Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Oakland-Berkeley) came to the Berkeley Technical Academy on Martin Luther King, Jr. Way along with a number of other public officials on Friday to announce that a group of nonprofit organizations would receive a $300,000 San Francisco Foundation grant “to promote civic unity and engagement” in West Berkeley.  

Calling West Berkeley “a world-class community,” Lee said the SF Foundation funds would help “make West Berkeley soar.” SF Foundation CEO Sandra Hernandez credited Lee with pointing out West Berkeley needs to the foundation. 

The grant will be awarded in $60,000 installments over five years. How it will be spent is yet to be determined. The eight grantees will spend six months in retreats and meetings to determine how the money can best be spent.  

According to material distributed by the SF Foundation, based on the 2000 census, West Berkeley is one of the Bay Area’s 52 most impoverished areas, with 60 percent of the households earning less than 80 percent of California’s median income and 41.1 percent earning less than 50 percent of the California median, despite the fact that one-third of the city’s private sector jobs are in West Berkeley and one-fourth of all of Berkeley’s jobs are there. 

West Berkeley manufacturers “have a weak record” in hiring West Berkeley residents, the foundation materials say. 

Grantees are: Berkeley Technology Academy, Berkeley Boosters, Farm Fresh Choice, Church Without Walls, Berkeley Organizing Congregations for Action, The Way Christian Center, Rosa Parks Elementary School Family Resource Center and West Berkeley Foundation.  

As Berkeley’s planning commissioners prepare for a public hearing on a plan to rezone two hunks of West Berkeley for car sales, embattled activists have questions. 

Drafted at the urging of Mayor Tom Bates as a plan to keep car dealers—and the sales taxes they raise—within the city, the plan has raised fears among some that the plan could be targeting local business and result in property value spikes that could drive others to leave—including the area’s dwindling supply of artists. 

Planning commissioners will hold a public hearing on the plan amendments and proposed zoning regulations when they meet at 7 p.m. Wednesday in the North Berkeley Senior Center, 1901 Hearst Ave. at Martin Luther King Jr. Way. 

Rick Auerbach, the spokesperson for WEBAIC, West Berkeley Artists and Industrial Companies, said his concerns with the proposals were raised by a closer examination of the city’s environmental study of their potential impacts. 

The proposals would rezone two blocs of West Berkeley totaling 205 acres—one extending north and south from Gilman Street east of the I-80 interchange and the other between Ashby Avenue and the Emeryville border west of San Pablo Avenue. 

Auerbach said he was particularly concerned because the site used as an example for a dealership in the Ashby sector, now zone for light industrial use, is currently the site of Ashby Lumber and buildings that house live/work spaces for artisans. 

The environmental initial study by city planner Jordan Harrison “assumes 11.8 acres of new dealership uses would be built in the two project areas,” including two along the southern side of Ashby, one a 2-acre dealership and the other occupying about a third of an acre. 

Ashby sites 

The small south-of-Ashby property at 751 Folger Ave. is currently a German car repair shop, with an owner who has told the city he would like to expand into used vehicle sales. 

While Auerbach said he doesn’t have problems with a dealership on the Folger Street site, he said the city could permit the use if the Zoning Adjustments Board approved a variance allowing a dealership at that location. 

“They wouldn’t need to rezone the area to accomplish that,” he said. 

What concerns Auerbach is that the study proposes a “prototypical site” for the larger dealership that is already occupied by one of the city’s leading contributors of sales tax, Ashby Lumber. 

“There are really no good sites south of Ashby,” Auerbach said. “That’s the point. It really doesn’t make any sense.” 

In its traffic analysis, the proposal offers two alternative sites along Ashby on either side of Seventh Street. 

“You have Ashby Lumber on one side and Urban Ore on the other. Urban Ore is a very important part of the city’s Zero Waste program, and both businesses provide good paying jobs,” Auerbach said. 

“Ashby Lumber is a great source of about 60 good jobs, and it’s a good source of revenue to the city,” he said, citing a June, 2005, report in the Daily Planet listing the retailer as one of the city’s top 25 sales tax producers. 

The two businesses are the only sites large enough to accommodate the dealership proposed in the city’s environmental study, he said. 

The tract used for illustration that includes Ashby Lumber also includes buildings that are rented by artists who live and work there. West Berkeley has recently lost two major live/work havens, and studio space has also been vanishing. 

City enforcement actions aimed at building and fire code violations in the Shipyard, an unusual collection of studios housed in shipping containers and an old industrial building within the boundaries of the proposed south-of-Ashby rezoning area, ended short of a shutdown, but raised fears of artists who have seen their foothold in the area dwindle in recent years.  

Four years ago came the closing of The Crucible, a community of studios similar to the Shipyard, after city officials cracked down on code violations following a raucous party that led to a pair of shootings near the site. 

That facility was located at 1036 Ashby Ave., a block from The Shipyard. 

Two years ago city officials cited the owner of the Drayage at 651 Addison St. for multiple fire and building code violations, ending another cherished West Berkeley artists’ community which housed an eclectic collection of artists, artisans and their studios. 

West Berkeley lost another arts collective a year ago, when the Nexus Collective lost its lease to buildings at 2701-2721 Eighth St. 

WEBAIC members, including Urban Ore co-founder Mary Lou Van DeVenter are passionate advocates for preservation of an artist-friendly environment. 

Flint Ink 

The other major dealership site cited in the study is the abandoned Flint Ink Co. site in the Gilman Street area, zoned solely for manufacturing (M). 

While the traffic analysis examines three sites in the M zone, including two between Second Street and the freeway, the largest and only vacant site is the 48-acre property that housed the old ink factory. 

That property was auctioned June 1 by the current owner, a partnership which includes Berkeley developer Ali Kashani’s Memar Properties. 

But the sale won’t be completed unless the city approves the rezoning for car sales. While the auctioneers and Kashani wouldn’t talk to a reporter from the Daily Planet, Todd Good of Accelerated Marketing Group told real estate web site Globestreet.com in May that sale was contingent on the rezoning. 

It is the Flint Ink site, which includes landmarked buildings, that has featured most prominently in city discussions of dealership sites. 

The other two sites chosen as examples are currently occupied by self-storage facilities, which typically employ smaller numbers and generate fewer taxes than retail uses. 

What concerns Auerbach is something else that Good told the Internet realty news site—that rezoning could raise the value of the land from its current $40 to $60 per square foot to between $75 and $100 if the land is rezoned and the new owners received the entitlements to install a dealership on the site. 

Auerbach and other advocates for the West Berkeley arts community say they fear that higher property values could lead to rents and new uses that would drive the artists out. 

The city’s planning documents are posted on the web at www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/ 

planning/landuse/WestBerkeleyAuto/default.htm.

A residential development company founded by Los Angeles billionaire Eli Broad purchased property owned by the state-operated Vallejo City Unified School District last year, raising questions about the relationship between Broad and his urban public education Broad Foundation as well as about the sale of property of school districts taken over by the State of California. 

Last year, Vallejo Unified’s state-appointed administrator agreed to sell 18 acres of property to Los Angeles-based KB Home for between $17.5 and $22 million, depending on contract incentives.  

Vallejo Unified was taken over by the state in 2004 after it was forced to take out a $60 million state line of credit in order to balance its budget and, according to a recent article in the Vallejo Times-Herald newspaper, “school district surplus property is being sold to generate a steady stream of income to make yearly payments on the $60 million state bail-out loan.” 

According to San Francisco Chronicle columnist Chip Johnson, KB Home plans to put a 214-home development on the 18-acre spot, replacing four baseball diamonds currently being used by some 300 local Little Leaguers. 

In addition to the KB Home property, the Vallejo Unified state administrator has sold four other parcels of property to a resaler for a possible price of $10 million. 

While there is no evidence that the Broad Foundation, which Broad (pronounced “brode”) founded in 1999, played any role in the Vallejo City Unified School District during the years since the 2004 state takeover, the Foundation has played a key role in shaping the Oakland Unified School District under state control. 

The foundation trained former Oakland Unified School District state administrator Randolph Ward, who then hired several Broad Foundation-trained personnel in key positions with the district while it was under state control. In 2005, the Broad Foundation teamed with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation to contribute $24 million in investments to Expect Success!, a program that radically altered Oakland Unified’s education direction. In addition, support for charter schools is one of the Broad Foundation’s major purposes, and under state control, Oakland Unified has rapidly increased the number of charter schools under its jurisdiction. 

Meanwhile, the Broad Foundation has become a major financial player in other school districts, particularly in support of charter schools. In November of last year, Business Wire reported that the foundation had given a $10.5 million grant to public charter school operator Green Dot, which Business Wire called “the largest single private grant to public charter schools in California.” 

At the same time, Broad has become a major player in state and national politics, contributing more than $336,000 to Democratic candidates between 2000 and 2006, and more than $41,000 already for the 2008 elections. 

Eli Broad co-founded Kaufman and Broad Building Company (which later became KB Home) in 1957, but gave up his chairmanship of the company in the late 1980s, and a company spokesperson said that Broad “has no relationship” with KB Home “at this point.” However, Broad continued to hold large shares of KB Home stock past that point. As late as 1996, however, the last time he had to report to the SEC on his KB Home stock holdings because his shares dipped below 5 percent, Broad held more than 1.5 million common shares of KB Home stock, amounting to 4.89 percent of the outstanding shares. Broad also reported that he gave 765,000 shares of KB Home common stock to the Eli Broad Foundation in July, 1995. 

And Broad continues to hold a financial relationship with at least one KB Home official.  

Broad has recently made a bid to buy both the Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times with fellow Los Angeles billionaire Ronald W. Burkle, who serves on the board of directors of KB Home. 

That creates a circular relationship in which Eli Broad holds influence over state education policy—including state school takeover legislation that now includes provisions allowing easier sale of state property—and then has a financial relationship with a director (Ronald W. Burkle) of his former home development company (KB Home) that has recently benefited from the property-sale provisions in state takeover legislation. 

While nothing about these relationships appears to be illegal, it raises further questions about whether the property sale provisions were placed in the state takeover law solely to benefit the districts and the state—as proponents say they were—or whether they were placed there to benefit real estate developers. 

The provisions of the 2004 Vallejo state takeover legislation that suspend portions of the state education code to allow Vallejo Unified to sell property to help pay back its state loan were borrowed directly from the 2003 Oakland Unified state takeover law, where they first appeared.  

Last year, State Superintendent Jack O’Connell announced he was invoking the Oakland provisions to sell 8.25 acres of Oakland Unified property to an east coast developer, including the district administrative headquarters and five schools. A broad coalition of parents, education activists, teachers, students, and local politicians—including Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums, the Oakland City Council, the OUSD Board of Trustees, the Peralta Community College District Board of Trustees, and State Assemblymember Sandré Swanson—eventually forced O’Connell to back out of the proposed deal. 

An IT worker, a former Chamber of Commerce president, an NAACP activist, an advocate for the disabled, a former librarian and a former city councilmember are among the candidates vying for the Board of Library Trustees. 

Four hopefuls came before the board last week. Three others will appear Aug. 1, the date the trustees say they will make their selection.  

In an unusual move, the board voted Wednesday to interview two candidates whose applications were turned in after the July 1 deadline. Former City Councilmember Ann Chandler’s application is stamped July 3; Abigail Franklin’s application was also late. (The Daily Planet was unable to locate Franklin’s application, which could be found neither in the city clerk’s office nor at the library.) 

Jane Welford, a member of Berkeleyans Organizing for Library Defense (SuperBOLD), criticized the interview process. “They shouldn’t have accepted applications from people who didn’t get their applications in on time; it’s pretty outrageous,” she told the Daily Planet on Monday. 

Mary Lukanuski, a former Berkeley Public Library employee who works in software design, will also be interviewed Aug. 1. Her application was received June 29. 

The composition of the Library Board of Trustees, which oversees an approximate $14.5 million mostly taxpayer-funded budget, is spelled out in the City Charter: “Five Library Trustees shall be appointed and may be removed by a vote of five members of the council…” One member must be a councilmember appointed by the council.  

The charter gives the trustees broad powers “to manage the library and to appoint, discipline and dismiss all officers and employees of the library.” 

City law restricts trustees to two four-year terms. Trustee Laura Anderson’s second term ends in October. 

The board has typically chosen its members with rubber-stamp approval by City Council. 

However, after the forced resignation of former Library Director Jackie Griffin, the community asked for greater library board transparency and more community input into trustee and director selection. Griffin had been at loggerheads with the library union over her treatment of employees and in conflict with the community over a decision made with limited citizen input to purchase a check-out system that uses radio frequency identification chips. 

A City Council-library committee was to write new, more open, trustee selection guidelines, but the process stalled when one of its members, Trustee Chair Susan Kupfer, was unable to meet during any of the 15 dates proposed, according to Councilmember Kriss Worthington, who chairs the committee. 

At its meeting last week, outgoing trustee Laura Anderson was chosen to take Kupfer’s place on the committee. 

Welford criticized the trustee interviews, saying the questions asked the candidates did not reflect community concerns. The community, including library personnel, was invited to pose questions during last year’s selection process for a new library director, but no community process has occurred with the trustee selection. 

Not asking questions on personnel issues “shows they haven’t been taking the union seriously,” Welford said, adding that omitting questions about RFID shows “they don’t want to deal with it.” 

The Daily Planet reviewed the taped July 18 candidate interviews. 

Carolyn Henry Golphin 

A 12-year Berkeley resident, Golphin has extensive experience serving on boards, and is currently active with 10, including her role as a first vice-president (and past president) of the Berkeley Chamber of Commerce, and a board member of the St. Paul AME Church, the Berkeley Food and Housing Project, the [UC Berkeley] Chancellor’s Community Partnership Fund and six other groups. 

She is marketing director of Skates on the Bay. 

In response to a question about whether she would have time for the job, Golphin said, “I won’t accept [the job] if I feel I can’t do it.”  

Asked how she would approach budget constraints, Golphin responded: “I wonder if we’ve talked enough to corporations for support.” She also suggested reaching out to foundations. 

Golphin said she had honed her public speaking skills as a “public spokesperson for the Chamber.” 

The library should serve people in need, Golphin said, noting that it is a place where jobseekers go for a variety of resources. “Some people cannot afford to have the Internet at home,” she said. 

While the Berkeley library has no filters on Internet access, including computers for children, Golphin said, “It is important that our children be protected … I’m concerned that we can’t protect what our children have an opportunity to read.” 

Elaine Green 

A 59-year Berkeley resident, Elaine Green is CEO of the Lorin District Development Association. Among references for the position, she names outgoing trustee Laura Anderson. 

In her interview with the board, Green stressed the role of trustee as a “liaison with the community.” 

Green pointed to existing library strengths, including a sense of safety at all the branches and each branch’s reflection of the community it is in.  

“Libraries are vital to our democracy,” she said. “Berkeley has a long tradition of social justice—it’s part of the fiber of our being.” 

She said she has, in part, honed her leadership skills serving as legal redress chair of the Berkeley NAACP. She has also spoken out in public against a proposed condominium development at the Ashby BART station. 

Green, who has expressed reservations at public meetings about the South Berkeley Library moving to the Ed Roberts Campus at the Ashby BART station, said that the library should conduct needs assessments every five years. “We need to keep up with the needs of the community,” she said.  

Like Golphin, Green said she sees the need for some library control over what children access on the Internet. “At present, in my mind, is the need to understand and monitor the availability of the MySpace website,” Green wrote in her application.  

Kevin Haney 

A former library volunteer, Kevin Haney, a Berkeley resident since 2004, is an information technology manager at UC Berkeley and adjunct professor at San Francisco State University. 

His resume indicates that he helped found a startup pharmaceutical company in Tucson in 1992 that was sold to Aventis Pharmaceuticals in 1995. 

Haney said his work experience would help him serve on the library board. He manages a group of eight people and is “used to dealing with a great deal of diversity and differing of opinions on a day-to-day basis,” he said.  

Asked about the role of libraries, Hanley said: “Libraries serve a catalytic role in the community; they transform people.” 

To play a role in running the library, “You have to understand the aspirations of the community,” Haney said, including the need for literacy, citizenry and economic self-sufficiency. 

Haney acknowledged that there is “never enough money” for organizations such as libraries. Facing budget constraints, “The best thing you can do is be sure you have a clear set of priorities” and see how other entities facing similar constraints have overcome them. 

On renovations, he said: “It is important to renovate, but important to preserve.”  

Haney said parents should make the decision for their children concerning Internet filters.  

Frances “Dede” Dewey 

An 11-year Berkeley resident, Frances “Dede” Dewey, who uses an electric wheelchair, is an activist with a history of asserting the rights of disabled people.  

Among the reasons for applying for the post, Dewey says in her written statement: “I feel the disabled community needs to be better represented with regard to the decision-making process of where and when the new South Branch Berkeley Public Library will be relocated.”  

“My concern is that disabled issues may not get fully addressed with the rebuilding of the South Branch when it happens,” she said during the interview, adding that a new library should strive to go beyond legal requirements.  

“I’m concerned that disability issues may get put by the wayside,” she said, noting that, while the small South Berkeley branch library is not wheelchair friendly, the library board should be looking at a variety of options, not just the Ed Roberts campus. 

“You have to have more than one choice,” she said. 

Dewey served with AmeriCorps for two years and has served on Berkeley’s Labor Commission. One skill she learned on the commission was to ask questions that serve to clarify, rather than to argue. 

The library should write more grants, she said, noting that she helped write a grant for disabled access when the main library was renovated. 

Mary Lukanuski 

A Berkeley resident since 2001, Mary Lukanuski designs web-based applications for a software company in Palo Alto and has worked as a librarian in academic research. At one point in her career, she worked part time as a “web librarian” at the Berkeley Public Library. 

In her written application for the position, Lukanuski said she is “impressed how the Berkeley Public Library believes in its mission of public service and strives to actively engage its community.” 

Ann Chandler and Abigail Franklin 

A city councilmember from 1984 to 2002, Ann Chandler served as council liaison to the library board. “Making decisions about using resources to best serve the community is critical to the library’s success,” she said in her written application. 

Abigail Franklin’s application was not available.  

Library meetings 

The Library Board of Trustees will continue interviewing trustee candidates and make its selection in a meeting that begins at 7 p.m. Aug. 1 at the central library downtown, in the third floor community room.  

A community meeting on library needs will be held today, July 24, 7 p.m., at LifeLong Medical Care, 3260 Sacramento St., second-floor conference room. 

The Berkeley Zoning Adjustments Board (ZAB) will hear the request for a use permit to convert Walter Ratcliff’s landmark Fidelity Bank Building into a mixed use development Thursday. 

Jim Novosel, of Berkeley-based Bay Architects, has proposed a project which would preserve the existing 4,000-square-foot historic structure at 2323 Shattuck Ave. and convert the two-storey bank space into a restaurant and a dwelling unit. 

The project includes a new five-story building, to be built in place of the existing three-story building adjacent to the Fidelity building, which would have 2,609 square feet of commercial floor area and 15 dwelling units.  

The exterior of the Fidelity building will not be changed according to the project proposal. 

The permit request includes beer and wine services at the restaurant and sidewalk cafe seating. There are eight on-site parking spaces which will be eliminated.  

Inspired by Renaissance Italian architecture, The Fidelity Bank Building, located between the Mechanic’s Bank and the Union Bank on Shattuck Avenue, was built in 1925. It was until a few years ago occupied by Citibank but is now empty. It has been a venue for the Berkeley Arts Festival in recent years. 

City staff have expressed support for the proposed mixed-use infill nature of the project but have recommend denying the permit because of the lost parking spaces. 

Other items 

• Hal Brandel will request a use permit to add beer and wine service to Anchalee’s Thai Cuisine at 1094 Dwight Way. City staff have received no complaints from neighbors and the Berkeley Police Department has indicated they have no problems with the permit. 

• Ali Eslami, owner of The Missouri Lounge in Berkeley, will request a permit to convert two commercial spaces previously used for a restaurant and oxygen bar at 2525 Telegraph Ave. into a 5,803-square-foot space that would be used for a restaurant and an art gallery, to be open 6:30 a.m.-2 a.m. 

The applicant will also request a use permit for distilled spirits in addition to the existing beer and wine services. Berkeley police have objected to the change in the Alcoholic Beverage Control commission license and have requested that the proposed business not operate beyond midnight. 

• Eslami has also requested a use permit to reconfigure an existing three-story, four-unit residential building at 1423 Kains Ave.  

The proposed reconfiguration would have a double-decker garage with two car lifts. Neighbors at 1460 and 1421 Kains Ave. have expressed concerns about noise. According to staff, the noise decibel level is within the ambient level of the area. 

Peralta Community College District officials released their first comprehensive report last week on how much Measure A facilities bond money the district plans to spend on each of its four campuses, but quickly backtracked when trustees complained that the board had never authorized such an allocation plan. 

In June of 2006, area voters approved a ballot measure authorizing a parcel tax increase to raise $390 million to build and furnish facilities in the Peralta College District. 

At the July 17 Peralta Board of Trustees meeting, General Services Director Sadiq Ikharo reported that the district has now allocated $35.2 million of that bond money for district projects. But while there have been no allegations that any of this money was spent for anything other than projects authorized by the bond measure, there have been complaints by the media, board members, and college staff that up until now the district has maintained no publicly published running total of bond projects and expenditures, with fears that new projects might be added to the list without regard for planned projects perhaps being knocked off. 

In addition, a citizen oversight task force called for in the bond measure has yet to organize itself, elect officers, or even hold a formal meeting. 

On Tuesday, concerns about Peralta’s bond measure allocations surfaced when Laney librarian and faculty senate representative Evelyn Lord complained to trustees about an agenda item requesting trustee approval for the proposed Laney College Athletic Facility Complex. The agenda synopsis for the item indicated that the proposed funds for the complex “will be deducted from laney College’s share of the Measure A allocation.” 

“What is Laney College’s share of Measure A?” Lord asked. “I’ve never seen that presented. In item after item, I see Measure A money coming to the board and being approved, and that makes me nervous. What priority items are going to fall aside?” 

Board President Bill Withrow first said that he recommended “that the board defer commitment for any more expenditures of Measure A funds” for the time being, but after Chancellor Elihu Harris explained that the board was only being asked to approve asking for bids for a project it had already approved in concept last March, and Laney President Frank Chong insisted that no Measure A project suggested by the Laney Facilities Committee “is going to be left out,” trustees unanimously voted to authorize bidding on the athletic complex. 

But the issue of how Peralta will allocate Measure A money surfaced again when Ikharo presented board members with a “Road Map To The Future-Facilities Development,” a 25-page report on the district’s future capital improvement projects. Included with the report was a breakdown on how Peralta had allocated its first $35 million in board-authorized Measure A expenditures: 2 percent to Berkeley City College, 21 percent to College of Alameda, 44 percent to Laney College, 23 percent to Merritt College, and 10 percent district-wide. But in addition, the report included a “Phase 2” chart that detailed how district officials planned to allocate the remaining $354.8 million in Measure A bond money: 1 percent to Berkeley City, 20 percent to College of Alameda, 37 percent to Laney, 24 percent to Merritt, and 4 percent to the District Administrative Center. 

Ikharo said that the allocation to each college “was made based upon the square footage” of buildings in each college which needed to be renovated. The problem was, such a square footage allocation has never surfaced either in the text of Measure A itself, or in public board discussions on the issue. 

Trustee Nicky Gonzalez Yuen, chair of the board’s facilities committee, immediately called putting out the allocation figures “speculative,” and “a little bit premature. To my knowledge, the board has never allocated specific amounts to each campus.” 

By publishing such amounts, Yuen said, “the colleges will be expecting these amounts and if they don’t get everything that is promised to them in these figures, they’re going to come back to us and ask why.” 

Ikharo immediately agreed with Yuen, saying that the future Measure A allocations in the “Road Map To The Future-Facilities Development” report were “tenative numbers.” 

In other action on Tuesday night, board members rejected on a 3-4 vote a proposal that would have set up a citizens committee to assess the reinstatement of comprehensive child care services at the district (Linda Handy, Yuen, and Abel Guillen voting yes, Marcie Hodge, William Riley, Cy Gulassa, and Withrow voting no). Instead, on a 5-2 vote, trustees authorized the chancellor’s office to produce such a report by March of next year (Handy, Yuen, Guillen, Gulassa, and Withrow voting yes, Hodge and Riley voting no). 

Reinstatement of full child care service in the district has been what trustee Riley called Tuesday “a real touchy issue, an emotional issue” since Peralta ended infant care services at its Laney College child care center last year, with district officials saying it could no longer afford to provide the service. 

A 21-year-old Berkeley woman was fatally shot to death Saturday as she rode in a car heading north on Martin Luther King Jr. Way in North Oakland. 

Shots fired from a passing car injured the driver of the Buick in which Kikhiesha Brooks was riding, and the vehicle slammed into a streetlight standard. 

Two men then jumped out of a car and fired repeatedly into the wrecked vehicle before speeding off, said Oakland Police. 

Brooks died minutes later at Highland Hospital, while a man in the car sustained lesser injuries. 

Lalane Coaxum, the slain woman’s sister, told the San Francisco Chronicle that Brooks had been headed to her home to pick up food for a family reunion in Jack London Square. 

A Berkeley High School graduate, Brooks was the mother of a 2-year-old daughter. 

A representative of the Alameda County Coroner’s office declined to comment on the death, stating that all information on homicides could be released only by the investigating agency. 

Bay City News contributed to this report.

A subcommittee of Berkeley’s Transportation Commission will meet with Southside residents tonight (Tuesday) to hear their concerns about Bus Rapid Transit (BRT). 

The meeting begins at 6:30 p.m. with an informal open house at Trinity United Methodist Church, 2362 Bancroft Way. 

Among the issues on the table are routes, service features and station locations, as well as discussions on benefits and possible mitigations to offset neighborhood impacts. 

The meeting, hosted by the commission’s Transit Subcommittee, is scheduled to last until 9:30 p.m. 

BRT—scheduled to run between Berkeley and San Leandro—would feature pre-paid fares, dedicated stations and, possibly, creation of special bus-only lanes along Telegraph Avenue and Bancroft Way. 

Two proposals have called for closing or restricting parts of Bancroft and Telegraph to through traffic, including on plan that calls for elimination of car traffic on the last two blocks of Telegraph. 

While AC Transit and BRT advocates say the faster service would increase ridership in an era where global warming threatens, neighborhood activists have charged that the service might result in loss of parking for merchants and increased traffic on residential streets to work around closed or congested streets. 

Applause rang out in the City Council Chambers Tuesday as dozens of people, many sporting blue “Save Berkeley Iceland” shirts, cheered the 5-4 council vote to uphold a city commission’s decision to landmark the 67-year-old structure that houses the ice skating rink at Derby and Milvia streets.  

While supporters of the nonprofit Save Berkeley Iceland hope the landmarking will facilitate its purchase of the site, there is no guarantee that will happen. A for-profit developer already has an option to buy the property, where he has plans to build townhouses and a child-care center, something that would be more difficult—but not impossible—in the context of the landmark designation.  

Councilmembers Gordon Woz-niak, Dona Spring, Kriss Worth-ington, Betty Olds and Linda Maio voted to uphold the Landmarks Preservation Com-mission’s April landmark designation.  

Tuesday’s 6 p.m. meeting, called for the purpose of the council vote, came one week after extensive debate at a public hearing where speakers focused less on the historic value of the site than on the question of whether it should be redeveloped for housing/child care or if the use should return to ice skating.  

Councilmembers, however, were required to make their decision based solely on the historic value of the structure in question.  

“The issue before us is not whether [the ice rink] is a viable option for this site,” Wozniak said. “It’s whether this is truly a landmark.” Addressing the council on behalf of East Bay Iceland, owners of the property, attorney Rena Rickles said landmarking would be “punitive” and “significantly impair a sale under contract.”  

Berkeley Iceland has been shuttered since the end of March. “We essentially have a beached whale in the neighborhood,” Rickles said. “Beautiful when alive, but when it’s dead, it stinks.”  

Similarly Councilmember Max Anderson, in whose district the rink is situated, said he feared the property would fall into disrepair, attracting rats and graffiti. “I don’t want to watch the building decay and decline and become a detriment to the community.”  

But in a phone interview Thursday Caroline Winnett of Save Berkeley Iceland said the group had asked the owners if they could lease the property so that it didn’t have to close at all. And, alternatively, she said, they had offered to clean up trash and graffiti at the site free of charge.  

Anderson argued on Tuesday that Save Berkeley Iceland’s business plan is unrealistic. “No amount of nostalgia and wishing will make it otherwise,” he said.  

Mayor Tom Bates, who also opposed landmarking, suggested that instead of saving the structure, a plaque commemorating Iceland’s history should be installed. This caused the audience to erupt in laughter and catcalls.  

Speaking for Save Berkeley Iceland, Elizabeth Grassetti told the council that the rink “represents values of community spirit of the late 1930s—it was built for the people by the people.”  

Voting to uphold the Landmarks Preservation Commission’s designation means an eventual developer will either have to preserve the exterior walls of the site, as well as the packed earth berms on the north and the south sides of the structure, or go through an extensive environmental review process to make changes.  

Developer Ali Kashani, president of Memar Properties, Inc. of Oakland, has an option to purchase the site where he has said he wants to build housing and a child-care center. California state law allows developers to build higher than local zoning laws otherwise permit when they include child care in the project.  

After the meeting, Kashani told the Daily Planet that he might still purchase the property, despite the landmarking. “It depends on the [sale] price,” he said.  

Winnett told the Planet after the meeting, that while “the owners have the right to sell to whom they want, the assumption is that a developer will not find the [landmarked site] economically attractive.” 

Now that the site is designated a landmark, Winnett said Save Berkeley Iceland is anticipating two significant donations. The nonprofit group is trying to raise $2 million for a down payment on the site, although it legally cannot negotiate with the owners, East Bay Iceland, while Kashani is exercising his option.

After repeated public hearings before the Zoning Adjustments Board (ZAB), the 1885 University Ave. project—which promises to bring Trader Joe’s to Berkeley—won a 5-3 victory at Council Monday night. 

More than 100 people crowded into the Berkeley City Council Chambers, many of them taking sides in the debate over the controversial five-story project planned for the corner of University and Martin Luther King Jr. Way. The plan includes 148 apartments, 14,390 square feet of retail space, 109 tenant and 48 commercial parking spaces and two truck-loading spaces. 

Steve Wollmer, who appealed the project to the City Council after ZAB approved it in December, said that he was considering options to sue the city on the basis of City Attorney Manuela Albuquerque’s interpretation of state density bonus law, which grants developers the ability to exceed zoning limits. 

Albuquerque told the council that the state does not prohibit a city from granting unlimited additional density bonus units or waiving any development standards for siting of affordable housing projects that meet social needs. 

Opponents argued that this sets a “dangerous precedent,” allowing developers to come into Berkeley and propose a project of any size in any location in the city. 

The staff report claimed that the project qualifies under the state law for a “mandatory 35 percent density bonus over the otherwise maximum allowable residential density bonus allowed by the zoning because it provides at least 19 units at rents affordable to households earning up to 80 percent of the area median income.” 

The city also approved an additional 28 percent density bonus since the project includes significant amenities, “which increase the cost of the project, and therefore require additional density bonus units to make the project economically feasible,” according to the staff report. 

These amenities include reduction of the original mass and number of units to address neighborhood and city concerns, installation of a traffic diverter and signals at a cost of approximately $345,000 and underground parking. 

“These are things that almost every project in Berkeley does,” Wollmer contended. “Why should this project be given an additional 28 percent for it?” 

Councilmembers Kriss Worthington, Dona Spring and Max Anderson voted against the project, citing concerns about the density bonus, parking and a non-unionized Trader Joe’s. 

A volley of concerns ranging from the size of the proposed project to noise hazards were addressed by Berkeley residents.  

“We have been working for the last five years to obtain a project that would improve the site and preserve the livability of our neighborhood,” Wollmer told the council. “We have never believed that any of our demands are unreasonable or make the project unfeasible, but we regret to tell you that the developers have refused to meet and negotiate with us for more than two years, rather they struck a private agreement with one neighbor, attempted retaliation through our employers and circulated thinly disguised bribes in an effort to break our solidarity.” 

Project developer Chris Hudson of Hudson McDonald said that the project could not be redesigned without significant financial loss. 

“We have been through two years of the design review and the zoning process,” he contended. “We’ve made every reasonable and feasible concession. This project is not protected under the NIMBY laws. So why did ZAB and design review choose to approve it? They could have rejected it if they wanted to.” 

Hudson added that the project would encourage the growth of other grocery stores in the area, provide low -cost transit-oriented housing and help Berkeley meet its growing need for housing. 

“High density housing is energy efficient housing,” he said, as project supporters cheered him. “This project will generate more than half a million dollars in tax revenue to the City of Berkeley or the Berkeley Unified School District. More than 500 people have expressed support and 73 percent of participants on KitchenDemocracy.com have spoken in favor of this project. This project has gone on for a long time and it is time for it to come to an end.” 

Mayor Tom Bates, who voted in favor of the project, emphazised the importance of an active downtown. 

“I am not in favor of Trader Joe’s,” he said. “I don’t shop at Trader Joe’s. I don’t like Two Buck Chuck. I think it’s a lousy wine. But we have to have a vibrant downtown. I wish we could have some compromise here.” 

While Berkeley resident Doug Buchwald warned people not to get excited by the “Trader Joe’s Love Fest,” a large number of people testified that the grocery chain would be a welcome addition in the neighborhood. 

“It’s a mistake to call a project by a particular part of it,” said councilmember Kriss Worthington. “What we get to vote on is a complete project.” 

“We heard a lot about how wonderful Trader Joe’s was,” Wollmer said, “but there’s no guarantee that Trader Joe’s will ever be there. The lease agreement between Trader Joe’s and the developers require that the developers turn over a project to them by 2009. It’s getting very close to that time. Once the applicants cannot deliver the project in time, Trader Joe’s has no obligation to come to Berkeley.” 

Councilmember Spring, who has constituents near the project site, recommended that the drop-off zone for the site be located on Martin Luther King Jr. Way instead of the predominantly residential Berkeley Way. 

Her amendment, along with Councilmember Kriss Worthington’s suggestion to include more affordable housing units, was turned down. The only change to the staff recommendation was the addition of a 40-foot-long drop-off zone on Berkeley Way. 

“This project has fatal flaws when it comes to the issues of traffic and parking,” said Worthington. 

Debbie Sanderson, ZAB secretary, contended that extensive analysis on the part of the planning department illustrated that the plan was flawless when it came to traffic issues. 

Verizon appeal 

Verizon Wireless and Nextel Communiication are up for another public hearing at the City Council on Oct. 23. 

After ZAB turned down their application for a use permit to install 11 cell phone antennas atop the UC Storage building at 2721 Shattuck Ave. on June 28, the two companies appealed the decision to the council. 

ZAB concluded they were unable to make the necessary finding based on substantial evidence that the towers were needed to provide personal wireless service in the coverage area. 

The proposal, which was first remanded to ZAB by the City Council on Sept. 26, 2006, had raised health concerns among the neighbors. After ZAB denied the request on Jan. 30, Verizon and Nextel appealed to the City Council. Council remanded it to ZAB for the second time in May. 

Although area residents had been concerned about the hazardous effects of the antennas on health, council had asked ZAB to make a decision based on third-party engineering review, parking concerns and illegal construction instead of health. 

The Telecommunications Act of 1996 prohibits local governments from rejecting wireless facilities based on health concerns as long as the stations conform to Federal communication standards.

The battle over the future of downtown Berkeley’s skyline took a new twist Wednesday when a group of Downtown Area Plan Advisory Committee (DAPAC) members offered their own proposal, sparking heated outbursts and a counterproposal. 

At issue is the theme which has driven, openly or more subtly, much of the debate throughout DAPAC’s 39 sessions. 

Tasked by the city and UC Berkeley with devising the basics of a new plan for the city center and pushed by city staff to accommodate much of the city’s anticipated—and, perhaps, mandated—growth in the years ahead, the panel is faced with two basic questions: How much and how high? 

The Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG) wants the city to clear the way for adding up to 3,000 new housing units in Berkeley over the next seven years, though the consensus is that developers would probably build less—probably closer to 1,360 units, of which 559 would be built downtown. 

Still, city officials have said, failing to create a mechanism that would allow for approval of the entire sum might lead to problems with state funding—a point disputed by some DAPAC members, like Planning Commissioner Gene Poschman. 

Berkeley Planning and Development Director Dan Marks has told the panel that concentrating anticipated growth in the city center is the logical course of action, giving frequently strong neighborhood opposition to high density projects in other parts of the city. 

