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John Curl, a West Berkeley woodworker and land use activist (right), leads planning commissioners on a tour of the Sawtooth Building during Saturday’s “West Berkeley Zoning Flexibility” tour.
By Richard Brenneman
John Curl, a West Berkeley woodworker and land use activist (right), leads planning commissioners on a tour of the Sawtooth Building during Saturday’s “West Berkeley Zoning Flexibility” tour.
 

News

Flash: Bay Guardian Wins $15.6 Million Verdict In Predatory Pricing Suit Against SF Weekly

By Tim Redmond Special to The Planet
Tuesday March 04, 2008

Posted Wed., March 5—A San Francisco jury this afternoon found the San Francisco Weekly and its corporate parent guilty of illegal predatory pricing and awarded us $6.39 million. 

Under state law, part of that verdict is subject to treble damages, bringing the total award to $15.6 million.  

The battle isn’t over; Rod Kerr, attorney for the Weekly, told me immediately afterward that the 16-paper chain intends to appeal.  

But the verdict sends a clear signal to small businesses, independent newspapers and the alternative press that a locally owned publication has the right to a level playing field and that a chain can’t intentionally cut prices and sell below cost to injure a smaller competitor.  

The trial had been underway for more than five weeks. The Guardian charged the Weekly with violating the state’s Unfair Practices Act, a Progressive-era law that bars a company from selling a product below cost for the purpose of destroying competition.  

Evidence produced in the trial showed clearly that the Weekly had been selling ads below cost. In fact, the paper had lost money every year since the New Times chain, now known as Village Voice Media, bought it in 1995.  

The Guardian produced extensive evidence that the Weekly and VVM were trying to injury the local competitor, including three witnesses who testified that they heard Mike Lacey, one of the two principals of New Times, vow to put the Guardian out of business.  

The evidence produced also showed numerous internal emails discussing the Weekly’s battle plans to take ads away from the Guardian.  

The Weekly’s lawyers ultimately admitted to below-cost sales, but said they had no intent to harm a competitor. However, members of the jury interviewed after the case believed otherwise. Kerstin Sjoquist, a local business owner and graduate student, said in an interview that “it felt overly predatory on the part of the Weekly” and that “the predatory intent trickled down from the top.”  

Juror Dan Babin said he found the testimony of the Guardian’s co-owners “very, very trustworthy. I found them very honest in their approach.”  

A juror who didn’t want to be named said there was little disagreement among the panel members over the question of intent.  

By all accounts, the jurors carefully weighed all the evidence in the case, deliberating for more than three days and going through what one juror described as “unraveling an onion.”  

In the end, there was unanimous agreement that the Weekly had sold below cost, and 11 or the 12 jurors agreed that the paper had intended to harm competition.  

The jury ruled that New Times/VVM and the East Bay Express, which until recently was owned by VVM, were equally culpable in aiding the predatory sales.  

The Express is now an independent paper, and VVM is liable for any damages assessed against that publication.  

The jury foreperson handed the verdict to the court bailiff at 12:30 pm, and the clerk read the results to a packed and silent courtoom. As the various parts of the verdict were read, and it became obvious that the Weekly and VVM were liable for significant damages, Lacey could be heard mumbling “shit” over and over again.  

Lacey would not comment outside the courtroom and didn’t return our phone calls. But Kerr, in a brief interview, said he was “disappointed” with the jury decision. “We don’t believe the evidence supported the verdict,” he said, and vowed to file an appeal.  

The Guardian will now ask Judge Marla Miller to issue an injunction barring the Weekly from continued below-cost sales.  

VVM posted a lengthy statement on the web almost immediately after the verdict was announced, arguing that the Unfair Practices Act is flawed. The chain promised to seek to challenge the validity of that law on appeal.  

The process of appealing a case such as this can take years. But in the meantime, a San Francisco jury has sent a powerful message: Local businesses and local independent media matter – and big chains that try to use their deep pockets to squeeze the locals can be held to account. 

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Tim Redmond is the executive editor of the San Francisco Bay Guardian


Man Fatally Shot Outside Russell Street Apartment

By Richard Brenneman
Tuesday March 04, 2008

Posted Wed., March 5—A San Leandro man was fatally shot Monday night on California Street, just seven blocks north from the scene of another murder eight days earlier. 

Ceron Burns, 25, was gunned down as he stood near outside Rosewood Manor apartments at 1615 Russell St. 

Seven blocks to the south, Brandon Terrell Jones was shot down on Harmon Street near the corner of California on Feb. 24, just 18 minutes less than eight days before the Burns shooting. That murder remains unsolved, and Berkeley police are offering a $15,000 for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the killer. 

The city’s emergency switchboard logged the first of several calls reporting the shooting at 11:32 p.m., according to Berkeley police spokesperson Sgt. Mary Kusmiss. 

Arriving at the apartment building, officers found Burns lying beside a parked car, bleeding from several gunshot wounds. 

Berkeley Fire Department paramedics rushed the injured man to the Highland Hospital Trauma Center, where doctors pronounced him dead at 12:04 a.m. 

Sgt. Kusmiss asked anyone with information about either murder to call the BPD Homicide Detail at 981-5741, or the department’s non-emergency line at 981-5900. 

Burns’s death marks the city’s fourth homicide of the year.  

Kent Washington Evans died Jan. 13, 12 days after he was stabbed outside a bar at 3212 Adeline St. Police arrested a suspect in that incident, Roy Smith Jr., 71, of Oakland. 

The stabbing followed a confrontation between the two after Smith allegedly insulted a woman who had accompanied Evans to the bar. 

Police have listed those three death as murders, but not the year’s fourth fatality, Anita Gay, who was shot by a Berkeley police officer outside her apartment in the 1700 block of Ward Street Feb. 16. Police said the woman was shot in the back after she approached relatives with a large kitchen knife.  

Conflicting reports about the shooting have led to an investigation by the Berkeley Police Review Commission. The incident is also being reviewed by the BPD’s Homicide and Internal Affairs units and by the Alameda County District Attorney’s office.


Oakland Weighs Legal Options to Stop State Plans to Spray Moths

By Judith Scherr
Tuesday March 04, 2008

Posted Wed., March 5—On Tuesday, Oakland joined a growing movement to force the state, through political and legal means, to back off from plans for the aerial spraying of a pesticide over parts of Northern California intended to eradicate the Light Brown Apple Moth (LBAM). 

In open session the council unanimously approved a resolution opposing the spray and in closed session it gave City Attorney John Russo direction to coordinate with other Bay Area cities “on an aggressive legal strategy” to compel the state to perform a “serious” environmental review before conducting the spray program. 

A strategy that could also include the cities of Berkeley, Albany and El Cerrito—Russo hadn't talked to attorneys in the other cities yet—would bring the weight of the legal system as well as political pressure to bear on the state agency, Russo told the Planet in a phone interview Wednesday.  

“It seems that we have to go in that direction,” he said. 

In the regular Tuesday evening council meeting that followed the closed session, the Oakland City Council unanimously approved a resolution opposing the spray. Berkeley passed a measure opposing the spray at its Feb. 26 meeting and will meet in closed session to discuss legal strategies March 17. Albany passed a resolution opposing the spray in January. 

The California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) has declared an emergency in parts of Santa Cruz and Monterey counties as well as parts of Alameda (including Berkeley, Oakland, Piedmont and Albany), Contra Costa, Marin, San Francisco and San Mateo counties due to the numbers of LBAMs found in these areas. 

“There's a legal question of whether they can undertake mass spraying under an emergency,” Russo said, noting that very simple acts require environmental review, such as cutting down a tree, and that the spraying of this product carries with it many complex questions. 

“We're not saying they can't spray,” he said. “They need to show there's no environmental impact.” 

Having declared an emergency, the state is permitted to spray the product—CheckMate made by Suterra of Bend, Ore.—before conducting an environmental review. The state has begun the review, which will not be complete before it resumes spraying in Monterey and Santa Cruz counties June 1 and in the Bay Area in August. 

The state says the infestation is an emergency because it could devastate 250 different crops grown in California. Spray opponents point out that California has suffered no crop damage from the LBAM to date. 

The first aerial spray to be conducted over an urban area was done in September in Monterey and Santa Cruz counties, after which more than 600 people reported ill effects including shortness of breath, nausea, itchy skin and more. 

Santa Cruz County has litigation pending against the state, targeting the absence of an environmental review before spraying. The case will go to court April 24. Russo said he may be directed by the City Council to join Santa Cruz in an amicus brief. 

Checkmate is a synthetic pheromone contained in microcapsules with inert ingredients for aerial spraying. Some medical professionals have said the microcapsules themselves present a danger to the respiratory tract of sensitive people and others say the inert ingredients that accompany the pheromone may be dangerous. The state says the product is safe for humans, but opponents say it has not been studied for long-term health impacts. 

A pheromone is a scent emitted by a female moth that attracts a male moth. When synthetic pheromones are introduced, males become confused and no longer mate, interrupting the reproductive cycle.


West Berkeley Zoning Tour Reveals Land-Use Tensions

By Richard Brenneman
Tuesday March 04, 2008
John Curl, a West Berkeley woodworker and land use activist (right), leads planning commissioners on a tour of the Sawtooth Building during Saturday’s “West Berkeley Zoning Flexibility” tour.
By Richard Brenneman
John Curl, a West Berkeley woodworker and land use activist (right), leads planning commissioners on a tour of the Sawtooth Building during Saturday’s “West Berkeley Zoning Flexibility” tour.

Crammed into two standing-room-only buses, planning commissioners, city staff, business owners and interested citizens set out for a five-hour tour of West Berkeley Saturday. 

Designed by city staff, the outing was crafted to highlight the need for zoning ordinance changes supposed to ease the way for new businesses to set up shop in the city’s only industrial and manufacturing zones. 

Among the participants were City Councilmember Darryl Moore, whose district includes all of West Berkeley south of University Avenue, Calvin Fong, chief of staff for Mayor Bates, Planning and Development Director Dan Marks and a host of city staff. 

The only planning commissioner missing was Gene Poschman, away on a previously scheduled vacation. 

The outcome of the tour and subsequent hearings and discussions by the Planning Commission will be a set of zoning change proposals that some feel could threaten the city’s last redoubt of small manufacturers and artisans. 

By the end of the day, divisions were clearly drawn between a city staff and council intent on attracting high technology jobs and smaller businesses concerned that the resulting pressure would destroy a delicate economic ecology and an area plan they want to protect. 

The majority of questions from planning commissioners seemed sympathetic to the proposed changes, and the tour was heavily weighted towards companies seeking change. 

It began inside a building owned by West Berkeley’s increasingly dominant landlord, Wareham Development. 

As commission chair James Samuels convened the meeting inside the lobby of 717 Potter St., one Wareham tenant briefly listened in. Jay Keasling, a UC Berkeley/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory scientist, lingered a few minutes before walking up to his own private genetic engineering company, Amyris Technologies, which has a lab on the building’s second floor. 

Keasling was also a major figure in landing UC Berkeley its $500 million research program funded by BP, the British oil giant, and currently heads the federally funded Joint BioEnergy Institute, which is housed in another Wareham property in Emeryville—where Amyris is also relocating. 

Wareham owns more than 16.5 acres of property in West Berkeley, which houses 530,000 square feet of building floor space. The company specializes in rentals to companies in the life sciences industries and is currently in the market for more properties in West Berkeley.  

Asked by commissioner Harry Pollack where Wareham is looking, Barlow replied, “Anything from University Avenue to Ashby.”  

Barlow said Wareham’s issue with city zoning codes didn’t involve the overall zoning—Wareham’s local properties are in the MULI (manufacturing and light industrial) zone, which exists only in West Berkeley. 

The problems arise more with specifics of the code governing integration of streets, utilities and other infrastructure into a single industrial park setting. 

Zelda Bronstein, a former mayoral candidate who has been active in challenging proposed changes in West Berkeley zoning, was successful in persuading Samuels to allow public questions during the tour, rather than only at the end as city staff had proposed. 

Her first question focused on rents Wareham charged, and Barlow responded that the company charged $850 a month to artists in the live/work units of the Durkee Building. 

Rents at buildings with biotech labs were higher because of the high costs of building improvements, including air filtration systems, and depending on how much of the costs for improvements tenants were will to pay themselves. 

 

Marchant Building 

After a few minutes on an AC Transit bus, tour participants arrived at the second stop, Sun Light and Power, which is located across Folger Avenue from the Marchant Building, recently purchased by Redico, a Michigan-based real estate development and management firm. 

Craig Willian said his firm had purchased the Marchant Building from UC Berkeley, which still runs its printing plant inside the 6701 San Pablo Ave. building, along with an adjacent parking lot. 

Ownership of the property poses unique problems, since the building itself straddles the Berkeley/Oakland city line, which divides the structure almost in half. The adjacent land Redico bought falls within a third jurisdiction, Emeryville. 

Willian said the building is solid, but “25 years behind the times.” Redico plans to spend millions on renovations to bring the interior up to contemporary lab and office standards, while maintaining street frontage commercial uses. 

Commissioner Roia Ferrazares asked if the university will continue as a tenant, and Willian responded, “We hope so.” 

Jerry Gerber of Sun Light and Power started his business in 1975 in Point Richmond and moved to Berkeley in 1981, where it currently occupies sites in several buildings. 

Gerber said he has faced two zoning issues. First, the limitations on office space in an industrial facility, and second, the difficulties in combining a number of different uses into a single project. 

Gerber has teamed with Oakland real estate broker Paul Valva to develop a proposal for a green business park, which would combine a range of enterprises operating in an environmentally sustainable way. 

However, he said, current regulations would bar some types of business because they are not permitted in the MULI zone. 

“What you’re envisioning would be a mixture of retail, offices, manufacturing, processing and warehouse uses,” said commissioner Larry Gurley. 

“But 25 years ago Berkeley already had an eco-park,” said public participant Fred Dodsworth. “It’s now called Fourth Street.” 

 

Machine tools 

The next stop, at 2629 Seventh St., brought the tour to the plant where Swerve manufactures high-tech office equipment, using the latest in Japanese machine tool technology to create unique parts for the biotech industry while its software specialists create programs to run the high-tech hardware. 

Michael and Steven Goldin converted the old Berkeley Brass Foundry building into a state-of-the-art plant, and Michael Goldin said they “lost more than a year” going through the Landmarks Preservation Commission and Zoning Adjustments Board. 

They had bought the building in 1999 and obtained permission to convert the property into office uses, which was the key to their success later when they opted for manufacturing and were able to provide mitigations in exchange for the change of use. 

“Working with the city scares a lot of people in the business community,” said Steven Goldin, who also criticized “the craziness of our zoning regulations.” 

Peter Histed, vice president and general manager of Ellison Technologies, which is located in the same building and distributes machine tools, said companies were attracted to Berkeley because the university “probably leads the world in technology.” 

Eric Taylor, president of Integrated Analytical Solutions which performs testing services for biotech firms, said “West Berkeley has lots of space” but that regulations prevent its conversion, “which takes most possibilities off the table.” 

Taylor’s labs are located at 629 Bancroft Way. 

 

Sawtooth Building 

It was at the fourth stop, Berkeley’s venerable Sawtooth Building at Dwight Way and Eighth Street, where John Curl and Rick Auerbach of West Berkeley Artisans and Industrial Companies (WEBAIC) were given a chance to raise their concerns. 

Curl, a woodworker, was one of the building’s first tenants, and he had high praise for owner Mel Dagovitz, who bought the distinctive landmark in 2001 and has been fighting to keep artists in residence. 

“I’m making every effort to make space available for artists,” Dagovitz said. “I am a real estate developer, but I would like to keep the building intact for artists.” 

Curl said West Berkeley’s success as a mixed community for large and small companies resulted in part because the city resisted pressures to convert industrial uses into offices. 

Both praised the West Berkeley Plan as the joint effort of a wide range of stakeholders, and said that problems started only after the city adopted zoning regulations five years after the plan had been approved. 

While the plan’s creators envisioned a simple process for subdividing large buildings, the subsequent ordinances “made it impossible,” Curl said, and the current code would have doomed a project like the Sawtooth, where a wide range of artists and their facilities share a common roof. 

“What we don’t want is deregulation,” he said. “From the time of Ronald Reagan we have seen the destructiveness that comes along with it.” 

Auerbach pointed to the 7,000 jobs created by West Berkeley firms, where minorities comprise 50 to 60 percent of the workforce. 

While city Land Use Manager Debra Sanderson said the city has no intention of changing the plan, others were sceptical. 

Urban Ore Operations Manager Mary Lou Van Deventer also urged preservation of the plan, adding that economic pressures were forcing her recycling business to fight simply to stay in place. 

 

Clif Bar 

The tour’s final stop was Clif Bar’s corporate headquarters at 1610 Fourth St., a site slated to be vacated unless plans for a move to Alameda fall through, said building owner Tom Graham. 

After participants dined on sandwiches, sweets, chips and bottled water paid for by the city, Graham said his own call for flexibility was spurred in part by the problems of owning a building which falls into two zones. One part falls in MULI, while another is in West Berkeley’s MUR (Mixed Use Residential) zone. As a result, some uses permitted under one part of the roof are forbidden in another. 

With the popular health snack business needing to expand, he asked, “how can we accommodate their needs when we have two zoning districts in the same building?” 

Bruce Lymburn, the firm’s legal adviser, said the company is a $200-million-a-year business with 200 employees, with offices in Berkeley and manufacturing facilities in Southern California. 

He said the company was back in the market, looking for an alternative site to the Alameda Landing project after Catellus Development Group was unable to commit to a construction starting date. 

Jessica Crow, spokesperson for Catellus, said Monday that the company was notified of the cancellation last Wednesday, in part because Catellus wasn’t able to commit to an occupany date. 

Lymburn said concerns with Berkeley zoning regulations included rules governing just what could and could not be done within the building’s theater space, which the company allows public groups to use for benefits and other meetings. While some performances are allowed, showing of films is barred. 

Another problem stemmed from the need to expand office space into areas currently limited to warehouse use, while parking was also starting to prove inadequate. 

As other problems arose and the company began to think about moving outside the city, Lymburn said Mayor Bates and Councilmember Linda Maio offered strong support, along with Dave Fogarty and Michael Caplan of the city’s economic development staff. 

But Asa Dodsworth, another community participant and Fred Dodsworth’s son, said that the same hassles cited during the tour were the reason Berkeley was able to have industrial uses. 

As for the zoning line dividing the Clif Bar building, “lines have to be drawn somewhere,” he said. 

Ted Garrett of the Berkeley Chamber of Commerce said he was “looking for some flexibility so we can keep manufacturers here in the city.” 

Bernard Marszelak, the manager of Inkworks, a printing company with a union work force, urged preservation of existing businesses, whose employees are more likely to be drawn from the Berkeley community. 

Proposals for zoning changes will be heard by the Planning Commission over the next few months. 

 


School Board Removes Willard Vice Principal

By Riya Bhattacharjee
Tuesday March 04, 2008

Willard Middle School Vice Principal Margaret Lowry—under investigation by the Berkeley Board of Education for improper conduct involving two special education students—has been removed from her position and will be replaced by Thomas Orput, vice principal of the Berkeley Adult School.  

“Orput will be interim vice president,” School Board President John Selawsky said Monday. He said Orput will begin at Willard on March 11 and stay there for the remainder of the school year. 

Although some media outlets reported that Selawsky told them Friday that Lowry would be transferred to the Berkeley Adult School, he told the Daily Planet Monday that nothing had been decided. 

“She might be put on administrative leave, she might be put on special assignment or she might be transferred to the adult school,” he said. “It’s not clear at this point. It will be decided at a meeting later today.” 

District superintendent Bill Huyett told the Planet Monday that the investigation of Lowry was complete and the district would decide about her future by today (Tuesday). 

“I am not sure if she will be tranferred to the adult school,” he said. “We might very well place her in another assignment.” 

Selawsky said that the district had consulted with the Berkeley Police Department about the allegations, but Huyett said he wasn’t aware of this. 

Selawsky said that Orput’s transfer to Willard, where he served as vice principal until Lowry took over in 2006, was decided on Friday. Lowry was vice principal at Oakland’s Skyline High School before coming to Willard. 

Parents of the two special education students told the Planet that Lowry gave money to one of them to buy marijuana from the other, in what some district officials said might have been an attempt to set up a sting.  

Lowry, who has been placed on paid administrative leave pending the investigation, has not been available to be reached for comment on the matter.  

The Planet also reported on several other complaints from former and current Willard parents in a Feb. 29 article. They alleged that Lowry has repeatedly mistreated students, forced students to write false statements by threatening to expel them and pressured students to inform on students to provide her with information. 

Huyett said that the district would investigate these complaints. 

“Even if they are old, the district needs to resolve them,” he said. “We owe it to the parents. They deserve a response or some kind of a judgment. That may be something we have to do.” 

Both the Berkeley and Oakland Unified school districts have declined to disclose information about Lowry’s employment history or any disciplinary action taken against her, although Terry Francke, general counsel for Californians Aware and a public records expert, said this information should be open to the public. 

The Planet filed a public records act request with both Berkeley and Oakland school districts on Feb. 20 to obtain records about Lowry. The 10-day response time allowed by law expired without any answer from Oakland Unified. 

In a letter faxed to the Planet late Monday, John R. Yeh, of Miller Brown Dannis, attorneys for the Berkeley Unified School District, rejected the Planet’s request to see Lowry’s resume and to be informed of any disciplinary action taken against her as “vague and ambiguous, overly broad and unduly burdensome.” 

His letter says that the district objects to disclosing information on the basis of legal opinions in two cases, BRV Inc. v. Superior Court, et al and Bakersfield School District v. Superior Court. But Francke told the Planet that opinions in the two cases cited are contrary to Yeh’s interpretation—that they actually hold that complaints and disciplinary information about school district employees are a matter of public record. 

The letter further states that the district will not disclose the other records requested by the Planet—containing data on expulsions at Willard from 2004 to 2007 tallied by race without students’ names—until March 31, more than a month after the request was made. 

Stephen Rosenbaum, an attorney with Protection and Advocacy Inc., told the Planet that if parents of special education students were not satisfied by the district’s response, they could file a complaint with the state Department of Education. 

“Sacramento has very strict time limits,” he said. “If the complaints are languishing in the school district—as the parents have charged—then there are several channels. They can go to the Federal Office of Civil Rights ... There is also mediation which involves a neutral facilitator. If the allegations are true then it’s important to raise awareness about these issues, like the media has done. Hopefully it will lead to resolution.” 

Anthony Sotelo, a special education consultant at the California Department of Education, said that calls to a toll-free number (1-800-926-0648) could initiate such a complaint. 

Sgt. Mary Kusmiss, spokesperson for the Berkeley Police Department, told the Planet that the Police Department would investigate the allegations that Lowry engaged students in a drug transaction if either the parents or the school district filed a complaint with the department. 

“It is not uncommon for the school district to handle many matters internally and administratively,” she said. “What would be encouraging is for the community to be mindful of how the school district is handling the matter. We are always here to follow up and investigate. If the allegations are true, then it shows poor judgment.


Chief Wants Better Policing, New Taxes

By Judith Scherr
Tuesday March 04, 2008

Berkeley’s facing neither layoffs nor program cuts in the next fiscal year, but without taxpayers ponying up to pay for them, there will be no new services, City Manager Phil Kamlarz told the City Council last week. 

Also at the Feb. 26 meeting, in conjunction with a workshop on policing methodology and possible new taxes for police, the council heard from Rana Sampson, a consultant with the San Diego-based Center for Problem-Oriented Policing, a Department of Justice-funded organization.  

Sampson, spouse of the mayor of San Diego, has been a police officer and holds a law degree from Harvard. She discussed Problem-Oriented Policing (POP) with the council for about 50 minutes and received a consulting fee of $1,200, plus travel expenses, according to budget manager Tracy Vessely. 

With property-based revenue tanking—the number of January home sales showed a 68.9 percent drop over last year according to a Feb. 26 city manager report—only last year’s windfall $2 million in additional transfer taxes from Patrick Kennedy’s property sales has made up the difference.  

And so at midyear, the budget appears as if it will be balanced, although, according to Kamlarz, it could face a $1.6 million budget deficit by 2011. 

The city manager’s report also singled out overspending of about $600,000 in the Fire Department, primarily due to absences in 14 positions that must be covered by overtime work by other firefighters, a function of mandatory staffing ratios. The paid absences are due to workers’ compensation, family medical leave, parental leave, long-term sick leave and military leave. 

“Since a majority of these absences are on paid leave, the cost of backfilling the positions is exacerbated,” the report says. 

 

Police needs 

The council is considering a number of possible tax measures: police, fire, youth, or a combination thereof; a therapeutic warm pool; sewers and more. 

The city will contract for a taxpayer survey to be taken next month to determine how much and for what taxpayers are willing to spend their money. The scope of the survey has yet to be determined; the contract has not been let.  

Police Chief Doug Hambleton has a $5 million wish list, but has said he knows citizens may want to fund just part of it. 

At a Feb. 26 council workshop, the chief set the stage for the question of new funding with a theoretical overview of policing as some say it should be, with Sampson, the consultant, introducing the concept of Problem-Oriented Policing. 

POP is similar to what is known as community-involved policing, with “the community engaging with officers and officers engaging with the community around crime problems and looking at the community as partners,” Sampson said. 

A key element of POP is crime analysis, she said. Police need to thoroughly interview victims and perpetrators of crimes, study the location of crimes, talk to various segments of the community and look at crises to effectively reduce crime.  

One should not rely on putting people in jail, she told the council. “The criminal justice system only has a certain amount of capacity and does not turn around all crime problems,” she said. “Prevention is worth its weight in gold.” 

Calling policing “an art and not a science,” Sampson said among the most important elements to analyze is how an officer’s time is divided. Generally one-third of the time should be spent on calls for service, one-third for administration and, most important, one-third should be kept free for community work, which could include, for example, adopting a problem motel, problem bar, or a family that has long-term problems.  

That free time is lacking in Berkeley, Hambleton told the council. A remedy would be to hire non-sworn officers to do some of the paper work, which would free up the sworn officers. This is among the elements he has suggested the citizens could fund by raising taxes.  

While many merchants and councilmembers have called for increased police visibility, Sampson said visibility does not prevent crime. “Walking and talking is not sufficient,” she said. “Police visibility is not a panacea. What police do in conjunction with others is how to reduce crime.” 

That includes teaching merchants how to set up their stores or how to design public space, she said. 

When the council joined the discussion, Counilmember Kriss Worthington, who has long asked for community police to walk Telegraph Avenue, responded that he wanted to make it clear that he did not believe police officers should be walking their beats all day every day. 

“It has to do with relationship building, community building,” he said. “If you’ve created a relationship, you do not need to walk every day—you need to be acquainted with the situation.” 

Councilmember Gordon Wozniak had a different take on ideal policing. “I hope we have a goal of catching everyone who does a violent crime in Berkeley so that Berkeley gets known as a place where, if you do a violent crime, you’re going to get caught.” 

Sampson disagreed: “There aren’t nearly enough police to do this,” she said, noting, however, that Berkeley’s rate of solving crimes is good compared to neighboring cities. 

Councilmember Max Anderson concurred with the notion that crime reduction needs to go beyond solving individual crimes.  

“Circumstances and conditions that breed crime don’t get much attention in the community,” he said. “If we don’t deal with what’s driving this crisis—even though we know that 50 percent of the crimes that are done in the city are done by people from outside the city—we still have conditions in the city that need addressing and need to be part of a strategy for crime prevention.” 

Councilmember Laurie Capitelli said the job of police officer as described by Sampson “is almost like a social worker.” He asked whether Berkeley officers have training at the police academy in responding to domestic violence. (The Berkeley police officer who shot and killed a women Feb. 16 in South Berkeley was responding to a domestic violence call.) 

“Councilmember,” Sampson replied. “I’d like to promote you and put you on the Police Officers Standards and Training Commission. I was on that for a couple of years and tried to persuade other members of the commission that that’s one of the things we need to do.”  

Earlier, during the public speaking portion of the meeting, Michael Diehl, vice chair of the Mental Health Commission, asked for police to get crisis intervention training to work better with people experiencing mental health episodes. (Neither this nor other training appears on the chief’s list of elements proposed for a new police tax.) 

The chief told the council that Berkeley officers go through the city of Sacramento police academy, which stresses a POP approach; moreover, Berkeley generally hires officers with four-year degrees, he said. 

In-service training, however, is prohibitively expensive, as officers are paid overtime to work while others get training, the chief noted.  

 

Taxes for police services 

Hambleton’s wish list of new police services—costing $3.5-$5 million—would cost the average homeowner $90 to $125 per year. Services could include: 

• Three additional bicycle patrol officers for business districts. 

• Four additional evening and night bicycle patrol officers, two for the Telegraph area and two for downtown. 

• Three additional officers for the traffic/motorcycle unit to enforce laws relative to vehicular, bicycle and pedestrian safety. 

• Nine new non-sworn community service officers to handle non-hazardous calls such as collision reports and minor crimes, freeing up officer time for proactive enforcement and problem-solving activities. 

• Radio interoperability so that Berkeley can communicate with outside public safety agencies. (It remains a question whether the services purchased would add full operability with Oakland, which has a unique radio system.) 

• Seven additional police officers, one added to each of the seven beats to allow more time for problem-solving activities. 

 

 

 


Maneuvering Over Dellums’ Police Plan Continues

By J. Douglas Allen-Taylor
Tuesday March 04, 2008

With the full Oakland City Council scheduled to vote on Mayor Ron Dellums’ police recruitment augmentation plan at its regular 7 p.m. meeting today (Tuesday), maneuvering over the final shape of the plan continued through the weekend. 

Measure Y Oversight Committee Chair Maya Dillard Smith called off an attempt to hold a Saturday morning summit conference of city officials to find what she called “common ground” in the discussions over the plan. A Measure Y committee member criticized Smith for not accurately presenting the view of the committee, and Oakland City Council President Ignacio De La Fuente suggested that some of the augmentation plan’s resources might be better spent on recruiting from other police agencies than on advertising for new recruits. 

In order to meet the mayor’s promise of fully staffing the Oakland Police Department by the end of the year to its authorized 803 officer strength, Dellums and Oakland Police Chief Wayne Tucker originally proposed using $7.7 million in Measure Y violence prevention bond money to run simultaneous police training academies, fund an ambitious recruitment advertising blitz, and cut red tape in the hiring approval process. 

With crime and violence a top issue in Oakland and five of eight councilmembers up for re-election this June in contested races, the city is under intense pressure to close a 75 officer “blue gap” between the number of police officers authorized in the budget and the number of officers actually hired and working. 

With committee chair Smith sharply questioning police, the mayor’s office, and city administrator staff members over the appropriateness of using Measure Y funds to finance the entire augmentation project, the committee voted 8-1 last Monday to send the proposal back to the mayor’s office to revise how it would pay for the plan. 

But a day later, City Council’s four-member Public Safety Committee voted to send the mayor’s plan on to the full council with their recommendation, suggesting that council figure out a way to balance the funding between Measure Y and the city budget’s general fund. In addition, Public Safety Committee members asked that the plan’s ambitious advertising budget be cut down and some of that money be used for paying bonuses to recruits. 

Late Thursday night, Smith sent out an e-mail to a list of council and city officials attempting to set up a “common ground discussion related to [the mayor’s] police recruitment plan.”  

Among others invited by Smith to a Saturday morning meeting were the mayor, the police chief, City Attorney John Russo, City Auditor Courtney Ruby, four members of the City Council and four members of the Measure Y Oversight Committee. 

In her e-mail, Smith said that the proposed discussion was “intended to seek common ground and commitments to work together to expand the number of police on the streets of Oakland. If the Police Recruitment Plan has any chance at success, it will come as a result of our collaboration on the issue.”  

She added that the meeting was “not geared at circumventing the public process.” 

On Monday, however, a spokesperson for Dellums said that the mayor did not attend the meeting “because of Brown Act and Sunshine Ordinance violations,” the California and Oakland laws aimed at ensuring that policy negotiations take place in the public eye. In a telephone interview, Smith said that the meeting did not take place because of possible Brown Act violations.  

Smith said the proposed meeting was “not an attempt at back-door dealing” but was proposed as a means “to bring together the stakeholders who are involved in creating, approving, and implementing this plan. They have not had a chance to come together and discuss this plan in any meaningful way.” 

In her interview, Smith gave broad guidelines as to what she thought constituted “common ground” surrounding the police recruitment plan for all the stakeholders, saying that the only current pressing matter is adding more police academies. 

“Council should immediately approve [the mayor’s proposal] for concurrent academies,” Smith said. “We could then take four to six weeks to thoroughly come up with a plan to recruit and attract candidates for these academies. That doesn’t have to be done right away.” 

Smith said that she supported the call—made by AC Transit Board member and Council-at-Large candidate Rebecca Kaplan—for an independent audit to determine how much Measure Y money spent on police recruitment eventually goes to Measure Y activities, and to ensure that Measure Y gets reimbursed from the general fund for the remainder.  

Smith said that such an audit should properly go through Oakland’s existing city auditor’s office, rather than spending the money for an outside consultant. 

Meanwhile, Council President Ignacio De La Fuente was sending out an e-mail to Oakland residents late last week indicating his support for the mayor’s proposal, with some modifications. 

“Let me be clear,” De La Fuente said in his e-mail, “I support the Mayor’s proposal for the four academies, two by OPD and two by the Alameda County Sheriffs Office and we are moving that forward as fast as we can. … I agree that we need more officers on our streets and I have always supported additional academies and will move the funding forward for the four academies as fast as possible.” 

But saying that he has “questions about why we need to spend $1.5 million dollars on advertising and marketing while spending only $100,000 to increase the success rate of police officer trainees,” the City Council president said, “We have to work on the retention and graduation of applicants through the application process, and then retention after they are hired. We have to target the two or three areas where we know that recruits are failing.” 

De La Fuente added that “the fastest way to get officers on the street is through lateral transfers. If we are going to spend millions of dollars, instead of the current proposal of $10,200 for the lateral program, why not a larger investment? Instead of spending millions of dollars on marketing, why not offer hiring bonuses of $20,000 or more per person, so we can hire immediately?” 

Also last week, Smith herself was coming under criticism from one of her own Measure Y Committee members. 

In a Friday morning e-mail sent out to oversight committee members, Donald Blevins, chief of the Alameda County Probation Department and a Dellums appointee to the Measure Y Committee, wrote that Dillard Smith was misrepresenting committee actions in her communications concerning the augmentation plan debate. 

“I honestly feel that many of the comments in the attachments [to Smith’s e-mail] are editorial comments and do not accurately reflect the discussion at Monday night’s meeting,” Blevins wrote. “At the very least, I feel that the attachments should have been reviewed by the entire committee before they were forwarded to City Council members and the City Manager. I feel very uncomfortable that my name has been attached to documents that I did not have input on prior to their release and that I do not agree with.”  

Blevins requested that the issue of committee communication be put on the Measure Y Committee agenda for its next meeting. 

One of the documents included with the Dillard Smith e-mail calling for the aborted Saturday meeting, “Measure Y Oversight Committee Action re: Mayor’s Police Recruitment Plan,” notes that “The Committee voted 8-1 not to approve the proposed request for $7.7 million of Measure Y funding associated with the PRP because the current proposal using Measure Y money is illegal and fiscally irresponsible.” 

Reporter’s notes taken at the Measure Y Committee meeting indicate that the actual motion did not mention the term “illegal and fiscally irresponsible,” which Smith herself had used in criticizing the mayor’s plan at the Oakland City Council meeting the week before. Instead, the committee only voted to reject the funding component of the mayor’s proposal, asking that the mayor’s staff throw out all Measure Y money requests that did not belong in the proposal and bring the amended request back to the committee. The committee did not vote on what part of the mayor’s proposal it thought was improper use of Measure Y funds. 


Oakland Council Asked to Reconsider Zoning Changes

By J. Douglas Allen-Taylor
Tuesday March 04, 2008

A diverse representation of Oakland interests came out Monday morning in support of Mayor Ron Dellums’ industrial zoning plan, asking that the City Council make no changes in the proposal. 

The council is scheduled to take up final passage of the mayor’s plan at tonight’s regular council meeting (Tuesday). The plan, with modifications, was originally passed by the council on Feb. 19. 

With demands to turn the city’s scarce industrial areas into residential development, the mayor and City Administrator Deborah Edgerly are recommending that “Council adopt a policy that treats land with any of the Industrial General Plan designations as a scare resource in the City of Oakland. Conversion of land from Industrial to Residential uses should be allowed only after a carefully considered process including evaluation of the proposed project according to a set of criteria developed through a public process. These criteria would become the basis for required findings for any proposed industrial to residential conversion.” 

Only 5 percent of the city’s total land area outside of the property controlled by the Port of Oakland is zoned industrial. Including port properties in that equation brings the total industrial zoned land in Oakland up to 19 percent. 

When the mayor’s plan first came before the council on Feb. 19, members passed Councilmember Larry Reid’s motion to carve out a number of exceptions to the policy. In a follow-up report, Edgerly asked the council to reconsider using those exceptions, calling it zoning on “an ad hoc basis.” 

On Monday, supporters of the mayor’s original proposal held a City Hall steps press conference to explain their views and also urge Council to reconsider, and drop the exceptions amendment. 

Saying that his organization has been “consistent over the years in support of retaining Oakland’s industrial land,” Oakland Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce Public Policy Director Scott Peterson said that what was at stake was 200 acres with 350 existing industries providing 4,000 jobs in land currently zoned industrial in Oakland.  

“We need to have these livelihoods protected,” Peterson said. “Oakland needs a diverse land use policy that clearly designates the area zone for industrial use and that stays that way, without incursion by residential development.” 

That view was echoed by Sharon Cornu, secretary-treasurer of the Alameda County Central Labor Council, who said, “You should mark this moment, I think it’s a first that [the Central Labor Council is] in agreement with the Chamber.” 

Cornu said she wanted to dispel “three myths” about Oakland’s industrial land. “One myth is that it’s only connected to Oakland’s past,” she said. “It’s not. It’s about the future, and taking advantage of emerging technologies such as green industry that can employ Oakland workers.”  

Cornu said that a second myth was that “Oakland can survive as a bedroom community with people living here and working in other areas. It cannot.”  

A third myth, she said, is that City Council can “wholesale rezone 250 acres” as in the passage of the Reid amendment at the Feb. 19 meeting “and get the community benefits later. We need to set our policy in such a way that we get the community benefits from developers up front, before the deals are made. Otherwise, we’ll be letting the horse out of the barn, and we’ll never catch up.” 

Another supporter of the mayor’s plan at Monday’s press conference was Geoffrey Pete, chair of the Oakland Black Caucus and a longtime Oakland nightclub owner. Pete said he was supporting the mayor’s industrial use policy “because of my position as an Oakland businessman, the other because of my longtime role as a leader of and an advocate for Oakland’s African-American community. … Business investment is always uncertain, because of financial and market factors. If there is uncertainty about a city’s zoning laws as well, it makes it almost impossible to make business investment in that city.” 

Under Dellums’ plan, Pete said that “developers, business owners, residents, and city officials will all know what will go where, with no surprises. That will make it easier and better to do business in Oakland.” 

Pete added that he was supporting the plan in order to “help halt the exodus of African-Americans from Oakland. Many African-Americans are being forced out of this city because they cannot find jobs, or the jobs they find do not pay enough to allow them to rent or purchase homes in this city. By preserving industrial land that can be used to create jobs for Oakland residents, Mayor Dellums’ industrial land use policy will help ensure that the African-American presence in Oakland will not be reduced to a mere shadow and a memory, as it has in the neighboring city in which I grew up, Berkeley.” 

Others speaking in favor of the mayor’s plan at Monday’s press conference were George Burke of the West Oakland Commerce Association and Andy Nelson of the Urban Strategies Council. 


Option Contract Signed for Iceland

By Riya Bhattacharjee
Tuesday March 04, 2008

There is still hope for Berkeley Iceland. And it comes in the form of Tom Killilea and his non-profit Save Berkeley Iceland.  

The group signed an exclusive contract with East Bay Iceland, which owns Berkeley Iceland, Friday to purchase the 67-year-old ice skating rink, which closed down almost a year ago due to flagging business and high maintenance costs, for $6.25 million. 

The contract, which comes with a one-year deadline for Save Berkeley Iceland to purchase the historic property, also launched the organization’s capital fundraising campaign. 

“This marks a third and the latest, greatest milestone for us,” Killilea told the Planet Monday. “The first was developing the organization and acquiring non-profit status. The second was the declaration of Iceland as a historic landmark by the City of Berkeley last May, recognizing its importance both architecturally and as an important community resource. This contract will definitely make funding easier, as now people will know for sure that the money will go towards purchasing the rink. It puts us in a whole different position.” 

Killilea, president of Save Berkeley Iceland, worked with other community members to raise money for the down payment over the last year. 

“We received over 300 contributions even before we launched the capital fundraising campaign,” said Peggy Burks, development director for Save Berkeley Iceland. 

Burks is the only staff member for the non-profit, working to meet the campaign goal of $12 million. 

In the past, ice skating fans have rallied in skating gear at the City Hall to show their support. 

“The next step is called the quiet phase, in which we will raise $500,000 in funding,” Burks said. “This will help us to fast track our architectural design plans for the construction at the same time.” 

Killilea said that the targeted reopening date for the rink was 2010. 

“This is a one-time chance to save Iceland, and a potential win-win for everyone,” he said. “The long-time owners will receive a fair price and the satisfaction of seeing Iceland survive, the skating world will regain its historic rink, and, most importantly, we'll get our beloved Berkeley Iceland back where all ages can hang out in a safe, healthy environment.There’s a lot of hard work ahead but the community wants this, and, together we can make it happen.” 

Home of the largest skating rink in Northern California, Berkeley Iceland hosted the first National Championship west of the Rockies, two major championships and renowned skaters such as Kristi Yamaguchi and Brian Boitano. The rink was also used by the UC Berkeley Ice Hockey Club and the Berkeley Bulldogs. 

Burks said a multipurpose sports facility and a cafe were on top of the wish list. 

“You know, a place where there can be gymnastics,” she said.  

“An exercise studio alongside a dance studio to complement the rink,” Killilea said. “A lot of parents like coffee when they come to drop their kids early in the morning, so we definitely want to have a cafe.” 

He added that upgrades included restoring the rink’s lobby and ice surfacing using the latest energy efficient technology. 

