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Ken Sarachan’s vision for a key corner of Telegraph Avenue features a rooftop park for public events over a commercial building that also includes a Free Speech Museum filled with 
          memorabilia from Berkeley’s radical past. The rooftop courtyard would open onto Haste Street, framed on either side by  pagoda-like towers filled with tenant-configured apartments.
Ken Sarachan’s vision for a key corner of Telegraph Avenue features a rooftop park for public events over a commercial building that also includes a Free Speech Museum filled with memorabilia from Berkeley’s radical past. The rooftop courtyard would open onto Haste Street, framed on either side by pagoda-like towers filled with tenant-configured apartments.
 

News

Pagodas? on Telegraph?

By Richard Brenneman
Tuesday August 14, 2007

Eclectic Building Plan Certain to Stir Up Plenty of Free Speech 

 

If he gets his way, Ken Sarachan will revolutionize Telegraph Avenue. 

And if he doesn’t accomplish anything else, the plans he’s shown to city officials, calling for a pagoda-bedecked architectural extravaganza on the vacant lot at Telegraph and Haste Street, has set tongues wagging. 

“They’re something, “said Greg Powell, the city’s principal planner assigned to shepherd the project. 

“But it’s an incomplete submittal,” he said, “and we are not prepared to act until he submits a whole bunch of stuff.” 

“I haven’t really looked closely at them,” said Councilmember Kriss Worthington, whose district includes Telegraph Avenue. “I’m not sure what to say.” 

But if Ken Sarachan has his way, the pagodas will crown “Berkeley’s greenest building,” housing businesses on the first floor, a Free Speech Movement museum on the mezzanine, a grassy rooftop park doubling as a venue for live entertainment and public events, and a collection of pagodas accommodating a restaurant and what could become Berkeley’s most unique apartments. 

He calls it the Free Speech and Architectural Expression Building, “the Free Speech Building for short.”  

It’s certain to cause plenty of both speech and expression, not unfamiliar occurrences to a man who first cast eyes on The Avenue when he transferred to Berkeley from the University of Toronto in 1970—when Berkeley was boiling over at President Richard Nixon’s invasion of Cambodia. 

 

Buildings, builder 

Sarachan’s plans cover a long-vacant northeast corner and the site now occupied by the landmarked 1876 John Woolley House at 2509 Haste, which Sarachan has acquired from the previous owner, UC Berkeley. 

His bold vision comes at a time when Telegraph Avenue has been struggling with both an identity crisis and mounting economic worries. 

As founder of the Rasputin Music and Blondie’s Pizza chains and the owner of two other buildings on The Avenue, Sarachan ranks as the avenue’s preeminent entrepreneur, as well as something of a character. 

“He’s always amusing,” said Worthington. 

Asked if he thought the project was serious, Berkeley Principal Planner Gregg Powell, the city official designated to oversee the permitting process, didn’t hesitate. “He knows how to get things built,” he said. 

Sarachan rehabilitated the Rasputin’s building at 2304 Telegraph and what he calls “an ode to steel and glass—the Deco/Modern glass and stainless temple of commerce at the southwest corner of Telegraph and Durant that currently houses Bear Basics, Futura clothing and a basement-level T-Shirt Orgy. 

For his third project, “my first thought was to build a really modern kind of building which would involve modern technology and ideas,” he said. “But then I got the idea that what Telegraph really needed was a mystical building, and a mystical building is built on a myth, and a myth has a story behind it, a legend.” 

Finding inspiration in amateur British historian Gavin Menzies’s controversial 1421: The Year China Discovered America, Sarachan tells the story of shipwrecked Chinese sailors who explored the Southwest, then settled in Berkeley, intermarrying with local tribesfolk and creating their own village, a fusion of Asian design and Native American motifs. 

For what he called “my third and final building,” he chose architect Robert McGillis of the Emeryville firm of Philip A. Banta both because they’d worked together on an earlier Telegraph and Haste project, and because he’d been spurned by other local architects. 

 

Exuberant plans 

A quick glimpse at Sarachan’s exuberant plans reveals a phantasmagorical scheme, crowned by two 65-foot-tall pagodas marking the two corners facing Haste. It’s certain to draw both attention and more bodies to the legendary street. 

A single commercial floor covers all of the property, Sarachan said, “and I imagine we’ll have two or three tenants.” 

A ramp and the smaller mezzanine floor that it reaches will house a Free Speech Museum. “We have collected over 5,000 artifacts for it,” he said. Exhibits, including books, films, posters, journals, “Communist Party cards and other ephemera,” and will cover Berkeley’s radical history “from the turn of the 20th century up to the 1980s.” 

“It will be marketed like a museum, and we’ll have a computerized data base for research,” he said. 

But it’s what lies above, rising from a central grass-covered park-like central gathering place—complete with a flowing stream arising from atop an artificial hillside—that’s certain to draw the most eyes and spark the most spirited conversations. 

Above the grassy sward to the east and west are two artificial and landscaped ridgelines, broken by airy, ornamented pagodas, joined at the northern end by a temple-like building. 

In realty, the ridges hide apartments, as well as a restaurant dining room with three tall mullioned windows overlooking the Telegraph street scene. The eatery’s kitchen occupies most of the “temple’s” ground floor. 

“The unique feature is that the upper structures are based on a trapezoid rather than a box,” Sarachan said. “That makes it possible to create a hillside.” 

The pagodas, as well as the upper floors of the temple, will house more apartments, most with windows on three of their four walls, and all with movable wall panels allowing internal space to be configured to the tenant’s desires. “It’s like a loft in that respect,” he said. “They’ll be able to decide on how many bedrooms they want, or if they want to leave it open.” 

The only open vista is found on Haste, where the courtyard overlooks the street between the two four-story pagoda towers that anchor the ends of the eastern and western ersatz ridgelines. 

The commercial base structure will be concrete construction, Sarachan said, while the upper structures will be made of lighter material, incorporating “a lot of wood, tile and glass, and carved wood on the exterior. 

Plans call for the housing to be about 90 percent complete when tenants move in, with the skills for the artistry and craftwork of the finish—including tile work and railing ornamentation—to come from the pagoda-dwellers themselves. 

 

Green scheme  

The Telegraph Avenue entrepreneur acknowledges that the full implementation of his plans could be expensive, especially when he promises to erect “the greenest building ever in Berkeley.” 

“It’s going to cost way too much, and I’m looking for co-investors who want to lose a lot of money for sure,” he quips. “So far I haven’t found any.” 

As his first mixed-use development, Sarachan’s proposal calls for something quite different from what he calls the basic boxes built in Berkeley in recent years. 

“Sometimes the box has another section that’s cantilevered out three or four feet and painted in different colors,” he said, “and maybe there’re some other architectural enhancements. But they’re all boxes.” 

A key element in greening the building is the grassy plaza that occupies the central area of the roof. “The U-shape with the opening to the south is the best way of getting warmth and maximum sunlight for the residential tenants,” he said. 

“There’s also no better insulation than soil. It’s cool in the summer and warm in the winter,” he said. The soil itself will vary in depths between three and eight inches, except for pockets where greater depths are need for trees. 

The ridges themselves will feature hundreds of species of native California plantings. “Basically,” he said, “it’s a botanical garden.” 

Green materials will also be used for construction. “It will be green,” he said, “Although the way that word is used in television ads by companies like BP [the former British Petroleum] and [corporate agriculture giant] ADM, I’ve decided to be blue instead.” 

 

Rooftop venue 

The concept for the project arose “because I’ve had tremendous affection for Telegraph Avenue for 35 years,” Sarachan said, “but my affection for The Avenue and all its issues and attributes has been diminishing of late. I care a little bit less than I did a few years ago.” 

A lack of spontaneity and the complexities of getting permits, arranging for streets closures and other red tape has restricted street fairs on The Avenue. 

“Since the decline of commerce began, basically in the last five years, I have tried to organize closures of the street on weekends, and I’ve tried to organize book fairs, spring and Easter festivals and other events, but there have always been problems with organization, insurance, bathrooms, paying for the police—it’s been hard to get things accomplished. 

“The way it is now, two festivals a year—the Christmas Fair and the World Music Festival—do not sustain the avenue for the other 50 weeks. Telegraph needs some sort of attraction,” especially given the decline in book and music stores and The Avenue’s vacant storefronts. 

“So I want to do something with a little flare, with special events to bring in business for the stores and the street vendors. We’ll do a lot of advertising for special events, and I think I have the expertise to make that possible,” he said. 

 

Site history 

A city document prepared by staff nine years ago described the site’s troubled past: 

For decades, the now-vacant property had housed the Berkeley Inn, a single-room-occupancy hotel catering to low-income residents. Two fires, one in 1986, which gutted 77 units, and another in 1990, destroyed the building. 

The city demolished the ruins following the last fire, and after repeated efforts to collect the costs from the owner, Sutter Land and Development Co. Inc., filed liens which were sustained through a series of lawsuits. 

The city next tried to buy the site in partnership with the nonprofit Resources for Community Development (RCD), formulating a plan which called for 39 units to be built, 32 of them reserved for low-income tenants, with ground floor retail space for Amoeba Music. 

That plan died with the election of Mayor Shirley Dean, who objected to the high unit costs and the use of $3 million in public funds, half from the city Housing Trust Fund. 

When RCD’s option expired, Sarachan bought the site for $800,000 and assumed the liens. 

After a series of attempts to develop the property with help from city housing funds and plans that called for a significant number of low-income units, Sarachan told the City Council in 1997 that the economics would work out. 

After the Telegraph Area Association urged development of the site together with the possible lot occupied by the landmarked John Woolley House, then-City Manager Weldon Rucker ordered staff to prepare plans for a mixed-use development. 

A year later, city staff suggested waiving the liens to spur Sarachan into action, though it took nearly five years before a final agreement was adopted in February 2003, setting Sept. 22, 2004 as the deadline for submission of plans. 

However, they were submitted incomplete and filed away, leaving the project in a state of suspended animation until the new plans were submitted last month. 

Sarachan’s plans come as real estate broker/developer John Gordon is completing his plans for moving the Woolley House and the landmarked Ellen Blood House at 2526 Durant Ave. to a lot at the southwest corner of Regent Street and Dwight Way. 

The new plans are still incomplete, planner Greg Powell said. 

“We need better drawings,” he said. “We need a full set of architectural plans, full site plans, complete floor plans. We need to know how he is going to comply with the city’s inclusionary ordinance.” 

The inclusionary ordinance requires developers of buildings with five or more apartments or condos to either set aside 20 percent of their units for low-income tenants or median-income buyers or pay compensatory fees to allow construction of units elsewhere. 

“If he pulls it off, it could become quite a local landmark,” Powell said. 

 

Bottom line 

So is Sarachan really serious? 

“I’m serious in that I’ve spent a lot of time and money on it, but that doesn’t mean it will actually occur,” he said. “There are about a hundred ways it could not get built, and about a hundred things would have to go right for it to get built. If I were a betting person, I would bet that it never gets built.” 

But if he builds it, he wants to do it well. 

“I figure that every builder should build one really good building for every nine or 10 bad ones he builds. When this is over, I’ll have to build nine or 10 really bad buildings,” he said, offering a rare smile.


Dynes to Leave Top UC Post, Replacement Search Begins

By Richard Brenneman
Tuesday August 14, 2007

University of California President and UC Berkeley Physics Professor Robert Dynes announced his resignation Monday as head of the nation’s leading public university system. 

While the official announcement by the university’s 64-year-old Canadian-born executive said the announcement would take effect June 30, a “Dear Colleagues” letter from Dynes addressed to the university community said he had already asked Provost Walter R. Hume to assume a day-to-day role as UC’s chief operating officer. 

Dynes wrote that he would formally step down earlier if a replacement is named before the announced date, the end of four years at the helm of the UC system. 

“I will be returning to my faculty position next year,” he wrote, “but over the next 10 months I will continue to focus on a number of UC properties,” including an expansion of the system’s “research, development, and delivery portfolio and its impact.” 

UC Board of Regents Chair Richard C. Blum endorsed Dynes’ designation of Hume as acting chief operating officer. “This will allow Bob to focus his attention on further strengthening the university’s position as the state and nation’s premier higher education research partner”—a possible allusion to finalizing the still-unsigned $500 million agrofuel research pact between BP (once known as British Petroleum) and a consortium headed by UC Berkeley that includes Lawrence Berkeley National Lab and the University of Illinois. 

The regents appointed Dynes to the presidency on June 11, 2004, and he stepped into the job from his previous post as chancellor of UC San Diego. 

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger added his praise for the outgoing chief, hailing Dynes as “a great partner in working with my administration to ensure educational excellence for our students.” 

In his letter to the regents, Dynes hailed the compact he had negotiated with the governor and noted that “on my watch, the Regents and I have created a new staff representative to the Board. . .recruited six new chancellors, two provosts, three national laboratory directors and numerous vice presidents with critical functions.” 

One of the lab directors is Steve Chu, the Nobel Laureate physicist who has played a crucial role in landing the BP project. 

Blum, the spouse of U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, announced that a replacement committee would be formed to select a new president. 

Members of the public who would like to suggest a nominee can write to board Secretary Diane Griffiths, Attention: Presidential Search, 1111 Franklin St., 12th floor, Oakland, CA 94607-5200.


Coalition Protests Museum Changes

By Judith Scherr
Tuesday August 14, 2007

Reorganization Hurts Native American Repatriation Efforts, Critics Say 

 

To Lalo Franco of the Tachi Yokut Tribe, the fragments of human remains collected at the UC Berkeley anthropology museum are ancestors and deserve a burial “so that they can continue their journey and be part of the earth again.” 

But some scientists at UC Berkeley’s Phoebe A. Hearst Anthropology Museum consider the biological remains and artifacts as scientific matter, material for the study of the earliest people of the nation. 

“These remains at the Phoebe Hearst Museum are remnants of ancient ancestors, the very people that gave me life,” said Franco, director of the Cultural and Historic Preservation Department of the Santa Rosa Rancheria Tachi Yokut Tribe.  

“They have been uprooted from their eternal rest,” he said. “To me, they are my ancestors, to the scientists, they are bones.” 

A five-person unit at the museum charged with helping to return sacred and significant objects to their Native American owners — and required by the 1990 Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA)—was disbanded in June, according to Franco and other members of a coalition calling for the reinstatement of the museum’s NAGPRA unit. 

Not disbanded, Museum Director Kent Lightfoot told the Planet, “It was reorganized.” 

Lightfoot said the unit was restructured because the museum’s work to inventory Native American artifacts and remains has been completed. When continuing NAGPRA-related work becomes necessary, members of the former unit and others will be called upon, he said. 

Corbin Collins, spokesperson for the coalition calling for reinstating the unit as it had been, said the inventory is far from complete. The museum possesses the second-largest collection of Native American objects, second only to the Smithsonian Institute, with more than 300,000 pieces, among them 12,253 biological individuals. Objects come from 100 California tribes and others across the nation. 

When the inventory was done, 80 percent of the collection was “dumped” into a category called “unidentifiable,” Collins said.  

Franco explained that happened because the university was “under the gun” to comply with the law and hurriedly categorized the remains and the artifacts. 

“Now we’re asking to go back to consult with them,” reviewing some of the remains and artifacts in the “unidentifiable” category, he said, adding that the way Native American objects and remains are treated stems from the invasion of the Spanish, the Russians and others that oppressed the Indians and attempted to obliterate their culture and language. 

“Because we are a conquered people, they think they can do anything,” Franco said. 

“It is crucial to understand that many inventories fall under [the rubric “culturally unidentifiable”] simply because the museum would have been out of compliance with the federal mandate to have the collection inventories for NAGPRA completed by June 2000,” wrote former Interim NAGPRA Coordinator Larri Fredericks in a letter to UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert J. Birgeneau. Fredericks, who was reassigned to other tasks at the museum, was on vacation and not available for comment on Monday. 

An Athabascan from Alaska, Fredericks holds a master’s degree in public health and a doctorate in medical anthropology. 

Her letter to the chancellor goes on to say there was insufficient time for the museum to perform a complete review of the museum collections; “hence, large portions of the collection were categorized as culturally unidentifiable, with the expectation that many tribes would contest these classifications and present evidence…to support claims of cultural affiliation,” Fredericks wrote. 

Relics still need to be considered “on a case-by-case basis,” Collins said, arguing that at issue are “people who want to keep the collection intact,” and not return it to the tribes where the human remains or artifacts originated. 

Lightfoot told the Planet that he understood the tribes would want to evaluate some of the “unidentifiable” objects and remains and that former members of the NAGPRA unit and others would be available to help them. 

He also said he understood the tension between the way Native Americans and scientists view the objects and remains. “We try to look at all different sides,” he said. “We try to be as balanced as possible.” 

Calling the reorganization “a betrayal of trust,” Fredericks condemned the decision made by Vice Chancellor Beth Burnside, arguing that it was “based on a report written by two archeologists who represent research interests that often conflict with tribal claims on the museum’s collection of Native American ancestral remains.”  

Fredericks further wrote, “The review was conducted with a few days notice— before the tribes could be notified and respond—and Native Americans were completely and deliberately excluded from the process, despite my vigorous insistence that they be represented.”  

In an Aug. 6 letter to Birgeneau, the coalition asks for the museum to stop the reorganization, reopen the review process and include Native Americans in the review process.  

If the chancellor does not answer in a satisfactory way, “We will be escalating our protests with peaceful demonstrations,” Collins said.  

“It’s a very complicated and complex issue, with a lot of emotions,” Lightfoot said. 

 

RESOURCES 

• From the coalition: http://nagpra-ucb.blogspot.com 

• Coalition phone number: (510) 652-1567 

• The U.S. Department of the Interior also has an FAQ on NAGPRA at www.nps.gov/history/nagpra/FAQ/index.htm 

• Museum: http://hearstmuseum.berkeley.edu


UC Students Tapped for City Commissions

By Riya Bhattacharjee
Tuesday August 14, 2007

There’s a new kind of campaign at Berkeley City Hall. It aims to tap Berkeley’s best and brightest young minds to solve problems in the city. 

Spearheaded by District 7 Councilmember Kriss Worthington, this effort to get more student commissioners on board first began in 2005.  

Outreach to college students started anew last week when two forums were held at UC Berkeley by Worthington’s office in collaboration with the Associated Students of the University of California (ASUC). 

“It’s about promoting diversity, racial, age and gender,” Worthington told the Planet in an interview at his fifth floor City Hall office Monday. 

“Students are not the only group that are left out. Asians and Latinos are also drastically underrepresented in who gets appointed, elected and hired.” 

Worthington said that the 2005 study had revealed that some politicians in Berkeley had never appointed any students, Asians, Latinos or African Americans. 

“The study played an educational role to alert politicians and communities of the lack of representation,” he said.  

“As a result of the study, commissioners who had never appointed any students, African Americans or Latinos began appointing students, African Americans and Latinos. We haven’t progressed to where things ought to be, but it’s less dreadful than it was before the study.” 

Worthington, who has appointed more student commissioners than any other councilmember since being elected in 1996, has ten of the city’s current 22 student commissioners as his appointees. 

Mayor Tom Bates—with five student appointees—boasts the second best record. 

The 2005 study revealed that there were three times as many Asians and two times as many Latinos in Berkeley as there were on commissions. College students had only 8 percent representation on commissions. 

“Once it’s clear to students what commissions do, it doesn’t seem as daunting as before,” Worthington said. “That’s why we encourage them to attend commission meetings and get an idea about how the process works. I am looking for people who have volunteered in the community and who will study up on the issues that will affect real world policy.” 

Under the Fair Representation Ordinance, each councilmember gets one appointee in each commission. 

On Monday morning, Worthington’s office was a flurry of activity as he discussed student appointment strategies with ASUC external affairs officer Dionne Jirachaikitti and legislative aide Denise Velez. 

Jirachaikitti and Velez are both working on getting students to join commissions. Velez is also responsible for updating the 2005 study. 

“Are there any students on DAPAC?” Worthington asked, scanning a page filled with pi charts and graphs. 

‘No, not anymore,” replied his aide Jesse Arreguin, who until his recent graduation was the only student on the Downtown Area Plan Advisory Commission (DAPAC). 

Arreguin, who graduated from UC Berkeley with a degree in Political Science and City Planning in May, first got involved in Berkeley politics when he started working with ASUC.  

After serving on the Housing Advisory Commission, Arreguin was elected chair of the Rent Stabilization Board in his senior year. 

Worthington also appointed him to the Zoning Adjustments Board (ZAB) in 2006 to replace Andy Katz, the first student to serve on the board. 

Juggling sixteen units at school with commission meetings was not easy for Arreguin, but he took it up as a challenge. 

“The more involved I got the more demanding it got,” he said. “But I definitely learned time management skills. Realistically, with the exception of the rent board and ZAB, the other commissions are not as demanding, but I still felt I had an obligation to be involved.” 

Arreguin said that a big problem was that people often didn’t take him seriously. 

“They think that since I am twenty-two years old I don’t have as much to offer as someone who is three times my age,” he said.  

“Just like any other city, racism is also alive in Berkeley. The only way to combat that is to work harder. You should be judged on your qualifications and abilities and not on your race, gender and age.” 

Arreguin, who wants to “serve on more commissions than any human being,” also has an active social life. 

His interests on Facebook include Coldplay and the Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou among other myriad activities. 

“It’s possible to enjoy yourself and be on a commission as well,” he said. “It’s not all about hiding your face behind the Zoning Ordinance.” 

“Being involved with commissions sometimes helps with homework,” said recent UC Berkeley graduate Nick Smith who was the first African American student to chair the Commission on Labor. 

“Some assignments require students to study public policy or government and as a commissioner you are already intimately involved.” 

Smith, like most of the other student commissioners, agreed that diversity was hugely lacking on commissions. 

“Diversity includes more than being a student,” he said.  

“However, I didn’t serve as an African American, but as someone who ensured equal representation to all residents, including students and other underrepresented parties. The solution is simple: Councilmembers need to ensure that they reach out to appoint commissioners from diverse points of view. I give Kriss extensive credit here. He appointed the most students over his 10-year-plus council career.” 

Although Worthington said that the main problem with student commissioners was that they often graduated and went their own way, some complain that student appointees miss meetings, don’t read their packets or make site visits necessary for decision making. 

However, students also end up taking credit for some of the best work ever done on city commissions.  

Smith helped co-author the “Sweatshop-Free Berkeley” initiative which was passed in September 2006 and a consumer protection “Right-to-Know Ordinance” which was passed in February 2007. 

Mike Sheen, a recent UC graduate who was on the Planning Commission from 2005 to 2007 and also chaired the Police Review Commission, initiated valuable conversations about the process of civilian review and represented students on various issues such as housing and zoning changes to the Telegraph Avenue commercial district. 

“Councilmembers need to make a better effort to engage students,” said Sheen, who also served as Worthington’s legislative aide. 

“Councilmember Gordon Wozniak, whose district has more than 40 percent students, claims that he just doesn’t work with students or isn’t able to meet them, but I think one would argue that it’s the same with everyone else without initiative. There are plenty of students who do apply to become commissioners through the city clerk, but most councilmembers don’t keep the applications, don’t read them, or don’t pick up the phone regardless of whether or not they have a vacancy. That has to change.” 

The next generation of local leaders don’t want to take “no” for an answer. They are confident, determined and ready to take charge. Arreguin wants to revise the city’s housing inclusionary ordinance; labor commission chair Igor Tregub plans to update the decades-old Labor Commission Bill of Rights. 

Tregub, who is majoring in Mechanical Engineering and Political Science, has even laid out a five-point plan for 2008. 

As for the city’s youngest commissioner Rio Bauce (a Daily Planet Planet intern), next week signals the dawn of a new responsibility.  

Bauce, a senior at Berkeley High, was appointed by Worthington to the city’s Youth and Planning commissions. He was recently elected as the Berkeley Unified School District’s new student director. 

“I am excited,” Bauce told the Planet before leaving for a summer program in France last week. “I can’t wait to work on stuff that will help my fellow students. I want to make sure that all their voices get heard.” 

 

Photograph by Riya Bhattacharjee. Councilmember Kriss Worthington discusses future student commissioner appointments with legislative aides Denise Velez, Jesse Arreguin, ASUC external affairs officer Dionne Jirachaikitti and student intern Adriana Ramirez at his office Monday.


Locked-Out Workers Picket West Berkeley Store

By Judith Scherr
Tuesday August 14, 2007

Charges and countercharges are flying between workers locked out by the owners of West Berkeley’s Metro Lighting. 

The immediate question for the seven workers of the retail store and manufacturing plant at 2121 San Pablo Ave. was the cleaning of a drum containing allegedly hazardous materials. 

Speaking for the workers, metal fabricator Gabe Wilson said cleaning the drum created hazards for others in the workshop and should have been done by a professional outside firm. As a consequence, the workers walked out.  

They picketed the business last week and said they will be there again today (Tuesday). 

“Powder can get into the air and cause chemical pneumonia and skin rashes,” Wilson told the Daily Planet on Monday. 

The workers left the building and owners Lawrence Grown and Christa Rybczynski then locked them out. 

Metro Lighting owners, however, said the concern about drum cleaning was insincere. The workers were looking for a way to assert the union, Grown told the Daily Planet. 

Grown said he called in the city of Berkeley’s toxics department (which looks more at records than at worksite operations) and called both California Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the manufacturer. None of them said the way the drum was cleaned could present a health hazard, he said. 

The dispute is not over the cleaning issue but over wages and union questions, Grown said. 

Six of the seven workers, according to Wilson, have declared themselves unionized, a part of the Industrial Workers of the World, something they say is legally binding without a National Labor Relations Board election or a simpler card check, where a majority of workers sign cards to become unionized. (The employer must agree to a card check.) 

Workers on a job site can get together for mutual aid. “It’s a protected union activity,” said Bruce Valde, an IWW organizer. 

The owners do not recognize the union, but say they are open to negotiation on a variety of issues. 

One of the issues concerns an older worker with 25 years experience who Wilson said makes about $4 per hour less than others. “Everyone felt he was doing an exceptional job,” Wilson said. 

The workers asked the owner to raise the older worker’s pay, but were told that since his health care costs were elevated because of his age, they could not. 

Grown said they had begun mediation with the worker. “We are trying to come to a resolution,” he said. 

Grown pointed to the high wages earned by the fabricators—between $15 and $19 per hour. “We pay 100 percent benefits for the workers and 50 percent for dependents,” he said, noting that is better than most small businesses do. 

Retail employees earn a base pay of $10 per hour and get collective commissions, amounting to about $5 per hour, he said, arguing that he and his wife started the business—now 100 percent solar—in their garage 14 years ago with credit card debt. He said they are not wealthy people and treat their workers well. 

“We’ll continue to picket until they meet our demands,” Wilson said. 

Grown said he recognizes the right to picket, but not to defame the business. If they do, “There will be consequences,” he said. 


Media News Ends Newsroom Union’s Status

By Richard Brenneman
Tuesday August 14, 2007

Media News Group—the chain has captured a near-monopoly of the East Bay newspaper world—busted its newsroom union Monday. 

The announcement came at the end of a lengthy e-mail from John Armstrong, president and publisher of the newly consolidated Bay Area News Group-East Bay (BANG-EB). 

By merging the 130 union jobs in some newsrooms with the 170 non-union positions in other papers, the company now claims less than 50 percent representation—enough, said Armstrong, to end recognition. 

The newly consolidated East Bay media enterprise joins key newsroom operations of all the East Bay papers owned by newspaper baron Dean Singleton and his Media News Group. 

The chain has encircled the Bay Area after its buyout of the Contra Costa Times and the San Jose Mercury News and affiliated papers once owned by Knight-Ridder, a chain that vanished in a buyout by Sacramento-based McClatchy Newspapers and a sell-off of unwanted papers. 

Media News now owns every daily newspaper in the Bay Area with the exception of the two San Francisco papers, the Chronicle and the Examiner. 

Other Media News papers include the Oakland Tribune, the Marin Independent-Journal, the Vallejo Times-Herald, Fremont Argus, Tri-Valley Herald, San Mateo County Times, the Hayward Daily Review and the Monterey Herald , along with the Daily News and Hills newspaper groups, which include small locally distributed papers like the East Bay Daily News, the Berkeley Voice and the Albany Journal. Identical articles frequently appear in many or all of the outlets Media News now owns. 

Other regional papers in the MNG fold are the Vacaville Reporter and the Woodland Democrat. 

“We’ve filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board,” said Dean Cuthbertson, president of the newspaper union, Local 39521 of the Newspaper Guild-CWA. 

“There was a labor board representative taking testimony today,” he said. 

“We were expecting it,” said one shop steward. “I was disappointed that we didn’t do more today.” A proposal to hold a march on the offices of the Contra Costa Times and Hayward review was rejected by another union leader. “Instead, we’re all supposed to be wearing something red today,” said the steward. 

The Bay Area, once a bastion of the newspaper union, has been hard hit by the wave of consolidations and downsizing that have swept the industry. 

In a letter to BANG corporate counsel Marshall Anstandig, representative Carl Hall of the Northern California Newspaper Guild/Typographical Union called the move “a grave error. Your citing of numbers and percentages doesn’t mask what I consider to be a blatant attempt to destroy a 20-year tradition of progressive labor relations in the East Bay news industry.”  

Gloria LaRiva, who heads the union’s typographical sector, said the move follows others at the San Jose Mercury News, which is owned by the same chain. 

“Dean Singleton is a disaster who turns out cookie-cutter newspapers” and kills jobs, she said. 

Typographers lost 22 positions in San Jose when MNG outsourced production work to India and to non-union sectors of the paper, LaRiva said. 

The union lost 34 jobs at a unionized plant in Hayward when it was shut down and printing shifted to a new plant in the same city “where the mailers now earn $2 an hour less,” she said. 

Along with drastic newsroom cuts previously announced at the Mercury News and San Francisco Chronicle, Singleton’s move represents a major blow to organized journalism in the Bay Area, said one union member. 

Armstrong buried the bad news at the end of a 18-paragraph e-mail sent to BANG-EB that announced the formal start of the consolidated newsroom, revealed that operating profits should increase by three percent in the current fiscal year following a 10 percent decline the year before, and the announcement of a $7 million investment in new technology to help make the merger more efficient. 

He took up the union in the closing three paragraphs, dropping the bombshell in the penultimate paragraph: “Accordingly, we withdrew recognition from the Guild effective today.” 

LaRiva said more bad news lies ahead for union workers. Teamsters who print the Chronicle will lose their jobs in two years when printing is outsourced to a Bay Area plant operated by a Canadian firm. 

While the new move combines editing functions into centrally administered desks, the papers have been consolidating reporting functions since shortly after Singleton acquired two Knight-Ridder papers. 

While once reporters from different papers would attend the same event and write individual stories, many papers no carry the same story and the same byline—reducing the diversity of coverage of community news.


Oakland School Board Considers Censure Resolution Against Dobbins

By J. Douglas Allen-Taylor
Tuesday August 14, 2007

The Oakland Unified School Board is preparing to discuss and take action on a proposed censure resolution against Board member Chris Dobbins at a special meeting to be held later this month, but the date of the special meeting and the form the resolution will take have not yet been released to the public. 

OUSD Board President David Kakishiba said by telephone that “all I can say is that in all likelihood, a special meeting will be held to take action on a possible censure resolution sometime before the Aug. 22 regular meeting. Beyond that, I can’t comment. There has not been a written proposed resolution submitted as of this moment.” 

Last week, officials with the Youth and Family Services Section of the Oakland Police Department said that no criminal charges would be filed surrounding Dobbins’ relationship with a 17-year-old OUSD high school student because “there was nothing criminal to prosecute.” 

Oakland police began their investigation last month at the request of OUSD state administrator Kimberly Statham after Statham’s office contacted them in response to a complaint. In an article in the Oakland Tribune last month, Dobbins said that he was acting as a mentor for the student, exchanging e-mails with her and sometimes taking her to meetings and having dinner conversations with her afterwards. 

“I didn’t realize how this would appear,” the Tribune quoted Dobbins as saying. “I should have exercised better judgment.” 

At last week’s board meeting, the first to be held after the district achieved limited local control four years after the state takeover, board members paved the way for a possible Dobbins censure by unanimously approving a policy “establishing a procedure for action against a governing board member for violation of legal, professional or ethical standards.” Dobbins voted in support of the policy. 

Kakishiba said that to his knowledge, the board did not previously have a policy allowing or governing censure or other actions against board members. 

Wednesday’s board meeting was packed with Dobbins supporters, several of whom spoke in his behalf and against board members who had earlier criticized Dobbins. 

Marta Leon praised what she called Dobbins’ many years work as a mentor of Oakland youth, saying, “we shouldn’t be picking on people who are trying to help students.” 

A woman identifying herself as Dobbins’ former girlfriend, Anita Longoria, said that she had read some of the e-mails between Dobbins and the 17-year-old student and that they did not demonstrate any misconduct on Dobbins’ part. “The allegations are not true,” Longoria said. “I wouldn’t be speaking on his behalf if I didn’t believe him. He is not the monster he is being made out to be.”  

Quoting a Tribune article in which board member Noel Gallo said “There is no excuse, no reason and no way to justify an adult having any kind of relationship with a young girl like that. Chris is a public official and a teacher. I think he has no choice but to resign.” Sylvia Johnson said that “Mr. Gallo must have missed the part in the United States Constitution that says a person is innocent until proven guilty. He has chosen to embarrass a 17-year-old girl. Even though her name was not mentioned, everybody who works around the schools can easily find out who this girl is. Mr. Gallo, your actions are un-American.” 

Dobbins’ supporters hung a large banner at the board meeting with the name of the Green Stampede organization, which is described in its website as an organization “dedicated to the support of the Oakland Athletics as well as the students of Oakland. Through mentoring, community action, and passionate fan support, the Green Stampede will be a force in the community as well as the Oakland Coliseum.” Dobbins’ picture is published several times on the website, which is still under construction. 

 


Nelson Mandela’s Daughter to Speak at Event Commemorating Tookie Williams

By J. Douglas Allen-Taylor
Tuesday August 14, 2007

The daughter of former South African President Nelson Mandela will speak this Thursday afternoon at Contra Costa College, keynoting a summit conference calling for a continuation of the street peace legacy of the late Stanley Tookie Williams. Maki Mandela, who has a Ph.D. in anthropology from Amherst College in Massachusetts, is the child of Nelson Mandela and his first wife, Evelyn Ntoko.  

Williams, the former Crips gang leader who turned his life around on San Quentin’s Death Row after a murder conviction to write children’s books and win a nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize for his work in attempting ending youth violence, was executed by the State of California in December of 2005. 

The First Annual Stanley Tookie Williams Legacy Summit will be held at the College, 2600 Mission Bell Drive, San Pablo, from 1:30-4 p.m. Admission is free. The summit is being sponsored by the newly formed STW Legacy Network (www.stwlegacy.net). 

A spokesperson for the network said that the purpose of the summit “is for action on the twin goals of advancing street peace and reforming our criminal justice system. Following Dr. Mandela’s keynote speech and the panel presentations, participants will break out into smaller group sessions to come up with action plans.” 

Along with Mandela, panelists for the summit will include Richmond political and social leader Barbara Becnel, Minister Abdullah Muhammad of the National Prison Ministry of the Nation of Islam, Donald Lacy of the Love Life Foundation, Elizabeth Terzakis of the Campaign to End the Death Penalty, and Alice Kim of the Illinois Humanities Council. 

Becnel, who met Williams while he was on Death Row, co-authored several of his books, led the unsuccessful movement to prevent his execution, was named the executor of his estate, and established the STW Legacy Network following Williams’ death. 

“Five years from now, ten years from now, even twenty years from now the recorders of history will not be able to report that we did nothing after Stan’s execution,” Becnel said in a prepared statement announcing the summit. “Instead, history will report that our support allowed the legacy of Stanley Tookie Williams to continue, uninterrupted by his death.” 

Becnel said that the organization was established to carry out Williams’ last wishes, including providing resources and funds for violence prevention education for organizations and institutions serving at-risk youth, improving literacy and discouraging gang involvement by at-risk youth, supporting groups and projects that advocate what Becnel calls a “fair” criminal justice system, and abolishment of the death penalty. 

 

 


Zoning Board Approves Fidelity Bank Building Plan

By Riya Bhattacharjee
Tuesday August 14, 2007

Hearing on Blood House Postponed 

 

The Zoning Adjustments Board (ZAB) gave the historic Fidelity Building on Shattuck Avenue a new lease on life Thursday when they approved a project there in spite of its parking deficit. 

The board voted 5-3 to grant applicants Prasad and Rani Lakireddy a use permit to preserve the existing 4,000-square-foot structure and convert the two-story 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 at 2323 Shattuck Ave., which would have 2,609 square feet of commercial floor area and 15 dwelling units. The project proposes to have sidewalk seating and eliminate the eight existing on-site parking spots. 

The board also directed staff to come back with findings that would support their decision.  

“One of the findings should be that it’s not possible to replace the parking spaces on site and restore the historic building,” said commissioner Bob Allen. “The vast majority of retail and residential buildings on Shattuck Avenue don’t provide parking.” 

The project as proposed violates the zoning ordinance, which states that new developments are forbidden from removing existing parking. 

The board also voted unanimously to ask the City Council to amend the current zoning ordinance and to explore the possibility of an in-lieu fee for future projects which would be applied toward creating more downtown parking. 

Although the majority of the board members were in favor of the proposed preservation and reuse of the historic building, they faced some stiff opposition.  

Matthew Mitchell, who was substituting for board member Michael Alvarez Cohen as Councilmember Gordon Wozniak’s appointee, said that the developer should provide seven off-site parking spaces. 

“We need to make sure that we don’t lose sight of a very good proposal here,” said Allen.  

“The city attorney makes it clear that an in-lieu fee does not provide the basis to support the variance. While I support the concept of downtown parking and a fee to increase parking, it’s really not our role to pick out one project and say we start from here.” 

ZAB Secretary Debbie Sanderson said that the board was on a very slippery slope.  

“The ordinance is very clear,” she said. “Our objective is to enforce the ordinance as it is written.” 

“How do you justify losing hundreds of parking spaces for the Brower Center?” Allen asked Sanderson. 

“We did lose hundreds of cars on those two projects but that project was challenged, appealed and went through extreme scrutiny from the city attorney before it was approved,” Sanderson replied. 

Commissioner Sara Shumer said that it was possible to mitigate the parking problem by proposing alternatives. 

“We find the project attractive but that is not grounds for approving it,” she said.  

“Alternate resources such as transit passes for residents, nine off-site parking spaces and valet parking should be considered.” 

Shumer’s suggestions were approved by the board. 