Howls of protest followed a February proposal to allow for construction of 14 new 16-story “point towers” in the city center, floated by Matt Taecker, the city planner hired with UC Berkeley funds to oversee the drafting of the new downtown plan. 

But the high-rise proposal was back, albeit in reduced form, when Taecker offered comparisons of three alternative development scenarios. 

First was development that called for filling in most of the city center with development at the currently zoned 5-story height, the so-called baseline plan, and two higher density variants, one with a new 8-story height limit and the other with the 5-story limit plus six condo-filled point towers. 

Extrapolating from ABAG’s projected requirements and likely units actually completed, Berkeley would accommodate 4,100 of the 9000 allowable new units through 2020, with 188 added downtown under the baseline version and 2,500 under either of the two higher density proposals, Taecker said. 

Taecker also offered up figures showing impressive reductions in greenhouse gases from locating new residents downtown near BART and bus lines, with a net savings of 112,000 barrels of oil and 60,600 tons of carbon. 

Those figures were based on assumptions that people who live near transit in dense neighborhoods will forgo cars in favor of public transportation. 

In addition, he said, the fees paid by condo builders in lieu of offering cut-rate prices on sales to low- and median-income people could provide up to $210 million in funds for affordable housing for those with very low incomes. 

Questions fly  

No sooner had Taecker finished than the questions started flying. 

“I don’t feel you’ve made your case,” said Jesse Arreguin, who said he also didn’t favor a plan that relied primarily on condominiums. 

Planning Commissioner Gene Poschman challenged the figures with a table he had prepared showing the actual density of new units constructed in recent years—which showed much higher concentrations of dwelling units than those shown by Taecker’s figures. 

Patti Dacey said comparisons with neighborhoods like Rockridge in Oakland and North Beach in San Francisco were skewed because neither area had the high density of students that characterizes downtown Berkeley—where as many as 90 percent of inhabitants are UC Berkeley students. 

“You have a self-selected group of students and people who don’t drive cars,” she said. 

Arreguin, one of the city’s most vocal proponents of creating housing for those least able to afford it, said he was also troubled by the emphasis Taecker’s proposals placed on keeping lower-income residents out of the condo buildings. 

“This is a pretty serious policy decision, whether we want all the money to go into the housing trust fund, or if we want a diversity of ages, incomes” and backgrounds to live together in the city center, he said. 

“I’m the one who put together the in-lieu fee,” said Poschman, referring to the city statue that allows developers to pay a percentage of their development costs to fund affordable housing outside of their projects. 

“If you build condos and no affordable housing, then you essentially have a downtown consisting of students and those who can afford” condos costing $800,000, $1 million or more, he said. 

Another vision 

The proposal from four members of DAPAC offered a fourth vision. 

“There isn’t anything in here I haven’t brought up before,” said Rob Wrenn, who serves on the city’s Transportation Commission. 

The draft, prepared jointly with Juliet Lamont, Helen Burke and Wendy Alfsen, calls for a plan where building heights above a three-story baseline are determined by the willingness of developers to fund housing for low-income tenants and implement environmentally friendly measures into their projects. 

When Wrenn made a motion to refer the proposal to planning department staff for an analysis to be brought back to the committee along with the staff’s other three proposals, Terry Doran, the newest committee member, bristled. 

“I don’t want to see this as part of any official report,” he declared, adding his support for the most controversial of the staff’s proposals—one calling for high-rise apartment towers near the BART station as tall as the Wells Fargo building. 

Mim Hawley added her voice, declaring “it makes me a little irritated” that four people got together and wrote something, then came back to the committee.  

“It really annoys me,” she said ... I absolutely don’t agree for this to come back as a fourth alternative.” Turning to Wrenn, she declared, “You haven’t listened to any of us.” 

Committee member Dorothy Walker, former UC Assistant Vice Chancellor for Property Development, declared her opposition, then offered her own motion, which was immediately seconded by Planning Commission Chair James Samuels. 

Her motion called for a minimum three-story height near downtown, plus a five-story base height “throughout the commercial portions of downtown,” “the existing height of four stories in the residential portions of Downtown” and “a few taller, slender towers in selected locations.” 

Wrenn immediately pointed out that the residential neighborhood height limit is actually six stories, not four. 

“If we pass the substitute motion, we are deciding to build point towers and more units than the staff has proposed—and we are making a land-use decision tonight,” said Alfsen. 

“What are we getting out of all these buildings?” asked Arreguin. “We have to focus on the benefits, not just the buildings. That’s why I like the Wrenn proposal, “because it is doing something about greenhouse gases.” 

Steve Weissman said he couldn’t support Walker’s motion, and that he found it odd to hear conversation going from Wrenn’s request for a staff evaluation of the proposal to the outright objections of Doran and Hawley. 

Lamont said she hadn’t been prepared to vote to adopt her own group’s proposal, much less Walker’s. “We were trying to reduce the polarization,” she said. 

It took the intervention of Matt Taecker, the city planner hired with UC Berkeley funding to bring the plan into shape, to defuse the tensions. “I appreciate Rob and Juliet’s proposal” and their detailed bonus proposal, he said. In the end, the committee voted unanimously to refer both the group proposal and Walker’s for city staff analysis and a return to the committee along with the other three. 

Image: Downtown Planner Matt Taecker created this montage depicting two of the proposed 16-story “point towers” on University Avenue to incresase the population of Berkeley’s city center. 

The last full City Council meeting before a long summer break ended with an angry exchange between Mayor Tom Bates and Councilmember Dona Spring over what Spring says is the mayor’s habit of cutting her and others off when they speak.  

Nonetheless, the council tackled a number of issues, unanimously backing a zoning board recommendation to shut down the Sacramento Street B-Town Dollar Store due to alleged criminal activity in and around the business, delaying approval of a single-family home on Panoramic Hill, allowing the development of a five-story condominium project on Shattuck Avenue, studying the creation of “quiet zones” where trains won’t sound whistles in Berkeley, allocating funds to a project to end city purchases of goods produced in sweatshops, and supporting locked-out Waste Management employees. 

The council delayed until September addressing an audit citing problematic city and police management of asset forfeiture funds, as the city clerk had forgotten to include the report in the council packet and the Police Review Commission had not been alerted that the audit was on the agenda. 

There was insufficient time for the council to address rules for public comment, placed last on the agenda by Mayor Tom Bates. 

While the agendized public comment rules got short shrift, there was a 20-minute non-agendized slide show on water conservation from East Bay Municipal Utility District representative Andy Katz, who spoke at the beginning of the meeting at the mayor’s behest under the rubric: “ceremonial matters.” 

B-Town Shuttered 

Six police officers and a code enforcement supervisor asked the council to follow the zoning board’s recommendation to shut down the B-Town Dollar Store at 2973 Sacramento St. where they alleged criminal activity had been taking place for years. 

Neighbors and nearby merchants did not attend the public hearing. “Community members said they were not going to come tonight,” Chief Doug Hambleton said. “They are afraid of reprisals.” 

In a written statement, police said they had “numerous dealings with people going in and out of B-Town, using B-Town as a safe haven to run from and avoid contact with the police, and to hide their drugs and other items involved in their trade.” 

Sgt. Randy Files testified that a B-Town manager had “provided a place for a burglar to hide.” 

Neither property owner Chul J. Kim nor property manager Joo H. Kim, a San Francisco police officer, attended the hearing.  

Nayef Ayesh, who owns the business, told the council that he and his wife have operated stores in Berkeley since 1984 and “never broken the law.” 

“What happens outside my business, I have no control over it,” Ayesh said, arguing that he can’t “grab an Uzi” to go after drug dealers outside his store.  

Police testified that there was no record of Ayesh or his family calling them for help, but Ayesh said when he called, “They said, there’s no loitering law.” 

Councilmember Max Anderson called for shutting down the business, saying: “The evidence is overwhelming, clear, and well-documented over a long duration.” 

At its brief July 31 meeting, the council will be asked to approve a formal document listing the reasons the store is being shut down. 

Condos Approved 

After mediation with neighbors resulting in a project reduced by 1.269 square feet, the council approved 6-0-3 a five-story, 24-unit condominium development at Shattuck Avenue and Derby Street. Four of the units will be sold at below market rate. 

“The real sticking point was the fifth floor,” said Anderson, who abstained, as did Councilmembers Dona Spring, and Kriss Worthington. Neighbors, who had appealed the zoning board approval of the project, said the fifth floor would cast shadows over nearby single family homes. 

Councilmember Gordon Wozniak pointed out that the fifth floor was a partial floor so that the building “stepped back” from the neighboring residences.  

SweatFree Berkeley funded with caveat 

The council released with conditions $25,000 set aside in June 2006 to fund SweetFree Berkeley, aimed at stopping city purchases of goods made in sweatshop conditions. The council approved the release of funds conditioned on other cities joining a consortium and contributing the additional $35,000 needed to implement the project. 

Panoramic Way decision delayed  

By unanimous vote, the council delayed a decision until September on an appeal of a zoning board decision to permit construction of a 1,425-square-foot single-family home at 161 Panoramic Way. 

Neighbors of the proposed dwelling say it will be too big for the lot size, that it poses a threat to a Live Oak tree in the public right of way and that coming to and going from the home on the narrow street with blind curves will be hazardous both during and after construction. 

“It will be a permanent detriment to the health and safety” of the neighborhood, said Jerry Wachtel, president of the Panoramic Hill Association, which is appealing the zoning board decision.  

“We are going to make Panoramic Hill safer by making a pullout,” said property owner Bruce Kelley. “It will be better than it is right now.”  

The delay will give the owners time to prepare a plan for vehicle traffic during construction and to respond to other planning staff concerns. 

Public comment rules delayed 

At about 10:50 p.m., Bates announced there wasn’t time to discuss the question of public comment rules before 11 p.m., but permitted people to speak on the question during time (after 11 p.m.) otherwise set aside to discuss “non-agenda” items. 

After SuperBOLD (Berkeleyans Organizing for Library Defense) threatened a lawsuit last year based on limits imposed on public speakers by both the library board and the council—limits which SuperBOLD and its attorneys, the First Amendment Project, said violated the Brown Act, the state’s open meeting laws—the mayor began “experimenting” with various rules to expand public comment. 

Contending that the rules should be set in concrete, rather than changing meeting to meeting, Worthington proposed a set of rules in June that would allow public comment on every item by all wishing to speak and setting specific time limits that diminish with larger numbers of people wishing to speak. 

At the mayor’s request, Worthington delayed his proposal until Tuesday’s meeting.  

The mayor’s proposal limits speakers, in some instances, to two sides of an issue and, in some cases, gives the presiding officer latitude to expand or decrease the number of speakers and their time. 

“Public comment is so basic to democracy,” Leona Wilson told the seven councilmembers who remained to hear speakers after 11 p.m. Wilson said that in the New England town where she came from, everyone was allowed to speak at town meetings. If someone went on too long, the public would intervene. 

“We didn’t have somebody on top micromanaging,” she said, underscoring the need for people to express many sides of an issue. 

Worthington and Spring, who wrote a separate proposal, both place public comment on non-agenda items early in the meeting. Bates’ proposal places it at the end.  

Putting public comment last “shows your contempt for public comment,” Gene Bernardi of SuperBOLD told Bates.  

Spring’s proposal calls for a public hearing in September on rules for public comment, which Phoebe Anne Sorgen told the council she supports. “We need more public comment in the home of the free speech movement,” she said. 

Others spoke in favor of Worthington’s measure, which could make meetings longer. Bates responded that when his wife, now an assemblymember, was mayor, she was younger and could work until 2 a.m., but that he was older and it was difficult to be clear-headed after 11 p.m.  

“You have to give us a break. We’ve changed the entire way of doing things [from the lottery system],” Bates said, apparently transforming the public comment period into a council discussion. 

“We have to find a balance between 2 a.m. and 11 p.m.,” Spring added, as someone from the back of the council chambers called for meetings every week. (The council generally meets twice monthly, although council rules call for three meetings per month.)  

Spring went on to say that the council needs a “fair and impartial way” to allow the public to speak, which drew Bates ire. “It takes five votes to overrule the chair,” he retorted. 

After the council voted to adjourn the meeting, Spring, who later told the Daily Planet she is often cut off by the mayor, told Bates: “You wouldn’t want to be treated the way you treat me!”

Despite pleas from Berkeley city officials, the UC Regents Thursday voted unanimously to approve Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory’s Long Range Development Plan (LRDP) 2025. 

“We had asked the regents to delay action, because we felt they didn’t adequately address the concerns we raised about their environmental impact report (EIR),” said Berkeley City Manager Phil Kamlarz. 

“We just got it a week ago Monday, and we had only four days to respond,” he said. 

The Board of Regents Grounds and Building Committee had voted unanimously to approve the document Tuesday, and the full board approval came Thursday without any discussion. 

Approval of the EIR paves the way for construction of nearly a million square feet of new buildings—which includes one completed structure and one now underway—and up to 500 new parking spaces and 1,000 new employees over the next two decades. 

City officials argued that lab officials had failed to provide adequate responses to their concerns about the extensive developments in an environmentally sensitive landscape where earthquakes and wildfires poses major threats. 

“Our staff dropped everything to prepare a response,” said Kamlarz. “They didn’t respond.” 

The city manager said another major concern for the city is that the EIR failed to consider the cumulative impacts of the lab’s extensive development plans along with those planned for UC Berkeley just down the hill.  

The city has already filed legal action challenging the EIR for the university’s Southeast Campus Integrated Projects, which calls for more than 300,000 square feet of development including two major new buildings, an underground parking complex and large-scale work on Memorial Stadium. 

That suit, along with three others filed by neighbors, sports fans and environmental groups, is currently slated for a September hearing in Alameda County Su-perior Court. 

Kamlarz said the lab—run by the university under contract with the federal Department of Energy—failed to respond to the city’s plea that they look for alternative locations for buildings, including the university-owned Richmond Field Station. 

The EIR dismissed the field station as an alternative with a few words, erroneously reporting that a cleanup of toxics-laden soil there was being conducted by the San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board. (In fact, the cleanup is under the aegis of the state Department of Toxic Substances Control, which recently ordered the school to begin preparing plans for cleaning up more than 3,000 truckloads of contaminated soil it had illegally hauled to an adjacent site.) 

UC spokesperson Chris Harrington said the vote, taken during the board’s meeting at the UC Santa Barbara campus, was unanimous, with more than two-thirds of the regents in attendance for the Thursday afternoon session. 

“We think the regents should take another look,” said Kamlarz. 

Local environmental groups have also protested the lab’s expansion plans, including the Committee to Minimize Toxic Waste. 

Pamela Shivola has urged a halt to developing the site, given the extensive network of seismic faults documented in the complex’s 203 acres and soil and groundwater pollution that includes radioactive tritium. 

The regents also voted unanimous approval Thursday for a 25,000-square-foot, 60-bedroom, four-story guest house, which was included in the square footage allowed under the lab’s previous LRDP. 

The city had not objected to that project, which is designed to house visiting researchers and students working on projects at the lab. 

The regents in March approved two other buildings at the site, including the Helios building, which will house researchers working at the Energy Biosciences Institute, a controversial $500 million BP-funded research program designed to turn crops and coal into fuel for internal combustion engines.

The search for a builder to erect a $90.4 million, 140,000-square-foot, 300-office state-of-the art computing research center at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) is down to the short list.  

The search was launched simultaneously with the hunt for a builder for the $160 million, 160,000-square-foot Helios building, which will house the labs for the $500 million BP (formerly British Petroleum) search for biofuels. 

The lab’s Computational Research & Theory Building will rise at the opposite end of the 203-acre LBNL complex from the Helios lab, a short distance from Blackberry Gate near the western end of the complex. 

The building will house 300 offices totaling 85,000 square feet and a 35,000-square-foot computer room with two separate hardware systems, with the remaining 22,000 square feet reserved for mechanical and electrical equipment. 

The building will rise to either four or five floors, depending on the final plans. 

Programs housed at the center will support key missions of the federal Department of Energy (DOE), which contracts with UC Berkeley to run the lab, though the scientists who work there will be employees of the university and not the DOE, according to the prospectus presented to would-be builders. 

The heart of the building is the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center, a round-the-clock operation operating with state-of-the-art hardware designated for replacement every three years. 

The structure would also house another computing facility to host ESnet, described as a “leading networking facility supporting all of DOE’s networking requirement in support of its science mission.” 

The third component, Computational Research Division, is described as “an internationally leading computation science and energy research effort.” 

According to the prospectus, the center will directly serve about 2,500 scientists working on an estimated 250 projects at any given time. 

According to the project’s schedule, a project environmental impact report should be ready for final approval by next January, with the design finalized by the following August and construction occurring between January 2009 and April 2011. 

The UC Board of Regents gave their blessings to the structure at the same March meeting in which they authorized the Helios building. Both buildings are being constructed without federal funding, though Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is providing $40 million in state bond funds for the Helios building. 

According to LBNL’s 2008-2017 plan created for the DOE last year, the complex will replace the existing Oakland Scientific Facility for the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center, which is described as occupying an “inefficient” location which is “less secure than optimal.” 

That facility, housed in a former bank building at 415 20th St., opened in 2001, the first LBNL facility located outside either the lab itself or the UC Berkeley campus. Oakland’s then-Mayor Jerry Brown attended the dedication ceremonies on May 24.

With a bill making its way through the state legislature that would take the state superintendent’s discretion out of the return to local control of the Oakland Unified School District (OUSD), the granting of limited local control in the nearby Vallejo Unified School District last week raises new questions about how objective the standards are for returning power to a school district once it has been taken over by the state. 

In the most glaring discrepancy between state treatment of the two districts, the state-financed education consultants Fiscal Crisis Management Assistance Team (FCMAT) gave Oakland Unified half the improvement ratings of Vallejo Unified in pupil achievement over a three-year period, even though Oakland Unified’s Annual Progress Indes (API) scores rose twice as much as Vallejo’s in roughly the same period. 

On Friday, State Superintendent Jack O’Connell signed an executive order restoring local control in three areas of Vallejo Unified’s operations—student achievement, personnel and community relations/governance. The district’s state-appointed administrator will now become a trustee, and the district’s board regains the authority to hire a superintendent. For the time being the state retains control of two areas of Vallejo Unified’s operations—finances and facilities management. 

A state-appointed administrator sets district policy and carries it out unilaterally, with the school board acting in an advisory capacity only. A trustee, on the other hand, has only the power to veto board or local superintendent actions that the trustee feels may jeopardize the district’s financial situation. With a trustee in place, the school board resumes the power to set district policy. 

“Clearly, by any measure or standard, you are a school district moving in the right direction,” the Vallejo Times-Herald quoted O’Connell as telling district employees and community residents in the handover ceremony last week in Vallejo. 

Last week, two days before Assemblymember Sandré Swanson’s AB45 Oakland Unified local control bill passed the State Senate Education Committee on a 6-1 vote, O’Connell came to Oakland to transfer local control back to the OUSD board in the area of community relations/governance. But in Oakland’s situation, the remaining four areas of operation will continue in state hands and the state administrator will remain with full powers. 

On Monday, Swanson said that he was “very encouraged” by the Vallejo transfer. 

“Their scores were higher than Oakland’s, and by right those areas of operation should be transferred back to them,” Swanson said by telephone. “We have been pushing for a reliable, transparent process for return to local control in districts taken over by the state, and it appears that the superintendent is responding favorably. I hope that he will respond with like speed in Oakland.” 

And the president of the Oakland Unified School District board, David Kakishiba, said that a part of Vallejo Unified’s more rapid progress than Oakland Unified’s can be traced to greater FCMAT oversight in the Solano County district. 

Kakishiba said that the FCMAT visited and evaluated Vallejo every six months, as opposed to once a year in Oakland. 

“The consistent review, comment and evaluation that Vallejo had probably had some influence over their faster progress,” Kakishiba said by telephone. He put part of the blame for lesser FCMAT oversight in Oakland on the OUSD state administrator. “It’s one thing for the board to take FCMAT seriously, it’s another thing for the district to do so. When FCMAT ran out of money to do evaluations in Oakland, it was the board who went to state legislators and lobbied for that money, not the district administration.  

“FCMAT wouldn’t be coming back to Oakland this fall to do another evaluation and report if it wasn’t for the board lobbying effort. It calls into question how important the FCMAT process is to the district administrator.” 

Even taking into account the differences in FCMAT oversight in the two districts, it is difficult to understand why Vallejo got many of its powers back, while Oakland did not. 

“It brings into question on what basis they are analyzing progress in the different districts,” said Oakland Education Association teachers union president Betty Olsen-Jones. 

A 2004 FCMAT report on the circumstances of the Vallejo takeover listed a situation that sounded remarkably similar to Oakland’s. 

“In summer 2001, a review commissioned by the Solano County Office of Education and conducted by School Services of California, Inc., identified serious weaknesses in the district’s fiscal practices and operations,” the FCMAT report said, “including inadequate systems controls and a need to be aware of a downward trend in enrollment. District and Solano County Office staff attempted to work together to resolve these fiscal concerns, and the Vallejo City USD board began making some difficult decisions in an effort to reduce expenditures and maintain the district’s solvency. Unfortunately, by the summer and fall of 2003, despite the district’s staff reporting that the district would show a balanced budget and the 3 percent reserve, the Solano County Superintendent of Schools disapproved the district’s 2003-04 adopted budget … In mid-September, with the issues still unresolved, the Solano County Superintendent of Schools formally disapproved the district’s fiscal recovery plan and identified steps the district must take to remedy its situation. A fiscal advisor to the district was appointed at that time. Throughout the fall and winter the district again attempted to work with the Solano County Office of Education and the fiscal advisor. A number of additional budget cuts were approved by the board; however, by that time the total annual deficit was projected to be in excess of $20 million, necessitating that the district seek a loan from the state and submit to state takeover provisions as part of the requirements of receiving the loan.” 

When senators discussed Swanson’s AB45 in the Education Committee last week, much was made of the fact that Oakland Unified could not get most of its local powers back because when it was taken over by the state in the summer of 2003 because it was in jeopardy of failing to make its payroll, the state authorized a “loan” of $100 million, the largest school bailout in the history of California. 

The $100 million is a much-misunderstood figure, however. SB39, the 2003 legislation that authorized the OUSD state takeover, did not “loan” the district $100 million, but merely established a $100 million state line of credit for the district. The district immediately borrowed $65 million of that amount, and functioned under that loan. The remaining $35 million was not borrowed until the last days of former state administrator Randy Ward’s suspension after three years of operating the district under state control. In other words, $65 million of Oakland Unified’s $100 million debt was attributable to the district under local control before the takeover. $35 million was attributable to the district while operating solely under state control. 

By contrast, according to the FCMAT reports, Vallejo Unified drew down $50 million of its $60 million state line of credit immediately after the state takeover of the district in 2004, making the actual bailout of Vallejo Unified only $15 million less than the Oakland Unified bailout, if you only take the debt actually incurred as a result of the actions under local control. 

Vallejo Unified’s debt came in a district that is less than half the size of Oakland Unified’s, with a little over 12,000 students taking the state API exam in 2006, compared to close to 29,000 students taking the exam in Oakland in the same year. The major difference between Vallejo Unified’s current situation and Oakland Unified’s is that FCMAT recommended return to local control in three operational areas for Vallejo, but only in one operational area for Oakland. 

Under the state legislation authorizing the state takeovers for the respective districts (SB39 for Oakland, SB1190 for Vallejo), operational control is returned to the district in any of the five operational areas—at the discretion of the state superintendent—after FCMAT “determines that for at least the immediately previous six months the school district made substantial and sustained progress in implementation of the plans in the major functional area.” 

In defining when it will make such a recommendation, FCMAT says in its takeover reports that it will do so when it rates any area a “6” on a scale of 1-10. 

In its various reports, FCMAT has judged that Vallejo Unified has made progress in the five operational areas between its initial findings in 2004 and its current ratings: from 3.35 to 7.82 in community relations and governance, 1.34 to 7.20 in personnel management, 2.39 to 7.61 in pupil achievement, 1.31 to 5.28 in financial management, and 2.46 to 5.80 in facilities management. 

In contrast, FCMAT’s Oakland Unified ratings between September 2003 and September 2006, the date of the last progress report, went from 3.92 to 7.0 in community relations and governance, 2.64 to 5.20 in personnel management, 2.47 to 5.0 in pupil achievement, 0.73 to 4.0 in financial management, and 1.46 to 5.8 in facilities management. 

The difference in judging pupil achievement in the two districts is puzzling. 

Vallejo’s API scores jumped 33 points between the 2003-04 and 2005-06 school years, from 642 to 671. Oakland’s, on the other hand, rose twice as much in the same period, a full 65 points, 592 to 653. Oakland’s API scores rose 33 points in 2004-05 alone, and when O’Connell came to Oakland last week, he praised Oakland as having the largest jump in API scores of any urban school district in the state. Yet FCMAT raised Vallejo’s ratings in pupil achievement more than 5 points during the state takeover, while at the same time giving Oakland only a 2.5 point increase. 

The problem in comparing the Oakland and the Vallejo scores is that there is no statewide standard for FCMAT ratings. The scores are developed on a baseline that is set up by consultants for each individual school district, and a “6” in the Oakland Unified School District rating has no relationship to a “6” in the Vallejo Unified rating. FCMAT, for example, was called in by the Alameda County Superintendent’s office to be the fiscal advisor for the Berkeley Unified School District in 2003 after BUSD ran into fiscal problems, rating BUSD in the same five operational areas that it did Vallejo and Oakland. 

In January of 2005, BUSD Superintendent Michelle Lawrence told the Daily Planet that the scores were not transferable from one district to the next. “Since FCMAT is not evaluating all school districts in the state, there’s not a standard by which we can judge ourselves and take examples,” Lawrence said. “If there is a school district that got a perfect 10 in any of the areas, for example, we’d like to go and look at it so we can go and see what they’re doing that we are not. I asked FCMAT, but they told me they haven’t given out any 10s. So in the absence of statewide standards, we can only use the reports as internal documents by which to measure our own progress.” 

In fact, using FCMAT’s criteria for districts taken over by the state that local control could only be returned if a district achieved a “6” evaluation, Berkeley Unified might have been eligible to lose local control in two operational areas. In its last report on the district in 2005, completing its job as BUSD’s fiscal manager, FCMAT rated Berkeley Unified a 5.65 in personnel management and a 5.70 in financial management.  

Another problem in using FCMAT’s reports as a guideline for suitability for return to local control is that in districts such as Vallejo and Oakland that have been taken over by the state, the reports can only analyze what the state has done in running the districts, not what the districts under local control have accomplished. 

Meanwhile, Oakland attorney and local educational activist Anne Weills said that she thought it was Oakland’s willingness to fight the state takeover that was the difference in Vallejo’s more rapid progress towards local control than Oakland’s. In early 2005, Weills was arrested along with four other activists during a sit-in in the office of then-OUSD state administrator Randolph Ward while demanding that State Superintendent Jack O’Connell come to Oakland to answer questions about the takeover. 

“I think this is punishment for Oakland” by the state superintendent’s office, Weills said. “I think it’s straight-up retaliation. We are the source of the fightback. We’ve fought Jack O’Connell tooth and nail. We resisted the land sale.” 

That was in reference to an attempt by O’Connell to sell 8.25 acres of centrally-located OUSD property, including the district administrative headquarters and five schools. O’Connell abandoned that effort earlier this year in the face of widespread opposition in Oakland. 

By contrast, the state-appointed administrator in Vallejo Unified has sold five parcels of surplus property to help pay down the state debt, including an 18-acre athletic field to a residential developer for $17.6 million. The transaction has reportedly left some 300 Vallejo Little Leaguers without a place to play baseball. 

Weills said that one possible motivation for the state to continue to hold onto control of the Oakland school district is “they don’t want conditions in the district to be exposed to the public,” which she said would happen once the board is able to get in and monitor financial books and other records concerning what has taken place under state control.  

“It’s a disaster,” Weills said. “It would be a huge embarrassment to the state.” 

SOLANO AVENUE 

• Discussed ways to spend $29,000—collected from businesses along with the business license tax—on Solano Avenue improvements. 

POLICE REVIEW 

• Heard status report on lawsuit against the Police Review Commission. Berkeley police sued in Superior Court to have complaints against police officers held in closed session. The city attorney’s office said attempts are being made to reach an out-of-court agreement with the police. 

MENTAL HEALTH 

• Putting together a task force from several commissions to train police in methods of handling people experiencing a mental crisis when crisis teams from Berkeley Mental Health aren’t available. The commission is now meeting the fourth Thursday of the month at 5 p.m. at 2640 Martin Luther King at Derby. 

ENERGY 

• Held workshop on Berkeley’s Measure G, which calls for cutting Berkeley’s carbon emissions by 80 percent by 2050. 

• Discussed the long-standing idea of Berkeley buying its own electricity. Such programs in Alameda and Sacramento have reduced costs to consumers. 

PERSONNEL 

• Recommended creation of two new positions of Recreation Supervisor for various after-school, youth and family programs.

When I was young and newly minted and released into the world at large, I rented a room, board included, from an elderly woman. Our disparate reading matter at the breakfast table was united under the banner of the Times: the obituaries for her, the engagements for me. 

Now it is quite the reverse. I was reminded of this when I read a sentence in a recent New York Times obituary of anthropologist Dame Mary Douglas, whose research found that group behavior governs the personal, even to the extent of the use of cutlery when one dines alone. 

This however is not true in my household. Take salad, for starters. There is something in its flavor that is greatly enhanced when lettuce is eaten with the fingers. Try eating a radish with a knife and fork! As for globe artichokes, surely no utensil exists that can eclipse the dexterity required for its leaves, the removing, the dipping, and finally the pressing of each tender leaf against teeth. 

This is not the only reason why I adore globe artichokes. They are one of very few vegetables that grow with scarcely any attention at all. In mid summer they appear to die. Last year I even dug all mine out, thinking they must be exhausted after having produced bumper crops for eleven years. To my astonishment, once cooler, wetter weather arrived, so did new growth, bigger and better than ever, eventually reaching shoulder height. One can emphatically describe the globe artichoke as a long-lived perennial. 

It is possible to start new plants of globe artichokes from offshoots of the parent plant, and these do need attention in the form of protection from the sun until established in a sunny, permanent spot in the garden, about three feet by three across. A circle of low wire around the perimeter will retain a light mulch, continuously renewed. That’s about it, apart from harvesting the young globes, because winter rain takes care of irrigation needs. 

The globe artichoke is in the sunflower family, readily evinced if one or two old globes are allowed to bloom into gorgeous, sky-blue thistles. Cut these for display in the house to avoid weakening the plants. The classification of this family, an extensive one, with over a thousand genera, is best left to botanists, since it seems to be in constant transition, like so many plants now that botanists can tinker with chromosome counts. Like many a plant hunter we could simply refer to it as an ADC, another damned compositae, were it not that botanists have now decided it’s an asteraceae. Note the endings of these two family names: those ending in the simpler form, -ae, indicate plants of ancient origin, in terms of human knowledge. 

Regardless of name, some members are indeed intransigent, causing hay fever, killing cattle, and generally being tiresome. On the whole, though, it is a glorious group. There is, for instance, something about a lawn sprinkled with small fat white daisies that eternally beguiles with its innocence. 

Probably native to the Mediterranean region, our artichoke, Cynara scolymus, is named after Cynara, a beauty beloved and deified by Zeus. Homesick on Mount Olympus, she frequently returned to earth, so enraging Zeus that he permanently bound her there, turned into our useful thistle. C. scolymus has a relative, the cardoon (C. cardunculus), that has naturalized in the Tilden hills. Local lore says these plants were started there by an Italian. The cardoon’s flower buds are too meager and spiky to eat, but the blanched stalks are edible when cooked. Both plants are thought by some people to have aphrodisiac and generative properties, enhancing the possibility of producing male offspring. 

There are many recipes for cooking artichokes, most of them elaborate. The easiest way to eat them, after boiling them for about 20 minutes, is to dip each leaf in a sauce. Before reaching this exquisite moment it is necessary to wash them, at which point insects can appear, such as aphids clustered around the stem, readily rinsed off with a small brush, and earwigs, which hide deep inside and have a disconcerting way of rushing out and threatening the chef with raised pincers. Tapping the globes against the risers of the back steps on the way from garden to kitchen will dislodge some of these. Large artichokes can be cut in half with a cleaver, which makes it easier to see lurking creatures. I try to give earwigs a sporting chance of survival, shouting the equivalent of “Timber!” before I cleave, but some decapitation can occur. 

Earwigs are interesting in their own right. They do no great damage that I can see, and this year, since there were very few aphids, they must indeed control these, as Powell and Hogue in California Insects imply. They also play a role in keeping decaying matter to a manageable level. 

Nutritionally, globe artichokes provide modest amounts of vitamins and minerals, and a significant quantity of fiber. When it comes time to feast on their leaves, I follow Julia Child’s recipe in Mastering the Art of French Cooking for making mayonnaise in a blender. Then I mix a little of this with a chili paste made from a blending of tomato paste, tamari, water, and Syrian or Aleppo spicey red pepper. Twist, pull, dip, scrape—mmm! So good! And so digestible, too. 

When I read the obituaries these days I’m always keen to learn whether the deceased has reproduced. It is after all a matter of importance to all of us that our species should survive and thrive. Just so with Cynara, apparently dead, in reality busy below ground, perhaps even gone for a brief fling on Mt. Olympus, awaiting the right moment to return to light and life.

Community members celebrated the 20th anniversary of the Berkeley farmers market at their Tuesday location on the 1900 block of Derby Street with food, speakers and music. 

Children from the YMCA Learning Academy, located in South Berkeley, headed off the program, singing “Happy Birthday” to the market and a camp song. Shirley Brower, executive director of the academy, said that she has been bringing children from the academy to the market for the last five years. 

“Our focus is on organic eating,” said Brower. “We have had concerns about children’s eating. We had concerns that their favorite place to go was McDonald’s. The market allows us to do hands-on learning.” 

Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates was among the speakers, noting that he and his wife, Assemblymember Loni Hancock, regularly shop at the market. 

Also, neighbor, longtime supporter of the farmers’ market and School Board Director John Selawsky said it was a day for celebration. 

“There’s good food and good people,” said Selawsky. “It’s the essence of the farmers market. My wife and I were one of its first and steadiest customers. It’s really such a great institution.” 

After the program ended, musicians from the community came on stage to play for the remainder of the event, while volunteers served up burgers, vegetarian foods and desserts. 

Judith Redmond of Full Belly Farms has been coming to the farmers market since it opened two decades ago. 

“I’ve been here since it started,” said Redmond, whose farm sells greens, watermelon, broccoli and nectarines. “We knew that we would enjoy the community here. It’s great because it is run by a non-profit, the Ecology Center. I love getting to know people and making new friends here.” 

A small farm called Guru Ram Das Orchards, run by Didar Singh, is another veteran at the Tuesday market. 

“I came here in the summer of 1989,” said Singh, who is known for his great organic Valencia oranges. “I love everything about the market. I’ve been very grateful for the support I’ve been receiving over the years and all the nice people I’ve met. We sell a good 60 to 65 percent of our produce at the market here.” 

Photograph by Rio Bauce.  

Judith Redmond of Full Belly Farms holds a nectarine at Tuesday’s 20th Anniversary Celebration of the Berkeley Derby Street farmers market.

With rumors circulating throughout Frank Ogawa Plaza all day Tuesday that Oakland City Councilmembers were threatening to hold up votes on the Wayans brothers Army Base project to stop at least one of Mayor Ron Dellums’ proposed nominees to the Port Commission, Dellums abruptly withdrew his Port Commission nominees, and the council later unanimously approved a four-month exclusive negotiating agreement with the Wayans. 

The Wayans, a Los Angeles-based entertainment production family, are proposing putting a creative factory business park, retail and an urban village, a creative children zone, a digital art center for children, and film production facilities on the property, but details of those proposed projects have yet to be developed. 

The dual action means that Dellums’ two Port Commission nominees—Margaret Gordon and Victor Uno—will not come before the council again until the council returns in September from its summer break. Nominees need five votes on the eight-member council for confirmation. 

Concern by at least some councilmembers appeared to center on Gordon, of the West Oakland Environmental Indicators Project, an outspoken longtime West Oakland environmental and community activist who has served on several Oakland advisory councils over the years, and was named co-chair of the Port of Oakland’s Maritime Air Quality Task Force earlier this year. 

Dellums met with Gordon supporters shortly before Tuesday’s City Council meeting and his announcement that he was withdrawing his Port Commission nominees. 

The identity or identities of the councilmembers seeking to block the Gordon appointment were not revealed, but several City Hall sources confirmed that such a blockage and vote trade had been threatened. 

