkeley. Volker’s suit, filed on behalf of the California Oaks Foundation, specifically targets the grove. The other actions, while mentioning the trees, are focused more broadly on the impact of the SCIP projects on the city and surrounding neighborhoods. 

Alameda County Superior Court Judge Barbara J. Miller has granted an injunction pending the outcome of a full hearing on the issues several months hence. That decision effectively blocked any construction plans for this year. 

According to final project EIR—the document now being contested in Judge Miller’s court—the total amount of new construction planned under SCIP totals 451,000 square feet. 


Oakland’s Inclusionary Housing Commission Under Fire

By J. Douglas Allen-Taylor
Tuesday February 20, 2007

Four months after it was formed by the Oakland City Council to make recommendations for a comprehensive inclusionary zoning ordinance for the city and two weeks after its final report was supposed to be due, members of the City of Oakland Inclusionary Housing Blue Rib-bon Commission met for the first time Thursday evening under attack from tenant advocates and under pressure from councilmembers to complete an ambitious agenda before the summer council break. 

The 17-member commission was born in considerable controversy last October when an unlikely council alliance headed by City Council President Ignacio De La Fuente and Councilmem-ber Desley Brooks—who are often at odds with each other—successfully blocked passage of an inclusionary zoning ordinance co-sponsored by councilmembers Jane Brunner and Jean Quan. 

If the Brunner-Quan inclusionary zoning ordinance had passed, residential developers would have been required to make a percentage of their housing units affordable for low and extremely low income renters. Many cities in the Bay Area, including Berkeley, already have such inclusionary zoning ordinances. 

“People are really being pushed out of this city,” the Oakland Tribune quoted Brunner as saying during last fall’s debate on the ordinance. “It’s time for the developers to do their share.” 

But with Brooks saying that the council “need[s] to be more thoughtful” about its low-income housing policies, councilmembers split 4-4 on Brooks’ proposal to establish the Blue Ribbon Commission to study inclusionary zoning. Two weeks later, outgoing Mayor Jerry Brown broke the tie by voting to create the Commission. 

But even before the commission could be established, its mandate was considerably widened. 

Last December, the council was prepared to vote on Brooks’ proposed ordinance to change Oakland’s condominium conversion law, which Brooks had hoped would make it easier for low-income buyers to purchase homes in the city, but which tenant advocates said would be a boon to developers and lead to increased gentrification in Oakland. 

Facing a possible defeat on the measure, Brooks recommended that the condominium conversion issue become part of the Blue Ribbon Commission’s charge as well. The council agreed, voting last December that “the scope of the Commission’s task is broadened to include the development of a comprehensive housing strategy to ensure that housing, be it rental or ownership, is affordable to all income levels within the city. Principles of Inclusionary Zoning and Condo Conversion will be considered.” 

At its first meeting in a second-floor City Hall hearing room last Thursday, the commission came under sharp criticism from tenant activists for the small number of tenant representatives in its ranks. 

As called for in the original ordinance last October, three of the members were appointed by outgoing Mayor Jerry Brown and four by incoming Mayor Ron Dellums, and one each by City Administrator Deborah Edgerly, City Attorney John Russo, and each member of the City Council. 

When tenant organizer Eddie Ytuarte of the Oakland Tenants Union asked for a show of hands among commissioners as to their housing and income status, one indicated he was currently a tenant, and none claimed to have an income of under $20,000 a year. 

“Why is the Council comfortable with this group setting policy for tenants?” William Chorneau of Oakland ACORN asked. 

But several of the commission members said that while they were currently homeowners, they had previously been tenants. And Commissioner Joseph Perkins, president of the Homebuilders Association of Northern California, said he rejected the idea that non-tenants could not represent tenant interests, “just as I reject the fact that as a man I couldn’t represent women’s interests.” 

At the same time, the commission found itself under conflicting pressures from two of the Councilmembers whose proposed measures they are considering. 

Brunner, who appointed her chief of staff, Justin Horner, as her representative on the commission, wants the commission to make a recommendation on inclusionary zoning in time for the council to vote on a measure before the summer Council break begins in July. 

Horner asked fellow commissioners to limit the scope of its affordable housing inquiry, recommending that “by the end of the next meeting, we close the door on any new items to be considered. Otherwise, there will be no answer on any issue, and this Commission could go on and on forever and ever.” 

But speaking from the audience, Brooks urged commissioners to undertake a broader discussion, asking them to “go beyond the buzzwords of inclusionary zoning and affordable housing” and pointing out the charge to the commission by the council to discuss a “comprehensive affordable housing strategy.”  

When one Commissioner said that this had not been the charge given to her by her appointing Councilmember, Brooks said, “I don’t care what you were told in private conversation with your Councilmember. They didn’t write the measure that the Council passed [that created the Commission]. I did. And you’re charged with following the language that the Council actually passed.” 

City Administrator Deborah Edgerly told the Commissioners that while the Commission “absolutely [has] a mandate to address” the two issues of inclusionary zoning and condo conversion, she said the Commission’s charge “is not limited to those issues. Your charge is to discuss a comprehensive affordable housing policy.” 

Edgerly also said that while the commission had already passed its January 31 conclusion deadline even before it held its first meeting, she said that was staff’s fault, “not yours. I’ll stand up and take the hit for that.” 

Commissioners discussed but did not decide upon a work schedule and a final deadline, but scheduled a second meeting for March 1 at City Hall for further discussion. 

Commissioners also elected as its chairperson the one tenant represented, Dellums appointee Joaquin Turner-Lloveras, and former Alameda County Planning Commissioner Earl Hamlin, Russo’s appointee, as its vice chair. 

 

 

Members of the City of Oakland Blue Ribbon Affordable Housing Commission 

[Note: this list was updated on Feb. 27, 2007] 

 

 

Outgoing Mayor Jerry Brown appointees (3) 

 

Joseph Perkins (President, Homebuilders Association of Northern California) 

 

Deborah Castles (Vice President of McGrath Properties developers, Project Manager of the MacArthur BART Transit Village) 

 

Benjamin Powell (Professor of Economics at San Jose State University specializing in inclusionary zoning) 

 

Mayor Ron Dellums appointees (4) 

 

Joaquin Turner-Lloveras (tenant, student counselor in East Oakland) 

 

Lynette Jung Lee (Executive Director of Oakland, California's East Bay Asian Local Development Corporation) 

 

Ray Carlisle (founder of NID-HCA Housing Counseling Agency) 

 

Katherine Kasch (Oakland Community Housing, Inc. Board President, community-based affordable housing developers) 

 

Councilmember appointees (1 each) 

 

Marcus Johnson (West Oakland small business owner; former Acorn Housing Project Tenant) [Larry Reid] 

 

Blair Miller (worker for San Francisco-based housing developer) [Pat Kernighan] 

 

Carl Chan (real estate broker, board member of Asian Health Services and the Chinatown Chamber of Commerce) [Henry Chang] 

 

Alan Yee (attorney) [Jean Quan] 

 

Michael Rawson (homeowner, attorney at public interest law firm specializing in housing policy) [Nancy Nadel] 

 

Justin Horner (Councilmember Jane Brunner's Chief of Staff) [Jane Brunner] 

 

David Glover (Director of Oakland Citizens Committee for Urban Renewal) [Desley Brooks] 

 

Gregory McConnell, (head of the Better Housing Coalition real estate developers group) [Ignacio De La Fuente] 

 

 

 

City Department head appointees (1 each) 

 

Earl Hamlin (investment banker, former Alameda County Planning Commissioner) [City Attorney John Russo] 

 

Claudia Cappio (Oakland City Planning Director) [City Administrator Deborah Edgerly] 

 

 


Sustainable Berkeley Contract Questioned

By Judith Scherr
Tuesday February 20, 2007

Next week is Timothy Burroughs’ last week as program officer for a nonprofit that works with cities to address global warming. March 5 will be his first day with Sustainable Berkeley, a collaboration among the city, university, nonprofits and business groups aimed at “keep[ing] Berkeley a national environmental leader.” 

While the City Council is not slated to vote on the $100,000 to fund the project until Feb. 27, the Sustainable Berkeley steering committee has already hired Burroughs, a program officer for ICLEI (International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives, now known by its initials) for two years. 

 

Community concerns 

On Feb. 27, the council will be asked to approve a sole-source contract—one with no competitive bidding—with Sustainable Berkeley. Details of what is to be expected will come later.  

“Was this grant open to competitive bidding? If not, why not? If so, who were the other applicants, what were their qualifications, and why was SB chosen?” asked community watchdog Sharon Hudson in a Feb. 18 letter to the mayor and City Council. 

One could also ask why Burroughs was tapped by mayoral aide Cisco DeVries for the position, which was apparently was not open to others. While city of Berkeley employees’ salary ranges are posted on the Internet, Burroughs’ salary is not public and he declined to divulge the salary he was offered. 

Few contest Mayor Tom Bates’ commitment to the environment—his role as assemblymember in creating the Eastshore State Park along Berkeley’s shoreline is well known, and more recently, the mayor has focused his attention on the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, known to affect global warming.  

But that’s not enough, said Councilmember Dona Spring. “This seems to be a vehicle for Tom to have another private task force, like his health group.” (In addition to the Health Commis-sion, Bates has his own health task force.) “Now he’s got some real dollars, but no budget and not a clear explanation about what this group’s about,” Spring said. 

Councilmember Kriss Worth-ington said Sustainable Berkeley meetings should be noticed to the public just as city commissions are. 

 

Burroughs responds 

In an interview Monday, in response to criticisms that Sustainable Berkeley would shut out the community, Burroughs said, “The reason [the position] is housed in Sustainable Berkeley is to address those concerns. We will make the process as inclusive as possible.”  

He added, “I think most of the meetings will be open to the public.”  

Councilmember Betty Olds told the Planet that, while she knows little about Sustainable Berkeley, she questioned why the city needs another plan at all with others on shelves collecting dust. “What bothers me [about the proposal to write a plan] is that there is so much talk,” she said, arguing that what is needed is action. 

Burroughs, whose expertise includes both community involvement and the technical side of global warming, said he understands that concern, but one needs a cost-benefit analysis to evaluuate what elements of emission reduction the city should tackle first. Burroughs said at this point he does not know how much money the city has to implement the plan he will spend almost a year writing. 

 

Bates Supports People’s Will 

In his public statements, Bates says he is following the will of the people in putting forward this initiative: the Berkeley electorate went to the polls in November and voted by 81 percent to set a community goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions 80 percent by 2050. More specifically, the measure was to “advise the mayor to work with the community to develop a plan for council adoption in 2007, which sets a ten year emissions reduction target.”  

“The ballot measure was advisory, but I will act as though it is legally binding,” Bates said in his Feb. 13 state of the city address  

Also at the Feb. 13 meeting, the city manager made a number of recommendations on how to spend $3.3 million in above-anticipated revenues. Some councilmembers demanded details: Councilmember Linda Maio asked to see a plan before she approved the $500,000 recommended for economic development and Councilmember Laurie Capitelli said he did not want to commit new funds to Telegraph Avenue until he saw a report on how city funds had been expended in the area. 

The council was silent at that time around the $100,000 recommended for Sustainable Berkeley.  

 

Sustainable Berkeley Explained 

The funds will not go directly to Sustainable Berkeley, which is not a nonprofit corporation. 

They will go to the group’s fiscal sponsor, the Community Energy Services Corporation, a nonprofit created by the city, whose board of directors is the city’s Energy Commission. The CESC will charge a fee as the fiscal agent for the project. 

When the Daily Planet first looked at the steering committee Friday morning, there were 10 members, but by the afternoon, there were eight. One member is a CESC representative, two are from UC Berkeley—one from the business school and one from Capital Projects—and there are one each from the Ecology center, Teleosis, a “green” healthcare agency and Livable Berkeley. Another is described on the website as a “trancendentist,” and a former employee of the city’s Division of Energy and Sustainable Development, now turned consultant, is also on the steering committee.  

There had been two steering committee members who still work in the Energy Division, but after a reporter made requests for previous Sustainable Berkeley contracts and follow-up documents, both city employees stepped down from the steering committee and their names disappeared from the Sustainable Berkeley web site. According to Billi Romain of the City’s Energy and Sustainability division, she and the other city employee in the division, Jennifer Cogley, decided that they should resign, given that it could appear a conflict for them to serve on the steering committee. 

In fact, Romain told the Daily Planet, oversight for contracts to Sustainable Berkeley is in the hands of the Energy division. Romain is the person who verifies execution of the contracts. 

Sustainable Berkeley’s first contract with the city was approved by the City Council July 18, 2006. The $133,000 Sustainable Berkeley contract established the entity described in a staff report written by Housing Director Steve Barton, as “a multi-stakeholder partnership between the city, business, civic and education institutions…[to leverage] resources and improve coordination among Berkeley’s sustainability efforts, and to implement the [2004] Sustainable Business Action Plan.”  

The July single source contract to Sustainable Berkeley was accompanied by specific goals that include: greenhouse gas reduction goals for businesses by sectors, an outreach and marketing plan, linking 100 businesses to food waste recycling services, creating “stakeholder coordinating councils,” and “Develop[ing] a five-year strategic plan that draws upon the mayor’s sustainability working group’s Action Plan and existing resources.” 

Asked for documentation showing whether Sustainable Berkeley had met its goals, Romain said, in actuality, the contract had not been signed until November and that there were a few invoices, but no actual report on the goals. She said it is not unusual for a contract to begin execution several months after its original approval. 

Another question Hudson had asked in her Feb. 18 letter was: “Why cannot our green plan be researched and written by our own city staff under the direction of existing city commissions and the council?” 

Tim Hansen, a member of the Energy Commission, answered the question when he told the Planet that the complexity of the task Sustainable Berkeley would be undertaking was beyond the scope of the work being done by the Energy Commission 

“The energy commission has a whole lot on its plate,” he said. “When things are broken down to smaller bits, the public is more willing to participate.” 

Similarly, James Kibbey, chair of the Community Environmental Advisory Commission, said it would not be wise for the commissions to take on the task of reducing greenhouse gases. “Nonprofits are more flexible” and can hire people with the expertise to write a report, he said.  

Many people are enthusiastic about the initiative, including bicycle activist Jason Meggs who in a phone message, called the initiative “very exciting” and said “I hope this will make the city a paradise for bicycling, walking and transit.” 

Meggs was among the some 30 people who came to an invitation-only Sustainable Berkeley meeting last week. (Bates’ aide Cisco DeVries, who will work 50 percent time with the initiative through the mayor’s office, said he did not have time to put out the notice of the event publicly.)  

Transportation Commissioner Rob Wrenn, initially skeptical of giving Sustainable Berkeley the contract because transportation experts are absent from the steering committee, said he was satisfied that these issues would be addressed. “I have a feeling they understand the importance of transportation.”  

Noting, however, the plans that have not been implemented, such as developer fees to fund public transportation and trip reduction, he asked, “Will the city have the political will to follow through?” 

 

 


DAPAC Tackles High-Rise Buildings, Parking

By Richard Brenneman
Tuesday February 20, 2007

Talk of “opportunity sites,” parking spaces and height limits occupied Tuesday’s meeting of a subcommittee hammering out what may become key elements of Berkeley’s plans for the downtown’s future. 

Members also heard the latest news about what may become a signature building for the city center—the new Berkeley Art Museum/Pacific Film Archive (BAM/PFA). 

The Subcommittee on City Interests in UC Properties held the fourth in a planned series of six meetings to offer input on how the town and gown might cooperate in developing the 800,000 square feet of new office and administrative space the university plans to add off-campus in the city’s heart. 

The group is drawn from members of the Downtown Area Plan Advisory Committee, which must present the city a new downtown plan by the end of November. 

In addition to the office space, the university also needs nearly 1,000 new parking spaces, though just how many will be sited downtown remains an open question. 

Most of the projects are aligned along the western edge of the campus along Fulton/Oxford Street (Fulton becomes Oxford at Allston Way). 

 

BAM/PFA 

The museum and theater building will dominate the eastern end of Center Street and will occupy much of the northern end of the block bounded by Center, Addi-son, Oxford and Shattuck. 

Executive Director Kevin Consey said the plans being prepared for the museum and film archive building by renowned Japanese architect Toyo Ito call for a four-story structure reaching 82 feet in height designed in the form of what he called “a distorted grid.” 

The building will be partly transparent, so that someone near the northeast corner would be able to see through the structure to the southwest. A similar avenue of transparency will follow the line of the lobby, which will open on Center Street and be flanked by a restaurant to the west and the museum shop on the east. 

A key reason for the focus on Center Street, Consey said, is pedestrian traffic. “There are between 12 and 15 pedestrians on Center for every one on Addison. You might improve the ratio to 15-3 or 15-4, but where you put your retail operations is where the people area.” 

A second entrance will be on Oxford, Consey said, and visitors will be directed to exit through the underground parking area, which is now planned to accommodate 100 vehicles. 

Addison will offer entry to the underground parking and the museum’s loading dock as well as to the loading dock of the university-supported private hotel project at the western end of the block. 

When committee members suggested that Addison might attract art galleries or a multiplex cinema, Consey said the presence of gallery-intensive San Francisco is a key reason “there aren’t any viable East Bay galleries.” Multiplexes also aren’t faring well, he said, noting the decline in the number of film screens in Berkeley in recent years. 

 

Heights, locations 

Matt Taecker, the planner hired with university funds to prepare the planning documents, presented the committee with a series of maps depicting key development sites and possible projects. 

The list begins with the Department of Health Services building, the highrise 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. 

“We need to look seriously at the height of buildings,” said subcommittee Chair Dorothy Walker, a retired UC Berkeley administrator. She also suggested that the city should give less emphasis to requiring retail spaces on the ground floors of new buildings and encouraged first floor residences instead—except for street corners, where retail would be encouraged. 

UC Planner Kerry O’Banion, the university’s lead planner for downtown projects, suggested slightly elevated residential frontages mimicking those of New York City brownstones. 

Members also debated whether or not to require retail frontages for whatever structure the university decides to building at the location of the Tang Center, with the evident preference being for residences along the Durant Avenue side and the greatest density concentrated along Bancroft Way.  

Taecker’s conceptual sketches depicted high-rise towers rising from the mass of several of the proposed opportunity buildings, including one on each end of the structure that would replace the old health services high-rise. 

Members seemed to agree that towers should be set back from a lower-rise street frontage, a concept already broached in sketches for the hotel and conference center planned at the intersection of Shattuck and Center. 

Other ideas included making Hearst Avenue more attractive as a bicycle and pedestrian thoroughfare, including the addition of more street trees, a suggestion of DAPAC Chair Will Travis. 

 

Parking, transit 

Parking will become a critical issue, said O’Banion, with the museum complex displacing 250 parking spaces while adding only 100. “So we’re still 150 down, and that will require replacing them somewhere else.” 

Museum construction would mean demolition of the university’s lot at the southwest corner of Oxford and Addison streets, which has been available to the public in the evenings. 

“Parking is a critical issue,” Consey added. “Freight & Salvage Co. will be expanding downtown, but parking won’t be.” The popular night spot is moving into new quarters on Addison Street a half-block south of Shattuck Avenue. Their new quarters offer no parking spaces of their own. 

One possibility raised by subcommittee and Planning Commission member James Samuels was Berkeley Way, where a city lot already serves the downtown arts district. 

Mass transit discussion including the possible addition of more shuttles, including runs to serve businesses in the downtown. 

Jennifer MacDougall, another UC planner assigned to the subcommittee, said the city and university had prepared a joint transportation management plan published in 2000 which included the creation of joint initiatives to serve both the downtown and the south of campus area. 

Lack of funds to hire the requisite employees stalled implementation, she said. 

Another subcommittee which is comprised of members of DAPAC and the city’s Transportation Commission has been addressing the same themes. Travis suggested applying for Bay Area Air Quality Management District funds available for transit-oriented development planning.  

 

Meetings ahead  

The subcommittee meets again tonight (Tuesday) at 7 p.m. in the North Berkeley Senior Center, 1901 Hearst Ave. at Martin Luther King Jr. Way. The full DAPAC will meet at the center Wednesday night at 7 p.m. to consider downtown housing needs and scenario for the plan’s land use elements.


Berkeley High School Mourns denise brown at Memorial

By Riya Bhattacharjee
Tuesday February 20, 2007

Smiles and tears marked the memorial of Berkeley High School Vice Principal denise brown at the Berkeley Community Theater Thursday. 

Students, teachers and community members walked into a performance of Tchaikovsky’s “Elegie” by the BHS Orchestra and shared memories of brown, whose life was an inspiration for thousands in the school district and beyond. 

The vice principal and dean of discipline, who wrote her initials in lower case letters, died Feb. 2 at Summit Medical Center in Oakland following complications from knee surgery that sent the Berkeley Unified School District community into a state of shock. 

“We grieve her loss but we also celebrate her life today. denise brown was one of those rare people who was a hero to our community,” said Berkeley High principal Jim Slemp. “Her life was about making the world a better place to  

live in.” 

While friends marveled how brown had a knack from making friends with people from all walks of life, students spoke of how they made up excuses to “go and chill with db,” as she was known, in her classroom. 

“Kids fell sick so that they could be hugged by her, teachers made up assignments so that they could walk into denise’s office and get her signature,” said Kalima Rose, a longtime friend of brown’s. “People wanted to gather and linger in her presence. She recognized every person for who he or she was.” 

Rose spoke about brown’s ability to write plays that celebrated everything from racial diversity to unpopular vegetables. 

“Ms. brown helped us to find creativity. To find ourselves,” said a Berkeley High senior who was going to pursue acting in New York. “It was Ms. brown’s after-school drama class and her production of The Wizard of Bezerkeley that inspired me and hundreds of other kids to perform. We were always awed by her ability to write a new play every year. Her long dresses and headscarves made her look like an African goddess. She treated us like equals and yet indulged in frivolous girl talk with us at any given moment.” 

At times when a somber mood descended upon the auditorium, the Rev. Dwight Webster called upon the audience to “loosen up a little.” 

“That was what denise would have wanted. That was the kind of person denise was. Firm yet gentle and fun. A real life Nanny McPhee,” Webster said, referring to the fictitious nanny who with discipline and a little magic transforms the lives of the children. 

“There is an old African proverb which says that it takes a village to raise a child. denise brown was that village,” said longtime friend Anne Wagley, who works for the Planet, at the memorial. 

The purple hues in the auditorium paid tribute to brown not just as an influential teacher and administrator, but also as a mother. 

Bay Area dancer Maia Siani performed with the Berkeley High Dance Troop to Stevie Wonder’s “Lately,” a tribute brown’s daughter Sarah Real had choreographed. 

Berkeley High has set up a scholarship fund for Sarah, a senior at Berkeley High, to help her through college. 

Both Le Conte Elementary School, where brown taught kindergarten, first and fourth grades for over a decade, and Berkeley High’s Arts and Humanities Academy (AHA), where brown was vice principal, are in the process of setting up a joint fine arts scholarship program in her honor. 

Michele McGee, a sophomore at AHA, spoke about how brown had changed her life. 

“She was tough on me,” she said. “But it was only after I got out of trouble that I realized why she had been that way. Ms. brown helped me to become a better person and for that I will be forever grateful.” 

brown received proclamations from the City of Berkeley, the County Board of Education, the County Board of Supervisors, the State Assembly and Senate. Feb. 15 was declared denise brown Day in Berkeley. 

“The City of Berkeley was very fortunate to have denise at Berkeley High,” said Julie Sinai, senior aide to Mayor Tom Bates. “We could always count on her for not just a straight answer, but also one that was compassionate and caring. This proclamation honors her creativity, accountability, reliability and passion. She was a role model for parents and children and was visible and accessible on campus at all times of the day.” 

“She reached out to parents and students in ways most of us can’t,” said county schools Supervisor Sheila Jordan. “Alameda County honors this great leader today and pledges to continue her work.”  

The resolution from California state senator Don Perata described brown as a person who “lived life to the fullest” and praised her for her work with at-risk children, the Berkeley High Youth Court and the small schools. 

The California State Assembly was adjourned in denise brown’s honor on Friday.


School Board to Review Homeless Youth Program

By Riya Bhattacharjee
Tuesday February 20, 2007

The Berkeley school board will meet Wednesday to approve a resolution honoring Berkeley Vice Principal denise brown and declaring Feb. 15 as denise brown day. brown died Feb. 2 following complications from knee surgery.  

The board will also approve a resolution proclaiming the first week of March 2007 as Week of the School Administrator. 

The board will also approve the memoranda of understanding between the Berkeley Unified School District and organizations supporting the district’s McKinney-Vento Homeless Children and Youth Program. 

This is the annual renewal of funds for the staff person who administers the program as well as the program itself. The McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act requires the school district to provide enrollment and access to public education to homeless children. 

This program helps homeless children take advantage of services such as registering, Medicaid, bus passes, backpacks and book supplies. 

The board will also approve the budget modifications to the Grant Award for Integrating Schools and Mental Health Systems. The existing pact BUSD has with the City of Berkeley and the Alameda County Department of Mental Health provides mental health services to all students. 

A report on the district’s mental health plan, which will provide an update on how the partnership is working, will be presented to the board.  

Board members will also receive the school accountability report cards for 2005-06 which will show the progress of each school at the state and federal level tests and outline the standards for those. The reports are based on a number of requirements from the No Child Left Behind Act, and the cost of producing them this year was $20,000. 

The board will receive the preliminary 2007-08 student enrollment projections from Francisco Martinez, BUSD manager of admissions and enrollment. This report, based on previous and current enrollment records, helps the school district to plan its budget for the next school year as well as in the assignment of teachers.


Forum Planned for Reuse of UC Extension on Laguna St.

By Riya Bhattacharjee
Tuesday February 20, 2007

A documentary film and public forum on the history and reuse of the 5.8-acre historic UC Berkeley Extension campus at 55 Laguna St. in San Francisco will be held on Saturday.  

Director Eliza Hemenway’s documentary Uncommon Knowledge: Closing the Books at UC Berkeley Extension provides a haunting journey inside the historic San Francisco campus, as plans are laid out to convert it into a private development featuring a high- density housing and shopping center. 

The proposed project has received protests from several neighborhood groups who want the land to serve the community.  

In a letter to the Planet in November 2006, Ruthy T. Bennett, Vice President, AF Evans Development, the firm in charge of the project, wrote that “more than 400 letters of support for the project have been sent to the Board of Supervisors.” 

The UC Berkeley Extension Laguna Street campus has over 150-year history of public use and has always been used for educational purposes. 

The proposed development is currently under review by the San Francisco Planning department. The university is seeking to rezone the campus, which if approved, will bring an end to its history of public use. 

A public hearing on the draft environmental impact report (EIR) titled “55 Laguna Mixed Use Project,” which is the only public process planned regarding the re-zoning of the campus, has been set for March 8 at the San Francisco Planning Department. 

The San Francisco-based non-profit Friends of 1800, who are sponsoring the program along with Trinity Productions, has nominated the UC Berkeley Extension Laguna Street Campus to the National Register of Historic Places.  

A group called Save the UCBE Laguna Street Campus is working to establish a Citizens Advisory Committee to determine the highest and best use of the campus and to promote the preservation of its historic and public resources.  

The film screening will be followed by a Q & A session with the filmmaker and a public forum which will present information on the historic and planning issues related to the reuse of the campus. 

The panel will include: Charles Chase, executive director, San Francisco Architectural Heritage; Mark Paez, urban planner and co-chair of Friends of 1800; Warren Dewar, attorney and board member, Hayes Valley Neighborhood Association (HVNA); and Tamara Colby, urban planner and co-chair of Save the UCBE Laguna Street Campus. 

 

UNCOMMON KNOWLEDGE 

A free screening of Uncommon Knowledge: Closing the Books at UC Berkeley Extension is planned for Saturday, 4-5:30 p.m. at the San Francisco Public Library, 100 Larkin St. (at Grove), Koret Auditorium. For more information on the film visit www. hemenwaydocs.co. For information on the project visit www.55laguna.com.


City Planners to Review LBNL Long Range Growth Plans

By Richard Brenneman
Tuesday February 20, 2007

Planning commissioners last week heard Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory’s (LBNL) plans for long-range growth and amended the city’s controversial soft-story ordinance. 

During the meeting that saw the ouster of Chair Helen Burke on a 5-4 vote, members voted 8-1 to approve staff recommendations for the soft story ordinance, which mandates engineering reports for earthquake-vulnerable multi-unit housing. 

The changes will make it easier and cheaper for owners to get the needed city permits to retrofit their buildings. 

James Krupnick, LBNL project manager for the institution’s Long Range Development Plan 2025, said construction plans call for 980,000 square feet of new construction as well as demolition of 320,000 square feet of existing buildings—a net increase of 660,000 square feet. 

Plans also call for the addition of 375 parking spaces. 

“Three programs are driving the new building,” Krupnick said, with one, the Helios Project, funded from the $500 million grant recently announced by BP, the former British Petroleum. 

That project is designed to turn engineered super-grasses into ethanol with the help of engineered bacteria derived from the microbes that inhabit the digestive tracks of termites.  

A second project, the Advanced Light Source, currently serves 2,000 users annually, including Stanford University’s Roger D. Kornberg who used the facility for the research that won him the 2006 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.  

The third project, the Computational Research and Theory Building, will house the university’s supercomputer, now located in Oakland. Projects include research on global warming, the design of new levies for the Gulf Coast and the development of more efficient internal combustion engines. 

City commissions will get their chance to comment on the project’s Draft Environmental Impact Report on March 14. That session, which will be held in the South Berkeley Senior Center starting at 6 p.m., will include members of the Planning, Transportation, Landmarks Preservation and Community Health commissions—perhaps a record for the largest number of city bodies to meet simultaneously in the same place. 

Commissioners also voted to adopt recommendations of the planning staff for minor alterations to the city’s soft story ordinance, which requires owners of affected rental housing to obtain engineering reports that would address seismic weaknesses in their buildings along with possible fixes. 

Soft story structures were identified as a major problem in California following the 1994 Northridge earthquake, which resulted in deaths and serious injuries in the collapse of apartment buildings constructed over ground floor parking. 

The city ordinance requires only reports at this point, though the eventual goal is to mandate repairs for all soft story structures housing five or more residential units. 

The city has identified 649 structures, all built before the 1997 building code update of seismic standards. 

The commission approved amendments easing restrictions on permits allowing for yard setbacks, height restrictions, the amount of lot area a building can occupy, reduction in parking spaces and design review when changes are required to meet seismic safety standards. 

Gene Poschman cast the sole dissenting vote. Commissioners voted unanimously to adopt the second ordinance brought before them, a measure clarifying the legal definition of a dormer and clarifying calculations used to determine the average height of a building.


Emeryville Council Finishes Hotel Worker Regulations

By Judith Scherr
Tuesday February 20, 2007

While Emeryville voters passed Measure C—the living wage ordinance for hotel workers—in November 2005 the City Council didn’t write the final regulations until last week, when they put into place rules on worker complaints. 

This was important to the 21 workers who had been terminated by the Woodfin Suites Hotel, then temporarily reinstated by a judge on Jan. 23. The injunction prevents the hotel from firing the workers for 90 days, while the city investigates the complaints. 

Now that the new regulations are in place, the 21 workers have filed formal complaints with the city under Measure C, according to Brooke Anderson, an organizer with the East Bay Alliance for a Sustainable Economy.  

In December the 21 workers were told to leave and not return to their jobs unless they could produce new Social Security numbers. While the hotel said it was obligated to make that demand on the workers, EBASE said the move was retaliation against the workers who had been picketing and protesting the Woodfin’s refusal to comply with Measure C. (The Woodfin says they do comply with the measure.) 

Workers argue that the hotel needs to provide them with permanent job security and $160,000 in back wages—pay for cleaning extra rooms, as mandated by Measure C. 