If Save Berkeley Iceland ends up buying the rink, then the Bay Area Blades Inc.—the parent organization for the group—will become the new owners. 

“Our first step is to select an architect,” said Burks. “Then we want to hold some public meetings. We really want to be good neighbors because it’s one of the few places in Berkeley where everyone from the age of 2 to 80 can come.” 

Killilea said that the group was also working with the Berkeley Unified School District to create a plan that would allow students to use the skating rink. The district is currently constructing the King Child Development Center across the street from the rink 

“We are really grateful for all the community support,” he said. “We are getting a lot of encouragement from the City of Berkeley although we haven’t discussed anything in the form of monetary support. Our hope is to fund everything privately so that we can be independent.” 

For more information on the campaign go to: www.saveberkeleyiceland.org.


Chamber PAC Must File Retroactively

By Judith Scherr
Tuesday March 04, 2008

Berkeley’s Fair Campaign Practices Commission decided Thursday that Business for Better Government, the Berkeley Chamber of Commerce Political Action Committee, must file campaign contribution statements for 2004 and 2006 retroactively with the city.  

“It is the intent of the committee to file with Berkeley,” Commission Chair Eric Weaver told the Daily Planet Monday, adding that if it did not, the commission would get the filings from the county and ask the city clerk to post them on the city’s website. 

The PAC, which decided in January to dissolve itself, was originally formed as a city committee in 1998, but changed to a county committee in 2001 and has filed all of its campaign statements with the county since that time, despite the fact that over the past five years—the period when records are kept at the Alameda County Registrar of Voters—all of its campaign contributions were directed to city races, except one contribution given to a candidate for State Assembly. The PAC made no county contributions during that time. 

The California Fair Political Practices Commission advised the city that the Berkeley Chamber PAC should file locally. While this opinion was initially disputed by Chamber PAC attorneys, the PAC decided to abide by the state advice. 

At around the same time, the PAC decided to terminate itself. 

Termination has taken some time, as the PAC had a $5,000 debt—owed mostly to its attorneys—which it had to pay before dissolving itself. According to Assistant City Clerk Mark Numainville, the PAC was to have formally dissolved itself Monday or today (Tuesday).  

The Berkeley FCPC raised a more general question with its staff relative to independent committees. It wanted to know if it could amend Berkeley election laws to put limits on independent committees’ campaign expenditures.  

Individual donors face $250 limits for candidate expenditures, but committees have no spending limits. 

Deputy City Attorney Kristy van Herick answered the question in a written Feb. 28 report to the commission, saying the question is currently tied up in the Ninth Circuit Court. 

The case is the San Jose Silicon Valley Chamber of Commerce PAC v. City of San Jose, where a judge invalidated San Jose’s campaign ordinance, which limited to $250 an overall expenditure for a candidate for a particular office, whether the expenditure came through the individual or through an independent committee. 

”The Silicon Valley PAC used funds from contributors, some in excess of $250, to fund mailers and telephone messages referencing a mayoral candidate, and was found by the local election commission to have violated the ordinance,” van Herick wrote in a report to the commission.  

The court found, however, that the ordinance regulated “more speech than is necessary to advance the government interest of preventing corruption and the appearance thereof.” 

San Jose has appealed the case to the Ninth Circuit Court. 


Oakland Schools Face a Rough Road Back to Local Control

By J. Douglas Allen-Taylor
Tuesday March 04, 2008

In December 2007, State Superintendent Jack O’Connell came to Oakland to announce that he was turning over two more areas of control to the state-operated Oakland Unified School District: personnel and facilities management.  

The Daily Planet reported that during his December visit, “O’Connell also announced that once a memorandum of understanding (MOU) is signed between his office and local district officials concerning the power transfer, the OUSD board can begin the selection and hiring of a new school superintendent.” 

Three months later, the MOUs have not been signed, the district has not moved forward with the superintendent hiring process, and the OUSD board president is now throwing cold water on the superintendent hiring plan for the near future. In addition, during O’Connell’s visit to Oakland this month to highlight the superintendent’s disagreement with Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s education budget cuts, local board members and teachers union officials were reportedly left out of the visit planning and not notified until the last minute. 

All of this points out the rocky road Oakland Unified is facing coming back from full state seizure in 2002. 

OUSD Board President David Kakishiba, who appeared eager to move forward with the hiring of a new superintendent when announcing the personnel and facilities management turnovers three months ago, now says he is having second thoughts, and believes that the hiring should take place only after all five areas of authority have been returned by the state to the board, including finances and pupil achievement. 

“I’ve had second thoughts since then, and I’m concerned with our ability to attract the best candidates to Oakland given the present uncertainties,” Kakishiba said. “With only three of the five operational areas under local control, there is quite a bit of unknown territory involved in what is to be controlled by the local district and what is to be controlled by the state. We could easily get mired down in disagreement. I think it’s better to wait and have a clean transition.” 

Meanwhile, last Friday O’Connell held a press conference at Prescott Elementary in West Oakland, part of a three-city tour that day to denounce Schwarzenegger’s budget plans. Calling the education budget cuts a “hostile act,” O’Connell said, “This was supposed to be the year of education. I fear this will be the year of education evisceration.” 

But the night before, the events surrounding the O’Connell Oakland visit were themselves being denounced. 

In an e-mail sent to OUSD state administrator Vincent Matthews, OUSD board member Greg Hodge, who represents the district in which the O’Connell visit took place, said that he had only been informed about the press conference the night before, adding, “I am writing this note to express my view about the lack of meaningful notice to myself and other OUSD board members on this important issue. Superintendent O’Connell seems to believe that Oakland schools can serve as a convenient backdrop for press conferences inasmuch as he has used our facilities in the past to make various announcements, most notably the return of local control in at least three content areas, one being public relations. It seems clear from the content of the release that OUSD board members are not invited or included as participants though the event is happening in Oakland. There is a utter lack of respect for our schedules when this type of event is planned. We are not given any real opportunity to participate nor are our constituents—parents, teachers, local union officials and others. I would hope that in the future that the Board would actually be included in authorizing the planning and implementation of significant press events which are held on our school campuses, that we would be included as the hosts and that the State Superintendent would respect the role that, by state law, we are responsible for discharging.” 

In his response, Matthews formally apologized, telling Hodge that he was “correct.” “You should have received prior notice regarding a press conference being held at a school in your district,” Matthews wrote, adding that “we are continually attempting to get better at informing board members of events that are occurring in your districts or incidents that have occurred ... However we still make mistakes and this was one.” 

In a telephone interview, Kakishiba agreed with Hodge’s complaint, saying that “it is completely appropriate to have the board president or board members notified early on to be a participant” in such press events. “Now, more than ever, the Superintendent should be giving the message that he’s giving transitioning authority to the local district. This could have been an oversight. Or it could be construed as sending out a different message.” 

The Hodge notification oversight was apparently not the only one made during O’Connell’s visit, however. Oakland Education Association teachers’ union president Betty Olson-Jones said in a telephone interview that her organization was not informed of the press conference until Thursday night as well.  

In his e-mail to Matthews, Hodge also noted that “it is peculiar that we have not finalized the Memorandum of Understanding for the return of local authority over personnel and facilities, the substance of the last press conference the State Superintendent had on one of our campuses.” 

Kakishiba confirmed that the MOUs were still under negotiation, and he had met with a representative of O’Connell’s staff as late as last Wednesday. Kakishiba could give no details on the negotiations themselves or what might be holding up the agreements. A spokesperson in State Superintendent O’Connell’s office would only say that the MOUs were “still being negotiated.”


Council Postpones Several Items, Approves Blood House Move

By Judith Scherr
Tuesday March 04, 2008

Tuesday’s City Council meeting, which was mainly devoted to a discussion of the light brown apple moth, ended in a surprise finale, with an 11:30 p.m. vote to extend the meeting until midnight falling short of the needed two-thirds approval. The council had been in session since 5 p.m. 

That meant that the Condominium Conversion Ordinance discussion and vote, which 10 or so people had been waiting to discuss until that time, would not take place until the council’s March 11 meeting. Public comment speakers, waiting since 7 p.m. to address the council on items not on the agenda, were also unable to speak to the council. 

The council also delayed discussion on retroactive houseboat billing. 

The appellant did not appear at council to argue against adopting the zoning board decision to allow the move of the Blood House from 2526 Durant Ave. to another location, pending appropriate approvals. 

A five-story building with 44 apartments including seven affordable units is to be constructed on the site. The vote to affirm the zoning board approval was 8-1, with Councilmember Kriss Worthington in opposition. 

Councilmember Gordon Wozniak withdrew an item which would have mandated two votes by the City Council on measures brought to it by the Peace and Justice Commission. In its place, Wozniak is proposing an item that will be on the March 11 agenda, asking that all commissions post not only their agendas, but, when they do, also post on the city’s website, the background information on the items. 

On an item condemning the construction of a border wall between the U.S. and Mexico, the council gave a 7-0-2 approval, with Councilmembers Laurie Capitelli and Gordon Wozniak abstaining. 

 


Protesters Shine Light on U.S. Marines in Haiti

By Judith Scherr
Tuesday March 04, 2008

The four dozen protesters picketing the downtown Marine Recruiting Center early Friday morning had a different message than the anti-Iraq War/anti-military recruiting demonstrators seen there almost daily since September.  

“Shine a light on the role of the U.S. Marines in Haiti,” a banner said. 

A large afternoon protest that police told reporters to expect later in the day failed to materialize, however. It was supposed to have spread to the four blocks surrounding the Marine Recruiting Center. The Berkeley Police Department Crowd Management Team was to monitor the protest, according to information e-mailed to reporters by the BPD public information officer. 

The e-mail cited a San Francisco Indybay website listing the event without a sponsor’s name and calling for a celebration “in festivity to confuse the masses.” It was to take place from 12 p.m. to 12 p.m., leading some to believe the posting could be hoax and stated: “Let’s throw a massive party [in] a four-block radius around the station; everyone is welcome, this is the peace revolution!” 

Lt. Andrew Greenwood, police spokesperson, said the department “had resources” available, but did not reveal how many officers were on hand for eventual protests. He said the preparations were not only due to the Indybay announcement, but were based on other factors such as regular Friday afternoon protests at the center. 

The Haiti demonstration was part of a 56-city protest on four continents, memorializing the four-year anniversary of the Feb. 29, 2004 ouster of Haiti’s elected government. 

Four years ago, with U.S. Marines standing by, U.S. government officials went to the home of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide and told him he had no choice but to board a U.S. plane and leave Haiti, Pierre Labossiere of the Haiti Action Committee told the crowd that gathered at the locked Marine Recruiting office at 64 Shattuck Square. 

The U.S. government has made it clear to this day that Aristide, exiled in South Africa, cannot go home, despite calls for his return by the Haitian masses, Labossiere said. 

After two years of rule by a U.S.-appointed government and policing by the United Nations military, which took over the occupation of Haiti from the Marines, the United States allowed elections without allowing Aristide’s return. 

Voters elected President Rene Preval, who is controlled to a great degree by the U.S. government, Labossiere said, pointing to policies of structural adjustment that include flooding Haiti with subsidized U.S. products like rice, which has decimated Haiti’s rice production. 

“Haiti’s a robbed state, not a failed state,” Labossiere said. 

Former Marine Willie Thompson participated in the picket. He is an emeritus professor of sociology at City College of San Francisco and organizer of the Organization of African North Americans in Solidarity with African Latinos.  

He said he was protesting in solidarity with his friend Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine, a Haitian human rights advocate who spoke out for the return of Aristide and for the freedom of political prisoners who remain jailed under the Preval government. Pierre-Antoine was kidnapped in Haiti on Aug. 12.  

Thompson carried a sign saying “Accomplishments of U.S. Marines: 2004 occupy Haiti, stifle dissent.” 

“The Marines were not organized to oppress the poor,” he told the Planet. “I want my fellow Marines to know it is inappropriate to occupy another country.”


BHS Girls Basketball Takes Title Again

Tuesday March 04, 2008

The Berkeley High School Girls Basketball team won the North Coast Section Division I Championship for the second year in a row on Saturday at the Oracle Arena.  

They defeated Deer Valley High School of Antioch by a score of 62-45.  

Team co-captian Tiffany Hamasaki said that after Coach Gene Nakamura retired after winning the championship last year, the players worked hard to maintain the level of play he instilled.  

“They didn’t think we could do it, but we proved to our audience that we can do it without him, we proved it to our coaches, and most of all we proved it to ourselves,” Tiffany said. “The NCS championship game against Deer Valley was more on a personal level for the team because we lost to them earlier in the season. After being down the whole first half and an inspirational half-time talk, we knew we couldn’t lose this one. We’ve made it this far despite the doubt in us, and we weren’t going home without the win.”  

She credited new Head Coach Cheryl Draper and assistant coaches Anna Johnson and Leroy Hurt for keeping up the intensity all season.


Planning Commission to Hear Climate Plan

By Richard Brenneman
Tuesday March 04, 2008

Berkeley’s Planning Commission meets Wednesday night to focus on a single issue, the city’s Draft Climate Action Plan. 

The session, which begins at 7 p.m. in the North Berkeley Senior Center, 1901 Hearst Ave., will take comments on the plan after a presentation by Timothy Burroughs, of the Office of Energy and Sustainable Development. 

Public comments on the plan, which must be submitted by Friday, will be included in the plan’s final draft. 

Wednesday night’s meeting is the commission’s third since its regular meeting last Wednesday. Commissioners also spent much of the day Wednesday touring West Berkeley, where the City Council has directed them to create proposals for increased zoning flexibility. 


Oakland School Disputes with State Show Rocky Road Back to Local Control

By J. Douglas Allen-Taylor
Friday February 29, 2008

Posted Sun., March 2—In December 2007, State Superintendent Jack O'Connell came to Oakland to announce that he was turning over two more areas of control to the state-operated Oakland Unified School District: personnel and facilities management.  

The Planet reported that during his December visit, "O'Connell also announced that once a Memorandum of Understanding is signed between his office and local district officials concerning the power transfer, the OUSD board can begin the selection and hiring of a new school superintendent." 

Three months later, the MOUs have not been signed, the district has not moved forward with the superintendent hiring process, and the OUSD Board President is now throwing cold water on the superintendent hiring plan in the near future. In addition, during O'Connell's visit to Oakland this month to highlight the superintendent's disagreement with Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's education budget cuts, local board members and teachers union officials were reportedly left out of the visit planning and not notified until the last minute. 

All of this points out the rocky road Oakland Unified is facing coming back from full state seizure in 2002. 

OUSD Board President David Kakishiba, who appeared eager to move forward with the hiring of a new superintendent when announcing the personnel and facilities management turnovers three months ago, now says he is having second thoughts, and believes that the hiring should take place only after all five areas of authority have been returned by the state to the board, including finances and pupil achievement. 

"I've had second thoughts since then, and I'm concerned with our ability to attract the best candidates to Oakland given the present uncertainties," Kakishiba said. "With only three of the five operational areas under local control, there is quite a bit of unknown territory involved in what is to be controlled by the local district and what is to be controlled by the state. We could easily get mired down in disagreement. I think it's better to wait and have a clean transition." 

Meanwhile, last Friday O'Connell held a press conference at Prescott Elementary in West Oakland, part of a three-city tour that day to denounce Schwarzenegger's budget plans. Calling the education budget cuts a "hostile act," O'Connell said that "This was supposed to be the year of education. I fear this will be the year of education evisceration." 

But the night before, the events surrounding the O'Connell Oakland visit were themselves being denounced. 

In an email sent to OUSD state administrator Vincent Matthews, OUSD board member Greg Hodge, who represents the district in which the O'Connell visit took place, said that he had only been informed about the press conference the night before, adding, "I am writing this note to express my view about the lack of meaningful notice to myself and other OUSD Board members on this important issue. Superintendent O'Connell seems to believe that Oakland schools can serve as a convenient backdrop for press conferences inasmuch as he has used our facilities in the past to make various announcements, most notably, the return of local control in at least 3 content areas, one being public relations. It seems clear from the content of the release that OUSD board members are not invited or included as participants though the event is happening in Oakland. There is a utter lack of respect for our schedules when this type of event is planned. We are not given any real opportunity to participate nor are our constituents - parents, teachers, local union officials and others. I would hope that in the future that the Board would actually be included in authorizing the planning and implementation of significant press events which are held on our school campuses, that we would be included as the hosts and that the State Superintendent would respect the role that, by state law, we are responsible for discharging." 

In his response, Matthews formally apologized, telling Hodge that he was "correct." "You should have received prior notice regarding a press conference being held at a school in your district," Matthews wrote, adding that "we are continually attempting to get better at informing board members of events that are occurring in your districts or incidents that have occurred... However we still make mistakes and this was one." 

In a telephone interview, Kakishiba agreed with Hodge's complaint, saying that "it is completely appropriate to have the board president or board members notified early on to be a participant" in such press events. "Now, more than ever, the Superintendent should be giving the message that he's giving transitioning authority to the local district. This could have been an oversight. Or it could be construed as sending out a different message." 

The Hodge notification oversight was apparently not the only one made during O'Connell's visit, however. Oakland Education Association teacher’ union president Betty Olson-Jones said in a telephone interview that her organization was not informed of the press conference until Thursday night as well. In his email to Matthews, Hodge also noted that "it is peculiar that we have not finalized the Memorandum of Understanding for the return of local authority over personnel and facilities, the substance of the last press conference the State Superintendent had on one of our campuses." 

Kakishiba confirmed that the MOUs were still under negotiation, and he had met with a representative of O'Connell's staff as late as last Wednesday. Kakishiba could give no details on the negotiations themselves or what might be holding up the agreements. A spokesperson in State Superintendent O'Connell's office would only say that the MOUs were "still being negotiated." 

 


Council Postpones Several Items, Approves Blood House Move

By Judith Scherr
Friday February 29, 2008

Posted Sat., March 1—Tuesday’s Berkeley City Council meeting, which was mainly devoted to a discussion of the light brown apple moth, ended in a surprise finale, with an 11:30 p.m. vote to extend the meeting until midnight falling short of the needed two-thirds approval. The council had been meeting since 5 p.m.  

That meant that the Condominium Conversion Ordinance discussion and vote, which 10 or so people had been waiting to discuss until that time, would not take place until the council’s March 11 meeting. Public comment speakers, waiting since 7 p.m. to address the council on items not on the agenda, were also unable to speak to the council. 

The council also delayed discussion on retroactive houseboat billing. 

The appellant did not appear at council to argue against adopting the zoning board decision to allow the move of the Blood House from 2526 Durant Ave. to another location, pending appropriate approvals. 

A five-story building with 44 apartments including seven affordable units is to be constructed on the site. The vote to affirm the zoning board approval was 8-1, with Councilmember Kriss Worthington in opposition. 

Councilmember Gordon Wozniak withdrew an item which would have mandated two votes by the City Council on measures brought to it by the Peace and Justice Commission. In its place, Wozniak is proposing an item that will be on the March 11 agenda, asking that all commissions post not only their agendas, but, when they do, also post on the city’s website, the background information on the items.  

On an item condemning the construction of a border wall between the U.S. and Mexico, the council gave a 7-0-2 approval, with councilmembers Laurie Capitelli and Gordon Wozniak abstaining. 


Student Crashes SUV into Berkeley High

By Riya Bhattacharjee
Friday February 29, 2008
An unlicenced 16-year-old Berkeley High student took his mother’s SUV for a drive without permission Wednesday morning, hit a parked car and tried to flee the scene, but flipped the vehicle over and smashed into the school building. See story, page five.
Mark Coplan
An unlicenced 16-year-old Berkeley High student took his mother’s SUV for a drive without permission Wednesday morning, hit a parked car and tried to flee the scene, but flipped the vehicle over and smashed into the school building. See story, page five.

A 16-year-old Berkeley High School student lost control of a KIA sports utility vehicle around 8 a.m. Wednesday and rammed into a cement planter located alongside the school’s H Building. 

The unlicensed driver was fleeing from a hit and run accident that occurred in the 1700 block of Russell Street, according to Berkeley Police Department spokesperson Sgt. Mary Kusmiss. 

“A woman called to report that a black KIA Sportage had just hit her white Subaru Outback which had been parked in the block,” Kusmiss said. “The SUV was last seen headed eastbound on Russell Street. A moment later we received a report of a car turned over along Berkeley High School on Allston Way. We discovered that the incident was related. Apparently the 16-year-old boy had taken his mother’s car without permission from the 1700 block.” 

The driver injured his hand but was otherwise able to walk away unharmed from the “pretty dramatic collision,” Kusmiss said. 

“He was driving northbound on Martin Luther King Jr. Way and tried to make a quick eastbound turn on Allston Way when he lost control of the KIA. It flipped onto the driver’s side and slid across the sidewalk along the concrete barrier and stopped momentarily.” 

The young man was trapped inside the car until Berkeley police and fire department officials rescued him.  

Traffic on Allston Way was backed up until the car was flipped back and towed away. 

Although school had started at 8:30 a.m., a few students lingered around capturing the image on their cell phones. 

“The car grazed some of the vegetation and scratched the side of the wall, but the retrofitting paid off,” said district spokesperson Mark Coplan. 

Kusmiss said that the boy was taken in for questioning and then released. 

“His mother was understandably very upset,” she said. “He was technically arrested for the hit and run. Our youth services will do the follow up. It’s likely that he will not face any charges with the Juvenile D.A. Since juvenile crime is based on rehabilitation he will either be referred to verbal counseling or to the youth court.”


Allegations Mount Against Willard Administrator

By Riya Bhattacharjee
Friday February 29, 2008

Since the Planet reported last week that the Berkeley school board is investigating Willard Middle School Vice Principal Margaret Lowry for improper conduct involving two students, several more Willard parents have come forward with complaints against Lowry involving their children, complaints that they say were lodged with the school district months ago and about which they have never heard any resolution. 

Parents of the two Willard special education students in the first reported incident have told the Planet that Lowry gave money to one of them to buy marijuana from the other, in what some district officials said might have been an attempt to set up a sting. Lowry, who has been placed on paid administrative leave pending the investigation, has not been available to be reached for comment on the matter. 

Since those allegations ap-peared in the Planet last week, additional charges have surfaced, detailing other possible abuses by Lowry and shining light on the district’s complaint process, which has left families frustrated by the lack of response, follow-up or resolution for their concerns. Complaints allege that Lowry has repeatedly mistreated students, forced them to write false statements by threatening to expel them and asked them to inform on students to provide her with information. 

 

The complaints 

One mother of a African American student formerly at Willard filed a complaint with the school district last year after she heard that Lowry had allegedly bullied other students into signing false statements that her son was stealing money from other students. 

“Ms. Lowry filed a complaint with the Berkeley Police Department in January 2007 which charged my son with taking money from little girls in school,” the mother said. “She also recommended his expulsion to the school board. I filed a complaint against her to the school district.” 

The charges, according to the mother and other parents involved in the case, were dismissed when students told the judge that they had been forced by Lowry to make false statements against the boy. The mother said she talked to Felton Owens, the district’s director of student support services, and then-superintendent Michele Lawrence, but she never heard back. 

“They all said they would investigate, but my son was expelled based on what Ms. Lowry said,” the mother said. “The kids all went to juvenile court and denied that my son stole money from them. The case was dismissed due to lack of evidence.” 

The student’s mother enrolled him at a private school in Oakland last September. Her lawyer told her not to disclose her name for this story since she was preparing a lawsuit against Lowry. 

Sgt. Jennifer Louis, of the Berkeley police youth services detail, told the Planet that she could not comment on the case since juvenile cases are highly protected. She said that the Berkeley Police Department did not have a way to search for, tabulate or identify juvenile cases referred to the police department from Willard. 

“The vice principal doesn’t expel students, the board does,” said district spokesperson Mark Coplan. “The vice principal might take the first step but the board ultimately makes the final decision. It’s not a simple process. All complaints are investigated thoroughly ... In fact expulsions are kept to a minimum.” 

Cecile Eugene, a mother of an African American student at Willard, supported the allegations by the mother of the accused student. She claimed that her own child was forced to write a false statement in the case. 

Eugene said she filed a complaint with the school district on May 16, 2007, charging Lowry with forcing her 12-year-old daughter to write a statement against the male student on April 7 without her own consent or knowledge. 

“I would have never allowed it,” she told the Planet. “I feel my rights were violated and my child’s rights were also violated. She is a special-needs student.” 

The Planet has obtained a copy of the statement which Eugene alleged Lowry forced her child to write. The statement reads in part, “[the accused student] punched me in the head and said ‘bitch I better have my money tomorrow’.” 

Eugene’s daughter submitted another statement to the school district with her mother’s complaint. This one alleged that Lowry (known then as Margaret Klatt before she married last year) had threatened the girl with expulsion and jail if she did not write the original statement. 

“The statement that Ms. Klatt wanted me to write was false,” her second statement read. “I didn’t even know what I was writing. Ms. Klatt told me to copy the statement that she write herself ... [the accused student] never robbed me.” 

Eugene said that her daughter had read her second statement at a school board hearing for the charges against the student for the alleged theft on May 16, 2007, and at the juvenile court criminal investigation hearing last summer. 

Eugene said that she also never heard back from the district about the outcome of her complaint against Lowry. 

Pastor Tom Bardwell, a former Willard parent, said that he had also filed a complaint with the school district charging Lowry with falsely accusing his son of gun possession and forcing his son to write a false statement stating that he had witnessed the other student stealing money from girls on campus. 

“She found a gun on another student and tried to get my son to say that it was his gun,” Bardwell said. “Then she wrote a letter and told my son that if he didn’t sign it she would suspend him ... We went to juvenile court for [the accused student’s] hearing and the case was dismissed. I went to the board hearing and told the board that Ms. Klatt forced my son to write a letter and that she was doing investigations against kids, which is against the law.” 

Bardwell said that he turned in his first complaint to Willard Principal Robert Ithurburn.  

“It never went to the school district,” he said. “So I turned in another complaint to the school district almost a year ago.” 

Pastor Bardwell said he never heard back from the school district. 

“After all this happened, I told Mr. Ithurburn not to let Ms. Klatt come near my son,” he said. “She left him alone then ... Any black kid she doesn’t like, she was going to do something to hurt him.” 

Pastor Bardwell enrolled his son in Tracy High School after he graduated from Willard last fall. 

Donna Babbitt, parent of a former Willard special education student, told the Planet that she had also filed a complaint with the school district on May 10, 2007, addressing continuous suspensions of her daughter by Lowry (then Klatt) but had never heard back. 

The Planet obtained a copy of the complaint, which states: “An agreement was made by Willard Middle School that [Babbitt’s daughter] would be given the opportunity to cool off and go to a safe place where she can sort out her thoughts and think about her action. Mrs. Klatt was informed of the plan that was made at the Individualized Education Program meeting. Mrs. Klatt continued to suspend my daughter over any and everything.” 

Individualized Education Programs address the needs of special education students in the district. 

“No Child Left Behind Act, what’s that?” Babbitt said in an interview with the Planet. “It appears that my daughter has been left behind ... Ms. Lowry has labeled my child to be a uncontrollable 13-year-old African American female. Her discipline record looks worse than a rap sheet. My daughter had a lot of mental issues that Ms. Lowry was not able to handle. It appears that Ms. Lowry knows nothing about children who have special needs. It appears that she doesn’t give a damn about our children.” 

Babbitt’s daughter’s left Willard in December. Babbitt said the district placed her at the Learning Center in Alameda. 

 

Superintendent responds 

District superintendent Bill Huyett, who took over from Michele Lawrence on Feb. 4, said that the district took all complaints seriously. 

“Since I wasn’t here when these complaints were made, I don’t know too much,” he told the Planet Thursday. “But since these involve personnel matters, we can’t divulge the outcome.” 

A Willard parent who is active in the PTA and asked not to be identified said that he was surprised to hear about the allegations against Lowry. 

“In my experience, she had always seemed supportive and encouraging to all students,” he said. “Given that part of her job involves discipline, she has done it even-handedly.” 

Terry Francke, general counsel for the California First Amendment Coalition and an expert on the California Public Records Act, said that if the school district was indeed withholding information from the families concerning misconduct against their children by an administrator, it would be a violation of their rights. 

“If these complaints check out, not just the parents but everyone has the right to know what happened,” he told the Planet. 

But Francke said that the school district was not legally required to get back to the parents about the outcome of the investigation if a disciplinary action was not taken against a public employee. 

“As a matter of decency, I think, yes,” he said. “But I'm not aware of any law that requires it. One option the parents have as an alternative to waiting for a response that may never come is going to the school board, in an open meeting, and asking whatever they would like to know.” 

 

Resigning in protest 

La Donna Higgins, school secretary at Willard for four years, told the Planet that she resigned at the end of the last school year because she objected to “the repeated mistreatment of students by Ms. Lowry.” 

Higgins, part of the hiring committee at Willard when Lowry interviewed for the position of vice principal, said that Lowry had come across as a strong candidate. 

“She told us that she was responsible for training and enrollment as the vice principal for Skyline,” she said. “Since Willard was going from two vice principals to one, we were looking for someone who could handle a lot of responsibilities.” 

Higgins said that after Lowry was hired as Willard’s vice principal in the summer of 2006, she gradually became judgmental toward the school staff and students. 

“She said inappropriate things about the staff ... I also had problems with the way she was treating kids,” Higgins said. “There was heavy suspensions and expulsions of African American and Latino kids without proper evidence. Lots of students were called out of class and slowly my office was filled with students facing suspension. It became very chaotic. Parents would meet with Ms. Lowry and request that their kid never interact with her again.” 

Higgins said that she remembered that at least 10 different parents had lodged official complaints with the principal against Lowry.  

She said that she had testified at the expulsion hearing on behalf of the student whom Ms. Lowry said was stealing money from other students. 

“This was false,” Higgins said. “Ms. Lowry also filed criminal charges against the student for stealing money from younger students, which he was found not guilty of. She also made students write false statements against the student and threatened that if they did not she would make sure they did not attend Willard the following year.” 

In her farewell letter to the Willard staff on her last day at school Higgins explained her reason for leaving: 

“This last year at Willard has been a turning point in my life,” she wrote. “I have watched an administrator tear down every kid she has come in contact with. I have watched an administrator spend countless number of hours contacting the District Attorney to have a kid’s future destroyed ... I have watched an administrator disrespect and belittle parents of students at Willard. As I have seen the destruction of all the hard work that teachers, staff, and parents put in to create a positive image of Willard and give their all to making all students and parents feel welcome at school, I no longer feel welcomed here ... Berkeley Unified School District prides itself on following the direction of No Child Left Behind, [but] we have people in education who will do almost anything that ensure that certain kids are not only left behind but not even seen.” 

 

A trail of allegations 

A source at Oakland’s Skyline High School who did not want to be identified told the Planet that the array of allegations against Lowry at Willard aren’t a surprise. The source said that at Skyline, where Lowry was assistant principal before joining Willard in 2006, she also had a history of complaints about inappropriate conduct and racism against students. 

The source said that parents at the high school had also filed complaints against Lowry (known then as Margaret Klatt) for allegedly mistreating students and wrongfully suspending them. 

“I am not at all surprised,” the source said, after hearing that Berkeley Unified was investigating the allegations against Lowry. “The same things were done at Skyline.” 

An official at the Oakland Unified School District’s (OUSD) Human Resources Department declined to disclose information about Lowry’s employment history or any disciplinary action taken against her by the OUSD. But Francke said this information should be open to the public. 

“Any resume-type information or employment history is a matter of public record and must be disclosed,” Francke told the Planet. “Complaints about the performance of public employees other than peace officers are public if they lead to disciplinary action, or even, discipline or not, if they are ‘well-founded’ or reasonably reliable in terms, for instance, of their substance, frequency and/or sources.” 

The Planet filed a Public Records Act Request with both Berkeley and Oakland Unified on Feb. 20 to obtain public records for Lowry. 

“The district carries out background checks on all its employees,” Superintendent Huyett said. “I don’t think the district was aware of any of the complaints made by parents at Skyline.” 

Huyett said he hoped that the matter concerning the alleged instance of Lowry asking one student to buy drugs from another would be resolved soon, but that it was unclear what the district would tell the public about its decision. 

“We are doing an internal inquiry on the allegation,” he said. “We will come to a resolution by early next week. We will not be making an announcement about it since it’s a personnel issue. But the school community will be informed whether she has been reassigned or not.” 

Willard Principal Ithurburn sent out a memo to Willard staff and support personnel and the district’s assistant superintendent Neil Smith on Feb. 11 asking them not to discuss the incident outside the school, saying “We all want to ensure we represent the Willard community in a positive light.” 

He sent another e-mail to Willard staff last week, saying: “There is a strong possibility that an article about Willard may appear in the Daily Planet tomorrow or in the next issue. This is just a reminder that no employees should be discussing school issues out in the community.” 

Francke said that while these entreaties were legal, the administration could not penalize either faculty or students for speaking to others, including the press, concerning what they know or have heard. 

Lacisha Atckins, the mother of the African American eighth-grade special education student who was involved in the alleged drug sting currently under investigation, told the Planet on Wednesday that she had filed an official complaint with the district against Lowry on Feb. 14 but had not heard back yet.  

“The white kid to whom Miss Lowry gave the money to buy drugs from my son came up to him sometime in early January and asked him if he could buy weed,” she said. “My son did not have it. When his teacher heard about it she was concerned. A week or two later I talked to the principal, Mr. Ithurburn, and asked what was going on. He said he knew about it.” 

She said that she believed that the principal had initially met with the white child’s parents after the incident, but not with her. 

Atckins told the Planet that her son had been singled out for the alleged sting because of the way he dressed. 

“The white kid thinks [my son] is a drug dealer because he wears a black hoodie and baggy pants,” she said. “Ms. Lowry has been trying to set my son up for a while ... She doesn’t like him. She doesn’t like half of the African American children in the school. I am upset that she’s trying to implicate that my son’s a drug dealer.” 

Anna de Leon, a Berkeley-based criminal lawyer and a former school board president, said if the allegations were true, Lowry should be removed from the school district and prosecuted. 

“If she did this, if she furnished money to a student to buy drugs from another student, then she instigated and facilitated a criminal act,” De Leon said. “To encourage kids to do illegal conduct is shocking ... It shows extremely poor judgment.” 


Council May Face State in Court to Stop Moth Spray

By Judith Scherr
Friday February 29, 2008

The state secretary of agriculture failed to convince the Berkeley City Council Tuesday night that aerial spraying of a pesticide to eradicate the Light Brown Apple Moth (LBAM) is either necessary or benign.  

With the support of some five dozen anti-spray constituents packing the meeting room, the council voted not only to join neighboring cities in statements of opposition to the spray, but also to consider going to court to prevent the state from moving forward with plans to spray Bay Area counties in August. 

The vote on the measure was  

8-1, with Councilmember Kriss Worthington in opposition. Both Worthington and Councilmem-ber Dona Spring—Spring voted for the item—said they thought the statement wasn’t strong enough. Speaking to the Planet on Thursday, Spring said the council should have formalized its intent to sue the state at the the Tuesday meeting. “There’s no real commitment to it,” she said. 

The council will meet in closed session March 17 to discuss the range of legal options that could include a multi-city lawsuit against the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) to halt the spraying planned for Alameda, Contra Costa, San Francisco, Marin, Santa Clara and San Mateo counties. 

At the Tuesday meeting, Spring took on CDFA Secretary A. G. Kawamura, who had come to the session to promote the CDFA spray plan. “I suggest, sir, that you don’t protect public health by ramming [the spray] down the throat of the population,” she said. 

Accompanied by two highway patrol officers posted at the back of the Council Chambers, Kawamura addressed the council, speaking of what he said was an urgent need to confront the threat of the Light Brown Apple Moth. 

“This moth is voracious,” he said, arguing that because the LBAM is known to feed on some 250 different food crops, it is a major concern for the state’s agribusiness. 

The moth has multiplied rapidly over a brief period of time, which is why no actual crop damage has been reported in California, he told the council. “People say, ‘let us see the damage.’ But we’re trying to prevent the damage,” he said.  

Councilmembers wanted to know why the spraying would begin before an environmental impact report has been completed. 

Kawamura explained that stopping the moth is “time-sensitive. The LBAM is spreading as we speak,” he said. 

If the state sprays before the infestation grows, total eradication is possible; if not, it could spread all over California, the U.S. and beyond, he argued. 

After Kawamura’s presentation, in a brief interview with the secretary, the Planet asked for specifics on who had advocated for the spray. Kawamura responded that officials in 48 states feared an infestation from California. Pressed for documentation, he said he was contacted personally by the officials. “There are no letters,” he said. “I see them at meetings.”  

Similarly, he said there are no written requests from the various county officials who had approached him. He also said that citrus growers had not made a request.  

“The public obligation to our department is to protect human health … and the food supply,” he told the Planet. 

At issue is the spraying of CheckMate, a pesticide made by Suterra LLC, a product that consists of a synthetic pheromone that causes mating disruption in the LBAM. When sprayed by air, the pheromone is contained in microcapsules with inert ingredients. 

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has told the Planet through spokespeople that he has faith in the decision of the CDFA to spray. He said that the $144,000 contribution to him by the owner of Suterra, Stewart Resnick, did not influence his opinion. 

The aerial spray was used for the first time in an urban area in September when sprayed for four days in Monterey and Santa Cruz counties.  

After Kawamura and a colleague spoke to the council in favor of the spray, a panel of opponents was given time to respond. Nan Wishner, chair of the integrated pest management task force in Albany, spoke of the 600 Monterey-Santa Cruz area residents who reported health problems after the September spray. Albany went on record in January opposing the spray. 

While the state representatives said the microcapsules would not cause harm if ingested, Wishner noted, “There were severe respiratory effects” in Monterey and Santa Cruz after the spraying.  

Panelist Dr. Elisa Song, pediatrician and environmental medicine specialist, added that there have been no long-term studies on the effects of CheckMate. She further explained that the effects would be different for different people: Some people can’t eliminate toxins from their bodies, while others can, she said.  

“There can be major health consequences,” she said. 

Tom Kelly, former member of the city’s Health Commission, spoke as the third member of the panel, urging the council not to allow the CDFA to “drown out our voices.”  

He pointed to the possible contamination of Berkeley creeks and reminded the council that the city is committed to the principles of integrated pest management and the precautionary principle, in which nontoxic or the least toxic substances are used for pest management when deemed necessary at all. 

Kelly urged the council to oppose the spray, “confronting the power of the state.” 

Some 40 speakers followed, each urging the council to oppose the spray.  

Only state representatives supported the spray. The city’s health officer Dr. Linda Rudolph declined to weigh in on the question, when asked at the meeting, saying she would speak publicly only after the City Council made its decision known. The staff report was limited to information from the state. 

Among those who spoke at the council meeting were residents with environmental illnesses. Pauline Bondonno said she is disabled by multiple chemical sensitivities. If there are repeated sprayings she said she would have to leave Berkeley and her job with the Berkeley Unified School District. 

“This is chemical warfare on us,” she said. “It’s an inside job.” 

Others pointed to more subtle fallout—the damage that monthly spraying could do to the city’s tourist industry and to home values when the owner must disclose spraying to the buyer.  

At around the same time Tuesday evening, the Oakland Public Safety Committee heard from a room full of spray opponents and voted to oppose the spray. The committee will ask the full council to do the same in two weeks. 

Several Public Safety Committee members criticized CDFA representatives who were present, pointing out, among other things, that the spraying might have a particularly devastating effect in Oakland's flatlands, where 25 percent of the children suffer from asthma. 

“The problem of the moths should be resolved,” said Oakland Councilmember Jane Brunner, who introduced the resolution along with Councilmember Larry Reid. “It should be the solution that’s least invasive to our cities.” 

Responding to an assertion from a state representative that the spraying would have no effect on Oakland residents, Reid said, “As a young man I served in Vietnam where Agent Orange was sprayed, and we were told that it would not have any effect on us. But of course, it did. I am concerned about the lack of research on this subject.” 

Meanwhile, nearby, at the downtown Oakland Elihu Harris State Building, the CDFA was holding a hearing as part of the environmental impact report process. About 100 people were there. 

None of the speakers, except CDFA representatives, supported the spray. A number expressed frustration that, while their input was being noted and would be included in the EIR, the spray was already scheduled. 

Some speakers pointed to the high cost of the project—more than $75 million is allocated to the eradication efforts. 

Oakland resident Pamela Drake was among them: “We’re spending public monies to do this to ourselves—we need to stop,” she said. 

For more information, see the CDFA website at: www.cdfa.ca.gov/phpps/pdep/ lbam/ or www.stopthespray.org/ 

 

Staff writer J. Douglas Allen-Taylor contributed to this story.


Police Review Commission to Investigate Death of Anita Gay

By Judith Scherr
Friday February 29, 2008

Patricia Johnson wants to know what happened the day a Berkeley police officer shot her sister.  

“The truth—that’s all we’re looking for,” said Johnson, whose sister Anita Gay was killed Feb. 16 by Officer Rashawn Cummings. Johnson was speaking to the Planet Wednesday evening as she stood outside the South Berkeley Senior Center, where a Police Review Commission meeting focusing on the Gay homicide was to begin shortly.  

Johnson carried a sign: “Justice for Anita Gay.” 

Inside the meeting room, where the audience grew to more than 50 individuals, a number of people carried signs and banners calling for justice for the 51-year-old South Berkeley grandmother. At least one sign called for justice for Gary King, the young man killed by an Oakland police officer Sept. 20 at the corner of 54th Street and Martin Luther King Jr. Way. 

Stories differ on the Gay killing. Some witnesses have told reporters that she was intoxicated or on prescription medication, and some said that she was armed with a knife and threatening others when she was shot by Cummings, who had responded to a domestic violence call at Gay’s home on the 1700 block of Ward Street. Other witnesses told reporters that Gay had dropped the knife before she was shot. 

After hearing from some 25 speakers and deliberating among themselves, the commission voted unanimously to conduct two separate investigations: one will be a police misconduct investigation and a second will address policy issues, with respect to how officers respond to calls of domestic violence. 

While a few public speakers, such as Greg Getty of Liberation Radio, spoke angrily of “police who shoot grandmothers in the back,” most of the public comments were directed to the commission, asking for a swift and comprehensive citizen investigation. 

Nick Chambers addressed the need for a full and transparent inquiry. He said the killing should not be seen as an isolated incident, but, referring to the case of former police Sgt. Cary Kent who stole drugs from the evidence locker he was charged to guard, should be looked at in the context of known police misconduct. 

