Police are searching for a suspect connected with the murder of Maceo Smith, 33, found shot to death in broad daylight at the Douglas Parking Lot at 2542 Durant Ave. Tuesday, a block from UC Berkeley. 

Another person, who drove to Highland Hospital in Oakland with gunshot wounds immediately after the shooting, was also involved in the incident, police officials said Wednesday. 

Berkeley Police Department (BPD) spokesperson Sgt. Mary Kusmiss said Berkeley homicide detectives were following strong leads on the suspect. 

Kusmiss said a 911 call around 3:49 p.m. had alerted Berkeley police to a man with a gun at Durant and Bowditch Street. A second caller at 3:51 p.m. reported that a gunshot victim was lying in the Douglas Parking Lot, east of Top Dog restaurant at 2534 Durant Ave. 

Officers from both Berkeley and UC police found a young man on the ground—later identified by relatives as Smith, a Berkeley resident—with several gunshot wounds. He was pronounced dead by Berkeley Fire Department paramedics at the scene. 

“It was a beautiful day and we had a lot of community members out on the streets at that time,” Kusmiss said. “They have had an opportunity to speak with a number of witnesses who have shed light on pieces of the story.” 

The victim was not a UC Berkeley student or affiliated with the university, Kusmiss said. She added there was a possibility of a verbal exchange before the shots were fired but did not provide any more details.  

According to police reports, a witness reported seeing a silver Cadillac leaving the area after the gunshots were heard, and a detective from the Special Enforcement Unit spotted the car west of downtown and followed it to Highway I-580. 

The driver turned up at Highland Hospital and is being treated at for gunshot wounds that are non- life-threatening, Kusmiss said. 

“We are not offering his name as he is a victim of a violent crime,” she said Wednesday. “Detectives worked through the night and are pursuing some leads.” 

One witness told the Planet that a family member gave police a name for the second victim Tuesday. 

Shocked UC Berkeley students and passers-by watched as family and friends of the victim broke down in the middle of the street while police detectives tried to talk to them at the site of the shooting a little after 4 p.m. Tuesday. 

“He has a tattoo on his right arm,” a woman in a cream sweater told one of the detectives as she started to cry. “I don’t know anything else.”  

Smith’s mother Rita McIntyre, a food services worker at Willard Middle School, was consoling a family member and giving police her information. 

“I was in Richmond,” she told a female detective shaking her head. “I don’t know anything about this.” 

McIntyre was going to be honored at the Berkeley Unified School District’s Employee Retirement and Recognition Ceremony at 4 p.m. at the Berkeley Adult School on San Pablo Avenue Tuesday, district spokesperson Mark Coplan said. 

“She missed the ceremony,” Coplan said. “She was being recognized for 20 years of service in the district’s Nutrition Services Department. She has been a part of the Willard community for a number of years, Everything she does for Willard and Willard students is valued by the community. 

Coplan said he believed McIntyre’s entire family—including her son Maceo—had graduated from Berkeley High, and that her daughter, Maceo’s sister, also worked at Willard. 

Smith’s oldest son attends Willard Middle School and his two younger ones are students at a Berkeley elementary school, Coplan said. 

“Our sympathy goes out to Rita’s family,” Coplan said. “And we grieve with them. I am guessing Rita was on her way to the recognition ceremony when she got the news about her son. I received a phone call about it during the ceremony, but I didn’t check my messages until after 5 p.m.” 

The City of Berkeley’s mental health department is offering counseling services to students and staff at Willard, where three of Smith’s family members either work or are enrolled. 

“To my knowledge they [the family members] are not in school and won’t be for a bit,” Coplan said. 

Calls to McIntyre Wednesday from the Planet were not returned. 

Berkeley police cordoned off the area between Bowditch and Telegraph and asked people to stay clear of the crime scene. Homicide detectives were interviewing eyewitnesses in the parking lot Tuesday. 

The site now has a small shrine with votive candles and roses for Smith. 

Mona Rahmani, who owns Campus Flowers next to Top Dog, said she had heard about 10 gun shots around 3:45 p.m.  

“I saw three people running towards Telegraph,” she said. “One of them had blood on his shirt and he was limping. I thought he must have hugged the guy who was shot. I grabbed the ladies who were outside my shop and told them to come in. Everybody was terrified.”  

Rahmani said she rushed out of her shop to the parking lot, where she saw the young man lying flat on the ground with a woman she took to be his girlfriend.  

“He was bleeding and his girlfriend was screaming,” she said. “He looked African American and in his late 20s. The police took his girlfriend away. I didn’t hear any verbal arguments before the gunshots, but they are saying the boys knew each other. All this is just crazy, especially with all the graduation events happening all around the campus.”  

Right after the incident, horrified passers-by panicked and ducked under stairs and hid between buildings, Rahmani said.  

One of them, Brandy Ellison, told the Planet that a Top Dog worker told him he had heard the young men arguing before the shots were fired.  

“He heard one of them say, ‘If you are going to do me like that,’ and things to that effect, and then he heard shots,” Ellison said.  

The Top Dog employee, who did not want to be identified, told the Planet reporter he had heard four to six gun shots.  

“I thought they were firecrackers, but then I saw two people running away and one of them had blood all over his shirt,” he said.  

Around 5:45 p.m. police detectives lifted up the yellow tape and asked the family members to step inside the taped-off area. The victim’s friends and family were upset and angry because the police were not allowing them to view the body.  

“The news reporters tell us more than you do,” one of them said. “What’s the matter, why aren’t you telling us anything?” 

Tuesday’s shooting marked the fifth homicide of the year in Berkeley. UC Berkeley engineering student Chris Wootton was stabbed to death with a pocket knife near his fraternity house on Piedmont Avenue 10 days ago.  

Police arrested Berkeley City College student Andrew Hoeft-Edenfield in connection with the murder within 12 hours of the incident and the Alameda County District Attorney’s office has charged him with murder. 

BPD detectives are urging anyone that may have information regarding Tuesday’s shooting to call the BPD Homicide detail at (510) 981-5741.

Breaking with tradition, Mayor Tom Bates made his “state-of-the-city” address Tuesday night, not at a public gathering in City Council Chambers, but at a semi-private event held in a privately owned West Berkeley auditorium. 

Why no City Hall event? 

Bates reminded the gathering—invitees who had received personal e-mails from staff—that last year just as he began his state-of-the-city address, the sound system in the Council Chambers died. He ended up giving the speech with a makeshift microphone.  

This year the mayor said he took no chances. He went to the private sector—directly to the folks who know sound best in Berkeley: the event was held at Meyer Sound on Tenth Street near Heinz Street. 

The Daily Planet was not notified of the event—an invitee informed a reporter. Even though the reporter’s name did not figure on the guest list, the reporter was permitted to attend by mayoral staff. 

The hour-long—or so—speech meandered from visions of a downtown thick with luxury condos, four-star hotels, first-class theater and gourmet eateries to the greening of the city, with networks of shuttle buses, green-built high-rises and lush sports fields the East Bay Regional Parks District has christened Tom Bates Fields. 

The talk was liberally peppered with kudos by the mayor to almost all the 60 or so supporters seated in the audience, whom he thanked by name—non-profit CEOs, Chamber of Commerce leaders, school district and City College officials, developer representatives and elected officials. 

As the mayor delivered his remarks, photographs of Berkeley faded from one to the other on the high-tech screen behind him—the university, Berkeley Rep., the Rose Garden, a sunset at the Marina—nothing like the aging small screen the council and city staff use in the council chambers. 

While the city’s locked in a lawsuit with the university over a training facility and parking lot UC Berkeley wants to build next to Memorial Stadium—and may be headed down the legal-action road over labs proposed for Strawberry Creek and Blackberry canyons—the mayor said: “I don’t want to ruin relations over land-use.” 

The event culminated with a brief video that included dramatic sound by Meyer Sound showing some of the work the company does. Meyer Sound employs some 200 people in its 28-year-old West Berkeley business. The auditorium was made available to the city without cost for the event, according to John Meyer.

Four suspects stole $6,000 from the Cooperative Center Federal Credit Union at 2001 Ashby Ave. in Berkeley shortly before noon Tuesday, but they were later arrested in Oakland, according to Berkeley police spokeswoman Sgt. Mary Kusmiss. 

Kusmiss said two of the suspects were armed with shotguns when the group entered the bank at 11:58 a.m. Tuesday and a bank employee was struck in the head. 

But she said another bank employee managed to write down the license plate number of the suspects’ vehicle and they were tracked down by Oakland police at 6657 66th Ave. in East Oakland and taken into custody. 

More than two dozen people spoke to the City Council with one voice at a special meeting Monday night: placing two buildings proposed by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratories in the environmentally sensitive, landslide, wildfire and earthquake-prone area of Strawberry and Blackberry canyons is the wrong thing to do, they said. 

And the council responded by voting unanimously, with Councilmember Kriss Worthington absent, to oppose certification of the final environmental impact reports for the proposed Helios Energy Research Facility and Computer Research and Theory buildings.  

The council voted to ask the city’s planning director to send a strongly worded letter to the UC Board of Regents—the University of California manages the labs— outlining defects in the environmental documents, and to ask the Regents to hold the committee meeting at which members will vote to certify or reject the environmental documents, not by telephone conference but in Berkeley, and finally, to send video copies of Monday night’s public testimony to each Regent. 

The city has no direct control over the university and the labs, which do not have to follow city land use ordinances. If the Regents choose to ignore the council, councilmembers said they would likely sue under the California Environmental Quality Act.  

“I hope we will contest it as far as we can go,” said Councilmember Dona Spring. 

One of the buildings at issue is the CRT Facility, a 126,000 square-foot structure that would house a federal supercomputer facility now located in a leased downtown Oakland building.  

The Helios building proposed nearby would include the Energy Biosciences Institute, a partnership among UC Berkeley, LBNL and the University of Illinois, funded by BP to research biofuels. It is to be built just below the Molecular Foundry, a newly constructed building on the lab site. 

The Regents’ Building and Grounds Committee was originally to have voted on certification of environmental documents today (Tuesday), but, given city concerns, Mayor Tom Bates announced at the beginning of Monday’s meeting, that the lab director would ask the Regents to delay their decision until the end of May, when the committee would meet by telephone and vote on certification. 

LBNL staff defended the final EIR, pointing out that the buildings described there were lower than conceived when the draft environmental documents were released. Among the strongest arguments they made for placement of the buildings in the canyon area was the need for the university and the lab to be close together.  

“Part of the [Helios] project requires nanoscience,” Paul Alivisatos, professor of nanotechnology and a scientist at LBNL, told the council. Alivisatos further underscored the involvement of university graduate students.  

“I have a generation of students who want to participate,” he said. “I’ve never seen such a motivated group.” 

Jeff Philliber, introduced as the lab’s EIR expert, said that another consideration in choosing a site was the need for two separate entrances, one for those who have security clearance from the Department of Energy—the labs’ owner—and one for those who don’t. 

Some 50 people attended the meeting. With the exception of a half-dozen people present on behalf of the LBNL, the audience strongly opposed the project, mostly on environmental grounds. 

“I don’t think we have to destroy this environment to save this environment,” said Dr. Judith Epstein, a mathematician who lives south of the UC campus. 

Martha Nicoloff called on the labs to re-use buildings. “The only green building is an existing building,” she said. 

The projects are “on ground zero of one of the most dangerous earthquake faults in the country,” Pamela Shivola of the Committee to Minimize Toxic Waste told the council, calling on LBNL to consider alternative sites from Alameda to Vallejo. 

Had the original founders of the labs known the danger of the earthquake fault and of the instability of the earth in the area, they would have placed LBNL elsewhere, said neighborhood activist Juliet Lamont. “Why would we exacerbate this when we have a chance to do something different?” she asked. 

Phil Price who works at the labs pointed out that there are many different sites—including parking lots—where the buildings could be located. 

“We’re not practicing what we preach,” he said. “There’s no good reason for the lab to develop a pristine spot, while old sites are available.” 

Engineer John Shively spoke about hillside instability and traffic congestion. Marjorie Blackwell president of the Audubon Society noted that golden eagles had been seen at the site and Joe Eaton, who writes a column for the Daily Planet on wildlife, said it is habitat for the endangered Alameda whipsnake. 

A trio of costumed opponents, calling themselves the BP Bears, lauded the labs (tongue in cheek) for building a “cobalt” rather than green corridor and suggested renaming University Avenue as Gamma Ray Way.  

“Embrace the change for corporate-private partnership,” one said. 

Most the City Council spoke in opposition to the project as well, with Councilmember Max Anderson saying the city was the “victim of the tyranny of expedience.”  

Spring pointed to the problem of increasing the impact on the city’s aging stormwater system.  

While Gordon Wozniak, a retired LBNL employee, joined fellow councilmembers in the vote to oppose the EIR, he said the area where the facilities are slated to be built is not “pristine.” 

In draft letters to the Regents, Planning Director Dan Marks noted many of the same criticisms the public had expressed. He underscored questions of public safety: 

“We believe it is inappropriate to locate an additional 1,000 people ... in this highly constrained and dangerous location,” he wrote. “Should there be an earthquake or major fire, providing emergency service to this inaccessible site would be highly challenging and perhaps infeasible and evacuation of the site would be equally challenging. In the city’s view, there is already an unacceptably high risk for the existing development and placing even more development in this constrained area means putting more people at risk.” 

Marks concluded: “Finally, because of the substantial new information in the FEIR[s], the city believes there is a basis for recirculating the EIR[s] for additional public review prior to Regents’ action.” 

Although the Berkeley City Council declared the U-Haul location at 2100 San Pablo Ave. to be a nuisance and voted unanimously in October to shut it down, the business is suing the city a second time to keep its doors open. 

The city’s October use-permit revocation was the culmination of a decade of formal complaints during which the 33-year-old Berkeley business parked more trucks on its lot than permitted and allowed customers to leave trucks in the neighborhood when they returned vehicles after hours, city reports say. 

The lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Oakland May 5 says the business should be allowed to operate on environmental and civil rights’ grounds. 

“Consistent with the local green philosophy and the city’s purported policy, U-Haul has dedicated itself to protecting and preserving the surrounding environment by maintaining an environmentally friendly truck-sharing business model limiting harmful carbon dioxide emissions and removing polluting vehicles from the streets,” the complaint says. 

U-Haul’s attorneys also make an equal protection argument: “It is well recognized that as an affordable alternative, U-Haul is often the choice of protected classes of people who by definition have limited choices.”  

U-Haul appealed the city’s permit revocation in Superior Court in October. The court ruled in the city’s favor at that time, according to City Attorney Zach Cowan, who spoke to the Planet on Monday. 

The time alloted for U-Haul to appeal that decision ran out last week, Cowan said, noting that the company had taken an unusual step by filing a new lawsuit in federal court, rather than appealing the superior court decision. 

“I kind of wonder why they had to find a new court,” Cowan said. 

U-Haul spokesperson JoAnne Fried told the Planet Monday that U-Haul is exploring its legal options to respond to the Superior Court decision as well. 

Eric Crocker, president of the U-Haul Company of West Sacramento, which operates the Berkeley business, told the Planet on Friday that the company continues to operate, abiding by the conditions of the use permit, leaving gates open at night so that customers can park on the grounds, even though, he said, the result is, “there are almost nightly fuel thefts.” 

Cowan, however, said the company is operating only as a retail business—selling moving supplies, but not renting trucks. A person answering the telephone at the Berkeley U-Haul location Monday confirmed that the business no longer rents trucks. 

Tonight (Tuesday) Mayor Tom Bates will give his sixth state of the city address, according to a press release sent to some members of the media on Monday. The event will be held at 7 p.m. in the auditorium at Meyer Sound, 2837 10th St. (at Heinz). 

An RSVP is required, according to Bates’ chief of staff, Julie Sinai, since seating for the event is limited. RSVP at mayor@ci.berkeley.ca.us, or call 981-7100.  

The event, which will be broadcast on KPFB, 89.3 FM, is not announced on the city website. It will be shown on BTV, Channel 33, at 9 a.m. and 6 p.m. on Wednesday.

A group of Berkeley residents who oppose AC Transit’s Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) proposal will present city planning commissioners with their own counterproposal on Wednesday night. 

Some Telegraph Avenue merchants and residents of nearby south of campus neighborhoods have charged that the bus agency’s proposals would flood residential streets with drivers upset by avenue congestion and cause business revenues to dip. 

Commissioners gave Berkeleyans for Better Transportation Options (BBTOP) time on the agenda for a special presentation after members asked for a chance to counter AC Transit’s April 10 presentation to the panel. 

BRT would stretch along a 17-mile corridor from Berkeley to San Leandro, providing service along dedicated bus-only lanes that would reduce Telegraph in Berkeley to one lane of car traffic in either direction. 

In the five-page proposal the group has sent to the commission, BBTOP says that the “City of Berkeley declares a Rapid Bus package” as its preferred alternative providing enhanced service along the avenue and into downtown Berkeley, with “no dedicated lanes, and incremental enhancements extended across AC Transit’s broader service network.” 

Their whole proposal is available online at BBTOP’s website [http://bbtop.org/]and in the Reader Commentary section of this website. 

BBTOP has been more effective than its rival organization, Friends of BRT [http://www.friendsofbrt.org/] at turning out supporters at public hearings, and whatever decision the commission makes might not reflect the typical five-four division that marks most vote. 

For instance, Helen Burke, a commissioner who is a Sierra Club activist, has spoken in favor of BRT, while some of her colleagues in the usually development-skeptical minority of four have raised concerns about the AC Transit plan. 

In the end, the final recommendation will come from the City Council, which will have considerable say over BRT development. In San Leandro, council opposition killed dedicated bus lanes for that city, which occupies the southern terminus of the proposed BRT line. 

The proposed service line roughly parallels, albeit on a more inland route, the path of the Bay Area Rapid Transit system between the terminal cities, and the line ends at BART stations in each city, with the downtown BART station marking the Berkeley end. 

While critics say that the BRT plan would have minimal impact on car miles driven, supporters hail any measure designed to get people out of cars. 

Other action 

The two action items on the commission’s agenda are both process decisions. Commissioners will discuss and possibly adopt a work plan for the coming year, deciding what discretionary subjects to tackle and when. They’ll also hold a discussion and possible vote on scheduling special meetings to work on their own proposed changes to the Downtown Area Plan. 

The downtown plan was created over a two-year process by a City Council-appointed citizen panel,which came up with its own draft plan, and now Planning Commissioners are weighing in 

The final decision on the controversial plan, launched under the court settlement of a city lawsuit challenging the university’s plans to build 800,000 square feet of new off-campus buildings in the city center, will be made by the council, with an adoption date set by the settlement of May 25, 2009. 

If the city fails to adopt a plan approved by UC Berkeley by that date, the university may cut off funds pledged to the city in the settlement agreement. 

The commission’s agenda is available online at [http://www.cityofberkeley.info/ContentDisplay.aspx?id=13072] 

Information on the plan is available here: [http://www.cityofberkeley.info/ContentDisplay.aspx?id=832]. 

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

UC Berkeley and 11 other California institutions will share $271 million in state bond funds slated for construction of stem cell research labs, the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine announced last week. 

Berkeley’s share will be $20.1 million, with total costs to get the campus facility up an running within two years estimated at $92.6 million. 

The funds come from bonds authorized by California voters in 2004 when they passed Proposition 71, a measure enacted after the President George W. Bush announced a cutoff of federal funds for research involving new stem cell lines. 

With science journalism reporting promising hints that stem cells research offered hope for congenital and genetic disorders as well as conditions such as Alzheimer’s, 59 percent of California voters supported the measure to authorize $3 billion in bonds. 

“This will go a long way toward medical research that could save lives and improve them for people with chronic diseases,” said Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in a prepared statement released Wednesday. 

Berkeley’s Stem Cell Center unites researchers from the university, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Children’s Hospital Oakland Research institute. [stemcellcenter.berkeley.edu] 

Director of the center is bioengeering professor Randy Schekman, who also organized the Academic Senate support for the Energy Biosciences Institute, the $500 million research program funded by British oil company BP which has as its focus the creation of transportation fuels from genetically modified plants and microbes. 

The bond funding will pay for part of the costs for two floors of new lab facilities to be constructed in the Li Ka Shing Center for Biomedical and Health Sciences, which is replacing the demolished Earl Warren Jr. Hall, according to a press release by Robert Sanders of the university’s media relations office. 

Total cost of the new facilities is expected to reach $78.6 million, according to Sanders. 

Additional funds will come from Li Ka-Shing, the Hong Kong shipping magnate who gave $40 million to construct the building as well as other private and government sources.  

The bond money was awarded by the Independent Citizens Oversight Committee, the 29-member panel which administers the bond funds for the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM), the agency created by the ballot measure to oversee the research. 

Berkeley’s grant fell into the second of three funding tiers. 

The largest award, $43.6 million, went to Stanford, which will create a $200 million new facility as one of one of seven CIRM institutes, the designation for facilities receiving up to $50 million. 

Four other University of California campuses qualified for institute-level funding—San Francisco ($34.9 million), Irvine ($27.2 million), Davis ($20 million) and Los Angeles ($19.9 million)—as did the University of Southern California ($27 million) and the San Diego Consortium for Regenerative Medicine ($43 million). 

Berkeley’s grant was one of two award for CIRM Centers of Excellence, with grants of up to $25 million. The other recipient was the Buck Institute for Age Research in Novato, with $20.5 million. 

Three UC campuses won third tier CIRM Special Programs grants: Santa Cruz ($7.2 million), Merced ($4.4 million) and Santa Barbara ($3.2 million). 

According to the CIRM’s announcement of the grants, the funds “will deliver nearly 800,000 square feet of facilities with researchers in the labs within two years.” 

While the city’s $315 million 2008-09 budget looks balanced today, Berkeley could get bad news this week when the governor updates state budget woes and, perhaps, asks cities and counties to loan or give up to the state millions of dollars from their already-stretched budgets. The state is projecting a $20 billion deficit. 

The Berkeley City Council budget workshop last week kicked off the annual two-month period that culminates in budget approval. Given that 2008-09 is the second year in a mostly-set-in-stone budget—employee costs are generally considered fixed—the council has little wiggle room to advocate for special project funding. The fear at this time is that the state will take millions of dollars in permanent cuts and temporary borrowing from health care and police services.  

The $315 million draft budget reflects a 2.7 percent increase over the second year of the two-year budget adopted last year. 

City Manager Phil Kamlarz told the council he has set aside some $2 million in the 2008-2009 budget to address potential state and federal cuts, but the cuts could lead to city to an eventual deficit by fiscal year 2011. 

The manager has recommended cutting nine vacant staff positions to balance the budget. Program cuts will be considered once the state budget is finalized, Kamlarz said. 

Toward the end of the workshop, octogenarian Councilmember Betty Olds brought a moment of comic relief to the discussions, with her revenue-raising plan: people growing “pot” in the city “are making a pretty good living,” she said. 

“How are we going to tax those people?” she asked. “There might be quite a lot of money there.” 

Kamlarz responded, suggesting, “We could open a bakery next door.” 

Most the workshop was more serious, as city staff presented a balanced “all funds” budget to the council. (The all fund budget includes the general fund’s basic services—police, fire, public works, parks and more—plus special grant, state and federal monies the city receives. The projected 2008-2009 general fund budget is at about $145 million, 3.6 percent more than allocated last year.) 

“Some long-term planning puts us in a good position,” he said, noting however that employee demands for salary increases could tip the balance. Police and fire employees recently got 14 percent raises over four years. Other unions are in negotiations. 

Kamlarz himself is reportedly asking for a wage hike from a City Council subcommittee evaluating him. The manager earns about $208,000 annually, according to records posted on the city’s Human Resources website, www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/ContentDisplay.aspx?id=10792, plus about $100,000 in benefits.  

When the Planet asked during a Monday budget press briefing how large a raise he was requesting, Kamlarz said—joking, perhaps—that he was asking for less than the $316,688 salary of the city manager of Vallejo—which is now facing bankruptcy. 

(2007 salary data for the 372 Berkeley bureaucrats earning more than $100,000 can be found on the SF Gate website at: http://www.sfgate.com/webdb/berkeleypay/.) 

Asked why the city generally gives high-paid employees the same percentage raise as more modestly-paid employees—with an across-the-board 4 percent raise, a worker earning $50,000 would get a $2,000 annual raise and a worker earning $125,000 would receive a $5,000 salary hike—the manager told the Planet it is important for city workers to receive salary that will compete with that of employees in similar positions in other jurisdictions. 

In the manager’s report, however, he says: “...the only method to effectively eliminate the city’s structural deficit is through cost reductions—primarily through controlling labor costs since employee salary and benefits make up 77 percent of the city’s operating budget.” 

Some of those controls are in place, with many employees taking a voluntary monthly day off. 

Delicate balance 

The city has been able to balance its budget through improving its Business License Tax collections—by revising fees for miscategorized businesses—and generating new parking meter revenue, the city manager told the council. 

Kamlarz addressed concerns over the “pretty dramatic decrease” in the number of properties sold due to the downturn in the economy—down 17 percent from 2007—and the reduction in property transfer taxes. However, the recent sale of a $21 million building—the downtown Wells Fargo Building—helped balance out the loss in residential transfer tax revenue, he said. 

Additionally, increases in revenue from hotel taxes, better billing and collections for ambulance fees, utility users tax collections and interest income have helped balance the budget. The increase in hotel occupancy has created “a double digit increase,” Finance Manager Bob Hicks told the council. 

“Part of this balancing approach involves generating new revenue through November 2008 ballot measures for critical programs like fire and emergency services, libraries and public pools,” the manager wrote in a May 6 report to the council. 

State cuts 

State cuts in MediCal and Social Security payments to disabled people could hurt some of the most vulnerable Berkeley residents, Health and Human Services Director Fred Madrano told the Daily Planet Thursday.  

At the same time, the city’s safety net for those in need will be impacted by state and federal cuts.  

“Most of these folks [on SSI] are at poverty level,” Madrano said. “If you remove any of the support they count on, it wears away at their ability to maintain their independence.” 

The cuts could also impact city-funded clinics in the long term, as reimbursement for MediCal services begin to generate less income from the state. (No immediate impact is projected, according to the manager’s report.) 

About $1 million in state and county reductions for Berkeley’s Health and Human services have been proposed,” Madrano said, noting that decisions on program cuts will not be made until after state cuts are announced,  

Added to that is last year’s cut of about $1 million in Berkeley’s share of state funds used for housing and services for once-homeless mentally-ill persons. “Staff is developing a transition plan to deal with this dramatic program cut,” the manager’s report says. 

The HIV-AIDS program is likely to take the greatest hit in the Public Health realm, Janet Barreman, deputy health officer, told the Planet Thursday. There is likely to be a decrease in the amount of outreach to people who may be HIV positive, although the testing and referral program will not feel the impacts, she said. 

Feds cut too 

The federal budget is running at a $500 billion deficit, up from a $410 billion deficit forecast in February, according to the city staff report. 

While federal Community Development Block Grant funds that help support community nonprofits have been reduced by about $134,500 or 4 percent, funds unspent from last year will likely make up the deficit, Housing Director Jane Micallef, who heads up the CDBG program, told the Planet. 

Some community programs, however, will experience shortfalls. In 2007-2008, the city cut funds from $9,000 to $20,000 for about a dozen programs. Among them were Berkeley Food and Housing’s hot evening meal program, Building Opportunities for Self Sufficiency’s multi-service center for homeless persons, and various supportive housing programs. The city found funds to restore funding for last year’s budget only, so funds targeted for these programs fall short this year. 

Most community programs continue to be funded at last year’s levels. The program to receive the most CDBG funding from the city—at about $320,000—is an energy-efficiency program funded through the Community Energy Services Corporation, a nonprofit whose board of directors is the city’s Energy Commission. 

Police  

The police department could take a $1 million hit from the state. While the chief will determine precisely where to make cuts, police spokesperson Sgt. Mary Kusmiss told the Planet that the loss of (2004) Proposition 72 money—one of the possible state cuts—could mean a cut of four sworn officer positions. Cuts in COPS funds—a state grant—could mean the loss of three or four civilian positions, she said. The state also reimburses booking fees through the county, including costs of housing, food and medical care for arrestees. These funds may be held back by the state. 

The department is budgeted at $48 million for 2008-2009. At present, it has reported an excess of about $700,000 over the $2,382,690 budgeted for overtime. Of that, about $250,000 has been spent in overtime caused by the pro and anti-war demonstrations around the downtown Marine Recruiting Center, according to Kusmiss. 

There is also a great amount of overtime spent in homicide investigations, in which officers can sometimes work 50 hours straight on an investigation, immediately after the crime, Kusmiss said, noting “The first 48 hours are critical.” 

Patrol officers can volunteer for overtime and work up to 16 hours straight. If there is no volunteer, the department will impose overtime to cover vacant shifts, she said.  

While some officers earn huge overtime salaries, Kusmiss said that saves the city from hiring additional officers, which would cost the city more in benefits. According to the city’s human resources department, benefits cost about 50 percent of a city employee’s base salary.  

According to data on the sfgate.com web site, the three top earners in the city of Berkeley are police officers. Police Sergeant Howard Nonoguchi’s gross pay for 2007 was $217,880, which included $115,744 base pay, $73,925 overtime and other non-specified pay that could include cashing out vacation time. 

Police Lt. Wesley Hester, Jr., the city’s second-highest earner, received $217,143 in gross pay in 2007, with a base pay of $138, 933 and $11,798 in overtime pay. The third-highest earner was Police Lt. Allen Yuen, who took home a gross salary of $207,225, with base pay at $138,933 and overtime of $32,362. 

Chief Douglas Hambleton is looking for some savings in his department, and is considering hiring additional non-sworn officers, as other officers retire or leave the force, according to Kusmiss. 

Non-sworn officers cannot make arrests or investigate felonies, but can help cut down the work of sworn officers by taking reports, such as for burglarized vehicles. They can also patrol traffic. 

Fire department 

Similarly, the fire department overspent its budget in the current budget year by $700,000 for overtime. The city manager’s report says that the overtime costs are a result of 14 sworn vacancies resulting from work-related injuries, family medical leave, parental leave, long-term sick leave and military leave. 

The top earner in that department, with the eighth highest ranking in city-wide gross pay, was Fire Lt. Michael Nagamoto, whose gross pay in 2007 was $200,864, base pay, $103,818 and overtime, $27,278. 

The department’s projected budget is $24,500.

Berkeley police arrested an Oakland resident Thursday, charging that he punched a Berkeley High sophomore in the chest, pulled out a knife and chased a group of students through downtown Berkeley to the gates of the school. 

Three Berkeley High sophomores were buying lunch at E-Z Stop Deli at 2233 Shattuck Ave. around noon when they noticed a man identified as Jacoby Daniel Kirby, 28, sitting on the sidewalk asking for spare change, Berkeley Police Department spokesperson Mary Kusmiss told the Planet Friday. 

She said that Kirby told the three students he would tell them a joke for money, and that one of the 10th-graders gave Kirby a quarter, after which Kirby told a joke. 

“The student told him he had heard the joke before and that he wanted to hear a new one, for which Kirby asked for another quarter,” Kusmiss said. 

The student replied, she said, that he was not going to give Kirby any more money for his “corny” jokes, after which Kirby started making fun of the boy’s physical appearance, especially his weight. 

The students walked away from the spot, but Kirby continued his comments which led to a verbal exchange, she reported. 

“They started yelling at each other and at one point the older man brought his hand up like he was going to hit the young man,” Kusmiss said. “The young man caught his hand and the two tussled. At this point Kirby brought out his pocket knife and held it in his fist. Kirby punched the 10th-grader in the left side of his chest. The three students started running to the school with the joke-teller chasing them.” 

After the boys reached the east entrance of Berkeley High on Kittredge and Milvia streets they yelled for help. The school’s safety officers and other staff surrounded Kirby and called for emergency support on the radio. 

BPD officers showed up and took Kirby into custody on charges of brandishing a knife, bringing a weapon into the school grounds and battery. 

Police took eyewitness testimony from the students and school staff, including the school’s Dean of Discipline Alejandro Ramos, and booked the suspect into the Berkeley City Jail. 

No one was injured in the incident, Kusmiss said, although Berkeley Fire Department paramedics attended to the student who was punched after he complained of an asthmatic fit. 

BUSD spokesperson Mark Coplan alleged that Kirby had at one point attacked the student with a blunt end of the knife, but had not injured him. 

Kusmiss said Kirby is a prominent fixture in downtown Berkeley. 

“Berkeley police [are] familiar with the young man and he can be problematic,” she said. “He has been arrested for a diversity of offenses. Although the police department often gets reports about verbal exchanges with people asking for spare change, it’s not often that someone pulls out a knife. We are always concerned when something like this happens, especially when the safety of a student is concerned.” 

Thursday’s incident marked the second time in two days when police were called on campus to arrest somebody. Police arrested a Berkeley High sophomore Wednesday after he robbed a junior of his MP3 player. 

An Airsoft gun, believed to have been used by the sophomore, was later found in a backpack in the Old Gym. 

Andrew Hoeft-Edenfield—the Berkeley City College student charged with murdering UC Berkeley engineering student Chris Wootton—did not enter a plea when he appeared at the Alameda County Superior Court in Oakland Thursday. 

The attorney representing him suggested his client may be innocent. 

Conflicting statements about what happened on the night of May 3, when 21-year-old Wootton was stabbed outside the Chi Omega sorority house, might prove that Hoeft-Edenfield, 20, did not commit a crime, Deputy Public Defender Tony Cheng, who was assigned to Hoeft-Edenfield, said. 

Court records indicate that Hoeft-Edenfield's next court date, to enter a plea, is Monday. 

Cheng did not elaborate on whether Hoeft-Edenfield would be entering a self-defense plea, but said he was reviewing “conflicting statements” about what had taken place that evening. 

“I cannot comment on the facts of the case,” Cheng told the Planet in a telephone message Friday. 

Hoeft-Edenfield was arrested and booked at the Berkeley City Jail on one count of murder within 12 hours of the Saturday morning incident.  

Wootton was stabbed once in the upper left portion of his chest, between his ribs, in front of a group of students in the rear parking lot of the Chi Omega sorority house on Piedmont Avenue.  

When Berkeley police officers arrived at the scene, after receiving a 911 call about a young man brandishing a knife around 2:45 a.m., they were directed to the Sigma Pi house on Warring Street, where they found about 20 students standing around Wootton, who was bleeding. He died on the way to Eden Medical Center in Castro Valley.  

Berkeley Police Department Sgt. Mary Kusmiss said Wootton's condition was extremely critical and that he had no pulse when paramedics arrived at the scene.  

Wootton's family and friends have suggested that Wootton may have been trying to break up a fight when he got stabbed. 

Police reports indicate that a verbal exchange between students and others escalated into a physical fight which ultimately led to the stabbing.  

Eyewitness testimony, local authorities said, played an important role in finding and arresting Hoeft-Edenfield.  

Kusmiss said three UC Berkeley students-one girl and two boys-came forward with statements, which included a first name and a physical description that helped officers to create a photo line-up and eventually track him down to a friend's house in Oakland. 

Hoeft-Edenfield allegedly volunteered to go to the police station and provide details of the incident-including his involvement in the crime-to police officers after the arrest.  

“During the course of the conversation he gradually became more comfortable and confessed that he was the young man who had the knife,” Kusmiss said. “He told detectives that he felt the knife connect with something but didn't know he had stabbed someone until he was fleeing the area and saw there was blood on his hand and knife.” 

Officers discovered a bloody folding, buck-style knife on a sidewalk on Piedmont Avenue on Saturday morning during their investigations, according to Kusmiss.  

A transfer student from Alameda, Hoeft-Edenfield graduated from Berkeley High School in 2006. Berkeley Unified School District officials were unable to provide any information about him.

Berkeley police have recovered the airsoft gun allegedly belonging to the 17-year-old Berkeley High School junior who was arrested for robbing a sophomore Wednesday. 

The gun, an airsoft replica Tec-9 semi-automatic pistol, was discovered on Thursday inside a backpack in the boys' locker room in the Old Gym by a Berkeley High student who turned it over to school staff. 

A photo released by the Berkeley Police Department (BPD) shows a black Nike backpack with what appears to be “Richman Markel G. Kells” scrawled on it with a marker, an airsoft gun and a bag of pellets. 

“More and more of these replica style weapons are being used to commit robberies,” BPD spokesperson Sgt. Mary Kusmiss told the Planet. “Neither a learned officer nor a community member will be able to tell the difference between a real gun and a replica.” 

Kusmiss added that although carrying a replica gun did not constitute a crime, pellets fired from it could hurt if aimed at the head or eyes. 

“It can break the skin,” she said. “If you carry a replica weapon around, you are certainly taking a risk. Most victims of a robbery think it's real, so the fear is still there.” 

A gun scare caused Berkeley High to go under lockdown Wednesday morning while police searched the campus for the teenage suspect and his weapon. 

According to police reports, the semi-masked 11th-grader robbed a sophomore of his Creative Zen MP3 Player at Civic Center Park around 9:42 a.m., and then ran southbound across Allston Way on to the Berkeley High campus as soon as police approached the park. 

Police found the 11th-grader in Room 206 of the campus, attending class with fellow students. He was taken into custody without a struggle and booked into the Alameda County Juvenile Hall. His case will be reviewed by the BPD youth services detectives and the Alameda County District Attorney's office, after which recommendations will be made for what action should be taken against him.  

BPD officers searched the campus for a weapon which the victim said was tucked into the robber's waistband, but were unable to find anything Wednesday. 

District spokesperson Mark Coplan said the bag was found in a damaged locker in the Old Gym. 

“The Old Gym's locker rooms are pretty awful,” he said. “Outside of athletes, most kids don't use it. I don't know how it turned up there.” 

Coplan said the California Education Code forbids students to bring in replica guns. 

“I can't recall any recent cases at Berkeley High,” he said. “I have heard about pellet guns in middle school. But I think a high school kid using one for a robbery is quite different. It's not permitted on school grounds and is treated like a real weapon.” 

Airsoft guns are available in sporting goods stores, Kusmiss said, and an Internet search brings up a wide variety, with prices ranging from $15 and above depending on the brand. 

Coplan said the school was not going to beef up security because of the incident or take any immediate action against the student charged with robbery. 

“Anything we do will be pretty secondary to what the police will do,” he said. “At this point the police have taken over the investigation completely.” 

The City Council took the following actions on Tuesday, May 6: 

• The City Council approved 5-2 a resolution to rescind an April 2006 resolution, defining “cultural” activities at the Gaia Building on Allston Way. Councilmembers Darryl Moore, Max Anderson, Kriss Worthington, Dona Spring and Mayor Tom Bates voted to approve the resolution (after several failed votes). Councilmembers Gordon Wozniak and Betty Olds abstained. Councilmember Linda Maio recused herself and Councilmember Laurie Capitelli was absent. (See full story in the May 8 Daily Planet.) 

• A proposal to ask the UC Regents to delay certification of the Final Environmental Impact Report for two buildings proposed by the Lawrence Berkeley National Labs in Strawberry Creek Canyon was put off until a special meeting could be held on Monday at 7 p.m. in the Council Chambers to take up the matter. (See full story in the May 8 Daily Planet.) 

• Councilmember Linda Maio pulled a resolution to support the people of Haiti off the agenda because she objected to the United Nations military referred to as “occupying forces.” The item will come back to council at a later date. 

• With Councilmember Laurie Capitelli absent, the council unanimously approved a resolution opposing the state agriculture department spraying intended to eradicate the Light Brown Apple Moth. 

• With Capitelli absent, the council voted unanimously to refer to the city manager to include an exemption from transfer taxes for homeowners who make energy-efficient and solar improvements to their properties. 

• The council voted 6-2, with Councilmembers Gordon Wozniak and Betty Olds in opposition, and Capitelli absent, to certify that the conditions for Instant Runoff Voting had been met: that the technology is available, that IRV wouldn't preclude the city from holding consolidated elections with the county; and that IRV would not result in additional election costs. Using IRV for the November election in Berkeley hinges on federal and state certification of the IRV software. 

• The council unanimously approved recycling contracts with Stockton Recycling Company and Waste Management for sorting and recycling construction and demolition waste. 

