State Assemblymember Loni Hancock, City Councilmember Kriss Worthington and Father Stephan of St. Joseph the Worker Church were among the 38 people arrested in front of the Woodfin Suites Hotel Thursday, committing civil disobedience to show support for 12 hotel workers fired April 27. 

More than 300 worker advocates rallied as 38 supporters sat in the street in front of the hotel at 5900 Shellmound St. in Emeryville, according to Brooke Anderson, organizer with the East Bay Alliance for a Sustainable Economy. The workers and their supporters have been demanding that the hotel enforce Measure C, a living wage law for Emeryville hotel workers that mandates overtime rates when workers clean more than a set amount of space. 

Hotel management has told the Planet that the fired workers do not have proper Social Security numbers, but their advocates say that the question of Social Security numbers came up only after workers began to demand enforcement of Measure C. 

On its website, www.woodfinfacts.org, the hotel management says that on April 27 “the City of Emeryville warned our company in writing that our decision to comply with federal laws would place Woodfin ‘in clear violation of city law.’ 

“This language amounts to not much more than a veiled threat to revoke our hotel operating permit, a decision that would result in all 120-plus Woodfin employees being unceremoniously thrown out of work.”  

A murder and three stabbings marked Berkeley’s most violent 24 hours so far in 2007, ending with the wounding of two firefighters inside their station. 

The homicide is Berkeley’s first for the year, though the name of the victim, like the identity of his killer, remains a mystery.  

Police learned of the crime at 6:30 a.m. Sunday, when an employee of a West Berkeley business called emergency operators to report the discovery of a man lying atop an abandoned stretch of railroad track near the corner of Cedar and Second streets. 

He was unconscious when officers arrived at the scene, said Officer Ed Galvan, spokesperson for the Berkeley Police Department, and paramedics pronounced him dead soon after they arrived. 

“We’re trying to find out what killed him, and we need to identify him,” said Galvan, who described the victim only as a possibly Hispanic man, apparently in his 20s. 

The scene is located between a self-storage yard and an automobile towing and storage service. 

The victim was taken to the Alameda County Coroner’s office in Oakland for an autopsy, and coroner’s representative Charles Brewer said the examination was under way Monday afternoon, though results would be released by Berkeley police. 

Until completion of the autopsy, said Officer Galvan, the time of death remains unknown. 

“We know that it happened sometime between the time the owner of a nearby business left Saturday and the time of his return at about 6:30 Sunday morning,” he said. 

The police representative said identification will be made by the coroner’s office. “They’ll pull his fingerprints. If he’s been fingerprinted for a driver’s license or an arrest or a job application that required a background check, it could be easy. If he hasn’t, it could be harder,” Galvan said. 

He asked anyone with information about the crime to call the department’s Homicide Detail at 981-5741 or the general switchboard at 981-5900. 

Triple stabbing 

Berkeley police arrested a suspect in the stabbings, identified as 53-year-old Michael Kenard Cornelius. 

The knifing spree began shortly before 1:45 a.m. Monday, when a woman was awakened from sleep in her home in the 2700 block of Milvia Street by the sounds of an intruder. 

Police were called to the scene by neighbors who reported that they’d heard a woman screaming, and officers found the woman bleeding from a cut in the arm inflicted by the intruder after she confronted him. 

Officers and paramedics arrived moments later, and the woman was able to provide a description of her attacker. 

Minutes later, Cornelius reportedly walked into the open engine bay at Berkeley Fire Station No. 5 a block away at 2680 Shattuck—the same station which had dispatched paramedics to treat the injured woman. 

“We got a call from Station 5 requesting help because someone was inside,” said Galvan. 

Meanwhile, when firefighters confronted the man in an attempt to capture him, the suspect fought back, stabbing one firefighter in the hand and another in the abdomen before making his getaway. 

“We found him about an hour later,” Galvan said. 

Following an intense search by Berkeley officers, an Oakland canine team and a California Highway Patrol helicopter, Cornelius was spotted hiding beneath the deck of a nearby home in the 2000 block Parker Street, where he was taken into custody. 

Galvan said he didn’t known if the suspect resisted arrest, nor if the knife had been recovered. 

Cornelius was booked on suspicion of three counts of assault with a deadly weapon, one count of first degree robbery for the home invasion of the home on Milvia, and one count of burglary. He was being held in Berkeley City Jail Monday afternoon 

None of the stabbing victims was seriously injured, Galvan said.  

“Both firefighters were treated for their injuries and released,” said Deputy Fire Chief David Orth. “They’ve gone home now.” 

“We’re not talking about it,” said Orth when asked for more details about the incident inside the station. “We’ve been deferring to the police department, which has been doing a good job. We’re taking care of our officers and making sure everything’s okay.” 

Cornelius may have a prior criminal record, as indicated by two habeas corpus applications denied by the state Court of Appeal and a published report that stated he was on probation stemming from a burglary conviction and prison sentence. 

Telegraph area merchants, property owners, residents and city officials and their representatives took a field trip to San Francisco last week to find out how “the city” curbs inappropriate behavior on Haight Street. 

They came away with kudos for the area and calling for Community Involved Policing on Telegraph, according to Al Geyer, owner of Annapurna and member of the Telegraph Area Merchants Association. 

Councilmember Kriss Worthington, among those on the trip, has placed a resolution on today’s (Tuesday) council agenda asking the city manager to write a report that would detail how the city could adopt community policing on Telegraph. 

In other business in the council’s 1,451-page packet, the council will address the mayor’s proposal to enact laws intended to curb anti-social street behavior, approve a mobile disaster fire protection system, discuss how a “sunshine” law will be written and reviewed, look at providing sex reassignment surgery as part of the city’s healthcare benefits, appointing Susan Kupfer as library trustee and more. 

The city meetings begin at 5 p.m. with a budget workshop. No information was available on the budget by deadline on Monday at 5 p.m. 

Geyer praised Haight Street for its sense of safety. And while there were homeless people on the street, “No one approached us,” he said, explaining that he and others on the trip credited community policing for the comfortable feel of the street. 

Geyer contrasts policing on Haight to that on Telegraph, which he compared to “a school with nothing but substitute teachers” given the lack of consistency in the officers who patrol the area. 

One of the people the group met in San Francisco was Officer John Andrews, who patrols the Haight, which is about the same length as the Telegraph Avenue business district.  

Andrews has chosen to be a beat officer in the Haight and has worked in that capacity for four years, according to Geyer. He spends at least two hours walking his beat and uses a bicycle to patrol during the remaining time of his shift. Each day, Andrews goes into every business to check in with the shop keepers. 

“We saw him stop and talk and listen to people,” Worthington said. “He was clearly engaged.” 

“Unlike here, they know the names of people in the community and get to know the habitual offenders,” Geyer said. Also, unlike in Berkeley, the Haight’s beat officers want to work in the area and make a long-term commitment, he said. 

Police on Telegraph “don’t want to be here,” Geyer said. “The officers here never engage the community.” 

The Haight officers have one cell-phone number merchants call and generally reach the officer directly. 

In Berkeley, the merchants call the non-emergency police number and speak to a dispatcher who is unfamiliar with Telegraph Avenue, Geyer said. They go through a mandatory litany of questions: “Are you safe? Is the person bothering you? Someone else? What does the person look like?” 

Worthington says that giving merchants the ability to call the beat officer directly is not out of the ordinary. “Many suburban shopping centers do that,” he said, noting that the Telegraph Avenue businesses do $100 million in sales annually and should be provided this service. 

The mental health teams don’t help, Geyer said, contending that the police don’t do the social work they need to do with people acting out because they think the mental health team is going to take care of the situation.  

In the Haight, “the police officers are more interested in social issues and act more like psychologists or school principals than crime fighters,” Geyer said. 

Policing in the Telegraph area is made difficult because of the way it is divided, with one precinct going from the middle of Telegraph Avenue to College Avenue and the other precinct stretching from the middle of the street to Shattuck Avenue, Geyer said. UC Berkeley police overlap in the area with city police. 

“When you call, you might get any of the three,” Geyer said, adding that the area should be one jurisdiction, patrolled by one city and one university officer. 

Another element of the Haight’s community policing is regular community meetings. 

In Berkeley, Worthington said, “The police just meet with the Telegraph Business Improvement District,” the property owners. “They hold one-sided insider meetings,” Worthington said. 

San Francisco Capt. John Ehrlich, who supervises the Haight Street beat officers, meets with the community every two to four weeks. The groups include neighborhood and community organizations, city departments, homeless youth, the Coalition on Homelessness and more. The group has no decision-making power, but it creates a dialogue within the community, Ehrlich said.  

Berkeley Police Chief Doug Hambleton did not return a call for comment before deadline. 

Public Commons Initiative 

The Homeless, Mental Health and Human Welfare commissions asked the mayor not to take action on proposals on the agenda concerning the Public Commons for Everyone Initiative, intended to enhance a person’s shopping experience by reducing the inappropriate street behavior of those who use the public areas associated with commercial districts. 

The mayor has said previously that the initiative will include services for people with mental health/substance abuse needs, but none are included in the part of the initiative to be addressed by the council tonight.  

The council could delay discussion of the initiative or approve some or all of its provisions, some of which include: 

• Changing the smoking laws from prohibiting smoking with 20 feet of a doorway or bus stop to prohibiting smoking within 25 feet of any building face in a commercial zone; 

• Making public urination and defication a citable offense and adding signage to the nearest public restroom; 

• Strictly enforcing city and state laws including prohibitions of lying on the sidewalk, public consumption of alcohol, noise disturbance (yelling and shouting), hitching animals to fixed objects, unauthorized possession of a shopping cart and more. 

Mobile protection from fire disaster 

The council will be asked to approve a $4.7 million mobile fire protection system intended to provide adequate water to fight large fires during an emergency when normal sources of water are unavailable or inadequate.  

The water would come from the Bay or Aquatic Park and would be pumped through 12-inch hoses to the fire, as high as Grizzly Peak, according to Deputy Chief David Orth. 

Funding for such a system was approved by voters in 2000, although the particular system under consideration at that time was later found to be inadequate and was not purchased.  

No additional funding will be asked of taxpayers, who have been paying for the system through their property taxes. 

Kupfer reappointment to library board 

Despite objections to the process by SuperBOLD, Berkeleyans Organized for Library Defense, a staff report written by library services director Donna Corbeil recommends a second term for Library Trustee Susan Kupfer. 

Kupfer was recommended by the library board 3-1, with board member Ying Lee voting in opposition. The City Council must approve the recommendation and generally does so without discussion. 

Kupfer “has dedicated countless hours of volunteer time in support of the library during a difficult time and is currently providing leadership as chair of the board,” says Corbeil’s report. “Her work on behalf of the board included negotiating the resignation of the previous library director, assisting with administration of the library during the past year’s leadership gap, working with the staff to solve daily problems, and supervision of the library director recruitment process ... Trustee Kupfer’s knowledge and professional legal expertise has been an exceptional contribution to the board and its decisions over the past four years of her term.” 

The library director serves at the pleasure of the library board. 

An ad hoc committee of city councilmembers and library trustees has been meeting to revamp the trustee selection process, in which the trustees self-select their members, with the council affirming the selection with little or no discussion.  

The council will also consider: 

• A process by which a sunshine (open government) law will be drafted and reviewed by the community. While Mayor Tom Bates said at the April 24 meeting that he would call on open government expert Terry Francke, an attorney with the advocacy organization Californians Aware, to help draft the ordinance, the city manager’s report says that the city attorney is continuing to draft the ordinance and that Francke and others will be able to weigh in after its completion. 

• Including sex reassignment surgery as part of employee healthcare benefits; 

• Increasing funds for summer employment for youth; 

• Setting a public hearing in July for an appeal for the Zoning Adjustment Board’s denial of a new wireless telecommunications facility at 2721 Shattuck Ave. 

• Reviewing the Sweatshop Free Berkeley Ordinance that was approved by the council but has not been implemented. It concerns the city not purchasing goods produced in sweatshop conditions. 

Charges of misconduct levied against two Berkeley police officers in the recent past spurred a five-member Police Review Commission subcommittee to look at creating more effective police policies. 

Thursday evening the Evidence Theft Subcommittee interviewed Berkeley Police Chief Douglas Hambleton on issues arising from two police misconduct cases: Cary Kent, a former police sergeant, pleaded guilty in May 2006 to felony charges of stealing drugs from the evidence room he was responsible for; and Officer Steven Fleming was charged by the department with stealing money and other items from citizens he arrested. Fleming resigned from the department in February without being charged by the Alameda County District Attorney’s office. 

At the Thursday meeting, subcommittee members—PRC Commissioners Bill White, Sharon Kidd and Sherry Smith, and community members Andrea Pritchett of Copwatch and James Chanin, an attorney and former PRC member—had hoped, in addition to the chief, to interview officers close to the two cases.  

The Berkeley Police Officers Association, however, in a letter to Hambleton threatened to “pursue court action” if officers were required to appear and testify before the subcommitee, linking its objection to a recent case won by the BPA that protects police officer confidentiality in personnel-related issues. 

Questioning the blue line 

One question Chanin asked went to the heart of the problem in the Kent case: why did various officers recognize a problem with their fellow officer but not report it? The 900-page Internal Affairs report, made public after Kent pleaded guilty to felony charges, documents through interviews with numerous officers that many realized there was something amiss with Kent more than two years before charges were brought against him. He was unkempt, performed duties late, was at the station at odd hours of the day, slept at his desk, isolated himself and more, according to the report.  

Some officers mentioned their concerns to colleagues, and a few mentioned the problems to commanding officers, the report said. 

“Are officers trained to tell their supervisors when they see an officer is unable to perform his or her duties?” Chanin asked the chief. 

“I don’t think there’s a specific training on that—no,” Hambleton responded. 

“Are there any policies to report any officers they believe are unable to perform their duties and responsibilities?” Chanin asked, and the chief said there are not, although, while the policy is not in writing, he expects supervisors to recognize problems and follow up. 

When it was her turn to question the chief, Commissioner Smith pursued the issue of inadequate supervision. “The lack of written policies has allowed for so much leeway in your written policies that the results seem to be a complete failure of supervision,” she said. 

Smith went on to query the chief about disciplining supervising officers. “I would be curious to know if anyone had been disciplined because of failure to adequately supervise,” she said. 

Hambleton declined to comment, citing the letter from the BPA attorneys that cautioned against discussing issues in public that touch on personnel issues. 

Along the same line of questioning, subcommittee members wanted to know whether there are policies targeting officers who are late. Interviews by the Internal Affairs Department showed that Kent was consistently late for meetings or did not come to them at all, and was late in distributing drug evidence to officers who needed it in court or was not there at all to distribute it. 

Hambleton said if officers are late to work, it is recorded on their time cards. If the officer is late to distribute drug evidence the supervising officer should know about it, but there is no policy that says a report must go up the chain of command, Hambleton said. 

Further he said there is no written policy mandating an officer report another officer if that officer doesn’t get drug evidence to him in a timely way. 

And there is no policy that an officer file a report when an arrestee says his money has been taken by police or when an officer uses profanity in speaking to a prisoner, the chief said. (Former Officer Fleming was accused of both stealing prisoners’ money and using profanity in addressing them.) 

Recognizing officers under the influence 

Other questions addressed concerns that fellow officers, especially those involved in drug crimes, should have recognized that one of their own was a drug abuser. (While there was no confirmation in arrest records that Kent was a drug abuser, his attorney Harry Stein, of Rains, Lucia & Wilkinson told the Planet last year that Kent had sought treatment for drug addiction.) 

“How are Berkeley police officers trained to recognize people under the influence?” Chanin asked the chief, who answered that there is a training that some officers go through, but most have not received the training.  

Smith said she was surprised at the response. “I would think that anybody who is in charge of who’s on a narcotics squad for drug investigations would have taken that training,” Smith said, wondering why, since the chief had been trained, he had not recognized a drug-addicted officer. 

Hambleton responded that symptoms can be subtle “when someone appears to be sick, for instance,” Hambleton said. (Kent had told several fellow officers that he had lupus.) 

The chief further explained that such training might not help in a situation such as the Kent case. In addition to outward signs, the officer would have to touch the skin to see how moist it is, examine the suspect’s pupils, and take the person’s pulse.  

“That’s not the kind of activity that would normally occur in the employment setting,” Hambleton said. 

The other avenue is ordering drug testing, something that is prohibited by the city, the chief added. 

Chanin pressed the chief to elaborate on what new policies could be put into place so that substance-abusing officers are identified, but the chief said he thinks no new policy is needed in this area. 

However, he would like to be permitted to send an officer suspected of abusing substances for a medical exam. “It is not something we can do under the current policies,” Hambleton said, noting that it would have to be part of the Memorandum of Understanding, the work agreement negotiated between the BPA and the city. 

Drug evidence audits 

Other questions addressed audits of drug evidence, checked into the evidence room and recorded on a computer. (The investigation into Kent’s theft of drugs from the evidence room included some 286 envelopes whose contents had been tampered with.)  

Hambleton said the audits were not as thorough as they could have been and that they did not weigh the drug evidence to see if it was the same or less than it had been when it was checked into the evidence room.  

“Clearly the inspections that we do in the future will need to be more thorough and we’ll have to examine those envelopes in much more detail,” Hambleton said, noting that he has already tightened the audit procedure, which would likely become written policy in the future. 

Before writing new policy, the committee will meet with the city attorney and city manager to discuss the BPA letter and then will meet to discuss policy recommendations. These meetings are yet to be scheduled, according to PRC officer Victoria Urbi. 

As in the recent successful battle to landmark Iceland, most advocates of landmarking the old Berkeley High School gymnasium are more concerned with its current use than its history. 

Advocates from the disabled community have spearheaded the push to landmark the aging and ailing gym because it houses the East Bay’s only public warm water therapy pool. 

They turned out in force at the Landmarks Preservation Commission Thursday night because the building and the pool it houses have been targeted for demolition by the city’s school board. 

Trustees of the Berkeley Unified School District voted in January to demolish the building and replace it with classrooms and a new gym built to modern seismic safety standards. The site could also include a new warm pool—but no school district funds would be used. 

In 2000, Berkeley voters passed Measure R, authorizing $3.25 million in bonds to “reconstruct renovate, repair and improve the warm water pool facility at Berkeley High School.” 

The city and the school board divided responsibilities, with the city responsible for the pool and the school district for the building. 

Neither agency took action following the vote, and by March 2005, the city had learned that the cost of renovating the pool would cost twice as much as the never-issued bonds, or between $6.3 million and $7.5 million—well out of reach for a cash-strapped city government. 

When the school district released the draft environmental impact report on its South of Bancroft Master Plan late last year, both city Planning Director Dan Marks and Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association President Wendy Markel wrote letters protesting the planned demolition of the gym. 

The board approved the plan—including demolition—on Jan. 17, prompting a Feb. 23 lawsuit by the newly formed Friends Protecting Berkeley’s Resources. 

Marie Bowman, one of the group’s leaders, appeared at Thursday night’s meeting. 

Bowman urged the commission to landmark the building, “a resource worth preserving for future generations to enjoy.” A preservationist who is also a pool user, Bowman said the school district should emulate Richmond, which is saving is own community pool, the Plunge. 

School board member John Selawsky, who, while acknowledging that the building has architectural merit, said Berkeley voters weren’t likely to approve restoration costs of $15 million to $20 million. 

Preservation of the building and the presence of a warm water pool in Berkeley “are two separate issues” which were being conflated and confused, he said. 

While former school board member Terry Doran dismissed the structure housing the pool as “an old, barn-like structure,” others praised the design. 

JoAnn Cook, though a pool user, said she was concerned that a decision to landmark the building would lead to a prolonged closure. “I’m very confused on this issue,” she said. 

A strong voice for preservation came from a new audience member, Lesley Emmington, who until recently sat on the commission. “That building needs us to take care of it,” she said, “It’s part of our heritage, and it’s one of the few dignified buildings in that part of the downtown.” 

One of the voices for preservation came from an unexpected source, Anny Su, an architectural historian who formerly worked for a consulting firm that had furnished a report to the school district. 

The gym “embodies irreplaceable architectural and historical value for the city of Berkeley and immense cultural value for the city,” Su said. 

In addition to being the first gym of its kind in the state, the building was also part of the first master-planned high school campus in California, she said—a fact that Josh Abrams, who was sitting in for absent LPC member Steve Winkel, said might influence his vote. 

But Abrams also said he wanted to hear more from the district. 

Gary Parsons, an architect who often votes with the strong preservation majority on the LPC, said he was conflicted about the structure, which he said he thinks is both significant and a bad design. “It certainly hasn’t improved over the years,” he said. 

While Commissioner Jill Korte proposed a resolution calling out details of the structure to landmark, commissioners ultimately voted to postpone action for the second time, with a vote possible at the LPC’s next meeting on June 7. 

1340 Arch Street 

While most commissioners said they wouldn’t reject the addition of a new by-right dwelling in the front garden of the recently landmarked home on Arch Street, they didn’t find much to like in preliminary plans they were shown Thursday night. 

Normally an addition that can be built by-right under city law, the structure must pass muster with the LPC because they landmarked the existing home, a 1905 Craftsman, last November. Owner Horst Bansner had objected to the landmarking application, which had been filed by neighbors after he told them of plans to add the additional dwelling for his father. 

While neighbors still spoke in opposition to any plans to add a structure in the unique garden in front of the home, commissioners found fault with the design itself, which was too ornate in part and too stark in others. 

“The front seems to be developed in one way and the sides in a different way,” said Parsons. 

Commissioners also wanted to see poles erected to show what impact the new structure would have on the views of the existing house from the sidewalk in front, which is considerably lower than the house itself. 

Members faulted city staff for not providing them with an initial statement, a document they said was required under the California Environmental Quality Act when alterations were made to historic structures. While city staff said that the report wasn’t needed, the commission disagreed and voted to ask for the document to be prepared. 

They also voted to delay action until Bansner returned with a report on story poles verified by a licensed surveyor.  

2411 Fifth Street 

Commissioners gave their retroactive approval to the removal of siding from a recently designated structure of merit—the city’s category for historic resources of less than pristine integrity—while withholding a decision on a plan to move and raise the Victorian cottage slightly and to build a new residence at the rear of the property. 

Architect Ed Levitch presented preliminary sketches for both structures, but only sought official action on removing the siding on the existing cottage—a retroactive approval, given that city planning staff had already but erroneously issued the permit without LPC approval and the siding had already been removed. 

Levitch said the owner, Laura Fletcher, wants to transform the existing 1892 Queen Anne cottage into two dwelling units, one on each floor. 

She will also be seeking approval of an additional new two-story dwelling at the rear of the property, and Levitch presented preliminary plans for comments. The commission will have say over the final plans for both projects. 

The property had been designated a structure of merit in November over Fletcher’s objections.

The Joe Lurie Returned Peace Corps Volunteer Fellowship was launched at the UC Berkeley International House’s 19th Annual Celebration & Awards Gala Thursday. 

The fund aims at providing an I-House room and board award to an entering first year returned Peace Corps doctoral student at UC Berkeley. The UC Berkeley Graduate Division will match this annually with tuition, fees and a $5,000 stipend.  

“Our campus has more Peace Corps volunteers than any college campus in the United States, and yet we don’t offer them any scholarship assistance,” said I-House director Joe Lurie. “Financial aid is extremely important to a student who otherwise couldn’t afford to go to school. This fellowship will assist anyone who has served in the Peace Corps and wants to go to Cal to pursue a Ph.D.” 

Lurie, who will be retiring in June, said he was honored to have the board name the fellowship after him. 

Patricia Garamendi, former associate director of the Peace Corps, announced the scholarship Thursday. She was joined by her husband John Garamendi, Lieutenant Governor of California. 

Since 1961, 3,282 UC Berkeley alumni have gone on to serve in the Peace Corps, more than at any other university. The school ranks fifth among all universities in the number of alumni currently serving (80) and its graduates work in every Peace Corps sector including agriculture, business development and IT, environment, health and HIV/AIDS and youth development. 

“Many returned Peace Corps volunteers look for a program at UC which has funding for people like them,” said Ben Bellows, a RPCV who is pursuing doctoral studies at UC.  

“Having a scholarship just makes the program more appealing to Peace Corps volunteers who come back to the U.S. with a fresh perspective and a new set of skills. Cal with its excellent programs, great location and weather is a natural choice. But it’s expensive. Since I didn’t have funding I had to take a loan. If this fellowship had existed when I had applied for a master’s in 2002, I would have been more eager to come to Cal.” 

A massive branch broke off from a pine tree in the Berkeley Hills late Friday afternoon and smashed into a home at 1570 Hawthorne Terrace, causing considerable damage. 

Deputy Fire Chief David Orth said electricity was shut off to the surrounding neighborhood for about an hour while crews worked to clear the debris. 

“The home was red-tagged by the building inspector as a precaution,” Orth said, forcing occupants to find other accommodations until the extent of the damage could be fully assessed. 

While Hawthorne Terrace’s was the first tree fall reported during the weekend’s heavy winds, it wouldn’t be the last. “We had a lot of trees down,” Orth said, but only one did damage to a structure. 

While high winds and soaring mercury prompted the department to order firefighters to carry their wildland firefighting gear for the duration of the hot spell, fire season hasn’t begun officially, “although we expect it to get off to an early start this year,” Orth said.

The Berkeley Zoning Adjustments Board will meet Thursday to discuss the following items: 

• Chris Lincoln, director of 24Seven in San Ramon, will request a use permit to establish a gym/health club of approximately 2,000 square feet in an existing commercial building at 1775 Solano Ave. Staff recommends approval. 

• Walter Armer of SNK Development, in Emeryville, will request a permit to update a plan to modify the building facades and floor plans at 2041-2067 Center St. Staff recommends approval. 

• Jinwoo Kim of Oakland will request a use permit to open a carry-out food service store (frozen yogurt) at 2380 Telegraph Ave. with operating hours of 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. Staff recommends approval. 

• Harry Pollack of Berkeley will request a use permit to demolish an approximately 3,625-square-foot two-story abandoned service station building and two dispenser pads to allow for further testing and remediation at 3001 Telegraph Ave. Staff recommends approval. 

Velma Sykes worked hard to ensure that her children received a quality education at their public high schools in Sacramento. 

“I was very involved, and I’m not talking about just helping with homework or weekly meetings with their teachers. I mean sending emails to their teachers every single day,” she says. Sykes saw firsthand what happened to the African-American children in her school district who didn’t have this kind of parental involvement. “They were ignored.” Sykes says that she has completely lost faith in the public school system’s ability to serve African-American children like her own. 

This lack of faith among African-American parents is a theme that runs through a statewide survey on education released last week by the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC). In the survey, 63 percent of African-Americans surveyed said they disapproved of the California legislature’s handling of the K-12 public education system, compared to 52 percent of whites, 36 percent of Latinos, and 30 percent of Asians. 

“I was really struck by the degree of concern in the African-American community,” says Mark Baldassare, the CEO and President of PPIC. “In contrast, we see a very optimistic assessment among Latinos of the direction that public education is going in California.” 

It is no secret that both African-American and Latino students are among those in California with the highest dropout rates and those most likely to attend a poorly resourced school. Yet the survey reveals that while all Californians are concerned with the severity of these problems, there is a stark difference in the attitudes held by Latino and African-American respondents towards the state’s education system. 

Patricia Gandara, professor of education at UCLA, says that two major factors contribute to this difference. The first is immigrant optimism. “Things look a lot better here than they did at home. Many of the Latinos in California are immigrants, so their comparison is to the situation in Mexico, which they left because it was so bad. You see that with the Asians as well, there is a little bit more optimism. The African-Americans have lived with the under-funding and under-education for so long, but the immigrants haven’t yet.” 

The second issue is a lack of information. “There is no community that is more out of the loop in terms of what’s happening in the schools than the Latino community, because of the language issue, and also the lack of social capital they have,” says Gandara. “I think if we ask Latinos these same questions in two generations and nothing drastic has happened to improve the education system, their answers will look a lot more like the African-American responses.” 

The PPIC survey and findings are based on 2,500 telephone interviews that were conducted in English, Spanish, Chinese, Vietnamese and Korean. Survey respondents were 52 percent white, 31 percent Latino, eight percent Asian, six percent African American/black and three percent ‘other’. It was funded by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. 

This survey makes clear that ethnic Californians place great importance on giving all children a quality public education and the chance to go to college. This is a particularly strong sentiment within the Latino community. Among the Latino respondents, 56 percent say that preparing kids for college is the most important goal of the K-12 system compared with 34 percent of African-Americans, 28 percent of Asians, and 20 percent of whites. 

“Latinos hear that going to college is important in this society. Even if they know little about the process, they want this for their children. It’s part of their optimism,” says Gandara. 

Latinos aren’t always optimistic, however. Latino and African-American respondents showed the most concern for those falling between the cracks. Eighty percent of Latino respondents and 78 percent of African-American respondents cited the high school dropout rate as a big problem compared with 60 percent of white respondents and 48 percent of Asians. 

Poll results found that even among white respondents, there is significant support for English-language learners and students from low-income families. “This poll shows that there is the desire among all Californians to level the playing field,” says Baldassare. 

Although public awareness of inequalities in education is high, the survey also exposes some major gaps in knowledge around how California ranks in the country when it comes to how much money is spent per student and student test scores. 

According to the National Education Association, California ranks 29th out of 50 states when it comes to spending, yet nearly half of the African-American respondents, and more than half of the white, Asian and Latino respondents thought Californians ranked average or higher in terms of spending. 

And while California is ranked close to the bottom on student reading and math scores when compared to other states, only about a quarter of respondents from every ethnic group were aware of this fact. 

The PPIC Statewide Survey comes out on the heels of the release of a major group of studies out of Stanford University that advises lawmakers on how to better manage the system and how to direct more resources toward the state’s public school system. “We see our role as an extension of the Stanford research by providing the public opinion component,” says Baldassare. “Our role is to provide voices for people who may not be at the table during the discussions going on this year about these issues.” 

The situation is urgent, stresses Sykes. She says that an overwhelming number of African-Americans are now looking at private school as the only option for a quality education for their children. “African-American parents want a better public education system. The politicians need to hear what we have to say and act on it.”

Efforts to limit family re-unification visas are the most dangerous, yet least known aspect of the immigration reform now being hatched in Washington, D.C. Karen Narasaki, executive director of the Asian American Justice Center, warns that the quota of family members being allowed to join their families in the United States may be halved. 

That was the most surprising news in New America Media’s new series of biweekly conference calls offered to ethnic media to enable them keep up with the fast-paced nature of immigration reform by providing access to immigration experts and activists. 

Washington is buzzing with speculation and negotiation as new immigration legislation may be decided upon in the next few weeks. 

Public hearings, run by the subcommittee of the House of Representatives’ Judiciary Committee, can be viewed at the Judiciary Committee website. These cover subjects such as the economic impact of immigration, said Angela Kelley, deputy director of the National Immigration Forum. 

The hearings are part of the Judiciary Committee’s preparation to discuss the latest immigration bill called the STRIVE Act (HR 1645), proposed by Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.) and Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) and now co-sponsored by 60 other House representatives. Co-sponsorship improves this bill’s chances of surviving committee, said Kelley. However, it’s unclear which bill— if any—might actually move through the immigration subcommittee to the Judiciary Committee and then onto the House floor. The other spur is that the Judiciary Committee has said they will pass an immigration bill through in June. The bill then goes to the House floor and a final vote is projected for July. 

Simultaneously, Senate leader Harry Reid has reserved the week of May 14 to 21 to discuss an immigration proposal from the Senate before lawmakers leave for Memorial Day. No bill has yet been introduced in the Senate. “It’s currently being hammered out behind closed doors,” said Kelley. “For anything to pass,” she added, “it will have to be bipartisan and comprehensive.” May 9 is the date to watch, Kelley says, since that is when Reid could introduce a bill in the Senate. 

The biggest worry for reformers is the White House’s discussions on immigration. A group of Republican senators, led by John Kyl (R- Ariz.) and supported by the administration, is working on a set of principles to address immigration reform, according to Narasaki. The central tenet is what she called “corporate sponsorship,” which means boosting the number of temporary work visas and severely curtailing the chance for immigrants—even those who have become citizens—to bring their parents, sisters or brothers into the country. They propose that these family members could only enter as workers. 

For those who have been waiting—often years—to bring their family to join them, there may be an arbitrary cut-off date (June, 2004 or May, 2005 are speculated dates). Those who have applied after the cut-off date would simply have to get back in line. 

“There’s a face on the undocumented,” Narasaki said, “but there’s not as much (of a human) face on the issue of those who have been waiting a decade or more.” She urged the ethnic media to tell the stories of how many successful immigrants have come to this country, started businesses and contributed to the economy. She noted that one man who entered the United States on a family visa was Dr. David Ho, who was Time Magazine’s man of the year when he created the triple cocktail with which to fight AIDS. 

The purpose of this change, proposed by anti-immigration forces, is to reduce the number of people entering the country, in the hope that by making it difficult for even guest workers to bring their families with them, they will leave. But “it’s not true,” said Kelley. 

The impetus for the White House to wrestle with immigration reform is to stem “the piecemeal approaches at the local level,” says Clarissa Martinez, campaign manager of the Coalition for Immigration Reform. 

All three experts agree that over the next couple of weeks, crucial negotiations are being hammered out and the state of play on this issue changes almost daily.

In the last week of April, more than five years into the “War on Terrorism,” Retro Poll asked a national sample of Americans this question: “Do you agree or not with the government’s assertion that people seized and detained at Guantanamo are presumed to be dangerous terrorists or they would not have been seized in the first place?” A slightly different wording last October had garnered 37 percent agreement. In the recent poll 48 percent agreed. We conclude that a substantial proportion of people do not grasp a key principle of democracy: Unless everyone is presumed innocent under the law until proved guilty of a crime in a fair trial, dictatorial powers of government achieve supremacy. Civil rights like this exist not just to protect criminals, but to protect the public from arbitrary government abuse of authority. The War on Terrorism promotes the denial of this democratic tenet.  

Retro Poll data, based on small random samples—in this case 164 people—are not projected to precisely represent the general public on individual questions. Retro Poll instead focuses on statistically significant comparisons and unexpected findings within its random samples. In the current sample only nine (out of 164) people could identify Maher Arar as the “Canadian citizen awarded $11 million for being tortured under the U.S. extraordinary rendition.” Two times that number (18) misidentified him as one of the 9/11 hijackers and 136 didn’t know. Likewise 70 percent did not know that Italy has brought charges for kidnapping against 26 CIA agents in a case of “extraordinary rendition.” Why are such important stories of extraordinary rendition, an anti-democratic if not outlawed process, not common knowledge? Where do people buy their ignorance and where is the source of this ignorance?  

To get answers, Retropollsters asked the extent to which people believe various major corporate media organizations present the truth. The options were “usually”, “mostly when it suits their interests”, and “half the time or less.” Whether asking about CNN, NYTimes, Fox, CBS, MSNBC, NBC or others, in every case fewer than 40 percent of the respondents thought the media “usually” tells the truth. Moreover, between 22 and 28 percent said that each outlet tells the truth “half the time or less.”  

Even though Retro Poll is a media critical group, this can’t be true. Even if the media manipulates, distorts, censors, its methods must be more subtle than to lie half the time. This response represents mass disaffection and mistrust of media. But it also turned out to be one marker of ignorance.  

Those who think Fox “usually” tells the truth were consistently less aware or blind to important facts. For example, despite now overwhelming evidence, two out of three claimed that the “United States opposes and does not teach, sanction or engage in torture” and more than three out of four denied that the administration “fabricated intelligence on Iraq” before the war. Seventy-seven percent of these Fox supporters (within the “usually truthful” group) held the presumption that Guantanamo captives are terrorists. Yet the respondents who were most opposed to presumption of innocence (by 77-90 percent) were those disaffected who said that all the various corporate media lie half the time or more. This group (20-30 percent of our respondents) feel manipulated and have little trust in the reliability of public information. Their ignorance and disaffection combined make them susceptible to pure demagoguery about terrorism.  

On the other hand, asked whether Homeland Security responded effectively to the tragedy after hurricane Katrina, two out of three (and 79 percent of those responding) said no, a very high level of awareness. Likewise, 68 percent of respondents agreed that people cross U.S. borders without papers mainly because of enforced inequalities between nations. We conclude that most people are somewhat aware of contradictions and defects in national domestic policy regarding immigration, treatment of ethnic minorities and of poor Americans. Also, that many believe they are being manipulated by media, but often lack the tools to discern between false and accurate presentations of international events.  

The full questionnaire, poll responses and links defending factual questions can be found at www.retropoll.org.  

Marc Sapir is executive director of Retro Poll. 

Telegraph Avenue quotas, West Berkeley car sales and new quotas for Berkeley housing top the agenda for Wednesday night’s Planning Commission meeting. 

And while the planners meeting in one room, another panel will gather in another room in the same building to mull the fate of historic structures in the future of downtown Berkeley. 

Both meetings begin at 7 p.m. in the North Berkeley Senior Center, 1901 Hearst Avenue at Martin Luther King Jr. Way. 

The Planning Commission is considering new rules that will allow for the creation of more and smaller spaces for new business to operate in the Telegraph Avenue Business Improvement District. 

The proposal would also expand the current quota system, which limits the size and types of businesses allowed in the district, by easing the rules allowing for change of use and the breakup of larger commercial areas. 