Another speaker called for “full officer cooperation,” and pointed to the Berkeley Police Association role in forcing the PRC complaint process behind closed doors. Complaints against the police are no longer heard in public, due to a combination of a Berkeley Police Association suit against the city—an appeal is pending—and a California Supreme Court case. 

Andrea Prichett of Copwatch echoed the sentiment. “I want Officer Cummings to go on the record with you guys. Even though it’s the new bizarre [closed door] system,” she told the commission. 

“We need you guys to restore faith in oversight,” Prichett said, asking the commission not to allow the BPD to withhold documents or otherwise stall the procedure. 

Calling for a “thorough investigation,” Gay’s neighbor Rosemary Carpendale asked why one officer responded to the domestic violence by himself.  

Carpendale said she was particularly concerned that there had been children in the building who witnessed the shooting. “The children kept looking out the window,” she said. “This will impact the children for the rest of their lives.” 

(On Thursday, the Planet called Fred Medrano, director of the city’s Health and Hunan Services department, to ask if the children were receiving counseling. He said he would not be able to disclose that, due to privacy concerns. However, he said his department has such expertise.) 

The question of how police officers treat suspects armed with knives was on the minds of a number of citizens.  

Ken Nelson, a Richmond resident who heads the NAACP California Criminal Justice Committee, did not speak publicly but observed the meeting. He told the Planet that recently there had been three killings by police of people armed only with knives: A mentally ill man with a knife was killed by Santa Rosa police Jan. 4 and a 57-year-old woman with a knife was killed by San Pablo police on Christmas Day.  

“What we have here is not an isolated incident,” Nelson said, adding that the investigation “should open the door to how law officers use force.” 

Idella Melton, a resident of Berkeley for more than 50 years, introduced herself as one of the people who had originally organized the Police Review Commission more than 20 years ago. She pointed out that, at least in the movies, people shoot suspects in the arm or in the foot and wondered if the Berkeley police could not do the same, when necessary. 

She further pointed to the issue of class, asking whether the situation would have been handled differently “if this had been a person who lived in the hills.” 

Flanked by her sister and niece, Patricia Johnson took a turn to address the commission: “We’re here to ask you sitting there to help us through this nightmare,” she said. “We’re hoping that you’re going to investigate this like it was someone in your family. What happened to [Anita Gay] should never happen to anybody’s mother or brother. We’re asking for justice for us all – black, white, Hispanic, Asian…” 

Johnson ended on a bitter note, reflecting on the police officers as people “everybody is supposed to trust to have honor and integrity. If this is any indication of how they are serving the community, we’re all in trouble,” she said. 

When it came time for commissioners to respond, they echoed many of the sentiments of the speakers, promising a fair, impartial investigation. 

“There needs to be justice in this case,” said Commissioner Michael Sherman, adding his sympathy for the family, friends and neighbors “and for the police officer involved.” 

Sherman commented on the absurdity of new rules imposed by the BPA lawsuit, including the fact that the commissioners were not permitted to name the officer in public, even though the name has been public knowledge since the shooting. 

“The only way to have justice is through and open and transparent investigation,” he said. 

Commission Chair Bill White, however, pointed out that the misconduct investigation will not be “transparent”—that is, open to the public—given the courts’ rulings. The policy investigation, however, can be open to the public, he said. Two different subcommittees, each focusing on one of the investigations, will be appointed at the commission’s next meeting. 

After hearing the public and the commissioners speak, Police Chief Hambleton, present throughout the meeting, added his thoughts. “Without any question, this is a tragic situation. We all wish these events had not unfolded,” he said, promising, “We will cooperate with the commission.” 

Responding to concerns about getting police documents in a timely way for the investigations, he explained that while a criminal investigation was ongoing, he could not release documents, but he promised that once investigations are complete the documents will be released. The BPD Internal Affairs Bureau and the Alameda County District Attorney are both conducting investigations. 

“We will do everything in our power to get the facts out in the open,” he said. 

Officer Henry Wellington, Berkeley Police Association president, along with others from the BPA, listened to the public speakers and commissioners but did not comment publicly. 

On Thursday, in an interview with the Daily Planet, Wellington said it was important for the officers to be present at the meeting and hear the public feedback. It was also important for the public to have a place to air their thoughts, he said. 

And Wellington said it was important for the community to see police officers there, “so that the community can understand that we are people, not just a blur in the car.” 

He added that he thought some of the public remarks were unnecessarily accusatory, as no one in reports of the incident had accused the officer of an intent to kill Gay. 

“The events of that night are tragic for the family of Ms. Gay and have had a profound impact on the officer involved and all officers in the BPD,” he told the Planet. “I understand the family’s motive in having the incident undergo as much scrutiny as possible. Our hope is that whatever scrutiny is directed toward the incident is done in a fair and impartial manner.” 

Asked if the officers will appear before the investigating committees, Wellington responded, “We’re always ordered to do that.” 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Dellums’ Oakland Police Plan Gaining Momentum

By J. Douglas Allen-Taylor
Friday February 29, 2008

With much less rancor than was widely anticipated, the Oakland City Council’s four-member Public Safety Committee unanimously approved Mayor Ron Dellums’ Augmented Police Recruitment Program Tuesday night with few alterations.  

If the plan passes the full council next week, as it is now favored to do, it would give the mayor one of the biggest political victories of his year-long term, ranking with the settlement of the Waste Man-agement workers lockout, the selection of Margaret Gordon for the Port Commission, and the arbitrator’s decision in the police 12-hour day negotiations. 

But what the ultimate cost is to be—both politically to the mayor and financially to the city’s general fund—has yet to be determined. 

“I applaud the actions taken last night. We are happy to enhance our plan based on the amendments proposed from Committee members and move it forward to the full Council,” Dellums said in a prepared statement today. “We are committed to working together to get this done.” 

To meet his State of the City pledge of having the Oakland Police Department reach full strength by the end of the year, Dellums and Oakland Police Chief Wayne Tucker propose using $7.7 million in carryover Measure Y violence prevention bond money to fund an ambitious, four-point police recruitment and retention program.  

The proposal asks for $3.3 million to run four police academies this year, twice the currently allocated number, with two of them operated for the first time by the Alameda County Sheriff’s Department rather than the Oakland Police Department itself. Some $1.5 million would go to advertising and marketing to attract recruits, and $1.2 million to administrative support for expediting the police recruit application and selection process.. 

In the 2004 vote on Measure Y, Oakland voters authorized an increase of police force strength to 803, to include 63 officers assigned specifically to community policing objectives. But since that time, in large part because of high retirement rates, the department has never been able to fully staff either its regular patrol staff or its community policing component. With concern over crime and violence rising sharply in Oakland in recent months, “more police” has become a potent political issue in the city, particularly in a year when five of the eight City Council seats are up for re-election. 

On Tuesday, Councilmember Jean Quan, chair of Council’s Finance Committee, one of the principal co-authors of Measure Y and not a candidate for re-election herself, proposed passage of the mayor’s plan with three amendments: pare down the advertising budget, put some of the plan’s money into bonuses to attract new police recruits, and divide the cost in some yet-to-be-determined way between Measure Y and the city’s general fund. 

“I believe having a full-staffed police force is a top priority,” Quan said. “I don’t think we can wait.” 

 

Committee members passed  

Quan’s motion by consensus 

The Public Safety Committee’s decision came a day after the Measure Y Oversight Committee voted overwhelmingly, 8-1, to reject using Measure Y funds for the entire recruitment proposal and to send the proposal back to the mayor and his staff for a more appropriate funding breakdown between Measure Y and the general fund. 

Controversy over the mayor’s police augmentation plan began immediately after it was introduced directly to the full Council last week on an expedited basis, bypassing both the Council Public Safety and Measure Y Oversight committees.  

At last week’s council meeting, Councilmember Nancy Nadel, who is in a tough re-election campaign in the third district in which crime, violence, and police issues are expected to play a major role, said, “I’m in a mode to try to solve the problem, to try to take the politics out of it. But it seems like the mayor wants to place himself separate from the council and say that this is his proposal. I resent that type of politics coming out of this.”  

The council voted to send the proposal back to the two committees for vetting, setting up this week’s back-to-back discussions. 

At Monday’s Measure Y Oversight Committee meeting, committee members generally agreed that the police augmentation plan was necessary, but differed sharply over whether some or all of the money should come from Measure Y funds. 

Questioning of city staff members over the plan by committee members was so sharp that at one point, City Administrator Deborah Edgerly told members, “I’m not going to try to convince you. We’re going to have to agree to disagree on this.” 

After committee chair Maya Dillard Smith failed to get a commitment from Chief Tucker that the first officers hired in the recruitment blitz would fully fill the Measure Y-mandated community policing slots and got staff to admit that only Measure Y funds—not city general funds—were planned for the media blitz to hire both Measure Y and non-Measure Y officers, the committee voted to reject the proposal’s funding mechanism and send it back to the mayor’s office for further refinement. Only mayoral appointee Ron Owens voted in favor of the proposal.  

Two other mayoral appointees, Nicole Lee and Donald Blevins, voted with the majority to send the proposal back. The eleven-member oversight committee consists of three mayoral appointees and one apiece chosen by City Council’s eight members. 

While the police augmentation proposal did considerably better at the following day’s Council Public Safety Committee, the political problems surrounding the proposal were just under the surface. 

During public comment period, when former Oakland School Board member Sylvester Hodges told committee members that he hoped “the mayor and the council can get together on something you both support,” committee chair Reid told him pointedly “communication is a two-way street.”  

In case that was subject to misunderstanding, Reid later said, “I hate that this is being rushed and that we’re being backed into a corner to have to act as if we are reacting.” And referring back to his comments to Hodges about the mayor and the council working together, he added, “this needs to be seen as a partnership.”  

Reid then said he was going to stop talking “before I put my foot in my mouth.” 

At the Public Safety Committee meeting, Measure Y Chair Dillard Smith presented a PowerPoint presentation that noted, in part, that “the [oversight] Committee voted 8-1 not to approve the proposed request for $7.7 million of Measure Y funding associated with the PRP because the current proposal using Measure Y money is illegal and fiscally irresponsible.”  

The “illegal and fiscally irresponsible” portion did not appear in a reporter’s notes of the oversight committee action, and echo almost exactly the criticisms Dillard Smith herself made of the plan when it first came before the City Council a week before, but official minutes of the meeting have not yet been released to confirm whether that was the language of the motion. 

But Reid’s comments, and Dillard Smith’s continued opposition, point out the potential political cost of the impending augmentation plan victory. Dellums has been successful in his long political career in large part by sharing victories with friends and opponents and not unnecessarily embarrassing or antagonizing political enemies. That is, in fact, the hallmark of his political style. But the campaign for the police augmentation plan was carried out in a decidedly un-Dellums way, taking the credit for himself and initially bypassing (and, therefore, embarrassing) key committees.  

The 8-1 vote to reject the plan’s funding mechanism at the Measure Y Oversight Committee means the mayor has some political fences to mend on that committee, particularly as he indicated he may have designs in the future to try to revamp the way the committee apportions its money out to violence prevention groups. 

There are other indications that the mayor—who has been enduring withering criticism from the center-right since his election, a group that largely did not vote for him a year and a half ago—may have opened himself up to problems from community policing supporters. Two prominent members of the mayor’s Citizen Task Force on Public Safety and the Community Policing Advisory Board, Colleen Brown and Don Link, criticized the funding of the plan by Measure Y, with Link providing a detailed written critique that called the $1.5 million advertising campaign “probably a waste of money” and the use of the Alameda County Sheriff’s Academy “overly expensive and problematic.” 

And the mayor has left himself something of a political and budget minefield to travel through in the Council as well. 

In supporting Quan’s motion to approve the augmentation plan, Nadel noted that funding the proposal from the general fund will mean budget cuts during a year when a deficit is already going to force such cuts, adding pointedly that “the mayor needs to come back to us with his ideas on what we will have to cut to make up for the expense to the general fund” made necessary by the augmentation plan.


BUSD Reaches Settlement in Old Gym Demolition Lawsuit

By Riya Bhattacharjee
Friday February 29, 2008

The Berkeley Unified School District reached a settlement with Friends Protecting Berkeley’s Resources Wednesday over the California Environment Quality Act (CEQA) lawsuit filed by the group a year ago. 

The group sued the district for an inadequate environmental impact report on the demolition of the gymnasium and warm-water pool within its Berkeley High School (BHS) South of Bancroft Master Plan.  

Both sides agreed on a charrette to discuss the adaptive reuse of the Berkeley High Old Gym and the warm-water pool, school district officials said Thursday. 

“We have reached a settlement agreement to go ahead and have a process with architects to gather input on the plan,” said Superintendent Bill Huyett. “I thought it was a fair settlement.” 

The lawsuit charged that the district had failed to consider feasible alternatives to demolition that could be developed to meet all or most of the district’s objectives and that the EIR “did not justify its findings.” 

“This lawsuit was hanging out there, and until that was determined we were probably not going to do anything about the Old Gym,” School Board President John Selawsky told the Planet Thursday. 

He added that he didn’t agree with what the lawsuit contended. “It’s not factually true,” he said. 

Marie Bowman, spokesperson for Friends Protecting Berkeley’s Resources, confirmed the group had agreed to dismiss the lawsuit in exchange for a charrette. 

“This would look at rehabilitation and adaptive reuse of the Old Gym while considering the needs of Berkeley High as identified in the BHS South of Bancroft Master Plan,” she said. 

Bowman said she hoped the charrette would generate problem-solving ideas developed by preservation architects, designers and other professionals.  

“A successful charrette promotes joint ownership of solutions as well as diffusing confrontational attitudes between developers and the community,” she said. “The results will be presented to the BUSD Board, during a public hearing, which will allow for written and oral public comment.” 

Selawsky said the charrette would help to present information from both sides. 

“My understanding is that we are bound legally to hold the charrette and take into account their considerations,” he said. “I understand that we are not bound legally to any outcome of that charrette ... The district is still the final decision maker.” 

He added that the demolition of the Old Gym was not scheduled till 2010. 

“We still have two years to discuss all the different possibilities,” he said. “Plans for demolition are still premature.” 

The school district recently hired ELS Architects to redesign the bleachers outside the track on Martin Luther King Jr. Way this summer and create a timeline for the demolition of the Old Gym. 

“At this time we only have enough funding to design the bleachers,” Selawsky said. 

The district’s South of Bancroft Master Plan calls for the demolition of the landmarked Old Gym to make room for new classroom facilities, with the option of relocating the warm-water pool to Milvia Street.  

Berkeley High is facing a severe space crunch, with teachers holding classes in portables at Washington Elementary School and on the steps of the Community Theatre. 

The city is currently looking at ways to develop the tennis courts on Milvia Street into a warm pool but has yet to come to an agreement with the school district about its use. 

The Berkeley High School campus, including the Old Gym, was named a City of Berkeley landmark last year and a national landmark in January. 

Designed by renowned Bay Area architects William C. Hays and Walter H. Ratcliff Jr., the warm-water pool and the gymnasium represent early seismic engineering work and are rare examples of an early 20th-century high school gymnasium.


BUSD Fails to Meet No Child Left Behind Goals

By Riya Bhattacharjee
Friday February 29, 2008

Berkeley Unified School District did not meet the 95 percent participation criterion for local education agencies in their third year of Program Improvement for 2007, according to a state Department of Education release Wednesday. 

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger along with State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell announced his recommended course of action as required by the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act for 97 school districts (local education agencies or LEAs) which have not met student achievement targets for five years. 

According to the state’s education department website, the 97 LEAs—including Berkeley, Oakland and San Lorenzo—have advanced to the federal Title I Program Improvement Year 3 status, based on “failure to make Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) for at least five years and are now subject to corrective action and targeted technical assistance as specified by federal law.” 

District superintendent Bill Huyett told the Planet that the district suffered from low participation rates when it came to taking the California Standardized Tests. 

“Under No Child Left Behind, students are required to take the standardized tests. But some parents have a problem with No Child Left Behind. There’s a conflict there.” 

According to district spokesperson Mark Coplan, the low participation rate was predominant among special education and Berkeley High School students. 

“It’s unfortunate that we have a low participation rate at the high school,” said School Board President John Selawsky. 

“I am not sure what we can do to increase it. We have been having the same problem for the last couple of years. The state allows parents to opt out of the tests but we face problems at the federal level. Berkeley High has 3,200 students, that’s one third of the district’s population.” 

The governor’s proposed improvement plans were broken into four tiers. Berkeley Unified was included in the least restricted tier, which says that the district would have to amend its current education plan. 

School board vice president Nancy Riddle described this as “good news” at the school board meeting Wednesday. 

“The sanctions aren’t anything surprising,” said Selawsky. “It’s not anything we wouldn’t be doing. We renew and update our LEA plan regularly.” 

Huyett told the Planet that Lodi Unified School District—where he was superintendent for 6 years before joining Berkeley Unified—had met every standard in PI 3 except for special education students testing in English. 

Lagunitas Elementary, Tracy Joint Unified, Fallbrook Union High and Nevada Joint Union High also missed the PI 3 participation status. 

“In all cases we embrace a singular goal —to make sure that all districts and schools are working effectively to improve student achievement,” O’Connell said in a statement Wednesday. 

“The state has an obligation to not only implement federal law but to assist our school districts to close their achievement gaps and help all students succeed in school,” he said. 

O’Connell recommended to the State Board of Education that the 97 LEAs enforce a curriculum based on state academic content and achievement standards. 

“I have joined forces with Superintendent O’Connell to craft individualized reform plans to make sure the solution fits the district,” Gov. Schwarzenegger said in a statement. “By working together, I know we can make great strides for the children of our state. California's standards are internationally acclaimed, and when successfully implemented they lead students to academic success.” 

O’Connell acknowledged that implementing a standards-based curriculum would require training and skill.  

“Where achievement lags, it’s appropriate that districts look more deeply at how they are delivering a standards-based education to every student,” O'Connell said.  

“I firmly believe that in most cases achievement gains will be more effectively achieved by assisting districts to improve rather than by imposing some of the more severe sanctions allowed under NCLB, such as deferring programmatic funds, removing staff, or closing the district or schools.” 

School districts state wide are currently protesting the governor’s proposal to slash almost $5 billion in funding from K-12 education to close an estimated $14.5 billion state budget shortfall. 

 

 


Planners Make First Move to Challenge Downtown Plan

By Richard Brenneman
Friday February 29, 2008

The ongoing battles over building heights and economics in downtown Berkeley heated up Wednesday night when the Planning Commission took its formal position on the Downtown Area Plan.  

Contrary to the position adopted by the Downtown Area Plan Advisory Committee (DAPAC), which created the proposed plan in the course of two years of deliberations, commissioners voted to ask the City Council to fund a study to see if the plan would be economically feasible. 

Each of the three votes against calling for the study came from planning commissioners who had served on DAPAC and voted with the majority there, with only one DAPAC veteran—Commission Chair James Samuels—voting in favor of it. 

Gene Poschman, Jesse Arreguin and Helen Burke lost on a vote that called for an economic study that would include the 16-story point towers rejected by the DAPAC majority. 

Making the motion to approve it was Commissioner David Stoloff, himself a developer, who called for the evaluation to include 10-, 12-, 14- and 16-story buildings in considering what level of development would be needed to make the plan’s extensive collection of proposed amenities financially viable. 

That decision directly contrasts with the stated position of the DAPAC majority that height trumped other considerations in their decision to adopt the plan. 

City Planning and Development Director Dan Marks estimated that the study would cost $25,000, “maybe a little more,” and would probably include a real-estate economist, an expert in building codes and a cost estimator. 

“I think this is a waste of time and a smokescreen to try to undo the plan DAPAC adopted,” said Arreguin. 

Samuels said the so-called “minority report” that recommended the study was presented to the City Council along with the DAPAC plan, and was backed by 10 of the 21 DAPAC members, “which was just about half.” 

While the DAPAC plan will go to the city council, so will recommendations from the Planning Commission and city staff, leaving councilmembers to pick and choose the elements included in the version they finally approve. 

The proposed new downtown plan resulted from the settlement of a city lawsuit challenging impacts of the growth projections embodied in UC Berkeley’s Long Range Development Plan 2020. 

In the settlement, the city agreed to devise a new plan that would accommodate the university’s announced intention to add 800,000 square feet of new off-campus construction to the city center. 

The settlement imposed a deadline of May 2009, for city approval and university acceptance of the plan, which is partly funded by university money. 

One unusual feature of the planning process is the requirement that the plan’s state-mandated environmental impact report (EIR) be completed before a draft plan has been adopted—a necessary step because of the imposed deadline. 

The Planning Commission will begin its chapter-by-chapter plan review starting toward the end of March, the same time when development parameters for the EIR must be finalized, with the draft EIR to be completed by September and the final version approved three months later at the same time the commission hands the plan on to the City Council. 

Those parameters will include 3,100 new units of downtown housing, Marks said, though the actual number built will probably be much lower. 

Marks has asked the Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG) for $300,000 to help fund the planning process, simultaneously asking the regional government agency to reduce the 2,431 new units it says the city must be prepared to accommodate through 2014. 

Siting the units downtown would be the path of least resistance, given strong neighborhood opposition to many major projects, Marks told DAPAC members. 

The planning director said he was doubtful ABAG would reduce the quota—which is the number of permits the city must be willing to allow, not necessarily what will actually be built. 

 

Public voices 

Commissioners heard conflicting pleas from members of the disbanded DAPAC during public comment, with Will Travis, the committee’s ex-chair, urging members to seek the feasibility analysis. “You really need to have an economic analysis before you forward it to the city council.” 

Travis didn’t mention what another former DAPAC commissioner, Arreguin, soon pointed out, that the committee specifically rejected doing such an analysis.  

Dorothy Walker, ex-DAPACer and a retired UC Berkeley development official, also urged the analysis. 

The minority contended that DAPAC’s restrictions on floor-area ratio and heights would limit development and thus reduce fees collected for parks, streetscape improvements and other amenities included in the plan. 

Juliet Lamont, the environmental consultant who was a leading figure in the DAPAC majority, echoed a plea first voiced by John English, a retired planner who attended most DAPAC meetings, urging the commission to use the committee’s plan as the preferred alternative in preparing the EIR. 

“I was part of a group of people that really worked to come to a compromise,” Lamont said, adding that many members were now feeling that the process was being abused. 

The most radical proposal from the audience came from Barry Elbansani, a Berkeley resident and a widely known architect and urban designer. 

“I don’t think 2,500 units is enough,” he said. “Let’s try 5,000. Let’s try 10,000.” 

In response to public concerns that the commission or staff would rewrite the DAPAC plan before it reached the council, both Marks and Stoloff offered assurances that the community effort would go as written to the ultimate deciders, along with staff and commission recommendations.


Planners Side With Staff in Debate over Density Bonus

By Richard Brenneman
Friday February 29, 2008

A Planning Commission majority agreed Wednesday night not to challenge acting City Attorney Zach Cowan’s contention that key sections of a proposed density bonus ordinance are illegal. 

“The City Attorney has no clothes!” declared a disgruntled but smiling Gene Poschman after he lost a show of hands. 

Poschman earlier had handed out a hefty stack of paperwork that included ordinances from other California cities doing precisely the same things Cowan has declared legally verboten. 

While state law mandates that cities have a density bonus law, the drafting of specific regulations is left up to each local government, and therein lies the nexus of a three-way contest shaping up between the Planning Commission, the Zoning Adjustments Board and the City Attorney’s office. 

The density bonus is designed to create housing for lower-income tenants and buyers by giving developers additional building size to offset their costs for including extra affordable housing in their projects. 

ZAB triggered the fracas after members decided to form a subcommittee to examine problems they encountered with their perceived lack of control over specific development projects. 

The struggle was kicked off by the board’s frustration with the so-called Trader Joe’s project—the five-story building at University Avenue and Martin Luther King Jr. Way—and the city staff’s insistence that developers get a major boost in size for providing parking spaces for their commercial tenant. 

Members said they didn’t have problems with a bonus for creating cheap living space, but they did with one that created parking spaces for grocery stores. 

After ZAB set up a subcommittee, the City Council intervened, adding members from the Housing Advisory and Planning Commissions. 

After two years of deliberations, the combined panel came up with a set of recommendations and an ongoing dispute with the city’s legal and planning staffs. 

Planning Commissioner David Stoloff was the only subcommittee member who opposed the recommendations, which he again dismissed Wednesday night “because it seemed to me to be an effort by the committee to bring the staff under control” the panel felt that staff was “in cahoots” with developers.  

“It’s just a way of reining in staff,” Stoloff said. 

Commission Chair James Samuels formally raised the issue of whether commissioners were willing to “send something to the City Council against the advice of the city attorney.” 

Susan Wengraf, another commissioner who sat on the subcommittee, said she too wanted to get a commission decision on moving forward, given Cowan’s opposition. 

“We should defer in this situation,” said Harry Pollack, who said he wasn’t opposed in principle to acting against legal advice, but not in the case of the density bonus proposals. 

“I do not think so,” said Poschman. 

Jesse Arreguin, filling in for Patti Dacey, agreed with Poschman, while Stoloff said he was opposed to the proposals regardless of what the attorney thought. 

In the end, five Planning Commission members (Samuels, Stoloff, Larry Gurley, Wengraf and Pollack) said they would not oppose the decision of legal counsel, while Poschman, Arreguin and Helen Burke were for forging ahead with the subcommittee proposal. Roia Ferrazares ab-stained. 

Land Use Manager Debra Sanderson said she considered the subcommittee guidelines muddled, and she agreed with Cowan that the proposals would limit the discretion of ZAB members. 

Poschman laughed, noting that five ZAB members—a board majority—felt the proposals would give them more discretion. 

Arreguin, a ZAB member himself, agreed. 

Of the subcommittee’s nine specific recommendations, city staff agreed with three, wanted “minor” changes in two others, major changes in three more and the elimination of the ninth. 

Staff wants to eliminate the proposal’s “two-menu” approach, which allowed for waivers and modifications for projects that requested relatively minor variances from code requirements, while proof of financial justification would be required for projects that required more significant variances and waivers. 

Cowan, who wasn’t present Wednesday night, has provided a written opinion claiming that the two-menu concept violates state law by restricting ZAB discretion. 

With the Planning Commission majority typically including the five members who said they wanted to defer to the staff’s advice, the subcommittee proposals face a tough road ahead as the commission considers them further in meetings to come. 

 

Tour of West Berkeley 

Commissioners reelected Chair James Samuels and Vice Chair Larry Gurley to second one-year terms. The vote for Gurley was unanimous, but Samuels was opposed by Burke, with Arreguin and Poschman abstaining.  

Members have two formal meetings in the next five days. The first comes starting at 8:30 Saturday morning, when members will tour West Berkeley sites picked as examples for the “increased flexibility” the City Council wants written into zoning codes for the area. 

More than 100 members of the public signed up for the tour. 

The proposals have raised concerns that changes would ease the way for major developers but might make it harder for smaller artisans and industrial companies by forcing up land costs and spurring landlords to sell and seek changes of use.


Kennedy/Teece Buildings Priced at $147 Million

By Richard Brenneman
Friday February 29, 2008

Berkeley’s newest and biggest landlord paid $147,397,171 for his seven apartment buildings, making Patrick Kennedy and David Teece richer than ever. 

Included in the figures are more than $66 million in loans which the landlord’s company assumed on the property. 

The sale price paid by Equity Residential, the Chicago-based corporation run by Sam Zell, will bring a hefty profit to the Berkeley developers. 

Teece, a New Zealand native who runs a range of business ranging from investment funds to athletic clothing, can probably use Equity’s cash in light of actions now pending against him in U.S. Tax Court. 

The Internal Revenue Service contends he cheated Uncle Sam out of millions by using illegal tax dodges. 

The figures were reported in Equity’s annual report, which was released Wednesday. The exact figures look like this: 

For Acton Courtyard and its 71 apartments at 1392 University Ave., Equity paid $21.3 million, including liens of more than $9.9 million. 

For the 21-unit Artech Building at 2002 Addison St., the price was $10.8 million, including $3.2 million in loans. 

The Bachenheimer Building with its 44 units at 2119 University cost $17.3 million, including $8.6 million in loans. 

The Berkeleyan, the oldest of the seven properties with 56 rentals at 1910 Oxford St., sold for $20.4 million, including loans of $8.56 million. 

The costliest edifice was the 100-apartment Fine Arts Building at Shattuck Avenue and Haste Street, which sold for $34.3 million, including $16.2 million in liens, followed by Berkeley’s tallest and possibly most controversial new building, the 91-unit Gaia at 2116 Allston Way, at $32.7 million with $14.6 million in loans. 

The final property included in the sale was the Touriel Building at 2004 University, at $10.6 million with a $5 million loan for 25 units. 

All of the Berkeley buildings include ground floor commercial space. 

Kennedy and his silent partner, UC Berkeley business professor Teece, received much of the funding for the buildings from the Association of Bay Area Governments, the same regional entity that sets mandatory housing permit quotas for local cities and counties. 

Zell is also the publisher of California’s largest and most influential newspaper, the Los Angeles Times. The outspoken Chicagoan bought the Tribune Company, which publishes Chicago’s dominant daily as well as the Times and nine other newspapers, 23 television stations, a cable channel (Superstation WGN) and WGN-AM radio, and he’s the owner of the Chicago Cubs. 

His sometimes obscene remarks as a newly minted media baron have repeatedly landed him in the media gossip columns, along with his announced intent to downplay the Times’ traditional commitment to foreign news coverage and investigative reporting. 

According to the company’s annual report, as of the end of 2007, Equity Residential owned 507 rental properties outright, with a total of 133,189 individual units. The company was part owner of an additional 71 properties with 15,901 units and managed 3,731 units of military housing. 

In California, the company owned 43 properties totaling 12,216 units, with Berkeley counting for 418 units. 

At the end of the year, the company owned $15.7 billion in assets, which generated a net income of $990 million for investors for 2007. 

According to a story just published in Capitol Weekly, Zell could be a major beneficiary if California voters pass Proposition 98 in the June election. The measure, billed as an effort to halt eminent domain for commercial developments, also includes a provision that would end rent control throughout the state.  

Called the “California Property Owners and Farmland Protection Act,” the measure has been overwhelmingly funded by landlords. 

As reported by UC Berkeley policy analysts Frank Lester and Nick Robinson, the measure “if enacted would provide that any rent control ordinance in effect prior to January 2007 become essentially invalid.” 

But rather than end rent controls outright, the measure ends controls only as units are vacated, a step sometimes called vacancy decontrol. 

Another Zell company, Equity Lifestyle, which specializes in renting trailer parks and recreational vehicle resorts, reported in its 2006 annual report that rent controls on its California properties were costing the company $15 million a year in mandated subsidies. 

No similar figure is available for Equity Residential, but Zell has been an outspoken opponent of rent control, and according to a Thursday Capitol Weekly story, Zell has contributed $50,000 to the campaign for Prop. 98.


Opinion

Editorials

Editorial: How to Live Forever

By Becky O'Malley
Tuesday March 04, 2008

When I heard last week from Ruth Rosen that Barbara Seaman had died at 72, an age that now seems much too young to me, I looked on the Internet for the many obituary reminiscences about her which I was sure to find. They were all there, some in the kind of prestigious papers that had once dismissed her work for women’s health in the most patronizing way. But the one that rang truest was on a blog devoted to feminist concerns written by Jennifer Baumgardner: “Thinking about Barbara, I realize that she was a one-woman social networking site. She remembered everyone she had ever met and tried to connect them with everybody else she had ever met. She recalled where you were from, whom you dated, your health problems, and your writings or accomplishments and then she introduced you to people you should know.” That was Barbara, all right, and I thought my experience with her was unique. It seems that she did it for everyone. 

Baumgardner met Barbara in 1993—I knew her in the early 80s. Her books about the dangers of the hormones then being prescribed for any and all women’s ailments were pathbreaking, but her longest-living contribution may well be the way she served as a mentor and role model for generations of women who went on to do all sorts of useful and sometimes wonderful things.  

I knew her at the time I was trying to run something called the Project on Science and Technology within the Center for Investigative Reporting. Reporting on women’s issues in that time and place was an uphill battle (as it still is) and I needed all the support and encouragement I could get. Long-distance and in person, Barbara bucked me up when the going got tough, and gave me many valuable tips. My memory, now failing, is that I stayed with her when I went to New York City, but perhaps she just fed me and took me to amazing parties with famous people and introduced me to agents. Under her tutelage, I did a piece for The Nation on corporate marketing of hormones to women, a topic that still has legs twenty-five years later. 

Soon thereafter, life circumstances required me to take a 20-year break from journalism, and when I got the chance to take it up again I’d lost touch with Barbara. What I do remember learning from her is that it’s not just what you do yourself, but what you make possible for others to do that adds up in the end.  

Lately several old friends have died, and others are battling serious illnesses. It’s cause for reflection on that elusive question: What’s the meaning of life? A metaphor sometimes uses by ecologists comes to mind, the web of life. In a loose sense it represents the interconnectness and also the evolution of all living beings.  

The idea can even be expressed in crass business jargon: It’s not about product, it’s about process. Journalism, particularly newspaper journalism, produces mainly ephemera, defined by the invaluable Wikipedia as “transitory written and printed matter, not intended to be retained or preserved. The word derives from the Greek, meaning things lasting no more than a day.” Books last longer, but eventually almost all words, on paper or digitized, will blow away. But the idea that what happens to ordinary people is important, that it should be taken seriously and chronicled as well as possible, is what I learned from Barbara Seaman’s life and hope to pass on. 

Case in point: The pieces the Planet’s been doing about allegations of inappropriate treatment of special education students by an administrator in a Berkeley public school have created understandable anguish in school circles. A parent called to say that she was afraid the stories would worry parents of 5th graders who might be going to Willard Middle School in the fall. Our story quoted Willard’s principal:“We all want to ensure we represent the Willard community in a positive light.”  

Well, no. That’s not the press’s job. 

Parents have the right to know everything that might be going on in the schools to which they entrust their precious children, the bad news as well as the good. We were enormously impressed by the tenacity and dedication of the two African-American mothers of special education students who showed up at the Planet office with detailed files on what they believed was prejudiced and unfair treatment of their kids. We felt that it was our duty to give their charges a thorough airing, particularly because Berkeley Unified School District officials seem to have ignored their complaints, some filed almost a year ago. 

It now appears that the district will take some long-overdue action toward removing the vice-principal in question from contact with kids pending investigation, but that may not be enough. The public deserves, and we will continue to demand, a full accounting of how this and similar cases have been handled. Even if it makes some people uncomfortable. 

In a recent Nation Victor Navasky, who was editor when I wrote for the magazine, reviewed a recent book by Anthony Lewis, a reporter who has specialized in constitutional issues, whose law school seminar on the First Amendment and the press I had the privilege of attending long ago. Navasky said that “Lewis urges the press to follow the injunction of the British columnist Bernard Levin of The Times of London, who in the 1980s dismissed the idea that the press’s obligation was to be ‘responsible’ (in the English sense of commitment to the ideas and assumptions of the ruling class). “The press,’ he wrote, ‘has no duty to be responsible at all, and it will be an ill day for freedom if it should ever acquire one.... We are and must remain vagabonds and outlaws’—we must continue ‘the pursuit of knowledge that others would like unpursued and the making of comments that others would prefer unmade.’ ”  

It’s a sentiment that Barbara Seamen would have agreed with. It’s an attitude she worked all her life to nurture in those who survive her and who hope to be considered her heirs. There are a lot of us. 

 


Editorial: Tell It To The Marines

By Becky O'Malley
Friday February 29, 2008

OK, I admit it, I finally cracked. What put me over the edge Thursday morning was this letter, similar in vocabulary, grammar and spelling to many we’ve gotten in the past few weeks: 

 

Thank you for running the letter from the Marine Captain to “CODE STINK.”I really feel sorry for you and all the decent people in Berkeley that must suffer with such poor representation as your mayor and city council. 

My family and I have visited Berkeley on a number occasions [sic], but we shall never spend another penny in Berkeley. 

I hope all Federal funds are withdrawn from your city. 

Mack B______ 

ex-military officer 

Tulsa, Oklahoma 

 

I just couldn’t resist answering this one, something I’ve so far managed to avoid doing most of the time: “THANKS FOR NOT COMING BACK. Too many tourists here already, crowding our streets with their ugly SUVs.” 

I know, I know, editorial page editors are supposed to forego the snappy rebuttals, and that one wasn’t even very snappy, but enough is enough. How many times do folks in places like Tulsa really come to Berkeley and spend big bucks? Not many, I’d be willing to bet a good amount. 

We’ve printed all the local letters on this topic, even extending the definition of local to Marin, which is really another country. The ones from the Tulsaites (Tulsaoides? Tulsans?) and their ilk have been posted on the web, since we think the writers are pretty unlikely to pick up a printed Planet from a box.  

The BANG-papers which now surround The City had a pool story yesterday which took the temperature of the downtown merchants and reported that they’re still a bit feverish over all the excitement. According to the story, “ ‘The downtown is like a full-time circus right now. There isn’t a day when we’re not hearing the drums and the noise (from the various groups). I think it’s off putting,’ said Susie Medak, managing director of the Berkeley Repertory Theatre.” 

Well maybe, but this week we finally made it over to the next-door Aurora Theater to see a lively production starring an old friend, Michael Gene Sullivan, a stalwart member of the San Francisco Mime Troupe, which has never been afraid of controversy. We almost didn’t get in, on a Wednesday yet. The show sold out, so we had to settle for the “obstructed view” seats that normally don’t get offered.  

No one there seemed to be off-put. There was the usual sprinkling of elderly parties with walkers, plenty of middle-aged ladies with the kind of careful coiffures produced by Walnut Creek hairdressers, and even some young people.  

I got there early to make sure we snagged the last seats, so I had time to browse in the Half-Price Books store on the corner. It was full of cheery shoppers. And the Center Street garage was well-filled, though it’s seldom been sold out even pre-protests. 

I haven’t been able to get downtown in the daytime much lately, but I have no doubt that the commotion around the Marines’ recruiting center has been difficult for the lunch businesses on the same block. That’s not a political boycott, however, it’s just a congestion management problem which needs a creative solution from city government. It seems now that what the protesters were allocated was not “a parking space,” but that the council was trying to create a “no-parking space” in front of the Marines’ office to get protesters off the sidewalk. That’s a step in the right direction, but it needs to be better supervised.  

A councilmember told me that he’d gotten an e-mail from someone, not connected with any organization, who’d been told by a police officer that he couldn’t hand out anti-recruiting flyers on the block in question—that he should take them over to the BART station. No, no, no. Definitely unclear on the concept.  

If there was ever a constitutionally protected activity, that’s it. Recent court decisions have even limited the power of private mall owners to ban leafleting on their premises, and city streets have always been OK. 

In what might have been a first, a press release yesterday from the city’s Police Information Officer included a link to a call on Indybay (an Internet independent news page, for all you old folks) for a big-time gathering of protesters in downtown Berkeley starting at noon today (Friday). PIO Sgt. Kussmiss told us that “BPD has issued a call out to our Crowd Management Team (CMT). This is a specialized team who does regular ongoing training in principles of crowd management and community safety.” Well, that will add more police overtime to the $100K bill already run up, and it might even work, but there are better options. 

What’s needed now is a city-blessed “free speech zone” open to all well-behaved comers, whatever their point of view. Tables and chairs for intelligent sit-down discussions should not only be allowed but encouraged, perhaps even supplied by the city. Bullhorns, however, (Code Pink is reported to have tried one on Wednesday) should be banned, as should any other form of amplification which would disturb the neighbors. There’s nothing in the Constitution about a right to Very Loud Speech. 

The particular dogleg of Shattuck where the Marines have already rented a space is as good a place as any for this endeavor. Transportation mavens have frequently suggested that one problem with downtown traffic flow and pedestrian safety is the confusing way Shattuck splits at that location, and that one branch should be closed. Be that as it may, taking away one or more car spaces for a free speech zone won’t do any harm.  

It could even become a tourist attraction like the Hyde Park Speakers’ Corner in London. The Tulsa-type tourists might be put off, but I bet those from the European Community, the ones with the real money these days, would love the idea. And downtown Berkeley is notably short of tourist magnets at the moment. 

As we used to say in the software industry, you can always turn a bug into a feature, and it’s the smart thing to do. Yes, yes, I’ve said this all before, but let’s just do it.  

 


Public Comment

Letters to the Editor

Tuesday March 04, 2008

 

 

 

 

 

BLAME THE POOR 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Councilmember Kriss Worthington’s thoughtful observations on the City Council’s attack on the Marines leaves out a larger irony. 

Berkeley spent many, many months and half a million dollars of taxpayers’ money supposedly trying to make Berkeley streets friendlier to shoppers through the “Public Commons for Everyone Initiative,” which makes life even harder for the poor, and then in one moment splashed the usual “Berkeley Equals Riot Police” publicity across the nation’s headlines. 

Rest assured, however, that when revenues fall short, they will, as tradition dictates, blame the poor. 

Carol Denney 

 

• 

LETTER TO RALPH NADER, MATT GONZALEZ 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

To Ralph Nader and Matt Gonzalez: Now that you are both running on the same Independent ticket for the Presidency, I want to welcome your voices. 

Barack Obama, whom I support because I believe the Republicans need to be ousted not just debated, said today that no party has a monopoly on the truth. And that certainly goes for the Democratic Party, which needs constant, active intervention for it to be an effective force against the Republicans. Surely, the Democratic Party alone is not the answer. 

But, I will watch what you two say closely. I will engage it in good faith. And I hope to hear you at the debates. 

I encourage both of you, however, to concentrate your energies on the relationship between American corporations and war-making. You cannot merely assault Fortress Corporate America without elucidating how far its privatized-militarized tentacles reach—especially into Asia. You both have an obligation to show the public connections between corporate capitalism and warfare in the United States. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are failures—one million dead, one trillion spent. Why they are failures, how they continue to be ignored as failures, are central questions the public needs to examine. Your work will greatly help turn things around. 

Moreover, I encourage you both to talk openly and frankly about two countries which do not get enough critical examination in the press: Israel and Mexico. Israel’s treatment of Palestinians in Gaza is a nightmare, sustained by Israeli theft of Gazan natural gas reserves—one trillion cubic meters. Mexico’s current government is a right-wing, anti-human rights haven that has made racist public comments about African-Americans competing for employment with immigrants from Mexico. 