• The council voted 7-1 for a pilot program downtown, whereby cars would be required to vacate parking spaces so that street sweepers can sweep more effectively. The program would restrict parking on the West side of Shattuck Avenue, from Hearst Avenue to Blake Street on Monday, Wednesday and Friday between 2 a.m. and 6 a.m. and on the east side of Shattuck on Tuesday and Thursday. 

A complete summary of council actions can be seen at http://www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/ContentDisplay.aspx?id=20126.  

A video of the council is available at http://www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/ContentDisplay.aspx?id=9868 

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents pick-ed up a Berkeley family around 9:30 a.m. Tuesday, during what immigration authorities called routine targeted enforcement action, and took all four family members to the Office of Detention and Removal Opera-tions in San Francisco for questioning. 

The family was released later that afternoon but will have to appear in immigration court in the future for a hearing, their lawyer said. 

The incident sparked protest among local immigrant groups and advocates and prompted the Berkeley Unified School District to send out a telephone message advising parents not to panic after rumors started circulating that ICE agents were rounding up students in Berkeley and Oakland schools. 

“It has come to our attention that the Immigration Department has picked up at least one Latino family,” the recorded telephone message from district Superintendent Bill Huyett said.  

“As a result several parents have called in concerned about their children being picked up by the immigration department. I can assure you that the school district will not allow any child to be taken away from the school. If you are concerned about your child walking home from school, please call the school and notify staff that either you or someone else is going to pick them up. If your child takes the bus home, you may wish to meet them at their regular bus stop. The Berkeley school district will work with you to keep your children as safe as possible.” 

Huyett also instructed families to call 644-6504 with any questions. 

Several calls to the Planet Tuesday afternoon reported that ICE agents had been spotted on the Berkeley High School campus and at some elementary schools which provide bilingual instruction to students. 

District spokesperson Mark Coplan told the Planet that ICE agents had not been on the high school grounds but had been seen around campus. 

“We got a call from the Berkeley Organizing Congregation for Action (BOCA) this morning telling us that one family had been arrested in Berkeley by ICE and there was a possibility of the team coming into the Berkeley schools to look for students,” he said. “So the superintendent wanted to alert the schools. We contacted all the principals and told them not to allow any federal officer access into the schools but to alert the superintendent first. However, nobody showed up.” 

ICE spokesperson Virginia Kice told the Planet the agency team had not visited any schools.  

“ICE agents are aware of the sensitivity connected with conducting searches at schools, churches and mosques,” she said. “It requires clearance at a very high level.” 

Berkeley High School students joined the Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, Integration, and Immigrant Rights and Fight for Equality by Any Means Necessary (BAMN) on the steps of the Berkeley Unified headquarters at 2134 Martin Luther King Jr. Way Wednesday to protest ICE’s actions. 

“We want the Berkeley School Board, the mayor and the City Council to declare Berkeley schools official sanctuary zones for immigrant students and their families,” said Yvette Felarca, Martin Luther King Elementary school teacher and BAMN organizer. 

Felarca read from a statement by a SF State University student—the son of one of the women ICE arrested Tuesday. 

“I am really disappointed by the assault that occurred at my apartment building yesterday in the morning,” the statement said. “We were literally taken out of our beds by the immigration officers as if we were some kind of criminals.” 

The young man criticized the officers for lying about their intentions to visit his house and for turning their immigration status into a joke. 

“They said stuff like: ‘We need to take everyone because this is like a family plan!’ and ‘You’ll get your green cards! This is like a Fast Pass to get your papers!’” his letter said, adding that the officers had threatened his family with jail. 

Wearing brown armbands to express solidarity for immigrants, a group of Berkeley students chanted “They say go back, we say fight back.” 

“We are tired of these raids,” said freshman Marnee Causey. “The fact that they were by all our school openings is sickening.” 

Student Ashley Turner said teachers drove immigrant students home to protect them and that Latino students were warned not to step off campus for lunch. 

“It was terrible,” said Caloe Nager. “We didn’t know what was going on. But our principal Jim Slemp supported us 100 percent.” 

BAMN will be marching from St. Joseph’s the Worker Church—which has a high percentage of Latino families within its congregation—on May 18 in support of immigrants. 

ICE vans were also spotted near Stonehurst Elementary in Oakland and Nystrom Elementary in Richmond Tuesday morning, according to a BAMN spokesperson. Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums and school board members came to Nystrom at the end of the school day Tuesday with immigration rights advocates. 

State Sen. Don Perata, D-Oakland, condemned the incidents and asked for “an immediate freeze on ICE raids directed at schoolchildren while legislation aiming to fix immigration is considered,” in a statement. 

Immigration rights attorney Mark Silverman, who represents the Berkeley family being detained, said ICE agents had stopped a woman who was driving her husband to the BART station and asked to see their licenses. 

“The couple didn’t have them so the officers took them back home and asked them if they had immigration status,” Silverman said in a phone interview to the Planet. “When they said no, the officers asked their daughter and her cousin, who had come over with some food. None of them was able to provide any documentation and were taken to the detention center. My big question was why they were stopped. As far as I know they did not commit any traffic violation. If that’s true, then it was a violation of their Fourth Amendment constitutional rights, which gives us the means to fight against their deportation.” 

Kice said the individuals had been arrested at their home. 

“Typically we endeavor to arrest individuals at residences,” she said. “In that way, we can ensure the safety of our officers and reduce third-party involvement. We don’t usually do traffic stops, but I will check on that.” 

Silverman said the family members were fingerprinted for prior criminal records and released after they were found to be innocent. 

“From what the couple told me, the officers did ask them if they knew such and such person,” Silverman said. 

Kice said members of ICE’s Fugitive Operations team—responsible for identifying, locating and arresting individuals who have been ordered deported by an immigration judge and have ignored orders—had a warrant for a local’s arrest when they encountered the family of four. Kice said the family was from Mexico. 

BOCA Director Andy McCombs criticized the incident. 

“It’s ridiculous,” he said. “ICE is putting fear into the whole Latino community. They did not have any arrest warrants or anything.” 

The team also arrested one immigration fugitive from Barbados in Oakland, making the total number of arrests from the Bay Area up to five, according to Kice. 

“The arrest of the family was not in any way related to last week’s enforcement on restaurants,” she said, referring to the raid on 11 taquerias in the Bay Area on Friday. 

There are five Fugitive Operations Teams in California, including two in the Bay Area. Kice said that the team had arrested 846 people between Oct. 1 and Feb. 15, of whom 612 had outstanding orders for deportation and 152 had prior criminal records in addition to having ignored deportation orders. 

A resolution passed by the Berkeley City Council in 1971 directs the Berkeley Police Department not to participate or collaborate with ICE. 

“We cannot impede them, block them or stop them, but we don’t have to participate,” said Julie Sinai, Chief of Staff to Mayor Tom Bates. 

BOCA lead organizer Belen Pulido, who went over to the family’s house while they were being questioned, said the team had stayed at the house for almost 40 minutes. 

“I asked them why they were taking the family, and the officers said they didn’t have their immigration papers,” she said. “I am concerned about the father, he is old and the ICE agents separated him from the women.” 

Silverman said the family seemed to be in good condition at the detention center. 

“Today’s arrests are the first in a while,” he told the Planet on Tuesday. “There was similar activity in the start of 2007 in Alameda and Contra Costa County, but I haven’t seen anything like this in six to seven months.”

The scattered hair lying on the front porch of the Sigma Pi fraternity house Monday sum-med up the residents’ feelings for UC Berkeley engineering student Christopher Wootton, stabbed to death early Saturday morning less than a block away—love, admiration and respect. 

Wootton’s Sigma Pi pledge brothers, their heads shaved to form a W, took turns to sweep away the remnants of hair, their pain visible. 

“We did it last night, for Chris,” one of them said, standing in front of the makeshift memorial dotted with flowers, cards, candles and pictures. 

Little has surfaced about the incident which left Wootton dead and sent waves of shock through the entire university a week before finals.  

Police reports indicate a verbal exchange between students and others escalated into a physical fight which led to the stabbing. The report did not rule out the role of alcohol in the fight. 

Officers from the Berkeley Police Department arrested Berkeley City College student Andrew Hoeft-Edenfield, 20, and charged him with the murder. He is currently being held in Santa Rita Jail and is scheduled to appear today (Thurs-day) for a hearing at the Alameda County Superior Court. 

Eye witness testimony, local authorities said, played an important role in finding and arresting Hoeft-Edenfield.  

UC Berkeley senior Jason Overman told the Planet he was shaken by the incident, which occurred right outside his apartment building on Warring Street. 

“To think that someone would come into our community wielding a knife, and would do something this heinous, it makes me very angry,” he said.  

More than 100 UC Berkeley students, faculty and fraternity members turned up for Wootton’s memorial service on the steps of Sproul Plaza Tuesday. 

“He accomplished a lot of good in a life cut tragically short,” said Wootton’s research supervisor at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Dr. Steven Lund, praising Wootton’s research in accelerator physics. “I think Chris’s desire to participate in this research was driven by his desire to help and to have an influence in a pressing problem.” 

Wootton’s friends gathered around a picture of him taken on a beach on the Sproul Hall steps Tuesday. 

One of Wootton’s professors, Dr. Brian Wirth, referred to him as “Nuclear God,” a nickname given to him by his friends. 

“Somebody said he was the closest thing to Superman, and he’s right,” said another friend, visiting from San Diego. 

Wootton’s girlfriend, Brandy DeOrnellas, spoke of how Wootton always put family and friends before success. “Chris would want us to tell you something and that the most important thing is love,” she said. 

Wootton, who grew up in Bellflower, in Los Angeles County, graduated with honors from Mayfair High School, his cousin Nicole Stewart told the Planet. “He was a good kid, it doesn’t make any sense,” she told the Planet over the phone from Wootton’s grandmother’s house in Lakewood. 

Stewart, who drove down from Olympia, Wash., after hearing the news, said the whole family was in shock. “He had everything going for him and now he won’t be able to experience life,” she said.  

Wootton’s grandmother, Sharon Priddy, said she had purchased tickets to fly down to Berkeley with her son and grandson for Wootton’s graduation scheduled to take place next month. His family will be in Berkeley on May 25 to receive his diploma. 

Wootton’s brother Josh, a student at Cal State Long Beach, said he had flown down to Berkeley with their father, a computer programmer, on Saturday evening. 

“I had my phone turned off, so I got the message really late, around 9:30 a.m,” he said. “We are all going to miss him. We are four years apart but I am close to him as if we had been born a day apart.” 

Josh and his father flew back with Wootton’s body Tuesday to Southern California for the funeral—which a group of his friends from Berkeley will attend. 

A message written by Wootton, placed below his picture at the memorial site in front of Sigma Pi reads, “I want to focus the rest of my life on being a good man and improving myself as much as possible. I am also always looking to have some fun, make some friends and live some good stories. Life is simple, focus on the people and things you love—Chris.” 

Next to it, his girlfriend Brandy, wrote: “I’m so sorry this happened baby. Please watch over me. I need you.” 

Most of Wootton’s pledge brothers described him as their “big brother.” 

“We are similar in a lot of ways,” said one. “He was always standing up for us, sacrificing for the good of the group. A really good role model. If people were bored, he would come in and make the party fun.” 

Ryan Rudnitsky, another of Wootton’s fraternity brothers, said he had known Chris since he was a freshman. 

“He was a very charismatic person,” Rudnitsky told the Planet. “Everybody loved his personality. He was someone that could get a whole group excited to do an activity. He just had that appeal to everyone.” 

Rudnitsky said Wootton was concentrating on alternative energy methods and had a 3.85 GPA. 

“He loved the fraternity,” he said. “He took so many positions in the house and still had time to get amazing grades, hang out with his girlfriend, and have his own social life. He was just a happy guy, inside and out. He had so much promise for the world.” 

Pictures of Wootton with his fraternity brothers on his MySpace page show the nuclear engineering major as a fun-loving person who loved his family, friends and Jesus Christ. “I am a devoted Sigma Pi for life,” a blurb on his Stars and Striped MySpace page says.  

“I am graduating this upcoming May and probably going to Graduate School to pursue a Master or Doctorate in Nuclear Engineering, or just work in the industry … or who knows?” Wootton wrote. “I can’t rock out enough and I’m a die-hard Dodger fan. I’m easy-going and enjoy reuniting with old friends so please say hello.”  

But a blog entry which Wootton wrote on April 16, 2006, which has been cited by many Internet commentators on stories about his death, paints a different picture of the victim. 

There Wootton recounts, in vivid language, taking part, along with six of his fraternity “bros,” in a drunken group beating of someone he accuses of having “disrespected” one of their number.  

“You probably know me pretty well if you’re reading this and the word fight is most likely a shock to you coming from my weekend story but .... it has happened,” he wrote.  

The nuclear engineering department held a memorial service for Chris on Monday where students shared memories about him with his family and signed condolence messages. 

One of his professors, Jasmina Vujic, praised Wootton. “He was one of the best students,” said Vujic, who taught him NE162. “Very intelligent, exceptionally motivated and hard working.” 

Vujic said the department had decided to honor its top student with the “Chris Wootton Best Student” award starting this year. 

“Just about two weeks ago we sent him a letter informing him he had been admitted to our master’s program,” Vujic said. “He was so happy. We are all extremely heartbroken.” 

Vujic said he had heard that Wootton might have been trying to be a peacemaker when he was killed. 

“Chris’s brother told me that Chris had called 911 to say somebody had a knife and that he wanted to break up a fight,” Vujic said. “The question everyone is asking is why he wasn’t taken to a nearer hospital, regardless of all the hospitals being full, and instead taken to Castro Valley.” 

The last murder of a UC Berkeley student was in 1998, when 20-year-old Kenneth Ishida, a UC Berkeley senior, was kidnapped from the garage of his Channing Way apartment building by a Richmond couple and found shot to death in a downtown Vallejo alley.

A brazen Friday night shooting of two young brothers in a troubled south Berkeley neighborhood has renewed calls for a greater police presence there. (The Planet is witholding their names because of their age.) 

The first shooting was followed by a second 40 minutes later at 63rd and Herzog streets in North Oakland, less than a block outside the Berkeley city limits. The gravely injured victim there was Poitier McDaniel of Berkeley.  

While the news media fo-cused on a campus murder and a hostage standoff in the Berkeley hills, some citizens who live near the intersection of Sacramento and Oregon streets wondered on Tuesday why they couldn’t get more attention from City Hall and police headquarters. 

A dispute that erupted on the street about 9:45 p.m. Friday ended in gunfire at Bob’s Liquors on that corner. A 16-year-old was shot three times, said one neighbor who declined to be identified by name. He said he had not been questioned by police although he saw the shooting. 

Ayodele Nzinga, the mother of the boys who were the targets of the attack, said the Berkeley police have refused to return her calls about it. Police also did not return the Daily Planet’s calls about the shooting. 

Nzinga said two men, both armed, had followed one of her sons into the store and shot the other one when he rushed into the store on hearing his brother’s call for help. 

In the second shooting, the 29-year-old McDaniel was shot three times from behind after he and three friends were approached by two men who told them they couldn’t be on the street, said Dana McDaniel, his mother. 

“It may be the same two people,” she said. 

Getting on-the-record comments in the Sacramento Street shooting has proven difficult, with many neighbors refusing to be quoted by name for fear of possible reprisals. 

The youths who were at-tacked in Berkeley were members of a local hip hop group, and Nzinga said both had prior run-ins with police, which she said was the result of growing up in public housing in a neighborhood with many ex-felons. 

Another neighbor, Daniel Miller, who works at Spiral Gardens nursery on Sacra-mento just across from the shooting scene on Oregon, said he didn’t see the shooting itself, but came outside moments later. 

“Apparently there was an altercation outside,” and a young man ran inside the store, where he was shot, Miller said. 

Miller described the injured youth as “a very upstanding fellow” who “seemed like he was putting his life together. He’s been through a lot, but mostly he acted in a pretty noble manner and with a lot of character.” 

But some other neighbors said they believed that the youth and his companion had been involved in neighborhood altercations and that at least one had been arrested as the result of a violent incident involving another youth. 

“They’ve had problems,” Nzinga said. “But we live in South Berkeley.” 

She said the incident began when the two youths, ages 18 and 16, stopped by the store. The 18-year-old went in to buy gum, and when he was leaving “he was accosted by two armed gunmen who pistol-whipped him.” 

The youth fled into the store and ran to the back, calling out for his younger brother. When the boy entered the store, he was shot three times, once in the stomach and twice in the sides, she said. One slug bruised his aorta and missed his heart by a quarter-inch. 

Nzinga said she had repeatedly called the Berkeley police in hopes of arranging protection for her sons, “but they never call me back.” 

The Oakland police did call, she said, and interviewed her because of similarities to another incident in that city. 

The surrounding neighborhood has seen a relatively high rate of violence and property crimes over the last six months, according to Berkeley Police figures gleaned from the department’s Community Crime View website. (www.ci.berkeley. ca.us/ContentDisplay.aspx?id=7060). 

Over the past six months prior to Friday night’s incident, the area within a thousand feet of the intersection has seen three assaults with a deadly weapon, four robberies, a carjacking, ten residential burglaries, three commercial burglaries, eight drug arrests, a dozen car thefts and 41 loud reports, which most typically are calls reporting gunshots. 

“There’s a lot of crime here,” said a neighborhood merchant. “We’ve been trying to get a meeting with the city manager and chief of police but so far nothing’s happened.” 

Another merchant said that for a time police had bicycle patrols in Beats 12 and 13, which fall on either side of Sacramento Street. “It works a lot better when the officers know the neighbors,” he said. 

“They were dealing drugs up and down the street and we couldn’t get the police to come,” said a merchant. 

Miller acknowledged that violence isn’t unusual in the neighborhood. “There’s at least one shooting every six months,” he said. But he also said police typically respond too heavily, and he charged that officers frequently forced young men to lie down while they hold “exotic” weapons on them. 

But “after they find a couple of dime bags and make some arrests, then there’s no longer any police presence,” he said. 

McDaniel, who lives at the intersection of Mabel Street and Ashby Avenue, said her son had been walking home with three friends at the time of the shooting. 

A large man who enjoys working out, he may have been singled out for attack because he is larger than his friends, she said. She said someone had called out to the shooters, “They’re cool, they’re cool” in the seconds before the shots were fired. 

“They heard the gun being cocked and that’s when they took off running,” she said. McDaniel said her son was struck by three bullets fired from behind, one severing his femoral artery. 

“He bled out on the street, and they brought him back,” she said, after his heart stopped several times. 

McDaniel said surgeons had operated on her son several times after the shooting and were undertaking yet another operation Wednesday afternoon in an effort to save his leg.

The District Attorney’s office charged Berkeley City College student Andrew Hoeft-Edenfield, 20, with murder in the stabbing death of UC Berkeley engineering student Chris Wootton Tues-day afternoon. 

Hoeft-Edenfield was arrested and booked at the Berkeley City Jail on one count of murder within 12 hours of the Saturday morning incident. 

Dressed in yellow jail clothes and sporting a crew-cut, Hoeft-Edenfield appeared in Alameda County Superior Court briefly on Tuesday and will return to court today (Thursday) to be assigned an attorney and possibly enter a plea. 

“We got the news at 2 p.m. that the DA’s office had reviewed his case and has decided to charge him with murder,” Berkeley Police Department spokesperson Sgt. Mary Kusmiss told the Planet.  

Wootton was stabbed once in the upper left portion of his chest, between his ribs, in front of a group of students in the rear parking lot of the Chi Omega sorority house on Piedmont Avenue. 

When Berkeley police officers arrived at the scene after receiving a 911 call about a young man brandishing a knife around 2:45 a.m., they were directed to the Sigma Pi residence on Warring Street, where they found about 20 students standing around Wootton, who was bleeding. He died on the way to Eden Medical Center in Castro Valley. 

Kusmiss said Wootton’s condition had been extremely critical and that he had no pulse when paramedics arrived at the scene. 

Calls to Hoeft-Edenfield’s mother Ellen, who lives with him in Berkeley, were not returned.  

She told reporters outside court, “We do feel this case is a tragedy. We do grieve for the Wootton family and I’m so sorry.” 

San Francisco Deputy Public Defender Rebecca Young, who accompanied Hoeft-Edenfield’s mother and said she’s a family friend, told reporters Hoeft-Edenfield “is not someone who glorifies violence or tries to lord it over someone.” 

Young said Hoeft-Edenfield “is a decent, sweet kid who was pulling his life together and had a girlfriend and was saving his money for college,” and added, “I’ve known Andrew since he was six years old and he hasn’t been in trouble before and this is a shock.” 

Young, who said her son grew up with Hoeft-Edenfield in Oakland and Berkeley, said Hoeft-Edenfield “was goofy and liked to be the class clown and was fun-loving and respectful.” 

A transfer student from Alameda, Hoeft-Edenfield graduated from Berkeley High School in 2006. Berkeley Unified School District officials were unable to provide any information about him. 

A Jan. 17, 2006, story in the Planet quotes Hoeft-Edenfield as supporting Berkeley High’s on-site suspension plan, in which students were to serve suspensions at school rather than being sent home. He told the Planet at the time that that he had not gotten into any fights since his transfer to the school. 

Berkeley Unified volunteer Yolanda Huang, who wrote the story, said she didn’t want to comment on Hoeft-Edenfield. 

“I don’t think Andrew should talk to the press either,” she said. “His lawyer will do all the talking.” 

Several people have suggested that Wootton may have been trying to break up the fight when he got stabbed. 

Police reports indicate that a verbal exchange between local students and some other people escalated into a physical fight that ultimately led to the stabbing. The report did not rule out the role of alcohol in the fight. 

Eyewitness testimony, local authorities said, played an important role in finding and arresting Hoeft-Edenfield. 

Kusmiss said three UC Berkeley students—one girl and two boys—came forward with statements, which included a first name and a physical description that helped officers to create a photo line-up. 

Officers were able to track him down at a friend’s house in Oakland, where he was staying overnight. 

According to Kusmiss, Hoeft-Edenfield volunteered to come down to the police department and provided details of the incident—including his involvement in the crime—to the police after the arrest. 

“During the course of the conversation he gradually became more comfortable and confessed that he was the young man who had the knife,” she said. 

Kusmiss said a verbal exchange between the suspect and a friend and some other guys—reportedly fraternity brothers—about pride and some form of disrespect had quickly evolved into a full-scale physical fight involving 20 young men, during which Hoeft-Edenfield, who still had the knife, stabbed Wootton. 

“During the interview he told detectives that he felt the knife connect with something but didn’t know he had stabbed someone until he was fleeing the area and saw there was blood on his hand and knife,” Kusmiss said. “The detectives eventually told him that Wootton had died from the stab.” 

The suspect is alleged to have fled westbound on Channing Way. Officers discovered a bloody folding, buck-style knife on a sidewalk on Piedmont Avenue on Saturday morning during their investigations, according to Kusmiss. 

Bay City News contributed to this story.

Rep. John Conyers, chair of the House Judiciary Committee, didn’t mince words in a recent letter to the Drug Enforcement Agency asking for a response to allegations that the agency has stepped up raids on dispensaries of medical marijuana. 

He wrote the “DEA has dramatically intensified the frequency of paramilitary-style enforcement raids against individuals qualified to use medical cannabis under state law, their caregivers, and the dispensing collectives established to provide a safe place to access medical cannabis.” 

Conyers’ April 29 letter responded to calls from the mayors and city councils of San Francisco and Oakland, calling for oversight hearings in the judiciary committee regarded DEA tactics. (See full letter at http://www.AmericansForSafeAccess.org/ConyersLetter.) 

According to Becky DeKeuster, Berkeley Patients Group Community Liaison, this letter is a preliminary step toward the committee’s holding full oversight hearings. 

While Conyers’ letter to Acting Administrator Michele Leonhart did not reference Berkeley, Mayor Tom Bates had added Berkeley’s voice to the call for oversight hearings into DEA tactics used against medical marijuana dispensaries.  

“We urgently need help from our congressional leaders to stem this federal interference in state health care law,” Bates wrote Conyers on April 24.  

Although California voters approved the Medical Use of Marijuana Initiative (Proposition 215) in 1996 by 56 percent—86 percent of Berkeley voters said “yes”—the DEA continues to undermine state and local laws protecting medical marijuana dispensaries, DeKeuster told the Planet. 

In July, the California Patients Group in West Hollywood, described by DeKeuster as a “sister” group to the Berkeley Patients Group, was raided by the DEA. “The facility was forced to close,” she said.  

A few days later in Berkeley, the DEA, in conjunction with the Los Angeles Police Department, froze the $4,500 in the BPG’s bank account and the next day seized the funds.  

The assets have not been returned, DeKeuster said.  

A growing problem for medical marijuana dispensaries across the state is that the DEA is pressuring landlords not to rent to medical marijuana distributors, although this has not been the case with the BPG. “It doesn’t matter how upstanding the dispensary is,” DeKeuster told the Planet. “Property owners are scared.”  

Conyers referenced this problem in his letter to the DEA: “It has also come to my attention that DEA has sent hundreds of letters to property owners who lease property to medical cannabis dispensaries, threatening them with arrest and forfeiture of their property.” 

In Bates’ letter to Conyers, he described the Berkeley dispensaries: “Our three dispensaries have each been in operation for nearly a decade now, providing vital medicine and other wellness services to qualified patients. They are regulated, tax-paying members of our community, maintain clean, safe properties and play an active role in Berkeley’s civic life.”  

On Jan. 29, the Berkeley City Council unanimously approved a resolution authored by Councilmembers Kriss Worthington and Darryl Moore “opposing the attempts by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration to close medical marijuana dispensaries and declaring the City of Berkeley as a sanctuary for medicinal cannabis use, cultivation, and distribution.”  

The resolution asked the Berkeley Police Department not to cooperate with DEA investigations or raids of medical marijuana patients, caregivers and dispensaries. (Item 27: www.ci.berkeley. ca.us/ ContentDisplay.aspx?id=9868).  

To resolve issues between the DEA and local jurisdictions, Conyers’ letter to the DEA suggests “the creation of an intergovernmental commission comprised of law enforcement, law makers and people affected by the laws, to review policy and provide recommendations that aim to bring harmony to federal and state laws.”

UC Berkeley officials briefed the Berkeley Landmarks Preservation Commission (LPC) last week on several campus project sites still in the planning phase at landmarked buildings and sites. 

The university’s Assistant Vice Chancellor of Physical and Environmental Planning Capital Projects Emily Marthinsen joined UC Berkeley’s Associate Director of Physical and Environmental Planning Beth Piatnitza to give the commission a presentation on May 1.  

They began with the proposed Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAM/PFA) at 2120 Oxford St., the site of the landmarked UC Print Plant building. 

The project would demolish the plant building as well as the neighboring 250-car parking structure to develop a new home for the university’s art museum and film archive currently housed in seismically unsafe structures on Bancroft Way. 

The proposal, recently approved by the UC Regents, is at the pre-planning stage.  

Architect Toyo Ito’s conceptual plans for the new three-story building include a café and primary entrance on Center Street, and a “public meander” on the building’s ground floor, with an additional entrance at Addison and Oxford streets. 

According to a university report, the campus briefly considered reusing the old printing building, but abandoned the idea due to prohibitive costs. 

The report said the proposed design would contribute to a more vibrant downtown arts scene. 

“Organic forms in a grid pattern in the new design bridge the city grid and the campus park,” Marthinsen said. 

She added that her team would not present the proposed design to the board but that university officials would make design presentations to the Planning Commission and the Design Review Committee, in accordance with provisions of the university’s 2020 Long Range Development Plan (LRDP) in May. 

The new museum, designed to meet LEED-Silver standards, is scheduled to be completed in 2013. 

Lawrence Robert Rinder, who replaced Jacquelynn Baas as BAM/PFA director last month, will lead the museum through the design and implementation phase, Marthinsen said. 

The University Hall Annex, a UC-owned site on Addison Street, has been discussed as a possible parking site to address the loss of parking downtown. 

Preliminary plans for the existing Ciampi art museum on Bancroft include using the building as academic and support space for campus units with existing space deficits. 

Designed by Mario Ciampi and completed in 1971, the Ciampi art museum is listed on the State Historic Resources Inventory and is considered a significant modern structure of the New Brutalism School. 

A temporary partial seismic retrofit in 2001 elevated it from a “very poor” seismic standard to “poor.” 

According to university officials, reassigning the building to other uses could allow the campus to install interior shear walls for strengthening in order to improve seismic safety. 

Marthinsen said the BAM/PFA project and the city’s Downtown Area Plan were complementary but separate efforts. 

The Downtown Area Plan calls for commission review and an EIR in 2008 before heading to adoption by the City Council in 2009. 

Piatnitza gave the commission an overview of the restoration and expansion plan for the nationally landmarked Naval Architecture Building on the north edge of the main campus. 

Expansion proposals call for building an approximately 13,000-square-foot addition between the Naval Architecture Building and North Gate Hall to house the dean’s office and other programs. 

The parking lot to the west of the historic Anna Head School on the south side of the campus has been designated as a site for undergraduate student housing, Piatnitza said. 

The proposal goes back to the 1977 City of Berkeley General Plan and the 1990 Long Range Development Plan, according to a report from the university.  

UC Berkeley’s Residential and Student Services Program proposes to construct a residence hall and apartment complex to continue their program in order to meet the 2020 LRDP undergraduate student housing goals. 

The design’s first phase includes a master plan of the entire site to address the relationship of the housing project to the Anna Head complex, which is listed as a National Register of Historic Place and on the State Historic Resources Inventory and is a City of Berkeley Landmark. 

“We don’t know how most of the projects will turn out,” Marthinsen said. “It’s still pretty early.” 

“I am hopeful, cautious, scared,” Landmarks Commissioner Carrie Olson said in reply. “There are issues I am really concerned about, especially the addition to the Naval Architecture Building.” 

Plans to seismically upgrade the Hearst Memorial Gymnasium include turning it into a hub for student activities and a fitness center.  

Designed by Bernard Maybeck and Julia Morgan, the Hearst Gymnasium for Women is significant because of its association with Phoebe Apperson Hearst and her son, William Randolph Hearst. 

The building, which opened in 1927 as the “largest and most modern gym for women in the country,” currently houses an outdoor swimming pool, classrooms, offices, space for physical activities and a part of the Phoebe Hearst Museum of Anthropology collection. 

The university is also considering an underground addition on the north side to house the collection. 

Plans to renovate the 205-bed male residence Bowles Hall include selective seismic strengthening and rehabilitation of the facade and historic steel windows. 

Landmarks Chair Steven Winkel told Marthinsen the commission would like to see the projects individually in the future. 

LPC agenda: www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/ContentDisplay. aspx?id=13016. 

More information on the proposed UC Berkeley projects: www.cp. 

berkeley.edu/CP/PEP/History/ 

planninghistory.html.

The wisdom of siting new laboratory facilities proposed by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratories in the “pristine” Strawberry Creek Canyon area was strongly questioned by members of the public and several councilmembers at the Tuesday evening Berkeley City Council meeting. 

After lengthy discussion, the council put off action around the issue, calling for a special council meeting at 7 p.m., Monday, May 12. The meeting will be held in the council chambers in the Maudelle Shirek building. 

At issue is the certification by the UC Regents, which manages the labs, of final environmental documents for two buildings. The final environmental impact reports (FEIR) for the certification of the Computational Research and Theory Facility (CRT) and the Helios Energy Research Facility are on the agenda for the Regents’ May 13-14 meeting. The documents were released April 28. 

Concerned about possible environmental degradation to the canyon and wildlife there and encouraged by the 100 or so members of the Save Strawberry Creek group, Councilmember Betty Olds put forward the recommendation that was considered by the council: to have the city manager request that the Regents delay certification for 30 days to allow the city further time to review the environmental documents. 

Olds recommended that the council oppose certification of the FEIRs if the Regents refused. 

Instead of making a decision, the council voted unanimously to schedule the special council meeting, at which time the planning director will report to the council on the environmental documents. In the interim, the mayor will be able to speak with lab managers, encouraging them to pressure the Regents for the delay. 

“The redesign of the buildings [changes subsequent to the draft EIR] is good, but we don’t know exactly what they are. It takes a while to read these things,” Olds told the council, speaking in favor of her recommendation. 

Public speakers pointed to some 88 redwoods that the projects would remove and said the canyons are home to endangered species, including the Alameda whipsnake. Further, Berkeley resident Jean Bernardi pointed out that if the nearby proposed training facility adjacent to Memorial Stadium is approved by the courts, the impact on the area will be heightened. 

One of the proposed buildings the Computational Research and Theory Facility (CRT), is a 126,000 square-foot building that would house 300 offices.  

The second, the Helios Energy Research Facility, will include the Energy Biosciences Institute, a partnership among UC Berkeley, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the University of Illinois and funded by BP, to research biofuels. It is to be built just below the Molecular Foundry, another new building at the lab site.  

Speaking for the labs, Helios project manager Joe Harkin noted that the proposed building had been reduced from 160,000 to 145,000 gross square feet and the roadway was reconfigured to “minimize” the removal of mature redwood trees. In response to calls to locate the facility at the university’s Richmond Field Station, Harkin said siting the facility next to the Molecular Foundry, a recently built structure, “is critical to its mission.” The Molecular Foundry is involved with nanotechnology research. 

“The lab has overbuilt this site already—I guess they’ve decided to cover every blade of grass,” Councilmember Dona Spring told the council. Pointing to earthquake and fire danger, Spring called the project, “a disaster waiting to happen,” and added, “It destroys one of the most beautiful canyons we have.” 

Spring said the reason it is being built is “it’s a gravy train—there’s money to be made. Money from the feds keeps rolling in. This is bad corporate welfare—part of the industrial-war complex.” 

Spring further chastised the labs—and the university, by extension—for “not paying their fair share” of costs such as the roads leading up to the labs and for storm drains. “We’re subsidizing you millions of dollars per year,” she said. 

Jerry O’Hearn, Planning Design & Construction Department head in the Facilities Division of LBNL, told the council that the distance between the Richmond Field Station and the LBNL made the project impractical to locate in Richmond. “The distance would not meet our objective of cross collaboration with the campus.” 

It needs to be in Berkeley “to continue our collaboration with the campus and  

to provide cross-disciplinary research,” O’Hearn said. 

CRT is now located in Oakland, but O’Hearn said the site there is constrained by size and availability of electrical power.  

Councilmember Gordon Wozniak, a retired LBNL employee, defended the proposed projects, saying it was a plus that development was concentrated in research parks, leaving much of the area open space.  

“I heard people saying that Strawberry Canyon is a beautiful pristine place. The reason it is undeveloped is that UC, to a large degree, owns it and will continue to maintain it that way,” he said, contrasting the canyon to the developed hillsides around it, such as the Panoramic Hill neighborhood.  

The labs “are concentrating development,” he said. 

Wozniak added that the research to be carried out in the buildings is consistent with the city’s commitment to reducing greenhouse gas emissions.  

“CRT will do climate modeling, so they can see regional impacts” of climate change, he said. “Helios is also directed at climate change. It is to generate liquid fuels from biological projects and the sun. You can’t think of better projects. To delay it on technicalities is not a good strategy.” 

Further championing the project, Wozniak pointed to the “good jobs, green jobs” the project would create, as well as “spin-offs” for Berkeley, Oakland and Richmond from the project.  

Asked to support a 30-day delay, O’Hearn pointed out that the Regents meet only every two months. If they were to delay certifying the FEIR at the May meeting, they would not be able to consider it again until July. Construction delays cost around $600,000-$700,000 per month, he said.  

“I’m dismayed that we have so little time,” said Mayor Tom Bates, adding that he didn’t want “to go down the path” to a lawsuit.  

“It’s a mistake to jam us,” he said, calling for the special meeting on Monday “It will be infinitely better to give us the time” than to go to court, he said. 

Asked to weigh in on the projects, Planning Director Dan Marks said he had time only to read the CRT FEIR and had yet to look at the Helios document. He said he needed more time to say whether he thought the environmental documents should be recirculated. 

The CRT is a completely redesigned, better project, he said, noting, that while the new design makes the building less intrusive, it is “still a very large, very bulky building.” 

Moreover, he said, “The fundamental question has not been answered—what are the alternatives?” 

Marks concluded, “It’s not a great site for the continued expansion of the lab.”  

Further reading: the reaction to the draft EIR: www.berkeleydailyplanet.com/issue/2007-12-21/article/28764. 

On the environment of the proposed site: 

www.berkeleydaily.org/issue/2008-04-22/article/29809.

The Gaia Building on Allston Way was back before the council Tuesday. 

After much debate—and perhaps some backroom doings—the council voted 5–2 to comply with a court order to rescind an action it took in April 2006 regarding the use of “cultural space” at the building. 

The basis for the dispute that has raged for at least five years was that the city gave the building developer Patrick Kennedy permission to add height to the Gaia Building above zoning limits in exchange for a promise to use the first two floors for cultural uses. 

The question that came before the council in April 2006 was: how much cultural space and how much time devoted to culture—and what is the definition of culture—is needed to satisfy the requirement for cultural space? 

The resolution that the council rescinded Tuesday had defined cultural space according to a 2003 letter by a former planning manager.  

Berkeley resident Patti Dacey and her attorney Anna De Leon—owner of Anna's Jazz Island located in the Gaia Building—sued the city in superior court, alleging that the council had abused its discretion in defining the amount of time and space that was to be used for cultural activities. 

Siding with De Leon, the court ordered the council to rescind the resolution. 

While Acting City Attorney Zach Cowan, who had lost the case in court, argued that the resolution should be rescinded, he also said the council should instruct the zoning board on the interpretation of cultural space at the Gaia Building.  

De Leon and Dacey were at the meeting and argued vehemently that doing so would be a continued abuse of council discretion and that the council role should be limited to doing what the judge had ordered: rescinding the original resolution. 

Kennedy no longer owns the building but manages cultural activities there. He spoke to the council and said he might sue the city if the council refused to communicate with the zoning board on the question of cultural uses at the building.  

“It’s imperative to include other information,” Kennedy said. 

With Councilmember Linda Maio recusing herself—her husband has rented space from Kennedy—and Councilmember Laurie Capitelli absent, the council was unable to get five votes either for rescinding the resolution only (the original vote to rescind was Councilmembers Darryl Moore, Max Anderson, Dona Spring and Kriss Worthington voting in favor; Councilmembers Betty Olds and Gordon Wozniak voting in opposition; and Mayor Tom Bates abstaining) or to put the question over until the next meeting. (The vote to do so was Bates, Olds, Worthington and Wozniak in favor and Moore, Anderson and Spring abstaining.) 

At that point in the meeting, with no decision made, Bates called for a break, saying he wanted to allow the captioner (captions are typed for deaf and hard-of-hearing persons) a break.  

During the break, while some members of the public speculated that the council would continue to discuss the item when it returned, Councilmember Anderson was heard to say of his colleagues: “They’re more afraid of Kennedy than the judge.”  

De Leon and Dacey both told the Planet they were incredulous that the council could ignore a judge’s order and promised to be back in court. 

As it turned out, that was not necessary. It appeared that some members of the council had caucused during the break and a vote was taken to take up the question again. 

This time, the council voted 5-2 to rescind the April 2006 resolution, without giving any advice to the Zoning Adjustments Board. It would be up to the owner of the property to bring the issue back to the ZAB, councilmembers said. 

Moore, Anderson, Spring, Worthington and Bates voted in favor of the motion to rescind the resolution; Olds and Wozniak abstained.

The Daily Planet sat down with the four candidates in the California Assembly District 14 race, and asked them their views on various issues: health care, education, and economic development. The Planet is presenting some of their responses, continuing here with the economy. Their views on health care were published in the April 25 issue. 

Tony Thurmond 

In a word, it’s jobs. We need to increase the number of jobs in the Assembly district and in the state. 

