“Independent Living isn’t doing everything by yourself—it’s being in control of how things are done.”  

—Independent living pioneer  

Judy Heumann, quoted by Ken Stein in text accompanying Stein’s photo exhibit of CIL’s history in Rasputin’s windows at 2401 Telegraph Ave. 

Today it sounds like something from ancient history: a physically disabled person earning a university degree is relegated to living in a hospital.  

But that’s what happened in 1962 to Ed Roberts, who was severely disabled from polio with virtually no functional movement and dependent on a respirator to breathe. 

Known as the father of the disability rights movement, Roberts, one of the founders of Berkeley’s Center for Independent Living (CIL), “was the first severely disabled person admitted to the university,” Gerald Baptiste, CIL deputy director told the Daily Planet in an interview in the center’s offices on Telegraph Avenue on the occasion of the center’s 35th anniversary. 

On Oct. 11, CIL will celebrate with an event at the downtown Oakland Rotunda Building, 300 Frank Ogawa Plaza, which includes a silent auction, dinner, dancing and entertainment. Tickets are $150 and available by calling 841-4776. Judy Heumann, a CIL co-founder and now director for the Department of Disability Services for the District of Columbia, will be honorary chair. 

Roberts, who would become the first disabled head of the California Department of Rehabilitation, was housed in a wing at Cowell Hospital because there was no accessible dormitory, Baptiste said.  

As the university accepted other severely disabled students, it housed them together at the hospital. While the students found this arrangement restricting, grouping the disabled together created the critical mass they needed to brainstorm about the conditions they would need in order to take control of their own lives and to help other disabled people to do the same.  

The Physically Disabled Students’ Program came out of these discussions. 

As they graduated, the former students faced new challenges. “As people came through the university and came out, they found they did not have the supportive services they needed to work in the community, live in the community and stay out of institutions,” Baptiste said. 

And so the first Center for Independent Living was born in 1972, headquartered in a two-bedroom apartment near campus. In 1975, CIL moved into its current 2539 Telegraph Ave. headquarters.  

Created by and for disabled people, the new agency was unique: “Being people with disabilities, they knew the type of services needed to make [the agency] happen,” Baptiste said.  

CIL was founded to resolve the everyday problems facing the disabled community: finding accessible, affordable housing, vocational training and attendant services were among them. The agency also took on the task of educating the community about disabilities. 

And CIL founders had a vision for systemic change, working on policy issues to guarantee the rights of disabled people. 

Baptiste said there was a reason that the independent living movement began in the Bay Area, which was the home of the free speech and anti-war movements and the Black Panther Party.  

Bay Area people “immediately supported the idea of independence for people with disabilities,” he said. 

Baptiste, who lost most of his vision at age 29, went to work at CIL in 1979. Hired by Michael Winter, now director for the Office of Civil Rights in the Federal Transit Administration, Baptiste had planned to work in CIL’s blind services for a short time, then move on. He’s been there 27 years and deputy director since 1985.  

When Baptiste came to CIL, it was fiscally stronger than it has ever been, with a budget of $3.2 million per year and a staff of 200. But funding was severely cut back in the early 1980s, and the agency radically downscaled to 28 employees. The agency was able to adapt to the changing times and helped birth independent sister agencies such as BORP, Bay Area Outreach and Recreation Programs, and DREDF, the Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund.  

While those who founded CIL worked tirelessly behind the scenes in education and policy, they also made themselves highly visible in struggles for the civil rights of disabled people. 

One was the fight for “504,” Section 504 of the 1973 Rehabilitation Act that protected people from discrimination in federally funded organizations and programs. 

Passage of the legislation was not enough—it had to be implemented.  

That took the militancy of Judy Heumann, Ed Roberts and hundreds of other disabled activists and their supporters who sat in, in federal buildings across the country. “On April 5, 1977, everybody agreed to move into the federal buildings and not come out until the implementation of 504,” Baptiste said. 

In the San Francisco offices of the Federal Department of Health, Education and Welfare, some 150 people camped out for 26 days as hundreds of others marched outside United Nations Plaza. 

The action resulted in the signing of regulations implementing Section 504, the precursor to the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act. 

Among the more visible local impacts of 504 was Berkeley’s curb cut program, the first of such programs in the nation. 

Today the face of CIL has changed. It has a modest 54 employees, housed in four different offices: downtown Oakland, Fruitvale and East Oakland, in addition to the one on Telegraph.  

“We do that to make sure that we not only have outreach in those communities, but a presence in those communities,” says Baptiste. An African American, Baptiste said one of CIL’s founding strengths that continues today is its outreach to minority and underserved communities. 

“CIL, as an independent living center, leads all independent living centers in California in our outreach as well as diversity in our staff,” Baptiste said. 

There is a stark divide between the more wealthy white and low-income minority communities in their knowledge of available services and how to access them, Baptiste said.  

Those who are aware of how to access services are more able to move on with their lives and adjust to the disability, Baptiste said.  

For a person unaware that there is help, especially one who becomes disabled late in life, “the only thing that they know or feel is that it is almost the end of life for them … They’ve lost their self-confidence and their self-esteem. They’re just existing,” Baptiste said. 

Different times bring different needs. Today Baptiste is working on programs for the young “macho” people who have been shot and are disabled. “They need to get started in the right direction,” Baptiste said, noting that many come from families that have little knowledge of disability and advocacy. 

Employer education and vocational education are key, Baptiste said, pointing to statistics that show that only a small percentage of the disabled population is employed. 

Given training and opportunities, people can “succeed or fail according to their own abilities,” Baptiste said. “I think everyone deserves that right regardless of their economic standard or their race. And I feel like we have an obligation to reach out and make sure that happens.” 

The healthcare divide between the wealthy and the poor has ramifications in the disabled community, Baptiste said, noting poverty can lead to poor healthcare, which can result in disability. 

In some instances, what could become a severe disability may be prevented or mitigated if caught early, he said, pointing to the example of the Buffalo Bills’ tight end Kevin Everett, who received severe spinal injuries in a Sept. 9 game and got immediate extraordinary medical care that may allow him to walk again. 

Still going strong, CIL has an annual budget of $2.1 million and provides some 68,000 informational referrals annually. Yet, “It’s still grassroots,” Baptiste said. 

“We often have more consumers than staff hours to work with them,” Baptiste said, noting that the staff has a passion for what they do and work at low pay and long hours. 

There are plans for big changes in the future: moving the CIL headquarters from Telegraph to a new office complex, to be called the Ed Roberts Campus, on the eastern parking lot of the Ashby BART station. 

CIL Director Jan Garrett told the Daily Planet that it looks like funding for the project is complete. The campus will house a host of services for disabled people in one place including a center for technology, legal services and more. 

“Many people can benefit from the wide variety of services that will be there—a one-stop center for services,” said Garrett, a quadriplegic who practiced law before taking over the direction of CIL eight years ago. 

The Ed Roberts Campus is to be truly accessible, a standard now known as “universal,” with large elevators, wide doorways, completely accessible restrooms and audible directions for people with visual impairments, Garrett said. 

What motivates Baptiste, now 73, has not changed over the years. “My enjoyment comes from doing the outreach and finding and assisting people,” he said, and supporting them as they stand up and say, “I do have a right.” 

Kavanagh Will Plead Not Guilty 

Berkeley Rent Stabilization Board member Chris Kavanagh, charged with five felony counts related to voter fraud, perjury and collecting city funds under false pretenses, will plead not guilty and he will not step down from his office, Kavanagh’s attorney James Giller told the Daily Planet Monday. 

Kavanagh was arrested Friday near the 63rd Street cottage in Oakland, where he is alleged to live and has been free on $30,000 bail since Saturday night, according to his attorney, James Giller.  

He will be arraigned Thursday at 2 p.m. at the Wiley W. Manuel Courthouse, Dept. 112. 

Questions about whether Kavanagh, 49, an elected official, lives in Oakland or Berkeley surfaced earlier this year when new landlords Lynn and Pat Tidd attempted to evict Kavanagh from the 63rd Street cottage in Oakland, where his name is on the lease. 

Kavanagh has told fellow rent board members that he lives in Berkeley but has a girlfriend in Oakland. 

Similar questions concerning Kavanagh’s residence had been sent to the Alameda County district attorney’s office by the Berkeley city attorney in 2003, but the district attorney had declined to charge him at the time. Chief Assistant D.A. Nancy O’Malley told the Daily Planet on Monday that new evidence in the case had led to her office’s filing charges at this time.  

Alameda County District Attorney Tom Orloff, who spoke to the Planet Friday afternoon, said Kavanagh is charged with five felonies: registering to vote where he is not eligible; voting where he is not eligible to vote; filing false nominating papers; and perjury and grand theft, relating to having accepted a stipend and health benefits as a rent board member. 

Giller said Kavanagh plans to plead not guilty. “I haven’t seen the evidence,” he said. 

A $100,000 bail was originally set improperly before the D.A. formally filed the complaint, Giller said, noting that Kavanagh was originally booked on more charges than were actually filed. 

Kavanagh was freed Saturday night on $30,000 bail, according to his attorney James Giller. He would have been out earlier had there not been a paperwork snafu. “They either lost [the paper work] or took a long time to find it,” Giller said.  

“[Thirty thousand dollars] is the regular bail for the charges filed,” Giller said, further noting that his client was, in error, directed to report to the Renee Davidson Courthouse for arraignment Monday morning, which he did.  

Once there, he was told he needed to go to the Wiley Manual Courthouse on Thursday, which he plans to do, according to Giller. 

Rent Board Chair Jesse Arreguin said he has been in discussions with Rent Board Executive Director Jay Kelekian on what steps the rent board should take in the matter. 

“We’ve talked about putting his stipend [$500 per month] into an escrow account until the case is resolved,” Arreguin said. He added that as chair he has the power to remove Kavanagh from the board committees on which he sits. 

“I haven’t seen the evidence,” Arreguin said. 

The board does not have the power to remove Kavanagh, Arreguin added. 

The landlord at the 63rd Street cottage, Lynn Tidd, alerted the press by e-mail to Kavanagh’s arrest on Friday, saying: “We had the pleasure of watching Chris Kavanagh arrested this morning shortly after leaving his home of six years, 338 63rd St. His home will be searched within the hour.” 

In a phone interview Friday afternoon, Tidd told the Planet that she had helped alert police to when Kavanagh was at the house since, she said, he had been observed there infrequently over the last couple of weeks.  

At about 6 a.m. Friday, Kavanagh “was walking up 63rd Street getting coffee. Police walked up to him and put him in a police car,” said Tidd, who lives in a unit in front of the house and observed the arrest.

Friends and family of Gary W. King rallied outside of Oakland City Hall Monday afternoon to call for the prosecution of the police sergeant who shot and killed the 20-year-old Oakland resident last Thursday. 

“It was all wrong. It was not legal. It was an execution. It was murder,” said Berkeley resident Xavier Alladin Shanklin, 18, a witness to the fatal shooting and a longtime friend of King. “We are all traumatized, we are all hurting.” 

Protesters say Sgt. Pat Gonzales should have used other means to subdue King, who died at Highland Hospital after he was shot twice in the back. 

“It’s an injustice. He could have shot him in his leg,” said Berkeley resident Neenee Franklin, 16, who first met King three years ago when she lived on 54th Street and Martin Luther King Way. “He was always there with a warm heart, and he always wanted to know I was okay … He always came with a smile.” 

Gonzales approached King at around 4:30 p.m. as he was coming out of a convenience store, believing the young man to fit the description of a suspect wanted in the murder of a Pittsburg man in August. Police say King resisted Gonzales’ attempt to question him, and a struggle ensued between them. After an attempt at subduing King with a taser gun failed, Gonzales says he shot King twice in the back as he was running away from him, claiming King appeared to be reaching into his pants for a gun. Police spokesperson Michael Poirier said a loaded revolver was found on Gonzales. 

Witnesses dispute police claims. “I didn’t see a gun. None of us saw a gun,” said Shanklin, one of four witnesses we spoke to who say they were about 20 yards away from the scene. “The police are the ones who put the dope on us. They’re the ones who put the guns on us.” 

Shanklin is not alone is his distrust of the police. Mon’a Lewis, a 15-year-old Oakland resident who knew King for three years, said King was a “nice guy” who would never be involved in a murder.  

“I think it’s racism,” she said. “They stereotype any black male. Basically, if you’re wearing a white shirt and jeans and a beanie, you are considered a criminal.” 

Gonzales is a member of the department’s crime reduction unit and had been instructed to question people who match the description of the suspect of an Aug. 21 murder. In that case, Pittsburg resident Ronald Spears, 29, was shot and killed by a man he agreed to give a ride to in exchange for directions. Once inside the car, the suspect demanded money from the victim, and a struggle ensued that caused the car to crash on 55th Street. Spears was then shot and killed by the suspect. 

Protesters at the rally demanded to speak with Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums and called on the city to fire Gonzales, a nine-year veteran who has been involved in another fatal shooting. 

“We need to make sure that … Gonzales is not receiving a paycheck from the OPD,” said Keith Shanklin, the spokesperson for the family. Shanklin, who has spoken to witnesses, said Gonzales never identified himself to King or explained why he was detaining him. “He was just provoking him,” he said. 

Dellums’ spokesperson, Paul Rose, said the mayor’s office can’t comment on the case until the police department completes its internal investigation. 

Shanklin said the family is considering legal action and is in the process of selecting an attorney to take on their case.  

Rashidah Grinage, director of People United for a Better Oakland, said she plans to file a complaint with the Oakland Citizen Police Review Board. “This case is extremely troubling,” she said. “It is very important that there be an outside investigation by citizens, independent of the police department.”

After her mother’s death in 1999, journalist Emily Yellin came across the wartime diary and hundreds of letters her mother had written home from the Pacific while working with the Red Cross. Within days, Yellin could see that “My mother’s story served as a window through which to see the story of all the women in World War II.” 

Yellin, who wrote for the New York Times for 10 years, tells that broader story in her book Our Mothers’ War: American Women at Home and at the Front During World War II. She will speak at a gala event on Friday, Sept. 28, at Richmond’s Marina Bay to kick off the Home Front Festival by the Bay. The festival celebrates both the city’s role during World War II and the Rosie the Riveter/World War II Home Front National Historical Park. 

Reached by phone at her home in Memphis, Yellin spoke about the women who moved into the workforce to take the place of the 16 million men—farm laborers, mailmen, milkmen, movie ushers, salesmen, and many more—who volunteered or were drafted into the service after the Dec. 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor. 

To counteract the sudden shortage of manpower, the federal government went into action to convince reluctant Americans that the nation needed women of all classes to enter the workforce. 

According to Yellin, “We went from the Depression to World War II, and during the Depression, women did not work. The women who did work were usually in the financially lower rungs of the working world. 

“For those women, World War II raised up the opportunity, so someone who had been working as a housecleaner was able to work in a factory and make a lot more money. In fact, there’s a quote in the book by an African American woman who said, ‘It was Hitler who got us out of the white man’s kitchen.’” 

Before 1940, 11.5 million women already worked for pay. And 6.5 million women joined them in the war years. More than 2.5 million women took war production jobs, working with ships, airplanes, tanks, Jeeps, or munitions. 

Yellin interviewed Bessie Stokes of Pennsylvania, a white woman who had gone from earning $2 a week cleaning houses before the war to well over $30 a week inspecting bombshells in a factory beginning in 1941. She worked there until 1946, when her husband, Spike, returned from the service. 

“I kept every one of my pay stubs from all my work. So when Spike came back from the war, the first day he was home, I put them in front of him. And I said, ‘Don’t you ever tell me I have to depend on you for a living.’” Spike’s response was to look at his wife proudly and say, “Oh girl, you proved it.” 

“I think it was a revolution for women’s role in our society,” said Yellin, “but it was inadvertent. It wasn’t like 20 to 30 years later, with the women’s liberation movement; that was very deliberate. This was very much an inadvertent revolution, so these women stepped in and did what was asked of them and what they were allowed to do.” 

The revolution took place all over the United States, according to Yellin, as women moved into work previously reserved for men. But most in society assumed that this was only a temporary arrangement. 

“Every region of the country was affected by the war,” said Yellin. Shipbuilding took place along the east and west coasts and the Gulf of Mexico. Auto plants in the Midwest and elsewhere stopped building cars in 1942, converting their shops to build engines and parts for military vehicles. Richmond’s Ford assembly plant outfitted Jeep and tank bodies. The South and the east were home to munitions plants. And the west coast was the home of airplane manufacturing. 

Even before the U.S. entered the war, industrialist Henry J. Kaiser landed a government contract to build ships for Great Britain. Despite having no experience in shipbuilding, he opened his Richmond business in late 1940.  

Richmond’s population boomed from about 23,000 at the start of the war to over 100,000 people by the war’s end.  

According to Donna Graves of the National Park Service, author of a 2004 report titled “Mapping Richmond’s World War II Home Front,” “Recruitment of workers for the four Kaiser shipyards … changed the city’s ethnic composition, increasing the African American community by a factor of ten,” and bringing in more Latinos and Chinese Americans. 

The shipyards ran day and night. Kaiser shipbuilders crafted Liberty and Victory ships, once completing a Liberty ship in just under 5 days. The Red Oak Victory ship, now under restoration, will be open for viewing during the Home Front Festival. 

According to Donald Bastin, director of the Richmond Museum of History and author of the book Richmond, “Kaiser wanted to eliminate all barriers to production” for his 90,000 workers, 27 percent of whom were women, “and that included transport, health care, and child care.” 

Housing was scarce, and services could not keep up with the influx of workers arriving from all over the United States, some without a network of family who could care for their children.  

Federal funds from the 1942 Lanham Act made possible the opening of five child care centers in Richmond in 1943.  

Said Yellin, “Day care was a new concept essentially because people weren’t used to leaving their children with someone else. That was women’s responsibility, the children, the home, and women didn’t go outside of the home.” 

By the end of the war, Richmond had 14 child care centers and had taken care of about 1,400 children, said Joseph Fischer, curator of an exhibit of art by children at the centers that is now showing at the Richmond Museum of History. A selection will be on display at the Home Front Festival. 

Kaiser’s other innovation, and the reason most people now know his name, was providing group health care for his workers. The Richmond Field Hospital treated sick and injured workers near the job site, and the Permanente Hospital in Oakland provided additional service. 

Yellin added, “I think we forget how [war] permeated every aspect of people’s lives. So when we say ‘the home front,’ it sounds like a cozy place, but it really wasn’t, just as the battle front was not a cozy place.” Everyone lived with the thought that beloved family members on the front might be wounded or die at any time. 

“The effect of this war was so prevalent that wherever you looked, you couldn’t really get away from it, that is what living on the home front was.” 

The Home Front Festival will host the “Think Big” exhibit, with information about Kaiser’s life and work. Additional events include a Rosie Reunion for former shipyard workers, a USO dance and show, music performances, arts and crafts, historic tours of the bay, and visits of the tall ship Alma and FDR’s yacht the Potomac. 

For tickets, call 235-1315. Emily Yellin will also sign copies of her book on Sunday at the Ford building beginning at 11:30 a.m. 

Home Front Festival By the Bay 

The festival kicks off on Friday, Sept. 28 with a 9 a.m.-2 p.m. rally at the park headquarters at the Ford Building Craneway on the Richmond Waterfront, followed by a Rosie the Riveter Trust Fund dinner from 6 to 10 p.m. 

Saturday will see activities at four separate locations, representing the spread-out nature of the Rosie the Riveter Park.  

Music and other entertainment, food and arts and crafts booths, and a children’s zone will be presented from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. at the Rosie the Riveter Memorial at Marina Bay. Entrance fee to the Marina Bay event is $5 for adults, $3 for seniors and children 6-12.  

At Shipyard No. 3, a pancake breakfast will be held at the Red Oak Victory World War II era restored cargo ship, with ceremonies at 11 a.m. launching the national park featuring nationally known performance artist Linda Tillery. A Vintage Military Vehicle Show will be held at the shipyard from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., and interpretive tours from noon to 3 p.m. 

At the Harbor Master's Dock, historic tours of the bay will be held on the historic schooner “Alma” from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. 

And at the Ford Building Craneway, a USO Dance and Show will be held from 7-10 p.m. 

On Sunday the festival events at the Rosie the Riveter Memorial at Marina Bay will be repeated. At the Ford Building Craneway, a presentation on the story of Henry K. Kaiser and reunions for former World War II home front workers will be held from 11 a.m.-3 p.m. At the Harbor Master’s Dock, historic bay tours will be held 11 a.m.-3 p.m. on the trawler Delphinus, as well as tours of the moored presidential yacht Potomac that was once used by Franklin Delano Roosevelt.  

A full schedule of homefront festival events are available on the Rosie the Riveter Park website at http://www.homefrontfestival.com/what.htm. 

Rosie the Riveter/World War II Home Front National Historical Park: 

www.nps.gov/rori 

To submit a story for the oral history project, call (800) 497-6743. 

Emily Yellin’s book, Our Mothers’ War: 

www.ourmotherswar.com 

Donna Graves, “Mapping Richmond’s World War II Home Front,” NPS, July 2004: 

www.tombutt.com/forum/2007/070820.htm 

Bay Area World War II sites: 

www.nps.gov/history/nr/travel/wwIIbayarea/index.htm 

Berkeley Art Museum/Pacific Film Archive Director Kevin Consey will leave his post in January, the museum announced Friday. 

That means he won’t be in charge when the project he was hired to build—the new museum building on Center Street—is finally opened to the public. 

The sometimes controversial administrator took the helm at the university museum and film center on Jan. 1, 2000. His official date for leaving the post will be Jan. 2. 

In a prepared statement released by the museum, Consey said, “I have been privileged to work with a talented and energetic staff of the highest professional caliber during my tenure. The significant and substantial accomplishments produced during this time were due to our collaborative efforts and their intelligence, skill, and perseverance. 

“The continuing demanding work and challenges of the new building project and capital campaign need increased energy over the next several years. Eight years of service and significant accomplishments in the areas of institutional growth and preparatory fundraising, program development, architect selection, and conceptual design work for a new building mark a good time to step down and retire." 

Peter Selz, the museum’s founding director, welcomed the news. 

“He was not very competent and somewhat arrogant,” said Selz, who also acknowledged that Consey was effective at raising funds, “which is also important.” 

“I look forward to the chance of getting someone very talented to replace him,” he said. 

Selz particularly faulted Consey for his refusal to allow the museum to show the Colombian artist Fernando Botero’s paintings of the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib Prison—works Selz said were the most important creations of the last few years. 

“The Center for Latin American Studies had to show them in a special room at the library,” he said. “It was a very important show, and 15,000 people came.” 

Consey’s resignation comes less than a month after the UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert Birgeneau told the San Francisco Chronicle that Botero wanted to give the university all 25 paintings and 22 drawings in the series, with the proviso that some be permanently displayed. 

Whether or not the chancellor’s decision to accept the gift had any bearing on Consey’s decision to leave remained unclear as the Daily Planet went to press Monday evening. 

In addition to his campus duties, Consey also serves as one of the university’s ex officio representatives to the Downtown Area Plan Advisory Committee. 

The new museum planned for the northwest corner of the intersection of Center and Oxford streets will be one of the centerpieces of the proposed pedestrian plaza that would provide an architectural link between town and the university and is one of the key elements of the new plan now being completed by the committee. 

The plan results from the settlement of a city lawsuit challenging the university’s extensive plans for expansion into downtown Berkeley, and the university has final say over the document. 

Before joining the Berkeley museum, Consey had served as director of Chicago’s Museum of Contemporary Art, where he presided over a similar building campaign. 

He had also served as director of the Newport Harbor Art Museum in the 1980s. 

Consey presided over an interim seismic upgrading of the museum’s aging Bancroft Way building, and has headed the efforts to raise funds for the new structure, now being designed by Japanese architect Toyo Ito. 

During Consey’s tenure, the museum reported in a press release, the endowment for the institution nearly quadrupled, rising from $15.5 million to $60.8 million.  

Berkeley police are investigating two deaths on Saturday as the city’s third and fourth homicide of 2007.  

In one case, Berkeley police are looking for a vehicle that may be involved in a shooting that took place at the intersection of 63rd and King streets.  

At approximately 3:30 p.m. Saturday multiple reports were called in of shots fired. When police arrived on the scene, they found that a man had been shot multiple times in the upper torso, said Lt. Wesley Hester.  

The man, whose age and identity are being withheld, was brought to Highland Hospital where he was pronounced dead, according to Hester. 

The shooter fled the scene but people nearby reported that at one point he occupied an older, faded, dark blue minivan, said Hester, possibly a 1980s vintage. Berkeley police have given information about the shooter and the vehicle to police from Oakland and Emeryville, and to California Highway Patrol. 

Hester said that at least one person is suspected of being involved in the shooting. In the case of the other homocide reported that day, a resident of a home in the 1800 block of Eighth Street called police at 4:36 a.m. Saturday, notifying 911 operators of a male acquaintance who the caller said fell and hit his head, according to Berkeley police Sgt. Mary Kusmiss. 

When officers arrived, they found a man believed to be in his 30s “lifeless” outside on a walkway, Kusmiss said. Berkeley Fire Department paramedics pronounced the man dead at about 4:42 a.m.  

According to Kusmiss, officers are “not sure if a fall was part of the equation,” and “due to the nature of the victim’s apparent injuries, lack of clear or sufficient facts as to what happened and the obvious gravity of the incident, detectives of the Berkeley Police Department’s homicide detail have taken over the investigation and are pursuing the case as a homicide.’’  

Police are withholding the victim’s name and the specific nature of his injuries out of concern that the release of the information might impact the investigation.

Planning commissioners meet Wednesday to hold their second and final vote on the zoning ordinance and plan amendments paving the way for car dealers to set up shop in West Berkeley. 

During their meeting on Sept. 5, members voted for only one of the two areas proposed for new dealerships in areas previously zoned for manufacturing and light industrial uses. 

After critics challenged the original proposal—which would have created two separate areas for new car dealers, one near the Gilman Street freeway interchange and the second south of Ashby Avenue near the freeway—commissioners opted to withdraw the Ashby portion. 

Mayor Tom Bates and the city’s economic development staff pushed the plan and zoning changes because they said they are needed to keep car retailers and their sales tax dollars in the city. 

According to comments by dealers during earlier commission meetings, manufacturers want their dealers concentrated in “freeway-close” clusters. 

The problem with the Ashby parcel was that it consisted largely of the sites of two venerable Berkeley businesses whose owners said they have no desire to leave—Ashby Lumber and Urban Ore. 

The larger parcel, paralleling the freeway on either side of Gilman, also includes one property commissioners have considered exempting—the city’s Transfer Station on Second Street and Gilman, an integral feature of the city’s Zero Waste recycling effort.  

Commissioners are also scheduled to appoint liaisons to the West Berkeley Project Area Committee and its transportation subcommittee for their reviews of the West Berkeley Circulation Master Pan. 

Also scheduled for discussion Wednesday are updates on the environmental reviews of projects at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and on its Long Range Development Plan. 

Commissioners will also discuss comments by the city’s transportation staff on the draft environmental review of AC Transit’s proposed Bus Rapid Transit program. 

While the City Council has yet to endorse the project—one that could carve out dedicated lanes on Telegraph and Shattuck avenues—the Downtown Area Plan Advisory Committee (DAPAC) has given its blessings to the proposal. 

Three planning commissioners sit on DAPAC: Chair James Samuels and members Helen Burke and Gene Poschman. 

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

The courtroom battle over UC Berkeley’s stadium-area building plans has shifted from shaky ground to the broader environment—though a bomb threat delayed Friday’s session.  

Wednesday’s hearing in Alameda County Superior Court Judge Barbara J. Miller’s Hayward courtroom focused on alleged violations of the Alquist-Priolo Act, which bars news construction within 50 feet of active earthquake faults. 

The legal focus shifted Thursday and Friday to what the plaintiffs charge is a host of violations of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), which requires approval of a thorough environmental impact report (EIR), complete with mitigations, before construction of major projects can move forward. 

Currently at issue in Panoramic Hill Association et al. vs. The Regents of the University of California is whether the regents legally approved both the EIR and the budget for the first of the projects in the Southeast Campus Integrated Projects (SCIP). 

That structure, officially named the Barclay Simpson Student Athlete High Performance Center, would be built along the stadium’s western wall at the site where protesters are perched in the branches of trees to be felled to make way for the high tech gym and athletic department offices. 

Bomb worries 

Court got off to a late start Friday, thanks to police response to a threatening note found stuck with chewing gum to the courthouse door. 

Judge Miller said the threat to an unnamed judge and the district attorney “mentioned the word kill,” which led police to gather up all the judges and keep them at the Hayward Police Department while the drama played out. 

“My colleagues all tried to blame it on me,” Miller said. But the judge pointed out to her peers that the county prosecutor wasn’t involved in the highest profile case on her agenda. 

While the judges were safely secluded and employees of the courthouse and adjacent county buildings were evacuated to nearby sidewalks, officers and a bomb-sniffing dog searched the building and its environs. 

After the pooch focused on a trash can, members of the Sheriff’s Department bomb squad blew up the receptacle on the concrete plaza outside the courthouse, discovering nothing sinister amongst the smoldering rubbish. 

Court finally commenced at 11:13 a.m.  

Questioned authority 

Thursday’s hearing pitted Stephan Volker, attorney for the California Oaks Foundation, Berkeley Councilmember Dona Spring and an assortment of other plaintiffs against Charles Olson, the San Francisco real estate attorney who is representing the regents. 

The main focus of debate was whether the regents followed the dictates of CEQA in the way they did—or didn’t—approve the gym budget and the EIR that examines the gym, a new office building, an underground parking lot, stadium renovations and the other SCIP projects. 

“The university failed to follow the procedure required by law” when they delegated authority to their own Committee on Grounds and Buildings to approve the EIR last Dec. 5, rather than the full board, said Volker. 

Because the committee contains less than a majority of the board’s members, the actions of the two bodies can’t be equated, Volker argued, while Olson said the board’s own rules contain a definition of “Board of Regents” that allows the committee to serve as the “lead agency” which CEQA requires to give approval to an EIR. 

The full board had approved the gym’s budget three weeks early, a decision both sides agreed was necessary because of the board’s own rules dictating that projects costing more than $20 million be authorized by a majority of the full board.  

Because the full board approved the budget, Volker said, the same body was obligated to vote on the EIR, making the committee vote a matter of improper delegation of authority. 

Just when and to whom a public body can delegate authority for key decisions under CEQA has been litigated with regard to elected bodies, and one of the findings Judge Miller will have to decide is how the law and the cases apply to the non-elected Board of Regents. 

Seismic issue 

Volker also argued that the court should order the EIR recirculated for more public comments because the day before the committee voted approval, state and federal geologists had sent letters that said a more extensive search for an active fault was needed beneath the gym site. 

Olson said the seismic research conducted for the EIR had been legally adequate, and that the opinions of the two agencies were just that—opinions—and shouldn’t outweigh positive reports by the university’s hired seismic consultants and a second opinion by another firm, as well as the school’s own seismic committee. 

Volker noted that the school committee wasn’t even composed of geologists, and thus should be given no weight. 

Left uncited by either side for legal reasons was a subsequent investigation by the lead consultants, which the two government agencies agreed had cleared the site.  

The report couldn’t be considered legally because it was conducted after the EIR was approved and after the three lawsuits challenging the EIR approval had been filed. 

The legal issue remains whether the committee acted on the basis of adequate information when they voted to approve despite the concerns of the official geologic agencies. 

Omitted impacts  

Friday’s hearing was the first to target what the plaintiffs call specific omissions in the EIR, with the court’s attention directed particularly to biological and archaeological impacts—especially those of the planned gym. 

Drawing more attention to the highest-profile biological impact was a “Save the Oaks” banner which was briefly tied to a courthouse balcony railing the day before by Ayr, who has been coordinating logistical support for the tree-sitters occupying the crowns of threatened trees in the stadium grove. 

Volker again took the lead, as the two other attorneys—Harriet Steiner for the city and Michael Lozeau for the Panoramic Hill Association—listened. 

The key issue is whether the regents adopted an EIR that failed to address the impacts of the project on nature and history. 

Instead of including detailed examinations of both issues—though the report did talk about the cultural impacts of axing the grove—the EIR sidestepped the issue by referring readers back to the 2004 EIR prepared for the university’s campus-wide Long Range Development Plan (LRDP). 

Because of the work done for that document, which includes the area covered in the SCIP EIR, the university didn’t need to do anything more, Olson contended. 

But Volker, joined by his colleagues, insisted that EIR failed the legal test because it didn’t make a specific assessment of biological and archaeological impacts of the stadium-side gym-and-office project. 

The LRDP considered three major areas, devoting most of its environmental impact to the hill campus and the central core of the main campus, declaring that there was little in the way of biological impacts on the northern, western and southern margins of the campus—the latter including the stadium area. 

Olson noted that the grove itself consists primarily of trees planted by the university after the stadium was built. Many are so-called specimen trees, noteworthy examples of their species, and he said the mitigations of replacing the lost trees with three-for-one new plantings is an adequate mitigation. 

Grave dispute? 

One issue that remains unclear to the plaintiffs is just how many Native American burials were found during construction of the stadium. 

The only mention in the SCIP EIR is that the discovery of archaeological remains is likely, and will be mitigated by the availability of an archaeological expert during construction, when all work is to stop if anything is uncovered. 

But just how many burials are present at the stadium is not clear. 

After the LRDP draft EIR was submitted to the public, Berkeley amateur historian Richard Schwartz wrote to warn that 18 burials had been found during the course of stadium construction, while other remains were found during work on the university’s Faculty Club. 

The university didn’t dispute the number then, noting in its response in the final EIR, “UC Berkeley has conducted a records search at the Information Center and is aware of the burials you mentioned.” 

