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Anti-war demonstrators go head to head with counter-protesters  standing in front of the Marine Recruiting Center at 64 Shattuck Square on Wednesday. Photograph by Judith Scherr.
Anti-war demonstrators go head to head with counter-protesters standing in front of the Marine Recruiting Center at 64 Shattuck Square on Wednesday. Photograph by Judith Scherr.
 

News

Pro-War Groups Square Off with Code Pink

By Judith Scherr
Friday October 19, 2007

Organized by KSFO radio personality Melanie Morgan, chair of Move America Forward, pro-war, anti-Islamic and anti-immigration demonstrators converged on the Berkeley Recruiting Center Wednesday, caravaning into town with their SUVs and Harleys decked out in American flags to face off with Code Pink, the anti-war group that has held vigils in front of the 64 Shattuck Square Marine Recruitment Office for three weeks. 

The mostly female demonstrators from Code Pink and their allies—Veterans for Peace, International Answer, Sing for Peace, the World Can’t Wait, Berkeley High students, the Ecumenical Peace Institute, Women in Black—mustered around 125 demonstrators, but their message spoken into handheld bullhorns was sometimes drowned out by the pro-war side’s superior sound system; the 250 or so mostly male counter-demonstrators clearly outnumbered Code Pink’s participants. 

The pro-war counter-demonstrators came from as far as Santa Rosa and as close as the UC Berkeley campus; they represented groups including the American Legion, the Gathering of Eagles, Eagles Up and the UC Berkeley College Republicans.  

When the pro-war side sang “God Bless America,” the anti-war people sang, “God Save America.” The pro-warriors called the protesters “commies” and the pro-peace folks called the counter-demonstrators “killers.” The pro-war people shouted “USA” and the anti-war people called out in response: “Out of Iraq.” 

As the crowd grew, the rhetoric of the two sides escalated, and some minor shoving ensued. Berkeley police separated the pro- and anti-war demonstrators, with the pro-war side, which held permits, allowed to remain on the west side of the street in front of the recruiting office and the anti-war side, which held no permits, guided firmly across the street. 

There were no arrests, but one demonstrator with The World Can’t Wait was cited for “throwing a flaming/glowing substance on public property,” according to Berkeley Police spokesperson Sgt. Mary Kusmiss, who further explained in an e-mail to the Planet that the demonstrator had burned a flag. 

One young man, who did not want to be identified, was yelling “Code Pink traitors,” along with a group of counter-demonstrators. Asked what he meant, he told the Planet that it was “because Code Pink is against what our country’s trying to do—to get freedom for people.” 

Nearby, Dan Baptista also supported the war. “We left in the first Gulf War without finishing the job,” he said. “If we don’t finish it, we’ll have to go back again in 10 years.” 

Several counter-demonstrators told the Daily Planet that the war in Iraq was necessary, because it was part of an ongoing fight against what they called “Islamo-fascism.” 

“Most the country doesn’t have a clue about what’s going on with militant Islam,” said counter-protester Robert Graves. “No one’s successfully negotiated with militant Islam, ever ... You’re going to have to conquer them. Otherwise we’re going to be like Israel, having someone constantly blowing us up. You need to put them on their heels to begin with, and then you have to civilize them, because they’re not civilized.”  

Across the street, Dennis Riley, a Vietnam vet with Veterans for Peace, said he had been in a fighter wing that bombed North Vietnam and Laos and hoped to stop other young people from joining the military.  

“The four years I served were the most shameful years of my life,” he said. “I don’t want to be thanked. Everything I did was wrong.” 

Berkeley High ninth-graders Niale Alimason and Nashla Acevado came to the protest during their lunch hour. “I support the peace,” Alimason told the Daily Planet. “Bush doesn’t care what we think.” 

“I think the war is wrong, and they should stop it,” Acevado added. 

Judy Christopher of Code Pink had brought her baby to the demonstration. “As a mother, I don’t want my son to grow up to kill people,” she said. 

As the demonstration wound down, Code Pink organizer Zanne Joi said she thought it had been a success. She took credit for the office not opening at all on Wednesday. 

“We’ve shut down the recruiting office,” she said.


Long-Time City Attorney Albuquerque Calls It Quits

By Judith Scherr
Friday October 19, 2007

While city insiders point to a number of accomplishments during the 26 years City Attorney Manuela Albuquerque has worked for the city, few tears were being shed Thursday at City Hall in response to the announcement of her November 30 retirement. 

Rumors had swirled around City Hall of Albuquerque’s possible departure, stemming from the aftermath of a scathing June 6 memo publicly naming the housing director, city manager and deputy city manager for problems at the housing authority, that, she alleged, stemmed from the manager’s refusal to follow her advice.  

Since that time Albuquerque’s taken many weeks of administrative, vacation and medical leave, fueling the rumors of her possible departure. 

Albuquerque was hired Oct. 15, 1981 as deputy city attorney and named city attorney Aug. 1, 1983. 

“I thank the council and the city manager and all the city councils and city managers with whom I have worked over these many years, for giving me the tremendous opportunity to serve this brilliant, visionary, idiosyncratic, sometimes quix-otic and endlessly stimulating and entertaining community,” Albuquerque wrote in a four-page letter of resignation, sent to city staff and forwarded to the Planet. 

Despite a strained relationship with the city attorney, Councilmember Dona Spring noted her defense of the public police-complaint-review process; the city’s mandate for workers at the Marina (on city-owned property) to be provided with a living wage; and the city’s position of withdrawing the Sea Scouts’ free berth at the Marina on grounds that the Boy Scouts, with whom they are affiliated, discriminate against gays and atheists. 

“I have to praise her for her many years of service,” Spring said. 

While Councilmember Gordon Wozniak said he didn’t always agree with Albuquerque—and even sued the city over her position that he should step off a commission—he also said that she “deserves to retire and have the time to spend with her grandchild.” 

He praised her especially for the way that, in closed session, she would inform the council of the many lawsuits it faces and the options it would have and possible consequences. “She is an outstanding strategist,” Wozniak said. “She has to make a lot of tough calls.” 

And, said Wozniak, “She has a really wicked sense of humor.” 

In a brief e-mail announcing Albuquerque’s departure, City Manager Phil Kamlarz said he had “long admired her passion, her intelligence, and her considerable energy.” 

While the departure of long-term city employees usually is noted with outpourings of regret, three department heads reached by the Planet refused to comment on the record, one expressing outright relief. 

While Spring had some kind words for Albuquerque, she told the Planet about her objections to “the city attorney’s ad hoc interpretation of the density bonus.” The density bonus defines space a developer can build beyond local limits, when they add features, such as low-income units, to their projects. 

Spring said that while a committee was appointed to look at writing a local density bonus ordinance, Albuquerque was among those who prevented its recommendations from coming to the council. (The issue will be before the Planning Commission next week.) 

Planning Commissioner Patti Dacey expressed concerns in a phone interview with the Planet, alleging Albuquerque “abused her discretion” in interpreting the density bonus for the Gaia Building on Allston Way. Dacey is the plaintiff of record in a lawsuit regarding the city’s handling of the permits for that building. 

About Albuquerque’s departure, Dacey said frankly: “It’s an excellent thing ... She advances the causes of whoever is in power,” rather than giving disinterested advice. 

Councilmember Kriss Worthington said he hopes a future city attorney will play the role of parliamentarian, which Albuquerque did not do.  

Worthington pointed out that the council had voted several times for the city attorney to prepare a Sunshine Ordinance, something she has not done. She also delayed the Zero Waste and Precautionary Principle ordinances, he said. When there’s a delay, “She says we don’t have staff,” such as in the proposed Campaign Finance Ordinance. “The Sweatfree Ordinance was delayed needlessly,” he said. 

The three councilmembers interviewed—Spring, Wozniak and Worthington—all said they thought the city should do a nationwide search for Albuquerque’s replacement. 

It would be important for a city attorney to recognize that “the council is your client,” Worthington said, noting the challenge city attorneys face: representing their clients rather than their own perspectives. 

“No plans have been set for her successor,” Kamlarz said in his statement.


Residents, Small Business Oppose West Berkeley Tax District

By Judith Scherr
Friday October 19, 2007

The councilmember who called Tuesday night’s town hall meeting in southwest Berkeley said in a postcard sent to some southwest Berkeley property owners that a tax assessment district proposal that was to be under discussion at the meeting had been withdrawn and that discussion should focus instead on ways to make the area cleaner, safer and less congested. 

But most of the 125 or so people who came to the event at Rosa Parks School made it clear that their main concern continued to be the West Berkeley Business Alliance (WBBA) proposal for a Community Benefits District.  

And that’s what they wanted to talk about.  

Even representatives of the WBBA said the assessment district proposal was still very much alive, although they were refashioning it, trying to eliminate as many homeowners from the district as they could. 

The district, as originally  

conceived by the WBBA, would stretch roughly from Univer- 

sity Avenue to the Oakland/ Emeryville border and from San Pablo Avenue to the bay. It would be formulated under a state law giving the largest property owners the biggest say in the district decision-making. The purpose is to generate funds to pay for services beyond those provided by the city, aiming at attacking crime, graffiti, illegal dumping and homeless encampments.  

Early drafts of the plan included lobbying the city around zoning issues—developers would like more flexible zoning in the area. But WBBA says it’s taken that out of the proposal. 

Rick Auerbach, as spokesperson for the West Berkeley Artisans and Industrial Com-panies (WBAIC), was given five minutes to address the meeting.  

Condemning the concept that large property owners would be the decisionmakers, he said: “A tiny minority of approximately 4 percent—15 property owners—can impose the assessment on the remaining 96 percent of the property owners. It violates the basic tenets of our country—one person, one vote—and validates the worst aspects of our society, where those who have the most wealth hold almost all the decision-making power.” 

Auerbach further lashed out at the small group that has been meeting for about a year to put together the district: community requests to participate in the WBBA meetings were ignored, he said, further pointing to widely divergent interests between residents and small businesses on the one hand and the large property owners on the other.  

“This group makes its living when properties change hands for ever-higher land values,” he said. “The present West Berkeley plan, the lifeblood for industries, artisans and the residential community, is seen by them as an impediment to these efforts.” 

Representing the Potter Creek Neighborhood Association, Sarah Klise also had five minutes to state the group’s concerns. Like WBAIC, Potter Creek residents fear that “our voices become quieted by the interests of the smallest few who also happen to be the largest landowners,” she said. 

Klise said she and her neighbors regard their neighborhood differently from the WBBA: “We will hear from city officials tonight [the police chief and representatives from various departments spoke after her] who say we live in a neglected, abandoned and crime-ridden neighborhood … To them I say we live in a diverse, rich, thriving, growing and artistic neighborhood that I call gloriously funky.” 

Klise went on to quote an article written by WBBA consultant Marco LiMandri, in which LiMandri said: “’We need to manage residential downtowns in totality, just as the mall companies manage a mall.’  

“Managing our funky Potter Creek neighborhood like a mall is ridiculous,” said Klise, who then took a poll among attendees on the question of an assessment district: 16 persons favored it, 68 persons opposed it, and 12 persons wanted more information.  

Although Councilmember Darryl Moore had written in the invitation to the meeting that the WBBA “has withdrawn its proposal to create a West Berkeley Community Benefits District”—and Michael Caplan, economic development division acting director had told the Daily Planet the same—Michael Goldin, one of the founders of the WBBA, made it clear that his organization was moving forward with the proposal, while changing it to eliminate residents to the degree possible. 

During his time to address the meeting, Goldin promised that as many of the residents as possible would be “lined out” of the final map and that those remaining would have a minimal tax to pay. 

“This is a legal issue, which we would leave to the consultants,” he said. “We believe that most of Potter Creek can be lined out as well as several other residential clusters in the district.”  

Further, Goldin said fears that the assessed funds would be used to advocate for a change in zoning are unfounded. “We will put in writing that the PBID will not address zoning issues.” (PBID refers to Property Business Improvement District, a common tax assessment district generally comprised of commercial property owners, such as the one operating on Telegraph Avenue. A Community Benefits District is a PBID that includes homeowners.) 

As for weighting the decision to form the district based on property size, “The vote is mandated by state law and there is nothing we can do about it,” he said. 

The crowd expressed anger at the lack of democracy in the proposal—and also, in the lack of democracy they perceived at the meeting, where only about half the number of people who wanted to speak were permitted to do so. Two sessions of public comment were scheduled. The first was cut off after thirty minutes by moderator Taj Johns and the second was stopped after only a few speakers, at exactly 9 p.m. 

At the outset, Moore had welcomed his constituents, saying: “It’s key for me to listen and for city staff to listen.” Johns cut the meeting off in consultation with Moore, citing the fact that some of the speakers had not followed the ground rules, going beyond the two minutes given to them.  

(In a phone interview Monday—and as reported in Tuesday’s Planet—Interim Economic Development Division Director Michael Caplan had said there would be ample time for the public to comment and that the meeting would run beyond the allotted two hours so that could happen.)  

More than a dozen members of the public were left lining up at two microphones, unable to comment when the moderator abruptly ended the meeting. 

During the public comment time that was permitted, a major concern raised by several speakers was that a tax assessment on property owners would be immediately passed through to the small businesses that rent their spaces. 

The question of gentrification was also raised by several speakers.  

“Ever since Tom Bates got into office, we have experienced constant pressure from developers to gentrify West Berkeley,” said John Curl, of WBAIC. “From the point of view of renters, it’s a power grab by a few property owners who want to gentrify West Berkelely and move us out of town.” 

Representatives from businesses speaking against the assessment included those from Inkworks, a printing collective, Pacific Coast Chemical and Urban Ore. 

A handful of people spoke in favor of the assessment district, including Chris Barlow representing San Rafael-based Wareham, which owns a number of West Berkeley properties.  

Developer Ali Kashani, who also owns property in West Berkeley, also spoke in favor of the district, arguing that people have to accept change.  

“Change is happening,” he said. “People don’t like change. The BID is a good idea.” 

Area resident Jack Von Euw was one of the last speakers. He offered practical solutions to the problems of crime and dirty streets: “One solution is to get to know your neighbors,” he said. “Tell them if you leave town.” 

As for clean streets, Von Euw said: “Get a broom.” Graffiti? “Get a gallon of paint.” 

 

 

 


DAPAC Moves On to Height, Density Issues

By Richard Brenneman
Friday October 19, 2007

The Downtown Area Plan Advisory Committee members voted 20–0–1 to approve the previously controversial chapter on historic buildings and urban design. 

Only James Samuels, who also chairs the city Planning Com-mission, abstained. 

A second vote by members of the DAPAC produced a 20–1–0 show of hands in favor of the proposed plan section on open space and streetscapes. 

With those two sections out of the way, the next hot potato on DAPAC’s plate will be the land-use chapter—the section spelling out just how dense and how high downtown Berkeley will become. 

Because it’s certain to reveal the underlying tensions with the committee, “we’ve put it off to the last minute,” Samuels said Thursday afternoon. 

For months the tension on the committee has polarized the panel into two core groups. 

One faction—including environmentalist Juliet Lamont, planning commissioners Helen Burke and Gene Poschman, and neighborhood activists such as Patti Dacey, Wendy Alfsen and Lisa Stephens—has claimed narrow majorities on key votes, places more emphasis on preservation and argues for less density and a lower skyline. 

The second group—which includes Samuels, DAPAC Chair Will Travis, Samuels, retired UC Berkeley development executive Dorothy Walker, Jenny Wenk and UC Berkeley journalism lecturer Linda Schacht—has called for a denser civic center and favored fewer controls on new construction and less emphasis on preserving older buildings. 

On key votes, the advocates of less and lower density have prevailed, but narrowly. 

One irony is that the most dynamic members of the opposing factions—La-mont and Travis—are both appointees of Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates, whose own policies align more with the views espoused by Travis. 

Just hours after Wednesday night’s meeting Travis emailed a lengthy position paper on arguing for more density and taller buildings to DAPAC members, drawing the lines for the battle ahead. It can be found in its entirety on the berkeleydaily.com web site. 

 

Division remains 

Samuels said the strong vote for the historic buildings and design chapter came only after ten committee members had registered their opposition to creating a historic district along Shattuck Avenue between University and Durant avenues. 

Lamont, who moved for approval of the chapter, accepted a proposal to change language stating that the Landmarks Preservation Commission should, rather than will, consider creating the district. 

The chapter had been passed by a unanimous vote of a subcommittee drawn from the ranks of DAPAC members—all from the pre-preservation side—and from the Landmarks Preservation Commission, the only body with the power to designate a district. 

DAPAC’s newest member, Erin Banks, a planner in private practice and the spouse of former city Planning Manager Mark Rhoades, said that while the document did a good job at preserving historic structures, it offered a “very cautious vision” of the future. 

“Downtown Berkeley has never realized its potential,” she said. “I don’t think this is time for a cautious vision.” 

“Our emphasis continues to be on the past,” said Walker, who has consistently argued in favor of a higher, denser downtown. 

Samuels told the committee he thought the document didn’t give enough recognition to the people who own and work in downtown businesses and said the downtown has many buildings of little architectural value. 

An architect, Samuels said the chapter could limit the ability to create more interesting spaces in the city center. 

Jim Novosel, the committee’s other architect, said he recognized the committee’s schism “between people who love the historic buildings and people who are really trying to get something new.” The chapter crafted by the subcommittee strikes a good balance, he said. 

It was Lamont who moved for adoption, including minor language changes and the change in emphasis on the proposed historic district. 

 

Open space 

The open-space chapter was quickly adopted, with some last-minute changes drafted the night before. 

The one opposition vote came from Bruce Wicinas, a computer programmer who was attending his last meeting of the committee. 

“This chapter just keeps getting greener and greener,” he said. 

A former Palo Alto resident, Wicinas said one of the reason he’d come to Berkeley was because he liked its more urban feel. “Green spaces aren’t a fundamental component of an urban area,” he said. 

Dark at night—“black voids”—they would attract mischief unless activities were programmed to keep them busy, he said. 

Walker said more density and more people would offer the solution, and without more development and the funds it brings, the city wouldn’t be able to create the new green spaces in the first place. 

Then came time for the committee to begin to tackle the lan-use chapter. 

While subcommittees had tackled the other chapters, the only versions of the plan’s critical chapter had come from city staff, until a self-designated group coalesced around Rob Wrenn, a transportation commissioner and former planning commissioner. 

The staff plans have consistently pushed for 16-story “point towers” filled with apartments and condos to attract residents to the downtown, seen as critical for revitalizing the city’s ailing commercial core. 

But high-rises don’t sit well with neighborhood activists on the committee, and partly for that reason, the committee informally decided two weeks ago to create its own land-use subcommittee, and Travis presented his list of proposed members Wednesday night. 

While DAPAC agreed to the six proposed members, it was Lamont who first raised an objection to Travis’s designation of Victoria Eisen as chair. Though Travis was himself picked to be chair by Mayor Bates, Lamont pointed out that city policy calls for groups to name their own chairs. 

The committee agreed, leaving the new subcommittee—Lamont, Eisen, Jesse Arreguin, Novosel, Walker and Wrenn—to schedule its first meeting and get down to business. 

What’s next? 

With a Nov. 30 deadline, DAPAC will pass on its work to city staff and the Planning Commission, which Samuels said will take up the task in January after staff coordinates the chapters and removes redundancies and duplications. 

While the DAPAC version will go the City Council, which has the final say, planning commissioners may be making their own recommendations to the council to accompany the committee’s parallel recommendations, leaving the final decision to the council. 

“The council is looking for us to do that,” Samuels said. “They often defer to us on things they do not want to do themselves.” 

Four members of the commission will be well acquainted with DAPAC’s work, since they’ve all served on the committee: Samuels, Patti Dacey, Helen Burke and Gene Poschman. 

While Samuels is in the minority at DAPAC, he occupies the central position in the five-four Planning Commission majority. 

“The Planning Commission has different eyes and different opinions than DAPAC does,” he said.


Albany’s Golden Gate Fields Developer Runs Low on Cash

By Richard Brenneman
Friday October 19, 2007

What’s the future of Golden Gate Fields now that its corporate owner is shedding real estate to cover losses on its ailing horse racing business? 

The track’s principal owner has told investors that something major is afoot, despite last year’s withdrawal of a proposal for an upscale shopping center and housing complex on part of the site. 

“Well, Golden Gate is a sizable piece of land, and ... for what it returns, the value of the real estate—it’s just not in line,” said Frank Stronach, the Canadian auto parks magnate who holds a controlling interest in the track’s corporate parent, Magna Entertainment Corporation. 

“But we are working on that, and hopefully within half a year we will have a very good answer on that one,” he told investors during a conference call last month. 

“Good,” said Albany Mayor Robert Lieber Wednesday. “Hopefully, they will close it, sell off the land and bring in a developer who will create a project the community can support.” 

But just what’s in store for the Albany track remains an open question. “[I]t would be way too early that we could publicly comment on it until we have the solution firmly firmed up,” Stronach told investors. 

During that same Sept. 13 call to investors, Magna officials announced that the Albany track was among company holdings pledged as collateral for a bridge loan of up to $80 million needed to avert a financial crisis. 

According to the latest corporate earnings statement, covering the three months ending June 30, Magna continues to hemorrhage cash. 

At the time that report was released in August, Stronach said, “We recognize that immediate and drastic action is required and we have commissioned a strategic review of the company.”  

A month later came the announcement of the bridge loan and confirmation of plans for the sale of a significant part of the company’s assets. 

Lieber, an outspoken critic of Stronach’s earlier plans to develop a shopping mall complex on the track’s parking lot, said he is angry because Magna “has blown off their promise to the community to develop the Bay Trail through their property” and renounced a promised 10-year lease on the shoreline trail area to the East Bay Regional Park—offering instead only a one-year term. 

“That sounds to me like plain bad faith,” he said.  

 

Collateral pledge 

According to an 8-K Form filed with the federal Securities and Exchange Commission Sept. 18, the Albany track, Santa Anita Park in Los Angeles County and the site of a proposed track in Dixon in Yolo County are three of the five Magna properties pledged as collateral for the loan. 

In addition to the bridge loan, Stronach pumped another $20 million of his own money into the company through an investment trust he created to provide an estate for his heirs, former Magna CEO Tom Hodgson told investors and two East Coast journalists during the September conference call. 

“We were running out of cash,” Stronach said. Magna Chief Financial Officer Blake Tohana said the company had $54 million in obligations coming due by June 30, 2008. 

Defeat of the plans for an upscale outdoor mall and housing complex at Golden Gate Fields were abandoned after two project foes defeated a pair of supporters in a race for open seats on the Albany City Council last November, assuring a majority vote against the controversial super mall. 

More bad news came six months later, when voters in the western Sacramento valley town of Dixon voted down Magna’s plans for a track, retail and housing development there in a four-measure referendum in April. 

Magna’s first “For Sale” sign went up on the Dixon property, during Stronach’s announcement of the financial losses Aug. 9—when Hodgson announced that the company had given up their plans for the site. 

The company posted losses of $22.4 million for the three months ending June 30. 

“We are extremely disappointed with the second quarter results,” Stronach said in a statement to investors. “We recognize that immediate and drastic review is required and we have commissioned a strategic review of the company.” 

Then, during the September conference call, the company announced the loan along with plans for sale of real estate near Magna’s Gulfstream Park in Florida, Laurel Park in Maryland, and a site near Vienna, Austria where the company operates a track/casino—or Racino in Magna’s trademarked coinage. 

Magna’s efforts to install casinos and slot machine-like racing gaming machines at its tracks have met with limited success, with the efforts rejected in many jurisdictions.  

The company is also looking at plans to sell its joint shopping center and housing project adjacent to Santa Anita, now under development by Rick Caruso, the same L.A. shopping center magnate who was defeated in his plans for the Albany mall. 

A similar project with another developer at Gulfstream is also a candidate for sale. 

“I am 100 percent behind the debt elimination plan,” Stronach told his audience during the September conference call, later adding that “we will eliminate racetracks which were marginal or lost a little money.” 

 

Troubled past 

While Stronach became one of Canada’s richest men by shrewdly building up his auto parts company into a North American market leader, his passion for thoroughbreds has spawned controversy from the start. 

Once boasting of plans to build the world’s largest racing empire, he amassed the largest collection of tracks ever assembled in North America. But investors in the parts company weren’t happy with the tracks’ impact on the balance sheet and forced him to spin off the racing ventures as a separate company. 

Magna Entertainment has tried a variety of gambits to boost the bottom line in an era in which off-track betting has sapped track attendance, and other sports have commandeered the limelight from what was once hailed as the “Sport of Kings.” 

Magna has pushed to combine track operations with casinos and, most recently, Stronach has partnered with developers to build upscale projects on track-adjacent land. 

The Albany project planned with Caruso would have occupied parking lot space no longer needed because of the dropping attendance. 

Magna last week announced plans to sell off parts of its portfolio to stanch the cash hemorrhage, with the Santa Anita track in Southern California going on the block along with a proposed track site closer at hand in Dixon. 

When the Golden Gate Fields racing season opens Nov. 7, the track will be in better shape than ever for thoroughbreds thundering along the home stretch, thanks to a new track surface mandated by state racing commissioners. 

All California tracks with major racing seasons have been ordered to install new surfaces to prevent horses from breaking their legs—an accident that usually ends with a lethal injection for the injured animal. 

Magna chose the patented Tapeta system, which uses a wax-coated mixture of sand, rubber and fiber to cushion hoof-blows on the track. Horses were able to try out the surface for the first time when the track opened for training Oct. 7. 

Lieber said the resurfacing cost Magna about $10 million. 

Bay Trail flap 

Local environmental activists had challenged the resurfacing because they believed the project hadn’t received the requisite review mandated by the California Environmental Quality Act. 

Norman La Force, the attorney who chairs the Sierra Club’s East Bay Public Lands Committee, said the track had known about the project for eleven months before applying for a permit in April, yet had not conducted a thorough review of its potential impacts on the community and the sensitive bayside environment. 

Robert Cheasty, a former Albany mayor and chair of Citizens for Eastshore State Park, negotiated with track officials. 

In the end, he said, in exchange for the environmentalists withdrawing their objections, track officials agreed to give the Eastshore State Park a 10-year period of access so they could complete installation of the Bay Trail through the track’s property and open it to public access. 

“But once they got what they wanted, they blew off their promise to give the community the Bay Trail,” Lieber said. “Now they only want to give a one-year lease.” 

The change in mood at the track came about the same time Stronach began discussing possible new developments there. 

“We are very disappointed by the lack of progress on the Bay Trail,” said Cheasty. “To paraphrase the chain gang boss in Cool Hand Luke, we’re hoping it’s only a ‘failure to communicate.’ But if Golden Gate Fields doesn’t go through with the completion of the Bay Trail, then it will have broken words, its bond of trust with the community.” 

La Force of the Sierra Club said that henceforth community groups wouldn’t trust what track officials said “without a signed contract, and with enforcement penalities.”


Travis memo to DAPAC

Friday October 19, 2007

 

Within hours of DAPAC’s adoption of two key chapters governing historic buildings and open space in downtown Berkeley, committee Chair Will Travis sent members an impassioned plea calling for taller buildings in the city center. 

What follows are excerpts from his memorandum, entitled “Downtown Land Uses and Urban Form.” 

 

To: DAPAC Members 

From: Will Travis, DAPAC Chair 

Subject: DOWNTOWN LAND USES AND URBAN FORM 

My responsibilities (and authority) as DAPAC’s chair are largely limited to keeping track of who gets to speak next. As a result, other than asking questions to help speakers clarify their points and offering brief editorial comments, I’ve have had little opportunity to express my own views on the form and content of the plan we’re developing for Berkeley’s downtown. Now that we’re reaching the final weeks of our deliberations and are forging the most critical element of our plan––the one that deals with land use, building forms and heights––I’ve decided to take this opportunity to share some of my ideas in the hope that they’ll be helpful to my fellow members on DAPAC. 

Given the disparity of interests and perspectives represented on DAPAC, I believe we can all be justifiably proud of the amazing consensus we’re reaching on a wide variety of issues. The most contentious issue we’ve yet to settle is how many taller buildings we should have in our downtown and how tall they should be. As we all know, this is a complicated issue. But I think that if this issue is evaluated on an analytical basis and we rely on the previous decisions DAPAC has made, we should be calling for as many tall buildings as possible to be built.  

Why do I say this?  

First, we’ve settled on environmental sustainability as our overarching objective. To achieve this objective, we can draw on the abundant data and numerous studies demonstrating that higher density development results in lower per capita greenhouse gas emissions. The most recent, comprehensive and compelling documentation is provided in a new book entitled, Growing Cooler: The Evidence on Urban Development and Climate Change by the National Center for Smart Growth America, the Urban Land Institute and the Center for Clean Air Policy.  

The reason higher density development results in less per capita air emissions is both markedly simple and highly intuitive. Higher density development allows more effective use of public transportation systems––like those we have in downtown Berkeley––and accommodates enough workers and residents to support a wide variety of retail establishments and community facilities. In turn, the close proximity of these shops and services allows residents, workers and patrons to conveniently get around by walking or bicycling. This isn’t merely a matter of opinion. The authors of Growing Cooler found that “the link between urban development patterns and individual or household travel has become the most heavily researched subject in urban planning, with more than 100 rigorous empirical studies completed.” 

So if we truly want downtown Berkeley to be a model of sustainability, we must support more development downtown. 

Second, higher density development would advance our goal of making Berkeley a global leader in sustainability. The initial step in accomplishing this lofty goal would be to become a leader in our own region. Although ABAG’s housing production goals have been sharply criticized, it’s important to recognize that in setting these goals, ABAG’s objective for our region is the same as DAPAC’s goal for Berkeley: reducing greenhouse gases. We know that the largest source of greenhouse gases in our region is the private vehicle. To deal with this problem, ABAG would like to see more housing built in existing cities and near transit so fewer people have to rely exclusively on private vehicles for mobility. ABAG’s goals aren’t mandatory. Local governments can simply ignore them and forgo a portion of the State’s affordable housing funding. But if Berkeley and other cities with excellent public transportation shy away from accommodating this needed housing, it will likely continue to be built in more welcoming distant suburbs, and the new residents will continue to spend lots of time and emit lots of greenhouse gases commuting to and from jobs in Berkeley and other cities in the Bay Area’s urban core. 

The importance of thinking regionally when we act locally can be illustrated by an overly simplistic hypothetical example. Last year, Berkeley’s voters overwhelmingly supported Measure G, which sets a goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions in Berkeley at least 80% by 2050. The easiest way to achieve this goal would be for 80% of Berkeley’s population to move somewhere else in the Bay Area, and the remaining 20% to continue with business as usual. Berkeley would achieve its goal even though greenhouse gas emissions in the region wouldn’t decline. (In fact, for a variety of reasons, they would probably increase.) As this example demonstrates, what happens in Berkeley affects the surrounding region, and what happens elsewhere in the Bay Area affects Berkeley. 

Third, DAPAC has agreed that all future development downtown must be of the highest design quality so that it enhances the experience of residents, workers, shoppers, students and visitors. Similarly, we also want a lot of amenities for the people of Berkeley. We want more parks, open space, clean streets, affordable housing, better social services, green construction, public restrooms, and improved transit. Good things all, but they cost money. And where, given the fiscal realities of California in this post-Proposition 13 era, will Berkeley get the money pay for the things we want? Largely through taxes, fees and other fiscal extractions that are derived from the approval and operation of new development. Thus, the more new development we have downtown, the more revenue the City of Berkeley will gain to provide the sort of amenities called for in our plan. 

To help us achieve our stated goals of environmental sustainability, global leadership, high quality community amenities and design excellence, members of DAPAC and our staff have presented several land use alternatives that would provide more new housing, accommodate more new workers, generate more revenue for the city and reduce cumulative environmental impacts. Yet, we have not yet endorsed any of these proposals. Why is this so? 

First, I believe it’s because none of these proposals include detailed design standards and other provisions that will provide us the assurance that the new development will, in fact, be of the highest quality. Absent these standards, we’re being asked to support development for the sake of development. The second reason we haven’t embraced higher density development is because we have properly decided that the shape and form of our downtown shouldn’t be based only on objective analysis. We understand that cities are more than machines that house people, provide jobs, accommodate movement and manage pollutants. Cities are expressions of who we are, what we value, what we aspire to be. In American city planning, the job of expressing community values and agreeing on public policies that reflect those values is usually handled by citizen representatives who serve on planning boards, commissions or committees like DAPAC. The job of a citizen organization like ours is to go beyond rational thinking in deciding what we like, what we dislike and what we want our community should look like.  

Each of us has been appointed to DAPAC to provide an expression of our values in defining a vision for downtown that will best meet the needs of Berkeley now and in the future. None of us has been elected to our posts, and, so far as I know, none of us has been appointed to represent a particular constituency. Thus, at the end of the day, each of us is representing no one but ourselves and what we believe future generations expect from us.  

As we try to decide the form we want downtown to take, it’s hard to ignore the comments and testimony we’ve heard about the evils of buildings––particularly tall buildings. We’ve been told that tall buildings create noise, cause high winds, result in dark shadows, and generally make cities unattractive, unhealthy and unpleasant places. There have even been a few suggestions (frivolous, I’m sure) that the two existing taller buildings downtown Berkeley should be razed, and that a community of mud huts is preferable to one with tall buildings. 

This disdain for tall buildings does not reflect my experience working in downtown San Francisco. There are scores of buildings in San Francisco, all much taller than those we’re considering in Berkeley, coexisting in a beautiful district served by superb public transit and filled with sunny plazas, fountains, ample trees, rich landscaping, great shopping, and excellent restaurants. This isn’t true only in San Francisco. Take a stroll through Vancouver, Portland or any number of other cities where a community has embraced well-planned density coupled with excellent amenities. 

The difference between my experience and the comments made at DAPAC meetings makes me wonder whether the people who attribute a variety of ills to tall buildings simply don’t like cities. At very least, they don’t believe that taller buildings have any place in downtown Berkeley. There is nothing wrong with this sentiment. But it’s important to recognize that it’s an expression of personal taste––and just that. More importantly, we need to recognize that embracing a vision of a downtown with small buildings and low density has costs, including the loss of the amenities we want, such as increased public space, affordable housing and cultural activities. 

It’s challenging to distill personal tastes into community values that should be reflected in our downtown plan. Most of us love spending time in beautiful natural areas, enjoy the tranquility of farm land and open space, find charm in villages and small towns, and relish our memories of Paris and the bustle of New York. But downtown Berkeley isn’t a national park, a farm, a village, Paris or New York City. It’s the heart of a dynamic city adjacent to one of the great universities of the world. Therefore, it would probably be unwise to incorporate ideas that belong in rural settings, villages or Paris into our downtown plan. In this regard, I’ll readily admit that my love of San Francisco doesn’t mean that Berkeley should try to replicate San Francisco in our downtown. 

Another of the community values we’ve heard expressed at our meetings is a desire that Berkeley remain pretty much the way it is now. I believe much of this resistance to change comes about because many of Berkeley’s residents have moved here from elsewhere. Often when someone chooses to move to a new community, they do so in large part because they find the new place attractive. It’s only natural that if they like a place the way it is, they don’t want it to change. This is resistance to change is common in towns across America, but in Berkeley this conservative tendency is often rooted in the rhetoric of historic preservation, environmentalism or just thoughtful skepticism.  

Despite all the efforts to stop change in Berkeley, there has been a lot of change during the 30 years I’ve lived here, and there will be more change in the future. Change is not only inevitable, it is desirable because great cities are dynamic places. The best cities embrace change and manage it positively. Our plan for downtown Berkeley shouldn’t try to prevent downtown from changing. Nor should we try to recapture a past that can never exist again. Some have called for preserving the historic character of downtown that they see. Others see a downtown that has no distinct historic character, but see instead an eclectic collection of structures of varying ages and design quality with some truly handsome historic buildings included in the mix. We need to find a way to respect both viewpoints, protect our historic heritage and welcome innovative new buildings into our downtown. 

To craft strategies for managing the change that will inevitably come to Berkeley, it’s helpful to look at our downtown in a much broader context. We have the good fortune of living in a region that’s highly prosperous and innovative. Our knowledge-based economy is producing many new jobs. Berkeley is one of the leading incubators in this job-creation process. Our region has also done an admirable job of protecting its natural resources, including the Bay, open spaces, farmlands and parks. Over three-quarters of the land in the nine Bay Area counties is undeveloped. These protected resources add much to the quality of life in our region and make the Bay Area a spectacular place in which to live.  

Our region isn’t growing very much (only about one percent a year), but even at this slow rate there isn’t enough housing being built in the Bay Area to accommodate all the workers and new residents who want to live here. The combination of low housing productivity and high demand has pushed Bay Area home prices up to the highest levels in the nation. In order to find affordable housing, increasing numbers of Bay Area workers are being forced to “drive until you qualify” for a home mortgage, often on a house in a subdivision at the far fringes of the region or beyond. 

As I’ve noted earlier, ABAG’s objective is to address this problem by encouraging more housing to be built within the existing urban core of the Bay Area. Some might argue that buyers who chose a suburban lifestyle wouldn’t be want to live in Berkeley––even if they could afford to do so. But changing demographic patterns and new lifestyle choices have created a demand for a wide variety of housing types. The major homebuilders are capitalizing on this new demand. For example, KB Home, a national builder usually associated with suburban houses, is increasingly shifting its focus to urban infill projects. An excess of new housing inventory in the Central Valley has resulted in a significant drop in the prices of new homes there, but the prices of KB’s infill homes have remained stable and, in one recent quarter, generated 90% of the profit for the company’s northern California division. 

Thus, the question isn’t whether there’s a demand for housing in downtown Berkeley. The question is: how much of this demand is DAPAC willing to meet? 

Even if we choose to meet this demand, we should be under no illusion that building housing downtown will lower the market price of homes in Berkeley. The simple truth about housing in Berkeley is that land is scarce and expensive, construction costs high and demand great. As a result, housing is expensive to build, and developers will charge buyers the highest price that the market will bear. Berkeley’s two most effective ways to increase the supply of below market-rate housing are: (1) investing public funds to build or subsidize affordable housing; and (2) requiring private housing developers to either offer some portion of their units at below market rate or pay in-lieu fees which can be pooled to support subsidized housing. Berkeley currently has precious little public funding to invest in affordable housing. Therefore, the only effective way to increase the supply of low-income and affordable housing is to encourage more market rate housing to be built.  

DAPAC owes its existence to a decision of the University of California to build 800,000 square feet of new buildings in downtown Berkeley. UC didn’t make this decision because it wanted to stimulate a lawsuit by the City of Berkeley or because it wanted to underwrite and participate in a lengthy new downtown planning process. UC made its decision because the university believes it has outgrown its campus park and needs to meet a portion of its future demands for education, laboratory and office space downtown. In addition to direct University expansion, there’s also a stream of bio-tech, consulting, green energy, technology and other start-up businesses that would love a home within walking distance of the campus. These entrepreneurs often find it necessary to launch their businesses in other cities or move away when they can’t find room to expand in Berkeley. 

Thus, the question isn’t whether there’s a demand for education-related new development in downtown Berkeley. The question is: how much of this demand is DAPAC willing to meet? 

DAPAC has been briefed on proposals for two large hotels and conference facilities. Another hotel is about to be built. A new grocery store has been approved just across the street from our downtown planning area. Proponents of these businesses have indicated that it’s now necessary for patrons looking for the type of services these businesses provide to go to other cities to meet their needs. For example, we’ve learned that if we want to buy a new computer or a television, there don’t seem to be any Berkeley retailers who sell them. 

Thus, the question isn’t whether there is a demand for hotel and retail commercial development in downtown Berkeley. The question is: how much of this demand is DAPAC willing to meet? 

Overall, Berkeley is in an enviable position when compared with other cities that have struggling downtowns. Berkeley doesn’t have to market itself to attract housing, office development or businesses so much as it simply has to decide how much of this development it wants and then craft planning policies and processes that will ensure that the desired growth will be well-designed and will enhance our downtown. 

In many ways, I think urban growth is like toothpaste. If you squeeze it at one place, it comes out somewhere else. If you accept this maxim, it’s entirely plausible that Berkeley’s existing planning policies and growth restrictions have helped create prosperous hotel, office and retail centers in El Cerrito, Emeryville and elsewhere. Of course, it’s more than just that. Not only could Berkeley also have accommodated much of that activity here, but we could have done it better––with far better transit access, far better design and with far more benefits for our community. 

This brings us back to the basic question we members of DAPAC have to face: will we take advantage of the demand to live, work and shop in Berkeley and sculpt a new downtown that meets the needs of the future? Or will we call for a continuation of the existing downtown planning policies, which have resulted in the demand for new development largely being met elsewhere? 

The job of DAPAC is to deliver a plan for the downtown of our city. To carry out our charge, each of us has to accept a simple truth: cities have buildings, and bigger buildings meet more of the demand for housing; accommodate more workers who patronize downtown businesses; help make transit systems run more efficiently; provide more space for growing enterprises; generate more city revenues needed to pay for public services; and better advance strategies to combat global warming. These many benefits to our community, our region and our planet shouldn’t be dismissed lightly and surely not just because any one of us feels a taller building “just doesn’t look right” or because we fear that others might question our decisions. 

Despite the many benefits of higher density, it’s important to recognize that all the land use alternatives we’re considering have been tempered to comport with the traditions of Berkeley. Any taller new buildings would be limited in number and, except for the hotel and conference center DAPAC has endorsed, would be restricted to being not much taller than the existing Wells Fargo and Great Western/Power Bar buildings. One of these structures (the Wells Fargo building) is a treasured historic resource with graceful proportions and pleasing details. The other has been the subject of much derision, not so much because of its height, but because it is markedly unattractive. Our experience with these two buildings underscores the importance of having good design guidelines in place and gives reason to believe that more taller building will be acceptable to our community if they are well-designed and phased-in gradually over time. 

I’m not advocating any particular land use or density alternative. My only objective is to ensure that DAPAC has a clear sense of the tradeoffs on the issues of height and density. If we accept a plan that sharply limits the capacity of our downtown to accommodate residents, workers, shoppers, students and visitors, we need to confront the tradeoff we’re making head-on. We shouldn’t pretend that such a choice can be made without paying the price of reduced amenities, poorer environmental performance, and lost economic and cultural opportunities. 

We have plenty of solid analytical information to help us determine which land uses and urban form will provide the greatest benefits to Berkeley. It will take great courage to put aside our preconceptions and become community leaders, rather than followers, as we forge our plan for the future. But if we don’t do so, we won’t be fulfilling the honor that has been bestowed upon us to craft public policies that will make downtown Berkeley a truly great place.  

 


Oakland City Attorney Announces Predatory Lending Fight

By J. Douglas Allen-Taylor
Friday October 19, 2007

The Oakland city attorney’s office this week announced a stepped-up effort to combat what City Attorney John Russo and Mayor Ron Dellums are calling the “crisis” of predatory lending in Oakland. 

They are kicking off the efforts with a homeowner’s foreclosure prevention workshop this Saturday, including a hotline for distressed consumers and homeowners operating out of the city attorney’s office, door-to-door public outreach in the most effected communities, meetings with lenders and loan service organizations to encourage them to mitigate mortgage paying problems before they occur and proposed state legislation. 

The “Know Your Options, Know Your Rights, Protect Your Home” workshop will be held from 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. this Saturday at Oakland City Hall. 

Flanked at a city hall press conference by members of a newly formed Oakland Fair Lending Coalition that included city and community leaders, Russo said that the city of Oakland had “worked too hard” over the last several years to increase home ownership and to attack the city’s growing problem of crime and violence.  

Russo said that not only do the foreclosures caused by predatory lending practices have a devastating effect on homeowners themselves that needs to be prevented, but that “we are not going to allow the city to slip backwards with a glut of abandoned houses that causes neighborhoods to de-teriorate and crime to flourish.”  

Members of the newly-formed Oakland Fair Lending Coalition include ACORN, Bay Area Legal Aid, the California Reinvestment Coalition, the Center for Responsible Lending, Centro De La Raza, the Consumers Union, the East Bay Community Law Center, the Eviction Defense Center, Housing and Economic Rights Advocates, Lao Family Community Development, the Oakland NAACP, the Oakland City Attorney’s Office, Sentinel Fair Housing, the Urban Strategies Council and the Unity Council. 

Russo stressed that the coalition did not want to “interfere with the fair market,” and that it was also interested in protecting investors, who, he said, have also been hurt by the home-mortgage collapse crisis. 

The city attorney’s office defined predatory lenders as those companies that use “misleading and high-pressure tactics” to entice homeowners into loans the homeowners cannot afford, and then foreclose on those properties when the mortgages cannot be paid.  