“Yes, we would reduce the existing parking,” said commissioner Jesse Arreguin, “but the mitigations are reasonable and would make up for the loss of parking and allow people to use alternate forms of transportation.” 

Tim Perry, who was substituting for vice-chair Rick Judd, called the mitigations a poor way of handling the parking policy. 

“The only way to change these things is to pressure the council,” said board chair Christiana Tiedemann. 

 

The Blood House 

The board voted unanimously to continue the hearing for the proposed removal of the historic Blood House from 2526 Durant Ave. to make room for mixed-use development. 

Berkeley developers Ruegg and Ellsworth have requested a permit to construct a 34,158-square-foot, five-story building with 44 apartments, 18 parking spaces and retail space after moving the historic structure to a different lot. 

Built in 1891 for Mrs. Ellen Blood by architect Robert Gray Frise, this stately Victorian near Telegraph Avenue is flanked by two landmarks—the Albra and the Brasfield buildings—on each side. 

The Blood House itself was declared a structure of merit by the Berkeley Landmarks Preservation Commission in September 1999. Ruegg and Ellsworth’s appeal of the designation failed at the City Council a month later. 

Unable to make the findings necessary to approve the demolition of the historically designated structure in 2005, the zoning board directed the developers to explore other alternatives which would help preserve the landmark structure. 

At a Dec. 8, 2005 ZAB meeting, staff was directed to prepare an addendum to the certified environmental impact report (EIR) for the Blood House in order to come up with the required findings. According to staff, the addendum to the EIR, which will be presented to the ZAB at the September 10 meeting, meets CEQA requirements.  

Under CEQA, moving a structure designated as a historic resource is equivalent to demolishing it. 

After reviewing the addendum, the board will direct the staff about whether or not they should go ahead with the building proposal.


The Dangers of Reporting on Your Hometown

By Abi Wright, New America Media
Tuesday August 14, 2007

EDITOR’S NOTE: The death of Chauncey Bailey highlights how deadly the news business can be. The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) monitors the killings of journalists all over the world. Since they began tracking these deaths in 1992, CPJ found that on average more than three journalists are killed every month in the line of duty. Seven out of 10 of the murdered journalists were killed in direct retaliation to the stories they have done. Abi Wright is the communications director for the Committee to Protect Journalists. She spoke to Sandip Roy on the New America Media radio show UpFront. 

 

Does Chauncey Bailey’s death show that though reporting in a war zone like Iraq is dangerous, doing investigative reporting that takes on your own community’s icons is just as dangerous?  

 

Our research certainly shows that journalists in their own hometowns who take on a tough topic such as corruption or crime are much more at risk of physical reprisal than even a journalist covering a conflict far away from their country.  

 

Could you tell us some stories of some of the other journalists killed while reporting on stories in their hometowns? 

 

Iraq, of course, comes to mind, where over 112 journalists have been killed since the beginning of the war there, since March 2003. Of those 112 journalists, the vast majority have been local Iraqi journalists covering the conflict in their own home country. One journalist from the northern city of Mosul was gunned down on her way to the market in June of this year. She had been covering local militia groups.  

There’s the Turkish-Armenian reporter, Hrant Dink, who was targeted and assassinated in Istanbul in January of this year after he was questioning various issues with the Armenian minority in Turkey. There was also investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya of Russia who was assassinated in Moscow last year on her way home while carrying the groceries.  

All of these cases show another parallel to the Chauncey Bailey case—a chilling one—which is that the killers tend to stalk their victims. I was reading a news report that the suspect arrested in that case said that he tried two other times to kill Bailey and had been following him for a while. This kind of chilling pre-meditation in these killings is a familiar trait that we have seen in other countries around the world.  

 

Does the fact that [Bailey] was killed on his way to work fit into that profile? The assumption many have is that it could happen in Russia, Colombia or Iraq, but it doesn’t happen in America. 

 

I think it’s important to underscore that while this murder has so shocked the journalism community in the U.S., it is a chilling crime without question. It is very rare. 

The last assassination of a journalist that we have documented here at CPJ was in 1993. Thank goodness it is a rare occurrence. Although whenever it happens it is shocking and justice must be served in this and every case.  

 

What happened in 1993? 

 

In 1993 it was actually a Haitian immigrant journalist in Miami who was targeted. Our information shows that the majority of the journalists killed in the United States are usually journalists in immigrant communities such as Haitian, Latino and Vietnamese. It is in these more isolated immigrant communities that journalists covering them have been the most at risk traditionally. But again the last time a journalist was targeted and assassinated in the United States was 1993.  

 

How many of these cases ended up with their killers being found or facing justice? 

 

Well that’s another very important difference. Happily, justice has been very swift thus far in the Chauncey Bailey case. The fact that a suspect was apprehended so quickly is welcome news and is very different from these other cases that we have documented inside the United States. Granted it has been many years since these crimes took place, but we have not documented a successful prosecution in any of the dozen cases of journalists killed for their work over the last 30 years in the United States. But that is in fact the case with the majority of murders of journalists in the world today. According to our information, in more than 85 percent of the cases when journalists are killed no one is ever successfully prosecuted. Focusing on impunity is going to be a big focus of ours in the coming year.  


A Bounty of Rosy, Crunchy Fruits

By Shirley Barker, Special to the Planet
Tuesday August 14, 2007

Recently I read a novel in which the heroine “rose” from a hammock to greet a visitor. The author must surely have lacked the hammock experience, that necessary adjunct to the life of the gardener, for one can roll out of a hammock, but I defy anyone to rise from it without putting a foot through the mesh. 

I hung my hammock ($14, from REI on San Pablo at Gilman, classic simple construction, easy to install) just north of the vegetable plot in order to take a breather while at the same time surveying what (if anything) is coming up. It gently swings its elegant parabola beneath a grape vine ordered by mail, a Thompson’s Seedless. 

To be put in as a bare-root rather than a potted plant, the vine arrived on my doorstep tiny and frail, a waif living in a cardboard box. Given my capacity for neglect, I wondered how well it would do. I dug it into ground near a north fence for maximum sun. A baby plum tree was growing a few feet away. 

This being California, both plants grew like gangbusters. After very few years the plum screened the sun from the vine. Apparently undaunted, the vine twined itself into the plum’s branches, hiding deep and high within the plum’s foliage. 

One day as I was lolling in the hammock, I looked up as I often do through the plum branches to the sky behind the leaves. As I gazed, I was astonished to see dangling inches from my nose a nicely formed bunch of grapes. It turned out that quite unobtrusively, the vine had gone berserk, producing so many bunches that I toyed with the idea of making wine. But there was no need for a change of career. The grapes may be smaller than those we find at Monterey Market, but oh, the flavor: solid globes of white wine that actually taste of grape.  

Fruits are a desirable addition to the garden since vegetable growers like to eat as well as reap what they sow (although I did meet one once who could not bear to harvest, let alone eat, what she grew). Fruits need not take up much space. An early and a late apple will supply the larder for six months or longer. I ordered mine from the same nursery as the vine’s. The red Gravenstein, productive in July, grew huge, but harvesting has never been a problem, because Gravensteins drop their fruit as soon as it is ripe. It is delicious raw, and as everyone knows, it makes the best applesauce. The Cox’s turned out to be a different variety and the tree remained tiny, barely waist-high. If I had read the nursery’s fine print right away, I would have noted that if they run out of stock, the nursery substitutes something comparable. So much the better, for every other year the tiny tree is laden with crisp green apples that keep until March. If it needs alternate years off, it has earned them. 

The nursery recommended a Seckel pear. Larger than the green apple tree, it has matured to a manageable size, free of pests and resistant to fire blight. It reliably produces a bounty of rosy, crunchy fruits that can be eaten right away. All these grow in an ordinary backyard space. 

Blackberries have taken over the perimeter fencing. Apart from cutting off streamers in mid-summer so that I can reach them, and in winter, cutting back branches that have fruited, I leave them alone. Of all the berries one can grow, these are my favorites. They are so reliable, so trouble-free and delicious, they make wonderful jams, syrups, pies and cobblers, they are loaded with vitamins and are especially rich in fiber. Even though there is no fruit quite so splendid as a ripe raspberry, if I had to choose one or the other, the blackberry would be it. Unlike raspberries, blackberries require no irrigation. If winter and spring rains are just right, the berries will be huge, like goloboshes, a word from a childhood book. Later in the summer they struggle to ripen. These half-red ones make the best jam. 

Once when I was car camping on the way to meet friends in Oregon, I drove up a washboard mountain road looking for a campsite. Halfway there the car overheated, a not unusual occurrence. The solution being to wait, I wandered along the road with my dogs (keen travelers both) and found such a profusion of berries that I’d soon filled my hat. Hurrying back to the car, I boiled them on my small camp stove with some sugar, and soon had enough jam to last the trip. By that time the car’s temperature had dropped and we could coast downhill to smoother, cooler pastures. 

There is no doubt that this hunter-gatherer aspect of the blackberry is partly responsible for its appeal. Blackberries are not the only free fruits, and some are close to home. In the hills near one of the entrances to Redwood Park grow apple trees, not wild of course, but cultivated survivors of some great estancia or old farmstead. Walnut trees grow just inside this entrance, originating from the same source perhaps. Walnuts have so many uses, from the sauces, candies, pickles and oils beloved by the Georgians of the Eastern Mediterranean and described in recipes by food writer Paula Wolfert, to the permanent dye their green husks yield. Wear gloves when handling these. 

Elderberries can be found in Tilden Park. The elderberry bears either red or blue-black fruits, one of which is poisonous, and since one can never remember which one it is, it’s best to err on the side of caution and leave both for the birds. 

None of these really compares to the grape, the cultivated European Vitis vinifera in my garden, and the wild American grapes, such as V. labrusca and V. rotundifolia. There is even a V. californica. It is a refreshing surprise to find this by accident during a long hot hike in the Sierra foothills. Its soft round slightly furry leaves are distinctive. 

The Vitaceae family has few members or genera, all twining vines bearing berries. It turns out that their tendrils are negatively phototropic, actively seeking crevices in which they expand and stick. V. vinifera has been in cultivation for at least 8,000 years. It is thought to be native to Western Asia. This grape has prospered all over Europe, in the Middle Ages even in England until a change in politics, the dissolution of the monasteries, and a change in climate, from warm to cool, caused its decline. Grapes need enough winter chill to go dormant, but not so much that the root is damaged. 

Catastrophe struck vineyards in the 1800s when Phylloxera vitifolia, a tiny insect that feeds on grape roots, emerged from eastern North America, and traveled to Europe and California, where it devastated Vitis vinifera. Its original habitat provided the cure, for native American vines have built up considerable resistance to these pests, and are now used as rootstock. 

Dessert grapes ripen faster than wine grapes, which require higher levels of sugar to make good wine, only reached after days of hot, dry weather. For this reason wine grapes also make the best dried fruits, the raisins, sultanas, and currants that are so useful in winter, and in baking, camping, and lunch boxes. 

Let us not forget the leaves, too. Blanched in lightly salted water and stuffed with cooked rice and nuts, they can be baked with spicy tomato sauce or served cold with dips, with none of the vinegary taste of the commercially bottled leaves. A touch of lemon, or verjus (made from unripe grapes), is pleasant. If I abstain until the grapes have been picked, even leaves close to turning color in late summer are edible. 

Still, nothing can beat lying in a hammock on a sunny afternoon, in the dappled shade of the vine and the plum, and gently tugging on a tendril, lowering a bunch of grapes close enough for a taste. Ah, sweet idleness.


Healty Living: Staving Off Alzheimer’s Through Improvisation

By Mary Barrett
Tuesday August 14, 2007

I think I’ve discovered an effective way to stave off Alzheimer’s. Tacked on to the tasks of solving New York Times crossword puzzles, learning ballroom dancing, and attending repeated sessions of Conversational Spanish, I’ve begun attending an improvisation class at Berkeley Repertory’s School of Theatre. 

Seventeen of us showed up for a three-hour stint, Monday night, in a practice space adjacent to the theater on Addison Street. We were greeted by an enthusiastic teacher, Rebecca Stockley, and put through a series of “ice breaker” activities. Her direction was to discover three things you had in common with the person next to you. My partner and I not only had 23-year-old sons and had just eaten dim sum; but, we’d also, now and then, smoked a cigar.  

That done, we moved to a new partner and repeated the task, only narrowed the commonality to things about theater. Not hard. We’d both been in high school plays, liked French movies, sang in public.  

Then, without fanfare, we practiced telling a story, alternating one word at a time, with a partner. 

That was an exercise in spontaneity. Each of us had a story we wanted to tell but couldn’t control our partner’s words. We were told to say yes to the word the partner offered, to say yes‚ and go with the flow. The object was not to be clever but to get to the end of the story. I could feel my brain neurons crackling. 

Harder exercises were to come. One was like dodge ball but used words and physical contortions instead of a ball. For example, if you were told “pirate” you stood with one hand over your eye, one hand crooked, one foot lifted, as though pegged, saying “Argh” before the challenger rapidly counted to ten. You had to be fast, really fast. And what you wanted was to be out of, not in, the circle. At one point, I was flooded with childhood dread of being stuck in the circle because I was slow. Ms. Stockley was so observant she gave me a new technique that immediately worked me from in to out.  

Finally we mimed little scenes extemporaneously. Very rapidly, we had to decide what we could add to a scene of two actors. I became a soccer goal post, a mother, a band aid. The trick was to add something visually recognizable. One practiced participant became a vibrating cell phone in a scene next to a woman who played Paris Hilton.  

The class moved rapidly. My mind and body were pushed to high alert; there was no slack. Even though I was the oldest, by far, in the class, it only mattered once in the circle game. Most of the time I was as competent as every one else. I learned to wear sneakers not sandals the next week.  

The diversity in the group amazed me. There was a 2007 grad from Cal, a pregnant couple who are engineers, a lawyer and a man who feels old at 46. Nearly half have English as a second language, and are from a variety of countries including Uganda, India, and Rumania. A few were obviously theater types, intense, practiced, eager. The rest of us could be any conglomeration of average folks. Some hung back a bit, others were confused at first but then jumped in. Ms. Stockley urged and demonstrated. She wasn’t a critic, she made it all fun. It felt safe to fail; in fact, we practiced a little “I failed” cheer thrusting our arms into the air and angling our chests out like a gymnast who’s just stuck a landing. 

Alzheimer’s research demonstrates the need to combine social interaction with brain stimulating tasks. In ballroom dancing, the woman has to follow the lead. In Improvisation, women are on an equal footing with the men. Men do not have to bear the heavier burden of leading. We are creating the steps and moves each moment, not practicing what others created decades ago. It is the liveliest way I’ve discovered to be fully present and vibrant.  

 

Mary Barrett is a Berkeley resident.


Few Defend UC Lab in Heated Meeting on EIR

By Richard Brenneman
Friday August 10, 2007

Berkeley residents came to share concerns about the fuel on the hill Wednesday night, and by the time the meeting had ended, only one voice had been raised in its unconditional defense. 

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) officials called the gathering to collect comments to be addressed in the environmental impact reviews of two major projects already greenlighted by the UC Board of Regents. 

The harshest critiques were leveled at the $160 million 160,000-square-foot Helios Energy Research Facility and its primary use as the designated home of the $500 million Energy Biosciences Institute, the alternative fuel research program bankrolled by BP, the rebranded British Petroleum. 

But other speakers, including many long-time Berkeley land use activists, questioned the wisdom of building anything on an environmentally sensitive earthquake-, landslide- and fire-prone hillside still contaminated by past projects conducted under the aegis of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). 

 

Helios, EBI 

Wednesday night’s hearings focused on the Helios building and the Computational Research and Theory (CRT) building, a $90.4 million, 140,000-square-foot, 300-office state-of-the art computing research center. 

Between them, the structures will house facilities for 800 researchers housed at either end of the 203-acre LBNL campus—the Helios building to the east, the CRT facility to the west. 

While Terry Powell—who runs community relations for the lab—said Wednesday night’s meeting would focus on environmental issues, and not the science conducted in the buildings, the lab’s first speaker sailed straight into scientific waters. 

EBI program manager Elaine Chandler is a theoretical physicist who formerly worked in Defense Technologies at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and, before that in Washington as an advisor to the DOE’s assistant secretary of defense programs. 

“Many of our scientists are very concerned about global warming,” she said. “We’re very committed at the lab to getting this problem solved one way or another.” 

“This requires no arable land,” she said, adding, “We have 100 million acres of croplands not being used for food.” 

Chandler said one project under development in the Helios program’s Solar Energy Research Center focuses on using nanotechnology to capture water and carbon dioxide molecules from the air and developing catalysts to split them up into their component atoms for use as fuel. 

“We want to breakdown CO2 and scarf up that carbon to make fuel,” she said. 

Michael Banda led off the discussion of the programs to be housed in the CRT building, starting with the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center, a major center for non-classified research requiring massive computing power. 

Slated to outgrow its leased quarters in Oakland by 2010, the facility will be housed on the lowest level of a purpose-built structure near the lab’s Blackberry gate. 

CRT project director Les Dutton described more details of the building itself, while Jeff Philliber, the lab’s environmental planner, focused on the mechanics of the process that will produce first a draft environmental impact report by early October, followed by the final EIR in early January 2008, slightly more than a week before final approval by UC Board Regents in mid-January. 

Construction of the Helios building would commence in spring, 2008, with completion expected by autumn, 2010, he said. CRT construction would start in December, 2008, with a February 2011 date set for the facility’s opening. 

 

Public weighs in 

The first speaker, UCB Chemistry professor David Chandler, was the only speaker to offer unalloyed praise for the lab’s agenda. “I’m very grateful that Steve Chu came to Berkeley to run the lab . . . and Helios,” he said. 

Chandler, who said he had “decided to spend my time trying to help the world,” is also the spouse of physicist Elaine Chandler, who had spoken minutes before in her role as EBI program manager. 

From there on, it was all downhill for the lab. 

“You guys have no concept how insulting it is for you to lay out a six-month schedule for doing something without even consulting us first,” said George Oram. 

“What can’t it be in the middle of Nevada, or in Merced?” he said. “Why haven’t you talked at all about why all these buildings have to be up there on the hillsides?” 

Oram drew applause when he described the proposals as “ill-conceived a project as I have ever reviewed, and that includes Bus Rapid Transit.” 

Next up was Daily Planet Arts and Calendar Editor Anne Wagley, who said she was disturbed at “the lack of coordination with the City of Berkeley” over other university-related projects, including the extensive development program planned just down the hill from the lab at Memorial Stadium. 

Wagley said she was also concerned at the costs new construction would impose on the city for roads, sewers and other taxpayer-funded services, and at the notion that taxpayers had to help pay for research that would benefit “a for-profit corporation like British Petroleum.” 

Gianna Ranuzzi thank the lab “for providing a wonderful rallying point for the citizens of Berkeley.” Her concerns included impacts of the Strawberry Creek watershed, and the possible health risks from demolitions at the lab and from the technology that is used at the lab. 

“It’s the wrong place,” she said. You’re making a terrible mistake. Welcome Chernobyl.” 

Rather than build near the Hayward Fault, which is “just waiting for the big one, have you considered the existing and empty buildings at the Mare Island Shipyard?” asked Martha Nicoloff, who brought pictures of the structures. 

 

BP focus 

Next up, and clutching a “STOP BP” sign, was Ayr, one of the activists who has been supporting the ongoing tree sit at Memorial Stadium, who demanded a one-year moratorium on development at the lab. 

“Let’s make it clear they are talking about genetically modified organisms,” he said, referring to EBI’s plan to tweak the genes of plants and microbes in hopes of produce cheaper, more efficient transportation fuels. “They are just furthering the whole push toward narrow, limited thinking that is destroying whole ecosystems, especially in the global South.” 

“Helios is supposed to mean sun, but there’s not a whole lot of sunshine in here,” said Merilee Mitchell. “But there is radiation.” 

BP critic Francisco Ramos, a graduate students in astrophysics at Cal, said that while he wasn’t opposed to science, “I am against the anti-ethical application of science. Listen to the scientists, but not the ones driven by greed. BP has a dark past, but what I’m worried about is a dark present.” 

Jason Hamadi cited the role played by BP in its earlier incarnation as the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company in the CIA-conducted overthrow of Iranian premier Mohammed Mossadegh in 1953 after the democratically elected leader moved to nationalize Iran’s oil supply. 

Anna Aguirre, 74, assailed “the arrogance of UC” in failing to provide paper copies of the proposals at the meeting. “I also worry about the fact that everybody here involved in this, they’re all anglos. There are no African Americans. No Asians. Everybody’s an anglo.” 

Just-graduated UCB student Hillary Lehr, one of the organizers of the first campus teach-in against the BP project, faulted the BP proposal because “There is not a global environmental impact report. There is no global justice policy. I want a global EIR on the products produced by EBI,” she said. 

Gene Bernardi reminded the audience that the DOE had once been named the Atomic Energy Commission, then faulted the scoping report prepared for the meeting for failing “to say a word about the involvement of British Petroleum.” 

Mason Murthi said he was “sick and tired of hearing some of the rhetoric” used by EBI backers. “Steve Chu said ‘this will be our mission to save the world,’” a phrase Murthi said reminded him of colonialist rhetoric used by Europeans in the past to justify conquering other lands. 

“This is not BP’s university, this is not your university,” he told lab officials. “This is not the Anglo-Saxon elite’s university. This is our university.” 

Doug Buckwald charged the university with poor environmental stewardship,” and Zachary Running Wolf, who started the Memorial Stadium tree sit, told audience members, “We need to not trust British Petroleum. We need to build our own mass transportation.” 

Then came a moment of comic relief. Clad in dress and an outrageous blonde wig, rhinestone-studded specs and a dainty watch—in addition to a healthy five o’clock shadow—and speaking in a pseudo-Italian accent, “Heloise Lamplighter” told the lab folks that before building something new, “You gotta clean-uppa the mess you made-a first. You gotta big-a mess over there in-a Richmond. Maybe you oughta clean upa you big messes first.” 

 

General concerns 

Mark McDonald said the university should first “clean up all the VOCs (volatile organic compounds) and clean up all the (radioactive) tritium” at the lab before starting new projects. But since the DOE was the ultimate stakeholder at the lab, “our tax dollars are no object,” with no reimbursement for the use of city roads and other services. 

Janice Thomas, who lives nearby on Panoramic Hill, called the lab “scorched earth,” noting that trout and salmon had long since vanished from Strawberry Creek. “We are going to stop it,” she said. “We have to stop it.” 

Thomas also faulted the health-risk assessment of the lab’s Long Range Development Plan for failing to address health risks from nanotechnology and GMOs. 

Pamela Shivola of the Committee to Minimize Toxic Waste presented detailed charts of faults, contamination plumes, waterways and other features of the lad site—which she called a “a nuclear, nano-technology industrial complex.” 

Development should be located not on the hillside riddled with active faults but in alternative locations, she said. 

Barbara Robben, who graduated from Berkeley with a degree in geology and soil science, said she was concerned both about the dangers of building in a seismic hot spot and with the implications of EBI science for the soils of the world. “The technology they’re striving for is really, really scary,” she said. 

While speakers were allotted three minutes to make their cases, Powell allowed Shivola, Buckwald and Mitchell five more minutes each after all other speakers had finished. 

At the end of the meeting, speakers and lab officials polished off an assortment of Costco cookies and apple juice the lab had provided.


Overflow Crowd Mourns Slain Journalist

By J. Douglas Allen-Taylor
Friday August 10, 2007

Oakland laid its secondmost famous native son journalist to rest on Wednesday morning, with an overflow gathering of more than 500 city officials, leaders and citizens packing the pews and aisles of St. Benedict Catholic Church in East Oakland for the funeral of Oakland Post editor Chauncey Bailey. 

Bailey was murdered in downtown Oakland on Thursday morning of last week as he was walking to work at the Post. A 19-year-old handyman with North Oakland’s Your Black Muslim Bakery, Devaughndre Broussard, was arrested a day later when Oakland police raided the bakery on unrelated warrants, and police say he has confessed to Bailey’s murder. In his confession, police say, Broussard said he was angered by an article Bailey was working on that was critical of the bakery. The article has not yet been published. 

The murder of Chauncey Bailey—one of the first American journalists to be killed in this country in many years for working on a story—made instant headlines and topped news broadcasts and talk shows around the world, and quickly made Bailey the most famous Oakland-born journalist since Jack London. 

The services included musical selections that seemed peculiarly Oakland, with a blend of African American gospel and traditional Catholic that included Ave Maria. Bailey’s coffin was rolled out of the church to the Oakland Interfaith Gospel Choir’s rendition of the the New Orleans standard “When The Saints Go Marching In.” Showing Bailey’s influence over a wide array of Oakland residents, a long contingent of vehicles in procession to burial services at the cemetery included several motorcycles driven by members of the East Bay Dragons Motorcycle Club. Outside the church, a single club member in an East Bay Dragons jacket held up a sign reading “Stop Black On Black Crime.” 

Mourners heard stories about Bailey from his former wife and mother of his 13-year-old son, as well as from colleagues who had worked with him at Soulbeat Television, the Oakland Tribune, and the Oakland Post, but Post publisher Paul Cobb said that “if Chauncey could be around to prepare the story about this funeral, he would say that ‘even though this is about me, Ron [Dellums] had the message.’ This is the headline.” 

Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums gave a powerful, emotional testimony to the slain editor, his voice breaking at times, and at one point receiving a standing ovation when he said, “If we are to pay tribute to Chauncey Bailey and all who have lost their lives in this city to violence, we must at this moment embrace the quality of human life.” After the crowd interrupted with applause, Dellums continued, “We cannot fall prey to fear and cynicism. We will not be cowed by fear. We will take back our community, because you will commit.” 

The mayor called violence a state and national “epidemic” that has “cost 16,000 lives in the streets of America,” but said that he wanted it to be remembered that “from this place, we raised our voices in behalf of nonviolence, not as a tactic, but as a way to live. This madness must end. We can do it.” 

Dellums said that even though he “experienced Chauncey in the somewhat tenuous relationship between journalist and politician,” a remark that brought muted laughter from many in the crowd who remembered press conferences begun by tough and pointed questions asked of the mayor by Bailey, Dellums said that Bailey had his respect. 

“He was always there,” the mayor said. “Whether it was the lone journalist watching several hundred children participate in a track meet, there he was, with a camera in one hand and a tape recorder in the other. It could be a neighborhood cleanup or a large media event, where he always asked the first question, and set the tone. We didn’t always agree on perception. He had his own way of seeing things. But he had a tremendous sense of dedication to this profession.” 

Cobb, for whom Bailey worked in the last months of his life, called Bailey an obsessive and dedicated worker, saying one of his fondest memories was walking with Bailey to a City Hall press conference. “He got a telephone call, so he handed me his briefcase and as we were walking, he conducted an interview while cradling the phone on his shoulder, and writing it all on yellow post-it notes that he then stuck in a row up his sleeve, all the time telling me to hurry up so that we could get to the press conference. He was the editor of the paper. I was just his paper boy.” 

In an allusion to the story that allegedly cost Bailey his life, Cobb would not go into details, but said, to applause, “This community will know what Chauncey Bailey and I were working on, even though we have received threats.” As Cobb broke out into sobs, someone from the crowd shouted out, “We’re with you, Paul,” and someone else added, “God will take care of you.” 

Cobb said the paper has continued to receive death threats that began some weeks ago, one on the morning of Bailey’s funeral. 

St. Benedict pastor Father Jay Matthews called Bailey an “outspoken, articulate, and often uncompromising black man who said what he wanted and meant what he said.” Matthews said that Bailey’s murderers “believed that if they got rid of Chauncey, they wouldn’t have to worry no more. But let me tell you,” Matthews continued, as the crowd rose to his feet, “I’m sure I speak for the mayor and all of the leaders of this community—spiritually, politically, and educationally—they should be worried. His voice will go on.”


Supervisors, Children’s Hospital Clash over Bond

By J. Douglas Allen-Taylor
Friday August 10, 2007

The Alameda County Board of Supervisors and Children’s Hospital of Oakland appear to be on a collision course over a proposed Children’s Hospital Special Tax Initiative tentatively scheduled to be placed on the February ballot. 

The proposed two-thirds majority tax-initiative ballot measure would authorize the county to collect property parcel taxes ranging between $24 and $250 per year for the construction of a new Children’s Hospital. The tax is expected to generate between $11.2 million and $12 million in revenue for the hospital. But because of differences between the county and Children’s Hospital, one supervisor said privately that county supervisors might end up writing the ballot argument against the initiative. 

Officials of Children’s , a private institution, began circulating petitions early this year to place the measure on the ballot. But the measure has run into opposition from county supervisors, who say that while they support Children’s and want a new facility built, they were never consulted in advance on the measure, and are concerned that the measure as written may not stand up to a legal challenge, and might fill up the county’s debt load so much that it will prevent the county from taking on any other major capital projects, including renovation of the county’s own Highland Hospital. 

Last month, after Children’s Hospital President and CEO Frank Tiedemann told supervisors, “We know you have serious questions, and we will try to give them serious responses,” it looked as if the two sides might be able to work out a compromise. 

At that meeting, several supervisors expressed anger that because they had not been consulted in advance to work out possible problems and conflicts with the tax, they were being put in the position of opposing money for a politically popular institution. 

But supervisors say that a followup meeting with Children’s Hospital officials was not fruitful, and last week the five county supervisors signed a public letter to area elected officials asking them to “withhold your endorsement [of the tax initiative] until our Board has completed its review of the measure.”  

In their letter, the supervisors said “the County of Alameda has a long history of supporting Children’s Hospital … Children’s Hospital is an outstanding institution. We are fortunate to have its unique services in our community. Nonetheless, we believe that it is premature to endorse this special tax.” 

At the same meeting, supervisors approved a recommendation by County Administrator Susan Muranishi that “county staff prepare a report that addresses the fiscal impacts of the measure, including its effect on the ability to finance infrastructure, the potential effect of the measure on County operations including on the Board of Supervisors, and any legal issues associated with the measure.” 

The report is scheduled to be presented to Supervisors no later than September 30. 

County Counsel Richard Winnie had earlier written Children’s Hospital officials asking them to clarify six legal issues associated with the tax initiative, information which Winnie said he needed in order to complete a legal evaluation of the measure. Winnie did not return a telephone message in connection with this article, and the Children’s Hospital official in charge of the ballot measure is out of town until next week, so it is unclear whether Children’s officials have responded to that letter.


Obama Mops Up in Oakland

By Judith Scherr
Friday August 10, 2007

Pauline Beck isn’t absolutely sure who she’ll be voting for in the February presidential primaries, but after spending the morning with the man she called her “co-worker”—Sen. Barack Obama, candidate for president—the 61-year-old homecare worker, said she’d “probably vote for Obama.”  

The presidential candidate’s few hours spent with Beck and her 86-year-old client John Thornton mopping floors, making beds and fixing lunch in Thornton’s East Oakland home was part of the Service Employees International Union’s (SEIU) “Walk a Day in My Shoes 2008” campaign to ensure that the needs of working people get placed prominently in the presidential debate. 

To date senators John Edwards and Christopher Dodd and Gov. Bill Richardson have participated; senators Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden and Gov. Mike Huckabee are scheduled to take part in the coming weeks. No Republicans have responded, according to SEIU officials. 

Speaking to reporters at the Oakland Hilton Hotel after his stint working with Beck, Obama reflected on the experience: “One of the downsides of a presidential campaign is that you start living in a bubble. You’re flying from airport to airport, making big speeches. You don’t always have time to spend just listening. It reminds me why I’m doing this—this isn’t just about ambition and polls and fundraising. It’s about my sense of mission.” 

As senator, “you spend your days talking and it’s not clear at the end of the day whether you’ve got anything done. When you’re cleaning out some cobwebs, or you’re mopping the floor and you see the dirty mop water, you know you’ve accomplished something,” Obama said. 

Time spent with Beck wasn’t all work and no talk. Obama found out that in order to support two adopted children and a great nephew, Beck depends on food banks when her salary can stretch no further. Beck’s $10.50 an hour job—which had been minimum wage before she joined the union—offers no sick or vacation days.  

“When she was sick for a month and a half, Pauline lost her salary. There’s no safety net,” Obama told reporters. 

The candidate underscored the service home healthcare workers provide. 

“We’re an aging society and we’re going to have a series of decisions to make about how we care for our elderly,” he said. “Institutional care in some cases may be the only option, but where you have the ability to keep seniors in their homes, in their communities, they are typically healthier, they are typically happier and most importantly, from the perspective of budget hawks, it’s cheaper.” 

 

Inner-city violence 

Obama responded briefly to questions from the press. The one from Josh Richman of the Oakland Tribune hit home for many reporters in the room. At about the same time the mid-morning press conference was taking place, there was a memorial service across town for Chauncey Bailey, the murdered newspaper editor who had once been Richman’s colleague at the Tribune. 

The community “is wracked by violence, much of it black on black. What are you talking about doing to help cities like Oakland?” Richman asked. 

“It’s not just Oakland,” Obama responded, pointing to 32 school students shot in Chicago last year.  

“There are no magic solutions,” he said. “Communities that are poor are like a diseased body, they are more vulnerable to violence, to the drug trade, more vulnerable to HIV/AIDS—their immune system is broken down. If we can strengthen these communities with jobs, education, preventative healthcare, that will all make a difference.” 

 

Barry Bonds 

Someone else wanted to know if Obama would invite Barry Bonds to the White House.  

“If I were president, I probably would. I’d consider [breaking the homerun record] a remarkable achievement. He deserves our congratulations. I’m concerned about the cloud that remains, not just in baseball, but in basketball and in the Tour de France,” he said. “I would like to see our sports leagues recognize that our children look up to sports stars more than other individuals and I’m not sure our kids are learning the right lessons.” 

 

Al Qaeda 

While Obama has said the United States should never have gotten into the war in Iraq, he said, in response to a question, that al Qaeda is a correct target. 

Obama said the officials in the White House had intelligence in 2005 that al Qaeda was growing in Pakistan, but failed to act. “Our safety and security is going to depend to a great deal on how we deal with al Qaeda base camps in Afghanistan and along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border,” he said. 

 

Healthcare 

Obama outlined his healthcare plan, in which individuals without insurance can buy into the plan. Insurance companies would not be able to discriminate on the basis of preexisting conditions.  

“We would negotiate with the drug companies so that they would charge the lowest price for what was needed [and] pay for subsidies for those who couldn’t afford the low group rates by savings—putting more money into prevention.” 

The savings would provide for the 145 million uninsured people, he said. 

SEIU, with 1.9 million members, will consider making a presidential endorsement later this year. The AFL-CIO, which is the nation's largest federation of labor unions, has freed its 55 unions to choose for themselves from among the Democratic contenders. 

 

 

 

Photograph by Anne Hamersky. 

Home Healthcare Worker Pauline Beck looks on as Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barak Obama serves John Thornton, 86, a meal as part of SEIU's Walk a Day in My Shoes 2008 campaign.


D.A. Examines Charges, Kavanagh Hires Criminal Attorney

By Judith Scherr
Friday August 10, 2007

Rent Stabilization Board Member Chris Kavanagh, an elected official embroiled for a second time in controversy around his place of residence, has engaged criminal attorney James Giller of Oakland to defend him—if need be. 

On July 30, the Berkeley city attorney and city clerk asked the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office to look into the question of whether Kavanagh lives in Oakland rather than Berkeley as he claims, and, if so, whether he has defrauded the public. 

“We have to wait and see what happens,” Giller told the Daily Planet on Tuesday, underscoring that to date no charges have been filed. 

“He’s a Berkeley resident,” Giller said. 

Kavanagh responded to Daily Planet calls with an email Thursday saying: “Thank you for your recent phone message inquiries. On account of my legal counsel, I cannot make a statement at this time. But I hope to make a comment soon to address the issues.” 

The question of Kavanagh’s residence surfaced recently when the new owners of a house with a rear cottage on 63rd Street in Oakland tried to evict Kavanagh from the cottage unit, saying they wanted to move into it. (Kavanagh’s name is on the 2001 lease for the cottage, although he has declared he lives in Berkeley on candidacy papers and voter registration forms. Kavanagh has told rent board colleagues that his girlfriend lives at the Oakland address.)  

Kavanagh’s fight against the eviction led to renewed allegations that the Berkeley official does not live at the 2907 Dwight Way, Apt. 16, address where he claims residence for living and voting purposes. 

The question of Kavanagh’s residence was first brought to the attention of the district attorney by the city attorney and city clerk in January 2003. He was not charged with any crime at the time.  

Kavanagh has served on the rent board from 2002 to the present, having been re-elected in 2004. 

The answer to the question of legal residency may be more complicated than it appears on the surface.  

“You have to grapple with the difference between residency and domicile,” Assistant Chief Alameda County District Attorney Nancy O’Malley [no relation to this paper’s owners] told the Daily Planet on Tuesday, declining to go further into the difference between the two. 

Referring to the Kavanagh case, she said, “We’re taking a look at it. A person can have a residence in Nebraska, but have a domicile in Berkeley.” O’Malley said she did not know when her office will come to a conclusion on the Kavanagh question. 

City Attorney Manuela Albuquerque declined to define “residence,” when asked by the Daily Planet at the July 31 City Council meeting. City Clerk Pamyla Means directed the Planet on Wednesday to the California Elections Code, which says a person who leaves a particular jurisdiction temporarily “with the intention of returning, does not lose his or her domicile.” 

In the case of San Francisco Supervisor Ed Jew, who will stand trial on charges that include lying about living in the district he represents, the San Francisco Chronicle noted in a July 4 story that “Jew and his attorneys argue that it’s intent, not actual days in a house, that legally determines a politician’s official residence.”  

The key question is whether Jew intends to return to his house, not the time he spends elsewhere, Jew’s attorney told the Chronicle. 

The California attorney general has weighed in on the question (in 72 Ops.Cal.Atty.Gen.8) saying: “While the question of domicile is a mixed question of law and fact…many factors enter into the equation, including where an individual is registered to vote and his or her address for mail…, where tax returns are filed…, where an automobile is registered…, and where a homeowner’s exemption or renter’s credit is taken…. However, the critical element is that of intent. While declarations of intent are significant, they are not determinative. The acts must be examined as well.” 

Charges that could be brought against Kavanagh were specified in the city clerk’s January 2003 report to the district attorney: “If Mr. Kavanagh actually lived in Oakland at the time he filed his papers for candidacy and assumed office or does so at the present time, he may be guilty of at least the following violations of the Elections Code: Section 18100-Registeration of persons not entitled to register; Section 18203—false declaration of candidacy; Section 1835—false statement in candidate’s statement; Section 18500—fraud in connection with vote cast and Penal Code section 118—perjury.”