Part of that development should be in green technology. I’m thinking about the pre-apprenticeship training program in Richmond that I helped to get started called Richmond Build. It’s a construction training program. We’ve graduated about three classes in this program. And one of the components that our graduates are being trained in is solar panel installation. So they can command a higher wage if they can go to a job and say they already have a skill, they have the capacity to do solar panel installation. I think it goes even beyond that. I know that there are venture capitalists who are looking to invest in all types of technology that can create alternative types of energy. They’re investing in wind, solar. I think that the state has to invest in these new forms of technology for us to have new energy sources and to allow us to lower our carbon footprint. So it’s a win-win. It’s good for the environment. To me it’s akin to what the internet must have meant to California ten years ago and what Silicon Valley meant to California ten years ago. This is our next opportunity, and if we spend some money to train people in the new technologies that are going to be coming online so they can earn those better wages, so that we can make sure that youth are more competitive and more prepared for the jobs of the future, we are basically investing in our future. 

And I think we shouldn’t forget about small businesses that are in the inner cities. In green technologies. Perhaps we can provide tax incentives for small businesses. We know the larger corporations will get them. We know that the venture capitalists will get them. We should be looking at small businesses. That’s where the majority of our jobs are going to come from. There’s going to be a need for the small businesses to service the larger companies that provide some of the larger products of green technology. And if you look in Richmond, many of these businesses may be minority-wned, they may be women-owned, but no matter what, they’re community-based. And they’re going to hire local people. They’re going to hire people that are coming out of our apprenticeship training programs in high school. They’re going to hire people who are looking for their first job out of high school or out of a community college or a four-year college. And we can use tax incentives for those companies to provide green products and hire local people. 

Legislatively, you can look at the investments the state makes every year. We invest tremendous amounts of money in all kinds of markets. If you look at the investments we make from our retirement pool, we could be investing those dollars into sustainable technology, making very smart and strategic investments that don’t present any additional risk, so that we’re protecting the benefits of our retirees. The treasurer of our state has great access to wealth and can invest that in a number of portfolios. And in the legislature, we should be directing that this is a priority, that we want to invest in more of these technological opportunities that are going to create jobs. 

The other area where we should be investing is in our infrastructure. We have neglected our roads. Local municipalities can’t keep up with their streets and roads and other infrastructure repairs, infrastructure that supports public transportation, improves roads, improves schools. We should be re-investing our resources there. This is not the time to cut. This is the time to spend, but to spend wisely, in a way that creates more jobs. The bond measures passed in 2006 for infrastructure translated into jobs for Californians, and that also means California will be more competitive in the economy. 

Kriss Worthington 

As a Councilmember I have been a vigorous supporter of union, good-paying jobs. Depending on who you listen to, Berkeley is the only, or one of the few, cities that have maintained and expanded a manufacturing base. We’ve lost some of our manufacturing, but we’ve also had a whole bunch of new green manufacturing in Berkeley and that is a very important part of the economy. There are many forces seeking to gentrify and drive that out. I’ve been actively involved in encouraging the formation of the Green Chamber of Commerce, helping the individual businesses to understand how to become green, and how simple or complicated that is. Helping defend land. Just like in Oakland there are threats to the land that could be used for manufacturing—people want to turn that into yuppie condos. Having a lot of high-income condos is not necessarily an improvement. I don’t believe in what I call trickle-down development philosophies, where you just let developers do what they want and you just assume there will be more jobs, there will be more housing, therefore it will help everybody. There’s actually been a better, stronger, and more clever coalition in Oakland than in Berkeley, coming up with ideas of what kinds of mitigations, and what kinds of community benefits do you require in development projects. 

To some extent in Berkeley and other cities now, you might care about how many well-paying jobs are going to come out of this development, but to some extent you’re restricted from even asking those questions and basing your decision on that kind of information because of the nature of state law and city regulations. 

I would think in the long-term we should have an equivalent to CEQA for community benefits and community impacts. I’ve been trying to get Berkeley to address this a little bit, not very successfully. Oakland has actually got a movement coalition through the East Bay Alliance for Sustainability. They’ve got a coalition built where they’ve got neighborhoods and unions working together to advocate for these kinds of policies. We’re not quite at that level in Berkeley. 

If we’re going to have policies like SB375 that Darryl Steinberg has been pushing heavily, which link land use and transportation funding, also getting into the mix, talking about community benefits and having an analysis doesn’t cost much. To the extent that we can make that a part of the equation, I think that’s valuable information for people to understand in what decisions they’re making. 

Green manufacturing is already happening, and it’s only a question of acknowledging it and building on it. Berkeley had some clear policies to encourage expansion of green manufacturing. 

Hopefully, green manufacturing will expand and other businesses will become green, even if they haven’t been historically, so that we can have growth and jobs and simultaneously protect the environment. But so much of the current economy is service jobs, not manufacturing. Restaurants and coffee houses, they are a major part of the economic engine, and they’re not well-paid jobs by and large. And all of these corporate chain stores that are expanding around us pay so little. So I feel when we’re talking about economic development, getting a living wage for all employees is an economic development strategy. That helps your economy. It gives people more money to live on. Some people would say that a living wage is anti-economic development. I would argue it’s pro-economic development because it’s helping the people in these careers have the capacity to pay their bills. Getting the service jobs to be decently paid is a critical part of economic development for the whole state. That’s why I’ve been involved in the whole campaign to support all kinds of different industries coming up to a living wage, supporting union organizing efforts for janitors, for security workers, and hotel workers. A lot of them are practically minimum wage jobs. 

Phil Polakoff 

We’re incredibly well-positioned to create a public-private partnership in creating socially responsible business. Most of that is green. You have to make certain that businesses feel welcome here and historically, Berkeley’s not been that friendly towards innovation business. A lot of the incubation that begins here ends up moving to Richmond or Emeryville. It’s too hard to get a business license. Taxes are too high. And when I talk to the merchants here, they have started business improvement districts, such as on Solano Avenue, but they don’t feel that although they are taxed they are given the proper amenities. I don’t think that’s particularly a legislative issue. That’s more a City Council issue here in Berkeley. Others have used redevelopment funds, like Lafayette, to make their business climate more attractive. And probably the best of all of the cities in this district that has enhanced its sense of well-being is Pleasant Hill. They’ve restructured the entire community. Sometimes people forget that this district is Pleasant Hill. It is San Pablo. It is Lafayette. It’s not just Berkeley. That’s my challenge. Because up until this race everyone thinks that even the people running are generally Berkeley-centric. And the challenge for me is running against the establishment. There’s no reason why Berkeley shouldn’t be a showcase for a downtown business area. Why do people go out to Walnut Creek or Emeryville for their shopping? I was talking to a woman the other day and she asked me, “Why can’t I buy a pair of underpants in Berkeley? I mean, Ross’s is closing.” 

So in the East Bay in particular, the opportunities for economic development are real. In Richmond—and I’ve studied this. I’ve talked to the City Manager in Richmond about what we could do better. We could hopefully deal with the development of the UC campus in Richmond. We could bring in manufacturing jobs. There’s a lot of space in Richmond to develop into socially responsible business. For example, what happened to Power Light in Berkeley that changed ownership to Sun Power and has now taken over the Ford Plant in Richmond. That’s a good story. You could have better warehouses. You could have something to transition from a Rust Belt economy to a Green Belt economy. In Berkeley, you could use the R&D money coming from the university and spin off a whole new generation of businesses. You can do this. But you have to create the leadership and the will to do it. 

In Pleasant Hill I think you can address more the service industry. In Richmond you have a manufacturing base. You can do something with the port to make it more viable. You could build the Port of Richmond out. 

Statewide, we have to make sure the state becomes the Golden State again. We have to make sure that we keep jobs here. Well-paying jobs. We have to enhance career technical schools so that people can get jobs that don’t have a minimal but a livable wage. We have to prevent jobs from moving offshore. We have to deal with public-private partnerships. We have to make sure that redevelopment makes sense. We have to deal with infrastructure upgrades that are reasonable. Having toll roads through parks, that’s not what I call reasonable. People are paying a lot of taxes and they don’t think they are getting the benefit of it. Going up University Avenue, it’s like going through a war zone with the potholes. We have to figure out why some areas are economically vibrant and other areas are not so vibrant. And then we have to keep the mix.  

Nancy Skinner 

I would start out with education. Because by California basically abandoning its commitment to public education, we’re not preparing our work force. Regardless of your employer, whether you’re a big box retailer or a service industry restaurant or some of the tec industry, you are looking for a literate, educated work force. One way to keep jobs in the state and to keep the business climate healthy is to make sure we are educating people and giving young people motivation to stay in school. And that requires more than just college prep. Many of the jobs available now don’t require a college degree. And so programs like what you now call career technical education that are preparing people for more trade and skilled types of positions. If you don’t have any intention to go off and be a lawyer or an accountant or a doctor, and your whole curriculum is oriented that way, what’s your motivation to stay in school? So the career technical education is very, very important for our economic development goals. 

What can a legislator do? Beyond legislation, when Angelides was State Treasurer, he and his board of CalPers, the state retirement fund, they set aside a large portion of funds in the CalPers retirement for clean and green investment. And then they started looking at how to use those investments to invest in the growth of green business and clean technology within California. So he not only put those investments into that clean and green technology sector, but also specifically how to invest in California businesses so you could grow those industries and keep those jobs here. So one of the things that Assemblymember Loni Hancock did was to hold a summit on this question in the City of Richmond. Because the City of Richmond has a great deal of land area that is available for this sector. And at that time, I was working very closely with clean technology companies and clean energy companies to get them involved in the state. When I heard about the meeting, I started recruiting companies to come. One of the companies I recruited to come to that meeting was Power Light. Now they’re called Sun Power. Power Light at that time was based in Berkeley, and they were the largest privately held solar company in the country. And I got to know them very well, and I knew they were looking to leave Berkeley. And I also knew that other jurisdictions were recruiting them. And of course, I wanted them to stay in Berkeley, but the available industrial and manufacturing parcels in Berkeley are much smaller. So I told them you need to see what Richmond has to offer, and you need to see what the treasurer, Angelides, has got on the table and what types of investment they have for the growth of this sector. So they went. And there was a full presentation by the City of Richmond Economic Development Department, their plans, and their intentions to try to grow green tec industries. That resulted in Power Light--which was then purchased by Sun Power--moving their facility to the Ford Plant in Richmond, and that’s where they are now. It’s in AD14 and in the East Bay, and in an area where jobs are so needed. 

Right now the majority of North American venture capital that is going into the green energy and green tec sector is being invested in California. And that investment is both for research and development and product deployment. So we want that investment to keep those companies and industries here in the state, and to keep that job growth here in the state. And the state has very ambitious planet protection and energy reliability and energy self-sufficiency goals, which are in close harmony with that other objective. So the state can use its policies, for example, in the implementation of AB32, to help keep those businesses here.

Candidates in the Assembly District 14 race were asked their views on urban casinos as an economic development strategy. 

Kriss Worthington 

I supported both of the statewide initiatives to allow Native American gaming. Philosophically, I think Native Americans should have a chance to get some money and some jobs out of all of this, but having supported those and then seeing what’s happening in the real world, where tribes sort of take over a territory where their tribe never existed before, and then the tribes sometimes seem to be being used by some casino to bring their business in saying that it’s a Native American casino, when it’s really controlled by big corporations in Las Vegas or wherever, I think I’m a little more cynical about it all than I was. Urban casinos worry me. I guess I don’t look very favorably on all these little manipulations that seem to be going on to get casinos in Oakland and Richmond. 

Phil Polakoff 

I’d be very suspect of casinos. I’m not a great fan of casinos. On the other hand, in San Pablo, I’ve talked to all the City Council members. They said that if it was up to them, they wouldn’t have voted to bring the casino in, but since it was built, they certainly want it to stay there, because it brings in about $50 million of revenue they wouldn’t have otherwise. So that’s a societal issue and people have to have an open conversation about the pros and cons of casinos. 

Nancy Skinner 

As you know, and the voters in our area were very clear, for example, there were a number of ballot measures on the state ballot in February that were gambling pacts, or casino pacts, but that basically provided no worker protection. So if we’re looking at casinos as a form of economic development, it’s not a form of economic development, because it does not provide high-quality, good wage jobs that give the employees security, some retirement benefits, health benefits. So unless we can do project labor agreements and other types of agreements that ensure that the jobs that are being offered in that industry are the kinds of jobs that are really providing for people, then it’s not a wise approach. 

Tony Thurmond 

I am not aware of any casino development that has led to widespread economic development. What I have been told is that urban casinos in particular have fallen short of its promises and goals. I understand that the urban casino in Detroit has not been the economic engine that everybody thought it would be. I think that people have to be serious. If you choose a casino, you have to also seriously pursue measures that will offset an increase in crime, an increase in addiction, and other social problems that are associated with casinos. So anyone who chooses to pursue that, if they’re not pursuing resources for negative impacts, then they’re not being serious. That’s why I voted against the casino that they wanted to put in North Richmond. Certainly casinos can bring in money, but that doesn’t mean that they enhance economic development. So I am not certain that that’s the way to go. I think that there are better avenues to pursue.

Campaign statements from candidates in two key local legislative races—former 16th District Assemblymember Wilma Chan in Senate District 9 and Berkeley physician Phil Polakoff in Assembly District 14—do not appear on the official ballot pamphlets for the June 3 primary, some of which have already been mailed to voters. 

Chan does not have a ballot pamphlet statement because the former Assemblymember has decided not to sign the Proposition 34 voluntary campaign spending limits, but Polakoff says his failure to have a statement on the ballot was simply an oversight after he changed his mind on the spending limit pledge. 

Chan's opponent in the Senate 9 race—14th District Assemblymember Loni Hancock—and Polakoff’s three rivals in the race to succeed Hancock in the 14th AD—Berkeley City Councilmember Kriss Worthington, Richmond City Councilmember Tony Thurmond, and East Bay Regional Parks Director Nancy Skinner—have all signed the Prop. 34 spending limit pledge and have campaign statements in the official ballot pamphlet. 

Under Prop. 34, passed by California voters in 2000, legislative candidates may have a 250-word statement in the official ballot pamphlet if they sign a pledge stating that they will abide by campaign spending limits. The current limit for state senate candidates is $724,000 in a primary election; the limit for state assembly candidates is $483,000 in a primary. 

Although candidates who sign the campaign spending limit pledge are entitled to have a campaign statement on the official ballot pamphlet, such statements are not free. There’s a fee that depends on the number of registered voters in that particular district. For Assembly District 14 candidates, the fee for having a statement in the ballot pamphlet is $1,500. 

According to a spokesperson for the Alameda County Registrar of Voters office and records available from the California Secretary of State’s office, Chan did not sign the voluntary spending limit form, but Polakoff did. 

Polakoff said by telephone that “because I had the lowest amount of name recognition” of the four candidates in the 14th AD, “I originally thought I was going to need more money to run my campaign,” and therefore he intended to opt out of the spending limit pledge.  

Polakoff said that he later determined that he was not going to spend more than the $483,000 limit after all. So he signed the pledge, but his campaign did not remember he was entitled to a ballot pamphlet statement “until it was too late. It was an oversight. In hindsight, I probably would have had a statement.” 

Chan’s campaign reported spending $54,000 between January and March 17 of this year, with $507,000 cash on hand. Her campaign has raised another $50,000 in donations of $1,000 or more since that time. 

Polakoff reported $38,000 in expenditures between January and March 17 of this year, with a cash balance of $56,000. His campaign has raised another $34,000 in donations of $1,000 or more since then.  

The next round of campaign finance statements from the assembly and state senate races, including statements of expenditures since March 17, will not be available until between May 17 and May 22. Because candidates are not required to report either expenditures or donations of under $1,000 between the March 17 and May 17 official reports, how much the campaigns have actually raised or spent since mid-March won’t be known until May 17.

Former Berkeley Rent Stabilization Board member Chris Kavanagh was sentenced last week to five years probation, including six months in the Alameda County jail, for his conviction of one felony count of falsely registering an ineligible voter, namely himself. 

Kavanagh, 49, pleaded no contest May 1 to the charge on Feb. 22, saying there was a factual basis for his plea, which was an investigation by the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office that concluded his primary residence is on 63rd Street in Oakland, not the address at 2709 Dwight Way in Berkeley that he listed when he ran for office and voted. 

In return for Kavanagh’s plea, Deputy District Attorney Trevor White agreed to drop five other felony counts against him, including voter fraud, filing false nominating papers, perjury, grand theft and fraudulently voting. 

Alameda County Superior Court Judge Morris Jacobson also ordered Kavanagh to pay a $10,835 fine to the city of Berkeley for the monthly stipends and health insurance benefits he received while serving on the board. The stipends and benefits were the basis for the grand theft charge that was dropped. 

Kavanagh’s parents, who accompanied him to court today, paid $5,800 of his fine, and their check was given to an attorney for the Berkeley rent board. 

Kavanagh, who refused to talk to reporters, is to pay the remaining $5,035 over the next five years. 

In addition, Jacobson barred Kavanagh from seeking any elective office in California for the five years he’s on probation. 

The judge told Kavanagh, “If you should apply for elective office after you complete your probation, I’m ordering you to be truthful on your application and not commit perjury.” 

Kavanagh will begin serving his time at the Santa Rita Jail in Dublin on May 9 but initially will only be there on weekends so he can continue working at his job teaching developmentally disabled children at a school in San Francisco. 

He will serve 60 consecutive days between July 1 and Sept. 1 and then will serve his remaining time on weekends in the fall. 

Although the maximum sentence for the charge to which Kavanagh pleaded no contest is three years in state prison, his attorney, James Giller, had hoped Kavanagh would be sentenced to something less than six months in the county jail. 

But Kavanagh apparently ruined his chances of getting a more lenient sentence when he sent an e-mail to reporters shortly after his no-contest plea on Feb. 22 saying he had only admitted to “a technical violation of the California election code.” 

Kavanagh said the plea agreement “reflects, in my view, the fact that since my 2002 election, I complied with the city of Berkeley’s residency requirement to hold public office as a Rent Stabilization Board commissioner—with the exception of a period of time during parts of 2006 and 2007.” 

White said today that, “I differ greatly about this being only a technical violation of the law. We don’t bring charges for technical violations.” 

White said, “The system depends on the integrity of the voting process.” 

Giller, who repeatedly advised Kavanagh not to talk to the press about his case, said Jacobson sentenced Kavanagh to six months in jail because “he felt very strongly about the nature of the offense.” 

Kavanagh took a three-month leave of absence from his post in October shortly after charges were filed against him and then resigned effective Feb. 1. 

Kavanagh was first elected to the Rent Stabilization Board in 2002 and was re-elected to a second four-year term in November 2006. 

The district attorney’s office first investigated Kavanagh in 2003 after Berkeley officials said he may have committed fraud when he was first elected based on allegations that his primary residence was in Oakland. 

But prosecutors said there was insufficient evidence to file any charges against Kavanagh at that time. 

In a separate investigation, the Berkeley Fair Campaign Practices Commission submitted information to the district attorney on Jan. 19, 2006, alleging that Kavanagh was chronically late in filing campaign finance forms with the city. 

But the district attorney’s office never filed charges. 

Giller said Kavanagh’s conviction is “very devastating” to him. 

The defense attorney said Kavanagh is “a pretty good guy who’s been involved in the Berkeley community and its politics for a good part of his life and loves the town, but unfortunately he used poor judgment.”

Berkeley High School came under a brief lockdown Wednesday morning when Berkeley police searched the campus for a 17-year-old high school junior who was arrested for robbing a sophomore. 

A Berkeley woman called 911 around 9:42 a.m. to report a teenager wearing a black mask which covered the lower half of his face confronting another high school student at Civic Center Park, Berkeley Police Department (BPD) spokesperson Sgt. Mary Kusmiss told the Planet. 

“She was concerned that a robbery was in progress,” Kusmiss said. 

BPD officers—including officers from the nearby police headquarters on Martin Luther King Jr. Way—rushed to the park, located right across from Berkeley High, and found a 16-year-old Berkeley High sophomore, who said he had been threatened and robbed of his Creative Zen MP3 Player by another student named “Chris.” 

“He also told the officers that the suspect had what appeared to be a semi-automatic pistol tucked into his waistband,” Kusmiss said, “and that as police were arriving, this high school-aged suspect ran southbound across Allston Way onto the Berkeley High campus. He appeared to be very scared.” 

Berkeley police closed all the exits at the high school with the help of the school’s safety officers and placed the campus on lockdown.  

Students were directed to remain in their classrooms and staff held off from ringing the bell between periods to keep the students from moving from one classroom to the other to ensure their safety, Kusmiss said. 

District spokesperson Mark Coplan told the Planet that Wednesday had been the monthly “late start day,” on which school begins at 10 a.m. to accommodate staff meetings. 

“Since there was a report of a weapon, the police requested a lockdown so they could search for the alleged weapon without interruption,” Coplan said. 

A team of BPD officers searched the campus for the suspect, Kusmiss said, with the help of a description provided by the sophomore. 

Safety officers checked their campus databases for information on “Chris,” and at approximately 11 a.m.—an hour and 15 minutes after the incident—officers found the 11th-grader in Room 206, attending a class with other students. 

“He was arrested without any further incident and booked at Juvenile Hall for robbery,” Kusmiss said. 

BPD resource officers are following some student leads which indicate the suspect dumped the weapon in a garage bin on campus. 

“They are still scouring the campus for a weapon,” she said, adding that the case would be reviewed by the BPD youth services detectives and the Alameda County District Attorney’s office, following which recommendations would be made for what action should be taken against the 11th-grader.  

Kusmiss said the student had not said what his motive was for stealing the MP3 player, which costs approximately $100. 

“Crimes involving youth off-campus are more common than crimes involving school students themselves,” Kusmiss said. 

“Detectives interviewed the suspect’s mother to find out more information about the student. Since he is a juvenile and does not seem to have a prior criminal record, authorities will focus on rehabilitation rather than incarceration.” 

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

I was born in New Orleans. Grew up in Los Angeles and Seattle. And it’s not so much the place that affects my thought process about how I represent my district but rather the upbringing that I had. 

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

I have a B.A. in Political Science and a Juris Doctor [law] degree. I practiced law for 13 years. I think that it gives me an analytical ability and a framework in which to look at issues. 

3. What are the top three most pressing issues facing your district (6)?  

I think the question should be probably phrased in a way as, if it’s a real issue or the perception of an issue. Public safety is an issue. Throughout the district people have concern about their personal safety. I think it’s economic development and revitalization of neighborhoods. And I think education is a major issue within the district. The lack of a quality education feeds into our unemployment rate and lack of hope.  

4. Do you agree with the direction and vision Mayor Dellums has for Oakland. Why or why not? 

I haven’t sat down and analyzed exactly what the mayor’s vision is. As a council person I pretty much determine what my vision is and try and go about implementing that. There are points at which I work with the mayor on issues. I think that there’s a reason that people also elect district representatives. And so my focus is to be responsive to the needs of the residents of my district. 

5. Mayor Dellums has proposed that the city put together its own development plan for the Oakland Army Base, and then solicit bids from developers. What would you propose as the overall development plan for the base?  

I think we need to look at the army base with respect to logistics. With respect to generating some sales tax increments with respect to employing people and providing living wage jobs for people within our city. And we need to look to a new industry that we might be able to grab ahold of. People talk about biotech. I think we missed the biotech opportunity and so now we should probably be looking at green jobs and how we create a niche for Oakland that’s going to move us into the next decade.  

6. What plans, if any, do you want to implement in terms of the youth in your district? 

I do a lot of work with respect to youth. I’ve been working for the last two years on a park initiative which has been restoring and revitalizing parks throughout the district. Creating new parks. I have an opportunity coming up. We’re going to build a pocket park at 65th Avenue with a new play structure.  

We just, on Dec. 11, redid a total field (laid 75,000 square feet of sod). There are a lot of activities that I do that are centered around the youth and our recreation centers. So I just intend to continue to work on those. I do the concert series which brings out families. Because it’s not about segmenting one population but rather bringing us all together so we can have inter-generational activities that will provide for a family structure that’s supportive.  

7. It has been suggested that Oakland’s police strength be immediately increased above the currently authorized 803 to combat the city’s crime situation. Do you support such an increase and, if so, how would you propose financing it? What other specific steps would you propose taking to combat Oakland’s crime problem, including funding source? 

I think that the public safety issue is a major issue within the city. I think the issue of us throwing out numbers of police, and because we say it, then it’s going to materialize into people taking these positions, is a wrong one. A year ago, the council told the chief “You’re going to hire X number of officers by this date.”  

It came to pass and we still don’t have those officers. So what we need to do is back up from that question. And let’s let the law enforcement people do their jobs.  

Because what happens is there’s a public outcry, and elected officials say we’ve got to hurry up and do something, to make it look like we’re doing something. And then what happens? You destroy the trust of people in their elected officials by doing things like that.  

Instead of looking at some key issues, one of which is the chief currently does not have the ability to deploy officers in the way he needs to, in order to insure we are effectively using the officers that we have.  

And so what we need to do is look at all of the issues simultaneously while addressing the public safety issue and the deployment issue.  

So I have people say “I want more officers on the street.” But when the chief said let’s go to a 3-12 shift for the officers, we had those same citizens say “Oh, that’s terrible. You shouldn’t make the officers do that.” But it would have put more officers on the streets.  

So what I tell people is, when you talk about public safety, what do you want? What will make you safe in your home? And start from there. Don’t start with anybody else’s issues. Not the union’s issues. Not the elected officials’ issues. But, what will make me safe in my home. I have more officers on the streets and I have more money available to the general fund because I’m not paying those officers overtime. Then do I begin to address your issues? And should you let that happen instead of being jerked around by other people’s issues? So let’s start rethinking this whole public safety issue.  

Oakland has actually had a decrease in crime. When that report came out about us being the fourth worst city, that data was over a year old. And so nobody said it’s data in the past. Definitely we should look at the trends. But currently our crime stats are down. So we need real information with which to make informed decisions. 

8. What should Oakland’s economic development program be? 

I know that we need to look at how we address the economic engines throughout the city and with those engines, create economic opportunity for our residents. So the port is an economic engine for the city. How do we look at these engines and incorporate it into our community?  

The whole issue of the industrial lands issue will create workforce jobs for people. There are, again, searches for new industries to attract to the city of Oakland (i.e. green business.) That is another direction that we may consider.  

9. What is your favorite thing about Oakland? 

Oakland. I think Oakland is a great city with enormous potential. 

10. What is your least favorite thing about Oakland? 

That people don’t realize the potential of it.  

Desley Brooks 

Oakland City Councilmember, District 6 

First Elected: 2003 

This is the first in a series of Q&A sessions with Oakland City Councilmemebers. Other Q&As will be published in upcoming issues. 

Long ago my mother-in-law had a handyman who called himself, in those pre-PC days, a hillbilly. He was a snaggle-toothed fellow who chewed tobacco and was not shy about telling you he’d done time “Inside.” We knew him only as Chester. 

Chester was a fountain of information on the folklore of the belly-up-to-the-bar culture. Surprisingly, he was a firm opponent of handguns. Rifles, strapped to the back of your pickup cab, yes. Handguns, no. Why? Well, he said, with a pistol it’s hard to change your mind.  

He did have a buck knife on his belt. Knives, he said, were the weapon of choice for the sophisticated barroom brawler. He explained that experienced knife fighters knew how to grasp the middle of the knife blade when you stabbed the other guy so that the knife only went in part way: enough to scare him off, not enough to kill him.  

It’s too bad that the kid who stabbed the other kid in Saturday night’s fraternity row standoff didn’t have Chester to advise him. Hot-headed hoodlums don’t need barrooms to fight in anymore, with alcohol flowing freely at campus parties and readily available within easy walking distance of downtown even for the car-free.  

A musician who had a gig at the Julia Morgan Theater on Friday night told us about seeing young men wheeling keg after keg of beer away from stores in that campus area. The buyers were probably of legal age, but the drinkers probably weren’t, and any way, what difference would it have made? It’s a well-known equation: alcohol plus testosterone equals trouble. Even if the drinkers are barely legal.  

Someone at the Los Angeles Times with an overactive imagination wrote in the lead paragraph of their story of Saturday morning’s death of a UC student: “The incident laid bare the two faces of this college town on San Francisco Bay—the world-class university and multimillion-dollar hillside homes with sweeping views versus the poor and working-class bungalows and apartments of the flatlands.” Well, no, not exactly. 

The drama that played out to a tragic conclusion was an old, old story. Those who commented on various online accounts referenced some classic versions: Montagues and Capulets, said one, Westside Story, said another. For reasons probably biologically based but certainly culturally ancient, young men have always been prone to organize themselves into US vs. THEM and slug it out. It doesn’t have to be a class stuggle, as the Times writer imagined, and in fact the worst fights are often within a group. 

Papers these days are full of stories about gang battles between groups of young people who look virtually identical to outsiders. They seem to just choose up sides and go at it. Sometimes capitalism, in the form of drug sales, is part of the picture, but not always. 

To outsiders, fraternities look an awful lot like gangs. There are the same artificial barriers of name and place set up between insiders and outsiders. Even the association with drug sales is there: Witness the recent bust of three fraternities at San Diego State (one a “professional business fraternity”) for that very crime. 

Early stories of the saintly character of the UC stabbing victim have given way to a more realistic picture of a young man (probably, granted, originally a good Christian boy from a nice middle class family) caught up in the thug culture which surrounded him on fraternity row. One of his blog entries which has been widely circulated described his participation in a similar mass brawl a couple of years ago.  

In a graphic obscenity-laced account he describes how a large group of fraternity “bros” surrounded an interloper perceived as being guilty of “disrepecting” them. He tells how a member of his group undertakes to “grind his face into the coarse pavement of the sidewalk while several of [us] are taking turns on his ribs and dome. By now, about 10-12 bro’s are outside and there are only 3 opponents so my bro’s decide to try and break shit up but if you know josh (or myself as I have discovered this weekend), then you know that we get an intense adrenaline rush and calming us down is not very easy.”  

If that scene was replicated early Saturday morning on fraternity row, it’s not surprising that an outnumbered individual pulled a knife and used it inexpertly to defend himself. Was it stupid to be carrying a knife in the first place? Probably. Should the stabber have run away instead of using it? Yes. Was the outcome tragic? Of course. But nothing in the incident should be surprising to anyone who watches television or even reads the papers. 

And many similar clashes never make the papers. This one got the big headlines not because it was hills versus flats, but because both participants were white. Young men of color die every week in pointless fights like this, and their passing is seldom given more that a couple of paragraphs on a back page. If there’s a shooting where no one dies, it seldom gets mentioned in the press at all. 

Of course, it’s like pulling teeth to get information out of the police. We happened to drive past the corner of Oregon and Sacramento on Friday night when one such shooting victim was being taken away in an ambulance, and it’s taken the better part of a week for our reporter to find out who he was and what happened. If a family friend hadn’t contacted the paper, we might never have known. 

It was another young man caught up in an Us vs. Them melodrama. Like the fraternity boy who was killed, he was believed by family and friends to be basically a good kid, and at some level he probably was. But someone else thought they’d been disrespected, and they owned a gun, an even quicker tool for making a bad mistake than a folding knife. 

It’s tempting to say that the culture of violence which produced the recent campus death is a recent invention, but it’s not. The fascination of relatively privileged young men with the macho survival culture of the streets, obvious in the language and imagery of the stabbing victim’s blog, is nothing new, and this isn’t the first time it has had bloody consequences.  

Violent behavior between opposing humans has been part of the history of the race as far back as Cain and Abel. Perhaps they don’t teach the Trojan War in the engineering school of the modern multi-versity, but the ancient Greeks were just as prone to get into senseless fights as the modern students who use their name.  

And it’s not exactly fair to blame this all on testosterone. Brutality is now an equal opportunity employer: Witness the young women sucked into the sadistic activities at Abu Ghraib. Some modern female leaders have tried to out-compete men in warlike behavior: Remember Margaret Thatcher crowing over the pointless Falklands war. Even Hillary Clinton last week gleefully promised to “obliterate” Iran with nuclear weapons, though no one but Bob Scheer seems to have noticed.  

We’re not easily going to get rid of the Us vs. Them mentality. But U.C. officials can do away with its ugly manifestations on fraternity row with the stroke of a pen, though they can’t close down the Bloods and the Crips.  

The boy who was killed on Saturday morning was only the most recent victim of a Greek system which functions to amplify differences and disputes rather than reconcile them. Fraternities have been toxic in the half-century since I was an undergraduate, and they still are. Some enlightened schools have recognized fraternities as the thinly-camouflaged rat packs which they are and banned them. It’s time for the University of California at Berkeley to do the same. 

As our Internet experiment ("daily online, weekly in print") moves forward, we’ve encountered a certain amount of guilt-tripping from our friends and neighbors for “deserting” them on Tuesdays. Everyone seems to like getting their weekend paper earlier, on Thursdays, but they whine that they’ve been accustomed to having another little news fix earlier in the week, and they hate to give it up. Friends, there’s new stuff posted on this web site almost every single day: news, opinions both letters and commentary, columnists, you name it, something new every time you turn around. . . Today, check out the surprise announcement of the Mayor's State of the City Address, something we didn't know about when we put the print paper to bed last week.  

Look for the red datelines to alert you to what's new  

The great thing about the Internet, something you just can't do with print, is that we can also direct you to interesting material that there would never be room for in print, or that we would never have time to organize into print even if we had the room. Case in point: the opinion submission from the people who aren't too happy with AC Transit's Bus Rapid Transit proposal. Technically sophisticated, they turned in their thoughts as a nicely formatted .pdf (image) file, complete with all those clever indentations and bullets that are a newspaper formatting nightmare. After a little online negotiation, we persuaded them to add an executive summary suitable for print, but we were also able to put their full arguments online in all their organized glory. Online readers can experience this product in our Reader Commentary section today. 

And other media today are full of horror stories of the multiple disasters around the world, leaving our readers wondering what, if anything, they can do to help. With our online presence, we can pass along to you a message we received from a soprano friend now living in Japan, who sent us an appeal she received from a fellow musician who is working at a music school in Yangon (Rangoon) in Myanmar (Burma).  

The teachers and students there are organizing a relief effort to help the hundreds of thousands of people in lowland rural areas affected by the recent cyclone. Their web page www.gitameit.com/wp has been turned into an information site to let people in the outside world know what's going on, and to make it possible for them to donate to worthwhile organizations already operating inside Myanmar.  

The soprano writes from Japan: "As you can see from her website, she is practically ground zero for the recent typhoon and tsunami that hit Burma...I am trying to raise funds through concerts here in Japan; would it be possible for you all to consider a fund-raising concert project to help assist the disaster survivors? You can get information on the foundation (no money-grabbing; I vouch for Kit 110%) from her web-site; all money would go directly to the people of Burma, no ear-marking or deletions." 

The site is well worth a look. It has lots of current news and photos, with a number of buttons that can be used for one-click donations to a variety of responsible groups already doing what they can for the relief effort. You don't even have to organize a concert; just send money. 

Incidentally, the music school itself sounds pretty terrific too. Here's a description from its "about" page: "In Pali and Burmese, 'gita' means music, and 'meit' means friendship. Gitameit Music Center was started in 2003 by pianist Kit Young and colleagues from Myanmar in order to build a supportive community of musicians and audiences locally, and to encourage sustained, meaningful contact with international institutions, teachers and performers. Gitameit Music Center is a non-profit community center and music school in downtown Yangon devoted to music teaching & nurturing, performing, offering exchange possibilities for Burmese students to study abroad, and inviting international artists & teachers for performances and workshops in Yangon."  

Music is one of the best ways of crossing formidable borders. While you have your credit card or checkbook out to donate for cyclone victims, you might give some thought to what the future will be like in Myanmar, and give a bit to encourage Kit's musicians while you're at it. 

And now we come to the audience participation part of this program. On the right side of the page you'll find a simple survey, designed to let us know if anyone's actually reading the new and improved Berkeley Daily Planet on the Web. It won't take a minute, and it will help us understand how we can best serve our readers.

ATHLETIC FIELDS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

L A Wood should stop complaining about the past and offer solutions for the recreation needs of thousands of Berkeley and area youth. The fields he complains about provide a chance for people of all ages to run around and have fun—not just the youth soccer players he repeatedly derides in his commentary. Indeed, my daughter plays softball and my son plays rugby on these fields. All four fields are in constant use by every age group and ethnicity found in Berkeley. 

Doug Fielding is a champion of our youth (and active grownups) and his efforts to create places to play in a crowded area with few open spaces should be applauded rather than cheapened with gossipy remarks without foundation. 

Paul Lecky 

• 

FRATERNITY BRAWL ARTICLE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Becky O’Malley’s recent editorial on Chris Wootton is most upsetting to say the least. To make the statement that he was “originally a good Christian boy caught up in a thug mentality” is an assumption she makes, along with “because he was white it was news,” and is nothing but sensational, irresponsible journalism. What do you know about this fine young man except from reading a blog entry? Nobody said he was a saint; few people are the last time I checked. To label him with a thug mentality for trying to diffuse a bad situation because he belonged to a fraternity is just plain wrong. How about letting the people who actually knew him grieve and place him to rest before you pile on some more verbal garbage that will get you some more publicity? 

Do I think the colleges across the country have problems with drinking and the Greek system? Yes. Do things need to change? Yes. There is a way to address those issues without demeaning the value of another human being who died a tragic death. Would you still write the same kind of article, if you knew this person intimately, or if he was a relative? Only you can answer that question. As a parent who has a son at Cal, and is from the Los Angeles area, I knew the blog entries of Mr. Wootton would be used against him and diminish his true reputation and character. It saddens me beyond words that he is gone and your article just rubbed salt in all of our emotional wounds.  

You bring up many fine and important issues. I only wish you would have done it in a different manner and had a little compassion in a most devastating time for all of us who really knew him. 

Thomas Wintz 

• 

FRATERNITY ROW BRAWL 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

While Becky O’Malley’s historical take on the inescapability of violence—especially between young men—is part of the explanation of why these tragedies happen, I do believe that the reinforcement of constant violent messages in TV, movies and videogames predisposes people—especially, it seems, young people—to consider such acts as reasonable solutions to disagreements. The endless violent images and disrespectful talk and name-calling combined with easy access to weapons is a poisonous stew, and we all suffer. 

A youngster in our neighborhood was walking home one day when a man by a car popped open his trunk, exposing a trunkful of guns. He said to our neighbor boy, “Any gun you want, 20 bucks.” When I told people about this incident, most dismissed the incident. One lawyer said, “Oh, that wouldn’t happen on Shattuck Avenue.” Too many guns, too many violent images. And now more youngsters dead. 

Our society needs to change. We live here; it’s up to us. 

Alta Gerrey 

• 

DOMESTIC VIOLENCE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I am writing to bring attention to domestic violence, to remind people of how common it is and how frequently it occurs. Domestic violence is a violation of human rights. The state is obligated to protect people from human rights abuses. For those who’ve had their human rights violated, the state is supposed to assist them by providing services to take care of them, but they don’t provide enough funding. In the United States alone, a woman is raped every six seconds, battered every 15 seconds and every day more than three woman are killed from a domestic violence-related homicide. Not to mention the torture women endure in many other countries. Most domestic violence resources are non-profit and depend on volunteers, donations and grants to keep running. Because of budget cuts and the rising cost of living including price hikes in gas and food, can have an affect on the size of donations and contributions to resources for domestic violence victims and survivors. Domestic violence resources are available though and if anyone needs assistance can call (800) 799-SAFE (7233) or go to www.ndvh.org. Also, October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month. Please help in the fight to stop domestic violence.  

C. Williams  

San Francisco 

• 

MORE ON SPRAYING 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I’m intrigued by the moth-spray folks who assure us that the pheromones will confuse the male moths to have sex; but with whom? I dread to think that this chemo-techie solution to an agribusiness problem might not lead to aggressive male light-brown moths “servicing” errant houseflies, or butterflies, or bees, or any number of other flying females. And then, what might be created from such a coupling? It’s an insect Frankenstein possibility that we should consider seriously before trying to fool Mother Nature. We should abjure creating innocent male moths to become turned-on interspecies rapists, thus leading to the possibility of insects who might be beyond our worst nightmares. Join me in creating an outcry against this action. Or at least, if we fail to prevent this spraying, let’s create special “swat” squads to meet the challenge of upcoming hordes of sci-fi insects!  