Of particular concern, according to coalition members who spoke at Thursday’s press conference, were adjustable interest rates that continue to rise past the homeowners’ income levels. 

Maeve Brown, executive director of the Oakland-based nonprofit, Housing and Economic Rights Advocates, the sponsors of Saturday’s workshop, said that nationwide, $110 billion in home-mortgage loans are expected to be adjusted upward in April of next year, more than the total in the first three months of this year.  

And a press release put out by the city attorney’s office said that there are currently 1,000 foreclosed, bank-owned properties in Oakland, and that “hundreds of default notices have been sent just this month.” 

Also appearing at the press conference and lending support to the effort were City Council President Ignacio De La Fuente and Councilmember Larry Reid, whose Seventh District has some of the worst housing-mortgage default problems in the city. 

A city attorney’s office fact sheet passed out at the press conference noted that there were 337 foreclosures in Oakland in the first eight months of 2007, with the 94621 zip code in East Oakland—a heavily African-American and Latino area represented by Reid—having the highest foreclosure rate in the city, at 14.9 foreclosures per 1,000 homes.  

The fact sheet said that citizens of color were most likely to be victims of predatory lending practices, with African-American and Latino homebuyers 3.8 times more likely to have received a high-cost loan than whites, and neighborhoods of color 23.6 times more likely to get higher-cost refinance loans than white neighborhoods. 

Dorothy Hicks, a homeowner for 39 years in the Havenscourt community of East Oakland and an ACORN member, said at the press conference that she took out a mortgage on her home a year ago to raise money to start a business, but said that she was a “victim of a predatory lender” and now in danger of losing her home. 

“I told the lender I was making a certain income, but he put a higher income on the loan papers,” Hicks said. “They can put anything on those papers they want. I would not have signed those papers if I knew the payments would go up every two or three years. I was told that it would be one rate.” Hicks said that after she approached her lender to say that she was having problems with making her payments and needed help, “they told me I wasn’t making enough to keep my house. But a year ago, they told me I was making enough to get the loan.” 

The Oakland City Council passed an ordinance in 2001 to protect low-income and elderly citizens from predatory lenders, but a 2005 California Supreme Court ruling threw out that legislation. Russo said on Thursday that because the court ruled that state law pre-empted city ordinance in this area, Oakland cannot pass a modified measure. 

Instead, Russo said the coalition would lobby the state legislature for revised state law that provides “real protection against predatory lenders,” including “vigorous enforcement.” Russo urged support for one current bill, AB 512 (Sally Lieber, D-Mountain View) that would require mortgage contracts to be written in the language in which they are negotiated. 

Russo said that such law is currently in place in California for all contracts except mortgages, a situation he called “ridiculous” and a significant problem in a multi-lingual city like Oakland. 

The city attorney added that “if the legislature doesn’t have the guts to act” on the predatory lending issue, “they should end their pre-emption over municipal ordinance and allow the local jurisdictions to act on our own to protect our citizens.” 

State Senate President Don Perata did not appear at Thursday’s press conference, but an aide read a statement from Perata that said the senator “look[s] forward to working with the Coalition and reviewing their legislative proposals, as I am working with my Senate colleagues to develop legislation to help protect homeowners against foreclosure.”


Warm Water Pool Users, Multi-Pool Advocates Clash

By Riya Bhattacharjee
Friday October 19, 2007

Berkeley’s warm water pool users clashed at Wednesday’s disability commission meeting with members of Pools for Berkeley over the idea of a multi-pool complex. 

While members of the One Warm Pool Advocacy Group say they believe Berkeley voters will approve a bond for building a free-standing warm pool, Pools for Berkeley and some disability commissioners said it would only pass if the proposal included a multi-use pool, which would attract a wider group of users. 

The proposed warm pool on Milvia Street—planned by Berkeley-based ELS architects with input from the Warm Water Pool Task Force—is a one-story, 12,000-square-foot structure which includes a pool, deck space, lockers and equipment storage rooms.  

The price tag for construction is $10 million and could increase to almost $15 million when land and other design costs are included. 

The city hired ELS to design the relocation of the warm water pool after the Berkeley Unified School District approved the Berkeley High School South of Bancroft Master Plan in January, which proposed demolishing the landmarked Old Gym and its warm pool in order to build classrooms and sports facilities. The plan provided the city with an option to use part of the Milvia Street property to rebuild the pool. 

“Building a warm pool by itself will be difficult,” said Bill Hamilton, a member of Pools for Berkeley, which introduced the idea of a multi-pool complex almost a year ago. 

“We have tried to stay clear of what the One Warm Pool people have been doing, but now it’s at a point where we have to start working together. One way voters would pass a warm pool proposal is if it’s included in a wider constituency.” 

Deputy City Manager Lisa Caronna told the Planet that the City Council had never formally discussed the idea of a multi-pool complex or directed city staff to preview needs, feasibility and sites. 

For East Bay’s disabled community, the idea of a multi-pool complex is a threat to their proposed freestanding pool. 

“We have been working to design the pool for the last 15 years,” said Joann Cook, co-chair of the One Warm Pool Advocacy Group. “Any other plan would delay the process ... People should support a pool for the disabled whether or not there is something in it for them. People voted for the warm pool in 2000. Why would they not vote for it now?” 

Disability commission chair Dmitri Belser replied that the scenario had changed since the last bond measure had passed. 

“People were more willing to vote on bonds then than they are now,” he said. “If we are going for a $15 million parcel tax we have to make it attractive for people to vote on ... We don’t want to put a bond on the ballot and see it fail ... This kind of thinking will lead to a dry warm pool on Milvia.” 

Pool user Gary Marquard said that the new multi-pool idea seemed like another case of bait-and-switch. 

“People think we are weird because we are focused on ultra-special needs, but there’s a reason for that,” he said. 

Hamilton told the board that an indoor lap pool and an outdoor children’s recreational pool would attract all age groups to the facility. 

Urging the city to investigate the multi-pool proposal so that it could be put on the November 2008 ballot, he added that the outdoor pools located at the King and Willard elementary schools and the West Campus were in abysmal condition and could stop functioning altogether.  

All three pools are approximately 60 years old and suffer from pipe leaks, decaying concrete and faulty pumps.  

Berkeley residents approved a $200,000 bond measure to repair the pools at the last election, and the city is currently investigating costs for additional upgrades. 

Hamilton said that multi-pool complexes have been built in Newark and El Cerrito.  

“We need to present the facts to the City Council to look into the viability of a multi-pool facility,” he said. “We sympathize with the warm pool people. Outdoor swimmers do not want to compete with them, but one way of defraying costs is to build an attractive pool for kids with all the bells and whistles.” 

One Warm Pool Advocacy Group co-chair Juanita Kirby said that putting kids and disabled people in the same place would not be feasible. 

“They keep referring to children and waterslides, but what about disabled people bumping into them?” she asked. “The warm pool needs to be freestanding ... It needs to be in a special environment tailored to meet special needs. A lot of people prefer to go to neighborhood pools ... We were never considered a part of the other pools before. No one ever thought of us.” 

Mark Hendrix, another warm pool user, said that it was important to consider how many able-bodied swimmers there are in Berkeley before considering the idea of a multi-use pool. 

“We have statistics of how much the warm water pool gets used every week,” he said. “How many people would want to swim outdoors in winter? A lot of people don’t even want to swim anymore.” 

Hamilton said that an indoor pool would allow children to have lessons in winter. 

“A lot of people go to Oakland and El Cerrito during winter,” he said. “They need to come back to Berkeley to swim.” 

Disability commissioner Ann Silch said that allying with other pool users would attract parents, lap swimmers, aquatic and aerobics instructors to the ballot. 

“The commission strongly believes that a warm pool is a wonderful benefit for the community,” said disability commissioner Ed Gold. “What is in debate is the multiple ways of accomplishing it. We want to look at the best way to make it happen.” 

The board voted to set up a subcommittee to develop language that would ask the City Council to consider the best possible way to build a warm pool. 

Caronna said that the proposed plan would go before the council Nov. 6 along with the other potential bond measures for the 2008 election.


Sunday Hassan Memorial Moved to A Taste of Africa Restaurant

By Richard Brenneman
Friday October 19, 2007

The memorial potluck gathering to commemorate the life of Amir Hassan has been moved to A Taste of Africa, the restaurant at 3015 Shattuck Ave. where the 9-year-old boy was a frequent visitor.  

The potluck will be noon to dusk on Sunday. 

His 31-year-old mother, Misti Mina Hassan, was arraigned in Alameda County Superior Court Thursday on one count of murder. 

Police discovered the boy’s body Oct. 10 following a call from a family friend in San Jose who said the boy’s mother had just called to say her son was dead and she was injured. 

Police said they arrived to find the youth dead and his mother bleeding from minor and apparently self-inflicted wounds to her wrists, arms and neck. 

After being held on a hospital suicide watch, she was transferred to the jail at Santa Rita where she was formally charged Monday. 


Air District Releases Health Assessment of Pacific Steel

By Riya Bhattacharjee
Friday October 19, 2007

The Bay Area Air Quality Management District released Pacific Steel’s long-awaited health risk assessment report to the public last week and will be accepting comments until Jan. 31. 

Prepared by West Berkeley-based Pacific Steel Casting with assistance from environmental consulting firm ENVIRON, the report examines the effects of both current and future emissions on residents, and whether West Berkleyans need to be notified about health risks under air district guidelines. 

Pacific Steel released a statement, not yet approved by the air district, stating that the “the estimated cancer and non-cancer risks for all population, regardless of location” was found to be below the risk reduction level set by the air district. 

Diagrams in the report illustrate that of a million people near the facility, ten might be at an increased risk of developing cancer from the plant’s emissions. 

“Ten in a million may be acceptable for industrial areas but may not be acceptable for residential areas,” said Nabil al-Hadithy, the city’s toxic manager. “It looks to me that a couple of residential units are within the ten in a million risk. Whether ten in a million is acceptable in residential areas is open to interpretation. The city has hired Tetratech to analyze the report independently. We will be submitting our comments to the air district once that is over.” 

Elisabeth Jewel of Aroner, Jewel & Ellis Partners, the public relations firm representing Pacific Steel, said that the seventeen residential units that faced increased risk from cancer would be notified. 

“They are a mixture of office and live-work units belonging to The Tannery near the plant,” she said. 

Air district spokesperson Karen Schkolnick told the Planet that the agency had found the report to be complete and had sent it to the State Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) for an independent review. 

“We are required under the state Air Toxics Information and Assessment Act to ask for the health risk assessment report,” she said. 

“Before we make any kind of determination about whether the findings are accurate, we have to accept comments from OEHHA.” 

Environmentalists and community members remain skeptical about the report and have labeled it “whitewash.” 

“The so-called ‘health risk assessment’ released by Pacific Steel Casting is a self-serving document prepared by the very polluter that has emitted enormous amounts of noxious odors and toxic pollutants into the community for years,” said Bradley Angel, executive director, Greenaction for Health and Environmental Justice. “The fight to protect the health of residents will continue.” 

Janice Schroeder, a volunteer for the West Berkeley Alliance for Clean Air and Safe Jobs, said that the report was a sham since the plant could tweak its equipment until emission numbers were abnormally low, then run official source tests which show numbers at or below allowable thresholds.  

After settling with the air district over a lawsuit last year, Pacific Steel installed a $2 million carbon absorption unit on Plant 3 that, Jewel said, had greatly reduced odor and emissions. 

However, complaints about headaches, nausea and chest tightness from exposure to the plant’s emissions continue. 

“Pacific Steel must minimize the community's exposure to its toxics by incorporating a comprehensive Toxic Use Reduction program which includes full transparency and community involvement in the entire process,” Schroeder said. 

Jewel said that the methodologies used to prepare the report were approved by the air district, and that the health analysis was guided by the California Air Resources Board. 

“Pacific Steel has made substantial improvements in the neighborhood,” she said. “We have spent millions in emission control equipment. We are a lot better than we were before.” 

Global Community member LA Wood, who performed air tests near the foundry with the help of air district funds, said that preliminary sampling suggested that manganese and nickel levels were higher than what was considered safe by the World Health Organization and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. 

“There are health concerns if you are within a third of a mile of Pacific Steel,” he said. 

“Drawing circles around the foundry and saying it’s a manufacturing area is nonsense...This part of West Berkeley may be designated as a manufacturing district, but time has radically altered the character of the area which now contains many residential housing units and schools. The new HRA [health risk assessment] avoids addressing this reality when it rationalizes lower regulatory concerns for public health.” 

 

The report can be viewed at www.baaqmd.gov. 

Comments can be submitted to Scott Lutz, Manager of Toxic Evaluation, BAAQMD, 939 Ellis Street, San Francisco, CA 94109. Email: slutz@baaqmd.gov. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Flash: Counter-demonstrators Square off with Code Pink Outside Berkeley Marine Recruiting Center

By Judith Scherr
Tuesday October 16, 2007

Organized by KSFO radio personality Melanie Morgan, chair of Move America Forward, pro-war, anti-Islamic and anti-immigration demonstrators converged on the Berkeley Recruiting Center today (Wednesday), caravanning into town with their SUVs and Harleys decked out in American flags to face off with Code Pink, the anti-war group that has held vigils in front of the 64 Shattuck Square Recruitment Office for three weeks. 

The mostly female demonstrators from Code Pink and their allies—Sing for Peace, the World Can’t Wait, Berkeley High students, the Ecumenical Peace Institute—mustered around 125 demonstrators, but their message spoken into hand-held bull horns was sometimes drowned out by the pro-war side’s superior sound system; the 250 or so mostly male counter-demonstrators clearly outnumbered Code Pink’s participants. 

The pro-war counter-demonstrators came from as far as Santa Rosa and as close as the UC Berkeley campus; they represented groups including the American Legion, the Gathering of Eagles, Eagles Up and the UC Berkeley College Republicans. 

When the pro-war side sang God Bless America, the anti-war people sang, “God Save America.” The pro-warriors called the protesters “commies” and the pro-peace folks called the counter-demonstrators “killers.” 

As the crowd grew and the rhetoric of the two sides escalated, Berkeley Police separated the pro and counter war demonstrators, with the pro-war side, which held permits, allowed to remain on the west side of the street in front of the recruiting office and the anti-war side, which held no permits, guided across the street. 

One young man, who did not want to be identified, was yelling “Code Pink traitors,” along with a group of counterdemonstrators. Asked what he meant, he told the Planet that it’s “because Code Pink is against what our country’s trying to do—to get freedom for people.” 

Nearby Dan Baptista also supported the war. “We left in the first Gulf War without finishing the job,” he said. “If we don’t finish it, we’ll have to go back again in 10 years.” 

Judy Christopher of Code Pink had brought her baby to the demonstration. “As a mother, I don’t want my son to grow up to kill people,” she said. 

As the demonstration wound down, Code Pink organizer Zanne Joi said she thought it had been a success. “We’ve shut down the recruiting office,” she said. 

On Thursday, the noontime demonstration at the recruiting center will be hosted by the Middle East Children’s Alliance. 

 


Police Arrest Mother in Amir Hassan Death

By Richard Brenneman
Tuesday October 16, 2007

A 31-year-old Berkeley mother has been charged with murdering her 9-year-old son. 

Misti Mina Hassan was already in custody on a mandatory psychiatric suicide watch at Highland Hospital, where she was formally arrested Friday. 

According to Berkeley Police spokesperson Sgt. Mary Kusmiss, Hassan told a friend she had “killed her son with Klonopin.” 

Manufactured by Roche Pharmaceuticals, Klonopin is the trademarked name for the compound known generically as clonazepam, which is usually prescribed for treatment of panic disorder and seizures. The drug functions as a central nervous system depressant, according to dispensing information provided to physicians by Roche. 

Celia Underwood, who lives in an apartment in the same building and who has been maintaining a curbside vigil at the shrine on the sidewalk out front, said Hassan told neighbors she was also taking Effexor, an anti-depressant. 

Underwood said the murder and suicide attempt followed a boyfriend’s decision to break off a five-year relationship with Hassan. “He came Tuesday and wasn’t here very long,” she said. 

The man’s spouse told apartment house residents of the relationship when she came by the building over the weekend to bring flowers for the shrine, Underwood said. 

Police arrived at Hassan’s apartment at the rear of 3011 Shattuck at 9:18 a.m. Wednesday to find her bleeding from the neck, arms and wrists. 

The body of her son, Amir, was found clad in pajamas on a bed in the front room—his body unmarked. 

An autopsy by the Alameda County Coroner’s officer determined the boy had died 18 to 36 hours before police arrived. 

In a prepared statement Friday, Sgt. Kusmiss said that the cause of death has yet to be formally determined pending the completion of toxicology tests. 

“There is probable cause to believe that young Amir died at the hands of his mother,” said Sgt. Kusmiss in the statement. “Detectives have based the arrest on Ms. Hassan’s statements to witnesses, Berkeley Fire Department rescue personnel, as well as statements provided by Ms. Hassan to BPD Homicide detectives during interviews in recent days.” 

Other self-incriminating evidence surfaced after investigators examined the suspect’s writings which they had recovered during a search of the home. 

“Content of the writing is also consistent with the crime scene as detectives found it,” Sgt. Kusmiss said. 

One Berkeley Police investigator arrived at the scene late Friday morning to search Hassan’s car, which was parked across the street. 

The investigator ordered a camera-carrying reporter to leave, threatening to close the sidewalk with crime scene tape if he didn’t comply. Other pedestrians were walking by without similar admonitions. 

 

Growing shrine 

The sidewalk shrine outside the apartment building continued to grow Monday, with friends, neighbors and others offering a poignant profusion of flowers, cards, books, toys and photos in honor of the slain youth. 

“Hello, hows heaven is god real or fake,” begins a letter from a classmate. “you should really see are school library its full of note, Photos, Pictures.”  

Students have decorated the library to honor their fallen schoolmate. 

Among the offerings on the Shattuck Avenue sidewalk were a wide-ranging assortment of stuffed animals and countless candles—including glass containers commemorating Catholic saints and one in a Hebrew-lettered metal container. 

Cards, letters and drawings adorn the fence, along with a small flock of yellow rubber duckies. Among the more somber offerings was a copy of Night, the memoir by Elie Wiesel, describing his teenage experiences in a Nazi concentration camp. 

Underwood has maintained a continuing vigil from a chair at the end of the sidewalk, talking with passers-by like Steffon White, a Fifth Street resident who works in the area. 

“Something like this is always tragic,” said White. “If you have young children, it’s hard to imagine how anyone could do this.” 

“She wanted to go back to graduate school,” said Underwood. “But then her boyfriend came over Tuesday night to break it off.” 

Late Monday morning, friends were helping her erect a large blue plastic tarp above the shrine to protect it from the rains which have sprinkled the Bay Area in recent days.  

Neighbors hope the skies are clear Sunday, when they will hold a pot luck barbecue in the back yard behind the apartment building from noon until dusk. 

Malong Pendar, who owns the Taste of Africa restaurant next door, is helping with the preparations.


Project Offers a Glimpse into Life of Berkeley’s Lost Japantown

By Riya Bhattacharjee
Tuesday October 16, 2007

Michi Uchida’s piercing black eyes and gnarled fingers testify to a community torn apart by World War II and the resurrection that followed in its aftermath. 

Michi, like hundreds of other East Bay Nisei, or second-generation Japanese Americans, is a living example of determination, of survival amidst suffering, humiliation and pain. 

When historian Donna Graves introduced California’s first effort at documenting its Japantowns to Berkeley’s Landmarks Preser-vation Commission recently, snippets from Michi’s life and the lives of many others like her were part of the presentation. 

“There were dozens and dozens of Japantowns,” Graves said. “But only the ones which had a critical mass of community institutions made it to the final list. The ultimate aim of our project is really tying a story to these places, to make a connection of the history to the place that was ruptured by World War II.” 

A bill signed by former governor Gray Davis in 2001 paved the way for a more active effort to preserve California’s Japantowns. 

A push from the California Japanese American Community Leadership Council and the state Civil Liberties Public Education Program, respectively, led to extensive research, surveys and a website (www.californiajapantown.org) that tied the pieces of the puzzle together. 

“Most people don’t even know that Berkeley had a thriving Japantown, don’t realize there were so many stories from their own town,” Graves told the Planet Friday. “A lot of buildings people pass by everyday were occupied by Japanese immigrant families at one point. But most don’t announce their ‘Japaneseness’ and have gone on to shelter new people and uses.” 

Preserving California’s Japantowns—the organization spearheaded by Graves and Jill Shiraki—continues to dig deeper to unearth every story behind these anonymous structures. 

“Little did we know that the Japanese grew flowers on what is now the Salvation Army at 1822 University Ave. and Auto California at 1806 San Pablo Ave.,” Graves said. 

According to Graves, California had the largest population of Nikkei (people of Japanese descent) in the U.S. just before WWII. 

“Yet their historical presence is often invisible in cities and towns where Nikkei farmed, fished, built businesses and established institutions,” she said. “Communities, as well as individual lives, suffered the effects of the war. Very few Nihonmachi [Japanese communities] were able to regain their pre-war vitality and many suffered yet again from urban renewal programs in the 1960s that destroyed what was left of Japantown.” 

Unlike some cities which have had most physical traces of their pre-WWII Japantowns erased, Berkeley has more than 60 structures listed in the pre-war directories still standing. 

Decades ago clusters of Christian churches, Buddhist temples and Japanese schools jostled for space along with mom-and-pop stores, florists, shoe repair markets and cleaners in Berkeley. 

“This is where I was born,” pointed out Michi on Friday, peering into the stained storefront of the former University Laundry at 2530 Shattuck Ave. almost seven decades since she was last there. “The Santa Fe and Key Route trains chugged by on Shattuck while my brother and I played inside. The business was pretty good as my dad was able to send four of my sisters to Japan and bring them back here. That’s four round-trip plane tickets.” 

The Fujii family shared a kitchen, dining and living room upstairs along with the Kimbaras, Imamuras and Tokunagas. 

“My fiance and I were attending UC Berkeley,” Michi said. “We had no plans to get married immediately but then Pearl Harbor happened. President Roosevelt sent out the Executive Order 9066 and we decided we would get married so that we could stay together.” 

Since cameras were confiscated from Japanese families, the only documentation Michi had of her wedding day was a portrait taken by photographer Dorothea Lange, who was on assignment to document the evacuation of California’s Japanese Americans.  

“But we didn’t get a copy and we never saw Lange again,” Michi said. “One of my friends spotted the picture in Lange’s collection in Washington, D.C., almost 17 years later. I was able to get a copy by paying $3.”  

Taeko Oda, whose father-in-law owned Oda Eggs and Poultry at 1744 McGee Ave., was also a university student around the same time as Michi. 

“I had six units left to graduate,” she said. “When December 7 happened, I was in the library studying for the finals. The face of the enemy became Japanese. I was so frightened I picked up my books and left.” 

Like Michi, Taeko was also relocated to Topaz, Utah.  

“We had to sell all our belongings at a loss,” she said. “It was just so demeaning. The camps were smelly, dirty and there was no privacy. I survived the ordeal because I was young. Fifty years later I was awarded my degree.” 

Preservation efforts have started with the former Obata Studio and Art Store at 2727 Telegraph Ave.—once used as the workspace of UC Berkeley professor and renowned painter Chiura Obata—which is being nominated for local landmarking by the Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association. 

“I don’t think it’s possible to landmark all 60 locations,” Graves said. “But I think it’s important to point out the poignant and powerful stories behind each building.” 

After Pearl Harbor was attacked, shots were fired through the window of the art studio. 

“People threw garbage on our steps at night but never showed their face,” said Yuri Kodani, 80, Obata’s daughter. 

“When the war began, we had to sell everything and evacuate to the relocation camps in Tanforan. We lived in stables. But my father’s students and ex-students were very kind to us. Robert Gordon Sproul stored his paintings in the university and we got them back after the war.” 

Once a bustling storefront for the popular Blue Nile restaurant, the Obata studio will open as the Muse Art House and Cafe in January. 

“In a way it’s coming full circle,” Kodani said. “I am glad that the essence of the place will remain the same.” 

 

 

Image courtesy Michi Uchida 

George and Michi Uchida pose for photographer Dorothea Lange during their wedding on April 27, 1942. The Uchidas left for the Tanforan evacuation camps the next day.


West Berkeley Tax District Off Table, City Staff Says

By Judith Scherr
Tuesday October 16, 2007

After protests from West Berkeley residents and small business owners, the West Berkeley Community Benefits District (WBCBD) may be off the table.  

A city-run meeting tonight (Tuesday) will focus on the WBCBD, a tax assessment district, or possibly other iterations of the plan that has been under discussion by the West Berkeley Business Alliance for more than a year. 

The meeting, slated to run from 7 p.m. until 9 p.m. or later, is at Rosa Parks Elementary School, at Allston Way and Eighth Street.  

While a postcard sent to some West Berkeley residents and businesses by Southwest Berkeley Council-member Darryl Moore’s office said “the West Berkeley Business Alliance (WBBA) has withdrawn its recent proposal to create a Community Benefits District,” WBBA consultant Marco LiMandri of San Diego-based New City America refused to confirm this.  

“Go to the meeting tomorrow night and you’ll find out,” LiMandri told the Planet in a brief phone interview Monday.  

Michael Goldin, chair of the WBBA steering committee, did not return Daily Planet calls. 

The tax assessment district, as conceived by the WBBA, would stretch roughly from University Avenue to the Oakland border and from San Pablo Avenue to the bay, encompassing all property owners within it. The property owners would pay an assessment according to their size, with some relief for Bayer and the largest property owners in the area.  

Similarly, the decision about whether to create the district would be weighted according to property size, with large landholders such as Bayer and San Rafael-based Wareham Development having the lion’s share of the decision-making power. Homeowners would have had a collective 2 percent of decision-making power. 

West Berkeley Concerned Neighbors (WBCN), which has held meetings with up to 100 attendees, formed in August to counter what they say is a plan where residents and small business voices would be overwhelmed by large commercial interests if a community benefits district were created. 

Sarah Klise of WBCN told the Planet on Monday that she had been trying for three weeks to get the community formally represented at the city-sponsored meeting. She said that around 11 a.m. Monday she reached Acting Economic Development Director Michael Caplan, who told her she would be given five minutes on the program. The West Berkeley Artisans and Industrial Companies and the WBBA will also have speakers. 

In addition to speakers from the various city departments including police, Health and Human Services, public works and economic development, the program will consist of people representing the other Business Improvement Districts in the city.  

The general public will be alloted two different time periods to comment. 

Mayor Tom Bates’ Chief of Staff Cisco DeVries said in an e-mail to the Planet that the mayor is not planning to attend. 

Asked about the proposed district on Monday, Caplan told the Planet: “They basically shelved the idea.”  

Caplan distanced himself from the decision-making. “It’s not my proposal,” he said. “It’s [the WBBA] proposal.” 

The WBBA has contracted with LiMandri for $60,000, which includes a $10,000 grant from the city. Community members have complained that the WBBA planning meetings, which have gone on for more than a year, have excluded them. City staff and Moore and his staff have been invited to meetings. 

During a break from jury duty on Monday, Moore told the Daily Planet that he prefers that residents are not part of a future West Berkeley district. Moore described tonight’s meeting as a way to collectively look at options. “We’re learning as we go along,” he said, predicting that the West Berkeley district will eventually look like one of the other existing business improvement districts in the city, based either on property ownership or on business ownership. 

Caplan said the WBBA is not going to give up on its concerns, pointing to homelessness, graffiti and crime. These are the issues that will be discussed at the meeting, he said. 

But that’s not what the community is most concerned about, according to Klise. In early iterations of the Community Benefits District plan, the WBBA had indicated that some of the funds collected would be directed toward looking at revising West Berkeley zoning. The neighbors reacted with concerns for gentrification and five-story buildings sprouting next to their single-family homes. 

But Caplan said that discussion would not be held tonight. “They’re not dealing with land use [at the meeting],” he said, arguing that this would take “a whole other meeting … There’s no land-use conspiracy—at least from the staff point of view.” 

Klise said she thinks it is important for community people to show up in large numbers at the meeting tonight. 

“We do live in Berkeley,” she said. “It doesn’t look good for 10 of the largest developers to be all calling the shots versus 200-300 [community] people.”  

 

 


Dellums’ North Oakland Meeting Focuses on Crime

By J. Douglas Allen-Taylor
Tuesday October 16, 2007

If Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums has lost significant political support in the city since the June 2006 election—as at least one local media outlet has reported—that sentiment was not immediately apparent at a standing-room-only Town Hall meeting at North Oakland’s Peralta Elementary School last Saturday morning. 

Given the opportunity to address the mayor for one minute on any topic of their choice, some 50 residents voiced concerns ranging from crime and violence to residential and commercial development, but only one woman chose to criticize the mayor’s office itself, saying that she had not been successful in attempts to meet with Dellums. 

Meanwhile, in a 45-minute address at the beginning of the meeting, Dellums spoke specifically on the crime issue that is the concern of many Oakland citizens, saying that “people ought to be able to have a sense of security and peace in their neighborhoods. That’s fundamental.” But Dellums said that “having more police by itself is not the answer. The police cannot do this job alone. There needs to be a cooperative effort between the community and the police.”  

And to a suggestion by a North Oakland resident that the police force should be increased to 1,000 or more—well above the current 803 authorized officers—the mayor said that Oakland residents “have got to be willing to put your money where your mouth is” and “assume responsibility” for the “budgetary and tax consequences” of such a police personnel increase. 

In his speech, Dellums also outlined several programs and policy initiatives he said he would be formally announcing over the next few weeks (see sidebar). 

Saturday’s meeting, held in lieu of District 1 Councilmember Jane Brunner’s regular bi-monthly community advisory meeting, was the third of the charter-mandated town hall gatherings that Oakland mayors have been required to hold since the strong- mayor form of government was put in place.  

The first meeting was held earlier this year at Frick Middle School in Councilmember Desley Brooks’ 6th District. The second was held at DeFremery Park in Councilmember Nancy Nadel’s 3rd District. A fourth community meeting, held at the Bridges Academy last June after Dellums walked down the Fruitvale International Boulevard business district to speak with merchants and citizens, apparently did not count as a charter-mandated town hall. 

Typical of the citizen comments was Don Lowrey, president of the Temescal Neighborhood Crime Prevention Council, who said that “police in Oakland are getting frustrated because there are not enough of them on the street to answer the calls. We don’t want a police state in Oakland, but we want enough police who can deal with citizens competently.” 

Lowrey also suggested that crime prevention efforts in Oakland intervene with students in high school to keep them from being caught up in the crime and violence cycle. Lee Edwards, Temescal NCPC Vice President, agreed that the police department was understaffed, saying too many were being dropped out of the police academy.  

“There needs to be early intervention when it looks like police candidates might be dropping out, and somebody should work with them and help them pass the course,” Edwards said. “It’s easier to teach them than to flunk them out.”  

But Michael Mechanic, a North Oakland resident, Peralta parent and East Bay Express editor, said that simply increasing the number of street patrol officers was not the best solution to Oakland’s crime problem. Citing the fact that Oakland has “one arson investigator working part-time,” Mechanic said that the Oakland Police Department “needs to increase its investigative functions.”  

While several residents expressed concerns about development issues along Telegraph Avenue, where the city is attempting to put in higher-rise commercial buildings to support the vision of Telegraph as a transportation corridor, others said they were disturbed by the proposed new Children’s Hospital complex planned for the hospital’s current location on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard in North Oakland. 

“I live 40 feet away from the hospital, and we didn’t find out about the new proposal until the last minute,” Ted Franklin said. Saying that the planned hospital expansion would force him out of his home, Franklin said that, “I won’t be able to move.” 

And Beverly Guyton said that “up until recently, I was concerned about the crime problem in North Oakland, but after I learned of Children’s Hospital’s plan to put up a 12-story hospital in our neighborhood, now that’s consuming me.”  

Guyton suggested that the hospital, instead, build a portion of its planned expansion as an annex near Highland Hospital “so that the people in East Oakland who have children don’t have to drive all the way out to North Oakland to get service.” 

And while no resident made specific complaints about Dellums himself, several praised him and his work. 

“I voted for you all my life, back when to when you were in Congress,” Bob Brockl said. “I’ve never regretted it.” 

In his remarks, Dellums talked about the frustration of trying to bring Oakland’s uniformed police officer strength up to its authorized 803. 

“We need more police officers,” the mayor said. “We are currently at 730, which leaves us at about 70 under strength.” Dellums said that last year, 119 new officers graduated from the Oakland Police Academy.  

“But in that same year,” he added, “60 officers retired, 40 moved on to other agencies, and 10 were terminated. That left us with a net gain of nine new police officers. That’s not enough.” 

Dellums also said that while the city is conducting a heavy recruiting drive for new officers, half of every 1,000 recruits drop out from the beginning, with another 400 dropping out after the department conducts its pre-academy psychological, psychiatric, and physical tests. Of the 100 recruits that actually enter the academy, “50 percent wash out, leaving 50 police officers out of the original 1,000 recruits.”  

The mayor called that a significant problem that the city was facing in bringing its police force up to full strength.  

“We need to be creative to figure this out,” he said, suggesting that the city may partner with local community colleges to develop pre-academy courses for potential police recruits to prepare them for entering the police academy. “It’s a difficult problem. We’re trying, but it’s not easy.” 

 

 

Initiatives Announced by Dellums 

 

1. A public-private collaboration with PG&E to install and replace lights at Oakland “hot spots” where night-time crime is the most prevalent.  

The first targets will be in Beat 6X (a North Oakland-West Oakland triangle bounded by Adeline and 40th streets and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard) and Beat 34X (an East Oakland square bounded by International Boulevard, 82nd and 90th avenues, and Sunnyside Street), with other areas phased in as the initiative moves forward. Initiative to begin “within a few days.” 

 

2. Rethinking development of the old Oakland Army Base to be “strategy driven” and “vision driven” rather than “project driven” as it has been in the past.  

Mayor to report to the City Council in the near future with a new vision for the Oakland Army Base to produce a minimum of 10,000 jobs with a mix-used strategy that recognizes the “vital maritime uses” of the area close to the Port of Oakland, as well as a regional shopping center, office space, and “creative industry.” Dellums proposes to bring this vision to developers and ask them to shape their development projects based on its parameters. No timetable given on when the vision package would be completed and presented to council. 

 

3. Establish a partnership between the City of Oakland, the Oakland Unified School District, Alameda County, and philanthropic organizations to “establish a health clinic in every middle school and high school” in Oakland within five years. 

The clinics, similar to what is already available at Berkeley High School, would include health care programs, mental health counseling, and family services. An announcement of the first phase of the project, to include both naming the targeted schools and identifying the initial philanthropic money, will be made in a few weeks. 

 

4. Establish a World Trade Center in Oakland that will encourage national and international trade and investment in the city, and “ultimately generate employment for city residents.”  

An announcement of the first phase of the project will be made in several weeks. 

 

5. The San Francisco Foundation and the East Bay Foundation have committed between $350,000 and $500,000 in seed money to create an office of public-private partnership within the mayor’s office to assist the mayor in “going after philanthropic resources for the city.” 

Dellums’ wife, Cynthia Dellums, will chair an advisory committee of citizen, government, and business interests to assist in this project. Announcement on the creation of the advisory committee to be made shortly. 

 

6. Conversations are currently being held with the governor’s office to “carve out a specific geographic area in Oakland to come in with state resources to do a block-by-block revitalization.”  

The governor’s office has already made a similar commitment to create such an intervention in a 70-block area along Crenshaw Boulevard in Los Angeles. An announcement on the Oakland program will be made within the next few days. 


Pele deLappe, Artist and Activist, Remembered—1916-2007

By Judith Scherr
Tuesday October 16, 2007

Celebrated for her art and her activism, Pele deLappe spent a lifetime fighting for racial justice, women’s equality and workers’ rights. 

On Oct. 1, at 91, DeLappe died peacefully in her Petaluma home of complications from a stroke, surrounded by friends and family.  

She was a fourth-generation San Franciscan who lived in Berkeley for many years. Her lithographs, frescos, etchings and paintings of everyday people and jazz musicians have been shown in galleries from San Francisco to New York, and can be found in the permanent collection of the Library of Congress, the California Palace of the Legion of Honor, at the San Francisco headquarters of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union and on the walls of modest living rooms and kitchens of friends and fellow activists.  

DeLappe sketched wherever she was, said her friend Mary Fromer, who worked with deLappe at People’s World, a newspaper affiliated with the Communist Party. 

“She would draw characters in a meeting or in a courtroom,” Fromer said. 

The people she drew were “ordinary people—ordinary shop girls,” said Nina Sheldon, deLappe’s daughter. Among the lithographic reproductions scattered liberally throughout her autobiography, A passionate journey through Art & the Red press, is a depiction of a 1945 picket line at the Uptown Theater (city unknown), where African-American and white picketers are carrying signs condemning Jim Crow and racist hiring policies. 

Age did not slow deLappe’s mind or her art. “She was still sketching until she had her big stroke” a few weeks before she died, Fromer said. She had shows at the Susan Teller Gallery in New York as recently as 1997 and 1999 and at the M.H. de Young Museum in San Francisco in 1999. In 2006 she created the lithograph, Lost in America, in response to Hurricane Katrina. 

As a young teenager, deLappe studied art at the California School of Fine Arts (now San Francisco Art Institute) and went to New York to study at the Art Students’ League, when she was about 16.  

At 18, she returned to San Francisco, and participated in the 1934 San Francisco Waterfront Strike, not only as a picketer, but also by contributing her drawings and cartoons to the striking workers’ newspapers. She was arrested twice. It was around that time that she joined the Communist Party. 

She would leave the party twice. The second time was in 1990. In her autobiography she complained about the party’s lack of democracy at that point, and about “intolerance of differences of opinion by the party people back east—and some local ones.” 

Conn “Ringo” Hallinan, a People’s World editor in the mid 1970s, remembers deLappe’s quick wit, sense of humor and flashes of temper. This was her second stint with the paper. The first had been from 1943 to1949, when the paper laid her off for economic reasons.  

After leaving the PW the first time, deLappe became an editor of a new, short-lived newspaper, the West Oakland Beacon. In her autobiography she said she was the only white on the staff of the newspaper that was to be the “the Black voice of West Oakland and counter irritant to Sen. William Knowland’s reactionary Oakland Tribune.”  

From around 1953 to 1972, deLappe worked as a designer for Moore’s Business Forms in Emeryville. During that time she struggled to obtain pay equal to her male counterparts. 

Back at People’s World in the 1970s, deLappe was features editor and jazz critic and contributed her drawings and cartoons. Her drawings were simple but able to express both emotion and politics, Hallinan said, recalling a drawing of John Mitchell, the attorney general who engineered the Watergate break-in, “looking incredibly evil.” 

At People’s World, deLappe’s was “not a sectarian approach to culture,” Hallinan said. Her critics, however, thought she should be creating what they considered stereotypical “true” workers’ culture, “but she was never an ideologue, never a narrow sectarian,” he said. 

DeLappe’s drawings were also insightful. Hallinan remembers when he had hurt his back and deLappe joined him one afternoon as his three young boys crowded into bed with him to watch Star Trek on TV. 

Several days later deLappe gave Hallinan a drawing. “It was me sitting in bed with the TV on, with Mr. Spock on TV, with each of the kids exactly what they were. Somehow she picked up on the personality of the kids,” he said. 

Besides being smart, she was fun. “She told raunchy jokes with style and could drink me under the table,” Hallinan said. “We’d go to these meetings and get terribly bored, go to a local bar and then go back to the meeting.” 

DeLappe’s sense of humor was with her until her death. In the last five years of her mother’s life, daughter Nina Sheldon and her mother became very close and shared many moments of hilarity, Sheldon said. 

“We just laughed. Nobody was funnier than my mother,” she said. Mostly the two found today’s political situation awful enough to be funny. “Things can be so horrible that you have to laugh—like some of the insane things that Bush and Cheney did,” Sheldon said.  

DeLappe’s keen interest in politics and her activism never left her. Recently, in her wheelchair “she was out there in a picket line, holding up a sign against the war in Iraq,” Sheldon said. 

She would stay current with what was going on. “She’d get up in the morning and have to listen to Amy Goodman [host of the progressive news magazine Democracy Now! heard on Pacifica and community radio stations],” Sheldon said. 

She’d read the San Francisco Chronicle and “howl with rage” and write letters to the editor. 

The last article she wrote was a review in July for the Berkeley Daily Planet of The Letters of Jessica Mitford, edited by Peter Sussman. Mitford was deLappe’s longtime friend and Berkeley neighbor. She ends the piece: “How I miss—and long for— Decca’s take on these parlous times.”  

DeLappe found great love late in life, Sheldon said. In 1992, she moved from Berkeley to Petaluma to be close to painter and graphic artist Byron Randall, whom she had known for a half-century. 

Randall “was the most serious love of her life. She was 70!” Sheldon said. Randall died in 1999. 

In Petaluma, “she developed a whole new circle of friends,” Fromer said. She participated in art classes and workshops.  

“She was fortunate to die at home, with Jon, Mary [Jon and Mary Fromer] and me singing the Internationale in three-part harmony,” Sheldon said. 

Hers “is the kind of life that you want to live,” Hallinan said. “She went through personal tragedies—several marriages and a son who struggles with mental illness. She never let the difficulties in her life derail her. And she never stopped having fun.” 

A public memorial is being planned. The date and location are not yet set. 

 

Photograph: Pele deLappe in a 1997 photograph.


Downtown Panel Prepares For Final Public Workshop

By Richard Brenneman
Tuesday October 16, 2007

Two key sections of the proposed new downtown plan come up for votes Wednesday, chapters that could help define the future look of Berkeley’s urban core. 

Four days later, the public will have a chance to weigh in on those proposals and the rest of the work of the Downtown Area Plan Advisory Committee during the committee’s last public workshop. 

While one of the chapters up for consideration Wednesday looks at the handling of streetscapes and open space, the other looks at historic structures and the design of new buildings. 

By combining new design and the future of the older buildings that now dominate the downtown streetscape, the second chapter has proved to be the most controversial. 

Approved unanimously by a subcommittee drawn in equal numbers from DAPAC and the Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC), the 14-page proposal is certain to spark controversy. 

A proposed revision signed by Matt Taecker, the city planning staffer hired with UC Berkeley funds to help prepare the plan, was rejected by the subcommittee. 

One central conflict concerns the city skyline, with staff—backed by Mayor Tom Bates—consistently pushing for a higher, denser downtown than many DAPAC members seem to want. 

The DAPAC/LPC subcommittee’s chapter stresses the importance of building height controls, while the staff has repeatedly pushed for a plan which originally envisioned 14 high-rises each 16 stories tall, though the number has dwindled in subsequent iterations of the proposed chapter on land use. 

Another source of contention has been the subcommittee’s desire to single out downtown sub-areas with concentrations of historic buildings for special protection. 

Their draft for the chapter also proposes creating a historic district for the central Shattuck Avenue business district which would impose protections and design restrictions on new construction in the district. 

The Downtown Berkeley Association (DBA) has urged rejection of that idea. 

DBA also worries about the potential impacts of a proposed Center Street pedestrian plaza between Shattuck and Oxford Street.  

Mark McLeod, DBA president and one of the founders of Downtown Restaurant, has expressed doubts about the wisdom of closing the street, and urged that in no case should closure occur before the proposed UC-backed hotel/meeting center/condo tower at the Shattuck end of the block and the university’s planned Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive building at its western end are open. 

But the streetscape chapter draft makes the Center Street Plaza a high priority, including street closure to traffic except for emergency services and delivery vehicles that serve merchants along the plaza. 

It calls on the city to develop and adopt a Public Improvements Plan creating an overall policy for implementing additions and alterations design to make the city center more pedestrian friendly. 

The streetscape chapter also endorses another ambitious proposal by staff: transforming the Shattuck Avenue median between Durant Street and Dwight Way into grassy “park blocks” by “converting excessive travel ways and parking areas to a linear park.” 

It proposes requiring developers of new projects to contribute to downtown greenery and open space, though just how remains at issue, and urges adoption of another staff proposal to improve stormwater runoff quality by capturing it in vegetated “swales,” rain gardens, permeable paving and other innovations. 

Other policies call for: 

• Restricting traffic on Hearst Avenue between Martin Luther King Jr. Way and Oxford Street to two lanes as a way to extend the Ohlone Greenway to the UC Berkeley campus; 

• Exploring opportunities to extend the Shattuck Avenue boulevard character north of University by exploring ways to increase street trees by eliminating traffic lanes or planting them in parking lanes. 

• Redesign of University Avenue between Shattuck Avenue and the campus by expanding sidewalks, landscaping, pedestrian features and—if feasible—removing traffic lanes to reduce street-crossing distances for pedestrians. 