The Shipyard Isn’t Dead Yet, Say Architect, Official

By Richard Brenneman
Friday August 10, 2007

Don’t be sounding any death knells yet for The Shipyard, one of West Berkeley’s last remaining hangouts for techno and steampunk artists. 

Despite the heated rhetoric that followed city inspections and a welter of violation findings and threats of heavy sanctions earlier this year, relations between the outspoken artists and their erstwhile bureaucratic nemeses have improved, and a crucial, studio-saving compromise is in the works. 

“They have a plan, and it’s doable,” said Deputy Fire Chief David P. Orth, who had found 13 city and state fire code violations at the 1010 Murray St. facility in May. 

Tensions had reached a breaking point that month, after Orth and two other city officials signed notices demanding that the yard’s 30 artists leave the odd collection of refurbished shipping containers that formed their studios. 

The massive oblong steel boxes, stacked two and three deep along the perimeters of the industrial site, provoked the concerns of Orth, city Building Official Joan MacQuarrie and Zoning Officer Mark Rhoades. 

The result was a detailed notice of 15 building code violations, four affronts to the city zoning code and three fire code breaches—accompanied by the threat of $2,500-a-day fines. 

Among their concerns were wiring that failed code requirements, alterations to the containers that threatened their structural integrity, unsafe foundations installed without permits, a solar power system sans permit and allegedly posing a fire danger, and a declaration that some of the artists may have been living in the containers. 

The notices prompted a strong reaction from Jim Mason, who leases the site and sublets to his fellow artists, and led to highly restrained relations between the artists and the city until architect Les Young intervened and took over the delicate task of managing relations between anarchic artists and city officialdom. 

“All of the inspection items are out of the way now,” Young said. “We have plans for a new two-story metal building along Murray Street, and we’ll be lining up containers along the old railroad tracks for use as studios and for storage.” 

Mason and Young have asked the property owner to finance construction, in return for an extended lease at a higher rent. “He’s agreed,” said Young. “He would select the contractor, and the city will be dealing directly with him.” 

Young met with Orth and other city officials Wednesday and presented preliminary designs for the new structure. 

“So far they like it,” he said. “It’s all code-driven at this point, and I don’t see any deal killers.” 

In the interim, Shipyard artists have been busily completing projects for the upcoming Aug. 27-Sept. 3 Burning Man festival—that anarchic event in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert that has become the focus of the energies of many West Berkeley artists. 

“The city has been looking the other way until they’re done,” Young said. 

“They were reminded that they need to continue cleaning up,” Orth said. 

Just how long it will take before the Shipyard can start rebuilding depends on a review of final plans, which have yet to be completed, said Orth. 

“If it just takes an over-the-counter administrative use permit, it could be a matter of weeks. But if it require a full use permit, it could take six to eight months,” Orth said. 

Such use permits have to go through a public hearing process and win a majority vote before the Zoning Adjustments Board.


Downtown Landmarks Debate Revived

By Richard Brenneman
Friday August 10, 2007

Members of the two city citizen panels hammering out policy guidelines for the new downtown plan will meet Monday night to finalize a key section of the document. 

The joint subcommittee is comprised of members from the Downtown Area Plan Advisory Committee (DAPAC) and the Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC). 

Monday night’s meeting marks their 13th session, and at least one more meeting is planned for Aug. 27. 

Recent meetings of the subcommittee have moved forward in a harmony relatively rare to the process of shaping a new downtown plan, which DAPAC members must complete in a rudimentary form by Nov. 30. 

One-time members Raudell Wilson and Carole Kennerly from DAPAC had provided what dissent had existed in the subcommittee, but since their replacements by Jesse Arreguin and Jim Novosel, the subcommittee has functioned with an almost unprecedented unanimity. 

But internal harmony doesn’t mean their plan will sail through the DAPAC process unscathed—as indicated in an earlier vote on the first version of the chapter on Historic Preservation and Urban Design. 

DAPAC Chair Will Travis, Planning Commission Chair Jim Samuels and retired UC Berkeley development chief Dorothy Walker attended the last meeting to argue for revisions that face stiff opposition from the subcommittee. 

Key questions to be resolved focus on the role historic buildings will play in the new downtown plan being drafted in response to the university’s push for 800,000 square feet of new off-campus construction in the city center—about 27 percent of the total floor space of the Empire State Building. 

Of equal importance to the Travis faction is whether or not a strongly preservationist panel should draft the element of the plan that governs new construction and the downtown streetscape. 

At least two subcommittee members say that they also want to draft language that will provide the means for implementing the policies in city law—a move discouraged by Travis and city planning staff. 

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


Dump Truck Kills Berkeley Cyclist

By Bay City News
Friday August 10, 2007

A 55-year-old Berkeley woman was struck and killed by a dump truck this morning [Thurs.] as she was attempting to ride her bicycle through an Oakland crosswalk, the Alameda County coroner's bureau reported. 

Elena Castaneda was struck at around 8:30 a.m. while crossing West Street at Isabella Avenue, according to Deputy Mike Bidle of the coroner’s bureau. 

Police continue to investigate the incident and it remains unclear whether charges will be filed against the driver of the truck.


New Housing Authority Board in Training Saturday

By Judith Scherr
Friday August 10, 2007

The new Berkeley Housing Authority board will be in training for most of the day on Saturday, learning about the history of public housing, the role of the housing authority and the various programs the authority governs. The meeting is public and begins with public comments at 8:45 a.m.  

The meeting, scheduled from 8:30 a.m.– 4 p.m., will be in the Amador Room of the Doubletree Hotel, 200 Marina Blvd. At deadline on Thursday, the agenda was not available online. 


BHS Grad Honors Slain Colleague Through Film

By Riya Bhattacharjee
Friday August 10, 2007

Community Hosts Sunday Fundraiser for Canon Jones Memorial Scholarship 

 

Canon Christian Jones’ MySpace profile sits untouched since the cruel April night he was shot to death outside Tuskegee University in Alabama. There have been no updates from him. No instant messages.  

But his friends at Berkeley High School have found new ways to keep his memory alive. One heartbroken teenager remembers him in her prayers each day. Another mentions him during conversations in class. And Berkeley High senior Mahaliyah made a movie about him. 

Mahaliyah’s movie, If Concrete Could Speak, will be aired Sunday at a fundraiser for the Canon Christian Jones Scholarship at the Berkeley Marina. The film sends a powerful message to communities all over America to take a long hard look at the issue of gun violence among teenagers. 

In one scene, images of Oakland gun fights fill the frame as these words fill the screen: “The rate of firearm death of youth under 14 years old is nearly 12 times higher in the United States than in 25 other industrialized countries COMBINED.” The next shot cuts to Canon’s mother crying over her son’s dead body at his funeral in Richmond. 

“We can’t live in denial anymore,” said Canon Jones Sr., Canon’s dad, who is still shaken from the cold-blooded murder of his son. 

“Gun violence among the youth has reached troubling heights. These teenagers don’t just take away family members from us. They take away their own lives. This movie is a great way to drive this point home to all of America. Killing someone for a pair of tennis shoes or for being in the wrong block or because of their color means nothing. As a country we have come so far and yet we can’t hold a community together.” 

Quentin Motez Davis, 18, of Macon County and Romanita Michelle Cloud, 18, of Tuskegee, are charged with robbing Canon of his wallet while he was walking from his dorm to a grocery store. When Cloud accidentally spoke Davis’ name, Davis allegedly shot Jones for fear of being identified. Davis and Cloud will stand trial today (Friday) in Macon County. 

 

Canon Jones Scholarship  

Fund Raiser and Barbecue 

Noon-4 p.m. Sunday at Cesar Chavez Park at the Berkeley Marina, with Canon Jones, Sr. at the grill. Sponsored by the Canon Jones Scholarship Committee. To donate, make checks payable to Berkeley Boosters/Pal (memo line: “Canon Jones Scholarship”). For pre-orders, donations or questions, call Kathryn or Michael at 524-9097.


Teenagers Speak Out on Social Issues

By Riya Bhattacharjee
Friday August 10, 2007

Mahaliyah’s If Concrete Could Speak was one of many films that screened May 31 at the Berkeley High School Film Festival, films that deal with topics often considered taboo even today. 

Students at the Communication Arts and Sciences School (CAS) broke a lot of barriers, raised a few eyebrows and became all grown-up for a few days in May when they embarked on a mission to produce videos for the annual festival.  

“We wanted to highlight gun violence at the festival simply because it seemed the right thing to do,” said Dharini Rasiah, who teaches video production to CAS students. 

A graduate of UCLA and UC Berkeley, Rasiah is quick to point out that this year has been the most difficult one for CAS so far. 

“There have been several incidents of violence against students and teachers and our community has really suffered a lot,” she said. “Canon was a student at CAS and his death is on students’ minds a lot.” 

Mahaliyah, who lives in South Berkeley, said that shootings were a normal phenomenon for her. 

“I can’t count the number of times I have been around one,” she said. “There is nothing cool about being shot. The media has to stop glorifying it.” 

By integrating academic curriculum with social justice issues, students work with Rasiah on original topics for their senior seminar. 

CAS students Trystan Burke and Luara B. Venturi decided to tackle the way young African American males behave with their female counterparts. 

In Imperialism: the Black Woman’s Pimp, Trystan and Luara try to get the audience to think critically about modern-day black culture. 

“Originally, the black community never disrespected their women,” said Trystan. “It’s only during post-slavery that we started using words such as nigga’, bitch and ’ho. It’s the ignorance in us speaking. The lack of education. The lack of respect for our roots. Maybe that’s why we refer to ourselves as niggas ... we have lost our sense of home.” 

“We have been raped by colonization,” added Luara. “I think it’s horrible, I think it’s unacceptable. When did calling a woman a ’ho become the norm?” 

As Luara and Trystan struggled for answers, their friends Simone Obidas and Coimbra Jackson looked for stereotypes in the movie Teen Pregnancy. 

Working non-stop after school for three weeks, the two went to great lengths to interview teenage mothers. 

“The hardest part was coming up with the right questions,” said Coimbra.  

“Most of the mothers we talked to were high school graduates. We were happy to see that most were proud of their children.”  

Both Simone and Coimbra agreed that topics such as teen pregnancy and abortion still carried a big stigma in most social circles. 

“Yes, it’s a touchy subject but our peers are kinda blind to it,” said Simone. “They think it’s funny.” 

Max Perel-Slater, a CAS senior who will be studying pre-med at Wesleyan University this fall, made his movie on the pains of educating citizens of Shirati, Tanzania about the AIDS epidemic. Traveling with a group of CAS students, Max stayed with Dr. Charangi for three weeks on the shores of Lake Victoria to shoot live footage for Shirati Hospital. 

“It was beautiful and sad at the same time,” said Max, staring at the moving images of malnutritioned children on his computer screen. 

“Dr Charangi is a really amazing doctor and yet he still chooses to work in a small village. The extreme poverty in Shirati was beyond anything I have ever seen. They don’t have the means to buy anything. There’s no electricity and they live off ugali, a kind of paste.” 

Max remembers watching a C-section being performed on a woman under a flashlight, but the memory doesn’t make him squirm. 

“When the flashlight went off, Dr Charangi used the light from his cellphone,” he said, hero worship written in his eyes. 

“That’s what I want to do one day. I want to help these people get better. Make their lives better. Once I get my degree, I am going back to Shirati.” 

 

Photograph by Riya Bhattacharjee. Berkeley High CAS teacher Dharini Rasiah comments on Max Perel-Slater’s video of Shirati Hospital at the school’s video lab as student film makers Mahaliyah, Simone Obidah and Coimbra Jackson look on.  

 

 

 


Jazz Fest Still Lacks African American Artists

By Judith Scherr
Friday August 10, 2007

There have been a few African American artists added to the line-up at the Downtown Berkeley Jazz Festival since attention was called in June to the festival’s lack of African American participation. 

But not enough to clearly demonstrate the centrality of the black American experience in the creation of the music known as jazz, according to jazz vocalist and educator Rhonda Benin. Some 11 out of about 35 band leaders whose groups are slated to play at the Aug. 22-26 festival are African American. 

“We’re still underrepresented,” Benin said in an interview Monday with the Daily Planet.  

The issue, which festival critics underscore is not unique to the festival or the Bay Area, burst into local headlines in June when it was revealed almost simultaneously that the Downtown Berkeley Jazz Festival had hired few African American artists and that Oakland’s Yoshi’s had produced a 10-year anniversary CD with no African American musicians.  

With the sponsorship of the city and others, the festival is produced by the Jazz- school, located downtown, and is subsidized in part by city funds. Susan Muscarella is director of both the Jazzschool and the festival. She did not return multiple calls for comment. 

Critics say that, like the festival, the Jazzschool hires few African American instructors, and that it does not show in its curriculum an appreciation for the foundation of jazz, rooted in the experience of black people in America. In a written statement in June, Muscarella defended the festival: “The stated purpose of the festival, incidentally, is to celebrate jazz and related styles of music from throughout the world,” she wrote. “Part of the festival’s mission has been to reflect the diversity of downtown Berkeley, and it has accomplished that and more.” 

Benin is part of a group of African American musicians and their allies that responded with outrage to the lack of African Americans in the festival and represented on the Yoshi’s CD. (Yoshi’s, the downtown Oakland jazz club, issued an apology and pulled the CD at the time.) 

The group Benin works with has written a statement, still in draft form, that places criticism of the festival within the larger context in which the origins and ongoing African American contributions to jazz are widely ignored. 

Benin provided the draft to the the Daily Planet. 

“We … have come together to address what we sense as a general lack of presence of African Americans in Bay Area institutional, commercial and media jazz programming,” it says. “We see this lack of African American presence explicitly and implicitly as exclusion of our artistic and cultural contributions to music created and developed in our community, and this state of affairs has very real economic and artistic impacts on us.”  

The group underscores in the statement that it does not want to damage either the festival or the Jazzschool, but hopes for a real dialogue with these and other groups to promote understanding of the question. 

“Merely changing the numbers in the arts lineups will not solve the underlying problems,” the letter says. 

Benin said Muscarella ought to have entered into meaningful dialogue with the group. Muscarella had proposed a meeting, but wanted to decide who would be in attendance on both sides of the issue and who would moderate it, Benin said. 

Local jazz saxophonist Howard Wiley refused a June invitation to play at the festival, contending the invitation had been simply to boost the number of black musicians after the negative publicity.  

Speaking Monday with the Daily Planet from New York, where he was working, Wiley pointed to the addition of New York-based drummer Winard Harper to the festival lineup as a positive step forward. 

“I’m always the Berkeley optimist—only time will tell,” said Wiley, a Berkeley native. “I hope Susan has learned something from this.” 

In addition to her concerns about the underexposure of African American jazz artists, Benin said she is disturbed about the state of jazz education. She pointed out that the Jazzschool has a contract with the Oakland schools and fears the Berkeley school will bring in its non-African American instructors—it has very few African American teachers—neglecting the importance of passing on jazz as part of the African American heritage, she said. 

“The institutions of learning that offer, for instance, jazz courses without a discussion of the continuing social context of the music are doing a disservice to their students, the public and the music they purport to teach,” says the statement from Benin’s group, which ends with a call for dialogue.


Spring Turns In Last of Her Campaign Amendments

By Riya Bhattacharjee
Friday August 10, 2007

Councilmember Dona Spring turned in the last of her 2006 campaign statement amendments to the Berkeley City Clerk’s office Thursday. 

The amendments—which include the rescheduling of a loan—will be posted on the city’s website today (Friday), confirmed city staffer Leslie Roma over the telephone to the Planet. 

Spring, currently serving her fifteenth year as District 4 councilmember, is being investigated by the Berkeley Fair Campaign Practices Commission (FCPC) for possible violations by the Dona Spring for City Council Committee.  

At least 28 separate contributions of or exceeding $50 and a campaign loan were omitted from Spring’s campaign filings from the 2006 election season.  

Spring, who uses a wheelchair and participates in city council meetings remotely because she suffers from a painful chronic autoimmune disease, until recently has served as her own treasurer. She explained that some of the contributors were omitted in part because she relied on an office services business, which failed to do some tasks, and she lacked up-to-date computer software.  

“The majority of my contributors had been filed into the database,” Spring told the Planet over a telephone interview Thursday. 

“The office business service had failed to enter the names into Form 460, the form used to file campaign finances. I take the blame for not turning in about half a dozen names. In the flurry of campaign activities, some of the copies of the checks did not get to their office.” 

Spring added that all the contributions had been verified in an amendment filed in April. 

“All the expenses in the 2006 campaign statement have been verified except for one slight discrepancy. My bank has $68 more than what is shown on my financial forms. I have to look into that.” 

The City Clerk’s office will be handing over the amended statements to the City Attorney’s Office.  

“City Attorney Manuela Alburquerque is currently on vacation but when she gets back we will discuss how we want to resolve this case,” said Spring. 

“I want to continue working with the city attorney’s office to come to a resolution.” 

Campaign violations have been committed by other officials, including former Berkeley mayor Shirley Dean, mayoral candidate Don Jelinek and Rent Board commissioner Chris Kavanagh, in the past. In an interview with the Planet last week Assistant City Attorney Kristy Van Herick said that it was possible that Spring’s violations could be resolved with a settlement. 

The FCPC is scheduled to hold a hearing on Sept 19 to determine whether a violation took place.  

Spring spent the last few weeks getting all her financial information sorted out from her bank and matching it with her campaign statements. 

“It has been a very exhaustive process,” she said. “I feel I have made every effort to reveal all the information. I have correlated all my campaign statements with my bank statements and corrected all the mistakes to make sure that the public knows where my campaign contributions come from and that people are abiding with the contribution limit. I am complying with the law. I went over all the figures with my volunteers forward and backward a hundred times. We will always be making mistakes but the important thing is that you correct your mistakes and I feel I have done that. It’s all an open book now.”


English Speakers Desired: America’s ESL Challenge

By Khalil Abdullah, New America Media
Friday August 10, 2007

WASHINGTON—Had President Bush been able to enact an immigration bill that legalized undocumented immigrants this year, the result would have produced “a one-time shock to the ESL (English-as-a-second-language) training system” in the United States, according to Michael Fix. 

Fix co-authored “Adult English Language Instruction in the United States: Determining Need and Investing Wisely,” a report issued by the Migration Policy Institute (MPI). The report estimates that an additional $200 million annually, for six years, would have to be spent in the United States to attain English proficiency for the country’s 5.8 million adult lawful permanent residents (LPRs). The combined state and federal government spending on English-as-a-second-language (ESL) programs is already more than $1 billion annually. 

Yet, assuming the passage of immigration reform at some date, it will most certainly include the condition that undocumented workers learn English to qualify for citizenship. Using assumptions about the current undocumented immigrant population, the report estimates “that approximately 6.4 million unauthorized immigrants in the country will require English language instruction in order to gain the necessary skills to pass the naturalization exam and obtain LPR status or to fully participate in the country’s civic life.” 

It is the 6.4 million cohort, when added to the 5.8 million LPRs, which gives pause for serious concern about the capacity and effectiveness of an ESL system that already has glaring structural flaws. “In the event of a legalization program for today’s unauthorized population, we project an increase of $2.9 billion a year in new costs for six years .… we assume that none of the $1 billion in current funding would serve the legalizing population,” the report said.  

In addition, the report noted that 1.8 million immigrants enter the United States annually, many with limited English skills, and few educational options are available once they arrive. They add to the already 23 million Americans who reported themselves as having limited English proficiency in 2005.  

The timing of the report’s release speaks to the possibility of elevating the public discourse about ESL funding needs before comprehensive immigration reform is back before Congress, and as changes are made to other federal programs that could impact immigration issues. Demetrios Papademetriou, MPI’s co-founder and president, moderated a July 30 panel discussion about the report’s findings and recommendations.  

Papademetriou framed the necessity for the United States to more fully fund ESL initiatives as an economic imperative in order to remain globally competitive. “There is no real growth in the native [U.S.] labor force in the next five to 10 years,” he said, adding that, in combination with other factors -- including the impending retirement of the baby-boom generation -- the projected negative outcomes without an English-literate populace should force revision of laissez-faire attitudes toward ESL programs. 

Papademetriou explained that the notion of viewing ESL funding as a benevolent or charitable act misses “the consuming economic self-interest” that should be driving funding scenarios at the federal, state, and local level. 

As a simplistic example, a more literate workforce fills higher paying jobs and thus produces economic benefits that ripple through the economy. Panelists cited data that show English-literate immigrants are lower users of social services as just one of the compelling self-interest fiscal rationales for states to become pro-active about better ESL funding and instruction. Non-English speakers, by contrast, stay on welfare longer, for example. 

Currently, ESL is partially funded by various federal programs, including ones that allow states to match dollars. But states match at varying levels; demography is changing as well. While the report showed California facing the largest numerical ESL training challenge, the recent, rapid influx of undocumented workers to the southeastern United States will force that region to make hard choices about ESL funding priorities.  

Margie McHugh, a co-author of the report, noted that the $30 billion revenue captured by Social Security from undocumented immigrants is a possible source of financing for ESL programs. McHugh said the $30 billion estimate is derived from census-based data calculations between 1994 and 2004. As those funds won’t be returned to individual undocumented claimants, they could be the revenue source to fund competitive, innovative, ESL grant awards to the states if there was political consensus. 

One of the systemic difficulties facing ESL, McHugh pointed out, is the “need to professionalize a system where most teachers are part time.” The cost of that goal is captured in the MPI report’s estimate of the additional $200 million needed for ESL to minimally meet projected demand to service the LPR community.  

The report called for implementing a comprehensive system of quality control measures of state ESL programs. “Currently, conventional practices such as random visits, audits, and scheduled program reviews by state monitors are not required,” the report said. 

One of the report’s central recommendations was to “require an annual report to Congress” on the status of ESL implementation. Congress would then be better able to assess the intersection of immigration issues, data, policy, and programs to plan for America’s future needs. Though America has half of the world’s cities with immigrant populations of over one million each, it is lagging behind other countries in addressing ESL needs, according to the report. 

The need for an annual Congressional report, or at the least, a biennial one, derives in part from Fix’s observation that there is “no national language policy” in the United States. Furthermore, during the contentious immigration debate, Fix said, “immigration integration took a backseat during those deliberations” to politics. 

In addition to Papademetriou, Fix, and McHugh, the panel was rounded out by Brigitte Marshall, Israel David Mendoza, and Heide Spruck Wrigley. As panelists, each brought incisive observations about the complexities of ESL funding realties, comments about differences in state approaches to ESL funding, and some brutal truth as well. 

“Level 6,” the highest rung of ESL instruction, “is not enough to succeed in college level coursework,” according to Mendoza, the Director of the Adult Basic Education Office at the Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges. In his critique of the inadequacy of current ESL funding, he called for increased access to the Internet for ESL programs with a compatible e-learning curriculum, something unlikely to occur, in his opinion, until the “big players,” like the Gates Foundation and other philanthropies, are brought into ESL funding streams. 

Marshall, who is the director of the Oakland Adult Education Program in California, had several cautionary observations about reforming ESL, noting, “what gets measured gets done.” She spoke to the need to move beyond simply looking at numerical aggregate ESL needs in order to design programs that take into the account the full range of support services often needed by ESL learners. 

During the presentation, data was cited that immigrants, while compromising 15 percent of the American work force, account for 45 percent of the low-wage workers. Unsurprisingly then, said Wrigley, president of LiteracyWork International, there are practical ESL innovations being implemented by corporations. She said McDonald’s, for instance, is beginning to provide Spanish language instruction for its English-speaking personnel as well as the more traditional ESL training for Spanish-literate ones.  

Ultimately, said Wrigley, often what is underestimated is the desire that many immigrants have to learn English, an accomplishment that the panelists agreed is a powerful determinant of success in the United States. “If I learn English, I can help other people just like me,” is a phrase Wrigley said she hears often. She said this desire extends past the requirement to simply master the civics test of the immigration exam, or the practical use of getting a job, but is rooted strongly in the ideal of civic participation in a better America. 

The report can be found at www.migrationpolicy.org. 


First Person: A Shout Out to Non-Moms

By Sonja Fitz
Friday August 10, 2007

It’s all about the children. 

No it isn’t. Before I had a son—for over 39 years of my life—my childless  

friends and I scoffed at this sentiment. Sheesh, we complained, I guess we’re second-class citizens. Never mind that we were working day in and day out to keep this little world running so that the precious Leaders of Tomorrow would inherit. Typical parental self-absorption, we scoffed. And now I’m the proud mom of a beautiful, sweet, brilliant 19-month-old bundle of perfection? I still scoff at it. 

In truth, I feel like both people—a proud and happy mom, no doubt, but I was childless for a little less than half my life (hopefully) and those feelings don’t go away overnight. At least for me they didn’t. I still wish babies and small children wouldn’t go to non-kid-friendly restaurants, movies, and other places grown-ups go for a little quiet and space to mingle with peers. Yeah, my husband and I cart our own tot off to places other than Chuck-e-Cheese or Lake Anza, but in those instances we know were on borrowed time, behaviorally speaking, and we head straight for the door if junior starts acting up. The whole world is not, nor should it be, kid-friendly.  

You don’t know what love is until you have a child.  

Yes you do. I don’t believe parental love is somehow better or more real than other kinds of love, it’s just different. It’s wrapped around an utterly pure subject, spiked with intense protectiveness and a(n un)healthy dose of self-love. Er, that’s why parents are nutty for their own baby’s hilarious antics (yawn) and brilliant utterances (y’huh?), not their neighbor’s—the mini-me factor.  

Parental love makes parents close in on their household in many cases, eschewing community involvement. My husband and I have to work hard to stay part of the world around us—it’s so easy to settle into the family couch on evenings and weekends, and just steep in your own familial juices. Parenthood breeds cliquish tribalism and a totally unBuddhist obsessive attachment. I’m sorry but the love I have for my mother, father, husband, siblings, and friends is just as important to me, and a little less suffocating, truth be told. Yes, I would dive into boiling oil for my son if necessary—and, honestly, isn’t that a bit de trop? 

You can’t be fulfilled unless you experience parenthood.  

Yes you can. Having a child is fun, fascinating, delightful, educational, growth-inducing, self-revelatory, entertaining, sweet, and heart-meltingly delicious, but it is not the sole path to fulfillment. Other things in my life have fulfilled me in a different and equally rich way, such as creative projects, losing weight, communing with nature, great books, long-lasting friendships, helping an aging parent move, helping a friend overcome depression. Do those things seem trivial compared with child-rearing? Maybe they are—to you. Fulfillment is personal, dude. 

No, I would not trade momhood now for all the chocolate in Belgium, but nor would I retroactively trade my 39 years of childlessness for a bazillion dollars and that still vacant co-host gig on The View. I just think our childless brothers and sisters deserve a little respect, if you please, and hold the pity. There is life without offspring, and it’s damn good.  

 

 

 

Sonja Fitz is a Berkeley resident. She  

doesn’t mind and even enjoys reading The Tale of Peter Rabbit 12 times in a row, but she also enjoys a quiet double espresso in trendy-snooty adult-friendly cafés. 


Healthy Living: Yield to Oncoming Traffic

By Erin Ehsani
Friday August 10, 2007

Yes, you’re losing grip.” This is how my acupuncturist, Bronwyn, responded to my complaint of an increasing numbness in my right arm that was hampering my ability to maintain grasp. I could barely write a sentence without losing hold of the pen, my hand creating unintentional squiggly lines because I refused to let go. Ha ha body. I get it. Damn metaphorical translations. 

I sought acupuncture treatment for a long list of physical ailments that were slowing me down, annoyed it cut into my productivity. I went weekly trying to master the recommendations to aid my digestion, increase energy and restore homeostasis. Yet seemingly for all my efforts I continued to spiral downward. My body was responding to years of accumulated stress by rebelling in the only way that could get my attention.  

The divine yield sign emerged as I stuck my tongue out and outstretched my arms for diagnosis. Bronwyn took my hand with tender compassion, “No amount of herbs or needles will help until you learn to slow down.” 

What does “slow down” mean to a recovering perfectionist whose yardstick of success measured tangible achievement? I thrived on a full plate, gluttonously helping myself to more by over-scheduling, multi-tasking, and setting goals to pacify the nagging voice masquerading as motivation.  

I thought I left the hamster wheel years ago only to find this time I was just running in the opposite direction. Pedaling furiously to yoga class. Inhaling my slow food. Reading about being present. It wasn’t just tree pose I couldn’t balance. 

Still I was haunted by memories of my generously proportioned childhood pet hamster. I’d arrive home from school eager to see a show of fun hamster antics only to find Bob stationed in a corner motionless, the wheel gathering dust. We called him lazy. Maybe he was meditating. 

Years later I let the sun stream in through my bedroom window where Duke and I lay unfolding to a gentle wakefulness. During the night he’d find the crook of my legs and position himself in a ball against the back of my knees. I could feel his warmth and staccato heartbeat keeping rhythm with my own along with the twitches and muffled barks of his dreams. I’d lie there knowing even a subtle movement would break the moment and we’d both have to get up to pee. My ex-husband chided us as lazy. I blamed it on Duke. 

My monkey mind equated slowing down with lazy—afraid if I stopped moving I might miss an opportunity and my life would tumble over like dominoes. Never mind the lost years I spent on the fast track where life passed in a blur. I can’t recall anything significant because blinders shut out the world around me. Some days I entertain offering a reward for anyone who can locate the missing years. 

If Lazy is that loner cousin you avoid at family reunions then Selfish is his crazy uncle. The two are related. I was scared to invite either of them over, fearing others would judge me by my relatives. How could I justify rest? How would I say no? Sucked in by the cultural undertow that values productivity over self-nurturance and defines worth by what you “do,” I was beaten against the rocks. Swimming in the mainstream only led me to a whirlpool of depression. Fortunately I saw the lighthouse guiding me back to shore. 

Bronwyn inserts the last needle and steps out while my body works to recover its chi. Slow down. I fantasize about retreating to a cabin in the woods or a beach hut on the edge of civilization. There would be no agenda except to meet my basic needs. There would be no questions, goal setting, or networking—just being. I let my body intuitively lead me to sleep, wake, and eat. I bask in the sun, smell the rain, and tune into nature’s symphony. Maybe I cry or laugh out loud or find out what happens when I sit absolutely still. 

Ah, but somewhere a bell sounds and I am prostrate and pin-cushioned in a small office. I’ve got rent, work, and life happening in the present. The challenge is to be here now—but to slow down enough to know I am alive. I’ve been floating along like a balloon, my head detached from my body lost in thoughts powered by over-analyzing and worry. Now it’s time to let the air out in a long breath and drift towards the ground. 

Slowing down isn’t another to-do item on a list—it’s a commitment to engage in living. It’s both a process and a practice. To suddenly put on the brakes may result in a collision. For now, I’m just trying to yield to oncoming traffic and heed the signs along the path. 

 

Erin Ehsani is a Berkeley freelance writer and traveler trying to decide what exit to take next—slowly. 

 

 

 

 

 


Opinion

Editorials

Editorial: Cynicism Damages Tenant Cause

By Becky O'Malley
Tuesday August 14, 2007

There’s been a lot of hoo-hah lately, including some in these pages, about the recent airing in the Matier-Ross gossip column of the old rumor that Berkeley Rent Control Board member Chris Kavanagh is seldom seen in the Dwight Way apartment which he rents, and that in fact he might really “live” in a charming cottage in Rockridge, just over the border in Oakland. Why the ironic quotes around “live”?  

Well, what those complaining about the peripatetic Kavanagh are annoyed about is that they think he probably spends most of his time in Oakland, even though he votes and was elected to the Rent Board in Berkeley. The problem with this, the probable reason why the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office has been reluctant to charge him with any crime, is that “domicile” for the purpose of voting and by extension for holding office, is not the same as what is called “his residence” in ordinary language. 

Kavanagh has always told naysayers—and he’s never kept this a secret—that his girlfriend lives in Oakland, and he spends a lot of time, including (shocking though it may seem) nights and weekends, with her at her home. We even saw him riding his bicycle across Alcatraz at Colby on his way to Berkeley one morning recently—he’s never been particularly secretive about where he hangs out. The new wrinkle is that his name has shown up on the lease of what might be called “her residence,” where eviction now threatens him—or them. But from a strictly legal perspective, that probably doesn’t make much difference. 

Traditionally, voters have been allowed to designate their domicile for voting purposes on very subjective grounds. The student rights movement starting in the late 1950s strengthened this principle. For at least 30 years students in California have chosen whether they wanted to vote in their parents’ home town, from their college dorm, or from either one when they were staying elsewhere for extended periods. Bed-checks are not part of the analysis. There’s even a respected body of law arguing on constitutional grounds that people should be allowed to vote in more than one place of “residence,” since so many people own and pay taxes on second homes, but generally voters are forced to choose only one place to vote.  

Astute Alameda County prosecutors, more knowledgeable than the Berkeley city attorney’s office, are well aware that if they try to charge Kavanagh with committing a crime they’re likely to lose, or at least to face an extended and expensive legal battle. And certainly if he’s never claimed domicile for voting purposes anywhere but Berkeley, regardless of where he spends his nights and regardless of what leases he’s signed, they will lose the case. 

Does that justify what he’s done? The answer is not the slam dunk many of his critics would like it to be. After all, many Berkeley citizens of our acquaintance have more than one residence: apartments in New York and Paris, cabins in Tahoe and Napa, even villas in Tuscany. David Teece, a part-time faculty member at UC’s Haas Business School (the proud tenant of the Mitsubishi Bank Chair in International Business and Finance and the moneybags behind the condo-ization of downtown Berkeley) is rumored to have at least five homes besides his Claremont District compound, including one in his native New Zealand. If Teece is a U.S. citizen (and dual citizenship is now possible) would his many mansions disqualify him from registering to vote in Berkeley or even from serving on the Rent Board? Probably not.  

So should Chris Kavanagh be prosecuted for sleeping over in Oakland, even if it’s most of the time? Probably not. And should signing two leases in adjacent cities be treated differently from owning two or more homes around the world? Probably not. We’ll even go out on a limb and predict that Supervisor Ed Jew will never be convicted of doing something similar or perhaps even more egregious in San Francisco (though he might be convicted of other crimes.)  

The question of what Kavanagh’s done wrong, ethically if not legally, still lingers, nonetheless. The loudest complainers against him have been Berkeley’s organized small landlords, which is odd considering that he ran on a platform supporting tenants’ rights. He wasn’t elected to defend landlords, though he was supposed to provide a fair shake for both sides in landlord-tenant disputes. If he hadn’t run, another pro-tenant candidate would have taken his place on the winning slate. 

It could be argued that David Teece has actually done more harm to Berkeley’s small landlords. The cash-register multiples that his surrogates have built to warehouse student renters seem to be out-competing local housing providers. 

If Chris Kavanagh’s harmed anyone, it’s tenants. He’s probably no worse than any of the other cynical baby boomers who have stockpiled and sublet rent-controlled units in Berkeley and Manhattan though they can and do afford to live elsewhere. (Yes, we know you’re out there.) But that doesn’t justify his quasi-public thumbing his nose at the voters’ justified expectation that he live in Berkeley. He risks giving the whole tenants’ rights movement a black eye in the public consciousness, and he’s not doing the Green Party any good either. 

 


Editorial: Planners Come and Go, But the Department Never Changes

By Becky O’Malley
Friday August 10, 2007

The announcement that Mark Rhoades is leaving Berkeley’s Planning Department for greener pastures has been greeted in many parts of the city with expressions of enthusiasm—they’re, in a phrase, jumping for joy. One group of citizens, the kind who would sign their letters “Outraged” if the Planet allowed it, is even hosting a party at Café de la Paz on Monday night to celebrate his departure. The paper has received a number of caustic letters about his track record, a few so caustic that the opinion editors breathed a sigh of relief when the senders had second thoughts and withdrew them. We don’t really like to print personal attacks on private individuals, but we don’t like to censor letters either. And it’s hard to top an earlier correspondent’s “duplicitous insect” appellation for Mr. Rhoades—anything more is piling on. 

Civil servants like Rhoades inhabit a curious gray area between public and private status. They’re paid with public money, supposed to be cogs in a well-oiled apparatus which implements policies presumably at the behest of the voters. In theory at least public servants, as they used to be called, are not supposed to use their jobs as levers for advancing either their personal fortunes or their personal political beliefs. But the planning profession has historically had problems keeping the bright line distinction between their own desires and their duty to the democratic process. 

Any analysis of what’s wrong in Berkeley which focuses on the person called Mark Rhoades misses the point, and leaves the city vulnerable to yet another round of more of the same when he’s gone. For many years planning departments in many cities, not just Berkeley, have been infested with ideologues and/or dominated by developers. There are many reasons why this is true. 

The root cause goes way back to the early seventies: Proposition 13. That initiative, supposedly for the benefit of taxpayers, dramatically changed the way city governments were financed. Most revenues no longer came from property taxes, forcing cities to think up creative ways of paying for the services residents of cities like Berkeley expected. 

Funding planning departments from fees assessed on permits seemed like a good idea at the time, since a major part of their functions relate to monitoring and regulating building projects. But the law of unintended consequences soon kicked in. Departmental budgets became more and more dependent on income from development fees, less development meant less budget, and nobody enjoys laying off employees. Keeping the development engine chugging away, whether we need it or not, became important for keeping planning departments solvent. 

Even without the financial incentive, there’s another factor at work. Patti Dacey, who has served on several key city commissions, is fond of quoting what her administrative law professor told his students on the first day of class when she was in law school: every regulatory body is eventually captured by the industry it’s supposed to regulate. That’s a good rule to remember. Think of the PUC, the FDA, the FCC—any acronym agency you know anything about. And it’s true in spades in planning departments.  

Developers, by the very nature of their job, are frequently in and out of the Berkeley building known not so fondly in some quarters as The Planning Palace (one of the nicer buildings, downtown with its own roof garden and other amenities.) It’s only natural that they quickly get on a first name basis with the planning staff. Anyone masochistic enough to watch Zoning Adjustments Board meetings soon notices that it’s been “Mark” and “Ali” and “Patrick” for a long time, not “Mr. Rhoades” and “Mr. Kashani” and “Mr. Kennedy,” and they all are chummy with “Rena,” the developers’ favorite lawyer. And then there’s the revolving door problem: witness the rumor that “Mark” will soon be working for “Ali.”  

A third element in the mix is ideology. Planners are educated, often poorly educated, to believe that they know more than is knowable about the right way to do things. Their profession, like much of the social science world, is infested with pseudo-scientific jargon fueled by “studies” that follow few of the protocols that would be required to quote results in hard science.  