But Friday, Olson insisted that only one burial was discovered during stadium construction. 

Neither the plaintiffs nor the press have any way of verifying the number since the data is filed with the Northwest Information Center for the California Historical Resources Information Center at Sonoma State University, where only landowners and builders are allowed to see site files. 

Harriet Steiner has had little to say so far, but she is expected to take the lead when the discussion turns to allegations that the EIR gave short shrift to the impact of the SCIP projects on the city and its citizenry and infrastructure. 

Court will resume for a one-day session today (Tuesday), with the next scheduled event a Sunday afternoon visit by Judge Miller to the SCIP projects site. 

Up to three more days of hearing will be held next week, with the judge holding Tuesday through Thursday open for the case.  

Representatives of the Wayans Brothers-Pacifica Capital Urban Development Partnership have said that they did not know, when they signed an exclusive negotiating agreement (ENA) with the City of Oakland to purchase old Oakland Army Base property, that the Port of Oakland was planning a bayfill and container cargo storage in waters directly across from that property. 

If they didn’t, the Wayans-Pacifica Capital representatives must not have reviewed the numerous public reports that were readily available on websites operated by the port, the city, and the State of California referring to the bayfill proposal.  

A Wayans Brothers-Pacifica Capital spokesperson called for renegotiations of the ENA in mid-summer, after they said that they and city officials first learned of the planned port bayfill, which the spokesperson described as including 42 acres. 

But Karen Boyd, a spokesperson for Oakland City Administrator Deborah Edgerly, said earlier this month that both the administrator’s office and the Wayans-Pacifica Capital group knew about the proposed port bayfill before the negotiating agreement was signed, and that the bayfill itself had been long planned and discussed by city and port officials. 

And a spokesperson for the Port of Oakland said the proposed fill, which she said was “approximately 25 acres” has been in the planning stages since the mid-1990s, and is mentioned in several port and city documents, including the document turning the old Army Base over to the City and Port of Oakland. “Basically, this is something that has been in the works for several years as part of the Berth 21 Project,” said Marilyn Sandifur, Media and Public Relations Specialist for the port. 

The map submitted to the Oakland City Council last July setting the boundaries of the land to be purchased and developed under the Oakland/Wayans-Pacifica agreement showed the main portion of the Wayans development outlined in part by a dark border reading “Berth 21 Easement.”  

Both the bayfill and Berth 21 are mentioned in State Senator Don Perata’s Oakland Army Base Public Trust Exchange Act of 2005, which authorized the taking over of the old Army Base lands by the Port of Oakland and the City of Oakland. That legislation describes the Port of Oakland’s Berth 21 Project which “will require the filling with solid earth of approximately 28 acres of land below the present line of mean high tide.”  

And the 2006 agreement between the City of Oakland and the Port of Oakland that settled how the army base lands would be divided between the two entities also mentions a “strip of submerged land within the Gateway Development area that will be filled and cut off from the waterfront by the Berth 21 Project.”  

But a representative of the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission, which must approve any bayfill proposals, said the commission is “familiar with” the Port of Oakland’s Berth 21 Project’s bay fill aspects, “but we are not aware that any application has been filed with us yet.” 

The commission spokesperson said that anything between the 28 and 42 acre fills being talked about would be considered “major” by the commission, requiring the production of an environmental document (such as an Environmental Impact Report) and a public hearing.  

A spokesperson for the environmentalist Save the Bay organization, which has offices in Frank Ogawa Plaza next to Oakland City Hall, said this week that they contacted Port of Oakland officials following newspaper reports of the Wayans Brothers announcement about the proposed bayfill, but were told that the port “didn’t have any plans to fill in the bay.” 

The person who actually talked with port officials, Save The Bay Executive Director David Lewis, was not available to speak with reporters, so it is possible that the port’s statement could have resulted from a misunderstanding. But Save the Bay Communications Manager Jessica Castelli said her organization “would definitely be concerned about any plans to fill in the bay. Ninety-five percent of the wetlands originally surrounding the bay have been destroyed by filling or diking. Our mission is to protect the remaining wetlands areas, as well as to expand the wetlands by restoring some of the areas that have been lost.”  

The Wayans-Pacifica Capital group is trying to renegotiate the terms of an Exclusive Negotiating Agreement signed with the City of Oakland in early July for the proposed purchase of 47 acres of old army base property.  

The Wayans Brothers—a family of highly-successful African-American film producers, actors and writers and nationally known stand-up comedians—are proposing putting a film production studio, a children’s digital arts learning center, retail development, and several other projects on the site. 

But Britten Shuford, co-managing partner of the Wayans Brothers-Pacifica Capital Urban Development Partnership, told the Planet earlier this month that his group “learned at the same time that the city did that the Port of Oakland was proposing to fill in 42 acres of the bay directly across from our development, and they are planning to stack storage containers on that land six to 15 stories tall. That would entirely block our view of the San Francisco skyline.” 

Shufford said that views of the skyline from the area of the army base were spectacular and had been one of the items that made the Oakland deal attractive to the Wayans Brothers.  

Shufford said in light of what he characterized as the belated discovery, his group plans to meet with city officials this month to try to draw up an alternative agreement with a new configuration of where the group’s development would be located. 

A meeting, billed as a forum to discuss the West Berkeley Community Benefits District (WBCBD), has been delayed, according to Michael Caplan, the city’s acting economic development director. 

The meeting has been rescheduled for Oct. 16, 7 p.m., at Rosa Parks School, 920 Allston Way. 

The WBCBD, a tax assessment district, is being proposed by members of the West Berkeley Business Alliance (WBBA), a group of mostly commercial property owners in the area. As proposed by the group, the district would include all property owners—residential and commercial—who would be assessed according to the size of the business. The purpose of the district is tentatively to do cleanup, security, graffiti removal and to impact city planning decisions. 

The power to decide on whether to have such a district would depend on the size of the business, with the larger owners having a greater say. 

The area in question is roughly between San Pablo Avenue and the Bay and Dwight Way South to the Oakland-Emeryville border. 

Some 100 residents and small business owners who fear their concerns have been left out of the mix have held two meetings and plan to oppose efforts to establish the district. 

After these meetings, to which the WBBA members were invited, WBBA decided to take the neighborhood comments into consideration, Caplan said. “[WBBA] will come back with alternate proposals. They were concerned that if the community meetings were held too early, it would just turn into a bitching session,” Caplan said. 

Berkeley Developers Ruegg & Ellsworth will ask the Zoning Adjustments Board (ZAB) Thursday for a use permit to redevelop the former Tower Records building at 2517 Durant Ave. 

The developers want a blanket use permit to develop the two-story building, similar to the one granted developer John Gordon for the Wright’s Garage building located at 2629-2635 Ashby Ave. 

Gordon requested a use permit to convert the existing three-tenant commercial building (the Wright’s Garage building) into a four-to-seven-tenant commercial building and to change the uses to one restaurant, one exercise/dance studio and up to five retail spaces. 

ZAB approved the Gordon project in March without knowing the specific kinds of businesses that would be housed in it. Neighbors were concerned about noise, parking and traffic impacts. 

The Tower Records building has been sitting empty for nearly three years. 

The proposed plans include a karaoke bar on the ground floor and a carry-out food service and fitness club for the second floor. Applicants have also asked for extended hours for the combined services. 

With the exception of the karaoke bar, the plan does not identify the size and nature of the other businesses or their possible impacts on the neighborhood. 

Fidelity building remodeling 

The mixed-use development of the historic Fidelity Bank building at 2323 Shattuck Ave. will be back before ZAB Thursday. 

ZAB approved a project earlier this month which would preserve the existing 4,000-square-foot structure and convert the two-story bank space into a restaurant with sidewalk seating and an attached apartment building. It would eliminate the eight existing onsite parking spots. 

Staff has determined that no variance is necessary for the removal of the parking since the project’s applicants propose relocating it to 2020 Bancroft Way, within 700 feet of the proposed project. A total of nine parking spots would be created, along with providing eco passes and valet parking to make up for the lack of additional parking.  

The Muse Art House  

Zoning staff will be back with more information about the proposed Muse Art House and Mint Cafe on 2525 Telegraph Ave. 

ZAB voted 6-2 to approve the restaurant and an art gallery in the former location of the Blue Nile Restaurant, but did not grant the requested permits for distilled spirits and expansion of hours at the site. 

Ali Eslami, the owner of the proposed cafe, told the Planet he might not open since ZAB turned down his request to stay open until 2 a.m. on weekends and midnight on weekdays in response to neighborhood concerns about noise and rowdiness. The board ruled the cafe could remain open until midnight on weekends and 10 p.m. on weekdays. 

Berkeley Rent Board member Chris Kavanagh was arrested Friday morning by Oakland police and is currently (Friday afternoon) in Santa Rita jail, according to his attorney, James Giller. The date of his arraignment has not been set. 

Kavanagh is charged with five felonies, according to Alameda County District Attorney Tom Orloff, who spoke to the Planet Friday afternoon. 

“The first three relate to voter fraud,” Orloff said. One is registering to vote where he is not eligible, the second is voting where he is not eligible to vote, and the third is filing a false declaration. 

The fourth count is perjury and the fifth is grand theft, relating to having accepted a stipend and health benefits as a rent board member. 

Questions about whether Kavanagh, an elected official, lives in Oakland or Berkeley surfaced earlier this year when new landlords Lynn and Pat Tidd attempted to evict Kavanagh from a cottage on 63rd Street in Oakland, where his name is on the lease. 

Kavanagh has told fellow rent board members that he lives in Berkeley, but has a girlfriend in Oakland. 

Lynn Tidd sent e-mails to the media saying: “We had the pleasure of watching Chris Kavanagh arrested this morning shortly after leaving his home of six years, 338 63rd Street. His home will be searched within the hour.” 

In a phone interview Friday afternoon, Tidd told the Planet that she had helped alert police to when Kavanagh was at the house, since, she said, he had been observed there infrequently over the last couple of weeks.  

At about 6 a.m., Kavanagh “was walking up 63rd Street getting coffee. Police walked up to him and put him in a police car,” said Tidd, who lives in a unit in front of the house and observed the arrest. 

The city of Berkeley, environmental groups and neighbors are seeking to overturn the UC Board of Regents’ approval of documents that would pave the way for a massive construction program and the removal of a grove of oaks along the stadium’s western wall. 

The first day of hearings in the multi-plaintiff battle in Alameda County Superior Court Wednes-day focused on the Alquist-Priolo Act, a 1972 state law that bars certain kinds of new construction on earthquake faults. 

However she rules, Alameda Superior Court Judge Barbara Miller will be on the way to creating new case law, since only one previous court case on the law has resulted in a legal precedent—a case that also involved new construction on the Berkeley campus. 

The issue in dispute Wednesday was whether or not the 142,000-square-foot Barclay Simpson Student Athlete High Perform-ance Center is part of the landmarked California Memorial Stadium or a separate building. 

Stadium or a separate building. 

If Miller rules that it’s part of the stadium—a finding sought by attorneys Michael Lozeau, Stephan Volker and Harriet Steiner—then the high-priced high-tech gym couldn’t be built. 

That’s because of the fact, uncontested in the courtroom, that the Hayward Fault bisects the stadium from end to end. 

That’s also why the lawyers were arguing definitions of simple and seemingly commonsensical words like “building,” “structure,” “alteration” and “addition.” 

Charles Olson, the real estate attorney representing the university, argued that the $125 million gym is a separate building, while Lozeau, Volker and Steiner were equally adamant in arguing that it’s not. 

Olson wants to use a specific definition from the state building code, while the opposing attorneys favor drawing from dictionaries and common use. And Miller pointed out that court rulings have favored commonsense definitions. 

Both sides displayed design drawings of the gym, and arguments centered in part on whether physical connections between the two buildings—or are they “structures,” the term used most often in Alquist-Priolo?—resulted in one single edifice or two buildings related only by legal mandates to ensure that one new building didn’t endanger another. 

Olson said the connections were simple, legally required methods of shoring up the gym during excavations for the gym to make sure the digging didn’t jeopardize the older building. 

He cited the case of one client’s building in San Francisco that was required to protect seven adjacent properties. To hold that the gym and the stadium were a single building, he said, would effectively declare that “nearly every building in San Francisco would be one big building.” 

The building/structure dichotomy also could play a role in determining whether the roof of the gym and its connection to the stadium effectively joins the structures. Olson described it as a plaza, which is the role it will play for spectators coming to events at the stadium, rather than as a roof, the function it will serve for athletes and office workers in the building below. 

Another question hinged on whether or not the regents were derelict in their duties in approving an environmental impact report that paved the way for the gym and the other projects in the area without clear evidence that a hidden fault didn’t lie under the gym. 

The state and federal geological surveys sent letters the afternoon before the regents voted last December warning that the evidence submitted by the university’s consultants left doubts about whether faults might be hidden between the northern and southern ends of the site. 

Later tests, performed after the vote, led the agencies to withdraw their concerns. But the doubts were there at the time of the vote, and that was enough, said the legal trio, to invalidate the decision. 

Not so, contended Olson, arguing that the preponderance of evidence was on the no-fault side, and thus sufficient for the regents to make their decision. 

Another crucial question for the judge to decide is just how much the stadium is worth, whether the gym is an appendage or a mere neighbor. 

Alquist-Priolo limits repairs and renovations to existing buildings perched atop faults to 50 percent of their value. The question for Miller is just what does “value” mean? 

Is it the price the existing building would fetch on the open marker, as Lozeau, Steiner and Volker maintain, or is it the cost of building an entirely new replacement structure? If it’s the former, the university could run into a legal barrier to the stadium renovations that are part of the next two phases of work as described in the EIR the regents approved last December. 

And if the university was left with a seismically unsafe gym, would it still build the gym nearby? 

Olson contends that the definition of value is up to the regents and UC Berkeley Vice Chancellor Ed Denton to decide. The vice chancellor was sitting in the courtroom, chewing on the edge of his glasses during much of the hearing. 

Also sitting in the courtroom were the three most heralded participants in the ongoing tree-sit at the oak grove that has drawn national media attention to the university’s plans: Berkeley City Councilmember Betty Olds, former Mayor Shirley Dean and veteran environmentalist Sylvia McLaughlin.  

The courtroom was packed during Wednesday’s session, spilling over into the jury box. 

Also on had was Jennifer McDougall, one of two university representatives to the Downtown Area Plan Advisory Committee which is hammering out proposals to handle the university’s substantial real estate projects planned for the city center. 

Also present were Planning Commission Susan Wengraf, Deputy City Attorney Zach Cowan, and a several representatives of the tree sitters.  

The board of the university’s alumni association, pointing out that UC Berkeley graduates account for 20 percent of Berkeley’s registered voters, cast their own unanimous ballots Monday urging the city to drop the lawsuit. 

Much of the rest of the courtroom action will focus on the California Environmental Quality Act, which regulates the mitigation of environmental impacts of development. 

The hearing could well continue into next week, the lawyers agreed, and may include a visit to the scene by Judge Miller after all sides have had their say—a move Olson tried to discourage, worrying that “it might turn into a circus.”  

Finding himself without City Council allies in support of a rapid transit system with dedicated bus lanes, Mayor Tom Bates backed down Tuesday night in his request for the pro-Bus Rapid Transit Transporta-tion Commission to lead city efforts in exploring AC Transit’s BRT proposal. 

Instead, Bates asked Council-member Laurie Capitelli to work with Councilmember Kriss Worthington, who had submitted his own proposal, to recommend a process to guide city commissioners and staff in their evaluation of the $400 million proposal.  

In the council discussion of the proposed project itself, Councilmember Betty Olds summed up what appeared to be the majority council and audience opinion: “Closing lanes on Telegraph is about the stupidest thing the city could do,” she said. 

The council also decided Tuesday to withdraw the operating permit for U-Haul on San Pablo Avenue, to give city funds to the Downtown Jazz Festival, to support the Landmarks Preservation Commission in its refusal to grant landmark status to property at 2747 San Pablo Ave. and to approve a home addition on Berkeley Way. 

BRT 

Bus Rapid Transit is a $300-$400 million proposal by AC Transit to build a bus system emulating light rail that would run from San Leandro, through Oakland, to downtown Berke-ley. Full implementation calls for dedicated bus lanes, widely-spaced stops, automated fare machines at the stops, easy street-level boarding and more.  

AC Transit has asked the three cities to weigh in on the project. After a public process and staff analysis, the City Council will vote some time next year to accept full, partial or no implementation of BRT. 

Bates, who sits on the Metro-politan Transportation Com-mission, suggested in his proposal to the council that the Transportation Commission take the lead in reviewing the plan. The Transportation Commission previously discussed the proposal, generally supporting it. 

Worthington’s competing proposal calls for the Planning Commission to take the lead in developing the city’s position since, he said, it looks more broadly at where transportation fits into other planning concerns.  

He further proposed that the commission consider BRT as just one part of larger, perhaps more urgent, transit needs, such as providing citizens or workers as providing citizens or workers with eco-passes—bus passes which would be free to individuals or workers in Berkeley and paid for by public monies and, in some cases, employer fees. 

Worthington also called for consideration of rapid connections between the rapid buses now running along Telegraph and San Pablo avenues. And he said he wants a study of the impacts of BRT on merchants and neighborhoods. 

BRT “doesn’t do the most important things,” Worthington told the council, noting moreover, “Every report I’ve read says that the eco-pass costs a lot less than the $400 million [for BRT].”  

Creating BRT would take about five years, but Berkeley could have an eco-pass much sooner, Worthington argued. “Then we’d have people riding those nearly empty buses.” 

Speaking before the councilmembers in the queue to speak, Bates told Worthington he’s not willing to include the eco-pass, connectivity and other elements of Worthington’s proposal. “I don’t have that much time on Earth to see that happen,” he said. 

Funding for Worthington’s proposal would be dicey, Planning Director Dan Marks told the council. “We’d ask AC Transit to fund the mayor’s proposal,” he said. “I don’t know who would pick up Worthington’s.” 

Bates defended his proposal: “There are too many cooks making the broth,” he said, referring to BRT discussions that have taken place in the Downtown Area Plan Advisory Committee and the Transportation and Planning commissions.  

Having the Transportation Commission take the lead would be more efficient. “It would allow us to come to a decision early next year,” Bates said. 

Len Conly of the Friends of Bus Rapid Transit was the only public speaker indicating he favored the BRT option with dedicated lanes. Eight or nine opponents spoke against the proposal. 

“It will make the service more efficient,” Conly told the council.  

Friends of BRT argue further on their website: “The reason Rapid [bus] is not good enough is that we are planning for the future, and the future promises nothing but more congestion. Ultimately the Rapid will be slowed by that congestion and will no longer be an attractive option. Any gaps in the dedicated lanes will degrade reliability of the entire system.” 

The rapid bus currently is in place on Telegraph and San Pablo avenues, using some of the features of BRT including wider spacing between stops and priority signalization, where the driver can hold the green signal longer to allow a faster flow of buses. 

Bruce Kaplan owns Looking Glass, a photography store on Telegraph Avenue and Oregon Street, and is a member of the Telegraph Avenue Merchants Association, which opposes the BRT with dedicated lanes.  

“There were tears when Cody’s closed,” Kaplan told the council, referring to the book store that shut its doors on Telegraph a year ago due to declining revenues.  

He said that creating a dedicated bus lane would increase traffic on Telegraph, making it more convenient for people to shop at the Emeryville mall than at smaller Berkeley stores. Kaplan urged the council to “have a discussion with the public.” 

Other groups on record opposing BRT with dedicated lanes include the Claremont-Elmwood and Willard neighborhood associations. 

“There’s clearly significant opposition to BRT,” said Councilmember Gordon Wozniak. “There are some very legitimate concerns on the potential impact of the bus lanes. The merchants are clearly concerned.” 

A new proposal for the city’s decision-making process on BRT is likely to be on the council’s Oct. 9 agenda. 

U-Haul 

Neighbors have been complaining about U-Haul on San Pablo Avenue and Addison Street for years.  

In June, the Zoning Adjustments Board recommended that the City Council revoke U-Haul’s permit to operate. The business was using the street to park its trucks, which is not allowed, and had some 50 trucks on site, when its permit allowed about 30.  

Despite admission of the problems by the vice president of the company and promises that it would do better, the council voted unanimously to revoke the permit. 

Jazz fest  

While criticizing the Downtown Berkeley Jazz Festival for hiring few African American musicians for its summer festival, the council voted unanimously to give the festival $2,500 for expenses incurred.  

Councilmember Max Anderson suggested creating a committee to work to increase the festival’s diversity for next year. Agreeing with Anderson, Councilmember Darryl Moore said he hoped “next year we’ll do a better job of reviewing it up front and making sure we have a diverse [festival].” 

Other council matters: 

• The council unanimously upheld the Landmarks Preservation Commission’s denial of landmark status to the property at 2747 San Pablo Ave.  

• The council refused to schedule a hearing for a zoning board appeal by the neighbor of a proposed second-story project at 1625 Berkeley Way. The neighbor said the addition would impact the daylight shed on his property. Voting in favor of upholding the zoning board were councilmembers Capitelli, Anderson, Wozniak and Moore; voting in opposition were councilmembers Olds, Worthington and Mayor Bates. Councilmembers Maio and Spring abstained. 

Other city matters 

Bates will be out of the country from Sunday Sept. 23, on a trip paid for by the government of Great Britain, returning Monday Oct. 9, according to Bates’ Chief of Staff Cisco DeVries. The mayor will be vacationing with wife Assemblymember Loni Hancock for one week and attending a climate change conference the second.  

Acting as mayor will be the vice president of the council, a position that rotates each three months. Councilmember Worthington now occupies the position.  

Worthington told the Daily Planet he had only learned that Bates would be absent when the mayor mentioned it at Tuesday’s council meeting and had not been informed by the mayor of the exact dates of his absence.

About 200 people congregated at UC Berkeley’s Sproul Plaza Thursday to show support for six black teenagers who they say were unfairly charged in the beating of a white student in a small, mostly white town in Louisiana. 

The rally and march on campus coincided with a demonstration in Jena, La., where 50,000 people gathered to protest the treatment of the so-called “Jena Six” and to call attention to racial inequality within the criminal justice system. 

“I’m angry,” said Patrick Chris-topher, a member of the Cal Basketball Team and one of the speakers at the Berkeley rally. “As a black male, I am mad that we are still classified as savage beasts.” 

Christopher’s statement re-flects the belief held by many that the black students were treated more harshly than their white classmates, who were also involved in racially charged incidents over the course of four months. 

The strife between white and black students at Jena High School began intensifying last August, when several black high school students sat under a tree on campus that was deemed “whites only.” The next day, nooses were hung from the tree, sparking black students to stage sit-ins at the site.  

Racial tensions in the town mounted, with a black student being beaten by a white classmate in late November, and a white adult brandishing a shotgun during a verbal dispute with two black teens, who wrestled the gun away from the man and ran away. None of the whites were charged in the incidents.  

The two black youths in the shotgun case, however, were charged with theft. 

The feud climaxed in December, when a schoolyard fight between blacks and whites left one white student, Justin Barker, unconscious for about a minute and badly bruised. He was released from the hospital the same day, and was well enough to attend the junior ring ceremony that night. 

The white students involved in the brawl were suspended. The six black students—Robert Baily, Theo Shaw, Carwin Jones, Bryant Purvis and Mychal Bell—were charged with second-degree attempted murder, and were slapped with bonds of $70,000 to $138,000. Most of the teens spent time in jail, and all but one of the students was able to post bail. 

The charges have since been dropped to aggravated battery and conspiracy to commit aggravated battery, felonies that carry up to 15 years in prison. Mychal Bell, whose case is the first and only one to go to trial so far, was not able to make bail before his conviction in June and has been incarcerated for nine months. His conviction has since been overturned by a Third Circuit judge who ruled that he should not have been charged as an adult.  

But the District Attorney has refused to set a bond or to release him, saying he plans to bring him up on the same charges in juvenile court.  

On Thursday, Bell’s attorney, Louis Scott, filed a writ of habeus corpus on the grounds that he is being held illegally because his conviction has been overturned. Scott says the court should set bond or, at the very least, send Bell to juvenile hall. Meanwhile, civil rights activist Jesse Jackson, who spoke at Thursday’s demonstration, urged federal intervention on Bell’s behalf. 

Maya Shallcross, a Berkeley High School student who traveled to Jena in a bus ride organized by Revolution Books, spoke to us while sitting at the site of the “whites only” tree, which has since been cut down.  

“It wasn’t enough for me to walk out of class and attend the Berkeley rally,” she said “That the black kids would not get suspended but instead be brought up on criminal charges is completely wrong. We should still be safe from things like this in the year 2007.” 

Shallcross’s sister, Sanghia, who also took the trip down, said she was struck by the number of people showing support for the cause.  

“The town is just flooded with people, mostly wearing black,” she said, adding that she didn’t witness much animosity from the locals in the town, which has a population of 3,500 and is 85 percent white. “When we were driving in, we saw (white) girls holding signs saying ‘We are not Racist.’” 

At the Berkeley rally, students wore green and black to show their solidarity: green to represent the growth of the black community, and black to represent mourning and strength. Many at the rally echoed national leaders like Jackson and Al Sharpton, who say the Jena Six cause will re-ignite the civil rights movement. 

Derrick Smith, a youth program director at Oakland Technical High School and one of speakers at the rally, said “For those who say the noose is just a symbol are coming from a place of passivity. It is not just a symbol. It is a declaration of war.” 

The good news is that Berkeley will be housing three new low-income families in the three- and four-bedroom homes it owns. The bad news is that if you were on the waiting list, you have to start the application process from scratch. 

Eligible prospective tenants can pick up applications at the housing authority office, at 1901 Fairview St., or at other locations listed below. 

While applications are available today (Friday), they can be turned into the housing authority only next week, Sept. 24-28. 

Gracie Jones at the East Bay Community Law Center told the Daily Planet she will be assisting people in filling out their application. She underscored that when people get their applications, they should fill them out and turn them in immediately (starting Sept. 24).  

“The application process is only for one week,” she said. Jones said people should bring proof of income with them. 

One of the aspects of the application process that has frustrated some is that the 5,000-plus people whose names have sat for years on one or more of the three wait lists have to start at the beginning of the application process.  

“The lists are too old,” said BHA Executive Director Tia Ingram. 

The lists that were tossed out had been compiled variously by the BHA staff, Affordable Housing Associates, which had managed the properties until June, and by the Alameda County Housing Authority, which had managed the units at one time.  

It was impossible to reconcile the three lists, Ingram said, noting, for example, there were people whose names appeared on the lists with more than one address.  

Low-income housing advocate Lynda Carson told the Daily Planet on Tuesday that she thinks it’s a good thing that a number of non-profit organizations are involved in helping get the applications filled out properly. 

But it’s not fair for those on the wait list for years not to get prefmakes it seem like “the housing authority suddenly had no respect for those people,” Carson said. 

Moreover, she said, “Creating new lists is going to cost a fortune.” The housing authority is hiring data analysts to put together new lists. Each of the applicants’ data must be verified before they are placed into the lottery. “That will be 4,000 to 5,000 people easily,” Carson predicted.  

Ingram said she thinks fewer will apply. 

BHA Board Chair Carole Norris said working from the three outdated lists would have been time consuming. “The decision [to scrap the wait lists] was made because of costs—the list is so old,” she said. “People hadn’t been purged from the lists; a good number on the lists are not eligible. It would have been a lot of work with little benefit,” she said.  

The three available units, now being remodeled, are among 61 three- and four-bedroom homes owned by the city of Berkeley. BHA staff cautions that the waiting list for these homes is different from the Section 8 wait list, which is closed. The units rented under Section 8 belong to private landlords. 

The old Section 8 wait list was purged and reconstituted last year under the old housing authority, which sent out notices to prospective tenants asking them to update their information. The city has 1,800 Section 8 vouchers; the waiting list is closed to new applicants. 

People on the Section 8 waiting list who meet eligibility criteria may also apply for these units. 

BHA staff will review the applications to make sure people are eligible. Eligible persons will be placed in a lottery out of which 500 names will be selected randomly. They will constitute the new wait list.  

Three persons will be chosen at random from among the 500 to occupy the three available units.  

To be eligible for the units, one must have a family of three or more and be considered low income under HUD guidelines:  

• a family of three cannot earn more than $37,700 before taxes; 

• a family of four cannot earn more than $41,900 before taxes; 

• a family of five cannot earn more than $45,250 before taxes; 

• a family of six cannot earn more than $48,600 before taxes; 

• a family of seven cannot earn more than $51,950 before taxes; 

• a family of eight cannot earn more than $55,300 before taxes. 

Tenant rents are 30 percent of their incomes. 

In July, the city turned over the BHA to a new board of directors appointed by Mayor Tom Bates. Previously, the City Council had overseen the housing authority, which has been placed in “troubled” status by the Department of Housing and Urban Development. The goal of the new board is to gain points from HUD to bring the agency out of troubled status, so that the agency won’t be put into receivership.  

BHA Meeting 

The new housing authority board met Monday, but as a member of the League of Women Voters observed, it was very difficult for people find out that the meeting was happening at all. 

That’s because the meeting was incorrectly noticed on the BHA website through Friday Sept. 14 for the Sept. 17 meeting. Agendas for the Monday meeting were posted at the BHA office Friday, minutes before the state-mandated deadline for announcing the Monday meeting.  

BHA staff explained that the delay was because a BHA staff person was away working with the Red Cross in the Ukraine. Notice will improve in the future, the staffer said. 

BHA staff 

At the Monday BHA meeting, which started 20 minutes late and was only partially amplified for the audience straining to hear the speakers, the authority approved a request for custodial work at the BHA offices. Companies that apply must pay workers a minimum of $11.39 per hour, in accordance with the city’s “living wage” ordinance. That’s about $1,800 per month for custodians with full-time work. 

The BHA request indicates no particular attempt to find janitorial companies whose workers are unionized.  

At the same meeting, BHA authorized several positions: an office manager who will be paid $3,901-$4,256 per month plus benefits, a housing specialist and housing inspector, each earning $4,113-$5,000 per month plus benefits and a management analyst who will earn $5,912-$7,021 per month plus benefits. 

Tenants 

Norris told the Daily Planet on Thursday that BHA is planning a meeting next Wednesday specifically to address the tenants and help reorganize a tenants’ organization. The meeting will begin at 5 p.m. at the South Berkeley Senior Center, 2939 Ellis St. 

Where low-income housing  

Applications Can Be Picked Up 

BHA office, 1901 Fairview St. 

Berkeley Housing Department, 2180 Milvia St., 2nd Floor 

Berkeley Public Library, main branch, 2090 Kittredge St. 

Center for Independent Living, 2539 Telegraph Ave. 

East Bay Community Law Center, 2921 Adeline St. 

Centro Legal de la Raza, 2501 International Blvd. 

Asian Resouce Center, 310 Eighth St.

AC Transit officials have not released bottom-line figures on the complicated exchange of 16 North American Bus Institute buses for 16 buses made by Belgium-based Van Hool company because as late as Aug. 28 the district was still in negotiations over how much it owes the federal government for going through with the deal without federal approval.  

District trustees approved the exchange nearly six months ago on the claim by AC Transit General Manager Rick Fernandez that the deal was a “no brainer” that will “ultimately save [AC Transit] money.” 

In addition, AC Transit officials did not appear to even begin its first internal financial analysis of the transaction until after the trustee board’s approval. 

Those are the conclusions that can be drawn from an analysis of documents released by AC Transit to the Daily Planet following a Planet public records request concerning the district’s justification for the NABI-Van Hool deal. 

At a time when AC Transit is asking for public support for a much larger project—the installation of Bus Rapid Transit connecting several East Bay cities—the conclusions raise serious questions about AC Transit’s statistics and figures, and about how much actual fiscal oversight is being provided by the publicly elected district board. 

The deal involved the sale of 16 seven-year-old 40-foot NABI buses by AC Transit to ABC Company, the American distributor for Van Hool, to be replaced by yet-to-be-manufactured 40-footers to be purchased from Van Hool. 

One of the complications of the deal is the original purchase of the NABI buses by AC Transit in 2000 had been partially subsidized by the Federal Transit Administration. Under FTA regulations, local transit districts receiving such bus purchase subsidies must keep their buses in operation for 12 years, or else pay back to the FTA a percentage of the subsidy for every year early the buses were taken out of service. AC Transit proposed that this payback money not actually be paid back in cash money, but be transferred as an “interest” to a current FTA Maintenance Equipment and Facility Upgrade Project grant to AC Transit. 

A second complication in the deal was that to raise the money to purchase the 16 new Van Hools (originally set at 10, with six later added), AC Transit proposed borrowing $3.3 million in cash from its Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) Funds held by the Metropolitan Transit Commission. 

In a Feb. 14, 2007 memo from AC Transit Capital Planning Manager Kate Miller to MTC, Miller said that AC Transit “would like to fund the bus replacements with ... funds (from our BRT project) and then fund the BRT in 2009 (or later as needed) from the FTA program.” 

In the same letter, Miller said that AC Transit officials “thought we would run this by MTC first before we approached FTA.” 

The proposed NABI-Van Hool swap first came before the AC Transit Directors as a 10-bus deal on March 21. At that time, even though General Manager Fernandez gave no bottom line figures for the transfer in his memo of recommendation (saying only that “the fiscal impact will be determined by the proceeds of the sale … the cost of the procurement of the new buses, and the net reduction in maintenance costs” without supplying any hard figures for any of these items), the board approved the deal on a 4-1-1 vote, Board President Greg Harper voting no, Vice President Rebecca Kaplan abstaining, and Director Elsa Ortiz absent. 