The chapters are available online at the DAPAC website at www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/planning/landuse/dap/reports.htm. 

Saturday’s workshop is being held at the Berkeley High School library, located on the second floor of the school near the intersection of Allston Way and Milvia Street, with the entrance on Allston. 

Technical problems have derailed plans for an on-line discussion group, Taecker said. The committee will accept email comments in advance of the event, which can be sent to Yiu Kam, assistant planner for the downtown area, at ykam@ci.berkeley.ca.us.


ZAB Approves Relocation of Blood House to Regent St.

By Riya Bhattacharjee
Tuesday October 16, 2007

The Zoning Adjustments Board (ZAB) voted 8-6 Thursday to allow Berkeley developers Ruegg and Ellsworth to relocate the landmarked Blood House at 2526 Durant Ave. to Regent Street and build a a 34,158-square-foot, five-story building with 44 apartments, 18 parking spaces and retail space in its place. 

Designed by architect Robert Gray Frise, this 1891 Queen Anne-style building was originally constructed as a single-family home whose use was later altered. 

Flanked by the Albra and the Brasfield buildings—two other landmarks—the Blood House is now used as an office building. 

“The Blood House is a minority in the neighborhood because it’s not in good shape,” project manager Brendan Heafey told the board. “Our intention is to build condominiums and rent them out to permanent residents such as university staff and faculty who plan to stay in the neighborhood for a long time ... We are trying to improve the health of the area.” 

Roland Peterson, president of the Telegraph Avenue Merchant’s Association, said that high-density housing would be economically viable for Telegraph. 

“We have a number of projects in the neighborhood,” said Dana Ellsworth.  

“By moving the house to a better location, it adds a much-needed link in the block which is required to make the street vibrant. Currently the house does not contribute to pedestrian activity.” 

The city Landmarks Preservation Commission declared the building a structure of merit in September 1999. Ruegg and Ellsworth’s appeal of the designation was denied by the City Council a month later. 

At an earlier meeting, the zoning board had denied the proposed demolition of the historically designated structure and had asked to see other alternatives which would help preserve it. 

A compromise suggested by the Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association (BAHA), which would retain the Blood House on the site and build a 40-unit project, was heard by the ZAB in February 2004 but then abandoned by the developers. 

Ruegg & Ellsworth presented the idea of relocating the Blood House to an empty lot at 2508 Regent St. owned by developer John Gordon at a May 2004 ZAB meeting. 

According to a January 2007 addendum to the project’s environmental impact report, because “the residential character of Durant Avenue has been considerably altered, moving the building to another more residential location could mitigate to a less-than-significant level impacts to this historic resource.” 

“We feel that the proposed alternative offered a solution to the community,” BAHA member Leslie Emmington told the board Thursday. “As an organization, we don’t feel there has been enough discussion ... the staff conclusions don’t demonstrate that the preservation alternative is infeasible.” 

Board member Jesse Arreguin asked the zoning staff why the BAHA alternative had not been given serious consideration. 

“I am for rental housing on the Southside but I have serious concerns about the process and the impact relocating it will have on the historic fabric of the neighborhood,” he said. “The reason why it was a structure of merit was to give some kind of historic character to the neighborhood,” he said.  

Board member Bob Allen said the BAHA alternative had been given serious consideration. 

“The proposal would cut down street frontage to less than half of what it was now,” he said. “It was a very unsatisfactory situation.”  

Heafey told the board that the 40-unit preservation alternative would not have met California building codes. 

Board member Terry Doran said that wrapping the Blood House with a large modern building would be offensive. 

“By moving it to a new site, the historical character of the building will be kept intact,” he said. 

Floor joists with steel beams will be used to lift the house from its first floor and lower it onto a trailer. The relocation is scheduled to take place on a Sunday and local traffic will be detoured to alternative routes briefly. 

Plans to move the UC Berkeley-owned landmarked John Woolley House, at 2509 Haste St. to the same empty Regent Street lot are also being explored. 

Gordon told the board that the Blood House would not be moved until he got a permit to move the Woolley House.


Hospital Nurses Back to Work Following Strike and Lockout

By Richard Brenneman
Tuesday October 16, 2007

Staff registered nurses at Alta Bates Summit Medical Center and Herrick Hospital were back at work Monday morning—three days after their two-day walkout ended. 

Members of the California Nurses Association (CNA) walked out of their jobs at 13 hospitals of the Sutter Health chain and two Sacramento-area hospitals of the smaller Fremont-Rideout Health Group. 

While the nurses had announced a two-day action, the Berkeley hospitals and their sister facility in Oakland, along with some other Sutter facilities guaranteed five days of work for non-union replacements, many flown in from out of state. 

Other hospitals in the chain allowed striking nurses to return immediately after the two-day walkout. 

More than 5,000 CNA nurses struck starting at 7 a.m. Wednesday, announcing well in advance that they were staging a two-day action. 

Locked out when they attempted to return to work Friday, Berkeley RNs were finally able to report back to work Monday morning. A hospital representative told Bay City News that they had only been able to recruit replacements for the longer term. 

At least two agencies specializing in finding short-term replacements for striking nurses had advertised for strike-breakers. 

CNA spokesperson Charles Idelson said Monday afternoon that he hasn’t heard of any problems with nurses returning to work, “but we’re monitoring the situation closely.” 

Idelson said the union had strong support from local political figures, including two who are nurses at Alta Bates Summit: Berkeley City Councilmember Max Anderson, who cares for patients at the Oakland hospital, and Albany Mayor Robert Lieber, who works in Berkeley. 

Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates and Assemblymember Loni Hancock appeared at a CNA Berkeley rally Wednesday, and Berkeley Councilmember Kriss Worthington, a candidate for Hancock’s seat if she doesn’t run again, appeared at a Thursday rally in Oakland. 

While members of many unions attended the rallies, only members of the Office and Professional Employees International Union voted to honor the picket line. 

The lockout—which Idelson called a retaliatory action by Alta Bates Summit management—mirrors an identical action taken after CNA’s last walkout on Sutter hospitals. 

After the one-day action Dec. 1, 2004, the chain locked its doors to union members for the next four days. 

While Sutter operates more than 20 hospitals, including one in Hawaii, each hospital or hospital group negotiates its own contracts with unions. CNA contracts with all the Sutter hospitals have expired in recent months, with the Alta Bates Summit pacts ending last month, Idelson said. 

No new talks are planned between union and management, while negotiations to date have focused on workplace and patient care concerns—with no mention yet of salary or benefits. 

Idelson said union leaders will be meeting sometime in the next few days to plan their next moves. 

Carolyn Kemp, the designated spokes-person for the Berkeley hospital, did not return calls by deadline Monday, and did not return calls before or during the strike and subsequent lockout.


Police Blotter

By Rio Bauce
Tuesday October 16, 2007

Assault 

On Sunday at 10:54 p.m., a man arrived at the emergency room at Alta Bates Hospital to report that he had been robbed and assaulted the day prior. No arrests have been made. 

 

Burglary 

At 10:45 p.m. on Sunday, a Berkeley resident who lives on the 1700 block of McGee Street, called in to report that their home had been burglarized. The house door had been unlocked. A double-barrelled shotgun, a laptop, and several digital cameras were stolen. No suspects have been identified. 

 

Terrorist threat 

At 4:58 p.m. on Saturday, a man threatened a woman. Police arrested the man and put him in custody. 

Battery 

At 1:23 p.m. on Saturday, there was a fight between women on the 1900 block of Russell Street. One of the women, 58, was arrested on charges of battery. 

 

Battery via kick 

At 11 a.m. on Saturday, a man called in to report that another man to whom he owed money had kicked him on the 1600 block of 10th Street. Police have a suspect, but no arrests have been made. 

 

Drunk driver 

On Saturday at 4 a.m., police arrested a 28-year-old Emeryville man for driving drunk at the corner of Alcatraz and Baker streets, near the Oakland border. 


Mixed Reaction to Oakland School Control Bill Veto

By J. Douglas Allen-Taylor
Tuesday October 16, 2007

In a move that Oakland Unified School Board President David Kakishiba said was “not unexpected,” California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed Assemblymember Sandré Swanson’s AB 45 Oakland school local control bill on Saturday. 

Schwarzenegger wrote, “The pace at which [the bill] seeks to restore the authority of the school board may surpass the pace at which the state administrator can imbed sustainable reforms. Current law contemplates the return of the district to local control once the [California Superintendent of Public Instruction] has a level of confidence that the improvements in the district are sustainable. In the interest of the educational well-being of the students, it is well worth investing the time to allow the [state superintendent] to finish the work that has already begun.” 

The veto means that the fate of the future of the Oakland Unified School District remains under current state law, which allows the California school superintendent unlimited discretion as to when local control can be returned. 

Under Swanson’s bill, which he introduced on the first day he took office last year, a recommendation for return to local control by the state-financed Fiscal Crisis & Management Assistance Team school monitoring organization would call for immediate return in that operational area, regardless of the state superintendent’s position. 

In a Saturday press release entitled “Swanson Upbeat for Next Step for Oakland Schools,” the first-term Oakland assemblymember said that despite the failure of AB45 to become law, he felt the bill had caused some positive accomplishments. 

“I believe that the Governor’s action puts more pressure on the Superintendent, as he now must continue the transfer of authorities without the structural guarantees that I was attempting to put in place with AB 45,” Swanson said in his prepared statement. “Under current law, … the superintendent always had the ability to move the process forward but had been unwilling to do so. Given this new environment, I am optimistic that there won’t be another stalemate, and that is a clear victory for Oakland children.” 

But speaking by telephone, School Board President Kakishiba sounded considerably more bitter about the veto. 

“While some people have been talking about the problems with the local school board, nobody in state government—from the governor’s office to the state superintendent to the Republican members of the legislature—wants to be culpable for what has happened to the Oakland schools under state control,” Kakishiba said. “During five years of state receivership, we have never had a balanced budget, and the executive turnover has been far worse than any other urban district in California during that time.” 

While praising state officials for “dealing with the most severe part of the fiscal emergency at the beginning of the state takeover,” Kakishiba said that since that time “state officials have proven themselves unable to solve the day-to-day problems of the district, such as stopping the declining enrollment. The state doesn’t want to look in the mirror and see its own actions. I see a lot of raw, naked opportunism at work here. It’s not about getting educational results in Oakland. It’s about the state retaining power. It’s both sad and frustrating.” 

Kakishiba said that the Oakland School Board—which received a limited return of local control last summer from State Superintendent Jack O’Connell after the Fiscal Crisis & Management Assistance Team (FCMAT) had recommended such a return two years running—will “keep on the state administrator’s case to balance the ’07-’08 budget and to develop a new multi-year Fiscal Recovery Plan for the district.” 

The board president said that the board will “continue to develop plans for initiating a superintendent search in anticipation” of beginning such a search next spring. 

Saying that the AB45 veto “won’t derail” board plans to begin the process for a board-hired superintendent, Kakishiba said that when the new FCMAT report on the Oakland schools comes out next month, he is anticipating an FCMAT recommendation of return to local control in either two or three of the remaining four district operational areas.  

“The past practice in return to local control after state takeovers is that when at least three areas have been returned to local control, the local district is allowed to hire a superintendent to administer those areas,” Kakishiba said. “That’s what occurred in Compton and Vallejo.”  

Kakishiba said that even though O’Connell could choose not to follow FCMAT’s recommendation under current law, “I believe the superintendent feels that there has not been any problem with the return of local governance and community relations to school board control, and so there is good reason to believe he will go along with the FCMAT recommendation.” 

Kakishiba said that one possible reason for O’Connell to reject a FCMAT recommendation of return of more local control in the Oakland schools is “if the state superintendent believes that the private investment in the Expect Success! initiative will be endangered by the return of local governance.” 

O’Connell's office issues a statement on the AB45 veto Thursday afternoon: 

“I commend Governor Schwarzenegger for vetoing AB 45 by Assemblymember Sandré Swanson (D-Oakland), which would have instituted an unworkable process for determining the timeline for return of local control to the Oakland Unified School District. I appreciate Assemblymember Swanson's passion for improving public education in Oakland, and I share his commitment to our students. I am pleased that Oakland Unified is making progress in both student achievement and fiscal stability, and that the district has resumed local control in the area of governance and community relations. However, this bill would have created a new bureaucracy for the process of determining the return of authority to the local school board. This process would not serve the best interests of the students of Oakland Unified.”


Opinion

Editorials

Editorial: Last Chance for Downtown Opinions

By Becky O’Malley
Friday October 19, 2007

This week’s editorial is in a more traditional vein than most, and is much shorter than usual. That’s because the message to be conveyed is short and sweet: For those who care about what kind of Berkeley we’ll be passing along to those who come after us, there’s a meeting you’ve really got to attend this Saturday. It’s the last public forum of DAPAC, the Downtown Plan Advisory Committee, which is the slightly illegitimate offspring of the city’s settlement of its lawsuit challenging the environmental impact report on one segment of the University of California’s enormous expansion plans for the next decades.  

Why “slightly illegimate”? Well, there’s no good reason that the city should have invited UC’s planners into its tent at all. There are those who would make the argument that it’s safer for the city to let the university participate in a planning process which in non-UC cities would belong to the residents alone, since according to the state constitution the University of California, like the proverbial 2000-pound gorilla, can sleep anywhere it chooses. 

The only problem with this analysis is that UC has carefully reserved the right to disregard the outcome of the DAPAC proceedings if it feels like it. A further problem is that DAPAC’s recommendations have to pass both the Planning Commission, which has been shamelessly stacked with pro-development advocates by Mayor Tom Bates and his allies, and the City Council (a faint-hearted bunch, with a couple of exceptions) even before UC has its chance to ignore the results. 

The commentary section today devotes more space than usual to an excellent analysis of what DAPAC’s done until now, written by Rob Wrenn, one of DAPAC’s resident policy wonks. Wrenn was chair of the citizen-dominated Planning Commission which drafted our general plan, the one that UC plans to ignore as it feeds its edifice complex.  

And on Thursday morning, as this was being written, DAPAC members were receiving a 3,000-plus word missive from committee chair Will Travis. He says he’s expressing his own personal ideas, but his views might be taken as representing some sort of official position, since he was appointed as chair by Bates, contrary to Berkeley’s usual practice of letting commissioners elect their own chairs. Space does not permit us to reprint his opinion today, but he sums it all up in an early paragraph: “we should be calling for as many tall buildings as possible to be built.” 

Whether you agree or disagree with that conclusion, you should show up to weigh in if you care at all. Details: Saturday, Oct. 20, 10 a.m.-1 p.m., Public Workshop, Berkeley High School Library (Allston and Milvia). Be there. 


Editorial: Supporting Our Troops—All of Them

By Becky O’Malley
Tuesday October 16, 2007

We get letters from all over the world in response to what appears on our pages, particularly on our opinion pages. We get letters in which the writers unburden themselves of their opinions about Berkeley in general, or about what they believe Berkeley to be. And we get many letters in which the writers reveal their opinions about the fate of the nation or the world, which they send hoping a Berkeley paper will print when their hometown papers haven’t.  

We also get what I call “robo-letters”, generated by some mysterious fill-in-the-blanks web page—sometimes the text of these letters is identical, sometimes only the titles are. Sometimes they’re obviously intended for a congressperson or the president, not “the editor”. They are easy to spot because they frequently assign inappropriate gender titles (Mr. Susie Jones) to the signatures. Even though we often sympathize with the sentiments expressed, we seldom print these. 

Last week we got a few letters from distant places, and even one from Berkeley, applauding the well-written commentary we printed from the Marine recruiter whose near-campus office was targeted by Code Pink and other anti-war demonstrators. Even though our usual policy is to devote our limited space mainly to local letters, and even though we tend to print only a couple of representative samples from what looks like an organized letter-writing campaign, we’ll be printing most of these, and we’re glad to get them. 

Because the writing style varies a great deal, it’s reasonable to believe that these missives are heartfelt expressions of personal belief, not computer-generated mass mailings, even though there might be some central organization suggesting that they be written. The over-arching theme is that the writers support the role played by the armed forces of the United States in maintaining the security of the nation from foreign invasion, a legitimate sentiment it’s hard to criticize.  

We appreciate the traditional freedoms, including freedom of the press, which we enjoy in the United States (even though we remember A.J. Liebling’s crack that the press is only free for those who own them). We’re glad Code Pink picketed the recruiting offices, but we’re also glad the letter writers are able to weigh in with their dissenting points of view.  

It’s true that many of us, including me, have seen dishonest military recruiting in action, but we’ll take the word of Captain Lund, who manages the Marines’ Berkeley recruitment effort, that he doesn’t run his operation that way. But even if one recognizes the bravery and commitment of sincere individuals like Captain Lund, it’s legitimate to ask him and his supporters if they’re also aware of the dangers to what we value about this nation which are coming from inside the country.  

There’s been news in the last week or so about the Defense Department’s use and abuse of a device called a National Security Letter (NSL), part of the Bush administration’s USA Patriot Act. According to the American Civil Liberties Union, “a comprehensive analysis of 455 NSLs issued after 9/11 shows that the Defense Department seems to have collaborated with the FBI to circumvent the law, may have overstepped its legal authority to obtain financial and credit records, provided misleading information to Congress, and silenced NSL recipients from speaking out about the records’ requests.” In other words, the Pentagon’s been doing some illegal spying on Americans, and that’s not what this country is supposed to be all about. Now we hope to get letters from Captain Lund and/or his supporters acknowledging that real Americans don’t join the military in order to be able look at their fellow citizens’ bank records. 

Much more important is the central purpose of the armed forces: to protect this country from real military threats from abroad. Captain Lund, I strongly suspect, is intelligent enough to realize that invading Iraq had very little connection with the problem it purported to solve, the attack by al Qaeda on the World Trade Center. I’d bet that like most Americans he knows by now that Osama bin Laden is alive and well and living in Afghanistan, and that we’ll never be able to catch him as long as our troops are tied down by the pointless exercise in Iraq.  

One reason we maintain our respect for the armed forces of the United States is that at crucial historic points American service personnel have sometimes been willing to speak truth to power when they think things are off course. The fifty black sailors who refused to resume dangerous munitions loading at Port Chicago during World War II have finally been recognized as heroes more than a half-century later. Young John Kerry was an inspiring figure when he spoke up in 1971 for the Vietnam Veterans Against the War.  

And now we have the example of Lt. Ehren Watada before us. Even though he’s a loyal officer and no pacifist, he’s refused to serve in Iraq because he believes that it’s a criminal war and that participating in any way would be the same as aiding and abetting a crime. He’s offered to go to Afghanistan, where the U.S. military effort is floundering, but he’s been turned down. His second court martial trial (the first ended in a mistrial) was supposed to begin last week, though it’s now been postponed by a federal judge in the civil court system until at least October 26. 

Readers who have had their attention directed to this paper because of Captain Lund’s encounter with Code Pink should also familiarize themselves with Lt. Watada’s case. There’s a website, thank-yoult.org, which is maintained by his supporters for this purpose.  

We had the occasion recently to talk with some visitors from Spain who drove to Yosemite last weekend. As inhabitants of a nation where at least four diverse ethnic groups are frequently at odds with one another, sometimes violently, they were touched by seeing our national flag flying at many rural homes on the route. They said they admired the way the American nation sticks together despite our differences of political opinions.  

That’s an important point, one which we are sometimes inclined to forget. There’s more than one way to be a patriot, more than one way to fly the flag, and we should appreciate all of them. Captain Lund has spoken up for the conventional way, and Lt. Watada is providing a different perspective, but both deserve our respect and even our gratitude, even when we disagree with them. 


Public Comment

Letters to the Editor

Friday October 19, 2007

ACTIVISTS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

This Nov. 1, a group of activists who, desperate about the continuing war in Iraq, and who have been committing civil disobedience on the first Thursday of every month since November a year ago, will be observing the first year anniversary of the Die In for Peace with a continuing Die In. 

Over the past 11 first Thursdays a total of 130 people have laid down in front of the doors of 450 Golden Gate Ave., San Francisco. Each one of the protesters has been cited with a charge of “failure to comply with lawful order of a federal police officer” and to leave the doorways. Resisters face misdemeanor charges which carry a usual fine of $125. Some of the protesters have paid the fine, but the majority are asking for a hearing and would substitute community service or jail time for the monetary fine. 

There is a significant number of Berkeley residents among the 130: Ruth Maguire, Sally Hindman, Stephanie Miyashiro, Grace Morizawa, Ying Lee, Laura Magnani, Carolyn Scarr, Grace Shimizu (El Cerrito) and others.  

While the civil disobedience participants are blocking the doors, momentarily halting those entering the building but not blocking those exiting, another group reads the names of U.S. military as well as Iraqis who have died in this war. 

As the war continues into its fifth year many taxpayers are desperately dealing with their conscience over this war. Although the civil disobedience appears to be symbolic, it is the form that some citizens are taking to register their resistance to what they consider to be killing, executions, in their name.  

Ying Lee 

 

• 

THE CHARACTER OF  

THE DOWNTOWN 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

One paragraph from Zelda Bronstein’s recent column on land use planning for the downtown bears repeating: “DAPAC should take its bearings from the first major goal of Berkeley’s 2002 General Plan: ‘Preserve Berkeley’s unique character and quality of life.’ Granted, downtown Berkeley needs more than preservation; it requires substantial improvement. But any change should honor—indeed, enhance—those aspects of its character that are worth preserving. Chief among such valuable attributes is the area’s moderate scale.” 

The high-rise downtown envisioned in the staff’s land use alternative would radically change the character of Berkeley’s downtown, making it much less human-scale. Furthermore, it would mean that much of downtown could be a construction zone for many years to come. 

I believe that a majority of Berkeley citizens favor a modest increase in allowable building heights in the downtown, as well as incentives for developers to incorporate environmental and other features that we hold important. That’s the land use vision that DAPAC should endorse. 

Steve Meyers 

 

• 

CORRECTING A  

MISCONCEPTION 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Ms. Zelda Bronstein wrote a Public Eye column about “Planners From Another Planet” the Oct. 12 issue of the Daily Planet. In the seventh paragraph of that article she says, “At the Oct. 3 meeting the staff proposal was supported by only three DAPACers. One was Jenny Wenk, who works at the downtown YMCA.” 

For most of us the phrase “works at” usually means a person who collects a salary from an employer. 

I am not now, nor have I ever been, an employee of either the Downtown Berkeley YMCA, or the Berkeley-Albany YMCA Association. I do volunteer at the Downtown Berkeley YMCA, and have done so for many years in a variety of roles. Presently I am in the final months of my term as the chair of our branch’s Board of Managers. In this role I do my best to listen to and represent as best I can the more than 12,000 members of our Y. 

Since our members come from every part of our community they do not always agree on every issue. Our board works hard to make sure that the people in our community with the greatest needs and the fewest resources are served with the same effort and devotion as our members who have great resources and fewer needs. The programs, such as Y Scholars, that serve people with low incomes and great dreams are why I volunteer at the Y. For me the Y is a “labor of love.” It’s not work. 

Jenny Wenk 

 

• 

MEMO TO MITCHELL 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I was amused by Mitchell Gass’ letter (“Memo to Zelda”) about “Green Manhattan” and the young couple who lived for seven years without a dishwasher, a lawn or a car. Most young couples have limited means, but how many of them continue an austere lifestyle after their incomes rise?  

There is no evidence that cramming buildings into Berkeley will lead to “vitality of commerce, artistic life, and opportunity.” In recent years, shops and restaurants have been closing, and the population of Berkeley has actually declined, despite the downtown construction feast delivered by ABAG and the Bates regime. 

It isn’t just Berkeley—the population has declined from 2000 to 2006 in Oakland, Alameda, El Cerrito, Albany, San Leandro and Piedmont, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. I’d wager that most of those municipalities (excepting Piedmont, where Patrick Kennedy and Dan Marks reside) have also been experiencing a building boom. 

How is Oakland’s boom doing these days? An Oct. 5 article in the San Francisco Business Times, entitled “Olson halts big Oakland condo project; Builders face glut of units,” reports that construction of the 252-unit “City Walk” project has been stalled since July. The two lawsuits and 23 mechanics liens filed against the property may keep it stalled for a while. Although the half-completed shell is a vision to behold, vitality might not be exactly what it adds to Oakland.  

I wonder if Mr. Gass lives within the urban density he finds so thrilling. Perhaps he would like to inform us which part of Berkeley’s urban core he inhabits. 

Gale Garcia 

 

• 

TO BE A VICTIM 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Ellen Mates, in her Oct. 12 commentary, states: “I would have thought that in a supposedly enlightened city like Berkeley themes such as justice and advocacy for victims would be held in high regard.” 

Welcome to the long parade of ignored victims of robberies and violent crime in Berkeley that comprise the real “How Berkeley Can You Be” Parade. 

From hosts on KPFA radio, I have heard repeatedly that phrases like “anti-crime” and “advocacy for victims” are “code phrases for racism.” 

In a city where such commentary is accepted as sane, and officials and citizens dread being accused of “racism,” crime will not be a focus of serious attention. Your article will not even generate sustained discussion of the kind that appears in this paper on issues much less fundamental than the safety of our persons and property. 

I sincerely wish you success in your quest for justice (have you read Kafka’s The Castle?) in Berkeley. 

Al Durrette 

 

• 

POSTSCRIPT 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Thank you so much for publishing my letter of concern over the handling of the $1,500 grand theft of my daughter’s belongings at Berkeley High. If not anything else it was cathartic for us to write about it. I have gotten only phone calls and verbal statements of support although many have pointed out it is not politically correct to criticize our local institutions. I should state that my daughter and I love the teachers at Berkeley High who are dedicated and work many long hours. In contrast, having also been a formal student at Berkeley High myself, and having two other children pass through those halls, I have noticed a large sector, sometimes including administration (including the principal who never returned my e-mail a month after the theft) and security, seem to be amazingly non-accountable and consequently not behaving professionally. I received a call today from her fairly new vice principal apologizing for not returning my call—and even her I do not blame. She was unaware of the event last year. The principal should have been aware and accountable for this event. My friend got a personal call from the previous principal five years ago over a similar event. So, thanks again for empowering us or at least allowing us to feel that we are not alone or unjustified in our feelings of powerlessness.  

Ellen Mates 

• 

SCHOOL BOARD PARROT 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I wish that your reporter Riya Bhattacharjee would do more than be a parrot for school board quotes. It would be most helpful if there was some independent information and research. John Selawsky’s comments that all Berkeley schools’ test scores are higher now than in 1999 is so patently inadequate. Easy checking on the California Department of Education website shows that the high school in 1999 tested at 729. Today, eight years later, with a doubling of local taxes, and over 10 percent increase in state funding, the high school has “improved” to 747. This is after the San Francisco Chronicle article stating how California’s standards were lowered to show “improvement.” Furthermore, Berkeley High School’s standing, in comparison to similar high schools has dropped 30 percent. In 1999, BHS was ranked in the top 10, now it’s down to the 70th percentile. These are very disappointing results for all this additional funding. I agree with the recent writer who suggested that the new superintendent should be someone with demonstrated experience and success in improving student learning. I wonder why we don’t hear this from school board members. Instead, they are proud that our high school has dropped 30 percent in comparison to other similar high schools. Berkeley has no excuse for not having one of the best high schools in the Bay Area. I would like to hear school board members tell us what they are doing to improve learning in Berkeley. 

Jenn Haven 

 

• 

READING RECOVERY 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I read Donald Forman’s commentary on Reading Recovery and wondered just how many times a program has to be discredited before it is accepted as being discredited. 

Reading Recovery works no better in Australia than it does in Berkeley. In fact the one thing it does succeed in doing is making real and lasting remediation more difficult for both student and tutor. It teaches bad habits like “guessing” and consolidates the bad habit. For goodness sake, good readers don’t “guess,” they read. How has “guessing” ever become accepted as a so-called strategy? I never cease to be astounded by this state of affairs. 

This repeatedly discredited program is essentially more of the same classroom tactics that failed the student in the first place. How can it be helpful to set the student up for further failure down the track—and charge for the disservice? 

A simple traditional phonic approach, that achieves a great deal in a short space of time, for a fraction of the cost, is unfortunately unacceptable to the current educrat’s rhetoric on how (supposedly) children learn to read. They have much to learn. 

It is interesting to note that Reading Recovery is supported by the International Reading Association and all it’s subsidiary organizations around the globe. It promises to be an overwhelmingly difficult task that lies ahead simply to be permitted to teach that which works best. 

Jean Clyde 

Specialist teacher 

Tasmania, Australia 

 

• 

SLIPPING OUT THE BACK DOOR 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

In his Oct. 9 letter Ernest Grouns decries my diatribe of a week earlier (“Cheers to Edna”) as “human racism.” I think he misuses the word, as I denounced our entire species, in all its hues and creeds. He challenges me to stand, or die, by my convictions. I intend to. In my younger years my then wife and I produced two offspring, now productive college grads, and I am well beyond my breeding time. So long as my good health persists and I am able to walk North Berkeley pathways and make modest donations to the Nature Conservancy and the Natural Resources Defense Council, I will plod on; but when age or calamity threaten to make me a burden to my family or the health care system, I certainly plan to slip out the back door of this existence. 

He calls our minds “a miracle of evolution” and extols our “amazing advances in medicine, science, agriculture, technology, spirituality...” But I see a catastrophe of evolution in which millennia of simple toolmaking have suddenly mutated into the rampant and obsessive abuse of science and technology to exploit, pillage, and manipulate everything in or on the world’s crust, making us truly a cancer on the earth. As to spirituality, a grotesque flaw in our cultural evolution persuades ninety percent of us that we, unlike all other living things, are somehow immune from death. The deep congenital flaw in the human psyche is the pathological refusal to accept the great centering, liberating and obvious truth of our existence: we live a while in the sun, then we die. After that —nothing! No angels with harps, no virgins with sexual favors, no loved ones with welcoming arms—mere oblivion. 

Edna Spector slyly hinted at our future when she suggested a “No Child policy.” Population control will someday take the form of universal genomic testing, the issuing of parenting permits to those found to be good breeding stock, and the forced sterilization of those who don’t make the cut. Add this wonderful world of eugenics to those other “amazing advances.” 

Jerry Landis 

 

• 

IRRESPONSIBLE REPORTING 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Just when I thought I had read the worst of the articles regarding Amir’s death, I stumble upon the Daily Planet’s Oct. 16 front-page article. I cannot stress how disappointed I am in the journalistic integrity of the gentleman who wrote this article. Quoting a neighbor of Misti, almost explicitly putting blame on Misti’s “boyfriend” for the death of Amir. I understand that journalists are frustrated that the family will not provide statements, but this is disgusting. Printing comments from people who have no close connection to Amir or Misti is completely irresponsible. The speculation of a neighbor doesn’t even come close to a reliable witness. And considering the situation I can’t believe for a second that Richard Brenneman couldn’t see the potential harm that his article could cause to the friends and family involved. Use your brain and your heart. Well, I guess it was worth it. Brennemen had a new twist to contribute. How hard is it to realize how stupid it is to publish a statement in your paper that places the death of a 9 year old boy on the mother’s “ex-boyfriend.” You should be ashamed and embarrassed.  

Benjamin Cukierman 

 

• 

FUNKY AIN’T JUST FINE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I have lived in West Berkeley for over 27 years. My husband, Michael Goldin and I are raising our children here. I am a painter and Michael is a designer and architect. 

We are determined to make our neighborhood safer and cleaner. Last Tuesday night at the West Berkeley Town Hall meeting, I heard people say that West Berkeley is a little “funky” but just fine the way it is. 

I’m sorry, but where I live, fire and drugs and gangs and guns don’t make it funky. Cleaning up abandoned lots, the railroad tracks, preventing flooding and removing graffiti, don’t make it “gentrification,” they make it safer and cleaner. 

Like many other artists and designers in West Berkeley, Michael and I have a passion for preserving West Berkeley’s unique identity which still includes artist studios, warehouses and industrial spaces. We want to see the community improve so that West Berkeley can retain these businesses and not lose them as we lost Cliff Bar and Cody’s. 

Michael and I have put a lot of energy into solving problems in our neighborhood. One of my biggest concerns is fire. Illegal dumpsites and vacant buildings catch fire all too often down here. Three buildings burned down to the ground across the street from our house. 

When an illegal, unsafe nightclub starting throwing rave parties, which brought guns and alcohol to our block, we called the police and got it shut down. When heavy rains caused floods, we worked with the City to get the storm drains replaced at Fourth and Channing. We’ve planted over thirty trees in our area. And after years of neglect, we worked with Union Pacific railroad to clean the tracks and remove 50 tons of garbage. 

As concerned citizens, this is what you have to do to help your neighborhood. But at some point, you also need to work and take care of your family. That’s why the idea of the property-based improvement district (PBID) is so attractive to us. It’s a proven way to raise funds to address these issues in a long term and sustainable way. 

I believe that a PBID in West Berkeley could benefit us all. We would finally have the organization with the resources to partner with the city and deal with some serious issues. If we had a PBID in place we would have a powerful tool working on our behalf. 

Last night, a woman complained that she had to call the city 14 times to get a light bulb changed. Maybe the next time someone asks, “How many West Berkeley residents does it take to change a light bulb?”, we will answer “one” because we united and formed the improvement district. 

Deborah Oropallo 

 

• 

WEST BERKELEY COMMUNITY BENEFITS DISTRICT 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

A few questions I thought of too late to ask at the Oct. 16 meeting concerning the proposed West Berkeley Community Benefits District (WBCBD): 

If this district manages to be created (despite strong opposition), will that mean there will be someone I can call to dispose of the used condoms and condom wrappers I regularly find littering the sidewalk near my house? Or, if we become a WBCBD, does that mean we’ll have a security force patrolling our streets all night long in an effort to discourage the illegal dumping/graffiti-writing/car-sex, etc. that occurs then? 

Finally, if the City of Berkeley wasn’t spending thousands (hundreds of thousands?) of dollars on those completely unnecessary “calming circles” that have sprouted up all over town, instead putting the money toward crime prevention services in West Berkeley, would we even be having meetings about WBCBDs? 

A. Kassof 

 

• 

YES! MOM AND APPLE PIE  

FOR WEST BERKELEY 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

A recent opinion piece in the Daily Planet dismissed a proposal from the West Berkeley business community to “handle a bunch of mom-and-apple-pie areas like neighborhood cleanliness and security.” 

I have worked in West Berkeley for over 18 years, and cleanliness and security are serious issues down here that can’t be dismissed. It’s hard for me to fathom how anyone could criticize the intentions of property-owners voluntarily planning to tax themselves nearly $600,000 a year to help make our neighborhood safer and cleaner.  

At a time when the city is strapped for cash, businesses and commercial property-owners in our neighborhood say they are willing to reach into their own wallets to improve public safety, clean up and remove graffiti, help the homeless, and fund a shuttle so area workers could ride public transit instead of driving. 

As I understand it, the proposed property-based improvement district, also called a PBID, does not intend to assess homeowners. The PBID would only assess commercial property owners and use the funds for direct services, and no PBID money would be spent to lobby for zoning changes. 

At the town hall meeting last night, I heard a lot of information from the city staff and the PBID consultant that made the benefits of establishing the PBID very clear to me and completely justified. 

The Berkeley Police Department only has one beat officer on patrol in most of West Berkeley at night. The PBID would fund an unarmed security team that would notify the police if they see anything suspicious during the night. 

The Public Works Department chief said they can’t keep up with the illegal dumping and graffiti. The PBID would hire a team of workers to pick up trash and paint out graffiti on the weekends. 

We’ve all seen the many homeless people camping in cars or on vacant lots. The PBID would match the city to fund a pilot program would direct services to people who are homeless. 

And workers in the area would be able to catch a free shuttle from BART to their workplace. Seems like no one should complain about people riding the shuttle instead of parking in front of your home or business all day, right? 

What are folks complaining about when the say we shouldn’t form this district? Do they have some better way of raising the kind of money we are talking about to take care of these serious endemic problems? And, as pointed out by the consultant on forming PBID’s, the district would be totally open to the oversight of the city council. There’s no “secret agenda” here folks. It’s about dealing with issues not complaining and offering nothing in return. 

Berkeley already has five successful improvement districts operating. I think we could use another $600,000 a year to make West Berkeley a safer, cleaner place to live and work.  

Steven Donaldson 

BGDi Strategic Brand Solutions 

 

• 

A GLORIOUS DEVELOPMENT 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The showdown on Wednesday at the Marine recruiting center at Shattuck Square was a glorious development in our Iraq war narrative. As I arrived there and saw the street fiercely divided between Code Pinkers and other anti-war groups and the flag waving patriots on the other side, I immediately thought of what my mother had told me about what happened during the Vietnam War. 

She told me that everyone was talking about the war and taking sides. Wives and husbands split up, children and parents wouldn’t talk, friendships dissolved. Everyone, at least in NYC where my parents lived, had to explain where they were on the war. Were they for it or against it? 

Today’s passion and divided Shattuck pushed the ante up. It brought out people from their slumber. No one on either side wants anyone to die. In this, we are united. But the patriots don’t have much say beyond their rhetoric, indignation, and insults. 

Code Pink is doing Berkeley a great honor by focusing our energies on the recruiting center and creating greater passion and urgency around something that is a life and death issue; for the Iraqis, for the servicewomen and men, and for you and me. 

I ask everyone to choose between continuing violence in our names or a commitment to peace and the rebuilding of Iraq. Every life is precious. Show your support to bring the troops home on Oct. 27 in San Francisco. The Iraqis want us out, let’s not second guess them but get out. 

Ilona Sturm 

 

• 

RECRUITMENT CENTER PROTEST 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I have just come back to the sanctuary of my home after being exposed to the thuggery and fascistic behavior of U.S. citizens in front of the Marine Recruitment Center in downtown Berkeley. 

I went with peace in my heart and was pushed hard by a large, white male screamer and when I went over to the Berkeley Police Department representatives standing on the other side of Shattuck, I was told by two of them that these people had their right to free speech and when I tried to show them how I was pushed , I was asked if I wanted to be arrested. So much for police protection for an elder of 73, who was worried about her safety and the safety of others. 

Why I am surprised by all of this, I really don’t know. After reading a recent history of immigration struggles in this state (No One Is Illegal, by Chacon and Davis) I should know better about white thuggery and police protection given them as they bowed to corporate rulers. What was frightening was to experience it personally. As a Jewish American, I am well aware of how fascism began in Nazi Germany and now my fellow Berkeleyans and I have seen them with our very own eyes. Will you still not believe that we are in deep trouble in this nation? And ask yourself what you are willing to do to stop it before it engulfs us all. 

Sheila Goldmacher 

 

• 

BOTTLED VS. TAP WATER  

Editors, Daily Planet: 

At first glance it would seem straight forward to be on the tap water side of the current “tap vs. bottled water” debate, if only to diminish the increased energy use and pollution created by fabricating, shipping, and discarding the bottles that hold the 7 billion gallons that are consumed in the United States alone per year. Also avoiding the chemicals that leak into the water from the plastic bottles is an advantage. But drinking tap water forces me to swallow chloramines and fluoride. Neither of which can be filtered out, except with reverse osmosis, which produces a lot of waste water in the process. 

The fluoride issue is a big one for me. As stated by Dr. Peter Mansfield, a physician from the UK and advisory board member of the recent government review of fluoridation (McDonagh et al 2000): No physician in his right senses would prescribe for a person he has never met, whose medical history he does not know, a substance which is intended to create bodily change, with the advice: “Take as much as you like, but you will take it for the rest of your life because some children suffer from tooth decay. It is a preposterous notion.” The article by Paul Connet, “The Absurdities of Water Fluoridation,” has given me food for thought and concern as well. 

Now that cities are starting to think about having their employees drink “healthful water,” I wonder if they really think there is a healthful choice? Unless the practice of adding questionable substances to our drinking water is stopped, an informed choice seems to be one between a rock and a hard place.  

Helga Holtmann 

 

• 

DECLARE VICTORY AND GET OUT 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The Washington Post (“Al Qaeda In Iraq Reported Crippled,” Oct. 15) and ABC7/KGO-TV (“Can The U.S. Declare A Victory Over Al Qaeda In Iraq?,” Oct. 15) reported that many top U.S. generals believe that al Qaeda in Iraq has been devastated by the U.S. troop surge to the point that some want to declare victory. These reports remind me of the late Senator George Aiken’s advice to President Lyndon B. Johnson and President Richard M. Nixon to declare victory in Vietnam and get out. He gave this advice when things in Vietnam were going from bad to worse. Of course, both Johnson and Nixon ignored this advice and we know the result. 

Following Sen. Aiken’s advice, I suggest that President Bush put on his commander-in-chief uniform, declare victory, and announce the immediate withdrawal of all troops from Iraq. What are the chances? 

Ralph E. Stone 

San Francisco 

 

• 

A WEB OF LIES 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Bush and Republicans are caught again in a web of lies and deception—this time about the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). The president and GOP leaders claim SCHIP is a massive expansion of government-run health care. The $7 billion a year expansion of the program is minuscule compared to what the Bush administration is spending ($8 billion a month) on its war in Iraq.  

Bush and Republicans claim the new SCHIP proposal would cover higher-income children. Only so in one state, New York, where the cost of living is so much higher than the rest of the country. The GOP keeps digging itself a deeper grave with bogus and misleading rhetoric. 

Ron Lowe  

Grass Valley


Commentary: Planning for Downtown Berkeley’s Future

By Rob Wrenn
Friday October 19, 2007

After 45 general meetings and 44 subcommittee meetings over a two-year period, the Downtown Area Plan Advisory Committee (DAPAC) is wrapping up its work of creating a new plan for downtown to replace the current plan adopted in 1990. 

Some important decisions have been made by DAPAC, but one major issue has yet to be resolved. Should the current development standards, which allow buildings of a maximum of four to seven stories depending on the specific area, be revised to allow some taller buildings? Downtown’s population is growing as more housing is being built. Do we want even more growth than is now occurring? 

A community workshop Saturday morning at the high school will allow Berkeley residents an opportunity to give their opinions about building heights and the many other policies and goals that will make up the new downtown plan. 

DAPAC has endorsed the new hotel and the UC museum proposed for Center Street between Shattuck and Oxford. It has also given its support to the closure of that block of Center Street to motor vehicle traffic to create a pedestrian plaza, which will help fill a strong need for publicly accessible open space downtown. A water feature, possibly derived from Strawberry Creek, which currently flows in underground culverts, could be a part of the new plaza. 

In addition to the Center Street Plaza, staff’s draft alternative proposes the creation of “Park Blocks” on Shattuck between Durant and Dwight. Space for cars would be reduced to allow for creation of an 80-foot wide green space in the median similar to South Park in San Francisco. There is broad support on DAPAC for adding lot’s more greenery and green space to downtown. 

 

Parking and transit 

DAPAC has also voted for adoption of a transportation or “access” chapter of the plan that contains many policies that will aid local businesses and reduce the downtown’s “carbon footprint.” 

More rational parking pricing policies called for in the draft plan will help to free up on-street parking spaces. Right now, it costs less to park in the more desirable on-street metered spaces right in front of local businesses than it does to park further away in a garage. As a result, on-street spaces are relatively hard to find while hundreds of garage spaces sit empty most of the time. And, a substantial number of on-street spaces are used by meter-feeding employees of downtown businesses. 

To encourage downtown employees to use transit, the DAPAC has also endorsed “Eco Pass” transit passes that would allow downtown employees to use transit for free. 

The Access chapter endorses improvements to transit service including Bus Rapid Transit, while identifying many issues related to design and implementation that must be resolved to optimize its benefits. 

 

Increased height limits? 

City staff’s Preferred Land Use Alternative, which was discussed at DAPAC’s Oct. 3 meeting, calls for allowing up to five high-rise buildings in a “BART Opportunity Area” surrounding the BART station, with a maximum height of 180 feet (about 16 stories if a residential building), with a height of up to 225 feet allowed for the hotel proposed for Center Street and for a second hotel tower that has been proposed by the owners of the Shattuck Hotel as an addition to their hotel. 

Any building in this BART area could be 120 feet or up to 10 stories, and three more buildings at this height would be allowed in areas beyond the BART Area. 

Staff have proposed that any portion of a building above five stories should be set back and should be slender, not bulky. DAPAC members seem to agree that having a wall of buildings of heights greater than 5 stories lining Shattuck or University would be undesirable. 

Shattuck Avenue from University to Durant could end up being part of a new historic district downtown. At its most recent meeting, DAPAC members also voted 20-0, with one abstention, to support the preservation and design chapter put together by a joint subcommittee of DAPAC and the Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC). The chapter welcomes development while also calling for preservation of existing historic buildings. 