Workers and community continue twice-weekly pickets at the hotel, Tuesdays, 4:30-7 p.m. and Saturdays 7-11 a.m. 


ZAB Looks at Mental Health Services, Berkeley Iceland

By Riya Bhattacharjee
Tuesday February 20, 2007

The Zoning Adjustments Board will hear the request for a use permit modification by the City of Berkeley Mental Health and Human Services to change the hours of operation of the Health and Human Services mobile crisis team at 2433 Channing Way from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. to 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. daily. 

The board first approved the mobile crisis team, located within the Sather Gate Mall, on Nov. 27, 2006. 

Berkeley Iceland has withdrawn its application for an appeal of the temporary administrative use permit to install a temporary outdoor refrigeration system on the southern side of the property for the existing ice skating rink at 2727 Milvia St. 

Berkeley Iceland announced last month that it would be closing its doors in March because of poor profits. It is currently up for sale for $6.45 million. The group SaveBerkeleyIceland.org is rallying to save the historic rink from being closed.  

 

Other matters 

Applicant Bruce Kelly is requesting a use permit to construct a new two-story single-family dwelling with 1,460 square feet of floor area, two parking spaces, at an average height of 24 feet, on a 3,295 square foot vacant lot at 161 Panoramic Way. 

ZAB has received eleven letters from area residents so far expressing concern related to fire hazard and parking. 

Neighbors are also worried about building on such a steep slope which ranges from approximately 30 to 45 degrees.  

ZAB will hear the request of Michael Nilmeyer of Nilmeyer/Nilmeyer Associates for a use permit to construct a 7,245 square foot concrete block warehouse building with associated office space at 1230 Fifth St.  

The property currently houses a fire- damaged building with no parking. 

The board will hear a request by Christopher Witherspoon to convert a daycare center back to a single-family residence on a 6,105 square foot lot at 1226 Rose St. that already contains a single-family residence. 

The board will hear a request for an administrative use permit by Lise Mathews to extend the second floor building mass on the south side at 1838 San Juan, two feet and 10 inches towards the rear property line. The staff report recommends denying the request. 

The board will hear a request by Ken Renworth and Catherine Crowley for a use permit to construct a new three-story single family home with 2,880 square feet of floor area and a detached hot tub at 43 Senior Ave.


Carousel Shut Down

By Riya Bhattacharjee
Friday February 16, 2007

The historic 1911 Herschell-Spillman “Menagerie Edition” carousel at Tilden Park was closed earlier this month after state officials said that under state law it is unsafe without a guard fence around it. 

Every year the Tilden Carousel—one of only two of its kind still operating—gets 150,000 visitors who come to enjoy its hand-carved and painted animals and its irreplaceable band organs. 

It recently won $97,000 in grant money for floor and organ restoration as one of the 25 historic sites in the Bay Area competing for the American Express Partners in Preservation grant award. 

Jeff Wilson, unit manager for Tilden Park, said that the Park District was working to comply with the state safety standards. 

“We are buying temporary fencing that meets the state requirement. If that doesn’t work out then the district will fabricate its own fencing. We want the carousel to be safe and running before March,” he said. 

Wilson added that the grant money would also replace the raggedy curtains in the carousel building with a permanent glass case. 

Carousel operator Terri Holleman—who has leased the ride from the East Bay Regional Park (EBRP) for the last 15 years—disputed the existence of a mandate for a barrier. 

“The same California code which mandates that a barrier be built between the amusement ride and its riders also states that rides installed before 1993 are exempt from it,” she said. “But the state Division of Occupational Safety and Health (DOSH) is enforcing the suggestion that a fence be put around the carousel and we are complying with it.” 

According to Dean Fryer, spokesperson for DOSH, the California Code of Regulations states that all permanent rides are required to have a barrier between the public and the ride.  

He said the law “states that in the case of rides installed before 1993, the structure itself can be grandfathered in, but the lack of a barrier cannot be grandfathered in. This means that if the Tilden carousel had a fence prior to 1993, we wouldn’t have asked for any changes to it. But this is not the case.” 

The agency first asked Holleman to install the fence in 2005 and has repeated the request twice since then, Fryer said. 

“We are not asking something out of the ordinary here,” he said. “It’s basic public safety. But Holleman just thumbed her nose at it even though she was out of compliance with the law.” 

Holleman said DOSH’s inspectors had asked her to put up a fence in the past but that they had always added that it was not mandatory for the 94-year-old carousel. 

A surprise visit by DOSH inspectors during the carousel’s annual Christmas program in December led to a report that expedited the need for the fence. 

“I had 12 ride operators helping me during Christmas but even then it got really crazy,” Holleman said. “When the inspectors came in, the people were crowding in around the carousel. We striped out a caution line 20 inches behind the first red line but people were still crossing over.” 

According to her, the inspectors wrote up a report that described the situation as complete mayhem and told Holleman that she had 30 days to put up a fence. 

Holleman closed the carousel and told the parks district it had to install a safety fence. “As a concessionaire, I simply lease the ride from the park district. I can’t just walk in and put the fence up,” she said. “EBRP is now responsible for the fence and until that’s installed, the ride will stay closed.” 

Austene Hall, a boardmember of Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association (BAHA), described the carousel as a “cultural icon.” 

“BAHA will support the Tilden carousel in keeping it running,” she told the Planet on Thursday. 

“It’s a really important structure, not just structurally, but also culturally,” she said. “People who grew up in Berkeley have fond memories of it. They now bring their children and their children’s children to enjoy this beautiful work of art.” 

Dan Horenberger, caretaker for the Tilden carousel for the last 20 years and editor of the Carousel News and Trader Magazine, told the Planet that DOSH was gradually destroying the business for independent carousel owners. Alterations have been made at carousels at the San Francisco Zoo and the Seaport Village in San Diego. Recently, Disneyland traded their original 1920’s Dentzel carousel for a newer model. 

“Carousels are being protected all over the world except in California,” Horenberger said. “DOSH fails to understand that antique carousels don’t comply to modern standards. There are a lot of private operators who cannot afford, see the need for or agree to the upgrades that DOSH wants of their carousels. As a result they are either closing down or moving out of state.” 

Fryer said that this was not the case. 

“Coming into compliance with state codes is not a huge request,” he said. “These are pieces of machinery that are moving. The fence helps to add a line of safety and keep the crowds back.” 

Fryer pointed out that a plexi-glass fence had recently been put around the Golden Gate Park carousel. “The fence doesn’t need to be an eyesore,” he said. “The only requirement is that it needs to be 42 inches high. It can easily be blended to fit the aesthetics of the surrounding area.” 

 

 

 


UC Academics Excluded From BP Contract Vote

By Richard Brenneman
Friday February 16, 2007

UC Berkeley’s Academic Senate probably won’t have a vote about the planned half-billion-dollar alternative fuel program now being negotiated with BP—the company formerly known as British Petroleum. 

“I doubt if we get a preview of the contract,” said William J. Drummond, the journalism professor who chairs the Academic Senate. “The terms will be proprietary information as far as the university and BP are concerned.” 

“Clearly, they haven’t learned anything from Novartis,” said UC Berkeley Assistant Professor Ignacio Chapela, a leading critic of a controversial $25 million agreement between the Swiss agro-chemical giant and the university’s College of Natural Resource. 

That five-year pact drew heavy criticism down on the university, along with charges of exploiting public scientists for corporate gain. A study commissioned by the university’s Academic senate faulted the university for its handling of the accord, while denying any serious breaches of conduct had occurred. 

Chapela and other critics remain skeptical.  

Meanwhile, more details of the research planned for the newly created Energy Biosciences Institute (EBI) emerged Wednesday night at the Berkeley Planning Commission when members questioned LBNL Long Range Development Plan (LRDP) project manager Jim Krupnick. 

The basic agenda—dubbed The Helios Project by LBNL after the Classical Greek sun god—consists of using microbes harvested from the guts of termites to digest plant matter and ferment it into ethanol. 

“Helios will be the lab’s “centerpiece for the next 20 years,” Krupnick said, with the goal of “transforming sunlight into energy fuel for transportation, using the microbes to transform cellulose into the combustible alcohol. 

During the next 5 to 10 years, scientists will engineer targeted grasses to grow faster and thicker while using less water and fertilizer than do the existing strains. Likewise, “scientists are taking the bacteria” from termites “and trying to make it more effective.” he said. 

Inherent to the research is the tweaking of the genes of both plants and microbes to maximize productivity, a project BP has already begun. Genetically modified organisms, or GMOs, are the subject of great scientific and political controversy. 

 

Genetic leaps 

“It’s the microorganisms that really freak me out,” said Chapela, whose research on the ability of artificial genes to spread into native varieties provoked a bitter a backlash, most from industry-funded scientists. 

While Chapela’s research focused on the leaps of engineered genes over hundreds of miles into native strains of Mexican maize, similar transfers are being documented almost daily in research reports, litigation and news accounts from around the globe. 

GMOs have also killed Monarch butterflies, contaminated domestic strains of soybeans and rice and are blamed for the death of sheep in India. Federal court rulings allow patent holders to sue farmers who grow accidentally contaminated crops. 

Chapela was denied tenure and effectively fired despite a 35-1 vote of confidence by colleagues and a unanimous endorsement by the Academic Senate. That decision was endorsed by Chancellor Robert Birgeneau, an enthusiastic supporter of the BP deal. 

The scientist stood outside the meeting room where the Academic Senate committee met, handing out a statement that criticized the project to members as they filed into the meeting where Calvin Moore, the UCB math professor who serves as the university’s point person for the controversial contract, conducted the briefing.  

“He (Moore) doesn’t represent the senate,” Drummond said. “The way I understand it, he was appointed by Vice Chancellor Beth Burnside.” 

Moore also chairs the Senate’s Committee on Academic Planning and Resources Allocation. 

A professor of molecular and cell biology, Burnside is the university’s Vice Chancellor-Research and works directly under Chancellor Robert Birgeneau. Drummond said he had discussed the project with Burnside, but in none of the discussions, either with Moore of the Vice Chancellor, was the issue of GMOs raised. 

During that session, Moore described a program where research would be conducted by two 25-member teams of scientists, one from BP and the others from UC Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Krupnick told the Planning Commission that 24 of the 25 UCB/LBNL researcher hold dual appointments with the two affiliated taxpayer-funded institutions. 

Drummond said a Chinese Wall would separate the two programs “to protect intellectual property.” 

He said the two teams—each pledged not to share information with the other—would share two separated halves of the same building, prompting him to wonder what would happen when they sat down together in a dining room or the university’s faculty club. 

“The social dynamics of great discoveries show that a lot of them were accidental, the result of chance meetings” where information was shared, Drummond said. 

An LBNL spokesman said Wednesday that while some of the research will be conducted at the lab, most of the work will be done on the UCB campus itself. “All the laboratory space is not worked out yet,” she said.  

 

Other critics 

Two other faculty members have joined Chapela in the critique of the proposed BP contract. Miguel Altieri and Claudia Carr, like Chapela professors at UCB’s College of Natural Resources, have also have begun writing and speaking out. 

One of their major concern is the reliance of biofuel research on GMOs. 

GMO is academic shorthand for a genetically modified organism—a biological species with genes tweaked by researchers to add or enhance a commercially desirable property. They fear that’s just where part of the research efforts may be headed. 

BP is bankrolling the effort, spreading at least a half billion in cash around between the university, the affiliated Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratories and the University of Illinois, which would oversee production of test crops. 

But the critics are also concerned about what they perceive as a lack of disclosure as university and state officials finalize details of one of the most lucrative contracts in American academic history. 

Altieri and Eric Holt-Gimenez of Oakland’s Food First prepared a written statement published in the Feb. 6 edition of the Daily Planet, and Chapela and Carr have both sent letters of protest to Drummond. 

Chapela said he also raised his concerns during a “very tense” meeting with faculty from his college. 

“I used the word ‘prostitution’ in the meeting, and they said nothing,” he said. “Right now, I wish there were more details. It’s clear they’re pulling a fast one on everyone.” 

Carr, who has protested the university’s handling of toxic contamination at the university’s Richmond Field Station and fought for tighter oversight of the cleanup there, expressed her concerns over the BP contract in her letter to Drummond. 

She wrote that “the corporate subject of the proposed contract (BP) has an international reputation for environmental pollution, habitat devastation, local livelihood destruction and association with human rights abuses in Africa, Asia, Latin America and Central Asia.” 

Carr is a scholar of the role oil companies have played in African politics.


BP/UC Deal Raises Concerns

By Richard Brenneman
Friday February 16, 2007

The proposed agreement between one of the world’s largest oil companies, BP (formerly British Petroleum) and UC Berkeley, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the University of Illinois has ignited a firestorm that promises to burn long and hot. 

But the largest issue raised by the proposed half-billion-dollar agreement involves a long-standing campaign by powerful conservatives to substitute private funding for public support of America’s universities. 

Ironically, one of the best expositions of the trends at work was sketched out by then-UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert Berdahl in a May 23, 2000, address to Erfurt University in Germany titled “The Privatization of Public Universities.” 

Berdahl traced the history of American land-grant universities, funded with cash raised from the sales of vast tracts of land provided by the federal government, through their heyday during the post-World War II years of the GI Bill and federally funded Cold War research programs. 

He cited as a seminal moment in the decline of public funding a U.S. Chamber of Commerce-backed effort headed by future Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell in the late 1960s which was cemented in place during the presidency of former California Governor Ronald Reagan. 

Powell laid out a series of strategies designed to give big business the upper hand both in the mass media and on campus, a simultaneous attack on liberal educators coupled with a move to dominate business schools by severing their ties with the more liberal social science departments. 

“To a very large extent, this program has been successful,” Berdahl said. It has been aided by conservative foundations and think tanks and speakers like former Secretary of Education Bill Bennett, Dinesh D’Souza and Alan Bloom. 

The era of the great liberalizing institution had been displaced by what Berdahl described as “the emergence of an industry-university research partnership,” as the Reagan era shifted educational costs from taxpayers onto the students themselves and universities began seeking out ever-larger amounts of private funding. 

The result, Berdahl said, was the “emergence of a substantial ‘university-industrial complex.’” 

Among its dangers, the chancellor wrote, were the “loss of common ground, common unity, common purpose within the university” and the emergence of major salary differentials between scientific and engineering departments which were favored by corporate largess and the humanities departments which corporate funders ignored while devaluing their work. 

Another major danger he cited was the perception that academic researchers backed by corporate grants lost objectivity. 

Those charges were directed at the University of California during the most controversial move of Berdahl’s tenure, the 1998 $25 million funding package negotiated between Swiss agro-pharmaceutical giant Novartis (more recently Syngenta) and UC Berkeley’s College of Natural Resources. 

 

Bayh-Dole 

Another wrinkle in the transformation of academia—and not cited by Berdahl—was provided by the passage of the Bayh-Dole Act in 1980, which gave universities and corporations the right to patent federally funded research. 

The measure was introduced by the two senators, a Kansas Republican and an Indiana Democrat, and gave schools the right to patent if they made serious efforts to commercialize their discoveries. Prior to passage, discoveries made with federal funds were in public domain, available to one and all. 

While the measure was strongly opposed by then-President Jimmy Carter’s Secretary of Commerce Phillip Klutnick and by Carter’s mentor, retired Admiral Hyman Rickover, Carter signed the bill into law. 

The bill was buttressed six years later by the Federal Technology Transfer Act of 1986, which gave scientists at federal laboratories the right to cut deals with corporations, effectively privatizing the fruits of most taxpayer-funded research. 

Federal courts and regulators have since ruled that the laws allow, for example, pharmaceutical manufacturers to charge American patients several times more for drugs than firms charge in other industrialized countries. 

Critics like David Boltier, a senior fellow at the University of Southern California’s Norman Lear Center, have cited cases when pharmaceutical- company-funded university researchers were barred from disclosing potentially lethal effects of drugs or cases where expensive treatments proved no more beneficial than far cheaper alternative regimens. 

Similarly, researchers who publish in prestigious journals have no legal obligations to disclose the source of funding for their research, though journal editors have been tightening their own disclosure rules in several notable cases. 

 

Berdahl’s research park 

Another attendant phenomenon cited by Berdahl in his Erfurt address was the university research park, “intended to attract industrial partners ... dependent both on the intellectual capital—the ideas generated in research universities—and the human capital—the students educated in these universities.” 

Under Berdahl, UC Berkeley launched a program to create just such a center at its Richmond Field Station, a program with plans to partner with a San Francisco developer to create Bayside Research Campus, featuring more than two million square feet of space for corporate and academic research partnerships. 

The university selected a developer, Simeon Properties, to oversee the massive construction effort on a site contaminated by a century of industrial waste dumping and the manufacture mercury-based explosives. 

Simeon was already developing the adjacent site to the southeast, the highly contaminated former site of a major chemical manufacturing complex. 

But those plans were derailed, at least for the moment—over strong objections from the university—when Richmond activists and environmental organizations forced a change in state oversight of the cleanup effort. 

UC Berkeley, which prides itself on being one of the world’s leading scientific institutions, fought in vain to prevent oversight by the only state regulatory agency staffed by experts in handling toxic chemicals. 

Thanks to the efforts of Assemblymember Loni Hancock and colleague Cindy Montanez, backed by a Richmond City Council Resolution and support from Contra Costa County officials, the state Environmental Protection Agency transferred jurisdiction from the San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board to the state Department of Toxic Substances Control. 

The water board has no staff toxicologists, while the toxics agency is well staffed with scientists.  

Ironically, the firm which bears financial responsibility for much of the mess at the Richmond Field Station and the nearby chemical plant site is now part of a company which drew the wrath of critics down on UC Berkeley for the most controversial research collaboration since Berkeley scientists teamed up with Washington to bring the atomic bomb into being. 

Agro-chemical giant AstraZeneca had the legal responsibility for cleanups at both the Richmond Field Station and the adjoining site, dubbed Campus Bay by the developer. 

In 2000 AstraZeneca merged its agricultural chemical branch—which manufactured herbicides, insecticides and other compounds at Campus Bay—with Novartis to form Syngenta. 

 

Novartis 

Two years before the merger, Novartis had created the Novartis Agricultural Discovery Institute and created a university-industrial partnership that would rock UC Berkeley and set the stage for the emerging furor over the newest and far larger deal with BP. 

The agreement, which fused the interests of a Swiss biochemical giant with the university’s College of Natural Resources, produced a cause celebre that continues to the present day. 

Discontent and the lack of prior review triggered a controversy that ultimately led the university’s academic senate to commission a $300,000 study of the agreement by investigators from Michigan State University’s Institute for Food and Agricultural Standards. 

That report, while finding no evidence of serious misconduct, noted that the dispute had surfaced long-simmering tensions at the university and “highlighted the crisis-ridden state of contemporary public higher education in California” and the nation. 

Among their nine specific recommendations, the authors urged that the university avoid future agreements “that involve complete academic departments or large groups of researchers” and to engage in large-scale debate before embarking on new research agendas and conducting discussions with transparency to the public. 

The Novartis contract expired, with the company left with no commercially viable research to show for its investment. A proposed extension of the contract was never negotiated, and a planned research building was never erected. 

But Wlliam J. Drummond, the journalism professor who chairs the university’s Academic Senate, said he didn’t see how the controversy over the Novartis agreement applied to the BP proposal. 

“I don’t know that that really applies here,” he said. “That happened under the previous regime and one department was the sole beneficiary. There was no discussion beforehand and there was no decision to share the information learned. Here there is.” 

Chapela also agreed that was at least one significant different between the two proposals. One was for $25 million, the other for $500 million.


Planning Chair Ousted in Surprise Move

By Richard Brenneman
Friday February 16, 2007

Ousted Berkeley Planning Commission chair and environmentalist Helen Burke, defeated in a carefully staged coup Wednesday night, said Thursday that David Stoloff, her replacement, told her after the vote that he knew the only way he could beat her was by lying. 

Stoloff denied the allegation. 

Burke said Stoloff told her he hadn’t consulted with the mayor or his chief assistant, Cisco DeVries, “because he said he knew they would shut him down.” 

The mayor had backed Burke a year earlier when she was elected to the chair, a position traditionally held for two years. 

Burke was ousted by a 5-4 vote that saw Stoloff joined by Larry Gurley, Harry Pollack, Susan Wengraf and James Samuels against Burke, Gene Poschman, Mike Sheen and Roia Ferrazares. 

Stoloff, appointed by Mayor Tom Bates on Dec. 2, 2002, won on the votes of commission members considered more developer-friendly than the pro-Burke contingent. He was elected vice-chair last year during the same meeting when Burke was voted in as chair. 

James Samuels, who moved to the Planning Commission after a short term on the Landmarks Preservation Commission—where he found himself frequently on the losing end of votes—was elected vice chair. 

Wednesday’s vote comes at a time when the commission is confronting a range of critical development issues, including the new Downtown Area Plan, which will be submitted to the commission in November. 

The plan, which will govern the future of the city’s heart during as UC Berkeley adds 800,000 square feet of new off-campus uses west of campus, was mandated in the settlement of a city lawsuit challenging the legality of the plan’s Environmental Impact Report. 

Burke, a Sierra Club activist, was named to the commission by Councilmember Linda Maio on Sept. 10, 2004. 

For the last 10 years, most city commissions have elected chairs for two consecutive one-year terms, and Burke said she had expected to be reelected to her position, based in part on statements she said Stoloff had made. 

“I was totally blind-sided,” she said. 

Burke said Stoloff told her he “was not happy” that she had been elected chair last year. “He said he felt I had basically blindsided him, and that he needed to do what he did to become chair. But if he’s mad at me, it’s misplaced. He should be angry at the mayor for supporting my election as chair [last year],” she said.  

Stoloff said Thursday he didn’t tell Burke that he felt he was wrongly deprived of the position, but acknowledged that when she asked him if he would support a continuation of her current position, “I said I’d think about it, and I believe she took that as an acquiescence. It was a misunderstanding I did not correct.” 

The new chair said he didn’t want to discuss more of the details of the conversations. “I don’t want to carry on a debate in the newspapers,” he said. “I wanted to be chair because I have a vision of what the Planning Commission can do, and I believe I can be the most effective in implementing it.” 

“What concerns me is that I had taken strong environmental positions, and I hope this vote is not an indication of things to come,” Burke said. 

When it came time for nominations, Ferrazares—the commission’s newest member—moved to reelect Burke as chair, Lawrence T. Gurley—the second-newest member—nominating Stoloff. 

Before the vote, Burke told her colleagues that “for the past 10 years, every chair has served a two-year term.” 

Following Stoloff’s 5-4 victory, the newly elected chair nominated Samuels, an architect and the third-newest member, as vice-chair. The votes were identical. 

Attorney Harry Pollack, who has also served as chair, said he voted for Stoloff because he felt the retired UC Berkeley planner would be better able to handle the commission’s work plan for the years ahead and to fulfill the vision expressed by Mayor Tom Bates in his State of the City address presented to the City Council Tuesday. 

Pollack said Burke’s actions on the Downtown Area Plan Advisory Committee (DAPAC) didn’t factor into his vote. 

Following the vote, Pollack smiled. 

Burke, who serves as a commission representative on the citizen panel outlining the shape of the downtown plan, has emerged as a leading environmentalist on the panel as well as a critic of some of the proposals of DAPAC Chair Will Travis, a Bates appointee. 

Stoloff said Thursday that Burke will remain on DAPAC as one of the commission’s representatives. 

Cisco DeVries, chief of staff for the mayor, said he and Bates had learned of the move only after the fact. 

“The mayor was taken by surprise by what happened,” said DeVries. “He’s talking to the people who were involved, and he’ll have something to say about it in the near future. 

DeVries said “it’s fair to say” that Bates had supported Burke for election as chair last year. He declined to comment on Burke’s allegations about Stoloff’s allegedly misleading statements in the days before the vote. 

Pollack said Burke’s election a year ago had shattered another commission tradition, in which the vice chair was elected chair. Pollack had been serving as vice chair at the time. 

“The last time she benefited” from breaking tradition, he said. “This time she didn’t.” 

“Well, it looks like the commission has got its marching orders,” said City Councilmember Dona Spring, whose own appointee to the Planning Commission will probably be forced out at the end of June if the council passes, as expected, new commission term limits legislation now being drafted by City Attorney Manuela Albuquerque. 

Gene Poschman represents the panel’s institutional memory, with the longest experience in Berkeley planning policies and politics. He was on the committee that hired Dan Marks, the current city Director of Planning and Development. 

Linda Maio, the councilmember who appointed Burke, was out of town and unavailable for comment Thursday, said administrative aide Brad Smith. 

Susan Wengraf, the aide to Councilmember Betty Olds and also her appointee to the commission, who voted with the majority for chair, is also slated to go if the council passes the limiting measure. 


City Revenue Up, But New Tax Still Possible

By Judith Scherr
Friday February 16, 2007

While Berkeley’s revenue is higher than expected and the city will be able to write checks for $3.3 million above budgeted expenditures, the City Council may need to go to the voters to pay for essential services such as police and fire, City Manager Phil Kamlarz told the council at a budget workshop, part of the council’s regular Tuesday meeting. 

Also at the meeting, the council put off adopting two ordinances which they had previously recommended, one aimed at fining those responsible for hosting parties where underage people are served alcohol and the other penalizing those responsible for excessive noise at private gatherings. Students came to the council asking that these measures be less punitive. The council will address them on Feb. 27 agenda. 

In a Housing Authority meeting, before the regular meeting, the Housing Authority director confirmed an increase in the monthly out-of-pocket tenant payments made by some low-income Section 8 renters, for studios by approximately $35 and for one-bedroom apartments by $55. Section 8 renters normally spend one-third of their income on rent and the federal government pays the balance. The federal government, however, will not fully subsidize Berkeley’s high rents, making additional out-of-pocket payments necessary. This will be back on the Housing Authority agenda for a vote on Feb. 27.  

 

Budget outlook—good and not-so-good 

In the short term, city staff had good news for the council: there will be an estimated $3.3 million revenue over previously predicted income, due mostly to income on investments and greater-than-expected revenue from parking fines.  

In the long term, however, the city manager is looking at new taxes to keep the city in the black. 

Meanwhile, the manager recommended that the funds be spent in the following way: $1 million for the fire department, to end rolling station closures until Dec. 2008; $200,000 to continue police, mental health and cleaning services in the Telegraph Avenue area; $100,000 to a nonprofit, Sustainable Berkeley, for planning reduction of greenhouse gases; $200,000 for maintenance agreements and other elements of the upgraded police and fire computer systems; $500,000 for various economic development projects, including funds to start south and west Berkeley business improvement districts and $1.3 million for infrastructure repair and maintenance—“That’s streets, storm drains and a new sound system for the City Council,” joked Kamlarz, as the council passed a lone microphone back and forth, due to problems with the Council Chamber’s sound system. 

Councilmembers, however, presented other priorities and will vote on spending the $3.3 million Feb. 27. 

For Councilmember Linda Maio, the priority was installing traffic-calming measures in her district, and for Councilmember Betty Olds it was improving the “rough roads.” Councilmember Darryl Moore said he wants funding for youth employment programs. 

Maio said she wanted to see a plan for the use of the $500,000 before approving the funds for economic development. 

While budget manager Tracy Vesely said she asked all department heads to submit next year’s budget with 5 percent cuts, she said that the city might need “new tax measures for public safety staffing.” 

Kamlarz agreed that new taxes might be necessary. “We face some tough choices,” he said. “We need to generate more money for public safety.” Public safety includes police, fire and disaster preparedness. 

But Councilmember Laurie Capitelli said it is not the right time to talk about new taxes.  

“We need to redevelop our economic base for the long term. It’s premature to talk about putting a tax on the ballot until councilmembers commit to economic development,” he said, adding that he did not want to commit new funds to Telegraph Avenue until he had heard a report on how city funds had been expended in the area. 

 

Saving Skating 

Hundreds of children as young as 4, youth, UC Berkeley students and adults paraded through the council chambers with signs and pleas, asking for council support to save Iceland, the 67-year old Ice Skating rink in central Berkeley that is up for sale. 

“Berkeley Iceland is my home away from home,” said Jimmy Duval, a student at Martin Luther King Jr. High and one of some dozen Iceland supporters who were able to address the council directly. 

“Where can I write my check?” asked Councilmember Kriss Worthington, which is exactly what the group wanted to hear. They are forming a nonprofit to try to purchase the facility, which is on the market for $6.7 million. They said that as soon as they get state approval, they’ll be able to collect funds. 

Unlike many nonprofits, they said they are not coming to the city for funds—just the council’s blessing, which the smiling council seemed to give. (Iceland was not on the agenda and was not discussed.)  

The group can be reached at www.saveberkeleyiceland.org. 

 

 

 

 


Next Steps in Closed Police Misconduct Hearings Case

By Judith Scherr
Friday February 16, 2007

Superior Court Judge Winifred Smith issued a decision, made available this week, agreeing with the Berkeley Police Association, which had filed suit against the city, that open hearings on complaints against the police violate the officers’ privacy rights.  

And so the community and Police Review Commission members are scrambling to address the issue. Should closed-door hearings be held? Should open hearings be held without the presence of a police officer? Should the decision be appealed? 

The city suspended its 30-year open hearing process in September after the California Supreme Court ruled, in Copley Press v. San Diego, that public police misconduct hearings conducted by agencies that employ police officers violate the Police Officers Bill of Rights Act. The city argued that the city of Berkeley and not the Police Review Commission is the employing agency and has the sole responsibility for disciplining officers, but Smith rejected that argument. 

In a phone interview Wednesday, American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California Police Practices Policy Director Mark Schlosberg, who submitted an amicus brief on behalf of the city, told the Planet that he had asked the Police Review Commission earlier to be prepared with a game-plan already in place in case the city lost in court. 

The commission has 40 outstanding complaints.  

The PRC “needed to prepare for the outcome,” Schlosberg said. The commission should “go forward and hold the hearings in private … Complaints are in limbo,” he added. 

“It’s hard to tell how effective hearings will be without the public, but it’s better than not holding hearings,” he said. 

City Attorney Manuela Albuquerque was invited to the Wednesday evening PRC meeting to discuss options, but declined to come, according to PRC Officer Victoria Urbi. She intends to advise the City Council and PRC on their options in a joint closed session on Tuesday.  

The public can comment before the council meeting, which will take place at 5 p.m., in the 6th floor conference room at the Civic Center Building, 2180 Milvia St.  

At the Wednesday PRC meeting, Urbi outlined the closed-door procedures Oakland has adopted: After a public comment period, the public and press leave the hearing room. The complainant, the subject officers and their legal representatives remain with the hearing panel. Witnesses stay outside the hearing room and are called in only when it is their turn to testify. The parties, representatives and witnesses must all sign confidentiality statements. The final reports are different for the panel, officer and complainant.  

“It’s not my recommendation to adopt the Oakland model,” said Commissioner Bill White, calling for a separate meeting to discuss the various possibilities. He said he believes that any changes in procedures would have to go through the City Council, which would have to re-write the ordinance that guides the way the PRC does business. 

Audience participant Andrea Pritchett of Copwatch argued against closed hearings, noting that it is the public pressure that is brought to bear on the department that creates positive change in police conduct.  

“I don’t want to go to a closed hearing,” she said. “If I had a big issue, I’d go to court.” 

Pritchett further said she thinks there may be a way to hold pubic PRC hearings without officers, who might choose voluntarily to attend the hearings in order to present their viewpoints. 

Commissioner Michael Sherman said he thought closed PRC hearings might violate the Brown Act, the state’s open meeting law. 

Because the city attorney was not present, those questions were deferred. Albuquerque authored a short statement on the decision, but, through a spokesperson, said she would not talk to the press about the various possibilities for future hearings. 

Pritchett noted that the planned discussion of the closed hearings in the PRC-City Council closed-door meeting is “kind of ironic” and advised the commissioners: “Please don’t meet under those conditions.” 