Two weeks later, Fernandez returned to the board to increase the bus transfer to 16, telling directors in his memo that “staff has sought funding from MTC for replacing up to 16 vehicles … [and] is currently working with the Federal Transit Administration to seek their approval to retire up to 16 buses prior to the end of their expected useful life and to determine an eligible asset in which to transfer the federal interest.” 

But according to the documents provided to the Daily Planet by AC Transit, that last statement may not have been true. 

In a memo from Capital Planning Manager Miller to Technical Service Administrator Bob Bithell entitled “Your Immediate Help Please” and dated April 10, six days after Fernandez’ memo, Miller wrote that she needed information on the buses to be sold “asap. FTA headquarters received wind of this through the papers before we had an opportunity to send Region 9 a letter. At this point this is rather embarrassing and I would rather not let it escalate.” 

The Daily Planet published stories on the NABI-Van Hool bus transfer on March 23 and again on April 6. 

On April 20, a month after the AC Transit Board approved a deal that was based, in part, on FTA approval, Fernandez finally wrote Region 9 of the FTA, asking for approval of the transfer of the federal interest in the NABI’s. 

Fernandez told FTA Regional Administrator Leslie Rogers that that early retirement of the 16 NABI’s would “eliminate costs associated with mid-life rehabilitation required to keep the buses in good operating order, reduce emissions by replacing the older buses with cleaner, more fuel efficient vehicles, serve the public with newer buses with improved design, and improve service performance by deploying new buses.” 

But no data figures were included in Fernandez’ letter to support the maintenance and emission reduction aims, and Rogers said they were necessary for FTA consideration. 

There followed a flurry of internal AC Transit emails during the month of May as staff members scrambled to collect information on possible savings in the deal in the area of maintenance and emissions, information that was apparently never collected or analyzed by the district in its original lead-up to deciding whether or not to make the deal in the first place. Fernandez included this information in chart form in a May 30-31 letter to Rogers at FTA. 

Late in June, Rogers wrote back to say that FTA would not approve the federal interest transfer, saying that “the District’s proposal to remove these buses after six years of service life for reasons of maintenance and operation costs, air quality, and FEMA bus needs, are not compelling justification for FTA to approve early disposition of Federally-funded assets for transfer of the interest to a future capital project.” 

In early July, Fernandez informed district board members of the FTA denial, also informing them for the first time that the Metropolitan Transit Commission had agreed to fronting the $3.3 million Van Hool purchase money “contingent on FTA’s approval of the fleet retirement plan” but then added that “it is also staff’s belief that the $3.3 million from MTC will be available despite [that] contingency.” 

Why staff believed that MTC would make money available based upon FTA approval, but then give the money anyway even though FTA failed to approve, was not explained in the memo. 

Fernandez also wrote in his July 2 memo to the board that despite the fact that AC Transit would now have to reimburse FTA directly and immediately for the early retirement of the federally-subsidized NABI’s “staff has evaluated this alternative and determined that it still would be in the District’s best interest to proceed with the proposal.” 

But between July and August, AC Transit officials conducted running negotiations with FTA over how the federal interest on the retired NABI’s would be figured, and how much cash the district would have to pay the federal government. 

On August 28, AC Transit Capital Development Manager Miller sent FTA Region 9 Transportation Specialist Phil Barros an email including a depreciation comparison spreadsheet that calculated the amount owed by the district to FTA for the NABI retirement at $1.3 million. Miller asked Barros to confirm his agreement to the figure, but no agreement letter was included in the documents provided by the district. 

At a People’s Park Community Advisory Board meeting held last week, community members listened to San Francisco-based MK Think, the firm hired by UC Berkeley to plan improvements for the park, and Emily Marthinsen, assistant vice chancellor, talk about conceptual designs for the park. 

The only student representation came from board member Ionas Porges-Kiriakou, a UC Berkeley undergraduate.  

Irene Hegarty, director of community relations for UC Berkeley, complained that the planning process for redeveloping People’s Park lacks student participation. 

“We need more participation from students,” Hegarty said in a telephone interview after the meeting. “That’s one of my concerns. I understand that the planning process didn’t get well under way until May when students were away for summer, but thousands of students don’t even know about it. We need more outreach.” 

Ionas Porges-Kiriakou said that MK Think hasn’t outlined any plans to involve students or the community in the planning process. 

“They haven’t had any large community meetings except for the one at the church,” he said. “I have a lot of questions they haven’t answered yet and one of them is how are they going to get more students involved.” 

MK Think did not return phone calls from the Planet for comment. 

“One of the first thing freshmen at Cal are told is to stay away from People’s Park,” said Jason Overman, a former member of the People’s Park Advisory Board and a UC undergraduate. “I think it’s a shame that [students] now have the chance to give input on how to redevelop the park, but haven’t become engaged in the process.” 

University student leader Igor Tregub echoed his thoughts. 

“There is quite a bit of frustration on the part of students because of that,” he said. “A more good-faith effort by the university to involve students in the discussions would be a start. The remainder of the work is up to us, the students.” 

Park uses 

At the meeting, MKThink gave an update about the community workshop held during summer and outlined park uses. The four main zones identified in the park were the common grassy area, the basketball court, the community garden and the grove. 

Representatives from MK Think said that current entrances to the park looked accidental and disconnected. 

“You can stand half a block away and not know about the park,” Hegarty told the Planet. “We want to make the entry points to the park more welcoming and visible to the surrounding residential, business and religious communities. Closer to Telegraph, one of the entry points has dense vegetation and that doesn’t appear very welcoming. There is also a low railing that goes around the three sides of the park which in a way fences off people. Landscaping and wider pathways would help to invite people into the park.” 

Board member John Selawsky said that the lack of a definite entrance to the park needs to be addressed. 

“You go up the steps of Bryant Park in New York and you know you are there,” he said. “We need to have some kind of an archway or some kind of portal to feel the same way about People’s Park. Right now the park is not a destination area. People pass through it on their way home or to the dorms.” 

The board also agreed that more signage was necessary to direct people to the park and make them aware of park rules. 

Hegarty added that the lack of intermingling be-tween the different zones was a big problem. “People often define the park by territories and turf,” she said. “That needs to be changed.” 

Park safety 

The board also discussed safety in the park, which has seen a spike in crime since summer.  

“How is it that some people feel safe while others don’t?” Hegarty asked. She added that the recent crimes in the park had not been random muggings. 

“They were between people who knew each other,” she said. “The campus becomes a target-rich area over summer and crime tends to increase during this time. Students have often talked about neighborhood watch groups in group-living areas but the problem with things like that is students tend to come and go continuously.” 

Last month, UC police were called to the park when a fight erupted between two men. One of them, who was knocked unconscious, was taken to the hospital, while the other was ordered to stay away from UC property for seven days and later arrested. 

UCPD is also searching for a woman who stripped a bathing suit off another woman and left her nude in the park in July. A couple of strong-arm robberies also took place around the same time.

Much of Councilmember Kriss Worthington’s time is spent working on issues such as low-income housing, diversity and labor. But, he told the Daily Planet on Thursday, his efforts are often blocked by the inadequacy of state laws. 

And so on Monday, Worthington is announcing his run for state legislature. The announcement will be at 5:30 p.m. at Le Bateau Ivre, 2629 Telegraph Ave.  

The caveat for a Worthington run is that, if a ballot measure tweaking term limits passes in February allowing members of the state legislature to remain in their seats for 12 years, incumbent Loni Hancock will run again for her safe assembly seat. In that case, Worthington—and likely most other challengers—will bow out.  

If the ballot measure fails, State Sen. Don Perata will be term-limited out of office. If so, Hancock has said she will run for his office (probably against former Supervisor Wilma Chan). That will leave Hancock’s assembly seat wide open. 

Other people who may seek the assembly seat are Richmond City Councilmembers Jim Rogers and Tony Thurmond, Richmond City Councilmember, Phillip L. Polakoff, M.D. of Berkeley, West Contra Costa School Boardmember Charles Ramsey and East Bay Regional Parks District board member Nancy Skinner. 

Councilmember Darryl Moore, who had told the Daily Planet last year that he was considering a run for the seat, said he would defer to Worthington and Skinner and concentrate on reelection for his council seat. 

The ballot measure on term limits will be decided in a February election, which is when the presidential primaries will be held. The State Assembly and State Senate primaries will be held in June, and the council/mayor races will be in November. Districts 2 (Moore), 5 (Laurie Capitelli) and 7 (Betty Olds) will be up for election at that time. The 2006 mayor’s race elected a mayor for a two-year term, so that future mayor’s races, beginning this November, would coincide with the presidential race. There will be a mayoral race in November 2008.

The first step for the selection of Berkeley’s next school superintendent will begin with a community meeting Monday. 

This week school board president Joa-quin Rivera announced schedules for different groups to meet with district consultants on Monday and Tuesday. 

Mission Viejo-based Leadership Associates was hired by the board for $29,000 to conduct the recruitment process less than a week after district superintendent Michele Lawrence announced her retirement earlier this month. She will leave the post Feb. 1. 

Parents, district employees, students and community members will be asked to identify characteristics, talents and experience they want to see in the future superintendent at a series of meetings scheduled to be held at different times during the two days. 

Community groups will meet primarily in the council chambers and the school district office conference room at the Old City Hall and at B-Tech. 

Schedules have also been set up for BUSD employees who will meet in the council chambers on both days.  

Those unable to attend specific meetings can attend a general meeting scheduled for Sept. 24 at 7:15 p.m. at B-Tech Academy, 2701 Martin Luther King Way., or on Tuesday Sept. 25 at 12:45 p.m. at the school district office conference room. The schedule will also be up on district website. 

Meeting notifications are being sent out through letters, emails, phone conversations and the local press. 

“We want to hear from all the voices of the community,” Rivera said. “The board hopes to interview finalists around Dec. 9 and soon after visit the district of the person. The advantage is we have the help of the current superintendent to help with the transition.” 

Lawrence said the district has enough time to find her replacement. 

“I want the community to know that,” she said. “All the time I legally need to give the board is 60 days. But I have given a six-month notice which is not a fast-track notice. It was done with a great deal of thought. I did not want to put the district into any kind of jeopardy.” 

She added that she would be acting only as an advisor in the recruitment process. 

“The search will provide an incredible value to bring the community together,” she said. “It will help to build a vision and see what common goals come out of the leadership.” 

Board member Nancy Riddle said the board also wanted to identify what kind of a person would not be a good fit for the district. 

At an earlier meeting, the consultants had told board members that although they could be present at the meetings they should refrain from participating in the discussions. 

Community members unable to attend assigned meetings or alternate sessions can send their suggestions to www.leadershipassociates.org or 23052-H Alicia Parkway, Mission Viejo, California. 

Transportation building resolution 

The board also passed a resolution stating that the district’s transportation buildings could not be used by faculty and students. BUSD is waiting to hear back from the city about the proposed transportation project on Gilman Street. 

Although it is not responsible for issuing permits, the Department of the State Architect (DSA) requires that the project be reviewed for access compliance. It also requires that a resolution be passed by the board which states that the building would not be used for classroom setups and that neither faculty nor students would be allowed to enter its premises. 

Although the district’s K-12 schools are built according to DSA specifications, the district owns certain buildings which are not retrofitted nor built according to its guidelines. Others include the sites at 1720 Oregon, 2031 6th Street and the district headquarters at 2134 Martin Luther King Jr. Way.

There’s been a completely unnecessary uproar over MoveOn’s ad about General Petraeus. It almost makes one wonder if there isn’t some Cointelpro-like infiltration going on in the anti-war movement, except that I know that people like us can always manage to shoot ourselves in the foot with no help from anyone. What’s unnecessary about it? 

Well, there’s a rule that everyone should have to master in order to get out of the 7th grade: never make fun of anyone’s name, face or family if you want to be thought of as one of the good guys. There’s a “nyanh nyanh nuh nyanh nyanh” tone to calling the admittedly creepy fellow General Betray-us that strips all dignity from the complaints about him. It makes the protesters seem juvenile, when in fact their point is deadly serious.  

MoveOn supporters confounded the problem after the ad appeared. Clicking on “the thinking behind the ad” on the MoveOn site produced this pseudo-academic explanation: “The language of the ad was intended to be both hard-hitting and catchy. The truth about the mainstream media is that the kind of analyses with which some of us feel more comfortable don’t generate enough attention or news coverage to shift the debate. Phrases like “General Betray Us” are “sticky”—that is, they get repeated again and again in the media—because they are so memorable. It was precisely because this ad was controversial and the language in it was ‘sticky’ that the allegations at its core were widely discussed.”  

In fact, the ad’s copywriters were too clever by half. The core allegations got lost in the brouhaha over the “your mama” language they used. Being “in your face” is a lot of fun, but it changes few minds. 

The problem stems from a confusion that first surfaced in a big way when the counter-culture and the protests against the war in Vietnam both came to a boil at the same point in time. The Summer of Love and its offspring were mostly about self-actualization, or at least about self-expression, whereas political protest is or should be mostly about changing minds and thus policies. A good argument can be made, and was made at the time, that adding the dimension of acting out differences between the baby boomers and the dominant culture slowed down rather than speeded up the goal of ending the war. I know, that seems like heresy today.  

Not, of course, that proper behavior necessarily works either. Some of us in the last pre-boomer cohort began our political careers in the most careful way, doing our best to please while making our political points. The first big demonstration in the ’60s took place when 5,000 people (an amazing number in those days) ringed San Francisco City Hall, where the House Committee on Un-American Activities, commonly known as HUAC, was grilling suspected Communists and fellow travelers with the goal of ruining their lives by every means possible. Perfect ladies, we wore—hard to believe now, but there’s film to prove it—hats, gloves and high heels on the picket line. And the city fathers still felt free to turn on the firehouses and wash the demonstrators down the long marble staircase in City Hall.  

But the movie that HUAC made about the event, Operation Abolition, backfired. It toured college campuses where it was greeted with jeers and catcalls, and made a major contribution to radicalizing the next decade’s college students. And it wasn’t the outrageous acts depicted in the film, which as I recall were few, but the contrast between the civil demeanor of the protesters and the violent reaction to them which made the point.  

The commemoration this week of the integration of the Little Rock schools 50 years ago is another case in point. The concentration and seriousness of the African American young people and their families made their slavering opponents look even worse. The success of the civil rights movement, limited of course but very real as far it went, was materially aided by the consistent dignity of the activists. It would have been a serious mistake for them to lapse into making fun of the names or faces of their opponents.  

It’s true that making fun of the enemy in moderation helps the good guys keep up the fight. The choir needs a little encouragement to keep on singing, but the congregation will never grow if that’s all the preacher does. The San Francisco Mime Troupe has thrived on ridicule, but they are most successful in Bay Area parks and on college campuses, and their best offerings have managed to combine humor with pathos. They don’t try putting on their shows uninvited in parks in, say, Memphis, nor should they. Jon Stewart is the favorite news source of people who stay up late—a whole new generation of students, not to mention my mother, now almost 93—but his brand of humor wouldn’t come across the same way if it ran as an ad in a metro daily in most of the country. 

And cultural self-expression that isn’t even funny is particularly perilous. The Weathermen’s Days of Rage running amok in Chicago just prolonged the agony of the Vietnam War. (It now seems odd, among many things that are hard to understand about what went on in those days, that they weren’t called the Weatherpersons.)  

The outcry over building the new gym/office building next to UC’s Memorial Stadium has gotten a lot of publicity because of its tree-sitting component. It has garnered a respectable cohort of supporters, including some notable and serious “old birds in the trees,” but it’s constantly at risk of being considered frivolous because some protesters are more concerned with acting out their differences with the dominant culture than with converting opponents. Success will probably come, if it does at all, in a court of law rather than in the court of public opinion.  

The most pointless aspect of L’Affaire Betray-Us is the after-the-fact parsing of the criticisms of the ad by the presidential candidates. I don’t remember any of the senators saying that they objected to the form of the ad, but not to its content, which is what they should have said, but maybe I missed it. It’s impossible to remember the substance or wording of the conflicting resolutions, who said what about which phrase, but the bottom line is that making juvenile fun of the guy’s name just gifted him with undeserved victim status, and drove the substantive problems with his report off the front page. And that’s too bad. 

CORRECTION 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Thank you for publishing my letter on Sept. 21 regarding Steve Barton and the mess he leaves behind.  

Unfortunately, there was a significant typo which took much of the meaning out of the paragraph dealing with Eleanor Walden. She told the Rent Board (in writing) that she had lived in her rent controlled apartment on Milvia for 20 years, not for 2 years as the printed version has it. Since Walden has benefited from Section 8 vouchers at Derby Street since 1997, that twenty year residence at Milvia is very significant. 

Thank you again. I appreciate the Planet’s willingness to publish the opinions of all parts of the population, even when they may run counter to your own editorial views.  

David M. Wilson  

• 

KAVANAGH INNOCENT UNTIL  

PROVEN OTHERWISE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The media has made a lot of glib comparisons between the situation of Berkeley Rent Board Commissioner Chris Kavanagh and San Francisco Supervisor Ed Jew and even though Jew is accused of far more serious crimes, both he and Chris are still innocent until proven otherwise and deserve their day in court. 

The difference is that Ed Jew was able to appear at the Hall of Justice for a quick booking and release, while Kavanagh, a civic-minded citizen and not in hiding (he attended a rent board meeting last week), was reported on by the 63rd street landlord and subjected to the humiliation of being handcuffed in public and dragged away. He is lucky the DA didn’t set up a perp walk to further the humiliation. 

Landlord Lynn Tidd has been quoted, gloating that she alerted the cops because, “he had been observed there infrequently over the last couple of weeks.” Could this mean maybe he doesn’t live there? And Tidd said she “had the pleasure of seeing him arrested.” I guess there is more than one way to win an eviction fight. I doubt she is a good-government type, probably just another venal landlord, seeking any excuse to evict a tenant. I wonder; is she being advised by the Berkeley landlord mafia who’ve been out to gut the Rent Board for years? 

Regardless of what Kavanagh’s housing situation is, he still deserves respect for his work on behalf of an endangered Berkeley species, low- to middle-income renters, and if he found himself in a difficult housing struggle, it should be seen as an example to every renter in the San Francisco Bay Area, still the hottest real estate (and displacement) market in the west. 

And before we demand our pound of flesh, let him have his day in court. 

Hank Chapot 

Oakland 

• 

OAKLAND UNIFIED SCHOOL DISTRICT: ACCOUNTABILITY AND AUDITS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

As the independently elected performance auditors of the cities of Oakland and Berkeley, we would like to congratulate the Oakland Unified School District Board for taking an important step towards enhanced governance and accountability. 

That step was the creation of an Audit Committee independent of management, and the appointment of three board members and four community members. 

The Fiscal Crisis and Management Assistance Team (FCMAT) recommended this step some years ago. Independent audit committees are now required for publicly traded companies, and highly recommended for local government agencies. Typical audit committee oversight responsibilities include: 

• Selecting (or recommending to the board) the commercial accounting firm who performs the annual financial statement audit and monitoring the work of those auditors. 

• Quality and timely financial and compliance reporting. 

• Examining, supporting, and reporting to the board regarding accounting and business controls (internal controls) to safeguard assets, ensure compliance and avoid fraud. 

• Directing special investigations for the governing body. 

• If the organization has an independent staff audit function, providing support and oversight for those auditors. 

We would like to offer the School Board our support and assistance in taking this important step forward.  

FCMAT also recommended establishing an independent staff audit function “supervised by an independent body, such as an audit committee.” We also suggest that the board continue to consider establishing an independent performance audit function. Government auditing is a cornerstone of good public sector governance. Performance auditors, financial statement auditors, and inspector generals increase your ability to hold government accountable.  

Additional support and information about local government auditors is available from the Association of Local Government Auditors (ALGA) at www.governmentauditors.org. 

Ann-Marie Hogan,  

Berkeley City Auditor 

Courtney Ruby,  

Oakland City Auditor 

• 

FOOTBALL OR FREE THE TREES? 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

To add to the “Save the Oaks” and “Don’t Build on the Fault Line” and not “on Sacred Burial Grounds,” I thought to add one more reason for disrupting the additional sports building on the UC Berkeley Campus. 

In both UC Davis and now UC Berkeley sports construction is a major project for builders. UC Davis has a new expanded stadium, UC Berkeley must want to match it and the construction companies want to rake in more tax dollars. 

When I remember the time I was an incoming graduate student at UC Berkeley the then-Chancellor Berdahl opened his welcoming speech with “You are the best and brightest.” It sounded military; nevertheless, I looked around and didn’t notice anyone that looked like a footballer midst the 150. Then I heard Ignacio Chapela, at that time a favorite researcher at the university, speak on how graduates should open their minds and mouths to ask all sorts of questions; it was the function of an important university. He had come from UNAM, Mexico’s prestigious school. I wondered if he went there because of the football team? If UC Berkeley is the “best of this and that” are football and sports arenas the factors that makes for an elite school? Do people who apply to—and the few who get into—Harvard go there because they have a humongous stadium? 

I also thought to ask Lawrence Ferlinghetti if he went to the Sorbonne because of the football team? 

R.G. Davis 

San Francisco  

• 

TIME TO BACK OFF BRT? 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

After reading some of the letters here, one might think that the purpose of Bus Rapid Transit was to interfere with car traffic on Telegraph Avenue. I thought that BRT was supposed to reduce traffic, on Telegraph and elsewhere, by getting people to use the buses for more trips, instead of contributing to car congestion. 

Now it looks like most of the car drivers of Berkeley don’t plan to become bus riders, so naturally they see BRT and its bus-lanes as an obstacle to their continued car use. Somebody suggested we put the BRT on the ballot. If we get a majority vote for banning BRT and continuing our car culture, Mayor Bates can write a letter to the feds suggesting they give their BRT money to some other district, because Berkeley doesn’t require better bus service. 

Also, if the mayor knows the cars are going to continue to spew CO2, he can discontinue Berkeley’s otherwise feeble efforts to reduce greenhouse emissions. 

I’ll continue to ride buses, but I’m wondering if I should make any effort to use better light bulbs or cut down on shower water, given that the cars will continue to contribute as much as 50 percent of our greenhouse emissions. 

Steve Geller 

• 

ANTENNAS ON FRENCH HOTEL 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

On Thursday night, Sept. 20, there was the Design Review meeting to study this plan. There were five people to oppose these antennas; plus there were 6-10 e-mails. 

The chair of the meeting told us that we could only talk about design issues, but not health, etc. You know, sir, health does matter. There were people who wanted to express their concern about the health risks of these antennas. But, the chair shut them up. In the city which is the birth place of Free Speech Movement, people are not allowed to talk. Berkeley has become the graveyard of free speech. What kind of democratic process is this? After all, this country claims that it has surplus of democracy and is trying to export it to other countries. Right from the beginning, things appear to be dishonest. The Public Hearing Notice for the Sept. 20 meeting was not posted on French Hotel. It was posted in the median of Shattuck Avenue. Berkeley police have posted a sign there saying “Keep Off Median, BMC # 14.32.040.” It is against law to be on the median or make people go there. City of Berkeley has broken its own law. Do you remember the city attorney and her office were throwing laws at us in 2002-2004? In particular, you were telling us that because of the law the City Council’s hands were tied up. 

By posting the sign in the median of Shattuck Avenue, people were kept uninformed. I mentioned this to the Planning Department. Ms. Anne Burns wrote to me that this was just a mistake. There was Mark Rhoades who was making these little mistakes and now Anne Burns. You know, sir, these innocuous mistakes will become monsters few months down the line. I requested the chair of the Design Review Committee to postpone the meeting for a month or two so that neighbors of French Hotel would be notified. He did not agree.  

Perhaps, there are 20-50 people who want to talk about the superficial aesthetic issues. Before, going to a ZAB meeting, the plan should be studied carefully and the public should have chance to make comments.  

Are the City of Berkeley and Verizon going to play yet another 15-month charade on the neighbors of French Hotel, and at the end approve these 12 antennas? If this is the case, please let me know. I can save lots time and effort. I would move out of this town. 

Shahram Shahruz 

• 

BUS TRANSIT PROPOSAL 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I propose instead of installing hardscape platforms and designated lanes for one AC Transit line, that we instead simply designate one lane of major streets as “Bus, Carpool and Turning Lane Only” during rush hours. Paint diamonds and put up signs like in San Francisco and on the bridge entrance. It encourages actions that reduce traffic and allows the buses to flow efficiently. We could then use the money earmarked for hardscape to increase service or reduce fares. 

I also have a suggestion for people fighting Bus Rapid Transit, that they start actually using AC Transit now. Figure out when you can run an errand or get where you are going on the bus. If we can get ridership up we won’t need BRT. 

Doug Foster 

• 

BHA HOUSING LIST 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Regarding the BHA Housing List, it is actually not that hard or expensive to tabulate a list. You pick a person from the list, you check their eligibility, and if eligible you’re done. There is absolutely no point in checking people’s eligibility when they go onto the list because if three units a year is a representative turnover, with 500 people waiting you’re going to wait an average of 167 years anyhow. (Or 83 years for a sequential list.) My suspicion is that eligibility will change in the interim. 

All this hoo-hah for 61 units of housing? Ridiculous. 

John Vinopal 

• 

BRT DOUBTS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Perhaps I am making a mistake somewhere, but I have tried to evaluate the relative merits of Bus Rapid Transit versus alternatives such as car pools, and I don’t see a clear advantage to BRT. Consider fuel use. I found a study that claims that commute buses can get four to six miles per gallon. If the bus carries 30-40 people, it gets on the order of 180 passenger miles per gallon. This is impressive, but no more impressive than a Toyota Prius with three passengers. 

Now consider road carrying capacity. The BRT is supposed to run every five minutes, and will carry maybe 40 people per bus, for a load rate of only eight people per minute. Compare this to a system that is designed to speed all traffic. Assume that timed lights are installed, and left turns are restricted to major intersections where there is room, and/or non-commute hours, so that vehicles can actually move. Assume that traffic moves at 20 mph, and that the space between cars is two car lengths, or approximately 30 feet. This implies about 40 cars per minute. At one person per car, this is 40 people per minute. If car pooling is moderately successful so that the average car carries two people, we get 80 people per minute, or 10 times the carrying capacity of the BRT per lane. The calculation is moderately insensitive to speed if people maintain a space between cars of about one car length distance per every 10 mph (one second). 

Many commuters to San Francisco carry passengers because they get a free trip across the bridge. An equivalent incentive for drivers that don’t cross the bridge would be access and perhaps a discount for parking. The city or transit district could set up a system to provide tickets for riders that could be exchanged by drivers for parking. City parking structures that were primarily for car pools would increase the availability of existing parking, and thus please the retail business community. By increasing car pools, it would reduce congestion and greenhouse gas emissions, and thus also please drivers and the rest of us. 

One last note. I want it to be clear that I am not against buses. Buses are very useful and convenient for people like me, who, for whatever reason, do not own a car. 

Robert Clear 

• 

‘IN THE VALLEY OF ELAH’ 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Last night I saw In the Valley of Elah, a heart-wrenching film about a father’s dogged efforts to learn the true circumstances of his soldier son’s death. After days of frustration dealing with bureaucratic government agencies, he discovers the bitter truth. Worse than the gruesome death of his son, not in battle, is the realization that his boy returned from Iraq, a robot, a walking corpse, devoid of human feelings (as with so many soldiers today suffering the traumatic experience of their service in that country). 

Then this morning, watching ABC’s program, “This Week,” I waited with dread the all too-familiar roll call of American soldiers killed in Iraq; today it was 19! And here our great leader insists that there be no withdrawal of troops until the summer of 2008. That means 10 months—or 40 weeks x 19. Do your own mathematics—and, for God’s sake, demand the end of this senseless killing of American youth! 

Dorothy Snodgrass 

• 

FREEDOM FOR TODAY 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I was aroused by a 9 a.m. call Saturday that was a recorded message saying this was the last time to reduce my credit card whatever to 6.9 percent, get protection, who knows. No identification, so I pressed one to speak to a “relationship manager.” When I asked who was calling me, he said “Freedom for Today,” representing 51,000 service something or others. 

When I asked him why they didn’t identify themselves, he answered: “You didn’t have to answer the phone.” 

I replied: “It’s time for you to move to Iraq.” 

He hung up. 

No e-mail listing for “Freedom for Today.” The problem, of course, they know who I am, but I don’t know who they are. 

Arnie Passman 

• 

THE TIME LADY 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

AT&T discontinued their “Time Lady” because of their assumption that people will be able to get the time on their cell phones and computers, and because they don’t want to maintain the circuitry. Why retain a service that many without these devices have relied on? What about having to reset time after one of our increasingly frequent power outages? Join me in calling AT&T to complain: 800-791-6661. 

Rachel DeCarlo 

• 

DAYLIGHT SAVINGS TIME SHOULD END NOW 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Between the Spring Equinox, March 21, and the Autumn Equinox, Sept. 23, days are longer and nights shorter. It makes sense to shift the “extra” morning daylight to the afternoon with daylight saving time (DST). Now, after the equinox, there is no extra daylight. DST sets our clocks for a later sunrise and darker mornings than standard time. Children have to walk to school as the rising sun glares into the eyes of sleepy commuters. Extending DST to well past September is dangerous. In 2005, the Republican-controlled Congress extended DST until the first Sunday of November. Now we should change back to Standard Time. 

Bruce Joffe 

Piedmont 

• 

THANKS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Thank you, Becky O’Malley, for writing insightful editorials. I also enjoy your sense of humor. 

You editorials are the first thing I read. I remember how Berkeley sorely missed local coverage before the Berkeley Daily Planet. You and your newspaper make a big difference in the quality of our lives. 

Jane Harada 

• 

CALIFORNIA’S ELECTORAL VOTES 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The GOP, i.e., the party of religious white folk, is up to its old tricks, stealing elections. They have an initiative in the offing that would give a Republican presidential candidate a good percentage of California’s Electoral College votes. Electoral votes are those pesky things that decide elections, not the popular vote. Remember the snakeoil salesman who slithered into the White House in 2000 and didn’t win the popular vote.  

The heist of California’s electoral votes would be perfectly legal if the Republican initiative passes. And how could a sham like this pass? If the GOP confuses the voters enough or an apathetic electorate sits on its butt going duh!  

What will happen if the GOP puts another president in the Oval Office, via California’s help, for the next four years? The Republican president would stack the Supreme Court with more religious right-wingers like John Roberts and Samuel Alito. You could kiss Roe vs. Wade goodbye. War would continue full tilt for four more years. This could never happen! No. Have you been paying attention to the crop of GOP presidential pretenders? Anti-abortionists, anti-gay, anti-immigration, pro-war, pro-gun. Go ahead, ignore this dirty-trick initiative and see what it gets you. 

Ron Lowe  

Grass Valley 

• 

SETTING A GOOD EXAMPLE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

It is very important for parents to set a good example in order to instill good values in their children. I am pained to see that some parents of young children still find it difficult to stop smoking in front of their children. The parents smoke to relieve the daily fatigue of long work hours. But instead of asking for help with stress from their employers or doctors they unknowingly pass on secondhand smoke to their children. 

I have noticed memory lapses and irritability in children who routinely inhale secondhand smoke. I also see children dozing off as early as 8:30 a.m. or 9 a.m. I asked some children if they need extra rest or extra walking to feel better. I was told they went to bed late after watching a movie with their parents. I support children cuddling up with their parents but the thought of a parent smoking at the same time fills me with horror. 

Romila Khanna 

Albany 

I stopped reading the Bay Guardian after the paper endorsed Tom Bates in Berkeley’s 2006 mayoral election. I’d thought the Guardian stood for neighborhood integrity, affordable housing and democratic governance. Also, for in-depth, pre-endorsement research of political candidates. But its editors embraced Bates—the big developers’ back-room buddy—without bothering to send me so much as an e-mail about my own candidacy. That experience made me wonder how much I should trust the Guardian, especially when it ventures outside San Francisco. 

Last week, however, a friend told me to check out the current Guardian’s cover story, “San Francisco’s Housing Psychosis.” Having done just that, I now urge Planet readers to run out and pick up a copy of the Sept. 19-25 Guardian before it disappears from the newsstands on Wednesday. What you’ll find is a cold-water-in-your-face account of how speculative, high-end housing development is ravaging San Francisco’s economy, society, culture and its environment. Scaled down to Berkeley dimensions, the story could be about the irrational exuberance that’s deforming our own fair city. 

From the Guardian’s lead editorial: “As many as 23 new complexes of 250 units or more, soaring from five or six stories to more than 1,000 feet, are on the drawing board, working their way through the city planning system, and more are almost certainly on the way.” In contrast to San Francisco’s high-rise building boom of the ’80s, these projects are for housing—to be precise, expensive condominiums. But that’s not the only difference: In the ’80s, environmentalists fought overdevelopment in the city. By contrast, the editorial observes, today’s environmentalists vigorously advocate the condo craze. Preaching the virtues of “densification” and transit-oriented-development, new urbanists and smart growthers ignore the fact that “[i]n many cases these new condos are creating more car trips: People who work out of town are buying them—and people who work in San Francisco are so badly priced out of the market that they’re moving farther and father away.” Nor are fans of sky-high density talking about how to fund the infrastructure and amenities—parks and open spaces, schools, new bus lines, police stations—that are necessary to maintain the city’s quality life and public safety in the face of explosive development. 

The Guardian does more than sound the alarm; it proposes a three-part remedy. First: Preserve existing rental housing. Second: Find a new way to fund affordable housing construction. Third (from “green policy wonk” Marc Salomon): Put a measure on the city ballot that establishes an equitable, comprehensive housing policy by capping new market-rate housing—in other words, housing for the rich—and requiring developers who want to build such projects to compete with each other in offering substantial community benefits such as affordable set-asides, green buildings, neighborhood-friendly design, money for parks and schools. In 1986 San Franciscans passed a similar measure, Measure M, limiting commercial office development and mandating the preservation of neighborhood character for all new projects.  