Robert Blau 

• 

REAL REPORTING 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Wow Becky! Actual reporting—with research—and real “balance” (a forgotten factor in today’s biased media) about the events of the fraternity friends’ huge misfortune. First you addressed the wild interpretation that there was a class disparity, the Times report, and then, that this accident was not self defense. 

While you’re at it, suggest that Riya Bhattacharjee not get carried away with hyperbolic newspaper reportage to suggest there’s a major barber shop in the jail: Hoeft-Edenfield appeared “...sporting a crew cut”! And nice of her to aid Overmeir’s constant excessive, meaningless search for notice by quoting his useless observation—an oppressive tactic which he employs, much to the impatience of his obligatory listeners at governmental sessions. 

Norma J F Harrison 

• 

DOG BITE PREVENTION WEEK 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

May 18-24 is Dog Bite Prevention Week. Dogs bite for a variety of reasons, but one of the surest ways to create a dangerous, neurotic, frustrated animal is to chain it to a tree or doghouse and leave it to pace the same patch of dirt for months or years on end. 

Dogs are highly social pack animals that thrive on interaction with humans and other animals; so, when deprived of the opportunity to socialize, exercise, and receive kindness from humans, chained and isolated dogs can become aggressive and are 2.8 times more likely to bite humans than dogs who are not. 

Although California became, in 2006, the first state in the nation to pass a law that prohibits “man’s best friend” from being chained for more than three hours in any 24-hour period, the law is not always enforced because of the huge workload local Animal Control Officers carry. Often, people have no idea the practice is even illegal. 

Section 597(f) of the California Penal Code states that, “. . . No person shall tether, fasten, chain, tie, or restrain a dog, or cause a dog to be tethered, fastened, chained, tied, or restrained, to a dog house, tree, fence, or any other stationary object.” A person who violates the law may be issued a warning, or charged with an infraction or misdemeanor. An infraction is punishable by a $250 fine. A misdemeanor is punishable by a fine of up to $1,000 or six months in jail, or both. Enforcing the law can have a trickle-down effect on the battle against other crimes, such as dog fighting and drug running because many of the dogs used in these illegal activities are kept on chains. 

If you know of dogs that are kept chained in Berkeley, please notify Berkeley Animal Control at 981-6600. If you know of dogs chained in other jurisdictions, please contact Animal Control for those areas. You may also try talking gently to the owners of the dogs about the suffering that perpetually chained dogs endure, and the danger these dogs may potentially pose to humans. You can learn more about this issue at www.dogsdeservebetter.org. 

Pam Fanning 

Bay Area Representative, Dogs Deserve Better 

Oakland 

• 

CIVIC RESPONSIBILITY 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

We should not feel bad about reminding young people that we all have some civic responsibility towards others as members of the human family. If we can stir the feeling of belongingness it will help us love others and teach us tolerance. It will make us think of the needs of others. It will prompt us not to put ourselves first. What can we do to stir such feelings? 

Romila Khanna 

Albany 

• 

ISRAEL AT 60 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Imagine that while you are celebrating a big birthday, most of your neighbors are plotting ways to kill you, and rewarding their friends for debating your “right to exist.” That is what the Jewish State faces. 

Tiny Israel—1/19th the size of California—has a population of 6.5 million, including 1.5 Arabs. It is surrounded by 100 million in 22 Arab League countries that occupy 1/10th of the earth’s land surface. Of the UN’s 192 members, only Israel is charged with racism for the crime of its existence. 

Although ancient Israel dates back 3,000 years, modern Israel is now 60 years old— powerful, economically thriving, and financially independent. On May 14, 1948, even as five Arab armies began attacking the reborn Israel, Jews danced in the streets, thrilled at returning to their ancestral homeland. These days Palestinians dance in the streets to celebrate when Israelis are murdered. 

In spite of constant enemy attacks, Israel is a world leader in medicine, agriculture, science and technology. Its contributions—drip irrigation, the cell phone, the computer chip, the MRI, and other lifesaving advancements—benefit all people, even those determined to destroy the Jewish state. 

Israel’s enemies are brilliant at rewriting history and influencing others, like the ‘new’ UN Human Rights Council, which last year directed 2 percent of its indictments against Burma and 75 percent against Israel. 

There have been no Israeli suicide bombers or American flag-burnings in Israel, which may partly explain why, according to recent polls, more than 70 percent of Americans favor strong ties and share values with the Jewish State, the only democracy in the Middle East. 

June Brott 

Oakland 

• 

BLOWIN’ IN THE WIND 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory’s plans for Strawberry Canyon and the hillsides behind the UC campus have inspired this new verse to “Blowin’ in the Wind”: 

How many nano particles float in our air, 

Before safety testing’s been done, 

How many lab workers sicken from radiation, 

And no compensation has come… 

How many of our officials just turn their heads, 

As if they are deaf, blind, and dumb, 

The answers, like smog, are blowin’ in the wind, 

And now we must all clean the wind! 

—or we will destroy our planet. 

The Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratories, UC, and their politician friends, could make more fame and fortune by cleaning up their act, and by spearheading clean up of our planet. This is what we need, not paving the earth, destroying our oxygen producing trees, and calling their investment boondoggle “The Green Corridor.” 

Merrilie Mitchell 

• 

MOTH SPRAYING 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I strongly oppose the LBAM spraying without a thorough scientific study of the effects on the health of humans, especially those who are already compromised by health problems. We lack credible evidence that LBAM will even work against the targeted moths, while at the same time we don’t know what other insects the spray may adversely affected. Historically we have repeatedly seen cases where industry and government have assured us of the safety of something — such as routine DDT spraying in the past — that was insufficiently researched and turned out to be ineffective against its target, but damaging to the environment and to human beings. This kind of pseudo-science must stop. 

Dr. Karen Ann Watson-Gegeo 

• 

ILL-CONCEIVED PROPOSAL 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The use of toxic chemicals, sprayed randomly from the sky over our neighborhoods and agricultural areas is an ill-conceived proposal. The effects of these chemicals (and we do not even have disclosure on what they are!) remain unknown. One thing we do know is that attempting to eradicate any organism with synthetic chemical agents historically has tended to simply create super strains of those organisms who have greater resistance and the result is contamination of our water, destruction of our natural environment and a spate of human disease that will effect generations to come. 

Bad ideas do not make for viable solutions, they just make petrochemical lobbyists and their corporate handlers vast sums of money. As James Brown said, “Money won’t change you, but time will take you out.” 

Aerial spraying is state-sponsored terrorism against We The People. Big Pharma and Big Agribusiness does not set the agenda— State representatives and state agencies work for us and for the small organic farmers who have worked so tirelessly to give California a leadership position internationally as a leader in the Green-revolution. 

Protect our Children’s Health. Protect our water, air and organic farmers, Ban the aerial spraying of secret chemical cocktails permanently! 

Andrew and Jennifer Carothers-Liske 

Oakland 

• 

THE CHOICE IS OURS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Robert F. Kennedy once said, “There are those that look at things the way they are, and ask why? I dream of things that never were, and ask why not.” Now we, the voters of California’s 14th Assembly District, have the opportunity to choose what kind of Assembly member do we want representing us and working for us everyday; someone who asks ”why” or someone who asks “why not?” 

As a Richmond City Council member and as a non-profit leader, Tony Thurmond asks why not often. Why are we not improving our schools? Why do we not have single-payer universal health care? Why are we not doing more to protect and preserve our environment? Why are we not working harder to reduce crime and end the violence in our communities? These are problems that Tony Thurmond works on every day and is dedicated to solve. 

Congressman George Miller and many other elected officials and community leaders agree with him and have endorsed Tony as the best candidate to get California back on track. 

So if you dream of things that never were, but should be, vote for Tony Thurmond and help make our dreams reality. 

Al Miller 

El Cerrito 

• 

COMCAST 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I am a Comcast customer. It was dismaying to hear that Comcast has refused to run an ad critical of the Speaker of the House, i.e. Shirley Golub’s ad for her candidacy against Nancy Pelosi. I am one of many, many Americans who were initially hopeful when Ms. Pelosi became speaker, but have become increasingly dismayed by Pelosi’s “wait-it-out” approach to the Bush presidency. The most egregious result of Pelosi’s approach, of course, is the mounting number of American and Iraqi deaths on our misbegotten war. But you needn’t agree with this view to run an ad for a political candidate: You simply need to be in favor of free speech. Does Comcast really want to cast itself as a “filter” of political content, going down the same road Google has in China? 

Clark Suprynowicz 

• 

TAKE A HIKE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

So Comcast declines to run Shirley Golub’s TV ad. Thus far, I have resisted getting cable because of its cost. Now I will not get cable because I don’t trust the providers to give equal coverage of material the owners don’t like. As far as I am concerned, Comcast can take a hike. 

Carolyn Scarr 

• 

AERIAL SPRAYING 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I take as much care as possible with my own health and the health of those I love. My husband died of cancer 10 years ago, and my current partner has multiple myeloma. Caring for someone with a compromised immune system is a delicate matter. I can’t even imagine that our leaders would allow this assault on people with health concerns. Our clinics are full of citizens with fragile systems, who every day do all they can to feel ok and carry on with their lives. They struggle to eat well, move without pain, stay away from toxins. 

I am absolutely opposed to aerial spraying of any kind. This goes against all we have learned in the past decades about pest control and sustainability, not to mention public health. 

I say to you that no one has the right to spray us with unwanted, untested, and demonstrably unnecessary chemicals. 

You must find another way to control pests. 

Susan Marchionna 

• 

BRT — LOCAL PREFERRED ALTERNATIVE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Shortly, Berkeley will need to weigh in on what it feels is the best solution for improving public transit amongst the alternatives laid out by AC Transit in its Bus Rapid Transit proposal. Specifically, we’ll need to select the “Local Preferred Alternative” we want in Berkeley.  

On Wednesday, Berkeleyan’s for Better Transportation Options presented our detailed plan for Rapid Bus Plus, the greatly enhanced version of the current 1R line, to the Planning Commission. The Berkeley Daily Planet posted a one-page summary of Rapid Bus Plus in its online commentary section. You can see our detailed proposal here: 

www.berkeleydailyplanet.com/mcl/RapidBusPlus-vs.-BRT.pdf 

This five-page PDF lays out the major elements that we believe will make public transit better, faster, greener and much more rider friendly. It also includes a section listing other options AC Transit could use the $400 million it anticipates spending for BRT with dedicated lanes. The letter is signed by 25 of us who want better public transit now. 

At the joint Planning and Transportation Commission meeting last month, Jim Cunradi, BRT project manager, agreed that AC Transit would use Rapid Bus Plus as one of the options studied in the final Environmental Impact Report on BRT. We hope the Planning Commission will carefully evaluate Rapid Bus Plus and vote for Rapid Bus Plus as the “Local Preferred Alternative” that Berkeley wants to see implemented. 

Its clear that Rapid Bus Plus is a strong solution to today’s public transit concerns. Its equally clear that just as when BART was planned to be above ground in much of Berkeley, Berkeley can choose an alternate path that is better for our community. 

Vincent Casalaina 

• 

UC PRIORITIES 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Last week it was reported that UC Berkeley was hiring yet another associate vice chancellor, this one for some marketing job, at a salary of $230,000. Presumably she’ll get benefits on top of that. 

The front page of the May 6 Daily Californian carried a chart and related article projecting that the budget for the department of East Asian Languages will be reduced next year by $342,000, and the number of students served will be halved. The alleged culprit is proposed cuts to the state budget. Yet the campus authorities continue to add to the already bloated ranks of non-academic associate, assistant, and full vice chancellors. By doing without their new marketing associate vice chancellor and firing at least one more non-academic vice chancellor the saving of a minimum of $460,000 could be realized and the department of East Asian Languages could be in the clear. Somebody’s priorities are out of whack. 

S. Entwistle 

• 

MS. LIGHT BROWN APPLE MYTH 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Moth or myth?  

Who can know whither her goings to and fro? 

For without the metrics of this or that tree, 

the effect of this moth remains a myst’ry. 

Yet there are those who claim insight— 

have they followed her in dead of night? 

They say she ravages, they say she feasts 

on 2000 plants—now that’s quite a beast! 

She must find every plant quite yummy, 

never mind the size of her tummy. 

And these men will say we need constant spraying, 

if we our fears are to be allaying. 

But if it is true, wouldn’t we see 

apple moths lurking in every tree? 

Wouldn’t the crops be tattered and torn? 

Wouldn’t the orchards look forlorn? 

For this moth has been here years 

and life goes on, despite the fears 

of stupid men racked with paranoia, 

whose pathetic arguments will really annoy ya. 

I say, look to New Zealand for a classic example— 

100 years of moth and clearly they aren’t all 

running around spraying the people, 

afraid that the moth will come and eat all 

the produce, the flowers, the grass and the trees. 

Give me a break 

with your spraying schemes— 

puleeeze! 

Henry Rush 

ICE RAID 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

In my capacity as a community religious leader and as director of a local nonprofit, I wish to commend you for your prompt coverage of the ICE activities in our city. This morning, a number of people contacted me to express their concern and confusion about the presence of federal agents in Berkeley. Online you are the first source to report the events. There were a number of us looking for clarification on what happened and the city’s response. Your in-depth article has served this purpose. Peace. 

Fr. Rigoberto Calocarivas 

Executive Director 

Multicultural Institute 

• 

PARKING FEES 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The proposal for night parking fees is another one of those “punish us until we are green” proposals. Yes, please, charge us more for less. Purify us. Make us sacrifice until we have saved the earth. Tear down parking lots, and make us pay to park on the streets, then complain that there are lines at the lots that haven’t yet been torn down. Everyone pays, except, of course, Code Pink. (But don’t go overboard, by say, increasing public transit, extending the hours of BART or making rides cheaper, faster, and more convenient.) 

We don’t need to go out anyway. We will all sit in our homes and read books written on recycled rags illuminated by ecologically correct low wattage light bulbs. After all patronizing downtown business wastes the earth’s resources. We’ve already said Fairfax to the UC, Berkeley, Cinema, and Act I and 2 movie houses. That probably isn’t enough. Now the city is determined to get rid of the UA, California and Shattuck, the last three downtown theaters, in the interest of increasing empty storefronts in the neighborhood. I don’t suppose this will do a world of good for the live theaters, the Rep and Aurora. The Freight and Salvage may want to reconsider moving downtown. 

But we, here in Berkeley are all so virtuous. Unfortunately most of the rest of the world will go watch movies in the malls. 

Paul Glusman 

• 

MASS GROPINGS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Did the police give the media more of a description than just “young males’? If they did, why wasn’t it printed? Who are we looking for? 

Peter Bjeldanes 

• 

INACTION 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

On Friday night, May 2, a young South Berkeley teen was shot three times as he came to the aid of his brother who was being pistol whipped during an attempted kidnapping inside Bob’s Liquor Store. He was the second young black male shot in Berkeley that night. 

At the scene of the shooting the Berkeley police, I am told, were given the store’s surveillance tape and that they collected articles of clothing dropped by the gunmen. 

I have walked throughout the neighborhood since the shooting to see if any further investigation by the police has been conducted. No one I talked to has been interviewed by the police nor have I seen any police investigation taking place. 

Furthermore the family of the teen who was shot has called the Berkeley Police Department trying to get information but their calls have not been returned. 

Is it that the Berkeley police are so overwhelmed with violent crime here they fail to conduct the most basic research into crimes they themselves do not commit, or are they simply incompetent? What excuse is there for the department not to return calls to a mother whose son has been shot? 

In an earlier piece I questioned the need for an NAACP, who fired its president for criticizing police for the shooting to death a knife wielding grandmother in South Berkeley. 

Given the silence of the Berkeley NAACP during this latest series of shootings that have left this neighborhood visibly upset, I ask again, what does it take to get the Berkeley and Oakland branches of the NAACP to say something or do something relevant to the deterioration of life in black America? 

In times past the NAACP was one organization or agency black folk could count upon to force action from public agencies reluctant to respond to the needs of blacks. Now it seems to be complicit in that inaction. 

Jean Damu 

• 

LANGUAGE PROGRAM CUTS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I urge everyone to go to http://petition.berkeley.edu/cgi-bin/student-petition.pl and discover what is happening to language instruction at UCB. 

Easy-to-understand UCB East AsianLanguages Petitions to Support East Asian Language Education are also there. 

EALC will have no choice but to deny at least 1,500 students the opportunity to learn Chinese, Japanese or Korean. 66 percent of Korean classes, 54 percent of Chinese classes, and 40 percent of Japanese classes on the UCB campus will be eliminated as of fall 2008. These numbers do not include the hundreds of students already turned away each year. 

Helen Rippier Wheeler 

• 

‘SECOND HAND ROSE’ 

Editors, Daily Planet:  

Please let Ms. Snodgrass know that the song “Second Hand Rose” was written well before Barbra Streisand was born so she couldn’t have been the inspiration for the song. 

Rick Kipp 

• 

SKATE PARK 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I read Mr. Woods’ column about the skate park and yes, maybe it was a disaster (not his words) but it is what we have. I know it and the surrounding playing fields are also heavily used almost everyday and certainly every weekend. Do I ignore the health issues—almost because what else do we have for the hundreds—if not thousands—of kids and adults who use these parks? Nothing. I wish it were otherwise and we had a fields and open space for our kids but we don’t. Any suggestions we can afford Mr. Wood? 

Bill Newton 

• 

PARKING PERMITS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Once again, the City of Berkeley has sent out notices for residential preferential parking permits without indicating that persons with low income (under $33,500) are entitled to a half-price discount, from $30 reduced to $15. Proof consisting of income tax forms, a photo ID, and a bill indicating your home address (PG&E or AT&T, etc.) must accompany the application whether in person or by mail. When will the city make it routine to add that information to the notices they send out each year? Are they trying to make money on the backs of poor people? 

Estelle Jelinek 

• 

WHY THE GROVE MATTERS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

The Memorial Stadium oak grove needs the community to commit to its protection. This struggle is about more than this valuable grove of trees. It is about democracy and the rights of citizens to have a say in their communities. It is about humans evolving to understand that our survival is intertwined with the health of the natural world and it is imperative that we live in accordance with nature. It is about sane, livable neighborhoods and respecting the history of the land and its peoples. It is about saving the headwaters of our watershed from foolish and dire construction.  

Dear Strawberry Creek, watershed of the Berkeley campus, who has nourished this land for millennium, calls for our help. There are plans to tear into the future by tearing up these sacred hills. This area declared “An Ecological Study Area,” where live the elderberry and the California towee, the mountain lion and fox, banana slug and sweet cicily, is threatened by plans that we did not vote on. 

We must turn the tide of the direction our public university is going. UC should be the front runner in researching how to protect our precious resources and finding alternative sustainable solutions for the public. Instead it is being allowed to run unrestrained and unmonitored into exciting but treacherous technologies without the wisdom of or research into the dangers and downfalls they present. That the nano-technology “molecular foundry” was built without an EIR and runs with little oversight should be alarming to all of us. There are already nano products commercially available without reasonable research into their effects. Highly toxic nano silver is washing out of new nano-socks and into the bay without EBMUD sewage treatment plant operators being aware of it, never mind having the technology to filter it. What effect will this have on the bay and the ocean ecosystems and the bodies of our children? 

We must stand now, for life. This is our line in the sand. This grove of oak trees on Strawberry Creek is wiser and more valuable than a foolish building. Oaks are sacred to many peoples. Oak groves represent community, strength and sustenance. They are our elders and teachers. Community has formed around this grove. We have met, many different folks under (and in) these trees, pledging support for their going on.  

Hold on, hold on. We shall stand in peace before our elders. To protect them, and to share their wisdom. We shall feel our roots in the land we are on. This struggle is central to our connection to earth and soul. Stand with the trees. 

Terri Compost 

• 

UNFATHOMABLE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

My recent observations in South Berkeley only proved to me my suspicion that the leadership in the City of Berkeley makes Bush and Cheney seem like innocent, wayward choirboys. 

It seems obvious to me that by authorizing a drug paraphernalia outlet on Ashby Avenue in South Berkeley that the City Council is blatantly pandering to their drug-dealing friends. How is this different than the politics of oil? Let’s just tell it like it is. 

I, personally, do not care if people use if they do in a safe and responsible way. What bothers me is the obvious cynicism, corruption, deliberate and blatant neglect leveled on our SouthSide neighborhood by the shortsighted, misanthropic leadership of the City of Berkeley. 

One wonders why the city could not support the arrival of, say, a noodle shop, or a bread bakery, or even, perhaps, an establishment that served a tolerable cup of coffee…or at least some establishment that served the whole neighborhood. 

John Herbert 

• 

IHSS IN TURMOIL 

Editors, Daily Planet:  

Since 1994, I have been on the In-Home Supportive Services program (IHSS) that pays for my overnight care as a result of my physical disability, Cerebral Palsy. For over nine years my IHSS was active in Alameda County. 

In 2004, 10 years later, I transferred my case to San Francisco. In November of 2007, my fiancée and I moved back into Alameda County where I was told my IHSS would be transferred back to and until this took place San Francisco would pay for my IHSS.  

As of March 31, San Francisco IHSS—after much delay—would not be involved anymore and Alameda would take over effective April 1st. However, I did not see an intake worker until April 14th and as of yet my case is still pending.  

My workers have not been paid for a month and I was informed on May 1 that the client rights advocate for IHSS had turned my case over to the director of IHSS who I have been unable to get a hold of. In the IHSS telephone information system, my case has been pending since Nov. 20 and my providers are average people who are proud of what they do for me and they deserve to get paid. If I do not receive my IHSS payment soon, one of my attendants who has been with me for 10 years will be forced to go on unemployment and the other will be forced to look elsewhere for work.  

I have spoken to my intake worker once and the client rights advocate on several occasions. After the home visit where I was assessed, I was told that IHSS would enter my information into their system and that my workers would be paid very soon. I wonder how a government agency can get so backed up and so discombobulated that it puts people like me at risk of not being able to do my activities of daily living at risk for bedsores, health and safety issues along with losing great In-Home care attendants who know and understand the severity of my condition. If IHSS is not operating effectively then why do my workers have to go without pay?  

Nick Feldman 

• 

SHAME ON THE  

CITY OF BERKELEY 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

It’s almost two months since the March 11 “protest” against the Marine Recruiting Station, and, although the discussion in this and other papers’ letters to the editor sections at the time were full of vitriol, they have faded from the public purview. All is forgotten, all is forgiven? 

Not quite. The City Council still has a lot to answer to. They are public servants, and not only is it unacceptable for them to make grand (and empty) ideological gestures without public discussion, it is reprehensible and irresponsible that they apparently never took into consideration the consequences of their vote to “unwelcome” the Marine Recruiting Station. 

To make a bad situation worse, they sponsored the “protest” and offered the park directly across from Berkeley High as the venue...on a school day! In case nobody was looking (or asking) this park is really an extension of BHS on school days. And as anyone who has been there at 3:15 can attest, there are kids all over the park and the adjacent streets at that time. Exactly the time that the “protest” was gathering steam. This was already a recipe for trouble. But it doesn’t end there. There were many busloads of pro-war demonstrators already gunning for a fight—men, mostly, who had been ramping up their generalized anger for some hours. They now only needed to focus that anger. Who better to focus it on than kids—that category of being that is really without voice or power. So, the adults began to taunt and threaten the kids as they came out of school and tried to skate at the ledges. 

Not to worry, the City Council again had apparently decided on the best plan of action. A full wall of Berkeley Police in riot gear (whose overtime pay cost the city $93,000). These police, however, rather than protect the kids, arrested them. 

It was the kids, not the adults, who were arrested. The kids, they say, who were threatening. What, kids just randomly being threatening? 

Now, there are some who have not forgotten March 11. They now have records, and have to do public service. 

Where is the City Council now? Why did they not for see the severe consequences of the actions they put into play? Why do they not ameliorate the damages by interceding on behalf of those kids so unfairly arrested? The City Council prefers to play in the realm of ideological gestures, not realizing that their “moral high grounding” has had truly violent repercussions on the lives of innocent kids. 

Dr. JoAnn Conrad 

• 

ROBBERIES COMMON IN THE BERKELEY HILLS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I have been disturbed by the recent reports that armed sidewalk robberies are becoming the norm in the Berkeley hills, especially in the neighborhood surrounding the Graduate Theological Union (GTU). But anyone who has lived or studied there full well knows that people in and around the GTU have been, for years, assaulted by the so called, Margaret Hamilton-like “Berkeley Parking Authority,” whose amply-provided force has assured that even the most minor infraction is duly fined with the infamous $30.00 parking ticket. (As a side note, I am amazed that a city like Berkeley allows for such abuse, and that nobody has organized a city-wide demonstration so far.) At my friend’s place on Oxford street, scores of tow trucks and meter-maid-mobiles line up daily at 3:40 p.m. to begin towing cars parked in a no parking zone beginning at 4:00 (towing at 4:01). It’s not clear why the zone converts to “no parking” as, unlike other cities, a new lane does not open up. It’s just another example of the predatory behavior that extracts dollars from citizen’s pockets. 

I find it ironic, but not surprising, that Berkeley can amply staff their minion of parking ticketers, while failing to provide the necessary police coverage that prevents rogue, armed bandits from roaming peaceful neighborhoods and robbing people like seminarians and monks of their meager wages. But then again, the “Parking Authority” has been doing so for years. 

Once again we see where the city of Berkeley’s concerns lay. 

Rev. John Handley 

PhD Student, Graduate Theological Union 

Fairfax (Marin County) 

• 

BUS RAPID TRANSIT 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Bruce Wicinas writes that Berkeley should not passively accept the design that AC Transit proposes for Bus Rapid Transit, that a local landscape architect has already produced several alternative designs with exciting new possibilities, that AC needs Berkeley’s help to design a scheme that preserves the downtown environment. 

I agree completely, but I am puzzled by Wicinas’ claim that Alan Tobey suggested otherwise. Tobey’s earlier letter simply said that the city has adopted a general policy favoring BRT with exclusive bus lanes on Telegraph Avenue, by unanimous vote of all the councilmembers and of then-mayor Shirley Dean. He never suggested that the city has endorsed a final design. In fact, there is not yet a final design or even a final route proposed for BRT in south campus and downtown. After the Planning Commission chooses a preferred alternative for the route, we can begin to develop a final design for that preferred alternative. At that point, I think it would invaluable to have the sort of collaborative design process that Wicinas suggests to develop the detailed design that is best for Berkeley. 

BRT is being adopted by cities around the nation and the world because it is the most cost-effective method of providing better public transportation. Chicago has just approved a BRT plan for that reason—one more major city adopting BRT since my last letter to the Planet. BRT can have the same transportation benefits in Berkeley that it has in other cities, and with the sort of design that Wicinas writes about, it can also give us a more pedestrian-friendly, vital, and economically successful downtown. 

Charles Siegel 

• 

THAI TEMPLE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

A bad case of NYMBYitis has infected the neighbors of Berkeley’s Mongkolratanaram Thai Temple.  

One neighbor’s reportedly said “I have no complaints. I’d rather have them than Section 8 housing.” What a bigoted thing to say. I guess he doesn’t want “those kind” in Berkeley.  

As the president of a non-profit that has a low-income apartment project for seniors and the disabled on the Monterey Peninsula, I can truthfully say our Section 8 residents are the best. No wild parties or gang-bangers there. 

Larry Hawkins 

Seaside 

• 

NO NEW TAXES 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

A preliminary review of the City of Berkeley-commissioned Berkeley Voter Survey, geared to elicit positive responses to potential new tax measures, indicates scant local appetite for new taxes. So I hope that Berkeley city officials drop that subject and move on to what voters really seem to want, according to the poll—better city revenue management. In these hard times, the city needs to cut city expenses (fewer staff, recession of new contracts if necessary, fewer bells and whistle programs, fewer developer subsidies) and re-prioritize city spending into what residents really want—effective public safety above all. 

A recent article on Berkeley home foreclosures indicates more than 200 homes in the foreclosure system. Prices are declining. It may get much worse before it gets better. 

There is a wealth of important census-type data embedded in the Berkeley Voter Survey and the city should engage an independent statistician to put it all together in a useful format. Just two examples of many—there is data on the modest income level of most Berkeley homeowners (average looks about $100,000) and there is evidence that about half of residents with children are not using Berkeley public schools! 

So instead of thinking of ways to increase the local tax burden, city and school officials need to engage in a Reality Check on the Real World.  

Barbara Gilbert 

• 

DECEPTIVE MEASURE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

On June 3, you will be asked to vote on measure F which re-authorizes, increases, and extends the utility users tax in the unincorporated parts of Alameda County. Many of you reading this live in cities and won’t have to pay the tax and will derive no benefits from it. So, why are you being asked to vote to tax someone else? Because the County Board of Supervisors thinks the tax is more likely to pass if voted on countywide. 

The supervisors could have legally restricted the vote to those of us who will pay the tax (10 percent of the county population) but they don’t trust us to pass it. This is unfair, and the supervisors know it. 

The measure is also deceptively worded. The supporters promise to spend the money on libraries, sheriff and planning, but the legally binding language of the measure (the fine print) says “ There is no legal obligation that the funds be used for any particular purpose.” This is dishonest. Welcome to politics, Alameda County-style. 

Please vote no on F, and make the supervisors create a special district so that we in the unincorporated areas can vote on our own taxes and services. 

Steve Rosenberg 

Castro Valley 

• 

UNHOLY ALLIANCE 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

We, the people of Berkeley, should propose a citizen-initiated proposal to end the unholy alliance between the developers and some of the councilmembers.  

This proposal should say, “If a councilmember has accepted money from a business or individual, either directly or indirectly, then he must recuse himself when a matter that would benefit that entity comes before the City Council.” 

What is happening is that many developers have purchased some of the councilmembers through generous campaign contributions. Developers themselves, their key employees and their family members contribute “bribes” to the councilmembers campaign funds. In turn, those dishonest councilmembers vote positively on their requests to the city council, instead of recusing themselves.  

Legally, the city council often decides these proposals in a “quasi-judicial” capacity. And they should recuse themselves from voting when a matter comes up, but many dishonest councilmembers don’t.  

When these dishonest councilmembers vote, they vote to give money to those developers who have purchased those councilmembers. They vote to given the developers money from the low-interest loan-fund, outright grants, zoning change and other goodies that spell M-O-N-E-Y. 

Sometime ago. Councilmember Gordon Woziak wrote an article on www.KitchenDemocracy.com expressing his opinion on a permit proposal before the city council. At that time, the then city attorney Manuela Albuquerque advised him to recuse when that matter comes before the city council. And he did recuse. Manuela’s argument was that since the councilmembers are acting in a “quasi-judicial” capacity when deciding on such matters, they must be totally impartial. 

At that time, I asked Manuela, “By your logic, councilmembers should also recuse when they accept money from a developer and a matter that gives money to that developer comes before the city council.” Manuela had answered that the Supreme Court had decided that it would not be conflict of interest. 

But still the citizens can put forth an initiative that bans such dishonest conduct be councilmembers. So lets discuss this matter publicly and pass such an initiative. 

Irshad Alam 

• 

THE COST OF OIL 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

As the rising cost of oil continues to punish the consuming population, it is odd that the issue of nationalizing the U.S. oil majors seldom comes up. As a practicing geologist I think that nationalization needs to be put on the agenda. 

The U.S. oil majors apparently decided to drive the market as high as possible, short of some psycho-social breaking point due to widespread fraud and petty theft (eg. gas tank siphoning). The OPEC decision to resist U.S. pressure to expand oil extraction, declared that the high prices are a result of U.S. economic mismanagement. The United States is understandably coy—the secretary of state is a former member of the Chevron board of directors. (Senator Biden defended Chevron against China’s higher bid for Unocal). 

Consider the consequences of not nationalizing U.S. oil majors. To take one familiar example, Chevron, teaming with (the French oil company) Total, for a Basra oil field, defends the occupation (expecting the U.S. oil majors to get Iraq oil deals out of the Iraqi congress; a prospect abhorrent to the Iraqi population). Chevron’s bloating from recent acquisitions of Texaco and Unocal, only increases its “corporate bullying”; in the Unocal purchase for example Chevron’s CEO O’Reilly claimed at the end of 2005-06, that to buy Unocal, it was necessary that gas prices, around $2 a gallon at the time, needed to rise to $3 a gallon to finance the deal.  

The U.S. oil majors have been predicting imminent shortages of oil ever since the 1920s to keep gasoline prices high; (crude in the 1970s was “coming out of our ears”—said USGS Director McKelvey in 1978 before President Carter removed him). These days O’Reilly claims scarcity really is here (his “peak oil” scenario, also disputed by the USGS). The truth may be that the North American land mass, in oil shale, has an oil supply sufficient for centuries. If runaway global warming interferes with the familiar glacial/interglacial cycles it will likely be due to oil abundance. 

So I believe an effort should be made to nationalize the U.S. oil majors, with the aim of making oil available in a timely, efficient and predictable fashion. 

Fred Hayden 

Albany 

• 

EAST BAY VIVARIUM 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Loosing the Vivarium would be a terrible loss for the East Bay. What a great resource for Berkeley. I have been going there for many years with children, grandchildren, friends’ kids. A vital contact for kids and adults with snakes, lizards, frogs, iguanas, turtles and others. This is relaxed, friendly place with friendly staff who provide information and contact for both children, adults and other critters.. 

All this in an age when doing anything costs big bucks while this is free. Why on earth would the city, through the Zoning Adjustments Board, squeeze this resource out, without searching out solutions for the Vivarium’s survival? Some powerfully imaginative city official needs to discover how to allow the Vivarium to continue its important good work. 

Or maybe we could set up a similar city institution (with its own parking lot?) which would only cost a couple of million plus a few million a year for staff and maintenance. 

If need be, we should mount a giant protective demonstration to save the Vivarium, however, I would hope that a way will be developed to avoid this kind of silly confrontation. 

Dan Robbin 

• 

THE SPRAY JOB 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

When I was a child, my dearly departed mother took me on her knee and whispered in my young ear: “Son, capitalism can never be successfully regulated.” And so, as the years passed by and I grew to adulthood and went through a period of rejecting all that my parents stood for, it came upon me finally, that there was a stark truth in her words. In microcosm, witness the “spraying” of the pesky moth that threatens agribusiness, and thus, they tell us, all of us. A moratorium has momentarily been declared. “Hah!” my mother would have declared, “just you wait and see, son; eventually they will spray because capitalism will not be regulated!” I’m waiting to see if she’s right.  

Robert Blau 

• 

GHG REDUCTIONS, NIGHTTIME PARKING, DONA SPRING AND TRAFFIC LIGHTS 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

I didn’t want Berkeley to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent because I knew that doing so at such a local level would be extremely costly to me and all of us who live here. Berkeley passed the resolution, and now, Dona Spring and other councilmembers continue to impose their values upon us because they think we drive too much. However, policies (in this case, evening parking meters) making it more and more difficult to drive around town with the hope that the frustration will lead people to public transport are the reason people begin to hate politicians. I sincerely hope they understand this point, although I am skeptical that Ms. Spring is still able to accept this type of criticism without brushing it off as from an out-of-touch/wacko resident, something she has told me before on similar issues. 

Why not, if we must accept this 80 percent goal, reduce GHG emissions by improving traffic flow rather than frustrating it? A good start would be for Berkeley to fix and adjust traffic lights. There are numerous offenders in Berkeley, the most notable one to me being at the corner of MLK and Derby Street. That particularly annoying light routinely flips red and stops MLK traffic without any pedestrian or car waiting to use the intersection. Furthermore, MLK and Haste and MLK and Dwight seem to be timed to operate together, except that instead of enhancing traffic flow, they retard it. Driving south, when the Haste intersection flips green, the Dwight light most likely will turn red immediately, catching all but perhaps the first car. Both of these intersections increase idling and wasted time. 

Besides these daylight examples, I bike home from campus at night and encounter the light at Cedar Street and MLK. After 10 p.m. or so, traffic is almost nonexistent. However, unlike many other lights at this time, it is still in operation and refrains from flashing until 2 a.m. some nights. Meanwhile, the occasional car that does encounter this intersection sits at the light for a minute, pointlessly idling, despite an absolute dearth of vehicles. 

These are only three examples of many maddening lights that needlessly impede traffic flow in Berkeley. I do not own a car, but the few times I do ride around Berkeley were enough to make me contact the traffic planning department to try and fix this situation. I was told that Cedar/MLK was a major intersection, and shouldn’t flash until 1 a.m. It is not in any sense of the word a major intersection after 10 p.m. As for the other intersections that turn red for no reason, I was told they had no sensors, and without funding, weren’t getting any. My efforts fruitless so far, I still don’t feel like giving up, especially when the alternative methods of reducing GHG emissions involve parking policies that will tax and frustrate us, rather than solutions like this which may calm and soothe instead. 

Damian Bickett 

• 

NO ON 98, YES ON 99 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Proposition 98 is a deceptive and very dangerous initiative that will be on the June 3 ballot in California. Hiding behind some legitimate concerns about the potential misuse of eminent domain by local governments, this constitutional amendment if enacted would eliminate all rent control on any new unit anywhere in the state, including mobile homes. Its hidden provisions would also preclude the construction of new water supply projects, gut many environmental laws, and make most zoning laws unenforceable. 

Proposition 98 was put on the ballot by the Howard Jarvis Taxpayer Association and is bankrolled by right wing billionaire Sam Zell. These people also bought us Proposition 90, a similar measure that was rejected by the voters in 2006. They are at again this time in coalition with large apartment owners and developers who want to eliminate any kind of rent control provisions in the state, no matter what a local jurisdiction might choose to do to protect its supply of affordable housing.  

Because of its many negative consequences Proposition 98 is opposed by a large coalition representing a broad cross section of Californians. These include the Sierra Club, the Association of California Water Agencies, AARP, The Consumer Federation of America, the California Teachers Association, numerous tenant organizations, and the League of Woman Voters. 

Proposition 99 on the other hand is a straight forward initiative that would reform eminent domain law so that a government could not purchase a private home using eminent domain to benefit a private party. For example a city’s Redevelopment Agency could not buy someone’s home against their will by eminent domain to make way for a privately funded shopping center. This process was deemed constitutional per a recent Supreme Court ruling. Proposition 99 would outlaw only that use of eminent domain in California, and is supported by most of the groups that are opposing Proposition 98. 

So please vote no on Proposition 98 and yes on Proposition 99, particularly since if both Props. 98 and 99 pass the one with the most votes would become enshrined in the California Constitution.  

John Katz 

Oakland 

• 

BUS RAPID TRANSIT 

Editors, Daily Planet: 

Can’t have a bus-only lane for the Bus Rapid Transit because it causes congestion? Look at Telegraph right now. Trucks delivering to stores make their own “truck-only lane.” When parked cars block the approach to the curb, the truck just stops in the middle of a traffic lane, blocking it until the delivery is complete. If a truck can take over a traffic lane, why no

Proposition 98 in the June 3 ballot is good for tenants. It phases out rent controls on a unit only when that unit becomes voluntarily vacant. Via Prop. 98, the local rent law is folded into the state constitution and the current tenant is protected from any changes in the law. Changes do happen: the Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act, undermined rent control in Berkeley, San Francisco, Oakland, and other California cities. Many people say that if 98 passes then there will be mass evictions. This same claim was made prior to the passage of vacancy decontrol (Costa-Hawkins) in the mid ’90s, but the evictions never materialized. It is nearly impossible to evict a tenant and Prop. 98 does not change that fact. 

Furthermore, a unit becomes more valuable to the landlord after passage of Prop. 98, and therefore a tenant who eventually plans to vacate has a chance of negotiating a larger relocation fee than at present or in a future without Prop. 98. 

Proposition 98 is good for cities. The phasing out of rent control gives cities the opportunity to address subsidizing the housing of the truly needy and let the market apply to everyone else. 

Rent control is defined by economists as the classic example of why price controls do not work and lead to shortages. For example, in Berkeley in 1980, just before the passage of rent control there were nearly 28,000 rental units according to the U.S. Census. Today the Berkeley rent board controls only 19,000. The most poignant loss is represented in the single-family home category: in 1980 there were 4,900 rented in Berkeley and by 1999 only 290 remained; a 94 percent loss. 