There are classic examples of planning theory run amok: nationally the social engineering attempted by Robert Moses (not the civil rights hero, the other one) in New York, locally the urban renewal disaster of driving the African-American residents out of San Francisco’s Western Addition. Berkeley in the same period was saved by vigilant citizens from a similar fate. The now-thriving Fourth Street shopping area was supposed to be leveled to build yet another office park, but it was preserved by local action. 

However ideologues just don’t quit. In the last 10 years or so the dominant ideology has been “smart growth,” the unproven theory that making already-developed urban areas ever-denser will prevent sprawl into the hinterlands. It has its soft practitioners who have some good and intelligent ideas, for example Richmond Councilmember Tom Butt, who pushes re-use of the best older buildings in his city. But hard-core smart growthers seem to truly believe, in the complete absence of replicable data that a real scientist would recognize, that cramming more and more people into older cities like Berkeley and San Francisco will quench the American’s historic thirst for a little plot of land to call his own.  

The evidence, such as it is, seems to point in the opposite direction. As old urban areas like New York, San Francisco and Berkeley become increasingly uninhabitable for everyone except the very rich who can afford to escape to the country occasionally, working class and poorer people continue to move out to the ever-more-distant suburbs.  

Berkeley’s first high-profile ideologue in this era was city manager James Keene, who hired a consultant to draft a general plan whose main feature was supposed to be super-density, damn the consequences. The public process, mandated by the city charter, was intended to be perfunctory, but a vigorous planning commission, with backbone courtesy of Rob Wrenn, Gene Poschmann and Zelda Bronstein, took it over. With lots of citizen input, they produced a remarkable document that stands as a real monument to what the public actually wants. Not, of course, that the Planning Department pays any attention to it. 

James Keene departed in July 2000, with this comment by Berkeley’s beloved Pepper Spray Times: “Keene developed a knack for derailing critical policy discussion through bureaucratic lexicon laden with subjunctive clauses, arcane qualifiers and numbing equivocations.” (PST is now printed inside the Planet and recently celebrated its 10th anniversary; the next edition runs Tuesday). He originally hired Mark Rhoades, who has continued the tradition of trying to evade the public will by any means necessary. Other Keene-era functionaries are still functioning, such as Wendy Cosin, responsible for the legal tangle around the Gaia building, in which the city is still enmeshed even after developer Patrick Kennedy has sold out. 

So it’s a bit simplistic to start cheering because one Mark Rhoades will no longer have the job of Director of Current Planning. (Or whatever job he holds at the end of his term. One reason Planet editors won’t miss him much is that his job title seemed to morph as his influence waxed and waned. We never knew what to call him.) The oxymoronic edifice called “planning theory” still stands, and it will continue to emit true believers who see their job as outwitting those city residents they like to denigrate as NIMBYs. (Somehow they never seem to be able to remember that the slogan “Not In My Back Yard” was coined by residents near Love Canal to oppose the carcinogenic toxic wastes that planners approved for dumping in their neighborhoods.) As long as we have a planning department bought and paid for by developers, things can’t be expected to change much.  


Public Comment

Letters to the Editor

Tuesday August 14, 2007

A SUGGESTION 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Regarding “Popular Car Wash Faces Eviction” (Aug. 10): I know that business reality for small firms is always richly complicated—there’s no such thing as a “simple” idea. But, really, am I the only one struck by the thought here that a detailing shop and a biofuel depot could make fantastically great partners to co-locate at Ashby and Sacramento? These seem to me to be services that complement one another and that should have only a little bit of logistical trouble sharing the space—if some business structure/system of contracts, etc., can be worked out.  

Just a suggestion, anyway. 

Thomas Lord 

 

• 

RULES OF THE ROAD 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Cyclist Michelle Lerager’s letter complaining about the alleged severity of the Berkeley police was plaintive, a bit sad and, well, repetitive. I’m not sure you were justified in taking up three columns with it since she said the same thing at least three times. 

I will just make a couple of points, once. For the sake of good cyclist-motor vehicle public relations, and your own safety as a cyclist, it is always a good idea to obey the rules of the road. As far as police are concerned, you use your eyes. You do not ride through a stop sign or a red light when you have any whiff of the presence of a police officer. If there is no police officer, in a quiet backstreet situation, for example, then you use your common sense, and hope for the best. You are not obligated by law to get off your bike, ever, while legally on the road. 

Andrew Ritchie 

 

• 

TRADER JOE’S 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Mr. Parman’s concern over the cost of shopping at Trader Joe’s is not consistent with my experience. Over the past year my household has averaged $25.33 per person per week for food and household supplies (toilet paper and so on). This includes meals at restaurants, so our household definitely meets the USDA thrifty budget of $31.10 per week for a single man. Ninety percent of my expenses were approximately evenly split among three stores: Trader Joe’s, Berkeley Bowl, and the Grocery Outlet. Less than 4 percent of our expenses went to a supermarket (Safeway). For the items that I am interested in, most of the prices at the supermarket are simply not competitive with the prices at the other stores. I shop at several stores because no one store has the best prices or products for the range of items that I buy. I wouldn’t be surprised that for some people the food they buy is more expensive at Trader Joe’s than at a supermarket, but that by no mean implies that this is true for all of us. 

Robert Clear 

 

• 

ENVIRONMENTALLY SOUND PLANNING? 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Charles Siegel, in his Aug. 7 letter about the July 24 Transportation Commission meeting on Bus Rapid Transit, presents a grossly distorted view. Other than city staff, city commissioners (led by the flagrantly biased Sarah Syed), and AC Transit employees, I counted only three supporters of BRT (that is, until one of them stomped out). Contrary to Siegel’s letter, citizen opponents of BRT vastly outnumbered supporters.  

Mr. Siegel seems to think the election process in Berkeley is a perfect expression of democracy, rather than a money-soaked political machine specializing in mendacious last-minute hit pieces.  

Regarding the unsuccessful referendum of the giveaway of the Oxford parking lot for the “Brower” project, Mr. Siegel fails to mention the vicious disinformation campaign against it, led by employees of the site’s developers. While gathering signatures at the Farmers’ Market, we were often surrounded by aggressive disinformers, including Chris Kavanagh, well-known champion of campaign truthfulness. Even the Sierra Club engaged in misinformation; I have lost all respect for this organization. 

I bike down Oxford Street to work, and therefore had to witness the destruction of 12 large trees for the “Brower” construction project. A convoy of trucks then lined up for weeks, spewing diesel exhaust, to remove an astounding amount of Berkeley soil. The crater that was formed will soon be filled with concrete. 

By the time this development is complete, I’ll bet the term “green building” will be considered little more than the greenwash spin of the times. Construction is intrinsically polluting—the reuse of existing buildings is what makes ecological sense in a mature town. 

If the “Brower” project doesn’t turn out to be what was promised (and which development in Berkeley has?), then it will be just another polluting construction project with a $90 million price tag. Ninety million dollars could have gone a long way to benefit Berkeley citizens; instead it is benefiting developers, consultants, lawyers and concrete companies. 

Gale Garcia 

 

• 

AC TRANSIT 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I was glad to see Zelda Bronstein’s article on the AC transit re-routing. Has AC transit gone mad? On Cedar Street, we have been re-routed to get the No. 19 bus, which originates in Oakland-San Leandro. The bus is needed there, but not on Cedar! This bus is destroying our community on Cedar Street, A big, huge, lumbering diesel-fueled bus lumbering down Cedar Street with fewer than five passengers is wasteful and unnecessary! Even the bus drivers realize that this huge bus is not necessary for narrow, tiny Cedar Street. Why has AC transit created this mess in my community and why has the Berkeley city government been complicit with this? Before the re-routing there was a bus that ran up and down the street, at less frequent times. It was for commuters and worked well. Now, this bus is a constant force on the block. I hope that someone at AC transit can stop this neighborhood wrecker and will realize that progress does not have to mean diesel pollution and destruction of a community. 

Meryl Siegal 

 

• 

WHAT THE ANTI’S ARE UP TO 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Mark Rhoades is moving on! That’s great to hear, maybe I’ll apply for the job, after all I’m highly qualified for it, and a Berkeley native to boot. But I wouldn’t expect to make friends of the likes of Becky O’Malley who wrote the recent article that characterizes the planning profession in a very poor light.  

I pick up the Superman rag every now and again to see what the “Anti’s” are up to, but could not resist writing back after reading the hit piece by Becky, who attacks an entire profession based on her limited opinion and experience. Planners throughout the region should be offended, if one can conceive we have the power she thinks we have.  

First, no planning department is perfect, since it really is after all made up of humans, and their human supervisors, and their human political heads. It also bears pointing out that Becky is ignorant of how planning departments are funded since you would be hard pressed to find one that is cost-covering—permit fees don’t cover our salaries and most have to dip into the General Fund. Although most finance directors don’t like this, it is a fact of life that if we wanted to be cost-covering we’d have to charge $10,000 for a simple use permit—not a real option.  

Secondly, planning is not science, but more like an art. That’s why it’s its own college up at Cal. It’s a set of ideas on how to grow cities, design buildings, and make land-use decisions to improve the quality of life for all—not a few, for all. This means the urban fabric and the spaces between buildings become very critical in how they create or hinder opportunities for inhabitants to reach public self fulfillment. Good city planning is something you feel! 

Finally, I don’t know Mark Rhoades, but I think Berkeley has gotten much better in the last several years. I love the mini-Manhattanization of downtown and all the high-rise going in along San Pablo Avenue. I eagerly await more of it—that is Smart Growth. Yes Becky, putting more people in downtown so they don’t need a car is a smart idea. Could affordability be better? You betcha, but that is more a failure on all us for not looking out for the less fortunate.  

I too would probably be friendly with developers. It comes with the job. After all, they are getting something accomplished with their precious time and being productive. I’m so sick of what I hear in this paper coming from the angry, crunchy liberal elites of Berkeley who are constantly fighting development. If you were in Mark’s shoes, which group would you want to sip a latte with?  

Albert Lopez 

 

• 

OBAMA IN OAKLAND 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I’m impressed with Obama’s Oakland visit and cooperation, for the “Walk A Day In My Shoes 2008” campaign. Also asked about Oakland’s violence, he echoes what we all know: “If we can strengthen these communities with jobs, education, preventive healthcare, that will make all the difference.” 

He could have added that a first step in that endeavor could be decriminalizing drugs; the present laws providing a major crime incentive! This is another seemingly endless ineffective “war,” which wastes billions for drug-crime apprehension and incarceration—funds which could provide us with these obvious solutions. Obama apparently joins our other lawmakers in being blind to this ongoing obscenity. 

Gerta Farber 

 

• 

43 MORE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Forgive my incessant ravings about the heat in Iraq. That subject has been foremost in my mind year after year, summer after summer, since the start of the war. My blood pressure rose to alarming heights when I read that the Iraqi parliament is taking a month-long vacation, that Congress has left for its traditional August recess and that Himself is headed for the cool climes of Kennebunkport, not a care in the world! So our soldiers are suffering in blistering heat? Ho hum, it’s a matter of little consequence. And my spirits were definitely not lifted Sunday morning when ABC’s “This Week” announced the death of 43 American servicemen in Iraq and Afghanistan. Dear God—43! I’m praying for the day that American citizens finally shake off their lethargy and demand the return of our troops now—before they come back in flag-draped coffins. 

Dorothy Snodgrass 

 

• 

TALK RADIO 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Woe is me! Woe is us! No, I was not left laughing by Peter Laufer’s command of his most mundane trivial pursuit of Becky O’Malley’s socks concluding his chat with her last “Some Day.” What utterly thoughtless use of priceless KPFA air time! 

Does ironic even apply to Laufer using Einstein’s claim of not wearing socks as taking up valuable daily time needed to put them on and take ‘em off? And Laufer being such a disciple, zealot. Becky, I wish at that time you had just said “Thank you for the people’s time,” and hung up. 

Personally particularly galling was for months I have been proposing to Laufer, an experienced radio guy and author of Talk Radio, and admirably a dozen or so more books, that last weekend was rife ‘n’ ripe to discuss the state of morning radio, as the annual Morning Show Boot Camp (!) was gathered in Chicago—thousands of Imus/Stern wannabees. 

Talk Radio are the Titans to the historically overwhelmingly talented and programming leading Morning Show Gods. (Described in 1936 by Variety as “a typically American, or typically American radio aberration, wacky humor in the morning.”) Yet, this depiction and currency seems to be taboo for even media worthies.  

How We Hate To Get Up In The Morning just isn’t given any consideration—even as Imus departs and Sacramento wake-up ha-has kill a woman in a how-much-water-can-you-drink-without-pissing contest, ad nauseum. Like an aging academic who cannot bear or afford to have his field of study rethought, Laufer won’t incur to get it—even if I’m wrong.  

There is an expression “You can’t talk about the music business without sounding a little mixed up.” Maybe also the 75-year legacy of cock’s crow, time crying morning radio—if talked about. 

Beats me, says my heart. 

Arnie Passman 

 

• 

ANOTHER VOTING  

OPPORTUNITY 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Middle-mush Kitchen Democracy has posed another “voting” opportunity, this time about the institution used to further stratify our citizens, UC Berkeley. Capitalism’s requirement for excellence is ruinous for too many of us. Many people achieve excellence at what they do—sometimes at several things they do. These go comparatively unacknowledged as the STARS super-achieve. Concentration on one achievement as the way to do well leaves us thinking, as did the Chinese of the Cultural Revolution, that all must be given over to that one path, kind of like the yeshivah-bochers, the so-called students at yeshivah, at Jewish school—the men—and only men—who only “study”—make up/develop/support the oppressive rules of that caste—and are supported by the surrounding people, rather than actually working. 

Yes, some will say their study contributes to the community. But it’s being discovered that this is a more-or-less willing self deception, that good work is the production of ways of maintenance for all in the community, not the elevation on some hallowed pedestal of what might or might not be an actually worthy activity. 

I suggest that super-perfectionist performance is of questionable value—to the performer as well as to the people around. A whole life involves many behaviors. Working at an assembly line 40 hours a week is also undesirable. We are all violinists, ball players, students, producers all our lives, and all deserve the opportunity to do all, and to change what we do. 

There needs to be profound questioning of the system to which we’ve enslaved ourselves. This is one place to look—the elevation of a very few people to a stardom we’re to venerate while we keep on at our middle-level of functioning as though we are less than they. 

Norma J. F. Harrison 

 

• 

HEALTHY FOOD 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Today the public is rejecting “American food” in favor of ethnic and health food, while a venerable company, that represented both, folds. Violence, corruption and mismanagement have ended Your Black Muslim Bakery. Three decades ago, when many a present day “health food” enterprise was but a pipe dream, the bakery had its wares in “hip” places such as the Berkeley Coop Grocery. In its inception, Your Black Muslim Bakery also represented the movement for equality. It was the “self-help side to the struggle for economic uplift, and was founded not long after Bay Area sit-ins that integrated many a retail establishment.  

The protest side won “equal opportunity” hiring at such places as Safeway, Albertson’s, Denny’s and Mel’s Drive-in, not to mention at the low-pay fast food outlets. On the “self-help” side, however, regarding the “step up” that is entrepreneurship, the family owned Your Black Muslim Bakery remained a rarity in a community where despair is rampant and a high incarceration rate makes a steady job appear more practical than saving to buy a business. Meanwhile, other ethnic groups spout a profusion of family run businesses and it seems almost monthly that another nation is added to the dozens represented among East Bay eateries. 

Regrettable, as more food outlets go ethnic and mom and pop take their revenge on Safeway, opportunities for African Americans in food service employment are increasingly relegated to the low prestige world of fatty, greasy, sugared, chemicaled “American food.” 

Ted Vincent 

 

• 

END OF STORY 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

For those who like their news short and simple, here in 14 words is the cause of California’s current budget crisis: Tom McClintock and his posse of redneck Republicans have bushwacked the state budget again. End of story! 

Ron Lowe  

Grass Valley  

 

• 

PUZZLES ABOUT ISRAEL 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

This might be a good venue for voicing some puzzles about Israel. In the late forties, my college classmates thought that Israel would be a good place to have a reunion sometime, in one of those utopian socialist kibbutzim. Like many ignorant Americans (and our president at the time) we thought it was a healthy response to the Holocaust. We didn’t know what Einstein and his Jewish intellectual friends knew in 1948, and wrote on Dec. 4, 1948 to the New York Times, that one of the founding political parties was based on the Irgun, “a terrorist, right-wing, chauvinist organization” “similar to the Nazi and Fascist parties.”  

They preached “an admixture of ultranationalism, religious mysticism, and racial superiority.” We didn’t know about the massacre at Deir Yassin, as Einstein did. Only recently have Israeli historians discussed these events. Now, we have to ask some questions about what Israel stands for, besides the reaction to European racism which incorporated its own form of racism. Israel welcomes and provides land and housing for two categories of people: Jewish believers and new converts, and non-believers whose ancestors were Jews—like the Nazi definition. Within Israel, Arabs are unable to get permission to build housing for their families or to serve in the army. The houses they build on their own land for their families can be destroyed even within Israel. Israel is praised as a democracy, but it commits ethnic discrimination, so its democracy is tainted. As the demographics within Israel continue to change, it can only retain this kind of dominance by ethnic cleansing. Yet in 1948, in its declaration of independence, it was said: “it will foster the development of the country for the benefit of all its inhabitants... it will be based on freedom, justice and peace... it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex...it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture... it will be faithful to the principles of the Charter of the United Nations.” How naive we were to believe these statements in 1948. From 1987 Israel has repeatedly violated United Nations resolutions in continuing the occupation of Palestine in violation of the Geneva conventions. It was Nazi practice in occupied territories to dispossess the locals from homes and to confiscate land. While Palestinians were once respected for their education, the Israeli occupation and checkpoints have destroyed access to schools and universities. And death has rained down on West Bank and Gaza homes, as B’Tselem has documented, through state terrorism against civilians. How can Israel be the model of democracy for the rest of the middle east when it violates its own founding principles? Can anyone justify these anomalies?  

Susan Tripp 

 

• 

GUNS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

To respond to Dorothy Snodgrass’s rhetorical question with my own, do I believe that a potential attacker is deterred by armed victims ? Yes, I do. Readers can consult Chicago scholar John R. Lott’s book More Guns, Less Crime for details.  

Michael P. Hardesty 

 

• 

SECOND AMENDMENT 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

“Weakness allures the ruffian, but arms, like laws, discourage and keep the invader and plunderer in awe, and preserve order in the world as well as property. Horrid mischief would ensue were the law-abiding citizens deprived of the use of them, and the weak will become a prey to the strong.” Yes! None can say it better than Thomas Paine, our founding father. People having the freedom to own guns is a people power issue. Why let the government monopolize the possession and use guns? Let people have the power too.  

The Second Amendment says, “A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.” But some people completely subvert the Second Amendment when they mis-interpret it by claiming that since we have state National Guard, they are the “militia.” Actually, militia means a people with arms or “posse comitatus.” And the idea was that if the government turned tyrannical (like the British colonial administration in America had been), the people with arms or the “militia” would use their guns to overthrow the oppressive government (like what the minutemen did).  

Irshad Alam 

 

• 

PENALIZE THEM 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

From my seat in the retirement bleachers I see things that make me numb with rage. Here’s one.  

Near the end of its play the Bush team has done more than any before it to hasten the demise of open government. It hurts to see Bush/Cheney stamp “the end” on an experiment that has survived, despite ups and downs, for over two centuries. They must be impeached.  

But history offers little encouragement. The House voted bills of impeachment only sixteen times and the Senate had enough “yeas” to remove just seven judges from office. It didn’t have enough to remove presidents Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton.  

Given this record it is unlikely that the current White House residents will be removed. They have so little time left maybe it’s better just to leave them to heaven.  

There is plenty of time, however, to penalize them.  

Speaker Pelosi must reverse herself and allow the House to vote on a bill of impeachment regardless of the sad fact there are not enough vertebrates among them to win it. The alternative, no action, would make the peoples’ representatives complicit in executive abrogation of authority, the equivalent of legislative suicide 

No action allows the next president to inherit a situation in which the fears of the Founders are realized, the Bush/Cheney regime having shredded checks and disrupted balances with tyrannical effect.  

No action means the Bush/Cheney team leaves behind autocratic powers: to lie the country into war, to evade “quaint” humanitarian commitments, to disdain world opinion, to process “enemy combatants” in military tribunals, to enrich the rich, to suppress dissent, to spy on citizens and, with the collusion of the mass media, to create whatever reality will justify executive actions.  

The Congress must find some way to punish Bush/Cheney or else we can wave “goodbye” to our most cherished ideals. 

Marvin Chachere 

San Pablo 

 

• 

BARRY BONDS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I just have to comment on the hoopla surrounding Barry Bonds’ besting Hank Aaron’s home run record. Even President Bush, the great prevaricator, congratulated Bonds on breaking the home run record. I hope that San Francisco will think twice about giving the key to the city and a celebration to a steroid user. 

Remember, the San Francisco Chronicle reported on Dec. 3, 2004, that Barry Bonds testified before a grand jury that he used a clear substance and a cream given to him by a trainer who was indicted in a steroid-distribution ring. Bonds claimed he didn’t know they were steroids. Some have argued that because Bonds has not admitted to the knowing use of steroids, there is a Constitutional presumption of innocence. While this may be true in a court of law, it is not necessarily true in the court of public opinion where Bond’s lack of credibility and the substantial circumstantial evidence have persuaded me and others, that Bonds knowingly took steroids. See “The Truth About Barry Bonds and Steroids” by Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams, in the March 7, 2006 issue of Sports Illustrated (excerpted from their book Game of Shadows.) In 1991, Fay Vincent, then baseball’s commissioner, released a Commissioner’s Policy that said “the possession, sale, or use of any illegal drug or controlled substance by Major League players and personnel is strictly prohibited … This prohibition applies to all illegal drugs and controlled substances, including steroids.” 

But does it matter? In this age of wide scale cheating and lying by public officials, researchers, students, etc., Bond’s use of steroids appears irrelevant to a lot of people. After all, baseball is just entertainment and “everyone” was doing it anyway. It does matter because steroid use is up among high school students and even eighth graders. 

I suggest that San Francisco reconsider celebrating Bonds for breaking the home run record because of the message it sends to our young people. 

Ralph E. Stone 

San Francisco 

 

• 

WWW.511.ORG 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Ms. Bronstein could drop some of her anguish (and venom) if she’d only tried www.511.org. 

Once on their site hover on the “Transit” drop-down menu and select the first entry “Take Transit Trip Planner,” which will take you to the “Plan Your Trip” page. From there you fill in your starting and ending points (or nearest intersection), when you want to start or arrive, and a few more options; select “Plan Your Trip” and then check the results—you may wish to change some of the options (“Revise Your Trip”) if something seems disagreeable.  

Hope this is helpful to all public transportation riders. 

Gregory Poynter 

Richmond 

 

• 

AC TRANSIT TRIP PLANNER 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

In reference to Zelda Bronstein’s The Public Eye column in the Aug. 10 issue regarding finding bus routes and schedules: 

Ms. Bronstein: It’s too bad that when you pulled up the AC Transit home page (actransit.org) you didn’t notice that under “Maps and Schedules” was “Trip Planning.” If you had clicked that category you could have keyed in where you wanted to leave from, where you wanted to go, what time you wanted to leave or what time you wanted to arrive, and your routing preference. In response you would have received detailed instructions on what bus to take, where to catch it, what time to catch it, the fare, and an icon to click if you wanted a map. It’s a great system. I’ve been using it for the three years I’ve lived in Berkeley. The only confusion I’ve ever encountered was when I didn’t know if a street name was Avenue, Boulevard, etc. But it gives you its computer’s best guesstimation, and you can click on that or give it more information. When I’ve asked to see a map, however, I’ve sometimes been disappointed—even confused—with the result. 

If you do want to start using the bus more frequently, if you click on the “Customer Assistant” category, then on “Request Timetables,” you can order up to 10 maps and schedules to be received in the mail within five working days. The System Maps are indispensable for figuring out what bus to take to your destination. 

I agree that it would be nice to have real, informed people available to answer questions, but in today’s world I guess we have to give up that nicety. Another one of your suggestions is to have copies of the schedules available on the bus. AC Transit does attempt to do this, but I more often find the schedules for routes other than for the route I’m on. This is most annoying. Some bus stops do have schedules posted, and yes, it would be nice if they all did. But rather than more schedules posted, as I acquire more aches and pains of aging, I’d like to have more bus benches. 

Hope you, and others, find this helpful. 

Diane Capito 

 

• 

A BIT MORE ON THE  

AC TRANSIT TRIP PLANNER 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I read with interest Zelda Bronstein’s frustrating transit experience in her Public Eye column, “I’m Trying to Get On the Bus” (Aug. 10-13). 

From my own experience, traveling by public transit in the Bay Area isn’t so difficult. In Ms. Bronstein’s case, I believe that instead of starting with “Maps and Schedules” from the AC Transit website and then getting bogged down using the call center, she should have instead gone directly to “Trip Planner” (the bar directly below “Maps and Schedules”). “Trip Planner,” which you can access from the AC Transit website or 511 Transit, (http://transit.511.org/tripplanner ) is easy to use. You don’t have to read charts or pour over maps. Here’s how to do it: 1. You enter in your starting and ending address, when you want to leave or arrive, and a couple trip specifics, like how far you’d be willing to walk; and 2. Trip Planner tells you the fastest way to get there on public transit. The systems works faster if you enter the full name of the street. For example, enter “Solano Avenue,” not just “Solano.” Ms. Bronstein wrote about wanting to take a bus from her house near Solano and Colusa to downtown Berkeley to see a movie. I tried Trip Planner, using her case example, to see if I could get better results. I entered in her approximate information: starting at Solano Avenue and Colusa Avenue and ending at Shattuck Avenue and Center Street in downtown. In that instance, the system identified AC Transit Bus No. 18 as the one to take from the southeast corner of Solano and Colusa. The trip, including walking and waiting time, would take 17 minutes and cost $1.75. It took me less than a minute to get this information. If I’d wanted to, I could have from there called up specific maps and schedules which conformed to my request. 

I commend Ms. Bronstein on her efforts to support and use public transportation over the private automobile when she can. I’ve been pretty much car free for over two years now. I live near a good grocery store and have a folding bicycle that I take on BART. If I really need a car, I rent one for a day or two. I live in a neighborhood with a high percentage of car free residents, many of them seniors and students, and even some families with kids. It works for them, and me, because most everything we need is within walking distance. 

Kirstin Miller 

Executive Director 

Ecocity Builders 


Commentary: Psychologists Protest Professional Association Over Ethics

By Ruth Fallenbaum
Tuesday August 14, 2007

In an unusual expression of outrage, a coalition of psychologists will stage a rally outside the annual convention of the American Psychological Association at the Yerba Buena Gardens in San Francisco, Friday, Aug. 17, at 4 p.m. 

Under the banner of Psychologists for an Ethical APA, we represent a growing number of the approximately 150,000 members of the American Psychological Association who are profoundly disturbed by our organization’s official policy of allowing psychologists to participate in U.S. military interrogations at Guantanamo and other military and CIA facilities, where suspected terrorists are detained without due process. 

Last year the American Psychiatric Association and the American Medical Association declared unequivocally that there are no legitimate roles for psychiatrists or physicians in such interrogations; they insisted that participation violates basic international human rights and the ethical imperative to do no harm. Noting the APA’s cooperation with the U.S. government, the American Anthropological Association voted unanimously to condemn the use of anthropological knowledge as an element of physical or psychological torture.  

The APA’s position has been condemned by human rights groups, by Britain’s medical journal The Lancet, by journalists covering the story; and by many of its own members, but the elected and appointed leaders of the APA have defended their positions. To be clear, the official APA position, like the official position of our national government, condemns torture. Yet, as always, the devil is in the details, and APA policy has continued to maintain that psychologists have a legitimate role to play in interrogations of detainees, even in sites like Guantanamo and CIA prisons. 

Psychologists for an Ethical APA are confronting the leadership of APA on the following issues:  

• The current APA Ethics Code (Ethical Standards Section 1.02) allows psychologists to violate its principles, including that of “do no harm,” in order to “adhere to the requirements of the law.” As APA member Stephen Soldz has asked, “What sort of experts on ethics write the Nuremberg defense into their code of conduct?” (The Washington Monthly, Jan/Feb 2007) 

• The APA. 2006 Resolution Against Torture opposes use of torture, yet allows psychologists to continue to consult on interrogation strategies at Guantanamo, even though the U.S. government deprives detainees of due process and operates the prison in open violation of international law. 

• Officers of the APA contend that the presence of psychologists at Guantanamo promotes the practice of “ethical interrogations,” as if interrogations conducted in the context of forced, indefinite and extralegal detentions can be ethical. 

• APA is allowing our profession to give credibility to unacceptable detention and interrogation practices, thereby undermining the integrity of our profession worldwide 

Speakers at the rally will address the history and consequences of the use of psychological knowledge and research in the service of interrogations, torture, and the so-called war on terror. Speakers will also report on their attempts within the organization to change APA’s disastrous course.  

In addition to the planned rally, the group will leaflet and demonstrate at the convention sites during the four days of the meetings. Approximately 100 members have withheld their 2007 dues or pledged to withhold their 2008 dues until, as they claim, “APA reaffirms unequivocal adherence to the Ethics Code’s first principle: do no harm, and insures that its Code of Ethics conforms with human rights standards set by international law and the Geneva Conventions.”  

 

Further information is available at www.ethicalapa.com. 

 

Ruth Fallenbaum is a member of Psychologists for an Ethical APA. 


Commentary: Criticisms of BRT Workshop Are Unfair

By Fran Haselsteiner
Tuesday August 14, 2007

When I was editing books for a major, Washington D.C.-based environmental organization, there was always a chapter on public process. The basic process is that participants work together in small groups and then report back to the whole group. It operates on the principle that community members’ coming together to discuss the issues and develop consensus results in good community decisions. 

That was the intent of the Transit Subcommittee’s July 24 workshop on Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) in the Southside. After an initial group discussion on obstacles to BRT, people would go into small groups to hear other community members’ views and discuss goals and issues. Afterward, one member from each small group would report to the whole group. This was not a public hearing with the usual comment period. It was a public workshop for discussion of the options proposed in the draft environmental impact report, not whether the BRT concept should be rejected out of hand. The meeting agenda was published in advance, and I should note that items cannot be added to agendas after distribution or at the meetings. The Transportation Commission used the same workshop format for a BRT Workshop on Downtown issues, which went off splendidly but received no press coverage.  

In his opinion published in the Planet last week, BRT opponent Doug Buckwald attacked the Transportation Commission’s chair, Sarah Syed, on her handling of the Southside workshop. Mr. Buckwald, who last year distributed anonymous flyers full of misinformation about BRT, came to the workshop with, in my opinion, a clear intent to sabotage the process at the outset, poison the meeting, and control the discussion. Employing his usual brand of bullying theatrics and obviously intending to enflame, he declaimed that the Transportation Commission was trying to get people out of their cars and was engaging in “social engineering.” In his column he restated pretty much verbatim what he said at the meeting. He and several other BRT opponents used up a lot of time in their unsuccessful attempt to derail the workshop.  

In fact, during the Southside meeting many important issues were raised, and AC Transit officials promised to follow up on questions they were not able to answer at the workshop. Despite the breakdown in civility the commission chair made every effort to treat all members of the public fairly and with respect to ensure that all who were present were able to participate.  

I’ll note that only two of the small groups were headed by city staff, not all of them, as Mr. Buckwald stated. Three groups were headed by volunteer commissioners, none of whom works for the city. A member of the Transportation and Land Use Coalition and two city staff members headed the other three. We did not use the meeting to express our own opinions. We heard from other community members and recorded their concerns. Mr. Buckwald did not participate. At my table the discussion focused on two business owners’ objections to BRT; we never got to the workshop questions. One merchant feared that her business would suffer if customers could not park directly in front of her store, and both rejected consideration of even a single transit lane. 

Indeed there are difficulties in shoehorning this system into an area not built to handle the traffic it now has and will have. That’s why we commissioners wanted to provide this opportunity, as well as others, for thoughtful discussion of the options proposed in the draft EIR. 

Many—if not most—of us can agree that one of Berkeley’s most significant problems is ever-increasing car congestion in the face of not only UC expansion but also global warming and the serious cancer risks caused by automotive emissions. As I have learned during my nearly eight years on the Transportation Commission, the most effective way to control traffic congestion is to get regular commuters to use transit. If BRT isn’t built, the available federal funding will go somewhere else, and probably not to transit. What assurances can opponents give us that the money will be available when things get bad enough? And can they provide evidence that improved transit will result in greater degradation of commerce on Telegraph Avenue? This has not happened in other cities where transit service has been upgraded with Bus Rapid Transit or light rail. 

Also during my tenure on the commission I have repeatedly heard that people will not use transit unless it is fast and convenient. BRT will accomplish that. Right now buses do not have the right of way; cars do. As a regular transit user I routinely experience six to eight cars’ passing the bus as it is attempting to leave a stop. BRT will give us low-emission buses providing more frequent, on-time service. Transit users don’t have to search for parking. With BRT and Translink we will finally have the connection from Downtown BART to the campus. BRT will provide a convenient way for people living in the neighborhoods along the Telegraph corridor to get to jobs and shops in downtown Berkeley, on Telegraph, and in downtown Oakland. The Draft EIR estimates that as many as 9,300 people may switch to transit as a result of BRT’s faster, more reliable service. The BRT project is, I hope, the beginning of a new transit system, one that can be built upon to provide truly fast and convenient transit. 

As reported in the San Francisco Chronicle last week, bus travel is poised to increase because buses “have the highest passenger-per-mile, per-gallon profile of any transportation mode. The group figures that buses provide 184 passenger miles of service per gallon of fuel and that carbon dioxide emissions are reduced by an average of 85 percent per passenger mile compared with people driving their cars solo.” And according to the city’s own statistics, 47 percent of Berkeley’s greenhouse gas emissions are generated by transportation. 

I would like to remind readers that the BRT—not Rapid Bus—is part of our city’s adopted General Plan, policy fully vetted by the community in public meetings and adopted by the City Council. 

This is, purportedly, a progressive community, one with a high profile nationally. Change in response to the needs of the future requires us to put aside the assumptions of the past. If BRT fails here, what does that say about our community and our priorities? And how can we hope to meet the goal, set by voters when they passed Measure G, of reducing 80 percent of Berkeley’s greenhouse emissions by 2050? It is my hope that we all can adopt a cooperative, problem-solving approach to BRT as well as all the other issues so critical to our shared future. It’s in everyone’s best interest.  

 

Fran Haselsteiner has lived on Dwight Way since 1984 and has represented District 2 on the Transportation Commission for almost eight years. 


Commentary: Local Communities Are Not Dumping Grounds

By Keith Carson
Tuesday August 14, 2007

On July 23, Judges Thelton Henderson and Lawrence Karlton called for the formation of a three-judge panel to develop recommendations to address the issue of overcrowding in California state prisons. The formation of the panel is essentially a no confidence vote in AB 900, the band-aid approach put forward by Gov. Schwarzenegger and the California Legislature. The legislation primarily calls for the construction of the 53,000 new jail cells. Judge Karlton has been widely quoted as saying “From all that presently appears, new beds will not alleviate this problem but will aggravate it.” 

Many of the concerned parties are speculating that the recommendation from the three judge panel for reducing the jail population will be to place a cap on the number of inmates that can be incarcerated. Strategies being discussed to meet the anticipated cap include implementing changes in the current parole system, so violators do not return to jail for technical violations; and/or the early release of some inmates.  

Citizens should know that further examination of the situation causes concern for local government. There is the possibility that the state may “dump” inmates on counties citing the need to follow the federal decree sent down by the three judge panel. Past experiences show counties have not been fairly compensated for their costs. Essentially, the state would pass their dilemma to the counties, without adequate compensation, or giving the counties the proper amount of time to build the necessary facilities to meet the increased demand, and without additional money for the drug and alcohol programs or other supportive services that the inmates will definitely need. 

If inmates are released early, many will have serious mental health issues, and will not be prepared to compete in the Bay Area job market. Many do not have a stable network of family or loved ones that they can count on, all of which may drive them back towards criminal activity in our communities which will have a negative impact on our public safety.  

I have always been and will continue to be an advocate for formerly incarcerated people as they struggle to re-enter our communities, but you can’t release people into our neighborhoods without creating a re-entry system that includes a clear roadmap that will help them to succeed in life. If inmates come back to Alameda and other California counties, will there be an assessment of their job skills? Will there be referrals to appropriate mental health and job training programs? These issues and many others must be considered and addressed if a large number of people are to be released to counties from our State penal institutions. 

California has a long history of dumping their problems on local communities, many of us can recall the 1980’s when then Gov. Regan closed state mental hospitals and dumped the patients into our neighborhoods without adequate resources or sufficient time to implement a plan. Local government should not be asked to take on the statutory responsibility of the State of California. Local governments and local communities are not dumping grounds. 

 

Alameda County Supervisor Keith Carson represents District 5.


Commentary: Your Black Muslim Bakery (Or What’s Left Of It)

By David Nebenzahl
Tuesday August 14, 2007

You’re gone now, it looks like for good. That’s a shame, at least for me personally. Let me explain. 

For the past five years or so, my breakfast has invariably consisted of a single cup of strong coffee, home-brewed, and one of your sweet rolls. The same thing every day for five years. Actually longer: When I lived on the Peninsula in the 1990s, I used to buy these same rolls from the now-departed Palo Alto Co-op. Back then they seemed somewhat exotic, coming from a place called “Your Black Muslim Bakery” and labeled “A Taste of the Hereafter.” 

In any case, they were damn good sweet rolls. I also treated myself to your excellent fish sandwiches from time to time.  

So even though I will definitely not miss the actions of the thugs who were part of your organization—the terrorizing of small liquor store owners, the Carrie Nation-like smashing of refrigerated cases, the over-the-top, racist ideology, the ersatz pseudo-religious mish-mash of Islam, fundamentalist Christianity and black nationalism—even though I found myself stepping into your shop with a lot of trepidation of late—I will miss your bakery and its products (and even its historic San Pablo storefront). 

I hasten to add that even though I witnessed your black-suited thugs smashing their way through local businesses on the TV news, and read about the criminal activities of your organization, I was always treated courteously in the bakery. The young people who worked there were very businesslike and treated their customers respectfully, no matter what color they were, and they all seemed genuinely concerned with running a neighborhood business properly. That, too, will be missed. 