While DAPAC members had already endorsed the proposed height for the Center Street hotel, it became clear at the Oct. 3 meeting that a majority of DAPAC members do not support an additional four buildings that would be as tall as the existing Wells Fargo and Great Western buildings downtown. 

What is the right maximum height? While a majority clearly opposes 16 stories or 180 feet, some DAPAC members seem to favor allowing some buildings at 10 stories, three stories taller than the current maximum, in some areas, especially in the BART area. Some of us have proposed eight stories as the maximum, with an exception for the proposed hotel. 

To put things in context, the number of housing units in the downtown has increased by 19 percent just since 2000 and, when projects now in the pipeline (such as Oxford Plaza housing at the construction site at Oxford and Kittredge) are finished, the number of units will have increased by about a third. Downtown’s population is growing. 

The debate is not more density vs. no growth. It’s a question of how much more density and growth is desirable and what form it should take. And it’s not just a question of height. More housing is good, but how much of it will be affordable? Two-bedroom units in new downtown building tend to rent for between $2000 and $2700 a month. And will that housing be “green,” using much less non-renewable energy than is currently the norm? 

Along with other members of DAPAC, I have proposed that the city’s Berkeley Way parking lot be designated as a site for the city’s first “zero-carbon” affordable housing project. Energy could be generated on site with photovoltaics and/or other technology. On the edge of the residential neighborhood north of downtown, with schools and parks and supermarkets not far away, it would be a good location for families, living in larger units in buildings of perhaps three- or four-stories with on-site green space. 

 

Pros and Cons 

There are benefits to having more housing in areas that are relatively well served by transit, such as downtown, which has BART, numerous bus lines, and the planned BRT service. It’s easier to live without owning a car downtown, especially with car-sharing for people who can get by without a car most of the time but need one now and then. And for households that do have a car, one car should suffice, unlike in suburban areas where two-car households are the norm. Lower rates of car ownership mean lower rates of greenhouse gas emissions from transportation, which accounts for 47 percent of Berkeley’s emissions. 

In the downtown core (University to Bancroft between campus and MLK), a majority of current residents do not own cars. Lower rates of car ownership are common in the centers of cities, and, in Berkeley, this is reinforced by the fact that half or more of downtown residents are students, most of whom do not bring cars with them. A new downtown plan that facilitates “car-free” and “car-lite” lifestyles can set a framework for growth in population without growth in traffic and resulting emissions. 

More people living downtown can add vitality and create a broader customer base for local businesses. One can argue for taller buildings because they allow for more people to live downtown (assuming that the taller buildings are residential and not commercial buildings). 

However, taller buildings can have negative impacts. 

Taller buildings consume more energy per square foot, other things being equal, than buildings of five stories or less. This means more greenhouse gas emissions. Staff have proposed that buildings above five stories have higher energy efficiency standards and generate some of their own energy and achieve a LEED Gold green building rating. Below 5 stories, buildings would also have to exceed current standards, but not by as much. 

Taller buildings could cast shadows on nearby buildings, sidewalks and streets, reducing solar access. The exact location of any permitted taller buildings could make a big difference. Do we want to create a Center Street plaza or Park Blocks and then allow tall buildings nearby to shadow these new open spaces? 

Even if we resolve issues such as energy consumption and shadowing, and even if many new residents come without cars, there remains another set of questions. What will the visual impacts of taller buildings be? What will it do to the downtown skyline? What will it do to the feel and sense of scale of downtown? Do people living on the tenth floor have any real connection to the street? There are aesthetic considerations as well as environmental ones that need to be addressed. 

 

Rob Wrenn is a member of the Downtown Area Plan Advisory Commission.


Commentary: It All Starts at the Top

By Laura Menard
Friday October 19, 2007

Thanks to reporter Riya Bhattacharjee (“All Visitors to Show Photo ID at Berkeley High”) and to parent Ellen Mates (“How To Be a Victim, as Taught by the Berkeley Police and Berkeley High”) for information about ongoing security failures at BHS. Since the school community suffers a virtual “news black out,” never receiving incident information or safety updates from our principal directly, we learn more in the Planet. 

I feel particularly qualified to comment for two reasons: I have been engaged in school safety reforms for over a decade, and last spring I filed a Uniform Complaint (UCP) for non-compliance with state requirements for Safe School planning. The resolution of the complaint resulted in BHS reconstituting a safety committee, quashed since 2004. So when Principal Jim Slemp tells us “The idea of having visitor IDs came from parents themselves,” I wonder who this group is and how they have assumed the role of the safety committee? 

Let’s consider some of the more important contradictions in Principal Slemp’s new security measure and its implications. First, Slemp’s single example focuses on securing campus from parents with restraining orders. This is important, however the goal cannot be satisfied by the recommended procedure: Parent volunteers do not have the authority to crosscheck confidential information of other parents. Second, we learn that Slemp “acknowledges that many of the security incidents on campus this year were due to non-students coming into the campus.” And his response dismisses recommendations made by police officers assigned to campus and downtown about the potential use of student ID cards. “I don’t want to repress anybody.” Is this just more pandering to students with an anarchist sensibility? Seems to me if Slemp is really interested in protecting kids explaining to the student body their role and responsibility in creating a safe and positive school culture is one step closer to realizing progress. When did the liberal rally cry lose meaning? “If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem.” 

But what of the principal’s responsibility embedded in CA Ed Code, with its provisions of a “Duty to Protect” so clear that the school board should consider how vulnerable they are to legal liability. Legal precedent supports a parents’ right to sue if their child is the victim of crime while unsupervised in an area where a known danger exists. The number of incidents downtown supports such a finding. Where is the oversight from the superintendent or Board of Education? If Director Shirley Issel’s response is any indication, we are in big trouble: “I don’t want to hear about it, take it up with Slemp. It is his policy.” 

“Good news only” Slemp sidesteps all the tough issues and has purposely undermined the purview of the safety committee. Now he intends to handpick its parent representatives, while elections were allowed for other governance committees. Here is a list of some of tough issues continually ignored: 1) Closed or open campus? 2) ID cards, remove the power and privilege of anonymity by requiring students to show IDs when entering campus. 3) Assign campus supervisors downtown for lunch duty. 4) Obtain restraining orders against offenders who show up at campus intent on retaliation against an enrolled student. 5) Referrals for truancy intervention services. 6) Provide school community with regular reports of incidents data as per state law. 7) Curb drug sales and use on and around campus. How many non-students were actually stopped on campus last month, how many last year? The data is available, and by law data forms the basis for decision-making and the development of policy and practice by the safety committee. 

Last spring, same as every year, city staff organized a meeting with school staff and downtown merchants to discuss the impact of 3,000 unsupervised students downtown. It is nothing more than a political exercise and they have yet to progress to problem solving. Principal Slemp said he would not post campus safety officers or administrators downtown regularly. Instead he explained his responsibility was to protect the campus, but when asked he estimated only 10 percent of the student body remains on campus for lunch. Practically speaking, taxpayers are paying twice for reactive-only security measures. Consider 4-6 police officers assigned at lunch or after school roughly costing $100 per hour each, plus BUSD salaries for 10 campus safety officers and 9 administrators. 

To fellow parent Ellen and your daughter, I sympathize and I wish I could say your experience was an anomaly. It is not. While I am tough on Jim Slemp, I fully understand how many BHS staff members are really capable and talented people working in a broken system, and I would like to thank them. I wish I could be supportive of Principal Slemp’s leadership but that hope faded with experience. In my efforts to find any accountability, I have taken these issues to the superintendent, school board members and district supervisors. I wish their good intentions were enough. When I discussed concerns with Superintendent Lawrence, her response was, as always, “I agree, but you have to understand, the district is working on its operational readiness, we will eventually get there.” 

BPD is the same, the chief is more apt to make anecdotal comments suggesting incidents are up or down rather than present verifiable data, and the mayor accepts this as meaningful information. How does that improve service, support justice or manage the risk? It all starts at the top. I fully expect the BUSD public information officer Coplan or board members to respond here in the paper, and try and correct my statements, but just maybe this will motivate them to action. 

 


Commentary: Wellstone Club’s Questions for Democratic Candidates

By Jack Kurzweil
Friday October 19, 2007

America is awakening from the nightmare of the most dangerous and destructive right-wing government in our nation’s history. A majority has seen the failure of conservative policies, and they want a new direction.  

We need leadership from the Democratic Party. Progressives, who were key to the Democratic Party’s successes in 2006, must now act to ensure that elected Democrats carry through the changes this country needs. 

We believe that the California Primary Election will be crucial and that progressives have to make their weight felt in that election. 

The Wellstone Democratic Renewal Club has developed some policy benchmarks and questions that we will be posing to all of the Democratic Presidential Candidates.  

Please join us in this effort. 

 

1. Iraq, Peace, and American Foreign Policy. There must be a speedy and complete withdrawal of all American troops from Iraq. The cost in treasure, lives, and world standing is a burden this nation can no longer bear. Only when our military occupation ends and Iraq regains its sovereignty will its people be able to end their civil war and create the unity necessary to re-build their country. We need candidates who are committed to end our military presence now! 

Questions: 

• Are you committed to a speedy and total withdrawal of troops and contractors from Iraq? 

• Are you committed to leaving no bases in Iraq? 

• Are you committed to Iraq maintaining complete control over its oil resources? 

• How would you provide sufficient resources to Iraq to rebuild its country? 

• Will you pledge not to attack Iran without Congressional approval? 

 

2. Civil Rights and Civil Liberties. The constitutional safeguards that protect our liberties and our democracy must be restored. As commander-in-chief of an endless “war on terror,” George Bush has systematically undermined Congress’ constitutional role, created an all-powerful executive branch, and weakened our entire system of checks and balances. 

Never in the history of our nation has secrecy, invasion of privacy, and abuse of government power for narrow ideological and partisan political purposes been carried to such an extreme. Torture has been embraced while fundamental human rights have been disregarded. We need candidates who are unequivocally committed to restoring the rule of law in America. 

Questions: 

• Do you think that there is any way in which the Patriot Act increases our national security? If not, would you support its total repeal? Are there sections that you would keep? What, in your view, would create a safer America? 

• How will you restore the balance of powers mandated by the Constitution? 

• Will you restore the right of habeas corpus? 

• Will you promise not to use signing statements that negate the intention of legislation? 

• What will you do to make sure that every American has a full right to vote and have that vote be counted? 

 

3. Health Care. Americans need and deserve a medical system that is second to none. Our well-being and our economy can no longer afford to be held hostage to the interests of insurance companies, HMO’s, and the pharmaceutical industry. It is a disgrace that this wealthy and innovative nation, alone among industrial countries, does not provide free, universal, and quality care for all its people. We need candidates who have the courage to stand for the public good against powerful private interests.  

Questions: 

• Do you agree that eliminating any significant role for the insurance industry is the key to meaningful health care reform? 

• Will you support extending Medicare to all Americans?  

 

4. Renewable Energy, Global Warming. Just as the resources of government built our highway system, financed the microchip, and invented the Internet, government must now devote its resources to jump-starting a new, “green” industrial revolution in the United States. We need a crash program to develop wind and solar energy, create incentives for conversion to organic agriculture, and renew America’s aging infrastructure with eco-friendly designs and materials. It is time for a major reduction in the use of fossil fuels in transportation, energy, and agriculture. We need candidates who put forth a vision that can put America on the path to real sustainable growth.  

Questions: 

• What will you do to accelerate the switch to solar and wind generated electricity from dependence on fossil fuels? 

• What will you do to encourage the sustainable growing of food? 

• How will you reduce the dependence of transportation on fossil fuels? 

• What are your plans for generating new jobs based on a green economy? 

• Will you sign the Kyoto Agreements? 

 

5) Church, State, and Reproductive Rights. Conservatives seek to erase the Consti-tutional boundaries between Church and State. By denying women the right to control their own lives and bodies, they endow the faith of some with the power of law over everyone else. We need candidates who understand that without freedom of choice for women, there will be no liberty for anyone. 

Questions: 

• Will you lead the effort to restore the rights of women to control their own bodies? 

• Will you pledge to support the separation of Church and State? 

 

6. The Economy and America’s Future. Conservatives have cut taxes for the rich, reduced necessary services for the poor and middle class, and subsidized the transfer of industry and jobs abroad. As the rich get richer, America gets poorer. The interests of the few are served at the expense of the country as a whole. We need candidates who understand that investing in our own people and our own country holds the key to our nation’s future.  

Questions: 

• Will you end Bush’s tax cuts to the rich? 

• How will you make it easier for workers to join unions? 

• What will you do to stop the flow of good jobs abroad? 

• How will you restore America’s social safety net? 

• Do you agree to revise NAFTA and all other trade agreements to include protection for the environment and the rights of workers? 

 

7. Public Education. Conservative hostility to the principle of universal public education has been elevated to government policy by “No Child Left Behind.” Instead of being encouraged to transform itself to address the diverse needs of America’s children, public education has been under-funded and saddled with punitive testing. We need candidates who are committed to fully fund and support high quality public education for all of America’s children. 

Questions: 

• How will you fix “No Child Left Behind?” 

• Are you committed to major funding increases for public schools? 

 

Jack Kurzweil is a member of the Wellstone Democratic Renewal Club.


Commentary: Verizon Wireless vs. the City of Berkeley: The Final Act

By Michael Barglow
Friday October 19, 2007

The bell for the final round of “Verizon vs the City of Berkeley” will ring this Tuesday evening at 7 p.m. at the final public hearing, Old City Hall, 2134 MLK Jr. Way in Berkeley.  

Berkeley has not completed its administrative decision-making process regarding Verizon’s application to install antennas at UC Storage at 2721 Shattuck Ave. Yet Verizon is already suing the city in federal court. This suit asks the court to mandate the installation of the antennas at the South Shattuck location and also at two other flatlands locations: 1540 Shattuck (French Hotel) and 2002 Acton St. Beyond these requests, Verizon is demanding the elimination of our city ordinance governing the installation of cell phone antennas throughout the city. This ordinance was passed by a 7-1 City Council vote two years ago. It simply seeks to protect Berkeley citizens from unnecessary radio frequency radiation. 

The Berkeley City Council Public Hearing on Oct. 23 will be the last public meeting on the Verizon application to install antennas at 2721 Shattuck Ave. Verizon must get five votes in its favor at this meeting to overturn the Berkeley Zoning Adjustments Board, which has twice ruled in our favor.  

No one knows if continuous radiation emitted from cell phone antennas is safe. There are scientific indications that it is not. Yet, in 1996 the cell phone industry was able to make it illegal for any city to challenge cell phone antennas on the basis of its citizens’ health concerns. If there is any substantial chance at all that this radiation might be harmful, is it right for Verizon to impose this gamble on all Berkeley residents without their consent? 

Apart from health concerns, South Berkeley does not need nor want more cell antennas, particularly not at 2721 Shattuck Ave. To date, hundreds of residents in Berkeley who use Verizon and other cell phone companies have signed petitions attesting to the fact that their service in South Berkeley is excellent. Managers and employees of both Verizon and Nextel have shown us color coded maps of Berkeley indicating that customers in South Berkeley receive these companies’ highest ratings for excellent cell phone service.  

We ask for fair and equitable distribution of antennas sufficient to ensure telephone voice conversations. We in South Berkeley note that the high-impact image- and other data-processing that the telecommunications industry plans to bring to the public, going far beyond standard voice-carrier services, entails increasingly dense and polluting levels of radiation. We do not need nor want exposure to these endlessly increasing levels of radiation. We believe that it is unfair and undemocratic to expose Berkeley’s residents to these increases without our consent.  

We continue to ask these questions:  

1. South Berkeley currently has 14 antenna locations, North Berkeley has two, while the Berkeley Hills have none. Why does our part of town have seven times as many antenna locations as North Berkeley? We do not have anywhere near seven times the population, nor seven times the number of cell phone users. 

2. Why do the Berkeley Hills have no antenna locations? How do they ensure reception? 

Could it be because cell phone users in North Berkeley and the hills are able to use antennas already in place in South Berkeley?  

Please put Oct. 23 on your calendar. A big turnout at this meeting is crucial to encourage our city council members to stand up to Verizon. We will ask the City Council to insist on its right to local control over siting of RF antennas. We request that our government support the precautionary principle and the right of citizens to protect their health and safety. We request funding for further investigation of the health risks associated with wireless technology. 

 


Letters to the Editor

Tuesday October 16, 2007

 

CUT THE PURSE STRINGS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

End the war—cut the purse strings—before we have another Vietnam on our hands. 

The deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis does not register on America’s consciousness. 

Do you think your day is going bad? Think about what Iraqis have to put up with every day. 

In 2006 Americans went to the polls to send a message: We want our country back and an end to war. 

Why do millions of Americans still support a war based on lies and a war that has gone horribly wrong? 

Will Americans remain in denial about Bush’s war being about oil? 

Do you believe your eyes about the war in Iraq, or do you believe White House Spin? 

Ron Lowe 

Grass Valley 

 

• 

ENERGY BILL 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

This summer, the Senate and the House of Representatives passed their own versions of a clean Energy Bill. These victories were an important step in the larger battle for strong energy policy in America. Now Congress must continue to move forward and hammer out a strong and clean final version of this Energy Bill. 

The final Energy Bill must include the Senate’s hard-fought compromise provision that would require a 35 miles-per-gallon fuel economy standard for American automobiles by 2020. The auto lobby wants this provision replaced by a “do nothing” alternative, yet according to the Union of Concerned Scientists, the Senate’s position on fuel standards would save consumers $24 billion at the pump each year once the cleaner cars hit the road. Using cost-effective technologies to create these cleaner cars will also create over 170,000 new American jobs, including tens of thousands in the auto industry alone. 

The final bill must also include the House’s 15% renewable electricity standard, which would require electric companies to obtain more power from clean, renewable sources like wind and sun. The Senate has passed similar provisions several times in the past, so industry interests should not be allowed to undermine what is clearly a majority position in both Congressional chambers. 

These provisions will help launch the clean energy economy in America. By reducing our reliance on dirty fossil fuels, they will also put us on the path to energy independence—and a healthier future. 

Congress needs to stand up to industry and other clean energy opponents who want the Energy Bill weakened. 

Terri Aspen 

Guerneville 

 

• 

WATER TREATMENT 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Californians must realize the unfortunate reality of our state’s water treatment facilities. Of the thousands of water treatment facilities violating the Clean Water Act in the U.S. today, California ranks as the nations 9th worst where 69 percent of our water facilities, including eleven in Contra Costa County, violate their permits, dumping contaminated waste water with excessive amounts of fecal coliform and traces of E. coli into our surrounding bay and wetlands which threatens public health and local wildlife. Now, there is a proposed budget cut of 395 million dollars to the clean water state revolving fund. Call or write your senator, urging them to reject these proposed budget cuts and hold polluting water treatment facilities accountable. 

Andrew Klaus 

San Francisco 

 

• 

CELLULAR PHONE TOWER 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Last night the Zoning Adjustments Board approved a T-Mobile cellular phone tower in north Berkeley. Neighbors near 2095 Rose Street should appeal the decision. It is unnecessary, as there is already adequate coverage. There are currently too many unsightly antennas. I feel sick at the sight of them. They are an insult to the Precautionary Principle, especially in this residential neighborhood. 

This brings up the problem of the Federal Telecommunications Act of 1996 precluding a city from denying a wireless carrier access based on health concerns. Such is life in a corpocracy. Shouldn’t a city in a democracy be permitted to consider health issues in deciding what is installed in our town? Now that it is abundantly clear, even in the mainstream press, that many government agencies such as the FDA and FCC are beholden to corporate interests at the expense of the public good, it is time for municipalities to stand up for local sovereignty. If a quarter of municipalities facing this quandary would do so, even if only minimally defending their position, the telecom industry and corporate media would take notice, which would help grow the democracy movement. It should be our right to consider the Precautionary Principle in opposing a forest of radiation- emitting antennas on our rooftops, as I believe Mendocino has done. 

year the ZAB rejected Verizon and Nextel applications 5 to 4. If last night’s meeting were not at the same time as Berkeley High School’s annual back-to-school night, additional public comment may have swayed at least Councilmembers Worthington and Spring’s appointees. This was BHS parents’ only opportunity to meet their children’s teachers. 

Bravi to those residents who got word in time and spoke out. Council member Max Anderson’s appointee to the ZAB, Jesse Anthony, deserves high praise for standing alone and voting his conscience against the measure. 

There might be a Design Review Committee meeting on Thursday Oct. 18 to study the design of 12 Verizon antennas on the French Hotel. It meets at 7:00, North Berkeley Senior Center. 

PhoeBe Sorgen 

North Berkeley resident of 18 years 

 

• 

ERRORS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Glen Hauer (Naim and Halal Market) says he is an activist for Jewish Voice for Peace, but one truly interested in peace should be scrupulously concerned about facts and accuracy.  

Several errors need to be called to Mr. Hauer’s attention.  

1. The city of Hebron, mentioned several times in the Bible, is the site of the world’s oldest Jewish community. It is not and never has been, as Hauer erroneously states, “an ancient Palestinian city.” Jews lived continuously in Hebron since the days of King David. Only in 1929, after an Arab pogrom murdered 67 Jews, did Hebron temporarily become free of Jews. Now the community has been reestablished. (When Baruch Goldstein murdered Arabs in Hebron, his act was shunned and condemned by Jews everywhere.)  

2. Naim, Hauer reports, was a construction worker for the ‘modern Israeli settlement’ of Kiryat Arba, “built on his people’s land.” Kiryat Arba, a name that predates Hebron, is another ancient Jewish city, mentioned in the Book of Joshua. It is a city, not a “settlement” and the land on which it sits is “disputed” land whose status will be finalized when and if a peace agreement is reached. It is inaccurate to prejudge disputed land as Palestinian.  

3. Hauer mentions that the Israeli army has used Caterpillar bulldozers to demolish Palestinian houses. That is true. But does he ask why? Hauer neglects to mention that many homes were destroyed because they contained tunnels through which Palestinians smuggled weapons and equipment so recruited suicide bombers could murder Israeli citizens.  

By presenting false or misleading statements, Mr. Hauer does a disservice to Palestinians, Israelis, and others who want to understand the complicated Middle East.  

June Sutz Brott 

Oakland 

 

• 

GUS LEE FOR CITY COUNCIL? 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I can’t remember when I’ve so agreed with a columnist as I did with Gus Lee’s “Recalling Better Time in the Elmwood” (Oct. 12-15). I, too, have lived long enough in this neighborhood to remember each of Lee’s references: shoe repair, Burnaford’s Produce, health food store, Bolfing’s Sporting Goods, etc. He is absolutely correct in his opinions (recall them both) of Mayor Bates and Councilmember Wozniak—neither have been a friend of Elmwood, particularly Wozniak who lives here! “A big, fancy, overpriced restaurant” indeed. Just what we need. I, for one, won’t be eating there. And what help have either of them been to our beleaguered hardware store? Tad needs a helping hand, not John Gordon!!!  

How about Gus Lee for City Council?  

Barbara Scheifler  

 

• 

AL GORE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Rejoicing at the news that Al Gore has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, I was struck by the quiet dignity and humility with which he accepted this richly deserved award. Here, indeed, is a good, good man. A wave of melancholy then swept over me, and I thought, “If only—”.  

If only Gore had been in the White House all these years, as he should have been, nearly 4,000 young Americans would be alive today, veterans’ hospitals across the country would not be filled to overflow with amputees, brain-damaged and psychologically ruined men, countless thousands of Iraqi civilians would still be alive, and Afghanistan and Iraq would not be in ruins. And I would not be ashamed of my country. 

Ah, yes, if only— 

Dorothy Snodgrass 

 

• 

VISIONARY UPGRADE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The proposed “visionary” upgrade from three funky, neighborhood outdoor swimming pools to one new, spiffy, indoor pool located at the West Campus site is awful news for some of us. Instead of conveniently walking 15 minutes to swim, without a car we’re supposed to use AC Transit (four buses, two each way), take an extra hour and incur $500/year in bus fees. It will be cheaper, less a hassle and less time-consuming to just swim at one of the UC expensive pools. 

“Visionary” also we’re told is the proposal for the one new pool to be indoor? Surely they’re kidding. Not only is there already a downtown Berkeley indoor YMCA pool for those who want indoor. Some of us consider the aesthetic beauty of the sky with its changing cloud formations and rising or sinking sun and brilliant sunset colors part of the total swimming experience we look forward to. But, hey, an indoor pool will attract more participants, reply the visionaries. Where’s the study showing that? UC outdoor pools and Oakland’s neighborhood outdoor pools are well attended year-round (currently they’re too crowded). It’s wishful thinking to imagine an indoor pool will attract more participation. 

Rumor has it that the “real” reason for the suggested new pool has nothing to do with vision or increased usage. The “real” reason is, what a surprise, money. Evidently it is cheaper to build one new pool than to upgrade and maintain three funky neighborhood pools. If that’s the case, why are we writing letters to the editor, answering questionaires and going to pool meetings? Why the waste of everyone’s time? It feels like the visionaries are manufacturing consent where the decisions have already been made. 

The Berkeley neighborhood pools are a blessing. The new aquatics management made great progress in keeping them running professionally and smoothly. I like the funky, low-tech, colorful aspect of the pools. I like being able to walk a few minutes to reach one. I like swimming under a beautiful ever-changing sky. I will not be swimming at the visionary new pool. 

Maureen Kane  

 

• 

MEMO TO ZELDA 

Editors, Daily Planet:  

A few years ago, The New Yorker (October 18, 2004) published “Green Manhattan,” a story about a couple that got married right out of college, in 1978. They were young and naive and unashamedly idealistic, and they decided to make their first home in a utopian environmentalist community in New York State. For seven years, they lived, quite contentedly, in circumstances that would strike most Americans as austere in the extreme: their living space measured just seven hundred square feet, and they didn’t have a dishwasher, a garbage disposal, a lawn, or a car. They did their grocery shopping on foot, and when they needed to travel longer distances they used public transportation. Because space at home was scarce, they seldom acquired new possessions of significant size. Their electric bills worked out to about a dollar a day. 

The utopian community was Manhattan. Thanks to urban density, it is by most significant measures the greenest community in the United States, and one of the greenest in the world. 

I find it thrilling that we could have our own Manhattan right here in Berkeley. To create an environmentally sustainable future, we will need to make dramatic changes to the way we live, and I’m delighted that the visionaries at ABAG and our City of Berkeley planners are showing us the way in their proposals for Berkeley’s downtown. Sleepy suburbs— and I include Berkeley among them— will give way to vital urban cores, with the vitality of commerce, artistic life, and opportunity we see in New York and other great cities. 

Urban density can and does work. Please embrace it, and the healthier future it will give us, rather than obstruct it. 

Mitchell Gass 

 

• 

WARM POOL 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

We feel it imperative, at this time, to get a message out to the community to clarify the mission of the One Warm Pool Advocacy Group.  

There seems to be some confusion regarding this mission and our priorities. We are unfairly being portrayed by some as being contrarians and/or competitors when it comes to the other pools in Berkeley. We hereby go on record and state that this is absolutely untrue and unfounded. We are merely remaining committed and focused in the struggle to retain a warm pool in Berkeley for the disabled members of the community, both young and old. A struggle which has been going on for far too long, especially when you consider that Berkeley has won awards for how well it treats its disabled community. 

As some of you know, demolition of the gym, which houses the warm pool, is on BUSD’s agenda. This site has been in jeopardy for a number of years and it is our goal to save or relocate this desperately needed community resource. Hopefully, some of you remember the late Fred Lupke and others who fought for years to save the warm pool. They were finally successful in getting a bond passed to rehab the current pool at the present site; however, BUSD declared it seismically unsound and we were back in jeopardy of losing the pool.  

We started all over again struggling to save the warm water pool. On top of everything else, the bond measure had been written in such a way that it was not transferable to any other site or location so we were truly back to square one.  

We have been through many, many, many trials and tribulations, i.e., meetings on top of meetings, broken promises on top of broken promises, mechanical failure, etc. Now that we are at a point where we have a completed plan to present to City Council which could possibly result in continuing to have a warm pool in Berkeley, our heartfelt struggle and efforts are being twisted and misconstrued. There are those who say we are being selfish and self-centered; however, it seems that only we remember that we do not have the luxury of waiting another several more years hoping and praying for something, which is now only a vision, to come to fruition. Time is not on our side. Time is our deadliest enemy. 

We sincerely hope that the community will understand, support and join in our efforts to assure that we retain a warm pool in Berkeley. Don’t you all agree that the neediest members of our community have been hanging over this precipice long enough? If others have a vision and/or some other plan for the able-bodied, we wish them well and they should do the same for us without making it a competitive issue. To do so just isn’t fair to the community at large, and more specifically to the disabled community. 

Joann Cook & The One Warm Pool Advocacy Group 

 

• 

RADIATION IN GOURMET  

GHETTO 

Editors, Daily Planet:  

This letter is to bring to the attention of neighbors of the gourmet ghetto that several wireless providers plan to install many wireless facilities in this area. On Oct. 11, 2007, the ZAB approved four antennas on the roof of 2095 Rose, across from the Jewish Community Center. This area is mainly residential; however, the ZAB ignored this fact. Verizon plans to sit 12 antennas on French Hotel. There are already three antennas on the roof of Barney’s Restaurant at 1600 Shattuck. All these antennas will pollute the gourmet ghetto by hazardous microwave radiation. Even the City of Berkeley Health Department has stated that the long-term effects of radiation from wireless facilities in not known. It does not end there. Verizon has been trying to get permission to install antennas on the UC storage on southside. Their application has been ping-ponged between the ZAB and the City Council. A crucially important public hearing to decide on this case will be held on Thursday, Oct. 23. The public should attend this hearing to object to Verizon. In particular, Verizon is suing the city in order to get rid of the ordinance that regulates wireless facilities. A corporation that is trying to invade our neighborhoods has no place in Berkeley. 

Sanjay Sanwal 

 

• 

MEMORIES OF BATES 

Editors, Daily Planet:  

Tom Bates was a State Assemblyman from Berkeley when I ran for a City Council seat from district 1. Back then Bates would interview local candidates for his endorsement. During my session with him, he said he hadn’t endorsed anyone yet. The next day I was campaigning through the district and found a leaflet for another candidate—with a Tom Bates endorsement! 

I guess he was just picking the brains of the opposition. But it was a flat outright deception! 

When he was a candidate for mayor, Bates emptied the Daily Cal newspaper racks one day because the paper had endorsed his opposition. He claimed he knew nothing about it until witnesses came forward with the fact that they saw him do it. 

Neighborhoods have tried to stop incident after incident in the matter of land use degradation, (even through the courts). 

When Tom Bates took office as mayor, “Smart Growth” slipped in the back door—without so much as a Public Hearing. 

A change is urgently needed. It’s just possible that Bates will have to go, He needs to be recalled. 

Martha Nicoloff, Co-Author, 

Neighborhood Preservation Ordinance 

 

• 

WE GET WHAT WE PAY FOR 

Editors, Daily Planet:  

Members of private security forces in Iraq have three features in common with persons wearing U.S. military uniforms, that is, with public forces: 1) all got the same basic military preparation, 2) all are there because they volunteered and 3) all are paid with our taxes.  

The Pentagon gets the lion’s share of the federal budget—$450 billion or 51 percent—plus supplements enabling Bush to squander $2 billion a month in Iraq.  

After being discharged, U.S. military personnel can earn five times their former pay if they sign on with private security firms. Of course, this creates a manpower drain and to improve their retention rate the Army, Navy, Marines and Air Force now offer rather large re-enlistment bonuses, as much as five figures for enlisted men and up to $150,000 for officers.  

It is common experience that the harder the job the higher the cost and people who watched the Sopranos on TV can tell you that it costs a lot to have someone whacked. Iraq is a place where both private and public forces whack and get whacked on a large scale. 

All of this means that our public security force in Iraq competes for personnel with private security forces and since we the people pay for both it turns out that we are stupidly competing with ourselves.  

Marvin Chachere 

San Pablo 

 

• 

EXCESSIVE UNIVERSITY 

Editors, Daily Planet:  

What’s wrong in California? 

With a legislature responsible for the best, most stringent automobile-emissions rules in the country, with at least one major city moving toward assured medical care for all its citizens, California’s noble and eminent university makes news for its reactionary policies. 

Such as: 

• The excessive retirement benefits and perquisites the recently outgoing president of the statewide UC system awarded to himself and those he chose to favor. 

• The gross corruption of values in planning a multimillion dollar “fitness center” next to and along with expanding the already huge and misplaced stadium while student tuition and fees have skyrocketed, departments and offices have laid off personnel, and the university has terminated cheap and constructive services such as the oil-, time- and person-saving jitneys to Davis and Santa Cruz. 

• The cowardly refusal of the Berkeley Art Museum to sponsor Botero’s devastating compendium of historically and aesthetically important paintings and drawings of Abu Graib ... 

In September the chancellor at UC Irvine, cancelled his appointment of Erwin Chemerinsky, a greatly respected constitutional scholar and tireless defender of civil liberties, to head Irvine’s new law school. His reason for dismissal? Chemerinsky was “too politically controversial.” The phrase is muddy English and the implications a disaster. Controversy, differing accounts, estimates, judgments are the core of politics and the core of law. 

Ariel Parkinson 

 

 


Letters in Response to Capt. Lund and Code Pink

Tuesday October 16, 2007

• 

 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Thank you for printing the letter by Captain Richard Lund. I work in a building on University Avenue. I am a woman, I am a mother, I am the wife of a veteran, I am a liberal, I am a democrat, I am a staunch opponent to this war, and I am an enemy of President Bush. And I am ashamed. 

Wars aren’t created by the military, they are created by politicians and their self- serving constituents. 

The Code Pink protest is an insult to the sacrifices made by heroes like Captain Lund and the other men and women serving in our military, and does no service to our cause of ending this war. 

Please forward along to Captain Lund our support and our thanks. 

Bridget Haverty 

 

• 

 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Bravo for printing Captain Richard Lund's letter. There is still some equal rights alive in Berkeley. 

Yvonne Holcomb 

 

• 

 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I want to thank this paper for printing the open letter from Captain Lund to Code Pink. While we here in the Midwest know that those in Berkeley oppose anything to do with the military, it is still guys like Captain Lund who defend their rights as Americans. 

I personally feel that Code Pink is run by extremists and communist sympathizers and should be locked up. Especially when I hear about what they do in the halls of congress. One of our greatest presidents ever, Abraham Lincoln, suspended habeus corpus and imprisoned “Copperhead Demo-crats,” who emboldened the enemy during a time of war. Just like Code Pink. 

Keith Best 

Waukesha, WI 

• 

 

Editors, Daily Planet:  

Please stand together and show the members of Code Pink what a disgrace they are to your community. Little do they understand that Captain Lund has put his life on the line defending the very freedoms Code Pink used to dishonor him. Code Pink should be blushing for only one reason—out of embarrassment and shame for their actions. 

Sonia 

San Diego 

 

• 

 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I don't see how anyone could ever show disrespect to an officer; especially a Marine. 

It's like the person who hates police, but when someone is breaking into your house; they’re the first people you would call. 

You would think he would be treated with cheers and excitement being new in the area. Where is the neighborhood hospitality? 

Unfortunately, we have in America people who hate being American. If they find such bitterness with officers that are here to protect us from an invasion from a foreign enemy, then they should just leave the country asap. We don't want people with that kind of attitude living here in this country. Good luck with the country that would take them in. They would do the same immature behavior there as well.  

Berkeley should kick out those kinds of spoiled brats out of their city. God Bless our Marines.  

Catherine Le Bell 

Los Angeles 

 

• 

 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Thank you for printing Captain Richard Lund's letter on 10/02 to Code Pink. It was the carefully measured response of a professional military officer to pseudo intellectuals who think they know so much but are in fact grossly uninformed.  

It is fair and right of you to at least let those you probably disagree with have their say in the matter. If it were not for that Marine and many like him, there could be no protest at all. 

Rick Murray 

Redmond, OR 

 

• 

 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I am curious if Code Pink ever responded to this well-written article. If so, please send a link. Though I live in northern Minnesota (identified as democrats), the support for our troops and military structure is extremely strong.  

Cliff Gawne-Mark 

Duluth, MN 

 

• 

 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I am continually sickened by the activities of organizations like CodePinko and MoveOn.org. 

I don’t care if you hate Bush and loathe the Iraq situation, Capt. Lund has devoted his adult life to you and the United States and is willing to give his life for the misguided, sniveling liberals who defaced his facility. Were it not for our military, we would not have the freedom to criticize our government. 

I am a veteran of the army. During my enlistment, I met, trained and worked with USMC Officers and Gunney Sgts. The Gunneys were a little scarey, but the officers were all top notch. My favorite uncle, a graduate of the Naval Academy, was buried on the bottom at Guadalcanal and had a DE named after him. 

I don’t care if you hate our country, burn our flag or vote democratic; please show our men and women on the front lines of your defense a little respect. 

To Captain Lund, I salute you, Sir. Semper Fi. 

Richard Landers 

formerly RA 15 660 011 

Wooster, OH 

• 

 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Wow, the Marines rock, and Code Pink kinda sucks big time.  

Susanne Aspley 

 

• 

 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

As a typical American (that’s a citizen of U.S.A. for those of you who don’t like us using the name of the American continents to describe our country), I would like to extend my heartfelt thanks for the important work you and all our brave military personnel do for our freedom. 

It often goes unsaid and is taken for granted, but Code Pink, and other “peace loving” organizations, only have the freedom to speak out against our country because that privilege is secured by our military forces. 

Take a look at history and try to find one instance where peace was ever secured without military force—it has never happened. There will always be evil human beings who must be fought to secure peace for the masses and unfortunately innocent people will die in the process. People die, every one of us will, and to bravely risk your life to help secure peace and freedom of speech, without the courtesy of thanks from those who benefit most from it, is one of the most righteous ways a human being can live his or her life. 

BWB  

San Diego, CA 

 

• 

 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

My hat is off to the young Marine captain. His response was well taken and straightforward. Unlike the advocates of free speech that come in the night like a common criminal because they can't defend their indefensible point of view. 

My hat is off to the Berkeley Daily Planet for printing his response.  

Bill Santos 

San Jose, CA


Commentary: Only a Mass Movement Can Halt These Endless Wars

By Kenneth J. Theisen
Tuesday October 16, 2007

Many people think the Bush regime is politically weakened and will no longer be able to achieve its political agenda, particularly in regard to the Iraq war. Millions also have the illusion that after the 2008 elections that the U.S. military will finally withdraw from that beleaguered country. But the Bush regime is currently expanding the size of the U.S. military, and the leading Democratic presidential contenders are not likely to remove the U.S. military presence in Iraq if they are elected. 

On September 27, 2007, Defense Secretary Robert Gates stated he is likely to approve an army proposal to expand the size of the army. At a Department of Defense press conference, Gates said, “I’m probably going to recommend they go ahead and give it a try. I’m inclined to approve it.”  

In a related development regarding the size of U.S. forces in Iraq, Army Secretary Pete Geren recently met with a group of reporters and said it was possible that even if the army withdraws five combat brigades from Iraq between December 2007 and July 2008, the number of “non-combat” troops there could remain the same or even increase. Geren stated that a reduction in the number of combat troops in Iraq could mean that more support troops are needed to train the Iraqi forces or perform other functions. “That’s a possibility. I’m not saying it’s a likelihood,” Geren told the reporters. Gates confirmed this when he met with the Senate Appropriations Committee on September 26, 2007, and admitted that the Pentagon has not decided on the level of support troops in Iraq for 2008. 

On September 27, 2007, Geren an-nounced that in addition to expanding the active-duty army to a total of 547,000, he is also planning to increase the size of the National Guard and Reserve. The army expects to reach its targeted growth within four years.  

In addition to the army expansion, the Marines intend to add an additional 27,000 personnel to their ranks, bringing their total to 202,000. 

Well, if a Democrat wins the presidential race in 2008, all this madness will end, right? Dream on!  

The Democrats held a debate on September 26, 2007. At the beginning, debate moderator Tim Russert asked Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, as well as former Senator John Edwards, whether they would promise to have all U.S. troops out of Iraq by January 2013. All three refused, even though that would be at the end of their first term if they were elected.  

Obama responded, “We would get combat troops out of Iraq. The only troops that would remain would be those that have to protect U.S. bases and U.S. civilians, as well as to engage in counter-terrorism activities in Iraq.” He failed to mention that this would allow tens of thousands of troops, if not more, to remain in Iraq for the indefinite future. Obama has previously stated he wants to expand the overall size of the U.S. military by 92,000, so he must want to use these additional forces somewhere. 

Clinton echoed Obama when she stated, “I will drastically reduce our presence there to the mission of protecting our embassy, protecting our civilians, and making sure that we’re carrying out counterterrorism activities there.” Clinton claimed that the only combat missions she would permit would be those aimed at “eradicating al Qaeda in Iraq.” As a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Clinton has advocated a permanent troop increase for the military. She also introduced legislation to increase military burial travel allowances, which will undoubtedly be needed if she is elected. 

John Edwards also refused to pledge withdrawal while attacking Clinton in the debate. He said her stand allows “a continuation of the war. I do not think we should continue combat missions in Iraq.” But he did not explain how he would stop the war if he refuses to withdraw troops from Iraq. I guess we are just supposed to believe him when he says, “I believe this war needs to come to an end.” Edwards, like Obama and Clinton, has also stated he wants to increase the military’s size. 

While all three of these leading Democratic contenders claimed they would stop the active use of “combat troops” in Iraq, with some caveats, they have also made it clear the Iraq war will continue under their administrations. But look at the Army Secretary’s comments above. He says even if “combat troops” are no longer used, there still will be the need for troops in Iraq, including the possibility of increased numbers. 

We must stop the madness of the Bush regime. But we cannot rely on the Democrats to do so. They have shown us repeatedly that they support the Bush wars by authorizing hundreds of billions of dollars to finance them. Only a mass movement can halt these endless wars that were initiated by the Bush regime and its enablers, the Democrats in congress. We can’t wait until 2008, we must declare it now! 

 

 

Kenneth J. Theisen is an organizer with The World Can’t Wait! Drive out the Bush Regime!


Commentary: Marceau, the Pantomimist—Not Mime

By R.G.Davis
Tuesday October 16, 2007

Before Marcel Marceau’s body is buried and evaporates from public view, I thought to make note here in a short commentary that Marceau was a pantomime (pantomimist) and Charlie Chaplin was a mime – despite what AP, UPI and theater folk say about Marceau.  

I wrote an essay in 1962 published in a theater magazine about the difference between mime and pantomime. Nevertheless, for some it doesn’t matter; they are as confused or in denial as ever. Linguistic accuracy is not a strong factor in American culture; consider the dyslexic mentality of what we now call “activists.” I just talked to a young person who said, “I’m very political.” I asked what do you mean by that? She said, “An anarchist, I guess.” Oh, you mean you read Kropotkin, Tolstoy and others? No answer. Many young Americans now say they are anarchists, which I interpret as meaning, “No one tells me what the f… to do.” We used to call these folks liberals, hippies, or dropouts. In the ’60s the New Left were Marxists, not in any communist party. Trotskyites were socialists, different from social democrats; Communists were in political parties, later called Stalinist parties; while Maoists made up Marxist-Leninist parties and the latter certainly made sure they were not mistaken for CPUSA members.  

The mimes and pantomimes can be mixed up as everyone understands when they see the SF Mime Troupe do musical comedy, which is neither mime nor pantomime since the change of management, writers and directors now produces musical comedy with liberal messages such as “call your elected officials.”  

Distinctions are important even though people who drink soft drinks with “high fructose corn syrup” consider it a full sugar, —it is not, and your local nutritionist will say (like Sally Fallon), “Research indicates that it is the fructose, not the glucose, moiety of sugar that is the most harmful…” Some researchers even observe that it ruins teeth, disrupts the body’s functions and causes disease. Postmodernists consider labeling a suspect category. However anti- GMO folks don’t. Those who ingest “high fructose corn syrup” (probably GMO) in their soft drinks and don’t care about labels, nutrition and disease because they are anarchists, best be watched carefully lest they burden the medical care system.  

Mime produces different results from pantomime. Pantomime works with “nothing there” live on stage not in film— 

it doesn’t make sense in film. Mime works in film. Chaplin used real props, manipulating them in different ways. Marceau used no props, manipulating his body and his face (with white makeup) in different ways. Just because silent movie performers didn’t speak didn’t make them mimes or pantomimes, and just because it says Mime Troupe doesn’t mean they do mime or pantomime, as the writer-director-lead actor said we do “Political musical comedy.” 