The commission will also consider amendments to the city’s Zoning Ordinance that will enable car dealers to set up shop in West Berkeley, a plan backed by Mayor Tom Bates as a way of capturing more sales tax dollars for the city. 

Berkeley has lost dealerships in recent years, and automobile manufacturers say they want their dealers to locate near freeways, where access is easier for potential customers. 

Commissioners will also discuss an evaluation of Berkeley’s performance in filling Association for Bay Area Governments (ABAG) quotas set for market rate and affordable housing between 1999 and 2006. 

Meanwhile, members of a joint subcommittee formed of members of the Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) and the Downtown Area Plan Advisory Committee (DAPAC) will be discussing how historic buildings will be treated in the new downtown plan which DAPAC is slated to give to the Planning Commission in November. 

Wednesday’s meeting will be the subcommittee’s ninth, and could conclude with the formalization of its recommendations to DAPAC. 

The Berkeley Board of Education will vote on approving a proposal to establish a Community Day School on Wednesday. 

Although the Berkeley Unified School District already runs an Independent Study Program (IS) which serves some students, the board has expressed interest in establishing intervention and opportunity programs for students facing problems at its high and middle schools. 

Since Berkeley Technology Academy (B-Tech), a continuation high school, cannot enroll students younger than 15-and-a-half years old or below sophomore level, the board is looking at options for students in the 12- to 15-year-old age group. 

The Berkeley Community Day School proposal seeks to address the needs of district middle school students who have faced expulsion from school, have disciplinary problems, are on probation, have attendance or adjustment problems, or require a smaller school setting. 

According to the staff report, “Students with a history of at-risk behaviors have been found to benefit measurably from an environment in which there is a lower student-teacher ratio and where the curriculum is customized to scaffold and accelerate student learning.” 

The program will initially enroll seventh- and eighth-graders and go on to serve sixth- through ninth-graders in the future. 

Although the exact location of the program is yet to be determined, district staff members propose that it should be kept at a distance from other schools. They recommend that the program be housed on a separate part of the B-Tech campus. Student interaction between the two programs—especially during lunch time—would be avoided by arranging different schedules, according to the proposal. 

The new program for younger students would have its own entrance, exit, restrooms, conference rooms, administrative offices and staff area, and would be separated from the rest of B-Tech by a gate. It would be under the direct supervision of B-Tech principal Victor Diaz who would look after its curriculum, staff development, day-to-day discipline and supervision and evaluation of staff and program, according to the proposal. 

B-Tech teachers and staff—who would be in close proximity to the Community Day School—have not yet given input on this proposal. The Independent Study students and staff have also not been consulted yet, but the Independent Study staff—whose program would be relocated to make room for the Community Day School at the site—have objected to the proposed move. The Berkeley Federation of Teachers (BFT) has also expressed concerns about the location. 

The board is scheduled to act on the proposal at the May 23 meeting, since the application has to be approved by the California Board of Education by May 24. 

The total cost for teachers, instructional aid and a school safety officer at the proposed Community Day School is estimated to be $310,200. 

SB 288: Comprehensive Pupil Learning Support System 

The school board will vote on a letter in support of SB 288, which would provide grants to California school districts to help fund work being done in Berkeley, supported by an Integrating Schools and Mental Health Systems Grant from the U.S. Department of Education. 

School Board director Shirley Issel explains in her report that the recently completed Berkeley Schools Mental Health Partnership Strategic Plan was designed to build the kind of comprehensive system of school-based, school-linked mental health system that is called for in SB 288. 

“We have benefited in Berkeley from our association with the Center for Mental Health in Schools,” the report states, “and I believe SB 288 provides new opportunities for us and for other districts to develop and improve the delivery of vital support to students who face barriers in learning.” 

Perkins Grant for Berkeley Adult School 

The Board will vote on approving the Perkins Grant for the Berkeley Adult School Career Technical Education Programs for 2007-2008. The grant would fund the academic, vocational and technical skills of secondary and post-secondary students by funding the development of challenging academic standards and promoting the development of services that integrate academic, technical and vocational instruction. 

Educational items 

The board will vote on a recommendation for class size reduction in the 2007-08 school year with funds from the Berkeley Public Schools Educational Excellence Act of 2006 (Measure A of 2006) and Measure B of 2004. 

It will also vote on a recommendation for the district’s library program in the 2007-08 school year, with $1.3 million in funds from Measure A of 2006 and carryover funds of $146,000 from Measure B of 2004. 

Berkeley Bowl theft 

On Wednesday at 9:33 a.m., a Berkeley Bowl employee called the police to report that somebody had been taken into custody for stealing. The thief, a 42-year-old Berkeley man, was cited and arrested. 

Willard break-in 

A Willard Middle School administrator called the police Wednesday afternoon to report that somebody had broken into the school Monday night. A television with a DVD player and a VCR was taken, along with a Sony boombox. There are no suspects. 

Robbery 

At the corner of Blake Street and Mathews Street, a man was stopped and robbed by two teenagers on Wednesday at 9:22 p.m. The suspects took a cellphone, some cash, and four wallets. They were last seen heading eastbound on Blake Street and northbound on Mable Street. 

Hit-and-run 

A female victim called in Wednesday night to report that somebody had hit her black Volkswagen Jetta that was parked on the 2900 block of San Pablo Avenue. It is unknown who hit her car. 

Robbery 

A 22-year-old Berkeley female was at her apartment on the 2300 block of Durant a little after midnight on Thursday, when she witnessed a man breaking into her car and making off with her wallet. 

Simultaneous auto burglaries 

In front of Jefferson Elementary School at 7:43 a.m. on Thursday, two Oakland residents called in to report that somebody had pried the door lock on both of their vehicles. 

In the first car, a computer was taken, while in the second car, a wallet and its contents were taken. The police haven’t taken anybody into custody. 

Bike theft 

At 1:20 p.m. on Thursday, a female reported that someone had stolen her blue bike from the rear yard. The bike was unsecured and had a breast cancer ribbon painted on the seat. There are no suspects in this case. 

The 39th president of the United States, former peanut farmer and 2002 Nobel Peace Prize winner Jimmy Carter, got standing ovations and multiple rounds of applause from a packed Zellerbach Hall on the UC Berkeley campus Wednesday afternoon, where he had come at the invitation of two students to speak about his controversial book, Palestine, Peace Not Apartheid. 

Near Zellerbach, students snaked by the hundreds in a long line, many reading the book, hoping to get into the room where Carter was signing books before the talk. 

In the wide plaza outside the hall where Carter was to speak, two small gatherings were separated by the breadth of the plaza: one was made up of about a dozen people from Jewish Voice for Peace and Women in Black, who said they supported Carter’s visit as an opening for dialogue.  

The other, a group of about 20 students from the Jewish Student Union and Hillel, said they supported Carter’s right to speak, but faulted the former president for blaming Jews for the unrest in Israel/Palestine. 

Welcomed by Chancellor Robert J. Birgeneau, Carter spoke, then answered questions from Orville Schell, dean of the Graduate School of Journalism, and written questions from the mostly-student audience. 

The meaning of the provocative title Carter chose for the book was addressed during both the speech and the question period.  

Apartheid in the context of Palestine is at the heart of Carter’s book. Carefully explaining his thesis, the former president said that the book—and thus the term—addresses the Palestinian territories of Gaza and the West Bank only.  

Carter pointed out that both former South African President Nelson Mandela and South African Bishop Desmond Tutu use the term “apartheid” with respect to Palestine.  

In the context of Palestine, “apar-theid” does not refer to race. “The enforced segregation and domination of Arabs by Israelis is not based on race, it’s rather based on terrible persecution and oppression in Palestine,” Carter said. 

The domination of the Palestinians “comes from efforts of a minority of Israelis to confiscate and to colonize Palestinian land.” Carter said. “Palestinians have been forcibly removed in their own tiny area [of the West Bank] from the choice hilltops, the vital water resources and the most productive land.”  

They’ve been replaced by heavily subsidized settlers, Carter said, noting there are some 200 settlements and 500 checkpoints in the West Bank. And now, there is a wall “that goes deep inside the West Bank,” he said. 

“All this combined makes the lives of Palestinians almost intolerable,” he added, noting the importance of education and urging UC Berkeley students and professors to go to Palestine and witness the situation for themselves. 

“The plight of the Palestinian people is almost unknown in this country,” he said. 

The suffering is not limited to Palestinians, Carter said. The anger in the Arab world that the situation has provoked has destabilized the region. It has made relationships between Israel and the Arab world “practically impossible,” he said. 

Still, Carter made it clear that he is a supporter of the state of Israel, which he called, “a small nation that exemplified the highest moral ideals based on the Hebrew scriptures that I have taught on Sunday since I was 18 years old, where justice is mentioned 28 times in the Old Testament and righteousness is mentioned 196 times.” 

Carter spoke about the United States’ unwavering support of Israel, and pointed out that the U.S., the United Nations and Israel have refused to recognize the leaders democratically elected to the Palestine National Authority.  

The U.S. must play a role as an “honest broker” if peace is to come to the region, he said. “The U.S. must not be seen as in the pocket of either side … We must always make clear our unswerving commitment to Israel, but we cannot be peacemakers if American government leaders are seen as knee-jerk supporters of every action or policy of whatever Israeli government happens to be in power at the moment.” 

Carter also spoke to the role of the powerful pro-Israeli lobbying group, AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee to which, he said, there are “few significant countervailing forces … Any balanced debate is still practically nonexistent in the U.S. Congress or among candidates for the presidency.” 

He said he understands the hopes and fears of both camps. “I am a friend of Israel,” he said. “I understand the fear of many Israelis, that threats still exist against them personally.” Carter said he has always condemned acts of violence against innocent people. 

Still, he said, his efforts in the Middle East are to bring peace and security to Israel and justice and righteousness to the Palestinian people.  

“The bottom line is this: Israel will never find peace until it is willing to withdraw from its neighbors’ land and permit the Palestinians to exercise their basic human and political rights,” he said. 

While most of the audience’s questions focused on Palestine, students wanted to know which presidential candidate Carter supports. By the cheers that rang through the auditorium, they were not disappointed when Carter responded that it is Al Gore. 

“I called him three times about [the] 2008 [election] and he said he wouldn’t run,” said Carter, who had also encouraged Gore to run in 2004. 

A video of the Carter speech can be viewed at http://webcast.berkeley.edu/ events.php. 

An Emeryville City Manager’s report has concluded that the city does not discriminate against its African-American employees, but the City Council agreed Tuesday night with the city manager’s recommendation that an outside consultant should be hired to do a survey of possible morale problems within the city’s black workforce. 

But a podium-pounding President Alex Papillon of the Berkeley NAACP said that was not enough, and warned that if Emeryville City Council did not address and resolve the discrimination issue, “next time you may have 30 to 40 people shutting down the council meeting by sitting down here.” 

And the Concerned Citizens For Change, an Emeryville group that originally brought the discrimination charges to Council last March, accused the city of “tiptoeing” around the issue, and called on the city to institute a temporary moratorium on the termination of African-Americans and an investigation into the practices of the city’s Human Resources Department in addition to the hiring of the outside consultant. 

One of the members of the Concerned Citizens For Change, former Emeryville City Planning Technician Leslie Pollard, recently received a $3.6 million settlement from the city last month in her wrongful termination lawsuit. Pollard had alleged in her lawsuit that the City of Emeryville had engaged in anti-African-American racial discrimination in suspending her after 27 years of employment. 

In his report to the five-member council Tuesday night, which he called the result of “a thorough investigation of the allegations,” Emeryville City Manager Patrick O’Keefe said that it would be improper for him to discuss grievances or work performance issues concerning any individual city employee. 

But O’Keefe said that he was “proud of the diversity” in Emeryville’s workforce, citing statistics which said that while African-Americans comprise only 19.5 percent of Emeryville’s population, the city government’s workforce is 34 percent African-American, and supervisory staff is 27 percent African-American. 

O’Keefe’s report said that Emeryville has invested heavily in training for employees, including $135,000 committed to such programs as tuition reimbursement for employees pursuing AA, Bachelor’s, and Master’s degrees. 

Saying that “we have a strong commitment to training and a strong commitment to helping people compete for advancement,” O’Keefe said that two of the four city employees who have already taken advantage of the reimbursement program are African-American. 

O’Keefe also said that discontent among Emeryville city employees was limited to a small number of persons. He said that of 74 internal employment grievances filed over the past 12 years, 51 percent were filed by three individuals, and that 68 percent of the 28 race-related internal employment grievances were filed by one person. O’Keefe also said that of the five discrimination claims filed by city employees with either state or federal agencies, three of them race-related, none were upheld. 

But Leslie Pollard told Councilmembers following O’Keefe’s presentation that the individual city employee who filed the bulk of the race-related internal grievances had done so in behalf of other employees. 

And another Concerned Citizens For Change representative, Valerie Savage, said that Pollard’s favorable discrimination settlement would indicate that there were other discrimination problems in city employment that should be addressed by the Council. 

“If the FDA finds a piece of contaminated meat in a store, they take all of the meat off the shelf until they find out the cause,” Savage said. “This is a contaminated issue. The city needs to look into it until it is solved.” 

And Service Employees International Union Emeryville Field Director Larry Hendel said that O’Keefe’s report failed to look into the problem of discrimination in employee discipline in Emeryville. 

“From where I sit, that’s where the pain is really felt,” Hendel said. “I urge you to add that to your criteria for study.” 

O’Keefe recommended the outside consultant and morale study after saying that “while I’m proud of the morale among city employees, I’m not going to rest on that.” 

Councilmember Ken Bukowski, who put the discrimination issue on the Council agenda, called the hiring of an outside consultant “excellent.” 

Referring to the Pollard settlement, Bukowski said, “we have spent a lot of money on this, and a lot of us don’t understand why we have spent a lot of money.” 

Councilmember Ruth Atkin said that while she was “encouraged by the results” of the city manager’s report, “self-examination of racial problems is important. I don’t think we should stop here.” 

And Mayor Nora Davis said that while “these figures tell a very, very good story,” she said she “fully supports an independent outside analysis” of Emeryville city employment. 

But even while supporting the hiring of an outside consultant to probe discrimination in Emeryville, City Councilmembers showed how divisive the issue can be. 

When Councilmember Dick Kassis said that he was “somewhat embarassed that while Emeryville has such a large minority population, we have five white faces up here; we need to figure out how to outreach and get more people to come out and serve in elected office,” Bukowski snapped back, “I have a problem with the suggestion that when we have an all-white Council, Black Folks aren’t represented. I try to represent all people on council.” 

No date was set for the hiring of the outside consultant.

Do people who rent or buy residences in so-called transit-oriented development really use mass transit?  

Should a stretch of Shattuck Avenue become Berkeley’s newest spot of greenery? 

And what can downtown Berkeley do to attract a more diverse crop of residents, given that new apartments are quickly grabbed up by university students? 

Those questions dominated the discussion at Wednesday night’s meeting of the Downtown Area Plan Advisory Committee (DAPAC), precluding a planned discussion of the sustainabilty element that is to be the cornerstone of the new plan the committee is slated to hand the Planning Commission in November. 

Veteran environmental activist Sylvia McLaughlin opened the meeting’s public comment section with a plea to daylight Strawberry Creek along the stretch of Center Street between Oxford Street and Shattuck Avenue. 

“For me, this is a matter of natural values that can enhance the urban concrete and asphalt surroundings of the built environment,” she said. 

Daylighting of the water course through the one block stretch—and its conversion into a pedestrian-only plaza—was recommended by the Planning Commission’s Hotel Task Force, which met in response to UC Berkeley’s announcement of plans to promote development of a high-rise hotel and conference center at the northeast corner of the intersection of Shattuck and Center. 

McLaughlin, whose late husband was dean of UC Berkeley’s colleges of mining and engineering, also took the opportunity to take a swipe at plans to build a high-tech gym next to Memorial Stadium. 

“A beautiful grove of oak trees can enhance the UC Berkeley campus far more than an energy-consuming underground athletic facility that could be built elsewhere, especially when so many of the campus green spaces are being replaced by buildings,” she said. 

Gus Yates, a hydrologist and member of Citizens for a Strawberry Creek Plaza, joined in McLaughlin’s plea, adding that critics of the project who claimed that daylighting wasn’t a form of restoration were incorrect. 

Planning Commission Chair James Samuels, who has frequently argued that restoration and daylighting are misnomers, challenged Yates. The hydrologist replied that water courses of even the Mississippi and Colorado Rivers had varied extensively over the course of centuries, rendering the definition of a precise historic location irrelevant. What counted, he said, were the features of the waterway, including habitat and life forms. 

“I don’t think you’ve helped us,” Samuels said. “You’re using the words in a very esoteric way.” 

“I look at it as a scientist,” Yates said. 

“What bothers some of us is that you have to dig up Oxford Street” to rechannel the creek from its current underground location to the new course, Samuels said. The creek currently flows in an underground concrete channel from the UCB campus across Oxford to Kittredge Street one block south of Center and then west. 

John Holtzclaw, chair of the Sierra Club’s national transportation committee, triggered a lengthy discussion with a presentation of his research on the relationship between population density and car use—with the lowest miles driven and fewest cars owned by residents of the densest urban neighborhoods and the most driving and the most cars owned in the least dense suburbs and rural locations. 

His research was based on comparisons of four areas—New York, San Francisco Bay, Chicago and Los Angeles—and his presentation included specific figures comparing car use, miles driven and densities from the least dense San Ramon through Rockridge—which met his definition of a transit village—through North Beach as the densest regional example, filled with amenities, and as the most dense, Manhattan, New York. 

With his data showing public transit service the most frequent and most used in the highest densities, Holtzclaw’s research has buttressed the Sierra Club’s call for more dense development in urban area as the most environmentally beneficial form of adding new housing. 

But Gene Poschman, a planning commissioner and recipient of frequent barbed comments from DAPAC chair Will Travis, said that new developments in downtown Berkeley had already reached density levels suggested by Holtzclaw’s research. 

The average density for new developments downtown was 203.7 units per acre, he sai d. Looking at the Holtzclaw’s figures, Poschman said there was “really no impetus to go higher than we have now.” 

He also said the research presented was methodologically inadequate. “This is all contested terrain,” he said. 

“I see it cited all the time,” Holtzclaw said. 

Jesse Arreguin said that many of the amenities Holtzclaw proposed that density would bring didn’t exist in the already dense downtown, such as grocery stores and other retailers serving downtown residents. 

Arreguin blamed the absence partly on high rents charged commercial tenants. 

Mim Hawley said the downtown lacked real diversity in its residents, who are mainly students. Real diversity, she said, would bring the services. But with student, “we get coffee shops and taverns, but we don’t get grocery stores.” 

“We do have high density in Berkeley, but we don’t have all those things smart growth is supposed to bring,” said Juliet Lamont. She said she also wondered whether the low car use in urban centers was because people gave up their cars or because cities attract people who don’t drive. 

Wendy Alfsen said one reason for the city center’s lack of diversity was the result of prior decisions that that drove a lot of senior citizens out of the downtown, followed by the loss of food markets. 

Given the current lack of diversity, Alfsen said she was reluctant to endorse policies designed to bring in high-end residents. “We have to put in things that make sure diversity continues to expand. Families and low-income residents will need incentives.”  

Architect Jim Novosel described the downtown as a monoculture, composed of students who join together to rent small units. “It’s a skewed culture that doesn’t relate to North Beach,” he said. “It doesn’t have the diversity ... it doesn’t have all these wonderful things. What we’re getting is a bunch of dormitories.” 

Billy Keys said committee members should worry less about debates about current problems and focus more on creating a plan designed to make the city better for their children and grandchildren. 

WInston Burton said more green space should be a central concern of the plan, and without it, “we will not have a good quality of life.” 

Matt Taecker, the planner hired to work on the new plan, soon offered a proposal to add more greenery, which simultaneously reducing runoff contamination after the first rains and giving a new look to the downtown’s main thoroughfare. 

“Let’s green the downtown,” he said.  

Noting that 85 percent of runoff contaminants come after the first seasonal rains, he proposed adding green features along selected roadways and building frontages that would serve as natural filters for runoff. 

The need for green space and a means to filter runoff could also be derived from transforming the central portion of a two-block section of Shattuck south of Durant Avenue into a green space, in part by introducing parallel parking in the area. 

The street is 140 feet wide from storefront to storefront, and by reconfiguring the streetscape and replacing diagonal with parallel parking, the resulting area would yield a 62 feet of width that could be converted to public green space. 

While Taecker’s plan showed the greenery in the center, Alfsen suggested dividing it along the sidewalks instead, a notion that struck favor with many others on the committee.

Ascend into central Berkeley via the steep escalator of subterranean BART, and you are met with a decidedly uncivic scene. People of every age and condition seem intent solely on crossing Center Street or Shattuck Avenue. You can also squeeze past a smaller, more youthful crowd waiting for the bus along the BART plaza edge or just hanging out. 

Around this never-ending collision between traffic, pedestrians, students and street-people, the greater urban setting is not inspiring. The BART drum you’ve just emerged from looks like a leftover from the German defenses of Normandy, while the so-called “Power Bar Building” immediately behind is 1960’s “curtain wall” at its worst. Looking east across the vehicular wasteland, the built-up frontage of Shattuck Square is a stylistic mish-mash, made worse by the single-story bank at its south end, built as a stopgap during Berkeley’s Late ‘60s “Blacklisted” period, after the Bank of America gave up on its intended 12-story tower. 

The chief virtue of this strangely suburban corner is the way it combines with Center Street itself to allow an almost unblocked view of the great dome of eucalyptus, and the revered, still-splendid Campanile. Meanwhile, in the immediate vicinity of the BART rotunda, only one older building, the handsome Wells Fargo Tower, sets an elegant standard for future development of any consequence. 

Such development now seems in the offing, for after months of deep discussion and disagreement between DAPAC—the Down-town Area Planning Advisory Committee—and the combined planning establishments of Cal and the City of Berkeley, a surprising level of accord appears to have been reached. The remaking of Center Street from Shattuck Square to Oxford Street, patently the most natural connector between Town and Gown, is almost a work-in-progress. 

For readers who have not much followed this promising planning, a brief summary might be useful. Two major new structures will transform the north side of Center Street—a university-sponsored conference hotel facing Shattuck Square, and behind it, off Oxford Street, the relocated University Art Museum, currently still at 2626 Bancroft Way. 

Both buildings will occupy a new traffic-free plaza created from a pedestrianized Center Street and extending north between them. A 19-story condominium tower attached to the hotel’s easterly face will share the parklike terrain. Altogether a grand program! 

The “four-star” hotel, a six-story leisure-related facility with a visible roof garden and at least two public facades, should make a splendid new southerly end to the Shattuck Square frontage, further dramatized by the tall tower behind. In contrast to this assertive corner, novel, yet tied visually to the greater downtown, the new Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive will be an altogether freer entity. 

Currently being designed by Toyo Ito, an internationally known Japanese architect, and enhanced by an almost car-free setting, it cannot help but be a popular destination. 

As for the plaza itself, there has been passionate argument over the long-cherished idea of unearthing Strawberry Creek to restore “underlying nature” to the heart of downtown. It is a bold concept, and very “Berkeley,” but here, on what often will be a crowded pedestrian route, there are problems of dimension, danger and maintenance. 

One wonders how many people realize that on the UC campus, starting immediately across Oxford Street, there is approximately a mile of beautifully landscaped natural creek waiting to be strolled along and enjoyed. A far cry from a few yards of railed-off “demonstration nature” in the middle of a busy mall. 

As future users of all this expansive transformation, we might well be concerned about the quality of the end result. Two major buildings are already being designed with the university as principal client and promoter on a site it already owns. Will this dramatic little extension of the campus feel like “ours” or “theirs”? 

Though no lover of the Cal juggernaut and its brutal invasion of the Southside, I must admit to feeling considerable relief that here, the university is calling the shots. 

Imagine for one unnerving moment the task of selecting an architect for the new museum being left to a Berkeley citizen’s committee. 

Would it have been brave enough or united enough to choose a radical Asian modernist that nobody here had ever heard of? 

In the event, the university or its particular in-group was bolder that anybody could have dared to predict in selecting, not a Corbusier-inspired classicist like Richard Meier or a computer-happy Expressionist like Frank Gehry, but a serious inventive designer whose non-flamboyant approach should suit perfectly the hemmed-in restricted site. 

Perhaps the most interesting program suggestion made so far was incorporation of the existing University Press buildings, already listed a City of Berkeley landmark, into a strangely hybrid design on the grounds that the original signatory copies of the United Nations Charter were printed there in 1945. 

Understandably, the university rejected this oddly non-architectural concept, for in their eyes moving the new facility into the real public domain on an already-owned site close to BART, and giving a world-renowned architect carte blanche, will put the new facility—expected visitors 300,000 per year—into the DeYoung class, though let us hope that Berkeley’s new pride and joy will be more welcoming than that derelict aircraft-carrier in Golden Gate Park! 

At this juncture the future appearance of Ito’s creation is largely guesswork, though one might assume from his other designs that an open transparent look is likely, dramatically demonstrated by the architect’s seven-story Mediatheque in Sendai, northern Japan. 

Perhaps a more important question is how the building will look from above, for many windows on the east side of the hotel and in the 19-story tower will look directly down on the—probably—flat top, at least part of which could be a verdant roof garden. 

The future hotel is an altogether different case. Promoted by independent developers with oversight from both the university and the city, the building is currently being designed by the Cambridge Seven, an architectural collaborative in Boston. Judging from the images on the firm’s website, their work is interesting, professional and varied. 

We are not dealing here with an architectural superstar whose building will be recognizably Miesian or Calatravan, but with a group of semi-autonomous designers whose work varies greatly depending on location, program and personality. 

A wildlife museum will look woodsy and barnlike, a railway museum will be reminiscent of a toy train, and a science block appropriately “high tech.” 

Thus they tend to be the answer to a fussy, controlling-client’s prayer, particularly if the client is Berkeley! One can be quite sure that they have already had an earful of demands and requests that the new structure fit in with our “historic” downtown, whatever style that might be. 

We’re in serious danger here of intimidating the project architect, if not the whole “Seven,” into trying too hard to please a distant opinionated community and winding up with a pastiche of Maybeck trellises, Julia Morgan Gothic tracery and red “Spanish” tiles. It would be safer to stick with more basic suggestions—having in mind maximum contrast—such as: “Solid wall should dominate over glass.” 

One can visualize a building on that strategic corner that extends the UC Berkeley campus rather than matching downtown. If the budget doesn’t run to the lovely Sierra Granite of Howard’s early masterworks, they could at least substitute the high quality concrete of Koshland Hall. 

Indeed, Koshland’s elegant yet friendly Teaching Building facing that big lawn gives a few useful clues to possible hotel character. So, oddly enough, does the splendid twin-towered Federal Building in downtown Oakland, with its clever interplay of windows and heavy structure. 

My desire to connect John Galen Howard with the new hotel becomes more intriguing on discovering that, in 1907, he designed for this same site a handsome six-story building for the Berkeley National Bank, with his own office on the top floor. This non-academic Chicago-style structure made a distinguished corner, hardly likely to be improved upon by our imminent replacement. 

The third element, quite equal in importance to the new buildings sitting on it, is the future pedestrian plaza. 

In addition to the pleasing vision of a Center Street parklike and car-free, there’s an opportunity here to extend the non-car terrain northward between the museum and the hotel to Addison, and beyond by a pedestrian path to Walnut north of University Avenue, there to link up with a Walnut extension across the big site formerly occupied by California Health Services. 

The negative side of this heady concept is the unopposed intrusion of automobiles into an otherwise calm scene. 

Inevitably, there will be traffic access to the hotel’s south and east frontages, while access from Shattuck Square into the underground garage will be predictably unromantic! Nevertheless, with clever design, pedestrians and garden can still dominate the terrain. 

Most of the tree planting on the paved areas will be urban in character, perhaps similar to the heavily pruned plane trees of Sproul Plaza, but a more playful atmosphere could prevail in the private yet visually-connected sculpture garden we might expect outside the museum cafe, which could also contain a “waterfall-canal” comparable to the one in Ginko Court on the Clark Kerr Campus. 

The hotel architects must also make sure that their promised roof garden is clearly visible from nearby ground-level. A little “oasis” in the desert of downtown Berkeley will be very welcome, and will also signal the expanding University’s benign intentions toward its worried host community. 

The country’s third largest steel foundry agreed to a settlement with the Bay Area Air Quality Management District Tuesday, which requires it to install a capture hood to control emissions and pay $150,000 in fines to the air district, though not all critics were satisfied by the agreement. 

The air district had sued West-Berkeley-based Pacific Steel Company (PSC) in August for failing to meet deadlines for reporting air emissions and violating the schedule contained in a settlement agreement designed in December 2005 to resolve an ongoing series of air quality complaints. 

The suit, which was filed in Alameda County Superior Court, sought civil penalties of up to $10,000 for each day that the emissions inventory was not submitted and asked that PSC be ordered to install a carbon absorption filtering system at Plant 3 as originally scheduled. 

Plant 3 was identified by the district as the source of the maximum complaints from neighbors who have repeatedly asked for tighter regulation of the facility. 

“The air district sued PSC in August for allegedly missing a whole series of deadlines, but the company disagreed,” said Elizabeth Jewel of Aroner, Jewel & Ellis Partners, the company’s public relations consultants, to the Planet Wednesday. “Specifically, they alleged that we missed a deadline of October 15, 2006, when in fact the lawsuit was filed in August. It was in the best interest of both the parties to come to an agreement. PSC agreed to install a new hood which will capture fugitive emissions from the electric arc furnace and direct them to an existing ventilation system through a carbon filter.” 

Jewel added that the new hood would be set up as soon as PSC received a permit from the City of Berkeley. 

Other improvements announced by the steel foundry to control emissions in West Berkeley include: 

• Use of a new binder in the sand molds that significantly reduces volatile organic compounds. 

• Upgrading the baghouse in Plant 1 including related capture hood and ductwork 

• A new capture hood over the electric arc furnace in Plant 3 

PSC and non-profit Communities for a Better Environment (CBE) filed a consent decree in Federal Court in February that would bring about specified emissions reductions, create a scrap metal inspection program, and establish a joint consultation committee to recommend and oversee ongoing pollution reduction efforts. 

A reserve fund of $350,000 was also created for selected projects to achieve a reduction in emissions levels at the facility.  

CBE had sued PSC in July alleging that the steel foundry violated the air district’s permit with respect to the amount of emissions from the steel foundry in Berkeley. 

Although PSC officials said in a statement that the improvements planned on Tuesday were a major step toward reducing emissions, community members disagreed. 

“The $150,000 is meaningless if you think about the negative impacts PSC’s emissions have had on West Berkeley for ages,” said environmentalist LA Wood, who installed an air monitor to measure PSC emission levels with the help of community members in April. 

“Pacific Steel has not at all been forthcoming about any of their regulatory documents for at least a decade and the [district] has done nothing about it either. I think the Air District should be fined some money also. We know no more about PSC than we did ten years ago. This is indeed very shameful.” 

PSC’s proposed change in its binders has been demanded for a long time by the West Berkeley Alliance for Clean Air and Safe Jobs, as part of a comprehensive Toxic Use Reduction (TUR) approach. 

“TUR requires open communication, honesty and collaboration among all stakeholders,” said Janice Schroeder of the Alliance in an email to the Planet. “As in past years, Pacific Steel is moving in the right direction, but only under pressure from lawsuits, and the industry is not yet fully transparent and collaborative with the whole community.” 

Schroeder added that PSC’s improvements were welcome but long overdue. 

“However, the community's concerns will not be easily allayed,” she said. “If Pacific Steel continues to cool castings outside, away from pollution control equipment, and to operate with its huge doors open, the clean-up effort will not work. According to Pacific Steel’s 2004 report to the California Air Resources Board, it releases 400 pounds of pollution daily into the air. How much will be removed by the industry's proposed ‘significant’ decrease in pollution?”

Their signs declared unity in the face of government raids and called for amnesty for immigrants without documents, and their chants affirmed “Sí, se puede!” (Yes, we can!) as May 1 demonstrators marched through Berkeley streets, gathering forces before moving to larger demonstrations in Oakland and San Francisco.  

At 10:30 a.m., a group of about 60 demonstrators led by representatives of the UC Berkeley student government left a larger group that had gathered with signs and leaflets at Telegraph Avenue and Bancroft Way and headed down Telegraph to meet up with Oakland Technical High School students and march with them to the Oakland Federal Building.  

“The fact that the ASUC [Associated Students of the University of California] voted to lead the demonstration shows the popularity of the immigrants’ rights movement,” said Dimitri Garcia, an ASUC senator who carried the ASUC yellow and blue flag down Telegraph, under the watchful eyes of about a dozen Berkeley and UC police. 

Some 75 demonstrators stayed behind at Bancroft Way and Telegraph Avenue to sing, chant and encourage others to stay out of class and join the festivities. People stopped in groups of twos or threes and the crowd grew. Cheers rang out when the gathering was joined by some 50 members of Berkeley Organizing Congregations for Action (BOCA), who had marched up to campus from St. Joseph the Worker Church in Berkeley.  

Father Stephan of St. Joseph’s was among them, carrying a sign that read “Just Immigrant Reform Now.” He told the Daily Planet that he’s heard too many stories from friends and parishioners to ignore the fears of immigrants. 

He tells this story: “A friend from Mexico, living on the Peninsula, was studying at two o’clock in the morning when ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] and homeland security came into his home and threw him in jail for two weeks.” The man was charged with terrorism, despite his valid documents that included a passport. 

It appears that the problem may have stemmed from the fact that the young man had played volleyball in school and had traveled to Saudi Arabia and Egypt, where his passport was stamped with the name of those countries, Fr. Stephan said.  

“The charges were dropped, but he lost his job while he was in jail. They still have his passport, so now he feels like a real illegal,” the priest said. 

On campus, not too far from the demonstrators a group of young men were gathered at the Young Republicans’ table “We’re happy for the smaller participation than last year,” said Ross Lingenfelder, president of the club, speaking as an individual. Lingenfelder said he thought the smaller participation was a reflection of the spread of Republican values.  

Derek Yee, also a Young Republican, chided the demonstrators for asking for in-state tuition and loans for undocumented immigrant students. “We need to secure our borders,” added Yee, also underscoring that he spoke for himself and not the club. 

At around 11 a.m. the group at Bancroft and Telegraph moved to Sproul Plaza, where their numbers grew to more than 300. There the day was blessed with an Aztec Dance that was followed by a rally.  

Demonstrators’ demands included opposition to the Dream Act, which denies undocumented students financial aid, according to Ruben Cabrera, one of the organizers of the rally and a member of Xinaxtli, which Cabrera said means “sea that grows.” 

Around 1:30 p.m., a group of about 150 demonstrators arrived at City Hall, having picked up some Berkeley High students on the way. There, they were greeted by Mayor Tom Bates. “This is not OK what is happening in this country,” Bates said. “It is not OK for children to be taken out of school [by ICE]. It is not OK for people to be taken out of their jobs.”  

Before the protesters headed to BART to join the San Francisco rally, the mayor told them that in 1971 Berkeley was declared a sanctuary city, a safe place for immigrants with and without documentation. That was renewed in 1986 and on May 22, Bates said, the City Council would reaffirm that status.

Berkeley High School (BHS) students skipped class Tuesday to attend the Immigration Day rally in San Francisco as many of them did last year, but this time they had permission from their teachers. 

About 60 ninth-graders from the Communication Arts & Sciences School (CAS) at BHS took BART to the historic Mission District to participate in a field trip for their Freshman Seminar class. 

“It was a nice way to cap off the unit,” said Biko Eisen-Martin, who teaches history at CAS. “We were learning about what’s going on at the borders with respect to immigration and I thought this would give the kids a more historic perspective about what they were studying. As a tenured teacher I am not allowed to take students on political trips, but this was more of an educational and cultural experience.” 

An email about Immigration Day rallies prompted Eisen-Martin take the matter up with CAS’s Spanish teacher Alexander Klose. 

“It’s an important part of their total education,” said BHS principal Jim Slemp, who added that it was entirely up to the students and teachers about whether they wanted to make this an annual event. Slemp told the Planet that there had been fewer student absences this May 1 than last year. 

15-year-old Micah Muhr—one of Eisen-Martin’s students—said that he had missed school last year to go see the May 1 rallies.  

“This is a much nicer way to do it,” he said. “It’s more interesting to go with your teachers because they explain things better. We learned a lot about the historic murals in the Mission instead of wondering what they were all about.” 

After spending some time with the murals and at the Women’s Building in the Mission District, the group went to the rally at Dolores Park. 

“Some of the kids actually ended up taking part in the protest, but they had permission from their parents,” said Eisen-Martin. “We made it very clear that this was not a walk-out. This was a field trip. There has to be a connection with the class they are taking. I told my students that they shouldn’t be going to a march just because everyone else is. Last year, when I asked them to give me a page on why they don’t like the Bush regime, most of them couldn’t. This is why you need to be really connected about what’s going on around you, and this is where experience like this counts.” 

Students were assigned to pick their favorite mural and research it along with the pamphlets and flyers they had acquired. 

“My favorite was definitely the Wall of Women in the Mission,” said Malikah Wilson, who added that the immigration rally had been her first big march. “It represented women of different ethnicities and told stories we don’t often hear about.” 

Danielle Escobar’s half-page report was about a mural about immigration. “It was colorful and stood out,” she wrote. “It also had a very powerful message about an immigrant husband who missed his wife and child and was struggling to get money for his family to survive. It just seemed so real to me.” 