(I leave speculating about the cause and implications of the demise of your organization to others, as will be unavoidable in the weeks to come. To me, it appears to be yet another case of a well-meaning group of people, struggling against injustice, who fall victim to the usual human shortcomings—greed, hubris, religious mania and messianic visions, and plain old corruption—in a spectacular, Shakespearean drama, leading to a final implosion. You’re not the first, and you certainly won’t be the last.) 

So let me ask some of you, perhaps naively: Is it possible that you might be able to regroup yourselves, shake off the dust of this scandal and reopen your bakery? Preferably in, or somewhere near, the old location (I say selfishly). If you could somehow shed the ideological aspects of the operation, and just concentrate on producing sweet rolls, fish sandwiches, bean pies, cookies, cakes, and all the other good stuff you used to make, I think a lot of people would appreciate it. I know I would. 

And if running a bakery just happened to advance the cause of black economic empowerment in a depressed, predominantly black neighborhood, that would only be further to your credit.  

 

David Nebenzahl is an Oakland  

resident.


Commentary: Independence for Kosovo? Why?

By Fred E. Foldvary
Tuesday August 14, 2007

President Bush is promoting the independence of Kosovo from Serbia, but why? Kosovo has been under the administration of the United Nations. The Kosovars, as ethnic Albanians, seek to be an independent country, while the Serbs consider Kosovo to be an important part of their history and territory. Do the Kosovars have a natural right to independence? The answer becomes clear when we realize that countries and nationalities have no natural rights. All natural rights are inherent in individual persons. Each human being has the moral right to be sovereign, to be independent of the mastership of any other person. 

The problem with national independence is that if there is a minority that opposes independence, then those individual are forced be under an authority not of their choosing. So the Kosovars have a moral right to be independent only if they in turn let those not wishing to be under Kosovar rule to be independent of Kosovo. 

But there is also another complication. There are historic Serbian churches in Kosovo. These belong to the builders, the Serbs. Complete independence would put these properties in the hands of not just those who did not create them, but who are indifferent or even hostile to these buildings. 

Kosovo was the national and religious heart of the medieval Serbian empire. Serbs venerate the epic 1389 battle in Kosovo in which Prince Lazar Hrebeljanovic and many Serbs were killed, after which Serbia became ruled by the Turkish Empire. Serbians honor this battle like Texans remember the Battle of the Alamo. Kosovo taking control of that hallowed ground would be like Mexico gaining sovereign rule over San Antonio and the Alamo, only more so. 

This intertwining of ethnic Serbs and ethnic Albanians can be resolved by a Confederation of Serbia and Kosovo. The old Yugoslavia could be resurrected as the Confederation of Yugoslavia, with Serbia and Kosovo as members. The Confederation could then take control of the historic Serbian places. Individuals in Serbia and Kosovo would be able to choose which of the republics they wish to affiliate with. Ideally there should be a third choice: to be a citizen directly under the Confederation rather than under Serbia or Kosovo. 

Because of the historic conflicts, a Confederate army made up of both ethnic groups would not be feasible at first. The Confederate government could pay the United Nations to continue to keep the peace in Kosovo, but under Yugoslav authority. Serbian and Roma (Gypsy) refugees who fled from Kosovo after 1998 would be able to return to their home locations. The old Yugoslav constitution had provided autonomy for Kosovo. This self-governance was overturned in 1989 by the tyrant chief of Serbia, Slobodan Milosevic. The Kosovo Liberation Army then conducted a violent campaign for independence, including attacks on civilians. The Serbian government then fought the KLA, also inflicting harm on civilians. The Rambouillet Conference of 1999 proposed that Kosovo’s final status would be set by an international conference. This was rejected by Milosevic, which then led to NATO’s war against Serbia by an international coalition, including the United States under president Clinton. 

The fate of Kosovo has to be seen in a global context. If the principle of national independence for minorities is to become a basic principle, then it would have to be applied globally, including independence for national minorities everywhere, and for the minorities within the minority national territory. For example, if Quebec is to be independent from Canada, then the native Indian nations within Quebec should be able to secede and be independent also. But what about those individual Indians who do not wish to be citizens of the native Indian country? They should have the right to be citizens of Quebec or Canada or some other native Indian country. And if an individual seeks complete independence from any country, to be consistent, any person should be able to be his own independent sovereign entity. 

Such anarchism if applied globally and peacefully would indeed be a wonderful policy. But in our world today, majority peoples oppose breaking up their territory, and so independence for Kosovo, which would spur other national minorities to also become independent, would exacerbate conflict world-wide. Independence would reward violent rebels such as the KLA, and would in effect legitimize violence by insurgents world-wide. Confederation is a compromise that would prevent such conflict, as it would grant national self-governance, allow all people to choose their governmental affiliation, while preventing the majority group from resenting a loss of territory. The U.S. government has been hypocritical about national self-determination. On one hand, it grabbed the Philippines in the Spanish war of 1898 and fought against a national independence movement there. On the other hand, after World War I, President Wilson foolishly promoted independence for the nationalities of eastern Europe, which later let Nazi Germany conquer these countries one by one, so in the end, there was no national self-governance but domination by Nazis and Communists. 

National independence is a good goal provided it is applied consistently, peacefully, and sustainably. None of these apply to Kosovo today, so the U.S. government should stop advocating independence for Kosovo. This has done nothing to make Muslims hate America any less; it is not applied as a consistent policy; it would legitimize violent insurgency; and it would hurt the interests of the other nationalities. The policy with the least amount of damage is confederation. 

 

Fred Foldvary lives in Berkeley and teaches economics at Santa Clara University. This article also appeared in the online journal The Progress Report: www.progress.org.


Commentary: Bus Rapid Transit Debate — Any Takers?

By Doug Buckwald
Tuesday August 14, 2007

Charles Siegel and Steve Geller certainly respond promptly and with great vigor to anyone who suggests that there might be flaws in the massive and expensive Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) proposal put forward by AC Transit. The problem is, these two men usually shed more dust than light on the issues involved. In their separate letters in last Tuesday’s issue of the Daily Planet (August 7), they both ignore two essential facts: First, there has not been any city forum held to debate the issue of the approval of the BRT proposal, nor has there been any decision by our City Council on this matter. Mr. Geller’s and Mr. Siegel’s efforts to assist groups like the Transportation Commission in squelching public debate on this important issue are profoundly undemocratic. They are just as guilty as the Transportation Commission in perpetrating the falsehood that BRT is a “done deal”—a cynical strategy intended to hoodwink the opposition into accepting the program. Second, it is AC Transit’s own study (the Draft Environmental Impact Report) that shows that BRT will not motivate many people at all to shift from driving cars to riding the bus. Therefore, Mr. Siegel and Mr. Geller should be criticizing AC Transit for failing to provide a better alternative to automobile transportation—rather than leveling their contempt and disdain at citizens who are struggling to find transportation choices that work.  

Regarding Steve Geller’s “straw man” argument that the Rapid Bus system currently in operation on Telegraph Avenue will not be good enough: I quite agree. In fact, nobody I know is suggesting that it would be. (That’s what makes his argument a “straw man”; it is not put forth by anybody as a serious proposition, and it is quite easy to knock down.) In fact, what most opponents of BRT are proposing as an alternative is a package of improvements to Rapid Bus that will offer 90 percent of the gains of BRT without any of the major detriments caused by traffic lane removal and loss of business and residential parking. We recommend the use of expanded Eco-pass programs, advance ticket purchase (also called “proof of payment”), free shoppers’ shuttles, and better transfer policies and connections to improve bus performance and increase ridership. These improvements could be implemented at a small fraction of the cost that BRT would incur, currently slated at a staggering $400 million of our hard-earned taxpayer dollars.  

For his part, Charles Siegel has tried to tar certain individuals with the label “disruptor.” I think it is a shame that he has chosen to resort to such ad hominem attacks (that is, attacking the person rather than the issue)—especially in light of the fact that he himself was guilty of highly disruptive behavior at the Transportation Commission meeting on July 24. While most of us were trying to address substantive issues, Mr. Siegel chose to interrupt a speaker to level a blatantly personal attack. It was this outburst that provoked a rebuke by the chair. In his letter to the Planet, Mr. Siegel reveals that he didn’t really learn his lesson. He has unfortunately chosen to escalate his ad hominem attacks to try to smear a whole community of dedicated volunteer civic activists. This is a very unfair tactic. And, just for the record, it is inaccurate to label as a “distinct minority” a group that includes, to the best of my knowledge, the vast majority of the informed residents in the Willard, LeConte, and CENA neighborhoods—not to mention the Downtown Berkeley Association and almost all of the merchants on Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley. Rather, I would suggest that this group appears to be a distinct majority. In fact, I have found that the more people learn about BRT, the less they like it. And opposition is growing daily because the plan is so flawed. At the BRT-related meetings I have attended, I have noticed that it is generally the proponents of BRT who are in the minority, usually outnumbered by BRT opponents by a large margin. 

I say we’ve had enough misrepresentation and argument by logical fallacy. Why not debate the issues and stick to verifiable facts? I hereby challenge Mr. Geller or Mr. Siegel—or anyone else, for that matter—to participate in a public debate on this issue. All I ask is that we choose an impartial moderator. Will anyone accept my challenge? 

 

Doug Buckwald is a Berkeley civic activist, and a frequent rider of AC Transit, BART, and SF Muni.


Letters to the Editor

Friday August 10, 2007

MORE STORIES ON KALW 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Thanks so much for your recent story on StoryCorps Griot, the national project collecting the stories of African-Americans which will bring its mobile recording booth to Frank Ogawa Plaza in Oakland from through Sept. 19. 

As you reported, some of the stories people tell in Oakland will be broadcast on National Public Radio’s “Morning Edition.” But readers should also know that many more stories of local people will air on KALW, the public radio partner for StoryCorps Griot. We can be heard throughout the Bay Area at 91.7 FM, and we’ll also post the stories at our website www.kalw.org. 

I encourage people to listen to the stories from our community, and if you have a story to tell, there’s still plenty of time to reserve time in the booth by calling (800) 850-4406. 

Matt Martin 

General Manager 

KALW-FM, San Francisco 

 

• 

THE UNIVERSITY 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

As a resident of Berkeley for more than 40 years, I am distressed at what seems to be the increasing tendency of city officials and some community organizations to regard the University of California at Berkeley as a malevolent, destructive force rather than our city’s greatest asset. Often issues are exacerbated and inflamed by misinformation. The modernization of Memorial Stadium and construction of a new student athlete center is a case in point. The headlines blared:  

“University to cut down old growth oaks!!” The trees, however lovely are hardly that. They were planted in 1923 by the university long after the construction of Memorial Stadium. It has been asserted the athletic center is intended only for the football team—not so. More than 400 athletes from 13 different teams, seven women’s and six men’s will use the facility. In the Pac-10 Cal now ranks dead last in space available for athletic training and sports medicine. 

Currently the City of Berkeley has allocated a quarter million dollars from its budget for a court challenge to block the upgraded stadium and new athletic center. The university has already offered several compromise responses to neighborhood and city concerns, including the planting of three new trees for everyone removed, and enhanced landscaping on the plaza along the stadium’s western edge. The university is proposing negotiation as opposed to costly litigation. Let us hope our councilmembers will engage in this more logical choice. 

Susan S. Pownall 

• 

PUT THE $$ IN PERSPECTIVE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

JoAnn Richert Lorber is upset that the City has allocated $250,000 to sue the University over the Stadium complex expansion plans. This amount is a drop in the bucket compared to the $11-$13 million that the City (and Berkeley residents) subsidize the University for the infrastructure costs of sewers and storm drain, fire protection, up keep of roads and sidewalks, because the University pays no property taxes or fees or assessments as other property owners do. For a detailed report, done in 2004, on the cost of UC Berkeley to the City of Berkeley contact the Berkeley City Manager. 

Sure it is nice to have Stephen Hawking visit the campus, or for the athletes to win an NCAA championship, but if Berkeley had that $11-$13 million per year, we could at least make a start at mending our crumbling culverts, improving our parks, providing really affordable housing to those that need it, ensuring our artists aren't forced out of town, and the list goes on. 

All UC expansions cost Berkeley residents dearly, and visiting luminaries do not ameliorate the degradation of our quality of life or our rising tax bills. 

Anne Wagley 

• 

3100 SHATTUCK 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Your story on the Aug. 2 Landmarks Preservation Commission discussion of the proposed demolition of 3100 Shattuck gave the false impression that there is some doubt as to whether the structure is an historic resource. In brief summary, the facts are as follows:  

In January 2004, as part of the California Environmental Quality Act review of the Ed Roberts Campus project, the Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association published a survey of historic properties within the surrounding neighborhood. That survey includes a map that identifies 3100 Shattuck as one of 14 remaining 19th-century structures that contribute to a proposed Ashby Station streetcar suburb historic district.  

In a letter dated April 11, 2005, the California State Historic Preservation Officer determined that a streetcar suburb historic district somewhat smaller than the one proposed by BAHA, but still including 3100 Shattuck, is “eligible for inclusion in the National Register of Historic Places at the local level of significance.” That determination refers to “criteria A and C,” which means the district is of both historical and architectural significance. The contributing 19th-century properties are of historical significance only; the architecturally significant elements are 65 Colonial Revival structures built in the first decade of the 20th century. 

The combination of the SHPO’s determination that the district is eligible for inclusion in the NRHP and BAHA’s expert opinion that 3100 Shattuck is a contributing property means that for the purposes of CEQA, 3100 Shattuck is an historic resource and may not be demolished without environmental review. 

Robert Lauriston 

 

• 

TUESDAY’S PLANET 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

What a pleasure it was to read the editorial page in Tuesday’s Daily Planet. Starting with Becky’s great piece on the media with which I thoroughly agree. Back in the 1960s, I had occasion to work for a commission seeking answers to the violence that took Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. The media was a prime culprit. Time to bring up those questions again and again. Then...the Elmwood traffic barriers. I’ve become so pathetically used to them that it surprised me to see them mentioned once again. They are an obvious cause of Elmwood traffic. They are outdated, not to mention eyesores one and all. Get rid of them! 

And finally, someone seems to be recognizing that our city’s suit against the university over the stadium project will do little if anything for the city, even if the city wins. A dangerous stadium will remain, the city coffers will suffer as fewer people come to Berkeley to spend money and the city pays hundreds of thousands in legal fees, the students who double as athletes will continue to have substandard facilities. What’s in this for the city? Such a pleasure to read the Planet Tuesday. 

Linda Schacht Gage 

 

• 

CARS IN BERKELELY 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

In Tuesday’s San Francisco Chronicle, Carolyn Jones discusses the auto malls proposed for Berkeley. Excuse me? We’re going to take away your driving lanes (see Marin Avenue and BRT proposals), and your parking (Hink’s and Oxford lots), but PLEASE don’t take your car-buying business elsewhere! Buy in Berkeley, just don’t drive in Berkeley! 

How can this city offer us residential development after development with inadequate parking because we’re the wave of new public-transit-villagers...and yet push for an auto mall? How dare they suggest a Trader Joe’s with horrendous traffic and parking consequences, all the while supporting the idea of an auto row so we can compete with Oakland for sales tax dollars? 

This city does not have a liberal and compassionate agenda. Political views get thrown aside when the almighty dollar is at stake. 

Carolyn Sell 

 

• 

LANDLORDS’ LOBBY GEARS UP FOR VENDETTA 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Contributors to the opinion section of the Daily Planet are entitled to express their opinions freely. But it is disingenuous for such individuals to obscure that they have played a significant formal political advocacy role in opposing tenants’ rights. The following writers, who have recently (and vociferously) opined on the matter of tenant’s advocate Chris Kavanagh’s residency, are high profile Berkeley landlord lobbyists according to public records. Yet they consistently fail to identify themselves as such, posing instead as merely “Berkeley residents.” Planet readers have a right to know the affiliations of these folks and to judge whether or not they have a “horse in the race,” so to speak. 

Berkeley attorney and landlord David M. Wilson (Aug. 3) describes himself as un-affiliated with the Berkeley Property Owners Association (BPOA), the major landlord advocacy group in the city. But in other public documents he is identified as “Director of BPOA” (see “Supporters of Barbara Gilbert for City Council” document”). He has appeared before the Berkeley City Housing Advisory Commission on behalf of anti-tenants rights proposals. He is credited with drafting the pro-landlord condo conversion proposed ordinance language endorsed by BPOA and their associated “Housing Justice Coalition.” He is elsewhere publicly identified as the father of current President of BPOA, Michael Wilson. 

Another letter writer is Berkeley landlord and anti-rent control advocate John Koenigshofer (Letters, Aug. 7) who can frequently be found railing against tenants’ rights in local media. (For an example of such, see his anti-rent control letter to the Planet of June 27, 2003.) Leon Mayeri (Letters, Aug. 7) was Treasurer of the Berkeley “No on Measure Y campaign” in 2000 (Measure Y sought to strengthen tenants’ rights in Berkeley.) Mayeri’s Anti-Measure Y campaign was apparently investigated for two “apparent violations” of fair elections practices during the campaign (see Berkeley City Board of Commissions Meeting, December 14, 2000). 

Their opinions are those of landlords and anti-rent control proponents with a serious agenda. 

Leslie Fleming 

 

 

• 

OPPOSITION TO  

WEST BERKELEY DISTRICT 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I am writing to express my opposition to the proposed West Berkeley CBD. Whereas I understand there are issues that need to be addressed in the vicinity of Aquatic Park, and whereas I appreciate the efforts some community organizers in this regard, the problems and crime associated with the area need to be addressed by City of Berkeley, not by private patrol car. 

In the long term the West Berkeley CBD will be counter productive. 

West Berkeley needs thriving businessbusinesses, not empty, unrented space. It needs a nighttime presence through active small businesses, residences and restaurants. 

The proposed CBD is a significant tax on small businesses and residents, increasing rents and thus increasing vacancies. This is the opposite of what is needed, both from the point of view of safety and city revenue! 

Don’t be fooled—this assessment is not going to be paid by the landlords. It will be paid by small businesses. Those that rent space in West Berkeley will be required to pay the full value of the assessment through the terms of “triple net” leases that are the norm. And the amount that is being asked is significant—as much as a 10 percent increase in rent for warehouse-like space, depending on the lot configuration. 

The CBD is a benefit to a few large landlords at the cost of a small businesses, renters and home-owners. 

West Berkeley needs to be a community that works together, not one divided by a few large property owners who are granted a disproportionate power to vote a tax that affects the rest of us. 

Susanne V. Hering 

West Berkeley business owner 

 

• 

CHRIS KAVANAGH 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

As a tenant and Green Party member, I know Chris Kavanagh’s as a tireless advocate for tenants and the have-nots in our community. The progressive political stances he shares with thousands of my fellow Berkeleyans are not tainted by the residential allegations currently lodged against him. 

If it turns out that he is not a Berkeley resident and has defrauded the city, he taints only his personal reputation, not the political beliefs he holds. Consider the hundreds of Democrat and Republican politicians caught breaking the law every year—the party faithful of those two parties are proof that lawbreakers’ political stances are separate from their scandals. 

An extra-special thanks to the Daily Planet’s reporters for covering a scandal that could negatively effect an issue near and dear to its editorial page. I really appreciate the separation of the news department and Mrs. O’Malley’s editorial stances! 

Jesse Townley 

 

• 

CYCLISTS AND THE POLICE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Those fascist pig-dogs of the Berkeley police force! Now they have stooped to giving citations to bike riders just because they don’t stop where there is a stop sign. Will this unmitigated assault on our civil liberties to run stop signs never cease? The forces of repression are running absolutely unchecked. Next thing you know people will be cited for running lights, driving on sidewalks, going the wrong way on one-way streets, or not yielding to pedestrians. Once this sort of mistreatment of our citizens begins, it really is a slippery slope to a totalitarian state. 

I have a confession to make. A few weeks ago, I stopped my car at a four-way stop sign, saw a bicycle approaching from a small distance as I pulled away from the corner, and proceeded anyway, assuming—of course wrongly—that the bicycle would stop at the stop sign. It didn’t even slow down. The gallant bicycle rider, exercising his natural right to run stop signs, nearly hit me, He then saluted me with the raised middle finger. I tried to get out of my car and apologize to him for not assuming he would run the stop sign as well as for my contribution to global warming, but he rode merrily along, left arm with his middle finger aloft. (I will digress to say that I am in favor of global warming, so that we will have some nice days at the beach, and my home on the bottom of the Berkeley Hills will be beachfront property making that beach trip a shorter one. I’d also like to go to a Giants game and not freeze.) 

It terribly bothers me that if a cop had been there, he might have actually given this poor lad a ticket. Thank god that injustice was avoided and the kid can continue to run stop signs and continue his experiment into collisions between bicycles and automobiles in order to determine which one sustains the greater amount of damage. 

Paul Glusman 

 

• 

RULES OF THE ROAD 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I understand Michelle Lerager’s consternation over Berkeley police actions toward bicyclists (Aug. 7). It is strange that they would crack down on erratic cycling when there are thousands of irresponsible, dangerous and selfish automobile drivers on our streets. 

The bicycle is only a threat or traffic nuisance if you drive a car. Few pedestrians will complain about bicycles, and those only because some cyclists are so intimidated by cars that they ride on sidewalks, an activity cycling activists condemn. The truth is, most bicyclists have drivers licenses, most know how to drive a car and are aware of the rules of the road. 

In fact, bicycle advocates in the late 1890s went to court repeatedly to gain recognition as vehicles. Even the Supreme Court decided that yes, bicycles are entitled to the road, and are subject to all rules therein. So, why do we ride so crazily? Well, first, we aren’t given our rights by the steel and glass monsters we share the road with, and second, we have this little problem of maintaining our forward momentum. 

I demand cars give up road space to everyone else, and if I could have one exception to the rules of the road governing bicycles, I would fix the state vehicle code and solve Michelle Lerager’s problem by passing legislation that says STOP equals YIELD for bicycles. 

Hank Chapot 

Oakland 

 

• 

WHITHER MAILBOXES? 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I went to mail a letter one morning a few weeks ago and was surprised to see that the mailbox on the corner of MLK and Cedar had been removed. 

I’ve since noticed that a number of other mailboxes have ‘gone missing’. 

Where have they gone and how can we get them back? 

I would have preferred more mailboxes, not fewer, as they already seemed too few and far between. 

Eve Fox 

• 

GUNS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

This is a letter to Michael “Ad Hominen” Hardesty. Mr. Hardesty, do you really believe that Chauncey Bailey would be alive today had he been carrying a gun when he was shot down in cold blood last Thursday? Would he have had even a split second to draw a gun when ambushed with absolutely no warning? I don’t think so.  

Dorothy Snodgrass 

 

• 

KANGAROO ABUSE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

A true “Crime Against Nature” is about to be committed against Australia’s national symbol, the kangaroo. Senate Bill 880, authored by Sen. Ron Calderon (D-Los Angeles), has passed the Senate, and will be voted on by the full Assembly when the Legislature reconvenes on Aug. 20. 

California has banned the importation of kangaroo products for more than 35 years, primarily for cruelty reasons. The adults are spot-lighted at night, then brutally gunned down. The wounded escape to suffer a lingering death. The joeys (babies) have their heads smashed. 

And for what, pray? Mostly for athletic shoes and pet food, God help us. Adidas reportedly has spent nearly a half-million dollars promoting this travesty. And Nike, too, uses kangaroo hides. Substitutes are readily and cheaply available. Soccer superstar David Beckham refuses to wear shoes made from kangaroo hide for ethical reasons. We should follow his lead. 

If SB 880 passes, the law would not be enforceable. Once the animals are skinned, it is nigh-impossible to distinguish one kangaroo from another, and many species are endangered. 

Assembly members who have already voted AYE in committee include Lois Wolk (D-Vacaville), Jared Hoffman (D-San Rafael), Tom Berryhill (R-Modesto), Charles Calderon (D-Montebello), Doug La Malfa (R-Yuba City), Nicole Parra (D-Hanford), and Bill Maze (R-Visalia). They need to hear from their constituents. 

Please contact your Assemblymember before Aug. 20. All may be written c/o the State Capitol, Sacramento, CA 95814. 

Eric Mills 

Action for Animals 

Oakland


Letter: West Berkeley Community Benefits District

Friday August 10, 2007

Editors, Daily Planet: 

An otherwise fine article by Judith Scherr on the proposed West Berkeley Community Benefits District (CBD) unfortunately misstated what many believe is a central point of the CBD formation. BID’s and CBD’s typically concern themselves with beautification, security, and cleanliness. The planned West Berkeley district proposes something very unusual, to act as a lobbying entity on economic development, land use, and zoning. Since the proposed district has been created and controlled by the largest developers, property owners, and commercial brokers in West Berkeley, allowing their use of assessed CBD funds for these purposes is highly problematic. In meetings and now in the Planet article Marco LiMandri (New City America consultant) and Michael Goldin state that these lobbying functions are “not part of this (plan).” Article author Judith Scheer goes on to say that: “The budget proposal confirms there are no funds set aside for rezoning efforts.”  

What Scherr missed and for some reason the CBD’s authors seem determined to hide is the clearly stated Item No. 111 from their (latest) July 15 Fourth Draft Budget Breakdown for the West Berkeley Community Benefit District: “Overall District Management—$60,000 for first year” “District administrator (to)…work with the city on…“economic development strategies. Outreach to political reps, city officials. Attend public hearings. Hiring professionals (to) advise on land use issues, input on West Berkeley Plan.”  

Since the West Berkeley Plan is the zoning document for West Berkeley it’s clear that, despite protestations, lobbying for the largest developers and property owners on zoning and development issues is a high priority of the CBD steering committee. If they want people to actually believe what they’re saying on this issue, their actions should reflect their words. This would be accomplished by removing the item from the budget.  

In the article, Mr Goldin, WBBA member and architect of the CBD, defends the participatory nature of the process by quoting the CBD’s survey letter: “ We welcome any affected property owner in the study area to be involved in this CBD formation process.” The simple fact is that planning meetings for the proposed CBD have been taking place for nearly a year now to which only the very largest property owners (Wareham, Bayer, Goldin, etc.) have been invited. When several affected neighbors requested by phone and e-mail to New City America consultant Marco LiMandri that they be notified of upcoming meetings, these requests were ignored as were other requests for informational phone calls to be returned. So much for the open process “welcome.” At every possible step the regulatory and day-to-day initiation of the CBD has been governed by West Berkeley’s largest corporations and landowners.  

That the largest moneyed interests determine the policies of our national government is an unfortunate fact, but at what point did this same sad standard of democracy become acceptable in Berkeley? 

Judy Dater 

Margret Elliott 

Catherine Jones 

M. Sarah Klise 

David Snipper 

G. Barry Wagner 


Commentary: West Berkeley Improvements—Benefits for Everyone

By Steven Donaldson
Friday August 10, 2007

I have to thank Sarah Klise for including my name with some of the larger property owners in West Berkeley. I guess she sees me as a “big shot” now, controlling the fate of West Berkeley! I own two Victorian buildings and operate my branding design studio on Fifth and Addison. Oh, I also live in West Berkeley and my kids have gone through elementary school here. 

Secondly, thanks to the Daily Planet for running her “commentary” as a news piece, implying this was factually driven. Not that anyone believes half the stuff written in this publication but it is a bit much when you run such obvious opinion pieces as a lead article. [Editor’s Note: The July 31 piece by Sarah Klise to which Mr. Donaldson refers did in fact run on the commentary page, not in the news section.] 

I also would like to remind you that Ms. Klise vehemently opposed the building of the now approved West Berkeley Bowl, which is heavily supported by the local community and by everyone on the steering committee of our proposed new business improvement district. 

Yes, I’ve been meeting with these folks, who are all very dedicated to improving the quality of life in West Berkeley and making it a great place for the businesses and the residents here. The Community Improvement or Business Improvement District concept, which is governed by state law, is a structure that allows neighborhoods such a Telegraph Avenue, Downtown Berkeley, or Solano Avenue for example, to raise money for improvements in their defined neighborhood district. They raise money through an assessment process that adds an incremental amount to property tax payments. The money is then used to fund improvements such as landscaping, lighting, transportation, clean-ups and safety. 

The idea of this district, which is supported by councilperson Daryl Moore and Michael Caplan of the Economic Development department with the City of Berkeley, is to bring much needed ongoing improvements and services currently not provided by the City to the area that would benefit residents, business and industry, with the lion’s share of the costs carried by the business community. 

Some of the services in this district will include cleaning up trash which is dumped throughout West Berkeley, including the rail right of way and vacant lots, dealing with graffiti removal—there’s been an epidemic of graffiti in West Berkeley, adding to the free bus shuttle service and expanding the service—currently paid for by Wareham and Bayer and, lastly, a 24-hour security patrol that will help reduce crime, car break-ins and the occasional robberies. Eventually we’d like to see improved lighting, landscaping and visual enhancements throughout West Berkeley. 

These are just some of the improvements we want to see happen to this area. Are these the evil intentions of developers or the vital contributions of local committed businesses trying to help our community? 

Yes, the largest business and property owners in West Berkeley will have a weighted vote on this based on size and ownership of property but they also will pay for the bulk of the entire budget. Residences included in the mixed use areas will pay less than 2% of the entire budget ($140 a year flat amount) and yet will receive all the services available to the district equally. That seems pretty fair to me. 

Why does West Berkeley have to be us against them? We all live, work, own land or rent, share streets and suffer from the same issues is this area. We all need to work together to improve the West Berkeley area—why not get the larger property owners to share the greatest burden of cost for this? 

Yes, these big businesses and developers have influence in West Berkeley. Bayer helped pay for our entire science program at Rosa Parks Elementary School where my kids went to school. They also contribute to the Berkeley Symphony and many other community programs we all benefit from. Wareham Development also contributes to the local community and has continued to make improvements to the area including the undergrounding of utilities and improvements to the streets. 

These “big developers” who Ms. Klise says are taking over are contributing to the value of Berkeley by providing employment, paying property taxes and supporting innovative technology development and drug discovery we all will benefit from. 

I guess Ms. Klise would be happy to get rid of these “big businesses,” let the graffiti and trash proliferate and forget about the quality of life here-oh, and while we’re at it let’s stop the Berkeley Bowl from bringing a much needed grocery store to our neighborhood. 

 

Steven Donaldson is a Berkeley resident. 


Commentary: The Legacy of Mark Rhoades

By Stephen Wollmer
Friday August 10, 2007

The departure of Mark Rhoades from his positions in the Planning Department has been met with private sighs of relief from Berkeley residents and even some a public celebration (Café La Paz, 6:30 p.m. Monday, Aug. 13). As the City of Berkeley’s zoning officer for the last five years, Mark has used his febrile and fertile imagination to bend and twist the Zoning Ordinance beyond recognition in favor of the developers who fund his department but to the dismay of current residents, who believe that the City should be defending their rights to equal treatment before the law. 

Mark has always claimed that he would help the neighborhoods against outsized projects if only those pesky state laws didn’t tie his hands. But time after time, when given the option to interpret city and state laws to protect current residents, he has consistently ruled in the developer’s favor. I am sure that neighbors of each project in Berkeley’s hall of shame(ful) developments have their own tales to tell of Mark’s “creative” back-scratching for developers and backstabbing of the neighbors.  

As recent victims of decisions by Mark, Neighbors for Livable Way presents our nominations to the long and shameful list of questionable judgments by Mark and his smart growth minions on the project at 1885 MLK: 

• That the “orderly development of the area” required that a 21-foot property line setback to an 1890 Edwardian be reduced to five feet in order to give Hudson-McDonald a few more units. 

• That Hudson-McDonald’s project would be held to the policies and ordinances in place at the end of 2004, but when policies or ordinances were found to be inconvenient they were ignored. 

• Convincing Planning Director Dan Marks to allow Hudson-McDonald to substitute an entirely new project as a “modification” of the deemed complete project, thus avoiding current zoning. 

• Initially arguing that a Trader Joe’s met the state law definition of a “primarily neighborhood-serving” store. 

• That the state density bonus law requirement that applicants show waivers and modifications of development standards are necessary for the economic feasibility of affordable housing units can be stretched to justify a free parking lot for Trader Joe’s. 

I join many other Berkeley residents and business owners in encouraging the city manager and the planning director to think long and hard about Mark’s legacy and to choose his replacement carefully. The city desperately needs a zoning officer and planners who read and implement our ordinances and plans as they are written, and not as simplistic “smart growth” believers think they should be. 

 

Stephen Wollmer is a Berkeley resident. 

 


Columns

Wild Neighbors: Developers Strike Back: Arrowhead Marsh at Risk Again

By Joe Eaton
Tuesday August 14, 2007

All our victories are temporary; all our defeats are permanent,” David Brower is supposed to have said. Case in point: Oakland’s Arrowhead Marsh, the crown jewel of the Martin Luther King Jr. Shoreline Regional Park. Friends of Arrowhead were relieved in 2005 when the Lower Lake Rancheria Koi Nation dropped their plans for a casino complex next door to the marsh. Now the developers are back: this time it’s at least one, maybe two trucking terminals. 

The Port of Oakland is doing all it can to grease the wheels for this latest project. In a meeting on Aug. 7, the Port Commission brushed aside an appeal by Golden Gate Audubon Society and the San Francisco Bay chapter of the Sierra Club, unanimously approving the developer’s permit. Kansas-based Swann LLC owns the land, now a little-used parking lot, and plans to lease it to Roadway Express, headquartered in Akron, Ohio. Roadway already operates a terminal in West Oakland, but they want a bigger facility. Waiting in the wings is RLR Investments LLC, which owns adjacent property that may be developed for a second trucking terminal. 

What’s so special about Arrowhead Marsh? For starters, this triangle of pickleweed and cordgrass jutting into San Leandro Bay is home to one of the estuary’s densest populations of the endangered California clapper rail. Most of the year these rare chicken-sized birds are invisible, rarely even heard. But visit on a high tide in early January and you’ll see dozens of them, sitting disconsolately in little islands of pickleweed, trying not to be noticed, or sneaking along the edges of tidal channels. Every now and then they’ll exchange their trademark clappering calls.  

California clappers rails used to range from Humboldt Bay to Morro Bay, with enough in San Francisco and San Pablo bays to keep the market hunters busy. They were almost wiped out by overexploitation, recovering a bit after the Federal Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1913 gave them some protection. By the 1970s their numbers had built back up to an estimated 4,200-6,000. 

Then came the red fox, an exotic predator that doesn’t mind getting its feet wet, and the rail population crashed again. At their nadir, in 1990-91, there may have been as few as 300 left. Fox control was implemented and the rails rebounded, but the current estimate of 1,500 is still well short of where they were three decades ago. The 110 California clappers counted at Arrowhead on this year’s High Tide Survey would be something like 7 percent of the total global population.  

The clappers are the stars, but winter high tides also roust out soras and Virginia rails; even the elusive yellow rail has been spotted. Ducks abound, including such uncommon species as Eurasian wigeon and blue-winged teal, and the resident Canada geese are joined by cackling and greater white-fronted geese. Marsh wrens, Alameda song sparrows, and salt marsh common yellowthroats pop in and out of the vegetation, where endangered salt marsh harvest mice hide. Overhead, northern harriers, peregrine falcons, and the odd merlin cruise for prey. 

The rails and mice also use the new tidal wetlands created as mitigation after settlement of a suit over illegal dumping by the Port of Oakland. That restoration cost $2.5 million and drew in volunteers from Save the Bay and other organizations. And the mitigation marsh is right across the fence from the future trucking terminal. “It’s a habitat so much time, money, and effort have been invested in protecting,” says Golden Gate Audubon Conservation Director Eli Saddler. 

You can imagine the impact of a 24-7 trucking facility next door to this rich natural community. Saddler says many studies document the adverse effects of light and noise pollution on birds, and the developer’s mitigation proposals are vague at best. 

So now what? There are other permits pending approval, and questions as to the adequacy of the Port’s environmental analysis (which addressed Arrowhead Marsh proper but not the restored mitigation marsh, and didn’t consider cumulative impact on wildlife), whether proper public notice was given, whether the development violates the consent decree that resolved the earlier lawsuit. The attorney general’s office has recommended a full environmental impact report. The Port dropped the ball and now, Saddler says, “all of us are going to have a long headache.” Audubon is considering legal action under either the Federal Endangered Species Act or the California Environmental Quality Act. 

While all this plays out, public pressure couldn’t hurt. Oakland Mayor Ronald Dellums and the City Council were unresponsive to Audubon’s concerns and might need a bit of prodding. Or you could go directly to Roadway Express’s president Terrence M. Gilbert: 1077 Gorge Blvd, PO Box 471, Akron OH 44309-0471; terry.gilbert@roadway.com. 

 

 

 

Contributed photo. A California clapper rail: shy, cryptic, and endangered. 


Column: Undercurrents: The Speculation Over the Murder of Chauncey Bailey

By J. Douglas Allen-Taylor
Friday August 10, 2007

The assassination of Oakland Post editor and long-time Oakland journalist Chauncey Bailey on a daytime downtown Oakland street—now exactly one week ago, as of the time of this writing—is a test for Oakland, under a national spotlight. Some of us are passing it. Some of us are not doing so well. 

One of those passing, at least in the initial stages, is the Oakland Police Department.  

In that passing grade, I’m not including the quick arrest of the alleged confessed shooter of Mr. Bailey, 19-year-old Your Black Muslim Bakery handyman Devaughdre Broussard. Oakland police officials say that last Friday morning’s raids on several bakery properties had been planned for some time, and were unrelated to the Bailey murder, based upon warrants concerning a May kidnapping and torture case, and two July North Oakland murders. Given that it was widely being talked about around Oakland on the Thursday afternoon following Mr. Bailey’s murder that he had been working on an unflattering story about Your Black Muslim Bakery, it is difficult to believe that Oakland police did not hear some of that talk, and did not speed up the raids on the bakery properties as a result.  

Still, if Oakland police knew in advance that the murder weapon was going to be found on the property, they are not saying so, and therefore the finding of that weapon, and the subsequent arrest of Mr. Broussard and announcement of his confession, can at this point only be attributed to good fortune. 

However, there are other areas of the events surrounding the raids and arrest where the Oakland Police Department deserves praise. 

The first is the fact that despite the fact that a number of weapons were found on the Your Black Muslim Bakery premises by police, no weapons were fired by either side, and no one was injured. There are many ways in which the Friday morning raids could have gone wrong, with the possibility of resulting injuries and deaths. That it did not can only be attributed to good planning, good leadership, and disciplined execution on the part of the police. They should be commended for that. 

The second area where OPD is due praise is in the careful manner in which they have released information—and refused to draw conclusions from that information—in the aftermath of the raids and arrests. 