If both of you start going after the Democratic Party, without first talking about the Republican corporate boondoggle of post-9/11 America, and how Israel and Mexico have fully participated in it, then it will be hard for me to resist the media hype, which will undoubtedly portray your candidacies as much about your egos as legacies. 

Congratulations again. 

Louis Anthes 

Oakland 

 

• 

THE SPOILER 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Ralph Nader running for president helps Republicans. Ross Perot running for president helped Democrats. How is John McCain as president going to help conservationists, Greens and Ralph Nader’s VP running mate Matt Gonzalez? 

The League of Conservation Voter’s ranked senators on their environmental votes last year. Sen. McCain got zero percent, Sen. Clinton and Sen. Obama had voting records of 73 percent and 67 percent respectively. 

Nader says he’s no spoiler, and cows jump over the moon. 

Ron Lowe 

Grass Valley 

 

• 

BHS REUNION 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The 11th annual Berkeley High School Red & Golden Girls reunion luncheon will be held on Thursday, April 17 at the venerable Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant Ave. Women who graduated from BHS 50 or more years ago are eligible to attend. Special parking arrangements have been made for guests. Honored guest will be Belva Davis, Bay Area journalist and television personality, Class of 1952. Festivities begin at 11 a.m. Tickets are $35. Reservations are necessary and must be made by April 3. Call Virginia Branco, Class of 1944, for reservations, at (510) 582-2478. 

Jeanne Loughman 

 

• 

BUCKLEY 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

In regards to William F. Buckley: I know it’s improper to speak ill of the recently dead (no one else has, so here goes): After all, let’s face it, in an ad hominem way, wasn’t he an incredibly strange, grinning, facial-spastic guy, who was a Harvard type, egg-head, right-wing effeminate extremist, who just freaked and weirded us all out? Do I hear applause?  

Robert Blau  

 

• 

WHAT TO DO ABOUT OAKLAND? 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

So, J. Douglas Allen-Taylor, what should Oakland do? The city is broken. It’s jammed full of parolees and probationers. The police department is completely overwhelmed. The command staff gets heat from city officials and the press. They have to come up with something. It’s a Band-Aid on a gaping wound. We have it good here in Berkeley. The ratio of crooks to cops is probably about 10 to 1. In Oakland? A thousand to one? It must be really high. Oakland can’t afford to pay for 2,000 cops. There is no easy solution. 

Peter Bjeldanes 

 

• 

FREEDOM OF SPEECH 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Both sides of the Marine recruiting center debate seem to be unclear on the concept of freedom of speech. On the one hand are the Republican sponsors of the Semper Fi Act, who wish to punish anyone living or working in Berkeley for the City Council’s opposition to the center. On the other hand, though, are those who try to prevent the Marine recruiting center from functioning, and obstruct entering the center. Allowing Code Pink to have a weekly parking space and demonstration permit in front of the center, with the use of bullhorns, is not free speech. Nor is your proposal to establish a “free speech zone” in front of this center. Both are attempts to harass and prevent the center from operating. Not everyone agrees with your views on the Iraq war, or on serving in the Marines or other U.S. armed forces. That is a choice for the individual to make, not for the city of Berkeley or a group of activists to impose upon others. 

Stephen Denney 

El Cerrito 

 

• 

RECRUITING OFFICE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

As I’ve been saying to friends since the recruiting office was set up on ShatShattuck Square, the USMC advertising arm must have been saying “what’s taken Berkeley so long?” 

By the way, is there a record of production at the recruiting office: bodies enlisted per square footage rented? Or bodies enlisted/total rent. Maybe there’s someone at Haas who’s keeping track. 

Peter Kleinman 

Oakland 

 

• 

BUS RAPID TRANSIT 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The Bus Rapid Transit project proposed by AC Transit contains numerous flaws in regards to the public interest of the citizens of Berkeley. As a whole, the idea of a faster bus system is appealing to get people out of their cars and into more eco-friendly buses. But with the manner in which Berkeley was originally designed, implementing the BRT would be detrimental to businesses and residents.  

As the entire Bay Area knows, parking in Berkeley is a nightmare and even if one is lucky enough to find a spot within a mile of his or her destination, parking tickets seem to outnumber citizens in the city. Taking away a single lane of traffic on busy streets like Telegraph will only aggravate the problem. People are already less likely to drive their cars into Berkeley because of the difficulty of finding parking, but the few that do drive most likely have a legitimate reason to brave the parking meters. Eliminating even more parking will deter many from even visiting Berkeley, especially with the increased hostility against the city of Berkeley because of the Marine Recruiting Center issue. Businesses will falter and resentment among citizens will flourish in areas where parking is already tight. Cars will be forced to park in extremely expensive parking garages, no matter if they are staying for just five minutes. Even worse, the rates are confusing and one can end up spending over $50 to stay overnight from 5 p.m. to 9 a.m. Car drivers will alternatively park in residential areas, which will contradict the goal that the original planners had for Berkeley residents. All traffic is directed to bigger streets (such as College and Telegraph) using dead ends and one way streets so as to leave the residential areas quieter and safer. William Fulton concludes that “as with other aspects of public infrastructure, such as parks and schools, transportation systems should be designed in concert with the communities they are supposed to serve” (Fulton, Guide to California Planning, 3rd Edition).  

In this case, the community will not benefit from having a lane of traffic devoted to buses only. Citizens and officials need to think clearly about the effects and perhaps use a different city as the guinea pig. Berkeley has a reputation of having virtually no parking and before we take it one step further, consequences need to seriously be put on the table. 

Cassie Mullendore 

 

• 

BUSH-CLINTON PARALLELS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The following is a somewhat surprising result from comparing the records and approaches to political life of President Bush and Sen. Clinton. 

President Bush and Sen. Clinton have, of course, many differences: chiefly, he would like to limit the role of government; she seeks to use government to solve our problems. 

Where there seem to be unanticipated parallels between them is in areas of negotiating style and maintaining relationships with those whose support they might need. 

President Bush has shown a tendency to demonize those whose views he dislikes, as in his Axis of Evil speech. He prefers to have no dialogue with nations he does not care for. He tends to go it alone in international affairs, without getting the support of other members of the world community. 

This my way or nothing approach is seen in President Bush’s current approach to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, where apparently no compromise with Congress is possible. 

Regarding Sen. Clinton’s approach, the failure of First Lady Clinton’s 1993 health care plan has been attributed to her presenting an unworkable plan, then refusing to make any changes. She is said to have demonized those in her own party who proposed alternatives, making negotiation impossible. 

More recently, the Clinton campaign last year said those who would support her candidacy should do so very early. Those who also supported opposing candidates could expect to not receive the benefits of being her supporter. 

Sen. Clinton describes herself as a fighter but does not say how that will lead to crafting workable solutions in a two-party system where politics is described as the art of the possible. 

President Bush could be characterized as a fighter in his approach to Congress and international relationships, but that does not seem to have helped us very much. 

It appears then, surprisingly, that both President Bush and Sen. Clinton have a similar history of a draconian approach to politics, tend to rigidly demonize opponents, and have little taste for compromise in the service of higher goals. (Ralph Nader may be a third example.) 

If Sen. Clinton were to be our next president, does the record suggest that we would have four more years of a president who follows a my way or nothing approach, calls those who hold divergent views enemies, and is indifferent to the possibility of working with others to craft viable solutions to our nation’s problems? 

Brad Belden 

 

• 

HR 5224 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I think we’re all tired of the rich getting richer. Even the very rich. 

It must take a lot of time, resetting credit card interest rates each month, harassing working people at home at inconvenient times. 

That’s why banks and credit card companies should get behind Ohio Congressman Charles Saunders’ HR 5244, the Credit Cardholders Bill of Rights Act. 

It’s not just about giving working consumers a break. It’s about letting the super-rich, super-powerful take a break from all their arm-twisting and pocketbook wringing. 

Stephen Shea 

Albany 

 

• 

LETTER TO THE BERKELEY VOICE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

In the Berkeley Voice’s lead article Feb. 29 (“Downtown businesses feel pinch of protests), the writer presented no evidence, other than hearsay, that “people who are angry at city leaders for their anti-military stance are taking it out on businesses—canceling hotel and restaurant reservations as well as theater tickets.” 

The Chamber of Commerce and the Downtown Business Association are quoted as “hearing” of cancellations, but the Voice’s reporters didn’t get any details. A fast-food establishment and a hardware store say that business is down somewhat due to the protests themselves, but didn’t cite any of the “punishment” of Berkeley asserted by the Chamber of Commerce representative. (It’s doubtful that a fast-food restaurant would be taking reservations, in any case.) The director of Berkeley Rep said that the noise is “off-putting” but again the Berkeley Voice’s reporters failed to get any evidence that theater reservations had actually been canceled.  

The Voice’s reporters need to do a better job in presenting their case before making such a strong and controversial assertion.  

Chris Gilbert 

 

• 

BIG OIL ON WELFARE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Gasoline prices, we are told, like all consumer products rise and fall largely as a result of supply and demand, a law articulated by Adam Smith in the Wealth of Nations (1776) and reverently associated with the economy’s Invisible Hand.  

We the tax payers gave the oil industry $1.7 billion in tax breaks in 2007—a pittance compared to the industry’s combined profits of $145 billion (New York Times editorial, March 3).  

Question: What happens when our government gives tax breaks to the oil and gas industry? 

Answer: Government subsidies subvert the law of supply and demand. 

Conclusion: We the people must pay more at the gas pump so that Big Oil can maintain the profits to which it has become accustomed. 

Marvin Chachere 

San Pablo 


Commentary: A Way Out of the Spoiler Dilemma

By Steven Hill
Tuesday March 04, 2008

With the Academy Awards over, it’s time for a new year of thrilling cinematic chills. How about: “Spoiler Dilemma, Take Three,” starring Ralph Nader? 

It’s like a horror movie that keeps coming back. Once again, the audience is on edge. Democrats are fuming, no doubt preparing to use the same legal tricks they used in 2004 to keep Nader off the ballot in many states. Meanwhile, Republicans are cackling with glee. 

But Republicans shouldn’t cackle too loudly. They also have been hurt by the spoiler dilemma. In fact, the GOP lost control of the U.S. Senate due to Libertarian Party candidates in the states of Montana, Washington and South Dakota spoiling Republicans. Many observers believe that Bill Clinton beat George H.W. Bush in 1992 only because Ross Perot drained away enough votes from Bush. 

The problem is that the winners of our highest offices are not required to win a majority of the vote, either nationwide or in each state. Without a majority requirement, we can’t be certain in a multi-candidate field that the winner will be the one preferred by the most voters. That’s the premise for this horror movie repeat. 

A lot is at stake to make sure that the winner in November can legitimately claim the presidency and try and heal a polarized nation. Yet despite the spoiler problem playing out in the 2000 presidential election and in various Senate races, neither Democratic nor Republican Party leaders have done anything to fix this defect of our electoral system. So our movie is a tragedy besides. 

Fortunately, it’s not too late to fix this problem. Since the U.S. Constitution delegates to states the method of choosing its Electoral College electors, each state legislature could pass into law—right now—a majority requirement for their state to ensure that whichever candidate wins, she or he will command support from a majority of that state’s voters. 

We don’t even need to do it in every state, since the race will boil down to a half dozen battleground states, including the perennials Ohio and Florida. Rather than asking Nader or any candidate to forego his democratic right to run for political office, the Democratic and Republican leaders could become heroes in this unfolding tragic movie. What are they waiting for? 

Time is growing short, but it’s in the public interest to protect majority rule. One approach would be to adopt a two-round runoff system similar to that used in most presidential elections around the world and many primaries and local elections in the U.S. A first round with all candidates would take place in mid-October. The top two finishers would face off in November, with the winner certain to have a majority. 

But two elections would be expensive and time-consuming, both for taxpayers and candidates. So a better way would be for each state to adopt instant runoff voting (IRV), which accomplishes the goal of electing a winner with majority support, but getting it over in a single election. IRV allows voters to pick not only your first choice but also to rank a second and third choice at the same time, 1, 2, 3. If your first choice can’t win, your vote goes to your second choice. The runoff rankings are used to determine a majority winner in one election. Nader or Perot-type voters are liberated to vote for their favorite candidate without helping to elect their least favorite. 

IRV is used in Ireland and Australia for national elections, in San Francisco, Cary, North Carolina and elsewhere for local elections, and in South Carolina, Arkansas and Louisiana for overseas voters. Interestingly, IRV is supported by John McCain, Barack Obama and Ralph Nader. 

Many people are criticizing Ralph Nader for risking a repeat of 2000, but only Democrats and Republicans have the power to change the rules of the game. We’ve seen this movie before and don’t like how it might turn out. It’s time for the Democrats and Republicans to produce a new ending by fashioning a fair, majoritarian system for electing our nation’s highest offices. 

 

Steven Hill is director of the Political Reform Program at the New America Foundation and author of 10 Steps to Repair American Democracy (www.10steps.net).


Commentary: Some Planners Believe That BRT Will Work

By Erina Hong
Tuesday March 04, 2008

Imagine a bus route so fast that it’s like a vehicle free of tracks. It would be 10 times cheaper and ride along a 15-mile stretch from Bay Fair BART station in San Leandro to Downtown Berkeley. Each stop would be about half mile apart and bus drivers would have the ability to turn stoplights green using GPS technology and have an electronic sign informing riders when the next bus was scheduled to arrive. This $400 million budgeted project would provide elevated stops in the middle of the street and dedicated lanes free of cars. While the city of Berkeley does have a toned down version of rapid transit systems, they still have to drive alongside the traffic of regular cars.  

Does this sound too good to be true?  

I’m afraid it does. 

While the city of Berkeley has proposed and shown interest this multi-million-dollar investment, the residents of Berkeley have vocally expressed dislike for it. However, I, also a Berkeley resident and a UC Berkeley student, am representing one of few proponents for this plan. 

I felt much opposition for the BRT at the Feb. 13 planning meeting in North Berkeley. Scott Coleman, a Berkeley resident had conducted a mini-survey about the BRT asking ten residents if they’ve even heard of the BRT plan. They all replied no. His concern was that if so few residents who would be directly affected by the plan even knew about the BRT, there wouldn’t be enough voices to oppose it. Bruce Caplin, an owner of a small store on Telegraph and Delaware street resident in Berkeley was concerned about the green house gases emitted by the buses and the possibility of the transit system in mitigating merchant activity along Telegraph. I feel that although these claims made at the meeting were valid, they do not override the progressive action this plan will eventually bring. While facing much opposition, the meeting has given the BRT planners an opportunity to fix the issues that were being raised. Further notification of the plan to the local residents will ensure greater proponents for the Rapid Transit System. As for the issue of greenhouse gases, driving less and taking the transit more occasionally will eventually reduce transportations’ effect on the environment. In addition, I feel that this high speed pathway alongside Telegraph will promote, rather than mitigate, merchant activity. More people will be encouraged to travel along the long stretch of Telegraph Avenue.  

For a green-minded, progressive city such as Berkeley, it was surprising to learn much opposition for this project. In an article called “Comprehensive Planning” by Altshuler, p. 112, he says “the planner may learn which issues are the relevant ones so far as the people are concerned, what terms are meaningful to them, and which alternatives make sense as they view them. The education of the planning board and staff is crucial for any plan to survive.” Looking at past examples of successful planning agendas can help us see the good in this project. Wachs reports in an article called “Transportation,” p. 206, that in recent years, the public in large cities and metropolitan areas has generally been more favorably disposed to transit improvements than to the building of new high ways. They say that improving transit tends to decongest the streets by reducing automobile travel. 

While technologies that improve the speed, safety, and fuel efficiency of the automobile are desirable, obviously not everyone will be happy about it. In a past example in Berkeley, Carolyn Jones of the San Francisco Chronicle reports in her article “Bus rapid transit project could hit roadblock in Berkeley” that 95% of motorists opposed dedicated bike lanes when they were first unveiled, but now the lanes are accepted as part of the streetscape. Remembering this will help us move forward and foresee the positive outcomes that BRT could bring. 

 

Erina Hong is a UC Berkeley student. This commentary was part of a class assignment for City Planning 110 and is one of several student submissions received by the Daily Planet.


Commentary: Clinton’s Duplicity On Michigan, Florida Delegates

By Paul Rockwell
Tuesday March 04, 2008

A spectre is haunting the Democratic Party, the spectre of an ugly—albeit unnecessary—floor-fight over Florida and Michigan delegates at the national convention in August. 

When Susan Keeler, a registered voter from a small township in Michigan, opened her absentee ballot last January, she expected to vote for Obama. Suddenly she discovered that his name was not on the ballot. In an interview with the Flint Journal, she expressed her feelings: “There is something wrong with this. People don’t even have a choice to vote for the person we want to vote for. The only name I even recognize here is Hillary Clinton. It appears people are trying to control how to vote.” 

Thousands of Michigan voters now feel disenfranchised.  

Like Michigan, Florida held a “beauty contest” in January before the official primaries began, and thousands of voters were upset and confused. Florida is the same state that illegally purged thousands of African-American voters from its rolls in 2000.  

How did the Florida-Michigan debacle come to pass? And by what means can the mishaps of the Democratic National Committee and state party officials be rectified before the Democratic party convention in August in Denver, Colorado? 

One hundred and eighty-five delegates from Florida, 128 from Michigan, are at stake. 

The Michigan-Florida delegate controversy began to percolate in December 2007, when state party officials announced their intentions to hold early primaries in direct violation of Democratic National Committee agreements and rules. The DNC took a hard line, telling state officials that rebel primaries were ceremonial and would not be counted at the convention. Both states disregarded the DNC position and held maverick primaries in January. Eager to please the superdelegates on the DNC, both Clinton and Obama agreed with the rules, and both signed pledges not to campaign in either state. “You know,” Senator Clinton remarked, “it’s clear the election they’re having isn’t going to count for anything.” Obama’s name did not even appear on the ballot in Michigan. (Obama was not allowed to withdraw his name in Florida.) 

Clinton, however, hedged her bets. Though she vowed not to campaign—a vow that implies rejection of the election—she kept her name in the running in Michigan. She won the “contest” easily because Obama’ s name was kept off the ballot.(Jesse Jackson won the Michigan primary in 1984.) Then coincidentally she arrived at the Miami airport “for a fundraiser” on the eve of the Florida vote.  

As momentum for Obama’s nomination swelled, Clinton reversed her position on the DNC rules and decisions. She now demands that the results of the ceremonial contests be made official. And she is pressuring the credentials committee to reverse itself. She is also encouraging superdelegates to overrule the voters. The Clintons have huge clout in Washington, where favors have been exchanged for many years.  

Of course it is hypocritical to oppose a half-election before it takes place, only to accept the results when they appear favorable. 

What can be done to resolve a crisis that could destroy the chance for Democratic victory in November? 

There are three approaches to the Party debacle, and two of them are faulty.  

The first approach makes a big deal about the DNC rules. It goes like this: both states violated the rules, so to hell with them. No Florida or Michigan delegates at the convention. That’s that. Here is a dangerous position. Left out, disgruntled voters in Michigan and Florida may well turn to McCain in November. Democrats have an obligation to end the insider fighting between DNC members and the states’ Democratic party officials. 

The second approach—a solution that Clinton is prepared to force on the Party regardless of the consequences—is also faulty. Clinton now claims she deserves the delegates from Michigan and Florida. Yes, Obama played by the rules. Tough on him. 

She is dead wrong, and we should set the record straight. The DNC did not strip Michigan and Florida of its delegates. The Democratic party is quite willing to welcome all duly elected delegates from both states. However, Michigan and Florida have yet to produce any duly elected delegates—delegates chosen by voters in a fair election. Only a genuine election, where the voters are able to hear both sides, where the names of all contenders appear on the ballot, can produce legitimate delegates at the convention. No real election took place in January. That is the crux of the issue. Clinton may claim that she is defending the voters, but she is actually manufacturing delegates out of a beauty contest that turned ugly. Her plan disenfranchises voters in both states. Thousands and thousands of voters, who would have voted for Obama in an official election, stayed home. If only one name appears on the ballot in a communist country, it’s called a dictatorship. 

Susan Parnes in Flint, Michigan, planned to vote for Obama. When she realized his name was missing from the ballot, she said: “It gives me a very nasty taste in my mouth. I’ve begged people to go vote in the primary, and then this crap comes up.” 

There is a solution, a third approach that is practical and clear. Hold new elections or caucuses in both states. There’s plenty of time left before the convention. The DNC, which bears some responsibility for the crisis, is in a position to pay the costs. Let the candidates campaign. Make sure all of the candidates’ names are on the ballots. If a flood, a hurricane, or any natural disaster destroyed half the ballots in an election, the election would be held again. 

Respect for principles of democracy is a precondition of Democratic victory in November. 

 

Paul Rockwell is a writer who lives in Oakland. 


Commentary: Must We Stamp His Footprint Into Nature to Remember Cesar Chavez?

By Alesia Kunz
Tuesday March 04, 2008

I’ve been walking at the Marina and Cesar Chavez Park for 14 years. My dog Grace loved our walks and runs around the perimeter and in the center where it was pure nature. In the early 1920’s the area was the city municipal dump and in the 1990s it was landscaped and converted to a public park, North Waterfront Park. Now, Cesar Chavez Park, it has become a beautiful haven for all manner of nature beings with a Wildlife Sanctuary at the northern end. Red tail hawks, black shouldered kites, hummingbirds, finches, crows, ravens, pelicans, burrowing owls, ground squirrels, rabbits, feral cats, gopher snakes, great blue herons, snowy egrets, Northern Harriers, sea gulls and more. There are beautiful native plants, sages, fennel, pampas grass, purple and white statice, pine trees, purple thistle plants, matilija, or, “fried-egg” poppies, and crimson clover. It’s wild with nature. I walk there every day to enjoy the sounds, scents and sights.  

About 10 years ago, after a long period of public hearings and a lot of debate, the Berkeley City Council created seventeen acres in the northernmost section as off-leash area for dogs. The problem of unleashed dogs bothering people who were walking around the perimeter was solved.  

So, Grace and I left the perimeter, tromped up to the top and made the middle our new home. She and I had a great time pretending we were in the wild. She ran around sniffing, chasing rabbits, playing with dogs while I enjoyed the plants, animals, and birds. We’d walk up to the crest of the hill and look out at the bay. Twirling around 360 degrees I could see water everywhere. It was quiet and private—a place many of us went to watch the sunset or just sit quietly on the earth, look out at the bay, watch plant and bird life change with the seasons, and marvel at the beauty. 

On the bluff of this hill, which borders the off-leash space, humans are making our mark. Now, there is a Solar Calendar Project, which has been burgeoning over the past few years. It’s meant to honor the life and legacy of Cesar Chavez, a great person. A person who, according to the project’s website, was a “devout man, spiritually attuned to the earth and sky,” who “regularly climbed a small hill to observe and meditate on the rising sun,” a person who traveled “to the ocean’s edge to be reminded of the vastness of an awesome nature.” 

These words also accurately describe the area in our park before the Solar Calendar Project was installed. Now there is a four-foot tall stone, which has been cemented into the earth; and five multicolored plaques cemented down, which explain how to use the stone, and the rest of the installation. Large rocks were placed in all the directions, mounds of earth piled up, and more rocks laid in a circle around the Coit Tower-like monument.  

Recently five tombstone-type stones have been placed around the circle, each with a different word stamped/carved into it in capital letters: TOLERANCE, COURAGE, HOPE, DETERMINATION.  

While I’m being quiet in nature I don’t want someone telling me what values or qualities Mr. Chavez possessed, or what words or concepts I should be thinking about. I don’t need someone telling me how to enjoy nature and I wonder if Cesar Chavez did either.  

It’s astounding that even though we have so little of the natural world left to enjoy, we can’t leave it alone. Nature is not about reading words stamped into a stone. This beautiful wild place has been changed, stamped with a human footprint. Developed. Is it in our DNA that we must dominate, remove, change, elaborate on nature? For what purpose? 

Yes, the Solar Project, which people are enjoying, is a beautiful concept and tribute to Cesar Chavez, but the installation is also an unnecessary intrusion on nature, on personal ways we have of enjoying the wild, of being quiet in the world. When I walk at the crest of the hill now, regardless of what path I take, I see the cemented protruding stone and I know everything there is “arranged.”  

No longer is this exclusively a beautiful public place for people to go and enjoy nature in a quiet personal way. It has become a public place where people come to read and discuss how to decipher the instructions. Surrounded by words, cement, plaques explaining how to use the calendar, how to interact with things, how to read the words on the tombstones and appreciate them. It’s a left-brain experience.  

The other troubling aspect of the Solar Project is that no one asked the people who have been walking there everyday for years, what we thought about changing the landscape. I went to the Marina Office to investigate and talk with someone. A man there gave me the name and number of a woman at the Waterfront Commission to call. She told me, “these things get decided at meetings,” and that the meetings are posted in areas near the boats. I said that people who walk in the off-leash and nature area don’t go anywhere near the boats, so how would we know? We could have gone to the meetings. 

The Waterfront woman gave me the name of another employee to call. He didn’t respond to my requests for information and to talk on the phone. Perhaps he’s using the don’t-respond-and-the-problem-will-go-away strategy. 

But I’m not going away. I live here. This is my community. I don’t appreciate what the City Council did, how they did it, and how they’re removing themselves from dialogue. Why did they choose to stamp nature with a human footprint? 

Is it that somewhere below our consciousness we’re afraid that unless we dominate nature, we’ll be lost in her, unacknowledged and forgotten? Perhaps we can dive deeper and find a cellular memory, a collective unconscious memory of a time when we experienced a more compassionate collaborative relationship with nature. A time when we made different choices. 

Our options are not limited to either dominate or be dominated. But, it takes effort, consciousness, compassion, responsibility and the knowledge that we’re in relationship with nature to find other choices.  

Maybe the real issue is that we want to stay connected to someone we knew, loved, and admired, and we don’t know how to do that without constructing material images. Perhaps we can take time to find other ways to keep connected to a person’s spirit and to honor it. 

In naming the park after Mr. Chavez we honor and appreciate his work; we can think of him and connect with his spirit as we walk in nature. In leaving nature to flourish we honor and appreciate it and our relationship with it; we connect with the spirit of nature. In doing this we honor both Cesar Chavez and the natural world as great gifts. Perhaps the spirit of Cesar Chavez lives in the natural world he so enjoyed.  

 

Alesia Kunz is a Berkeley resident. 


Commentary: The Danny Hoch Incident

By Jean Stewart
Tuesday March 04, 2008

I’m standing at my desk as I type this; I’ve tilted the keyboard and nestled it inside a cardboard box, next to the mouse, which I’ve precariously propped at a steep angle on various piled-up objects. I’ve done this because of the pain I experience when I sit, but in fact standing seems only incrementally better than sitting. So I don’t know how long I’ll last before I give up and go back to bed. 

After 27 years of frequently unbearable, undiagnosed pain, I finally have a name for it: Piriformis Syndrome, a neuromuscular disorder, an unfortunate sequela to my long-ago surgeries. (Back in 1978, doctors removed nearly all my right hip muscle, to rid me of a tumor.) Apparently the piriformis muscle (in my bottom) is scraping against and abrading the sciatic nerve, thus causing extreme, sciatica-like pain, especially brought on by sitting. Sometimes the pain dissipates when I stand, sometimes not. Today, and last night, not. Usually, though not always, it subsides if I lie down. Hope springs eternal.  

So does despair. They do battle in me daily, hope and despair. I cross my fingers, and then glare at the crossings. Things get very dark indeed when I look ahead, so I try to avert my eyes. 

Recently my friend Laura treated me to a play in Berkeley. The play—Taking Over, a one-man show exploring gentrification by Danny Hoch, a brilliant dude from Brooklyn—had garnered rave reviews. I’d heard him interviewed on the radio and—as one who harbors her own passionate aversion to the taking over of neighborhoods or countries—I liked his sensibilities, the brash outrage that feeds his politics. So my dread (of pain) and my excitement counterbalanced each other. 

I decided to transfer into a theatre seat for the show, because the pain is worse when I sit in my scooter. Fortunately my seat location, at the far right side near the exit, offered an easy solution; I figured when things got bad, I could discreetly slip out of my seat and stand by the exit well, without obstructing anyone’s view. Pre-show, I tried to postpone sitting until the last minute, but the house manager descended on me and said, in a drill-sergeant’s tone of voice: YOU need to SIT! I smiled pleasantly: I’m about to do that. Drill Sergeant: I NEED YOU TO SIT DOWN NOW!! So I sat, and it began to dawn on me that perhaps my plan to take one or two standing breaks during the show would not be a big hit with this manager. The more I thought about it, the more I worried: how would I get through a 90-minute no-intermission show without taking at least one standing break? 

Telling myself that a terrific performance by a genius actor would provide plenty of distraction, I made it through the first hour. But the pain was building; by 9:30 I knew I’d have to take my chances. Quickly and unobtrusively, I slipped over to the exit well and stood clinging to its railing for support. I hoped a five-minute break might do the trick, after which I’d return to my seat.  

The play consists of Hoch portraying various Brooklyn characters who are vectors, or victims, of gentrification, including a couple of extremely hyper, aggressive, angry men, alternating with a few less ferocious characters. When I took my break, he was in the middle of one of the hyper-aggressive characters, a foulmouthed guy who frequently interacted with imaginary people in the audience. So when Hoch’s gaze fell on me, standing by the exit, and he unleashed sarcastic invective—“Siddown, what are you, scared, you gettin’ ready to run outa here?”—I assumed it was part of the show. He went on with his character’s rant, but a few seconds later his eyes returned to me and he snarled “I SAID SIDDOWN!”  

By this time I’d begun to falter. Was this really just a part of the script, or was he directly addressing me? Should I sit down? Everyone was laughing. I grinned, awkward, self-conscious, nervous, feeling like the high school loner who doesn’t get the joke but suspects she’s the butt of it. If I sat down, wouldn’t that draw further attention to me? Would it spur him to mock me further? Certainly it would worsen the pain in my bottom. If his remarks were really just a part of the monologue, I’d look pretty silly sitting down. At other points in the script, he had exhorted the audience, “Go fuck yerselves!” I didn’t see a mass movement of audience members complying with that order.  

In the middle of this inward struggle, I saw his eyes land on me again, and this time something in them stopped my breath. “I’M NOT KIDDIN’! SIT. THE. FUCK. DOWN!!!” he roared, at the top of his lungs.  

I froze, my foolish grin scattering. Some audience members were still laughing, but their laughter seemed nervous now, though perhaps some still believed him to be in character. I couldn’t move, his fury (with its implicit threat) so naked as to embarrass. I felt a beam of hate emanate from his eyes and bore into me, pinning me to the spot. If a moment ago I was confusedly trying to sort out what to do, now there was no more sorting, nary a rational thought in my brain, just deer-in-headlights panic. Memories of abuse and public humiliation unmoored themselves and banged around in my gut. All the while, the pain in my bottom, brought on by seventy minutes of sitting, offered a relentless undertow.  

At length, my pride assayed to clamber out of this scalding heap of misery. I NEED to stand, I’m not doing it to annoy! This is not about YOU!, I was inwardly struggling to articulate to him, to the roomful of people I imagined were staring at me with accusatory eyes. This is about a disability—  

Just then, the Drill Sergeant appeared at my side. “You need to sit down,” she whispered.  

I whispered back: “I have a disability that makes long stretches of sitting extremely painful. I need to take short breaks.” 

“Then you should leave the theatre and stand in the lobby,” said she.  

“I’m watching the show!” I hissed, very quietly.  

She paused and then whispered: “I’ve been told to ask you to sit down. You’re bothering him. Please stand out in the lobby.”  

Ah, so I was bothering him. I returned to my seat and sat down, eyes stinging, the public shaming now complete. Though Danny Hoch’s play continued for another 15 minutes, I could no longer see it, nor hear a word. I felt dizzy and slightly nauseous, my heart about to leap out of its chest cavity.  

A performer myself (veteran of countless bookstore and theatrical readings), I recognize how interruptions can utterly discompose and inflict havoc on carefully wrought artistic momentum. Perhaps if my disability had been more visible to Hoch, he might have reacted differently. Perhaps he’d have cut me some slack if he’d seen me standing next to my empty scooter. To him I looked like any other member of the audience, one who perversely chose to stand instead of sit.  

But the Drill Sergeant’s behavior is harder to explain. She knew of my disability; it was she who took my ticket at the door and, when I told her I planned to transfer to a theatre seat, declared that I would have to leave my scooter in the lobby (I’m accustomed to this policy), and showed me where to park it. When Danny aimed his vitriol at me, she could have suggested that I retreat into the shadows of the exit well, from which vantage point I’d be able to see him but he wouldn’t see me. (I of course wish I’d thought of this at the time.)  

Interestingly, I remember her from my last Berkeley Rep outing. Having arrived at the theatre early, I was steered into the lobby by a friendly Berkeley Rep volunteer. Since the weather was bad, I took up her suggestion and piloted my scooter indoors, where DS was conducting a pre-show usher briefing. Though my presence was quiet and discreet, DS broke off her spiel and glared at me. “Yes?” she inquired. “I’m sorry, I was directed to come into the lobby by a volunteer staffer,” I murmured. “You need to leave!” she snapped, and leave I did, returning to the cold wind outdoors, which at the moment seemed far more welcoming than the air inside that lobby. 

In my experience, Berkeley Rep ushers have responded to the Drill Sergeant’s behavior with uniform embarrassment. Last year, two gentle souls separately sought me out to offer their apologies for the lobby incident. One of them felt so ashamed, he offered to buy me a compensatory treat at the snack bar! (I accepted; hey, what the hell. Those chocolate-dipped macaroons stick to the ribs.) And last night, pre-show, when DS ordered me to sit, a kindly usher winced, patted my arm and whispered into my ear, “Don’t take it personally, she just wants to seat the ushers.”  

Aside from stirring ghosts related to abuse and public shaming, the Danny Hoch incident kicked up other dust as well, dust that gets in my throat and eyes and makes it hard for me to breathe. Disability dust. The fact is, managing my disability has become harder and harder. Unpredictable, intractable pain causes me to venture out with friends less and less. Isolation closes in. By now I’ve accumulated an extensive collection of traumatic memories, of outings derailed by pain so intense I could only weep. Memories of being stranded in San Francisco or Berkeley or New York City, unable to drive or ride the train home. Memories of making a public spectacle of myself, in the agonal grip of pain.  

The Danny Hoch incident has now elbowed its way into this crowded closet of personal ghosts. I know it won’t stay there. It will jump out at me when I least expect it. It will kick me when I’m down.  

 

Jean Stewart is an El Sobrante resident.


Commentary: A Planning Student’s Perspective on Bus Rapid Transit

By Janet Shih
Tuesday March 04, 2008

After reading the recent article about AC Transit’s Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) proposal as well as being an attendee of early February’s planning commissioning meeting for Berkeley, I would like to support the argument for a positive response towards the BRT proposal. 

I believe incorporating a Bus Rapid Transit line into Telegraph Avenue would be extremely beneficial to the planning of the city of Berkeley. The implementation of the BRT would definitely bring about a drastic change, but this change would result in a half-price reduction in bus fare, efficiency in schedule, and an increase in transit speed. As a student at UC Berkeley, and for many of my peers, these are all the factors in need of improvement that currently discourage us from using public transit. The improvements of the AC Transit system by the BRT will definitely give heavy incentive for many car owners to choose public transportation over private transportation. 

If this proposal will turn out to be as successful as it is proposed to be, the sacrifice of, as one planning commissioning meeting attendee put it, “forcing people out of their cars,” would be worth it in the long run. Forcing people out of their cars and into public transportation would decrease congestion and be environmentally promising for air quality. I believe that this process will be rough in the beginning and that automobile owners will voice their stubborn concerns, but progressively as the AC Transit begins to take a larger presence in main streets (in this instance, Telegraph Avenue), the routine of abandoning car use and using bus lines will grow to be a very sustainable alternative. 

The city of Berkeley is only increasing in population. It is a city with a prestigious public university and inhabitants will only increase. In John Levy’s book Contemporary Urban Planning, he states that public transportation is only successful when it is geared towards cities of large population densities. As the Berkeley population increases, the problems of congestion increase along with it and unless action is taken for transportation, the matter will only grow worse and worse. An alternative must be considered. 

Levy refers to this as “compact planning,” which is very favorable to city planners. Public transportation is meant to decrease congestion and lead to a pedestrian friendly land-use pattern. I see the BRT installment as an attempt to be the main source of transportation in a currently congested street in order for people to initially become frustrated, but then eventually submit, abandon their cars, and use the AC Transit. 

In William Fulton’s book Guide to California Planning he mentions that a community has four options to mitigate congestion due to population growth and the least expensive and most practical of those options is to “try to reduce vehicle trips or shift travelers to other modes". However because of the influence of suburban land use, the idea of using public transit is not at all appealing. BRT is a great opportunity for the city of Berkeley to redefine its land-use and to reject it reliance on private automobiles. 

Very much of city planning is focused on preventing future municipal problems. The BRT is a smart move in order to do that and is a strategic tactic for sustainable living. 

 

Janet Shih is a UC Berkeley student. This commentary was part of a class assignment for City Planning 110.


Commentary: Another Planning Student’s Perspective on Bus Rapid Transit

By Juju Wang
Tuesday March 04, 2008

I am a senior major in Civil Engineering and City Planning at UC Berkeley. I am very interested in transportation planning, especially parking policies. Recently, I came across a parking study "The Smart Parking Seminar" conducted by the Metropolitan Transportation Committee (MTC.) The allocation, use of limited on and off street parking resources, and parking policies continue to be highly debated issues both locally and nationally. The MTC's parking study identifies some local parking policies, requirements, and recommendations to "managing constrained parking conditions with smart growth and Transit Oriented Development (TOD) policies and programs." Here's my thought on the parking study. 

Out of the ten cities that the MTC chose to do this study on, I am mainly interested in parking requirements and reformation in the city of Berkeley. Although the parking study provided useful method to promote smart growth, they are all long range plans. More immediate policies should be applied to regulate parking turnover, spillover, and vehicle cursing. For example, in the city of Berkeley, the meter rate has not been raised since 1992 (City of Berkeley). In most of the areas of the city, the rate still sits at one dollar per hour; whereas in San Francisco, the on street parking rates varies from one dollar and fifty cents near the edge of the city to three dollars in the financial district (SFMTA.) The under-priced parking meters have attracted many tourists and shoppers to hunt for on street parking spots; this directly leads to the reason of underutilized off street parking garages. On a good day, according to the garage owner in Berkeley, only 70% of the garage parking spaces are full; whereas close to 90% of on street parking spaces are taken (Studio 2007.) The underutilized off street parking issue can be solved by raising the on street parking rates to the rates of garage parking or higher. The policy not only is easy to implement, but also, it will have big impacts on decrease vehicle cursing, and increase parking turnover. Because this "increase on street parking price" policy also helps to induce a more diverse travel behavior, a transit and pedestrian friendly environment can be deploy in the city of Berkeley. 

One of the suggestions that the MTC put forward is the establishment of the Parking Benefit District where money from parking meters can be earmarked specifically for benefits for the local neighborhood. However, the Parking Benefit District proposal is not recommended to Berkeley. In order to fully achieve smart growth and TOD, a parking benefit district should be introduced to downtown Berkeley. In addition, the money generated from the meter should not only be used towards transportation related issue; they should also be used towards components of smart growth such as street cleaning, tree planting, and security enforcing at night. Some of the revenues should be allocate to parking enforcement. 

Of all the recommendations MTC made, one issue that has not been addressed, yet has a huge impact on transit efficiency and safety is the issue of delivery vehicles double parked in the middle of a busy traffic lane. A doubled parked delivery truck can block bus from pulling into the bus stop. Most bus drivers have no choice but to let their passengers get off in the middle of the street. Alternatively, a policy such as designate parking spots in the front of shops for delivery trucks can be sought (SFMTA.) More loading and unloading zone can push the on street to off street parking as private vehicles parked in violation of the restriction will be towed; and thus reinforcing the benefits that were previously stated. This policy is adopted by the city of San Francisco; it has been working effectively. 

The last immediate policy that can be adopted by the city business shops is the Parking Cash Out program. This program allows employers to give workers an option to take cash equivalent of parking subsidy offered. According to one of Shoup's study, when the parking cash out program is implemented, the number of cars that driven to work decreased by 33% (Shoup.) As more employees convert to transit users, and carpoolers, more parking spaces are left to the customers and visitors. 

Although the Smart Parking Seminar initiates many parking problems in the selected cities, and offers solutions to address such problems, it fails to provide transportation alternatives that can make the cities more multimodal. Overall, it is unclear to reader if the parking policies introduced in the Smart Parking document is guided by the TOD policy – i.e. to encourage alternatives to single occupancy vehicles. In order to achieve Smart Growth, parking supply in city downtown area must be limited. As an alternative, new, fast, and convenient transportation modes such as BRT can be introduced. One way to achieve TOD is to start with small pilot projects where proposals can be evaluated prior to their full implementation. 

 

Juju Wang is a UC Berkeley student. This commentary was part of a class assignment for City Planning 110. 


Letters to the Editor

Friday February 29, 2008

 

 

 

GIVE COMPOSTING A CHANCE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

According to a recent East Bay Express article on city-sponsored composting, some people find the new kitchen debris collecting simply “too icky” to do. 

But fortunately, this can be made quite “un-icky” by using bio-degradable cellulose pail liners that remain leak-proof or up to 10 days. 

Liners are available at local hardware stores and at least one supermarket. Here is a sampling: “Bio-Bags,” three gallons; “Bag to Nature Bags,” about three gallons; “Glad Recycling Green Bags,” about two gallons. These bags, incidentally, could come to replace the plastic bags currently used in produce departments, once those are banned for double duty, in stores, and at home. Any pioneers? 

And also remember that empty milk cartons will do double duty beautifully. 

With the use of liner bags, kitchen debris collecting becomes quite “un-icky” and achieves its stated purpose, namely relieving our landfills. 

Moreover, with kitchen composting, we would hardly run our disposals, a problematic convenience which the good citizens of Geneva actually banned, to protect their lake. We would then use a little less water, produce less of a load for waste water treatment, and help save the bay. 

Let’s do it, all of us, please. 

Senta Pugh Chamberlain 

 

• 

ADOPT A BUNNY 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I’d like to call your attention to the fact that February was Adopt a Rescued Rabbit Month. 

Please encourage your readers to adopt from shelters instead of buying from pet stores. 