Meanwhile, Oakland and the Wayans brothers now have four months to decide whether they can enter into a purchase agreement for up to 47.3 acres of West Oakland land on the former Oakland army base. The purchase price for the property has yet to be determined and, unlike many recent developers coming to Oakland, the Wayans have not requested any city subsidies for their proposed project. 

The project has been enthusiastically supported by Councilmembers Larry Reid (7th District, East Oakland) and Desley Brooks (6th District, East Oakland). 

At last week’s meeting of the Council Community and Economic Development Committee that voted to move the project forward, Reid said, “I’m not starstruck, but I’m struck by how the Wayans have demonstrated what decent human beings they are. It’s amazing, when they come to West Oakland, to see young people flock around them. It’s incredible, the impact they have on young people. What the Wayans family is proposing to do will enhance our progress and our image.” 

The Wayans had earlier unsuccessfully tried to reach a development deal with Oakland over army base property, but blamed their failure to follow through on the deal on failures of a previous partner. 

Councilmember Jane Brunner (District One, North Oakland) had voted against the original 12-month negotiating agreement with the Wayans brothers when it came to Council in 2005, saying that the year-long agreement should be cut in half. But after insisting that the new deal contain both a short timeline and defined benchmarks for both the city and the Wayans to reach, Brunner voted for the negotiating agreement this time both in committee and in the full council, releasing a memo that said she was “extremely excited about the Wayans’ proposed project. I, too, believe that this project has the potential to create a one-of-a-kind arts, entertainment and business destination on the Oakland army base. The Wayans cachet and brand name is strong, Oakland needs new retail, and the basis of their project—film production—has been identified as a growth sector for Oakland, creating quality careers in an environmentally sustainable industry.” 

Council President Ignacio De La Fuente (5th District, Fruitvale) had been earlier critical of the Wayans brothers’ failure to complete the first negotiating agreement, and said he would support the new agreement only if it included a shorter negotiating timeline. Last week, calling the Wayans proposal an “incredible opprtunity; bringing in the film industry would be a transformation for West Oakland if we can pull that off” and saying that the new agreement was “well-developed” and “tight,” De La Fuente made the motion in the Council’s Community and Economic Development Committee to move the project forward. 

The Wayans first came to national attention in the early 1990s with the comedy variety show “In Living Color,” produced by the family’s eldest brother, Keenan Ivory. The program helped launched the careers of several nationally-known comedians and entertainers, including Jamie Foxx, Jim Carey, Jennifer Lopez (who worked as a dancer on the program), brothers Shawn and Marlon who now star in their own syndicated television show “The Wayans Brothers,” and Keenan Ivory himself. The Wayans later went on to produce and star in the first two “Scary Movie” movies, spoofs of traditional horror movies. Keenan Ivory also produced and starred in “I’m Gonna’ Get You, Sucka’,” a spoof of the 1970s “blacksploitation” films.

Lt. Wes Hester, spokesman for the Berkeley Police Department, announced Thursday that bike cops will be out on an intermittent basis in South Berkeley as part of a plan for increased patrol in that area of the city. 

“Each of the four area coordinators are bicycle trained,” said Hester. “We are putting together a response to the recent shootings and robberies in South Berkeley.” 

On Monday night, Angela Gallegos-Castillo, who works in the office of the City Manager, organized a neighborhood walk around the affected areas of South Berkeley that were sites of recent violence.

While staff at the new Berkeley Housing Authority says board meetings are posted on the city clerk's web site and city clerk staff thinks BHA meetings are posted on the housing authority website, a quick survey and several phone calls by the Daily Planet uncovered the fact that the meeting—scheduled for Monday, July 23 at 6 p.m. at the South Berkeley Senior Center, 2939 Ellis St.—is posted on neither. 

1. Where were you born and where did you grow up, and how does that affect how you regard the issues in Berkeley and in your district? 

I was born in Plentywood, Mont., and I grew up in Montana and Colorado in rural areas. When I was about 15 years old my family moved to Los Angeles, and when I was 18 I came here to go to school at Cal. The way my youth affected the job I do today is that growing up in rural areas where everybody knew everybody else you’re exposed to much more of a village, family-like atmosphere. And Berkeley has that atmosphere. It’s a relatively small town and I’ve known people here for over 30 years. It’s a place where you can put down deep roots and it’s got a history and I like that about it, as opposed to living in a suburbia that seems to have no past or future: it’s just a place for people to go and sleep; it doesn’t have the strong since of history and community that Berkeley does. Or the pride in the community that Berkeley has in terms of integration, civil rights, women’s rights and environment. It was really one of the cradles of the green way of thinking. 

2. What is your educational background, and how did that help prepare you for being a council member? 

I have a double B.A. from Cal in psychology and anthropology. So having gone to school in Berkeley helps me understand the needs of the campus community, because I’ve always considered myself a part of the campus community. When I graduated I started to go to work for non-profits like the Center for Independent Living, which had just started. So I was in at the beginning of the disability rights movement. And I was also here as a student for the protest on the Vietnam and Cambodian War. I was involved in city politics a decade before I decided to run for office. I knew many people in the community before I ran and I’ve always been devoted to grassroots community politics. That’s where my roots are and that’s where I want to stay. 

3. What are the top three most pressing issues facing your district (4)? 

I’d have to say high rents, the high cost of living. So many people can’t afford to live here anymore. Longtime Berkeley residents are simply getting priced out of existence in Berkeley. People were fortunate to get their homes before the rents and the mortgages really skyrocketed. It’s always been expensive but it’s been escalating in the last decade as well. The other thing, besides the high cost of housing, which impacts all the things that Berkeley cares about in terms of its community, is its diversity. The high cost of living impacts the kind of people who can afford to live here: many people of color, lower income people, and other ethnic groups are getting priced out. We don’t want to become a white-bread community. So, you know, our diversity is at stake, and then I would say, because it costs so much to live here, we don’t have enough money to deal with all the deferred structural work that needs to be done. There’s a structural deficit, and by that I mean our storm drains are crumbling, our sewers are crumbling, our sidewalks need work, our streets need work. So, those I would say are the three most critical challenges for my district as well as the rest of the city.  

4. Do you agree with the direction the city is heading in. Why or why not? 

I would agree with about 70 percent of the direction we’re heading in. There are some differences I have about our direction. I think we’re becoming much more of a top-down government. Decisions are made behind closed doors and with the powers that be rather than grassroots, with the average citizens to help make decisions on how we should run our city. 

5. What is your opinion of the proposal to develop a new downtown plan and the settlement with the University of California over its LRDP? 

Well, I don’t think we really needed a new downtown plan. We maybe need to update our current plan. We have a very good plan that was written into our general plan and so I think we need to stick to that, not change our plan to order to accommodate the university’s development. We should work with the university. But the university has made it clear regardless of all the planning we do, they’re going to do what they want to do, as they always have.  

6. How do you think the mayor is doing at his position? Are you considering running for mayor, and if so, what changes would you try to make? 

Yes, from time to time I do consider running for mayor because I feel such a frustration; that’s one of the main reasons that attracted me to political office—which was to empower the neighborhoods. The community-involved government came out of the time when we did initiatives, You got a group of committed people together and you put what you wanted on the ballot. And now we have to resort to that and more and more, like with the landmarks ordinance. It’s shocking to me how the top levels of the government have tried to kick the landmarks ordinance. And it’s been really reinvigorating to see that the community has come to the defense of a vital quality-of-life issue in Berkeley, which is protecting our neighborhoods and saving our historical housing. You know, many rent controlled units are in historical buildings. And the only way you can control the rent controlled units is by rebuilding the structure so that the renters don’t lose their value, otherwise they’re easily evicted at an expensive market rate. So it also has consequences for what I think is the most pressing issue, which is the lack of affordable housing. 

7. Has Berkeley’s recent development boom been beneficial for the city? What new direction, if any, should the city’s development take over the next decade?  

Well, I think the development has been beneficial, especially for students who needed more housing opportunities. I think that when you get to the interface between the commercial areas and the neighborhoods, more can be done to interface better with the neighborhoods. But by and large I think it has been beneficial in that it’s created more housing opportunities. I think, though, it has left a sour taste in the neighborhoods who had to contend with the ad hoc interpretation of the zoning ordinance and state law. So the surrounding residents of the development have not been given a square deal by the city. 

8. How would you characterize the political climate in Berkeley these days?  

Old timers are, as I said, willing to work on important issues like preservation. But we need to get more youth involved in caring about issues. So I would like to see more younger people involved with Berkeley politics. 

9. What is your favorite thing about Berkeley? 

It’s the beautiful environment. That might include the beautiful diversity of people that we have here, people who share the values that I share, which is working for the common good. There are so many people here who are enlightened in one way or another. They’re either brilliant academics, poets, writers, socially conscious attorneys, filmmakers, artists ... this city is filled with people riches. Dedicated teachers. People working to make their communities better. It is a real privilege to be able to live here, quite frankly. 

10. What is your least favorite thing about Berkeley? 

How expensive it’s become. I would never be able to afford to live in Berkeley if I came here today without any assistance. And it’s getting harder and harder to get subsidized housing. That’s very sad, that people like myself would not be able to live in Berkeley anymore. 

Councilmember Dona Spring  

District 4 

Born Jan. 22, 1953 

1st elected November 1992

“After all I’ve seen, I still have joy.” Those words are from a gospel song, or perhaps a spiritual, that I heard once sung by the choir in an African-American church, and I’ve typed them out and posted them over my desk, just in case. They remind me that life has lots of unpleasant stuff in it, but joy is always an option. And on Sunday night Barbara Dane gave a packed house at Freight and Salvage a beautiful demonstration of how to live with joy all your life. 

It was her 80th birthday celebration, though she’s actually been 80 since May. Since she’s lived so long, she’s been able to live many lives, and the two sets she did over more than three hours captured several of them. For the first part of the evening she recalled her political history, with a stunning backup band plus legendary harmonica blues player Charlie Musselwhite and India Cook, a remarkable fiddler, as well as local favorite Ellen Hoffman and guitarist Johnny Harper. The set included songs from her early folkie days, civil rights songs, bluesy numbers...but for Barbara every moment’s a teaching moment. She’s still got an immensely powerful vocal instrument—she’d be called a mezzo in the classical tradition where she got her early singing training—and she’s always used it to tell the audience what she thinks they need to know to be saved.  

This audience was more than ready to shout hallelujah.  

For many of us at the Freight on Sunday night it was particularly inspiring to see that one of the icons of our youth is still thriving. There were some wheelchairs, walkers and canes in evidence, people considerably older even than me (along with a surprising number of younger folks.) Barbara proudly describes herself as an “old lady,” and some wear-and-tear is evident, but she’s still a great beauty and a vigorous on-stage presence. 

Her stamina is amazing. She brought a whole new set of musicians onto the stage for the second half of the program, a hot jazz ensemble with several well-known veterans in her own age range. These included Dick Hadlock, my daughter’s kindergarten teacher at John Muir School, who still blows a mean clarinet. For most of the last 50 years, fine musicians like him have had to look for day jobs to support their musical habit, as listeners have gradually become addicted to the canned music owned and controlled by big corporations.  

It’s been just about fifty years since I first heard Barbara Dane singing folk songs at the Ash Grove in Hollywood, and while she’s always had a devoted group of fans and outstanding reviews she’s never quite hit the big time. In retrospect it’s clear that her outspoken leftist politics had a lot to do with this—the music industry frowns on performers who can’t resist biting the hand that feeds them. One of her self-distributed CDs is called “I Hate the Capitalist System”—not a title you’d see on a major label. 

The most moving number of the evening was probably the oldest one: a deeply felt rendition of the folk classic “Careless Love” accompanied only by pianist Ray Skelbred. She managed to turn it into a powerful emotional lesson on women’s history without changing a word of the traditional text. But every song she sang carried extra meaning along with its melody, because that’s how she’s always looked at the world.  

Barbara’s show was a dramatic contrast to my encounter earlier in the day with another icon of my youth, KPFA. Here I must confess that I haven’t been able to listen to the station very regularly in the last 20 years, partly because of the tales of bickering that always emanate from it and partly because my own busy schedule doesn’t include auto commute time. But the bush telegraph was active on the weekend—I must have gotten 10 calls and e-mails telling me to listen to the talk show at 10 on Sunday when the mayor of Berkeley would be interviewed, so I turned it on while I sorted socks.  

Big mistake. I knew that Larry Bensky, a reliable if sometimes stodgy known commodity, had retired, but I hadn’t ever heard his replacement, one Peter Laufer. Laufer’s Googled credentials and the summaries of his previous shows seemed fine, up-to-code on national and international topics, no problem. But his interview with Mayor Bates was an embarrassing series of softball pitches, leading off with the host’s riff on how he’d loved Telegraph Avenue when he’d been in school here for two years in the sixties, but now it seemed excessively—ahem—seedy to him. Perhaps that’s what living in Marin does to you.... 

He provided Bates with ample opportunity to express his well-known distaste with individuals to be found on our Berkeley streets. I won’t belabor my own opinion of Bates’ attitude toward the poor one more time, because a couple of our readers got right on him with letters which will appear in this issue.  

But the attitude of the KPFA host definitely needs adjustment. He was lucky enough to get calls from several authentic residents of South and West Berkeley, the most neglected part of the city, who tried valiantly to pose their own hard questions to the mayor, but they were cut off in the most peremptory manner. One poor woman started to ask why nothing much was being done about crime in her neighborhood, but was able to get out no more than half a sentence before being squelched—it might as well have been Rush Limbaugh at the controls.  

Bates, on the other hand, was allowed, at not just one but at least three junctures, to get away with claiming that he has no power to control what callers regarded as excessive development in their neighborhoods in Berkeley’s Flatlands because it’s just “The Free Market” at work. That’s the same lame excuse George Bush uses to deny climate change and the Democratic Leadership Council uses to explain why we can’t have single payer health care.  

Two different people in the audience at the Freight on Sunday night approached me to gripe about the show which they’d heard that morning. I had to agree with them. 

Since when have KPFA talk show hosts sat passively by while guests pitched the inevitability of unbridled capitalism? I have absolutely no idea who’s on top these days in the local board faction wars, but does any of the factions want the host of the prime time Sunday talk show to diss listeners who call in, while rolling over for neo-liberal politicians? I doubt it. My guess is that most KPFA listeners and activists are still the kind of people who appreciate Barbara Dane’s continued efforts to point out what’s wrong with just leaving “The Free Market” to operate as it pleases, regardless of who’s injured in the process. And I imagine they expect the same kind of critical thinking from broadcasters. 

“The world, Mma Ramotswe believed, was composed of big things and small things. The big things were written large, and one could not but be aware of them—wars, oppression, the familiar theft by the rich and the strong of the those simple things that the poor needed, those scraps which would make their life more bearable; this happened, and could make even the reading of the newspaper an exercise in sorrow. There were all those unkindnesses, palpable, daily, so easily avoidable; but one could not just think of those, thought Mma Ramotswe, or one would spend one’s time in tears—and the unkindnesses would continue. So the small things came into their own: small acts of helping others, if one could; small ways of making one’s own life better: acts of love, acts of tea, acts of laughter. Clever people might laugh at such simplicity, but, she asked herself, what was their own solution?” 

—From The Good Husband of Zebra Drive by Alexander McCall Smith 

Last week I had the occasion to visit Kaiser’s Oakland clinic laboratory to have blood drawn for the usual routine tests, the day after I’d incurred a minor but painful twisted leg muscle because of an unwise choice of shoes. I limped, conspicuously, from the main entrance to the elevator, and from the elevator to the fourth floor laboratory. When you’re limping yourself, you can’t help noticing how many other people around you are limping too, and it seemed that everyone in the building was limping that day, some worse than others, some needing canes and walkers to keep themselves steady.  

Despite the many other limpers around me, it seemed that I was deluged with sympathetic glances and offers of help during my short journey. Doors were held for me; wheelchairs were mentioned. One man who spoke English with difficulty took the trouble to tell me a long story about his leg injury, and how he’d injured his other leg by favoring the sore one, which he wanted to make sure I’d avoid. Advice taken: I’ve been careful, and so far this week both legs have been working pretty well, knock on wood. 

When I’d finished at the lab I had a chance to sit in the shade on the bus bench on Howe Street for a while and observe the passing throng. There’s a miniature farmer’s market there now some days, so I saw produce shoppers as well as patients and employees. Not for the first time, I realized how lucky we are in the East Bay, because the whole world comes to us, no need to deal with crowded planes and travel restrictions. I saw every possible type, every conceivable standard of physical beauty, every style of colorful or outrageous dress among the people getting on and off the shuttle buses. Many were undoubtedly at Kaiser because they had problems to deal with, but most were smiling and courteous despite that. And someone’s cultivating a really sensational bed of begonias at the clinic door.  

Reading the newspapers is part of the job description here, and yes, Mma Ramotswe is right, it’s all too often an exercise in sorrow. If anyone out there hasn’t encountered Alexander Smith’s No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency books yet, they’re a gentle antidote to a world too much with us in the daily news. The protagonist is a “traditionally built” woman in Botswana who specializes in unraveling the simple puzzles of daily life, and they beautifully evoke the joyful world of small things which are too easily overlooked.  

“News” is most often the big things. “Big” in our range can mean national, international or local, but hard news these days is seldom good. That’s why it was a pleasure to be at the Maudelle Shirek building on Tuesday when Iceland devotees got the good news that five councilmembers had actually listened to what they had to say.  

Sports for kids is not Big news, nor should it be. What made Iceland a Big Thing in our small pond was bad news, plans to take sports away from kids, and from adults as well. I seldom go to council meetings these days, too depressing and I’ll read about them eventually anyhow. But I was at the farmers’ market on Tuesday afternoon, and when three people, including one total stranger, came up to me lamenting the potential destruction of Iceland I knew something interesting was happening, and I wanted to see it for myself, live and in color. 

Among people I know, I was already aware that Iceland partisans were the most politically diverse assortment seen in Berkeley in many years. I joke that if I invited them all to one party fistfights might break out, not about Iceland but about everything else they believe in. That’s not actually true, because what links all the Iceland supporters together is their shared belief that the commons matters, even though they might often differ in their analysis of what needs to be done to protect it. If the topic of rent control, for example, came up, you would certainly see some spirited debates among the fans. 

But among the official Iceland boosters at the council meeting, the ones in the blue tee shirts, there was nothing but goodwill and courtesy. They were quite diverse in the non-political sense—all races, ages and genders—but what made them alike was their cooperative attitude and demeanor. A shining human bouquet, in fact, more beautiful than the begonia bed at Kaiser. 

I myself was probably the rowdiest person in the audience, since I couldn’t help laughing out loud at the Mayor’s suggestion that Iceland could be commemorated by a nice plaque. I happen to know that commemoration by a plaque alone is specifically banned in the California Environmental Quality Act as a mitigation for the loss of a historic resource, so the proposal was either ignorant or cynical in the extreme. Councilmembers Wozniak and Maio are to be commended, on the other hand, for educating themselves on what the job at hand was: to evaluate the building’s value as a resource, not to make dire predictions about its future if neglected or to decide whether they might prefer to see some condos on the site. They also managed to squeeze out of a very reluctant City Attorney Albuquerque the accurate information that Berkeley’s Landmark Preservation Ordinance, still in effect despite Bates’ efforts to get rid of it, contains perfectly adequate provisions to counter “demolition by neglect.” Betty Olds relied on her excellent political instincts to tell her the right way to vote, and Spring and Worthington were on the mark as they usually are.  

The other councilmembers brought to mind the British press’s unkind characterization of Tony Blair as “George Bush’s poodle.” They aren’t exactly Tom Bates’ poodles, of course, but they do seem to follow him around. Anderson acted more like Bates’ rottweiler, launching an uncalled-for attack on Iceland supporters, with the genial Moore perhaps a cocker spaniel and Capitelli, who didn’t say much but voted with Bates, something fast and nervous like a whippet.  

Is a bunch of folks getting together to save a skating rink a Big Thing or a Small Thing? The best hope we could have is for a world in which “small acts of helping others … small ways of making one’s own life better” like creating or saving skating rinks become Big Things, and the ugly big things in the daily papers shrink in importance or fade away altogether. Sad to say, that’s a hope we’re not likely to see realized in our lifetime, so we’d better cherish the small things we have. 

TRADER JOE’S 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Imagine having a grocery store with good food, low prices and smiling clerks. Imagine having a grocery store with good food, low prices and smiling clerks in every neighborhood in Berkeley and Oakland. Imagine Trader Joe’s. Imagine not having to drive or bicycle or bus or walk miles to get to some over-priced corporate food chain with high prices, poor quality and apathetic help. 

It would seem that a well-run Trader Joe’s grocery store is a real threat to some of the old-time hard-core Marxist-Leninist Trotskyite East Bay lefties. The very idea that our capitalist society can occasionally produce well-run socially-conscious companies, the very idea… 

I am very happy that we Rockridgers of Oakland are getting our very own neighborhood Trader Joe’s grocery store in a few months. It will replace the awful, poorly-run, over-priced Albertson’s (which swallowed up the good low-priced Lucky’s in their corporate quest for greed). “Good widdance to bad wubbish,” as the great Elmer Fudd would say. 

Living right next to a grocery store of any stripe might be a bit of a sticky wicket, as the English might say. As a starting kindergartner 60 years ago, I was not thrilled to live right across the street from the local elementary school. Too close for comfort. I cried at the door on the first day of school after being walked to the kindergarten class. Who are all those kids and what are those giant blocks? But most of us adjust (finally) to our new situations. These anti-Trader Joe’s folks may well end up being some of the store’s most devoted customers. 

James K. Sayre 

Oakland 

• 

HUDSON’S RESPONSE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Thank you, Charles Siegel, for again reminding me of your very humorous letter in 2003. In that letter you erroneously asserted that I had been mistaken when I stated that the Urban Land Institute, a “smart growth” organization, recommended very moderate building heights for walkable neighborhoods. At that time, Martha Nicoloff quickly wrote to support my original ULI source with another ULI source of her own. I will quote from Ms. Nicoloff’s letter here, because although your errors of fact—such as mistaking 35 stories for 35 feet—are somewhat funny, what is not funny at all is the perversion of “smart growth” being foisted off on the existing neighborhoods and future residents of Berkeley. 

Ms. Nicoloff wrote: “In a handbook for planners and developers published in June, 2003 by the San Francisco District Council of the Urban Land Institute, you will find the following quote: ‘Building Heights Intent: Buildings in walkable neighborhoods need not exceed three stories to accommodate compact development....Primary buildings in walkable neighborhoods shall not exceed 35 feet; accessory buildings (garages and second units) shall not exceed 25 feet. Chimneys, vents, cupolas, ornamental parapets, and other minor projections may exceed these height limits by up to five feet.’ (Reference: Smart Growth in the San Francisco Bay Area: Effective Local Approaches.)” The ULI also has other humane recommendations, such as at least 50 square feet of private open space and access to another 100 square feet of private or semi-private open space.  

However, this in no way contradicts the ULI’s right to give awards to 35-story buildings in the right context, as you mention. They ULI gave a 2006 award to a bizarre, bullet-shaped 35-story building in Barcelona. This building is next to a “double-decker roundabout at the intersection of three of Barcelona’s major boulevards” and the area is designated for future skyscrapers; it does not appear to be a residential neighborhood. 

The ULI also gave 2006 awards to the San Francisco Presidio (low-density historic preservation), and to a Singapore conservation program that has designated over 6500 buildings for historic preservation, which ULI calls “a model conservation program to preserve its rich heritage of vernacular buildings and colorful neighborhoods.” Hmmm...I think Berkeley has some of those, too, doesn’t it?  

Sharon Hudson 

• 

THOUGHT PROCESS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

It is gratifying to learn that Councilmember Max Anderson fully supported the ZAB recommendation to shut down the Dollar Store at 2973 Sacramento St. (Daily Planet, July 20). Perhaps, however, Mr. Anderson can tell us how he reconciles his position with his publicly stated opposition to the 2006 court decision in which a property owner at 1610 Oregon St. (which is situated practically around the corner from 2973 Sacramento) was ordered to pay her neighbors $70,000 for maintaining a public nuisance. As with this case, that one involved knowingly permitting drug dealers and other assorted criminal types to use her property as a safe harbor for illegal business dealings. As with this case, the evidence in that one was “overwhelming, clear, and well-documented over a long duration.” 

I am not a resident of Mr. Anderson’s district, but if I were I would want to know the exquisitely calibrated thought process by which he reaches different results in two such strikingly similar cases. 

Evelyn Giardina 

Walnut Creek 

• 

OAKLAND SCHOOLS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

J. Douglas Allen-Taylor’s July 20 article “Contrast Between State Takeovers of Oakland and Vallejo Schools” documents that the progress in return of local control in Vallejo was greater than in Oakland. Mr. Allen-Taylor interviewed David Kakishiba, Oakland School Board President, who thinks the greater success of Vallejo in regaining local control is due to the Solano county superintendent, and the state administrator of Vallejo school district, providing a more rigorous administrative focus on the Vallejo recovery plan than Alameda County Superintendent Sheila Jordan, and Oakland State Administrator, Kimberly Statham provided for their recovery plan. 

The lack of administrative vigor mentioned above might be one of many factors explaining the differences between Vallejo and Oakland in making progress toward return of local control. Another factor might be the smaller size of both Vallejo and Solano County making their responsibilities easier to administer. Another factor may be that the Oakland state administrator placed a priority in implementing the Broad Foundation managerial reforms. This reform commitment may have distracted that administration from its mission of implementing the recovery plan endorsed by the quasi-State agency Fiscal Crisis and Management Assistance Team (FCMAT).  

Yet, there might be a simpler explanation for Oakland lagging behind Vallejo in returning of local control. It might be that Dr. Kimberly Statham, the Oakland state administrator, is neither highly qualified, nor even legally qualified. There is nothing in her record that would have qualified her as an “expert in finance.” In fact, Javetta Robinson, her chief financial officer, and a person that qualifies as an “expert in finance,” was recently apparently fired with little thought of a replacement. I interpret this action as demonstrating, not only a lacking in financial expertise, but managerial expertise too.  

California Education Code 41326(b)(2) defines the qualification for a state administrator as “The administrator shall have recognized expertise in management and finance.” And Ed Code 41326 also makes State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell and Alameda County Superintendent Sheila Jordan responsible for seeing that this law is carried out. Kimberly Statham was a feel good, popular alternative to Oakland’s previous abrasive state administrator, Randolph Ward; but, being popular did not mean she was qualified. But even if finances were State Administrator Statham’s priority, she would still, by California law, remain legally unqualified for the position of state administrator.  

Jim Mordecai 

Oakland 

• 

THE SMALL STUFF 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Another very good editorial! (“Time to Savor the Small Stuff,” July 20.) It lifted my spirits that tiny little bit that helps to make it through another day in a town with a ruling class that currently tries to forget that low-income and blue collar working class families exist, and when they do notice, tries to eliminate them from surviving here—by government action, or inaction. I love my Berkeley neighbors, most are unique and wonderful, but I am personally frequently disappointed by the results of decisions of the BUSD, the rent board, and many of those on the City Council. Maybe the next generation will be able to do a better job, and repair some of the damage now being done. What happened to our hopes and dreams of truly open, competent, and caring government, and the need for truth and justice, that we had way back in the 1960s and 1970s here in Berkeley? Unprofitable? Forgotten? Even though the government of Berkeley is frustrating, it is wonderful to look around and at least see the large numbers of individual Berkeley people who are doing things to make life for others better in at least “small ways.”  

Patty Pink  

• 

MARK RHOADES 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The exit of controversial Planning Manager Mark Rhoades is a much welcome move. After all, while at the planning office, he was very divisive and made lives miserable for a lot of Berkeleyans, including us tenants at 2507 McGee St. Mr. Rhoades as well as the city attorney’s office have made us very anxious and fearful of our future housing as they plan to put the property in receivership. The irony of it all, they have selected Mr. Ali Kashani, a developer for profit as the receiver. The Daily Planet story mentioned that Mr. Rhoades is “likely to be working” with Mr. Kashani. This raises serious question on the propriety of his action and the potential “conflict of interest.” 

The property in question is in a much better shape compared to what it was in 1991 when Dr. Rash B. Ghosh purchased the property. From documents I have seen, the property was in really bad shape and in need of much needed repairs and improvements. In good faith, Dr. Ghosh proceeded in fixing the property with the permits issued by the City. Alas, 18 months after the work has been completed, the city changed its mind and decided that “they should have not issued those permits” and demand changes to the property. To further add insult to injury, Mr. Rhodes took the matter to the Municipal Court and the City Council. The Municipal court dismissed the case but Rhoades convinced the council to declare the property “a public nuisance” after conducting hearings in the absence of Dr. Ghosh who is out of the country at that time. Now that Dr. Ghosh could not afford to implement the expensive changes the city requires, and even after he has obtained condo conversion approval, Rhoades and the city attorney’s office still wants the changes be implemented, otherwise, the property goes into receivership to Ali Kashani. What a blatant display of injustice! 

The 2507 McGee St. is not only our home but it is also a place where like-minded individuals converge to work for the International Institute of Bengal Basin (IIBB), a non-profit organization dedicated to improve water quality and environment and reduce the toxic impacts both at home and abroad. It is also home to a non-denominational temple where we use for meditation. 

We believe that the problem of 2507 McGee St. can easily be resolved if only the city, particularly the planning and city attorney’s office, are not too stubborn to consider other options that are beneficial and cost effective to parties concerned. If the city remains glued to its decision, we stand to lose what we have worked so hard to be better citizen of this city, the country and the world at large. 

Rosalie Y. Say 

• 

TOO OLD AND CRANKY 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

If Mayor Bates, by his own admission is too old to conduct city business, perhaps he should resign. Frankly, the City of Berkeley might be better off with an altogether younger City Council with a more visionary outlook. When I was young the slogan was not to trust anyone over 30. Then we all reached 30 and the slogan was deemed to be out of fashion. Maybe there was something to it after all. 

Mayor Bates is too old (and cranky) to stay up past 11 p.m. and Dona Spring is not the only one to be the brunt of his rudeness. He is not fit to be mayor of a city that used to be in the vanguard of municipal governance. His attitude on KPFA on Sunday morning did nothing to change my opinion. He is rude and condescending when speaking to his constituents. 

Constance Wiggins 

• 

PUBLIC TRANSIT 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

While it is absolutely necessary to consider building on transit lines, it’s also absolutely necessary to consider the noise. Traffic noise is crazy-making. Sound walls, as we’ve found, redirect the noise. In particular, building on BART lines is insanity until the train passage can be virtually silenced. Making crazy people—people who are enveloped by that noise, who keep their windows and doors closed in order to lessen that noise, ...these make people who are not healthy members of society. I’m sure you’ll be in contact with people concerned with this problem—and with proposals for ways to deal with it. The Paris subway, I’m told, runs on rubber wheels. BART wheels are out of round, and the tracks are worn. Consider the comfort as well as the necessity of living very close to good transportation. The major problems with transportation start with its inadequacy and cost to riders. There need to be 100 times as many buses going all over the place all the time—jump on one, get off, transfer to another to get where you’re going. This needs many more workers. The major problem in the United States is the lack of sufficient workers to do what we need done—like let us have enough good transportation. 

For disabled people there need to be on-call and by-appointment carriers for their particular needs and destinations. I don’t mean that every walking person who is limited in movement needs a vehicle different from a common public transportation vehicle. Many people whose physical ability is limited seem to require handicapped’s transportation because the public transportation is so far from them and/or too infrequent for ease of use. 

An objective for a meaningful society is being able to do what we do near enough to home that extensive distance travel is not necessary. But the idea of work, play, the stuff we do being available near home is so distant at this time I’m only appending it almost as an afterthought. The huge profit by dint of our labor, the extensive enslavement of the working class are barely noticed in this, capitalist society. Comfort of all of us and gentle care of Earth are so distant from people’s thinking .... how sad. 

Norma J. F. Harrison 

Anybody who is unsure about the concept of social engineering should take note: there is an excellent opportunity to see it in action tonight (Tuesday) at the so-called “Community Workshop” on Bus Rapid Transit (BRT), sponsored by our city’s Transportation Commission. The announcement for the event states that the commission “welcomes [our] participation,” and then instructs us to “come prepared to engage in a respectful, consensus-building process about the future of Bus Rapid Transit in Southside area of Berkeley.” That all sounds pretty good—after all, who could be against respectful dialog and consensus-building? Well, the members of the Transportation Commission, for starters. It turns out that they do not want any dialog about the most important issue regarding BRT: Do we think it is worth the tremendous disruption to our streets, homes, and businesses to have it here at all? Nor are they interested in the true nature of consensus-building, which involves an honest assessment of the range of community opinion at the very start of the process. 

So, what do they want us to discuss at the meeting? The announcement lists the following: “Route Alignment, Service Features, Station Locations, Station Features, Mitigations, and Joint Benefits.” Whoa, Nellie! In other words, they want us to participate in the workshop as long as we agree with all of their assumptions about the value and necessity of BRT, and we want to help decide the best way to implement it. And then later, they will use this meeting and others to claim that they have done adequate community outreach and the public agrees with them! This is like the sheriff who gives the condemned prisoner a choice of execution methods for his sentence, but neglects to allow him to have a trial on the charges. It is fundamentally unfair. 

If you haven’t been following this issue, you may assume that a vigorous debate must have occurred about BRT—perhaps sponsored by our City Council or AC Transit or an independent group such as the League of Women Voters. Well, it hasn’t. AC Transit planners and city officials have never encouraged any serious discussion of the merits and detriments of this massive and expensive transportation system. And the Transportation Commission has been one of the worst violators of public responsibility in this regard. Indeed, they have practiced their own version of “Decide, Announce, Defend” in handling the issue. They have been unabashed advocates of BRT from the very start, without inviting any community input. Some of them have even been so disingenuous as to claim repeatedly that BRT is a “done deal”: it will be built in Berkeley, they say—the City Council has already agreed to it and there is no way to stop it. This is simply not true. And equally important, their behavior goes against all the traditions of democratic participation in Berkeley.  

In fact, opposition to BRT is growing daily, in part because the Environmental Impact Report shows that it will encourage very few automobile drivers to switch to public transit, and will do little or nothing to help reduce greenhouse gases. Even so, these facts don’t seem to stop supporters from repeating false claims about BRT’s environmental benefits. So, we need to show up at meetings like the one tonight and express our views on the whole BRT question—not just on the narrow terms that the Transportation Commission has set out for us. 

I have taken this opportunity to write the announcement that should have been written for the event, one that favors democratic participation rather than social engineering: 

Bus Rapid Transit: Focus on Southside Berkeley 

Community Workshop 

6:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m., Tuesday, July 24.  

2362 Bancroft Way 

Your participation is welcome at our Community Workshop. Please come if you are a resident of Berkeley who cares about this issue, because it will have significant impacts on the entire city. In particular, if you live or own a business in the Southside area, we want you to express your concerns and ask questions. Our primary goals are to increase community awareness about BRT, listen to the views of residents and merchants, and present information about the current state of planning for this system. Everyone is encouraged to attend this event, and there will be substantial time for public comment. 

I hope to see you there. 

Doug Buckwald is a Berkeley activist.

To Mayor Tom Bates: 

I was very disappointed to hear something you said on the “Sunday” show on KPFA this Sunday, July 22. You said that when you see a Street Spirit vendor at the Berkeley Bowl, you often cut through the parking lot to avoid him. You used this personal revelation to illustrate that some members of the public feel uncomfortable around the homeless, and that this discomfort can hurt business in Berkeley. Your personal example followed a more vehement statement about the homeless, or, you clarified, not so much the homeless as mentally ill and drug addicted street people who have “incredible street behavior.” The host clarified that you meant incredibly poor street behavior. 

There were so many insensitivities in these few lines that I hesitate to break them down at all. But I support Street Spirit and buy it whenever I can. I want you to acknowledge publicly that this publication is part of the solution, not part of the problem. I think that any comment by an elected official that condones people avoiding Street Spirit vendors is reprehensible. This project combines self-expression, honorable work, and increased resources going toward meeting homeless people’s needs. I have found Street Spirit vendors hardly ever to be aggressive or obnoxious. It is passers-by choice whether to purchase the paper or not.  

I submit that your discomfort with the homeless, and that of many people in our community, stems more from guilt and projection than from any bad behavior on the part of these citizens. We know that “there but for fortune go you or I.” We fear the calamity that could pluck us from our comfortable, seemingly secure lives, and drop us down in front of a supermarket, dependent on the generosity of strangers. We wonder if we are doing all we can to change the world so that human need would come before corporate greed. And we imagine the resentment, anger, and loathing that we would feel if we were ever in their shoes, to see prosperous, uncaring neighbors pass by without even acknowledging our humanity. It is these truths that Street Spirit narrates, and for these reasons we should all subscribe.  