We are all familiar with instances, notorious instances, where police or law enforcement officials have not been so careful. One of them is the recent rape allegations against members of the Duke University Lacrosse team, which Durham, North Carolina District Attorney Mike Nifong chose to prosecute on CNN and MSNBC and the Fox News Channel, rather than in the Durham County courts. The public case eventually collapsed, and the charges withdrawn and, unfortunately, the citizens of Durham County are left with the possibility that either innocent young men were unfairly slandered in the national press by county officials, or a Durham County woman was assaulted and her attackers went free because the prosecutor decided playing for the publicity was more important than preparing for the trial. 

Perhaps with a mind towards such fiascos, and the international attention the murder of Chauncey Bailey was generating, Oakland police officials have been measured and cautious in what they have released to the press concerning the Your Black Muslim Bakery arrests. 

At the Friday afternoon press conference announcing the raid and arrests, Assistant Oakland Police Chief Howard Jordan would only say that “evidence linked to the murder of Chauncey Bailey” had been found in the raids, with Lt. Ersie Joyner later revealing that the evidence was a weapon. Mr. Jordan and Mr. Joyner refused to speculate beyond that, despite repeated questions by reporters, saying only that the persons arrested were being questioned, and the department was continuing its investigation. 

And that’s exactly how it should have been. The department satisfied the public’s need to know evidence in the Bailey murder had been uncovered—confirming the widespread speculation that there was some connection with the murder to Your Black Muslim Bakery—but refusing to participate in any public rush to judgment. 

And in his announcement on the following Monday of Mr. Broussard’s confession to the Bailey murder, Deputy Chief Jordan was equally careful. “We don't believe he worked on his own, and I can't get into specifics," the Chronicle quoted Mr. Jordan as saying. "We're still trying to investigate how the plan was developed and who was involved in the plan.” The assumption by many people reading that statement or seeing it on the evening news was that Oakland police believed that Mr. Broussard was acting on orders from Your Black Muslim Bakery officials. Whether or not that is a good assumption, and whether or not that is actually the theory that Oakland police are working on, Mr. Jordan was careful not to say it, and rightfully so. If there is enough evidence developed by police to bring to the District Attorney and a judge to take out a warrant for further arrests in the Bailey murder, then police should do so, and it is proper for them not to speculate in detail about that. Speculation don’t make it so. 

But while Oakland police have been careful in the dissemination of information surrounding the murder of Chauncey Bailey, some of my colleagues in the media, unfortunately, have not. 

In the Aug. 7 story “New Details On Man Who Confessed To Killing Editor,” San Francisco Chronicle reporters Henry K. Lee and Matthai Chakko Kuruvila wrote that “among those arrested Friday during raids at the bakery at 5832 San Pablo Ave. and three nearby homes was Yusuf Bey IV, 21, the son of the bakery's founder. The arrests were linked to Bailey's homicide, two other slayings in July and the May 19 kidnapping.” To show that this wasn’t a misprint or an aberration, Chronicle reporter Leslie Fulbright wrote on the same day, in the companion article “Bey Son-In-Law Says He Was Editor’s Source” that “seven people were arrested during a raid at the bakery and three other locations in connection with a string of crimes, including Bailey's slaying. Among them was Yusuf Bey IV.” 

This takes some sorting.  

As we said earlier, Oakland police conducted the Friday morning raids on warrants involving a May kidnapping and torture case and two July North Oakland homicides. Seven persons, including 21 year old Your Muslim Bakery leader Yusuf Bey IV, were arrested on those warrants and held for questioning. After police obtained Mr. Broussard’s’ confession, he—and only he—was charged with Mr. Bailey’s murder. Three other men arrested on Friday morning, Yusef Bey IV, 20 year old Joshua Bey and 21 year old Tamon Halfin, have been charged in connection with the May kidnapping and torture case. No one has yet been charged with the two July North Oakland murders. 

But according to the two Chronicle articles, the seven arrests, including that of Mr. Bey IV, were connected with all of the crimes, including Mr. Bailey’s. And that, in fact, was not true. 

Less egregious, but still problematic, was the August 8 Oakland Tribune article by staff writers Harry Harris and Paul T. Rosynsky, “Bakery leader, cohorts charged”, which began “Members of a violent faction of Your Black Muslim Bakery, including leader Yusuf Bey IV, were charged Tuesday with a host of vicious crimes including murder, kidnapping and torture. The charges stem from two ruthless episodes since May, including the killing of Oakland Post Editor Chauncey Bailey, who was slain with a shotgun as he walked to work in downtown Oakland Thursday morning. The other charges stem from an alleged May kidnapping and torture in which several members of the bakery kidnapped two women using a car modified to look like a police cruiser.”  

A careful reading of the entire article shows that only Mr. Broussard has been charged with the Bailey murder. But if you only read the first three paragraphs, you would believe that charges for that murder have been brought against Mr. Bey IV. 

Nothing here should be construed to mean that I am advocating that newspapers or broadcast media should not investigate, on their own, the Bailey murder and the events surrounding and publish or broadcasts those results. But a newspaper or media broadcast company publishing information that it says connects the individuals arrested in the Your Black Muslim Bakery raids with all the crimes being discussed—including the two North Oakland murders and the murder of Chauncey Bailey—is far different from the patching together of a paragraph that gives the impression that Oakland police have done so. 

Why is this important, and not merely nit-picking? 

The public is free to speculate on what events led to the murder of Chauncey Bailey. Nothing I say, in this column, should be interpreted as an intention to attempt to take away that freedom to speculate, even if I had the power to do so. Like everyone else in Oakland, I am doing my own speculating. But because of its unique power in our society to both disseminate information and shape public opinion, the media has a different responsibility. Columnists, editorialists, and other opinion writers can join the ranks of speculation, if they wish. But while the news stories and news reports may freely publish and reprint the speculation of others, the facts published or broadcast in those news stories and news reports should be facts only, and not our own spin and interpretation. To do otherwise is to turn the media into the leader of a mob. Many of us, both in this city and in other localities, have lived through such times when either we or our friends or family or people who live near us and look like us have been the victims of such media-led mob mentality. We would not like to go through such times again, here in Oakland, even if it is in a cause we believe to be just and righteous and necessary, the finding of all of the persons responsible for the murder of Chauncey Bailey, and bringing them to justice. 

I believe that can be done—if we are careful, and courageous, and patient—without violating the principles in which we say we believe. So far as I can see to this date in the events surrounding the murder of Chauncey Bailey, the Oakland Police Department is showing how that can properly done. The rest of us that work in other official capacities in this city—in public leadership and the media—should follow their lead. 


Column: The Public Eye: I’m Trying to Get On the Bus

By Zelda Bronstein
Friday August 10, 2007

I had my transit-oriented epiphany one morning in late May as I was making my way to a conference at the UC Student Union. I live in north Berkeley near the intersection of Solano and Colusa. Loathe to pay $20 to leave my car for six to eight hours in the city-owned Telegraph-Channing garage, I decided to look for a free space on a Northside street and walk from there to the conference. But as I motored through neighborhoods north of Cedar above Shattuck, my fantasized unregulated spot failed to materialize. Everywhere I looked, I saw two-hour parking signs. Time was wasting, and I was getting further and further from my final destination. I returned home, left my car in the driveway and, feeling both chastened and virtuous, caught the bus.  

Negative reinforcement works. Trouble is, it can work against virtue as well as for it. After my revelatory May experience, I resolved to take the bus whenever possible. Unfortunately, AC Transit makes it so hard to get information about routes and schedules that I’ve ended up driving even when I’d rather ride. 

I recently wanted to go to a 5:10 late matinee at a movie theater in downtown Berkeley. Not long ago, I would have just walked to the familiar bus stop at Solano and Colusa and waited for the 43 bus. But on June 24, AC Transit changed many of its routes, schedules and bus numbers. The 43 was no more. What, I wondered, had taken its place, and when did it stop on Solano? In this era of climate change campaigns, you’d think those questions would be easy to answer. Guess again.  

If you Google the AC Transit website and click on “Maps and Schedules” you get a list of dozens of bus numbers with no up-front indication of where the buses go or how their routes relate to the discontinued lines. You also get a “Maps” option with links to specific cities. I clicked on “Richmond-Berkeley.” Up came a map so small as to be illegible, but it was accompanied by a table of signs that could be used to home in on specific areas and to enlarge or diminish the map at those points. I began to click and to move the cursor. Transit corridors come into focus, with bus lines shown in color. But I could only see a tiny part of any line at once. Again, too much trouble. 

What I wanted was an old-fashioned schedule that listed the street name of the route (alongside the bus number) and the times that the bus made its major stops. In fact, just such a schedule is posted on the AC Transit website but to get to it, first you have to know the number of the bus line. 

I decided to abandon the website and to call for help. Under “AC Transit,” the phone book gives two numbers for “Bus Information,” 511 and 817-1717. Ditto for the website: Click on “Contact Us,” and under “Travel Information,” you’ll see: “Phone: Dial 817-1717 or 511 and say, ‘AC Transit,’ to speak with person about route information including time points, destinations, or trip planning.” 

I dialed 511 but didn’t get a person, at least not a live one. Instead, I heard music with a technobeat followed by an unctuous taped male voice that said: “Welcome to the Bay Area’s 511. Main Menu. I can give you information on traffic…” When I interrupted with “AC Transit,” the Voice said in a resigned tone, “OK, AC Transit.” But instead of connecting me to a live operator, it continued: “You can ask for information on cash fares, prepaid passes, lost and found or damaged passes. In addition, for complaints, commendations….” When I repeatedly said, “AC Transit,” the Voice would say: “I’m sorry, I missed that” or “You can interrupt me at any time” or “To hear a complete list of what’s available, say: ‘What are my choices?’” It was maddening.  

I hung up, went back to the website, rummaged through various drop-down menus, found a phone number for District Secretary Linda Nemeroff, (891-7284) and called it. I doubted that the secretary’s official duties included dispensing basic travel information, but I thought I might reach a helpful live person. Happily, Ms. Nemeroff was at her desk and indeed did her best to help me. First she tried to find the information herself on the AC Transit website. She encountered the challenges I’d just described to her. Then she put me on hold while she searched for someone who could tell me what bus to take from Solano and Colusa to downtown Berkeley. When, after five or so minutes, nobody turned up, she asked if she could relay my concerns to somebody at AC Transit who could address them. By then, it was nearly 4:30, and I was worried that I was going to miss my show. I told her I’d call her back, said goodbye and drove to downtown Berkeley, where I was lucky enough to find an on-street parking place near the movie theater just in time to make my show. 

Subsequently I did speak to Ms. Nemeroff. She called me—several times, in fact—and said she’d forward my questions to the appropriate party. The next working day, I got a call from Latonya Smith, who works in AC Transit’s Customer Services department. Ms. Smith was also quite helpful; she’s sending me information about the changed bus lines. She also told me that earlier in the summer, such information had been posted on the website as well as handed out at BART stations and elsewhere; and that the agency was soliciting feedback on the recent changes from focus groups of riders.  

That all sounds good. But would-be patrons shouldn’t have to call Customer Service to get information about bus schedules and routes. Here are a few suggestions for making AC Transit more user-friendly: Cut the crazy-making, voice-prompted taped responses that force callers to contemplate irrelevant, time-consuming “menus.” Have phone inquiries answered by well-informed staff who know the new routes and schedules and how they relate to the old ones. Post those routes on the AC Transit website in easy-to-access formats. Put the information about the June schedule changes back on the website. Stock each bus with ample hard copy versions of its current route and timetable. When I was in New York City in July, I greatly appreciated the signs posted on a pole near each bus stop listing the routes and timetables for each line that stopped there. I understand that it could take awhile to achieve that coverage in the East Bay (Ms. Smith told me that AC Transit has 6500 bus stops); I can only say: Go for it.  

AC Transit wants to spend $400 million on Bus Rapid Transit. How about funding a Bus Rapid Info project that offers effective, low-tech aids that make it easier to get on the bus—any bus—in the first place? 


East Bay Then and Now: Buyer Sought for Historic West Berkeley Church

By Daniella Thompson
Friday August 10, 2007

Westminster Presbyterian Church, which changed hands last year, is on the market again. The third landmark designated by the City of Berkeley, the church at 926 Hearst Ave. and Eighth Street is the second oldest in town, having been built in 1879—a year after the neighboring Church of the Good Shepherd went up. 

Originally called the First Presbyterian Church of West Berkeley, it was designed by the prominent San Francisco architect Charles Geddes (1820–1903). Geddes had already designed the Community United Methodist Church of Half Moon Bay in 1872 and would go on to design the Noe Valley Ministry of San Francisco in 1888. 

In the same year that the Berkeley church was constructed, Geddes drew up plans for the Yosemite Chapel, the oldest building standing in Yosemite Valley and the first of the park’s buildings to be listed in the National Register of Historic Places. 

Born in Nova Scotia, Geddes immigrated to the United States in 1848. In 1860, the U.S. census listed his occupation as “carpenter,” but a decade later he had been upgraded to “architect.” He appears to have teamed up with his son-in-law, the contractor-builder Samuel Thomson. 

Geddes’ work spans a spectrum of Victorian idioms, including Carpenter Gothic, Italianate, Stick style, and New England vernacular. Late in his career he became more experimental; for the Sheldon Jackson Museum (1895–07) in Sitka, Alaska, Geddes created a plain, octagonal concrete structure topped with a small, windowed octagonal cupola. Although not the first octagon in the West (five octagon houses were built in San Francisco in the mid-19th century), the museum was Alaska’s first concrete building and startlingly modern-looking. 

The First Presbyterian Church of West Berkeley was far more traditional—a typical Gothic Revival building executed in wood. Its details were announced in the Berkeley Advocate on May 8, 1879: 

 

The First Presbyterian Church Society has accepted the lot in part donated by Captain Bowen, on the corner of Bristol and Eighth streets. The size of the lot is 52 x 100 feet, and the contract for the building has been awarded to George A. Embury, the builder of the East Berkeley Presbyterian Church, for $2,850. The building is to be 32 feet broad by 57 feet long, with a tower and a spire 80 feet from the ground. The tower will be 10 feet square. The audience room will be 30 ft. 9 in. by 40 ft., and will contain 44 pews, with seating capacity for about 200 persons, although much more space will be available when required by throwing open the lecture room, the size of which is to be 14 x 24 feet. 

The whole interior of the building on the first floor, and the pastor’s study in the tower, is to be plastered and hard-finished. The windows will be stained glass, imitation of lead work. 

 

The church was completed in August 1879 and dedicated on Oct. 26 of that year. The congregation that commissioned it had started meeting four years earlier in the Ocean View School, where the Rev. Doc. James Curry began preaching. In 1877, the congregation was officially organized as the First Presbyterian Church of West Berkeley. At the time, there were only six members, including the first Ruling Elder, Captain James S. Higgins, owner of the Temperance Grocery Store at San Pablo Avenue and Delaware Street. Higgins’ store began its life in 1854 as Captain William J. Bowen’s inn. (The building still exists, now at 834 Delaware Street, and is a City of Berkeley Landmark.) 

Captain Bowen not only made a partial donation of land for the church but served as one of the congregation’s first five trustees. 

The congregation remained small throughout its 95-year existence, seldom reaching 75 members. It occasionally blamed its low membership on the nearby presence of saloons, West Berkeley being outside the one-mile perimeter around the university campus within which liquor sales were prohibited. When local option was being hotly debated in West Berkeley, Rev. George H. Wilkins, pastor from 1906 to 1909, was hung in effigy in the middle of the street. 

Being impecunious, the congregation relied on assistance from Presbyterian Church mission funds. In 1899, the session minutes recorded that “there are no specially poor to be cared for by the church. All are very poor and while caring for self have but little for other things.” Despite its poverty, the congregation rose to the challenge after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, offering shelter to refugees who had fled to Berkeley. 

In 1899, the name was informally changed to Westminster Presbyterian Church to avoid confusion with the First Presbyterian Church of Berkeley. The change was never made legal, since that would have entailed the payment of $1 to the Probate Court. Yet in 1914 they managed to scrape together $1,950 and built a two-story clubhouse designed by Walter H. Ratcliff, Jr. 

The congregation stopped using the buildings in 1968 and officially disbanded in 1972. The property was acquired by Lawrence Gerard Smith, a self-styled “Catholic Orthodox priest” unaffiliated with the Catholic Church. Smith renamed it St. Procopius Latin Rite Church and celebrated a traditional Latin mass that attracted no more than 20 parishioners each Sunday. 

The church interior being rather plain and austere, Smith set about adorning it. He was fortunate to meet the Albany artist Gerald Gaxiola, who agreed to paint a mural on the empty wall behind the altar. Gaxiola, later to gain a modicum of fame as the subject of Les Blank’s film “The Maestro: King of the Cowboy Artists,” spent four months populating the wall with life-size figures forming an ecumenical survey of Catholicism. The deep-perspective scene also included Lawrence Smith, dressed in black robe and cowl, and the bare-chested, muscle-bound artist at his easel. At the very top, two adult male angels in their birthday suits, wings flapping, looked down on the mitered crowd. 

Smith also installed stained-glass windows in the sanctuary. Although Geddes’ original plans called for “stained glass, imitation of lead work,” funding must have proved insufficient, and the Westminster Presbyterian congregation made do with hammered glass. It was also during Smith’s watch that the church was designated a City of Berkeley Landmark. 

In 1977, Smith was one of 20 candidates running for the Berkeley city council. The same year, he was convicted of a misdemeanor child molestation charge and sentenced to probation. The police kept an eye on him thereafter. He was in the habit of picking up boys at James Kenney Park, as well as in San Francisco and Oakland, but no evidence against him turned up until 1983, when Smith was charged with six felony counts of sexually abusing Vietnamese and Hispanic boys. He was sentenced to eight months in prison in January 1984. 

Amazingly, Smith returned to the church following his spell in prison and owned it for another nine years. In 1993, when members of the Mekane Selam Medhane Alem Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church saw it for the first time, St. Procopius had been closed for five years, says Benyam Mulugeta, chair of the Medhane Alem board. 

Formed in 1986, the congregation had been using other churches’ facilities for their services. They bought Smith’s church for $300,000, after which Smith demanded an additional payment for the stained-glass windows. Since Medhane Alem declined to buy them, Smith took the windows with him to Mexico, says Mulugeta. 

Smith settled on Calle Libertad in Guadalajara, across the street from the U.S. Consulate General. There, too, he got into trouble, albeit of a different kind. David Agren, a Canadian journalist living in Guadalajara, twice reported in his blog that Smith aroused the ire of his neighbors by sheltering as many as 95 stray dogs in his home. Following a lawsuit, a failed appeal, and many fines from the city, Smith moved the dogs and was looking for another place to live. 

Shorn of its stained-glass windows, the sanctuary next lost the Gaxiola mural. The Ethiopian Orthodox congregation was not interested in a Roman Catholic mural, and the nudity offended some parishioners. There was apparently no curiosity about the identity of the artist, either. The mural was painted over, and the sanctuary reverted to its plain and austere Presbyterian appearance, only more so, since the hammered glass was gone, too. Remaining is the lovely wooden staircase ascending to the organ loft, where the organ appears to be intact. 

Medhane Alem eventually outgrew the church. Two years ago, the congregation bought the former First United Lutheran Church on Mountain Blvd. in Oakland. Initially they had planned to turn the Berkeley church into a monastery and school but have since determined that they need at least ten acres—they want to include a retreat and some farming operations—and are looking beyond the Bay Area for suitable land. 

After sitting empty for a year, the church was acquired last year by the Pentecostal congregation New Word of Faith. Bishop Nathaniel L. Brown says that his congregation is already outgrowing the space. Since many of the parishioners are in recovery from substance abuse or other criminal activities, they are finding it hard to keep up with payments on their usurious first mortgage (the second mortgage is carried by Medhane Alem). 

Appraised last year for $2,100,000, the church is currently listed for $1,700,000. Included are the 4,200-square-foot chapel and the Ratcliff-designed assembly hall, which contains a dining hall with a 200-person capacity, a full kitchen, four bedrooms, three bathrooms, four offices, a storage room, and an attic. The church is available for immediate move-in. For more information contact Benyam Mulugeta at (650) 906-8012. 

 

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

 

 

Photograph by Daniella Thompson 

Westminster Presbyterian Church at 926 Hearst Avenue was built in 1879.


Garden Variety: Seize the Time, Pet the Kittens at Westbrae’s Paradise Pottery

By Ron Sullivan
Friday August 10, 2007

Now that Clay of the Land has gone out of business—the likable and savvy owners lost their lease to a developer, how novel—I guess I ought to mention other local marvelous discount pottery places. Here’s one to get to before the high-rise axe descends upon its lot, as there’s been a for sale placard there right from the start.  

The lot’s owner is on record as wanting to accommodate its former tenant, A New Leaf Garden Gallery, while building there but as the gallery moved to San Francisco instead and that’s a juicy bit of real estate in a prosperous neighborhood, who knows what will actually happen?  

Paradise Pottery was an oddly recent discovery for me. I’d passed it a zillion times, and gone to Westbrae Nursery next door too, but in the two years it’s been open I had somehow not quite accomplished the opportune intersection between my free time, the direction of traffic, and the place’s open hours.  

It’s not that they place isn’t open much, either. Tuesday’s the only closed day and there’s a reasonable chance there’ll be someone there anyway. Maybe I should try to change the schedule of my orthodontist appointments, or the rhythm of my Costco runs.  

But I solved the problem the other day when I drove ‘round the corner and spotted a miraculously easy parking space. I parked for a half-hour and Joe and I took a stroll through the crockery.  

We were greeted by an adolescent gray tabby kitten who played some jittery game of peekaboo with us, coming forward for a pat on the head and then changing his mind, pursuing things we couldn’t see among the urns and pots, peering cautiously around a stack to see if we were watching, getting distracted by some subtle movement on the ground before he decided how to react when we were caught looking.  

The potscape he was exploring comprised indoor- and outdoor-sized planters, watertight things that could become cachepots or fountains or miniature pools. This was set in a cozy lot of flagstone, gravel, and a mostly-dry fake stream, varied by rock walls with cascading erigeron, upright leafy and spiky tropicals, a couple of nice lacy shade trees. It’s pretty much unchanged from A New Leaf’s place, which is nice. I only wish they’d kept the stream running.  

The crockery is in general quite handsome; it’s certainly various enough for various tastes and priced reasonably. The range includes brightly painted Talavera ceramics from Mexico; big things from China or Vietnam with deep-black, bricky-red, or subtle drip glazes, shiny or leathery or incised or molded or pebbly or matte. It’s a deep variety for such an apparently small lot.  

Staff seems to consist of Beth Chambers, who welcomed us with exactly the right balance of helpfulness and backing-off, and the owner. And that cat, Casper, and his calico sister Tibby. Go on over and tell them we said Prrrrrrrr.  

 

PARADISE POTTERY 

1286 Gilman St., Berkeley. 528-4291 

10 a.m.—6 p.m. Wednesday through  

Monday. Closed Tuesdays.


About the House: Retrofitting a Lousy Foundation

By Matt Cantor
Friday August 10, 2007

We had a little shaker a few weeks ago and I was faced with the same series of encounters in the ensuing days that I’ve faced so often over the last 20 years. They tend to go something like “Hey, that was a pretty big quake we had the other day, eh? But you know, there weren’t any cracks in my walls or anything. Not as bad a Loma Prieta.” And I get started… “Well, the fact is that what we had the other day was tiny.” Then comes the math. “Did you know that a 7.2 on the Richter is roughly 30,000 times bigger than a 4.2 (the one we just had)”…faces go blank, people wander away wondering why they bothered talking to me in the first place. Maybe I’m just not a people person. Oh well, my kids love me. 

Those are the facts and I’ll beleager you just a bit more before I move on to practical matters. First, all those earthquakes your house has been through…They’re nothin’. Just plain nothin’. The last earthquake that hit our town that was worth any serious attention at all was well over a hundred years ago, in 1868. Andrew Johnson was being impeached and UC was being founded (in Oakland of all places). The 14th Amendment was being passed to give African Americans full rights (and corporations the right to rule our lives) and Thomas Edison was applying for a patent for the first electric voting machine (no, I am not kidding). The point is that this was so long ago that nobody living can remember it and there are effectively no structures standing today that can give evidence of what that earthquake was like.  

It’s likely that when we do get our earthquake (Loma Prieta was somebody else’s earthquake) that over 150,000 homes will have to be abandoned and the occupants consigned to refugee status. If you don’t want to be one of those folks—and I assume you don’t—then it’s time to bolt and brace your house. If you’ve had it done years ago or by someone of less than definitive credentials then it makes sense to have it looked at. There might be some need for improvement. 

Now, I have this bad habit of taking a long time to get around to what I wanted to talk about and so I duly apologize if I’ve wasted some of your time. I guess I needed a prelude. So, that being done, here’s what I wanted to get to: 

A lot of homes have bad foundations. Now, that’s a rather broad remark, so I’ll try to clean it up a bit. Many foundations, especially those from before 1935 suffer from a range of ills, including concrete deterioration (soft concrete), rotation (tilting of the footings) and cracking (or settlement). These can, in combination, be serious enough to require replacement of part, or even all, of your foundation. In my book, serious deterioration is the most serious failing when it comes to earthquake readiness because it keeps bolts from staying in one place when the earth starts shaking. When foundations are really crumbly (you can drive a screwdriver an inch through) there may not be any point in adding bolts. But I firmly believe, having sat down with a number of engineers and other experts over the years, that all but the worst foundations can be retrofitted to some effectiveness.  

Even foundations that have settled badly, those with cracks and fairly serious rotation, can have bolts and bracing panels installed with reasonable assuredness that they will add greatly to the earthquake resistance of a house. The reason I point this out is that many people are putting off doing seismic work until they get to the foundation and this can mean, due to the high cost, a delay that may end badly. 

The earthquake isn’t going to wait for all of us to upgrade our foundations, so we need to decide which ones we’re going to do and retrofit the rest of them to our best ability. Most retrofits are not going to fail as a result of a bad foundation and there are many faulty foundations that will work more than well enough if bolts and bracing panels are properly installed. So, if you don’t have cash to fix the foundation this year, it’s time to do the retrofit. 

Here are some pointers for those who know that they have poor quality concrete and are ready to get this vital task completed. First, use more bolts. When concrete quality is poor it’s beneficial to distribute the lateral load of the house (the weight of the house moving left and right) over a larger area. By putting more bolts into the older, softer concrete, we put less stress on each portion and decrease the likelihood that the bolts will break through the concrete. Here’s a freebie we get from doing this: since weaker concrete tends to vary in strength as we move around the perimeter of the foundation, we increase the chance that some bolts will be in better concrete and will stay in place. In the end, all we need to do is to be sure that enough of the house is grasped and held in place to prevent it from sliding off of the foundation. 

Another thing that I recommend for weaker concrete is the use of epoxy for bolt installations. Yes, we’re talking about gluing the bolts in place. This may sound silly or weak but it’s just the opposite. When concrete is crumbly, the typical expansion bolt doesn’t work very well. This is a bolt that, when tightened, enlarges in diameter near the base, thus lodging it in place. If concrete is soft, this enlargement can just push some rocks and sand around and actually weaken this area all the more. Not only does this weaken the area immediately around the bolt but also leaves the bolt loose and more able to slam through soft concrete. Epoxy, on the other hand, strengthens the area immediately around the bolt, fills any voids and bonds the bolt to the foundation. It’s a much better connection for weak concrete. 

Once again, many retrofits have been poorly done and it’s a good idea to have someone look at them. Nevertheless, poor concrete is only occasionally so bad that that a retrofit isn’t worth the money. This local fault has been pretty faithful to its schedule and has us now about a decade overdue. Even if you end up reinstalling bolting and bracing in five years when you get that new foundation, I still think it’s wise to go ahead and spend the money to bolt and brace to that old broken concrete today. The alternative may be hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage that could have been avoided with just a few thousand spent now. 

Insurance may recoup some of your losses when that day arrives or it may not. If this quake is centered in a densely developed area (It’ll probably be at my house), the cost may be more than the underwriters have set aside and you may not be made whole (financially speaking).  

John Lennon said “Life is what happens to you when you’re busy making other plans.” I don’t think there are many earthquakes in Liverpool so I have no idea how he understood this problem so well. 

 

 

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


Quake Tip of the Week

By Larry Guillot
Friday August 10, 2007

Playing in the Traffic? 

As a loving parent, grandparent, aunt, uncle, (etc), would you consider letting that child you love so much go out and play in the street? Not even if it were a relatively “quiet” street, not in a million years. 

But you will let that same child play in your house, surrounded by bookcases, heavy furniture, and large wall hangings, right? If you live in the interior of our country, not problem. If, however, you live in California, you are putting that child, and yourself, at risk. 

Securing is easy and cheap, an incredible bargain for the safety and peace of mind that it brings. Please think about it. 

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

 

Larry Guillot is the owner of QuakePrepare, an earthquake consulting, securing and kit supply service. Contact him at 558-3299 or see www.quakeprepare.com to receive semi-monthly e-mails and safety reports.  

 


Arts & Events

Arts Calendar

Tuesday August 14, 2007

TUESDAY, AUGUST 14 

CHILDREN 

P&T Puppet Theatre performs The Adventures of Spider and Fly at 3:30 p.m. at the North Branch, Berkeley Public Library. 981-6250. 

FILM 

From the Tsars to the Stars: A Journey through Russian Fantastik Cinema “Stalker” at 7 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $5-$8. 642-0808.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

William Poy Lee will give a talk on his book “The Eighth Promise : An American Son’s Tribute to his Toisanese Mother” at 7 p.m. at El Cerrito Library, 6510 Stockton Ave. El Cerrito. 526-7512. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Motordude Zydeco at 8:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cajun dance lesson at 8 p.m. Cost is $10. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Singers’ Open Mic with Kelly Park at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Jenny Ferris & Laura Klein, jazz, at 7 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

George Kuo, Martin Pahinui & Aaron Mahi at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

At Night & Lonesome Architects at 7:30 p.m. at Epic Arts, 1923 Ashby Ave. Cost is $5-$10. 644-2204. www.epicarts.org 

Kash Killion at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $10-$14. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

Jazzschool Tuesdays, a weekly showcase of up-and-coming ensembles from Berkeley Jazzschool at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 843-8277. 

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 15 

CHILDREN 

Dogs and Tales! Hear stories and meet a pet from the Berkeley-East Bay Humane Society at 10:30 a.m. at Central Berkeley Public Library, 3rd Floor, Community Meeting Room. For ages 5-10. RSVP to 981-6223.  

FILM 

International Latino Film Festival “Rosita” at 7 p.m. at Richmond Public Library, 325 Civic Center Plaza, Richmond. 620-6555. 

Eco-Amok: An Inconvenient Film Fest “Silent Running” at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $5-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Café Poetry hosted by Paradise at 7:30 p.m. at La Peña. Donation $2. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

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 

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

Solo Cissokho, Senegalese Solo Kora at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Lecture demonstration on the Griot Culture and the Kora at 8 p.m. Cost is $12-$15. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Whiskey Brothers, old time and bluegrass, at 9 p.m. at Albatross, 1822 San Pablo Ave. 843-2473.  

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

Tapwater at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 843-8277. 

Matt Lucas at 10 p.m. at Beckett’s Irish Pub, 2271 Shattuck Ave. 647-1790.  

Mel Martin and the Benny Carter Centennial Tribute Band at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $12-$20. 238-9200.  

THURSDAY, AUGUST 16 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Homeland Obscurity” Works by Catherine Richardson and Will Tait opens at the Float Art Gallery, 1091 Calcot Place, Unit #116, Oakland. 535-1702. 

“Women by Women: The Dynamic Feminie Aspect” works by Jennifer Downey and Susan Matthews. Perfomance at 5 p.m. and artist talk at 7 p.m. at the Craft & Cultural Arts Gallery, State of California Office Building Atrium, 1515 Clay St., Oakland. Exhibit runs to Aug. 31. 622-8190. 

FILM 

Oakland International Black LGBT Film Festival through Sun. at the Parkway Theater, 1834 Park Blvd. 814-2400. www.clubrimshot.com 

Abbas Kiarostami: Image Maker “Ten” at 7 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $5-$8. 642-0808.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Murray Suid describes “Words of a Feather: A Humorous Puzzlement of Etymological Pairs” at 7:30 p.m. at Mrs. Dalloways, 2904 College Ave. 704-8222. 

Tony Trigilio and Andrew Demcak, poets, at 7:30 p.m. at Pegasus Books Downtown, 2349 Shattuck Ave. 649-1320. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Rosa Los Santos at noon at the downtown Berkeley BART station. info@downtownberkeley.org 

Rachael Sage at 8 p.m. at Epic Arts Studios, 1923 Ashby Ave. 644-2204.  

Kelly’s Kitchen, Project Greenfield at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $8. 525-5054.  

Biscuit Burners, mountain music, at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $17.50-$18.50. 548-1761.  

Jack Gates Group at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $8. 841-JAZZ.  

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

La Muneca y Los Muerteos, Fast Heart Mart, Samvega at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $5. 841-2082. 

Milagro at 8 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $8-$10. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Lee Ritenour & Friends at 8 and 10 p.m., through Sun. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $22-$26. 238-9200.  

FRIDAY, AUGUST 17 

THEATER 

California Shakespeare Theater “The Triumph of Love” at the Bruns Ampitheater, 100 Gateway Blvd., Orinda, through Sept. 2. Tickets are $15-$60. 548-9666. www.calshakes.org 

“Citizen Josh” with monologoist Josh Kornbluth, Thurs.-Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 p.m. at Berkeley Repertory Theater, 2025 Addison St., through Spet. 2. Tickets are $25-$30. 647-2949. 

“Jane Austen in Berkeley” a spoken-word performance by Andrea Mock at 7:30 p.m. at Mrs. Dalloways, 2904 College Ave. 704-8222. 

Stage Door Conservatory “Oliver” A Teens On Stage Production, Fri. at 7 p.m., Sat. and Sun. at 5 p.m. at Julia Morgan Center for the Arts, 2640 College Ave. Tickets are $10-$20. 521-6250. 

TheaterInSearch “Epic of Gilgamesh” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 p.m. at Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby Ave., through Sept. 2. Tickets are $12-$20. 262-0584. 

FILM 

Oakland International Black LGBT Film Festival through Sun. at the Parkway Theater, 1834 Park Blvd. 814-2400. www.clubrimshot.com 

Max Ophuls: Motion and Emotion “The Earrings of Madame de ...” at 7 p.m. and “The Tender Economy” at 9:05 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $5-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

“Shut Up and Sing” the documentary about the Dixie Chicks, with live music by Hali Hammer, at 6:30 p.m. at the Berkeley Unitarian Universalists Hall, 1924 Cedar St. at Bonita. 665-3306. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Ike Levin, saxophonist, at 8 p.m. at Free-Jazz Fridays at the Jazz House, 1510 8th St., Oakland. Cost is $5-$15. 415-846-9432. 

Alexa Weber Morales at 8 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $10-$12. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

The Dave Matthews Blues Band at 8 p.m. at The Warehouse Bar, 402 Webster St., Oakland. 451-3161. 

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

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

Sambada, Alfred Howard & the K23 Orchestra at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $13. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

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

Nell Robinson & Red Level, with the Mountain Boys, bluegrass and country music, at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $17.50-$18.50. 548-1761.  

Yung Mars and Scott Waters at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344.  

Pat Nevins & Ragged Glory, a tribute to Crazy Horse, at 9 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $8. 841-2082.  

Trainwreck Riders, Pine Hill Haunts, Abi Yo Yo’s at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St., an all-ages, member-run, no alcohol, no drugs, no violence club. Cost is $6. 525-9926. 

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

Albino at 9 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low, 2284 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $10. 548-1159.  

Parallel 23 at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 843-8277. 

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

Passionistas, Greg Ashley, Logo Moi, folk, acoustic indie rock, at 9:30 p.m. at the Stork Club Oakland, 2330 Telegraph Ave., Oakland. Cost is $5. 444-6174. 

SATURDAY, AUGUST 18 

CHILDREN  

Mexica: An Axtec Tale Sat. and Sun. at 12:30 and 3:30 p.m. and Japanese Folktales at 1:30 and 2:30 p.m. at Children’s Fairyland, 699 Bellevue Ave. 452-2259. 

THEATER 

“MYethiOPIA” with David Schein in a benefit for the Ethiopian based One Love HIV/AIDS Awareness Theater, at 8 p.m. at Wildcat Studio, 2525 8th St. Donation $25. For reservations call 415-861-4330. awassachildrensproject.org 

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. 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Homeland Obscurity” Works by Catherine Richardson and Will Tait. Artist reception at 6 p.m. at the Float Art Gallery, 1091 Calcot Place, Unit #116, Oakland. 535-1702. 

FILM 

Oakland International Black LGBT Film Festival through Sun. at the Parkway Theater, 1834 Park Blvd. 814-2400. www.clubrimshot.com 

A Theater Near You “Fires on the Plain” at 5:45 p.m. and Abbas Kiarostami “Close -Up” at 8 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $5-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Watershed Poetry Festival featuring poets Robert Hass, Michael McClure and Sandra Alcosser and cultural historian Rebecca Solnit from noon to 4 p.m. at MLK/Civic Center Park. 526-9105. www.poetryflash.org 

Reading to Celebrate Fold Magazine, a journal of poetry, at 7:30 p.m. at Pegasus Books Downtown, 2349 Shattuck Ave. 649-1320. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Sally Light, mezzo-soprano, and Chris Salocks, pianist, in a recital of works by Berlioz, Liszt, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninov, and others at 3 p.m. at St. Albans Church, corner of Curtis and Washington, Albany. Suggested donation $20. 527-2057. 

Rhythm & Muse with singer/ 

songwriter Philip Rodriguez at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Art Center, 1275 Walnut St., between Eunice & Rose Sts. 644-6893.  

“Mantra Rock Concert” with Kirtan, and Prayer Circles from 1 to 5 p.m. in People’s Park. Free. 310-754-5884. punyatma@gmail.com  

Concert for Peace & the Bees with Diane Patterson, Marca Cassity, ChoQuosh Auh’Ho’Oh and others at 8 p.m. at Epic Arts, 1923 Ashby Ave. Cost is $10. 464-4615. 

Hali Hammer with Randy Berge at noon at Cafe Zeste, 1250 Addison St. at Bonar, in the Strawberry Creek Park complex. 704-9378. 

Concha Vargas with David Serva, flamenco guitarist, at 8:30 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $30-$35. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Carla Zilbersmith & Allen Taylor at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $14. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Inspector Double Negative & The Equal Positives at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $10. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com  

Noah Grant and Christopher Hanson at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

Steven Emerson Band at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 843-8277. 