These are all commendable ideas, regrettably as appropriate for today’s Berkeley as for San Francisco. But they need to be accompanied by a large caveat: Laws are only as good as the officials who administer them. The Sept. 19-25 Guardian also includes an op-ed by neighborhood activist Dan Hoyle recounting how he and his neighbors recently waited until 11:45 p.m. to get their three minutes apiece to ask the San Francisco Planning Commission to respect Prop. M and deny “giant, five-story luxury condo blocks” that would remake Valencia and “our beloved Mission” District into something unrecognizable. By that time, Hoyle writes, “two commissioners were literally asleep. The gavel swung. Approved. It was like the people of San Francisco never showed up. Like Prop. M never passed. Like the Mission didn’t exist as a real neighborhood.” Sounds like a night at Berkeley’s Zoning Adjustments Board.  

Ultimately the only way to make our cities equitable and livable is to elect officials who respect official policy, law and—most important—constituents other than big developers, and who demand that their appointees do the same. To that end, alerting and engaging a largely distracted electorate—and redirecting environmentalist energies—should be the top priority on both sides of the bay. 

If you missed the hard copy, you can read the Bay Guardian online at www.sfbg.com.  

Zelda Bronstein is a former chair of Berkeley’s Planning Commission.

Friends! The hour of judgment is at hand for our planet. Doom is knocking on our door in the form of catastrophic climate change. Global warming not only threatens our so-called way of life, it threatens the very existence of the planet itself! Here in Berkeley, we must do more than our fair share to offset this crisis. Why more than our fair share? Quite simply because other communities cannot be relied on to do even their meager fair share in cutting back on carbon emissions. We must make up for what others fail to do on a global scale through our own heroic self-sacrifice. We cannot afford to wait until 2050 to meet our modest carbon emission reduction goals. Many of us who passed this measure will not even be alive then to implement it. By 2050 it will have been too late for this planet I fear, possibly far too late for all of the extinct species whose blood will be on our hands. This is no time for buying absolution through carbon credits or for half-assed symbolic measures which mostly have a feel good significance. 

No, the time for bolder self-sacrifice has arrived. The only real, long term hope for the eco-sphere is a massive human population collapse, hopefully leading to the voluntary extinction of the human race. Already, a new urgency and groundswell of support is building for the idea that humans are a type of super toxin which the planet cannot sustain or support in the longterm. Cogent support for the voluntary extinction of the human race is well-articulated in all its ramifications and implications here : www.vhemt.org. 

The city and residents of Berkeley should be on the leading vanguard of the voluntary extinction of the human race. First of all, if China can implement a very sensible one child policy in urban centers, Berkeley voters should approve an advisory No Child policy for residents of our city. It could be our answer to the Bush regime’s No Child Left Behind Act! Next, on the state level we need to rally support for a ballot initiative which allows us to die with dignity when we choose to. When this option is legally enacted, Berkeley should be the first city in California to open a euthanasia clinic. Hopefully, if we are true to our principles, our city’s residents will be lined up for many blocks waiting for their turn to be recycled into the earth! 

Even before that time, younger readers of the Planet in particular should refrain from having children. Every person less makes a huge difference; a far bigger difference than using rapid transit, riding your bike or recycling bottles once you are born. Readers of the Planet who are already parents and grandparents should actively discourage further destructive procreation by their relatives. If pets need to be neutered and spayed by law, so should humans for many of the same reasons!  

Imagine if Berkeley has the honor of becoming the first human ghost town on earth to revert to a primal state of nature! The oaks old and new will flourish along the streams in which trout and salmon teem! Mountain lions will boldly roam the plains and not confine themselves to Wildcat Road in Tilden Park any longer. Perhaps bears from other regions of the state will finally return to what we call “Grizzly Peak Blvd.” The grasslands will return to the slopes of the hills after forest fires clear them off and the air will blow pure and sweet over the bubbling creeks just as it once did when the ancestors of Running Wolf roamed the Bayshore in peace and harmony with all nature. 

Edna Spector is a Berkeley resident.

The recent spinal cord injury to Kevin Everett, a special teams player for the Buffalo Bills of the National Football League, highlights the frustrations felt by thousands of families across the United States. Everett’s prognosis continues to improve due to extraordinary emergency care delivered immediately after his accident. And, though he does not know it yet, his fan base grew considerably at the moment he was stilled upon colliding with his opponent. Large portions of the spinal injured community now follow his recovery. Their discontent stems from the reminders of neglect shown to the legacy of another high profile injured individual. 

The Christopher and Dana Reeve Paralysis Act will be five years old on Sept. 25. Unfortunately, no one is celebrating because it is five years still in the making and not five years providing vital programs enhancing treatments and cures. I know. My family lives the life. When my son broke his neck in 2002, the CDRPA was a buoy to which we attached ourselves in the roiled sea of a spinal injury. We reasoned that only a commitment on a national scale could make a difference in his lifetime.  

The bill enjoyed near unanimous support in both Houses, with numerous co-sponsors from each side of the aisle. Yet it languished in the 108th and 109th Republican controlled Congresses.  

First introduced on Reeve’s 50th birthday in 2002, the CDRPA provides for collaboration in paralysis research, rehabilitation, and quality of life programs through the National Institutes of Health. This trio of fundamentals unites the disparate elements of care and cure for spinal cord injury in particular, and paralysis in general. 

Reeve’s injury in 1995 and the final nine years of his life encapsulate an era of unprecedented hope for those with spinal injuries. In his search for remedies Reeve was at first revered and later ridiculed. Critics accused him of exploiting his fame to promote pie-in-the-sky therapies. The religious right castigated him for aggressively touting the unproven potential of stem cells.  

Unbowed, Reeve pursued a multi-layered advocacy for solutions to his plight and that of all living with paralysis. Ultimately, he mobilized a political caucus resulting in the drafting of the CDRPA. 

The bill made no mention of nor had any intention of changing the President’s policy on stem cells. Nonetheless, right-wing interest groups exerted their bias. Reeve dared to sail on the periphery of their prejudices and his legislation paid the price. Twice, in 2004 and 2006, Senators placed anonymous holds within committee, scuttling certain passage of the CDRPA. 

As injuries go, Reeve’s was as bad as they come. Nonetheless, with dedication to a physical regimen recommended by innovative doctors, the late actor exhibited neurological return. Even if this return was modest to most lay people, it was a revelation to researchers: here was evidence that a spinal cord could recover and perhaps even regenerate after trauma. 

Suddenly, an entire industry of intensive rehabilitation arose as exercise physiologists and physical therapists developed novel methods of treating paralysis. Methods, I might add, that will benefit Kevin Everett in his recovery. 

For scientists, the implication was clear; patients with damaged spinal cords could improve. And, as this plasticity presented itself convincingly in anecdotal settings, clinicians imagined possibilities if the rigor of trials were combined with the restorative therapies of regenerative medicine. Thus, the four-letter word, cure, crept into the lexicon of neuroscience. 

Reeve’s untimely death in 2004 dampened the enthusiasm. Hope diminished further, 1 1/2 years later, with the passing of his wife Dana. Today, the remnants of momentum for therapies stagger more sideways than forward. The Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation continues to be a guiding light. Its effectiveness, however, dims due to myopic funding priorities and the lack of a charismatic leader. 

Certainly, Reeve changed the debate about recovery from spinal cord injury. His savvy gave a voice to disabled America. But the volume of that unifying voice softens with each fleeting year. The paralyzed sub-culture of our society, which includes my family, seethes when reminded of the opportunities delayed by regressive reactions to the Reeve bill. 

If enacted, this legislation will not reverse paralysis. But it may well be the bridge between hope and future deliverance. The CDRPA initiates a structured funding platform and coordinates a clinical trial network to test the theories of researchers investigating the riddles of paralysis. 

The passage of the CDRPA would also signal our country is ready to confront the moral absolutism stifling much of the legislative process. By denying solutions to all with the remotest of associations to their prejudices, the religious right, in this instance, withheld hope from those living with crippling maladies. 

On the anniversary of the birth of this bill, no one should question whether its namesake was a conservative or a liberal. The relevant question is whether humane healthcare policy can advance without pandering to the ideology of faith-based opinion. If so, that would be something worth celebrating and I believe Kevin Everett and his family will be cheering. 

John Smith is the father of a Jack Kent Cooke Scholar and first-year student at Berkeley’s Boalt School of Law. He volunteers for Care Cure Community, the world’s largest website devoted to spinal cord injury, which is hosted by Rutgers University, where Smith moderates forums on cure, funding, legislation and advocacy. 

It was with some sadness that I read the recent contributions of Jeff Ogar and Matthew Shoemaker in the letters to the editor section of the Daily Planet. They both provided true-life examples that serve to underscore the concerns I expressed in my Sept. 14 commentary, “Anger and Football Hysteria.” Each man seems to be convinced of two things: First, that I am a bad person, not just someone with views different from their own; and second, that I simply could not love trees and also support the Cal Bears football team.  

Mr. Ogar peppers his Sept. 18 letter with the kind of disrespectful language that confuses issues, rather than illuminates them. And he seems to be so consumed by his own anger that he scarcely has time to pay attention to the facts—which conveniently allows him to misrepresent my views in both big and small ways. I don’t value the lives of trees over people; however, I do think it’s important—particularly in this age of global warming—to understand and value the contributions that all living things make to our shared environment. The members of the Berkeley City Council agree with me on this point. In unanimously voting to oppose the plans of the University of California to cut down the trees in the Memorial Stadium oak grove, they declared: “This urban woodland is an irreplaceable resource that contributes to the well-being of all Berkeley citizens.” 

Also, contrary to Mr. Ogar’s assertion, I believe I care far more about the safety of Cal athletes and coaches who use Memorial Stadium daily than do some members of the university administration and athletic department. Why do I say this? They have known for at least the past 15 years that the Hayward Fault is capable of producing a major earthquake, and likely will rupture dramatically sometime soon. Memorial Stadium is literally bisected by the Hayward fault—yet they allow hundreds of students and staff to occupy rooms under the stadium every day! I believe that we should get these people out of the stadium and move them to safe, temporary facilities now, rather than waiting two or three years from now to protect them. They should be moved out of those dangerous facilities within the next 30 days, and I challenge Chancellor Birgineau to explain why he fails to address this important safety issue. 

Regarding my suggestion that “Chancellor Robert Birgineau, Athletic Director Sandy Barbour, and Coach Jeff Tedford address their fans publicly to encourage more civil behavior toward the guests that come to our campus,” Mr. Shoemaker seems to have overlooked the key word “publicly.” Of course I’m aware that there are videos produced regularly on these issues, but the viewership of them is restricted by inclination and convenience. That’s why I recommend public statements. I think they should be made at the beginning of every home football game. 

I hope Mr. Ogar is sitting in a safer chair now—and so won’t fall out of it when he reads the next sentence. I repeat: I am a Cal Bears fan. Not only that, I remained a loyal fan through the lean years, when Cal consistently found ways to lose important games—often in the most disheartening fashion. Unlike now, those were the years when a post-season bowl game was a pipe dream right from opening day. Many of us true blue Cal fans stuck it out through those dismal years, when the emotional highs were few and far between, only because of our strong connection to Cal. And if Jeff Ogar is an actual fan, and I assume he is, he will understand exactly what I’m talking about. 

Furthermore, I believe it was very unfair for Mr. Ogar to imply that I treat some Cal alumni disrespectfully. I do not. In fact, as most everybody knows who is involved in the oak grove issue, I strive to listen carefully and respond thoughtfully to anyone who wishes to discuss the issues. And if Mr. Ogar wishes to explore the matter further, I would be happy to talk with him at any time.  

I question the assumption, held by Mr. Ogar and others, that it is an either-or decision when it comes to building the new student gym/office complex or preserving the Memorial Stadium oak grove. I have spoken with hundreds of people about this issue, including experts in geology and engineering, and there is a growing consensus that this project can and should be built at an alternate site—both to preserve a valuable natural area and to better protect the safety of Cal students and staff. There is a win-win solution to this problem that is right in front of us. All we need is the will to sit down together and work cooperatively to reach a solution that the whole community can embrace.  

And finally, Mr. Shoemaker’s brief, two-sentence letter (Sept. 18) illustrates a dangerous logical thinking fallacy: “Black or White” thinking. This attitude—of dividing people and ideas into rigid and oppositional categories with no middle ground—allows one to dehumanize opponents and fosters disrespect and even worse treatment of them. Just for the record, I certainly do not think that Cal football fans are “evil”; after all, I’m one of them.  

What’s more, I have met and spoken with many Cal athletes over the past year, and I have been consistently impressed by their intelligence, insight, and how well they articulated their opinions about a variety of issues in the Cal community. Not only that, their level of commitment and passion for their teams was truly inspiring. These young men and women are shining examples of the best that UC Berkeley has to offer, and I look forward to meeting many more of them. 

Doug Buckwald is a Cal graduate (1982) and a Cal Bears fan. 

GHANDI’S BIRTHDAY 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Along with Diamond Dave Whittaker, I am again putting together the Gandhi statue birthday poetry reading at the Gandhi statue behind the San Francisco Ferry Building, from 1-6 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 30. And while Arnie (five-minute sign-ups at pazmopa@yahoo.com) has known it for a few months, it was not until recently that he fully realized in the fourth dimension that the United Nations has declared Oct. 2, Gandhi’s birthday, “International Day of Nov-Violence.” Let us all that day, spread, spam, blog, gather, smoke signals, hand puppets—do all we can to communicate and resonate around the world that there is now a sanctioned day of non-violence!  

Arnie Passman  

• 

MANDATORY  

ADVERTISING?  

Editors, Daily Planet: 

It astounds me the way you complain about local businesses not advertising in your paper! Advertising should be a free choice of the people buying the ads. If the local merchants felt that your paper was a good source I’m sure they’d use you more.  

Rich Crowl 

• 

VIBE CHECK 

Dear “George” [the anonymous author of the Sept. 18 First Person story, “A Joyous Act of Civil Disobedience”: 

Please make a note to, next time, have some local “makers” fashion cushy devices that can be plopped on top of the fences so that nobody punctures their hands while scrambling back or forth. 

Oh, and thanks for the “vibe check.” 

Thomas Lord 

• 

A SENSE OF  

ENTITLEMENT 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

What a spicy editorial you had today. I didn’t know people wrote to you declaring, “How dare you not publish my piece!” What planet are they on? Papers are jigsaw puzzles of hastily assembled material, from what I learned when I was a journalism major. You deserve congratulations for finding the precious space in a twice-a-week paper for as many contributions as you do print. 

Imagine the complaints to you if a revolution broke out? Your e-mail would overload with anger at unreported rallies, boycotts and riots, not to mention unprinted commentaries declaring a call to arms. 

Keep up the good work. 

Ted Vincent 

• 

SUPERINTENDENT 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The Berkeley School Board has the critically important responsibility of choosing the next school superintendent to replace Michele Lawrence who will retire on Feb. 1, 2008. To help facilitate the recruiting process, we have engaged the consulting firm of Leadership Associates to coordinate a national search and recruitment process. To help us in this process and allow us to give clear direction to our consultants, we are asking our parents, community, high school students and employees to identify the characteristics, talents and experience they believe our next superintendent should possess. 

The consultants have established a series of meetings in which they will hear from almost 50 groups, representing various constituents in the district and throughout the community. Groups and organizations have been contacted, but we want to ensure that there are also opportunities for individuals in the community to give input to the consultants. You are welcome to attend any of three general meetings scheduled on: Monday, Sept. 24, 7:15 p.m. at BTech Academy (2701 Martin Luther King Way); or Tuesday, Sept. 25, 6:30 p.m. at BTech Academy; or Tuesday, Sept. 25, 12:45 p.m. at the School District Office (2134 Martin Luther King Jr. Way, second floor, Superintendent’s Conference Room). 

If you are unable to attend, you can send your suggestions to www.leadershipassociates.org or 23052-H Alicia Parkway, Mission Viejo, Calif. 92692 We sincerely hope you will take this opportunity to be involved in the recruitment process. It is important for us to hear the views from all the voices in our community. 

Joaquin Rivera 

President, BUSD Board of Education 

• 

LET THE PEOPLE DECIDE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

So why not let us decide about BRT by public vote? The proposal to convert two lanes of Telegraph Avenue to bus-only traffic (known as BRT) should be placed on the next ballot to guage whether the public actually wants this project (which also eliminates hundreds of public parking spaces). Proponents and opponents of BRT do not seem to be able to agree on much when debating this project. It has been a very contentious argument which will only get worse. There may be agreement on only one thing: If created, BRT will have a tremendous impact on Berkeley—on quality of life, on business and future development projects. Whether that impact is good or bad is a matter of opinion. And there are always unintended consequences, both good and bad. But this issue is far too important to be decided by faceless city staff planners, rubber-stamp planning commissions and a City Council which seems to have already made up its mind. Let BRT be decided by the people of Berkeley at the voting booth.  

Frank Greenspan 

• 

CORRECTION 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I wish to make a correction to the date of Pete Voulkos’ Solano, cited in Peter Selz’ Sept. 18 article, “Oakland Museum Receives Major Gift.” Voulkos made this piece in 1959 not 1958. Because the label posted at the museum accompanying the sculpture incorrectly cites it as 1958, the error is understandable. 

The Oakland Museum also owns Voulkos’ 1959 sculpture, Little Big Horn, which was included in the exhibition of his work at the Museum of Modern Art that Selz refers to in his article, and which was organized by Mr. Selz. 

Sam Jornlin 

Voulkos & Co. Catalogue Project 

• 

GMO MAYO 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I just about went into a decline when I moved here from New York City 40 years ago and there was no Hellman’s on store shelves! Anywhere! (Barbarian heathens. I knew I should have stayed in New York.) I got clued in to Best Foods, and all was well. I know I’m not alone; many ex-New Yorkers have reported the same experience. 

Living without Hellman’s mayo, or Best Foods as they call it out here, was unthinkable until today, when I found out from a site called truefoodnow.org that it contains GMO soy oil. I am now willing to use other mayos until Hellman’s sees the light and switches. I believe they used to use olive oil and should go back to that. 

Just to make sure, I spoke to a Hellman’s customer rep who said that Hellman’s did contain GMO oil, and I could rest assured that it was totally fine and pure and just like non-GMO oil. I reminded her that for decades big corporations have been assuring us that this that or the other thing was totally safe, only to be proved wrong by determined activists. The number to call is: 1-800-418-3275. 

The truefoodnow.org site contains a very comprehensive list of foods that contain GMO ingredients, as well as the non-GMO alternatives. 

Alice Molloy 

Oakland 

• 

OAK GROVE RALLY 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Tuesday afternoon, I attended an event at the Memorial Stadium oak grove. The purpose of the event, as well as the purpose of the grove itself, is to honor and memorialize the fallen veterans of World War I. 

Longtime resident and vet-advocate Country Joe McDonald sang and strummed a touching piece. Former Mayor Shirley Dean gave a wonderful speech as other Berkeley luminaries looked on. Someone named Helen sang a splendid rendition of “The Star Spangled Banner,” and an inspiring eulogy was delivered by the priest (whose name I did not catch). 

The eulogy spoke of the sacrifice of World War l veterans, and how their courage and determination were born of the simple ideals of peace, freedom and democracy. They put their bodies on the line to fight against imperial aggression and tyranny. They truly believed that it would be the war to end all wars. Memorial Stadium and the oak grove were named in honor of those who died, and that is why we were there. It took three hours to read each name of the 1,800 Californians who perished in that war. 

During the ceremony, a large late model pickup drove by our gathering on Gayley Avenue. One of the young males inside shouted out “I hate trees! I love football! F— you.” No one paid any attention, but I could not help but be struck by the symbolic poignancy of the incident. Those of us in the gathering symbolized the soldiers we were honoring, as well as the majority of Berkeley citizens. The young men driving by (we’ll call them “football truck guys”), symbolized the university. 

The vast majority of Berkeley citizens, for good reason, oppose the university’s plan to destroy the oak grove. “Football truck guys” and U.C. hope to destroy the grove to carry out their self-centered, anti-democratic expansionism. 

Those who live here care deeply about sustaining our quality of life. “Football truck guys” will be leaving Berkeley once they finish school. The university, a self-contained entity, arrogantly does as it pleases with no concern for our city and it’s citizens. 

Those of us at the ceremony were there in reverence for the fallen soldiers, and for the oak grove named in their honor. “Football truck guys” shouted out obscenities at our solemn little gathering. The university, if they are allowed to carry out their scheme, will dishonor those soldiers and what they stood for. As the university continues to disregard and disrespect the wishes of most Berkeley residents, it has now aggressively constructed a grotesque fence to make sure freedom and democracy are shut out. 

The people of Berkeley could take inspiration from the courage the oak grove memorializes. The people of Berkeley need to stand up and tear that fence down. 

Kevin Moore 

• 

STEVE BARTON 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Our mayor and City Council fall over themselves praising Steve Barton. They call him “a stalwart, creative leader” and “an extremely valuable resource.” Some also take potshots at the city attorney, who is blamed for Barton’s ouster as housing director. Barton demands an investigation of the whole matter. 

Lest we forget....  

• The city manager, not the city attorney, fired Steve Barton. All three serve at the pleasure of the mayor and council, which is where the buck must stop. It is hypocritical and cowardly for the council to decide in a back room to fire Barton and then publicly to proclaim him as an affordable housing messiah. 

• Barton was not fired for dishonesty, but for gross incompetence. Beginning in 2002, he was repeatedly told by federal investigators that the Section 8 program was “troubled,” and that there were numerous instances of wrongdoing among employees and applicants. Barton had five years to solve the problem, but didn’t.  

• Those who call Barton a champion of affordable housing do not see what a sham that program has been. There are only 1,800 Section 8 vouchers. What Berkeley has done is shift a lot of these vouchers away from existing buildings, often owned by local, small landlords, to big high-rises owned by out-of-towners. There is no net gain in covered units. What Berkeley has also done is exhaust its affordable housing trust fund in order to subsidize developments that will most likely not survive economically without even more taxpayer help. 

• Two years ago, Barton sold the council on a condo conversion program that was to have replenished the trust fund with four million dollars a year in fees. So far, nothing has been collected. 

That said, Mr. Barton is right: Berkeley’s housing programs should be investigated, bottoms up, by impartial persons who are not puppets to the council, and who are not tied to old, failed policies. 

There are lots of dark corners to look in. Why, for example, was the city forced to scrap its list of some 5,000 Section 8 applicants? Did people who managed to jump the line corrupt the list? If so, what about the unfairness to honest, qualified folks who have been waiting for years, but who must now start over again? 

In this regard the investigators might start with the case of Eleanor Walden, a member of the Rent Stabilization Board. For 10 years she has simultaneously held down a Section 8 unit in Redwood Gardens, and a super low-rent controlled unit on Milvia Street. A few months ago, Ms. Walden tried to evict a subtenant at Milvia, and told the Rent Board (in writing) that the place had been her home for 2 years. At the same time she told the Section 8 people that Redwood Gardens was her home. Then, just two weeks ago, she changed her story to the Rent Board, stating that she had moved from Milvia to Redwood Gardens “in a gradual process” between 1997 and 2004.” 

This is all in the public record, but so far no one seems to take an interest in these specific examples of gross manipulation by people in power.  

It’s for tolerating this kind of behavior that Steve Barton was fired. Yes, we should all welcome an investigation, the quicker the better. 

David Wilson  

• 

IDIOTS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

It has been brought to my attention that the treatment of Tennessee fans at the Cal game a few weeks ago was reported by your publication as negative. I am writing to inform you that your reporting couldn’t be further from the truth. I am a UT grad currently living in San Diego. I flew up to the Bay Area and attended the game with another alum who resides in Sacramento. We were both clad in orange and received nothing but politeness. 

When walking through the campus before the game, we were greeted several times by complete strangers welcoming us to California due to our orange Tennessee clothing (which we found ironic, seeing as we live here). I can assure you, I have seen ugliness at college football games (try going to a Tennessee-Alabama game in Knoxville wearing Alabama gear) and the treatment of Cal fans to UT fans was excellent. It truly made the day enjoyable even though our team got crushed. 

The only problem I had with the game was that the stadium was ill-equipped at the exits/entrances. I later found out that this was due to the people in the trees. After a little research, I learned of why these people are up in the trees. I find it hard to believe that an entire city has to halt a multi-million-dollar construction job because four or five people are offended (maybe it’s nine or 10, or maybe it’s 500, whatever). It seems like Cal has a great university and a great following for its football program, but the city and its constituents want to disappoint and upset thousands of people to appease a few. This seems like a trend in your area of the country, and it is unfortunate. The overriding sentiment around the nation after that game was that you people are ridiculous. It is not 1969, and people living in trees do as much damage to them as do bull-dozers. Point not taken. 

To summarize, Cal football fans were civil and polite, and your publication should do its journalistic due diligence and report the facts. The hippies in trees are idiots, making those in power siding with them bigger idiots. 

Patrick Berry 

San Diego 

University of Tennessee,  

Class of 1999 

• 

TIRED OF ‘BERSERKELEY’ 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I was born in Berkeley and have lived her all my adult life and obviously, yes, I could move elsewhere if I chose to, but I’ve just got to admit that after 52 years this whole Berserkeley thing feels a little tired. This morning I walked past a young woman, probably a new student; she was talking to her mom on the phone she held in her hand. “And Mom,” she was saying as she passed me, “they have people living in trees here,” and when she said the word “trees” her voice rose up to a little squeak and then she started giggling (and maybe her mom started giggling too). 

Now I’m the kind of person who can sort of see both sides to any given situation, but to me it’s like when you’re a kid and your mom says “Eat all the Brussels sprouts on your plate. There are people starving in Africa.” There really are people dying in Africa...and a whole lot of other terrible things going on all over the world. This whole tree/stadium thing...well, as I said, I can see both sides but I also see an enormous amount of time, energy and money being spent by both a mule-headed university and an ornery city and I guess maybe we should all ask ourselves, given an overview of the world and its myriad problems (go ahead, take your pick), if we really want to be honest, is this the very best use of our time, energy and money? 

Susan Leonard 

• 

BUS STOPS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Caltrans ought to build bus stops at each interchange in the East Bay, as exist in Marin. The only one here is at Orinda. 

More use of buses on freeways will reduce congestion. 

Before BART was built, AC Transit was carrying 58 percent of the people using the Bay Bridge during the peak hours. 

Charles Smith 

• 

GOLDEN GATE TRANSIT 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

In his Aug. 31 commentary, “Berkeley’s Misplaced Planning Priorities,” Paul Glusman states that “there never has been any direct public transit between Berkeley or Oakland and Marin County.” 

After the Loma Prieta earthquake there was ferry service from Berkeley to Tiburon. 

Mr. Glusman also overlooks the very good bus service Golden Gate Transit provides from the El Cerrito Del Norte BART station to San Rafael seven days a week—thus making it possible to bypass San Francisco. 

Paul Slater 

• 

HOWELL-NORTH BUILDING 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The fine old building at 1050 Parker St. has been degraded to an eyesore, which is the Berkeley way to prepare it for demolition. Many years ago, when the building housed the famous publishing house Howell-North, I tried to buy it. I wasn’t so interested in the building itself, but it was full of ancient letterpress and linotype equipment and thousands of drawers of type for handsetting books. Flora North was losing her eyesight and needed to retire and unload her grand publishing business. Howell-North did the very finest railroad books, all beautifully designed and handset and printed in the same building. This was one of the oldest and best West Coast publishing houses and its famous authors even included a favorite of mine, Lucius Beebe. Flora has just sold the building for $35,000. It was the late ’60s, early ’70s, and Berkeley was in revolt and property was for sale cheap. For me the wonderful old equipment had to stay in the building, as it was terribly expensive to move. I guess it all got junked and the books were sold off. Many are still in print.  

I don’t think the building should be saved but I’d like to know more about it as it could easily be from the last century. It was a heartbreaker to lose this particular publishing house and I note that the original editions now sell used for large sums as rare books. 

Phil Wood 

• 

HAMAS AND ISRAEL 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Lately, whenever I see a reference to Hamas, it is followed with the phrase “which does not recognize Israel’s right to exist.” To be fair, I suggest that whenever the media refers to Israel, it should be followed with the phrase “which does not recognize the right of Palestine to exist.”  

Jan Snipper 

Oakland 

• 

SEGREGATION 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

A conservative law firm known as the Pacific Legal Foundation wants to turn back the clock toward the 1950s when segregation was legal. They are anti-Indian, anti-environment, and anti-civil rights. For example, they defended private property owners, oil and gas companies over the sovereignty of American Indians when it comes to both land and water rights.  

On civil rights, they want to roll back racial integration in the schools. For example, they are attacking the Berkeley Unified School District because Berkeley wants to do things what would preserve racial diversity in the schools. The Pacific Legal Foundation cheers the Supreme Court decision which struck down diversity in the schools. That decision is a setback for equality. 

The Pacific Legal Foundation, just like others in the conservative movement, was and still is against the civil rights movement and would love nothing better than to see the day when segregation returns in public life. 

Billy Trice, Jr. 

Oakland 

• 

TAKING ISSUE WITH CONN 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

In Conn Hallinan’s Sept. 7 column, “Israeli Settlements and a Scramble for the Arctic,” Mr. Hallinan asserted that General Vang Pao made millions in the drug trade [in Laos]. He referenced Mr. Alfred McCoy’s book The Politics of Heroin as a sources for this claim. In the article, Mr. Hallinan asks the audience to take the time to sit down with McCoy and to watch Leslie Cockburn’s “Drugs, Guns and the CIA,” a Frontline special based on McCoy’s assertions.  

So let us analyze what McCoy truly knew about Vang Pao and the alleged drug cartel he has accused Vang Pao of orchestrating. Based on the time-line that he gave, Mr. McCoy visited Laos in July of 1971 as a graduate student. He spent one month in Laos and visited one Hmong village, the village of Long Pot, were he spent five days interviewing the villagers through a Lao interpreter. By his own admission these villagers had fallen from Vang Pao. During this time, Mr. McCoy did not meet Vang Pao nor did he visit Long Cheng the site he alleged was the center of a heroin factory. Mr. McCoy referenced two shady Lao generals as his main sources for these allegations. He interviewed General Ouane Rattikone and General Thao Ma each once in September of 1971. General Rattikone admitted to McCoy that he bought and sold opium. General Thao Ma was forced to flee to Thailand after his failed coup against the Royal Laos Government.  

Prior to writing this so call “classic” McCoy admitted that he has never written anything longer than a term paper. In the revised 2003 edition of The Politics of Heroin, Mr. McCoy acknowledges that the Church Committee of the United States Senate concluded that there was “no substance” to “allegations that the Agency’s proprietaries were involved in drug trafficking.” Furthermore, McCoy spent one week in a Hmong village, this does not make him an expert on the Hmong, this irregardless on how many PhD’s are attached to his name. 

In conclusion, before Mr. Hallinan publishes anymore cut and paste articles, he should double check his sources as these allegations he made against the Hmong and General Vang Pao can carry serious consequences. Unless Mr. Hallinan can prove that Vang Pao was a drug lord he must retract his statements. He is welcome to contact me for any further clarifications.  

Chong Jones  

• 

BUS RAPID TRANSIT 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Mr. Conly’s assertion that the near-simultaneous arrival of big, articulated buses on Telegraph Avenue (i.e.: “bunching”) will be alleviated by shutting down two lanes of traffic on that main artery is suspicious. So-called bunching on Telegraph began with the substantial increase of buses on the 1R line. I rode the bus to the halfway point several times just prior to the escalation of service; buses ran regularly and it was not difficult to get to Oakland at any hour. It may surprise Mr. Conly and other Friends of BRT that some folks who oppose this scheme have since noted lots of nearly empty buses all along the No. 1 route in both directions. In 2003 AC Transit paid a consultant a lot of money to stop this kind of waste. How odd that it should adopt this practice on the Telegraph Avenue line today.  

I had supposed primary responsibility for what may be shaping up as a legendary boondoggle might belong to top execs at AC Transit. But evidently not. Mr. Conly’s carefully composed counter claim that we aren’t really seeing what we are seeing and that closing lanes to cars won’t do what experience in similar conditions tells us it will do—in concert with further revelations in the Berkeley Daily Planet (City of Berkeley plans to spend $396,000.00 on PR for the BRT scheme) indicates that the Berkeley city government is equally responsible for this public policy misfire. So far both organizations are holding their ears tightly shut to the public outcry against closing two lanes of Telegraph Avenue to cars.  

AC Transit has gone conveniently deaf before. It ignored complaints about VanHool buses from drivers and riders and signed a big contract for lots more. I have been on them quite a few times. They are not as good to ride—for reasons of convenience, safety, and esthetics—as the buses that ran before. They are expensive to buy and operate. Parts must come from Europe. Someone must have a mighty compelling reason to override all the good reasons not to buy them. The same or others must have a similarly compelling reason to disregard tens of thousands of people who want to leave Telegraph the way it is. 

The Daily Planet’s report that 300 or 400 millions of dollars are tied to this hare-brained transit scheme is the most telling piece of information to date. “Public servants” that get a whiff of that kind of money bend all efforts to concoct reasons why it should be delivered into their hands. This process wastes little thought on the wishes of affected members of the public. Nor is it expedient on the way to the bank to consider salient points of criticism: 

1. Buses are a relatively inefficient means of transportation. 

2. Big buses that are run empty waste fuel. 

3. Large numbers of big, heavy buses ruin our streets. 

4. Our streets are already breaking down. 

5. There are lots of buses and BART trains to Oakland already (before the recent escalation of service). 

6. Restricting auto traffic to one lane on Telegraph would waste time/fuel/money and inconvenience thousands each day. 

It has not been difficult to get to Oakland or Berkeley from Telegraph. Rush hour is slower whether you are in a car or a bus. Emphasizing more speed is misdirection. BRT is not necessary in real terms nor is it desired by large numbers of the affected public. My guess is lane closure is a requirement for big-bucks funding. The sudden plethora of buses on Telegraph looks as much like an attempt to secure a fait accompli (“getting people used to it”) as enlightened public policy. 