Copwatch is holding a public meeting Monday to look at various strategies for holding the police accountable, at 8 p.m. at 2022 Blake St. 

 

Other matters 

In other PRC business, the commission voted Wednesday 6-0 to have a “full-blown investigation” of the drug-theft issues in which Sgt. Cary Kent was found to have stolen drug evidence from some 286 sealed evidence envelopes. Commissioner Jack Radisch was absent and Mayor Tom Bates and Councilmember Linda Maio have vacant commission slots. 

A newly-hired investigator will assist a commission subcommittee with the investigation, which will go beyond the 900-page police report to try to uncover how this problem might have occurred and whether other officers in addition to the single convicted officer might have been involved. 

“We’ll need direction from the city attorney on what we can do in light of the court case,” Urbi told the commission. 

 

 

 


Legislation Takes Aim at Police Hearings

By Judith Scherr
Friday February 16, 2007

State Assemblymember Mark Leno (D-San Francisco) is planning to introduce legislation, which, if passed, could reopen police complaint hearings around the state.  

The California Supreme Court decision Copley Press v. San Diego resulted in cities with police complaint boards either suspending their public police complaint hearings, as Berkeley did, or closing them to the public, as Oakland has done.  

The Supreme Court case involved San Diego Union-Tribune publisher Copley Press which filed suit after the San Diego County Civil Service Commission, which has the power to discipline police officers, blocked the newspaper’s access to a complaint hearing on allegations against a sheriff’s deputy. 

The lower court ruled in Copley’s favor, but police unions appealed. In a 6-1 decision in August, the California Supreme Court said the public doesn’t have the right to access discipline records of officers who come before panels that consider police misconduct, because such records are private personnel records, maintained by the officer’s “employing agency” and exempt from public disclosure.  

In November, Berkeley contested a lawsuit brought by the Berkeley Police Association, similarly contending that police officer hearings and records of the hearings must remain closed to protect the privacy of police officers. The city lost to BPA last week in Superior Court. 

The definition of an “employing agency” was germane to both this week’s Berkeley v. BPA decision as well as to the Copley Press case; it is central to the legislation Leno plans to introduce. 

In a phone interview Wednesday with the Planet, Leno said the current law “prevents public access [to records] held by the employing agency.” He said the key to reopening the hearings and the records of them is redefining the notion of “employing agency.”  

In his legislation, a department or agency that does not directly employ the officer would not be considered an “employing agency.” 

The legislation “would overturn that specific component of Copley,” he said. It would allow commissions that conducted open hearings before Copley to resume doing so, he said. 

In San Diego, the Civil Service Commission was deemed the employing agency; in Berkeley, Judge Winifred Smith ruled, contrary to the Berkeley City Attorney’s argument, that the PRC is the employing agency. “PRC records are protected under Penal Code section 832.7 because they are maintained by the peace officers’ employing agency, the city of Berkeley,” Smith wrote. 

Among the problems closed complaint hearings present, Leno said, is that the public is excluded from important information regarding police conduct: Is the disciplining body exhibiting a pattern of leniency toward a particular officer? Has an officer engaged in repeated misconduct? Has a department hired an officer who had disciplinary problems in a previous department? 

Leno’s legislation would allow the public access to the name of the subject officer, the complaint against the officer, a summary of findings and the resultant discipline. 

Leno underscored that the legislation would protect the officer by revealing information only on charges that were sustained, and keep confidential those that were not. Frivolous complaints would not be made public.  

“We want to be respectful of the important work police officers do,” Leno said.  

Leno is working in tandem with State Senate Majority Leader Gloria Romero (D-Los Angeles). The legislation introduced in the two state houses will be identical. 

 

 

 


Tree Sitters Hang In There Despite UC Pressure

By Richard Brenneman
Friday February 16, 2007

With a major courtroom victory in hand, Berkeley protesters aren’t giving up their arboreal perches high in a threatened grove adjacent to UC Berkeley’s Memorial Stadium. 

“We’re here to stay,” said Zachary Running Wolf, the former mayoral candidate who launched the tree-in during the pre-dawn hours of Big Game Saturday, Dec. 2. 

Protesters had a brief but strained encounter with campus police Wednesday morning after a group of eight officers, including one detective, arrived at the scene along with a contingent of university groundskeepers and the equipment needed to take down platforms. 

But supporters of the tree-sit had already complied with the university’s key demand the day before, removing the tarps, cooking gear and sleeping equipment they’d been asked to clear out earlier. 

“It was tense for awhile until we started calling the media,” said Running Wolf. 

Officers briefly wrapped crime scene tapes around the trees occupied by the sitters as they removed one unoccupied platform, the site of a high profile Jan. 22 sit-in by 90-year-old environmentalist Sylvia McLaughlin, 84-year-old Berkeley City Councilmember Betty Olds and former Mayor Shirley Dean, 71. 

“That just means we’ll have to put up another one,” said Michael Kelly, vice president of the Panoramic Hill Association, one of the groups which successfully sought a preliminary injunction that has halted for at least a year the university’s ambitious plans to add more than $330 million in new, donor-financed construction at and near the landmarked stadium. 

The new platform offered the public a chance to join the tree-sitters for 30- to 60-minute increments starting at 10 a.m. Thursday and continuing until 9 a.m. today (Friday). 

“Our membership supports the tree-sitters staying as long as it takes to save the trees,” said Doug Buckwald, who has been coordinating ground support for the protest. 

While protesters say they fear the university plans to throw up a fence to keep them out of the grove, UC Police Lt. Mitch Celaya said no such action is planned—at least for now. 

“Enough is enough. We have told them they are trespassing and they need to leave. The ball’s in their court, and if they don’t leave, then we need to look at our options,” Celaya said. 

“We prefer not to fence, and at the moment we don’t plan to, but it’s clearly an option,” he said. “The police department has a duty to maintain university property and to prevent trespassing.” 

The threat of an immediate chainsaw attack on the grove has been removed for the moment, at least until an Alameda County Superior Court judge can conduct a full-scale hearing on the issue several months hence. 

Jurist Barbara J. Miller has reaffirmed her preliminary injunction in an action brought by critics of the university’s plans to build a costly four-story high-tech gym at the site of the grove. 

Her rulings have forced at least a year’s delay in the project, one that university officials say will cost them between $8 million and $10 million as the prices of concrete, steel and other construction materials continues to soar in the face of China’s ongoing economic boom. 

But the judge ruled that the university’s economic claims were outweighed by the plaintiffs’, who “have made a sufficiently strong showing of likelihood of success on their claims under the Alquist-Priolo Earthquake Fault Zoning Act and the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA)” to merit a preliminary injunction. 

The ruling halted all further development on a collection of building plans dubbed the Southeast Campus Integrated Projects, or SCIP. 

Projects include: 

• a 911-space mostly underground parking lot northwest of the stadium; 

• changes to the landmarked Gayley Road streetscape; 

• construction of a new Connection Building bridging functions and offices of the university’s law and business schools; and 

• a major seismic upgrade of Memorial Stadium, where the interior would be gutted, new seats added and two levels erected above the western rim, including luxury sky boxes for deep-pocket donors and a new level to accommodate the media and their cameras.


Berkeley High Marks Valentine’s Day with Trash Heap

By Riya Bhattacharjee
Friday February 16, 2007

Candy and balloons were not the only things Berkeley High students got to sift through on Valentines Day Tuesday. A group of juniors from the School of Social Justice & Ecology (SSJE)—a small school at Berkeley High—met up with their peers at BHS to dig through the school’s trash and dissect it. 

The event “Trash Heap for Valentine’s Day,” marked the beginning of a major campaign to accelerate the level of recycling at Berkeley High.  

BHS custodians were asked to stack all the school’s trash in the center of the quad from Feb. 12-14, so that students could see what they were throwing away in three days. 

“We wanted them to say ‘eww,’ we wanted them to say ‘gross.’ We wanted them to stop and open some of these trash bags on Valentine’s Day and evaluate some of the stuff inside.,” said Kate Trimlett, lead teacher at SSJE. 

“Kids learn about the four R’s—Reduce, Reuse, Recycle and Rot—from third grade onwards. But they also need to learn how to use less to produce less trash than needed,” she said. 

Pointing to an apple core that came out of a trash bag, Trimlett told her group of students that the fruit was an excellent example of what should have been recycled but wasn’t. 

“There are hundreds of other things that kids throw into the trash every day that are actually compost,” she said. “We carried out a survey on students and most of them want recycling. Bottles, paper, pencils, batteries, food scraps -- the list is endless. They also want recycling bins in the courtyard.” 

Recycling bins are only in the classroom and in the food court at Berkeley High.  

BHS is also the only school in the Berkeley Unified School District to receive a grant under the Service Learning Waste Reduction Program (SLWRP) funded by Stopwaste.org, also known as the Alameda County Waste Management Authority. 

Marcy Greenhut, Berkeley High recycling coordinator for the City of Berkeley, said that awareness had been the main purpose behind this little exercise. 

“We wanted to illustrate how much waste we produce and how much of the trash could have been recycled instead of becoming landfill. People just go to Cosco and Walmart and keep on buying stuff. We need to learn how to reuse some of the things we buy,” she said. 

Greenhut told the Planet that the recycling program at Berkeley High had really picked up after principal Jim Slemp took over the administration. 

Jen Marks, a representative from the Alameda County Office of Education, said teachers often found it difficult to incorporate recycling into the curriculum. 

“But there are ways to do it,” she said. “Economics, language, math and art are all great subjects through which recycling can be taught.Teachers just need to be a little creative.” 

The entire school district is implementing mixed paper and cardboard recycling. “Thirteen out of 17 schools have been diverting food waste,” said Greenhut.  

“Instead of going into the trash, the food waste goes into biodegradable green bags which get collected by the city and transported to the compost facility. The recycled material is then brought back to the city to be used in different ways.” 

Terrence Womack, a ninth-grader at SSJE, said that he hated to see school money going to waste for not recycling. 

“BHS spends $3,500 per month on trash removal. This money could be used toward more purposeful things, such as textbooks and fieldtrips. If we don’t recycle, we could be living next to trash heaps in the future,” he said. 

A few students who were passing by the 200 plus bags of trash on Tuesday did not believe that it was generated by the students.  

Victoria Harmon, a sophomore, said that students were aware of recycling but were sometimes too lazy to carry it out. 

“Most of the time my friends would rather throw stuff on the ground,” she said. 

Kayla Miller, who was getting credits to dissect a bag of trash during her English period, said that she had found money, hair, pencils and even a condom that afternoon.  

“It’s kind of disgusting, but shameful at the same time,” she said. 

“I know we are doing really great with recycling bottles because we got three of them from two bags. But what is really sad is most of this stuff doesn’t belong in the trash. It is compost and should have been recycled.” 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


West Oakland Fatal Crash Raises Questions

By J. Douglas Allen-Taylor
Friday February 16, 2007

With Oakland Police officials insisting that no police chase preceded a Sunday evening North Oakland accident that resulted in the death of a 41-year-old Stockton woman, a North Oakland resident living within two blocks of the crash says she witnessed a police chase immediately before the fatal crash. 

Monica Lucky was killed in the intersection of West MacArthur Boulevard and Martin Luther King Jr. Way when her Honda was struck by a Lincoln Continental driven by 21-year-old Oakland resident Kevin Jackson. Jackson, who was apprehended at the scene by Oakland police, was treated at a local hospital for injuries sustained in the accident, and is currently under arrest and charged with vehicular manslaughter. Several passengers in Jackson’s car fled from the scene on foot. 

Asked in a telephone interview if a police chase preceded the fatal accident, Acting OPD Traffic Sergeant Vincent Fratangelo said, “No. No chase was involved in this one.” And asked by telephone if it was correct that no police chase immediately preceded the accident, OPD Lieutenant Paul Berlin answered “Right.” 

But a neighbor who says she witnessed the incident from her North Oakland home says differently. 

Software developer Amy Badore says she was looking out the window of her third floor home Sunday night and “saw a car going by really fast” on Martin Luther King Jr. Way near 37th Street, going towards the MacArthur Boulevard intersection. Badore says that immediately afterwards, “I saw a police car following with its sirens and lights on.” 

Badore says that she was looking out the west window of her house, which faces Highway 580. She said that she heard an automobile crash and went to the south window of her house, which faces towards West MacArthur Boulevard. “I couldn’t see the crash scene itself, because four police cars had already surrounded the crash by the time I looked out,” Badore said. “But I saw a lot of people running away from the scene.” 

Two days after the crash, following an Oakland Tribune article that reported on the accident but did not mention a police chase, Badore posted a comment to the Tribune article, writing that “This crash was a direct result of a police chase. I live 1 block from the intersection of MacArthur and Martin Luther King and saw the car going north on MLK followed by a police car.” When a followup-poster wrote that “I would certainly hope that any witnesses to the event would file their observations with the authorities,” Badore wrote back, “As far as filing observations with the authorities. Authority was following the racing car at 200 yards. Not to mention the 4 other OPD cars immediately following on the scene when the crash occurred. OPD knows EXACTLY what happened.” 

The February 13 Tribune article listed a police number (510 238-3156) to call with any information about the accident. Badore says she called that number, but no one answered. She also says she has contacted the office of Councilmember Nancy Nadel, who has promised to investigate. 

A staff member in Nadel’s office said that they have been informed by Oakland police officials that there was no police chase involved, but that the accident resulted from “a person roaming the streets at high speed who ran a red light.” 

A Summary Of Facts of the accident by the OPD Traffic Investigation Department mentions no police involvement in the crash, but says that a police officer was a witness to the crash. 

“At 19:40 hours an OPD officer on-viewed a collision involving two vehicles at the intersection of West MacArthur and Martin Luther King Jr. Way,” the summary reads. “The officer witnessed a Lincoln traveling northbound on Martin Luther King Jr. Way at a high rate of speed. The Lincoln failed to stop for the light at West MacArthur Boulevard and collided with a Honda which was traveling westbound on West MacArthur Boulevard.” 

A report by the Bay City News Wire published on February 14 tells a slightly fuller version of the story. 

“According to [Oakland Police Department spokesman Roland] Holmgren,” the BCN story says, “Kevin Jackson, who was on probation for robbery and drug-related charges, is suspected of hitting Monica Lucky’s vehicle after he nearly collided with an Oakland police patrol car and ran a red light. The police officer who was nearly hit by the suspect vehicle made a U-turn to try and pursue Jackson, but before the officer could successfully do this, the other vehicle collided with Lucky’s car, killing her, according to Holmgren.” 

For her part, eyewitness Badore says she is not anti-police. “I really appreciate the job the police are doing in this neighborhood,” she said. “But it’s a little scary to have them doing high-speed chases here. It’s a very busy neighborhood. What if I had been riding on my bicycle or backing out of my driveway when this happened?” Badore also said that she found it “irritating that they’re not admitting they were chasing the car.”


Berkeley High Beat: Advisory Program Created At Berkeley High School

By Rio Bauce
Friday February 16, 2007

On Wednesday, the Berkeley High School’s (BHS) School Governance Committee discussed the creation of a schoolwide advisory program for all students. Under the BHS Western Association of Schools and Colleges Action Plan, the school agreed to implement such a program, which would create a mandatory advisory class for students starting for the 2007-2008 school year.  

“We had a productive half-day meeting on the plan,” said BHS Principal Slemp.”We’re getting a lot of constructive feedback from the community.”  

If enacted as planned for next year, students will be randomly assigned a staff advisor for their entire four years at BHS. Groups will include an equal number from each grade in each class. The class will be between 22 and 24 students. Students will be graded on a pass or a fail basis, and the grade will be based on attendance and participation.  

The stated purpose of the advisory program is to: 1) personalize the BHS experience by providing a safe and caring community that evolves over four years; 2) empower students to be their own advocates; 3) develop habits of successful students; 4) provide students with information on policies, resources, opportunities, etc; 5) provide every student with an adult advocate.  

To accomplish these goals, the students will have an advisory program, of which there are four possible scenarios on the table. In Option #1, every Wednesday (excluding the one late start day per month), periods one through six would be shortened to 46-48 minutes per class to accommodate the advisory period, which would be 41 minutes between periods two and three. In Option #2, all the class periods would be extended to 58 minutes to account for required instructional time and school would let out at 3:28. However, every Wednesday there would be a late start day (school would start at 10 AM), which would include a 41 minute advisory between periods one and two.  

“I think Option #2 is the most feasible option for the student body,” said BHS Junior Flor Juarez. “I don’t object to spending 13 more minutes in class if I get a late start day every Wednesday ... I don’t think the options with block scheduling would work very well.”  

In Option #3, BHS would implement block scheduling: Periods 1, 2, 3 would alternate every other day with Periods 2, 4, 6, where each period would last 103 minutes. Under this option, the advisory class would be on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday for 31 minutes. There would be a late start day every Wednesday and 10-minute passing periods.  

In Option #4, there would be block scheduling, but the periods would only be 97 minutes. In this scenario, school would let out at the same time. Advisory would take place Tuesday and Thursday for 45 minutes, but there would only be one late start day per month.  

BHS Junior Joanna Cheney likes option #4 the best: “It breaks up the advisory time, so you don’t have it every  

day and unlike the others, it doesn’t stick the advisory spot randomly between classes.”  

The possible scenarios are scheduled to be presented to the BHS staff on Wednesday, March 7, before the School Governance Committee takes its final vote on the proposal on Tuesday, March 20th. Slemp said that the school is receiving feedback from the community and that it really helps the decision-making process.  

“We’re trying to get through this with enough support and feedback,” commented Slemp.”I think it is important to help all students be successful.”


Opinion

Editorials

Editorial: One More Time: Who Is My Neighbor?

By Becky O’Malley
Tuesday February 20, 2007

So you look out your kitchen window, and in the yard next door the two brothers who live there seem to be fighting. You notice that they’ve got knives and that one of them seems to be bleeding a bit. What do you do? Go over there and stand between them? Call the police? Yell out the window to them, “Cut it out, right now!” Perhaps? Or do you pull down your shades and go on making  

dinner? 

Of all the above answers, the normal person with good intentions would say that the last option is the wrong one for sure. Which of the other three to choose is problematic, but it’s human nature, thank goodness, for most of us to want to try to do something to keep our neighbors from killing one another.  

That’s why no one should be surprised that some of us who are neither Jewish nor Moslem, neither Arab nor Israeli, people like Jimmy Carter and Kofi Annan and (not to claim any right to be in such distinguished company) the management of this publication feel that it’s our duty to continue to address, from time to time, the ongoing controversies in what used to be called the Holy Land. A Jewish correspondent directed our attention to Secretary General Annan’s wise words, which appear on the opposite page, saying that they expressed his own whole opinion on the topic, and we agree with him.  

The excellent Cal English department introduced me to John Donne’s powerful meditation on our relationships with one another: “No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend’s or of thine own were. Any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind….”  

The spectacle of Donne’s religious descendants, today’s Episcopalians and other Anglicans, slicing and dicing one another around the world must be causing him to turn over in his grave. Many will say that Christians have always quarreled with one another, but that doesn’t make it right. And is it any business of those who are post-Christian, or who never were Christian, to scold them for it? Possibly. 

In the forties, fifties and sixties Southern whites used to warn the few Jews in their towns, many of whom had the bad habit of speaking up for the civil rights of local African-Americans, that segregation was none of their business, that they were outsiders who just didn’t understand the relationship of blacks and whites. The course of history might well have been different if they hadn’t ignored that advice and spoken up anyway. 

In the recent past all sorts of people in the United States and in Europe who have expressed opinions about the ongoing Israel/Palestine troubles have faced pressure to be silent from some who think of themselves as friends of Israel. Very recently the recipients of such pressure have found the courage to speak up about it, to say that it does more harm than good.  

Stories about attempts to silence critics of Israel have now appeared in The Guardian in England, in the New York Review of Books and in the Jewish Forward, among others. Just last weekend there was a story about it on NPR’s excellent On the Media program, with the Forward’s editor as guest. The top cover story in this month’s Harpers Magazine, about democratic trends within Islam, by Ken Silverstein, incidentally recounts the efforts of a parade of editors at the Los Angeles Times to gut a story he did on Hezbollah “for fear of offending supporters of Israel.” Reading between the lines, that’s probably why Silverstein no longer works for the Times.  

One of Christianity’s central stories, the parable of the good Samaritan, was told by Jesus to a lawyer who asked, “Who is my neighbor?” when he was reminded that religious law commanded him to love his neighbor. The meaning of the story has often been discussed and often disputed because it’s hard for people to accept the message that they should get involved in the problems of all kinds of others, not just of people in their own group, friends or family. It becomes even more relevant in today’s world of air travel and mass communications when we have all become neighbors whether we like it or not. 

But we sympathize with the complaints of our Berkeley readers who are more than tired of hearing about Israel and Palestine. This includes those who have personal reasons for caring about what happens there and for whom the subject is just too painful, those who don’t regard people across the globe as their neighbors, those who think local topics are more important, and even those who just think that local papers ought to focus on more pleasant topics. (One correspondent even suggested that we should ban the topic from our op-ed pages because an increasingly large percentage of Berkeley’s population is Jewish, a logic hard to follow.)  

We still have a backlog of letters elicited by Matthew Taylor’s eloquent defense of Jimmy Carter’s new book, but our sense is that once again our readers have had enough for a while. We agree with Taylor that Carter is a brave man whose work has been unfairly maligned, but a lot of space in major media has now been devoted to the same opinion. The book is still high on the best-seller lists, so perhaps it doesn’t need any more comments in these pages for a while. We’ll probably get around to putting the remaining letters on the Internet eventually, but we’re going to give us all a break by giving up printing any more of them, at least for Lent. 


Bates Gives His Annual Assessment of the City

By Judith Scherr
Friday February 16, 2007

Mayor Tom Bates praised the city’s role in protecting the environment and the economic growth in many of Berkeley’s shopping districts, but spent most of his State of the City address Tuesday evening setting the stage for the future:  

Berkeley will become a town where “green” building is a must, he said, a place where research and development corporations can locate more easily on properties now restricted to manufacturing; where people with inappropriate street behavior are offered services, but whose actions are also restricted by police; where innovative businesses such as those researching nanotechnology and stem-cells are welcomed; where the university is condemned when necessary, but honored for its good works, such as its innovative approach to the public-private partnership proposed for UC Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratories with BP (formerly British Petroleum).  

With every seat in the council chambers filled for the annual speech—which will be repeated with modifications for the Chamber of Commerce on March 1—and, despite a makeshift sound system rushed in at the last minute to substitute for the regular system, which wasn’t working, the speech began with only a 10-minute delay. 

 

Cheers for Brower Center  

The mostly silent audience broke into cheers when the mayor raised the issue of the Brower Center/Oxford Plaza project, a two-pronged development proposed for the city-owned parking lot at 2200 Oxford St., slated to include office space for environmental organizations and large apartments for low-income families.  

“There are a few people out there right now spreading misinformation in an effort to kill this project,” he said. “I urge you not to sign the referendum.”  

Bates, a former 20-year assemblymember, underscored the need for regional planning in economic development, crime fighting and ending chronic homelessness. “No city can do it alone,” he said. 

 

Praise for BP-University Liaison 

While he promised to be tough on the university when necessary—the city is trying to stop UC Berkeley from building a sports training facility on an earthquake fissure next to Memorial Stadium—he promised the city would continue to work in partnership with the university on other projects and praised the UC Berkeley-LBNL-BP deal to research biofuels announced two weeks ago. (While many faculty members support the partnership, some have told the Daily Planet they fear its potential to interfere with academic freedom and the possibility that it would open the door to university support for genetically-altered plants such as corn and grasses for use as biofuels.) 

“We are poised to be an international center for the development of new environmental technologies,” he said. “That opportunity grew with the award of a $500 million biofuels research center to UC Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National Lab two weeks ago.” [The University of Illinois is expected to get a fifth of that sum.] 

 

West Berkeley Zoning May Change  

Bates further pointed to Berkeley’s role in inviting stem cell and nanoscience research to the city: “We need to make it easier for these new businesses to open and expand in Berkeley,” he said. 

In fact the mayor was advocating a radical change in West Berkeley zoning. “Right now, a company doing research in new alternative energies or fuels could not locate in much of West Berkeley without major delays because our current zoning does not permit them,” he said. “As the economy shifts, we have to adjust the rules.”  

That proposal is likely to be met with scrutiny by some West Oakland businesses, said Mary Lou Van Deventer of West Berkeley’s Urban Ore. Speaking to the Planet after the speech, Deventer pointed out that the area had been set aside for manufacturing and the good jobs that accompany it.  

Jesse Arreguin, zoning board commissioner, shared Deventer’s concerns. The mayor’s plan could “increase gentrification and drive up rents,” he said. 

 

Outsiders Fuel Arts Growth 

Bates told the audience that he sees the arts as an economic boon, bringing outside money into the city. “The vast majority of people attending Berkeley arts events come from out of town, which also makes it clear that we must think regionally how we grow,” he said, proposing that a portion of the city’s 12-percent hotel tax be earmarked to support arts organizations. 

To support small businesses, Bates promised a shop-local campaign and his advocacy for a change in zoning laws to make it easier for a business of one type to be replaced by one of another type. This change is in the process of being adopted in the Telegraph Avenue area. 

Looking out for young people, Bates noted that last year the city had filled just 120 slots for summer employment out of 400 applicants. There need to be 400 jobs available, he said.  

 

Homeless Need Services and Police Intervention 

Addressing chronic homelessness—there are some 530 people who have been homeless for more than a year in Berkeley—Bates promised: “Funding for homeless services will not be cut.”  

He also said he would address the disturbance created by people exhibiting inappropriate behavior on city streets. Bates called for more mental health programs and praised the countywide detox center slated to open next summer in San Leandro. 

“We need to set community standards for street behavior and provide our mental health and social service, and police with the tools they need to improve the climate on our commercial streets,” he said. 

Bates aide Julie Sinai said details are not available on the plan, as the mayor continues to confer with the city attorney on the question. (During the mayoral race, Bates said he would support anti-sleeping and lying ordinances.) 

 

Plans Will Attack Greenhouse Gases  

Bates is probably best known for his consistent stance on environmental protection. In his speech, he called climate change the city’s “greatest challenge” and, although Measure G, the Greenhouse Gas Emissions measure passed overwhelmingly by voters in November, was advisory, he said he is “going to act like it was legally binding.” 

Berkeley emissions come from transportation at 45 percent, commercial buildings at 29 percent and residences at 26 percent, Bates said, noting that the city will contract with a nonprofit corporation, Sustainable Berkeley, to write a local plan to diminish greenhouse gasses. The city council will vote Feb. 27 on whether to give $100,000 to Sustainable Berkeley for that effort.  

The plan is likely to include expanding car-sharing programs, “green” requirements for new construction, residential efficiency requirements and city funds devoted to solar energy, he said. 

Councilmember Kriss Worthington noted with regret that last year the mayor spoke about passing a city sunshine ordinance, but did not mention it in this year’s State of the City address. Sunshine ordinances extend the state’s open meeting laws. A draft sunshine ordinance will be discussed at the council’s Feb. 27 meeting.  

“I’m counting on his strong support for a strong sunshine ordinance,” Worthington said. 

 

 


Public Comment

Letters to the Editor

Tuesday February 20, 2007

OPEN LETTER TO CAL 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I am an avid Cal Fan. My great-grandfather played halfback and his brother quarterback on some of the first teams at Cal. I think there is no reason, however, to sacrifice irreplaceable natural resources for a mere building. There are many other suitable sites and solutions available and I urge you to turn to these solutions.  

Foresight, planning and engineering sustainable human use of our world is the highest form of intellectual behavior. Cal has always been considered a great forum for developing mind and body. But what kind of “highperformance” is it that foregoes the best, most sustainable solution to the pragmatics of timetables or cutting corners? Isn’t it about time that “planning” includes more permanent and sustainable solutions that magnify the grace and beauty of our natural world rather than the “cleverness” of quick solutions that have to be undone later. Unfortunately in this case, there will be no ability to undo the destruction that will be done.  

Please show me that Cal gives a damn about the planet instead of economic pragmatics. Maybe if the Regents returned some of their outrageous salary thefts to the university, an appropriate alternative could be built on time and within budget as well as save our environment. 

While we are at it, why not restore the waterfalls that used to exist in the gully behind the stadium? In fact, why not think about incorporating natural restoration of the surrounding environment as part of every project at Cal? You could have the various departments build student teams to plan, develop and build the projects that would achieve these sustainable projects, thereby placing the university at the cutting edge of education promoting a sane coexistence with earth. 

I love Cal athletics and attend all the Bear football games. I can, but do not want, this pleasurable activity compromised by the knowledge that we are sacrificing a sustainable relationship with Earth! 

And please don’t send me a reply that tries to say that what I have said here is somehow mistaken or try to prove there is any rationalization for destroying the Old Oak Grove! Please! 

Sandy Sanders 

• 

ATTACKING IRAN 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I was horrified to learn that the president is thinking of attacking Iran. The result would be huge chaos and human suffering, large additional U.S. troops in the Middle East, and increased world anger at and dislike of the United States. 

U.S. citizens need to do all they can to let members of the House know how strongly we oppose such an attack. Our local congressperson, Barbara Lee, was the first to oppose Bush’s ability to go to war (on Afghanistan I think). It would be good to call or e-mail her. However, the best thing people could do is to e-mail or call friends or relatives in other states, and encourage those friends and relatives to tell their congresspeople how much they oppose a war on Iran. If your friend or relative does not know the name of his or her congressperson, tell your friend or relative to call the nearest public library. 

Julia Craig 

 

• 

COMMUNITY 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I was disappointed to see the  

petitions being circulated to stop the affordable housing project proposed for downtown Berkeley as part of the David Brower Center and Oxford Plaza. In the interest of full disclosure, Resources for Community Development (RCD) helped us with a small affordable housing project several years ago for children and young people with developmental disabilities, the BUiLD house. (This letter represents my own views and not necessarily those of BUiLD, Inc.) RCD staff took the time and devoted the resources necessary to help us navigate the process of providing housing and services for this underserved group of Berkeley residents. I’m certain they will take the time and effort to produce a quality project for downtown Berkeley. 

I’m sure we all know hard-working people with non-profit or other lower wage jobs who struggle each month to afford a decent place to live while providing for the other needs of their children and families. Many of us longtime residents—30 years in my case—who bought our homes years ago would be hard pressed to buy in today’s housing market or maybe even to find a decent place to rent. To argue, as the circulators of the petition do, that the city of Berkeley “gave away” land to RCD is to obscure the fact that RCD is a nonprofit organization that will use the land to provide affordable housing for our fellow city residents. I hope that those of us who live in relative comfort in Berkeley have big enough hearts to want to extend the same opportunity to others who aren’t so fortunate. 

Stephen Rosenbaum 

 

• 

BUSES  

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Perhaps I am still young enough to be considered a “younger rider” of AC Transit but I suspect I have fallen out of that category. However, I enjoy riding the Van Hool buses; in fact I get excited when I see one of them approaching over the other buses in the fleet. I’m a stay-at-home mom and ride the bus several times a week with my young son. Van Hool’s make it so easy to get a stroller on and off the bus. The other buses have narrow aisles and multiple stairs that make it much harder to take a stroller on our journeys. If I knew I would be picked up by a Van Hool every time, I would not have to think twice about taking the stroller.  

I think we neglect to remember that the vast majority of individuals that turn out to public meetings dislike an item on the agenda, while those who are not against it are perfectly content and stay home. How can people be so upset about a type of bus? Why not focus on buses keeping their schedule, adding more routes to underserved communities, increasing the frequency of service, or having bus drivers that don’t endanger your life by talking on the phone or wearing headphones. These seem to be issues that would better serve our community, not outcry over the type of bus that picks us up each day.  