Phil Marsh at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761.  

Marcos Silva and Intersection, featuring Chico Pinheiro at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $20-$25. 845-5373.  

Ron Thompson at 8 p.m. at Spuds Pizza, 3290 Adeline St. Cost is $7. 558-0881. 

Clockwork at 9 p.m. at Downtown Restaurant, 2102 Shattuck Ave. 649-3810 

Resistant Culture, Under PRessure, Eskapo at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St. Cost is $6. 525-9926. 

USA for LSD, Cupids, Childhood Friends, electronics, indie rock, at 9:30 p.m. at the Stork Club Oakland, 2330 Telegraph Ave., Oakland. Cost is $5. 444-6174. 

Royal Hawaiian Serenaders at 9 p.m. at Temple Bar Tiki Bar & Grill, 984 University Ave. 548-9888. 

SUNDAY, AUGUST 19 

CHILDREN 

Asheba at Ashkenaz at 3 p.m. Cost is $4-$6. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

FILM 

Oakland International Black LGBT Film Festival at the Parkway Theater, 1834 Park Blvd. 814-2400. www.clubrimshot.com 

From the Tsars to the Stars: A Journey through Russian Fantastik Cinema “Ruslan and Ludmila” at 6 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $5-$8. 642-0808.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Kate Schatz, Douglas Wolk, and Shawn Taylor, authors of books written about important and/or seminal music albums at 7:30 p.m. at Pegasus Books Downtown, 2349 Shattuck Ave. 649-1320. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Count Basie Tribute Orchestra, a 20-piece Big Band from the Oakland Public Conservatory of Music, from 1 to 4 p.m. at Oakland Museum of California, 1000 Oak at 10th St. Cost is $20-$50. 238-2200. www.museumca.org 

Ancient Future at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $7.50 children, $9.50 for adults. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Son de Madera from Mexico at 8 p.m. at La Peña. Cost is $12-$15. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Grupo Falso Baiano at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $8. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Tiny Strips of Heart Tissue at 11 a.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

Americana Unplugged: The Whiskey Brothers at 5 p.m. at Jupiter. 843-8277. 

Rachid Halihal, Middle Eastern, North African at 8 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $12. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Arc Hive, Moe, avant garde jazz at 9:30 p.m. at the Stork Club Oakland, 2330 Telegraph Ave., Oakland. Cost is $5. 444-6174. 

MONDAY, AUGUST 20 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Barry Gifford and Al Young read at 7:30 p.m. at Moe’s Books, 2476 Telegraph Ave. 849-2087. 

Poetry Express with Conney Williams from Los Angeles at 7 p.m., at Priya Restaurant, 2072 San Pablo Ave. 644-3977. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Zaedno, Bulgarian folk songs, 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.  

Jesus Diaz y QBA at 8 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $10 238-9200.  


The Theater: Calshakes Stages ‘The Triumph of Love’

By Ken Bullock, Special to the Planet
Tuesday August 14, 2007

All this web of deceit was woven to win you, proof of my devotion.” So speaks Princess Leonide of Sparta (Stacy Ross), free of her disguise as a man and decked out in royal—and feminine—splendor, to Prince Agis (Jud Williford), son of a monarch whose throne was usurped by Leonide’s uncle, and object of her much, but never directly, professed devotion. 

But it’s the web of deceit and its weaving, as much as the sometimes violent eruptions of passion by all concerned, which prove the real heart of the matter in Pierre Marivaux’s The Triumph of Love, as translated by Frederick Kluck and adapted and directed by Lillian Groag, at CalShakes in Orinda, a joint production with San Jose Rep. 

The setup looks familiar enough, straight out of the ancient romances, as adopted by novelists and playwrights over the centuries for their own purposes, as familiar as Shakespeare’s comedies that feature cross-dressing and exile, or domestic potboilers which make the bittersweet point of innocent love being won through cynical machination. 

But there’s more than one twist of the blade in this somewhat malign fairytale in which most of the players leave empty-handed—and broken-hearted—in the wake of the de rigueur happy ending. 

At the start, two tricorn-hatted male forms slip through the gate (emblazoned with Descartes’ “Cogito ergo sum”) surrounding the garden of reclusive philosopher Hermocrates (Dan Hiatt). They are actually the Princess and her lady-in-waiting (and miniature painter) Corinne (Catherine Castellanos) in disguise as gentlemen to effect the capture of Prince Agis’ heart, and his installation upon his rightful throne, as the Princess explains to Corinne. 

That much is simple, and unchallenged by the audience, though Corinne, the auditor, wonders that the Princess doesn’t wish to do away with her seeming rival. But Leonide has seem Agis in the wood—and lost her heart. 

This too goes unchallenged. But what quickly cuts loose from a simple—even hackneyed—deception, pitches and yaws every which way, as the audience is treated to a truly comic spectacle: every heart, no matter how carefully guarded or seemingly remote, male or female, falls to the fast-talking Princess, disguised as one “Phocion,” as she maneuvers to be allowed to stay in the philosopher’s retreat, to make her shot at his prize pupil and companion since childhood, throwing rustic calm into chaotic disorder. 

“There’s not a man on earth a woman can’t bring down if she sets her mind to it!” 

So declares the Princess in the first (or second or third) flush of amorous success. But her conquests, in cross-dress as Phocion, also cross the line from declarations of friendship, intimations of her real self and true and false revelations, to wooing the philosopher’s sister, Leontine (a wonderful Domenique Lozano, extraordinary in her timing, gestures and expressions—and fluttering walk), for the purpose of, well, shilling “Phocion” to Hermocrates, so that the suppliant would-be (and false) scholar might stay to study how to abandon his own passions! 

The comedy gets fast and furious, from low slapstick to high comedy of repartee—though, especially at first, the detritus from old “I Love Lucy” and Warner Bros. cartoon schtick smothers Marivaux’s truly bittersweet irony. 

Maybe the deepest ironies never set in, but the show is a triumph all of its own, mostly due to a marvellous cast, one mostly familiar to CalShakes—and many Bay Area—theatergoers. Ross, after starting out a bit rough for a princess, has wonderful exchanges with the others in repartee. Hiatt, who walks on in a kind of oriental snood, carrying a tome of Spinoza (which he drops, never really to pick up, at the unmasked lady’s first amorous declaration), is a constantly amusing spectacle of a distant, haughty “philosophe” (who sees through the Princess’s drag as a disguise, but not her declaration as a ruse), transformed into a lovesick tyro, his academic distain for the gentler emotions evaporates ... 

But everybody’s good here and contributes to the comic malaise—and the essential comedy of Marivaux comes across. The underlings fare well, too. Ron Campbell as Dimas, the anachronistic Gabby Hates of a gardener in a French setting, puts in one of his most controlled, nuanced performances yet—a talented comic actor with a tendency to fly off the handle, mug and saw the air. But there’s none of that here—even in unnecessary routines involving a mysteriously valved mannequin-pis ... Danny Sheie as Arlecchino works well with Campbell in particular, but his insoucient style and strident voice isn’talways a fit, even for a Commedia clown. 

“You say you’re in love with virtue, but you come here as its sworn enemy!” —“Aye, the enemy of what I adore.” Marivaux, the lightness of whose comedies belies a sometimes steely-eyed vision, has a few successors, like Giraudoux (sadly, hardly performed here anymore). His comic characters may seem to be more types than flesh and blood at first glance, but underneath the laughter, their hearts can truly break as they pantomime their way toward love. 

 

Photograph by Kevin Berne. Catherine Castellanos, Danny Scheie and Stacy Ross in The Triumph of Love.


The Theater: SF Theater Group Brings Noir Classic to the Stage

By Ken Bullock, Special to the Planet
Tuesday August 14, 2007

I’ve been around plenty, and ‘around’ wasn’t pretty ...” So intones a hard-boiled chorus girl with a beautiful visage, who teams up with “a cop too tough to be crooked” in Cornell Woolrich’s celebrated noir thriller, Angel Face, originally published in the pulp mag Black Mask, and now translated onstage by Word For Word in their inimitable combo of acting and self-narration, at Theater Artaud in San Francisco’s Mission District, through Sept. 3. 

And giving the backstory on Cornell Woolrich and the tradition of noir fiction and film at 7:30 p.m. tomorrow night (Wednesday, Aug. 14) will be Alameda resident Eddie Muller, “writer and cultural archaeologist,” best-known for his opus Dark City, and his Noir City Film Festival held annually at San Francisco’s Castro Theater in late January. 

“There’s nothing too subtle about Cornell Woolrich,” Muller said, “though it depends on who’s watching, how they’ll react. Word For Word gives a great lesson in how writing gets adapted—different than in the big media. Leaving everything [of the text] in is a great lesson. It’s tricky to do this kind of material without winking at the audience, being ironic and trying to rise above it all.” 

Muller praised the Word For Word cast and director Stephanie Hunt for “the courage to take it back to the source, to cube noir iconography and translate it to the stage in a clear and effective way. It’s not oversold. They’re not banging you over the head with it. And a lot of intriguing decisions were made on parsing out the exposition from the story to the various actors. It’s kind of ‘follow the bouncing ball’—and it’s pretty invigorating.” 

Muller said he’d been in touch with the Word For Word people for some time, contemplating some sort of collaboration, “and for Angel Face, the company dramaturg used Dark City in working with the cast to give them background.” 

Muller himself can relate to the experience of adapting noir fiction to performance. He recently finished shooting a short film he directed, The Grand Inquisitor, based on a short story he was commissioned to write for a forthcoming noir anthology titled A Hell of a Woman. The film is a five-day wonder, “like a Twilight Zone episode,” says Muller, that features a return to the screen by Hollywood actress Marcia Hunt.  

“As soon as the last period was put on the story, it was a film,” Muller said, “and the film might well be finished before the story’s in print. Everything just seemed to line up.” 

Working with Hunt, who Muller dubbed “the ultimate trouper,” was “a revelation ... I was often taken out of the moment on set, I was so in awe of her ability. She had the sharpness to call me on the script—not as a prima donna, but to restore dialogue I’d cut for the other actress, Leah Dashe [a 2003 UC Berkeley graduate], who’s at the beginning of her career. Marcia is 89, a famous blacklisted Hollywood actress, who was directed by Jules Dassin, Fred Zinneman, Anthony Mann ... friends with people like Orson Welles, Bernard Hermann. And Marcia plays, well, not a good woman, but one who drinks, takes drugs ... I think when the last minute of the film plays, people will be slackjawed.”  

Muller found his metier through his fascination with the culture of the ’40s and ’50s, predicated by his relationship with his father, a boxing writer for the San Francisco Examiner whose byline also read Eddie Muller.  

“Sometimes I feel like I’m an imposter, and my father the genuine article,” said Muller. “Watching, say, Sam Fuller’s Pickup On South Street feels like watching my dad’s home movies. Not of the world he lived in; the world he worked in. At home, it played like a domestic comedy, but it was film noir when he went out into the San Francisco nightlife and sports world. 

“He was older,” said Muller of his father. “I was born late in his life, and was always around older people, who were more interesting to me than the younger ones. I didn’t know them in their prime, and I became obsessed with that world of their time.” 

Looking into noir fiction and film, and then writing about it, Muller said “I didn’t feel too many others were trying to build a cultural bridge between past and present. Most in the media were trying to burn the bridge down! I was the guy trying to build it back up again.” 

His first book was Grindhouse, on “Adults Only” cinema, then Dark City, his breakthrough, though originally planned as a follow-up to Grindhouse, but “a book about movies I actually like!” 

“I was trying to explore how we got from there to here,” Muller said, “Trying to explore how the culture creates its iconography.” 

In 1999, the American Cinematheque invited Muller to do a program in its annual film fest, and “I was exposed to people who worked in, acted in noir films—it was an eye-opener! My exploration took on a real human aspect. Critics often come up with their opinion, then twist everything else to fit their thesis. From that point in particular, I’ve been trying to go deeper, to understand the people who made noir film and fiction.” 

The book that followed, from interviews that were initiated through his encounters with surviving film noir actresses, Dark City Dames, “was a significant book for me, less for learning about the movies than learning about human nature. A valuable thing for a young man to write! And what prepared me to work with Marcia Hunt.” 

Hunt was a special guest at last year’s Noir City fest, an event that has traveled to Seattle and is beginning to garner national recognition. “When [Berkeley resident] Anita Monga was at the Castro, she saw clearly the value of the American Cinematheque festival in Hollywood, and asked, Why not here? So it’s Anita’s doing. And she’s the producer of my film!” 

Muller, a San Francisco native, moved to Alameda some time ago when his wife visited on business and mentioned it to him. “I never set foot in Alameda the entire time I was growing up in San Francisco! The third break-in of our car decided it—we left the Haight and moved to Alameda. I love it. It’s a great place for a writer, easy to work here. I just pray they don’t overdevelop it.” 

Ruminating on the staging of Angel Face, Muller asks, “Have we approached with noir now a sort of post-ironic stage? Word For Word’s commitment makes Angel Face a flesh-and-blood production. They really inhabit Woolrich’s text. His stories became the basis for films by Hitchcock, by Truffaut, but he could be so melodramatic, almost like a cartoon parody at times ... it’s interesting about noir today—it’s become so familiar, it can be trotted out to get a laugh, corny old movies and so forth. Or you can bore back down to the basics and rebuild from the ground up ... I don’t want to appeal to converts, I want to make converts. When a 15-year-old kid comes into town from the suburbs and buys a ticket for the Noir City festival to see his first black-and-white movie on a big screen, I call that a triumph!” 

 

For more information, see www.eddiemuller.com or Word For Word’s website at www.zspace.org. 

 

Photograph by Andrew Taylor. Eddie Muller will introduce Word For Word’s presentation of Cornell Woolrich’s Angel Face.


Wild Neighbors: Developers Strike Back: Arrowhead Marsh at Risk Again

By Joe Eaton
Tuesday August 14, 2007

All our victories are temporary; all our defeats are permanent,” David Brower is supposed to have said. Case in point: Oakland’s Arrowhead Marsh, the crown jewel of the Martin Luther King Jr. Shoreline Regional Park. Friends of Arrowhead were relieved in 2005 when the Lower Lake Rancheria Koi Nation dropped their plans for a casino complex next door to the marsh. Now the developers are back: this time it’s at least one, maybe two trucking terminals. 

The Port of Oakland is doing all it can to grease the wheels for this latest project. In a meeting on Aug. 7, the Port Commission brushed aside an appeal by Golden Gate Audubon Society and the San Francisco Bay chapter of the Sierra Club, unanimously approving the developer’s permit. Kansas-based Swann LLC owns the land, now a little-used parking lot, and plans to lease it to Roadway Express, headquartered in Akron, Ohio. Roadway already operates a terminal in West Oakland, but they want a bigger facility. Waiting in the wings is RLR Investments LLC, which owns adjacent property that may be developed for a second trucking terminal. 

What’s so special about Arrowhead Marsh? For starters, this triangle of pickleweed and cordgrass jutting into San Leandro Bay is home to one of the estuary’s densest populations of the endangered California clapper rail. Most of the year these rare chicken-sized birds are invisible, rarely even heard. But visit on a high tide in early January and you’ll see dozens of them, sitting disconsolately in little islands of pickleweed, trying not to be noticed, or sneaking along the edges of tidal channels. Every now and then they’ll exchange their trademark clappering calls.  

California clappers rails used to range from Humboldt Bay to Morro Bay, with enough in San Francisco and San Pablo bays to keep the market hunters busy. They were almost wiped out by overexploitation, recovering a bit after the Federal Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1913 gave them some protection. By the 1970s their numbers had built back up to an estimated 4,200-6,000. 

Then came the red fox, an exotic predator that doesn’t mind getting its feet wet, and the rail population crashed again. At their nadir, in 1990-91, there may have been as few as 300 left. Fox control was implemented and the rails rebounded, but the current estimate of 1,500 is still well short of where they were three decades ago. The 110 California clappers counted at Arrowhead on this year’s High Tide Survey would be something like 7 percent of the total global population.  

The clappers are the stars, but winter high tides also roust out soras and Virginia rails; even the elusive yellow rail has been spotted. Ducks abound, including such uncommon species as Eurasian wigeon and blue-winged teal, and the resident Canada geese are joined by cackling and greater white-fronted geese. Marsh wrens, Alameda song sparrows, and salt marsh common yellowthroats pop in and out of the vegetation, where endangered salt marsh harvest mice hide. Overhead, northern harriers, peregrine falcons, and the odd merlin cruise for prey. 

The rails and mice also use the new tidal wetlands created as mitigation after settlement of a suit over illegal dumping by the Port of Oakland. That restoration cost $2.5 million and drew in volunteers from Save the Bay and other organizations. And the mitigation marsh is right across the fence from the future trucking terminal. “It’s a habitat so much time, money, and effort have been invested in protecting,” says Golden Gate Audubon Conservation Director Eli Saddler. 

You can imagine the impact of a 24-7 trucking facility next door to this rich natural community. Saddler says many studies document the adverse effects of light and noise pollution on birds, and the developer’s mitigation proposals are vague at best. 

So now what? There are other permits pending approval, and questions as to the adequacy of the Port’s environmental analysis (which addressed Arrowhead Marsh proper but not the restored mitigation marsh, and didn’t consider cumulative impact on wildlife), whether proper public notice was given, whether the development violates the consent decree that resolved the earlier lawsuit. The attorney general’s office has recommended a full environmental impact report. The Port dropped the ball and now, Saddler says, “all of us are going to have a long headache.” Audubon is considering legal action under either the Federal Endangered Species Act or the California Environmental Quality Act. 

While all this plays out, public pressure couldn’t hurt. Oakland Mayor Ronald Dellums and the City Council were unresponsive to Audubon’s concerns and might need a bit of prodding. Or you could go directly to Roadway Express’s president Terrence M. Gilbert: 1077 Gorge Blvd, PO Box 471, Akron OH 44309-0471; terry.gilbert@roadway.com. 

 

 

 

Contributed photo. A California clapper rail: shy, cryptic, and endangered. 


Berkeley This Week

Tuesday August 14, 2007

TUESDAY, AUGUST 14 

Readers Theater Program for children ages 7-10 at 2 p.m. at the Berkeley Public Library, 2090 Kittredge St. 981-6223.  

Family Storytime for preschoolers and up at 7 p.m. at the Kensington Library, 61 Arlington Ave. 524-3043. 

Community Sing-a-Long every Tues, at 2 p.m. at the Albany Senior Center, 846 Masonic Ave. 524-9122.  

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. 

Games Club Games designers meet at 6 p.m. and games lovers meet at 8 p.m. to discuss board, strategy and social interaction games at at Dr Comics and Mr Games, 4014 Piedmont Ave., Oakland. To RSVP call 601-7800. 

Baby-Friendly Book Club meets to discuss “The Third Man” by Graham Greene at 10 a.m. at Kensington Library, 61 Arlington Ave. 524-3043. 

Berkeley Camera Club meets at 7:30 p.m., at the Northbrae Community Church, 941 The Alameda. Share your digital images, slides and prints and learn what other photographers are doing. Monthly field trips. 548-3991. www.berkeleycameraclub.org 

St. John’s Prime Timers meets at 9:30 a.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. We offer ongoing classes in exercise and creative arts, and always welcome new members over 50. 845-6830 

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 15 

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. Reservations can be made by calling 238-3234. www.oaklandnet.com/walkingtours 

Recording African American Stories Add your voice to the Library of Congress and the National Museum of African American History, Wed. from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., by appointment, at Chapel of the Chimes, 4499 Piedmont Ave., Oakland, through Sept. 12. For appointment call 228-3207. 

“Under the Radar” Israelis and Palestinians Working Together against Occupation and for Human Rights at 7:30 p.m. at Berkeley Unitarian Fellowship Hall, 1924 Cedar St. at Bonita. Donation $5-$20, no one turned away. Sponsored by Jewish Voice for Peace. 465-1777. 

Lead-Safe Painting & Remodeling A free class to learn about lead safe renovations for your older home, from noon to 2 p.m. at Lakeview Branch Library, 550 El Embarcadero, Oakland. Presented by Alameda County Lead Poisoning Prevention Program. 567-8280. www.ACLPPP.org 

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Book Discussion at 4 p.m. at the Central Berkeley Public Library, 4th Floor, Children’s Story Room. 981-6223.  

“What the Bleep Do We Know?” at 7:30 p.m. at Humanist Hall, 390 27th St., Oakland. Donation $5. www.HumanistHall.net 

“Insights to Wellness” Demonstrations at 7:45 p.m. at Takibi Yoga Studio, 4550 San Pablo Ave., Suite D, 2nd Floor, in Emeryville. Cost is $5. 

Pax Nomada Bike Ride Meet at 6 p.m. at Nomad Cafe for a 15-25 mile ride up to through the Berkeley hills. All levels of cyclists welcome. 595-5344. 

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. 548-9840. 

Berkeley Peace Walk and Vigil at 6:30 at the Berkeley BART Station, corner of Shattuck and Center. www.geocities.com/vigil4peace/vigil 

THURSDAY, AUGUST 16 

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 noon at the Downtown Oakland Senior Center, 200 Grand Ave. 981-5332. 

World of Plants Tours Thurs., Sat. and Sun. at 1:30 p.m. at the UC Botanical Garden, 200 Centennial Drive. Cost is $5. 643-2755.  

Avatar Metaphysical Toastmasters Club meets at 6:45 p.m. at Spud’s Pizza, 3290 Adeline at Alcatraz. namaste@avatar.freetoasthost.info 

FRIDAY, AUGUST 17 

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 

Conscientious Projector Film Series “Shut Up and Sing” the documentary about the Dixie Chicks, with live music by Hali Hammer, at 6:30 p.m. at the Berkeley Unitarian Universalists Hall, 1924 Cedar St. at Bonita. 665-3306. 

“Know Your Rights!” Workshop Learn what to do if confronted by the police or if you are observing the police, at 6 p.m. at the Grassroots House, 2022 Blake St. Free, donations accepted. berkeleycopwatch.org 

Financial Advice for Seniors at North Berkeley Senior Center, 1901 Hearst. Call for appointment. 981-5190. 

“Basic Training in Gemology” with Baird Heffron at 6 p.m. at Christensen Heller Gallery, 5829 College Ave., Oakland. 655-5952. 

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 of $5 requested. 528-4253. www.circledancing.com 

SATURDAY, AUGUST 18 

Watershed Poetry Festival with former US Poet Laureate Robert Hass, Michael McClure and Sandra Alcosser, cultural historian Rebecca Solnit and others from noon to 4 p.m. at Civic Center Park. 526-9105. www.poetryflash.org 

Oakland Heritage Alliance Walking Tour of the Waterfront Warehouse District Meet at 10 a.m. at the intersection of 3rd and Franklin. 763-9218. www.oaklandheritage.org 

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 

“Plants for the Water Garden” with propagation specialist Brian Gabbard at 10 a.m. at Magic Gardens Nursery, 729 Heinz Ave. 644-2351. 

“Night Souk” Oakland’s Summer Night Bazaar with performances, activities, food and local crafts, from 6 to 11 p.m. at 9th and Washington.  

Lead-Safety for Remodeling, repair and painting of older homes. A HUD & EPA approved class held from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Alameda County Lead Poisoning Prevention Program 2000 Embarcadero, #300, Oakland. 567-8280. www.ACLPPP.org 

Hopalong Animal Rescue Come meet your furry new best friend. Dogs and puppies available for adoption from 1:30 to 4:30 p.m. at 4101 Piedmont Ave., Oakland and cats and kittens from noon to 3 p.m. at 3974 Peidmont Ave., Oakland. 267-1915, ext. 500. 

Tips for Travel with Children at 2:30 p.m. at the Rockridge Branch of the Oakland Public Library, 5366 College Ave. 597-5017. 

Bears Fast Pitch Travel A Softball for girls age 10-18 tryouts from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Clayton Valley High School Varsity Field, Concord. For information call 748-0611. 

Fast Pitch Softball for Adults at noon on Saturdays in Oakland. For information call 204-9500. 

The Berkeley Lawn Bowling Club provides free instruction every Wed. and Sat. at 10 a.m. at 2270 Acton St. 841-2174.  

Free Garden Tours at Regional Parks Botanic Garden Sat. and Sun. at 2 pm. Regional Parks Botanic Garden, Tilden Park. Call to confirm. 841-8732.  

Around the World Tour of Plants at 1:30 p.m., Thurs., Sat. and Sun. at UC Botanical Garden, 200 Centennial Drive. 643-2755.  

SUNDAY, AUGUST 19 

Alameda Architectural Society Annual “Woody Walk” Explore Alameda’s West End with author and historian Woody Minor from 3 to 5 p.m. Meet at the parking lot on the corner of Webster St. and Taylor Ave. Coost is $5. 986-9232. 

Oakland Heritage Alliance Walking Tour of Oakland Airport North Field Meet at 10 a.m. at the business jet center, 9351 Earhart Rd. to visit the hsitoric avaiation sites. 763-9218. www.oaklandheritage.org 

Community Labyrinth Peace Walk at 3 p.m. at Willard Middle School, Telegraph Ave. between Derby & Stuart. Everyone welcome. Wheelchair accessible. 526-7377. 

Bike Tour of Oakland around Lake Merritt on a leisurly paced two-hour tuour that covers about five miles. Meet at 10 a..m. at the 10th St. entrance to the Oakland Museum of California. Reservations required. 238-3514.  

Berkeley Cybersalon “The Science of a Meaningful Life” with psychologist Dacher Keltner, founder and research director of the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley; sociologist Christine Carter McLaughlin, the center’s executive director who researches ways to raise happy children; and Jason Marsh, co-editor of Greater Good, the center’s magazine, at 5 p.m. at the Hillside Club, 2286 Cedar St. Cost is $15. whoisylvia@aol.com 

Free Hands-on Bicycle Clinic Learn how to repair a flat from 10 to 11 a.m. at REI, 1338 San Pablo Ave. Bring your bike and tools. 527-4140. 

East Bay Atheists meet with Marc Adams, author of “The Preacher’s Son” a chronicle of growing up in a fundamentalist household, while struggling with being gay, at 1:30 p.m. at Berkeley Main Library, 3rd Floor Meeting Room, 2090 Kittredge St. 222-7580. 

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 Peace walk around the lake at 3 p.m. at the colonnade at the NE end of the lake. 763-8712.  

MONDAY, AUGUST 20  

Berkeley CopWatch organizational meeting at 8 p.m. at 2022 Blake St. Join us to work on current issues around police misconduct. 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 


Correction

Tuesday August 14, 2007

In the Aug. 7 article “AC Transit Directors Approve Bus Transfer” concerning the sale of 16 existing NABI buses owned by AC Transit in exchange for the purchase of new Van Hool buses, we wrote that AC Transit board member Rebecca Kaplan said that she had switched her vote from abstaining to approval this time “only because FEMA is waiting for the buses in New Orleans for the Katrina victims, and they are really needed down there.” 

The quote was from an interview with Kaplan taken without notes. What Kaplan actually said was that she voted approval for the NABI bus sale the last time it came before the board because “the buses had been promised to emergency responders in the gulf coast, due to their emergency bus-buy which they were seeking to finish fast before this year’s hurricane season, in order to avoid a repeat of what happened in Katrina. When Katrina hit, emergency responders did not have buses available, and thus, residents who did not own cars were stranded and abandoned. Emergency responders were seeking to buy some more buses quickly in order to avoid a repeat of this aspect of the Katrina failure. They could not wait to order new-built buses. They had to find ‘used’ ones they could buy quickly.” 

The Daily Planet regrets the error.


Arts Calendar

Friday August 10, 2007

FRIDAY, AUGUST 10 

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 

California Shakespeare Theater “The Triumph of Love” at the Bruns Ampitheater, 100 Gateway Blvd., Orinda, through Sept. 2. Tickets are $15-$60. 548-9666. www.calshakes.org 

Woodminster Summer Musicals “The Wizard of Oz” Fri.-Sun. at Woodminster Amphitheater in Joaquin Miller Park, 3300 Joaquin Miller Rd., Oakland, through Aug. 19. Tickets at $23-$36. 531-9597. www.woodminster.com 

EXHIBITIONS 

Mark Axelrod “Sticks and Stones Not Only Break Bones” oil paintings, and Linda Braz “Explorations” mixed media installations and sketches, opens at The Gallery Of Urban Art, 1746 13th St. Oakland. 706-1697. 

“Art in Wood” works by Ervin Somogyi on display at the City of Berkeley Building, 1947 Center St. Lobby Gallery, through Nov. 9. 981-7546. 

FILM 

From the Tsars to the Stars: A Journey through Russian Fantastik Cinema “Planet of Storms” at 7 p.m. and “The Amphibian Man” at 9 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $5-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

H.D. Moe and Mel C. Thompson read at 7 p.m. at Nefeli Caffe, 1854 Euclid Ave. 841-6374. 

“Prosody Castle 2” Performance poetry at 7 p.m. at The Gallery of Urban Art, 1746 13th St. at Wood, Oakland. Donations accepted. www.thegalleryofurbanart.com 

Diane LeBow, Katherina Audly and others read from “Greece: A Love Story” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 559-9500. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Steve Gannon and Cruise Tones at 5:30 p.m. at Park Place at Washington Ave., Point Richmond. Free. www.pointrichmond.com/prmusic/ 

University Summer Symphony perfoms Beethoven, Stravinsky and Rimsky-Korsakov at 8 p.m. at Hertz Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $5-$10. 642-4864. http://music.berkeley.edu 

The Dunes, part of The Arab Cultural Initiative, at 8 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $8-$10. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

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

Abyssinians, reggae, at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $15-$20. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

“Maniko” with Kit Walker on keyboards, Teerth Gonzalez on percussion at 7:30 p.m. at Sacred Space at Rudramandir, 830 Bancroft Way, at 6th. Cost is $20. 486-8700. 

Bluegrass Buffet with the Mighty Crows, Belle Monroe & Her Brewglass Boys, and Bluegrass Revolution at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $15.50-$16.50. 548-1761.  

Seconds on End, rock, at 8 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave. 548-5198.  

Scott Amendola, Wil Blades, Jeff Parker at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $8. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com  

Brook Schoenfield at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. w 

Stormcrow, Limb from Limb, Sixteens at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St., an all-ages, member-run, no alcohol, no drugs, no violence club. Cost is $6. 525-9926. 

2ME at 10 p.m. at Beckett’s Irish Pub, 2271 Shattuck Ave. 647-1790.  

The Memphis Murder Men at 9:30 p.m. at the Stork Club, 2330 Telegraph Ave., Oakland. Cost is $5. 444-6174. 

Mushroom at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 843-8277. 

Marco Benevento at 8 and 10 p.m., through Sat. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $8-$18. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

SATURDAY, AUGUST 11 

CHILDREN  

The Panchatantra: Animal Lessons from India Sat. and Sun. at 12:30 and 3:30 p.m. at Children’s Fairyland, 699 Bellevue Ave. 452-2259. 

THEATER 

SF Mime Troupe “Making a Killing” Sat. and Sun. at 2 p.m. at Live Oak Park, Shattuck Ave. at Berryman. www.sfmt.org 

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. 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Around the Globe” Works by various artists opens with a reception at 6 p.m. at Expressions Gallery, 2035 Ashby Ave. 644-4930. 

“New Visions” Group show of work by Bay Area artists. Artists’ talk at 1 p.m. at Pro Arts Gallery, 550 Second St., Oakland. 763-9425. 

FILM 

The Overdub Club “Year of the Caves” film and music experiments at 8 p.m. at 21 Grand, 416 25th St., at Broadway, Oakland. 444-7263. 

Abbas Kiarostami: Image Maker “Taste of Cherry” at 6:30 p.m. and “And Life Goes On” at 8:35 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $5-$8. 642-0808.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Jules Lobel discusses “Less Safe, Less Free: The Failure of Preemption in the War on Terror” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. 

“Jewish Literature: Identity and Imagination” with Dr. Naomi Seidman at 2 p.m. at Kensington Library, 61 Arlington Ave. 524-3043. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Bay Area Rockin’ Solidarity Labor Chorus and the Vukani Mawethu Chorus, in a benefit for The Highlander Center at 8 p.m. at Kehila Synagogue, 1300 Grand Ave., Piedmont. Tickets are $7-$12.50. 415-648-3457. 

University Summer Symphony perfoms Beethoven, Stravinsky and Rimsky-Korsakov at 8 p.m. at Hertz Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $5-$10. 642-4864.  

Latin Music Festival with Latin jazz and rock, samba and salsa, from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. at Pavilion Stage, Broadway and Water St., Oakland. Free. www.jacklondonsquare.com 

“Gateswingers Jazz Band” at 8 p.m. at Central Perk: 10086 San Pablo Ave., El Cerrito. 558-7375.  

Gary Wade & Friends, guitar and vocals, at noon at Cafe Zeste, 1250 Addison St. at Bonar, in the Strawberry Creek Park complex. 704-9378. 

Orquesta La Moderna Tradición, classic and modern Cuban dance music, at 9 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $12. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Lloyd Gregory and Friends at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $14. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Lepidoptera at 7:30 p.m. at Epic Arts, 1923 Ashby Ave. Cost is $5-$10. 644-2204. www.epicarts.org 

Three Mile Grade, bluegrass, at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $12. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com  

Ruben Quinones and Rick Hardin at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

Gearóid Ó Hallmhuráin & Barbara Magone at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Andy Tisdall, The Fancy Dan Band at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $8. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

Royal Hawaiian Serenaders at 9 p.m. at Temple Bar Tiki Bar & Grill, 984 University Ave. 548-9888. 

Something New at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $10. 845-5373. www.jazzschool.com 

“Cari Lee & the Saddle-ites” at 9 p.m. at Downtown Restaurant & Bar, 2102 Shattuck Ave. 649-3810. 

Blind Duck, Irish music, at 9:30 p.m. at Albatross, 1822 San Pablo Ave. Cost is $5. 843-2473. www.albatrosspub.com 

Misner & Smith at 8 p.m. at Spuds Pizza, 3290 Adeline St. Cost is $7. 558-0881. 

Broun Fellinis at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 843-8277. 

WarKrime, Rabies, Second Opinion at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St. Cost is $6. 525-9926. 

SUNDAY, AUGUST 12 

EXHIBITIONS 

Exhibition of Remastered Black Panther Posters and book signing by Emory Douglas at 3 p.m. at Guerilla Cafe, 1620 Shattuck Ave.  

FILM 

From the Tsars to the Stars: A Journey through Russian Fantastik Cinema “Aelita, Queen of Mars” at 4:45 p.m. and “Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka” at 7 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Architecture Tour of the Oakland Museum and Gardens at 1 p.m. at Oakland Museum of California, 1000 Oak at 10th St. Cost is $5-$8. 238-2200. www.museumca.org 

Sheila Kohler reads from her new novel “Bluebird, or The Invention of Happiness” at 4 p.m. at Mrs. Dalloways, 2904 College Ave. 704-8222. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

“Invocation to the Sun God Narayana” by the Jyoti Kala Mandir College of Indian Classical Arts at 6 p.m. at Julia Morgan Center for the Arts, 2640 College Ave. Tickets are $12-15. 86-9851. mail@jyotikalamandir.org 

Bill Evans String Summit at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $19.50-$20.50. 548-1761.  

Aleph Null at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $10. 841-JAZZ.  

Americana Unplugged: Big B and his Snake Oil Saviours at 5 p.m. at Jupiter. 843-8277. 

Pappa Gianni & North Beach Band at 2 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave. 548-5198.  

María Volanté “Intima” at 7:30 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $13-$15. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Cafe Bellie at 7:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $10. 525-5054.  

Randy Marshall at 11 a.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344.  

Bayonettes at 5 p.m. at 924 Gilman St., an all-ages, member-run, no alcohol, no drugs, no violence club. Cost is $5. 525-9926. 

Sunny Hawkins at 7 and 9 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $12-$20. 238-9200.  

MONDAY, AUGUST 13 

CHILDREN 

“The Case of the Missing Mutt” with Tony Borders and his puppets at 10:30 a.m. at the South Branch, Berkeley Public Library. 981-6260.  

EXHIBITIONS 

“Wood Bodies” Photo mosaic portraits of home and place by Marty Kent and Ted Harris. Reception for the artists at 7 p.m. at Café Strada, 2300 College Ave. 848-1985.  

THEATER 

Duck’s Breath Mystery Theatre, comedy, at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $20.50-$21.50. 548-1761. 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Jane Booth describes “Transformed by Triathlon: The Making of An Improbable Athlete” at 7:30 p.m. at Laurel Bookstore, 4100 MacArthur Blvd., Oakland. 531-2073. 

Poetry Express with Carol Hogan from Phoenix, Arizona at 7 p.m., at Priya Restaurant, 2072 San Pablo Ave. 644-3977. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

City Concert Opera Orchestra performs Haydn’s “L’Isola Disabitata” Opera in two acts with period instruments at 7:30 p.m. at First Congregational Church, 2345 Channing Way. Tickets are $10-$20. www.cityconcertopera.com  

Nada Lewis, Eastern European songs, at 7 p.m. at Le Bateau Ivre, 2629 Telegraph Ave. 849-1100. www.lebateauivre.net 

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

Edgardo y Candela, salsa, at 8 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $10. 238-9200. 

TUESDAY, AUGUST 14 

CHILDREN 

P&T Puppet Theatre performs The Adventures of Spider and Fly at 3:30 p.m. at the North Branch, Berkeley Public Library. 981-6250. 

FILM 

From the Tsars to the Stars: A Journey through Russian Fantastik Cinema “Stalker” at 7 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $5-$8. 642-0808.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

William Poy Lee will give a talk on his book “The Eighth Promise : An American Son’s Tribute to his Toisanese Mother” at 7 p.m. at El Cerrito Library, 6510 Stockton Ave. El Cerrito. 526-7512. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Motordude Zydeco at 8:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cajun dance lesson at 8 p.m. Cost is $10. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Singers’ Open Mic with Kelly Park at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Jenny Ferris & Laura Klein, jazz, at 7 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

George Kuo, Martin Pahinui & Aaron Mahi at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

At Night & Lonesome Architects at 7:30 p.m. at Epic Arts, 1923 Ashby Ave. Cost is $5-$10. 644-2204. www.epicarts.org 

Kash Killion at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $10-$14. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

Jazzschool Tuesdays, a weekly showcase of up-and-coming ensembles from Berkeley Jazzschool at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 843-8277. 

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 15 

CHILDREN 

Dogs and Tales! Hear stories and meet a pet from the Berkeley-East Bay Humane Society at 10:30 a.m. at Central Berkeley Public Library, 3rd Floor, Community Meeting Room. For ages 5-10. RSVP to 981-6223.  