Matt Rose-Stark, who had left school to participate in the Immigration Day marches in Oakland last year, said that he had joined his classmates on Tuesday because he did not want to miss school anymore. 

“I think it’s unjust what our government is doing to immigrants,” he said. “Our country is built of immigrants. So why would we oppose immigration? I think it’s disrespectful to call people aliens. Aliens are little green things from Mars. They are not people. We should give everyone the respect and freedom they deserve.”

The Oakland legislator who wrote the bill that authorized the state takeover of the Oakland Unified School District in 2003 has signed on as a co-author of new legislation designed to bring about a quicker return to local control of the Oakland schools. 

A spokesperson for State Senate President Don Perata said that the senator had been neutral on Assemblymember Sandré Swanson’s original AB 45 Oakland Local Control bill, but decided to put his name on the proposed legislation once Swanson had amended it. 

Swanson’s original bill would have immediately returned control of the Oakland schools to the OUSD school board in every area but finances. 

The amendments, crafted while AB45 was being considered by the Assembly Education Committee, calls for return to local control of any area of district school operation once the state-supported Fiscal Crisis Management Assistance Team (FCMAT) recommends that return.  

The bill passed the Assembly Education Committee last month on a party-line 7-3 vote (all Democrats voting yes, all Republicans voting no) and has been referred to the Assembly Appropriations Committee.  

Saying that Perata’s support was “key” to passage of the bill in the Senate, a group of Oakland residents and local school control supporters met with Perata staff members in Sacramento following the Education Committee hearing on the bill to lobby the senator.  

A spokesperson for Swanson said the Oakland assemblymember was “extremely pleased” by Perata’s support. 

“The assemblymember wants this to be a collaborative effort,” Swanson public information officer Amber Maltbie said.

Timothy Burroughs will be writing the city’s greenhouse gas emissions reduction plan, the city’s Public Information Officer Mary Kay Clunies-Ross announced in a press release Thursday. 

Burroughs, formerly of the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI), Local Governments for Sustainability, was originally hired for the same task by the Community Energy Services Corporation, the fiscal sponsor for Sustainable Berkeley, a grouping of UC Berkeley nonprofits, “green” health professionals and consultants.  

However, the city manager recently determined that the community would be better served and the efforts would be more transparent if the function of writing the plan were placed in the city’s division of Energy and Sustainable Development. 

Burroughs was the sole candidate when selected for the post by Sustainable Berkeley, but was among 18 candidates who applied for the post when it was opened through the city on March 30, according to Human Resources Director Dave Hodgkins. The position was held open for two weeks. Burroughs began work May 1. 

“We’ll achieve our emissions reduction targets in Berkeley with every resident, business, institution and the city government committing to work together to make a difference,” Burroughs said in the release. 

Burroughs holds a Master of Arts degree in Global Environmental Policy from American University in Washington, D.C. 

Residential Burglary 

Shortly after 1 a.m. on Sunday, April 29th, the owner of Shen Hua Chinese Restaurant in the 2900 block of College Avenue called to report that somebody had broken in through the back window of the restaurant. The owner didn’t notice what might have been stolen. There are no suspects in this case. 

Assault 

At 3:44 a.m. on Sunday morning, a Berkeley police officer witnessed an argument between a man and a woman on Adeline Street at Russell Street. The man was assaulting her by pushing her. No arrests have been made. 

Thievery at Whole Foods  

At 4:39 p.m. on Sunday, a Whole Foods employee called the police to report that a 58-year-old Berkeley man was caught stealing groceries. Police arrived on the scene and arrested the thief. 

Hit-and-Run 

On Sunday evening, a male phoned the police to report that somebody had struck his vehicle, which was parked in the 2300 block of Channing Way, and didn’t leave a note. No suspects are in custody. 

Grand Theft 

On Sunday at 5:37 p.m., a female called the police dispatcher to report that somebody cut her bike lock and stole her Giant Cyprus seven-speed bicycle, which is worth about $600. The victim reported that the incident occurred between 3:30 p.m. and 5:30 p.m. 

Mail Theft 

At 6:40 p.m. on Monday evening, a caller reported that over the weekend somebody stole mail and two mailboxes that were joined together in the 800 block of Channing Way. There are no suspects identified in this case. 

Tenant/Landlord Feud 

On Monday, a tenant of an apartment complex on the 2000 block of Hearst Avenue called in to report that his landlord had assaulted him with a punch. No medical treatment was needed. The police contacted the landlord, issued him a citation, and gave him a court date. 

Stolen Vehicle 

At 8:44 p.m. on Monday, a man reported that his 1997 Red Ford Ranger was stolen from where he had parked it on Fulton Street, between Dwight and Blake streets, a day prior. The case is still outstanding.

An assertion this week by the general manager of AC Transit that the East Bay bus transportation agency was in a “partnership” with Belgian bus manufacturer Van Hool led transit board of directors members to say that the statement made them “concerned” and might send a signal to other bus manufacturers that the district wasn’t interested in buying their buses.  

The exchange occurred during this week’s AC Transit Board of Directors meeting during a discussion of a proposal to enter into an agreement with Van Hool distributor ABC Bus Companies for a one-year exchange of one of AC Transit’s still-under-construction 40 foot Van Hool buses for a Van Hool cruiser bus owned by ABC. 

AC Transit owns several of the larger cruiser buses built by MCI Corporation for use on its cross-bay line. Under the exchange, ABC would get the new 40-foot-buses demonstration purposes, while AC Transit would get to test out the Van Hool cruiser under normal operation conditions. 

In his report to the board, General Manager Rick Fernandez said that if the exchange was agreed upon he would put the Van Hool cruiser onto regular AC Transit routes where cruisers are used. 

But Ward 4 Board of Directors member Rocky Fernandez (representing San Leandro, Castro Valley, San Lorenzo, Ashland, and portions of Hayward) said he was worried the use of the Van Hool cruiser “gives the wrong impression. I’m a little bit nervous that we’re using the Van Hool to help them with their advertising.” 

In reply, General Manager Fernandez said that “we have a different relationship with this manufacturer. It’s more like a partnership.” 

AC Transit bus purchases are governed by state federal law, and require a competitive and open bidding process. A “partnership” with a single bus manufacturer would appear, on the surface, to violate those policies. 

“I’m troubled to hear you say that,” Ward 5 Director Jeff Davis (representing Fremont, Newark, and portions of Hayward) then said. “That concerns me. I’m concerned about the perception that our interests coincide completely with Van Hool’s. We are the purchaser. They are the supplier. We are going to be going through a competitive process on purchasing new cruisers in the future, and I don’t want this to send a message to other suppliers that they need not apply.” 

And Board Vice President Rebecca Kaplan (At-Large) added, “I wouldn’t be comfortable with any language in the agreement that implies we are shutting out other competitors, or implies a partnership. I want to make it perfectly clear that this is not an endorsement.” 

General Manager Fernandez said, “Maybe it was semantics when I talked about a partnership,” and board members eventually unanimously approved the exchange agreement with the provision that it make plain there would be no commitment or obligation to purchase Van Hool cruisers. 

AC Transit operates 682 buses made by several manufacturers, but in recent years has been buying exclusively from Van Hool. The District recently renewed a five-year contract with Van Hool to purchase 50 new 40-foot buses, with an option to purchase 1,500 more. 

In addition, the district recently entered into agreements with Van Hool American distributor ABC to trade up to 20 of the district’s 40-foot North American Bus Institute (NABI) buses, half of the district’s NABI fleet, for a comparable number of the new 40 foot Van Hools. The district has come under public criticism from a small number of riders and drivers about the Van Hools.

Esther Krenn, mother of Andrew Martinez—known as the Naked Guy—sued Santa Clara County Jail Friday in federal court in San Francisco for failing to prevent his suicide in prison. 

“The system is what led to his death,” Krenn told the Planet in a telephone interview Thursday. “I want to expose what happened in the custody of people in charge of my son who did not give him adequate care. I want to bring an end to all the problems so that other mental health patients be treated justly and humanely.” 

Krenn’s lawyer, Geri Green, said that Martinez’s death was a failure on the part of the California justice system to take care of mentally ill people. 

Martinez, 33, a former UC Berkeley student who made national news in the early 1990s for attending classes in the nude, was found dead last May in his cell in the maximum security area in the Santa Clara jail. He was in custody for three felony charges of battery and assault with a deadly weapon during a fight at a halfway house where he was living. Jail officials labeled the incident an apparent suicide.  

Mark Cursi, public information officer for the jail, told the Planet Wednesday that he had not seen the lawsuit and would not be able to comment. 

Andrew had spent 18 months in Santa Clara County jail before, prior to being sent to a state mental institution in Atascadero in June 2005. 

“He came back in January 2006 competent to stand for trial and happy. He was even calling up people at that point,” Krenn said. “But then the torment of the disease and the torment of the solitary confinement was too much for him to bear. When I saw him for the last time in April last year I could see the sadness in his eyes. I called up people at the public defender’s office and the mental health services to alert them about his condition. The next thing I heard was that he had passed away.”

KPFA’s Larry Bensky has spent much of his 70 years honing the craft of activist-journalist. 

“I thought bringing information to people would stir things up. Without that information, nothing would get stirred up,” he said in an interview Tuesday morning with a KPFA news team and the Daily Planet. “Your role [as an activist-journalist] is not to organize people. It is to bring attention to [issues] and the passion.” 

“That doesn’t mean you check your mind at the door” and report whatever activists say without scrupulous research, Bensky said, pointing to I.F. Stone as a role model. 

He refuses to call it retiring: Bensky is giving up his popular talk show, Sunday Salon, but plans to continue to produce special programming at the station, where he’s worked in myriad capacities from station manager to volunteer programmer since 1969. 

While activism and journalism co-exist comfortably at KPFA, Bensky tried to merge the two when writing daily book reviews for the New York Times in the late 1960s. 

“They wouldn’t run a lot of stuff I was writing,” Bensky said. “For example at one point I wrote a book review about Bertrand Russell’s War Crimes in Vietnam. They wouldn’t run it. Even though all I did was summarize his arguments. I didn’t take a soapbox stand. They said I didn’t have sufficient criticism of the anti-war movement from the other side.” 

Bensky realized he’d never be satisfied working at the Times, so when he had an offer to come to California and work for Ramparts Magazine, he took it in the late 1960s. He found the Bay Area a “tremendously inspiring and activist community” with Berkeley’s activist city government that included City Councilmember Ron Dellums, the “colossal” and spirited demonstrations against the Vietnam War in San Francisco, the Black Panther movement and more. 

After a stint at KSAN radio—Bensky was fired after interviewing fired workers of a sponsor on the air—Bensky became production director at KPFA and in 1972, produced and anchored “The Siege of Miami,” Pacifica’s first broadcast linking the radio signal from Miami to Berkeley. The program, which covered the Democratic and Republican conventions and the protests outside of them, was picked up by 18 stations across the country. 

“The Siege of Miami” sound quality was not good, “but there was an urgency about it. We were the only people covering the demonstrations, the only people doing the kind of street reporting we were doing—a tremendously exciting moment,” Bensky said. 

Being an activist-journalist sometimes meant taking physical risks. During the People’s Park clashes between activists and the UC Berkeley administration in the early 1970s, Bensky said he was tear-gassed a number of times.  

“The closest I ever got to combat was on the UC Berkeley campus where the Alameda county sheriffs were shooting birdshot and other projectiles at the demonstrators. It was very, very scary to be out there, but it was also very important to be bringing these events live to people. KPFA was free to do so as no other station was.” 

Two sets of events in 1978 jolted Bensky, causing him to back away from journalism briefly, rethink, then reaffirm his career choice.  

First there was Jonestown, the settlement of Americans in Guyana founded by cult leader Jim Jones. Bensky had applied to go to Jonestown with Congressman Leo Ryan as part of the press corps, but did not find he was accepted until it was too late to go. Ryan and four of the journalists were murdered there just before the mass suicide-murder.  

Two weeks after Jonestown, San Francisco Supervisor Dan White murdered Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk. Bensky knew both victims. 

The idea that he so narrowly escaped death in Jonestown coupled with the double homicide of people he knew personally—and having to report on both events—weighed heavily on the journalist. 

“There’s something about the voice that is charged with bringing people that kind of news that you know people are dependent upon you and yet your heart is so heavy and your spirit is so stricken by what you’re enduring,” Bensky said. “It broke my heart and also made me reevaluate whether or not I wanted to be in that role.”  

But Bensky said journalism in his blood, and the need to let people know about what was happening in Nicaragua won out and he could not stay away from the field permanently. “I wanted to be part of communicating to people what was going on in Central America,” especially around the Contras, a right-wing Nicaraguan guerrilla organization, he said.  

Bensky worked at various radio stations and in various capacities over the years, including a stint as newscaster at KSAN, where he was re-hired, and another as news and sports director at KBLX.  

In 1987, Bensky was asked to host national hearings on Iran-Contra, which involved members of the Reagan Administration selling illegal weapons to Iran and using the proceeds to fund the Contras. 

During that time he and his producer created what Bensky calls “the talk show in the hearing room,” which included both audience and pundit participation. 

KPFA has seen internal conflict during much of its 58 years. In 1999, the year that the national Pacifica board shut down KPFA, its Berkeley station, Bensky was thrown off the air twice.  

The first time was around the issue of Bill Clinton’s impeachment. “What I said was, as far as I’m concerned the impeachment of Bill Clinton is a disgrace to the constitution, but Bill Clinton is a disgrace to the office.” Bensky contends he was taken off the air because “that is not the Democratic Party liberal line.” 

With pressure from the community, he wasn’t kept off the air for long. When he came back, instead of hosting a daily noontime show, Bensky launched Sunday Salon, but was ousted again when he read a statement condemning management’s firing of popular station manager Nicole Sawaya.  

“They didn’t take into account that they were trying to fire the audience,” Bensky said of the national board’s 1999 struggle with KPFA programmers, volunteers and listeners that resulted in an outpouring of support for the station within the community. “It was the most gratifying thing in my life to see how people came forth.” 

Bensky is of two minds when he talks about the future of the station. He said he is encouraged because of the level of the people trained at the station and developing their talents. 

“Despite the legendary difficulties of what goes on here internally, that part I’m encouraged by,” he said. 

At the same time, he fears for the future of the station. “I don’t know what’s going to happen to KPFA,” he said. “The national board is a mess. Local station board elections as far as I am concerned are a farce. They’re not democratic in a sense that I see as democratic. They contribute nothing.” 

Still, Bensky concludes, “We have a mission to do here. People who are driven to do it are going to get here, I hope, and still find a way to get on the air.” 

Bensky was interviewed by KPFA News Director Aileen Alfandary, with supplementary questions by producer Aaron Glantz and Planet reporter Judith Scherr.

The battle to improve physical education in California schools is intensifying following the release in late January of two new reports commissioned by The California Endowment, a private health foundation. 

With childhood obesity and diabetes poised to exact a huge financial and human toll in California, the reports reopen the question of how we can pay for improved education and whether full funding is necessary to enjoy quality PE programs. 

Citing rising rates of obesity and diabetes in children, the reports found that public schools, especially those in low-income neighborhoods, are not providing their students with adequate physical education. 

Among the key findings are: 

• Large class sizes meant less activity. 

• On average only four minutes of every half hour is devoted to vigorous activity. 

• Especially in poorer communities, PE teachers and equipment are sub par. 

The 2006 California physical fitness test of grades five, seven and nine in six areas of fitness—aerobic capacity, body composition, abdominal strength and endurance, trunk extensor strength and flexibility, upper body strength, and endurance and flexibility—showed that all demographic subgroups in California’s schools could use improvement. 

The percent of students achieving a passing health and fitness zone was highest for Asians and whites at 41.3 percent and 38.2 percent respectively. Filipinos scored at 35.7 percent, Pacific Islanders 27.6 percent, American Indians 26 percent, African-Americans 23.5 percent, and Latinos 22.9 percent. 

But as usual poor students of all ethnicities and races are getting the worst of it. Dr. Antronette Yancey of UCLA, who helped research and write one of the California Endowment reports, “Failing Fitness,” said the disparity between schools in low-income and high-income communities is disturbing. The best PE programs in low-income schools were comparable to the worst in high-income schools, she said. 

There are many excuses for not delivering PE to students. Yancey acknowledged that teachers in low-resource schools especially feel the pressures of standardized testing. It is common for schools to use PE time for test review and to administer the tests. 

But James Sallis of San Diego State University, who was part of a team that prepared the second study, “Physical Education Matters,” said there is evidence that PE can improve academic study. Sallis co-authored a research report that showed that devoting more school time to PE does not have a detrimental effect on academic achievement. 

Released in 1998, the report “Effects of Health-related Physical Education on Academic Achievement,” was conducted in K-5 schools in an affluent suburb in Southern California. Students were given rigorous fitness activities and taught to maintain physical activity on their own. Control schools delivered their usual PE program to students. 

Although the teachers in the experiment spent fewer hours teaching academic subjects, student performance was not harmed, and the additional PE appears to have positive effects on achievement. 

There are many avenues for improving PE programs, according to Sallis. In researching schools throughout the state, they found many model PE programs in low-resource schools. In some cases, local health departments pay for the programs. 

Although the San Rafael City School District is not a low-resource district, it still struggles to provide counselors and employs no full-time librarians. It is a stretch to hire a teacher with a PE credential. 

In one San Rafael school with 95 percent Latinos, Principal Kathryn Gibney was able to tap the local YMCA for a part-time credentialed PE teacher, Lenda Butcher. This has brought about a cultural shift at the school, virtually eliminating behavioral problems during recesses. 

“The thing that Lenda did that was so phenomenal was set up activities at recess for every student. She taught them the rules of each game and even the history of the game so the recesses became structured. Everyone had something to do,’’ said Gibney. The students got along a lot better with each other, and were able to get more exercise. 

Besides tapping local YMCAs or health departments, Sallis said there are other ways to get money including applying for federal grants. The district, though, must be able to pay for grant writing. In addition, each school has money for in-service training that could be used to train teachers in PE. 

To bring PE and fitness to optimal levels state-wide, Yancey says, there needs to be a steady, reliable source of funding. Some even favor putting a tax on sedentary activities so that the television and movie industries would foot some of the bill. 

With the support of the California Endowment, this work is continuing to improve PE around the state. Sallis says teams are visiting the low-income schools that have good programs to see how those programs can serve as models. 

Donal Brown taught for 35 years in California’s public schools.

An incomplete paragraph appeared in Arnie Passman’s April 27 commentary, “The Peace Symbol’s Golden Year is Here.” The complete paragraph is as follows:  

“Still, through Vietnam’s War end, the anti-nuclear and Central America demos of the ’80s, and current ongoing Iraq war protests since 1990, the peace symbol has been on hand, including great multi-body peace symbols on beaches, lawns, and the creation four years ago with the beginning of the Iraq War of International Peace Symbol Day, March 17. Highly visible protests against its display have also taken place.”

The jockeying over the future direction of Oakland’s economic development in the Ron Dellums Years—how much it will continue on the path laid down by former Mayor Jerry Brown and how much it will break new ground—began in earnest last week with the release of an Oakland Chamber of Commerce study that both implicitly criticized Brown’s failures and embraced his goal of concentrating commercial development in the city’s downtown core. 

The study was immediately criticized by former Oakland City Councilmember and mayoral candidate Wilson Riles Jr. for what Riles called “ignoring Oakland’s racist development history” and for promoting “profits for millionaires” over “jobs for residents,” and at the same time, Mayor Dellums himself issued a call for the creation of 10,000 new jobs in Oakland in five years that could be interpreted as a direct dig at former Mayor Brown’s old 10K downtown residential development goal.  

The 119-page Chamber of Commerce study, commissioned a year ago, sets out four of what it calls “strategic initiatives” in “those sectors found to offer the greatest opportunity for meeting Oakland’s development aspirations.” 

The study was done free of charge by McKinsey & Company, an international management consultant firm that in the past has also done studies for the Oakland-based Policy Link nonprofit organization and the Oakland Unified School District. 

The four initiatives promoted by the Chamber study are to “strengthen Oakland’s healthcare industry while leveraging the Bay Area’s strengths in biotechnology,” to “enhance Oakland’s position as an international gateway and logistics hub” through the Maritime Port and the Oakland International Airport as well as “by cultivating an international presence to capitalize on the rise of Asian trade,” to “revitalize downtown Oakland,” and to “nourish the growth of industries in emerging niche sectors such as green industry, arts, design, and digital media, and specialty food manufacturing.” 

Saying that “retail trade is an underrepresented sector in Oakland’s economy,” representing 7 percent of the city’s employment as opposed to an 11 percent share of U.S. employment overall and 13 percent of Bay Area jobs, the study said that increasing Oakland’s retail sector provides a path for the city’s eventual “economic rejuvenation.” 

But the study spoke exclusively of enhancing retail in Oakland’s downtown section, failing to make any mention of the city’s many neighborhood commercial centers, including Chinatown, Grand Lake/Lakeshore, the Laurel, or the Fruitvale, where retail is already thriving, or the Acorn area in West Oakland or Foothill Square in East Oakland, where it is floundering. 

That was the same retail strategy—concentrating on reviving downtown while ignoring the neighborhood commercial districts—promoted for eight years under former Mayor Jerry Brown. 

Asked during a telephone news conference if the neighborhood commercial districts had been deliberately excluded from the study, McKinsey & Company’s San Francisco director Lenny Mendonca said no, but that the downtown retail development had been included as “one example.” 

But in other areas, the study sharply repudiated Brown Administration policies, though never mentioning Brown by name. 

In a section entitled “Institute Land Use Policies That Support an Economic Development Strategy,” the study said that “while most of the actual re-development of sites falls to the private sector to identify investment capital and prospective tenants, the City government plays a crucial role in establishing a regulatory framework that will clarify where certain uses of land and real estate are permitted and, more than that, where the City would like to see them.” 

To accomplish that goal, the study said that Oakland officials “should focus immediately on clarifying the City’s land use policy,” including zoning for business uses, resolving infrastructure issues, clarifying design and development standards, and updating land use classifications.”  

Those areas all languished in the Jerry Brown years, when Brown deliberately held off on conforming Oakland’s zoning code to the General Plan, preferring to let developers have a freer reign as to what types of developments they wanted to build. That often left developers, neighborhood residents, and existing business owners in confusion, unsure of what new developments would be allowed and what would have to be modified. 

One of incoming Mayor Ron Dellums’ first actions was to put the city’s Community and Economic Development Agency (CEDA) back to work to conform the zoning code to the General Plan. 

The Chamber of Commerce study also suggested that Oakland attempt to attract some of the Bay Area’s large and growing biotechnology firms, calling them one of the Bay Area’s strongest economic sectors. 

But while the Chamber of Commerce study said that “other Bay Area cities, including Oakland’s near neighbors, were welcoming biotechnology,” it said. “Oakland did not capture any of this burgeoning investment. In short, the city lacked the disciplined approach and leadership to persuasively engage with key firms and developers in the industry to make the case for Oakland.” 

While the study specifically spoke of this lack of initiative by Oakland leaders occurring during the period of the 1990s, leaving out much of the term of Jerry Brown that began in January of 1999, the study then spoke of biotech expansion in areas outside of Oakland during Brown’s term. 

The study noted that “biotechnology companies create jobs, and they create them for every educational level and in a variety of specialties across the life sciences. Genentech in 2005 employed about 3,100 people in South San Francisco. Chiron in Emeryville, recently acquired by Novartis, employs about 2,500, and Bayer in Berkeley, 1,500. People with degrees ranging from Ph.D. to terminal high school degrees are needed in biotechnology.” 

But in a column this week in the Oakland Post, a newspaper distributed in Oakland’s African-American neighborhoods, former Oakland City Councilmember Wilson Riles Jr. said the call for increased biotechnology in Oakland the “worst aspect” of the Chamber report, adding that “this smells like that same old, purely self-serving misdirection.” 

Citing a recent study that said the biotech industry involves fewer than 200,000 people nationwide, most of them “only the most highly trained and educated scientists,” Riles charged that the spokesperson for McKinsey & Company had a vested interest in promoting that sector. 

Noting that McKinsey & Company’s San Francisco director Mendonca is also an executive member of the Bay Area Council, Riles said that the council “is busy lobbying for more H1B visas so that the biotech industry will be able to import more foreign scientists. (You do not have to pay foreigners as much and they make few demands.)” 

Riles added that “since the defeat of affirmative action, very few Oakland residents will be trained at the University of California to take those few available biotech jobs,” concluding with the question that “why should Oakland promote an industry that is going to bring few jobs to residents?” 

But Riles and the Chamber study were in full agreement in another area—the promotion of green technology jobs in Oakland—with the former mayoral candidate saying that “green technology is where the future growth is in producing good jobs that are more accessible to Oakland residents” and the Chamber study noting that “Oakland should actively encourage the emerging clean technology industry. This sector is attracting intense investment activity, it creates jobs, and it aligns with Oakland’s green values, offering a double opportunity to provide work and evolve the economy toward green values and products. The timing is right as well: like biotechnology a decade ago, clean tech startups are looking for affordable locations, and they want to be in the Bay Area where the growing clean technology community is clustered. Oakland is an ideal location.” 

Meanwhile, at an economic summit held last week at the Oakland Marriott, Dellums announced the formation of an “Oakland Partnership” between the city’s government, business, and private citizen communities to produce 10,000 new jobs in the city in the next five years, with many of them expected to be drawn from the recommendations made in the Chamber study. 

The Oakland Tribune reported that members of the Oakland Partnership were expected to begin meeting later this month to start work on drawing up specific plans. Membership of the Partnership has not yet been announced. 

The use of the 10,000 figure by Dellums could hardly be accidental. 

During his campaign for mayor in 1998, former Mayor Jerry Brown began using that same 10,000 figure, announcing that he would bring in 10,000 new residents to the downtown area to attract retail development and, eventually, jobs. That goal became the signature slogan of the Brown years: the 10K Initiative.  

Before his term ended, Brown had met his goal of approving new residential development downtown to meet his 10K goal, but the resulting retail and job development floundered. In a 2006 article on Oakland developer Hal Ellis in the San Francisco Business Times, Ellis—who otherwise praised Brown’s development policies—said that the “retail vacuum is the greatest failing of the development boom under Brown.” 

It’s day six of the missing freeway link, and Berkeley is still standing. Friends have called from all over the country to reassure themselves about us—thanks, folks, but we’re just fine. 

If you’re driving from El Cerrito to the Oakland airport, it’s easy to pick up a freeway connection south via 980. Commuters through the tunnel from over the hill have figured out that they can take their usual 24-580 route into the city, as can those of us who live on the south side of Berkeley and in Rockridge or Temescal. Coming back from San Francisco is not quite so simple. Caltrans and common sense recommend a jog via the West Grand exit through Oakland city streets before reconnecting with 580 east, though a sizable number of misguided commuters seem to have instead chosen to add to Ashby Avenue’s permanent eastbound blockade, which starts at about 2:30 every afternoon. This confusion was aided and abetted by eager radio and TV newsies, who pushed the Ashby route all day Sunday. 

As of yesterday, the Chronicle was still interviewing residents on the affected streets. They quoted Oakland Mayor Dellums about the adverse health effects of 5,000 extra cars on Oakland residents. “The potential for tons and tons of air emissions into that area producing high health risks is enormous,” he said. Well, sure.  

That’s a short-term (weeks or, at the most, months) effect on his constituents, but it shouldn’t be minimized. At the same time, has anyone calculated how many home-bound cars drive east on Ashby every afternoon, even when the freeway is at full operating capacity? Or west, every morning? And how many use the Derby-Belrose corridor? Someone probably knows those numbers, though I don’t. (Department of Special Pleading: the O’Malley family has been breathing the emissions on Ashby for 34 years.)  

And here’s the next problem: The University of California at Berkeley is currently floating an assortment of environmental impact reports which collectively propose to build a number of parking spaces in the next few years which could come uncomfortably close to the same 5,000-car figure. When you add up the Gladiator Gym, the Long Range Development Plan, the Downtown Plan, the British Petroleum Building, etc. etc. etc. the number of cars scheduled to drive past our house and the homes of others is huge. And they will be permanent commuters, unlike the displaced freeway traffic in Oakland. 

And then there’s the ABAGgers—the perhaps 2,500 residents which some Berkeley city staff have been trying to claim we’ll have to add downtown to meet some mythical ABAG quota. Planning Commissioner Gene Poschman and other Downtown Area Planning Committee members have done a pretty effective job of demolishing that myth, but there’s no question that a substantial number of new units have been built and will continue to be built in downtown Berkeley. And contrary to another cherished myth, a lot of the new residents will be driving through town. Poschman cites a Caltrans study which showed that 60 percent of the people who live in “transit villages” (developments near transit hubs) drive alone to work.  

Counting all this is hard, of course, because The University is careful to divide up the plans of its several autonomous entities—the main campus, the professional schools, the research labs and the athletic events and other performances—so that it’s hard to keep track of what’s happening. In CEQA (California Environmental Quality Act) jargon that’s called “impermissible segmentation”, and it’s done all the time by UC. They usually get away with it.  

It would be nice, though perhaps too much to hope for, if Berkeley’s city officials were as concerned about the effects on our health of all this excessive new traffic as Ron Dellums is about the health of his constituents. There are ways of dealing with it, if they cared. The most interesting one is being floated by the New York City mayor, Republican Michael Bloomberg, taking a leaf from the playbook of an unlikely fellow mayor, Socialist “Red Ken” Livingston of London. It’s congestion pricing: making drivers pay to use busy streets. Automated methods of tabulation, similar to the “Fast Pass” now used for bridge tolls, make this easy to enforce. And it doesn’t have to be as draconian as the London version, which makes every car pay about $8 a day to enter crowded streets. In Berkeley, for example, we could charge a fee just for cars with solo drivers entering the downtown/university area, with exemptions if desired for neighborhood residents, parents who’ve dropped off kids already and similar categories. Incentives for car pools have been a modest success, but penalties for driving alone might work even better, and are now technically possible.  

The city of Berkeley doesn’t have any zoning control over UC expansion, but it does have a variety of ways for regulating the use of city streets, including the right to grant or deny permission for curb cuts into UC parking lots and garages. How about making collection of a parking-alone tax at campus garages a condition for granting UC’s desired curb cuts? That might increase car-pooling, but even if it didn’t the revenues could be allocated for improving public transit. Perhaps the various lawsuits now making their way through the legal system could demand this or some other form of congestion pricing as a mitigation for the adverse environmental impacts of UC’s expansion in Berkeley’s future. Just an idea—but it might make a difference. 

The Berkeley Daily Planet accepts letters to the editor and commentary page submissions at opinion@berkeleydailyplanet.com and at 3023A Shattuck Ave., Berkeley, CA 94705.  

Letters should be no more than 400 words in length; commentaries should be no more than 1,000 words in length. Deadline for Tuesday edition is 5 p.m. Sunday; deadline for Friday edition is 5 p.m. Wednesday. Please include name, address and phone number for contact purposes. Letters may be edited for length and clarity.  

BIRTH RATE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The front-page Daily Planet photo of Danny Glover boycotting UC Berkeley’s graduation ceremonies showed a UC janitorial employee who has three children. She works two jobs to support her family. Understandable. Children are expensive. Based on U.S. Department of Agriculture data, the cost of raising a child for 18 years and through a public college is $535,318. For a calculator that can be customized for a particular family situation, check out www.babycenter.com/costofchild. 

Because it is unreasonable to expect parents to afford such expense, society as a whole has an obligation to help. We all benefit from a diverse, talented, healthy, and crime-free community. The general social obligation is particularly salient in California where half of the babies born are from Latino immigrants who are young and have more than the average number of children. Unfortunately, the majority of tax revenues go to the federal government, but the majority of expenses for public services (such as education, emergency medical service, subsidized housing, prison costs) are paid at the state or local level. 

Social custom and religious doctrine that discourage contraception is, in part, responsible for toxic impact of high birth rates and over-population. Because there is a positive correlation between college education, agnosticism, and smaller families, it is important to keep tuition at public universities as low as possible. That way, the children of the janitorial employee will have a greater opportunity to enjoy a life that their mother is struggling so hard to provide. 

Robert Gable 

• 

MAZE COLLAPSE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I have seen plenty in the news about how much the highway catastrophe is costing the Bay Area in dollars. On the flip side, I would like to see what quantity of carbon emissions is being saved now that ridership for public transit has risen as a result of the highway closer. I think this is a great pressure point to show how more people can use mass transit. 

Andy Waggoner 

• 

CREEK DAYLIGHTING 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

In the May 4 Daily Planet both Richard Brenneman and John Kenyon discuss the planned transformation of Center Street, including the prospect of daylighting a portion of Strawberry Creek, an idea promoted by some Berkeley creek-fanciers. The problem with this idea is that the creek is not there to be daylighted. It doesn’t run under Center Street; it flows through culverts under Oxford, then west under Allston Way. In a related article in the May 5 San Francisco Chronicle, Carolyn Jones cites Will Travis as saying that to re-direct and elevate it would require a complicated and expensive series of pumps and pipes, especially because the underground BART station is at the end of the block. Thus, the “restored” creek would be an entirely artificial structure, in Kenyon’s words “a few yards of railed-off ‘demonstration nature’ in the middle of a busy mall”—no more natural than the Marin Circle fountain. So, if people really want a water display in the mall, why not just put in a re-circulating pond and fountain, and leave Strawberry creek where it is? 

Kenyon further points out that “on the UC campus, starting immediately across Oxford Street, there is approximately a mile of beautifully landscaped natural creek waiting to be strolled along and enjoyed,” In fact, Berkeley provides public access to natural creeks in the Rose Garden, Codornices Park, Live Oak Park, and John Hinkle Park—not to mention the larger bounty of the East Bay Regional Parks. That’s 90,000 acres of natural habitat laced with endless miles of creeks for us to explore. But I guess there will always be special interest groups in Berkeley eager to promote their little ego projects—so long as someone else is paying for it. 

Jerry Landis 

• 

GREENING DOWNTOWN 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

John Kenyon’s “Visions of a Future Downtown” (May 4) made three especially welcome points. First, regarding the Berkeley Art Museum’s planned relocation to Oxford at Center Street, he wrote, “Perhaps the most interesting program suggestion made so far was incorporation of the existing University Press building,...a City of Berkeley landmark...on the grounds that the original signatory copies of the United Nations Charter were printed there in 1945.” 

Having offered that suggestion in these pages last year (“Designing an Ideal UC Art Museum: Back to the Future,” Public Eye, Dec. 15, 2006), I’m grateful for this expert validation of its merits. If only UC would seriously consider those merits. Museum staff has yet to respond to a formal written proposal from our group, Friends of the U.N. Charter’s Birthplace—even though they’ve adopted our proposal to use the printing plant building as a projection surface. 

Second, Kenyon usefully reminded all of us who want a greener city core that “on the UC campus, starting immediately across Oxford Street, there is approximately a mile of beautifully landscaped natural creek waiting to be strolled along and enjoyed. A far cry from a few yards of railed-off ‘demonstration nature’ in the middle of a busy mall.” 

Indeed, given the huge expense, disruption, and uncertainty involved in “daylighting” Strawberry Creek for just one extra block west of Oxford, wouldn’t it be wise to instead focus on literally “greening” downtown—with amenities like an expanded tree canopy and more usable park space? 

Finally, Kenyon wisely invoked “the splendid twin-towered Federal Building in downtown Oakland, with its clever interplay of windows and heavy structure.” In fact, the whole area that Oakland designed around that Dellums Building and the nearby City Hall— namely, Frank Ogawa Plaza—is a wonderful model for Berkeley. 

Its structural design and its landscape architecture unify old and new buildings in beautifully successful ways, creating an unexpectedly welcoming heart for a rejuvenating city. At sunset, its harmony of unobstructed sunlight, glowing brick, and shining glass is simply magical. 

Michael Katz 

• 

UC-CITY SETTLEMENT 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Concerning the city’s sellout to UC in the secret settlement and the continuing litigation surrounding the Long Range Development Plan, the one big question I keep getting asked speaking to Berkeley residents is: If we do win the appeal, then what? The one liner is: Berkeleyans get a seat at the table.  

The next question is: What will I get? Not a one liner.  

Secrecy in government is wrong. You will get a better quality of life. You will re-establish the fact that even great institutions like the University of California will have to comply with the California Environmental Quality Act. The city will have to protect its residents against institutional abuses. The city will get some muscle to prevent the taking of more and more properties from the tax rolls. (The real reason we have high taxes and fees here in Berkeley.) The city will be able to insist that UC pay their fair share of the services and imposed costs that they lay upon the people who make Berkeley their home. There could be a temporary halt in the city’s continuing campaign to increase taxes and fees. There could even be improved city services. The window of opportunity would be opened for better town/gown relations. We could have more trust in what is a public trust. A message will be delivered to UC that they are beholden to the people they serve. Even great universities, as demonstrated elsewhere in the United States, have a real responsibility to the community that hosts them. Just maybe, if you are a property owner, and if the City Council has any backbone, you may even save several hundred dollars per year on taxes and fees. And last but not least, just sitting at the table will give us (the people) enormous power over any negotiation. 

How much and when? If everyone who currently calls Berkeley home contributes just $5 now, we can see this through the Supreme Court. 