K. Karver 

 

• 

PLANNING COMMISSION 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Helen Burke and I have sometimes found ourselves on opposite sides of political debate in Berkeley, but I have always recognized her as a person of integrity. Now, serving with Helen on the DAPAC, I have come to appreciate how extraordinarily effective she is in shepherding her green and sustainable vision for Berkeley into reality. I believe it is precisely Helen’s efficacy as an environmental leader that was being targeted in the recent shabby machinations at the Planning Commission when Helen was ousted and David Stoloff, a former UC planner, installed as chair, with Jim Samuels, his pro-developer colleague, promoted to vice-chair. 

The Downtown Area Plan developed by the DAPAC will be submitted to the Planning Commission for action at the end of the year. This coup places development interests firmly in the driver’s seat when this happens. As Stoloff is Mayor Bates’ appointee to Planning, the question arises if Bates is truly committed to a sustainable Berkeley. How he handles this situation will give an important clue as to whether the mayor actually believes in a green future for Berkeley or is merely engaged in politically motivated greenwashing.  

Whatever happens, this nastiness should act as a flashing red light to those analyzing the pros and cons of Stoloff’s plans for North Shattuck. If we have learned any one thing from this sorry affair, it is that David Stoloff will lie to get what he wants. 

Patti Dacey  

 

• 

HELEN BURKE 

Editors, Daily Planet:  

Although tradition suggests that commission chairs serve for two one-year terms, no one has a right to automatic election to a second term. As past chair of two commissions myself, I know that re-election is something that must be earned. It is because Helen Burke has so clearly paid her dues, and provided inspiration to so many in the East Bay, that I am surprised and disappointed with the action taken by the majority of the Planning Commission. 

Helen looms large as a presence in the Berkeley environmental community due to her past positions as an elected member of the EBMUD board and on the staff of the regional U.S. EPA, as well as her decades of Sierra Club activism. As a fellow member of the DAPAC and in many other ways over the years, I have worked closely with Helen. She is creative, well-informed, a proven leader, and entirely dedicated to the community. We are lucky to have her help while Berkeley strives to define its future during a time of university expansion. I hope that the new chair thinks about what he has done and decides to step aside just for 12 whole months to allow Helen to finish her work. He will probably have other chances to be chair.  

Steven Weissman 

 

• 

UNBELIEVABLE  

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I find it absolutely unbelievable that a building named after dedicated environmentalist David Brower has been allowed by the city to go ahead without an environmental impact report.  

I find it astonishing that the city of Berkeley plans to hand over to developers one of the last parking lots in the downtown for one dollar when the land is appraised at $5.7 million.  

I find it beyond credulity that the city is willing to invest $10 million in this building and guarantee millions more when it has been saying for years that it doesn’t have enough money keep fire stations open full time. 

I wonder how already stressed downtown businesses will survive with the removal of 135 parking spaces from the lot being given away to developers and the proposed closing of Center Street to parking and cars. 

I know Tom Bates, the developer/ mayor, started his working life in the real estate business but I hadn’t realized he was intent on re-enacting the Dick Cheney-Halliburton scenario from City Hall. 

Art Goldberg 

 

• 

BUSH’S END-GAME 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Bush’s Iraqi end game for Iraq is as rational as the lunacy in Vietnam where a village had to be destroyed to save it. Bush will have his “surge” and thus have more killing and dying to prevent more killing and dying. At least until he can declare “mission accomplished,” blame the Iraqis, and hand the lingering mess over to the next administration. 

When destruction is salvation, there is little rational need to bother differentiating between failure and success. But the game played by the self-righteous right is to place the blame for their failures onto unworthy others. This is well reflected by one of Bush’s sideline cheerleader in the words that compared the necessity of prevailing in Iraq to the outcome of the conflict in Vietnam.  

“Had we never gotten in, and the same sort of thing happened in the end, it would have been all Southeast Asia’s problem. However, once we committed ourselves, we had a duty to ourselves and to them to conclude it successfully.” 

Sam Osborne 

 

• 

WHO USES THE PARK? 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Last issue, Sabrina Kabella wrote of her alarm that there are homeless people in Willard Park, imploring others to press civic authorities and not allow “the city to ignore this problem.” But—what problem is that? The problem that these people don’t have homes? Or that they are in “her” park? 

I could tell that Sabrina and I may not be in especial accord or understanding when she wondered what possible use anyone might have for a park at 10 p.m., if not playing basketball or tennis. But if she has no use for the park then, just what is her outrage about others using it? 

Christopher Kohler 

Oakland 

 

• 

ANOTHER  

MODEST PROPOSAL 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Another Modest Proposal: Rising tides? Flooded cities? Not just Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, and world tsunamis and flooding. 

On February 18, 2007, Bay Conservation and Development Commission maps and details were published by the San Francisco Chronicle that showed destructive impacts of a potential one-meter rise in sea level that would raise San Francisco Bay and flood bayside cities. 

A proposal: Governments, citizens, and experts should gather together to openly develop a Bay Area flood protection program. Options to consider could include relocating low-lying structures, barricading threatened sites, and studying feasibility of an environmentally sensitive, adjustable dike-lock system, possibly near the bridges and comparable to sophisticated systems in London, Holland, Japan, and elsewhere.  

Flood protection might also include an early warning system to help protect the Bay Area from tsunamis, which have hit the West Coast for millenia. 

We still must stop poisonous pollution which scientists say is also causing global warming and projected rising of sea levels. However, as we struggle to stop pollution and global warming, protecting cities and millions of people from flooding would help protect against disaster. We have earthquakes, we do not need floods. 

Patrick T. Keilch,  

Retired Deputy Director of Public Works/Energy Officer, City of Berkeley 

 

• 

IRAN 

I am writing in order to draw your attention to the Anjomane Padeshahi Iran or the Kingdom Assembly of Iran under the leadership of Dr. Frood Fouladvand. He is a prominent historian and political researcher who speaks several languages including Arabic and who has many followers in Iran and around the world. 

Mr. Fouladvand, after months of unjustly being denied his travel documents, which were seized in a raid by the British MI5 forces on the eve of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s presidential elections, has through the help of an Iranian lawyer in London been able to retrieve his travel documents. He is now journeying to Iran where he will join forces with members of Anjomane Padeshahi in Iran at an undisclosed date. He currently delivers short messages which are broadcasted on Anjomane Padeshahi Iran’s International television channel, which is solely dedicated to the overthrow of the Islamic Republic of Iran. 

Anjomane Padeshahi Iran has set out on the last stages of Operation Tondar (Thunder), which it hopes will achieve the “Liberation of Iran” and other nations from terrorist regime of Islamic Republic of Iran before the Iranian New Year, Norooz (March 21, 2007). 

I would like you to pay attention to Dr. Fouladvand’s endeavor, which is very important for the world’s peace. 

Name Withheld


Commentary: Kofi Annan’s Last Speech at UN Security Council

By Kofi Annan
Tuesday February 20, 2007

The following is an excerpt from Kofi Annan’s final address to the UN Security Council on the Middle East, on December 12, 2006. It appeared in this form in the New York Review of Books for February 15, 2007. 

 

One of the most frustrating aspects of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict is the apparent inability of many people on both sides to understand the position of the other, and the unwillingness of some to even try. As a true friend and supporter of both sides, I would like to address frank messages to each. 

It is completely right and understandable that Israel and its supporters should seek to ensure its security by persuading Palestinians, and Arabs and Muslims more broadly, to alter their attitude and behavior toward Israel. But they are not likely to succeed unless they themselves grasp and acknowledge the fundamental Palestinian grievance—namely, that the establishment of the State of Israel involved the dispossession of hundreds of thousands of Palestinian families, turning them into refugees, and was followed nineteen years later by a military occupation that brought hundreds of thousands more Palestinians under Israeli rule. 

Israel is justifiably proud of its democracy and its efforts to build a society based on respect for the rule of law. But Israel’s democracy can thrive only if the occupation over another people ends. Former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon acknowledged as much. Israel has undergone a major cultural shift since the days of Oslo: all of Israel’s major political parties now acknowledge that Israel needs to end the occupation, for its own sake, and for the sake of its own security. 

... 

Yet thousands of Israelis still live in territories occupied in 1967—and more than one thousand more are added every month. As Palestinians watch this activity, they also see a barrier being built through their land in contravention of the Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice, as well as more than five hundred checkpoints to control their movement, and the heavy presence of the Israeli Defense Forces. Their despair at the occupation only grows, as does their determination to resist it. As a result, some tend to invest much of their trust in those who pursue the armed struggle rather than a peace process that does not seem to yield the coveted goal of an independent state. 

I agree with Israel and its supporters that there is a difference—moral as well as legal—between terrorists, who deliberately target civilians, and regular soldiers who, in the course of military operations, unintentionally kill or wound civilians despite efforts to avoid such casualties. But the larger the number of civilian casualties and wounded during these operations, and the more perfunctory the precautions taken to avoid such losses, the more this difference is diminished. The use of military force in densely populated civilian areas is a blunt instrument that only produces more death, destruction, recrimination, and vengeance. And as we have seen, it does little to achieve the desired goal of stopping terrorist attacks. Israelis may reply that they are merely protecting themselves from terrorism, which they have every right to do. But that argument will carry less weight as long as the occupation in the West Bank becomes more burdensome and the settlement expansion continues. Israel will receive more understanding if its actions were clearly designed to help end an occupation rather than to entrench it. 

We should all work with Israel to move beyond the unhappy status quo and reach a negotiated end to the occupation based on the principle of land for peace.... 

... 

It is completely right and understandable to support the Palestinian people, who have suffered so much. But Palestinians and their supporters will never be truly effective if they focus solely on Israel’s transgressions, without conceding any justice or legitimacy to Israel’s own concerns, and without being willing to admit that Israel’s opponents have themselves committed appalling and inexcusable crimes. No resistance to occupation can justify terrorism. We should all be united in our unequivocal rejection of terror as a political instrument.... 

Some may feel satisfaction at repeatedly passing General Assembly resolutions or holding conferences that condemn Israel’s behavior. But one should also ask whether such steps bring any tangible relief or benefit to the Palestinians. There have been decades of resolutions. There has been a proliferation of special committees, sessions, and Secretariat divisions and units. Has any of this had an effect on Israel’s policies, other than to strengthen the belief in Israel, and among many of its supporters, that this great organization is too one-sided to be allowed a significant role in the Middle East peace process? 

Even worse, some of the rhetoric used in connection with the issue implies a refusal to concede the very legitimacy of Israel’s existence, let alone the validity of its security concerns. We must never forget that Jews have very good historical reasons for taking seriously any threat to Israel’s existence. What was done to Jews and others by the Nazis remains an undeniable tragedy, unique in human history. Today, Israelis are often confronted with words and actions that seem to confirm their fear that the goal of their adversaries is to extinguish their existence as a state, and as a people. 

Therefore, those who want to be heard on Palestine should not deny or minimize that history, or the connection many Jews feel for their historic homeland. Rather, they should acknowledge Israel’s security concerns, and make clear that their criticism is rooted not in hatred or intolerance, but in a desire for justice, self-determination, and peaceful coexistence.


Commentary: Brower/Oxford Development Was Well Reviewed and Is Needed

By Rob Wrenn
Tuesday February 20, 2007

The David Brower Center/Oxford Plaza project, which is two months away from breaking ground in downtown Berkeley, is an excellent project despite the misleading claims being made by opponents of affordable housing who are trying to derail the project. 

No project in recent memory has undergone more extensive public review. The project was reviewed not only by the Zoning Adjustments Board and the Design Review Committee, but also by the Planning Commission, the Landmarks Preservation Commission, the Housing Advisory Commission and the Transporta-tion Commission.  

Extensive outreach was done. The developers talked with and provided information to businesses in the vicinity and met with the Downtown Berkeley Association. There were ample opportunities for members of the public to register their opinions about this project, more opportunities than has been the case for other projects. 

Opponents claim that the city is giving away the site, but this is misleading. 

Currently, what does the city get out of the site? It gets a supply of parking for downtown visitors and it gets the revenues from that parking. 

What will the city get after the project is built? It will keep and will continue to own the parking, which will be moved underground. Revenues from that parking will increase because demand for the parking, which is not fully utilized at present, will increase according to the Traffic Impact Analysis and Parking Study that was done for the project. So the city will continue to get what it gets now from the site. 

In addition to parking revenues, the city will also get additional tax revenues from the taxable portions of the project. And residents of the Oxford Plaza housing units will spend money in local supermarkets, restaurants and retail businesses. The people who work for the non-profit environmental groups who will occupy the David Brower Center office building will also spend money, giving a boost to local restaurants and retail businesses. 

The Brower Center will include a 170-seat theater, an art gallery, a cafe and meeting rooms. Visitors will also spend money in downtown. In short, the city keeps the parking revenue and gets additional sales tax revenue. And local merchants get additional business. 

But despite the financial benefits to the city, this project is not primarily about money. The primary thing the city will gain is 97 units of affordable housing, something that private for-profit developers have not been able to provide. Two-bedroom apartments in new market-rate housing projects downtown tend to rent for between $2,100 and $2,900 a month. Using federal affordability standards, these units are only affordable to households with incomes of at least $70,000 to $95,000. Some more-affordable inclusionary units have been built, but none is like the family-sized units planned for Oxford Plaza. 

The city’s housing trust fund contribution is lower on a per-unit basis that is the case for contributions by other cities to similar affordable housing projects in the East Bay in the current environment of rapidly rising construction costs. The city is getting a good deal.  

The city will also gain the David Brower Center, its first LEED platinum, green building. Berkeley voters overwhelmingly supported Measure G, which calls for the city to develop a plan to reduce greenhouse emissions by 80% by 2050. To achieve this goal, new buildings will have to consume much less energy than they do now. The Brower Center will lead the way. 

Berkeley has historically been a center of environmental activism and it's entirely fitting to have a center for environmental groups, including the Earth Island Institute, which David Brower founded.  

The project being built on the Oxford parking lot exemplifies the use of public land for public good. 

Opponents point out that the land is worth by $5.7 million. That means that if it were sold to the University of California or to a private developer, the city would get a one-time windfall of $5.7 million, but it would lose all the parking revenue that it gets now and could end up with less parking. The developers are spending almost $8 million on the parking at the site, parking which the city will keep; no private developer will do that if they have to spend $5.7 million to acquire the land. The owners of the privately owned HInks Garage replaced only a fraction of the parking when they developed that site. 

Who is opposing this project? The primary opponent is Gale Garcia. She is known to readers of the Planet letters and opinion page as someone who has claimed that Berkeley has a glut of housing and that its population is not growing, both claims that have no factual basis. It's pretty widely known, and can be easily documented, that Berkeley is part of one of the most expensive housing markets in the United States. 

Garcia wants the Oxford parking lot left exactly as it is (Planet, Feb. 13-15), despite the clear financial, social and environmental benefits that will come from developing the site.  

Garcia says there should have been a full environmental impact report. The fact is that the project underwent environmental review. An initial study was done in June 2005. That study determined that there were four areas of potentially significant impacts. These impacts, related to noise; transportation/traffic; historic resources; and hazards and hazardous materials, were addressed with specific mitigations and by additional studies.  

A Historic Resource Analysis was prepared to the project's impact on historic resources in its vicinity. A geotechnical study was done to obtain information on subsurface conditions at the site. And as already noted above, a Traffic Impact Analysis and Parking Study was done. Doing a full EIR would have been a waste of resources for a project of this size and type at its specific location. 

All the reports related to the project are available online on the City's Web site under planning/landuse: http://www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/planning/landuse/2200Oxford/ 

Garcia had numerous opportunities to voice her opinion about this project. She could have challenged the City Council's decision to building affordable housing on the site back in 2001. She could have appealed the Zoning Board's granting of a use permit to the City Council. She could have voiced her opinions at any of the numerous commission meetings and Council meetings where the project was discussed. Instead, she is taking the irresponsible and destructive approach of trying to derail a project that has obtained all the approvals it needs.  

Hundreds of thousands of dollars have already been spent on the project. The City's housing trust fund contribution has leveraged an additional $32.6 million in funds from non-City sources for the Oxford Plaza housing component of the project. The David Brower Center is being financed with $28 million from private sources. Delays brought on by Gale Garcia's misguided efforts will only add to the final cost of the project. 

Don’t buy the misinformation opponents are peddling and don’t sign their petitions. 

 

Rob Wrenn chaired the Planning Commission's Oxford Parking Lot subcommittee in 2001 and is currently a member of the Downtown Area Plan Advisory Committee.


Commentary: Section 8 Rent Hikes Threaten Disabled and Elderly

By Berkeley Citizens for Fair Housing
Tuesday February 20, 2007

Former Clinton Secretary of State Robert Reich has recently deplored Berkeley’s housing gentrification rush and its unfortunate, un-Berkeley like homogenizing effects (Jan. 30, “The Private Eye”). 

This comes in the wake of the worst case of housing discrimination in Berkeley’s history.  

In March Berkeley will begin to take the Section 8 Housing Vouchers away from (mainly) the disabled—including veterans—and poor elderly. This the city will do by jacking up the rents of only Section 8 studios and one bedrooms, the vouchers developers covet the most. (Rent raises will be $35 and $45 per month, plus higher utility burdens.)  

The backroom scheme seems to go like this:  

If developers and their cronies on the Berkley City Council can call a developer’s building “partially affordable” (an “affordable” apartment renter’s salary in Berkeley is $60,000 per year) and include some Section 8 units, using HUD budget cuts as an excuse, they can violate city building codes by cramming more units into taller buildings and wipe out Berkeley’s housing fund. This money should go instead to current Berkeley tenants who will otherwise be forced onto the streets. 

Recently, the new U.S. Congress voted to reinstate much of the HUD-cut funding, which the City Council will include in its corporate schemes if it doesn’t vote on February 27 to restore needed funding to its current HUD tenants. 

Robert Reich remarks: “My impression is that Berkeley building is pretty dense already. Do we want to create more ugly apartment complexes? I don’t think so. I don’t know how they get away with what they get away with.” 

Recent arrival Reich also states that Berkeley wants a city that “keeps its unique charm from turning into high-end chic.” But once the developers have contracts, they have proved resistant to keeping their promises, if any. The troubled black-hole Brower developers’ project has decimated Berkeley’s housing fund and shows no signs of stopping there. The once highly touted Gaia building doesn’t seem able to keep its Section 8 apartments up to health codes, and instead of renting just to promised environmental and nonprofits, it has installed a loud jazz club. The building development on Sacramento and Dwight has made some trapped disabled people ill with their over-abundant use of toxins.  

Do we want our remaining disabled folk warehoused and ghettoized? Do we want to proudly say that Berkeley managed the homeless problem by increasing the burden on health clinics, police, fire and other tightly stretched community resources? 

Reich maintains that Berkeley’s success is not just a function of its economic vitality, but also reflects it social capital: how much people care about and are willing to do for the community. 

Some of the people who will be “cleansed” from Berkeley are its former architects and leaders, civil rights heroes, healers, artists, progressives, eccentrics, and a few lonely conservatives. They are part of the political watchdog force that tries to keep justice regardless of race, age, disability or economic disadvantage. They are human beings who, according to Berkeley’s 1990 Human Rights Ordinance, have the right to fair housing like everyone else who pays Berkeley sales tax, eats Berkeley food, wears Berkeley clothes, and thus creates Berkeley jobs. 

The housing discrimination against Berkeley’s disabled and elderly is so blatant and egregious that Berkeley should not be surprised if, as with LA and Oakland, Berkeley and its officials get sued. After all, these are some of those irritating folks who brought you the Free Speech Movement. 

Berkeley Citizens for Fair Housing (at) Yahoo.com 

Endorsed by the Gray Panthers


The Theater: Pinter’s ‘The Birthday Party’ at Aurora

By Ken Bullock, Special to the Planet
Tuesday February 20, 2007

In the parlor/dining room of a sleazy boardinghouse, two patterns of wallpaper at war with each other, the day’s just beginning with a husband’s diffidence over a tabloid and a wife’s incessant, skewed platitudes (almost malapropisms) from the Pullman kitchen: is the news good, is the weather nice?  

And the audience at the Aurora laughs at the banalities, even as an unnoticed but felt darkness begins leaking out, like gas, from between the comic mislocutions of Harold Pinter’s perfect rendition of small talk; the laughter at moments almost as if by compulsion: laugh, or have your teeth set on edge. 

That uncanny, exquisitely painful comic sense Pinter has absolutely mastered, his characters eking out their lines like fingernails scratching a windowpane. “It’s an old cliche’ that novelists and playwrights evesdrop in tearooms for their dialogue,” said Pinter’s first publisher, John Calder, “but that’s precisely what Harold did.” And recalling a visit to another of his authors, Calder gave Samuel Beckett’s ribbing of the manuscript his friend Pinter just sent: “You know Harold. Always the same: Menace in a room!” 

Pinter’s genius is boldly apparent from the start, as the Aurora’s exceptional production of The Birthday Party, the Nobel laureate’s first full-length play, readily shows. By the time the sole boarder, a dishevelled and haunted former piano player, descends the stairs with the demeanor of a castaway, the unseen machinery of that menace has begun to turn, as surely as the wheel of fate in classic tragedy.  

Learning that two gentlemen have inquired of the man of the house if there’s a room to let, Stan the ex-pianist mutters: “Why are they coming now? Why not yesterday?” A young woman enters with a big package, alternately flirting with and rebuffing Stan. And finally the expected pair arrive, an ebullient Goldberg and dour McCann, nice cop and tough cop to the ever more paralysed Stan, a wildebeest frozen with foreboding. 

It’s Stan’s birthday, the landlady declares, and this curious, quickly-assembled menage makes ready to celebrate—all except Stan, who denies it’s his birthday, that he’s the man the visitors must think he is, that the home they’re in is a boarding house. The party proceeds with off-kilter toasts, and fun and games reminiscent of air raid drills, or the brash hazing techniques of interrogators. 

Aurora’s artistic director Tom Ross has directed the work of the extraordinary ensemble assembled to bring these strange, ghostly echoes, like a dimly remembered dream, to life onstage. A few of them are familiar faces, and these old troupers of the Bay Area theater scene are at the top of their game, even exceeding themselves. Phoebe Moyer plays landlady Meg, an oversold ingenue, with a vengeance, making her the ultimate comically effete meddler in a long line descending from Elizabethan and Restoration comedies. 

Emily Jordan is a pert, seemingly selfaware Lulu, caught up short in the serious play of make-believe loving, a decoy of sorts. Julian Lopez-Morillas chimes in as hail-fellow Goldberg, ready to toll a dirge in an instant, jangling his pleasantries with mordant, barely concealed threats. Michael Ray Wisely enacts the bushy-browed, lurking McCann, moving crabwise across the parlor, whose “Na?” signifies the constantly negative: “Isn’t it so?”  

James Carpenter as Stan makes a phenomenal turn out of stasis, rigidity, becoming at one briefly violent moment a mere suit of clothes hanging on McCann’s fist, like on a line in the wind. And Chris Ayles is the deadpan Petey, seemingly remote man of the house, yet salt of the earth, whose admonition, “Stan, don’t let them tell you what to do!” is the one straight-forward bit of human communication in this harrowing charade. 

All play the tightly constructed text like a perfectly rehearsed chamber group, making music together--immediacy out of an intricate score printed on the page. 

Pinter’s tragicomedies stem from Strindberg’s eerie anatomies of guilt and intention, a technique of musing monologues addressed to an unspeaking other, syncopated by dialogue voiced in the veiled language of power. 

Touched with farce, and the post-surrealism of the Absurd, his plays come on the heels of the so-called Angry Young Men, describing the sordid post-Suez English scene with immediate language, as John Osbourne (another Strindbergian) did, but with an indirect, impersonal approach, a kind of unrhapsodic prosody from an unerring ear for the kind of speech that goes overlooked, peopled with the same recognizable types, unexalted blue collar countenances that simultaneously reveal and conceal themselves with the common coin of careless words, the jagged pattern of dissociated actions. 

 

 

The Birthday Party 

Aurora Theatre 

Wed.-Sat. 8 p.m., Sun. 2 and 7 p.m. 

2081 Addison St. 

through March 11 

Tickets $38 

843-4822, www.auroratheatre.org 

 

Photograph by David Allen 

James Carpenter, Phoebe Moyer, and Chris Ayles in The Birthday Party. 

 

 


Letters to the Editor

Friday February 16, 2007

HOMELESS IN WILLARD PARK 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

As a concerned Willard neighborhood resident, I implore you to help bring attention to the problem of the homeless who reside in Willard Park. Berkeley’s tolerance of this problem is historic, and our police (or at least the dispatchers at BPD) cannot do anything. WHY? They regularly receive calls about this problem, however, they won’t dispatch until there have been about 10 phone-in complaints. When pressed for explanations they have stated that because Willard Park is open until 10 p.m. the homeless can reside there.  

What legitimate reasons are there for allowing a park in a residential neighborhood to stay open this late? We don’t have a basketball court and the few residents who are served by the tennis courts do not justify the problems that occur at nightfall. 

I have regularly called the numbers listed in our city’s directory that work with homeless. It has been a definite lesson in futility. Apparently the only way to change this is to put pressure on our city. If you are bothered by this problem, PLEASE let Mayor Tom Bates, the City of Berkeley’s recreation department, and our police know. It is not all right for the city to ignore this problem any longer. 

Sabrina Kabella 

 

• 

WONDERFUL BERKELEY 

Editors, Daily Planet:  

What makes Berkeley such a wonderful city in which to live? 

It’s a combination of so many wonderful things, such as its proximity to open space, its climate and its setting between the hills and the Bay. However, what truly makes a city buzz are the people who inhabit it, and Berkeley, like San Francisco, has a diverse mix of cultures, yet on a smaller and more manageable scale. 

People from different parts of the world bring a little bit of their culture with them and that enriches each of our experiences. We can go to Berkeley Bowl and have the choice of 10 or more different kinds of mushrooms, or several different kinds of eggplants, any variety of tomatoes, potatoes, bananas, etc. We have a range of exciting restaurants and stores to equal S.F. Our city Berkeley, however, is so much “greener” than San Francisco and it’s so pleasant to walk and smell all the fragrances from the variety of plants.  

When I heard about the proposed plan to make a “walking plaza,” i.e. one without cars, on the service road next to Shattuck, between Vine and Rose, I was thrilled at the idea. Who wouldn’t support it, I thought? This will be Berkeley’s “piazza”—the place in so many European, South and Central American cities, where everyone congregates. It’s the place that “throbs” with life on the weekends and on holidays, where children can play safely, where teenagers can hang out with their friends. It would be a place where the locals can eat their take-out food from the Epicurean Garden, or Cheese Board, or The Collective, or Massi’s or any other eatery in the neighborhood, a place where we can hang out with our friends, and an area set up already for the Farmer’s Market, without having to close the street, a place for our artists and musicians.  

Who would not want this? 

Well, there are some loud opposing voices full of prophecies of doom and gloom. There are some valid issues that they raise, but all these issues can be addressed. Please don’t let these negative voices put a stop to a wonderful idea, that I think would revitalize and enhance this neighborhood. Berkeley, let’s come together to make our city an even better place. 

Robert Brower 

 

• 

NOT SO PUBLIC WEALTH 

Editors, Daily Planet:  

Did you know that a gift of approximately $17 million in public wealth is being given away in Berkeley? Yes, the Tom Bates-Loni Hancock political machine is giving away the largest downtown surface parking lot (over 1 acre) to a private developer, who is their friend and political supporter. This is not only improper but is probably illegal in California, since it is not legal for public officials to give away the public’s wealth to their personal or political friends.  

This is the main reason behind the referendum petition being circulated to stop this improper giveaway. If the referendum drive is successful, the community will be able to think about and discuss whether the public’s wealth should be handed over to Loni Hancock’s and Tom Bates’s supporter.  

During last week’s City Council meeting, late at night, Mayor Bates had this extremely valuable Berkeley City property given to his friend for the incredible price of one dollar. It is obvious that Bates timed this for the beginning of the rainy season, which he knows is an almost impossible time to collect the necessary signatures required in a thirty day period. Bates wanted to prevent the public from discussing this serious matter and possibly overturning this giveaway.  

There are only two weeks left to sign the petition. Only if 4,000 Berkeley citizens sign it will we have an opportunity to decide whether or not this $17 million property should be given away to a private developer. Berkeley City staff claims that this property is only an $8 million giveaway, but that is a ridiculously low amount for this Berkeley asset.  

Twenty, thirty, or forty years ago, Loni Hancock and Tom Bates were active supporters of most referenda and initiatives in Berkeley. Unfortunately, now that they are entrenched in power, they are trying to violate the rights of the citizens of Berkeley to gather signatures and are refusing to discuss the issues that I am raising here. The Bates political machine assigned a low-level political operative, Rob Wrenn, to personally attack and harass the people circulating these legal petitions. This is a violation of the rights guaranteed under the Constitution of the United States of America. This is certainly not the first time that Mayor Bates has violated the people’s rights. Think about the recent time when Bates destroyed the newspapers that did not endorse him. This is proof that the Tom Bates and Loni Hancock political machine is no longer democratic.  

Please help stop this illegal and improper transfer of Berkeley’s public wealth by signing or circulating the petition for the referendum.  

Barry Wofsy 

 

• 

A COMPLEX ISSUE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

This letter is in response to Joshua Greenbaum’s opinion that the BDP has become a forum for intolerance, racism, ad hominem attacks and anti-semitism. 

While I do not agree that this is the role that BDP serves, I do want to validate that sentiment. 

In addition to that, it is true that this issue (Palestine/Israel) remains a complex issue. I do not think it is urgent that people see eye to eye on it. That is part of the problem. There will always be two versions of history. Jews and Arabs will likely never see eye to eye. This is, I believe where we all get stuck. And until we can move past finding common ground on historical facts, we will never resolve the unnecessary and illegal DAILY, CURRENT suffering of both peoples. This is what we need to bring the focus to. What cannot be argued is what continues on a day to day basis for both Palestinian and Israeli civilians. Is it anti-semitic to talk about the apartheid-like conditions that Palestinians live under? Is it anti-arab to talk about the fear that Israelis live under from potential violence against them? It is not.  

The truth that no one can refute is that Palestinians have not been given their rights under international law, nor have they been given their rights to their land, water, education, borders or air space. Israelis, on the other hand, do live in fear. That is truth. No one can refute that. None of these statements are either anti-semitic or anti-arab. What they are is truth. If we can get past debating the history, perhaps we could see eye to eye on the human suffering level. And, isn’t that what counts? 

Tracie De Angelis Salim 

 

• 

JEWISH VOICE FOR PEACE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I would like to correct Jane Litman’s assertion that the Anti-Defamation League did not exclude or censor Jewish Voice for Peace, a major Jewish progressive organization, from the ADL conference on anti-Semitism on the left. 

I am a Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) board member. I did speak on a conference panel about anti-Semitism in the queer community—but I was invited not by the ADL but by a conference presenter. And the ADL did everything they could to conceal my JVP affiliation. They expunged my JVP role from the bio I sent them for publication in the conference program, thus hiding my accurate organizational identity from the media who were trying to find JVP panelists there to interview. 

Additionally, the ADL conference website invented a non-JVP affiliation for me, listing me as representing the “LGBT Alliance of the Jewish Federation.” Even after I protested, the ADL continued to post the misleading affiliation on its website, and even reprinted it on the schedule taped to the front door of the conference. While it is true that some JVP literature was allowed to remain on a conference table, this ADL conduct makes plain its disregard towards truly progressive Jews generally, and towards JVP in particular. 