FILM 

International Latino Film Festival “Rosita” at 7 p.m. at Richmond Public Library, 325 Civic Center Plaza, Richmond. 620-6555. 

Eco-Amok: An Inconvenient Film Fest “Silent Running” at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $5-$8. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Café Poetry hosted by Paradise at 7:30 p.m. at La Peña. Donation $2. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

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 

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

Solo Cissokho, Senegalese Solo Kora at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Lecture demonstration on the Griot Culture and the Kora at 8 p.m. Cost is $12-$15. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Whiskey Brothers, old time and bluegrass, at 9 p.m. at Albatross, 1822 San Pablo Ave. 843-2473.  

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

Tapwater at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 843-8277. 

Matt Lucas at 10 p.m. at Beckett’s Irish Pub, 2271 Shattuck Ave. 647-1790.  

Mel Martin and the Benny Carter Centennial Tribute Band at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $12-$20. 238-9200.  

THURSDAY, AUGUST 16 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Homeland Obscurity” Works by Catherine Richardson and Will Tait opens at the Float Art Gallery, 1091 Calcot Place, Unit #116, Oakland. 535-1702. 

“Women by Women: The Dynamic Feminie Aspect” works by Jennifer Downey and Susan Matthews. Perfomance at 5 p.m. and artist talk at 7 p.m. at the Craft & Cultural Arts Gallery, State of California Office Building Atrium, 1515 Clay St., Oakland. Exhibit runs to Aug. 31. 622-8190. 

FILM 

Oakland International Black LGBT Film Festival through Sun. at the Parkway Theater, 1834 Park Blvd. 814-2400. www.clubrimshot.com 

Abbas Kiarostami: Image Maker “Ten” at 7 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $5-$8. 642-0808.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Murray Suid describes “Words of a Feather: A Humorous Puzzlement of Etymological Pairs” at 7:30 p.m. at Mrs. Dalloways, 2904 College Ave. 704-8222. 

Tony Trigilio and Andrew Demcak, poets, at 7:30 p.m. at Pegasus Books Downtown, 2349 Shattuck Ave. 649-1320. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Rosa Los Santos at noon at the downtown Berkeley BART station. info@downtownberkeley.org 

Rachael Sage at 8 p.m. at Epic Arts Studios, 1923 Ashby Ave. 644-2204.  

Kelly’s Kitchen, Project Greenfield at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $8. 525-5054.  

Biscuit Burners, mountain music, at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $17.50-$18.50. 548-1761.  

Jack Gates Group at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $8. 841-JAZZ.  

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

La Muneca y Los Muerteos, Fast Heart Mart, Samvega at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $5. 841-2082. 

Milagro at 8 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $8-$10. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Lee Ritenour & Friends at 8 and 10 p.m., through Sun. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $22-$26. 238-9200.  


Hungarian Actor Finds a Home in Berkeley

By Ken Bullock, Special to the Planet
Friday August 10, 2007

The interesting thing about me is that I’m not interesting at all,” smiled Krisztina Peremartoni as she handed out a card reading, “Hey Actor! Shouldn’t you be acting?” for her Open Acting classes, held in a studio in Oakland. 

How she finds herself living in Berkeley after a quarter century on the stages of Budapest and around Europe as female principal for the Hungarian National Theatre is, however, very interesting, indeed. 

After growing up in Vestrem, near Hungary’s Lake Balaton, Peremartoni was accepted at 18 to the Theatre Conservatory. After no particular acting experience (“In Hungary, we’re big in reciting poems, not performing plays in school”), she found herself on stage every night after her second year at the Conservatory. “One of the big theaters takes you—big theater, not a studio theater—and you play six shows a weekend. By the time I was 20, I already had 500 performances to my credit.” 

Her training was heavily influenced by Russian theater. “Because they were occupying us, their theater culture had a big influence.” Like the Moscow Art Theatre, to which Peremartoni would later have a scholarship, the classes “were very professional; just the number of different classes in movement: acrobatics, jazz dance, ballet, modern dance, stage movement, horse riding, shooting—that’s just a few! It’s unbelievable how rich our education as actors was. And there was only one school, no private ones. If you weren’t accepted, you’d never be an actor.” 

After four years’ training, she was hired by the prestigious Vig Theatre. “It was a big thing, very hard to get in.” Her first role was a kind of success of scandal: “We performed [polish playwright] Gombrowicz’s Operette, and I played the lead role—completely naked. That was unheard of at that time. It was unavoidable, as I represented Freedom, and had to be naked the whole time. The Communist Party didn’t like it, and sent a delegation to check out whether I was really naked or not, so we had to fake it, put leaves on my breasts, things like that ... It was a big scandal. I was the first Communist naked actress! It was really hard on me.” 

Commenting on the social role of theater in those years, Peremartoni said, “Theater always in a hidden way went against the Party. It was always political. When we were ready to do a performance, the Party would send a few people to watch, and say, You cannot say this, say that ... They’d censor the whole play! Our duty was to find a way to deliver the message to the audience and trick the Party so they couldn’t see it. That was our political mission in society—and why, when Communism was over, we didn’t know what to do. There was nobody to go against. Everything became pointless, meaningless, aimless ... A big crisis: we didn’t know who the enemy was, anymore.”  

But theater culture was “a lifestyle ... every theater has a club, where they’d cook for you—and the tabs would run forever! We’d stay together, late nights after a performance, talking about the show, how to do better ...” 

After five years with the Vig, Peremartoni was hired by the National Theatre. The repertory was “32 different plays on the program in one month—that’s a lot! With one big theater and two studio theaters ...” The National played “the classical authors, always, older and modern—Moliere, Schiller, Brecht ... of course Shakespeare, Chekhov, Dostoyevsky, Tennessee Williams, Eugene O’Neill, Arthur Miller ... not much in experimental theater touched the National. Influenced by Jerzy Grotowski and Tadeucz Kantor, some small theaters did experimental plays, and I performed in a few—but I don’t think what I did was very good.” 

Peremartoni performed in film and TV movies—“every year, at least four lead roles”—but never liked film work. “It’s kind of abstract, not natural. It’s no fun, and you have no idea, no control, over the outcome. I’d think I had a good director, then see later the movie was bad—and the opposite. There is no such thing as film acting, just acting! I tell my students that theater is king.” 

Asked why she retired after 25 years at the top of her profession, Peremartoni said, “It was a very intense, full-time job, both at home and touring the big cities of Europe. I always had big dramatic roles, and didn’t want to carry the burden of tragedy anymore. I killed everybody I possibly could, and everybody killed me! I killed my children and they killed me. I had so many husbands, I couldn’t handle one more—and I cheated on everybody. I died of every imaginable sickness; in my last play, I had AIDS—then I moved to San Francisco! Now I just want to have a glass of wine in Berkeley and talk.” 

Peremartoni moved to the Bay Area in 2000 “because I fell in love with an American man.” After a year, she “somehow ended up” cast in a Traveling Jewish Theatre production, and was offered every role she auditioned for—but “I wasn’t thinking in English; to act in a language not your own is extremely difficult. If I was 18 when I came, maybe ... But I heard myself speaking lines from Chekhov in English, hearing from the outside, and it killed it.” 

In 2001 she started teaching in San Francisco, classes she now holds in Oakland in Jeffrey Bihr’s studio on Miles Street. Though trained in Stanislavskian style, she is put off by American “Method” acting and its teaching styles. “It’s not acting, it’s psychotherapy. I never heard of a method before; you either act or not—and learn through acting.”  

Commenting that American acting students are too academic, she said, “I get them directly into the emotion. They’re too much in their head, and acting’s from the instincts, from the gut. I want to get them out of their head—I can’t fuck [with] them there!” 

She went on: “Theater is going into the core emotion. An emphatic relationship. It’s about listening, about hearing the other person. Not about standing in your own bubble, not connecting.” 

Peremartoni strives to keep long-term students. “You can only really grow in a group situation with the same people and constant feedback.” She’s interested in teaching “what kind of roles a person can attract. I first was cast as an ingenue; I wanted to change, and had to learn how to make people cast me for the opposite role ... Theater’s about conflict; there’s always the opposite.” 

After living five years in Berkeley, she says, “I think it’s the best place on the planet to live, for a free spirit, who likes freedom and acceptance.” 

 

Krisztina Peremartoni can be reached through her website, www.openacting.com, or at (415) 793-7783. 

 


Take a Walking Tour of Berkeley’s Best Art Deco

By Steven Finacom, Special to the Planet
Friday August 10, 2007

Three quarters of a century ago the Art Deco or Moderne era left a legacy of exuberant edifices in the Berkeley architectural landscape. Several of the best will be showcased on a downtown architectural tour this Saturday, Aug. 11. 

Leading the tour is Paula Trehearne, preservation director of the Art Deco Society of California. The society conducts a regular series of architectural tours of Deco monuments in Bay Area communities, particularly San Francisco and Oakland. 

The tour is free to Art Deco Society members. There’s a $10 cost for others. Gather in front of the United Artists Theatre at 2274 Shattuck (between Kittredge and Bancroft) at 11 a.m. The tour lasts about an hour and a half. 

“The term Art Deco was used to describe the effects on design of the 1925 Parisian Exposition, but it was now somewhat confused with Modernism (less decoration, more function). Sometimes they were blended. Both now mingled with several other passing fashions, so that there was an anything goes atmosphere for a few years,” journalist and author Alan Jenkins wrote in the 1930s. 

Today, the architecture and broader design aesthetics of the late ’20s through the early ’40s subdivide into a whole salad bowl of styles including Art Deco, Modern, Moderne, Zig Zag Moderne and Streamline Moderne. 

The era—which encompassed both economic prosperity and Depression, uneasy peace and all-out war—produced some remarkable East Bay structures including the Hollywood epic exterior of George Kelham’s Life Sciences Building on the UC Berkeley campus and the fantasy palaces of Oakland’s Paramount and Fox theaters. 

During the 1920s, ’30s, and ’40s in Oakland and Berkeley’s downtowns, “frozen fountains” of terra cotta rose into the sky, sleek neon cascades poured down facades, iconic figures strode sculpturally across walls, and marquees seemed to take off and streak around the corner. 

Fluid concrete, glass block, and silvery metals came into their own as structural or decorative materials. 

Terracotta—which could be shaped, glazed and fired in an elaborate variety of forms—highlighted the exterior of many period buildings or covered them entirely. Terrazzo—small bits of colored stone mixed in a mortar matrix and polished smooth—became a favored material for floors, staircases and even parts of sidewalks. 

Berkeley’s Deco era buildings are mainly public, commercial, and institutional structures. They include ornate facilities conceived and financed in the prosperous 1920s and much more restrained and simplified late 1930s and early 1940s Depression-era buildings. 

Most of the best will be visited on the tour, which loops through the downtown past the Central Library, Berkeley High School, Civic Center Park with its still lamentably dry 1940s fountain, the Veterans’ Memorial, the old Farm Credit Building (renovated as the Martin Luther King, Jr. Civic Center Building) and the Kress Building, now housing Half Price Books. 

The route includes the landmark Howard Automobile dealership at Durant and Fulton (recently remodeled into a Buddhist educational center), period theaters, and some of the great 1930s and ’40s buildings of the UC campus including Life Sciences, Edwards Track Stadium, and the UC Printing Plant at Oxford and Center Street. 

These buildings were not necessarily called “Art Deco” or “Moderne” at the time. When built they were simply “modern architecture” done in the latest eye-popping styles and departing from Berkeley’s much more numerous Victorian, Craftsman, and Period Revival structures. 

“We talk about the buildings and the architects” on the tour, says Trehearne, who has been giving similar tours for two decades. Details of local history are not the focus. 

If you want to learn about Deco architecture from an expert, with Berkeley’s best examples as backdrop, this should be a good event. However, if you’re primarily interested in Berkeley history beyond architecture, perhaps wait for another type of walking tour. 

The Art Deco Society of California is an organization whose members share a genuine love of the design, fashions, customs, music, dances, food, drinks, cars and traditions of the era. Attendees at some of their events are enjoined to dress in period style. But there are no such restrictions on the walking tours. Show up as you wish, and enjoy. 

The Art Deco Society website is at www.artdecosociety.org. The Berkeley tour and other tours are listed under “Calendar of Events.” 

Daniella Thompson has also profiled some of Berkeley’s most interesting Moderne-era structures (not on the tour but near it) at berkeleyheritage.com. Click on “Essays” and look for the Harris House and “Call Me Joe” features. 

 

Photograph by Steven Finacom 

Ornate cast concrete pylons of 1932’s Edwards Track Stadium tower along Bancroft Way at the edge of the UC campus.


East Bay Then and Now: Buyer Sought for Historic West Berkeley Church

By Daniella Thompson
Friday August 10, 2007

Westminster Presbyterian Church, which changed hands last year, is on the market again. The third landmark designated by the City of Berkeley, the church at 926 Hearst Ave. and Eighth Street is the second oldest in town, having been built in 1879—a year after the neighboring Church of the Good Shepherd went up. 

Originally called the First Presbyterian Church of West Berkeley, it was designed by the prominent San Francisco architect Charles Geddes (1820–1903). Geddes had already designed the Community United Methodist Church of Half Moon Bay in 1872 and would go on to design the Noe Valley Ministry of San Francisco in 1888. 

In the same year that the Berkeley church was constructed, Geddes drew up plans for the Yosemite Chapel, the oldest building standing in Yosemite Valley and the first of the park’s buildings to be listed in the National Register of Historic Places. 

Born in Nova Scotia, Geddes immigrated to the United States in 1848. In 1860, the U.S. census listed his occupation as “carpenter,” but a decade later he had been upgraded to “architect.” He appears to have teamed up with his son-in-law, the contractor-builder Samuel Thomson. 

Geddes’ work spans a spectrum of Victorian idioms, including Carpenter Gothic, Italianate, Stick style, and New England vernacular. Late in his career he became more experimental; for the Sheldon Jackson Museum (1895–07) in Sitka, Alaska, Geddes created a plain, octagonal concrete structure topped with a small, windowed octagonal cupola. Although not the first octagon in the West (five octagon houses were built in San Francisco in the mid-19th century), the museum was Alaska’s first concrete building and startlingly modern-looking. 

The First Presbyterian Church of West Berkeley was far more traditional—a typical Gothic Revival building executed in wood. Its details were announced in the Berkeley Advocate on May 8, 1879: 

 

The First Presbyterian Church Society has accepted the lot in part donated by Captain Bowen, on the corner of Bristol and Eighth streets. The size of the lot is 52 x 100 feet, and the contract for the building has been awarded to George A. Embury, the builder of the East Berkeley Presbyterian Church, for $2,850. The building is to be 32 feet broad by 57 feet long, with a tower and a spire 80 feet from the ground. The tower will be 10 feet square. The audience room will be 30 ft. 9 in. by 40 ft., and will contain 44 pews, with seating capacity for about 200 persons, although much more space will be available when required by throwing open the lecture room, the size of which is to be 14 x 24 feet. 

The whole interior of the building on the first floor, and the pastor’s study in the tower, is to be plastered and hard-finished. The windows will be stained glass, imitation of lead work. 

 

The church was completed in August 1879 and dedicated on Oct. 26 of that year. The congregation that commissioned it had started meeting four years earlier in the Ocean View School, where the Rev. Doc. James Curry began preaching. In 1877, the congregation was officially organized as the First Presbyterian Church of West Berkeley. At the time, there were only six members, including the first Ruling Elder, Captain James S. Higgins, owner of the Temperance Grocery Store at San Pablo Avenue and Delaware Street. Higgins’ store began its life in 1854 as Captain William J. Bowen’s inn. (The building still exists, now at 834 Delaware Street, and is a City of Berkeley Landmark.) 

Captain Bowen not only made a partial donation of land for the church but served as one of the congregation’s first five trustees. 

The congregation remained small throughout its 95-year existence, seldom reaching 75 members. It occasionally blamed its low membership on the nearby presence of saloons, West Berkeley being outside the one-mile perimeter around the university campus within which liquor sales were prohibited. When local option was being hotly debated in West Berkeley, Rev. George H. Wilkins, pastor from 1906 to 1909, was hung in effigy in the middle of the street. 

Being impecunious, the congregation relied on assistance from Presbyterian Church mission funds. In 1899, the session minutes recorded that “there are no specially poor to be cared for by the church. All are very poor and while caring for self have but little for other things.” Despite its poverty, the congregation rose to the challenge after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, offering shelter to refugees who had fled to Berkeley. 

In 1899, the name was informally changed to Westminster Presbyterian Church to avoid confusion with the First Presbyterian Church of Berkeley. The change was never made legal, since that would have entailed the payment of $1 to the Probate Court. Yet in 1914 they managed to scrape together $1,950 and built a two-story clubhouse designed by Walter H. Ratcliff, Jr. 

The congregation stopped using the buildings in 1968 and officially disbanded in 1972. The property was acquired by Lawrence Gerard Smith, a self-styled “Catholic Orthodox priest” unaffiliated with the Catholic Church. Smith renamed it St. Procopius Latin Rite Church and celebrated a traditional Latin mass that attracted no more than 20 parishioners each Sunday. 

The church interior being rather plain and austere, Smith set about adorning it. He was fortunate to meet the Albany artist Gerald Gaxiola, who agreed to paint a mural on the empty wall behind the altar. Gaxiola, later to gain a modicum of fame as the subject of Les Blank’s film “The Maestro: King of the Cowboy Artists,” spent four months populating the wall with life-size figures forming an ecumenical survey of Catholicism. The deep-perspective scene also included Lawrence Smith, dressed in black robe and cowl, and the bare-chested, muscle-bound artist at his easel. At the very top, two adult male angels in their birthday suits, wings flapping, looked down on the mitered crowd. 

Smith also installed stained-glass windows in the sanctuary. Although Geddes’ original plans called for “stained glass, imitation of lead work,” funding must have proved insufficient, and the Westminster Presbyterian congregation made do with hammered glass. It was also during Smith’s watch that the church was designated a City of Berkeley Landmark. 

In 1977, Smith was one of 20 candidates running for the Berkeley city council. The same year, he was convicted of a misdemeanor child molestation charge and sentenced to probation. The police kept an eye on him thereafter. He was in the habit of picking up boys at James Kenney Park, as well as in San Francisco and Oakland, but no evidence against him turned up until 1983, when Smith was charged with six felony counts of sexually abusing Vietnamese and Hispanic boys. He was sentenced to eight months in prison in January 1984. 

Amazingly, Smith returned to the church following his spell in prison and owned it for another nine years. In 1993, when members of the Mekane Selam Medhane Alem Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church saw it for the first time, St. Procopius had been closed for five years, says Benyam Mulugeta, chair of the Medhane Alem board. 

Formed in 1986, the congregation had been using other churches’ facilities for their services. They bought Smith’s church for $300,000, after which Smith demanded an additional payment for the stained-glass windows. Since Medhane Alem declined to buy them, Smith took the windows with him to Mexico, says Mulugeta. 

Smith settled on Calle Libertad in Guadalajara, across the street from the U.S. Consulate General. There, too, he got into trouble, albeit of a different kind. David Agren, a Canadian journalist living in Guadalajara, twice reported in his blog that Smith aroused the ire of his neighbors by sheltering as many as 95 stray dogs in his home. Following a lawsuit, a failed appeal, and many fines from the city, Smith moved the dogs and was looking for another place to live. 

Shorn of its stained-glass windows, the sanctuary next lost the Gaxiola mural. The Ethiopian Orthodox congregation was not interested in a Roman Catholic mural, and the nudity offended some parishioners. There was apparently no curiosity about the identity of the artist, either. The mural was painted over, and the sanctuary reverted to its plain and austere Presbyterian appearance, only more so, since the hammered glass was gone, too. Remaining is the lovely wooden staircase ascending to the organ loft, where the organ appears to be intact. 

Medhane Alem eventually outgrew the church. Two years ago, the congregation bought the former First United Lutheran Church on Mountain Blvd. in Oakland. Initially they had planned to turn the Berkeley church into a monastery and school but have since determined that they need at least ten acres—they want to include a retreat and some farming operations—and are looking beyond the Bay Area for suitable land. 

After sitting empty for a year, the church was acquired last year by the Pentecostal congregation New Word of Faith. Bishop Nathaniel L. Brown says that his congregation is already outgrowing the space. Since many of the parishioners are in recovery from substance abuse or other criminal activities, they are finding it hard to keep up with payments on their usurious first mortgage (the second mortgage is carried by Medhane Alem). 

Appraised last year for $2,100,000, the church is currently listed for $1,700,000. Included are the 4,200-square-foot chapel and the Ratcliff-designed assembly hall, which contains a dining hall with a 200-person capacity, a full kitchen, four bedrooms, three bathrooms, four offices, a storage room, and an attic. The church is available for immediate move-in. For more information contact Benyam Mulugeta at (650) 906-8012. 

 

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

 

 

Photograph by Daniella Thompson 

Westminster Presbyterian Church at 926 Hearst Avenue was built in 1879.


Garden Variety: Seize the Time, Pet the Kittens at Westbrae’s Paradise Pottery

By Ron Sullivan
Friday August 10, 2007

Now that Clay of the Land has gone out of business—the likable and savvy owners lost their lease to a developer, how novel—I guess I ought to mention other local marvelous discount pottery places. Here’s one to get to before the high-rise axe descends upon its lot, as there’s been a for sale placard there right from the start.  

The lot’s owner is on record as wanting to accommodate its former tenant, A New Leaf Garden Gallery, while building there but as the gallery moved to San Francisco instead and that’s a juicy bit of real estate in a prosperous neighborhood, who knows what will actually happen?  

Paradise Pottery was an oddly recent discovery for me. I’d passed it a zillion times, and gone to Westbrae Nursery next door too, but in the two years it’s been open I had somehow not quite accomplished the opportune intersection between my free time, the direction of traffic, and the place’s open hours.  

It’s not that they place isn’t open much, either. Tuesday’s the only closed day and there’s a reasonable chance there’ll be someone there anyway. Maybe I should try to change the schedule of my orthodontist appointments, or the rhythm of my Costco runs.  

But I solved the problem the other day when I drove ‘round the corner and spotted a miraculously easy parking space. I parked for a half-hour and Joe and I took a stroll through the crockery.  

We were greeted by an adolescent gray tabby kitten who played some jittery game of peekaboo with us, coming forward for a pat on the head and then changing his mind, pursuing things we couldn’t see among the urns and pots, peering cautiously around a stack to see if we were watching, getting distracted by some subtle movement on the ground before he decided how to react when we were caught looking.  

The potscape he was exploring comprised indoor- and outdoor-sized planters, watertight things that could become cachepots or fountains or miniature pools. This was set in a cozy lot of flagstone, gravel, and a mostly-dry fake stream, varied by rock walls with cascading erigeron, upright leafy and spiky tropicals, a couple of nice lacy shade trees. It’s pretty much unchanged from A New Leaf’s place, which is nice. I only wish they’d kept the stream running.  

The crockery is in general quite handsome; it’s certainly various enough for various tastes and priced reasonably. The range includes brightly painted Talavera ceramics from Mexico; big things from China or Vietnam with deep-black, bricky-red, or subtle drip glazes, shiny or leathery or incised or molded or pebbly or matte. It’s a deep variety for such an apparently small lot.  

Staff seems to consist of Beth Chambers, who welcomed us with exactly the right balance of helpfulness and backing-off, and the owner. And that cat, Casper, and his calico sister Tibby. Go on over and tell them we said Prrrrrrrr.  

 

PARADISE POTTERY 

1286 Gilman St., Berkeley. 528-4291 

10 a.m.—6 p.m. Wednesday through  

Monday. Closed Tuesdays.


About the House: Retrofitting a Lousy Foundation

By Matt Cantor
Friday August 10, 2007

We had a little shaker a few weeks ago and I was faced with the same series of encounters in the ensuing days that I’ve faced so often over the last 20 years. They tend to go something like “Hey, that was a pretty big quake we had the other day, eh? But you know, there weren’t any cracks in my walls or anything. Not as bad a Loma Prieta.” And I get started… “Well, the fact is that what we had the other day was tiny.” Then comes the math. “Did you know that a 7.2 on the Richter is roughly 30,000 times bigger than a 4.2 (the one we just had)”…faces go blank, people wander away wondering why they bothered talking to me in the first place. Maybe I’m just not a people person. Oh well, my kids love me. 

Those are the facts and I’ll beleager you just a bit more before I move on to practical matters. First, all those earthquakes your house has been through…They’re nothin’. Just plain nothin’. The last earthquake that hit our town that was worth any serious attention at all was well over a hundred years ago, in 1868. Andrew Johnson was being impeached and UC was being founded (in Oakland of all places). The 14th Amendment was being passed to give African Americans full rights (and corporations the right to rule our lives) and Thomas Edison was applying for a patent for the first electric voting machine (no, I am not kidding). The point is that this was so long ago that nobody living can remember it and there are effectively no structures standing today that can give evidence of what that earthquake was like.  

It’s likely that when we do get our earthquake (Loma Prieta was somebody else’s earthquake) that over 150,000 homes will have to be abandoned and the occupants consigned to refugee status. If you don’t want to be one of those folks—and I assume you don’t—then it’s time to bolt and brace your house. If you’ve had it done years ago or by someone of less than definitive credentials then it makes sense to have it looked at. There might be some need for improvement. 

Now, I have this bad habit of taking a long time to get around to what I wanted to talk about and so I duly apologize if I’ve wasted some of your time. I guess I needed a prelude. So, that being done, here’s what I wanted to get to: 

A lot of homes have bad foundations. Now, that’s a rather broad remark, so I’ll try to clean it up a bit. Many foundations, especially those from before 1935 suffer from a range of ills, including concrete deterioration (soft concrete), rotation (tilting of the footings) and cracking (or settlement). These can, in combination, be serious enough to require replacement of part, or even all, of your foundation. In my book, serious deterioration is the most serious failing when it comes to earthquake readiness because it keeps bolts from staying in one place when the earth starts shaking. When foundations are really crumbly (you can drive a screwdriver an inch through) there may not be any point in adding bolts. But I firmly believe, having sat down with a number of engineers and other experts over the years, that all but the worst foundations can be retrofitted to some effectiveness.  

Even foundations that have settled badly, those with cracks and fairly serious rotation, can have bolts and bracing panels installed with reasonable assuredness that they will add greatly to the earthquake resistance of a house. The reason I point this out is that many people are putting off doing seismic work until they get to the foundation and this can mean, due to the high cost, a delay that may end badly. 

The earthquake isn’t going to wait for all of us to upgrade our foundations, so we need to decide which ones we’re going to do and retrofit the rest of them to our best ability. Most retrofits are not going to fail as a result of a bad foundation and there are many faulty foundations that will work more than well enough if bolts and bracing panels are properly installed. So, if you don’t have cash to fix the foundation this year, it’s time to do the retrofit. 

Here are some pointers for those who know that they have poor quality concrete and are ready to get this vital task completed. First, use more bolts. When concrete quality is poor it’s beneficial to distribute the lateral load of the house (the weight of the house moving left and right) over a larger area. By putting more bolts into the older, softer concrete, we put less stress on each portion and decrease the likelihood that the bolts will break through the concrete. Here’s a freebie we get from doing this: since weaker concrete tends to vary in strength as we move around the perimeter of the foundation, we increase the chance that some bolts will be in better concrete and will stay in place. In the end, all we need to do is to be sure that enough of the house is grasped and held in place to prevent it from sliding off of the foundation. 

Another thing that I recommend for weaker concrete is the use of epoxy for bolt installations. Yes, we’re talking about gluing the bolts in place. This may sound silly or weak but it’s just the opposite. When concrete is crumbly, the typical expansion bolt doesn’t work very well. This is a bolt that, when tightened, enlarges in diameter near the base, thus lodging it in place. If concrete is soft, this enlargement can just push some rocks and sand around and actually weaken this area all the more. Not only does this weaken the area immediately around the bolt but also leaves the bolt loose and more able to slam through soft concrete. Epoxy, on the other hand, strengthens the area immediately around the bolt, fills any voids and bonds the bolt to the foundation. It’s a much better connection for weak concrete. 

Once again, many retrofits have been poorly done and it’s a good idea to have someone look at them. Nevertheless, poor concrete is only occasionally so bad that that a retrofit isn’t worth the money. This local fault has been pretty faithful to its schedule and has us now about a decade overdue. Even if you end up reinstalling bolting and bracing in five years when you get that new foundation, I still think it’s wise to go ahead and spend the money to bolt and brace to that old broken concrete today. The alternative may be hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage that could have been avoided with just a few thousand spent now. 

Insurance may recoup some of your losses when that day arrives or it may not. If this quake is centered in a densely developed area (It’ll probably be at my house), the cost may be more than the underwriters have set aside and you may not be made whole (financially speaking).  

John Lennon said “Life is what happens to you when you’re busy making other plans.” I don’t think there are many earthquakes in Liverpool so I have no idea how he understood this problem so well. 

 

 

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


Quake Tip of the Week

By Larry Guillot
Friday August 10, 2007

Playing in the Traffic? 

As a loving parent, grandparent, aunt, uncle, (etc), would you consider letting that child you love so much go out and play in the street? Not even if it were a relatively “quiet” street, not in a million years. 

But you will let that same child play in your house, surrounded by bookcases, heavy furniture, and large wall hangings, right? If you live in the interior of our country, not problem. If, however, you live in California, you are putting that child, and yourself, at risk. 

Securing is easy and cheap, an incredible bargain for the safety and peace of mind that it brings. Please think about it. 

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

 

Larry Guillot is the owner of QuakePrepare, an earthquake consulting, securing and kit supply service. Contact him at 558-3299 or see www.quakeprepare.com to receive semi-monthly e-mails and safety reports.  

 


Berkeley This Week

Friday August 10, 2007

FRIDAY, AUGUST 10 

A Ramble into, through, and above Strawberry Canyon, with guides, at 5:30 p.m. followed by a Farmers’ Market Barbeque at 7 p.m. at the Haas Club House, UC Campus. For details call Berkeley Architectural Heritage 841-2242. www.berkeleyheritage.com 

Peace Meditation & Origami class for all ages with Hiroshima survivor Takashi Tanemori at 7 p.m. at Unity of Berkeley, 2075 Eunice St. Suggested donation $10-$20, no one turned away. 528-8844. 

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 of $5 requested. 528-4253.  

SATURDAY, AUGUST 11 

Art Deco Walking Tour of Downtown Berkeley Meet at 11 a.m. in front of United Artists Theater, 2274 Shattuck. www.artdecosociety.org 

Oakland Heritage Alliance Walking Tour of Temescal Meet at 10 a.m. in front of Genova Delicatessen, 5095 Telegraph Ave. 763-9218. www.oaklandheritage.org 

Walking Tour of Old Oakland uptown to the Lake to discover Art Deco landmarks. Meet at 10 a.m. in front of the Paramount Theater at 2025 Broadway. Tour lasts 90 minutes. Reservations can be made by calling 238-3234. 

SF Mime Troupe “Making a Killing” at 2 p.m. at Live Oak Park, Shattuck Ave. at Berryman. www.sfmt.org 

The Great War Society meets to discuss “What the Doughboy Wore” by Norm Miller at 10:30 a.m. at 640 Arlington Ave. 527-7118. 

“Amazed” A family maze and labyrinth making event from 1 to 4 p.m. at The Museum of Children’s Art, 528 9th St., Oakland. Cost is $5. 465-8770. 

Solo Sierrans Hike in Tilden Park Meet at 4:30 p.m. at Lone Oak big parking lot for an hour and a half hike through the cool woods. Some climbing on fire trails. Optional dinner afterwards. 234-8949. 

Introduction to Permaculture Learn the principles of using permaculture, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Cost is $10-$15, no one turned away. Call to pre-register and for location. 548-2220, ext. 233. 

Re-Dedication of Brookdale Park with entertainment, food, spoken word and community booths at 11 a.m. at 2535 High St., Oakland. 533-2366. 

Re-Leaf the San Pablo Creekside Help push out the invasive plants and bring back native vegetation from 9:30 a.m. to noon at 4191 Appian Way, El Sobrante. For information call 665-3538. www.thewatershedproject.org 

“Less Safe, Less Free: The Failure of Preemption in the War on Terror” with Jules Lobel at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. 

Hopalong Animal Rescue Come meet your furry new best friend. Cats and kittens available for adoption from noon to 3 p.m. at Your Basic Bird, 2940 College Ave. 267-1915, ext. 500. 

CoHousing Potluck at 2 p.m. at 2220 Sacramento St. 849-2063. 

The Berkeley Lawn Bowling Club provides free instruction every Wed. and Sat. at 10 a.m. at 2270 Acton St. 841-2174.  

Fast Pitch Softball for Adults at noon on Saturdays in Oakland. For information call 204-9500. 

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.  

SUNDAY, AUGUST 12 

Oakland Heritage Alliance Walking Tour of Laurel Neighborhood Meet at 10 a.m. at the Albertson’s parking lot, 4055 MacArthur Blvd. 763-9218. www.oaklandheritage.org 

Green Party BBQ at 11 a.m. at Live Oak Park. Look for the green and white canopy. 

SF Mime Troupe “Making a Killing” at 2 p.m. at Live Oak Park, Shattuck Ave. at Berryman. www.sfmt.org 

Mumia Abu Jamal on the Road to Freedom? with Mumia’s lead counsel, Robert R. Bryan on developments in Mumia’s case at 2 p.m. at Berkeley Fellowship of Universalists, 1924 Cedar at Bonita. Suggested donation $5-$10. 526-4402. 

The Red Oak Victory Ship Pancake Breakfast from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at 1337 Canal Blvd in Richmond harbor. Exit Canal Blvd off Hwy 580. Cost is $6, children under 5 free. 237-2933. 

Free Sailboat Rides from 1 to 4 p.m. at the Cal Sailing Club, Berkeley Marina. Wear warm, waterproof clothing and bring a change of clothes in case you get wet. www.cal-sailing.org 

Middle East Peace Petition Release Party from 3 to 6 p.m. at Redwood Gardens, 2951 Derby. 548-9840. 

Community Meditation and Potluck at 7 p.m. at 1940 Virginia St. Sponsored by The East Bay Open Circle. 495-7511. www.eastbayopencircle.org  

MONDAY, AUGUST 13 

Peace Child Summer Arts Camp for Children ages 8-12 with singing, dancing, acting, music-making, shadow puppetry, and art-making about peace runs to Aug 17, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Arlington Community Church, 52 Arlington Ave., Kensington. Cost is $100. 526-9146. 

Emergency Womyn’s Round Table and Pot Luck to strategize on how to bring our troops home at 6 p.m. at Redwood Gardens, 2951 Derby St. RSVP to 524-2776.  

Peoples Park Community Peace Rally Planning at 7 p.m. at Café Mediterranean, 2400 block of Telegraph Ave. The rally and concert will take place Sept. 15. 658-1451. 

Roads to Recovery to celebrate the departure of Mark Rhoades and learn about neighborhood issues at 6:30 p.m. at Cafe de la Paz, 1600 Shattuck. Cost is $5. RSVP to 849-4619. mariebowman@pacbell.net  

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. 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, at 3:30 p.m. at 1247 Marin Ave. 526-3720, ext. 17. 

TUESDAY, AUGUST 14 

Readers Theater Program for children ages 7-10 at 2 p.m. at the Berkeley Public Library, 2090 Kittredge St. 981-6223.  

Family Storytime for preschoolers and up at 7 p.m. at the Kensington Library, 61 Arlington Ave. 524-3043. 

Community Sing-a-Long every Tues, at 2 p.m. at the Albany Senior Center, 846 Masonic Ave. 524-9122.  

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. 

Games Club Games designers meet at 6 p.m. and games lovers meet at 8 p.m. to discuss board, strategy and social interaction games at at Dr Comics and Mr Games, 4014 Piedmont Ave., Oakland. To RSVP call 601-7800. 

Baby-Friendly Book Club meets to discuss “The Third Man” by Graham Greene at 10 a.m. at Kensington Library, 61 Arlington Ave. 524-3043. 

Berkeley Camera Club meets at 7:30 p.m., at the Northbrae Community Church, 941 The Alameda. Share your digital images, slides and prints and learn what other photographers are doing. Monthly field trips. 548-3991. www.berkeleycameraclub.org 

St. John’s Prime Timers meets at 9:30 a.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. We offer ongoing classes in exercise and creative arts, and always welcome new members over 50. 845-6830 

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 15 

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. Reservations can be made by calling 238-3234. www.oaklandnet.com/walkingtours 

Recording African American Stories Add your voice to the Library of Congress and the National Museum of African American History, Wed. from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., by appointment, at Chapel of the Chimes, 4499 Piedmont Ave., Oakland, through Sept. 12. For appointment call 228-3207. 

“Under the Radar” Israelis and Palestinians Working Together against Occupation and for Human Rights at 7:30 p.m. at Berkeley Unitarian Fellowship Hall, 1924 Cedar St. at Bonita. Donation $5-$20, no one turned away. Sponsored by Jewish Voice for Peace. 465-1777. 

Lead-Safe Painting & Remodeling A free class to learn about lead safe renovations for your older home, from noon to 2 p.m. at Lakeview Branch Library, 550 El Embarcadero, Oakland. Presented by Alameda County Lead Poisoning Prevention Program. 567-8280. www.ACLPPP.org 

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Book Discussion at 4 p.m. at the Central Berkeley Public Library, 4th Floor, Children’s Story Room. 981-6223.  

“What the Bleep Do We Know?” at 7:30 p.m. at Humanist Hall, 390 27th St., Oakland. Donation $5. www.HumanistHall.net 

“Insights to Wellness” Demonstrations at 7:45 p.m. at Takibi Yoga Studio, 4550 San Pablo Ave., Suite D, 2nd Floor, in Emeryville. Cost is $5. 

Pax Nomada Bike Ride Meet at 6 p.m. at Nomad Cafe for a 15-25 mile ride up to through the Berkeley hills. All levels of cyclists welcome. 595-5344. 

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. 548-9840. 

Berkeley Peace Walk and Vigil at 6:30 at the Berkeley BART Station, corner of Shattuck and Center. www.geocities.com/vigil4peace/vigil 

THURSDAY, AUGUST 16 

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 noon at the Downtown Oakland Senior Center, 200 Grand Ave. 981-5332. 

World of Plants Tours Thurs., Sat. and Sun. at 1:30 p.m. at the UC Botanical Garden, 200 Centennial Drive. Cost is $5. 643-2755.  

Avatar Metaphysical Toastmasters Club meets at 6:45 p.m. at Spud’s Pizza, 3290 Adeline at Alcatraz. namaste@avatar.freetoasthost.info