But you are correct on one count. There are many others who feel as you do. I sometimes wish I did not have to interact with homeless people. But I have made a decision. If a homeless man or woman can face me and ask for help, I owe it to them to give as often as I can. I work for a day when homelessness is erased. I like living in Berkeley because, as you also noted with paternalistic pride, we do more “for” the homeless than most other cities. But this problem is all of ours, not just an issue for people who are currently at the forefront of the struggle. Until you see yourself in the homeless, Street Spirit vendor, and respect him or her as doing a necessary job, all of us will be poorer, and your efforts to “help” the homeless will lack the heart it takes to interact with respect and equality. 

Yours in expectation of better  

leadership, 

Susan Chacin 

For the past two years, I have expressed strong objections about the contractual relationship between the City of Berkeley (City of Berkeley) and the Berkeley YMCA. This has occurred in numerous e-mails and phone messages to Mayor Tom Bates, City Manager Phil Kamlarz and my council district representative, Linda Maio. Despite my creating a lengthy paper trail of objections to this contract, and aggressively following up to request involvement, the mayor, city manager and Ms. Maio chose not to inform me that the matter was up for discussion and renewal last June 30. I felt that was a deliberate effort to prevent my objections from being heard in a City Council meeting. Throughout the year since that time, I re-stated my objections in writing and phone calls to Bates, Kamlarz, Maio and the city clerk’s office. None of them informed me that this issue was scheduled for the agenda last week. In recent weeks, I specifically asked a Bates assistant, named Arianna, to inform me when the item was going to be discussed this year. She rudely told me that was not in her job description, and that finding out what was on the council agenda was my “problem” (as she phrased it). 

On July 10 at 4:30 p.m. I received a call from the office of Councilmember Kriss Worthington, informing me that the City Council was scheduled to discuss and approve its contract with the Berkeley YMCA that evening at 7 p.m. ( So, much for a quiet evening at home watching the “Midsummer Classic”—rather than enjoying the planned decompression, I got more stress.) I dropped everything to prepare the following address to the Berkeley City Council. The late notice and parking difficulties caused me to walk into the council chambers at 7:05, according to the digital clock. But because the entire consent agenda was read and approved in the unprecedented time span of five minutes, at Mayor Bates direction, I was prevented from making this statement for the second straight year. 

To The Berkeley City Council: 

There are many urgent and compelling reasons to reserve or deny approval for the City of Berkeley’s contract with the Berkeley YMCA. 

On the face of it, it sounds great for the City of Berkeley or any corporate or government employer to subsidize health club memberships for its employees. But the Berkeley YMCA, while serving as the de facto health club and community for the City of Berkeley, engages in practices that are not permitted by any other city contractor. I argue that the council should withhold approval for any contract with the Y until the following issues are fully investigated and resolved:  

1) Inasmuch as the Berkeley City Council is a very pro-labor and pro-union organization, it should concern you that the Berkeley Y is active and aggressively engaged in union busting. At least two employees, Ms. May Cotton and Mr. Krassimir Stoykov were fired or forced out because they were suspected of trying to organize a union. In fact, they were not. 

2) The Berkeley Y is an exclusionary organization, run by a very secretive executive committee, which is accountable to no one. They don’t even follow their own by-laws in important policy and administrative matters.  

3) When I held membership at the Y, I made at least three written complaints about being sexually harassed in the men’s locker room. The Y avoided dealing with this issue because it did not want to risk being depicted as anti-gay. Yet, this fails to make a distinction between a positive and a very negative gay agenda. For resisting sexual advances in the men’s locker room, I was depicted by Y directors as anti-gay. This is untrue and unfair. More to the point, the Berkeley Y failed to honor its obligation to protect me from unwanted sexual advances in the shower and locker room. I recognize that I’m not a sympathetic character, but you should consider that childcare workers at the Y have been instructed not to allow young boys into the men’s locker room for this very reason! 

4) I hold professional certifications in pool management and fundraising. The Y directors freely solicited my expertise in both areas, but chose to avoid implementing my recommendations. Because I made formal complaints about the level of hygiene in the pools and locker room, and about the sexual activity in the locker room, my membership was revoked. There was no due process involved, contrary to the Y by-laws. 

5) The City of Berkeley maintains a visible conflict of interest with the Y. The Department of Environmental Health and the City of Berkeley itself have been awarded the Y’s “Champion Corporate Partner” designation in the past few years. Sr. Dir. Manual Ramirez candidly admitted to me in his office that the “inspection” that resulted from my complaint was woefully short of thorough. He also said that his department should not be accepting awards from facilities that it is regulating.  

These issues aside, the City of Berkeley’s own pool system desperately needs the money that is given to this private, unaccountable and exclusionary organization. As a swimmer at the city pools, I’m well aware of the urgent need for funding to address repair and ultimately renovation needs.  

The City of Berkeley should terminate it inappropriate contract with the Berkeley Y and designate that money for emergency needs for all three city pools.  

Thank you, 

H. Scott Prosterman 

My mom was a nurse with a great disdain for doctors. All she wanted us to be was “healthy, happy children.” She reinforced that by feeding us carrots and broccoli—a few cinnamon sticks thrown in—instead of candy for snacks.  

Not being much of a drinker, I wandered the earth with sugar as “my only vice.” Until the late ’70s and early ’80s when I ran into Michael Lesser, M.D., a friend, Michael Caditz, and the book Women Who Love Too Much. The book had a little diagram, showing how similar sugar and alcohol are as chemicals. When Dr. Lesser heard of my college senior year diet of ice cream cones, he declared, “Ice cream is grease and sugar, nothing more.” That information impressed me; I stopped the ice cream.  

That, and Michael Caditz’ experimentation with Pritikin and MacDougal diets, which said you need 10 percent protein, 10 percent fat, and 80 percent carbohydrates, started a trend in our dancing crowd that had me gradually deleting the sugar and fat from my diet.  

Historically, I am neglecting the salutary influence of Adele Davis and Frances Moore Lappe (cookbook writers with personal and planetary health emphases), which informed many of us on the East and Berkeley Coasts throughout the 70s. How many “Crusty Soybean Crowd Pleasers” did you make?  

I can document being up in Montana, having to milk cows at 6 a.m. before we went off to work in the Forest Service. The sight of their eyes, by which we found the cows at that dark hour and called them in, were too much for me. That was one of the deciding factors in becoming a vegetarian. Big, mournful cows’ eyes. I could relate to the Aurevedics.  

Wonderful Vegetarian Society affairs helped solidify an effort to become more vegetarian/vegan. Working with Dr. Lesser and his Nutrition and Vitamin Therapy book and his Orthomolecular Society meetings. Learning in nutrition flourished, especially around the Bay Area, in the eighties.  

Now we are blessed by the Elephant Pharm, the Ecovillage in Oakland, Feldenkrais, A Course in Miracles, dancing, listening to classical and other great music that flourishes around here. Now we can eat at the wonderful Ananda Fuera, Millennium, Café Gratitudes and Herbivores in San Francisco and Berkeley, the Long Life Vegi House on University, along with buying organic food from the larger stores here. We use City Car Share, and we have a smaller footprint by living simply.  

To friends who want it put simply, I say—Cut out the white stuff: White bread, white rice, bagels, yes, bagels, scones, and above all, red meat and potatoes. Must eat fruits and vegetables. Eat Oatmeal in the morning, and put fruit and nuts in it. Gogiberries are best. Eat fruit the first thing to get enzymes rolling. Putting sugar in your body first thing in the morning is tantamount to taking a screwdriver to your pancreas. Pancreatic cancer: six months of pain before demise. Do as the Europeans do: eat a larger lunch and a smaller dinner. Eat dinner before 7 p.m. if you want to A. Lose weight B. Get good sleep.  

Then go dancing! Take BART to the Symphony/Opera/Ballet, get a good walk up and down the BART stairs, and tread lightly going. Eat at Ananda Fuera or Absinthe: soup and quinoa salad and marinated beets, in a lovely courtyard garden.  

Don’t forget the endorphins! Breathe, listen and sing to music, and laugh a lot. Do something for peace.  

OPEN CALL FOR ESSAYS 

Healthy Living 

As part of an ongoing effort to print stories by East Bay residents, the Daily Planet invites readers to write about their experiences and perspectives on living healthy. Please e-mail your essays, no more than 800 words, to firstperson@berkeleydailyplanet.com. We will publish the best essays in upcoming issues. 

BRT TO KAISER 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I am responding to Steve Geller’s (July 13) desire for a letter from potential Bus Rapid Transit riders. I plan to use BRT for trips to Kaiser Oakland from Berkeley two or three times each year. Hope this helps. 

Robert C. Chioino 

• 

FAMILY VALUES 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

A Republican “family values” politician is caught playing hanky panky with a prostitute. Conservative pundit Sean Hannity is quick to dredge up the ghost of Bill Clinton’s past in an effort to deflect attention away from David Vitter’s transgressions. Vitter himself, trots out his wife in hopes of swaying the media and quelling the growing storm.  

The spectacle unfolding shows another holier-than-thou religious conservative talking the talk while at the same time getting caught with his pants down.  

Ron Lowe  

Grass Valley  

• 

FARM BILL 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

This summer, while you’re hopefully enjoying some much needed vacation time and hitting the pool or a BBQ with friends, Congress is considering the Farm Bill. I’m pretty sure we have the better deal. 

All kidding aside, the Farm Bill is an important piece of legislation and a big opportunity. Congress has the opportunity to significantly improve the livelihoods of small farmers around the world, including here in the United States, by instituting reform in the U.S. Farm Bill. 

Considered once every five years, the Farm Bill is in desperate need of change and this year is our time to act. 

The current Farm Bill encourages American farmers to overproduce and flood world markets with crops sold at artificially low prices, making it almost impossible for small farmers at home and abroad to sell their own crops. 

The current system does not even primarily benefit America’s small farmers. Reforms should also provide better support for U.S. farm families of modest means as well. 

As a member of the ONE Campaign, I urge Congress to make the necessary changes to the Farm Bill—smart trade reform helps everyone. Please visit www.one.org and learn more. 

Congress has the opportunity to significantly improve the livelihoods of small farmers around the world. 

Alicia Childs 

Hayward 

• 

PLANET’S OMISSIONS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I grew up in Boston, where I read the Boston Globe every day. I loved the paper’s liberal slant. Meanwhile, I held contempt for the very conservative Boston Herald which was known for flagrantly ignoring any story or news event that conflicted with their political philosophy. The Globe, on the other hand, continues to offer a balanced viewpoint today by including rabidly conservative columnists. I had hoped the Daily Planet would be more like the Globe, but your paper’s refusal to print any story about the recent revelation that the tree-sitters in the university’s oak grove have permanently damaged trees in order to make their sitting space more comfortable is upsetting. The protesters have admitted to the damage, and yet the Planet, who seemed to have no end to it’s desire to publish stories about the protest, has refused to print any stories about this vandalism. It’s sad to realize that the conservative Herald’s news repression and manipulation of public opinion is shared by the Daily Planet.  

Sherman Boyson 

• 

FOUR MORE YEARS! 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I was at the Oakland airport yesterday, waiting for a plane to take me off to an AIDS training course, when I saw a book that scared the [bodily waste] out of me! There it was. On the top shelf of Hudson News. In hardcover. The Next Bush.  

Poor Rudy Guliani, being, led down the garden path to think that he might actually be the next neo-con Republican to steal the White House—while all the time it is Jeb that is being primed. Holy Cow! I was hoping to take a break from blogging once George W. was safely in jail but now it looks like I’ll be spending the rest of my life trying to get Bushes into jail. Let’s see. There’s Melvin and the twins and Laura and.... 

Jane Stillwater 

• 

WHAT’VE YOU GOT? 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Here is a motto for your letters section: When Marlon Brando was asked in The Wild One, “What are you rebelling against?” he retorted: “What’ve you got?” 

Sam Craig 

• 

WARM POOL MISCONCEPTIONS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I just wanted to clear up some misconceptions in the recent article about the Berkeley Warm Pool Plan (“Warm Pool Plans Criticized For Parking Lack,”July 13) . Much of the criticism about the plan had to do with the lack of provisions for parking. But the architects who created the plan were never tasked to find parking for this project. They were tasked with coming up with a preliminary plan that would make use of the space designated by the BUSD for a warm pool as part of their Berkeley High School South of Bancroft master plan. Obviously, this space, which takes up approximately the northern third of the current parking lot (formerly tennis courts) bounded by Bancroft Way to the north, Milvia Street to the west, and Durant Avenue to the south, is not large enough both for a warm pool and parking. 

But what about the other two thirds of that property? The whole lot presently is serving as parking for BUSD employees, and would remain parking after the warm pool is built on the northern third of the property, according to the south of Bancroft plan. Indeed, it will likely become multistory parking if the school district can fund such a project. I don’t recall any other use being suggested for this property in the south of Bancroft plan because, after all, the school district needs parking, too. Deputy City Manager Lisa Coronna was quoted out of context in the article when the reporter paraphrased her as saying school district parking could not be used. I believe her complete thought was that school district parking could not be used while school was in session, when it would be needed by school district employees. But that is no different from the situation that exists now at the existing warm pool, which is why public programs at the warm pool take place after 4:30 p.m., when school is closed. Why would we assume that this state of affairs would not continue at the new warm pool location? This preliminary plan deserves better than to be characterized as unrealistic and “illogical,” on the basis of fears and assumptions that have yet to be even examined in the development process. 

Mark Hendrix 

Warm Water Pool Task Force 

• 

SECOND FUNNIEST 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Maybe I can convince Sharon Hudson that I am not just the second funniest letter writer in the Planet (as she said in the July 17 Planet) by reminding her of the letter that everyone considers the funniest I ever wrote: When Ms. Hudson claimed that the Urban Land Institute recommended a height limit of 35 feet for new buildings, I wrote pointing out that their website featured an award to a 35-story building, and saying that she must have misread their recommended height limit of 35 stories. I like to use humor to show up the misrepresentations and distortions of Berkeley’s NIMBYs, and I was very glad that the author of “The NIMBY Manifesto” gave me this golden opportunity. 

Unfortunately, I find it hard to joke about this subject as much as I would like to. When I consider how much damage Ms. Hudson and her fellow NIMBYs across the nation are doing when they constantly oppose attempts to slow global warming by providing better public transportation and transit-oriented development, I can’t help thinking that the world we are leaving to our children and grandchildren will not be amusing. 

Charles Siegel 

• 

WHAT IF? 

Editors, Daily Planet: What if the over $600 million coming to Berkeley was spent on creating and implementing smart, efficient public transit. Two thirds of people enslaved to their car and insurance payments, repairs and check-ups, DMV lines, car seats etc., could give up their cars completely. We could use one lane of parking on every street as orchards or picnic areas. Berkeley would require new housing units to include a gardening instead of a parking space for each unit, so people could grow some of their food locally. Parking lots could become play areas. Asthma rates and stress would drop and real progress would be made toward the reduction of global warming. 

Tierra Dulce 

• 

WRIGHT’S GARAGE PROJECT 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I just returned from three weeks vacation and am dumbfounded to find that the behemoth nightclub project at the former Wright’s Garage location has been summarily rammed through the Zoning Board, with the full endorsement of our councilmember. I understand that a number of “neighbors” attended a recent City Council meeting to endorse the project. Puhleez, who could take these shills seriously? People who want this kind of “hip” development should move to Emeryville or Concord or just about Anywhere USA, not destroy the character of a neighborhood most of its residents chose for that very reason. No sane homeowner or renter who loves the Elmwood for its beauty and its link to history wants a 5,000-square-foot restaurant and a bar in our midst. When Mr. Wozniak asked for neighborhood “input” into usage of the space last year, was this really what the neighbors asked for? Where are the delivery trucks going to park...on Ashby? Where are the “patrons” going to park? This project and the approval process reek of corruption.  

Nancy Hair 

• 

RESTORE ROSE GARDEN VIEWS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I recently read the article about the Berkeley Rose Garden titled “New Deal Legacy Remains Visible and Vibrant in East Bay.” The Rose Garden is truly a New Deal wonder and beautiful asset to the City of Berkeley and residents of the Bay Area. A landmark, it is a must stop for visitors from out of the area and a showcase for seekers of beauty and nature.  

There is, however, one important part of the Rose Garden that the city has allowed to deteriorate and literally disappear. That asset is the glorious irreplaceable bay views that visitors to the Rose Garden used to have available to them. When my wife and I first moved to Berkeley in the early 1970s, one of our must stops on almost a daily basis was the top entry to the Rose Garden where we and many others would avail ourselves of the magical sunsets, the vistas of the bay, the topography of Marin County, the skyline of San Francisco, the view of the Golden Gate Bridge and the Bay Bridge. These were captivating views, always changing with the seasons, the lighting and the time of day or night. The sky and the clouds would literally shower the bay, the hills and the skyline with their beauty. The City of Berkeley has failed to maintain these wonderful public vistas. The city has allowed a grove of trees to grow to unacceptable heights on the property of the Rose Garden itself. The trees have destroyed the views.  

For those citizens who prefer to view trees, I would suggest they merely walk east across Euclid Avenue and partake of the thousands of trees available for appreciation in Codornices Park. To allow the city’s most wonderful public view to disappear is pure neglect. I can’t emphasize enough these are not views from a private home, but are in fact public views from a public treasure. We are not dealing with a private home owner’s enjoyment of view versus a neighbor’s enjoyment of a tree. The trees in the Rose Garden need to be either removed or scaled back to make the views and vistas once again a marvel to behold. This is after all a landmark. I must assume the original planners of the Rose Garden sited the garden in this location and built it the way they did to take advantage of the wondrous views. Per their plan, below the visitor was a dazzling garden of roses. Straight ahead were the most captivating public views in the bay area. Let’s restore the Rose Garden’s wondrous public views to their former majesty. The city is very protective of landmarks. It is time the city protects it’s own best landmark.  

Paul M. Schwartz 

• 

WOODFIN BOYCOTT 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The East Bay Labor and Community Coalition (formerly Berkeley Honda Labor and Community Coalition) wants Planet readers to know that we now have a bumper sticker urging people to boycott Woodfin Hotels, which you may order by contacting Judy Shelton at beactive@sbcglobal.net. You can pick it up from me, or I’ll mail it to you. If the latter, we ask that you reimburse the cost of postage; donations are optional. 

For those who don’t know, the Woodfin began retaliating against its workers when they asked management to conform with Emeryville’s new Living Wage Law. Management refused for nearly a year to comply with the law and meanwhile began questioning the validity of workers’ Social Security number. Employees whose names appeared on Social Security Admonition’s no-match list were threatened with dismissal, a threat the hotel eventually carried out. Management did finally start paying the living wage, but has refused to pay it retroactively. Now the City of Emeryville is making the renewal of the Woodfin’s business license contingent upon the reinstatement of these back wages, including those owed to the fired workers. 

This may be tied up in courts for some time, since the Woodfin is exploring every legal challenge they can at every step of the process. So we’re ratcheting up the pressure with our bumper stickers. Get one and show your support. And join us on the picket line, every Saturday from 7-11 a.m. and Tuesday from 3-7 p.m. at the Woodin, 5800 Shellmound, Emeryville. 

Judy Shelton 

Eastbay Labor and Community Coalition 

A venom-filled attack on Barry Bonds which appeared in the weekend edition of the Planet is gravely inaccurate.  

Mark Winokur’s letter stated, among other bits of disinformation, that “Bonds is almost universally despised by the fans, but racism is not the root of this justifiable contempt.” Winokur provides no data for his conclusion. Maybe he would be interested to learn that a recent ESPN poll found that black fans are more than twice as likely as white fans to want Bonds to break Hank Aaron’s home run record. Also, it would appear from the data the wild claim that Bonds is “almost universally despised by the fans,” didn’t consider the black fans. 

Barry Bonds is a black athlete in the mold of Jack Johnson and Muhammed Ali. He’s the best in his game, and he doesn’t kowtow. Black athletes learn very quickly that there are different rules for them and, if they won’t kowtow, they will be vilified by the mostly white sports media. This media continually demonizes Bonds for his “attitude.” However, it is well documented that Hall of Famer Ted Williams—like many white players--had a very nasty personality, but the media gave him a pass.  

Winokur states that Bonds had “an inordinate increase in offensive output at an age when exactly the opposite happens to virtually all major league hitters,” but fails to mention that sluggers like Carleton Fisk, Willie Stargell, and Aaron himself hit more homers per at bat when they were near the end of their careers. For example, when Aaron was 39, he hit 40 homers in 392 at bats. Bonds at 39 hit 45 homers in 373 at bats, virtually a statistical tie. 

Winokur’s concern about the sanctity of baseball’s statistics is sadly misplaced. Major league ball parks have never had equal dimensions, the pitcher’s mound has been raised and lowered, strike zones have been changed, and the ball was “juiced” after the 1994 strike to facilitate an additional 1,000-plus homeruns a year.  

However, the biggest obscenity regarding these stats is that many of the best players available during the era when these records were established were not allowed to play because they were black. Records from apartheid baseball remain bogus because Babe Ruth never faced Satchel Paige, Bruce Petway was never given the opportunity to throw out Ty Cobb, and Josh Gibson never came to the plate.  

The real tragedy of the whole Barry Bonds affair is that so many white fans have allowed themselves to be led into this sea of hatred by the bigoted pied pipers of the white sports media. 

Don Santina 

Oakland 

• 

MOCKINGBIRD 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The phantom bird-song CD. It was dusk; the sun had just settled into the evening’s perennial fogbank in the western sky. I had finally finished a long dinner and I was absentmindedly watching an Oakland Athletics game on television, when I thought that I heard some bird calls coming from the stands. I checked to make sure that my American Bird Songs CD was not playing; no, that wasn’t it. Then I hypothesized that my increasingly senile elderly mind was playing a neat trick on me by converting baseball fan noises (with horns and whistles and whatever) into some background bird calls. 

The half-inning over, I switched the television to the Hawai’ian music channel. However, the bird calls continued. Hmm, now they’re Hawai’ian bird calls? Finally I realized that these calls were coming thorough the open bedroom window. It was the local male mockingbird, perched up on the old rooftop TV antenna, performing one of his evening midsummer serenades, which included a variety of different calls. As we weave our increasingly impenetrable technological cocoons around ourselves, it is reassuring that Mother Nature can still occasionally break in and say hello now and then. 

A couple of weeks ago, this same mockingbird had performed what I thought was a rather odd and cheeky maneuver. For the first time in several months, I drove back home with a gold Oldsmobile sedan, instead of the usual red Pontiac sedan. After I had parked the Oldsmobile in the front yard parking spot, I sat inside for a few seconds of woolgathering, and suddenly the mockingbird flew down and hopped onto the engine hood and carefully eyed me. After a few seconds, his curiosity apparently being satisfied, he flew back up to his perch on the telephone pole wires. It’s like he was thinking: What’s your problem, buster? Showing off your new (old) car? Maybe I should be thankful for having a watch-mockingbird who carefully checks out possible intruders in his territory (and my yard). 

James K. Sayre 

Oakland 

• 

2507 MCGEE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Every Berkeley property owner, and many tenants, should know of and be alarmed by plans for the building at 2507 McGee Ave., where other senior citizens and I work and live. Soon-to-resign Berkeley Planning and Zoning Director Mark Rhoades seems bent on destroying everything we have here, including a nondenominational temple.  

In 1991, the city encouraged this building’s owner, Dr. Rash B. Ghosh (a great landlord) to buy and fix the building when it was in poor shape, even a declared “public nuisance.” Telling him that the city works with owners who conserve rental stock, Planning and Zoning accepted Ghosh’s plans and fees, and issued permits; he followed those exactly.  

But a year and a half after he completed work that city inspectors approved (Dr. Ghosh has copies of their signed inspections), at a City Council hearing when every member and Mr. Rhoades knew Dr. Ghosh couldn’t be present, Rhoades urged the council to declare the property a current “public nuisance,” although the building is vastly improved, with a new roof, foundation, and more.  

Even now, Mr. Rhoades continues to claim that the owner—who began a small but important non-profit conservation Institute that serves people on three continents—is careless of city requirements. If anyone is doing that, this property’s owner is not.  

Why does Mr. Rhoades insist that the property will go into receivership? Why has Mr. Rhoades named as receiver a developer he works closely with—Ali Kashani—rather than the non-profit Institute, the second mortgage-holder? Why will the city give Mr. Kashani unlimited funds to change the property in ways that benefit only him, but will not help Dr. Ghosh in any way to provide for his tenants? Why do City Councilmembers ignore Dr. Ghosh’s signed inspection reports? Why do Mark Rhoades and company offer the “option” to demolish the building, now that it is sound and livable, but the building’s former owner couldn’t get such a permit, when the building was in unsafe, blighted condition? (City staff said Berkeley shouldn’t lose rental stock in 1991, a need that remains.) 

Do Berkeley City permits have any value? We who live and work at this address worry for other city property-owners with permits, and for their tenants. And we know Mr. Rhoades’ plans for our building will harm us and the city, and are based upon a faulty city order that Rhoades helped engineer. We want the city to allow us to go forward with the condo-conversion the city approved, that Dr. Ghosh paid fees for and got architect’s plans for, and that would remedy every possible “code violation” the city claims.  

Dr. Kenneth H. Thompson 

• 

PLAY FAIR 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I wonder how many of you have by now been surprised with a $36 ticket on your vehicle, payable immediately, because your residential parking permit sticker expired June 30. However, upon checking your records, you find you never received the traditional renewal notice in the mail, and now you must hotdog it down to 1947 Center Street at 9 a.m. to get that 2008 sticker, or anticipate additional tickets on your wheels. That was the situation of at least a dozen citizens of his fair city Wednesday morning July 18, whose company and grumbling I shared while waiting nearly an hour in line to reach a station to issue the 2008 sticker. 

It is still a mystery whether the lapse in notice by mail was partial or total, whether a new policy, or just a screw-up. There appeared to no geographical pattern to it. And no explanations were forthcoming. However, those who brought their ticket in and who were only ticketed once received dismissal of the ticket. 

No compensation for their time and anxiety expended in the scramble to avoid future interactions with meter maid/men and the City of Berkeley’s ravenous Finance Department. 

I realize that Mayor Bates believes the source of all future unearmarked revenue derives from increasing meters, increasing tickets and increasing parking fees. But hey, let’s play a little fair about it! 

Marilyn Talcott 

• 

THE IMPORTANCE OF VIEWS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

After recently seeing one massive development project after another approved for the flatland areas of Berkeley, I have one small question: Why is it that the views of people who live in the hills are so critically important that lawsuits are filed over fences that are a couple feet too high or trees that are not pruned back, while the views of people who live down below are apparently not worth anything at all? It is a shameful double standard, and we should not allow it to continue. Everyone has a need for access to sunlight and air and greenery, and it can be argued that this need is even greater in the flats because these environmental amenities exert a moderating influence on the congestion and noise that exist there. Let’s not allow Berkeley to become a city of natural views for the privileged only. 

Doug Buckwald  

• 

WE THE PEOPLE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The question of what to do about Iraq is attracting tsunami waves of responses from Congress, Bush, cabinet officers, military top brass and numerous “expert” advisors. Conflicting, contradictory and overlapping answers spread into every available media space and, irrespective of political or professional source, most voices begin with the first person plural pronoun, “we”:  

We must stay, we must win, we must withdraw, we must not give up, we must accept, we must force/help their government, we must allow more time, we must change course, we this …we that. 

By definition “we” functions as a place holder, in this case for an unspecified group and yet none of the many voices take the time to identify the referent when they use it to answer the question. Why? 

“We” often refers to an assembly of family, friends, professional associates, political colleagues and such, but not in this instance because the question concerns national interest and the speakers are governmental leaders and policy makers.  

Given the context of the question, “we” can only stands for “We, the people of the United States.” That’s what Republicans, Democrats, Bush and his top advisors want us to believe. But they’re wrong.  

“We,” meaning our legislative and executive representatives, invaded Iraq on false claims, followed inept planning that has left our mighty military stuck like br’er fox to the Iraq tar-baby.  

“We,” meaning an estimated seven citizens out of ten want to detach our soldiers. We, the people recognize the folly and mendacity of our leaders. We, the people can foresee more carnage in the trap the wily al Qaeda rabbit has sprung.  

We, the people want the troops home. The sooner, the better. 

Marvin Chachere 

San Pablo 

• 

FAMILY VALUES 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

A Republican “family values” politician is caught playing hanky panky with a prostitute. Conservative pundit Sean Hannity is quick to dredge up the ghost of Bill Clinton’s past in an effort to deflect attention away from David Vitter’s transgressions. Vitter himself, trots out his wife in hopes of swaying the media and quelling the growing storm.  

The spectacle unfolding shows another holier-than-thou religious conservative talking the talk while at the same time getting caught with his pants down.  

Ron Lowe  

Grass Valley  

Amidst a packed crowd of cheering children and their adult allies, the Berkeley City Council voted 5-4 Tuesday night to uphold the landmark status of the historic Berkeley Iceland. The vote reflected an ideological split between those councilmembers (Gordon Wozniak, Betty Olds, Kriss Worthington, Dona Spring and Linda Maio), who recognized the building’s historic features and expressed excitement about future prospects for the site, and a group of bitter naysayers (Mayor Tom Bates, and Councilmembers Max Anderson, Laurie Capitelli and Darryl Moore) who predicted that Iceland would be overrun by rodents and become a public nuisance. This powerful demonstration of “people power” led Councilmember Olds to acknowledge that the coming together of such a diverse group might “scare” some people; the victory was a classic case of grassroots organizing overcoming big money real estate interests.  

The scene at Berkeley City Hall on Tuesday night was one for the ages—every seat occupied by children or adults holding signs and wearing bright blue “Save Berkeley Iceland” T-Shirts. The Council’s deliberation reflected a profound division between those who believe in a positive future for both Iceland and Berkeley, and a group of politicians led by Max Anderson who seemed to have given up on anything positive ever happening to boost the city’s communal spirit. 

Attorney Rena Rickles, the East Bay version of San Francisco’s Andrew Zacks, began the hearing by disparaging Iceland’s historic status and the community efforts to preserve the building. Rickles introduced the theme that a land-marked Iceland would be a public nuisance, an unfounded idea subsequently reiterated almost verbatim by Councilmembers Anderson and Moore, as well as by Mayor Bates. 

In response to Rickles, Save Berkeley Iceland representative Elizabeth Grassetti gave a stirring speech in which she declared that Iceland had been built by Berkeley, for Berkeley, and still had the ability to transform the city’s vision of diversity “into reality, not just a dream.” Grassetti noted that Iceland brought together rich and poor, and people of all races, and that “all were equal on the ice.” 

Tom Killilea, executive director of Save Berkeley Iceland, followed Grassetti and dispelled the many myths included in Rickles’ testimony. By this point it had already become clear that pro-demolition forces knew they had to shift the argument away from Iceland’s obvious historic status, and instead argue that the Council’s upholding this status would leave the building a public nuisance. 

Councilmember Max Anderson was the point person for the pro-demolition forces. Despite a roomful of children at the hearing, Anderson insisted that the only people who cared about Iceland were those who had fond memories of their youth; he even compared Iceland to the feeling he got attending his high school reunion. 

Although Anderson represents the district that includes Iceland, he seemed unaware that the facility has only been closed for six months, not thirty years. Instead of applauding youth involvement in trying to save their ice skating rink, Anderson treated their effort with condescension. 

And then politicians like Anderson wonder why young people are turned off by the political process. 

After Anderson tried to argue that a landmarked Iceland would be a rodent-infested public health hazard, Tom Bates echoed his conclusion that saving Iceland would be bad for Berkeley. Bates said that only the façade should be saved, and urged that a plaque be installed to remind future residents of the former historic building on the site. 

Bates’ call for a plaque brought an avalanche of boos from the audience. 

Responding to Anderson and Bates was Councilmember Wozniak. He reminded the council that Harrison S. Fraker, the dean of the UC Berkeley College of Environmental Design, had described Iceland as a “national treasure, “ and determined it was “undisputedly” an historic landmark. Wozniak also stated that “a skating rink is a treasure that deserves every effort to be saved.” 

Wozniak, Olds and Maio all expressed excitement that a broad-cross section of the community had come together to save Iceland. These politicians were genuinely happy to see democracy at work, and appreciated a scene that resembled an old New England town meeting. Olds captured the sentiment best, noting “many people are scared to see how many people really care about saving Iceland, and slapping these people down is not something I will do.” 

Olds brought the crowd to its feet when she declared “once its gone, its gone.” She said that Iceland contained the history of the community and that “all have come together in that building.” 

Olds and Wozniak are often viewed as conservatives on the Council, yet they had a far keener understanding of community building than so-called progressives like Anderson and Moore. The latter two could find no joy in this process of community togetherness, and both argued the NIMBY line that because people living near Iceland wanted it torn down, the Council should vote to do so. 

(These same councilmembers ignored neighborhood resistance to a housing development known as the Trader Joe’s project, yet took the opposite position regarding Iceland. There was no evidence presented that Anderson’s district actually wanted the landmark demolished.) 

Councilmembers Worthington and Spring were always solid Iceland supporters. Worthington made the critical point that developer attorney Rickles had conceded that by only making the façade a landmark—the Anderson-Bates “fallback” position—that landmark status for the building would not be justified. 

All in all, hope triumphed over fear, and a rare opportunity for young people to see the value of participating in our democratic process. As youngsters like 10-year-old Marie and her fellow skaters from King Middle School filed out of City Hall, smiles replaced the anxious faces that preceded the vote. 

Many of the kids wore shirts from the Berkeley Bulldogs, a youth hockey team that played at Iceland from 1940 until the facility closed earlier this year. Iceland also had the only girls hockey team in the area, and the number of girl skaters at the hearing exceeded that of boys, showing Iceland’s value in enhancing gender equity in recreational facilities. 

Now the future of Berkeley Iceland must be worked out between the owner and the hard-working volunteers at Save Berkeley Iceland (go to http://saveberkeleyiceland.org for information.) An economic plan has been developed, over $500,000 has been raised in the past week, and optimism is high. 

Thanks to a huge grassroots volunteer effort and five principled councilmembers, Berkeley has put community interests over private profits. May the saving of Iceland be the first step toward a community that works together to build a better future. 

Randy Shaw is the editor of BeyondChron, where this article first appeared. He can be reached at rshaw@beyondchron.org. 

South Branch library is on the Library Trustees’ fast track to being moved to the Ed Roberts Campus. Much money has already been spent on this project. Please come to the next Board of Library Trustees meeting. The meeting will be at South Branch Library, Russell and M.L.King Jr. Way on July 25 at 5 p.m. with public comment (you will have to sign a speaker card so please arrive a few minutes early). Your presence insures the democratic process. We are a group of South Berkeley residents who are opposed to the proposed move. We have called ourselves Save Our Library, (SOL). We believe that the proposal is being driven by political motives that have little to do with better serving South Berkeley residents. 

Architects Noll and Tam will make a presentation on three space options at the Ed Roberts campus.  

At the June 9 community forum, held at St. Paul African Methodist Episcopal Church (A.M.E.), some community members felt strongly that the move to the Ed Roberts Campus was being “sold” to the community and their survey did not reflect the number of neighbors and community members who do not want our South Branch library moved or services reduced. We are concerned with maintaining this venue as it is central to our diverse community connection which has been developed over years.  

After the forum it was clear that we needed to raise our community’s awareness of these issues. We decided to take the concerns we voiced at the forum to our community members and get their opinions and concerns to get a consensus. The consensus was concern for the safety of our children, keeping the library in our neighborhood and making the changes at South Branch, e.g., remodel, rearrange, and reuse, rather than putting our money somewhere else, were the dominant issues. We are advocating for the preservation and improvement of our South Branch library.  

Many children use the South Branch Library. We are concerned that the move will put our children at risk in two ways. There will be two large very busy streets for the children to cross. Currently, the intersections of Adeline Street and Ashby Avenue do not have caution signs alerting motorists that our community has disabled persons, children, elders, or dogs, as pedestrians. Even if caution signs are installed, people drive and multi-task these days and there is no way to guarantee the safety of pedestrians. Several people have been killed or badly injured in this area as it is. There are many concerns with the concept of a “transit library” built on top of a light rail system.  

A Berkeley firm, Hatcheul Tabernik & Associates (HTA), was hired by the Library Trustees to survey the South Berkeley community’s library needs. They came up with statistics that pointed to a very favorable response to the move by the community; we decided to look into it further. 