The wonders of Marceau. If people can remember, who saw him live on stage, was that he was French with accordion music between the skits along with his sign carrier Pierre Verry who offered wonderful static poses, a sign with signifiers or a mimetic abstract pose illustrating the essence of the next bit. Marceau worked in white face with pedal-pusher pants, a stripped shirt, and certainly one of the elements of his sentimental success was that he was as French as Edith Piaf or Maurice Chevalier.  

The distinction between mime and pantomime is not a sticky intellectual academic effort. They produce different results. Modern dance by Martha Graham was not ballet. Mime produced Jean Louis Barrault and Charlie Chaplin, pantomime produced Marceau and Shields—the latter used to mock people on SF streets. Some lump them as “white faced clowns” but Fellini’s Clowns didn’t do pantomime, they used props and were mimetic.  

Labels, an aspect of biology ever since Linnaeus, identified different species of plants with Latin names is a bother, but, any reasonable gardener knows the benefit of specific ID’s lest they put the wrong species in the wrong soil. By using common names one can easily eat the wrong mushroom, plant the wrong tree in the wrong soil or eat the wrong clam.  

Our political arena doesn’t help, either in Latin or in English, since confusion is rampant. Trying to make a distinction between the Democrats and the Republicans one has to remember they all voted for the military budget (except one or two locals). Militarizing US foreign policy is likely to continue for both parties, as democracy being delivered by weapons, is part of “support our troops” and American patriotism, but not so for the Palestinians, Iranians or the Venezuelans.  

Marceau’s performance inspired many to become Pantomimes, I too was inspired by him, but went back to his teacher and became a Mime.  

 


Commentary: Year 6 of War on Terror: TV Violence, Insults

By Margot Pepper
Tuesday October 16, 2007

Violence, selfishness and insults have skyrocketed on national television since the first year of the war on terror, my second grade students at Rosa Parks Elementary in Berkeley, California found.  

For the last decade, I’ve had students analyze television preceding National TV-off week organized by the TV-Turnoff Network. The mostly seven-year-old students are asked to collect all the data themselves since their teacher has never owned a television. An average total of 35 children’s television shows, both in Spanish and English, are studied for a period of seven days. The first day of the study, as homework, students record how many times they see hitting, hurting or killing on half-hour segments of the shows they regularly watch, viewed from beginning to end. The second day, they focus on acts of selfishness; the third day, on instances of putdowns and the fourth day, on the number of times a typical class rule is broken. Finally, in class, each of four groups of students compiles the data produced by the homework, focusing on one of the four variables in the study. But this year, when I pulled out old samples of graphs compiled by a class in April of 2002 as models, the contrasts between the graphs produced five years ago and this April shocked my students.  

“In a half-hour of ‘Jackie Chan’ in 2002 you would see hitting 10 times at most,” wrote gifted seven-year old Flynn Michael Legg. “In 2007, shows of ‘Jackie Chan’ had 34 hitting scenes.” For the 2001/2002 season—year one of President George Bush’s ‘war on terror’—nearly one-fourth of the television shows my students watched had one or no acts of violence at all in one half-hour. Now of the shows they randomly watch, only “That’s So Raven” continues to have no violence, and all other shows have at least three instances of hitting or violence in one half-hour. Today, nearly half of shows randomly viewed by my students contain hitting or more violent acts 7 to 34 times each half-hour.  

The maximum number of gratuitous putdowns or insults has nearly doubled since 2002, going from 10 in “That’s So Raven” to 18 in “Dumb and Dumber,” over one putdown every two minutes. In “Sponge Bob Square Pants,” Flynn pointed out, one would hear at most two put-downs in 2002. Today it’s 16. No shows had more than 10 putdowns in 2002. Now three shows did (“Sponge Bob”:16; “Dumb and Dumber”: 18; “Letty La Fea”: 13) Very few shows have no insults at all any more.  

All the shows my students watched this year showed people or characters being selfish at least once in each half-hour. In 2002, only three shows had more than three acts of selfishness in a half-hour. Now, 10 did. Half of the shows showed five to nine instances of selfishness each half-hour. 

Students also found that in April of 2002, only one show depicted the violation of ordinary class rules (no hitting, put downs, swearing etc.) twelve or more times. In April of 2007, the number of such programs rose to six. In 2001, the maximum times class rules were broken on a given half-hour show were 17 on one show. In 2007 the number of such shows has quadrupled with the maximum number of rules broken on a given show doubling or reaching over 34.  

These differences compelled us to substantiate our findings with Internet re-search. Indeed, children in the “yellow group” found that according to a 2007 study by the Parent’s Television Council (PTC) called “Dying to Entertain,” since 1998, violence on ABC network has quadrupled (a 309 percent increase). In 1998 the station had about one act of violence per hour. By 2007, it was almost four or 3.8 on average. CBS, according to the PTC study, had the highest percentage of deaths during 2005-2006, with over 66 percent of violent scenes depicting death after 8:00 p.m. (www.parentstv.org/).  

Students in the “blue group” reading the same PTC study noted that now violence has shifted to being more central to the story with more graphic autopsy scenes or torture scenes. The study remarks that the 2005-2006 season beginning in the fall was one of the most violent ever recorded by the PTC. 

Precocious 7-year old Maeve Gallagher reported in her essay that “The green group found kids will have seen “200,000 violent acts on television by age 18 ... and 16,000 murders,” according to Real Vision, a project of the TV-Turnoff Network. “Videos and TV are ‘teaching kids to like killing,’ according to a 1999 Senate Judiciary Committee Report entitled ‘Children, Violence and the Media,’” Maeve cited. The Senate report also found that ten percent of crimes committed are caused by violence seen on television.  

The findings by students in the red group convinced the rest of the class to limit their viewing of television, turning it off completely during the TV-Turnoff Network’s TV-off week—something they were reluctant to do when our unit of television study began. What they discovered, largely thanks to the TV-Turnoff Network’s website (www.tvturn-off.org/) is that there are more televisions (2.73) in the average home than people (2.55.) (USA Today). The average home had a television on eight hours a day, more than 10 years ago, asserts Nielsen (2006). Children who watch six or more hours a day perform worse on reading tests than do those who watch one hour a day or don’t play video games, reports the Center for Screentime Awareness (www.screentime.org). By the time they finish high school, children will have spent more hours watching TV than in school.  

“I suspect the increase in television violents [sic] has something to do with the war on terror,” Andres Ventura hypothesized in his essay summing up his conclusions to the study. “By scaring kids and parents and pushing violents [sic], people are more likely to vote for war. The TV makes you dumb because if you see a lot it makes you forget things. It makes parents dumb too. It makes them forget how things were when they were kids.” 

“If you watch too much T.V. when you are an adult, you lose the kid that is inside you.” --Maeve Gallagher agreed. 

“Watching television replaces your imagination with television thinking and there’s not much space left after that,” Daniel Hernandez-Deras, commented a few years ago. 

One of the most shocking facts my students found was that according to The TV-Turnoff Network’s Real Vision project , parents spend only 38.5 minutes a day with their children in meaningful conversation. And more than half of 4-6 years olds (54%) would rather watch T.V. than spend time with their parents. 

This finding inspired Alejandro González unique conclusion: “I think Jorge [sic] Bush wants to make people more scared. We know Jorge [sic] Bush likes war. And… TV makes you like more war. What’s scary is kids spend more time seeing TV than being with their dad. Since our study, I turn off the TV more and go play with my dad. Maybe the president used to watch more TV than being with his dad.”  

 

 


Commentary: Article Fails to Mention Opposing Views

By Donald Forman
Tuesday October 16, 2007

Your article “Reading Recovery Program Shows Results in Berkeley Schools” (October 5–8) violates several basic journalistic principles. 

It includes no mention of opposing points of view. A reader would not guess that there is profound controversy about this program both within the Berkeley Unified School District and in the broader ranks of U.S. education. One would not guess that last year the district apparently came close to abolishing this expensive and ineffective program. 

The headline is not backed up by the content of the article. Only three paragraphs address the results of Reading Recovery in Berkeley. One paragraph claims that “the program . . . has helped 75 percent of [children in it to] catch up to the classroom average.” No source is cited for this controversial and unlikely claim. One paragraph cites Greg John, the principal of John Muir Elementary School. Mr. John has never taught basic literacy (his teaching experience was at the middle-school level) and has completed no serious training in this area. The principal of one school in the district, he lacks any expertise to evaluate Reading Recovery. The final paragraph quotes Tom Prince, the Reading Recovery teacher-leader. As well-intentioned as he may be, Mr. Prince has a conflict of interest evaluating the program that he leads. This paragraph also states: “Research has shown that Reading Recovery reduces the achievement gap.” In fact, the research on Reading Recovery in the U.S. is mixed at best. Those researchers who are not already affiliated with the program have raised probing doubts about its effectiveness. Reading Recovery as pioneered by Marie Clay in relatively homogeneous communities in New Zealand and Australia may be a successful program, but Berkeley’s program is quite different and violates many of her basic principles. 

The article is filled with incorrect information and misleading claims. 

It refers to “an eight-year hiatus of the program from the district.” The program has been active throughout the last eight years.  

“‘All the children in the reading recovery program have been identified by their kindergarten teachers as being far below basic.’” “Offered to children at [sic] the bottom 20 percent of their kindergarten class.” From the article one might not realize that in fact the program works not with kindergartners but with first-graders. The Reading Recovery teachers cherry-pick which students to take and reject many of the lowest performers because they don’t want to muck up the program’s statistics by working with children who may not succeed. When they have run out of other candidates, they often take students who are doing fine in their first-grade classrooms. They pick children from poor and less educated families, whose parents they believe are unlikely to resist being placed in the program. Mr. John instituted disciplinary action against a classroom teacher for informing the parents of one student that the student was doing well in reading and did not need Reading Recovery. 

“We only train really experienced classroom teachers who have already had successful literacy training.” This claim is false. One Reading Recovery teacher had her classroom career in a private school, working only with children from highly educated literate families, where only minimal instruction in reading was necessary. In 2006 Reading Recovery was used as a transitional job for easing out an incompetent administrator who hadn’t been in the classroom for decades. Berkeley Reading Recovery teachers tend to be quite unaware of other aspects of literacy education and of recent research in literacy techniques. 

“John said that the program had helped kids perform well in reading in the district’s Developmental Reading Assessment.” The DRA is not the district’s assessment, but was written by Joetta Beaver and published by Celebration Press, and is used throughout the nation. Unfortunately, most district teachers, including Reading Recovery teachers, have had limited training in administering the DRA, and the results they report have little uniformity. In addition, Reading Recovery teachers have a conflict of interest. They as individuals, and the program as a whole, must produce good DRA scores to justify their continuation. Classroom teachers often report that children undergoing Reading Recovery experience setbacks, not progress. 

Unfortunately, the Planet regularly prints boosteristic articles about elementary education that make no mention of the controversies and defects of the programs they describe. Berkeley’s elementary schools have serious problems, and the Planet could do good service to the community by investigating them thoroughly and shedding light on possible improvements.  

Your puff piece on Reading Recovery, however, covers up the important issues. 

 

 

Donald Forman is Berkeley resident.


Columns

Column: The Public Eye: More Pay for City Staff: Can the City Afford It?

By Zelda Bronstein
Friday October 19, 2007

Berkeley is in a fiscal crisis. The current budget was balanced only after the council made deep cuts in staff and services. The city has $160 million of unfunded liabilities. Meanwhile, our roads, sewers and drainage system (where there is a drainage system) are in bad shape; it looks as if the coming winter is going to be a wet one—good for the snowpack, bad for deteriorating infrastructure. This past spring, the council nickel and dimed basic services for the homeless, cutting $23,000 out of the respected Quarter Meal program run by Berkeley’s Food and Housing Project—50 percent of the program’s modest budget.  

The city’s 2008-2009 Budget Book opens with a May 8, 2007 cover letter from the city manager to the mayor and council. In a section entitled “Controlling Costs,” Mr. Kamlarz writes: “In the short term, the only method to effectively eliminate the City’s structural deficit is through cost reductions—primarily through controlling labor costs, since employee salary and benefits make up 77 percent of the City’s operating budget.”  

Accordingly, for fiscal years 2008 and 2009, the book anticipated zero cost of living increases for the fire and police departments. For the city’s civilian employees, it designated a 5 percent cost of living increase in fiscal year 2008 and no increase at all for 2009. 

Yet now, merely four months since he wrote those words, Mr. Kamlarz—no doubt under great pressure—is asking the council to give Berkeley firefighters raises that, if approved, will likely be used to justify commensurate increases in the compensation offered to other city employees. Specifically, he is recommending that the firefighters get a salary raise of at least 13 percent for the period between July 2, 2006 (the contract is retroactive) and June 29, 2010. 

A 13 percent raise, spread over four years, may sound reasonable, until you remember that the city’s last contract with the Berkeley Fire Fighters Association, running from 2000 to 2006, raised firefighter salaries by 31.5 percent. If the council approves the manager’s recommendation, by 2010 Berkeley firefighter salaries will have risen 44.5% in a decade. When the manager’s recommended increases in benefits (medical, retirement) are factored in, the overall increase will be even larger. According to the current Budget Book, the fire department accounts for 16 percent of total General Fund expenditures of $282,481,673, second among city bureaus only to the police department at 34 percent.  

The firefighters’ contract originally appeared on the council’s Oct. 9 agenda but was pulled by the city manager and re-scheduled for the Oct. 23 meeting. The Oct. 9 staff report said that contract negotiations were guided by policies that included “assuring that the City’s salaries and benefit package are competitive with other Fire Fighters in the Bay Area.” In addition, “the settlement must also be within the City’s ability to pay based on projected revenue, as well as demands for services across the spectrum of programs the City provides to the community.” 

Those are certainly the right criteria. The city needs to pay its employees enough to ensure that it attracts quality personnel; it also needs to live within its means. Trouble is, there wasn’t a shred of corresponding data or analysis in the staff report to support the recommended increases. More trouble: The city manager’s annual report, sent out in late August, after negotiations with the firefighters union had been completed, said: “We will need a new tax to maintain and increase public safety services.” Yet the Oct. 9 staff report was silent about a new public safety tax. Even more remarkably, the item appeared on the council’s consent agenda, meaning that staff hoped to get it approved without any discussion. 

The numbers are huge. If the council okays the manager’s recommendations, “the City,” says the staff report, “will pay approximately $52.6 million for staffing and benefit costs over the four-year term of the contract.” And the firefighters’ new contract will set a precedent for the other union contracts with the city whose renewals are coming right up.  

After reading the Oct. 9 staff report, I sent Councilmember Spring a list of information that the council and the public need to evaluate the recommended increases in firefighter salaries and benefits. She forwarded that list to the city manager, asking that he provide the following data: 

• Compensation packages (salaries and benefits) of firefighters in other Bay Area cities 

• Percentage increases in Berkeley firefighters’ salaries, benefits, and total compensation packages from 2000 to 2006, and from 2006 to 2010 (proposed) 

• Number and percentage of Berkeley firefighters with a current base salary of $100,000 or more 

• Number and percentage of Berkeley firefighters whose base salary will be $100,000 or more if Item 12 is approved as proposed 

• Estimated size of the new public safety tax needed to accommodate proposed increases in firefighter compensation 

• Compensation to firefighters that city can afford without a new public safety tax 

Looking over this list, I realize that I left out some vital data: Berkeley firefighters’ average salaries and benefits at present and as proposed for 2006-2010. According to information provided to me last summer by Human Resources Director Dave Hodgkins, Berkeley firefighters’ average salary as of July 1, 2007 was $8,453, which works out to $98,292 a year. Fringe benefits, mainly medical and retirement costs, calculated at 46.83 percent of salaries, averaged $3,958 a month or $47,496 a year. What are the corresponding figures in the proposed new contract? 

The contract with BFFA appears as Item 12 on the draft agenda for the council’s Oct. 23 meeting. Let’s hope that when the final agenda is posted on the city’s website this Friday afternoon, an updated staff report includes the above-requested numbers. 

Let’s hope, too, that someone on the council has the wherewithal to pull the item from the consent calendar—yes, it’s on consent again—so that the issue of staff pay might get the in-depth consideration that it deserves. As the city manager explained in the Budget Book, the most effective, short-term way the city can close its gaping structural deficit is to control labor costs. Unless Berkeley firefighters are getting far less than their colleagues in comparable local jurisdictions, it’s hard to see how increases in their salary and benefits and/or a new tax can be justified. And even if there is some disparity, long-term fiscal prudence ought to be the ultimate standard. Otherwise, Berkeley will be caught in a fiscal arms race that spirals ever upward. The same considerations should apply to the packages offered to other city employees. 

That said, for the council to hold the line on employee compensation will take both political courage and conscientious oversight of city expenditures—two commodities that are in dismayingly short supply on the dais in Old City Hall. The most recent biennnial budget process was a disgraceful farce, as the council majority allowed itself to be led by its collective nose by the city manager and the mayor. Community input was negligible, in large part because in April 2005 the council abruptly eliminated the Citizens Budget Review Commission.  

But to gauge fully the council’s fiscal heedlessness, you have to consider not only the formal budget process and the union contracts, but also the numerous giveaways to big developers. Space permits mention of only the most egregious of these handouts: the 15-year, $12 million annual subsidy to the biggest developer in town, the University of California, for campus use of city services (fire, police and sewers), secretly brokered by Mayor Bates and then secretly approved by a 6-3 vote (Spring, Olds and Worthington voted no) in May 2005.  

For the sake of the city’s fiscal recovery, either the council needs to change its attitude, or Berkeley voters need to change the council. The disposition of the firefighters’ contract will do more to determine the city’s fiscal future than any other action the council will take this year. Mark it well, and then bear in mind that in November 2008, Mayor Bates and four councilmembers—Anderson, Capi-telli, Moore and Olds—will be up for re-election.  


Column: Undercurrents: Those Who Get Caught in the Back Wash of Past Discrimination

By J. Douglas Allen-Taylor
Friday October 19, 2007

As the nation slowly—in some cases, very slowly, and almost always too slowly—does away with various practices of bias and discrimination in American life, we have begun to develop the phenomenon where members of a group which historically discriminated get extra props for ceasing the doing of something that never should have been done in the first place, while members of the group historically discriminated against get criticism no matter which way they turn. Call it a new twist on the old double standard. 

Consider the issue of single parenting, which has long been the almost exclusive province of women. 

If a man, not living in the same house as his child, says that he talks with the child by phone every week, has the child visit him over periodic weekends, remembers every birthday, and regularly sends money for support, it is generally considered that the man is doing right by his child, and doing his duty. 

If, however, the man goes beyond that traditional role and raises his child on his own, as a single parent, he is widely praised and lionized as one who has done the unexpected, and has gone above and beyond. 

If a woman raises her child as a single mom, she may get sympathy now and then, but no extra credit, as this is what a woman is expected to do. On the other hand, the woman who has given up custody of her child to the child’s father, and who talks to the child on the phone, allows periodic visits, etc., etc., is most often referred to—behind her back, generally—with phrases like, “Why did she give him up?” and “I wonder what’s wrong?” 

To paraphrase my old minister, cross, in other words, but no crown for the old victims. 

We see aspects of that phenomenon—a standard wherein the victims of past prejudice must work harder to overcome that prejudice, with little acknowledgement of the dilemma or the price paid—at work this year amongst our presidential candidates. Unless and until Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton is elected president, we will probably never know what she will actually do as commander in chief to advance the nation’s defense, since a woman politician seeking the presidency must ever and always vote and speak while mindful of the perception among many voters that a woman does not have the cojones (the pun most certainly intended) to give the order to send American troops to their deaths. 

As it is with women running seriously for the presidency, so it is with African-Americans. 

To win the presidency, a candidate, first and foremost, must maintain their political base. White candidates are able to choose, at will, pretty much whatever initial political base they desire and can on occasion, if they want, completely reverse themselves mid-stream and cross over to the opposite bank, with little apparent repercussion. Thus Robert Kennedy started off his political career as a staffmember and admirer of Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy—the great anti-Communist zealot—but later altered his politics to become a liberal-progressive icon, the darling and presidential choice of people who thought McCarthy the devil incarnate. Ronald Reagan went in the opposite direction, beginning as a New Deal liberal but turning to anti-Communism in the McCarthy years, thence to become—well, we all know what Mr. Reagan became. 

But those are white politicians, whose political base has some flex to it. 

The political base of African-American politicians, on the other hand, is first and foremost considered to be the African-American voting community. Those black politicians who successfully satisfy that base—and run in districts that are largely African-American—can stay in office for years and years while “speaking truth to power,” in the new phrase, or regularly “pissing off the white folks,” in the way it used to be said and still is, on some street corners and in some barber and beauty shops. 

The problem comes for all African-American politicians comes if and when they decide to run for office in a district that is not majority-black and therefore, by necessity, requires development of a significant non-black constituency. To win a significant number of non-black votes, an African-American politician must prove, in some way, that he or she is not completely beholden to black interests, and if elected will work for the larger community benefit, even if that direction is sometimes at odds with black opinion. But for every non-black vote a black politician gains in such a fashion, there is a cooling of support within the African-American community and a corresponding loss of some portion of the black vote. Call it the speed-of-light phenomenon, which cannot be reached by objects of greater-than-light mass under normal circumstances because the faster you go, the more you weigh and, therefore, the more power you must generate to push your mass faster and, therefore, the more mass you must carry in order to generate that power, until you reach a point where you just can’t win. Many African-American politicians reach such a dead-end point of winning non-black support beyond which the loss of black support becomes so great that political victory cannot be reached, no matter what. 

That may have been the main reason Jesse Jackson stopped being a presidential candidate after 1988. Mr. Jackson won 3.5 million votes in the 1984 Democratic primaries (21 percent of the total vote) while winning five primaries. That year, he received 77 percent of the African-American vote, 5 percent of the white vote. Four years later, Mr. Jackson almost doubled his vote total to 6.9 million and more than doubled his primary victories to 11, while winning increasing his black vote total to 93 percent and his white vote total to 13 percent. But to win a greater share of the white vote in 1984, Mr. Jackson ran a “Rainbow Coalition” campaign rather than a strictly black-oriented campaign, and while black voters supported him the second time around in greater percentage than the first, the campaign lost much of its black fervor as it embraced a larger view. 

In 1992, presidential candidate Bill Clinton thought he could solve the problem of appearing “too beholden” to black interests by creating his “Sista Souljah Moment,” picking a public fight with an African-American rapper by calling her a racist. Non-black voters were satisfied, and Mr. Clinton suffered no serious consequences within the African-American community. On the other hand, as the furor over the recent Bill Cosby remarks about African-American responsibility ought to indicate, an African-American politician making the same statement as Mr. Clinton would be pilloried in many sectors of the black community as a sellout and a race traitor and an apologist to the white folks, with that candidate’s African-American vote total dropping precipitously and dramatically as a result. 

And so we have the problems of Senator Barack Obama and Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums in the current presidential campaign. 

Mr. Obama, the son of a Kenyan father and a white American mother, has chosen to live his life as an African-American, marrying an African-American woman and identifying himself with the African-American community and African-American causes. To win the presidency of the United States, however, he cannot run an African-American campaign and so, unlike the previous campaigns of, say, Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, or Congressmember Shirley Chisholm, if you did not know Mr. Obama’s race, you could take his campaign platform and positions and identify them as a Democratic liberal-progressive candidate, not necessarily as an African-American candidate. I don’t say that as a bad thing. He is presenting himself as he is, in the way he best believes will win him the nomination and the presidency. 

But even though Mr. Obama is not running a black campaign—cannot, in fact, run such a campaign if he hopes to win—some African-Americans have taken the position that the chance to elect a black president is so important, given the history of African-Americans in particular and America in general, that African-American politicians must endorse Mr. Obama as an act of race solidarity, and call such politicians race traitors when they do not. 

Typical was an Oct. 1 posting on skepticalbrotha.wordpress.com, a blog that regularly discusses African-American political issues (the blogger describes himself as a “black, 30-something, political junkie residing somewhere in the Carolinas,”, announced the Dellums-Clinton endorsement under the heading “Ron Dellums Sells Out.” And Zennie Abraham, Jr., an African-American Oakland resident who operates the Oakland Focus blog and writes for the Huffington Post, said of the Dellums-Clinton endorsement “Dellums apparently can’t bring himself to back a young black senator named Barack Obama. It’s funny with some older African Americans in Oakland. They’re so afraid of anyone black who can be in charge that they’d back someone white.” 

The latter is something of an odd charge to make about Mr. Dellums, who employed and sponsored, after all, the current congressional representative from Oakland (Barbara Lee), the currently legislative representative from Oakland (Sandré Swanson), and one of the two current Oakland members of the Alameda County Board of Supervisors (Keith Carson). But that is not the point, is it? 

One problem is that had Mr. Dellums endorsed Mr. Obama—something he seemed to be seriously considering earlier this year—the mayor would have caught the flak from the other side, from commentators who would have said that the endorsement came not because of legitimate political reasons, but only because both men were Black. 

Meanwhile, the political differences between Mr. Obama and Ms. Clinton—while magnified during the primary season—are actually so slight compared with their differences with the Republicans that given the choice of having their names, along with John Edwards, put in a bag and pulled out in a blind draw, almost every Democrat in this country would be tickled to death to have as the next president whoever’s name was drawn over the Republican nominee. That being said, white politicians are able to pick between endorsements the top three Democrats—Obama, Clinton, and Edwards—with some grumbling from the losing sides, but with little political fallout. Such it was with San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, who earlier this year endorsed Ms. Clinton. 

African-American politicians may seize that freedom when it comes to this presidential year, but only at some cost among a key component of their political base. Once more, the victims of past American discrimination are the main ones who continue to get caught in its backwash. 


East Bay: Then and Now: The Shattuck Hotel: Berkeley’s Once and Future Jewel?

By Daniella Thompson
Friday October 19, 2007

If Berkeley has a heart, it must be located on the 2200 block of Shattuck Avenue between Kittredge St. and Allston Way. This is the site that Berkeley’s founder, Francis Kittredge Shattuck, chose as his homestead. 

Although the Gold Rush lured him to California, Shattuck (1824–1898) made his fortune by other means. In 1852, he teamed up with George Blake, William Hillegass, and James Leonard to file a claim on a square mile in what is now central Berkeley.  

Since the land was part of José Domingo Peralta’s Rancho San Antonio, and Domingo defended his property rights vigorously in the courts, nothing came of the claim. Shattuck ended up buying his 160-acre tract in 1860 from French-born banker François Louis Alfred Pioche. Known as Plot 68, the tract was bounded by Addison St. to the north, Russell St. to the south, Shattuck Ave. to the east, and Grove St. to the west. The streets did not yet exist. 

Living in Oakland, Shattuck—with Hillegass as his partner—opened a livery stable and entered politics. Beginning in 1853 as clerk of the Board of Trustees and proceeding through the city council, he became mayor in 1859, later serving on the County Board of Supervisors. In the 1860 census, Shattuck stated the value of his real estate at $14,000 and his personal estate at $6,000. Ten years later, his real estate was worth $75,000 and his personal estate $50,000. By then he had also branched into farming, real estate, and coal mining in the Black Diamond area. 

In 1868, Shattuck built his first Berkeley house on Shattuck Ave. between Allston and Bancroft Ways. Mansard roofed and set back from the street, the house was surrounded by spacious gardens. Two blocks to the north, at the Shattuck-Addison intersection, Shattuck built the town’s first major commercial center and helped it grow by talking the Central Pacific Railroad into extending a branch line into Berkeley. Later he founded the Commercial Bank, which would become the First National Bank of Berkeley. 

In 1891, the old Shattuck home was joined by a new Queen Anne mansion, designed by W.H. Weilbye of Oakland. The childless Francis and Rosa Shattuck shared it with his nephew, John W. Havens, and her niece, Rosa M. Livingstone, future heirs of the Shattuck fortune. 

In September 1907, the San Francisco Call announced that Berkeley capitalists had formed a company to erect a million-dollar hotel on Mrs. Shattuck’s estate. The directors were A.W. Naylor, who succeeded Shattuck as president of the First National Bank; William E. Woolsey, who had married Rosa Livingstone and managed the Shattuck estate; Judge William H. Waste, John W. Havens; and B.F. Brooks. 

“Many years ago Francis K. Shattuck, a pioneer, planned to erect a magnificent hotel in the heart of Berkeley. His death stopped the project. His plans will now be carried out by others, the consent of Mrs. Rosa Shattuck to back the enterprise having been obtained. The Shattuck grounds are spacious and covered with shrubbery and trees, making an excellent setting for a great caravansary. The new hostelry will be known as the Hotel Berkeley,” informed the Call. 

The building was expected to cost $500,000, with the grounds valued at the same amount. The capital stock was to be divided into 10,000 shares of $100 each. The term of the corporation’s life was to be 50 years. 

An architectural competition was held, and five designs were submitted to the directors. Judge William Waste announced that the winning architect “will be given six months or longer to make the plans and will be allowed to travel to secure ideas to be incorporated in the structure.” The architect chosen was Benjamin G. McDougall, who had designed many public buildings in the San Joaquin Valley. He opted for Mission Revival style, featuring square corner turrets and arched windows. 

Rosa Shattuck died on Sept. 12, 1908, the wealthiest woman in Alameda County, leaving an estate of $2 million. The homestead property, bounded by Shattuck, Allston, Milvia, and Kittredge, was deeded to Rosa Livingstone Woolsey as part of her inheritance. In April 1909, the hotel plans resurfaced, with construction slated to begin at once on an initial $125,000 building, to be followed later by a grander edifice. The five-story, reinforced concrete building would extend 80 feet along Shattuck Ave. and 150 feet on Allston Way. 

Construction began in early July 1909, and the Oakland Tribune announced that “those interested in the project state that the hotel will be a reality by Christmas time.” As it turned out, the hotel did not open until December 1910. Money for completing the project may have been short, judging by a Sept 3, 1910 Tribune item disclosing that “W.E. Woolsey, owner of the new Shattuck Hotel …, has announced that he will proceed without any further delay to furnish the hotel and will assume all responsibility for running it … Noah W. Gray, at present manager of the Hotel Jefferson in San Francisco, will be in charge of the new hotel.” The tony W. & J. Sloane Co. of San Francisco supplied the furnishings and carpets. 

The hotel opened with much pomp to a full week of festivities. A society reception on Dec. 13 was followed by a sold-out Chamber of Commerce banquet two evenings later. The banquet’s 12-course menu fittingly concluded with “Grant’s Hygienic Crackers—Made in Berkeley.”  

Joaquin Miller, the Poet of the Sierras, was one of several celebrated speakers at the banquet. He prophesied that the cities around the bay would some day be one. He also managed to shock every real estate dealer present by describing his Oakland hilltop property, The Hights [sic], as being “of no great value, for there is a stone or rock of some sort for every foot of earth and there is a gopher or squirrel for every stone, and each gopher or squirrel seems to have a large and prosperous family.” The realtors “gasped with amazement,” for “they had never heard anybody make so derogatory a statement concerning a bit of land in Alameda County.” 

The hotel was a success from its first day, and soon the directors were deliberating whether to expand. They were encouraged to do so by a dry-goods merchant named John Frederick Hink, whose store was located in the Wanger Block, on the southeast corner of Shattuck and Kittredge. In Berkeley since 1904, Hink was ready to cross the street and become the anchor tenant in a block-long Shattuck Hotel. 

The 120-room hotel addition was built in 1913 and opened the following in anticipation of the Panama-Pacific Exposition. A newspaper ad published in January 1915 promised direct electric transportation from the hotel to the exposition grounds every ten minutes. “The Hotel Shattuck is recognized as the social and civic center,” boasted the ad. 

The J.F. Hink & Son department store occupied the ground floor of the addition for seven decades. Its standard entry in early city directories listed “Dry Goods, Notions, Fancy Goods, Draperies, Domestics, Etc.” Many Hink family members worked in the store, chief among them the founder’s son, Lester William Hink, who served as president of the company until 1976. The store was sold in 1978, a year after Lester’s death, and closed during the 1980s. 

Shortly after the hotel’s new wing was completed, Noah Gray left to manage the Claremont Hotel. His position at the Shattuck was eventually assumed by the former night clerk, William W. Whitecotton (1886–1933), who purchased the hotel in 1918, naming it after himself. Having also bought the Hotel Lankershim in Los Angeles, Whitecotton moved there in 1919. In 1926, he leased the Berkeley hotel to the newly formed Whitecotton Realty Company. Several months after his death in 1933, in the depth of the Great Depression, the company went into foreclosure. 

The bondholders reorganized a year later under the name Shattuck Properties Corporation, and in 1941 sold the hotel to Levi Strauss Realty Co., which in turn leased it to Wallace and Joan Miller of the Durant Hotel. Miller renamed it the Shattuck Hotel and moved the entrance from Shattuck Avenue to Allston Way. 

Since then, the hotel changed hands a number of times, undergoing periodic facelifts yet shedding its former glory. The current owner, BPR Properties of Palo Alto, is the latest operator promising to turn the faded dowager into a four-star hotel, but the promise comes with a price—a proposed 16-story tower in the rear. 

Berkeley watches and waits. 

 

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

 

Photogrraph: Daniella Thompson. 

The Shattuck Hotel today.


The Dilemma of a Pink Bathroom

By Jane Powell
Friday October 19, 2007

By Jane Powell 

 

Pink is not my favorite color. Perhaps it comes of being a redhead—while other little girls had pink frilly dresses, mine were always yellow. I do like many things that are pink: peppermint ice cream, cotton candy, flowers, and cat noses. But I do not care for pink tile. Unfortunately, pink tile, and sometimes pink fixtures, is found in many old houses, especially those built or remodeled between about 1925 and 1960. Pink is especially common in bathrooms, and that’s what I want to address here. 

In the late teens and early 1920s, color began to creep into previously all white, sanitary bathrooms. Initially it was only as a decorative border in the tile, and all else remained white. But the introduction of colored fixtures in 1926 (one of the colors was, of course, pink) ushered in an era of wildly colored tile and fixtures in bathrooms that lasted well into the 1950s. Some of these bathrooms were fabulous, with tile in colors like jadite green, lavender, peach, yellow, or black. Often featuring art tiles previously found only on fireplaces, or elaborate borders and combinations of three or four tile colors, some of which one would think could not possibly go together, make these some of the most fabulous bathrooms you’ll ever see.  

Some of them, however, were pink. Pink is actually okay with me, provided it is combined with another color, like green, or black. Even combined with blue it’s sort of okay. But in the 1940s and 1950s it was often combined with burgundy—doesn’t work for me. And by itself, yuck. The problem is, old tile was set on a mortar bed, and demolishing it is difficult, and not ecologically sound. (Archeologists don’t call ceramics pot shards for no reason—pottery really is forever.) And often the tile is actually in really good condition, and I hate to destroy stuff that’s in good condition, even if I don’t like it. So if you’re stuck with a pink bathroom, here are a few suggestions for dealing with it that don’t involve ripping the entire thing out. 

1. Go with it. Realize that pink does wonders for your skin tone. Get pink lightbulbs, pink soap, pink towels, pink bath rugs, pink accessories. Paint the walls a light tint of the tile color. Accessorize with pink flamingoes, pink elephants, pink poodles, or whatever else you can find. 

2. Hire a decorative artist to paint a very elaborate mural on the walls above the tiles- it should contain some pink to tie in, but it should be so elaborate that no one will even notice the tile. 

3. Add black. Some black towels, black bath rugs, a black border on the curtains, and some other black accessories, maybe the addition of an Art Deco style black porcelain sconce, and your bathroom has gone from merely pink to Art Deco fabulous. (I actually used this trick on a lemon yellow 1950s bathroom—it works.) 

4. If you can’t add black, try adding green. A pale green tint is the complementary color for pink, which is a tint of red (complementary colors are opposite each other on the color wheel). The green should help to tone down the pinkness a bit. 

 

5. If the fixtures are also pink, it is possible to have them “re-glazed.” Technically “re-glazing” is high-tech paint, and will last anywhere from five to fifteen years, but will eventually have to be re-done. There are several companies who offer this service, including Miracle Method, Porcelain Genie, and Mr. Bathtub (yeah, it’s MISTER Bathtub to you, bub). Look for companies in the Yellow Pages under bathtub refinishing. These companies can also change the color of the tile. Another option is a company called Re-Bath, which will cover your tub with an acrylic liner. “Re-glazing” will not work with a pink toilet- you’ll have to get a new one. Nor will it work on pink floor tiles. 

 

6. There is one kind of pink tile I find particularly obnoxious, and it was prevalent in the 1960s and 1970s. The worst part is, it’s still being made! The company that still makes it, B and W Tile, (www.bwtile.com) calls it Ripple. I call it scabrous. It’s a mottled, textured sort of tile, which comes in pink, yellow, light blue, or tan mottling on a white background, or the reverse, white mottling on pink or other colored backgrounds. It is beyond hideous, but not in a good way. It is the original tile in some mid-century houses (Eichlers, etc.), so I guess in those houses I could make an argument for leaving it. Otherwise, I give you permission to rip it out. 

 

Besides, there are things worse than a pink bathroom. I’ve seen bathrooms with fixtures that were pea soup green, and I’ve seen tile the color of refried beans. It makes pink seem tasteful. 

 

Jane Powell is a restoration consultant and the author of Bungalow Details: Interior. Contact her at hsedressng@aol.com 

 

 


Garden Variety: A Cultural Oasis in Southwest Berkeley

By Ron Sullivan
Friday October 19, 2007

I took it as a Sign when the postcard came to the surface last week as I was attempting to get the paper stack on the office floor into order: a postcard appeared on the surface. I’d probably picked it up at the big fat garden show in the Cow Palace last month. “Gardensia: Archipelago Designs” with a southwest Berkeley address.  

It’s in one of very few such neighborhoods we have left in town, part warehouses and the sort of activity that lands between art and manufacture, part homes in various states of overgrowth and gentrification, and an actual vacant lot or two. Very quiet on a football weekend. 

Joe and I were greeted in the best possible retail manner by Sekti Artanegara and Lisa Ho and, eventually, their engaging small daughter. By “best” I mean they allowed us to mosey around for a few minutes with just a “Let us know if you’d like help,” and a decent interval of privacy with their wonderful collection of artifacts.  

Ms. Ho appeared at my elbow just in time to answer the questions we’d accumulated. We’d seen lots of familiar South Asian Buddhas (including one with a bright lei) and stone dewis and frogs but were stopped cold before several wooden doors with wonderful carvings, including a small one fronted by a man rampant atop a water buffalo’s head and holding a rooster.  

No mistaking what that is about, and indeed it’s from a granary and is one of several fertility wishes gathered in the shop. If I were of childbearing age I’d’ve doubled my protection after the visit.  

There are enough Indonesian spirit houses from birdhouse-sized to over six feet and two stories tall, the latter with imposing toupees of black palm fiber and maybe a gilded crest on top. There are carved housepoles and demon guardians—I’m heading there if there’s a quake, as it must be the safest place in town—and crests from Dayak, Timorese, and other rarely seen cultures of the Indonesian archipelago and its neighbors.  

Joe likes the Dayak sculptures with hornbill motifs: “Hornbills, large-ish tropical birds, usually sport bony casques above their beaks, carved as “hornbill ivory.” Only Dayak warriors who had taken a head were allowed to wear hornbill-ivory earrings. 

“The Iban Hornbill Festival used to precede headhunting raids; nowadays it’s held during the rice harvest. Hornbills transport the souls of the Iban dead to heaven. The Barito Dayak group see the rhinoceros hornbill as the upperworld god who, collaborating with the underworld dragon, created of the Tree of Life. 

“Hornbills are known for their unorthodox nesting behavior. A female walls herself into a tree cavity with mud and other substances, leaving only a narrow slit to receive food from her mate, and stays there until her offspring are ready to fledge. I don’t know what the Dayaks made of that, if anything. Caution: this is not a metaphor. Just a bird.” 

I like the natural sculptures—polished freestanding lianas, tree-root bowls, and wonderfully eroded teak railroad ties stood on end.  

Evidently most of Gardenisia’s customers are landscapers and architects. Why let them keep it a secret? Go visit! 

 

 

Gardenisia: Archipelago Designs 

2820—A 8th Street, Berkeley 

665-5500 

www.gardenisia.com 

11 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily


Quake Tip of the Week: A Big Quake and Your Phone

By Larry Guillot
Friday October 19, 2007

After the next big quake, if your phones work, use the phone and not your car! A few tips: 

• Change your voice mail message to state that you are safe  

• Before the quake, make sure that all your family knows a single relative or friend who lives outside California that you can contact to say you are fine. This way, fewer calls are needed on jammed “in-State”phone lines.  

• You may have to wait a bit longer for dial tone after a quake. Be patient. Don't just hang up and try again.  

• Keep change or a pre-paid phone card in your wallet. 

Make 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.


About the House: The Integral Urban House Book

By Matt Cantor
Friday October 19, 2007

Well, it’s happened! I’ve started a garden. Put up those slam-dancing shoes, shelved all the accouterments of an angry youth; frayed journal full of bad poetry (so bad), conga drums and King Crimson albums (in vinyl, yet!). I’m growing lettuce! 

Worse, I’m planning a chicken coop. This is not a joke. Punk rockers and American Otaku (geeks like me) everywhere will mourn. But fear not. I’m in the midst of a special sort of mid-life crisis. The resurgence of a youth mis-spent in eco-hippie-architecture school. Like a suppressed memory, all the things of my architecture wanna-be youngsterhood are coming back and it’s all Sim Van der Ryn’s fault. 

In 1969, Sim, now a professor of many years at U.C. Berkeley founded (along with urban gardeners Bill and Helga Olkowski among others) the Farallones Institute. Within a few years this long-haired band of eco-warriors had acquired a victorian in West Berkeley (5th Street near Jones if memory serves) and began a series of experiments in sustainable urban living. The toilet, a Clivus Multrum, was my favorite of the many living experiments.  

Sim had published a book on toilets (The Toilet Papers: Recycling Waste and Conserving Water Ecological Design Press) and their ecological problem in the 1970s and the ultimate emotional challenge to our conception of shelter was to toss the toilet back out of the house (it only made it inside about 60 years earlier). The Clivus was a composting toilet built largely of concrete block that would, over a course of months, turn human waste into useable compost, although they felt it best to use it in non-edible gardening. I have little doubt that the city inspectors were apoplectic over the installation of the Clivus. 

The house also featured bee keeping, chicken farming and a rabbit hutch. Food waste was used to feed animals and eventually, animals became food. This was much more than architecture. It was a revision in how we looked at city living. The idea that we could live rarefied existences, divorced of the impact of our actions, of the sources of our food, water and energy were tossed out. Social responsibility was brought home to roost, as it were. Of course, if you were Amish, this was no big deal. They and many like them had been doing this for a long time.  

Nonetheless, the ‘50s had taught Americans that we could consume as hungrily as we pleased and never look to see where the sewer dumped out. 

As one might imagine the house also featured intensive recycling, remodeling using scrap materials and water, heated with solar panels. Cooking was sometimes done with a solar oven and fish were grown in a small pond in the backyard, assisted by the wind through the use of a Savonius Rotor, a home-made wind turbine constructed from 55 gallon drums. I’ll stop but I think you get the point.  

A book was born alongside the house called, not surprisingly, the Integral Urban House (Sierra Club Books 1979). The book is currently out of print but enough calls to the publisher and I’m sure we can get it brought back. What’s particularly intriguing about this book is that it’s not just a study of ecological living, rather, it is a how-to, replete with diagrams on how to terminate a bunny, keep bees and build your own solar water heating panels. 

During these giddy years, Sim was elevated to the post of California State Architect by our then, Hippie-in-Chief, Governor Jerry Brown (‘75-‘83). 

Brown, a Jesuit seminarian at 20, dropped out, tuned in and turned onto politics, following in his father’s footsteps (“Pat” Brown) as the bleary ‘60s became the bold ‘70s.  

When Jerry became governor in ‘74 (succeeding Reagan, thank Lord Shiva), he brought with him a dedication to the environment and an fervor for democracy beyond anything this state had probably ever seen. Gov. Brown created an office of appropriate technology (yes, this is the past, not the future) and appointed James (“J”) Baldwin to run it.  

Baldwin was a student of Buckminster Fuller and an industrial designer who had made a name for himself in environmental design employing the new “alterative” energies of sun and wind. Baldwin also worked for Steward Brand’s Whole Earth Catalogue. Brand was plucked by Brown to function as special adviser in his administration, further psychedelisizing his already severely “Moon-beamed” gubernatorial oeuvre.  

As creator of the Whole Earth Catalogue and later the CoEvolution Quarterly, Brand sought to make information accessible to the masses at a time when “internet” was as yet unuttered by anyone. In fact, Brand was a founding member of the well (a very early electronic bulletin board), the first two letters of which mean … Whole Earth (the last two mean ‘Lectronic Link). Pretty cool, eh. 