Prop. 98 is good for homeowners. Rent controlled buildings are worth less and therefore pay less in property taxes because they sell for less than rent control exempt buildings. Cities have to resort to increasing the taxes of homeowners to make up for the shortfall. The city of Berkeley is a classic example of this problem and it is currently polling its voters to determine how much of a tax increase they are willing to bear. Many homeowners are approaching retirement age and Prop. 98 creates the incentive to rent their homes rather than sell to an owner occupant. Owners of single-family homes tend not to rent if the cloud of rent control hovers over the property (see Berkeley statistic above). 

Some people maintain that rent-controlled units rent for less than uncontrolled units and use this fact to justify rent control. But it is like comparing apples and oranges. Only newly built units are exempt from rent control and these are usually more attractive, thus rent for more. 

Prop. 98 protects homeowners and small businesses from eminent domain seizures in which municipalities turn over the seized property to a private developer who usually has in mind controversial projects such as big box stores or large condo developments with hundreds of units. These are not welcome by most communities since they increase traffic and density. In many cases these seized homes have been razed and then the developers have backed down and left a wasteland where a neighborhood once stood. This happened in Seattle. 

The biggest threat is to agricultural areas adjacent to growing metropolitan areas. We cannot afford to lose any more farmland to development in our state. Many California cities are on the brink of bankruptcy due to unfunded liabilities in the form of contracts to municipal employees (recall Vallejo.) Developers team up with local politicians to target private properties via eminent domain seizure, including farms, to be developed with the promise of higher tax revenue to fund these municipal salaries and retirements; these are often more generous that anything in the private sector. This is the real engine behind Prop. 99 and opposition to 98.  

Prop. 99 is deceptive and was designed to confuse voters. It exempts only single-family homes, leaving the door open for municipalities to seize small mom and pop businesses to turn over to wealthy developers. However, even this single-family home exemption is weak since Prop. 99 seems to allow for the rezoning of homes from residential to industrial or commercial and thus making them vulnerable to seizure. Prop. 99 also contains an unfair provision invalidating Prop. 98 if both pass. 

The authors and backers of Prop. 99 are very influential and powerful and have got away with building a legal firewall to prevent voters from finding out who is really behind it. 

Vote yes on 98 and no on 99. 

Robert Cabrera is a former president of the Berkeley Property Owners Association. 

On May 13, 1968, students, workers, and activists marched through the streets of Paris to challenge the nation’s social, economic, and political structures. The marches were a prelude to what became a two-week general strike, the impact of which remains hotly debated to this day. The events of May 1968 were not the world’s first mass protests, but their role in the subsequent alteration of French society was widely hailed as proving the power of political action outside the electoral process. The United States also saw mass protests in 1968, but their failure to end the Vietnam War and the election of Richard Nixon that November left many activists frustrated. The successful WTO protests in Seattle reasserted the power of mass protest, but this appears to have dissipated as the Bush Administration invaded Iraq despite millions taking to the streets and the federal government failed to legalize undocumented immigrants despite the mass protests of the Spring of 2006. Can mass protest still make a difference in the United States, or is the electoral process—embodied in the mass involvement of those in the Obama campaign—now seen as the leading if not exclusive route to progressive change?  

For 40 years, the phrase “May 1968” has connoted a unique mass outpouring in Paris that many saw as the germination of a new social order. The Paris events were distinguished from mass protests in the United States by the mass involvement of workers, who occupied factories and engaged in a two-week general strike in one of the world’s most advanced industrial nations. 

There are enough books about May 1968 to fill entire libraries, and the UC Berkeley Art Museum currently has an exhibit of stirring photos taken by Serge Hambourg. Seeing the hope and excitement on the faces of protesters, it is clear that participants believed that taking to the streets was a profoundly meaningful act—something that cannot often be said about today’s mass events. 

Critics of the impact of May 1968 have focused on the transitory aspect to the French protests, the lack of a concrete agenda, and the fact that a major target of the protests—French leader Charles De Gaulle—was easily re-elected in June. But less frequently noted is De Gaulle’s leaving office after losing a vote of confidence a year later, and that Parisian, if not French, society was visibly changed. 

For many, May 1968 showed the continued power of mass protest, and of the primacy of political engagement outside the electoral process. Even as the protests are commodified—a candy store is selling $75 chocolate bars in the shape of the pavers that protesters dislodged from cobblestone streets —their power continues to resonate. 

U.S. protests in 1968 

In the United States in 1968, student and anti-war protesters saw the year end with Richard Nixon winning the presidency, and the Vietnam War’s escalation. Less obvious at the time was the increasing backlash to the civil rights movement that has moved American politics largely rightward for nearly 40 years. 

Many young activists responded to Nixon’s victory by moving from protests to voter registration and the electoral process. This effort culminated in anti-war progressive George McGovern winning the Democratic presidential nomination in 1972, but his landslide defeat resurrected activist doubts about the potential of national elections to bring progressive change.  

During the 1970s and 1980s, the successful mass protests against nuclear power, as well as against U.S. funding of military assistance to anti-democratic forces in Nicaragua and El Salvador, led to renewed respect for non-electoral strategies. Until at least 1992, progressive activists prioritized local and state elections over national political campaigns.  

The battle in Seattle 

It looked for a time that the 1999 mass protests against the meeting of the World Trade Organization (WTO) would be the U.S. equivalent of May 1968. The marches resembled its Paris predecessor by incorporating a broad cultural critique of contemporary capitalism, and achieved virtually complete success by shutting down the WTO meeting. 

But anti-globalization forces never expanded their base, or had a domestic agenda that facilitated its mass expansion. Future trade organization meetings became armed police encampments preventing even peaceful protest, while activists had less need to protest after getting most of the Democratic Party to back fair trade, rather than free trade. 9/11 also changed the terms of the globalization debate, as combating “terror” replaced fighting sweatshops as the chief focus. 

But in the big picture, mass protests outside the political process irrevocably altered the landscape for trade deals in the United States. Those marching in Seattle no doubt smiled to hear Hillary Clinton become a born-again ant—free trader during the Ohio primary, as it represented a near total capitulation of the Democratic Party’s free-trade, pro-NAFTA base to the forces of fair trade.  

Mass protests against Iraq War 

The successful impact of mass anti-globalization protests may have helped fuel the massive turnouts in the United States against the proposed invasion of Iraq. But after President Bush signaled that he was impervious to protests (and would rather accept a 27 percent approval rating than defer to the popular will), many who marched in the 2002 and 2003 Iraq protests figured that future involvement was pointless. 

Seeing Bush as the chief obstacle to peace, even activists skeptical of electoral politics volunteered for the Kerry campaign in the fall of 2004. Although the massive outpouring of volunteers into swing states came too late to defeat Bush, the Republican’s victory in 2004 did not alter the progressive community’s primary focus on winning elections.  

Obama and mass election activism 

When Barack Obama announced his presidential candidacy in 2007, he recognized America’s fervent desire for change. But Obama also realized that Kerry had tapped into a mass activist yearning to be part of a larger cause, and that this cause could become his campaign. 

This desire to be part of a large, broad-based social movement fueled the May 1968 Paris protests, but has seldom found expression in the United States. The Seattle WTO protests included workers but relatively few activists of color, while the spring 2006 immigration marches were more representative but included relatively few African-Americans. 

Despite the ongoing insanity of the Iraq war, activists remained focused on electoral solutions. Obama’s ability to harness this mass desire for participation in a social movement focused on winning the 2008 presidential election is the central story of his success, and reflects activists continued shift from protest to electoral politics. 

Obama realizes that elections are simply a means to an end, and that the real test is whether, after taking office, his progressive campaign agenda is implemented. This will likely require the type of mass gatherings in the streets that proved so galvanizing in Paris in 1968, and that could represent the ideal fusion of mass protest and electoral politics that activists in the U.S. have sought in vain for decades. 

Randy Shaw is the editor of BeyondChron.org.

In his 11-plus years on City Council, Kriss Worthington has been such an effective leader on so many issues that it would be easy to come up with a list of well over a hundred reasons he’s earned my support in his bid for a state Assembly seat. Here are just 10 of them: 

1. Education: Kriss is a former teacher who has worked hard to protect funding for education on all levels, from locally to statewide to nationally. He’s already spent more time in Sacramento lobbying successfully against Schwarzenegger’s attempted cuts to education than all his opponents combined. ASUC President Van Nguyen says Kriss will be “California’s most student-friendly assemblymember.” His record shows he’ll fight hard to improve our public school system and to keep student fees affordable for higher education. 

2. Progressive Legislation: Kriss has a proven track record of passing progressive pieces of legislation that serve as models for cities across the country. He has many more years of experience crafting legislation than any of his opponents, with a remarkable 98 percent success rate. The Precautionary Principle Initiative protects our health and the environment. The Eco-Pass has been wildly successful at getting cars off the road, and the Zero Waste Ordinance keeps us at the forefront of environmental policy in the fight against global warming, while other cities emulate the Living Wage Ordinance, the Worker Retention Ordinance, and the Equal Benefits Ordinance to bring greater justice to working people. 

3. The Environment: Not only has Kriss sponsored groundbreaking legislation on the environment, he also served as a local Sierra Club chair even before he was councilmember and is endorsed by the Sierra Club. His leadership on the environment won him the respect of environmental legend David Brower and continues to inspire on-the-ground activists. He works with environmental activists and organizations to build winning coalitions to advance the cause on local, regional, and state levels. Supervisor Keith Carson selected Kriss to fill in for him on the Transportation Authority “because I know I can count on Kriss to keep the environment at the forefront in allocating our transportation resources.” 

4. Diversity: Kriss doesn’t just talk about diversity; he lives it. He’s committed to bringing all of our voices into the political process. He’s served as a board member of NOW, the NAACP, and the East Bay LGBT Democratic Club. The Commission on the Status of Women honored Kriss for his “outstanding service on behalf of the women of Berkeley,” the only man ever so honored, and he’s been passionate not only about appointing women and other underrepresented people to Berkeley’s commissions but encouraging other councilmembers to step up to the plate and make appointments that reflect the true richness of the diverse East Bay. 

5. Small Business: Kriss is the only candidate with the endorsement of the East Bay Small Business Council, because of his strong support over the years for hundreds of small businesses, where most new jobs are created. He’ll insist on a tax code that protects small businesses and the middle class, while making sure millionaires and big corporations pay their fair share. 

6. Human Services: Kriss has increased services to veterans, seniors, and people with disabilities, secured funding for a center for homeless youth, and expanded healthcare coverage for children, single mothers, and working families. He’s 100 percent committed to passing single-payer healthcare in Sacramento—and getting it funded. All his life he’s fought to make sure that no one gets left behind, and he has the backbone to stand up to Schwarzenegger’s proposed cuts to essential services for those who can least afford them. 

7. Clean Money: Kriss’s campaign isn’t financed by huge contributions from big-money interests, unlike others. As the volunteer treasurer for Kriss’s campaign, I’ve gotten a window into the money behind those glossy flyers flooding your mailbox as the election approaches. Check out http://cal-access.ss.ca.gov/campaign and search for the candidates by last name to see who’s contributing what to whom. I think you’ll find it eye-opening. 

8. An Independent Voice: Kriss will be an independent progressive voice in Sacramento. Just as in Berkeley, where he’s secured millions of dollars to get more affordable housing built along transit corridors while protecting neighborhood quality of life, Kriss will never be beholden to big, profit-driven developers. He’ll make passing Clean Money a top legislative priority so that more of our elected officials will be free of the pressures brought to bear by big-money contributors, including large developers, big landlords, and the insurance industry. 

9. No on 98: Kriss is the only candidate with No on 98/Yes on 99 on all his campaign literature. The anti-tenant, anti-environment, anti-neighborhood Proposition 98 is one of the most dangerous Constitutional amendments to appear on the ballot in years; it would gut rent control, erode environmental protections, and likely undermine most zoning standards that protect neighborhoods. Kriss has been a leader in the campaign to defeat it. 

10. Pro-Neighborhood: Kriss understands that to create and maintain healthy neighborhoods we need to focus on crime watch, disaster preparedness, and improving infrastructure. As councilmember, he’s shown a willingness to focus on the nitty-gritty details of potholes and storm drains without losing the big picture of passing visionary legislation on the environment, workers’ rights, and open government. As a neighborhood leader, I’ve been impressed with how Kriss has been there for us time and again, whether the issue is getting more funding for police or emergency preparedness, or taking care of our neighborhood parks and making sure we receive our fair share of allocations for street repair. Once he’s in the state Legislature, it’s clear he won’t lose track of the small details that affect our daily quality of life. 

Please join me in voting for Kriss Worthington for the state Assembly! 

Nancy Carleton is a recognized leader on crime watch, disaster preparedness, greening projects, and community building in the Halcyon neighborhood. She’s also the volunteer treasurer for Kriss’s Assembly campaign. 

Rapid Bus Plus is a draft alternative to AC Transit's Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) proposal. Our goal is to get the most environmental and economic benefits from each scarce transit dollar invested, while making no one worse off. To win new transit riders, we would enhance the best features of BRT, while expanding their benefits beyond the BART/Telegraph corridor (where buses already work well and commuters also have the BART alternative).  

We would use proof-of-payment (POP) to speed up boarding: Buses could open all doors at every stop. But we encourage AC Transit to implement this across its whole fleet. We also encourage fleetwide signal-priority devices, which let buses electronically hold green lights to proceed faster. 

We would maintain local bus service on Telegraph, and improve transfer times and reliability, fleetwide. Riders could check bus arrivals in real time, using cell or traditional phones.  

Through transit operations alone, we would exceed AC Transit's modest environmental targets for BRT: saving 690 gallons/day of fuel, and 6 tons/day of greenhouse gases. We would deploy more efficient and accessible buses (hybrids) and run them on cleaner, lower-carbon fuels (biodiesel or natural gas). We would also use smaller, fuel-efficient buses to maintain high service frequency at off-hours.  

We would achieve POP without expensive bus "stations" or automated ticket-vending machines. We would also omit bus-only lanes, along with their impacts on Telegraph Ave. users, local merchants, and South Berkeley neighborhoods. Higher gas prices are already achieving BRT's goal of reducing car traffic – so Rapid Bus can be still more rapid in shared lanes.  

BBTOP is a broad-based coalition of Berkeley neighborhood residents, merchants, and transit wonks. We are proudly thinking outside the bus to bring worldwide transit "best practices" to the Bay Area. After presenting Rapid Bus Plus to Berkeley's Planning Commission on May 14, we look forward to further refining this package through discussions with City officials and staff, AC Transit, UC Berkeley, and other community stakeholders.

Arise, then, women of this day! Arise all women who have hearts, whether our baptism be that of water or of fears! Say firmly: "We will not have great questions decided by  

irrelevant agencies. Our husbands shall not come to us, reeking with carnage, for caresses and applause. Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn all that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience. 

We women of one country will be too tender of those of another country to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs. From the bosom of the devastated earth a voice goes up with our own. It says "Disarm, Disarm! The sword of murder is not the balance of justice." 

Blood does not wipe our dishonor nor violence indicate possession. As men have often forsaken the plow and the anvil at the summons of war, let women now leave all that may be left of home for a great and earnest day of counsel. Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead. 

Let them then solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means whereby the great human family can live in peace, each bearing after their own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar, but of God. 

In the name of womanhood and of humanity, I earnestly ask that a general congress of women without limit of nationality may be appointed and held at some place deemed most convenient and at the earliest period consistent with its objects, to promote the alliance of the different nationalities, the amicable settlement of international questions, the great and general interests of peace.  

Julia Ward Howe  

Boston  

1870 

The Berkeley High Warm Pool is under siege from many fronts. Although the gym is registered on the state and federal registries of historic landmarks, the Berkeley Unified School District is still slated to tear down the pool. Swimmers have been working with the City of Berkeley for nearly a decade, but we have been told that there are no funds to build a new pool.  

Now we have a under siege from another quarter—from the Department of Parks and Recreation itself. Last December all of the notices and newspaper articles that we had collected and posted on the walls were ripped down and we were told that we could not post any materials without it first being approved by the department. 

In response to this I posted a 6-foot by 9-foot sign indicating that our First Amendment rights did not end when we entered the pool and advised swimmers to call both Scott Ferris and Rosemary Fonseca to voice their opposition. 

I thought that this had been straightened out. 

Imagine my surprise when, on April 24, I was forwarded an e-mail from Philip Harper-Cotton indicating that as of May 8 the department would be requiring our swimmers to “sign in” on a city-provided release form before entering the pool, and that they wanted all participants to fill in an emergency card on a yearly basis, so that they have all pertinent emergency and medical information on as many swimmers as possible. 

In other words—these two edicts now threaten our civil rights as well as our access to the pool. We feel that this new policy is an invasion of privacy and violates the Fourth Amendment. In case the department is unfamiliar with the United States Constitution or the Bill of Rights I have brought copies for them.  

First Amendment: “Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech....” 

If there is one right prized above all others in a democratic society, it is freedom of speech. The ability to speak one’s mind, to challenge the political orthodoxies of the times, to criticize the policies of the government without fear of recrimination by the state is the essential distinction between life in a free country and in a dictatorship. 

The One Warm Pool Advocacy Group, relies on postings on the bulletin board to communicate with other swimmers about our advocacy efforts, our meetings, and our future strategies for keeping the pool open. We cannot allow the department to censor us. They may not like our positions or our agenda, but that is what free speech is all about. We sometimes have short timeframes as to when we need people to show up at public meetings, and can’t wait for someone in management to determine, with no criteria that has ever been established, whether they are going to allow us to post our information. We need to put this issue to bed once and for all. 

The privacy issue is perhaps even more important to us. The relevant law is as follows: 

Fourth Amendment: “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated.”  

Privacy, in its modern meaning, is very much related to individuality, and is a right of the person, not of the group or the society. Privacy, like most rights, relates directly to democracy. 

The makers of our Constitution undertook to assist the pursuit of happiness. They conferred, as against the government, the right of individuals to be let alone—the most comprehensive of rights and the one most valued by civilized men. To protect that right, every unjustifiable intrusion by the government upon the privacy of the individual, whatever the means employed, must be deemed a violation of the Fourth Amendment. 

Medical information has long been held to constitute a seminal privacy issue. When the department asks for private and medical information, it does not indicate why it needs this information, how this information will be safeguarded nor who will have access to it. 

We fail to see how acquiring our private data will assist the department in any way in provided first aid, CPR or assist them in dialing 911. 

In addition to being unnecessarily intrusive, it is data that can potentially be misused to our disadvantage. Once a database is created, it is almost impossible to maintain total security over it.  

People are worried that “Big Brother” will know too much about them, and use that information to their detriment. But as much as we are worried about government, we are also worried about threats to our privacy when this information is disseminated in ways that we have not been told or approved of—from other governmental agencies, from persons unknown or even from criminals who may use information collected in any manner—quasi-voluntary or coerced, to harm our interests. Or prey on us because of information gleaned from our medical history shows that we are vulnerable. 

Demanding this information from these swimmers is also discriminatory. Other properties under the Parks and Recs department are also potentially high risk—such as the skate park, the dog run—even municipal buildings. And yet it is only swimmers that are required to provide their private information. 

Finally—exactly what are we being asked to sign? Is this a total waiver of all of the Department’s obligations to us? If so, why go to the expense of hiring lifeguards? This needs to be examined carefully. 

Just because we represent the downtrodden does not give the department leave to trample upon our civil rights.  

I presented this information to the Parks and Recs commission on April 28, but they chose not to take any action. I am hoping that the Berkeley City Council will provide the appropriate action to stop this egregious action before it is implemented. 

Janet Weiss is a user of the warm pool. 

Could the tragedy of Christopher Wootton’s death have been avoided if we had been more proactive with prevention and enforcement efforts in our community? Sadly, we think it’s possible that might be the case. We are a group of neighbors who have volunteered our time for over two years on the Chancellor’s Task Force on Student/Neighbor Relations working on issues of alcohol-related behavior in the Southside. 

The Southside neighborhood is the most densely-populated in Berkeley with a mix of students, working people, and families. Starting a few years back, this neighborhood became a high-energy party zone, overrun with student gatherings that lasted throughout the night. Often, there were hundreds of young people in the streets—most of them drunk, shouting at each other and into their cell phones, roving from party to party. Urinating and vomiting on lawns was common. Broken glass, bottles, and cans were left scattered all over the sidewalks, streets, and yards. Parked cars were walked over, lifted and moved onto lawns and sidewalks, or otherwise vandalized. Garbage cans, recycling containers, and newspaper boxes were regularly overturned, and trees and plants in private gardens were frequently damaged.  

It was hard to believe that these actions were perpetrated by the same respectful students who had worked so hard to get into Cal. No slouches ourselves to partying in our heyday, this was behavior like we’d never seen. Students were frequently rude, and when asked to quiet down were likely to tell us to “fuck off” and insist that “we should move, it was their territory.” As parents and neighbors, we were not only concerned about the immense impact this had on our sleep and quality of life, but also worried about the danger and health affects of these out-of-control parties on the students themselves.  

There are also significant public safety and cost issues for the rest of the city. On any given party night, up to 75 percent of Berkeley’s police force may be found on the Southside dealing with parties, taking away valuable resources from other parts of Berkeley. That means that other crimes are more likely to be committed, and less likely to be solved. 

The task force, a unique partnership of city, university, student, business, and neighborhood leaders, has made significant progress over the past two years: Cal’s Code of Student Conduct was enhanced; city laws regarding out-of-control parties were beefed up; and a Social Host Ordinance that addressed under-age drinking was passed. The university developed an online tutorial program about the effects of binge drinking and made its viewing mandatory for incoming students. UCPD created a squad dedicated to the partying problems in the Southside; UCPD and BPD applied for and got ABC grants; a web site was created; “party safe” campaigns were initiated; neighbors hosted welcome back fairs for students; and student leaders started a media campaign. 

But it is apparent to many of us that these efforts have not been adequate to address the continuing problems. Indeed, for many Southside neighbors, this year has been the worst ever for student behavior problems. While we support the efforts of the university, the city, and both UCPD and BPD, this tragedy has pointed out where preventative efforts would make a huge difference—in this case perhaps even saving a life. We suggest the following actions, many of which have been instituted successfully in other university communities: 

• Establish an Office of Off-Campus Life. Given the huge impact UC students have on their neighborhoods, it makes sense to have this office not only to educate students on expected behavior in the community but to serve as a resource for them as well. 

• Establish a community liaison position to give neighborhood residents an advocate in trying to solve neighbor-student problems that are often overlooked by the city and the university. This position should be funded jointly by the city and the university, because both entities are involved in dealing with these issues.  

• Ask UCPD and BPD for consistent enforcement of the Second Response and Social Host Ordinances. It took us a long time to develop these tools, and we need to use them. The police should educate all of their officers and start citing public nuisance behavior—not only off campus but in residence halls and Greek houses, and in the streets at night. As student leaders themselves have told members of the task force on numerous occasions, we need to tell them clearly what the expectations are regarding student behavior and then enforce them consistently. That will change behavior. 

• UCPD and BPD should develop joint procedures for handling party complaints, and make sure they work together efficiently. It is critically important that they resolve the jurisdictional issues that have sometimes limited the effective enforcement of our ordinances. 

• Give police additional resources to enforce ordinances. While this may be a little more costly initially, in the long run it will prove to be very cost-effective. 

• Cal should send letters to all students—and in particular incoming freshmen and their parents—outlining what behavior is expected of Cal students in the community and presenting information on alcohol and noise ordinances. Certainly parents want to know what is expected and have the assurance that their children are going to a safe place to study. 

• The City of Berkeley should enforce its On-site Manager Ordinance and require manager contact information to be posted in a visible location on multi-unit buildings for the use of police and neighbors. 

• Increase the funding for the Health Center at Cal to get more information out to students on the effects of binge drinking and other alcohol-related risks. 

Education is not just a formal classroom experience; it is a social one as well. We are abdicating our responsibility to our young people if we do not teach them social rules that are in place to benefit us all. 

It is enormously sad that a tragedy of this nature is necessary before it becomes obvious that business as usual is not acceptable. We send our condolences to this young man’s family and friends with the sincerest hope that our community takes responsibility so that this kind of senseless loss is not repeated. 

The state Density Bonus Law is having a major impact on the face of development in Berkeley. It has resulted in buildings which are substantially larger then those allowed by the Berkeley Zoning Code and which are impacting the neighborhoods along our transit corridors in ways that were not anticipated. While both the neighborhoods and our newspapers like to label the Zoning Adjustments Board (ZAB) and City Council as pro-development and the development community sees both as anti-development, this misses the point. It is the state law that has created these larger buildings. The law is a poorly written document riddled with ambiguities which in itself contributes to the angry debate which is the mode for all Density Bonus project hearings. The approval process on these buildings is all but dysfunctional and we need to address the issue so that ZAB and the City Council can regain control over the development of our city.  

To understand why I say the process is dysfunctional look at the steps we go through. Applicants feel they don’t have clear ground rules. Neighbors are enraged (understandably so) at the size of the projects. The ZAB hearings are very adversarial and take months as ZAB wrestles with the applicants’ and neighbors’ conflicting priorities. The compromises, usually reduction in the building size, are always seen as too little by the neighbors and too much by the applicant. The approved project is then appealed and goes to Council and they often make further modifications. In some cases the neighborhood brings suit to stop the project. In the long run it is the end -ser who suffers most because in an era of double digit inflation, delays in the process increase construction costs as much as 10-20-30 percent, a cost which is passed on to the buyer or renter.  

A little about the state Density Bonus Law: 

• The state Density Bonus Law was put in place to promote the development of affordable housing. The Law does not consider if a city already has an affordable housing element in their zoning code as Berkeley does but is clearly aimed at cities which were not providing affordable housing. 

• That state Law makes it inevitable that our current zoning envelopes can be increased by up to 35 percent. Everyone, the city and the neighborhoods have to understand this so that our discussions can focus not on “do we have to do this” but how this added density will be shaped. 

• The development community maintains that without the density bonus it would not be economical to build in Berkeley. Maybe, maybe not, but you have to ask yourself how so much has been built in Oakland and Emeryville without a density bonus.  

• The Law includes detailed provisions as to how many incentives and concessions are open to the applicant at each level of affordability. There is, however one killer clause. To a non-lawyer like myself it says that in awarding the incentives and concessions the city can not refuse specific incentives that the applicant requests. However, historically the city has interpreted this clause to mean that we cannot refuse any and all incentives and concessions requested by the applicant. It is the zoning equivalent of a baseball game where if the batter doesn’t like the first three strikes he can keep swinging as often as he likes. The most important aspect to Berkeley’s interpretation of the Law is that it brings with it the understanding that if we do not allow all concessions requested by the applicant that the city would be open to a suit. Other cities including Santa Monica interpret the law to mean single concessions rather then all concessions. We need to know if we have that option, too.  

How the current process to review the state Density Bonus Law came about: 

• Three years ago members of ZAB became so concerned with the Density Bonus approval process that they formed a subcommittee to study the situation. The initial focus was on both the state law and how the “base building” (what is allowed by our code and upon which the bonus is added) was calculated. Even the skeptics, myself included, decided that the way the Law was interpreted by the city removed our ability to limit the number of incentives and concessions granted to an applicant. We asked that the city bring in an outside attorney experienced in the state Density Bonus Law to review how Berkeley interprets the law but were told that there was no money available.  

• Several months into ZAB’s work the Council formed the Joint Subcommittee consisting of the ZAB committee, members of the Planning Commission, and members of the Housing Advisory Commission (HAC). The Joint Subcommittee worked for another year and produced their recommendations. The conclusion of a strong majority of the committee members was that without the ability to modify the state law and limit the number of incentives and concessions we needed to look at ways to modify the city’s zoning standards in order to set ground rules for Density Bonus projects. This is viewed by some as an effort to down zone. While down zoning may have been a motivation of some committee members, for many of us the goal was to set clear direction of how we wanted the building envelope to develop in a way that would help mitigate the impacts on the immediate neighborhood.  

• Prior to the November 2006 elections the planning staff brought forwarded a set of their own recommendations. Before the two sets of recommendations could be discussed and hopefully common ground found, under the pressure of having something on the record in case Prop. 90 was adopted both sets of recommendations were sent to the council. This was accompanied by a provision that the recommendations would sunset if Prop. 90 did not pass. Prop. 90 did not pass, the recommendations did sunset and the Density Bonus Subcommittee was disbanded. The recommendations sat fallow for more then a year before the Planning Commission started their study. Then, once again, with the new threat of Prop. 98 both sets of recommendations were sent to the Council who then adopted the Staff recommendations with the same sunset clause as before. 

It is time for the city to get serious about dealing with the state Density Bonus Law. We have worked for 15 years without a (state-required) city ordinance on how compliance with the law will be implemented. The City Council needs to look at the big picture. It’s not enough to just send the recommendations to the Planning Commission for further review. Debating which recommendations should be adopted is like chasing two pilot fish while the whale is going by unnoticed. Even if the city adopts some version of the recommendations, the effect will be relatively meaningless if we do not change how the city interprets the Law.  

What should happen? 

• The City Council should set policy around which the recommendations from the Planning Commission can be formed. Decisions on how the Density Bonus Law is implemented need to be based around the city’s goals for housing and the protection of neighborhoods. We need clear policy on the city’s priorities in these competing areas so the policy can be put in place that everyone understands, the development community, the residents, planning staff, ZAB, council and the Planning Department. Issues to be addressed include; what are the city’s goals for the development along the transit corridors? Is it to maximize housing development to the fullest extent possible? Is it to protect the neighborhoods at the risk of the loss of new housing? Is it to find a balance between the two and if so, what are the ground rules? The lack of clear city policy is producing too many mixed signals. Above all we need clarity. Without a city policy that comes from the top, we will just regress to a slightly altered process from what doesn’t work now. 

• The city should hire an outside attorney to review how we are applying the state Density Bonus Law and advise if we can move to the Santa Monica model which clearly limits the number of concessions and incentives which an applicant can receive. Without this change ZAB and the council’s hands are tied and the dysfunctional process is still in place. 

No matter what is done, nothing will change that fact that the state law allows up to a 35 percent increase above our city zoning standards. What we can do is set clearer planning policy and zoning standards for the transit corridor properties so that the city through staff, ZAB and the council, can better manage the impacts that these larger buildings impose on the city.  

Bob Allen is a member of the Zoning Adjustments Board and the Density Bonus Subcommittee.  

Thursday, May 15 is National Bike to Work Day and, across the country, we can witness the spectacle of mayors and governors, CEOs and celebrities, donning brand new helmets and pedaling off toward a green horizon. Tomorrow, they’ll be back to driving so that, by year’s end, they’ll have traveled more than 13,000 miles by car.  

With gas prices percolating toward $4 a gallon, it is unclear just how high prices will need to go before they force Americans out of their beloved vehicles. Often, when I’m biking around Berkeley, especially in foul weather, drivers give me pitying looks meant to convey sympathy for my plight—poor middle-aged woman without a car. Actually, I do have a car, but I use it as little as possible, which turns out to be very little indeed. I bike just about everywhere I go, including food shopping, play date pick-ups and on dinner dates with my husband. And I do it in all kinds of weather with the aid of an amazing invention called a raincoat that keeps me dry! I’m an unathletic 40-year old with weak, skinny legs and a tendency toward frostbitten fingers, but I cannot say that biking causes me to suffer in any way. I’ve even grown accustomed to the charming effect of a helmet pressed against my hair and consider it an eco-fashion statement. 

Biking gives me a chance to be outside, to connect with other bicyclists and pedestrians, to notice the spring flowers coming into bloom and the manic din of children at recess. Instead of zipping around in a climate-controlled box, I’m spending time being a part of the actual world, filled as it is with wonders like foggy mornings, street musicians and life-threatening potholes on University Avenue. If I need further inspiration, there’s my octogenarian neighbor Stan who rides his bike every day, sometimes even shlepping around deliveries for a local bike courier service. 

I don’t mean to sound righteous about biking. I do it because I enjoy it and because, frankly, I’m terrified of what a planet that is five degrees warmer will be like for my child and yours. And I’m pretty convinced that it’s only a matter of years before we hit the bottom of the crude oil barrel so, in that sense, biking today is merely practice for a post-oil future.  

If elected officials really want to promote biking, they should have a look at Le Cyclocity public bike program in Paris and thirteen other European cities. Parisians have access to a fleet of 20,000 theft-proof bikes strategically parked near transit hubs. With the swipe of a credit card, they unlock the bike and pedal away, often along designated bike lanes freshly painted in bright blue. The five million European subscribers take 30 million Cyclocity bike trips a year, and local businesses are thriving because bicyclists are more likely to stop and shop or grab a snack than are motorists deterred by the prospect of parking headaches.  

The parking dilemma surely rings a bell here in Berkeley—if I’m driving down Shattuck or College Avenue and feel a sudden urge for a latté, chances are the cost and nuisance of finding a parking spot will deter me. But if I’m on my bike…get that espresso machine steaming. 

A citizen’s movement is underway to bring Cyclocity to San Francisco. In our (mostly) flat, temperate, health-conscious and environmentally-aware city of Berkeley, biking is a natural. If Berkeley wants to give teeth to its Climate Action Plan, we should be looking at bringing Cyclocity to town tout suite. 

Erica Etelson is Berkeley resident. 

An April 25 commentary in the Daily Planet (“No Compromise On Apple Moth Pesticide”) misrepresented our organization’s position. We’d like to clarify our mission and the position of Pesticide Action Network (PAN) regarding the light brown apple moth (LBAM). 

PAN has been working for more than 25 years to stop the use of hazardous pesticides and promote sustainable, socially just alternatives. Over the past quarter century we’ve helped eliminate or replace dangerous pesticides with safer alternatives. We have successfully supported international treaties and agreements designed to phase out these chemicals around the world. PAN works with more than 600 organizations in 90 countries to get hazardous pesticides out of our bodies, off our plates, away from our children and out of our environment. 

On LBAM: PAN opposes aerial spraying of the pheromone-based product CheckMate due to the availability of ground-level alternatives, the lack of evidence that aerial application is effective, and the unknown potential for health damage. PAN is calling on the USDA and California Department of Food and Agriculture to increase investment in monitoring and other preventative measures, so that extraordinary control measures such as aerial spraying of residential communities are unnecessary. We also support intensified research and implementation of ecological pest management (EPM) approaches. 

PAN has insisted on transparent discussions with communities to determine: realistic estimates of potential damage from LBAM, the nature of all ingredients (active and inert) in pest control products being used or considered, the efficacy of these control measures and the potential health risks associated with these measures. And we call for transparency about the role of trade agreements in USDA’s insistence on LBAM eradication in California. (See www.panna.org/lbam for more information, links to scientific articles, updates and resources about LBAM.) 

Tragically, in California and around the world, millions of farmworkers, farmers and their families face daily exposure to extremely hazardous pesticides applied aerially and otherwise to the fields in which they work, on their communities, around schools, and near (or in) their homes. 

In California, in particular, support is currently needed to ban chlorpyrifos, a dangerous nerve poison used throughout the state in agriculture and in nurseries. Chlorpyrifos, linked with learning disabilities, acute poisonings, and other health impacts, is part of the state’s LBAM plan. We also urge you to oppose registration of the pesticide methyl iodide in California, a drift-prone carcinogen currently under consideration for use in strawberries and other crops. For more information, please contact: gunther@panna.org. The Planet commentary also criticized the Healthy Schools Act of 2000. PAN is proud to be part of Californians for Pesticide Reform (CPR), the coalition that won that ground-breaking legislation and its extension to private daycare facilities in 2006. The bills CPR supported aimed to ban the worst pesticides from use in schools, and that remains our goal. Meanwhile, CPR has campaigned to persuade some of the state’s largest school districts to eliminate all hazardous pesticides. The Oakland and San Francisco School Districts have already achieved this goal, and others are on the way. Readers interested in the Healthy Schools Campaign should contact Californians for Pesticide Reform for more information: www.pesticidereform.org. 

Finally, there is some confusion about biocontrol, including use of pheromones, Bt and other substances that can be part of responsible ecological pest management. Bt, for example, has been used effectively in organic farming for decades, though we oppose using it for aerial application. For more information on the New Zealand illnesses reported from aerial spraying of Foray that was mentioned in the Planet commentary, please see the report by PAN New Zealand at www.panna.org/mag/spring2008/features/sprayed-from-the-air-ignored-by-the-state. 

Dr. Margaret Reeves is senior scientist and Kathryn Gilje is executive director of San Francisco-based Pesticide Action Network North America. 

The June 2008 Ballot has a dangerous measure known as Proposition 98 (California Property Owners and Farmland Protection Act, or CPOFPA). If passed by the voters, Prop. 98 would terminate rent control, tenant protections, and would place homeowners at risk by allowing unscrupulous property owners to challenge existing building codes and zoning laws that may prohibit the placing of a “pig sty” next to someone’s home, or a “porn shop” next to a church or school. 

There are only two state ballot measures coming up in June, one known as Prop. 98 and the other as Prop. 99. Both competing measures are meant to prevent government from taking private property for other private use, and are in response to a 2005 U.S. Supreme Court decision that allows the government to take private property and turn it over to another private interest for economic development. Activists across the state, say that Prop. 98 is bad, and Prop. 99 is good. 

Prop. 98 is also a stealth measure that guts protections for land, air, water, species and natural resources, according to a legal analysis by the environmental law firm of Shute, Mihaly and Weinberger. 

“That is a big resounding no on Prop. 98,” says low-income Oakland renter Rodney Younger. “I am an African-American parent with a son and a daughter to protect, and Prop. 98 takes away our rights to defend our housing if it passes.” 

On April 25, the Apartment Owner’s Association (AOA) of California held a seminar at Oakland’s Hilton Hotel, which included Eviction Workshops, to teach local landlords how to evict their tenants. 

Just Cause Oakland joined others to hold a morning protest in front of the Hilton Hotel, to greet the landlords who showed up for the Eviction Workshops being conducted by the AOA. 

According to Lauren Wheeler of Just Cause Oakland, “Close to 80 people showed up to protest against the AOA event, that teaches landlords how to evict tenants.” 

“We wanted to let them know that we will not let them end renter’s protections which would occur if Prop. 98 passes. We had to let the AOA members know that Prop. 98 would result in the eviction of thousands of Oakland renters, and that people should vote no on Prop. 98, and yes on Prop. 99 to save renters protections in California,” said Wheeler. 

Efforts by community groups and organizations attempting to defeat Prop. 98 have spread across the state of California, urging people to vote against Prop. 98. “To save rent control and tenant protections, everyone must vote against Prop. 98,” says Anne Omura of the Eviction Defense Center (EDC) in Oakland. “If Prop. 98 passes, it will be a disaster for tenants because they will lose all of their rights to defend themselves from unfair evictions and unreasonable rent increases that cause homelessness. I’m urging people to register to vote, so they can defeat Proposition 98 by voting no on this disastrous measure.” 

Unless defeated, Prop. 98 would eliminate rent control and other renter protections, such as laws against unfair evictions, the timely return of security deposits, laws that require landlords to give 60-day notices before forcing renters out of their housing, and it would terminate laws that prohibit renters from being evicted from home foreclosures. Prop. 98 would also outlaw local affordable housing and inclusionary zoning requirements, and would certainly jeopardize laws protecting the disabled and seniors from drastic rent increases or evictions. 

On Thursday evening April 10, there was an urgent meeting held downtown Oakland, including housing activists and attorneys’ involved in landlord/tenant disputes. Local attorney Jorge Aguilar spent three years and more with the Eviction Defense Center before moving on to a different law firm, and was at the meeting to present a legal analysis of what Prop. 98 may do if it is not defeated by the voters. There was a great sense of anxiety by some in the room who felt that many tenants and homeowners across the state may be tricked into voting against their best interests on June 3, by the proponents of Prop. 98. The meeting included Oakland’s newest Rent Adjustment Board Member Shenae Franklin, who was there as an individual, plus Adam Gold of Just Cause Oakland, Dean Preston of Tenant’s Together, Anne Omura, Brenda Adams, and Chris Beaty of the EDC, Marc Janowitz of the East Bay Community Law Center, Luz Buitrago of the Law Center for Families, including attorneys’ Leah Hess, Jeffrey Carter, Jesse Newmark, and Marta Jimenez of Sentinel Fair Housing. 