We stood outside the South Branch library for many days and asked people if they knew about the move and how they felt about it. In the course of a petition drive to contest the proposed move, we collected hundreds of signatures, but encountered only a handful, (fewer than 10 percent) who even knew about the proposed move, and only one person who had been actually interviewed by HTA.  

What we want is for the South Branch library to stay on Russell Street as a Children’s library from infancy through high school, and the Tool Lending Library. 

For more information, contact Save Our Library at 849-1296 or savesobranch@yahoo.com. 

Jane Welford is a Berkeley resident active in library issues. 

Ten years ago, I became concerned about the health of democracy in this country, especially at the local level. Lasting to midnight and beyond, City Hall meetings were often tyrannized by a noisy few who claimed to represent the will of the people. Democracy was a mess, and I felt obligated to use whatever skills I had to try to help. 

After various experiments, my wife and I started a nonprofit called KitchenDemocracy.org. We wanted to add a new channel for participation, one which would enable busy people to participate in City Hall discussions without needing to attend meetings until midnight. We envisioned a process where citizens could quickly learn about issues both from their elected officials and from their neighbors. We wanted people to be free to express their opinions—anonymously if desired—knowing that they would not be personally attacked for those views. We even dreamed that ordinary citizens could suggest agenda items—and select the best ones democratically—so that the entire process could be democratic and transparent. 

Thanks to a circle of 10 volunteers—and the active participation of elected officials including Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates and Councilmembers Gordon Wozniak and Darryl Moore, we’ve made significant progress. More than 20 important issues have been discussed by more than 2,100 residents in a peaceful, civil process. We are thrilled to see many of those discussions influencing discourse at City Hall, and even more thrilled to see this quiet revolution grow; Oakland Councilmember Pat Kernighan and Kensington Board Director Bill Wright have introduced Kitchen Democracy to their communities. 

Our progress has not been without controversy. Affluent residents are overrepresented on Kitchen Democracy, leading some to believe that it represents the vested interests of the wealthy. While the affluent do indeed participate more than the poor, this is true not only for Kitchen Democracy. Unfortunately, this problem is endemic to our political system; just look who actually votes in elections. 

The good news is that Kitchen Democracy makes government accessible to anyone who uses a computer, including those at the public library. Because going online is considerably easier than attending late-night meetings, we believe Kitchen Democracy makes the democratic process more inclusive of a diverse range of participants. In fact, Kitchen Democracy issues typically attract participation from 10 times as many people as agenda items discussed solely in council chambers. More importantly, it appears that this is true for participants from the poorest district to the most affluent. 

Perhaps because of our progress, City Hall faces another controversy. It is accused of giving too much weight to the opinions expressed on Kitchen Democracy, most notably on the Wright’s Garage issue at Ashby and College. If true, City Hall made a mistake. Kitchen Democracy is but one of several channels for participation. To give that channel special influence is as grievous an error as giving special influence to any one person. 

As a co-founder and head of Kitchen Democracy, I want to emphasize that Kitchen Democracy is not intended to replace existing channels of participation. Nor does it represent the definitive voice of the people—no single channel does. Instead, Kitchen Democracy augments existing channels to make our democratic process more inclusive, to better inform decision makers and to build a stronger democracy. 

Our progress indicates that people want more options to participate—bigger, more comfortable meeting rooms, options for the home-bound to participate with or without anonymity, more online sources of information and participation. Given our limited resources, Kitchen Democracy will do what we can to help grow a thousand channels for participation and inclusion. We invite all of Berkeley to join us in that effort. 

Robert Vogel is a co-founder of KitchenDemocracy.org.

Last week in the West Bank Bedouin village, Arab al-Jahaleen, a 15-year-old boy named Khaled was killed by a speeding garbage truck. Khaled was on the edge of the road collecting scrap metal and other discarded materials useful in constructing the ramshackle homes his community lives in, when the driver struck and killed him. The road upon which he scrambled for these materials divides his village from the nearby Israeli dump.  

Fearing for his life in retaliation for the boy whose brains had been splattered across the road, once the truck stopped the driver got out and started to run. In the moments after the incident took place, the children threw rocks at the truck. As more villagers discovered what happened, the truck was set aflame. 

Volunteers from Rabbis for Human Rights were playing with the children of this village, joining a German-NGO sponsored summer camp. “Earlier that morning I had been playing basketball with that boy, and then he was dead,” said an eyewitness volunteer to the incident, bewildered by what he had seen. 

Israeli police arrived at the scene shortly after the incident. The abandoned Israeli garbage truck remained in the road, burning. Police broke up the enraged group of people. Burial preparations for Khaled began immediately.  

Whether or not the driver will be held responsible for this crime is unknown.  

Bedouins in Israel suffer the gamut of Israeli occupation casualties. House demolitions, lack of electricity, water, employment, lack of access to health care and education are but a few of the hardships which plague these traditionally nomadic people. Relocated time and again, al-Jahaleen is one example of Israel’s ill-treatment of the Bedouins, giving them no other option but to make a life surrounded by garbage. 

More Israelis and the international community need to become aware of the sub par life Bedouins are forced to live under the Israeli government’s inhumane policies toward these people. It is impossible to imagine a true negotiated peace in which injustices without recourse occur daily—against Bedouins, Palestinians and Israelis as well.  

Rocks and fire do not substitute for legal process. Although the life of a fifteen-year-old boy could never be compensated for, it is unacceptable that culpability and the appropriate punishment for this crime will go unmeted. It behooves all members of a society to enforce its government’s commitment to democracy. Therefore it is the responsibility of the people to become aware of these tragic incidents that happen too frequently, and to demand justice. 

Heidi Basch is an Oakland resident.

Last Monday’s Berkeley City Council approval of the Trader Joe’s project at the Kragens lot at University and MLK is not only a disaster for our near-downtown, but eminently livable neighborhood, but also poses a significant risk to every neighborhood in the City. To approve this project the City Council has adopted new ad hoc procedures to grant 25 additional units of unknown provenance to reward the developer Hudson McDonald for their promise of bringing Trader Joe’s to Berkeley. According to our city attorney, the City Council’s newly found power is entirely at their discretion—an extremely scary thought given the current composition of the Council.  

Although our city government cannot give golden parachutes to departing employees, I can think of no more thoughtful gift than this precedent to give Mr. Mark Rhoades as he leaves his role as the city’s developer-friendly zoning officer and goes on to his new role as your friendly Berkeley developer. Those who have watched Mark in action bending and mutilating our Zoning Ordin-ance over the past five years can only imagine how much damage such a precedent can cause when placed in the hands of such a true believer in smart growth.  

Over the past week, the developer made a number of proposals taking off and/or reshaping a few units here or there to produce a marginally less severe transition to our neighborhood, but we could never get them to agree to changing their basic building configuration that burdened one of our most vulnerable neighbors with much of the project’s detriment by placing too many project facilities along our residential street. We were willing to agree to a project with a Trader Joe’s (after all, a legally permitted use) and more than 140 units of housing (40 units per acre more than called for in the General Plan) if only the developer would move all project elements except for the Trader Joe’s driveway off of Berkeley Way and agree to project findings that protected the integrity of our city’s land use process and commitment to affordable housing. Even up until the recess between the public hearing and council deliberations the developer urged us to accept their final offer and drop our appeal, but we ultimately refused.  

While the ZAB findings honestly stated that the 25 additional units were only “necessary” for the Trader Joe’s, the findings approved by the council amount to an abject capitulation to long-time developer complaints that complying with our development standards and inclusionary ordinance is too expensive. Under the council’s new procedures, an unlimited number of additional units can be granted to any project on the basis of whole project “feasibility” rather than being reserved to offset the cost of providing affordable housing units. Since the new criteria is the feasibility of the “whole” project, the council approved additional units can be used to offset any and all project “costs.” For the Trader Joe’s project the council findings cited no fewer than 12 “costly” project elements, including commercial floor area and parking, resident open-space and parking, and even “good-design”—things that Berkeley’s development standards and policies expect from all projects. There should be no doubt in any one’s mind that these new criteria will be noted by other Berkeley developers and used in future projects—we can only guess how many additional units “designer kitchens” might require. 

Equally disturbing is the council’s finding that it is now acceptable that property line setbacks guaranteed to protect each adjacent residential property can be waived if the project as a “whole” is better than some other proposed project for the site. This procedure will balance an increased setback granted to one neighbor against a reduction in setbacks promised to other neighbors, a finding that opens every neighborhood to a cynical and divisive process of “beggaring your neighbor.” Additionally, it is feared by many that a Trader Joe’s at this location will cost West Berkeley its University Avenue Andronico’s, a result that the City Council joked might leave the poor no choice but to shop at Grocery Outlet, but offering their constituents an attractive choice between shopping at a Berkeley Trader Joe’s or Berkeley Bowl. Displaced Andronico’s workers can, of course, apply for one of those high-paying manager jobs at Trader Joe’s some project advocates spoke about. 

We have all watched with dismay and frustration as President Bush issues signing statements saying he won’t enforce a new law he doesn’t like; now in Berkeley our City Council issues findings on a single project that gut the protections for neighborhoods that are at the heart of our land use policies and ordinances. Because the council’s new procedures come into force outside of the ordinary legislative process there is no ordinance to put to a referendum (the council learned its lesson from their attempt to change the Landmarks Ordinance).  

The only remaining forum for us is to bring this matter before a court to determine whether such a significant change in Berkeley’s pattern and practice of land use can be established on an ad hoc basis in response to a specific project. We urge all concerned Berkeley citizens to join us in our effort to preserve the livability of our neighborhoods in whatever way is “feasible” for you. 

Stephen Wollmer is a Berkeley resident and neighbor of the proposed development. 

Fulfilling a New Year’s resolution to do more community activism, in January I accepted an invitation to join the City of Oakland’s Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee. I am the token pedestrian. So when Bike to Work Month came along, and the committee needed to recruit novice cyclists for 511.org’s Team Bike Challenge, I was an easy target. 

The East Bay Bicycle Coalition kindly lent me a sturdy bike, provided me with training, and let me loose in Downtown Oakland. For a month, I pedaled almost every day; it was an experiment with the most-hyped commute, blending healthy and green living. 

I met cyclists who sport body armor, high-tech helmets, and jarring fluorescent outfits. One friend rides through West Oakland protected only by two outstretched middle fingers and his foul mouth. I found the combination of a helmet and the willingness to yell at cars adequate. I never suffered a fall, perhaps due to the adrenaline that gripped me on every trip, whether from terror or exertion I don’t know. 

Not that I challenged myself. As a freelance worker, most of my bicycle trips consisted of trans-downtown treks for banking, meetings, groceries and cocktails; no errand required more than a half-mile of pedaling. Nonetheless, I found myself white-knuckled and alert at every intersection, trying to deduce the motives of shielded drivers whose turn signals must be broken. Or I’d cruise smugly down Franklin for a block, only to realize that I’d gone the wrong way on a major regional arterial. More than once, rather than navigating three turns on one-way boulevards, I’d get off my bike and indulge in the pedestrian freedom to take a shortcut. 

I had bicycled for three weeks by Bike to Work Day. I had once set downtown’s throngs to throbbing electro beats; as a cyclist, I missed my iPod. I did not miss the five pounds I quickly shed, transferring the stored energy of flab to carbon-free pedal power. At the day’s event, after helping with valet bike parking, I listened to promises from politicians, and picked up a handy canvas tote stuffed with goodies. The bicycle coalition said they hoped lending me a two-wheeler would be a learning experience for me. It was. 

I learned that the sleek, stylish spinners favored by artists and musicians lack essential equipment, like gears, and brakes. I learned that I was more out of shape than I thought. I learned that downtown Oakland is far from flat. I learned that both wheels need to be locked to a parking meter. I learned that the city is removing all the parking meters. I learned that my lambskin loafers and Hollywood hair do not go well with a helmet or late-night safety vest. I learned that bicycles need bike lanes or cars become impatient—their horns of outrage trumped my indignant bell every time. Certainly the bike activists made me a convert. 

Downtown Oakland embodies the sort of healthy living that urban planners try tirelessly to bring to neighborhoods—a high density of housing and employment, unparalleled access to parkland, excellent transportation, and a growing population of residents and retailers. 

Primarily a pedestrian, I find that every month there’s something new to do within walking distance. But bicycling expanded my easy-access radius to include Koreatown, warehouse art galleries, and the forthcoming Whole Foods. Healthy eating due to healthy biking! And I don’t think I’ll miss the next five pounds I lose either. 

OPEN CALL FOR ESSAYS 

Healthy Living 

As part of an ongoing effort to print stories by East Bay residents, the Daily Planet invites readers to write about their experiences and perspectives on living healthy. Please e-mail your essays, no more than 800 words, to firstperson@berkeleydailyplanet.com. We will publish the best essays in upcoming issues.

For many of us on the left coast, President Bush’s pardon of Scooter Libby was a non-event; we’ve grown blasé about Bush abuses. As a result, we shrug and say to the rest of the nation: What did you expect? You supported a conservative demagogue whose most notable “accomplishments” were a series of business failures. Why are you surprised that he’s become the worst president in modern history? Nonetheless, while it’s comforting to bask in self-righteousness, that won’t fix our common problem: Bush will be President for another 18 months and the immorality of the Bush administration infects us all. The president is a moral termite. 

If you’ve ever had a termite infestation in your house, you know how pernicious the insects are: they chew their way deep into your woodwork and, before you know it, your home’s structure is jeopardized. Then the infected area has to be treated to ensure the termites are destroyed—often the entire house needs fumigation—and the damage has to be repaired—whole sections of your residence require reconstruction. That’s exactly where America is with the Bush administration: first the pests have to be treated and then the structure—the federal government—has to be repaired. 

How do we remove these moral termites from the White House? The best alternative is for Bush and Cheney to resign. After all, even Richard Nixon had the sense to resign once he realized that he’d lost the support of three-quarters of the U.S. electorate. Unfortunately, Bush and Cheney don’t have good sense, so it will be necessary to impeach them. There are specific, factual grounds for impeachment such as their falsifying the justification for the invasion of Iraq and illegally eavesdropping on domestic communications. But, the larger grounds are the damage the Bush administration has inflicted on the United States, the corruption of America’s moral infrastructure. 

Bush and company have caused four types of destruction: They’ve severely damaged the reputation of the United States. Recent polls indicate the United States continues to lose favor with much of the world. It’s not only that non-Americans don’t like us, think we’re fat, greedy, and brutal, but also that they listen to our talk about democracy and don’t believe we are sincere. After all, in many parts of the world the face of America is our military or our most aggressive businesspeople. As a result, when we say “democracy,” many non-Americans see militarism and unrestrained capitalism. Throughout the world there’s deep cynicism about Bush’s claim that the United States is spreading liberty and democracy. This has affected our reputation and the security of Americans who travel overseas. Moreover, in some parts of the world it’s made theocracy look attractive. 

Secondly, the Bush administration has jeopardized the security of the United States. The invasion of Iraq has done more harm than good: it has promoted the cause of al Qaeda, and other Islamic extremists, and made it easier for them to attract recruits. As serious as that is, it’s overshadowed by two more debilitating injuries: the prolonged occupation has weakened the U.S. military and the Bush administration’s tight focus on Iraq has delayed the implementation of the recommendations of the 9-11 commission, kept the United States from common-sense actions that strengthen domestic security. 

Thirdly, Bush administration termites have adversely affected the lives of most Americans. Some of this deterioration has been psychological: recent surveys indicate that American confidence in the future is approaching an all-time low. Most Americans don’t like the road that America is on and don’t have confidence in the president or Congress. They have good reasons for this pessimism: for millions of Americans, life got much harder under the Bush administration. For the past six years, the White House has catered to the rich and powerful. As a result, the social fabric of democracy has been weakened as average Americans are forced to spend more time working and less time participating in public democracy. 

Finally, the Bush termite infestation has undermined the office of the presidency. After six years, it’s become painfully apparent George Bush never accepted a fundamental tenet of American democracy: the balance of powers doctrine. Bush and Cheney believe in the Imperial Presidency, the notion that the president is above the law. Bush’s conduct has disgraced the office of the president and created a situation where a majority of Americans do not trust him or the government. This is bad at any time, but it’s particularly troubling in an era where America is battling militant fundamentalists. 

So, what needs to be done? The obvious first step is to remove Bush and Cheney from office. The next step is to replace them with someone who is committed not only to occupying the White House but also to restoring public confidence in the presidency. The problem is larger than politics, it reflects the public morality that runs America: do politicians govern from the perspective of their own self-interest or with respect for the common good? We need to clean the termites out of the White House and restore integrity to our government. 

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

The mimosas are blooming, and I’ll bring the orange juice if you’ll bring the champagne to toast them with that favorite brunch beverage—mimosas, of course. Looking at the current price of OJ, you might be getting a bargain.  

Mimosa, Albizia julibrissin, also gets called “silk tree” (not to be confused with the more tropical “silk-floss tree”) and “sensitive mimosa” when people confuse it with the Brazilian native Mimosa pudica, which is more a shrub than a tree, with somewhat similar leaves and more globular, uniformly pink flowers. Both species can show up as weeds in some parts of the country, especially the wetter Southeast. 

The shade of A. julibrissin flowers can vary widely, from gilded to outright rosy. They’re always engagingly fluffy and light-catching though, and attractive to bees and butterflies.  

I’ve seen hummingbirds investigating them, but I can’t say how much nutrition the birds actually get out of the flowers.  

I don’t believe they’re sticky and dangerous to local birds the way blue-gum eucalyptus flowers are, at least. Euc flowers have been blamed by observant and nonhysterical birders like Rich Stallcup for the deaths of warblers that he and others have found under the trees with their nostrils completely occluded by, um, gum gum.  

Birds that co-evolved with eucs in their native Australia have bills that are longer below the nostrils, so they can use the sweet flowers and any bugs garnishing them with no problem, but ours haven’t been around eucs long enough I guess. Eucs’ bloomtime in winter when we have more more hungry warblers around because they migrate here might be compounding the problem.  

Albizia species—there are some hundred-plus of them—hail from Africa, Asia, and Australia; the species we have here is from China by way of Italy, evidently, where Filippo degi Albizzia introduced the whole genus in 1749. Where it lost the second z is one of those things I’ve never quite caught up with.  

Looking at the long puckered seedpods, you might guess immediately that our mimosa’s a bean, a legume. Like many but not all legumes, this tree fixes nitrogen. What? What that means is that these plants have a set of symbiotic bacteria housed in nodules in their tissues, primarily in their roots (though Hawai’ian koa keeps some up in aerial crotches), that work some of the 78 percent of the air that is nitrogen into compounds the plants can use, much more efficiently than other soil bacteria that live on their own. 

Some legumes, our native redbud for example, don’t bother with this but similar process has evolved in other plant species, like some tropical grasses, and other bacteria species. Evidently it’s a good idea. You can certainly understand its usefulness in nutrient-lean tropical soils.  

Mimosas aren’t long-lived as trees go, and a root fungus that kills them has begun to show up in California. But they’re handsome, tough, and cast a nice lacy shade we can sit in to drink those other mimosas. 

I’d say plant them—away from wildlands, please—and enjoy them. Slainte! 

Photograph by Ron Sullivan. 

Mimosa flowers and foliage. This tree gets planted mostly in private yards and gardens, but the rosy individual shown here lives on a very public street in San Anselmo. 

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 Planet’s East Bay Home & Real Estate section.

The rising tide of Afghan civilian deaths has opened a rift between the U.S. and NATO’s 37,000-member International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). According to NATO officials, the United States’ increasing use of air power has badly damaged support for the war in both Afghanistan and Europe. 

Daan Everts, the senior NATO civilian in Afghanistan, says the United States has created “a fallout that is negative because the collateral damage and particularly the civilian casualties are seen as unduly high, certainly by the Afghan people. This is of concern to us.” 

German Defense Minister Franz Joseph Jung said, “We have to do everything to avoid that civilians are affected. We are in talks with our American friends about this.” 

The issue has split German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s “Grand Coalition.” While Merkel’s Christian Democrats generally support the war, their coalition partner, the Social Democratic Party (SDP), is suddenly feeling pressure on its portside from the newly formed United Left Party. SDP leaders have come out against renewing the current mandate to deploy German troops in Afghanistan, a vote that will come sometime this fall. 

The rising tide of Afghan civilian deaths—over 1,800 killed in 2007—has helped fuel a push for United Nations participation to end the conflict. Leading the drive is British Secretary of Defense, Des Browne.  

In a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations, Browne said the solutions to narcotics, security, and establishing the rule of law are political, not military. “An overarching campaign plan is required to develop all of these disparate strands together. It has to be a strategic plan, not just a military plan … and there is no organization better placed than the UN to take that role.” 

Browne said that if the international community cannot find a political solution, “then I say to you that we have no moral right to ask our young people to expose themselves to that danger.” 

In the meantime, in spite of opposition by the Kabul government, senior U.S. military officers and European nations, the Bush Administration is forging ahead with a plan to use massive aerial spraying of the herbicide glycophate to destroy Afghanistan’s opium crop. 

More than 90 percent of the world’s opium comes from Afghanistan, and the drug trade generates about one third of the country’s gross domestic product. Projections are that this year the crop will be larger than in 2006. 

The Germans are so opposed to the spraying that they say they will reconsider their participation in the NATO operation if it goes forward. Many military leaders are unhappy as well. 

Gen. Dan K. McNeil, NATO’s commander in Afghanistan, says his forces are not equipped or trained to deal with drugs. “Eradication done improperly is counterintuitive to running the counter-insurgency because it will alienate people and you may have more insurgent people appearing than you had before.” 

Many Afghans agree. According to Mirwais Yasini, a member of the Afghani parliament’s Committee on Counter-Narcotics, “Aerial eradication will maximize the antagonism against the government.” 

DynCorp, a private mercenary company that has done extensive spraying of coca plants in Columbia, has been contracted to do the job. Using DynCorp is hardly a coincidence. The new U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, William Wood, oversaw the company’s aerial spraying campaign in Colombia.  

“The U.S. is hell-bent on eradication,” Harvard University Professor Robert Rotberg, an expert on conflict resolution at the Kennedy School of Government, told the Financial Times. “They claim it worked in Columbia and so it will work in Afghanistan. It is not clear to anyone it worked in Columbia.” 

Actually, it is quite clear. Coca acreage in Columbia increased 9 percent in 2006, following a 26 percent increase in 2005. Coca acreage is the same today as it was when the spraying campaign began in 2001. 

Have gun, will travel? Widespread use of mercenaries in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Latin America by the Bush administration has drawn the attention of the United Nations Working Group on the Use of Mercenaries, according to upsidedownworld.com. 

“We have observed that in some cases the employees of private military and security companies enjoy an immunity which can easily become impunity,” says Jose Luis Gomez del Pardo, chair of the U.N. Working Group, “implying that some states may contract these companies in order to avoid direct legal responsibilities.” 

The Working Group found that mercenaries were recruited from throughout Latin America and then flown to Ecuador to train at the huge U.S. base at Manta. Others were trained in Honduras at a former training camp used during the Reagan administration’s war against the Sandinistas in Nicaragua. 

According to the Working Group, mercenaries working for a subsidiary of an Illinois-based company, Your Solutions Inc., suffered “irregularities in contracts, harsh working conditions, wages partially paid or unpaid, ill-treatment and isolation and lack of basic necessities such as medical treatment and sanitation.” 

A major reason for using private security companies is that they are not subject to Congressional oversight. 

Jeffrey Shipper, who worked at Manta for DynCorp, told the Los Angeles Times that a major reason for using Latin American mercenaries was that, “The State Department is very interested in saving money on security now. Because they’re driving the prices down, we’re seeking Third World people to fill the positions.” 

While most American and British mercenaries earn up to $10,000 a month, Latin Americans get $1,000. Last summer, dozens of former Colombian soldiers went on strike in Baghdad because Blackwater USA, a major security firm, promised them $4,000 a month, but paid them only $1,000. 

According to the Financial Times, there are hundreds of mercenaries from Colombia, Ecuador and Chile working in Baghdad, Kirkuk and Hilla. Sanho Tree of the Institute for Policy Study estimates that there are 50,000 mercenaries working in Iraq, making them the second largest armed contingent after the U.S.  

Cheap wages are only one of the ways that the security companies increase their profit margin. Because the firms are private they don’t have to operate with safeguards. Blackwater’s flight BW61 out of Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan is a case in point. 

The plane—flying during the day in clear weather—was carrying mortar shells and soldiers when it hit a mountain peak last November, killing everyone on board. The pilots had been in Afghanistan less than two weeks. 

“This was infinitely worse than any armed forces flight would have been. It [a military flight] would have had triple redundancy, with checklists,” the lawyer for the families of the passengers told the New York Times. Even though the plane was unpressurized and flying at 14,000 feet, neither of the pilots was wearing an oxygen mask. 

The Americans are not the only ones recruiting mercenaries. Over 1,000 Fijians work in Iraq for the British company Global Risk Strategies. According to Jone Dakuvula, the director of Citizens Constitutional Forum, a non-governmental public education organization, many Fijians who have gone to Iraq have never been paid, but can’t come home because their passports have been impounded. 

Dakuvula says that high unemployment in rural areas is the main impetus for signing up to go to Iraq. According to Dakuvula, many Fijians come home wounded and suffering from Post Traumatic Stress to find there are no medical or psychological resources.  

Iraq is now a major source of foreign exchange for the Pacific nation. Personal remittances have climbed from $50 million in 1999 to over $300 million in 2005, or seven percent of Fiji’s GDP. 

Whether it is Brits or Yanks hiring the mercenaries makes little difference. Getting other people to die for you is cheap and politically safe. The body bags and the maimed return to places most Americans and British will never see or think about. 

In my younger days, with more time on my hands but less patience, I used to try to figure out ways to make the water run out of the bathtub faster. Short of taking a hammer to the bottom of the tub, you can’t. It’s a mass-space-flow kind of thing. You can slow the water down or stop it back up altogether, I finally found, but you cannot speed up the water running out of the bathtub. 

So it is with Iraq. 

Later historians will have a better take on this, of course, but the plug seems to have gotten pulled out of the Iraq War tub sometime in the early spring of this year, about the time some of our Republican and conservative friends began recognizing the lost causiness quality of this particular American endeavor, something like our Confederate friends did in the winter months of 1865. Therefore, sometime during the first year of the first term of the next President of the United States, unless some unforeseen event intervenes, you can expect to see the end to U.S. combat operations between the Tigris and Euphrates. 

The narrow drainpipe keeping that from happening sooner is the administration of President George W. Bush. It is clear to all who have eyes to see that Mr. Bush has made the decision that a withdrawal from Iraq will not take place on his watch and, again short of busting out the bottom of the bathtub with a hammer, there is little that can be done to force him to do otherwise. It is not easy to stop a president in the midst of a war under any circumstances, and extricating from this one will be more difficult than most. Not the least of the problems with any withdrawal of U.S. combat forces from Iraq is the danger inherent in such an operation. This would not be anything like General Kutuzov offering Napeoleon and the Grand Army of the Republic a golden bridge to the West. The various factions attacking U.S. soldiers now would be expected to increase—not decrease—those attacks as the American combat presence wound down, making the planning and carrying out such a withdrawal more dangerous and difficult than anything American forces have so far done in Iraq. It would be a hard job for a president committed to such a withdrawal, a potential disaster for one—like Mr. Bush—who could only be made to do the task at the end of the whip. Knowing this, and knowing that responsible Congressional war opponents know this, Mr. Bush can afford to dawdle. In another six months, with the 2008 presidential campaign in full howl, most in the country will be looking to put the solution into the next President’s hands, and Mr. Bush will be off the hook. 

The most important question at that point will probably not be whether U.S. troops should be withdrawn from Iraq, but rather in what form that withdrawal should take place, and what type of American military/diplomatic/political/economic Middle East policy should come afterwards. 

I raised this issue in this column in November of 2006, shortly after Democrats won majorities in both houses of Congress, writing then that progressives should use that opportunity to begin a public discussion on terrorism—“how it should be defined, how it should be addressed, how it should be stopped.” 

The 2006 November victories—coming in no small part thanks to help from progressive actions and ideas—gave progressives an opportunity to enter the national defense debate in a serious way. 

“A good place to start, for progressives,” I wrote, “is a discussion of what we think should be done with and to al Qaeda and the organization’s leader—Osama bin Laden—and, in a broader question, what we advocate to do to prevent the growth of terrorism and terrorists in the world. … We have come into a brief, breathless moment in which we can have a quiet talk among ourselves about what we now want to do, and who we want to be. Let us not waste it.” 

But, of course, we did waste it, bless our hearts, spending most of the last six months trying to figure out ways to force Bush to end the war or to force Democrats to force Bush to end the war—how to make the water go faster out of the tub, in other words—with little thought to what will come next, or what we might do to influence it. 

On Wednesday, for just one example, after Senate Republicans defeated a war-ending measure during an all-night session, the Huffington Post sponsored a live online chat on “ending the war,” with readers spinning off various scenarios on how it might be done. 

When someone named RK in Fishkill, New York asked as one war-ending solution “Could we consider a modified partition? Define separate Sunni, Shia and Kurd havens of self-government (and safety), while internationalizing Baghdad and the oil (revenues to be split between the three entities according to a formula to be negotiated).”the moderator, Huffington Post columnist Tom Mattzie replied, “Bluntly, its none of our damn business what the geographic boundaries are inside Iraq . The Iraqis should decide that.” 

While that seems a reasonable enough rock upon which progressives can build their church of the world view—a throwback to the old let-everybody-do-their-own-thing days of my youth—how would such a doctrine square with other things that progressives might want to accomplish in the world? “Let Iraqis decide what’s best for Iraqis” runs into trouble when you are forced to decide how to define “Iraqis,” for example. Sadaam Hussein and his followers, with considerable historical evidence to back it up, once said that the split between Iraq and Kuwait was an artificial boundary drawn by Europe for the economic benefit of Europe, that Iraq and Kuwait were historically one, and that Kuwatis were actually Iraqis. Should Mr. Hussein, therefore, have been allowed to reclaim the diasporan Iraqis for the mother country? Further, at what historical point should we freeze the world’s geographical boundaries and declare that this was the legitimate point where everything was divided up fair, and everything that was changed afterwards was false? When Europe got into the picture? Does that mean European imperialism was bad but, say, that practiced by the emperor of China was not? It’s a slippery slope, friends. 

Meanwhile, if it’s “none of our damn business” what geographical boundaries are inside of Iraq, then, by extension, wasn’t it “none of our damn business” what geographical boundaries were inside of South Africa during the time of apartheid, and all the world’s efforts to intervene—including some valiant work by progressives—was a meddling in the internal affairs of a sovereign nation? Further, during the period when the United States set up its own internal geographical boundaries, dividing White communities from Black in the system called “segregation” and punishing the Black person who dared overstep those boundaries, was the old Soviet Union wrong to raise a fuss about it, and was the United Nations right to refuse to intervene at the request of such progressives as Paul Robeson and a Boalt Hall graduate named William Patterson, who charged that the United States was committing genocide upon its African-American citizens? 

And if it’s none of our damn business what happens within Iraq, is it none of our damn business what happens in Dafur, as well? 

Though I don’t know Mr. Mattzie that well, and I haven’t asked him the question, my guess is that he would believe otherwise. The problem is, how do you decide to draw the lines, and by what standards do you judge each situation? 

In the old, old, olden days—long before people even started using the term “back in the day”—we used to operate on what people then called “ideology.” This was not so much a set of do’s and don’ts—like an expanded Ten Commandments—but more a generalized view of the world and our place and responsibilities in it. Marxists used to be the main folks talking about ideology in that time—before the Marxist view of the world got cast down into darkness, and its proponents relegated to serving on school boards or corporate boards or city councils in Oakland and Berkeley and other such places—and it was a way they attempted to hold a general balance in their views and actions and keep from contradicting themselves from moment to moment. It was often a painful exercise, and it did not always work out so well in practice, but it was heads and shoulders above what we have now, where people seem perfectly content to alter their positions from situation to situation, depending upon the political direction from which and to which that particular wind is blowing. Mr. Clinton should be condemned because because lying to a grand jury under oath is a serious matter, for example, but Mr. Libby should be forgiven because lying to a grand jury under oath is not a serious matter. Progressives easily see that particular toothpick stuck in conservative eyes, to paraphrase the Bible, but not the plank in their (our) own. 

A progressive ideology would be a nice thing to have right about now, a sort of unified political theory that tied together issues of race and racism and global warming and environmental health and health care and economic policy and families and child-raising and war and such in a package that allowed each to be understood, and saw each in relation to the others. An overall progressive American defense strategy might be good as well, looking at how progressives think Americans should defend ourselves in a troubled world. But all of that is a lot to ask for, given the time constraints. I would just settle for knowing what general conditions progressives want in the Middle East, both involving America and not involving America, once the war in Iraq is over. That seems more than enough for progressives to think about and develop, while we’re waiting for the water to run out of the tub, and preventing our Republican and conservative friends from stopping up the drain.

“It’s a castle!” a friend said when I showed her a picture of the turreted Gester House, at 2620 Piedmont Avenue in Berkeley. 

With five bedrooms and two baths it’s not really a castle, but it does make you look twice. The unpainted concrete exterior, formed to resemble stone, is quite out of the ordinary for a Berkeley home. It looks a bit like an English country villa, set back from the street behind a green lawn.  

The house is on the market for $1,090,000 and is open this coming Sunday, July 22, from 2-4:30 p.m.  

William Burr Gester, the original owner, was a civil engineer who had the house built in 1905 of reinforced concrete with a “Roman stone” concrete veneer. It’s thought to be the first reinforced concrete residence in Berkeley, completed just in time for the 1906 earthquake. 

The gray “Roman Stone” exterior is concrete mixed with bits of stone and cast into concrete blocks that look like cut stone. Some are deeply rusticated to resemble rough-hewn stone. 

“The whole building rose and fell as a single mass, without creak, or groan, or complaining strain,” Gester wrote after the earthquake. Residents were thrown to the floor by the vigorous shaking, and “pictures, furniture, the chain-hung electroliers, everything not fastened…was put into instantaneous motion, the commotion and din being indescribable.”  

However, there was only a small amount of damage to one chimney and parts of the entry porch, serving “as an example of the value of a simple type of ferro-concrete construction.” 

Although the house weathered the earthquake, the Gesters—William, wife Kate, and two sons who both became geologists—don’t seem to have lived at 2620 Piedmont for very long. By 1908 they were at 2800 Derby a few blocks to the southeast. 

The arcaded entry porch has an interesting seating nook, hanging lantern, patterned concrete floor and painted wooden ceiling. 

Inside there’s a central stair hall, and a large living room to the right, across the front of the house. The living room incorporates the first level of the turret—note the intricate woodwork of the turret floor. A columned fireplace is now painted white but looks to be made out of cast concrete, or stone.  

West of the stair hall there’s a dining room then a large back bedroom. Kitchen, storage pantry, butler’s pantry, a full bathroom, laundry porch, and two small hallways round out the first floor. 

A substantial concrete stair grandly descends to the garden from the back door, complete with back doorbell, probably for tradesmen.  

Upstairs, a large master bedroom extends across the eastern front of the house and two other bedrooms shelter under a south-facing dormer. A large fourth bedroom at the back accesses a small deck and metal spiral staircase to the yard.  

Gleaming inlaid hardwood floors (carpet in the upstairs hall), paneled doors, and painted woodwork all continue from downstairs. The second floor bathroom has a venerable marble corner sink. A galley kitchen, accessible from both hall and back bedroom, is tucked in next to the bath.  

A 1977 historic resources survey says “the house has been divided into apartments.” Two kitchens and the second “front door” from the main porch (note the holes for two doorbells) seem to attest to that. 

An architectural history of this house would be immensely intriguing. Is there a box beam ceiling similar to that in the entry hall, hidden under the apparently dropped ceiling in the dining room? Was the built-in seat moved across the room from where a window bay was altered for that second wire glass “front door”? 

Is a vanished doorway to the kitchen indicated by the jog in the crown molding in the front hall? Why were four of the window sashes in the two-story tower converted to vertical divided lights?  

What was the original finish on the walls? Some who saw the house years ago remember the dining room at least as having dark woodwork, but all wainscoting, casework, and trim is now painted in white and light tones.  

An early photo shows that a high, horizontal window in the living room was replaced decades ago by two side-by-side double-hung windows. 

The wide yard—grass, ivy, some shrubbery, a large redwood—has a concrete parking slab to the side. Look up. From the rear, under its hipped roof, the house appears much smaller than it seems inside. 