Penny Rosenwasser, PhD 

Secretary, Board of Directors,  

Jewish Voice for Peace 

 

• 

XXXXXXXXXX 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Joanna Graham obviously did not attend the conference on anti-Semitism on San Francisco last month. If she had, she would have learned the difference between mere criticism of Israel’s government or policies, and true “neo-anti-Semitism”—which is opposition to the very existence of the state of Israel. Just as criticism of the U.S. government is not anti-American, opposition to Israel’s policies vis-à-vis the Palestinians does not make one anti-Israel. However, when the underpinnings of such criticism include false claims that Israel is an “apartheid state,” that it is the “greatest human rights violator in the world,” that it is committing “genocide” (how is it that there are twice as many Arabs in the West Bank and Gaza as there were in 1990?), and when the critics of Israel have as their goal the destruction of the world’s only Jewish state—that’s when the line is crossed into anti-Semitism.  

No speaker at the conference made the claim that criticism of Israel is, in and of itself, anti-Semitic. For that matter, no major Jewish organization or opinion leader in this country has made that claim. It seems that critics of Israel are pre-emptively playing the anti-Semitism card in order to muzzle substantive, factual responses to their mistaken claims. After all, if all pro-Israel voices are dismissed as “you’re just calling us anti-Semitic”, then that straw man argument draws the attention away from their original mistakes. 

Michael Harris 

 

 

 

As a Jew, Joanna Graham’s column of Feb.9 gives me the shudders. It is full of conspiracy theories, innuendo, false statements and suspiciousness that echo rhetoric all too familiar. In addition, she rationalizes the admitted “rise in anger against Jews,” including Arianpour’s anti-Semitic screed, as merely “rough and tumble” response to a war that, may I remind you, is Israel’s, and not a religious one. This is the very sort of thing—conflation of criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism—that the thoughtful ADL conference sought to distinguish, and whose existence Graham denies. I guess she just thinks it’s OK! I applaud Rabbi Jane Litman, who Graham excoriates, for her part in the effort.  

Even Kriss Worthington, a darling of the left, can’t get away with a peep in support of the Jews from the Daily Planet, which seems obsessed with us. I don’t purport to represent the entire Berkeley Jewish community. I trust and pray that your paper doesn’t represent the wider Berkeley populace!  

Jane Falk, Ph.D


Commentary: Young People Need Help When Foster Care Ends

By Tony Thurmond
Friday February 16, 2007

Meeting my father for the first time in 38 years forced me to think about the experience of many young adults who transition out of the foster care system and proceed through life without forging connections to caring adults.  

I lost my mother in my youth and grew up without a father, but I was adopted by an older cousin and always had plenty of relatives and mentors who provided me with a stable, caring home and support that ultimately helped me persevere and prosper. The experience is much different however, for the more than 4,000 young adults who emancipate (age out) of the California foster care system at the age of 18 and are forced to live on their own without the benefits of family, support, or resources.  

Many of these youth become homeless and in turn face other problems such as prostitution, drug addiction and incarceration. There are some programs to provide these youth with transitional housing and training to help them develop the life skills they need to live independently, but ultimately, need far outweighs the supply. 

In spite of these challenges, there are ways to support emancipated youth that are not exclusively tied to funding. Specifically, host housing programs and mentoring programs can help.  

Host housing programs allow caring adults in the community to house an emancipated youth in an extra room in their home and to provide some basic mentoring and life coaching support. In many California counties, these hosts qualify for small subsidies to help with food and incidentals. The hosts get help from social workers who provide training and support. These efforts make dramatically positive changes in the lives of both host and youth. 

Opportunities exist in programs for everyday citizens to get involved in hosting emancipated youth or in helping them as mentors. These programs are part of a menu of services being used by child welfare advocates to help emancipated youth move from transition to permanency.  

More and more child welfare systems are investing in programs to promote permanency—like “family finding,” where professionals trained in advance search techniques help youth locate extended family members who can be part of their extended network of caring adult supporters.  

It is the goal of all child welfare systems to reduce the number of youth in foster care, to reduce the length of time youth remain in care and to help youth make permanent lifelong connections with caring adults.  

Serving as a host or a mentor is an excellent way to pitch in while the child welfare system continues to make progress towards those goals. 

Please consider becoming a host or mentor today. Your efforts will add tremendous value to the experience of a young person. Those interested in hosting or mentoring a young person or making donations to support housing programs should contact Beyond Emancipation at (510) 261-4102.  

Beyond Emancipation is a nonprofit program that helps emancipated youth in Alameda County find housing, employment, health services, scholarships and other resources to support their independence. 

 

Tony Thurmond is the Executive Director of Beyond Emancipation and a member of the Richmond City Council.


Commentary: Brower Center, Oxford Plaza Separate but Linked

By Peter K. Buckley
Friday February 16, 2007

After years of public process, the David Brower Center and Oxford Plaza Family Housing are scheduled to break ground in April. Any major project, especially in Berkeley, receives close study. The City Council, all the various City agencies, commissions, and departments that have a voice in this civic process have carefully considered these two projects, and all have given their approvals. 

Now a few individuals are circulating a petition against both projects, providing incorrect and misleading information while soliciting signatures. We would like to set the record straight for your readers concerning the following: 

1. The David Brower Center and Oxford Plaza are two separate projects, with independent financing, and ownership. The David Brower Center is a $28 million investment in downtown Berkeley that will stimulate the economy, and greatly enhance Berkeley’s reputation for progressive leadership. The Brower Center is privately financed through donations, foundation grants, low-cost loans, and federal tax credits.  

2. Social, Economic, and Environmental Justice activists have traditionally been somewhat distanced from the environmental/conservation communities. David Brower sought to build bridges between these movements, so that we could see our commonality and join together for progressive change. While the Brower Center and Oxford Plaza are separate entities, we made a decision at the outset to link our missions, so that the Brower Center can succeed only if Oxford Plaza’s 96 units of family affordable housing are built. We have worked and supported each other’s projects for over four years, and we will continue to do so. We are proud of our work together.  

3. The Brower Center building will be owned by the David Brower Center, a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit corporation, controlled by its Board of Directors (see www.browercenter.org for a list), which is composed of leaders from the nonprofit community, including Ken Brower, David Brower’s son. No individual is making a profit creating the Brower Center. Construction expertise is being provided by Equity Community Builders, they have no ownership interest and make no profit other than a fee for their professional services.  

4. The Brower Center is being built to support the current generation of activists, and to provide a foundation for future generations; it is affordable today, and will be for decades to come. Over four years ago, we planned to lease office space for $2.00/sf (inclusive of all services). Today rents start at $2.10/sf (inclusive), still very affordable to most nonprofits. The well-equipped, attractive Brower Conference Center is budgeted to operate at a break-even level, again making it very affordable for nonprofits, as well as the entire Berkeley community.  

5. The Brower Center has no intention or plan to rent office space to U.C. Berkeley, because that is not our mission, not the reason we are going to the trouble and expense to build the Center. We were asked if it was contractually possible to rent to U.C., and we answered “yes.” We could theoretically rent to Exxon Oil, as well, but obviously are not planning to do so.  

6. The Brower Center represents state-of-the-art green design, and is on track for a LEED Platinum rating, the highest possible for high performance buildings.  

7. The City of Berkeley is not giving away anything. Current above-ground parking is being replaced by an underground garage, which will belong to the city. If the city sold the property, it would have the sales price but no parking. Now the city retains the parking and associated income, and also creates 97 units of housing precisely where it is most useful, and brings in the Brower Center investment and all the associated benefits of that project for Berkeley.  

The city of Berkeley has the opportunity to transform a parking lot into a vibrant center that will reinvigorate downtown, and honor the best of Berkeley’s heritage for progressive leadership. All of us who have worked for years on both projects hope that mean-spirited misinformation does not result in yet more delay, and increased costs. We respectfully ask for the entire community’s support in creating both projects, knowing that they will serve the community well for decades to come. 

 

 

Peter K. Buckley is Chair of the David Brower Center


Commentary: Rent Increase Too Much for BHA Tenants

By Eleanor Walden
Friday February 16, 2007

The Berkeley Housing Authority Special Meeting held on Tuesday Feb. 13th was an unusual event. Not only was it not previously announced, we read about it in the Daily Planet in the Tuesday edition, consequently it was not well attended by people whose shelter depends upon BHA. With the exception of one woman who spoke right to the point: that the City Council, who sits as the Housing Authority Board of Directors, have failed for 4 or 5 years to lift the agency out of it’s “troubled,” read failing, status, the other speakers recited jargon, statistics, and acronyms. I watched the performance, or should I say charade, on television. I was shocked at the lack of passion, outrage, or meaning that was expressed by Tia Ingraham, BHA Managing Director, or Steve Barton, Berkeley Housing Director, or the City Council members. Have none of these people ever suffered insecurity? Have none of these people ever serious been faced with the prospects of poverty? Darryl Moore thanked the two for an “informative report.” I was as mystified by his accolade as if indeed English was not my native language! 

As I understand the problem, the rents to the landlords that were set by the (BHA) Berkeley Housing Authority exceeded the National (FMR) Fair Market Rent level accepted by (HUD) Housing and Urban Development. But, when BHA contracted those rent levels HUD acceded to that contractual agreement. Now BHA is being punished for its delinquent (troubled) status, and the rents to the landlords are to be cut to be more in line with the national average. This seems like a breach of contract to my layman’s eye. However, the landlords want to pass that shortfall on to the tenants, rather than take a reduction in rent and absorb the fact that they have been overpaid for the last how-ever-many years, as any welfare recipient would be forced to do if they had been overpaid. We learned at the BHA meeting that 2, 3, and 4 bedroom units would not be affected by the March 1st rent hikes, but studio and 1 bedroom apartments would be increased by $35 and $45 a month respectively. The people who occupy studio and 1-bedroom apartments statistically are disable and/or elderly single people. SSI (Disability Insurance), and many seniors on Social Security get a little over $800 a month. An extra $35 or $45 a month is a substantial sum on that sort of budget. If that is considered a victory I fail to see it! 

It is not news that the rents in Berkeley are prohibitive to all but the affluent. A 1-room apartment is over $900 a month, 1 bedroom over $1100, 2 bedrooms over $1200. Under these conditions, without our Rent Stabilization Ordinance, Berkeley will lose the character of cultural and intellectual variety that has made this city the New York of the West. Robert Reich, former Secretary of Labor, now a Berkeley resident and University of California, Berkeley, scholar recently voiced the same concerns in the Planet. 

The Berkeley Rent Stabilization Ordinance was orchestrated and passed by a few social activists and though it’s been gutted and remodeled by the landlord lobbies at the State level we still have viable rent control in Berkeley. Can rent control laws be configured to extend to tenants who live in Section 8 and Public Housing? This is a question we must pursue. Homelessness and the fear of homelessness is not something we can tolerate. 

 

Eleanor Walden is an advocate for low-income tenants.


Commentary: Center Street Closure Needs Careful Scrutiny

By John N. Roberts
Friday February 16, 2007

The DAPAC recently recommended limiting the options for a future design study of the Center Street corridor in Downtown Berkeley to that of closure to vehicular traffic (except for service and loading) and allowance for a maximum feasible creek. In making this recommendation, the DAPAC has rejected alternate street right of way considerations that would accommodate vehicular traffic and/or parking in some manner. 

There are precedents throughout the country for “pedestrianization” of a street corridor, some with full closure and some with partial closure of the street to vehicular traffic.  

A number of cities have made such a change with distinct success. Santa Monica’s conversion of 3rd Street to a 3-block long vehicle-free pedestrian precinct has established it as a renowned urban destination and it is a lively commercial success. It, apparently, took 3 tries, but they finally got it right. Boulder, Colorado is another impressive success story, and there are other similar examples that are excellent models for us to consider. It is likely that the DAPAC members had these successes in mind for closure of the key Center Street block in downtown Berkeley. It is a very compelling image and of real interest to many people in Berkeley, including me. 

There are, on the other hand, at least as many dramatic examples of total street closures that have failed. Reasons for failure frequently cited include, among others, insufficient visitor traffic for viable commercial activity; poor visibility and ineffective promotion; poor maintenance; and perceived safety problems. A thriving industry has evolved over the past few years to re-open and re-energize streets once enthusiastically closed to vehicular traffic. These retrofits often maintain broad sidewalks and other amenities of a full pedestrian precinct at certain times, while allowing vehicles and limited parking as a slow street at other times. These failures and retrofits offer important lessons for cities contemplating new street closures. 

I trust that DAPAC members weighed the lessons of failed street closures, as well as the successes, when coming to their recommendation. They are responsible for filtering rational choices for public benefit. However, the reporting of their action does not reveal how or why they believe closing downtown Berkeley’s most successful commercial street to vehicles will avoid the failures seen elsewhere, or what the measure of success would be. The certainty of their recommendation and rejection of the study of options calls for a clear explanation. This is not a matter to be left to intuition and faith alone. There is too much at stake for the community at large as well as for those directly and personally at risk.  

If an honest assessment of real options has occurred, it must be shared with and evaluated by the community during the next design phases. If not, it must be done in order for the community to make an informed and rational choice. We, as a whole community, may ultimately wish to "give pedestrianization a chance", but we first need to understand the implications of our choices. 

 

John N. Roberts is the owner of John northmore Roberts & Associates, Landscape Architecture and Land Planning. 

 


Columns

Column: The Public Eye: ‘Just Say No’ Is Just Wrong

By Bob Burnett
Tuesday February 20, 2007

There’s new evidence that the Bush Administration’s “abstinence only” approach to sex education is not proving effective at preventing unwanted pregnancies or the spread of sexually transmitted disease. 

Many Americans wonder why the White House promotes “Just Say No” programs when they don’t work. The answer is simple and disturbing: George Bush is a dogmatic ultra-conservative; he believes that the maxim, “just say no,” solves a variety of social problems ranging from pre-marital sex to terrorism. 

Beginning in the Reagan administration, conservatives attacked a so-called “culture of permissiveness” they claimed had been unleashed by the social events of the sixties. They accused liberals of espousing sixties values: “if it feels good, do it.” Conservatives declared that a mythical liberal attack on traditional values produced many of America’s problems such as poverty, promiscuity, and drug use.  

In 1993, conservative scholar Myron Magnet produced the seminal expression of this philosophy, The Dream and the Nightmare: The Sixties Legacy to the Underclass. Magnet argued that liberal ideology promoted a culture of victimization that held “the poor back from advancement by robbing them of responsibility for their fate and thus further squelching their initiative and energy.” The Dream and the Nightmare influenced many conservatives: among them a Texas gubernatorial candidate and his campaign manager. George W. Bush , “told the Wall Street Journal that it was the most important book he’d ever read after the Bible. [Furthermore] Bush strategist Karl Rove call[ed] The Dream and the Nightmare a roadmap to the president’s ‘compassionate conservatism.’” 

The Bush-Rove brand of ultra-conservatism--their belief that liberalism has fostered a culture of victimization--strongly influenced this Administration’s domestic and foreign policy. Combined with the naive belief that the free market will inevitably solve most social problems, Bush’s conservatism produced a potpourri of aberrant social policies: Don’t give poor children free lunches or special tutoring because that will enhance their sense of being victims. Don’t teach teenagers about birth control because that will cause them to become promiscuous. Don’t provide clean needles for drug users because that will legitimize their behavior. And so forth. 

In response to every American social problem, the Bush Administration relied upon a simple maxim: individual behavior equates to individual responsibility. Therefore, they argued that Government programs are unnecessary because behavior change requires only willpower; all individuals need to do is to just say no and pull themselves up by the bootstraps. The free market provides unlimited opportunity for those who choose to take advantage of it. 

The problem with this prescription is behavior change is not that simple. It’s hard, if not impossible, for a poor child to pull him or herself up by the bootstraps when they don’t have enough food to eat and live in circumstances with deplorable education, housing, and medical care. Furthermore, the market isn’t an equal opportunity employer; increasingly, there is a marked absence of good jobs for willing workers. Beyond these practical considerations, there are ethical problems with Bush’s just say no philosophy. It represents a repudiation of the Golden Rule: in place of “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” Bush conservatism substitutes, “You are on your own.” 

Many critics failed to note the impact Bush’s mean-spirited ideology had on US foreign policy. The President believes in American exceptionalism: the notion that the United States has a unique moral status in the world and, therefore, a responsibility to spread democracy everywhere--in particular, the Middle East. However, the White House couples its moral imperialism with an unwillingness to engage in programs that combat poverty or build the infrastructure of civil society; the Administration declines to engage in substantive “nation building” because of the belief that this would promote a culture of victimization. As a result, the President’s conception of what is necessary to promote democracy is remarkably narrow: domestic “security” enforced by the presence of US troops, a simulacrum of free elections, and an unfettered marketplace. This flimsy model failed in Afghanistan and is failing again in Iraq. 

Internationally, Bush’s “Just say no” response to terrorism mirrors his domestic policy on sex-education. He views the decision to join with terrorists, or to engage in pre-marital sex, in simplistic moral terms: a contest between good and evil; a choice that an individual makes regardless of the social context. This seems bizarre unless one understands that in Bush conservatism there is no social context except for the marketplace that, in the President’s mind, always rewards heroic individual action. 

George W. Bush is a true believer. Only he’s not a devotee of mainstream Christianity, but rather of an ultra-conservative social philosophy that believes the best form of sex education is simply not to talk about it, to chant, “just say no” and hope for the best. An extreme ideology that believes the best way to eradicate terrorism is to kill everyone who might be a terrorist and, in the process, ignore the root causes of their violent extremism; to respond to the anger on the Arab street with a simple mantra: “just say no.” 

 

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

 

 


Column: Why Visit India When You Live in Paradise?

By Susan Parker
Tuesday February 20, 2007

Friends invited me to go to India with them and I gave their offer serious consideration. They’re experienced travelers, spending five to six weeks a year on foreign soil, often in places off the beaten track, difficult, and obscure. But at the last minute I opted to stay home. Running around the subcontinent, though no doubt fun, would be fiscally irresponsible. I’ve got new priorities and responsibilities, bills pending and not much income. I need time to adjust to this weird, wretched state of widowhood.  

So, while my friends were trekking from Kalindi Khal to Badrinath, I began my own little explorations, inner and outer, around town, and across the bridge.  

On Sunday I went to the Temescal Farmers Market (located in the Claremont Avenue DMV parking lot), and to a neighbor’s photo exhibit at Nomad Café (Joe Robinson’s Fathers of Color, hanging through Feb. 28). On Monday I took a rainy hike in Redwood Park, looked for jobs on craigslist (so easy!), then checked out the traditional Irish dance and celli music at the Starry Plough (free!). On Tuesday I applied for a few positions, (so simple!), attended an abs strengthening class led by John Downey, and taught a writing workshop in a cramped, funky basement in Bernal Heights. On Wednesday I whipped off resumes to more postings on craigslist (so busy!), then took a run along Big Trees Trail in Joaquin Miller Park. I celebrated the end of Valentine’s Day by watching a Korean movie described as “Romantic! Political! Arty! and Edgy!,” but it looked just like porn to me.  

On Thursday I applied for more jobs (so ambitious!), and rode my bicycle up Tunnel Road and down Claremont Canyon. I took BART over to the Mission District, and drank a strong, reasonably priced martini at The Latin American Club, (3286 22nd St,), then attended Dan Hoyle’s Tings Day Happen at the Marsh (extended through March 31). On Friday I had my first job interview (so fun!), participated in an Iyengar-based yoga class at Ironworks, walked up Claremont Canyon with my friend Meredith, went to Ashkenaz to hear a swing dance lecture given by 92-year-old living legend Frankie Manning, choreographer of the first Lindy Airstep. 

Frankie entertained the standing room only crowd with stories about the Alhambra, Renaissance and Savoy ballrooms, Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Billy Holiday, Spike Lee, Denzel Washington, and everyone who has had anything to do with Swing. He showed film clips from his early Hollywood movies, including Manhattan Merry-Go-Round, (1937), Jittering Jitterbugs (1938), and Hellzappop’ (1941).  

I stayed to watch Lavay Smith & Her Red Hot Skillet Lickers play their first set, watched Lindy Hoppers of all ages, ethnicities, and skill bend, dip, twist, wiggle, swivel, and slide, then dragged myself home and got into bed.  

On Saturday morning I helped paddle a dragon boat around the Berkeley Marina and beyond, (www.dragonmax.org). Afterwards I stopped at the South Berkeley Senior Center and viewed Jesse Graham’s pen and ink Black History Month mural (http://jessegrahamart.com). I rode my bike to downtown Oakland and saw a photo exhibit at Chachie's Coffee Shop (1768 Broadway, up until Feb. 28.). Before returning home, I paused at The Beach Impeach Project (3208 Grand Ave.), and picked up promotional materials from organizer Brad Newsham, including a flyer on the Setting the Table For Impeachment event happening this Thursday at the Grand Lake Theater (http://impeachbush-cheney.com/).  

I ended the day with my own private screening of Half Nelson, an indie film that made me glad my addictions gravitated toward frenetic busyness and not illegal drugs.  

Now it’s time to reflect upon what I’ve learned and accomplished. I’m glad I didn’t go to India. I don’t recommend renting Jang Sun-Woo's “Lies.” An hour and a half on a Dragon Boat is exhausting. It’s easy to apply for jobs posted on craigslist, but I really don’t have the time. And although no one asked me to dance at Ashkenaz, I’m not afraid to give it another try.  

 

 

 

 

 


Green Neighbors: Winter Native Flowers: Silk-Tassel and Leatherwood

By Joe Eaton
Tuesday February 20, 2007

Along with all the flowering plums, acacias, and magnolias, a few native trees and shrubs are late-winter bloomers. Most, like the manzanitas and flowering currants, are on the shrubby side. But coast or wavyleaf silk-tassel (Garrya elliptica) is a bona fide tree up to 30 feet high, showy in its own way, and amenable to planting as an ornamental. There’s a particularly handsome silk-tassel specimen on the University Avenue median strip. 

It’s pretty obvious why they’re called that. Both male and female flowers are borne in catkinlike inflorescences. In the coast silk-tassel the gray-green male catkins may be up to a foot long (in the cultivar ‘James Roof’); the silvery female inflorescences are much shorter. Like similar flowers in other groups of plants, they’re wind-pollinated. The leaves are somewhat manzanita-like but are paired and have wavy margins. The fruit grows in clusters, like grapes. 

The genus Garrya has 14 or 15 species, ranging from Washington State to Panama; 6 are native to California. David Douglas first described it in 1826, naming it for Nicholas Garry, a Hudson Bay Company administrator. Their family, Garryaceae, is said to be one of only four plant families endemic to North America. That was from a Stanford site, though, so I wouldn’t take it as gospel; another source includes the Asian genus Aucuba in the family. Garryaceae in turn is the only family in the order Garryales. 

That’s this week, at least: plant taxonomy is very much in flux these days, with new genetic studies changing a lot of the old relationships that were based on flower structure. They broke up the lilies a couple of years ago, and I just learned yesterday that the water lotus (Nelumbo) turns out to be related not to other water lilies, but to proteas and sycamores. So if silk-tassels get reassigned, don’t be too surprised. 

Silk-tassels are chaparral plants, sometimes associated with conifers. Although their glossy green leaves feel leathery, they’re browsed by mule deer and bighorn. Native Americans treated fever, colds, digestive difficulties, and gonorrhea with extracts from the bark; the active ingredient is an alkaloid, garryine, whose bitter taste has inspired the name “quinine bush.” Stem extracts were widely used against diarrhea in rural Mexico. The natural rubber gutta-percha, used for temporary dental fillings, has been obtained from two Arizona species.  

Garryas were introduced into cultivation sometime in the last half of the nineteenth century, and three species are popular as ornamentals. They’ve also been planted for erosion control. Propagation can be either by seeds or cuttings. Drought-resistant coast silk-tassel does best in well-drained soil and open sunny or semi-shady locations.  

You can see several species of silk-tassel in the Regional Parks Botanic Garden, or the coast species growing wild in Huckleberry Preserve in the East Bay hills. Huckleberry, as well as Tilden and Redwood parks, is also home to another noteworthy winter-bloomer, western leatherwood (Dirca occidentalis), with yellow bell-shaped flowers. The blossoms are followed by pale green elliptical leaves. The name comes from the flexible twigs, so pliable you can tie them in knots. Thoreau called the eastern leatherwood species “the Indian’s rope.” It’s also known as moosewood or wicopy. 

Western leatherwood is California’s only member of the daphne family, Thymeleaceae. It’s restricted to the Bay Area, growing on wet slopes where soft chaparral meets mixed evergreen forest in association with buckeye, madrone, and coast live oak. Asa Gray, Darwin’s correspondent and ally, described D. occidentalis from a specimen collected in Oakland. Recent studies by Bill Graves of Iowa State University show that East Bay leatherwoods are genetically distinct from North Bay and Peninsula populations. Graves has also been looking at leatherwood’s reproductive strategies, which include asexual spread through rhizomes. The conspicuous yellow flowers are serviced by hummingbirds. 

Eastern leatherwood has been in cultivation since 1750; I’m not sure about our local species. One source says it likes a moist humus-rich limy soil; another recommends shade and plenty of winter moisture. You might be able to find a specimen at a specialized nursery or native-plant sale. Silk-tassel, more of a known quantity horticulturally, should be more widely available.  

 

 

Ron Sullivan, who writes the Green Neighbors column, is on vacation. Joe Eaton, who writes the Wild Neighbors column on alternate Tuesdays, is filling in for her this week.


Column: Dispatches From the Edge: Anatomy of a Massacre

By Conn Hallinan
Friday February 16, 2007

As the fables about Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction and clandestine ties with al-Qaeda began to unravel following the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, the flagship of U.S. news reporting, the New York Times, took itself to task for its failure to challenge its news sources. In May, 2004, the Times wrote: “Information that was controversial then, and seems questionable now, was insufficiently qualified or allowed to stand unchallenged … Articles based on dire claims about Iraq tended to get prominent display, while follow-up articles that called the original ones into question were sometimes buried. In some cases, there was no follow-up at all.”  

And yet a little more than two and a half years later, the same newspaper highlighted a story about a Jan. 28 “battle” near the holy city of Najaf that is filled with the same sloppy reporting, inadequate research, and just plain disinformation that characterized the Time’s pre-war coverage of Iraq. 

According to Times reporter Marc Santora, “Iraqi forces were surprised and nearly overwhelmed by the ferocity of an obscure renegade militia …which calls itself the Soldiers of Heaven.” The story went on to quote “Iraqi government officials” who claimed the group was preparing to storm Najaf and assassinate Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the leader of Iraqi’s Shiites. 

The supposed attack took place on the eve of the Ashura holiday, which commemorates the death of Imam Hussein, grandson of Muhammad and Shiism’s most revered saint. 

However, journalists from the Inter Press Service (IPS) and the British Independent, as well as numerous media outlets in the Arab world, say the “battle” was against two local tribes, not the “Soldiers of Heaven,” and was nothing less than a systematic massacre by U.S. air and ground forces of Shiia opponents to the ruling clique in Baghdad. 

The avalanche of Iraqi government information—some of it contradictory—on the so-called “renegade militia,” should have alerted the U.S. media that things were not quite what they seemed. Officials said the group was a Shiite zealot “death cult”; a group of “foreign fighters” dressed in Afghan and Pakistani tribal robes, (carrying British passports); Sunni Arab nationalists; Saddam Hussein dead-enders; and/or al-Qaeda. Baghdad officials also said the scene of the battle was a “fortress,” filled with “heavy weapons.”  

None of the charges could be corroborated because the Iraqi Army barred all press from talking to survivors or examining what the Times called a “network” of trenches and bunkers lacing the “militia camp.” 

Some of the government statements should have immediately failed the smell test: “Shiite zealots” do not rub shoulders with Sunni al-Qaeda. The “Soldiers of Heaven” is not an armed group, and Pakistanis and Afghans in southern Iraq? 

Reporting near Zarqa, a town a few miles north of Najaf and some 60 miles south of Baghdad, Dahr Jamail and Ali al-Fadhily of the IPS discovered a very different version of the battle than the one making the rounds in the Times and other U.S. news outlets. 

Rather than “Soldiers of Heaven,” the target of the attack were the al-Hatami and al-Khazaali tribes, both of which oppose the current government of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki. According to the IPS reporters, the Iraqi Army fired on Hatami pilgrims on their way to Najaf. “We were going to conduct the usual ceremonies that we conduct every year when we were attacked by Iraqi soldiers,” Jabber al-Hatami, leader of the tribe told IPS.  

Khazaali tribal members went to their aid. “Our two tribes have a strong belief that Iranians are provoking sectarian war in Iraq which is against the belief of all Muslims,” one witness told the reporters, “and so we announced an alliance with Sunni brothers against any sectarian violence in the country. That did not make our Iranian-dominated government happy.” 

The tribes, according to Patrick Cockburn of the Independent, are opposed to the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIR) and the Dawa Party, both of which are close to Iran and which dominate the Maliki government. Some Iraqi tribes object to Sistani because he is an Iranian, and they feel that religious leadership should be kept in the hands of Arabs. 

The governor of Najaf, Assad Abu Khalil, is a prominent member of SCIR, and was one of the major sources on the incident in stories that appeared in the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times.  

Tension between Arab and Iranian Shiites has been building in Iraq’s south since death squads linked to the Maliki government began assassinating local tribal leaders. Sheikh Faissal al-Khayoon, head of the large Beni Assas Shiia tribe, was murdered by a death squad with ties to Iraq’s Ministry of the Interior, according to another IPS report. Beni Assas tribal members attacked the Iranian consulate in Basra in retaliation. 

On Jan. 1, the Madhi Army of Moktada al Sadr assassinated Sheikh Hamid al-Suhail of the Shiia/Sunni Beni Tamin tribe. Sadr is a key ally of the Maliki government. According to Jamail and al-Fadhily, the Beni Assas and Beni Tamin tribes have worked for Shiia –Sunni unity. 

The Independent claims that the “battle” began when the leader of the Hatami tribe, along with his wife and driver, were gunned down at an Iraqi Army checkpoint. The Iraqi Army is riddled with death squads, in particular the Badr Organization, the armed wing of the SCIR. When Hatami tribe members assaulted the checkpoint in revenge, the Iraqi Army called in U.S. helicopters and F-16s, and British Tornados. Tanks and humvees from the U.S. 25th Division were also summoned. 

The tribe members fled into a plantation where they were pounded with 500-pound bombs that killed 263 and wounded 210. The Iraqi Army lost 25 soldiers, a casualty imbalance that Cockburn suggests means the battle was “a fabrication: that was instead an unprecedented massacre.” 

However, despite the IPS, Independent, and Arab media reports, the New York Times continues to report that the battle was with a “renegade militia.” 

Indeed, more than a week after the incident, a Times editorial chastised the Iraqi Army for allowing “hundreds of armed zealots” to set up “a fortified encampment, complete with tunnels, trenches, blockades, 40 heavy machine guns and at least two antiaircraft weapons,” adding “a successful attack on top clerics and pilgrims in Najaf would have been disastrous.” 

The details on the camp, the weapons and the charge that Najaf was the target is straight from Iraqi government sources.  

The way the U.S. media has reported the “battle” of Zarqa is a virtual replay of the kind of reporting that characterized the run up to the Iraq War. What is chilling is that the media seems to be taking a similar tack in its reporting about “Iranian interference” in Iraq. 

A recent story in the New York Times reports that Iran may have been involved in the recent kidnapping and murder of five Americans. But the story presents nothing but a series of unnamed sources and speculations. 

Bush Administration charges that Iran has set up insurgent training camps and built anti-personnel bombs that have killed and maimed U.S. soldiers have been routinely reported on all the major networks and daily newspapers with virtually no dissenting voices or questions raised concerning the motives of sources.  

Such reporting paves the road to war. Will its next victim be Iran? 