These years were ones in which environmental standards, energy standards and handicapped standards for building took tremendous strides… but this is all 30 years ago. 

Though we continue to make progress on the backs of these important innovators, I’m concerned that consumerism and complacency have replaced zeal and moral drive. If we can set construction aside for a moment, let’s take a look at cars.  

I’m sure many of you have noticed that the excitement around improved gas mileage in the 1970’s has fallen fairly flat on it’s face. Every Hummer I see reminds me that Americans once again care more about the look-good than they do about the planet. 

Even the best of our leaders are forced to talk about “energy independence” or “energy security” as a way of inducing reforms, since it’s just too “moon-beam” (that’s what right-wingers called Jerry during his governorship) to say that we need to reduce our oil consumption for the longevity of the ecosphere. I guess that’s too sissy. 

Similarly, the Altamont Wind Farm, started under Brown, sat almost lifeless for most of the Deukmejian and Wilson administrations. Only now, are they once again being upgraded to larger, safer and more effective units, while Germany (6 percent wind power) and Holland (18.5 percent) kick our Eco-butts. How’s that for “energy security?”  

I tend to think that these countries are: a) very interested in the future of their people and b) invested in living on a planet with a similar ecosystem in 100 years. I’m pretty sure that these are not major objectives in the U.S. halls of power.  

But, as usual, I digress. Sim Van der Ryn and his earnest colleagues have moved on to other places now doing other things and sadly, the Integral Urban House is now… just a house. The experiment could not sustain itself and I guess we all had to take the blue pill and go back to making believe that everything would continue to be fine no matter how we lived, who we killed or how much oil we burned. (For those who’ve never seen The Matrix, the protagonist is offered the chance to wake up to the truth by taking a red pill or go back into his waking sleep by taking a blue one). 

Used copies of the IUH book can still be found (ISBN 0871562138) and it’s just about as exciting and challenging to our way of life today as it was 28 years ago. Copies are available at several of those nasty online places (I just checked) and, if you search, you might just find a local bookseller that’s got one as well. 

Our lettuce is coming up nicely and it’s surprising how touching and beautiful it is to pick some leaves from the garden, go upstairs and share a meal. The coop is still in design phase but it’ll come, as will the chickens. I’m not sure how I feel about bees but I like honey so I’ll have to think about it. This is adult stuff. Like G.W. says, it’s “hard work” and it takes time to bring myself to it.  

I’m lazy, scared and doubtful but I am certain that small acts do matter. So if you’ll excuse me, I need to find something to drink. These red pills are pretty nasty if you don’t have something to wash them down with. 

 

Got a question about home repairs and inspections? Send them to Matt Cantor at mgcantor@pacbell.net.


Column: The Public Eye: Exploring the Politics of Trust

By Bob Burnett
Tuesday October 16, 2007

Most Americans don’t trust their government. A recent Gallup poll found “Americans generally express less trust in the federal government than at any point in the past decade, and trust in many federal government institutions is now lower than it was during the Watergate era.” Only 43 percent of poll respondents trust President Bush and 50 percent do not trust Congress. 

After Iraq, healthcare, and the economy, Americans rank lack of trust in their government as the number four problem facing the United States. Specific reasons include: “Congress not doing anything” (9 percent), “Government has wrong priorities” (8 percent), “[President] Bush is doing a poor job” (8 percent), “Corruption/scandals in government/lack of ethics” (5 percent), and “Political leaders not working together/bickering/too partisan” (3 percent). Over the past twelve months, the trust issue has gradually gained importance and now outranks immigration, education, and global climate change, among others. 

Two-thirds of Americans say they are “dissatisfied with the way America is being governed”—the highest dissatisfaction rating in 34 years. However, there’s a striking difference in level of satisfaction based on party affiliation: only 18 percent of Democrats and independents are satisfied, compared to 63 percent of Republicans. 

What impact will this sharply divided perspective have on the outcome of the 2008 election? Will the fact that President Bush and the GOP are viewed negatively by two-thirds of Americans translate into a Democratic landslide? Or will lack of trust in the Bush Administration be mediated by the fact that many Americans aren’t satisfied with the Democratically controlled Congress, either?  

Democratic strategists believe the trust issue will work in their favor. The latest poll results indicate that 53 percent of respondents have a favorable opinion of Democrats compared to only 38 percent who view Republicans positively. Based upon this “favorability gap,” many Democratic leaders predict a blue landslide in 2008 when Democrats will capture the White House and win big majorities in the House and Senate. 

However, judging from the sentiments expressed by left-coast Democratic activists, Democratic leaders may be underestimating the extent of deep-blue discontent. Many long-time Democrats are deeply disturbed by what they feel is a betrayal of trust by some Democratic leaders: in 2006 these loyalists worked hard to ensure Democratic victories in the House and Senate believing Dems would use their new legislative power to stop the war. And they haven’t.  

These feelings of betrayal are not limited to the war in Iraq. In a July Gallup Poll 36 percent of respondents thought Congress should institute impeachment proceedings against the President. Most poll participants judged Bush on his conduct of the Iraq war, but a significant percentage described him as someone who lies, doesn’t listen, and has no regard for the Constitution. These strong feelings about the President haven’t gone away. But over the last ten months, many deep-blue activists stuffed their desire for impeachment after Democratic leaders told them, in effect, that Congress could only do one thing at a time: focus on impeachment or stop the war. They gritted their teeth and said: Okay. As long as you stop this awful war, we’ll give up our call for impeachment.  

But Democrats haven’t stopped the war. Now, many loyalists feel their leaders played them for fools. As a result, they don’t trust Congress. 

The trust issue could have several different impacts on the 2008 election. It’s likely to affect voter turnout: in the 2004 election, only 61 percent of eligible voters actually cast a ballot. There could be an even lower turnout in 2008, as more Americans see their vote as meaningless and complain: I don’t trust politicians; there’s no difference between the two parties. 

There’s likely to be an impact on fundraising. Even though Republicans doggedly support President Bush, GOP fundraising lags behind that of Democrats. At the moment, Democrats have raised 50 percent more than have Republicans. If this trend continues, Dems should pick up at least four more seats in both the House and Senate. 

However, the trust issue could also have a negative impact on Democratic fundraising. Many disaffected deep-blue activists threaten to change the pattern of their donations: rather than give to umbrella organizations such as the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) or the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC), there’s talk they will only fund candidates who voted to stop the war. That means for example, they would send money to Congresswoman Barbara Lee or her PAC that supports antiwar candidates. It means they would not send money to the re-election campaign of Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu, one of the most conservative of Democratic Senators. On the other hand, the deep-blue activists would support Congressman Tom Allen in his bid to win the Senate seat in Maine because he is reliably anti-war. 

It’s clear Americans are dissatisfied with their national government and don’t trust the leaders of either party. It remains to be seen how this will affect the 2008 election, but it’s an issue that’s unlikely to go away. 

 

 

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


Wild Neighbors: Birds in Winter: Charles Keeler and the Summer Warbler

By Joe Eaton
Tuesday October 16, 2007

If you want to look back at changes in Berkeley’s bird life over the last century, the work of Charles Augustus Keeler provides a convenient benchmark. I have a battered library-discard copy of his Bird Notes Afield, the second edition, published in 1907. Keeler notes in a preface that the bird collection of the California Academy of Sciences, where he did his research, had been a casualty of the San Francisco quake and fire the year before. 

Keeler is an obscure figure today, known primarily to architecture buffs. He gave Bernard Maybeck his first commission, and the resulting Keeler Cottage still stands on Highland Place in North Berkeley. Around the turn of the last century, though, Charles Keeler was prominent in Bay Area literary and artistic circles. 

Born in Milwaukee, he moved here with his family in 1887, attended UC (but didn’t graduate), and landed a job with the Academy. But he saw himself as more poet than scientist, publishing several volumes of poems and plays. A Simple Home (1904) made him a leading voice of the Arts and Crafts movement. 

A friend of John Muir and early member of the Sierra Club, Keeler also founded and presided over the Hillside Club, ran the Berkeley Chamber of Commerce, and organized the Baha’i-influenced First Berkeley Cosmic Society. He had met Muir on the 1899 Harriman Expedition to Alaska, whose complement also included the naturalist John Burroughs, the artist Louis Agassiz Fuertes, and the photographer Edward S. Curtis. 

However, this is about Keeler as a nature writer. His work requires a bit of translation, because so many of the common names of Bay Area birds have changed since the 1900s. Bird Notes Afield is full of varied robins (now varied thrushes), pileolated warblers (Wilson’s), russet-backed thrushes (Swainson’s), and the like.  

Like many of his contemporaries, he wasn’t afraid to anthropomorphize his subjects. Of the varied thrush, he wrote: 

“Some deep, brooding sorrow seems to have fallen upon it to quench its song and leave it meditative and lonely.” The junco, in contrast, is “exceptionally bright and cheerful,” the house wren is “jolly,” and the western scrub-jay is “happy-go-lucky.” But Keeler doesn’t seem to have gone as far as his contemporaries who were lambasted as “nature fakers” by Theodore Roosevelt. 

What interests me most, though, is which birds he considered common, and which he didn’t mention at all. Keeler’s Berkeley had no crows, no ravens, no chestnut-backed chickadees, no Nuttall’s woodpeckers. He treats western bluebirds as frequent winter visitors, and lark-finches (lark sparrows) as routine spring nesters. 

Then there’s this: “The lovely little summer warbler … with its fine gold plumage faintly streaked on the breast with reddish brown, and its vivacious crescendo song, is a familiar summer resident here”—“here” meaning Berkeley. That would be the yellow warbler. And it seems to have remained a familiar urban or suburban bird at least into the 1920s: Joseph Grinnell and Margaret Wythe, in their 1927 Directory to the Bird-life of the San Francisco Bay Region, call it a “common summer resident throughout the region” that “often makes its home in orchards and shade trees in city parks and gardens.” 

That has definitely changed. I’m accustomed to seeing yellow warblers in my yard during migration, but over a couple of decades in Berkeley I’ve never detected a singing male during the breeding season, or any other indicator of nesting. This species prefers riparian habitat, and there’s not a lot of that left in the Bay Area. 

It has also suffered from nest parasitism by the brown-headed cowbird, a Great Plains bird that first showed up here around the 1920s. Like cuckoos, cowbirds dump their eggs in the nests of hosts, who rear the alien hatchling as if it were their own. In populations that co-evolved with cowbirds, yellow warblers either desert the parasitized nest or roof over the cowbird egg (along with any of their own) and start a new clutch. Naïve California warblers have no such instinctive defenses.  

But it seems the warblers are still around, in small numbers. The Contra Costa Breeding Bird Atlas, online at www.flyingemu.com/ccosta, shows nesting confirmed in two survey blocks just north and east of Berkeley, and possible in two others in the East Bay Hills. Elsewhere around the Bay, yellow warblers are uncommon nesters in Marin County and appear to be holding their own in Sonoma and Napa. 

Although there have been other losses since Keeler’s time, there have also been gains. Grinnell and Wythe were pessimistic: “On the whole, it looks as though the total number of species in the Bay region at the present time were undergoing decided reduction, due in major part to the elimination of habitats of wide diversity or of productive kinds.” What actually happened between 1927 and 2007 would have surprised them. More next time.  

 

Joe Eaton’s “Wild Neighbors” column appears every other Tuesday in the Berkeley Daily Planet, alternating with Ron Sullivan’s “Green Neighbors” column on East Bay trees. 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Arts & Events

Arts Calendar

Friday October 19, 2007

FRIDAY, OCT. 19 

THEATER 

Actors Ensemble of Berkeley “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m. at Live Oak Theater, 1301 Shattuck Ave., through Nov. 17. 525-1620. 

Altarena Playhouse “Morning’s at Seven” A family comedy by Paul Osborn Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 p.m. at Altarena Playhouse, 1409 High St., Alameda, through Nov. 11. Tickets are $17-$20. 523-1553.  

Central Works “Every Inch a King” Thurs.-Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 5 p.m. at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant Ave., through Nov. 18. Tickets are $9-$25. 558-1381. centralworks.org 

“A Shirtwaist Tale” on American labor history, American women’s suffrage, and American Jewish history, Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m. at Humanist Hall, 390 27th St., Oakland. Suggested donation $20. http://ashirtwaisttale.com  

Ragged Wing Ensemble “Alice in Wonderland” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m. at Envision Academy, 1515 Webster St., Oakland. 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. 841-6500.  

Women’s Will “Antigone” Fri.-Sun. at 8 p.m. at Temescal Arts Center, 511 48th St. between Telegraph and Shattuck, Oakland, through Nov. 11. Tickets are $15-$25 sliding scale. 420-0813.  

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. 

“Deadly Deviant” Mixed media exhibit celebrating Halloween and Day of the Dead. Opening reception at 7 p.m. at Eclectix Gallery, 7523 Fairmount Ave., El Cerrito. www.eclectixgallery.com 

FILM 

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

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Carl Bernstein discusses “A Woman in Charge: The Life of Hillary Rodham Clinton” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Book. 559-9500.  

Tim Maleeny reads from “Beating the Babushka” at 5:30 p.m. at Dark Carnival, 3086 Claremont Ave. 654-7323.  

“Chinese Opera and the Life of Mei Lanfang” A symposium from 1 to 4 p.m. at the Institute of East Asian Studies, 2223 Fulton St. Free.  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

John Ulloa, CD release party, at 9 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $12. 849-2568.  

Guangzhou Ballet of China at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $32-$68. 642-9988.  

Medicine Ball Band at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island. Cost is $12. 841-JAZZ.  

The Stir Ensemble of Chicago at 8 p.m. at Free-Jazz Fridays at the Jazz House, 1510 8th St., Oakland. Cost is $5-$15. 415-846-9432. 

Reggae Angels, Mo’Rockin Project at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $15. 525-5054.  

Sheldon Brown Group at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $15. 845-5373. 

The Rockits, Berkeley rock, at 8 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave. 548-5198.  

Reilly & Maloney at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $22.50-$23.50. 548-1761.  

Elizabeth August at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe. 595-5344.  

Fuzzy Cousins, Invincible Czars, Mojow & the Vibration Army at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $6. 841-2082.  

Batch & Ras Attitude, Zioneers, Malika Madremana & The Greensphere Band at 9 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low. Cost is $12-$15. 548-1159.  

Times 4 at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 843-8277. 

David Sanchez at 8 and 10 p.m., through Sun. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $14-$20. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

SATURDAY, OCT. 20 

CHILDREN  

Los Amiguitos de La Peña with Derique, the high tech clown, at 10:30 a.m. at La Peña. Cost is $5 for adults, $4 for children. 849-2568.  

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

EXHIBITIONS 

Celebrating Plein Air Landscape in California Works by 25 prominent Bay Area artists on display Sat. and Sun. from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. at the Hillside Club, 2286 Cedar St. 848-3227. www.hillsideclub.org 

Tea Pot Show Works by members of the Potters’ Studio in celebration of their 35th Anniversary. Sat. and Sun. from 11:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. at 637 Cedar St. 528-3286. 

Native American Doll Maker Mercilla Comacho displays her pow wow dancer dolls Sat. from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Sun. from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Gathering Tribes, 1573 Solano Ave. 528-9038. 

“Masks of Africa” from the collection of Hogan Edet and Judah Dwyer. Opening reception at 6 p.m. at Float Gallery, 1091 Calcot Place, Unit #116, Oakland. www.thefloatcenter.com 

FILM 

“Seven Chances” with Judith Rosenberg on piano at 3 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $5.50-$9.50. 642-0808.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Rajiv Chandrasekharan describes “Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq’s Green Zone” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. 

Mark Wilson on “Julia Morgan: Architect of Beauty” at 7 p.m. at Chapel of the Chimes, 4499 Piedmont Ave., Oakland. RSVP to 228-3207. 

Alice Medrich describes “Pure Dessert: True Falvors, Inspiring Ingredients, and Simple Recipes” at 4 p.m. at Mrs. Dalloways, 2904 College Ave. 704-8222. 

Rhythm & Muse featuring poet Garrett Murphy at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Art Center, 1275 Walnut St. 644-6893.  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

San Francisco Early Music Society The New Esterhazy Quartet performs A Haydn Quartet Dateline of Early America at 8 p.m. at St. John's Presbyterian Church, 2727 College at Garber. Tickets are $10-$25. 528-1725. www.sfems.org 

Guangzhou Ballet of China at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $32-$68. 642-9988.  

Oakland Ballet “Oakland Ballet Company Returns” at 2 and 8 p.m. at Paramount Theater, 2025 Broadway, Oakland. Tickets are $15-$50. 465-6400. 

The Palmer-Cogan Duo with flutist Kris Palmer and pianist Dmitriy Cogan at 8 p.m. at Trinity Chapel, 2320 Dana St. Tickets are $8-$12. 549-3864.  

Broceliande’s Autumnal Celebration House Concert at 8 p.m. in Piedmont. To RSVP and for location call 569-0437. 

Soul Summer Night at the Museum with Oakland School for the Arts, Renee Neufville, Stabe Wilson at 8 p.m. at Oakland Museum, 1000 Oak St. Cost is $25. 629-4139. 

Vicki Randle from the band of the Tonight Show benefit concert for the Pacific Center, a LGBT Community Center at 8 p.m. at Left Coast Cyclery, 2928 Domingo Ave. Tickets are $20. 204-8552.  

Skylar at noon at Cafe Zeste, 1250 Addison St. at Bonar. 704-9378. 

The KTO Project at 9 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $15. 849-2568.  

Ellen Robinson & Her Trio at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $12. 841-JAZZ.  

The Unreal Band, Pat Quinn Tribute at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $13. 525-5054.  

Mario DeSio, Daivid Gans and Ira Marlowe at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344.  

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

Larry Stefl Jazz Group at 9:30 p.m. at Albatross, 1822 San Pablo Ave. Cost is $5. 843-2473. 

Eddie Marshall & Holy Mischief at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $15-$18. 845-5373. 

Zoyres, Samvega at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $TBA. 841-2082.  

Bag O’ Goodies at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 843-8277. 

Howdy, rockabilly, bluegrass, at 9 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810. 

David Sanchez at 8 and 10 p.m., through Sun. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $14-$20. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

SUNDAY, OCT. 21 

THEATER 

“By George, It’s War!” A musical satarization of the Bush administration by Dale Polissar at 7:30 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $18-$20. 849-2568. 

EXHIBITIONS 

“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. 

Richard Whittaker and Rue Harrison Photographs and Drawings. Reception at 4 p.m. at The LightRoom, 2263 Fifth St. 649-8111. 

“Celebrating the Fabric of Our Lives” A presentation and exhibition of quilts from 2 to 4 p.m. at Salem Lutheran Home, 2361 East 29th St., Oakland. 534-3637. 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Orhan Pamuk reads from “Other Colors: Essays and A Story” at 7 p.m. at First Congregational Church of Berkeley, 2345 Channing Way. Donations accepted. 559-9500. 

Asian American Poetry Now at 3 p.m. at Berkeley Art Museum, 2626 Bancroft. Cost is $5.50-$9.50. 642-0808. 

An Afternoon with Danny Lyon, documentary photographer and filmmaker at 3:30 p.m., UC Campus. Cost is $12. For reservations see www.fotovision.org 

Leslie Piels and Ann Leyhe describe “Succulents for Containers” at 4 p.m. at Mrs. Dalloways, 2904 College Ave. 704-8222. 

Ayamanatara reads from “365 Days to Enlightenment” at noon at All About Eve, 862 San Pablo Ave., Albany. 559-9901. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Community Music Day at Crowden Music Center, with the San Francisco Chamber Orchestra, from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Free. ccmc@crowden.org 

Live Oak Concert with Marvin Sanders, flute and Lena Lubotsky, piano, at 7:30 p.m. at Berkeley Art Center, 1275 Walnut St. Cost is $10. 644-6893. www.berkeleyartcenter.org 

California Bach Society performs Handel “For the Duke of Chandos” at 4 p.m. at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, 2300 Bancroft at Ellsworth. Tickets are $10-$25. 415-262-0272. www.calbach.org 

Davitt Moroney, 16th Century English Keyboard music at 4 p.m. at St. John's Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. Tickets are $20. 854-6830. 

Guangzhou Ballet of China at 3 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $32-$68. 642-9988.  

Otro Mundo & Agresi Boss in a benefit for Hurricane Felix survivors in Nicaragua from 4 to 7 p.m. at Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists Hall, 1924 Cedar St. Suggested donation $10-$20. 644-0323. 

The Mo’Rockin Project at Jazz at the Chimes at 2 p.m. at Chapel of the Chimes, 4499 Piedmont Ave., Oakland. Tickets are $10 for concert and reception. 228-3218. 

The Very Hot Club at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761.  

Crotty/Phipps/Corman Trio at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $10. 841-JAZZ.  

Trick Kernan Combo at 11 a.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344.  

Americana Unplugged: Claudia Russel at 5 p.m. at Jupiter. 843-8277. 

William Beatty and The Unconditionals at 6:30 p.m. at The Mt. Everest Restaurant 2011 Shattuck Ave. at University. 665-6035.  

CDQ+2 at 4:30 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $12-$18. 845-5373. www.jazzschool.com 

MONDAY, OCT. 22 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Linda Spalding describes “Who Named the Knife: A Book of Murder and Mystery” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books. 559-9500. 

Patrick Durgin, Jen Hofer, Dolores Dorantes and Jesse Seldess read at 7:30 p.m. at Moe’s Books, 2476 Telegraph Ave. 849-2087. 

Poetry Express with Steve Arntsen at 7 p.m., at Priya Restaurant, 2072 San Pablo Ave. 644-3977. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Musica ha Disconnesso, traditional Italian music, at 7 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

Kurt Ribak, jazz, at 7 p.m. at Le Bateau Ivre, 2629 Telegraph Ave. 849-1100.  

Barbara Morrison at 8 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $16. 238-9200.  

TUESDAY, OCT. 23 

FILM 

“Free Radical: The Films of Len Lye” at 7:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $5.50-$9.50. 642-0808.  

Arab Film Festival Leila Khaled: “Hijacker” Screening and panel discussion at 7 p.m. on UC Campus. Tickets are $8-$10. For details see www.aff.org 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Poetry Flash with Alta Ifland and Gary Young at 7:30 p.m. at Berkeley City College auditorium, 2050 Center St. 525-5476. 

Norman Soloman talks about his new documentary “War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death” and his new book “Made Love, Got War: Close Encounters with America’s Warfare State” at 7:30 p.m. at Moe’s Books, 2476 Telegraph Ave. 849-2087. 

“East Wind Melts the Ice: A Memoir through the Seasons” A conversation with author Liza Dalby at 5:30 p.m. at University Press Books, 2430 Bancroft Way. 548-0585.  

“The Ecstasy of Influence” Local writers try out new material at 7:30 p.m. at Laurel Bookstore, 4100 MacArthur Blvd., Oakland. 531-2073. 

Katha Pollitt talks about “Learning to Drive: And Other Life Stories” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Mariza, Mozambique-born fado singer, at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $24-$46. 642-9988.  

Swamp Coolers at 8:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cajun dance lesson at 8 p.m. Cost is $10. 525-5054. 

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

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

George Cotsirilos Trio at 7 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave. 548-5198.  

Dafnis Prieto Absolute Quintet at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $8-$16. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

WEDNESDAY, OCT. 24 

FILM 

Arab Film Festival in Berkeley Wed., and Fri.-Sun. at California Theater, 2113 Kittredge St. Tickets are $8-$10. www.aff.org 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

A.J. Jacobs describes “The Year of Living Biblically: One Man’s Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible” at 7:30 p.m. at First Congregational Church of Berkeley, 2345 Channing Way. Donations accepted. 559-9500. 

“Writing Teachers Write” Monthly student/teacher reading series at 5 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

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

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Oakland East Bay Symphony Brass Quintet at noon at Oakland City Center, 12th and Broadway. www.oaklandcitycenter.com 

Music for the Spirit with Ron McKean on harpsichord at 12:15 p.m. at First Presbyterian Church of Oakland, 2619 Broadway. 444-3555. 

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

Bernard Anderson & the Old School Band at 8 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $10. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

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

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

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

Catie Curtis, Rachel Garlin at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $21.50-$22.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Montclair Women’s Big Band at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $10-$15. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

THURSDAY, OCT. 25 

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. 

THEATER 

“By George, It’s War!” A musical satarization of the Bush administration by Dale Polissar at 7:30 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $18-$20. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Richard Schwartz describes “The Eccentrics of 19th Century Downtown Berkeley” at 7:30 p.m. at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant Ave. Reception to follow. Tickets are $15. Sponsored by Berkeley Architectural Heritage Assoc. 841-2242. www.berkeleyheritage.com 

Gail Tsukiyama reads from “The Street of a Thousand Blossoms” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. 

“Words of Hope” A discussion led by Stop the Traffik featuring the book “Global Sex Workers: Rights, Resistance, and Redefinition” at 5:30 p.m. at University Press Books, 2430 Bancroft Way. 548-0585. www.universitypressbooks.com 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Catie Curtis, Rachel Garlin at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $21.50-$22.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

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

Laura Klein and Ted Wolff at 7 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave. 548-5198.  

Redhouse, Ancient Mystic & the Real Far Band at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $6. 841-2082. 

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

New York Voices at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $18-$22. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com


The Theater: Murakami’s ‘After the Quake’ at Berkeley Rep

By Ken Bullock, Special to the Planet
Friday October 19, 2007

Beneath a massive red crossbeam spanning two posts like an arch, a young Asian man is telling a bright little girl a story—it could be a bedtime story—about “the all-time number one honeybear” in the mountains of Japan, as low music from a koto player and a cellist flows around and through their words. 

The little girl interrupts, inquisitively: So this bear’s different from the others?—and her storyteller agrees, adding that new wrinkle to the tale he seems to be shaping on the spot. 

But after the little girl’s gone to bed, her mother, old classmate of the storyteller, talks about her bad dreams since the earthquake, how she’s afraid of “The Earth-quake Man,” who wants to stuff her and everybody else in town into a box.  

The storyteller, who answers a question about his work with, “Like always, I write ’em, they print ’em, and nobody reads ’em—the short story’s on its way out, like the slide rule,” on finding himself alone, everybody asleep, immediately begins a tall tale about a frog, who quotes Hemingway and Conrad, enlisting a nondescript Shin-juku banker to help him fight a giant, angry worm in his lair beneath Tokyo, in a last-ditch attempt to save the metropolis from a fatal temblor. 

So the origami-like folds-within-folds of storytelling expand outward, accordion-like, plot flopping over and enveloping previous plots, as Frank Galati’s adaptation of raconteurish Japanese author Haruki Muri-kami’s whimsical yet pointed After the Quake spins out on the Thrust Stage at Berkeley Rep. 

As the bedtime tale of the honeybear begets a planned trip to the zoo to see a real bear, then jumps the tracks and merges, somehow, with the ongoing and cartoonish “Superfrog Saves Tokyo” improvisation, the third dimension is filled in with intermittent flashbacks from the storyteller’s autobiography. Appropriately, for a third line intersecting the other two, is the familiar tale of two dissimilar school chums in love with the same girl, whom the brasher one marries while the three remain fast friends.  

All three tales alternate, like syncopations in the background string duet, as the motifs from each become familiar in the others, accents shifting from fantasy to memory to the equally fictive story of the present. 

The adaptor, long a Steppenwolf Theatre Company associate (perhaps best known as co-author with Laurence Kasdan of the screenplay for The Accidental Tourist), directs the sharp, skillful cast with a light touch, rendering the spot-on timing necessary to keep the interlocking Chinese box puzzle of the plot moving never facile nor cloying, the changes between tales adroit, the switches of character fluid and unobtrusive. The word-for-word style self-narration of characters from the expository prose (like read-aloud stage directions) of the book is simple but dramatically viable as they act out, yet talk their way through, illusion and reality. 

Hanson Tse as Junpei the storyteller and Jennifer Shin as Sayoko and a nurse both do a fine, sensitive job portraying their characters, as does Gemma Madison Logan V. Phan, alternating with Gemma Megumi Fa-Kaji, as little Sala. Keong Sim as the bookending Narrator of the whole compound tale, as well as (just plain) Frog, and Paul H. Juhn as the brash jock-turned-cynical-city-desk-reporter as well as the colorless banker prove remarkable in both quick-change artistry and comic timing. 

Murakami’s story, taken from two episodes in his novel of the same name, comes off a little bit like a simpler version of Flannery O’Brien’s At-Swim-Two-Birds, a pioneer of self-cannibalizing tales about voracious narratives and their unassuming, escapist storytellers. 

Murakami, son of a pair of Japanese literature teachers, who describes refined Japanese prose as “a kind of bonsai,” was heavily influenced by the shiny surface of postwar American popular culture and its loner individualism. Galati and other non-Japanese adherents to his fiction seem to regard him a little bit like a postmodern J. D. Salinger, a Japanese group-conscious, overly socialized Everyman embroiled with his subconscious in translation to the literalistic, storytelling stage. 

James Schuette’s set adds to the sense of action and overarching reverie, just as the compositions of Andre Pluess and Ben Sussman underpin both moods and modes, as played by cellist Jason McDermott and Jeff Wichman on koto—though there’s maybe a little too much of “Norwegian Wood” as leitmotif, the title of one of Murakami’s books, as well as The Beatles’ knowing number. 

 

AFTER THE QUAKE 

Through Nov. 25 at the Berkeley Rep,  

2025 Addison St. 647-2900. 


The Theater: Woman’s Will Presents Wellman’s ‘Antigone’

By Ken Bullock, Special to the Planet
Friday October 19, 2007

“It’s kind of Antigone In Wonderland,” said Erin Merritt, founder of Woman’s Will, the Oakland-based all-female Shakespeare and classics troupe (who nonetheless have staged Brecht-Weill’s Happy End and Oscar Wilde’s The Important of Being Earnest), about its Bay Area premiere of contemporary playwright Mac Wellman’s Antigone, opening this week at the Temescal Arts Center on Tele-graph in North Oak-land. 

Familiar to most from school, where Sophocles’ original tragedy ranks with his Oedipus Rex as probably the most fa-miliar of classic plays, Wellman’s version seems to be the least faithful—at least on the surface—to the ancient text of all the many adaptations (including those by Brecht, Anouilh and Cocteau) penned over the past two millenia.  

“From the audience, it looks totally different,” said Merritt. “The same classical structure is there, but the characters from the original are hardly ever glimpsed. Wellman has it as the Three Fates, like three schoolgirls, playacting Antigone’s story as they spin it out, using this play-within-a-play as the springboard for the Three Fates to become the Three Graces.” 

Wellman, also a novelist and poet, whose work has been characterized as “pulverizing the syntax of traditional theater” and not to be “summarized or translated into any other medium,” deals with logic and illogic and the shifting nature of ordinary language in trying to deal with the great questions of identity, community, law and justice, that sense of nonsense being another point of comparison with Lewis Carroll’s sublime dream-tale. 

“Most storytelling is horizontal,” Merritt said, “from point to point, episodes on a timeline. Wellman’s is vertical—it’s several stories, all at once, stacked on top of each other. Like in a dream, it makes sense while it’s happening, but it can be hard to decipher later. So we’re asking audiences to stay for a talkback after every show, to collaborate with us by telling what they saw. Everybody always sees things differently, anyway. It’s a really heady piece. Those who’ve taken philosophy classes will get references to the centuries-long logical arguments in the play, but everybody, including kids, will enjoy seeing it, just as a piece of fun.” 

He said crossword puzzle solvers and game players will love it.  

“It uses logic and illogic to create an alternative reality, to push past the ordinary into the wonderful—and we stage that by juggling different genres and metaphors,” he said. “We have sort of a rave aesthetic.” 

Besides the Fates, there’s a fourth character, the Shriek Operator, named after a typographical mark in philosophical discussions that resembles an exclamation point, “a unique, unrepeatable situation ... which yanks and jangles the Fates, pushing them into contradiction and out of it again.” 

Woman’s Will has a blog with rehearsal notes from some of the actors (http://womanswill.blogspot.com), one that compares the play to a production of Streetcar Named Desire, as if the characters would holler out “Stella!” 

“Our audiences are used to seeing our all-female casts infuse difficultly worded classics with references to modern day,” said Merritt. “This time, we simply take them farther down the rabbit hole with us to Wonderland. It’s a play for those full of curiosity to enjoy—about puzzles, not answers.” 

 

Antigone 

Woman’s Will 

Fri.-Sun. 8 p.m. 

Temescal Arts Center, 511 48th St., Oakland 

$15-$25 

through Nov. 11 

420-0813, www.womanswill.org


The Good, the Bad and the Brilliant

By Justin DeFreitas
Friday October 19, 2007

Sergio Leone is often thought of as an ironic and humorous filmmaker, a mischievous genre deconstructionist. But though his films have plenty of humor and wit and mischief, they also contain great beauty and depth and insight. Though he may have worked most famously in a genre largely considered pulp—the Western—but Leone was one of the great cinematic artists.  

Pacific Film Archive is presenting seven of Leone’s best films, starting Saturday and running through Oct. 28.  

Leone is best known for his films with Clint Eastwood, the so-called “spaghetti westerns” in which the director deconstructed and built upon the traditions of a uniquely American genre. The “Dollars Trilogy” culminated in perhaps his most beloved film, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1967). But his masterpiece is Once Upon a Time in the West, (1968) a nearly three-hour epic that re-imagines the great myths and imagery of western expansion.  

Leone did not merely deconstruct and caricature the Western, he revitalized it, bringing a greater depth and mystery to its vistas and villains. He delved into the roots of the form’s archetypes, digging up the primal thoughts, emotions and characters that inhabited the landscape. And then he magnified it all; he distilled the genre to its essence and then spread it on thick in deep sepia tones.  

But it is the faces of his characters, even more than the dramatic Monument Valley backdrop, that provide Once Upon a Time in the West’s most enduring images. Leone deepened the impact of the close-up, juxtaposing and equating the rugged terrain of the landscape with the equally rugged terrain of the human face, each giving greater significance to the other. The eyes of his sweat-soaked, sun-scarred outlaws reflect the landscape and imbue it with meaning, and the landscape shapes the characters who survey it.  

Though the widescreen format is ideal for shooting vast panoramic landscapes, it poses problems for photographing people. Close-ups must crop the face above the eye, and still leave wide swaths of wasted open space on either side. Leone made use of these limitations brilliantly, however, bringing his camera in even tighter and expertly balancing close-up faces on one side of the frame with open vistas on the other.  

Leone’s masterful use of the widescreen format is particularly evident in the scene where Jill arrives at the McBain ranch to find the bodies of her husband and his children laid out on tables in the dooryard. The body of her husband, his head in the lower left corner of the frame, slants upwards across the frame to where Jill’s grief-stricken face is positioned in the upper right. Across the frame to the left of her is a group of attentive neighbors dressed in black, and behind them the rugged hills as backdrop. In one expertly composed image, Leone tells the whole story.  

Leone knew how to move his camera as well. One of the most stirring moments in any Western comes when Jill first arrives in Flagstone, hoping to find her new husband waiting for her at the train station. She waits and watches in vain as the throng of passengers moves past until she finally heads into the station office. And here begins a brilliant marriage of form and content: Leone’s camera follows her to the door and then watches through the window as she asks for directions from the station agent. The agent guides her through a door on the opposite side of the building as Leone lifts his camera above the window, up the wall and over the roof, and as the music swells we get our first look at the town, all construction and bustling activity. It is the birth of the West, and we encounter it along with Jill, who is soon to become its guiding feminine life force. Indeed, it is as if the town only comes to life once she lays eyes on it. It is a shot full of the promise, the legend, the myth and the glory of the West, achieved with simple but masterful technique. 

Claudia Cardinale, as Jill, is in fact the cornerstone of the film. Though the photogenic Italian’s voice was dubbed by an actress with a better grasp of English, Cardinale was not cast simply as eye candy, but for her expressive face and her ability to project a mix of weariness and determination. In the scene at the station and again toward the end of the film, when Harmonica walks into the house only to announce his departure, Cardinale demonstrates her talent in close-ups that see her effortlessly transition from happy anticipation to crestfallen disillusionment to iron-willed perseverance. Her face is beautiful yet damaged, once by the life she has escaped and again when the life she hopes to escape to is ripped from her grasp. And again Leone demonstrates his knowledge and faith in the terrain of the human face, patiently holding the camera’s gaze on Jill as the emotional change overtakes her features.  

As the New Orleans hooker turned pioneer homesteader, Jill may at first seem like a mere variation on a stock Western character. But Leone is after something else here. Throughout the film, Jill is consistently associated with water—the water that runs beneath the dream of a town that will be known as Sweetwater; the water that will fuel the heaving, churning steam train that represents progress; the water she heats for the weary Cheyenne’s coffee; the hot bath with which she renews herself after suffering the world’s degradations; and the water she brings to the thirsty railroad workers in the film’s closing shot. She is the life force of this brave new world, the madonna that gives birth to this new land. And though the moments when her clothing is torn or barely held together by flimsy string may seem at first like simple exploitation, there is greater significance in these images. For in the end it will be her strength and determination that shine through the dust and violence, just as it is her beauty and courage that are unleashed once her dandified city clothes are torn apart, the phony veneer of sophistication and respectability giving way to the earthy mother of the West.


East Bay: Then and Now: The Shattuck Hotel: Berkeley’s Once and Future Jewel?

By Daniella Thompson
Friday October 19, 2007

If Berkeley has a heart, it must be located on the 2200 block of Shattuck Avenue between Kittredge St. and Allston Way. This is the site that Berkeley’s founder, Francis Kittredge Shattuck, chose as his homestead. 

Although the Gold Rush lured him to California, Shattuck (1824–1898) made his fortune by other means. In 1852, he teamed up with George Blake, William Hillegass, and James Leonard to file a claim on a square mile in what is now central Berkeley.  

Since the land was part of José Domingo Peralta’s Rancho San Antonio, and Domingo defended his property rights vigorously in the courts, nothing came of the claim. Shattuck ended up buying his 160-acre tract in 1860 from French-born banker François Louis Alfred Pioche. Known as Plot 68, the tract was bounded by Addison St. to the north, Russell St. to the south, Shattuck Ave. to the east, and Grove St. to the west. The streets did not yet exist. 

Living in Oakland, Shattuck—with Hillegass as his partner—opened a livery stable and entered politics. Beginning in 1853 as clerk of the Board of Trustees and proceeding through the city council, he became mayor in 1859, later serving on the County Board of Supervisors. In the 1860 census, Shattuck stated the value of his real estate at $14,000 and his personal estate at $6,000. Ten years later, his real estate was worth $75,000 and his personal estate $50,000. By then he had also branched into farming, real estate, and coal mining in the Black Diamond area. 

In 1868, Shattuck built his first Berkeley house on Shattuck Ave. between Allston and Bancroft Ways. Mansard roofed and set back from the street, the house was surrounded by spacious gardens. Two blocks to the north, at the Shattuck-Addison intersection, Shattuck built the town’s first major commercial center and helped it grow by talking the Central Pacific Railroad into extending a branch line into Berkeley. Later he founded the Commercial Bank, which would become the First National Bank of Berkeley. 

In 1891, the old Shattuck home was joined by a new Queen Anne mansion, designed by W.H. Weilbye of Oakland. The childless Francis and Rosa Shattuck shared it with his nephew, John W. Havens, and her niece, Rosa M. Livingstone, future heirs of the Shattuck fortune. 

In September 1907, the San Francisco Call announced that Berkeley capitalists had formed a company to erect a million-dollar hotel on Mrs. Shattuck’s estate. The directors were A.W. Naylor, who succeeded Shattuck as president of the First National Bank; William E. Woolsey, who had married Rosa Livingstone and managed the Shattuck estate; Judge William H. Waste, John W. Havens; and B.F. Brooks. 

“Many years ago Francis K. Shattuck, a pioneer, planned to erect a magnificent hotel in the heart of Berkeley. His death stopped the project. His plans will now be carried out by others, the consent of Mrs. Rosa Shattuck to back the enterprise having been obtained. The Shattuck grounds are spacious and covered with shrubbery and trees, making an excellent setting for a great caravansary. The new hostelry will be known as the Hotel Berkeley,” informed the Call. 

The building was expected to cost $500,000, with the grounds valued at the same amount. The capital stock was to be divided into 10,000 shares of $100 each. The term of the corporation’s life was to be 50 years. 

An architectural competition was held, and five designs were submitted to the directors. Judge William Waste announced that the winning architect “will be given six months or longer to make the plans and will be allowed to travel to secure ideas to be incorporated in the structure.” The architect chosen was Benjamin G. McDougall, who had designed many public buildings in the San Joaquin Valley. He opted for Mission Revival style, featuring square corner turrets and arched windows. 

Rosa Shattuck died on Sept. 12, 1908, the wealthiest woman in Alameda County, leaving an estate of $2 million. The homestead property, bounded by Shattuck, Allston, Milvia, and Kittredge, was deeded to Rosa Livingstone Woolsey as part of her inheritance. In April 1909, the hotel plans resurfaced, with construction slated to begin at once on an initial $125,000 building, to be followed later by a grander edifice. The five-story, reinforced concrete building would extend 80 feet along Shattuck Ave. and 150 feet on Allston Way. 

Construction began in early July 1909, and the Oakland Tribune announced that “those interested in the project state that the hotel will be a reality by Christmas time.” As it turned out, the hotel did not open until December 1910. Money for completing the project may have been short, judging by a Sept 3, 1910 Tribune item disclosing that “W.E. Woolsey, owner of the new Shattuck Hotel …, has announced that he will proceed without any further delay to furnish the hotel and will assume all responsibility for running it … Noah W. Gray, at present manager of the Hotel Jefferson in San Francisco, will be in charge of the new hotel.” The tony W. & J. Sloane Co. of San Francisco supplied the furnishings and carpets. 

The hotel opened with much pomp to a full week of festivities. A society reception on Dec. 13 was followed by a sold-out Chamber of Commerce banquet two evenings later. The banquet’s 12-course menu fittingly concluded with “Grant’s Hygienic Crackers—Made in Berkeley.”  

Joaquin Miller, the Poet of the Sierras, was one of several celebrated speakers at the banquet. He prophesied that the cities around the bay would some day be one. He also managed to shock every real estate dealer present by describing his Oakland hilltop property, The Hights [sic], as being “of no great value, for there is a stone or rock of some sort for every foot of earth and there is a gopher or squirrel for every stone, and each gopher or squirrel seems to have a large and prosperous family.” The realtors “gasped with amazement,” for “they had never heard anybody make so derogatory a statement concerning a bit of land in Alameda County.” 

The hotel was a success from its first day, and soon the directors were deliberating whether to expand. They were encouraged to do so by a dry-goods merchant named John Frederick Hink, whose store was located in the Wanger Block, on the southeast corner of Shattuck and Kittredge. In Berkeley since 1904, Hink was ready to cross the street and become the anchor tenant in a block-long Shattuck Hotel. 

The 120-room hotel addition was built in 1913 and opened the following in anticipation of the Panama-Pacific Exposition. A newspaper ad published in January 1915 promised direct electric transportation from the hotel to the exposition grounds every ten minutes. “The Hotel Shattuck is recognized as the social and civic center,” boasted the ad. 

The J.F. Hink & Son department store occupied the ground floor of the addition for seven decades. Its standard entry in early city directories listed “Dry Goods, Notions, Fancy Goods, Draperies, Domestics, Etc.” Many Hink family members worked in the store, chief among them the founder’s son, Lester William Hink, who served as president of the company until 1976. The store was sold in 1978, a year after Lester’s death, and closed during the 1980s. 

Shortly after the hotel’s new wing was completed, Noah Gray left to manage the Claremont Hotel. His position at the Shattuck was eventually assumed by the former night clerk, William W. Whitecotton (1886–1933), who purchased the hotel in 1918, naming it after himself. Having also bought the Hotel Lankershim in Los Angeles, Whitecotton moved there in 1919. In 1926, he leased the Berkeley hotel to the newly formed Whitecotton Realty Company. Several months after his death in 1933, in the depth of the Great Depression, the company went into foreclosure. 

The bondholders reorganized a year later under the name Shattuck Properties Corporation, and in 1941 sold the hotel to Levi Strauss Realty Co., which in turn leased it to Wallace and Joan Miller of the Durant Hotel. Miller renamed it the Shattuck Hotel and moved the entrance from Shattuck Avenue to Allston Way. 