The interior is refurbished, carefully painted and polished, and lightly staged. At present, though, most of the spacious rooms are as empty as the known historical record. With a century old house like this, one wonders about the procession of people who once called it home. 

Something is known of Joseph Leonard (1850-1929) who built the house, real estate man, designer, contractor, and yachtsman, he was profiled in detail by Dave Weinstein in the April 10, 2004, San Francisco Chronicle.  

Leonard was an active and energetic businessman, originally from Texas, who developed the Ingleside Terrace district in San Francisco and what’s known as Leonardville, a distinctive Victorian neighborhood in Alameda.  

Weinstein writes that Leonard subscribed to a “Romantic, anti-urban vision” that provided comfortable, detached, houses on large lots close to street railways connected to denser commercial and office districts. 

Leonard integrated elements of both Victorian and Arts and Crafts design into his buildings. The Gester House is not conventionally “Victorian”, but if you added painted wood shingles and decorative trim to the exterior, it could pass for a Queen Anne.  

Only a few other Leonard-built houses have been identified in Berkeley. They range in style from Colonial Revival to brownshingle, to Classic Box.  

The calm neighborhood surrounding 2620 Piedmont is enclosed by busy College Avenue, Dwight, Way, Warring Street. To the north is the UC student-oriented Southside district, to south and southwest the determinedly single-family residential Claremont-Elmwood. 

A block and a half north and you’re in a district of apartment houses, fraternities and sororities. But traffic barriers on Etna and Piedmont help make this 2 x 3 block district a quiet enclave with large, mainly single-family, homes and lots of greenery. 

Most of the surrounding houses are a century or more old. The land where they stand was acquired by pioneer farmer and Irish immigrant John Kearney around 1860.  

In 1876, he subdivided this portion into large “villa” lots. Some homes were built, but much remained fallow until the College Avenue streetcar line came through early in the century. Then, within a decade, the district rapidly built up. 

Barbara Reynolds at Prudential California Realty is the listing agent for 2620 Piedmont. www.barbarareynolds.com 

To reach the house while avoiding traffic barrier confusion, head east two blocks on Derby Street from College Avenue, then turn left onto the 2600 block of Piedmont. 

This article will eventually be expanded at berkeleyheritage.com into a more detailed photo essay on the house and its history. 

The Gester House, at 2620 Piedmont Ave. is open Sunday, 2-4:30 p.m. 

Photograph: The turreted Gester house dates to 1905 and is thought to be the oldest reinforced concrete residence in Berkeley. 

I ran into an old friend from hospital nursing days and we got together to go on about old times and friends—it’s amazing how many of them are still working where we’d met; they’re definitely made of tougher stuff than I am—and, surprise, about gardens. She’s got a rental house with a yard and a co-operative landlady and a pleasant garden already, and was looking for ways to make the place bloom more. 

She also has a neighbor with a rototiller, and he’s worked over some of the back yard already. The landlady had some sod installed, just a little playspace for the fox terrier and the cat, both of whom are engagingly rompity. The cat has been known to ride the dog, just for example, and I think that’s worth a patch of sod. Giddyup, pup. 

There’s a shady patch in front, a northern exposure further shaded by a Chinese elm by the sidewalk. Mister Rototiller has offered to give that little spot, now home to a comb-over of grass, a thorough treatment too, and the landlady wanted to get rid of the tree because “the roots got into her sewer pipes a few years ago.” 

So what am I telling my friend? 

First, vis-à-vis the direst prospect: Please don’t let anyone mess with that tree. It’s one of a row of Chinese elms gracing the whole block. Its shade is light and open—most of the shade on that patch is from the house—and to judge by that block, El Cerrito has a tree crew who do good work at lacing out street trees.  

There’s no reason to believe that that individual’s roots were the ones in the sewer pipe, or that if it were gone that the rest of the street trees’ roots wouldn’t take over. The old rule of thumb is that a tree’s roots extend in a rough circle whose radius is one and a half times the height of the tree, and there are at least four other trees that close to the lot. 

Now, that rototiller. I’m suggesting that she give the neighbor a beer and tell him “No, Thanks this time,” because the tree’s support roots are just under that patch. Instead, put down some organic mulch and plant, oh, native coralbells (Heuchera spp.) or their colorful cultivars, or some nice small bunchgrass and forest flowers.  

The virtues of sweat with regard to garden soil are overrated, in my experience. If you have to get the rutabaga crop in quick because you’ll be living on it all winter, OK. But with a little time, you can lay down some nice organic material and let your earthworms do the work and the neighboring plants, trees, even the soil will be the better for it. Worms are skilled workers.  

American Soil has old reliable Walt Whitman compost for this, but my current crush is their pomace mulch. Pomace is the dry stuff left of grapes after winemaking. As mulch it’s elegant, finely granular, very dark (almost black) and I swear has boosted the red colors in my shady foliage garden.  

Smells better than Walt too.  

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

The town council of Danville has passed an ordinance stating that, as of July 1, an automatic gas shut-off valve must be installed any time a permit is pulled for work of $10,000 or more. 

They also waived the permit fee for stand-alone installation of the valves for a period of two years. What an enlightened group of public servants! Let’s hope their example is an inspiration to every city in this wonderful earthquake country of northern California. 

Do you want to make your city, your neighborhood, your block, safer? Contact your elected city officials and ask them to follow the sterling example of Danville. And have your valve put in, of course. 

Here’s to making your home secure and your family safe. 

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

Like most people, I want to think of myself as a good person. Someone interested in the general welfare, democracy and wholesome values. But like most people, I have a bit of a dark streak. Mayhem is fun. Trouble is more interesting than smooth, well-oiled continuity. Admit it, you probably find earthquakes and plane crashes interesting. The whole news business is based on our fascination with things gone wrong (especially things gone terribly wrong).  

In that spirit, I offer the following bit of lame-brained stuff. It’s only a tiny thing but it’s so rich in stupidity that I thought it might prove for a little good, old-fashioned, mouth-full-of-Cheetos, couch-potato gawking.  

Note our photo. Here’s what you’re looking at: This is a steel, electrical junction-box in the wall at the back of a sink cabinet in a kitchen. The cover plate for the “J-box” is of a type used to install an outlet (the big cover has a smaller opening just right for a small device). There probably used to be an outlet installed here, although given the lack of acumen and forethought in evidence, it’s absolutely possible that this was the coverplate the “electrician” (please excuse my very loose use of this term) had on the truck and “was gonna come back and put that little cover on real soon.” How the time gets away from us. Darn. 

Note the swell job done setting the J-box in the wall. It ended up getting “mudded-in” or buried in a layer of drywall joint-compound (AKA mud) because it was partially installed behind the plane of the drywall. This will necessitate excavation every time the box gets opened to make a change and will make it extremely hard to create a neat finish when installing an outlet and coverplate. Sloppy, thoughtless and no pride of workmanship. 

As a result, it was hard to get the cover to seat properly and as a result of that, it’s hanging open on the left side. Now, watch both hands closely. There’s nothing up my sleeve. It’s about to get interesting. 

Clearly, rats or mice were present. See the steel wool stuffed in all around the edge of the cabinet? This is common, if goofy, technique. Rodents, for all their tiny superpowers, can’t eat steel wool and, therefore, can’t re-enter through channels previously gnawed. It looks pretty awful but, up to this day, I’d never had more complaint about it other than to say that it was an unsightly fix and should be replaced by new drywall, blocked at the framing and supplanted by a more plausible approach to rodent control.  

But wait, this little exterminator was out for more than just rodents. They stuffed the steel wool inside the electrical box through the loose cover and wrapped it all around. This does several things. First, steel wool is a metal and is pretty darned conductive. Not as much as copper but it will do just fine for our experiment. We are, at very least, creating an electrical path between the junction box and the steel wool.  

If a hot wire touches the metal box (or the steel wool that’s been stuffed inside) as a result of some imperfect set of conditions, and this stuff really does happen, the steel wool would become energized. Like a bulb filament, steel wool is so thin that it would begin to glow red hot. 

Here’s an interesting fact. Steel wood burns! Strange, yes, but it’s true. Steel wool tends to glow red hot with only minimal flame (depending upon the air supply, temperature and other factors). In any event, it burns hot enough to set adjacent materials on fire. 

So, we now have a source of energy, a fuse (the kind used to set off a bomb) and some flammable material (your house).  

To make matters even worse, the gaps and holes around the edge of the J-box are, in part, clearly the work of rodents. This means that they communicate through to the crawlspace or the outside. The same small passage through works nicely as an air inlet to accelerate fire when the steel wool begins to burn, driving it up into nice flames and setting the cabinet on fire. 

O.K., I’ll give it a break. Yes, the wires in the box are fairly well covered over (for now) and the steel wool isn’t exactly filling the J-box. It’s not a sure-fire … fire. But that’s not good enough. 

We live in wooden houses. Let me say that again. We live in wooden houses. We put our babies and our parents in wooden houses. We run electricity through them, build fires in them and heat air, water and food with flammable (and explosive) gas inside them. This is, as they say, no mean trick. We do it with codes and practices that requires great attention to detail. We also do them sober and fully awake so that we can be aware of the many ways in which we can work around the rules and arrive at Waterloo. 

I see the work of the roving brainless on a pretty regular basis. This one was fun because it wasn’t obvious. I had to sit there for a while to get the full impact of it. The longer I looked, the bigger my eyes got. I admit it. It was, and is, fun.  

Everybody slows down to watch an accident. What I would wish for (is this my beauty pageant?) is to see a few more people slow down for the one that hasn’t happened yet.  

Photograph by Matt Cantor. This electrical junction box has become a fire hazard. 

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

TUESDAY, JULY 24 

EXHIBITIONS 

“At the Med ... Were You There?” Thirty years of sketches from Telegraph Ave.’s Mediterranean Coffee House by Doyl Haley on display at the Berkeley Public Library, 2090 Kittredge St. 981-6100. 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Freight and Salvage Open Mic at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $4.50-$5.50. 548-1761.  

Robin Meredith introduces “The Elephant and the Dragon: The Rise of India and China and What It Means for All of Us” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Flauti Diversi, solo sonatas and suites for recorder, harpsichord and violoncello at 8 p.m. at St. Albert’s Priory, 5890 Birch Ct. off College Ave., Oakland. Tickets at the door are $10-$15. 528-1725. 

Swamp Coolers at 8:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cajun/Western Swing dance lesson at 8 p.m. Cost is $9. 525-5054.  

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

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

Ravi Coltrane at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $10-$18. 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, JULY 25 

FILM 

+---3 with response by entomologist Vincent Resh at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $5-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

“Noisy People” A documentary on sound artists and musicians from the San Francisco improvisational music community at 7:30 p.m. at The Hillside Club, 2286 Cedar St. at Arch. Cost is $10. 843-8724. 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

“Introduction to Jazz Improvisation for Recorders” A workshop with Eddie Marshall, from 1 to 4 p.m. at the Aulos Room, St. Albert’s Priory, 5890 Birch Ct. off College Ave., Oakland. Cost is $20. 528-1725. 

Michael Eric Dyson will discuss his book “Know What I Mean? Reflections on Hip-Hop” at noon at Barnes & Noble at 6050 El Cerrito Plaza, El Cerrito. 524-0087. 

Michael Tucker indroduces his memoir “Living in a Foreign language” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. 

“Writing Teachers Write” Teacher/student readings from the Bay Area Writing Project at 5 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

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

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Berkeley Opera “Aïda” at 7:30 p.m. at Julia Morgan Theater, 2640 College Ave. Tickets are $15-$40. 925-798-1300. 

Terry Disley Experience at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $10. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Orquestra Bakan at 9:30 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low, 2284 Shattuck Ave. Salsa dance lessons at 8 p.m. Cost is $5-$10. 548-1159.  

Buxter Hoot’n at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

The Adrian Gormley Ensemble at 10 p.m. at Beckett’s Irish Pub, 2271 Shattuck Ave. 647-1790.  

A Global Threat, Monster Squad, The Wednesday Night Heroes at 6 p.m. at Oakland Metro, 201 Broadway. Cost is $7. 763-1146. www.oaklandmetro.org 

Wake the Dead at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $19.50-$20.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Ravi Coltrane at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $10-$18. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

THURSDAY, JULY 26 

CHILDREN 

Zoomobile Come meet unusual animals at 2 p.m. at the Oakland Public Library, Montclair Branch, 1687 Mountain Blvd. 482-7810. 

FILM 

International Latino Film Society “Soledad is Gone Forever” at 7 p.m. at La Peña. Cost is $5-$6. 849-2568.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

“Deep Listening for Recorder Players” A workshop with Tom Bickley and Nancy Beckman at 7 p.m. at St. Albert’s Priory, 5890 Birch Ct. off College Ave., Oakland. Cost is $5. 528-1725. 

“Arts & Crafts Houses in the East Bay: Why They Are More Art than Craft” with author Dave Weinstein at 7:30 p.m. at the Hillside Club. Cost is $20. For revervations call 848-4288. 

Poetry Flash with Susanne Dyckman and Laura Walker at 7:30 p.m. at Berkeley City College Auditorium, 2050 Center St. 525-5476. 

Oakland Out Loud Poetry Reading with poets from PEN Oakland, followed by open mic, at 6 p.m. at the Oakland Public Library, 125 14th St. 238-3134. 

Robin Romm reads from her collection of stories “The Mother Garden” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. 

“Taste Matters” with Benjamin Wurgaft on Jewish food in the eyes of American and European food writers, at 6:30 p.m. at the Magnes Museum, 2911 Russell St. Cost is $6-$8. 549-6950. 

Michelle Redmond reads from her novel “The Year of Fog” at 7:30 p.m. at Mrs. Dalloways, 2904 College Ave. 704-8222. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Kaz George Quartet at noon at the downtown Berkeley BART station. info@downtownberkeley.org 

Polyhymnia “Never and Always” A concert of chamber works for musicians, actors, photographers, and laptops, at 7:30 p.m. at the Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists, 1924 Cedar St. at Bonita. Cost is $10. 548-9050. 

“Voices in the Virtual World” James Minton, Chris Runde and Gene Baker at 8 p.m. at Oaktown Creativity Center, 447 25th St., Oakland. Suggested donation $5-$10. 568-6920. 

Eric McFadden Trio/Satisfied Allstars, featuring Bobby Vega, Jessica Lurie, Dave Watts, Chris Rossback at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $10. 525-5054.  

Rory Block at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $19.50-$20.50. 548-1761.  

Mack Rucks Quartet at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $8. 841-JAZZ.  

Jack Gates Trio, Latin jazz, at 7 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave. 548-5198.  

Willard Grant Conspiracy, Chris Jones at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $8. 841-2082 www.starryploughpub.com 

Fred O’Dell at 10 p.m. at Beckett’s Irish Pub, 2271 Shattuck Ave. 647-1790.  

A Christian McBride Situation at 8 and 10 p.m., through Sun. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $12-$24. 238-9200.  

FRIDAY, JULY 27 

THEATER 

Actors Ensemble of Berkeley “All in the Timing” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m. at Live Oak Theater, 1301 Shattuck Ave. at Berryman, through Aug. 11. Tickets are $12. 525-1620. www.aeofberkeley.org  

Altarena Playhouse “Oh My Godmother” Fri and Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 p.m. at 1409 High St., Alameda, through Aug. 11. Tickets are $17-$20. 523-1553. www.altarena.org 

Central Works “Bird in the Hand” Thurs-Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 5 p.m. at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant Ave., through July 29. Tickets are $9-$25. 558-1381. 

Contra Costa Civic Theater “Meet Me in St. Louis” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 p.m. in July at 951 Pomona Ave., at Moeser, El Cerrito, through Aug. 4. 524-9132. 

EXHIBITIONS 

“A New Home, A New Life” Photographs by Refugee Youth in Oakland, Wed.-Sat., to Aug. 8 at Oakland Art Gallery, 199 Kahn’s Alley, Frank Ogawa Plaza, Oakland. Exhibit co-sponsored by the International Rescue Committee who helped to resettle the youth in Oakland. www.oaklandartgallery.org 

FILM 

Movies About Movies “Sunset Boulevard” at 3:30 p.m. in the Community Meeting Room, Berkeley Public Library, 2090 Kittredge St. 981-6139. 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Youth Writing Festival Participants read from thier works at 6 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. www.codysbooks.com  

Eli Gordon and Andrew Joron read their poetry at 7:30 p.m. at Pegasus Books Downtown, 2349 Shattuck Ave. 649-1320. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Berkeley Opera “Aïda” at 8 p.m. and SUn. at 2 p.m. at Julia Morgan Center for the Arts, 2640 College Ave. Tickets are $15-$40. 925-798-1300. 

“La Dolce Vita dei Flauti” Recorder consort music at 8 p.m. at St. Albert’s Priory, 5890 Birch Ct. off College Ave., Oakland. Cost is $10-$15. 528-1725. 

Warner Ellenberg Trio at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $10. 845-5373. www.jazzschool.com 

Peru Canta y Baila! A celebration of Peruvian independence day at 8 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $15. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

The Collective at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $12. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Nawal, music from the Comoros, at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $12-$15. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Houston Jones at 8 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

Robbie Fulks at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Steven Gary and Laura Zucker at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

Diablo’s Dust, The Morning Line, Fainting Goats at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $7. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

Christ on Parade, Final Conflict, Look Back and Laugh at 7 p.m. at 924 Gilman St., an all-ages, member-run, no alcohol, no drugs, no violence club. Cost is $6. 525-9926. 

The Mundaze at 10 p.m. at Beckett’s Irish Pub, 2271 Shattuck Ave. 647-1790. www.beckettsirishpub.com 

Kapakahi at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

A Christian McBride Situation at 8 and 10 p.m., through Sun. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $12-$24. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

SATURDAY, JULY 28 

THEATER 

Big City Improv, in Berkeley for one night only, at 8 p.m. at The Ashby Statge, 1901 Asby Ave. Tickets are $15-$20. 595-5597. www.bigcityimprov.com 

Shotgun Players “The Three Musketeers” Sat. and Sun. at 4 p.m. at John Hinkle Park, Southampton Ave., off The Arlington, through Sept. 9. Free. 841-6500. 

FILM 

Jewish Film Festival from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. at The Roda Theater, 2015 Addison St. For information on tickets call 925-275-9490. www.sfjff.org 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Rhythm & Muse Reading and Open Mic featuring poet Marc Hofstader at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Art Center, 1275 Walnut St. between Eunice and Rose Sts. 527-9753. 

“Transparent Passions” Performances, spoken word and art installation from 1 to 3:30 p.m. at Peralta Park, corner of Solano Ave. and Peralta St. 528-9038. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Familia Cepeda, Afro-Puerto Rican, at 8 and 10 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $12-$15. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Babatunde Lea Quartet at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $14. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Najite, Bass Culture Review, Afrobeat from Los Angeles, at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $13. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com  

Amy Obenski and Kristin Lagasse at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

The Soul Burners at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Neydavood Ensemble at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $19.50-$20.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Autumn Sara, High Like Five, Seconds Left at 6 p.m. at Oakland Metro, 201 Broadway. Cost is $10. 763-1146. www.oaklandmetro.org 

Maya Kronfeld Group at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $10. 845-5373. www.jazzschool.com 

Fred Randolph Jazz Group at 9:30 p.m. at Albatross, 1822 San Pablo Ave. Cost is $5. 843-2473. www.albatrosspub.com 

Nicole McRory at 10 p.m. at Beckett’s Irish Pub, 2271 Shattuck Ave. 647-1790. www.beckettsirishpub.com 

The Altered Egos, Bunny Numpkins and the Kill Blow-up Reaction at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $5. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

Christ on Parade, Attitude Adjustment, El Dopa at 7 p.m. at 924 Gilman St., an all-ages, member-run, no alcohol, no drugs, no violence club. Cost is $5. 525-9926. 

SUNDAY, JULY 29 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Color & Light” Photographic art by Bill Hannapple. Reception for the artist at 1 p.m. at The LightRoom Gallery, 2263 Fifth St., through Aug. 24. 649-8111. www.lightroom.com 

“First Exposures: Bay Area Youth Photography” Reception at 2 p.m. at Mills College Art Museum, 5000 MacArthur Blvd., Oakland. www.sfcamerawork.org 

FILM 

Jewish Film Festival from 11:30 a.m. to 8:45 p.m. at The Roda Theater, 2015 Addison St. For information on tickets call 925-275-9490. www.sfjff.org 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Tao Lin and Stephanie Young read at 7 p.m. at 21 Grand, 416 25th St. at Broadway. Cost is $5. 649-1320. 

“Rewriting Copyright with the Swedish Pirate Party” A panel discussion on how both creativity and civil liberties are often stymied by today’s copyright laws at 5 p.m. at the Hillside Club, 2286 Cedar St. Cost is $10. www.hillsideclub.org 

Cal Adventures Open Mic at 7 p.m. at the recreation yard across from Hana Japan at the Berkeley Marina. 642-4000. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Midsummer Mozart, Program II, featuring Elspeth Franks, soprano, at 7 p.m. at First Congregational Church. Tickets are $30-$60. 415-627-9145. www.midsummermozart.org 

San Francisco Renaissance Voices “The Regina Monologues” music for lute, readings from Shakespeare, and Elizabethan madrigals and folksongs at 7:30 p.m. at First Presbyterian Church, 2001 Santa Clara St., Alameda. Tickets are $12-$15. 522-1477. www.sfrv.org 

Berkeley Opera “Aïda” at 2 p.m. at Julia Morgan Center for the Arts, 2640 College Ave. Tickets are $15-$40. 925-798-1300. 

Summer Jazz with Chester Smith & his Organ at 3 p.m., The History of Jazz with Randy Moore at 4:30 p.m. at Open Jam Session at 5 p.m. at Oakland Public Library, Golden Gate Branch, 5606 San Pablo Ave., Oakland. 597-5023. 

Brad Colerick at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $17.50-$18.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Folk This! and Friends An evening of radical protest music and theater at 7 p.m. at La Peña. Cost is $10. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Con Alma Voice-tet at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $8. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

JL Stiles at 11 a.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

Ten Ton Chicken, Eyewitness Blues Band, David Gans and others at 7 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $10-$20 sliding scale. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Aaron Bahr Jazz Quintet at 4:30 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $10. 845-5373. www.jazzschool.com 

Americana Unplugged: Corbin and Crew at 5 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Ignite, Stick to your Guns These Days at 6 p.m. at Oakland Metro, 201 Broadway. Cost is $10. 763-1146. www.oaklandmetro.org 

MONDAY, JULY 30 

CHILDREN 

Magic Dan at 3:30 p.m. at the North Branch of the Berkeley Public Library. 981-6250. 

FILM 

Jewish Film Festival from 2:15 to 8:15 p.m. at The Roda Theater, 2015 Addison St. For information on tickets call 925-275-9490. www.sfjff.org 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Austin Grossman and Tao Lin at 7:30 p.m. at Moe’s Books, 2476 Telegraph Ave. 849-2087. 

James Lindsay shares stories from his mother’s memoir “Bold Plum” about the guerrillas in China’s war against Japan at 7 p.m. at Black Oak Books. 486-0698. www.blackoakbooks.com 

Marty Nemko describes “Cool Careers for Dummies” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. 

Poetry Express with Dale Jensen birthday celebration reading at 7 p.m., at Priya Restaurant, 2072 San Pablo Ave. 644-3977. 

Breaking Chains A night of poetry at 7 p.m. at Revolution Books, 2425 Channing Way. 848-1196.  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Flutopia at 7 p.m. at Le Bateau Ivre, 2629 Telegraph Ave. 849-1100. www.lebateauivre.net 

Trovatore, traditional Italian music, at 7 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

West Coast Songwriter’s Showcase at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage Coffee House. Cost is $5 548-1761 www.freightandsalvage.org 

Orquesta Borinquen at 8 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $10-$16. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

Gallery Paule Anglim in San Francisco is celebrating the centennial of the founding of the California College of the Arts with a selection of paintings and sculptures by some of the institution’s faculty and student alumni whose works have appeared at the gallery during the past 30 years. No theme unites the works beyond the characteristics of vitality and grace. 

The first work that the visitor sees is internationally renowned conceptual artist David Ireland’s “Untitled (Capillary Action),” 1995, (78 inches in height) which sets a standard for inventiveness. The base is a rectangular, galvanized steel box whose bottom is covered by the crusty residue of evaporated water, salt and dye. A length of cheese cloth drapes from a wire hanger, which itself hangs from a vertical wire support, into the box whose evaporated contents have stained it dark to light ocher.  

Other works by Ireland located across the gallery include drawings and paintings on paper and principally a reclaimed glass cabinet, “Untitled (Cabinet),” 1989/2006, whose two shelves support objects of personal and professional significance to the artist, for example: a color-glazed, porcelain, Asian female figurine partially wrapped in cement; painted wood and cardboard forms; a framed photograph; a hand-formed wax object that resembles either a stunted phallus or a toadstool; and a jar of nails (finger and toe, not carpenter’s) accumulated by the artist while performing his daily hygiene. 

Nearby, John Roloff’s Planting Studies, 1998-2001, ink jet prints and Laura Dufort’s painting “Silver Mandalas .01” afford elegant respites for meditation, as do works by Sian Oblak and John Zurier elsewhere in the gallery. 

The juxtaposition of works by two masters of contemporary figuration permits visitors a rare opportunity to compare and contrast their visions, both of which convey, I feel, some of the psychovisual distress of the Iberian Peninsula. Judith Linhares is represented by two erotically charged paintings on paper. 

Works of Robert Bechtle restore visitors to a world they recognize. Known as a photorealist he is represented by two works in charcoal on paper which could, indeed, be mistaken for black-and-white photographs, in part because of his masterful use of the texture of the paper. Three small watercolors of Paros are as soft as melodies. 

Image: Robert Bechtle’s “Marpissa" part of his Paros watercolor series

America’s prison construction boom is forging rapid change in small-town America, and small-town California is leading the pack. Prison Town, USA, a new documentary by Po Kutchins and Katie Galloway, shows the impact of a prison economy on Susanville, a Northern California town at the foot of the Sierras in Lassen County. When the last of its lumber mills closed down, Susanville faced an economic crisis and turned to the burgeoning prison industry for a panacea. The prisons promised employment and support for local businesses. But what Susanville got was far less, as the buy-local pledge was reneged, prison jobs brought unforeseen social problems, and the prisons themselves—three of them—dwarfed and began to consume the town that had opened its arms to them. The film shows at 10 p.m. today (Tuesday) on KQED as part “POV,” PBS’ acclaimed documentary series, now celebrating its 20-year anniversary.

“Who were the important architects in Berkeley? There’s Julia Morgan and … that guy, what’s his name?” a newcomer to town asked me a few weeks ago. 

“Maybeck,” I answered, while wondering whether I should launch into a list of Berkeley’s overlooked architects. Why are only those two so widely remembered? 

That’s just what local journalist and author Dave Weinstein asked himself several years ago. He began researching and writing an occasional series of articles for the San Francisco Chronicle about designers who substantially contributed to the Bay Area architectural landscape but are not well known. 

This coming Thursday evening Weinstein discusses some of those architects, their work, and the Arts and Crafts aesthetic in an illustrated talk entitled “Arts and Crafts Houses in the East Bay: Why They’re More Art than Craft.” 

“These architects were more artists,” he says in explanation of his theme. And they shouldn’t be typecast as always designing in one style. “It’s always been my feeling that in looking at architecture in general, people tend to think of it in categories. And I like to go beyond that.” 

“Even architects whose work we think we know often surprise us,” he adds. Much of his writing explores remarkable eclecticism in the design careers of those he’s studied. 

Along with his take on the Arts and Crafts movement, his perspectives on several local architects—including Leola Hall, Walter Ratcliff, John Hudson Thomas, Ernest Coxhead, Carr Jones, and Albert Farr—will be a focus of the talk. 

Hall, one of the first women to design in Berkeley, specialized in affordable, interesting, “spec” homes, particularly in Berkeley’s Elmwood district, after the 1906 earthquake. Ratcliff had an extensive professional career, contributing hundreds of homes and commercial and institutional buildings to the local landscape.  

Farr, in particular, interests Weinstein in part because he’s sometimes unfairly pigeon-holed as an architect who simply designed “English cottage” homes. “Roses ‘round the door’ picturesque-ness’” one architectural historian wrote.  

But Farr also worked with “Arts and Crafts … French, American Colonial, Spanish Colonial, even touches of Moderne,” Weinstein writes, and “fans know him for exquisite and imaginative design.”  

Farr designed homes in Belvedere and Piedmont. One of the Bay Area’s great residential architectural losses was the 1914 fire that destroyed the nearly complete Wolf House in Glen Ellen, a 15,000-square-foot lodge which Farr designed for Jack London. 

If you can’t attend the Thursday talk—or even if you can—a copy of Weinstein’s book, Signature Architects of the San Francisco Bay Area (Gibbs-Smith, 2006), is a good introduction to these interesting designers and an excellent reference. Copies will be available for sale at the lecture. 

The book profiles 15 Bay Area architects or design firms over a span of more than a century, from the 19th century Newsom brothers who built many prominent Victorians—but also Craftsman homes—to Berkeley’s 20th century International Style architect Donald Olsen, and Oakland’s Ace Architects. 

It’s a handsome book, with beautiful photographs by Linda Svendsen who, Weinstein notes with sadness, died recently. There’s a chapter apiece in a conversational journalistic style on the work of each designer or firm, with small sidebar profiles of each architect and highlight lists of their buildings and where they can be seen.  

Weinstein not only sleuthed out old records on the architects but also knocked on the doors of the houses they designed gathering anecdotes and perspectives from the people who live there. He also interviewed several of the architects who are still living—and, in most cases, still designing. 

In the process, he resurrects the memory of near forgotten designers such as Luther Turton, who did many Napa homes and buildings, and Frank Wolfe who built extensively in the South Bay, particularly San Jose, and often worked in the Prairie style. 

Several of the architects he wrote about had a strong influence on Bay Area design or did remarkable work that should draw national attention, but are strangely unremembered outside the world of local architectural historians and preservation societies. 

“If these people had been active in Southern California there would be books out about them” individually, Weinstein says of architects such as Gardner Dailey, who “brought Modern Architecture to the Bay Area.”  

Weinstein was a leader in the restoration and reopening of the Cerrito Theater (“I started raising a fuss to get the city to rebuild it,” he says). He grew up on Long Island, first came to the Bay Area in the 1970s after college at Columbia, and now lives in El Cerrito.  

His career includes journalism school at UC Berkeley and many years working for local papers, including the Hayward Daily Review, and the West County Times and Contra Costa Times as a reporter and editor. After retiring from full-time journalism several years ago, he has been concentrating on research and writing about architecture and local history.  

A book on Berkeley is in the works. He’s also involved with California Modern magazine and the “Eichler network” (www.eichlernetwork.com) that celebrates the mid-century homes of another Bay area trendsetter, developer Joseph Eichler. 

Photograph by Linda Svendsen. A sheltering fireplace alcove in North Berkeley’s Thomas Pratt house shows how John Hudson Thomas incorporated unusual forms into his home designs.  

The Weinstein lecture this Thursday begins at 7:30 p.m. at the Hillside Club, 2286 Cedar St., a few blocks east of Shattuck. To be sure of a seat, call the Berkeley Association of Realtors at 848-4288. Refreshments are served after the talk, and books can be purchased. Tickets cost $20, $15 for members of the Hillside Club or the Berkeley Association of Realtors. 

http://thesimplehome.com/documents/lecture.flyer.cc.pdf 

B.A.R. President Arlene Baxter organized the lecture series (Weinstein’s talk is the third of four), with proceeds going to the B.A.R. Youth Arts and Education Fund. The series is sponsored by Kevin Eves of Wachovia Mortgage.

The mimosas are blooming, and I’ll bring the orange juice if you’ll bring the champagne to toast them with that favorite brunch beverage—mimosas, of course. Looking at the current price of OJ, you might be getting a bargain.  

Mimosa, Albizia julibrissin, also gets called “silk tree” (not to be confused with the more tropical “silk-floss tree”) and “sensitive mimosa” when people confuse it with the Brazilian native Mimosa pudica, which is more a shrub than a tree, with somewhat similar leaves and more globular, uniformly pink flowers. Both species can show up as weeds in some parts of the country, especially the wetter Southeast. 

The shade of A. julibrissin flowers can vary widely, from gilded to outright rosy. They’re always engagingly fluffy and light-catching though, and attractive to bees and butterflies.  

I’ve seen hummingbirds investigating them, but I can’t say how much nutrition the birds actually get out of the flowers.  

I don’t believe they’re sticky and dangerous to local birds the way blue-gum eucalyptus flowers are, at least. Euc flowers have been blamed by observant and nonhysterical birders like Rich Stallcup for the deaths of warblers that he and others have found under the trees with their nostrils completely occluded by, um, gum gum.  

Birds that co-evolved with eucs in their native Australia have bills that are longer below the nostrils, so they can use the sweet flowers and any bugs garnishing them with no problem, but ours haven’t been around eucs long enough I guess. Eucs’ bloomtime in winter when we have more more hungry warblers around because they migrate here might be compounding the problem.  

Albizia species—there are some hundred-plus of them—hail from Africa, Asia, and Australia; the species we have here is from China by way of Italy, evidently, where Filippo degi Albizzia introduced the whole genus in 1749. Where it lost the second z is one of those things I’ve never quite caught up with.  

Looking at the long puckered seedpods, you might guess immediately that our mimosa’s a bean, a legume. Like many but not all legumes, this tree fixes nitrogen. What? What that means is that these plants have a set of symbiotic bacteria housed in nodules in their tissues, primarily in their roots (though Hawai’ian koa keeps some up in aerial crotches), that work some of the 78 percent of the air that is nitrogen into compounds the plants can use, much more efficiently than other soil bacteria that live on their own. 

Some legumes, our native redbud for example, don’t bother with this but similar process has evolved in other plant species, like some tropical grasses, and other bacteria species. Evidently it’s a good idea. You can certainly understand its usefulness in nutrient-lean tropical soils.  

Mimosas aren’t long-lived as trees go, and a root fungus that kills them has begun to show up in California. But they’re handsome, tough, and cast a nice lacy shade we can sit in to drink those other mimosas. 

I’d say plant them—away from wildlands, please—and enjoy them. Slainte! 

Photograph by Ron Sullivan. 

Mimosa flowers and foliage. This tree gets planted mostly in private yards and gardens, but the rosy individual shown here lives on a very public street in San Anselmo. 

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 Planet’s East Bay Home & Real Estate section.

TUESDAY, JULY 24 

Southwest Berkeley Community Library Needs Assessment Community Meeting at 7 p.m. at LifeLong Medical Care, 3260 Sacramento St. at Alcatraz. 981-6195. 

Bus Rapid Transit: Focus on Southside Berkeley Community Workshop at the Transit Subcommittee of the Transportation Commission at 6:30 p.m. at 2362 Bancroft Way. 981-7010.  

Public Meeting on Bay Area Transportation Planning The Federal Highway Administration and Federal Transit Administration are reviewing the Bay Area's transportation planning process carried out by the Metropolitan Transportation Commission. The public in invited to comment at 5 p.m. at the Joseph P. Bort MetroCenter Auditorium, 101 Eighth St., across from Lake Merritt BART, Oakland. 817-5757. www.mtc.ca.gov 

East Bay Vivarium’s Traveling Reptile Show at 7 p.m. at the Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave, Albany. 526-3720 ext 17. 

“Looking Outside the Big Box for Local Economic Growth” with Jeff Milchen, co-founder of the American Independent Business Alliance at 7 p.m. at The Home of Truth, 1300 Grand St., between Encinal and Central, Alameda. Sponsored by Action Alameda and California Healthy Communities Network, a project of non-profit Tides Center. 522-2208. www.calhcn.org  

Educator’s Academy on Natural History for pre-school to 3rd grade teachers to learn easy ways to liven up lessons on natural history. From 9:30 to 3 p.m. at Tilden Nature Center. Fee is $45-$51, registration required. 1-888-EBPARKS. 

“Mobility Matters for Older Drivers” a video presentation at 1 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center, 1901 Hearst. 981-5190. 

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. 

Free Diabetes Screening Come find out if you might have diabetes with our free screening test and make sure not to eat or drink anything for 8 hours beforehand, from 8:45 to 1:30 a.m. at the Downtown Oakland Senior Center, 200 Grand Ave. 981-5332. 

Tuesday Documentaries at 7 p.m. at the Gaia Arts Center, 2120 Allston Way. Donation of $5 benefits the Berkeley Food and Housing Project. 665-0305. 