How? Make your check out to the: “Law Offices of Stephan C. Volker” and send it to: 

Law Suit Fund 

c/o Dean Metzger 

1 Hazel Road 

Berkeley, CA 94705 

Thank you very much, 

Carl Friberg 

Lead Plaintiff in Friberg vs. Bates,  

RG 05230715 

www.berkeleyblue.org 

• 

CHERRY PICKING 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Ms. O’Malley’s May 4 editorial cherry picks a single initiative from the comprehensive scheme touted by New York Mayor Bloomberg for his city, intended to make New York greener and greater by, among other items, adding 265,000 housing units by 2030, to accomplish “the most dramatic reduction in greenhouse gases ever achieved by an American City.” 

Here at home, ABAG’s regional growth projections are intended to protect more than 83,000 acres of greenfield lands that would be converted to urban use by 2020 if current Bay Area development trends continue. Adding housing to Berkeley is part of our own regional grand scheme for a sustainable future. 

Also, the number of new parking spaces proposed by the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab and UC Berkeley are available to all. Under the settlement agreement reached with the City of Berkeley on the 2020 LRDP, UC Berkeley’s proposed net new parking, excluding the replacement Underhill parking structure scheduled for operation this fall, is 1,270. (The entirety of the settlement agreement is on the web through lrdp.berkeley.edu.) The total net new parking proposed by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory is 500 (www.lbl.gov/LRDP/ faq.html). 

Jennifer McDougall 

• 

JEFFERSON SCHOOL  

CENTENNIAL 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

This year, Berkeley’s Jefferson Elementary School celebrates its 100th birthday! We welcome the entire Berkeley community, and especially Jefferson alums, to join us on Saturday, May 12, between 11 a.m. and 3 p.m., to celebrate 100 years of a great school during our Mayfair. Having the celebration coincide with the Mayfair is no coincidence! For many years, the Mayfair has been one of our most important events, featuring performances, a carnival, a benefit drawing, a silent auction, delicious food, and a beautiful plant sale. Lots of fun for the entire family! This year, we are planning a number of Centennial-related activities in addition: 

• Assembly honoring Jefferson community, past and present, at 1 p.m. 

• Beginning at 1:30, a showing of “Junior Traffic Patrol” by Les Thompsen (Jefferson was one of the first schools with traffic patrols) followed by a slideshow of photos and memories 

• There will also be continuous displays of intriguing photos and memorabilia, a preview of the new centennial tile mosaic and centennial garden, tours of the old Jefferson School (now Crowden), and the benefit drawing supporting school activities. 

Please join us! 

Joann Sullivan, Historian 

Jefferson School PTA (1996-97) 

Chris Hoffman, Centennial Historian 

Jefferson School PTA (2006-07) 

• 

A BITTER IRONY 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The use of the Reagan Library for the Republican presidential debate is a bitter irony amid the current Iraq war and battles with right-wing fundamentalist jihadists. This is because the 1980s Reagan-Bush administration, which included Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, was a strong supporter and financier of the Saddam Hussein dictatorship and fundamentalist jihadists, like Osama bin Laden’s terrorist network, whom Reagan aided with billions of dollars. The Reagan Library itself contains pictures of Reagan graciously hosting jihadists in the White House. Pictures of Reagan’s emissary and recently Bush’s Secretary of State Donald Rumsfeld smiling and negotiating with Saddam Hussein are in the National Archives. 

Reagan’s support of Hussein and bin Laden’s forces accompanied Reagan’s support of brutal dictators around the world such as Noriega, Somoza, and Pinochet in the Western Hemisphere, Pol Pot’s ruthless regime in Southeast Asia, and still-standing Middle East oil dictatorships. Reagan’s legacy represents hypocrisy and betrayal of democracy around the world, whenever such betrayal benefits powerful oil cartels and wealthy elites. This dangerous legacy should be rejected in favor of honest policies that support real democracy, not rule by the rich, powerful, and dangerous. 

Patrick T. Keilch 

• 

PRAISE FOR THE PLANET 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Thanks so much for publishing Ruth Rosen’s superlative article “The Care Crisis” in your May 1 edition.  

Rosen is the author of the ground-breaking book The World Split Open: How the Modern Women’s Movement Changed America. She was a columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle until they fired their only two feminists, her and Stephanie Salter. 

In your same issue you printed an article about a Mexican journalist who is exposing child porn rings. How could we get along without the Planet? 

Nancy Ward 

Co-Coordinator,  

Oakland/East Bay National Organization for Women 

• 

VIOLENCE JUNKIES 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Bob Burnett is right that we have become “a nation of violence junkies,” and that today’s conservatives embody this problem. But his condemnations of the ideas that “the best government is no government” and “the market will provide” miss the point. Conservatives do not favor a free market or smaller government. They have expanded the federal government by about 50 percent since Bush took power. They have given us the worst war and police state since the Cold War and have also increased domestic spending—the prescription drug benefit was not just corporate welfare but the biggest expansion of entitlements since the Great Society! Government is, as Gandhi put it, organized and concentrated violence. We shouldn’t look to state violence to solve society’s problems, whether in Iraq or at home. Everything the government does it ultimately backs up by throwing non-compliers in its inhumane institutions called prisons. The ripples of aggression from government looting and murder poison civil society. 

Conservatives don’t believe in smaller or no government, and probably never did. From Nixon and Reagan to the Bushes, they have long been the true promoters of more government and higher taxes—many of which are hidden, such as with inflation, and hurt the poor disproportionately. The answer to random acts of violence is not more state violence, bigger budgets or more cops. Nor are individual liberty and the common good at odds with each other, for only through freedom can peace and community thrive.  

Anthony Gregory 

• 

UPDATING AN OLD FABLE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Remember the story of the blind persons who from touching an elephant tell what kind of animal it is? Each gets it wrong because each mistakes a small part of the creature’s anatomy for the whole. Every report I’ve read or heard about the nature of our engagement in the Middle East reminds me of that.  

Because of carelessness or intent, public discourse is blind to two obvious contextual facts: 1) A military engagement is not necessarily a war. Our mighty forces in Afghanistan and Iraq are occupiers, not warriors. 2) We’re not wanted. Iraqi people of every stripe, unequivocally and understandably, want all armed foreigners to leave their country.  

The reasons our leaders and the press call it “war” is to distract allies from our desire to control that region, and to make our military presence there acceptable to voters here.  

The reason our leaders and the press ignore Iraqis’ pleas to leave is to blame their government, the government we created, installed and protect, for not controlling the sectarian violence, violence enabled by our armed presence.  

To end a war implies surrender, irrespective of timetables or benchmarks. To end an occupation we simply have to withdraw.  

How do you say “Yankee go home!” in Arabic? 

Marvin Chachere 

San Pablo 

As part of the Measure G process, Berkeley should consider policies to give employees the option of down-shifting economically by working less. Though it is not much talked about, choice of work hours is one key to dealing with global warming. 

Today, the economy must grow in tandem with increased productivity, regardless of how much people actually want to consume. Because of improved technology, the average American worker produces about 2.3 percent more in an hour each year— which means that a worker produced eight times as much each hour in 2000 as in 1900. As long as work time remains constant, total output per worker grows by 2.3 percent a year, doubling every 33 years. 

Reductions in greenhouse gas emissions through conservation and cleaner fuels are likely to be overwhelmed by this constant increase in output. To stabilize world climate, we must reduce greenhouse gas emissions dramatically during this century, and there is little or no chance of doing this if per capita output grows eight-fold during this century. An alternative to this hyper-growth economy is to give people the option of reducing their work hours. This opens the possibility of using increased productivity to work fewer hours, rather than to produce and consume more. Yet most Americans today have no choice of work hours. Almost all good jobs are full time, while most part-time jobs have low pay and no benefits. The economist Juliet Schor found that, if the average American male worker reduced his hours by 20 percent, he would reduce his earnings by 50 percent, because part-time workers have lower wages and fewer benefits. (The average female worker would reduce her earnings by a bit less, because women are more likely to have worked part-time during part of their lives, and so they are already discriminated against.) To give people the opportunity to choose to work shorter hours, we need to: 

• End discrimination against part-time workers. By law, part-time workers should have the same hourly earnings as full-time workers and should have equivalent benefits, seniority, and chance of promotion. The European Union already protects part-time workers from discrimination. 

• Create high-quality part-time jobs: The Netherlands and Germany have laws saying that, if a full-time employee asks to work shorter hours, the employer must accommodate the request unless it will be a hardship to the business. As a weaker but still effective policy, we could give businesses tax incentives to their employees the option of working shorter hours. These policies would give Americans the option of working less and consuming less. Even a relatively small change could make a big difference. The average American works 1,817 hours a year, and the average West European works 1,562 hours a year. A recent study by Harvard University economist Mark Weisbrot found that, if Americans worked as few hours as West Europeans, it would lower our energy consumption and carbon dioxide emissions by 20 percent. More important, Weisbrot found that, if the developing nations imitate the American model of work hours, world temperatures will rise 4.5 degrees by 2050, all else being equal. But if the developing nations imitate the European model of work hours, world temperatures will rise by 2.5 degrees—a very substantial difference caused by work-time alone, apart from other policies to reduce emissions. 

Moving to a European model of work hours would not involve any great sacrifice. On the contrary, I think that West Europeans are better off than Americans because they have more time for their families and their own interests, rather than having more freeways and bigger SUVs. 

Berkeley took a leading role in promoting the civil rights movement and feminist movement during the 20th century. Now it is time for us to take a leading role in promoting the movement toward shorter work hours and simpler living that is a political imperative during the age of global warming. 

Charles Siegel is the author of The End of Economic Growth. 

The official title is California Assembly Bill AB 1458, also known as the Boater Safety Education Bill now working its way through the various legislative committees in Sacramento. But if you look carefully at what it will do and who it will affect, you might be tempted to give it a different name. 

AB 1458 began life in 2006 when the Department of Boating and Waterways published a study recommending mandatory boater education for powerboaters, and proposed language for the legislation. 

Forty-six states have already passed mandatory boater education laws in some form. In nearly all of these states, only the operators of powerboats with over 15 HP are required to carry a license or certificate to prove they have passed a basic boating safety course. In California’s version, there would be a gradual phase in affecting younger boat operators first. The course and test would be inexpensive and they would be available online. 

So far so good, but when industry lobbyists and “stakeholders” got through with this proposal, the bill was left with a giant loophole for rental boats, including rental PWCs (“PWC” is for personal watercraft, or “Jetski” in the incorrect vernacular.) As now drafted, boat renters would be forever exempt from nearly all of the education and certification requirements called for by AB 1458. All a renter would have to do is submit to an oral briefing by the rental operator, view a map, sign a form, and be issued a temporary California Boat Operator Certificate good for 30 days. What are they smoking? PWC operation is the most dangerous form of boating known, and rentals are the worst of the worst. DBW’s own statistics put the risk of a serious accident per hour of PWC operation at 24 times the risk of serious accident in a kayak or canoe. 

But the industry lobbyists—and RBOC (Recreational Boaters of California) seems to be going along with them—insist that the only acceptable boating education law is one that continues to allow walk-up customers with no prior boating experience to rent a PWC or other fast powerboat on the spot. 

Not only that, but these same lobbyists have repeatedly attempted to extend the reach of AB 1458 so that it would also apply to small sailing dinghies, kayaks, canoes, rowing shells and even river rafts. Yes, us kayakers really need to learn about fire extinguishers, fuel vapor explosions, propeller contact injury and water skiing rules. If the industry lobbyists and RBOC have their way, you will need a Boat Operator Certificate to paddle a safe-as-a-house sit-on-top kayak around a protected lagoon. You will not be able to legally let your friends try it out unless they too take the course, pass the test, pay the fee and carry the certificate. But if they want to rent a Jetski and go 50 knots right next to the local swimming area, that will be just fine and dandy with the State of California as along as they are briefed and checked out by the same company that’s renting them the machine. No oversight or verification by an objective agency required, thank you. 

This is about like letting car rental companies issue temporary drivers licenses to new drivers renting cars. And applying the certification requirements to kayakers is about like making pedestrians get drivers licenses to cross the street. But that’s how things work in Sacramento. 

The industry is hurting, they see kayaks as the only growth sector, and if the powerboat business is going to take a regulatory hit then by gosh those kayak dealers are going to take the same hit before they steal any more market share that rightfully belongs to the thrillcraft. 

Of course, if anyone really wanted to make California waterways safer, diverting prospective powerboat buyers and renters to non-motorized forms of boating is exactly what they would advocate. By the DBW stats, switching from a PWC to a kayak reduces risk of a serious accident by 96 percent. 

Can education help also? Probably, but only by small increments. California’s boating fatality rate over the last five years is 5.46 per 100,000 registered boats. In all the states that have had mandatory boating education laws for 20 years or more, the accident rate is 4.03 per 100,000 registered boats. This is a risk reduction of 26 percent. Florida, another state with a large year-round boating population and a mix of inland and open water boating similar to California’s, has a higher fatality rate (6.41) despite implementing a mandatory program in 1991. 

It’s not hard to understand where the industry is coming from, but why is RBOC on the side of restrictive legislation? They have a long tradition of fighting off nearly everything that inhibits boating in any way, shape or form, from holding tanks to fuel tax. Perhaps they are concerned that something much worse will come from the federal level, and want to get this passed now on their own lenient terms. 

As someone in the business of reconstructing boating accidents, I have nothing to fear from AB 1458. 

Paul Kamen is a naval architect who serves on the Berkeley Waterfront Commission. 

Should Berkeley’s City Council continue to rubber-stamp the Board of Library Trustees’ (BOLT’s) choice for trustee at its Tuesday May 8 meeting? Or, will the council hold off on re-appointing the incumbent trustee, Susan Kupfer, so that the ad hoc Committee for Sunshining Selection of Library Trustees, which the council itself set up, can continue and conclude the work it has begun? 

The library is a public institution that should be run in a public way. The City Council should control the trustee application and selection process from start to finish, in contrast to the custom of BOLT selecting a nominee and the City Council approving their nomination without considering any others. 

What happens now and in the next few months will affect the library for many years to come. That is because current Trustee Kupfer’s first term expires May 13, and Trustee Laura Anderson’s second and final term ends Oct. 1. Two years ago the library trustees selected Trustee Ying Lee (and the City Council appointed her) because of a strongly expressed need for someone who could relate to the community. Trustee Lee is persevering and is reflecting the needs of the community, including the library staff. But a minority of one on a five-member body is not enough. 

The library has been through several years of strife. A recent union report revealed that Berkeley Public Library is still short staffed. Money spent on malfunctioning technology could be better used to hire staff, extend library hours and buy books. The status quo must be changed. We need new direction. The council should allow trustee applicants to compete with the incumbent!  

With a BOLT vacancy looming on May 13, the City Council, on March 13, voted for a recommendation submitted by Councilmembers, Anderson, Moore and Mayor Bates to set up an ad hoc Committee for Sunshining the Selection of Library Trustees. Councilmembers Betty Olds and Kriss Worthington were appointed to serve on the committee, with Trustee Ying Lee and Library Trustees Board Chair Susan Kupfer. The committee’s mission is “to establish a more open and transparent process for selecting library board members.” 

Information about a library trustee opening was buried at the bottom of an April 13 lengthy press release titled “Ad Hoc Committee Works on Public Process for Potential Library Board Trustees... .”  

The last two paragraphs contained a call for applications for an upcoming library trustee vacancy and said that the application had to be submitted just five days later on April 18. Also, all interested applicants “must” be in attendance that very night at the Board of Library Trustees’ (BOLT’s) 7 p.m. meeting. 

Despite the extremely short application period, two candidates applied. One withdrew before the April 18 meeting. The other, Pat Cody, co-founder of Cody’s Books, met the deadline and attended the April 18 BOLT meeting as mandated. Yet Pat Cody’s application was not discussed at the meeting and she was not even given an opportunity to speak. The library trustees voted 3-1 (Kupfer recused) to recommend the re-appointment of incumbent Trustee Kupfer to a second four-year term.  

We think there is a problem in having an incumbent (Chair Kupfer) sitting on a committee which is set up to establish a more open and transparent process for selecting future library trustees.  

The Committee for Sunshining the Trustee Selection is making progress in achieving a more open and democratic process. We urge the City Council to allow this committee to complete its work in the next few weeks by postponing consideration of re-appointment of the incumbent, Kupfer, and if necessary, giving her a temporary extension of her term for the next few months.  

Please attend the City Council meeting tonight at 7 p.m. and/or contact the City Council, asking it to postpone consideration of re-appointing the incumbent so that the Committee for Sunshining the Trustee Selection process can finish its work. 

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

AN OPPORTUNITY  

FOR BERKELEY 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The Berkeley community has an opportunity to contribute to a regional, East Bay response to the collapse of the MacArthur Maze this past weekend. The contribution would be to support use of the Ashby Avenue exit as a detour for traffic heading eastbound from the Bay Bridge to I-580. If the Ashby Avenue exit is closed to local traffic and a temporary connector is paved from the northbound ramp to the southbound flyover ramp, then traffic heading east on I-580 from the bridge would continue east on I-80, loop around on the Ashby exit ramps, then return to the open I-580 ramp from westbound I-80. 

From an operational standpoint, moving 30,000-plus vehicles per day through city streets in West Oakland is likely to be a nightmare. Even though traffic would be slowed, with proper lane announcements eastbound I-580 traffic could move more quickly and steadily via the Ashby Avenue exit detour. And since the exit would be closed to local traffic for the duration of the reconstruction project, none of this traffic would enter Berkeley proper. In addition, it would prevent the use of Ashby Avenue as a detour for Highway 24 traffic. In the long term, offering the Ashby Avenue exit for a detour would give Berkeley a powerful argument for funding its alternative transportation projects. 

Perhaps the strongest reason to support this detour option is environmental justice. Sure, I’d like to see every driver who uses the Bay Bridge switch to public transportation because of the collapse of the Maze. But until such occurs, using the Ashby Avenue exit as a detour for I-580 traffic will have two important environmental impacts for the region as a whole. First, traffic detoured via Ashby will not need to use city streets. Traffic detoured via Grand Avenue will add 30,000 cars to local streets and make West Oakland neighborhoods nearly unlivable. Second, the type of stop-and-go city street traffic that will take place on the Grand Avenue detour will use more fuel and contribute to higher overall pollution levels than if traffic used the Ashby Avenue exit. 

Share the impact. Reduce the impact overall. Don’t just shove it off on West Oakland. 

John Egan 

Buffalo, Wyoming 

• 

TEABAG, SCHMEABAG 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

In her rant of wrong assumptions, Ms. Torrence utterly missed the whole point of the story. For one thing, I think 12-step recovery is awesome. For another, I routinely pay a higher price for my concoction, usually in the San Francisco Financial District Peets branches I frequent. And I’m absolutely stumped as to why she assumes that people who like stronger brews must habitually fail to tip. The outrageousness was that no one, under any circumstances—never mind that the young man was supposedly holding what’s known as a “service” position—[and lest Ms. T go off on another screed, let me assure her, I’ve held many of those myself, and in fact have a strong spiritual practice in which service writ large is considered sacred...] no one should ever speak to another human being in such a derogatory fashion. This fellow was not just inappropriate, but inflammatory—“old, lonely and desperate” is a paradigmatic example of hate speech against older women. 

When I saw him in the vicinity of these meetings, I retrospectively realized it was a safe bet he’d been either “on” something to incite such aggression, or desperately jonesing for it. All the free coffee in the world means nothing when what’s needed and required is an apology, and, to use the language of “recovery,” an amends. In which the insult is acknowledged and atoned for. Not paid off or bribed away. 

Clearly Ms. Torrence, having no use apparently for civility in society, is a fish out of water in such a conscious, aware, savvy city as Berkeley. 

Eileen Sheryl Hammer 

• 

TELEGRAPH AVENUE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

So many smart and interesting people are trying to brainstorm solutions to the various problems Telegraph Avenue has been experiencing. Area residents, merchants, property owners/managers, city officials, advocates for homeless, police—all want basically the same thing in the end- a crowded, fun-filled retail strip with lots to look at and experience. Everybody wants it to be safe, colorful, user-friendly, and with a strong sense of identity. As one of the few busiest retail strips in Berkeley, the city should be keen to keep it healthy and help provide whatever a city as rich in resources as Berkeley is can provide. What was once a destination for tour busses, thousands of tourists, and a huge regional draw, is now little more than a pedestrian corridor for often uninterested/busy students and barely enough locals to keep the place looking vaguely populated. A small handful of mentally ill people have had a huge impact on Telegraph’s destiny. Each day dozens, if not hundreds of shoppers/strollers decide not to come back due to encounters with these sometimes rude and scary folks. For some reason, city staff appear to have no way to enforce politeness/civility among this small population. Everybody on Telegraph knows who these people are, and would love to find a caring way to help them find a better way to be than to play out what is often a power trip by someone who knows no other way to express their personal power! I know one particular guy who’s on Telegraph daily, who’s never hurt anybody that I know of, but has scared the living sh*t out of many, many a shopper, student, and local worker.... and this has been going on for many years. 

Cannot this brilliant community/city find a way to deal with this first-in-a-series of hurdles between here and a beautiful future for Telegraph ? On “community policing”—should not any merchant expect to be able to get to know the beat officers responsible for watching over their district without having to “fight” for that right? Instead, the merchants and residents are being treated like that’s some kind of ridiculous notion. Every business district should expect police that are actually interested in building rapport with the locals, right? What about the simple idea of providing the officers with cell phones for their shifts, why is that so controversial? 

Beyond trying to build a sense of community amongst the various players and the image of a safe place to be, there’s improved street lighting, access to parking/transportation, public restrooms, and most importantly, attracting new businesses that will help define the Telegraph Avenue of the future—all of this requires not only the heartfelt interest of everybody involved, but some serious support from the city government. 

Marc Weinstein 

• 

OFFENSIVE LANGUAGE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I have been proud reader of the Planet for years now. I am a disabled person (spinal cord injured for 20 years) and a disability rights activist for much of that time. 

I have been proud specifically of the Planet’s printing all of my letters to the editor when I have addressed disability rights and the paper’s occasional use of language that is offensive to disabled persons. I have been impressed by the position the Planet has taken with respect to accessible transportation. As a Jew, I have been proud of the position you have taken with respect to Israel and its occupation. 

I have been additionally proud that Becky O’Malley, as editor, came out in favor of the warm water pool in Berkeley and that the Planet was the only progressive media source that was not primarily disability rights focused to take a position favoring Terri Schiavo’s parents’ appeal to keep her alive and that you stated you felt the disability rights community were the only ones, in your view, who “got it” about what the true issues were in her case. 

So I was disappointed that in the April 6 edition, in your editorial piece you chose to use the euphemism “turning a blind eye.” This is extremely offensive to all disabled persons (as is “turning a deaf ear” or “crippled by such and such”). I was surprised given my sense of what I read as your support of disability rights over the years. 

This was coupled by a letter to the editor in the same issue by Dmitri Belser, executive director of the Center for Accessible Technology, speaking to the lack of coverage of issues pertinent to the disability community in the Planet (the fact that Berkeley received recognition as the “most accessible city in the United States” and the Planet made no mention of it). 

I’m going to venture a guess that you do not have someone on staff who has a disability beat assigned to him or her and no one who edits pieces for correct (or politically correct) language use whether it be over gender or disability status. Since Becky O’Malley is editor in chief, I’m assuming this responsibility falls on her. 

Please try to be more cognizant of language use by those on your staff and those whose articles you print. I realize that you have no jurisdiction to change language use in a letter to the editor. But in other areas I believe you do. 

Ruthanne Shpiner 

• 

CHAOS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

One man, out of touch with the country, vetoes troop withdrawal legislation thus thwarting the will of tens of millions of Americans. Is democracy great or what!  

Bush got us into this mess in Iraq and now vetoes any effort to get us out. What’s going on inside the mind of George Bush? 

President Bush: “Iraq timeline could cause chaos.” It already is total chaos in Iraq. 

Ron Lowe  

Grass Valley 

• 

POLITICIANS WITH AMNESIA 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Its amazing I have worked for more than 25 years, own a home in east Oakland for more than 18 years pay taxes among other things. I tried to secure employment via the city of Oakland and was denied employment. Not because I was not qualify . Now I hear the new mayor from Washington expressing his concern that felons are not given jobs opportunities after they did time. I am not a felon I am unemployed no meds and have to decide health care or welfare. I hope the next time they need votes or posting their signs in my home they do not ring my bell. I have given up on politicians with amnesia.  

Dennis Foreman 

• 

REVIVE THE LIBRARY 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

A letter to our honorable politicians: 

As a library patron since 1977 I implore you to respect the nobility of your collective offices and stop this childish and thoroughly irresponsible Bush inspired mockery of the due process and fair judgment of the pressing needs of our community library system after its wholesale slaughter by the carpetbagging Jackie Griffin. You need to get back to playing by the rules or you all will be carted off to a guillotine somewhere where the enemies of the people meet their just deserts.  

All library patrons want an orderly and democratic process to determine the board of Trustees. Not a flim flam Roberts Rules of Order bamboozle. Look beyond your paychecks and the hustlers who give you campaign donations for the purchase of your souls and think like human beings instead of Republicans.  

We are watching and we know all about you and are quite disgusted with this latest turn of events regarding this Susan Kupfer affair. Reject this odious maneuver and regain our respect. Sensible due process to allow qualified candidates the ability to compete is an American value that apparently most of you have abandoned. Get it back, and don’t waste any time, because we are very tired of having to fight with every stupid decision that you folks are making regarding the Berkeley Public Library. Stop this crap and become caring human beings once more.  

Mike Jordan 

• 

A NEW BAD PRECEDENT 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

A fast-tracked new building under construction in the East Richmond Heights has taken several houses’ views and is causing a huge controversy among surrounding neighbors and residents. On a recent Sunday morning, the house was two stories high and by the afternoon it had grew to an appalling three stories. This has become a great issue in the community because none of the neighbors surrounding the gigantic house has ever been notified of its construction. In addition, the new house overlooks neighboring properties and could be considered an invasion of privacy. It is apparent that the builders are trying to outrun any actions of the neighbors as well as the county. The outraged neighbors and residents have been calling county authorities and have visited Contra Costa County Building Inspection. As a result, a neighborhood meeting is being planned to avoid the situation. We encourage local attention and support on this issue. If three-story homes blocking several other residents’ views is allowed here, it could set a precedent for this whole area—a very bad precedent. This is not the issue of the East Richmond Height anymore. It is an issue for all the areas of the Bay area with great views. 

Mimi Matsumoto 

Richmond 

• 

VOCABULARY OF EVASIVENESS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The best thing on TV these days is the seldom watched C-span channel which has “hearings.” Now that the Democrats are in the majority, they are holding a hot flurry of investigations on six years of Republican naughtiness. And what intrigues me most and irritates me most of all, is the new vocabulary of “evasiveness.” Recent examples, Gonzales responded with phrase, “I cant recollect,” almost 500 times in his soft Texanese. Or the Tillman scandal with testifiers for the military saying essentially, “that someone, somewhere in the chain of command (Lord knows where) might have or haven’t done something inappropriate....bla-bla-bla.” But the phrase which most enrages me to apoplexy is the hypocritical: “I take responsibility for...” Doctor Phillism has entered the world of politics with a vengeance! “Taking responsibility for...” has the panache of nobility, of integrity, of 12-stepism, of pop-psychotherapy. The phrase has become enormously popular for persons on the hot seat. In politics it manages in a tricky, clever and hypocritical way to escape the smell of corruption, of stupidity of immorality and just plain greed. I would much prefer those who “take full responsibility” to say instead truthfully and honestly: “I’ve been corrupt, or, “I’ve ashamed of what I’ve done,” or, at least: “I am a truly greedy bastard.”  

Robert Blau 

• 

TAKING ISSUE  

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Regarding Sweena Aulakh’s May 1 commentary on fighting obesity in Berkeley by creating more high density development in downtown Berkeley: 

Although I take issue with every single point in Ms. Aulakh’s case for creating more high-density development in downtown Berkeley, I would like to focus on changes to the built environment as a way of fighting the overweight and obesity epidemic which continues to skyrocket in California; along with the number of people with chronic conditions associated with overweight and obesity such as heart disease, type II diabetes, certain cancers (e.g. breast, colon), osteoarthritis, and respiratory conditions. 

In Berkeley and its environs, right now we have a chance to fight obesity by re-opening the centrally located Berkeley Iceland. Over the years my family, friends, and myself, as well as countless seniors who have ice skated in childhood or earlier adulthood, have frequented Iceland and enjoyed every aspect of it. We skate for hours and burn calories, and create whole body toned muscles. The social aspect embodies everything Berkeley stands for: diversity, friendliness and helpfulness of the staff and everyone; an inexpensive place to have parties and go for nonviolent socializing every Friday, Saturday and Sunday. (I can’t bear to use the past tense.) 

During the week and in the summer, the sessions and camps provide a place to build real skills and artistic appreciation—for music, dance, and exercise—using peer-to-peer mentoring, and one-to-one and group instruction. 

If you combine swimming at the YMCA and local school and public pools with ice skating at Iceland, you will combat obesity and gain cardiovascular protection and isometric strength, as well as calorie combustion and a streamlined well-toned and muscled body. Yes, no one can deny that biking and walking are wonderful, but so is iceskating—and it is uniquely social and perfect for rainy days and nights.  

Please write Mayor Bates and UC Berkeley (whose hockey team needs to play at Iceland) to try to find the money to buy and reopen Iceland and maintain it as a safe place for neighbors and other users. Check out www.SaveBerkeleyIceland.org and send them donations. 

Just think of all the car exhaust pollution this will save, if we don’t have to drive to ice rinks in Oakland or elsewhere. 

Please remember that increased density, no matter how you slice it, breeds more cars, more pollution, more overuse of our limited resources, and creates cement jungles. Density’s original argument was to have urban infill and distant greenbelts: Did you ever go to the greenbelt? By the way, Brentwood and other formerly alluded to greenbelt destinations are now giant amorphous exurban enclaves. It is hard enough to get to Tilden Park by public transportation or walking or biking. But Iceland, for the bulk of Berkeley and its surroundings, is just a hop, skip and a jump away. 

Stay trim: Re-open Iceland! 

Wendy Schlesinger, Chairman,  

Gardens on Wheels Association  

• 

TAKING ACTION 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Today I watched a hearing on C-Span. I didn’t turn it on at the beginning, so I do not know what agency was holding the hearing.  

The subject was the failure of Iran to stop supporting terrorism in neighboring countries, primarily Israel.  

Testimony was given by the head of the New York Employees Retirement Fund who said he had $90 billion to be invested, with some of it going to Iran. Companies who have investments in Iran include Halliburton and Shell Oil in Holland. 

This caused me to decided to publicize the matter, using the tactic I have used while handing out leaflets since 1950 at San Francisco State College. I made two sandwich board signs saying” Shell Supports Terrorism.” The letters were over three inches high, which is large enough to be read about 150 feet away by persons with 20/20 vision. 

I went to the Shell station at the corner of Marin and San Pablo avenues in Albany. I put on my sandwich boards and went into the office and introduced myself and told the lady what I was going to do. 

I then went out to the northeast corner and stood where persons in passing vehicles could read my signs. I stood there about 40 minutes, turning to be seen the most while the signals changed. I would estimate 150 vehicles passed by during this time. About 10 percent beeped at me and many of them waved their hands. 

I then went back into the office and asked for the name of the station manager. I told her I expect to go to other Shell stations tomorrow. I plan to send this report to the manager and any person within Shell whose name I get from him. I hope this message reaches the top management of Shell. I think they will examine the sales of their gasoline in this area. 

Charles L. Smith 

• 

IS ANYONE LISTENING? 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The Bush administration seems to be drawn to killing and being killed, not themselves but our brave young people in the military. Perhaps the hierarchy should go to the front lines. If they thought they would have to their attitude would change. It’s much easier when it’s someone else they are sending to war. 

Attacking Iran would be another huge faux pas. A diplomatic approach must be taken with Iran. Hasn’t Iraq been bad enough? Do we want to increase regional and global tensions? 

Dialogue and diplomacy, not war, is what the Bush/Cheney crowd needs to learn quickly in order to increase global security. The American people do not want to attack Iran. Is anyone listening? 

Shirley Taylor 

The issue of cell phone antennas and how the city of Berkeley deals with them is a perfect illustration of what Becky O’Malley was referring to in her article, “We’ll Have to Make Our Own Sunshine”( Daily Planet, April 27). In it, she advocates transparency in government. I first heard about Patrick Kennedy’s application for a permit to put up potentially dangerous cell-phone antennas in my neighborhood about eight months ago from a neighbor. I received no notification or warning from city staff, which was, and is aware of the many studies that indicate potential harm from the RF radiation that they emit, and I live in the immediate block. If there were a posting on the door of Kennedy’s Storage building, where he wants to put these antennas, it was small and not noticeable to the neighborhood. Essen-tially, we found out about the application for a permit by accident from one of the workers who was installing equipment for the cell-phone antennas before any legal permit for them had been issued. What hubris! 

The neighborhood started educating itself about RF radiation, and decided it was not an acceptable pollutant in our neighborhood. Then, we discovered to our horror that there were already 14 other antenna locations within a half mile. While the planning department sent us a map of where these antennas are located, it still has been unable or unwilling to tell us how many antennas are at each location. Are there three or 33 at each location? Do the numbers at each location keep growing, due to the ill conceived notion that allows for placement of new antennas at a site once there is even one placed on a building? Who is checking emission levels to test whether they are still within FCC limits (already 100 times less protective than Switzer-land’s). Who is monitoring these legally required inspections? To my knowledge, the city has never conducted an independent check on the emission levels to be sure cell companies were being honest. I want to scream, “Where is my tax dollar going if not to protect my health and safety?” 

But, Blessed Be. Last January, the Zoning Adjustments Board did the right thing and voted to reject a use permit on the basis that South Berkeley does not need any more of these antennas. Now Kennedy, Verizon and Nextel are appealing their decision to the City Council. There is so much smoke and mirrors when dealing with the city that it is easy to get discouraged. Kennedy has suggested that he wouldn’t be able to get out of his lease with the telecom companies even if he wanted to. What lease could possibly exist since there never has been a legal permit issued for these 12 antennas? Are these rumors floated to make us feel powerless and get us to give up? We are often advised by people to get ourselves a lawyer. Isn’t the city legal staff our lawyers, paid by our tax dollars to defend us, the people of this city, against unfair encroachment on our lives, even if that encroachment is from big and powerful corporations? 

The appeal will be heard by City Council Members this Tuesday, May 8. We will see whether they have the courage to uphold the decision of its Zoning Board. 

Laurie Baumgarten is a Berkeley resident.

I have been in the KPFA News Department for eight years. I was one of the journalists arrested in the newsroom on July 13, 1999. I don’t do much reporting now; I board op the Evening News several times a week because it pays. But it doesn’t pay much. I am scheduled for 11 hours a week and generally take on requests to fill in during holidays and vacations as the opportunities arise. I have no benefits.  

So it is with great exasperation that I see in the Daily Planet’s April 24 edition Mark Sapir’s commentary about KPFA. Not that I totally disagree with him. KPFA should not resist advocacy journalism; FOX certainly doesn’t. But while various people argue about what should and shouldn’t be on the air, and who says or does what at a local station board meeting, a greater point is being missed: Pacifica does not talk the talk or walk the walk as a social justice institution in the way it operates. Pacifica takes the listeners’ money on a pretext of progressivism but treats the workers as badly as any of the corporations we report on during the Evening News. 

Another fundraiser is nearly upon us. Listeners will be asked to donate to KPFA (or KFCF) to the tune of nearly $1 million. But, in fact, the money will go not to KPFA but straight to the Pacifica Foundation. Despite whatever bits of internal political control certain people within KPFA may have, and despite the fact that some people believe that KPFA is or should be “community-controlled,” the true power, legally and practically, rests with whoever runs the Foundation, which doles out listener contributions back to the stations and for whatever projects it sees fit. You may think you’re donating to KPFA’s well-being. But while you have contributed generously, KPFA says it doesn’t have the money to pay former operations engineer and interim general manager Jim Bennett for the classes he has been giving on Sunday nights to train board ops. Nor can it afford to pay him to upgrade training manuals and videos. Why? Because the Pacifica Foundation holds the purse strings. 

The fact that we have a labor reporter will be a pitch point. He has done several stories about city and county governments passing ordinances against “big box” stores. One of the arguments against these stores is that they pay so poorly the workers must rely on government assistance. I was hospitalized for two days in March, and as a consequence, have over $25,000 in uninsured medical expenses to deal with. That’s an amount over twice last year’s income from all sources. I now have medical insurance for treatment going forward—the Alameda County Medical Services Plan for the medically indigent.  

Our labor reporter also covers stories of the struggles of workers who seek to organize a union. Pacifica kicked the volunteers out of KPFA’s union over 10 years ago, and sought and won a decision from Bush’s National Labor Relations Board that volunteers were not entitled to be in the WBAI union. KPFA relies on a lot of non-unionized labor—volunteers and part-timers like myself and other board ops who don’t get enough hours to be eligible for union membership and benefits. Department heads who would be considered supervisors in most other shops are union members. But most of the rank-and-file workers are not. Strange union. 