I know I love my rescued bunnies! 

Karen Veitch 

 

• 

QUESTION 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Why would the eco-friendly City Council of Berkeley allow Code Pink to hassle the marine mammals on Shattuck Avenue? 

Robert Gable 

 

• 

SUPPORTING THE PROTESTERS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Being born, and raised, in the so-called long-hair, pot-smoking City of Berkeley, I wish to express my support to the protesters. 

I was a big time protester for the other useless war in Vietnam. 

This war will never be won, it will only continue to kill our young people while the little turtle (Mr. Bush) who has the knowledge of a simple clown, continues to wave, and smirk, at his country. 

Suit him up in his Air Force uniform and send him to Iraq with our troops. Enough is enough. 

Alice Noriega 

 

• 

FROM THE HALLS OF  

MONTEZUMA 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Gordon Wozniak’s and Kriss Worthington’s grandstanding against the Berkeley City Council’s original stand against the Marine recruiters should end their political carreers—both of them, and especially the “progressive” guy who wants to move his opportunist ass up to Sacramento on the public dole. If Max Anderson wasn’t such a decent man—and an intellectual who believes in reason as well—he might take them both behind the woodshed for the level of disrespect they have shown for his own experience in Vietnam with the Marines and his effort to unite the council. Max tried valiantly to maneuver us out of this particular jungle without betraying the intent to stop military recruiting in our city (is this swift-boating against a native son here before eyes in this “progressive” city by the bay?). Let these self evident truths about a Marine career reverberate from an early high ranking Marine officer: 

“The trouble with America is that when the dollar only earns 6 percent over here, then it gets restless and goes overseas to get 100 percent. Then the flag follows the dollar and the soldiers follow the flag….I spent 33 years and four months in active military service as a member of this country’s most agile military force, the Marine Corps…In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism….I helped make Mexico safe for American oil interests…Haiti and Cuba…for the national City Bank boys. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wallstreet. ..I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests…In China I helped to see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested.” (brief excerpts from a 1933 speech by Major General Smedly Butler, USMC ret.) (Google Smedley Butler.)  

Berkeley should press on with concrete efforts to mitigate and reduce all military recruitment—such as Joanne Kowalski’s suggestion of a Veterans for Peace coffee shop across from the Marine Recruiters. You have to believe that for every Marine—rightist or not—who pokes his finger in the air, there is someone like Smedley Butler, or Daniel Ellsberg, or Max Anderson out there too. Like those three, we all have to take a stand. On recruitment we simply can’t allow our kids to be fooled into believing that they are “defending democracy”—our rights—when they join the military. Max knows the outcome of that lie—and we do too. If people don’t stand up against the deception of children to make them warriors then the entire idea of American freedom itself becomes but a counterfeit. The assertion that U.S. militarism is in the service of “democracy” is an even more dangerous lie (being systematic, expansive and timeless) than the lie that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.  

Marc Sapir 

 

• 

ONE-LINER 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Berkeley is so....Berkeley! 

Richard List 

 

• 

A FEW QUESTIONS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Here are a few questions in my mind; I don’t know who can answer them: 

• If the plane spray was actually meant to kill off the moth in apple trees, why is it done over urban centers? 

• How many people have an apple orchard in their back yard? 

• How does this so-called agricultural spray, performed over urban centers, resemble the bombing of European cities during World War II? 

• Does this spray affect/damage the expression of our DNA? 

• Does it cause undesirable genetic mutations? 

• Does the government want us to be chronically ill and behaving like zombies? 

Beatrice Reusch 

 

• 

MARINES 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Michael Savage and Melanie Morgan wannabees drooling to bash Berkeley liberal degenerates will find little raw meat to feed upon nowadays here in our fair city. Berkeleyites, themselves, are falling all over each other to prove their loyalty to the homeland by bashing the protesters. 

If the military really were here to defend us, they’d be stopping us from getting sprayed with pesticide instead of sulking because middle-aged ladies in pink T-shirts and schoolchildren are saying mean things to them. 

Of course, that ain’t gonna happen, any more than letters from city councils decide where the federal government plants a recruiting station. We all must redeem ourselves by pledging our love and loyalty to our brave recruiters. After all, as we’re reminded ad nauseum, we wouldn’t have the liberty to stand out here making asses of ourselves protesting if it weren’t for the Marines. 

Now, I’m not quite sure how that makes any sense. Anybody who would turn off their boob tube and turn on their brains for a minute should have realized long ago that the military doesn’t work for us anymore—if it ever did. 

Marine Major General Smedley Butler, who served 35 years and earned the most medals for heroism of his day, pointed out that war is a racket, run for the protection of the corporate elite, not us poor slobs. Only if you are one of Bush’s base, The Haves or the Have-Mores, with stocks up the wazzoo in Lockheed or its ilk, have you correctly surmised that the military fights for your interests. 

If you are part of the other 99.5 percent of us, the propaganda machine requires you suspend your power of reasoning, and serve up your children as necessary cannon fodder, and the fodder collection depot is conveniently located in close proximity to the local high school. Just a co-incidence, nothing to worry about folks. The kids know what’s in store for them, and they’re not happy to be shoveled into the infernal machine. They raised some noise last week, and I honor and respect them. Enter the police, who “put their lives on the line” (aren’t people just like parrots?) by shooting grandmas and clubbing noisy children. Who is it again, that they protect and serve? See above. 

Barbara Henninger 

 

• 

PESTICIDE SPRAYING 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Please read the following paragraphs about how the Bush regime plans to do aerial pesticide spraying on cities in the San Francisco Bay Area this summer. Then decide if the Bush regime is (a) Insane, (b) Stupid, (c) Evil, or (d) All of the above. 

(E)-11-Tetradecen-1-yl acetate, (E,E)-9,11-Tetradecadien-1-yl-acetate, cross-linked polyurea polymer, butylated hydroxyltoluene, polyvinyl alcohol, tricaprylyl methyl ammonium chloride, sodium phosphate, ammonium phosphate, 1,2-benzisothiozolin-3-one, 2-hydroxyl-4—n-octtyloxy-benzophenone.* These are some of the ingredients in CheckMate LBAM-F, which the U. S. Dept. of Agriculture (USDA) and the California Dept. of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) are planning to use in a massive aerial pesticide spraying over San Francisco Bay Area cities this summer to sexually harass a small moth, specifically, the Light Brown Apple Moth (LBAM) (Epiphyas postvittana). 

This proposed aerial pesticide spraying of whole cities in the San Francisco Bay Area is a hysterical over-reaction by the incompetent Bush regime to a hypothetical problem. The Light Brown Apple Moth (LBAM), a native of Australia, has been present in New Zealand, New Caledonia, Hawai’i and England for many years. The residents and the farmers of these regions have been able to co-exist with this moth without having to resort to massive aerial pesticide spraying of whole cities and towns. 

So far, not a single apple growing in commercial orchards in Northern California has been found to be visited by this moth. Over six hundred residents of the Santa Cruz and Monterey areas have reported new health problems after the aerial spraying of the Checkmate brand pesticide over their towns last year. 

Just say no to proposed aerial pesticide spraying over cities in the San Francisco Bay Area against this small moth scheduled for this summer. We need to work on low-key biological controls for the Light Brown Apple Moth. There is no legitimate reason for the government to put the health of millions of people at risk with pesticide spraying of the air we breathe. 

Visit web sites such as www.lbamspray.com, www.stopthespray.org and www.hopefortruth.com for more detailed information and suggestion on how to protest this absurd plan. 

(* Listed in the San Francisco Chronicle’s Ask the Bugman column in the Feb. 23 Home and Garden section.) 

James K. Sayre 

Oakland 

 

• 

POLICE VIOLENCE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Recent developments in the East Bay doubtless will not have escaped the attention of your very alert readers: 

Item: Oakland Police Department uses taser against a juvenile. 

Item: Berkeley Police Department kills 51-year-old grandmother. 

On Sunday evening, Feb. 24 at 6 p.m. at the intersection of Hillegass and Haste, this is the scene I witnessed: four Berkeley Police Department officers having arrested a man in people’s park, said man, cuffed hands behind his back and on his knees (trying lamely, it is true, to defend himself verbally). 

Right out of the Abu Ghraib playbook, the picture with the prisoner on his knees qualifies for the Abu Ghraib family scrapbook. What does this say about the dignity of man? Both that of the prisoner and of the four cops, one talking on his cell phone, standing around in carefully studied indifference? 

Cecile Leneman 

• 

SLAUGHTERHOUSE ATROCITIES 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

In response to the recent atrocities at the Chino, Calif. at a Hallmark slaughterhouse: 

The Senate Select Committee on Food-borne Illness held a special hearing in Sacramento on Feb. 25. Inexcusably, only the chairman of the five-member committee, Senator Dean Florez (D-Bakersfield), deemed this matter important enough to appear. And he did a great job. 

The others need to hear from us: Senators Carole Migden (D-San Francisco); Edward Vincent (D-Inglewood); Jeff Denham (R-Modesto); and Abel Maldonado (R-San Luis Obispo). Excuses given ranged from “s/he’s in the district office,” to “he’s getting physical therapy,” to “he missed his plane.” Not acceptable for a problem of this magnitude. 

It should also be noted that the USDA did not testify, nor did either the State Dairy or Cattlemen’s Associations, or the PRCA, though their representatives were present. Shame on them all! Nor should anyone think that the Chino horrors are an anomaly. Such abuses are routine at slaughterhouses, meatpacking facilities and “factory farms” across the country, as has been well documented for decades. No one has a right to be surprised. And all in the name of profit, of course.  

And consider this: the current meatpacking workforce is made up largely of immigrants, many illegal, many illiterate, from Mexico, Central America, and Southeast Asia. They are a short-term, often migrant workforce (the average worker quits or is fired after three months), and they are performing the most dangerous job in the United States, with a rate of injury and job-related illness three times greater than that of the average factory worker. 

Recommended reading: Upton Sinclair’s 1906 novel, The Jungle; Gail Eisnitz’s 1997 expose, Slaughterhouse; and Eric Schlosser’s 2001 Fast Food Nation. 

Bon appetit. 

Eric Mills 

Action for Animals 

 

• 

35 YEARS OF EXPERIENCE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Senator Clinton is running in large part on her record and experience after 35 years in politics, which includes seven years in elected office. The most significant part of her other experience is her eight years as first lady of the United States (1993-2001). 

She states, with some reason, that her influence on policies and decisions while first lady amounted to her having an equal importance in the running of this country to the president and describes herself as having been our co-president. 

The Obama campaign does not question her influence as first lady but does propose that she is being somewhat selective in which things she chooses to include in her resume as first lady. They suggest there are things she does not wish to be associated with that might reasonably be a part of that record. 

One of these things is the North American Free-Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which was ratified in November 1993, late in First Lady Clinton’s initial year as co-president. 

Although NAFTA was signed by President George Bush in late 1992, it could not become law unless it was also ratified by the Congress. President Bill Clinton made ratifying NAFTA a major priority. After intense negotiation and much pressure from the White House, Congress ratified the highly controversial NAFTA treaty on Nov. 20, 1993, the last day of the legislative session. 

Now, 14 years later, there is a significant segment of public opinion, which believes NAFTA has been responsible for the loss of substantial numbers of American jobs. 

The Obama campaign seeks to hold Co-President Clinton to account for the passage of NAFTA but she replies that it had already been signed by the previous president before she became first lady. 

This seems a somewhat incomplete response since NAFTA would never have become law without the months of very hard work by the Clinton administration to have NAFTA ratified by Congress. 

NAFTA was one of the major issues during Co-President Clinton’s first year. It would be interesting to know if during that time she enthusiastically supported NAFTA, was neutral and on the sidelines, or strongly opposed it in a quiet way. 

Knowing what she did as co-president could help voters understand the kind of president we might expect her to be. 

Brad Belden 

• 

SUGGESTIONS FOR BERKELEY’S CLIMATE ACTION PLAN 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Berkeley’s city attorney has determined that city commissioners are not allowed to participate in Berkeley’s online Climate Action Plan discussion group. Therefore I am submitting my comments to the Daily Planet letters to the editor in the hope of public comment. 

1. A net-zero energy plan for new construction: Increasing Title 24 energy conservation requirements for building permits could have the result of simply shifting construction to other cities where the enhanced standards are not required, resulting in no real reduction in GHG emissions. We should consider requiring that a plan be submitted for every building permit adding over 1,000 square feet of useable space that details how the building will be retrofitted to become a net-zero energy consuming building. The building construction plans would be required to be consistent with the proposed energy plan. Example: A new apartment building is built with a dedicated space for solar hot water panels on the roof, a shaft for water lines, and a hot water storage tank on the ground making for easy future installation. By planning in advance, considerable resources could be saved.  

2. Facilitate a new design style: We are in the midst of an architectural revolution. Design standards are in flux and new ways of building are being explored to reduce GHG emission. Yet, with few exceptions, what we put in our buildings has not been addressed. Articles that can not be refurbished or recycled at the same level fill the home furnishing stores. History has shown that following architectural revolutions there will be a design style revolution. The new design style probably will emerge not from major manufacturers but rather from individual craftspeople and artists. Given our region’s concern with GHG emissions, the concern for the environment, and the strong community of talented craftspeople, it is probable that a new design style will emerge from the Bay Area. We should consider facilitating the emerging design style by hosting design competitions and exhibitions, and by publicizing important works.  

3. Pairing meters: Many homes and buildings are not suitable for solar voltaic installations. By allowing individuals to aggregate two meters at different locations, off site solar installations could be facilitated and many buildings could meet a net-zero energy goal. 

4. Establish a maximum carbon/square foot ratio: Cities are continually being rebuilt. Some construction materials are much more energy intensive than others. Some materials, like lumber, can be sustainably grown and actually store carbon. We should establish a carbon/square foot ratio that is not to be exceeded for construction that greatly favors non-GHG intensive materials. The carbon associated with new construction should be added on a yearly basis to Berkeley’s footprint.  

5. Solar energy resources as a right: If a new building would block the solar access of an existing building at 75 percent of the maximum height allowed by zoning at the time the existing building was built, then the new building must acquire the rights from the owner of the existing building for the solar energy blocked.  

Tim Hansen 

 

• 

BERKELEY NAACP 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Wow! Just when you thought it was safe to assume the NAACP had backslid into irrelevancy, here they come again, charging seemingly out of nowhere to remove any doubt whatsoever that indeed they are irrelevant, if not downright retrogressive. 

How embarrassing! The Berkeley branch of the NAACP, apparently having entered a federal witness protection program decades ago (no one has seen or heard from them in that time) recently condemned its own chapter president, Allen Jackson, for responding to the fatal shooting of a knife wielding 51-year-old black woman by saying that Berkeley Police Department’s intent, “is to kill any African American that they can.” 

Clearly that is not the kind statement that is going to get anyone elected mayor. 

On the other hand if anyone reads the Bay Area newspapers, to suggest that Berkeley’s Police Department or any other police department’s mission is to kill any black person they can, should not strike anyone as all that much over the top. In my mind it is a totally understandable comment to make (or issue on letter-headed stationary which Jackson did) given the current stage of urban warfare that exists in many population centers today. 

The national NAACP organization has set the standard for irrelevancy by recently firing CEO Bruce Gordon after he brutalized the sensibilities of the corporate NAACP sponsors by attempting to mobilize black youth in support of Tookie Williams, a reformed Los Angeles gang leader who had been convicted and ultimately executed for murder. 

In the 1990’s the NAACP had earlier successfully fought off relevancy when they were able to fire Ben Chavis for sexual misconduct after he outraged the corporate interests by opening dialog with L.A.. gang members. 

(Warning to any future NAACP leaders-don’t try to engage the L.A. gangs in dialog!) 

As for the statement from the Berkeley Black Police Officer’s Association, as a Berkeley citizen in my mind they have no credibility. I’ve seen black police officers profile black youth in South Berkeley where I live, the same way white officers profile them. Often, in fact, black police officers are worse when it comes to profiling issues. 

Furthermore, when it comes to issues that impact Berkeley’s black communities the Berkeley Black Police Officers Association is even more invisible than the NAACP. 

If visibility and positive impact on the black communities of Berkeley are any criteria, both these organizations need to throw a going out of business party. 

Now that would be relevant. 

Jean Damu 

 

• 

TRULY CRUELTY-FREE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I have many friends who have peculiar West Coast eating habits, due to the fact that a gastronomical fetish is currently in vogue here in California. Among the most stylish of all the food fetishists are the vegans who claim to be the most ethical of all for promoting a cruelty-free lifestyle. Unfortunately for the vegans, plants have a decentralized nervous system, which can process information such as damage and pain according to the First Symposium on Plant Neurobiology (“Root apices as plant command centres: the unique brain-like status of the root apex transition zone,” Dr. Frantisek Bluska, Department of Molecular and Cellular Botany, University of Bonn).  

This new information shows us that the produce department at Berkeley Bowl is really a vegetable slaughterhouse and torture chamber. I shudder to think how the folks at the Berkeley Farmers Market are following in the genocidal footsteps of the Nazi concentration camps. I propose a truly cruelty- and drug-free diet, called elementalism. The basic premise is that no life should be injured nor should any drugs or chemicals be ingested while following this diet. All followers of elementalism will base their diet solely on the elements contained in the periodic table, as these elements have not yet combined to form dangerous drugs and chemicals.  

Most of the currently discovered 112 elements making up the periodic table are available for purchase from Cole Parmer. As an example, rather than eating the potentially fatal drug salt, followers of elementalism ingest a small amount of pure sodium followed by a few deep inhalations of a bag of chlorine. In addition a few lifestyle changes are necessary to ensure that no life forms are killed or abused. The swallowing of sperm during oral sex is not allowed since every sperm is sacred as well as alive, and all bodily parasites, such as lice, spinal meningitis and mosquitoes must be cared for rather than brutally murdered. I encourage all vegans to take the next ethical step in overturning our forefathers speciesist and human-centered dietary habits, and enjoy a tasty plate of arsenic with a little radium on the side, washed down with a tall glass of bromine. 

Michael S. Bakeman 

 

• 

BUS PASSES 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

It is sad that the Alameda-Contra Costa Transportation District still has the price of the bus pass of $20 for both seniors and the disabled. Both seniors and the disabled neither own cars nor drive. They use the bus as their only transportation to buy food, go to school, or go see a doctor. Because they are using the bus instead of cars, both seniors and the disabled are helping to combat global warming in both Alameda and Contra Costa counties. 

Lately, I have been reading in some local newspapers that AC Transit is thinking of raising the price of a bus pass from $20 to $28. This is madness. They should lobby the politicians in both Sacramento and Washington D.C. for more funding for the bus services so they can lower the price of the bus pass for both seniors and the disabled. 

Billy Trice, Jr. 

Oakland 

 

• 

ROUNDABOUT SIGNAGE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Berkeley and Albany have the wrong signs for entering their roundabouts. The use of yield signs is done by all the other cities that have roundabouts. 

The stop signs of Berkeley and Albany are an unnecessary bother for motorists who should just pause briefly. The police departments may be issuing more citations as well. 

Part of this use of stop signs has resulted from Berkeley letting nearby residents decide what they want, which is a funny way to decide what is right and proper. 

A full discussion of roundabouts is contained in the Tech Transfer newsletter number 58, published by the Institute of Transportation Studies at the University of California. You can contact them at 665-3632. 

Charles Smith 

 

• 

BUDGET CUTS THREATEN  

JUVENILE JUSTICE REFORM 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

At a time when state and local agencies are facing massive budget cuts, the Schwarzenegger administration and the Legislature must consider the consequences of slashing funds which flow directly to programs that protect public safety and save taxpayers money. For that reason, I encourage you to editorialize on the threat that state budget cuts pose to California’s recent juvenile justice system reform. 

Last year, the state enacted landmark juvenile justice reform that will cut the number of juveniles in state custody in half, while providing new “realignment” funding to counties. The reform’s success will depend on whether counties provide effective services to the increased number of young offenders under their supervision. 

However, while the Schwarzenegger administration says its proposed budget protects juvenile justice spending, it actually calls for over $30 million in reductions to important juvenile justice interventions with a strong track record of preventing crime, including: 

• The Juvenile Justice Crime Prevention Act (JJCPA) would lose $11.9 million. 

• The Juvenile Mentally Ill Offender Crime Reduction (MIOCR) program would sustain a $2.25 million cut. 

• Juvenile Probation and Camps funds would decrease by $20.1 million. 

Juvenile justice could be subject to even deeper cuts if the controversial proposed early release of adult offenders is defeated or scaled back. 

Especially in this tight budget year, the state should prioritize investments that are cost-effective. Protecting existing juvenile justice funding—and freeing up new realignment funds for greater investment in proven interventions—will help save taxpayer dollars this year and in the years ahead.  

For further information about juvenile justice reform and the impact of the proposed budget cuts, see www.fightcrime.org/ca/jjfactsheet. 

For details about local programs that could suffer as a result of the proposed cuts, see www.fightcrime.org/ca/jj/countysheets/bayarea.pdf.  

Fight Crime: Invest in Kids California is a bipartisan, nonprofit, anti-crime organization led by more than 350 sheriffs, police chiefs, district attorneys and violence survivors. We evaluate crime-prevention strategies to determine what really works to keep kids from becoming criminals. If you are interested, we would welcome the opportunity to organize some of our law enforcement members to participate in an editorial board meeting with your paper. 

Jennifer Ortega 

Communications Director  

Fight Crime: Invest in Kids California 

Oakland 

 

• 

BIGOTRY 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

There goes another bogus claim of the anti-immigration crowd. A report just released says that immigrants are far less likely to commit crimes than are native born citizens. People born in the United States are 10 times more likely than immigrants to be incarcerated. 

Go to any cosmopolitan city, New York, Miami, San Francisco, and you will hear a wide diversity of languages from around the world being spoken. So much for the “speak English” only spiel of talk radio hosts. 

As far as the assimilation argument goes, I see multitudes of Mexicans and Latinos and their children and they’re working, speaking English and assimilating quite well, thank you. 

Every day the bigotry, intolerance and prejudice that drives the anti-immigration movement becomes more apparent. 

Ron Lowe 

Grass Valley 

 

if they spray us in august, 

spray us in earnest, too; 

what they got in that bug juice 

make me don’t know what to do. 

just pray we all don’t vote republican 

before the fall is through. 

Arnie Passman 

 

 

Letter From a Connecticut Yankee 

 

TO: Disgraceful Mayor, 

To the UN- American Mayor of Berkeley and the city council. You folks are about as true a form of knucklehead as I have ever seen in my life. You have the nerve to let the communist Code Pink jerks dupe you into rising up against the U.S. Marines and belittle yourselves, your city, state and Nation. 

What is even worse than that, is the fact that the UN-honorable Mayor is a former Veteran and he has the nerve to stand up against the Veterans who are fighting to keep his no good butt Free. If there are any more Veterans on the City Council, you disgust me as well. You are not Veterans as far as I am concerned, your useless and void in matter and content. What did all of you do anyway, buy your way into office. Sure didn't get there on your intelligence. 

As far as I am concerned, from this point on, after learning what I have learned from the news media and paying attention to this fiasco in Berkeley, the Mayor of Berkeley is a no good for nothing useless ex-veteran.  

It (IS NOT THE VETERAN) who dictates war, God Damn it, you bunch of jerks, it is stupid politicians in Washington, just like you that have no frigging brains at all. For the life of me, I cannot understand how you folks got elected to office. 

California and the city of Berkeley have been controversial for as long as I can remember and that speaks volumes as to how many jerks there were in the last 50 years that have children that live in your state and city and act as foolish as you do. 

You folks need a wake-up call and (GOD FORBID) the next time there is a terrorist attack on this country, It should be in California and Berkeley and let you see what it fel like to hurt like all that lost their lives on 9-11-2001. You all need a 9-11-2001 to happen to you, so you can grasp the reality of what the Veteran is up against to keep it from happening again. 

You all need a wake-up call and especially that useless form of life Mayor that you have. I am totally ashamed to call him a Veteran and every time someone ever mentions his name to me from now on, I will be able to say that useless Mayor in Berkeley, right. 

I just cannot believe that I am living in a country that has people as stupid as you and the ones involved in Code Pink. The Code Pink Organization are people who cannot accept life for what it is and cannot look beyond the ends of their noses and see what is happening in the rest of the world. WHY, because they are all the off-spring of the generation of pot heads and draft dodgers and unpatriotic Americans that opposed the Vietnam War. I lived it in the 1960's and I had no use for them, at that time, I have no use for them today and I have absolutely no use for their children. 

I believe in my heart that every useless form of life in this country like the Code Pink participants need to be forced to go to war and to see how other people live in oppression and fear and death and hunger and sickness. You people are all so used to living in this world we have of not wanting for anything and having a golden spoon in your useless mouth and it would really make me smile from ear to ear to see yo all squirm for a change. 

You all need to go without and see what it is like and then maybe, just maybe you could see that the U.S. Marine is just one of the few that would help to bring you back up and save your useless butt. All you people in California need to drop off the face of the earth because you are not what America is and what America stands for. You would all rather support the terrorist than to support your country and the Veteran who gives you the right to act like a useless jerk all the time. 

I shouldn't be using fowl words here, I should be using the word jackass, You are all like a jackass, you know, (The Democratic Symbol)The Donkey no frigging brains and no frigging direction. It's as though you are all lost in the wilderness and have no direction and no leadership to help you find your way. And you all certainly have (NO BRAINS). 

If you all want to find your way, TRUST THE U.S. MARINE, HE/SHE WILL BE THERE FOR YOU EVERYDAY, 24/7 AND PULL YOU UP AND TRY TO MAKE MORE OUT OF YOU THAN THE JACKASS THAT YOU ARE ALL BEING NOW. 

You people, and especially the Mayor need to have guts enough to step up to the plate and admit that you are all wrong here and apologize to these U.S. Marines who have written a blank check on their lives to protect your useless ass. 

I just cannot believe that there are so many unpatriotic Americans living in California and Berkeley. You are all an abomination against what is good and great in this Country and you all disgust me to the point of barfing. 

With Absolutely (NO) Respect for The Mayor and City Council of Berkeley & Code Pink, 

Jeffrey B. McBreairty 

New Milford, Connecticut 

 

A Big (PS): 

If any Marines get this message and you will, God Bless each and everyone of you. I love you all from the bottom of my heart and I pray for all of you every day and for every Veteran who is out there today fighting for my Freedom and the security of this Country. Without you, we would not be Free and that would be a travesty. I would be extremely proud, as an ex-Veteran to stand beside you any day and fight the terrorist and I would go into battle with you and I would support you in the quest that you would be fighting for and I would die beside you because I believe in you. (America Is You). 

Keep up the great work and do not let the brain dead matter in Berkeley dislodge your from your mission, stay the course and stand tall and proud because you are UNITED STATES MARINES. America Will Always Need Brave Men And Women Like You Even If Berkeley, California Does Not. 

Oh yea, lets see if the berkeley daily planet will have the guts to print this. 


Commentary: Spraying Provides More Questions Than Answers

By Helen Kozoriz
Friday February 29, 2008

Thank you for printing the article “Assembly Resolutions Attack Moth Spraying” by Judith Scherr. Shocked and outraged at the proposed plan by the California Department of Food and Agriculture to conduct aerial spraying of the pesticide CheckMate on Bay Area communities beginning Aug. 1, I felt compelled to attend the Berkeley City Council meeting last night to find out for myself what is really going on. 

I must admit, after hearing from the various representatives from the CDFA, Department of Environmental Hazards and Public Health, I was left with more questions than answers. Sitting in an audience of like-minded individuals, it was obvious I was not the only one who was baffled by the arguments put forth in favor of eradicating the Light Brown Apple Moth by dousing our community with a pesticide that has not been tested for long-term effects on humans, animals or the environment. 

When asked by a council member to explain why 600 people became ill after the spraying of Santa Cruz and Monterey counties last year, the official from the CDFA attributed it to possible allergies or flu and dismissed the notion that it could be a direct result of exposure to pesticide. And what about all those dead cats, birds and bees? 

Also troubling is the response from the fellow who works for the Department of Public Health. When asked by Mayor Tom Bates if he would approve of aerial spraying on his own family, the man would not give a simple “yes or no” response until pressed. Nor would he guarantee that the product is 100 percent safe for the human population which includes those most vulnerable; the young, old, infirm, asthmatic and chemically sensitive. 

I also noted the claim put forth by the CDFA that they have consulted with various scientists and agencies around the world which includes New Zealand where the LBAM was inadvertently imported from, who conducted their own eradication efforts. What the gentleman doesn’t tell you is this: on the website www.stopthespray.org you will find The People’s Inquiry, a group formed in New Zealand after their own Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry conducted spraying to eradicate three moths—the white spotted tussock moth, the painted apple moth and the asian gypsy moth claiming the pesticide (in this case Foray 48B) was safe. Communities there felt their health concerns were not appropriately addressed and thus the group was formed. The spraying that took place over a period from 1996 to 2004 resulted in numerous reports of ill health. A Brief History of the People’s Inquiry explains that in spite of evidence resulting from the spray and several university based studies identifying adverse health effects “all requests for an official inquiry or review into the impacts and effects of the spraying programs were denied. It was decided the only avenue left was for the community to hold its own Inquiry.” 

Last night, the fellow from the Department of Environmental Hazards claimed CheckMate is safe. Why should I trust this man with my health who took the advice of New Zealand officials involved in a program which failed to protect it’s own citizenry? And there are other parallels to be drawn. For example, a decision was made by the CDFA to declare an “emergency” thereby allowing spraying without the involvement of the community at all. An environment impact report will be completed after the decision has already been made. 

What is plainly obvious to me after attending last night’s meeting and listening to the hearing on KPFA this morning from the meeting in Oakland on the same evening, is the citizens of the Bay Area are uniformly united in their opposition to this reckless, irresponsible plan put forth by the CDFA who are apparently more closely aligned with protecting the economic interests of agribusiness over public health and our environment. I think many people would much rather choose to live with this tiny moth than suffer the indignities being forced upon us by the powers that be, if given a choice in the first place! 

Finally, I applaud all people involved with trying to stop the aerial spraying in the Bay Area, which includes the Berkeley City Council. Special thanks to Dona Spring who drafted the initial resolution against it which was approved last night.  

 

Helen M. Kozoriz is an Oakland resident.


Commentary: The Anschluss

By Alan Feng
Friday February 29, 2008

The United States can be compared to a powerful, but immature and egotistic child, imposing its will without discretion on the world. Consider what lengths the child may go to in order to obtain a delicious cookie: case one, if the cookie was rightfully earned, then he shall taut the “fairness” and “justice” of obtaining the cookie. Otherwise, seeing that there is no logical explanation for legal acquisition of said cookie, he may throw a tantrum, saying things like “but I want it!” Finally, when it is agreed that someone else should get the cookie, the child may just walk in and take it anyways. In the end, the child gets the cookie whether or not it was due. 

Although this seems like a rather ludicrous comparison, think, if you will, of one single conflict in the world that the United States has not imposed its will on, and resolved in any way except by military might or threat of such a strike. The United States reaching each of its goals reminds me so much of the tantrumatic toddler; in cases of supposed liberty and justice, we march in, horns blazing, to places such as Korea, Kuwait, Taiwan and Israel. In other cases, we go uninvited and pretend to be right, to places like Iraq and Afghanistan. 

What this all leads up to is the signing of some papers two midnights ago in Pristina, which led to some happy men drinking and dancing in the streets, and some very angry hoary old men in Moscow and Belgrade. Serbia has publicly announced that it is very displeased with the separation and it will seek every method to nullify the declaration. However, their cries fall on deaf ears because the only face anyone sees any more is the smiling, nodding, and agreeing face of the world answering to the United States. 

If the United States and the U.N. (same thing, really) had not “sanctioned” the separation, and given the history of bloodshed in the area, I have no doubt that Serbia would have marched its divisions right into Pristina and had themselves an emergency national vote, at which time, miraculously, the legislature would vote to give up autonomy to Serbia. However, all that Belgrade can do now is pout as the lonely child who got pushed off the swing set at school. Mommy Russia might be on their side, but the bully has the principle of the school in his pocket. 

I wonder if the ruling people high in the government, no not Bush and Cheney, but the people above them, the ones pulling the strings, I wonder if they ever consider the consequences of their actions, or if they simply just recount their money and discover that their taut wallets have just become tighter. Why bother in Kuwait instead of Sudan? Why put up such a fight for Taiwan and only a peep for Tibet? To me, the answer is glaring at me from the gas we pump, the electronics we use, and the cheap toys we buy. But for every Made in China Barbie we buy, Madison rots a little more in his grave; I doubt the Monroe doctrine covers monks, but it sure covers cheap electronics. 

Am I saying stopping the genocide of ethnic Albanians is wrong? Am I saying that we should have let Vietcong march into Hanoi? ... I am at a loss for words. Such are questions that keep me up at night. On the one hand, wielding an iron fist over the entire world is not our place. But stopping the deaths of an innocent people seems pretty high on my list of priorities too. Can the right actions for the wrong reasons be good in the end? This bothers me as to whether or not to effect the United States’ influence over any particular part of the world; if there is no oil, do we save the threated village? 

So the world keeps turning into Austrias. Of course the United States doesn’t dictate the every move of the “liberated” countries (how else could they be called liberated?), but somehow, as in the case of so many countries we’ve dealt with, I get the sense that we always make them offers they can’t refuse. 

I thus leave my paper hanging; do we involve ourselves in foreign conflicts or not? I don’t pretend to know; the world is too complicated for that. But perhaps, just perhaps, the world can solve its problems without our blood-stained and oily fingers digging someone’s grave. 

Alan Feng is an Oakland resident.


Commentary: Absence of Evidence is Not Evidence of Absence

By Gale Garcia
Friday February 29, 2008

In the Jan. 11 issue of the Daily Planet, Fred Massell disparaged Berkeley’s Luddites, and claimed, “While I too wanted to believe the worst about cell phone radiation, it appears that there is no real evidence to show that it causes any actual harm.” 

The same claim has frequently been made about products or technologies that later proved to be very harmful indeed. In many cases, the companies knew that their products were damaging or lethal, and simply lied about it. Two examples that leap to mind are cigarettes and asbestos. 

 

Cigarette advertising and other lies 

Beneficial health claims and pictures of kindly physicians were used in cigarette advertising during the 1930s through the early 1950s to counter concerns that cigarette smoking might cause health problems. For example, Brown and Williamson claimed that Kools kept the head clear and provided extra protection against colds, and “Doctors agree that Kools are soothing to your throat.” R.J. Reynolds advertised, “more doctors smoke Camels than any other cigarette” in magazines from 1946 to 1952. 

In 1950 the first major study that causally linked smoking to lung cancer was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. In 1952 an influential article, “Cancer by the Carton,” was published in Reader’s Digest, at the time the most widely read US magazine. The next year cigarette sales fell for the first time in over two decades.  

U.S. tobacco companies formed the Tobacco Industry Research Committee (TIRC) in 1954, supposedly to sponsor “independent” scientific research, and to keep the debate alive about whether cigarettes were harmful. 

The formation of the TIRC was announced in an advertisement in the New York Times and hundreds of other newspapers entitled “A Frank Statement to Cigarette Smokers.” It read in part: “For more than 300 years tobacco has given solace, relaxation, and enjoyment to mankind. At one time or another during those years critics have held it responsible for practically every disease of the human body. One by one these charges have been abandoned for lack of evidence.” 

 

Asbestos, a cornucopia of corporate deceit 

The largest asbestos manufacturer, Johns Manville, knew by the early 1930s of the potential lethality of exposure to asbestos, yet withheld the information for decades. In 1948, the corporation adopted the policy of not informing employees when their medical exams revealed the lung disease, asbestosis. 

In the 1940s the Raysbestos corporation paid for a study of the effects of asbestos exposure. When it demonstrated the connection between asbestos and respiratory disease, the CEO of Raysbestos, Sumner Simpson, and the management of Johns Manville agreed to keep the information secret. Correspondence between the two companies, the “Sumner Simpson Papers” were discovered at the Raysbestos headquarters in 1977, opening the floodgates to litigation that has taken place since. 

W.R. Grace & Co. owned a mine in Libby, Montana which produced vermiculite which was laced with tremolite, a particularly dangerous form of asbestos. This information was concealed for decades, while the mine dispersed about 5,000 pounds of asbestos fibers over the town per day of operation. Approximately 1200 people, in a town of 8000, were sickened by asbestos related illness. 

So egregious were the practices and the cover-up conducted by W.R. Grace that seven of its executives were indicted in 2005 for conspiracy, clean air act violations, wire fraud and obstruction of justice. Due to aggressive pre-trial litigation, the trial has still not taken place. 

 

Telecommunications industry: a fresh form of corporate deceit — preemption 

The Telecommunications Act of 1996, written largely by lobbyists for the telecommunications industry, was passed by the US Congress with the help of millions of dollars in political contributions from corporations.  

Section 704 of this Act prohibits local governments from rejecting the placement of cell phone towers based upon health concerns as long as the towers conform to Federal Communications Commission standards, even if the placement would be in a residential neighborhood. 

While one clause in Section 704 squelches discussion of health concerns, another clause specifies that cities must support decisions to deny cell phone towers with “substantial evidence contained in a written record.” So cities are required to provide evidence to deny a cell tower application—but some evidence is forbidden. 

When municipalities fail to approve cell towers, the corporations sue, and usually win. Verizon threatened to sue the City of Berkeley because our Zoning Adjustments Board voted against locating 11 cell towers at 2721 Shattuck Ave., a short distance from family homes. Verizon has unlimited funds to spend on litigation; our City Council therefore caved and reversed the ZAB decision. Eleven towers are scheduled to go up in this South Berkeley neighborhood sometime this spring. 

Corporations deceive the public and suppress evidence of harm for as long as they can get away with it. Believe them at your peril. Better yet, don’t believe them at all. 

 

Gale Garcia is a South Berkeley resident.


Commentary: Doing Good Without Doing Harm

By Sharon Hudson
Friday February 29, 2008

These days, a lot of usually “progressive” people seem to be just saying no to a lot of traditionally progressive ideas. 

Nationally, there has been a backlash against a controversial Supreme Court decision that upheld the right of governments to transfer property from one private party to another through eminent domain, a power originally meant to increase the commons. The ballot “solutions” to this problem have so far been worse than the problem, but eventually we may see a good one. 

Back in 2004, Berkeley had its very own “tax rebellion,” which is normally a right-wing form of protest, and we will likely have another one this year. Why? Even die-hard Democrats have become disgusted with their own government and its overbearing unions. Likewise, many progressives have been voting against state and county bond measures for their traditional causes.  

Most Berkeleyans support higher education, yet opposition to the university’s 2020 Long Range Development Plan was vehement, and not limited to the university’s immediate victims. A band of idealistic arboreal demonstrators, and their many progressive supporters, continue to show that they prefer staid old oak trees to the university’s idea of “progress.”  

Meanwhile, almost every significant property development in Berkeley engenders angry opposition, as did the proposed 12-story expansion of Children’s Hospital just south of us. Berkeleyans’ opposition to another supposedly “progressive” proposal, Bus Rapid Transit (BRT), is intense and almost universal among those who know much about it. More ambiguous are the divisions among progressives over People’s Park and the Public Commons for Everyone Initiative: Is it progressive and commons-sensical to maintain the commons in civil order, or is it reactionary and repressive to keep people from making their homes in the commons?  

Progressivism seems to be having an identity crisis. But even more important, Progress itself is having an identity crisis. And not a moment too soon.  

During the 19th and 20th centuries, “progress” meant doing things that people then and now mostly think of as “good,” but at enormous cost. Entire races were abused, enslaved, and eliminated; millions of people were crowded into unhealthy and unhappy cities; sustainable ways of life were replaced with unsustainable ones; the earth, her beauty, her wildlife, and her resources were brutally raped and pillaged. The ultimate consequence of all this technological “progress” may be the destruction of a planet many of us are rather fond of. Meanwhile, economic “progress” in America has meant the metastasis of capitalism into a cancer that has devoured almost all our non-economic values, including our democracy. 

And what has been the benefit? Scholars have verified repeatedly that, above a minimal standard of living, further “progress” as we have come to know it has not, and does not, make people any happier. But thousands of happy communities and sustainable ways of life have been destroyed by progress.  

Over the past two centuries, some people got somewhat happier, but only because the baseline typically employed for comparison is the abject human misery created by the Industrial Revolution—ironically, misery that was originally created by progress. Granted, 21st-century Westerners are probably happier than people forced off their farms into crowded urban tenements, slaving long hours in unhealthy factories.  

But Americans today are, according to research, no more happy than many people living in pre-industrial societies. The most important determinants of individual happiness are not material gains, but human relationships, physical health, and expectations that approximate reality. The most important correlates with societal happiness are economic equality and job security. All these things are components of many pre-industrial, pre-urban societies, but few of them are prominent in American culture, and all are on the downswing today.  

Therefore, if human happiness, environmental sustainability, and global survival are our goals, we must relinquish our past models of progress. We cannot cling to the idea that what we have been calling “progress” ipso facto increases human well-being, or is so good that its “collateral damage” can be discounted or even ignored. Those benefiting from the harm argue that because most people and some animals can adapt to unpleasant changes (“they’ll get used to it”), everything will be fine. But recent history discredits this argument: dysfunctional social, economic, and environmental systems are not fine.  

Everyone now realizes that we cannot have another century of blind ambition. We can no longer let bankers and engineers and developers—or even scientists—decide what “progress” is. We can no longer afford to ignore the harmful consequences of change. If we are to have progress at all, what we must find—fast—is a model for doing good without doing harm. And evidently that model will have to come from the bottom up. 

I propose that the recent backlash against various kinds of change and “progress” constitutes the first widespread expression of this new model (narrow manifestations include the “simple living” and organic eating movements). What looks like a purely defensive response can be seen as a proactive and positive one, though still inchoate. What the voters and neighborhood activists (a.k.a. NIMBYs) are really saying to our elected officials (I can’t bring myself to call them “leaders”), developers, the university, and other mindless “progress”-mongers is this: “We are tired of your laziness, your lack of imagination, and your lack of will to fashion projects that do not harm people. We believe it is possible for society to achieve its goals without damaging people or their environment, and we demand that you do so.”  