Berkeley PC Users Group meets at 7 p.m. at 1145 Walnut St. MelDancing@aol.com 

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 

Community Sing-a-Long every Tues, at 2 p.m. at the Albany Senior Center, 1247 Marin Ave. 524-9122.  

Family Storytime for preschoolers and up at 7 p.m. at the Kensington Library, 61 Arlington Ave. 524-3043. 

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, JULY 25 

Tilden Tots Join a nature adventure program for 3 and 4 year olds, each accompanied by an adult (grandparents welcome)! We’ll learn about butterflies from 10 to 11:30 a.m. at Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park. Cost is $6-$8. Registration required. 1-888-EBPARKS. 

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 

“The Political Scene: State and County Priorities” with Alameda County Supervisor Keith Carson at the Berkeley Gray Panthers meeting at 1:30 p.m. at North Berkeley Senior Center, 1901 Hearst. 548-9696. 

“Climate Protection and Berkeley’s Built Environment” at the Planning Commission meeting at 6 p.m. at North Berkeley Senior Center, 1901 Hearst Ave. 981-7081. 

Prevent Scams, Fraud and Identity Theft A presentation to help seniors at 7 p.m. at the Persian Center, 2029 Durant Ave. RSVP to 848-0264. 

Walk Berkeley for Seniors meets every Wednesday at 9:30 a.m. at the Sea Breeze Market, just west of the I-80 overpass. Everyone is welcome, wear comfortable shoes and a warm hat. Heavy rain cancels. 548-9840. 

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, JULY 26 

Tilden Tots Join a nature adventure program for 3 and 4 year olds, each accompanied by an adult (grandparents welcome)! We’ll learn about butterflies from 10 to 11:30 a.m. at Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park. Cost is $6-$8. Registration required. 1-888-EBPARKS. 

Tilden Explorers A nature adventure program for 5-7 year olds. We’ll learn about butterflies from 3:15 to 4:15 p.m.. Cost is $6-$8, registration required. 1-888-EBPARKS. 

Starry Night Skies with Celeste Burrows from the Chabot Space and Science Center followed by a 3 mile hike to Wildcat Peak to watch the sunset, search for constellations and observe the moon. At 6:30 p.m. at Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park. 525-2233. 

FOCUS Equity Forum Join a planning effort that encourages Bay Area urban growth near transit and in existing communities, from 1:30 to 3:30 p.m. at Lawrence D. Dahms Auditorium, Joseph P. Bort MetroCenter, 101 8th St., across from Lake Merritt BART, Oakland. Sposored by the Association of Bay Area Governments, the Bay Area Air Quality Management District, the Bay Conservation and Development Commission, and the Metropolitan Transportation Commission. 464-7926.  

“The Truth About Darfur and the Struggle for African Liberation” A teach-in and fundraiser at 7 p.m. at Interplay, 2273 Telegraph Ave, Oakland. 625-1106. www.solidarityforafrica.org 

Kibale Community Fuel Project A report on how innovative stoves are being used in Uganda, at 6:30 p.m. in the Marian Zimmer Auditorium, Oakland Zoo. 632-9525, ext. 122. 

“Staying Human in the Computer Age” A conference on the the challenges of and opportunities for human identity in the computer age. Thurs.-Sun. at International House, Piendmont Ave. at Bancroft. For information call 415-567-5115. www.binarybeing.org 

Compressed Natural Gas Station Grand Opening at 10 a.m. at 205 Brush St., West Oakland. Includes a display of alternative fuel vehicles. 238-2966. 

Easy Does It Board of Directors’ Meeting at 6:30 p.m. at 1636 University Ave. 845-5513.  

Cope with Creativity Workshop on “Art to Express Grief” at 6:30 p.m. at 4401 Howe St., Oakland. To register call 888-755-7855, ext. 4241. 

FRIDAY, JULY 27 

Impeachment Banner Fridays at 6:45 to 8 a.m. on the Berkeley Pedestrian bridge between Seabreeze Market and the Berkeley Aquatic Park, ongoing on Fridays until impeachment is realized. www. Impeachbush-cheney.com 

The Sydney B. Mitchell Iris Society will hold its annual Bearded Iris Rhizome Auction from 7:30 to 10 p.m. at the Lakeside Park Garden Center, 666 Bellevue Ave, Oakland. Growing advice from experts is available. 277-4200. 

International Working Class Film Festival with “Mother Jones: The Most Dangerous Woman in America” and others at 7:30 p.m. at Humanist Hall, 390 27th St., Oakland. Suggested donation $5. www.HumanistHall.net 

Free Compost for Berkeley Residents from 11:45 a.m. to 2:45 p.m. at the Berkeley Marina Maintenance Yard, 201 University Ave, next to Adventure PlaygroundSelf-serve. Please complete sign-in log before loading compost. 644-6566. 

Berkeley Women in Black weekly vigil from noon to 1 p.m. at Bancroft and Telegraph. Our focus is human rights in Palestine. 548-6310. 

Circle Dancing, simple folk dancing with instruction at 8 p.m. at Hillside Community Church, 1422 Navellier St. Pot luck at 7 p.m. 528-4253. www.circledancing.com 

SATURDAY, JULY 28 

Berkeley Kite Festival on Sat. and Sun. from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Cesar Chavez Park, Berkeley Marina. www.highlinekites.com 

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. 1-888-EBPARKS. 

Brooks Island Voyage Paddle the rising tide across the Richmond Harbor Channel to Brooks Island from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. For experienced boaters who can provide their own canoe or kayak and safety gear. For ages 14 and up with parent participation. Cost is $20-$22. Registration required. 1-888-EBPARKS. 

Kid’s Garden Club for ages 6-9 to explore the world of gardening, from 2 to 4 p.m. at Tilden Nature Area, Tilden Park. Cost is $6-$8, registration required. 1-888-EBPARKS. 

Oakland 1946 General Strike Walk to revist the sites of Oakland’s “Work Holiday.” Meet at 10:30 a.m. at the fountain at Latham Square, Telegraph and Broadway. For information call 464-3210. 

Oakland Heritage Alliance Walking Tour of the Estuary to learn about Oakland’s founding on the waterfront. Meet by 10 a.m. at the C.L. Dellums statue in from of the Amtrack station, Second and Alice Sts. Cost is $10-$15. 763-9218. www.oaklandheritage.org 

Walking Tour of Old Oakland around the restored 1870s business district. Meet at 10 a.m. in front of G.B. Ratto’s at 827 Washington St. Tour lasts 90 minutes. Reservations can be made by calling 238-3234. 

The Sydney B. Mitchell Iris Society will hold its annual Bearded Iris Rhizome Sidewalk Sale from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. in front of the Downtown Oakland YMCA, 2350 Broadway. Growing advice from expertsis available. 277-4200. 

Explore the Ohlone Greenway in El Cerrito from 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. on a six-mile hike to visit a restored creek, view public art, and hike the Hillside Nature Area. Return by BART. Reservations required. 415-255-3233. www.greenbelt.org 

Summer Garden Party with musical entertainment featuring a Barbershop Quartet & old-fashioned brass ensemble and Ice Cream Bar, from 2 to 4 p.m. at Salem Lutheran Home, 2361 East 29th St., Oakland. Free. 534-3637. 

Cherokee Society for the Greater Bay Area General Meeting with a focus on Cherokee visual art. Potluck lunch and program, including Cherokee language practice and children’s activities from 1 to 4 p.m. at the Community Meeting Room, 3rd flr., Berkeley Public Library, 2090 Kittredge St. 464-4649. www.bayareacherokee.org 

Computer Recycling from 10 am. to 11 a.m. at Elephant Pharmacy, 1607 Shattuck Ave. 415-462-6000. 

“Rosie Goes Green” Presentations on green technology in Richmond’s historic Atchison Village, from 9:30 to 2:30 p.m. at the AV auditorium, by the flagpole, Curry St. and Collins, at west end of McDonald Ave., Richmond. Give-aways, free food, music. 215 5530. 

“The U.S. vs John Lennon” Screening at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists Hall, 1924 Cedar at Bonita. Donations accepted. 528-5403. 

Family Sundown Safari at 5 p.m. at the Oakland Zoo. A hands-on program for children 3 and up to explore the Valley Children’s Zoo. 632-9525. www.oaklandzoo.org 

Your Library, Your Way - Have Your Say! An Albany Library Community Forum from 2 to 4 p.m. at the Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave., Albany. 526-3720 ext 16. 

Fast Pitch Softball for Adults at noon on Saturdays in Oakland. For information call 204-9500. 

Guinea Pig Adoption Fair from 1 to 4 p.m. at RabbitEars, 303 Arlington Ave., Kensington. 525-6155. 

Preschool Storytime for 3 to 5-year-olds at 11 a.m. at the Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave. 526-3720 ext. 17. 

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 

The Berkeley Lawn Bowling Club provides free instruction every Wed. and Sat. at 10 a.m. at 2270 Acton St. 841-2174. . 

SUNDAY, JULY 29 

“Open Garden” Join the Little Farm gardener for composting, planting, watering and reaping the rewards of our work, from 2 to 4 p.m. at Tilden Nature Area, Tilden Park. 525-2233. www.ebparks.org 

Toddlers in the Meadow Little ones and their grown-up friends exlore the meadow and look for butterflies, at 10:30 a.m. at Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park. 525-2233. 

Beautiful Butterflies Learn what kinds visit our meadows, at 2 p.m. at the Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park. 525-2233. 

Oakland Heritage Alliance Walking Tour of the Eichers of Oakland to learn about Oakland’s residential district of houses by Joseph Eichler, from 1:30 to 4 p.m. Cost is $10-$15. Reservations required. 763-9218. www.oaklandheritage.org 

“Rewriting Copyright with the Swedish Pirate Party” A panel discussion on how both creativity and civil liberties are often stymied by today’s copyright laws at 5 p.m. at the Hillside Club, 2286 Cedar St. Cost is $10. www.hillsideclub.org 

Kids’ Day, with children selling their artwork and homegrown produce from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Kensington Farmers’ Market, 303 Arlington, behind ACE Hardware, Kensington.  

Social Action Forum with Stephen Zunes on terrorism and the Middle East at 9:30 a.m. at Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley, One Lawson Rd., Kensington. 525-0302. 

CoHousing Slide Show and information on a new co-housing project in Grass Valley at 2 p.m. at 1250 Addison St, Suite 113. 849-2063. 

Bicycle Trails Council of the East Bay presents The DirtLaw Festival with music, films and food from 5 to 11 p.m. at Blake’s on Telegraph, 2367 Telegraph Ave. Cost is $10. 848-0886. www.btceb.org  

Free Garden Tours at Regional Parks Botanic Garden in Tilden Park Sat. and Sun. at 2 p.m. Call to confirm. 841-8732. www.nativeplants.org 

Lake Merritt Neighbors Organized for Peace Peace walk around the lake every Sun. Meet at 3 p.m. at the colonnade at the NE end of the lake. 763-8712. lmno4p.org 

MONDAY, JULY 30 

Sing-a-long Circles in the Oak Grove from 4 to 6:30 p.m. at the threatened Oak Grove in front of Memorial Stadium, Piedmont Ave., just north of Bancroft. 658-9178. 

Summer Science Club for children in grades 3-5 for two weeks in the afternoon at Hall of Health, 2230 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $100, financial aid available. 549-1564. 

Berkeley CopWatch organizational meeting at 8 p.m. at 2022 Blake St. Join us to work on current issues around police misconduct. Volunteers needed. For information call 548-0425. 

Family Sing-a-long at 6:45 p.m. at the Berkeley Public Library, 2090 Kittredge St. 981-6223. 

Dragonboating Year round classes at the Berkeley Marina, Dock M. Meets Mon, Wed., Thurs. at 6 p.m. Sat. at 10:30 a.m. For details see www.dragonmax.org 

Drop in Knitting Class at the Albany Library Work on your own project or make pet blankets and children’s hats to be donated to charity organizations. Yarn and needles provided for donated items. At 3:30 p.m. at 1247 Marin Ave. 526-3720, ext. 17. 

CITY MEETINGS 

Civic Arts Commission meets Wed., July 25, at 6:30 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Mary Ann Merker, 981-7533.  

Energy Commission meets Wed., July 25, at 6:30 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-5434.  

Police Review Commission meets Wed., July 25, at 7:30 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-4950.  

Zoning Adjustments Board meets Thurs., July 26 , at 7 p.m., in City Council Chambers. Mark Rhoades, 981-7410.  

Mental Health Commission meets Thurs. July 26, at 6:30 p.m. at 2640 MLK Jr. Way, at Derby. 981-5213. 

The July 17 article “OUSD Local Control Bill Gains Support” mistakenly indicated that that passage of the Oakland local school control bill, AB45, would have bearing on whether or not FCMAT reports in Oakland will continue. It does not. 

The July 17 article “Forfeiture Audit Shows Police, City Mismanagement” omitted a statement from the Berkeley city auditor’s office that the chief of police had requested the audit. The article also mistakenly reported that the city auditor had said the bank accounts were “not reconciled”; the auditor’s report said that they were “not timely reconciled.

FRIDAY, JULY 20 

THEATER 

Actors Ensemble of Berkeley “All in the Timing” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m. at Live Oak Theater, 1301 Shattuck Ave. at Berryman, through Aug. 11. Tickets are $12. 525-1620. www.aeofberkeley.org  

Altarena Playhouse “Oh My Godmother” Fri and Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 p.m. at 1409 High St., Alameda, through Aug. 11. Tickets are $17-$20. 523-1553. www.altarena.org 

Aurora Theatre “Bosoms and Neglect” Wed.-Sat. at 8 p.m., SUn. at 2 and 7 p.m. at 2081 Addison St., through July 22. Tickets are $38. 843-4822. www.auroratheatre.org 

California Shakespeare Theater “Man and Superman” by George Bernard Shaw at the Bruns Ampitheater, 100 Gateway Blvd., Orinda, through July 29. Tickets are $15-$60. 548-9666. www.calshakes.org 

Central Works “Bird in the Hand” Thurs-Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 5 p.m. at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant Ave., through July 29. Tickets are $9-$25. 558-1381. 

Contra Costa Civic Theater “Meet Me in St. Louis” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 p.m. in July at 951 Pomona Ave., at Moeser, El Cerrito, through Aug. 4. 524-9132. 

Impact Theatre “Impact Briefs 8: Sinfully Delicious” Thurs.-Sat. through July 21 at La Val’s Subterranean, 1834 Euclid Ave. Tickets are $10-$15. 464-4468. 

Woodminster Summer Musicals “West Side Story” at 8 p.m. through July 22 at Woodminster Amphitheater in Joaquin Miller Park, 3300 Joaquin Miller Rd., Oakland. Tickets are $23-$36. 531-9597. www.woodminster.com 

FILM 

International Working Class Film Fest “The Scavengers” and “Central Bakery” at 7:30 p.m. at Humanist Hall, 390 27th St., Oakland. Donation $5. www.HumanistHall.net  

Movies About Movies “Hearts of Darkeness” at 3:30 p.m. in the Community Meeting Room, Berkeley Public Library, 2090 Kittredge St. 981-6139. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Music that Cooks Steve Taylor-Ramírez, neo-folk, blues and Latin-hillbilly roots, in a benefit concert to feed the homeless at 7:30 p.m. at College Ave. Presbyterian Church, 5951 College Ave., Oakland. Donation $5-$10.  

The Latin Jazz Youth Ensemble of S.F. at 8 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $15. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Jeff Stein Group at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $10. 845-5373.  

Rachel Efron & Her Quartet at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $12. 841-JAZZ.  

Broun Fellinis, The Funkanauts, Winstrong & The 7th Street Sound and others at 7:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $15, or $12 with donation of a canned good. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Jessie Turner at 8 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

Blame Sally at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761.  

Two Headed Spy, Paris King, Sorry Mom and Dad at 10 p.m. at the Sotrok Club, 2330 Telelgraph Ave., Oakland. Cost is $5. 

Brothers Goldman, funk, blues at 9 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810.  

Elizabeth August and friends at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

Push to Talk, The Attachments, The Makes Nice, Poor Bailey at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $7. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

Phobia, Intronaut, Book of Black Earth at 7:30 p.m. at 924 Gilman St., an all-ages, member-run, no alcohol, no drugs, no violence club. Cost is $6. 525-9926. 

Jayson Bales at 10 p.m. at Beckett’s Irish Pub, 2271 Shattuck Ave. 647-1790. www.beckettsirishpub.com 

Sugar Shack at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Mose Allison Trio at 8 and 10 p.m., through Sun. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $12-$22. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

SATURDAY, JULY 21 

EXHIBITIONS 

Berkeley’s “Other” Revolution: Celebrating 35 Years of Independent Living, Disability Access, and Disability Rights. Photographs by Ken Stein on display in the windows of Rasputin Music, 2401 Telegraph Ave., between Channing Way and Haste. 525-2325. 

“Burdened Dreams” Paintings and sculpture by Marty McCorkle and Victoria Skirpa. Artist reception at 6 p.m. at Float Gallery, 1091 Calcott Place, Unit #116, Oakland. 535-1702. 

Art in the Garden featuring Richmond and East Bay artists Sat. and Sun. from 10 a.m. to 2p.m. at Annie’s Annuals, 740 Market Ave., Richmond. 215-1326. 

FILM 

Old Oakland Outdoor Cinema “Ray” with screenwriter James L. White at dusk at Ninth St., between Braodway and Washington. 238-4734. www.filmoakland.org 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Jane Powell on the “Smart Growth” agenda and true green alternatives to enhance respect for neighborhood character, at 1 p.m. at Faith Presbyterian Church, 430 49th St. at Webster, Oakland. Free, donations accepted. 655-3841. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Berkeley Opera “Aïda” at 8 p.m. at Julia Morgan Center for the Arts. Tickets are $15-$40. 925-798-1300. 

Many Faiths, Many Forms: A Sacred Dance Concert at 8 p.m. at First Congregational Church in the Sanctuary, 2345 Channing Way. Tickets are $8.50-$15 adults. 849-0788. www.sacreddanceguild.org 

Meidoko “Unearth” Japanese drumming with electronic instrumentation at 8 p.m. at Capoeira Arts Cafe, 2026 Addison St. Cost is $10.  

Robin Gregory & Her Trio at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $12. 841-JAZZ.  

Kalbass, Haitian at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $12. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com  

Jon Roniger and Jacob Wolkenhauer at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344.  

Sugar Shack at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Carol McComb & Kathy Larisch at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $19.50-$20.50. 548-1761.  

Max Chanowitz Quartet at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $10. 845-5373. 

Nicole McRory at 10 p.m. at Beckett’s Irish Pub, 2271 Shattuck Ave. 647-1790.  

Buxter Hoot’n, Loretta Lynch at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $7. 841-2082.  

Kasey Knudsen Sextet at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

SUNDAY, JULY 22 

THEATER 

San Francisco Mime Troupe “Making a Killing” at 2 p.m. at Mosswood Park, MacArthur and Broadway, Oakland. 415-285-1717. www.sfmt.org 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Second Bay Area Baby Beats with Sterling Bunnell, Marsha Campbell, Joie Cook, Deirdre Evans and Chris Trian, H.D.Moe and Mark Schwartz reading from 4 to 6 p.m. at the Ecology Center, 2530 San Pablo Ave. 548-3402. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Midsummer Mozart, Program I featuring pianist Janina Fialkowska at 7 p.m. at First Congregational Church. Tickets are $30-$60. 415-627-9145. www.midsummermozart.org 

Negro Spirituals Heritage Day at 3:30 p.m. at West Oakland Senior Center, 1724 Adeline St., Oakland. 869-4359.  

Summer Jazz with Robert Stewards at 3 p.m., The History of Jazz with Randy Moore at 4:30 p.m. at Open Jam Session at 5 p.m. at Oakland Public Library, Golden Gate Branch, 5606 San Pablo Ave., Oakland. 597-5023. 

“Stars and Pipes Concert” at 3 p.m. at First Presbyterian Church of Oakland, 2619 Broadway, Oakland. 444-3555. 

“Dietrich & Piaf, The Intimate Song” with Ellen Brooks and Shannon Nicholson at 7 p.m. at Altarena Playhouse, 1409 High St., Alameda. Tickets are $18-$20. Reservations recommended. 523-1553.  

Terrance Kelly at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $10. 841-JAZZ.  

Rahmil & Barley at 11 a.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344.  

Americana Unplugged: Redwing Bluegrass Band at 5 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

Joe Young/Hamir Atwal Group at 4:30 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $10. 845-5373.  

Barbara Dane at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $19.50-$20.50. 548-1761.  

MONDAY, JULY 23 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Color & Light” Photographic art by Bill Hannapple opens at The LightRoom Gallery, 2263 Fifth St., through Aug. 24. 649-8111. www.lightroom.com 

“Shaped by Water” Abstract landscape paintings by Jane Norling opens at the EBMUD Gallery, 375 11th St., Oakland. 287-0138. 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Marc Freedman describes “Encore: Finding Work That Matters in the Second Half of Life” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. 

Richard Denner and David Mansfield Bromige at 7:30 p.m. at Moe’s Books, 2476 Telegraph Ave. 849-2087. 

Poetry Express open mic theme night on “folktales” at 7 p.m., at Priya Restaurant, 2072 San Pablo Ave. 644-3977. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Musica Ha Disconnesso traditional Italian music, at 7 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

John McCutcheon at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage Coffee House. Cost is $24.50-$25.50. 548-1761  

Anthony Blea y su Charanga “A Night in La Havana” at 8 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $10-$16. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

TUESDAY, JULY 24 

EXHIBITIONS 

“At the Med ... Were You There?” Thirty years of sketches from Telegraph Ave.’s Mediterranean Coffee House by Doyl Haley on display at the Berkeley Public Library, 2090 Kittredge St. 981-6100. 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Freight and Salvage Open Mic at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $4.50-$5.50. 548-1761.  

Robin Meredith introduces “The Elephant and the Dragon: The Rise of India and China and What It Means for All of Us” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Flauti Diversi, solo sonatas and suites for recorder, harpsichord and violoncello at 8 p.m. at St. Albert’s Priory, 5890 Birch Ct. off College Ave., Oakland. Tickets at the door are $10-$15. 528-1725. 

Swamp Coolers at 8:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cajun/Western Swing dance lesson at 8 p.m. Cost is $9. 525-5054.  

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

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

Ravi Coltrane at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $10-$18. 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, JULY 25 

FILM 

+---3 with response by entomologist Vincent Resh at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $5-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

“Noisy People” A documentary on sound artists and musicians from the San Francisco improvisational music community at 7:30 p.m. at The Hillside Club, 2286 Cedar St. at Arch. Cost is $10. 843-8724. 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

“Introduction to Jazz Improvisation for Recorders” A workshop with Eddie Marshall, from 1 to 4 p.m. at the Aulos Room, St. Albert’s Priory, 5890 Birch Ct. off College Ave., Oakland. Cost is $20. 528-1725. 

Michael Eric Dyson will discuss his book “Know What I Mean? Reflections on Hip-Hop” at noon at Barnes & Noble at 6050 El Cerrito Plaza, El Cerrito. 524-0087. 

Michael Tucker indroduces his memoir “Living in a Foreign language” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. 

“Writing Teachers Write” Teacher/student readings from the Bay Area Writing Project at 5 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

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

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Berkeley Opera “Aïda” at 7:30 p.m. at Julia Morgan Theater, 2640 College Ave. Tickets are $15-$40. 925-798-1300. 

Terry Disley Experience at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $10. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Orquestra Bakan at 9:30 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low, 2284 Shattuck Ave. Salsa dance lessons at 8 p.m. Cost is $5-$10. 548-1159.  

Buxter Hoot’n at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 848-8277. 

The Adrian Gormley Ensemble at 10 p.m. at Beckett’s Irish Pub, 2271 Shattuck Ave. 647-1790. www.beckettsirishpub.com 

A Global Threat, Monster Squad, The Wednesday Night Heroes at 6 p.m. at Oakland Metro, 201 Broadway. Cost is $7. 763-1146. www.oaklandmetro.org 

Wake the Dead at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $19.50-$20.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Ravi Coltrane at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $10-$18. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

THURSDAY, JULY 26 

CHILDREN 

Zoomobile Come meet unusual animals at 2 p.m. at the Oakland Public Library, Montclair Branch, 1687 Mountain Blvd. 482-7810. 

FILM 

International Latino Film Society “Soledad is Gone Forever” at 7 p.m. at La Peña. Cost is $5-$6. 849-2568.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

“Deep Listening for Recorder Players” A workshop with Tom Bickley and Nancy Beckman at 7 p.m. at St. Albert’s Priory, 5890 Birch Ct. off College Ave., Oakland. Cost is $5. 528-1725. 

Poetry Flash with Susanne Dyckman and Laura Walker at 7:30 p.m. at Berkeley City College Auditorium, 2050 Center St. 525-5476. 

Oakland Out Loud Poetry Reading with poets from PEN Oakland, followed by open mic, at 6 p.m. at the Oakland Public Library, 125 14th St. 238-3134. 

Robin Romm reads from her collection of stories “The Mother Garden” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. 

“Taste Matters” with Benjamin Wurgaft on Jewish food in the eyes of American and European food writers, at 6:30 p.m. at the Magnes Museum, 2911 Russell St. Cost is $6-$8. 549-6950. 

Michelle Redmond reads from her novel “The Year of Fog” at 7:30 p.m. at Mrs. Dalloways, 2904 College Ave. 704-8222. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Kaz George Quartet at noon at the downtown Berkeley BART station. info@downtownberkeley.org 

Polyhymnia “Never and Always” A concert of chamber works for musicians, actors, photographers, and laptops, at 7:30 p.m. at the Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists, 1924 Cedar St. at Bonita. Cost is $10. 548-9050. 

“Voices in the Virtual World” James Minton, Chris Runde and Gene Baker at 8 p.m. at Oaktown Creativity Center, 447 25th St., Oakland. Suggested donation $5-$10. 568-6920. 

Eric McFadden Trio/Satisfied Allstars, featuring Bobby Vega, Jessica Lurie, Dave Watts, Chris Rossback at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $10. 525-5054.  

Rory Block at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $19.50-$20.50. 548-1761.  

Mack Rucks Quartet at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $8. 841-JAZZ.  

Jack Gates Trio, Latin jazz, at 7 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave. 548-5198.  

Willard Grant Conspiracy, Chris Jones at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $8. 841-2082 www.starryploughpub.com 

Fred O’Dell at 10 p.m. at Beckett’s Irish Pub, 2271 Shattuck Ave. 647-1790.  

A Christian McBride Situation at 8 and 10 p.m., through Sun. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $12-$24. 238-9200.  

These days, when the news is usually bad and often horrific, even resolute humanists may be reconsidering misanthropy. Before succumbing to cynicism, check out “Painting to Live,” the moving exhibit at UC Berkeley’s Institute of East Asian Studies. 

The show features paintings, drawings and Christmas cards produced by four artists from Okinawa between 1948 and 1950, along with paintings by one of their students and others by an American doctor, Stanley Steinberg. 

As curator Jane Dulay says in her notes to the show, the exhibit is a testament to “the resilience of the human spirit” and “a celebration of art and life out [of] a period of war and anguish.” 

In 1948 Steinberg was in Okinawa as part of the American military occupation that followed World War II. One day he and three other young American military physicians happened upon a small artist colony near the ruins of Shuri Castle. In a land devastated by war, the artists were trying to recreate their lives. They called themselves the Nishimui Artist Society.  

Steinberg writes of this first meeting: “I was absolutely delighted. Something of Okinawa’s civilization had survived in this absolutely flattened, unfortunate country.” Invited into a studio for a private showing, he asked to buy some of their paintings, which, he says, “were startling good” and also to take painting lessons. His request, which he recalls as “quite bold,” was granted. 

On the one side, the artists “needed an appropriate audience,” as well as a living; they sold their work to Steinberg and other physicians in exchange for cartons of Lucky Strike cigarettes, at the time one of the local currencies. On the other side, the young Americans were seeking out culture and community in a ravaged foreign place. “For the next two years,” Steinberg writes, “our weekends were spent together.” 

In 1950 Steinberg returned to the United States, left the military and began practicing psychiatry in San Francisco. He cherished the memory of his encounter with the Okinawan artists and hung their landscape paintings on the walls of his office. And there they might have remained, out of the public eye, if not for another happenstance.  

In 1992, Steinberg was supervising Jane Dulay, then a resident in psychiatry. When Dulay walked into Steinberg’s office at the California Pacific Medical Center for the first time and saw the paintings, she told him that they reminded her of the place where she grew up. He asked her where that was.  

Her answer: Okinawa. “It is Okinawa,” he said. That exchange was the beginning of a connection that grew beyond professional collegiality into a deep friendship. It also sparked Dulay’s desire to put on an exhibit of Steinberg’s collection of paintings and photographs of the Okinawan artists. The show, she told me, “was mainly a gift to Stanley. I did it for him.” 

But she did it for herself, too, as a way of “giving back” to the Okinawan people. The daughter of Fillipino immigrants, Dulay grew up on Okinawa because her father was stationed there as a member of the American military. “I’m ashamed of how we as military people treated the Okinawans,” she says. When she was growing up, “There weren’t a lot of models like Stanley Steinberg who mingled with the local community.” She hopes the exhibit will help people realize that “there’s a culture there,” and to increase interest in and respect for Okinawa.  

The members of the Nishimui Artist Society—Masayoshi Adaniya, Kanemasa Ashimine, Itoku Gushiken, Seikichi Tamanaha and Chosho Ashitomi—are now credited with founding Okinawa’s modernist artist movement. But this is the first time that their paintings—landscapes and portraits—have been shown in the United States. Drawn from Steinberg’s and others’ private collections, the exhibit also includes photographs of the artists and the American soldiers who befriended them, all taken between 1948 and 1950.  

Thanks to the show their work is winning new recognition. An Okinawan filmmaker is doing a documentary on “Painting to Live” that will screen in Okinawa in November and that may be shown at the Oakland Museum. And since Dulay issued an internet call for work of the Nishimui artists, the market value of their work has risen substantially.  

“Painting to Live” will be at the Institute of East Asian Studies through Sept. 7. The IEAS Gallery is at 2223 Fulton St. on the 6th floor, open Monday through Friday from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Admission is free. For more information, call 642-2809. 

Image: untitled landscape, 1949, oil on masonite by Kanemasa Ashimine, 1916-1993.

Actors Ensemble—in their 50th year, Berkeley’s senior theater company—turns its attention to David Ives’ All in the Timing, short comedies that are like more developed sketch material, to show another facet of what a community theater can do very well, indeed, at Live Oak Theatre.  

Ives’ six short plays, selected from a bigger repertoire, are somewhat conceptualized, even gimmicky, versions for the stage of the kind of thing once practiced on TV by Sid Caesar and Ernie Kovacs, then, later, Monty Python and the Saturday Night Live troupe. As directed by Jon Wai-keung Lowe, ensemble members (Sam Craig, Nick Crandall, Lia Fischer and Stanley Spenger) try on chosen material that fits them very well. 

The men lift off as “Mere Mortals,” high steel construction workers, chewing the rag at lunch. And the rag yields the taste of past riches, as Charlie (Stanley Spenger) reveals he’s not just the blue-collar fellow he seems. With “Words, Words, Words,” Nick Crandall, Sam Craig and Lia Fischer get under the skin of the simians set up to randomly type out copy that must, statistically, shape up as Hamlet—eventually. There’s a little rage, some spirited swinging, ape-like cynicism—and Fischer’s tantalizing toe-picking at the keyboard. 

With “Variations on the Death of Trotsky,” the material really gets into that special area between parody and burlesque—and the cast is more than up to it. “The Universal Language” takes a refreshing step back into the sort of routine a Red Skelton could—and would—pull off. 

When Fischer shows up to learn Unamunda, the new universal language, Spenger, its sanguine creator, leads her through grammar and diction—all puns and malapropisms that soon has the audience co-dependent on the declensions of Harvard or Howard Hughes to arrive at something in-between that means “How are you!” 

“English Made Simple” makes up the difference between the previous two plays, as an Announcer (Sam Craig) moderates Jack and Jill (Crandall and Fischer) through the various commonplaces and responses of partygoers meeting for the first time. 

It’s a quick, fun evening, lighter even than Actors Ensemble’s full-length comedy fare. It goes to show that there are more arrows in the quiver—or is it strings to the bow?—of community theater than usually conceived. 

All in the Timing 

Actors Ensemble of Berkeley 

Fri.-Sat. 8 p.m. 

Like Oak Theater, 1301 Shattuck Ave. 

through Aug. 11, Tickets $12 

525-1620, www.aeofberkeley.org

The San Francisco Jewish Film Festival, the first and largest of its kind, is now in its 27 year. “Independent Jewish cinema is an expanding, vibrant and surprising field, and our 54 films reflect that,” says Peter Stein, the festival’s executive director.  

The festival begins July 19 at the Castro Theater and continues July 28-Aug. 4 at the Roda Theater in downtown Berkeley. 

In addition to the usual wide range of comedies and dramas, short subjects and features, this year’s program focuses on two particular themes: Jewish boxers, and new documentaries from Israel.  

Between 1901 and 1939 there were 27 Jewish world-champion boxers. More Jews participated in boxing than in any other professional sport. The festival will delve into this history with screenings at the Roda of Orthodox Stance, Jason Hutt’s documentary about Dmitriy Salita (6:30 p.m. Monday, July 30); Edgar G. Ulmer’s 1943 My Son, The Hero (2 p.m. Wednesday, Aug. 1), coupled with Avida Livny’s short mockumentary Max Baer’s Last Right Hook, a fictional tale of the great heavyweight’s experience in 1942 Palestine; and Robert Rossen’s 1947 classic Body and Soul (4:15 p.m. Monday July 23), starring John Garfield.  

The boxing theme continues with a special screening at the Castro Theater of His People (7:30 p.m. Saturday, July 21), a rarely seen 1925 silent film, co-presented with the San Francisco Silent Film Festival and featuring a live jazz score by New York composer Paul Shapiro and his sextet. 

Documentaries from Israel showing at the Roda include Nurit Kedar’s Wasted, an examination of the ongoing conflict between Israel and Lebanon; The Cemetery Club (4:15 Tuesday, July 31), Tali Shemesh’s portrait of the Holocaust generation; Hot House (4:15 Sunday, July 29), Shimon Dotan’s film about Palestinians in Israeli prisons.  

Another festival highlight is sure to be Making Trouble: Three Generations of Funny Jewish Women, a documentary about six great comediennes: Molly Picon, Fanny Brice, Sophie Tucker, Joan Rivers, Wendy Wasserstein and Gilda Radner. The film screens at the Roda at 10 p.m. Saturday, July 28. 

SAN FRANCISCO JEWISH FILM FESTIVAL 

For a complete schedule see www.sfjff.org. Tickets can be purchased through the website or by calling (925) 275-9490 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday through Friday.  

Image: Scene from The Cemetery Club, a new documentary showing at the Jewish Film Festival.

As newlyweds working their way through college while living in the Elmwood in the late 1960s, my parents had little money to spare. The only forms of entertainment they could afford were the occasional game of Video Pong at Dream Fluff Donuts and a monthly visit to the Elmwood Theater. At the time it was an arthouse theater, and the eclectic programming opened up a whole new world of cinema to two young folks raised on Hollywood fare.  

Ten years ago or more, my father recalled to me the pleasures of the Elmwood Theater in those days, and rattled off a list of great films that played there. But the most moving film he saw was one whose title he had long forgotten. All he could remember was that it was a simple and endearing story about the friendship between an old man and a young boy.  

Last week, about halfway through Claude Berri’s debut film The Two of Us (1967), newly released on DVD by Criterion, I realized that this was the film I had heard about all those years before, and that it more than lives up to my father’s fond memory. 

The story takes place during World War II, when a young Jewish boy in Nazi-occupied Paris is sent by his parents to the countryside to live with a family friend’s parents—a Catholic and wholly anti-Semitic elderly couple. The boy is instructed by his parents to conceal his true identity and pass himself off as Catholic, adopting a new name, learning the Lord’s Prayer, and by all means concealing any sign of tell-tale surgical procedures.  

The boy’s new “Grampa” is strident in his opinions about the war that is tearing his country apart, railing against the Communists, the Freemasons, the Brits and the Jews, his ire fueled by the ranting editorials of Philippe Henriot, “the French Goebbels,” to whose Radio Paris broadcasts the old man listens with rapt attention. Against all odds, the old man and the boy, Claude, become inseparable companions, the boy patiently listening to the man’s bigoted speeches and at times playfully debunking them.  