He also covers stories about companies who have been accused of making employees work off the clock, or not paying overtime. Just before writing this, I received an email from a department head looking for a volunteer board op to take over a weekly one-hour-long shift from someone who has gotten a paid job at another station. Our hourly pay is only $18.76, but the station is looking for a volunteer. Being a board op is a significant responsibility; we have to see to sound quality, handle technical problems, interact with callers, and see to Federal legal requirements, especially keeping obscenity and indecency off the air. This last responsibility has become even more important now that the FCC has raised its fines to a level that could jeopardize KPFA’s viability if we are fined over just one utterance. But not all the board op shifts are paid. Why not? Why does a 58-year-old institution based in a major metropolitan area still require so much volunteer help for its day-to-day operations? It would be one thing if this were a startup, or a small station in a village somewhere. But KPFA is part of a network worth hundreds of millions of dollars and the station itself raises millions each year. We’ve paid off the debts incurred by the “rogues” and we’ve even paid the mortgage on the building. So where is the money—your money—going? 

The Pacifica National Board has been debating a proposal to create a $5,000 a month consultancy for board member Rob Robinson, a holdover from the rogue board. As my mailbox fills with unpayable medical bills, the thought of this self-dealing raises my already too-high blood pressure. Did I, and perhaps some of you reading this, get arrested in 1999 for this?  

The Pacifica Foundation ought to be ashamed that workers have left this “peace and social justice institution” because they could not afford to work here, that someone in the news department quit after going homeless, and that someone else the news department quit because he was faced with homelessness; that second person called me to ask if I could take care of his computer if indeed he went homeless, that’s how close he came to it. It should be ashamed of the fact that Mary Berg, a programmer of over 20 years standing, needed the generosity of the community to get sight-saving surgery. The Pacifica Foundation should be ashamed that Bonnie Faulkner of Guns and Butter, one of the best fundraisers KPFA has, lives on her life savings, having dipped into her retirement money a decade early to keep the show going. It should be ashamed that I’ve worked here for eight years and am now drowning in medical debt. Is any of this progressive? Is any of this social justice? 

But some of you should be ashamed, also, those of you reading this who believe in the volunteer model of radio, who think somehow it’s purer that way and that what’s wrong with KPFA stems from the fact that there are people there who have full-time jobs. Those of you who want to see us keep covering striking grocery workers and teachers and janitors, but who object to us making a decent living from our work, should be ashamed of yourselves. Why should anyone believe “another world is possible” when progressives fund an institution that is operating in ways similar to those of our adversaries, but the level of concern over workers seems to grow only in proportion to the distance those workers are from the KPFA building? What is so progressive about caring that people half a world away live on less than two dollars a day, if you don’t also care that the people in your home area who bring you that information can’t pay their bills? 

We all have our opinions about who and what should be on the air. But that is not the purview of the local station board. It does have the power—and the legal responsibility—to oversee expenditures. It should follow the money, all the way to the top. 

Kellia Ramares co-founded the show Guns and Butter with Bonnie Faulkner. 

It is close to 10 years ago now that I sat in the waiting room of the Berkeley Free Clinic waiting for my interview. I had already submitted an essay stating my reasons for wanting to be a part of the medical collective there, and had carefully considered that it would mean training there every weekend, all weekend, for six months. I was ready for something in my life to make sense, and working as a waitress wasn’t quite getting me there. While I waited, I studied the posters on the walls, mostly various artists’ interpretations of the BFC dragon logo with their motto printed beneath it: “Healthcare for people, not profit.” “Sure, I can get behind that,” I thought. 

I had no idea at that time to what extent the BFC would shape my future, and how important the philosophy that drives it would become for me. 

The BFC gets a lot of foot traffic from the local homeless and uninsured community; people moving through seeking peer counseling, anonymous STD testing, referrals, or basic medical and dental care. Most folks from around here have heard of it and know about what a great community resource it is. What may not be as well known is that the clinic attracts a diverse population of volunteers as well, many of them with aspirations of becoming health care professionals someday. 

This explains the necessary interview process to become part of the BFC collective. Several people I knew at the time that I was applying couldn’t understand why anyone who wanted to commit that much time and energy, for FREE, would need to be interviewed. But the reality is that medical school is extremely competitive, and any bauble one can find to adorn her/his resume is invaluable. It really looks good on paper to have been a part of something as well-known and respected as the BFC. But the medical collective is protective of the integrity of the clinic’s philosophy, and anyone who wants to become a part of it has to be ready to turn the paradigm of modern, western medicine inside out. 

What does that mean exactly? First and foremost, it means that clients are treated with respect and not rushed through their appointments. Clients are seen as their own primary caregivers, with the clinic “medics” providing support, education and empowerment to help people help themselves. By design, the medics are laypeople, wearing street clothing and going by their first names. If they don’t know the answer to a client’s question, they say they don’t know, and they help the client find the answer, using the clinic’s library. It bucks the model of the health care professional holding all of the intellectual capital, making patients feel apologetic for taking up their precious time and often leaving their appointments with questions unanswered and issues unaddressed. 

All of this seems so intuitive, so basic. That was the impression that I had when I first began working and training at the clinic. Unfortunately, having worked by now in a variety of settings with professionals on all ends of the spectrum, from doctors to nurses to midwives and homeopaths, from small community clinics and birthing centers to large hospitals, it is clear to me how rare this approach to the provision of care is. The language of communication, equity, respect, education and empowerment certainly receives lip service within the health care community, and there are efforts by many to infiltrate the profession with these ideals. But there is no better time to integrate these fundamental concepts than at the beginning of one’s education, which is what the BFC is for many. 

Though I left the clinic years ago and am now pursuing a career as a nurse midwife, the Berkeley Free Clinic’s philosophy will always be at the heart of my practice. I am sure that I am one of many fledgling health care providers who thank the BFC for indelibly marking our minds and hearts with the true meaning of client-centered care. Writing this is one of many ways I hope to give back to the BFC for all that I learned there, and I encourage anyone reading this to offer your support in any way you can. You never know, it may alter the course of your life. 

Amelia Baurmann is a nursing student at UC San Francisco.

Last week eight Democratic presidential candidates met in South Carolina for a debate. The candidates were senators Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Joseph Biden, Chris-topher Dodd; former senators John Edwards and Mike Gravel; Gov. Bill Richardson; and Representative Dennis Kucinich. Although most of what was said during this so-called debate was no more than “campaign sound bites,” it is important to look at what was said and also what was unsaid to see the alternatives the Democratic Party is offering to replace the Bush regime in 2009. 

Clinton was the first of the candidates to speak. In discussing the invasion and continued war in Iraq, she stated, “We have given the Iraqi people the chance to have freedom, to have their own country … it is past time for them to demonstrate that they are willing to make the sacrifice, the compromise that is necessary to put together a unified government and provide security and stability without our young men and women in the middle of their sectarian civil war.”  

In what alternative universe does Clinton live? “Freedom?” Four years ago a massive invasion of the country was launched by the Bush regime. Today some 200,000 U.S.-led forces, “allies,” and contract mercenaries occupy “free Iraq.” “Sacrifice?” More than 650,000 Iraqis have been sacrificed on the altar of U.S. imperialism. If that is not enough sacrifice, maybe Clinton can take a look at the pre-war sanctions enforced by the United States which led to more than a million deaths of Iraqis, about half of the deaths being children. But then Clinton voted for the war and her husband was president while hundreds of thousands of Iraqis died under the sanctions regime so maybe looking back is not a good idea for the good senator. And the sectarian civil war to which she refers is a direct result of the invasion and occupation. 

But let’s move on to see what other issues were raised in the debate. What concerns did Sen. Obama have? Early in the debate he stated his compassion for the military occupiers of Iraq. “We have seen our Army and our Reserves and our National Guard all being stretched to a breaking point. And that’s one of the reasons why I proposed that we’re going to have to increase the size of our ground forces, so we can stop the sort of rotations that we’ve been placing them on, which have been putting enormous strain not only on the soldiers themselves, but also their families … The men and women in uniform have performed valiantly in terms of overthrowing Saddam Hussein and giving the Iraqi people an opportunity to bring their country together.” In a recent foreign policy speech Obama proposed increasing the size of the Army and Marines by 92,000 and also getting the support of other countries when fighting wars of choice. 

So Obama wants to increase the size of the military so that “our” poor military will not be over-stretched when the U.S. launches wars of choice. He also prefers more allies in his wars. In effect he is proposing a stronger “multilateral imperialism” in place of the Bush regime’s “unilateral imperialism.” And this is a good alternative?  

And where is Obama’s compassion for the suffering of the Iraqi people? He feels sorry for those who have brought on this suffering. I guess the deaths and horrors imposed on Iraqis do not count. He forgot to mention it in the debate if it does. But then he did mention the “opportunity to bring their country together” that the U.S. invasion has given the Iraqi people. This is like Hillary’s freedom to “have their own country” sentiment. But those ungrateful Iraqis are just not showing their appreciation for these opportunities and the freedom the Bush regime has brought them. What ingrates. 

At one point in the debate there was actually real debate. Representative Dennis Kucinich challenged Senator Obama about Obama’s previous statements outside of this debate referring to Iran. Obama has made it clear that he thinks that all options, including the use of nuclear weapons against Iran, are on the table with respect to keeping Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. (Other candidates including Clinton and Edwards have expressed similar views.) In response to Kucinich, Obama said, “I think it would be a profound mistake for us to initiate war with Iran. BUT have no doubt, Iran possessing nuclear weapons will be a major threat to us and to the region … I think it is important for us to also recognize that if we have nuclear proliferators around the world that potentially can place a nuclear weapon into the hands of terrorists, that is a profound security threat for America and one that we have to take seriously.” (Does this remind you of Bush’s statements before he launched the attack on Iraq?) 

At that point former Senator Mike Gravel pointed out correctly that the United States is the “greatest violator of the Non-Proliferation Treaty…We signed a pledge that we would begin to disarm, and were not doing it. We’re expanding our nukes. Who the hell are we going to nuke? ... Tell me Barack … who do you want to nuke?” Obama replied, “I’m not planning to nuke anybody right now, Mike, I promise you.” So we are safe from Obama for “now.” But then he is not the president and right now he does not have the power to nuke anyone. 

One of the topics that did not come up at the debate was the impeachment of Bush. Although all the candidates claimed they were against indefinitely continuing the war waged by Bush, not one of them talked about impeaching the president who initiated the war. But Kucinich has proposed impeaching VP Cheney. But when the moderator asked who would enter into Kucinich’s effort to impeach the VP no one raised their hand. 

Kucinich pointed out the hypocrisy of the candidates that claim to oppose the war, but yet recently voted to give the Bush regime even more money for the war than he asked for in his budget. He said, “I think it’s inconsistent to tell the American people that you oppose the war and, yet, continue to vote to fund the war. Because every time you vote to fund the war, you’re reauthorizing the war all over again … The Democrats have the power to end the war right now, and that’s what we should do.” He also went on to expose candidates like Clinton who say they voted to authorize the war because they were misled by the Bush regime. He stated, “I don’t think that it’s sufficient to say that if we had the information at the beginning that we would have voted differently. That information was available to everyone.” Millions around the world opposed the war before it was launched. They knew the Bush regime was attempting to deceive the world. 

Kenneth J. Theisen is an Oakland  

resident.

There is a way out of Iraq. There is one strategy which has not yet been tried, which may survive a Senate filibuster and possibly even a presidential veto. 

Congress can invite the Iraqi people to vote in a referendum about whether they want an American withdrawal. Or more precisely, Congress can vote a pledge that the United States will respect the results of an Iraqi referendum. 

Polls in Iraq show that strong majorities of Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds want a timetable for withdrawal, and that a majority say they would feel safer with the United States gone. 

It is likely that a Congressional vote to respect an Iraqi referendum will unite all Democratic factions and even win over an increasing number of Republicans who will never vote for a pullout or a fund cutoff. The idea of a referendum changes the debate from “cut and run” or “deserting the troops” to one of fulfilling the democracy which we say we are in Iraq to create. 

Even the Bush administration would feel pressure not to oppose the embodiment of its own rhetoric. Already between 55 percent of Americans (Rasmussen Poll, Feb. 2) and 66 percent (Harris Interactive, Dec. 22, 2006) say they want a withdrawal. What would happen to those figures if people began to ask, “Do the Iraqis want us there?” and “Do the Republicans want to know, or are their protestations about Iraqi democracy just empty words?” Many Republicans would find it easier to take credit for the growth of democracy in Iraq. 

The prospect of a referendum in Iraq would also be the fastest way to reduce violence there. In December 2005 most Iraqi militias observed a truce for the parliamentary elections. Would they not do the same to facilitate a credible, internationally monitored vote to end the occupation? We have to remember, however, that Iraq is, or should be, a sovereign nation. The United States cannot force Iraq to hold a referendum. But if the United States Congress passes a bill that we will respect the results of an Iraqi referendum, this will unleash a new political dynamic within Iraq, especially now that Iraqis have started peacefully marching for withdrawal. There will be a clamor which will reach across ethnic divisions, as Sunni, Shiite and Kurd demand that their “democracy” apply to the one paramount question: can their nation be free of foreign occupation? And they will be joined in their demand by the people and governments of most of the world. 

A referendum movement will reinvigorate the peace movement, and will be supported by hundreds of millions of people, in the United States and around the world. And the American congress will recognize that an internationally monitored referendum may be the only way that the United States can recover its reputation as a respecter of democracy. 

Next Monday, May 7, the Berkeley Peace and Justice Commission will consider a resolution supporting United States respect for an Iraqi referendum. If you want to help support this resolution, you can be there: 7 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center, Hearst and MLK, second floor. 

Laurence Schechtman is a Berkeley resident and activist.  

“So, Jane,” someone just asked me, “what have you learned from your trip to Iraq?” 

What have I learned? That coming back to Berkeley was a let-down? I always thought that Berkeley was the hot-gossip epicenter for the entire universe but now everything here seems to fall flat. Who even cares if the same tired old feuds are still going on and X isn’t speaking to Y and both X and Y are still going out of their way to avoid Z? 

And when I went to my housing co-op’s board meeting the day after I got back and watched the same old group of self- 

interested slobs compete to see who could benefit most from being on the board of directors at the expense of the residents and HUD, I just yawned. 

Did the Fox News interviewer cut me off in mid-sentence when I stated that the assault on Iraq by Bush and Cheney was as criminal an act as that shooter’s assault on Virginia Tech? Yes he did—but did it really matter all that much? In Iraq, I had looked directly into the terrified eyes of a woman all covered with blood. After that, who can worry about the niceties of being polite on the air and pretending that the men who run our country are anything but pond scum? 

Sure I had a good time in Iraq. Cruising the Green Zone in a humvee, flying by helicopter over the countryside, meeting top-quality reporters, being impressed by dashing young officers and enlisted men who knew what they were doing and did it well? And eating dessert at the D-FAC! What’s not to like? 

But the bottom line is this: The same shroud of sadness that hangs over Virginia Tech these days also hangs over Iraq. 

And right now I am feeling like Lady Macbeth. 

There’s got to be a better way to solve human conflict than to blow everybody up. 

Sure, America has to pull its troops out of Iraq. It has to—but not for the deeply moral reasons that I would feel so proud of my country for honoring. Nope, we gotta pull out for a more practical reason. We can’t afford it!  

Currently, America is like some college kid who’s been sent a new credit card in the mail and, holding it in his hot little hands, is now drooling over the possibility of using it to buy a new Mercedes-Benz. Sure, it’s a lovely car. Sure the kid would love to own it and drive it happily for the next umpteen years. But can the kid afford it? Will his new credit card allow him to buy it? No. End of story.  

Why has no one in America yet realized—aside from possibly Harry Reid—that we cannot afford to continue to stay in Iraq? All of us pay our bills and balance our checkbooks every month. We all know the facts of life. If you ain’t got the cash, they cut off your electricity. Can America afford to continue to pay the credit card bill on Iraq month after month after month? Ask the USSR for the answer to that one. We are going to have to get out. But I digress. 

Without American troops, Iraq may or may not sink into chaos. The whole Middle East may or may not sink into chaos. Terrorists, as a result of the U.S. troop withdrawal, may or may not arrive on our shores and start blowing up things here too. Life’s a crap shoot. Dookie happens. But so does good stuff. So does good stuff. 

Are we so absolutely certain that if we don’t go on killing people in Iraq and across the globe that our world will fall apart? 

I’ve been to Iraq. It made me feel unclean. And I want to feel clean again. 

Berkeley resident Jane Stillwater recently returned from a trip to Iraq. To read her blog on the subject, go to http://jpstillwater.blogspot.com.

There aren’t lots of them around, but many are in bloom now so it’s a bit easier to spot them: silk oak, Grevillea robusta. Their leaves have a distinctive profile, a bit like an exaggerated oak-leaf shape, verging on the fernish; I suppose that might account for the name, but the Aussies have a habit of calling any old thing some kind of “oak”—casaurina is “she-oak” for example, and that genus has foliage that looks like pine needles.  

Look for a tree with gray bark, floppy ferny leaves about as long as your hand, and orange flowers, probably up high in the tree. If you have the flower in hand, you’ll see it’s actually scarlet and yellow, an odd long brush of curled flowerets like a row of inquisitive cartoon ants.  

The Grevillea genus stems from a clan with a habit of producing weird flowers. It’s a protea, if you don’t mind—one of that family that includes those strange silvery South African plants with big blossoms like the offspring of an artichoke and a cactus. I find myself groping for similes to describe this stuff, because it’s practically extraplanetary to look at.  

The family’s actually a respectable old Terran one, though from when the Earth wasn’t Earth as we know it, quite. It’s one of those Gondwanaland groups, like araucarias—monkey puzzle and bunya-bunya trees and such—and the particular distribution of those groups over the world is one of those mind-boggling signatures of continental drift.  

No, really. Imagine discovering that the reason you were born where you were born was that your ancestors had traveled there without taking a step, but by riding the ground they stood on while it surfed the Earth’s mantle for eons. The idea that life forms are older than the ground they stand on or the acre next door messes with the usual pictures of planetary history we tend to have in our heads. You can meet similar temporal disjunctions on the east slope of the Sierra, looking from recent volcanic-glass mountains and underwater instant-hot-tub vents toward the ancient bristlecone pines in the White Mountains just to the south.  

Or, what the heck, go to the Big Island of Hawai’i where islands of vegetation stand among barren lava flows. Take Joe and me along, please. We can all look for silk oaks there; the species is in use for landscaping, shade (as in India, Sri Lanka, and Brazil, for tea and/or coffee plantations), and sometimes timber. It’s getting a bit invasive there, though; uh-oh. 

Other grevilleas are more shrubs than trees. You’ll find some of them here and there around us in garden settings; they tend to be drought- and heat-tolerant, shearable for hedges, and decent looking.  

I myself dislike those shrubs strongly, but it’s a personal grudge. When I was a practicing pro gardener with a few accounts over the hills in Contra Costa County, those were about the meanest, prickliest, itchiest buggers I had to mess with, and lots of them were on slopes where I could barely keep on my feet without grabbing something. Not much to grab but a fanged bush. Ow.  

No, gloves didn’t help much. Somehow the thin needly leaves found the seams and that gap at the cuff. As I said: mean.  

If you get close to one of those, though, look—carefully—at the flowers: maybe stranger even than silk oaks’. Art deco snails with periscopes.  

grows fast—not an unmixed blessing—and sheds lots of leaves and twigs; it’s the sort of pet a large drooly dog might be. Ideally it lives in a spot where the dropped leaves can be left to compost where they land, as mulch. It flowers more reliably in warmer places like Hawai’i and south Florida.  

It also has the distinctive root system that typify its family: proteoid lateral roots, short, dense, and good at using scarce nutrients in poor soils by extracting those nutrients from their mineral matrix.  

So if you have a warm rocky spot at the back of a sizeable garden, this might be the tree for you. Frankly, you and your garden’s animal commensals would be better off with a native, but I couldn’t blame anyone who got a good look at a silk oak’s flowers for falling in love with them. 

Photograph by Ron Sullivan: At the top of this silk oak in downtown Berkeley, you can  

see its flowers. If you're preternaturally sighted, you can see a lesser goldfinch too. 

Ron Sullivan is a former professional gardener and arborist. Her “Green Neighbors” column appears every other Tuesday in the Berkeley Daily Planet, alternating with Joe Eaton’s “Wild Neighbors” column. Her  

“Garden Variety” column appears every Friday in the Daily Planet’s  

East Bay Home & Real Estate section.

One of the reasons it can be so important—and valuable—to have several media outlets covering the same issue or event is that individual observers tend to have their own take on things, and it is only by reading more than one account—several, if possible—that you can get a clear account of what’s really going on. Of course, that doesn’t happen when our good friends in the media go chasing after each other’s tails, yard-dog fashion, without trying to figure things out for themselves, but that’s another story. 

Anyway, Alex Gronke of Oakland’s online NovoMetro newspaper, seemed to feel that the most important news coming out of Mayor Ron Dellums’ town hall meeting at Frick Middle School in East Oakland last week was the mayor’s relationship with the media, naming his blog entry on the subject “The Mayor versus the Media.” 

“He used the occasion to briefly mock the news media for obsessing on artificial timetables like the ‘First 100 Days,’” Mr. Gronke wrote, adding the lament that “everyone has a place at [Mr. Dellums’] table—everyone except local reporters. They are the one group it’s still OK to ridicule. When Mr. Dellums speaks of reporters, it’s either as a risible bunch of nudniks, who just don’t get it, or as a malicious force working against the interest of good people. The pastor who swore Mr. Dellums into office asked God to protect the new mayor from reporters.” 

Some background. When reporters from the area’s two daily newspapers—the San Francisco Chronicle and the Oakland Tribune—tried to contact Mr. Dellums for stories they were doing on his first 100 days in office, he refused to talk with them. Last week, at Frick, he explained why. 

“A number of people in the media wanted me to talk about my accomplishments in 100 days, as if 100 days is somehow magical,” Mr. Dellums said. “Why not 98 days? Why not 105? It’s just an arbitrary timeline.” The mayor then went on to say, “I never was a media guy. I’ve always been about doing my job, never about ‘skinning and grinning’ in front of the camera.” 

But Mr. Dellums fails to give himself credit. He is, actually, the ultimate “media guy,” using the media as well as any Bay Area politician of our time, and better than most. We saw that on its best display last year in the long, masterful run-up to the announcement that he was going to be a candidate for mayor, holding the media and the public at bay for months, pretty much stopping most of the other campaigns, keeping us all in suspense until the dramatic Laney College rally which he ended by saying, “If Ron Dellums running for mayor gives you hope, then let’s get it on!” The end of that announcement was drowned out by thunderous shouting and applause, a standing, dancing, glad-handing ovation, one of the most electric political moments in modern Oakland history, and every media outlet in the area covered it. Was it political theater? Of course it was. And done by a master of the craft, one who studied with the big boys, in Washington. 

In many ways, Mr. Dellums is reminiscent of another California politician, Ronald Reagan, who also was critical of the press, but used it to his advantage. And last week’s Frick Town Hall meeting was a familiar page out of Mr. Reagan’s old playbook, in which the politician decides that rather than filtering his message through the media, he will “go over the media’s heads” and speak directly to the people. 

And so, at Frick, Mr. Dellums reported to his constituents a long list of actions taken by his administration in its first four months in office: preparing the new two-year budget (presented this week to City Council), filling up long-neglected appointments to boards and commissions including ensuring that some of those appointments are local youth, seeking money for the city from state, federal, and private sources to supplement local funds, announcing that close to a half a million dollars has already been promised by philanthropic sources, some of that to set up a “major” HIV screening and testing program in Oakland, meeting with State Senator Don Perata to try bring some of last year’s infrastructure bond measure projects—and its resultant jobs—to Oakland, setting up a Public Safety Director in the office of the mayor to coordinate disaster preparedness (that one mentioned in Mr. Gronke’s blog entry) so that Oakland in an earthquake doesn’t duplicate New Orleans and Katrina, securing agreement from the Alameda District Attorney to deputize two attorneys from the Oakland city attorney’s office to be able to bring criminal charges in “quality of life” issues such as problem liquor stores, abandoned cars and houses being turned into drug-dealing and drug-use centers, and graffiti, announcing that his office was close to meeting a goal of 1,000 jobs this summer for Oakland youth, including 200 within city government itself, working on the already-announced reorganization of the Oakland Police Department as a first step towards “community policing” and putting a dent in Oakland’s violent crime problem, saying he was trying to set up a personal meeting with Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger (and who doubts that he will be able to?) to both address the issue of gang violence and to ask that the governor put money into Oakland to make this a “model city” for economic advancement, announcing an economic summit being held this week in Oakland on Oakland’s economic development. 

“This is not about a hundred days,” Mr. Dellums said. “Everyone in this room knows we are not going to solve these things overnight.” 

Whatever one may think of Mr. Dellums or his programs, or whether they think these are attainable goals or simply “pie-in-the-sky” old-school rhetoric, this was not the speech of someone who has spent his first four months in office sleeping his time away, or with his mind on other things. The mayor spoke without notes, ticking off initiatives and accomplishments one behind the other, rarely calling on staff for details or help. 

Later Mr. Dellums listened patiently to a long string of citizens coming up to the microphone to voice concerns or complaints, looking each one in the eye as they did, offering personal replies or assurances when he could. For those used to Council meetings in which some Councilmembers often seem to be drifting during the public comment sessions, it was a welcome change. 

Equally impressive was the fact that much of City Hall’s top brass was also brought along to East Oakland for the meeting. There was no head table, and so department heads from the Police Department to CEDA sat amongst the crowd of East Oakland citizens or stood along the side walls when chair space ran out. And so for residents of the East Oakland neighborhood where Frick is located—who are used to seeing their Councilmember, Desley Brooks, but few other city workers or officials other than the police patrols—the gathering alone was the beginning of the fulfillment of Mr. Dellums’ campaign promise that he was going to run an inclusive administration, leaving no community out. For neighborhoods virtually ignored by former Mayor Jerry Brown while he spent most of his efforts on building a new neighborhood in the downtown area to attract non-Oakland residents, the importance of having a mayor who returns after the votes are counted and the campaign is over, not to ask for anything but simply to report on what he has been doing, cannot be overstated. Politics, theater, whatever, Mr. Dellums’ Frick meeting will long be remembered along Foothill and Bancroft and up and down Seminary and Havenscourt, and the streets in between. And that will buy the mayor a lot of good will—and time—in neighborhoods where the local media is not so favorably looked on. 

And that, actually, is a good deal of the point of what the mayor is doing with the media. 

Like Mr. Reagan before him, Mr. Dellums voices a low opinion of the media, in part, because it is a sentiment shared by many of his constituents, particularly in communities like Deep East Oakland, out past the High Street divide. Just as many citizens in these communities feel like that city has ignored them in the past, so, too, they believe that the media has ignored them as well, except to play up the bad things. 

And so, rather than the quick and easy conclusion that Mr.-Dellums-must-not-be-doing-nothing-because-we-ain’t-seen-nothing-that-he’s-been-doing, the media should pay closer attention to what is actually going on, both in the Dellums administration, and out in Oakland’s neighborhoods. 

Does this constitute an endorsement, on my part, of all of the things Mr. Dellums has been doing, or a call for my friends in the media to lay down and simply let the mayor have his way? If that’s what you think, friends, you’ve missed the point. For Oakland residents, what Mr. Dellums has provided is still mostly promises, and the proof in the pudding, as they say, is always in the eating. So we will see what comes of all of this. But, at least, in the first four months of his administration, Mr. Dellums has already demonstrated that he has significantly raised the level of standards of the mayors’ office over what it was after eight years of Jerry Brown. If we in the media want to keep up and do more than just sit by the side of the road tossing little pebbles at the windows of the passing parade, we need to step up our own game, as well. 

All of us.

John Hopkins Spring, the developer of Thousand Oaks, always knew how to attract attention. On December 23, 1915, World War One was raging in Europe, and the newspapers were reporting that British losses at the Battle of Gallipoli had climbed to 112,921. But the war did not make top headline in the Oakland Tribune that day. 

That place was reserved for Spring, who had just announced that he was leaving his wife, Celina, for a younger woman and abandoning his famed Arlington Avenue mansion for the Alcatraz Apartments, a residential-commercial building he owned at 3315 Adeline St. 

Born in San Francisco, Spring (1862–1933) began his career as a street contractor. Shortly before the incorporation of the Key Route transbay ferry system, he allied himself with Frank C. Havens, president of the Peoples’ Water Company, and with Francis Marion “Borax” Smith, acting as land agent in large purchases of suburban property at the time they were launching the Realty Syndicate. 

The 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire triggered a rapid increase in the price of Berkeley real estate. Spring, who had acquired vast tracts, became very wealthy very quickly, with a reputed net worth of $3 million. His holdings comprised most of the land in Alameda County north of the Berkeley line, extending from the hills to the bay. He founded the Spring Construction Company, owned a quarry, and was a director of the Western National Bank of San Francisco and of the Berkeley National Bank. 

Throughout his life, Spring evinced keen interest in architecture and landscaping. His Oakland home, a stately Italianate Victorian at 2711 Fruitvale Ave., was situated on 13 acres that boasted groves of ancient oak trees, cultivated arbors, meandering walks, lawns and flower beds, a Japanese tea garden comparable to the one in Golden Gate Park, a large swimming pool, four fountains, several tennis courts, a shooting gallery, windmills, and a rivulet spanned by rustic bridges. 

In 1910, after Spring had subdivided Thousand Oaks and was committed to building his home there, the residents of Fruitvale and surrounding neighborhoods petitioned the Oakland city council to include $90,000 in a proposed bond issue in order to purchase the Spring property and turn it into a public park. Like many splendid ideas, this one went nowhere. The property ended up being subdivided into small lots, long since built up. No vestige remains of what was once described as an “earthly Eden.” 

If Spring was troubled by the fate of his old home, he didn’t make it known. Ever active, he was now planning his new Eden on 16 acres in Thousand Oaks. The terraced gardens were laid out by Mark Daniels even before construction began on the enormous concrete villa designed by John Hudson Thomas. 

And Spring didn’t stop with his own estate. As each of his daughters was married, he built the new couple a house in the vicinity. Of daughters the Springs had no shortage. Celina brought two from her first marriage and had four more by Spring. The eldest, Catherine Warfield, married laundry company executive Lester K. Wells but soon divorced him to forge a union with Charles Percy Murdock, who worked for the Realty Syndicate. The two settled next to the Mark Daniels home on Yosemite Road, building a handsome half-timbered house designed by John Hudson Thomas. 

Between the Murdocks and Indian Trail lived the second daughter, Frances Warfield, with her husband, Robert C. Newell. Their residence, an English-style manor house with parapet gables, was designed by William Knowles (who had designed the Alcatraz Apartments for Spring in 1906). Newell sold Thousand Oaks real estate for his father-in-law—first with partner William H. Henricks, then with William C. Murdoch (no relation to Catherine’s husband). 

A third daughter, Gertrude Spring, was an early groupie. At the age of 15 she eloped with George Friend, a comic actor of the Liberty stock company, known as the “Willie Collier of Oakland.” The match met with the severe disapprobation of Gertrude’s father, but eventually Spring forgave the couple, gave them a house at 597 Santa Clara Avenue, and made George a partner. George picked up where Newell had left off as agent for Spring’s properties. 

In March 1914, a newspaper ad selling Thousand Oaks properties began with an interview in which John Spring was asked, “How much property is controlled by your companies?” Spring replied, “It will perhaps give you a better idea of the magnitude of this enterprise when I tell you that we have macadamized 50 miles of streets in properties. In other words, the streets if stretched out in a straight line would reach from Berkeley to San Jose. The sidewalks, which are on both sides of the streets, would reach to Monterey.” 

Gertrude wasn’t the only Spring child to elope. She was followed by the Springs’ only son, Frank, who ran away, if only briefly, with Avis Sterling, niece of Frank C. Havens and sister of the poet George Sterling. Spring built them a house at 749 The Alameda, and Frank joined George Friend’s firm. 

The fifth sibling to marry and settle in Thousand Oaks was Anne Spring. Her bridegroom did not sell real estate; he made it. Noble Newsom was the scion of an architectural dynasty, son of Samuel Newsom, designer of Eureka’s famed Carson Mansion. Anne and Noble were given a lot on Yosemite Road (then Lovers’ Lane), across the street from the Sills’ Villa della Rocca. Noble and his brother Sidney designed the “Honeymoon Cottage,” as the house is known to this day. 

The Newsoms married just a month before John Spring left his wife for Genevieve McGraw Ecker. At the time, Celina Spring was traveling abroad. In her absence, Spring deeded the mansion and close to 1,200 lots in north Berkeley and El Cerrito to his Regents Park Land Company, using the power of attorney he held for her. She returned from Honolulu on Dec. 27, 1915, and the following day filed a lawsuit to annul the transaction. 

In Honolulu, Celina left her daughter Dorothy, who was indicted on December 24 for manslaughter after striking a woman while driving a car and failing to come to her aid. Two and a half years later, John Spring would settle a suit brought against him by the victim’s husband. 

Spring married Genevieve Ecker in 1917, one hour after his divorce was finalized. At the end of the same year, the Spring Mansion was sold to Cora Williams, who turned it into a progressive school. In 1918, Celina married her first husband’s brother, publisher of the Baltimore Daily Record. The World War slowed down the pace of real estate sales, and in 1919 the Berkeley-Thousand Oaks Company, having acquired the tract at a low price, held an auction sale to dispose of the remaining lots. 

Spring and Genevieve had by then moved to a mansion at 2340 Gough Street, San Francisco, where their son Jack was born in 1918. Spring would soon build a new mansion in Los Gatos. In 1922, Genevieve opened a fashion shop at 2340 Gough in partnership with Clara Sckolnik, a Russian designer. Owing to Genevieve’s shenanigans, the business lasted less than a year. Madame Sckolnik sued Genevieve for failing to divide the profits with her and opened an independent shop at another location. 

The Great Depression was not kind to Spring. Relatives reported in 1932 that he was now “broken in both health and fortune” and “trying to recoup financially through road building down the peninsula.” In June of that year, Spring obtained an interlocutory decree of divorce from Genevieve, claiming that for many years “she had treated him as a daughter would a father,” refusing to “give him wifely affection.” At the time, Spring was nearing 70, while his wife was 46. 

The Springs were later reconciled, and he died in 1933, leaving Genevieve his entire estate. Perhaps he was not quite as financially broken as suggested, for his death ignited a legal battle between his former wives over the estate. The matter was adjudicated, but a new drama ensued in 1937. Spring’s sister, Charlotte Montgomery of San Francisco, petitioned the courts to remove Jack from his mother’s custody, charging that Mrs. Spring was unfit to care for him, having “long received treatment as a narcotic addict.” This led Genevieve to slash her wrists with a knife. She died in San Francisco in 1950. 

Houses and gardens in the Thousand Oaks neighborhood will be open on BAHA’s Spring House Tour this Sunday, May 6, between 1 pm and 5 pm. 

Daniella Thompson publishes berkeleyheritage.com for the Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association (BAHA). 

[Photos] 

Photo: Murdock house.jpg 

Caption: This house, designed by John Hudson Thomasw ,as John Spring’s wedding present to his step-daughter for Catherine and her husband Percy Murdock. (Daniella Thompson) 

Photo: Indian Trail.jpg 

Caption: The bucolic Indian Trail leads from Yosemite Road to The Alameda.. (Daniella Thompson) 

Photo: Newsom house.jpg 

Caption: The embowered “Honeymoon Cottage” was the first home of Anne Spring and Noble Newsom. (Daniella Thompson) 

Photo: Tunnel Rock.jpg 

Caption: Tunnel Rock on Yosemite Road forms the backdrop to the Newsom cottage. (Daniella Thompson) 

Word is that the “recommendations” and “suggestions” from the agriculture officials about the recently discovered infestation of the light brown apple moth (Epiphyas postvittana, hereinafter LBAM) has grown into a state-declared quarantine.  

This pest is so inconspicuous that it took a retired entomology professor to notice what had blundered into his blacklight trap. Now that the hunt is on, specimens have turned up as far south as Monterey County. As of last week, about two thirds of captures have been in a small area there; the rest were mostly in Marin, San Francisco, western Contra Costa and Alameda counties, with scattered finds as far east as Danville.  

Aside from flying moths that turned up in some of their 11,000-plus pheromone traps, inspectors had found caterpillars and pupae in one San Francisco retail nursery and two production nurseries in Santa Cruz County. They treated that stock with chlorpyrifos.  

The California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) said a pending federal order will require inspection and certification of all nursery stock and host commodities – produce, flowers, other plant material—from the quarantine area, which is pretty much what the state DFA has declared already. As of May 1, the federal APHIS Web site had nothing new posted on the matter; not surprising, as the boundaries are in flux. 

What does this mean for East Bay gardeners? The quarantine would “prohibit the movement of all nursery stock and all host fruits and vegetables and plant parts within or from the quarantine region unless it is certified as ‘free-from’ the pest by an agricultural official; is purchased at a retail outlet; or was produced outside the area and is passing through in accordance with accepted safeguards.” The CDFA also says the quarantine “applies to residential and community properties as well as commercial enterprises.” A complete list of host species is available at CDFA’s Web site. 

Steve Lyle of CDFA said, of people holding plant sales: “It’s not a blanket prohibition on the movement or sale of plants. If you’re holding a sale, call your county ag office to get an inspector there beforehand.” 

Retailers, he said, “are used to this stuff; they have inspection protocols already. It will add one step, some time and expense to their operations. Plant inspectors are always busy anyway just before Mother’s Day.” 