“Aside from eliminating rent control, renter protections and inclusionary zoning requirements (affordable housing), Prop. 98 is a huge attack on homeowners because existing well established zoning laws and building codes meant to protect cities and neighborhoods from unscrupulous property owners, may all be challenged if Prop. 98 passes,” says Jorge Aguilar. “If passed, Prop. 98 will allow challenges to all existing laws established to protect clean water and the environment. Prop. 98 aims to eliminate existing building codes that may be considered an “economic benefit” to renters and a “takings” from the landlord, because it costs the landlords money to properly maintain their buildings for the tenants, in an effort to stay in compliance with city, state and federal laws. Whats to keep someone from placing a “pig sty” next to someone’s home if Prop. 98 passes?” asks Aguilar. 

Indeed, thats the same type of question arising in the minds of city officials and city redevelopment agencies all across the great state of California. In an effort to defeat the disastrous effects that Prop. 98 may cause, the League of California Cities placed Proposition 99 or the “Homeowners and Private Property Protection Act (HPPPA),” on the June ballot. 

Prop. 99, is a counter proposal meant to protect homeowners from eminent domain (government seizure), but still leaves established rent control laws, tenant protections, inclusionary zoning laws (affordable housing requirements), environmental laws and health and safety laws all intact. 

Housing activists’ are urging everyone to vote no on Prop. 98, and to vote yes on Prop. 99. If Prop. 99 gets more affirmative votes than Prop. 98 does, Section 9 of Prop. 99 nullifies any proposals to eliminate rent control, tenant protections, and inclusionary housing laws as stated in Proposition 98. 

Waging war on renters 

In support of Prop. 98, in a written statement by the president and CEO of the Apartment Owners Association of California (AOA), Dan Faller claims that this is war. 

Multi-millionaire Dan Faller sums up Prop. 98 quite succinctly, in his 2 page written statement called, “How to end rent control now.” “Won’t you join AOA in this major battle, no I mean WAR, to win back our economic freedom?” says Faller. “You are either for us or against us in this war for your freedom. Please choose now and start taking action. The CPOFPA (Prop. 98) is our best chance to get rent control on the path to elimination. Please join AOA today in this major War for your economic freedom by contributing at least $50 per unit.” Faller calls upon all property owners to join him in the WAR he is promoting and says, “We must all be united to win this one.” 

Faller even declares that politicians are terrorists, and says, “We can wipe out these terrorists and not one drop of blood need be shed!” Faller states that the AOA has already spent $325,000 to finance the Prop. 98 campaign in an effort to end rent control and tenant protections. 

Lauren Wheeler of Just Cause Oakland says, “Prop. 98 is an attempt to end rent control, and it is real devious because it’s promoted as being about eminent domain. We need people to help with our phone-bank efforts, and our precinct walks during the months of April/May/June. We also need spanish bi-lingual speakers to volunteer. Please feel free to check out our website at www.JustCauseOakland.org, or call us at (510) 763-5877.” 

Lynda Carson is an East Bay journalist. 

From all over Oakland this winter and spring, there have been calls for a crackdown on the city’s crime and violence, with police being allowed to fill in the details, at their discretion, of how such crackdown will be carried out. 

Here in the Deep East flats of the city, we get to see the details firsthand. 

One afternoon a few days ago, in our neighborhood, we witnessed a car with four young African-Americans pulled over by two OPD officers in a single vehicle, apparently because the car they stopped had no date and registration stickers on the back license plate. The stickers, it turned out, were on the front plate. 

The officers did not approach the car as if they had run the plates and thought a theft of some kind had been committed, such as the stealing of a car or plates. If that had been the case, the general practice is for one of the officers would have hung back and observed from the rear and the side, while the other officer went up to the drivers window, both of the officers putting their hands on their weapons. 

In this case, however, the two officers both went to the vehicle, one on the drivers side, one on the passengers side. We could hear the officer on the passenger side ask, through the open window, if anyone in the vehicle was on probation or parole. Apparently one or all of them answered yes, because in a moment the four occupants were brought out of the vehicle, handcuffed, and searched. Two of the occupants were put in the police car, while two of them were made to sit down on the curb. 

Next, while one officer got on the radio, the other proceeded to search the car, tossing clothing, papers, and items we were too far away to identify out onto the sidewalk and into the gutter. 

We fully expected that in a while a truck would come from A&B to tow the car away, and one or more of the car occupants would be taken away in the police vehicle. 

Instead, within a few minutes, the officers took the handcuffs off the occupants while telling them that they needed to reverse the placement of the vehicle license plates, or they would get stopped again. (Why the license plates were reversed in the first place I never found out, but apparently, from the officers’ ultimate actions in letting the car occupants go, there was nothing illegal involved, only inadvertence.) In a moment, in any event, it was over, the whole procedure taking probably fifteen to twenty minutes at the very least, and the officers drove away, while the car occupants were left to retrieve their belongings from the ground. 

How you view this incident probably depends entirely on what experiences and background you bring to the discussion. 

Many people will wonder—aloud and in blogs, probably—what was the big deal. They will say that the officers had probable cause to stop the car because of the lack of stickers on the tags (they couldn’t see the stickers on the front tags while they were following) and that, further, assuming that everyone in the car was on probation or parole, the officers were fully within their authority to temporarily detain those occupants while they determined if anything was amiss. Finally, when the officers apparently found out that there was no more violation than the transposed plates, they immediately allowed the occupants to go on their way. 

And some people in Oakland will rejoice at keeping parolees and probationers unsettled, applauding, as did the rancher Rufus Ryker in the movie Shane, the actions of a hired hand cowboy putting the run on the sodbusters. 

And in fact, the stop appears not be some random action by individual officers, but part of the strategy that Area One (North Oakland-West Oakland) Captain Anthony Toribio earlier this year famously called “showing the flag,” in which Oakland police officers use massive “routine” traffic stops to try to ferret out evidence of serious crimes. Mr. Toribio was talking about instituting the crime-fighting-by-traffic-stop strategy in the Dogtown section of West Oakland, but we have seen it instituted out here in the East Oakland flats since the old “Operation Impact” days of the Jerry Brown administration. The purpose of the policy is to use routine non-moving traffic stops on “suspicious” individuals-the “suspicious” being undefined on paper, but you are free to come up with your own criteria of how our police officers select the targets-then to be able to run warrant checks on the drivers and all individuals in the car, as well as to look for an excuse to be able to search both the occupants and the car-as happened in the license plate stop in my neighborhood described above-in the hope of coming up with something illegal. 

One wonders how all of this is being taken in and processed by the people who are actually stopped. For a violation that for most citizens would have warranted a simple instruction from the officers to correct an inadvertent mistake, they found themselves detained, publicly humiliated and embarrassed, and their belongings dumped out in the gutter. Will this experience lead them to become better citizens? Hard to think it will. 

If the purpose of OPD’s blanket traffic stop policy-blanketing only “certain” elements within the community-is to get these “certain” individuals out of Oakland—either by harassing them so much that they figure it’s better just to move to Antioch or Bakersfield, or by keeping their lives so disrupted that they end up unable to hold down a regular job and turn back to crime, eventual arrest, and parole or probation violation that sends them back to Santa Rita or beyond—then by all means, the police department should continue this policy. One way or the other, it will accomplish that purpose. 

If, on the other hand, the City of Oakland is actually embarking on a policy of turning the formerly incarcerated away from the thug and criminal life and reintegrating them into Oakland as productive citiziens-as has been promised by Mayor Ron Dellums-then OPD’s crime-fighting-by-traffic-stop program is absolutely the wrong way to go. The burden is now on Mr. Dellums to investigate the practice, and to stop or modify the traffic stop policy where it is demonstrated that it is against his administrative goals, to point out that we are wrong in our understanding of the consequences of the policy, or to admit that he has no control over what Oakland police are doing in the streets of the Oakland flatland communities. But Mr. Dellums, who I respect highly, cannot have it both ways in this situation. He cannot be known as both the liberator of South Africa from apartheid and the mayor who presided over apartheid-like police tactics in the city of his birth. 

Meanwhile, since we’re talking about Mr. Dellums and the police… 

Most of our longtime UnderCurrents readers—and readers of the San Francisco Chronicle—will remember the spirited and energetic campaign conducted in the last months of 2007 by my good friend, Chronicle East Bay columnist Chip Johnson, to convince Mr. Dellums to increase the number of police in Oakland above the authorized 803 patrol strength.  

In September, reporting on a meeting between he and Mr. Dellums, Mr. Johnson wrote: “Dellums says he has no plans to significantly increase the number of Oakland police officers, despite the reality that Oakland’s under-sized force of nearly 740 officers is roughly half the size of cities of comparable size. … On this point the mayor and I agreed to disagree, because I live in Oakland and believe we need a police force at least one-third larger than its current size.” 

Then, in an Oct. 16 column entitled “It’s Time For Dellums To Get Real On Fighting Crime,” Mr. Johnson applauded what he felt was Mr. Dellums’ reversal of that opposition. “Late last month, Dellums said he believed Oakland residents didn’t want a force larger than the 803 sworn officers authorized by a public bond measure,” Mr. Johnson wrote. “But at a town hall meeting in North Oakland on Saturday, he changed that tune, describing the recruitment push as a rock-bottom minimum number of officers. And by the end of the meeting, Dellums was acquiescing to residents who called for a force as large as 1,000 officers, saying: ‘Let’s have a conversation about that.’ It seems the public groundswell is causing Dellums to shift his position on this issue.”  

(A careful reading of Mr. Dellums’ words will show that he never, actually, changed his position on going above the 803 police mark. Calling for a conversation is not the same thing as calling for a change. But that’s beside our present point.) 

Finally, in a Dec. 21 column appropriately entitled “Same Old Message To Oakland Mayor-Hire More Cops,” Mr. Johnson wrote that Mr. Dellums’ earlier resistance to increasing OPD strength above the currently-authorized 803 “turned out to be a tactical mistake, and hundreds of citizens contacted the mayor’s office to set him straight.” 

Well, a prominent East Bay writer has now informed us that, actually, it would have been a tactical mistake for Oakland to have drasticallyed increased the Oakland police budget last year, as would have needed to be done if the City had heeded the call to increase the police strength above 803. And who was that prominent East Bay writer who came to that conclusion? The same one who earlier was loudly calling for that increase, San Francisco Chronicle columnist Chip Johnson. 

In a May 9 column about the City of Vallejo budget crisis entitled “Vallejo Leaders Should Have Seen Crisis Coming,” Mr. Johnson writes, in part, “the question you have to ask about the officially bankrupt city of Vallejo, and other California cities with similar financial profiles, is this: Didn’t you know something was wrong when you realized you were spending 75 cents of every dollar in the general fund on public safety costs?” 

“Vallejo’s finances,” Mr. Johnson goes on to explain, “already battered by years of trying to meet police and fire department payrolls and pension liability payments, fell under the weight of the housing crisis … And what’s particularly disconcerting is that many of the same factors that pushed Vallejo beyond the precipice of financial stability are at work in many other cities around the state, including Oakland … With a projected budget deficit of $6.7 million at the end of the fiscal year in June, city officials led by Mayor Ron Dellums have reined in some of the more downright ludicrous benefits offered to the Oakland Police Officers Association … The once-healthy property transfer tax revenue stream has dried up in Oakland-and city officials are projecting a $20 million drop in revenues because of the decline in the housing market. Add to that a citizens’ initiative to add another 300 police officers, without raising taxes to pay for them, and you have Vallejo all over again.” 

Without actually coming out and admitting it directly, Mr. Johnson appears to concede that he was wrong in calling for an increase Oakland police strength above 803, and Mr. Dellums was both prudent and right to resist those calls, not matter how politically popular they may have seemed, because such an increase would have probably busted Oakland’s budget and led us down the Vallejo path. 

That seems to be the only possible conclusion to Mr. Johnson’s abrupt turnaround. Or do y’all think I’m completely misinterpreting this? 

Tuesday, May 6th, was the decisive night in the struggle for the Democratic nomination. It provided new insight into the character of the two competitors. 

Coming into the Indiana and North Carolina primaries, Hillary Clinton appeared to have the momentum. Her supporters were counting on decisive victories to prolong her winning streak and give a fundraising boost to a campaign starved for cash. They believed she could run the deck on the remaining primaries, close the delegate gap with Barack Obama, and make a compelling case with the all-important super delegates that Senator Clinton had found her voice and, therefore, would prove to be more effective campaigning against the Republican Candidate, John McCain, in the Fall. 

Now, with her big loss in North Carolina, and unexpectedly narrow victory in Indiana, all the wind has been taken out of Clinton’s sails. This presents her with three deadly problems: There is no way she can overtake Obama in either the number of elected delegates or the total popular vote. Therefore, there is no effective case she can make to the super delegates. And, finally, there is no compelling argument she can make to potential donors. Clinton’s bid for the nomination has failed. Sadly, she appears unable to recognize this reality. 

Money Matters  

Given Hillary Clinton’s name recognition and the active involvement of former President Bill Clinton, it initially seemed as though her victory was inevitable. Her opponents competed against the formidable Clinton campaign team, one with strong connections to deep-pocket donors and the Democratic establishment in every state. 

The reason that Senator Obama stayed in the race, and triumphed after fifteen months, was his ability to raise lots of money. While many will argue he won because he ran a smarter campaign than Clinton, the big surprise was that the junior Senator from Illinois, a newcomer to the national political scene, raised more money than did the Clinton machine. 

Now, Democratic power brokers want to close down the battle for the nomination because they don’t want to spend any more money on it, they would rather shepherd their resources for the battle in the fall. They sense Democrats have an opportunity to substantially increase their majorities in the House and Senate—perhaps gain the magical 60-40 majority in the Senate—and they know it will take a lots money to do that. They’ve decided Obama is a better fundraiser. 

Temperament Matters.  

A famous aphorism is, “Life’s a grindstone. Whether it wears you down or polishes you up depends upon what you’re made of.” The race for the Democratic convention has subjected both Clinton and Obama to a political grindstone. After a rocky start where her primary political persona seemed to be “I’m inevitable,” Clinton found her voice and proved much more effective in the role of “a fighter.” Meanwhile, Obama, already a skilled orator, became more comfortable with day-to-day campaigning and learned the little things that often make a big difference; for example, that he looks much better shooting baskets than he does rolling a bowling ball. 

In the fall, when Obama faces off against McCain, the temperament of each candidate will be an important topic. Already articleshave suggested Senator McCain is temperamentally unsuited to be President: a hothead, someone who carries long-term grudges, perhaps a person who suffers from PTSD. 

During the past fifteen months, we’ve learned Senator Obama is remarkably even tempered. His single worst evening was the April 16 debate in Pennsylvania, where he was attacked not only by Senator Clinton but also by the debate moderator Charles Gibson and George Stephanopoulos. While many observers described Obama’s demeanor as “subdued” or “defensive,” others noted that in the middle of a period where he was berated for the comments of his former pastor and the “bitter” remarks he’d made a few days earlier, Obama never lost his temper. But voters noticed and it heightened their opinion Obama would do better against McCain, provide a more striking contrast. 

During this same extended period voters have had the opportunity to study the character of Senator Clinton and have noticed three things: She hasn’t run an effective campaign; her message has been confused and she’s written off states that she shouldn’t have. The second is that she and her husband have on occasion taken the low road - seemingly made the decision that the ends justified the means - Bill Clinton played the race card in South Carolina and Hillary Clinton played the pander card in her support for the gas-tax rebate. 

The third thing we’ve learned is that Senator Clinton places her own ambition ahead of the best interests of the Democratic Party. That was apparent in 2006 when, in the middle of an easy race for re-election, she amassed a huge war chest for her presidential bid rather than share her funds with needy Democratic candidates. And it’s obvious now, when she has no chance of becoming the presidential nominee, when her only motiva 

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

A strange thing happened last week. Financial experts, government officials, CEOs, and the odd billionaire investor declared the financial crisis all but over. These are the same folks who only a month before were calling it the worst systemic financial crisis since the 1930s and predicting that even the basic functions of the global money machine were at risk. Now only weeks later we’re being told that the worst is over and stocks have begun rising again. Things move quickly in the new economy—but that quickly? After all, that other big crisis that started in 1929 lasted a bit longer than nine months. 

There is no single answer to what spawned this burst of irrational exuberance, but it is spreading fast. Wall Street hedge funds and investment houses like Goldman Sachs are now rushing to buy at discounted prices the very mortgage-backed securities that they were running from only weeks ago. Somehow, what was declared radioactive nuclear waste in March is once again a potential gold mine.  

To be sure, over the last few months there has been pain: About $312 billion in losses and asset markdowns have been racked up by banks and financial companies and the business of writing mortgages has shrunk almost out of existence. The nation’s biggest banks are sending emissaries around the Middle East trying to convince oil-rich Arab countries to invest billions in their strapped companies while Americans are paying $4 a gallon at the pump. ExxonMobil and the other oil giants are netting billions of dollars in profits every three months and the dollar continues its wild ride down. The stocks of the country’s biggest house-building companies have lost so much value—more than $49 billion since they peaked in January 2005—that they’ve been kicked out of the ranks of large value companies, and default rates on mortgage payments are soaring.  

Never mind all that. The worst is over, says Wall Street. But don’t be fooled, there’s a lot of pain left for the rest of us. And, some still believe, for a financial system that is always inventing a new way to put off paying the piper.  

“There’s going to be more pain,” said Warren Buffett, the world’s richest man and one who believes we are in a recession whether or not the government’s numbers show it. Earlier this week Buffett was castigating the regulators for letting Wall Street investors and banks run amok with debt and unbridled speculation. “Wall Street is going to go where the money is and not worry about consequences,” he said, which seems to be a lesson the regulators don’t want to learn. 

Don’t be surprised if next week the mood darkens again and another investment company announces that it is teetering on the edge of collapse. Who knows? The IMF expects losses in the financial system to reach $1 trillion, which suggests that the reports of the market’s recovery may be greatly exaggerated. 

There are some things that are quite clear though. First, for most Americans the crisis is very real and still in its early stages. Massive job losses are still in the offing for this year and the mortgage crisis that is threatening to push millions out of their homes has gotten worse as mortgage rates continue to climb. Meanwhile, the rising cost of food and energy is rapidly eroding the basic standard of living that many Americans take for granted. Things are likely to get worse for American families as the long-term outlook for the various national deficits worsen and the government has fewer dollars to spend on things like health care reform, schools, and Social Security. 

Second, the folks in Washington, D.C., and New York continue to make it clear that they think fiscal and monetary policies should above all serve the interests of big corporations and Wall Street investors. Never mind the growing divide between the concerns of the average American family and the interests of market speculators and the CEOs. Our government—and therefore our tax dollars—are focused on making sure the big boys come out on top. This is the “too-big-to-fail” doctrine that argues that Uncle Sam has to come to the rescue of speculators like Bear Stearns because the full consequences of their failed bets would do grave damage to all of us. (Strange, that sounds like an argument for vigorous regulation, doesn’t it?) 

And the third thing that is now quite clear: We can forget about real reform and rational regulation of our financial system until the next (bigger?) crisis comes along. Even former Federal Reserve chief Paul Volcker has declared that our system of regulation is in the era of the abacus, and the financial markets now exist in the age of the supercomputer. Most of the markets that can cripple our economy if they spin out of control are not regulated at all and even our banks are being given enough rope to hang not just themselves but all of us as well. As Buffett said earlier this week, “You’ve got a lot of leeway in running a bank to not tell the truth for quite a while.”  

That’s what passes for regulation these days, and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, Wall Street’s man in D.C. and the former head of Goldman Sachs, seems pretty determined to keep it that way. With the Fed willing to print as much money as is needed to protect our hedge-fund gamblers and no meaningful regulation in sight, the guys on the Street may be right: Let’s get this party started!

A “very odd affair” is how the Financial Times (FT) characterized the Bush Administration’s release of intelligence charging that the Syrian building bombed by the Israelis last Sept. 6 was a North Korean-designed nuclear reactor just weeks from being operational.  

Indeed it was “odd,” and sorting through the motives behind the whole business is a little like trying to scope out the politics of Byzantium. 

The “evidence” that Syria was building a nuclear reactor was a video that mixed still photos, drawings, and a dramatic voice-over that the New York Times (NYT) said gave it the “feel of a cold-war era newsreel about the Korean War.” 

Among other things, the video showed an undated photo of a Korean manager of that country’s Yongbyong nuclear plant with the head of Syria’s nuclear agency. 

The presentation hardly drew rave reviews. Even U.S. intelligence officials admitted that the evidence that Syria was building a nuclear weapons complex was “low confidence.” In intelligence jargon, “low confidence” is about two notches above “alien abduction.” 

As the FT pointed out, “the U.S. claims raises many questions.” Where was Syria going to get the fuel? Where were the re-processing facilities to make plutonium? Where is the evidence for a weapons program? How come both the U.S. and the Israelis bypassed the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)? 

Some nuclear experts thought that the building might have been a reactor (though most questioned whether it was ready to come on-line), but others were doubtful. One anonymous nuclear physicist close to the IAEA told Agence France Presse that the walls shown in the video “do not look like the ones needed for a plutonium reactor.” He said that such walls “need a lot of piping, and there was nothing like that in the pictures.” 

He also debunked the charge that the building was a copy of the Yongbyon reactor. “It’s [Yongbyon] 40 years old. We have much better technology than that, and I don’t think the Syrians are stupid.” 

Syria’s UN Ambassador, Imad Moustapha, called the video “fantasy,” and said that the Bush Administration has a “record about fabricating stories about other countries’ WMDs (weapons of mass destruction). Syria said it would fully cooperate with an IAEA investigation. 

The video was generally seen as an effort by Vice President Dick Cheney to derail the six-party talks aimed at disarming North Korea’s nuclear weapons program, and that certainly was the motivation for some of the players. For one, former UN Ambassador and State Department official John Bolton, who has been leading a campaign aimed at stopping the talks. 

“Making public the pictures is likely to inflame the North Koreans,” one “senior administration official” told the NYT. “And that is what the opponents of this whole operation want because they think the North Koreans will stalk off.” 

But there were other dogs in this fight. 

One is a group of neo-conservatives, including William Kristol of the Weekly Standard, Michael Rubin of the American Enterprise Institute, Michael Ledeen of National Review, and Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith and Elliot Abrams—all former or current Administration officials—who have lobbied for overthrowing Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.  

Syria is well aware that it is in Washington’s crosshairs. “Syria wants to see [itself] through this U.S. administration without being attacked,” Alastair Crooke, director of the Conflict Forum, told the FT. “It is trying to wiggle through a difficult process and keep itself intact.” 

However, the Syria revelations may have more to do with regime change in Tel Aviv than regime change in Damascus. 

Richard Silverstein of The Guardian (UK) reports that, starting last year, secret talks between Syria and Israel mapped out an agreement that would return the Golan Heights to Damascus in exchange for peace. Israel and Syria have been officially at war since 1967. 

According to Syrian Cabinet Minister Buthaina Shaaban, Israeli Prime Minster Ehud Olmert first made the proposal in meetings with the Turkish government. Israel’s Infrastructure Minister Binyamin Ben-Elizer confirmed that to Israel Radio: “Every effort is being made for Syria to sit at the negotiating table in order to sign a peace treaty.”  

Peace between Israel and Syria is not on the neo-cons’ agenda for the Middle East, and what better way to derail it than to accuse Syria of trying to make nuclear weapons? Kristol and company know that, were Olmert to falter, right-wing hawk and former prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is waiting in the wings. 

Netanyahu and the neo-cons are old buddies. A number of them, including Perle, Abrams and Wolfowitz, played an important role in Netanyahu’s last administration, which was marked by widespread violence and brutality in the Occupied Territories, as well as deep and painful cuts in Israeli social services.  

According to Silverstein, the neo-cons want Olmert to fail, Netanyahu to take over, followed by war with Syria. “The neo-cons would rather have a war that bled an ally than a peace that rewarded their foes. It’s called cutting off your friend’s nose to spite his face,” he says. 

• • • 

New kid on the block? That would be “J Street,” a political action committee that describes itself as “the political action arm of the pro-Israel, pro-peace movement.” Jeremy Ben-Ami, the PAC’s executive director, told Laura Rozen of Mother Jones that “We believe the majority of American Jews and many other Americans friendly and supportive to Israel really do recognize that a policy both here and there that would be geared toward really pushing for a two-state solution is in Israel’s and the U.S.’s best interests.” 

One of the lobby’s goals is to change the tone of the discussion about Israel and Palestine. “Somehow, for American politicians or activists to express opposition to settlement expansion—or support for active American diplomacy, dialogue with Syria or engagement with Iran—has become subversive and radical, inviting vile, hateful emails and a place on public lists of Israel-haters and anti-Semites,” Ben-Ami recently wrote in a column to the Forward. 

“In our name,” says Ben-Ami, “PACs and other political associations have embraced the most radically right-wing figures on the American scene, from Rick Santorum and Trent Lott to Tom DeLay and George Bush—all in the guise of being pro-Israel.” 

The group is a self-described “centrist” organization. While it calls for a two-state solution based on the 1967 borders, it would incorporate many of the big West Bank settlements into Israel. It supports dividing Jerusalem, but on what it calls “demographic realities,” which means essentially accepting what Judith Norman and Alistair Welchman of Jewish Peace News calls “Israeli ethnic cleansing.” 

J Street steers away from any discussion of international law and, so far, has shown little concern for the current conditions for the Palestinians created by the occupation. And it supports the continued flow of U.S. military aid to the Tel Aviv government. 

Other Jewish American peace groups were positive, but careful. 

“I don’t think it is going to have any impact now, but it is a good thing to have something like this going, so that when the next president comes in, J Street, the Israel Policy Forum (IPF), and the rest of us will be in a better position to influence the next president,” M.J. Rosenberg, policy director of the left-leaning IPF told the Forward. 

One impact that J Street will have is to help shield candidates who call for a two-state solution and dividing Jerusalem from the charge of anti-Semitism.  

J Street has reportedly raised about $800,000, hardly competition for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s (AIPAC) $100 million war chest. But while AIPAC is the 800 lb gorilla, it is one that rules more by intimidation than persuasion. Polls consistently show that American Jews are more closely aligned to the politics of J Street than those of AIPAC, but they have generally remained silent, in part because AIPAC is a “take-no-prisoners” organization. 

It’s a small start, but then David had a small rock.

Last week—just as I was in the middle of writing my column about the calls for Illinois Senator Barack Obama to go for a knockout blow in the Democratic presidential primaries—the latest round of national clamor over the Rev. Jeremiah Wright issue was breaking. This was prompted first by Rev. Wright’s appearances on Bill Moyers and his speeches at the National Press Club and the NAACP Freedom Fund Dinner, and then by Sen. Barack Obama’s followup press conference in which he broke, once and for all, with his former pastor. 

And so, once more, half the nation seemed to want to talk about the issue of race, with the subject burning hot and heavy on blogs, in newspaper columns and on every national news and talk show. It was hard to ignore, but I did. I watched, briefly, the nationally televised press conference where Mr. Obama declared that he was “outraged by the comments that were made and saddened by the spectacle [created by Mr. Wright in his comments].” Then I turned back to the subject I was working on. 

I have been deeply involved in the issue of race and America for all of my adult life, for many years as a full-time worker in the African-American Freedom Movement, also as a columnist for various newspapers in the Deep South and the West. I have spoken on the issue of race during those times when seemingly everyone in the country was talking about it, and I have spoken on the issue of race during periods when a majority of the nation wished it would simply go away. Race has often been the subject of previous UnderCurrents columns. Almost always, I welcome a discussion on the subject. 

But not this time. 

In recent years, there has a developed a pattern to our race discussions. They tend to come when we hear someone say something on the issue that some large portion of the population finds outrageous—the comedian-producer Bill Cosby, Los Angeles Dodger baseball executive Al Campanis, oddsmaker Jimmy “The Greek” Snyder. Former United States Senator George Allen calling an East Indian volunteer of his senatorial opponent a “macaca,” or monkey, taken from the Belgian colonialist slur for Congolese. Or Rush Limbaugh saying he mistook Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villagarosa, a Latino, for a shoeshine boy. Or Mr. Wright. 

I am not trying to equate the comments of these men, one with the other. I am only pointing out the fact that these days, we tend to talk as a nation about somebody talking about race, therefore, but not about the actual underlying issue itself. 

Do you need examples? They are legion. 

Late in April, while the Obama-Wright controversy was beginning to hit full stride, the Alameda County Public Health Department quietly released the executive summary of a study on health and social inequity in Alameda County.  

In its opening lines, the health department’s executive summary flatly, unemotionally, points out the grim realities of race and class inequities in our local community: “Certain groups of people in Alameda County are getting sick and dying prematurely from ‘unnatural causes,’” the summary begins. “In Alameda County, access to proven health protective resources like clean air, healthy food, and recreational space, as well as opportunities for high quality education, living wage employment, and decent housing, is highly dependent on the neighborhood in which one lives.” 

The health department study executive summary goes on to lay out a stark example of these inequities: “Compared with a White child in the Oakland hills,” the report concludes, “an African American born in West Oakland is 1.5 times more likely to be born premature or low birth weight, seven times more likely to be born into poverty, twice as likely to live in a home that is rented, and four times more likely to have parents with only a high school education or less. As a toddler, this child is 2.5 times more likely to be behind in vaccinations. By fourth grade, this child is four times less likely to read at grade level and is likely to live in a neighborhood with twice the concentration of liquor stores and more fast food outlets. Ultimately this adolescent is 5.6 times more likely to drop out of school and less likely to attend a four-year college than a white adolescent. As an adult, he will be five times more likely to be hospitalized for diabetes, twice as likely to be hospitalized for and to die of heart disease, three times more likely to die of stroke, and twice as likely to die of cancer. Born in West Oakland, this person can expect to die almost 15 years earlier than a white person in the Oakland Hills.” 

But not by gunfire, which is the death cause getting the most attention in the newspapers and other media these days. According to a statement in the Chronicle story by Sandra Witt, Alameda County Deputy Director of Public Health, “homicides do influence the average life expectancy, but in West Oakland it is by only one year.” 

My guess is that the conditions outlined in the Alameda County Health Department study are not unique to Alameda County, but are replicated across the country, and that the only unique thing present is that Alameda County is one of the few communities to conduct such a study and put the information out for the public to see. 

But there is no Alameda County outrage over the West Oakland African-American child dying 15 years early from asthma and heart disease—nor national outrage over the African-American child in West Texas, or South Carolina, or Gary Indiana, or the Bronx, New York who suffers the same health inequities. 

Who cries for these African-American children? 

Let us say, just to advance the discussion a bit, that one of the persons in the country speaking forcefully about health inequities in the African-American community—not the only one speaking about it, but an important national voice—is Mr. Obama’s old pastor, Mr. Wright. 

Let us say that Mr. Wright looked at the high cancer rates in the South Louisiana bayou country where my father’s people were enslaved—Cancer Alley, it is called locally—or the equally high health disparity problems in North Richmond, home of the Bay Area’s oil refineries, where some of my mother’s people settled, or the high asthma rates in West Oakland, where my great-grandmother lived…. Let us say Mr. Wright looked at such conditions around the country, and saw them not as accidental, but as collusion between industry and government, concentrating low income African-Americans and Latino Americans in neighborhoods with heavily polluting industries so that higher income—and predominantly white—neighborhoods are not affected. 

And suppose Mr. Wright chose to preach sermons on such subjects in the Chicago church that Mr. Obama belonged to and attended. 

Yes, to some, Mr. Wright’s theories appear outlandish, and conspiracy theorish. But there was once a theory—considered wild and outlandish at the time, during the Depression—that the U.S. Public Health Service was deliberately withholding treatment from African-American men infected with syphilis in order to study the long-term effects of the disease on the men—such long-term effects being horrible, horrific, and leading to a death comparable to that experienced by late-stage AIDS patients. We now know that the practice actually took place, and was called the Tuskegee Experiment. There was once a theory that during the civil rights era, the Federal Bureau of Investigation had a program that targeted African-American leadership for “removal.” We now know that “leadership removal” program by the FBI code name COINTELPRO. There are many such theories once considered wild that have turned out to be true. There are other such theories that have turned out to be myth. 

How do we find out the difference? 

Despite Mr. Obama’s assertions to the contrary, one can imagine that the subject came up during private discussions with these two bright and forceful men—Mr. Obama and Mr. Wright. 

We do not know how such conversations went—they remain private—but the assumption by those who have been loudly calling on Mr. Obama to break his ties with Mr. Wright is that Mr. Wright was the alpha male in this pack, and that he was influencing Mr. Obama down a dark path. But suppose it was just the opposite. Suppose Mr. Obama, with a racial experience far different from Mr. Wright, was the one doing the influencing, leading Mr. Wright to a different view. Or suppose, as is often the case among equals, the two were learning from each other, Mr. Obama learning from Mr. Wright the painful psychological history of African-Americans, Mr. Wright learning from Mr. Obama a tolerance and a hope for the future come from one who bridges the racial divide. 

We will never know how such conversations would go, because we have cut them off and forced an end to this dialogue, declaring—as a nation—that in this racial discussion, there are some voices that are “legitimate,” and some voices that must not be heard. 

Nixon can go to China. The Arab countries should sit down with the Israelis for settlement settlement. The South African Black Freedom Fighters can come to terms with the Afrikaaners and together, work rebuild a country free of racial barriers. But Barack Obama should not associate himself with Jeremiah Wright. And so—if one believes that Mr. Wright is wrong—he is left forever out of the fold, like those West Oakland African-American children, never thought important enough that his views should be considered and, if some people think it necessary, challenged. 

And how, exactly, does this help us to overcome our racial past, bridge our racial divide, and make sure those West Oakland African-American children lives out their full time? 

Once upon a time, houses were built with the materials at hand, or those things that could be made using the materials at hand (concrete, for instance). Around here, that tended to be wood and masonry (stone, brick, stucco, and concrete). These days, more and more construction materials are fake.  

The old-growth timber with which the East Bay was built in the 19th and 20th centuries has pretty much all been logged. We don’t use much stone any more, unless you count all those granite kitchen counters.  

Concrete is still around, but even the stucco these days tends to be synthetic, sprayed on top of foam. Wood is still used for framing, but many of the visible parts of the house are now various composites: fiber-cement siding, composite countertops, PVC trim boards, MDF moldings, fiberboard siding, laminate flooring, cultured stone, and composite decking.  

Intellectually, I have no problem with a lot of these substances, as they often make better use of scarce resources. Well, except for PVC, which is toxic throughout its lifecycle, and impossible to avoid—it should just be banned outright. But I digress. 

Aesthetically, I do have a problem with some of these faux building materials. Sometimes the problem is not even innate in the composite material, rather, it’s the fault of those who design and manufacture it. 

Let us take siding as an example. Now, I’m not even talking about vinyl siding or aluminum siding, which we don’t have very much of compared to some parts of the country, thank God. No, I’m talking about fiberboard siding and fiber-cement siding. Now, fiber-cement siding is a fairly decent product which (so far) appears to be holding up to the elements fairly well, can be painted, and comes in various traditional siding profiles as well as shingles.  

Fiberboard, on the other hand, is akin to particleboard, and available in big floppy two foot by sixteen foot sheets down at the home center that shall remain nameless. Yet both of these products, for reasons which are not clear to me, come embossed with a large and exaggerated wood grain pattern which repeats every two or three feet. No real wood looks like that, unless perhaps it has been sandblasted.  

It might even be OK had they opted for “sandblasted old-growth wood,” but no, the “growth rings” on the embossed siding are a good inch apart, like the tree-farmed lumber that is common these days. And the embossing of exaggerated wood grain extends to composite decking materials (Trex and the like) as well. Fiber-cement siding is also available with a smooth surface, but apparently the wood grain is far more popular.  

Which brings us to Pergo and its little laminate friends. Ignoring for the moment the issue of whether you want to walk around on what is essentially a Formica counter that’s now on the floor, the fact that laminate flooring comes mainly in various kinds of fake wood is what offends me aesthetically. Wood is hard to fake. Laminate “wood” flooring is basically a photograph of wood under a piece of clear plastic. Sometimes it’s embossed a little to look like it has “grain”—at least the embossing is usually more subtle than what is used on siding. Laminate also comes in fake “ceramic tile,” which for some reason is easier to fake. 

Just above the laminate floor you may well find a baseboard made of MDF or medium-density fiberboard. MDF is a fine use of sawdust which would otherwise go to waste, and it’s cheap. It doesn’t expand or contract as much as real wood, and it comes pre-primed. That’s the upside. The downside? Looks okay until you bang into it with a piece of furniture or something, at which point a chunk breaks out leaving a small crater, unlike banging into a wood baseboard, which might dent it or chip off some paint, but will definitely not leave a crater.  

Also, they say MDF looks just like wood when painted—well, maybe after five or six coats. Otherwise the random “grain” of the sawdust shows through on close inspection. Thus, I would save MDF moldings for use up near the ceiling, where they are unlikely to get knocked around and can’t be seen too closely. 

I don’t necessarily have a problem with fakeness as a concept. Faux finishing has a long and splendid history, and I like a linoleum oriental rug as much as the next person. Okay, more than the next person. But I despair for a world that so willingly sends real old growth timber to the landfill by demolishing old buildings, while building new ones using materials that are often synthetic or composite because that is more “green.” Maybe it’s that the attempt to look like natural building materials is such a reminder of what we’ve lost. 

Jane Powell is the author of five books about bungalows and one about linoleum, all available at www.bungalowkitchens.com. She can be reached at hsedressng@aol.com.  

If you’re like Joe and me, you’re spending as much of this sunny weather as you can outdoors, especially in our handy local parks. The breeding birds are here, and they’re putting on a show as they sing and chase and carry on, establishing territories, picking mates, building nests. The bloom season is at its height, multiple species carpeting outer Point Reyes and interior grassy hillsides.  

These places get a bit hot in full sun, if like me you’re an old goat dragging herself uphill against gravity, which I swear is increasing lately about as fast as gas prices. I’m hauling too much mass with too little oxygen, granted, but could it be that what’s replacing the time that’s obviously leaking out of the universe is an insidious backwash of gravity?  

So: Hot, sweaty, wondering if my sunscreen is good enough to prevent getting a few more divots at the dermatologist’s, what would I want to see?  

A nice lush line of alders. Somewhere within that line there will be a creek, and cool shade under them. Maybe there’ll even be a handy overhanging root I can sit on and dangle my feet in the water. 

Alders are in the same family as birches, and they mostly have similar preferences: in these parts, plenty of water year-round is a significant one. They’re one of the trees (like willows and sycamores) that mark watercourses, and as the grasses turn lion-gold and then camel-brown, you can spot their green banners from a great distance.  

Our local representative is white or California alder, Alnus rhombifolia. The leaves are indeed pretty rhombus-shaped, and they flutter engagingly with a subtle faint rustle in the slight breeze that a running creek produces. To a hiker, that’s Mother Nature’s Welcome sign and it beats HoJo’s orange roof by a long dry mile. 

This might explain why Donald Culross Peattie, in the short description of the species in his classic A Natural History of Western Trees, breaks into poetry a few times. 

In the brief period of cold weather in California the leaves of this Alder drop from the trees, and it is then, in January, that the catkins bloom on the naked twigs. To look down then from some mountain-side on the green-gold of the Alders all in bloom for miles up and down the creek is one of the loveliest floral sights of the year in the California Coast Ranges … Yet flowers these catkins are, of course-male flowers which, being wind-pollinated, have of necessity immense amounts of buoyant pollen to loose upon the chill airs. A slight tap on a flowering twig will send a whole nebula of fertility to floating in the air, a golden haze that slowly drifts away, only by chance to find the little female flowers so neatly packed in small cone-like clusters. 

Alder isn’t a major timber source, but it does grow straight and tall enough to make decent boards and furniture. You’d have to be a homesteading handcrafter to work on that scale, I’d think. It’s also good firewood, on a similar scale. It does re-grow pretty quickly. 