Glen Kohler 

• 

HR 1940 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Dan Lungren is pushing his bill, HR1940, to end birthright citizenship. It plays to the lowest common denominator of the Republican Party and the anti-immigration activists. Lungren’s HR1940 is a racially charged attempt to overturn the Anglo-American common law principle, dating back to 1608, which allows citizenship to all people born here. Isn’t withholding health insurance from children and taking citizenship away from children rather un-American? 

Ron Lowe  

Grass Valley 

You old hippies, you probably remember sticking an avocado pit on some arrangement of toothpicks over a jar of water to make it sprout. The tree, if it survived to that stage, made a decent houseplant when it wasn’t turning sickly yellow and dropping leaves and getting all etiolated like a wispy fishing rod because it was stuck in a dark corner and watered too seldom and/or too often by turns and potted in a bucket of backyard clay in the first place and the only fertilizer it ever got was when the cat peed in the pot.  

It’s a wonder any of us survived, isn’t it?  

Avocado as a species, Persea americana, is a survivor of sorts. Once upon a time it was native here, part of the Neotropical Tertiary geoflora along with others of our favorite gotta-try-it semitropicals and tropicals. We can grow some figs and palms here, and they used to be wildland plants.  

Of course, some of us are always pushing the boundaries, planting Buddha’s hand citrons alongside the more rational Meyer lemons. Some of us even get away with growing macadamias. Maybe global warming will let our descendants, if any, grow durians on the San Francisco Archipelago. But avocados are among the group with ancestral rights here. 

Time was, this tropical flora had a range extending as far north as the Arctic. The climate here was warmer, wetter than it is now, and the plants that lived here more like what we see farther south along coasts and riversides. Visit Costa Rica, for example, and you’ll see descendants of the trees and greenery whose fossils have turned up in places like Corral Hollow out past Livermore. Coral fossils have turned up near Walnut Creek, a place clearly underwater once and clearly warmer than now, and so have shells of sea critters that now come no closer than the Gulf of California. 

Things were drying up a bit in the Miocene, when we had gomphotheres and giraffish camels, sabertoothed not-quite-cats, and hyenalike dogs running around here. The neotropical trees were bearing smaller leaves and beginning their slow retreat southward, and the species that replaced them were tougher about water deprivation.  

That didn’t make them better houseplants, just by the way; consider how many live-oaks you’ve seen growing indoors, as opposed to those avocado relics. Most of our houseplants, from the spiderplants to the parlor palm, are tropical in origin, and tough in their own ways. The insides of human houses with or without central heating are still hard places for plants to make a living: dark, dry, weirdly tainted with stuff like natural gas that we animals usually tolerate better than they do.  

When you’re cruising guacamole recipes you might run across such oddities as the fact that jaguars like to eat avocados. I suppose I should ask Matt the Cat’s culinary opinion, but he’s hardly of a size to mess with a whole avo, tough hide and all. He’s kind of conservative anyway, not like our long-gone cat Dennis Moore who’d try anything including Doritos. A cat snatching and crunching a Dorito is one of those sights that suggest that we’re all capable of things far beyond what the more sloppy advocates of evolutionary psychology suggest are our fundamental biological boundaries. 

What is it with that big seed, anyway? Did avocados co-evolve with after-dinner gardeners for their seed distribution? Most local critters, including those jaguars, are no more capable of swallowing that seed whole and delivering it unscathed to a new home than old Dennis was of dunking a Dorito into guacamole and eating it without getting crumbs and smears all over the place. Avocados have been cultivated into bearing more of that lovely green stuff in their fruits, but the seeds aren’t bigger than their ancestors’.  

Back to those gomphotheres. They were elephantine in size and habits, and fat-rich avocado fruits would be gourmet tapas to them. They had fellow herbivores and omnivores jostling them at the buffet, including giant ground sloths like the one whose skeleton was turned up during excavation for the downtown Berkeley BART station. If you’re too dainty for a Shattuck or Telegraph Avenue with a few street people, be grateful you’re not sharing sidewalk space with a fur-clad and probably rarely-bathed mammal that stood 20 feet tall and weighed a few tons. It’s unlikely they ever said, “Please.”  

If you have a potted avocado and it’s leaning all over and looking sickly, you have nothing to lose by planting it outdoors somewhere. I knew one on north Berkeley that was regularly mistaken for a big old oak. It’s unlikely but possible that you’ll get good fruit from it; most of those commercial varieties don’t breed true from seed, but that big guy bore avos that were at least as good as a Fuerte. At the least, you’ll get a pretty shade tree, and I can promise you won’t have to worry about attracting giant ground sloths. 

Photograph by Ron Sullivan 

This great old avocado still lives in North Berkeley, but atrocious pruning is killing it.

One of the things I like least about our New Age Of Information Overload is that it seems to have birthed a sort of mix and mismatch trend in journalism in which a reporter—or columnist—does an online Google search of a subject of which they appear to know little, comes across two disparate bits of information that have some tenuous connection, slaps them together, and thereafter loudly announces that they have uncovered a “trend.” As a six-degrees-of-separation parlor game, this can function as an amusing distraction. As a way to conduct our community dialogue on social issues, it can be damaging, leading us into the realm of silliness, when it is seriousness that is called for. 

And so we have the Anneli Rufus “Suffer The Little Children” item in the recent edition coming from our friends at the East Bay Express, in which Ms. Rufus takes to ridicule Mayor Ron Dellums for the selection of a youth rights advocate as the mayor’s new public safety director. I know little about Lenore Anderson, the mayor’s choice, and learn less from Ms. Rufus after she informs us that Ms. Anderson once headed up “the prison-reform nonprofit Books Not Bars.” Included in the column is a quote from the BNB website which says that the organization “engage[s] in grassroots campaigns using media advocacy, policy advocacy, grassroots organizing, and alliance building. Currently, we are working to close California’s abusive, expensive youth prisons and replace them with rehabilitation centers and community-based programs.”  

Beyond that little blurb, Ms. Rufus tells us nothing about the work and goals of the organization that Ms. Anderson actually headed, but quickly moves on to proclaim her “discovery.” Books Not Bars, she informs us, “is one of three projects run by Oakland’s Ella Baker Center for Human Rights. Another is Bay Area Police Watch, devoted to ‘supporting victims and survivors.’ What, of crime? No, silly: of police abuse. Photos on its home page depict protesters whose placards read ‘Stop Killer Cops.’ Who better to occupy a post devoted to liaising among City Hall, neighborhood watch groups, and the OPD?” 

There is such a leap of fact and logic in this one paragraph alone, one has to be truly unafraid of heights to try to follow. We’ll give you some help. 

Books Not Bars and Bay Area Police Watch are two separate organizations, both funded by the Ella Baker Center. Are there connections between the two organizations other than their common funding source? From Ms. Rufus’ column, we don’t know. Does Ms. Anderson—Mr. Dellums’ new Public Safety Director—believe that “Killer Cops” should be stopped, or the victims of police abuse supported? Again, from Ms. Rufus’ column, we don’t know. But the logic of Ms. Rufus’ paragraph is that, first, Bay Area Police Watch is the way she describes it in ten easy words, or less, and second, that Ms. Anderson subscribes to the Bay Area Police Watch goals and views as Ms. Rufus so describes them, and that, therefore, Mr. Dellums ought to be ridiculed for choosing such a person as his Public Safety Director. 

There is another interesting bit in the above paragraph, that the post to which Ms. Anderson is appointed is “devoted to liaising among City Hall, neighborhood watch groups, and the OPD?” We will return to that in a moment. 

Meanwhile, Ms. Rufus’ trial of Ms. Anderson by innuendo gets considerably worse, devolving quickly into the realm of haste and slop. 

Ms. Rufus goes on to say that “unsurprisingly” (as if she has already proven the point she has been trying to make) “Infoshop, Indybay, and anarchist groups link to Anderson’s BNB memos, as does PrisonActivist.com, which also links helpfully to BoycottIsraeliGoods.com, Mumia.org, and IraqIntifada.com. (Indybay files an Anderson piece under ‘California: Police State.’)” 

Do the websites BoycottIsraeliGoods.com, Mumia.org, and IraqIntifada.com reprint articles by Ms. Anderson, or do they merely link to PrisonActivist.com, which, in turn, links to one of Ms. Anderson’s BNB memos? We cannot tell from the way Ms. Rufus’ paragraph is written. Further, while the version of the Rufus column in the online Express includes links to PrisonActivist.com, BoycottIsraeliGoods.com, Mumia.org, and IraqIntifada.com, they are to the respective websites’ main pages, not to any particular article or offering of Ms. Anderson. Neither does the column provide a link to the particular Anderson piece which IndyBay filed under “California: Police State” so that we could actually see what Ms. Anderson herself wrote, rather than how IndyBay characterized what Ms. Anderson wrote. And, most breathtakingly, though Ms. Rufus devotes an entire paragraph to how other news organizations and agencies have linked to articles written for Books Not Bars by Ms. Anderson, Ms. Rufus’ column fails to do so. 

We are left with the impression that somehow Ms. Anderson is linked to Iraq terrorists and the murder of innocents, the kind of “fellow traveler” argument that Wisconsin U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy used to keep in his pocket while roaming the Senate floor. 

But these instances of innuendo, for which Ms. Rufus must bear the cross alone, mask a misconception that, unfortunately, is shared by a greater section of the public. 

The misconception is that we will work our way out of the problem of violent crime in Oakland by law-and-order means alone and that, therefore, the person hired by Mr. Dellums to be his Public Safety Director needs to be a law-and-order professional. 

But Mr. Dellums already has a law-and-order professional. His name is Wayne Tucker, and he is the chief of the City of Oakland’s law-and-order enforcement agency, the Oakland Police Department. By all accounts, Mr. Tucker is a competent professional in his field, in whom the mayor has confidence, with whom the mayor shares good relationships, and who articulates and advocates the police professional point of view within the Dellums Administration. Mr. Tucker already serves as the police liaison with many of Oakland’s disparate organizations—meeting regularly, for instance, with the police watchdog group PUEBLO—so hiring a Public Safety Director who duplicated his police professional point of view would appear to be both a waste of city money and an undercutting of the chief. 

In hiring Ms. Anderson, Mr. Dellums appears to be going in a different direction, that the problems of violent crime in Oakland are not merely law-and-order problems but stem from larger societal causes, and that turning our attention to identifying those causes and attacking and solving them needs to occupy some measure of our attention. 

Here we return, as promised, to Ms. Rufus’ contention that the Ms. Anderson’s new position as Public Safety Director is “devoted to liaising among City Hall, neighborhood watch groups, and the OPD?” 

This is the narrowest possible view one can take of “public safety, of course, in that it involves, solely, law enforcement. Implicit, also, in Ms. Rufus’ formation is that the community groups who need to be “liaison” with for the purpose of law enforcement are the neighborhood watch groups. Purposely or unpurposely, the rest of Oakland is left out. 

And one of the groups most distinctly left out is Oakland’s mid-teens to mid-twenties youth, that portion of our city who you rarely see represented in the neighborhood watch meetings. 

One of the features of Oakland’s current wave of violent crime is that it is this group of Oakland citizens—mid-teen to mid-twenties youth—who compromise major percentages of both the victims and the perpetrators. It would seem that to have any chance of success, any rationale attempt at a solution to Oakland’s violence ought to involve young people in several different ways. Unfortunately, in too many ways, Oakland treats them as outsiders, whose names and histories we spread across our newspapers or television screens when either they shoot or are shot at, but whose opinions on the subject we largely ignore. 

There are some exceptions. For three years, Councilmember Desley Brooks has been holding what she calls “liberation concerts” at Arroyo Viejo Park in the heart of one of Oakland’s fiercest killing zones. The concerts are a four-a-year series of free music events in which residents of the neighborhood surrounding the park are invited to come. When the concerts were first held in 2005, there was considerable worry that they would become magnets for youth violence, as did Mosswood Park’s Carijama some years before. There was considerable police presence and the acts booked by promoter D’wayne Wiggins were distinctly old school, Lennie Williams, Rose Royce and the like, none of them directed at the youth crowd. 

Much has changed since then. 

Wiggins—the resident East Oakland music wiz who once formed a third of the national group Tony Toni Toné—has gradually integrated local rap and hip hop groups as opening acts, bringing out a larger number of young people as time has passed. The emcee often plays up the intergenerational rivalry, first inviting the older folks to dance in the open grassy area in front of the raised band platform, subsequently exhorting the young folks to come up to “show your parents how it’s done.” In this way, gradually, the youth have slipped into what seems to be their natural societal role at these events, neither shunned nor “stars,” but simply part of a continuum. 

Another thing that has changed has been the police presence. Gone are the lineups of booted patrolman standing under the trees to watch for problems, the squadron of cars parked on the sidestreets waiting to take perpetrators on the highway up to the county jail in San Leandro. At the last concert this year, featuring the Ohio Players, two officers wandered by, stood around for a couple of minutes, apparently saw nothing that needed their attention, and took off. Their presence has long ago been replaced by members of Minister Keith Muhammad’s Fruit of Islam security, men who come from the same or similar communities, who see their jobs as providing a safe space for the people who have come out to enjoy the music, and who treat problems with a polite firmness that gives respect, and therefore almost always gets respect back, in return. Too often—such as at Carijama, such as in the last days of the Festival of the Lake—the very efforts used by police officers to quell crowd violence only fuel and escalate it, thus compounding a problem they are supposed to be solving. 

And at the Arroyo liberation concerts there have been no problems. No shootings. No arguments. No arrests. 

That example is what Mr. Dellums appears to be aiming towards, in selecting a director of public safety, going after the causes of violence, rather than merely arresting the violent. I hope the mayor’s selection gets judged on its own terms. 

At the turn of the last century, wharves, lumber mills, farms, breweries, tanneries, and Victorian residences dotted West Berkeley. The largest employer south of University Avenue was the Standard Soap Company, which had occupied half a block between the bay shore and Third Street north of Allston Way since 1876. 

The San Francisco earthquake and fire profoundly changed the area’s character, filling it with industrial plants. Across the railroad from Standard Soap, the Van Emon Elevator Company built a factory taking up a quarter of a block on the corner of Third St. and Allston Way. Incongruously, the adjacent property was the flower nursery of Joseph Antoine Boirard, a Frenchman who had lived at 2216 4th Street since 1892 or ’93 and would still be there in 1930. 

Boirard was not the first nurseryman in the area. On the next block to the east, John Anthony Carbone (1865–1946) had been growing roses since 1888. 

Carbone, who would gain fame as the Orchid King of the West, was born in Turin, northern Italy. His father was a gardener, and young Giovanni worked with plants from an early age. In an interview he gave in 1937, Carbone said that he followed his older brother—also a horticulturist—to Chicago in 1883. Soon he was engaged to work on the estate of Lucien Scott in Leavenworth, Kansas. A banking, coal, and railroad tycoon, Scott bought the house—now home of the Leavenworth County Historical Society—in 1882 for $5,200 and spent $50,000 on turning it into a mansion. When Scott sold the estate in 1887, Carbone said, he moved to New York City and worked in Central Park. He neglected to mention that while in Kansas, he was a partner in a flower shop called Carbone and Monti. 

Having heard enticing tales of California, Carbone went west and landed in Berkeley. He was first listed in the directory in 1889 as nurseryman, resident at Allston Way between Fourth and Fifth Streets. By 1892, he had bought three lots on the corner of Fifth St. and Allston Way, which were registered in the name of Margaret B. Carbone, believed to have been the first of his three wives. 

Practically nothing is known about Margaret Carbone. John Carbone was already divorced in 1900, but both he and Margaret may have lived under the same roof at 2200 Fifth St. until 1903 or ’04, when John built 2216 Fifth Street. Margaret maintained her residence in the original house until 1909 and her ownership of the three lots until 1911 or so. 

Why the Carbones divorced is not clear, but John Carbone’s roving eye might have played a role in the separation. In 1902, Carbone married Aurelia Sturla Cassinelli, who was divorced in 1900 by her first husband, Giovanni Cassinelli, also a gardener, on grounds of desertion. 

In its early years, the Carbone nursery specialized in roses and chrysanthemums. As carnations became fashionable, Carbone made them his specialty. The 1903 Sanborn fire insurance map labeled the business West Berkeley Rose Nursery. At the time, it occupied seven lots between Fourth and Fifth Streets. In a southwestern corner of the nursery, one small greenhouse contained a large heater. This may have been the kernel of what would become the largest orchid nursery on the West Coast. 

In 1937, Carbone told an interviewer that he had become fascinated with the idea of importing and growing orchids a few years before the San Francisco fire. By then, he was prosperous enough to undertake such an expensive enterprise, which could at times require an outlay of several thousand dollars for a single plant. In 1917, he would make news by selling a Brassocattleya he had grown from seed and named Queen of California for the record sum of $2,500. The buyer was Charles M. Ward of Eureka, known as the “Tulip Baron of Humboldt County.” 

Carbone’s growing prosperity was evidenced by the land he had accumulated. Like his friend and neighbor Simone Marengo—the founder of the West Berkeley Macaroni Factory who had increased his holdings on Sixth Street immediately after the earthquake—Carbone owned by 1907 seven lots on his block, not counting the three lots still owned by Margaret Carbone and occupied by his nursery. 

No complete photograph remains of the Carbone home at 2216 Fifth Street, long since demolished. Like most of the houses in the neighborhood, it was a two-story Victorian, although the prevailing home-building fashions in other parts of Berkeley at the time tended to Colonial Revival or Craftsman. In this house Aurelia gave birth to Carlo (1904), Melvin (1905), Inez (1908), and John, Jr. (1910). 

The Carbone boys were trained early to lend a hand in the nursery, and several gardeners employed by Carbone usually lived with the family. One of these was John’s elderly uncle Carlo Dughera, who from 1907 until 1914 and again from 1915 until his death in 1924 resided and worked with the Carbones. 

At the Panama-Pacific Exposition of 1915, the Carbone exhibit, showing off more than 80 orchid varieties, was judged Best in Show. In addition to the gold medal for overall exhibit, Carbone received four first prizes for individual orchid cultivars. He would continue exhibiting at all the major horticultural shows over the next thirty years, consistently winning top honors. 

As Carbone’s prestige grew, he became active in civic affairs, rubbing shoulders with Berkeley’s most important citizens. When the Chamber of Commerce moved into its new quarters in June 1913, Carbone contributed flowers for the opening reception. In 1917, when the American Red Cross mounted a nationwide campaign to raise a 100-million-dollar war fund, Carbone was one of the vice-presidents in the Berkeley effort alongside leading figures such as Benjamin Ide Wheeler, mayor Samuel C. Irving, Frank Wilson, John Hinkel, Stephen J. Sill, Redmond C. Staats, Duncan McDuffie, Bernard Maybeck, David P. Barrows, and August Wollmer. 

One undated newspaper article reported that Carbone had given the city 800 Ulrich Brunner rose plants, “to be used in such manner as the park commission directs.” 

One person who was not altogether delighted with John Carbone was his wife Aurelia. On April 13, 1924, the Oakland Tribune reported, “After a court battle lasting most of the day, during which florists from Oakland, Berkeley and Alameda were in attendance, Mrs. Aurelia Carbone was granted temporary alimony of $275 pending the trial of her divorce suit against John Carbone, ‘orchid king’ of Berkeley.” 

It wasn’t until Nov. 21 of that year that the suit was tried and its cause came to light. Mrs. Carbone accused her 59-year-old husband of dallying with his stenographer. The marriage was dissolved, and Mrs. Carbone moved to an apartment on Dowling Place with her two younger children. 

John Carbone was married a third time, but not to his stenographer. His best friend, Simone Marengo, was widowed in 1922, and three years later married Maria Barbieri, a woman nearly 30 years his junior who had recently arrived from Italy. At the Marengo house, Carbone saw the photo of a young woman—Maria’s friend in Italy—and initiated a correspondence with her, eventually paying her way to Berkeley as his fiancée. 

Francesca Bertuzzo (1898–1957), the daughter of Italians who had migrated to Brazil in the 19th century, was born on a coffee plantation in Itapira, São Paulo. Having returned to Italy, the family was living in the Ligurian port town of La Spezia, where Francesca ran a laundry whose main client was the navy. This curriculum vitae apparently was insufficiently exotic for the Oakland Tribune, which featured a photo of the bride on April 7, 1928, describing her as the daughter of a Brazilian orchid collector. 

Francesca and John Carbone produced one child, Louise Eliza, who was born in February 1929, on the same day that her father purchased three acres for a new nursery on Woodmont Avenue, overlooking Wildcat Canyon. 

By 1929, West Berkeley was no longer a suitable place for growing prize orchids. A block to the west on Third Street, the Solano Iron Works, the Triangle Paint Company, the Westinghouse/Sturtevant fan-manufacturing plant, and the Armco drainage products plant were polluting the air. Carbone leased his Fifth St. facility to the C. & A. Warren Nursery and decamped for Woodmont Ave., where two notable iris specialists—horticulturist Carl Salbach and U.C. professor Sydney Bancroft Mitchell—were already established. 

The family continued living at 2216 Fifth St. until 1937, when contractor Giovanni Battista Faramia built them a Mediterranean-style house at 571 Woodmont Avenue. The house still stands, although it’s been remodeled and enlarged twice by subsequent owners. 

When John Carbone died at the age of 80, he was honored by the City Council and the Rotary Club. Among his honorary pall bearers were city manager Gerrit Vander Ende and fire chief William Meinheit. Exactly a week after his death, his son Melvin was killed in a car crash. Thereafter, John, Jr. managed the nursery until his retirement in 1959, when the business was taken over by the youngest child, Louise Carbone Colombatto, and Melvin’s son, Mel Jr. 

With demand for cut flowers steadily declining, greenhouses showing their age, and heating bills soaring, the family decided to close the nursery. The land was sold to a developer and subdivided for house lots. 

Remaining are the showy cultivar Cattleya J.A. Carbone and numerous hybrids developed from it by several generations of horticulturists. 

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

This past Sunday I got a bargain, a cymbidium orchid in a gallon pot for five dollars. Nice healthy-looking thing, too. If I’d been willing to stagger around the crowded Sycamore Congregational Church bazaar conking innocent children on the head with a bigger pot, I could’ve had even more bargains.  

We’d spent most of our walking-around money on food anyway, and after watching a performance by a kickass taiko group whose lead drummer is 80 years old, I was inclined to mind my manners. Five bucks for a healthy cymbidium? That’s enough reward for one day. That’s also one more plant to shoehorn onto a crowded front porch.  

But the real reason I couldn’t resist this one frivolous expense was the cultivar’s name: ‘Claude Pepper.’ My goodness, doesn’t that bring back fond memories? 

Claude Pepper, aside from having a name to conjure with, was a U.S. senator and later a member of the House of Representatives, an unusual career sequence in itself. He represented Florida, worked on senior citizens’ issues among other big deals, and died in the saddle in 1989. The best story about him, though, isn’t exactly about him and, alas, probably never happened. 

In 1950 he lost the Democratic primary race to George Smathers. Smathers probably did not give the speech credited to him that included: “Are you aware that Claude Pepper is known all over Washington as a shameless extrovert? Not only that, but this man is reliably reported to practice nepotism with his sister-in-law, and he has a sister who was once a thespian in wicked New York. Worst of all, it is an established fact that Mr. Pepper, before his marriage, habitually practiced celibacy.” 

So. Theoretically the flower color will be deep deep wine-red—cymbidiums normally run to shades of white, cream, yellow, dark crimson, and maroon—and I don’t know how well it will perform, though obviously someone in El Cerrito has had enough success to divide and propagate some dozen plants, at least, for this fair—but I’m now the proud guardian of a Cymbidium X ‘Claude Pepper’.  

Cymbidium orchids are among the few that prosper outdoors here; they’re mostly from high, temperate places in south Asia. They do need to be outdoors here; dry indoor air will shrivel them. They want shade and shelter from serious frost, though they need a little sun to bloom. There’s a nice foundation planting of them across the street from me, up against the north wall of a house where they benefit from its thermal mass and the eaves over them.  

Look for a plant that’s mostly green, though a brown “back bulb” or two is actually OK. Give regular water and good drainage; feed with orchid food in summer if you want a shortcut through nutritional jargon, and cut off the last flower spikes—whose blooms last for weeks!—before the last flower opens, for more bloom next year.  

Amateur sales like this, at fairs and street parties and garden clubs, are a great source of healthy cheap plants. Keep your eyes open for flyers and banners in playgrounds, and bring a handled bag for schlepping.  

If you stop and think about it, the notion that old houses are better is just as silly as the notion that new houses are better. The truth is that both things are true. Older houses are better in some way and newer houses are better in others. Construction is fraught with misconceptions. Another one is that the framing or “bones” of old houses is better than that of newer ones.  

While it’s certainly true that our older housing stock has, within its walls, some of the best timber ever permitted cut dried for these purposes, the manner in which they are conjoined is inferior to current methods and come the next earthquake, I’d rather be in a house that had been built last year than one built in 1920. Of course, one can take the older house and add the hardware that the newer house has and also withstand the big one when it arrives (which is my idea of the perfect house). 

In recent years, the housing industry has gotten itself in some deep you-know-what as a result of one of its greatest successes, the perfection of the tight house. Houses in the last 20 years have been pushed to such low porosities (the rate at which moisture or gases pass through them) that they lose nary a Therm (a unit of heat measurement). While the goal of making houses energy efficient is a brave and worthy one, the consequences of living in these wooden vacuum bottles are growing more apparent every day. Too many of them are rotting away and sometimes in a matter of months. O.K., I’m being a bit hyperbolic but it IS true that massive fungal infestations are being found in many of this new class of house all across the country but particularly in those areas where humidities run high.  

Understanding how ventilation works and how moisture moves with air is becoming an important aspect of architecture, building inspection and construction as we all try to respond to this nasty bit of news.  

So, why is this happening and what changed. In short, older houses evaded these moisture related problems by leaking. They leaked air, they leaked moisture, they leaked heat. Apparently, this was not so much of a problem as we had formerly thought! Leaking, it turns out, is a good thing, but as with our initial premise, it’s also bad. It depends on what you’re testing for and what you want.  

If you want a house that has a good “drying potential” (the ability to dry out quickly after leaks occur) you get a big thumbs-up. If you want a house that’s going to hold onto a given amount of heat for any length of time, it’s thumbs down. 

A large number of mold-related cases in the recent past have involved newer, tighter houses. Like huge colonies of Stachybotrys chartarum (the favorite of the legal community), these cases having been growing exponentially and are flooding the courts in increasing numbers and all because people, including those in the construction community, fail to understand some basic (and not-so-basic) things about how buildings work. 

If you create a tightly sealed environment, one that does not dry out quickly, and you allow a little water to leak into it through a shoddily built wall, you can end up with water sitting for an extended time inside something not all that different from a cardboard box. Get the picture. 

Actually, this whole problem is even worse with newer houses because the wood products used in most newer homes are so much more digestible than those in older homes that the rate at which they get consumed by fungi can be impressive. 

So all around, it’s a bad scene and if you own a relatively new house the word is simple, keep the water out, period. If you see any sign of leakage, have it fixed properly and quickly. 

Now, let’s get back to our older home. If an older house, with its high porosity, leaks at a window, a roof or right though a wall, the water hangs around for a much shorter period and the likelihood of a mold or other fungal problem (molds ARE funguses) is greatly reduced. 

Older homes and most newer ones as well, were, and are, designed to allow air to pass under them as well as through attic spaces. This does a range of good things for us but none so good as the removal of damp air and replacement with dryer air. In places where Radon is of concern (and this is generally low in our area), the exchange of air also helps to remove this potent carcinogen (second only to cigarettes in lung cancer deaths at around 20,000 per year). 

If it’s wet under your house, some of that water is going to evaporate and find it’s way into the structure. In houses where crawlspace ventilation is poor, there is consistently more fungal growth (molds included). In houses where enough ventilation is provided, the presence of destructive fungi is much lower and usually the result of a leak from plumbing or from rain entry. 

Ventilation is also something that’s easy and cheap to provide. Crawlspace vents are really nothing more than a series of holes though the sides of the house below floor level that allow air to flow through the crawlspace.  

These vents require screening for the sole reason that critters of various sizes and nastinesses favor the space below your house for their dinner parties (“another grub, Madam?”), romantic liaisons (“You smell like rat, my darling. Come to me now”) and infant deliveries (“Look honey, Octuplets!”). The ideal screening is heavily galvanized steel mesh. This is available a range of pre-cut and framed shapes that can be installed quite easily. If you’re adding ventilation because you are aware of the moisture in the crawlspace, I would also recommend adding a plastic barrier laid directly upon the soil. This helps control moisture and requires no sophisticated installation. 

Ventilation requirements in new construction vary but are generally around 1 square foot for every 150 square feet of crawlspace. This means that most houses I see required around eight square feet or around 16 vents distributed around the house (they’re typically a square foot each). Vents do the most good when the wind can get to them so vents that are close to fence or blocked by bushes should be considered to have less value. If you’re adding them, try to place them where they’re more likely to create cross-ventilation. 

It’s worth noting that very few houses meet this requirement and many would clearly benefit from their introduction. Recent codes have allowed a radical reduction in the ventilation requirement for houses (one square foot per 1500 square feet) when vapor barriers are properly installed and where the vents are placed near the corners for improved draft.  

My personal take is that this is short-sighted and that when moisture is present, all the big guns should be brought out and used. If a house is essentially dry underneath, I’m fine to see this radical reduction in ventilation but in crawlspaces where we know it’s been getting wet, adding loads of ventilation as well as vapor barriers is cheap and sensible and there’s really no good reason to avoid it, unless, of course, you happen to like things wet and slimy, but hey, knock your amphibian-like self out. 

Is Your Child’s School Prepared? 

If you have children or grandchildren, you’ll want to check with the school and see what preparations have been made in the event of a serious earthquake. Schools should expect that some parents may not physically be able to pick their child up after a quake (think impassable roads). They are prepared with food, water, first aid, and sanitary necessities, knowing that some of the kids may well need to spend the night at school. 

There should also be a plan of action which involves sharing information with the parents. 

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

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

Jane Powell is a bungalow and old house zealot. Every community should be lucky to have even one person like her. 

As she writes in Bungalow Details: Interiors, “when I see some old house that has been neglected or abused, I literally begin to twitch, I get a rush of adrenaline, my mind starts going a mile a minute with plans for what needs to be done…” 

If you live in a bungalow, or like bungalows, or just like old houses in general, do yourself a favor and go to her evening talk Thursday, Sept. 27. No one I can think of knows more, both practical and esoteric, about these houses than Jane Powell and she’s enthusiastically willing to share. 

Her lecture, at Berkeley’s historic Hillside Club, is the last in a four-part series exploring the history and built character of Berkeley, organized by Arlene Baxter, president of the Berkeley Association of Realtors.  

“Jane Powell answers the question, What is a bungalow?, exploring the history of bungalows, their relation to the broader Arts & Crafts Movement, and why they have become popular again in the 21st century,” the lecture publicity promises. 

The term “bungalow” originated with the housing British colonials built in a concession to tropical and subtropical climates. Single-floor dwellings with wide, overhanging roofs, large porches, and open, airy, floor plans were all adaptable to local conditions and building materials. 

The style arrived in the United States in the late 19th century and flourished up through World War I, until displaced by “Period Revival” architecture (think Mission Revival or Mock Tudor). 

What’s the detailed definition of a bungalow? The Oakland-based Powell has written that it’s “fundamentally rather complicated.” 

But a few frequently seen characteristics include a single floor (often, though, with extra rooms tucked under a gabled roof), wide roof eaves, a generous front porch, and an interior that de-emphasizes hallways and staircases in favor of rooms that flow into each other. 

Many, if not most, bungalows were inexpensive to build and affordable to buy when new, but even the most humble can contain superb examples of craftsmanship and design that still delight owners and their guests. 

They were also modern, with electricity, indoor plumbing, gas in some cases, and very up to date and functional kitchens and bathrooms.  

Where you see one bungalow there are often twins, triplets, a dozen, or a score. Many bungalows were built as part of “tract” or “suburban” developments as streetcar lines and road improvements opened up convenient access to areas beyond the 19th century urban core. 

In the Bay Area, Oakland and Alameda have many bungalows and some neighborhoods like Rockridge are just thick with them. Berkeley’s bungalows are perhaps fewer and more scattered, but they are here. 

Original bungalows are now quite venerable and, as is often the case with the aged, they’ve been subjected over the decades to efforts of the young to improve or even remove them. 

As early as the 1930 and 1940s houses in the Bay Area, including some bungalows, were being “modernized” with features such as garages burrowed beneath the front façade and exteriors mummified in featureless stucco. 

In the ‘50s and ‘60s, “remodels” often meant atrocities of asbestos siding, painted-over woodwork, brick and tile, acoustic ceilings, aluminum windows, torn out built-ins, or big sculptural porch columns replaced with spindly metal posts. 

In more recent years popular “updates” have included vinyl windows, rears of bungalows demolished or gutted beyond recognition for the creation of “great rooms” and “chef’s kitchens,” and huge master suite additions atop small houses like overloaded baggage on a camel. 

Improper remodeling and disrespectful treatment of bungalows are passionate themes for Powell, sort of bungalow bugaboos. She’s a leading, emphatic, proponent of keeping the character of bungalows intact. 