Column: Undercurrents: The Last Word on the Dellums’ Paramount Incident

By J. Douglas Allen-Taylor
Friday February 16, 2007

This being the third (and final) column on the subject of the disruption at the City of Oakland’s Paramount Theater Inaugural last month, some readers may be wondering with all of the other issues to talk about, why so much time is being spent on this. 

The problem is that there were three separate events within the inaugural that have gotten confused together, as well as misreported, and that confusion and misreporting could have serious consequences both in Oakland and elsewhere. So setting the record straight is important.  

The first of these events involved the speakers who came up to the microphone to request that the Council elect someone other than Mr. De La Fuente as president, the second was the booing that ocurred both during and following the Council’s vote, and the third was the anti-Latino slurs that were called out by some audience members in the midst of that booing. 

One of the articles most responsible for muddling up these issues together was San Francisco Chronicle reporter Christopher Heredia’s “A call for unity after racist incident at inauguration: Dellums' swearing-in tainted by crowd mocking De La Fuente” was published on January 12, four days after the inauguration itself and on the same day that Latino and Asian American leaders held a news conference denouncing the anti-Latino slurs. 

In his article, Mr. Heredia wrote, in part, that “the news conference had no members of the African American community who had called at the inauguration for City Council President Ignacio De La Fuente, a Latino, to step down. After those calls were not heeded and De La Fuente was re-elected in a special council meeting at the inauguration, loud jeers—some racially offensive—interrupted the ceremony.” 

But loud jeers—some racially offensive—by who? Since African-Americans were the only race highlighted in Mr. Heredia’s article as opposing Mr. De La Fuente’s re-election, the reader is left with the impression that when Mr. De La Fuente was re-elected, it was African-Americans—and only African-Americans—who then resorted to racially-offensive taunts and jeering. 

In the first two columns in this series, we pointed out that the anti-Latino shouting was a very small part of the booing that accompanied the Council presidency election, so small that reports of it only showed up in one newspaper account immediately following the event—the Oakland Tribune—and most reporters present said later they hadn’t even heard it. 

Were the anti-Latino racial taunts at the Paramount made only by African-Americans? To my knowledge, no one has come out and publicly charged that they were. 

Was the booing and jeering itself against Mr. De La Fuente’s re-election—the vastly larger part that did not include racial slurs—done solely or even primarily by African-Americans? No subsequent newspaper account has mentioned the race of the people who booed. For my part, I was sitting in one of the front rows and taking notes, and while I heard the boos, I was paying attention to the reaction of the officeholders on stage and did not look around to identify any of the people who were participating in the demonstration. But knowing the long tradition of boisterous activism among Oakland’s white progressives, and knowing how many times they have clashed with Mr. De La Fuente in the past and how vociferous has been their opposition to some of the Council President’s actions and positions, I find it amusing that someone, anyone, would think that some of our good, white radical friends and neighbors did not let their voices be heard when the booing began. 

A talk with one attendee at the inauguration confirmed that belief. 

“I was sitting upstairs in the balcony,” a city employee told me this week (her name is not being published with this column so that, well, she can remain a city employee), “and I heard the booing and catcalling from people in the balcony. I didn’t hear any racial remarks. And I was quite surprised at the fact that so many white people were booing and whistling. I don’t think there was any racial aspect to it, at least where I was sitting. I just feel it was people who were frustrated with the status quo.” 

The city employee added that “what happened during that short time shouldn’t overshadow the whole event, which was very dignified and positive.” 

Meanwhile, because of the booing and the disruption—by a minority of inaugural participants—it is now widely misunderstood how polite the speeches actually were during the public comment period preceding the Council vote, particularly the comments from African-American leaders. 

From Oakland Black Caucus Chairperson Bishop Keith Clark: “Let’s continue the spirit of change, please, ma’am, please, sir, and let’s get a new president of the council.”  

From African-American Small Business Council President Daryl Kay: “I want to thank Mr. De La Fuente for eight years as president of the Council. You have done a yeoman’s job. But for all of us who have faith in the future direction of this city, I believe, brother, it’s time for you to step down. Mr. De La Fuente, brother, you’ve been great. Everybody has their day, but it’s time.”  

And from Frank Tucker of the 100 Black Men of the Bay Area: “We respect what you’ve done, Mr. De La Fuente, but we also know that we’ve got talent in the rest of the Council. Let’s put another one of our talented people in the most powerful Council position we have.”  

(Mr. Tucker, by the way, has been widely reported to be romantically linked to Oakland City Councilmember Desley Brooks, the top African-American publicly associated with opposition to Mr. De La Fuente. Although talk of African-American/Latino disunity dominated some area media several days after the inaugural, the most enduring visual memory of the inauguration itself, captured in several published photographs, were the old political enemies Ms. Brooks and Mr. De La Fuente standing onstage, eyes closed, heads bowed and pointedly hand-in-hand during Allen Temple Baptist Church’s Reverend J. Alfred Smith’s prayer. This was hardly the picture of black-Latino discord that later came to be characterized as the spirit of the inaugural event.) 

As a matter of fact, the impression that there was widespread anti-Latino talk by African-Americans during the public comment period at the Paramount inaugural ends up boiling down exclusively to one man, the last speaker, who identified himself as Reverend Daniel Willette of the Fruitvale District. 

Several people who attended the inaugural said they remembered that in opposing Mr. De La Fuente, Mr. Willette accused the Council president of only working for Latinos, and that immediately afterwards, Mr. Willette then said that what Oakland should be doing is concentrating on helping African-Americans. 

What this only shows, however, is that eyewitness memory is not always the most reliable record of an event. 

A review of the KTOP videotape of Mr. Willette’s remarks shows that he never mentioned the word “Latino,” and that what he actually said was that “we can’t have one who’s working only for one ethnic group in our City Council. We’ve got to have one who works for all America. We can’t have one who is just going to work for one type of people.” In the context of his position opposing Mr. De La Fuente, it is fair to assume that Mr. Willette—who was by far the most belligerent of the public speakers—was accusing Mr. De La Fuente of only siding with Latinos. But it’s hard to argue with his sentiment that “we can’t have one who’s working only for one ethnic group in our City Council,” and it becomes a stretch to bend that statement into an anti-Latino statement. 

And as for Mr. Willette’s advocating for only African-Americans? 

Well, what he said was that “Afro-American people is the ones here in Oakland who is being affected by the murders. So we’ve got to cut that down by communicating with our young children.” It’s hardly the pro-black, anti-Latino diatribe that some thought it was, but it is understandable that many in the audience that may not have fully heard what he was saying, since as he was saying it—because Mr. Willette had filled out no speaker card and had gone over his time limit with no sign of slowing down—Mr. De La Fuente was interrupting Mr. Willette at that point, saying “excuse me, sir,” and trying to get him to stop talking. In addition, people’s memories may have been clouded by the anti-Latino slurs that a few audience members were reported to have shouted out. 

The conclusion to all of this investigation? Were there anti-Latino slurs shouted out by a few people at the Paramount city inaugural? Yes. Were those people, whoever they were, wrong to shout out anti-Latino slurs? Of course. Did those anti-Latino slurs characterize the bulk of the event? Not even remotely. Is there racial tension between African-Americans and Latinos in Oakland? Yes. But it’s complicated—as all issues are that mingle race and politics and power—and that’s another issue to be tackled in another column, on another day. 

••• 

NOTE: In last week’s column, Mr. Jim Puskar was identified as the Business Manager of the Jack London Aquatic Center. The comments that were included with the column were Mr. Puskar’s alone and not those of the Aquatic Center. Mr. Puskar did not associate his quoted remarks on the Paramount inauguration controversy with the Aquatic Center, and the identification in the column was not meant to imply that those remarks were connected with the Aquatic Center in any way. Sorry if there was any confusion about that. 

 

 

 


About the House: Secondary Drains and the Very Scary Porch

By Matt Cantor
Friday February 16, 2007

I met a very nice fellow today. A composer. Funny how homeowners end up being something other than just … homeowners. Neat guy, writes music for films, TV, industrials (corporate film) and the like. He also had the composure of musician, smooth and philosophical. Good thing for all those involved in selling him this house because let me tell you, he had some pain and it would be very easy to acrimonious with this particular type.  

Seems the guy just bought a house way up in the hills. Must have cost a wee bit too. Very stylish, loads of room, views to-die-for and all those things that conspire to create the oh so modern manse. I near expected to see Hef and some bunnies lounging before the fireplace. 

About a day after he moves into the house, there’s a bit of rain and he starts to notice paint sheets scrunching up on the wall downstairs from the entryway. Next, water starts dripping through the ceiling. Oh my! It’s not supposed to rain inside the house. Well, he started by doing the right thing and removing some of the sheetrock from where the water was dribbling in. This does two things, it makes it possible to examine the area where the leak is occurring but also helps to lower the atmospheric moisture level in the space, thus decreasing the growth of funguses that eat wood and all the pulpy stuff we building houses with these days. 

After a short while we found the leak. Funny, it was inside the door. They’d looked for several hours and ran hoses all over the place and couldn’t get it to leak but we inspectors have the magic of hindsight working for us and I’ve seen my share of leaks that first required water to blow under the door to begin their soppy work. We both did the happy dance (his being more subtle and artist-like than mine). 

Now as fun as all of this stuff is, it’s not what I want to talk about. It’s the porch itself. It wasn’t what he had me over about but when I walked down to the front door, my face nearly turned white. The front door was at the bottom of a set of about 5 or six steps and had walls all around, except for the front door, which for purposes of full disclosure, I will refer to as “the drain.” 

Now, there was a drain in this swimming pool of an entryway but it was small and half clogged with caulk and a bunch of other stuff I couldn’t identify. When the dog drops his gooey tennis ball and it rolls into the unscreened drain (that’s where drains are, you know, at the bottom of the incline, just waiting for the ball) the next rain fall is going to be able to put 4’ of water right against the doorway (glug, glug). Not to worry. The door doesn’t hold water all that well. It will just drain right into the house until you get back from Maui all tanned and relaxed. 

This particular house was virtually all downstairs from the front entry door. One of those hillside beauties where you park on top and walk down to the living room and down some more to the bedroom (glug, glug, glug). Oh my G-d. Now don’t get me wrong. It had not happened but hey, misery lies in wait just around the corner, does it not? So here’s what I had to say to our friend, the musician. Please, oh please, add a “secondary drain.” OK, it’s not the only thing I recommended but it was the absolute number one. The porch will, sadly, have to be replaced due to the damage caused at the doorway.  

The plywood was rotting away and this extended back toward the exterior porch quite some distance.  

Therefore, the porch was going to have to be ripped up and replaced anyway; so my strong advice to him was to install a secondary drain when he put the porch back together. Now what is a secondary drain? Is it just another drain? No, it’s different in a couple of respects but to answer the question, let’s get up on your flat roof. If you have a flat roof with some short (or not so short) walls, called parapets, around the edge, you have a …. swimming pool, just like our friend’s entryway.  

I see these all the time and you may well have one. They’re everywhere. The code books demand (and good builders provide) secondary drains on these roofs. First, they’re elevated somewhat above the main drain. This often means that they are up on the parapet wall a few inches above the drain in the roof surface or the “scupper” in the bottom of the parapet wall.  

This placement means two thing. First it means that nothing is going to readily clog this drain because it’s not on the roof (or porch?) surface. Things can’t fall into a hole that’s up on a wall. It also means that it will be clear and unused until that fateful day when the main drain clogs and the swimming pool starts to fill. 

 

Secondary drains should NOT have downspouts 

When we put these life-savers in, we should not use a downspout. This may sound odd but there’s a really good reason for it. When the secondary drain starts to discharge, it means that something is very wrong and we don’t want it going about its business in a nice quiet friendly way. We want it to splash on your neighbors house or to knock your trash can lid off onto the cat. It should announce itself. Although I’ve never seen it, every secondary drain should have a set of wind chimes dangling from the spout just to broaden the effect. You want to take notice and get up there and clear drain number one as soon as you can because flat roofs with parapet walls can hold hundred (or even thousands) of gallons when the drains clog up. 

So, that’s what I would like our musical fellow to have. A porch with a drain and one more for good measure. That secondary drain could easily prevent $100,000 worth of damage if the surfing junket goes on long enough. 

There’s another message embedded in this experience that’s a little harder to see but just as vital and this is that looking at houses is a tricky business. If you have a list of things to check, it’s easy to miss the forest. Sometimes you need to back up, cross the street and just stare at the thing until it hits you. I never know what it’s going to be but if I slow down a little it’s often there. There are no books for this stuff but my clever clients often pick them out without any building education at all. So when you’re looking at your house or a new house or a friend’s house. Take a minute, sit down and look and you might just find yourself turning white and saying “Oh my G-d!” 

 

 

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


Arts & Events

Arts Calendar

Tuesday February 20, 2007

TUESDAY, FEB. 20 

EXHIBITIONS 

“What Becomes of a Broken Soul” Letters from Prison, America’s New Plantations. Exhibition opening at noon at the African American Museum and Library, 659 14th St., Oakland. 637-0200. 

FILM 

Alternative Visions “v.o.” at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

“P’ungmul: South Korean Drumming and Dance” with author Nathan Hesselink a 4 p.m. at IEAS Conference Room, 2223 Fulton St., 6th Flr. 642-2809. 

Vincent Katz and Cedar Sigo read at 7:30 p.m. at Moe’s Books, 2476 Telegraph Ave. 849-2087. 

Jean Davison, anthropologist, discusses “The Ostrich Wakes: Struggles for Change in Highland Kenya” at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698. www.blackoakbooks.com 

Paul Barrett on “American Islam, The Struggle for the Soul of a Religion” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Mardi Gras Celebration with The Joyfull Noise Brass Band and Blue Roots at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Line dance lesson at 8:30 p.m. Cost is $12. 525-5054. 

Singers’ Open Mic with Ellen Hoffman at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island. Cost is $5.841-JAZZ.  

Beppe Gambetta with David Grisman at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $24.50-$25.50. 548-1761.  

Rebecca Griffin at 7 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

Don Byron Plays Junior Walker at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $12-$20. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

WEDNESDAY, FEB. 21 

FILM 

“Sophie Scholl: The Final Days” on the anti-Nazi White Rose student movement, at 7 p.m. at the Berkeley Gary Panthers, 1403 Addison St. 548-9696. 

History of Cinema “Singin’ in the Rain” at 3 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Roger Rappoport shows film footage and talks about his biography of Michael Moore “Citizen Moore” at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698.  

Floyd Salas and Reginald Lockett read at 7:30 p.m. at Moe’s Books, 2476 Telegraph Ave. 849-2087. 

Bich Minh Nguyen describes growing up as a Vietnamese immigrant in America’s heartland in “Stealing Buddha’s Dinner” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. 

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

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Music for the Spirit Music celebrating African-American composers at 12:15 p.m. at First Presbyterian Church of Oakland, 2619 Broadway. 444-3555. 

Whiskey Brothers Old Time and Bluegrass at 9 p.m. at Albatross, 1822 San Pablo Ave. 843-2473. www.albatrosspub.com 

Terrence Brewer Quartet at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $9. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Orquestra La Verdad at 9:30 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low. Salsa dance lessons at 8 p.m. Cost is $5-$10. 548-1159.  

Charley Baker, guitar, at 9 p.m. at the Uptown Nightclub, 1928 Telegraph, Oakland. Cost is $5. 451-8100. 

Mickie Lee and Amber at 9:30 p.m. at Beckett’s Irish Pub, 2271 Shattuck Ave. 647-1790.  

Mike Marshall & Hamilton de Holanda at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $19.50-$20.50. 548-1761.  

George Duke at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square, through Sun. Cost is $22-$26. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com  

THURSDAY, FEB. 22 

CHILDREN 

“We Are Africa and Africa Is Us” with storyteller Marijo at 10 and 11:30 a.m. at Oakland Museum of California, 1000 Oak St. 238-2000. 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Flight Out of Time” Exhibition of contemporary prints by Barbara Foster, Jimin Lee and Tadayoshi Nakabayashi. Reception ofr the artists at 6 p.m. at Kala Art Institute, 1060 Heinz Ave. to March 17. 549-2977.  

“Paintings of Abu Ghraib” by Fernando Botero at 190 Doe Library, UC Campus, through March 23. 643-5651. www.clas.berkeley.edu 

“A Rose Has No Teeth: Bruce Nauman in the 1960s” Guided tour at 12:15 and 5:30 p.m. at the Berkeley Art Museum, 2626 Bancroft Way. 642-0808. 

“Used and Re-Used: decorative objects made from utilitarian materials” at the The Ames Gallery, 2661 Cedar St. through March 31. 845-4949.  

Michael Howerton “Portraits” at Chachie’s Coffee Shop, 1768 Broadway at 19th St., Oakland. Exhibition runs though Feb. 28. www.howertonphoto.blogspot.com 

“100 Families in Oakland: Art & Social Change” at the Oakland Museum of California, 10th and Oak Sts.. Oakland, through April 22. 238-2200. 

“Transforming Vision: The Wood Sculpture of William Hunter, 1970-2005” at the Oakland Museum of California, 10th and Oak Sts.. Oakland, through March 18. 238-2200. 

“Fire in the Heart” Paintings by Foad Satterfield influenced by African art at the Community Gallery, Alta Bates Summit Medical Center, 2450 Ashby Ave., through March 2. 204-1667. 

“Berkeley: 75 Years Ago” at the Berkeley History Center, Veterans Memorial Building, 1931 Center St. Hours are Thurs.-Sat., 1 to 4 p.m. Exhibit runs through March. 848-0181. 

“Street Portraiture” Photographs by Tom Stone at The LightRoom Gallery, 2263 Fifth St., through Feb. 28. 649-8111. 

“Obsession” Works of Fire and Passion Group Show at ACCI Gallery, 1652 Shattuck Ave., and runs to March 3. 843-2527. www.accigallery.com 

Paintings by Allan Reynolds at the Joseph P. Bort MetroCenter, 3rfd flr., 101 Eighth St., Oakland. Exhibition runs through March. 817-5773. 

“Art of Living Black” at the Richmond Art Center, 2540 Barrett Ave., Richmond, and runs through March 16. 620-6772. www.richmondartcenter.org 

“African Art” by Okaybabs, Yinka Adeyemi, Adeyinka Fashokun, honoring Black History Month at the LuchStop Cafe, Joseph P. Bort MetroCenter, 101 Eighth St., Oakland. Exhibit runs to March 30. 817-5773. 

Oakland Art Association Juried Show at the MTC Offices, Bort MetroCenter, 3rd floor, 101 Eighth St., Oakland. Exhibition runs to March 30. 817-5773. 

THEATER 

“The Other Side of the Mirror” Stories written and performed by Lynn Ruth Miller at 8 p.m. at Spuds Pizza Parlor, 3290 Adeline. For all ages. Tickets are $10 at the door. 558-0881. 

FILM 

Film Series with David Thomson “Bonnie and Clyde” at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Alex Espinoza reads from his novel “Still Water Saints” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. 

Nona Caspers, Toni Milsevich and Barbara Tomash read from their new short stories at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698. www.blackoakbooks.com 

Nomad Spoken Word Night at 7 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

“The Forsythe Company” the West Coast premiere of the ballet “Three Atmospheric Studies” at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $32-$58. 642-9988. www.calperfs.berkeley.edu 

Aux Cajunals, Cajun music, at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $17.50-$18.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

John Gordon Trio at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $8. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Mamadou & Vanessa, Mali blues, at 7 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

Angry John, Dead Ringers, Isabellas at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $5. 841-2082 www.starryploughpub.com  

Headnodic & Raashan Ahmad at 9:30 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low. Cost is $5. 548-1159.  

Buck Shot Boays, Jack Spade Band, Stigmata 13 at 9 p.m. at the Uptown Nightclub, 1928 Telegraph, Oakland. Cost is TBA. 451-8100. www.uptownnightclub.com 

FRIDAY, FEB. 23 

THEATER 

Altarena Playhouse “Not a Genuine Black Man” with Brian Copeland, Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m. at 1409 High St., Alameda. Tickets are $35-$45. 800-838-3006. 

Aurora Theatre Company “The Birthday Party” Wed. - Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 and 7 p.m. at 2081 Addison St., through March 11. Tickets are $38. 843-4822. www.auroratheatre.org 

Berkeley Rep “The Pillowman” at 8 p.m. at the Thrust Stage, 2025 Addison St., through March 11. Tickets are $33-$61. 647-2949. 

Black Repertory Group “Phyllis” Fri. and Sat. at at 3201 Adeline St. Tickets are $10. 652-2120. 

Contra Costa Civic Theater “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m. at 951 Pomona Ave., at Moeser, El Cerrito., through March 3. Tickets are $15-$24. 524-9132. www.ccct.org 

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

The Marsh “Shopping for God” Thurs.-Sat. at 7 p.m. at 2120 Allston Way, through March 3. Tickets are $15-$22. 1-800-838-5750. www.themarsh.org 

Masquers Playhouse “Arsenic and Old Lace” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m., though Feb. 24, at 105 Park Playhouse, Point Richmond. Tickets are $15. 232-4031. 

Ragged Wing Ensemble “The Tempest” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m. at The Metal Shop Theater, 2425 Stuart St., behind Willard Middle School. Runs through Feb. 24. Tickets are $15-$25. 800-838-3006. www.raggedwing.org 

TheatreFirst “Nathan the Wise” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 3 p.m. at Old Oakland Theater, 481 Ninth St. at Broadway, Oakland, through March 4. Tickets are $21-$25. 436-5085. www.theatrefirst.com 

Travelling Jewish Theater, “Rose” at The Ashby Stage, 1901 Asby Ave., through Feb. 25. For ticket information call 415-522-0786. 

EXHIBITIONS 

Tony Bellaver “Interventions” Performance art from 1 to 4 p.m. at Berkeley Art Center, 1275 Walnut St. Donations accepted. 644-6893.  

FILM 

“Who is Bozo Texino?” The Secret History of Hobo and Railworker Graffiti. Film Screening with film-maker, Bill Daniel at 7 p.m. at AK Press Warehouse, 674A 23rd St., Oakland Cost is $5, no one turned away. 

Human Rights Watch Film Festival “Total Denial” at 7 p.m. and “Black Gold” at 8:50 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Ishmael Beah describes “A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier” at 7 p.m. at the First Congregational Church of Berkeley, 2345 Channing Way. Suggested donation $10, benefits Human Rights Watch. 559-9500. 

Amy Besa and Romy Dorotan describe “Memories of Philippine Kitchens” at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698. www.blackoakbooks.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

“The Forsythe Company” the West Coast premiere of the ballet “Three Atmospheric Studies” at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $32-$58. 642-9988.  

Oakland East Bay Symphony premieres Pierre Jalbert’s ”Fire and Ice” at 8 p.m. at Paramount Theater, 2025 Broadway, Oakland. Pre-concert lecture at 7 p.m.. Tickets are $15-$62. 652-8497. www.oebs.org 

The Kymata Band, songs of Greece at 7:30 p.m. at Pro Arts Gallery, 550 Second St. Tickets are $10-$15. 868-0695. www.bayareabach.org 

Amina Figarova Group at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $15. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

La Muñeca y Los Muertos, Latin ska/punk, at 9 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $10. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Jai Uttal & The Pagan Love Orchestra at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $15-$18. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Martine Locke, singer/songwriter at 8 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

The Junius Courtney Band, swing jazz, at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $17.50-$18.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Sara & Swingtime at 9 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810.  

Robin Galante, Mario De Sio and Mary Elizabeth Beckman at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

Wil Blades vs. Scott Amendola, Jessica Lurie Ensemble at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $6. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

Ceremony, Verse, Allegiance, Internal Affairs 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. 

Sinclair at 9:30 p.m. at Beckett’s Irish Pub, 2271 Shattuck Ave. 647-1790. www.beckettsirishpub.com 

Radio Suicide, Broken October at 8:30 p.m. at Oakland Metro, 201 Broadway. All ages. Cost is $10. 763-1146. www.oaklandmetro.org 

Gris Gris, Restaurant, Oh Sees, indie rock, at 9 p.m. at the Uptown Nightclub, 1928 Telegraph, Oakland. Cost is TBA. 451-8100. www.uptownnightclub.com 

George Duke at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square, through Sun. Cost is $22-$26. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

SATURDAY, FEB. 24 

CHILDREN  

“Dragonwings” An Active Arts Theater production for ages 7-14, Sat. at 11:30 a.m. and 2 p.m. and Sun. at 2 p.m. at Julia Morgan Theater for the Arts, 2640 College Ave, through Feb. 25. Tickets are $14 children, $18 adults. 925-798-1300. 

Los Amiguitos de La Peña with Abby and the Pipsqueaks at 10:30 a.m. at La Peña. Cost is $4 for adults, $3 for children. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

EXHIBITIONS 

“All Heart” A collaborative show with Children’s Hospital Oakland and Art For Life Foundation. Afternoon tea at 3 p.m. at Expressions Gallery, 2035 Ashby Ave. Runs through March 9. 644-4930. 

Photographs by Hilary Marckx “50-Year Retrospective” a converstation with the photographer at 4 p.m. at the Pacific School of Religion’s Bade Museum, 1798 Scenic Ave. 849-8239.  

Berkeley City College Digital Arts Show Photographs on display at 1947 Center St., Lobby Gallery, through May 1. 981-7533. 

THEATER 

“Touch” a gospel music play on a young woman’s battle with breast concer, at 7 p.m. at Scottish Rite Theater, 1547 Lakeside Dr., Oakland. Tickets are $25-$35. 466-5987. www.totallyled.org 

FILM 

LGBT Film Festival from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. at the César Chávez Branch, Oakland Public Library, 3301 East 12th St. 535-5620. www.oaklandlibrary.org 

Human Rights Watch Film Festival “The Camden 28” at 6:30 p.m. and “My Country, My Country” at 8:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

“Flight Out of Time” Gallery talk on the exhibition of contemporary prints by Barbara Foster, Jimin Lee and Tadayoshi Nakabayashi at 2 p.m. at Kala Art Institute, 1060 Heinz Ave. 549-2977. www.kala.org 

California West Coast Blues Summit and Seminar in celebration of Black History Month, from 1 to 6 p.m. at 554 Grand Ave., 2nd flr. Cost is $5. 836-2227. 

Poetry Flash with Rick Barot and Paisley Rekdal at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698. www.blackoakbooks.com 

Woodruff Minor presents a slideshow on “The Architecture of Ratcliff” at 4 p.m. at Mrs. Dalloways, 2904 College Ave. 704-8222. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Oakland Bay Area Community Chorus in celebration of Black History Month at 3 p.m. at the African American Museum and Library, 659 154th St., Oakland. 637-0200. 

Life is Grand Oakland performers including music and dance from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Paramount Theater, 2025 Broadway, Oakland.  

Lizzy and the Redbirds A concert of the music of Laura Nyro at 8 p.m. at Trinity Chapel, 2320 Dana St. 549-3864 www.trinitychamberconcerts.com 

Susie Laraine and the Jazz Express at 8 p.m. at The Giorgi Gallery, 2911 Claremont Ave., behind Peet’s. 848-1228. 

Rhythm & Muse open mic series features Boundless Gratitude’s CD release party, at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Art Center, 1275 Walnut St., between Eunice and Rose. 644-6893. 

The Hot Club, gypsy jazz, at 2 p.m. at Downhome Music, 10341 San Pablo Ave., El Cerrito. 525-2129. 

Karen Horner and Friends at noon at Cafe Zeste, 1250 Addison St. at Bonar, in the Strawberry Creek Park complex. 704-9378. 

Seth Montfort and Thomas Penders, piano, at 5:30 p.m. at Giorgi Gallery, 2911 Claremont Ave. 848-1228. 

Ballet Flamenco Sara Baras, premiere of “Sabores” at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $28-$56. 642-9988. 

Conjunto Karabali, salsa, at 9:30 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $12. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Medea Sinkas at 8:30 p.m. at Oakland Metro, 201 Broadway. All ages. Cost is $10. 763-1146. www.oaklandmetro.org 

San Francisco’s Summer of Love Revue at 9 p.m. at the Uptown Nightclub, 1928 Telegraph, Oakland. Cost is $14. 451-8100. www.uptownnightclub.com 

Frankye Kelly & Her Trio at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $12. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Tom Rigney & Flambeau at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Dance lesson at 8 p.m. Cost is $13. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com  

Rich Hubbard and Serenity FIsher at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

Ralph Stanley & the Clinch Mountain Boys at 8 p.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. Cost is $32.50-$33.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Eric Swinderman Trio at 9 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810.  

Tim Duarte, Latin jazz, at 9:30 p.m. at Albatross, 1822 San Pablo Ave. Cost is $5. 843-2473. www.albatrosspub.com 

Moh Allieche, world, folk, at 8 p.m. at Spuds Pizza, 3290 Adeline St. Cost is $7. 558-0881. 

Johnny Dilks & his Country Soul Brothers, 77 El Deora, Gerard Landry & the CA Cajuns at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. All ages show. Cost is $7. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

Go it Alone, Killing the Dream, Internal Affairs, The First Step 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. 

George Duke at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square, through Sun. Cost is $22-$26. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

SUNDAY, FEB. 25 

EXHIBITIONS 

“A Rose Has No Teeth: Bruce Nauman in the 1960s” Guided tour at 2 p.m. at the Berkeley Art Museum, 2626 Bancroft Way. 642-0808. 

THEATER 

“Touch” a gospel music play on a young woman’s battle with breast concer, at 8 p.m. at Scottish Rite Theater, 1547 Lakeside Dr., Oakland. Tickets are $25-$35. 466-5987. www.totallyled.org 

FILM 

Human Rights Watch Film Festival “KZ” at 3:30 p.m. and “Source” at 5:20 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

“Jubilee Singers and the Rebirth of the Negro Spirituals” educational forum with Dr. Sandra Graham, musicologist and Assistant Professor of Music at UC Davis at 3:30 p.m. at West Oakland Senior Center, 1724 Adeline St., Oakland. Sponsored by Friends of Negro Spirituals. 869-4359. 

Bilingual Mushaira, South Asian spoken-word poetry performance at 3 p.m. at Berkeley Montessori School, 1310 University Ave. Sponsored by the Center for the Art of Translation. 415-512-8812. 

Diane Wolf reads from “Beyond Anne Frank” at 3:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698. www.blackoakbooks.com 

Scott Rosenberg describes “Dreaming in Code: Two Dozen Programmers, Three Years, 4,732 Bugs, and One Quest for Transcendent Software” at 5 p.m. at the Hillside Club, Cedar St. Sponsored by Black Oak Books. 486-0698. www.blackoakbooks.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Rudolf Buchbinder, piano, at 3 p.m. at Hertz Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $42. 642-9988.Ballet Flamenco Sara Baras at 7 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $28-$56. 642-9988. www.calperfs.berkeley.edu 

“Songs We Love To Sing” Gospel concert with Bobby Hall & Friends at 7 p.m. at First United Methodist Church, 201 Martina St., corner W. Richmond Ave., Point Richmond. 236-0527. 

Cantare Chamber Ensemble “My God is a Rock” Spirituals by African-American composers, at 3 p.m. at Lakeshore Avenue Baptist Church, 3534 Lakeshore Ave., Oakland. Tickets are $10-$20. 836-0789. 

Jack Gates Ensemble at 7:30 p.m. at Berkeley Art Center, 1275 Walnut St. Cost is $10. 644-6893. 

Ralph Stanley & the Clinch Mountain Boys at 8 p.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. Cost is $32.50-$33.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Olivia Corson “Whale Tales” improv movement, at 7 p.m. at Western Sky Studio, 2525 8th St. Cost is $10-$20 sliding scale. 649-1791. 

Brazilian Soul at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $9. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Sara Ayala and Riquezas, flamenco, at 7:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $10. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Evelie Posch and Brook Schoenfield at 11 a.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

MONDAY, FEB. 26 

THEATER 

Shakespeare Intensive “As You Like It” staged reading at 7:30 p.m. at Berkeley Unitarian Fellowship, Fireside Room, 1925 Cedar at Bonita. Cost is $5. 276-3871. 