The film begins with sadness and uncertainty as the parents put their boy on a train, unsure whether they’ll ever see him again, but quickly gives way to bucolic depictions of a pastoral summer spent tending rabbits and chasing chickens amid the joy and companionship of a blossoming friendship. Berri’s direction, aided by a wonderful score by Georges Delerue, paints a lyrical portrait of childhood, both in the form of Claude and in the second wind his presence gives to the old man, whose heart has grown weary amid warfare and old age. 

Berri visited Paris schools in search of a boy to play the role and found Alain Cohen, who delivers one of the great child performances. For the old man he cast Michel Simon, a beloved French actor who had fallen on hard times, his career essentially washed up. The Two of Us was a comeback of sorts for him, giving him one of his most memorable roles late in life. Simon’s sensitive portrayal of Grampa delves far deeper than the usual depictions of racists and bigots, revealing the old man as a gentle soul, a kind, generous man whose only real fault is ignorance. When Alain Cohen’s mother showed him a picture of the man he would be acting with and asked the boy if he was nervous about the meeting, Cohen couldn’t understand her meaning. How could anyone be afraid of this big “chocolate cake of a man,” an adorable teddy bear who looked like Santa Claus? 

Much of the film’s power is in its subtlety, for once the action shifts to the farm, the war and all its attendant horrors are barely mentioned. Aside from the old man’s radio, the global context for the tale is merely suggested. But the subtext is nevertheless clear in every scene, providing a quiet undercurrent of solemnity.  

Claude Berri based the movie on his own experience. As a young boy he spent the last six months of the war in hiding on a farm in the countryside with an elderly couple, and The Two of Us is his attempt to capture that magical period of his life. And his choice of Cohen was fortuitous, as the boy, despite his youth, was well aware of the tragedies of the war, his grandparents having perished at Auschwitz.  

French New Wave director Francois Truffaut hailed The Two of Us upon its release. For 20 years, he said, he had been waiting for “the REAL film” about World War II France—not a story not about those who collaborated with their Nazi occupiers, nor about the Resistance, but about the vast majority who simply waited out the war, those “who did nothing, either good or bad.” 

Criterion’s new disc features a beautiful transfer and plenty of extra features, including a new interview with Alain Cohen, 1967 interviews with Claude Berri and Michel Simon, a 1975 television show featuring Berri and the woman who secured his family’s safety during the war, and essays by Truffaut and critic David Sterritt.  

But the best addition to the release is his Le poulet (*The Chicken), Berri’s Oscar-winning 1962 short film, in which the roots of his style are evident. It’s a charming little story of a boy who seeks to save the life of his beloved pet rooster by sneaking out each night to place an egg in its nest in hopes of persuading his parents that it’s a hen. Berri’s affection for the conceits of childhood and his talent for bringing them to the screen are clearly on display here, and he would master the method in his debut feature.  

THE TWO OF US (1967) 

Written and directed by Claude Berri. Starring Michel Simon and Alain Cohen. Music by Georges Delerue. 

$39.95. 87 minutes. In French with English subtitles.  

www.criterion.com.

Richard Denner, dubbed “the Berkeley Barb poet” by Max Scheer, a founder of that fabled ’60s publication, will read with Sonoma County Poet Laureate David Bromige 7:30 p.m. on Monday, July 23, at Moe’s Books, 2476 Telegraph Ave. Admission is free. 

Denner and Bromige will read from the first two sections, “Spade” and “The Petrarch Project,” of their longterm collaborative poem in three parts, The 100 Cantos. Three sections of “Spade” appear on www.goldenhandcuffsreview.com  

“It’s a mock heroic epic,” said Denner, “but not quite Dante. ‘Spade’ is more like the Inferno, and ‘The Petrarch Proj-ect’ started as a Petrarchian sonnet for David’s wife on her birthday, and has many humorous, transliterary Petrarchian themes.” 

Denner was born in Santa Clara, “but I think of myself as an old Berkeley hand,” he said. His adoptive parents had lived in Berkeley and he went to school here, later to high school in Oakland, then entered UC Berkeley in 1959.  

“It was the beginning of the student unrest. The House Un-Amerian Activities Committee was supposed to convene in the Bay Area that year, but put it off till the next. I had [poet and critic] Thomas Parkinson for English 101, who was intimidating as a professor. He scared the pants off of us!” 

“I didn’t grow up in a family of artists,” Denner said. “I knew [poet] Joaquin Miller’s daughter, who gave me a book of his. It wasn’t Keats or Shelley, but he did celebrate the area. I memorized some poems. Then I made the discovery that people write poetry. Then it seemed everybody did it.”  

He mentioned the influence of jazz at San Francisco’s Black Hawk, first getting kicked out as underage, then admitted again when the club put in a special section for minors.  

Later Denner enrolled in Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, and was told by a professor to go see Robert Creeley at the Berkeley Poetry Conference in 1965. “That cut me loose. It was a mind-blowing, white-light experience. Creeley, Charles Olson, Allen Ginsberg, Jack Spicer, Lew Welch ... and there were younger poets like Jim Thurber and David Gitin.” 

Denner “ran into Max Scheer, who thrust me into service for The Barb. I guess I was part of the family. I began to look at the world for a story, to write about it—the metaphor was right in front of you, not in your head. I wrote a story about students trying to stop a troop train.”  

Denner talked about the Berkeley street scene: “I was trying to be like a street poet, using magic markers to write on napkins at Cafe Med for espressos, on girls’ arms and feet ...” 

Other street poets were busted for obscenity, for begging. “There was a difference between the newer hippie poets and the older poets, like the Beats. We were trying to follow their instructions, their advice, but had been influenced by JFK, very idealistic,” he said.  

After stints in Alaska and Ellensburg, Wash., involved in small town life, running galleries, bookstores, and his series of chapbooks, Denner returned to the Bay Area. He cited the influence in poetics of Luis Garcia (“who strung my short poems together—and suddenly I had long poems”) and Jack Spicer (“his idea of the serial poem [short poems on a sequence that becomes narrative] led to the way I published my serial chapbooks, a continuous poem in a way.” 

Denner, an ordained Buddhist monk, now lives in Sonoma County, and is working on a kind of “mural of ’60s Berkeley poetry, with a real cast of characters. There must be 500 poets connected with Berkeley ... Berkeley is kind of the Holy Grail; it always gave me what I wanted.”

Dietrich and Piaf, La Chanson Intime (The Intimate Song), the story of two great stars and their friendship, with cabaret music and song, will be performed just this Sunday at 7 p.m. by the authors, Ellen Brooks as Piaf and Shannon Nicholson as Dietrich. The play will be at Altarena Theatre, 1409 High St. in Alameda, with music director and accordionist Deb Cimbellon, Armando Fox on piano and Ted Barker as announcer. Set just after World War II, when Piaf was in the Resistance and Dietrich was entertaining (and risking her life), the play expresses the sympathy between “two icons who both led intensely private lives.” Piaf, at whose first wedding Dietrich was matron of honor, died in 1963; Dietrich lived on for decades after. Tickets are $18-$20. Reservations recommended, 523-1553.

“It’s a castle!” a friend said when I showed her a picture of the turreted Gester House, at 2620 Piedmont Avenue in Berkeley. 

With five bedrooms and two baths it’s not really a castle, but it does make you look twice. The unpainted concrete exterior, formed to resemble stone, is quite out of the ordinary for a Berkeley home. It looks a bit like an English country villa, set back from the street behind a green lawn.  

The house is on the market for $1,090,000 and is open this coming Sunday, July 22, from 2-4:30 p.m.  

William Burr Gester, the original owner, was a civil engineer who had the house built in 1905 of reinforced concrete with a “Roman stone” concrete veneer. It’s thought to be the first reinforced concrete residence in Berkeley, completed just in time for the 1906 earthquake. 

The gray “Roman Stone” exterior is concrete mixed with bits of stone and cast into concrete blocks that look like cut stone. Some are deeply rusticated to resemble rough-hewn stone. 

“The whole building rose and fell as a single mass, without creak, or groan, or complaining strain,” Gester wrote after the earthquake. Residents were thrown to the floor by the vigorous shaking, and “pictures, furniture, the chain-hung electroliers, everything not fastened…was put into instantaneous motion, the commotion and din being indescribable.”  

However, there was only a small amount of damage to one chimney and parts of the entry porch, serving “as an example of the value of a simple type of ferro-concrete construction.” 

Although the house weathered the earthquake, the Gesters—William, wife Kate, and two sons who both became geologists—don’t seem to have lived at 2620 Piedmont for very long. By 1908 they were at 2800 Derby a few blocks to the southeast. 

The arcaded entry porch has an interesting seating nook, hanging lantern, patterned concrete floor and painted wooden ceiling. 

Inside there’s a central stair hall, and a large living room to the right, across the front of the house. The living room incorporates the first level of the turret—note the intricate woodwork of the turret floor. A columned fireplace is now painted white but looks to be made out of cast concrete, or stone.  

West of the stair hall there’s a dining room then a large back bedroom. Kitchen, storage pantry, butler’s pantry, a full bathroom, laundry porch, and two small hallways round out the first floor. 

A substantial concrete stair grandly descends to the garden from the back door, complete with back doorbell, probably for tradesmen.  

Upstairs, a large master bedroom extends across the eastern front of the house and two other bedrooms shelter under a south-facing dormer. A large fourth bedroom at the back accesses a small deck and metal spiral staircase to the yard.  

Gleaming inlaid hardwood floors (carpet in the upstairs hall), paneled doors, and painted woodwork all continue from downstairs. The second floor bathroom has a venerable marble corner sink. A galley kitchen, accessible from both hall and back bedroom, is tucked in next to the bath.  

A 1977 historic resources survey says “the house has been divided into apartments.” Two kitchens and the second “front door” from the main porch (note the holes for two doorbells) seem to attest to that. 

An architectural history of this house would be immensely intriguing. Is there a box beam ceiling similar to that in the entry hall, hidden under the apparently dropped ceiling in the dining room? Was the built-in seat moved across the room from where a window bay was altered for that second wire glass “front door”? 

Is a vanished doorway to the kitchen indicated by the jog in the crown molding in the front hall? Why were four of the window sashes in the two-story tower converted to vertical divided lights?  

What was the original finish on the walls? Some who saw the house years ago remember the dining room at least as having dark woodwork, but all wainscoting, casework, and trim is now painted in white and light tones.  

An early photo shows that a high, horizontal window in the living room was replaced decades ago by two side-by-side double-hung windows. 

The wide yard—grass, ivy, some shrubbery, a large redwood—has a concrete parking slab to the side. Look up. From the rear, under its hipped roof, the house appears much smaller than it seems inside. 

The interior is refurbished, carefully painted and polished, and lightly staged. At present, though, most of the spacious rooms are as empty as the known historical record. With a century old house like this, one wonders about the procession of people who once called it home. 

Something is known of Joseph Leonard (1850-1929) who built the house, real estate man, designer, contractor, and yachtsman, he was profiled in detail by Dave Weinstein in the April 10, 2004, San Francisco Chronicle.  

Leonard was an active and energetic businessman, originally from Texas, who developed the Ingleside Terrace district in San Francisco and what’s known as Leonardville, a distinctive Victorian neighborhood in Alameda.  

Weinstein writes that Leonard subscribed to a “Romantic, anti-urban vision” that provided comfortable, detached, houses on large lots close to street railways connected to denser commercial and office districts. 

Leonard integrated elements of both Victorian and Arts and Crafts design into his buildings. The Gester House is not conventionally “Victorian”, but if you added painted wood shingles and decorative trim to the exterior, it could pass for a Queen Anne.  

Only a few other Leonard-built houses have been identified in Berkeley. They range in style from Colonial Revival to brownshingle, to Classic Box.  

The calm neighborhood surrounding 2620 Piedmont is enclosed by busy College Avenue, Dwight, Way, Warring Street. To the north is the UC student-oriented Southside district, to south and southwest the determinedly single-family residential Claremont-Elmwood. 

A block and a half north and you’re in a district of apartment houses, fraternities and sororities. But traffic barriers on Etna and Piedmont help make this 2 x 3 block district a quiet enclave with large, mainly single-family, homes and lots of greenery. 

Most of the surrounding houses are a century or more old. The land where they stand was acquired by pioneer farmer and Irish immigrant John Kearney around 1860.  

In 1876, he subdivided this portion into large “villa” lots. Some homes were built, but much remained fallow until the College Avenue streetcar line came through early in the century. Then, within a decade, the district rapidly built up. 

Barbara Reynolds at Prudential California Realty is the listing agent for 2620 Piedmont. www.barbarareynolds.com 

To reach the house while avoiding traffic barrier confusion, head east two blocks on Derby Street from College Avenue, then turn left onto the 2600 block of Piedmont. 

This article will eventually be expanded at berkeleyheritage.com into a more detailed photo essay on the house and its history. 

The Gester House, at 2620 Piedmont Ave. is open Sunday, 2-4:30 p.m. 

Photograph: The turreted Gester house dates to 1905 and is thought to be the oldest reinforced concrete residence in Berkeley. 

I ran into an old friend from hospital nursing days and we got together to go on about old times and friends—it’s amazing how many of them are still working where we’d met; they’re definitely made of tougher stuff than I am—and, surprise, about gardens. She’s got a rental house with a yard and a co-operative landlady and a pleasant garden already, and was looking for ways to make the place bloom more. 

She also has a neighbor with a rototiller, and he’s worked over some of the back yard already. The landlady had some sod installed, just a little playspace for the fox terrier and the cat, both of whom are engagingly rompity. The cat has been known to ride the dog, just for example, and I think that’s worth a patch of sod. Giddyup, pup. 

There’s a shady patch in front, a northern exposure further shaded by a Chinese elm by the sidewalk. Mister Rototiller has offered to give that little spot, now home to a comb-over of grass, a thorough treatment too, and the landlady wanted to get rid of the tree because “the roots got into her sewer pipes a few years ago.” 

So what am I telling my friend? 

First, vis-à-vis the direst prospect: Please don’t let anyone mess with that tree. It’s one of a row of Chinese elms gracing the whole block. Its shade is light and open—most of the shade on that patch is from the house—and to judge by that block, El Cerrito has a tree crew who do good work at lacing out street trees.  

There’s no reason to believe that that individual’s roots were the ones in the sewer pipe, or that if it were gone that the rest of the street trees’ roots wouldn’t take over. The old rule of thumb is that a tree’s roots extend in a rough circle whose radius is one and a half times the height of the tree, and there are at least four other trees that close to the lot. 

Now, that rototiller. I’m suggesting that she give the neighbor a beer and tell him “No, Thanks this time,” because the tree’s support roots are just under that patch. Instead, put down some organic mulch and plant, oh, native coralbells (Heuchera spp.) or their colorful cultivars, or some nice small bunchgrass and forest flowers.  

The virtues of sweat with regard to garden soil are overrated, in my experience. If you have to get the rutabaga crop in quick because you’ll be living on it all winter, OK. But with a little time, you can lay down some nice organic material and let your earthworms do the work and the neighboring plants, trees, even the soil will be the better for it. Worms are skilled workers.  

American Soil has old reliable Walt Whitman compost for this, but my current crush is their pomace mulch. Pomace is the dry stuff left of grapes after winemaking. As mulch it’s elegant, finely granular, very dark (almost black) and I swear has boosted the red colors in my shady foliage garden.  

Smells better than Walt too.  

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

The town council of Danville has passed an ordinance stating that, as of July 1, an automatic gas shut-off valve must be installed any time a permit is pulled for work of $10,000 or more. 

They also waived the permit fee for stand-alone installation of the valves for a period of two years. What an enlightened group of public servants! Let’s hope their example is an inspiration to every city in this wonderful earthquake country of northern California. 

Do you want to make your city, your neighborhood, your block, safer? Contact your elected city officials and ask them to follow the sterling example of Danville. And have your valve put in, of course. 

Here’s to making your home secure and your family safe. 

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

Like most people, I want to think of myself as a good person. Someone interested in the general welfare, democracy and wholesome values. But like most people, I have a bit of a dark streak. Mayhem is fun. Trouble is more interesting than smooth, well-oiled continuity. Admit it, you probably find earthquakes and plane crashes interesting. The whole news business is based on our fascination with things gone wrong (especially things gone terribly wrong).  

In that spirit, I offer the following bit of lame-brained stuff. It’s only a tiny thing but it’s so rich in stupidity that I thought it might prove for a little good, old-fashioned, mouth-full-of-Cheetos, couch-potato gawking.  

Note our photo. Here’s what you’re looking at: This is a steel, electrical junction-box in the wall at the back of a sink cabinet in a kitchen. The cover plate for the “J-box” is of a type used to install an outlet (the big cover has a smaller opening just right for a small device). There probably used to be an outlet installed here, although given the lack of acumen and forethought in evidence, it’s absolutely possible that this was the coverplate the “electrician” (please excuse my very loose use of this term) had on the truck and “was gonna come back and put that little cover on real soon.” How the time gets away from us. Darn. 

Note the swell job done setting the J-box in the wall. It ended up getting “mudded-in” or buried in a layer of drywall joint-compound (AKA mud) because it was partially installed behind the plane of the drywall. This will necessitate excavation every time the box gets opened to make a change and will make it extremely hard to create a neat finish when installing an outlet and coverplate. Sloppy, thoughtless and no pride of workmanship. 

As a result, it was hard to get the cover to seat properly and as a result of that, it’s hanging open on the left side. Now, watch both hands closely. There’s nothing up my sleeve. It’s about to get interesting. 

Clearly, rats or mice were present. See the steel wool stuffed in all around the edge of the cabinet? This is common, if goofy, technique. Rodents, for all their tiny superpowers, can’t eat steel wool and, therefore, can’t re-enter through channels previously gnawed. It looks pretty awful but, up to this day, I’d never had more complaint about it other than to say that it was an unsightly fix and should be replaced by new drywall, blocked at the framing and supplanted by a more plausible approach to rodent control.  

But wait, this little exterminator was out for more than just rodents. They stuffed the steel wool inside the electrical box through the loose cover and wrapped it all around. This does several things. First, steel wool is a metal and is pretty darned conductive. Not as much as copper but it will do just fine for our experiment. We are, at very least, creating an electrical path between the junction box and the steel wool.  

If a hot wire touches the metal box (or the steel wool that’s been stuffed inside) as a result of some imperfect set of conditions, and this stuff really does happen, the steel wool would become energized. Like a bulb filament, steel wool is so thin that it would begin to glow red hot. 

Here’s an interesting fact. Steel wood burns! Strange, yes, but it’s true. Steel wool tends to glow red hot with only minimal flame (depending upon the air supply, temperature and other factors). In any event, it burns hot enough to set adjacent materials on fire. 

So, we now have a source of energy, a fuse (the kind used to set off a bomb) and some flammable material (your house).  

To make matters even worse, the gaps and holes around the edge of the J-box are, in part, clearly the work of rodents. This means that they communicate through to the crawlspace or the outside. The same small passage through works nicely as an air inlet to accelerate fire when the steel wool begins to burn, driving it up into nice flames and setting the cabinet on fire. 

O.K., I’ll give it a break. Yes, the wires in the box are fairly well covered over (for now) and the steel wool isn’t exactly filling the J-box. It’s not a sure-fire … fire. But that’s not good enough. 

We live in wooden houses. Let me say that again. We live in wooden houses. We put our babies and our parents in wooden houses. We run electricity through them, build fires in them and heat air, water and food with flammable (and explosive) gas inside them. This is, as they say, no mean trick. We do it with codes and practices that requires great attention to detail. We also do them sober and fully awake so that we can be aware of the many ways in which we can work around the rules and arrive at Waterloo. 

I see the work of the roving brainless on a pretty regular basis. This one was fun because it wasn’t obvious. I had to sit there for a while to get the full impact of it. The longer I looked, the bigger my eyes got. I admit it. It was, and is, fun.  

Everybody slows down to watch an accident. What I would wish for (is this my beauty pageant?) is to see a few more people slow down for the one that hasn’t happened yet.  

Photograph by Matt Cantor. This electrical junction box has become a fire hazard. 

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

FRIDAY, JULY 20 

Impeachment Banner Fridays at 6:45 to 8 a.m. on the Berkeley Pedestrian bridge between Seabreeze Market and the Berkeley Aquatic Park. www. Impeachbush-cheney.com 

International Working Class Film Festival with “The Scavengers” and “Central Bakery O, Dridi” at 7:30 p.m. at Humanist Hall, 390 27th St., Oakland. Suggested donation $5. www.HumanistHall.net 

Get a Clue at Your Library with musician Gary Lapow at 10:30 a.m. at South Branch, Berkeley Public Library, 1901 Russell St. 981-6260.  

Berkeley Women in Black weekly vigil from noon to 1 p.m. at Bancroft and Telegraph. Our focus is human rights in Palestine. 548-6310. 

Circle Dancing, simple folk dancing with instruction at 7:30 p.m. at Finnish Brotherhood Hall, 1970 Chestnut St at University. Donation $5. 528-4253.  

SATURDAY, JULY 21 

Berkeley Alliance of Neighborhood Associations meet at 9:30 a.m. at First Presbyterian Church, 2407 Dana St., Geneva Bldg. Rm. 206 (2nd Fl) Mariebowman@pacbell.net  

Trails Challenge in the Miller/Knox Regional Shoreline from 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Bring water, lunch, sunscreen and sturdy walking shoes for this 4.5 mile excursion with steep ups and downs. For meeting place call 525-2233. 

Fresh Tracks in Point Pinole on a easy-paced 1.5 mile walk along the shoreline park preserved by dynamite. Walks begin at 10 a.m. and 11:30 a.m. For information and meeting place call 525-2233. 

Trees are Treasures Learn about the diverse species of trees in Tilden Park on a 2 mile walk. Meet at 2:30 p.m. at the Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park. 525-2233. 

Chapel of the Chimes Historical and Botanical Tour of this Julia Morgan landmark and its maze of gardens, alcoves, chapels and more, from 10 a.m. to noon at 4499 Piedmont Ave., Oakland. RSVP to 228-3207. 

Art Deco Tour of Uptown Oakland Meet at 11:30 a.m. in front of the Oakland Paramount Theater, 2025 Broadway, for atour of Oakland’s Deco buildings including the Floral Depot, Fox Theater, I Magnin, Breuners and more. 415-982-3326. www.artdecosociety.org 

Walking Tour of Historic Oakland Churches and Temples Meet at 10 a.m. at the front of the First Presbyterian Church at 2619 Broadway. Tour lasts 90 minutes. For reservations call 238-3234.  

Introduction to Alameda County Bioregional Ecology A workshop in the Sausal Creek Restoration Area discussing interrelationships, and practicing hands-on learning techniques and restoration. Meet at Sausal Creek restoration area in Dimond Park at 8:30 a.m. Bring a bag lunch, good walking or hiking shoes, and work gloves. Cost is $35-$50, limited scholarships and work exchanges available. To register call 415-285-6556. www.planetdrum.org 

Standing Together for Accountable Neighborhood Development with author Jane Powell on the “Smart Growth” agenda and true green alternatives to enhance respect for neighborhood character, at 1 p.m. at Faith Presbyterian Church, 430 49th St. at Webster, Oakland. Free, donations accepted. 655-3841.  

“Animals, Sea Creatures and Animation” Paintings, sculpture, digital and fiber art and more, in a benefit for Hopalong Animal Rescue. Meet the artists, and join in art projects from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Expressions Gallery, 2053 Ashby Ave. 644-4930.  

SolarCity Informational Meeting Find out if your home or business is a good candidate for solar power, at 10 a.m. at Live Oak Park Rec Center in North Berkeley. 888-765-2489. www.solarcity.com 

Kite-Making in conjunction with the summer reading of “The Kite Runner” by Khaled Hosseini, at 2 p.m. at the Berkeley Public Library, 3rd floor community room, 2090 Kittredge St. 981-6275. 

El Cerrito Historical Society meets at noon in Huber Park, 7711 Sea View Drive, El Cerrito. Please bring a salad, a main dish, or a dessert. 526-7507. 

Weeding Work Party on Cerrito Creek to remove thornless blackberries and cape ivy on the south bank. Meet at 10 a.m. at Adams St., one block west of San Pablo, on the Albany/El Cerrito border, just north of Carlson. 848-9358.  

California Historical Radio Society Open House from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the old KRE radio Station Building, foot of Ashby. Best access is via 67th St. in Emeryville. 524-6798. 

Report on Health Care in Cuba with KPFA’s Emiliano Echeverria, at 8 p.m. at La Peña. Cost is $8-$10. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Nutrition Education and Food Demonstration on how to prepare simple, quick and nutritious family meals from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at San Pablo Liquor & Grocery, 2363 San Pablo Ave., Oakland. Free. 444-7144. 

Fast Pitch Softball for Adults at noon on Saturdays in Oakland. For information call 204-9500. 

Preschool Storytime for 3 to 5-year-olds at 11 a.m. at the Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave. 526-3720 ext. 17. 

Free Lawn Bowling Lessons Wed. and Sat. at 10 a.m. at the Berkeley Lawn Bowling Club, Acton St. at Bancroft Way. 841-2174. 

Free Garden Tours at Regional Parks Botanic Garden Sat. and Sun. at 2 pm. Regional Parks Botanic Garden, Tilden Park. Call to confirm. 841-8732.  

Around the World Tour of Plants at 1:30 p.m., Thurs., Sat. and Sun. at UC Botanical Garden, 200 Centennial Drive. 643-2755. 

Car Wash Benefit for Options Recovery Services of Berkeley, held every Sat. from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Lutheran Church, 1744 University Ave. 666-9552. 

SUNDAY, JULY 22 

“Open Garden” Join the Little Farm gardener for composting, planting, watering and reaping the rewards of our work, from 2 to 4 p.m. at Tilden Nature Area, Tilden Park. 525-2233. 

Family Birdwalk Learn birding basics during a 3 mile walk through a variety of habitats in Point Pinole, from 10 a.m. to noon. For information and meeting place call 525-2233. www.ebparks.org 

Dog Park Behavior Training from 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at Ohlone Dog Park, Grant St. and Hearst Ave. Second class July 29. Cost is $25 for both sessions. Registration required. 845-4213. www.ohlonedogpark.org 

Butterflies and Butterfly Gardening for the whole family from 2 to 4 p.m. at Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park. 525-2233. www.ebparks.org 

Progressive Democrats of the East Bay Annual Potluck Picnic & Politics from noon to 4 p.m. at Codornices Park, Euclid & Eunice, across from the Rose Garden. All welcome.  

Local Medicinal Herbs and Your Health Learn the benefits of herbs and their use in western herbal medicine from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at EcoHouse, 1305 Hopkins St. Bring small pots and hand shovels and leave with an easy to grow medicinal herb. Cost is $15 sliding scale, no one refused for lack of funds. 548-2220, ext. 242. 

How to Inspect a House A workshop for homeowners, prospective buyers and property sellers to learn how to get the most out of a home inspection from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Building Education Center, 812 Page St. Cost is $85. To register call 525-7610.  

Free Hands-on Bicycle Clinic Learn how to repair a flat, from 10 to 11 a.m. at REI, 1338 San Pablo Ave. Bring you rbike and tools. 527-4140. 

Tour of the Berkeley City Club, Julia Morgan’s “little castle” at 1:15, 2:15, and 3:15 p.m. at 2315 Durant Ave. Free, donations welcome. 883-9710. 

Social Action Forum on international environmental concerns at 9:30 a.m. at Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley, One Lawson Rd., Kensington. 525-0302. 

Lime, Peach and Pear Tasting from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Kensington Farmers’ Market, 303 Arlington, behind ACE Hardware, Kensington.  

Free Garden Tours at Regional Parks Botanic Garden in Tilden Park Sat. and Sun. at 2 p.m. Call to confirm. 841-8732.  

Lake Merritt Neighbors Organized for Peace Meet at 3 p.m. at the colonnade at the NE end of the lake. 763-8712.  

Tibetan Buddhism with Sandra Guimares and Roselene Costa on “Beyond Psychotherapy” at 6 p.m. at the Tibetan Nyingma Institute, 1815 Highland Pl. 843-6812.  

MONDAY, JULY 23  

Preserving California’s Japantowns Community meeting on the Historic Japantowns of Berkeley and Oakland at noon at Berkeley Methodist United Church, 1710 Carleton St. Community members are invited to bring historic photos and stories that document community life. 277-2164.  

Peace Corps 50+ An information session and volunteer panel at 6 p.m. at Rockridge Public Library, 5366 College Ave., Oakland. RSVP to 452-8444, nbosustow@peacecorps.gov 

LGBT Family Picnic from noon to 3 p.m. at Lake Temescal, Park View Picnic Area, 6500 Broadway Terrace, Oakland. Bring your own picnic food and blankets. 415-981-1960. stephanie@ourfamily.org 

FOCUS Economy and Environment Forums Join a planning effort that encourages Bay Area urban growth near transit and in existing communities. The economy forum will be held from 10 a.m. to noon, and the environment forum from 1:30 to 3:30 p.m. at Lawrence D. Dahms Auditorium, Joseph P. Bort MetroCenter, 101 8th St., across from Lake Merritt BART, Oakland. Sposored by the Association of Bay Area Governments, the Bay Area Air Quality Management District, the Bay Conservation and Development Commission, and the Metropolitan Transportation Commission. 464-7926. FOCUS@abag.ca.gov, www.bayareavision.org/focusthree-e.html 

“Zero Waste and Climate Protection: Making the Connection” at the Zero Waste Commission meeting at 7 p.m. at North Berkeley Senior Center, 1901 Hearst Ave. 981-7081. 

Family Sing-a-long at 6:45 p.m. at the Fourth Flr. Children’s Library, Berkeley Public Library, 2090 Kittredge St. 981-6223.  

Sing-a-long Circles in the Oak Grove from 4 to 6:30 p.m. at the threatened Oak Grove in front of Memorial Stadium, Piedmont Ave., just north of Bancroft. 658-9178. 

Berkeley CopWatch organizational meeting at 8 p.m. at 2022 Blake St. 548-0425. 

Dragonboating Year round classes at the Berkeley Marina, Dock M. Meets Mon, Wed., Thurs. at 6 p.m. Sat. at 10:30 a.m. For details see www.dragonmax.org 

TUESDAY, JULY 24 

Southwest Berkeley Community Library Needs Assessment Community Meeting at 7 p.m. at LifeLong Medical Care, 3260 Sacramento St. at Alcatraz. 981-6195. 

Bus Rapid Transit: Focus on Southside Berkeley Community Workshop at the Transit Subcommittee of the Transportation Commission at 6:30 p.m. at 2362 Bancroft Way. 981-7010.  

Public Meeting on Bay Area Transportation Planning The Federal Highway Administration and Federal Transit Administration are reviewing the Bay Area's transportation planning process carried out by the Metropolitan Transportation Commission. The public in invited to comment at 5 p.m. at the Joseph P. Bort MetroCenter Auditorium, 101 Eighth St., across from Lake Merritt BART, Oakland. 817-5757. www.mtc.ca.gov 

East Bay Vivarium’s Traveling Reptile Show at 7 p.m. at the Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave, Albany. 526-3720 ext 17. 

“Looking Outside the Big Box for Local Economic Growth” with Jeff Milchen, co-founder of the American Independent Business Alliance at 7 p.m. at The Home of Truth, 1300 Grand St., between Encinal and Central, Alameda. Sponsored by Action Alameda and California Healthy Communities Network, a project of non-profit Tides Center. 522-2208. www.calhcn.org  

Educator’s Academy on Natural History for pre-school to 3rd grade teachers to learn easy ways to liven up lessons on natural history. From 9:30 to 3 p.m. at Tilden Nature Center. Fee is $45-$51, registration required. 1-888-EBPARKS. 

“Mobility Matters for Older Drivers” a video presentation at 1 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center, 1901 Hearst. 981-5190. 

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. 

Free Diabetes Screening Come find out if you might have diabetes with our free screening test and make sure not to eat or drink anything for 8 hours beforehand, from 8:45 to 1:30 a.m. at the Downtown Oakland Senior Center, 200 Grand Ave. 981-5332. 

Tuesday Documentaries at 7 p.m. at the Gaia Arts Center, 2120 Allston Way. Donation of $5 benefits the Berkeley Food and Housing Project. 665-0305. 

Berkeley PC Users Group meets at 7 p.m. at 1145 Walnut St. MelDancing@aol.com 

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 

Community Sing-a-Long every Tues, at 2 p.m. at the Albany Senior Center, 1247 Marin Ave. 524-9122.  

Family Storytime for preschoolers and up at 7 p.m. at the Kensington Library, 61 Arlington Ave. 524-3043. 

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, JULY 25 

Tilden Tots Join a nature adventure program for 3 and 4 year olds, each accompanied by an adult (grandparents welcome)! We’ll learn about butterflies from 10 to 11:30 a.m. at Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park. Cost is $6-$8. Registration required. 1-888-EBPARKS. 

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 

“The Political Scene: State and County Priorities” with Alameda County Supervisor Keith Carson at the Berkeley Gray Panthers meeting at 1:30 p.m. at North Berkeley Senior Center, 1901 Hearst. 548-9696. 

South Berkeley Library Move with Noll & Tam Architects who have been hired to investigate possible spaces for the library at the Ed Roberts Campus, at Board of Library Trustees meeting at 5 p.m. at South Branch Library, 1901 Russell Street at MLK, Jr., Way. 981-6107. 

“Climate Protection and Berkeley’s Built Environment” at the Planning Commission meeting at 6 p.m. at North Berkeley Senior Center, 1901 Hearst Ave. 981-7081. 

Prevent Scams, Fraud and Identity Theft A presentation to help seniors at 7 p.m. at the Persian Center, 2029 Durant Ave. RSVP to 848-0264. 

Walk Berkeley for Seniors meets every Wednesday at 9:30 a.m. at the Sea Breeze Market, just west of the I-80 overpass. Everyone is welcome, wear comfortable shoes and a warm hat. Heavy rain cancels. 548-9840. 

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, JULY 26 

Tilden Tots Join a nature adventure program for 3 and 4 year olds, each accompanied by an adult (grandparents welcome)! We’ll learn about butterflies from 10 to 11:30 a.m. at Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park. Cost is $6-$8. Registration required. 1-888-EBPARKS. 

Tilden Explorers A nature adventure program for 5-7 year olds. We’ll learn about butterflies from 3:15 to 4:15 p.m.. Cost is $6-$8, registration required. 1-888-EBPARKS. 

Starry Night Skies with Celeste Burrows from the Chabot Space and Science Center followed by a 3 mile hike to Wildcat Peak to watch the sunset, search for constellations and observe the moon. At 6:30 p.m. at Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park. 525-2233. 

FOCUS Equity Forum Join a planning effort that encourages Bay Area urban growth near transit and in existing communities, from 1:30 to 3:30 p.m. at Lawrence D. Dahms Auditorium, Joseph P. Bort MetroCenter, 101 8th St., across from Lake Merritt BART, Oakland. Sposored by the Association of Bay Area Governments, the Bay Area Air Quality Management District, the Bay Conservation and Development Commission, and the Metropolitan Transportation Commission. 464-7926.  

“The Truth About Darfur and the Struggle for African Liberation” A teach-in and fundraiser at 7 p.m. at Interplay, 2273 Telegraph Ave, Oakland. 625-1106. www.solidarityforafrica.org 

Kibale Community Fuel Project A report on how innovative stoves are being used in Uganda, at 6:30 p.m. in the Marian Zimmer Auditorium, Oakland Zoo. 632-9525, ext. 122. 

“Staying Human in the Computer Age” A conference on the the challenges of and opportunities for human identity in the computer age. Thurs.-Sun. at International House, Piendmont Ave. at Bancroft. For information call 415-567-5115. www.binarybeing.org 

Compressed Natural Gas Station Grand Opening at 10 a.m. at 205 Brush St., West Oakland. Includes a display of alternative fuel vehicles. 238-2966. 

Easy Does It Board of Directors’ Meeting at 6:30 p.m. at 1636 University Ave. 845-5513.  

Cope with Creativity Workshop on “Art to Express Grief” at 6:30 p.m. at 4401 Howe St., Oakland. To register call 888-755-7855, ext. 4241. 

CITY MEETINGS 

Zero Waste Commission Mon., July 23, at 7 p.m., at 1201 Second St. 981-6368.  

Civic Arts Commission meets Wed., July 25, at 6:30 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Mary Ann Merker, 981-7533.  

Energy Commission meets Wed., July 25, at 6:30 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-5434.  

Police Review Commission meets Wed., July 25, at 7:30 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-4950.  

Zoning Adjustments Board meets Thurs., July 26 , at 7 p.m., in City Council Chambers. Mark Rhoades, 981-7410.  

Mental Health Commission meets Thurs. July 26, at 6:30 p.m. at 2640 MLK Jr. Way, at Derby. 981-5213.