The local indigenes used it for that, specifically for tinder and for the drill part of a fire-building kit. They used the supple roots in basketry and made a skin-soothing wash by boiling the bark. Considering that aspirin is a refinement of an ingredient found in willow bark (salicylic acid, of course: salix = willow) that cool streamside is looking better and better: drugstore as well as rest stop.  

Alder roots, like other tree roots, were harvested for basketry in a selective, rotational manner, taking a few from a tree or grove and then leaving the producers alone for some years to recover. Smart move, in recognizing not only that a renewable resource needs appropriate time to renew itself but also that the service of live, standing alders in sheltering wildlife (along with humans) and maintaining streambanks is invaluable.  

Creekside vegetation and its inhabitants are among the most devastated of ecosystems in California. Bird species like the least Bell’s vireo and yellow-billed cuckoo have become vanishingly rare. This destruction has effects that reach far downstream and all the way into our own daily lives: our diets, for example.  

Siltation caused by erosion of streambanks-in turn a product of destruction of streamside and forest vegetation that holds the soil in place and filters hard rains-as well as the heating of now shallow and unshaded waters, kill off salmon eggs and young salmon. It seems clear that this is at least as bad as overfishing, and certainly harder to fix.  

One wonders if the people who have, unthinkingly or greedily or both, perpetuated the sloppy way we use our resources have ever sat under a cluster of alders, feet in the creek, and considered their ways.  

I had a slight tense phone call with a rather difficult person this morning. Not a great way to start the day, but I guess it goes with the business and I’m lucky to be employed.  

This was the listing agent on a recent deal and I was working for the buyer so it was an experience I don’t have everyday. In fact, it’s pretty rare in our immediate environs due to local realtors having figured out that it’s not in the best interest of their clients to have their experts being grilled by the opposition. And yes, that’s what it was.  

Her intent was not to tell me how great I was or to invite me out to a few rounds of croquet. It was to see if she could find some chink in my arguments or to use my thinking to deflate the validity of the bids that had come to lean against her client’s house in the course of the deal. 

Since I’m not paid enough to lie (I keep trying to figure out how much that would be) it’s best to keep me off the phone with the opposition because I will tell them the truth whether that’s good for my client or good for these other folks. In fact, without a specific request from my client to do so, it’s really a conflict of interest for me to be talking to the listing agent at all (unless I’m representing a seller). 

Anyway, this agent said that after seeing all these bids from various contractors, that she was disinclined (my word. Hers was somewhat less refined) to believe the need for any repair that hadn’t been listed in my report. I was stunned. I think, in some odd, alternate-universe, sort of way, that I’d been complimented. Of course, it was out of expedience and not respect, but still, it was still stunning. She was saying that I was a reliable source of information because I lacked a conflict of interest. That is, I wasn’t selling anything; at least anything beyond my services as an analyst.  

So how does this work and who falls on one side of this matter of conflict of interest and on the who on the other? 

Inspectors, engineers and architects are sort of on one side of this grouping of skilled help when you’re buying a house or, perhaps, getting set to make some changes. On the other side are people who sell services (not to cast aspersions but let’s call them contractors).  

Now, let me be very clear about this. Selling contracting services is not a crime, is not the vocation of subterranean troglodytes or the daytime cover of serial killers. Contractors are, for the most part, working men and women of varying levels of expertise, dedicated to leaving, in their wake, a field of smiling patrons inclined to speak riant billboards of their worth. Nonetheless, contractors don’t make money if you don’t buy their services and while some charge to look at jobs or write up large estimates, most only make money when you buy the remodel, the sewer replacement, the new roof or the pest clearance. 

So, depending on the scale (or type) of work you’re leaning toward, it may well pay to get a “disinterested” party (or parties) involved before giving your bank routing number to Happy Feng Shui Organic Construction. Even if they’re the most honest and fair minded folks in creation, they still orient themselves toward cash flow. If they don’t they’re foolish.  

Any large concern, whether governmental or corporate, will always start with a study of what should be done and how. Experts get retained to design a project and specify, perhaps to a very fine degree, exactly what best serves the needs of the client. Then, contractors can be interviewed to determine cost (but Puleeeeeze not only cost), skill level, reputation, etc. of each. 

One reason not to ask the “interested” parties to design a project is that most contractors, even good ones, don’t know all about every part of a house or commercial building. Most know a lot about what they do but the best general contractors I’ve seen have rarely known a great deal about general seismic performance or about how a forced air heating system worked (or what things keep them from working optimally).  

Architects, engineers, inspectors, as well as manufacturing representatives and zoning officials know all sorts of things that they can bring to your set of criteria that contractors might not know because their careers are constructed around knowledge acquisition and deployment rather than the day-to-day operation of a construction jobsite. This is not to say that the contractor is any less intelligent than the engineer or inspector. I’ve met a number of contractors over the years that were of formidable brain-power, but their world is built around a different set of imperatives and activities. 

In a similar vein, the contractor is generally going to sell their best wares. The things they do best and know they can make money doing. These may or may not be your best choices (from our “disinterested” perspective) and, if you consult an expert first, you may end with Joan rather than Bud simply because Joan sells tile setting and Bud sells bamboo flooring. 

Lastly, let me say something about the cost of planning. A well-known aphorism in the construction trade is that “No job is so expensive as the one you have to do twice.” In other words, planning and making the right decisions may involve some extra expense at the front end, but in the long run, the cost of what you didn’t know can show up either during your project in the form of construction problems (e.g. cost overrun, delay or worse) or beyond, when you visit your friend’s house and discover the radiant electric heating under their bathroom floor tile that you were never told about and could have had. 

In my experience, the costs of these disinterested parties usually end up representing a small fraction of the total cost and can usually pay for themselves in mistakes avoided or through better ideas. With many small jobs these folks may not be required (but may be helpful for a small sum). With larger jobs, it is often the wiser woman (or fella) who seeks a bit of sage with her soup.  

Today I learned that aspersion can mean to sprinkle (as in) Holy Water (you clergy already knew that, right?). This may help me to remember that casting them is always a mixed blessing. 

THURSDAY, MAY 8 

EXHIBITIONS 

Enrique Chagoya: Borderlandia Guided tour at 12:15 p.m. at Berkeley Art Museum. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Michael Capozzola, comedy and cartoons at 8 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $12. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Claire Johnson reads from her second Mary Ryan mystery, “Roux Morgue” at 7:30 p.m. at Mrs. Dalloways, 2904 College Ave. 704-8222. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

College of Alameda Jazz Ensemble Spring Concert at 7 p.m. at College of Alameda Student Center, F Bldg., 555 Ralph Appezzato Memorial Pkwy., Alameda. 748-2213. 

Stacey Earle & Mark Stuart at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Double Vision Jazz Quartet at 8 p.m., UC Jazz Choir at 7 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $8. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

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

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

Javon Jackson Band, with Les McCann, at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $12-$26. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

FRIDAY, MAY 9 

THEATER 

Actors Ensemble of Berkeley “Uncle Vanya” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m. at Live Oak Theater, 1301 Shattuck Ave., through May 17. Tickets are $10-$12. 649-5999. www.aeofberkeley.org  

Aurora Theatre “The Trojan Women” Wed.-Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 and 7 p.m. at 2081 Addison St., through May 11. Tickets are $40-$42. 843-4822. www.auroratheatre.org 

“Cats” the Broadway show at 8 p.m., Sat. at 2 and 8 p.m. and Sun. at 2 and 7:30 p.m. at Paramount Theatre, 2025 Broadway, Oakland. Tickets are $20-$60. 415-421-TIXS. www.ticketmaster.com 

Contra Costa Civic Theater “Foxfire” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 p.m. at 951 Pomona Ave. at Moeser, El Cerrito, through May 11. Tickets are $11-$18. 524-9132. www.ccct.org 

Theatre de la Jeune Lune “Figaro” through June 8 at Berkeley Rep’s Roda Theatre, 2015 Addison St. Tickets are $13.50-$69. 647-2949. 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Rauan Klassnik, Gary Young and Karen Wood Hepner, poets, at 7:30 p.m. at Pegasus Books Downtown, 2349 Shattuck Ave. 649-1320. 

Tim Donnelly and Lizz Bronson, poets, read at 7 p.m. at Nefeli Cafe, 1854 Euclid Ave. 841-6374. 

Will Giles reads and shows slides from “Encyclopedia of Exotic Plants for Temperate Climates” at 7:30 p.m. at Mrs. Dalloways, 2904 College Ave. 704-8222. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Berkeley Opera “Bluebeard’s Castle” by Bartok and “L’enfant at les sortileges” by Ravel at 8 p.m. at Julia Morgan Center for the Arts, 2640 College Ave. Tickets are $16-$44. 925-798-1300. 

Lily Storm & Dan Cantrell’s MegaBand at 8 p.m. at The Hillside Club, 2286 Cedar St. Tickets are $10-$15 at the door. 845-1350. www.hillsideclub.org 

University Symphony Orchestra at 8 p.m. at Hertz Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $4-$12. 642-9988.  

Marvin Sanders, flute, at 8 p.m. at Giorgi Gallery, 2911 Claremont Ave. Tickets are $10. 848-1228. 

Charlie King, The Prince Myshkins, Roy Zimmerman, political songs and satire, at 8 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $15-$18. 849-2568.  

San Francisco Opera “The Little Prince” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 3 p.m. at Zellerbach Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $40-$60. 642-9988.  

Pete Yellin Quartet with Shiela Jordan at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $14. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Mucho Axe, Latin World Goove, at 8 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

Girlyman at 8 and 10:30 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $19.50-$20.50. 548-1761.  

Judgement Day, Ninja Academy, Birdmonster at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St., an all-ages, member-run, no alcohol, no drugs, no violence club. Cost is $7. 525-9926. 

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

Poach Stevens at 9:30 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low, 2284 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $10. 548-1159.  

Thee Immortals, alt blues, at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 843-8277. 

Javon Jackson Band, with Les McCann, at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $12-$26. 238-9200.  

SATURDAY, MAY 10 

THEATER 

“Memories and Dreams of the Twentieth Century” An evening of stories written and performed by Michael D. Brown at 8 p.m. at Da Silva Ukulele Co., 2547 8th Street, suite 28, in the Sawtooth building between Dwight and Parker. Suggested donation $15. 

EXHIBITIONS 

"Jean Henry School of Art" a painting exhibition. Works by Margaret Atkinson, Loretta Di Luzio, Ivy Jou, Frank Lillef, Peggy Maynes, Hiten Parmar, Noelle Phillips, Mike Ritch, Joy Rosander, Lore Rossi, Helena Sito, Rolayn Tauben, April Watkins. Reception from 4 to 7 p.m. at The Art of Living Center, 2905 Shattuck Ave. Exhibit runs to June 10. Hours: Mon.-Wed. & Sat. 12-5, Fri. 1-5. 848-3736. 

Paintings by Judith Brownfield, James Hartman and Nell Haskell. Opening reception at 4 p.m. at Giorgi Gallery, 2911 Claremont Ave. 848-1228. www.giorgigallery.com 

“Intertidal” Works by Jamie McHugh, Tara Gill, Susan Adme and Judy Shintani. Opening reception at 5 p.m. at the Community Art Gallery, Alta Bates Summit Medical Center, 2450 Ashby Ave. 204-1667. 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

“Writing Motherhood” with Lisa Garrigues at 11 a.m. and 4 p.m. at Mrs. Dalloways, 2904 College Ave. 704-8222. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Oakland Youth Chorus “Oye La Musica!” at 7 p.m. at First Congregational Church of Berkeley, 2501 Harrison St., Oakland. Tickets are $10-$20. 287-9700. 

MusicEterna “La Vida Breve” Spain and Russia between the Great Wars, at 8 p.m. at Trinity Chapel, 2320 Dana St. Tickets are $8-$12. 549-3864.  

Voci Women’s Vocal Ensemble at 4 p.m. at Lake Merritt Methodist Church, 1330 Lakeshore Ave. Tickets are $17-$20. 531-8714.  

University Symphony Orchestra at 8 p.m. at Hertz Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $4-$12. 642-9988.  

“The Lost Musical Instruments of Joe Pachinko” A concert on unusual instruments at 7 p.m. at Leaning Tower of Pizza, 498 Wesley Ave., off Lakeshore, Oakland. 444-6824. 

Los Mapaches, Latin American music for the whole family at 7 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $10, $5 for children. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Ed Reed & Brian Cooke Quartet at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $15. 841-JAZZ.  

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

Shana Morrison at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761.  

Mike Zilber Group “Tribute to Michael Becker and Wayne Shorter” at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $18. 845-5373.  

Andrew Sammons and Friends at 9 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810.  

2ME at 10 p.m. at Beckett’s Irish Pub, 2271 Shattuck Ave. 647-1790.  

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

Punk Prom with Knights of the New Crusade, People Eaters, The Martyr Index at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St., an all-ages, member-run, no alcohol, no drugs, no violence club. Cost is $7. 525-9926. 

Les Nubians at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square, through Sun. Cost is $30. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

SUNDAY, MAY 11 

CHILDREN 

“California Families” A special celebration with performances by the Oakland East Bay Men’s Chorus, magician Timothy James, martial arts by Destiny Arts, and games and art projects, from 12:30 to 4:40 p.m. at Oakland Museum of California, 1000 Oak St., at Tenth, Oakland. 238-2200.  

EXHIBITIONS 

Enrique Chagoya: Borderlandia Guided tour at 2 p.m. at Berkeley Art Museum. 642-0808.  

READINGS AND LECTURES 

“Back Room Live” Literary magazine with authors Janet W. Hardy, Sarah Mumolo, Lucas Champagne and others at 7:30 p.m. at Pegasus Books Downtown, 2349 Shattuck Ave. 649-1320. 

Hertha Sweet Wong reads from the anthology of writings by Native women “Reckonings” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books, 2201 Shattuck Ave. 559-9500. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Kathy Kallick Mother’s Day Show at 1 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $7.50 children, $9.50 for adults. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Berkeley Opera “Bluebeard’s Castle” by Bartok and “L’enfant at les sortileges” by Ravel at 2 p.m. at Julia Morgan Center for the Arts, 2640 College Ave. Tickets are $16-$44. 925-798-1300. 

The Decker Family Band Mothers’ Day Concert at 4:30 p.m. at La Peña. Cost is $5-$10. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Mother’s Day Music Jam at the Memorial Oak Grove Tree-Sit, from 2 to 6 p.m. on Piedmont Ave. just north of Bancroft Way. www.saveoaks.com 

Barbara Dane & Her Hot Five at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $20. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

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

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

Americana Unplugged, live bluegrass and old-time music at 5 p.m. at Jupiter. 843-8277. 

Mike Zilber at 4:30 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $10-$20. 845-5373. www.jazzschool.com 

MONDAY, MAY 12 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Charles Potts, John Oliver Simon and Richard Krech, with music by Howard Barkin, at 7:30 p.m. at Moe’s Books, 2476 Telegraph Ave. 849-2087. 

“Art and Travel” with Jan Schafir at the El Cerrito Art Association meeting at 7:30 p.m. in the Garden Room, El Cerrito Community Center, 7007 Moeser Lane at Asbury Ave. All welcome. 558-1078. 

Frederick Rolf will read from his father’s memoir “Berlin, Shanhai, New York: My Family’s Flight from Hitler” at 7 p.m. at Kensington Library, 61 Arlington Ave. Kensington. 524-3043. 

Andrew Sean Greer on his novel “The Story of a Marriage” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books, 2201 Shattuck Ave. 559-9500. 

Poetry Express with Jared Paul, from Providence RI, at 7 p.m. at Priya Restaurant, 2072 San Pablo Ave. 644-3977. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

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

Concord High School Jazz Band at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $10-$15. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

TUESDAY, MAY 13 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Legacy of Berkeley Parks” photography exhibit at the Berkeley Public Library, 2090 Kittredge St., through May 26. 981-6107. 

Albany Artists: Michael Che Swisher, JoAnna Pippen and Judith Corning, works on display at Albany Community Center 1249 Marin Ave., Albany, to June 13. 524-9283. 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Edward Mycue and Nancy Keane, poets, read at 7:30 p.m. at Moe’s Books, 2476 Telegraph Ave. 849-2087. 

Barbara Euser and Connie Burke on “Venturing in Ireland” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books 2201 Shattuck Ave. 559-9500. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

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

College of Alameda Jazz Big Band Annual Spring Concert, with guest artist Kenny Washington, at 7 p.m. at F Bldg Student Lounge, College of Alameda, 555 Ralph Appezzato Memorial Parkway, Alameda. free. 748-2213. 

Suzy Thompson & Del Ray at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $18.50-$19.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Brian Wood Ensemble at 7 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave. 548-5198.  

New Orleans All Stars with George Porter, Cyril Neville, Henry Butler, and Raymond Weber at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $12-$20. 238-9200.  

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

WEDNESDAY, MAY 14 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Our Visions” A group show of painitings by East Bay Women Artists on display at Royal Ground Gallery, 2058 Mountain Blvd., Monclair, through July 6. 841-0441. 

THEATER 

Poor Players “Iris and Her Girls” Wed.-Sun. at 8 p.m., Sat and Sun. matinees at 2 p.m. at Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant Ave., through May 18. Tickets are $20. 663-5767. www.poorplayers.org 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Rick Perlstein discusses “Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books, 2201 Shattuck Ave 559-9500. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Music for the Spirit with Ron McKean on harpsichord at 12:15 p.m. at First Presbyterian Church of Oakland, 2619 Broadway. 444-3555. 

South Berkeley Youth Arts Summit music and dance at 7 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $5-$8. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Helenicks at 7 p.m. at Le Bateau Ivre, 2629 Telegraph Ave. www.lebateauivre.net 

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

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

Ben Graves Quartet at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 843-8277. 

Mikie Lee and Amber at 10 p.m. at Beckett’s Irish Pub, 2271 Shattuck Ave. 647-1790. www.beckettsirishpub.com 

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

New Orleans All Stars with George Porter, Cyril Neville, Henry Butler, and Raymond Weber at 8 and 10 p.m. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $12-$20. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

THURSDAY, MAY 15 

THEATER 

“Aliso in Wonderland” Written and performed by “Xago” Juárez, at 8 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $10. 849-2568.  

Eastenders Repertory Company “Three Vanek Plays” by Vaclev Havel, Thurs. and Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 and 7 p.m. at JCC East Bay. Tickets are $15-$20. 800-838-3006. 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Double Vision: Cubist and Abstract Expressions” Works by Carol Manasse and Steve Carlson. Reception at 5 p.m. at Craft & Cultural Arts Gallery, State of California Office Bldg., 1515 Clay St., Oakland. 622-8710. 

“Portals” Paper creations by Jen Stark, Anna Fidler and Jana Flynn. Opening reception at 6 p.m. at Johansson Projects, 2300 Telegraph Ave., Oakland. Exhibit runs through July 5. www.johanssonprojects.com 

Enrique Chagoya: Borderlandia Guided tour at 12:15 p.m. at Berkeley Art Museum. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Ariel Schrag reads from “Awkward/Definition” and “Potential” at 7 p.m. at Florence Schwimley Little Theater at Berkeley High School, 1930 Allston Way. 

Jibade-Khalil Huffman and Bronwen Tate, poets, read at 7:30 p.m. at Pegasus Books Downtown, 2349 Shattuck Ave. 649-1320. 

Sheila Weller discusses “Girls Like Us: Carole King, Joni Mitchell, Carly Simon and the Journey of a Generation” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books, 2201 Shattuck Ave. 559-9500. 

Artist Support Group Speaker Series with Jamie Brunson, art coach and founder, Art Primer, at 7 p.m. at the Berkeley Art Center, 1275 Walnut St. in Live Oak Park. Cost is $8-$10. 644-6893. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Oakland Opera and The Marcus Shelby Jazz Orchestra “Queenie Pie” Thurs.-Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 2 p.m. at New Oakland Metro Operahouse, 630 3rd St., Oakland. 763-1146. 

Celtic Sands at 8:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Irish dance lesson at 8 p.m. Cost is $10. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

The Waybacks at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $24.50-$25.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Dick Conte Trio at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $15. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Mario “Weary Boys” Matteoli at 7 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

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

Poncho Sanchez Tribute to Cal Tjader at 8 and 10 p.m., through Sun. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $22-$66. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

FRIDAY, MAY 16 

THEATER 

Actors Ensemble of Berkeley “Uncle Vanya” Fri. and Sat. at 8 p.m. at Live Oak Theater, 1301 Shattuck Ave., through May 17. Tickets are $10-$12. 649-5999. www.aeofberkeley.org  

Impact Theatre “‘Tis Pity She’s A Whore” Thurs.-Sat. at 8 p.m. at La Val’s Subterranean, 1834 Euclid. Tickets are $10-$15, through June 7. 464-4468. 

Poor Players “Iris and Her Girls” Wed.-Sun. at 8 p.m., Sat and Sun. matinees at 2 p.m. at Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant Ave., through May 18. Tickets are $20. 663-5767. www.poorplayers.org 

Shotgun Players “Beowulf: A Thousand Years of Baggage” Thurs.-Sat. at 8 p.m., Sun. at 5 p.m. at The Asby Stage, 1901 Ashby Ave., through June 22. Tickets are $17-$25. 841-6500. www.shotgunplayers.org 

Theatre de la Jeune Lune “Figaro” through June 8 at Berkeley Rep’s Roda Theatre, 2015 Addison St. Tickets are $13.50-$69. 647-2949. 

EXHIBITIONS 

“These Canyons” UC Berkeley M.F.A. Exhibition Reception at 6:30 p.m. at Berkeley Art Museum. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

International Day for Sharing Life Stories with spoken word, music and media presentations at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Public Library, 2090 Kittredge. 548-2065. www.ausculti.org  

Las Manas Tres, hybrid poetas, at 8 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $10. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Raj Patel discusses “Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System” at 7 p.m. at Cody’s Books 2201 Shattuck Ave. 559-9500. www.codysbooks.com  

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Berkeley Ballet Theater “La Boutique Fantastique” Fri. at 7 p.m., Sat. at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m., Sun. at 2 p.m. at Julia Morgan Center for the Arts, 2640 College Ave. Tickets are $15-$21. 843-4689.  

Garrett McLean, violin, Siu-Ting Dickson Mak, piano, at 8 p.m. at Giorgi Gallery, 2911 Claremont Ave. Tickets are $10. 848-1228. 

Jazzschool Studio Band at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $10. 845-5373. www.jazzschool.com 

Vicki Burns & her Quartet at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $14. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

B.A.R.S.: Break, Art. Rap. Scratch. at 7 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $5-$10. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Snatam Kaur at 8 p.m. at Rudramandir, 830 Bancroft Way at 6th. Tickets are $30-$35. 486-8700. 

Ray Bierl Trio at 8 p.m. at Caffe Trieste, 2500 San Pablo Ave., at Dwight. 548-5198.  

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

John Calloway Quartet at 9 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810.  

Sabertooth Zombie, Murder Practice, Seize the Night at 7:30 p.m. at 924 Gilman St., an all-ages, member-run, no alcohol, no drugs, no violence club. Cost is $7. 525-9926. 

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

Army, David Morrison, Tuff Lion, Luv Fyah, reggae, at 9:30 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low, 2284 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $12. 548-1159.  

Bitches Brew at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 843-8277. 

SATURDAY, MAY 17 

CHILDREN  

Dashka Slater reads from “The Sea Serpent and Me” at 4 p.m. at Cody’s Books, 2201 Shattuck Ave 559-9500. 

EXHIBITIONS 

“Birth of Cool: California Art, Design, and Culture at Midcentury” with a jazz lounge, films, and period art gallery, opens at the Oakland Museum of California, 1000 Oak St. 238-2022. 

“What is a Book?” Explorations by a dozen artists on display at Oakopolis Creativity Center, 447 25th St., Oakland, Sat. from 2 to 5 p.m. to June 21. 663-6920. 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

Adam David Miller and Marc Elihu Hofstadter, poets, read at 2 p.m. at the Berkeley Public Library, 2090 Kittredge St. 981-6107. 

Reading Festival with authors Vivian Walsh at 11 a.m. and Barbara Quick at 3 p.m. Music, refreshments and activities for children from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Kensington Library, 61 Arlington Ave., Kensington. 524-3043. 

Patty Seyburn, Judith Taylor, C.E. Perry, Dean Rader, Brian Komei Dempster, Jennifer K. Sweeney read at 7:30 p.m. at Pegasus Books Downtown, 2349 Shattuck Ave. 649-1320. 

Susan Phillips reads from “Candlelight: Illuminating the Art of Spiritual Direction” at 7 p.m. at First PResbyterian Church of Berkeley, Dana St. at Channing. 559-9500. 

Ryudai Takano Artist Talk at 7 p.m. at Kala Art Institute, 1060 Heinz Ave. http://kala.org 

Rhythm and Muse at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Art Center, 1275 Walnut St. 527-9753. 

David Corbett reads at noon at the El Cerrito Library, 6510 Stockton Ave. 526-7512. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Mozart for Mutts and Meows with players from the Midsummer Mozart Festival, and conducted by George Cleve, at 6:30 p.m. at Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant Ave. Tickets are $80-$90. Includes reception and silent auction. All proceeds benefit the Berkeley East Bay Humane Society. 845-7735, ext. 19. 

Berkeley Ballet Theater “La Boutique Fantastique” at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m., Sun. at 2 p.m. at Julia Morgan Center for the Arts, 2640 College Ave. Tickets are $15-$21. 843-4689.  

Music for Two Choirs Contra Costa Chorale and St. David’s Festival Choir at 7:30 p.m. at Unitarian Church of Berkeley, 1 Lawson Rd., Kensington. Tickets are $15-$20. 527-2026. www.ccchorale.org  

World Folk Music with Bonnie Lockhart at 2:15 p.m. at the El Cerrito Library, 6510 Stockton Ave. 526-7512. 

New Music: Graduate Composers perform at noon at Hertz Hall, UC Campus. Free. 642-4864. http://music.berkeley.edu 

American Bach Soloists “Sound of the Trumpet” with special guest, John Thiessen on baroque trumpet at 8 p.m. at First Congregational Church, 2345 Channing Way at Dana. Pre-concert lecture at 7 p.m. Tickets are $10-$42. 415-621-7900. www.americanbach.org 

Robin Gregory & her Quartet at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $14. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Kalbass, King Wawa, Alafia Dance Ensemble in a Haitian Flag Day Celebration at 9 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $12-$15. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com  

Jonathan Edwards at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $26.50-$27.50. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

Tommy Hodul’s Little Phat Band at 8 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $10. 845-5373. www.jazzschool.com 

Mark Levine Trio at 9 p.m. at Downtown. 649-3810.  

Kurt Ribak Jazz Group at 9:30 p.m. at Albatross, 1822 San Pablo Ave. Cost is $5. 843-2473. www.albatrosspub.com 

Guns for San Sebastian at 10 p.m. at Beckett’s Irish Pub, 2271 Shattuck Ave. 647-1790. www.beckettsirishpub.com 

Joseph’s Bones at 8 p.m. at Jupiter. 843-8277. 

XBXRX, Triclops, Rock Poster Art Show at 8 p.m. at 924 Gilman St., an all-ages, member-run, no alcohol, no drugs, no violence club. Cost is $7. 525-9926. 

Poncho Sanchez Tribute to Cal Tjader at 8 and 10 p.m., through Sun. at Yoshi’s at Jack London Square. Cost is $22-$66. 238-9200. www.yoshis.com 

SUNDAY, MAY 18 

CHILDREN 

Uncle Zacky & Cousin Eric at Ashkenaz at 3 p.m. Cost is $4-$6. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

EXHIBITIONS 

Works by Carla Van Slyke, Rita Sklar, Charlotte Britoon and Jack Anderson. Reception at 2 p.m. at Solano Grill, 1133 Solano Ave., Albany. 531-1404. 

Enrique Chagoya: Borderlandia Guided tour at 2 p.m. at Berkeley Art Museum. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

READINGS AND LECTURES 

“These Canyons” UC Berkeley M.F.A. Exhibition. Artists’ talk at 3 p.m. at Berkeley Art Museum. 642-0808. www.bampfa.berkeley.edu 

“Israeli Art Today” with Michal Gavish, in conjunction with the exhibition “@60.art.israel.world” at 2 p.m. at the Judah L. Magnes Museum., 2911 Russell St. 549-6950. 

UC Extension Student Reading at 4 p.m. at Cody’s Books, 2201 Shattuck Ave. 559-9500. 

MUSIC AND DANCE 

Berkeley Ballet Theater WHAT: Spring Showcase: La Boutique Fantastique WHERE: Julia Morgan Center for the Arts, 2640 College Avenue, Berkeley WHEN: Friday, May 16, 7:00 PM Saturday, May 17, 2:00 PM Saturday, May 17, 7:00 PM Sunday, May 18, 2:00 PM TICKETS: $15-21 CALL: 510-843-4689  

Jazz on Fourth Street Benefit for Berkeley high School Jazz Programs, with performances by E.C. Scott, Khalil Shaheed Quintet, John Santos Quartet, and the Berkeley High Jazz Orchestra and Combos, from noon to 5 p.m. on Fourth St. between Hearst and Virginia. 

Volti “Past, Present, and Future Adventures” at 4 p.m. at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, 2300 Bancroft Way. Tickets are $8-$20. 415-771-3352. www.voltisf.org 

Voci Women’s Vocal Ensemble at 4 p.m. at Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley, 1 Lawson Rd., Kensington. Tickets are $17-$20. 531-8714. www.vocisings.com 

CHAMBER MUSIC SUNDAES, featuring San Francisco Symphony cellists Jill Rachuy Brindel, David Goldblatt and Carolyn McIntosh and Seattle Symphony cellist Walter Gray a concert which includes music by Vivaldi, Richard Strauss, Tansman and Moor St. John's Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. in Berkeley Sunday, May 18th at 3:00 PMTickets at the door $18 to $22. For information call: 415 753 2792 or visit our website at www.chambermusicsundaes.org 

Sunday, May 18, 2008, at 4 p.m. What: Free Orchestra Concert Who: Oakland Civic Orchestra. Martha Stoddard, conductor. Cory Lee, violin. Where: Lake Merritt United Methodist Church, 1330 Lakeshore Avenue, Oakland. Public info: (510) 238-7275. http://www.oaklandnet.com/parks/programs/ca_civicorchestra.asp. 

MUSIC FOR TWO CHOIRS - Contra Costa Chorale and St. David's Festival Choir, including Vivaldi's Beatus Vir, - and Sun May 18, 3:00pm at St. David's Catholic Church, 5641 Esmond St., Richmond. $15-$20. (510)527-2026 or www.ccchorale.org . 

Young People’s Symphony Orchestra Spring Concert with Oakland Symphony Chorus, Piedmont ChoirsSunday, May 18 at 7:30 p.m. at Berkeley Community Theater, Allston Way between MLK and Milvia. Tickets are $15-$20. www.ypsomusic.net 

The Carol Trio and friends 7:30 p.m. at Giorgi Gallery, 2911 Claremont Ave. Tickets are $10. 848-1228. 

“Come Away to the Skies” solo piano concert with Pastor Dan Damon at 5 p.m. at First United Methodist Church, 201 Martina St., Point Richmond. Suggested donation $10.236-0527. 

Tati Argue, hip hop and Michael Grbich, tap at 3 p.m. at Expression Gallery, 2035 Ashby Ave. 644-4930. 

John Schott’s Dream Kitchen at 8 p.m. at Freight and Salvage. Cost is $7.50 children, $9.50 for adults. 548-1761. www.freightandsalvage.org 

t 5 p.m. at Hertz Hall, UC Campus. Tickets are $$5-$15. 642-9988. www.calperformances.net 

at 7:30 p.m. at La Peña. Cost is $10-$20. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

Mads Tolling Trio at 8 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. Cost is $15. 841-JAZZ. www.AnnasJazzIsland.com 

Americana Unplugged, bluegrass and old-time, at 5 p.m. at Jupiter. 843-8277. 

Steve Lucky & the Rhumba Bums at 6:30 p.m. at Ashkenaz. Cost is $15 and up. Benefit for Scott “Edawg” Petersen. 525-5054. www.ashkenaz.com 

Andrew Speight: A Tribute to Charlie Parker at 4:30 p.m. at the Jazzschool. Cost is $12-$15. 845-5373. www.jazzschool.com 

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

at 9 p.m. at Shattuck Down Low, 2284 Shattuck Ave. Cost is $5-$7. 548-1159.  

at 9 p.m. at Blakes on Telegraph. Cost is $5-$7. 848-0886. www.blakesontelegraph.com 

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

at 5 p.m. at 924 Gilman St., an all-ages, member-run, no alcohol, no drugs, no violence club. Cost is $5. 525-9926. 

In theater,” said that poet and visionary of drama, Antonin Artaud, in The Theater and Its Double, “there is a kind of strange sun, an unusually bright light by which the difficult, even the impossible, suddenly appears to be our natural medium. And [John] Ford’s ‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore is lit by the brilliance of that strange sun.” 

Impact Theater now has onstage, in LaVal’s Subterranean, what’s become the most famous play by Ford, one of the many stars in the British dramatic firmament of the Elizabethan and Stuartian reigns that have been eclipsed by Shakespeare’s solar power, remaining to many readers and playgoers mere names: Middleton, Marston, Webster, Tourneur, Greene and Peele, to mention just a half-dozen of the most obvious. (Indeed, that other towering genius of the time, Ben Jonson, is hardly more than a reference to most).  

“Deep in a dump alone John Ford was gat/With folded arms and melancholy hat.” The old ditty, from “Choice Drollery,” maybe sums up why there was only one revival of Ford’s play for over two centuries, during the Restoration (Pepys saw and disliked it—though he spotted a blonde in the cast he did like). 

Victorian poets, such as Swinburne, and psychologists and men of letters, like Havelock Ellis, rediscovered this kind of ferocious Baroque drama, and an abridged translation by Symbolist playwright Maurice Maeterlinck (an influence on Chekhov, Yeats and Beckett) finally brought it back to the stage in the 1880s. 

There’s plenty of laughter at times, anyway, as the tone of the play shifts wildly from gripping to dire irony, to burlesque, and back to gripping. Impact’s usual fare consists of burlesk, with a “k,” new plays (often by local playwrights) and a Shakespeare or two thrown in. They deserve much credit for getting this “monstre sacree” of Baroque drama back on the boards. 

What’s the sting in this “melancholic” yet energetic play which kept it out of sympathy with producers and critics for so long? Partly its subject matter: Giovanni, the male protagonist opens the play by defending his dream of incestuous love to his confessor—and then discovers his sister, Annabella, shares his feelings.  

“There is no heaven and no earth for him,” Artaud writes, “only the strength of his tumultuous passion, which evokes a correspondingly rebellious passion in Annabella.” They proceed to consummate their maverick bond—and the run of dire consequences begins. 

The Impact production is, by necessity, a chamber play, the chamber—Andrew Susskind’s blue wall with a blue lamp hanging over a blue-dressed bed curtained in gauze—beneath the pizza parlor upstairs. Impact artistic director Melissa Hillman puts a cast of 14 through the hoops of stylized Baroque metaphysical potboiler. “Melissa’s been dying to direct this for years,” said Managing Director Cheshire Isaacs. 

Keeping it clear and close to the text, and moving right along, she gets consistently good performances from John Ferreira as Friar Bonaventura, Mary Ann Mackey as Mme. Florio (transposed genderwise from Annabella and Giovanni’s widower father in the original), Tim Redmond as the father of the buffoonish suitor (and first, mistaken casualty) Bergetto (Jai Sahai), and a sense of grim energy and resolve from Seth Hans Thygesen as Vasques, retainer and a kind of double agent and revenger and Harold Pierce as a scheming physician. 

The women play female roles like a maid and confidante (Miyuki Bierlein), a spurned lover (Mayra Gaeta) or the niece of a doctor and another love interest (Kendra Oberhauser)—or male roles as henchmen and cronies (Sarah Coykendall). 

As siblings turned lovers, Marissa Keltie and John Terrell play unevenly for most of the show—then, in the crucial, harrowing final scenes, they come through where it counts, with a sense of the transcendental drive Artaud talked about, hellbent and implacable. 

Those scenes aren’t for the fainthearted, but are great theater, suspense and cruel action that surpass mere melodrama. There is a lot of salutary gore, served with dispatch; the audience laughs at the curtain call when the smiling actors take their bow in blood-drenched costumes.

Amid the slapstick of aristocrats stashed in packing crates to cheat the guillotine, flashbacks of the genteel antediluvian life signaled by opera singers popping up out of nowhere to sing Mozart and close-ups of those singers’ and comedians’ faces projected on a big screen from a camera in the wings, a wry concept seems to be taking shape from Theatre de la Jeune Lune’s Figaro, onstage at Berkeley Rep’s Roda Theatre.  

The show is a melding of Beaumarchais’ original play and Mozart’s (and librettist Lorenzo da Ponte’s) opera with some stiffening from Beaumarchais’ lesser known third play, after The Barber of Seville and Marriage of Figaro, La Mere Coupable (Guilty Mother), all set in Paris, where Count Almaviva and his quondam barber, Figaro (now just Fig), are refugees from the revolutionary mobs.  

The pair rehash their old man-and-his-man’s-man relationship, and the romantic intrigues they’ve shared, cueing effusions of Mozart’s music, as if to quote Talleyrand’s famous bon mot, used as epigraph by Bertolucci for his second feature film, “Noboby can know how sweet life can be unless they lived before the revolution.” 

With the divine music sung wonderfully by the singers appearing by sleight-of-hand and projected on the big screen, the comedians (Dominique Serrand and Steven Epp, who also adapted the piece) show up in a flurry of sight gags cutting the reminiscences and tableaux, like the Countess (Jennifer Baldwin Peden) stretched out in a funeral boat, smothered in roses, bursting into song as Serrand slowly draws the boat around the stage. This composite, deliberately anachronistic image of memories of happiness ravaged by change, yet springing up anew, even through remorse, and of characters confronted by their own vanity, tantalizingly seems to be forming before our eyes, like the ghost of a ghost, phantom of memory and experience itself. 

Unfortunately, the assemblage doesn’t cohere, as the Jeune Lunes’ ride on Mozart’s coattails reveals more disparity of intention and purpose than the sensational collage effects it tries to muster. 

Mozart and da Ponte themselves realized what da Ponte claimed was a new kind of musical theater, at about the same time a new dramaturgy, pioneered by Diderot in France and Lessing in Germany, was being formulated of synaesthetic “tableaux” that Lessing called “pregnant moments,” images by which the whole picture, the tension and conflict of an entire play could be caught.  

Musician and critic Charles Rosen validated da Ponte’s claim to a similar advance in opera, overcoming the old effects of “coup-de-theatre” in plot and music through a close marriage of text and music by use of sonata forms, constantly building and resolving conflict musically along with the shifts in dramatic focus. 

Whenever the fine operatic singers and actors (Christina Baldwin, Baldwin Peden, Carrie Hennessey, Bryan Janssen, Momoko Tanno and Bryan Boyce and their alternates) appear—especially in the longer excerpts pasted into the second act, when the poetic structure, both musical and dramatic, can be sensed more fully—the anachronistic pastiche is refreshed by the original’s still astounding transparency, in which all manner of conflicting, even contradictory motives and actions are revealed (and studied) at once, yet still keep the freshness and humorous insouciance of opera buffa. 

The insouciance and simultaneity of what Epp and Serrand try to do is something else again, not a montage, but just a pastiche that attempts to pair unlike elements into an ungainly happy synthesis. There’s no sense of montage here, just a kind of willy-nilly slopping together and dreary repetition.  

What starts out fresh—the sudden appearances of the singers from a soon-overworked trick bed (no stage magician would ever beat dead horsehair like that for an effect) or the abrupt skittering of actors and singers across the stage—is repeated ad nauseum, providing neither compliment nor contrast to the miraculous marriage of music and text in the opera. 

When the singers are in the camera’s eye, projected on screen, it makes sense, matching what Rosen identifies as another key feature of the opera’s innovatory invention: duos and trios advancing the story, not recitivo filling in.  