Our city council has obviously not yet decoded the message, or they would not, for example, be thinking up yet more tax increases while continuing to harm Berkeley residents. They would not be chasing from West Berkeley local artisans and manufacturers, which are important components of cultural well-being and environmental sustainability. They would be very skeptical of BRT, a dubious form of top-down “progress” that would create an experimental urban form designed to benefit not people, but transit companies; to do so, BRT would disrupt stable (sustainable) neighborhoods that currently enjoy a good quality of life (level of human happiness).  

And of course, they would not be approving abysmal development projects. These projects harm future residents with their poor interior designs; they often harm the community with their size and unattractive exterior designs; and most of all, they harm neighborhoods by destroying their access to sun, views, parking, greenery, quiet, community, and so forth. It’s quite a stretch to call this mediocrity of expectation “progressive.” 

Progressives agree that eminent domain, taxes, unions, universities, hospitals, some developments, most public transit, and compassion for the unfortunate are all good things, when employed correctly. What alert Berkeleyans rightly oppose is the unnecessary harm that habitually accompanies, and sometimes even surpasses, the good.  

If good must always be accompanied by harm, then our costly and debilitating battles over who gets the good and who gets the harm are both inevitable and very well advised. We should expect to commit huge amounts of our resources to fighting those battles, just as we have been. Obviously, the “little guys” should fight doggedly for their right not to be harmed. By so doing, they advance everyone else’s right not to be harmed, too. So thank you, NIMBYs. Much less clear, however, is why taxpayers’ money should be spent to cause harm to average folks.  

The voters and the NIMBYs are correct to “just say no” to mindless and harmful projects. Insisting on doing good without doing harm is exactly what the environmental movement, and the sustainability movement, are all about. So progressives who want to “think globally, act locally” might focus less on changing the cityscape, and more on changing our thinking patterns, based on two hundred years of experience. I think we’ll all like the results a lot better.  

 

Sharon Hudson is a Southside tenant. 


Commentary: Car, Bike and Pedestrian Citizenship

By H. Scott Prosterman
Friday February 29, 2008

Pedestrians have the right of way. That’s a good thing since the law protects us from large, dangerous machinery, operated by caffeine-fueled drivers with nasty dispositions.  

But the road rage ogres have their walking counterparts on sidewalks and street corners. They boldly walk into oncoming traffic without so much as looking at the answer to their death wish. In the crosswalk they slow their gait as if to say, “I have the right of way, and I’m walking as slowly as I can to punish you for driving a car.” 

Enough already! Everybody has a turn as a pedestrian in life. We park the car and walk to the meeting, store, lunch, gym or park. We lock the bike and do the same, so we have to change the mindset many times in the course of a day. 

We drive, we park, we walk; it’s a vicious cycle. We drive, we honk, we flip the bird, we scream, we stew, we calm down; and the painted ponies go up and down. We’re captured on a carousel. 

A lot of drivers are brazen in their disregard of this important law that protects the wandering masses. This is criminal and should be punished. Hitting a pedestrian with a car when the driver is at fault should result in jail time—no exceptions, no matter how old, addled or mis-medicated. As the survivor of two car-bike collisions, including one in Berkeley last year, I feel strongly about it. 

At the same time, some pedestrians should be drawn and quartered from the nearest lamppost, when they manifest their death wish by walking in to moving traffic. In Berkeley, I have seen: 

1.) Schoolchildren walking into oncoming traffic on Sacramento Street, causing screeching brakes and much panic, because they’re being raised to believe that all traffic will stop for them—not just in the street. 

2.) A pre-school teacher leading children (8 years old or younger) single file through a crosswalk, against the light for two cycles. The police call that disrupting traffic, and award “special” citations for that. Teaching children that traffic will always stop for them sends the wrong message. 

3.) People leaving City Hall walking into heavy traffic on Martin Luther King Way, engrossed in conversation, and looking indignant when people honk at them. 

4.) Skateboarders frequently abusing the rights of being a “pedestrian,” and acting like they’re driving a car, terrorizing bicyclist and REAL pedestrians. 

Let’s all just get along, and get with some basic rules for . . . pedestrian etiquette. I say that with a straight face. Here are the “8 Simple Rules for Surviving Pedestrian Wars”: 

1.) Never walk into oncoming traffic. Don’t be like Blanche Dubois in the middle of an intersection. Don’t depend on the kindness of strangers.  

2.) Look and watch where you are going. Even if traffic is stopped all 4 ways, make eye-contact with the nearest driver before stepping off the curb. This is a courtesy and also re-assures the driver that the person walking in front of them is a lucid human being who is cognizant of his/her surroundings. One less uncertainty can be a real comfort in bad traffic. 

3.) When in the crosswalk, walk a straight line. When not in the crosswalk, walk a straight line. This minimizes the time that you are vulnerable and exposed to traffic. 

4.) Don’t slow down in the crosswalk, just because you can. This might prompt an impatient driver to blast his horn in your ear, just because he can! Or, he might scream at you, “Hey motherfucker, don’t depend on the kindness of strangers.”  

5.) Don’t taunt drivers waiting for you by a.) Slowing your pace; b.) Slowing down and looking away; c.) Slowing down and stopping to make a point in a conversation, as if no one is waiting for you to move out of their way. 

6.) Do not make a sudden turn of bow into a street, assuming that everyone will slam on their brakes for you, especially if you’re on a skateboard. Never be overconfident about any stranger’s sense of humanity. 

7.) Don’t play chicken with cars or display body language that says, “Come on and hit me—see what happens.” Remember, cars win every time, and I’ve never known a re-match to occur. (I can hear it now, “As soon as my broken ribs and clavicle heal, I want to see that guy in Vegas; and this time I’m going to train better and come out strong from the beginning.”) 

8.) Focus—it’s a dangerous world out there; Bush Jr. and Fox News are telling everyone to be afraid. FDR said not to be afraid, so that makes fear a partisan issue. But pedestrian etiquette has no partisan boundaries—at least it shouldn’t. 

Berkeley continues to create new and potentially grave hazards to pedestrians and cyclists with what they euphemistically call “traffic calming circles.” Oh, please! Linda Maio has championed further constructions of these things that actually force traffic into crosswalks, placing pedestrians and cyclists at greater risk. I’ve seen cars bump curbs and seen cyclists knocked down trying to avoid them. (Me and others.) Amazingly, the East Bay Bicycle Coalition has endorsed them, even though the president of that group acknowledged to me in a phone call that they present new hazards. Maybe after Tom Bates is recalled, all these issues can be re-visited. 

The City of Berkeley could do a lot more to protect bicyclists—like posting signs on all streets that say, “Look in the door mirror before opening the door on a bicyclist!” There’s plenty of room for them on the “Parking” signposts. The mayor, as well as every member of the Berkeley City Council has ignored this request, which I have made repeatedly. I argued this and sent e-mails about it for years before I got doored. Getting doored did not improve my standing with Mayor Bates, Maio, Kriss Worthington or any other city officials who can’t respond to phone calls or e-mails. 

Pedestrians have the right of way and that’s a good thing. Having the right of way also carries responsibilities for thoughtful, non-provocative behavior. Just follow the rules, and we can all remain friends whether driving, riding a bike, walking or riding a skateboard. All together now, “ . . . and the painted ponies go up and down . . .” 

 

H. Scott Prosterman is a Berkeley resident.


Columns

Column: The Public Eye: The Great Debate of 2008

By Bob Burnett
Tuesday March 04, 2008

So far there have been many surprises in the contest for the 2008 presidential nomination. Six months ago, it appeared the probable candidates would be Rudy Giuliani and Hillary Clinton; now it seems they will be John McCain and Barack Obama. Last year it appeared the leading issue would be the war in Iraq; now it’s likely the great debate will be about the economy. 

In 1928 there were no debates between the incumbent Republican president, Herbert Hoover, and the Democratic challenger, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Nonetheless, by the time of the election, most Americans were aware of fundamental differences in their approach to solving the Great Depression. This fall, when Senator McCain debates Senator Obama, Americans will recognize a stark reality: Republicans have learned nothing in 80 years. 

The Great Depression was fueled by a combination of irrational market exuberance, unfettered greed, and lack of governmental oversight. The current recession has been powered by the same factors. In 1928 we saw irrational exuberance in the form of a speculative investment in stocks. In recent times we’ve seen the same unwarranted enthusiasm; this time for housing. 

In both eras there was unfettered greed; the dominant morality was “what’s in it for me.” The Great Depression saw a few unscrupulous individuals get rich by peddling penny stocks and other shaky financial vehicles. The current recession saw consumers taken in by pernicious credit-card practices or by sub-prime loans with rates that unexpectedly accelerated. 

In both periods there was a woeful lack of federal oversight. The 1928 stock market abuses led to the formation of the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, and other regulatory agencies. Unfortunately, the current recession was fueled by Bush administration policies that both fueled America’s appetite for debt and weakened financial oversight. 

In the fall there will be a series of presidential debates likely featuring Senators McCain and Obama. The dominant subject will be the recession. While Republicans have had plenty of time to learn from the mistakes that produced the Great Depression, Senator McCain is likely to reprise the rhetoric of former President Hoover; he’ll assert that, if left alone, the market will make the necessary adjustments. 

Over the past eight decades, the Republican Party has been remarkably consistent in their wrongheaded economic rhetoric: greed is good because it represents the will of the market and monopolies are even better. GOP candidates have promised to cut taxes, minimize the role of the federal government, and, more recently, reduce entitlements.  

It’s not difficult to see why Republicans favor cutting the taxes of the rich and powerful; this is a quid pro quo for the GOP’s wealthiest donors. Therefore Senator McCain follows the Bush leads and advocates tax reduction as the only way to ease the current recession. Nonetheless, based on America’s experience in the Great Depression, cutting taxes won’t pull us out of an economic downturn. Nor will the meager economic stimulus package recently passed by Congress. 

Similarly, it’s not difficult to understand why Republicans seek to minimize the role of the federal government: the rich and powerful want to have their way with the market without restrictions. But what finally pulled America out of the Great Depression was more government, not less. Republicans ignore the reality that agencies such as the FDIC have helped stabilize the economy. 

When we study the lessons of American history, it is obvious that what is needed to remedy the current recession is massive government intervention, investment on a scale that hasn’t been seen since Roosevelt’s New Deal initiatives. But Senator McCain doesn’t favor this strategy; he advocates the same hands-off policies that George Bush and other Republican dinosaurs have espoused for the last 80 years. In contrast, Senator Obama understands the necessity for government intervention. 

In the coming 2008 economic debate, there will be two major points of disagreement. The first will be what to do: McCain will advocate passivity; he will take the classic Republican approach, which is to pray that the market will provide the remedy. In contrast, Obama will prescribe action; he will suggest his own version of the New Deal. 

The second point of disagreement will be how to pay for the necessary fiscal stimulus. As is the case with George Bush, McCain’s number one priority will be “winning” the war in Iraq, no matter how much time and money is involved. Senator Obama’s number one priority will be to fix the economy. He will suggest America cannot afford to continue to spend $2 billion per week in Iraq and make the common-sense argument we should shift the focus of the war to Afghanistan—a move that will reduce military expenditures and free funds for domestic programs. In addition, Obama will link “homeland security” to our domestic well-being and assert we must strengthen the average American family as an integral part of our “war” on terror. 

John McCain was born in 1936 and experienced the Great Depression. Nonetheless, he has chosen to rely upon Republican ideology rather than the hard lessons learned by his and other American families. McCain’s behavior proves the old adage: “You can’t teach an old [war] horse new tricks.” 

 

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


Green Neighbors: Pretty Good Tree with a Pretty Dumb Name

By Ron Sullivan
Tuesday March 04, 2008
Casaurina in Martin Luther King Jr. Regional Park, by Arrowhead Marsh, Oakland.
By Ron Sullivan
Casaurina in Martin Luther King Jr. Regional Park, by Arrowhead Marsh, Oakland.

Trust the Aussies (“…from the Land Down Under/Where the women something and the men something-else-that-rhymes with ‘under’—maybe ‘blunder’?—but definitely not whatever the women do”) to get all weird about gender issues in the unlikeliest places. They’re blessed with several species of casuarina, a useful and engagingly weird clade of trees, and what do they call them? “She-oak.” And what do they mean by that? Why, “like oak but inferior.”  

Joke, schmoke. We get it, guys; we’re just bored already. 

Not surprisingly, we have casuarinas planted here and there in the Bay Area. Lots of Australian plants thrive here, as we share a “Mediterranean” climate with much of that continent. Casaurinas (the name still in general nursery-trade use) don’t look like oaks; the dumb name is supposedly about how their lumber performs. What they look most like is pines. 

In fact, they look so much like pines that I’ve passed casaurina plantings for years before twigging to what they were. There is a fairly simple way to tell Casaurina cunninghamiana and Allocasuarina verticillata (formerly Casaurina stricta), which as far as I know are the two most common species here, from pines. Look at the branch tips: Pines’ smallest branches’ ends are blunt and rounded; casaurinas’ sweep into a point.  

When you look more closely, you might notice that the leaves, which like pines’ are reduced to needle form, have joints like those of equisetums—the horsetails or scouring rushes that turn up in damp places. They’re not cousins, though.  

The most recent taxonomic sort-out puts casuarinas in the same order as beeches (northern and southern), birches, bayberries, and walnuts. They’re a Gondwana family, from that former supercontinent: fossils have been discovered in New Zealand and South America, where no living species survive. Australia is their center of distribution, with outliers from India to Polynesia. 

As with a lot of plants these days, there’s some confusion about the names of the different species. According to Elizabeth McClintock’s Trees of Golden Gate Park, the casuarinas planted there are C. cunninghamia, the river she-oak of northern and eastern Australia, sometimes misidentified as C. equisetifolia. At least they’re still together in the genus Casuarina, many of whose members such as the former C. stricta were recently split off into Allocasuarina, hence that name change.  

Whatever their maiden names, they’re all of a very old Australian lineage. Around thirty thousand years ago, as that continent became hotter and drier, casuarinas displaced the ancient araurcarias—primitive conifers like the bunya-bunya and the recently discovered wollemi pine. They were part of a whole flora of scleromorphs, drought- and fire-adapted plants with small scaly water-conserving leaves. Later on the casuarinas were pushed aside by the eucalypts. 

Somewhere along the line, the casuarinas formed a symbiotic partnership with a soil bacterium called Frankia. Living in nodules among the roots, Frankia fixes atmospheric nitrogen and makes it available to the host plant—the same kind of arrangement that another microorganism, Rhizobium, has with the peas and their relatives. Other strains of Frankia co-occur with our native ceanothus, mountain mahogany, and alders. 

The bacterial connection may give casuarinas a competitive edge in nutrient-poor environments. Turn them loose in a warm place and they grow like weeds. They’re a huge concern in Florida, where three species—C. equisetifolia, C. cunninghamiana, and C. glauca—thrive in the alkaline, limestone-derived soils. Originally planted as ornamentals, these Australians have overgrown the habitats of endangered American crocodiles, loggerhead turtles, and gopher tortoises. Their roots suck up disproportionate amounts of soil moisture and invade water and sewer lines, and their leaves are toxic to cattle.  

But on their native turf, casuarinas play important ecological and cultural roles. They’re associated with mycorrhizal fungi that provide food—Australian truffles—for small marsupials like bandicoots and potoroos. In this, they resemble one of California’s persistent lineages, as similar “truffles” feed the squirrels in old-growth coastal redwood forests.  

Native Australians favored casuarina wood for spears, processed and ate the red sap that exudes from the trunks, and chewed the young cones for moisture during long desert treks. Tahitians also used the wood for weapons, and considered the trees as reincarnations of warriors those weapons had killed, apparently because, like them, the trees bleed red.  

The wood tends to be red too, which is why some species are called “beefwood.” Come to think of it, a friend of mine told me he’s had main courses of what he calls the Outhouse Steakback that might as well have been lumber; maybe they were piloting a crypto-vegetarian substitute. Or maybe it was an attempt at a high-fiber diet supplement.  

I await indignant correspondence from outraged Aussies. In the meantime I’ll stick to witchetty grubs. Roasted, please, and hold the Vegemite.  

 

 

Ron Sullivan is a former professional gardener and arborist. Her “Green Neighbors” column appears every other Tuesday in the Berkeley Daily Planet, alternating with Joe Eaton’s “Wild Neighbors” column. Her “Garden Variety” column appears every Friday in the Planet’s East Bay Home & Real Estate section.  

 


Column: Dispatches From the Edge: Notes from the Southern Cone

By Conn Hallinan
Friday February 29, 2008

Getting it right is what the government of Brazilian Lula da Silva seems to be doing these days. The country’s National Survey of Sample Households has just pulled together the results of his government’s economic policies, which indicate that women and the poor are doing considerably better than they did under previous governments. 

Some 8.7 million jobs were created in his first term, with wages rising 7.2 percent. More important, workers at the low end of the scale did the best. The median minimum wage jumped 13.3 percent over its 2005 level, a rise that affected 26 million workers and raised pensions for 16 million others. 

Da Silva’s government has also in-creased income through the Family Assistance Program, resulting in a 7.6 percent rise nationally in family income in 2006, a rise that was steeper in the economically depressed northeast than in the wealthier southeast: 11.7 percent and 7 percent respectively. 

Despite those gains, however, regional inequality continues to haunt Brazil. While household income in the northeast did rise, it is still only 57.8 percent of that in the southeast. And while the disparity in wages between men and women saw improvement—with women’s pay increasing from 58.7 percent of the men’s rate in 1996 to 65.6 percent in 2006—discrimination on the basis of gender continues to be a problem. Given that almost one third of Brazil’s families are headed by single women, it is one the de Silva government clearly must tackle. The survey also found that while women make up 43 million of the 90 million national work force, they spend twice as much time on weekly house chores as men. 

Brazil has seen huge increases in education, particularly for women, who have now passed men in high school completion. If one counts teachers and administrative support systems, almost one third of the country’s population is involved in education. However, almost 10 percent of the population is still illiterate, and 23.6 percent are functionally illiterate. In the northeast that figure rises to 35.5 percent. 

The approach the da Silva government has taken to stimulating the economy is almost exactly the opposite of that taken by countries like the U.S., India and, to a certain extent, China, where resources have generally flowed to the wealthier sectors of the society. “From the point of view of the economy, to maximize the usefulness of the country’s resources involves raising the income of the poorest of the poor,” says Ladislau Dowbor of the Pontifical Catholic University of Sao Paulo. “The poor do not engage in financial speculation; they buy goods and services. To lift people from poverty is not charity; it is good sense, socially and economically.” 

“Lula” has come under fire from some sections of the Left for not doing enough for the poor, but the recent survey suggests that Brazil is moving toward narrowing the country’s enormous class and regional disparities. “There is the immense organized labor of millions of people that are changing programs, literally ‘milking the rock’ of a governmental machine that historically was set up to administer privileges, not to render services,” says Dowbor. 

A recent poll gives “Lula” a 66.8 percent approval rating and 52.7 percent for his government, its highest rating since January 2003 when da Silva was first elected. 

No good is what the Bush Administration has been up to in Bolivia, according to Benjamin Dangl, author of “The Price of Fire: Resource Wars and Social Movements in Bolivia.” 

Recently declassified documents show that the White House is using the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) to undermine the leftist government of Evo Morales by encouraging and underwriting right-wing separatist movements in Bolivia’s eastern provinces. 

USAID has funneled over $4.4 million into the oil- and gas-rich eastern provinces, which are currently pushing for more autonomy from the Morales government. The eastern provinces are largely populated by light-skinned descendants of the Spanish, while Morales’s base in the highlands is dominated by indigenous people. 

While the U.S. denies it is interfering in Bolivia’s internal affairs, USAID is financing advisors to the right-wing, openly secessionist Civic Committee. The U.S. not only has hydrocarbon interests in the region, but also has a significant military presence in neighboring Paraguay, where the huge Mariscasl Estigarriba airbase hosts U.S. Special Forces. 

Besides USAID, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED)—both organizations were involved in the 1973 overthrow of the Socialist Allende government in Chile—has also been active. The NED, through the Center for International Private Enterprise, a front for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, has financed forums and panels critical of the Morales government’s nationalization of resources. 

Another NED program brought young right-wing leaders to Washington for training. Morales’s party—Movement Toward Socialism (MAS)—and other left parties were not invited. 

Dangl interviewed a Fulbright Scholar who said that U. S. Embassy officials asked him to give the embassy reports on any Cubans or Venezuelans he encountered. Venezuela and Cuba give aid and provide expertise for the Morales government. According to the student, such reports would violate Fulbright guidelines, which prohibit interfering in the politics of a host country. 

But MAS appears to be increasing its support, particularly among the poor, who make up the overwhelming bulk of Bolivia, the poorest country in South America. In late November, the Constituent Assembly approved a pension plan called the Dignity Salary, which will give $26 a month to all Bolivians over 60 years of age. The money will come from gas tax funds, which currently go to provincial governors. The widely popular move has drawn the anger of the eastern provinces, where the oil and gas reserves lie. 

The economy also grew at a healthy 4.2 percent clip, and MAS managed to get a new constitution passed in the Congress, which gives the state more control over resources and the economy, guarantees indigenous rights, and provides for an elected Supreme Court. 

Regionally, Brazilian President “Lula” da Silva and Chilean President Michelle Bachelet declared their support for the new constitution and the Morales government, and announced plans to build a $600 million highway from Brazil through Bolivia to Chile. 

Bolivia is also cutting deals to develop the country’s gas and oil resources with Russia and Brazil, and South Korea is investing in the Bolivian-state-owned COMIBOL to jointly develop a copper mine. 

Bush administration subversion in eastern Bolivia, however, could pose a serious danger to the Morales government. 

 

Dragon vs. the Monroe Doctrine? According to April Howard of Upside Down World, when the 10-year agreement between Ecuador and the U.S. that allows Southern Command to use the Manta port and air base in Colombia runs out in 2009, it appears that the Chinese are going to move in. 

The Manta base, which hosts 475 U.S. military personnel and hundreds of private mercenaries, has come under fire for violating its original agreement to interdict drugs. Critics charge that the base is also used to monitor—and on occasion attack—anti-government insurgents in Colombia. 

During his election campaign, Ecuador’s leftist President Rafael Correa said he would agree to allow the U.S. to use the base only if the U.S. reciprocated by giving Ecuador a base in Florida. When his request was turned down, Correa offered the base to Terminals del Ecuador, which is owned by Hong Kong-based Hutchison Port Holdings. 

The South America Regional Infrastructure Initiative plans to build either a highway or a rail line from Manta to the city of Manaus in Brazil. The link would create a direct line for China with Ecuador and Brazil. 

Manta is the closest port to Asia on South America’s west coast. 

As Sanho Tree of the Institute for Policy Study points out, there is considerable historical irony in the Chinese move. Back in 1900, the U.S. pushed an “Open Door Policy” in order to get access to China’s markets. It appears turnabout is fair play, the Monroe Doctrine be damned.


Column: Undercurrents: The Oakland Police Department’s Mixed Message

By J. Douglas Allen-Taylor
Friday February 29, 2008

In one of the more hilarious scenes from Tim Burton’s 1996 parody film Mars Attacks, a group of invading Martians send a decidedly mixed message on an American street, broadcasting a recorded message shouting, “Don’t run; we are your friends” while simultaneously disintegrating with ray-gun blasts all humans within range. 

This is not an accusation that Oakland police officers have been shooting down citizens with such gleeful abandon, because they haven’t. But still, the Mars Attacks scene in many ways echoes the decidedly mixed message given these days by Oakland’s public safety establishment in some of Oakland’s more abandoned neighborhoods. 

Part of Mayor Ron Dellums’ and Chief Wayne Tucker’s new police recruitment plan is a strategy they call “grow our own,” heavily recruiting officers from within Oakland. In their official Feb. 19 report on the plan, the mayor and the chief describe this aspect, in part, by saying that “the Mayor, City Council members, and Oakland residents call for an increase in the number of Oakland police officers from Oakland. Officers who have personal familiarity with Oakland’s numerous and diverse neighborhoods are in a much better position to build positive community relationships, understand neighborhood dynamics, and identify creative problem solving strategies that may not be obvious to those who are not  

Oaklanders.” 

In part, this is a response to longstanding charges that far too many Oakland police officers come from and live far outside the city, making the department’s actions in some parts of the city sometimes resemble an international peacekeeping force in a Third World nation more than a domestic police agency looking out for the welfare and safety of its own citizens. 

To back up this drive for a new image of the Oakland police, department officials showed a PowerPoint slideshow at a recent City Council meeting with one OPD recruitment poster of a smiling little Black kid with an oversized police helmet on his head. “Don’t run from us, kid,” the poster seems to say. “Join us. We are your friends.” 

The problem with this message is that in the current reorganization and drive against Oakland’s crime and violence wave, the department is continuing to promote and practice many of the activities that estranged it from large sections of the community in the first place. 

At a recent community advisory meeting held in North Oakland by District 1 Councilmember Jane Brunner, OPD Captain Anthony Toribio, who is heading up one of Oakland’s three new geographical divisions, announced that one of his law enforcement strategies would be to conduct “traffic ticketing sweeps” in his North Oakland-West Oakland command district. Given at the end of a long list of public safety strategies to a room full of citizens who were mostly looking for law enforcement solutions to soaring crime and violence, that particular innocuous-sounding strategy got no attention at all. 

It should have, however. 

I’ve written about Oakland PD’s “traffic ticketing sweeps” extensively in the past. I’ll try to summarize. 

The sweeps are not aimed at such serious violations as speeding or DUI. Instead, they are designed to stop vehicles for minor, non-moving violations—an expired plate, or no plate on the front of the vehicle, or a tail light out, or something like that. The car driver is then asked for the regular information—license, registration, and insurance—and passengers are also often asked for their drivers licenses or other identification, as well. The idea is not to give out tickets for non-moving violations—that just seems to be an added financial benefit to the city—but is aimed at running across individuals with warrants, or chance observations of more serious illegalities going on, such as drugs in the car or a weapon in sight. 

I am not sure how long the sweeps have been around, but they gained popularity during the “Operation Impact” police saturation project that began in 2003. “Operation Impact” and the accompanying traffic ticketing sweeps—many of them along International Boulevard from High Street to 105th—were initially supposed to be aimed at curbing that year’s spike in Oakland murders. When the murder rate subsided, “Operation Impact” and the traffic ticket sweeps were continued as a way to target the city’s illegal street sideshow problem. 

That should have been the clue right there to any discerning observer that something was wrong, since a program aimed specifically at stopping violent predators would hardly seem appropriate to go after youthful joy-riders, no matter how annoying those joy-riders may have been. And, in fact, the only thing that appeared to be in common between the two targets is that they were largely made up of dark-skinned youth—Latinos and African-Americans. 

How successful have the traffic ticketing sweeps been in ferreting out serious crime? In early 2004, the Oakland Tribune reported that in the first three months of the Operation Impact sweeps, which were conducted at that time by the California Highway Patrol, “the CHP arrested almost 600 people for various crimes [during the patrols], issued 1,564 traffic citations, towed 908 vehicles and seized six guns and 12 stolen cars.” The 600 arrest total is difficult to evaluate, but for a program initially designed to stop violent crime in Oakland, the seizure of only six guns out of that many arrests and 1,500 traffic citations appears to be the most telling statistic. 

The 908 towed vehicles is another key. Towing vehicles, in fact, seemed to be one of the predictable outcomes of the traffic ticketing sweeps—so predictable, in fact, that on some of the more ambitious operations, police stationed squads of tow trucks at convenient locations up and down International for more efficiency. 

From the point of view of the Oakland Police Department, this is clearly a legitimate law enforcement tool, one they continue to use. 

But for the young African-American and Latino drivers who are the primary targets of the sweeps—does anybody seriously deny that?—the view is entirely different. For them, this appears to be petty harassment, designed to single them out in the hope of finding some violation that can justify taking the car, the drivers, and the passengers off the street. 

Whether or not the traffic sweeps amount to illegal racial profiling is a matter of opinion that has yet to be litigated. But there can be no doubt that they operate at distinct cross-purposes to the very population that the mayor and OPD now say they are interested in attracting into law enforcement. To loudly proclaim “we are your friends” and “we want you to join us” to the same people you are running off the streets seems to be, at the very least, counterproductive. 

Meanwhile, since I’m on the public safety topic, there are a couple of smaller matters to comment on and clear up. 

In a Feb. 26 column entitled “At Last, Community Policing Comes to Oakland,” my good friend Chronicle East Bay columnist Chip Johnson has praise for some of Oakland’s recent law enforcement efforts. 

Describing Oakland’s new geographic-based police realignment, Mr. Johnson writes, “the new program, which allows patrol officers to work in cooperation with the city’s cadre of problem-solving officers and civilian aides, is long overdue. And after years of debate, city officials have concluded that it makes sense for officers to be assigned to districts they come to know like the back of their hand.” Mr. Johnson speaks glowingly of the efforts of Captain Anthony Toribio, who runs the Area 1 command (North Oakland-West Oakland) in the new configuration.  

Well, who, exactly, are these anonymous “city officials” that Mr. Johnson keeps referring to in his praise of the new Oakland police actions? 

Mayor Ron Dellums, although Mr. Johnson never tells us so. 

The geographical realignment plan was the brainchild of Oakland Police Chief Wayne Tucker, but it was given the go-ahead by Mr. Dellums. It was fought tooth and nail, you remember, by the Oakland Police Officers Association police union, which objected to the plan’s change from 10-hour to 12-hour shifts. Mr. Dellums stuck with the plan as it went through the negotiation and arbitration process, the first Oakland mayor in memory to openly buck the powerful OPOA, and the city won the arbitrator’s ruling that allowed the geographical alignment to be put in place, Captain Toribio to get his new assignment, and the neighborhood-based patrols to be established that won Mr. Johnson’s praise. 

Fair is fair. Mr. Johnson spent many past columns denouncing Mr. Dellums’ law enforcement actions. When he finds an Oakland law enforcement action he approves, Mr. Johnson ought to give credit where it belongs. 

And, finally, my own error to report. In a Feb. 15 UnderCurrents column on Oakland’s attempt to close the “blue gap” between the city’s authorized police strength and its actual police strength, I wrote that “Councilmember Nancy Nadel’s 2004 Measure R parcel tax [would have] raise[d] money for violence prevention exclusively.” “Exclusively” is the offending and inappropriate word here about the measure that lost by a little less than a percentage point. Saying that Measure R concentrated solely on violence prevention strategies contradicted my own earlier reporting on the measure, and it was flat-out wrong. The Oakland City Attorney’s impartial analysis of Ms. Nadel’s 2004 volence prevention Measure R concluded that 40 percent of the collected revenue for the measure was set aside for police enforcement, including “expanding programs to increase the number of police assigned to walking patrol, expanding specialized undercover police sting operations to target crime hot-spots and target drug dealing and gang activities, expanding the Oakland Police Department’s Drug Taskforce to combat drug dealing and violence associated with the drug trade, and establishing community-based specialist teams within the Oakland Police Department trained to deal with mental health, domestic violence, and conflict resolution.” 

Don’t mind disagreements with my conclusions, but I hate it like hell when I make a factual error. My apologies to Ms. Nadel, particularly, for misreporting on her measure.


About the House: What to Look For When Looking Under the House

By Matt Cantor
Friday February 29, 2008

I spend a lot of time under houses. This isn't glamorous but it's what I have to do in order to do my job. Actually I don't mind it much. 

I can't tell you how often I’ve been suiting up (yes, I wear a funny suit) to “get down” as it were, and had a client say to me “Well I guess this is why you get the big bucks.” Actually, I’m still waiting for the big bucks (any time now) but I think I get paid for observations, ideas and salient comments. Crawling is just something one has to do to see all parts of the patient. Same with climbing ladders. I’m more than a little acrophobic but if I don’t see it, I can’t figure out what’s wrong (turn your head to the right and cough). 

So it’s very frustrating, as it was yesterday, to get into a narrow crawlspace and find that I’m surrounded by ducting that’s about the size of a torso, sinuating through this narrow confine and disabling my ability to move about, see and discover. 

One thing that I saw yesterday and often do see is crushed sections of ducting (thus decreasing their performance) as a result of former visitors having done what it took to move about, work and see. These may have been the Wild Amoral Cableman or the Pacific Clueless Beer-Bellied Termite Inspector. You have to be very patient to actually catch one of these in the act.  

I try to move over and around ducting as I do my job but it’s really hard. Sometimes. I have to go an extra twenty-five feet just to get around a section of ducting and sometimes it can’t be done.  

Ducting isn’t the only building element that obstructs access. The way that foundation sections are poured can do that same. Also plumbing, wiring, furnaces, seismic bracing panels and abandoned equipment (Amazingly, people leave furnaces, water heaters and all sort of garbage under houses). 

While this isn’t much of a problem for the homeowner most days, it become one when they want to have almost anything done in the crawlspace including wiring, telephone repair, cable TV installation, alarm system work, plumbing. The list goes on. It also matters for inspections. It’s very hard to learn important things when you can’t move around or see. 

Also, ducting, when it’s the obstructive element, gets damaged and not just mashed in the manner I’ve described already. I see disconnected or loosely connected ducting in crawlspaces all the time. This makes it very hard to get the house warm and also increases global warming, as well as crawlspace warming and wallet de-greening. There’s little doubt that I see this more often in tight obstructed crawlspaces than in houses where the ducting is neatly hung up and out of the way where no one need climb over it. 

I should say at this point that, while nobody like a good gripe session more than me, that is not actually my intent.  

First, let me say to all the builders and architects out there that crawlspaces are just that, for crawling, not for packing full of ducting or other equipment as an unplanned afterthought. If you’ve ever been in a crawlspace looking at all this stuff, that’s what it looks like … an afterthought or better, no thought. 

If a crawlspace is three feet high (this would be a Fairmont Hotel of crawlspaces), I think that tubular flexible ducting, such as we commonly see, would be fine. There would still be at least twenty inches of space below everything to move about and see. Even two feet of height would be better than most so the message to the builder or designer is, add more crawlspace height. Current regulations require eighteen inches of height crawlspaces with certain exceptions for periodic beams intruding into that height. If small ducts are well placed in a system like this, you can still see and work but it requires some thinking to install a system that work and frankly, it’s not much height if you have large ducts. 

By the way, when ducting ends up laying on the ground, as is often the case in tight crawlspaces, it’s common to see it having been torn open and turned into a night club for Ratatouille. When their well secured to framing a foot above the ground, it’s less common simply because it’s harder to breech. 

One solution to this problem is to use shallow metal ducting attached to the bottom of the floor framing. A metal duct that is a foot wide and four inches deep is about the same volume as an eight inch flexible duct (a common size). This gains four inches of head room and also decreases the likelihood of warm air leaks and rodent raves. 

If you’re upgrading the heating in your house and your crawlspace is a little tight this is well worth thinking about. 

The same is true of water piping, waste lines and all those other things that fill these tight crawlspaces. When redoing any system, see if you can route and place these so that the space is left largely clear. You and your varied minions are more likely to catch problems in the future and any work that has to be done down under can be completed more swiftly and at lower cost. 

A seismic retrofitting job may be a protracted and costly trial if the space is filled with huge ducts and far quicker and likely cheaper if the ducting has first been upgraded and moved. 

By the way, ducted heating systems aren’t the only option for heating and a tight crawlspace might be just the added incentive to push you into a more expensive but utterly delightful radiant-floor heating system. 

This logic should be extended to other systems as well. It’s wise to be sure that all equipment gets installed in such a way as to allow for repair, replacement and inspection over the life of the system. It usually takes a little more energy to make sure that an attic, crawlspace or electrical panel is accessible but it sure can decrease excess stomach acid when you have to find or fix something. 

When building or doing a major remodeling job, one of the smartest things one can do is to involve the subcontractor at the design phase. The heating contractor is likely to point out the tight crawlspace or the lack of an adequate space for a cold air return duct to the attic (if that’s where it’s going) and can influence small changes that might be cost neutral and aesthetically insignificant at this early stage. 

Every remodel, no matter how small is a chance to look at many aspects and to ease the way for the next set of changes. While doing all these things, keep access in mind. Remember that everything you install will eventually break down and need repair and that somebody is going to have to crawl over there to get to it. I’m happy to say that new codes are better in demanding space leading to equipment like furnaces but cities are slow to apply these in older homes. 

If nothing else, this is a way of being nice to the many people who have to work in the space below your home over the years and who knows, in your next life, you may come back as a home inspector. 


Arts & Events

Arts Calendar

Tuesday March 04, 2008

TUESDAY, MARCH 4 

EXHIBITIONS 

“The RISD Northern California Alumni Biennial 2008” Design work featuring local alumni from Rhode Island School of Design. Opening reception with RISD President Roger Mandle from 6 to 9 p.m. at the Oakland Art GAllery, 199 Kahn’s Alley, Oakland. www.oaklandartgallery.org 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Dan Ariely describes “Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. 

Peggy Levitt discusses “God Needs No Passport: Immigrants and the Changing American Religious Landscape” at 7:30 p.m. at First Congregational Church of Berkeley, 2345 Channing Way. Suggested donation $10. 559-9500. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Motordude Zydeco at 8:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cajun dance lesson at 8 p.m. Cost is $10. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

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

Jenny Ellis & Laura Klein, jazz, at 7 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave. 548-5198.  

Foggy Gulch Band, bluegrass, folk, country at 10 p.m. at the Uptown Nightclub, 1928 Telegraph, Oakland. 451-8100.  

Vusi Mahlasela at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $12-$20. 238-9200. 

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 5 

FILM 

“Yolanda and the Thief” with a lecture by Prof. Marilyn Fabe, at 3 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $5.50-$9.50. 642-0808.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

“Casual Labor” New work in sculpture and photography by Alex Clausen, Zachery Royer Scholz and Kirk Stoller. Gallery conversation with the artists at 7 p.m. at Kala Art Institute, 1060 Heinz Ave. 549-2977. 

Lou Rowan and David Meltzer read at 7:30 p.m. at Moe’s Books, 2476 Telegraph Ave. 849-2087. 

François Luong, Jennifer Karmin and Michael Slosek read in celebration of the new anthology “A Sing Economy: An Anthology of Experimental Poetry” at 7:30 p.m. at Pegasus Books Downtown, 2349 Shattuck Ave. 649-1320. 

Artist’s Talk with Xu Bing, recipient of a MacArthur “genuis” award, at 4 p.m. at Institute of east Asian Studies, 2223 Fulton St. 642-2809. 

Diana Raab reads from “Regina’s Closet: Finding My Grandmother’s Secret Journal” at 7 p.m. at Laurel Bookstore, 4100 MacArthur Blvd., Oakland. 531-2073. 

Cara Black introduces her new novel “Murder on the Rue de Paradis: An Aimée Leduc Investigation” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Wednesday Noon Concert, with Rebakah Ahrendt, viola de gamba, Annette Bauer, recorder, Jonathan Rhodes Lee, harpsichord, and Jennifer Paulino, soprano, at Hertz Hall, UC Campus. Free. 642-4864. http://music.berkeley.edu 

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $34-$60. 642-9988.  

Jazz Fourtet featuring Brendan Buss at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $8. 841-JAZZ.  

Whiskey Brothers at 9 p.m. at Albatross, 1822 San Pablo Ave. 843-2473.  

Nikolev Kolev, Balkan, Bulgarian, at 8:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $12. 525-5054.  

Orquestra America at 9:30 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low. Cost is $5-$10. 548-1159.  

Battlefield Band at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761.  

Booker T. Jones at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $12-$18. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

THURSDAY, MARCH 6 

EXHIBITIONS 

Enrique Chagoya: Borderlandia Guided tour at 2 p.m. at Berkeley Art Museum. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

“Open Range” The art of Douglas Light, Michele Hofherr and Scott Courtenay-Smith opens at Esteban Sabar Gallery, 480 23rd St., Oakland. 444-7411. www.estebansabar.com 

FILM 

Where Does Your Hidden Smile Lie?” with filmmmaker Perdo Costa in person at 6 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. 642-0808.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Lunch Poems with Diane Di Prima at 12:10 p.m. at the Morrison Library, inside the Doe Library, UC Campus. 642-0137. 

Speaking Fierce: Celebrate International Women’s Day with Bushra Rehman, Climbing Poetree, and Jennifer Johns at 7 p.m. at First Congregational Church, 2501 Harrison St. at 27th, Oakland. Tickets are $10-$25, no one turned away. 444-2700, ext. 305. www.coloredgirls.org 

“Revenge of the Illegal Alien” Poetry in celebration of César A. Cruz’s book, at 7:30 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $5-$15. 849-2568.  

William Wong, author of “Angel Island (Images of America)” will give a slide talk on the island and its role in Chinese American history as an immigration station, at 7 p.m. at El Cerrito Library, 6510 Stockton Ave., El Cerrito. 526-7512. 

Joshua Carver, poet, followed by open mic, at 7 p.m. at Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave., Albany. 526-3720, ext. 17. 

Dee Dee Myers explains “Why Women Should Rule the World” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. 

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

MUSIC AND DANCE 

The Dance, Sean Hodge with High Heat, Wagon, Last Legal Music with guest Buzzy Linhart at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $5. 525-5054.  

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $34-$60. 642-9988.  

Ditty Bops, Jesca Hoop at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $19.50-$20.50. 548-1761.  

Tin Cup Serenade at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $10. 841-JAZZ.  

Claudia Russell at 7 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave. 548-5198.  

Akosua Mireku, Ghanian-American, at 10 p.m. at Beckett’s Irish Pub, 2271 Shattuck Ave. 647-1790.  

Lizz Wright at 8 and 10 p.m., through Sat. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $20-$24. 238-9200.  

FRIDAY, MARCH 7 

THEATER 

Altarena Playhouse “Chicago” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 p.m. at Altarena Playhouse, 1409 High St., Alameda, through April 12. Tickets are $17-$20. 523-1553. www.altarena.org 

Berkeley Rep ”Wishful Drinking” with Carrie Fisher, at the Roda Theater, 2015 Addison St., through March 30. Tickets are $33-$69. 647-2949. 

Central Works “Wakefield; or Hello Sophia” Thurs.-Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 5 p.m. at Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant Ave., through March 23.Tickets are $14-$25. 558-1381. 