Woman’s Will 24-hour Playfest Playwrights, directors and actors write, rehearse, memorize and perform seven new plays in 24 hours. Performance is at 8 p.m. at the Julia Morgan Center for the Arts, 2640 College Ave. Tickets are $10-$25 sliding scale. 420-0813. www.woman’swill.org 

FILM 

“Jazz on a Monday Afternoon” Films and discussion on the Jazz Age and the Harlem Renaissance at 2 p.m. at the Berkeley Public Library, 2090 Kittredge St., 3rd flr. 981-6100. 

“Brotherly Jazz: The Heath Brothers” A screening of the documentary followed by a discussion with the porducer at 7 p.m. at Kensington Library, 61 Arlington Ave., Kensington. 524-3043. 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Caille Millner describes “The Golden Road: Notes on my Gentrification” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. 

Floyd Salas and Reginald Lockett, poets, at 7:30 p.m. at Moe’s Books, 2476 Telegraph Ave. 849-2087. 

Poetry Express with Damnyo with open mic theme “when I was a teenager” at 7 p.m., at Priya Restaurant, 2072 San Pablo Ave. 644-3977. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Ed Neff and Friends, bluegrass, at 7 p.m. at Le Bateau Ivre, 2629 Telegraph Ave. 849-1100. www.lebateauivre.net 

Musica ha Disconnesso, traditional Italian music, at 7 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

Blue Monday Jam at 9 p.m. at the Uptown Nightclub, 1928 Telegraph, Oakland. Cost is $5. 451-8100. www.uptownnightclub.com 

West Coast Songwriters Showcase at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage Coffee House. Cost is $5. 548-1761 www.freightandsalvage.org 

CSU East Bay Jazz Ensembles at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $10-$25. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 


Arts and Entertainment Around the East Bay

Tuesday February 20, 2007

‘FLIGHT OUT OF TIME’ RECEPTION AT KALA 

 

The Kala Gallery, 1060 Heinz Ave., is hosting a reception Thursday at 6 p.m. for the artists of “Flight Out of Time,” an exhibition of contemporary prints by Barbara Foster, Jimin Lee and Japanese “Living Treasure” artist Tadayoshi Nakabayashi. The work of these master printmakers spans cultural and generational boundaries with visually compelling observations of the natural world, the passing of time and simple aspects of domestic life. The exhibit continues until March 17. For more information, 549-2977, www.kala.org. 

 

OEBS PREMIERE OF ‘FIRE AND ICE’ 

 

The Oakland East Bay Symphony presents the world premiere of the next Magnum Opus commission “Fire and Ice,” by Pierre Jalbert on Friday at 8 p.m. at the Paramount Theater, 2025 Broadway, Oakland. Jalbert has been awarded two BMI and three ASCAP Foundation prizes, a Guggenheim fellowship, and the coveted Rome Prize in composition. In addition, this concert will showcase the winner of this year’s Young Artist Competition, violinist Margot Schwartz. Tickets are $15-$62. For more information, 652-8497, www.oebs.org. 

 

‘NATHAN THE WISE’ 

 

TheatreFIRST brings Nathan the Wise to the Old Oakland Threater, 481 Ninth St. This small, game troupe with high production standards and an ambitious, socially aware repertoire based on an internationalist perspective, have come close to outdoing themselves with this outstanding show, through March 4 in Oakland. Thurs.-Sat. 8 p.m., Sun. 3 p.m. Tickets $21-$25. For details, 436-5085, www.theatrefirst.org.


Green Neighbors: Winter Native Flowers: Silk-Tassel and Leatherwood

By Joe Eaton
Tuesday February 20, 2007

Along with all the flowering plums, acacias, and magnolias, a few native trees and shrubs are late-winter bloomers. Most, like the manzanitas and flowering currants, are on the shrubby side. But coast or wavyleaf silk-tassel (Garrya elliptica) is a bona fide tree up to 30 feet high, showy in its own way, and amenable to planting as an ornamental. There’s a particularly handsome silk-tassel specimen on the University Avenue median strip. 

It’s pretty obvious why they’re called that. Both male and female flowers are borne in catkinlike inflorescences. In the coast silk-tassel the gray-green male catkins may be up to a foot long (in the cultivar ‘James Roof’); the silvery female inflorescences are much shorter. Like similar flowers in other groups of plants, they’re wind-pollinated. The leaves are somewhat manzanita-like but are paired and have wavy margins. The fruit grows in clusters, like grapes. 

The genus Garrya has 14 or 15 species, ranging from Washington State to Panama; 6 are native to California. David Douglas first described it in 1826, naming it for Nicholas Garry, a Hudson Bay Company administrator. Their family, Garryaceae, is said to be one of only four plant families endemic to North America. That was from a Stanford site, though, so I wouldn’t take it as gospel; another source includes the Asian genus Aucuba in the family. Garryaceae in turn is the only family in the order Garryales. 

That’s this week, at least: plant taxonomy is very much in flux these days, with new genetic studies changing a lot of the old relationships that were based on flower structure. They broke up the lilies a couple of years ago, and I just learned yesterday that the water lotus (Nelumbo) turns out to be related not to other water lilies, but to proteas and sycamores. So if silk-tassels get reassigned, don’t be too surprised. 

Silk-tassels are chaparral plants, sometimes associated with conifers. Although their glossy green leaves feel leathery, they’re browsed by mule deer and bighorn. Native Americans treated fever, colds, digestive difficulties, and gonorrhea with extracts from the bark; the active ingredient is an alkaloid, garryine, whose bitter taste has inspired the name “quinine bush.” Stem extracts were widely used against diarrhea in rural Mexico. The natural rubber gutta-percha, used for temporary dental fillings, has been obtained from two Arizona species.  

Garryas were introduced into cultivation sometime in the last half of the nineteenth century, and three species are popular as ornamentals. They’ve also been planted for erosion control. Propagation can be either by seeds or cuttings. Drought-resistant coast silk-tassel does best in well-drained soil and open sunny or semi-shady locations.  

You can see several species of silk-tassel in the Regional Parks Botanic Garden, or the coast species growing wild in Huckleberry Preserve in the East Bay hills. Huckleberry, as well as Tilden and Redwood parks, is also home to another noteworthy winter-bloomer, western leatherwood (Dirca occidentalis), with yellow bell-shaped flowers. The blossoms are followed by pale green elliptical leaves. The name comes from the flexible twigs, so pliable you can tie them in knots. Thoreau called the eastern leatherwood species “the Indian’s rope.” It’s also known as moosewood or wicopy. 

Western leatherwood is California’s only member of the daphne family, Thymeleaceae. It’s restricted to the Bay Area, growing on wet slopes where soft chaparral meets mixed evergreen forest in association with buckeye, madrone, and coast live oak. Asa Gray, Darwin’s correspondent and ally, described D. occidentalis from a specimen collected in Oakland. Recent studies by Bill Graves of Iowa State University show that East Bay leatherwoods are genetically distinct from North Bay and Peninsula populations. Graves has also been looking at leatherwood’s reproductive strategies, which include asexual spread through rhizomes. The conspicuous yellow flowers are serviced by hummingbirds. 

Eastern leatherwood has been in cultivation since 1750; I’m not sure about our local species. One source says it likes a moist humus-rich limy soil; another recommends shade and plenty of winter moisture. You might be able to find a specimen at a specialized nursery or native-plant sale. Silk-tassel, more of a known quantity horticulturally, should be more widely available.  

 

 

Ron Sullivan, who writes the Green Neighbors column, is on vacation. Joe Eaton, who writes the Wild Neighbors column on alternate Tuesdays, is filling in for her this week.


Berkeley This Week

Tuesday February 20, 2007

TUESDAY, FEB. 20 

The Berkeley Garden Club meets at 2 p.m. at Epworth Methodist Church, 1953 Hopkins St. The topic will be “National Trust Gardens of England” presented by Carole Austin. 845-4482. 

Woodfin Town Hall Meeting in support of immigrant and worker rights at 7 p.m at Emeryville Senior Center, 4321 Salem St., Emeryville. 893-7106, ext. 27. www.democracyinaction.org 

“Hiking the Pacific Coast Trail” A slide show with Scott Williamson at 7 p.m. at REI, 1338 San Pablo Ave. 527-4140. 

Animal Communication Consultations from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. at RabbitEars, 303 Arlington Ave., Kensington. For appointment call 525-6255. 

Tuesday Tilden Walkers Join a few slowpoke seniors at 9:30 a.m. in the parking lot near the Little Farm for an hour or two walk. 215-7672, 524-9992. 

Family Storytime at 7 p.m. at the Kensington Library, 61 Arlington Ave. 524-3043. 

Discussion Salon on Changing Religion at 7 p.m. at JCC, 1414 Walnut.  

Fresh Produce Stand at San Pablo Park from 3 to 6 p.m. in the Frances Albrier Community Center. Sponsored by the Ecology Center’s Farm Fresh Choice. 848-1704. www.ecologycenter.org 

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

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

WEDNESDAY, FEB. 21 

Cynthia McKinney, Voting Rights and the American Blackout with at screening of the documentary 7 p.m. at Grand Lake Theatre, 3200 Grand Ave., Oakland. Tickets are $12-$15 at independent bookstores. 415-255-7296 ext. 253. www.globalexchange.org/ 

mckinneyevent 

A Plan for North Shattuck? Contribute ideas on what, if anything, should change on N. Shattuck at 7:30 p.m. at Live Oak Park Recreation Center. Sponsored by the Live Oak Coordinices Creek Neighborhood Association.  

Teach-In and Vigil Against American Torture every Wed. at noon at Boalt Hall, Bancroft Way at College Ave.  

Robert Reich on “The Four Narratives of American Public Life” at 5 p.m. in Room 315, Wheeler Hall, UC Campus. 

“Sophie Scholl: The Final Days” a film on the anti-Nazi White Rose student movement, at 7 p.m. at the Berkeley Gary Panthers, 1403 Addison St. 548-9696. 

“Contemplation and Education” a conversation on the contemplative practice in different religions at 7 p.m. at Pacific School of Religion Chapel, 1798 Scenic Ave. 

“Terrestrial Laser Scanning in Landscape Architecture” with Toby Minear at 1 p.m. at Wurster Hall, 315A, UC Campus. http://laep.ced.berkeley.edu/ 

events/colloquium 

Albany Library Evening Book Club meets to discuss “The Namesake” by Jhumpa Lahiri at 7 p.m. at The Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave. 526-3720. 

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

Stitch ‘n Bitch at 6:30 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

THURSDAY, FEB. 22 

“Preserving the Past and Embracing the Future” with Byron C. Williams in celebration of Black History Month at 6 p.m. at Martin Luther King Jr. Youth Services Center, 1730 Oregon St. 981-5158. 

“Sankofa” A celebration in honor of Black History Month at 6:30 p.m. at the Frances Albrier Community Center, 2800 Park St. 981-5158. 

“Seafood Watch” Learn about the status of the oceans and how you can make sustainable seafood choices, at 5 p.m. at Tilden Nature Area, in Tilden Park. Registration required. 636-1684. www.ebparks.org 

“Insects Make the Green World Go Round” A presentation on conserving invertebrate biodiversity with entomologist Leslie Saul-Gershenz and special insect guests at 7 p.m. at the Oakland Zoo, 9777 Golf Links Rd., Oakland. Donation $12-$20. 632-9525 ext.122.  

Setting the Table for Impeachment Panel discussion with Larry Everest and Dr. Peter Phillips and screening of “High Crimes” by Jacob Clapsadle at 7 p.m. at Grand Lake Theater, Oakland. Tickets are $10-$15. 845-4154.  

Berkeley School Volunteers Training workshop for volunteers interested in helping the public schools, from noon to 1 p.m. at 1835 Allston Way. 644-8833. 

“Sacred Hospitality between the Religions” a lecture by Fr. Pierre-François de Béthune at 7:30 p.m. at Pacific School of Religion Chapel, 1798 Scenic Ave. Free. 848-9788.  

Family Story Time for children ages 3-7 at 7 p.m. at the Berkeley Public Library, North Branch, 1170 The Alameda, at Hopkins. 981-6107. 

FRIDAY, FEB. 23 

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 

Free Compost for Berkeley Residents First priority is given to Berkeley Unified School District and Berkeley Community Gardens. Self-serve for the general public from 11:45 p.m. to 2:45 p.m. at Berkeley Marina Maintenance Yard, 201 University Ave. 644-6566. 

City Commons Club Noon Luncheon with Frayda Bruton on “Elder Options.” 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.  

Chinese New Year Celebration at 1:15 p.m. at North Berkeley Senior Center, 1901 Hearst St. 981-5190. 

“Jews and Arabs: Past, Present and Future” a weekend seminar led by Rabbi Sherwin T. Wine at the Albany Community Center, 1249 Marin Ave. To register call 415-543-4595. www.kolhadash.org 

Circle Dancing in El Cerrito, beginners welcome. Potluck supper at 7 p.m., followed by dancing, at the Hillside Community Church, 1422 Navellier St.El Cerrito. 528-4253. www.circledancing.com 

Kol Hadash Humanistic Judaism Family Pot Luck Shabbat at 6 p.m. at the Albany Community Center, 1249 Marin Ave. Please bring dinner food appropriate for children, and non-perishable food for the needy. 428-1492. 

SATURDAY, FEB. 24 

“New Era/New Politics” A walking tour of Oakland which highlights African-American leaders who have made their mark on Oakland. Meet at 10 a.m. and the African American Museum and Library at 659 14th St. 238-3234. www.oaklandnet.com/walkingtours 

“Cerrito Creek Work Party” Join Friends of Five Creeks to help remove invasive weeds to restore a creekside willow grove. Wear shoes with good traction and clothes that can get dirty. Meet at 10 a.m. at Creekside Park, south end of Santa Clara Ave., El Cerrito. 848-9358. www.fivecreeks.org 

Mt. Wanda Bird Walk Join Park Ranger Cheryl Abel for a walk up Mt. Wanda. The terrain is steep, so wear comfortable clothing and walking shoes. Bring water and binoculars. Meet at 8:30 a.m. at the Park and Ride lot at the corner of Alhambra Ave. and Franklin Canyon Rd., Martinez. 925-228-8860. 

Recycled Art Reuse some of your regular throwaways to make birdhouses, collages, masks, and more during this “open art”opportunity. All ages welcome. From 2 to 4 p.m. at Tilden Nature Area, in Tilden Park. 525-2233. 

War Tax Resistance Workshops More than half of our federal income taxes are used to wage war. Come find out about your options for conscientious objection from 2 to 4:30 p.m. at 3122 Shattuck Ave. 843-9877.  

African American Quilters’ Workshop from noon to 3 p.m. at the West Oakland Branch Library, 1801 Adeline St. Free. For information call 238-7352. 

LGBT Film Festival from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. at the César Chávez Branch, Oakland Public Library, 3301 East 12th St. 535-5620. www.oaklandlibrary.org 

Know Your Rights Training from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. at CopWatch, 2022 Blake St. For information call 548-0425. 

Tea Tasting Learn about the horticultural and cultural history of tea from 2 to 5 p.m. at UC Botanical Garden, 200 Centennial Drive. Cost is $12-$15. Registration required. 643-2755. 

Lead-Safety for Remodeling, repair and painting of older homes. HUD & EPA approved class held from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Alameda County Lead Poisoning Prevention Program, 2000 Embarcadero, #300, Oakland. 567-8280.  

Write for Your Life A workshop from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley, One Lawson Rd., Kensington. Suggested donation $40. 524-2858.  

Music and Sacred Space from 1 to 3 p.m. at Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley, One Lawson Rd., Kensington. Suggested donation $10. 236-0376.  

“Jews and Arabs: Past, Present and Future” A Kol Hadash Scholar-in-Residence Seminar with Rabbi Sherwin Wine, Sat. and Sun. at the Albany Community Center, 1249 Marin Ave. For registration information, visit www.kolhadash.org 543-4595. 

Picket at Woodfin Suites from 9:30 to 11:30 a.m., 5800 Shellmound, Emeryville. 548-9334. 

The Berkeley Lawn Bowling Club provides free instruction at 10:30 a.m. at 2270 Acton St. 841-2174.  

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

Around the World Tour of Plants at 1:30 p.m., Thurs., Sat. and Sun. at UC Botanical Garden, 200 Centennial Drive. 643-2755.  

Car Wash Benefit for Options Recovery Services of Berkeley, held every Sat. from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Lutheran Church, 1744 University Ave. 666-9552. 

SUNDAY, FEB. 25 

Tour of EcoHouse’s Greywater System Learn how to use waste water from your bathroom sink, shower and washing machine to safely irrigate your garden. From 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Berkeley EcoHouse, 1305 Hopkins St. Cost is $15 sliding scale, no one turned away. 548-2220 ext. 242. 

Hoot with Winter Owls Learn the night-time calls of owls that inhabit Tilden's forests and discover fact, fiction and fables about owls at 11 a.m. at Tilden Nature Area, in Tilden Park. 525-2233. www.ebparks.org  

“Open Garden” Join the Little Farm gardener for composting, planting, watering and reaping the rewards of our work, from 2 to 4 p.m. at Tilden Nature Area, Tilden Park. Cancelled only by heavy rain. 525-2233.  

French Broom Removal Lend a hand pulling out exotic broom plants so our native grasses and shrubs have a fighting chance. Bring gloves. We’ll provide hand tools and refreshments. From 1:30 to 4 p.m. at Tilden Nature Area, in Tilden Park. 525-2233.  

Seed Propagation and Sustainable Gardening from noon to 3:30 p.m. at UC Botanical Garden, 200 Centennial Drive. Cost is $40. Registration required. 643-7265. 

Berkeley City Club Tour of the “Lilttle Castle” designed by Julia Morgan at 1:15, 2:15 and 3:15 p.m. at 2315 Durant Ave. 883-9710. 

Hypertension Sunday Free Blood Pressure Screenings at churches and senior centers in Alameda County. For times and locations call 869-6763. 

“Karma: Do We Have Control Over Our Destiny?” Meditation and talk with Elizabeth Diamond at 12:30 p.m. at 7th Heaven Yoga Studio, 2820 Seventh St. 

Spartacist Forum: Black Liberation Through Socialist Revolution at 2 p.m. at 213 Wheeler Hall, UC Campus. 839-0851. 

“Duality and Non-Duality: Liberation” with Alex Pappas at 9:30 a.m. at Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley, One Lawson Rd., Kensington. 535-0302, ext. 306.  

Tibetan Buddhism with Mark Henderson on “The Nyingma Mandala: A Dynamic Meditation for Peace” at 6 p.m. at the Tibetan Nyingma Institute, 1815 Highland Pl. 843-6812.  

MONDAY, FEB. 26 

Lawrence Berkeley Lab Expansion Plans Public Hearing at 6:30 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. A CD version of the Long Range Development Plans is available. Call 486-4181. 

Congresswoman Barbara Lee’s State of the District Address at 6 p.m. at the Ron Dellums Federal Building Auditorium, 2nd floor, 1301 Clay St., Oakland. 763-0370. http//lee.house.gov 

“Jazz on a Monday Afternoon” Films and discussion on the Jazz Age and the Harlem Renaissance at 2 p.m. at the Berkeley Public Library, 2090 Kittredge St., 3rd flr. 981-6100. 

“Brotherly Jazz: The Heath Brothers” A screening of the documentary followed by a discussion with the producer at 7 p.m. at Kensington Library, 61 Arlington Ave., Kensington. 524-3043. 

Berkeley CopWatch organizational meeting at 8 p.m. at 2022 Blake St. 548-0425 

CITY MEETINGS 

Citizens Humane Commission meets Wed., Feb. 21, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-6601.  

Downtown Area Plan Advisory Commission meets Wed. Feb. 21, at 7 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-7487. 

Homeless Commission meets Wed., Feb. 21, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-5426.  

Library Board of Trustees meets Wed., Feb. 21, at 7 p.m. at South Berkeley Senior Center. 981-6195.  

Mental Health Commission meets Thurs., Feb. 22, at 6:30 p.m. at 2640 MLK Jr. Way, at Derby. 981-5213. 

West Berkeley Project Area Commission meets with the Transportation and Planning Commissions Thurs., Feb. 22, at 7 p.m., at the West Berkeley Senior Center. 981-7520.  

Zoning Adjustments Board meets Thurs., Feb. 22, at 7 p.m., in City Council Chambers. Mark Rhoades, 981-7410.


Arts Calendar

Friday February 16, 2007

FRIDAY, FEB. 16 

CHILDREN 

Dan Chan the Magic Man at 10:30 a.m. at Berkeley Public Library, South Branch, 1901 Russell St. 981-6260. 

EXHIBITIONS 

Tony Bellaver “Interventions” Performance art from 1 to 4 p.m. at Berkeley Art Center, 1275 Walnut St. Donations accepted. 644-6893. www.berkeleyartcenter.org 

“CelebratingOur Own” an exhibition preview from noon to 6 p.m. at the African American Museum and Library, 659 154th St., Oakland. 637-0200. 

THEATER 

Actors Ensemble of Berkeley “True West” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m. at Live Oak Theater, 1301 Shattuck Ave., through Feb. 17. Tickets are $12. 649-5999. www.aeofberkeley.org 

Advanced Theatre Projects Directors Lab “Ten Little Indians” Thurs.-Sun. at 8 p.m. at the Florence Shwimley Little Theater, Berkeley High Campus. Tickets are $5. 

Altarena Playhouse Rogers and Hammerstein’s “A Grand Night for Singing” Fri and Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 p.m. at 1409 High St., Alameda, through Feb. 17. Tickets are $17-$20. 523-1553. www.altarena.org 

Aurora Theatre Company “The Birthday Party” Wed. - Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 and 7 p.m. at 2081 Addison St., through March 4. Tickets are $38. 843-4822. www.auroratheatre.org 

Berkeley Rep “The Pillowman” at 8 p.m. at the Thrust Stage, 2025 Addison St., through March 11. Tickets are $33-$61. 647-2949. 

Black Repertory Group “Triumph” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m. at 3201 Adeline St. Tickets are $10. 652-2120. 

Contra Costa Civic Theater “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m. at 951 Pomona Ave., at Moeser, El Cerrito., through March 3. Tickets are $15-$24. 524-9132. www.ccct.org 

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

Level 9 Enterprises “Buffalo Soldiers, A Tale Lost” Thurs.-Sat. at 8 p.m. at Julia Morgan Center for the Arts, 2640 College Ave. Tickets are $15-$30. 925-798-1300. 

The Marsh “Shopping for God” Thurs.-Sat. at 7 p.m. at 2120 Allston Way, through March 3. Tickets are $15-$22. 1-800-838-5750. www.themarsh.org 

Masquers Playhouse “Arsenic and Old Lace” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m., though Feb. 24, at 105 Park Playhouse, Point Richmond. Tickets are $15. 232-4031. 

Ragged Wing Ensemble “The Tempest” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m. at The Metal Shop Theater, 2425 Stuart St., behind Willard Middle School. Runs through Feb. 24. Tickets are $15-$25. 800-838-3006. www.raggedwing.org 

TheatreFirst “Nathan the Wise” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 3 p.m. at Old Oakland Theater, 481 Ninth St. at Broadway, Oakland, through March 4. Tickets are $21-$25. 436-5085. www.theatrefirst.com 

Travelling Jewish Theater, “Rose” at The Ashby Stage, 1901 Asby Ave., through Feb. 25. For ticket information call 415-522-0786. 

FILM 

The Lubitsch Touch “Heaven Can Wait” at 7 p.m. and “Cluny Brown” at 9:15 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Youth Speaks’ 11th Teen Poetry Slam, preliminary round at 7 p.m. at La Peña. Cost is $3-$5. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

“Wild About Birds” Artist talk with Rita Sklar at 2 p.m. at the Albany Community Center, 1249 Marin Ave., Albany. www.ritasklar.com 

William Poy Lee describes “The Eighth Promise: An American Son’s Tribute to His Toisanese Mother” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. www.codysbooks.com  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Laurel Ensemble at 8 p.m. at Giorgi Gallery, 2911 Claremont Ave. Tickets are $12-$15. 848-1228. giorgigallery.com 

Brazilian Friends in Concert at 8 p.m. at the Hillside Club, 2286 Cedar St. Tickets are $10-$15. 845-1350.  

Simon Shaheen & Qantara, fiddle and oud, at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $20-$32. 642-9988.  

Walter Savage Quartet at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $10. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Frankie Manning and Lavay Smith and her Red Hot Skillet Lickers at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Lecture with Frankie Manning at 7:30 p.m. Cost is $11-$13. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Bittersweets, Americana, rock, at 8 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

Jim Kweskin & Geoff Muldaur at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $19.50-$20.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Kat Parra Quartet at 9 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810.  

A.J. Roach and Kate Isenberg at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

John Richardson Band, Amy Lou’s Blues, Captain Mike & the Sea Kings at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $6. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

Wes Robinson Tribute with Fang, Verbal Abuse, Mad at Sam at 8:30 p.m. at Oakland Metro, 201 Broadway. All ages. Cost is $10. 763-1146. www.oaklandmetro.org 

Kirtan: Jai Uttal at 8 p.m. at Studio Rasa, 933 Parker St. Tickets are $16-$18. 843-2787. 

BlackBerry Soup at 9:30 p.m. at Beckett’s Irish Pub, 2271 Shattuck Ave. 647-1790. www.beckettsirishpub.com 

The Girlfriend Experience, Wire Graffiti, Machine Green at 9 p.m. at the Uptown Nightclub, 1928 Telegraph, Oakland. Cost is $6. 451-8100. www.uptownnightclub.com 

Yoshida Brothers, shamisen, at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square, through Sun. Cost is $18-$24. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

SATURDAY, FEB. 17 

CHILDREN  

“Dragonwings” An Active Arts Theater production for ages 7-14, Sat. at 11:30 a.m. and 2 p.m. and Sun. at 2 p.m. at Julia Morgan Theater for the Arts, 2640 College Ave, through Feb. 25. Tickets are $14 children, $18 adults. 925-798-1300. 

Los Amiguitos de La Peña with Jerry Kennedy at 10:30 a.m. at La Peña. Cost is $4 for adults, $3 for children. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

EXHIBITIONS 

“The Art of Living Black” Artists’ talk at 2 p.m. Richmond Art Center, at 2540 Barrett Ave., entrance at 25th St., Richmond. 620-6772. www.therichmondartcenter.org 

Michael Howerton “Portraits” Artist reception at 2 pm. at Chachie’s Coffee Shop, 1768 Broadway at 19th St., Oakland. Exhibition runs though Feb. 28. www.howertonphoto. 

blogspot.com 

“Celebrating Our Own” a reception and artist forum at 6 p.m. at the African American Museum and Library, 659 154th St., Oakland. 637-0200. 

“Passengers” Paintings by Martin Webb opens at Float Gallery, 1091 Calcot Place, Unit #116, Oakland. 535-1702. 

FILM 

A Theater Near You “Satantango” at 1 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Amiri Baraka and Ngugi wa Thiango in conversation at 7 p.m. at the Third World Book Fair, Eastside Cultural Center, 2277 International Blvd. www.eastsideartsalliance.com 

Robert Johnson will talk about his book “Wake Up Black America” at 2 p.m. at Rockridge Branch of the Oakland Public Library, 5366 College Ave. 597-5017. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Kensington Symphony at 8 p.m. at Northminster Presbyterian Church, 545 Ashbury Ave., El Cerrito. Suggested donation $12-$15. 524-9912. 

The Galax Quartet “Consort Songs, Old and New” the music of John Dowland and Roy Whelden at 8 p.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. Tickets are $10-$25. 528-1725. www.sfems.org 

The Ravines at noon at Cafe Zeste, 1250 Addison St. at Bonar, in the Strawberry Creek Park complex. 704-9378. 

The Dave Matthews BLUES Band at 8 p.m. at the Warehouse Bar, 4th and Webster, Oakland. 451-3161. 

Chick Corea, piano, with Gary Burton, vibraphone, at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $30-$52. 642-9988. www.calperfs.berkeley.edu 

De Rompe y Raja, Afro-Peruvian, at 8:30 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $12. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Lua Hadar and Her Trio at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $10. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Stop the Malarky, Broken Paradise, A Class Act at 7 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $10. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com  

Ajaia Suri and Vanessa Lowe at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344.  

Pipers “Tional” Concert, bagpipers, at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $19.50-$20.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Unleashed, Krisiun, Belphegor at 9 p.m. at The Oakland Metro, 201 Broadway, Oakland. Cost is $20. 763-1146. www.oaklandmetro.org 

Tribute to James Brown at 9 p.m. at the Uptown Nightclub, 1928 Telegraph, Oakland. Cost is $5. 451-8100. www.uptownnightclub.com 

Eddie Marshall Trio at 9 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810.  

Megan McLaughlin, folk, at 8 p.m. at Spuds Pizza, 3290 Adeline St. Cost is $7. 558-0881. 

Sun House, Pockit at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. All ages show. Cost is $6. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

Yoshida Brothers, shamisen, at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square, through Sun. Cost is $18-$24. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

SUNDAY, FEB. 18 

CHILDREN 

Lunar New Year Celebration Year of the Pig Activities and performances for the whole family from 1 to 5 p.m. at the Oakland Museum of California, 10th and Oak St. 238-2200. 

EXHIBITIONS 

“A Rose Has No Teeth: Bruce Nauman in the 1960s” Guided tour at 2 p.m. at the Berkeley Art Museum, 2626 Bancroft Way. 642-0808. 

FILM 

African Film Festival “Conversations on a Sunday Afternoon” at 3 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Diablo Ballet “The Tale of Cinderella” at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $26. 642-9988.  

“ Jazz at the Chimes” with Brazilian Duo vocalist Claudia Villela and guitarist Ricardo Peixoto at 2 p.m. at Chapel of the Chimes, 4499 Piedmont Ave. Oakland. Tickets are $20. 228-3218. 

Sanford Dole Ensemble “O Shout with Gladness: The Vocal Quintet Then and Now” at 4 p.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. Tickets are $10-$20. 845-6830. 

Seth Montfort and Thomas Penders, piano, at 5:30 p.m. at Giorgi Gallery, 2911 Claremont Ave. 848-1228. 

Dana Bauer CD release party at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $8. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Duct Tape Mafia, The Rage, Hijinks, Silhouette and Secret Cat in a benefit for the Camp Winnarainbow scholarship fund, at 7 p.m. at Oakland Metro, 201 Broadway, Oakland. All ages. TIckets are $8. www.future-builders.org  

Stephanie Crawford at 11 a.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

The True School Hip Hop Family Reunion at 8 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $8. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Samite at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Yoshida Brothers, shamisen, at 7 and 9 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $18-$24. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

MONDAY, FEB. 19 

THEATER 

Shakespeare Intensive “King John” staged reading at 7:30 p.m. at Berkeley Unitarian Fellowship, Fireside Room, 1925 Cedar at Bonita. Other plays to be read each Mon. to Feb. 26. Cost is $5. 276-3871. 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Monday Night Blues Lecture and performance held every Mon. night during Black History Month at 8 p.m. at Kimball’s Carnival, 522 Second St. Donation $5. 836-2227. 

PlayGround Six emerging playwrights debut new works at 8 p.m. at Berkeley Rep, 2025 Addison St.Tickets are $18. 415-704-3177. 

Cole Swenson and Norma Cole, poets at 7:30 p.m. at Moe’s Books, 2476 Telegraph Ave. 849-2087. 