Since then, the hotel changed hands a number of times, undergoing periodic facelifts yet shedding its former glory. The current owner, BPR Properties of Palo Alto, is the latest operator promising to turn the faded dowager into a four-star hotel, but the promise comes with a price—a proposed 16-story tower in the rear. 

Berkeley watches and waits. 

 

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

 

Photogrraph: Daniella Thompson. 

The Shattuck Hotel today.


The Dilemma of a Pink Bathroom

By Jane Powell
Friday October 19, 2007

By Jane Powell 

 

Pink is not my favorite color. Perhaps it comes of being a redhead—while other little girls had pink frilly dresses, mine were always yellow. I do like many things that are pink: peppermint ice cream, cotton candy, flowers, and cat noses. But I do not care for pink tile. Unfortunately, pink tile, and sometimes pink fixtures, is found in many old houses, especially those built or remodeled between about 1925 and 1960. Pink is especially common in bathrooms, and that’s what I want to address here. 

In the late teens and early 1920s, color began to creep into previously all white, sanitary bathrooms. Initially it was only as a decorative border in the tile, and all else remained white. But the introduction of colored fixtures in 1926 (one of the colors was, of course, pink) ushered in an era of wildly colored tile and fixtures in bathrooms that lasted well into the 1950s. Some of these bathrooms were fabulous, with tile in colors like jadite green, lavender, peach, yellow, or black. Often featuring art tiles previously found only on fireplaces, or elaborate borders and combinations of three or four tile colors, some of which one would think could not possibly go together, make these some of the most fabulous bathrooms you’ll ever see.  

Some of them, however, were pink. Pink is actually okay with me, provided it is combined with another color, like green, or black. Even combined with blue it’s sort of okay. But in the 1940s and 1950s it was often combined with burgundy—doesn’t work for me. And by itself, yuck. The problem is, old tile was set on a mortar bed, and demolishing it is difficult, and not ecologically sound. (Archeologists don’t call ceramics pot shards for no reason—pottery really is forever.) And often the tile is actually in really good condition, and I hate to destroy stuff that’s in good condition, even if I don’t like it. So if you’re stuck with a pink bathroom, here are a few suggestions for dealing with it that don’t involve ripping the entire thing out. 

1. Go with it. Realize that pink does wonders for your skin tone. Get pink lightbulbs, pink soap, pink towels, pink bath rugs, pink accessories. Paint the walls a light tint of the tile color. Accessorize with pink flamingoes, pink elephants, pink poodles, or whatever else you can find. 

2. Hire a decorative artist to paint a very elaborate mural on the walls above the tiles- it should contain some pink to tie in, but it should be so elaborate that no one will even notice the tile. 

3. Add black. Some black towels, black bath rugs, a black border on the curtains, and some other black accessories, maybe the addition of an Art Deco style black porcelain sconce, and your bathroom has gone from merely pink to Art Deco fabulous. (I actually used this trick on a lemon yellow 1950s bathroom—it works.) 

4. If you can’t add black, try adding green. A pale green tint is the complementary color for pink, which is a tint of red (complementary colors are opposite each other on the color wheel). The green should help to tone down the pinkness a bit. 

 

5. If the fixtures are also pink, it is possible to have them “re-glazed.” Technically “re-glazing” is high-tech paint, and will last anywhere from five to fifteen years, but will eventually have to be re-done. There are several companies who offer this service, including Miracle Method, Porcelain Genie, and Mr. Bathtub (yeah, it’s MISTER Bathtub to you, bub). Look for companies in the Yellow Pages under bathtub refinishing. These companies can also change the color of the tile. Another option is a company called Re-Bath, which will cover your tub with an acrylic liner. “Re-glazing” will not work with a pink toilet- you’ll have to get a new one. Nor will it work on pink floor tiles. 

 

6. There is one kind of pink tile I find particularly obnoxious, and it was prevalent in the 1960s and 1970s. The worst part is, it’s still being made! The company that still makes it, B and W Tile, (www.bwtile.com) calls it Ripple. I call it scabrous. It’s a mottled, textured sort of tile, which comes in pink, yellow, light blue, or tan mottling on a white background, or the reverse, white mottling on pink or other colored backgrounds. It is beyond hideous, but not in a good way. It is the original tile in some mid-century houses (Eichlers, etc.), so I guess in those houses I could make an argument for leaving it. Otherwise, I give you permission to rip it out. 

 

Besides, there are things worse than a pink bathroom. I’ve seen bathrooms with fixtures that were pea soup green, and I’ve seen tile the color of refried beans. It makes pink seem tasteful. 

 

Jane Powell is a restoration consultant and the author of Bungalow Details: Interior. Contact her at hsedressng@aol.com 

 

 


Garden Variety: A Cultural Oasis in Southwest Berkeley

By Ron Sullivan
Friday October 19, 2007

I took it as a Sign when the postcard came to the surface last week as I was attempting to get the paper stack on the office floor into order: a postcard appeared on the surface. I’d probably picked it up at the big fat garden show in the Cow Palace last month. “Gardensia: Archipelago Designs” with a southwest Berkeley address.  

It’s in one of very few such neighborhoods we have left in town, part warehouses and the sort of activity that lands between art and manufacture, part homes in various states of overgrowth and gentrification, and an actual vacant lot or two. Very quiet on a football weekend. 

Joe and I were greeted in the best possible retail manner by Sekti Artanegara and Lisa Ho and, eventually, their engaging small daughter. By “best” I mean they allowed us to mosey around for a few minutes with just a “Let us know if you’d like help,” and a decent interval of privacy with their wonderful collection of artifacts.  

Ms. Ho appeared at my elbow just in time to answer the questions we’d accumulated. We’d seen lots of familiar South Asian Buddhas (including one with a bright lei) and stone dewis and frogs but were stopped cold before several wooden doors with wonderful carvings, including a small one fronted by a man rampant atop a water buffalo’s head and holding a rooster.  

No mistaking what that is about, and indeed it’s from a granary and is one of several fertility wishes gathered in the shop. If I were of childbearing age I’d’ve doubled my protection after the visit.  

There are enough Indonesian spirit houses from birdhouse-sized to over six feet and two stories tall, the latter with imposing toupees of black palm fiber and maybe a gilded crest on top. There are carved housepoles and demon guardians—I’m heading there if there’s a quake, as it must be the safest place in town—and crests from Dayak, Timorese, and other rarely seen cultures of the Indonesian archipelago and its neighbors.  

Joe likes the Dayak sculptures with hornbill motifs: “Hornbills, large-ish tropical birds, usually sport bony casques above their beaks, carved as “hornbill ivory.” Only Dayak warriors who had taken a head were allowed to wear hornbill-ivory earrings. 

“The Iban Hornbill Festival used to precede headhunting raids; nowadays it’s held during the rice harvest. Hornbills transport the souls of the Iban dead to heaven. The Barito Dayak group see the rhinoceros hornbill as the upperworld god who, collaborating with the underworld dragon, created of the Tree of Life. 

“Hornbills are known for their unorthodox nesting behavior. A female walls herself into a tree cavity with mud and other substances, leaving only a narrow slit to receive food from her mate, and stays there until her offspring are ready to fledge. I don’t know what the Dayaks made of that, if anything. Caution: this is not a metaphor. Just a bird.” 

I like the natural sculptures—polished freestanding lianas, tree-root bowls, and wonderfully eroded teak railroad ties stood on end.  

Evidently most of Gardenisia’s customers are landscapers and architects. Why let them keep it a secret? Go visit! 

 

 

Gardenisia: Archipelago Designs 

2820—A 8th Street, Berkeley 

665-5500 

www.gardenisia.com 

11 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily


Quake Tip of the Week: A Big Quake and Your Phone

By Larry Guillot
Friday October 19, 2007

After the next big quake, if your phones work, use the phone and not your car! A few tips: 

• Change your voice mail message to state that you are safe  

• Before the quake, make sure that all your family knows a single relative or friend who lives outside California that you can contact to say you are fine. This way, fewer calls are needed on jammed “in-State”phone lines.  

• You may have to wait a bit longer for dial tone after a quake. Be patient. Don't just hang up and try again.  

• Keep change or a pre-paid phone card in your wallet. 

Make 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.


About the House: The Integral Urban House Book

By Matt Cantor
Friday October 19, 2007

Well, it’s happened! I’ve started a garden. Put up those slam-dancing shoes, shelved all the accouterments of an angry youth; frayed journal full of bad poetry (so bad), conga drums and King Crimson albums (in vinyl, yet!). I’m growing lettuce! 

Worse, I’m planning a chicken coop. This is not a joke. Punk rockers and American Otaku (geeks like me) everywhere will mourn. But fear not. I’m in the midst of a special sort of mid-life crisis. The resurgence of a youth mis-spent in eco-hippie-architecture school. Like a suppressed memory, all the things of my architecture wanna-be youngsterhood are coming back and it’s all Sim Van der Ryn’s fault. 

In 1969, Sim, now a professor of many years at U.C. Berkeley founded (along with urban gardeners Bill and Helga Olkowski among others) the Farallones Institute. Within a few years this long-haired band of eco-warriors had acquired a victorian in West Berkeley (5th Street near Jones if memory serves) and began a series of experiments in sustainable urban living. The toilet, a Clivus Multrum, was my favorite of the many living experiments.  

Sim had published a book on toilets (The Toilet Papers: Recycling Waste and Conserving Water Ecological Design Press) and their ecological problem in the 1970s and the ultimate emotional challenge to our conception of shelter was to toss the toilet back out of the house (it only made it inside about 60 years earlier). The Clivus was a composting toilet built largely of concrete block that would, over a course of months, turn human waste into useable compost, although they felt it best to use it in non-edible gardening. I have little doubt that the city inspectors were apoplectic over the installation of the Clivus. 

The house also featured bee keeping, chicken farming and a rabbit hutch. Food waste was used to feed animals and eventually, animals became food. This was much more than architecture. It was a revision in how we looked at city living. The idea that we could live rarefied existences, divorced of the impact of our actions, of the sources of our food, water and energy were tossed out. Social responsibility was brought home to roost, as it were. Of course, if you were Amish, this was no big deal. They and many like them had been doing this for a long time.  

Nonetheless, the ‘50s had taught Americans that we could consume as hungrily as we pleased and never look to see where the sewer dumped out. 

As one might imagine the house also featured intensive recycling, remodeling using scrap materials and water, heated with solar panels. Cooking was sometimes done with a solar oven and fish were grown in a small pond in the backyard, assisted by the wind through the use of a Savonius Rotor, a home-made wind turbine constructed from 55 gallon drums. I’ll stop but I think you get the point.  

A book was born alongside the house called, not surprisingly, the Integral Urban House (Sierra Club Books 1979). The book is currently out of print but enough calls to the publisher and I’m sure we can get it brought back. What’s particularly intriguing about this book is that it’s not just a study of ecological living, rather, it is a how-to, replete with diagrams on how to terminate a bunny, keep bees and build your own solar water heating panels. 

During these giddy years, Sim was elevated to the post of California State Architect by our then, Hippie-in-Chief, Governor Jerry Brown (‘75-‘83). 

Brown, a Jesuit seminarian at 20, dropped out, tuned in and turned onto politics, following in his father’s footsteps (“Pat” Brown) as the bleary ‘60s became the bold ‘70s.  

When Jerry became governor in ‘74 (succeeding Reagan, thank Lord Shiva), he brought with him a dedication to the environment and an fervor for democracy beyond anything this state had probably ever seen. Gov. Brown created an office of appropriate technology (yes, this is the past, not the future) and appointed James (“J”) Baldwin to run it.  

Baldwin was a student of Buckminster Fuller and an industrial designer who had made a name for himself in environmental design employing the new “alterative” energies of sun and wind. Baldwin also worked for Steward Brand’s Whole Earth Catalogue. Brand was plucked by Brown to function as special adviser in his administration, further psychedelisizing his already severely “Moon-beamed” gubernatorial oeuvre.  

As creator of the Whole Earth Catalogue and later the CoEvolution Quarterly, Brand sought to make information accessible to the masses at a time when “internet” was as yet unuttered by anyone. In fact, Brand was a founding member of the well (a very early electronic bulletin board), the first two letters of which mean … Whole Earth (the last two mean ‘Lectronic Link). Pretty cool, eh. 

These years were ones in which environmental standards, energy standards and handicapped standards for building took tremendous strides… but this is all 30 years ago. 

Though we continue to make progress on the backs of these important innovators, I’m concerned that consumerism and complacency have replaced zeal and moral drive. If we can set construction aside for a moment, let’s take a look at cars.  

I’m sure many of you have noticed that the excitement around improved gas mileage in the 1970’s has fallen fairly flat on it’s face. Every Hummer I see reminds me that Americans once again care more about the look-good than they do about the planet. 

Even the best of our leaders are forced to talk about “energy independence” or “energy security” as a way of inducing reforms, since it’s just too “moon-beam” (that’s what right-wingers called Jerry during his governorship) to say that we need to reduce our oil consumption for the longevity of the ecosphere. I guess that’s too sissy. 

Similarly, the Altamont Wind Farm, started under Brown, sat almost lifeless for most of the Deukmejian and Wilson administrations. Only now, are they once again being upgraded to larger, safer and more effective units, while Germany (6 percent wind power) and Holland (18.5 percent) kick our Eco-butts. How’s that for “energy security?”  

I tend to think that these countries are: a) very interested in the future of their people and b) invested in living on a planet with a similar ecosystem in 100 years. I’m pretty sure that these are not major objectives in the U.S. halls of power.  

But, as usual, I digress. Sim Van der Ryn and his earnest colleagues have moved on to other places now doing other things and sadly, the Integral Urban House is now… just a house. The experiment could not sustain itself and I guess we all had to take the blue pill and go back to making believe that everything would continue to be fine no matter how we lived, who we killed or how much oil we burned. (For those who’ve never seen The Matrix, the protagonist is offered the chance to wake up to the truth by taking a red pill or go back into his waking sleep by taking a blue one). 

Used copies of the IUH book can still be found (ISBN 0871562138) and it’s just about as exciting and challenging to our way of life today as it was 28 years ago. Copies are available at several of those nasty online places (I just checked) and, if you search, you might just find a local bookseller that’s got one as well. 

Our lettuce is coming up nicely and it’s surprising how touching and beautiful it is to pick some leaves from the garden, go upstairs and share a meal. The coop is still in design phase but it’ll come, as will the chickens. I’m not sure how I feel about bees but I like honey so I’ll have to think about it. This is adult stuff. Like G.W. says, it’s “hard work” and it takes time to bring myself to it.  

I’m lazy, scared and doubtful but I am certain that small acts do matter. So if you’ll excuse me, I need to find something to drink. These red pills are pretty nasty if you don’t have something to wash them down with. 

 

Got a question about home repairs and inspections? Send them to Matt Cantor at mgcantor@pacbell.net.


Berkeley This Week

Friday October 19, 2007

FRIDAY, OCT. 19 

Iraq Moratorium Friday March from the West Oakland BART Station to downtown Oakland. Meet at 2:30 p.m., march begins at 3 p.m. www.bayareacodepink.org 

City Commons Club Noon Luncheon Speaker to be announced. Luncheon at 11:45 a.m. for $14.50, speech at 12:30 p.m., at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant St. For information and reservations call 526-2925.  

“Designing California Native Gardens; The Plant Community Approach to Artful, Ecological Gardens” with Alrie Middlebrook and Dr. Glenn Keator at 7:30 p.m. at Builder's Booksource, 1817 Fourth St. 845-6874. 

“AIDS in the Black Community” A forum, with film screening, at 6 p.m. at Oakland Public Conservatory of Music, 1616 Franklin St., Oakland. Free. 836-4649. 

“An Unreasonable Man” Conscientious Projector Series documentary on Ralph Nader at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists Hall, 1924 Cedar at Bonita. 841-4824. 

Iraq Moratorium Action from 2 to 4 p.m. at the corner of University and Acton. Sponsored by the Strawberry Creek Lodge Tenants Assoc. and the Berkeley-East Bay Gray Panthers. 548-9696. 

“10 Questions for the Dalai Lama” A documentary by Rick Ray, at 7:30 p.m. at Unity of Berkeley, 2075 Eunice St. 528-8844. www.unityberkeley.org 

“Intro to Fearless Meditation: Practice of the Body” at 7 p.m. at Center for Urban Peace, 2584 Martin Luther King Jr Way. Suggested Donation $20 - $30, no one turned away. 549-3733. 

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, OCT. 20 

Berkeley Downtown Goals & Policies Workshop The community is invited to comment on the proposals for new Downtown Plan from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Berkeley High School Library, Allston and Milvia St. Draft chapters of the plan are available at www.cityofberkeley.info/dap 

Fall Harvest Walk Join the Berkeley Path Wanderers on an easy, level walk to Berkeley community and school gardens. Meet at 10 a.m. at the North Berkeley BART station, just outside the gates. 528-3246. www.berkeleypaths.org 

Open The Farm Meet and greet the animals at the Little Farm in Tilden Park as you help the farmer with morning chores, from 9 to 10:30 a.m. 525-2233. 

Berkeley School of the Madeleine Fall Festival with a Haunted House, games, white elephant sale, food and live music from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at 1225 Milvia St. at Henry & Berryman streets. www.themadeleine.com 

Berkeley Historical Society Tour of Downtown Berkeley from 10 a.m. to noon. Cost is $8-$10. To register and for meeting place call 848-0181. 

Walking Tour of Oakland Chinatown Meet at 10 a.m. at the courtyard fountain in the Pacific Renaissance Plaza at 388 Ninth St. Tour lasts 90 minutes. 238-3234. www.oaklandnet.com/ 

walkingtours 

Chapel of the Chimes Historical and Botanical Tour at 10 a.m. at Chapel of the Chimes, 4499 Piedmont Ave., Oakland. RSVP to 228-3207. 

East Bay Native Plant Fair Sat. from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. and Sun. from noon to 3 p.m. at Native Here Nursery, 101 Golf Course Drive. Free.  

The New School of Berkeley Halloween Bazaar, with children's games, giant rummage sale, book sale, crafts, haunted house, and more from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at 1606 Bonita St. at Cedar. Proceeds support the New School’s scholarship fund. 548-9165.  

East Bay Regional Park District Ambassador Training from 9 a.m. to noon at the Trudeau Center, 11500 Skyline Blvd., Oakland. Registration required. 544-2206. cjohnson@ebparks.org 

Tibetan Association Celebrates the awarding of the Congressional Gold Medal to His Holiness the Dalai Lama at 6 p.m. at Golden Gate Fields, 1100 Eastshore Highway. Tickets are $50. RSVP to 390-6771, 206-0247. 

California Writers Club “Literary Voices from our Community” with Gurnam Brard and Anjuelle Floyd, at 10 a.m. at Barnes & Noble, Jack London Square. 272-0120. www.berkeleywritersclub.org 

Ongoing Vocal Jazz Workshop Sat. from 2 to 4 p.m. at the Abany Community Center, 1249 Marin at the corner of Masonic, Albany. 524-6797. 

Free Car Seat Check from 10 a.m. to noon at the Allston Way Parking Garage, between Harold Way and Shattuck Ave. 647-1111. 

Fire Safety Day Meet a firefighter at 11 a.m. at Habitot Children’s Museum, 2065 Kittredge St. 647-1111. 

“Tropical Rainforests: Challenges and New Hopes” A forum from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Oakland Museum of California, 10th and Oak Sts., Oakland. Cost is $15-$30. For information call 415-321-8000.  

Chapel of the Chimes Historical and Botanical Tour at 10 a.m. at 4499 Piedmont Ave. RSVP to 228-3207. 

Old Oakland Outdoor Cinema “Babe” at sunset on Ninth St., between Broadway and Washington. Free, bring your own chair and blanket. 238-4734. 

Full Houses: Poker Tournament to benefit Impact Theatre at 7 p.m. at La Val’s Subterranean, 1834 Euclid Ave. $50 buy in, with unlimited $25 rebuys until 9 p.m. 464-4468. 

“Destination Studies Class on Eastern Europe” from 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. at Berkeley City College, 2050 Center St. Cost is $10. 981-2931. 

“Restoring the Heart of Change” Daylong retreat with Kyodo Willilliams at Center for Urban Peace, 2584 MLK Jr Way. Cost is $25. 549-3733. 

“Spirit Never Dies” An evening of communing with those that have passed over at 7:30 p.m. at Berkeley Psychic Institute, 2018 Allston Way. Cost is $20. 644-1600 . 

SUNDAY, OCT. 21 

United Nations Day Celebration with a parade of the flags of the 193 member nations at 11:30 a.m. at Jack London Square, Oakland.  

Bike Tour of Oakland around Oakland’s Brooklyn neighborhood on a leisurely paced two-hour tour that covers about five miles. Meet at 10 a.m. at the 10th St. entrance to the Oakland Museum of California. Reservations required. 238-3514.  

Community Labyrinth Peace Walk at 3 p.m. at Willard Middle School, Telegraph Ave. between Derby and Stuart. Everyone welcome. Wheelchair accessible. Rain cancels. 526-7377. 

Hope Walks Fundraiser A walk for all ages to benefit Global Strategies for HIV Prevention and Children of Grace in Uganda. Check in at 1 p.m., Walk from 2 to 4 p.m. at Faculty Glade, UC Campus. www.hopewalks.org/berkeley 

“Confronting Cambodia’s Wildlife Crisis” A presentation and discussion with Wildlife Alliance at 11:30 a.m. at Morgan Lounge, Room 114, Morgan Hall, UC Campus. RSVP to 202-223-6350. miller@wildlifealliance.org 

Greening Richmond Learn about global warming and what residents and business owners can do. Information tables on lighting, appliances, solar panels, tank-less water heaters, insulation and more. From 1 to 5 p.m. at DeJean Middle School, 3400 Mac Donald, Richmond. www.greenchamberofcommerce.net 

Green Sunday “Stem Cell and Cloning Research Controversies: Developing a Green Position” with Diane Beeson, and Tina Stevens at 5 p.m. at Niebyl-Proctor Library, 6501 Telegraph Ave. at 65th in North Oakland. 

El Cerrito Historical Society with Richard Schwartz on his new book “Eccentrics, Heroes, and Cutthroats of Old Berkeley” at 1 p.m. at the El Cerrito Senior Center, 6510 Stockton Ave. behind the El Cerrito Library. 526-7507. www.elcerritowire.com/history 

Holiday Gourd Crafting Learn the history of gourds, and how to create a fall centerpiece for your table from 1 to 4 p.m. at Tilden Nature Center. Cost is $20-$29. Registration required. 1-888-EBPARKS. 

Community Music Day at Crowden Music Center, with an instrument petting zoo, mini-concerts with the San Francisco Chamber Orchestra, and more, from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Free. ccmc@crowden.org 

Day of the Dead Community Celebration with music, dance, ceremonia, activities, and food, from noon to 5 p.m. at Oakland Museum of California, 10th and Oak Sts. Reservations required. 238-2022. 

“Celebrating the Fabric of Our Lives” A presentation and exhibition of quilts from 2 to 4 p.m. at Salem Lutheran Home, 2361 East 29th St., Oakland. 534-3637. 

East Bay Atheists Annual Picnic from noon to 4:30 p.m. at Big Leaf Picnic Area, Tilden Park. Please bring a dish to share; we provide utensils, beer and soft drinks, and burgers and hot dogs. 222-7580. eastbayatheists.org 

Friends & Family Day at the Magnes from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Judah L. Magnes Museum, 2911 Russell St. 549-6950. www.magnes.org 

“10 Questions for the Dalai Lama” A documentary by Rick Ray, at 7:30 p.m. at Unity of Berkeley, 2075 Eunice St. Cost is $10. 528-8844.  

Free Sailboat Rides from 1 to 4 p.m. at the Cal Sailing Club, Berkeley Marina. Wear warm, waterproof clothing and bring a change of clothes in case you get wet. www.cal-sailing.org 

Free Hands-on Bicycle Repair Class Learn how to repair a flat. Bring your bicycle and tools. At 10 a.m. at REI, 1338 San Pablo Ave. 527-4140. 

“Marx and the United States” with Urszula Wislanka and Ron Kelch at 10 a.m. at Niebyl-Proctor Marxist Library, 6501 Telegraph Ave, Oakland. 595-7417. www.tifcss.org 

“Activating Present-Moment Awareness” with Marion Pastor and David Curry at 10 a.m. at Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley, 1 Lawson Rd., Kensington. 525-0302, ext. 306. 

Tibetan Buddhism with Elizabeth Cook on “Sacred Places of the Buddha: Birth of Enlightenment” at 6 p.m. at the Tibetan Nyingma Institute, 1815 Highland Pl. 843-6812. www.nyingmainstitute.com 

MONDAY, OCT. 22 

“Viokence on the Streets” A law enforcement awareness forum, with film screening, at 6 p.m. at Oakland Public Conservatory of Music, 1616 Franklin St., Oakland. Free. 836-4649. 

“Frontiers in Climate Forecasting” with Bill Collins of LBNL at 5:30 p.m. at Berkeley Rep, 2025 Addison St. 486-7292. 

Teen Chess Club meets at 3:30 p.m. at the Claremont Branch of the Berkeley Public Library, Benvenue at Ashby. 981-6280. 

Berkeley CopWatch organizational meeting at 8 p.m. at 2022 Blake St. 548-0425. 

TUESDAY, OCT. 23 

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 Miller/Knox Keller Beach. Call for meeting place and if you need to borrow binoculars. 525-2233. 

“Oil, Gas, and Global Warming: Youth Confronting America’s Petroleum Addiction” with recent recipients of the Brower Youth Award at 6 p.m. at Free Speech Movement Cafe, Moffitt Library, UC Campus. 643-6445. 

“Party Planning for the Holidays” Benefit for Alameda County Community Food Bank with Barbara Llewellyn and Ron Morgan from 10 a.m. to noon at the Food Bank, 7900 Edgewater Drive, Oakland. Tickets are $20, plus a canned food donation, and includes continental breakfast and a guided tour of the facility. 635-3663. www.accfb.org 

“Who Are the Real Fascists?” a panel discussion on the assault on critical thinking at US universities at 8 p.m. at 145 Dwinelle, UC Campus. 848-1196. 

Berkeley High School Governance Council meets at 4:15 p.m. at Berkeley Community Theater Lobby. Topics include School Governance Council Officers, BSEP Officers, ELL Budget. 644-4803. 

Berkeley School Volunteers Orientation from noon to 1 p.m. at 1835 Allston Way. Come learn about volunteer opportunities. 644-8833. 

End the Occupation Vigil every Tues. at noon at Oakland Federal Bldg., 1301 Clay St. www.epicalc.org 

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.  

Family Storytime at 7 p.m. at Kensington Library. 61 Arlington Ave. 524-3043.  

Berkeley Camera Club meets at 7:30 p.m. at the Northbrae Community Church, 941 The Alameda. 548-3991. www.berkeleycameraclub.org 

St. John’s Prime Timers meets at 9:30 a.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. 845-6830. 

WEDNESDAY, OCT. 24 

Birding with the Golden Gate Audubon Society at Lake Merritt and Lakeside Park in Oakland. Meet at 9:30 a.m. at the large spherical cage near Nature Center at Perkins and Bellevue. 834-1066. 

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 

“Senior Housing Crisis: How to Fight Back” with Rae Mary, Berkeley Housing, and Jesse Arreguin, Housing Advocate, at 1:30 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center, 1901 Hearst, Corner of MLK. Sponsored by the Berkeley-East Bay Gray Panthers. 548-9696. 

Berkeley Community Gardening Collaborative with guest speaker, Martin Borque, executive director of the Ecology Center, at 6:30 p.m. at the Ecology Center, 2530 San Pablo Ave. Potluck. 548-2220. 

“Sabotaging Education” How workplace bullying and psychological abuse can undermine students’ education with William Lepowsky at 10 a.m. at Room G-209 at Laney College, 8th and Fallon Streets, Oakland. 464-3181. 

“From Seed to Supper with Mollie Katzen and Friends” at 6:30 p.m. at Windrush School, Multipurpose Room, 1800 Elm St., El Cerrito. Free. 970-7580. http://windrush.org 

“Nuestro Petroleo y Otros Cuentos” A documentary on the oil and coal industries in Venezuela at 8 p.m. at Long Haul Infoshop, 3124 Shatttuck Ave. www.thelonghaul.org 

“An Evening with Elvia Alvarado” Honduran human rights activist and peasant leader at 7 p.m. at First Congregational Church of Oakland, 2501 Harrison St. at 27th, Oakland. Cost is $5-$20 sliding scale. 1-800-838-3006. 

Tilden Explorers An after-school nature adventure program for 5-7 year olds. We will have a nature scavenger hunt from 3:15 to 4:15 p.m. Cost is $6-$8. Registration required. 1-888-327-2757. 

Black Cat Pocket Pals Crafts inspired by the book for ages 8 and up at 3 p.m. at Berkeley Public Library, 4th floor, Children’s Department. 2090 Kittredge St. 981-6223.  

An Introduction to Marxism, a free class for beginners and students at every level from 6:30 to 9 p.m. at Niebyl-Proctor Marxist Library, 6501 Telegraph Ave., Oakland. 595-7417.  

Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine Day Open House from 6:30 to 8 p.m. at the AIMC Berkeley, 2550 Shattuck Ave. at Blake. 684-2552. 

Walk Berkeley for Seniors meets t 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. 

THURSDAY, OCT. 25 

Birding with the Golden Gate Audubon Society at the Albany Mudflats at Eastshore State Park, from 7:30 to 9:30 p.m. For meeting place call 540-8749. 

Oakland Bird Club with Allan Ridley and Helen McKenna-Ridley on “The Anatomy of Flying” at 7:30 p.m. at Oakland Public Library, Rockridge Branch, 5366 College Ave. 444-0355. 

Tilden Tots Join a nature adventure program for 3 and 4 year olds, each accompanied by an adult (grandparents welcome)! We’ll have a nature scavenger hunt from 10 to 11:30 a.m. at Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park. Cost is $6-$8. Registration required. 1-888-327-2757. 

Tilden Explorers An after-school nature adventure program for 5-7 year olds. We will have a nature scavenger hunt from 3:15 to 4:15 p.m. Cost is $6-$8. Registration required. 1-888-327-2757. 

Halloween Stories and Songs for Preschoolers at 7 p.m. at the North Berkeley Public Library, 1170 The Alameda, at Hopkins. 981-6250.  

Election 2008: Presidential Forum with representatives from the Clinton, Obama and Edwards Campaings at the Wellstone Democratic Renewal Club, at 6:45 p.m at Humanist Hall, 390 27th St., Oakland. 

“The Eccentrics of 19th Century Downtown Berkeley” with author Richard Schwartz at 7:30 p.m. at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant Ave. Reception to follow. Tickets are $15. Sponsored by Berkeley Architectural Heritage Assoc. 841-2242. www.berkeleyheritage.com 

“Seeking Palestinian-Israeli Peace” A discussion with Maha Abu-Dayyeh Shamas, Women’s Centre for Legal Aid & Counseling, Jerusalem; Anan Attiri, Director, Nablus Governorate; Naava Eisin, Director of the Archives of Jewish Education at Tel Aviv Univ.; Molly Malekar, Director of Bat Shalom of the Jerusalem Link and Jessica Neuwirth, Founding President, Equality Now, at 5 p.m. at Goldman School of Public Policy, Room 150, LeRoy Ave. entrance near Hearst. 

DataCenter’s 30th Anniversary Celebration Dinner and Reception to honor the DataCenter and its partners at 6 p.m. at Historic Sweet’s Ballroom, 1933 Broadway, Oakland Tickets are $100 per person, $50 per grassroots organizer, RSVP required. 839-3100.  

“Words of Hope” A discussion led by Stop the Traffik featuring the book “Global Sex Workers: Rights, Resistance, and Redefinition” at 5:30 p.m. at University Press Books, 2430 Bancroft Way. 548-0585.  

“Global Awakenings: Communities that Work for Everyone” An evening with Dr. A. T. Ariyaratne, founder of the Sarvodaya in Sri Lanka, at Alta Bates Health Education Center, 400 Hawthone Ave., Oakland. Suggested donation $10. www.bpf.org 

“Homeschooling 101” with parents and young people from Family Village, Berkeley, and Alameda Oakland Home Learners at 7:30 p.m. at Grace North Church, 1938 Cedar St. 895-2312. 

Easy Does It (EDI) Board of Directors’ Meeting at 6:30 p.m. at 1636 University Ave. 845-5513. www.easyland.org 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ONGOING 

Donate the Fruit From Your Fruit Trees We will gladly pick and deliver your fruit to community programs that feed school kids, the elderly, the homebound and the hungry. The fruit trees should be located in or very near North Berkeley and the fruit should be organic (no pesticides) and edible. This is a volunteer/grassroots thing so join in!! Please email northberkeleyharvest@gmail.com or 812-3369. 

Bay-Friendly Gardening Offers Discounted Compost Bins to Alameda County residents. In addition to the bins, they also offer free workshops, videos, brochures, and answers to your compost questions. To order a bin or for free information about composting, visit www.BayFriendly.org or call the compost information hotline 444-7645. 

CITY MEETINGS 

Downtown Area Plan Advisory Commission Community Workshop from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. in the Berkeley High School Library, Allston and Milvia. 981-7487. 

Parks and Recreation Commission meets Mon., Oct. 22, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-5158.  

Zero Waste Commission Mon., Oct. 22, at 7 p.m., at 1201 Second St. 981-6368.  

City Council meets Tues., Oct. 23, at 7 p.m in City Council Chambers. 981-6900. www.ci. 

berkeley.ca.us/citycouncil 

Citizens Humane Commission meets Wed., Oct. 24, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-6601. 

Civic Arts Commission meets Wed., Oct. 24, at 6:30 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-7533.  

Disaster and Fire Safety Commission meets Wed., Oct. 24, at 7 p.m., at the Emergency Operations Center, 997 Cedar St. 981-5502.  

Energy Commission meets Wed., Oct. 24, at 6:30 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-5434.  

Planning Commission meets Wed., Oct. 24, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-7484. 

Mental Health Commission meets Wed., Oct. 25, at 6:30 p.m. at 2640 MLK Jr. Way, at Derby. 981-5213. 

Zoning Adjustments Board meets Thurs., Oct. 25 at 7 p.m., in City Council Chambers. 981-7410.


Arts Calendar

Tuesday October 16, 2007

TUESDAY, OCT. 16 

FILM 

“Films by Bruce Conner” 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 

Robert Reich, former Secretary of Labor, will discuss his book “Supercapitalism: The Transformation of Business, Democracy, and Everyday Life” at 7:30 p.m. at Moe’s Books, 2476 Telegraph Ave. 849-2087. 

“The Talented Women of the Zhang Family” with author Susan Mann in conversation with Sophie Volpp at 5:30 at University Press Books, 2430 Bancroft Way. 548-0585. 

“Blowing on Embers, Stories for Hard Times” with author and family therapist Ellen Pulleyblank Coffey at 7:30 p.m. at Hillside Club, 2286 Cedar St. www.hillsideclub.org 

Alison Wilson-Fried reads from her novel “Outside Child: A Book of Murder and New Orleans” at 7:30 p.m. at Laurel Bookstore, 4100 MacArthur Blvd., Oakland. 531-2073. 

“Recognition and Persuasion: The Literary Critic as Cultural Critic” with Stefan Collini, Univ. of Cambridge, at 5 p.m. at Townsend Center for the Humanities, 220 Stephens Hall, UC Campus. 643-9670. 

Dan Machlin and Brent Cunningham, poets, at 7:30 p.m. at Pegasus Books Dwontown, 2349 Shattuck Ave. 649-1320. 

Edwidge Danticat reads from her new novel “Brother, I’m Dying” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

The Tilden Trio at 8 p.m. at Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant Ave. Tickets are $20. 525-5211. www.berkeleychamberperform.org 

Hilary Hahn, violin, at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $34-$62. 642-9988. www.calperfs.berkeley.edu 

Motordude Zydeco at 8:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cajun dance lesson at 8 p.m. Cost is $10. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Emery High School Jazz Band at 12:30 p.m. at College of Alameda Student Center, 555 Ralph Appezzato Memorial Pkwy., Alameda. 748-2213. 

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

Classical at the Freight: Dmitri Ashkenazy and friends at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $17.50-$18.50. 548-1761.  

Ellen Honert, jazz, at 7 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

Nicolas Bearde at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $10-$15. 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, OCT. 17 

THEATER 

St. Vincent de Paul of Alameda County’s Seldom Seen Acting Company, an acting company of seven homeless men, performs “Now You Know” at noon at the St. Vincent de Paul Downtown Community Center, 2280 San Pablo Ave., Oakland. Donations accepted. 636-4261.  

FILM 

International Latino Film Festival “Mi Mejor Enimigo/My Best Enemy” at 7 p.m. at Richmond Public Library, 325 Civic Center Plaza, Richmond. 620-6555. 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Berkeley Treasures: Three Generations of Printmakers Works by Emmanuel Montoya, Miriam Stahl and Carolyn Pennypacker Riggs. Artists’ talk at 6:30 p.m. at Berkeley art Center, 1275 Walnut St. www.berkeleyartcenter.org 

Rev. Forrest Church speaks about his new book “So Help Me God! The Founding Fathers and the First Great Battle Over Church and State” at 7 p.m. at Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley, 1 Lawson Rd., Kensington. 525-0302, ext. 306. 

Steve Georgiou introduces “Mystic Street: Meditations on a Spiritual Path” at 7 p.m. at Patriarch Athenagoras Orthodox Institute, Graduate Theological Union, 2311 Hearst. 649-2450. 

Estelle Freedman introduces “The Essential Feminist Reader” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. 

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

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Oaktown Jazz Workshop at noon at Oakland City Center, 12th and Broadway. www.oaklandcitycenter.com 

Music for the Spirit with Ron McKean on harpsichord at 12:15 p.m. at First Presbyterian Church of Oakland, 2619 Broadway. 444-3555. 

The Very Hot Club of Berkeley at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $10. 841-JAZZ.  

Whiskey Brothers, old-time and bluegrass at 9 p.m. at Albatross, 1822 San Pablo Ave. 843-2473. www.albatrosspub.com 

The Tiptons, London Street at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $10. 525-5054.  

Music for Sight Seeing at 7 p.m. at Mama Buzz, 2318 Telegraph Ave. at 23rd, Oakland. Cost is $5. 

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

Wayward Monks at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 843-8277. 

Mikie Lee and Amber at 10 p.m. at Beckett’s Irish Pub, 2271 Shattuck Ave. 647-1790.  

Uncle Earl at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $21.50-$22.50. 548-1761.  

Matthew Shipp at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $10-$14. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

THURSDAY, OCT. 18 

EXHIBITIONS 

“three generations ... five impressions” Artists’ recpetion at 5 p.m. at Giorgi Gallery, 2911 Claremont Ave. 841-3976. www.giorgigallery.com 

“Nature’s Intentions” New works by Gary Brewer, Jennifoer Holmes and Chris Isner opens at Esteban Sabar Gallery, 480 3rd St., Oakland, and runs to Nov. 19. 444-7411. www.estebansabar.com 

2007 James D. Phelan Art Award in Printmaking Reception at 6 p.m. at Kala Gallery, 1060 Heinz Ave. 549-2977. www.kala.org 

“Paper+Silk+Canvas+Mylar+Leather+Wool” Celebrating 25 years of innovative printmaking by artists of the Blue Bay Press. Artists’ talk at 7 p.m. at Craft and Cultural Arts Gallery, State of CA Office Bldg. Atrium, 1515 Clay St., Oakland. 622-8190. 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Michael Krasney introduces “Off Mike: A Memoire of Talk Radio and Literary Life” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. 

Ann Packer reads from her new novel “Songs Without Words” at 7:30 p.m. at Mrs. Dalloways, 2904 College Ave. 704-8222. 

Alex Ross, New Yorker music critic on “The Rest is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century” at 7 p.m. in Wheeler Auditorium, UC Campus. Free. 642-3691. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Baguette Quartette, French cafe music, at noon at Berkeley Public Library, 2090 Kittredge St. 981-6100. 

The Mountain Boys/Jimbo Trout & The Trout People, Jelly Roll Souls at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $9. 525-5054.  

Brigitte DeMeyer at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $17.50-$18.50. 548-1761.  

Mo’fone at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $10. 841-JAZZ.  

Lucia and Friends “A Meeting at the Crossroads” at 7:30 p.m. at Café de la Paz.. Tickets are $15-$25. 843-0662.  

Houston, Jones, and Jacques at 7 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave. 548-5198.  

Seven Stories Falling, Z-trane Band at 10 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $5. 841-2082. 

Jef Mercelis at 8 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $5-$12. 849-2568.  

Diablo’s Dust at 10 p.m. at Beckett’s Irish Pub, 2271 Shattuck Ave. 647-1790.  

David Sanchez at 8 and 10 p.m., through Sun. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $14-$20. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

FRIDAY, OCT. 19 

THEATER 

Actors Ensemble of Berkeley “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m. at Live Oak Theater, 1301 Shattuck Ave., through Nov. 20. 525-1620. 

Altarena Playhouse “Morning’s at Seven” A family comedy by Paul Osborn Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 p.m. at Altarena Playhouse, 1409 High St., Alameda, through Nov. 11. Tickets are $17-$20. 523-1553.  

Central Works “Every Inch a King” Thurs.-Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 5 p.m. at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant Ave., through Nov. 18. Tickets are $9-$25. 558-1381. centralworks.org 

“A Shirtwaist Tale” on American labor history, women’s suffrage, and Jewish history, Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m. at Humanist Hall, 390 27th St., Oakland. Suggested donation $20. http://ashirtwaisttale.com  

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

Women’s Will “Antigone” Fri.-Sun. at 8 p.m. at Temescal Arts Center, 511 48th St. between Telegraph and Shattuck, Oakland, through Nov. 11. Tickets are $15-$25 sliding scale. 420-0813. www.womenswill.org 

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. 

“Deadly Deviant” Mixed media exhibit celebrating Halloween and Day of the Dead. Opening reception at 7 p.m. at Eclectix Gallery, 7523 Fairmount Ave., El Cerrito. www.eclectixgallery.com 

FILM 

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

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Carl Bernstein discusses “A Woman in Charge: The Life of Hillary Rodham Clinton” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500.  

Tim Maleeny reads from “Beating the Babushka” at 5:30 p.m. at Dark Carnival, 3086 Claremont Ave. 654-7323.  

“Chinese Opera and the Life of Mei Lanfang” A symposium from 1 to 4 p.m. at the Institute of East Asian Studies, 2223 Fulton St. Free.  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

John Ulloa, CD release party, at 9 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $12. 849-2568.  

Guangzhou Ballet of China at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $32-$68. 642-9988.  

Medicine Ball Band at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island. Cost is $12. 841-JAZZ.  

The Stir Ensemble of Chicago at 8 p.m. at Free-Jazz Fridays at the Jazz House, 1510 8th St., Oakland. Cost is $5-$15. 415-846-9432. 

Reggae Angels, Mo’Rockin Project at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $15. 525-5054.  

Sheldon Brown Group at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $15. 845-5373. 

The Rockits, Berkeley rock, at 8 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave. 548-5198.  

Reilly & Maloney at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $22.50-$23.50. 548-1761.  

Elizabeth August at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344.  

Fuzzy Cousins, Invincible Czars, Mojow & the Vibration Army at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $6. 841-2082.  

Batch & Ras Attitude, Zioneers, Malika Madremana & The Greensphere Band at 9 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low. Cost is $12-$15. 548-1159.  

Times 4 at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 843-8277. 

David Sanchez at 8 and 10 p.m., through Sun. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $14-$20. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

SATURDAY, OCT. 20 

CHILDREN  

Los Amiguitos de La Peña with Derique, the high tech clown, at 10:30 a.m. at La Peña. Cost is $4-$5. 849-2568.  

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

EXHIBITIONS 

Tea Pot Show Works by members of the Potters’ Studio in celebration of their 35th Anniversary. Sat. and Sun. from 11:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. at 637 Cedar St. 528-3286. 

“Masks of Africa” from the collection of Hogan Edet and Judah Dwyer. Opening reception at 6 p.m. at Float Gallery, 1091 Calcot Place, Unit #116, Oakland. www.thefloatcenter.com 

FILM 

“Seven Chances” with Judith Rosenberg on piano at 3 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $5.50-$9.50. 642-0808.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Rajiv Chandrasekharan describes “Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq’s Green Zone” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. 

Mark Wilson on “Julia Morgan: Architect of Beauty” at 7 p.m. at Chapel of the Chimes, 4499 Piedmont Ave., Oakland. RSVP to 228-3207. 

Alice Medrich describes “Pure Dessert: True Falvors, Inspiring Ingredients, and Simple Recipes” at 4 p.m. at Mrs. Dalloways, 2904 College Ave. 704-8222. 