“Updating” all or part of a house in some trendy current style imposed on top of or in place of the original character simply means the remodel will come, in time, to appear outdated as well. If you doubt this, think of the last refreshing, exciting, modern-looking 1970s kitchen you visited.  

Powell argues in her writing that if you buy a nice old house, however worn and battered, you should feel some obligation to retain, or restore, its character, rather than altering everything. Don’t try to radically change a house you don’t like or that doesn’t “suit your needs”; perhaps even consider buying a house you do like. 

This is not to say some interventions, such as upgrades to mechanical systems or room additions, shouldn’t be done, but they should be as contextual as possible. 

One of things that makes Jane Powell an excellent resource is that she has extensive experience actually working on local bungalows—from stripping paint, to getting permits, to finding the right door hardware—rather than simply a theoretical knowledge.  

She’s bought and renovated several, advised on others, and written several books that should be in the home library of every bungalow owner. 

Her books outline the proper approach and outcome for each bungalow project, but also offer options of “Obsessive Restoration” (do it like they did it back then, with the same materials and processes) or “Compromise Solution” (that still fits in well, but substitutes modern materials or techniques). 

She also has a great turn of phase. An example from Bungalow Interiors: 

“Many people tell me they never use their dining room and I always reply, ‘Why? Is there a force field around it?’ Even if you don’t eat there, it makes a fabulous library.” Or this chapter heading about bungalow heating upgrades, “Many are cold, but few are frozen.” 

Every page of a Powell book offers some well researched, interesting, insight or practical advice. I hope her lecture will be the same. Afterwards, as at past lectures in the series, there should be great cookies, and an opportunity to buy books at a discount and get them signed.

TUESDAY, SEPT. 25 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Wash, Rinse, Repeat ... Repeat” Exhibition of works by women artists. Reception at 4 p.m. at the Worth Ryder Gallery, Kroeber Hall, Bancroft at College. Exhibition runs to Oct. 12.  

FILM 

“Bella Bella” A film by Elizabeth Sher premiers at 7:30 p.m. at the Berkeley Art Center, Live Oak Park, followed by a discussion with the filmmaker and the Sculptor Bella Feldman. Tickets are $8-$10. 644.6893. 

“Home Movies: Autobiographical Films by Women” at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $5.50-$9.50. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Poetry Flash with Willis Barnstone and Steven Nightengale at 7:30 p.m. at Berkeley City College auditorium, 2050 Center St. 525-5476. 

Readings from Viz Inter-Arts, a trans-genre anthology at 7:30 p.m. at Moe’s Books, 2476 Telegraph Ave. 849-2087. 

Erika Mailman introduces “The Witch’s Trinity” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Creole Belles 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. Cost is $5. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

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

Times 4 at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $10. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

Jazzschool Tuesdays, a weekly showcase of up-and-coming ensembles from Berkeley Jazzschool at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 843-8277. 

WEDNESDAY, SEPT. 26 

THEATER 

Seldom Seen Acting Company Homeless actors share their life stories at 10:30 a.m. at St. Vincent de Paul Center, 2272 San Pablo Ave., Oakland. 636-4255. 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Strictly Speaking with Garry Wills author of “Lincoln at Gettysburg” at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $10-$20. 642-9988. www.calperfs.berkeley.edu 

“Writing Teachers Write” with Sharon Coleman and Richard Silberg at 5 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

Alice Medrich describes “Pure Dessert: True Flavors, Inspiring Ingredients, and Simple Recipes” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. 

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

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Jazz Masters Concert with Café American, gypsy jazz, at noon at 12th and Broadway, Oakland.  

Wednesday Noon Concert, with University Symphony Orchestra at Hertz Hall, UC Campus. Free. 642-4864. http://music.berkeley.edu 

UC Jazz Ensembles at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $6. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Tamsen Donner Band at 8:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. West Coast swing dance lesson at 7:30 p.m. Cost is $10. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

La Verdad 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.  

The Flux at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 843-8277. 

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

Robben Ford at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $24-$28. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

THURSDAY, SEPT. 27 

EXHIBITIONS 

“One Way or Another: Asian American Art Now” Guided tour at 12:15 and 5:30 p.m.at Berkeley Art Museum, 2626 Bancroft. Cost is $5.50-$9.50. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

“Heading North: Journey to Atacama Desert, Chile” Photographs by Thea Bellos, at La Peña Cultural Center, 3105 Shattuck Ave. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

“The Sacred in the Mundane” works by Pauletta M. Chanco at 5:30 p.m. at Joyce Gordon Gallery, 406 14th St., Oakland. 465-8928. 

Berkeley’s “Other” Revolution: Celebrating 35 Years of Independent Living, Disability Access, and Disability Rights. Photographs by Ken Stein on display in the windows of Rasputin Music, 2401 Telegraph Ave., between Channing Way and Haste, to Nov. 15. 525-2325. 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

“Bungalows: The Ultimate Arts & Crafts Home” with author Jane Powell at 7:30 p.m. at the Hillside Club. Cost is $20. For reservations call 848-4288. 

Sam Quinones and Gustavo Arellano talk about their books and the issues of migration and immigration, at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. www.codysbooks.com 

Jane Smiley, Pam Houston and Lynn Freed read essays from “The Other Woman: Twnty-One Wives, Lovers, and Others Talk Openly About Sex, Deception, Love and Betrayal” at 7:30 p.m. at Mrs. Dalloways, 2904 College Ave. 704-8222. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

New Century Chamber Orchestra with guest concertmaster Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg at 8 p.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. Tickets are $28-$42. 415-357-1111. www.ncco.org 

“Exilio: Creating Home Away from Home” Chilean art, music and poetry Thurs. and Fri. at 7 p.m. at La Peña. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

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

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

Franco Nero, Joseph’s Bones, Guerilla Hi-Fi at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $6. 841-2082 www.starryploughpub.com 

Robben Ford at 8 and 10 p.m., through Sun. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $24-$28. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

FRIDAY, SEPT. 28 

THEATER 

Altarena Playhouse “Urinetown, The Musical” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 p.m. at 1409 High St., Alameda, through Oct. 6. Tickets are $17-$20. 523-1553. www.altarena.org 

Aurora Theatre “Hysteria” Wed.-Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 and 7 p.m. at 2081 Addison St., through Sept. 30. Tickets are $40-$42. 843-4822. www.auroratheatre.org 

California Shakespeare Theater “King Lear” at the Bruns Ampitheater, 100 Gateway Blvd., Orinda, through Oct. 14. Tickets are $15-$60. 548-9666. www.calshakes.org 

Contra Costa Civic Theatre “Rumors” by Neil Simon, Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m., selected Sundays at 2 p.m. at 951 Pomona Ave. at Moeser, El Cerrito, through Oct. 14. Tickets are $11-$18. 655-8974. www.cct.org 

Impact Theatre “Sleepy” Thurs.-Sat. at 8 p.m. at La Val’s Subterranean, 1834 Euclid Ave., through Oct. 13. Tickets are $10-$15. 464-4468. 

Masquers Playhouse “The Shadow Box” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m., selected Sun. matinees, at 105 Park Place, Point Richmond. Runs through Sept. 29. This show is not recommended for children. Tickets are $15. 232-4031. www.masquers.org 

Ragged Wing Ensemble “Alice in Wonderland” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m. at Envision Academy, 1515 Webster St., Oakland, through Oct. 13. Tickets are $15-$30. 800-838-3006. www.raggedwing.org 

Shotgun Players “Bulrusher” Thurs.-Sun. at 8 p.m. at the Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby Ave. through Oct. 28. Tickets are $17-$25. For reservations call 841-6500. www.shotgunplayers.org 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Needle Lace: Borne of Thread and Air” featuring needle lace from the 16th through the 20th centuries. Opening reception at 6 p.m. at Lacis Museum of Lace and Textiles, 2982 Adeline St. 843-7290. http://lacismuseum.org 

“Wonderland, A Fairytale of the Soviet Monolith” Black and white photographs by Jason Eskenazion. Reception at 5 p.m., artist talk at 6 p.m. at the Graduate School of Journalism, North Gate Hall, UC Campus. 

FILM 

Girls Will Be Boys “Little Old New York” at 6:30 p.m. and “Queen Christina” at 9 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $5.50-$9.50. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

Vintage Films: “Safety Last!” at 1 and 7 p.m. at Piedmont Cinema, 4186 Piedmont Ave., Oakland. 464-5980. 

Midnight Movies “The Sandlot” Fri. and Sat. at midnight at Piedmont Cinema, 4186 Piedmont Ave., Oakland. Cost is $8. 464-5980. 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Denise Uyehara on “Shedding Light: Performance and Illumination at 7 p.m. at the Berkeley Art Museum, 2626 Bancroft Way, enter on Durant. 642-0808. 

Naomi Klein describes “The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism” at 8 p.m. at First Congregational Church of Oakland, 2701 Harrison St. at 27th. Tickets are $10-$13. 559-9500. www.codysbooks.com  

Parthenon West Review, new issue release party with readings by contributing poets at 7:30 p.m. at Pegasus Books Downtown, 2349 Shattuck Ave. 649-1320. claybanes@gmail.com 

“California Indian Songs and Stories” with Linda Yamane (Rumsien Ohlone), Mike Mirelez (Desert Cahuilla), Ron Goode (North Fork Mono), Clarence Hostler (Hupa/Yurok/Karuk), and Charlie Thom (Karuk) at 7:30 p.m. at Bancroft Hotel, 2680 Bancroft Way. Free, but RSVP requested 549-3564, ext. 316. lillian@heydaybooks.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Global Drum Project with Mickey Hart, Zakir Hussain, Siriru Adepoju and Giovanni Hidalgo at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $24-$52. 642-9988. www.calperfs.berkeley.edu 

University Symphony Orchestra at 8 p.m. at Hertz Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $4-$12.. 642-4864. http://music.berkeley.edu 

“Exilio: Creating Home Away from Home” Chilean art, music and poetry at 7 p.m. at La Peña. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Rova Saxophone Quartet at 8 p.m. at The Berkeley Hillside Club, 2286 Cedar St. Cost is $10-$15. 845-1350. 

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

The Vowel Movement, beatboxing, at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $10. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

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

John Pallowich with the Danny Mertens Trio at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $10. 845-5373. www.jazzschool.com 

Sleepy Boy Moe and Adam Balbo at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

77 El Dora, Burning Embers, Tom Armstrong at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $7. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

What It Is at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 843-8277. 

SATURDAY, SEPT. 29 

CHILDREN  

Active Arts Theatre for Young Audiences “James and the Giant Peach” Sat. and Sun. at 2 p.m. at Julia Morgan Center for the Arts, 2640 College Ave. Tickets are $14-$18. 925-798-1300. 

“Pinocchio: The Hip-Hopera” Sat. and Sun. at 1:30 and 2:30 p.m. at Children’s Fairyland, 699 Bellevue Ave. 452-2259 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Tides and Trees” works by Jill Bliss. Artist reception at 7 p.m. at Relish at Home, 2703 7th Street, Ste #112. 981-9400. 

FILM 

Girls Will Be Boys “Little Lord Fauntleroy” at 3 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $5.50-$9.50. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

Vintage Films: “His Girl Friday” at 2 and 7 p.m. at Piedmont Cinema, 4186 Piedmont Ave., Oakland. 464-5980. 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Louise Dunlap describes “Undoing the Silence: Six Tools for Social Change Writing” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Patricia Barber, jazz vocalist and pianist at 8 p.m. at Wheeler Auditorium, UC Campus. Tickets are $20. 642-9988. www.calperfs.berkeley.edu 

University Symphony Orchestra at 8 p.m. at Hertz Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $4-$12. 642-4864. http://music.berkeley.edu 

Hopkinson Smith, solo lute, “For Pope and King” works of Francesco da Milano and John Dowland at 8 p.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College at Garber. Tickets are $10-$25. 528-1725. www.sfems.org 

Mike Glendinning, guitar, at noon at Cafe Zeste, 1250 Addison St. at Bonar, in the Strawberry Creek Park complex. 704-9378. 

Akosua, Ghanaian-American singer-songwriter at 8 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $10-$12. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

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

Fiesta Brasileira with Omo Aiye, Mestre Acordeon & Corpo Santo Capoeira Group and others at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $10-$12. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com  

Dave Lionelli and Ronnie Cato at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

Socket at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 843-8277. 

Jami Sieber & Kim Rosen at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761.  

Happy Hour at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $15-$18. 845-5373. www.jazzschool.com 

Eliot Randall & Chris Volpe at 8 p.m. at Spuds Pizza, 3290 Adeline St. Cost is $7. 558-0881. 

Royal Hawaiian Serenaders at 9 p.m. at Temple Bar Tiki Bar, 984 University Ave. 548-9888. 

The Bye Bye Blackbirds, Statuesque, The Family Arsenal at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Free. 841-2082.  

Maya Kronfeld Trio, jazz, at 9 p.m. at Downtown, 2102 Shattuck Ave. 649-3810.  

SUNDAY, SEPT. 30 

CHILDREN 

Farm Stories and Songs with Tara Reinertson at 10:30 a.m. at Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park. 525-2233. 

Gennifer Choldenko introduces her new book for young readers “If a Tree Falls at Lunch Period” at 4 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 559-9500. www.codysbooks.com  

FILM 

“Shanghai’et!” at 3 p.m. and “Morocco” at 5 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $5.50-$9.50. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

Vintage Films: “Spellbound” at 2 and 7 p.m. at Piedmont Cinema, 4186 Piedmont Ave., Oakland. 464-5980. 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

“One Way or Another: Asian American Art Now” Artist talk with Binh Danh at 2 p.m. at 3 p.m. at the Berkeley Art Museum, 2626 Bancroft Way. Cost is $5.50-$9.50. 642-0808. 

Mark Kramer describes “Telling True Stories: A nonfiction Writers’ Guide from the Neiman Foundation at Harvard University” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Olga Borodina, mezzo-soprano, at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $36-$68. 642-9988. www.calperfs.berkeley.edu 

Quinda Groove, Andean instuments mixed with folk rock at 7:30 p.m. at La Peña. Cost is $12. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

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

Reggae Showcase with David Morrison, Army, Tuff Lion, Luv Fyah and others at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $12. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

William Beatty and The Unconditionals at 6:30 p.m. at The Mt. Everest Restaurant 2011 Shattuck Ave. at University. 665-6035.  

MONDAY, OCT. 1 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Eden Invaded” Paintings by Judith Wehlau. Opening reception at 6 p.m. at Bucci’s Restaurant, 6121 Hollis St., Emeryville.  

FILM 

Vintage Films: “West Side Story” at 1 and 7 p.m. at Piedmont Cinema, 4186 Piedmont Ave., Oakland. 464-5980. 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Actors Reading Writers: “Beasts,” stories by Angela Carter and Theodore Sturgeon at 7:30 p.m. at Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant Ave between Dana and Ellsworth. 932-0214. 

Subterranean Shakespeare “Shakespeare’s Greatest Hits” at 8 p.m. at Unitarian Fellowship Hall, 1924 Cedar at Bonita. Cost is $10. For reservations call 276-3871. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Valerie Bach at 7 p.m. at Le Bateau Ivre, 2629 Telegraph Ave. 849-1100. www.lebateauivre.net 

The title character of Berkeley native Eisa Davis’ Pulitzer Prize-nominated play Bulrusher, as produced by the Shotgun Players at the Ashby Stage, says, “I guess I can tell everybody else’s future because I don’t know my own past ... didn’t die like I was supposed to, so I’ve got a one-way ticket to the Land of Could Be.”  

She tells of her special provenance: abandoned as an infant, discovered floating in a basket among cat-tails in the Navarro River (thus, Bulrusher, like Moses—but also “foundling, illegitimate child” in Boontling, the old backdoor lingo of Boonville in Mendocino County), she’s carved out a niche for herself, first as a clairvoyant who “reads the water,” then as a fruit peddler, plying oranges and bananas, the only “piece of cut cabbage” (Boontling for black woman) in town. 

But another, like her in race and gender, though from another world, arrives alone from Birmingham, Ala.—and upsets the apple cart, both for lonely Bulrusher and for the other denizens of Anderson Valley and the webwork of secret kinships left unspoken in Bootling as well as plain English. 

Eisa Davis, who commented that her play was “a feat of the imagination,” has created a Romance—with a capital R—which, like The Scarlet Letter, uses the romances between characters in an idyllic setting to mirror their personal secrets, which in turn reflect, upside-down, the image of the greater world, outside and far away, with all its tribulation and strife—in particular, questions of race, family and identity, all being defined and redefined in the courts, schools and streets of the America of 1955, when the play is set.  

It opens on Lisa Clark’s great set of plank floors for cabins and town buildings rising out of the river waters, interlaced with reeds and overhung by big trees, with Bulrusher (Kirya Traber, a spoken word artist and Mendocino native) in an emerald dress, catching the drip from the branches in her skirt and tossing it back up in a shaft of light, then talking to the river, her “diary, church, everything,” and the redwoods overhead, rhapsodizing in words derived from a song Davis wrote: “Forgiveness is an insect that may one day draw my blood ... I am born into a new language.” 

Then an odd trio, a kind of triangle, is introduced under a milk glass chandelier hanging from an arch become a tree trunk, in the parlor of the town’s cathouse: Madame (Louise Chegwidden—“Not a businesswoman like Mary Magdalene!”) banters with two men, also named only by occupation—silent Schoolch (Terry Lamb), former teacher and (at first) mute straightman with a china cup and saucer and laconic glance and gestures, and the loquacious Logger (D. Anthony Harper), Boonville’s only black man, who stayed on when the sawmills gave way to orchards (which in turn have given way to the present sprawl of vineyards). “This woman’s an art-i-san!” says the Logger of Madame.  

The Logger found Bulrusher floating in her basket; Schoolch brought her up. And now she’s being pursued by Boy (Cole Smith), who declares her his girlfriend in sanguine flights of amorous oratory directed at her. (Madame, Logger and Boy in particular speak in the lapidary diction, peppered with Boontling argot, that give Bulrusher much of its lyrical, even rhapsodic, quality.) 

Then enter Vera (Jahmela Biggs), on foot from the nearest Greyhound stop, arriving “on the day of the only rain of the summer.” (“It’s pearlin’ out there!” exclaims Madame in Boontling.) She and Bulrusher are amazed at each other. “You never seen another colored girl before?”—“No,” Bulrusher admits, “I had to drink a beer to get over you!”  

Vera, like Odysseus walking inland with an oar over his shoulder, seems both shocked and glad Bulrusher doesn’t know the real score of race in America. But Vera has her own reasons for fleeing to Boonville; the Logger is her uncle, and Vera’s stunned: “I never thought I’d see a town full of crackers let a buck in their bordello!” The Logger sets her straight: “Indians, they’re the colored folk here now—and they got it bad, so don’t you go saying you’re part Cherokee!” 

The Logger takes her in, braids her sopping hair, recites Paul Laurence Dunbar poems, talks about “tongue and groovin’ my own cabin” and ironically laments, “All the trees are gone, and so is my youth. I got nothin’ to destroy.” 

There are many images and vignettes: Bulrusher in gumboots with a kerchief on her head, holding a highgun (shotgun); Logger cutting in on Schootch to dance with Madame at the Apple Show dance, while Boy finally holds Bulrusher, at least for a slow number, after he calls a square dance. And Bulrusher goes on a quest to meet her penitent mother; the Romance becomes a family romance. 

A family romance in a small town with its own jargon, tucked away in a valley of redwoods, while the wheels of change grind in the greater world outside—and everything goes round and round in Boonville ... so much, Bulrusher says, “Wait till I tell the river!” 

Ellen Sebastian Chang and Margot Hall have directed their well-cast company with both sensitivity and alacrity. The characters are crystal-clear, assisted by Valera Cobble’s costuming, and the three Equity actors (Chegwidden, Harper and Lamb) anchor the show solidly with their wry triangle. Jarrod Fischer’s lighting captures the liquid light and shadow of the north coast. Berkeley composer Clark Suprynowicz designed the sound and led a ten-player ensemble, playing bass and washboard himself, to record the superlative incidental music, wonderful motifs that shade the edges of theatrical tableaux.  

Bulrusher is a quiet triumph—for Shotgun, who show how they’re advancing a kind of housestyle of production—and for Eisa Davis, who commented, “I discovered what my themes are as a writer, what archetypes populate my landscape.” One of the themes is stated by the title archetype, Bulrusher the outcast: “Don’t judge people by what never happened!” 

BULRUSHER 

Presented at 8 p.m. Thursday-Sunday by the Shotgun Players through Oct. 28 at the Asbhy Stage, 1901 Ashby Ave. $17-$25. 

841-6500. www.shotgunplayers.org.

“If you would be a poet, write living newspapers. Be a reporter from outer space, filling dispatches to some supreme managing editor who believes in full disclosure and has a low tolerance for bullshit.” 

—Lawrence Ferlinghetti,  

from the opening of  

Poetry as Insurgent Art  

(to be given away by Moe’s as a  

broadside at the Oct. 2 reading) 

Lawrence Ferlinghetti, famed Beat poet, publisher of Allen Ginsberg’s notorious Howl and proprietor of City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco’s North Beach, will read from his new and ongoing “ars poetica,” Poetry as Insurgent Art (New Directions), 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 2 at Moe’s Books at 2476 Telegraph Ave. Admission is free.  

“We’re happy Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s going to cross the Bay to read at Moe’s,” said Owen Hill, organizer of the Moe’s reading series. “He hasn’t read in Berkeley for a while, and I was told that the only other Bay Area reading from his new book will be at his own store. I think it’s fitting he’ll be reading here, on Telegraph, across from the Cafe Med, where Ginsberg reputedly wrote part of Howl, and at Moe’s, the other literary gathering place besides City Lights. He’s said he’s eager to read here, to support another independent bookstore—and Moe’s, like City Lights, has managed to survive a long time.” 

Ferlinghetti, a native of Yonkers, N.Y., served as a naval officer during World War II, later crediting his longtime pacifist beliefs to witnessing the aftermath of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki as a member of the occupation force there. After attending Columbia in New York and the Sorbonne in Paris on the G.I. Bill, Ferlinghetti moved to San Francisco, at the urging of Kenneth Rexroth, whom he had met in Paris. 

In 1953, City Lights Bookstore, the first all-paperback store in the U.S., was opened by Ferlinghetti and Pete Martin, known for his deadpan wit, who had published a magazine of the same name, after Chaplin’s film title. Two years later, Martin went back to New York, and Ferlinghetti started the press, and its Pocket Poets series, which leapt into the news in 1956, with the impounding of Howl, published shortly after its premiere at the famed 6 Gallery reading, for obscenity and its successful courtroom defense. His own popular books, Pictures of the Gone World and A Coney Island of the Mind, came out in 1955 and ‘58, respectively, which helped define Beat poetry and sensibility, and which launched a career that has seen over 30 books published. 

In 1994, an alley in North Beach was named in Ferlinghetti’s honor. He was declared Poet Laureate of San Francisco in 1998, and in 2000 received a lifetime achievement award from the National Book Critics Circle. He continues to work at City Lights, to write and to paint and exhibit. 

Of his book Poetry as Insurgent Art, Ferlinghetti has written, “After a lifetime, this (r)evolutionary little book is still a work-in-progress, the poet’s ars poetica, to which at 88 he is constantly adding. The earliest version ... was transcribed from a KPFA (FM) broadcast by the author in the late 1950s.” 

Moe’s Books will host an event tonight (Tuesday) at 7:30 p.m. to celebrate the publication of Viz Interarts: Event, A Trans-Genre Anthology with readings by Laura Moriarty, who teaches at Mills College and helps direct Small Press Distribution; haiku poet and teacher Gary Gach; writer, editor and publisher Mary Burger and spoken word artist and Sister Spit promoter Michelle Tea. The anthology’s 250 large-format illustrated pages contain writers and artists such as Dadaist Tristan Tzara, the late Objectivist poet Carl Rakosi (whose poem is collaged by Anne Waldman), George Hitchcock of Kayak, well-known Beat and New York School poets, Situationists and Fluxus artists, Language poets and well-known Bay Area poets and writers of the present, like Michael Palmer, Norma Cole and Joanne Kyger.  

2476 Telegraph Ave.  

849-2087 or moesbooks.com.

You old hippies, you probably remember sticking an avocado pit on some arrangement of toothpicks over a jar of water to make it sprout. The tree, if it survived to that stage, made a decent houseplant when it wasn’t turning sickly yellow and dropping leaves and getting all etiolated like a wispy fishing rod because it was stuck in a dark corner and watered too seldom and/or too often by turns and potted in a bucket of backyard clay in the first place and the only fertilizer it ever got was when the cat peed in the pot.  

It’s a wonder any of us survived, isn’t it?  

Avocado as a species, Persea americana, is a survivor of sorts. Once upon a time it was native here, part of the Neotropical Tertiary geoflora along with others of our favorite gotta-try-it semitropicals and tropicals. We can grow some figs and palms here, and they used to be wildland plants.  

Of course, some of us are always pushing the boundaries, planting Buddha’s hand citrons alongside the more rational Meyer lemons. Some of us even get away with growing macadamias. Maybe global warming will let our descendants, if any, grow durians on the San Francisco Archipelago. But avocados are among the group with ancestral rights here. 

Time was, this tropical flora had a range extending as far north as the Arctic. The climate here was warmer, wetter than it is now, and the plants that lived here more like what we see farther south along coasts and riversides. Visit Costa Rica, for example, and you’ll see descendants of the trees and greenery whose fossils have turned up in places like Corral Hollow out past Livermore. Coral fossils have turned up near Walnut Creek, a place clearly underwater once and clearly warmer than now, and so have shells of sea critters that now come no closer than the Gulf of California. 

Things were drying up a bit in the Miocene, when we had gomphotheres and giraffish camels, sabertoothed not-quite-cats, and hyenalike dogs running around here. The neotropical trees were bearing smaller leaves and beginning their slow retreat southward, and the species that replaced them were tougher about water deprivation.  

That didn’t make them better houseplants, just by the way; consider how many live-oaks you’ve seen growing indoors, as opposed to those avocado relics. Most of our houseplants, from the spiderplants to the parlor palm, are tropical in origin, and tough in their own ways. The insides of human houses with or without central heating are still hard places for plants to make a living: dark, dry, weirdly tainted with stuff like natural gas that we animals usually tolerate better than they do.  

When you’re cruising guacamole recipes you might run across such oddities as the fact that jaguars like to eat avocados. I suppose I should ask Matt the Cat’s culinary opinion, but he’s hardly of a size to mess with a whole avo, tough hide and all. He’s kind of conservative anyway, not like our long-gone cat Dennis Moore who’d try anything including Doritos. A cat snatching and crunching a Dorito is one of those sights that suggest that we’re all capable of things far beyond what the more sloppy advocates of evolutionary psychology suggest are our fundamental biological boundaries. 

What is it with that big seed, anyway? Did avocados co-evolve with after-dinner gardeners for their seed distribution? Most local critters, including those jaguars, are no more capable of swallowing that seed whole and delivering it unscathed to a new home than old Dennis was of dunking a Dorito into guacamole and eating it without getting crumbs and smears all over the place. Avocados have been cultivated into bearing more of that lovely green stuff in their fruits, but the seeds aren’t bigger than their ancestors’.  

Back to those gomphotheres. They were elephantine in size and habits, and fat-rich avocado fruits would be gourmet tapas to them. They had fellow herbivores and omnivores jostling them at the buffet, including giant ground sloths like the one whose skeleton was turned up during excavation for the downtown Berkeley BART station. If you’re too dainty for a Shattuck or Telegraph Avenue with a few street people, be grateful you’re not sharing sidewalk space with a fur-clad and probably rarely-bathed mammal that stood 20 feet tall and weighed a few tons. It’s unlikely they ever said, “Please.”  

If you have a potted avocado and it’s leaning all over and looking sickly, you have nothing to lose by planting it outdoors somewhere. I knew one on north Berkeley that was regularly mistaken for a big old oak. It’s unlikely but possible that you’ll get good fruit from it; most of those commercial varieties don’t breed true from seed, but that big guy bore avos that were at least as good as a Fuerte. At the least, you’ll get a pretty shade tree, and I can promise you won’t have to worry about attracting giant ground sloths. 

Photograph by Ron Sullivan 

This great old avocado still lives in North Berkeley, but atrocious pruning is killing it.

TUESDAY, SEPT. 25 

Tuesdays for the Birds Tranquil bird walks in local parklands, led by Bethany Facendini, from 7 to 9:30 a.m. Today we will visit Point Pinole. Call for meeting place and if you need to borrow binoculars. 525-2233. 

Community Action Forum on Health Inequities including discussions on asthma, obesity, youth issues, and violence at 6:30 p.m. at St. Paul AME Church, 2024 Ashby Ave. 981-5300. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/public 

health/newsevents/sept07forum.html 

Salsas from Oaxaca A cooking demonstration with Rebecca Sibrack from 2:30 to 6:30 p.m. at the Tuesday berkeley Farmers’ Market, Derby at MLK. 548-3333. 

End the Occupation Vigil every Tues. at noon at Oakland Federal Bldg., 1301 Clay St. www.epicalc.org 

Berkeley School Volunteers Orientation from 4 to 5 p.m. at 1835 Allston Way. Come learn about volunteer opportunities. 644-8833. 

“Hijaking Catastrophe: 9/11, Fear & the Sellling of American Empire” A documentary at 7:30 p.m. at Humanist Hall, 390 27th St., Oakland. Donation $5. www.HumanistHall.net 

Berkeley High School Governance Council meets at 4:15 p.m. to discuss ELL Budget, Proposed Change to Bylaws, WASC Plan and more in the Community Theater Lobby. 644-4803. 

Berkeley PC Users Group meets at 7 p.m. at 1145 Walnut St near the corner of Eunice. MelDancing@aol.com 

World Harmony Chorus meets to sing world music at 7:30 p.m. at Lake Merritt United Methodist Church, 1330 Lakeshore Ave., Oakland. See http://InstantHarmony.com  

Family Storytime at 7 p.m. at the Kensington Library, 61 Arlington Ave., Kensington. 524-3043. 

Street Level Cycles Community Bike Program Come use our tools as well as receive help with performing repairs free of charge. Youth classes available. Tues., Thurs., and Sat. from 2 to 6 p.m. at at 84 Bolivar Dr., Aquatic Park. 644-2577.  

Community Sing-a-Long every Tues, at 2 p.m. at the Albany Senior Center, 846 Masonic Ave. 524-9122.  

Berkeley Camera Club meets at 7:30 p.m., at the Northbrae Community Church, 941 The Alameda. 548-3991.  

St. John’s Prime Timers meets at 9:30 a.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. 845-6830. 

WEDNESDAY, SEPT. 26 

Birding with the Golden Gate Audubon Society at Lake Merritt Meet at 9:30 a.m. at the large spherical cage near Nature Center at Perkins and Bellevue. 834-1066. 

Walking Tour of Old Oakland around Preservation Park to see Victorian architecture. Meet at 10 a.m. in front of Preservation Park at 13th St. and MLK, Jr. Way. Tour lasts 90 minutes. Reservations can be made by calling 238-3234. www.oaklandnet.com/walkingtours 

Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning Colloquium with Alexi Yurchak on “Transformations of Space in Post-Socialist St. Petersburg” at 1 p.m. at Wurster Hall, Room 315A, UC Campus. All welcome. laep.ced.berkeley.edu/events/colloquium  

Transportation for the Future: Getting Around without a Car at 1:30 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center, 1901 Hearst. 548-9696. 

“East Bay Clean Energy: How You Can Support Community Choice Energy” Learn how communities can assume greater control over energy pricing and invest in renewable energy, at 6:30 p.m. at Bay Area Academy, 2201 Broadway, Suite 100, Oakland. 925-255-3110. EastBayCCA@gmail.com 

“Adapting to the Impacts of a Changing Climate” Learn and share ideas about what we can do as a community to deal with the impacts of global warming at 7:30 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-5434. energy@ci.berkeley.ca.us www.cityofberkeley.info/sustainable/ 

Seldom Seen Acting Company Homeless actors share their life stories at 10:30 a.m. at St. Vincent de Paul Center, 2272 San Pablo Ave., Oakland. 636-4255. 

Writer Coach Connection Volunteers needed to help Berkeley students improve their writing and critical thinking skills from noon to 3 p.m. or from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m. To register call 524-2319. www.writercoachconnection.org 

“Loving Maradona” A film on the Argentine soccer player at 7 p.m. at La Peña. Cost is $6. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

“Stories of the Buddha Dharma” with Rev. Ken Yamada at 7 p.m. at the Jodo Shinshu Center, 2140 Durant Ave. at Fulton. Cost is $15. 809-1460. 

“After Capitalism: An Integrated Vision for a New World” with Dada Maheshvarananda at 7 p.m. at Green City Gallery, 1950 Shattuck Ave. Donation $10-$20.  

Walk Berkeley for Seniors meets every Wednesday at 9:30 a.m. at the Sea Breeze Market, just west of the I-80 overpass. 548-9840. 

Berkeley Peace Walk and Vigil at the Berkeley BART Station. Sing for Peace at 6:30 p.m. followed by Peace Walk at 7 p.m. www.geocities.com/ 

vigil4peace/vigil 

THURSDAY, SEPT. 27 

“Bungalows: The Ultimate Arts & Crafts Home” with author Jane Powell at 7:30 p.m. at the Hillside Club. Cost is $20. For revervations call 848-4288. 

“How Does Immigration Work in the Bay Area?” with Rosemary Langley Mellville of the U.C. Citizenship and Immigration Services, at 5 p.m. at Northbrae Community Church, 941 The Alameda. Sponsored by the League of Women Voters. 843-8824. 