Regulators are asking that, for example, produce from school gardens be eaten on the premises—but, as Lyle notes, “a lot of them do that anyway: use it in classrooms or in the school lunch program.”  

Basically, though, the problem is with moving uninspected plant bits from within the (unfortunately ever-changing) quarantine zone to any area outside it. Don’t take that home-grown bouquet to the Mother’s Day gathering in Fresno, please, and do some homework before throwing a benefit plant sale: look up the list of host plants and the quarantine maps on the CDFA site—the public library branches have computers, if you don’t—and call the county folks in to look over your stock. They’ll be busy, so call early.  

CDFA’s LBAM Web site, with complete current information: www.cdfa.ca.gov /phpps/pdep/lbam_main.htm 

Dear Mr. Cantor: I want to thank you for the very informative and interesting article in the Daily Planet about strapping water heaters. Moreover, I want to say that I am a devoted reader and always find your pieces interesting and informative. 

I have a question about fire concerns caused by the break in the gas line to the water heaters. I’m only a homeowner and have no expertise, but I wonder if, when a gas line breaks, it doesn’t automatically interrupt the gas flow to the pilot, thus extinguishing the flame or spark that might ignite the gas flowing from the broken line. Or does the gas rush out so fast that the pilot still ignites it?  

In short, what besides a fire coming from a neighbor, is the mostly likely source of the spark or combustion that ignites the free-flowing gas? Would a broken power line produce sparks? 

Thanks for whatever light you can cast on this for me. 

—Alvin Ludwig 

Dear Alvin,  

Great question. 

There are so many sources of ignition possible that it’s almost a fait accompli that when a large volume of gas is released during an earthquake that it will find a means of ignition. 

During an earthquake electrical components are being thrust about and these can spark, metal on metal or metal on concrete can generate sparks and yes, there may still be enough gas at one or more pilots to ignite gas. Keep in mind that most houses have pilots at water heaters, furnaces, stoves and some other kinds of devices. 

If the water heater line breaks before the furnace line. The furnace pilot can ignite the gas lots of ways and most important, this is what actually happens. Broken gas lines in earthquakes result in many fires and many explosions. Just go online and look at pictures of Northridge. 

—Matt 

••• 

Hello, Mr. Cantor: We would like to install a second-story bay window in the back bedroom on our El Cerrito house. The house is a standard mid-’40s split-level, with bedrooms above garage/utility area. 

When we bought the house nine years ago there was already a bay window installed in the front bedroom. It was a bank foreclosure sale, so we don’t know about the permitting or history of that installation. 

Due to insufficient previous research and a bad decision, we have had an unpleasant window company experience and so the un-installed bay window has been sitting in our garage for a few years. 

My questions: Is it necessary to obtain permits for such installations? 

Does the installer/contractor obtain the permit, or the homeowner? 

Is an added bay window likely to increase earthquake damage to the rest of the structure? 

How would one find an installer who could do this work? 

(Most people say to talk to others about their experiences, but we’ve never found anyone in an equivalent position.) 

Thank you very much for any suggestions you might have. 

—Annie Organ 

Dear Ms. Organ, 

I think the first thing to do is to find a general contractor that you feel good about and to have them help you through the rest of the process. That’s what G.C.’s are good at. They can help answer all of those questions as well as take a look at your bay window. 

My tendency in a case such as this is to recommend a G.C. over a window specialist. Most window folk are used to installing a window in an existing opening but not getting involved in a wider range of issues such as seismic strength or vulnerability. 

As a rule, the cites draw their permit line financially and I have no idea what the cost of your job may be but it sounds as though it would have been expensive enough originally to require a permit. I am less concerned about the permit process than I am about the savvy of the contractor. 

City inspectors can be very useful in protecting the client from being poorly served but this type of job will not be heavily inspected so the key is to make sure that the installer will know their stuff. Flashings (the parts that keep water out of the building at the edges of the window) are the most critical part of this job. 

I do not believe that there is a major seismic implication in installing this window unless you are removing a large portion of the wall or unless there is a lot of other window on this wall at the same floor level.  

That said, the contractor should have a look in advance of proceeding. If this is at basement level (doesn’t sound like it) it can become a seismic issue by supplanting vital shear-bearing walls with a weak opening. 

Lastly, in choosing a contractor, don’t let price be your primary factor. Be sure that you feel confident in giving this person the key to your house, your money and your trust. 

A personal referral from a happy past customer is one of the best ways to select a contractor. Choose someone smart, not someone burley (although some are both smart and burley). 

Best of luck, 

—Matt 

••• 

Hi Matt:  

Enjoyed your excellent article on foundation capping. One thing that I sometimes mention to my clients is that the faulty grade problem may sometimes be solved by simply digging away the dirt and debris that has accumulated against the foundation. This of course is the most economical solution when a complete foundation replacement isn’t needed for structural reasons! Do you think this is an okay observation to make?  

—Betsy Thagard  

Real Estate Broker  

Absolutely Betsy,  

As I often say to folks who write me with valid point regarding the subject of the article, if I weren’t limited to about 1000 words, I’d probably have said just what you mentioned. 

Caps are often “technically” required by the Structural Pest Control Act but, in fact, silly and largely unnecessary. Soil has often built up on the outside (and sometimes on the inside due to later work such as basement development) and simply needs to be cut away. 

The trick is to first dig a pit next the foundation to see the total depth in one spot prior to digging out along a long stretch. As long as you’re not undermining the foundation and there are at least a few inches left, it’s fine to cut back the soil and create a two-four-inch gap. It’s also a good idea to make sure that client know not to mulch or plant right along this boundary and to keep it clear. 

Six-inches is code but not really required. Some very short footings (10 inches or so) are not good candidates for this technique but replacement of a good solid unrotated footing of solid concrete is usually unnecessary and capping does very little for any of us. All that said, a new inverted T is a nice improvement that adds value in several ways. 

You Harvard grads are so smart! 

—Matt 

••• 

TUESDAY, MAY 8 

CHILDREN 

First Stage Children’s Theatre “Pet Care Capers” at 7:30 p.m. at Julia Morgan Center for the Arts, 2640 College Ave. Tickets are $5 at the door.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Poetry Flash with Al Young, California Poet Laureate with Reginald Lockett and Floyd Salas at 7:30 p.m. at Berkeley City College Auditorium, 2050 Center St. 525-5476. 

Vendela Vida reads from her new book “Let the Northern Lights Erase Your Name” at 7:30 p.m. at Moe’s Books, 2476 Telegraph Ave. 849-2087. 

Liza Mundy describes “Everything Conceivable: How Assisted Reproduction is Changing Men, Women, and the World” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Gator Beat, cajun zydeco at 8:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $5. 525-5054.  

Ellen Hoffman and Singers’ Open Mic at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $5. 841-JAZZ.  

Robin Huw Bowen at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761.  

Debbie Poryes & Friends at 7 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave.. 548-5198.  

Joyce & Dori Caymmi at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $6-$10. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

Jazzschool Tuesdaysat 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

WEDNESDAY, MAY 9 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Jeffrey Feldman and George Lakoff discuss “Framing the Debate: Famous Presidential Speeches and How Progressives Can Use Them to Change the Conversation (and Win Elections)” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. 

Café Poetry hosted by Kira Allen at 7:30 p.m. at La Peña. Donation $2. 849-2568.  

Nomadic Rambles, Storytelling hosted by Ed Silberman at 7 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344.  

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

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Berkeley Opera “Romeo and Juliet” at 7:30 p.m. at the Julia Morgan Center for the Arts, 2460 College Ave. Tickets are $10-$40. 925-798-1300. www.berkeleyopera.org 

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

Balkan Folkdance at 8 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $9. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Orquestra La Verdad at 9:30 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low, 2284 Shattuck Ave. Salsa lessons at 8:30 p.m. Cost is $5-$10. 548-1159.  

UC Jazz Showcase: Joyce Kwan Ensemble at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

The Refugees: Cindy Bullens, Deborah Holland, Jenny Yeates & Wendy Waldman at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761.  

Sentinel at 9:30 p.m. at Beckett’s Irish Pub, 2271 Shattuck Ave. 647-1790.  

THURSDAY, MAY 10 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Stitching Connections” Quilts designed and made by refugee and immigrant women from Cambodia,Laos, Mexico and Guatemala. Reception at 2 p.m. at Prudential California Realty, 2095 Rose St. 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Charley Hardy Book party for “Cowboy in Caracas” at 7:30 p.m. in the Fireside Room, 1606 Bonita just south of Cedar, next door to the BFUU Hall. Cost is $5-$10. Not wheelchair accessible.  

Daniel Handler and Christopher Moore discuss Moore’s novel “Adverbs” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. 

Bonnie Tsui introduces “A Leaky Tent is a Piece of Paradise: 20 Young Writers on Finding a Place in the Natural World” at 7:30 p.m. at Mrs. Dalloways, 2904 College Ave. 704-8222. 

“Aging Artfully” with author Amy Gorman and “Still Kicking” with Greg Young at 7 p.m. at A Great Good Place for Books, 6120 LaSalle, Montclair, Oakland. 339-8210. 

Maidu Dance Tradition with Frank La Pena at 7:30 p.m. at Heyday Books, 2054 University Ave., 6th floor. RSVP to Lillian Fleer at lillian@heydaybooks.com 549-3564, ext. 316. 

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

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Tim Fuller on Hawaiian Slack Key Guitar at 12:15 p.m. at the Berkeley Public Library, 5th Floor, 2090 Kittredge St. Free. 981-6100. www.berkeleypubliclibrary.org 

Zimrah Trio, North African and Near Eastern music at 6:30 p.m. at the Magnes Museum, 2911 Russell St. tickets are $6-$8. 549-6950.  

Laura Love at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Christy Dana Quintet at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $10. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Wendy Dewitt Duo at 7 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

Make Me, Bill Swanson, The Fits at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $5. 841-2082 www.starryploughpub.com 

Terror, Hoods, Allegiance at 7:30 p.m. at Oakland Metro, 201 Broadway. Cost is $10. 763-1146. www.oaklandmetro.org 

The Amplifiers, Flexx Bronco, Neon Nights at 9 p.m. at the Uptown Nightclub, 1928 Telegraph, Oakland. Cost is $7. 451-8100. www.uptownnightclub.com 

Selector: DJ Gnat & Big Will at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

FRIDAY, MAY 11 

THEATER 

Actors Ensemble of Berkeley “Lysistrata” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m. at Live Oak Theater, 1301 Shattuck Ave. at Berryman, through May 12. Tickets are $12. 525-1620. www.aeofberkeley.org  

Aurora Theatre “Private Jokes, Public Places” Wed.-Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 and 7 p.m. at 2081 Addison St., through May 13. Tickets are $38. 843-4822. 

Berkeley High Theater “Hair” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m. at Florence Schwimley Little Theater, Berkeley High Campus. Tickets are $7-$15.  

Berkeley Rep “Blue Door” at 8 p.m. at 2025 Addison St., through May 20. Tickets are $45-$61. 647-2949.  

Contra Costa Civic Theater “A Streetcar Named Desire” at 8 p.m. Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 p.m. at Contra Costa Civic Theatre, 951 Pomona Ave., El Cerrito. Runs through May 12. Tickets are $8-$11. 524-9132. www.ccct.org  

Impact Theatre “Measure for Measure” Thurs.-Sat. at 8 p.m. at La Val’s Subterranean, 1834 Euclid Ave., through May 26.Tickets are $10-$15. 464-4468. 

Just Theater, “I Have Loved Strangers” Thurs.-Sat. at 8 p.m. at Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant Ave., to May 26. Tickets are $12-$25. 421-1458.  

Masquers Playhouse “She Loves Me” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2:30 p.m. at Masquers Playhouse, 105 Park Place, Point Richmond, through May 12.Tickets are $18. 232-4031.  

Shotgun Players “The Cryptogram” Thurs.-Sun. at 8 p.m. at The Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby Ave., through June 17. Tickets are pay what you can. For reservations call 841-6500.  

Subterranean Shakespeare “Macbeth” Thurs.-Sat. at 8 p.m. at the Berkeley Art Center, 1275 Walnut St., near Rose in Live Oak Park, to May 26. Tickets are $12-$17. 276-3871. 

TheatreFIRST “Sergeant Musgrave’s Dance” Thurs.-Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 3 p.m. at Old Oakland Theatre, 481 Ninth St., Oakland. Tickets are $18-$25. 436-5085.  

EXHIBITIONS 

“Touchable Stories: Richmond” A multi-media, oral history event created by the people of Richmond. Fri. at 8 p.m., Sat. at 2 and 6 p.m. through May 13, at 1303 Canal Blvd., Richmond (the former Kaiser Shipyard Cafeteria). Cost is $6-$12. For reservations call 619-3675.  

“Origin: Poetics of Space” Intaglios by Seiko Tachibana. Reception at 6 p.m. at Cecile Moochnek Gallery, 1809-D Fourth St. 549-1018. 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Last Word Poetry Series David Alpaugh and C.O McCauley read their poetry at 7 p.m. at Nefeli Caffe, 1854 Euclid Ave. at Hearst. Open mic follows. 841-6374.  

Arthur Blaustein talks about ways to “Make A Difference: America’s Guide to Volunteering and Community Service” at 7:30 p.m. at Mrs. Dalloways, 2904 College Ave. 704-8222. 

Geoffrey G. O’Brien and Jasper Bernes, poets, at 7:30 p.m. at Pegasus Books Downtown, 2349 Shattuck Ave. 649-1320. 

David Kerns talks about his novel “Standard of Care” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500.  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

The Zipper Festival, three days of jazz and other music, by more than 50 musicians in a fundraiser for The Jazz House, in conjunction with the Berkeley Arts Festival, at 6 p.m. at the Fidelity Bank Building, 2323 Shattuck Ave. 415-846-9432. 

Berkeley Opera “Romeo and Juliet” at 8 p.m. at the Julia Morgan Center for the Arts, 2460 College Ave. Tickets are $10-$40. 925-798-1300.  

Oakland Public Conservatory of Music Student Performance at 7 p.m. at 1616 Franklin St., Oakland. 836-4649.  

Berkeley Symphony with Matt Haimovitz, cello, at 8 p.m. at First Congregational Church of Berkeley, 2345 Channing Way. 841-2800. 

Jerry Juderna Piano “From Bach to Babbitt” at 1 p.m. at 2323 Shattuck Ave. www.berkeleyartsfestival.com 

Dr. Loco’s Rockin’ Jalapeño Band at 9 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $10. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

We A Dem, Friends, reggae, at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $10. 525-5054.  

Bobby Ingrams Returns at 8 p.m. Arlington Community Church, 52 Arlington Ave., Kendington. Tickets are $15, children $5. 526-9146. 

Chelle! at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $12. 841-JAZZ.  

Judy Wexler, jazz, at 8 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

Bluegrass Intentions at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761.  

The Nomadics, jazz, at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344.  

Sumner Brothers, Phil Saylor Wisor at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $6. 841-2082.  

Whiskey Rebels, Far From Finished at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St. Cost is $6. 525-9926. 

Sacred Music Concert with Snatam Kaur, Guru Ganesha, Ram Dass Khalsa at 8 p.m. at Sacred Space Yoga Sanctuary, 830 Bancroft Way. Cost is $20-$25. 1-888-735-4800. 

Stolen Booty at 9:30 p.m. at Beckett’s Irish Pub, 2271 Shattuck Ave. 647-1790.  

Celius-One, Psycokinetics at 9 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low, 2284 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $5-$7. 548-1159.  

Zadell: Zoe & Dave Ellis at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Desa, Tera Melos, Nurses at 8 p.m. at Oakland Metro, 201 Broadway. Cost is $10. 763-1146. 

Mirthkon, The Coma Lilies, Juan Prophet Organization at 9 p.m. at the Uptown Nightclub, 1928 Telegraph, Oakland. Cost is $7. 451-8100.  

SATURDAY, MAY 12 

CHILDREN  

Los Amiguitos de La Peña with Bonnie Lockhart at 10:30 a.m. at La Peña. Cost is $4 for adults, $3 for children. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Wings of Spring” Paintings of American, European and African birds by Rita Sklar at Café 817, 817 Washington St., Oakland. Through July 12. www.ritasklar.com 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

“ultra deepfield” Bay Area artists look at urban locations in transition. Gallery talk with the artists at 2 p.m. at Kala Art Institute, 1060 Heinz Ave. Exhitition runs to May 12. 549-2977. www.kala.org 

Michael Chabon reads from “The Yiddish Policeman’s Union” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. 

“Aging Artfully” with author Amy Gorman and “Still Kicking” with Greg Young at 1:30 p.m. at The Richmond Art Center, 2540 Barrett Ave., Richmond. Donation $5-$10. 620-6772. 

Rhythm and Muse Open Mic with Julia Vinograd at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Art Center, 1275 Walnut St. 644-6893.  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

The Zipper Festival, jazz and other music, in a fundraiser for The Jazz House, in conjunction with the Berkeley Arts Festival, from 2 to 11 p.m. at the Fidelity Bank Building, 2323 Shattuck Ave. 415-846-943. 

American Bach Soloists with Michael Sponseller on harpsichord at 8 p.m. at First Congregational Church, 2345 Channing Way. Tickets are $10-$42. 415-621-7900.  

Schola Cantorum San Francisco “Come My Beloved” at 8 p.m. at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, 2300 Bancroft Way. Tickets are $12-$20.  

Trinity Chamber Concerts, Kazuko Cleary, piano, perfroms Beethovan and Chopin at 8 p.m. at 2320 Dana St. Tickets are $8-$12. 549-3864.  

Kairos Youth Choir Sat. and Sun. at 4 p.m. at Longfellow School Theater, 1500 Derby St. Cost is $8-$10. 704-4479. 

Los Mapaches at 8 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $5-$10. 849-2568. 

Bluebelles at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $12. 841-JAZZ.  

DjiIay Kunda Kouyate at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $11-$13. 525-5054.  

Bhi Bhiman and Ted Schram at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344.  

Frank Wakefield at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761.  

Ed Johnson and Novo Tempo at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $10-$12. 845-5373. www.jazzschool.com 

Beep with Michael Coleman at 9:30 p.m. at Albatross, 1822 San Pablo Ave. Cost is $5. 843-2473. www.albatrosspub.com 

Vanessa Lowe & Kwame Copeland at 8 p.m. at Spuds Pizza, 3290 Adeline St. Cost is $7. 558-0881. 

Plum Crazy Shelley Doty X-tet at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. All ages show. Cost is $8. 841-2082.  

Raya Nova, hybrid rock, at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Internal Afairs, Never Healed, Trash Talk at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St. Cost is $6. 525-9926. 

SUNDAY, MAY 13 

CHILDREN 

Asheba at Ashkenaz at 3 p.m. Cost is $4-$6. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Allison Smith “Notion Nanny” Artist talk on her exhibition exploring traditional art and craft-making, at 3:30 p.m. at Berkeley Art Museum, 2626 Bancroft Way. 642-0808. 

Total Chaos: Hip Hop Literati A discussion with Jeff Chang, Adam Mansbach and others at 6 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

The Zipper Festival, jazz and other music, in a fundraiser for The Jazz House, in conjunction with the Berkeley Arts Festival, from 2 to 11 p.m. at the Fidelity Bank Building, 2323 Shattuck Ave. 415-846-943. 

Berkeley Opera “Romeo and Juliet” at 2 p.m. at the Julia Morgan Center for the Arts, 2460 College Ave. Tickets are $10-$40. 925-798-1300.  

Bella Musica Chorus “Her Infinite Variety” Four centuries of Shakespeare in song at 4 p.m. at St. Mary Magdalen Church, 29005 Berryman at Milvia. Tickets are $12-$15. 525-5393. www.bellamusica.org 

Presidio Ensemble performs music of Biber, Ginastera, Foote, and Goodheart at 7:30 p.m. at Berkeley Art Center, 1275 Walnut St. Cost is $10. 644-6893.  

Community Women’s Orchestra “Concertstück pour Violoncelle” at 4 p.m. at Lake Merritt United Methodist Church, 1330 Lakeshore Ave., Oakland. Suggested donation $10, children free. www.communitywomensorchestra.org 

Kathy Kallick’s 18th Annual Mother’s Day Celebration at 1 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $7.50-$9.50. 548-1761.  

Tango No. 9 at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $8. 841-JAZZ.  

Gift Horse at 11 a.m. at Nomad Cafe. 595-5344.  

Americana Unplugged: Corbin Pagter & Friends at 5 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Zaedno and Friends, Bulgarian, at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $5-$10. 525-5054.  

Mark Murphy “The Singer’s Singer” at 4:30 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $20. 845-5373.  

Clorox Girls, The Red Dons, Sex Tape Scandal at 5 p.m. at 924 Gilman St. Cost is $6. 525-9926. 

MONDAY, MAY 14 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Celebrating the Arts in Berkeley: The Anniversary of the Arts and Crafts Cooperative, Inc., and the Berkeley Art Center at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Public Library, 2090 Kittredge St. 981-6150. 

African/African-American Collections with Phyllis Bischoff, retired librarian, who will discuss her 30+ years developing an extensive collection of Africana for UC Berkeley at the Friends of Richmond Library Annual Meeting at 7 p.m. in the Bermuda Room, Richmond Convention Center, 403 Civic Center Plaza, Richmond. 235-9056. 

“Fostering Creative Engagement in Youth” A lecture and workshop by Eric Booth for educators, teaching artists and community members from 3:30 to 6:30 p.m. at Longfellow Middle School auditorium, 1500 Derby St. Tickets are $25. 642-6838. 

Aurora Theatre Staged Readings “Subterranea” by Craig Lucas at 7:30 p.m. at 2081 Addison St. 843-4822. 

Mary MacKey introduces her story set during the American Civil War “The Notorius Mrs. Winston” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. 

Ron Loewinsohn reads at 7:30 p.m. at Moe’s Books, 2476 Telegraph Ave. 849-2087. 

Poetry Express with Garrett Murphy at 7 p.m., at Priya Restaurant, 2072 San Pablo Ave. 644-3977. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Parlor Tango 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.  

Classical at the Freight at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage Coffee House. Cost is $17.50-$18.50. 548-1761  

Mo’Fone, The Jolly Gibsons at 6:30 p.m. at Oakland Metro, 201 Broadway. Cost is $10. 763-1146.  

The opera opens with all the characters placing themselves, one by one, facing out toward the audience on an open stage set with stylized arches, stairs and doorways portraying Renaissance Verona. The music swells tempestuously as the cast recites the prologue of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet: “Two households, both alike in dignity …” At verse’s end, the cast sweeps from the stage and the action starts. 

So begins Berkeley Opera’s English-version production of Charles Gounod’s Romeo et Juliette, another of the company’s inventive remodelings, which interweaves very different cultural sensibilities into a postmodern mix that’s both engaging and fun, if not always smoothly polished. 

The major challenge the opera’s creative team faced in recreating this grand opera was more complex than the usual one of blending diverse cultural perspectives: it’s one buried deep in the musicality of the language used by Shakespeare, as opposed to the music of the French opera derived from it some 250 years later.  

Shakespeare’s language, the sine qua non of English poetic language, depends on a quick continuous presentation of a long line that is densely packed with sounds and intellectual wordplay. (Lynn Collins’ interpretation of Portia’s courtroom speech in the film version of The Merchant of Venice is a startling and revelatory example of how to speak cogent Shakespeare.) Romeo and Juliet, one of Shakespeare’s earlier plays, is especially full of puns and long drawn-out metaphors that reference the 16th century. And its musicality is self-contained.  

The music of the 18th century composer Gounod is French to its sixteenth notes: tender, at times ecstatic, given to a lushness filled with delicacy but backed with intellectual precision. It is a music meant as a setting for French lyrics, with their own emphases and an abundance of vowel sounds, linguistic characteristics that create a very different understanding of what defines poetry as well as what defines musical accenting and embellishment. 

As a partial solution to the impossible task of setting Shakespeare’s iambs to Gounod’s music, Jonathan Khuner, artistic director and conductor, decided to drop the opera’s lengthy recitatives. He comments on the validity of this decision: “[Gounod] would have preferred to compose Romeo and Juliet in the operá-comique style, with spoken sections leading to sung numbers in regular alternation… [In our production] material has been shuffled, reassigned and rearranged, but always with a view towards highlighting Gounod’s best Shakespearean responses and his often transcendent music.” 

A condensed version of Shakespeare’s text was used for the spoken text and a mélange of Shakespearean text and translations of the original Barbier and Carré libretto was concocted for the songs. Some of the translations were less than happy. Why Juliet’s “Je veux vivre” (“I want to live”) was translated as “I want to fall”—especially since it was sung while standing on a balcony—is a mystery. For the most part, though, the song libretti worked well—they were concise and sweetly formed. 

Reverting to Gounod’s original idea, while it allowed for Shakespeare’s text and greater accessibility, stirred up other problems. One was the discontinuity of the music. This production would be better served with more music, if only as background, even though that requires more intensive work in the musical reduction and despite the fact that each reworking runs the risk of moving farther away from Gounod’s original. Taking risks is one of the Berkeley Opera’s more endearing and admirable traits. 

The lovely soprano Elena Krell as Juliet was vocally well-matched to tenor Jimmy Kansau’s enthusiastic interpretation of the hormonally overwhelmed Romeo. Baritone Igor Vieira was a bawdy and humorous Mercutio, and the cast as a whole gave excellent portrayals. Maestro Khuner kept his 25-member onstage orchestra in admirable form, and the chorus work was delectable.  

A final tsk-tsk. Whoever designed the codpieces, which are distracting, needs to see the Vivienne Westwood exhibition at the de Young museum. Westwood, who with Malcolm McLaren fashioned the Punk movement, has always designed in-your-face sexually challenging but innately artistic outfits. Corsets, bum cages, see-through lace kilts. But no outsized codpieces. As she comments: the designs, which emphasize the body from foot to toe, finally focus on the face, which is ultimately the body’s most erotic part. Despite the bawdiness that decorates the Shakespeare’s text, eroticism is the true virtue of Romeo and Juliet’s love-soaked soul. All in all, though, this was an adventurous and thoroughly enjoyable performance for both theater and opera lovers. It’s one you should plan on seeing. 

ROMEO AND JULIET 

Presented by Berkeley Opera at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, May 9; 8 p.m. Friday, May 11; and 2 p.m. Sunday, May 13 at the Julia Morgan Theater in Berkeley. (925) 798-1300. www.berkeleyopera.org. 

The Jazz House, under the aegis of the Berkeley Arts Festival, will produce the Zipper Festival, its first festival of jazz this weekend, from Friday night, with acts 6-9 p.m., Saturday 2-8:30 p.m., and Sunday 2-8:30 p.m., featuring acclaimed local players like saxophonists Howard Wiley and Dayna Stephens, Sacramento guitarist Ross Hammond, drummer Weasel Walter, saxophonist John Gruntfest, and Damon Smith on bass, at the old Fidelity Bank Building, 2323 Shattuck Ave. 

“I’ve always wanted to do a festival,” said Rob Woodworth, founder of the Jazz House. “Michael Marcus, the free jazz player, came by the Jazz House when it was on Adeline and said we should have our own, like the Vision Festival that bassist William Parker started in New York, that features free and nonmainstream jazz. We don’t have anything like that out here. And something that features not only music, but links up with dance, poetry and visual art.”  

The chance came with a phone call about a month ago from Bonnie Hughes of the Berkeley Arts Festival. “She searched me out and introduced herself, offering to collaborate,” Woodworth said. “She’s helped us put on shows before, to keep a presence in Berkeley after we lost our lease on Adeline.” 

Hughes had a date open in May, and showed Woodworth the Fidelity Building, now dubbed the Berkeley Arts Festival Hall. “She has a wonderful knack for finding places for shows,” he said. “There wasn’t much time, but I sent out emails to a bunch of musicians I like to work with, and the response was so great, I asked for another day ... then, ‘How about a third day?’” 

The result is this weekend’s Zipper Festival?  

“I wanted something that would stick—in the mind, that is,” Woodworth said, explaining the festival’s name. 

Friday will feature D’Armous Boone’s Special Edition, followed by Andrew Voight’s Sunday Night Band, then Bush of Ghosts, with Damon Smith, Phillip Greenlief and Spirit. Saturday sees Jim Ryan’s Forward Energy take off, with Bill Crossman’s B-Free, the Nathan Clevenger Trio, Patrick Cress’ Telepathy (with visual arts included), and the Howard Wiley Quartet following. Sunday starts with the Dayna Stephens Trio, going on to The Lost Trio (featuring Phillip Greenlief), Ross Hammond’s V-Neck with drummer Tom Monsoon, The Greatest Little Big Band in the History of the Megaverse—John Gruntfest’s group with two drummers—closing with Weasel Walter, Gruntfest and Damon Smith. 

The Jazz House has been producing Free Jazz Fridays at Eighth Street, a block from West Oakland BART.  

“It’s doing very well,” said Woodworth; “I’m still surprised by it. And now KCSM-fm has a free jazz show, with Greg Bridges, whose father was a free jazz player.” But Woodworth said he would like to reestablish “a regular place where people know where we are, with more shows and more variety. I’m still looking for the right place—and the money.” 

ZIPPER FESTIVAL 

Tickets: $10 Friday, $15 Saturday and Sunday. A three-day festival pass is $30 at www.brownpapertickets.com or (800) 838-3006. Further info at www.berkeleyartsfestival.org, www.thejazzhouse.com or (415) 846-9432.

“You brought in a different war.” 

“I brought it in to end it!” 

“You can’t cure the pox by further whoring!”  

Serjeant Musgrave’s Dance, John Arden’s 1959 antiwar classic, abounds in piquant exchanges like this one that emphasize the complicity of all in war, when even those on the homefront are accessories.  

The mordant tale of a squad of soldiers on a recruiting mission, but one to demonstrate war’s horrors to a strike-torn town, fleshed out with song and dance by a cast of 13, has its long-overdue West Coast premiere, appropriately by TheatreFIRST in the Old Oakland Theatre. 

Arden’s play surfaced at a prime moment in postwar British drama. The well-wrought, three-act drama had just been challenged by the “Angry Young Men,” with their blue-collar “kitchen sink” realism (John Osbourne’s Look Back in Anger had actually been decried by some for having an ironing board as focus of the set).  

The first of their plays were really just a different form of the traditional chamber play, with characters speaking to each other separated by “the fourth wall” from the audience. But Continental influences—Absurdism’s postsurrealist and Brecht’s political theaters, along with a little Strindbergianism—and an upsurge of native popular forms, like Music Hall (Osbourne’s The Entertainer featured Laurence Olivier as a run-down vaudeville comedian caught up in the news of the Suez Crisis), quickly paved the way for more openly theatrical pieces, taken directly to the spectator. 

Arden’s masterpiece has been talked about—and taught—here for over 40 years, though apparently never performed. In the ’60s, pieces like Brendan Behan’s plays and Oh! What a Lovely War (staged by Robert Adler at the Festival Theatre), which were originated by Arden’s co-pioneer in British Brechtian dramaturgy, Joan Littlewood, found their way to Bay Area venues. 

But it’s taken TheatreFIRST to stage this complex work, with its demanding vocal scape of British dialect, bringing in every register, as Sean O’Casey’s The Plough & The Stars did for Ireland. 

It’s an ensemble piece, by turns rough and strangely charming, with surprisingly disarming wit. Serjeant Musgrave, a military lifer on a mission as “a religious man,” brings his little army into a mining town, far from the foreign war in which they’ve been embroiled. 

In encounters with the upper class who control the burgh, known only by their titles: Mayor, Reverend (and Magistrate) and Chief of Police, and the ordinary folk (much takes place in a pub run by women)—as well as the striking miners, suspicious the soldiers have come out of the blue to bust their strike—Musgrave and his men argue, drink and sing with the locals, taking night visits from barmaids as well as vandals, before rivetting a crowd of citizens and gentry alike, and the crowd in their theater seats, with a patriotic display turned upside down, like a distress flag, in a raw attempt to “work out the logic” of violence and its pandemic guilt. 

It’s an ensemble play, and the cast, with Clive Chafer’s steady direction, engages each other and the audience with some fine performances (a few being the finest of the respective actors), including an excellent portrayal of haunted Annie, the barmaid impregnated and left by a soldier on his way to the wars (Emily Jordan). 

But the lead role—and performance--must be singled out. Chris Ayles, who has played many parts in the Bay Area, more than a few like his excellent salt-of-the earth Petey in Aurora’s production of Pinter’s The Birthday Party (a show contemporary with Serjeant Musgrave), here plays another diffident Everyman of sorts, but one driven by a strange inspiration, and a leader of disaffected men. 

It’s a tough part, in every sense of the word, and Ayles scores magnificently, truly leading the cast—and subject to it, as when Annie tries to take the mickey out of him with a bawdy song, and to sudden laughter from the audience the Serjeant deadpans a straight line: “What you’re saying, lassie, has some sort of truth.”  

“So ye are the gay recruiters!” Yet that “good strong girlie with a heart like a horse collar” remarks about the “bleedin’ lobsters” how soldiers remain soldiers ... or “What good’s a bloody soldier but to be dropped in a slit in the ground like a letter into a box?” 

The logic of war and a violent peace plays out in that “loamy language” that Clive Chafer singles out, descendent of the gushing lines of Elizabethan theater, of Thomas Hardy and his modernist heirs David Jones and Basil Bunting, who made sonatas and symphonies of the word music Hardy rhapsodized. And TheatreFIRST has just begun its journey into that hinterland Arden charted. A brave, bold show by Oakland’s sole resident company, stalwarts of our East Bay scene. 

SERJEANT MUSGRAVE’S DANCE 

Presented by TheatreFIRST at 8 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays and at 3 p.m. Sundays through May 27. Old Oakland Theatre, 481 Ninth St., Oakland. $18-$25. 436-5085. 

www.theatrefirst.com.

There aren’t lots of them around, but many are in bloom now so it’s a bit easier to spot them: silk oak, Grevillea robusta. Their leaves have a distinctive profile, a bit like an exaggerated oak-leaf shape, verging on the fernish; I suppose that might account for the name, but the Aussies have a habit of calling any old thing some kind of “oak”—casaurina is “she-oak” for example, and that genus has foliage that looks like pine needles.  

Look for a tree with gray bark, floppy ferny leaves about as long as your hand, and orange flowers, probably up high in the tree. If you have the flower in hand, you’ll see it’s actually scarlet and yellow, an odd long brush of curled flowerets like a row of inquisitive cartoon ants.  

The Grevillea genus stems from a clan with a habit of producing weird flowers. It’s a protea, if you don’t mind—one of that family that includes those strange silvery South African plants with big blossoms like the offspring of an artichoke and a cactus. I find myself groping for similes to describe this stuff, because it’s practically extraplanetary to look at.  

The family’s actually a respectable old Terran one, though from when the Earth wasn’t Earth as we know it, quite. It’s one of those Gondwanaland groups, like araucarias—monkey puzzle and bunya-bunya trees and such—and the particular distribution of those groups over the world is one of those mind-boggling signatures of continental drift.  

No, really. Imagine discovering that the reason you were born where you were born was that your ancestors had traveled there without taking a step, but by riding the ground they stood on while it surfed the Earth’s mantle for eons. The idea that life forms are older than the ground they stand on or the acre next door messes with the usual pictures of planetary history we tend to have in our heads. You can meet similar temporal disjunctions on the east slope of the Sierra, looking from recent volcanic-glass mountains and underwater instant-hot-tub vents toward the ancient bristlecone pines in the White Mountains just to the south.  

Or, what the heck, go to the Big Island of Hawai’i where islands of vegetation stand among barren lava flows. Take Joe and me along, please. We can all look for silk oaks there; the species is in use for landscaping, shade (as in India, Sri Lanka, and Brazil, for tea and/or coffee plantations), and sometimes timber. It’s getting a bit invasive there, though; uh-oh. 

Other grevilleas are more shrubs than trees. You’ll find some of them here and there around us in garden settings; they tend to be drought- and heat-tolerant, shearable for hedges, and decent looking.  

I myself dislike those shrubs strongly, but it’s a personal grudge. When I was a practicing pro gardener with a few accounts over the hills in Contra Costa County, those were about the meanest, prickliest, itchiest buggers I had to mess with, and lots of them were on slopes where I could barely keep on my feet without grabbing something. Not much to grab but a fanged bush. Ow.  

No, gloves didn’t help much. Somehow the thin needly leaves found the seams and that gap at the cuff. As I said: mean.  

If you get close to one of those, though, look—carefully—at the flowers: maybe stranger even than silk oaks’. Art deco snails with periscopes.  

grows fast—not an unmixed blessing—and sheds lots of leaves and twigs; it’s the sort of pet a large drooly dog might be. Ideally it lives in a spot where the dropped leaves can be left to compost where they land, as mulch. It flowers more reliably in warmer places like Hawai’i and south Florida.  

It also has the distinctive root system that typify its family: proteoid lateral roots, short, dense, and good at using scarce nutrients in poor soils by extracting those nutrients from their mineral matrix.  

So if you have a warm rocky spot at the back of a sizeable garden, this might be the tree for you. Frankly, you and your garden’s animal commensals would be better off with a native, but I couldn’t blame anyone who got a good look at a silk oak’s flowers for falling in love with them. 

Photograph by Ron Sullivan: At the top of this silk oak in downtown Berkeley, you can  

see its flowers. If you're preternaturally sighted, you can see a lesser goldfinch too. 