Poetry Express with Tom Odegard and Da Boogie Man at 7 p.m., at Priya Restaurant, 2072 San Pablo Ave. 644-3977. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

“Pickpocket Ensemble” world folk and instrumental traditions, from Eastern European and Balkan, to Klezmer, to North African and Mediterranean, at 7 p.m. at Le Bateau Ivre, 2629 Telegraph Ave. 849-1100. www.lebateauivre.net 

Trovatore, traditional Italian music, at 7 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

Blue Monday Jam at 9 p.m. at the Uptown Nightclub, 1928 Telegraph, Oakland. Cost is $5. 451-8100. www.uptownnightclub.com 

San Francisco Brass Quintet at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage Coffee House. Cost is $17.50-$18.50. 548-1761 www.freightandsalvage.org 

Don Byron Plays Junior Walker at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $12-$20. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

TUESDAY, FEB. 20 

EXHIBITIONS 

“What Becomes of a Broken Soul” Letters from Prison, America’s New Plantations. Exhibition opening at noon at the African American Museum and Library, 659 14th St., Oakland. 637-0200. 

FILM 

Alternative Visions “v.o.” at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

“P’ungmul: South Korean Drumming and Dance” with author Nathan Hesselink a 4 p.m. at IEAS Conference Room, 2223 Fulton St., 6th Flr. 642-2809. 

Vincent Katz and Cedar Sigo read at 7:30 p.m. at Moe’s Books, 2476 Telegraph Ave. 849-2087. 

Jean Davison, anthropologist, discusses “The Ostrich Wakes: Struggles for Change in Highland Kenya” at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698. www.blackoakbooks.com 

Paul Barrett on “American Islam, The Struggle for the Soul of a Religion” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Mardi Gras Celebration with The Joyfull Noise Brass Band and Blue Roots at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Line dance lesson at 8:30 p.m. Cost is $12. 525-5054. 

Singers’ Open Mic with Ellen Hoffman at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island. Cost is $5.841-JAZZ.  

Beppe Gambetta with David Grisman at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $24.50-$25.50. 548-1761.  

Rebecca Griffin at 7 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

Don Byron Plays Junior Walker at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $12-$20. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

WEDNESDAY, FEB. 21 

FILM 

“Sophie Scholl: The Final Days” on the anti-Nazi White Rose student movement, at 7 p.m. at the Berkeley Gary Panthers, 1403 Addison St. 548-9696. 

History of Cinema “Singin’ in the Rain” at 3 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Roger Rappoport shows film footage and talks about his biography of Michael Moore “Citizen Moore” at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698.  

Floyd Salas and Reginald Lockett read at 7:30 p.m. at Moe’s Books, 2476 Telegraph Ave. 849-2087. 

Bich Minh Nguyen describes growing up as a Vietnamese immigrant in America’s heartland in “Stealing Buddha’s Dinner” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. 

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

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Music for the Spirit Music celebrating African-American composers at 12:15 p.m. at First Presbyterian Church of Oakland, 2619 Broadway. 444-3555. 

Whiskey Brothers Old Time and Bluegrass at 9 p.m. at Albatross, 1822 San Pablo Ave. 843-2473. www.albatrosspub.com 

Terrence Brewer Quartet at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $9. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Orquestra La Verdad at 9:30 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low. Salsa dance lessons at 8 p.m. Cost is $5-$10. 548-1159.  

Charley Baker, guitar, at 9 p.m. at the Uptown Nightclub, 1928 Telegraph, Oakland. Cost is $5. 451-8100. 

Mickie Lee and Amber at 9:30 p.m. at Beckett’s Irish Pub, 2271 Shattuck Ave. 647-1790.  

Mike Marshall & Hamilton de Holanda at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $19.50-$20.50. 548-1761.  

George Duke at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square, through Sun. Cost is $22-$26. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THURSDAY, FEB. 22 

CHILDREN 

“We Are Africa and Africa Is Us” with storyteller Marijo at 10 and 11:30 a.m. at Oakland Museum of California, 1000 Oak St. 238-2000. 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Flight Out of Time” Exhibition of contemporary prints by Barbara Foster, Jimin Lee and Tadayoshi Nakabayashi. Reception ofr the artists at 6 p.m. at Kala Art Institute, 1060 Heinz Ave. to March 17. 549-2977. www.kala.org 

“Paintings of Abu Ghraib” by Fernando Botero at 190 Doe Library, UC Campus, through March 23. 643-5651. www.clas.berkeley.edu 

“A Rose Has No Teeth: Bruce Nauman in the 1960s” Guided tour at 12:15 and 5:30 p.m. at the Berkeley Art Museum, 2626 Bancroft Way. 642-0808. 

“Used and Re-Used: decorative objects made from utilitarian materials” at the The Ames Gallery, 2661 Cedar St. through March 31. 845-4949. www.amesgallery.com 

Michael Howerton “Portraits” at Chachie’s Coffee Shop, 1768 Broadway at 19th St., Oakland. Exhibition runs though Feb. 28. www.howertonphoto.blogspot.com 

“100 Families in Oakland: Art & Social Change” at the Oakland Museum of California, 10th and Oak Sts.. Oakland, through April 22. 238-2200. 

“Transforming Vision: The Wood Sculpture of William Hunter, 1970-2005” at the Oakland Museum of California, 10th and Oak Sts.. Oakland, through March 18. 238-2200. 

“Fire in the Heart” Paintings by Foad Satterfield influenced by African art at the Community Gallery, Alta Bates Summit Medical Center, 2450 Ashby Ave., through March 2. 204-1667. 

“Berkeley: 75 Years Ago” at the Berkeley History Center, Veterans Memorial Building, 1931 Center St. Hours are Thurs.-Sat., 1 to 4 p.m. Exhibit runs through March. 848-0181. 

“Street Portraiture” Photographs by Tom Stone at The LightRoom Gallery, 2263 Fifth St., through Feb. 28. 649-8111. 

“Obsession” Works of Fire and Passion Group Show at ACCI Gallery, 1652 Shattuck Ave., and runs to March 3. 843-2527. www.accigallery.com 

Paintings by Allan Reynolds at the Joseph P. Bort MetroCenter, 3rfd flr., 101 Eighth St., Oakland. Exhibition runs through March. 817-5773. 

“Art of Living Black” at the Richmond Art Center, 2540 Barrett Ave., Richmond, and runs through March 16. 620-6772. www.richmondartcenter.org 

“African Art” by Okaybabs, Yinka Adeyemi, Adeyinka Fashokun, honoring Black History Month at the LuchStop Cafe, Joseph P. Bort MetroCenter, 101 Eighth St., Oakland. Exhibit runs to March 30. 817-5773. 

Oakland Art Association Juried Show at the MTC Offices, Bort MetroCenter, 3rd floor, 101 Eighth St., Oakland. Exhibition runs to March 30. 817-5773. 

THEATER 

“The Other Side of the Mirror” Stories written and performed by Lynn Ruth Miller at 8 p.m. at Spuds Pizza Parlor, 3290 Adeline. For all ages. Tickets are $10 at the door. 558-0881. 

FILM 

Film Series with David Thomson “Bonnie and Clyde” at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $4-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Alex Espinoza reads from his novel “Still Water Saints” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. 

Nona Caspers, Toni Milsevich and Barbara Tomash read from their new short stories at 7:30 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698. www.blackoakbooks.com 

Nomad Spoken Word Night at 7 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

“The Forsythe Company” the West Coast premiere of the ballet “Three Atmospheric Studies” at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $32-$58. 642-9988. www.calperfs.berkeley.edu 

Aux Cajunals, Cajun music, at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $17.50-$18.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

John Gordon Trio at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $8. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Mamadou & Vanessa, Mali blues, at 7 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

Angry John, Dead Ringers, Isabellas at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $5. 841-2082 www.starryploughpub.com  

Headnodic & Raashan Ahmad at 9:30 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low. Cost is $5. 548-1159.  

Buck Shot Boays, Jack Spade Band, Stigmata 13 at 9 p.m. at the Uptown Nightclub, 1928 Telegraph, Oakland. Cost is TBA. 451-8100. www.uptownnightclub.com


Arts and Entertainment Around the East Bay

Friday February 16, 2007

THE ART OF LIVING BLACK ARTISTS’ TALK 

 

The Art of Living Black, the only Bay Area event that exclusively features the work of local black artists in an exhibition and art tour, will host an artists’ talk at the Richmond Art Center on Saturday at 2 p.m. TAOLB 2007 features over 90 emerging and established artists who participate in a group exhibition (through March 16) at the Richmond Art Center. Additional work is featured by the 2006 Jan Hart-Schuyers Artistic Achievement Award recipients: Aaron Carter, Patricia Patterson and Roosevelt Washington. A Self-Guided Art Tour takes place Saturday-Sunday, March 3-4, where participating artists will display and invite the public to visit their studios at various locations throughout the Bay Area. The Richmond Art Center 2540 Barrett Ave., Richmond. Tue.-Sat. noon-5 p.m. For more information call 620-6772. 

 

DIABLO BALLET AT THE ZELLERBACH 

 

Diablo Ballet present the world premier of Nikolai Kabaniaev’s The Tale of Cinderella, a one act ballet based on Perrault’s fairy tale and set to a score by Sergei Prokofiev, Zellerbach Hall at UC Berkeley on Sunday at 8 p.m. Completing the program will be Viktor Kabaniaev’s abstract Opus for a Table. To purchase tickets call 642-9988. www.diabloballet.org. 

 

TRAVELING JEWISH THEATER 

 

Traveling Jewish Theater presents Rose at the Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby Ave., through Feb 25. For tickets and information, call (415) 522-0786.


The Theater: ‘Shopping for God’ at The Marsh-Berkeley

By Ken Bullock, Special to the Planet
Friday February 16, 2007

In Shopping for God, her solo piece now playing at The Marsh-Berkeley in the Gaia Building, Erica Lann Clark, an accomplished storyteller with a distinctive stage presence, seems at first to cover familiar territory, albeit in her own, humorously idiosyncratic, sketchy way. But once she gets down to brass tacks, what she has to say—and act out—is much more than just another autobiographical story. The shopping is over. Or has it just begun? 

Taking the stage with a funny panache, engaging the audience members as if they were at once her fans, yet guests in her home or old friends met by chance (”Darling, you look so much better than last time!”), Lann Clark finally declares, “Let me put my cards on the table. I’d like to say I’m an atheist ... but you have to commit!” 

What follows is pleasantly rambling sketch material, studded with some of the info necessary as backstory for later theatrics. Lann Clark’s parents were atheist Jews (though with a mystic for grandfather) from Vienna, who fled all over the map after the Anschluss, ending up in Brooklyn, some relatives in tow, but others left behind who perished in transport or the camps. 

Lann Clark spiels out her pre-New Age searching for the Truth, through Methodism, Quakerism—then pulling out “the big gun” and giving Orthodox Judaism a try. “I got hipped by a rabbi from Fresno that the man’s prayer thanking God for not making him a woman was really just thanking Him for ‘making me a man’!” “Shopping, shopping, shopping--I really tried (If all goes well with this show, I will be an Equal Opportunity Offender!”) Her commentary on the various creeds is tart: “Catholics--they do social causes good ... but, the pot lucks?” She was “driven to the East,” then “I did Carlos Castenada!” and became a “wannabe Cherokee who spoke a couple of words of Lakota ... I chanted and panted, tranced and danced ...” 

The off-the-cuff type sketch material gives way to her description of her special relationship with her older cousin; they’re Marsha and Ricky to each other, close-knit—”You know what it is to be everything to each other: there’s always something!”—until Ricky accuses Marsha of being a Republican over her stated regret that life isn’t more sedate, controlled. 

“I have enough abiding sense of tragedy to tide me over recurrent bouts of joy,” Erica says. She finds herself, once again, going out into the world to prove herself to her beloved cousin--who remains unimpressed and incommunicado. 

This is the set-up for the truly theatric event of the evening, Lann Clark’s excruciating (both funny and painful) acting-out of her at first reluctant adherence--with the help of some liberally applied guilty snake oil by the “facilitator”—to a Holocast survivor/children of Nazis Reconciliation Group. Acting out in every way (”I become the Immaculate Victim!”), Ricky’s ethnic primal scream has her confronting a tall, leggy German immigrant actress (”she was just here to get some schtick for an audition!”) to a Mercedes dealer, demanding a test ride. The group leader eggs her on: “He says I’m a born emotional leader, and he wants to train me!” It’s a funny, savvy turn that, ultimately, brings her to a different sort of understanding than she expected when Marsha breaks the deadlock, explains her view of their relationship (and her own diffidence)—and then, in true reconciliation, they go shopping. “When we go shopping, Marsha and I, it’s a spiritual event. We don’t care if we buy a thing!” she says. 

Lann Clark accomplishes much of what a good solo show’s supposed to do: show you the life of another from the inside out, bringing about some kind of realization. And she makes it funny as well as engrossing. There’s a strikingly spare use of music-bytes that puts many a mainstage show to shame. David Ford has directed her with taste though not eliminating that contradictory sense that some of the opening—and very amusing—sketch-type material was there just to flesh out the show. 

This will be the last show, at least for a while, of The Marsh in Berkeley. Stephanie Weissman, Marsh founder, announced with regret that she’s been asked to stop programming at the Gaia Building until further notice, cutting out an anticipated extension of Shopping for God.  

“We hope the Gaia Building will still be our home in Berkeley,” Weissman said. It’s a shame that conflicts in scheduling have forced The Marsh into this position. It’s a perfect addition to the entertainment scene downtown, with early, no-fuss shows that fulfill a good deal of what more formal theatrical and nightlife venues often strive in vain to deliver. 

 

Shopping for God 

Thurs.-Sat. 7 p.m. 

The Marsh-Berkeley, 2120 Allston Way 

through March 3  

Tickets $15-$22 

(800) 838-5750, www.themarsh.org


About the House: Secondary Drains and the Very Scary Porch

By Matt Cantor
Friday February 16, 2007

I met a very nice fellow today. A composer. Funny how homeowners end up being something other than just … homeowners. Neat guy, writes music for films, TV, industrials (corporate film) and the like. He also had the composure of musician, smooth and philosophical. Good thing for all those involved in selling him this house because let me tell you, he had some pain and it would be very easy to acrimonious with this particular type.  

Seems the guy just bought a house way up in the hills. Must have cost a wee bit too. Very stylish, loads of room, views to-die-for and all those things that conspire to create the oh so modern manse. I near expected to see Hef and some bunnies lounging before the fireplace. 

About a day after he moves into the house, there’s a bit of rain and he starts to notice paint sheets scrunching up on the wall downstairs from the entryway. Next, water starts dripping through the ceiling. Oh my! It’s not supposed to rain inside the house. Well, he started by doing the right thing and removing some of the sheetrock from where the water was dribbling in. This does two things, it makes it possible to examine the area where the leak is occurring but also helps to lower the atmospheric moisture level in the space, thus decreasing the growth of funguses that eat wood and all the pulpy stuff we building houses with these days. 

After a short while we found the leak. Funny, it was inside the door. They’d looked for several hours and ran hoses all over the place and couldn’t get it to leak but we inspectors have the magic of hindsight working for us and I’ve seen my share of leaks that first required water to blow under the door to begin their soppy work. We both did the happy dance (his being more subtle and artist-like than mine). 

Now as fun as all of this stuff is, it’s not what I want to talk about. It’s the porch itself. It wasn’t what he had me over about but when I walked down to the front door, my face nearly turned white. The front door was at the bottom of a set of about 5 or six steps and had walls all around, except for the front door, which for purposes of full disclosure, I will refer to as “the drain.” 

Now, there was a drain in this swimming pool of an entryway but it was small and half clogged with caulk and a bunch of other stuff I couldn’t identify. When the dog drops his gooey tennis ball and it rolls into the unscreened drain (that’s where drains are, you know, at the bottom of the incline, just waiting for the ball) the next rain fall is going to be able to put 4’ of water right against the doorway (glug, glug). Not to worry. The door doesn’t hold water all that well. It will just drain right into the house until you get back from Maui all tanned and relaxed. 

This particular house was virtually all downstairs from the front entry door. One of those hillside beauties where you park on top and walk down to the living room and down some more to the bedroom (glug, glug, glug). Oh my G-d. Now don’t get me wrong. It had not happened but hey, misery lies in wait just around the corner, does it not? So here’s what I had to say to our friend, the musician. Please, oh please, add a “secondary drain.” OK, it’s not the only thing I recommended but it was the absolute number one. The porch will, sadly, have to be replaced due to the damage caused at the doorway.  

The plywood was rotting away and this extended back toward the exterior porch quite some distance.  

Therefore, the porch was going to have to be ripped up and replaced anyway; so my strong advice to him was to install a secondary drain when he put the porch back together. Now what is a secondary drain? Is it just another drain? No, it’s different in a couple of respects but to answer the question, let’s get up on your flat roof. If you have a flat roof with some short (or not so short) walls, called parapets, around the edge, you have a …. swimming pool, just like our friend’s entryway.  

I see these all the time and you may well have one. They’re everywhere. The code books demand (and good builders provide) secondary drains on these roofs. First, they’re elevated somewhat above the main drain. This often means that they are up on the parapet wall a few inches above the drain in the roof surface or the “scupper” in the bottom of the parapet wall.  

This placement means two thing. First it means that nothing is going to readily clog this drain because it’s not on the roof (or porch?) surface. Things can’t fall into a hole that’s up on a wall. It also means that it will be clear and unused until that fateful day when the main drain clogs and the swimming pool starts to fill. 

 

Secondary drains should NOT have downspouts 

When we put these life-savers in, we should not use a downspout. This may sound odd but there’s a really good reason for it. When the secondary drain starts to discharge, it means that something is very wrong and we don’t want it going about its business in a nice quiet friendly way. We want it to splash on your neighbors house or to knock your trash can lid off onto the cat. It should announce itself. Although I’ve never seen it, every secondary drain should have a set of wind chimes dangling from the spout just to broaden the effect. You want to take notice and get up there and clear drain number one as soon as you can because flat roofs with parapet walls can hold hundred (or even thousands) of gallons when the drains clog up. 

So, that’s what I would like our musical fellow to have. A porch with a drain and one more for good measure. That secondary drain could easily prevent $100,000 worth of damage if the surfing junket goes on long enough. 

There’s another message embedded in this experience that’s a little harder to see but just as vital and this is that looking at houses is a tricky business. If you have a list of things to check, it’s easy to miss the forest. Sometimes you need to back up, cross the street and just stare at the thing until it hits you. I never know what it’s going to be but if I slow down a little it’s often there. There are no books for this stuff but my clever clients often pick them out without any building education at all. So when you’re looking at your house or a new house or a friend’s house. Take a minute, sit down and look and you might just find yourself turning white and saying “Oh my G-d!” 

 

 

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


Berkeley This Week

Friday February 16, 2007

FRIDAY, FEB. 16 

Impeachment Banner Fridays at 6:45 to 8 a.m. on the Berkeley Pedestrian bridge between Seabreeze Market and the Berkeley Aquatic Park www. Impeachbush-cheney.com 

“The Untold Story Of Emmett Lois Till” A documentary by Keith A. Beauchamp at 7:30 p.m. at the Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists, 1924 Cedar at Bonita. Discussion with Rosemary Patton follows the screening. Donation $10. 528-5403. 

City Commons Club Noon Luncheon with Susan Fisher on “Human Embryonic Stem Cells.” Luncheon at 11:45 a.m. for $14, speech at 12:30 p.m., at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant St. 526-2925.  

Manga and Anime Club for Tweens and Teens meets at 3:30 p.m. at the Kensington Library, 61 Arlington Ave., Kensington. 524-3043. 

Circle Dancing, simple folk dancing with instruction at 7:30 p.m. at Finnish Brotherhood Hall, 1970 Chestnut St. at University. Donation of $5 requested. 528-4253.  

SATURDAY, FEB. 17 

Berkeley Alliance of Neighborhood Associations meets to discuss neighborhood and citywide issues at 9:30 a.m. in the Sproul Conference Room, St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave.  

Black History Month Community Celebration “Making the Connection: To Family, History, Purpose” with entertainment, presentations, and a soul food meal, from 2 to 6:30 p.m. at the South Berkeley Senior Center, 2939 Ellis St. 981-5218. 

Animal Amore Day Learn all about animal love and ask the questions you’ve been afraid to ask, from 9 to 11 a.m. at the Oakland Zoo, 9777 Golf Links Road, Oakland. Cost is $10-$15. 632-9525. 

Soccer for Youth with Disabilities Information Day from 9 a.m. to noon at Prospect Sierra Middle School, corner of Avis & Moeser, El Cerrito. For information call 301-1747. www.topsoccerleague.org 

“Getting Children Interested in Genealogy” will be discussed at the meeting of the African American Genealogical Society of Northern California from 1:30 to 3:30 p.m. at the Diamond Branch Library, 3565 Fruitvale Ave., Oakland. Anyone interested in genealogy is welcome. www.aagsnc.org  

African-American Feast Celebration from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Lake Merritt United Methodist Church, 1330 Lake Shore Ave., Oakland. Cost is $20, includes food and entertainment. 653-6055.  

“Are We a Democracy? Vote Counting in the United States” with Steven Freeman, Univ. of PA., Paul Lehto, of Verifiable Democracy, Joshua Mitteldorf, Univ. of AZ, and others, from 10:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Rockridge Library, 5366 College Ave., Oakland. Sponsored by Elections Defense Alliance. www.ElectionDefenseAlliance.org 

Amiri Baraka and Ngugi wa Thiango in conversation at 7 p.m. at the Third World Book Fair, Eastside Cultural Center, 2277 International Blvd. www.eastsideartsalliance.com  

Memorial Celebration for Tillie Olsen at 1 p.m. at First Congregational Church of Oakland, 2501 Harrison St., Oakland.  

Celebrate Black History Month on the Aircraft Carrier USS Hornet from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at 707 W. Hornet Ave., Pier 3, Alameda. Admission is $14 adults, $6 for children, $20 for a family of four. www.hornetevents.com 

“Treads ‘N’ Tracks” Animals we don’t see leave behind clues of where they have been, and where they are going. We’ll search for tracks, then make some of our own to take home. At 2 p.m. at the Tilden Nature Area, Tilden Park. 525-2233. 

Kids Garden Club We plant, harvest, build, make crafts, cook and get dirty! For ages 6-9 from 2 to 4 p.m. at Tilden Nature Area, Tilden Park. Cost is $6-$8. 636-1684. 

Open House and Volunteer Opportunity at Gateway Park in El Cerrito Learn about the ongoing restoration activities and the Baxter Creek Watershed Stewards, from 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Dress to participate in weeding and planting activities. The Gateway site is located on the right-hand side of Key Blvd. at the end of the Ohlone Greenway, a 5-minute walk north from the El Cerrito Del Norte BART. 665-3686.  

The Last Drag Berkeley Free LGBT Quit Smoking Class begins at 10 a.m. at The Pacific Center, 2712 Telegraph Ave. and runs for six Sat. and one Sun. to register call 981-5330. 

Valentine Crab Fest & Dance at Northbrae Community Church, 941 The Alameda. Dinner seatings at 6, 7 and 8 p.m. Tickets are $10-$50. 526-3805.  

California Writers Club meets to discuss crime and ethics at 10 a.m. at Barnes & Noble, Jack London Square. 272-0120. 

Lead-Safe Painting & Remodeling Free class on lead safe renovations for older homes, from 10 a.m. to noon at the Temescal Branch Library, 5205 Telegraph Ave., Oakland. 567-8280.  

SUNDAY, FEB. 18 

Huey P. Newton Birthday Commemoration from 2 to 5:30 p.m. at Black Repertory, 3201 Adeline St. Tickets are $10. 652-2120. 

Open Garden at Tilden Park Join the Little Farm gardener for composting, planting, watering and reaping the rewards of our work, from 2 to 4 p.m. at Tilden Nature Area, Tilden Park. Heavy rain cancels. 636-1684. 

Newt Hunt Every winter, newts return to our freshwater ponds to breed. Catch a glimpse of the incredible mating behavior of newts, from 2 to 4 p.m. at Tilden Nature Area, Tilden Park. 636-1684. 

Community Labyrinth Peace Walk at 3 p.m. at Willard Middle School, on Telegraph Ave. between Derby & Stuart. Wheelchair accessible. Rain cancels. 526-7377. 

Mental Health Workshop and Training on Trauma with Will Hall, at 7:30 p.m. at the Long Haul, 3124 Shattuck Ave. 540-0751. 

“Duality and Non-Duality; Salvation in Abrahamaic Traditions” with Alex Pappas at 9:30 a.m. at Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley, One Lawson Rd., Kensington. 535-0302, ext. 306.  

Tibetan Buddhism with Sylvia Gretchen on “Tibetan New Years: Culture and Tradition” at 6 p.m. at the Tibetan Nyingma Institute, 1815 Highland Pl. 843-6812.  

MONDAY, FEB. 19 

“More Than Your Standard Garden” A workshop on creating a school garden as an outdoor classroom for science, math, or language arts. Learn how to develop standards-based lesson plans and link existing activities to California Content Standards, from 10 a.m. to noon at the Watershed Project, 1327 S 46th St. Bldg. #155, Richmond. Cost is $25, scholarships available. 665-3430. www.thewatershedproject.org 

“Creating An Ecological House” A seminar with Skip Wenz on modeling houses on ecosystems, natural building materials, solar design and alternative construction methods, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Building Education Center, 812 Page St. Cost is $85. 525-7610. 

Berkeley CopWatch organizational meeting at 8 p.m. at 2022 Blake St. 548-0425. 

TUESDAY, FEB. 20 

The Berkeley Garden Club meets at 2 p.m. at Epworth Methodist Church, 1953 Hopkins St. The topic will be “National Trust Gardens of England” presented by Carole Austin. 845-4482. 

Woodfin Town Hall Meeting in support of immigrant and worker rights at 7 p.m at Emeryville Senior Center, 4321 Salem St., Emeryville. 893-7106, ext. 27. www.democracyinaction.org 

“Hiking the Pacific Coast Trail” A slide show with Scott Williamson at 7 p.m. at REI, 1338 San Pablo Ave. 527-4140. 

Animal Communication Consultations from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. at RabbitEars, 303 Arlington Ave., Kensington. For appointment call 525-6255. 

Tuesday Tilden Walkers Join a few slowpoke seniors at 9:30 a.m. in the parking lot near the Little Farm for an hour or two walk. 215-7672, 524-9992. 

Family Storytime at 7 p.m. at the Kensington Library, 61 Arlington Ave. 524-3043. 

Discussion Salon on Changing Religion at 7 p.m. at JCC, 1414 Walnut.  

Fresh Produce Stand at San Pablo Park from 3 to 6 p.m. in the Frances Albrier Community Center. Sponsored by the Ecology Center’s Farm Fresh Choice. 848-1704. www.ecologycenter.org 

Berkeley Camera Club meets at 7:30 p.m., at the Northbrae Community Church, 941 The Alameda. Share your digital images, slides and prints and learn what other photographers are doing. Monthly field trips. 548-3991. www.berkeleycameraclub.org 

St. John’s Prime Timers meets at 9:30 a.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. We offer ongoing classes in exercise and creative arts, and always welcome new members over 50. 845-6830. 

WEDNESDAY, FEB. 21 

Cynthia McKinney, Voting Rights and the American Blackout with at screening of the documentary 7 p.m. at Grand Lake Theatre, 3200 Grand Ave., Oakland Tickets are $12-$15 at independent bookstores. 415-255-7296 ext. 253. www.globalexchange.org/ 

mckinneyevent 

A Plan for North Shattuck? Contribute ideas on what, if anything, should change on N. Shattuck at 7:30 p.m. at Live Oak Park Recreation Center. Sponsored by the Live Oak Coordinices Creek Neighborhood Association.  

Teach-In and Vigil Against American Torture every Wed. at noon at Boalt Hall, Bancroft Way at College Ave.  

Robert Reich on “The Four Narratives of American Public Life” at 5 p.m. in Room 315, Wheeler Hall, UC Campus. 

“Sophie Scholl: The Final Days” a film on the anti-Nazi White Rose student movement, at 7 p.m. at the Berkeley Gary Panthers, 1403 Addison St. 548-9696. 

“Contemplation and Education” a conversation on the contemplative practice in different religions at 7 p.m. at Pacific School of Religion Chapel, 1798 Scenic Ave. 

“Terrestrial Laser Scanning in Landscape Architecture” with Toby Minear at 1 p.m. at Wurster Hall, 315A, UC Campus. http://laep.ced.berkeley.edu/ 

events/colloquium 

Albany Library Evening Book Club meets to discuss “The Namesake” by Jhumpa Lahiri at 7 p.m. at The Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave. 526-3720. 

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

Stitch ‘n Bitch at 6:30 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

THURSDAY, FEB. 22 

“Preserving the Past and Embracing the Future” with Byron C. Williams in celebration of Black History Month at 6 p.m. at Martin Luther King Jr. Youth Services Center, 1730 Oregon St. 981-5158. 

“Sankofa” A celebration in honor of Black History Month at 6:30 p.m. at the Frances Albrier Community Center, 2800 Park St. 981-5158. 

“Seafood Watch” Learn about the status of the oceans and how you can make sustainable seafood choices, at 5 p.m. at Tilden Nature Area, in Tilden Park. Registration required. 636-1684. www.ebparks.org 

“Insects Make the Green World Go Round” A presentation on conserving invertebrate biodiversity with entomologist Leslie Saul-Gershenz and special insect guests at 7 p.m. at the Oakland Zoo, 9777 Golf Links Rd., in Knowland Park, Oakland. Suggested donation $12-$20. 632-9525 ext.122. www.oaklandzoo.org 

Setting the Table for Impeachment Panel discussion with Larry Everest and Dr. Peter Phillips and screening of “High Crimes” by Jacob Clapsadle at 7 p.m. at Grand Lake Theater, Oakland. Tickets are $10-$15. 845-4154. www.impeachbush-cheney.com 

Berkeley School Volunteers Training workshop for volunteers interested in helping the public schools, from noon to 1 p.m. at 1835 Allston Way. 644-8833. 

“Sacred Hospitality between the Religions” a lecture by Fr. Pierre-François de Béthune at 7:30 p.m. at Pacific School of Religion Chapel, 1798 Scenic Ave. Free. 848-9788.  

Family Story Time for children ages 3-7 at 7 p.m. at the Berkeley Public Library, North Branch, 1170 The Alameda, at Hopkins. 981-6107. 

ONGOING 

Berkeley Winter Campaign for Cats We are providing free trapping assistance and spay/neuter to feral and homeless cats in Berkeley, Albany, Emeryville and Piedmont, through March 2007. The cats will be spayed/neutered, vaccinated, treated for fleas and returned safely back to their neighborhoods. To report a neighborhood in need or to volunteer, please call 908-0709. 

Albany Berkeley Girls Softball League Open to girls in grades 1-9. Spring season begins March 3. To register call 869-4277. www.abgsl.org 

Fast Pitch Softball for Girls ages 10-12 with Bears Softball Association. For information call 748-0611. www.berkeleybearssoftball.com  

CITY MEETINGS 

Citizens Humane Commission meets Wed., Feb. 21, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-6601.  

Downtown Area Plan Advisory Commission meets Wed. Feb. 21, at 7 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-7487. 

Homeless Commission meets Wed., Feb. 21, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-5426.  

Library Board of Trustees meets Wed., Feb. 21, at 7 p.m. at South Berkeley Senior Center. 981-6195.  

Mental Health Commission meets Thurs., Feb. 22, at 6:30 p.m. at 2640 MLK Jr. Way, at Derby. 981-5213. 

West Berkeley Project Area Commission meets with the Transportation and Planning Commissions Thurs., Feb. 22, at 7 p.m., at the West Berkeley Senior Center. Iris Starr, 981-7520.  

Zoning Adjustments Board meets Thurs., Feb. 22, at 7 p.m., in City Council Chambers. Mark Rhoades, 981-7410.