“Numbers in the Courtroom: Statistics as Evidence” Learn how statistics can be used to help a court decide if a company has illegally discriminated against an employee with William Lepowsky, Mathematics Instructor at Laney College and statistical expert witness, from 3:30 to 4:30 p.m. in Room G-209 at Laney College, 8th and Fallon Streets, Oakland, free. 464-3181.  

“Sentenced Home” A screening of the documentary and a panel discussion on the overlap between criminal justice and and immigration policy at 4 p.m. at Boalt Hall, Room 100, UC Campus. 643-7025. 

“Buddhism and Warfare” with Padmanabh S. Jaini, at 5 p.m. in the IEAS Conference Room, 2223 Fulton St. 6th Floor. 643-5104. 

“Iran, North Korea, and the Dream of a Nuclear Weapon Free World” wth Tad Daley at 7:30 p.m. in the Home Room, International House, 2299 Piedmont Ave. Cost is $5. 642-9460. 

“Covering California: Media and Democracy in the Golden State” The annual conference of the Travers Program in Ethics & Accountability in Government will feature speakers and panels on the interrelationships between the news media and democracy. Thurs. and Fri. from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Barrows Hall, UC Campus. 642-6323. http://polisci.berkeley.edu/department/calendar/index.asp  

“Exilio: Creating Home Away from Home” Chilean art, music and poetry Thurs. and Fri. at 7 p.m. at La Peña. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Bayswater Book Club meets to discuss “The Secret Team” by L. Fletcher Prouty at 6:30 p.m. Call for location. 433-2911. 

Meet a Humane Society Dog for ages 5 and up at 4 p.m. at the Kensington Library, 61 Arlington Ave., Kensington. 524-3043. 

Babies & Toddlers Storytime at 10:15 and 11:15 a.m. at Kensington Library, 61 Arlington Ave., Kensington. 524-3043. 

World of Plants Tours Thurs., Sat. and Sun. at 1:30 p.m. at the UC Botanical Garden, 200 Centennial Drive. Cost is $5. 643-2755. http://botanicalgarden.berkeley.edu 

FRIDAY, SEPT. 28 

Inauguration of the New Rosie-the-Riveter National Park in Richmond, with events Fri.- Sun. For more information call 232-5050. www.homefrontfestival.com 

Bike Tour of Berkeley Worker Cooperatives Meet at 5:15 p.m. at the Downtown Berkeley BART station for a 1.5 hour tour with guided tours of the Missing Link bike shop, Cheese Board pizza & cheese shop and Nabalom Bakery. The bike ride will also include stops by the Juice Bar, Mayback High School and the Berkeley Free Clinic. For more information see www.nobawc.org/conference 

Hopalong Animal Rescue 3rd Annual Fur Ball benefiting homeless dogs and cats of the Bay Area, from 6 to 9:30 p.m. at the International House, 2299 Piedmont Ave. Tickets are $50, and includes appetizer and desert buffet. 267-1915 ext. 500. www.hopalong.org 

“California Indian Songs and Stories” with Linda Yamane (Rumsien Ohlone), Mike Mirelez (Desert Cahuilla), Ron Goode (North Fork Mono), Clarence Hostler (Hupa/Yurok/Karuk), and Charlie Thom (Karuk) at 7:30 p.m. at Bancroft Hotel, 2680 Bancroft Way. Free, but RSVP requested 549-3564, ext. 316. lillian@heydaybooks.com 

“The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism” with author Naomi Klein at 8 p.m. at First Congregational Church of Oakland, 2701 Harrison St. at 27th. Tickets are $10-$13. 559-9500.  

Red Cross Blood Drive from noon to 6 p.m. at UCB Unit 3, all purpose room, 2400 Durant Ave. To schedule an appointment go to www.BeADonor.com  

City Commons Club Noon Luncheon with Lori Fogarty on the development plans for the Oakland Museum of California. Luncheon at 11:45 a.m. for $14.50, speech at 12:30 p.m., at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant St. 526-2925.  

Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival at 1:15 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center, 1901 Hearst Ave. 981-5190. 

Free Compost for Berkeley Residents from 8:45 a.m. to 2:45 p.m. at Berkeley Marina Maintenance Yard, 201 University Ave. First priority is given to Berkeley Unified School District and Berkeley Community Gardens. Please complete sign-in log before loading compost. 644-6566. 

Berkeley Women in Black weekly vigil from noon to 1 p.m. at Bancroft and Telegraph. Our focus is human rights in Palestine. 548-6310. 

Circle Dancing, simple folk dancing with instruction at 8 p.m., potluck at 7 p.m. at Hillside Community Church, 1422 Navellier St. Donation $5. 528-4253. www.circledancing.com 

Women in Black Vigil, from noon to 1 p.m. at UC Berkeley, Bancroft at Telegraph. wibberkeley@yahoo.com 548-6310, 845-1143. 

SATURDAY, SEPT. 29 

Community Discussion of the Proposed Public Commons for Everyone Initiative from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center on the corner of Hearst and MLK. 981-2498.  

Asthma Walk with the American Lung Association Check in at 9 a.m., walk starts at 10 a.m. at Middle Harbor Shoreline Park, 7th St. and Middle Harbor Rd., Oakland. 893-5474. www.snipurl.com/Asthma 

Walk2007 

Walking Tour of Jack London Waterfront Meet at 10 a.m. at the corner of Broadway and Embarcadero. Tour lasts 90 minutes. Reservations can be made by calling 238-3234. www.oaklandnet.com/walkingtours 

Toddler Nature Walk We’ll look for spiders, insects, and other creatures from 2:30 to 3:30 p.m. at Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park. 525-2233. 

Creating an Ecological House A seminar with author and designer Skip Wenz from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Building Education Center, 812 Page St. Cost is $85. 525-7610.  

Mystery Dinner Theater Fund Raising Event for GRIP Homeless Shelter from 5 to 8 p.m. at the El Cerrito United Methodist Church. Tickets are $35. For details and for registration forms go to www.ecumc.net 525-3500. 

Nyingma Institute 35th Anniversary from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. with activities, tour, lectures and receptions. For details call 809-1000. 

Magicians David Hirata and Kim Silverman at 6:30 p.m. at Kinnel Hall, Lutheran Church of the Cross, 1744 University Ave. Tickets are $15-$25 sliding scale, children under 14 free. Includes dinner. For reservations call 704-7729. 

Benefit Tennis Classic with Monica Seles and Corina Morariu at 11:30 a.m. at Berkeley Tennis Club, 1Tunnel Rd. Benefits Alta Bates Summit Foundation. Tickets are $25, includes box lunch. 204-1667. 

Time for an Oil Change? Learn how the fat you eat affects your health at 10 a.m. at Elephant Pharmacy, 1607 Shattuck Ave. 549-9200. 

Stress Less Seminar for Students at 2 p.m. at Lakeview Branch of the Oakland Public Library. 465-2524. 

Favorite Plants for the Landscape at 10 a.m. at Magic Gardens Nursery, 729 Heinz Ave. off 7th St. 644-2351. 

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. http://botanicalgarden.berkeley.edu 

The Berkeley Lawn Bowling Club provides free instruction at 10:30 a.m. at 2270 Acton St. 841-2174.  

SUNDAY, SEPT. 30 

How Berkeley Can You Be? Parade up University Ave. at 11 a.m. with ArtCars, community groups and more, followed by a festival in Civic Center Park with live music, food and craft booths to 5 p.m. www.howberkeley.com 

Out and About in Rockridge Live music, craft and community booths and children’s activities from noon to 6 p.m. along College Ave. from Alcatraz to Broadway. 604-3125. www.rockridgedistrict.com 

Farm Stories and Songs with Tara Reinertson at 10:30 a.m. at Tilden Nature Center, Tilden PArk. 525-2233. 

Working with Wool Learn how the spinning wheel turns wool into yarn, try a drop spindle and make a felt ball, from 1 to 2:30 p.m. at Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park. 525-2233. 

Halcyon Commons Community Potluck with live music at Halcyon Court at Prince St., from 5 to 7:30 p.m. 849-1969.  

“Nightmare Beyond Borders” The Iraqi Displacement Crisis and What Can Be Done To Stop It with Raed Jarrar, an Iraqi political analyst and consultant to AFSC's Iraq Program, at 3 p.m. at Berkeley Friends Church, 1600 Sacramento St. 415-565-0201, ext. 24. www.afsc.org/iraq/tour  

"An Unreasonable Man” The documentary about Ralph Nader at 2 p.m. at the Hillside Community Church, 1422 Navellier St., El Cerrito, between Potrero and Moeser. Tickets are $8. 526-0972. 

Victoria Lee “The Rumi Secret” at 10 a.m. and a Runi 800th Birthday Celebration, at 7 p.m. at Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley, 1 Lawson Rd., Kensington. 525-0302, ext. 306. 

Free Garden Tours at Regional Parks Botanic Garden in Tilden Park Sat. and Sun. at 2 p.m. Call to confirm. 841-8732. www.nativeplants.org 

Lake Merritt Neighbors Organized for Peace Peace walk around the lake every Sun. Meet at 3 p.m. at the colonnade at the NE end of the lake. 763-8712. lmno4p.org 

Tibetan Buddhism with Robin Caton on “Meditation for Life” at 6 p.m. at the Tibetan Nyingma Institute, 1815 Highland Pl. 843-6812. www.nyingmainstitute.com 

MONDAY, OCT. 1 

Celebrate Banned Books Week Read aloud from “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” from 3 to 6 p.m. at Berkeley Public Library, 2090 Kittredge St. 981-6223. 

Red Cross Blood Drive from noon to 6 p.m. at West Pauley Ballroom MLK Student Union, UC Campus. To schedule an appointment go to www.BeADonor.com  

Berkeley CopWatch organizational meeting at 8 p.m. at 2022 Blake St. Join us to work on current issues around police misconduct. 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 

Free Boatbuilding Classes for Youth Mon.-Wed. from 3 to 7 p.m. at Berkeley Boathouse, 84 Bolivar Dr., Aquatic Park. Classes cover woodworking, boatbuilding, and boat repair. 644-2577.  

CITY MEETINGS 

Civic Arts Commission meets Wed., Sept. 26, at 6:30 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-7533.  

Disaster and Fire Safety Commission meets Wed., Sept. 26, at 7 p.m., at the Emergency Operations Center, 997 Cedar St. 981-5502.  

Energy Commission meets Wed., Sept. 26, at 6:30 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-5434.  

Planning Commission meets Wed., Sept. 26, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-7484.  

Mental Health Commission meets Thurs., Sept. 27, at 6:30 p.m. at 2640 MLK Jr. Way, at Derby. 981-5213.

FRIDAY, SEPT. 21 

THEATER 

Altarena Playhouse “Urinetown, The Musical” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 p.m. at 1409 High St., Alameda, through Oct. 6. Tickets are $17-$20. 523-1553. www.altarena.org 

Aurora Theatre “Hysteria” Wed.-Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 and 7 p.m. at 2081 Addison St., through Sept. 30. Tickets are $40-$42. 843-4822. www.auroratheatre.org 

California Shakespeare Theater “King Lear” at the Bruns Ampitheater, 100 Gateway Blvd., Orinda, through Oct. 14. Tickets are $15-$60. 548-9666. www.calshakes.org 

Contra Costa Civic Theatre “Rumors” by Neil Simon, Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m., selected Sundays at 2 p.m. at 951 Pomona Ave. at Moeser, El Cerrito, through Oct. 14. Tickets are $11-$18. 655-8974. www.cct.org 

Impact Theatre “Sleepy” Thurs.-Sat. at 8 p.m. at La Val’s Subterranean, 1834 Euclid Ave., through Oct. 13. Tickets are $10-$15. 464-4468. 

Masquers Playhouse “The Shadow Box” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m., selected Sun. matinees, at 105 Park Place, Point Richmond. Runs through Sept. 29. This show is not recommended for children. Tickets are $15. 232-4031. www.masquers.org 

Ragged Wing Ensemble “Alice in Wonderland” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m. at Envision Academy, 1515 Webster St., Oakland, through Oct. 13. Tickets are $15-$30. 800-838-3006. www.raggedwing.org 

Shotgun Players “Bulrusher” opens at 8 p.m. at the Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby Ave. and runs Thurs.-Sun. through Oct. 28. Tickets are $17-$25. For reservations call 841-6500. www.shotgunplayers.org 

Thunderbird Theatre Company “Aaah! Rosebud” at 8 p.m., Sat. at 2 and 8 p.m. at Julia Morgan Center for the Arts, 2640 College Ave. Tickets are $20-$25. 415-289-6766. www.thunderbirdtheatre.com 

FILM 

“Special Circumstances” about former Chilean political prisoner Hector Salgado at 8 p.m. at La Peña. Cost is $10. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Girls Will Be Boys “Hamlet” introduced by Jennifer Bean at 6:30 p.m. and “Viktor und Viktoria” at 9 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $5.50-$9.50. 642-0808.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Bjorn Lomberg reads from “Cool It: The Skeptical Environmentalist’s Guide to Global Warming” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Mark Morris Dance Group “Mozart Dances” Fri.-Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 3 p.m. at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $32-$72. 642-9988. www.calperfs.berkeley.edu 

Go-Go Fightmaster, Heavy metal country jazz, at 8 p.m. at Free-Jazz Fridays at the Jazz House, 1510 8th St., Oakland. Cost is $5-$15. 415-846-9432. 

Dwight Tribble & Muziki Roberson Quartet at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $14. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

“Ashana in Concert” at 7:30 p.m. at acred Space at Rudramandir, 830 Bancroft Way, at 6th. Tickets are $15-$20. 486-8700. www.rudramandir.com 

Cuarto Latinoamericano de Saxofones, lecture/demonstration at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $15. 845-5373. www.jazzschool.com 

Will Bernard Band, The Flux at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $10. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Bill Kirchen at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $19.50-$20.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Splatter Trio, John Raskin Quartet at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $10. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

Acts of Sedition, Thou at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St., an all-ages, member-run, no alcohol, no drugs, no violence club. Cost is $5. 525-9926. 

The Courtney Janes and KC Turner at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

Dub Vision at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 843-8277. 

SATURDAY, SEPT. 22 

CHILDREN  

“The Stone Flower” Puppet show Sat. and Sun. at 11 a.m. and 2 and 4 p.m. at Children’s Fairyland, 699 Bellevue Ave. 452-2259 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Art on the Home Front” An exhibition of children’s art from Richmond’s chid-care centers, from 1943 to the early post-war period. Reception at 2 p.m. at Seaver Gallery, Richmond Museum of History, 400 Nevin Ave., Richmond. Cost is $5-$7.50. 235-7387. 

CCA Photography Retrospective Works by recent graduates as well as faculty. Opening reception at 4 p.m. at the Richmond Art Center, 2540 Barrett Ave., at 25th St., Richmond. 620-6772. www.therichmondartcenter.org 

The Alameda Quilt Show Sat. and Sun. from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Alameda High School, 2201 Encinal Ave., Alameda. Benefits the Humane Society of Alameda. Cost is $5. 749-6717. www.quiltsfans.com 

Ink Paintings of Changming Meng Artist reception at 5 p.m. at Gallery ZiZi, 2014 Park Blvd., Oakland. 251-8277. 

“Forces: Paintings and Calligraphy by Lampo Leong” at the Intitute for East Asian Studies Gallery, 2223 Fulton St., 6th Flr., through Dec. 14. 642-2809. http://ieas.berkeley.edu 

“The Telegraph 3 p.m. Project” Photographs by Robert Eliason and poetry by Owen Hill at the Gaia Arts Center, 2120 Allston Way. Exhibition runs to Jan. 31. 665-0305.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Rhythm & Muse presents poet Garrett Murphy at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Art Center, 1275 Walnut St., between Eunice & Rose Sts. 304-0483. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Paradigm Brass at 8 p.m. at Trinity Chapel, 2320 Dana Tickets are $8-$12. 549-3864. www. 

trinitychamberconcerts.com 

Julie Larson, singer-songwriter, at noon at Cafe Zeste, 1250 Addison St. at Bonar, in the Strawberry Creek Park complex. 704-9378. 

Cuarteto Latinoamericano de Saxofones, from Chile, at 8:30 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $20. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

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

West African Highlife Band at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. African dance lesson with Comfort Mensah at 9 p.m. Cost is $15. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Descarga Caliente and Eric Rangel y Orquesta America, salsa at 6 p.m. at Jack London Square, Oakland. 645-9292, ext. 233. 

Moss Henry at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

Raya Nova at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 843-8277. 

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

Bobby Broom Trio at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $20. 845-5373. www.jazzschool.com 

Kurt Ribak Jazz Group at 9:30 p.m. at Albatross, 1822 San Pablo Ave. Cost is $5. 843-2473. www.albatrosspub.com 

Steve Smulian at 8 p.m. at Spuds Pizza, 3290 Adeline St. Cost is $7. 558-0881. 

Midline Errors, Blipvert, Run at the Dog at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $7. 841-2082. www.starryploughpub.com 

Zoe Ellis, jazz vocals, at 9 p.m. at Downtown, 2102 Shattuck Ave. 649-3810.  

Insect Warfare, Unholy Grave, Population Reduction at 7:30 p.m. at 924 Gilman St., an all-ages, member-run, no alcohol, no drugs, no violence club. Cost is $7. 525-9926. 

SUNDAY, SEPT. 23 

EXHIBITIONS 

Berkeley’s “Other” Revolution: Celebrating 35 Years of Independent Living, Disability Access, and Disability Rights. Photographs by Ken Stein on display in the windows of Rasputin Music, 2401 Telegraph Ave., between Channing Way and Haste, to Nov. 15. 525-2325. 

“One Way or Another: Asian American Art Now” Guided tour at 2 p.m.at Berkeley Art Museum, 2626 Bancroft. Cost is $5.50-$9.50. 642-0808. 

FILM 

Girls Will Be Boys “A Florida Enchantment” at 3 p.m. and Sylvia Scarlett: at 5 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $5.50-$9.50. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

“Seeing the Sacred Everyday” Artist talk by Pauletta M. Chanco at 3 p.m. at Joyce Gordon Gallery, 406 14th St., Oakland. 465-8928. 

“One Way or Another: Asian American Art Now” Panel discussion at 3 p.m. at the Berkeley Art Museum, 2626 Bancroft Way. Cost is $5.50-$9.50. 642-0808. 

“From Africa to Afrocentric Innovations Some Call ‘Jazz’” with Dr. Karlton Tucker at noon at the Jazzschool. Cost is $30-$45. 845-5373. www.jazzschool.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Oakland East Bay Symphony performs with winners of the Young Artist Competition at 3 p.m. at Woodminster Amphitheater, 3300 Joaquin Miller Rd., Oakland. Free. 444-0801. www.oebs.org 

Gustavo Diaz-Jerez, pianist, in a recital of Ravel, Albeniz and Cavaterra at 3 p.m. at The Berkeley Piano Club, 2724 Haste St. 

Trumpet and Organ Recital with James Tindslay, trumpet ,and Christopher Putnam, organ,, at 3 p.m. at First Presbyterian Church, 2619 Broadway, Oakland. 444-3555. 

Roy Zimmerman with George Mann and Julius Margolin at 7:30 p.m. at Redwood Gardens Community Room, 2951 Derby St. Sliding scale $5-$10. 848-6397. 

Cascada de Flores at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761.  

Grito de Lares Celebration for Puerto Rico’s struggle for independence at 4 p.m. at La Peña. Cost is $10-$15. 849-2568. 

Bobbe Norris & Larry Dunlap Trio at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $8. 841-JAZZ.  

Wailing Junk Symphony, Brazilian African junk jazz, at 4:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $10. 525-5054.  

Jacob Wolkenhauer at 11 a.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344.  

Americana Unplugged with The Mercury Dimes at 5 p.m. at Jupiter. 843-8277. 

Frank Martin Group at 4:30 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $18. 845-5373.  

William Beatty and The Unconditionals at 6:30 p.m. at Mt. Everest Restaurant, 2011 Shattuck Ave. 665-6035. 

MONDAY, SEPT. 24 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Eden Invaded” Paintings by Judith Wehlau opens at Bucci’s Restaurant, 6121 Hollis St., Emeryville.  

“They Called Me Mayer July” Painted Memories of a Jewish Childhood in Poland Before the Holocaust at the Judah L. Magnes Museum, 2911 Russell St., to Jan. 13. 549-6950. www.magnes.org 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Garrison Keillor introduces “Pontoon: A Lake Wobegon Novel” at 7:30 p.m. at First Congregational Church of Berkeley, 2345 Channing Way. Tickets are $5 available from Cody’s. 559-9500.  

Poetry Express with Julie Potter and open mic theme of “pride and prejudice” at 7 p.m., at Priya Restaurant, 2072 San Pablo Ave. 644-3977. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Ellis Island Band, klezmer, at 7 p.m. at Le Bateau Ivre, 2629 Telegraph Ave. 849-1100. www.lebateauivre.net 

Orquesta America at 8 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $10. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

TUESDAY, SEPT. 25 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Wash, Rinse, Repeat ... Repeat” Exhibition of works by women artists. Reception at 4 p.m. at the Worth Ryder Gallery, Kroeber Hall, Bancroft at College. Exhibition runs to Oct. 12.  

FILM 

“Bella Bella” A film by Elizabeth Sher premiers at 7:30 p.m. at the Berkeley Art Center, Live Oak Park, followed by a discussion with the filmmaker and the Sculptor Bella Feldman. Tickets are $8-$10. 644.6893. 

“Home Movies: Autobiographical Films by Women” at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $5.50-$9.50. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Poetry Flash with Willis Barnstone and Steven Nightengale at 7:30 p.m. at Berkeley City College auditorium, 2050 Center St. 525-5476. 

Readings from Viz Inter-Arts, a trans-genre anthology at 7:30 p.m. at Moe’s Books, 2476 Telegraph Ave. 849-2087. 

Erika Mailman introduces “The Witch’s Trinity” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Creole Belles 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. Cost is $5. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

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

Times 4 at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $10. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

Jazzschool Tuesdays, a weekly showcase of up-and-coming ensembles from Berkeley Jazzschool at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 843-8277. 

WEDNESDAY, SEPT. 26 

THEATER 

Seldom Seen Acting Company Homeless actors share their life stories at 10:30 a.m. at St. Vincent de Paul Center, 2272 San Pablo Ave., Oakland. 636-4255. 

EXHIBITIONS 

Brick & Mortar: Bay Area Sculptural Abstracts Works by Stephen Day, David O. Johnson, Christopher Loomis, and Florian Roeper opens at Pro Arts Gallery, 550 Second St., Oakland. 763-4361.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Strictly Speaking with Garry Wills author of “Lincoln at Gettysburg” at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $10-$20. 642-9988. www.calperfs.berkeley.edu 

“Writing Teachers Write” with Sharon Coleman and Richard Silberg at 5 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

Alice Medrich describes “Pure Dessert: True Flavors, Inspiring Ingredients, and Simple Recipes” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. 

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

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Jazz Masters Concert with Café American, gypsy jazz, at noon at 12th and Broadway, Oakland.  

Wednesday Noon Concert, with University Symphony Orchestra at Hertz Hall, UC Campus. Free. 642-4864. http://music.berkeley.edu 

UC Jazz Ensembles at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $6. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Tamsen Donner Band at 8:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. West Coast swing dance lesson at 7:30 p.m. Cost is $10. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

La Verdad 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.  

The Flux at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 843-8277. 

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

Robben Ford at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $24-$28. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

THURSDAY, SEPT. 27 

EXHIBITIONS 

“One Way or Another: Asian American Art Now” Guided tour at 12:15 and 5:30 p.m.at Berkeley Art Museum, 2626 Bancroft. Cost is $5.50-$9.50. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

“Heading North: Journey to Atacama Desert, Chile” Photographs by Thea Bellos, at La Peña Cultural Center, 3105 Shattuck Ave. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

“The Sacred in the Mundane” works by Pauletta M. Chanco at 5:30 p.m. at Joyce Gordon Gallery, 406 14th St., Oakland. 465-8928. 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

“Bungalows: The Ultimate Arts & Crafts Home” with author Jane Powell at 7:30 p.m. at the Hillside Club. Cost is $20. For reservations call 848-4288. 

Sam Quinones and Gustavo Arellano talk about their books and the issues of migration and immigration, at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. www.codysbooks.com 

Jane Smiley, Pam Houston and Lynn Freed read essays from “The Other Woman: Twnty-One Wives, Lovers, and Others Talk Openly About Sex, Deception, Love and Betrayal” at 7:30 p.m. at Mrs. Dalloways, 2904 College Ave. 704-8222. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

New Century Chamber Orchestra with guest concertmaster Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg at 8 p.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. Tickets are $28-$42. 415-357-1111. www.ncco.org 

“Exilio: Creating Home Away from Home” Chilean art, music and poetry Thurs. and Fri. at 7 p.m. at La Peña. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

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

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

Franco Nero, Joseph’s Bones, Guerilla Hi-Fi at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $6. 841-2082 www.starryploughpub.com 

Robben Ford at 8 and 10 p.m., through Sun. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $24-$28. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com

I was on a break at the Public Theatre in New York,” said Eisa Davis, playwright, actor and South Berkeley native, “during the second week of rehearsing Passing Strange, when I got a voice message from the actress who played the lead in Bulrusher, and she was crying. ‘Have you heard the news?’ I jumped up and screamed!” 

Davis, a Berkeley native, was recalling how the news broke that her play, Bulrusher—which opens tonight in a Shotgun Players production at the Ashby Stage—had been nominated for this year’s Pulitzer Prize in drama. 

“I called up my mother—and faked her out, telling her in a deathly tone that I had big news,” Davis said. “It was a great day. I celebrated with the others in the cast of Passing Strange. It’s a wonderful feeling to receive national recognition, especially along with the other nominees, whom I admire, as I do the jurors. It’ll be a sticker on my gravestone: ‘She was a finalist!’” 

Davis arrived in town last weekend to attend the final rehearsals, the opening and a fundraiser for Shotgun on Tuesday, “Breaking It Down,” where she’ll sing her own songs from her latest album, read from Angela’s Mixtapes and recount how Bulrusher was inspired and written. 

Bulrusher takes place in Boonville, Mendocino County, in the mid-’50s, during the time of the civil rights battles in the South and Washington, D. C. The title character is an African-American woman, an outcast and a clairvoyant, who falls for a visitor from Alabama. The script is “peppered with” Boontling, the special jargon of that part of the Anderson Valley, spoken by locals and German-American farmworkers since the late 19th century. 

“My aunt [activist, author and educator Angela Davis] was always looking for someplace to write quietly, and gradually inched her way up from Marin to Mendocino County. It became a family tradition from the ’80s for my mother [civil rights attorney Fania Davis] and me to go up with her. In a winery along Highway 128 I saw Charles C. Adams’ book about Boontling. It’s harder to do a play that has special requirements in terms of language; it has to be put on in a balanced way. The New York Times critic wrote about being frustrated, having to both watch and look in the glossary that was in the program. But I think you can pick up the flavor, pick up the meaning from context. There are enough inferential qualities; if you grew up with slang, it shouldn’t be hard. Shotgun has an installation comparing Boontling to Berkeley High slang. Or, as one character says, when the visitor from Alabama doesn’t know what they mean, ‘You don’t have to. It’s just another part of the scenery.’” 

The play began as a series of poems which a composer friend of Davis’ requested for a song cycle. “The first poem ended up as the first monologue for Bulrusher,” Davis said. “There were eight poems, and the plot emerged, along with all the characters except one, in the poems. They were so strong, I thought the play would end up presentational, in the style of [Dylan Thomas’] Under Milkwood, but it didn’t come out that way—it came out more fully formed; it wanted to come out in dialogue!” 

Bulrusher was something of a departure for Davis. “Almost all the plays I’ve written tend to be based on or inspired by real incidents. But not this play; only one incident here really happened. I was probably filling in from my experiences, or those of my family and friends. But it was more of a feat of the imagination—of letting my imagination go, to see what could happen in that town, in that time. I discovered what my themes are as a writer, what archetypes populate my landscape.” 

Davis is happy with the play being done in her home neighborhood. “It’s what’s great about working with Shotgun, with Patrick [Dooley]. They have such a great sense of community. I didn’t even know the old name of the neighborhood until they did Love is a Dream House in the Lorin. I thought it was just where I lived! Marcus Gardley, from Oakland, who wrote it, requested me as ‘mentor’ (I put that in quotation marks!) at New Dramatists, and is now a colleague. And Aaron Davidman, who directed, I’ve known since high school.” 

Davis, who was born at Alta Bates and declares herself “Berkeley all the way,” participated in student-run productions at Berkeley High and is an alumna of the UC Young Musicians Program. She’s sung here since moving back east and performed in Stew’s musical play, Passing Strange, at Berkeley Rep late last year.  

“It’s great to do the play here,” she said. “Theaters in New York liked the play, but said ‘What can we do with it? Why would people in New York be interested in it?’ It finally had its world premiere at Urban Stages last March; the artistic director there has spent a lot of time out here. And various networks here helped get the play a hearing in New York.” 

BULRUSHER 

Presented by the Shotgun Players at 8 p.m. Thursday-Sunday through Oct. 28 at the Asbhy Stage, 1901 Ashby Ave. $17-$25.  

842-6500. www.shotgunplayers.org. 

“Breaking It Down,” a fundraiser at the Ashby Stage for Shotgun, featuring Davis singing songs from her latest album, reading from Angela’s Mixtapes and talking about Bulrusher, will be held at the Ashby Stage from 6:30-8:30 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 25. $50.

At the turn of the last century, wharves, lumber mills, farms, breweries, tanneries, and Victorian residences dotted West Berkeley. The largest employer south of University Avenue was the Standard Soap Company, which had occupied half a block between the bay shore and Third Street north of Allston Way since 1876. 

The San Francisco earthquake and fire profoundly changed the area’s character, filling it with industrial plants. Across the railroad from Standard Soap, the Van Emon Elevator Company built a factory taking up a quarter of a block on the corner of Third St. and Allston Way. Incongruously, the adjacent property was the flower nursery of Joseph Antoine Boirard, a Frenchman who had lived at 2216 4th Street since 1892 or ’93 and would still be there in 1930. 

Boirard was not the first nurseryman in the area. On the next block to the east, John Anthony Carbone (1865–1946) had been growing roses since 1888. 

Carbone, who would gain fame as the Orchid King of the West, was born in Turin, northern Italy. His father was a gardener, and young Giovanni worked with plants from an early age. In an interview he gave in 1937, Carbone said that he followed his older brother—also a horticulturist—to Chicago in 1883. Soon he was engaged to work on the estate of Lucien Scott in Leavenworth, Kansas. A banking, coal, and railroad tycoon, Scott bought the house—now home of the Leavenworth County Historical Society—in 1882 for $5,200 and spent $50,000 on turning it into a mansion. When Scott sold the estate in 1887, Carbone said, he moved to New York City and worked in Central Park. He neglected to mention that while in Kansas, he was a partner in a flower shop called Carbone and Monti. 

Having heard enticing tales of California, Carbone went west and landed in Berkeley. He was first listed in the directory in 1889 as nurseryman, resident at Allston Way between Fourth and Fifth Streets. By 1892, he had bought three lots on the corner of Fifth St. and Allston Way, which were registered in the name of Margaret B. Carbone, believed to have been the first of his three wives. 

Practically nothing is known about Margaret Carbone. John Carbone was already divorced in 1900, but both he and Margaret may have lived under the same roof at 2200 Fifth St. until 1903 or ’04, when John built 2216 Fifth Street. Margaret maintained her residence in the original house until 1909 and her ownership of the three lots until 1911 or so. 

Why the Carbones divorced is not clear, but John Carbone’s roving eye might have played a role in the separation. In 1902, Carbone married Aurelia Sturla Cassinelli, who was divorced in 1900 by her first husband, Giovanni Cassinelli, also a gardener, on grounds of desertion. 

In its early years, the Carbone nursery specialized in roses and chrysanthemums. As carnations became fashionable, Carbone made them his specialty. The 1903 Sanborn fire insurance map labeled the business West Berkeley Rose Nursery. At the time, it occupied seven lots between Fourth and Fifth Streets. In a southwestern corner of the nursery, one small greenhouse contained a large heater. This may have been the kernel of what would become the largest orchid nursery on the West Coast. 

In 1937, Carbone told an interviewer that he had become fascinated with the idea of importing and growing orchids a few years before the San Francisco fire. By then, he was prosperous enough to undertake such an expensive enterprise, which could at times require an outlay of several thousand dollars for a single plant. In 1917, he would make news by selling a Brassocattleya he had grown from seed and named Queen of California for the record sum of $2,500. The buyer was Charles M. Ward of Eureka, known as the “Tulip Baron of Humboldt County.” 

Carbone’s growing prosperity was evidenced by the land he had accumulated. Like his friend and neighbor Simone Marengo—the founder of the West Berkeley Macaroni Factory who had increased his holdings on Sixth Street immediately after the earthquake—Carbone owned by 1907 seven lots on his block, not counting the three lots still owned by Margaret Carbone and occupied by his nursery. 

No complete photograph remains of the Carbone home at 2216 Fifth Street, long since demolished. Like most of the houses in the neighborhood, it was a two-story Victorian, although the prevailing home-building fashions in other parts of Berkeley at the time tended to Colonial Revival or Craftsman. In this house Aurelia gave birth to Carlo (1904), Melvin (1905), Inez (1908), and John, Jr. (1910). 

The Carbone boys were trained early to lend a hand in the nursery, and several gardeners employed by Carbone usually lived with the family. One of these was John’s elderly uncle Carlo Dughera, who from 1907 until 1914 and again from 1915 until his death in 1924 resided and worked with the Carbones. 