Ron Sullivan is a former professional gardener and arborist. Her “Green Neighbors” column appears every other Tuesday in the Berkeley Daily Planet, alternating with Joe Eaton’s “Wild Neighbors” column. Her  

“Garden Variety” column appears every Friday in the Daily Planet’s  

East Bay Home & Real Estate section.

TUESDAY, MAY 8 

Tuesdays for the Birds Tranquil bird walks in local parklands, led by Bethany Facendini, from 7 to 9:30 a.m. Today we will visit Sibley Regional Preserve. Call for meeting place and if you need to borrow binoculars. 525-2233. 

Hunger Action Day Join people from across California in raising your voice against hunger at the State Capitol in Sacramento. The free bus will leave Oakland at 7:30 a.m. and we will return by 5 p.m. Lunch will be provided. If you have any questions or would like to register please call 635-3663 ext. 307.  

Solo Sierrans Hike Hike at Lake Chabot Reservoir Meet at 6:30 p.m. at the boat house. Optional dinner follows. For information call Delores 351-6247. 

Oakland/East Bay Chapter of the National Organization for Women meets at 6 p.m. at Spud’s Pizza, corner of Adeline and Alcatraz. 287-8948. 

“Is Wal-Mart Good or Bad for America?” A debate with Ken Jacobs, Chair, UC Berkeley Labor Center and Richard Vedder, co-author “The Wal-Mart Revolution” at 6:30 p.m. at the Independent Institute Conference Center, 100 Swan Way, Oakland. Cost is $10-$30. For tickets call 632-1366. 

“Project Rewire: New Media from the Inside Out” a talk on the decline of the news media and the rise of the Internet by former journalist, author, and historian Judy Daubenmier, Ph.D., at 7 p.m. at Shambhala Book Store, 2177 Bancroft. Cost is $5-$15, no one turned away.  

“China's Brave New World--And Other Tales for Global Times” with Jeffrey Wasserstrom, Prof. of History, UC Irvine, at 4 p.m. at the IEAS Conference Room, 2223 Fulton St., 6th Floor. 643-6321. 

El Cerrito NAACP Recognition of Armed Forces Month with Major General Paul Monroe (Ret) of the California National Guard at 6:30 p.m. at the El Cerrito Community Center, 7007 Moeser Lane. 526-2958. 

Free Diabetes Screening from 8:30 to 11 a.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Do not eat or drink anything for 8 hours beforehand. 981-5332. 

Family Storytime at 7 p.m. at the Kensington Library, 61 Arlington Ave. 524-3043. 

Tuesday Tilden Walkers Join a few slowpoke seniors at 9:30 a.m. in the parking lot near the Little Farm for an hour or two walk. 215-7672, 524-9992. 

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, MAY 9 

Walking Tour of Jack London Waterfront Meet at 10 a.m. at the corner of Broadway and Embarcadero. Tour lasts 90 minutes. Reservations can be made by calling 238-3234. www.oaklandnet.com/walkingtours 

“Knocking” A documentary on Jehovah’s Witnesses at 6:30 p.m., followed by a panel discussion, at the Oakland Museum of California, 1000 Oak St. Cost is $5-$8. 238-2200. 

Chosing a Preschool at 7 p.m. at Bananas, 5232 Claremont Ave. To register call 658-7353. www.bananasinc.org 

New to DVD: “Little Children” at 7 p.m. at JCCEB, 1414 Walnut St. Discussion follows. 848-0237. 

Walk Berkeley for Seniors meets every Wednesday at 9:30 a.m. at the Sea Breeze Market, just west of the I-80 overpass. Everyone is welcome, wear comfortable shoes and a warm hat. 548-9840. 

Berkeley Peace Walk and Vigil at the Berkeley BART Station, corner of Shattuck and Center. Sing for Peace at 6:30 p.m. followed by Peace Walk at 7 p.m. www. 

geocities.com/vigil4peace/vigil 

Stitch ‘n Bitch at 6:30 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

THURSDAY, MAY 10 

Berkeley Adult School Career Fair from 9 a.m. to noon at 1702 San Pablo Ave. 644-8968. 

League of Women Voters Annual Meeting with Dave MacDonald, Alameda County Registrar of Voters speaking on “Alameda County: Voting Successes and Areas of Continuing Concern” at 5 p.m. at Northbrae Church, 914 The Alameda. Dinner is $15. RSVP to 843-8828. 

Great Escapes Benefit for the Berkeley Women’s Daytime Drop-In Center with live jazz, silent auction, hors d’oeuvres and wine at 6 p.m. at the Berkeley Yacht Club, One Sewall Drive. Tickets are $25-$75. 415-317-5675. 

“Cowboy in Caracas” a book party with Charley Hardy on his work in the barrios of Venezuela at 7:30 p.m. at 1606 Bonita, next to BFUU Hall. Not wheelchair accessible. 

Family Storytime for children ages 3-7 at 7 p.m. at the Berkeley Public Library, North Branch, 1170 The Alameda, at Hopkins. 981-6107. 

Poetry Workshop with Donna Davis, ongoing on Thurs. from 9 a.m. to noon at the JCCEB, 1414 Walnut St. Donation $10 per semester. 848-0237. 

Baby and Toddler Storytime at 10:30 a.m. at Kensington Library, 61 Arlington Ave. 524-3043. 

FRIDAY, MAY 11 

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 

Emerson School’s 100th Birthday Celebration with a tour at 4 p.m. at 2800 Forest Ave., and a reception and Commemorative Program at 6 p.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. Cost is $10. For information on how to send pictures and memories see www.emerson100.org 

City Commons Club Noon Luncheon with Raj Patel “Rights of the Poor: Democracy in South Africa” Luncheon at 11:45 a.m. for $14, speech at 12:30 p.m., at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant St. For reservations call 526-2925.  

“Creating a Caring Economy” A conversation with Raine Eisler at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists, 1924 Cedar St. Donation $10-$100. For tickets see www.brownpapertickets.com/event/13655 

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. www.circledancing.com 

Planning Meetings for a Dedication to denise brown will be on going every Fri. at 2 p.m. at LeConte, Room 104. Photos, videos and dvd's are welcome to be included in the event. For more information, contact Rita Pettit, PRitaAnn@aol.com, 559-4602. 

SATURDAY, MAY 12 

Annual Letter Carriers’ Food Drive Leave non-perishable food donations such as canned goods, rice, dried beans and pasta near your mailbox this morning for your letter carrier to collect. Benefits the Alameda County Community Food Bank. 653-3663. www.accfb.org 

5th Annual Bike Rodeo Practice your safe riding skills and learn some new tricks from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at San Pablo Park, 2800 Park St. Sponsored by the City of Berkeley Injury Prevention and Chronic Disease Prevention Programs. 981-5347.  

Annual Spring Plant Sale at The Edible Schoolyard Featuring 50 varieties of heirloom tomatoes, as well as vegetables, fruits, herbs, annual and perennial flowers grown by King students. Proceeds support school gardens throughout the East Bay. Sat and Sun from 9:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School, 1781 Rose St. at Grant. 558-1335. www.edibleschoolyard.org 

Bike Day at the Berkeley Farmers’ Market with information on everyday bicycling and how to repair your bike, from 10:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. at Center St., btwn Milvia and MLK Way. 548-7433. 

Rosa Parks Kid’s Carnival Spring Fundraiser with live music, dance performances, petting zoo, games & prizes, great food, silent auction and quilt raffle, from noon to 4 p.m. at 920 Allston Way at 8th St. Torrezfamily@hotmail.com 

Peralta In Bloom Spring Festival from noon to 4 p.m. with live entertainment, carnival games, old fashioned high steppin’ Cakewalk, free arts & crafts activities, a climbing wall, jumper, delicious barbeque, and much more. Due to the school fire this year the festival will be held at Peralta’s temporary home, 4521 Webster Oakland, 45th and Webster. 301-4565. 

Celebration of Children Community Book Fair from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Ephesians Children’s Center, 1907 Harmon Ave., corner of Alcatraz and Adeline St. 653-2984. 

California Wildflower Show with flowers, talks and information on how to use native species in home gardens, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Oakland Museum of California, 1000 Oak St. Cost is $5-$8. 238-2200. 

Pepperweed Pull Join Friends of Five Creeks volunteers removing invasive perennial pepperweed, a threat to shorebird habitat, at the mouth of Strawberry Creek. Meet at 10 a.m. at the cove west of Sea Breeze Deli, University Ave. just west of the I-880/580 Freeway. 848-9358.  

Berkeley History Center Walking Tour “Gilman and Frontage Road Area” led by Allen Stross at 10 a.m. Cost is $8-$10. For information on meeting place and to register call 848-0181. 

Walking Tour of Old Oakland around Preservation Park to see Victorian architecture. Meet at 10 a.m. in front of Preservation Park at 13th St. and MLK, Jr. Way. Tour lasts 90 minutes. Reservations can be made by calling 238-3234. www.oaklandnet.com/walkingtours 

Mini-Farmers in Tilden A farm exploration program, from 10 to 11:30 a.m. for ages 4-6 years, accompanied by an adult. We will explore the Little Farm, care for animals, do crafts and farm chores. Wear boots and dress to get dirty! Fee is $6-$8. Registration required. 636-1684. 

Reptile Rap Meet our resident snake and turtle friends in an interactive talk for the whole family at 2 p.m. at Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park. 525-2233. 

Celebrating Elephants Learn about the Oakland Zoo’s Elephant management program from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Oakland Zoo, 9777 Golf Links Rd., off Hwy 580. 632-9525. www.oaklandzoo.org 

No Animal Circus Circus fun with the Circus Finelli from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Oakland Zoo, 9777 Golf Links Rd., off Hwy 580. 632-9525. www.oaklandzoo.org 

Great War Society meets to discuss “Trench Art” by Jane Kimball at 10:30 a.m. at 640 Arlington Ave. 527-7118. 

Friends of the Kensington Library Booksale Sat. from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Sun. from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Kensington Community Center, 59 Arlington Blvd., Kensington. 524-3043. 

“The Road to Black Freedom: Revolutionary Marxism vs Black Nationalism” a forum with updates on Mumia Abu-Jamal at 4:30 p.m. at Laney College, Room D200, Oakland. Suggested donation $2. 839-0851. 

Benefit for Deaf Palestine Solidarity Project, a new project linking American and Palestinian deaf communities, with peotry reding by Jean Stewart at 2 p.m. at Redwood Gardens Community Room, 2951 Derby St. Donation $5-$15. 243-9910. 

Hopalong Animal Rescue Come meet your furry new best cat friend from noon to 3 p.m. at 2940 College Ave. 267-1915, ext. 500.  

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.  

The Berkeley Lawn Bowling Club provides free instruction at 10:30 a.m. at 2270 Acton St. 841-2174.  

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. 

Petite Pooches Playgroup for small dogs from 10:30 to 11:30 a.m., one block north of Solano on Ensenada at Talbot. 524-2459. 

SUNDAY, MAY 13 

California Wildflower Show with flowers, talks and information on how to use native species in home gardens, from noon to 5 p.m. at the Oakland Museum of California, 1000 Oak St. Cost is $5-$8. 238-2200. 

Annual Spring Plant Sale at The Edible Schoolyard Featuring 50 varieties of heirloom tomatoes, as well as vegetables, fruits, herbs, annual and perennial flowers grown by King students. Proceeds support school gardens throughout the East Bay. From 9:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School, 1781 Rose St. at Grant. 558-1335. www.edibleschoolyard.org 

Farm Stories and Songs for the whole family with farm activities, at 10:30 a.m. at Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park. 525-2233. 

Grandmother Oak Mother’s Day Celebrate Mother’s Day by visiting a very old oak. Bring a snack and a poem to share. Meet at Bear Creek Staging Area, Briones Regional Park, at 1 p.m. for this 5-mile hike. 525-2233. 

Mother’s Day Pancake Breakfast on the Red Oak Victory Ship in Richmond Harbor from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., Cost is $6, children under 5 free. 237-2933. 

Celebrate Mother’s Day at the Kensington Farmers’ Market from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at 303 Arlington Ave., Kensington, behind Ace Hardware.  

Tibetan Buddhism with Hugh Joswick on “Self-Change” at 6 p.m. at the Tibetan Nyingma Institute, 1815 Highland Pl. 843-6812.  

MONDAY, MAY 14 

“Nanoscience at Work: Creating Energy from Sunlight” with Paul Alivisatos, Associate Laboratory Director at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, at 5:30 p.m. at Berkeley Repertory Theater 2025 Addison St. 486-5183. 

“Fostering Creative Engagement in Youth” A lecture and workshop by Eric Booth for educators, teaching artists and community members from 3:30 to 6:30 p.m. at Longfellow Middle School auditorium, 1500 Derby St. Tickets are $25. 642-6838. 

“When the Levees Broke” Parts 1 and 2 Spike Lee’s documentary about Hurricane Katrina and New Orleans at 6:45 p.m. at the Upstairs Lounge at Geoffrey's Inner Circle, 410 14th Street, off Broadway, Oakland. Parts 3 and 4 will be shown May 21. Suggested donation $10. 262-1001. info@wellstoneclub.org 

Read Aloud Theater A free Berkeley Adult School class at 9 a.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center, 1901 Hearst. 981-5190.  

ONGOING 

Food Drive for Alameda County Food Bank Drop off canned goods, peanut butter, ceareal, powdered milk, beans, rice and pasta at Citibank, 200 Shattuck Ave. from May 1 to 15. Financial donations always welcome. 635-3663, ext. 318. 

CITY MEETINGS 

City Council meets Tues., May 8, at 7 p.m in City Council Chambers. 981-6900. www.ci. 

berkeley.ca.us/citycouncil 

Homeless Commission meets Wed., May 9, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-5426.  

Library Board of Trustees Special Meeting on the Budget followed by the Board’s regular monthly meeting at 7 p.m., Wed. May 9, at the West Berkeley Senior Cetner. 981-6195. 

Planning Commission meets Wed., May 9, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-7484.  

Police Review Commission meets Wed., May 9, at the South Berkeley Senior Center. 981-4950.  

Waterfront Commission meets Wed., May 9, at 7 p.m., at 201 University Ave. 981-6740.  

Community Health Commission meets Thurs., May 10, at 6:45 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-5356.  

West Berkeley Project Area Commission meets Thurs., May 10, at 7 p.m., at the West Berkeley Senior Center. 981-7520.  

Zoning Adjustments Board meets Thurs., May 10,, at 7 p.m., in City Council Chambers. Mark Rhoades, 981-7410.  

FRIDAY, MAY 4 

THEATER 

Actors Ensemble of Berkeley “Lysistrata” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m. at Live Oak Theater, 1301 Shattuck Ave. at Berryman, through May 12. Tickets are $12. 525-1620. www.aeofberkeley.org  

Aurora Theatre “Private Jokes, Public Places” Wed.-Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 and 7 p.m. at 2081 Addison St., through May 13. Tickets are $38. 843-4822. 

Berkeley High Theater “Hair” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 p.m., also May 11 and 12 at 8 p.m., at Florence Schwimley Little Theater, Berkeley High Campus. Tickets are $7-$15.  

Berkeley Rep “Blue Door” at 8 p.m. at 2025 Addison St., through May 20. Tickets are $45-$61. 647-2949. www.berkeleyrep.org 

Contra Costa Civic Theater “A Streetcar Named Desire” at 8 p.m. Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 p.m. at Contra Costa Civic Theatre, 951 Pomona Ave., El Cerrito. Runs through May 12. Tickets are $8-$11. 524-9132. www.ccct.org  

Impact Theatre “Measure for Measure” Thurs.-Sat. at 8 p.m. at La Val’s Subterranean, 1834 Euclid Ave., through May 26.Tickets are $10-$15. 464-4468. 

Just Theater, “I Have Loved Strangers” Thurs.-Sat. at 8 p.m. at Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant Ave., to May 26. Tickets are $12-$25. 421-1458. www.justtheater.org 

King Middle School “The Odyssey” at 7:30 p.m. at King Middle School Auditorium. Suggested dontation $1-$5. 644-6280. 

Masquers Playhouse “She Loves Me” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2:30 p.m. at Masquers Playhouse, 105 Park Place, Point Richmond, through May 12.Tickets are $18. 232-4031. www.masquers.org  

Subterranean Shakespeare “Macbeth” Thurs.-Sat. at 8 p.m. at the Berkeley Art Center, 1275 Walnut St., near Rose in Live Oak Park, to May 26. Tickets are $12-$17. 276-3871.  

TheatreFIRST “Sergeant Musgrave’s Dance” Thurs.-Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 3 p.m. at Old Oakland Theatre, 481 Ninth St., Oakland. Tickets are $18-$25. 436-5085. www.theatrefirst.com 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Two Worlds” Photographs by Victoria Staller and sculpture by Laura Van Duren opens at Mercury 20 Gallery, 25 Grand Ave. at Broadway. www.mercurytwenty.com 

“Touchable Stories: Richmond” A multi-media, oral history event created by the people of Richmond. Fri. at 8 p.m., Sat. at 2 and 6 p.m. through May 13, at 1303 Canal Blvd., Richmond (the former Kaiser Shipyard Cafeteria). Cost is $6-$12. For reservations call 619-3675. www.touchablestories.org 

“People Are Everywhere” group show of artists from Brazil to Canada. Opening reception at 7 p.m. at Boontling Gallery, 4225 Telegraph Ave., Oakland. Gallery hours are Sat. and Sun. noon to 5 p.m.. Show runs to May 27. 295-8881. 

FILM 

“Lives for Sale” A documentary on immigration and human trafficking at 7 p.m. at St. Joseph the Worker School, Marian Hall, 2nd Flr., 2125 Jefferson St. Not wheelchair accessible. 482-1062.  

“Hysteria” by Antero Alli at 8 p.m. at Grace North Church, 2138 Cedar St. Cost is $6. 464-4640. www.verticalpool.com 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Alex Cavalli performs “Paul Face to Face” a dramatic presentation of Paul’s epistles as written in the King James Version of the Bible, at 7:30 p.m. at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant Ave. 339-6316.  

Nina Lindsay and Helen Wickes, poetry reading for Sixteen Rivers Press at 7:30 p.m. at Berkeley City College Auditorium, 2050 Center St. 415-273-1303. wwwsixteenrivers.org 

Stephanie Nolan describes “28 Stories of AIDS in Africa” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. www.codysbooks.com  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Dan Plonsey’s Daniel Popsicle “Music of El Cerrito: the Color Music” at 8 p.m. at the Fidelity Bank building, 2323 Shattuck Ave. Tickets are $10-$20. Sponsored by the Berkeley Arts Festival. www.berkeleyartsfestival.com 

“All That Jazz” Berkeley High School Jazz Band performs in a fundraiser for the Willard Middle School at 6 p.m. at Willard, 2524 Stuart St. 644-6330. 

Berkeley City College Talent Show with music, dance, spoken word and poetry by students, faculty and staff, at 7:20 p.m. at the Berkeley City College Auditorium, 2050 Center St. 981-2965. 

Juan Escovedo and Tortilla Soup at noon at Oakland City Center Stage, 12th and Broadway.  

University Symphony Orchestra at 8 p.m. at Hertz Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $4-$12.. 642-4864. http://music.berkeley.edu 

Crafty Apples and Henry Kaiser, guitar, at 8 p.m. at 1510 8th Street Performance Space, 1510 8th St., Oakland. Cost is $5-$15 sliding scale. 

“A Night of New World Flamenco Jazz” with Tomas Michaud and the Gypsy Groove Ensemble at 7:30 p.m. at Home of Truth, 1300 Grand St., Alameda. Benefit for the Alameda Education Foundation. Tickets are $8-$15. www.WorldMelodies.com 

Rolando Morales Quintet at 5 p.m at the Oakland Museum of California, 1000 Oak St. 238-2200. 

Juanita Ulloa and Mariachi Picante’s Mujeres Music Festival at 8 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $18-$20. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Sheldon Brown Group at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $12-$15. 845-5373. www.jazzschool.com 

Yolanda Alicia & Her Trio at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $12. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Aza and Moh Alileche at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $11-$13. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Fairport Convention at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $24.50-$25.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

The Ravines and Christina Kowalchuk at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

Beep!, Smith Dobson Quartet, Kasey Knudson Group at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $5. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

La Plebe, Peligro Social, Eskapo at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St., an all-ages, member-run, no alcohol, no drugs, no violence club. Cost is $6. 525-9926. 

The Wayward Sway at 9:30 p.m. at Beckett’s Irish Pub, 2271 Shattuck Ave. 647-1790. www.beckettsirishpub.com 

Jennifer Johns at 9 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low, 2284 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $5-$7. 548-1159.  

Becky White and the Secret Mission, mystic folk, at 8:30 p.m. at Epic Arts, 1923 Ashby Ave. Cost is $5-$10. 644-2204.  

Times 4 at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Mister Loveless, The Catholic Comb, The Fedralists at 9 p.m. at Oakland Metro, 201 Broadway. Cost is $10. 763-1146. www.oaklandmetro.org 

Hal Stein Quartet at 8 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

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

SATURDAY, MAY 5 

CHILDREN  

Los Amiguitos de La Peña with Juanita Ulloa and Ginny Morgan at 10:30 a.m. at La Peña. Cost is $4 for adults, $3 for children. 849-2568.  

EXHIBITIONS 

“Fleeting Moments in Nature and Life” Bronze sculptures by Elizabeth Dante, plein air landscapes by Barbara Ward, watercolors by John Kenyon and paintings by Paul Graf. Reception for the artists at 5 p.m. at the Giorgi Gallery, 2911 Claremont Ave. Exhibition runs through June 3. 848-1228. 

“Ceramics: Form and Function” by Phyllis Pacin, Cheryl Wolff and Ann Testa. Opening reception at 3 p.m. at Montclair Gallery, 1986 Mountain Blvd., Oakland. Exhibition runs to June 18. 339-4286. 

“Far/Near” Landscape and nature photographs by Bruce Yost Reception at 2 p.m. at The Light Room Gallery, 2263 Fifth St. 649-8111. 

“The Changing Face of Europe” An exhibition of books, maps, photos and artifacts in the Bernice Layne Brown Gallery of UC Berkeley's Doe Library through August.  

“Divine Feminine” Contemporary Tantric Art from the collection of Robert Beer, reception at 6 p.m. at Berkeley Shambala Center, 2177 Bancroft.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Myriam Gurba reads from her debut fiction collection “Dahlia Season: Stories & a Novella” at 6 p.m. at Pegass Books Downtown, 2349 Shattuck Ave. 649-1320. 

“Measure of Time” Conversation with artists Alan Rath and Meredith Tromble at 1 p.m. in the Berekeley Art Museum Galleries, 2626 Bancroft Way. Cost is $5-$8. 642-0808. 

Bay Area Poets Coalition holds an open reading from 3 to 5 p.m., at Strawberry Creek Lodge, 1320 Addison St. Park on the street, not in Lodge parking lot. 527-9905.  

Chuck Palahniuk introduces his new novel “Rant: An Oral Biography of Buster Casey” at 7:30 in the Pauley Ballroom, UC Campus. Tickets are $8 available from Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. 

Art for Autism Poetry Reading and Art Auction with readings by Loretta Clodfelter, Gabrielle Myers, Dennis Smera and others at 5 p.m. at Gallery for Urban Art, 1746 13th St., West Oakland. Cost is $10. 910-1833.  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Berkeley Community Chorus and Orchestra features Gabriel Faure’s Requiem at 8 p.m. at Saint Joseph The Worker Church, 1640 Addison St. Free, donations appreciated. www.bcco.org 

Berkeley Opera “Romeo and Juliet” at 8 p.m. at the Julia Morgan Center for the Arts, 2460 College Ave. Tickets are $10-$40. 925-798-1300. www.berkeleyopera.org 

University Symphony Orchestra at 8 p.m. at Hertz Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $4-$12.. 642-4864. http://music.berkeley.edu 

AVE, Artists‚ Vocal Ensemble Life and Death: A Requiem for the Victims of Darfur at 7:30 p.m. at St. Mark’s Church, Bancroft at Ellsworth. Tickets are $10-$25. www.ave-music.org 

“A Night of New World Flamenco Jazz” with Tomas Michaud and the Gypsy Groove Ensemble at 7:30 p.m. at Home of Truth, 1300 Grand St., Alameda. Benefit for the Alameda Education Foundation. Tickets are $8-$15. www.WorldMelodies.com 

“Sacred Monsters” with dance icons Sylvie Guillem and Akram Khan at 8 p.m. at at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $32-$86. 642-9988.  

The Arab Culture Initiative, hip hop for social change, at 9 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $10-$12. 849-2568.  

Nerio De Gracia Mambo Jazztet A tribute to Carlos Federico, at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $14. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Steve Lucky and the Rhumba Bums with Carmen Getit at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Swing dance lesson at 8 p.m. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com  

Sotaque Baiano, Brazilian, at 9 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low, 2284 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $10. 548-1159. www.shattuckdownlow.com 

Wildsang and James Riddle at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

Space Heater at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Henry Clement & the Gumbo Band at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $17.50-$18.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Adam Shulman Quartet at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $10-$12. 845-5373. www.jazzschool.com 

Marc Lemaire & Friends at 8 p.m. at Spuds Pizza, 3290 Adeline St. Cost is $7. 558-0881. 

Minus Vince, Uptones, GDB at 9 p.m. at Oakland Metro, 201 Broadway. Cost is $10. 763-1146. www.oaklandmetro.org 

Mark Growden, Freddi, Acoustic Virgin at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. All ages show. Cost is $6. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

Jason Webley, Rev Payton’s Big Damn Band, Vermillion Lies at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St., an all-ages, member-run, no alcohol, no drugs, no violence club. Cost is $6. 525-9926. 

SUNDAY, MAY 6 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Through Windows” Photography by Michael Wong Reception at 2 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

“Inspiring Blooms” works in colored pencil by Bei Brown. Reception for the artist at 2 p.m. at the Tilden Environmental Education Center, Tilden Park. 525-2233. 

FILM 

“Works from the Eisner Prize Competition” with Sophie Cooper, Wenhua Shi and other artists in person at noon at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $5-$8. 642-0808.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Joseph Fisher will talk about the recently discovered childrens’ art from the federally funded childcare centers in Richmond during WWII at 3 p.m. at Moe’s Books. 849-2087.  

Alex Cavalli performs “The Gospel According to John” a dramatic rendition of biblical voices direct from the King James Version of the Bible at 2:30 p.m. at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant Ave. 339-6316.  

“The Human Drama of Everyday Lives: Telling Stories with Photos” with Oakland based photojournalist, Lexine Alpert at 2 p.m. in the Community Meeting Room on the third floor of the Berkeley Public Library, 2090 Kittredge. 981-6241. 

“The Sermon on the Print” with printmaker David Kelso, founder of California Intaglio Editions at 3:30 p.m at the Oakland Museum of California, 1000 Oak St. Cost is $5-$8. 238-2200. 

Adelina Anthony, Dino Foxx and Lorenzo Herrera y Lozano poetry at 7 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $8-$10. 849-2568.  

“Divine Feminine” Contemporary Tantric Art Lecture with Siddhartha V. Shah at 1 p.m. at Berkeley Shambala Center, 2177 Bancroft.  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Berkeley Community Chorus and Orchestra features Gabriel Faure’s Requiem at 4:30 p.m. at Saint Joseph The Worker Church, 1640 Addison St. Free, donations appreciated. www.bcco.org 

Peter Yarrow of Peter, Paul and Mary in a family concert and sing-along at 2 p.m. at First Congregational Church of Berkeley. Tickets are $15-$20 from 559-9500. www.tash.org 

“Sacred Monsters” with dance icons Sylvie Guillem and Akram Khan at 7 p.m. at at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $32-$86. 642-9988. 

U.C. Santa Barbara Dance Company at 7 p.m. at the Julia Morgan Center for the Arts, 2640 College Ave. Tickets are $10-$15. 925-798-1300. 

Twang Cafe features Rancho Deluxe & High Diving Horses at 7:30 p.m. at Epic Arts, 1923 Ashby Ave. Cost is $10, all ages welcome. www.twangcafe.com 

Jupiter String Quartet at 6 p.m. at Berkeley Art Center, 1275 Walnut St. Vintage poster sale at 4 p.m. Tickets are $25-$30. 644-6893.  

Don Neeley’s Royal Society Five, music from the teens, twenties and thirties from 3 to 6 p.m. at the Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum, 37417 Niles Blvd., Fremont. Cost is $20, benefits the museum. 494-1411. www.nilesfilmmuseum.org 

Irina Rivkin, Moira Smiley with VOCO & Ashley Maher at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $17.50-$18.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Ana Carbetti & Recita da Samba at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $9. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Americana Unplugged: Jeanie & Chuck’s Country Roundup at 5 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

David K. Mathews B-3 Organ Quartet at 4:30 at the Jazzschool. Cost is $15. 845-5373. www.jazzschool.com 

The Look, The Symptoms, Tea and Tricky Fish at 7 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Benefit for La Familia Music Education. Cost is $10, $8 for 18 and under. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Philips Marine Duo at 11 a.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344.  

Elk, Horn of Daggoth, Sands at 9 p.m. at Oakland Metro, 201 Broadway. Cost is $10. 763-1146. www.oaklandmetro.org 

MONDAY, MAY 7 

EXHIBITIONS 

Photo Montages by Fletcher Oakes Reception with the artist at 7 p.m. at the It Club Gallery, 10070 San Pablo Ave., El Cerrito. Exhibition runs through May 30. www.touchablestories.org 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Aurora Theatre Staged Readings “Learn to be Latina” by Enrique E. Urueta at 7:30 p.m. at 2081 Addison St. For tickets call 843-4822. 

Will Shortz on his favorite puzzles and how crosswords are created at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $20-$32. 642-9988. www.calperfs.berkeley.edu 

Chiura Obata and the Art of Internment with Kimi Kodani Hill, author, at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Public Library, 2090 Kittredge St. 981-6150. 

Michael J. Sandel, Harvard Professor of Government will discuss his new book, “The Case Against Perfection: Ethics in the Age of Genetic Engineering” at 4:30 p.m. at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant. 625-0819. www.genetics-and-society.org 

Actors Reading Writers “From Story to Screen,” works by O. Henry and Annie Proulx at 7:30 p.m. at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant Ave. 932-0214. 

Freight and Salvage Open Mic at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $4.50-$5.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Gloria Frym and Joseph Lease, poets, at 7:30 p.m. at Moe’s Books, 2476 Telegraph Ave. 849-2087. 

Poetry Express with Avotcja at 7 p.m. at Priya Restaurant, 2072 San Pablo Ave. berkeleypoetryexpress@yahoo.com 

TUESDAY, MAY 8 

CHILDREN 

First Stage Children’s Theatre “Pet Care Capers” at 7:30 p.m. at Julia Morgan Center for the Arts, 2640 College Ave. Tickets are $5 at the door.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Poetry Flash with Al Young, California Poet Laureate with Reginald Lockett and Floyd Salas at 7:30 p.m. at Berkeley City College Auditorium, 2050 Center St. 525-5476. 

Vendela Vida reads from her new book “Let the Northern Lights Erase Your Name” at 7:30 p.m. at Moe’s Books, 2476 Telegraph Ave. 849-2087. 

Liza Mundy describes “Everything Conceivable: How Assisted Reproduction is Changing Men, Women, and the World” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Gator Beat, cajun zydeco at 8:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $5. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Ellen Hoffman and Singers’ Open Mic at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $5. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Robin Huw Bowen at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Debbie Poryes & Friends at 7 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

Joyce & Dori Caymmi at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $6-$10. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

Jazzschool Tuesdays, a weekly showcase of up-and-coming ensembles from Berkeley Jazzschool at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

WEDNESDAY, MAY 9 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Jeffrey Feldman and George Lakoff discuss “Framing the Debate: Famous Presidential Speeches and How Progressives Can Use Them to Change the Conversation (and Win Elections)” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. 

Café Poetry hosted by Kira Allen at 7:30 p.m. at La Peña. Donation $2. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Nomadic Rambles, Storytelling hosted by Ed Silberman at 7 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

Berkeley Poetry Slam with host Charles Ellik at 8:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $5-$7. 841-2082 www.starryploughpub.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Berkeley Opera “Romeo and Juliet” at 7:30 p.m. at the Julia Morgan Center for the Arts, 2460 College Ave. Tickets are $10-$40. 925-798-1300. www.berkeleyopera.org 

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

Balkan Folkdance at 8 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $9. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Orquestra La Verdad at 9:30 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low, 2284 Shattuck Ave. Salsa lessons at 8:30 p.m. Cost is $5-$10. 548-1159.  

UC Jazz Showcase: Joyce Kwan Ensemble at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

The Refugees: Cindy Bullens, Deborah Holland, Jenny Yeates & Wendy Waldman at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Sentinel at 9:30 p.m. at Beckett’s Irish Pub, 2271 Shattuck Ave. 647-1790. www.beckettsirishpub.com 

THURSDAY, MAY 10 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Charley Hardy Book party for “Cowboy in Caracas” at 7:30 p.m. in the Fireside Room, 1606 Bonita just south of Cedar, next door to the BFUU Hall. Cost is $5-$10. Not wheelchair accessible.  

Daniel Handler and Christopher Moore discuss Moore’s novel “Adverbs” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. 

Bonnie Tsui introduces “A Leaky Tent is a Piece of Paradise: 20 Young Writers on Finding a Place in the Natural World” at 7:30 p.m. at Mrs. Dalloways, 2904 College Ave. 704-8222. 

“Aging Artfully” with author Amy Gorman and “Still Kicking” with Greg Young at 7 p.m. at A Great Good Place for Books, 6120 LaSalle, Montclair, Oakland. 339-8210. 

Maidu Dance Tradition with Frank La Pena at 7:30 p.m. at Heyday Books, 2054 University Ave., 6th floor. RSVP to Lillian Fleer at lillian@heydaybooks.com 549-3564, ext. 316. 

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

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Tim Fuller on Hawaiian Slack Key Guitar at 12:15 p.m. at the Berkeley Public Library, 5th Floor, 2090 Kittredge St. Free. 981-6100. www.berkeleypubliclibrary.org 

Zimrah Trio, North African and Near Eastern music at 6:30 p.m. at the Magnes Museum, 2911 Russell St. tickets are $6-$8. 549-6950.  

Laura Love at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Christy Dana Quintet at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $10. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Wendy Dewitt Duo at 7 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

Make Me, Bill Swanson, The Fits at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $5. 841-2082 www.starryploughpub.com 

Terror, Hoods, Allegiance at 7:30 p.m. at Oakland Metro, 201 Broadway. Cost is $10. 763-1146. www.oaklandmetro.org 

The Amplifiers, Flexx Bronco, Neon Nights at 9 p.m. at the Uptown Nightclub, 1928 Telegraph, Oakland. Cost is $7. 451-8100. www.uptownnightclub.com 

Selector: DJ Gnat & Big Will at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Andrea Arnold’s Red Road, a Scottish film opening this weekend at Shattuck Cinemas, draws the viewer in immediately with its quiet intensity. The film begins with Jackie (Kate Dickie) silently watching a bank of monitors at her job at a security company, each screen presenting a different view of urban Glasgow from cameras positioned around the city.  

The glimpses into everyday working-class life in the city are fascinating and Jackie looks upon them with an endearing combination of benevolence, amusement and boredom. It’s her job and nothing more, but she nevertheless seems to go about it with a certain degree of interest if not pleasure.  

Thus right away we see that Jackie is an observer of life, not a participant. She lives alone and is apparently alienated from her parents and sister. Her only human contact consists of soul-deadening sex with a co-worker in a parked car. Her comfort at the surveillance desk console and her shy, nervous demeanor when she steps beyond it suggest that she is more at ease in this darkened room full of high-tech spying equipment, watching strangers come and go, than she is out in the world.  

She almost appears god-like for a moment as Dickie manages to convey Jackie’s compassion for these strangers. She smiles as a night-shift housekeeper dances to unheard music while going about her work; she furrows her brow with pity while watching a man walk his aging and sickly dog. And when she finally steps out of that room and into the streets, it is as if she is not one of them at all, but a privileged observer who occasionally slums by walking anonymously among those she oversees, taking a role as just another character in the drama she monitors daily. 

Yet once Jackie crosses that line and takes part in that drama, her life becomes a drama all its own. A chance sighting of a familiar face on one of the security cameras sends Jackie on a strange journey. It is apparent that this man is a figure from her past, someone who has somehow hurt her, but Arnold withholds all explanations right up to the end. Instead we watch as Jackie monitors the man for weeks and gains entry to his life, stalking him through a degraded, neglected cityscape, one whose battered streets and grafitti-scarred buildings mirror the heroine’s mental state; years of painful remembrance have taken their toll on her psyche. 

The film is part of a larger project called the Advance Party, in which three directors made three different films using the same characters. Arnold has fashioned a compelling tale out of that raw material, and her direction is strong and focused, yet the film is slightly undermined by its evenness of tone. Those early scenes of quiet watchfulness are engaging, but after 90 minutes the minimalist approach causes the pace to flag.  

But the most troubling flaws in Red Road come when Arnold yields to the threadbare devices by which indie dramas so often seek to prove their indieness: actors willing to appear naked under less-than-flattering lighting conditions; gratuitously graphic sex scenes; and somehow, somewhere, sometime, someone must vomit. Thus maketh a film of great import and honesty. 