Rhythm & Muse featuring poet Garrett Murphy at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Art Center, 1275 Walnut St. 644-6893.  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Guangzhou Ballet of China at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $32-$68. 642-9988.  

Oakland Ballet “Oakland Ballet Company Returns” at 2 and 8 p.m. at Paramount Theater, 2025 Broadway, Oakland. Tickets are $15-$50. 465-6400. 

The Palmer-Cogan Duo with flutist Kris Palmer and pianist Dmitriy Cogan at 8 p.m. at Trinity Chapel, 2320 Dana St. Tickets are $8-$12. 549-3864.  

Broceliande’s Autumnal Celebration House Concert at 8 p.m. in Piedmont. To RSVP and for location call 569-0437. 

Soul Summer Night at the Museum with Oakland School for the Arts, Renee Neufville, Stabe Wilson and others, at 8 p.m. at Oakland Museum, 1000 Oak St., Oakland. Cost is $25. 629-4139. 

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

The KTO Project at 9 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $15. 849-2568.  

Ellen Robinson & Her Trio at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $12. 841-JAZZ.  

The Unreal Band, Pat Quinn Tribute at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $13. 525-5054.  

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

Larry Stefl Jazz Group at 9:30 p.m. at Albatross, 1822 San Pablo Ave. Cost is $5. 843-2473. 

Eddie Marshall & Holy Mischief at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $15-$18. 845-5373. 

Zoyres, Samvega at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $TBA. 841-2082.  

Bag O’ Goodies at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 843-8277. 

David Sanchez at 8 and 10 p.m., through Sun. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $14-$20. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

SUNDAY, OCT. 21 

THEATER 

“By George, It’s War!” A musical satarization of the Bush administration by Dale Polissar at 7:30 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $18-$20. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

EXHIBITIONS 

“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. 

Richard Whittaker and Rue Harrison Photographs and Drawings. Reception at 4 p.m. at The LightRoom, 2263 Fifth St. 649-8111. 

“Celebrating the Fabric of Our Lives” A presentation and exhibition of quilts from 2 to 4 p.m. at Salem Lutheran Home, 2361 East 29th St., Oakland. 534-3637. 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Orhan Pamuk reads from “Other Colors: Essays and A Story” at 7 p.m. at First Congregational Church of Berkeley, 2345 Channing Way. Donations accepted. 559-9500. 

Asian American Poetry Now at 3 p.m. at Berkeley Art Museum, 2626 Bancroft. Cost is $5.50-$9.50. 642-0808. 

An Afternoon with Danny Lyon, documentary photographer and filmmaker at 3:30 p.m., UC Campus. Cost is $12. For reservations see www.fotovision.org 

Leslie Piels and Ann Leyhe describe “Succulents for Containers” at 4 p.m. at Mrs. Dalloways, 2904 College Ave. 704-8222. 

Ayamanatara reads from “365 Days to Enlightenment” at noon at All About Eve, 862 San Pablo Ave, Albany. 559-9901. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Community Music Day at Crowden Music Center, with the San Francisco Chamber Orchestra, from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Free. ccmc@crowden.org 

Live Oak Concert with Marvin Sanders, flute and Lena Lubotsky, piano, at 7:30 p.m. at Berkeley Art Center, 1275 Walnut St. Cost is $10. 644-6893. www.berkeleyartcenter.org 

California Bach Society performs Handel “For the Duke of Chandos” at 4 p.m. at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, 2300 Bancroft at Ellsworth. Tickets are $10-$25. 415-262-0272. www.calbach.org 

Davitt Moroney, 16th Century English Keyboard music at 4 p.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. Tickets are $20. 854-6830. 

Guangzhou Ballet of China at 3 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $32-$68. 642-9988. www.calperfs.berkeley.edu 

The Mo’Rockin Project at Jazz at the Chimes at 2 p.m. at Chapel of the Chimes, 4499 Piedmont Ave., Oakland. Tickets are $10 for concert and reception. For reservations call 228-3218. 

The Very Hot Club at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761.  

Crotty/Phipps/Corman Trio at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $10. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Trick Kernan Combo at 11 a.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344.  

Americana Unplugged: Claudia Russel at 5 p.m. at Jupiter. 843-8277. 

William Beatty and The Unconditionals at 6:30 p.m. at The Mt. Everest Restaurant 2011 Shattuck Ave. at University. 665-6035.  

CDQ+2 at 4:30 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $12-$18. 845-5373. www.jazzschool.com


Around the East Bay: Central Works Reprises Graves' "every Inch A King"

By Ken Bullock, Special to the Planet
Tuesday October 16, 2007

“What do you do with an old king?” queries Central Works Theater Ensemble with their current revival of co-founder Gary Graves’ comedy Every Inch a King, which takes the primal scene, the family tragedy from King Lear, updates it, takes a peek at the three sisters conferring with the old man in the other room and makes it dark, offbeat and too funny. 

The show’s in the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant Ave., where the company’s been in residence, making plays, for a good deal of the past dozen years. Central Works always makes superb theatrical use of the intimate salon space in the venerable old Julia Morgan-designed structure, and this time the author directs, while co-founder Jan Zvaifler, who helmed the first run, is onstage as one of the sisters. 

Rica Anderson and Sandra Schlechter, two of the original cast of three, play her siblings. Do they “sell the home? Or do as the old man says? ... What if your old man has been a real son-of-a-bitch all his life? What if it’s all a scam?” A sensitive, all-too-common issue—stiffened by Shakespearean tragic thunder, served up as a contemporary comedy ... the old age and “downfall” of Reggie Leroy, rubber stamp monarch and millionaire—and the dilemma of his daughters, the troika they try to become to handle him, constitute one of the more celebrated Berkeley originals of the stage in recent years, now happily revived—a fitting close to their 2007 season, following the premieres of two new plays.  

Thurs.-Sun., through Nov. 18, $9-25 sliding scale, with Thursdays pay-what-you-will. 558-1381 or centralworks.org. 


Bar-Lev Turns Lens on Child Artist Controversy

By Ken Bullock, Special to the Planet
Tuesday October 16, 2007

Child prodigy or fake? Naive genius or instrument of an adult Svengali? A controversy that erupts over the growing success of a child painter, a kind of modernist primitive, becomes a welter of questions about art, perception and authorship for a local community outside New York City and for the national media, and became a problem of integrity and presentation for Berkeley-raised documentary filmmaker Amir Bar-Lev, whose remarkable movie My Kid Could Paint That opened locally this past weekend.  

Bar-Lev, who attended Malcolm X and Willard schools and Berkeley High, and who credits his upbringing here for his “learning how to look at things with different points of view,” began a documentary a few years back with the permission, even friendship, of the Olmstead family, whose 4-year-old daughter Marla was rapidly gaining notoriety for her paintings, which seemed to viewers to combine the innocence and freedom of childhood with the fantastic forms and colors of Modernist nonobjective abstraction. 

But praise—and skyrocketing prices, up to $25,000 each (over $300,000 total)—for Marla’s paintings got derailed after five months of increasingly international exposure by a 60 Minutes segment (shown in part in Bar-Lev’s film, as the Olmstead family watches with increasing disbelief), in which Charlie Rose elicited comments from a child psychologist, suggesting Marla’s work was probably painted, or at least guided, by her father, himself a Sunday painter and night manager for a Frito-Lay plant. 

The reaction was just as swift as the foregoing recognition, the criticism as brutal as the praise had been fervent. “The juvenile Jackson Pollock may actually be a full-fledged Willem De Frauding,” sniped the New York Post, and vitreolic hate e-mail poured in to the parents and local gallery owner and photorealist painter who launched Marla’s Icarus-like career. 

At this tipping point, the Olmsteads turned to Bar-Lev, whose visage is glimpsed earlier in the documentary, as greeted by the attractive suburban couple and as he plays with Marla and her baby brother Zane (and impish Marla’s more interested in playing than in talking about art or what she does when painting)—with hopes the documentarist will be able to vindicate Marla’s sole authorship with his film.  

And Bar-Lev, with questions of his own and increasingly mixed loyalties, found himself striving to preserve what he regards as the true documentary nature of his film, a sense of purpose which begins to alienate his subjects, intent on their own dilemma, this lands him in the midst of a crossfire between viewers and critics with different concerns, some condemning Bar-Lev for not taking sides, or not showing the reality of bigger issues they feel explain the ongoing conundrum of authorship and the propriety of media attention to, and investigation of, a previously obscure family, especially its children.  

A recent screening of My Kid Could Paint That in San Francisco showed the fascinating tensions which surfaced in the film. Bar-Lev fielded questions with wit and sensitivity, expressing appreciation for the questioners’ concerns, but firmly stating that his film was not about answers as to who painted certain paintings or who’s to blame for this distasteful controversy.  

He said it is a reflection on how these events and the issues they raised are viewed by our society and its phalanx of media, a plethora of perspectives, some criss-crossing or clashing, some never intersecting at all.  

“Scott Fitzgerald once said that the measure of intelligence is the capability to keep two opposing ideas in mind at the same time,” said Bar-Lev, “And when I quoted that for Good Morning America, I was asked, ‘Isn’t that the measure of insanity?’ Ultimately, the film is trying to see the gray area between evil-doers and heroes. There’s a distinction between a documentary filmmaker and an investigative reporter—and a cop. The investigative reporter and a policeman have the obligation, in different ways, to find out what the facts are. My film is, in part, about ethical choices. In order to resolve some of the issues it brings up, I would’ve had to cross a line—as when I film the Olmsteads on their couch while expressing some of my own doubts and they emphasize (as they continue to do) that Marla received no assistance of any kind in painting, and had never said she was a genius.  

I’d love to get an answer to all that, too, but should I have given the Olmsteads a polygraph? or taken the kid off to the side to ask whether her dad really helped her? I was more interested in preserving humanity. People asked questions right from the start, and when they were assured Marla was solely responsible, they said, ‘My god, she’s a genius!’ So the blame can’t fall just on the parents or the gallery owner. It’s not either that she’s a genius or her parents are criminals.” 

My Kid Could Paint That falls somewhere in between other unusual “essay” films, like Orson Welles’ F for Fake (which also went through major changes in the midst of its making and in postproduction, due to events which revealed much ambiguity in its subjects and threw its original purposes into doubt)--and, say, Albert Brooks’ faux-documentary, Real Life, which wryly casts doubt on the role of the documentarist, in llight of the famous episode of a PBS “reality” doc not only invading a family’s home (with permission), but contributing to its eventual break-up.  

But Bar-Lev keeps his perspective open, all the way to the vanishing points, and eschews easy comment and inference, while capturing telling remarks and expressing self-criticism. The events and various personalitiesare fascinating, and audience members find themselves taking both with varying judgments and speculations as to their veracity and ethical value.  

In the midst of it all, the children continue to play and grow up. Bar-Lev casts his net wide, yet always comes back to the question: How do we choose to tell our stories—and how do we choose to react to the stories of others? 

 

Contributed photo  

Marla Olmstead, 4, works on a painting that may or may not be entirely her creation in Amir Bar-Lev’s documentary My Kid Could Paint That, now in theaters.


San Francisco Jazz Festival Celebrates 25th Year

By Ira Steingroot, Special to the Planet
Tuesday October 16, 2007

This preview of the 2007 SF Jazz Festival, the 25th running of our inspired local jazz derby, must needs begin in medias res since the first two events of the season, author Ben Ratliff and guitarist John McLaughlin, have already come and gone. Not to worry. You still have a chance to catch 37 more performances before the festival closes on Jan. 25 with a concert by Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares at Grace Cathedral.  

Bulgarian sacred choral singing may seem like a stretch for a jazz festival, but it fits in with the range of music that this festival embraces: Cape Verdean vocals from Sara Tavares; Cuban music from Isaac Delgado and Gonzalo Rubalcaba as well as the Conga kings, Candido, Patato Valdes and Giovanni Hidalgo; Latin jazz from Pete Escovedo and John Santos; Brazilian newcomer CéU as well as Brazilian Tropicália legend Caetano Veloso; avant-garde classical from the Kronos Quartet; sitar master Ravi Shankar accompanied by his daughter Anoushka; Saharan guitarists Tinariwen and Vieux Farka Touré and Senegalese vocalist Youssou N’Dour; Portuguese fado star Cristina Branco; and Israeli singer-songwriter Chava Alberstein.  

There is still plenty of music for traditionalists, though, with concerts from Dr. John and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band; saxophonists Ornette Coleman, Pharaoh Sanders, Paquito D’Rivera and Joe Lovano; harmonica master Toots Thielmans; vocalists Dee Dee Bridgewater, Kurt Elling and Nancy King; pianists Ahmad Jamal, Tord Gustavson, Fred Hersch, Jason Moran, Jon Jang, Jackie Terrasson and Herbie Hancock; drummer T. S. Monk; and guitarists John Abercrombie and Dorado Schmitt. 

Without a doubt, the most important event of the festival is the appearance by avant-garde jazz pioneer Ornette Coleman who this year received both a Pulitzer, for his album Sound Grammar, as well as a Grammy for lifetime achievement.  

Ornette, 77, made his first recordings for the Contemporary label in Los Angeles in 1958 and 1959. Dispensing with the piano after his first album, he soon caught the attention of the jazz world playing with a quartet that included either Ed Blackwell or Billy Higgins on drums, Charlie Haden on bass and Don Cherry on pocket trumpet. Ornette himself played a white plastic alto saxophone. It was his sound, however, that divided jazz into two warring camps, although it was the critics and fans more than the musicians who went to war.  

By dispensing with conventional harmony, refusing to run the chord changes that were so central to bebop and hard bop, he pushed Thelonious Monk’s idea of thematic variation to its limits. He composed unusual compositions like Lonely Woman, The Blessing and Ramblin’, whose tonalities fell between the notes of traditional Western scales.  

In fact, what Ornette did was quite traditional within the framework of jazz history. Like Louis Armstrong, he projected the raw emotions expressed in the flatted thirds, fifths and sevenths of the so-called blues scale on to a music played on European instruments. He was retrieving the microtones that got lost or buried during the middle passage. He dispensed with symmetrically mathematical song forms just as earlier jazz improvisers had always invented asymmetrical melodies while soloing. His sound was uniquely human, immediate and thrilling, a return to the vocalic origins of the music.  

Ever since those groundbreaking early recordings almost 50 years ago, Ornette has continued to pursue his own eccentric musical path, creating an emotionally supercharged music informed by his personal lyricism. His current rhythm section, Tony Falanga and Greg Cohen on acoustic bass and his son Denardo on drums, is the same one that played the festival in 2005 as well as on his Pulitzer Prize-winning album. That live performance, as well as the one on the album, presents some of Ornette’s most accessible and sublime music. In a most American way, he continues to sound his barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world. 

Another must-see group is Dorado Schmitt’s Django Reinhardt Festival Band. Schmitt, a Gypsy guitarist and violinist from the Lorraine region of France, first played the Bay Area with saxophonist James Carter in 2004. His band, with Carter on board, had already wowed everyone at the Django Festival at New York City’s Birdland in 2002. For this festival appearance, the group is joined by Cuban-born clarinet virtuoso Paquito D’Rivera.  

Belgian Gypsy guitarist Django Reinhardt, for those who do not know, was certainly the first great non-American jazz musician. Along with violinist Stephane Grappelli, he formed the Quintet of the Hot Club of France, and together (and apart, as well) they made some of the greatest jazz recordings of the swing era.  

Django’s music was lyrical, swinging, free, inventive and technically astounding. It is always surprising to find out that the fingers of Reinhardt’s left hand had been mutilated in a conflagration of wax flowers in his caravan. He subsequently had the use of only two fingers of that hand. In spite of, or because of, this limitation, he could play runs of notes on the guitar that still seem impossible, even for those with ten fingers. 

Schmitt is among a handful of players who have come close to catching the spirit as well as technical virtuosity of Reinhardt’s music. The addition of D’Rivera, a founding member of Irakere and one of the greatest Latin jazz players of all time, only increases the potential greatness of this concert. 

 

Ornette Coleman will perform at the Masonic Center in San Francisco on Oct. 28 at 7 p.m. Dorado Schmitt’s Django Reinhardt Festival Band with Paquito D’Rivera will perform at Herbst Theatre on Nov. 4 at 7 p.m. There will also be a family matinee concert without Paquito at 3 p.m., same date. For more information on all the events of the SF Jazz Festival call (866) 920-5299 or go to their website at sfjazz.org.


Traveling Way Up North to Crescent City Is Worth the Trip

By Carole Terwilliger Meyers, Special to the Planet
Tuesday October 16, 2007

Now is the perfect time of year to head up north to Crescent City. It makes a great refueling stop while exploring expansive Redwood National Park, and is just a hop, skip, and jump from the Oregon border and the dramatic Oregon coast. 

Because Crescent City is so far north—about a six- to seven-hour drive—it is often overlooked as a Bay Area getaway destination. That’s a shame, because it has some sites that are worth the extra time it takes to get here.  

Not the least of them is the Crescent Beach Motel, an ordinary but nicely maintained lodging in which all the rooms have a large window facing the ocean.  

The sandy beach is just beyond a protective low row of boulders. As my husband and I stared out at the grey ocean, it came alive with diving pelicans and bobbing surfers. We wound up keeping our windows open to the soothing sounds of the rolling waves and bleating fog horn.  

Amenities are modest, but I appreciated my complimentary afternoon cup of hot chocolate and my breakfast of coffee and instant oatmeal.  

On our drive in, we passed through the immense redwoods along the Avenue of the Giants just below Eureka. You might want to allow time for a stop at Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park, which is just off Highway 101 about six miles north of Orick. Steven Spielberg filmed part of The Lost World: Jurassic Park II here. This 14,000-acre park is a refuge for one of the few remaining herds of native Roosevelt elk, which are the largest mammals in California and the largest subspecies of North American elk. Viewing is prime from mid-September to mid-October at the Elk Prairie section on Newton Drury Scenic Parkway.  

After sitting outside our motel room for a spell on provided beach chairs, releasing the tensions of the journey, we drove the few miles into town for dinner at Ambrosia. Though located unpromisingly in a strip mall, it’s popular with locals for good reason. My well-priced entrée—horseradish-crusted wild salmon with mashed potatoes and asparagus—included a delicious Caesar salad and left little room for one of the housemade desserts, though I managed a few tastes of my husband’s chocolate cake.  

After breakfast in the morning, we took an invigorating walk along the driftwood-strewn beach using improvised driftwood walking sticks that my husband playfully converted into a baseball bat.  

Then it was off to the town’s charming, now automated Battery Point Lighthouse for a tour. The tide has to be out in order to walk over to the island that holds this charming little gem of a Cape Cod-style lighthouse, which is separated from the shore when the tide is in.  

I’d planned ahead to be here when the tide was right. And getting there is half the fun, requiring as it does a walk over a gravel bed leading past tidepools and past the occasional iris or magenta ice plant.  

I found several stranded, still-alive sea stars and returned them to a tidepool.  

While we sat on a bluff waiting for our tour to start, we took in the stunning sea view alive with flocks of sea birds, including pelicans, and wished we’d brought a lunch so that we could soak up the view even longer at one of the picnic tables.  

On the tour, led by the friendly keeper Randy Ansley and shared with a group of very excited local third graders, we learned that the first lightkeeper came out with James Marshall, who famously discovered gold elsewhere; that it is called “the Christmas light” because it opened on Christmas in 1856; and that the current lightkeeper has cable and internet and got the job by luckily being on a tour on the last day of the previous keeper’s stay.  

We climbed a spiral staircase, viewed the original 4th order Fresnel lens (now displayed in the gift shop), saw and heard an intriguing demonstration of an antique Victrola, and viewed the living quarters of the current keepers that is decorated with lace curtains, rag rugs, and antiques galore (it is one of the longest continually lived in lighthouses on the West Coast). When he saw the light, one kid screamed, “Wow!”  

After, we stopped a short ways away at Brother Jonathan Park, an open expanse that holds several graves and provides a viewpoint of the largest shipwreck--in terms of life and money--ever to occur off the coast of California. We then made a quick stop at the Northcoast Marine Mammal Center located adjacent to Front Street Park to view some noisily recovering baby sea lions, and then headed for lunch.  

The cozy Beachcomber Restaurant, located next door to our motel, has a nice nautical decor of rough-cut planks and fishnets, as well as comfortable booths, but the ocean view is the big event. Also, the fresh fish—often locally caught and usually grilled over madrone-wood barbecue pits—is very good, and the fish & chips-coleslaw-curly fries basket is primo.  

Before leaving town, we made one more stop—at the Del Norte County Historical Society Museum. Housed in a warren of rooms in a building that once served as the town’s Hall of Records and jail, this museum devotes two rooms to local Tolowa and Yurok Native American artifacts. Other displays include musical instruments, photographs, and needlework, and an annex houses the magnificent 5,000-pound, 18-foot-high, 1st order Fresnel lens from the Point Saint George Reef Lighthouse, located 6 miles off shore.  

From here, we hit Highway 101 and headed north to the Oregon border, which is just 20 miles away.  

 

 

IF YOU GO 

 

Crescent City/Del Norte County Chamber of Commerce  

(800) 343-8300; www.exploredelnorte.com  

 

Central Oregon Coast Association  

(800) 767-2064; www.coastvisitor.com 

 

Crescent Beach Motel  

(707) 464-5436; www.crescentbeachmotel.com. Rates drop on Sept. 3. 

 

Redwood National Park  

(707) 464-6101; www.nps.gov/redw 

 

Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park (707) 464-6101 x5301; www.parks.ca.gov 

 

Avenue of the Giants  

www.avenueofthegiants.net 

Ambrosia (707) 464-2400  

 

Battery Point Lighthouse  

(707) 464-3089; www.delnortehistory.org.  

Tours April-Oct.  

 

Brother Jonathan Park  

9th St./Pebble Beach  

 

Northcoast Marine Mammal Center (707) 465-MAML; www.northcoastmmc.org 

 

Beachcomber Restaurant  

(707) 464-2205 

 

Del Norte County Historical Society Museum (707) 464-3922; www.delnortehistory.org 

 

Carole Terwilliger Meyers is the author of Weekend Adventures in San Francisco & Northern California (www.carousel-press.com) and Miles of Smiles: 101 Great Car Games & Activities.  

 

Photograph by Carole Terwilliger Meyers. 

The Battery Point Lighthouse opened on Chrsimas day in 1856.


Wild Neighbors: Birds in Winter: Charles Keeler and the Summer Warbler

By Joe Eaton
Tuesday October 16, 2007

If you want to look back at changes in Berkeley’s bird life over the last century, the work of Charles Augustus Keeler provides a convenient benchmark. I have a battered library-discard copy of his Bird Notes Afield, the second edition, published in 1907. Keeler notes in a preface that the bird collection of the California Academy of Sciences, where he did his research, had been a casualty of the San Francisco quake and fire the year before. 

Keeler is an obscure figure today, known primarily to architecture buffs. He gave Bernard Maybeck his first commission, and the resulting Keeler Cottage still stands on Highland Place in North Berkeley. Around the turn of the last century, though, Charles Keeler was prominent in Bay Area literary and artistic circles. 

Born in Milwaukee, he moved here with his family in 1887, attended UC (but didn’t graduate), and landed a job with the Academy. But he saw himself as more poet than scientist, publishing several volumes of poems and plays. A Simple Home (1904) made him a leading voice of the Arts and Crafts movement. 

A friend of John Muir and early member of the Sierra Club, Keeler also founded and presided over the Hillside Club, ran the Berkeley Chamber of Commerce, and organized the Baha’i-influenced First Berkeley Cosmic Society. He had met Muir on the 1899 Harriman Expedition to Alaska, whose complement also included the naturalist John Burroughs, the artist Louis Agassiz Fuertes, and the photographer Edward S. Curtis. 

However, this is about Keeler as a nature writer. His work requires a bit of translation, because so many of the common names of Bay Area birds have changed since the 1900s. Bird Notes Afield is full of varied robins (now varied thrushes), pileolated warblers (Wilson’s), russet-backed thrushes (Swainson’s), and the like.  

Like many of his contemporaries, he wasn’t afraid to anthropomorphize his subjects. Of the varied thrush, he wrote: 

“Some deep, brooding sorrow seems to have fallen upon it to quench its song and leave it meditative and lonely.” The junco, in contrast, is “exceptionally bright and cheerful,” the house wren is “jolly,” and the western scrub-jay is “happy-go-lucky.” But Keeler doesn’t seem to have gone as far as his contemporaries who were lambasted as “nature fakers” by Theodore Roosevelt. 

What interests me most, though, is which birds he considered common, and which he didn’t mention at all. Keeler’s Berkeley had no crows, no ravens, no chestnut-backed chickadees, no Nuttall’s woodpeckers. He treats western bluebirds as frequent winter visitors, and lark-finches (lark sparrows) as routine spring nesters. 

Then there’s this: “The lovely little summer warbler … with its fine gold plumage faintly streaked on the breast with reddish brown, and its vivacious crescendo song, is a familiar summer resident here”—“here” meaning Berkeley. That would be the yellow warbler. And it seems to have remained a familiar urban or suburban bird at least into the 1920s: Joseph Grinnell and Margaret Wythe, in their 1927 Directory to the Bird-life of the San Francisco Bay Region, call it a “common summer resident throughout the region” that “often makes its home in orchards and shade trees in city parks and gardens.” 

That has definitely changed. I’m accustomed to seeing yellow warblers in my yard during migration, but over a couple of decades in Berkeley I’ve never detected a singing male during the breeding season, or any other indicator of nesting. This species prefers riparian habitat, and there’s not a lot of that left in the Bay Area. 

It has also suffered from nest parasitism by the brown-headed cowbird, a Great Plains bird that first showed up here around the 1920s. Like cuckoos, cowbirds dump their eggs in the nests of hosts, who rear the alien hatchling as if it were their own. In populations that co-evolved with cowbirds, yellow warblers either desert the parasitized nest or roof over the cowbird egg (along with any of their own) and start a new clutch. Naïve California warblers have no such instinctive defenses.  

But it seems the warblers are still around, in small numbers. The Contra Costa Breeding Bird Atlas, online at www.flyingemu.com/ccosta, shows nesting confirmed in two survey blocks just north and east of Berkeley, and possible in two others in the East Bay Hills. Elsewhere around the Bay, yellow warblers are uncommon nesters in Marin County and appear to be holding their own in Sonoma and Napa. 

Although there have been other losses since Keeler’s time, there have also been gains. Grinnell and Wythe were pessimistic: “On the whole, it looks as though the total number of species in the Bay region at the present time were undergoing decided reduction, due in major part to the elimination of habitats of wide diversity or of productive kinds.” What actually happened between 1927 and 2007 would have surprised them. More next time.  

 

Joe Eaton’s “Wild Neighbors” column appears every other Tuesday in the Berkeley Daily Planet, alternating with Ron Sullivan’s “Green Neighbors” column on East Bay trees. 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Berkeley This Week

Tuesday October 16, 2007

TUESDAY, OCT. 16 

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 Lake Temescal. Call for meeting place and if you need to borrow binoculars. 525-2233. 

The Berkeley Garden Club “Designing with Natives in the Home Garden” presented by Glenn Keator and Alrie Middlebrook at 1:30 p.m. at Epworth United Methodist Church, 1953 Hopkins St. 845-4482. 

Town Hall Meeting on West Berkeley Assessment District with Council Member Darryl Moore and the City of Berkeley Office of Economic Development at 7 p.m. at Rosa Parks Elementary, 920 Allston Way, at 8th St. 981-7120. 

St. Paul’s Episcopal School’s Annual Book Fair from 4:30 to 7:30 p.m. at 116 Montecito Ave., Oakland. 285-9600.  

Middle School Book Group from 4 to 5 p.m. at the Berkeley Public Library, 4th Floor, Children’s Story Room, 2090 Kittredge Street, Berkeley. 981-6223.  

“Reincarnation and Buddhism” with Rev. Harry Bridge, at 7 p.m. at the Jodo Shinshu Center, 2140 Durant Ave. at Fulton. Donation $20. 809-1460. 

End the Occupation Vigil every Tues. at noon at Oakland Federal Bldg., 1301 Clay St. www.epicalc.org 

Red Cross Blood Services Volunteer Orientation from 6 to 8 p.m. at 6230 Claremont Ave., Oakland. Registration required. 594-5165. 

Berkeley Camera Club meets at 7:30 p.m., at the Northbrae Community Church, 941 The Alameda. 548-3991. www.berkeleycameraclub.org 

Community Sing-a-Long every Tues, at 2 p.m. at the Albany Senior Center, 846 Masonic Ave. 524-9122.  

Family Storytime at 7 p.m. at Kensington Library. 61 Arlington Ave. 524-3043.  

St. John’s Prime Timers meets at 9:30 a.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. 845-6830. 

WEDNESDAY, OCT. 17 

Walking Tour of Old Oakland around the restored 1870s business district. Meet at 10 a.m. in front of G.B. Ratto’s at 827 Washington St. Tour lasts 90 minutes. Reservations can be made by calling 238-3234. 

“The Struggle Against Agribusiness in the Americas” with an update on Brazil’s Landless Workers Movement, at 7:30 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Donations accepted. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Civilian War Victim Series “A Civilian War Victim’s Story” with Dr. Brian Gluss at 1 p.m. at Emeryville Senior Center, 4321 Salem, Emeryville. 596-3730. 

“Coconut Revolution” A documentary on the struggle of indigenous people in Bouganivlle, Papua New Guinea, against the Panguna copper mine, at 8 p.m. at Long Haul Infoshop, 3124 Shatttuck Ave. www.thelonghaul.org 

5.6 Mile Wednesday Join naturalist Meg Platt for a moderate hike traversing a steep creek crossing and varied hills in search of native plants beating the heat. Meet at 10:30 a.m. at Bear Creek Staging Area, Newt Hollow Picnic Site, Briones. For information call 525-2233. 

Rally Against Military Recruiters in Berkeley with Code Pink from 7:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. at 64 Shattuck Square. 524-2776. 

Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning Colloquium with Thomas H. Hahn on “Landscapes of Ritual: China and the Performative Body.” Email for time and location laep.ced.berkeley.edu/events/colloquium 

“21st Century Family” A Greater Good magazine panel on how marriage has changed at 3:30 p.m. in the Lipman Room, 8th flr, Barrows Hall, UC Campus. www.greatergoodmag.org 

Computers for Seniors An open and ongoing class covering email, Internet, letter-writing and more. Class meets Wed. a.m. for eight weeks, from 8:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. at the South Berkeley Senior Center 2939 Ellis St. 981-5170.  

Online Live Homework Help Workshop for students in 4th to 8th grade, from 2:45 to 3:45 p.m. at the Berkeley Public Library, 4th floor, Children’s Story Room, 2090 Kittredge St. 981-6223.  

Berkeley School Volunteers Orientation from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. at 1835 Allston Way. Come learn about volunteer opportunities. 644-8833. 

“So Help Me God” The Founding Fathers and the First Great Battle Over Church and State with Rev. Forrest Church at 7 p.m. at The UNitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley, One Lawson Rd., Kensington. Suggested donation $10. 525-0302. 

An Introduction to Marxism, a free class for beginners and students at every level from 6:30 to 9 p.m. at Niebyl-Proctor Marxist Library, 6501 Telegraph Ave., Oakland. 595-7417.  

“Mystic Street: Meditations on a Spiritual Path” with Steve Georgiou at 7 p.m. at Patriarch Athenagoras Orthodox Institute, Graduate Theological Union, 2311 Hearst. 649-2450. 

Walk Berkeley for Seniors meets at 9:30 a.m. at the Sea Breeze Market, just west of the I-80 overpass. Heavy rain cancels. 548-9840. 

THURSDAY, OCT. 18 

“Creating Inclusive Environments for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Families in East Bay Elementary Schools” A forum for parents, school administrators, and teachers at 5:30 p.m. at Chabot Elementary, 6686 Chabot Rd, Oakland. Free child-care is available on site. Please RSVP to Julia at 415-981-1960. 

“Climate Change and Biodiversity Conservation in Northern California” with Dr. Mark Schwartz, UC Davis at 12:30 p.m. at the Oakland Museum of California, 10th and Oak Sts., Oakland. 238-2022.  

Golden Gate Audubon Society “Endangered Species Big Year at the Golden Gate National Parks” with Brent Plater at 7 p.m. at Northbrae Community Church, 941 The Alameda. 843-2222. 

LeConte Neighborhood Association meets at 7:30 p.m. at the LeConte School Cafetorium, entrance on Russell St. Agenda topics will include BRT, local zoning issues and nominations for next year’s Board of Directors. KarlReeh@aol.com, 843-2602. 

“The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil” A documentary at 7 p.m., followed by discussion at Green City Gallery, 1950 Shattuck Ave Suggested donation $5-$10. oilindependence@yahoo.com  

Sacramento and Berkeley Legislative Update with Assemblywoman Loni Hancock and Mayor Tom Bates sponsored by the Berkeley Democratic Club at 7:30 p.m at the Northbrae Community Church, in the Chapel, 941 The Alameda, just south of Solano Ave. Refreshments will be served. 849-2554. 

“Facing Death. . . with open eyes” A new documentary by Bay Area filmmaker Dr. Michelle Peticolas at 7:30 p.m. at Chapel of the Chimes, 4499 Piedmont Ave., Oakland. Tickets are $12-$15. 800-838-3006. 

Simplicity Forum meets to discuss “Opting Out of the Consumer Trap” at 6:30 p.m. at the Claremont Library, 2940 Benvenue Ave. 

“Avoid Cancer” Book signing with authors Linda Eldridge and David Borgeson at 7 p.m. at Elephant Pharm Berkeley 1607 Shattuck Ave. 549-9200. 

Babies & Toddlers Storytime at 10:15 and 11:15 a.m. at Kensington Library, 61 Arlington Ave., Kensington. 524-3043. 

FRIDAY, OCT. 19 

Impeachment Banner Fridays at 6:45 to 8 a.m. on the Berkeley Pedestrian bridge between Seabreeze Market and the Berkeley Aquatic Park, ongoing on Fridays until impeachment is realized. www. Impeachbush-cheney.com 

City Commons Club Noon Luncheon Speaker to be announced. Luncheon at 11:45 a.m. for $14.50, speech at 12:30 p.m., at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant St. For information and reservations call 526-2925.  

“Designing California Native Gardens; The Plant Community Approach to Artful, Ecological Gardens” with Alrie Middlebrook and Dr. Glenn Keator at 7:30 p.m. at Builder's Booksource, 1817 Fourth St. 845-6874. 

“AIDS in the Black Community” A forum, with film screening, at 6 p.m. at Oakland Public Conservatory of Music, 1616 Franklin St., Oakland. Free. 836-4649. 

“An Unreasonable Man” Conscientious Projector Series documentary on Ralph Nader at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists Hall, 1924 Cedar at Bonita. 841-4824. 

Iraq Moratorium Action from 2 to 4 p.m. at the corner of University and Acton. Sponsored by the Strawberry Creek Lodge Tenants Assoc. and the Berkeley-East Bay Gray Panthers. 548-9696. 

“10 Questions for the Dalai Lama” A documentary by Rick Ray, at 7:30 p.m. at Unity of Berkeley, 2075 Eunice St. 528-8844. www.unityberkeley.org 

“Intro to Fearless Meditation: Practice of the Body” at 7 p.m. at Center for Urban Peace, 2584 Martin Luther King Jr Way. Suggested Donation $20 - $30, no one turned away. 549-3733. 

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 

Women in Black Vigil, from noon to 1 p.m. at UC Berkeley, Bancroft at Telegraph. wibberkeley@yahoo.com 548-6310, 845-1143. 

SATURDAY, OCT. 20 

Fall Harvest Walk Join the Berkeley Path Wanderers on an easy, level walk to Berkeley community and school gardens. Meet at 10 a.m. at the North Berkeley BART station, just outside the gates. 528-3246. www.berkeleypaths.org 

Open The Farm Meet and greet the animals at the Little Farm in Tilden Park as you help the farmer with morning chores, from 9 to 10:30 a.m. 525-2233. 

Berkeley Historical Society Tour of Downtown Berkeley from 10 a.m. to noon. Cost is $8-$10. To register and for meeting place call 848-0181. 

Walking Tour of Oakland Chinatown Meet at 10 a.m. at the courtyard fountain in the Pacific Renaissance Plaza at 388 Ninth St. Tour lasts 90 minutes. Reservations can be made by calling 238-3234. www.oaklandnet.com/walkingtours 

Chapel of the Chimes Historical and Botanical Tour at 10 a.m. at Chapel of the Chimes, 4499 Piedmont Ave., Oakland. RSVP to 228-3207. 

East Bay Native Plant Fair Sat. from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. and Sun. from noon to 3 p.m. at Native Here Nursery, 101 Golf Course Drive. Free.  

The New School of Berkeley Halloween Bazaar, with children's games, giant rummage sale, book sale, crafts, haunted house, and more from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at 1606 Bonita St. at Cedar. Proceeds support the New School’s scholarship fund. 548-9165.  

East Bay Regional Park District Ambassador Training from 9 a.m. to noon at the Trudeau Center, 11500 Skyline Blvd., Oakland. Registration required. 544-2206. cjohnson@ebparks.org 

Tibetan Association Celebrates the awarding of the Congressional Gold Medal to His Holiness the Dalai Lama at 6 p.m. at Golden Gate Fields, 1100 Eastshore Highway. Tickets are $50. RSVP to 390-6771, 206-0247. 

California Writers Club “Literary Voices from our Community” with Gurnam Brard and Anjuelle Floyd, at 10 a.m. at Barnes & Noble, Jack London Square. 272-0120. www.berkeleywritersclub.org 

Free Car Seat Check from 10 a.m. to noon at the Allston Way Parking Garage, between Harold Way and Shattuck Ave. 647-1111. 

Fire Safety Day Meet a firefighter at 11 a.m. at Habitot Children’s Museum, 2065 Kittredge St. 647-1111. 

“Tropical Rainforests: Challenges and New Hopes” A forum from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Oakland Museum of California, 10th and Oak Sts., Oakland. Cost is $15-$30. For information call 415-321-8000.  

Chapel of the Chimes Historical and Botanical Tour at 10 a.m. at 4499 Piedmont Ave. RSVP to 228-3207. 

Old Oakland Outdoor Cinema “Babe” at sunset on Ninth St., between Broadway and Washington. Free, bring your own chair and blanket. 238-4734. 

Full Houses: Poker Tournament to benefit Impact Theatre at 7 p.m. at La Val’s Subterranean, 1834 Euclid Ave. $50 buy in, with unlimited $25 rebuys until 9 p.m. 464-4468. 

“Destination Studies Class on Eastern Europe” from 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. at Berkeley City College, 2050 Center St. Cost is $10. 981-2931. 

“Restoring the Heart of Change” Daylong retreat with Kyodo Willilliams at Center for Urban Peace, 2584 MLK Jr Way. Cost is $25. 549-3733. 

“Spirit Never Dies” An evening of communing with those that have passed over at 7:30 p.m. at Berkeley Psychic Institute, 2018 Allston Way. Cost is $20. For reservations call 644-1600 . 

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 

The Berkeley Lawn Bowling Club provides free instruction every Wed. and Sat. at 10:30 a.m. at 2270 Acton St. 841-2174.  

SUNDAY, OCT. 21 

United Nations Day Celebration with a parade of the flags of the 193 member nations at 11:30 a.m. at Jack London Square, Oakland.  

Bike Tour of Oakland around Oakland’s Brooklyn neighborhood on a leisurely paced two-hour tour that covers about five miles. Meet at 10 a.m. at the 10th St. entrance to the Oakland Museum of California. Reservations required. 238-3514.  

Community Labyrinth Peace Walk at 3 p.m. at Willard Middle School, Telegraph Ave. between Derby and Stuart. Everyone welcome. Wheelchair accessible. Rain cancels. 526-7377. 

“Confronting Cambodia’s Wildlife Crisis” A presentation and discussion with Wildlife Alliance at 11:30 a.m. at Morgan Lounge, Room 114 Morgan Hall, UC Campus. RSVP to 202-223-6350. miller@wildlifealliance.org 

Greening Richmond Learn about global warming and what residents and business owners can do. Information tables on lighting, appliances, solar panels, tank-less water heaters, insulation and more. From 1 to 5 p.m. at DeJean Middle School, 3400 Mac Donald, Richmond. www.greenchamberofcommerce.net 

Green Sunday “Stem Cell and Cloning Research Controversies: Developing a Green Position” with Diane Beeson, and Tina Stevens at 5 p.m. at Niebyl-Proctor Library, 6501 Telegraph Ave. at 65th in North Oakland. 

El Cerrito Historical Society with Richard Schwartz on his new book “Eccentrics, Heroes, and Cutthroats of Old Berkeley” at 1 p.m. at the El Cerrito Senior Center, 6510 Stockton Ave. behind the El Cerrito Library. 526-7507. www.elcerritowire.com/history 

Holiday Gourd Crafting Learn the history of gourds, and how to create a fall centerpiece for your table from 1 to 4 p.m. at Tilden Nature Center. Cost is $20-$29. Registration required. 1-888-EBPARKS. 

Community Music Day at Crowden Music Center, with an instrument petting zoo, mini-concerts with the San Francisco Chamber Orchestra, and more, from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Free. ccmc@crowden.org 

Day of the Dead Community Celebration with music, dance, ceremonia, activities, and food, from noon to 5 p.m. at Oakland Museum of California, 10th and Oak Sts. Reservations required. 238-2022. 

“Celebrating the Fabric of Our Lives” A presentation and exhibition of quilts from 2 to 4 p.m. at Salem Lutheran Home, 2361 East 29th St., Oakland. 534-3637. 

Friends & Family Day at the Magnes from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Judha L. Magnes Museum, 2911 Russell St. 549-6950. www.magnes.org 

“10 Questions for the Dalai Lama” A documentary by Rick Ray, at 7:30 p.m. at Unity of Berkeley, 2075 Eunice St. Cost is $10. 528-8844. www.unityberkeley.org 

Free Sailboat Rides from 1 to 4 p.m. at the Cal Sailing Club, Berkeley Marina. Wear warm, waterproof clothing and bring a change of clothes in case you get wet. www.cal-sailing.org 

Free Hands-on Bicycle Repair Class Learn how to repair a flat. Bring your bicycle and tools. At 10 a.m. at REI, 1338 San Pablo Ave. 527-4140. 

“Marx and the United States” with Urszula Wislanka and Ron Kelch at 10 a.m. at Niebyl-Proctor Marxist Library, 6501 Telegraph Ave, Oakland. 595-7417. www.tifcss.org 

Free Garden Tours at Regional Parks Botanic Garden in Tilden Park Sat. and Sun. at 2 p.m. Call to confirm. 841-8732. www.nativeplants.org 

Lake Merritt Neighbors Organized for Peace Peace walk around the lake every Sun. Meet at 3 p.m. at the colonnade at the NE end of the lake. 763-8712. lmno4p.org 

“Activating Present-Moment Awareness” with Marion Pastor and David Curry at 10 a.m. at Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley, 1 Lawson Rd., Kensington. 525-0302, ext. 306. 

Tibetan Buddhism with Elizabeth Cook on “Sacred Places of the Buddha: Birth of Enlightenment” at 6 p.m. at the Tibetan Nyingma Institute, 1815 Highland Pl. 843-6812. www.nyingmainstitute.com 

MONDAY, OCT. 22 

“Violence on the Streets” A law enforcement awareness forum, with film screening, at 6 p.m. at Oakland Public Conservatory of Music, 1616 Franklin St., Oakland. Free. 836-4649. 

“Frontiers in Climate Forecasting” with Bill Collins of LBNL at 5:30 p.m. at Berkeley Rep, 2025 Addison St. 486-7292. 

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. www.watersideworkshops.org 

Teen Chess Club meets at 3:30 p.m. at the Claremont Branch of the Berkeley Public Library, Benvenue at Ashby. 981-6280. 

Berkeley CopWatch organizational meeting at 8 p.m. at 2022 Blake St. 548-0425. 

CITY MEETINGS 

Commission on Aging meets Wed., Oct. 17, at 1:30 p.m., at the South Berkeley Senior Center. 981-5344.  

Downtown Area Plan Advisory Commission meets Wed. Oct. 17, at 7 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-7487. 

Human Welfare and Community Action Commission meets Wed., Oct. 17, at 7 p.m., at the South Berkeley Senior Center. 981-5427.  

Design Review Committee meets Thurs., Oct. 18 , at 7:30 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-7415.  

Fair Campaign Practices Commission meets Thurs., Oct. 18, at 7:30 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-6950.