At the Panama-Pacific Exposition of 1915, the Carbone exhibit, showing off more than 80 orchid varieties, was judged Best in Show. In addition to the gold medal for overall exhibit, Carbone received four first prizes for individual orchid cultivars. He would continue exhibiting at all the major horticultural shows over the next thirty years, consistently winning top honors. 

As Carbone’s prestige grew, he became active in civic affairs, rubbing shoulders with Berkeley’s most important citizens. When the Chamber of Commerce moved into its new quarters in June 1913, Carbone contributed flowers for the opening reception. In 1917, when the American Red Cross mounted a nationwide campaign to raise a 100-million-dollar war fund, Carbone was one of the vice-presidents in the Berkeley effort alongside leading figures such as Benjamin Ide Wheeler, mayor Samuel C. Irving, Frank Wilson, John Hinkel, Stephen J. Sill, Redmond C. Staats, Duncan McDuffie, Bernard Maybeck, David P. Barrows, and August Wollmer. 

One undated newspaper article reported that Carbone had given the city 800 Ulrich Brunner rose plants, “to be used in such manner as the park commission directs.” 

One person who was not altogether delighted with John Carbone was his wife Aurelia. On April 13, 1924, the Oakland Tribune reported, “After a court battle lasting most of the day, during which florists from Oakland, Berkeley and Alameda were in attendance, Mrs. Aurelia Carbone was granted temporary alimony of $275 pending the trial of her divorce suit against John Carbone, ‘orchid king’ of Berkeley.” 

It wasn’t until Nov. 21 of that year that the suit was tried and its cause came to light. Mrs. Carbone accused her 59-year-old husband of dallying with his stenographer. The marriage was dissolved, and Mrs. Carbone moved to an apartment on Dowling Place with her two younger children. 

John Carbone was married a third time, but not to his stenographer. His best friend, Simone Marengo, was widowed in 1922, and three years later married Maria Barbieri, a woman nearly 30 years his junior who had recently arrived from Italy. At the Marengo house, Carbone saw the photo of a young woman—Maria’s friend in Italy—and initiated a correspondence with her, eventually paying her way to Berkeley as his fiancée. 

Francesca Bertuzzo (1898–1957), the daughter of Italians who had migrated to Brazil in the 19th century, was born on a coffee plantation in Itapira, São Paulo. Having returned to Italy, the family was living in the Ligurian port town of La Spezia, where Francesca ran a laundry whose main client was the navy. This curriculum vitae apparently was insufficiently exotic for the Oakland Tribune, which featured a photo of the bride on April 7, 1928, describing her as the daughter of a Brazilian orchid collector. 

Francesca and John Carbone produced one child, Louise Eliza, who was born in February 1929, on the same day that her father purchased three acres for a new nursery on Woodmont Avenue, overlooking Wildcat Canyon. 

By 1929, West Berkeley was no longer a suitable place for growing prize orchids. A block to the west on Third Street, the Solano Iron Works, the Triangle Paint Company, the Westinghouse/Sturtevant fan-manufacturing plant, and the Armco drainage products plant were polluting the air. Carbone leased his Fifth St. facility to the C. & A. Warren Nursery and decamped for Woodmont Ave., where two notable iris specialists—horticulturist Carl Salbach and U.C. professor Sydney Bancroft Mitchell—were already established. 

The family continued living at 2216 Fifth St. until 1937, when contractor Giovanni Battista Faramia built them a Mediterranean-style house at 571 Woodmont Avenue. The house still stands, although it’s been remodeled and enlarged twice by subsequent owners. 

When John Carbone died at the age of 80, he was honored by the City Council and the Rotary Club. Among his honorary pall bearers were city manager Gerrit Vander Ende and fire chief William Meinheit. Exactly a week after his death, his son Melvin was killed in a car crash. Thereafter, John, Jr. managed the nursery until his retirement in 1959, when the business was taken over by the youngest child, Louise Carbone Colombatto, and Melvin’s son, Mel Jr. 

With demand for cut flowers steadily declining, greenhouses showing their age, and heating bills soaring, the family decided to close the nursery. The land was sold to a developer and subdivided for house lots. 

Remaining are the showy cultivar Cattleya J.A. Carbone and numerous hybrids developed from it by several generations of horticulturists. 

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

This past Sunday I got a bargain, a cymbidium orchid in a gallon pot for five dollars. Nice healthy-looking thing, too. If I’d been willing to stagger around the crowded Sycamore Congregational Church bazaar conking innocent children on the head with a bigger pot, I could’ve had even more bargains.  

We’d spent most of our walking-around money on food anyway, and after watching a performance by a kickass taiko group whose lead drummer is 80 years old, I was inclined to mind my manners. Five bucks for a healthy cymbidium? That’s enough reward for one day. That’s also one more plant to shoehorn onto a crowded front porch.  

But the real reason I couldn’t resist this one frivolous expense was the cultivar’s name: ‘Claude Pepper.’ My goodness, doesn’t that bring back fond memories? 

Claude Pepper, aside from having a name to conjure with, was a U.S. senator and later a member of the House of Representatives, an unusual career sequence in itself. He represented Florida, worked on senior citizens’ issues among other big deals, and died in the saddle in 1989. The best story about him, though, isn’t exactly about him and, alas, probably never happened. 

In 1950 he lost the Democratic primary race to George Smathers. Smathers probably did not give the speech credited to him that included: “Are you aware that Claude Pepper is known all over Washington as a shameless extrovert? Not only that, but this man is reliably reported to practice nepotism with his sister-in-law, and he has a sister who was once a thespian in wicked New York. Worst of all, it is an established fact that Mr. Pepper, before his marriage, habitually practiced celibacy.” 

So. Theoretically the flower color will be deep deep wine-red—cymbidiums normally run to shades of white, cream, yellow, dark crimson, and maroon—and I don’t know how well it will perform, though obviously someone in El Cerrito has had enough success to divide and propagate some dozen plants, at least, for this fair—but I’m now the proud guardian of a Cymbidium X ‘Claude Pepper’.  

Cymbidium orchids are among the few that prosper outdoors here; they’re mostly from high, temperate places in south Asia. They do need to be outdoors here; dry indoor air will shrivel them. They want shade and shelter from serious frost, though they need a little sun to bloom. There’s a nice foundation planting of them across the street from me, up against the north wall of a house where they benefit from its thermal mass and the eaves over them.  

Look for a plant that’s mostly green, though a brown “back bulb” or two is actually OK. Give regular water and good drainage; feed with orchid food in summer if you want a shortcut through nutritional jargon, and cut off the last flower spikes—whose blooms last for weeks!—before the last flower opens, for more bloom next year.  

Amateur sales like this, at fairs and street parties and garden clubs, are a great source of healthy cheap plants. Keep your eyes open for flyers and banners in playgrounds, and bring a handled bag for schlepping.  

If you stop and think about it, the notion that old houses are better is just as silly as the notion that new houses are better. The truth is that both things are true. Older houses are better in some way and newer houses are better in others. Construction is fraught with misconceptions. Another one is that the framing or “bones” of old houses is better than that of newer ones.  

While it’s certainly true that our older housing stock has, within its walls, some of the best timber ever permitted cut dried for these purposes, the manner in which they are conjoined is inferior to current methods and come the next earthquake, I’d rather be in a house that had been built last year than one built in 1920. Of course, one can take the older house and add the hardware that the newer house has and also withstand the big one when it arrives (which is my idea of the perfect house). 

In recent years, the housing industry has gotten itself in some deep you-know-what as a result of one of its greatest successes, the perfection of the tight house. Houses in the last 20 years have been pushed to such low porosities (the rate at which moisture or gases pass through them) that they lose nary a Therm (a unit of heat measurement). While the goal of making houses energy efficient is a brave and worthy one, the consequences of living in these wooden vacuum bottles are growing more apparent every day. Too many of them are rotting away and sometimes in a matter of months. O.K., I’m being a bit hyperbolic but it IS true that massive fungal infestations are being found in many of this new class of house all across the country but particularly in those areas where humidities run high.  

Understanding how ventilation works and how moisture moves with air is becoming an important aspect of architecture, building inspection and construction as we all try to respond to this nasty bit of news.  

So, why is this happening and what changed. In short, older houses evaded these moisture related problems by leaking. They leaked air, they leaked moisture, they leaked heat. Apparently, this was not so much of a problem as we had formerly thought! Leaking, it turns out, is a good thing, but as with our initial premise, it’s also bad. It depends on what you’re testing for and what you want.  

If you want a house that has a good “drying potential” (the ability to dry out quickly after leaks occur) you get a big thumbs-up. If you want a house that’s going to hold onto a given amount of heat for any length of time, it’s thumbs down. 

A large number of mold-related cases in the recent past have involved newer, tighter houses. Like huge colonies of Stachybotrys chartarum (the favorite of the legal community), these cases having been growing exponentially and are flooding the courts in increasing numbers and all because people, including those in the construction community, fail to understand some basic (and not-so-basic) things about how buildings work. 

If you create a tightly sealed environment, one that does not dry out quickly, and you allow a little water to leak into it through a shoddily built wall, you can end up with water sitting for an extended time inside something not all that different from a cardboard box. Get the picture. 

Actually, this whole problem is even worse with newer houses because the wood products used in most newer homes are so much more digestible than those in older homes that the rate at which they get consumed by fungi can be impressive. 

So all around, it’s a bad scene and if you own a relatively new house the word is simple, keep the water out, period. If you see any sign of leakage, have it fixed properly and quickly. 

Now, let’s get back to our older home. If an older house, with its high porosity, leaks at a window, a roof or right though a wall, the water hangs around for a much shorter period and the likelihood of a mold or other fungal problem (molds ARE funguses) is greatly reduced. 

Older homes and most newer ones as well, were, and are, designed to allow air to pass under them as well as through attic spaces. This does a range of good things for us but none so good as the removal of damp air and replacement with dryer air. In places where Radon is of concern (and this is generally low in our area), the exchange of air also helps to remove this potent carcinogen (second only to cigarettes in lung cancer deaths at around 20,000 per year). 

If it’s wet under your house, some of that water is going to evaporate and find it’s way into the structure. In houses where crawlspace ventilation is poor, there is consistently more fungal growth (molds included). In houses where enough ventilation is provided, the presence of destructive fungi is much lower and usually the result of a leak from plumbing or from rain entry. 

Ventilation is also something that’s easy and cheap to provide. Crawlspace vents are really nothing more than a series of holes though the sides of the house below floor level that allow air to flow through the crawlspace.  

These vents require screening for the sole reason that critters of various sizes and nastinesses favor the space below your house for their dinner parties (“another grub, Madam?”), romantic liaisons (“You smell like rat, my darling. Come to me now”) and infant deliveries (“Look honey, Octuplets!”). The ideal screening is heavily galvanized steel mesh. This is available a range of pre-cut and framed shapes that can be installed quite easily. If you’re adding ventilation because you are aware of the moisture in the crawlspace, I would also recommend adding a plastic barrier laid directly upon the soil. This helps control moisture and requires no sophisticated installation. 

Ventilation requirements in new construction vary but are generally around 1 square foot for every 150 square feet of crawlspace. This means that most houses I see required around eight square feet or around 16 vents distributed around the house (they’re typically a square foot each). Vents do the most good when the wind can get to them so vents that are close to fence or blocked by bushes should be considered to have less value. If you’re adding them, try to place them where they’re more likely to create cross-ventilation. 

It’s worth noting that very few houses meet this requirement and many would clearly benefit from their introduction. Recent codes have allowed a radical reduction in the ventilation requirement for houses (one square foot per 1500 square feet) when vapor barriers are properly installed and where the vents are placed near the corners for improved draft.  

My personal take is that this is short-sighted and that when moisture is present, all the big guns should be brought out and used. If a house is essentially dry underneath, I’m fine to see this radical reduction in ventilation but in crawlspaces where we know it’s been getting wet, adding loads of ventilation as well as vapor barriers is cheap and sensible and there’s really no good reason to avoid it, unless, of course, you happen to like things wet and slimy, but hey, knock your amphibian-like self out. 

Is Your Child’s School Prepared? 

If you have children or grandchildren, you’ll want to check with the school and see what preparations have been made in the event of a serious earthquake. Schools should expect that some parents may not physically be able to pick their child up after a quake (think impassable roads). They are prepared with food, water, first aid, and sanitary necessities, knowing that some of the kids may well need to spend the night at school. 

There should also be a plan of action which involves sharing information with the parents. 

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

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

Jane Powell is a bungalow and old house zealot. Every community should be lucky to have even one person like her. 

As she writes in Bungalow Details: Interiors, “when I see some old house that has been neglected or abused, I literally begin to twitch, I get a rush of adrenaline, my mind starts going a mile a minute with plans for what needs to be done…” 

If you live in a bungalow, or like bungalows, or just like old houses in general, do yourself a favor and go to her evening talk Thursday, Sept. 27. No one I can think of knows more, both practical and esoteric, about these houses than Jane Powell and she’s enthusiastically willing to share. 

Her lecture, at Berkeley’s historic Hillside Club, is the last in a four-part series exploring the history and built character of Berkeley, organized by Arlene Baxter, president of the Berkeley Association of Realtors.  

“Jane Powell answers the question, What is a bungalow?, exploring the history of bungalows, their relation to the broader Arts & Crafts Movement, and why they have become popular again in the 21st century,” the lecture publicity promises. 

The term “bungalow” originated with the housing British colonials built in a concession to tropical and subtropical climates. Single-floor dwellings with wide, overhanging roofs, large porches, and open, airy, floor plans were all adaptable to local conditions and building materials. 

The style arrived in the United States in the late 19th century and flourished up through World War I, until displaced by “Period Revival” architecture (think Mission Revival or Mock Tudor). 

What’s the detailed definition of a bungalow? The Oakland-based Powell has written that it’s “fundamentally rather complicated.” 

But a few frequently seen characteristics include a single floor (often, though, with extra rooms tucked under a gabled roof), wide roof eaves, a generous front porch, and an interior that de-emphasizes hallways and staircases in favor of rooms that flow into each other. 

Many, if not most, bungalows were inexpensive to build and affordable to buy when new, but even the most humble can contain superb examples of craftsmanship and design that still delight owners and their guests. 

They were also modern, with electricity, indoor plumbing, gas in some cases, and very up to date and functional kitchens and bathrooms.  

Where you see one bungalow there are often twins, triplets, a dozen, or a score. Many bungalows were built as part of “tract” or “suburban” developments as streetcar lines and road improvements opened up convenient access to areas beyond the 19th century urban core. 

In the Bay Area, Oakland and Alameda have many bungalows and some neighborhoods like Rockridge are just thick with them. Berkeley’s bungalows are perhaps fewer and more scattered, but they are here. 

Original bungalows are now quite venerable and, as is often the case with the aged, they’ve been subjected over the decades to efforts of the young to improve or even remove them. 

As early as the 1930 and 1940s houses in the Bay Area, including some bungalows, were being “modernized” with features such as garages burrowed beneath the front façade and exteriors mummified in featureless stucco. 

In the ‘50s and ‘60s, “remodels” often meant atrocities of asbestos siding, painted-over woodwork, brick and tile, acoustic ceilings, aluminum windows, torn out built-ins, or big sculptural porch columns replaced with spindly metal posts. 

In more recent years popular “updates” have included vinyl windows, rears of bungalows demolished or gutted beyond recognition for the creation of “great rooms” and “chef’s kitchens,” and huge master suite additions atop small houses like overloaded baggage on a camel. 

Improper remodeling and disrespectful treatment of bungalows are passionate themes for Powell, sort of bungalow bugaboos. She’s a leading, emphatic, proponent of keeping the character of bungalows intact. 

“Updating” all or part of a house in some trendy current style imposed on top of or in place of the original character simply means the remodel will come, in time, to appear outdated as well. If you doubt this, think of the last refreshing, exciting, modern-looking 1970s kitchen you visited.  

Powell argues in her writing that if you buy a nice old house, however worn and battered, you should feel some obligation to retain, or restore, its character, rather than altering everything. Don’t try to radically change a house you don’t like or that doesn’t “suit your needs”; perhaps even consider buying a house you do like. 

This is not to say some interventions, such as upgrades to mechanical systems or room additions, shouldn’t be done, but they should be as contextual as possible. 

One of things that makes Jane Powell an excellent resource is that she has extensive experience actually working on local bungalows—from stripping paint, to getting permits, to finding the right door hardware—rather than simply a theoretical knowledge.  

She’s bought and renovated several, advised on others, and written several books that should be in the home library of every bungalow owner. 

Her books outline the proper approach and outcome for each bungalow project, but also offer options of “Obsessive Restoration” (do it like they did it back then, with the same materials and processes) or “Compromise Solution” (that still fits in well, but substitutes modern materials or techniques). 

She also has a great turn of phase. An example from Bungalow Interiors: 

“Many people tell me they never use their dining room and I always reply, ‘Why? Is there a force field around it?’ Even if you don’t eat there, it makes a fabulous library.” Or this chapter heading about bungalow heating upgrades, “Many are cold, but few are frozen.” 

Every page of a Powell book offers some well researched, interesting, insight or practical advice. I hope her lecture will be the same. Afterwards, as at past lectures in the series, there should be great cookies, and an opportunity to buy books at a discount and get them signed.

FRIDAY, SEPT. 21 

International Peace Day & Iraq Moratorium Gather 2:30 p.m. at West Oakland BART Station, south parking lot, march at 3 p.m. to the Railroad Bridge to the Oakland Ports. info@bayareacodepink.org 

City Commons Club Noon Luncheon with Booker Holton on “Water in Israel: An Environmental, Political and Security Issue” Luncheon at 11:45 a.m. for $14.5, speech at 12:30 p.m., at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant St. 526-2925.  

Protest the War in Iraq from 2 to 4 p.m. on the corner of Acton and University. Sponsored by the Strawberry Creek Lodge Tenants Assoc. and Berkeley-East Bay Gray Panthers. 841-4143. 

Second Annual Berkeley Sustainability Summit from 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. in the Krutch Theater, Clark Kerr Campus, 2601 Warring St. Tickets are $25. Use the #7 Arlington bus line. www.ecologycenter.org/summit 

“Peace One Day” A documentary film describing how the United Nations General Assembly chose September 21st as the annual International Day of Peace and Non-violence at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Friends Meeting Friendship Hall, 2151 Vine St, at Walnut. Potluck at 6 p.m. 848-7357. 

“Special Circumstances” A film on former Chilean political prisoner Hector Salgado at 8 p.m. at La Peña. Cost is $10. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

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, SEPT. 22 

Berkeley Historical Society Tour of the California Historical Radio Society and KRE Radio History from 10 a.m. to noon. Cost is $8-$10, season pass is $30. To register and for meeting place call 848-0181. 

Walking Tour of Old Oakland around the restored 1870s business district. Meet at 10 a.m. in front of G.B. Ratto’s at 827 Washington St. Tour lasts 90 minutes. Reservations can be made by calling 238-3234. 

Oakland Heritage Alliance Walking Tour of Oakland Walkways and Streetcar Heritage from 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Call for reservations and meeting place. Tickets are $25-$30. 763-9218. www.oaklandheritage.org 

Cajun/Zydeco Festival at Ardenwood Historic Farm with music by Geno Delafose & French Rockin’ Boogie and Corey Lil Pop Ledet from Louisiana, Cajun/Creole food and more, from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Tickets are $16-$20 for adults, $2-$3 for childen 4-15, children 3 and younger free. 1-888-327-2757. www.ebparks.org 

"War Made Easy” A film by Normon Solomon at 7 p.m. at Buena Vista United Methodist Church, 2311 Buena Vista, between Oak and Park, Alameda. Benefit for Alamada Peace Network. http://WarMadeEasy.bravenewtheaters.com/screening/show/9772  

Last Day of Summer Stroll in Temescal Park Meet at 2 p.m. at the lawn area b, the north entrance off Broadway in Oakland. 521-6887. www.ebparks.org 

Center for Urban Peace re-opening with yoga and kirtan at 5 p.m., program at 7 p.m. at 2584 MLK, Jr. Way. RSVP to 866-732-2320. 

AAU Boys Basketball Tryouts for ages 12U, 13U and 14U, from noon to 2 p.m. at Berkeley YMCA’s main gym, 2001 Allston Way. 665-3264.  

Fast Pitch Softball for Adults at noon on Saturdays in Oakland. For information call 204-9500. 

The Berkeley Lawn Bowling Club provides free instruction at 10:30 a.m. at 2270 Acton St. 841-2174.  

SUNDAY, SEPT. 23 

Little Farm Fair Celebrate the completion of the new cow barn, meet the new calves and enjoy live music, carfts and games from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Little Farm, Tilden Nature Area, Tiden Park. Visitors encouraged to use ACTransit bus #67. 525-2233. 

Facilitated Labyrinth Walk from noon to 3 p.m. at the future site of Berkeley Community Peace Labyrinth, East Lawn of Berkeley Marina. 526-7377. 

Berkeley Partners for Parks Fundraiser with music and food from 3 to 5 p.m. at the Egret Center on Bolivar Drive, just north of Ashby. Suggested donation $30. RSVP to 540-7223. info@pbfp.org 

6th Anniversary Lake Merritt Walk/Roll for Peace at 3 p.m. at the colonnade, southeast corner of the lake between Grand and Lakeshore Aves. www.lmno4p.org 

Oakland Heritage Alliance Walking Tour of Schilling Garden Meet at 10 a.m. at the corner of Lakeside Drive and Madison, near the Lake Merritt Hotel. Cost is $10-$15. 763-9218. www.oaklandheritage.org 

Cross-Pollination: Gardeners Unite Meet people from garden clubs, community gardens, plant societies, and urban farms from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at UC Botanical Garden, 200 Centennial Dr. Cost is $2-$7. 643-2755. 

The Berkeley Lawn Bowling Club Open House with lawn bowling demonstrations and chance to bowl, from 1 to 4 p.m. at 2270 Acton St., corner of Acton & Bancroft. Please wear sneakers. 841-2174. 

“Politics 101 Meets Web 2.0: Democracy or Demagoguery?” Political candidate now have web sites, participate in social networks, and can respond to folks via YouTube. So are we closer to democracy? From 4 to 6 p.m. at the Hillside Club, 2286 Cedar St. Cost is $15 at door. 

Autumn Equinox Gathering at 6:15 p.m. at the Interim Solar Calendar, Cesar Chavez Park, Berkeley Marina. Gathering led by Rabbi David Cooper, Kahilla Community Synagogue. Dress warmly. www.solarcalendar.org 

“Learn How To Build A Living Roof Garden” Learn how to convert a flat roof into a planted garden from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at EcoHouse, 1305 Hopkins St., enter via garden entrance on Peralta. Cost is $15, sliding scale. 548-2220, ext. 242.  

Tour of the Berkeley City Club, Julia Morgan’s “little castle” at 1:15, 2:15, and 3:15 p.m. at 2315 Durant Ave. Free, donations welcome. 883-9710. 

Health Care from a Marxist Perspective at 10 a.m. at Niebyl-Proctor Marxist Library, 6501 Telegraph Ave., Oakland. 595-7417. 

Girl Army Self-Defense Class runs for 6 weeks from 1 to 4 p.m. at Suigetsukan Dojo, 103 International Blvd., Oakland. For information and to register call 496-3443. 

“A Taste of California” Rotary Club of Oakland fundraiser from 1 to 4 p.m. at the Oakland Museum of California, 10th and Oak St., Oakland. Tickets are $65 available from www.museumca.org/tickets 

Solo Sierrans Walk Along the Carquinez Strait Regional Shoreline Meet at 3 p.m. at the trailhead parking lot, off Talbart in Martinez. 925-458-0860. 

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. 

Carole Swain ”Living the Lasallian Mission” at 10 a.m. at Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley, 1 Lawson Rd., Kensington. 525-0302, ext. 306. 

Sew Your Own Open Studio Come learn to use our industrial and domestic machines, or work on your own projects, from 5 to 9 p.m. at 84 Bolivar Dr., Aquatic Park. Cost is $3 per hour. 644-2577.  

Free Garden Tours at Regional Parks Botanic Garden in Tilden Park Sat. and Sun. at 2 p.m. Call to confirm. 841-8732. www.nativeplants.org 

Lake Merritt Neighbors Organized for Peace at 3 p.m. at the colonnade at the NE end of the lake. 763-8712.  

Tibetan Buddhism with Jack Petranker on “Loosening Self-Image: A Buddhist Perspective” at 6 p.m. at the Tibetan Nyingma Institute, 1815 Highland Pl. 843-6812.  

MONDAY, SEPT. 24 

Peace Corps Volunteer Information Session at 6 p.m. at the Rockridge Public Library, 5366 College Ave. at Manila, Oakland. 1-800-424-8580.  

“Building a Business from Scratch” A series of workshops held Mon. from 6 to 9 p.m. at Richmond Public Library, 325 Civic Center Plaza, Richmond. To register call 620-6561. 

Books and Ideas Group discusses “Whistling Season” at 1 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center, 1901 Hearst Ave. 981-5190. 

Free Boatbuilding Classes for Youth Mon.-Wed. from 3 to 7 p.m. at Berkeley Boathouse, 84 Bolivar Dr., Aquatic Park. Classes cover woodworking, boatbuilding, and boat repair. 644-2577.  

Berkeley CopWatch organizational meeting at 8 p.m. at 2022 Blake St. Join us to work on current issues around police misconduct. 548-0425. 

TUESDAY, SEPT. 25 

Tuesdays for the Birds Tranquil bird walks in local parklands, led by Bethany Facendini, from 7 to 9:30 a.m. Today we will visit Point Pinole. Call for meeting place and if you need to borrow binoculars. 525-2233. 

Community Action Forum on Health Inequities including discussions on asthma, obesity, youth issues, and violence at 6:30 p.m. at St. Paul AME Church, 2024 Ashby Ave. 981-5300. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/publichealth/newsevents/sept07forum.html 

Salsas from Oaxaca A cooking demonstration with Rebecca Sibrack from 2:30 to 6:30 p.m. at the Tuesday Berkeley Farmers’ Market, Derby at MLK. 548-3333. 

End the Occupation Vigil every Tues. at noon at Oakland Federal Bldg., 1301 Clay St. www.epicalc.org 

Berkeley School Volunteers Orientation from 4 to 5 p.m. at 1835 Allston Way. Come learn about volunteer opportunities. 644-8833. 

“Hijaking Catastrophe: 9/11, Fear & the Sellling of American Empire” A documentary at 7:30 p.m. at Humanist Hall, 390 27th St., Oakland. Donation $5. www.HumanistHall.net 

Berkeley High School Governance Council meets at 4:15 p.m. to discuss ELL Budget, Proposed Change to Bylaws, WASC Plan and more in the Community Theater Lobby. 644-4803. 

Berkeley PC Users Group meets at 7 p.m. at 1145 Walnut St near the corner of Eunice. MelDancing@aol.com 

World Harmony Chorus meets to sing world music at 7:30 p.m. at Lake Merritt United Methodist Church, 1330 Lakeshore Ave., Oakland. See http://InstantHarmony.com  

Family Storytime at 7 p.m. at the Kensington Library, 61 Arlington Ave., Kensington. 524-3043. 

Street Level Cycles Community Bike Program Come use our tools as well as receive help with performing repairs free of charge. Youth classes available. Tues., Thurs., and Sat. from 2 to 6 p.m. at at 84 Bolivar Dr., Aquatic Park. 644-2577. www.watersideworkshops.org 

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. 

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, SEPT. 26 

Birding with the Golden Gate Audubon Society at Lake Merritt Meet at 9:30 a.m. at the large spherical cage near Nature Center at Perkins and Bellevue. 834-1066. 

Walking Tour of Old Oakland around Preservation Park to see Victorian architecture. Meet at 10 a.m. in front of Preservation Park at 13th St. and MLK, Jr. Way. Tour lasts 90 minutes. Reservations can be made by calling 238-3234. www.oaklandnet.com/walkingtours 

Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning Colloquium with Alexi Yurchak on “Transformations of Space in Post-Socialist St. Petersburg” at 1 p.m. at Wurster Hall, Room 315A, UC Campus. All welcome. laep.ced.berkeley.edu/events/colloquium  

Transportation for the Future: Getting Around without a Car at 1:30 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center, 1901 Hearst. 548-9696. 

“East Bay Clean Energy: How You Can Support Community Choice Energy” Learn how communities can assume greater control over energy pricing and invest in renewable energy, at 6:30 p.m. at Bay Area Academy, 2201 Broadway, Suite 100, Oakland. 925-255-3110. EastBayCCA@gmail.com 

“Adapting to the Impacts of a Changing Climate” Learn and share ideas about what we can do as a community to deal with the impacts of global warming at 7:30 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-5434. energy@ci.berkeley.ca.us www.cityofberkeley.info/sustainable/ 

Seldom Seen Acting Company Homeless actors share their life stories at 10:30 a.m. at St. Vincent de Paul Center, 2272 San Pablo Ave., Oakland. 636-4255. 

Writer Coach Connection Volunteers needed to help Berkeley students improve their writing and critical thinking skills from noon to 3 p.m. or from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m. To register call 524-2319. www.writercoachconnection.org 

“Loving Maradona” A film on the Argentine soccer player at 7 p.m. at La Peña. Cost is $6. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

“Stories of the Buddha Dharma” with Rev. Ken Yamada at 7 p.m. at the Jodo Shinshu Center, 2140 Durant Ave. at Fulton. Cost is $15. 809-1460. 

“After Capitalism: An Integrated Vision for a New World” with Dada Maheshvarananda at 7 p.m. at Green City Gallery, 1950 Shattuck Ave. Donation $10-$20.  

Walk Berkeley for Seniors meets every Wednesday at 9:30 a.m. at the Sea Breeze Market, just west of the I-80 overpass. Everyone is welcome, wear comfortable shoes and a warm hat. Heavy rain cancels. 548-9840. 

Berkeley Peace Walk and Vigil at the Berkeley BART Station, corner of Shattuck and Center. Sing for Peace at 6:30 p.m. followed by Peace Walk at 7 p.m. www.geocities.com/ 

vigil4peace/vigil 

Stitch ‘n Bitch at 6:30 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

THURSDAY, SEPT. 27 

“Bungalows: The Ultimate Arts & Crafts Home” with author Jane Powell at 7:30 p.m. at the Hillside Club. Cost is $20. For revervations call 848-4288. 

“How Does Immigration Work in the Bay Area?” with Rosemary Langley Mellville of the U.C. Citizenship and Immigration Services, at 5 p.m. at Northbrae Community Church, 941 The Alameda. Sponsored by the League of Women Voters. 843-8824. 

“Numbers in the Courtroom: Statistics as Evidence” Learn how statistics can be used to help a court decide if a company has illegally discriminated against an employee with William Lepowsky, Mathematics Instructor at Laney College and statistical expert witness, from 3:30 to 4:30 p.m. in Room G-209 at Laney College, 8th and Fallon Streets, Oakland. Free. 464-3181.  

“Sentenced Home” A screening of the documentary and a panel discussion on the overlap between criminal justice and and immigration policy at 4 p.m. at Boalt Hall, Room 100, UC Campus. 643-7025. 

“Buddhism and Warfare” with Padmanabh S. Jaini, at 5 p.m. in the IEAS Conference Room, 2223 Fulton St. 6th Floor. 643-5104. 

“Iran, North Korea, and the Dream of a Nuclear Weapon Free World” wth Tad Daley at 7:30 p.m. in the Home Room, International House, 2299 Piedmont Ave. Cost is $5. 642-9460. 

“Covering California: Media and Democracy in the Golden State” The annual conference of the Travers Program in Ethics & Accountability in Government will feature speakers and panels on the interrelationships between the news media and democracy. Thurs. and Fri. from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Barrows Hall, UC Campus. 642-6323. http://polisci.berkeley.edu/department/calendar/index.asp  

“Exilio: Creating Home Away from Home” Chilean art, music and poetry Thurs. and Fri. at 7 p.m. at La Peña. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Bayswater Book Club meets to discuss “The Secret Team” by L. Fletcher Prouty at 6:30 p.m. Call for location. 433-2911. 

Meet a Humane Society Dog for ages 5 and up at 4 p.m. at the Kensington Library, 61 Arlington Ave., Kensington. 524-3043. 

Babies & Toddlers Storytime at 10:15 and 11:15 a.m. at Kensington Library, 61 Arlington Ave., Kensington. 524-3043. 

World of Plants Tours Thurs., Sat. and Sun. at 1:30 p.m. at the UC Botanical Garden, 200 Centennial Drive. Cost is $5. 643-2755. http://botanicalgarden.berkeley.edu 

CITY MEETINGS 

Parks and Recreation Commission meets Mon., Sept. 24, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-5158.  

Zero Waste Commission Mon., Sept. 24, at 7 p.m., at 1201 Second St. 981-6368.  

Civic Arts Commission meets Wed., Sept. 26, at 6:30 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Mary Ann Merker, 981-7533.  

Disaster and Fire Safety Commission meets Wed., Sept. 26, at 7 p.m., at the Emergency Operations Center, 997 Cedar St. 981-5502.  

Energy Commission meets Wed., Sept. 26, at 6:30 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-5434.  

Planning Commission meets Wed., Sept. 26, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-7484.  

Mental Health Commission meets Thurs., Sept. 27, at 6:30 p.m. at 2640 MLK Jr. Way, at Derby. 981-5213.

As part of an ongoing effort to print stories by East Bay residents, The Daily Planet invites readers to write about their experiences and perspectives on living in, working in or enjoying various neighborhoods in our area. We are looking for essays about the Oakland neighborhoods around Lake Merritt and Piedmont Avenue, Fourth Street in Berkeley, and the city of Alameda. Please e-mail your essays, no more than 800 words, to firstperson@berkeleydailyplanet.com. We will publish the best essays in upcoming issues in October. The sooner we receive your submission the better chance we have of publishing it.