The Imagination Players “Once on This Island“ A musical for the whole family Fri. at 7:30 p.m., Sat. at 1, 4 and 7:30 p.m., Sun. at 1 and 5 p.m. at Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby Ave. Tickets are $8-$15. 665-5565. www.berkeleyplayhouse.org 

Impact Theatre “Jukebox Stories: The Case of the Creamy Foam” Thurs.-Sat. at 8 p.m. at La Val’s Subterranean, 1834 Euclid Ave., through March 22. Tickets are $10-$15. 464-4468. http://impacttheatre.com 

UC Dept. of Theater “The Bacchae” at Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 p.m., through March 9 at Zellerbach Playhouse, UC Campus. Tickets are $8-$14. theater.berkeley.edu 

Virago Theatre Company “Candide” the comic opera at 8 p.m. Fri and Sat., 7 p.m. Sun. at Rhythmix Cultural Works, 2513 Blanding Ave., Alameda, through Mar. 9. Tickets are $15-$25. 865-6237. www.viragotheatre.org 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Pods” Paintings by Kim Thoman Opening reception at 7 p.m. at Oakopolis, 447 25th St., Oakland. Runs through March 22. 663-6920. 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Jane Ganahl describes “Naked on the Page: The Misadventures of My Unmarried Midlife” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500.  

Mark Wilson on “Julia Morgan: Architect of Beauty” at 7:30 p.m. at Mrs. Dalloways, 2904 College Ave. 704-8222. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Friday Noon Concert Chamber music at Hertz Hall, UC Campus. Free. 642-4864. http://music.berkeley.edu 

La Colectiva, cumbia Colombiana, salsa, son y mas, at 9 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $10. 849-2568.  

Dance IS Festival at 8 p.m. at Julia Morgan Center for the Arts, 2640 College Ave. Tickets are $8-$12 at the door.  

First Fridays After Five with Purirak, the Shahrzad Dance Company, Navarrete x Kajiyama Dance Theater and more at 5 p.m. at the Oakland Museum of California, 10th and Oak Sts., Oakland. Cost is $5-$8. 238-2022. 

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $34-$60. 642-9988.  

Fortune Smiles Quintet at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island. Cost is $12. 841-JAZZ.  

Trio Garufa at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Tango dance lessons at 8:30 p.m. Cost is $20. 525-5054. 

Laurie Antonioli Group at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $18. 845-5373.  

Nearly Beloved, folk and country, at 8 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave. 548-5198.  

Ditty Bops, Jesca Hoop at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $19.50-$20.50. 548-1761.  

Justin Ancheta at 10 p.m. at Beckett’s Irish Pub, 2271 Shattuck Ave. 647-1790.  

Josh Workman Trio, jazz, at 9 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810.  

Amanda West, Lalin St. Juste at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344.  

Deja Bryson, Ke-Shay, R&B, at 9 p.m. at Maxwell’s Lounge, 341 13th St., Oakland. Cost is $10-$15. 839-6169. 

Imani Uzuri at 9 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low, 2284 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $7-$10. 548-1159.  

Lizz Wright at 8 and 10 p.m., through Sat. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $20-$24. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

SATURDAY, MARCH 8 

CHILDREN  

Los Amiguitos de La Peña with Abby and The Pipsqueaks at 10:30 a.m. at La Peña. Cost is $5 for adults, $4 for children. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Thomas Lynch reads from the children’s classics, Kenneth Grahame’s “Wind in the Willows” and Roald Dahl’s “Boy” at 1 p.m. at Mrs. Dalloways, 2904 College Ave. 704-8222. 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Ostracismos” Paintings and poetry by the Torres Brothers Opening reception at 6:30 p.m. at La Peña. 849-2568.  

“Capturing Landscapes through Changing Technology” Photographs by Alasdair McCondochie. Opening recpetion at 3 p.m. at The LightRoom, 2263 Fifth St. 649-8111. www.lightroom.com 

“Metals in Motion” Artists from the Monterey Bay Metals Arts guild discuss their works at 1 p.m. at the Oakland Museum of California, 10th and Oak Sts., Oakland. Cost is $5-$8. 238-2022. www.museumca.org 

FILM 

”Iron-Jawed Angels” The HBO dramatization of the last decade of the suffragettes’ campaign to gain the right to vote, in celebration of Women’s History Month at 2 p.m. at the Rockridge Library, 5366 College Ave., Oakland. 

“In Vanda’s Room” with filmmaker Perdo Costa in personat 7 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $5.50-$9.50. 642-0808.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

James Scully and Peter Everwine read their poems at 2 p.m. at the Berkeley Public Library, 2090 Kittredge St. Free. 981-6100. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

“Songs of Hope and Struggle” Strengthening Berkeley Through Organizing Benefit concert with Bruce Barthol and Francisco Herrera for Berkeley Organizing Congregations for Action at 7 p.m. at St. John’s Prebyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. Suggested donation $25. Reception at 5:30 p.m. 665-5821. 

Songs of Hope & Struggle A benefit for Berkeley Organizing Congregations for Action with Bruce Barthol and Francisco Herrera at 7 p.m. at St. John's Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. Reception at 5:30 p.m. Suggested donation $25. 665-5821. 

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater at 2 and 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $34-$60. 642-9988.  

Dance IS Festival at 8 p.m. at Julia Morgan Center for the Arts, 2640 College Ave. Tickets are $8-$12 at the door. www.juliamorgan.org 

Opera Piccola “Mirrors of Mumbai” at 7:30 p.m. at Malonga Casquelourde Center for the Arts, 1428 Alice St., Oakland. Tickets are $10-$15. 658-0967. www.opera-piccola.org 

Chora Nova “Aphrodite’s Muse” Works by women composers in honor of International Womens's Day at 8 p.m., lecture at 7:15 p.m. at ;First Congregational Church, Dana and Durant. Tickets are $10-$18. www.choranova.org 

Lichi Fuentes in an International Women’s Day concert at 8 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $12-$14. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

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

Baba Ken & West African Highlife Band at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. African dance lesson at 9 p.m. Cost is $15. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com  

Jeff Rolka, Robert Heiskell at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

John Gorka with Amilia K Spicer at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $22.50-$23.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Beep with Michael Coleman at 9:30 p.m. at Albatross, 1822 San Pablo Ave. Cost is $3. 843-2473. www.albatrosspub.com 

Montclair Women’s Big Band celebrating International Women’s Day at 8 and 10 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $20. 845-5373. www.jazzschool.com 

Babashad Jazz at 9 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810.  

Dave G and Andy Mason in a Tirbute to the Violent Femmes at 10 p.m. at Beckett’s Irish Pub, 2271 Shattuck Ave. 647-1790. www.beckettsirishpub.com 

Lizz Wright at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $20-$24. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

SUNDAY, MARCH 9 

CHILDREN 

Asheba at Ashkenaz at 3 p.m. Cost is $4-$6. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

EXHIBITIONS 

Enrique Chagoya: Borderlandia Guided tour at 2 p.m. at Berkeley Art Museum. Cost is $5.50-$9.50. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

FILM 

“Down to Earth” with filmmaker Pedro Costa in person at 5 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $5.50-$9.50. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

“Contemporary Art in Cuba” with Terry McClain at 2 p.m. at the Berkeley Public Library, 2090 Kittredge St. 981-6100. 

“Still Lives: The Films of Pedro Costa” Lecture by the filmmaker at 3 p.m. at Berkeley Art Museum Theater. Cost is $5.50-$9.50. 642-0808.  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Quartet San Francisco “Whirled Chamber Music” at 4 p.m. at Crowden Music Center, 1475 Rose St. Tickets are $12, free for children 18 and under. 559-2941.  

David Tanenbaumn, classical guitarist at 3 p.m. at First Congregational Church, 2345 Channing Way. Pre-concert talk at 2:30 p.m. Free. 415-248-1640.  

Sounds New Tenth Anniversary Concert at 7:30 p.m. at Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley, One Lawson Rd., Kensington. Suggested donation $15. 

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater at 3 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $34-$60. 642-9988.  

Presidio String Quartet will perform music of Bartok, Pårt, Dan Cantrell at 7:30 p.m. at Berkeley Art Center, 1275 Walnut St. Cost is $10-$12. 644-6893.  

Soli Deo Gloria U.S. premiere of Allan Bevan’s “Nou Goth Sonne Under Wode” at 3:30 p.m. at St. Joseph’s Basilica, 1109 Chestnut St. at Encinal, Alameda. Tickets are $20-$25. www.sdgloria.org 

Mucho Axé and TerroRitmo, salsa, cumbia, reggaeton, at 8 p.m. at La Peña. Cost is $10. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

“Jazz It Up” Berkeley High Fundraiser at 3 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $10. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Sarah Haili & Her Trio at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $10. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Code Name: Jonah at 11 a.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

Khalil Shaheed, Gary Brown, Glen Pearson in a benefit for Babtunde Lea’s Educultural Foundation at 7 and 9 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $15-$25. 238-9200.  

MONDAY, MARCH 10 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Art, Technology and Culture Colloquium “Looking at Looking at Looking” with Golan Levin, artist, Carnegie Mellon Univ., at 7:30 p.m. at 160 Kroeber Hall, UC Campus. 643-9565. http://atc.berkeley.edu 

Brian Fagan describes “The Great Warming: Climate Change and the Rise and Fall of Civilizations” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. 

OmniDawn Press Night with Justin Courter, Mary Mackay and Laura Moriarty at 7:30 p.m. at Moe’s Books, 2476 Telegraph Ave. 849-2087. 

Poetry Express with Karen Hogan at 7 p.m. at Priya Restaurant, 2072 San Pablo Ave. 644-3977. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Kurt Ribak, jazz, at 7 p.m. at Le Bateau Ivre, 2629 Telegraph Ave. 849-1100.  

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

Skyline High School Jazz Band at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $10. 238-9200. 

 

 


Berkeley Art Museum Presents Chagoya

By Peter Selz, Special to the Planet
Tuesday March 04, 2008
Crossing I, (1994) by Enrique Chagoya. Acrylic and oil on paper.
Crossing I, (1994) by Enrique Chagoya. Acrylic and oil on paper.

In 1971 Enrique Chagoya, as an 18-year-old student in Mexico City, participated in a student demonstration against the repressive regime and barely escaped a massacre by the police which, like the mass murder of 1968, killed hundreds of students. This was near the site where human sacrifices were performed by the Aztec priests before the Spanish conquest. Chagoya, in his paintings, codices and prints, fuses the depravities of the past with those of the present and does much more. 

In 1979, after having studied political economics at the University of Mexico, he moved to Berkeley and studied art at UC. Among the earliest works in the compelling exhibition are a series of 20 intaglio prints, grisly nightmares, locating Goya’s Los Caprichos and Disasters of War in the present. In Against the Common Good (1983), for instance, we see a smirking President Reagan as King Ferdinand VII in Goya’s print. He is equipped with bat wings and reads the new constitution which was considered a dangerous canker on the body politic of Europe, not dissimilar to Reagan’s effect on American policy. In another intaglio print, entitled Goya Meets Posada, Chagoya presents his homage to two artists who inspired much of his own work.  

These prints were first exhibited in a show at the San Francisco Art Institue in a show, “Artists Call Against U.S. Intervention in Central America” in 1984. In the same year Chagoya painted Their Freedom of Expression ... The Recovery of Their Economy. Here as in many of his works, he appropriated Mickey Mouse as an ambassador of American popular culture. Reagan, sporting the Mouse’s ears, paints the message “Ruskies and Cubans out of Central America” on the wall, while Dr. Henry Kissinger, the smaller Mouse, graffities “By the Way Keep Art out of politics.” 

The exhibition is subtitled “Borderlandia,” and the logo of the show is the painting When Paradise Arrived (1989). Here the border clash looms large in a nearly seven-foot square charcoal and pastel on paper: Mickey Mouse’s gigantic thrusting hand, with “English only” written on its middle finger, is poised to flick an innocent little Latina out of the picture, out of the country. The girl with a bleeding heart evokes the image of the virgin of Guadalupe. In The Governor’s Nightmare (1994) he fuses Meso-American culture with the political situation in California during Pete Wilson’s governorship: The Aztec Lord of the Dead sits on a pyramid, sprinkles salt on a terrified Mickey Mouse and exhorts his people to cannibalism as they devour the governor’s organs. In this picture we also see devout Christians drinking the blood of their god in a reproduction of a Spanish colonial painting of the Allegory of the Sacrament. 

There is a fine sardonic series of drawings, Poor George (2004) in the show in which our current president is irreverently mocked. This group was done in respect for Philip Guston’s caricatures of Nixon in the Poor Richard series of 1971. Goya, Posada, Guston: Chagoya has a deep reverence for kindred spirits in the history of art, who, like him, commented on mankind’s atrocities and follies. During recent years the artist also produced a number of Codices. Done on amate paper, as in pre-Columbian times, and in a way similar to the ancient text of which so many were burned by the invaders, they deal with ancient, past and current history. Chagoya’s Codices are not straight narratives. They are filled with paradox and are convoluted as well as playful at times and are charged with political and visual information. 

One large painting in the show pictures an elegant black-trousered leg and well-polished shoes stepping on upside down bare red feet that emerge from a sea of blood. Taking his cue from Hegel, Chagoya named it Thesis/Antithesis (1989). In his Artist’s Statement, he writes that his art is “a product of collisions between historical visions, ancient and modern, marginal and dominant paradigms—a thesis and antithesis—in mind of the viewer. Often the result is a nonlinear narrative with many possible interpretations.” 

 

ENRIQUE CHAGOYA:  

BORDERLANDIA 

Through May 18 at the Berkeley Art Museum, 2621 Durant Ave. Open 11 a.m.- 5 p.m. Wednesday - Sunday.


The Theater: Euripides’ ‘The Bacchae’ at Zellerback Playhouse

By Ken Bullock, Special to The Planet
Tuesday March 04, 2008

“It is impossible to pin down what Euripides’ The Bacchae is about.” Barbara Oliver, who founded the Aurora Theatre and is in residency at UC’s Department of Theater, Dance and Performance Studies to direct this peculiarly contemporary late tragedy, opens her program notes with this statement. 

Euripides is represented by more surviving plays than his older contemporaries, Aeschylus and Sophocles, probably because of the aphoristic nature of many of his speeches, which made them popular for inclusion in courses on rhetoric. Even his seemingly most thematic works are so saturated with irony (the stock-in-trade of classical tragedians) that Aristotle called him the most properly tragic of the poets. Scene by scene, his almost Mannerist plays seem to change tack internally and contradict themselves, casting light on a whole complex of things rather than on just the edifying fate of a mythic hero. And part of what they illuminate—or cast doubt on—is the very process and perspective by which this ambiguous message is received: the mounting of a play and the audience’s response to it. 

The Bacchae and Iphigenia in Aulis were brought back to Athens and staged by Euripides’ son after his death, expatriated in Macedonia. He had been an increasingly harsh critic of Athens’ role—and defeat—in the Peloponnesian War. The Bacchae to many has seemed a summation of his ironic, ambiguous attitude to his own profession, a critique of Dionysus, from whose cult Athenian tragedy originated. Others find the culmination of what they regard as his anti-Apollonian exalting of the god of wine and the irrational. Is it a mixture of the two, or putting into perspective the extremes of revivalistic religious urges and the attempt, citing reason and law, to curb them? Antonin Artaud, the poet of modern dramaturgy (and the one who coined the Nietzche-flavored term, Theater of Cruelty), who admired The Bacchae perhaps most of any play, said “In Aeschylus, Man is very evil [“mal,” also sick], but still acts like a little god. Finally with Euripides, the floodgates are open ... we slog through all that pour out ... and we don’t know where we are.” 

The UC production is up at the Zellerbach Playhouse, one of the best theaters in the Bay Area, aesthetically and technically—and with this show, a new, upgraded lighting system is inaugurated, with David Elliott’s fine design. Robert Mark Morgan’s set is a massive Grecian civic structure topped with a frieze of figures locked in struggle with walls that move to expand the playing area, or to frame silhouetted trees against the sky at the top of several flights of marble stairs.  

There are portentious special effects: claps of thunder, reverberating voices, an earthquake that brings down the cornice and its frieze at a vertiginous diagonal, metaphor for what is happening to the very state of Thebes. 

The eight-woman chorus is deployed across the stage by assistant director Marc Boucal’s movement—and in stasis, veiled figures of the chorines sitting, outlining the action of the scenes which their dancing and chanting both forecast and react to.  

The action of those scenes builds from the arrival of a stranger, a long-locked Dionysian priest, with news of the women of Thebes dancing ecstatically on Mt. Cithaeron. Pentheus, whose name signifies grief and whose regal relations are letting down their hair as Bacchantes, moves to stop the religious frenzy. Imprisoning the stranger proves fruitless; he’s freed in a quake he claims his god caused. And in a moment of mesmerism, he suggests to young turk Pentheus that he go in disguise to watch the women dance on the mountain. 

Like Romeo and Juliet, The Bacchae takes on a different tone when the principals are young actors, as the story suggests. Pentheus and the stranger, who hints he’s really Dionysus in mortal disguise, are young cousins. And Dionysus is looking for revenge over the spurning of his divinity by the family of his mother Semele, impregnated by Zeus and burned by his lightning. 

The stranger-Dionysus, featured in the curtain call, is an excellent Carl Holvick-Thomas, whose movement, voice and fluid expressions give a sinous presence—seductive, mocking and vengeful—to his role. Only his echoing voice, coming from the skies, figures in the deus-ex-machina, following the catastrophe, perhaps the most awesome and lamentable of Greek tragedy. His presence would have been better. And Theo Black proves a game Pentheus, filled with youthful martial enthusiasm and reckless pride and scorn. But he’s not given equal footing with the young priest or disguised god; the tension is not fully brought out. His fate is rendered a bit more pathetic than tragic. And the admittedly difficult final scene, the most humane moment of all, with the bacchic revelers having to contend with the awful fruit of their violent frenzy, and the scattering of the Theban founder’s family into exile, is cut short, not catching the reverberations of suddenly all-too-human heroic figures struggling with comprehending the mystery of a mythic fate. 

But the sweep—and the arabesques—of the story and its dancing choruses come through clearly enough with Oliver’s direction and in the translation of Neil Curry, which renders the unresolved meaning best in an exchange between Dionysus (“I am a god—and you spurned me!”) and Cadmus, Thebes’ founder (Ricardo Salcido), in effect: A god should not act as mortals do. 

Barbara Oliver will direct Euripides again in a few weeks for Aurora—next time, The Trojan Women. 

 

THE BACCHAE 

8 p.m. Friday and Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday at Zellerbach Playhouse, UC Berkeley campus. $8-$14. theater.berkeley.edu.


Green Neighbors: Pretty Good Tree with a Pretty Dumb Name

By Ron Sullivan
Tuesday March 04, 2008
Casaurina in Martin Luther King Jr. Regional Park, by Arrowhead Marsh, Oakland.
By Ron Sullivan
Casaurina in Martin Luther King Jr. Regional Park, by Arrowhead Marsh, Oakland.

Trust the Aussies (“…from the Land Down Under/Where the women something and the men something-else-that-rhymes with ‘under’—maybe ‘blunder’?—but definitely not whatever the women do”) to get all weird about gender issues in the unlikeliest places. They’re blessed with several species of casuarina, a useful and engagingly weird clade of trees, and what do they call them? “She-oak.” And what do they mean by that? Why, “like oak but inferior.”  

Joke, schmoke. We get it, guys; we’re just bored already. 

Not surprisingly, we have casuarinas planted here and there in the Bay Area. Lots of Australian plants thrive here, as we share a “Mediterranean” climate with much of that continent. Casaurinas (the name still in general nursery-trade use) don’t look like oaks; the dumb name is supposedly about how their lumber performs. What they look most like is pines. 

In fact, they look so much like pines that I’ve passed casaurina plantings for years before twigging to what they were. There is a fairly simple way to tell Casaurina cunninghamiana and Allocasuarina verticillata (formerly Casaurina stricta), which as far as I know are the two most common species here, from pines. Look at the branch tips: Pines’ smallest branches’ ends are blunt and rounded; casaurinas’ sweep into a point.  

When you look more closely, you might notice that the leaves, which like pines’ are reduced to needle form, have joints like those of equisetums—the horsetails or scouring rushes that turn up in damp places. They’re not cousins, though.  

The most recent taxonomic sort-out puts casuarinas in the same order as beeches (northern and southern), birches, bayberries, and walnuts. They’re a Gondwana family, from that former supercontinent: fossils have been discovered in New Zealand and South America, where no living species survive. Australia is their center of distribution, with outliers from India to Polynesia. 

As with a lot of plants these days, there’s some confusion about the names of the different species. According to Elizabeth McClintock’s Trees of Golden Gate Park, the casuarinas planted there are C. cunninghamia, the river she-oak of northern and eastern Australia, sometimes misidentified as C. equisetifolia. At least they’re still together in the genus Casuarina, many of whose members such as the former C. stricta were recently split off into Allocasuarina, hence that name change.  

Whatever their maiden names, they’re all of a very old Australian lineage. Around thirty thousand years ago, as that continent became hotter and drier, casuarinas displaced the ancient araurcarias—primitive conifers like the bunya-bunya and the recently discovered wollemi pine. They were part of a whole flora of scleromorphs, drought- and fire-adapted plants with small scaly water-conserving leaves. Later on the casuarinas were pushed aside by the eucalypts. 

Somewhere along the line, the casuarinas formed a symbiotic partnership with a soil bacterium called Frankia. Living in nodules among the roots, Frankia fixes atmospheric nitrogen and makes it available to the host plant—the same kind of arrangement that another microorganism, Rhizobium, has with the peas and their relatives. Other strains of Frankia co-occur with our native ceanothus, mountain mahogany, and alders. 

The bacterial connection may give casuarinas a competitive edge in nutrient-poor environments. Turn them loose in a warm place and they grow like weeds. They’re a huge concern in Florida, where three species—C. equisetifolia, C. cunninghamiana, and C. glauca—thrive in the alkaline, limestone-derived soils. Originally planted as ornamentals, these Australians have overgrown the habitats of endangered American crocodiles, loggerhead turtles, and gopher tortoises. Their roots suck up disproportionate amounts of soil moisture and invade water and sewer lines, and their leaves are toxic to cattle.  

But on their native turf, casuarinas play important ecological and cultural roles. They’re associated with mycorrhizal fungi that provide food—Australian truffles—for small marsupials like bandicoots and potoroos. In this, they resemble one of California’s persistent lineages, as similar “truffles” feed the squirrels in old-growth coastal redwood forests.  

Native Australians favored casuarina wood for spears, processed and ate the red sap that exudes from the trunks, and chewed the young cones for moisture during long desert treks. Tahitians also used the wood for weapons, and considered the trees as reincarnations of warriors those weapons had killed, apparently because, like them, the trees bleed red.  

The wood tends to be red too, which is why some species are called “beefwood.” Come to think of it, a friend of mine told me he’s had main courses of what he calls the Outhouse Steakback that might as well have been lumber; maybe they were piloting a crypto-vegetarian substitute. Or maybe it was an attempt at a high-fiber diet supplement.  

I await indignant correspondence from outraged Aussies. In the meantime I’ll stick to witchetty grubs. Roasted, please, and hold the Vegemite.  

 

 

Ron Sullivan is a former professional gardener and arborist. Her “Green Neighbors” column appears every other Tuesday in the Berkeley Daily Planet, alternating with Joe Eaton’s “Wild Neighbors” column. Her “Garden Variety” column appears every Friday in the Planet’s East Bay Home & Real Estate section.  

 


Berkeley This Week

Tuesday March 04, 2008

TUESDAY, MARCH 4 

Adoption Information Workshop Adopt A Special Kid will be hosting their monthly Information Workshop from 7 to 9 p.m. at 8201 Edgewater Dr. Suite 103, Oakland. Free, but RSVP to 553-1748, ext. 12. www.aask.org 

“King Corn” A documentary on raising corn at 6:30 p.m. at Oakland Museum of California, 10th and Oak St. Panel discussion follows. Free. 238-2022.  

Docent Training for Tilden Nature Area Learn to assist the naturalists in providing interpretive programs at the Little Farm and narture area gardens, from 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Fee is $35. Application required. For information call 544-3260. 

“Yoshida Shoin’s Encounter with Commodore Perry: A Review of Cultural Interaction in the Days of Japan’s Opening” with Tao Demin at 4 p.m. at Institute of east Asian Studies, 2223 Fulton St. 642-2809. 

Writer Coach Connection Volunteers needed to help Berkeley students improve their writing and critical thinking skills from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m. To register call 524-2319.  

End the Occupation Vigil every Tues. at noon at Oakland Federal Bldg., 1301 Clay St. www.epicalc.org 

Tuesday Tilden Walkers Join a few slowpoke seniors at 9:30 a.m. in the parking lot near the Little Farm for an hour or two walk. 215-7672, 524-9992. 

Teen Playreaders meets to read and discuss Hamlet and related plays at 4:30 p.m. at Claremont Branch Library, 2940 Benvenue. 981-6121. 

Family Storytime at 7 p.m. at Kensington Library, 61 Arlington Ave. 524-3043.  

Fresh Produce Stand at San Pablo Park from 3 to 6 p.m. in the Frances Albrier Community Center. Sponsored by the Ecology Center’s Farm Fresh Choice. 848-1704.  

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.  

Berkeley Camera Club meets at 7:30 p.m., at the Northbrae Community Church, 941 The Alameda. 548-3991.  

St. John’s Prime Timers meets at 9:30 a.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. 845-6830. 

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 5 

Berkeley’s Draft Climate Action Plan will be presented at the Planning Commission at 7 p.m. at the North berkeley Senior Center. www.BerkeleyClimateAction.org 

Berkeley Libraries Community Discussion on improving buildings and services at 6 p.m. at South Branch Library, 1901 Russell St. at MLK. 981-6195. 

“Unnatural Causes” A documentary on the socio-economic and racial inequities in health in the US, at 6 p.m. at Contra Costa College, Room LA 100. 235-2210.  

“Islam in the West” with Munir Jiwa, founding director of the Graduate Theological Union’s Center for Islamic Studies, at 7:30 p.m. at Northbrae Community Church, 941 The Alameda. Spaghetti dinner at 6:30 for $6. 526-3805. 

“Problems in Life and the Buddhist Way of Dealing with Them” Lecture and discusstion with Bhante Sellawimala, a Theravada Buddhist monk at 7 p.m. at Jodo Shinshu Center, 2140 Durant Ave. Free. 809-1460. 

Cycling Lecture with Gary Erikson, founder of Clif Bar, at 7 p.m. at Velo Sport Bicycles, 1615 University Ave., enter at 1989 California St. RSVP to 849-0437. 

“Learn How to Use Your GPS with Map Software” with Jeff Caulfield of National Geographic at 7 p.m. at REI, 1338 San Pablo Ave. 527-4140. 

Teen Chess Club from 3:30 to 5:30 p.m. at the North Branch Library, 1170 The Alameda at Hopkins. 981-6133. 

Walk Berkeley for Seniors meets every Wednesday at 9:30 a.m. at the Sea Breeze Market, just west of the I-80 overpass. Everyone is welcome, wear comfortable shoes and a warm hat. Heavy rain cancels. 548-9840. 

Berkeley Peace Walk and Vigil at the Berkeley BART Station, corner of Shattuck and Center. Sing for Peace at 6:30 p.m. followed by Peace Walk at 7 p.m. www 

.geocities.com/vigil4peace/vigil 

Theraputic Recreation at the Berkeley Warm Pool, Wed. at 3:30 p.m. and Sat. at 10 a.m. at the Berkeley Warm Pool, 2245 Milvia St. Cost is $4-$5. Bring a towel. 632-9369. 

Morning Meditation Every Mon., Wed., and Fri. at 7:45 a.m. at Rudramandir, 830 Bancroft Way at 6th. 486-8700. 

After-School Program Homework help, drama and music for children ages 8 to 18, every Wed. from 4 to 7:15 p.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. Cost is $5 per week. 845-6830. 

Stitch ‘n Bitch at 6:30 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

THURSDAY, MARCH 6 

Seniors Exploring Albany Bulb Walkers age 50+ will explore the wild, weedy Albany “Bulb,” where art and nature have made a strange wonderland from debris. Meet at the big heron sculpture at the foot of Buchanan St. at 9 a.m. for a two-hour walk. Wear shoes with good traction; bring water and walking sticks if you use them. Free but registration required. 524-9122, 524-9283. 

Berkeley Libraries Community Discussion on improving buildings and services at 6 p.m. at West Branch Library, 1125 University Ave. at San Pablo. 981-6195. 

Berkeley School Volunteers Orientation from 4 to 5 p.m. at 1835 Allston Way. Come learn about volunteer opportunities. 644-8833. 

Babies & Toddlers Storytime at 10:15 and 11:15 a.m. at Kensington Library, 61 Arlington Ave. 524-3043.  

Teen Book Club meets to discuss short stories at 4 p.m. at Claremont Branch Library, 2940 Benvenue. 981-6121. 

Fitness Class for 55+ at 9:15 a.m. at Jewish Community Center, 1414 Walnut St. 848-0237. 

FRIDAY, MARCH 7 

“Art is Education” A two-day conference sponsored by the Alameda County Office of Education. Opening reception at 6 p.m. at Emery Secondary School Atrium, 1100 47th St. Emeryville. Workshops on Sat. from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. at Malcoln X Elementary School in Berkeley. www.artiseducation.org 

City Commons Club Noon Luncheon with Claudia Chaufan, M.D. on “A Comparison of the German Health Care System and the U.S. Health Care System” 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.  

“I Am Not Afraid” A documentary of Rufina Amaya’s testimony as the sole survivor of the 1981 El Mozote Massacre, at the height of El Salvador's civil war, hosted by John Savant, Professor Emeritus, Dominican University, at 7 p.m. at St. Joseph the Worker School, directly behind SJW Church, 2125 Jefferson St. Not wheelchair accessible. 482-1062. 

“Tillie Olsen-A Heart in Action” Ann Hershey's new documentary at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Fellowship Unitarian Universalists Hall, 1924 Cedar St. Part of the Conscientious Film Projector Series presented by BFUU Social Justice Committee. www.bfuu.org  

“Zen on the Street” A documentary portrait of Zen Master Roshi Bernhard Glassman and his work with the homeless and the sick, at 7 p.m. at Center for Urban Peace, 2584 Martin Luther King, Jr. Way. Free, donations welcome. 866-732-2320. www.newdharma.com 

UC Berkeley Energy Symposium on topics such as Bioenergy Research at Berkeley, Advances in Green Building and Development, The Future of Nuclear Power, Transportation Sector Solutions at more, rom 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. at Martin Luther King Jr. Student Union, UC Campus. Cost is $75. berc.berkeley.edu/symposium.html 

“Weathering the Storm: Sacred Cycles of Rebirth” An all ages event celebrating International Women’s Day at 7 p.m. at the Mandela Art Center, next to the West Oakland BART at 1357 5th St. www.weekendwakeup.com 

Piedmont Yoga 21st Anniversary with sample classes throughout the weekend, at 3966 Piedmont Ave., Oakland. Suggested donation $10. 652-3336. www.piedmontyoga.com 

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, MARCH 8 

Herstory of the Bay Hike Led by naturalist Bethany Facendini. Celebrate International Women’s Day by honoring women whose environmental and historical contributions have made a difference in our community. Walk five miles along the Bay from Point Isabel to Rosie the Riveter/WWII Home Front National Historic Park and back, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Registration required. 1-888-EBPARKS. 

“Art is Education” Workshops sponsored by the Alameda County Office of Education from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. at Malcoln X Elementary School, 1731 Prince. St. www.artiseducation.org 

Berkeley Libraries Community Discussion on improving buildings and services at 2 p.m. at Claremont Branch Library, 2940 Benvenue at Ashby. 981-6195. 

“Paper Story Dress” workshop to commemorate women who have influenced our lives, from 1 to 4 p.m. at the North Berkeley Branch Library. 981-6250. 

NAACP Berkeley Branch Meeting at 1 p.m. at 2108 Russell St. 845-7416. 

”Iron-Jawed Angels” The HBO dramatization of the last decade of the suffragettes’ campaign to gain the right to vote, in celebration of Women’s History Month at 2 p.m. at the Rockridge Library, 5366 College Ave., Oakland. 

The East Bay Chapter of The Great War Society will hold its monthly meeting to discuss “George Patton: A Life” by Robert Rudolph at 10:30 p.m. at the home of Krehe Ritter, 403 Boyton, off the Arlington. 524-5762. 

Wetlands Restoration at Martin Luther King Jr. Shoreline Plant native seedlings, remove nonnative species and pick up trash, from 9 a.m. to noon. Sponsored by REI and Save the Bay. Children under 18 must be accompanied by a supervising adult. To register call 527-4140, ext. 216. 

National Nutrition Month, with cooking demonstrations, free samples and free recipes, at the Berkeley Farmers’ Market from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Center St. and Martin Luther King Jr. Way. Diabetes and hypertension screening from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. 548-3333. www.ecologycenter.org 

“Life on the Rancho” A family event to experience life in old California, with music, crafts and games, from 2 to 4 p.m. at Peralta Hacienda Historical Park, 2465 34th Ave., Oakland. Free. 532-9142. 

Strengthening Berkeley Through Organizing “Songs of Hope and Struggle” Benefit concert with Bruce Barthol and Francisco Herrera for Berkeley Organizing Congregations for Action at 7 p.m. at St. John’s Prebyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. Suggested donation $25. Reception at 5:30 p.m. 665-5821. 

BASIL Seed Library Organizing Meeting at 4 p.m. at the Ecology Center, 2530 San Pablo Ave. 658-9178. 

Walden Center and School Benefit “Celebration of the Arts” at 7 p.m. at Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley, 1 Lawson Rd., Kensington. Tickets are $45-$50. 841-7248. 

Burma Human Rights Day Benefit with a Burmese traditional dinner (vegetarian friendly), speakers, performers, film, Q&A, from 6 to 10 p.m. at Berkeley Unitarian Fellowship, 1924 Cedar. Cost is $15-$30 sliding scale donation for BADA Children Education Fund. 220-1323. www.badasf.org  

Peet’s Coffee & Tea Tour of new roastery in Alameda to celebrate Alfred Peet’s birthday, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at 2001 Harbor Way Parkway. 1-800-999-2132. www.peets.com 

The Future Leaders Institute Youth in Civic Leadership Symposium FLI students pitch their project ideas to the Bay Area community from noon to 3 p.m. at Berkeley City College, 2050 Center St. www.thefutureleadersinstitute.org  

“Schools Funding Crisis: A Town Meeting” at the Alameda Public Affairs Forum, at 7 p.m. at the Alameda Free Library, Conference Room A, 1550 Oak St. at Lincoln, Alameda. 814-9592. www.alamedaforum.org 

The Berkeley Lawn Bowling Club provides free instruction every Wed. and Sat. at 10:30 a.m. at 2270 Acton St. 841-2174.  

Oakland Artisans Marketplace Sat. from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Sun. from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Jack London Square. 238-4948. 

SUNDAY, MARCH 9 

Little Farm Open House Stop by the Little Farm to meet and learn about the animals, from 2 to 4 p.m. at Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park. 525-2233. 

Do It Yourself People’s Park Anniversary Acoustic Blowout Jam and Potluck Planning Meeting at 4 p.m. at the People’s Park Stage. 658-9178. 

“Naturally Egg-Ceptional” Learn about chickens and make naturally dyed eggs, from noon to 2 p.m., or 2 to 4 p.m. at Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park. Cost is $5-$7. 1-888-EB-PARKS. 

Memorial Service for Dr. Stanley Splitter at 2 p.m., at the Epworth United Methodist Church, 1953 Hopkins St. Reception follows.  

“The American-Israel Relationship in the Post-Bush Era” with Shmuel Rosner, chief U.S correspondent for the Israeli daily Haaretz at 7 p.m. at Congregational Beth El, 1301 Oxford St. Donation $10. 525-3582. 

“Slingshot” Local radical newspaper volunteer meeting and article brainstorming at 4 p.m. at the Long Haul, 3124 Shattuck Ave.  

Mantras of Henry Marshall, led by Marcia Emery, PhD. at 2 p.m. at Peralta Community Garden, Hopkins and Peralta. If by chance it rains, we will postpone until the following month. 526-5510. 

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 

Berkeley Chess Club meets every Sun. at 7 p.m. at the Hillside School, 1581 Le Roy Ave. 843-0150. 

Free Classes on Meditation, Dreams and Self-Knowledge at Berkeley Gnostic Center, 2510 Channing Way. For details call 1-877-GNOSIS-1. 

Tibetan Buddhism with Jared and Michelle Baird on “How to Go on a Retreat” at 6 p.m. at the Tibetan Nyingma Institute, 1815 Highland Pl. 809-1000 www.nyingmainstitute.com 

Sew Your Own Open Studio Come learn to use our industrial and domestic machines, or work on your own projects, from 4 to 8 p.m. at 84 Bolivar Dr., Aquatic Park. Also on Fri. from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Cost is $5 per hour. 644-2577. www.watersideworkshops.org 

MONDAY, MARCH 10 

An Evening with Cindy Sheehan and the El Cerrito Green Party. Peace Vigil at 5 p.m., dinner at 6:30 p.m. for $5-$10, talk at 7 p.m. at Sky Lounge, 10458 San Pablo Ave., El Cerrito, just north of Stockton St. 526-0972. 

Crisis Intervention Training Task Force meeting at 3:30 p.m. at 1947 Center St., 3rd Flr., Deodar Cedar Room. Sponsored by the Mental Health Commission. 981-5217. 

Berkeley Lab Friends of Science “Saving Power at Peak Hours” with Mary Ann Piette, LBNL scientist at 5:30 p.m. at Berkeley Rep, Roda Theater, 2025 Addison St. Free. 486-7292. 

Free Kaplan SAT vs ACT Workshop for high school students and parents at 7 p.m. at the Kensington Library, 61 Arlington Ave. Registration required at www.kaptest.com/college (event code SKBK8009). 

Berkeley CopWatch organizational meeting at 8 p.m. at 2022 Blake St. Join us to work on current issues around police misconduct. Volunteers needed. For information call 548-0425. 

Dragonboating Year round classes at the Berkeley Marina, Dock M. Meets Mon, Wed., Thurs. at 6 p.m. Sat. at 10:30 a.m. For details see www.dragonmax.org 

CITY MEETINGS 

Community Environmental Advisory Commission meets Thurs., Mar. 6, at 7 p.m., at 2118 Milvia St. Nabil Al-Hadithy, 981-7461.  

Housing Advisory Commission meets Thurs., Mar. 6, at 7 p.m., at the South Berkeley Senior Center. Oscar Sung, 981-5400.  

Landmarks Preservation Commission meets Thurs., Mar. 6, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-7419.  

Public Works Commission meets Thurs., Mar. 6, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-6406.  

Youth Commission meets Mon., Mar. 10, at 6:30 p.m., at City Council Chambers, Old City Hall. 981-6670.  

City Council meets Tues., Mar. 11, at 7 p.m in City Council Chambers. 981-6900. 

Commission on Disability meets Wed., Mar. 12, at 6:30 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-6346. 

Homeless Commission meets Wed., Mar. 12, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-5426.  

Planning Commission meets Wed., Mar. 12, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-7484. 

Police Review Commission meets Wed., Mar. 12, at 7 p.m., at the South Berkeley Senior Center, 981-4950.  

ONGOING 

E-Waste Recycling St. Vincent de Paul of Alameda County accepts electronic waste including computers, dvd players, cell phones, fax machines and many other ewaste products for disposal free of charge at many of its locations throughout Alameda County. Free bulk pick-up available. 638-7600.  

Free Tax Help If your 2007 household income was less than $42,000, you are eligible for free tax preparation from United Way's Earn it! Keep It! Save It! Sites are open now through April 15 in Alameda and Contra Costa counties. To find a site near you, call 800-358-8832. www.EarnItKeepItSaveIt.org 

Donate the Excess Fruit from Your Fruit Trees I’ll gladly pick and deliver your fruit to community programs that feed school kids, the elderly, and the hungry. The fruit trees should be located in Berkeley and organic (no pesticides). This is a free volunteer/ 

grassroots thing so join in!! To scehdule and appointment call or email 812-3369. northberkeleyharvest@gmail.com


Arts Calendar

Friday February 29, 2008

FRIDAY, FEB. 29 

THEATER 

Aurora Theatre “Satellites” at 8 p.m. at 2081 Addison St. through March 2. Tickets are $40-$42. 843-4822. www.auroratheatre.org 

Berkeley Rep ”Wishful Drinking” with Carrie Fisher, at the Roda Theater, 2015 Addison St., through March 30. Tickets are $33-$69. 647-2949. 

Central Works “Wakefield; or Hello Sophia” Thurs.-Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 5 p.m. at Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant Ave., through March 23.Tickets are $14-$25. 558-1381. 

Contra Costa Civic Theatre “The Cocoanuts” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m., some Sun. matinees at 2 p.m., at 951 Pomona Ave., at Moeser, El Cerrito, through March 2. Tickets are $15-$24. 524-9132. www.ccct.org 

Contra Costa College Drama Dept “Rivets” A musical based on Rosie the Riveter and Richmond’s Kaiser Shipyards, Thurs.-Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 3 p.m. at John and Jean Knox Center for Performing Arts, Contra Costa College Campus, San Pablo. Tickets are $10-$15. 235-7800, ext. 4274. 

Impact Theatre “Jukebox Stories: The Case of the Creamy Foam” Thurs.-Sat. at 8 p.m. at La Val’s Subterranean, 1834 Euclid Ave., through March 22. Tickets are $10-$15. 464-4468. http://impacttheatre.com 

UC Dept. of Theater “The Bacchae” at Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 p.m., through March 9 at Zellerbach Playhouse, UC Campus. Tickets are $8-$14. theater.berkeley.edu 

Virago Theatre Company “Candide” the comic opera at 8 p.m. Fri and Sat., 7 p.m. Sun. at Rhythmix Cultural Works, 2513 Blanding Ave., Alameda, through Mar. 9. Tickets are $15-$25. 865-6237. www.viragotheatre.org 

Wilde Irish Productions A Centennial Celebration of Ireland’s National Theatre Fri. and Sat. at 7:30 p.m., Sun. at 3 p.m. at The Gaia Arts Center, 2116 Allston Way. Tickets are $12-$15. 644-9940. www.wikdeirish.org 

FILM 

Jean-Pierre Léaud “La vie de Boheme” at 7 p.m. “Irma Vep” at 9 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $5.50-$9.50. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

History and Harmony Black History Concert Series with Derrick Hall & Company, Allen Temple Liturgical Dancers, and others at 7:30 p.m. at Allen Temple Baptist Church, 8501 International Blvd., Oakland. Tickets are $5-$10. 544-8924. 