When the camera focuses on Epp in his endless way-behind-the-beat expository reminiscences and routines in close-up, it defeats the purpose of being paired as a reflection of its original, like the talking heads in PBS opera programs that are the death of the surprising 220-year-old spontaneity of da Ponte and Mozart’s accomplishment. 

(A better example of how to draw from such masters would be Ingmar Bergman’s film Hour of the Wolf, based on inverting the story of ‘The Magic Flute’—though Bergman only shows a scene from the original, with ironic commentary, as a creepy puppet show.) 

Given Epp and Serrand’s errant direction, as if they were slipping on hidden banana peels while doing their adaptation, drawing attention to their own antics after capturing the audience with rivetting operatics, the play should be retitled Figaro & Me. 

Bradley Greenwald’s musical adaptation, a “miniaturization” for a chamber group, and that group’s playing, prove to be fine. 

Postmodern critical theory discusses irony and longing at great length. Here, the longing is over-attenuated and the irony is anachronistic: It is a pre-revolutionary opera, in which Mozart and da Ponte made high art from something approaching farce or burlesque, which refreshes our tired postmodern stage conventions.

This Friday Berkeley Opera opened the second opera of its 29th season, with two one-acts from the early 20th century, Béla Bartok’s Bluebeard’s Castle (A kékszakállú herceg vára) and Maurice Ravel’s L’enfant et les sortilèges. Wildly different in tone and intent, the operas nonetheless provided a wonderful program that was evocative and satisfying. 

Bartok’s opera, which debuted in 1918 in Budapest, is a reinterpretation of the fairy story of a man who murders his wives ostensibly for their curiosity. The composer’s version converts this chilling tale into a vivid symbolic world with Bluebeard’s castle figuring as a representation of the man—dark and cold, sighs pouring forth from its closed recesses. The action of the opera focuses on Bluebeard’s psychological unveiling by his new bride, Judith, who insists on opening the seven locked doors of the castle.  

Reluctantly, Bluebeard agrees and the pair moves through the castle rooms—a torture chamber, an armory, a treasure room—Bluebeard asking the horrified Judith if she is afraid, Judith insisting that light be brought into the castle, that she will dry its wet, cold walls with her lips, her love. A secret garden follows the visions of violence and murder, then a view of Bluebeard’s vast domain. Everywhere, when she looks closely, Judith sees blood. 

Mezzo-soprano Kathleen Moss sang a superlative Judith, her rich tone smooth as honey, amber and full, slowly pouring Bartok’s dark melodic lines into the ambiguous world of the story’s emotions. Along with beautiful tone, her voice has real power—intense and focused without edge or sharpness. Paul Murray sang Bluebeard, and though he needed to reach for some of the lower notes, he portrayed a repressed and convincingly bizarre prince. 

A video backdrop by Naomi Kremer, assisted by Mark Palmer, provided the visuals, which were both spooky and atmospheric. It’s a hard task to provide sets and designs for this opera—the imagery needs to remain connected to the story but not be too literal. The music’s strength and the power of the original poetic vision, however, override almost any presentation.  

Artistic director and conductor Jonathan Kuhner used a smaller orchestra in place of the larger-than-average orchestra specified by Bartok’s score. Though hidden behind the projection screen onstage, the 34-member ensemble was nonetheless able to impel the dynamic power of the music, moving from the subtle strings of the opera’s dissonant beginning through the panorama of the work’s forte middle section with its enormous C-major chord and back to a quiet ending that, mirroring the opening, is filled with Bluebeard’s quiet angst. 

It’s a truly great short opera. A must.  

Videos by artist Ariel, assisted by Jeremy Knight, projected the fantasy world of Maurice Ravel’s L’enfant et les sortilèges, a wry and charming opera with a libretto by Collette about a bad little boy who doesn’t want to do his homework. The opera was written at about the same time as Bartok’s, premiering in Monte Carlo in 1925. 

Forced to stay in his room with no supper by his mother—a larger than life-sized puppet with a bustle, fancifully designed by Michael and Valerie Nelson of the Magical Moonshine Theater—the boy throws a tantrum, tearing up his homework and books, breaking the teapot and cup. Suddenly, the objects of the room come to life, chastising him for his bad behavior. Teapot and cup swirl through the lively colors on the projection screen, shepherds and shepherdesses on pieces of torn wallpaper float by, and young dancers dressed in raggy, ethereal scraps of red surround the boy as disgruntled flames from the fireplace, protesting being poked.  

In a fine black-and-white sequence the arithmetic book comes to life, barraging the naughty boy with word problems—“two trains start from the towns of …” Dancers carrying phosphorescent numbers form grinning faces that surround the boy, mocking him. Two cats enter and perform a duet of meows, then lead him to the garden, where creatures—a squirrel, a bat, a dragonfly, among others—accuse him of terrorizing them. 

Patrick Dowd of the Pacific Boychoir Academy sang the part of the little boy. Though amplified, the sweetness of his voice had that clear crystalline quality of the boy soprano. He alternates in the role with Misha Brooks. The many roles of the objects and creatures were sung by adults lined at the sides of the audience. None of this was easy music: though melodic, it shifted through modes and tempi suggested by the whimsical story characters, its movement creating a light, quixotic and humorous atmosphere. 

BLUEBEARD’S CASTLE and 

L’ENFANT ET LES SORTILEGES 

Presented by Berkeley Opera at 8 p.m. Friday and at 2 p.m. Sunday at the Julia Morgan Center for the Arts, 2640 College Ave.  

798-1300. www.berkeleyopera.com,  

www.willowstheater.com.

Once upon a time, houses were built with the materials at hand, or those things that could be made using the materials at hand (concrete, for instance). Around here, that tended to be wood and masonry (stone, brick, stucco, and concrete). These days, more and more construction materials are fake.  

The old-growth timber with which the East Bay was built in the 19th and 20th centuries has pretty much all been logged. We don’t use much stone any more, unless you count all those granite kitchen counters.  

Concrete is still around, but even the stucco these days tends to be synthetic, sprayed on top of foam. Wood is still used for framing, but many of the visible parts of the house are now various composites: fiber-cement siding, composite countertops, PVC trim boards, MDF moldings, fiberboard siding, laminate flooring, cultured stone, and composite decking.  

Intellectually, I have no problem with a lot of these substances, as they often make better use of scarce resources. Well, except for PVC, which is toxic throughout its lifecycle, and impossible to avoid—it should just be banned outright. But I digress. 

Aesthetically, I do have a problem with some of these faux building materials. Sometimes the problem is not even innate in the composite material, rather, it’s the fault of those who design and manufacture it. 

Let us take siding as an example. Now, I’m not even talking about vinyl siding or aluminum siding, which we don’t have very much of compared to some parts of the country, thank God. No, I’m talking about fiberboard siding and fiber-cement siding. Now, fiber-cement siding is a fairly decent product which (so far) appears to be holding up to the elements fairly well, can be painted, and comes in various traditional siding profiles as well as shingles.  

Fiberboard, on the other hand, is akin to particleboard, and available in big floppy two foot by sixteen foot sheets down at the home center that shall remain nameless. Yet both of these products, for reasons which are not clear to me, come embossed with a large and exaggerated wood grain pattern which repeats every two or three feet. No real wood looks like that, unless perhaps it has been sandblasted.  

It might even be OK had they opted for “sandblasted old-growth wood,” but no, the “growth rings” on the embossed siding are a good inch apart, like the tree-farmed lumber that is common these days. And the embossing of exaggerated wood grain extends to composite decking materials (Trex and the like) as well. Fiber-cement siding is also available with a smooth surface, but apparently the wood grain is far more popular.  

Which brings us to Pergo and its little laminate friends. Ignoring for the moment the issue of whether you want to walk around on what is essentially a Formica counter that’s now on the floor, the fact that laminate flooring comes mainly in various kinds of fake wood is what offends me aesthetically. Wood is hard to fake. Laminate “wood” flooring is basically a photograph of wood under a piece of clear plastic. Sometimes it’s embossed a little to look like it has “grain”—at least the embossing is usually more subtle than what is used on siding. Laminate also comes in fake “ceramic tile,” which for some reason is easier to fake. 

Just above the laminate floor you may well find a baseboard made of MDF or medium-density fiberboard. MDF is a fine use of sawdust which would otherwise go to waste, and it’s cheap. It doesn’t expand or contract as much as real wood, and it comes pre-primed. That’s the upside. The downside? Looks okay until you bang into it with a piece of furniture or something, at which point a chunk breaks out leaving a small crater, unlike banging into a wood baseboard, which might dent it or chip off some paint, but will definitely not leave a crater.  

Also, they say MDF looks just like wood when painted—well, maybe after five or six coats. Otherwise the random “grain” of the sawdust shows through on close inspection. Thus, I would save MDF moldings for use up near the ceiling, where they are unlikely to get knocked around and can’t be seen too closely. 

I don’t necessarily have a problem with fakeness as a concept. Faux finishing has a long and splendid history, and I like a linoleum oriental rug as much as the next person. Okay, more than the next person. But I despair for a world that so willingly sends real old growth timber to the landfill by demolishing old buildings, while building new ones using materials that are often synthetic or composite because that is more “green.” Maybe it’s that the attempt to look like natural building materials is such a reminder of what we’ve lost. 

Jane Powell is the author of five books about bungalows and one about linoleum, all available at www.bungalowkitchens.com. She can be reached at hsedressng@aol.com.  

If you’re like Joe and me, you’re spending as much of this sunny weather as you can outdoors, especially in our handy local parks. The breeding birds are here, and they’re putting on a show as they sing and chase and carry on, establishing territories, picking mates, building nests. The bloom season is at its height, multiple species carpeting outer Point Reyes and interior grassy hillsides.  

These places get a bit hot in full sun, if like me you’re an old goat dragging herself uphill against gravity, which I swear is increasing lately about as fast as gas prices. I’m hauling too much mass with too little oxygen, granted, but could it be that what’s replacing the time that’s obviously leaking out of the universe is an insidious backwash of gravity?  

So: Hot, sweaty, wondering if my sunscreen is good enough to prevent getting a few more divots at the dermatologist’s, what would I want to see?  

A nice lush line of alders. Somewhere within that line there will be a creek, and cool shade under them. Maybe there’ll even be a handy overhanging root I can sit on and dangle my feet in the water. 

Alders are in the same family as birches, and they mostly have similar preferences: in these parts, plenty of water year-round is a significant one. They’re one of the trees (like willows and sycamores) that mark watercourses, and as the grasses turn lion-gold and then camel-brown, you can spot their green banners from a great distance.  

Our local representative is white or California alder, Alnus rhombifolia. The leaves are indeed pretty rhombus-shaped, and they flutter engagingly with a subtle faint rustle in the slight breeze that a running creek produces. To a hiker, that’s Mother Nature’s Welcome sign and it beats HoJo’s orange roof by a long dry mile. 

This might explain why Donald Culross Peattie, in the short description of the species in his classic A Natural History of Western Trees, breaks into poetry a few times. 

In the brief period of cold weather in California the leaves of this Alder drop from the trees, and it is then, in January, that the catkins bloom on the naked twigs. To look down then from some mountain-side on the green-gold of the Alders all in bloom for miles up and down the creek is one of the loveliest floral sights of the year in the California Coast Ranges … Yet flowers these catkins are, of course-male flowers which, being wind-pollinated, have of necessity immense amounts of buoyant pollen to loose upon the chill airs. A slight tap on a flowering twig will send a whole nebula of fertility to floating in the air, a golden haze that slowly drifts away, only by chance to find the little female flowers so neatly packed in small cone-like clusters. 

Alder isn’t a major timber source, but it does grow straight and tall enough to make decent boards and furniture. You’d have to be a homesteading handcrafter to work on that scale, I’d think. It’s also good firewood, on a similar scale. It does re-grow pretty quickly. 

The local indigenes used it for that, specifically for tinder and for the drill part of a fire-building kit. They used the supple roots in basketry and made a skin-soothing wash by boiling the bark. Considering that aspirin is a refinement of an ingredient found in willow bark (salicylic acid, of course: salix = willow) that cool streamside is looking better and better: drugstore as well as rest stop.  

Alder roots, like other tree roots, were harvested for basketry in a selective, rotational manner, taking a few from a tree or grove and then leaving the producers alone for some years to recover. Smart move, in recognizing not only that a renewable resource needs appropriate time to renew itself but also that the service of live, standing alders in sheltering wildlife (along with humans) and maintaining streambanks is invaluable.  

Creekside vegetation and its inhabitants are among the most devastated of ecosystems in California. Bird species like the least Bell’s vireo and yellow-billed cuckoo have become vanishingly rare. This destruction has effects that reach far downstream and all the way into our own daily lives: our diets, for example.  

Siltation caused by erosion of streambanks-in turn a product of destruction of streamside and forest vegetation that holds the soil in place and filters hard rains-as well as the heating of now shallow and unshaded waters, kill off salmon eggs and young salmon. It seems clear that this is at least as bad as overfishing, and certainly harder to fix.  

One wonders if the people who have, unthinkingly or greedily or both, perpetuated the sloppy way we use our resources have ever sat under a cluster of alders, feet in the creek, and considered their ways.  

I had a slight tense phone call with a rather difficult person this morning. Not a great way to start the day, but I guess it goes with the business and I’m lucky to be employed.  

This was the listing agent on a recent deal and I was working for the buyer so it was an experience I don’t have everyday. In fact, it’s pretty rare in our immediate environs due to local realtors having figured out that it’s not in the best interest of their clients to have their experts being grilled by the opposition. And yes, that’s what it was.  

Her intent was not to tell me how great I was or to invite me out to a few rounds of croquet. It was to see if she could find some chink in my arguments or to use my thinking to deflate the validity of the bids that had come to lean against her client’s house in the course of the deal. 

Since I’m not paid enough to lie (I keep trying to figure out how much that would be) it’s best to keep me off the phone with the opposition because I will tell them the truth whether that’s good for my client or good for these other folks. In fact, without a specific request from my client to do so, it’s really a conflict of interest for me to be talking to the listing agent at all (unless I’m representing a seller). 

Anyway, this agent said that after seeing all these bids from various contractors, that she was disinclined (my word. Hers was somewhat less refined) to believe the need for any repair that hadn’t been listed in my report. I was stunned. I think, in some odd, alternate-universe, sort of way, that I’d been complimented. Of course, it was out of expedience and not respect, but still, it was still stunning. She was saying that I was a reliable source of information because I lacked a conflict of interest. That is, I wasn’t selling anything; at least anything beyond my services as an analyst.  

So how does this work and who falls on one side of this matter of conflict of interest and on the who on the other? 

Inspectors, engineers and architects are sort of on one side of this grouping of skilled help when you’re buying a house or, perhaps, getting set to make some changes. On the other side are people who sell services (not to cast aspersions but let’s call them contractors).  

Now, let me be very clear about this. Selling contracting services is not a crime, is not the vocation of subterranean troglodytes or the daytime cover of serial killers. Contractors are, for the most part, working men and women of varying levels of expertise, dedicated to leaving, in their wake, a field of smiling patrons inclined to speak riant billboards of their worth. Nonetheless, contractors don’t make money if you don’t buy their services and while some charge to look at jobs or write up large estimates, most only make money when you buy the remodel, the sewer replacement, the new roof or the pest clearance. 

So, depending on the scale (or type) of work you’re leaning toward, it may well pay to get a “disinterested” party (or parties) involved before giving your bank routing number to Happy Feng Shui Organic Construction. Even if they’re the most honest and fair minded folks in creation, they still orient themselves toward cash flow. If they don’t they’re foolish.  

Any large concern, whether governmental or corporate, will always start with a study of what should be done and how. Experts get retained to design a project and specify, perhaps to a very fine degree, exactly what best serves the needs of the client. Then, contractors can be interviewed to determine cost (but Puleeeeeze not only cost), skill level, reputation, etc. of each. 

One reason not to ask the “interested” parties to design a project is that most contractors, even good ones, don’t know all about every part of a house or commercial building. Most know a lot about what they do but the best general contractors I’ve seen have rarely known a great deal about general seismic performance or about how a forced air heating system worked (or what things keep them from working optimally).  

Architects, engineers, inspectors, as well as manufacturing representatives and zoning officials know all sorts of things that they can bring to your set of criteria that contractors might not know because their careers are constructed around knowledge acquisition and deployment rather than the day-to-day operation of a construction jobsite. This is not to say that the contractor is any less intelligent than the engineer or inspector. I’ve met a number of contractors over the years that were of formidable brain-power, but their world is built around a different set of imperatives and activities. 

In a similar vein, the contractor is generally going to sell their best wares. The things they do best and know they can make money doing. These may or may not be your best choices (from our “disinterested” perspective) and, if you consult an expert first, you may end with Joan rather than Bud simply because Joan sells tile setting and Bud sells bamboo flooring. 

Lastly, let me say something about the cost of planning. A well-known aphorism in the construction trade is that “No job is so expensive as the one you have to do twice.” In other words, planning and making the right decisions may involve some extra expense at the front end, but in the long run, the cost of what you didn’t know can show up either during your project in the form of construction problems (e.g. cost overrun, delay or worse) or beyond, when you visit your friend’s house and discover the radiant electric heating under their bathroom floor tile that you were never told about and could have had. 

In my experience, the costs of these disinterested parties usually end up representing a small fraction of the total cost and can usually pay for themselves in mistakes avoided or through better ideas. With many small jobs these folks may not be required (but may be helpful for a small sum). With larger jobs, it is often the wiser woman (or fella) who seeks a bit of sage with her soup.  

Today I learned that aspersion can mean to sprinkle (as in) Holy Water (you clergy already knew that, right?). This may help me to remember that casting them is always a mixed blessing. 

THURSDAY, MAY 8 

Building Opportunities for Self-Sufficiency (BOSS) 35th Anniversary Celebration at Hs Lordships at the Berkeley Marina. For tickets and information call 649-1930. www.self-sufficiency.org 

“Angel Island: Immigrant Gateway to America” with Judy Yung, professor emerita at UC Santa Cruz, at 1 p.m. at Oakland Museum of California, 1000 Oak St. 238-2022. 

High Blood Pressure Drop-In Clinic with free blood pressure testing, and giveaways from 4:30 to 5:30 p.m. at Over 60 Health Center, 3260 Sacramento St. 981-5356. 

East Bay Mac Users Group meets to discuss Drive Savers and Time Capsule at 7 p.m. at Expression College for Digital Arts, 6601 Shellmound St., Emeryville. http://ebmug.org  

East Bay Science Cafe “Mortality and Nature: the Human Challenge” A look at disease, old age and death in nature then how humans transformed these as we built civilizations at 7 p.m. at Espresso Roma, 2960 College Ave. at Ashby 644-3773. 

Memorial Service for Janet Foldvary at 7 p.m. at St. Joseph the Worker Church, 1640 Addison St. 

Green Chamber Mixer at 5:30 p.m. at 1750 Broadway, Oakland. greenchamberofcommerce.net  

Baby & Toddler Storytime at 10:15 and 11:15 a..m. at Kensington Library, 61 Arlington Ave. 524-3043.  

Fitness Class for 55+ at 9:15 a.m. at Jewish Community Center, 1414 Walnut St. 848-0237. 

World of Plants Tours Thurs., Sat. and Sun. at 1:30 p.m. at the UC Botanical Garden, 200 Centennial Drive. Cost is $5. 643-2755. http://botanicalgarden.berkeley.edu 

FRIDAY, MAY 9 

Berkeley Neighborhood History Hunt, involving the upper half of the Historic McGee Spaulding District neighborhood between Dwight, University, McGee and MLK Jr. will begin today. If you live in the neighborhood, game booklets will be delivered to your doorstep. Prizes will be awarded to winners. There is no cost to enter the Hunt. For more details or to help with the hunt, please contact Gingi at 540-7072, ext. 12. gingi_f@berkeley.edu  

City Commons Club Noon Luncheon with Richard Fields of the Pacific Legal Foundation. 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 524-7468.  

“Palettes and Paddles” for children ages 9 and up to learn water-safety, boating and plein-air painting on Lake Merritt, from 3 to 4:30 p.m. on Fri. for 5 weeks. Cost is $63. To register call 238-2196. 

“Voices from Inside: Women Prisoners and their Children Speak Out” at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists, 1924 Cedar St. at Bonita. Donations requested. 528-5403. 

Cancer Prevention and Survival Cooking Class meets Fri. from 6 to 8 p.m., through June 20 at Alta Bates Summit Cardiac Rehabilitation, 3030 Telegraph Ave. Free, but registration required. 869-6737.  

Communities in Transition Forum: Can There Be a “Female Man”? A panel discussion on the intersection of gender and sex at 7 p.m. at Berkeley City College Auditorium, 2050 Center St. 350-8495. 

Womansong Circle An evening of participatory singing for women led by Betsy Rose at 7:15 p.m. at First Congregational Church of Berkeley, Small Assembly Room, 2345 Channing at Dana. Suggested donation $15-$20. 525-7082. betsy@betsyrosemusic.org 

Berkeley Women in Black weekly vigil from noon to 1 p.m. at Bancroft and Telegraph. Our focus is human rights in Palestine. 548-6310. 

SATURDAY, MAY 10 

“Grassroots Greening” A walk in West Berkeley to see grassroots “greening” projects near the old Santa Fe rail route, ending with a no-host picnic in Strawberry Creek Park. Meet at 10 a.m. at the observation railing at Codornices Creek on the Ohlone Greenway, north of Santa Fe, under the BART tracks, opposite 1200 Masonic. Wheelchair and stroller accessible. 848-9358. 

Berkeley Historical Society Walking Tour “Northbrae Trolleys” Explore the relationship between the early electric street railroads and real estate interests in the Northbrae area, from 10 a.m. to noon. Cost is $8-$10. For reservations call 848-0181. 

Peralta in Bloom Peralta Elementary Spring Community Festival with carnival games, climbing wall, food and entertainment, from noon to 4 p.m. at Peralta Elementary, 460 63rd Street, Oakland. Free.  

Golden Gate Audubon Society Bird Walk at Wildcat Canyon Regional Park Meet at 8 a.m. at Arlington Clubhouse on Arlington Ave. in El Cerrito, for a six-mile hilly hike. 925-376-8945. 

Golden Gate Audubon Society Bird Walk at Vollmer Peak Meet at 8 a.m. at the Vollmer Peak trailhead in Tilden Park. 540-8749. 

Bike Day at the Berkeley Famers’ Market, Center St. btwn Milvia and MLK Way. “How to Lock Your Bike” at 10:30 a.m., “Everyday Bicycling” at 11 a.m., “Hands-On Repair Class” at 12:30 p.m., and “How to Lock Your Bike” at 2 p.m. 548-7433. www.ebb.org 

Walking Tour of Jack London Waterfront Meet at 10 a.m. at the corner of Broadway and Embarcadero. Tour lasts 90 minutes. Reservations can be made by calling 238-3234. www.oaklandnet.com/walkingtours 

Spring Plant Sale to benefit the Edible Schoolyard, Sat. and Sun. from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School. 558-1335. www.edibleschoolyard.org 

Dye-Namite Tie Dye Learn natural tie-dying and the history of the craft, from 1 to 3 p.m. at Tilden Nature Center, Tilden PArk. For ages 10 and up. Cost is $5-$7. Registration required. 1-888-EB-PARKS. 

Julia Robinson Mathematics Festival with activity tables where approximately 50 mathematicians and engineers will engage the children as they figure out the math behind puzzles, games and problems, from 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Pixar Animation Studios, 1200 Park Ave., Emeryville. For more event information, please see www.msri.org/specials/festival/invite2008.html 

Green Treasure Hunt for children at 11:30 a.m. at Children’s Fairyland, Emerald City Stage, 699 Bellevue Ave., at Grand Ave., Oakland. www.fairyland.org 

Celebrate Ghana! with the music, food, and arts of Ghana and drumming by Pope Flynn, from 2 to 4 p.m. at Peralta Hacienda Historical Park, 2465 34th Ave., Oakland. Free. 532-9142. 

Advanced Recycled Bookmaking from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Eology Center, 2530 San Pablo Ave. Cost is $10-$15. Registration required. 548-2220, ext. 233. 

Unselt Birding Breakfast A walk and talk with a light breakfast, at 8 p.m. at UC Botanical Garden, 200 Centennial Drive. Reservations required.643-2755. http://botanicalgarden.berkeley.edu 

Mother’s Day in the Garden of Old Roses at 1 p.m. at UC Botanical Garden, 200 Centennial Drive. Cost is $17-$20. 643-2755. http://botanicalgarden.berkeley.edu 

“Financial Crisis in America” A forum with Jack Rasmus, Prof of Economics at St. Mary’s College, Moraga, at 7 p.m. at Alameda Free Library, Conf. Room A, 1550 Oak St. at Lincoln. Sponsored by the Alameda Public Affairs Forum. 814-9592. 

Isadora Dance Workshop with Lois Flood from 10 a.m. to noon at the Hillside Club, 2286 Cedar St. Suggested donation $20. Class size limited. For reservation email LDAyres@gmail.com 

The East Bay Chapter of The Great War Society meets to discuss “General MacArthur Part II” by Robert Rudolph at 10:30 a.m. at the South Berkeley Library, corner of Russell & Martin Luther King Way. 527-7118. 

Free Garden Tours at Regional Parks Botanic Garden Sat. and Sun. at 2 pm. Regional Parks Botanic Garden, Tilden Park. Call to confirm. 841-8732. www.nativeplants.org 

Around the World Tour of Plants at 1:30 p.m., Thurs., Sat. and Sun. at UC Botanical Garden, 200 Centennial Drive. 643-2755. http://botanicalgarden.berkeley.edu 

The Berkeley Lawn Bowling Club provides free instruction every Wed. and Sat. at 10:30 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, MAY 11 

Little Farm Open House Learn about the animals through songs, crafts and activities, from 2 to 4 p.m. at Tilden Park Little Farm. 525-2233. 

“California Families” A family exploration day with activities, games, performances and films celebrating California’s diverse families, from 1 to 4 p.m. at Oakland Museum of California, 1000 Oak St. 238-2022. 

Berkeley Greens with Cynthia McKinney, Presidential candidate, former congresswoman at 2 p.m. at Anna’s Jazz Island, 2120 Allston Way. www.berkeleygreens.org 

“Spraying of the Light Brown Apple Moth” What are the facts? at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Fellowship of Untarian Universalists, 1924 Cedar St. at Bonita. Donations requested. 528-5403. 

Mother’s Day at the Memorial Oak Grove Tree-Sit, from 2 to 6 p.m. on Piedmont Ave. just north of Bancroft Way. www.saveoaks.com 

Unselt Lecture “Interesting Insectivores” with Barry Rice of UC Davis and curator of Galleria Carnivora, at 1 p.m. at UC Botanical Garden, 200 Centennial Drive. 643-2755.  

Free Hands-on Bicycle Clinic Learn how to repair a flat, from 10 to 11 a.m. at REI, 1338 San Pablo Ave. Bring you rbike and tools. 527-4140. 

“Anti-Mining Resistance in Guatemala and Latin America” at 7:30 p.m. at Long Haul Infoshop 3124 Shattuck Ave. 238-8400. 

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. 

Tibetan Buddhism with Mary Gomes on “Heart Practices for Daily Life” 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, MAY 12 

“Development Policy: Environmental Perspective” with Zelda Bronstein, former chair, Berkeley Planning Commission, Erin Rhoades, Livable Berkeley, and James Vann, architect at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Public Library, central meeting room, 2090 Kittredge.  

Capturing Solar Energy for Transportation Fuel A talk by Nate Lewis, LBNL Solar Energy Research Center Scientist at 5:30 p.m. at Berkeley Repertory Theatre, 2015 Addison St. 486-7292. 

World Affairs/Politics Discussion Group, for people 60 years and over, meets at 9:45 a.m. at Albany Senior Center, 846 Masonic Ave, Albany. Cost is $3. 

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 

Free Boatbuilding Classes for Youth Mon.-Wed. from 3 to 7 p.m. at Berkeley Boathouse, 84 Bolivar Dr., Aquatic Park. Classes cover woodworking, boatbuilding, and boat repair. 644-2577. www.watersideworkshops.org 

TUESDAY, MAY 13 

Tuesdays for the Birds Tranquil bird walks in local parklands, led by Bethany Facendini, from 7 to 9:30 a.m. Today we will visit Tilden Nature Area. Call for meeting place and if you need to borrow binoculars. 525-2233. 

Tilden Mini-Rangers Hiking, conservation and nature-based activities for ages 8-12. Dress to ramble and get dirty. From 3:30 to 5:30 p.m. at Tilden Nature Center, Tilden Park. Cost is $6-$8, registration required. 1-888-EBPARKS. 

“New Year Baby” A documentary by Socheata Poeuv, a refugee from Cambodia, on her search for her family’s history, at 6:30 p.m. at Oakland Asian Cultural Center, 388 Ninth St., Suite 290, Oakland. Sponsored by ITVS Community Cinema. Free, but reservations required. rsvp@asianamericanmedia.org 

“Building a Popular Anarchism in Ireland” with Andrew Flood, at 7 p.m. at AK Press, 674-A 23rd. St., Oakland. Free, donations accepted. www.akpress.org 

Family Storytime at 7 p.m. at Kensington Library, 61 Arlington Ave. 524-3043.  

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. 

End the Occupation Vigil every Tues. at noon at Oakland Federal Bldg., 1301 Clay St. www.epicalc.org 

Street Level Cycles Community Bike Program Come use our tools as well as receive help with performing repairs free of charge. Youth classes available. Tues., Thurs., and Sat. from 2 to 6 p.m. at at 84 Bolivar Dr., Aquatic Park. 644-2577. www.watersideworkshops.org 

Fresh Produce Stand at San Pablo Park from 3 to 6 p.m. in the Frances Albrier Community Center. Sponsored by the Ecology Center’s Farm Fresh Choice. 848-1704. www.ecologycenter.org 

Berkeley Camera Club meets at 7:30 p.m., at the Northbrae Community Church, 941 The Alameda. 548-3991. www.berkeleycameraclub.org 

St. John’s Prime Timers meets at 9:30 a.m. at St. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Ave. We always welcome new members over 50. 845-6830. 

Sing-A-Long Group from 2 to 3 p.m. at the Albany Senior Center, 846 Masonic. Ave., Albany. 524-9122. 

WEDNESDAY, MAY 14 

Walking Tour of Old Oakland around Preservation Park to see Victorian architecture. Meet at 10 a.m. in front of Preservation Park at 13th St. and MLK, Jr. Way. Tour lasts 90 minutes. Reservations can be made by calling 238-3234. www.oaklandnet.com/walkingtours 

Sudden Oak Death Preventative Treament Training Session Meet at 1 p.m. at the Tolman Hall portico, Hearst Ave. and Arch/LeConte, UC Campus for a two-hour field session, rain or shine. Pre-registration required. SODtreatment@ 

nature.berkeley.edu 

Transportation 2035 Community Workshop with the Metropolitan Transportation Comission at 6 p.m. at Joseph P. Bort MetroCenter Auditorium, 101 Eighth St., Oakland. RSVP to 817-5981. www.mtc.ca.gov/T2035 

“Mind Your Mind” A whole brain workout for older adults, with Michael Pope of Alzheimer’s Services of the East Bay at 1:30 p.m. at the Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave., Albany. 526-3720. 

“Hysteria” A film by Antero Alli at 7:30 p.m. at Humanist Hall, 390 27th St., Oakland. Donation $5. www.Humanist Hall.org 

“Mountain Biking Across the Tyrolean Alps” A slide show with Austin McInerny and Celeste McCartney at 7 p.m. at REI, 1338 San Pablo Ave. 527-4140. 

Poetry Writing Workshop with Alison Seevak from 7 to 9 p.m. at Albany Library, 1247 Marin Ave. 526-3700, ext. 17. 

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. 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 

Teen Chess Club from 3:30 to 5:30 p.m. at the North Branch Library, 1170 The Alameda at Hopkins. 981-6133. 

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, MAY 15 

“The Making of a Wildlife Refuge” with Leora Feeney of the Golden Gate Audubon Society and Susan Euing, USFWS refuge biologist on the Alameda wildlife refuge and the protection of the California Least Tern, at 12:30 p.m. at Oakland Museum of California, 1000 Oak St. 238-2022. 

“Exploring the Sierra Nevada as a Naturalist and an Artist with John Muir Laws” at 7 p.m. at Northbrae Community Church, 941 The Alameda. Sponsored by the Golden Gate Audubon Society. www.goldengatesudubon.org 

LeConte Neighborhood Association meets at 7:30 p.m. at LeConte School, Russell St. entrance. karlreeh@aol.com 

Baby & Toddler Storytime at 10:15 and 11:15 a..m. at Kensington Library, 61 Arlington Ave. 524-3043.  

Fitness Class for 55+ at 9:15 a.m. at Jewish Community Center, 1414 Walnut St. 848-0237. 

Avatar Metaphysical Toastmasters Club meets at 6:45 p.m. at Spud’s Pizza, 3290 Adeline at Alcatraz. nam 

aste@avatar.freetoasthost.info  

FRIDAY, MAY 16 

International Day for Sharing Life Stories with spoken word, music and media presentations at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Public Library, 2090 Kittredge. 548-2065. www.ausculti.org  

Cancer Prevention and Survival Cooking Class meets Fri. from 6 to 8 p.m., through June 20 at Alta Bates Summit Cardiac Rehabilitation, 3030 Telegraph Ave. Free, but registration required. 869-6737.  

“Living Broke in Boom Times: Lessons from the Movement to End Poverty” A documentary at 7 p.m. at Berkeley Fellowship of Untarian Universalists, 1924 Cedar St. at Bonita. Donations requested. 528-5403. 

City Commons Club Noon Luncheon with Estelle Tarica on “Contemporary Indigenous Social Movements in Latin America” 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 524-7468.  

Iraq Moratorium Day and Vigil to Protest the War from 2 to 4 p.m. at the corners of Unvirsity and Acton. 548-9696. www.iraqmoratorium.org 

Berkeley Women in Black weekly vigil from noon to 1 p.m. at Bancroft and Telegraph. Our focus is human rights in Palestine. 548-6310. 

SATURDAY, MAY 17 

Berkeley Historical Society Walking Tour “Panoramic Hill Trails, Steps and History” from 10 a.m. to noon. Cost is $8-$10. For reservations call 848-0181. 

Walking Tour of Oakland City Center Meet at 10 a.m. in front Oakland City Hall at Frank Ogawa Plaza. Tour lasts 90 minutes. Reservations can be made by calling 238-3234. 

Himalayan Fair with arts, antiques and modern crafts, live music and dance and food, Sat. from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. and Sun. from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. at Live Oak Park, 1300 Shattuck Ave. at Berryman. Suggested donation for raffle, $8-$20, benefits grassroots projects in the Himalayas. www.himalayanfair.net 

Family to Family with Alameda County Community Food Bank Learn about hunger in your community, and teach your children about the importance of giving back, from 9 to 11 a.m. at Alameda County Community Food Bank. Registration required. 635-3663, ext. 308. 

Bay Area Storytelling Festival with Carol Birch, Bab Jamal Koram, Olga Loya and others, Sat. and Sun. at Kennedy Grove Regional Recreation Area. Cost is $33-$70. To register call 869-4969. www.bayareastorytelling.org 

Sprouts Gardening Project Plant veggies, sing garden songs and learn what it takes to make plants grow, from 2 to 4 p.m. at Tilden Nature Center. For ages 3 and up. 525-2233. 

Come and Frolic for Peace at Walden’s 49th Annual Spring Fair from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Walden Center and School, 2446 McKinley Ave., at Dwight. Free. 841-7248. 

Children’s Community Center Annual Silent Auction from 7 to 10 p.m. at Northbrae Community Church, 941 The Alameda. www.cccpreschool.org/2008_auction 

Satsuki Arts Festival and Bazaar with taiko drumming, jazz, Polynesian dance, Japanese and Hawaiian food, Asian arts and craft, from 4 to 9 p.m., and noon to 7 p.m. on Sun., at to 5 p.m. at Berkeley Buddhist Temple, 2121 Channing Way. 841-1356. www.berkeleysangha.org 

Wine Tasting and Silent Auction Fundraiser for Sequoia Elementary School at 4 p.m. at Joaquin Miller Community Center, 3594 Sanborn Drive, Oakland. Tickets are $20. www.bayareawritingproject.org/sequoia 

“Birth of Cool” Benefit for the Oakland Museum of California, celebrating their new exhibit on California’s midcentury art and design. For ticket information call 238-7425. 

Tommie Smith Youth Track Meet for ages 4 and up Sat. and Sun. at Edwards Stadium, UC Campus. Free. 763-3661. ajijic51@comcast.com 

The Last Drag Quit Smoking Class especially for the LGBT community, Sat. through June 21 at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Classes are free and confidential. RSVP to 981-5330. 

Free Garden Tours at Regional Parks Botanic Garden Sat. and Sun. at 2 pm. Regional Parks Botanic Garden, Tilden Park. Call to confirm. 841-8732. www.nativeplants.org 

Around the World Tour of Plants at 1:30 p.m., Thurs., Sat. and Sun. at UC Botanical Garden, 200 Centennial Drive. 643-2755. http://botanicalgarden.berkeley.edu 

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, MAY 18 

Himalayan Fair with arts, antiques and modern crafts, live music and dance and food, from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. at Live Oak Park, 1300 Shattuck Ave. at Berryman. Suggested donation for raffle, $8-$20, benefits grassroots projects in the Himalayas. www.himalayanfair.net 

Rainbow Berkeley Annual Pride Brunch from 2 to 5 p.m. at Frances Albrier Center in San Pablo Park. Cost is $20. No one turned away. RSVP to rainbowberkeley@yahoo.com 

Golden Gate Audubon Society Walk in Tilden Park Meet at 7:30 a.m. at the Nature Area parking lot to explore Jewel Lake for returing migrants. 524-7093. 

First Hike for the Young Trekker from 10:30 a.m. to noon around Jewel Lake in tilden Park. For information call 525-2233. 

“Banished” on threats to Black communities, at 6 p.m. at La Peña Cultural Center. Cost is $10. 849-2568. www.lapena.org 

“Local Medicinal Herbs and Your Health” from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at EcoHouse, 1305 Hopkins St. Cost is $20, sliding scale. 548-2220, ext. 242.  

Community Labyrinth Peace Walk at 3 p.m. at Willard Middle School, Telegraph Ave. between Derby and Stuart. Wheelchair accessible. Rain cancels. 526-7377. info@eastbaylabyrinthproject.org  

Bike Tour of Oakland Meet at 10 a.m. at the 10th St. entrance of the Oakland Museum of California. Reservations suggested. 238-3514. 

“Spring Bloom in the Garden” A walking tour from 1 to 3 p.m. at UC Botanical Garden, 200 Centennial Drive. Cost is $5-$7. Registration required. 643-2755. http://botanicalgarden.berkeley.edu 

“Walking Tour of Three Berkeley Gardens” from 9:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. Tickets are $30. 236-9558. www.bringinbackthenatives.net 

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. 

Tibetan Yoga with Jack vander Meulen on “Balancing Inner Energies” 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 

CITY MEETINGS 

Commission on Early Childhood Education meets Thurs. May 8, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-5428. 

West Berkeley Project Area Commission meets Thurs., May 8, at 7 p.m., at the West Berkeley Senior Center. 981-7520.  

Zoning Adjustments Board meets Thurs., May 8, at 7 p.m., in City Council Chambers. 981-7410.  

Community Health Commission meets Thurs., May 8, at 6:45 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-5356.  

Berkeley Rent Stabilization Board meets Mon. May 12, at 7 p.m. in City Council Chambers. 981-7368. www.ci.berkeley.ca.us/rent 

Peace and Justice Commission meets Mon., May 12, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. Manuel Hector, 981-5510.  

Commission on Disability meets Wed., May 14, at 6:30 p.m. at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-6346. TDD: 981-6345.  

Homeless Commission meets Wed., May 14, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-5426.  

Design Review Committee meets Thurs., May 15, at 7:30 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-7415.  

Transportation Commission meets Thurs., May 15, at 7 p.m., at the North Berkeley Senior Center. 981-7010.