But these are minor complaints. Kate Dickie’s portrayal of Jackie is subtle and powerful, and Tony Curran as Clyde inspires just the right blend of allure and recoil. And despite the contrivance that draws these disparate lives together, Arnold has managed to create a memorable and harrowing tale of a woman who must come face to face with her fears before she’s ready to start piecing her life back together. 

RED ROAD 

Written and directed by Andrea Arnold.  

Starring Kate Dickie, Tony Curran,  

Martin Compston, Natalie Press.  

113 minutes. Not rated. Contains graphic sex. Playing at Shattuck Cinemas.

FLEETING MOMENTS 

An artists’ reception will be held at 5 p.m Saturday at Giorgi Gallery for “Fleeting Moments,” featuring sculptures by Elizabeth Dante, oil paintings by Barbara Ward, watercolors by John Kenyon and bas reliefs by Paul Graf. The exhibit continues though June 3. 2911 Claremont Ave. 848-1228, www.giorgigallery.com. 

RICHMOND  

CHILDREN’S ART  

Joseph Fischer will discuss children’s art in Richmond from 1943 to 1966 at 3 p.m. Sunday at Moe’s Books at 2476 Telegraph Ave. The talk is in conjunction with an exhibition at the Museum of Children’s Art in Oakland, on display through June 3, featuring some of the several thousand pieces of art from the federally funded childcare centers in Richmond during World War II and the post-war period which were recently discovered. The wartime and post-war artwork will be exhibited starting Sept. 29 at the Richmond Museum of History. 

MARX MADNESS  

AT CERRITO THEATER 

The Cerrito Theater will present the Marx Brothers in Duck Soup (1933), arguably their greatest film, as part of the “Cerrito Classics” series at 6 p.m. Saturday and 5 p.m. Sunday. e. 10070 San Pablo Avenue, El Cerrito. www.picturepubpizza.com. 

RANCHO DELUXE PLAYS TWANG CAFE 

Los Angeles-based country music band Rancho Deluxe will perform at 7 p.m. Sunday at the Twang Cafe, an American music series held monthly in the intimate confines of Epic Arts. 1923 Ashby Ave. $10. www.twangcafe.com.

Whether it’s the Weird Sisters on the heath, a dagger hovering in mid-air, Birnham Wood marching on Dunsinane, or “No man of woman born,” the Bard’s “Scottish Play”—so-called to guard against its very own evil eye—is usually drenched with atmosphere and gore, and served up as a kind of Hallowe’en blowout with cultural credentials. 

But Subterranean Shakespeare’s sharp production of Macbeth at the Berkeley Arts Center in Live Oak Park, with Jeremy Cole’s fast-paced and nimble, intimate staging, brings the drama to the fore, the story into focus, dissolving the hoary encrustations without losing the genuine strangeness of the tale, its eerie reverberations of willfulness and destiny, character and autosuggestive magic. 

“I wanted a non-sticky Macbeth,” joked the director, remembering the cleanup chores of shows past. But the result of his wish isn’t a Teflon slickness. The real power of this seeming potboiler that exposes a brave man’s ambition as murder, a loving marriage as the breeding ground of resentment and the pinnacle of success as weary cynicism, is made more direct with syncopated, overlapping scenes, crowded moments succeeded by solitary soul-baring and the fluid motion of the cast in eye-to-eye proximity to the audience—a power that is palpable, that connects with a spectator’s fleeting thoughts and emotions, rather than a vague sense of menace that provokes nervous laughter. 

A show like this casts light on why Orson Welles referred to his very different film adaptation as an artistic watershed: “Everything I did up to Macbeth was just a dress rehearsal.” 

There’s something very demanding, compact and volatile, yet mature in the close-up, dispassionate handling of such highly charged material that makes this play unique among Shakespeare’s trage-dies, a something this production touches on, over and over, refusing any sensationalism. 

The ensemble has everything to do with this sense of a well-oiled machine of fate grinding on to its predetermined outcome, the twin moods of expectation and surprise constantly intersecting in every incident and exchange. Paul Jennings is solid in the title role, clearly showing and speaking the part of a brave man turned inside-out by his own facility for action, despite the cause, first succeeding to a traitor’s relinquished title in a battlefield commission, immediately rankling at another being made Prince of Cumberland, turning to regicide and finally attaining a strange regalness as world-wise and weary, ostracized usurper, all on his own. 

Stephanie DeMott’s Lady Macbeth proves the unscrupulous, quick-witted wife of a careerist, rather than the villainous femme fatale and manipulator, who incites to action, smoothes things over—and absorbs the true horror of consequence, becoming another victim. 

The three witches, Martha Stookey, Carrie Smith and Molly Holcomb, whirl in and out in their red capes, invisibly witnessing the upshot of their prophecying, or taking on other, subsidiary roles. King Duncan, with a gold fillet of rank on his brow, is magnanimously acted out by Jack Halton, who more than doubles, after his assasination, as the ghastly, comic Porter, falling down drunk, and clutching at the pantleg of this reviewer, calling him “Equivocator”—not a bad monicker for a critic, tho’ Elizabethan for lawyer. Halton later resurfaces as Priest, watchcapped Murderer (in league with leering Nicholas Crandall) and Doctor to Milady’s somnambulist hand-rinsing. 

Others play multiply as well: Lynn-Audrey Tijerina is a stolid factotum as Banquo and an awful apparition as his accusing ghost, before playing an affecting Lady Macduff. Edward O’Neill, Nicholas Crandall, Eden Castro and Ben Grubb are all Apparitions, besides members of the court or retainers, Ben Grubb a masculine, impetuous Macduff who is more than a match to the proud, but increasingly inward tyrant Thane and King. 

Macbeth’s enveloping isolation is complemented by the snowballing resistance of the fugitives like Ross (genteel Mark Jordan) and Macduff who rally to Malcolm (Edward O’Neill). The deft stagecraft that can render both clamoring multitudes and Macbeth’s brooding insularity at the same time on such a small canvas is impressive. The counterpoint of ravening personal ambition to national grief is eloquent: “Alas, poor country! Afraid to know itself; cannot be called mother, but only our grave.” 

Subterranean Shakespeare has also come up with another, more portable treat: “Shakespeare’s Greatest Hits,” a CD of 17 songs of The Bard, performed by over 30 Bay Area musicians, singers and actors (including such eminent Berkeleyans as Michael Rossman), available online at myspace/subshakes.com, CD Baby, Itunes —and this summer in your local bardic emporium. 

John Hopkins Spring, the developer of Thousand Oaks, always knew how to attract attention. On December 23, 1915, World War One was raging in Europe, and the newspapers were reporting that British losses at the Battle of Gallipoli had climbed to 112,921. But the war did not make top headline in the Oakland Tribune that day. 

That place was reserved for Spring, who had just announced that he was leaving his wife, Celina, for a younger woman and abandoning his famed Arlington Avenue mansion for the Alcatraz Apartments, a residential-commercial building he owned at 3315 Adeline St. 

Born in San Francisco, Spring (1862–1933) began his career as a street contractor. Shortly before the incorporation of the Key Route transbay ferry system, he allied himself with Frank C. Havens, president of the Peoples’ Water Company, and with Francis Marion “Borax” Smith, acting as land agent in large purchases of suburban property at the time they were launching the Realty Syndicate. 

The 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire triggered a rapid increase in the price of Berkeley real estate. Spring, who had acquired vast tracts, became very wealthy very quickly, with a reputed net worth of $3 million. His holdings comprised most of the land in Alameda County north of the Berkeley line, extending from the hills to the bay. He founded the Spring Construction Company, owned a quarry, and was a director of the Western National Bank of San Francisco and of the Berkeley National Bank. 

Throughout his life, Spring evinced keen interest in architecture and landscaping. His Oakland home, a stately Italianate Victorian at 2711 Fruitvale Ave., was situated on 13 acres that boasted groves of ancient oak trees, cultivated arbors, meandering walks, lawns and flower beds, a Japanese tea garden comparable to the one in Golden Gate Park, a large swimming pool, four fountains, several tennis courts, a shooting gallery, windmills, and a rivulet spanned by rustic bridges. 

In 1910, after Spring had subdivided Thousand Oaks and was committed to building his home there, the residents of Fruitvale and surrounding neighborhoods petitioned the Oakland city council to include $90,000 in a proposed bond issue in order to purchase the Spring property and turn it into a public park. Like many splendid ideas, this one went nowhere. The property ended up being subdivided into small lots, long since built up. No vestige remains of what was once described as an “earthly Eden.” 

If Spring was troubled by the fate of his old home, he didn’t make it known. Ever active, he was now planning his new Eden on 16 acres in Thousand Oaks. The terraced gardens were laid out by Mark Daniels even before construction began on the enormous concrete villa designed by John Hudson Thomas. 

And Spring didn’t stop with his own estate. As each of his daughters was married, he built the new couple a house in the vicinity. Of daughters the Springs had no shortage. Celina brought two from her first marriage and had four more by Spring. The eldest, Catherine Warfield, married laundry company executive Lester K. Wells but soon divorced him to forge a union with Charles Percy Murdock, who worked for the Realty Syndicate. The two settled next to the Mark Daniels home on Yosemite Road, building a handsome half-timbered house designed by John Hudson Thomas. 

Between the Murdocks and Indian Trail lived the second daughter, Frances Warfield, with her husband, Robert C. Newell. Their residence, an English-style manor house with parapet gables, was designed by William Knowles (who had designed the Alcatraz Apartments for Spring in 1906). Newell sold Thousand Oaks real estate for his father-in-law—first with partner William H. Henricks, then with William C. Murdoch (no relation to Catherine’s husband). 

A third daughter, Gertrude Spring, was an early groupie. At the age of 15 she eloped with George Friend, a comic actor of the Liberty stock company, known as the “Willie Collier of Oakland.” The match met with the severe disapprobation of Gertrude’s father, but eventually Spring forgave the couple, gave them a house at 597 Santa Clara Avenue, and made George a partner. George picked up where Newell had left off as agent for Spring’s properties. 

In March 1914, a newspaper ad selling Thousand Oaks properties began with an interview in which John Spring was asked, “How much property is controlled by your companies?” Spring replied, “It will perhaps give you a better idea of the magnitude of this enterprise when I tell you that we have macadamized 50 miles of streets in properties. In other words, the streets if stretched out in a straight line would reach from Berkeley to San Jose. The sidewalks, which are on both sides of the streets, would reach to Monterey.” 

Gertrude wasn’t the only Spring child to elope. She was followed by the Springs’ only son, Frank, who ran away, if only briefly, with Avis Sterling, niece of Frank C. Havens and sister of the poet George Sterling. Spring built them a house at 749 The Alameda, and Frank joined George Friend’s firm. 

The fifth sibling to marry and settle in Thousand Oaks was Anne Spring. Her bridegroom did not sell real estate; he made it. Noble Newsom was the scion of an architectural dynasty, son of Samuel Newsom, designer of Eureka’s famed Carson Mansion. Anne and Noble were given a lot on Yosemite Road (then Lovers’ Lane), across the street from the Sills’ Villa della Rocca. Noble and his brother Sidney designed the “Honeymoon Cottage,” as the house is known to this day. 

The Newsoms married just a month before John Spring left his wife for Genevieve McGraw Ecker. At the time, Celina Spring was traveling abroad. In her absence, Spring deeded the mansion and close to 1,200 lots in north Berkeley and El Cerrito to his Regents Park Land Company, using the power of attorney he held for her. She returned from Honolulu on Dec. 27, 1915, and the following day filed a lawsuit to annul the transaction. 

In Honolulu, Celina left her daughter Dorothy, who was indicted on December 24 for manslaughter after striking a woman while driving a car and failing to come to her aid. Two and a half years later, John Spring would settle a suit brought against him by the victim’s husband. 

Spring married Genevieve Ecker in 1917, one hour after his divorce was finalized. At the end of the same year, the Spring Mansion was sold to Cora Williams, who turned it into a progressive school. In 1918, Celina married her first husband’s brother, publisher of the Baltimore Daily Record. The World War slowed down the pace of real estate sales, and in 1919 the Berkeley-Thousand Oaks Company, having acquired the tract at a low price, held an auction sale to dispose of the remaining lots. 

Spring and Genevieve had by then moved to a mansion at 2340 Gough Street, San Francisco, where their son Jack was born in 1918. Spring would soon build a new mansion in Los Gatos. In 1922, Genevieve opened a fashion shop at 2340 Gough in partnership with Clara Sckolnik, a Russian designer. Owing to Genevieve’s shenanigans, the business lasted less than a year. Madame Sckolnik sued Genevieve for failing to divide the profits with her and opened an independent shop at another location. 

The Great Depression was not kind to Spring. Relatives reported in 1932 that he was now “broken in both health and fortune” and “trying to recoup financially through road building down the peninsula.” In June of that year, Spring obtained an interlocutory decree of divorce from Genevieve, claiming that for many years “she had treated him as a daughter would a father,” refusing to “give him wifely affection.” At the time, Spring was nearing 70, while his wife was 46. 

The Springs were later reconciled, and he died in 1933, leaving Genevieve his entire estate. Perhaps he was not quite as financially broken as suggested, for his death ignited a legal battle between his former wives over the estate. The matter was adjudicated, but a new drama ensued in 1937. Spring’s sister, Charlotte Montgomery of San Francisco, petitioned the courts to remove Jack from his mother’s custody, charging that Mrs. Spring was unfit to care for him, having “long received treatment as a narcotic addict.” This led Genevieve to slash her wrists with a knife. She died in San Francisco in 1950. 

Houses and gardens in the Thousand Oaks neighborhood will be open on BAHA’s Spring House Tour this Sunday, May 6, between 1 pm and 5 pm. 

Daniella Thompson publishes berkeleyheritage.com for the Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association (BAHA). 

[Photos] 

Photo: Murdock house.jpg 

Caption: This house, designed by John Hudson Thomasw ,as John Spring’s wedding present to his step-daughter for Catherine and her husband Percy Murdock. (Daniella Thompson) 

Photo: Indian Trail.jpg 

Caption: The bucolic Indian Trail leads from Yosemite Road to The Alameda.. (Daniella Thompson) 

Photo: Newsom house.jpg 

Caption: The embowered “Honeymoon Cottage” was the first home of Anne Spring and Noble Newsom. (Daniella Thompson) 

Photo: Tunnel Rock.jpg 

Caption: Tunnel Rock on Yosemite Road forms the backdrop to the Newsom cottage. (Daniella Thompson) 

Word is that the “recommendations” and “suggestions” from the agriculture officials about the recently discovered infestation of the light brown apple moth (Epiphyas postvittana, hereinafter LBAM) has grown into a state-declared quarantine.  

This pest is so inconspicuous that it took a retired entomology professor to notice what had blundered into his blacklight trap. Now that the hunt is on, specimens have turned up as far south as Monterey County. As of last week, about two thirds of captures have been in a small area there; the rest were mostly in Marin, San Francisco, western Contra Costa and Alameda counties, with scattered finds as far east as Danville.  

Aside from flying moths that turned up in some of their 11,000-plus pheromone traps, inspectors had found caterpillars and pupae in one San Francisco retail nursery and two production nurseries in Santa Cruz County. They treated that stock with chlorpyrifos.  

The California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) said a pending federal order will require inspection and certification of all nursery stock and host commodities – produce, flowers, other plant material—from the quarantine area, which is pretty much what the state DFA has declared already. As of May 1, the federal APHIS Web site had nothing new posted on the matter; not surprising, as the boundaries are in flux. 

What does this mean for East Bay gardeners? The quarantine would “prohibit the movement of all nursery stock and all host fruits and vegetables and plant parts within or from the quarantine region unless it is certified as ‘free-from’ the pest by an agricultural official; is purchased at a retail outlet; or was produced outside the area and is passing through in accordance with accepted safeguards.” The CDFA also says the quarantine “applies to residential and community properties as well as commercial enterprises.” A complete list of host species is available at CDFA’s Web site. 

Steve Lyle of CDFA said, of people holding plant sales: “It’s not a blanket prohibition on the movement or sale of plants. If you’re holding a sale, call your county ag office to get an inspector there beforehand.” 

Retailers, he said, “are used to this stuff; they have inspection protocols already. It will add one step, some time and expense to their operations. Plant inspectors are always busy anyway just before Mother’s Day.” 

Regulators are asking that, for example, produce from school gardens be eaten on the premises—but, as Lyle notes, “a lot of them do that anyway: use it in classrooms or in the school lunch program.”  

Basically, though, the problem is with moving uninspected plant bits from within the (unfortunately ever-changing) quarantine zone to any area outside it. Don’t take that home-grown bouquet to the Mother’s Day gathering in Fresno, please, and do some homework before throwing a benefit plant sale: look up the list of host plants and the quarantine maps on the CDFA site—the public library branches have computers, if you don’t—and call the county folks in to look over your stock. They’ll be busy, so call early.  

CDFA’s LBAM Web site, with complete current information: www.cdfa.ca.gov /phpps/pdep/lbam_main.htm 

Dear Mr. Cantor: I want to thank you for the very informative and interesting article in the Daily Planet about strapping water heaters. Moreover, I want to say that I am a devoted reader and always find your pieces interesting and informative. 

I have a question about fire concerns caused by the break in the gas line to the water heaters. I’m only a homeowner and have no expertise, but I wonder if, when a gas line breaks, it doesn’t automatically interrupt the gas flow to the pilot, thus extinguishing the flame or spark that might ignite the gas flowing from the broken line. Or does the gas rush out so fast that the pilot still ignites it?  

In short, what besides a fire coming from a neighbor, is the mostly likely source of the spark or combustion that ignites the free-flowing gas? Would a broken power line produce sparks? 

Thanks for whatever light you can cast on this for me. 

—Alvin Ludwig 

Dear Alvin,  

Great question. 

There are so many sources of ignition possible that it’s almost a fait accompli that when a large volume of gas is released during an earthquake that it will find a means of ignition. 

During an earthquake electrical components are being thrust about and these can spark, metal on metal or metal on concrete can generate sparks and yes, there may still be enough gas at one or more pilots to ignite gas. Keep in mind that most houses have pilots at water heaters, furnaces, stoves and some other kinds of devices. 

If the water heater line breaks before the furnace line. The furnace pilot can ignite the gas lots of ways and most important, this is what actually happens. Broken gas lines in earthquakes result in many fires and many explosions. Just go online and look at pictures of Northridge. 

—Matt 

••• 

Hello, Mr. Cantor: We would like to install a second-story bay window in the back bedroom on our El Cerrito house. The house is a standard mid-’40s split-level, with bedrooms above garage/utility area. 

When we bought the house nine years ago there was already a bay window installed in the front bedroom. It was a bank foreclosure sale, so we don’t know about the permitting or history of that installation. 

Due to insufficient previous research and a bad decision, we have had an unpleasant window company experience and so the un-installed bay window has been sitting in our garage for a few years. 

My questions: Is it necessary to obtain permits for such installations? 

Does the installer/contractor obtain the permit, or the homeowner? 

Is an added bay window likely to increase earthquake damage to the rest of the structure? 

How would one find an installer who could do this work? 

(Most people say to talk to others about their experiences, but we’ve never found anyone in an equivalent position.) 

Thank you very much for any suggestions you might have. 

—Annie Organ 

Dear Ms. Organ, 

I think the first thing to do is to find a general contractor that you feel good about and to have them help you through the rest of the process. That’s what G.C.’s are good at. They can help answer all of those questions as well as take a look at your bay window. 

My tendency in a case such as this is to recommend a G.C. over a window specialist. Most window folk are used to installing a window in an existing opening but not getting involved in a wider range of issues such as seismic strength or vulnerability. 

As a rule, the cites draw their permit line financially and I have no idea what the cost of your job may be but it sounds as though it would have been expensive enough originally to require a permit. I am less concerned about the permit process than I am about the savvy of the contractor. 

City inspectors can be very useful in protecting the client from being poorly served but this type of job will not be heavily inspected so the key is to make sure that the installer will know their stuff. Flashings (the parts that keep water out of the building at the edges of the window) are the most critical part of this job. 

I do not believe that there is a major seismic implication in installing this window unless you are removing a large portion of the wall or unless there is a lot of other window on this wall at the same floor level.  

That said, the contractor should have a look in advance of proceeding. If this is at basement level (doesn’t sound like it) it can become a seismic issue by supplanting vital shear-bearing walls with a weak opening. 

Lastly, in choosing a contractor, don’t let price be your primary factor. Be sure that you feel confident in giving this person the key to your house, your money and your trust. 

A personal referral from a happy past customer is one of the best ways to select a contractor. Choose someone smart, not someone burley (although some are both smart and burley). 

Best of luck, 

—Matt 

••• 

Hi Matt:  

Enjoyed your excellent article on foundation capping. One thing that I sometimes mention to my clients is that the faulty grade problem may sometimes be solved by simply digging away the dirt and debris that has accumulated against the foundation. This of course is the most economical solution when a complete foundation replacement isn’t needed for structural reasons! Do you think this is an okay observation to make?  

—Betsy Thagard  

Real Estate Broker  

Absolutely Betsy,  

As I often say to folks who write me with valid point regarding the subject of the article, if I weren’t limited to about 1000 words, I’d probably have said just what you mentioned. 

Caps are often “technically” required by the Structural Pest Control Act but, in fact, silly and largely unnecessary. Soil has often built up on the outside (and sometimes on the inside due to later work such as basement development) and simply needs to be cut away. 

The trick is to first dig a pit next the foundation to see the total depth in one spot prior to digging out along a long stretch. As long as you’re not undermining the foundation and there are at least a few inches left, it’s fine to cut back the soil and create a two-four-inch gap. It’s also a good idea to make sure that client know not to mulch or plant right along this boundary and to keep it clear. 

Six-inches is code but not really required. Some very short footings (10 inches or so) are not good candidates for this technique but replacement of a good solid unrotated footing of solid concrete is usually unnecessary and capping does very little for any of us. All that said, a new inverted T is a nice improvement that adds value in several ways. 

You Harvard grads are so smart! 

—Matt 

••• 

FRIDAY, MAY 4 

Impeachment Banner Fridays at 6:45 to 8 a.m. on the Berkeley Pedestrian bridge between Seabreeze Market and the Berkeley Aquatic Park, ongoing on Fridays until impeachment is realized. www. Impeachbush-cheney.com 

City Commons Club Noon Luncheon with Philippe Eberhard on “Quantum Physics and Common Sense” 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.  

Law Literacy Outreach Program for youth aged 13-17 and their parents with workshops on legal responsibility Fri. and Sat. from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at East Bay Law School, 554 Grand Ave. 835-7999. www.eastbaylawschool.org 

“Lives for Sale” A documentary on immigration and human trafficking at 7 p.m. at St. Joseph the Worker School, Marian Hall, 2nd Flr., 2125 Jefferson St. Not wheelchair accessible. 482-1062.  

Five Star Night Benefit for Alameda County Meals on Wheels at 6:30 p.m. at Greek Orthodox Cathedral of the Ascension, 4700 Lincoln Ave., OAkland. Tickets are $300, sponsorships available. 577-3581. 

Red Cross Blood Drive from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Oakland Children’s Hospital, Outpatient Center Basement, 747 52nd St., Oakland. To schedule an appointment call 1-800-GIVE-LIFE. 

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. www.circledancing.com 

Planning Meetings for a Dedication to denise brown will be on going every Fri. at 2 p.m. at LeConte, Room 104. Photos, videos and dvd's are welcome to be included in the event. For more information, contact Rita Pettit, PRitaAnn@aol.com, 559-4602. 

SATURDAY, MAY 5 

Bring Back the Natives Tour of “Gardening for Bees and Butterflries” throughout the East Bay. Cost is $30. 236-9558. www.BringingBackTheNatives.net 

Biking with Youth A free workshop for parents and children over 9 years old, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Carter Middle School Basketball courts, 4521 Webster St., Oakland. Bring your bike, helmet and be ready for a relaxed 4-mile ride. RSVP to 740-3150, ext. 332. 

Rollin’ by the Bay Bring your rollerskates/blades, skateboards, wheelchairs or scooters (no bikes) on a 3.5 mile cruise of the Eastshore State Park from 2:30 to 4:30 p.m. For information call 525-2233. 

Walking Tour of Oakland Chinatown Meet at 10 a.m. at the courtyard fountain in the Pacific Renaissance Plaza at 388 Ninth St. Tour lasts 90 minutes. Reservations can be made by calling 238-3234. www.oaklandnet.com/walkingtours 

Mt. Wanda Wildflower Walk Join a Park Ranger for a walk in the hills where John Muir took his daughters. Terrain is steep, wear walking shoes and bring water. Rain cancels. Meet at 9 a.m. at the Cal-Trans Park and Ride lot at the corner of Alhambra Ave. and Franklin Canyon Rd., Martinez. 925-228-8860. 

The Crucible Open House for youth interested in learning how to weld, forge steel, melt glass, make jewelry, cast molten metal, and more from 1 to 3 p.m. at 1260 7th St., Oakland. Call to reserve a place at the orientation 444-0919. www.thecrucible.org 

Design Your Own Russian Nesting Dolls at 2 p.m. at the Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave. 526-3720, ext. 17. 

Annual Junktique Sale with furniture, computers, kitchen and household goods, books, linens, toys and more from 8:30 a.m. t0 3 p.m. at First United Methodist Church, 201 Martina St., corner of W. Richmond Ave., Point Richmond. To arrange donations call 964-9901.  

Dramatically Speaking Toastmasters Club meets to discuss ”Elderhostel: Adventures in Lifelong Learning” at 9 a.m. at 1950 Franklin St., Room 2F. RSVP required, ID needed to get into building. 581-8675. 

Cottage in the Woods Preschool Yard Sale from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at 3917 Lyman Rd., Oakland.  

Lead-Safe Painting & Remodeling Free class to learn about lead safe renovations for your older home, from 10 a.m. to noon at the West Oakland Branch Library, 1801 Adeline S., Oakland. Presented by Alameda County Lead Poisoning Prevention Program. 567-8280. www.ACLPPP.org  

Petite Pooches Playgroup for small dogs from 10:30 to 11:30 a.m., one block north of Solano on Ensenada at Talbot. 524-2459. 

The Berkeley Lawn Bowling Club provides free instruction every Wed. and Sat. at 10:30 a.m. at 2270 Acton St. 841-2174.  

Free Garden Tours at Regional Parks Botanic Garden Sat. and Sun. at 2 pm. Regional Parks Botanic Garden, Tilden Park. Call to confirm. 841-8732. www.nativeplants.org 

Around the World Tour of Plants at 1:30 p.m., Thurs., Sat. and Sun. at UC Botanical Garden, 200 Centennial Drive. 643-2755. http://botanicalgarden.berkeley.edu 

Car Wash Benefit for Options Recovery Services of Berkeley, held every Sat. from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Lutheran Church, 1744 University Ave. 666-9552. 

SUNDAY, MAY 6 

“Among the Rocks” Berkeley Architectural Heritage’s 32nd Annual Spring Tour and Reception of homes and gardens in the Thousand Oaks neighborhood, from 1 to 5 p.m. Cost is $25-$35. 841-2242. www.berkeleyheritage.com 

STAND: Standing Together for Accountable Neighborhood Development Garden Fundraiser with live music by Robert Temple, light buffet and information on how to stop the high-density condo developments that threaten North Oakland’s identity and diversity, at 4 p.m. in the historic Temescal District, 449 49th St., at Clarke, Oakland. Cost is $25, $40 for couples, children free. 655-3841. 

Bringing Back the Natives, free self-guided garden tour of sixty gardens throughout Alameda and Contra Costa counties from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. For details see www.BringingBackTheNatives.net  

To Bee or Not to Bee Learn about bees through a puppet show, and get to taste some honey at 11 a.m. at the Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park. 525-2233. 

Cinco de Mayo Fiesta from noon to 3 p.m. at Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley, One Lawson Rd., Kensington. 525-0302. 

Community Cleanup and Weedout at King Middle School from 9 a.m. at noon Sponsored by the Kiwanis Club of Berkeley. Please wear gloves and long pants, and bring clippers and other gardening tools. 527-8652. 

“Climate Change: Our Own Carbon Emissions” the second in a series of Sunday talks on Climate Change by Karen Street at 1 p.m. at Berkeley Friends Meeting, 2151 Vine. 653-2803. 

Free Sailboat Rides from 1 to 4 p.m. at the Cal Sailing Club, Berkeley Marina. Wear warm, waterproof clothing and bring a change of clothes in case you get wet. www.cal-sailing.org 

Prader-Willi Syndrome Walkathon at 10:30 a.m. Cesar Chavez Park, Berkeley Marina. Registration fee is $20 for individual walkers or $50 for families or teams. Contact Prader-Willi California Foundation at 800-400-9994. www.pwcf.org 

Holistic Pet Evaluation from 1 to 4 p.m. at RabbitEars, 303 Arlington Ave., Kensington, behind Ace Hardware. Free, appointments required. 525-6155. 

Parenting Teens Workshop on developing character in teens at 2:30 p.m. at Westminster House, 2700 Bancroft, enter on Bowditch. www.hyde.edu 

Community Singalong with the Cockettes pianist Scrumbly Koldewyn and Leslie Bonett to sing Broadway tunes and golden oldies from 3 to 6 p.m. at Lake Merritt Hotel, 1800 Madison, Oakland, near 19th St. BART. Cost is $5-$15. 534-2750. 

Broncho Billy’s Tea Dance, music from the teens, twenties and thirties from 3 to 6 p.m. at the Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum, 37417 Niles Blvd., Fremont. Cost is $20. 494-1411. www.nilesfilmmuseum.org 

Free Garden Tours at Regional Parks Botanic Garden in Tilden Park Sat. and Sun. at 2 p.m. Call to confirm. 841-8732.  

Meeting in Satsang and Dharma Inquiry with John Sherman, a teacher in the lineage of Ramana Maharshi at 3 p.m. in the Fireside Room, 1940 Virginia St. 495-7511. www.eastbayopencircle.org  

Tibetan Buddhism with Robin Caton on “Healing through Meditation” at 6 p.m. at the Tibetan Nyingma Institute, 1815 Highland Pl. 843-6812.  

MONDAY, MAY 7 

Read Aloud Theater A free Berkeley Adult School class at 9 a.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center, 1901 Hearst. 981-5190.  

“Human Rights in Chile: Then and Now” with Judge Juan Guzmán at 7 p.m. at the Women’s Faculty Club Lounge, UC Campus. Sponsored by the Center for Latin American Studies. http://clas.berkeley.edu 

Red Cross Blood Drive from noon to 6 p.m. at Tilden Room, MLK Student Union, UC Campus. To schedule an appointment call 1-800-GIVE-LIFE. 

Berkeley CopWatch organizational meeting at 8 p.m. at 2022 Blake St. Join us to work on current issues around police misconduct. 548-0425. 

TUESDAY, MAY 8 

Tuesdays for the Birds Tranquil bird walks in local parklands, led by Bethany Facendini, from 7 to 9:30 a.m. Today we will visit Sibley Regional Preserve. Call for meeting place and if you need to borrow binoculars. 525-2233. 

Hunger Action Day Join people from across California in raising your voice against hunger at the State Capitol in Sacramento. The free bus will leave Oakland at 7:30 a.m. and we will return by 5 p.m. Lunch will be provided. If you have any questions or would like to register please call 635-3663 ext. 307.  

Solo Sierrans Hike Hike at Lake Chabot Reservoir Meet at 6:30 p.m. at the boat house. Optional dinner follows. For information call Delores 351-6247. 

Oakland/East Bay Chapter of the National Organization for Women meets at 6 p.m. at Spud’s Pizza, corner of Adeline and Alcatraz. 287-8948. 

“Is Wal-Mart Good or Bad for America?” A debate with Ken Jacobs, Chair, UC Berkeley Labor Center and Richard Vedder, co-author “The Wal-Mart Revolution” at 6:30 p.m. at the Independent Institute Conference Center, 100 Swan Way, Oakland. Cost is $10-$30. For tickets call 632-1366. 

“Project Rewire: New Media from the Inside Out” a talk on the decline of the news media and the rise of the Internet by former journalist, author, and historian Judy Daubenmier, Ph.D., at 7 p.m. at Shambhala Book Store, 2177 Bancroft. Cost is $5-$15, no one turned away.  

“China's Brave New World--And Other Tales for Global Times” with Jeffrey Wasserstrom, Prof. of History, UC Irvine, at 4 p.m. at the IEAS Conference Room, 2223 Fulton St., 6th Floor. 643-6321. 

El Cerrito NAACP Recognition of Armed Forces Month with Major General Paul Monroe (Ret) of the California National Guard at 6:30 p.m. at the El Cerrito Community Center, 7007 Moeser Lane. 526-2958. 

Free Diabetes Screening from 8:30 to 11 a.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Do not eat or drink anything for 8 hours beforehand. 981-5332. 

Family Storytime at 7 p.m. at the Kensington Library, 61 Arlington Ave. 524-3043. 

Tuesday Tilden Walkers Join a few slowpoke seniors at 9:30 a.m. in the parking lot near the Little Farm for an hour or two walk. 215-7672, 524-9992. 

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, MAY 9 

Walking Tour of Jack London Waterfront Meet at 10 a.m. at the corner of Broadway and Embarcadero. Tour lasts 90 minutes. Reservations can be made by calling 238-3234. www.oaklandnet.com/walkingtours 

“Knocking” A documentary on Jehovah’s Witnesses at 6:30 p.m., followed by a panel discussion, at the Oakland Museum of California, 1000 Oak St. Cost is $5-$8. 238-2200. 

Chosing a Preschool at 7 p.m. at Bananas, 5232 Claremont Ave. To register call 658-7353. www.bananasinc.org 

New to DVD: “Little Children” at 7 p.m. at JCCEB, 1414 Walnut St. Discussion follows. 848-0237. 

Walk Berkeley for Seniors meets every Wednesday at 9:30 a.m. at the Sea Breeze Market, just west of the I-80 overpass. Everyone is welcome, wear comfortable shoes and a warm hat. 548-9840. 

Berkeley Peace Walk and Vigil at the Berkeley BART Station, corner of Shattuck and Center. Sing for Peace at 6:30 p.m. followed by Peace Walk at 7 p.m. www. 

geocities.com/vigil4peace/vigil 

Stitch ‘n Bitch at 6:30 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

THURSDAY, MAY 10 

Berkeley Adult School Career Fair from 9 a.m. to noon at 1702 San Pablo Ave. 644-8968. 

League of Women Voters Annual Meeting with Dave MacDonald, Alameda County Registrar of Voters speaking on “Alameda County: Voting Successes and Areas of Continuing Concern” at 5 p.m. at Northbrae Church, 914 The Alameda. Dinner is $15. RSVP to 843-8828. 

Great Escapes Benefit for the Berkeley Women’s Daytime Drop-In Center with live jazz, silent auction, hors d’oeuvres and wine at 6 p.m. at the Berkeley Yacht Club, One Sewall Drive. Tickets are $25-$75. 415-317-5675. 

“Cowboy in Caracas” a book party with Charley Hardy on his work in the barrios of Venezuela at 7:30 p.m. at 1606 Bonita, next to BFUU Hall. Not wheelchair accessible. 

Family Storytime for children ages 3-7 at 7 p.m. at the Berkeley Public Library, North Branch, 1170 The Alameda, at Hopkins. 981-6107. 

Poetry Workshop with Donna Davis, ongoing on Thurs. from 9 a.m. to noon at the JCCEB, 1414 Walnut St. Donation $10 per semester. 848-0237. 

Baby and Toddler Storytime at 10:30 a.m. at Kensington Library, 61 Arlington Ave. 524-3043. 

World of Plants Tours Thurs., Sat. and Sun. at 1:30 p.m. at the UC Botanical Garden, 200 Centennial Drive. Cost is $5. 643-2755. http://botanicalgarden.berkeley.edu 

ONGOING 

Food Drive for Alameda County Food Bank Drop off canned goods, peanut butter, ceareal, powdered milk, beans, rice and pasta at Citibank, 200 Shattuck Ave. from May 1 to 15. Financial donations always welcome. 635-3663, ext. 318. 

CITY MEETINGS 

Peace and Justice Commission meets Mon., May 7, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Manuel Hector, 981-5510. www.ci.berkeley. ca.us/commissions/peaceandjustice 

City Council meets Tues., May 8, at 7 p.m in City Council Chambers. 981-6900. www.ci. 

berkeley.ca.us/citycouncil 

Homeless Commission meets Wed., May 9, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-5426. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/homeless 

Library Board of Trustees Special Meeting on the Budget followed by the Board’s regular monthly meeting at 7 p.m., Wed. May 9, at the West Berkeley Senior Cetner. 981-6195. 

Planning Commission meets Wed., May 9, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Janet Homrighausen, 981-7484. www.ci.berkeley. ca.us/commissions/planning 

Police Review Commission meets Wed., May 9, at the South Berkeley Senior Center. 981-4950. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/policereview 

Waterfront Commission meets Wed., May 9, at 7 p.m., at 201 University Ave. 981-6740. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/waterfront 

Community Health Commission meets Thurs., May 10, at 6:45 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-5356. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/health 

West Berkeley Project Area Commission meets Thurs., May 10, at 7 p.m., at the West Berkeley Senior Center. 981-7520. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/westberkeley  

Zoning Adjustments Board meets Thurs., May 10,, at 7 p.m., in City Council Chambers. Mark Rhoades, 981-7410. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/commissions/zoning