In Honor of Pete Escovedo A fiesta featuring Paul Rodriguez, one of the Original Latin Kings of Comedy, and The Pete Escovedo Latin Jazz Orchestra, at 6:30 p.m. at The Oakland Scottish Rite Center, 1547 Lakeside Dr., Oakland. Tickets are $37.50-$77.50. 261-7839. www.ticketweb.com  

Sarah Cahill “Piano Works of Leo Ornstein” at 8 p.m. at Berkeley Arts Festival, 2213 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $5-$10. www.berkeleyartsfestival.com 

Opera Piccola “Mirrors of Mumbai” at 8 p.m. at the Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby Ave. Tickets are $10-$15. 658-0967. www.opera-piccola.org 

Bay Area Classical Harmonies “An Evening with Saul Kaye” at 7:30 p.m. at The Pro Arts Gallery, 550 Second St., Oakland. Tickets are $12-$18. 868-0695. www.bayareabach.org 

María Volonté “Íntima,” Argentine vocalist at 8 p.m. at La Peña. Cost is $16-$18. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

University Symphony Orchestra at 8 p.m. at Hertz Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $4-$12. 642-9988.  

Rova Saxophone Quartet at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $15. 845-5373.  

Angela Wellman Roots Sextet at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $14. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Albino, The Flux, afrobeat, revolutionary rock, at 9:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $10-$12. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

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

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

Dave Matthews Trio at 9 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810.  

Greg Lamboy, Tim Jenkins, guitar, at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

Workingman’s Ed at 9:30 p.m. at The Starry Plough. Cost is $10. 841-2082.  

Isul Kim at 10 p.m. at Beckett’s Irish Pub, 2271 Shattuck Ave. 647-1790.  

Sandy Griffith, Netta Brielle, R&B, at 9 p.m. at Maxwell’s Lounge, 341 13th St., Oakland. Cost is $10-$15. 839-6169. 

Wil Blades Quartet at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 843-8277. 

SATURDAY, MARCH 1 

CHILDREN  

Los Amiguitos de La Peña with Los Mapeches at 10:30 a.m. at La Peña. Cost is $5 for adults, $4 for children. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Andy Z, music concert, at 11 a.m. at Studio Grow, 1235 Tenth St. Cost is $7. 526-9888. 

FILM 

“Colossal Youth” with filmmaker Pedro Costa in person at 6:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $5.50-$9.50. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Bay Area Poets Coalition open reading, 3 to 5 p.m., at Strawberry Creek Lodge, 1320 Addison St. Park on the street, not in Lodge parking lot. Free. 527-9905. poetalk@aol.com  

Poetry Flash with Chad Sweeney and Rick Campbell at 7 p.m. at Cody’s on Fourth St. 559-9500. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

American Bach Soloists “Vocal Visionaries” at 8 p.m. at First Congregational Church, 2345 Channing Way. Tickets are $16-$42. 415-621-7900. www.americanabch.org  

Volti “Adventures in Earth, Wind and Fire” a cappella, at 8 P.m. at St. Mark’s Epsicopal Church, 2300 Bancroft Way. Tickets are $8-$20. 415-771-3352. www.voltisf.org 

Jerry Kuderna, piano concert, at 8 p.m. at 2213 Shattuck Ave. Sponsored by the Berkeley Arts Festival. 

Howard Kadis, guitar works of Scarlatti, Ponce, Villa-Lobos and others at 8 p.m. at Trinity Chapel, 2320 Dana St. Tickets are $8-$12. 549-3864. www.trinitychamberconcerts.com 

Kensington Symphony “Soundscapes” with Lisa Houston, mezzo-soprano at 8 p.m. at Northminster Presbyterian Church, 545 Ashbury Ave., El Cerrito. Suggested donation $12-$15, children free. 524-9912. 

Opera Piccola “Mirrors of Mumbai” at 8 p.m. at the Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby Ave. Tickets are $10-$15. 658-0967. www.opera-piccola.org 

University Symphony Orchestra at 8 p.m. at Hertz Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $4-$12. 642-9988. http://music.berkeley.edu 

Dawn Upshaw, soprano and Orquestra Los Pelegrinos at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $36-$68. 642-9988.  

A Rude Awakening, reggae, funk and hip hop with Ancient Mystic, Winstrong, Absoluther at 9:30 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $12. 849-2568.  

Zoe & Dave Ellis with Eddie Marshall at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $14. 841-JAZZ.  

Armenian Shoghaken Ensemble at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Dance lesson at 8 p.m. Cost is $tba. 525-5054.  

Sotaque Baiano, Brazilian, at 8 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low, 2284 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $10. 548-1159.  

Land of the Blind, Chris Ahlman at 7:30 p.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344.  

Blame Sally, Ashleigh Flynn at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $19.50-$20.50. 548-1761.  

Steve Erquiaga & Paul Hanson, new and old world jazz duo, at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $15-$18. 845-5373. www.jazzschool.com 

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

Goapele at 8 and 10 p.m., through Sun. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $20-$26. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

SUNDAY, MARCH 2 

CHILDREN 

Storytelling: Dr. Suess Knows Best from 2 to 3:30 p.m. at Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park. 525-2233. 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Color/Rhythms” Sculptures by Kati Casida, paintings by Celia Jackson and Harold Zegart. Opening reception at 2 p.m. at Alta Bates Summit Medical Center Community Art Gallery, 2450 Ashby Ave. 204-1667. 

Enrique Chagoya: Borderlandia Guided tour at 2 p.m. at Berkeley Art Museum. Cost is $5.50-$9.50. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

FILM 

“The Blood” with filmmaker Pedro Costa in person at 3 p.m., “Bones” at 5:30 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $5.50-$9.50. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz reads from “The Colors of Jews” at 7 p.m. at Kehilla Community Synagogue, 1300 Grand Ave., Piedmont. Donation $5-$25. 547-2424, ext. 100. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Juan del Gastor, Flamenco guitarist, at 2 p.m. at Down Home Music 1809b Fourth St. 204-9595. www.flamencofestvalsf.com 

Pacific Boychoir and Organist William Ludtke in a benefit concert for the preservation of Maybeck’s First Church at 3 p.m. at First Church of Christ Scientist, 2619 Dwight Way. Tickets are $25-$30. 925-376-3908. www.FriendsOfFirstChurch.org 

Remo, Imerald Bay, hip hop, at 9 p.m. at La Peña. Cost is $8. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Albany Big Band at 3 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $10. 841-JAZZ.  

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

Vibrafolk at 11 a.m. at Nomad Cafe, 6500 Shattuck Ave. 595-5344. www.nomadcafe.net 

Flamenco Open Stage with Sara Ayala at 7:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $10. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Gary Johnson Quintet at 4:30 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $12. 845-5373.  

Dead Prez at 7 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low. Tickets are $20-$25. 548-1159. 

MONDAY, MARCH 3 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Capturing Landscapes through Changing Technology” Photographs by Alasdair McCondochie opens at The LightRoom, 2263 Fifth St. 649-8111. www.lightroom.com 

THEATER 

Woman’s Will 10th Annual 24-Hour Playfest Playwrights, directors and actors write, rehearse and perform seven brand-new plays within 24 hours. Final performance at at 8 p.m. at Julia Morgan Center for the Arts, 2640 College Ave. Tickets are $10-$25 sliding scale. 420-0813. www.womanswill.org 

Dr. Demento Music and comedy for mature audiences at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Rep. Tickets are $25. https://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/28310 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Charlotte Grossman, television director, producer and editor at the Brown Bag Speakers Forum at 12:30 p.m. at the Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave. 526-3720. 

Cara Black reads from her eighth Soho Crime mystery, “Murder in Rue de Paradis” at 7:30 p.m. at Moe’s Books, 2476 Telegraph Ave. 849-2087. 

Poetry Express with Lucille Lang Day at 7 p.m. at Priya Restaurant, 2072 San Pablo Ave. 644-3977. 

Deepak Chopra describes “The Third Jesus: The Christ we Cannot Ignore” at 7:30 p.m. at First Congregational church of Berkeley, 2345 Channing Way. Tickets are $30. 559-9500. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Nikolay Kolev, Bulgarian, at 7 p.m. at Le Bateau Ivre, 2629 Telegraph Ave. 849-1100. www.lebateauivre.net 

Trovatore, traditional Italian music, at 7 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

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

Myra Melford.Ben Goldberg Quartet at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761.  

TUESDAY, MARCH 4 

EXHIBITIONS 

“The RISD Northern California Alumni Biennial 2008” Design work featuring local alumni from Rhode Island School of Design. Opening reception with RISD President Roger Mandle from 6 to 9 p.m. at the Oakland Art GAllery, 199 Kahn’s Alley, Oakland. www.oaklandartgallery.org 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Dan Ariely describes “Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. 

Peggy Levitt discusses “God Needs No Passport: Immigrants and the Changing American Religious Landscape” at 7:30 p.m. at First Congregational Church of Berkeley, 2345 Channing Way. Suggested donation $10. 559-9500. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Motordude Zydeco at 8:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cajun dance lesson at 8 p.m. Cost is $10. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

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

Jenny Ellis & Laura Klein, jazz, at 7 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave. 548-5198.  

Foggy Gulch Band, bluegrass, folk, country at 10 p.m. at the Uptown Nightclub, 1928 Telegraph, Oakland. 451-8100.  

Vusi Mahlasela at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $12-$20. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 5 

FILM 

“Yolanda and the Thief” with a lecture by Prof. Marilyn Fabe, at 3 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. Cost is $5.50-$9.50. 642-0808.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

“Casual Labor” New work in sculpture and photography by Alex Clausen, Zachery Royer Scholz and Kirk Stoller. Gallery conversation with the artists at 7 p.m. at Kala Art Institute, 1060 Heinz Ave. 549-2977. 

Lou Rowan and David Meltzer read at 7:30 p.m. at Moe’s Books, 2476 Telegraph Ave. 849-2087. 

François Luong, Jennifer Karmin and Michael Slosek read in celebration of the new anthology “A Sing Economy: An Anthology of Experimental Poetry” at 7:30 p.m. at Pegasus Books Downtown, 2349 Shattuck Ave. 649-1320. 

Diana Raab reads from “Regina’s Closet: Finding My Grandmother’s Secret Journal” at 7 p.m. at Laurel Bookstore, 4100 MacArthur Blvd., Oakland. 531-2073. 

Cara Black introduces her new novel “Murder on the Rue de Paradis: An Aimée Leduc Investigation” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Wednesday Noon Concert, with Rebakah Ahrendt, viola de gamba, Annette Bauer, recorder, Jonathan Rhodes Lee, harpsichord, and Jennifer Paulino, soprano, at Hertz Hall, UC Campus. Free. 642-4864. http://music.berkeley.edu 

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $34-$60. 642-9988.  

Jazz Fourtet featuring Brendan Buss at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $8. 841-JAZZ.  

Whiskey Brothers at 9 p.m. at Albatross, 1822 San Pablo Ave. 843-2473.  

Nikolev Kolev, Balkan, Bulgarian, at 8:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $12. 525-5054.  

Orquestra America at 9:30 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low. Cost is $5-$10. 548-1159.  

Battlefield Band at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761.  

Booker T. Jones at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $12-$18. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

THURSDAY, MARCH 6 

EXHIBITIONS 

Enrique Chagoya: Borderlandia Guided tour at 2 p.m. at Berkeley Art Museum. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

FILM 

Where Does Your Hidden Smile Lie?” with filmmmaker Perdo Costa in person at 6 p.m. at the Pacific Film Archive. 642-0808.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Lunch Poems with Diane Di Prima at 12:10 p.m. at the Morrison Library, inside the Doe Library, UC Campus. 642-0137. 

Speaking Fierce: Celebrate International Women’s Day with Bushra Rehman, Climbing Poetree, and Jennifer Johns at 7 p.m. at First Congregational Church, 2501 Harrison St. at 27th, Oakland. Tickets are $10-$25, no one turned away. 444-2700, ext. 305. www.coloredgirls.org 

“Revenge of the Illegal Alien” Poetry in celebration of César A. Cruz’s book, at 7:30 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $5-$15. 849-2568.  

William Wong, author of “Angel Island (Images of America)” will give a slide talk on the island and its role in Chinese American history as an immigration station, at 7 p.m. at El Cerrito Library, 6510 Stockton Ave., El Cerrito. 526-7512. 

Joshua Carver, poet, followed by open mic, at 7 p.m. at Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave., Albany. 526-3720, ext. 17. 

Dee Dee Myers explains “Why Women Should Rule the World” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books on Fourth St. 559-9500. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

The Dance, Sean Hodge with High Heat, Wagon, Last Legal Music with guest Buzzy Linhart at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $5. 525-5054.  

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater at 8 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $34-$60. 642-9988.  

Ditty Bops, Jesca Hoop at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $19.50-$20.50. 548-1761.  

Tin Cup Serenade at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $10. 841-JAZZ.  

Claudia Russell at 7 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave. 548-5198.  

Akosua Mireku, Ghanian-American, at 10 p.m. at Beckett’s Irish Pub, 2271 Shattuck Ave. 647-1790.  

Lizz Wright at 8 and 10 p.m., through Sat. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $20-$24. 238-9200.  

 


Albany Jazz Band Plays Anna’s

By Ken Bullock, Special to The Planet
Friday February 29, 2008

The Albany Jazz Band, a big band of more than 20 pieces from an Albany Unified School District adult education class, meeting and practicing Wednesday nights over the past decade in the band room at Albany High School, will make its Berkeley debut, playing two sets of swing and featuring a vocal harmony quartet, 3 p.m. Sunday at Anna’s Jazz Island. 

“It’s an amateur and semi-professional group,” said vocal director Rich Kalman of Berkeley, whose quartet, Conalma, will perform with the band Sunday afternoon, and who’s one of “a triad” taking over the responsibilities of Frank Jensen, the course’s instructor and band director on leave. “We have several really good soloists. Mostly, the members have day jobs, then come together once a week to turn out quality big band music.” 

The course and the band’s popularity is borne witness by the website, albanyjazzband.org, which announces: “All chairs currently filled except third and fourth trombones.” 

Susan Archuletta, a Berkeley school-teacher who plays alto sax “and a little clarinet and flute” with the group, emphasizes the diversity of the band: “The people are interesting. I’d like to know everybody’s story. We have public defenders, ophthomologists, retired Rabbi Stuart Kelman playing the Benny Goodman part on ‘Down South Camp Meeting’—and filling in for our director is Dr. Robert Levenson of the UC Psychology Department, head of the Psychophysiology Research Lab there, who’s a great conductor and a phenomenal tenor saxophonist.” 

Multi-instrumentalist Archuletta, whose musical career began in the ’60s with Berkeley’s Floating Lotus Magic Opera Co. and The New Age (with Pat Kilroy), has played in community orchestras of all types for years, joining the Albany Jazz Band when she met Frank Jensen photocopying flyers for the group. “I knew him as ‘Weights & Measures’—the county office he presides over!’” 

“We’ve played the Solano Stroll a couple of times,” Archuletta said, “and we perform holiday swing music every year on Solano Avenue. But we’ve never had a show in Berkeley before.” 

Sunday’s show will feature two sets “of ’30s swing, a few vocal harmony numbers, including the Andrew Sisters hit, ‘Stolen Moments’ by Oliver Nelson with Mark Murphy lyrics, ‘Vei Mir Bist Du Schoen,’ and ending on a great Dizzy Gillespie Latin-style number, ‘Manteca,’” said Kalman.  

Besides standards and showtunes, the band will play the monkeys’ song from The Lion King and a number from Porgy and Bess.  

“I’ve been singing with the band for the past year,” Kalman said. “We’ve been working the band more into a mainstream jazz mode and started featuring vocal harmony groups, which I teach, last semester. It adds a lot to the overall band sound. And Conalma is my own group. I’ve worked nightclubs, including Anna’s. It’s a positive growth experience for the musicians. Anna’s onto the idea—and she booked us!” 

 

THE ALBANY JAZZ BAND 

3 p.m. Sunday at Anna’s Jazz Island,  

2120 Allston Way. $10. 841-JAZZ.


Woman’s Will Stages 10th Annual ‘24-Hour Playfest’

By Ken Bullock, Special to The Planet
Friday February 29, 2008

Woman’s Will, Oakland’s all-female Shakespeare specialists, will stage their 10th annual 24-Hour Playfest on Monday, March 3, 8 p.m. at Julia Morgan Theater on College Ave. The night before the performance seven women playwrights, seven women directors and some 35 actors “of various persuasions” will gather at the theater to develop an overall theme, after which the playwrights write all night in an intensive creative session that results in seven new plays. The new plays are rehearsed the next morning, with tech rehearsals in the afternoon. A video highlighting the process from a past show is on the troupe’s website, www.womanswill.org 

“The results are a seat-of-the-pants performance you won’t want to miss,” said Woman’s Will founder and artistic director Erin Merritt. “There’s suspense of course—will this one go down in flames?—but the ongoing surprise over the past 10 years is how good the plays and performances really are. It’s almost like improv, but the scripts are memorized.” 

The show’s a fundraiser for the troupe, “but we’re keeping ticket prices low. There’ll also be a small silent auction.” 

The costumes and props are spare, given out the night before along with the theme. “One year, it was Prizes and Awards,” said Merritt, “like the Nobel and Pulitzer. It’s to feature how many good female playwrights, directors and actors are around. I don’t think people realize what a vast range there is. And they often don’t expect a good show, but the energy in the room from the actors is great. They work together so well—they need each other! They make big choices, what you go to the theater for. They’re contagious, high energy performances.”


The Theater: Virago Stages Voltaire’s ‘Candide’ in Alameda

By Ken Bullock, Special to The Planet
Friday February 29, 2008

Candide, Voltaire’s long, comically hair-rending parable of optimism amidst the evil in the world, occupied composer Leonard Bernstein for decades, resulting in many revisions of his intended masterwork of musical theater. Feisty Virago Theatre Company, which has taken on various theatrical challenges (including a creatively site-specific Threepenny Opera in the Alameda Oddfellows Hall), turn their greatest challenge to date into a paradox: a sprawling, three-hour show, with a six-piece chamber orchestra and cast of 13 playing over 40 roles, that is somehow intimate and refreshing, even breezy. 

Voltaire’s tale spins out a very long end to innocence, as innocuous love-child Candide, raised with the children of the gentry on a German estate that is the perfect Leibnizian monad, falls terrifically in love with Cunegunde, the daughter of the estate-holder, when the two encounter their enthusiast teacher, Dr. Pangloss, in the embrace of a buxom servant girl. When he asks for Cunegunde’s hand, Candide is summarily ousted from the domain, with nowhere to go and the wide world in front of him. 

(In his polemic against the Church and its post-Counter-Reformation apologists, as well as other creeds, Voltaire makes a perfect transposition of Genesis and the expulsion from the Garden, with Dr. Pangloss as the unwitting Tree of Knowledge in what he does, not says. It’s a Fall that the Age of Sensibility could endorse.) 

Candide, snatched up by a military recruiting party and taken to war (a real local angle for Berkeley spectators), deserts. He roams Europe and then the world, or at least South America, hoping to find his love again amidst the horrors of earthquake in Lisbon, intolerance everywhere (except the utopian El Dorado), cunning and treachery ... and he does, in fact, find everyone, including Cunegunde, over and over, even after he hears or even witnesses their diverse and terrible ends.  

Just like Candide’s hard-to-die innocence and optimism, his old friends keep popping up, telling of horrors, seemingly untouched by their ongoing prejudices and questionable actions. 

But our hero finally takes the bull by the horns after a final disillusionment in Venice, leading the rest to a valley in the Alps (which reminds him of El Dorado), where they may all live in cooperation and tend their garden. 

Bernstein’s music is as wayward as Candide himself, a panoply of styles, quotes and echoes. The half dozen musicians under David Manley keep it lively through its many and various swings in mood. John Brown makes a fine Candide, a strapping lad who approaches the blows of reality (and his role) with wide open eyes and straight-forward manner and voice. Eileen Meredith (Polly in Virago’s Threepenny) is an operatic Cunegunde, fine in her solos (like “Glitter and Be Gay”) and especially her duet with “The Old Woman,” a charming and witty Lisa Pan, assessing their chances in Uruguay, “We Are Women” (“Little women; little, little women!”). Pan herself produces a show stopper with her “Spanish” production number, “I Am Easily Assimilated,” trumping her young lovers-in-tow (as they escape post-quake Portugal and the Inquisition) with her greater tales of woe that have left her with just one buttock to sit on, though she still manages to turn the other cheek ... and live it up. 

Dale Murphy (familiar to those who follow Bay Area composer Brian Holmes’ comic operas), as narrator Voltaire and the eternal optimist Pangloss, strikes just the right genial note. Michelle Pava Mills (who played Jenny in Threepenny Opera) strikes other chords indeed (including Pangloss’s) as the pulchritudinous Paquette, met later on the Rialto as a hooker. And Abraham Aviles-Scott, an operatic tenor, does an adroit pas de deux with his moustachio as Governor in Montevideo, with an eye for Candide’s lady love. Alex Goldenberg and Anthony Shaw Abate are spirited as Candide’s friends, sympathetic comrade-in-arms Cacambo and cynical Martin, as is Sandra Rubay as the Baroness.  

Such brief mentions short-change both those mentioned and the others, onstage and off, directed with both flexibility and assuredness by Virago cofounder Laura Lundy-Paine and choreographed by Lisa Bush Finn.  

It’s a happy event, despite the worldwide attrition (all in the past, anyway), with the three hours whizzing by, all looking and sounding good against the brick walls and under the curved ceilings of Alameda’s Rhythmix Cultural Works. The edition of what many (including the composer) regard as Bernstein’s magnum opus is that of the Royal National Theatre, book by Hugh Wheeler, with Richard Wilbur’s lyrics—as well as lyrics by Lillian Hellman, Dorothy Parker, John LaTouche, Bernstein himself and Stephen Sondheim. 

 

CANDIDE 

Presented by Virago Theatre Company 

at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday and at 7 p.m. Sunday at Rhythmix Cultural Works, 2513 Blanding Ave., Alameda. $15-$25. 865-6237. www.viragotheatre.org.


Opera Piccola Presents ‘Mirrors of Mumbai’

By Ken Bullock, Special to The Planet
Friday February 29, 2008

Opera Piccola will present Mirrors of Mumbai, an original piece of musical theater about the changing life and attitudes of a family in India with connections to Silicon Valley. Written by playwright Sonal Acharya and well-known jazz artist George Brooks, who is in-residence with the troupe, with direction by Susannah Woods, it premieres tonight and tomorrow night at 8 p.m. at the Ashby Stage, and a week from Saturday night at downtown Oakland’s Malonga Casquelourd Center for the Arts on Alice Street. 

The piece uses traditional, classical and contemporary styles of music, dance and theater from both India and America. Interwoven stories of the characters show their struggle during a time of globalization and rapid change, challenging traditions of religion and family loyalty with newer ideas of freedom, material gain and individual identity.  

“The story takes place during the course of one day, during the Indian New Year’s celebration,” said Shruti Tewari, who plays the grandmother of the family. “These linked stories are presented by a maidservant, who goes in and out as an observer. The grandmother is 76, there’s an 18-year-old girl and her middle-aged parents. Their son’s in Silicon Valley, and a friend of the mother is visiting.” 

Tewari emphasized the different assumptions of the characters that are challenged: “My character has to decide whether to go on living or not. She’s used to writing off new concepts, ideas, but believes in letting the others have their own life. The parents feel the lust for money, but try to keep propriety. Their emotions are suppressed. Each character, despite strong family ties, has given up the love of who they really are. And that sense of loneliness is reflected in the music.” 

The moods shift, however, as the characters express different things, and there is humor to balance the melancholy. 

“George has very innovatively blended his jazz roots with his study of Indian classical music,” said Tewari. “There’s tabla and flute, intertwined with very Western piano. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever heard before.” 

The cast is also diverse, mostly Indian-American, but with a Filipina-American as the maid and a Latino-American as the son in Silicon Valley. 


About the House: What to Look For When Looking Under the House

By Matt Cantor
Friday February 29, 2008

I spend a lot of time under houses. This isn't glamorous but it's what I have to do in order to do my job. Actually I don't mind it much. 

I can't tell you how often I’ve been suiting up (yes, I wear a funny suit) to “get down” as it were, and had a client say to me “Well I guess this is why you get the big bucks.” Actually, I’m still waiting for the big bucks (any time now) but I think I get paid for observations, ideas and salient comments. Crawling is just something one has to do to see all parts of the patient. Same with climbing ladders. I’m more than a little acrophobic but if I don’t see it, I can’t figure out what’s wrong (turn your head to the right and cough). 

So it’s very frustrating, as it was yesterday, to get into a narrow crawlspace and find that I’m surrounded by ducting that’s about the size of a torso, sinuating through this narrow confine and disabling my ability to move about, see and discover. 

One thing that I saw yesterday and often do see is crushed sections of ducting (thus decreasing their performance) as a result of former visitors having done what it took to move about, work and see. These may have been the Wild Amoral Cableman or the Pacific Clueless Beer-Bellied Termite Inspector. You have to be very patient to actually catch one of these in the act.  

I try to move over and around ducting as I do my job but it’s really hard. Sometimes. I have to go an extra twenty-five feet just to get around a section of ducting and sometimes it can’t be done.  

Ducting isn’t the only building element that obstructs access. The way that foundation sections are poured can do that same. Also plumbing, wiring, furnaces, seismic bracing panels and abandoned equipment (Amazingly, people leave furnaces, water heaters and all sort of garbage under houses). 

While this isn’t much of a problem for the homeowner most days, it become one when they want to have almost anything done in the crawlspace including wiring, telephone repair, cable TV installation, alarm system work, plumbing. The list goes on. It also matters for inspections. It’s very hard to learn important things when you can’t move around or see. 

Also, ducting, when it’s the obstructive element, gets damaged and not just mashed in the manner I’ve described already. I see disconnected or loosely connected ducting in crawlspaces all the time. This makes it very hard to get the house warm and also increases global warming, as well as crawlspace warming and wallet de-greening. There’s little doubt that I see this more often in tight obstructed crawlspaces than in houses where the ducting is neatly hung up and out of the way where no one need climb over it. 

I should say at this point that, while nobody like a good gripe session more than me, that is not actually my intent.  

First, let me say to all the builders and architects out there that crawlspaces are just that, for crawling, not for packing full of ducting or other equipment as an unplanned afterthought. If you’ve ever been in a crawlspace looking at all this stuff, that’s what it looks like … an afterthought or better, no thought. 

If a crawlspace is three feet high (this would be a Fairmont Hotel of crawlspaces), I think that tubular flexible ducting, such as we commonly see, would be fine. There would still be at least twenty inches of space below everything to move about and see. Even two feet of height would be better than most so the message to the builder or designer is, add more crawlspace height. Current regulations require eighteen inches of height crawlspaces with certain exceptions for periodic beams intruding into that height. If small ducts are well placed in a system like this, you can still see and work but it requires some thinking to install a system that work and frankly, it’s not much height if you have large ducts. 

By the way, when ducting ends up laying on the ground, as is often the case in tight crawlspaces, it’s common to see it having been torn open and turned into a night club for Ratatouille. When their well secured to framing a foot above the ground, it’s less common simply because it’s harder to breech. 

One solution to this problem is to use shallow metal ducting attached to the bottom of the floor framing. A metal duct that is a foot wide and four inches deep is about the same volume as an eight inch flexible duct (a common size). This gains four inches of head room and also decreases the likelihood of warm air leaks and rodent raves. 

If you’re upgrading the heating in your house and your crawlspace is a little tight this is well worth thinking about. 

The same is true of water piping, waste lines and all those other things that fill these tight crawlspaces. When redoing any system, see if you can route and place these so that the space is left largely clear. You and your varied minions are more likely to catch problems in the future and any work that has to be done down under can be completed more swiftly and at lower cost. 

A seismic retrofitting job may be a protracted and costly trial if the space is filled with huge ducts and far quicker and likely cheaper if the ducting has first been upgraded and moved. 

By the way, ducted heating systems aren’t the only option for heating and a tight crawlspace might be just the added incentive to push you into a more expensive but utterly delightful radiant-floor heating system. 

This logic should be extended to other systems as well. It’s wise to be sure that all equipment gets installed in such a way as to allow for repair, replacement and inspection over the life of the system. It usually takes a little more energy to make sure that an attic, crawlspace or electrical panel is accessible but it sure can decrease excess stomach acid when you have to find or fix something. 

When building or doing a major remodeling job, one of the smartest things one can do is to involve the subcontractor at the design phase. The heating contractor is likely to point out the tight crawlspace or the lack of an adequate space for a cold air return duct to the attic (if that’s where it’s going) and can influence small changes that might be cost neutral and aesthetically insignificant at this early stage. 

Every remodel, no matter how small is a chance to look at many aspects and to ease the way for the next set of changes. While doing all these things, keep access in mind. Remember that everything you install will eventually break down and need repair and that somebody is going to have to crawl over there to get to it. I’m happy to say that new codes are better in demanding space leading to equipment like furnaces but cities are slow to apply these in older homes. 

If nothing else, this is a way of being nice to the many people who have to work in the space below your home over the years and who knows, in your next life, you may come back as a home inspector. 


Berkeley This Week

Friday February 29, 2008

FRIDAY, FEB. 29 

Golden Gate Audubon Society Trip “Aquatic Park” Meet at 9 a.m. at Seabreeze Market, corner of Frontage Rd. and University Ave. to look for ducks, grebes, egrets and passerines. Bring a scope if you have one. Heavy rain cancels. 843-2222. 

City Commons Club Noon Luncheon with Claudine Torfs, PhD., Epidemiology, on “Abortion Around the World.” Luncheon at 11:45 a.m. for $14.50, speech at 12:30 p.m., at the Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant St. 526-2925. 

“The Insurrectionary Jesus” Rev. George Baldwin, United Methodist clergyman and seminary professor, who lived in Nicaragua from 1984 to 1996 in voluntary poverty, discusses his book “A Political Reading of the Life of Jesus” at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists, 1924 Cedar St., at Bonita. Donation requested. 

International Day in Solidarity with the Haitian People Protest against the Marines in Haiti at 7:30 a.m. at the Marine Recruiting Center, 64 Shattuck Sq. 847-8657. www.haitisolidarity.net 

“Citizen King, Part II” An in depth look into Martin Luther King’s peace movement during the Vietnam War, at 7:30 p.m. at Berkeley Friends Church, Sacramento and Cedar.  

Rudramandir Open House Embodied Arts Program at 7:30 p.m. at 830 Bancroft Way, at 6th. 486-8700. 

SATURDAY, MARCH 1 

Democracy for America Electoral Campaign Training Sat. and Sun. at Berkeley High. All welcome. To register see www.dfalink.com/east_bay_training 

Nature Walk for the whole family at 10 a.m. at Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park. “Park Art” dance program at 11 a.m., noon and 1 p.m. 525-2233. 

Gardening for Butterflies and Birds Find out what native plants attract winged creatures. Bring water, and wear clothes that can get wet and dirty. For ages 8 and up, at 2:30 p.m. at Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park. 525-2233. 

Let Worms Eat Your Garbage A free workshop presented by staff from the Bay-Friendly Gardening program of Alameda County from 10 a.m. to noon at Berkeley Ecology Center, 2530 San Pablo Ave. www.BayFriendly.org 

White Elephant Sale, benefitting the Oakland Museum of California, Sat. and Sun. from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at 333 Lancaster St., at Glascock, Oakland. Free shuttle bus from the Fruitvale BART. www.museumca.org 

Oakland’s Roses Need You! Volunteers are needed from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Morcom Rose Garden, 700 Jean St. to assist city gardeners in readying the flower beds for the spring bloom. Wear long pants, long-sleeved shirts, gloves and sturdy boots. For more information or to sign up as a volunteer, please leave a message on the Rose Garden’s voicemail at 597-5039.  

Association for Women in Science Annual Winter Workshop “The Importance of Precision Questioning for Career Development” with Monica Worline of Vervago, from 8:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Bayer HealthCare Pharmaceuticals, B58 auditorium, 800 Dwight Way. Cost is $25-$50, includes breakfast and lunch. RSVP at www.acteva.com/go/sfawis/ 

“The World in a Teacup” Tracing the global journey of tea, presented by the Phoebe Hearst Museum of Anthropology from 1 to 5 p.m. at The Bancroft Hotel, 2680 Bancroft Way at College. Tickets are $18-$20. 643-7649. 

“Successful Trade Show Planning Techniques” A workshop from 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. on Mar. 1 and 8, at Berkeley City College, 2050 Center St. Cost is $20. To resgister call 981-2931. www.peralta.edu 

Rudramandir Open House Embodied Arts Program from 9:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. at 830 Bancroft Way, at 6th. 486-8700. 

The Berkeley Lawn Bowling Club provides free instruction every Wed. and Sat. at 10 a.m. at 2270 Acton St. 841-2174.  

Free Garden Tours at Regional Parks Botanic Garden Sat. and Sun. at 2 pm. Regional Parks Botanic Garden, Tilden Park. Call to confirm. 841-8732. www.nativeplants.org 

Oakland Artisans Marketplace Sat. from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Sun. from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Jack London Square. 238-4948. 

SUNDAY, MARCH 2 

EcoHouse Tour Learn about a number of improvements that can be made to an urban home including graywater systems, solar panels, on demand water heater, natural and recycled building materials, drought tolerant plants and much more. Tours at 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. in Berkeley. Cost is $10, no one turned away. Registration required. 548-2220, ext. 242. 

Spring Gardening and Planting Help move the sprouted vegetable seedlings out of the greenhouse and into the garden from 10 to 11:30 a.m. at Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park. 525-2233. 

Benefit for Ugandan AIDS Orphanage at 5, 7 and 9 p.m. at Unicorn Restaurant, 2533 Telegraph Ave. Reservations recommended. 841-8098.  

Berkeley Rep’s Family Series A monthly theater workshop for the entire family from 11. a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at Berkeley Rep School of Theatre, Nevo Education Center, 2071 Addison St. Free, but bring a book to donate to the library at John Muir Elementary School. 647-2973. 

Free Garden Tours at Regional Parks Botanic Garden in Tilden Park Sat. and Sun. at 2 p.m. Call to confirm. 841-8732.  

Lake Merritt Neighbors Organized for Peace Peace walk around the lake every Sun. Meet at 3 p.m. at the colonnade at the NE end of the lake. 763-8712. lmno4p.org 

Berkeley Chess Club meets every Sun. at 7 p.m. at the Hillside School, 1581 Le Roy Ave. 843-0150. 

Tibetan Buddhism with Donna Morton on “Opening the Senses through Tibetan Yoga” at 6 p.m. at the Tibetan Nyingma Institute, 1815 Highland Pl. 809-1000 www.nyingmainstitute.com 

Sew Your Own Open Studio Come learn to use our industrial and domestic machines, or work on your own projects, from 4 to 8 p.m. at 84 Bolivar Dr., Aquatic Park. Cost is $5 per hour. 644-2577. www.watersideworkshops.org 

MONDAY, MARCH 3  

“Caring for the Dying: the Art of Being Present” A film by Dr. Michelle Peticolas at 7 p.m. Kensington Library, 61 Arlington Avenue, Kensington. Free. 524-3043. 

Free Boatbuilding Classes for Youth Mon.-Wed. from 3 to 7 p.m. at Berkeley Boathouse, 84 Bolivar Dr., Aquatic Park. Classes cover woodworking, boatbuilding, and boat repair. 644-2577.  

Berkeley CopWatch organizational meeting at 8 p.m. at 2022 Blake St. 548-0425. 

Dragonboating Year round classes at the Berkeley Marina, Dock M. Meets Mon, Wed., Thurs. at 6 p.m. Sat. at 10:30 a.m. For details see www.dragonmax.org 

TUESDAY, MARCH 4 

Adoption Information Workshop Adopt A Special Kid will be hosting their monthly Information Workshop from 7 to 9 p.m. at 8201 Edgewater Dr. Suite 103, Oakland. Free, but RSVP to 553-1748, ext. 12. www.aask.org 

“King Corn” A documentary on raising corn at 6:30 p.m. at Oakland Museum of California, 10th and Oak St. Panel discussion follows. Free. 238-2022.  

Docent Training for Tilden Nature Area Learn to assist the naturalists in providing interpretive programs at the Little Farm and narture area gardens, from 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Fee is $35. Application required. For information call 544-3260. 

Writer Coach Connection Volunteers needed to help Berkeley students improve their writing and critical thinking skills from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m. To register call 524-2319.  

End the Occupation Vigil every Tues. at noon at Oakland Federal Bldg., 1301 Clay St. www.epicalc.org 

Tuesday Tilden Walkers Join a few slowpoke seniors at 9:30 a.m. in the parking lot near the Little Farm for an hour or two walk. 215-7672, 524-9992. 

Teen Playreaders meets to read and discuss Hamlet and related plays at 4:30 p.m. at Claremont Branch Library, 2940 Benvenue. 981-6121. 

Family Storytime at 7 p.m. at Kensington Library, 61 Arlington Ave. 524-3043.  

Fresh Produce Stand at San Pablo Park from 3 to 6 p.m. in the Frances Albrier Community Center. Sponsored by the Ecology Center’s Farm Fresh Choice. 848-1704.  

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.  

Berkeley Camera Club meets at 7:30 p.m., at the Northbrae Community Church, 941 The Alameda. 548-3991.  

St. John’s Prime Timers meets at 9:30 a.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. 845-6830. 

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 5 

Berkeley’s Draft Climate Action Plan will be presented at the Planning Commission at 7 p.m. at the North berkeley Senior Center. www.BerkeleyClimateAction.org 

Berkeley Libraries Community Discussion on improving buildings and services at 6 p.m. at South Branch Library, 1901 Russell St. at MLK. 981-6195. 

“Islam in the West” with Munir Jiwa, founding director of the Graduate Theological Union’s Center for Islamic Studies, at 7:30 p.m. at Northbrae Community Church, 941 The Alameda. Spaghetti dinner at 6:30 for $6. 526-3805. 

“Problems in Life and the Buddhist Way of Dealing with Them” Lecture and discusstion with Bhante Sellawimala, a Theravada Buddhist monk at 7 p.m. at Jodo Shinshu Center, 2140 Durant Ave. Free. 809-1460. 

Cycling Lecture with Gary Erikson, founder of Clif Bar, at 7 p.m. at Velo Sport Bicycles, 1615 University Ave., enter at 1989 California St. RSVP to 849-0437. 

“Learn How to Use Your GPS with Map Software” with Jeff Caulfield of National Geographic at 7 p.m. at REI, 1338 San Pablo Ave. 527-4140. 

Teen Chess Club from 3:30 to 5:30 p.m. at the North Branch Library, 1170 The Alameda at Hopkins. 981-6133. 

Walk Berkeley for Seniors meets every Wednesday at 9:30 a.m. at the Sea Breeze Market, just west of the I-80 overpass. Everyone is welcome, wear comfortable shoes and a warm hat. Heavy rain cancels. 548-9840. 

Berkeley Peace Walk and Vigil at the Berkeley BART Station, corner of Shattuck and Center. Sing for Peace at 6:30 p.m. followed by Peace Walk at 7 p.m. www 

.geocities.com/vigil4peace/vigil 

Theraputic Recreation at the Berkeley Warm Pool, Wed. at 3:30 p.m. and Sat. at 10 a.m. at the Berkeley Warm Pool, 2245 Milvia St. Cost is $4-$5. Bring a towel. 632-9369. 

Morning Meditation Every Mon., Wed., and Fri. at 7:45 a.m. at Rudramandir, 830 Bancroft Way at 6th. 486-8700. 

After-School Program Homework help, drama and music for children ages 8 to 18, every Wed. from 4 to 7:15 p.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. Cost is $5 per week. 845-6830. 

Stitch ‘n Bitch at 6:30 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

THURSDAY, MARCH 6 

Seniors Exploring Albany Bulb Walkers age 50+ will explore the wild, weedy Albany “Bulb,” where art and nature have made a strange wonderland from debris. Meet at the big heron sculpture at the foot of Buchanan St. at 9 a.m. for a two-hour walk. Wear shoes with good traction; bring water and walking sticks if you use them. Free but registration required. 524-9122, 524-9283. 

Berkeley Libraries Community Discussion on improving buildings and services at 6 p.m. at West Branch Library, 1125 University Ave. at San Pablo. 981-6195. 

Berkeley School Volunteers Orientation from 4 to 5 p.m. at 1835 Allston Way. Come learn about volunteer opportunities. 644-8833. 

Babies & Toddlers Storytime at 10:15 and 11:15 a.m. at Kensington Library, 61 Arlington Ave. 524-3043.  

Teen Book Club meets to discuss short stories at 4 p.m. at Claremont Branch Library, 2940 Benvenue. 981-6121. 

Fitness Class for 55+ at 9:15 a.m. at Jewish Community Center, 1414 Walnut St. 848-0237. 

CITY MEETINGS 

Peace and Justice Commission meets Mon., Mar. 3, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Manuel Hector, 981-5510.  

Community Environmental Advisory Commission meets Thurs., Mar. 6, at 7 p.m., at 2118 Milvia St. Nabil Al-Hadithy, 981-7461.  

Housing Advisory Commission meets Thurs., Mar. 6, at 7 p.m., at the South Berkeley Senior Center. Oscar Sung, 981-5400.  

Landmarks Preservation Commission meets Thurs., Mar. 6, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-7419.  

Public Works Commission meets Thurs., Mar. 6, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-6406.  

ONGOING 

E-Waste Recycling St. Vincent de Paul of Alameda County accepts electronic waste including computers, dvd players, cell phones, fax machines and many other ewaste products for disposal free of charge at many of its locations throughout Alameda County. Free bulk pick-up available. 638-7600.  

Free Tax Help If your 2007 household income was less than $42,000, you are eligible for free tax preparation from United Way's Earn it! Keep It! Save It! Sites are open now through April 15 in Alameda and Contra Costa counties. To find a site near you, call 800-358-8832. www.EarnItKeepItSaveIt.org 

Donate the Excess Fruit from Your Fruit Trees I’ll gladly pick and deliver your fruit to community programs that feed school kids, the elderly, and the hungry. The fruit trees should be located in Berkeley and organic (no pesticides). This is a free volunteer/ 

grassroots thing so join in!! To scehdule and appointment call or email 812-3369. northberkeleyharvest@gmail.com